Samantha Riley

Business Growth & Marketing Strategist

594: The Surprising Power of Vulnerability In Effective Leadership with Serena Mastin

Do you think hiding your struggles will make you a better leader? Hiding your struggles might actually hurt more than you think.

In this episode of Influence By Design, Samantha sits down with Serena Mastin, owner of Pulse Marketing, to discuss a topic that’s rarely explored with such raw honesty — visibility through vulnerability. 

Serena’s story is anything but ordinary, from surviving a traumatic childhood to leading a thriving marketing agency. What happens when issues you thought you had successfully concealed suddenly surface and threaten everything you’ve built?

This isn’t just a story of struggle — it’s one of incredible resilience. It’s a profound reminder that strength isn’t always about holding it all together. Rather, it’s knowing when to let go and allow yourself to be vulnerable. As Serena powerfully demonstrates, you can’t heal when you hide, and it’s in that healing that true success and connection are found. 

This episode is a must-listen for anyone grappling with the pressures of maintaining a facade of strength when everything seems to be falling apart.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:

  • A peek into Serena’s business (01:01)
  • Serena’s early life leading to her career in marketing (02:27)
  • The reluctant but powerful journey of starting Pulse Marketing (03:42)
  • The hidden struggles behind Serena’s successful business facade (05:16)
  • The upshot of Serena deciding to stop pretending and just show her vulnerability to her team (13:38)
  • How hiding personal struggles can deteriorate your business from the inside out (17:31)
  • The surprising way Serena’s brand and business evolved after embracing vulnerability (21:05)
  • Why tolerating our own destructive behaviours condones them and sabotages our growth and success (31:40)
  • Why it’s crucial to make changes before everything collapses and you hit rock bottom (34:50)
  • How taking a moment to pause can be the most powerful action in difficult times (37:19)
  • The importance of doing the inner work before sharing your message with the world (40:10)

 

QUOTES

  • “Just like a lot of people say, your children mirror your behaviour, and they see and hear everything. That is entirely true, also for your business. People listen, they’re watching, they may have their own perception of reality, but without having a whole story, they can create their own story, their own narratives of what’s going on, which then creates a toxic environment.” – Serena Mastin
  • “Vulnerability is saying, ‘I don’t have it all together.’ It’s not the same as saying, ‘This is going wrong, this is going wrong, this is going wrong, this is going wrong.’ We don’t need to tell everyone everything that’s happening in our lives.” – Samantha Riley
  • “When you ask other people to step in, you’re empowering them. And a lot of times we look at that vulnerability as it’s a perception of us — but it’s not. You’re actually doing them a disservice by not giving them an opportunity to support you in a way that they can.” – Serena Mastin
  • “What you tolerate, you condone.” – Serena Mastin
  • “In order to really have an authentic, powerful message that you want your business to share with the world, you first have to understand what that message is within yourself, because it translates.” – Serena Mastin


RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

 

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ABOUT SERENA MASTIN

Serena overcame immense personal and professional challenges, starting life in witness protection and foster homes, battling teenage addiction and homelessness. After two decades in corporate leadership, she founded Pulse Marketing in 2013, navigating entrepreneurial hurdles and a tumultuous marriage ending in her husband’s suicide. Despite this, she found purpose, authored “Exposed: You Can’t Heal When You Hide” (2023) and co-authored “Own Your Story” (2024), dedicating her life to empowering others.

 

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TRANSCRIPTION

Samantha Riley  0:02  

Welcome to today’s episode of Influence By Design. I’m your host, Samantha Riley, and today I’ve got an amazing topic with such a fabulous guest, Serena Mastin, who’s joining us, and we’re going to talk about visibility, but in a way that I don’t think we’ve ever spoken about it on this show. So strap yourself in, because man has our guest today got some stories to tell. So Serena, thanks for joining us. 

 

Serena Mastin  0:30  

I am so honoured to be here, and thank you so much for the opportunity to share my story.

