I Am That Content Creator Podcast

Ep#119 Overcoming Visibility Wounds: How to Build Confidence and Show Up Online

• Kristen Werner & Mia Steel

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Ever Been Told You’re “Too Much”? This Is Why It  May Still Follows You Online.

If you feel a tightness every time you go to hit post, this episode is for you.

We go straight at the visibility wound the old stories, negative comments, and childhood echoes that quietly keep smart, creative people playing small.

From personal stories to practical tools, we break down how to turn hesitation into horsepower.

  • Why one negative comment outweighs 100 positive ones (negative bias explained)
  • How to delete the junk immediately instead of letting it linger
  • The “Positivity Bank” system that rewires your brain for confidence
  • How to screenshot, record, and revisit praise until it becomes muscle memory
  • Why tiny, finishable goals build real creative momentum
  • How visualisation and self-talk help you push through the wobbly middle
  • Why confidence is a trained skill not a personality trait

    The Positivity Bank Method
    Instead of replaying criticism, you’ll learn how to:
    • Screenshot kind DMs, comments, and emails
    • Record a voice note reading them
    • Revisit them daily
    • Build evidence that your work matters
  • Because positive feedback shouldn’t disappear it should compound.

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     ⭐ Leave a review to help more creators heal their visibility wounds

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Fast Car Rant And Setup

SPEAKER_01

All right. Welcome to my wildly passionate rants about things that I think are important for you. And uh this has come off the back of I've just had these like raging moments of gotta create a piece of content and go, oh but I've got too much stuff to say. I can't put it in like a TikTok, I can't put it in this. I just I'm gonna create a little short form podcast for you. So this is coming at you fast and loud. I'm in the car. I don't have an issue with just getting the content out in terms of today, today. I feel like so formal saying that. What a crock of shit.

Naming The Visibility Wound

SPEAKER_01

I want to talk visibility wounds. If you are somebody that, if you're like me, when you're a kid, you were told a bit of the old, just be a bit quieter, not so loud. Come on, calm down. You don't need to be the star of the show. You don't just show off. That was always a big one that got thrown at me, and then hilarious when Old Mate then goes to be the star of the bloody drama and everyone's like, no, be more you, be more amazing, be more showy-offy. Um, and all those things add up as like I'm 41. And so if I'm speaking to you and you're a millennial, older millennial, or even older than that, there are visibility wounds that we wear. And if you are a little spicy, I'm gonna guess your visibility wounds are pretty raw. And there's a few things that you you can we can kind of go, just go do the thing, do the thing, and you'll get better. And that's great because obviously doing the thing is what is going to help you improve. Like, you know, babies don't walk, and then all of a sudden they take one step and then they fall down and then they keep going, and then all of a sudden they're walking, they're they're running, they're falling off shit left, right, and center, but they started at a standstill. They started at a not knowing anything about anything, and it takes the movement, the the muscle memory to make it actually start to work. And it's, you know, as dumb as that example is, it's the truth. Like babies have to learn to roll over, then they learn to use their muscles to pull themselves up, and then it starts to the one step at a time, one little movement and a fall down, another movement and a fall down. That's the reality of life, right? Um, and so I was thinking about this whole visibility wound and how how

How Negative Comments Take Root

SPEAKER_01

can I help you get past that? Because as somebody who is a brand and visibility strategist, that's that's what I want to claim now. I want to be able to own that because I know my my power and my passion lies in hearing the things that you're not actually saying and seeing the fire in you and going, okay, how can we light that fire? Like there's something that's stopping that from completely leaping out. And I know you know you want more for you. I know you want to show up, I know you want to create the thing, but there is something stopping you, and I'm guessing there is some kind of visibility wound that is pretty big and pretty raw. And I get it. I fucking get it. But how do we get past that? And so I suppose the first question I want to ask you is if I said to you right now, what is a negative comment that you've recently got, or a negative message, a negative, a negative comment either on social media or somebody said to you, or something that you remember in your life that was a negative comment. I'm gonna give you a little cheeky minute because I'm guessing gut feeling is you'll you'll know a comment. You'll know a moment, you might know the person, you might know them where you were, you might know what you were doing, you might know what it said, you might have it burned in your fucking head because it hurts. But you know what it does when it hurts? That's just a little bit of confirmation that your brain needed to say, see, you're not really that good. See, you shouldn't really show up. See what they've been saying, what you're saying in your own head, it's actually fact. And that is the most dangerous fucking thing that we can do, that we can have in our lives when we are creating and when we are building something, when we are building these empires and when we are wanting to show up and build our businesses online and be the face of our brand and create something that is bigger than us, because I know that that's your vision. Like and I know that you're not just here to create a couple of TikToks or a couple of reels and be like, oh, look at me, hey, created content. That's not it at all. You are here for a bigger thing, a fucking movement. You're here to

