Rolando Rosas 6:53
It’s very unique. It’s so like, but it’s so to me, it feels very on brand for who you are.
Helen Polise 6:58
It just is weird. And my daughter at the time, she was very young. And she said, You know what I like about the name Muthership that you can make it any business. So if you decide to change from production you could make you could even have a bar named mother. Why she was a forward thinker. She’s always been creative. So she had that insight.
Dave Kelly 7:16
And you know, and that’s funny, we were speaking with someone recently about branding, and how a brand, a good brand can do anything,
Helen Polise 7:24
anything is very, very true. And it’s worked for me in so many different ways. Even when I had my production company and I decided to when I was traveling for work, I decided to rent my space to other production companies. So they would use the space and they’d be like, we’re working out of the Muthership. And that worked for them because there were production companies that were working out of another production company. So it just worked for everything. It’s just been and then when I started my TikTok handles I was I was like well my all my crew people call me you know, mother or they’re like the Muthership. You know, they call me the Muthership. So I’m just gonna run with that. And that’s how I started my my TikTok handle and my Instagram handle.
Dave Kelly 7:58
Listen, like your content comes with a lot of credibility. You know, when I hear Muthership it’s like you can trust us. Yeah, trust
Rolando Rosas 8:10
I really nerd out on what what you put some some of its short, you know, I know that you’re famous. You’re famous for one of these. So if you’re watching us, if you’re just listening to this on the on the audio podcast, Helen loves using her like a stylus with that that’s made for smartphones. Yeah. And so I love this because you’re you and I were talking before. And you know, you’re you’re known that’s almost like your calling card.
Helen Polise 8:38
It really is my it has became part of my brand. And I will tell you why it even started when I was trying to do the, you know, teach the TikToks. And I have the two phones. I admit it, I actually have a third now, but I’m gonna do phones because I gotta have multi cameras going on. So I can point one at the other to show and when my hand was on top, I was like, yeah, it’s kind of covering things. And I just happen to have a stylus from for some weird reason. So I started so the first tutorial, I started using it as like, oh, you could see much better with this. And that. But I don’t walk around with a stylus on my phone. So people think Oh, grandma, she’s using a stylus. Like I get a lot of comments. On I’m teaching you kiddo every day. And it became a look like I’m the teacher now and I have my like, point there. I don’t know. It just I just felt right.
Dave Kelly 9:26
Well, I was looking at some of your content recently. And I didn’t realize that that was so intentional. But what I loved was it was making it easier when you were showing it was a tutorial where I forget exactly what it was. But yeah, you know what that style is made it much easier for me to do where you were going on the
Helen Polise 9:47
on the ultimate teacher and I’m like Now if anybody pulls out a stylus, you know, they’re copying me. That’s the funny thing that happened about it is I became so branded from that that anybody who does it now will look like a copycat.
Rolando Rosas 9:59
So Yeah, no, that’s why we can’t do a Dave we can’t, people will know that you are biting your copying straight from @themuthership. That’s why I’ll use this here when we’re filming. It’s for my own personal edification. But I love that about you. And you know, something I didn’t know until I recently heard that you didn’t start off that way, when it came to your content, you actually started doing some cooking stuff initially, during the pandemic,
Helen Polise 10:27
if I need to think about this. So the whole thing started for me on TikTok was when I finally had some time on my hands, because the pandemic took, you know, stopped production work for a period of time. And I was like, Oh, my god, how am I going to be creative now? And I thought, well, I’ll just turn the camera on myself. And I’ll do some things for I initially was thinking of doing it mainly for Instagram. And then I decided to put it on YouTube. So I had a few recipes that we were all stuck at home, and a lot of people were baking, you remember that period of time? Yes.
Rolando Rosas 10:51
Everybody. You can reach for right. So crazy. That’s what you did. And
Helen Polise 10:55
I started having these raffles, so I would bake the things, but I didn’t want to eat them all. It was just me and my husband, I didn’t want to like give game three in Japan. So I started having Sunday night raffles on my Instagram, where I then would raffle off the thing. So I baked the video. And then I post the thing, and I’d say whoever comments gets entered in a raffle. So I was trying to like increase the engagement, and then give somebody give people something to look forward to on Sunday nights where I’d go live, and I do this big thing I had little my little raffle, Ben and I wrote all the names, I do know how to write backwards. So I’d write the names backwards, so that when I show it on up on, you know, like, it wouldn’t be written backwards. So I did this whole process every Sunday, and it was people look forward to it. And it was something really fun for them to do or think about on a Sunday, and then I shipped the baked goods. So that was funny little pandemic story. And then with those with those videos, I was doing a lot of my production tricks. So it’s getting more clever, the more I watch TikTok. And so I transitions, I would hold up the eggs, and then I’d go like this, and then magically, they’d be cracked in a bowl. So I was doing a lot of transition stuff. And that’s when my followers started to say, Oh, really, she knows what she’s doing. And they were asking me, how do you how to do that? And how do you make that video? So I said, Oh, I’ll make a tutorial. And it was kind of a joke. My first tutorial literally says, so many of you are asking how I did this, which was one person, I go well, alright, it was one person but like,
Rolando Rosas 12:14
artistic license with that. It was so
Helen Polise 12:17
funny. And so that’s the tutorial that put me on the map. And it had like, hundreds of 1000s of views. And then my following just like skyrocketed after that. Call
Rolando Rosas 12:25
one of your earliest videos that that I I think I saw was on the stop motion stop motion was where I was like, holy cow. She’s doing this on the smartphone. Like, yes, like editing, this could usually take hours to do.