 

Samantha Riley  0:36  

It’s an amazing story. When we first connected a few weeks ago now, I remember just sitting there and thinking, Whoa. I did not expect this. But before we go there, before we go to this amazing story, I’d love you to share what your business is right now and how you help your clients. 

 

Serena Mastin  1:01  

So I am the owner of Pulse Marketing. We are a fractional marketing agency, and we support our clients on a fractional basis, so a retainer where they can outsource all of their needs without having to hire an in-house team. And so, yes, I’ve been doing that for 10 years.

 

Samantha Riley  1:25  

And you started that business on your own. You had your husband come in and work with you for a little bit, and then you’re back on your own again in the business. Let’s start to deep dive down this rabbit hole. Now, let’s start off with your background. Before we even get there, because you didn’t have, I think, you know, oh, what’s the word I’m looking for, like a really polished sort of, you know, entrance into entrepreneurship. Let’s go into that.

 

Serena Mastin  2:01  

Normal.

 

Samantha Riley  2:06  

Well, I wasn’t sure, because there are some stories that it almost can be normal. Like, you know, I was downstairs in my grandmother’s lounge, you know, on the sofa for 10 years, broke like, anyway, that’s not your story. I would love you to share a little bit about, you know, your background.

 

Serena Mastin  2:27  

So we’re going to go way back, because it gives a little bit of depth. I started my life as early as five years old in witness protection and foster homes. I was moved around to nine different foster homes between the age of five and about 10 or 11, until my mom finally earned her rights back as a parent. By that point, I had already decided I was independent, and so by the age of 15, I ran away from home, and I lived on the streets for a year. I struggled with addiction, and I put myself through high school, and once I graduated, I was determined to prove everyone wrong that I was not going to become a statistic, and so I climbed the corporate ladder for 17 years in multiple different marketing positions and roles, all the way up to a VP of marketing, and then from there, I hit the ceiling and decided to start the agency in 2013 and that’s when Pulse Marketing was born.

 

Samantha Riley  3:42  

What was it that made you decide that you were going to leave such an amazing position as a VP and move into your own business?

 

Serena Mastin  3:49  

Well, I did it kicking and screaming. I didn’t do it willingly. My mom. She is my hero, as much as we’ve been through, she’s my hero. And she had told me, if you put even a quarter of the amount of investment in yourself compared to what you do for everyone else, there’s no way you wouldn’t be successful. And I said, yeah, yeah, Mom, you have to say that, because you’re my mom. And she said, Well, if you’re not going to do it for you, then do it for me. And I said, Wow, so manipulative, because you know I’m going to do it for you, but I would never do it for me. And so I did. I started the agency. She actually named the agency, Pulse Marketing. I hated the name, and it wasn’t until later that I realised it made so much sense, because we pour our hearts into everything that we do, we’re at the heart of creative, and so Pulse Marketing really made sense, but that’s how it started.

 

Samantha Riley  4:54  

How cool. I love that. Now. Wow. Where do we go from here? I don’t know how to transition into your crazy story, so actually, so I’m gonna hand it over to you.

 

Serena Mastin  5:16  

So, gosh. So when I started the agency, I was married and my husband and I, he had worked in a sales role, and then I, you know, had just enough money in savings. We had a blended family. So I had two kids. He had one, and I would, he totally supported me in this role. Well, three months into starting the agency, he comes home early from work one day, and he raises his hands up, and he says, I quit my job. And I was like, What? What? I was like, how are we going to pay our bills? Because, you know, as an entrepreneur, you don’t have a paycheck.

 

Samantha Riley  6:06  

Not in the first three months anyway.

