The Sentence Living Rent-Free in Your Head (And What to Do About It)
If I had a dollar for every time a brilliant, mission-driven woman told me she was “just bad at marketing,” I’d be sitting on a very comfortable pile of cash.
I hear it constantly. From women doing deeply meaningful work, whose clients say things like “you changed my life.” These women are exceptional at what they do, but they decided, somewhere along the way, that marketing is just not for them.
This episode is about where that sentence comes from, what it’s actually costing you, and the drawing class I almost didn’t take that taught me everything I needed to know about challenging the stories we carry about ourselves. It gets pretty personal, so stick with me.
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The Belief I Carried for 27 Years (With Zero Evidence)
For most of my life, I carried this absolute certainty that I was just not an artistic person. I knew I was a writer, but painting, drawing, visual art? I had decided those were simply out of reach for me.
What absolutely floors me now is that I had no evidence for that belief. I’d never even taken an art class or tried in any way, shape, or form. I just decided this was a truth about myself.
When I was 27, a friend kept trying to drag me to a drawing class with a teacher she adored. She had these stunning photorealistic pieces on her walls, and every time she invited me, I told her she was out of her mind. “I can’t even draw a stick figure.” “I’m going to embarrass myself.” “Absolutely not.”
She kept asking, and eventually, I ran out of excuses and showed up to that class fully prepared for an unmitigated disaster.
What Happened When I Finally Showed Up
Everyone in that class had portfolios. Beautiful, detailed, photorealistic drawings. The teacher specialized in this style that’s so detailed, it’s hard to tell it from a photograph. I was intimidated beyond words.
The first sessions covered basics I had no framework for at all: how to hold a pencil, how to look at negative space and positive space, how to read light and shadow. All completely new to me.
Then the teacher asked us to bring in a photo we wanted to recreate as our drawing.
I brought in a photo of my brother Shaun.
Shaun was my big brother. Even though he was 20 years older than me and we didn’t grow up together, he was always a big part of my life. He was one of the funniest, most magnetic, most talented people I have ever known. He lit up every single room he walked into. He was a musician, an artist, an entrepreneur, and he could make anyone feel like they’d known him their whole lives.
He also had a really, really hard life. Shaun had bipolar disorder, and he self-medicated for most of his life. He tried so hard, but he struggled mightily, and he was only 44 years old when he died of a drug overdose. The call came suddenly, and in some ways not suddenly at all. Anyone who has loved someone with severe mental illness or addiction knows exactly what I mean by that.
By the end of that drawing course, I had completed a charcoal portrait of him that I still cannot fully believe came from my own hands. It hangs on my wall, so I see it every day, and it really captures who he was at his core — not the disease, but the beautiful person he was.
I never would have had that piece of him if I’d stayed inside my limiting belief.
“I’m Just Bad at Marketing” — Sound Familiar?
Here’s where this becomes relevant for your business.
When women tell me they’re “just bad at marketing,” they’re usually telling the truth, based on what they’ve tried so far. The strategies they’ve attempted felt awful, pushy, and performative — kind of like wearing someone else’s clothes. And when those things didn’t work, they drew a conclusion: the problem is me.
In reality, the problem was they just hadn’t tried an approach built for them.
Marketing that actually works comes from somewhere deeply specific: from your voice, your perspective, and your particular way of understanding your clients’ problems. It must come from the angle that only you have, because of the experiences you’ve lived and the way you’ve come to see the world.
That cannot be replicated anywhere else, and that’s exactly what makes people feel seen.
What I find again and again with the women I work with is they’re very clear on what they think they’re not, but they’re much fuzzier on what they actually are. This ultimately shows up in their content as vague marketing that doesn’t connect with anyone. Specific, authentic marketing is what connects with people.
Two Ways to Get Back in Touch With What Makes Your Marketing Yours
This is the deep work I do with every single client before we touch a word of copy. But here are two places to start right now.
Get in touch with your inner rage
The first is to get in touch with your inner rage. Okay, you don’t have to be actually furious, but what are the things that other service providers in your space do that you know, in your bones, are wrong? What baggage do your clients show up with because of what they’ve been taught by people who approached it differently than you do? That inner knowing — that “this is just wrong and I see the damage it causes” — is the seed for your differentiated perspective, and it’s what makes your work yours.
I’ll use myself as an example. I talk constantly about how many content “experts” will tell you that you have to post a specific number of times per week or your account isn’t going to grow. That is simply wrong. What actually creates connection is consistency on your terms, in a way that is authentic to you and sustainable for how you actually work. Find your version of that conviction.
Bring your parking lot conversations into your marketing
The second thing: think about what I call parking lot conversations. You know that moment where you arrive early for an appointment and you don’t want to go in yet, so you sit in the car and call a friend? You’re telling her about a client you just worked with, or a project you just wrapped, or something you’re genuinely excited about.
How do you describe your work in that moment? What words do you use? That version of you — relaxed, unprompted, talking to someone who already trusts you — is so much closer to the voice that will connect with your audience than any polished marketing copy you’ve forced yourself to write. The best marketing strategy is to sound like you’re talking to your friend.
What Shaun Taught Me About Sales
My brother Shaun was in sales his entire career, and he was exceptional at it because he understood at a fundamental level that selling is all about helping the person in front of you.
His whole approach was built around one question: how do I find the people I can genuinely help, and connect them to the thing that will actually help them? That was it. He was helping people who happened to need the thing he had to offer.
I think about him all the time as I run this business. And I want to say directly to anyone who has ever told themselves they’re just bad at sales: you’re probably approaching it as something you have to do to people, when it’s something you get to do for them. Selling from a place of genuine connection, with a clear offer that meets a real need is truly an act of generosity.
The Student Who Jumped In Anyway
I’ll close with one more story. One student joined the first cohort of my Bold Content Collective program without a ChatGPT account, without a Canva account, and with essentially no prior experience with social media marketing or AI, which is a major component of that program. When she introduced herself on our kickoff call, I will be honest: I panicked a little.
She jumped in anyway, feet first, and she moved through the material faster than people who came in with significantly more background. It was one of the most inspiring things I watched in that entire cohort.
That’s the mindset I want you to bring into your business. What’s the worst that can happen? Try the thing. See what’s there.
Your Action Steps This Week
Start noticing those sentences, when you catch yourself thinking — or saying — “I’m just not good at X.” Pause and ask yourself two things:
- When did I actually decide that? Where did this belief come from, and was there enough information there to build a whole story on?
- What evidence do I actually have? Have I genuinely tried the version of this that would feel true to me, or have I only tried approaches that were never a good fit?
There’s a very good chance you don’t have as much evidence as you think you do because you truly can’t know until you try.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- Find your Content Marketing Power Type by taking the 30-second quiz to build a content strategy around how you actually work.
- Work with me 1:1 → Brand messaging, website strategy, and content that sounds like you. Start with a free 15-Minute Vibe Check
