From Noise to Narrative: Reclaiming the Power of Real Marketing | Stories With Traction Podcast

SHOW NOTES:

In this episode of Stories With Traction, Matt Zaun talks with Kristen Pucci, Founder and CEO of KRAE Creative & Talent, to explore why most leaders get marketing wrong and how to fix it through brand clarity, human connection, and strategic authenticity.

Kristen shares her journey as a creative navigating a family of engineers, how vulnerability became her business superpower, and why documenting is the new marketing.

This conversation covers everything from viral content myths to raising resilient daughters, building personal brands with substance, and how female leaders can thrive. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

✅ Why documenting is more powerful than creating content from scratch
✅ How leaders can stop chasing trends and start anchoring in authenticity
✅ The mindset shifts necessary to succeed in a noisy, AI-driven world

…and much more!

BIOS:

Kristen Pucci is the founder and CEO of KRAE Creative & Talent, a brand strategy and marketing firm that helps organizations create compelling, authentic brands. With a background in psychology and a talent for storytelling, Kristen empowers leaders to lean into their testimony, clarify their message, and build cultures that actually care.

Matt Zaun is an award-winning speaker and strategic storytelling expert who shows leaders how to inspire action and drive results through the power of story. With a track record of helping 300+ organizations transform sales, marketing, and culture, Matt helps decision-makers lead with clarity and connection.

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

 

(mattzaun.com)

Kristen, welcome to Stories Attraction Podcast.

 

(kraeco.com)

Thanks for having me, Matt. I'm so excited to be here.

 

(mattzaun.com)

And I'm excited you're here. It's been a long time coming. I've been waiting for this episode for months now.

So we had met in person a couple of years ago and then we reconnected on LinkedIn. I absolutely love what you do.

So I'm so excited for you to spend time with us. So I want to dive into The marketing piece.

Can you share for my audience a little bit about what you do and some of the things that you do for your clients?

 

(kraeco.com)

Yeah, sure. So I own a company called Kray Creative and Talent. It's based out of Central PA, and we specialize in brand strategy and marketing.

So versus, and we'll get into this today, versus just being very task-oriented marketers where people would subcontract out or just give us tasks.

We focus on the root issues and root challenges that businesses are having when it comes to their brand. All right.

 

(mattzaun.com)

So here's something I think is incredibly important for us to discuss. I feel like a lot of C-suite executives that I work with do not elevate marketing and branding to a priority level.

And I find this fascinating because I often think, you know, if Steve Jobs did not care about marketing, would Apple be the company that it is today?

I have a hard time believing that. So a lot of leaders will look at a Steve Jobs or they'll look at another leader that's...

 

(kraeco.com)

I think because, one, they don't want to, and two, because they simply just don't understand what marketing, what advertising, and what branding is.

I have a lot of meetings with my clients, and they think it's all the same thing. And I was actually talking about that with my team this morning, that a lot of companies hire a sales and marketing manager, right?

And sales and marketing is so different. And there's so many different bars, like I consider marketing this barstool of a beast, right?

You've got your advertising leg, you've got your marketing leg, and then you've got your branding leg. And the branding is the foundation, really, of everything.

Marketing is the way to which you're communicating it, and the advertising is just the really loud noise out in the world, right?

And so when people are navigating things with their businesses, I feel like they are... I focused on moving straight to advertising because it's quick.

And I think people wait too long, and exactly what you're saying, they wait too long to then realize that they have a problem and they say go to marketing, have marketing solve it, when marketing's not a very quick thing.

Advertising sometimes tends to be a quick thing, and that's why they jump to advertising, when really they have a branding problem.

So I think a lot of companies will spend money in a marketing segment when they have an advertising problem, or they spend a lot of money in advertising when truthfully they have a branding problem.

And I think a lot of companies don't recognize that there's multiple things that are brought into it. And then on top of it, with the Steve Jobs example that you gave, he has a personal brand that's incredibly strong, and he also has a professional brand that's incredibly strong that I think a lot of executives get wrong as well.

