Hello.
Welcome back to the bet.
I cannot believe it is the end of June.
Practically.
It's like, oh my gosh.
This year is seriously flying.
I really wish I could have recorded this
earlier this morning when I just had this
rush of energy to capture everything.
But I had to be at the university
really early today, like seven 30 in
the morning in order to do a lecture,
and again tomorrow morning as well.
It's Monday and.
I literally couldn't do it, and
so I'm gonna try to recapture
how I felt this morning.
But I remember just having this
like physical rush of excitement
for where I am right now.
I know I've talked about this already,
but I spent the last 30 days doing
a little visibility experiment on
Instagram, which is really crazy because.
Until it was over.
I don't know that I could have
said that it made any difference.
Like I was not picking up on any
difference within myself during
the 30 days that I was doing it.
And then I realized that my
actual life, outside of Instagram.
I had some really big shifts in it
in June, and I was like, I think
that is tied on a deeper level to
doing these daily reels on Instagram.
So I wanted to try to
talk about that today.
And also highly recommend doing some
kind of project like this if you want
to unlock things in your own world.
Because the actual weird part is I think I
lost, I don't know, probably 10 followers.
If I look up my follower count, I don't
know, at the end of the month, , after
tomorrow, I'll do a full breakdown of
all the stats like I do every month here.
And the other weird thing I noticed
is that the chunk of people that
did start following me were my.
Grad students, which I
thought was so strange.
I'm like, how are they finding me now?
It was both current students and
students from last year, the the
class that just graduated here in May.
And then some of my current
students that have right now,
I'm like, how did they find me?
This has never happened before.
And why are there multiple
multiples of them?
So.
It's not weird that they
found me on Instagram.
It was just kinda weird that
they're seeing me in this totally
different framework, like showing
up in a very different way.
So that was like, oh, is there a message
here somehow that I need to kind of let my
world I blend together I really need to be
more comfortable with showing up exactly
as I am, whether I am at work or whether
I'm on Instagram or whether I'm at home.
I don't know, but I just thought that
was an interesting little statistic.
Another thing I noticed was at the
beginning of my 30 day experiment, I
purposely said I wasn't gonna script
anything or use any kind of ai.
I was gonna write all my captions
myself, which I have kind of
been doing a lot more now lately.
Anyway, just in general, I've
seen a, a shift in my work
habits away from using ai.
I went through a period where.
I was just, I was a very,
very early adopter of Claude.
When Claude first came out and nobody knew
what it was, I was using it and I found
it superior to chat GPT and I did a lot
of brainstorming with Claude and used it.
Quite a bit in my business for
helping me write sales pages on things
or draft emails, and I would run
everything through Claude and then
I would work back and forth with it.
And I, I still would do a significant
amount of editing because I didn't
like anything that I, I, and I still
don't, I don't like anything that
doesn't sound like I'm not saying it.
So I was never really
using AI to save time.
Because I ended up putting in a lot more
time actually trying to use ai, but I was
trying to use AI in order to integrate the
actual principles of sales and marketing.
So I have, I don't know how many courses
I've bought on this, or coaches I've
worked with on this, or programs that I've
tried to, Incorporate into my business
in terms of my messaging, like treating
it as a skill where you have to look at
what are the pillars of your business?
What are , the foundations that
you want to communicate to people?
How are you gonna establish
yourself as an authority?
How do you demonstrate your expertise?
, How do you demonstrate
social proof, right?
That, that what you sell actually works.
How do you.
Not just provide messaging, but identify
what people's exact problems that you're
going to solve are and show them that
they need the solution to the problem.
How do you convert people, , how
do you use a good CTA or call to
action at the end of your post?
What kind of hooks are
gonna grab attention?
All of that.
I have spent, I would say, over the
last three years, thousands of dollars.
Learning and working on and refining and
way more time than I care to confess here.
, I haven't tracked it, but it's, it's
all come from a place of really wanting
to understand that and also thinking
that I needed to understand that.
And what I've noticed when I kind of
snipped that cord of just saying, you
know what, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna
try to apply all of those factors.
