The Structure for Stardom with Alex Schin

Mar 20, 2023

Welcome to Podcast Episode 37: The Structure for Stardom with Alex Schin

In today's episode, Kate sits down with Blogger and Content Creator, Alex Schin, to talk about the personal development transformation she went through knowing how crucial it would be for her success. We're diving deep into the private struggles and celebrations that come with massive exposure (6M+ views on TikTok alone) - some that you'd expect and others that might shock you. Tune in to hear Alex's advice on how to be vulnerable when you feel like no one (or everyone) is listening.

TAKEAWAYS

Alex's advice is to keep talking; be as unfiltered as you can so that your message comes across as genuine and honest message to your audience. It is important to let down that guard that keeps you feeling safe to really connect with your audience on a deep, authentic level.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back to another episode of the Three Day Workweeks podcast for millennial entrepreneurs. I am really excited to have my fellow millennial, Alex Shin here today with us. And Alex is a lifestyle influencer, a content creator. She focuses on helping women live beautiful and confident lives. And there's a lot that I love about Alex when I found her online because it's not just about the makeup and the outfits and all those things.

There's so much more that's a lot deeper that she shares about her journey of how she got here. And we're gonna dive into that today. If you're listening to this, take a screenshot, post it on social media, on stories tag both Alex and I. Her Instagram is at Alex Shin blogs, a l e x s c h i n b l o g s.

And go follow her mascara madness that she has going on right now. We'll talk about it a little bit more in and towards the end of the podcast, but it's a really fun bracket she has going on and Actually am very intrigued to see who wins. Alex, thank you so much for being here today.

Hi, Kate.

Yeah, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much for reaching out and I am excited to record with you today.

Yeah, I'm so happy to have somebody. To give y'all background, like Alex and I are new friends and I found her on TikTok. She recently had this video hit over 4 million views. I look today it's 4.4 million views.

Major insane. So she has this video that she posted that was about the low vibe, things that she's cutting out of her life. And like it was, it ended up being some things that I have never thought about before and there were some things that I had thought about before, but I've never been able to really like, connect with anyone else on that level.

In the entrepreneur space, there's a lot of personal development but sometimes we don't talk about those things. It's more like business strategy. Have you found that to be the

case? Yeah, definitely. I think I've worked with business coaches who that's what I hired them to do, right?

Help coach me in my business and they really wanted me. To aim very specifically for business practices and things that would get me organized. And all of that's really helpful, right? But I know for me, this video hitting so many views, the me a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, could never have handled that exposure.

And so the fact that I've spent the last, I would say, in a very focused manner the last year and a half really healing myself and developing who I am, getting very steady in who I am, equipped me to be ready for that level of exposure. Because TikTok comments can be a little off the handle.

yes. Or I don't know a nice way to put it, but they can be really cruel. And there were some people who were who disagreed and, respectfully, that's fine. This is just what, worked for me. But I think because I did all of that personal development and really settled into who I am, I was able to handle that in a much better way than I ever could have before.

Which is such a good point. You said something when we chatted last time. That was like a light bulb moment for me and I'd love for you to expand on this. You, said something along the lines of that you knew that as soon as you of turned up the dial and put yourself out into the world, that you were going to get advice and get noticed and.

That you, so you wanted to make sure that, just like you were saying a second ago, that you were very solid in who you were. Can you talk more about that? Because I, as entrepreneurs, like I think people are, especially like women, we're afraid to say things like that.

Yeah. I think I've always been an incredibly instinctual.

Person. I just have always had a very knowing sense of being. And so when I started this blog in 2020, a month into the pandemic I had been laid off. My husband had started building this blog for me two years prior. And when I got laid off, he's there's no better time for you to start than now.

And so I started just putting myself out there, which was, I think, really healing. For me in a lot of ways too, like getting myself back out there. . And then I was still, I got hired again, was working a full-time gig and I just knew e even the kind of side work, I wasn't really super serious about it, but was just putting stuff into the universe into the, social voids, if you will.

Yeah. Out into the either, who knows if anyone watches it? Is it all bots?

