Episode 65: Sharing the Journey of My Surgery, Burnout, and Finding Myself Again
Can I be open and honest with you about my journey?
It's the last episode of an eventful year for me and the Small Business PR Podcast. So why not even be more intimate this time?
I've always strived to make every episode unique and relevant for all business founders. You've heard it all from my guests and my updates.
Most importantly, you’ve witnessed how several business owners scaled their enterprises further through the unconventional yet proven PR strategies taught in the community.
Seeing them reach such heights is admirable, for their successes are my victories, too.
However, behind all these successes are my personal stories of struggles, often hidden in embarrassment for fear of getting judged and losing credibility.
In short, I messed up. I experienced burnout. So, I needed to find myself again.
But finding myself in difficult situations wasn’t easy, especially when I was wearing several hats all at once for my business.
It was when I reflected hard and found opportunities for growth despite the painful lessons that I experienced transformations with my business and myself like I’ve never known before.
It's no wonder why I've decided to be more genuine and vulnerable with you.
Instead of discussing organic PR strategies, let me share my memorable journey in 2022 and the best lessons I've discovered from these life-changing experiences.
Join me in this final episode of the year as I reflect on my most profound inner battles and how you can overcome yours. After all, these details are part of the beautiful stories we have built this year and will continue to make in the years to come.
"Remember, it starts with you and your stories. Sharing yourself is a window, a bridge of connection that you're building to the outside world so that you can impact someone out there. That's exactly what I'm doing by sharing my story with you. There's magic waiting to happen. There's so much magic waiting to happen and so many people waiting to be inspired by you."
-Gloria Chou
Discover the best lessons as I share my journey in 2022 and how I found myself again. Like me, you can use your burnouts as inspiration for setting your goals. In no time, you'll get all the attention that you truly deserve!
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
How the scarcity mindset misaligns you from your values
The power of leaning into radical generosity while setting boundaries
Flipping the scripts of PR messaging in your business
Leadership lessons on running a small business
The magic of focusing on inspiring people
If you want to land your first feature for free without any connections, I want to invite you to watch my PR Secrets Masterclass where I reveal the exact methods thousands of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought-after industry expert. Register now at www.gloriachou.com/masterclass.
Resources Mentioned:
Connect with Gloria Chou on LinkedIn: Gloria Chou
Join Gloria Chou's PR Community: Small Biz Pros: By Gloria Chou
Additional Resources:
Join the Small Biz PR Pros FB group
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Here’s a glance at this episode…
[1:51] I realized in building my business that the more I tap into my 'why' and what really lights me up, which is to connect people, nothing makes me happier than making people feel seen doing these events and doing them for free.
[6:35] If you see everything in terms of scarcity, of how there's not enough, how there's not enough time, enough people, and you just have to do as much as you can right now because your time is gonna run out.
[7:37] If you're leading a business that's not driven by your' why,' your deeper why that's coming from abundance, your values, and it's more about just driving revenue, you will always feel out of alignment
[11:56] When I engage with people, and I don't feel forced in any way, it has to come from a place of 'Can I help this person? Do I have the bandwidth to make this person feel elevated to feel seen? How can I direct them to the right resources, whether it's free or paid?'
[20:53] if you can't truly step into a leadership role where you embody the values, and the culture that you aspire to create, you're not going to be able to create that team culture, and that's going to trickle down.
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Gloria Chou 0:00
Alright everyone, at the end of the year while I'm recording this, so I want to get really open and vulnerable with you. I really do believe that in my own quest, to decolonize, my mind and myself, and do what really is true to me, which is being more of myself when the whole world tells you don't do this, don't reveal too much, I'm leading into something new, which is decolonizing my mind to what everyone else is telling you not to do and it doesn't align with me anymore. So I want to record this end of your episode as we are in the period of reflection about how we've been able to grow our business, the really painful lesson I've learned we learned, how I've failed, at many times leader and I want to share that lesson with you.
