#162 Heart First, Camera Second: Speaking Up in the Digital Age

Today, I interview Kristina Milosevic, who once struggled with shyness and fear of speaking up. As a child growing up in Serbia, she often felt more comfortable staying in the background. She was the responsible older sister, creative and observant, but hesitant to be fully seen. That shyness stayed with her into adulthood, where the pressure to meet expectations in a corporate marketing job built up over time.

Eventually, that pressure affected her health and landed her in the hospital—a wake-up call that made her realize she could no longer live without her own voice.

Kristina realized she had been living by someone else’s script. She courageously left her job, started freelancing, and began showing up in new ways. Her first steps onto her own path began with a challenge she had never faced before—creating videos despite the shakiness and discomfort of being seen and heard in a second language. It was the beginning of discovering what she was truly meant to do.

Today, Kristina helps others find their voice online. She supports entrepreneurs in building a real presence through social media, video, and personal connection. Her message is simple but powerful: be who you truly are, not who others expect you to be. Speak up, show up, and live your own life.

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Kristina is a digital marketing coach, speaker, and podcast creator who helps entrepreneurs build an authentic online presence. She is co-founder of the PromoZiS Team, a freelance group specializing in web design, digital marketing, and business consulting.

Through her podcast Growing Business Online, Kristina shares insights on visibility, strategy, and the mindset behind meaningful growth. She coaches small business owners on website creation, brand identity, SEO, and social media strategy.

She is also a co-author of Global Women in Business, a collaborative book featuring voices from around the world. Kristina loves connecting with entrepreneurs locally and internationally, and is passionate about helping people grow their business in alignment with who they are.

When she’s not working, she enjoys singing, public speaking, and hiking 10 kilometers nearly every day.

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Find Kristina here:
https://team.promozis.com/ 

https://www.facebook.com/ksmcoaching 

https://www.facebook.com/PromoZiSteam/ 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ksmcoaching 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/snezana-kristina-milosevic-890a4b21/ 

https://www.instagram.com/kristism7/ 

Transcript

Transcript of Interview

Find Your Voice, Change Your Life Podcast

Podcast Host: Dr. Doreen Downing

Free Guide to Fearless Speaking: Doreen7steps.com

Episode # 162 Kristina Milosevic

“Heart First, Camera Second: Speaking Up in the Digital Age”

(00:00) Doreen Downing: Hi, I am Dr. Doreen Downing, and I am host of the Find Your Voice, Change Your Life podcast. I love to interview people. I love to meet them online. Usually, a lot of times, it’s for the first time, and today, that’s the truth. My listeners get to meet Kristina Milosevic at the same time I do.

We usually start with, since this is about finding your voice: where along in your life did you feel like you didn’t have a voice? What was that story?

How that relates to you, the listener, is because I know many of you have challenges speaking up, and you love to hear stories about people who had that same struggle—but then, guess what? They found their voice, just like you can too, and then they go on to grow businesses online and help other people.

So, hello Kristina.

(01:06) Kristina Milosevic: Hello, Dr. Doreen. Thank you so much for inviting me and hearing me today on your show, your podcast.

(01:17) Doreen Downing: Oh, I’m going to read something so that people get to know who you are currently, and then we’ll slip back into what early life was like for you. But this is who you are today.

And I love this—where you sent me your motto: be persistent, be consistent, be successful. I had to just start with that, because that’s a great way to say, this is who she is, folks, nowadays.

Kristina is a passionate digital marketing coach, speaker, writer, podcast creator, and visionary. She wears many hats: marketing manager, consultant, co-founder of the PromoZiS Team–freelance, a group that specializes in web design, graphic design, digital marketing, and business consulting.

Through her own brand, KSM Growing Business Online brand, Kristina offers coaching, podcasting, and professional business speaking. She also hosts the KSM podcast, which is Growing Business Online.

Kristina shares valuable insights to help entrepreneurs thrive. One day I’ll be on it, so we’ll let you know about that too.