Your Bigger Vision Beyond Content

SPEAKER_01

change your family's life. You are here to change your life, you are here to show somebody in your life that it's fucking possible. No matter who that person is, and usually it's you, it's you know, a little 16-year-old you that got told shit that you don't believe, you're you're talking to her, right? And so the reason I want you to think about that comment is my gut feeling is you remember it. Like you remember it because it gave you confirmation that you're not actually really that good. And maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't be doing what you're doing. Now that, my gorgeous soul, as I sip my boss coffee in the car on the way home, a little cold can of black coffee. Thank you very much. What that is doing, that is your visibility wound showing up. That is you banking something that is so dangerous to your growth because it's keeping you safe. It's keeping you in that maybe I, you know, it's it's probably better I don't do that. And what that does is it stops you growing the thing that you are here to do. It stops you sharing your story. It stops you stepping in your space, it stops you owning your brilliance. And right now, you're the only person, the only fucking person that can share your story in the most magnificent and brilliant way. But if you keep hold of that negative comment, that negative thought, that negative loop, that's gonna keep you stuck. That's part of the visibility wound. And so what we're gonna do is rebuild the wound. We're gonna get some band-aids, and we're not just gonna band-aid over the top of it because that's fucked as well. That's not what we're doing here. What we're doing is we are going to build up the opposite side of the seesaw, right? If you want to look at your visibility wounds, if you want to look at your online

Delete, Don’t Debate Haters

SPEAKER_01

experience, you've got a couple of choices on a seesaw. Let's just go a seesaw, up and down, up and down, right? You can pile on as many of those negative comments that you've heard, that you've seen. You might have only just read other people's negative comments online and gone, ooh, geez, if somebody says that, I'm not, I'm not sure I could have handled that. And so you go, it's easier if I just if I just don't do the thing, or it's easier if I just don't say that, or it's easier if I just don't show up, because then I can't get that negativity. And if I don't get that negativity in my life, like shit's good, right? Things are really good. I'll just stick here in my own little I'll just doing some V-roll and putting a bit of text over the top and not really showing up as my full self because it's heaps safer when people just go, amazing, so beautiful, how cool, I agree, um, and just DM you the code word that you've asked to send the free thing and you know that cycle continues. But I know you want to level up. Like I know you want to go from just kind of dabbling in curiosity to fucking owning your space, owning where you are right now and stepping massively into where you belong, right? And so what we're gonna do is I want you to to know, see, and identify that you've had those comments, right? Now, there's two things here first that we need to do. The first thing is that is on them, not you. I don't care what those fucking comments say. But if somebody is willing to say a comment to you that is rude, derogatory, mean, unkind, whatever, that's on them. That has nothing to do with you. That's on them, their unhappiness, their life, their problem, their situation, their story. That's on them. That has nothing to do with you. You couldn't have changed their mind even if you tried. Even if you tried a different form of competent, you still want to piss them off. Because people like that just live a dark little life. And that's cool. Let them live that life, whatever. They can do that. And and the one thing that you can do is just delete it straight away. I mean, personally, if I ever, and I don't really, thankfully, touch wood get many negative comments, but if there's ever a comment that my gut and my spidey senses instantly go, oh, I don't like that. Delete, delete, delete, delete. Why the fuck would you keep it there? Why? Don't respond, don't reply, don't dig in, delete, delete, delete, delete. And if somebody has the guts to say it to your face, all right, cool. Let's go there. Let's be polite, let's talk it out. But that that usually doesn't happen this day and age. And then if there's somebody that it's not negative, but it's just not what you wanted to hear, and it just doesn't sit, delete. Don't let it sit there. And certainly don't let it

Build A Positivity Bank

SPEAKER_01

sit on your shoulders. And so the opposite of that, that we therefore need to do is now I want to ask you straight up, can you think of the last positive comment that you got from anybody? Was it a stranger? Was it in the DMs? Was it in the comments? Can you think of one? Now, my gut feeling, again, my spidey senses, are saying that you probably can if you try and think, oh, yeah, there was this one comment. But I have a funny feeling you don't remember what it says word for word. You might not even remember exactly where it was from, or maybe why they said it, or was it a DM, or was it a comment? I can't remember. I I just, but I I guarantee, well, yeah, fuck it. I guarantee you couldn't tell me word for word what that comment says. But the other guarantee I'll make is the negative one. You could repeat it. You can see it. You can shut your eyes and you can see it, you can feel it. You have a visceral reaction. So now what we're gonna do is we're gonna take that positive shit, we're gonna screenshot, we're gonna build a bank in our Google Docs, we're gonna build a bank on our phone that is positive comments, positive reinforcement, and you are going to read those fucking comments all the time. You're gonna read them, you're gonna look at them, you're gonna memorize them because our brains are the most powerful tool we own. And this is why I'm a huge advocate for move your body for

