Rhona Pierce: Personal Branding, Authentic Storytelling, and Protecting Your Truth | Be Yourself Podcast

Rhona Pierce

Content creator and video strategist for HR leaders — on authentic storytelling, fake vulnerability, protecting your truth, and why your content can feel fake even when you're telling the truth

Watch on YouTube Rhona's LinkedIn
32 minutes
Personal Branding · Storytelling · Authenticity · Content

About the Guest

Rhona Pierce — Content Creator, Video Strategist, Personal Branding Coach

A content creator and video content strategist originally from Panama, now based in Oklahoma, who coaches HR and talent-acquisition leaders to build authority through personal branding and video — a "done for you" model

She became a creator by necessity after moving to the US and struggling to break into the job market as an immigrant; one video changed everything, leading her into recruiting, then personal-branding coaching and the Workfluencer Podcast

Who She Is
content creator and video content strategist from Panama, based in Oklahoma, coaching HR and TA leaders to build authority through personal branding and video
How It Started
she moved to the US and couldn't land interviews despite years of management experience — so she made a video so employers could see the person behind the resume, and started getting interviews immediately
The Workfluencer Podcast
her podcast and YouTube channel on personal branding, content strategy and influence-building for HR and TA professionals, where she posts almost every day
The Core Principle
at the end of the day no one cares about you — even your own story has to be framed so the listener gets something from it; that's the entire game

Key Quotes

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I am very passionate about being able to pay my bills um and and live a comfortable life. But to be honest, what I honestly want to do all day is go shopping and travel. And that's not my job.

Rhona Pierce
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Don't make it about you. That's the main thing. Even if you're telling your story, it can't be about you. And people always look at me weird when I say this, but at the end of the day, no one cares about you.

Rhona Pierce
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If you didn't learn a lesson from the story, you're not ready to tell that story.

Rhona Pierce

Episode Chapters

0:00 Intro 1:15 How Rhona Became a Content Creator 4:40 The Moment that Changed Everything 7:00 Should We Follow Our Passion 8:43 Take on Coaching Industry 11:03 Telling Better Stories 12:44 Fake Vulnerability 16:04 Overselling Yourself in Stories 18:40 Who Do We Trust 20:20 Protecting Your Truth 23:42 Rhona's Values 25:40 Partnering with Competitors 29:00 A Break of Trust Story