Kristina supports small business owners by creating websites and landing pages, building corporate branding and identity, coaching digital marketing and social media strategies, and teaching how to boost SEO for websites, blogs, and social platforms.

Wow, this is amazing, Kristina. Wow.

Kristina loves connecting with both businesswomen and men. She actively networks with business communities, both locally and internationally. Here she is in Serbia, and here I am on the west coast of California—so it is international, this wonderful connection.

She’s also a co-author of the book Global Women in Business, featuring seven women from around the world, and she empowers women to grow their business through social media and referral marketing.

And above all, Kristina is passionate about helping others reach their goals, find their voice, and transform their lives.

And there’s one more note here, folks. In her free time, she enjoys singing, public speaking, and hiking in nature. What a bio. I wanted to read it all. Sometimes I take out a bunch of stuff because it’s a little long.

(04:09) Kristina Milosevic: I really enjoyed listening to how you read it. I really just feel it’s incredible to hear someone talk about me and what I do. And sometimes it seems like a lot, but it’s amazing. Thank you, Dr. Doreen, for having me today again.

(04:29) Doreen Downing: Yes. Well, I feel like I almost don’t need to do anything else but sit here in awe. But I have a job to do, which is to talk about your voice.

And anytime we turn back the dial and peek into the past because you didn’t just pop out like this beautiful, brilliant person who can do all these things.

I came out with some capacities, but I had some challenges before I became the psychologist and mindfulness teacher I am nowadays, who loves to work with people in finding their voice.

I liked that in your last line; you help people find their voice. But there must have been some time when you didn’t have one.

Let’s go back there.

(05:20) Kristina Milosevic: Yes. Just to talk a little bit about my background. As you mentioned and read from my bio, I was so shy in front of the camera and about sharing my voice.

I was working in a publishing company, and that’s how I started freelancing. It was related to publishing and television and those kinds of things. I was in the marketing area.

Then in 2010, I started going to the hospital because of a hormone imbalance, which happened due to the pressure from my managers. That’s when I said, okay, I would love to be my own boss. That’s how I started my business.

It wasn’t my voice at that time, to be honest. It was the voice of other people. Then I realized that the best thing for me was to start my own business journey.

That’s how I started the PromoZiS Team for web and graphic design. That was almost 15 years ago. Then came my second brand—KSM Growing Business Online brand.

I just wanted to explain in a few sentences that, at that time, it wasn’t my voice. Eventually, I realized I wanted to choose who I worked with. I couldn’t work with everyone. That’s something I understood about myself.

Now, I only like to work for myself, to network, and to be part of the international and online space. I really enjoy my business now because I know why I’m here, and what my “why” is. As you and I said: be persistent, be consistent, be successful.

When you connect with amazing people globally—from Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US—you’re on the West Coast, I’m in Serbia, so Eastern Europe—you just can’t believe what happens.

In one of my articles, I was called the “Connection Queen” because I connected many, many entrepreneurs, women and men in Australia. At that time, I was running a Facebook group with my partner from Sydney. It was called Women Embracing the World. She was the front person, and I was more in the background.

She used to say, “Kristina, why don’t you pop up in the group?” I wasn’t too comfortable going live in the Facebook group, but I thought, okay, I can go there, but what can I do? I was shy. But the point was the challenge.

I want to suggest to people: just go and do the challenges. Because from that 21-day challenge—it was about social media management and digital marketing strategy—I started. Dr. Doreen, I created 15 videos, talking about SEO, digital marketing, and other topics. I also hosted women entrepreneurs. That was the breakthrough. My big step.

Speaking in English, which is my second language, and also hosting people—it all started there. It was the Pro Entrepreneur podcast. Two or three years ago, I rebranded it, and now that podcast is in the Top 20 by Feedspot in the Online Business category.

But I want to say, if I didn’t do that challenge, I would never have become who I am now.

(09:35) Doreen Downing: I totally understand. This is incredible. I totally understand that story around taking a challenge, because that’s what I did on my podcast.

Find Your Voice, Change Your Life was started during COVID, and we challenged each other with a 30-day challenge—get on a video each day. And for me, it wasn’t about podcasting. It was about meeting people, like I am with you today, and just having a conversation.

