Audio Title: show_11985242_2021_08_20_17_12_25
Audio Duration: 0:42:10
Number of Speakers: 2
Transcript
[You’re listening to From the Bottom to the Top, the show about how to bring your business to the top in sales, productivity and profits, coming to you from the Mauldin Group Studio. Here’s your host, Ms. Bonnie “Rainmaker” Mauldin.]
Bonnie Mauldin: Hey, hey, hey. Thanks for listening to the show today. Bonnie Mauldin here from the Mauldin Group, your number one spot when you want to go from the bottom to the top. I have another awesome business spotlight for you. Today we have Sandy Grigsby. She is a personal branding and image expert, a TEDx speaker and Confidence Catalyst.
She began her career as a graphic and web designer, later transitioning into personal branding photography to better capture the expertise and confidence she saw in her clients.
For over 10 years, she has created remarkable personal brand transformations through her photos and rebranding. She has even donated photo sessions and personal branding consultations to support low income women reentering the workforce.
Today Sandy helps discover their inner confidence, reinvent how the world sees them and show up as totally wow. Isn’t that awesome? Sandy, thank you so much for being on this show. Welcome, welcome.
Sandy Grigsby: Thank you so much for having me Bonnie. I’m excited to be here.
Bonnie Mauldin: There’s a round of applause for you there.
Sandy Grigsby: Yes.
Bonnie Mauldin: Well, I love your Confidence Catalyst trademark there. Tell us the story behind that.
Sandy Grigsby: Well, it started when I was doing the photography and I was working with people and I had transitioned from the graphic design, web design into that and I hadn’t quite found my thing for photography. So, you know, I was watching at a photographer’s training session. They were hugely successful.
I’m like, “What is it they do?” and I remember one photographer had said, “You will know what your thing is when you look at your collective work.”
So it took me some time. I started looking at all of the pictures and the one common denominator I had, it wasn’t specifically style but it was that every single person in my photos looked super confident.
Then one day I was on a photo session with this beautiful girl and we were in San Francisco shooting her and she started bawling on the streets because cars were going by and she said people are looking at her. I’m like, “Oh, OK.”
Then I realized that she had had so much negative talk towards herself. Her family told her she was too fat, she was ugly, she was all of these things and none of it was true. I kind of just shake her a little bit and say, “You’re none of these things.”
I made a joke and she started laughing and that’s when I caught the money shot. Her eyes lit up. She was so beautiful and that was her headshot that eventually got her her husband.
So from that point, I realized my magic power was bringing out the confidence and that magical spark that people have that light them up and show them as their best self.
Bonnie Mauldin: I love that Sandy because a lot of people don’t take pictures and they don’t do video because they don’t like the way they look because they don’t have the confidence.
Sandy Grigsby: A hundred percent true.
Bonnie Mauldin: It is true. What are some of the things you’re doing that’s bringing that confidence level up?
Sandy Grigsby: Well, to begin, before I photograph anyone – and the mistake I see photographers make is they will put you on the calendar and you just show up. There’s no preparation. Most people have no idea what to do in front of a camera. They don’t know what to wear. They don’t know how to smile. They don’t know how to stand and so when you’re in that situation, you feel very uncomfortable. Not to mention you usually don’t know who the photographer is, that you feel really uncomfortable with that person and then it shows in your photos.
I’m sure Bonnie you’ve seen the pictures where the person looks uptight or maybe even constipated. You’re like, “What’s wrong with them?” That’s because they were really uncomfortable in that moment. So what I do is before anyone shows up for photos with me, I have a consultation call with them and it’s like anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending on what we’re covering, and I have them fully prepare before their photo sessions, so they know exactly what they’re wearing. They know the type of shots we’re going to take. They’ve already made an introduction to my make-up artist. They know that they’re getting fed.
Like the list goes on and on so they’re fully prepared. Then when they get there, they feel like they already know me because we’ve had consultations. We’ve talked. We made jokes. We had a great time and they get there. They already know what they’re wearing, so they’re not stressed out.
It’s so much more relaxing and then as I’m photographing them, I hit little markers, things that I can say and do to get people to open up to me and then I pull that confidence out of them. A lot of that feels it’s going back into their memory and pulling out confident moments. It worked like a charm every single time.