Gloria Chou 0:39
Hey, friends, I'm Gloria Chou, small business PR expert, award winning pitch writer and your unofficial hype woman. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people get the recognition they deserve. And that starts with feeling more confident to go bigger with your message. So on this podcast, I will share with you the untraditional, yet proven strategies for PR marketing and creating more opportunity in your business. If you are ready to take control of your narrative and be your most unapologetic and confident self, you're in the right place. This is the Small Business PR podcast.
Gloria Chou 1:10
So as you know, we had our biggest launch ever in our business, we had a really good, amazing launch, we had like over 60 or 70 amazing business owners join our brand new PR Starter Pack. And it was an incredible time, this was October of this year. And it was probably the busiest month of my life where not only did I do four webinars in front of 1000 total people. I also flew my team out from all different parts where they're from, and we did a sound meditation, I took them out, we did team retreats, and also did my own founders of it, where I catered and brought PR Starter Pack members together, which really surprised and delighted them because this is not really a part of our programming. But I realized in building my business that the more I tap into my why and what really lights me up which is to connect people like nothing makes me happier than making people feel seen, doing these events and doing them for free, it's just a natural extension of that. I'll get more into that later. But um, the the one of the biggest mistakes, I'll share this in terms of like the biggest mistakes that I've learned, and kind of why I learned those really painful mistakes. So the first lesson I learned is how scarcity is really the main driving force or has been the main driving force of so much of my life for so long. And how, after very painful lessons of burning out and basically working myself to the point where I was like having a mental collapse that I start to understand how I was letting scarcity control so many areas of my life, you might be also be able to relate. So January 6 of this year, I had a major abdominal surgery, kind of like a C section, where they open up my my uterus, my stomach to get to my uterus to take out a 11 centimeter fibroid. So that is the equivalent of a 15 week old baby. And it's pretty much like a C section, right? It's the same incision, it's everything. And on day three, I got in front of the computer, I started working. And for three to four weeks later, while I still had bandages on me, I did my first six figure launch. I had this goal for so long that I want to do a six figure launch. And I did it. And afterwards I went to a complete and mental collapse where I had spiraling thoughts, I would start crying for no reason, I would have panic attacks. And even though by all means, my business was a resounding success, my body was literally shutting down. I started to do a lot of research about you know, uterine fibroids, how our body keeps the sore, how everything is psychosomatic, how all the trauma and the beliefs that we have, is embedded in our body. And I really do believe that it is not a woowoo thing. It's actually scientifically proven. I started to dig into why it is that I had this nonstop chase of more, right? More revenue, more bigger launches, more this, more that, and there was this insatiable rat race that I was on. And I think in the online industry, when we count ourselves by followers, and open rates, everything is measurable, you tend to gravitate towards that more, right? And we also live in a capitalistic society where more is better. And so I bought into that as well. And my complete mental collapse made me realize that I was literally a just little rat on a hamster wheel of this capitalist system that we live in, and how deeply I internalized capitalism.
