[Music] hello and welcome back to dream girl if you're new here my name is Sheen I'm your host and today we're joined by a very interesting internet personality which I'm sure she's going to hate me in sheing her like this but welcome twinkle Stanley thank you so much thank you Sheen for having me I'm very excited this is my first podcast so oh wow it is it is oh I'm I'm I mean I'm super humbled that you chose us for your first time no of course of course thank you for having me again great how's your day going pretty good um I'm getting nervous the more we speak because I'm like [ __ ] I have to say something really smart listen no one is expecting you to be smart oh my god well that was a that was a pretty harsh was that bad enough your shoulder yeah that's fine now there you go because I'm just here for the fun you're here for the entertainment okay great that that that makes me feel good perfect I'm going to ask you a very difficult question to start with okay what's your happiness level today 0 to 10 I think an eight that's pretty good yeah why why do you think it's an eight today I'm pretty neutral every I mean it's an eight every day for me for the past year it's always I think it's every single day has been an eight why does it not go up I mean it does go up once in a while when I get a really good opportunity or something great happens but I always operate at an eight so nothing brings you down for the past one and a half years nothing has brought me down o let's talk about that how does that happen how do you make yourself so kind of like strong to whatever external factors is happening um okay this might not be the answer that you want to hear but I generally don't have any problems in my life like for me to get upset okay and yeah I've been very privileged especially the past I would say a year and a year and a half has been great for me okay so there's nothing for me to complain about if something happens at work that's a very shortterm stress that I go through but my family is healthy I'm doing really well I have a great home I have amazing friends I have an amazing job I'm very privileged I don't have any problems at the moment so I'm just always at an eight well that's good that just means that you are very aware and grateful for what you have of course I'm super grateful for my life yeah so I think gratitude is a very big thing when it comes to being happy right okay so let's address the elephant in the room obviously you're an internet personality now I never know what to say when someone refers to me as an internet personality or an influencer yeah okay let's talk about that because I know a lot of people have issues with the word influencer for themselves and I thought that I didn't I thought I was above it but recently someone told me I thought you were just an influencer and I got so triggered like so triggered why do you think that is like how do you feel about the word influencer so for me personally um I'm not U okay I wouldn't want to be put in a box as just an influencer and that's because of the fact that I also work on other things yes I also do have a job which I'm very passionate about which is why I prefer not to be called just an influencer but if that was my full-time job I would definitely have no problem being called an influencer and I think people have a hard time accepting that as a real job because I feel like we are raised with the idea that money has to be difficult and a job means you have to be hustling and crying and you have to start from scratch and you have to be killing yourself over it and when influencers uh or when a person blows up they suddenly have all of this money and these opportunities and normal people find it hard to accept that and accept that it's a job cuz you don't want some people to have it easier than the rest so I think that's why people uh like to dismiss the influence industry they think they're not doing anything but influencers are the ones who set Trends they uh change people's shopping habits they change the way people feel about themselves and again this is not me glorifying the influence industry but that is just the plain truth influencers have a lot of power in marketing and business and fashion in whatever Niche that they're working in so I don't think it's right to downl their achievements at all yeah yeah and don't you feel like there is actually a decent amount of work that goes behind behind creating content as well oh this is why we're going to disagree okay no no of course not I think it really depends upon the kind of content that you're creating my my kind of content where I just sit on my couch and talk about a heartbreak for the 100th time it's not work so I personally will not uh you know come on here and say I work so hard on my Instagram I don't work hard on my Instagram it happened by luck and I'm completely open to admitting that I got very lucky with it but there are definitely other influencers who who spend so long in perfecting the art and craft of their work especially YouTubers I think YouTubers spend they work really hard so those kind of content that definitely takes a lot of time but it's fine to admit that some influencers yeah don't hustle or don't work that hard but of course their success is still very much deserving at the end of the day they still put themselves out there and it's it is deserving success but it's also okay to say that's not hard work it's fine mhm okay so you mentioned the whole process of like blowing up up and how then things might get easy talk to me about the day when it actually happened for you so I've always been someone that's very open on Instagram uh ever since I've had my social platform I've always shared about my exes and my boyfriends and I've been very open about it I don't know why I'm just very comfortable with it I think it probably has to do with the fact that I had very strict parents growing up like my mom was extremely strict I was grounded for years in my high school and in my University