2026 is a new year, and it’s time to make some courageous changes in your life. So if you’ve been wanting to post on social media and build your personal brand, but you’re too afraid to post anything, you’re leaving opportunities on the table. 

Right now in the Courage Driven Latina program, we are working on being visible, and for a lot of people, that means posting on social media and building up their personal brand. They’re doing amazingly well right now, posting almost every single day to get used to it and seeing amazing results. But they weren’t posting before this challenge we’re working on because they were scared. Now that they’re posting, they’re starting to see their manifestations come true.

In this week’s episode, we talk about how personal branding creates opportunities and builds social capital, even when you’re not in the room. Posting on social media helped me create my personal brand. Personal branding helped me build my business up to have six-figure years. If I were still afraid of what other people thought of me posting on social media, I don’t know if I’d have the same business. If you’re ready to change your mindset and start building your personal brand, this episode is for you! 

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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:

We’re also afraid of people saying negative things about us, but you’d be surprised how people actually wanna be around individuals who are doing things with their lives, and people wanna be around people who are inspiring. And we’re so worried about people criticizing us, but if we stop worrying about what other people might think or say and actually do what we want, you’d be surprised how many people you can impact and how many people want to be in your energy and want to be around you.

Erika: Hello, hello. Welcome to this week’s episode [00:01:00] of Ching at Revolution Podcast. I’m your host, Erica Cruz, and this podcast episode is for you. If you know that you want to start showing up, you wanna start maybe creating content, you have ideas and you keep getting more and more ideas, but you have a hard time actually taking the action.

If you are waiting to feel ready, if you keep dreaming about it, keep thinking about it. You maybe observe other people’s content and think, oh man, maybe I could do something like that, or, that would be really cool if I did this. But in this way, then this is the podcast episode for you. I just got back from almost a month in Mexico.

While that sounds amazing. I am so tired. I don’t think I have ever gotten a podcast episode to my podcast producer as last minute as this one right now. Sarah, I appreciate you so much and I’m really sorry that you are getting this. So last minute I had. Flight, [00:02:00] cancellations, flight delays, reroutes, I mean, all the things that you can think of during this trip, because I did not just go to one destination within Mexico.

I flew into Mexico and went to about four or five different cities. I’m going to tell you. What it is that I did and how this topic that I want to talk about in today’s episode was something that came up over and over. So I flew to Mexico because one of my aunts on my dad’s side is getting married. And I have not been very close to my dad’s side of the family, and it’s been a big effort of mine to try to reconnect, to try to really get to know people.

Last year, my grandmother on my dad’s side passed away and I was so grateful that I made the effort to see her about six months before and I wanted to go back and spend more time with her and it, she ended up getting sick and passing away. And when I went back. Last year because she had [00:03:00] passed away. I met cousins I had not ever met because I hadn’t seen them.

I hadn’t seen that side of the family in about 20 years. I had seen my grandmother, but I hadn’t seen the extended family, so I. I’m getting off topic already. Here was the purpose of my trip, and then I will share how this topic around social media and my social presence came up. Over and over. I flew out for my cousin, my aunt’s wedding, unfortunately.

My aunt ended up postponing her wedding because her dad passed away. So my grandfather on my, on my dad’s side, who I wasn’t very close to, obviously I, I do know him and he had been sick for a while, but, my dad didn’t really grow up with him, so I didn’t grow up with him a lot in, in my life. And the wedding was then postponed, but I still went to Mexico.

I was there for my dad’s birthday, and then from there I went. So I went from San Francisco to Guadalajara and then from [00:04:00] Guadalajara to Puerto Vallarta, which is where my mom and I built her retirement house. And then I went from Puerto Vallarta to Cancun for a country concert. And then I went from Cancun back to Puerto Vallarta and then drove to my mom’s village for another family function that we had.

But it was also the annual fiestas that happened at her village, which I hadn’t been to in over five years. And it was really interesting to go back because the last time I was there I wasn’t creating any content. I was working in tech. I believe maybe I had just started in tech. I, I don’t know. I had to have been working in tech, but it was so interesting to go back.

Doing what I do now and having these recurring conversations, and I had conversations with people that I can already imagine. You’re all in the same mind space, and that is why I wanted to record this podcast episode. So the first. [00:05:00] Interaction was when I landed in Guadalajara and I saw a cousin who I, the last time I saw her was when my grandmother had passed away.