Bonnie Mauldin: Oh. So I can’t help but to think of Austin Powers when he’s like, “You’re a tiger! You’re a tiger!”
Sandy Grigsby: Exactly. I kind of have done that before. Give me a roar.
Bonnie Mauldin: Exactly.
Sandy Grigsby: Yeah. Roar!
Bonnie Mauldin: Just this kind of photoshoot you’re going after. All right. So you’re the brand expert. So tell us the difference between a personal brand and personal branding.
Sandy Grigsby: Yeah. OK. I hear that people get that confused all the time. So a personal brand is everything discoverable about you. So it’s what people pull up when they do a Google search. It’s what they find on your website. It’s what they peruse through your social media and discover. It’s things that other people are saying to you. It’s things that media, news outlets, reports, anything that they can find, even things that you say.
So if you meet someone, whatever you say to them or whatever the person who invited you to the event says to them about you, that’s your personal brand while personal branding is the actual process you take, the steps you take, the actions that you take to create the narrative, what you want people to discover and that’s where people miss the mark.
They don’t realize that their personal brand is out there. It’s already established whether you do anything about it or not. So you have to take the rein and you have to manage the personal branding, the narrative, so that you can control the story and you know what’s out there and you know what people think about you.
Bonnie Mauldin: Oh, that’s interesting. So I guess you have to sit down and come up with a narrative and create the story before you can begin, right?
Sandy Grigsby: Exactly. But what I do is different from the rest because most people work with personal branding people and then they create – like you said they create the narrative. They tell you what’s what. But that’s not authentic. So I put my clients through a process where they go back in time and they discover who they were when they were young because who you were as a child is who you are authentically.
Think about it, Bonnie. How were you when you were a little girl? Like think like three, four, five years old, when you were just a little thing. What was your personality like. What were you like?
Bonnie Mauldin: Very friendly, always drawing pictures, always telling stories.
Sandy Grigsby: Storyteller, an artist and friendly. So usually when people are friendly, that means they are compassionate and they are loving. Would you agree?
Bonnie Mauldin: Yes.
Sandy Grigsby: Yes. OK. Now flash forward. How are you today?
Bonnie Mauldin: The exact same.
Sandy Grigsby: There you go and some people will go, “Well, I’m really not.” Then they think about it and they go, “But I wish I were. I have all these things getting away. I have so much weight on my shoulders from my job. My relationship is not working out. I had so many bad experiences. I’m kind of not that way anymore.”
But then when they think about it, they go, “But I’m happiest when I’m that way.” So it goes back to figuring out who you were as a child and then incorporating those authentic elements. So how you actually are because you’re born that way, back into who you are today, and then pushing that through into your personal brand. So when people see images of you, they see a video of you, they look at you on websites. They find a copy about you. They read articles about you and then they actually meet you. They go, “Oh! You’re exactly what I had imagined.”
Once that happens, the hard work is done because they had instant like and credibility with you and they will trust you and that’s the most important part when you’re marketing yourself.
Bonnie Mauldin: I love that. It’s very insightful Sandy. So a lot of people think about their business and they want to brand it. How do you separate business branding from personal branding?
Sandy Grigsby: You know, that’s a great question. I have a lot of people ask me that o ne as well, especially executives. I work with a lot of CEOs and they say, “Well, you know, I have a corporate. I go under my corporation and I don’t think branding myself is that important.”
It’s so important especially if you have a business because your personal brand is about you and if it’s your business, if you’re the owner or even if you work for the company and you’re upper management or just even a regular employee, you represent that business.
So when people discover things about you, you want it to be the best thing that they can find and you want it to be authentic so that they again like you and trust you. If they like you and trust you, by default, they will want what your business offers.
So I work with doctors. For example I have a doctor here. I’m in Bali right now and I have a doctor that I’m working with and her whole entire business, she had this plastic surgeon, dermatology clinic. Nowhere was there anything about her.