Move Your Body, Rewire Your Mind

SPEAKER_01

mental health. Because when you move your body, it just reignites something in your brain. It helps the neurosystems just fire on all cylinders and it can help you reprogram and visualize things that might not have been possible before. And so imagine if before you go to sleep at night, you open your folder on your phone, and yes, we are scrolling our phone. Like we're not fucking perfect around here. We're doing it before we sleep, cool. But we're not scrolling TikTok endlessly or reels endlessly, looking at other people. Oh, they're doing better than me. Oh, look, they should up. Maybe I should do content like that. Oh, that's that's the way I should do it. No, we're not, we're not gonna do that now. What we're gonna do to heal these visibility wounds is we're gonna open up that folder and we're gonna read the people that have had success, the people who have said you changed my life, the people that have merely just commented, I needed to hear this today. It doesn't have to be something enormous. It just has to be somebody in their life that spent a second, two seconds, three seconds, a minute replying, commenting, sending you something that says, hey, nice work. Thank you. That's all it is. Because that is a reminder to your brain that what you are doing is worthwhile, that what you are saying is worthwhile, that every single time then that you go to create a piece of content, you could shut your eyes. And the feeling that you get from those people that said, Oh my God, this changed my life. Thank you so much. You're amazing. Wow, what a comment. Wow, what a post. This was so helpful. Thank you. All of those comments come to your mind first. And that's how we start to slowly rewire. We're not just gonna go, yeah, posts will be amazing. I'll do a couple of posts and she'll be right. No, it's not. Can we not pretend that's gonna happen? What we are going to do instead is, you know, confidence and muscle. If you've been around the bush with me for a while, that's one of my favorite sayings that confidence is a muscle. You've got to train that motherfucker. Like I wrote, I ran a half marathon, never been a runner, hated running, actually, loathed it. Was never been a runner, not built for running. I'm built like a brick shithouse, was when I was young, like strong legs, massy body, you not lean a mean running machine over here, right? A bit of a stomper. And I um it's gonna be a longer story than I thought, but I'm just gonna dabble

The Half Marathon Mindset

SPEAKER_01

in it quickly. I was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma at 22. It was fucking horrific. It was on my side of my head. It was horrendous. And it was just enough that luckily for me, they cut it all out, but I had 180 stitches on the side of my face. They took my cheek up right up and stretched it all the way up to my temple, 180 stitches in my face. But they cleaned it, they cleared it all and I and I was good, right? I was all right. But the the point is, is that in that time that I was sitting round waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for the doctor to call and say, We got it all. Because for like a whole week, I had a hole in my fucking head. Like they cut a hole, they cut the melanoma out at about 50 cent. You imagine imagine a 50 cent piece. What they did was they cut the melanoma out in about a 50 cent piece on my temple, on my right, uh left temple, and they cut that out, and then the doctor said to me, Oh look, I I could kind of patch it up and clean it up and kind of what do you call it? Not stitch it up, because they still had to make sure, because they couldn't stitch it up because they needed to make sure that if they'd missed anything, they had to go back in and clean it up. So he said, Look, I'm gonna have to leave it open. And I was like, ooh, disgusting. Like I can't, I don't do blood, I don't do any of that kind of stuff. And um he said, Oh, do you want to see it? I was like, I to this day, I couldn't even physically look at the hole in the side of my head. Thank God my mother would have saint. She cleaned it and did everything to it. But for that whole week, I sat waiting, waiting for the phone to ring. Is it gonna be cancer? Like, is it going to be gone through my whole system? Am I fucked? Like, these are the things that you think. And for those of you that have been through this, going through this, my heart just I just give you all the love I can because mine was in the grand scheme of life, so lucky, so quick, so lucky, incredible outcome, right? And I couldn't be more grateful for that. But I know that if you're in the depths of it and you know family or it is you, I I just want to send you love. And I'm not brushing over this by any means, but this is just part of my story. And so that week for me was shit. It was fucking terrible. Oh god, fucking, it gives me me time. But all I remember saying to myself at that time was, okay, Kristen, if you get through this and it's all positive and we're good to go, you're gonna run a half marathon. And I thought, you're gonna do it not for anybody else, not to um, you know, say, oh, I did a half. This is before half marathons were like the done thing to do, the cool thing to do. So it was just, it was something that I thought I could never, ever achieve. Anyway, I got through that. I got back to the doctor and he said, We got it all, we're gonna close it up. So they did. They stitched my cheek to my forehead, not my forehead, my temple, 180 stitches, inside deep stitches and outside. It was a hell of a scar. I was all good to go, all clean, all clear, fucking amazing, amazing. And then I thought, okay, well, now, bitch,