 

Serena Mastin  6:09  

Yeah, not in three months. And he said, if I’m going to sell anything, I’m going to sell something I believe in, so we’re going to do it. And we did. He was incredible. He was magnetic. And in that sales role, he really took our company to the next level while I was growing the team, the operations, legal, all of the other things. But what I didn’t really recognise during that time, as we’re growing so quickly, is that the travel and the meeting with clients and all of those things started to become so consistent that I was unaware of what was really happening behind the scenes, and he struggled with infidelity, he struggled with mental health issues, and when all of this started to unravel, by this time, we’re in an office space, we have 15 to 17 employees. I found out about it, I confronted him about it, and it seemed to just continue to spiral. And so I hid it, because I knew it would, it would break apart my family, and it would, it would completely destroy the business. So I knew, by not keeping this a secret between us and trying to work through it together privately, that I would lose everything that I’d worked so hard for, especially from where I came from. And so I learned, I learned how to forgive, I learned how to forgive him, I learned how to forgive myself, and we started getting stronger. It took, it was a really rocky road, but it took a little bit of time and energy and effort and sacrifice, but we got through it until I found out about the next woman, and then I continued to hide it, but I started to deteriorate. So I would show up at work every day being strong, and I got this, and no one knows what’s going on behind the scenes, including my kids. I would just just pretend everything was normal, but what was really going on is I was having multiple health issues. I was seeing multiple doctors. I couldn’t understand why my body was breaking down. I thought I was healing. I thought I was overcoming, and then once I recognised that I needed to make a decision because I was deteriorating, I found the courage to leave him in October of 2019 and on that day, you know everyone’s in shock, because no one, none of the kids, I mean, no one really knows anything that has happened through the 10 years that we had been together. And so I, I tell the kids, we’re packing our things. Where I tell my parents, all of these people are just surprised and freaking out, running in different directions. And then I knew I had to tell my staff, and so I went to the office. It was later in the evening, many of them were still there. I told them to stay until I got there, and I shared with them that I was leaving my husband, but that we are going to be stronger in 2020, and you have nothing to worry about. We’re going to get through this. I even popped a bottle of champagne because I was still trying to show them that I was strong, and as soon as I did that, there’s murmuring and whispers. And I said, you guys, we have a no tolerance policy for gossip, if you meet, if you have something to say, let’s just put it on the table. And one of the employees said that he had been with one of our other employees that wasn’t there, that had just left the company about a month prior, and in that moment, I had no idea about the relationship he had with my employee. She was an executive assistant of mine, crying on my shoulder, sharing her most intimate, you know, challenges with me, and had told me that she left the company because of her husband wanting to start his own business. So it was like I got completely sideswiped, but the fact that my staff knew the entire time and the whole process of years, they were watching from the outside, looking in. And I thought I just had to pretend that I was strong, pretend that I had it all together, when I really didn’t, and they saw me breaking down. And that was in October of 2019. By March of 2020, my husband committed suicide, and that you can imagine the pain, the just, the amount of just trauma that just unraveled with every person involved. I mean, just so many people that still didn’t know. I mean, there was very own, a very small few, that I had really communicated this with at this point and in that moment was when my team, the people that loved me the most, that had seen me trying to be strong, didn’t want to hurt me and held their own secrets, they rose up and really held the company together while I was healing. And so if it wasn’t for that moment where I decided that I needed to have the courage to share my pain, to be vulnerable, if it wasn’t for that, if I was still pretending to be strong, I don’t know if it would have given them the opportunity to rise up. So that’s, that’s where it all started, and that’s, unfortunately, that’s where it led.

 

Samantha Riley  13:38  

Through that time, was there a moment where you were afraid to actually say, I don’t have it all together? Were you afraid of saying that? Or did it just happen because it was just so devastating and you couldn’t hold it together anymore? Like was there a conscious thought there?

 

Serena Mastin  14:02  

As I share, in that moment that I was sharing with them I’m leaving, I still was pretending to have it all together. I popped a bottle of champagne, showing them that we’re going to get through this. The moment that hit me was when they confronted me about what they knew, and then in that moment, I felt completely exposed, and that’s when I knew I didn’t have a choice whether my fear was, you know, blinding me or not, the blindfold came up. So yeah, I yeah, so my fear was showing them that I didn’t have it together, because I didn’t want them to feel like we’re losing the company. And then everyone starts questioning their roles and their positions and how it impacts them. I was really trying to hold it together. And when that, when that little bit of information came out, it broke me. So here, I didn’t even have an opportunity to hold me back in that moment, because I just felt like I’ve been through a lot, so much, and especially at this point, I knew about three women. That was the fourth woman, and after he passed away, I found out it was a total of 13. So there was no hiding anymore.