so I got my first phone when I was 18 years old um I was not allowed to access internet or do these things they were very strict about it so when I finally got Instagram I think it kind of became my way of sharing my life and talking to people so I've been sharing my personal life for as long as I can remember and I would do it in my stories because I thought okay no no one would want to see it on like their feed so why would I share about my experience I'll just post on my stories and it got a bit too annoying cuz people would have to keep tapping through so I'd have a lot of people like come and tell me face to face like oh I was talking to this one guy who knows you and he got so annoyed by your story so I unfollowed you so people would tell that to me on my face and sometimes it would come from my own friends um and then one day I decided okay I'm just going to post a real like I'll just do reals so that people can scroll through and then I'm out of their feed you know they don't have to keep tapping through so I'll just post it on my feed and um that's how I posted my first video where I was talking and I shared the story time of my mom U it was like a brown girl story time of my mom grounding grounding me and the next thing I know I'm at work I think 2 days later I was on a shoot and I'm just like I'm refreshing the video and I used to get like 3,000 or 4,000 views per video on a good day and then that video was going up to 40,000 views 880,000 views 100,000 and I thought oh that's so cool like I didn't really think much of it I didn't expect it to go anywhere but it started picking up a lot and my followers started going up so I was at 6,500 then and I think Within two days I hit no I think within 3 days I hit 10,000 followers and from there it just kept going up so when a video goes viral the rest of your videos also pick up views cuz people come to your profile and for me I thought okay this is my one golden chance to get all my other numbers up so I need to keep posting so while people care about this one video let me talk more but surprisingly every other video would go viral like it would get half a million views or it would get 2 million views and that's how I started posting more regular early and even when I hit 10,000 followers once my family had you know brought a cake cuz they they wanted to celebrate the K in my follow account and I told them listen let me hit 13k and then that's a safe that's a safe time to it's far enough above 10 exactly so if I get unfollows I'm not going to it's not going to be embarrassing but then from Once I hit 10 then I hit 20 in like 3 days and I hit 30 in another month so my growth was pretty quick but the backstory of it was literally just the fact that said I didn't want to annoy people by showing up on stories so I started posting reals okay yeah and then how did it feel when you you realized that now this is a thing and it's growing and you have so many more eyes on your page I honestly speaking I don't think I care about it like I don't um it didn't feel good it's fun like I look at it as oh it's a fun thing you know because now I get brand deals and now I get to make money and now I get to live my life in a better way but I don't try to to attach myself to the numbers of oh I'm popular like I don't try to think that way so even when I go for events or I go for anything um where I get to socialize with people I do have people who come to me and say oh I love your videos and I don't know how to react to it and I'm fine with that like I don't want to walk into a room and assume everyone just knows me I just don't want to lose touch of reality so I like my life right now but I also don't want to um I want I don't want that to be a big part of my life so I don't stress on it too much I don't care about it too much okay yeah but is that easier said than done though because I feel like the more you grow the more you're going to get recognized the more people will come up to you the more likely people know of you wherever you go to places and it does do something to you right because even me for example I'm still super awkward when people come up to me and I always think oh no they're going to think I'm weirdo because you stress when they come but how do you do it I think think the fact that I have to go to office every single day I know this sounds I speak about this quite a lot but um it's a big part of my personality it's a big part of my life and one of the main reasons I also go to my job every single day is to still you know talk about things apart from just social media and to still learn from people cuz when you become an influencer and you're constantly surrounding yourself with influencer friends everything becomes content you go for dinner and okay let's all take a picture let's all do a Tren which is fine of course that that's your job do it it's just not what I want to do yeah or you know if you want if you have an event coming up you're for the next 3 days or for the sorry or for 3 Days leading up to the event you're wondering what to wear and it's okay like I'm not [ __ ] on them at all it's just not for me so I don't want to get attached to it so I go to my work I'm totally normal there nobody cares about my social media oh really but they must all know right yeah of course they know they talk about it but if mess up at work I'm still just a horrible employee like nobody cares so I like that and I want it to be that way okay so I think my job is a big part of me being able to separate my life from social media okay and one thing we've discussed in the past as well is once you blow up and then the brand deals come in and then suddenly the amount of money you use to earn kind of like doubles and triples sometimes what has been your experience of this how do you deal with this change of financial status so for me I blew up in July but I started monetizing my content in September and I got a good amount of brand deals from September to November and I started getting