Being Cringe Made Me Millions: What to Do When You Outgrow Your Old Self

What's up, you guys? Welcome back to the podcast. This episode is a unique one because I'm gonna let you eavesdrop on a voice note that I left my clients last week inside of Top Tier Mastermind. Now, Top Tier is my highest level mentorship space that I offer. It's a small, highly curated group of 6 and 7-figure digital entrepreneurs where I intimately coach and support them throughout the year in strategy, marketing, messaging, and leadership. We also have a 3-day immersion in Miami, which you may have seen on my Instagram or on my YouTube. I posted a vlog of it recently, and we actually have a few spaces left for 2026. So shout out if you're If you're an icon in the making and you wanna join us, the time to apply for Top Tier is now. So I'll link it below for you guys. But anyways, in this riff, I'm talking to my HighLevel clients about what happens when you outgrow old versions of yourself. What happens when you no longer resonate with parts of your business? What do you do when your old offers or your old content starts to feel kind of cringey? When bigger and quote unquote more important people start to follow you or notice your work and you suddenly become kind of self-conscious about maybe the cheesiness of your content, or oh my God, I can't believe these people are watching me or they're seeing my videos, You feel like this really small fish where, you know, they've done all these huge, amazing things and oh my gosh, what must they be thinking of me and little old me and what I'm doing, right? So in this riff, I also answer the very common question that every entrepreneur runs into at some point, which is what should I do when I outgrow one or several of my offers, but I need to keep selling it for a while to sustain revenue. You start to worry like, is there a market for the new topics that I wanna speak about and the new kind of offers that I wanna build or create? Or am I gonna lose my audience if I evolve too fast for them? Or if I transition my programs to really match my evolution and the new version of myself that I'm becoming? So this is a conversation about how to handle that awkward in-between where you're shedding an old version of yourself, but you haven't also fully built the new reality that you're stepping into yet either. It's that dance between who you were and who you're becoming and how to not let people's perception of you, even the people that you look up to, make you devalue everything that you've already built. Or the way that you built it. So this is about knowing who the fuck you are, owning your genius, and allowing yourself to evolve, to change your mind, to let things go, and to build a new vision, a new version of your business. You're going to get to a place in your journey where you start rubbing shoulders with important people, inspiring people, people who are way further along than you. And it might make you feel a little bit silly. It might make you feel small and make you feel insignificant. But this riff is really about recognizing that cringe made you millions and refusing to be embarrassed by it, to be so unapologetic about who you were and who you're becoming, because they are both iconic in their own right. So let's dive in. You get to hear the entire voice note. Here we go.

Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast Makeshift is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life. So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride. Let's go makeshift happen.

