Lara Acosta | From Unknown to Building a Million-Pound Personal Brand | Extraordinary Life Stories

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0:39Learn more at drinkag1.com. today being useful is more powerful than being famous than being the loudest and being the most intelligent person in the room if someone needs that they will call you that is the thing that every single person especially if you're young you should know who is lara acosta an accidental entrepreneur had no interest in building a business ever i had interest but those interests weren't interested in me. I had those dreams, but they weren't interested in me pursuing them. And now as a result, she ended up building three different businesses. Congratulations. Now there's a very competent, confident version of Lara that the younger version would be proud of.

1:27What I see on social media, especially with younger generations now, everything feels like you just deserve it. Just because you did it, you deserve it. you have to love it. You have to be hungry for it. But actually listening to you and understanding the fact that actually if I do this, I could massively amplify my business. I could grow, which is what I want to do as an ambitious entrepreneur. And this is very contradictory because I speak about personal branding a lot. I don't think everybody should have a personal brand. Not everybody can handle it. You're better off spending money on ads.

2:07Welcome. Hi. I'm looking forward to this. I'm so excited to speak about everything today. Good. Me too. Who is Lara Acosta? She is an accidental entrepreneur. had no interest in building a business ever, wanted a full-time stable nine-to-five job that would pay for the bills and allow her to just live a stable life. And then as a result of pursuing that, she ended up feeling lost and without a purpose. And now as a result, she ended up building three different businesses. That is who she is. Congratulations. Thank you. So from someone that was driven but pretty lost to then trying, because this is the thing I love about you, the resilience piece.

2:56You grafted to get to where you are now. Take me back to a younger version of you where you were trying to work out where to go, what to do to get to where you are now. I remember very vividly the first time I really felt lost was at around eight. And I just was the black sheep out of my friendship groups. I never really fit in. I had very weird tendencies. My parents were very different to most parents, and I can get into that later, but I felt lost. And then when it came to getting my grades for the first time at 15, my A-levels, et cetera, GCSEs, I failed everything. And at school, I would be the most proactive.

3:39I would love learning about business, economics, et cetera. And I knew the stuff. I knew it. Back and forth, I could talk about it all day. I was so interested But the greats never reflected that ever. And that led me to feeling incompetent or stupid or just simply not talented enough, not good enough. And for a girl that age, that feeling is horrible. it leads you to believe that there is no way in hell that you will ever succeed or arrive to a decent life and me being an immigrant my parents were betting on me they sacrificed everything for me so it was just not me it was for them too and me failing at school meaning meant failing them too and the burden that I feel like I carried for that time led me to depression.

4:40And so that was the worst time of my life where I just didn't know where I was going to go. And I had interests, but those interests weren't interested in me. I had those dreams that I wanted to pursue, but they weren't interested in me pursuing them. So, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That's quite emotional. And I also find it empowering that now there's a very competent, confident version of Lara that the younger version would be proud of. Yeah, I guess. Sometimes. And a lot of people who know you, particularly through social media, you built up a huge following, particularly on LinkedIn, which we'll come to, where people will see you as someone that has helped them with their personal brand, is confident.

5:30And I've used that word twice because I know that that version of You just had to work really hard on that and still has to work on it. The confidence element, and I stole this from Alex Ramosian as a quote, you don't get confident by just shouting affirmations in the mirror. You do it by doing the thing multiple times where you become extremely skilled. That's something that he said and he resonated with me. The moment I found the one thing that I could do very well and essentially eventually became social media, then I found a subsector of that, which was copywriting. I loved storytelling. I loved social media.

6:06I loved writing. I always lived in my head because I was an only child. I was always left alone because I didn't really have friends. So I was always thinking and like daydreaming, et cetera. And I found a lot of comfort in my head. And eventually that also became a career path that I didn't know about. So I started ghostwriting as one of my first attempts to starting a business or freelancing. and as I did it and I failed that I tried again I became confident because no one can take away the fact that I did that that I became skilled just because I tried enough and I didn't quit and that confidence was built off the back of that it didn't come from anything else like I've lost weight I've run marathons I've done all these things but nothing felt better than feeling incredibly competent at something.

7:01And now I can walk into a room and I know I may not be the most successful or the smartest, but I know I'm really good at one skill and probably better than a lot of people around me. And that allows me to walk into rooms with a lot of confidence because from that I developed all the skill sets like business building, networking, talking to very big, successful entrepreneurs, that was also a really key hack for me. When I started ghostwriting or copywriting for founders, I ended up getting paid by those seven-figure, eight-figure entrepreneurs to just talk to them for an hour a month. The knowledge that I got from that was more than I could have ever paid for or afforded.

