You won’t post online because you were told to stay quiet all your life. You were conditioned to keep your head down, be humble, and mind your manners. And now that conditioning has leaked into every aspect of your life, including posting online. 

And, this isn’t about confronting your parents or lamenting about the horrors machismo has left on our culture. We can do that later. Today, we’re working on ourselves, letting that kind of toxic self-talk go, and learning how we can break free of this calladita conditioning.

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about posting progress over perfectionism. To be successful on social media, you need trust. Trust from your audience to keep watching, and trust from yourself to keep posting. There is a psychology to building trust online, and after years of building a successful personal brand on social media, I’ve cracked the code. Listen to find out more about calladita conditioning, how it affects you posting online, and why you still feel like you need to be “qualified” enough to be visible on social media. 

Resources Mentioned:
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Website:
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How to work with Erika:

Sign up to join the free training, How I Manifested My First 10K Followers by Building a Personal Brand, on Monday, March 9th 

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Podcast production for this episode was provided by CCST, an Afro-Latina-owned boutique podcast production and copywriting studio. 

Episode Transcript:

Erika: Hello. Hello. Welcome to this week’s episode of Chingona Revolution podcast. This [00:01:00] is your host, Erika Cruz, and today I wanna talk to you about a common, common theme that I see with my clients, with pe, people who follow me and people who are around me. And this is the desire to create content or maybe leave a job that feels unsatisfying or starting to make money online.

But they feel like they need more certifications, more clarity, more confidence. And I briefly talked about this in last week’s episode when I was talking about Bad Bunny and what we can learn from him and how people love seeing the journey. And I wanna go more in depth with that. And I specifically want to talk to you about what’s happening with, at least with my clients and with people that are around me and with myself as well.

So I wanna walk you through my own journey. How I went from being invisible to impactful before I was the expert. A lot of us have this idea that we need to be an [00:02:00] expert before we can show up, and we see this happening when we’re writing emails at work. Maybe you’re reading and overthinking the email.

You’re rereading it a bunch of times before you actually hit send. Just like you’re rereading the caption of a post before you actually hit post. And before I dive into that, I just wanted to give you all a little quick update. I am losing my voice. I’m not sick. I think it’s because I was yelling so much when I found out that my, one of my closest cousins who I married, um, I didn’t marry her.

I married her and her husband. I officiated their wedding. It was really special. It was their one year anniversary yesterday and they had a little gathering where they announced that they are expecting, and I was so excited. And I was screaming and yelling and my voice is kind of coming in and out. So that is why that same day, my morning, unfortunately didn’t start off that great.

I had to put my cat down and I had my cat for 21 years and it [00:03:00] was the best decision she was. About to turn 22 years old, 22 human years. So she had a long, good life and she already had some health stuff that was coming up and we were keeping her comfortable and she was still fine. She was still eating.

She was still. Drinking water. And then over the last week, her health kind of took a turn, so I made the decision that I think was best for her, and the doctor was very honest, but also very emotionally available. And so I’ve just had a little bit of a roller coaster of a time this week between some quick travel.

I went to my aunt’s wedding, came back. Dealt with the cat, then saw family. It was like I had the rollercoaster of both extremes of emotions in the same day, and within 24 hours of extreme sadness and grief, but also extreme excitement. But the interesting part here is that my cat unfortunately [00:04:00] transitioned, which she can’t live forever.

Nobody can, but yet. That afternoon I found out that one of my closest cousins is expecting, and not only is she expecting a baby, she’s expecting too. So I feel like it was really the universe reminding me that this is the cycle of life, right? And just like we unfortunately have to let go of people or pets that we love, we also get to welcome in.

New ones. And life is nothing more than than a cycle of, of deaths and rebirths. Not even just physical deaths and rebirths, right? But like deaths and rebirths of ourselves. And I really feel like I went through a personal identity death when I started to build my personal brand because my den identity was wrapped around, oh, I’m this Latina who works in tech and.

I have this six figure salary and I get to go to these different conferences and I get to travel for work, but yet inside I felt so unfulfilled and the moment I started building my personal brand, it was like that old version of [00:05:00] me had to die for this new version to come. So not to get super deep with you all about branding, but I really do feel like our personal brand evolves as well, and mine’s totally evolving and even just my evolution of supporting others with a personal brand.

I’m like, oh my gosh, I feel like I’m coming back to where I started and helping other people do the same. So. Thank you for going on that tangent with me. Let’s talk about something that I’ve been thinking about lately, which is what stops us from showing up when we believe that we have to be the expert.

And this is something I’m calling the kaita conditioning. So if you don’t know what the word kaita means, it means. To be quiet and there’s this saying in Spanish, and the translation or the saying in English is that women should be seen and not heard. So pretty much don’t speak up, don’t use your voice.

But yet, when we build a brand, when we create content, we’re doing the complete opposite of that. We [00:06:00] are using our voice, we’re putting ourselves out there, and we’re going against that conditioning that a lot of us were brought up with. And even if you don’t identify as Latina. If you just have either immigrant parents or you come from your parents are of a different generation, which I’m sure they are, where they still believe that you shouldn’t be very outspoken or you should be really humble, then you probably feel this same conditioning, even if you don’t call it the Ari de conditioning.