So again, I want to start—I know you said “shy”—so I want to go back before you actually decided, “I want to do my own business.”

I want to go back because I don’t know what it’s like growing up in Europe, what it was like growing up in your family. Tell us a few details about you as a little girl being shy. What are some of those stories?

(10:32) Kristina Milosevic: Yes, in that book—I just wanted to say thank you, it’s an amazing question—and I’d love to share about the book. In Global Women in Business, I described how I connected with all those ladies through social media.

And in that book, I wrote about my way to success, and part of that was describing my childhood.

(11:09) Kristina Milosevic: I was so happy. I have a younger sister, and we were like brother and sister—sister and sister—and in our corner, let’s say, in our street where we grew up, we used to play all the time.

We created our own little thing. It was like a Green Brothers band or team. We had something like a green label or name. We called it Green Brothers. I don’t even know why we called it that, but that’s what it was.

We played there, we cooked, we prepared food all day, especially during vacations. And our mother and father would always be calling us because they didn’t know where we were. But we were like a big family, and I really had an amazing, amazing childhood.

(12:18) Doreen Downing: Are you saying that was with your sister or your brother?

(12:21) Kristina Milosevic: With my sister and also other kids—sisters and brothers from the neighborhood.

(12:26) Doreen Downing: Okay. But you're—there are two children in your family. You are the oldest?

(12:34) Kristina Milosevic: Yes, there are two children.

(12:36) Doreen Downing: And you have a younger sister?

(12:38) Kristina Milosevic: Yes, I do.

(12:40) Doreen Downing: So do I. I'm an older sister.

(12:41) Kristina Milosevic: I'm also older. Yes, and you're more responsible than the younger one.

Well, just to finish—all those brothers and sisters we played with—they grew up as doctors, as amazing people. Today they’ve all gone to university. I can see how they grew up through play. We played school—directors, managers, principals—and now they’re really amazing people. They’ve graduated high school and university. It’s lovely.

(13:26) Doreen Downing: Well, I’m thinking about where we started today—about finding that you were speaking with someone else’s voice and how you wanted to have your own voice, which became your own business.

It makes me curious: where did that energy or desire come from? Because it feels like there’s a connection here, from what you said about being the oldest sister and how you and the others were creating little shows, little platforms, just making fun things and making things happen.

To me, Kristina, it feels like there’s a through-line from who you were as a little girl coming into the world, even though you were shy, you still wanted to create something. And years later, you found yourself in someone else’s environment, someone else’s business, someone else’s world—and went, “Uh-uh. I want to do my own thing.” Is that true?

(14:44) Kristina Milosevic: Yes. It’s 100% true. You really connected that, and as a psychologist, of course you would.

This is really true. When I was very young, I used to sit in my yard, just watching the sky. I liked planes. I would imagine how I could travel all around the world—what it’s like in Australia, or somewhere far.

Now I live that. Because I travel the world in front of my computer. Especially now, with podcasting, there are people from all over the globe. They see the podcast, and then they message or email me. They say, “Hey, I’m a researcher for podcasters,” or “My boss would like to be a guest on your show.”

This is something very interesting, as you said. I’m a big believer in when you live and play as a child, you really discover things through your life. You grow, grow, grow, and then one day, you start to see, “Hey, this is really who I am.”

(16:04) Doreen Downing: Oh, I love it. I love it. I was in the Peace Corps. And I’ve traveled around the world. Where was I? I was in Malaysia, which also gave me the opportunity to go all over Southeast Asia, and traveled through India.

I love this idea that you're saying, and I never realized it myself—that podcasting puts me in touch with people all over the world right here on this screen.

Thank you for that insight, that podcasting is a way to connect internationally, and this image of you looking up at the sky and going, “Wow.” The plane.

(16:45) Kristina Milosevic: Just planes—just flying. And I was imagining, oh, it’s so far away. Let’s say from Serbia, 24 hours flying to Australia. Or you can go to, let’s say, Indonesia, or just not direct flying.