Helen Polise 12:42
Exactly. And I think what happens is because of that I lived through production, and I know what it’s like to do that in a real production shoot. And so when I was able to do this with a smartphone by tapping, tapping, tapping, and then it would edit it for you. I was as equally as amazed as people watching that video. I was like, Look at this. It’s like amazing. And my excitement, I think becomes infectious to people. So that’s why they kept watching because I was like, I’m gonna show you because I couldn’t believe it. Like you can do this literally with this with this effect on TikTok. And that was another one that really exploded me and there was hundreds of 1000s of followers after that. So, but it was really clever, because in the comments, I listened to the comments, and somebody wrote, Our TikTok teacher is here and I went Uh huh. And I right away changed my name on my on my page and it says TikTok teacher, the Muthership. So I went I ran with it. So I like to listen to the very smart people who make comments this mean people make comments. There’s a lot of smart ones. What a lot of smart.
Rolando Rosas 13:39
What do you do with the mean once you ignore, engage? I’m mostly I’m always conflicted because trolls are out there. Sometimes I feel like Oh, I’m gonna do a go at it. You know, you go at it. Or sometimes I’ve heard the term dark humor. So where you’re like, Haha, that’s so funny. I’m glad you put that comment or something like that. Yeah,
Helen Polise 13:59
it’s I’m very particular about how I handle that. So mostly, I don’t like to give any credibility to it. I don’t even like to respond to it. I like to, I like to let them think I never even saw it. So I won’t even acknowledge it. But then there’ll be some times it’s like, ah, use this one later. And I’ll do I’ll use it to teach a lesson of like, flicking a comment off the street, you know, and I’ll do something where I kick the comment with my foot. And I use it for for trends when it’s like a trend where it’s like, surprise, surprise, like somebody there’s a trend I’m going to post probably tomorrow where it’s somebody put a comment up that actually was nice. And it was like, I can’t believe this old lady’s teaching us, you know, blah, blah, blah. So I’m going to do the ones surprise surprise. So I like to use them to my advantage on a trend, but I don’t and then in particularly will cover up the person if I don’t want them to have attention. So I censored the names I don’t even want them to be to be I don’t want them to have the credit for
Rolando Rosas 14:55
you know, but you know what they’re looking to have somebody somebody drop a little phrase that I like What you said here, though, real life, this is real life. It is absolutely real life. And you know, when we started our journey online, it’s the same in the pandemic, and just started messing around with what we had at the time. And slowly but surely, you know, we started evolving this, this podcast and other things that we do online, I had zero experience, you know, I was very, very, very old. I think people would complain friends, I knew he had left your message, where Facebook, how long ago, four months ago, I don’t even check Facebook, what didn’t.
Helen Polise 15:35
There’s too many platforms, you have to really decide where you want to focus, and then trickle it out from there. That’s what I always advise, this is a pro tip.
Rolando Rosas 15:42
So there we go. Ori hit us with a pro tip. Let’s get ready for a pro tip. Drop the knowledge.
Helen Polise 15:54
Pro tip is that you cannot be everywhere and be great at it. So you’ve got to decide where you’re going to lean. And then you can put everything everywhere. But you can trickle it out from there. So decide what your first I always like, what’s your first lane, I hit it hard in the first lane. But think about how you’re going to maximize it by being able to put it into the other lanes. And that’s really what I go for.
Rolando Rosas 16:18
Because I love that pro tip. Go to school, get your education. And
Helen Polise 16:25
understand that, oh, you’re doing a great job with that. Here we go. Very guys.
Rolando Rosas 16:30
Yeah, boy, you know, one of the things that that you’re that you’re suggesting is to go deep and or I should say go and specialize in knock it out on one platform. And I saw that you posted. Speaking of platforms, I saw that you posted something about Amazon and trying your handout. You know, for us, it’s like our backyard because we’ve been doing that for over 10 years. And I wanted to just kind of understand what happened with why I hated it. You tried it, you dabbled it in
Helen Polise 17:01
Oh, my God don’t want to spend a lot of time on this because it was not that fun. But I will we my kids. And I decided and my son has been always passive income, passive income. That’s his thing. And he’s in his 30s. And he doesn’t do a lot of podcasts. And now he’s a realist. But it’s really nothing’s passive. Even when you’re working on Amazon. It’s like a lot of detail work. And they don’t have a lot of support. So you’re trying to figure out something and the product gets labeled. And you have to make sure these labels get on. And then next thing you know, they swapped the labels and your products are being shipped in. They’re wrong. It was horrible. But we have this great idea. And it was during the pandemic actually, where we we’d love this chair umbrellas. So we were going to now instead of the chair umbrellas we would get for the beach only we’re in solid color. So I was like, oh gosh, my daughter is a great designer, she’ll design a pattern and then we will just market these umbrellas, but we’ll be the only one that that is a pattern umbrella with like a nice pattern on it. And it literally, we did it we went hard and we sold out of the damn umbrellas. And we thought we’re gonna be and so then we kind of got overzealous, and instead of focusing and staying where we were, which was a successful, you know, umbrella business, that was pretty handy. We just thought, Oh, we’re gonna do towels. I’m gonna tank tops, and we’re gonna and we just we went to, we spread too thin. None of us had the time to make it a full time job. We were all working jobs. So it became a thing where who’s doing what? How are we keeping track of all this inventory? Who’s making sure that everything’s updating when things so it was really debilitating? And there was no in my opinion, no support from Amazon, it was a nightmare. So I was I spent so much time on the help Amazon Help Desk trying to get oh, oh.