Into my writing because it
just, no matter what I do, it
feels like it is stifling me.
Okay.
So it feels like I'm engineering something
so it doesn't feel authentic, even
though I know, I'm not saying that those
principles aren't proven and that they
aren't effective and that they don't work.
I am sure they do.
And here's where the energetics
piece of it comes in.
I have never found it to really work
for me, and I don't know if it's because
I lose my confidence, like an interior
piece of my confidence when I know in my
soul that a part of whatever I'm putting
out was purposely structured in order
to lead someone to believe something.
Okay.
I, I don't like that.
And I can think of one coach I've had
in my life right now specifically that's
coming to mind that was like, you gotta
get over that this is a business and you
gotta detach your personal belief systems
from the way you operate the business.
Like this is just plain and simple.
It's a skill and it's a
skill that you have to build.
So I have worked on building that skill.
I have done challenges before.
I wanna say last.
October, November when
I was recording the bet.
Back then I was doing daily
reels and trying to follow a lot
of those principles using those
hooks, and I did gain followers.
So I'll say it worked, but it
didn't ever convert into customers,
people who wanted to do coaching
with me or who subscribed to Memo.
Or who, even people who went and joined
Substack, I didn't see any of that
happen, so I don't know if the energy
behind it, which was my feeling of that
something's always a little bit off.
I just operate best when I know, like
I know, like I know in my heart of
hearts that what comes out of my mouth.
Is from me.
And when you speak that way, I
guess this is just how I operate.
I'm not saying other people have
to be like this, but when you
know like you know, like you know
that those words came from you.
They represent who you are, then you just
have this feeling of confidence that,
okay, if people are working with me, if
people are interacting with me, if people
are hiring me, if people are engaging with
me, if people are commenting and reading
my things, it's because they see who I
really am and they resonate with that.
And I guess I just haven't been fully okay
with thinking people are resonating with.
Partial ai.
I also think we don't know what the
cost to maintain the resources to have
access to AI is gonna be in the future.
This is something I think about too,
I remember a time , when our cloud
storage was just given to us and we
didn't have to pay for it, and now
we have to pay every single month
and it turns into the subscription fee.
Right?
Same thing with ai.
If you want certain access
you pay a monthly subscription
and there's different tiers.
It's like, what if the resources,,
I don't know all the details of
this, but you hear things about.
Water cooling , and all of the
natural resources that it takes
to run these giant data centers.
What if that cost continues to
escalate and the price for AI becomes
unsustainable for most people?
What if the cost to maintain a
subscription becomes unreasonable
or untenable at some point?
And I have put all this.
Faith and dependency on using it,
then all of a sudden I'm screwed.
Or what if regulations come down the
pike in a year that significantly
cut access I don't know that any of
that is gonna happen, but I do know.
That if you picture something being taken
away from your life and it puts you in a
oh shit mode, like what would I do then?
It's probably not a crutch
that you wanna have.
So I love knowing that I
can run my life without it.
I have really upped my inner confidence
by just leaning more into authentically
saying whatever is in my heart, and if I
follow my own personal human design, I.
I have multiple gates that all focus
around saying what is true in the moment.
So planning something out or trying
to script something out always
feels a little bit fake to me, or
disingenuous or like I'm a caster,
so that's one of the pivots I made.
With, , the Useful Thinking Podcast
this month because I was showing up
on Instagram just being so authentic.
I'm like, you know what?
I am not doing that in my podcast.
I am censoring some of my language
and I'm really being overly.
Careful about how I speak on that.
So I made that pivot and I also
decided to introduce human design and
start weaving in those concepts into
the weekly episodes because again,
it felt disingenuous to hide that.
I talked about this last
week also just as a ps.
I think if I went back and listened
to last week's episode, I would
be like, Laura, you were making
that way more emotional, way more
dramatic than it needed to be.
, I'm so glad I slept on it.
Because when it came down to
actually record that episode,
it was really no big deal.
It wasn't this monumental pivot
that I was making it out to be.
I mean, I was making this a
major decision in my life.
Like, can these two worlds
exist in the same place?
Can I talk about human
design and also the brain?
How is that gonna work?