Full Transcript

BTW: This episode of the Be Yourself Podcast is produced by Beverly Media. Want a podcast that looks and sounds this good? Check out Beverly Production →
0:00 Intro
Rhona I am very passionate about being able to pay my bills um and and live a comfortable life, but to be honest, what I honestly want to do all day is go shopping and travel. And that's not my job.
Rhona In trying to make a story interesting, people sometimes add way too much. And it's funny cuz I'm working on a sponsored post with a brand right now.
Serhiy Have you ever had a moment in your life where you had to protect your truth or protect your identity?
Rhona I need to think about how to say this cuz uh I'll probably get cancelled if I say my true opinion on the coaching industry.
Serhiy Hey everybody, this is Be Yourself Podcast, the podcast on expressing our true selves. Today my guest is Rhona Peters. She's a content creator of video content strategies who coaches and teaches HR and TA leaders to build authority and influence. Thank you for being on the show, Rhona. How are you?
Rhona Thank you for having me on the show, Sergey. I'm doing great.
1:15 How Rhona Became a Content Creator
Serhiy Awesome. Amazing. So, my show is obviously about people's authentic selves and I see you as one of the best storytellers and content makers um online um among the people that I see. So can you tell me a story of how did you arrive at this place of becoming a content creator and a storyteller?
Rhona Well, thank you for that. Um I like many things in my life, I didn't set out to be a content creator and definitely not a storyteller. Although looking back, I've been writing stories since I was a kid. Like if you go to my parents house, there's like me there's stories written by hand like in kid handwriting of me um just making up stories of the world. And I was always like very curious and wanted to ask people about them and and and their stories and everything and always got in trouble as a child like well you can't ask people all of these things type of of thing. But I've just always been naturally curious and wanting to know people's stories.
Rhona How I became a a content creator by necessity. So I'm originally from Panama in Central America and I moved to the US 15 almost 16 years ago when I married my husband. And the the place in the US that I live, Oklahoma, isn't exactly like immigrant-friendly central. So when I was applying for jobs, I was it was really hard and I I left I was a regional operations manager for a software company. So I was at a part in my career where it's like, yeah, I'm just going to come here and I'll take a few months and get um accustomed to life and then I'll get a job, right? Well, I wasn't getting any jobs in my in my field or anything. I was like applying and not getting anything. I was working but like entry-level jobs and and not what I wanted to do. So I was so frustrated one day I decided to create a video and I decided as loose because my husband he's always done video he's done independent films. Um he's the yeah he's the video person and I was always like I don't like video but just in talking we decided to make a video because just looking back I think people were hesitant like your entire experience is from a different country they don't know if you speak the language they don't know anything from your resume.
Serhiy You speak the language by the way.
Rhona Yes yes I've spoken English since I'm a child I went to American schools since kindergarten through 12th grade um so like I spoke English but people don't necessarily know this from my resume, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, I created that video. I started getting interviews and everything went well. Then, um I would say when I started when I decided to move into recruiting from being a a software engineer, that's when I really started creating content because I had to differentiate. I was a outsider coming into this industry and I had to differentiate from other recruiters and also I am a total introvert and I absolutely hate like cold calls. I've never done a cold call to a candidate and don't plan on doing that in my life. Um so I started creating content so that people would come to me instead of me having to come to them.
Serhiy Oh that was your player for your initial intention, right?
Rhona Yeah. Interesting.
4:40 The Moment that Changed Everything
Serhiy And what happened at and at what time when it clicked for you that you know something started working? Did you do do you distinctly remember a moment you know when you realize that there's something here for me or maybe you found your unique voice somehow?
Rhona I think 2020. So I was working at a company. I was doing light level of content but everyone that I worked with at that company from the CEO to my co-workers they all were content creators. So I was kind of forced into creating more on a serious level creating content. But then in 2020 I got laid off and I like so many people decided to go out on my own. I'm like okay I've done this for a few years let me go do my own thing. And I started because at that company I had been already coaching people on personal branding. I'm like let me just do it on my own. And that's when I really started creating content. And I'm just like putting stuff out there, YouTube channel, just doing my thing and thinking, well, who knows who's going to see this? But I was having fun. That's the most important thing for me. And then I started getting like large podcasts and like people who I had admired and followed for a long time contacting me and asking me like hey do you want to come on my show? Yeah. I was like wow. So that's where I started noticing and I think when LinkedIn news like they contacted me and they're like hey we're doing a LinkedIn live thing. They used to do it at that time. Andrew Seaman had a show. He still has one. And he contacted me to be on his show. And I was like, when I first got that, I was like, "Yeah, right. This has to be spam." Wow. Yeah. I didn't reply to that email. And then he contacted me inside of LinkedIn and I was like, "Oh, this is real."
Serhiy Wow. Wow. So cool. So it reminds me of this rule that you first have to do something for something to happen. You know, nothing happens with you being passive.
7:00 Should We Follow Our Passion
