A movement that I would love to start is one that would encourage being kind to people and accepting people for who they are with absolutely no judgement. I’d like to try to preach that as much as I can, regardless of weight, height, age or race. It’s important to love everyone, be nice to everyone and treat people how you want to be treated. Online there’s so much cyberbullying and negativity always going on and I would love to figure out a way to help stop that as much as I possibly could. I think a great movement of starting with and continuing to be nice to people would hopefully help that.
For my series on strong female leaders, I had the pleasure of interviewing Remi Cruz.
Remi is a YouTube personality and entrepreneur who has amassed over 5 million followers across her social channels. Throughout her years on YouTube, Remi has taken her viewers along on her health journey, by leading a healthier lifestyle and regularly working out she lost over 70lbs. During 2018, she was featured in AdCouncils Seize the Awkward Campaign which advocated for having regular conversations surrounding your mental health. She has worked with numerous top tier brands and recently partnered with popular razor brand Gillette for the Venus x Remi Cruz limited edition razor.
Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I believe in 7th or 8th grade, my aunt gave me an iPod Touch, and I remember going through all of the different apps that were already pre-installed and YouTube was one of them. I opened up YouTube and I was trying to figure out what everything was. I never heard of YouTube, and I found all of these videos of girls doing makeup, their hair, fashion and all these hacks. I thought it was so cool. I would watch them religiously for years and years until finally when I was a senior in high school I thought, ‘you know what, I can do this myself.’ So I started making my videos after that and I would have never known how to make that happen if it wasn’t for that iPod that came with YouTube pre-installed.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your podcast?
While we were doing our podcast tour which was last April, It was just so incredible to have these meet and greets before the actual podcast show. We got to meet so many people, but the meetups were so different because we’ve done so many meetups before at VidCon and such, but for some reason doing the podcast meetups we had no idea what to expect, but it just felt so much more real and raw because people were connecting to us on a whole different level. So people would come to these meet and greets with all of these different stories and how they related to things we were going through. It’s just so different than making a YouTube video on how to have the best summer versus talking about heartbreak, toxic friendships and things that you’ve been through and having people really share their stories with you. That was the coolest thing ever.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
A mistake I made early on was trying to act like I was perfect and an expert in everything when I still, to this day, don’t know what I’m talking about. I was 18, 19 and 20 years old doing videos about how to’s, tutorials and things when I really didn’t know what I was doing. I think it wasn’t until the podcast that I learned that it’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to show people that you aren’t perfect. It’s okay to be vulnerable with people and open up and if it weren’t for me opening up on that podcast, I would have never had those amazing stories from the meet-and-greet. So it’s taken me a long time and I’m still learning, but I definitely know you are not perfect and you are not an expert in anything so don’t act like you are.
What do you think makes your podcast stand out? Can you share a story?
I think just the fact that we are best friends makes the podcast so different. I know a lot of best friends have podcasts, but we are newer best friends and when we started we’d only been best friends for maybe a year or so, but we had just gone through so much together and we just confided in each other so much. Obviously doing YouTube separately definitely added an interesting dynamic with YouTube being the main thing that we each do. Also, when I was trying to date in the beginning, I would always lean on Alisha the most. She would know every story and all the things I was going through. We put these funny stories and anecdotes about things like dating which were things we’ve never talked about on YouTube before on the podcast. It was like we suddenly had this platform to be able to gossip and talk about it with all of our girlfriends listening. It makes it super different and fun because they feel like they’re really included and connected on this which is something different than YouTube.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
Make content that is interesting for you and be open to change. So for example, if you are doing fashion videos for a while then do those fashion videos and make them because you enjoy doing them. But as soon as you’re not interested in fashion anymore switch to something different. You don’t have to stay doing the same thing over and over again because that’s how you will easily burn out. Give yourself breaks and allot time for work. When you’re not working — don’t work, do something fun like a hobby, watch a movie, or hang out with friends so that you have that time to disassociate yourself from work because social media is an easy job to just constantly be doing some form of work.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
There have been so many people that have helped me along the way. I’ve leaned on my family a lot. Having their support has meant the world to me and I always felt so welcome and encouraged to make content. All of my friends have been so helpful too. My college friends were always so helpful with making videos and would come up with ideas and run to the craft store with me to get supplies. My team has also been a huge help. Whether it’s my wonderful manager, agent, publicist, assistant or my videographer who has been my friend since middle school. It’s so great to be able to work with people that I truly trust and inspire me and are always just on my team.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I have been able to participate in a lot of different philanthropic events and charities. I love to help out as much as I can. I truly feel that just having this platform is such an amazing way to spread awareness about anything. So if I’m ever able to help out anyone in any way, I love doing that. I love donating. I’m so blessed to receive so much makeup and clothing and things for PR and one person does not need all of that so I donate to local churches and women’s shelters.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that was relevant to you in your life?
I don’t have a life lesson quote but one thing I always keep in mind is being kind to people and treating others the way you want to be treated is how I try to live my life as much as I can. When I get comments that make me sad, I just remember that is what I live by so that kind of helps me get through it.
What are your “5 Strategies You Need To Run A Very Successful Podcast” Please share a story or example for each.
1. Don’t overthink it — Alisha and I will often come with a rough outline for a lot of episodes but we’ll just riff off each other. Have fun with it. Don’t overthink it, I feel like I’ve learned when I come to the podcast recording and I have like a list of everything I want to hit, I overthink it and I get stressed.
2. Work on your other platforms for social media. Alisha and I have a YouTube channel, Twitter and Instagram just for Pretty Basic that has definitely helped grow the Pretty Basic family by itself. We have specific branding and colors and things like that just for Pretty Basic. So definitely brand yourself and brand your podcast.
3. Keep things current. I feel like that keeps things more exciting. We’re lucky enough to be able to record weekly and we’re able to keep everyone updated on what’s going on in our lives, what’s going on in the world and whatever we want to talk about. So if you have the luxury of recording regularly, then keep it fun and fresh which keeps it fresh for you too.
4. Find your own voice. I think Pretty Basic was able to brand itself very well as the brand Pretty Basic because it’s very true to us. There’s so many podcasts and so many different things out in the social media world on all different platforms that you have to really just be yourself. Don’t model yourself after your favorite podcast and copy everything they do because that’s not being true to you and no one’s going to listen to that. You’re going to get bored of that because you’re not doing what’s actually interesting to you and staying true to yourself.
5. Have fun. I think if you are overthinking everything or if you’re not open to change then you’ll be really setting yourself back. For instance, in the first season we really had to figure out our groove and figure out how we are, what we want to do and what we want to achieve. So it took us a while. When we came back with season two, we had all these new ideas, like introducing guests and solo episodes. It’s been fun to change it up and had we come in and just kept the same thing going on and on then we definitely would have gotten bored and burned out. So be open to change and just have fun with it.
You are a woman of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
A movement that I would love to start is one that would encourage being kind to people and accepting people for who they are with absolutely no judgement. I’d like to try to preach that as much as I can, regardless of weight, height, age or race. It’s important to love everyone, be nice to everyone and treat people how you want to be treated. Online there’s so much cyberbullying and negativity always going on and I would love to figure out a way to help stop that as much as I possibly could. I think a great movement of starting with and continuing to be nice to people would hopefully help that.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
YouTube: main channel — @missremiashten // vlog channel — @remlife
Instagram: @missremiashten
Tik Tok: @remilovesdaisy
Twitter: @missremiashten