Ladybossblogger

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They are writing about topics that have substance and meaning. They are sharing their thoughts, vision and highlighting how people all over the world are changing the very communities they are a part of through their work in business, art, activism and so much more. One of Halfstack’s past contributors: Elaine Rau, has created her very own space of empowerment on the inter webs, dubbed: Ladybossblogger.com. After transitioning and moving to Honduras, Elaine decided to make some changes and make her destiny work for her.

Over the last couple of years writing for us and other outlets, Elaine kept on meeting male entrepreneurs and wondered where all the females were at! So, she started ladybossblogger to find and connect them and give them a platform to be seen and be heard. Her desire is to connect ladies from all around the world, build strong relationships, and create a network of sharing insight and expertise. She is sharing the vision of women supporting women! She also recently announced a new partnership with The Micah Project.

She originally started her blog as an outlet for her to connect with people, specifically online business women, to learn what they did in order to succeed in business and make money online. However, it has transitioned into something else this year.

Elaine explained that she originally moved down to Honduras because her husband’s brother was murdered and she needed to be with him and his family. However, during that year that she lived in Honduras, her husband’s nephew, a kid he used to be a guardian for, and one of his best friend’s brothers were all murdered.

Elaine’s husband fell into a deep depression and suffered from PTSD after having found the body himself. When they moved back to the states a few months ago, things seemed to get worse. According to Human Rights Watch, “Violent crime is rampant in Honduras. Despite a downward trend in recent years, the murder rate remains among the highest in the world. Journalists, environmental activists, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals are among those most vulnerable to violence. Efforts to reform the institutions responsible for providing public security have made little progress. Marred by corruption and abuse, the judiciary and police remain largely ineffective. Impunity for crime and human rights abuses is the norm.”

In 2018, Elaine made a pact with herself that she would dedicate her business to serving the Honduran community and help alleviate as much suffering as she could. She now shares a portion of every single one of her posts directly to helping The Micah Project. The Micah Project is a non-profit organization in Tegucigalpa Honduras that ministers to street boys. There are three group homes for those wanting to leave the streets. This is the same organization that helped Elaine’s husband get off the streets as a kid. We wanted to learn more the growth of her brand and the work that she is now doing with the Micah Project. Elaine took some time to talk with me about this latest launch and what her journey has been like. Check out the full interview below.

1. Can you please tell us a bit about yourself and your experiences that led you to launching LadyBossBlogger?

Before I founded LadyBossBlogger. com, I was the National Wedding

Sales Manager for a global company in Chicago. Then one day I received a phone call from my husband that flipped my world upside down… his brother had just been murdered. I immediately asked my boss if I could go see him and bury his brother, and you know what he said? “NO. It will affect your work.” I was stunned. I had dedicated every waking moment of my life to his company for two years and THIS is what I got in return? I knew I had to get out of there ASAP, so I tried to quit… but to no avail! He wouldn’t let me quit! He threatened that if I ever left I would never get another job in the wedding industry again. He also started piling on “accusations” of all sorts telling me that if I left his company “he would no longer be able to protect me”. I had to hire a lawyer to protect myself from all this madness! I was terrified of my boss and I didn’t realize

until these events started unfurling that I was actually in an extremely toxic and verbally abusive environment. Imagine having your ideas, no matter how big or small, get devalued and pushed aside every single day. I was also constantly walking on eggshells, never sure if he would yell at me that day or even blow up at my clients! Ironically, his anger just made me work harder to impress him, and at the end of the day, I was left with zero self-confidence. Finally when I was able to quit, I cried for a week from relief. Then I packed my life in two suitcases and moved to Honduras to be with my husband and his family. Unfortunately, the transition was a lot harder than I had anticipated. I had left my home, my friends and my job (which had become a huge part of my identity) and had moved to a foreign third world country where I didn’t speak the language or understand the culture. Also all my “job skills” I had acquired were useless there. I started to feel really lonely and extremely isolated. Ironically, I had moved to be there for my husband, but being the most caring and most amazing man that he is, he ended up being there more for me. He encouraged me to take this time to find out who I was and who I wanted to be. All I knew was that I wanted to empower women somehow so they would never have to go through what I did. I also desperately needed to connect with people who spoke the same languages as me (Mandarin and English!) and somehow learn how to make money online. So I started a blog and decided to write about who I wanted to be… a female entrepreneur! I didn’t know the first thing about entrepreneurship and couldn’t afford a mentor, so I joined online entrepreneur forums, created an interview with targeted questions and sent it to several female entrepreneurs to gain insight from them. I started posting their interviews to my blog and learned something new from every interview I received. I realized that my interview series was

