Overcoming Self-Doubt: The Power of Bold Decisions and Imperfect Action with Meredith Marsh

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 234. If you're ready to start taking bold action in your business and in your life, I think you might need some support and some instruction. And I've got just the right person to help you out. I have my special guest today, YouTube expert Meredith Marsh. In this episode, she very kindly describes lots of different personal and professional stories of how she got over limiting beliefs that she had about what she did, what kind of person she is, and she took bold action. You'll hear lots of different stories about what she did and learned in the process. She learned how to develop confidence, she learned how to build a business, and you're going to hear all about that.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:53]:
Meredith has over two decades of experience online mastering the art of teaching people how to create great videos, how to record and edit them, and how to grow their audiences on YouTube. She enjoys showing people how to make YouTube their number one lead generation platform. She is the creator of Video Brand Academy, the host of Video brand Infusion, and a firm believer that you don't need a six figure following to have and build a six figure business. She's a delight to be with. I think you're going to love this episode and let's go listen to this episode together now.

Speaker B [00:01:41]:
Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:25]:
Hello my friends. Today we are in for a real treat because I am talking and interviewing with Meredith Marsh. Meredith Marsh has quickly become one of my favorite people. She is an expert in all things YouTube and she is also an expert and teacher in video marketing for solo business owners. We are going to be talking a little bit about her expertise, but we're also going to be talking a little bit about life and her journey today. So I want to just welcome Meredith to the show and say I'm so grateful you agreed to be on.

Meredith Marsh [00:03:08]:
Thank you so much, Christine. Of course I would be on. I'll do anything for you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:12]:
Thank you so much. Thank you we are both New Yorkers, although we live several hours apart, but we have met several times in person at business conferences. And I just think we. We. We have a good vibe with each other. And over lunch one day at one of these conferences, I looked at Meredith's wrist and asked her, what is that on your arm? You know, this tattoo that you have?

Meredith Marsh [00:03:43]:
What.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:43]:
What is that? And Meredith, maybe you could take over the story from here. And I. If I remember correctly, Meredith said, what do you think it is? And it went from there. But, Meredith, could you just take us through the whole story, and then I will help out. I promise.

Meredith Marsh [00:04:01]:
Sure. Is this going to be on video? Do you want me to show the tattoo?

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:05]:
It is going to be on video. Yep. So, yeah.

Meredith Marsh [00:04:07]:
Okay. So this is my tattoo on my wrist. This is a 17% waxing crescent moon, if I remember correctly. So it's a full circle.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:18]:
It's a full circle.

Meredith Marsh [00:04:19]:
It's a full. You can see the full circle. But then the little bit that's shaded is this is how the moon looked when I was born. So I was born on Halloween. So I'm a Halloween baby. And the meaning of the tattoo itself really isn't the meaning of the tattoo itself. So the way that our conversation started was you asked me, what is that? And what I shared with you was, I got a Tattoo on my 40th birthday because it seemed like something I would never do. And the reason why I came to that decision was there was a day a few years ago where we had just moved into our house.

Meredith Marsh [00:05:06]:
I was painting the dining room, and I don't know, I was just, like, in a meditative state, which painting is kind of that way for me. I kind of like doing it. And it hit me that so many of my favorite things about my life have occurred because I did something that I thought I would never do. And it dawned on me that maybe my next stage of growth, my next milestones in business and life might come if I just went ahead and did something I would never do. And the first thing that popped into my head was a tattoo. And I went, oh, no, I don't want to do that. And so I had this little internal battle of. But you just realized all of these good things happen because you've done these things you never thought possible, you never thought you would do, and maybe you should just do it.

Meredith Marsh [00:06:09]:
So I promised myself I would. It took me, like, three years to really get up the courage to do it. And I finally did it on my 40th birthday, and it Just went by myself and got a tattoo. So that's how the story of the tattoo got me onto your podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:29]:
Yes. Did the tattoo get you other things as well, or the act of making this decision?

Meredith Marsh [00:06:35]:
I really think it's the story of how I made the decision. It has led to a lot of really great conversations, and it's such a great reminder to me, when I see it, of why I got. It was because of the decision that I made to, like, do something kind of silly, crazy, wacky, you know, I had to go through, like, I like tattoos. I'm not anti tattoo. I am just, like, a commitment phobe. So I was like, well, I could never get a tattoo because then it's, like, permanent, and I didn't want to have to go through the, like, explaining, hey, I'm gonna get a tattoo. Like, my kids thought I was crazy. My husband was like, what? That's not you.