When I got to Bali, I went to see her because I was having some skin issues and I wanted her to correct it and I couldn’t even remember her name because I was given her WhatsApp number because everything is done here on WhatsApp and I had found her Instagram page and I listed the number. I found everything about what they offer. But I couldn’t even find her name. I didn’t know what she looked like and I almost cancelled my appointment. The only reason I went was because a friend told me, “You must go see this dermatologist. She’s absolutely the best one in Bali. She’s wonderful. You will just love her.”
So I trusted my friend. But had I not heard that from the friend, I would have skipped that business right away because there was no personable – there was no one to like or trust. But lucky for me I went. I met her. She was drop-dead gorgeous. She was super knowledgeable. She was so kind. She was so gentle and I had a talk with her and now when you go to her Instagram profile, there’s her name. There are pictures and videos of her and she has completely changed her branding and her business has grown because of it.
So having a personal brand in alignment with your business is super important because again, it goes back to that know, like and trust factor. You want people to know you, like you and trust you and in turn they will buy whatever it is that you’re selling.
Bonnie Mauldin: You’re absolutely right. So what is the biggest mistake that people make in their personal brand?
Sandy Grigsby: Oh. Oh, yeah. The biggest mistake is not taking their online image seriously. I think that’s the biggest one I’ve seen. So I’m sure you’ve seen it where someone wants – you know, you have solicitors, right? They solicit you. Oh, hire me to do your website or hire me to do this or that and then you look at their profile and you’re like, “Oh, their pictures are really grainy and dark and they look kind of sloppy and like the lighting is bad. Oh, god, why would they post? Oh, that food did not look good.”
All of a sudden you start analyzing everything on their profile and you’re like, “If they don’t take this much care in their own thing, how do I know they’re going to do such a great job for me?” So when people don’t take their image seriously, the instant impression that others get is if they don’t care about themselves, how are they going to care about me for the service that they’re going to provide?
Unfortunately people are visual creatures and they make a snap decision on something within 30 milliseconds. They’ve actually done studies where they tested people who only had a slight view of someone. They didn’t even see the full face. They covered the face but they got a slight view and they had an impression within 30 milliseconds of whether they would trust that person or not.
So your online image has to be the best version of you. It doesn’t mean you have to be happy in every single moment but look like you take care of yourself. Look like you pay attention to the details. Look like how you are authentically. If you’re a happy person, show it in your images. If you’re one of those stoic, serious people, that’s great. Show that in your images. You don’t have to be happy if you’re not that happy, bubbly person because at least if someone is looking for someone who’s stoic and serious, they would know you’re that person and they will trust you to be that.
Bonnie Mauldin: Holy cow! Thirty milliseconds is all you have for people to make that snap decision. That’s a really interesting statistic. Thank you for sharing that.
Sandy Grigsby: Yeah, yeah.
Bonnie Mauldin: So that lets us know how really important that is and how people are making decisions based on what that personal image and brand looks like online and if your picture isn’t there, you can lose business. If the picture isn’t good, you can lose business. That’s incredible.
Sandy Grigsby: Exactly. And this has nothing to do with beauty. I have a lot of clients say to me, “Oh Sandy, I’m not as beautiful. No one is going to pick me.” I said you – everyone I believe is beautiful, everyone, especially in their own unique way. Each one is different. Everybody is different and so it’s not so much about the physical aesthetics. It’s about the attention to detail.
So if you take care of your hair, you take care of your skin, you wear clothes that are suitable for you, they’re the right color for you, they’re authentically your color, you show up, you pay attention to the thoughts that you put on your graphics. You pay attention to the cropping. Everything looks like you really care about it.
That’s more important than overall beauty because again, it delivers that message that you care and if you care, you’re going to care about the service that you provide for people who are looking to hire you.
Bonnie Mauldin: That’s right. When we come back from this commercial break, Sandy, I want to talk to you about where you get started when you’re trying to build a personal brand. Like what is the first step? What is the second step? What is the third step? Where are all these steps? So let’s get into that in just a second or maybe just a minute.
Sandy Grigsby: OK.
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Bonnie Mauldin: All right. We are back. Woo-hoo! Celebration! OK. So Sandy, when launching a personal brand, where do you get started?