Gloria Chou 4:42
Now growing up as a child of immigrants, I had scarcity embedded and hardwired in me where we would save, you know, plastic bottles and packaging and trying to save like every any penny that we could, right? Because growing up my mother didn't have anything and she gave me that scarcity belief as well that we just have to hold on to everything. And so that permeated everything about me to the way I read my business, to the way I've micromanage people, the way I try to squeeze everything out of a situation, using high pressure sales tactics to close at all costs. And it really did not make me feel good. I didn't feel expanded. I was constantly on my relationship suffered. But on the outside, I had a thriving business in the sense that yes, we were making more money than ever, but I wasn't in alignment with life, with abundance. My creative ideas were stifled because I was constantly in this highly anxious fight or flight mode, where my nervous system was always just hyperactive, right? And I really do believe that, you know, after doing a lot of work, since the surgery and figuring out why it is that I had a burnout, even though I had reached all of my goals, right? That, you know, realizing that the more money I made, the less happy I became. I really dug into why that is. And it really is because the way that I hustled and ran my business was based on scarcity. It was this inability to let go, it was this closed fist where I was trying to grab on to everything, get the most sales, right get the most people in my program. And through a lot of inner work and hiring coaches and ethical copywriters, and making huge time and money commitments into coaching and resources, I've slowly started to take apart the narratives that I had deeply embedded me that inside me that more is better. And now I realized that if you see everything, in terms of scarcity, of how there's not enough, how there's not enough time, enough people, and you just have to do as much as you can right now because your time is gonna run out because that's really how I felt. And there's there was reasons for that. Obviously, I, as a child, I moved around a lot, I had death of a parent very young, I was uprooted from my home many times. So there was always this scarcity mindset that one day, my luck was going to run out. And so that energy of scarcity, of urgency, just permeated everything that I do. Right? And I and I really did think that I just ran my life that way. I was just always, always, always in a rush. And through a lot of the work that I've done in looking at the painful lessons of you know, people not wanting to work with me or me not being able to build a team culture of potential that I knew that I could become, right, that has made me really question how I wanted to build my business. You know why more money wasn't making me happier and what to do instead. And I started to slowly uncover that. If you're leading a business that's not driven by your why, your deeper why, that's coming from abundance, your values, and it's more about just driving revenue, you will always feel out of alignment. Right? And the moment I started to break apart my messaging, starting with myself, and looking at the ways that I bought into scarcity, and how my marketing message was scarcity, right, with like, a whether it's fake scarcity, or high pressure sales tactics, I started to rewrite that. And so we've been doing a lot of work on our messaging, right? To have way more transparent policies, to not have fake countdown timers for urgency, that's not real.
Gloria Chou 9:14
And actually in the beginning of my webinar, which you know, a lot of people advise against this, but I actually reveal the price of my program, the PR Starter Pack in the very beginning, which a lot of the broad market was telling me not to do because you know, traditional marketing 101 is, oh, you got to trick them to go through the whole webinar, and then stay on till the end, to take the next step. And the traditional convention of thinking that people are going to be scared off if you tell them price. I didn't want to buy into that anymore. And so through working with the ethical copywriter, I was able to rewrite that narrative. And actually, from our October launch, we were able to even exceed our February launch in time of economic uncertainty because we leaned in to abundance, because we decolonize ourselves from the broad marketing messages of false scarcity. And people actually loved it. I have people on the webinar that was like, this is game changing. This is mind blowing, I cannot believe this, like yes. I had someone who joined our PR Starter Pack, after we've done a lot of the deep work on ourselves. And she's like, you know, I really didn't want to buy another program. I have so many coaches and things that are thrown at me all the time, I'm inundated. But seeing your energy on the webinars, seeing how aligned you are with your message and how you reject you know all the scarcity marketing out there made me say yes, I want to be a part of your community. She actually posted on Instagram. So this has really been the journey that I've been on since, you know, I had my surgery and we had our first figure six figure launch, now leading to the end of the year where we had an even bigger launch. That is really what I've learned, it is the biggest mistake of my life is just letting scarcity mindset take over for too long. Right?
