The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - #10: How to use social media properly, making money on the internet, how to determine success,

Episode Date: May 10, 2016

On this episode we talk about how to use social media properly and effectively. How to make money blogging and on the internet, and what defines success.  To learn more about The Skinny Confidential visit the site HERE To connect with Lauryn click HERE To connect with Michael click HERE

I've been looking a lot better lately because I've been brushing my eyebrows up. They are looking good. So I look like I'm awake after all this time. They're very erect. I use a little pink eyebrow brush. Yeah, okay. Welcome. We are back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her podcast.

You have me, Lauren Everett, Michael Bostic, and Jordan. We have four questions today, but before we get into it, we kind of want to do a little recap of our weekend. A little rain dance and celebration because we made it to episode 10. A rain dance? Yeah. A celebratory rain dance, I guess. I mean, I'm celebrating my own rain dance over here because your eyebrows are brushed up. So there was a couple weeks in there where I didn't, I didn't think we were going to make it. There was a couple weeks in there where you weren't brushing your eyebrows up, too. So I feel like it's all coming full circle. Episode 10 is a big deal.

Yeah, we're at episode 10. We're, you know, making changes as we go and evolving and hoping that each podcast is better than the last. Well, yeah, we're not hoping that it's getting worse every time. Well, no, but, you know, you know what I mean. Hopefully you guys think we're doing better. Yeah, I think we are. I think so, too. Go us.

Yeah, we're trying. Yeah, I've been reading. Most of the reviews are pretty good. Sometimes a bad one comes on. You know, I have a little chuckle. Who the hell has time to get on there and write bad reviews? Listen, people, if you want to write a review, just write good ones. Like, you know, who has the time to do bad shit?

I actually don't understand how people have the time to, like, spew hate. I'm too busy. Like, I feel like it's like that's a full-time job, spewing hate on the internet. But, yeah, if you guys want to leave us a good review, you can leave it on iTunes. And give us five stars, subscribe, and let us know what you love about the podcast um we're also giving away a free week of the skinny confidential bombshell body guide if you write a good review screenshot it and send it to ask lauren at the skinny confidential i want to get up to like 200 reviews because then it looks like an official podcast oh we're official when we get

to 200 yeah we're not official until we get to 200. Can you guys help a brother out and give him 200 reviews? You don't even have to write anything. You just click it. Just write about his eyebrows. They're looking so much better, you guys. I'm just so happy. They went from a one star to a five.

Honestly, if you write about the eyebrows, I feel like maybe we've got to come up with a special prize for those people. Yeah, anyone that— You mean his eyebrows are five right now. Oh, Taylor's popping in here and there. He's loving it. Taylor, you need to brush your eyebrows up. Taylor's eyebrows now. Oh, Taylor's popping in here and there. He's loving it. Taylor, you need to brush your eyebrows up.

Taylor's eyebrows are one star. I still have the eyebrow pen that you gave me. Oh, I gave you one? Yeah. An eyebrow pen? Or an eyebrow brush.

Yes, brush. Oh, I love it. Do you use it? I haven't. I use it the day you gave it to me that I put in my pocket. I can tell.

Somewhere in the closet. So anyways, the process has been interesting. You know, we started this podcast. Literally, the way we started this podcast. Literally, the way we started the podcast was me and Lauren were sitting around one day.

Oh my God. Lauren and I were sitting around one day. Can you just say Lauren and I? Please. We were in probably some leisurely spot having a leisurely dinner.

Where were we? No, I don't know. I'm just imagining like, when I imagined in my head, it was probably better than what it actually was. We love like retirement home chic, so it probably was leisurely.

We were sitting around and we're like, hey, let's just do a podcast. And then, literally, that night I went and bought some shitty equipment, and we did the first few. Sound was not where we would like it. Taylor didn't. I called him one night and said, look, you're doing a podcast tomorrow, like, completely different than everything else he does for me. And we made it work, and we've learned as we've gone.