Visualise, Self-Talk, And Finish Strong

SPEAKER_01

you can't back down. You said to yourself you'd do a half marathon, so get your fucking ass up and do a half marathon. And so all I did, and the reason I'm telling you this story is going to back to that visibility wound. I haven't completely forgotten the point of my story. Sometimes I do, but I always come back. Full circle, you with me? We're chaotic, we're wild, we're here for it, right? And the biggest part of this was that, like I said with the visibility wound, it is building your mindset, building your internal neurological system to tell yourself you're okay, to tell yourself you can do this, to build the positive reinforcement that you're not gonna fail and you're not gonna fall over. And if you do, you know what? Nothing happened. You're still okay, you're still good to go. And so for me, with my comparison here, is once I knew that I was okay and I said that I would do this half marathon, what I had to do next was I was, like I said, I was not a runner. So it was literally, okay, I'm running from this corner street to that corner street. And I'd do that, and I'd be like, whoa, you're a bloody champion. And then I'd do two corners, three corners, one kilometer, two kilometre. And I did that over like 12, 14 weeks. And I told no one except for one woman I had at work who had run marathons before, and she was she was my little coach and hype girl, and she knew why I was doing it. Everyone else was just like, cool, you're running a half marathon. Wow, that's fun. But I she knew my reason. So she was very good in continuously allowing me to see that was possible. And so I did that, and I did the the City DeBay here in Adelaide, and I ran that in what I would consider record time close to what my dad's was. And my dad was quite a good runner, so I was like, huh, not bad. But I remember doing that and be like, wow, I achieved that. I ran the whole distance, I did it in under the hour of what I cut, yeah. I did it under the hour. I was like, wow, I didn't think that was possible. Great. Just these little mental ticks that you need to do. And when it comes to creating content, it's you screenshotting, reading every day. Oh, it does work, oh, this does work, oh, this is working. And then it came to doing that half marathon. And I went with no one. I think, or my boyfriend, my husband now, boyfriend, he came along and this girl, she came along, and they cheered me on, and that was amazing. And I just all I could think the whole time is like before I went into it, if you stop running, that's cool, don't worry, you'll be right. You know, cheering myself on like the hype girl I am. But then as I started to run and I got to points where I was like, oh God, I'm so tired. And I was like, you cannot fucking stop. You cannot stop. Like one more step. You have to do this, you can do this, you can. And this is why I'm also such a fan of moving your body for mental health, because when you are moving your body and when you are training in those kinds of moments, you are actively, positively reinforcing to your brain that you have absolutely fucking got this. Like if I'm running that half marathon and I'm saying to myself, you're a loser, you're shit, you're slow, you're plotting, it hurts, why would you do this? You should stop. That would be so much easier, you're such a lazy shit. If I'm saying things like that, I am going to fail. I am one billion trillion percent going to fail. And you cannot tell me I won't. I will fail if that's what I'm thinking in my head, because my body, my mind controls my entire fucking body. And that's just facts, straight out facts. And so, same thing when it comes to content. If I'm creating content because I want to build a business that's gonna change somebody's life because I had the courage to show up constantly and show them it's possible. And I'm saying in my head, your shit, this is boring, no one cares, what's the point? She shouldn't do this, somebody else is doing it better than you. Why are you bothering? Do you actually think I am gonna show up? Absolutely I'm not. And if I am, I'm showing up, fake as fuck, following somebody else's bloody profile platform formula, and I'm not doing it any justice for