 

(mattzaun.com)

So there is so much noise out there. I feel like we're drowning in messages. So I know there's someone that's listening right now that didn't quite take that three-legged stool that you had mentioned.

They haven't thought about it at quite that depth before from a branding perspective. So with all the noise out there, especially with AI technology and all these messages that are just being thrown at us, if someone feels like they're just trying to keep their head above water as it pertains to branding, what do they do?

 

(kraeco.com)

Well, if they're just keeping their head above water with branding, then that's telling me that their brand is so inauthentically themselves that we've got a problem.

So if you feel like you're barely keeping your head above water, it's because you're probably so focused on following a trend or a dance or a TikTok or a meme or whatever it is.

The best success that I have seen for myself both personally as well as professionally and for my clients is when they are documenting versus creating content.

They're simply documenting what they're already doing. They're documenting who they already are. And that's the only thing that cannot be copied by anybody else.

Anybody could knock your product off from China. Anybody could, you know, come up and be. Be the, you know, the next whatever.

I've had people literally take my own website, throw it through AI, create a business, and then claim it that they're, you know, Kray Creative and Talent 2.0.

Anybody can do that, but the only thing that they cannot copy is you, and that's your strongest piece. So the founder, the C-suite, is so important when we're talking about the brand and the foundation of a company and why the personal brand is important.

Because anybody can copy your product, anybody can copy your service, but they can't copy you and how you run your business, how you handle your clients, and what you believe in.

 

(mattzaun.com)

So when you say documenting, talk to me in practicality. What would this look like from a documenting perspective?

 

(kraeco.com)

You're referring to like documenting stories? Yeah. So I ran a workshop a couple weeks ago, and it was funny.

was a room full of guys, which just seems to be a theme that they'd want to be on social media less than women, which is fine, but women seem to be more open to it.

So I was sitting in the room with the guys, and I was like, hey, here's the deal. You know, it's a construction-based, you know, workshop.

And I was like... Here's the deal, guys. I said, I know right now you're not going to want to be writing stories, which I know that you probably navigate this as well.

And they don't want to be writing stories. I said, okay, what if I just told you to write about the last phone call that you had with a client?

What if instead of crafting this big case study or turning into this whole thing, what if you simply just documented the last phone call that you had?

And this one guy, think his name was, oh my gosh, I'm going to forget, Pat. think it was Pat.

And he was this big, you know, he was like six foot five in the back, stands up. And I said, tell me about your last phone call.

And he's like, well, you know, this client called me and I put out this fire and I told him that he had to do this.

And then, you know, he was worried about bringing the project to the finish line. So I actually ended up, you know, telling him I would be a part of every part of the way.

And then I helped connect into this person and whatever. And that I said, right there, you could for years and years and years in your corporate messaging, say, we believe in partnering with our clients, or you could just simply tell that story.

of what you're already doing, the phone call you're already having. And that's what it shows like to work with Pat.

That's what it's like to work with this company. And that's what I mean when I'm talking about documenting instead of creating content.

You could have marketing, boop, boop, boop, boop, walk down to this person's office, which they obviously are important as well.

I want to be very clear that having an actual marketing department to handle this stuff is going to be important.

You're not going to have your project managers writing social media posts. But they are saying, what are the phone calls you're having?

What are the meetings you're having? Tell me what it's like out on site. Walk me through what's happening. That is the types of questions that marketing needs to be having because that's what is powerful instead of, you know, let me share this thing or share that thing and something that they have to cook up.

The kitchen's already operating. You don't have to cook things up every day. And that's where I feel like people get burnt out.

 

(mattzaun.com)

I want to talk about viral posts or viral messaging. I see so many, let's say TEDx talks that it goes.

Or let's say there's some type of cultural obsession at that exact moment and something goes viral, and then a lot of CEOs feel the need that they need to talk like that TEDx or chase after that cultural obsession.

I feel like it's dangerous territory because if they start talking like someone that they're not or they start going after messages that don't align with their core values, there's a lot of potential problems with that.

So what would you say regarding that, people just chasing the next viral thing?