Some people like it, some people don't. I don't really care, honestly. I just was trying to figure it out. I'm not a professional podcaster. This is just, you know, I thought it'd just be a fun thing to do. And yeah, some people respond, some people don't. But honestly. Don't lie. You've been working on your radio voice all day. Oh, and I'm working on my radio voice and I just do my warmups. But no. The worst is like when he, like, all of a sudden in bed just starts to do his radio voice and I want to exit the building. No, but listen. I mean,

listen, people. We are not professional radio people. We never said we were. We did this as a... No one's saying that. No, of course not. I'm saying that. I'm saying we never said that. But we thought that this would be a fun new medium to try out. No one starts as a professional, though.

No, but I'm having a lot of fun with this. What about you? Yeah, I am. I'm having fun. You know, the other half, I sometimes want to Heaven's Gate Kool-Aid you, but... I read an article and it said, you know, if you're going to do a podcast, you should try to get to episode six. And I think it was right around like six, seven. Where I didn't want to kill you.

That we kind of figured out a rhythm, right? I didn't want to kill you that we kind of figured out a rhythm yeah we didn't want to kill each other right so I think if anyone else is considering why we're thinking about doing a podcast one it's fun you're probably when you first hear it you're gonna hate your voice you're gonna hate the way you sound you're gonna hate a lot of things about it and just like anything else um you kind of evolve with it and you work on improving and I'm a big fan of you know all that next time i feel like we need to bring champagne in so we can just um you know pop a bottle and and really get down and dirty but since it's monday we can't have champagne we could we could i guess um okay so make sure you subscribe um and leave us a review so i kind of wanted to talk about Erika Jayne.

We were talking about this over the weekend on Mother's Day and Lauren and I looked at each other and we were like, who's your favorite housewife? And at the same time,

we're like, Erika Jayne. So she's a housewife. Let's just, I mean, I guess I know that because I watch the show with you. You watch Under Your Peripheral

every week. But some people may not know who she is. You're tuning in. Like you. Taylor may not know who she is. No idea. You don't? No, I mean, I don't think that's us. You don't know about eyebrows? Listen, I like Erika Jayne. I'm a big fan because I've seen her. If I had to pick one of those girls.

She is such a badass. But for the people that don't know who she is, Lauren, can you explain? Okay, first of all, Erika Jayne is the baddest housewife that there is because she totally has her own opinion she her moral compass like Jordan said is so on and she's sassy and a girl boss and smart and sharp and I just love her um but I do think it's really funny how Michael comes in and says that Erika Jayne is his favorite housewife because I say what my favorite housewife is and then like three weeks later he'll be like oh I love Erica Jane she's my favorite housewife and I'm like oh like for instance I was like I cannot stand Lisa Renna whatever um I liked her at first but she's she's really rude she's stirring the pot she's stirring the pot she's she's so worried about what Yolanda's doing and what everyone else is doing that she's not staying in her own lane. She needs to stay in her own lane.

But anyways, the other day Michael was like, yeah, I don't like Lisa Renna. Well, I just. No, because you coffee. Well, most of the time I'm trying to read when Lauren's watching this, like, dead honestly. Like, I don't set out to watch Housewives. I'm not going to say I hate on it because I. You like it. No, no, no.

I don't. Would you ever let me sign on to be a housewife? No i wouldn't want to do that um that looks like i mean the business side of me like yeah these girls are getting a lot of promotion they can do a lot of things i don't think i could do it but at the same time like i just don't think i'd be happy doing that too much you have to have i think you have to have either a lot of self-control or no shame one or the other yeah yeah and you have to really like being around a big group of women which I don't know how I feel about constantly

being surrounded by women that are drinking and like, I don't know. And they're kind of at each other's throats a lot of the times. That sounds like hell to me. But I do have to say, Erika Jayne handles herself pretty well. Yeah, she does. We're fans. I don't dislike her. I'll be in the like, I just,

I'll be trying, I'll be in the bed and I'm trying to read and it's on and so I have to put the noise canceling headphones on but then like,

I'm intrigued with what's going on because I mean, it's hard. I mean, it's hard to take your eyes away. These people are,

there's shit going down. I know. So, you know, I kind of go in and out of it but I like someone I do think everyone should leave Yolanda alone.