Serhiy I'm curious uh with people overly, you know, uh obsessed about the idea of following their passion. What's your take on this? because I have people on my show protecting the idea specifically when I have artists they seem to all agree that you have it's it's what there there's no other way but with business-oriented people they kind of more more um wary of telling that you have to you know go all in on your passion because there's just things that have to put money uh food in your table. So, what's your take on this? And how do you tie up your passion with what you do in life?
Rhona I am very passionate about being able to pay my bills um and and live a comfortable life. And for that reason, I do what pays bills and allows me to live a comfortable life. That that's it. It doesn't mean I enjoy every single part of my job. It doesn't mean that every single thing I do I'm passionate about. Yes, it's a lot easier when you're doing something that you enjoy and you can infuse that in. But to be honest, what I honestly want to do all day is go shopping and travel. And that's not my job. Yeah. So, I lookin within the things that I like to do, which is discover other people's stories and tell their stories, and that's how I've made a business. But it's about the other people. It's not about me going and shopping. So, because I'm so passionate about making money, I listen to what people want and that's how I've built my business.
8:43 Take on Coaching Industry
Serhiy And how about this rabbit hole where people think that maybe they should become coaches with your example? If you like shopping, maybe you should become a stylist or something. How what's your take on on all this coaching industry and people tapping into their seemingly passion, you know, to to to to kind of convert the script.
Rhona Oh my gosh, I need to think about how to say this cuz uh I'll probably get cancelled if I say my true opinion on the coaching industry. Um I think where it we live in a time where people want you to help them get stuff done. They don't want to be taught like, "Oh, teach me how to do it. Teach me how to do it." That time has passed. For whatever reason, 2020 was the time where everyone was coaching coaching. It never felt right to me to just teach people. And that's why I went further. And it's like, it's a done for you service. Are you learning in the process 100%. But at the end of the day, I'm doing or my team and I are doing the work for you that you don't want to do. That's what you're paying me for. So, if your passion is shopping and yes, I've been a stylist. I do it on a volunteer basis. Actually, I volunteer with many organizations. One of my favorites is Dress for Success. It's a worldwide organization and it's here in Tulsa. Uh they have one, too. And it marries um your it's helping people find a job and get dressed for their interviews. So, I can go there. I can help people at the boutique with it's all donated clothing. Help them dress and and feel their best for an interview. Also give them tips from my experience on how to do well in their interview and all of that. That's how I marry my passion. Now, could I make money doing this? Yes. But I like shopping for myself, not necessarily for other people.
Serhiy Yeah. So, so it's more like a hobby for you. And I think hobby ties really well with with passion. And sometimes it can stop become stop being a hobby when you when you invest too much of your time into it. Maybe it's just not that fun anymore because you do it in your spare time. That's the whole idea, right?
11:03 Telling Better Stories
Serhiy Uh I like this uh phrase quote by Dale Carnegie that interested are interesting. And this is my lead in to into question of how do we create better stories or how do we present our stories in a way so that people tune in.
Rhona Don't make it about you. That's the main thing. Even if you're telling your story, it can't be about you. And people always look at me weird when I say this, but at the end of the day, no one cares about you. Like, get that away from your life. Maybe your mom, maybe your your significant other, but most people don't care about you. So when you're telling even your personal story, say it in a way that the other person or the people listening can get something for them from your story. So frame it that way and then you'll always have a compelling story because you're tapping into what they care about or something that's interesting to them. And I always tell people like I I've never Oh, I can't I can't say never. There is a video of me, one of my first videos out there where it's like, "Hi, I'm Rhona Pierce." That video worked because no one else was doing video at that time. But right now, like no one cares. Everyone would scroll. That's not how you start your story about yourself. You started with something that people care about.
Serhiy And on this subject, I think people at some point were overusing what I call fake vulnerability. you know, when they they they tell a story that is, you know, some kind of a drama, but in fact, it's not real vulnerability. It's not something that's totally made up to to to to lure in some some attention. So, I'm curious how how do we stay authentic, you know, in our storytelling and yet kind of don't uh don't don't fake anything or not not seen fake as fake.
12:44 Fake Vulnerability
Rhona Don't lie. Really, just don't lie. I think people in in wanting to exaggerate, can we overexaggerate? Yes. Exactly. in trying to make a story interesting, people sometimes add way too much. And it's funny because I'm I'm I'm working on a sponsored post with a with a brand right now and we're going back and forth because I came up with I I didn't come up with a story. I write down every day everything that's happened to me. I write down like story worthy moments. So, I have a full bank of stories that I can pull for from whenever. when I read their creative brief and everything, it's like, "Oh, this story ties into that." But if you start adding things, it's like, "Well, but this story doesn't sound real." It's like, "Well, it did happen." And then it's like, if we start adding in too many details and too many things, that's when it starts getting like fake, vulnerable, or whatever. Look, if something happened to tell that story, yes, there's always going to be better ways and better words to use it, right? to to make it more appealing, but at the the core, the story has to be real for it to come through as authentic.