 

(kraeco.com)

I think you're going to get burnt out. I think you're going to get burnt out because it's not enjoyable.

You don't like it. And again, you're getting farther and farther away from who you are authentically, which I think is truthfully, and I could go down a whole rabbit hole about this, but that's when I feel like you feel like your business is running you, when your team is not doing well, when your culture is not doing well, is when you are so unaligned or you're filled with all this anxiety about things, is when you're so unaligned with how you're supposed to be operating your business, who you actually are, what you're supposed to be doing, be doing, what you're supposed to

That's when you're really going to run into issues when you're operating out of who you actually are. Now, if you're not a good person, okay, then maybe that's something you need to be looking at.

But that's what I'm feeling is what people struggle with. The videos that I've had viral, I have a viral video literally right now.

keeps climbing. It's at like 9 million views on TikTok. It literally was me ranting about how I felt that because I am someone who receives less empathy because I always figure it out.

I made this video. It was like a minute and a half of a rant, okay? I'm not in my best outfit.

I don't have it perfectly edited. I didn't send it off to someone who runs social media. I simply recorded it on my phone.

And it was about, I feel like I do not get the empathy that other people do because I am someone who always lands on my feet and I'm someone who always figures it out.

Nobody checks on the people. And then this thing has gone viral with all these people in the comments about, yes, it's the curse of the capable, curse of the capable.

There's no perfect little equation that is going to make a video go. People seeing value in the video is what's going to make it go viral.

Obviously, you can add a good hook at the beginning and good sounding and good lights and good video. Obviously, you can do all of that, but if the video itself doesn't bring people value, it's not going to go anywhere.

 

(mattzaun.com)

So let's talk about the authenticity piece because I feel like people have heard that word so much, and I think everyone would agree, yes, I need to be authentic.

But then when it really comes down to it, I think there's hesitancy because authenticity is linked with vulnerability, right?

And the idea of someone wanting to be stoic and look good and polished and highly professional, the idea of being vulnerable can be very troubling.

So would you say that there's an element of strategic authenticity? And if so, where does that factor in?

 

(kraeco.com)

So this is a great question because you're exactly correct, and people are nervous to be judged on the internet.

It's because they hear all these horror stories. I mean, we watch the news of people just getting annihilated, right?

Of like going online and then somebody gets canceled and whatever. People are horrified. They think it's like a war zone.

And so I think when it comes to what you're putting on the internet, there's a difference. Like you can still hold a reasonable amount of privacy.

My entire life is not on the internet. The only social media that I have is strictly business related. Nobody knows whether or not I'm married.

Nobody knows whether or not I have children. Nobody knows where I live. Nobody knows. I mean, obviously, if some creep wants to do a deep dive, they can figure that out.

But that type of stuff is not on the internet. Because that's a level of privacy that I want to keep.

Now, do I also, though, on my social media and use it to build my business? Yes, absolutely. But it's focused simply on the services that I offer, the way that I lead my business, the case studies that I have, the types of content I create to bring people value.

That's what it does. But yeah, I had to get over very quickly, this. of being liked or being accepted by the internet.

I hate to break it to you. You're not going to be accepted by everybody on the internet, but it's not going to be the majority.

It only is typically going to be about that five to 10%. And the people are a little nuts. They're going to comment some crazy stuff on your posts.

They're going to comment on the way that you look. They're going to say that you're, you know, you should be staring at the camera.

They hate your voice, whatever it is. And that's just, it's just the internet. That's just the way that it goes.

 

(mattzaun.com)

So it's interesting because in a lot of movies, so think of Marvel or think of any Disney movie, any, any movie out there.

 

(kraeco.com)

Yeah. The character typically has a flaw.

 

(mattzaun.com)

So the character that we love, we want to win has a flaw. And one of the things that I learned is there are some things that I can share with someone.

You had mentioned that, that empathy piece, right?

 

(kraeco.com)

People.

 

(mattzaun.com)

So there are certain things I can share with people. And it's almost like people are more endeared to me when I share.

Share it. And then there's some things that I would really stay away from knowing that it could hurt my business by sharing it.

