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I went almost 60 hours without my phone on a whirlwind trip to New York. Two videos I recorded raw got 45K views each.

In this episode, I’m sharing what 60 hours without my phone taught me about presence and creativity, why putting yourself out there can feel like a threat to your nervous system, and how doing the uncomfortable thing builds confidence.

I’m also breaking down why we’re putting the blinders on, creating original content that’s fully infused with my personality, posting five times a day, and getting better at video by being in the arena.

Key Takeaways

• What happened when my phone was no longer even an option
• What made two videos reach 45K views (from a 2K average)
• The type of content people watch and it’s easy to create

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

I think it’s important to sometimes slow down and do the, quote, “unproductive thing,” but create that connection. This is a reminder of what I believe at the core, which is you are the magic of your business. You have to build confidence through the thing that you’re doing, that you’re so uncomfortable doing, so that you can prove to yourself that you’re not gonna die doing it.

How you move past that is you have to slowly do it. You have to take steps. You have to do it anyways, and then prove to yourself that you’re okay. Every successful entrepreneur, I believe, I know, has this as a common thread, that they have grown their business through authenticity.

Embodied CEOs don’t chase trends. They pave the way they lead from within. Move by purpose, unshaken by noise. When you are the source, you do not need permission.

Hello, you guys. Welcome back to the podcast. Happy September. When this episode comes out, I decided to, what I’m calling full send my like 30 days, my next 30 days, starting this last week. And I went to New York, which I’ll talk about in a second, and then I’m home for like four days. I’m taking my kids on a 10-day trip, epic summer trip to the Pacific Northwest.

Home for four days, doing a solo trip. So I am batching content while I’m in Austin to have enough while I’m gone. So last time on the podcast I shared that we were doing this really fun thing, my content manager, Hailey, and I, where we were gonna go somewhere that you guys, if you’re on my Instagram, actually voted for.

I didn’t know where we were going. We went for two and a half days. I didn’t have my phone at all. and this episode I want to talk a little bit about the experience, but also one kind of big takeaway that I’m bringing back having to do with my content that I think is most relevant for you guys, like just a reminder that I got.

So the trip was amazing. It was a whirlwind. It was like one of those trips where you leave on a 6:00 AM flight Monday, and you come back at midnight on Wednesday. And I think one of the secrets to slowing time down, which we all wanna do, right, and enjoy life, is to do epic things, because I feel that we lived…

It like, time felt like two weeks in three days, because we were just doing something totally different than our usual. So we left 6:00 AM. I found out where we were going at the airport, which was New York. New York won. Portland was the second, like within a few votes. So we went. I turned my phone off at the airport and I gave it to Hailey, and I didn’t take it back until Wednesday, like we were on the train to the airport, so basically 4:00 PM.

So really I went like, what is it, 60 hours without my phone completely. It was turned off, zero phone, which was actually an incredible experience. Now I did have Hailey with me, so she was kinda like my phone in the sense of directions, where we were going. I just followed her around. But nobody needed me.

My team was fine. My husband and my nanny had her number in case they needed anything, which they sent a few check-in texts because, of course, they’re probably wondering, you know, are we good? But n- nothing happened where like I was really needed. And the experience of completely not having my phone was really nice, and actually surprisingly, really easy.

Once my phone was not even an option It was like, you know when you delete an app off your phone, you still pull it out and you go to where the app is? A couple of times I would be like, “Where’s my phone?” You know, I’d go to grab it. But otherwise, in the moments like sitting on the subway, on the airplane, in an Uber, in line, all of those moments where you’d normally pull your phone out, I just kind of like was present.

Like, I slowed down. My whole state of being slowed down. So that was a really cool experience. And it, and it kinda made me think, how much more in my day-to-day could I just not have my phone? Like, maybe I turn it off for a period of time. Because when I do that, it seems to actually not be hard at all to go on it.