Gloria Chou 10:00
And so I challenge you to think about how a scarcity, because there's always going to be there, right? As humans with scarce resource biological programming, right, we are always going to try to protect ourselves to hoard resources, right, to think that there's always a risk or something on the other side of it. But you can't operate like that when you're trying to build a community. And I realized that the more I built my business, the more I realized, it's really not just about PR, it's really this community. And our Facebook group now has 5000 people in it, we have people from all ages and races and different backgrounds, 95% people of color, which I'm so proud of. And that's really a reflection of the safe space that we created, right? We didn't even build this business thinking about that, really, it just happened as a result. And I'm so grateful for it, because now I realize that this is so much bigger than just me and this program, right? It's a community, it's a way for people to feel seen, and heard, and valued. As everyday, small business heroes with an Etsy shop, right? So that really has, that's really the transformation that I've gone on. Another thing, another way that scarcity has really, I want to say, damaged me in many ways is of thinking that I cannot respond to people or over give, or overshare. Right? So thinking of like, oh, well, you know, I'm not going to respond to all these DMs, they need to buy my program, or I'm not going to get back to this person, because they just are freebie seekers and just assuming the worst of people. And I think there's always a balance, right? I think you, I think boundaries are important. And it's important to have boundaries. But, but when in doubt, oh, always lean into general, it always lean into generosity. It doesn't mean that you're taking every single hour of your time away from your family to answer DMs. But it means that when you give, you give with intention, and you give from a place of your why. And so for me, when I engage with people, and I don't feel forced in any way, it has to come from a place of, can I help this person? Do I have the bandwidth to make this person feel elevated to feel seen? How can I direct them to the right resources, whether it's free or paid? Right? Because that's really my mission. And I'll tell you another story is in LA, I actually had a founder asked for a refund, she didn't feel ready. She felt like you know, there was no way she could tackle this PR, she was dealing with her own scarcity mindset. And I was hosting my LA female founder gathering which I had planned for a long time, which I catered from women of color, winemakers and drink makers. And I actually invited her even after she wanted a refund, and she was an absolute shock. She was like, are you sure? Like I don't, I feel weird, I don't feel comfortable. And I said, you know, don't feel like you're not invited or taking advantage because my number one mission is to make you feel elevated and supported. And I knew that if she came to the female founder meetup she would connect with the amazing, amazing people in our community.
Unknown Speaker 13:01
I actually had someone who joined the Starter Pack in 2020, when I just launched. And she said that for a while she didn't want to work with me, because my sales message seemed very, like not aligned with me and like high pressure. And since that she saw that I was dealing with doing all the internal work, she was just amazed at how it transformed it was in the community that I built. And, and that that to me was like the biggest compliment ever, you know, to be able to evolve in front of somebody, to be able to be seen, and not be judged, and to create space for other people to do the same. And she actually told me that, the event the free event that I hosted for our PR Starter Pack members, she actually gained more from it than the paid events that she goes to. And the level of connections that she made in that event was more than the 10 years that she has been in New York. I mean, she literally wrote this on Instagram and posted it and it literally brought tears to my eyes.
Gloria Chou 13:56
So that is really me rewriting scarcity and doing things from a radical place of giving, which brings me to my second point, which is one of the biggest mistakes that I have made this year is not understanding that you can have radical intentional generosity and a thriving business with boundaries. At the same time. I think the word boundaries gets thrown around a lot. And I really do think that in this crazy saturated world where people direct, you know, want a response immediately, we need to have boundaries, right? This is not the horse and carriage days where you wait three weeks for someone to respond with a letter. So of course, our nervous systems are overstimulated. We have so much going on. But I really think that I thought that there was this zero sum game where the more I gave, right, the less people would buy from me or if I gave everything out for free then people wouldn't get your programs. And this is what we've been taught for so long by the industry which is you know, like tell them, that I think it's someone said like tell them, uh, what but not the hell, right? And for me, I don't really think that's true because I think you only want to build a community with empowered people, where people are like, yes, like, you care about me as a human enough to share with me what you've learned, right? Why would I not want to trust you and give that trust back to you and join our community? And so as I build my business, I find that piece to be untrue of, of being like, oh, withhold your, you know, secret sauce. And I actually think that founders, especially in the beginning, I need to lean into that radical generosity, because this is so rare these days, it is so rare these days we are so, we've been so burned by the online industry. That if you just do something a little bit different, if you act a little bit more human, or a little bit authentic, people will be stunned. I had someone in the DMs, they actually send them a voice note. And she was like, Oh My God, Gloria, I can't believe that it's you. I thought it was, you know, a bot or one of the people in your team now, I do have my team in my DMs. But she felt like that personal touch just meant so much. So, you know, I choose to radically give with intention, the way I want to, like my founder events for the PR Starter Pack, it doesn't mean that I am going to be in my DMs at all hours of the night hand holding people, right, I think there is a difference. And I think I know that difference when it comes to do I feel an urge to do this because I'm afraid of losing something. Or is it because I really think people are going to get the benefit the transformation? And that is how now I make decisions on how I give radically generously versus when I hold back to, you know, rest or take time to just not respond because honestly, no one owes anyone a response. Right? I'm still working on it. But I think I used to live in the, you know, 10 minute response time where I treated email as a DM. And it's just not healthy. It's not healthy for me, it's not healthy for my team. So that's something that I'm radically trying to do. I also think that, you know, before when people would question like, write questions about pitching in the Facebook group, it would annoy me a little bit because I would start to feel a little tense, like, oof, I am worried that this Facebook community is gonna be a place where people just come and ask questions for free and leave. And then I just flip the script, because remember, like, and I sent an email about this is everything is a matter of framing. So I reframed this perspective. And I said, what if people are asking questions on the scary PR journey, right? One that you've been told for decades that you cannot do on your own. And what if that is the result of the safe space that we have created? Right? And that is just an extension of that. And so I really think when you reframe things, like everything changes.