paid for it between November to Jan cuz companies have like a 60-day or 90-day policy I know and um what happened is when I entered Jan this year I had I was getting paid big numbers like every 3 to 4 days so every 3 to four days I would get this Mass am credited my account and this is stuff that I had to work for an entire month like kill myself over it sometimes work on weekends stress so much and I was suddenly making this money easily just by posting a video of oh this is my straight hair using this tool and I was making that money so for me personally I think when I started when that money started uh getting credit to sorry when that money started getting credited to my account I think I felt a bit lost cuz for the first time I didn't have to struggle to make that money so I almost felt undeserving of that money I felt like something is off like it shouldn't be this easy that was my attitude towards it and because of that I couldn't also enjoy the perks of it because you want to feel like you worked hard and you want that struggle and reward to go hand inand but when you're not struggling and you just get the reward you feel like you don't deserve it so I did have that in Jan um and Feb of this year just last month I was kind of struggling with it um but I also understand that we are raised to believe that money is limited and we have to suffer and it's our duty especially as someone that I've worked hard in other aspects of my life and which has led to this so I try to um remind myself that I've worked hard when it's when I've had to I've put in a lot of extra hours I've not taken weekends off you know in a in stretch for months I've done that so I can enjoy this without having to feel like I have to kill myself so it's fine so it's just been a bit confusing for me cuz I think you expect money to fix all your problems money to make you so much happier and when you're getting that money and it doesn't change anything in you you begin to question who you are and what's your purpose and different things I just feel like such a spoil brat right now cuz there are so many things going on in this world and I'm like I made money and I feel so [ __ ] that's not what I mean extra money is not making me happy that's not what I mean at all it's just it it's just an experience that caught me off guard I didn't expect to be that person cuz I'm always very grateful for everything so I kept wondering why am I not feeling grateful for this I am now though I've done my I've done my prompts I've done my journaling so now I feel good but I did have that confusing face yeah and I think you touched on a very good point right we are taught that money needs to be earned yes and that the the word itself is earned and it's not just you know given to you yes and I think that's where the struggle comes from even we are putting a judgment on our own work ex and our own deserving of this money and I think that's where it gets interesting and you touched on the whole fixed mindset and how we we do tend to think that well this it's ridiculous to be paid this much money to do this when with my skills and my years of experience I was only getting this money for working a whole month yeah and it is so important to change that mindset right and I'm glad that you you did some journaling and you fix it yeah it sounds so dumb when I say it um no it's not though it's not it's not at least you went in to fix it yeah I did and especially in the I would say in the field of work that I am in it's a lot of extra hours it's a lot of weekends that you have to work and because I work in the media industry you don't really get to switch off so our group chats are going off even at 10:00 in the night yeah so that happens so even if it's not like another job where you check out at 6 and you can just enjoy the rest of the you can just enjoy the rest of your it doesn't really work like that you're still online you're still doing stuff so I've had to do that for I would say 3 years and earn a certain amount every month and suddenly now a brand comes to me and they're paying me the same amount that I'm getting at work and if it doesn't match what's on my Media Kit somehow I'm confident enough to say no like it's so confusing to me cuz when I convert it I'm like oh that's literally my salary like why am I not taking it up but I treat my influencer stuff as different so for my job I will work hard I will still beg for that pay rise if I need to but when it comes to my influen and stuff like if it's not worth it I'm it's fine I can miss out on it okay so all right let's talk about that I want to talk to you personally about this because I think one thing that I keep hearing from other influencers as well is there is so much kind of like unsaid things when it comes to getting paid as an influencer first of all as you said you might have done the work 3 months ago but you get paid up 3 months right and I don't know why every time this happens to me when when someone will be like they're not following up on the invoice and then finally someone else will come in being like this person is no longer with us so I will be handling your invoice now so I think they also turn very quickly on the marketing teams that's a lot of issues but there are different things that we struggle with the first one is knowing how to Value yourself as an influencer you're not sure how to Value yourself because no one talks openly about this there isn't someplace you can go to do market research and see what is my worth based on what I'm offering which industry I'm in Etc secondly sometimes you face Brands who are very easy to work with sometimes you have Brands who will try to really downplay your value and then it it sometime for me oh my God one time I had a brand that literally laughed at me when I said my rates and they were like for you we would have paid at least 50% less than that and it's just the fact that that was their reaction and then you start to question because this is a huge brand that is working