Salome Schillack:

Hello, and welcome to episode number 116 of The Shine Show. And today, we are going to talk about business lessons from RuPaul's Drag Race. And I do want to warn you. If you know me, you know that I'm not afraid to use some colorful language. But in this episode, if the kids are around, you might want to pop your headphones on because it pops up a few times in the episode. But this one is created for a little bit of fun and entertainment. So enjoy the episode.

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show.

Whoa. We made it through an absolutely epic Launch Lounge [inaudible 00:01:18] open season. We have welcomed a whole bunch of new students and some VIP students as well, who are... that is a new thing that I'm testing. So I want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you for following along here on the show for the last few months and for hanging out with me and talking all things launching online courses. I am so incredibly passionate about this because I truly believe that the world is on the cusp of major, major change. And as women... as a 40-year-old woman who is also a mother of two. I have my own unique experience of the world right now. And my business was born out of rebellion against having to work full time while being a mother. It was born out of rebellion that my husband gets to go to work, and I have to stay home and feed people. And clean their nappies and do things that do not give me mental stimulation.

And it was born out of rebellion against the whole idea that my husband can go and earn money and I cannot. And I'm so freaking excited about I wonder what the world is going to look like in 20 years from now because of everything that COVID has brought about. Everything that the Black Lives Matter Movement is bringing about this shift in our collective consciousness, around diversity and around how awesome the world can be when it is different from what we were trained to believe is right. What we were conditioned to believe is the way that it should be. And it makes me very excited because I started this business thinking, "Wow, I love that I can show other women that they can stay at home and make money too." And that has evolved so far now that I don't even want to say that anymore because this is now so much more than just about women being able to be parents and earn money.

It is just about everyone. Everyone living a freer life. A life that is more created by design and by choice. And driven by our desires and our passions, and our creativity. And the one thing that allows us to do this is the internet. Where if you have an idea in your head and you can add value to someone else with that idea, then you have the ability to create money for yourself. And I share this with all of you here. It has very little to do with today's episode. But it is just kind of coming at the end of a launch, like what we've just done with the Launch Lounge. It's one of those defining moments that I want to share with you all because you're my listeners, and you show up for me every week, and you're on this journey with me and you're evolving, and growing with me.

And I love to talk about this stuff, and I don't talk about it enough. I want to talk about it more. Today's show is called Business Lessons From RuPaul's Drag Race. I have known about RuPaul and about RuPaul's Drag Race for yonkers of years. But I've never really watched it until my hairdresser told me how much she loves the show. And she said I'm going to love it. I have to start watching. And so I watched the latest season of the US RuPaul's Drag Race and just loved it. And my girl Rosé is now my new favorite Broadway star. My new favorite singer, dancer, actor... She's an actress, I suppose. And I felt she was so [inaudible 00:05:54]. She should have won. But then RuPaul's came down under when COVID was doing its thing in the US. And it was fairly safe over here.

I think they recorded in New Zealand. They were able to create this little bubble in New Zealand, where the judges were able to safely stay there and record. And the contestants were safe inside a little hotel bubble. And they recorded RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under. And now that it's down under, I'm like, I just want to meet one of those girls because I want them to dress me up, and do my makeup, and do my hair. I absolutely fell in love with it. So I am now working my way through every season of RuPaul's Drag Race. It is the most relaxing thing. It is the funnest thing. It is funny and entertaining. And if you're a musical theater, drama geek like me, you're going to love it. But then another thing happened. So I'm enjoying RuPaul's Drag Race a lot, right. But I'm, as you probably know by now, also a little bit of a online courses education geek, always learning something new.

And so when MasterClass... MasterClass is that online education platform that they get all these incredible superstars to teach small little masterclasses on whatever the thing is that their geniuses on. So they had a two-for-one special. And, so of course, I bought a year membership to MasterClass, and I'm working my way through every masterclass I can find. And I came across a masterclass by RuPaul. And I want to tell you that RuPaul's masterclass is one of the most incredible pieces of personal development that you can go and do. Because when you listen to him share his life story, and you listen to him share the ups and the downs. And how he made it through all of those and the life lessons that he's had to learn to get to a point where he loved himself so much.