Gloria Chou 17:47
So now when people are asking questions in our Facebook group, and by the way, if you're not on our Facebook group, feel free to join, I hang out there a lot, you'll be able to see the amazing PR wins that everyday small business heroes have gained. For, it is both in my paid program or not, you can go join us right now at www.getfeaturednow.com. Now I see it as like, wow, like we are really building a bridge, we are really making people rethink how they can do PR, when they've been told by decades that they either can't do PR or they don't deserve to be seen, or that they're not good enough to be seen. So again, it's all about reframing. And it doesn't bother me as much anymore. It doesn't mean that I am in there at all hours of the night responding to every question, right? That's, again, I cannot do that. But it doesn't make me feel tense, like somehow people are taking advantage. And so in that abundance in that, in that space of giving, I'm able to respond more creatively, I'm able to come up with more game changing ideas, right, kind of like a flower, like a flower cannot bloom, if it is not open to absorbing, like all of the magic of the universe, right? If you are so tense all the time, you're not going to be able to open yourself up to all the opportunities. So that's really how I've changed my mindset when it comes to communication and the safe spaces that we have created for small businesses. And the third and last thing I want to leave you with is, it you know, it took me a long time to understand that. Like, everything starts with you, the business owner, right? Like, I know that your business is a reflection of you. That is like, duh, right? But I didn't realize that there are certain things that you really can't delegate to other people like building a team, or having someone manage your business for you because you feel like your team members are not being accountable. You know, I've tried all the things, I tried to hire an operations person to hold my team accountable and to manage people. But guess what, nothing really changed. Things were still not getting done. People were still coming to me with problems and solutions. And that's because the culture that I have built was a reflection of my lack of leadership skills and until I could step into the full leadership that could create inspired people. Right? No amount of delegation to someone outside of me to run my business was going to be able to help them motivate. And my coach Rick actually said something really powerful, because I kept having issues with my team where I said, you know, why does this person feel motivated? Or why is it that this person doesn't go the extra mile? And he's like, you know, you really, it really is something that comes from a culture that you build. And it doesn't matter if you have an intern or five contractors or five full time employees, your culture, the way you lead, the way that you embody your vision that will permeate, right, invisibly throughout your organization, so that you don't need to keep cheering and motivating. And you know, kicking people in the butt, if you will, right, you will be able to attract people who are naturally inspired by your vision. Because let's be honest, money doesn't motivate people that much. I mean, maybe it motivates people to a certain degree. But from what I've learned, if you can't truly step into a leadership role, where you embody the values, and the culture that you aspire to create, you're not going to be able to create that team culture, and that's going to trickle down. So from me learning to let go, from me learning that it's always about people over profits. So it means, so what does that actually mean, right, it means that if there was someone who is in our inbox, and they're interested in our program, but my team member is away, or it's a weekend, I'm not going to be forcing that person to respond to them. Or if there's a customer service request, and it is the weekend, and it's a very simple thing that they probably could have looked up somewhere else, and the person is being demanding of our attention. I'm not going to wake up my team member and be like, you need to respond to this person. It's about respecting my team first before, you know trying to just close another sale or get someone in my program. And that shift has, wow, it has single handedly done incredible wonders to my team. I remember in February, when we did our first six figure launch, when I had a completely different energy. Some people left like right after the launch. And I was like, why is it that we had the most successful launch, but people left and didn't want to work with me. And I realized that it was my micromanaging that has disempowered them, and instead of leading with control and commanding people, and you know that scarcity, now I lead with how can I inspire people towards a common vision. How can I trust them, even if it means not responding to people