Meredith Marsh [00:07:17]:
Like, I had to go through all of those oh, my gosh, you're out of your mind conversations, which really, people who get tattoos are not out of their mind. It's just like my own internal, like, oh, my gosh, what are people gonna think? And so it's a great reminder to have it there on my wrist. And I think it's also, you know, it sparks a lot of good conversations, like it did with us, too.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:45]:
Thank you so much.

Speaker B [00:07:46]:
And I.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:47]:
You've mentioned just so many things in describing the aftermath. Also, it's just, you know, your family's reaction and then having to go through your own thoughts about your own self and what you're doing. And you mentioned the word commitment and being a commitment phobe. And could you describe how that's affected you and what has happened because you've made these decisions to just jump over some hurdles and that you thought were there.

Meredith Marsh [00:08:20]:
Yeah, I. I always have described myself as a commitment phobe, but I think it's more of I just don't like to make a decision. I don't want to be stuck with something. But I. At the same time, I've always been the type of person that just gives myself permission to change my mind. So. But with a tattoo, it's like, it is kind of prominent, so I don't know that the commitment part of it has had any effect on anything. It's more like, I'm going to make the decision.

Meredith Marsh [00:08:56]:
Like, part of me knew you said you would do this, so. And I put it off for three years, but I did finally do was more like making the decision and following through. It's more about the decision than the commitment, I guess.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:13]:
Yeah. And maybe there's a. A fear that if you make a decision, you're not gonna have the freedom afterwards.

Meredith Marsh [00:09:24]:
I don't know that I had that fear. Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:30]:
Okay. If I remember correctly, when we were at that lunch table, you also talked about some other circumstances where you did things that you prior had felt like you would never do those things.

Meredith Marsh [00:09:42]:
Yeah. So can you tell some other things for the tattoo? Yeah. So one thing about me is I'm a YouTuber. I'm on YouTube. I make videos, I talk to the camera. And that is not something that I thought I would ever do. So that is really kind of where this idea for this wild and crazy moon tattoo came from, was like, wow. Like, I have this business and this career and all these cool things have happened because I did this really weird thing of talking to a camera, which in that moment was like, this is crazy.

Meredith Marsh [00:10:23]:
What am I doing? It's awkward. I'm not an on camera person. I was never a. An on stage person. Like, I have this whole background story about how I forgot my recital music in third grade in front of everyone at the recital. Like, don't put me on stage. That's not where I feel comfortable. But I did this crazy thing of, like, I think I'll start a YouTube channel.

Meredith Marsh [00:10:48]:
And just, like, the tattoo, it was like, what you're gonna do? What? Like, that doesn't even make sense. It doesn't sound like something you would do. And I just made the decision to do it because I wanted to see where it would lead. And it led to my business. It led to my life. I met you because. Because of it. Like, if I hadn't sat there and did the weird, awkward talk to the camera phase, I would never have connected with you or any of the other amazing people that I've met.

Meredith Marsh [00:11:19]:
So I think that's kind of where it stemmed from even before then. Just, like, little things. Like, you know, I always thought that I would be a mom. I never thought that I would be a military wife. But I married a guy in the army. I had one of my daughters in Hawaii, like, on a military base. There was an earthquake that day. Like, all these, like, wild things that are like, wow, that happened.

Meredith Marsh [00:11:46]:
You wouldn't have been there if you hadn't done something kind of wild and crazy and, you know, maybe perhaps even, like a tiny bit risky. Risky for me, which is not very risky. But I just sort of, like, saw all these sort of dominoes of. Of weird, odd out of Character things that I would never do, that I did, that led to more wild, crazy things that I would never do.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:17]:
So maybe you're a wild and crazy person thinking that you're someone who wouldn't do these things. Okay, could you describe why YouTube and what, when you made that first video, what was the content? What was, what was the message that you were bringing to the world?

Meredith Marsh [00:12:35]:
I actually set out to be a blogger. I have like, my whole background is in like online stuff. I had a GeoCities website in like 1996 when I was a kid. I was such a dork. I like learned how to do HTML back in the day. So I was always like an online person. And then I kind of shifted towards a bunch of different kind of career paths. But it dawned on me in probably like 2013 or so, there's people that are just like making content was like writing blog posts and posting it online and somehow they make money from that.

Meredith Marsh [00:13:18]:
And I didn't really know anything about content creation, but I knew about the Internet stuff, I knew about the website stuff and SEO. So I set out to be a blogger and it just made sense for the topic for me. I had this. I was kind of waiting for a niche. I was like waiting for inspiration to write about. I had bought a GoPro camera in December 2013, or probably bought it on like Black Friday or something. And my kids were little. I took it out of the package before Christmas because we got like a foot of snow.

