RV (00:02): Well, not every interview on the influential personal brand podcast turns out to be exactly what we thought it was going to be. And I would say this is one of them in a very delightful way. At least for me personally, I thought this interview with Celinne Da Costa was really a treat and different than what I expected. I thought it would be more in the area of sort of like branding and marketing, but it was really a level, a level deeper than that. It was really about the limiting beliefs that we all have, which then show up in our marketing. And so AJ and I are going to break this interview down for you. We’re going to share with you our top three takeaways. AJ is here with me. She is the CEO of brand builders group, my wife, best friend business partner and baby mama all at the same time. So babe, what what did, what did you think of this? Cause you, you haven’t interacted with saline really until this, this episode, AJV (00:59): Just through listening to the podcast. So I like all of you, it’s just a listener along with all of you. So I, here’s the first thing that I took away, and I think it’s really important because I think it’s also something that maybe just connects to even what we do at brand builders group. So my number one takeaway is that when it comes to building your brand really first and foremost, you have to know what your uniqueness’s like, what’s your X factor. What’s that one thing what we say is your uniqueness or your super power, like, what is it about you? That is a God-given gift to the world and to those around you and owning that. And one, you have to figure out what it is. And two, you have to figure out how to harness that. And then three it’s like, how do you get it out into the world? AJV (01:50): And so that’s kind of like the biggest thing, because I think so many people struggle with this and I can speak for all of our clients. Not all of them. A lot of our clients at brand builders group is I really struggle with owning. What’s already naturally amazing about them is that they downplay their accomplishments. They downplay all of their accolades, they downplay their education or their experience or their client roster, whatever it is, but they downplay it and they just think of, oh, well, that’s just what everyone else does. And it’s like, no, it is not. And sometimes I think for yourself, it’s really hard to even identify sometimes what is your natural super power, because you are so used to it that you don’t see it as all that unique or that powerful even. But it’s like all of us have that one thing, we all have something and many of us just haven’t taken the time to explore and ask the right questions and really try to figure out what is that thing that is really unique to me. AJV (02:55): And how do I use it to service the world and service humanity, but you do have it and it is within you somewhere. And so I think the first thing, and I love this because it’s also where we start is just figuring out, like, what is your uniqueness, your super power, that X factor, whatever you want to call it, but what is that about you? And that’s just where you start of telling your story. It’s what is that uniqueness? So I think that just resonated with me off the get go, because that’s a lot of what we talk about at brand builders group. RV (03:27): Yeah. Yeah. There’s, there’s, there were some themes there with you know, what we do at brand builders group of kind of that deep dive sort of internal work. And I’d say that was my number one takeaway too. Is there, I don’t know if she said this or this, I wrote this down. I’m not sure if she said it or if it was an adaptation of something she said, but this was one of my takeaways. And it’s, it’s right to what you were talking about, where the big journey here is coming into yourself and revealing and remembering who you already are. And it makes me think about AJ you know, like one of the things that people always get a tremendous amount of value from, from the work that we do. And our team does is when we write their expert bio, we take people through this exercise, right? RV (04:14): Of like, we go through this brainstorm of all these things that they’ve accomplished. And almost every one of our clients is like, oh my gosh, you made me sound amazing. You guys are so good at this. Like, this is incredible. This, this one little thing you did is worth the price of the whole program. And yet all we’re doing there is reflecting back to them. Exactly what you said, everything they already are. We’re just packaging it in a way that they wouldn’t package it because they don’t, they don’t see it. And they don’t think about it. And in a way it’s kind of sad that we, you know, we don’t see how, how awesome we are. And so this idea of revealing and remembering who you already are, is, you know, like where the uniqueness lies and that’s good. Yeah. So that was, that was, that was my, my first big takeaway. What was your second? AJV (05:09): And it’s kind of similar to that too. I think because I, you know as a mom as you are also a dad, but as a mom of two young boys, like I’m constantly terrified of screwing them up, right? It’s