Gabrielle Judge - Founder & CEO of Tula and The Anti-Work Girl Boss | The Anti-Work Girl Boss

The concussion gave me a lesson. It's like either the lesson comes in like two to three decades or it's like that traumatic event that you're referring. You don't have to work 50 hours, 60 hour work weeks. You don't have to be like 23 spending your Friday night making a presentation with your CEO. Everybody feels like they have to put in those hours because if not, then there's going to be 50 other grads that are coming through that are going to easily replace you no problem. So how do you find control and comfort in creative process and thought when your life was so regimented? If I'm going to employ someone that I want to push their performance, it's always going to be a commission based role. During COVID, I think who got exposed? I think CEOs got exposed. I think shitty CEOs got exposed everywhere. Now I think like the whole organizational unit is being exposed. They're not going to admit that their whole business is flawed just because they're like squeezing every last ounce of effort and soul out of a person. Welcome to success story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. HubSpot has been a huge supporter of the show for over three years now. And I'm a big fan of HubSpot because not only do they support the show, but they support entrepreneurs, they support founders and obviously building businesses, working with entrepreneurs has been a huge part of my career. And building is never easy. HubSpot is not only tools and technology that supports entrepreneurs, but they also offer tons of resources and discounts. But first, what is HubSpot if you've never used it before? It is the platform that unites your entire front office from marketing the sales to support. It's the platform, the streamlines are support tickets, it generates more leads, it increases your sales. It is the platform that scales right alongside you. Don't even get me started on the educational articles, industry reports, the videos, tips, templates, literally everything startup founders need to help scale HubSpot for startups has it all. Building a business is tough. Maybe make it a little bit easier on yourself. Visit HubSpot.com slash startups to see how much you can save and see how much you can learn. So I think this is the best question to ask you in the most philosophical way possible. Are you lazy? No, and yes. No one yes, right? So am I lazy as I don't work? No, work a lot, unfortunately. Well, like it's a good thing and it's fun too. But I would say when it comes to the lazy and the context that I talk about it, like working smart or not harder, saying no to things that just literally don't move the needle in your life, like all of that stuff. Yeah, I'm lazy. When when you started putting out content, there was like a super meaningful thing that happened in your life. So going through your backstory, you had a concussion. Yeah. And that was like the meaningful event that prompted sort of this journey. I want you to sort of walk me through that, but I'm also very curious why people need to go through these kinds of events to make significant change in their life. Yeah, so I think the it's either like a really slow burn, right? Like I feel like the lesson, right? Because the concussion gave me a lesson. It's like either the lesson comes in like two to three decades, or it's like that traumatic event that you're referring to. And I think that's really weird how it works out that way. They're both lessons. It just depends on how you approach and how you feel about it. But for context for me, I got a concussion April of 2021. And it was like spooky timing. It was like the weirdest thing ever. So I was at my very very first like consulting job. And so what was happening was I was celebrated externally for having this job. It was like the great benefits in the American dream. And it was like leveraging my degree that I got in technology and things like that. And what was happening was I was super burnt out. And I didn't understand that you don't have to work 50 hours, 60 hour work week. So you don't have to be like 23 spending your Friday night, making a presentation with your CEO, like you don't have to do that. And I did, but everybody does that. This is like this is like the natural crash like progression into a career, which it's not fun. Yeah, but like especially like those early years right out of college university. Everybody feels like they have to put in those hours because if not, then there's going to be 50 other grads that are coming through that are going to easily replace you no problem. And also, it's like it's your first time making more than like what $15 an hour, right. Yeah. No, I'm just very curious about like why your pathways different than so many other people's because you did you have a concussion and and that changes your view on life. But ultimately, there's a lot of people that have traumatic events in their life. And they don't 180 pivot into yeah, not just like content creation, because it's been like YouTubers for a minute, but it's like you picked a very specific path that was almost like, you know, like rage against the machine kind of when it comes to your content. I think the concussion rewired beer or something like that. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good thought process. I mean, for me, it's like I was raised to embrace like workaholism, I was raised by blue collar people. I there's a lot of almost like trauma. I would say my childhood lots of domestic violence and things like that. So for me, it was like, if I can't control everything that's happening around me, I can control the external validation of working. So I taught myself that really young. That was like a safety for me. So interesting. Yeah. So then what happened was when I got the concussion, you know, it was very logical. It was very in my head. I was very much like do the responsible thing for like, I don't know, I started working. I was like 14 to now, literally the concussion was just this freak accident. It was the day after one of the like the biggest projects of my career at that time. It was huge. It was for like a really giant brand today. I flipped upside down on the ice April 20th, 2021. It was a fun date and like, I don't know. And so I think it was just, you know, whatever you believe in, like whoever is it is above us, like basically just saying like stop using your brain. Like enough with that, like what the heck do you really want to do? You know, and so me being in my room for two months and actually like literally separating from work for the first time. And, you know, I had. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and it wasn't just a vacation. And I had so much PTO hours because, you know, I wasn't taking time off. So it was like, I didn't even need to go in short term disability. There was like so much of these hours that I could take. And just sitting in my room in the dark for two months, I just, I don't know what happened. So your perception of work was this is like the one thing that pre concussion was this was the one thing that I can control in my life. Yes, this is the one thing that The input equals the output. And if I put more in, I'll get more out of it. And this is like the career path. So concussion happens post concussion. The creator journey is wild and like it's manic at times. And it's almost like because we're both on it. And it feels like there's like zero control. So yeah, very much like seriously though. So when you need and crave that control, it's not like you had a 30 year career. And then you're like wake up one day and you're like, oh my god, like my life's almost half over, whatever. So how do you find control and comfort in creative process and thought when your life was so regimented? I like that. I think Something that was really frustrating for me when I was at that job was that I felt like the job couldn't keep up with the ideas or the things that I wanted to do. And so I found a lot of freedom and confidence in content creation because the cool, well, it's cool. And it's not so cool. Sometimes that we wear so many hats, right? It's like we're like the brand person, the CEO, like the content, like there's just so much behind concentration, especially in the beginning, when you don't have resources to really find those teams for yourself that that was really comforting for me, because it was like, okay, well, if I do this full time by myself, I can at least control the output again in a different way. And I wasn't getting as many as I hated getting notes in corporate America where it was like, yeah, you can do this eventually or like, no, you're not going to get this right now. Eventually, like, I just didn't like that feeling. It made me feel like a lot of financial scarcity, a lot of I felt very limited. And so I just, I don't know, I felt more empowered in this like delusional content creation space. It's so wild to me that you felt you felt safer in a content creation space than like the salaried W2 9 to 5, you actually have a paycheck job. Yeah, that's like a 180 from what most people would consider to be the rational safe choice. Well, it took me a while to like make the full transition. So it was like the concussion happened. And then I got my lazy girl job that was like where my mindset and my ethos really started to happen was like two years ago, but it didn't happen. It was around like quiet quitting the nominal. Yeah, it was like the summer of 2021. So it was like the big great resignation time. Yeah, so it was super easy. Like, if you had a heartbeat and resume, it just jumped shift to like a great tech company, which was awesome. And I'm really grateful of that experience, but it was like, I wanted to prioritize like still having the stability of having a W, a W9 and having, you know, like a paycheck and things like that, but I wanted to really try out this content creation stuff. And so it probably took me, I don't know, like, a year and a half to make the full transition to full time content creation, but it was definitely the goal since the concussion. So it's okay. So I want to like super clearly articulate what lazy girl job is, because I sort of set the frame for everything else we're talking about. So a couple thoughts. I haven't worked in a position like that in a while, where I've worked under it, because I've worked in startup. So it's, yeah, it's especially in like an executive role. It's very hard to take like a lazy mentality when like 25 things daily dependent on you, like it's very much noticed, but in a large corporation, I could totally see how that works, but the concept is not quiet quitting. Concept to quiet quitting is very different, in my opinion, where it's like you already checked out of your job and you're looking and you're applying for the next one, whereas lazy girl job. Is that the best way to describe it is just you're doing the job is like written on your resume, but you're doing, is it bare minimum, or is it, is it just what's expected, because I also feel like this came from, again, I'm removed from that type of rule. But I feel like this came from the fact that there was like scope creep in job descriptions, like to it like a significant degree. And I don't, I don't know if that was really present when I was working. So I feel