Alex Snodgrass, aka The Defined Dish, has built a social media following that would make any brand jealous, with over hundreds of thousands of followers engaging around her simple and incredibly tasty whole30 and paleo dish recipes every day. She has all the social media (and in real life) love that creates a pretty pristine Above the Line version of her business.

But a simple ingredient that made the conversation with this creator such an interesting one was her honesty on what it’s really like to be a social media “influencer”. We talk about everything from the fact that 2 years in (and with little traction), deciding if it was still worth doing, simplification being a key to success, anxiety attacks and the importance of investing in mental health — and in the midst of naturally being a people-pleaser, and having a spouse, two daughters, employees and hundreds of thousands of people that would want some of her time requires something simple and powerful: a checklist of things that helps remind her daily what she needs to do for herself.

It’s a special episode of Below The Line with Alex today — we hope you enjoy it.

About the host: James Beshara is an angel investor, advisor, founder, and general startup-helper in San Francisco, California. He has started three companies, sold one (Tilt; acq by Airbnb), and angel invested in multiple billion-dollar startups in his career. And now he's talking openly and honestly with leaders about what's going on "below the line" in their lives and careers that has made them the people that the are; the 90% of the story you don't read about or hear about anywhere else.

If you have any questions, feel free to email us at [email protected] and follow us on twitter @belowthelinepodcast or follow James @JamesBeshara.

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