The Fear of Perception vs. The 'Housewives Effect': How to Anchor Your Brand in Purpose

Are you trying to present a lifestyle that isn't yours? This week on The Visibility Standard, Jazzmyn Proctor dives into the unexpected business lessons we can learn from the drama-filled world of The Real Housewives.

For every entrepreneur, creator, and visionary who struggles with the fear of being perceived, this episode is your urgent reminder: Curated content is cute, but it is not sustainable.

We're pulling back the curtain on the "Housewives Effect"—the cycle of chasing lifestyle over purpose, which leads to burnout, fraud charges, and a total loss of public trust. The ladies who are winning (and staying on the air) are the ones rooted in their non-negotiable values.

If you are burnt out from trying to chase a perception, this is your wake-up call to anchor your brand in purpose and stop playing the short game.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Housewives Effect: Why living above your means (in business or life) is the fastest way to lose credibility and passion.
• The difference between building a portfolio and grasping for viral straws (Entrepreneurship).
• Why not being clear on your purpose and values makes you susceptible to external pressures and inauthentic content choices.
• Case studies: What Housewives like Heather Dubrow and the Salt Lake City ladies can teach us about maintaining integrity while scaling (Authenticity).
• How to build systems that protect your energy and prevent burnout, so you can stay invigorated in your field for the long game.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:05