And he healed himself and he loved himself so much that he was able to embrace this creativity, accept himself, and really live in an authentic way true to his creative desires without holding back on the creative expression of his desires and the journey that he's gone on to get to that point. Then you realize that there is something here that we... this is a journey we're all on. And I think this is a journey that you're on, especially if you have a creative business, especially if you have a business on the internet. Especially if your business relies on creating content, which is mean to both educate and entertain people. And so we can all take a moment to listen to RuPaul and learn from RuPaul. And understand that when you can go on a journey to really embrace your own creative powers and your own desire to express something creatively and love that and love yourself unconditionally, that the sky really is the limit.

But for today's episode, I have chosen five of my favorite RuPaul's sayings. And I'm just going to link that in a little bit of a way to business and to what we do. And my goal with this episode is just if I can go and get you to watch some RuPaul episodes and to think about how you can be more of a drag queen inside your own business. Just relax a little bit. Stress a little bit less. Embrace your creative side a little bit more. Show up and shine and use the stage and just be who you are. Then I have succeeded at this week's episode. So the first one, the first saying that RuPaul is famous for, one of it that I love is, "We're all born naked, and the rest is drag. We're all born naked, and the rest is drag."

And what he means by that is when we come into the world, we are all just who we are. And we are all humans. And we are all the same. And we're all made of the same stuff. And everything else that comes after that is a show. It's a performance. It is a costume. It's makeup. It's hair. And you can kick against it, or you can embrace it and be as colorful, as bright, as creative, as animated as you want to be. I think so often we want to fit a mold of what our mentors are doing or what someone before us has done in business. And I wonder what becomes possible when we give ourselves permission to just really show up as our boldest, most creative selves. And if, for you, that means letting your hair down and being more relaxed when you show up on a live video, then great.

If you're RuPaul's Drag Race, you might make your ass hang out. How are you letting your ass hang out in your business? I've recently kind of embraced this a little bit because what I do every time I have to record new videos for one of my online courses, either for A-Lister or for the Launch Lounge. I find myself recreating the same content over and over and over, but with different slides. Because if it goes in one course, it has to have this slide deck. And when it goes in another one, it has to have the other slide deck. And in an attempt to make my presentation as perfect as some of my mentors or people I've learned from, or what I think the industry standard should be.

I'm driving myself freaking nuts recording the same content over and over and every time updating it because the background picture has changed. I mean, it's ridiculous. So I am giving myself permission to let my ass hang out and to make my training videos less than perfect. Because at the end of the day, the student that I want to attract is not the one who's going to care about the perfect background. It's the one who's going to care about the content on there. So if we are all born naked, and the rest is drag, what in your business are the nakedness? The naked things. The things that are there because they're part of who you are, and they're never going to change. And it is the foundational, fundamental parts of your business that has to be there. And that everyone has to have there.

And which are the parts that are drag. Which of the parts that you've added on because someone you admire has that. Or you've added it on because you think you have to have it. Or you've added it on because you think there's no other way. And what if you let your imagination go? What if you just let your hair down and ask yourself, "If my business was a drag show and I could sing whatever I want. Dance however I want. Put on whatever costume I want. Do my hair however I want. Do my makeup however I want." And by that, I mean, if my business was a drag show and I could create leads however I want.

I can use social media however I want. I can sell my courses however I want. I can make upsells or down sells or make rules for how long people have access to things or when they get things or when they don't get things, however I like. If I had permission to do that, and that was my drag show, how I do that? So maybe just take a few moments and sit down and think. Make a list of the things that if you were going to create your business from scratch again, keeping the fundamentals in place. But then, knowing that everything else is just drag. How would you create it? So that's the first a little saying that caught my eye and that I meant, "Oh yeah, we can do this in business."

The second one is, "The only thing..." This is what RuPaul says. He says, "The only thing wrong with me is that I thought there was something wrong with me." I love that. That just speaks to my core. "The only thing wrong with me is that I thought there was something wrong with me." And the reason it speaks to my core so much is because in the journey that I've been on in the last... since 2015, when I started out as a coach. When I started doing coach training, looking back at it, I can clearly see a phase where it was so frustrating and heartbreaking and draining my bank account. And I kept feeling like there's something wrong with me that I can't figure it out. I kept feeling like I'm somehow broken.