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9:16What is that? My main skill is writing. I somehow engineered a way to hack writing in a short form way. And that became for LinkedIn. So I understood that all the social medias had had their time. But LinkedIn, which is where I found success at the very start, had just started coming into this era of social media, personal branding. and what I found was a lot of founders and entrepreneurs and CEOs wanted to be famous, but not in an influencer way. They wanted to have influence without being influencers. And that is what we call now a thought leader, right? And so I was like, okay, I know all of these things because of social media.

10:01I understand what good content looks like versus bad, right? That is something that a lot of people above like my age don't really understand because they didn't grow up with social media the way we did. And so I was like, okay, I can't recognize these two things. Now, how do I then monetize this skillset? Oh, you implement the same viral concepts and writing and hooks into a professional platform. And you take their stories and skillsets, and then you make that an entertaining piece of content, which fits to LinkedIn standards. So that's how it happens. That's brilliant. You articulate things so well.

10:38I have two teenage daughters, 14 and 16. So I see you as a role model. Thank you. A female entrepreneur that ultimately is influencing incredible thought leaders themselves, other entrepreneurs sitting at the heart of that. They will thank you for helping them. I want to bring that kind of your own personal journey as a female entrepreneur and the journey that you've been on and whether you've actually felt any, particularly in that leadership business space, right, which is what you're doing and what you're influencing. Have you had any kind of prejudice from being a girl? Have you felt that?

11:10Or have you just actually kind of pushed through that and not noticed it? I think, I believe that I have, but something in me has allowed me to just completely phase out. I have an incredible dad that raised me incredibly well. I absolutely love my dad. And I called him once when I was at uni, and I was writing an essay on feminism. And at that time, obviously, university is very like liberal, et cetera. And you learn a lot about feminism. And I was so upset at what I learned about the history of women. And I was like, oh my God, there's like this privilege around men and all of these things. And my dad said to me, how about if you just focus on thinking about Lara privilege?

11:49And I carried that quote with me because it allows me to just, okay, this is the reality right now, but what can I do that's in my own hands to push myself forward and then bring all the people with me. And so I am very aware of what's happened to me. Maybe there's been some micro aggressions or like moments where because I was a woman, I didn't get given an opportunity or I was left out or something like that. But because my dad had raised me with such strong self-belief and an ability to just see what happened and just ignore it. I think that's why I'm here, mostly because of my dad. I'm like, okay, there's this thing happened.

12:29This thing happened. The first time I hopped on a call with a potential client, right? It was horrible. I get onto his call. I'm very nervous. I'm a new beginner. And then he, I start pitching, like how I was taught, how I learned for free on YouTube or whatever. And I realized that this guy I was only in this call because he wanted to flirt with me. That stops a lot of women from keep, like, they stop right there. They're like, this is not for me. I'm never going to make it. And instead, I was like, okay, what can I do to avoid this thing happening again to me? And so I manufactured, I literally 360'd my entire profile.

13:11Instead of having the same photos that I used to have, I changed my profile photo to look incredibly, almost like scary, right? Very like serious face. I stopped posting a lot of photos of myself. I focused on writing, very few photos of me just looking like a girl and more so professional. And that allowed me to kind of excel in my field. That is a disadvantage, but I was not going to start challenging the rules there because I didn't have what I have now, which is a following or some sort of impact and authority. Now I can't and I can speak for that girl. You've got a track record now. Yeah, I have that.

13:49But before, if I tried, I would have failed and it would have been a lot of effort lost. But now I can and I can stand up for those girls because I bared those consequences and I took them in. I was able to withstand them because I had the strength. And honestly, the true relief of my dad to be like, do what you need to do right now and then focus on the rest later. And that comes with George McCool. There's like one of the 10 habits of high agency people. One of the traits are, and it's an immigrant mindset. When you have an immigrant mindset, essentially, you know that you just have one shot and you cannot focus on anything else but just getting to the goal.

14:28And now my goal has, I've achieved many goals. And now I achieve that I can now focus on worrying about the other things that I was worried about with a lot more impact. and people that can support me in a network and the track record that allows me to scream at the top of my lungs, this is happening. Here's how we're fixing it. Put respect on my woman's names and let's keep going. And I think I am grateful that I focused on the one thing first. Yes, I love that. I think I've used the word resilience already, but just listening to them, there's a huge amount of graft and pivoting and thinking on your feet, It's that entrepreneurial piece coming back to that.

