Rebecca Rogers: The Drive and Consistency That Fuel a Modern Teacher Turned Influencer Brand

How does a successful, strong, and powerful woman navigate work, employee relationships, love, and life in a world that still feels uncomfortable with strong women? In this interview series, called “Power Women” we are talking to accomplished women leaders who share their stories and experiences navigating work, love and life as a powerful woman.

As a part of this series I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Rebecca Rogers.

Rebecca Rogers is a high school social studies teacher turned social media influencer. She started her journey looking for a way to bond with her students amid the lockdowns and online learning in 2020. She has since added the task of both advoating for teachers around the world, and becoming a role model for young girls everywhere. Above all, Rebecca Rogers hopes her platform makes others laugh and feel validated.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?

Thank you for having me! My name is Rebecca Rogers, I am 25 years old and grew up in North Carolina! Growing up I always felt a need to help people and make them smile. My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor and so you can imagine the dark and devastating stories that follow my family. I always wanted to counteract that darkness with laughture, and bring light into the world. One place I knew I could do both was a classroom. My teachers made me love learning, school became such a happy place for me. I knew I wanted to be that for someone else one day. When I was in high school I had the absolute best AP US History teacher in the world, and that was when I knew it needed to be high school social studies. I loved teaching more than anything. Unfortunately, the unsustainable nature of education showed me I likely wouldn’t be in a classroom for the full 30 years I imagined as a little girl. However, my time as a teacher brought me to my new career, one I never expected: Social Media Influencer.

Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?

In the fall of 2020, I was in my third year teaching. We had lockdowns going on, school was completely virtual, and my students were incredibly depressed. I had never had difficulties connecting with students before, and was desperate to find some way to both bond with them and brighten their days. I noticed one of the few topics they actually talked about in class with each other was TikTok. I had heard of the app before but never even downloaded it. However, if the kids loved it, I figured it was worth a try. I asked all three of my high school classes what they thought about me downloading TikTok and making content. I had never see these classes get so excited about something! They wanted to make my username, so they did. We had to go through some drafts because so many names were already taken. We all ended up settling on rrogersworld. My 4th period class said,”Mrs. Rogers, it is really your world and we are all just living in it!” Even in virtual learning, they still got me! They then took turns giving me little trends to do, and one day a student said something really silly in class. My students said I should repeat it in a video for TikTok. With the student’s permission, I did, and the video went viral. All of a sudden all of my students wanted me to tell a story about something silly they did in class, or something silly they heard in another class. Then I started getting emails from PREVIOUS students, asking the same thing. Soon I had colleagues stopping by to tell me stories of silly students or interesting parent interactions. It all happened really fast, but within a matter of months I was recieving over 100 stories a day from teachers, parents, and students all around the world, and this was the start of my influencer career. A year later I would have 3 million+ followers across my TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram platforms. I would be the host of a podcast that was bought by an organization within 3 months of its creation and I would be in the planning stages of my first childrens chapterbook.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

In the last year I have had a lot of fun, interesting, and surreal moments. However my favorite would be the moment I realized I was truly making a difference for young women. This was May of 2021, we were in another city for my little brother’s college graduation. My family went to a local brewery and decided to sit outside. I offered to get some togo boxes for my parents and as I was walking towards the building, a small child ran smack into my leg and grabbed onto me. I was stunned for a moment and saw her mother running behind her screaming “I TOLD YOU NOT TO RUN UP TO STRANGERS! I am so sorry my daughter is just convinced she knows who you are, I kept telling her she was mistaken”. The little girl looks up at me and without hesitation says “I do know you, you’re Mrs. Rogers on TikTok. I watch you every single morning when I wake up.” I was still stunned, this girl had to be at most 8 years old, but I smiled at her, nodded and told her that she was right. I was Mrs. Rogers! I gave her a big hug, asked her her name, and her mother was ecstatic. Her mom told me ever since watching my videos she has loved school, and wanted to make her teachers proud. She said that one day she wanted to be just like me, a teacher, to help better the world. I have had a lot of cool moments as an influencer. I’ve been in Harry Potter fanfic films, been to Miss America, met Howie Mandel, but knowing I was reaching young girls and was becoming the positive role model I have always wanted to be will always be the coolest.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Drive — This is not easy work. Creating a business/brand, becoming successful, it doesn’t just happen overnight. No fairy godmother to wave her wand or snap her fingers. You have to be willing to put in the work to make it happen. Let’s take just creating content for example. You have to figure out what is trending. You have to find content people like and will watch. Create your idea, plan out a script, do the actual filming, edit all the footage, and that is the beginning. You then need to figure out what kind of caption will catch people’s eye, what hashtags are going to help this video and which ones will hurt. Then what time of day should you post? What do the analytics say? You then have to do this for every single different platform, because all of them are going to have different kinds of demand. All of that for just ONE video. It is a lot of work! Many people don’t realize the kind of work that goes into content creation, but just like any business you have to have the drive to WANT to put in the work. Otherwise… what is the point? If you are unhappy, is it really worth it?