Yeah, whatever. I think, you know,olanda alone. Yeah, whatever. I think, you know, that's true. Like, what do you... I mean, they're on the show. They've got to do drama. Like, if they all left her alone, like, what would we talk about? There'd be nothing to... Like, what would the...

You know, there's nothing to say on that show then. Yeah, I know. No, I just think that they need to, like, back off. I mean, we'd be talking about Erika Jayne's badass glam squad. Yeah. Because they're amazing. And I'm, like, secretly wishing I had my own glam squad to follow me around and just make me look hot all the time so anyway I just wanted to talk

about her just because I just think she's badass and she's just cool she does she's in her own trajectory what I saw from her is I thought she when I when I saw her speaking or heard her speaking saw I hadn't heard her speaking I thought she came off pretty intelligent that's because I told you that okay anyways moving on cupping we did cupping this weekend we also did yoga we had a wellness weekend a little acupuncture um i am in love with cupping i cannot say enough good things about it he cupped my ass though this time so i have like cut marks all over my butt michael he didn't cut cut Michael's ass though, which is really interesting.

Honestly, like I don't care, right? When you want to go get your ass cupped, go get your ass cupped. Like, you know, if that's your thing.

Taylor Taylor, we've talked about him before. He's the man with two first names. It's hard to trust a man with two first names, Taylor Taylor. I did the cupping. I'm not so sold on it i'm

like okay whatever it's like when you took me to cryotherapy probably wasn't so sold on that i mean people i think you should try everything and everything in moderation but i will say that i do really enjoy acupuncture you do love you do love acupuncture you do um i think that cupping just really really pulls the whole thing together, though. You end it with cupping, and it's, you know, five minutes of cupping and laying there and getting the toxins sucked out of you, basically. So a massage, when you massage someone, you're pushing the toxins kind of like you're spreading it out, like you're moving the knot. And with cupping, it's actually coming out of your system. And it's a Chinese practice.

You guys can Google it. I actually asked him to bruise me extra this time. He does it on my hand. My hand's all messed up. Does it hurt on your hand? Yeah, kind of. The hand's sensitive. I like it on my hips. Well, he's getting close. No, on the outside of the hips. So yeah, I think if you have a chance, you should check acupuncture out. I like it. I get a head rush and I'm not one of these people to promote any of this stuff. I'm really skeptical and all of it, but I think acupuncture is awesome. But let's talk about something else.

What the hell is wrong with you guys bringing me to, like, a black belt level yoga class? Oh, there's nothing I love more than putting you in positions where you're uncomfortable. Like, there's something wrong with me. I love it. It gives me so much joy to watch you be somewhere that's so uncomfortable like black belt yoga you've taken me to all the like listen guys aerial yoga for all you men out there you should be open to trying new things all the time men and women i think anybody that's closed-minded and closed off to any new experience is missing out on life i mean

how can you know something or have a formed opinion about something if you don't try it but what these girls do is they say oh we, we're going to surprise you. You're going to be so relaxed. You're going to this yoga class. And I get there. I'm like, okay, it's all Zen. And next thing they know, they're like, we're going to be in the flip squirrel followed by the diving swan. I don't know what these, what these poses are. I have no idea. I do. I can barely bend over and touch my toes. I look, I kind of like in the middle of it. I was like, shit, I gotta, I don't want to look bad. That's embarrassing. Everyone's making fun of me. Whereas I think they are. And I look over to Jordan, like, okay, I can just do what Jordan's doing in the pose. And she's like,