It’s like when it’s an option, it’s harder to not go on it, which is kinda like if you have sugar in the house, you eat the sugar. If you don’t have it at all, you don’t think about it. So that was a really cool experience. It was really I felt very creative. I felt very present. Like, I could just so easily sit in the subway, which by the way, that was my first time riding the subway, and that was fun.

I could so easily sit in the subway and just look around. And most people are obviously on their phones, you know, wrapped up in their own thing. And I was like, wow, you know, it’s so nice to just sit here for 10 minutes or whatever and just actually be present, and how much do we do that? Our phones are constantly taking us away from that.

So that was really cool. And then the actual experience, the design of it, was to get me out of my comfort zone. So Haley was in charge, what we did, where we went. I didn’t know, like, where we were going next. She wouldn’t tell me. and so I just kind of was like along for the ride, and I had to surrender.

And any- everything from the food that we ate to what we did was h- on her, and then she did a lot of making me talk with strangers. Like, start conversations with people. That was the hardest part, because I realized that it’s really hard for me. And I think that I feel as uncomfortable and cringe and awkward starting a conversation with a stranger, especially in New York, because I’d never been to New York.

But New Yorkers are very kind, but they’re not friendly. Like, they’re not like, “Hey, let’s chat it up,” you know? They’re in their own world. And so when you go to start a conversation with them, they’re kinda like, “What are you doing?” You know? So that made it even more uncomfortable for me. But I feel that for me, doing that is how a lot of you guys feel creating content.

And it’s wild because I would call myself introverted. I’m an introverted person. But it’s easy for me to create content because I’ve done it for so long. Of course, I was nervous in the beginning, but there’s like this almost… I think it’s because there’s a lack of actual intimacy. Like, I’m not in front of a person creating.

I’m, I’m just with myself. And so for whatever reason, for me, it is easier to show up on a video, a podcast, a webinar, and just be fully me and authentic in that than it is to start a one-on-one conversation with a stranger. Now, what’s funny is Hailey is the exact opposite. So she can go, like, insert herself in conversations and I’m like…

But it was so… It was, like, peop- Y- you know, when you first say something to someone, they’re kinda like, “What? You talking to me?” You know? It’s a little awkward. And she doesn’t care. But she struggles with putting herself out there on video, so it was a really cool connection for me to see that and just be like, “Why are we, you know, wired this way?”

Where for me, my nervous system associates actually putting myself out there and starting a conversation, like, especially out of the blue, you know. You’re going up to someone on a ferry and you’re like, “Hey, you know, are you from here?” It’s just so cringe to me, which sounds ridiculous, but n- my nervous system associates that with, like, dying.

I don’t know. It’s just, I, I’m like, logically this is so silly, and yet I just freeze up And I think that’s how a lot of people feel when creating content, where it’s like, “Just create the video. Just put yourself out there. Just launch the podcast. Just do the post.” And they go to do it, and their system is actually freezing up.

And so Haley and I had a lot of conversations about this on the trip, and she’s like, “So what’s the solution?” And I’m like, “Well, you have to build confidence through the thing that you’re doing, that you’re so uncomfortable doing, so that you can prove to yourself that you’re not gonna die doing it.” Like, literally, if your nervous system is associating it with you could die, which I think it ultimately comes down to rejection.

You’re putting yourself out there. For me, in an intimate conversation, and I’m calling it intimate just ’cause it’s, like, one-on-one in person, and potentially being rejected or judged feels like death to my system, right? So I avoid it. For some people, putting themselves out there on video and in content feels that way.

And so how you move past that is you have to slowly do it. You have to take steps. You have to do it anyways, and then prove to yourself that you’re okay. Even if someone’s like, you know, in New York like, “Why are you talking to me?” No one was rude to us, but you know, they were… Most people that we- I had to start a conversation with, the first interaction, like the, the first sentence, people were kind of like confused.