We don't know. Yeah. Yeah. We have no idea. And like I was just putting stuff out on Instagram and TikTok and some of it was really catching. Fire. And I was like, okay, if this is what's happening when I'm putting just this much effort in, I know that if I put my full effort into it I'll do that because I do a lot of e f t tapping work with my coach, Valerie Green, who I absolutely adore and.

Something we always talk about is like, when was the last time you really failed? And like, when you fail, what do you learn from that? so I was like, Alex, everything you've ever put your mind to has always turned to gold. My husband always he calls me magic or he is always you're just constantly turning things to gold.

It's actually why I just got this little tattoo to remind me that I'm magic, this little spark. . I love that. Yeah. So I look at it every day and I'm like, all right, I'm magic. I can do this. And I think I just was like, I have succeeded at everything I've done before. So why would this be any different?

And now's the time for me to take the leap and risk. And so I just turned 30 in January. My goal was to, by the time I turn 30, work for myself. So the day after my 30th birthday, I put in my two weeks at my corporate job. And started pursuing this content creation full-time. But the entire year prior, I've been doing those e F t tapping and coaching sessions with Valerie to heal parts of me that.

I knew would come to light and really face my fear of being seen. And it's something I'm still working through. Like I, I was telling you, cuz I hadn't scheduled this with you until like last week and we had talked about it a couple weeks ago and I emailed you and I was just very candid and said, I'm having a little bit of imposter syndrome.

Who am I to be on your podcast? And I'm not fully healed and, I don't think any of us ever are, but the, we can at least try to put ourselves out there and. work on the things that we know are holding us back ultimately.

Absolutely. And a couple things I wanna go touch back on. You talked about like doing this for your 30th birthday, like your gift to yourself.

Hasn't it been interesting what your 21st, you think it's gonna be some big deal and maybe it is, maybe it isn. It was overhyped to me, and then my 30th was like such a cool birthday. I just turned 31 and my 30th was so cool. Wasn't it

great for you? Yeah, it really is. And so many people said to me like, when you.

turn 30. You just stop caring about like what other people think. Not like caring about anything but . Yeah. Like you're not as worried about what other people think about you. You're just more settled in who you are. I attribute a lot of how settled I am to the work I've done, but I just am not worried.

And I, I posted a video yesterday while we're recording this yesterday just about. how I recorded content, I think Wednesday morning. I was watching it back and editing it on Wednesday afternoon, and I started crying, like sobbing because it was the first time I looked at myself and wasn't trying to pick everything about me apart.

And I was like, wow. This is the first time I'm not trying to change anything about me. I'm, frankly the heaviest I've ever been. But I know that I am the healthiest I've ever been, I think physically and with my relationship with food, with my relationship, with myself all of those things and.

I don't know if it's turning 30. I don't know if it's a year and a half worth of work that I've done. I don't know if it's finally stepping into the thing I always wanted to do, which was work for myself. But maybe it's a piece of all, it probably is a piece of all of those things.

Absolutely. Yeah. I do that Are all that stuff driving. .

Yeah. All that stuff comes together of the personal development and like the failures and the successes and Yeah. When you're doing it for yourself as an entrepreneur, it's just such a different level of exposure, right?

Yeah. And risk and like you're betting on yourself and I think when you do that, you have no option but to show up.

right?

Yeah, it's very true. I started my first business, my professional organizing business when I was 26. And I'm 31 now, and I said to myself, I've got four years , so it's, I've got four years when I turn 30, like I'm still in my twenties. We'll see how this goes. Yeah. And. . It's gone better than I could have ever expected, but it, is just wild to see how all those things have come together in life and personal development, especially how that plays such a huge role.

You mentioned E F T. I'm a little bit newer to it and That's so interesting. So different from anything I've ever tried for the people who are, have no idea what this is. Yeah. What is eft?

So E f t tapping is a it's a kind of therapy. So I've done talk therapy my whole life and I always felt like I left every talk therapy session having figured out where the anxiety or stress or whatever of particular memories came from.