twisted upside down, like a pretzel with her legs in the air. How am I supposed to keep up with that? I was loving it. I was doing big, deep breaths. I was, I didn't notice that you were having trouble. I wish I noticed more. And then you went, and then we went and got coffee afterwards and you were doing a flat lay with your croissant you were like positioning your croissant with your vegan donut yeah i couldn't with that you guys i don't mind going but you guys take me to these things that are just way more advanced remember when i took him to aerial yoga and he was in a gynecologist position spread eagle with everything hanging out and then then the teacher put herself in a position like that towards you there was like a lot i feel like you cheated on me in aerial yoga we had a connection

me and the teacher no you didn't i thought her name was ariel no michael that's actually hilarious that you thought aerial yoga was just yoga taught by a girl named ariel but you guys get this big relaxing experience because you're breathing and you're flexible. Me, I'm having a fucking meltdown because I can't get in the upside down legs over my head position. She told you, she said, just go into, what'd she say, child's pose?

You know what my, can I have a bone to pick with you guys too? Because then I want to talk about it after, right? And then you guys will say some stupid shit like, it's for you. It is for you. The experience is for you. And I'm like, no, but let me tell you about it

because it is for me, but let me tell you. And you guys are like, no but let me tell you about it because it is for me but let me tell you and you guys like no no no and you think i'm going to like a negative space so then everyone leaves me sitting there and i can't even discuss the the whole thing so i'm calling out on the spot here because you know what it is because you get so uh like pumped up about it and you're like let's talk about let's talk about and i'm so relaxed that i'm like whoa like such a cop out this is for you i've got my yoga bus going and i just need you to kind of be quiet and enjoy the bus. This is for you guys.

You know. I'm going to bring you to like some really heavy weightlifting and pound the weights on you. Like, don't worry. This is for you. Nico and I always get in a fight whenever I try to do weightlifting with him.

I hate it. Nico's her boyfriend. Yeah. It's not fun. I'm just not good at it. So anyways. Anyways, that was our wellness weekend. So let's get into the first question.

Jordan, what is it? Okay, John asks, there are so many social media applications these days. I don't know which one to use and I don't know how to use them together. Can you give me any advice here? Yes, we can. So, here's the thing. You want to make sure that you're using each medium in the right way. For instance, if you're doing 6 million Snapchats in a row,

it's probably time to get on Periscope or YouTube where someone is not just clicking through your video. I think that you'll have a bigger audience there because you're obviously providing a lot of content at once and people can't save that content. So if you're going to do, you know, like a whole beauty tutorial, like a full on one, do it on YouTube. But if you want to do like a quick tips makeup beauty tutorial, that's fine on Snapchat. You just need to know which medium to utilize for whatever you're doing. Does that make sense? Yeah. I want to just say something real quick for both Lauren and I, um, you know, by no means are we gurus, you know, like I don't like any of

that guru shit or like experts. We, we basically, we give this advice based on our own experiences, based on what we've seen to be working based on our, our opinions on what we think. So I don't want any of you guys to take this advice as like us preaching to you or being condescending. Yeah, you do you, you should do it. We're just going to kind of give you what's worked for us. And to answer this question, I think where there's trouble, Lauren, is there's a little bit of confusion because people hear social media and they think that social media needs to be consistent and they need to do the same thing on every channel. And let me give you an example of where that doesn't work. Let's take Snapchat and YouTube for instance. I see a lot of people that are used to, that want to give tutorials. Let's say it's

cooking or let's say it's makeup or let's say whatever. Snapchat is not a place for long form video, right? And why is that Michael Bostick? Because it's very hard to follow and it's so fast and you can't rewind or pause. Got it. I agree. That let's say I'm trying to give you a recipe for, I don't know, lasagna. It's very hard to present all that information on Snapchat because you can't pause, you can't rewind. So what you should be doing instead, in my opinion, is you should be presenting that tutorial on a channel like YouTube and then be using your Snapchat to direct people to view your YouTube. Does that make sense? That's called growth hacking. It's called growth hacking or it's called direct marketing or it's just called awareness. Or it's called being a bossy bitch. No, you just, so what you would do is you create

your video on YouTube that has all of your ingredients lists and all of your information or tutorial. And then you would create a Snapchat and really talk about that and direct people from your Snapchat to there. Um, do you have anything to add to that? I just, I feel like you need to be using each medium in the right way, but you also need to use the right medium for you. For instance, I love Snapchat. We know that it really works well because I'm always on the move and there's a lot of movement. So Snapchat is really, it's constantly moving Instagram to me is a really big commitment for one picture and I feel like it's a little bit too curated for my readership so you also have to read into who's following you and what they're interested in if I post an Instagram it has to have content