The people who follow you, you know, the investors, the important people, the people that are on the Forbes list. Those people that follow you, they follow you because they like you and your personality, and they respect what you built. And you have to remember that regardless of whether you think those things are cringy now, like, people respect the hustle, they respect the grit, they know what it takes to build something of that size, to have millions and millions of followers, to make millions of dollars in your 20s, you know, to master digital product sales, like, to do all these things. It's still super respectable and admirable regardless of the types of content that you had to create to get to that point. And all those people know it because people who high level. They never think down upon people who are doing incredible shit regardless of what their content looks like or what their videos are like or what they're talking about in them. So that's one thing that you just have to give yourself a little bit more credit for, is that the eyes that are on you, they're on you because they like you and they respect what you've built and they know that you have done something epic. So it doesn't really matter that you used to post videos about like how to get your ex back and that you might not resonate with that anymore and like are not posting that anymore. Like, you still have to stand firm in the fact of knowing that you built something really impressive and incredible and you've done done some amazing stuff as a really young entrepreneur. And all those people get that, they know that, they respect that, right? Like, game respects game. So those people, I promise you, are not looking at you and being like, oh my God, that's so cringe. They just aren't. They absolutely are not. The other thing that I'll say is, I think, you know, I experienced this when I went to Acquisition.com this year, especially more so the first time that I went there, because I didn't really know what to expect. And I suddenly felt like, as I was walking into the room and, you know, seeing all these different people, and everybody runs very different types of businesses, lots of different sectors. Like, it's not all like coaching people, it's like a lot of different types of businesses, like far and wide. And lots of people doing, you know, really big things and making lots of money, millions and millions of dollars per month, per year, whatever. And so you kind of go in that room and you're like, I'm literally so embarrassing, like, I'm a nobody, like, oh me, my stupid little coaching business over here. And I remember like feeling the sense of, of insecurity when you're surrounded by those types of people that are doing really big things. And so I think that's a similar feeling sometimes you can get when you have these people around you that you look at them and you're like, wow, what they've built is so incredible. And like, you know, they're not cringe and, you know, they're on the Forbes list or, or whatever, right? But actually what I found when I was in that room in acquisition was like, I felt like, oh, maybe what I'm doing is kind of cringe. Like if they pull up my socials or if they look at it and I— there's these videos of me like dancing and whatever. And it's like, so what do you help people with? Like business, marketing, messaging? But like your social media is like, there's pictures of you like in a bikini on vacation, and then you're like dancing and being silly and weird. Doing voice impressions. But then I realized that like people actually were so fascinated by what I had done and how I had done it. Because even though maybe they're making a lot more money than me, they were still coming up to me and asking me, okay, what is your sales full process? I find it super fascinating that you can, you know, close clients for $20K packages and not do sales calls. What is that like? How did you do that? That's incredible. People respect your game. They don't fucking care. They don't— they're not laughing at the videos. They don't care that what you're talking about is cringe. They see the game of entrepreneurship and they're like, wow, she found something that worked and that's really cool. So that's like the first point is just like owning the fact that you've done something really monumental and trusting that people who are doing that at the same level or more than you are never going to be looking down on it or thinking that it's like embarrassing or cringe or whatever. They're looking at it from the game of entrepreneurship and going, wow, this chick is— she's literally figured out how to amass an audience of millions of people and have these kind of raving fans and people that buy stuff all the time from her, and she's built this strong personal brand. Like, do not be embarrassed about what it took to get to where you are, and like, stand on business with that, because people do— they respect it, and they actually want to be like you in a lot of ways. Like, I was so surprised at the amount of people that asked me at acquisition.com, like, how I was doing what I'm doing, because they have all their complicated, you know, complex stuff. They're wearing a suit, they're building funnels, they're doing whatever, and that from the outside makes us think, oh, that's more admirable, that's more respectable, that's more mature, that's like a more, you know, advanced kind of way of doing business. And the truth of it is, those same people will go, yeah, I mean, like, I figured this out and I have this whole sales team and I do all this complicated stuff, but like, I want to know how you do what, what you're doing. Like, how did you find your voice and your signature style series on— and, and how did you build this personal brand and like have these raving fans and like get people to buy stuff with no sales calls and blah blah blah. People that are doing incredible things are also, I promise you, having mad respect for what you've done and what you've built, regardless of the contents of those So first, put some respect on your own fucking name. Stand on it. It doesn't matter what the videos were about, it's iconic regardless. Moving forward, like, it's normal to evolve and outgrow versions of ourselves or things that we wanted to talk about or things that we wanted to teach. And so I think that's been the biggest challenge for you this year, is that you're facing this pressure point where it is time for you to evolve some of your offers, but you've had a lot of personal stuff that's come up that allowed you to get distracted from being able to do that building type work. And so you're in this place where you're like, okay, in order to bring revenue into the business, I've got to sell some of this old stuff, but I'm a totally different person and I don't necessarily want to create the content that, you know, sells those things. And so that is why you're in this kind of tough spot. And it's okay, like we all outgrow stuff. We stop wanting to talk about certain offers, we retire them, we build new stuff, we move on. Like it's part of the game. Um, but that's just the phase that you're moving into. And so you are going into this like a building phase of of your business where you're almost like reconstructing some of the things that you want to be known for. You're always going to be known for manifestation, but it's like, what's the elevated version of that as it relates to being a creator, or, you know, functioning in the creator economy, like having an audience, making viral content, learning how to sell digital products, having a personal brand? There's so many like elevated iterations and versions of what you, you've done that you can now create courses and programs and products around.

But like, there's a lot of potential there.