with a lot of people and you're like maybe they know better than I do about my rate so then how do you ground yourself in this world of how do I price myself and how do I say no to things that is beneath my value so first of all I think one of the main reasons why there is no market rate is because of of course engagement rate so there are influencers who have my same following and who don't have the same reach as I do yes but there are also influencers who have half my followers and have a much bigger reach than I do 100% so you cannot um really expect I mean it's not you I'm not directing this towards you but it's it's hard to put a price to something that depends on not one metric but multiple metrics you have of course you have your follow account you have your engagement rate and you have your demographics and most importantly and this is something that isn't tangible is the brand identity that you have so there are influencers again like I said who have lesser followers than me who might have a bigger reach than me but who don't have the same brand positioning that I do right which gives me more leverage on how I can price same thing applies to me where there are influencers with lesser followers than me who have a much bigger stronger brand positioning that I do so I'll have to charge lesser than them 100% so for me I don't look at numbers necessarily I don't really look at a market rate or anything of that sort I genuinely think of what is the amount of money that's going to make me happy for doing this work that's the rule that I follow and it's always helped me immensely okay so if I work with a brand for example and it's a really good brand and usually very good brands tend to pay you less because they know you need them you need them on your portfolio so some of my best brands have actually paid me the least right and for me at that point because I also again this is where a full-time job comes into place because I have a full-time job I don't need that money so I can think just of okay what can this brand get for me on my portfolio right so I'm okay with reducing the number there but if you're going to do a brand deal that by the end of it you think okay this money was not even worth it then don't take it up right try not to take it up because over time you're going to be questioning your own worth so now noway I've had so many Brands who almost reach my brand um almost reach my rate yes but they probably shot by $500 and I then I look at what can their brand do for me on my portfolio and if it's not much I will still say no to it okay cuz at the end of the day it's a fun industry I know there's a lot of money but um it also means that you don't have to take up something that doesn't align with you it's fine to say no cuz money is an energy it will come back to you we don't have to attach ourselves so much to it but um that being said I do want to share a short like small story time so recently there was this influence I this is a story that I heard from somewhere else uh it is true though and it was this macro influencer she's huge and I found out how much she was getting paid and it blew my mind because that's not it was so much lesser than what I would have charged even at 50,000 followers I'm telling she had millions and she was literally charging the brand the same amount that I was charging at 50,000 and that's what happens when you don't understand even your mean value as an influencer so for her I'm pretty sure the brand must have said the budget is so immensely tight I'm sure that's what they've said which isn't true no it's never true yeah yes at that point it is you have to say no to it because that's the only way that you'll also get comfortable you know pricing it higher so every I would say 3 to six months I've I mean I've barely been in this industry for a year but every 3 to six months I try to increase my rate just a little bit and then I test the waters with it I ask Brands okay if if they give me a package I write down the cost of each deliverable and then I mention a price and I test the waters with them some of them say okay cool let's go ahead and do it some of them say no way mhm some of them ghost as well some of them ghost it's just the way it is so that's why you have to you can't really get a market rate it just depends on you and what you think you're worth yeah but that's the thing right I I I mean what you say is just not even shocking to me I'm not surprised that this is happening because there are so many big creatures who might not have you know a lot of years of experience in the market so they don't really know how it works and then if someone is telling them this is my budget and they think well they know how big I am so they probably think this is the money that I deserve and they will go with it and I think that is the danger of it and also what I've started to do two things the first thing is ask them for their budget first yeah right because then you might be really under under balling yourself so I asked for budget first and secondly is if they try to reduce my price I'm like okay but I will change my deliverables yes you can do that yeah and I think that's one way of telling them that I'm not agreeing with you that my value is this but if this is how you how much you can afford I can change what I'm offering you yeah and I think that's one way of working around them trying to like lowall you on what you think you deserve yes so and for me um I'm pretty open about I can't really mention okay this is the how much brand yeah I can't mention that but um I've got paid literally over the past I would say month for the same deliverables one brand has paid me $3,000 and one brand has paid me $9,000 for the same deliverables the same thing for the same thing and I've taken I've agreed to both because this gives me the money and this gives me the brand yes um them in my portfolio which is why I do it so you just have to think of multiple factors but yes there are many many macro