I was like, okay. I just did that and moved to Australia because of the connection with people. And that book is published there, and I have never been there. But it was like, okay, this is an amazing opportunity.

So, in terms of podcasting, you get all the answers. I got all the answers I wanted to ask people. And what I think, what I wanted to ask, to know, that my listeners and all listeners globally can realize it and get new knowledge about something. This is really incredible. This is the beauty of the online space.

(17:47) Doreen Downing: I think you and I both are just dancing in this wonderful way. We get to meet each other, but also open up possibilities, so that I’m introducing my listeners to you.

And they’re getting to see what an enthusiastic, eager, passionate person you are, and what you do for others, and this book that you’ve been a part of.

(18:23) Kristina Milosevic: Never give up. Just try. You never know how it's going to be if we don't try—and I think that you, as a psychologist, I think you will agree with me in some way.

As I mentioned before, we cannot work with everyone. But for me, it’s important to have the same frequency, to speak the same language. I don’t mean speaking English. I mean speaking the language inside of us, what we really have in ourselves, and then reflecting that to other people.

And people really feel that. Because even though we are in the online space, in front of the camera, energy is energy, so we need to speak the same language in terms of business.

As I mentioned, it's not language-language like Italian, French, or English—just the language to realize each other, to understand each other, and to be on the same frequency.

What I really like is to be a giver. If you're not a giver, you can't be a receiver. Because if we are givers—not just financial energy—it’s like being a big giver. Help people, support them.

Yes, and people will give back to you. But if you don’t open up, you will be shy all your life. And this is so true.

(19:52) Doreen Downing: Oh, oh. I’m falling in love with you. Speaking of listening to a language—your language comes from your heart, and I’m feeling the frequency. Thank you.

We need to take a quick break here, and I’ll be back in just a minute.

Hi, I’m back with Kristina Milosevic, and I am just filled up with goodness from her energy, her spirit.

We were just talking about her history and the kind of person she was—the older sister that made things happen early on—and then, later in life, how she came into the realization that she wanted to have her own business.

And that’s what she’s been doing—as a coach, as a consultant, as a podcast host, and as an author also. So many avenues, Kristina, where you’ve shown up and helped people. I just want to acknowledge you for that.

Let’s move on into: what does having a voice nowadays mean? What does that mean to you?

(21:16) Kristina Milosevic: For me, having your voice means to know who you are—to be yourself. And to connect with people and build relationships. Who you want to build them with, and who it's for. Just to know what your mission is in this world.

(21:44) Kristina Milosevic: When you mentioned that, what I realized is that I had no idea I was going to have a podcast. I had no idea. It started from the 21-day challenge.

And finally, I grew. We grow together. This is my voice. Because I'm not someone who likes to write. I’m more passionate about speaking than writing. When I realized that, it was clear to me. Okay, English is my second language.

I just want to explain how it works. When you have a connection with people, when you’re in interaction—that's the way you find out who you are. Because many people wear many hats—one hat, two hats, three hats—and a pair of eyes has so much more to discover about who you are.

Just to be honest, through this connection, through working as a freelancer and all kinds of things, I discovered many new skills. It’s incredible. There are so many.

I’m not saying you should multitask—that’s not good—you need to focus on something you do. But we are so skilled. We are skilled human beings. And when you start thinking, “Okay, I can do that,” and if I have clients, I’ll do it.

When I started as a marketing manager for a website, they asked me, “Kristina, am I going to get more clients?” I said, “Okay, but you need to drive it like a car. You need to map it out. You need a business manager who will run that website. It’s not just going to run itself. You need to be present online.”

If you want to buy something, you type and Google it and say, “Okay, let me see what this is,” just to get some information. If people don’t have a page there, it’s like they don’t exist—in terms of business.

That’s how I started coaching. Because people needed that. And I started coaching them on how to use it—how to get traffic to their page, how to use social media, like a business page on LinkedIn, a business page on Facebook, how to start it, and how to connect with that. This is something from my perspective, from my previous clients, how I started. This is also from action and interaction.