Rolando Rosas 18:38
Oh, is it? It is totally totally. It’s a very difficult enterprise. And the reason I asked asked that story, because there’s so many people, influencers, people selling courses that say you could do it passive income passive, you only need an hour a day. I say baloney to that, because your story is, again, really accurate. It’s very, very accurate, you know, and so, for folks that want to get into the Amazon game, you really got to think about what you’re doing. You had some success, but then to sustain that you need what you said you need the support, you need the operations, you need the logistics, because that’s what’s going to sustain and keep growing and keep things organized. Otherwise it just poem.
Helen Polise 19:30
Any other business it’s not it’s I’m gonna call it unpassable income, it’s the most not passive income. Passive income and passive. I just made up the word
Dave Kelly 19:39
well and like you said, you know, it’s, it’s, it requires so much time and attention. You know, we have our full time gigs. Pass time gig, it’s still gonna take another eight hours a day. Yeah, no, it’s really a lot. We are. We are all doing it. It’s like picture picture a hectic work day. We’re toggling between mean applications become second nature, you know, examples, you know, like we’re, we’re having our team meetings, our zoom phone calls, we use different CRMs, our email, our texting, personalized videos, so switching in between all these different applications. But that’s a cost. And it does. It’s a constant. I think it escapes a lot of our radars that we’re we’re actually spending a lot of time going in between all these apps. You know, the Harvard Business Review, they did a study recently, and they revealed some sobering Fox employees can switch between 22 different apps nearly 1200 times a day. And juggling it takes a huge toll and increases stress. It’s slowing productivity, and it’s undermining our focus now enter Global Teck Worldwide with over two decades of experience in business communications, they’ve mastered the art of unifying communication tools, from voice to SMS, video, email, CRM systems, and more. By integrating these systems, they can cut the clutter, reduce context switching, and unleash a more efficient, focused workforce. In this age of optimization, efficiency isn’t just a dream. It’s a reality with global tech worldwide. So if you’re ready to liberate your team from the toggling Tex X, and supercharge your efficiency, take the first step today, visit global-teck.com or click on the link below in the description to transform your workplace. Your journey of streamlining your productivity starts here booking an appointment and talk with Global Teck. Today. I tried to sneak that in it seemed a little obvious, but I was trying to sneak
Helen Polise 21:49
it was pretty smooth. And the
Rolando Rosas 21:54
better at that would be for us to say here’s a read and there’s an over time getting a better find the find the right time to come in with with read. But for those that may have just popped in, we are talking to the Queen of TikTok that’s Helen, also known as the Muthership on TikTok and Instagram, so we were just talking about, you know, passive non passive income,
Helen Polise 22:19
technology equals time. Or you’re gonna save them. Time. I love that.
Rolando Rosas 22:25
No, no doubt. And one of the things that, you know, I think about how we approach TikTok. And it may not be even the right approach. And then we have the Muthership with us. But you know, folks like us that are in sales and other businesses that are, you know, trying to get the product sold through Amazon, whether it’s a TikTok shop, or otherwise, Helen, tell me how can businesses use TikTok to their competitive advantage? How do you do that? What if I’m a business selling to other businesses? And you know, TikTok, anything can be sold? Should I approach it like everything else? Should you know you I know you’re going to roll into some some secrets here. But as a business, if you’re looking at this as a business, and how do I move more product online? I might say, How can I use TikTok to my advantage? Yes, it’s
Helen Polise 23:13
a great question. And I think that thing that people miss in terms of business is they get so focused on their product, and how they’re going to sell their product and selling product pushing and thinking about that, that they forget that the reason to be on social media is to connect and gain trust from your customers not to sell to them in that moment. The selling part kind of comes later. So I have not been selling anything yet. People are asking me, Can I pay for you? Can I pay for your time? Can you you know what I mean? So it’s a perfect example of of how it works in reverse. If you look to connect with people, and share knowledge, figure out how to help them how to give them tips, how to how to be somebody that they want to follow and know what’s going on. And once you become that to them as as a brand, as a person as a business, you will eventually get them as a customer. So I think people go so hard at first into this, like, what’s my sales strategy? And how am I going to, instead of thinking, Well, what can I show with my customers about why I started this business, and all of a sudden, think about the people that have done that successfully by accident. You’ll have somebody that’s like my dad wrote this book, and he feels sad, because only one copy sold and they make this like, sort of sappy video about their dad and the next thing you know, the dad’s book is a best seller. Because that’s what blows up what what gets traction on the internet is touching people and finding out how to touch them whether it’s emotionally or whether it’s teaching the way I’m teaching people and so they’re connected to me. So creating those connections comes before selling to them as a business.
Rolando Rosas 24:46
And would you say that, you know, for a lot of people going into Tik Tok or other platforms, you know, they want to be another commie lane. You want to be Mr. Beast. They want to be another Muthership. Well, you know what’s what’s Your advice about that, uh, you know, is it patience and, and you know, keep keep working the craft or you know, or I’m waiting for that viral sensation. And that didn’t happen. So I’m going to quit.
Helen Polise 25:10
So should we talk the three secrets? Or is it too soon?
Rolando Rosas 25:13
Because number one, it’s a good one. Ori, give us the intro to the top two secrets. Well kept secrets.
AI Chatbot 25:18
Well, secrets. Gotta keep them safe. And sound. Well, let’s see for secrets are just like diamonds. All right, okay.
Rolando Rosas 25:35
You’ve got the floor to go into, yes, the top three secrets, right?