I can't you know wear a black outfit and be like weekend vibes. It's almost like an extension of a blog. For me. But then there's some other bloggers that I've seen that it works amazing for. Weekend vibes in their black outfit gets tons of engagement and people love it. You have to know who's following you and know them so well that you can literally picture what they look like where they go to the market how they dress what their interests are and then you really zone in on that and you almost create like a focus group and for each social media platform you

cater to that i would say like in a nutshell i think right now um twitter's a good place to reach people i think it's an underutilized uh. There's not a lot of engagement going on. If I wanted to reach out to an influencer or to a celebrity or to somebody for an interview or a brand, I think Twitter's a really good place right now to get the attention because there's not a lot going on right now on Twitter. Yeah, it's kind of like white noise. So it's easy to get someone's attention.

Instagram, I think right now, is a really good opportunity for photos and branding, obviously. But I also think it's a really good place for mini-b, obviously. But I also think it's a really good place for mini blogging. So say you have a product or a service, I think it's a really good place to post your picture and then write a mini blog or a mini explanation of what that product or service is. And then for Facebook, really, I think that's a place for sharing and linking and driving awareness. And then obviously, you know my takes on Snapchat. So I think once you know all these things about these different social media tools,

and you're aware of them, and you kind of realize how they're supposed to be used, I think a lot of things are going to click into place for people, because they're going to be like, ah, it's that makes sense. Like, what you shouldn't do is try to put some long video tutorial on Instagram or Snapchat, right? That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I agree with everything you're saying. And I think at the end of the day, people want information and content and value now. And they want that from each platform. So as long as everything you post has content and value, people want to engage and then they want engagement back. Nowadays, you know, people will read a blog post and it's not enough. They want to have that connection

after the blog post. They want to talk about it. They want to have that connection after the blog post. They want to talk about it. They want to engage with you. And I think it's a big mistake not to continue the conversation. Like keep that conversation going, provide value and content, and you should be good to go. And maybe think of them all as like a continuous circle all connected to each other. Yes. Right.

So just make sure that you're using each medium how they should be used. Okay, next question. I guess this one has to do with naked cucumbers, one of my favorite topics. Okay, yeah. Allie Clark asks, so we talked about naked cucumbers. What's a guy's perspective on landing strips, afros, and Brazilian waxes? Well, let me just say right off the bat that we can rule out afros. I don't know. I'm sorry, girls. I don't care. I don't want an afro. You don't get to want anything.

You're dead. I think that after we get married, I'm going to grow a long afro and braid it. Oh, I think I'm going to pack my bags and move out of the house. Great. Now I know how to get rid of you. I think that everyone should do, again, what works for them. But that doesn't work for anyone. Michael, that might work for someone, a big afro down there.

Taylor. I live in the wilderness. Taylor. It's snowy season. Taylor, you are the bare naked cucumber. So what do you prefer on a girl? I personally think just because it can grow hair doesn't mean it should grow hair. Or should have hair.

Sorry. Ooh. Ooh. That's my philosophy. That's your philosophy. Okay. Profound right there. I like to just get everything off.

I don't like hair. I'm not a hair person. Like, I love hair on my eyebrows and my head. And other than that, I'm good with hair. Girls, you know, maybe a landing strip if it's done right. Most of the time it's probably not done right. Michael, people can have landing strips. But you gotta do it right, like I said.