Consistency — Okay GREAT, you decided you have the DRIVE to pursue this business/brand… Now you need the consistency. Consistency is going to be one of the first steps to creating a community, your audience/customers. If people know you are going to give them new product on a certain day, whether it be content or anything else, they are going to come to expect it. That is a good thing!! It can be stressful, but it is a very good thing. Consistency makes you likable and reliable. They know “OH I have to be ready on Monday because I want to see what ____ has in store” “I need to be ready on Fridays before all of the new products are sold out” “I want to be the first to comment so that my comment has the most likes”. If you are inconsistent, no one knows to look for you.

Approachable — I think being approachable is INCREDIBLY important to my, and many others’ success. My whole brand is about being relatable and creating a community within my platforms. I am everyone’s “social media teacher”. I want students to feel like they can ask me questions. I want teachers to know I see them. I want supportive parents to know they are appreciated. Half of my content comes from hundreds of story submissions I recieve on a daily basis. If I was not approachable, who would try to contact me for stories? What kid wants to go to class with a teacher who looks mean? What teacher wants to be validated by someone who is stuck up? What parent wants their kid in the classroom with an unapproachable teacher? No one won an award for being the most stuck up business owner. When you are humble, and approachable, people are more likely to WANT to support you. When they relate to you, they see your success as their success. Talk to your customers, ask for feedback, respond to comments. I promise, creating that community is only going to benefit you.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. The premise of this series assumes that our society still feels uncomfortable with strong women. Why do you think this is so?

I live in the South. I can absolutely tell you why that is. There are many in this world who feel women should not be working. There are many who feel that women should be doing housework and watching children. There are even more who truly believe a woman cannot do as well as men in the workplace. Now of course, these are not absolute statements. Just as not all men share these sexist beliefs, there are some women who do. The idea of a powerful woman can be weird and even scary for some of these individuals.

Without saying any names, can you share a story from your own experience that illustrates this idea?

I have so many! First of all some of the most asked questions I get on a daily basis is “do you have kids”, “when will you have kids” and “why don’t you want kids”. I give the same answer every single time. Why is it so hard for people to understand I have no interest on putting my career on pause just to have children right now.

I have had a colleague genuinely ask me if my husband was okay not only with me making more money than him, but if my husband was comfortable with other men on the internet watching my videos… I am a full grown adult who runs around with a watermelon filter on my head.

What should a powerful woman do in a context where she feels that people are uneasy around her?

Keep smiling. That is it. Do not change a thing about what you are doing. If people around you feel uneasy, sounds like a personal problem to me. Do not let their outdated ideas make you think or feel any lesser of yourself. YOU are a POWERFUL woman. They can either deal with it, or leave the room.

What do we need to do as a society to change the unease around powerful women?

The only way to change it is to create more of them. Those who are uneasy around powerful women have not been around enough powerful women for it to become “normal” for them. To fix this, we simply need to flood the market. Virtual learning was really weird for about a week. Then it became routine. If someone sees a powerful woman every day, its not going to surprise them to see another.

In my own experience, I have observed that often women have to endure ridiculous or uncomfortable situations to achieve success that men don’t have to endure. Do you have a story like this from your own experience? Can you share it with us?

I hate everything about this idea, that women have to allow ridiculous or uncomfortable situations to achieve success. I refuse to allow it. I refuse to ever allow myself to be in a situation where I am bullied, compromised, undermind by anyone just because I am a woman and they feel they should be able to do so. That is what I want to do with my platform, show girls it is absolutely possible to achieve your dreams without any of those things. Did someone say I should show more skin? Block. Did someone tell me to “get back to the kitchen”? Block. Is someone being sexist or mysoginistic in any way shape or form in my comments, in my DMs, or in my email? Screenshot. Send to employer. Block. Do not put up with it. To not entertain it. That is what I want to show girls. You can do it without subjecting yourself to anything ridiculous or uncomfortable.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women leaders that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

I think the biggest challenge is that many women were not given the idea from our parents that we could conquer the world the way our male counterparts are. When we look at how parents talk to young boys VS young girls… its so different. Luckily in more recent days, it is changing! But when I look back to when I was younger… Many parents telling girls they could be a teacher, or a nurse, whereas their brothers get doctor or lawyer. So many women don’t have that early confidence boost, or even the idea that they could do more if they really wanted to, simply because no one even thought to put the idea in their head that they could be absoltuely anything they wanted to be.