Sandy Grigsby: Well, the first thing you have to do is get super clear on how you define yourself. So how do you want the world to see you? What does that look like? That goes back to the first question I asked you Bonnie is, “How were you as a child?” So how do you want to define yourself? So once you know how that is – are you playful? Are you joyous? Are you serious? Are you – do you have a good sense of humor? What is that thing? How do you want to define yourself?
Once you know what that is, then you move to stage two which is designing your own unique colors and style. I have a process that I put my clients through that gets them super clear on what their subconscious colors are.
So you might think you’re – oh, I love burgundy or I love pink and you might actually find out that your subconscious colors, the things that you naturally gravitate towards without even knowing it are completely different. So getting clear on what your colors are and then what your style is.
What does that look like? I see that a lot of my clients start out trying to follow trends and they never work for them and they end up having huge closets full of clothes that they never wear and they hate everything and they can’t figure out why because they fell into trends.
So if you get really clear on what your unique style is, you create your own trend and then you feel so fabulous in it. You show up with more allure and presence than you ever have before.
Then the third step would be once you have your colors, you have your style, you know how you want the world to see you, you get your photos taken and you get photos taken that look and feel like how you are. So if someone were to hang out with you and know you and trust you and like you, your photos completely represent that.
After you have photos, you create your quick pitch in your bio. So your quick pitch is how you describe what you do very quickly. So if you had to get in an elevator and it was going down only one floor and you had to quickly tell someone what you do, that’s your quick pitch.
Then you want to always have a bio handy because once your personal brand starts moving, that’s when people start asking you to be on their podcasts, on their shows. They want to write articles. So you always want to have a quick bio ready so you can submit it very quickly.
Then you want to create online profiles that are clear, clear meaning people get to it. They see your image. You look great because you just had those pictures taken. It matches your colors. Your message is clear. Your little bio is up there. People know what you offer right away.
Then you want to post consistently and engage and the most important thing to do with your personal brand, with everything – it doesn’t matter what you do. Have fun with it because if you’re stressed out and you hate it, it will show. But if you’re like, “Oh, well, I messed that up. That was hilarious. Let me do a story on that one,” and you have fun with it, then people will see you as authentic and really want to work with you.
Bonnie Mauldin: All right. So to recap, you said colors. You need to have your style. Get your photos taken and then come up with an elevator pitch and come up with your bio and always have it handy and then set up your online profiles and you want to post to them constantly, consistently and engage and more than anything, have fun.
Sandy Grigsby: And the first one is get clear on how you define yourself.
Bonnie Mauldin: Get clear on how you define yourself. OK.
Sandy Grigsby: Yes.
Bonnie Mauldin: So, tell me about your photography business. How did you get started with that and what’s the process of getting started with you if someone were interested?
Sandy Grigsby: Well, I actually started out when I was about 18. Someone recommended that I do some modeling work. So I started out doing commercial modeling work. So I was living in San Francisco and there wasn’t a lot of like runway or – you know, not a lot of film stuff there. So I just ended up doing commercials like doing T-Mobile with my big one. I’m actually the Sidekick girl. So if you ever had that Sidekick phone, I’m the girl that was on the box and it was on TV, it was on posters, everything.
Bonnie Mauldin: Oh, cool.
Sandy Grigsby: Yeah. They actually called me Sidekick Sandy at corporate. It’s hilarious. But modeling is where I started and then I went to the university and I got a degree in visual communication. So actually had a graphic design degree and I started working for some of the top photographers in Los Angeles doing their website for their celebrity clients. So for example, do you remember the famous Olympian Carl Lewis?
Bonnie Mauldin: Yeah.
Sandy Grigsby: Yes. He was one of my clients working for the celebrity photographers and I built his website back in the day. So I designed it and built it and, you know, we had Moe Greene and some other famous Olympians and celebrities and like Master P was one of our clients. Like I can’t even tell you. There are so many …
Bonnie Mauldin: What?
Sandy Grigsby: But yeah, that’s a – Shemar Moore was another one. So we worked with a lot of celebrities and I ended up going – transitioning from doing graphic design and started freelancing and then I was building websites for again doctors, artists, musicians, all kinds of different people, and the one thing that kept coming back consistently was they had a horrible photo.