Are you sitting with thousands of hours of B-roll content and telling yourself, I'll start posting tomorrow? Are you in your head worried about your friends and family thinking your cringe refusing to be visible? Are you chasing trends instead of building influence? Welcome to the visibility standard where the visionaries of today are changing the roles of their industries and letting their voice be heard. I'm your host, Jasmine, and we are setting the standard. What's up everybody? Welcome back to the visibility standard. I am your host, Jasmine Proctor, where visibility is the standard. This is all about showing up, being seen, and authenticity. And today I wanted to have a little fun with this episode and talk about one of my favorite TV franchises. If you know me, if you follow me, you know it's the Real Housewives. Jasmine, what does this have to do with visibility? We'll go to it. But you gotta stick around and listen to the episode to find out. So I am a lifelong Real Housewives connoisseur. Like, I've watched just about every franchise. I've seen a lot of the changes, and so I'm also caught up on the drama and the tea. So if you are also caught up on the drama and the tea, then you know that Wendy Osefo and Eddie just got caught up on fraud charges. What a shame. And we know Karen Huger just got out of jail, we know Jen Shaw. There are so many fraud issues. Lisa Barlow. Oh my gosh, the list continues. And what is up, Housewives? Why are we living above our means? Why are we spending money we don't have? Why are we trying to present a certain lifestyle that we don't have? This is directly related to the commodification of the Real Housewives franchise. Started back in like 2006, 2008. The Real Housewives was about well-off housewives who maybe ran a business, who maybe led charity events, and they hung out. They were groups of housewives who had very well-off husbands. They had a very strong inner circle. They were very well connected. And they were sharing their lives with the world, and people became so enamored with what these very rich housewives were doing. And so Orange County, OG, Atlanta, it's one of the OGs, and then we have New Jersey. Like those are like the first three that I think of. Oh, New York, don't come for me. I'm so sorry I forgot about New York. Orange County, New York, Atlanta, OG. Then we get in New Jersey, and then the rest goes on. But you are seeing a glimpse into a lifestyle that the average person does not have access to. And that was really exciting. Where Bravo in Housewives-esque content starts to take a turn is when people start using it to gain celebrity status. It's when they use it as their ticket into the lifestyle, luxury space, candles, podcasting, and really start flexing these really lavish, extravagant lifestyles. Yes, early housewives, the women were very well off. They had the means where these women could be straight up housewives who had nannies, they had housekeepers, they had the finances to outsource a lot of the labor that they would typically do as housewives, and they have been able to engage their interests in other areas. That is lavish, that is luxurious still, in and of itself. And because of social media, because of the creator economy that we exist in, they wanted more. The engagement is not real, it's all curated content. I have personally, there are a lot of franchises I do not watch anymore. The only one I will watch adamantly, I'll let you guess. Yes, Salt Lake City. Love those ladies. They are keeping it real, they are keeping the franchise alive single-handedly, not exaggerating, but so much of it felt so fake and so forced. And you can tell that these ladies don't want to be around one another, like compared to OG New York. Like that's why they're so missed. Dorinda, Ramona, Luann, Bethany, like they loved being around each other. Curated content is fun, but it is not sustainable. And the same goes for your business, for your personal brand. Curated content is cute. We want it every once in a while. We want to present the most polished, best version of ourselves. But if it's all fake, if it's all smoke and mirrors, then what do you have? What is the substance? What it comes down to for a lot of the housewives is they are not moving, being rooted in their purpose or their values. They are grasping for straws at the next thing that's going to give them this external presence of billionaire lifestyle content creator influencer. And now you're on fraud charges. Now you don't embarrass your whole family trying to attain a lifestyle that most influencers don't even have. And this is also like a conversation around the influencer market, which I'm gonna say for another episode. I think I'm just gonna stick strictly to housewives today. But they are reaching and attaining towards lifestyles that aren't theirs, and you can tell. Like you can tell it's curated experiences, you can tell that they haven't seen each other in months, and now they're putting on this picture-worthy event. You can tell that they may be supporting causes they're not necessarily passionate about, they're just going to events for the camera time, and nobody wants to watch that. If you are not interested in what you are doing, why would someone else be interested in what you're doing? If you don't care, why should I care? If the energy is giving, I could be anywhere else but here. I'm turning it off. And then they get into these fake fights, some of them very real because they don't like each other. But this is on a big scale, sometimes how we treat our personal brands and how we start to feel really burnt out by our personal brands. Because we are trying to chase virality, we are trying to chase a perception, an aesthetic, a visual. That's not like true to us. We think it's gonna get clicks, we think this is what people want to see, but people continue to say we want to see authenticity, and you're giving the same that the other thousand girlies are giving. Just be yourself. But if you are not rooted in your purpose and your values, then you're not going to make choices that are based on your values and your purpose. And frankly, a lot of us aren't willing to make the hard choices to stay rooted in our values and our purpose. There are very few housewives that have maintained their values and who show up the most authentically on camera. Heather DuBrot is a prime example. Honestly, she protects her energy like it's her job because it is. She has always been family-oriented. Like her family has always been first and foremost, do not come for her family, do not come for her integrity. And then a few seasons back where she is at dinner with Gina and her mom, you really do see where she got the hypercritical parts of herself from. But Heather has always been who she is. She's always been a multiple stream of income girly, and so is her husband. Because they have stayed true to who they are and and what they value and what they believe, they've been able to scale authentic authentically. Like it fits them because it's rooted in the things that are important to them. Angie is another one, and Mary Cosby. Again, Salt Lake City is the most authentic. I think out of all of the franchises right now, Salt Lake City gives authenticity, and that's why people love it. Mary Cosby is very committed to her church, to her son, to the Lord. Like, none of that has changed. Mary is on podcast saying the same thing that she says on TV as you see on