Are you like a landing strip connoisseur? Like, how do you know it's right or wrong? It's a strip. Easy judge, Judy. I don't want to come away with hair in my mouth anywhere. Ew! You're dead. Like, I don't even know why you're a part of this conversation.

Let me and Jordan talk about this. I would prefer to avoid this one around my mother. The question's for men. The question's for men. I feel like Erica Jane has a landing strip, and it's done right. It's definitely probably done right. She probably takes good care of it. Her landing strip is probably bougie.

I think she wants to know a male's point of view. Just look at it this way. The last thing you'd want to do when buying a new big cheeseburger is finding a piece of hair in it, regardless. So, just use that as an example. And we just lost 10 subscribers. Thank you, Bare Naked Cucumber. A cheeseburger?

The point of this is, do what works for you, but it sounds like guys prefer less hair. Okay, next question. Kenzie Spears asks, how are you able to make an income from being a blogger when you're just starting out? It's challenging in the beginning. Do you find you have to source your revenue from different places? Well, everyone asks this question, which is so interesting to me because there's so many things you can do on Google, but I think it's such a vague answer on Google that people will ask bloggers this question a lot. So you can make an income from being a blogger in so many different ways, right?

Yeah, you can. I mean, there's like – I would say like the core of this question, though, is how do you make an income from the beginning? Well, you probably don't make much of an income from the beginning, but that's just like any other business. Like I think, you know, one of the biggest strengths that I've seen you have is your patience, right? You have time, you have patience and persistence. You put in the work constantly. I mean, you're approaching five years now, so, you know, you've been able to monetize your site and your blog and your brand.

But it's not easy and it's not supposed to be easy. Remember when I was bartending and teaching Pure Bar and Pilates and not making a dime off blogging? Yeah. Failure is when you don't have the patience to persist through minor defeats. You have to be able to stick it out for a little while. So I think it's difficult in the beginning, but I'll tell you why it's difficult in the beginning. Because you haven't built an audience yet

that cares enough to really engage with you. But the best way to make money on a blog is, like you just said, is to convert. And how do you convert? Do you know how to convert? Yeah, you convert by having engagement. But how do you get engagement? Are you like a professor that's asking me questions? You get engagement by getting a readership and a viewership.

It takes a long time. That cares about what you're saying. And that takes time to build that relationship. And you have to protect that relationship and protect that audience above everything else. There's nothing more important, and I say this all the time, than the relationship you have with your readership. Because they're going to dictate where you're going. So you constantly have to make sure that you're nurturing that relationship and not in a fake way, in like a real way where you genuinely care to answer questions, to go the extra mile. I try to answer every single question that I possibly can on every single platform. It's exhausting, but what I've learned to do is carve out different times each day to answer my Snapchat questions and my Twitter questions and my blog

questions. I think if you nurture that relationship, that relationship can take you to places that you maybe didn't think you could go. Yes, because the readership will want to support you. And, you know, as long as you haven't sold out and you haven't done things that are off brand and you, and you're really, and you're sharing things that are on brand with your readership. And you're sharing your tips. They're going to consume that information, but let me play devil's advocate or say that I'm a brand and I'm selling, um, cupcakes, right? And I go to, I go to somebody that's a new blogger. How are you going to sell my cupcakes? If you don't have a readership, you can't. So why do I want to work with you? And why are you going to make money off me? You're not. So I think what a lot of people don't understand is the reason that it takes a while to make money

is because the way you make money is off of your conversions and off of your influence and off of what people are engaging you with. Like it's very difficult to just launch and be an overnight success. That doesn't happen. Like you're basically putting yourself in between a brand or a business or a product and your readers and you're being, you're, you're basically facilitating that relationship between consumer and brand. And you can't sell out. And you can't sell out. And, and I think that, but, but once you've got that readership, there's plenty of ways. I mean, there's affiliate marketing. Lauren could go and talk about yoga classes, right?