like, I’m constantly terrified of changing them into something that they are not. And all I want to do as a parent is channel their uniqueness, channel their greatness and not try to amend it to what’s convenient to me, but to help them explore, like, what are they naturally gifted at and interested in and how do I channel that into greatness and whatever greatness may mean for them. But it’s like, I don’t want to, you know, cover up or muddy up what is their super power, but I want to help them bring that out. And I think it’s like, if we’re not really intentional about as human beings that you know for yourself. AJV (06:02): And I even think about this with my kids, it’s like all this beauty that lives out there just gets muddied up over the years because we, what is truly your gift is seen as an inconvenience or a seen as the opposite of a gift, right. It’s seen as what needs to be fixed or what’s broken. And, and I think it really starts at a really young age. And then we get to adulthood and our, you know, in my case, in my late thirties, and it’s like, oh man, I’m trying to like wash off the mud. I’m like 30 years of trying to really reveal to what you said, what is already so awesome about who you are. And so I just think about my kids and they’re at this like really pure state I’m in existence at two and four. And it’s like, how do I not keep them pure? AJV (06:50): But how do I make sure that this, this brightness that is within them, doesn’t get covered with mud. And then it’s, how do we do that for ourselves? Right. And I think in a lot of cases, you can’t, I think you need someone else to come and help you wash that mud off. I don’t think that you’re able to do it all by yourself sometimes. And you, you really do need someone to walk along with you. And rather that is someone like Celinne or someone like brand builders group or somebody else. It’s like, you really need someone sometimes to remind you of who you are, because we can’t do it for ourselves. It’s amazing to me because I often get to help people craft their expert bios to what you were just saying, Rory and I often will, you know, they’ll do a draft and I’ll send it to me and I’ll make a few edits and I make a few suggestions and send it back. AJV (07:39): And here’s the number one response that I get when I, what I would say is I just pretty it up a little bit as I go, wow. Like, I feel like an imposter and it’s so interesting to me. And I’m like, okay, well, let me just make sure that I didn’t make anything up in here. You did this, right? Yeah. You were featured in this, right? Yeah. Okay. You worked with this kind of company or person. Yeah. Okay. You were awarded this award, correct. And it’s like, I go through the checklist. Yes, yes, yes. What part of this makes you feel like an imposter and it’s somewhere along the lines. We, we have told ourselves what we do, isn’t good enough, or someone else is better than, and it’s like, then you take a step back and you actually bring all of this amazingness to the surface and you put it on paper and it doesn’t even feel like you, and that’s because we don’t even take the time to celebrate our own greatness. AJV (08:37): And that isn’t about being prideful or full of ego. That’s about just acknowledging that you are worthy and good, and there is greatness within you and you were born with it. And those are the things that we forget. And so I just think I’m at my second takeaway was a lot about like, how do we like uncover the layers that we’ve spent so many years or someone else’s spent covering up that bright shining light within us. And how do we get back to what is that X factor or that uniqueness to begin with? And I think a lot of the times, it’s just, you need someone to do it with you, not for you, but you need someone to walk along and help you clean off that mud and remind you that you are worthy and good and special and unique and all the things, right. It’s like sometimes we just need to allow someone to come into our life and, and speak good. And to our ears and into our heart. RV (09:35): That’s so powerful. I mean Hey man, who rah like that is that is it. So in my second takeaway, what I wrote down was were we are all still looking for external solutions for internal problems and know AJV (09:54): A much more succinct way of saying, RV (09:58): Well, I think it, I think it’s really related to what you were saying, right. Is cause we, we, we have like we think we need to hire some perfect vendor to like solve some expert problem like this, this, this external problem, or that there’s like some skill set that we have to acquire. And really it’s this internal struggle of feeling like we’re good enough, that’s the real issue. And I would say that we’re even seeing this in brand builders group a lot right now, because we teach so many, I mean, we have 14 different today experiences like there’s 14 parts of our whole curriculum. We have all of these tactics and strategies and information and people, I think, love that, but more and more it’s becoming about the community and the comradery and the belief that they get from being around our team and each other, because the real thing that’s