It's just you're in the point now where you have to build it, you have to do it. And there's all different seasons in business. I talked about this on a recent Instagram Live that I did, and then I also just recorded a podcast to kind of share about it more because I think it's really helpful to understand the seasons of your business. And sometimes you're going to be in the explosive growth seasons, and you had that, right, where it's like bam, bam, bam, everything's popping off, going viral, people are buying, you are at the height, you're like so in it, you're embodied in what you're teaching, you're obsessed with it, you love it, you're feeling confident, you're not feeling insecure at all, you don't care who's watching, it's like fuck it, whatever, the delusion is It's all there. You're in this explosive growth season. And then there's like maintenance seasons where it's like, okay, I'm sustaining what I built everything based on, and it's working and it's going and it's good. But like, I have some more questions and I'm, you know, not feeling the same level of like intensity or fire or delusion or whatever. But you're maintaining your business and you're still making sales and you're doing the things and you're kind of moving through the motions and sort of like mapping out what that next part of your journey is going to look like. And then you have building phases where it's like that's that's construction zone on your product suite, on what you're selling, on what you want to be known for. And that was a huge part of, you know, a lot of what I've been doing a little bit of last year and for the majority of this year is like, I don't want to sell from burnt out to badass anymore. I'm, you know, cut an entire 6-figure revenue stream from my business this year because I knew that I couldn't sustain one-on-one clients while I'm trying to do all this building. I wanted to build new things, so I created Your Year of More. I built Sold Out Stories. I made Million Dollar Messaging its own really complex, in-depth program. I built the room. Like, I was building so fucking much. So what you have to do in this next phase is really start to understand the clarity around what you want to be known for, taking everything that you built. You have all the skills, you're already known for manifestation. Okay, cool. What's the up-leveled, iterated version of that? How do you want to bring that into the next things that you want to teach and be known for? And then we start to build. Like, you're just changing and evolving as we all do, and that can feel really confusing and scary because it's like, okay, what I've known to always work, I don't want to do anymore. And it's not that you're giving up on the things that used to work, you're just going to do them in a new way. And your audience is going to come with you because a lot of what you've learned throughout this process, they also want to master. And you're going to show up as the new, like, elevated, more mature, you know, manifestation queen. But as it relates to, like, getting the business that you want and having a brand, if that's all part of, like, what you've been working towards and manifesting, and you can translate all of this life experience Moving to New York, starting your life over, you know, making friends with all these people who are in high places and doing cool things as entrepreneurs, like living this freedom lifestyle, but like renting your dream apartment— like, all of that still connects to who you are and what you've built. You just have to like start to weave it into new products that are also a representation of the new evolved version of you. And that's going to take some time. It— that's not something that you just snap your fingers and it's like, oh, I have all these new programs and all this new stuff to sell that immediately aligns with who I am out. There's a building phase and it is a journey. And sometimes you have to figure out how to have one foot in one place and one foot in the other, where you're selling some stuff where you're like, you know, you're gonna phase that out and you know you're gonna get rid of it soon, but you're still gonna sell it now because it's good for the business. You've got to bring revenue in and then you're building behind the scenes. So I wouldn't panic too much. I know exactly what spot you're at. And when you go through this building phase, you're just gonna— there's gonna be another explosive growth phase after that. And so we cycle through, right? Explosive growth, holding the momentum, building again. Explosive growth, holding the momentum, building again. Trust the ebb and flow of this game of entrepreneurship. Believe in yourself. Respect what you've built and how you've built it. And don't let anyone make you feel embarrassed about what you're posting. Literally, who gives a fuck? I think that's the biggest mistake that people make when they start to get to a certain level, where they're like, oh, now I need to be mature. Now I need to be, you know, uh, advanced. And now I need to be a tech person. Now I need to be Silicon Valley material. And you lose the entire spark and magic that made you who you are, which was so magnetic to an audience of people that were obsessed with it. It doesn't mean you have to talk about all the same things all the time as you once used to. You can evolve what you want to talk about and how you want to share and the content you want to create and the programs that you put out, absolutely, to align with the new versions of you. But you have to maintain the magic that is being authentically your fucking self. Don't try to put yourself in a box to fit the prim and proper or what you think success looks like because of all of these other successful people that are around you, that will be the worst thing that you ever do, is try to make yourself look what they look like, or make your success look like what their success looks like. That will drain all of the magic from who you actually are that has allowed you to build this fucking empire.

If you loved this episode, make sure to check out the show notes where I've linked a few similar episodes I know you're also going to love. You'll find them under the similar episodes section in the description down below with direct links so you can dive in and start listening right away, or add them to your queue for later. Binge away for even more growth, expansion, abundance, and fire motivation.