like when I'm working in nine to five and I'm doing the job, especially in like a sales role, for example, I hit my numbers. That's what I'm responsible for. There's there's no scope creep. It's not like I'm doing engineering on the side, or I'm not doing other things. I'm just doing my job. And you feel like there's significant scope creep in work. And then it's like lazy girl is actually not lazy is actually bringing it back to baseline as to like this is what you're actually getting paid to do. Is that fair? That's a great way to put it. I always want to say the bare minimum, but I feel like that creates the story of like not doing your job. But I really just mean what you're saying the opposite of scope creep. So it's like focusing on the job responsibilities and eliminating the unnecessary work that tends to usually happen in corporate America. And just a quick thought experiment. Why would this happen post COVID? Why did this scope creep happen? Like give a give a very tangible example. If I'm sure people reach out to you all the time now with like bullshit, their company asks them to do that is totally not. Yeah, things they should be doing. Because it seems to be a phenomenon that's affecting everybody. I don't know if has to do with working from home. People don't have the same emotional attachments. So they're seen as like just just quote air quotes, just employees as opposed to like real people. Like you miss that in person. You know, I can I can see you in the office. I even want to treat you with respect and like all of a sudden I'm just treating you like a peon, whatever it is. I have no idea why it happened, but it seems to be super prevalent. Employers, I don't think ever changed in this whole pandemic era. I think employees woke up to a different way of working because typically we weren't able to remote work. That was usually more reserved for. I don't want to say like it's a bureaucratic system, but higher level positions could remote work, but that was more of a case by case basis, but it became normalized. So I what I saw what I saw actually happened was employees woke up to the freedom and having autonomy around their work schedule. So when the workplace tried to transition back into, you know, the normal before the pandemic, they're trying to use all these levers that don't work anymore. So there's there's that a lot. Also, it's very easy now to play the game of well, we don't have raises available right now, but when we do we want to put in a good word for you. So do this work now like that's a huge huge argument. Yeah, but then it's like they could dangle that carrot forever because there's an argument to be made totally the counter argument is, okay, if I was like a hiring manager or you know leader in an organization like I would I would promote the person that goes the extra mile. Yeah. So I think this whole concept you have to start sort of like figuring out what your personal North star is to yes, yes, so I really love what you just said right there because I feel the exact same way. So the way or the reason that I'm so jarring with my messaging is because I'm combating like another extreme side I'm trying to get people in the equilibrium. So I when I sit there and say like don't do unnecessary work. I'm trying to bring back the people that are like getting the carrot dangled for way too long. I'm trying to get them back in the in the median. The median is what you're saying. So I still am okay with overachieving. I still encourage that in people. It's just it has to come from within and you make your bed with it. So it cannot be this whole all my boss wants me to do this. My coworkers will accept me more if I do this project and then you do it and you resent everyone and everything because you didn't want to do it to begin with. So it's either like you opt into the the game and play it really well and you know make your bed with that or if you're not a careerist or not necessarily into this stuff, then like here's an option to. But I totally agree with you that with that too. I think also as an employer today like because I actually do have staff members if I'm actually going to him. If I'm going to employ someone that I want to push their performance it's always going to be a commission based role and I know that that's not always achievable in these bigger corporate structures right these late stage tech companies they can't make like every single position a commission based job and I understand that. They can do performance based so I know I know executives again Canadian so at Canadian Telco big one it's Rogers and they're like a Verizon AT&T whatever kind of company and every executive has performance tied to company performance and stock performance and tied to organized like organization a unit performance to like that's part of your year and bonus. So yeah it's not like commission per se but it's tied to what your group does what your own KPIs and if you like sort of achieve and and you know what not. But then there's also there's always some sort of incentive bonus that incentivizes people to like go the extra mile is that. But how would you do that with like a project manager. You know what I mean like there's certain roles where I'm like they're just as important but it's hard to monetize their output. It is because there's only so much you can get out of that person and it could actually be a negative effect if you incentivize. Then to the degree where they're they have to move faster because either they're it's going to be like a sweatshop style environment or they're going to try and mask city work to me quicker to okay so I see what you're saying. Yeah okay but how do you