So I kept asking them. Can you get your new pictures taken? And they were still always horrible. So finally I was so frustrated. I’m like, “Let me just teach them how to pose. I will just take the picture,” and I didn’t know what I was doing.
So I ended up taking some pictures and out of luck because I had learned how to retouch so well, I was able to correct them and make them look decent. Then every time I took more pictures, I kept going, “OK. Remember having to retouch that,” and it’s the hour. So how can I photograph this where I don’t have to retouch that?
I ended up getting better and better and better and then eventually again, I looked at the collective body work and I realized that the common denominator was the confidence and that’s how I transitioned into photography.
For photography, when someone wants to work with me, they visit my photography website. It’s www.briofive.com and on there is a link to sign up for a sales call. Yeah, you got to go through that process and we don’t accept everyone for photo sessions because we want to make sure that the people who come to us are committed to going through the process.
So I have actually turned down celebrities and executives who refuse to go through my process because it’s so specific that we do it and the results are guaranteed.
So if they refuse to go through the process, then we can’t guarantee the results. But the people that do go through it, like I work with so many executives and corporate people and people who are in all different spaces, entertainment and technology. They have such incredible results and it absolutely changed their lives and their businesses. So it’s worth going through the process.
Bonnie Mauldin: Go through the process! Oh my gosh. If you go to www.briofive.com – respect the process. It’s what we say around here because process is so important.
Sandy Grigsby: Yes, yes.
Bonnie Mauldin: If you to www.briofive.com, like seriously go to www.briofive.com like right now and when you do, you are going to see the most amazing before-and-after pictures.
Sandy Grigsby: Thank you. I love my before-and-afters. They’re really powerful and when I’ve done work with Dress for Success for example, I photographed some of the women from there. The before-and-afters are incredible. I actually have some of them on the website.
Bonnie Mauldin: I love that. Congratulations on your journey Sandy and, you know, you finding your way to photography by way of graphic design and web design and you know you’re meant to do something when you care a lot. The photo piece really hurt you that it didn’t really meet your standards and you said, you know, “I’m just going to do it myself. Let me take your picture.”
Then you took the picture and it’s like oh, I think I’m really good at this. I’m going to keep going and you did and lo and behold, you’re like, “This was a phenomenal photographer making people confident, helping people brand, growing businesses left and right.” I mean …
Sandy Grigsby: Thank you Bonnie.
Bonnie Mauldin: … seriously, you just go. You go.
Sandy Grigsby: You know Bonnie, I have to interject with one thing. I have to interject with one thing there. I actually wasn’t confident and that’s why I teach people confidence because when I started doing photography, I knew I could fix the images. But I had no idea what I was doing. So every single photo session, I would break down into a sweat. I would be super nervous. I would have a restless night sleep before and as my clients walked in, I thought, “Oh my god. What am I going to do? What if I bomb this photoshoot? What is the worst one ever? What if they hate my pictures? What if they fire me?”
I thought that almost every single photo session for the first three years of doing photography, three years. So it took constant repetition and then the end result was always fabulous and I had to finally acknowledge it for myself and listen to what people were telling me as opposed to doing negative self-talk and beating myself up with, “I’m not good enough. It should be better. It’s not perfect.”
Once I broke past that, that’s when I started to go, “Wait a minute. I’m great at this.” Then I owned my confidence and I was better at drawing it out in other people.
Bonnie Mauldin: Well, thanks for sharing that because usually when you see someone confident and good at what they do, like you, you think they’re always that way and they’ve always been that way.
Sandy Grigsby: No.
Bonnie Mauldin: But that’s not the case.
Sandy Grigsby: No.
Bonnie Mauldin: You worked your way to this level of confidence and expertise. That’s what it’s all about. It’s the journey starting from a low place and then getting to a high place and that’s why we call this show “From the Bottom to the Top” and that’s what you will find here in that story because you’re like, “I was not confident at all. Now I’m super confident.” So bottom to the top …
Sandy Grigsby: Yes, exactly.
Bonnie Mauldin: … right there in action.
Sandy Grigsby: And if you go to my second website for my personal brand, because I teach personal branding, it’s www.sandyinfocus.com. You can actually see my journey because I post how my pictures looked in 2012 I believe up until now and the transformation there. It’s really interesting to look at.
