Desire to Inspire

That should be enough to keep you busy!

I call myself an influencer. I have a blog, I am active on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest and I am starting to write here on Substack. My business is being an influencer and I it’s how I make money. I work with brands to promote various things, I also work with a platform where I earn commissions for selling items through commissionable links. It is time consuming and I work a lot. My life is my work and my work is my life and I don’t consider that a bad thing necessarily. At times, I am able to put the work piece down, but mostly, it blends together.

In addition to working with brands and selling items, I write inspirational posts, I make cooking videos and I have a YouTube channel that has a little bit of everything. In order to keep this all going, I have to make money and for some reason, people don’t seem to understand that.

Even though my preference would be to do exactly what strikes me as fun or important, or insightful at any given moment, it really doesn’t work that way because in order to continue to create cooking videos, provide outfit inspiration and hopefully to inspire people, mostly mid life women, to live their best lives, I have to fund it.

It costs money to have a website, buy groceries, pay a photographer and videographer and various other things.

My audience is fairly broad, although mostly women. Some love the fashion, some love the recipes, some love the inspiration and travel and…since I call myself a lifestyle blogger, the combination of these things with a little decor and fitness thrown in is, in my opinion, a good mix.

Since I don’t charge my blog readers, and obviously, anything I post on Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube are free to those who have the apps, the only way to make any money in exchange for the amount of time I’m spending to create content, is to sell something. I think that part is sometimes forgotten by blog readers who don’t like to see “commerce” included in my blog.

I’ve also recently heard someone say that posting pictures of yourself every day is “narcissistic”. I suppose for some people, it could be that, but definitely not for everyone. I personally love to follow women who inspire me with their creative fashion, people who cook, people who give travel tips, etc.

As a result of posting to my platforms almost daily and interacting with other women who follow me and who I follow, I have created a community of friends that live all over the world and I consider some of these women to very dear friends. I am inspired by them and they are inspired by me and that is anything but narcissistic! This is, in my opinion, the best thing about social media…actually being social. In the end, the most important thing is always the in person human relationship and if it starts out on Instagram, that’s just a bonus!

I’m not writing this post to defend what I do, but rather, to explain and clear things up for those that don’t get it. Being an influencer is a relatively new profession and from the outside looking in, it can look easy…just getting your picture made in a cute outfit or making a recipe or writing something on a blog.

Easy, is not a word I would use to describe what I’m doing, however, I love being an influencer. As with anything you choose to do, there are parts that are more fun than others, but you must take the good with the bad, at least until you can afford to hire someone to do the things you don’t want to do and I’m not quite there!

So…I will continue to build this influencer business I’ve started, I will continue to learn more about writing, photography, cooking, relationships and the world of social media and I will also continue to make new friends and build a strong community of women who desire to inspire in whatever way they feel is important. We all have something to share and we all have the ability to let our individual light touch others.

I created Crazy Blonde Life from nothing and I’m proud of what I’ve done. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have been able to help other women because they’ve told me. Helping others and doing what you love is a great combination.

I thought I was finished, but just a word about outfit inspiration. What we wear is one way we present ourselves to the world. Before anyone knows who you are or hear you speak a word, they see what you’re wearing and whether or not you’ve take the time to be presentable. Clothes are often a reflection of how we feel about ourselves and how we want to be seen. Our society with it’s emphasis on youth and perfection can make us feel irrelevant as we get older but the truth is, as midlife women, we are anything but irrelevant! We have a wealth of experience and wisdom to share. It is important that somehow we find the confidence to share!

As we women get older, fashion can get harder for several reasons. First of all, our bodies start to change, no matter how much we exercise or eat well, and…for some reason, there are ridiculous rules about what “older” women can wear or not wear. To make matters worse, we are often our own worst critics.

If I can inspire a woman who’s not feeling good about herself to put together an outfit that she feels good about wearing, that’s more of a big deal than some might realize. Clothes can give you the confidence to do more of the important inner work and the inner work can give you the confidence to get dressed and inspire other women to do the inner work. By inner work, I mean learning to love who you and be proud of that person.

Here’s the point…we all have special and individual gifts and instead of criticizing someone for something we don’t really know anything about, let’s stay in our own lane and try to be the best women we can be. That’s plenty to keep anyone busy!

And, if you’re enjoying something that someone has put out there at no charge…let them know!

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