Helen Polise 25:41
Secret number one that’s right. credible, be credible. So that’s my first see, you want to be the most authentic self that you can be. And it’s so difficult for so many people to be themselves, they get panic, too, they put the camera up and they’re suddenly frozen in time, they can’t figure out how to talk authentically, or they’re addressing a crowd of hundreds in their mind. And really, the the secret that I tell people is talk to one person, think about a connection that you’re having think about, the person who’s watching, the person who’s watching is not in an auditorium watching you on a big screen. They’re usually on their couch in the bathroom, they’re just, you know, maybe they’re in their kitchen, they have their phone propped up. So really, it’s the one person connection that you need to make. So when I look at my phone, this is my imaginary friend, I am literally like, hi. Hi there. This is what we’re going to talk about today. And I can literally be that I can be my friend to friend on on my device. So that’s the first thing. And then when you do that, you become credible to people, because you’re clearly not scripting, you’re not given them a spiel, you’re clearly being who you really are. And that’s really, that’s the most challenging thing for anybody that first decides to put themself on social media. And I remember the struggle myself. So it’s, it’s real. And it’s even for the best of us. And that’s number one.
Rolando Rosas 26:59
And I think I think you had something like that about talk about talk to the camera, like you’re talking to somebody in that room, like a person, a person that to me, like, the light bulb went off, I want to talk to the camera. And we had another guest on from another from a he they make products. But he says he makes content. He says yes, I’m talking to a soulless bottomless pit camera that doesn’t respond. But you have taken the net out, which is imagine that one person that’s a friend,
Helen Polise 27:33
yes. Right, then a lot of people I have noticed something was this was trending people were talking about, don’t you know, don’t look at the camera, look at yourself. And I’m like, why would that person give that advice? Because number one, I immediately see and a lot of the celebrities do it, they love to look at themselves celebrities in general, you know, so they’re looking down, and meanwhile, we’re up here, and they’re looking down here. And it’s strange to watch that because you know that they’re not really you know, they’re thinking about themselves and I think it’s kind of funny, I agree with that looking up towards the camera and thinking about if you’re thinking about not looking at yourself and critically being critical about yourself while you’re filming just kind of forget about it and talk to that one person. It’s hard.
Rolando Rosas 28:14
It is hard and getting over that you know, like I’m sure if we if we can flip the cameras around where you are and and see you looking it’s it’s a weird thing when you’re not used to it and you know you’re talking to a thing rather than a person and it takes an editor Mr. bisa 200 videos for you to really start getting your groove on and figuring that whole thing out. Yeah. And so you kind of thing some of that you got to get your feet wet and move on and try to get you know that your presence and feeling comfortable now I’m gonna I’m gonna have to give my camera a name besides camera name right? So Sony but I don’t want to call them Sunny.
Dave Kelly 28:54
I’m Sunny, calm, sunny or sunny sticker
Helen Polise 28:56
put a sticker up there.
Rolando Rosas 29:00
I might steal that one from you.
Dave Kelly 29:02
It reminds me It reminds me a little bit of the the advice that we had early on in our career was selling over the phone b2b sales and they said smile when you dial put up put a mirror up look at look at yourself so long when you’re on the call. Look at yourself smile and dial and some would do it some would not do it. It gets a little bit weird. But hey, if it works, and you can come off genuine over the phone credible over the phone if not, if looking at yourself would help that
Helen Polise 29:36
kind of when I when I when I do audio sessions. I actually when people are doing lines and things in voiceover things I always say smile, say it again. But smile this time and no one’s seeing that person smile but there’s a smile in the reading once you put a smile on your face. So it’s so true. I love it. And the other thing is when you think about people addressing a bunch of people Sorry to keep going on here they listen to you. Okay, so that When when you go to someone’s feed, and you go video to video to video, when you think about a person that’s always says, Hi, everybody that in the back and they go off. Hi everybody that you’re wasting a bunch of time saying, Hi, everyone. And then in your feed if someone decides to look at all your videos, what are they hearing? Hi, everybody. Hi, everybody. Hi, everybody. Hi, everybody, like, No, thank you. So I just think that there’s so many reasons to just jump right into your topic. And I’ve made a video about that, and tons of people in the comments. So what how should we start? How should we start? Just take off? Hi, everybody, that’s all you got to do. Just start with the next. Record it go ahead. Just kind of I was
Rolando Rosas 30:37
gonna say in use. I think you’ve I think you’d last time you and I talked, you’re talking about this particular challenge, and you touched a little bit on the celebrity. And I know that you said you’ve had some of them reach out to you that want tips and pointers on how they can improve their online gaming. And to me, it would seem like people that are on camera all the time have this figured out. But it doesn’t seem like that’s the case from what you’re talking about social media. Oh,
Helen Polise 31:03
no, it’s crazy. This is really funny, because Kathy Griffin, who you know, the comedian, she writes me all the time when she has problems. She’s like, I can’t find such and such, I get messages from her. I did have an experience that was interesting from when I experienced cancer, which we can go into separately. But when once I was in my TikTok journey, and I had so many followers, I started to go blind and I was soon diagnosed with lymphoma, which has had caused my blindness, I have my eyesight back. They got radiation on me right away. So I’m blessed to have eyesight return, normal eyesight returned. But when I was going through that I was offline for about two and a half weeks and people were messaging my my daughter was looking at my phone at one point, she’s like, Oh, my God, people are asking, Where have you been? Are you okay? There’s people that account on seeing you every day. So what happened to me was, I had waited till I had my diagnosis, which took about two and a half weeks for them to solve that mystery that was happening. And then once I put out, I was recording every day, I was picking up my phone, even though I couldn’t see it. And I was recording myself every day. And I wanted to document it for myself. But thinking well maybe at the end of this, I’ll share it with my audience what I went through. So as doing this documenting for myself, and then when I decided, alright, now that I have the diagnosis, I have to let my followers know what’s going on and what I’m going to be going through now. So we put together a seven minute video, my daughter and I and we released it with a good few people are going to see it because seven minutes long, who’s gonna watch that on TikTok, and it went viral. And I had so many people in the comments. And the point of me telling you this right now is that I had celebrities coming into my comments, and Jenny McCarthy actually offered to edit my videos, I have the receipt, she’s like, if you need help editing your videos, you can send me your content. And I’ll help you what on earth is going on here. And I find this the most amazing thing about the platform is how we all become equal. So celebrities are equal to the next person who’s posting because they’re still in their house picking up their phones, as we all are. And so we somehow have come to this place where there’s no defining line between celebrities and real people, because we’re all watching ourselves in the same context. And we’re on our phones. So it was really a crazy experience to have that and it was multiple several years, I’m still the writer of the 50 Shades of Grey, Eric James, she must you know, she’s a friend of mine. Now, I could list tons of them, I’m sure because if I go through my followers, it’s really interesting how we’ve all everybody is we all are relatable, and you never know who you’re going to impact. So it’s I think it’s just like a beautiful space to be able to be all equals.