okay so in a situation like that then what do you do I don't know that's why I make so much content. I don't know that's the cool and exciting thing is like these are the the mind games are like it's almost like a. I don't know like a brainstorming session that I like to do almost with myself because I really try to reality check myself when I do make content. And it's like I don't know like that that it's the craziest part when I do speak to a lot of other friends that you know. Manage smaller teams of people 10 to 30 people it's like they're so focused on that to right now like how to creating how to create bonus structures with a job like a project manager were like risk assessment super important and like they shouldn't be pushed all the time so it's just yeah it's a super interesting concept but but I do believe that what. What I think pisses people off because you had like a massive amount of exposure because of like the like the like you said the word like lazy girl job like pisses people off that are business leaders but I think what it's actually doing is it's highlighting how dysfunctional many businesses are. So I think during COVID I think who got exposed I think CEO's got exposed I think shitty CEO's got exposed everywhere CEO's that had no business running a business and now I think like the whole organizational unit is being exposed as like this is broken. And the only reason why we're succeeding is because we're getting a hundred and fifty percent out of every single employee and we're not copying them for the actual work they do that's not a functioning business but that's never going to be something that's received well from a CEO like they're not going to admit that their whole businesses are just because they're like squeezing every last ounce of effort and soul out of a person but then you have to start to like okay how many of these business models are functional and how many of them are just basically like masking this like slave-esque labor yes that they've deployed and as like a norm right because yeah you're getting a salary but like at the end of the day like if you're putting in time Friday night. This is not new this is like look at like look at people in finance it's like the norm it's it's almost it's almost it's not even it's not even it's not even something that people complain about because you're just expected as like an analyst put in a hundred hours. This is how like that whole industry works should that totally be revamped yes I believe so because I don't think that's healthy at all and I do believe that the way that we lead should be different one of the one of my favorite thoughts towards leadership is create a contract with somebody so create a contract meaning that say that you're going to get two years out of them they're not going to be with you for 50 years but two years of their best work with your organization and like a line on where they want to go after and if it's creator if it's another company fine but you create this like bidirectional contract with them so that you both get the best out of those like year and a half or two years where they're with your organization and you align on like the goals that person's going to have. This is so fascinating okay so it's but it is a thought experiment because I think a lot of people I think a lot of people have just had like this is knee jerk. Yes reaction to it as opposed to like going deep so let's even talk about let's talk about like you know your journey as a creator the exposure you've gotten good and bad. How has that affected you did you expect that to any degree how are you navigating sort of this you I know you've spoken a different journalist and whatnot that's wild that's like a whirlwind of exposure. Yeah very very quickly. Yeah I feel like I did everything backwards but I always want to stop myself when I say that because what the heck does that even mean. You know some of it was just super crazy but the cool thing is I think you really highlighted highlighted lazy girl jobs really well where it was like I sat in the knee jerk space to create a bigger. A space for conversation yeah right like I tried to prompt a different conversation about work and so I always find that the leaders that I look up to in this space like Gary V Grand Cardone like all these people they know how to sit in the polarization to create a bigger message. Yeah so I picked up on that pretty well when I was in college I'm studying like how to do this stuff on YouTube all day. So I was like okay well work is very triggering for people money is super triggering for people earned income and your own psychology around that is very tied into yourself worth and your perception of yourself. So and also I'm a young woman talking about money and work to you know so that's a whole other bias to it so I was like how can I leverage this stuff. So the past year or so I've been making content that has been somewhat getting mentioned in the news to a certain extent because I do talk about work and kind of these like anti work concepts that we usually categorize it as. So for me like I don't know I was I was not intending for it to go this viral but I knew that it would you know at least get picked up by like the daily dot or something like that. But it went it went massively viral yeah and even so I won't name like the name of the journalist that you spoke to but you even said like before coming on this podcast you're speaking to a journalist that equated lazy girl jobs to the state of the economy. Yeah it is so missed and so misunderstood by so many people it's very very confusing and I think that the whole attachment to money to nine to five to job as