Radical Authenticity, Mom Life, and Marketing Magic with Rachel Pedersen

Welcome to the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast.

We're your host, Erika Radis and Marie Lifschultz, a realtor and lender here in San Antonio.

But most importantly, we're working moms just like you. This podcast is all about creating a space where we can come together, share stories, and learn from each other. We love connecting with local moms in business, hearing about their journeys, and how they're balancing it all. Because let's be honest, it's not always easy, but it's so worth it. Before we dive in today's episode, we're excited to share some big news with you all. Our business community and coworking memberships are officially open. Whether you're looking for a supportive community of moms in business or need a beautiful space to work and grow, we've got just what you need here at Working Moms of San Antonio. You can visit the link in our show notes or workingmomsofsanantonio.com. Membership for more info. Now on to today's episode. Grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let's get started. Welcome to this week's episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. I am here with Rachel Peterson. An author, a social media strategist, content creator, and working mom. And so I'm just gonna quickly turn it over to her and let her share a little bit more about herself and her story.

Oh, Erika, thanks so much for having me.

Um, yes.

Side note, I love San Antonio. Like, I love it. So yeah, my sister, she's a, a working mom in McAllen, and whenever we go down to McAllen, we make sure to go see the Riverwalk because it is just, it's gorgeous.

I love it.

It's almost like a mini— like a gem, you know what I mean? A gem that people don't know about. It's hidden. So anyways, um, hi everyone, I'm Rachel. Um, I'm a— like she said, a social media strategist, mom of 3. I'm Minnesota-based, born, raised, and I used to say lifer, but no longer. Um, I, I fell in love with social media, um, years ago. I was a single mom, uh, when I was 21 years old and I didn't really have like a life path, but I would, you know, watch reality TV at night. And so I'd watch reality TV and I was like, what if I tweeted at like the stars and the producers? Like what would happen? And I noticed that they started like engaging with my tweets and I was like, whoa. And then a producer of The Bachelor followed me and I was like, wow, this is crazy. So I didn't connect the dots at that point, but I realized social media is just an incredible portal to new possibilities and opportunities. And when I became a hairstylist, I was talking about that with a client and she said, do you wanna come be our marketing consultant? And I said yes. And then our business has grown considerably since then.

Yeah, that's amazing. I can't believe that you're doing all the things.

All of the things. Let's do 'em.

Why not? Yeah, for sure. And so speaking of doing all the things, as moms, as working moms, we all feel like we're doing all this stuff, right? And sometimes it doesn't feel like our needle is moving. Um, and so do you have any advice for our listeners, um, for when they're feeling like that, when they're feeling like, hey, we're doing it all, but like nothing's really, nothing's really going up? Yeah.

Okay. So this was something I learned, um, I learned years ago and then this was a, this is a weird, uh, kind of like how this transpired. Years ago I learned that like when you are sensitive or emotional, which I am, Or like you're, you overthink things, right? Like when everything feels super internalized, like I'm failing, I'm letting everyone down, nothing is good enough. The single greatest way to combat that is with facts, AKA data. And I know I love some data because it sets me straight, reminds me, hey, the world isn't on fire, or at least it might be, but at least your home is doing okay, business is great. And it's tough because things like, are my kids taken care of and loved? How in the world are you supposed to find data points for that, right?

Yeah.

So a while back, I heard this podcast episode with Martin Short and Martin Short—

Oh, I love him.

Love him, right? I could only think of him as like Franck first. Yes. You know, every potty has a poo bush. So Martin Short talked about how he has this report card system for himself and every day or week, he'll go into these like 7 to 9 areas in his life, and he has— he gives himself a grade. And I was like, that is so smart. And he has specific criteria that kind of root him in— this is good enough, this is X, this is etc. Because everything is so subjective in parenting, also in business, but there are metrics more so than in life. So I try to look at facts Are my kids fed? Yes. Is all the laundry done? No. But did they have clean clothes? Yes.

Okay, great.

We're winning. So that helps me a lot.

Yeah, no, that's super good advice. I've never thought about it in that way, but, um, I might need to make a report card for myself because we all get that feeling, right? Sometimes where it's like, oh gosh, like, you know, things are a lot.

For sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, well, one thing that I really love about you is that you show up so authentically in your, in your social media and all of that. And so what advice do you have, would you say, for a gal that maybe feels like, you know, they're not polished enough or they're not shiny enough to kind of get the courage to get out there?

Oh my gosh, that's exactly what the world needs right now. Yes, really much. Very much so. And the reason I share that is because we're coming off of decades and decades and decades of women specifically being told, don't show your mess, hide the, you know, hide the ugly, hide your flaws.

You know what I mean?