And if I can only unbreak whatever this thing is that is holding me back from finally achieving success with an online business, then I'll be able to make progress. And to this day, I have a pet peeve with the term limiting beliefs. I can't stand the term limiting beliefs. And the reason is because when I felt so incredibly disempowered, and I felt like there was something wrong with me that I couldn't figure out how to create a profitable business, I was so susceptible to people who were telling me... who were confirming this message.

And the way that they confirm this, of course, in our business, in the personal development space, and in the online marketing space, is by telling you, "Yeah, it's just you have limiting beliefs that's standing in the way of you succeeding." And that in itself is the most incredibly disempowering thing because what can I do about it? That is an invisible gate that you're pretty much putting up in front of me, and I have no power over it. I do not believe... I think there's no such thing as limiting belief. I think there is absence of imagination.

I think there is absence of giving ourselves permission to dream. I think there's absence of giving ourselves permission to create however we want, whatever we want. I think there's absence of giving ourselves the ability to tap into our true desires. And I think there is an absence when you're starting out of examples of what is possible. When you're just starting out, you do not have exposure yet to people who are only two steps ahead of you.

You probably have a lot of exposure to people who are about a hundred steps ahead of you because you buy their online courses, and you buy their coaching packages, and you buy these things. And they are a hundred steps ahead of you, and it is normal to then feel that, "There must be something wrong with me that I can't figure out what this person has figured out." But when you've been in the game as long as I have, and you've seen everyone who is both two steps ahead of you, two steps behind you, five steps ahead of you, 500 steps ahead of you, 500 steps behind you. You start to realize that your brain never saw the evidence of the people who were only a few steps in front of you because it wasn't looking for it.

Your brain wasn't showing you. You weren't seeing the people who was demonstrating to you that there is a way and that you can do it because you were so busy looking towards the people who were a hundred steps ahead of you and also focusing on your own limiting beliefs, right. So I believe that when you start believing that you need to filter in more evidence of people who are two steps ahead of you, you start seeing what they have that's working. And the other thing that you start filtering in is a clear strategy. I mean, you just don't have a clear strategy when you're starting out, and that's not your fault.

It's kind of like saying, "Well, I'm not a neuroscience... I'm not a neurosurgeon because of my limiting beliefs. No, I'm not a neurosurgeon because I have not done the work to become a neurosurgeon. I do not have the strategies to execute successful neurosurgery." So please, if I can take something from RuPaul, this message that he says, "The only thing wrong with me is that I thought there was something wrong with me." Please, whatever you do, stop believing that there's something wrong with you. If this is you let go of the belief that there is such a thing as a limiting belief. There is no such thing as limiting belief. There's only lack of evidence. There's lack of imagination, permission to dream. Permission to create whatever you desire and a clear strategy. So there's nothing wrong with you.

The third thing that RuPaul says a lot that I really love is, and I love the way he says it too. He goes, "And don't fuck it up." I love it when he says that. I want to say it with him. So it's kind of tongue in cheek, right, because I mean, it's drag. Can you really fuck it up? Is there really a way that you can take this thing that is such ridiculous fun, and fuck it up? You can't. You cannot. And it is the same for our businesses. You cannot fuck it up in any way, shape or form, because it is a creative expression. Yeah, you can waste money.

Yeah, you can not connect the tech correctly and then not have people show up in your webinar. Yeah, you can run ads that completely tank. All of those things can happen. But oh, they're just normal things. They're just things that are going to happen to you anyway. I had someone recently sign up for the free Five-Day Video Training on how to set up your first ads for your list building. It's a freebie that we run that we can link too if you want to get access to that. It's called the Five-Day Video Training. Set up your first list building... Look over my shoulder as I set up my first list building ad we'll link to the Five-Day Video Training in the show notes for you.

Anyway, I had someone email me and say they followed our instructions precisely. And then, as soon as they hit publish on their ads, their ad account got shut down. And we have a responsibility to let everyone in this course know that it is a risk that their accounts can get shut down when they take our course. And I was like, "Excuse me. Hold up a second. There is always a risk that your ad account is going to get shut down." That is like saying you should let every car manufacturer know that people can get in car accidents before they buy a car. It's ridiculous. And also, having your ad account shut down, it's not a fuck up. It is something that happens to a lot people all the time, and you can survive it, and you can recover from it.

