Episode 55: Social Media Breaks, Handle Changes, & Creating Space for Creativity

Podcast

Episode 55: Social Media Breaks, Handle Changes, & Creating Space for Creativity

“I took a social media break in order to have… space to hear my own thoughts and my own voice.” — Carla Contreras

This quick under 10 minute podcast episode is behind the scenes of my social media break, my handle change, and my new e-book, Collagen A Love Story

Journal Prompts:

1. What would it feel like to tale a break from social media and consuming content to “hear your own voice?”

2. Are you Showing Up the way you want to on social media (or in Real Life). If not, how do you want to Show Up?

3. What would you do with the time you spent offline? Write a book, finish that project, connect with people in your life?

I am excited to hear your thoughts! Join the Poppy Content Lab waitlist. Learn more about Blair Badenhop’s Brand Yourself

Listen on ITUNES + Spotify Please tag me @chefcarlacontreras on Instagram so I can continue the conversation with you. Use the hashtag #showupfullypodcast

Eat Well,

xo Chef Carla

PS: Get my book, Collagen A Love Story: Inside you'll find 20 Beauty Food Recipes: Smoothies, Drinks, Soup, and Sweet Treats Download your Free Copy

About Chef Carla Contreras

For the last 24 + years, I’ve worked as a trained chef in: Restaurants, hotels, as a chef instructor at three culinary schools, and personal chef in New York City.

Since 2013, I have been sharing my gift of content creation with publications and brands like Better Homes and Gardens, The Wall Street Journal, Shape Magazine, justBobbi.com, Nutritious Life, Well + Good.

In my personal brand, I not only show up for the hard things, I own them and then share them with the world, like my $38,000 lesson I learned in my business and evolution of a Digital Entrepreneur over the last ten years.

In my online courses, I bring my years of experience as a trained chef, content creator, health and life coach, and meditation teacher to help you with you shift mindset around cooking & the content creation process. Learn more here

Find + Work With Carla:

Online Courses & Book: Learn more here

Instagram: @chefcarlacontreras

Full Transcript:

00:00.00

Hey, it's chef Carla and welcome to show up fully. This is a podcast where I share what it's like to show up for your real life if you don't know me I'm a food styles, photographer and health coach. You can find me at @itscarlacontreras on Instagram and more information in today's show notes. This episode is a soul cast. It's behind the scenes of my social media and my business it's going to go deep diving into a social media break my handle change updating my website all of those things. So. If you're curious I'm gonna start with my handle change because I feel like it's the biggest thing I was chef Chefcarla_c on Instagram for about 10 years it was my identity I was very strongly attached to chef Carla. And to really being that person and I realized in the last year I did a brand overhaul with Blair Badenhop last year and I'll put her information in the show notes and she suggested that I get rid of chef Carla. And at that time I really was so attached to it I was like absolutely not I cannot do this but in the last couple of weeks I've had a huge ping of like okay it's time to change this It's really time to change this handle because. I teach so much more and do so much more than chef work I am a professional food stylist and a recipe developer for food and wellness brands. Yes I have an online cooking school. Yes I have you know a salad course I have a pantry course. Yes. But I also work 1 on one with food and wellness entrepreneurs to enhance their constant creation to build their communities to build their online businesses and brick and mortar businesses as well. So. I'm doing a lot of different things I also have the poppy content lab and what we do in poppy is I teach intuitive content creation and what does that mean is that we're really feeling into what do we want to create as creators and what does our community want. And need and that actually isn't currently open. There's a waitlist I'll drop that into the show notes and what I'm working on with poppy is really going deep into what do we want to create.

02:50.12

And do we have the space to create this and this is where I'll go into the social media break. So for me I took a social media break probably around the end of December and. I took until the set of what is it January thirtieth thirty first to post again. So it was a long time in the one time that I did post I changed my handle and my handle is now @it'scarlacontreras and why is that because it gives me this. Space in order to be the content creator to be the course creator to be the business and online social media mentor. It allows me to do all of these different things and here's the thing I took that social media break in order to have this. Space to hear my own thoughts to hear my own voice and sometimes when we're you know, engaging and posting and creating on social media. We're consuming all of these other people's thoughts ideas words pictures, videos, etc.

And I really needed that time and I'm teaching this in Poppy that sometimes we do need a break sometimes we do need that space and I feel like that handle change really came from me giving myself the space to not be on social media. And it's interesting because I teach social media I teach creating an online presence I teach that you know we share our offers or what we're creating in the world but sometimes I feel like it's so important to step back and to really identify. Our own voice and so that was my social media break and the handle change and I also did a deep dive on cleaning up my website and really organizing the content into my cooking courses which I have. The online cooking school I have the pantry refresh I have my salad course organizing it into business and social media offerings which is my 1 on one mentorship. The poppy content lab and I also have the social media meditation and affirmation toolkit which is. Tools to create ease around social media so I created this for myself and then I decided I wanted to share it. It was like this is incredible. It's affirmations mantras and really.

05:42.63

I guess it's tuning into ourselves in order to create in order to to share in order to post in order to engage like all of these different things and I go into worthiness I go into haters I go into. All of the different things when it comes to social media because I feel like it's multifaceted that we're creating consuming engaging content in different ways. So that's what the social media meditation affirmation toolkit is and. So I have all these different offers and I also added my nutrition training program links. So I went to IIN for my Health Coach Certification I went to Nutritious Life Studio for my Nutrition. Coach certification I have all these different things and I feel like people are asking me about these so I put those on the website too. So it was like a lot of organization and then I revamped entirely my shop.

And I put all of my favorite kitchen and wellness tools and I put business tools and nutrition school and like all the things that I listed it. It just like it gave me the space like sort of bring it back to about the social media break. It gave me the space to really sit with okay, what is it that I'm doing what is it that I'm offering and to bring it back to venus retrograde is like what is my relationship with all of these different things. What is my relationship with social media was my relationship with my business. How can I clean up all of this energy and I feel like I really did some beautiful work I also and this is like I feel like the biggest thing is that I launched my ebook and it's totally free. The link is going to be in the show notes it's called Collagen A Love Story and I have dreamt of being an author since I was a little girl I remember creating books when I was a child I remember in Seventh grade I created this. Incredible book and I use like Vogue magazine and I remember cutting out pictures and making this just gorgeous book and my teacher was like wow this is amazing.

08:28.78

So I've created an ebook collagen a love it’s 20 recipes. It's smoothies and sweet treats and it's based on my work as a recipe developer for Bobby Brown's just Bobby and I am in love with this ebook and it has some of my favorite go to recipes. That I make with collagen and you can use animal collagen you can use plant-based collagen it's really up to you. It's a very very very special thing that's near and dear to my heart and I'm so grateful to have this ebook out into the world and again. It all happened because I gave myself the space in order to create versus consume and if this podcast has resonated with you if you've taken away anything I would love for you to connect with me on Instagram. I'm @itscarlacontreras and if you could share this podcast I would love that as a text message in your stories as an email I appreciate you so much sending you so much. Love bye.