i want to share something about one of our students because i think it needs to be said out loud in this community... a few months ago @Stacy Parks was a stay at home mom of three in northern arizona, homeschooling her kids, supporting her husband, and quietly carrying the weight of feeling like she needed to do something more. she had spent a full year in digital marketing through network marketing and made absolutely nothing. and when you pour that much of yourself into something and see zero return it does something to your belief system. it makes you start to wonder if maybe you are just not cut out for this kind of thing.... she almost let that stop her. but she stayed open. and that is the only reason i am writing this post right now. she found UGC. she found this community. and she just did it. she started in april's UGC Games with no expectations. just a willingness to figure it out one week at a time around her kids, around her family schedule, around everything she was already carrying. and in June she made just under $5,000 from one brand!!! her husband watched the earnings go up on the platform every single day. he would look at the screen and just say... wow. because they both knew what it took to get here and they both knew what it meant for their family! the UGC games were a massive part of this. going through that challenge pushed her to show up in a way she would not have pushed herself to do alone. the competition, the accountability, the community energy. it cracked something open in her and she came out the other side knowing she could actually do this for real, which is EXACTLY why we host it. she joined the UGC games, put her absolute all in, and won. and she deserved every bit of that recognition. so if you are a mom sitting here right now wondering if this is for you. if you have tried other things and failed and you are starting to believe the story that you are just not the type of person who gets to win at something like this...

a brand emailed me last month offering $4,000 for a 90-second video. I read the brief. they wanted me to promote a women's "fertility tracking" app that I'd never used, didn't believe in, and frankly thought was scammy. I said no. I want you to understand how much my brain fought me on this. $4,000. that's a month of rent and groceries and savings in a single email. and I said no. my brain kept going: "you can just do it once. you don't have to actually use the product. you've done other ads for products you don't use. why is this one different?" here's why it was different. the brand was going to run the video whitelisted on my account where my actual community lives. the people watching it would be the same girls in my DMs every day asking for advice. and if I told them this app was good when I didn't believe it was good, they'd buy it. and they'd remember that I was the one who'd recommended it. the $4,000 was real. so was the trust I'd be cashing in to take the money. and the trust I've built with my audience over 2 years pays me dramatically more than $4,000 every single month. it pays me from my coaching program. it pays me from where everything I do is headed next. cashing it in once for $4k is the worst trade in business. most creators don't think about this math because they think about each deal in isolation. "is this $4k worth my time?" yes. "is this $4k worth filming a 90-second video?" yes. they're asking the wrong question. the question is "is this $4k worth the long-term cost of recommending something I don't believe in to the people who trust me?" framed that way, the answer is always no. I emailed the brand back: "I appreciate the opportunity, but this product isn't a fit for my audience. happy to recommend a few other creators who might be a better match." and I gave them 3 names of other creators. Im not saying this to “brag” about saying no to a 4k deal. I'm telling you because most creators are taking $4k versions of this deal every single month and slowly degrading the asset that lets them earn from creator income at all.

I added up something embarrassing last week. in q1, I said yes to 7 things I should have said no to. a podcast interview that didn't move the business. a "quick" discovery call with a brand who was just here to pick my brain and was never gonna actually buy from me. 2 brand calls with companies I had no interest in working with long term. a "favor" video for a friend's launch that ate a whole afternoon. a content collab that produced nothing usable. A free loca ugc workshop with a bunch of old friends who never actually ended up doing anything after. the total time burn: 41 hours. I obsessively track every hour of my day. my rate on the work that actually matters is somewhere around $400/hour on average. so the people-pleaser tax I paid in q1 was somewhere in the neighborhood of $16,400. I sat with that number for a while. because if you'd offered me $16,400 to make 7 small phone calls and say "no, but thank you" my eyes would have lit up. I would have made the calls in an afternoon. I would have paid you to let me make them. but I didn't get to that "no." instead I said "yes" 7 separate times because each individual ask felt small and harmless and "I should support this person" and "it would feel weird to decline." each individual yes cost me an hour, two hours, an afternoon. each individual yes felt like the right move in the moment. it was only when I added them all up that the actual price became visible. the people-pleaser tax is invisible by design. you never see the bill. you just see the slow drain of energy and the half-finished projects that were yours. here's the test I run now before I say yes to anything outside my main work: "if someone offered me [the time this will take] in cash to spend on the thing I actually care about, would I take it?" if the answer is yes. which it almost always is. I say no to the ask. your time is money you can't recover. the people-pleaser tax is a real number on a real list. I'm done paying mine. P.s to I get this all the time from old friends: “Gloria, u selfish piece of sh*t, ur so entitled” I don’t expect them to relate, those are the people with too much time on their hands, thats why no one’s asking them for help. The top 1% of the room who’s reading this rn will actually resonate, thats who I cater my content to.

This has been coming up a lot lately. A creator dropped a comment under one of our recent posts about CPM campaigns and that they're NOT worth it for creators. We just had this same conversation come up again at the Atlanta event that Gloria and I hosted a couple of days ago, which tells me this is something the community needs to talk about more openly. So I want to hear from you!! Do you think CPM campaigns are worth it? Have you tried one? Did it work or did it flop? Drop your take below and let's actually have this conversation. 👇 P.S. Full exchange is attached as a screenshot in this post

Check My Portfolio - https://rn51.my.canva.site/ My old $1000 Coach just texted me again, your content is bad, that's why you're still at 0$ for 4months. I do not know what crazy improvement will help me get out of this prison. I just don't know @Gloria Stonelake , sis. I am not saying I am making the best content possible, but I do not think just improving the content a little bit will change everything. He told me that sending so many pitches every day is just "throwing mud at the wall, and hoping something will stick by luck." I am not confusing myself for sending fewer or more pitches; I already sent 95 pitches today (3 PM London TIME). But I really want to know, is my content really super bad? I am literally trying to do everything in my power, putting as much time and effort as possible. I am literally trying to do everything in my power, putting as much time and effort as possible. I don't know what it is I'm doing wrong. I literally wanted to cry, to be honest. I am not even joking. Like, you are trying so hard. And still don't know whether anything is even possible or not. I started UGC last December. I never wanted to be some millionaire from this thing. It was just that I wanted to do UGC so that I can get some cash, which I am going to use for my YouTube dream, more like getting funds for your business. I'm literally trying my best, but I still haven't seen any progress yet. I know it will take time but but I want to know, is my content good or bad? ARE brands are not responding to my messages just because my content is really, really bad ? I know when I wrote another coach, many people won't even want to reply to this post because I wasted money somewhere and asking for help here, what would you do if you were in my shoes? I am sorry for asking here.