But I always left feeling. Feeling the same about myself. Is the best way to say it. When I leave e f t sessions, I have a completely different understanding of who I am. So basically now I'm not an expert in this. I would point you to Valerie, who's my coach, but sh. , it basically is remapping the neuro pathways in your brain so that the emotions that you typically have, or feelings that you typically have toward a specific memory or feeling adjust and you are able to retrain that neuro pathway to provide a place of healing.

We came up with a list of. Memories that I wanted to work through a piece list is what we call it. And every session we go through, and that's where a lot of my fear of being seen has come up. A lot of my fear of being known or wanting to be known I'm in Enneagram four for any of those who are out there who are big Enneagram people.

I love it all. Anything personal development or who will explain to me who I am? Yes, I'm a big fan of, And fours just want to be known. And I think that's a hard part of being on the internet too, is you can't explain yourself to every person. You can't explain in 140 character comment who you are or what your intentions were.

And that was something I had to let go of recently. It's just I'm just not gonna be understood. or if these things come up and out, like I just gotta honor that. So actually this morning I went to Pilates and then I went to the sauna. I know you're a big Sauna fan too. Yeah. Sauna this morning too.

We both wanted to be cleansed and prepared for this today. Yeah. And while I was meditating in the sauna, I have all of my affirmations. I leave every session with affirmations from Valerie. Of words I've actually said about myself and things I wanted to be seen as or described as she put those into affirmations.

I use the Think Up app. Everybody's getting free advertisement today. use the Think Up app and I record those in my own voice and then I tap through them while I meditate. For my future goals, for the things that I wanna achieve and for the beliefs I have about myself. Yeah, it's

such a cool.

Practice. It's so different from anything that I've experienced in that. You say the negative and you don't immediately negate it with positive. Yeah. Which is

so uncomfortable. . Yeah. Yeah. And that's all into it. Yeah. That

you like, you're physically, if y'all are watching us on YouTube, you physically are tapping on points on your body and you can do it intuitively.

And I, everybody teaches it differently. But but the point is to, like you were saying, retrain these neuro pathways and. Start to feel comfortable with these things and these phrases and these memories that were very uncomfortable. Yeah. So that, it's just fascinating to me. I love that you had that awareness because of, that you knew hey, if I put my mind to something, it's magic.

And so if I do this and I go in more as prepared as I can be, that I'm gonna get some love and I'm gonna get some. that I will be able to continue because I think that is where a lot of us, when you get to that point you speak mainly to six figure entrepreneurs. And there's a lot of inner work and grinding behind the scenes, those kind of things that you do to get to that six figure point, but to really bloom, that's my word of the years bloom.

To really bloom. , you've got to be okay with being exposed. Not

scary. It's really scary.

So how did you like, so you had a lot of, if y'all aren't on TikTok, you should be cuz it's great. And the comment section is like, nothing I've ever seen. Instagram's oh, pretty. Or that's nice.

some people could just be like, screw you

for no reason. Even don't even know why. But on TikTok, people have a real dialogue, a real conversation. And what were some of the unexpected. Positive things that, that you've seen from really putting yourself out there. Cuz this was not just like a, makeup video, this was a like your heart.

Yeah. Yeah. I think some of the cool things, like I got an Instagram DM of someone being like, last year I didn't get into a program that I wanted to get into and I fell into a pretty deep depression. And I was drinking too much coffee, which was one of the points in one of the videos. And I was listening to, true crime nonstop.

And I realized how much it was affecting me. And both of those were things in the video that I discussed. And she said, seeing your video made me. That I was actually not helping myself feel better that I was driving myself deeper into my depression and struggles at the time. And I've decided to apply for that program again because I'm realizing what I really want from.

This, life that I have. And I thought that was so cool. Just little unexpected things or people talking about having the same experience, like removing these things from their life, or I'd never considered that. That was what was driving my anxiety, my stress just. Driving my adrenals insane.

Yeah. And completely just demolishing me from the inside out i, was really surprised at the positive response. I, I knew some of it might be divisive cuz people are big fans of lots of different things. But I was so excited to see how many people found that healing and weren't happy that I was talking about it out loud.