Like, “Why are you talking to me?” Which is so uncomfortable for me, but it was good. So coming home, I’m gonna continue to challenge myself to have conversations with people. To, like, be in a coffee shop, to be somewhere and to just start a conversation. Another thing that I realized is my mind is so wired for productivity.

Like, I, all day long, I wanna be efficient. I wanna get as much done. It’s just how I’m wired, and I deem conversations like that, like if I was in a coffee shop or in the gym, you know, or somewhere around people and I stop to have a conversation, I deem it as not productive. That’s how my mind sees it. So I’d rather just, like, be in my own world, do my own thing, and ignore everybody.

And I think it’s important to sometimes slow down and do the, quote, “unproductive thing,” but create that connection. And I will say, you know, networking is a skill that I am envious of people who have it, and Haley has it. And I have friends who, like, they have the… They can just, they go everywhere, and they network, and everybody loves them, and they do kind things for other people.

And, like, they get to a point where they could call in any favor from anyone because they have such a network of people who care about them. And that comes from caring about the other person more than yourself, and I’m talking to me. Caring about the other person, their day, connecting with them more than getting as much done in my day.

And so my challenge to myself coming home is to do more of this. And I think we’re gonna do some sort of series on social media, I’m not exactly sure yet. But something around, like, doing something, quote, “unproductive” every day to somebody who’s obsessed with being productive. And talking to someone is, like pausing, I’m not saying it actually is unproductive, that’s how I perceive it because I have to pause and because it takes five or 10 minutes.

And I can feel myself get antsy in those moments. Like, “Okay, come on, get out of this conversation. We gotta go to the next thing.” And that’s ultimately creating disconnection for me and a lack of presence. And so I really do wanna work on that, and I really wanna work on my, networking skills, and I wanna push myself out of my comfort zone in s- striking up conversations, giving someone a compliment or, you know, making a comment and just connecting.

And I watched Hailey do it, and I was like, “You’re so…” Like, it’s, it’s just natural to her. She loves it. It actually fuels her, whereas me, it feels draining. You know? And I think that’s just the introvert/extrovert. So anyways, that was some takeaways. We’ve had some hilarious content because I would say one of the, like, most surprising and funny things was how ridiculous I am around food, and my sleep, and my exercise.

And so she would… She took me one day to a, to a bagel shop, and it was, I think, called, like, Pop Up Bagels, and they just give you bagels. Like, almost like they give donuts. Bagels and cream cheese. There’s no, like, bagel sandwich or anything. And she took me and she’s like, “So we’re gonna get breakfast.” And granted, the, the experience, I was supposed to say yes to everything she said, right?

And she took me in and I was like, “They don’t put egg in the bagel?” And then I’m like, “I’m not eating it.” Like, I, I don’t eat bagels, and I need protein. And she was like, “Okay.” And like 20 minutes later, we get her bagels, we go to another place, I order a breakfast burrito with eggs, and sausage, and bacon in it.

And I’m… We sit down and we’re eating and she’s like, “I’m actually kind of mad at you. Like, you’re supposed to say yes to the things that I plan, and you’re not gonna die if you don’t eat enough protein in your breakfast.” And I was like , “No, I’m gonna feel sick. I have to eat my protein.” So we put up a funny thing of like, “We’re in a fight because Emily,” quote, “‘needed protein for her breakfast’ and couldn’t eat a bagel.”

So those were the funny moments, just how kinda rigid I am with especially my food, my sleep, and my exercise. But the one takeaway that I wanna bring here… That’s a lot of takeaways, but the one thing that I wanna bring that I left feeling really inspired about- Was we started, we obviously got a lot of conversation in around my content.

And so it was great in that sense of we were together the whole time, and so she got to experience me and my, my just my natural voice, my natural tendencies, and that was kind of the idea too is, like we were doing it for content, we were doing it for the experience, we were also doing it as a way for us to better our content.

And we started with she had some ideas of like TikToks and things that we could recreate, ’cause we’re in New York, right, and ideas. And then we kind of just started doing our own thing. Like we kind of just started like we’d be at breakfast and we’d be like the bagel thing, like, “This is hilarious. Let’s make this into a reel.”