Dave Kelly 33:35
What is that like to get love from all these strangers around the world? No, not necessarily celebrities, but just receiving, you know, heartfelt, like, are you okay? I want to know what’s happening. Let me in. How does that how does that feel?
Helen Polise 33:57
Very overwhelming. And without getting emotional about it. It was it was hard not to get emotional. Because when I really think about it, at the time, I just couldn’t believe what I was receiving. I didn’t feel worthy. I’m like what I’m getting people strangers who are saying they’re sending me prayers. There was people who were following me to learn about TikTok and then their their messages were I followed you to learn about TikTok, but now you’re teaching us the beauty of life and how to I can’t it’s so hard to say. But it’s just a it was a beautiful experience. And it was an overwhelming experience. And I felt that it was part of my healing. So that’s why I’m moving forward with a documentary about this because not about me and my healing and how it happened but how the power of positivity from strangers and people that you don’t even know are watching you how that can impact how you proceed with your your health journey. It was just incredible.
Dave Kelly 34:51
That’s wonderful. You know when we were chatting earlier about internet trolls and it’s nice to know that the majority of people out here out there commenting, they want to be positive, they want to, they want to be part of the story. They want to be positive. And they want to be a support mechanism. I think about some of the folks that I follow, not celebrities. And if something you know, if they were to stop posting for a little while, I think I would notice and probably do the same thing. Hey, what are you guys, you guys know putting up content, you guys give up on that? What’s going on?
Helen Polise 35:21
I’m going to tell you that a very strange aftermath of this whole thing is now it’s a year I was diagnosed back in June 2022. And we’re talking, it’s past a year now, I still get messages from people. And sometimes it’s direct messages. And sometimes it’s in the comments that will say, Oh, my mom was just diagnosed with whatever. And she has been watching your videos to stay positive. And I’ve been showing her your feed. So the impact that those videos had, is still lasting. So my sharing my truth, and picking up my phone when it wasn’t a great day, because you know, you can’t just show one side of it. If you’re committing to sharing with people, it can’t be a one sided share, it has to be the full package. So those times where I was like, I know, I gotta pick up my record this because people got to know that it’s not, it’s not always great, you know, because I’m smiling. And I’m dancing one day and I’m
Rolando Rosas 36:06
making up this what what what do you want to share the journey? Like you’re talking about? But in Yes, you know, you had you like, I gotta share, but what gave you the strength to do that? Did you think that this is going to have an impact on even if it’s one person about your journey, and you’re going to do it. And that’s what motivated you even though you’re going through treatments. And I saw a lot of those videos when you shared your first one. I was like, oh my god, I was like, I really was floored. I had some tears
Helen Polise 36:35
crying because yes, I was like mess.
Rolando Rosas 36:38
And then you shared about your your you couldn’t see, you know, and you had your daughter helping you with your social media stuff. But then what gave you just doing and putting that out? Because it’s hard time? Who wants to show their worst? Yeah, like you’re at your worst, your most vulnerable? You’re your weakest? Why would you want to share that?
Helen Polise 37:00
Oh, gosh, two, two, there’s two different answers to this. So the first is that by trade, and by my day job, I’m kind of a documentarian. So the type of work that I do is storytelling work. When it’s commercial work. It’s usually real people interviews or documentaries, mini documentary stories, like what I did for Runway of Dreams, which was their mini doc. So I think part of me was producing myself. So I was removed. And now and this is a very weird thing to even admit, but I haven’t really ever admit it out loud, except maybe talking to my daughter. But what what happened is, I could see from the outside, that I was creating a story for people or I was living a story that people needed to hear. And I’m like, how am I going to tell this truth. So I was able to remove myself from myself and say, well, I need to show this because this is part of the story. That’s important. And then I’m at radiation, I need to make sure people know this is part of what the process is, and how I’m going to hopefully get my eyesight back. And I knew that I might not get my eyesight back, that was part of it, too. That was really hard to live through. So why I did it was because the response was amazing. And the support was amazing. And I felt like I need to include these people. Now they’re here for me, and I need to be, I need to be updating them. So I felt responsible, I’m not gonna say obligated, I never felt obligated. But I felt that I had a responsibility to continue to share what was happening. So that was number one. But number two is I had this, this separate self that realized this is a story that needs to be told. And I’m going to live it out loud. And I’m going to tell it truthfully. So I have to put all of the elements into it. And so it wasn’t an act. Obviously, when I was going for a spinal injection. I was really going first. But I wanted to just share that experience for people. I always thought people have cancer, they go away into a black hole for six months and do treatments. I didn’t know you could live your life. I didn’t know so I said,
Rolando Rosas 38:52
surprise me. You were you’re a trooper. At one point you were just going to my treatment did it it did it do and then Nivea back connected to you. I’m like, yeah. Freakin trooper. I don’t know if I could have done that. I mean, I look
Helen Polise 39:03
back on it. And I’m, sometimes I’m like, Well, what was I thinking? But I did it. And I’m glad I did it.