like a matter of this is this is how we identify our self worth as individuals. It's a very dangerous thing to do. And you're rewarded to think that way too. You are so I will talk about like this whole creator journey in a second but just to sort of sort of tie a bow in this when you realize it's so many people's worth is tied to their work and the amount of money they make and that's sort of how they they identify as being like successful or whatever. How do we how do we remove that how do we like remove the nine to five as this centerpiece is like idle that we worship in our life. So it's a big it's a big pill to swallow and also like being raised American you're you're incentivized to think this way immediately like I don't know how it is in Canada but I mean like you're talking my dream job similar but less on Europe very much less on your terms of like their focus on work. Yeah, which I've heard London's like an increasing crazy about that one's like a finance cap like i'm talking about it's true. Like let's go to Italy like if you go to Italy right no one's working on a Friday afternoon yeah that's true maybe London like downtown you'll be working but not Italy. No offense to Italians like you have a great life and it's anywhere really I mean even last year I went to Austria and. Like we're there with friends and they were looking at me like I had three heads because I was answering emails on like a Friday at 12 o'clock oh my gosh that's hilarious so. Talking oh how do we remove like how do you remove the nine to five from yeah so I mean that's where so I hate talking about work life balance the amount that I do because I literally talk about it every single day multiple times a day and just I don't even know what that word means at the end of the day but. Here's the here's the issue that happened with work life balance so work life balance is a solution to your answer what you're saying in short but the issue is that work life balance got. Packaged into something that it's not so companies heard millennials for less like 10 to 15 years and they go okay we hear you want work life balance for these big corporations did is. You don't have to take time off your dentist appointment you can just take a long lunch this work life balance right like they did stuff like that so that was where it got kind of frustrating so. When I'm talking about work life balance I'm really trying to redefine the word where it's not necessarily like time it's just the attitudes that you have every day and the the importance that you. Give to these external things so kind of back when we were like first initially talking it's like I was so sold on this idea of like i'm going to be happy i'm going to be all right i'm going to be successful if I get this project on time i'm going to be happy and successful if this right it's like this whole. Hypothesis that I've like created in my mind and like i'm rewarded for that system so I really try to break that down where it's like what does career success actually look like for you I try to make that conversation really cool with women where it's like maybe it's not climbing the corporate ladder in your HR career like maybe you use you do 80% effort in that job but like you're actually a painter. And like that's actually what you want to do with your life and what if you actually find other ways to monetize that too on the side and like what when that be so cool. So I try to I try to foster more curiosity in what you truly want to do and try to detach from the idea of like a corporate ladder that you must climb and if you don't you're unsuccessful i love this. So there's actually a concept and it's actually just wrote a newsletter which is why it's so top of mind but it's like telek and atelic activities whereas telek activities are tied to outcomes always tied to outcomes and so many people's self worth gets tied to these like telek activities versus atelic which is. painting a picture going for a stroll like stargazing reading a book whatever it's all these things that there doesn't have to be this like tangible finish line to them but it provides so much more comfort because in these work activities you reach the next promotion you want the next one and the next one and the next one and you become CEO the company you realize it's an investor that's worth. You know 100 million dollars or a billion dollars and you realize that okay well now i'm CEO of a company but i'm not worth what that person's worth and i haven't i don't have a portfolio of you know 25 different startups that i've invested so like to attach yourself worth to tangible outcomes all the time it's like a super toxic never ending cycle that you can get everybody gets wrapped up in right yeah. One more thought and we sort of the answer on this as well but i thought it was a really interesting really interesting point corporations received by one get one deals on labor when we commit to stretch projects ago unnoticed. Your employers getting a bogo you know what i mean like i try to paint that so well with gen z kiddos just because i think it's so important like gen xers really understand my message when i'm talking about that stuff but gen z is like. Yeah but they just don't have the resources to hire someone else right now they laid off their team and that's why i should take on that position like they truly believe it and like with good intention right and i have to be like because i at least understand you know just other stuff that you and i do separately like i can i've seen some big pn else like in my life. And it's like i can i understand how budgets really work like they have the budget they totally have the budget for someone