How to Lean into your Flaws and be YOUniquely You™

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Do you try and hide one aspect of yourself when you go live?

Do you worry about how you look, your accent, your voice, or something else?

I think, to some extent, we all do. It’s natural to want to try and cover up certain traits, especially those we view as flaws.

But what if those “flaws” are what make you unique and special?

What if your “flaws” are the very things that attract your perfect audience?

I reckon it’s time we ALL start embracing our true selves, flaws and all, in our live videos. So I’m over the moon to have been joined recently by LIVE Video Strategist and superstar, Luria Petrucci.

On the show, we talked about how you can learn to lean into your flaws and how you can be YOUniquely You™. You can catch the show or podcast here or keep on reading for the absolute highlights of our chat.

What You’ll Learn

[11:30] About Luria’s views on perfectionism
[17:30] About Luria’s personal mission to embrace her flaws
[19:15] About the pivotal moments in Luria’s journey to video confidence
[26:00] Luria’s advice on discovering who you really are
[34:20] How to lean into your flaws
[51:35] How to put all this into practise

This episode is sponsored by Content10X

Have You Met Luria?

Over the last 14 years, Luria has created over 5,000 videos with over 1 billion views using video and live streaming shows. She's appeared on CNN, NBC, FOX, NBC, MSNBC, ABC & BBC. She’s worked on LIVE Video for top brands like AT&T, Samsung, GoDaddy, and Panasonic.

Her business, Live Streaming Pros, has built LIVE video studios for top influencers like Amy Porterfield, Pat Flynn, Ryan Levesque, Donald Miller, and Michael Hyatt.

It’s safe to say that when it comes to live video, she knows her stuff!

So, why has it taken me so bloomin’ long to have this conversation with Luria? Because, honestly, I’ve been planning to invite her to chat for the longest time, but something held me back.

Luria Weighs in on the Curse of Perfectionism
Listen at [11:30]

Actually, there were two things the held me back: perfectionism and comparisonitis.

Of course, I know that these are both terribly common; most of us suffer from them from time to time and if I’ve learnt anything over the last few years, it’s that doing live video, with all of its unpredictability, is the perfect antidote to both.

But I’m curious to learn Luria’s take on perfectionism and comparison syndrome (now that I’ve plucked up the courage to actually talk to her!)

"We always say people want connection, not perfection.

You can make adjustments. You can try to make things look better. And you can strive for professionalism. But if you’re striving for perfection, you’re wasting your time because it just doesn’t exist.

And at the end of the day, what people really want is to connect with another human being.

What’s interesting is that we have a lot of flaws in our own minds. When we look in the mirror we could spend hours picking out every flaw we see. We imagine flaws in our personality, in our experiences… but the audience? Our friends? Our family? They actually see our flaws as strengths.

So we have to start thinking differently about who we are and see ourselves from the outside perspective. And we have to embrace the things that people love about us.

This is one of my big missions in life: to stop people letting doubts hold them back and help them to release their inner magic; their hidden awesome."

You can make adjustments. You can try to make things look better. And you can strive for professionalism. But if you’re striving for perfection, you’re wasting your time because it just doesn’t exist. @LuriaPetrucciClick To Tweet

It’s a Personal Mission
Listen at [17:30]

Luria admits that she has skin in the game when it comes to her mission, it’s a transformation that she’s embarked upon herself.

“It’s not like I have all the answers. I have been through the journey of transformation, breaking free from the traps to live a more YOUniquely You life. But hey, we will ALL, always have somewhere else to go. It’s a journey we’ll be on for the whole of our lives if we so choose.

Facing, and embracing, your flaws is not the easiest thing in the world. But it’s worth it.”

The Pivotal Moments on Luria’s Journey To Confidence
Listen at [19:15]

If you’ve ever seen Luria on video, you’d be forgiven for being sceptical at this point; she always comes across as supremely comfortable in front of the camera.

But she confesses she wasn’t always so confident.

In fact, she used to be so nervous she’d plan every single thing to the nth degree. She recalls a particular podcast she appeared on as a guest, she needed to know every question in advance so she could script her answers. And her first invitation to appear on live video terrified her.

But, having stumbled her way through it, thinking she was awful, she was shocked when everyone around her told her how amazing she had been.

"I was like, ‘what the hell are you talking about’ because I’d screwed up everything, royally. And that experience taught me that people see you differently than you see yourself. They don’t see every flaw; they want to see the beauty in you.

There’s a lot of negativity in the world, but people are amazing and they want you to succeed."

If that was one pivotal experience for Luria, another such moment came a few years later, in the early days of Live Streaming Pros. It was a huge transition involving both a change of name and a complete change of direction, not easy when you already have an audience of two million followers.

She describes herself as having gone deep into serious, buttoned-up, ‘professional mode’ at the time and says, “I lost out on a lot of opportunities because I wasn’t coming out as myself. It was a really awkward phase of re-learning how to be ‘me’ on camera.”

It was a hard process for her, and one that saw her lose the bulk of those 2m followers she’d amassed by that point in her career. But she figured it out and doing so marked a huge moment for her. Live Streaming Pros now works with some huge names!

The final significant moment came when she did the fourth episode of her YOUniquely You™ podcast.

"I went deeper with sharing my experience about my journey than I ever had and that was a really hard thing for me to do. But the stories turned into lessons for me and it felt important to share them with the audience so that they could take those lessons too.

That was definitely a pivotal moment in releasing the ‘inner me’ but it was all part of the process. It’s necessary for us all to go through those things."