influencers who still don't know how to charge which is so surprising to me there was also another brand manager that I met at an event and we were briefly talking about influencer rates she was asking me my rates I was sharing everything and she herself said oh there was this there was this one influencer she's got 500,000 followers on Tik Tok and we paid her $11,000 for four videos and I thought excuse me I asked her wait I I literally told her you know that's less right she's like yeah but it's our business we always Tred to lowball and the thing is these influencers don't know their rates and if they say yes they say yes they say yes oh God I was like I myself with a fifth of her following would not accept that yeah I would not have taken that exactly I would not have taken that and it's also I'm pretty sure there are many brands that even I've worked with who have gotten the better deal oh 100% for sure and that's where I think of okay this money is still a good money for me so I'm okay with it so I think you just have to find that the middle within yourself yeah honestly I remember as well starting off um I gave someone a whole reel on a whole episode of the podcast for an amount of money that it was looking back at I like you got it for free like you literally got it for free at this point but you know you learn and I'm I don't mind in the early stages whatever mistakes I made as long as now I'm a bit more um kind of intentional with the choices that I make and same as you you know like I feel like last quarter a lot of money needed to be spent yes so I made so much from different brand deals and then starting January on that because the money is still coming in and now you're like wait where's the money you know where are they I know but first quarter is always the toughest one to to crack so that's one thing with the influence the economy right you it's not like having a normal job it's not every month you can't expect a paycheck that comes in it goes up and down and that's all about money management but um yeah thanks for sharing that thank you and now let's talk a little bit about your you and your content you know which video I saw of yours first I don't think you'll know I don't think I told you no I don't think you have it was the one about your celebrity crush Michael Jordan Michael okay okay and I remember when your friend was he did he follow you or something listen this is so embarrassing he did not do anything except comment on one video and it was one emoji that's a lot he commented he saw one of your videos and he commented I'm sure it was his like personal assistant who's trying to do this Community Management stuff Community Management please but yeah I don't know yeah he commented on my video yeah so that's that's that was the first video I saw and I remember thinking oh my God and then I watched a lot of your videos okay and I remember a lot of people at the time were telling me because we blew up at the same time oh okay yes but then you because we have mutual friends from before as well right and they were telling me yeah twinkle you need to look at twinkle's content as well and I remember I been watched you one night and I was like this girl is so brave because you're talking about very like you know things that are very personal to you but you are very openly sharing it and I was like I wish I could be doing that I wish I could be doing that but um so how and I know my favorite thing about you now is how you name and shame especially with the photos it kills me but I I used to do that so I used to take a little screenshot of the comment and just post it on my story especially when it's like extremely ridiculous and I would get I I'm the opposite of you I get aunties that come at me okay okay like Auntie with her full name family name and everything with her picture of her and her kids and just saying really mean things to me for example one of them was saying that um what was it she said oh um I've spent a lot of time looking for your drawline and I couldn't find it I was like this is so me that's one the second one uh is the same person then she went on a different video and she was like imagine going on someone's podcast and just talking about yourself the whole time I was like first of all it's my own podcast what the hell right so how how do you deal with it and you get a lot of men who come at you yeah I get a lot of men comment on my videos I've honestly forgotten um the hate comments that I've gotten just cuz I get a lot but sometimes I open my Instagram and I get a DM from someone saying um hi Black Cow I don't really know what to say I like how you actually should think of a response what do I say like what like what do I actually say yeah I I don't know what to reply or I have people who um I think recently someone had message me saying oh you've got a burnt face or or stuff like that so it's a lot why do they come on your skin like this I they're obsessed with my skin color really I think a lot of them we have to talk about that and I think it's because when a woman is talking about her expectations from a relationship especially an Indian woman and she says it so openly that I need a guy to treat me like this then they look at oh but are you fair what you deserve yeah exactly are you light-skinned and if you're not Oh no you're yeah exactly that's what they that's those are the kind of comments that i' um I get I've also got comments oh my God this was this is the funniest one uh there was this one guy who commented on on my video saying oh she's dark skinned she's black so she's one of the leftovers so I I have no idea how she has the balls to um talk about they literally called me a leftover and I was so shocked by it but it's just a part of social media right what can you do please I don't get the colorism thing because I also got it like for me I got it from someone who sent me a DM being like you should use this this and this because I feel like you are probably fair but you don't know how