When I was the most “successful” on the outside, I was the emptiest on the inside.
I’ve been in business for 4 years, a full-time blogger for 2, and have been featured on Forbes, the Huffington Post, Thrive Global, and 500+ media sites.
I’ve worked with Amazon, BestBuy, Target, and 1000’s of other brands as an influencer and gained 300,000+ followers across all my social media channels.
I’ve also spoken on stages all over the world teaching my blog and marketing strategies and compiled them all into online courses for people to access from home.
I was chasing after fame and money and had achieved a lot of what I was striving for, but something was missing.
Something that money couldn’t buy…
PURPOSE.
The reason behind why you do what you do.
I thought I knew what I wanted and I thought I had a purpose…
But when your life is all about the next accomplishment or achievement, it becomes meaningless because you’re always chasing after something else and it always alludes you and you’re never satisfied.
While having goals is important and striving to be the best you can be is good, doing everything in life for your own gain only gets you fleeting success and happiness, not everlasting success and happiness which can only be found in God.
I used to obsessed with money – how to make money, how to make MORE money – money became my idol because I had made it my ultimate purpose and gave it waaaaay too much power over me.
While money is super important because we need it to survive, it can’t be your end all be all. Because if it is, it will end you and you’ll be controlled by it.
God graciously took over my life in 2020 and gave me a new vision, mission, and focus. I am stepping down from being the CEO of my life, assigning that title to God, and have now become God’s CMO!
My new mission is to help Christian bloggers and influencers market and monetize their content so we can start to see more uplifting Christian content in the media.
God gave you a voice, use it for His glory.
The story behind the blog…
Before I started blogging, I was in the wedding industry. I worked my way up the corporate ladder and landed the prestigious title as the National Wedding Sales Manager for a global company. It was my dream job!
My job was my life and I worked 24/7, but I loved what I did so it never felt like work. (But also I was controlled by money, which is why I worked all the time).
However, it all came crashing down when I received a devastating phone call from my boyfriend. His older brother had been missing for a week and he was calling me with an update.
He had just found his brother’s body… he had been murdered.
Shock and disbelief set in at the same time. We had just spent Christmas together in Honduras and were getting ready to celebrate his brother’s 28th birthday in January. I didn’t know what to do, all I knew was that I needed to go to Honduras to be there for him and his family during this time.
I called my boss and asked if I could attend the overseas funeral, but his response shocked me. He said NO… because it would affect sales.
I realized at that exact moment that I was merely a dollar sign to the company. So I quit, packed my life up into 2 suitcases, and moved to Honduras.
However, I didn’t realize how hard the transition would be. I had left my home, my friends, and my job (which was a huge part of my identity), and had moved to a developing country where I didn’t speak the language or understand the culture.
My “wedding industry skills” and sales skills were all useless there and I started to feel extremely isolated. The only person I could talk to was my boyfriend and he was going through a rough time.
So I started this blog as an outlet for me to learn how to make money online and become a LADY BOSS BLOGGER.
A year later, the Huffington Post asked to interview me to talk about how I started monetizing my blog from week one and how I was able to scale so quickly without any prior blogging experience.
After the article went up, people started flooding my inbox with questions, so I decided to compile the most common questions people were curious about and made that the basis for my first online blogging course.
A year after that, people started emailing me more personal questions about who I was (since I didn’t share too much online), so I decided to showcase my lifestyle a bit more on my personal Instagram page @elainerau.
After a year of daily posts, brands started noticing me and I started working on lots of collaborations which brought even more exposure and once again started getting lots of DMS about how to work with brands so I compiled my best strategies and created my second course on monetizing your Instagram.
If I can do it, so can you.
I’m just an ordinary girl who was pushed to think outside the box because of my circumstances. Oh yea and if you’re wondering what happened to my boyfriend and I…
We got married at The Micah Project a year later.
A portion of all proceeds from LadyBossBlogger goes to The Micah Project, which is a home for street kids in Honduras.
My husband was once one of those boys, which is why this charity is really close to my heart.
Plus the blog was actually founded on The Micah Project property – they took me in for a month when I moved down there to give me time to find my own place.
I want to encourage you to start your own blog and/or Instagram page and share your God-given story.
- How has He been working in your life?
- How has He challenged you recently?
- What have you been learning?
Life was meant to be shared, our stories need to be heard. God has given each of us a powerful life story, SO TELL THE WORLD ALL ABOUT IT!
“Be strong and brave. Don’t be afraid of them and don’t be frightened, because the Lord your God will go with you. He will not leave you or forget you.” – Deuteronomy 31:6
Want to learn how to launch, grow, and monetize your blog and Instagram? Go to LadyBossBloggerCourses.com for more information.