Many people do. Yes. It's inconvenient. Yes. It's annoying. Yes. It is something that's going to build your character that you didn't necessarily want to build your character with. Yes. Facebook is like a toddler. Yes. You're going to have to deal with their chat. It's just part of it. It does not mean that it has been fucked up. Okay. So you can do this. Don't think that anything that goes wrong in your business is ever a fuck up. It's not. Number four. Number four that I want to talk about is one of my favorite things. It's cruel. It's so cruel when he says this. It's so terrible, especially when it's one of your favorite people that he says this to. But when Ru says, "Sashay, away," I want to die." But here's the thing that I love so much about the show is the coaches, the mentors, the producers on RuPaul's Drag Race has done such a tremendous job of coaching the contestants for that moment.

Now I'm not going to say everyone handles it extremely elegantly, but most people. When Ru says, "Sashay, away." They look towards Ru. They look towards the judges, and they look towards their fellow contestants, and they say, "Thank you." Most of them say, "Thank you for this incredible opportunity." Most of them say thank you to the judges for their feedback. Most of them say thank you to the other contestants for being their competitors. But it's human nature for us to want to go, "No, I'm not ready to go. This was unfair. I did the best lip sync." That's human nature if we're three years old. Well, maybe if we're seven years old as well. My seven-year-old is still learning this. I want you to think about in your business. Where do you need to coach yourself a little bit more to sashay away with more grace and style and elegance and gratitude?

Where are you maybe focusing a little bit more on what you perceive to have lost or perceived to be losing instead of focusing on maybe guidance that it has given you? A platform that it has given you. Education that it has given you. Community that it has given you. Money that it has given you. Maybe somewhere in your business, there's a group that you've been a part of where it's time to sashay away. And you need to just say, "Thank you very much for what you have given me," and turn around and walk away with your head held high like the queen that you are. Think about that. Where in your business is a time to sashay away with elegance and style?

The fifth RuPaul saying that I love is what he says at the end of every episode. "Well, if you can't love yourself, then how in the hell are you going to love somebody else? Can I get an amen?" I love it when he says that. It is so true. "If you can't love yourself, then how in the hell are you going to love somebody else?" And you got to say it the way Ru says it as well. At the beginning of this year, I made a commitment to say "I am going to do some radical self-love this year." And for me, radical self-love this year means doctors visits. I just turned 40 last year and decided, "Okay, so I'm going to make a list of all the doctors that I need to go and see."

I got to go to the dentist, which I've been putting off. But I've been there now twice. I've been to a dermatologist. I have been to a podiatrist. I've been to my GP. I've been for some lady checkups. All the little things that I kind of went, "Well, okay. If I'm 40 now, what do I have to do now to age gracefully, to make the next 20 years strong and healthy and put myself in the best shape to be able to live my healthiest life for the next 40 or 60 years?" And I'm feeling the benefit of this in my business. I can feel the benefit of my brain just being fresh most of the time because I'm exercising regularly, and I'm doing my best to get a good night's sleep. And I'm trying not to work on weekends and all the things that we do to love ourselves. I'm leaning into boredom. I hate being bored. I have ADHD, so I hate being bored. But I realized that when I'm bored and I can identify whatever the thing is that I naturally then want to fill the time with.

That those things are usually not the best things. And it's usually me running away from something I should actually be doing, like maybe talking to my husband or hanging out with my kids or doing something that might not be exactly the first thing that I would have chosen to do. Not that hanging out with my kids and talking to my husband is not things I want to do. It's just easier to work. You know what I mean. You've been there. Okay. So my question to you is where in your business would your business and your life really benefit from more self-love?

In my life right now, it's like all the doctor's visits. But what is it for you? That is it. It's my five RuPaul sayings. I would love for you to see if you can find RuPaul's Masterclass. Sign up to MasterClass and go and take his class or go and watch some of the episodes of RuPaul. And just ask yourself, "How can I add a little bit more RuPaul's Drag Race into my business today?" That is all from me for this week. I will see you guys talk to you guys all again next week. I hope you have a lovely week, bye.

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.