Rolando Rosas 39:11
Well, I just I just want to commend you for doing that it is very touching, for you to share, again, is that most vulnerable? A lot of people would not do it, because it’s not your most glamorous self, right? No,
Helen Polise 39:23
certainly not. I look at some of them. And I’m like, I am embarrassing. I literally can’t even believe and some of the times I put it out there and I have a relative that was like too much information, you know, one of those people and I said, Well, then don’t watch what can I tell you? This is what I’m compelled to do. And it was a self. It was something other was driving me probably inside some kind of feeling that it was a story that I needed to tell. So that was
Rolando Rosas 39:46
no, I’m glad you told it. And you know, like you said there’s people today that are stumbling on that and that’s kind of the way Tik Tok works. Sometimes you go in and start following somebody and you get a video from eight months ago and you’re like, oh, that’s the newest and then you’re looking at the feed. You’re like, oh, there’s 40 other videos. Great. So I’m glad you shared that story. And I wanted to weave back into the secret. So that lesson number two, number two. So, Henri, let’s put up that graphic so that we could get a story number two, or secret number two from the movie. There we go, we have
Helen Polise 40:19
our second seat coming in, and that is being consistent. And my word for this a lot of times is relentless. Because I am a not quitter. I am like, go, go, go, go go, when I get a video that I put out there and it gets 200 views and other people would be like, whoo, I got three videos in a row, they only got 200 views, guess what I do? I keep posting. So the goal is to keep going and not constantly look back that Why didn’t that do good in mind? Am I right? You know, why am I want and people like to complain about views. I’ve never been one to complain about the views. I just go and well, I guess that wasn’t good. I’m gonna post another one. And if you just keep moving forward, you eventually will have success. It’s inevitable, consistently equals success.
Rolando Rosas 41:00
Right. I heard I heard somebody say something that I would, I’d love to add, if I could add to what you said. Because absolutely beautiful. Consistency is like discipline. And then you add the motivation, right? The passion is a passion. So consistency is kind of the discipline of I’m going to do it just like you said, Yeah. And then you’re passionate about that. That’s like a huge multiplier effect. So the consistency is the you know, I don’t feel like doing it today. But like what you were saying about your, your cancer, you’re gonna do it? Yeah, I’m gonna do it. You’re gonna do it, and you’re gonna do it. And you know, it’s the little engine that could so let’s Yeah, let’s jump into number one. Number three, interesting one, out here for number three as a as a secret. Go ahead and put that up, Ori.
Helen Polise 41:47
Okay, be creative. Now, this sounds like, oh, how could you tell people to be creative, some people just aren’t creative. And the point here is not to look to other people and copy what they’re doing and think that’s what I need to do. Because they did that. And that was successful. I’m gonna copy them. There’s so much copycat problems in the internet world. Now, obviously, with everything moving forward on AI and nothing is nothing seems original anymore. But I think the big thing is if you’re always looking to other people to figure out what you’re going to do, if you’re not thinking for yourself, what would be interesting for me to do, then you’re going to put yourself in a roadblock that you don’t even know that you’re doing. So your eye a lot of times, actually, I very rarely look at tutorials. Is that weird? Yes. Because I’d be wanting to learn, but I just feel that, you know, I like to poke and learn, figure things out for myself, and then find things myself. And then if a tutorial happens to come up on my page, sometimes I’m a little curious and like, I have other people teach this. And so I’ll look at it for like curiosity, but I don’t look to do, I don’t look for people and and constantly harp on following people who are doing what I’m doing. But I think it’s a distraction. What happens to us is, we then think that their idea is our original idea. Because it’s and you know, people I know, you know, know, people that think it’s their idea, and it’s like, like five weeks ago or whatever. And then all of a sudden, they percolate it long enough, and it becomes yet, and I don’t want to be ever be that person. And I love to give people credit for their good ideas. So staying creative and think outside the box. How can I do this differently from other people? I picked up a stylus not because I saw somebody using one. How can I make this better to see and I picked up the stylus?