Yeah, you can do affiliate marketing, which is, you know, like reward style or shop style. You can do partnerships with a brand that fits with your aesthetic. You can do a book. You can do an e-book. You can do ads. And, you know, actually recently I've taken all ads off my site because my blog is an experience for the reader and I feel like the advertisement on the blog was taking away from that whimsical feminine beautiful experience that I want people to have when they hit the skinny confidential so I removed the ads um maybe I'm missing out on money there, but I think that the experience will over

time grow and it's a long game, not a short game. So taking the ads off made sense for me. You can also make money by, you know, doing giveaways. You can make money off social media. You have to be really strategic though, which direction you choose to go in. For instance, if you choose to put ads all over your blog, that might deter brands from wanting to work with you because your whole vibe might seem selly. If you choose to work with every single brand that reaches out to you, that's going to deter other brands from working with you because it looks like you're advertising everything and you might lose readers in the meantime. So as a blogger, I think it's really important to just be extremely strategic about the whole game plan that you're going to do and make sure that you're looking at the bigger

picture. The bigger picture for me is to create like this kind of mini empire, a company that that's kind of like this community of women that, you know, whether that's product or meetups or podcasting or whatever it is, it's just, again, this beautiful, whimsical experience that's spread across all my platforms and is just the brand. So I have my mind set on the goal and I will do whatever it takes to get there. So again, be strategic with how you do it. There's so many ways to make money on the internet. You could go and you could honestly, you could set out to cheat people and just completely screw people over and get 14 year old, 15 year old, 18 year old kids that don't know what's going on and take full advantage of them. If you want to do that, you can. Who wants to do

that? But I'm saying in terms of like, you don't want to do that, or you can really put out a good product like Lauren's done and do really, really good content and be patient with it and, and build your audience. You can do affiliate advertising. You can do product. I mean, there's so many ways to monetize on the internet. But I think where a lot of people are running into trouble is they don't have the patience to see it through. I didn't make $1 for a year and a half and I blogged seven days a week.

Just so everyone can hear that. I did not make $1. And you know what? At the the time I didn't care and if I had to do it again I wouldn't care either because I saw the bigger picture and if you can see the bigger picture then patience comes naturally so my advice to anyone that's blogging is to keep doing what you're doing. Don't worry and don't be so fixated on the money, okay? The money will come if you work it. Yeah. I just, like I said, I mean, I don't want to get so deep into this because I think there's so many, so many ways that you can make money on the internet.

There's product. There's ads. There's affiliate marketing. There's, you know, promotions. There's sponsorships. There's a million different ways you can do it. There's speeches. There's speeches.

What do they call it when someone... Keynote speeches. Keynote speeches. Yeah, but once again, a lot of these things, they depend on an audience. They depend on a readership. They depend on, you know, putting good content out there, putting in the time. Don't cheat your audience. Your audience...

But listen, just... Don't alienate them. Don't be blunt. Like... Oh, really? You're never blunt. Nobody's going to... Like, you're not going to make money right away in any business. I mean, it's very rare. Like you've got to put in the time.

And if you think that you're going to take up this profession and it's going to be the profession of your life and you're going to do it for forever and you love doing it, it's your passion. Like it's unrealistic and it's delusional to think that you're going to do that fast. Right. And I also think what Michael said about like cheating six-year-olds and getting on the internet and cheating people. Maybe you can make a lot of money off cheating people on the internet quickly, but that's going to go up as fast as it goes down. No, you're going to constantly be – like the problem with that is you're constantly having to find new people to cheat. It's a terrible business model. The only reason I mention it is because I'm trying to give you a broad understanding of what's possible on the internet. I don't recommend doing that. It goes against everything that I'm

talking about, but you can do it. I think that's what people that are looking for a quick fix do. If you want to have a blog and you want it to be a legitimate blog and you want to make money as a blogger with good content, then you really need to put in the time and you need to develop a relationship with an audience that cares and that consistently comes back and reads your stuff and is engaging in your stuff. So, yeah. Well, that answered that. Next question.