Bonnie Mauldin: Yeah, that’s really good. OK. So another thing you did was a TED talk. So how did that come about?
Sandy Grigsby: You know, I have a really wonderful friend named John Lim who invited me as a guest on his podcast and he was so impressed by what I was doing with my photography, that he actually spoke about me on his TEDx talk and then he recommended me to the board and they invited me to be a speaker.
I was so nervous, I had never done anything like that. I hadn’t done much public speaking. I mean I’ve done acting and things like that in the past. But public speaking was a little bit different and I was super nervous. I ended up doing it. I almost bailed like the day before because I totally bombed my rehearsal. I was in tears. I was like shaking and sweating through my clothes. It was a mess.
Then I remembered this isn’t about me. It doesn’t matter what happens on the stage and my brain was thinking all the negative things would happen because it would be filmed and posted on TED’s website for eternity, right?
And I thought this isn’t about me. If I can help one person in the audience and I can change one person’s life, I was a success. So the moment I walked on stage, that’s what I thought and I forgot all of the worries and boom, I did my TEDx talk and it was so powerful and I changed lives. I know I did because I’ve had people reach out to me afterwards saying, “Wow, your TEDx talk changed things for me.” So you just have to do it. You need to get out of your head. You need to get out of your way and you have to do it and now …
Bonnie Mauldin: Fake it until you make it.
Sandy Grigsby: Yeah. I went to Africa. I went to South Africa and I spoke on stages there, helping people in South Africa. This was back in 2019 before the lockdown and, you know, it’s interesting. Once I did that, I built a huge following in South Africa and now to this day, a lot of people have enrolled in my personal branding program. One girl out of South Africa, in the middle of COVID, because she was taking my program and she was doing everything, she was following the process, she not only got a job, she got a promotion in her job. She was recruited from another company, got another job and now to this day, she just got her dream job all because she followed the process in COVID in South Africa where everyone else is losing their jobs and had no work.
Bonnie Mauldin: Wow. That’s the power of personal branding. So how do you sign up for that?
Sandy Grigsby: Yes. So that one is – you can go to www.sandyinfocus.com and find all the information there. This program we have is Confidence Jam, which is a do-it-yourself nine-week program to help you brand yourself on your own and then we have Reveal You which is kind of like personal branding mentoring. So we mentor you through the process. You get on 12 weeks of group coaching call with me and I help you go through the whole entire process. So you don’t have to do it on your own. So those are all in www.sandyinfocus.com.
Bonnie Mauldin: That’s nice. That’s three whole months, group coaching. Yay!
Sandy Grigsby: Oh, it’s awesome. I’ve had – you know, it’s funny because I actively target women because I just love working with women. You know, come on. Bonnie, we’re so much fun, aren’t we? And out of all of the women, I get so many guys that come through my program. Like just today I had two guys sign up for the personal branding, the Reveal You Program and they heard about it from other guys who have gone to the program that said it changed their lives.
So now I have all these guys signing up for the program. Like I’m not even marketing to guys at all. But I welcome guys because I think they definitely need it. But it’s funny that I have so many in the program.
Bonnie Mauldin: Yeah. I mean guys need it too. They do.
Sandy Grigsby: Absolutely, absolutely.
Bonnie Mauldin: Well, congratulations on the coaching program in addition to the photography business, in addition to the speaking career. Tell me …
Sandy Grigsby: Thank you.
Bonnie Mauldin: You’re welcome. You know, hats off for real. You said acting is different from public speaking. How so?
Sandy Grigsby: Well, for me it was because at that time when I was acting, I was actually had really low confidence and so I believe there had to be a character. So it’s putting on a persona and I was actually hiding more than anything.
Once I started doing public speaking, I stopped acting. I didn’t need to be a persona. I needed to be myself and one of the biggest struggles I see people face – and I felt I faced this myself as an actor. I would go to auditions and they would say, “Just be yourself,” and I remember being so nervous that I would leave the audition, get in my car. I wouldn’t drive away. I would just sit there and bawl because I didn’t know what myself was. I didn’t know what that meant.