Meredith Marsh [00:13:57]:
It was a Saturday morning, we got all this snow, the kids were little, they wanted to go outside and play. And I said, well, let me get this camera out. We took it outside and I got all this footage of them sledding and laughing. And then we went to my parents house, they decorated Christmas cookies with my mom and I just like got all this footage, came home, put it together in a five minute video. And when I played it for the kids, they were like mesmerized because it was like them in this little movie. And I thought, oh my gosh, more people should be doing this. Instead they're just like taking pictures of their kids ballet recital and dumping it on Facebook. And nobody wants to watch that.

Meredith Marsh [00:14:42]:
But if you turn it into a fun little movie, what a great little souvenir of your life, right? So that's what I started creating content about. And because it had to do with video, I thought I might have to like actually make videos for the content, not just write. You can't really write how to edit a GoPro video blog post. I Mean, you can. And I did, but it's a lot more helpful if there's, like, a video tutorial along with it. So I started putting that on YouTube, because that's. That's what you did. If you made videos, you put it on YouTube.

Meredith Marsh [00:15:16]:
And then it was maybe a couple of months before I. I would log into YouTube and notice there were subscribers, which at the time, I was like, what does that mean? There were comments. And I was like, oh, cool, people watch my video. And then I started to realize that people were coming back to my channel for more videos. They were asking questions. Those questions became really good video topics, and it kind of became a snowball that I just kind of evolved and grew over time. So I. I set out to be a blogger.

Meredith Marsh [00:15:54]:
I ended up becoming a video creator and YouTuber. And it's been so much fun. It's really been fun because even though I am an introvert, I get to talk to the camera, but I get to do it, like, in my own house, in my own home. I was upstairs doing my hair and makeup before our call, like, three minutes before the call, and I was like, how nice is this to just be. I'm just, like, doing my own thing. And then, oh, I have a call. Let me run upstairs, do my makeup, and come back down. And it's just like, so light and easy and fun and free.

Meredith Marsh [00:16:30]:
And it's all possible because I just, like, sit here and talk to a camera for YouTube. And I grew a business out of it.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:39]:
Yeah. Wonderful. And it's a wonderful business that you have, growing for sure and instructing so many people on how to use the power of the channel, which is massive. I'm. I'm a newbie to the YouTube world. But I'm very curious. You and Meredith is a real expert in how to grow your YouTube channel as well. So she's gonna help you if you decide to hook up with her and work with her to how to get on video, how to.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:13]:
How to create the channel, how to make it get into the world of the people that you want to connect with, which is wonderful. I'm thinking, what is the next question I have? The question. It is about just people's nerves about doing things like this. Blogging. I can share right now my own story. I was a blogger way back when, when psychologists were basically not blogging. And I remember I had to take a course to get the courage to press, publish, because I just kept thinking about it, maybe drafting things, then paid someone that I didn't know online. My husband Thought I was bananas at the time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:59]:
And within minutes of starting the course, I published my first blog because I realized, wow, this is all that there is to it, that other people just do this, and I could just press a button and have this thing go live. So I too have gone through the. I don't know how I'm going to get over this hurdle. Even though I had a desire and interest and maybe a need to do this kind of thing. I'm assuming now with the students that you teach that you're hearing a lot of this kind of anxiety or, you know, the uncertainty of what happens, when and how do you guide people through that? Because I have a feeling a lot of people who are listening are on this side of a hurdle. Whether it's social media or content creation or doing something for work or with their family or getting a tattoo. What do you do to help people? Just get centered and get ready.

Meredith Marsh [00:18:57]:
Yeah. Okay. I think I'm gonna say something that is probably gonna make you laugh and sounds so simple, but the reality is you just have to pretend that you know what you're doing. You have to pretend to have the courage and pretend that it's not awkward and just do it. Like, I, you know, is it maybe fake it till you make it? You know, perhaps kind of. But like I said, I was. I was not an on camera person. I just saw other people doing it.

Meredith Marsh [00:19:31]:
I could see people on YouTube who, from my view, it just looked like, oh, all they're doing is standing there talking to a camera about this topic. How hard could that be? And. And like, I'm. I'm a nerd about tech stuff. So I like cameras and lights and figuring out microphones and all of that stuff was fun for me. So I wasn't really overwhelmed with all of the tech stuff, which I know can also be a huge hurdle for people. I just had to get over, okay, I'm just gonna do it. And I remember standing in my living room where I recorded my first videos.