Rhona So, I don't know if you had a sad day because whatever your your puppy died. Yeah, exactly. You lost a customer. The truth is the day sucked because you lost a customer because you are not going to be able to pay bills or whatever because of that customer. You don't have to talk about how you really counted on them and blah blah blah. Guys, at the end of the day, customers, you you're there to serve them to get money. And the reason why you're sad is because you don't have money from that customer, not because of whatever story you want to tell about how you had a connection with them. So, you got to keep in mind like the focal point like the what even the point why I'm telling the story. I'm not telling the story to get some petty pettiness, you know, or whatever. I'm telling the story to share the lesson that I learned.
Serhiy Yes. And I don't need to embellish the story with um unrelated details that no one cares about. Right. The mere fact that I fired a customer is is already enough.
Rhona Exactly. And by the way, if you didn't learn a lesson from the story, you're not ready to tell that story.
Serhiy Yeah, that's my opinion. Not worth sharing. Yeah, that's really super duper cool.
16:04 Overselling Yourself in Stories
Serhiy I I have this uh newsletter coming to to my inbox every Wednesday. I guess it's from the diary of the CEO. It's 100 CEOs. they share advice and there was a compilation of advice from entrepreneurs on uh how to spot people who you can't trust. And one of the first advice that really really stuck with me was this guy saying that beware of people who oversell, who who embellish things, who decorate their story with there are and he he he says there are signals like for some for no reason at all. They drop big names, they drop numbers, you know. So every single time we we hear someone trying too hard uh it it probably means that this person uh is full of...
Rhona Yeah. Yes. Um but you you also that that is a symbol. I think you you really have to take it case by case. It can't be that thing because sometimes you can tell someone a story that's happened to you and it feels incredible to them because that hasn't been their experience. Cuz at the end of the day, you look at the world through the lens of your experience. Most people do. Most people, as much as you want to say like you're so open-minded, you're really looking at things your initial responses through like, well, that's never happened to me. That can't be real. So there is a balance there, but definitely you can tell when someone's trying too hard. There's like way too like, man, your life is like what a sucky life or what an amazing life. Like way too many incredible things happen. Sometimes it's like that gives you pause.
Serhiy Yeah. I think this is how best DJs um um compile like DJ set. If you've been ever if you ever listen to DJ sets, they say that you cannot play banger after banger. It cannot be a hit after hit. It should be some mediocre and then you go for a banger. So that's that's cool that we can apply it here. I think I think I like this concept of authenticity in content making.
18:40 Who Do We Trust
Serhiy But talking about people who we can trust or we cannot trust. You said that not everyone in life can be trusted but it doesn't mean that you should trust nobody. Can you elaborate on this idea?
Rhona Yeah. Um I naturally don't necessarily trust everyone. I think because of the type of work that I've done um just in software engineering a as a recruiter people lie to you all day every day like they're embellishing their resume they're like there people are lying to you and and you just have to you can if you take that too literal you can go through life not trusting anyone and I don't necessarily think I immediately trust everyone but I have this like base level of trust that I'm going to trust that everything you're telling me is true until I can prove that something isn't true. But I also don't go through life thinking, "Oh my gosh, Sergey is lying to me." Because then then that's not your default. Yeah. Exactly. Then your life is kind of brutal.
Rhona But yeah, I've I've learned there's been so many times in my life where I've given someone that base trust because I give everyone base trust and then they've proven that they don't deserve even base trust um from me or anyone cuz they've done I mean just this year in business I've had some really really shitty things happen to me or I've had some really I've had people do shitty things to me business-wise that have like I have zero trust in in these people. But that doesn't mean I go through life thinking every single person is going to do the exact same thing that that one person decided to do.
Serhiy Yeah. I think we uh we are in this way we're both optimists because we don't want to live in the world with constant threats around us.
20:20 Protecting Your Truth
Serhiy Um, have you ever had a moment in your life where you had to protect your truth or protect your identity?
Rhona I I think in business, um, let's I don't know if it's identity or more of like protecting my values and what I stand for. So, I've I'm very. You learn the hard way who to work with and who not to work with. And that doesn't mean I get it right all the time, but I'm someone who I have no pause in firing a client if I can clearly see that my team's piece and my piece is not being protected. And there's because of the type of work that I do like the the video production and stuff like that. There's a lot of people have opinions and not all of them necessarily know about it and then they hire you. And I really think that yes, I value people's opinions. I work with clients. I make so many changes. But at the end of the day, if you came to hire an expert, you can't be telling the expert how to do every single thing.
Serhiy Thank you. Thank you.
Rhona And that puts a strain not only on me because I'm not necessarily the one doing all of this work, but it puts a strain on my team because now my team can't do what they're used to doing, what we do so well for everyone else because we're having to follow whatever person's instructions. And sometimes the feedback that you get from a client is like, "Oh, wow. We hadn't thought about that." Yes, absolutely. And sometimes it's clearly someone who doesn't know what they're talking about telling you what to do and you're like, "No, no, no. I know better." So, I'm very ruthless when it comes to that. And I will say to a client, "I'm sorry. We thought this was going to work. This is not going to work. This is how we're going to end this." And by the way, I've done that to even friends of mine who are clients and we're still friends.