 

Samantha Riley  15:43  

You’ve written a book called Exposed: You Can’t Heal When You Hide. Now, people listening are like, I don’t have that particular story, but we’ve all got stories that we have that we don’t talk about. I talked about this topic with Jacqueline Nagle on a previous episode of that, you know when you’re going through these times that you do hide, but sometimes these traumas aren’t as big as what you experienced. And people are listening going, oh my goodness, like I have this trauma, and I am hiding, and I believe that this holds people back so much because they don’t have the confidence, because they’re afraid of being exposed, they’re afraid of the wall crumbling, and for people that are trying to build their brands, there’s this tug of like, I’m trying to go forwards, and they’re being yanked back as fast as they’re going forwards. How did you overcome this? Because you have lived this. You understand what I’m talking about, you know that going forwards and putting that, you know, the foot on the break just as quickly. Can you, can you talk us through, before you even talk about how you move through this, how was this showing up in your business, not from the perspective of how you felt, but like standing back and looking at the business, how did it affect staff, marketing, operations, all of the things?

 

Serena Mastin  17:31  

The heart wrenching part is that everything that happens in your personal life, it reflects in your business no matter how much you try to hide it. So the first thing is to really accept that you’re hiding right? Because we are such strong women, and we sacrifice so much, and we think we’re being martyrs, and we’re protecting everyone else, and we’re taking care of everyone. And the truth is, is that when you’re not taking care of yourself, it’s very apparent in your business. In fact, a good example of this is my health was breaking down, all of the, I wasn’t sleeping at night. I was having digestive issues, I was gaining weight, I was, I had excessive inflammation. If you saw a photo of me, you wouldn’t even recognise me from that moment to even a few weeks after, I started to release all of this, because your body just holds on to so much. So physically, it’s visual, but emotionally and how you relate to your employees, people are very in tune, and just like a lot of people say, your children mirror your behaviour, and they see and hear everything. That is entirely true, also for your business. People listen. They’re watching. They may have their own perception of reality, but without having a whole story, they can create their own story, their own narratives of what’s going on, which then creates a toxic environment. So there’s so many pieces of our lives. And I’m not saying that every business owner has to go out there and air out all their dirty laundry, but I I do want them to recognise that when you hide a lot of those things, it’s allowing them to rot and decay, and it’s impacting your body, your health, your culture, your business, all of it, but once you start to unpack each layer, it gives you a sense of freedom. And in my world, it made me feel weightless. I was no longer holding all of the secrets, but I was working through them, so they don’t have to tell their entire business and everyone involved what’s happening, but they do have to say things like, you know, I’m really having a tough time right now. I want to be strong and hold it all together, but I just need support. It could be as small as that, because when people see that you’re human, they start to relate to you more, and they start to empathise with you, and they want to help. Whereas if people think that you are rock solid and you have no flaws, and you’re holding it all together, well, it’s the opposite. They feel like they’re not needed.

 

Samantha Riley  21:05  

There’s something you said there that I want to tap into a little bit more. The vulnerability is saying I don’t have it all together. Is not the same as the vulnerability is saying, this is going wrong, this is going wrong, this is going wrong, this is going wrong. We don’t need to tell everyone everything that’s happening in our lives. And I’m really glad you mentioned this, because just by you saying, I don’t have it all together, and I, and I, and I’d love some support that in itself, is the vulnerability. And I think that people get this a little bit confused, thinking that vulnerability is sharing everything, but it’s not.