to take care of your skin and I was like it's not even a hate comment it's like she hell I know that's even worse when they're just trying to help you wor it's worse but I like this is horrible this whole and it's all internalized colonialism at the end of the day right that's what US brand people do we we we chase the white skin yeah exactly and that is annoying that they say this to you does it get to you the whole color thing no even growing up in never bothered you no growing up it did I think in school and University it's not necessarily U it was never extreme where I thought to myself I just hate my skin it was never that but it's in the subtle embarrassment of your skin color where if you take a group picture and your the lighting is different for you and I'm like guys I need extra light so I think in those instances I used to feel a little bit embarrassed and for me personally um a huge part of that embarrassment came from I think my first relationship so it was in high school it was a young dumb relationship but a lot of his friends used to make fun of him because he was with me and I used to hear about it constantly in very subtle ways I used to hear about it so that's even worse when someone is embarrassed I don't think he was embarrassed but of course when people are making fun of you at at some point you it probably gets to you yeah uh so I used to come across those comments every once in a while I knew it was a topic of discussion and what actually really helped me get out of that mindset or get out of that embarrassment was when I joined uh when I did my internship at a fashion magazine was a Fashion Beauty magazine and on my first or yeah and on my first week of the internship um we had received this uh PR package of lipsticks and there was a black girl there who told me okay let's do an unboxing and we can show lipsticks in different skin tones oh amazing and I thought at I mean at first it caught me off card because up until then no one had referred to my skin color as just skin tone yeah because even in University or even in school because I went to an Indian School and an Indian University it's an unsaid thing that dark no one addresses it yeah no one really addresses it or even if they address it it's me making fun of myself so it was the first time where in a professional space someone acknowledged my skin color and they did it uh very NE in a from a neutral standpoint it wasn't even from a positive standpoint where they said oh you're so beautiful it wasn't that it was just oh yeah you have dark skin Let's do an unboxing and I feel like at that time that's all I wanted it to be and and from then I've just really embraced my skin I actually really love my skin color now I personally think it's I personally think it's such a rich skin color you should some uh some colors look great on me some don't and that's fine it's normal there are colors that don't suit a white person and that's okay so hey you can wear yellow yeah I might get con for that actually no you might you would but yeah I think I wasn't always comfortable but it was just literally that instant that changed uh things for me so now I'm very neutral about it yeah I I honestly it's so ridiculous and I've experienced it as well okay and because obviously I'm on the darker side as well and my sister is even more darker skinned than I am and growing up it it was always a comment that was there about her where it was more like people feeling bad for her color of her skin or darker and I I don't get it I I always used to think she looks better than I do so I don't understand so you see how like the innocent Minds don't see darker as being worse yes it's just darker yeah and I I had the same issue because at my graduation at University the lighting was so bad for me because everyone else was white and I was like I look so bad like you I look ashy oh my God and I was like why did no one fix the color for me and it's an individual photo like you could have fixed it for and then I I remember thinking this is something that people don't think about because they don't think okay you're a different color I need to make sure that your photo looks as good as well and I had I brought this up once in a group setting where I said okay but this light is not good for everybody we need to fix it so that everyone looks their best and then this became a huge discussion of like oh like you know people tend to think that the whole society is against them it's not this it's just we need trying to be inclusive so I think people get very touchy when we talk about skin color because even not just brown people right even black people and everyone even with black people you have people who are lighter skin and people who are darker skin and they have their own issues as well and I think it's so important to talk about it because now the younger girls are we still have fair and lovely cream yeah I saw the ads still like isn't prianka Trooper still doing the ads full fair and lovely and I was like girl what are you doing like come on and she talks about loving her own skin so I think we really need to have this open conversation of whatever color you are as you said it's just acknowledging that we all look different there's no good or bad it's just a difference in shade yeah and it's also approaching our the way we look from a neutral standpoint it doesn't have to be glorifying dark skin or you know um talking very highly of yourself and coming and saying I'm beautiful because I'm dark skin it doesn't have to be that way your dark skin your light skin that's it and the more neutral we are to you know our the way we look our body and our skin and whatever it is I feel like it's going to be easier to to navigate through these changes in our body because once we start expecting to always look beautiful to always love our skin it's not going to work that way so now I approach it from a very neutral standpoint there are still days where if we take a group photo and I look bad and I'm