holding them back is their own limiting beliefs that they’re not good enough or that they haven’t done enough or they don’t deserve it. RV (11:01): And then, you know, you sit in a room with other people and you realize, oh my gosh, we all feel this way. And yet we look at each other, like we’re all superheroes, but we don’t look at ourselves. And, and out of that comes tremendous power. I know these application events that, that you you’ve basically invented for brand builders group AGA that you’ve been running where we now have a 15th type of event, which is is we call them application events because we don’t teach anything like our other 14 events are all like we’re teaching stuff. And these new application events are nothing but getting feedback and live coaching and instruction and, and community and networking. And, you know, we just happened to have one. So it’s fresh on my mind. And I think that, that these application events you created, they really speak to the internal struggles that people have and that the real power of brand builders group is moving away from our content and our education. And it’s really becoming the power of the community and the people they’re helping each other believe in themselves. AJV (12:07): Yeah. Well, both are needed. This one, one becomes more relevant at a certain time than another. But yes. Okay. So my last takeaway would be is that the vision has to be bigger than the fear, right? And I love this conversation and this isn’t necessarily brand new. I, man, it was a really good reminder of if the vision isn’t big enough, the fear will always win the fear of, well, what if it doesn’t work? Or what if, what the killer is? What if right? That’s just, it just whatever, whatever is after that, that’s the bad part. What if but it’s, it’s truly, it’s like the vision has to be bigger than the fear and whatever comes after. What if this vision this purpose has to be bigger than anything that comes after. What if, and that takes some work and conversation and brainstorming and thought. AJV (13:07): And in my case, a lot of prayer it’s like it, but it’s gotta be bigger than that. Otherwise, the, what if is going to be always the thing that holds you back, it will always hold you back. But the vision has got to be bigger than the fear. And that was such a great comment. It’s such a great reminder, no matter where you are in your business or in your personal life, wherever you are in your life journey, your personal brand journey, the purpose and the vision must always be bigger than whatever comes after. What if RV (13:33): That’s so powerful? And that points to my, what my third takeaway was, you know, my third takeaway was actually a quote that saline shared from somebody else, which after she said this, I was like, wow, this is so powerful. I cannot believe I’ve never heard anyone say this. Oh my goodness. It was, it was so huge. And so it’s from Carl Young. And he said until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate. AJV (14:08): Mm that’s so good. Yes. I remember this now. That’s so good. RV (14:11): It’s so powerful. Right? Cause it’s like, we, we have these habits, these, these deep rooted beliefs, this, these years of conditioning, like you were talking about earlier age, where of, of things that we tell ourselves of other things that other people have said about us, that we accept as truth. And we allow them to live there in the unconscious. And then we, our life turns out a certain way and we think that’s our fate, ours, it’s our destiny. And it’s really just the by-product of these beliefs. It’s the by-product of these habits that we never questioned that we never challenged that we never see. They just live there in, in the unconscious, the subconscious, and yet they dictate our life. And and then we can transform our life. We can break through, by moving those doubts into the conscious, challenging them, changing them, rewriting them. And then those become the new programming for in a future that is wildly beyond anything that we imagined until you make the unconscious conscious. It will rule your life and you will call it fate. I hit me hard. Hit me hard. AJV (15:21): You should print that out, tape it up somewhere and read it every day. RV (15:26): Yeah, absolutely. Or you could come back and listen to the influential personal brand podcast on repeat over and over. You could listen to the episode, the interview that we did with saline, you could listen to this recap. You could just keep coming back. If you, if you get value out of these, please share them with your friends. Please tag us on social. Let us know what your favorite parts are of these interviews. And you know, leave comments on AIG’s profile or mine or the company is we want to know what parts are connecting with you and what is landing with you and what you’d like to hear more of, because all of that for us is unconscious. We don’t know what it is that you like unless you tell us. So bring it into our conscious so that we can rule over it and create a bigger future for all of us. Thank you for being here. We’re so grateful for you. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.