Meredith Marsh [00:20:10]:
Nobody was home. Like, my husband was at work, my kids were at the sitter. And I just remember, like, looking at the camera going, this is really awkward. Like, what am I doing? But I was talking, I was recording. I was talking to the camera, knowing I can edit out anything that I want. And I just kind of admitted, this is weird, this is awkward. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to do it anyway. And I just pretended my way through camera confidence.

Meredith Marsh [00:20:39]:
And now I have lots of camera confidence. So I think Pretending is a big part of it. And I also think, because what you see online looks like a perfect video. You know it. If you go look at my videos, they look very polished. They're very professional. They are very edited. I make so many mistakes.

Meredith Marsh [00:21:04]:
I, like, you would think in the 10 years I've been doing this, that I would know how to. How to talk to a camera and not make mistakes. But I flub up my words, I restart my sentences. It's like I'm trying. It's kind of like starting an engine. Like, I'll get the first words, Keep going, try again, keep going, and then eventually, it'll all come out in a cohesive sentence. And I edit all of that stuff out. But what you see, what other people see with everybody's YouTube videos, is they're perfect.

Meredith Marsh [00:21:38]:
They're polished. They must have recorded it that way. But no, I mean, some people might naturally be that good, but I'm not. It just gets. It just gets edited. So I think your brain kind of tricks you into thinking, this has to be perfect. And you kind of turn on this, like, performance switch in your mind of like, oh, this is a performance. And it's not.

Meredith Marsh [00:22:05]:
It's. You're just playing. You're just having a conversation and, you know, talking to the camera, but someone is going to be on the other end of that camera when you hit publish. And that's the whole point. That's the whole reason why you thought you had something to share online anyway, is to reach the people that you want to reach. So I think doing it through the camera is the best way, the most effective way. But you do have to kind of get over that initial hurdle, and it is weird. You just do it weird.

Meredith Marsh [00:22:34]:
You do it scared.

Dr. Christine Li [00:22:36]:
Yeah. This is absolutely the reason why I wanted Meredith on this episode to really encourage everyone who might have decided to turn on my show this morning, this afternoon, this evening, to really think about what you might be holding yourself back from, and what are the beliefs that are going through your mind that are causing that barrier or that hurdle to be seemingly there. Because Meredith is my model for just saying, well, we're gonna do it anyway. We're gonna do it imperfectly. We're gonna do it and then edit it. We're gonna do it and survive and have lots of great stories to tell and maybe even a new business afterwards. And I just love that philosophy. I.

Dr. Christine Li [00:23:24]:
I myself really love to just try things, because I learn the most from trying things. I really escape boredom, which is a real toxic thing for me. I just do not like to feel bored. So I like to try things, I like to find what is the next area that I could be a newbie at. But I know not everybody feels like that, right? So, you know, Meredith and I just get along in this way and many others. So. All right, let's talk about YouTube again. Can you talk about the opportunities that YouTube gives people? People who have a hobby, they want to share, insights that they want to share.

Dr. Christine Li [00:24:09]:
You can tell me all the other categories that people might want to know about too. Please educate us about what YouTube represents in the world.

Meredith Marsh [00:24:17]:
Yeah, YouTube is a search engine and it also has a very powerful recommendation algorithm like all of the social media platforms do. So. But it gives you both. YouTube is owned by Google. It's the second largest search engine behind Google. I know like AI is kind of shaking up search stuff online right now. So, you know, maybe in the future Google isn't going to be the top search engine. I don't know.

Meredith Marsh [00:24:47]:
But YouTube hasn't seen the decline in like search traffic that some people who just stick to blogging have seen with like Google results. So the thing with YouTube is people go there for answers, so they also go there for entertainment. Like it's a huge entertainment platform. But for a business owner, you have to think about when people are using a new software or buying a new product or trying to learn how to do something. Do they open the user manual or do they go to YouTube, you know, and when you're the person that shows up that's showing how to do something, then who are they going to come back to? You know, they're going to hit subscribe. Especially if this is something they're, you know, depending on any niche, if this is something they're struggling with and trying to figure out, they're going down the rabbit hole. They're doing all the research, they want to consume all of the content. And what better place to show up than as the subject matter expert in whatever it is in your niche, right? So you become the go to person in your niche.

Meredith Marsh [00:26:01]:
And the beauty of YouTube versus other social platforms is when you create long form content. So like not shorts, but 5 minute, 8 minute, 20 minute hour long videos if you want. Depending on what you want to do. That long form content can get views and subscribers and engagement and even leads and sales in your business long after you publish it. Because if it's useful, then it's useful. Like if it's informative and helpful and the people who are searching for that particular topic are still finding It a year from now or five years from now, YouTube's gonna get it in front of them. And when it leads to you and leads to your business and your courses, programs, services, whatever you're doing, it's free traffic. It's free leads that you put the time into once to make the video and then it kind of keeps paying off for you.

