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The Queen is Dead

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I used to be the Queen of Content.

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Before my dad got leukemia, the Queen would pump out:

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• 2x/weekly YouTube videos
• a podcast episode
• 2 brand-new newsletters; and
• endless amounts of social media content...

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...every week! Typing out that list makes me want to puke.

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Who was that Queen? I don't know, because she's been dead for a long, long time.

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Through my dad's cancer battle and my parents dying within the same year -- I went into Maintenance Queen mode.

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But 2 years ago today, when I kissed my mom's clammy cheek for the final time and my eye caught something sitting in the back of her throat that wasn't supposed to be there, the Queen died right alongside her.

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As the Queen dethroned herself from a place of pure exhaustion and desperation, she was thrown into depths of grief that she didn't even know a person could experience.

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👑 But the real question was: who was I without my crown?

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Crownless, I've been rebuilding myself from scratch (see evidence below lol) and learning how to self-soothe, slow down, and not get my confidence from my output.

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Over the past 3 years, I've written to you lots about grief, balancing business and life, and the ups and downs that come with choosing to share your life here.

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Honestly, it feels a little selfish.

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I like to write. I want to write what's on my heart and mind. It feels cathartic and soothes the bruises on my heart.

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But that's not always what you want to hear about.

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There have been so many times I've sat down to write you an email about 'affiliate marketing mistakes that could get you sued' and I've ended up typing through tears, sipping my cappuccino at the coffee shop, and writing about grief instead.

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It's hard to be a creative person who's going through a lot of big life stuff.

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This is how I process.

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I write things to 47,000+ of you that I haven't even said to my IRL friends.

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I'm not sure that's the healthiest thing. Or even the smartest business move.

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But I'm getting better at understanding this part of me that feels called to write and create things other than "legal stuff."

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I don't want to be known as "that legal girl" for the rest of my life.

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It's also what I do for a living.

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Which brings us to where I'm hovering now:

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Exploring creative outlets and expression in other areas of my life, so that my business doesn't feel like my only (or best) outlet.

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I signed up for a grief art therapy program. I'm taking a writing class at UCLA online. I'm in a creative writing group that meets a few times per week. (I feel like this is all making my business writing better, but it's honestly not my goal/point!)

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So, Reader --

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Here's what I 'know' (and by 'know' I mean: just figuring it out myself in real time):

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✍️ Your business isn't your journal. You don't have to process everything in real time with your audience to be relatable or authentic. At the same time...

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🙅🏻‍♀️ Not sharing anything personal, or lessons you've taken away from something you've been through, is a fast-track to never building an audience in the first place.

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Not because you should manipulate your pain or experiences, but because your audience wants to connect with you as a human, not your encyclopedia-brain.

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🔮 We're in the midst of a big shift in online business. With AI comes an overflow of information (which we already had too much of) and a withdrawal of connection (which we already had too little of).

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Now, more than ever, businesses that operate off of an "information exchange" are suffering. You have to create a connection with your audience, not just give them info. They can google that, or have ChatGPT steal someone else's work on it.

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I don't have a nice neat lesson on this. Maybe none of this made sense. But I talked a bit about it on Instagram the other day, and my DMs blew up with lots of "me too's."

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All that to say --

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Thank you for reading my emails each week.

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I especially love when you hit "reply" and let me know what it brought up for you. If you read and never reply -- this is your demand invite.

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Of course I'll always have you covered with the legal stuff and help you start your online business right --

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But I'll also always been here championing for you to be human first.

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To do things your own way.

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To share the process, albeit messy, with your audience and let them in a little.

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To dethrone yourself of your old ways, and learn new ones that come from a healthier place.

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We're in it together.

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You've got this.

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TLDR: If you've wanted to add affiliate and sponsored content to your revenue streams, but don't know how to do so legally -- listen to this quick episode to make sure you don't make these affiliate/sponsored content mistakes that could get you sued. LISTEN→​

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