In today’s episode, we are going to be talking to hair guru extraordinaire, plus YouTuber, influencer, and mom of six amazing kiddos, Mindy McKnight, about bringing your best self to the opportunities right in front of you and about how to safely navigate the world of social media with your kids.

Mindy is the founder of Cute Girl Hairstyles, which has more than five million subscribers on YouTube—almost six million—and more than a million followers on Instagram. Several of her kids, including her twin daughters, Brooklyn and Bailey, and daughter, Kamri Noel, have millions of followers as well. This family is rocking it out on social media.

Mindy is also the author of Viral Parenting: A Guide to Setting Boundaries, Building Trust, and Raising Responsible Kids in an Online World where she shares tips, tricks, and guidelines for getting the most out of the online world in a responsible way.

She has so much insight to share, not just about what it takes to build a successful online business but what it takes to build a successful family in an increasingly online world. I love that she is so successful and yet so genuine and so real and is still daring to take risks in her life and in her business.

Highlights

[04:00] Mindy is a YouTuber. She started as a stay-at-home mom with four girls. She was doing their hair in the morning, and one day, she decided to save pictures and put it up as a blog.
[04:31] Then in 2008, she decided to upload a video to YouTube. The video resonated with a lot of moms, and it just blew up.
[04:55] She now has six YouTube channels four of which have at least a million subscribers. She’s the author of Viral Parenting: A Guide to Setting Boundaries, Building Trust, and Raising Responsible Kids in an Online World, Her girls have their own channel, store, and mascara line.
[06:19] Mindy went from a mom talking about hair to running an empire.
[06:54] She went from the bathroom to the boardroom and had to learn how to know her own self and her own power.
[07:53] Being an internet family isn’t always easy, but Mindy differentiates when she is being their manager and when she is being their mom.
[09:42] Gratitude is important for the entire family. The reason they’re able to do the amazing things they do is because of their wonderful audience.
[10:26] The kids stay grounded, because they go to traditional school, and they still have chores.
[11:17] Creating the videos is a choice, and the kids have a lot of options, and they keep the communication channels open.
[12:28] Mindy felt that her book filled a need. Kids need to understand how to navigate the online world.
[13:54] The book starts out with basic instructional stuff, and then it goes into teaching parents how to have conversations about the internet with their kids. There are spelled out talking points and contracts that parents can have with their kids about online usage.
[16:12] If your kids are online, you need to be online. Recognize that there is no such thing as digital privacy.
[16:40] The contracts will go through everything bullet by bullet, so kids will know what to expect if they encounter any situations.
[21:17] Mindy uses apps like Screen Time and Bark to monitor what her kids are doing online.
[24:35] Part of Mindy’s book was to let people know what a positive space that the internet can be.
[26:21] Mindy shares the role that fear has played in her life, and how she got past that. It revolves around being asked to speak at Brandcast. This was such a big deal, but she got through it and conquered her fear.
[30:03] For Mindy, limiting beliefs are on a sliding scale. At first, it was very large and then it diminishes as time goes on.
[33:38] Humble confidence is such a great quality for people to see and hear.
[34:26] One of the hardest struggles for Mindy is to follow her gut in spite of what logic tells her.
[36:43] Take the time to set your backend up for growth instead of just jumping in to YouTube or content creation.
[37:51] Mindy has an entire line of hair care products coming out in January of 2020. It’s natural based products on a budget. It’s also for all hair types.
[40:15] If Mindy catches herself comparing herself to others, she just stops. Keeping her confidence up is important.
[42:31] You need to believe and instill in yourself that you are way above average.