 

Serena Mastin  21:43  

No, and that’s okay. You don’t have to expose everything for there to be trust and for you to build those relationships, but you do have to show and ask for help, you have to be really honest about Wow, I’m struggling, or I’m overwhelmed, whatever it might be. When you ask other people to step in, you’re empowering them. And a lot of times we look at that vulnerability as it’s a perception of us, but it’s not. You’re actually doing them a disservice by not giving them an opportunity to support you in a way that they can. 

 

Samantha Riley  22:37  

So we’re actually, it’s actually the opposite of what we’re thinking, right? We’re thinking, it’s weak, and they need us. Where in actual fact, we’re giving our team a chance to step up to the plate. And who doesn’t like to feel empowered? You know, like, I think that as humans, we love to actually step in and say, It’s alright, I got you, because it feels good for us too, right?

 

Serena Mastin  23:05  

Yes, I think one of my favourite quotes is “You don’t have to set yourself on fire to keep others warm.” And as women, we sacrifice everything, we go above and beyond, and we feel like that’s going to help us earn, right, like this love and approval that we desire. Well, the thing that I learned the hard way is that you can’t earn love and approval. It has to be freely given, and the only way that people will give that part of them to you, even in business or in your personal life, is when you have completely been a human and connected with them on a human level, if you’re always strong for everyone else, it doesn’t give them an opportunity to help.

 

Samantha Riley  24:08  

This is something that I personally experienced in my life. At a similar time for me, when I separated from my husband of 20 years, and it was like, I built up this wall to keep myself safe and to just be like, Yeah, I’ve got this, so I understand this. But it wasn’t until that wall crumbled, and I’ve gotta say for me, and I don’t know how it was for you, I crumbled too. As the wall came down, so did I. I had to rebuild myself, but it was such a freeing experience. It was such a free experience.

 

Serena Mastin  24:49  

It is because you, when you let go of all of the, not just all of the things you’re holding on to, you know, by doing other things for other people. But when you let go of who you think you’re supposed to be and allow yourself to start to identify who you really are, you do, you feel weightless because you’re no longer carrying the weight of what all these, you know, people’s judgement or thoughts or what. You’re no longer looking at it that way. You’re looking at it in more of a fun like I get to, I get to learn what I love again. Yeah, I forgot because I was married for so long, but that’s all I thought I was, was a wife and a business owner, and I and a mother, and I remember telling my counsellor at one point, I said, I’m amazing. I am an amazing wife. I am, you know, I’m working as hard as I possibly can, 14 to 16 hour days. I’m an awesome mother. I’m even good in bed. Like, how could he possibly want anyone else? Like, what’s his problem? And that’s when I learned that statement. He said, You can’t earn love. That’s what you’re doing. You’re trying to earn it by doing so much for everyone else that it gives you that validation and it was like a blindfold came off in that moment, and then I got to learn how to love and care for myself.

 

Samantha Riley  26:35  

You’ve talked a little bit about how that affected your team. I want to flip to your personal brand. How did your personal brand change, evolve, shift as you went through this, from the I’ve got this all together to I’m vulnerable, like, what were some of the things that you could see from the outside before we talk about, like, what was different for you?

 

Serena Mastin  27:09  

So this is interesting, because when you think you have it all together, you think that that’s what everyone else thinks, but everyone saw his behaviour, clients, vendors, employees. So what I thought they perceived our company as having it all together, in reality, when you tolerate behaviour, you condone it. And so I didn’t even recognise that the reputation that I thought I had was actually not the reality. The reality is that they saw his behaviour and they thought that we’re unstable. They saw his, even in a business meeting where they have no idea about what’s happening behind the scenes, and it’s a potentially new client. His behaviour in those meetings came off in a way that created an uncomfortable feeling for a potential client. So, and I say this again, what you tolerate you condone, and when your employee is your husband, it’s a really hard hey, let’s have a conversation, and we probably need to put together a performance improvement plan, right? Like it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work that way. So the shift was actually really beautiful, because everyone came out of the woodworks, former clients from years ago that may have cancelled their services because of some of these things, or some of the behaviours that they saw without me even really knowing. And the beauty is that just in my vulnerability, I was able to create even deeper connections with my clients, my vendors, potential clients. They saw me for me, and it allowed them to just connect with me like on a level that’s not even about business. But then, who do you want to do business with? The people you trust. And so this whole time we’re building this business, everyone did not trust my husband, and so it did hold us back and I was completely unaware of it, until I started to just be open, I at one point to put in like clear reality. I had barely enough money to make payroll. I had to borrow $1,000 from a friend in order to pay my staff, not to pay myself, and in this moment when everything’s falling apart, I finally found the courage to say to my clients, to the people that I’m, my vendors, to my employees, we’re really struggling right now financially. Is there anything that I can do to support you, or that, if you know someone, that they can help. Much different than asking for a referral, right. You’re being vulnerable. You’re saying we’re really struggling. I just need some help. Do you have any ideas? And what happened is that everyone just started coming out of the woodworks and wanted to support you, because I built trust when I took the time to build up the courage to say the hard things to say. Doesn’t mean I have to tell them I had $0 by the way. 