Daily Reps To Heal Visibility Wounds

SPEAKER_01

you or me. So here I am building my positive reinforcements back to my marathon, half marathon, definitely half, never doing a full. And I'm running and it got to the last two kilometers. And I looked at my watch and I was like, holy shit, I'm gonna do this in under two hours. Now, for me, for most people, that's pretty good to run your very first and only half marathon, never running before, fucking hate running, to do it in under two hours, that's pretty fucking good, right? And I was hitting that milestone, I was like, holy shit. And so for that last two kilometers, it was the hardest two kilometers of my life. But the things I was saying to myself, I had visualized those moments over and over and over again. What would the crowd be doing? What songs would I be listening to? Who would I see? What would it feel like? How much fun would it be? Would I be smiling? Like I'd visualized all that prior because that's how I would build the confidence and courage to do the goddamn thing, right? And so I'd I'd programmed, I'd I knew the songs I wanted to listen to. So there I am running. And this was back when we didn't have iPods. I had an MP3, which was like a little, like it was we'd gone Walkman, Discman, MP3, then iPod. And I think I had the MP3, and I I was like begging that the battery would last, but it was little, so it wasn't too big and bulky. But my point was I knew these songs that I wanted, and so I'm trying to run and keep in a rhythm because I had gone like two hours in this bloody rhythm rhythm. Because I'm I'm a rhythm routine kind of girly, right? I just once I get in my stride, get out my fucking way, I'm just going. I'm not fast, but I'm consistent as fuck when it comes to things like that. Anyway, so I'm I'm and I remember and I found this song, Feelin' Alright, by Joe Cocker. Even now, I have this like visceral reaction to that song. Every time I hear it, I am taken back now. That was in 2010. 2010, 20. Yeah, 2010. So I am taken back 16 bloody years, and I am there. I can see, I'm in the Barossa Valley, I can see where I was, I can see where I was running, I can see what I was wearing. I remember how it felt. I remember my bloody calves were running together. And so they were like, they were scraping, not my thighs, because I I had like three-quarter pants on, but my bloody calves were rubbing together because I have got quite muscly calves. Don't even get me started on how I wear high boots, but I could feel them, like they were chafing, they were so sore. But I just heard this song, Feeling Alright, by Joe Cocker, and I just elevated. I just went from like, yeah, cool, we're gonna finish this to fuck this, let's go. And then the last song was Eminem's Losing It, Lose It? Losing It? Yeah, that one. And it was just fucking by then I was like, in my mind, I was like Olympic champion level. I can, I just remember being so clear at how proud I was that I was doing the thing. And I remember thinking, you have visualized this moment so many times and now you've done it. Like, holy crap, now you've done it. And so my point in this entire rant is for you to understand that if you build the positive reinforcement, if you can visualize the end game, if you can see positive reinforcement after positive reinforcement after screenshots and reading comments, if you can see them, they far outweigh the negative. And the only way we're gonna get past our visibility wounds, and the only way we are gonna step into this vulnerability and step into our brilliance and own that is by catching the good stuff and remembering it and training our brain to see that so that when the moments in that half marathon, for example, in the moments where I was going, oh my God, this is so shit. I am hurting, I'm in pain, I want to stop instantly, like in the fucking click of a second, click of a finger, click of a second, whatever, in that instant, second, millisecond, my brain said, No, you can do this. Remember you remember this. Let's find the song that you love. Let's find that thing that makes you feel amazing. Remember that you got through this, remember why you're doing this, you're amazing. Okay, fine. Kristen, let's do another. Five minutes, just give me five minutes, one more song, and then we'll decide whether we should walk or not. But the only way that you get to that is by continuously giving yourself positive reinforcement that it's possible for you. And the only way that you do that is taking one single step every single day towards what you want. And so when it comes to these visibility wounds, what I want to help you understand is if the negative comments you can clearly see and you can feel them and you and you go, oh, but that

Close And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01

that what if that happens, then you really need to double down on working on the positive stuff. Let's build a positivity bank that you can own, that you reset your brain with. And you know what? Maybe you'd even do something mental and crazy, like do a voice note like this, and you just read all those positive comments. Read them. And then when you go for a walk, you listen to it. Because your subconscious is the most powerful tool you have. So before you go to sleep at night, read those positive comments. Read that people want you, read that people need you, read that you are worthy to someone and that you are worthy to yourself. And I guarantee you, over time, this shit does not happen overnight. But over time, you will build a bank of confidence you didn't know was possible because you are brave enough to go, people do want my thing. Even if it's a thanks so much. Wow, that was helpful. I love your stuff. Your content's amazing. You look fantastic today. Bank that shit. And every time you get a negative comment or a negative thought or a negative feeling, you find that bank and you reboost yourself. You reboot the confidence muscle and you go, fuck it, I can do this. That is my passionate rant today. I've managed to get the whole way home. It's now time to go on and turn this into a podcast. I love you lots. Thanks for sticking around. Bye. So many good ones, too.