But before that, I maybe had seen her when she was five, and she’s in her twenties now. So it’d been over 20 years that I had seen this cousin. And we are all gathered at my dad’s house because it’s his birthday. And my cousin says, Hey, you know, there’s this, uh, ad that came up on my, on my TikTok, and I think it was you.

I was like, oh really? And she says, yeah, it was a Spotify commercial. I was like, oh yeah, that was me. And it’s so interesting because I don’t see that commercial. You probably don’t see that commercial unless you are in Mexico or in Colombia, and it’s so crazy how. because I was scared to post on social media too.

My courage to start posting on TikTok when people would literally laugh at me. I’ll never forget, I was on my first podcast interview and she was like, oh, where can people connect with you? And I was like, oh, they can follow me on TikTok. And she’s like, [00:06:00] ha, TikTok, my little sister uses TikTok. And that was literally her reaction.

And she laughed at me and I said, laugh now. But watch, this is a platform that is going to grow and look at it now, right? It’s been over five years that I started posting on this, on this platform, but oh my gosh, we’re in 2026, so, no, I had been posting six years ago. Anyway, so I thought it was so interesting that my courage to start posting on this platform that people laughed at me about.

Is what allowed a cousin of mine to be like, wait, this is my family member. This is my cousin. And it’s so crazy how social media can connect us in so many different ways, even when we don’t see it. Because if it wasn’t for me seeing my cousin in person, she probably wouldn’t have ever asked me, Hey, was that you?

I think I saw you. She would’ve just kept that in her mind like, oh, I think this might be my cousin, 

 But I never expected this cousin to say that to me.

So what kept coming up is that people were [00:07:00] recognizing what it is that I’ve done over the last few years, and it’s not like I ever had one-on-one conversations with them. It was simply because I have been visible and I’ve been building my personal brand, and I’ve been showing up. And the thing is, we all have personal brands, but when you create content and when you show up, you get to kind of narrate the personal brand.

You get to have control over the perspective of yourself. And I was blown away by how many people. I hadn’t thought of, not because I don’t care about them, just they weren’t really top of mind because I haven’t seen them in a while. But they were all very aware of me and very aware of what it is that I have been up to. And what I realized is that my personal brand had been working for me even when I wasn’t even like, even when I wasn’t completely showing up every single day or in person, my personal brand had still been. My visibility and the [00:08:00] curation of how I was perceived, and One interaction that I’m thinking of is somebody that’s not a family member, but they are a friend and they live here in the Bay Area. They don’t actually live far from where I live, but we haven’t seen each other because I hadn’t been to these fiestas in so many years.

And he says, oh my gosh, you should be so proud of yourself. You totally are killing it on social media and with your business. And I’ve been cheering you along the whole time, and I just wanna let you know that you’re doing such a great job. I want to be clear here. I wasn’t actively trying to impress anyone. I wasn’t walking around telling anybody these things. I wasn’t trying to sell anything. I was just. Showing up and being visible, and even if people don’t comment on things, you’d be surprised how many people will still come up to you and be like, oh, I loved your content, or, that really resonated with me.

And sometimes we do need those in-person interactions to be like, oh my gosh, somebody was really paying attention, or I really did impact that person. [00:09:00] [00:10:00] [00:11:00] I had other conversations with one of my younger [00:12:00] cousins who it was, I think his first time there. And he’s actually my cousin’s son. And we were all dancing in a group and he’s like, yeah, hey, how many TikTok followers do you have again? And I was like, what? How does he even know I have a TikTok account?

And the thing is that when people are showing up and whenever they are being visible, people speak andWe’re also afraid of people saying negative things about us, but you’d be surprised how people actually wanna be around. Individuals who are doing things with their lives and people wanna be around people who are inspiring. And we’re so worried about people criticizing us, but if we stop worrying about what other people might think or say and actually do what we want, you’d be surprised how many people you can impact and how many people want to be in your energy and want to be around you.

I have another cousin who is. Now living in Southern California and we’re around the same age and we haven’t seen each other [00:13:00] in at least two years I believe. So I was so happy to see her and we were catching up and she was telling me how mom life has been going. And she’s like, yeah, when I found out you were here, I was like, oh my gosh, we have a celebrity in town.

And she like just cracked up about it and so did I. And I was like, okay. Yeah. It’s, it’s not, I’m not a celebrity, right. But for my family where they see what I’m doing, they see the awards that I get, they see my visibility, they see some of the partnerships for them, it kind of feels that way. And I am in no way, shape or form telling you that I am a, a celebrity. I do not feel that way at all. I feel like a very normal person. I think when I go to places where, people. Have known me for a long time, that’s when it becomes like, oh my gosh. It’s like reflected back to me how people perceive me.