And so we made it into a reel like you’re out to bre- you know, type A versus type B. And type A was like, “I need my protein. I need my fancy tea.” And she’s type B, and she’s like bagel and cream cheese, like schmear it on. And so we started making reels just like we would come up with a funny idea, and then we’d post it as a reel.

And it was by far my best content. So we have had out of all of our videos we posted, two of them went semi-viral, like 40, right now I think they’re about 45,000 views e- both of them. And they were content that we just came up with. Like, we were just kinda shooting the shit and laughing and came up with the content and it was very authentic.

And it was the second night, we were out late, we went out to Times Square and, and like our content that day had started popping off. We did this one funny one that was like … You can go watch it, but basically making fun of how s- rigid I am, of being like, “I don’t eat pasta. I don’t stay out late. I don’t, heels hurt my feet,” which is all true things about me.

And so it was just making fun of like basically how the trip went. And we made this reel and it just started popping off, and I was like, “You know what?” Like, screw trends and screw trying to, like, find other ideas and turn it into, into, like, our own thing. Let’s just put blinders on moving forward with our content, and let’s just make our own.

Like, let’s just both come up with ideas and brainstorm. Like, let’s do this. Let’s just follow what inspires us and makes us laugh and has that humor, while also, yes, keeping in mind the ideal customer. Like, we put in the one that… The first one that went viral, we put something like you take your, your Type A CEO on a trip, right?

So it’s still speaking to an entrepreneur because of the CEO piece, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs are like me, where you’re very rigid with different things in your life, very disciplined. And that one popped off. So still thinking about the ideal customer. Still creating content that relates to entrepreneurs, but, but no longer really trying to, like, find inspiration from other people’s stuff.

I was like, “Let’s actually ignore it.” Let’s ignore what other people are doing because it’s easy to look at another account and be like, “Okay, what are they doing? What’s she doing? W- what’s working well for this one that has a million followers? Alex and Leila, whatever.” Like, let’s look at that and come up with ideas, and instead, let’s just put blinders on.

Let’s ignore it all for 30 days, and let’s just create our own original stuff and see what happens. And that was such a reminder for me because at the end of the day, I mean, this is what I believe, and I just kind of, not forgot. Like, we were creating original stuff, but we would also look for ideas and, you know, different trends and TikToks and audios that I would voiceover.

And I was like, “Let’s just stop doing all of that. Let’s do our own stuff.” And Hailey’s really creative. I’m creative. When we come together, we come up with really great ideas because they’re infused with me. So she’ll bring, like, the start of an idea, and then I’ll be like, “And what about this?” And, “Let’s change this.”

And this is a reminder of what I believe at the core, which is you are the magic of your business Your, and what makes up your magic, your experience, your beliefs, your personality, like your quirks, your voice, w- what you believe, what your background is, like, what you’re passionate about. All of that is what makes up your magic, and literally nobody else has that.

And for me, like, my being really rigid, being really disciplined, I have a little bit of humor. Like, I like to laugh at myself. That is my favorite type of humor. Like, if you know The Office, the show, that type of humor is my favorite. Like, laughing at people being ridiculous. Not like pranks per se, but skits where you’re kind of being silly.

Like, you’re, you’re making fun of entr- entrepreneurs or Type A people or, or whatever. And that’s, that’s very much me. So bringing that in and coming up with our own ideas so far, like, our, our content, you know, prior f- we got two with 45,000 views. Like, my content would get a couple thousand views on average.

And so that’s what we are doing moving forward. So for the next 30 days we’re gonna actually up the volume. We are going to get to five times a day of posting as an experiment. We’re at two a day is what we’ve been doing. On the weekends we do a little less, but we’re gonna go to three and then we’re gonna go to five.