(24:25) Doreen Downing: Well, I just also saw that what you're doing in terms of helping people come out into a social media place is that you're helping them express who they are. And you use the word frequency.

(24:43) Kristina Milosevic: I'm helping them to build an online presence. And that's a voice, I think. Yes, that's a voice.

And first, what is so important for people—what I researched—is personal brand. Personal brand is what we are talking about now. People want to resonate with you. People want to know who you are first. And behind the scenes is the author, is your business because they want to know who they’re going to work with. This is the beauty of video marketing.

As I mentioned, I was so shy to go live. When I do record, I sit down and look at it and say, okay, this is cool. But now, after many episodes of doing podcasts, I don’t think about it anymore. I just do it. It grows. It's organic.

People—when they see you on camera—they resonate with your body language, with how you move your hands, how you speak. Are you real? Because many people—we can resonate if we show up and we are online, that we are really those personas, the people we truly are in our personal life.

Because of that, people feel like they can connect. They say, okay, this person is speaking something true. It’s not something behind the scenes. And we have many triggers in the online space, so video marketing and podcasting are so good for people to go and connect with you deeper.

(26:31) Doreen Downing: Yes. And what I’m liking about connecting with you is the spirit in it.

To me, wherever we are, wherever we go, we are showing up. Even though there may be some kind of persona underneath it, what I feel from you, is your heart. You're smiling from your heart.

See? Even that little giggle was wonderful.

(27:05) Kristina Milosevic: Yes. You couldn't be an actor in that way, right?

(27:11) Doreen Downing: Right. But I think people are trying to come across or trying to manufacture their image. And it feels like what we’re talking about is, let’s get to the authentic you.

(27:29) Kristina Milosevic: Because we are unique. And no one can copy us. So, we are unique and different in this world, and we all have space and place here. So just be who you are. Don’t hide. I was shy to be in front of the camera, but not anymore.

(27:46) Doreen Downing: Take it from somebody who knows what it’s like to be shy and not out there.

(27:51) Kristina Milosevic: Yes. Don’t be stuck. Also, just to share, when I started my group on Facebook, KSM Coaching, it was for women. But there was one guy—he’s French, originally from France—he lives in London. He was a guest speaker in the Pro Entrepreneur group.

When I saw him, I said, I’m going to make it a mix. So now I have both male and female in my group, and he triggered me to do it. So, I coach both men and women.

(28:28) Doreen Downing:  Yes, that’s what I read earlier about your space. It’s for everyone. Anyone. So, we’re coming to the end. Is there some way in which you want to leave us with a message today?

 (28:46) Kristina Milosevic: Yes. In terms of who we are, just be who you are. Be authentic. Be organic. Never give up. And show up.

Also, Dr. Doreen, you have me, you have other podcasters. You can always move forward. And if you want to share your voice, just pop up and connect, and you will be a guest speaker.

If you want to start your business, move forward. And if you don't know how to do it, engage a coach, engage a mentor, a colleague—whoever. Because if you have your vision, delegate someone to help you. That will be more.

But never give up on your dream. Never give up. Don’t live someone else’s life. Live your life.

As Tony Robbins said, “Change your story, change your life.”

(29:46) Doreen Downing: Oh, thank you. Don’t lead somebody else’s life. Lead your own. Thank you so much, Kristina.

(29:51) Kristina Milosevic: This is what I lived before I started my own business journey.

(30:01) Kristina Milosevic: I’m happy because my job is my life, my business, my fun, my friendship—it’s my everything.

(30:11) Doreen Downing: I love it. Your fun, your friendship, your everything. Thank you so much.

(30:16) Kristina Milosevic: Thank you, Dr. Doreen. And if I just impact only one listener, that will be great.

(30:23) Doreen Downing: I'm sure you have.

(30:23) Kristina Milosevic: You’ve changed someone’s life.

(30:25) Doreen Downing: You’ve impacted me today. Thank you so much.

(30:28) Kristina Milosevic: Thank you, Dr. Doreen. It was lovely talking to you today.