Let’s now shift our discussion to a slightly different direction. This is a question that nearly everyone with a job has to contend with. Was it difficult to fit your personal and family life into your business and career? For the benefit of our readers, can you articulate precisely what the struggle was?

Originally I knew teaching would be a really great job for me to have a better work/life balance. I grew up wanting kids so badly and once I got settled in my job and got married it just wasn’t as much of a priority for me as I thought it would be. Once social media took off I really enjoyed traveling for new opportunities, and I decided I am not quite ready for kids yet. Of course it absolutely baffles people in my hometown that I would rather see how high I can climb career wise than change everything to have a child right now. But that is okay, they can be baffled! I also know many amazing mommas in the social media world that DO do it all WITH kids. One of my podcast co-hosts has a daughter, and she misses her tremendously when she travels! She has a great support system at home to watch her when she needs. My husband is really supportive of my journey. When he is able he comes on business trips with me and acts as my “super assistant” as he calls it. I honestly don’t think it would be possible for someone to be MORE supportive of me and my goals, and that is how it should be. I am out of town a lot but we just make sure to make time for date nights while I am home. My husband will schedule softball games with his friends while I am gone and its a win-win for everyone. He isn’t just waiting around for me to come back home, and he gets to spend a lot of time with his friends while I am away so he keeps the weekends I am home completely open for us to spend time together. Now to be completely honest, social media is a lot of work, and at the beginning it was hard for me to figure out how much time I should be spending on everything I was doing. Even when I wasn’t traveling for a while my nose was completely stuck on my phone. I got lazy with house cleaning, we started eating out more because I struggled to find time to cook, I was going to bed super late, and my husband missed me spending time with him. It took a lot of time management skills to find a good equilibrium for when I was home so that I could achieve the worlk/life balance I so desperately wanted and NEEDED.

What was a tipping point that helped you achieve a greater balance or greater equilibrium between your work life and personal life? What did you do to reach this equilibrium?

My husband is lucky enough to work from home, he is an attorney and many of our court systems here are still online so he does trials from his office here. I work when he works! Sometimes he will have trials until 5pm, sometimes he is done by 3pm if someone cancels or doesn’t show up. We play it by ear each day and make it a priority to at the end of the day turn it all off and spend time together. Of course when things need to be done there are exceptions. Sometimes I have a big brand deal or bit meeting or something that cannot be moved and I have to work extra. It is going to happen. But when you work on your time management and set up a schedule that creates a healthy work/life balance, having those exceptions every now and then is not a huge deal.

I work in the beauty tech industry, so I am very interested to hear your philosophy or perspective about beauty. In your role as a powerful woman and leader, how much of an emphasis do you place on your appearance? Do you see beauty as something that is superficial, or is it something that has inherent value for a leader in a public context? Can you explain what you mean?

I think the emphasis of beauty should go as far as your own self-confidence. I think each woman should be able to look in the mirror and like what they see. You can do as much or as little to make that happen. For example my hair. I have people tell me all the time I should dye it, or do a middle part. I get it, those are trending things right now! But I don’t want to. My entire career is about being online and on a camera, but I am not going to change my appearence for other people. I want to feel comfortable in my own skin. There are times when I wake up and I think “oh my skin looks great today, I feel good to post videos without makeup” and other days I wouldn’t get a camera near me without a little makeup because that is just how I fel that morning. And I think that is important! There are so many different beauty standards across the world, so why morph yourself into anyone else’s but your own? I have seen a lot of professional models online take photos of what their skin REALLY looks like before all the editing done in photos for magazines, and I think that is so incredibly healthy for young girls to see.

How is this similar or different for men?