social media. Angie, her family has always been a priority for her. And Angie had it before Housewives. So Angie's not looking to build a brand to use Housewives as her ticket to influence her nation or her ticket to being an online personality. Angie's already that girl, and I cannot believe I'm saying that because I wasn't a huge Angie fan like the first time I saw her on TV, but she's really showing up as herself right now, and it's landing and it's resonating. And you're seeing so many people gravitate towards her energy. Even Bronwyn, very rooted in what's going on with her daughter, always sticks up for her husband, is not shy about the lifestyle that she lives, and we love that. She's not switching up, she yet, and she honestly hasn't switched up about the the nature of her marriage. She says it's hard sometimes, and she says she loves him. I think most people share that sentiment who are married. There isn't much that like sways them and that authenticity reads on the camera. If you are creating content and you're like, trust me, we can tell. We can tell you do not want to be in front of the camera. If you are presenting yourself online in a way that is inauthentic, that energy radiates. Part of it is, yeah, if you want those opportunities to find you, if you are building a larger portfolio. Yeah, I think it's pretty hard to not be on social media. But there is a way that you can show up and enjoy it. You don't need to be a dancer, you don't need to be an influencer doing get ready with me's. You might not be a voiceover person. That's okay. Head over to Substack. You like longer form content? Stop forcing yourself to make short videos, stop forcing yourself on reels. Go to podcasting, be a guest on other people's podcasts if you don't have the time to make your own podcast. Start a YouTube channel. There are so many opportunities and options to put yourself out there, but a lot of people aren't in it for the long game. They're not in it to build a legacy, they're not in it to really build a portfolio. They're like, okay, being on TikTok, doing this quick trend, that's what's gonna get me seen. That's what's gonna give me the clicks, the likes. Boom, I'm gonna be flying, soaring in six months. Okay, and a candle that burns fast ends fast. If you are building a portfolio, building a legacy, anything worth building takes time. Wendy, prime example, she had a beautiful job rooted in like education, like news reporting. She was really building a foundation and she threw it all away because she thought she was gonna be the grandom. She thought she could be Karen Huger in her candles. Karen Huger exudes lifestyle, she's also not in the place where she is hustling and bustling in her career. If she had stayed secure in who she was and what she was pursuing, but she wanted to keep up appearances, and this is not to say that you won't change, that your offers won't change, that how you show up won't change. Your values and your purpose, like your deep-seated why that anchors you, that will rarely change. And once you become crystal clear on that purpose, you are less likely to waste your energy doing things that do not align, that do not that bring you further away from that purpose. When that becomes crystal clear, when your values become crystal clear, everything else falls into place, everything else feels more enjoyable. A value of mine is autonomy and time to do nothing, to spend time with friends. I have choice in everything that I do. Therefore, my work, even my life, is centered around that. The larger purpose, like my big seated why, is I value clinical work so much. I value being a therapist, and I want to be a therapist for as long as I can. And so I am building systems and structures so that I do not burn out of the field too soon, that I do not lose passion or spark or interest in the work. And what's allowed me to feel invigorated by the work is allowing myself space to step away from the work. Allowing myself the space to be other things aside from being a therapist. A sub-bullet of that purpose is making therapy accessible and affordable to other people. I'm not gonna be able to do that by doing more therapy because that's going to counter the point of not burning out of the field. But that larger purpose is what anchors me and drives my decision making, the time that I spend with people, the networking opportunities that I take on or don't take on. Autonomy when it comes to my time is a value of mine, and I live by that as often as I can. And because those things are really clear to me, I will say when all of that became crystal clear to me, that's when everything else within life and my business fell into place. Outside of that, I felt like I was grasping for straws. I was like, okay, I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do all of these things that are that I think are going to give me that clarity and purpose and clarity in my values. When that clarity came from within, it came from discussing it with mentors, with people that I really trust, whose insight I really value. It came from sitting still, it came from not consuming as much, not consuming as much and not comparing my journey to someone else's journey. When I stopped doing a lot of those things and realized protecting my energy was also protecting my purpose, game changer. This will be another episode, but the more clear about your purpose, the more protective of your energy you'll be. Because what takes you away from your purpose is not worth it. What takes me away from my purpose is not worth it. And that is that's all there is to it. So when we look at housewives, when we look at their fall from grace, it is because they are not rooted in value, in their values or their purpose. And again, this is not to say that you cannot scale, this is not to say that you cannot grow. But what are you growing and working towards if your purpose and your values are not clear? I really wanted to find a way to blend my interests and my passion, and I have a TikTok video right now going a little wild because I spoke on the issue that's going on with Wendy, and so I figured let me bring it to the long form space and parse out my ideas a little bit more. We are almost at the end of the year. We are it's October 13th, crazy! But we're almost at the end of the year. What is your purpose? What is your why? What do you value? What do you value within your life, within your business that you want to create the structure to maintain? Are you grasping for straws? Are you putting your energy in places and content that are not aligned with your vision? Let me know in the comments. Let me know in the DMs. You can find me on all major social media platforms under Healing with Jasmine. And I want to remind you, I'm on YouTube. Check it out, give your girl a follow. I'd really appreciate it. I really appreciated folks who have taken time to leave comments, to leave ratings, reviews. It literally means everything to me. I'm so passionate about growing the show, moving it forward, and every bit of engagement really counts, and it means everything to me. I loved chatting with you all this week. My dream date this week is Sarah Mack, who is a creative brand strategist and a money mindset witch. Together, we're going to be talking about all the ways that you can manifest abundance and money in the new year. Click the bell so you don't miss a new episode every Monday and Friday, and I'll see you later.