like oh my God like I look bad but that's fine it's okay it's just a bad day it just happens to be bad yeah so you don't yeah that's just my the way I tend to look at it okay but I'm so sorry you get those comments it re it would make me really annoyed but I like how you don't get annoyed about it it just doesn't bother you right no it doesn't that's good you've taken all the power away from it yeah it doesn't bother me at all I think what the only thing that bothers me is when people come to my profile and they're like uh please go get a job that bothers me because feel I work two jobs yes and I that's what bothers me is when they just assume that you don't do anything which is okay I don't blame them for it because when you come on my Instagram it does look like I don't work it does look like a little dumb which is fine um but that annoys me cuz this is honestly the best I've been in my life this is the most money I've made and for you to assume that I've made nothing that's it's also a little bit hilarious yeah but I feel like responding to it I feel like uh replying back and clapping back and saying oh I I've made so much money but you don't have to it's okay and also I could lose this money anytime so I try not to get too attached to it so yeah yeah I I know for me as well I I get a lot of comments being like yeah but this is probably all Daddy's Money oh you get that as well I get that a lot and because people just assume that surely you are not making money to sustain that lifestyle but as you said you know it's not worth replying unless you're shaming them on your video still you know it's for me it's when you zoom on their photos and you're like yeah this guy's calling me ugly yeah and the thing is influences are put not necessarily on this pedestal but um normal people expect so much from influencers if I reply to someone and I'm like please look at yourself I've literally had Commons uh to that thread saying look at this influencer who's body shaming my friend and I'm like please look at his comment first literally look at what he said first let's look at what he said yeah yeah let's look at what he said but no one will talk about it no one will come for that person but if I respond I'm put under this microscope my qu my values are questioned um everything that I say is suddenly questioned but yeah I just that's why I just put up their picture and I don't say anything so what are you going to hold what you going to hold account I'm not saying anything I'm just showing you this guy I'm just showing you this guy like look at the hate comment that I got now if you think a certain way that's on you yeah that's on you so I don't say anything and yeah no I agree and I think so for me I got into beef with a Tinder swindler oh he came and left a hate comment on one of my reals because obviously he's not happy about me empowering women you know who is he going to spindle so he was just like oh classic go back to the kitchen or something and I just remember replying a comment being like um aren't you running away from your enemies go hide you don't let them know you're here and then everybody started commenting but I think that's that's the main issue that people have with us as women as you said having an opinion and telling women not to take BS from anyone else and know your value and this is what's wrong with whatever is happening here here and it's it's it's a journey but another thing that bothers me are for you have these men on Instagram that make a whole following from [ __ ] on women right like it happened to you as well and I've seen this guy before [ __ ] on other female creators and I'm just like you are building a whole following from [ __ ] on people who are working hard on the internet and this is fine this is okay but you are not allowed to have an opinion but how did you handle this when this happened by the way so I actually barely watch videos where people Stitch me I just don't cuz that can I wouldn't say affect my mental health but it can put me in a bad mood and I just don't I don't even want to be in a bad mood I don't um so whenever I am tagged in such videos I usually just send it to my friend and I tell her listen I don't want to watch this but can you give it a watch and tell me if I should be worried or does it have to B me so I sent this person because someone tagged me in his video and I sent it to my friend and she literally watched the first 10 seconds and she's like he can barely string a sentence together y don't worry about him and she said this like yes hate Commons you do have to think about every once in a while you do have to care about it just not him don't worry about him and once you said that I just didn't bother like there's no point responding to these people I've had many creators actually not many I've had three creators who have used me to uh talk about different things and it's fine it's okay my videos are public I allow people to stitch my videos so it's up to you I just never engage with it cuz the last thing that I want to do is be associated with someone who I do not want to be associated with yes like his profile especially right no please don't put me on the same level as you so I don't like it I don't message I barely respond and I did have a few people message me after that and say oh he called you out what do you have to say and I said there are many people calling me out I don't have to respond to everyone don't explanation I don't especially when we're not on the same level I'm I say this humbly but I'm doing much better than him so I really don't have to yeah even respond to him that is a big win for him if I respond I don't even want to do that so yeah yeah so I feel like from you right from this whole conversation we've had you seem to have very good self-control mhm how do you do it I think more than self-control um yeah I think more than selfcontrol it probably has to do with the fact that I'm very uh like my self-concept is pretty strong I'm very secure in who I am