Right. So a case in point. So I've had an eating disorder for 25 years. Right. And I wrestled for 10 years.

And at first I thought that that was weird. I felt strange sharing that with people. But it's interesting because there's a lot of wrestlers, a lot of MMA fighters, a lot of boxers that have eating disorders.

Right. So what I would do is I would, I would cut weight to make the scale and then I would eat a bunch and I would balloon up and then I would cut.

And this was my, my, this was my life for quite some time. Now sharing that and being vulnerable saying I've struggled with binge eating to people, that's not going to hurt my business.

People have actually asked me follow up questions. They're like, oh my gosh, thank you so much for being vulnerable about that and sharing that.

But there are things that I could share that would hurt my business. Right. Right. So would you advise leaders that there are some.

There are some things you can be vulnerable with that could potentially help your business, be conversation starters to connect with people, but other things you could be vulnerable with, and it could legit hurt the brand, hurt the business.

 

(kraeco.com)

What would you recommend in that regard? Well, what's interesting is I would ask a question to you. Did you at one time have a fear, though, that you sharing that could impact your business or impact your followers, impact how people felt about you?

 

(mattzaun.com)

I think I felt weird just in general that I had it, and it took me quite some time to admit that I had an eating disorder.

So I think it was more of the human-human, like, especially for a guy, like, I had a hard time wrapping my brain around, do men have eating?

Like, I just, I was fascinated by it. But now I feel like, I mean, I don't care. I mean, I share it with as many people as, you know, because I think that it's an unknown, right?

But, and I can create that, I work with a lot of men's CEOs. Right. And so when I, when I mentioned that piece on the wrestling, MMA, fighting, boxing, like these are all male dominated.

Like if we think of like, um, especially like UFC type stuff, a lot of those men have eating disorders.

 

(kraeco.com)

Yeah.

 

(mattzaun.com)

well, the lifestyle you guys go through, I mean, like I was friends with a lot of wrestlers in college.

 

(kraeco.com)

I mean, it's horrible, you know, that what you have to do to your body is to be able to maintain certain weights and things like that.

 

(mattzaun.com)

And you're sucking on ice cubes and like, I get it, you know, I get, I get it.

 

(kraeco.com)

But, um, going back to your bigger question though, about the vulnerability, I think people are so starved for connection.

They're so starved for connection. They're so starved for somebody authentic, somebody real, somebody vulnerable. And what's really a shame is that we get in our head about this fear of sharing our deep, dark, you know, things that are, we shove in our closets that we don't want anybody to know about when that's actually your testimony.

That's actually something that's going to bring people to you. You had to go through that circumstance. had to go through that thing.

Cause that's a part of your mission, you know, with your time here on earth. And So if you can get past the fear of, oh, my nose is a little bit crooked or, oh, I, you know, struggle with this or that, that's an opportunity for people to connect to you.

They go, wow, this person's a real human. If you stay in that place of being buttoned up constantly, you're limiting your ability to connect.

You're limiting your ability to connect with people at a deeper place. So you're going to live in a place of highly superficial relationships, partnerships, and people that really don't care about, you know, doing you dirty or not doing you dirty because they just, they don't really know you.

You're just, you're just this kind of shell of a person because you don't let anybody go any deeper.

 

(mattzaun.com)

Yeah, I really appreciate you mentioned that. And that's so important to, to lean into our flaws. If it really means bringing people in, there's a friend I have, his name's Craig Andrews, and he has a patch.

So he has a beard, but he has a patch in his beard. And he was, he had like an inferiority complex about it for a while.

The reason that he has it, he was in the hospital with a coma for quite a And when he grows out his beard, it doesn't fill in.

He's leaned into it now. Before, he felt weird. But again, great characters have, quote unquote, flaws, if you will, that people are drawn to.

Yeah.

 

(kraeco.com)

It makes them different, and it makes you recognizable, which is so cool. If you have an interesting color hair, you're different and unique.

I mean, lean into it. We so desperately, as a society, want to cover things up and change them and fit in.