It's everything is best foot forward. And this concept of like authenticity and, you know, radical authenticity is, it's still kind of new, but because of the rise of AI, everything is becoming more and more, perfect. Yes. And correct. When truth be told, like, we need people out there willing to say, hey, listen, I don't have all of life figured out, I promise.

Yeah.

Here's something I did figure out, or here's something I want to share with you that can make your life better. So there's something beautiful about unpolished. There is something beautiful and magical about saying like, it's okay to not be like AI. It's okay to not have everything be perfect. And in fact, I think it becomes kind of like your signature a little bit.

Yes. Yeah, no, I love that. I mean, one of the main things we do here at Working Moms of San Antonio is I want to make sure that people feel like, you know, they can bring their kids. You don't have to be a mom, um, and then separately a business person. Like, both of those things can, you know, come together, and that's what makes you, I would argue, sometimes even a better business person.

So that's great. It's interesting too, especially like in business, there's this like pressure externally and internally to appear as though everything is figured out. Like there's this fear of if I share something that's less than perfect and intentionally, like people won't wanna work with me when the truth is that's actually what magnetizes people to you. We had a few students from our mastermind to our house and one of the things they said, one of their big takeaways from that, um, several days is they said, I was really surprised by how down to earth, like, your home life is. They said, I thought it would be like magical or fantastical or super luxury. And I'm like, no, that's not really how I roll. You know, I handpick like crystal and yeah.

Yeah, same.

Yeah, that's the magic. So.

Oh, how cool. Yeah, so I wanna talk about your book a little bit and how you got there. So you, how did you make that jump into being an author and like what wanted, what made you wanna do that?

Oh, I love this question. I wish I could talk more and more about books because it's my favorite thing to talk about. Um, I was always a writer. I loved writing. It's my favorite way to communicate. I like to read written communication. Um, I was homeschooled for many years and then I went to private school and I didn't have friends, so I got lost into books all the time. Just books, books, books. And I remember they would give us like a writing assignment and they would say, this is a 3-page writing assignment. And I wrote 26 pages. And on page like 7, the teacher said, I'm done grading here. A+, you're good. Yes, you've done it. And so the hallmarks are there for sure. Um, but then it was actually in, I want to say 2019, gosh, 2020, 2020, I'm going to say, um, Oh, for some reason my husband Paul and I were staying at, um, there's a, there's an entrepreneur named Russell Brunson. He's the founder of ClickFunnels. We were staying at his house for a few days and he, he was like, you really gotta write your book. He's like, people need a book from you. Can you please write your book? And I was like, I'm so scared, Russell. This feels so nerve-wracking. I've written lots of fiction, but nonfiction is like terrifying to me for some reason. He said, just don't overcomplicate it. Just write 500 words a day from now until your 30th— it was 31st birthday. And then you'll have a book by then. And I was like, okay, fine. And I would be Voxing him every night and I'd be like, is it supposed to be this bad? Is it supposed to be cringey? And he's like, mm-hmm. Yep. Keep going. I kept going. Before you know it, I was at 60,000 words. There was not a single point in writing that book. At least the first draft that I was like, this is amazing, ever. I was like, this is so bad. And thankfully that's not the version of the book that it is today. But, um, I, I boxed Russell after I finished and then I pitched it to publishers straight up. I just was like, I'm just gonna reach out to publishers on Instagram and be like, hey, you wanna see this? Totally outside proper channels. Um, and I will not say who, but one of the biggest publishing houses reached out and said, we'd love to see your manuscript. So I reached out to Russell and I said, they said yes. And he said, no, I wanna introduce you to Hay House, who published Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra and all these amazing thought leaders. And I was like, okay. So he set me up with a call with the CEO of Hay House and it was wild. Because I had no idea that all of those steps would follow when I first just started writing 500 words a day.

Yeah, I love that. Isn't it amazing how just like one connection with somebody can like completely change the trajectory of your entire life? I feel like, like it's, it's nuts.

It's radically, um, timeline shifting in a way. Yes, sure.

Oh, I love that. Yeah. Um, You are very active on TikTok and on Instagram. Um, and there's like, I feel like all this conflicting information, like, do you feel like we have to be on all the things? Or do you feel like maybe we should show up some places and, and leave some places to some others?

Yes and yes and yes. Um, okay, so this is really big. I'm gonna put this as a foundation for everyone. Uh, the single most important thing is your mental health and wellbeing. That is more important than growing on social. So can we do all the things? Yes. Does it help our growth? Yes. Is it always beneficial? I'm gonna say not always.

Yeah.

