If AI Can Fake Polish What Stays Real

We challenge the need to be perfect and replace “I’ll do it when…” thinking with a simple commitment to show up and do our best. We also explore why authenticity is becoming the real advantage online as AI makes polished content easy to copy. 
• perfectionism as procrastination and a confidence killer 
• choosing a “best week” mindset over chasing an impossible perfect week 
• dropping the pressure stack and allowing realistic routines 
• how the entrepreneurial content culture is shifting away from curated polish 
• personal brand as a differentiator in the AI era 
• using AI like a virtual assistant while keeping our voice authentic 
• why behind-the-scenes stories build trust better than highlight reels 

Transcript

Welcome And The Big Idea

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hello everyone, you are listening to a business built with strategy, and I am Victoria Strange. So let's dive in to this week's episode so this week I am going to be talking about being perfect, or rather just not being perfect and waiting for the right time. So I hear a lot about how you have to be in the right situation, or it has to be the right time, or this needs to happen, or this needs to happen, or I'll do it when. Effectively, I was trying to put a rocket under myself and pressure on top. And it, you know, it really wasn't working. And I thought I'm never gonna have a perfect week because I didn't even believe in perfect. So I started kind of saying to myself, you know what? I'm just gonna have my best week that I can, I'm just gonna do my best, and you know what? If I can't quite get everything done, or if I if I don't get that deadline, or I don't go swimming three or four times a week, it's okay. Because as long as I push myself a little bit and I show up for myself, it's okay. And it it was a weird one because I didn't even believe in perfect, you know. I just I just didn't. Yeah, I was trying to be the perfect person in the perfect week, and I think we're in a very, very different world now. Um, especially take the entrepreneurial world for such a long time. Everyone, every everyone had to be perfect, and every everything that was put out on maybe a story or a reel was authentically pleasing. I even had people say to me, Oh, look, you you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't look that way, or you know, you need to to make more of yourself, or you need to say this, and or you sound stupid saying that. I've had that one, and it really, really knocked my confidence because I knew you know, I knew that I wasn't this perfect person because no one is, but you don't think about anyone else, you think about yourself, and we're now in there's such a massive shift, and I love this shift. I think it's one of the best times to start a business, and I'm gonna be talking about that on future apps, but I also, you know, we're in the world now of personal brand, and we all know that we're in that era because of AI. You know, I've seen posts where they've been put out, and on the bottom it says, Oh, I can make this more interesting, or I can make this more fun because it's been done by AI. Now I'm I I can't sit here and say that I've never used AI, I use it every day, but I leverage it, um, and the way that I do that is I use it as effectively like a VA, like my own assistant, and it works. And have I put a post out there what's been written by AI? Um, yeah, I have. In fact, um the descriptions of these apps are done by AI, and I keep thinking, God, I need to, it's a quickness thing actually, but I do need to write them myself. Um, because everything I say on here is authentic, it's me, it's authentic. But I just think now, I just I'm just loving the era that we're in, because you can go out there and you can show you you can show what it's like to be in business, you can show the messy parts, it's okay now, but before it wasn't. You know, if someone put a post out there and it was all the you know the back scenes of my business, you know, behind the scenes, it did actually used to get quite a lot of reach because no one was putting anything like that out, and obviously it is all about personal brand now. And I built my brand for my events company around 12 to 13 years ago, and now I'm doing it again, but I'm doing it differently, I'm doing it differently, and I'm so excited to be able to do that. And I'm I'm loving being able to put myself out online and do stories and do reels and talk, talk about what it's really like to have a business, what it's like to build a brand, and the messy parts to it as well, because we all see everyone's highlight reel, everyone's show reel, but life isn't like that. Business is certainly not like that. So, you know, if you're listening to this and you're thinking, you know, I I want to start my business, or I have my business, but I don't want to put myself out there because of everyone else's content out there that seems to be this authentically pleasing destination of perfectness. It's changing. There is a massive wave that has already rocked up, and it's saying, you know what, you don't have to be perfect now. Everything doesn't have to be authentically pleasing. People are interested in your story, your background of your business, why you want to help, how you can help, not just this authentically pleasing showreel, which I think potentially can put a lot of people off. It really, really can. So next week I'm gonna be talking to you about how I built my personal brand. I say 12 to 13 years ago, it's probably about it's about 15 years ago, and what I'm changing now, because you have to move along with everything else. So the way that I built my brand 15 years ago is going to be completely different to how I'm building my brand today, and I'm more excited about it. I'm so excited about it, and I'm really excited to take you along on the ride with me because everyone learns from each other. You know, I learn I learn from different entrepreneurs all of the time because you can't know everything. There is always something to learn, and there is always something that someone can teach you out there as well. I hope that you've enjoyed this app. It's a little bit of a shorter app, but I'm looking forward to coming back next week to talk to you about personal branding.