The only way to build an audience that loves you is to cater to the people who get you
Why packing on the personality will make a big damn difference
I get accused of being too much all the time.
"Why are you swearing?"
"What’s with all the emojis?"
"Why are you acting like you’re the best thing since screw-top wine bottles?”
I even had one Lippy Lucy say in the chat of a free Zoom I was hosting…
“No one wants to see her boney hands flying all over the screen, she needs to calm the fuck down!”
So I used my boney hands to unmute her + ask her what she would like to see, and what do you do know…she and her artificial balls dropped off the broadcast.
Everyone got a kick out of the unexpected entertainment, so I wish she would have stuck around so I could’ve gotten her address to send a thank you card. 😜
What the asshats that hate on my energy don’t get is that I knowingly, willingly, and intentionally let the nutty-flag I was born with fly high because it cuts though the noise for my kindreds + energy vampires, not to mention makes things easier for me.
I KNOW that when I talk to my kindreds like my nutty true self, they hear passion and realness. (WIN!)
I KNOW that when my energy vampires hear those exact same words delivered in the same exact way, they hear nails on the chalkboard. (WIN!)
Can you say…two birds, one stone??!
My shameless vulnerability + cracked-out nuttiness weeds out the wrong people while winning over my kindreds.
I’d argue it’s by far my favorite relationship building tool — just being ME.
Now, I'm not an expert on YOU. Obvi!
I don't know what keeps you up at night.
I don't know what gets you up in the morning.
I don't know what makes you laugh... or cry... or feel safe.
I don't know all the shit you've been through.
Or, the bastards who have hurt you.
I don't know all the ways you've had to sacrifice (for your business + family).
Or, all the things you've had to give up to make this whole entrepreneurial dream work.
I don't know everything you have riding on your business "making it".
Or, how many courses, programs, and coaches have burned you (and 6-months of your life).
I don't know what fire is burning in your belly.
Or, what change you have your sights set on.
I don't know what difference you want to make in people's lives.
Or, even what kinds of lives you want to make a difference for.
What I do know is...
You're probably pretty fucking cool. I meeeeeean, you're here... with me... and the rest of the wonderfully weird hot dog cart-lovin characters I call kindreds.
You want a blissfully ordinary hot dog cart kinda life + business so badly that you weep when you daydream about it too hard.
You're a company of one, two, or a blood-related few... by choice!
Congrats on that very human choice, btw. Don't let anyone shame you for it. It's a highly rewarding, totally viable, anti-capitalist business size in a grotesque pro-agency, age of AI-generated everything world.
Being on your own makes shit simpler... for 100's of reason! Buuuuut, it doesn't make it any less terrifying.
It might even be more terrifying because there's NO ONE to hide behind - nothing to shelter your insecurities or buffer your fails.
It requires you to be real in ways that can be extremely painful.
It requires you to change the stories you tell yourself.
It requires you to disagree with people who think they know what's best for you.
It has (and will continue) to challenge you in a way that people outside our "solo" world will never understand.
Being a company of ONE is not easy... when you're buried under a lifetime of rules, obligations, and expectations.
There’s a YOU-shape deficiency that’s being misdiagnosed.
Things don't feel like walking uphill in the snow for 30 miles because there's something wrong with you.
They feel that way because there's not enough of YOU!
You're lost in people's ideas of who you are and what you care about... and it's robbed you of the ability to make this business stuff feel natural + good.
You've given your business a go for how long now...
🤥 Taking advice from people who don't look, sound, or live like you?
🤢 Doing shit that makes you feel like a sleaze ball?
🤕 Scrambling to keep up with the Jonses (a.k.a gurus)?
What if... you solely focused on experimenting with what's right for YOU and never (EVER) concerned yourself with what the bro + broletta's are doing again?
NO ONE on the planet knows more about what's right (for you) and what's wrong (for you) than that ooey-gooey piece of equipment you're walking around ignoring — your personality!
It’s the decoder ring that’ll make these hot dog cart aspirations you’re holding on to make sense.
WHY you need the things you do.
WHY you think the ways you do.
WHY you’re drawn to the people you are.
WHY you feel the way you do.
WHY you create the work you do.
WHY you live the way you do.
WHY you sound the way you do.
WHY you’re such a nutball… or softy… or comp beast… or complex half-baked lasagna.
When you know WHY you are who you are, it’s a lot easier to let your flags fly high…because you know that’s how your kindreds will find you + your energy vampires will know to steer clear of you.
If you’re not sure what shades of personality YOU are, I double dog dare you to take my Brand DNA Test™.
This ain’t your mama’s internet quiz.
Give me 5 minutes (in case you’re a hopeless overthinker) and I’ll deliver a personality dossier that’ll make you wonder if I rummaged through your thoughts when you weren’t looking.
13 questions… and I can offer some YOU-shaped, real AHA-grade relief.
To letting the real you be the internet you,
Dre ‘Peddling Personality Always + Forever’ Beltrami
P.S. Message me your results when you get them… I live for this stuff. Let me geek out with you! 🫶
P. P.S. Remember this optical illusion? It perfectly explains personality…
This Hot Dog Cart-sized initiative I won’t shut the hell up about is so important, I would la la looove your help getting it into more of the hearts + minds who need it. If you have enough in your social tank, would you forward this to any friends or loved ones who need this permission slip (if you're on email) or restack it for your readers (if you’re on Substack)? I would french fry clink you so hard for the assist…
I’m going to be honest, I joined the HDC without a clear plan for the future of my business because it didn’t matter to me what I needed to do to get what the HDC promised—a work/life balance that would allow me the freedom to do what I truly wanted with my time, which is to be a more present mother to my kids and love on them so hard that THAT would become my full time job! To have more time to dedicate to myself and put into practice just BEing myself in efforts to heal at greater depths AND speed. And to create a business I loved so completely and unconditionally—like I pushed it out of the same vajay-jay from which my kids came.
With that said, I committed to do whatever the work was and as you know, I’ve been doing the work you’re dishing out even through ALL the discomfort and fear that ALL the vulnerability brings me and I knew it would push me towards even more freedom (to be me) but what I didn’t know was that the more I did the work, the more my plan for my business would form, the more I knew what my business cart would become and the more I became excited for my purpose in life to be packaged, offered and served to those who felt called to be served by me in such an authentic and meaningful way.
I’m growing and nurturing this business inside me and I will be birthing this business naturally—at home, at my pace, with Salsa music playing, surrounded by those I love and you as my business doula.
Truthfully— it really has become easier to shift, build and make decisions for my business because with each decision I make the answers are cumulatively creating the path (the dream plan for my business) as I continue to lean into, well, ME. The stars are just magically aligning. (I hope this made sense to you!)
So to our fearless experimentation leader, whom I dearly, wholeheartedly and unconditionally love (and let’s make this clear, I just met her this year so there’s no “we go back to yesteryear” bias) you have tapped into the most powerful wisdom and are sharing that wisdom while exemplifying that your “too much” to some is “just right” for this Goldie locks—I mean Brownie Locks, and your off the wall, unorthodox (which truly should be the orthodox way) of doing business without separation of business and Self has lit my soul on fire and I look forward to not only seeing mine but all the other HDCs to fruition.
PS: You always bring out the book in me! —I mean, best in me! 😉😘
❤️ Kristie
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