Rolando Rosas 43:29
Oh my goodness. You are. That’s that’s just that hold on. Somebody’s gonna help me with that. Best. That’s right. In this case, the Mutherships the best at it. She’s the best at the stylus with the teaching. I love it. I love the fact that, you know, you’ve come into this, you know, with fresh eyes. And, you know, you’ve you’ve been able to give and I’ve heard a lot of people this is all about giving and then a kind of a give economy like Gary Vee talks a lot about the giving. And
Helen Polise 43:58
I know that’s a big one on me. You don’t want to
Rolando Rosas 44:00
I just I saw I was I don’t know if you caught this with Alex Hormozi use book when he released that. He talked a lot about this. And then he ended up giving some of his book away for free. And then he said, you know, your best ideas should be the free one, because it’s only going to help you on the on the paid stuff, right that you’re trying to sell and you’re gonna
Helen Polise 44:21
become the expert. That’s exactly what Gary suggests, like, if you’re the expert, they’re gonna come find you, you know. So that’s what’s happening. I want to talk about this whole business thing, because so many people who blow up on social media think how am I gonna monetize this? I’m going to be a brand ambassador. I’m gonna get sponsorships. How am I going to monetize? And I think being the subject of your podcast here, we should touch on that a little bit later. Why haven’t I decided to make that into a business and what happened to me that was a little odd is I was approached by a venture capital team. And it was a studio and they wanted to help me create a business out of this and a lot and they did fund me to be with the business to teach older people in particular How to create content and how to become to put themselves out there on social media. And what happened to me is, I soon realized that it wasn’t just older people that I was impacting. So I couldn’t just limit myself to this older audience. Because I have one video right now that has 1.5 million views. And mostly teenagers are in the comments they learned. They learned how to do this marshmallow game from my tutorial, and they’re all sharing it with each other. Which is so funny to me that I was I’ve actually impacted not even Gen Z Gen Alpha. I mean, we’re going high school right now. And I love it. And then like, I think our mom just taught us, you know, it’s up to them. Because so the point is what I decided to do with that, instead of what most people do, which is let me funnel let me make a class and have people pay for it. And then let me try and figure out how to, you know, have a funnel thing as such, talks about
Rolando Rosas 45:51
the funnel. And I’m here and you move them there, give, tell them the newsletter, and then sell them to say, thanks.
Helen Polise 45:57
So I recently had someone asked me, I don’t see what your funnel is, and what you’re selling. And I’m like, that’s because I’m not selling anything, I don’t have a funnel for that reason. And I’ve thought about this long and hard guys, to be honest, I was almost convinced to do it. And then I started to panic, I felt like a strangulation feeling of that this is going to have a hold on me that I didn’t sign up for. I want to provide this information for free, create a community of people who can learn for free this people in, you know, in all parts of this country that they’re not going to want to pay $500 for me to give them a course or something like that. And I still want those people to be able to learn, and a lot of them are probably my favorite followers. So I’m not really I don’t want to be inaccessible. I want my knowledge and my sharing to be accessible to all. But obviously, I’m a business person. So I’m thinking for the long term. If I create this newsletter, which I’ve done now, and it’s you can sign up for that Hellosocialize.com. So it’s a weekly newsletter called The creative forecast. We send it out every Tuesday. It has trends, content, ideas, music, suggestions, tutorials, and social media apps. So five things in one newsletter, and then that at the bottom, you can submit a question. And then on the Friday issue, I answer questions of the week. So the hottest questions, the most relevant questions. So we have a bot.
Rolando Rosas 47:20
Those that are watching us on the video, you could actually see what that looks
Helen Polise 47:23
like. And you can see I have tutorials posted up there. And I’ve workshops. If you click on workshops, I don’t know if you can see that. But you see workshops link at the top. There you go. You click on that link, click on annoy. Yeah, there you go. So now I have our lessons and they’re all free. You could click on any one of these learn how to edit, you can learn how to do transitions, learn TikTok tips and whatever. So they’re all there for the taking. And what my goal is to build an audience that really loves the newsletter interacts with the newsletter. And eventually that becomes a business in itself. But it’s not selling things to these individuals who are the subscribers of my newsletter, it’s eventually going to be advertiser, so I’m gonna be able to get advertising in the newsletters. I mean, that’s just the fact that once I have
Rolando Rosas 48:07
a large body, advertisers on on the website or advertisers that are sponsoring and
Helen Polise 48:13
the newsletter sponsoring the newsletters, yeah, gotcha. Gotcha. And the goal here is think about morning, it’s morning brew, and for social media.
Rolando Rosas 48:21
Nice, nice. I love that. You know, I love learning and how other folks are because you do have a day job right? You have TikTok into TikTok isn’t your your like a lot of folks are looking at it like this. Is it if I don’t make it as an influencer?
Helen Polise 48:39
I don’t know. Right here. Here’s a curious thing. visibility on social media will actually bring you work that you didn’t expect. Because, for example, me being visible to people who, you know, I’ve shown up on clients feeds from 20 years ago, and I had this guy call me from my toy days for my toy commercial days. He’s like, Hi, this is a blast from the past, but I feel like I see you every day. So I’m on top, I’m top of his mind, he would never have remembered to call me about a project, right? I just wouldn’t be on top of his mind. 20 years later, it’s not reality. So putting yourself out on social media and being visible, really unexpected things happen and they are sometimes better than the things that you think was going to happen. You know, my daughter’s like, you’re going to be an influencer, you’re going to have like clothing brand sponsoring. You
Rolando Rosas 49:26
should go for timeframe, Helen because some people you know, will say I’ve put videos I’m not getting to where the Muthership is where she’s enjoyed some success online and you know, CNN interviews you and that kind of stuff. Is it just like what you said in your tip, just be consistent, it may happen. content or you know, give yourself a year and if not, goodbye?
Helen Polise 49:51
I think that you always have to reassess you always want to audit your content and say what am I what am I seeing here? What am I not seeing? Why am I not getting more engagement so there has to be periods where you spot check yourself. I thought about it. Right before I was diagnosed with cancer, I was like, ah, is my content getting stale? I don’t know, maybe I should do. Funny thing I said to myself, maybe I should do some kind of a documentary and post. Next thing, you know, I had my own documentary, kind of happening in real life. But I always reassess, I always think, like the same every time I always do blah, blah, blah. So I decided one day, I’m going to just walk in and shoot myself coming in the door and getting to my tripod just for a change of pace. So always thinking about upping your game a little bit is important and auditing yourself. And you can listen so many people out there with great information, listen to what they’re saying. And you know, implement some of it, try some of it, you’ve got to change it. If you’re doing the same thing for a year and nothing’s happening. Come on, something’s you know, there’s something wrong there. You need to you need to change things up.