Donna Lee asks, what do you think the most important thing is to becoming successful? Ooh, good question, Donna Lee. This is a really easy one for me. What do you think I'm going to say, Lauren? I don't know. Patience, consistency, authenticity, rawness, realness. What are you going to say, babe? I'm going to say that I was successful before I ever, ever entered any kind of business arena because I don't let other people determine what success means to me. Oh, well, aren't you the star of the show? You deserve an Oscar for your speech.

No, but I think a lot of people let society determine what success means. They think it means the big house, a bunch of money, cars. That's people's definition of success. But there's nothing wrong with saying, listen, I want to make a reasonable living, have a great family, be able to go outside and do activities when I want, and that's my definition of success. Your definition of success could be, I want to live in the mountains and talk to one person a year. Ooh, that sounds nice. And wear like an otter skin cloak. Whoa, an otter skin cloak. I've

never seen that. So I'm kind of living out life. No, but I'm serious. Like, I think that the reason people run into depression or they run into issues with success is because they're letting society and other people determine what success means to them and social media the reason i say i'm successful is because i determine what success means to me as long as success for me is being happy and comfortable in whatever capacity that is and i'm very happy and very comfortable and the oscar goes to no really we know. We know you're comfortable. You're really comfortable in that yoga position. You should tell yourselves, not that much that you should, maybe just say every day, I am successful. Because if you tell yourself

that, then you... Manifest. Yeah, it'll manifest. And the exact opposite will happen if you're constantly telling yourself that you're not successful. Perfect. Philosopher of the year. I think the most important thing to becoming successful is to be obsessed. And I say the word obsessed a lot, but I mean actually be obsessed with what you're doing. People don't want to hear that because they think balance. And I think balance too. But I think if you want to be successful in business become obsessed now if you're talking about successful in life I totally agree with what you said everything you said I think that you you shouldn't let society define your success

but if you're talking about in business yeah but you know why business is like you're like maybe that my definition of success in business is I want a billion dollars and maybe somebody else would say their definition of success is if they have a million dollars maybe somebody else would say their definition of success is a hundred thousand dollars so what I'm saying is you need to you need to decide for yourself what success means to you and not let anybody else decide what that means for you I just think that if you're in business if you want to be successful you should become obsessed with whatever you're doing for that business. If it's, you know, if you're into porno and that's your business, be obsessed with it. If you're into making laptop covers, be obsessed with it.

If you're, you know, if you have a flower stand, be obsessed with it. I wake up, I feel I have a purpose every day with the Skinny Confidential and that drives me and I'm obsessed with it. And I'll do it on holidays and I'll do it at night and I'll do it in the morning and I'll do it whenever I travel. It's just I'm obsessed with it. And I think that if you do that, if you concentrate that obsession on whatever you want, whether that's children or running a huge company or whatever it is, become obsessed and love it and know it and know the ins and outs, know how everything works.

Are you obsessed with me? I don't like the word obsessed so much. You're not obsessed? You always say you're obsessed. I kind of like you a little bit. You kind of like me? Sort of, kind of. I like you better if you put some oil on your forehead at least you brushed your eyebrows up though all right so from that i don't really have much more to say on it we'll wrap it up you don't have any much you don't have more to say i have something to say what what do you got to say you guys you gotta send your questions to podcast at the skinny confidential.com because we got a new email we got a new email finally set up i think we talked about it last time we did yeah so for for any of

you guys that are like you know you don't want to submit it on social media and you don't want to post all that you can send it privately to podcast at the skinny confidential.com and if you don't want us to use your name just say hey please don't use my name or use my first name and we'll respect that but um ask about anything ask us about um we love to talk about fun shit we love to talk about business relationships whatever you guys want to talk about we will talk about bare naked cucumbers um and make sure to subscribe on itunes if you want to ask us on twitter any questions you can use the hashtag ask him and her, also on Instagram. And we will see you next week. Send in your questions. Episode 10. Episode 10.

Drop the mic. Oh yeah.