Meredith Marsh [00:27:05]:
So when you build this, I like to call it a spider web, you build a spider web with your content where it's all related. You're kind of answering every possible question that your ideal client or customer would have. Then it's almost impossible for your ideal clients and customers to go to YouTube and not see you and not find you and get kind of caught, so to speak, in your spider web.

Dr. Christine Li [00:27:32]:
Terrific. Thank you for explaining all of that. And I love the part where you create your content and then it lives there forever, not to die and not to, not to vanish like it does on other channels. And then you get to build your own zone of expertise on a social platform and on a platform that has the algorithm to get people to find you. So thank you for explaining all of that. Could you now explain to us your programs and what they're called and your community?

Meredith Marsh [00:28:09]:
Yeah, I have a membership community called Video Brand Academy. It's where I like to call it YouTubeify your business. So take your online business or your offline business and YouTubeify it. So we have growth strategies. We have 90 days to 1k YouTube subscribers bootcamp for like if you're just starting and there's a couple of different revenue, like revenue infusion guides, I call them. So there's affiliate marketing, there's brand deals, there's ad revenue you can get on YouTube. But mostly I'm trying to help people who already have a business get more traffic and leads and eyeballs and you know, engagement and ultimately sales to their business using YouTube. So the membership is an ongoing thing.

Meredith Marsh [00:29:02]:
We're always talking about what's working on YouTube, like what trends are actually working so that the time you put into making your videos, you know, you have the best possible chance of having it reach the most people. And I also have a video editing made easy course is actually a brand new course, I just completed it and that is like step by step how to create and edit pro looking videos without being a professional video editor. And that is a course where if you use descript, which is the editing tool that I recommend especially for business owners, because you don't have to be a professional editor to use it, it's perfect for anyone using Descript, because it's like step by step, it's arranged like you're editing with me, step by step the whole way in bite sized pieces.

Dr. Christine Li [00:29:59]:
Terrific. Amazing. I have heard from Meredith students how wonderful her programs are, how well laid out they are, how much their channels are growing. So I really want to recommend anyone who has an interest in knowing more about growing your business becoming successfully found on YouTube to connect with Meredith and to work with her. Meredith, I know you have a free gift for our listeners. Can you tell us about that too?

Meredith Marsh [00:30:30]:
Yes. Okay, so this is so much fun. I have a free app called Video Brand Academy. So, you know, for anyone who's a member, that's where you can access all of our course materials in the community and stuff. But even if you're not a member, you can download the app for free. And I created a YouTube channel analyzer in the app. So if you take a screenshot of your channel, two screenshots, upload it to the analyzer, it'll give you a score of how binge worthy your YouTube channel is, and it will give you some tips and ideas for some things that you can tweak to make it even more binge worthy. So the link for that, Christine, you will have the link for that.

Dr. Christine Li [00:31:13]:
Yes.

Meredith Marsh [00:31:14]:
So that everyone goes to the right place. But it is, it's totally free. The app is for Apple and Android, and it's kind of a fun little tool.

Dr. Christine Li [00:31:23]:
Yeah, I can see the excitement that Meredith has for this tool that she built, which is amazing. So to get the YouTube channel analyzer, go to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/ai again, that's maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/ai and then you'll be officially connected with Meredith and her world, her YouTube world and community. And I want to thank you so much, Meredith, for helping me make this conversation happen again. I'm so happy that we were able to do this live.

Meredith Marsh [00:31:57]:
Thank you so much for having me. I love chatting with you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:32:00]:
Oh. I love your personality, I love your philosophies, and I love that tattoo of yours. All right, everyone, go do what you were meant to do. Go do the things that you might be a little bit afraid of doing, but you really, really have a desire to fulfill. I think that's the gift that Meredith shared with us today. And go explore YouTube too, while you're at it. Go learn the things you need to learn about today. Meredith, any last words before we head off?

Meredith Marsh [00:32:28]:
No. Go do exactly what Christine just said. Go do what you were meant to do. And go do it on YouTube if you want people to find you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:32:36]:
Yep, yep, yep. Don't stay the hidden secret. We don't want that for you. We want you to be visible, findable, known and happy in your chosen path. All right, everyone, I will see you next week on the Make Time for Success podcast. Thanks so much for being here with us. Bye.

Speaker B [00:32:56]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success Podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also Visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name Procrastination Coach. Send me a DM and let me let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to and let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making Time for Success. Talk to you soon.