Not even realizing that was my
entire curriculum that I built.
It's just funny.
, So funny.
And it's why.
We don't make decisions
from the emotional place.
, This week will be the first week
that I have an episode coming
out with human design in it.
So looking forward to seeing
what the feedback is there.
The other thing I noticed is that,
, besides like finding that natural shift
in my podcast is that my relationships.
Deepened.
I've never been kind of a surface
person anyway, but I definitely
have always leaned toward.
Guarding myself, maybe not saying the
things that need to be said sometimes.
And I've just had the most
delicious, wonderful, but still
challenging conversations this month.
, There must have been something
going on , with making myself
show up on Instagram every day.
And just push myself to do it and say
whatever popped up, and that unlocked all
these other layers because I am seeing
just a freedom, a feeling of freedom
that I haven't had in a little while.
I remember having this feeling
before this lightness and feeling
of freedom, but I didn't realize
I had kind of lost touch with it.
So I welcome it back in.
I was feeling it hard this
morning, like life is so good.
The other thing I'm realizing is how
little I care about trying to convince
anybody of anything, and I never have
really cared about that, , and yet my
business coaches have kind of told me
you have to take a position on things.
, It's like, you know what?
I feel so detached from
needing any specific outcome.
That's what the freedom.
Really represents, it's just a detachment
from needing things to be any certain way.
And leaning into this feeling
of how authentic can I be?
How real can I be with people?
It that will build your
confidence like nothing else.
It really, really, really will.
What else did I wanna say?
You take a pause here
and have a sip of water.
I'm actually sitting in my car.
At the university trying to get
this recorded in between sessions.
Oh, I know what I was gonna say.
I didn't know this was
gonna happen, but on day 30.
Of my Instagram challenge,
I realized, Hey, you've done
nothing like this on Substack.
You've literally ignored Substack
other than showing up every damn
week consistently posting an article.
Like I have been rock solid with
that, but I've done nothing to show
people who are on Substack, like
who's the person behind the article.
And so I thought, why don't I do a 30 day.
Deal on substack, just kind of
a totally different ecosystem.
So that's what I started today.
I did that and it's crazy.
I've already had.
I don't know, two or three new followers
just from that one little note post.
And one lady wrote the most
beautiful comment about how
much she connected with things.
So I was like, okay, maybe this
is gonna be a different experience
than the Instagram situation was.
Who knows?
I am still figuring out substack.
, It's weird though, because I feel
like I know the people on Instagram.
I've been on Instagram for years, and so
I have built kind of relationships with
the people that are on there regularly.
I don't feel that way with Substack, so to
me this, this feels, even though I'm more
comfortable writing in a substack format.
I feel a little bit like I'm
putting myself on some kind of
dating app where I'm just putting
myself out there and I don't really
know who's looking at my shit.
That's interesting.
I think it would be really
fun to do a compare contrast.
At the end of 30 days and
see which one taught me what.
So that's what I got going on.
Other than that, I can't think
of any updates from the week
other than I'm really, really,
really, really, really glad.
That I did, those 30 days of
unscripted just raw takes.
I really, really am, and I wouldn't
have said that until it was over.
In fact, I think it was like day 28 or
29 where I was like, this is bullshit.
I never shut it on it.
This has been a complete waste of my time.
It's really interesting how.
Things can shift when you're
not expecting them to,
And I guess the future will tell me if
I'm making the right call with ai, if
I get left behind, , I'm still going
to use it for things like coding my
website, which I haven't updated in
eons, but for doing those kinds of tasks.
, But I'm not gonna use it for copywriting.,
I don't like what I, how I feel.
When I use that.
So I hope that that's not at my own
shortsightedness, but it, it feels
really authentic to say that now.
I'm really becoming kind of allergic.
To AI copy and it
doesn't save me any time.
It's actually quicker for me to just
write my own shit right now than
to go back and forth and try have
to rewrite things and tweak things.
I guess time will tell if that
was the right call, because
that's all I have for you.
And next week I'll do a June wrap up.
We'll see , how things landed.
, Sending you all love and as
always, go bet on yourself.