 

Samantha Riley  31:27  

Yeah.

 

Serena Mastin  31:30  

I didn’t have to say that. I just said we’re struggling financially. So just take note of the keywords. You don’t have to go and put your dirty laundry out there, but you do have to be open and honest. 

 

Samantha Riley  31:40  

Yeah. You talked about, by tolerating his behaviour, it was condoning it. Do you believe that that’s the same for ourselves when we tolerate our behaviour, we condone it? 

 

Serena Mastin  31:57  

100%, and I think, that’s a lot where self awareness comes in, because first, you have to really look inward to identify the things that are pushing you to behave or respond in certain ways. So you have to be aware of what those cues are. But then when you are aware of those cues, now you have to actually practise when those things happen, changing your response, because a lot of times we’ll dismiss it, we’ll minimise it, even our own actions, and in that process, we’re just continuously going backwards. We’re condoning that behaviour. We’re tolerating it and condoning it, and that’s all. It’s not allowing us to grow and thrive. And so one of the things I tolerated that really killed me later was I my husband, with his magnetic personality and with his flashy style and with all the things, I mean, he’d walk into a room and it was, it was just like everyone would be smiling and surrounding him, and he’s just this good looking, funny guy, and all these wonderful things. Well, he also spent money that way, and so the business, by this point, was in almost a half million dollars in debt. And when he took his life, on a personal note, I was faced with over 200,000 in hospital bills because he had cancelled his life insurance policy. He had cancelled his insurance. And so when I talk about rock bottom, that I was facing a really rough time, I also had to accept that I allowed that. I allowed the spending because I didn’t know how to stop it. I didn’t seek support because I was hiding. So there’s a portion of that accountability that I own, and that’s a good example of when you tolerate behaviour, you’re condoning it, and ultimately, we are responsible for our business, so we have to find a solution, ask for support. We cannot just allow it to happen, dismiss it or minimise it, whether it’s our own behaviour or the behaviour of someone that’s close to us.

 

Samantha Riley  34:50  

For someone that’s listening and, they’re seeing their own story in what we’re talking about here. Do they need to hit rock bottom, and I’m asking as your opinion, do they need to hit rock bottom to make a change? Because what’s really interesting is one of the golden threads I find from speaking to so many people on this podcast, that that moment of change came when their back was against a wall, and that many of them knew that there were things happening, but they didn’t do anything about it before their back was against the wall. Do you, you know, what can you talk to that? Can people make a change now? Or do they need to hit rock bottom?

 

Serena Mastin  35:37  

Don’t wait until you hit rock bottom. Don’t do it, because by that point, you already have missed so many red flags. And the reason we hit rock bottom is because we continue to think that we have it all together. But if you can’t see that you’re in a place that you need to make a decision or you’re not ready to make a decision, my best advice is, don’t wait until everything falls out under your feet, but take time to step back. Take time to work on yourself, your self healing, your inner work that you need to do to give yourself a clear perspective. Because you know the red flags, you know they’re there. That’s why you’re dismissing, that’s why you’re minimising it. That’s why you’re pushing through and fighting through it, because that’s what we do.