15:08And I think it's important to bring that up because a lot of people, if they find out about you now for the first time and then see the big following and the track record piece of all the people you've worked with and the people you're helping, they'll be like, oh, you know, they won't know how much effort went into that. And I think that's important to highlight because I think a lot of youngsters potentially looking into what you could argue is the influencer space, the content creation space, if you like. They don't realize how consuming the work is and how much effort's gone in to get to where you are now.

15:40Do you agree? I, yes. Social media is made to feel easy. And I have a lot of things to say. Just because you're posting on social media doesn't mean that you're going to become a millionaire the next day. and just because you're trying doesn't mean that you deserve the opportunity. What I see on social media, especially with younger generations now, everything feels like you just deserve it. Just because you did it, you deserve it. You have to earn it. And I think we've lost that hunger for the journey. You have to love it. You have to be hungry for it. And I am so glad that I was too. And if not, I brainwash myself to like the journey of, I don't know what to say, like replace the word, eating.

16:29Consuming. Like eating shit. Eating shit every single day. Like you have to be able to like the hard thing. You have to become addicted to it. It's almost masochistic to feel like every single day at 6 a.m. You're putting yourself through this incredibly hard journey just for the single chance of seeing an incremental potential increase in your business, getting a new client, etc. Like even for the next 100 followers, you have to learn to love it. And social media, building businesses, it's not easy, even with AI, even with the right network, even if you have VC. It's not that. It's grit. it is excitement and it it is a true ambition of playing this infinite game where it is not about the million dollar valuation or like the million dollar year whatever it is about you getting better it is entrepreneurship is essentially self-development on steroids and you like it view as well that's the thing as well that you're you're testing and failing or succeeding in full view of everyone.

17:44And that's where I think a lot of people give up early. This isn't working, but they're actually probably ashamed or embarrassed about the fact that they're doing something and no one's paying attention. Amelia Sordell, who we talked about earlier, she told me that she was posting for like three years and it was like one like every time and it was her own, but she just kept going. Do you identify with that? Because that whole mindset, so many people give up. I was on the other side where I would see her because she was one of the first people that I found on LinkedIn. And I would see her. She looked so put together.

18:17And I was just seeing her getting a new office, getting a new car, a new working bag, whatever. And I thought it was always like that. Now, Amelia and I are friends now and I know that I hadn't done that entire journey. But I feel because we see that and we only see the glamour and no one really talks about the horrible part. It just feels like everybody's winning at all times. No one is winning. Earlier last week and even yesterday, Yesterday, I was like, I am such a loser. I feel terrible. I feel incompetent because I just had gone to a call and I didn't have the right answer. And I was almost back to where I started, where it's like, I should quit.

18:56I don't like it here. I need to get a job. Like these intrusive thoughts still happen to me. It's important to hear that. Even if I am accomplished and I've gotten X, Y, and Z thing, it doesn't mean that I'm immune to these intrusive thoughts that are in my head. The little voice is always there, but it is a high performer understands that thought, accepts it, changes it. You flip it on your head. And if you can't, you go for a walk and then you just talk yourself out of it. That's it. It is not hacks. No matter how much therapy you do, manifestation work, visualization, journaling, it will still be there.

19:36We all have it. But the people that succeed and still have it, they just do something about it. What I did when I felt like a loser, okay, why do I feel like a loser? Because I didn't know what this thing, okay, let's spend two hours trying to understand why I didn't get this thing fast enough. Okay, now I know it. Now I don't feel like a loser anymore. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just$15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird.

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20:43Thinkorswim is available on desktop, web, and mobile to meet you where you are. It's built by the trading obsessed to help you trade brilliantly. Learn more at schwab.com slash trading. It's important to share that. And where do you go to get away? Because burnout's a real thing with what you do. You could always be doing something. There's always more content to be creating. There's always someone else to be helping as a client. How does Lara protect herself from that, both physically and mentally with your fitness? I run a lot. There's this beautiful story in my mentor, Richard Moore. He's my first ever mentor.

21:21He found me on LinkedIn the first time I posted. He saw the entire journey. I was a baby entrepreneur when he met me. And around year one, I was starting feeling symptoms of burnout. And I was also feeling like a loser. Why do I not have the six-figure business yet? Why do I not have 100 ,000 followers yet? Why have I not made$20 million in a month like everyone else, right? Because everybody else seems to be doing that. Why do I not have an AI? All of these things that I thought I should have because everybody else had them and I should have them as well because of my effort had been enough. And I was like, I feel tired.