But that is your superpower. That is the thing that you need to lean into even more. That's a part of your personal brand, kind of going back to the beginning.

Lean into it. You wear funky clothes. I'm not going to put you in a suit. Wear the funky clothes.

Wear even more funky clothes. You know, and that could be part of it. Or, you know, you have a certain way that you talk.

You have, like, a way that people made fun of you because you talked this way, and you want to become a speaker.

That could be your thing. You know, that could literally be your thing, and people recognize it. Those people that are critical, they're never people that are doing better than you.

The people that are criticizing because of a nose or a face or a thing on your beard or whatever, they're doing it simply because they are nervous about their own flaws and they're just projecting them and putting them onto use.

But again, if you want to get on the internet, you have to be welcome to people saying things like that, which usually stops people from moving further.

 

(mattzaun.com)

Yeah, it's such a great point. And when I think about all the rooms I've been in with successful people, it's often the individuals that are by far the most successful, you would never know it.

 

(kraeco.com)

They don't go broadcasting it.

 

(mattzaun.com)

It's fascinating to me. But speaking of story, I do want to unpack a little bit of your story. So you mentioned that one post that you had, you said lands on your feet, curse of the capable.

 

(kraeco.com)

What positioned you in your background to be someone that lands on their feet? Yeah. So I'll tell a little bit about just kind of like my childhood and my family dynamics.

I think it's very relevant. relevant. and So I come from a family. I'm a middle child between two boys.

My parents are both engineers. My older brother is an engineer and my younger brother is a doctor. So a highly, highly analytical and smart family.

I am a feeler. I'm a feeler. I'm a creative. I was the person that I was like, I just love people.

I was highly social when I was younger. So my college essay, actually, the first sentence of my college essay was, you looked at my family, you'd think I'm adopted.

And it was how I was this black sheep in my family. And I just never really fit in. And so I grew up for most of my childhood just being like, okay, I'm around all these highly analytical, detailed related people.

And I'm full of feelings. How do I navigate this? And I was a big athlete. Like I said, I, so I loved sports.

I didn't so much love school unless it was a, it was a topic that I knew would be beneficial for my life.

It was funny. I had all those entrepreneurial characteristics before. Before I knew that's what it was, like I loved physics because it made sense, but then I hated, you know, this class because I was like, I'm never going to use this.

And so throughout high school and college, I was very involved in sports. I was very social. I was on committees.

I was doing different things like that. And so I had grown up with this complex, we could say, of just not really being understood, which no harm to my family.

They're just, if anybody knows an engineer, they know a doctor, you know what their personality's like, you know, you're not getting super vulnerable with them, right?

And so I was this child just screaming for figuring out human connection and relationships and emotions. And so I actually started my college career in psychology.

I initially started in psychology and that was because I just loved the mind and I loved people and I wanted to, I was so starving to understand it.

And a couple of years in, I had this advisor that I was working with and he's like, Kristen, you have a mind for business, girl.

Like you need to be. You need be marketing. need to be doing business. And psychology is so closely related to that because you're going to be dealing with human behavior.

There's so much that you can do. And I was like, all right, I guess, maybe. So I took one marketing class.

And he didn't give me my test back after our first test that we had. And I was like, oh, no, I take marketing for the first time.

I'm about to fail. And he has me go down to his room with him. And he pushes my test across.

And he goes, you got a 93. This is the highest anybody's ever scored on one of my tests. He's like, I think you need to be in business.

So I ended up switching all of my classes and my courses. that's where I really just found my place.

And I felt like I truly just belonged, was in this creative space with people that are just true feelers.

And they make money off of feeling and being creative and thinking outside the box and being different, which growing up in my family, engineers live in a box.

They want to be right. It's right or it's wrong. And I'm like, I live in the ground. So that's how I had grown up.

And I've learned, obviously, incredible characteristics from being raised by engineers and doctors. But I was missing that ability and that place to be accepted for being this outside-of-the-box thinker, which then also being a middle child, right?