 

But I would stop, pause, reflect, look inward, plan, prepare, and then proceed, because that’s a much better moment to do it waiting until the floor is crumbling beneath our feet. It’s not worth it, and most of the time, we see the signs well in advance.

 

Samantha Riley  37:19  

You know, when we talk about power, I think about action and like this masculine energy, and, you know, it’s the doing. And I had a recent experience where I was in book writers retreat, and each day the facilitators had a theme, and this one day was power, and I knew that the power day was coming up the next day, and that night, I was like, yes, like, tomorrow I’m going to be really empowered. I’m going to get all these words out. And I was exceptionally ill that day, like I never, ever shut the blinds in the middle of the day, and I did, and I put myself to bed, and I was so ill, and in reflection, a few days later, I had this most massive epiphany, that there is so much power in the pause, and in actual fact, that’s this feminine energy. It’s an energy where we’re just what’s the word? We’re just, the word’s escaping me, like we just let go, we just succumb to whatever that is. And that the power is actually there, and that’s what you’re talking about. The power is actually in the pause.

 

Serena Mastin  38:42  

The pause, yes, and that’s why I say you pause, you reflect, you prepare, and then you proceed. Because that pause is that moment to really, not just give yourself a break, but you need to give yourself a break, right? That’s part of it. But when we pause, it brings so much clarity. It’s when we’re running that we’re distracted and that we don’t really see what’s right in front of us. 

 

Samantha Riley  39:20  

100%. You’ve shared such an incredible story with us, Serena, and you’ve been so vulnerable in sharing this story. And the reason I wanted to have you on the show was to talk about, you know what you were saying. You can’t heal when you hide. And I feel like so many people, like I said earlier, have this, I want to get out there. I want to be more visible. I want, you know, more people to hear my message, but they’re like pulling back at the same time. So with everything that we’ve spoken about, what it’s like, one thing that you want to leave listeners with about this topic?

 

Serena Mastin  40:10  

So I would say you can’t expect to put out your message if you haven’t done the work first, and whether that’s the inner work, whether it’s unpacking some different things, because your message is going to be skewed, and one thing that, especially other business owners and your customers will see right through is someone that’s inauthentic. And so in order to really have an authentic, powerful message that you want your business to share with the world, you first have to understand what that message is within yourself, because it translates. A good example is, in my team, our core values, we live and we breathe them in everything that we do, they’re not just words on the wall, and one of them is we rise by lifting others. And honestly, without my team circling around me, lifting me up and carrying me as I faced some of the darkest times in my life, they lifted me up. And so that’s what I mean, is that you need to know who you are, your values, and that will then translate into your business, and people will gravitate towards it.

 

Samantha Riley  41:50  

I love that so much. Serena, for people that want to read your book, where can they go to find that?

 

Serena Mastin  41:59  

They can go on Amazon, or they can go on my author website, which is serenamastin.com, but you can easily type in Serena Mastin in Amazon, and it’ll pop right up. And yes, it’s a hard read, because I bring you into the moment. But those that are tough enough and brave enough to read it, I definitely think it’s an opportunity for them to dig deep, because there’s a lot of moments that I share in my darkness of exposing my mistakes, that people can relate to.

 

Samantha Riley  42:42  

And just as a reminder, that book is Exposed: You Can’t Heal When You Hide. Serena, thank you so much for joining us today, for sharing your story. I know that it’s got, your story is going to help so many people. And that was a big breath in and I really appreciate, I really appreciate you coming on today. Thank you so much.

 

Serena Mastin  43:05  

Thank you. Bye.

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Samantha Riley

Samantha Riley is a powerhouse of knowledge and expertise, dedicating her career to transforming business owners to unapologetically stand out and shine as the leader in their industry. With a relentless passion and razor-sharp insight, Samantha empowers her clients to step into their power, boldly claim their space, and lead with confidence and authenticity. She is truly a catalyst for greatness.

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