So what I love for social, and this is the rule I follow, is it has to be a comfortable stretch, meaning I'm not gonna force myself to do a jump and drop splits, but maybe I can stretch into a little bit more of the splits by saying, I'm going to go from one platform to two. So I recommend— yeah, I recommend most people focus on one, two, or three platforms. That's actually what I do with my clients too. Even the really like massive companies, I'll say which one is our platform of focus and which ones are our secondaries, because we can't put the same effort everywhere all the time. So that's my philosophy.

Yeah, that's great. I just feel like there's so much pressure to do all of the platforms.

Um, pressure.

Yeah, we're not— we're a little bit on the TikToks, but I don't know very much about it. And I'm kind of like the person where it's like, if I don't know about this, I guess I shouldn't probably put my effort, my effort into it, you know?

Yeah. So one, one thing I love too is think about the platforms you love, like the ones that bring you to life. You're like, this is fun for me. I get it. Yeah, I like it. I watch stuff here. Those are the—

so not LinkedIn then.

Yeah. Skip the ones you don't. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. So you have 3 kids. I also have 3 kids. My kids are often with me at work and, you know, doing those things. And you're so busy. Do your kids like go around with you and do all the stuff that you do?

Oh my goodness. No, they don't. And that's been an interesting process. So in the beginning, we brought our kids like on all of— we do a lot of work trips for speaking engagements.

Sure.

Events, etc. There was one month where things were crazy and I did 9 trips in one month.

That was—

oh my gosh, way too many.

I can't—

yeah, like one a month now. Um, early on we brought the kids into it and I just noticed that they spent a lot of time waiting and sitting.

Yeah.

And being like, I'm bored. And I didn't want them to correlate being bored with the work that I do. So, so just for that simple reason, I was like, if any of them wanna become entrepreneurs or marketers or authors, I don't want them to think that this is always boring, that they're just gonna be sitting around and waiting. It's very, there are engaging aspects, so we don't really bring them anymore, but they're always around. Um, that's why there's, you know, sometimes there's reschedules and cancellations or tweaking of appointments. Um, But yeah, they're, they're over on the other side of our bedroom, which is, you can sometimes hear them. It's, I have to think of a Zoom cancellation.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that. I mean, that's pretty wise, I guess. You know, you don't want them to associate, I guess, working with just like, yeah, being stagnant, I guess, and, and being bored.

So I know I, if I could have incorporated them into something where it's like they got that, the feeling that everyone gets at events. Yeah, it would have been amazing and it just wasn't clicking. So I was like, oh, this is just, this is a chore. Now they're associating my work with, uh, and then they're never gonna do something similar, you know?

Yeah. I feel like, I mean, my kids are here all the time and they too, they're bored. Um, and I'm like, I'm like, isn't it cool? We're doing this thing. And my kids are like, mom, this is not cool. Like, I don't, I don't like that. Especially my 13-year-old. She's like, no. And I'm like, but nothing is cool to her these days. So that's sort of the way.

I am an almost 15-year-old and I'll be like, you wanna see what I just did? And I'll show this like really mind-blowing thing. She goes, okay.

And I'm like, yeah. Isn't that the worst? Like that stare that they give you. And I'm like, I worked hard on this. Can you at least like fake it? Yeah.

Look, act a second. That will get you far in life. No, that's true.

Yeah.

How funny.

Well, do you feel like there's one thing that you do if they, if your kids pick up any of this, like is there one thing that you hope that they see um, you know, as they watch you run your business and that kind of thing? Yeah. Okay.

So for a long time, I thought I knew what I wanted them to pick up on. I was like, I want them to adopt these core values. I want them to lean into these skills, like, uh, this, this one thing, the ability to, you know, uh, just fill in the blank with whatever specific tasks I do. Um, and I was like, I want them to learn these things because they're really important. Um, but there was a big flip Recently. So we had our kids map out their own core values with no guidance from us. They just had the list on the screen to choose from. And it was so wild for me because I realized I could learn more about them through their core values and see, oh, they might appreciate this, but they might not. I might think it's really cool to speak on stages and to have presence for a stage. My kids, one of them, their core value was solitude. And I was like, yeah, that's, that's a little different than that. So that was one thing that really surprised me. But equipping them to be able to identify what do I believe in, what do I care about, what's important to me, and how can I live in those values and create a big and wonderful life. And then a while back, not too long ago, we decided to ask the kids like, What is your experience? Like, what are you learning from seeing mom and dad work really hard? And so we asked each of them independently of each other so that data wasn't skewed.

What—

you've seen how hard mom and dad work. What takeaways— what do you take away from that? And it was just open-ended. What's your take from it? And all three of the kids said some iteration of, if I want to achieve my dreams, I'm going to have to work hard for them and not give up. And I was like, that's what you took from it? You know?

Okay, cool. Yeah.