21:57I'm not going to the gym. I'm working 7 a.m. till 9. And by the time it's 9 p.m., the gym is closed, so I can't go. He was like, go for a run then. I was like, what? I don't run. I lift weights. And that was insane to me because I was so against running. I went for a run at 9 p.m. at 9 for five kilometers, changed everything. because it allowed me to have that time off while it's still doing something that was making me feel good. And from then I started running marathons and now I just run all the time and it's good. You get to listen to music. You can just not listen to anything. But even if you're just there by yourself and you get to just observe your thoughts, it's better than just sitting alone at home, trying to fix everything all at once, because that's what I would do.

22:44I would ruminate around the feeling of feeling like a loser, feeling tired, feeling burnt out. You feel burnt out and then you're telling yourself that you're burnt out and you feel more burnt out and you're burning yourself out even more. It's like a loop. And I noticed this as well when I was going through depression. It is a loop of thought. I feel sad. I am sad. Why am I sad? I'm sad. And then it's a loop. It doesn't end. You have to learn how to break it in order to succeed or to get out of it. Otherwise, you're going to be stuck in the same habit. I believe that all of these feelings are habits that we also integrate into our lives because we give ourselves enough time and space to feel that.

23:26But when you replace it with something else, like I feel good. I like this. I feel amazing. Let me do it again. Then you're able to, whenever you feel a battle, you're like, okay, I know this fix. That's how I beat it. It's brilliant. And there's a self-awareness piece there, right? Which, again, you explained so well, which is that loop, that spiral of doom, if you like, that can keep you in depression or permanently anxious. It's actually working out what it is that breaks you out of it and then making sure you almost build that, remind yourself of it and consciously do it, which you clearly do.

24:01Can we bring AI in? Yeah. Because we had a chat. It was like about a year ago. I came and met you and just picked your brains around me trying to work my LinkedIn better and so on. And things have moved on so much, right? And the whole use of AI. And I wonder how you use it because I love writing too. And that's one of the things I can express. So if I was going to be putting a post out about you and us having this conversation now, it's from my heart. It's from memory. Now, I find when I then try and bring AI into it, it doesn't feel like it's me. And then I get frustrated that I've wasted my time trying to use ChatGPT or Claude and I move away from it.

24:40I wonder how you're embracing AI as someone who is naturally creative businesswoman and enjoys writing. Yeah. I think that as a copywriter, I have a disadvantage when it comes to AI because I love the art of writing. But then how I'm seeing people use AI is people, not everybody likes writing. So how they use AI, they'll go on to an AI that actually understands how to write LinkedIn native content rather than Instagram or TikTok. ChatGPT and Claude, they don't really know how to write for each platform. LinkedIn, for example, it's a written native platform. So it's not video. It's not all of these loops of editing, et cetera.

25:27You don't need that. When you ask Chagipiti, hey, write me a LinkedIn post, it would give you, hi, I'm so excited to announce rocket emoji. And it just sounds unnatural. It sounds robotic. It has all these M dashes. I've created an AI tool called Trio. It's my third business. And we integrated my brain. So I have three years of SOPs, client recordings, programs, et cetera. We put it all in into this LLM. We created a writing tool that understands how to articulate the story that you would put in your own words because it understands your voice. It understands how LinkedIn would like a post from a copywriting perspective and also a personal perspective while it's remaining engaging and entertaining.

26:10That's how I've been using AI when it comes to writing. Even now with my own thoughts, I don't have time to write all my posts anymore. Unfortunately, that's something that I've had to slowly let go. but I know that it will have the right context and the right cues to write me a good decent LinkedIn post. Yeah, if you haven't got time to write your own post, the next best thing is to basically take in a whole download of everything that makes you you and you're the expert in that. Solve my own problem with that one. So that's something that a client can effectively tap into and use that as well.

26:42Yeah, all of our clients love it because all of them hate social media, but they know that it is important. But not all of them had the time that I did have three years ago to learn every single copywriting basic and implement it into writing on social media. Sure. So bringing your clients into play and that conversation on why they come to you, which is, I believe, to build their personal brand. What's your definition of a personal brand? I started with that at the start and it's how to become influential without becoming an influencer. Yes. Especially on LinkedIn. And how important is that now?

27:24And slightly unfair question because you could argue it's always been important. It's just been highlighted more. But why is it now amplified, if you like, when perhaps it wasn't talked about so much years ago? I believe that because we live in an attention economy now, attention has become the scarcest resource. It's not money. It's not even time. It's attention. We're competing for attention at all times. If you're a business owner, you're not just competing against your competitors anymore. You're competing against Duolingo, Netflix, anything that could potentially take your ideal client's time and attention away from you.