By the way, this is not a known word. It’s a concept that I’ve come up with because I see this happen over and over, and I even see it happen with myself when my messaging shifts. When I wanna share specific things, I, I find myself kind of going back to this conditioning and I find myself asking myself, who am I to talk about this? Maybe you yourself have also thought this, that maybe you need to be a hundred percent certain before you can speak up, or that you shouldn’t position yourself as the [00:07:00] expert or as knowledgeable until you are the expert or you’re not allowed to share what you know until you’re the expert. Maybe you have this belief that you need permission before you can speak maybe in a, in a meeting at work.

Not unless you’re called on. Do you say anything? And perhaps you carry that belief that in order for you to be able to lead or to be able to speak up, you have to be overqualified. You have to have the most amount of degrees in the room, or the most amount of certifications and whatnot.

I remember this came up for me so much when I started my food blog because I was saying, oh, I’m not a chef. I didn’t go to culinary school. I’m not a pastry chef. Who do I think I am? I’m not a nutritionist. How am I going to share healthy recipes when I’m not the expert and. The truth is that the fact that I was not an expert is why people enjoyed following me.

Because I was learning and as I was learning, I was sharing as I went. And this idea that we need to be the expert before we can show up [00:08:00] to create content is not true. It’s a complete myth. The benefit of allowing people to see your progress and to follow you along your journey, it’s like, think about when we watch a movie, right?

 the reason we’re rooting for the protagonist in, in the film is because we get to see their journey. We see their struggle, we see what they’ve overcome. And in the last episode I talked about how the reason we love Bad Bunny so much is because 10 years ago he was bagging groceries. We love that story.

We really do. So allow others to be part of your story. And I know that that feels vulnerable because you are feeling like, okay, well if I’m going to show up, then I wanna show up as the expert. I wanna be seen as the person who got it right. I wanna be seen as the person who knows what they’re talking about.

And you will be. You will be. But it also requires you to show your humanness because people like to follow people they can relate to, not people who are just experts. Don’t get me wrong, if you’re [00:09:00] like a heart surgeon and you’re like, here’s what I’ve learned in my 20 years of being this heart surgeon, then yes, of course that content’s going to do well.

But in my experience, I started creating content and then my business came from. Building my brand. The fact that I had built the brand, all these opportunities started coming my way, and that’s when I ended up building my business. But the reason that people worked with me in my business is because I documented my whole journey.

I shared what I was struggling with. People knew that I was a real human, that went through real struggles, and I still was successful. And because of that, people were like, I want to work with her. So imagine that you follow, let’s say you have dietary issues, right? Or like some type of wellness issue. And you’re not really sure what diet you should be on, you’re having a bunch of trouble.

And then there’s one person that’s like, oh my gosh, I am a nutritionist. I went to the top school ever. And then you have another person who shared their journey and they’re like, okay, here’s what I’m struggling with right now. I’m having a lot of inflammation and I’m [00:10:00] trying this, let’s see how this works.

And then they’re kind of documenting their journey. And then they get to this place where they’re, they’re like, Hey, I’ve mastered this health issue that I was going through. And it’s similar to your symptoms. Of course you’re going to go with the person who has shared that they have similar struggles to you, and that’s the value of sharing progress over perfection.

[00:11:00] [00:12:00] 

Erika: But a lot of us have this conditioning of like, oh, I can’t speak until I’m perfect. And we’ve been conditioned to show up as perfect. And I mean, I don’t know what your internal family system was like, but at least in mine. People [00:13:00] kept really quiet about health issues, about anything vulnerable, like things had to be hush hush.

And that has followed me through my life, and I’ve had to unlearn that because I’m like, no F that. I’d rather share my journey so that I can help other people and so that other people can help me. We’re human beings and human beings are wired for connection and in the rise of AI and the time of isolation where social isolation is so easy, right?

Like you can stay home for a week and not see anybody, and you would survive. Because if you need anything from Amazon, you can order it. You can DoorDash some food or get some food delivery service. You can FaceTime people, but you’re not having human to human connection. And that’s really what we are desiring as a culture.

We are deprived of that. We’re deprived of connection and that’s a whole, a whole nother tangent. So this cita conditioning shows up. When you wanna create [00:14:00] content, when you wanna build a brand, when you want to start or grow a business, and it can sound something, it can sound really practical, right? It sounds something like this, I need, need another certification before I can start. Or I know I can help people, but I’m not ready to accept any money yet.

I don’t wanna charge them yet. Or who am I to talk about this if I don’t have any evidence with. My certifications or degrees, or I don’t wanna say the wrong thing, I don’t wanna get it wrong. And these all sound like really practical, logical things to say. But what ends up happening is when you have these thoughts, you don’t do anything.