We're already naturally more rebellious. Then I'm an athlete. Then I'm the only girl. There's a lot of this that just has built me to be this very assertive, aggressive, emotionally intelligent go-getter person that came from my childhood that's now catapulted me into being this 100% female-owned, female-run operation.

But we still know how to connect on those levels with people like engineers or doctors or those that don't think like us because I literally grew up in it.

 

(mattzaun.com)

All right, so people can't see me right now, but I've been smirking through Kristen's response for a particular reason.

This hits close to home for me.

 

(kraeco.com)

So I have three kids.

 

(mattzaun.com)

have an 11-year-old, 10-year-old, and a 7-year-old. My daughter is the middle child in between two analytical boys. My oldest son is in all advanced classes, so he essentially skipped a grade.

He's gunning for a school, a STEM school to get into, so engineering, science, like that's his expertise. He could solve a Rubik's Cube in 37 seconds, right?

So like very analytical mind. My daughter is a creative.

 

(kraeco.com)

You mentioned feelings, creative, right?

 

(mattzaun.com)

Unbelievably creative. Also an incredibly resilient child. I won't share all of her story, but I mean, the girl has been through a lot, right?

Very resilient child. So if you were to speak to my daughter, her name is J.L. She goes by initials.

you were to speak to my daughter, J.L., highly creative, definitely has a marketing mind, even as a 10-year-old, what kind of future could she have?

Even with AI coming. Do you think that AI is going to lessen her chances of being able to live out to her fullest creative potential?

Is there caution there? Or do you think she's going to truly be able to take that resilience, that feeling, that creativity, and be able to have a surge of masterpieces, if you will?

 

(kraeco.com)

Yeah. So if I was speaking to your daughter, I would talk to her about a couple of things because that's actually my theme of some of my social media is being people's big sister, best friend, and boss.

So I love being someone's big sister because I was a big sister. And so what I would say to her is, first of all, you're going to feel very out of place in the family that you're in right now, but that's okay.

You are going to find your people and you find your place when you get into school or colleges, you'll find more people that are like you, but where you are right now, I want you to lean into everything that you're doing.

Learn as much creativity as you can, but also learn as much. as you can from your brothers and your parents.

Learn as much as you can from them because being able to be well-balanced, being emotional and logical is going to take you farther than all of your counterparts if you only leave in to just the creative or just into the analytical.

You're going to be an absolute powerhouse if you can tap into a logical brain and a creative brain. Not many people can do that.

Yeah. So no, I don't think AI is going to be able to replace her. Obviously, we could go down a whole rabbit hole of what I think the future of AI and all of that is.

People are going to get sick of inauthentic stuff really quick. I already am. People are going to get sick of it.

She has this superpower of being able to connect with people emotionally, which is going to take her farther than any logic, any details, anything like that.

So she needs to fully lean into it. She needs to do all of the hobbies she wants to do.

It's okay if it's not what her brothers are doing. It's okay if it's not what her siblings and her friends are doing, but she needs to fully lean into exactly who she is.

And it's okay that it's different. She's probably not going to be understood by other people, and that's okay. But she just needs to fully, fully, fully be herself.

And as parents, I'd say you can probably support her. And just she's going to feel out of place just naturally within her own family.

It's okay. And that's okay. But you can support her in her way of making sure that she's, you know, if she doesn't get the A plus on the test, on the math test, she got the A plus in English.

And focusing on the English and what she is good at and not what she's lacking, just because maybe that's what her siblings understand and what they're good at, is going to bring her so far.

Just being able to push her and say, like, you are exactly who you need to be, even though you are not like them.

I hope that that makes sense. Yeah.

 

(mattzaun.com)

And it's interesting because, so like I had mentioned, incredibly resilient little girl.

 

(kraeco.com)

I mean, life has hit her in so many ways.

 

(mattzaun.com)

And she is incredibly resilient, lands on her feet, but also incredibly empathetic. so many she's really empathetic. mean, she is able to connect with people.

 

(kraeco.com)

She's going to be a leader, Matt. She's going to be a leader.

 

(mattzaun.com)

too. Yeah. Like, she's going to be a leader.