I honestly think men are more insecure than many of us realize. I think a lot of men want to look as buff as Chris Hemsworth, or even feel they need to try. I know a lot of men are really insecure about hairloss. I have some hairstylist friends who said when men come to get their hair cut, so many of them show photos of popular celebrities and say “I want my hair to look like his”. I know how often my own husband sits in front of the mirror trying to find the best way to style his hair. Again I think men are more insecure than a lot of women realize, I just think they have different beauty standards they feel the need to measure up to.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Powerful Woman?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

Knowledge — If you want to be powerful in your field, man or woman, you need to know what you are talking about. Do your research. For me that would be information on analytics and algorithims. I would not only reserach mine but other peopel’s as well. What is trending? What is not trending? What future trends can I predict based off of the current analytics? Another example, I have a video where a student says a bad word and I tell them not to cuss. The amount of comments calling me a “tyrant” for not allowing students to cuss each other out and “infringing on freedom of speech”… So, I made a response and went over the exact wording of the first amendment, and the Supreme Court decisions that clarify that YES, schools CAN limit lewd and vulgar speech on campus. You cannot negate facts. Be knowledgeable in your content area. Do not let other’s misinformation belittle you.

Determination — It is going to be a lot of work, and you NEED to be determined in order to get it all done. You need the work ethic and the consistency to rise to the top. It is not going to happen on its own, and no one is going to do it for you. If you want to be powerful, you have to give yourself the power. I have a platform of over 3 million people. I have a lot of people’s eyes and ears. But it didn’t just happen beacuse I asked nicely for it, or even just wanted it. I put in the work. I made content every single day. I responded to comments every single day. I researched every single day. I went live consistently. I sought out opportunities, I put myself in situations in order to help me thrive. Again, no one is going to do it for you, you have to have the determination to make it happen.

Confidence — Once you put in the work, OWN IT. Know you worked hard. Know you did a fabulous job. Know you are thriving. There are going to be so many people who are jealous of your success, and who will try to belittle you for it. Do not let them. Just like I said before, block. Do not allow someone to take your hard work away from you. If your business is the top 5 in the area, do not allow anyone to make you feel like you’re in 6th place. If you have 10k followers, do not allow anyone to make you feel like its 9999. People are going to try and pull you down either out of their own insecurities, jealousy, or desperation. Do not allow them. Period. I once had a guy at a company I was doing a collab with tell me “oh wow, you have a lot of TikTok followers. It would take someone multiple years to get to 1 million on YouTube, TikTokers have it so easy”. My response? “If it is so easy, why don’t you do it?” And just beacuse I could, I went ahead and started a YouTube channel. In less than a year we are almost at 1 million.

Support System — It is okay to ask for help sometimes. It can be collaboration, it could be an ear to vent, it could be asking someone to take your mind off the project you’re stuck on. Your support system is so important. It doesn’t even have to be people, it could be a pet. I just think it is really important to have someone or something in your life that makes you feel love and supported. I often joke about “I work hard so that my cats can live the life they deserve”. It is okay to not be okay all of the time, and having someone there to support you during those times is going to be crucial to your mental health. If you are not taking care of yourself mentally, you are not reaching your full potential, which takes me to my last point.

Boundaries — BOUNDARIES ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. You need these. Period. And they can be completely unique to you! Whether you refuse to work over the weekends, or you refuse to work past a certain of the day, whatever it is, do what you need to do and stand your ground! I have my own set of boundaries surrounding my line of work in social media. I wont go live over the weekends unless my husband has plans, that it time I dedicate to family. My page is a safe space for everyone, I refuse to talk about politics or religion. Period. If someone keeps asking me questions that are crossing my boundaries I just mute them. On another safe space note, I wont take brand deals with companies not fit for kids. This CBD gymmy company keeps sending me requests to make videos with them. No, I as a teacher am not going to make videos about CBD gummies. Another company that wont stop reaching out is one for adult toys. Absolutely not. Stop emailing me. Other boundaries I have is I don’t allow people to bully me into putting them in my content just so they can gain exposure. That is a boundary I set, I wont allow myself to be exploited just because someone wants to be in a video that will get lots of views. Set your own boundaries tailored to your line on work, and what is best for you and your family.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Honestly I feel a lot of my success is inspired by Taylor Swift. She has always been a powerful woman icon to me, I have followed her since I was a middle school aged girl. One of my favorite quotes of hers is “if men don’t want me to write bad songs about them, they shouldn’t do bad things”. A lot of my content calls out abusive behavior in the school system, whether it be by students, parents, administrators, or other teachers. That is exactly how I feel about my videos. Taylor Swift, in my opinion, is such a powerful role model, and I myself will always look up to her. If i was ever given the opportunity to interact with her I know that would be the absolute best day of my entire life!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.