You just stay in an action. Or maybe you do go after that other certification and you’re thinking, oh, once I have that certification, then I’m going to feel confident. And then you get the certification, and guess what? You don’t feel confident because it was never a preparation issue.

It was never a qualification thing. It was always about. You believing that you’re worthy enough with your lived experience. Believing that you can [00:15:00] support people through your journey, through sharing your progress through rather than being perfect, but allowing them to see your progress.

You don’t build your personal brand after you’ve mastered everything. You build it as you are learning. Because like I mentioned, people don’t connect to perfection. They connect to progress. They really love being able to see your evolution. They love seeing your mindset shifts, the lessons that you’ve learned.

The courage, the fact that you were afraid and you still took the action and you were still successful. And the thing is that when they see you navigating these challenges and you still move forward, that is where they trust you on a level deeper than any other expert could be trusted. And this is exactly what happened with me. As I was building my brand and showing up on TikTok, I showed up and I’ve always been somebody who loves learning and I started showing up and. Sharing everything. I was learning about meditation, [00:16:00] even guided meditations. I was not a certified meditation teacher.

I hadn’t really taken any courses on meditation. I read some books. I did my own meditation experience. I spent some time journaling, and then a few weeks after posting all this content, I get eight an email from Harvard University asking me if I could come lead meditations for their first gen group. And that is a great example of how I was not the expert.

I was sharing my progress and that. Was so much more valuable for the individual who found me and hired me. And I was working with the first gen group and I specifically was talking about my experience with meditation being first gen. So you never know what can happen through sharing your progress.

and what I have found with kaita conditioning is that it’s not that you’re not knowledgeable. I mean, you’ve literally lived through your whole life and you have an a hundred percent success rate. In other words, you’ve survived every single thing you’ve gone through in your life [00:17:00] and you are here.

Right? So we, we need to stop discounting our own lived experience. It comes easy to you because you already lived through it and you know what you know, but you’d be surprised how helpful you could be to somebody else. Let’s say that you are a woman who successfully navigated pre-menopause. Or you are an individual that learned how to study really well, or you became a yoga instructor and actually used yoga to help with your mental, mental wellness.

Think about the challenges that you’ve overcome and that is what you can support other people with. And also think about where it is that you wanna go. And once you set kind of a goal for yourself, that makes creating content and showing up from a personal brand a lot easier. For example, I decided that I was going to grow to 30,000 followers, and I think I talked about this in the last episode. Oh yeah. So then the Bad Bunny episode was like two episodes ago. No, that was the same episode. [00:18:00] I’m getting confused with my own podcast episodes. Point is I set a goal for 30,000 followers and I was about to post the video when things started picking up, and I ended up.

Recording a whole video from like the before and the after and documenting the journey and did it go viral? No, but I got so many messages about it. It really resonated with people. And what a coincidence that I’m also hosting a class all about how a free class, a free training, all about how I manifested my first 10,000 followers.

But literally within the last week, I’ve almost gained another 10,000 followers. So I get to share all of this, but the reason it’s so relevant for people is because they saw my struggles. When I decided that that was my goal and I talked about my doubts and how I believe that maybe content’s not my thing anymore, and then they got to see me win, and that’s why it resonated so, so much.

I. So whether you want to make money online, leave a job that you really don’t like, or to live your purpose [00:19:00] through some form of online entrepreneurship, or maybe you wanna wake up to payment notifications, or maybe you wanna get dms saying, Hey, your content has really helped me. Or you wanna build confidence, you want to stop overthinking or build self trust.

That does not come from already being an expert. It comes from building your brand publicly, allowing people to see your progress or sharing the progress of something you’ve already done, like sharing your, your lessons learned. I find it’s more valuable in real time. Just like my meditation example, how I was learning meditation, leading meditations on TikTok and then Harvard.

Runs in my dms. Crazy, right? Or I also was practicing interviewing people on TikTok, and then TikTok asked me to interview Luis Foci on TikTok. Live literally the most nervous I’ve ever been in my life. And these things happen because I was allowing myself to show my progress. So if you have the belief that you need to be an expert before you create content.

I challenge [00:20:00] that thought, and I hope this episode supports you in seeing that that’s actually not true. It’s way more valuable when people see you as a human being that’s going through a challenge that’s relatable to them, and then they see you keep going. They wanna follow along, they want to follow along.

If you’re like, Hey, I’m on a journey to this. They wanna see what happens. They’re more likely to follow, they’re more likely to cheer you on. We always aim for the underdogs, right? Versus the person who’s already the expert. So if you are like, yep, this sounds like everything I needed to hear, then join me on my free training happening on March 9th.

It’s all about, like I mentioned just a moment ago, how I manifested my first 10,000 followers and how I did this while I was still. Learning and allowing content to just kind of be fun. So come join me for the training. It’s going to be a great time. I can’t wait to see you there. Share it with a friend.

The link to sign up is down below in the show notes, or you can visit my Instagram and the link is in my bio. Or you can [00:21:00] just type the word brand on any of my posts, or you can DM me and then we’ll immediately send you the link from there. All. Thank you so much for joining me, and I will see you next week.