 

(kraeco.com)

To me, you're like, for somebody who's resilient, and she's how old?

 

(mattzaun.com)

She's 10. So she's 10.

 

(kraeco.com)

I mean, like, she and I, and right, wrong, or indifferent, people can, you know, hang me on this, whatever.

I think that there are natural born leaders. I do believe that there are people that are just simply from a core place.

They are just born leaders. I know that I was this type of person. It sounds like your daughter is this type of person.

She's able to connect with people, that key piece of resilience, she's been sucker-punched, I assume, by life quite a bit already by the age of 10.

She's learned so much more about not getting your way. Things are unfair. I have to dig deep to get through things.

You know, whatever that is. She's learned that at such a young age that some people haven't even learned in their 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s.

Like, she's going to be an absolute powerhouse. But another piece of advice that I would give to her, if I was talking to a little 10-year-old me, because it sounds like I could.

Kind of am. A lot of people are going to be very jealous of you. They're going to be very jealous of you because of how much of a powerhouse that you are.

And I don't want you to water yourself down simply to make other people more comfortable being around your presence because they didn't have the same journey as you and they may not have the same calling either.

 

(mattzaun.com)

So let me ask you this. So I mentioned my 11-year-old son, very, very intelligent. I mean, he can hold very in-depth conversations with adults and they're blown away, right?

Just he reads like crazy. He's obsessed with marketing videos on YouTube.

 

(kraeco.com)

Oh gosh, we have the same. Your kids are like me and my brothers.

 

(mattzaun.com)

Just crazy, right? So there's a lot of boys. My daughter's around a lot of boys. And what I find fascinating already is that I'll be listening.

Listening to the boys have a very interesting conversation, like just fascinating conversation, well beyond their years. And JL won't say anything.

And then the boys will... And I'm like, JL, that's absolutely fascinating what you just said. Why didn't you say that in front of the guys?

Like you would run circles around them based on what they're saying. So I already feel like, all right, you mentioned, you know, she's already a leader or can absolutely be a leader.

What does she need to do now? In the event she goes into a male-dominated field, what would you share with her to get to the point of speaking up now and being able to have those conversations now and not feeling inferior that she can win debates with boys, she can bring the logic out and be fascinating in her own right?

 

(kraeco.com)

What words of advice would you give to her in that regard? Yeah, I would say with little girls and just women in general, you really have to help build up their self-trust.

I wrote it down here, their self-trust, their self-worth, and their self-confidence. Like those three things. Because a lot of people talk about self-worth, a lot of people talk about self-confidence, but I think you also need to build up self-trust.

And I see self-trust as something that's like, in the event that I do get into a situation that I don't really want to be in, can I get myself out of it?

Like, can I trust myself and my capabilities to get myself out of it? Which I think translates to a lot in a female's life.

I can tell you personal situations that I've had to get myself out of and professional situations I've had to get myself out of.

And it just means that as a woman in a male-dominated industry, right, wrong, or indifferent, there's going to be major issues with safety.

There's going to be major issues with certain things. And she needs to be able to be so strong in her sense of self that she can combat whatever it is that's going on.

She won't look at it as, oh, I'm going up against a man. She will look at it as, oh, I'm just going up against a colleague if she has strong self-worth and she's secure in who she is.

If not, and I used to be this, there was a time that a lot of my past male counterparts and bosses had hurt me, so I had issues with male authority.

I had to heal that in myself if I knew that I wanted to get further along. So with her, really focus on that self-worth, focus on that self-trust, focus on that self-confidence, and she'll be okay.

But the speaking up is just going to come from one of those things. And that might be okay that she's not speaking up.

Like the first thing that I heard when you told that story is that she's an observer. That's a power all in itself that she's not quick to speak.

She's not quick to give up her power in a sense of just blurting something out, or that she has to start an argument, or that she has to have a word in something.

Being quiet and having a pause is so powerful as well. But if she's doing it from a place that she doesn't feel like it's going to be valued, that's something completely different.