And all of the content is gonna be our ideas and our, us just leaning into who we, who I am, my voice, humor blending, you know, different things. Like, we ca- we have figured out kind of how to do a, quote, “skit,” but it’s not really a skit where I’m, like, voicing over. It’s like the, the video that we did where she says something, then I say something, and you’re just doing something funny.

And that seems to do really well, and it’s actually really easy for me to record. I’m not having to pretend to be someone else. It’s funny to me. So this is my point. This is my reminder, is that you can go look at other people for inspiration and ideas and, you know, what they did and their model. But the reality is when you look at, if you lined up 10 really successful content creators and you lined them all up, they’re all doing a little different things.

They’re not all doing the exact same formula, which I knew this, but I think because I feel like I haven’t cracked the code on content, I haven’t cracked the code on organic growth. It’s definitely gotten better because since April I’ve been posting two times a day and I’ve gotten better at it, but I haven’t cracked the code.

Because I didn’t have that confidence we were possibly leaning in too much to Taking what other people were doing or just taking ideas and recreating them as ours versus actually putting blinders on and doing our thing. And, and this is so true for so much of marketing. If you just boil it down to, how do I create the most connection?

And that connection should be with myself and who I really am at its core, and, like, allowing that to shine through, and then also with my ideal customer. So how do I create that and create from that place, and honestly have fun? Like, we were dying laughing over our content. Like, we had so much fun coming up with ideas, and it was like by day two, you know, I hadn’t had my phone in almost two full days.

Like, by that night we were just like, “And what about this? And what about this?” And ideas flowing. And then Hayley was in the shower. She comes out, she’s like, “I got an idea.” And we go record that video right before dinner, and it pops off. It goes viral. And I’m like, w- we’re f- we’re onto something here. Like, this is what we were missing, which is crazy because I preach authenticity.

And I wouldn’t have said that my content wasn’t authentic. It was authentic. I never recorded something that I didn’t think was authentic. But we took it to the next level of authenticity and having fun and just the energy behind it. So I wanted to share that so that you guys understand, number one Like, I’m always improving.

I mean, I, I am a good marketer, but there are … And I’m good at podcasting and I’m good at webinars. I still don’t feel I’ve cracked the code on content, and I think this is a huge step for us. But I’ll continue to get better, and the only way that I get better is through doing, is through being in the arena and creating the content.

I think that I have a ways to go at being really good at creating talking head face-to-camera videos on social. They are, for whatever reason, they’re challenging for me. I think because I’m so used to podcasting and webinars, so that length of content, like being a 20, 30-minute podcast, and the way that I talk, the way that I sequence things and like, I don’t know, go in a loop and bring things back with a takeaway, it’s har- It’s been hard for me to translate that into talking head face-to-camera social media videos.

But I want … Or, you know, yapping videos. I wanna get better at that. And so my- one of my challenges is going to be I’m gonna post a video every day for 30 days. We’re gonna do a series. I think that, like, day one of being unproductive or whatever. We might change it around. But anyways, number one is I’m getting better by being in the arena.

I am doing. I’m taking where I’m at right now, and three months, six months, 12 months from now I’ll be significantly better. And the numbers will reflect that. But for me, the goal is improving. It’s creating content that is good, it resonates with people, it therefore it gets likes and engagement. But my goal is to get better at it through the process of doing.

So let that be inspiration for you to do the same thing starting wherever you’re at today. And the second thing is not forgetting that you are the magic of your business. And this comes up in your content, it comes up in your copy, it comes up in how you structure a launch, a webinar. Like leaning into those things where you feel the most connected, you feel the most alive, you feel the most aligned Whether it’s your strategy, your messaging, your offer, how you’re showing up, if there is any resistance, not resistance from this is uncomfortable and I’m doing a new thing, but resistance from a misaligned place.

Like, this doesn’t feel like me. This feels disconnected from how I wanna connect to my ideal customer, which you gotta know the difference. There’s a little bit of a fine line. You know, resistance from being uncomfortable is okay ’cause it’s new. Resistance from being misaligned is a signal that we need to rethink this.