Rolando Rosas 50:50
Yeah, we heard some, you’re using a phrase that we heard on the last podcast with Nick from Amazon, he says the word they use internally at Amazon is customer obsession. You’re saying it in a different way, you know, folks that are commenting, those are probably going to be the folks that are gonna provide you the most insight, and that’s kind of what he was saying. Customer obsession leads to those insights, that oh, yeah, the teacher, the teacher of TikTok, right. So that that became your your moniker. Really, and I really, I mean, it’s so awesome. So you just reassess and, and keep checking in on yourself. Know where you’re on time, because you’re such a busy woman these days. So we’re gonna wrap up here in a little bit. But I want to ask you, because you said, teenagers, that Gen alpha, I didn’t even know that that was the name, or you, you create your content, but you’re creating it with the lens that I’m creating content for people of all ages, or because now you know that younger people are watching you say I’m gonna try to go younger, so it gets broader and, and redistributed more online or hot. What’s your thinking behind that?
Helen Polise 51:53
No, I haven’t really thought about it in that way I think about it is what is the math one of the masses need right now. So there’ll be I’ll see a trend and I’m like, Oh, they’re all gonna want to do that one. I’m gonna figure out how to teach it or so and what interests me a lot of times, so I’ll look at a trend. Oh, that was a really fun one. That’ll be a great lesson. Because once people understand how to do that, you know, the, the snap transition, they’re going to be able to do any hand to camera transition.
Rolando Rosas 52:16
I love when you did the other day with a comment. I was like, because I’ve respond video to comments on Tik Tok. I’m going to totally steal that one frame, you swipe and the column comes on.
Helen Polise 52:26
And then you can bring on a new one, you know, yes, no, no, that one I never know when a tutorial is going to hit for I never thought I’d have to be teaching the marshmallow game, for example. That’s what the Gen alpha right now, I never thought that would hit for young people. Because I’m like, that’s the game that they probably already know. So I was really doing that one for the older folks who might look at it. and think, oh, I don’t understand the pattern. How does this work? So that’s why I did that. I just did it as a joke. Almost. And that’s the one that hit you never know what’s gonna hit. That’s the truth.
Rolando Rosas 52:56
You don’t you don’t one of our best videos was from episode one. Where are we don’t have this beautiful background lights and cameras and microphone and it looks so crummy and our best videos
Helen Polise 53:10
See it’s, it doesn’t matter. It’s just show up and put out good content. Can I pull my podcast right now?
Rolando Rosas 53:17
Whatever you want to plug? Where can people if where you want them to go and find you, whatever you want to plug go for it.
Helen Polise 53:24
Let’s go for it. So my daughter and I have a podcast that’s called Yours Truly with Helen and Julie. And it’s mother daughter authentic conversations. And we have different topics we cover and we’ve we have 12 episodes and season one and we’re just releasing, we just released Season Two this morning. So that’s exciting. So that’s the first one I’d say people who are podcast listeners, you might enjoy that because it’s authentic conversations. We talk about social media, we talk about mom and daughter things. We actually had a one where we revisited my whole entire cancer experience and from a different lens after the fact with lots of fun topics. And then everything else is found on Hellosocialize.com where you can sign up for that newsletter if you can get the weekly updates on social media and have your questions answered. So those are my to go twos and you know where to find me on Tik Tok and Instagram at @themuthership with a you
Rolando Rosas 54:12
Wow.
Helen Polise 54:13
Doesn’t my plugs.
Rolando Rosas 54:14
Love it? I love it. I had something else that I was
Helen Polise 54:18
@themuthership your graphics are wonderful. Yes, that’s
Rolando Rosas 54:21
that’s all of that is is Mr. Ortega yardville in the in the in the cloud. And he knows how he’s been doing this for a while. So he’s truly one of the books. And I wanted I wanted to use that I you know what, we’re gonna get an AI version of you. So you just like part of the crew from now on.
Helen Polise 54:41
I love it. I want to be one of your like gifties that shows up.
Rolando Rosas 54:46
We’re gonna figure something out. You better believe it. So if you see some snippet with something goofy and crazy with Jana, it’s because you give us that idea. So get license from here.
Helen Polise 54:55
I love it. You guys are awesome. This has been so much fun. Thank
Rolando Rosas 54:59
you You know what, Helen, I extend an invitation to yourself and your daughter if you all want to come back as a duet Dynamic Duo. Invitation is open anytime you want to come back.
Helen Polise 55:09
That’d be fun. I would love it actually. I feel like we have more to cover we have.
Rolando Rosas 55:14
I know to scream. We got to for the next hour. Well, we’ve been talking to Helen Polise where you can find her nerd out on Tik Tok see is @themuthership on TikTok and Instagram. And if you’ve enjoyed what Helens broken down for us, you’ll want to go check out the last episode where we had another TikTok creator, we talked to Aaron Sogi about TikTok and his journey on TikTok, go ahead and nerd out. Dave, and I will check you out in that episode, and we’ll figure out how to bring Helen and her daughter back the next round. So thanks for joining us today. Thank you so much. All right. Now if you’ve been watching us on YouTube, go check out this video with Dave and I where we will break down how to grow your business faster. So Dave and I are going to wait for you and those videos and we’ll see you the next time.
Recent Comments