Your brand is not just the visuals. The visuals are the fun part, the cherry on top, the thing your audience will remember. Your logo, colour palette, illustrations, patterns - whatever! - are all just an elaborate representation of your brand story. But the problem is, everyone always only ever wants to talk about the visuals. Spilling our secrets.

She hasn't had special treatment. Wasn't born with natural charisma. She's not incredibly confident all the time. She doesn't have 'family money'. She most likely started with an idea, a laptop and a few friends/family to support her.

You know what the difference is? And it's pretty simple.

There are so many ways to own and run a business. It’s no easy feat (and whoever says otherwise is lying). But I’ve been struggling with the idea recently of am I a good business owner? Do I do the right things? Do I make the right decisions? Am I showing up in the best way possible?

I’m not going to beat around the bush and tell you that branding isn’t expensive. Because it is. It needs to be.

I've gone against everything I believe in. My personal values, my business values. I thought that by doing this thing I would be putting myself in a better position to receive clients, increase my prices and grow TGS.

I thought it was one tiny little thing that no one would even question. But this one little thing was actually holding me back.

Here's the truth.

Let's be honest, there's a lot of variables, but social media just isn't what it used to be. It's harder, there's a pay to play element and it's just overrun with influencers with huge followings that spend all their time on Instagram.

"Authentic" Ew, did you just cringe? Because I did.

But while it's an incredibly overused word, the actual action, the "how" is stupidly elusive when it doesn't need to be. One thing that I always get stuck on when it comes to being authentic, is what does that actually look like? How do you show up being authentic in your business and brand? And how do you know if you're being genuinely authentic instead of fake authentic?

Upon reflection and about 11 months of distance from that time in my business, I'd realised one key thing that I was doing, unconsciously, in my business, in my content, in all aspects, was that I didn't actually have the necessary self-belief required to be operating at a higher energetic level.