interesting to other people as well when I saw how many views and shares I was getting per post. I’m talking like 100 shares per post for a two week old blog! At that moment, I realized that I was creating something of value not just for myself but for other people as well! Using my background in sales, I crafted a sales packet to market my interviews. I sent it out to some leads and it came back a BIG HIT! I couldn’t believe it! Female entrepreneurs from all over started flooding my inbox asking to be interviewed… and that was the day I made my first entrepreneurial dollars.

Read “How To Build A Credible Blog And Stand Out Among The Rest”

2. Can you tell us more about the premise of your site, who you are hoping to connect with and what kind of information readers are likely to find on it?

My blog is for female entrepreneurs and has content curated by female entrepreneurs. You’ll find interviews of lady bosses at all stages along their entrepreneurial journey and in all professions. You’ll also find loads of resources where ladies will guest blog about their expertise and share HOW TO’s and TOP 5’s so that people can learn from them. It’s a compilation of everyone’s knowledge. It’s a place for sharing content, learning, and a place to find a solid online entrepreneur community.

3. What is it like being a full time blogger? So many people see it as such a glamour job, can you share some insights to what the reality is like?

It’s HARD WORK and you’re literally in front of your computer all day, which honestly I don’t mind at all, which is probably why I can do it. I hate going to bed sometimes because I feel like I’m wasting time haha! Everything about blogging

fascinates me and I love that I get to learn something new every day! It’s a whole bunch of trial and error and ups and downs, so you must enjoy roller coasters! However, imagine that your life is that roller coaster and you keep on going around and around, it can be draining and exhausting and the ‘thrill’ will get old and you’ll be left feeling uncertain… constantly. There is no ‘right’ or easy path. Some things that work for some, won’t work for others. Uncertainty is what I have the most trouble with, especially because there are people that depend on me that I can’t let down financially. It’s a lot of pressure - you’re the entire marketing department, sales department, and everything else therefore you must learn to PRIORITIZE extremely well. We all love doing the easy things first, but to be a blogger you must be extremely disciplined. That is how you combat uncertainty. You must create your own schedule and never fail to reach your own goals. For a whole year I never failed to post at 6pm cst EVERY SINGLE DAY. I believe it’s my consistency that has made my blog successful. Imagine if you’re excited to digest the content of your favorite show so the minute you get home from work you open up your laptop to watch it… and it’s not there. Imagine how disappointed you would be. In order to garner an audience, you must consistently SHOW UP and STAND OUT among the rest. Your audience is literally your biggest asset and what big brands will pay you for. The more you know about your audience, the more your blog is worth. Another thing that I didn’t realize until after a year of blogging was that social media is great, but EMAIL IS WAAAY BETTER. You can have a massive following like me (100K followers now) but once Facebook or Instagram decides to change their algorithm you reach like 5 of them. The only way you can have control over your audience and when they see your content is if you have their emails.

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4. Can you tell us more about your travels and experiences in Honduras? Did that make any impact on what you are doing today with LadyBossBlogger?

Yes it 1000% affected me! First, Honduras is where the blog began, second it started on the property of an organization called The Micah Project. They were the ones that helped my husband and I get situated in Honduras when I moved down there. The Micah Project is a home for street kids, it is also the organization that picked my husband off from the streets when he was teen and gave him a home and education. Without The Micah Project, we wouldn’t have met – but more than anything we are both indebted to them in more ways than one.