If she's simply just a strong observer, and she's able to sit and witness conversation happening, and she takes it all out, and here's what I saw, that's powerful.

That's super powerful. So I wouldn't push her to speak up if that's not maybe in her natural characteristic. But if she's doing it because she's worried about not being liked.

So That's just related to the self-worth and self-confidence.

 

(mattzaun.com)

That's all that that has to do with. Yeah, so I mentioned to you that I work with a lot of CEOs.

I mean, a lot of men CEOs, a lot of female CEOs. And it's always interesting to me. I've worked with female business leaders that are unbelievably successful.

I mean, people that – there are very successful people that would dream of reaching the level of success of some of the female CEOs that I work with.

 

(kraeco.com)

mean, just wildly successful.

 

(mattzaun.com)

But I always have found it fascinating that it tends to be that the male CEOs will reach out for help, but the female CEOs will not.

Why do you think that's the case?

 

(kraeco.com)

I think it goes right back to my video that went viral. Unfortunately, there's a lot of women that have had to solve all of their own problems, and they are stuck in that place of having to solve their own problems, find all of their own solutions, because maybe it started as simply as in childhood that when they asked for help.

No one was there, or they didn't take them seriously. So then they got to a place that they just started solving their own problems.

So unfortunately, I think that is very common amongst successful women. I mean, there's also a term called a parentified daughter, okay?

So the oldest daughter or the only child, or not the only child, but the only daughter in a lineup of kids or the oldest daughter is the one that took on the parenting that the parents didn't choose to do.

And those women typically are highly successful women. They're usually leading rooms and teams because they started as small as when they were a child leading and running the entire family.

So they've learned this ever since they were of single-digit ages that they can't reach out for help and that no one is there to help them, even though that may not be true in their adult life.

It's a mindset and a complex that was created as early as in childhood, which is funny that we're actually bringing this up because I'm starting a course on this.

Because I've seen how people are so desperately needing it. because of these videos that I'm making, and I resonate with that story a bit.

So I'm like, hey, how can I help people? This isn't yours to carry. Even though your childhood and you carried your whole family and you carried all these things, it's not your job to be the matron of your whole family and your office and your company and your friend group and all these places.

You've got to let some of this down. A lot of these women probably have health issues, too. It's just we could go about that for hours and days and days talking about what's wrong with these women that aren't asking for help.

And it's just leading to this place that we have asked for help. And typically people have let us down.

 

(mattzaun.com)

So speaking of hours and days, I feel like we can stretch this conversation out a long time.

 

(kraeco.com)

I we can go for hours.

 

(mattzaun.com)

But I know you have to leave. Thank you so much for this conversation. I got so much out of it.

Very fascinating. There's three things in particular I'm going to take away. The first, as you mentioned, documenting versus creating content.

I think that is very... Very, very important for people to recognize that we can't get caught up in these viral content pieces.

We have to focus on documenting. And then you brought up the example of asking yourself, what's the last call you had with the client?

Let's start there. Second point, you said your testimony will bring people to you. I think that's really important. We were talking about characters.

Every character we love in movies has some type of flaw, right? So really leaning into that testimony. I think that's really important.

And then the third and final piece, you mentioned self-trust, self-worth, and self-confidence. So I really appreciate you mentioning that.

As it pertains to my daughter, I'll absolutely be more mindful of conversations with her and just things to be aware of.

So I really appreciate that. So thank you. If people want to get more information on what you do, they want to reach out to you for your services, where's the best place they can go to get that information?

 

(kraeco.com)

So I would say just reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love to connect with everyone. I love to build, you know, relationships and connections.

So I'd say go find me. Kristen R A E Pucci on LinkedIn, but I am on every social media.

I'm chronically online. It's literally my job to be that way. I've got a website for everything. So just searching my name, you will be able to find me even just on Google.

Okay.

 

(mattzaun.com)

I'll include your LinkedIn link. Perfect.

 

(kraeco.com)

In the show notes, people could just click and go from there.

 

(mattzaun.com)

Thank you so much for your time today.

 

(kraeco.com)

Thank you, Matt.