There’s a lot of negativity in the world, but people are amazing and they want you to succeed. @LuriaPetrucciClick To Tweet

Discovering Who You Are
Listen at [26:00]

Each of those moments was so significant because of the role they played in helping Luria discover who she is. And she has some thoughts for those of you who perhaps feel that you’re still in the midst of that process.

Having started in the business at such a young age, around 23/24, she feels like she’s had to grow up (professionally speaking at least) under the watchful eye of the community she’d built and that comes with its own set of challenges.

"You feel like you don’t want to suddenly change who you are. I had to learn the hard way that we, as human beings, are constantly changing. And it’s okay to go through those changes. I see it in my YOUniquely You community™ all the time. For example, people going through huge transitions like dealing with their kids going off to college and trying to figure out who they are without their children.

So often we try to hide the struggles we have with those transitions from our audience. And that was the mistake I made when I was younger, not bringing my audience along on that journey. Not welcoming them to that process of my growing up phase.

And that’s why I lost two million followers: because I did a hard stop. I still hear from some of them who have rediscovered me all these years later and admit that they thought I’d just stopped producing content. It makes me realise that I could have kept so many of those followers if I’d just walked them through the transition with me. If I’d brought them into that process of rediscovering who I was.

So it doesn’t matter if you’re going through a big transition, or smaller transitions, we need to bring people in and allow them to be part of our lives. It’s 100% vital to long-term growth."

And she points out that if your audience is there because they’ve connected with YOU as well as with your content, they will stick with you no matter what transition you’re going through.

Leaning Into Your Flaws
Listen at [34:20]

Returning to our chat about flaws, I know that whether you’re concerned about how you look, your accent or something else entirely, so many of you put off doing live video because of your ‘flaws’.

And Luria gets it.

When asked to talk about her own perceived flaws she’s more than happy to start reeling off everything from a forehead that (she thinks) is too big, a gummy smile, and an annoying laugh to over-sized nostrils!

Of course, when I admit that I’ve noticed literally zero of those things during our conversation, I help Luria make her key point:

No one else notices your flaws. No one else sees you the way that you see you. And that can be hugely liberating.

Another ‘flaw’ she points out is her lack of knowledge when it comes to pop culture references. Growing up without a TV and with only certain forms of content, music, etc. being allowed, she missed out on a whole load of cultural references, in conversation they often go right over her head.

And it used to bother her. But now, what she does is lean into her ‘flaw’ by embracing it: she’s a fan of humour and not taking herself too seriously so she’ll either make fun of herself if she doesn’t get a reference or make a huge deal of it if someone talks about something she does get.

Now, it’s become a part of her, of who she is. Her audience uses #popcultureref in her posts and celebrates with her when she makes a big deal of understanding a pop culture reference. Something she was initially embarrassed about has actually become the source of some really cool conversations. She’s turned her flaw around and “used it as an engagement factor”!

In fact, more than merely leaning into her flaws, she discovered that with her audience’s help it’s possible to love them because her audience has come to love them.
And while she admits that you don’t want to rely on external factors when it comes to learning to love your flaws, she acknowledges that validation from your audience can act as a powerful jump-start for the process.

Putting It Into Practice
Listen at [51:35]

So, if you’re sitting there thinking, well, that’s all well and good for a clearly flawless superstar like Luria, but how do I learn to embrace MY flaws?

Luria reckons sometimes you just have to feel the fear of exposing your flaws… and do it anyway.

Like one of her YOUniquely You™ community members, who was stressing about not being able to get her hair done after COVID hit. She just decided that she was going to go for it: she was going to go live, grey hair and all!

"And her audience was actually thankful. By showing up as herself, with no dye, embracing her grey hair, she helped them feel more comfortable with who they are. It seems like such a small thing but for her to take that step was massive, but only because she’d built it up in her brain.

So you need to get out of your head. You need to think, ‘what small thing can I do to be uncomfortable?’ and step into that uncomfortable zone. Just start doing those things and with each step, you’ll feel more and more comfortable.

Try brainstorming every flaw you think you have and choose one thing from that list to integrate into your next video. Then you’ll have a list you can work from. You can take each thing in turn and think, ‘how can I turn it into an example my audience can learn from?’ or ‘how can I step into that zone where I’m a little vulnerable?’

Because here’s the thing:

The world is filled with this fake authenticity, and it’s just all surface-level. But you can move beyond this fake authenticity by being a little bit vulnerable, one step at a time.

It’s not a magical thing; it’s just a bit of work. And a mindset shift."

If you want to explore a community of people who are there to support you through your journey, to hold you accountable, check out Luria’s free Facebook group. It’s a safe environment with absolutely NO judgment!

Resources

Luria’s free Facebook group
Live Streaming Pros

This Episode's Sponsor

This episode is sponsored by Content10X

Watch Episode 83

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Who is Luria Petrucci?

Luria is a LIVE Video Strategist, helping you Create Professional LIVE Video that’s YOUniquely You!

Over 14 years, Luria has created over 5,000 videos with over 1 Billion views using video and live streaming shows. She's appeared on CNN, NBC, FOX, NBC, MSNBC, ABC & BBC. She’s worked on LIVE Video for top brands like AT&T, Samsung, GoDaddy, and Panasonic. Live Streaming Pros has built LIVE video studios for top influencers like Amy Porterfield, Pat Flynn, Ryan Levesque, Donald Miller & Michael Hyatt.

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About Ian Anderson Gray

Ian is the founder of the Confident Live Marketing Academy and is the host of the Confident Live Marketing Podcast. He helps entrepreneurs to level up their impact, authority and profits by using live video confidently. He's a geek, husband, and dad to two kids, and trained as professional classical singer. He lives near Manchester in the UK. Find out more