23:42 Rhona's Values
Serhiy As far as your values go, we can not go too too deep or too personal, but I'm curious, have you have your values changed? Because for different people, the set of values is something where protected. But I'm curious how you actually discovered yours. Did it happen earlier in your life or later? and maybe they there was a moment where they changed you know something that you believe you know became obsolete at some point.
Rhona I think values like at your core you have the values that you get from just how you were raised and the experiences you've had in life right that's at the at your core but they do evolve and I can tell you I I was raised by very Christian parents and I and I also So, and I went to Catholic schools and all of this. So, I was raised like very different mentality than what I myself had. And even as a kid and growing up, I was always like not 100% believing everything that my parents believed, but out of respect for them and just out of I had no choice, I had to do some things, right? But then as you grow and you start like falling into like, well, I don't believe this. Why am I doing this if I don't believe this? And you start changing. And I don't think at my core my values have changed. I think I've adjusted to what I've experienced and what I've heard from other people and then um use that to shape my view of the world. And that changes because as you have more experiences then you're like well maybe this thing that I was thinking isn't right because of XYZ reason.
25:40 Partnering with Competitors
Serhiy I know that you sometimes hire or collaborate with what we call competitors. Can you tell me why in the world?
Rhona It's probably the most controversial thing that I like my husband and I who's my my husband's my business partner and we have this this conversation a lot. But I think that there's enough money in the world for everyone. I do believe yes there's a a ton of there's like 1% of people hoarding most of the money but apart from that there's enough money for everyone else in the world and I think that you learn so you can learn so much from other people and I don't mean learn as in steal so when I go to a competitor and I collaborate it's like because of the volume of the work that I do sometimes I need extra people to be able to meet the demands of my clients and I know responsibly that I shouldn't be hiring people for my team because this is just a one project thing, right? And I don't want to hi overhire and then have to like worry about how am I going to pay this? Like I take it deeply personal paying people salaries cuz now they've trusted to work with me. So if I know going in that I only need this for a specific amount of time, I will work with freelancers. If it's a bigger thing and I it can't be one freelancer and I need an entire team, I have many other agency owners that I know and I collaborate with that I can be like, "Hey, do you have space for this project?"
Rhona And it helps us in the agency world. There's es and flows. I'm sure you understand it. There's times where you're crazy busy and you can't you don't even know how you're going to get all the work done. And there are times where there's a lull and it's slow. So just like they would come to me and be like, "Hey, do you have capacity? I have way too many projects." I would go to them and I just respect the work that a lot of people are doing and and we can be friends and we can collaborate and we don't take each other's business. And everyone has different angles of how they do things. Even if someone offers a service that might sound exactly like mine, they don't offer it the way that I do. And that's why I have no problem hiring my competitors.
Serhiy And I I was recently talking to Alan Langanger. He is a sales expert. He told me that there's stats right now that uh people would prefer a better customer experience over a better product. Like if there are products that are more or less similar, like 70% of people would just not want to work with someone who who they're not having synergy with. So I think we should never worry if we grow our communication skills. If we're if we're just good good people, we should never worry about other good people who respect and value us for who we are.
29:00 A Break of Trust Story
Rhona Exactly. But I can tell you I like this this has burnt me this year. This burned me because I trusted another agency owner and um they tried to take one of my biggest clients and this client happened to be a friend of mine who sent me the email that they got from the person. And unfortunately for them, like I'm not I didn't I didn't do any drama. I didn't do anything. I literally just took them out of my slack. I I didn't even say anything. I had I noticed I had already paid them everything that I needed to pay. Took them out of Slack, removed them, blocked them everywhere, didn't talk to them, and they got a letter from my from my lawyer telling them why, and moved on. I have no clue what they I didn't even care to hear what they had to say, what was their excuse. What I do know is that they will never get another penny from me. And they were actually in a time in their business where they were struggling.
Rhona I don't know how their business is doing. there. Like for me, that's one thing. Like if I block you out of my life, you are blocked. I don't know if you're doing good, if you're doing bad. I have no clue. But you broke my trust by doing the one thing that I tell people. Don't you ever try to go after my clients because my clients work with me not because of the price. I am absolutely not the cheapest. They work with me because they want to work with me for whatever other reason that is not price. I don't compete on price.
Serhiy I mean, I should learn a lot a lot from you and I hope uh you'll be dropping more of your business wisdom on LinkedIn. So, for everyone who want to follow you where they can do that.
Rhona Sure. I am mostly on LinkedIn. I post almost every day Rhona Barnett Pierce. You can find me there. I am also on YouTube, Rhona B. Pierce. That's where you'll see my podcast which is workfluencer podcast and yeah that that's where I am. You can find me anywhere. Workfluencer or Rhona Barnett Pierce.
Serhiy That was Rhona. Thank you Rhona a lot for this conversation.
Rhona Thank you for having me.