So I'm really open to seeing like what they take from their experience of being a secondhand entrepreneur.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. I love that answer though. And I love that they all had kind of a similar answer because it's so true. Yeah. I mean, that's such an important, just like life lesson to know like, hey, stuff takes hard work, man, and we've gotta kind of get it done. Yep. So, oh, that's so good. And that's now I wanna do that with my own kids. Let's see what they say.

And just a warning and a heads up, I was so scared, Erika, that they were going to be like, that money isn't worth it. Or that building your own business sucks or something like that. Because we do work hard and we all do, right? And so I was expecting and bracing myself for bad answers. So if you prepare for that, you'll get some great feedback. And then if you get good answers, you'll be like, oh, this is so cool. So I was wildly surprised.

I love that. That's great. So many of our listeners, I feel like, and the ladies that come into our events and that kind of thing are just feeling overwhelmed. Do you have like a quick pep talk for these gals that are just— they feel like maybe they're kind of drowning in the moment and, you know, we've all felt like that. Do you have some advice for ladies that are feeling that way?

Yes, I'll share one that's been helping me a lot lately because I at times feel like I'm absolutely drowning too. And knowing that everybody else is feeling that is so helpful. So knowing, you know, the 8, 9, 10-figure entrepreneur that you're looking at, they're also feeling like they're drowning with balancing everything. Looking at the person whose business was acquired, they're also drowning. I love remembering that that's like a— it's a very common experience. Yeah, I think especially for women, like, we are multitaskers. Our brain has 50,000 tabs open at the same time all the time. Um, and that's a blessing and it's also a curse because we expect ourselves to be absolutely crushing it in every single area. So this is the mantra I think over and over again lately that's been helping. My greatest works will come when the kids are grown. And right there, that gives me this permission slip of Everything I do while also raising a family is bonus. It's amazing. It's incredible. It's our lifeblood as a family, but it's bonus because truth be told, my greatest works will come when I'm 47, 50, 55. Like those are gonna be not the best years, but the best years for the business. And that, that always kind of reminds me it's not a sprint, it is a marathon.

Oh, I love that. And you know, even I need to hear that sometimes, you know, we all, we all feel like, especially as business owners, it's like, okay, well, I'm, you know, I've got to really hurry up and do all of this stuff. And I think that especially with Instagram and all the things, there's a lot of comparison going on. Like, oh, look at this person. Why aren't I there yet? Or, you know, that kind of thing. Um, so to give yourself, like you said, to your point, that permission to sort of be like, hey, like this is extra good, good on us, but like the best is kind of going to happen later for the business.

Yep, exactly. So I just love that the future paces the pressure in a good way. Like, you know, once I get 20 to 40 more hours back per week from, you know, running kids since I was 21, it's going to be a cool thing. Both seasons are valuable.

Yeah, for sure. Um, I always like to ask people too, is there anything right now that you are just loving? Like, be it a book or a podcast or just you know, an interesting bit about something that you love right now.

Yes, I love Smartless, the podcast with Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes. Oh, we love that one too.

Yes, yeah, we love Smartless.

Yes, we always do a game right before each episode. So it's, here's this person. Number 1, guess what you think they're going to be like because we just don't know. That's what I love about that podcast. And the second thing we do is guess which, which of the hosts brought the guest on. And yeah, let's do that. That's so fun. But I, I love that podcast because they are so good 99% of the time, and I love seeing how the three of them connect with the guests and how they like weave everything in and they do callbacks. I'm like, yeah, it's magic.

Yeah, I know, that's like That's like podcasting goals, I feel like.

For sure.

Yeah. Well, well, towards the end, I typically like to have our guests share how folks can follow them and do all of that stuff. So will you share with our, with our guests here how you can, how they can get to you?

Yes, for sure. My, the easiest place to find me right now is my website. It's rachelpetersen.com, all E's and a D in my last name. And I publish multiple blogs per week that I do write myself. Very proud of that. And there you can find freebies, tips, strategies, steps, plug-and-play templates. Those blogs will get you just connected to exactly what you need. There's a ton of actual, real actionable gold in there.

Perfect. I love that. And I have— I've gone through your blogs and there really is. It's so much info, so much free info. It almost should be illegal, but, you know, but we'll definitely put that in our show notes as well so that our listeners can get all of that value. And I just want to thank you so much for taking the time to be, you know, to be on the podcast today. It was lovely to chat with you, and I just, I just think you're amazing.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. The second I saw San Antonio, I was like, oh, heck yes.

Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm so glad. And then just really quickly, I will thank our listeners for tuning into this week's episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast, and we will catch you guys next time. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We hope you love today's chat and found a little inspiration to take with you into your week. If you have a podcast topic suggestion or a question you'd love for us to cover, definitely send us an email at hello@workingmomsofsanantonio.com. We'd love to hear from you. And until next time, see you in the community.