So to be yourself, like how do I do myself? I didn’t even know me and I went through a journey to discover who I am and that’s actually what I teach in my program is how to really understand who you are. I take people back to that childhood because that’s the first point where you really can feel who you are.
But once you understand yourself – now when you get on stage, all the butterflies, all that nervousness goes away because you’re just being you. When you truly know who that is, it’s easy. For example Bonnie, how would you describe yourself if you were to run into you?
Bonnie Mauldin: Oh. Well, Bonnie is very friendly. She’s very smart and she’s helpful and she’s super creative.
Sandy Grigsby: Super creative. OK. So now imagine you’re walking down the street. OK? And you walk up to a person that you’ve never met before in your entire life, brand new person.
What you don’t know is that person is actually you Bonnie. It’s you and you strike up a conversation. Now you guys have the same things in common. You grew up in the same town. Your parents were named the same. You had the same high school that you went to. You went to the same job. You enjoy the same activities. You share the same beverages. Everything is the same.
At the end of our conversation talking about what you like to do for work, what your hobbies are, where you want to go on vacation, what your future dreams are, as you’re about to part, you think to yourself, “Would you love to hang out with that person again?” What would the answer be?
Bonnie Mauldin: Absolutely.
Sandy Grigsby: Absolutely, right? Believe it or not Bonnie, people say no.
Bonnie Mauldin: Oh, that’s not good.
Sandy Grigsby: It pains me when people say no. People go, “No, I would never want to hang out with me.” Then I ask why and the answer usually is, “Well, I’m not where I think I should be in my life,” or “I went through a lot of hard times,” or “Everything doesn’t work out for me,” or “I’m just not smart enough,” or “I’m not funny enough,” or, you know, “Everyone is better than me. I’m just not enough.”
That’s the thing that runs through people’s minds on a consistent basis. So when I ask them that question, “If they ran into themselves, would they like themselves?” and their answer is no. But I didn’t ask if they would like the bad things. I asked, “If you were hanging out and you were talking about the great situations and all the things that are wonderful in your life, would you like that person?” and once they took that tweak, they thought about like, actually, yeah, I would really like myself.
That’s the first step to knowing who you are because if you know you like yourself, you know how to define yourself. Then getting up on stage and just speaking isn’t a scary thing because you’re just being you and you are freaking awesome.
Bonnie Mauldin: That’s it, that’s it.
Sandy Grigsby: That’s it.
Bonnie Mauldin: Sandy, so you do that for people. I really like that exercise you did just there. That’s such a blessing to bring that type of perspective to people especially when they’re internally torturing themselves with those negative thoughts.
Sandy Grigsby: Yes, yes. Negative talk is a killer. It’s a killer. It takes people down a path of darkness and I’m not going to say I’m – oh, I’m so perfect. I’m so happy and super all the time because that’s what people think. But it’s actually not true. I mean even recently, I went through my own self-doubt and because I’m aware of it, awareness is really important. You have to be aware of these things as they’re happening. But because I’m aware of it, I’m able to trace down where it’s actually coming from.
So a few weeks back, I was feeling really low. I wasn’t sure of – you know, are the things that I’m doing working? Is my social media growing? Are the – you know, the tools that I’m teaching people, are they even right? Like I was doubting myself.
Then I had to stop and go, “What am I doing?” I’m really, really, really good at what I do. When I talk to people about personal branding, when I talk to them about confidence, when I help them with their photos, I light up. I’m like a burning ball of beautiful fire and it’s like a halo of light comes around me and I’m infectious in that sense of they want to expand how they are and be a burning ball of light as well, right? I ignite.
So I’m sitting here doubting myself and then I had to look at everything in my circumstance and I realize that it wasn’t actually my negative thoughts. It was hormonal. There’s so much more that happens to why we doubt it. But if we’re not aware, we can allow it to become something different than it really is.
Once I realized it was hormonal, I quickly shifted my diet. I started drinking more water, started working out and I started to meditate and that cleared out the negative self-talk ideas and I reignited myself back to the person that I actually am.
Bonnie Mauldin: So diet, water, exercise and meditation.
Sandy Grigsby: Uh-huh.
Bonnie Mauldin: Very good.