And, helping other people to. .

Absolutely. And I experienced it firsthand. It's how I was like, oh my gosh, there's other people talking about this. That these are things that I think about in my head or I listen to podcasts about and, but you don't really connect with that person. Yeah.

But there's. because maybe it's just conceptual and you're like, oh, I should bring this into my life, but people that you would actually converse with. Maybe you're not talking about those kind of things. So I think it's really cool. And that was the whole reason I wanted to have you on here was like you've given so much depth and color to your content because of what you're willing to share and.

So I just wanted to appreciate you for

that. Thank you. Yeah, and I think for me, I always see there are two things in my videos that do best. It's one when I'm really vulnerable. And really honest. And I think that's one of my strengths as a human being is just the vulnerability and things I'm willing to share.

Because. . I know it's helpful for me to talk about it and see other people go through it. And the second thing is recording off the cuff, just what's on my heart or my mind, or even, I had another video, hit a million views that was about shapewear. And literally I was packing for a trip and. I packed.

I knew I was gonna wear dresses cuz it was really hot. We were going to Italy and I was like, it's really hot outside. I'm gonna be wearing dresses cause it's gonna be too hot to wear anything else. And I need these shape wear with shorts. Otherwise I'm gonna be chafing all around Italy and nobody needs that.

And so just standing in my kitchen, I threw it up on the green screen, was like, if you're a curvy girl and your thighs were up together, you need the shapewear. Just trust me. I ordered three of them for this trip to Italy and that video went mega viral. and it was just, yeah. So it's off the cuff and it's vulnerable and people wanna see, it feels more friendly that way.

It feels more honest and genuine. And that's the kind of space I'm trying to create. I don't wanna create another space where you feel like you have to over consume to be a part of it. Yeah. I, while I love beauty and I love now getting dressed and , now that I feel so comfortable in my body and my style I think.

That has really helped me to come to the table with more and more for people.

So yeah. And then you're not just relying on continually cycling through new product and new Yeah. What clothes, makeup,

whatever. Yeah. And that can be engage. That can be hard because when you're a content creator, you're thinking, what can I do to.

Revenue. But I don't want my space to be a place where people look at their credit card bill at the end of the month and see a dozen expenses to Amazon. While I do love an Amazon find it, and I share them all the time, I would rather you come to the space and feel calm, welcome, comfortable, ready to face yourself in the world, then come to my.

to dull something out by spending. Yeah. Or over consuming or whatever it might be. I don't know if you've seen those videos that are trending right now. Those like car restock videos and all of those things Yeah. Where they're tallying up how much all that stuff actually costs. Yeah. And it's so crazy to me.

I think those are so funny. And I just I, think get your bag girl. But that's just not the kind of space I wanna. Agreed.

Yeah. There's definitely that balance to be seen between putting out fresh and new, but also having that, like you said, the peace and the calm when they come. So they're not like, oh my God, I need to keep up with her. And it's not, it's an aspirational on a deeper level. Not just

superficial, because I What would you, oh, go ahead. Oh, I can only tell you. What products make you look good on your face? So many times I can give you that, but if you don't look in the mirror and feel beautiful inside and out and love the version of you that you see in the mirror, then you're me telling you what concealer to use is never gonna work.

No. That's not what it's really about. I. you have to do a lot of healing to, and face a lot of hard things to feel beautiful inside and out

and speaking of that vulnerability what advice would you give to people who, to a content creator or a business owner that's being vulnerable, putting it out there, and it feels like crickets.

Mm. Or like we talked about robots, like Yeah. There's no I've been getting a lot of that lately is like on stories. Like random, yeah. Like sex accounts, like liking my stories. But why? What does this do? I don't know. But So what advice would you give to people who feel like they're, ripping that bandaid?

Being vulnerable, and then it's just like talking

into a void. Yeah, I would say keep talking. Also just make sure your guard's not still up, whether it be consciously or subconsciously. I know sometimes I've recorded something I wanted to say three or four times, but I always go back to the original one cuz it's the third and fourth Feels really rehearsed and the first one feels most honest.