I'm very secure in my relationships and that comes from my family and my friends and where I'm in my life and when you have a really strong network of people that actually love you and care about you and who are good people you really don't have to care about anyone else so because I have a very strong group of girlfriends a great family a great career a great job a great home I do not have to worry about what anyone talks about me and through these people I also have a very strong um concept of who I am I know myself really well yeah so it doesn't bother me I've had people who comment on my videos and call me a gold digger whose gold are you digging who's please tell me cuz I look at your videos and literally I can see stuff in your walls like I can see that your wall is breaking down who is going to take your where's the gold where's the gold but yeah so there are many people who call me gold digger there are many people who say that I'm moved out with my dad's money but people will talk and it's also because they can't relate to it they will not be able to do the things that I've done no so they probably assume that it's dad's money which is okay yeah I don't have to explain myself it's a compliment it's a compliment for me yeah it's a compliment yeah and I mean talking about you moving out I know you've moved out you live out on your own and everything but um it's just in the interest of time we don't have too much time to go deep into it but one question I have for you is obviously we've we've discussed how you deal with you know external validation clearly you don't need it because you you know who you are at the core but when it comes to things like you know dealing with adult life when challenges are thrown at you for example I know you're having issues with your landlord and you know just dealing with these little hiccups that come your way how do you handle it because for me for example right now I'm also dealing with like admin adult admin that is chewing at me I'm very bad at compound comp mentalizing and making sure that it doesn't impact my mood or the rest of what I do but how do you approach it so the thing with me is when I complain about things a lot or when I get upset about small things I end up getting really mad at myself because I do see the bigger picture of my life I understand how incredibly privileged I am so if my landlord is not giving me my security deposit it's fine because I was still able to move out into a really good place I'm getting money from different sources um so I really try to focus on that because if I the thing is once you start going down this this Rabbit Hole of U fixating on one thing that goes wrong your entire week or your entire month is just and I don't want to be that like I hate being uh irritated I always want to remain in eight that's my that's my mood number so I try not to focus on it I know it's not very helpful to say this but yeah and I honestly I understand how privileged I am so even when you ask me oh you deal with these adult things there are people who've like lost their homes and who've lost their parents and who grew up in slums or who GRE grew up in orphanages so I always try to think of the fact that you know my security deposit is nothing compared to that so I don't yeah I talk about on my Instagram just cuz it's funny and just cuz I like to vent but I I don't internalize it out I don't take it very personally so I like this because most of us tend to compare above right but you compare with people who might have it a little bit worse than you and that makes you feel more gratitude towards what you have so the little things don't have that much power anymore okay that's very nice so final thing that we we do on the podcast is of course we would love to for being here thank you so much and these are the flowers for you thank you and now final question is if you had to give a flower to someone else as in metaphorically you know who would you like to celebrate like as a woman which woman would you like to celebrate in life she's not a woman but she's my niece she's four years old is that fine yeah she's so cute she woke up early today to make a necklace and a bracelet for me she's 4 years old so this would be for her amazing her name is Tiara very cute I love it beautiful name so there was a card in it from a previous guest and you're going to write a card for the next guest as well oh that's amazing yeah wait who was your previous guest Salama oh you've had Salama as well okay amazing yes so thank you so much do you have a final message you would love to share with do people usually give a final message they do oh my God I was going to say I don't really have a final message uh my final message would be for young women out there for young women out there try to get aligned within yourself that's all like your thoughts your feelings and your actions once it aligns your life just changes incredibly to get to that alignment is difficult but once you get there but life is magical so that's just my advice sorry that's my message and how do you get there a lot of affirmations and a lot of visualizing what you want your dream life to be um and self- introspection I guess yes and also as much as you dream as much as you visualize nothing is going to happen until it's completely backed by action every single day but once all of those come together you're dreaming you're intentional and it's also backed by action literally like your life can entirely change so that's my biggest message I always say this to my friends as well which is alignment can bring you so much magic into your life I love that thank you so much thank you so much for having me no thank you and we'll see you next time yes when is your next season uh in two months okay that's soon okay all the best to you as well I think you've done an incredible job at this podcast you've got some amazing names so it's as a brown girl I'm very proud of you and I hope to see more thank you so much thank you so much [Music]