And every successful entrepreneur, I believe, I know, has this as a common thread, that they have grown their business through authenticity. And the word authenticity gets thrown around a lot, but to me, that means you build a business around your unique magic. And like I said, your magic is your experience, it’s your beliefs, it’s your personality, it’s your strengths, it’s your weaknesses, it is your wisdom, it is your values.

It’s all of that that makes up you, your personality. That’s what people are connected to. That’s what people are drawn to. Whether or not you’re the face of the brand or not, it still fuses into all of your marketing. And so if it gets watered down or forgotten because you tell yourself you’re not good at it, and I think that’s what happens.

I tell my… I was telling myself I wasn’t good at content and other people had it figured out better than me, which is true. But through that process, we can’t lose the authenticity. And I think… I don’t think we were losing it, I just think we were watering it down. And so that, you can watch my profile.

That’s gonna be our next 30 days, is we’re gonna get up to five times a day because quantity does matter in growing your account. You have to start with where you’re at, but quantity and quality I think both matter. And by doing the volume, you can quickly test what things work and what things don’t.

So that’s kind of what we’re doing is like, same with ads. If you spend more money, you get data faster. On content, if you post more content, you get data faster. But you can’t sacrifice the quality. I’ve got a full-time person right now. I’m heavily investing in my content. I’m really determined to figure this out.

And I’ve talked about this a lot on here before, but the media and content side of my business is something that I see as like the next three-year plan, because I do believe that when you get to a place where you have, you know, let’s say a million followers you’re untouchable. Like you have such a solid brand you can grow that into hiring talent, speaking, o- offering new things.

Like, I wanna be able to go to a city and say, “Hey, I’m gonna be in New York. Let’s do a meetup.” I need and want that level of impact and reach and visibility, and so I’m heavily investing in it, even if it doesn’t produce an immediate ROI, which I understand not everybody’s in that place. But I looked at it and said, you know, if I went pro, if I wanna, if I wanted my brand to get to that place, what would I do?

And this is what I would do. So I’m not saying go post five times a day. I’m saying get your volume to a place that you can sustain, and then you build from there. But don’t lose the authenticity, and also understand that you’re gonna get better through doing, just like me. And I will continue, you know.

And I think that content creators today, like if you were to ask the Hermoses or Cody Sanchez, who are both big brands with a lot of content, they’re still getting better, and their teams are getting better, and they’re testing new things. So that really never ends. You just can’t get better unless you’re actually doing.

So there’s my inspiration from you guy- for you guys from New York, which was a great experience. We’re gonna do a lot more of this type of stuff in our content. Watch my page on Instagram. Our content is definitely going to evolve a little bit. We’re gonna try things. Some are gonna work. Some are not gonna work.

But we are really excited about kind of the, the alignment and inspiration and creativity that has been ignited kind of between the two of us. And yeah, I hope you guys enjoy that. Last thing I’ll say, I should’ve said this at the beginning, but I want to make sure I mention that the Embodied CEO Mastermind is open right now, and we are closing the doors.

We kick it off September 10th. So my next round of the Mastermind is starting September 10th. It runs for six months. It doesn’t open again for six months, so this will be the last time this year that it opens. And this Mastermind, it’s turning out to be such an incredible group. This is working one-on-one with me for six months.

This is a weekly call where you get one-on-one time. You get one-on-one strategy sessions with me. You have access to me in a Telegram group. I deep-dive with you, and I’m basically like a business partner, business consultant for six full months. And we go everywhere from your marketing strategy to your messaging and your positioning, basically developing a plan that grows your business exactly how much you want it to grow in that time.

And that can also be team and operations and profit margins, and also the life that you want, you know, how many hours you want to be working, how you want to structure your business. All of that is what I help you with. It is an incredible way to get that deep-level, customized support. So embodiedmarketing.com/ceo, you can check that out.

And I will talk to you guys on the next podcast.