So I would just say like practice being your unfiltered self. And be off the cuff. Like people want that genuineness. They wanna feel like they're talking to their friend. That video that has 4 million plus views was a one take thing and I recorded three back to back. There were like six points to the video and I just was like, here's what it's gonna be like and I'm gonna put it into the universe and just trust that it will be good.

And some people are gonna disagree with you and you just have to remember. . So one of my favorite podcasts is called Les called Theresa's, and it's a pop culture podcast, but they had one of my favorite drag queens on Trixie Mattel. And Trixie does all kinds of different things, and she was talking about performing folk music as a drag queen, which is two totally opposite different things.

Yeah, Sides of the spectrum. But she said something along the lines of, I'm paraphrasing. , you do a deep disservice to the people who love what you do by listening to the people who don't. And adjusting for the people who don't. And so that's been my focus since I heard that probably two weeks ago, is there are plenty of people who wanna disagree with me on the things I think.

I don't like everybody. Not everybody's gonna like me. And I just have to come to terms with that. And if as many people don't like me as, I don't like people, the percentage is a little rough but , I think the more I cater to the people who love what I do, the better. , I am doing the thing I meant to do, then I'm not trying to do something that's not meant for me.

Yeah. So you're in

that zone of genius and it shows

exactly. Yes. Let's that

magic come through. Exactly. This has been such a fun conversation. I know that we could go on forever, but we like to keep these kind of short and sweet. Yeah. Alex. Where you've got some good resources in the works, we're gonna share those with you guys as soon as they're available.

So for right now, where's the best place for people to find you? Follow you, see what

you're all about? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm on all your major social platforms, TikTok, Instagram and now YouTube. I recently started my YouTube channel all at Alex Chin blogs. It's spelled like Alex's chin blogs, so A L E x s c h I N.

Blogs. And then you can find me at alexshin.com as well. The website's getting a bit of a revamp too. You can find me there and yeah, there's lots of confidence resources coming your way right now. As Kate mentioned, we have mascara madness going on, which is something I've done for three years. This year it's a true bracket where we've ranked 42 mascara's based on their average rating online.

And we're going through day by day. I'm actually wearing two different mascara's right now cuz I filmed one. You can't even tell I'm far enough away. , but you can find me there. And yeah, I'm always, if you wanna slide in my dms and need a new friend, I'm happy, to be. .

Awesome. Yeah, I'm excited to see.

I'm a diehard Thrive Cosmetics fan, so I'm excited to see where that stacks up. I think that's on the other side of the bracket, right? It is.

Haven't gotten there yet. It's, and this is the first year I've included it. People have asked me for years and I just, Never felt like ordering from somewhere separate.

Yeah. That is the

only downside.

Yeah, but it's in the bracket this year. I'm excited to see how it does cuz everybody loves it. And it's so funny cuz people ride or die for their mascara. Yes. They're like, this is the one that's gonna win. I know it already, like this is the number one. So it's really funny, but

that's awesome.

You guys follow Alex on all the things. I'm gonna link all those in the show notes as well so you can find them there and we'll get those resources to you when they're ready. And Alex, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for being here today.

Yeah, thanks for asking me. I'm excited to be here And let Kate know if you want me to come back.

Yes,

absolutely. I'm sure they will. We've got more to talk about , I'm sure. All right, thanks Alex, and we will cut you guys on the next episode of the Three Day Work Weeks for Millennial Entrepreneurs Podcast. Thank you.

Author

Kate Waldo Jones

Kate Waldo Jones, Founder of Kate Waldo + Co., is a Systems Expert and the Creator of Smarter Not Harder: 3-Day Workweeks for Millennial Entrepreneurs© and the 3-Day Workweeks for Millennial Entrepreneurs Podcast. "Let's work smarter, not harder." - KWJ

The Structure for Stardom with Alex Schin

Welcome to Podcast Episode 37: The Structure for Stardom with Alex Schin

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