And that was one of those moments for, for myself. And then, then I had many other interactions with people who have expressed, and these are all, one of them was a cousin [00:14:00] in-law. Was telling me of this business idea he has. And he didn’t even feel comfortable telling me exactly what the business idea was.

But he did tell me, I know I’m going to have to create content and I really admire you because you decided to do something and you actually went for it. But me, I just talk about my ideas and my kids always call me out, out about it and I was like, I will hold you accountable. And we were, we were talking and just.

Very similar things that I hear from potential clients of I’m just waiting to feel ready. I don’t wanna make the wrong decision. I don’t wanna give it a shot and then have it not work out. These are all the normal obstacles that come up when we’re doing something that feels scary and feels outside of a, outside of our comfort zone.

So I want you to know that if you feel this way, you are so not alone. And then last but not least, I had another conversation with a cousin. And this is the person who, um, we were celebrating her birthday and she was telling me she’s in real estate, she’s newer to real estate. And she was saying, the one thing [00:15:00] I really need to start working on is content and I admire your content.

And she says, I get all these ideas when I’m in the shower, but I don’t do anything. And once I was at an event and I told another real estate agent my idea for a video, and the next week, you’ll never guess that she created the video. She says, I was so mad at myself, not at the other person, but I was mad at myself for not taking action.

And I think this is what happens. You might have an idea and you don’t do anything, and then somebody else takes action on the idea and you’re like, oh my gosh, that was my idea. But that feeling of, and I’ve had this happen to me as well. Not so much where somebody stole my idea, but where I had this idea and I didn’t take action, and then somebody did something similar and I’m like, oh my gosh, that was my idea.

And then we feel like we can’t do it, but we live in this abundant world where there’s room for all of us. There’s room for all of us to build our brand, to be intentional about it. But one of the big realizations I had with all of these different [00:16:00] conversations is that your brand speaks for you. Your visibility speaks for you. And the way that I would describe your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not there.Intentional visibility is what builds your personal brand, and you have control over that narrative. People get so caught up in, oh, I don’t wanna share, you know, I don’t wanna be an open book and share all areas of my life.

Earlier I told you about. Being in Mexico and having a lot of triggers come up, and some of ’em are very deep and very personal and they will probably not be a podcast episode, but we do have to overshare at least in one area of our lives. And it doesn’t mean you have to share everything. You still get to be the narrator and you get to narrate the way that you are perceived.

And I think the, there’s, there’s a, a coach named Jamie C who’s a great example and she does like energetics and money mindset and different and business coaching and, and you would [00:17:00] not know that she’s a mom unless you listen to her podcast where she refers to her kids. But her kids are not on her social media at all.

You do not have to be an open book. You get to decide what it is that you share and you are in control over that. I openly share about my failures. I openly share about being courageous. I openly share about creating content and my journey. But there are other things that you don’t hear about. You don’t really hear about my dating life.

You don’t really hear about my relationship with my spec with a specific parent, you don’t hear certain things because. I decide that that’s not the focus that especially when I’m working through something. I get to work on it in the privacy of my therapy sessions and my journal with my brain with my closest friends, and that’s not something that needs to go on my podcast.

So building a brand does not mean you have to overshare an area every area of your life, but you do have to. Select [00:18:00] one thing that you kind of wanna focus on, and let’s say that your thing is dating. Yeah. You might have to share some of your examples or some of some people you know, and you get to change people’s names, right?

You don’t have to call them out. Specifically here in this episode, I referred to conversations I had with people and I did not name them. So that’s a good example there. But when people, when you are visible, it builds familiarity with you. And whenever people are more familiar with you, they trust you more.

And whenever they trust you more opportunities come your way. And I’ve seen this happen in my life over and over. And if you’re not actively shaping your personal brand, somebody else might be shaping it for you. And I don’t say this in a fear mongering way, but. When we’ve never had this opportunity to shape our personal brand through content the way that we do now.

Our parents never had this opportunity in the past. It was like, what do other people say about you? What does a [00:19:00] magazine article say about you? What does the news say about you? But now with this device in our pocket that’s connecting all of us that you’re probably listening to this podcast episode on.

You can start creating content and completely change your life. You can use it to pivot your careers. You can use it to start a business. You can use it to help people. You can use it if what’s going on right now with the immigrant community is pissing you off and you want to bring knowledge to people, you get to use it in the whatever way you want.