5. You recently mentioned you are working with organizations that help the Street Kids of Honduras, can you tell us more about this partnership?

I saw the devastation and the reality of what it was like living there and I couldn’t turn a blind eye anymore. I was always raised with the idea that you work hard for your money, never ask anyone for anything, and never owe anyone money. My mom used to always say “there is no free lunch” so that was my attitude towards everything in life. I didn’t understand that the basics with which I grew up with, such as simply growing up with a family - was a privilege. There are lots of hard working Hondurans, but there is a massive lack of job opportunities and ability to obtain education due to lack of funds. My husband funded his sister’s cosmetology degree so that she

could do hair, however after she graduated there were ZERO jobs available so she had to go back to selling food on the streets. I didn’t believe it until I moved there and saw how life was and the limited options down there. That was just one of the many reasons I decided to partner with The Micah Project.

6. Can you share a bit about your husband’s story?

My husband’s dad died when he was 4 and his mom when he was 7, both of tuberculosis – a very treatable disease in the states, but they lacked both in monetary resources and treatment opportunities. He had to learn how to fend for himself and his two brothers at a very young age. He started out begging in rich neighborhoods, but people started recognizing him and stopped opening their doors. Luckily one friendly man let him work odd jobs around his house. The man took notice of how hard my husband worked and took an interest in his well-being. He had run out of jobs around the house that he needed done, so he gave my husband a bottle of shoe polish and told him to go out and try his hand at polishing shoes. My husband came back the next day with the empty bottle of shoe polish in his hand and a wad of cash in the other. The man then gave him a whole set of shoe polish along with all the accessories he needed to start shining shoes and that was how he and his brother’s survived for a few years. He will have to tell you the rest of the story, that is just a tiny snippet of his life story. I always tell him someone needs to make a movie of his life haha! His entire life sounds like a “story”! It is in his plans to write his autobiography in the next few years, so we will see how that goes!

7. Why is it important to you to work with these types of organizations and connect them to your career as a blogger?

Lots of people are interested in learning how to become an entrepreneur and start their own thing, however, there is a massive lack of people talking about how their business can serve the greater good. My mission during the first year of my blog was to elevate women in business in order to change the landscape of media. That is still the mission, it has just slightly shifted to include supporting a charity. It’s great to be in business, but if it doesn’t serve a greater good, you’re only helping yourself and ultimately that isn’t fulfilling. If every single business in the world would support one charitable cause, we can literally change the world.

8. What are your goals for the next 2 years when it comes to the work you are doing and your growth overall?

I just started learning about affiliate marketing in 2018 and realized I have been sitting on a cash cow, so I am diving head first into learning all about that. I am also wanting to create an event side of LadyBossBlogger where I help women connect with one another face to face in order to connect and collaborate. I am also launching my personal brand ElaineRau.com which will include everything that I have learned about blogging and business, so stay tuned for that! I currently have a few blog posts on there already which is what I have linked to in question #2 and #3.

9. When it comes to starting a blog or venturing out on your own on a freelance basis, what kind of advice would you give to someone looking to start?

Be consistent in everything you do, as I mentioned earlier. You must be disciplined enough to stick to a schedule, set reachable goals and knock your goals out of the water! You don’t have to post every day, in fact the trend in blogging is the more advanced you get, the less

you post because you’ve honed in on the quality of each post and on marketing them. However, if you’re just starting you must get yourself out there – VISIBILITY CREATES OPPORTUNITIES. A year and a half ago I didn’t have a blog, didn’t have 100K followers, and didn’t have the same opportunities as I have now. Start today. Little steps every day amount to big steps over time! Even if you have no idea what you want to do, I sure didn’t, you still take action to find out what that something is. All I knew was that I wanted to be a lady boss and blog about them in order to become one of them, hence the name “LadyBossBlogger”. In so doing, I learned something new from every interview I did, which I then implemented into my life and eventually became exactly what I wanted to be – a Lady Boss Blogger!

10. Where can we learn more about you, your blog and where can people donate to the cause you are working with?

You can donate directly to The Micah Project here.

http://micahprojecthonduras. org

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