Sandy Grigsby: All of those things. You have to take care of yourself and I tell people you have to start. It starts with self-care. Take care of yourself. The “T” in START is time ownership. Take control of your time. Don’t give it away like free candy to people. Then action, take action. Get off your rear end. Do something. Do that thing that you want to do.
If it’s time for you to launch a personal brand, do it. If it’s time for you to market your business, do it. If it’s time for you to make that sales call, do it. Don’t sit around and pining and oh and ah, um-ing and doubting yourself. Just take action and do it.
The R in START is reset. Once you’ve done it, reset yourself. Hydrate. Meditate. Take a hot bath. Go get a massage. Shake it out. Stand up. Go for a walk. Reset your body and mind so you can start fresh and then the T in START is total immersion. Go back into that thing you’ve taken action on and immerse yourself in it totally and 100 percent because when you deep-dive and you do the deep work to get something done, that’s where the detail comes in. That’s where the skill comes in and that’s where you actually make a difference in what you’re doing. So you just have to start.
Bonnie Mauldin: All right, people. There you have it. A burning ball of light. She said she ignites. She is just a ray of sunshine and Sandy, I’m so glad you took the time to talk with us today about confidence catalyst and being a personal branding image expert. You can go to Sandy.
Sandy Grigsby: Thank you Bonnie.
Bonnie Mauldin: And get a photography – you’re welcome. You can go to Sandy and get photography. You can go to Sandy and get the in-focus program with the 12 weeks of coaching or the Confidence Jam. You can go to Sandy and get professional photography, www.briofive.com. And then what was the other one? Sandyinfocus.com.
Sandy Grigsby: Yeah.
Bonnie Mauldin: My goodness. So much you can do with Sandy and …
Sandy Grigsby: Yeah, there’s so much. Ultimately, personal branding, branding you confidently.
Bonnie Mauldin: She has got something for you, no matter what.
Sandy Grigsby: There you go.
Bonnie Mauldin: You can even go to TED. You can check out her TED talk too. Was that www.ted.com?
Sandy Grigsby: Yeah. If you go to www.ted.com, just type in in the search bar “Sandy Grigsby” and my talk comes right up.
Bonnie Mauldin: It’s so good. It’s so good, you guys. I listened to it. I was like, “Yes, this is it. This is the thing here.”
Sandy Grigsby: Oh, thank you.
Bonnie Mauldin: All right. So we’re going to close out right now. Can you again share your contact information? I just did but I want to do it one more time just in case they didn’t catch it and …
Sandy Grigsby: Yes.
Bonnie Mauldin: … let’s …
Sandy Grigsby: You can follow me on Instagram.
Bonnie Mauldin: Uh-huh.
Sandy Grigsby: On Instagram, my handle is @sandyinfocus. So “Sandy in Focus” is pretty much my social media handle across the board and my website is www.sandyinfocus.com and Brio Five is my photography business and yeah, I would love to hear from anyone. We have a wonderful quiz on www.sandyinfocus.com or you could go – yeah. Just go there. There’s a quiz on there. It’s about your personal brand and how confident you are in it.
Bonnie Mauldin: All right. There you go, From the Bottom to the Top, Sandy Grigsby. She is the bomb ya’ll!
Sandy Grigsby: Oh my goodness. Thank you Bonnie.
Bonnie Mauldin: You’re super welcome, Sandy. I’m loving this confidence thing because a lot of us are just like hiding behind ourselves and just not confident enough to get the pictures out there, to get the video out there, to get ourselves out there because for some reason we think we’re going to get rejected when actually you just got to fake it until you make it even though you’re not super confident. You just go out there and do it anyway and keep doing it until it’s successful. So …
Sandy Grigsby: You know, the only person you reject is yourself, Bonnie.
Bonnie Mauldin: That’s it.
Sandy Grigsby: When you don’t put your pictures out there, you don’t put your brand out, you’re rejecting yourself. So just kind of stop doing that. Step out into the light.
Bonnie Mauldin: Step into the light! Step into the light. I’m really good with that. So thank you again everybody who’s listening to this podcast right now, From the Bottom to the Top. We appreciate you. See you again same time next week.
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