You don’t have to do it the way I do it. You don’t have to do it the way anybody else do does it. You shouldn’t ha do it the way anybody else does it, and that’s why I created my Manifest Your Marika bot so that you can identify what your personal brand is, because it’s not like you have to go create one.

It’s more about identifying. The personal brand that’s already within you. And it comes from your stories. It comes from your lived experience. It comes from what you’re interested in. It comes from how you wanna impact the world. And if you have not downloaded my free [00:20:00] resource, then we will link it down below in the show notes, but I highly recommend that you do that. 

 The other thing I realized during this trip and with these different conversations is that personal branding equals social capital. So social capital is pretty much like, you know, capital is, is money, but social capital is the relationships you have with people, the, the network, the.

The benefits and the opportunities that you get through connection and having social capital means that you are also top of mind and that you are remembered and that you are trusted without constant explanation. They just like automatically trust you. So it’s not about. You having to post every single day or going viral.

This is about being clear about what it is that you stand for with your personal brand, and then showing up as that person, because your personal brand will create opportunities [00:21:00] that you have not even imagined just like it has. For myself, I never thought I’d be on the front page of the New York Times.

I never thought I’d be on a Spotify commercial in Mexico where my cousin would. See it. I never thought I’d be having these conversations with people that I didn’t even know knew I existed until I go to Mexico and I share this not from an ego perspective of, oh my gosh, yeah, you should do this so that people can come to you.

No, I say this from this perspective of you. When people come up to you in that way, you realize what an impact you have on people and how, if you have a desire to give back, one of the best ways to do that in 2026 is through content creation. Are you passionate about financial literacy? Well start creating content on that.

Share the journey. Take us with you. People think they need to get to this professional level before they start creating content, but no. The reason [00:22:00] my TikTok did so well is because I brought people along the journey of even building a business. My business started by accident because of my personal brand.

People started asking me if I could coach them, and I didn’t even know what coaching was, but there I was sharing every step of the way there. I was sharing every journey. Nobody follows people who are quote unquote perfect. We like to follow people that we can relate to, people who are facing struggles and overcoming the struggle.

So let’s say that you’re a student and you don’t have your degree yet, but you’re learning every week. You’re learning new things. Take us along the journey of what it is that you’re learning. So I, again, I mentioned this earlier, people have this idea that they need to feel more ready, but. Being ready is not a feeling. It’s a decision. You literally have to decide. You have to decide before you’re ready. A lot of us high achieving women really want to perform perfectly. But you do not need another certification.You don’t need to wait until you feel ready [00:23:00] and you don’t need to sound like everybody else. What you do need to build a personal brand is you need to have clarity.

What is it that you wanna be known for, which might manifest your Monica Bot about? We’ll support you with that. You also need to be consistent, right? And when I say consistent, that doesn’t mean post five times a day every single day, but it does mean don’t post once and then go away for a month. Say it more than once.

You have to

 allow yourself to be visible and to be top of mind. And it does require some consistency. I’ve noticed a huge uptake in opportunities when I’m being more consistent. Of course mental health breaks are necessary. I literally did not post most of the time that I was in Mexico because I had very limited reception, but I have built enough consistency that even if I go away for two months, I think my platform would still be okay.

So whatever consistency can be for you, is it once a week? Is it twice a week? Is it three times a week? And [00:24:00] allow yourself to pick something that is. Achievable. And then the third thing you really need is the courage to be seen. And I think that’s the scariest part for a lot of women, for a lot of Latinas, for a lot of first gen where we fear being seen because of the cultural conditioning that comes with Juanita or.

Women should be seen and not heard or don’t talk too much about yourself. And having the spotlight on us feels uncomfortable, which is why I think I shared this in the last podcast episode or, or one before that. That’s why I have my spotlight theory. When you’re building your. Presence online.

It’s not even about you. It’s about the people that you’re looking to serve, and typically that person that you’re looking to serve is where you were just a few years ago, sharing what you wish you knew. Then

 So if you resonate with what I have shared in this podcast episode, if you are just like my cousin where you get all these ideas in the shower for content, but you have a hard time [00:25:00] putting them out there, may this episode be a reminder of how powerful a personal brand can be and how people that you don’t even know are watching are admiring you.

And if you. Know that 2026 is the year that you want to take action on your personal brand. Then I have just a couple of spots left for my personal branding intensive. You still can save about half off of what the normal investment is, but I only have two spots left, so I will link down below. The Calendly link so that you can book that.

But if you have any questions, you can DM me on Instagram, and I hope this podcast resonated with you. I will see you next week. [00:26:00]