and missing a few sales? How can I equip them, so that they can unlock the best potential within themselves? So that means a couple things for me that I've learned. The first one is, when I hire someone, I used to want an immediate ROI right away, right. And now I just understand that it's up to me after I made the hiring decision to fully onboard this person properly, which takes time, which takes processes, which takes systems. And I'm probably not going to be able to get a tangible ROI for 60 days or more. And that is trusting in the universe. And that's just how it's done. It's trusting that the long term investment you're putting in this person is going to outweigh any kind of short term, you trying to squeeze everything out of them. Because I did that. And it literally left me so burnt out, I remember asking myself and my husband, why is it that I had five people working for me, yet I was doing all the work and no one cared. And I realized that the change starts with you. And this is really what I'm trying to say, your business starts with you. Your leadership starts with you whether or not people feel motivated, it starts with you. Now, if someone's not motivated, and they're just dropped the ball, that's really different. But if you really feel like you want to hire this person, and somehow you've noticed that they're really just not up to the task, maybe figure out what is it in your leadership first, or in the way that you drive everyone towards a common vision and not just a revenue goal, but a vision. So for me, I used to have these big launch goals, right? We want to hit this number or that number. And one of the big changes I made with this launch that we just had was I didn't even have a revenue goal. Like we had, you know, like benchmarks, that would be nice, but it wasn't this like constant, like pushing like, oh my God, we have three days left, we have this many people. I remember being on the edge of my seat in February when I was burnt out, like just drilling into my team, being like, how can we hit our numbers, like messages people, like, you know, and now it's like, I only want hell yes, people in my program, because if people are not inspired to make a decision, it doesn't mean that they're not scared to do PR. But if they're empowered, they're going to become much better people in our community, they're going to cause less problems. Right? They're not going to be people who are asking for refunds because they already are empowered to say hell yes. And so by only attracting the people you're meant to attract and not trying to sell at all costs, even though I know my program works that's not for everyone, that's okay. Right? And, and one of the things I did for this launch was not having, you know, a number of school, but also I literally told my team before I gone on any kind of live webinar I said, no matter what happens, I consider our launch a success already. And this was even before day one, and I think just giving your team that trust of being like I see you, I know you, and I know that together, we will make change, right? We will inspire small businesses to take matters into their own hands, to gain the confidence to rewrite their story. That was my why. It wasn't like, oh, I want 1000 People in my program. It was like, how can we literally rewrite the small business landscape by empowering everyday heroes who are immigrants, who are people of color, whose English is not their first language, who are neurodiverse, and maybe have a learning disability. How can we empower them to tell their story? Even if they don't feel ready, because these are the people who deserves to be heard the most. Right? It's not just the people who look like Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk, who are in the media. And so, along this journey, I think the most, the thread that really ties everything in of me, you know, letting go and burning out and not operating from a source of scarcity is I realized that my message has also changed. And I realized my why like, I was, like, I knew my why, right, which was PR, like for business. But now it goes beyond that. Like before, if you asked me in February, it's like, what is your mission? And it's like, oh, like, I want to help small businesses be seen and heard, so that they can, you know, save money on ads and agencies and still get in front of more customers. Like, that's all fine and good. But now, this work is sacred to me. Because growing up, I never saw anyone who looked like me, in the media as an entrepreneur doing anything. That was mold breaking, right? I was told to put my head down, stay in my lane and just work for someone and just say, yes sir, right, as long as the person who was paying me. And I realized in doing this work and the diversity of our members, that we are literally together, rewriting the narrative of what an modern entrepreneur is, a modern builder and creator, someone who gets back to their community, someone who comes up with creative solutions, right? That benefits people's lives for the better. And we cannot rewrite what that looks like, if we do not pitch ourselves and get featured in the media. This work is sacred to me. And it's becoming more and more sacred now that I have overcome so many of the difficult times of this year, and figuring out, why is it that I was so burnt out, and I wasn't able to have a team that cared as much as I did. And now I really see a dramatic change. So in an effort to be open and vulnerable and honest, this episode is very different than what we usually do, right? Because you know, me, I'm all about actionable, like, no BS, like, get to the strategies. But I really feel like strategies only go so far. But you need to embody those values in order for those strategies to work. Right? And the strategies will only take you so far. I mean, that's why we have founders who are making candles and dirt in their garage. And we have also founders who are making millions of dollars. And the person who literally is making candles in their garage, or getting the top tier media features, and exploding their business because they embody that, they embody the value, they understand that doing so much more than making candles, right? They're providing a light for people who are suffering, their story of overcoming domestic violence is inspiring other people, whatever that is.
Gloria Chou 28:12
So, you know, we're recording this in Q4. I just want to thank you for creating a space for me, to be able to be myself to evolve in front of you, and perfectly because I am going to continue to evolve, I'm going to make more mistakes. And you're going to see all of it. But I want to say thank you for allowing me to evolve. And hopefully there is something in my journey of sharing how I have evolved and how I've so far, so much more to do and so much, so many more things I'm still working on hopefully that will allow you to reflect on your own story, not be afraid to share it. Because remember, it starts with you, and stories, and sharing yourself is a window, a bridge of connection that you are building to the outside world so that you can impact someone out there. Right? And that's exactly what I'm doing by sharing my story with you. So I'm so proud of how far not only I've come but my team has come. It's just feel so different recording this, like the last month of the year versus the first few months where I had my surgery and I burned myself out. And I really look forward to you know, having all of the lessons that I've learned permeate throughout my business. For example, we've added monthly calls to our PR Starter Pack while keeping the price accessible. And everyone's like, oh my God, are you sure, like you know, those calls, it's kind of like a mastermind. It's a lot and people are not going to want to work with you one on one and I rejected all those stories. And I said, I really love connecting people. And if they can feel seen and supported on a call with me per month, then I'm going to do that, you know, so that's what we've added as well and we've been working hard to upgrade the portal. We're adding so many things to it including a month by month pitching ideas calendar and a full, like a fully upgraded onboarding system, we are not expert course creators. I'm not a funnel magician, I'm not a pro marketer using templates. So we created this course without any blueprint of what courses look like. So as we try to get ramped up and having a better user experience, with the content that we have is so transformative. I want to say thank you to all of our members who have joined the PR Starter Pack. And if you're not yet in the starter pack, definitely check us out. See us in the Facebook group. Thank you for listening to the podcast and whenever you're ready, on your journey, right, reach out to us. Because there's magic waiting to happen. There's so much magic waiting to happen and so many people waiting to be inspired by you. And just remember that you are worth it.
Gloria Chou 30:43
Hey, small business hero. Did you know that you can get featured for free on outlets like Forbes, The New York Times, Marie Claire Pop Sugar, and so many more, even if you're not yet launched? Or if you don't have any connection? That's right. That's why I invite you to watch my PR Secrets masterclass, where I reveal the exact methods 1000s of bootstrapping small businesses used to have their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought after industry expert. Now if you want to land your first press feature, get on a podcast, secure a VIP speaking gig or just reach out to that very intimidating editor. This class will show you exactly how to do it. Register now at Gloria Chou pr.com/masterclass. That's Gloria Chou c-h-o-u pr.com/masterclass. So you can get featured in 30 days without spending a penny on ads or agencies. Best of all, this is completely free. So get in there and let's get you featured.