else it's just because you're teaching them that you will do the work they're not going to find that extra person for you when you're actually doing yourself a disservice because you're stretching yourself then you're not going to get any projects executed correctly so if you're so worried about. Overachieving and being the top performer you can't top perform if you're doing the hat of five other people and if you do want to do that route then go be an entrepreneur and like. You know for yourself own it on a hundred percent of your building okay so you were talking about you know not tying all yourself worth outcomes all the time great you took a transition in your life from. Person is working for a company to creator you start to create and you start to enjoy it and then there's passion attached to it then all of a sudden you start to make money and then all of a sudden now there's tangible outcomes again so when you look at your journey. How do you make sure that the job of the creator does not turn into a worse job than what you had before where's your north star where's your happiness come from when you create. Oh I really like that question so it changes a lot so for me it's always how much do I have in the tank ask myself that every day I if I'm if it's under a hundred percent I will check in a few times a day and I'm okay now saying notice stuff if even if it makes sense like I'm just in this word spot right now in October my whole goal right now is like and intuitively. Following what I'm going to say yes or no to that's really big for me right now because I could literally go talk my face off at like every person that wants to talk to me right now which I'm so so grateful for I'm not really trying to you know what I mean like I'm not trying to talk to speak ill of any of that it's so great but it's like does Gabrielle really need to be doing that like where is you know the first thing that I should be doing today stuff like that so actually like as a short answer like looking into. That it's probably it's so hard with the content creation stuff because basically the whole job is like our stats are very public like you can see your engagement you can see your views you can see the person next use views so for me it's like am I happy with the output that's actually being output it today and if it's happy with your work yeah you happy with your work and if it if I get too many knows in a day I either take a three day weekend or I talk to someone. And just try to like talk it out what do you mean when you get too many knows in a day like if I'm happy with your work repeatedly like you record something and it just doesn't hit you look you watch it back whatever no it's more like like that happens regardless right so I don't I try not to trip up too much about that stuff but if it's like if I ask myself like truly are you happy with what you're doing today and if the Steve jobs used to do this so that was a big tactic that he did when he was building apples he would ask himself in the mirror every morning am I happy with what I'm doing and if he got too many knows in a row. He would make a change it was a pretty like big strategy but I really really enjoyed that that really resonated with me I did a like a paper on him in college for my degree and I thought it was super interesting so I will do that I literally will ask myself like am I happy today and if there's too many knows in a day like it's I'm either burnt out I'm playing the comparison game or I'm letting other brands or partners or whatever kind of take the show is usually my three pillars I love this as a creator you've identified now I'm assuming what gives you energy and what doesn't so when people say that you're turning opportunities to speak in front of you know maybe an audience maybe maybe on a podcast maybe you know mainstream news whatever it is like the things that are sort of like the big brand building thing because you'll always maintain your output as a creator I've seen you're saying you always maintain your output so even if you don't post one day which I don't think through maybe there's some days you don't post but on every single platform ever but I mean you always have like a cadence but we're talking about sort of the bigger things yeah you manage sometimes you say no to those so you're sort of creating this like safe space you know that you can operate within that you're happy with yeah what are the things that you look for that are sort of red flags it you know it seems like a good opportunity it could be a massive energy draw it's not aligned with me whatever it is because I think that this I just want to unpack how your brain works because you've grown so quickly and again I know the names you can drop them if you want but I know the names of people that have reached out to you and maybe you don't want to talk about it that's fine but they're big ass names like their names it everybody who's listening to this would know the name of right and to say no to that it's just interesting because a lot of people would jump into that situation and maybe it wouldn't be the best possible thing for them so you're so conscious about this I think you're a good example for creators who have to protect themselves because there is no manager managing you there is no your parents didn't do this right it's like this is all you figuring it out for the first time really ever there's no blueprint isn't that the craziest part too about it I always wish like I could just refer to like a blueprint sometimes and I'm like oh my goodness so if I can't show up authentically to that invitation it's a no like and you know I'll play the scenario in my head so if it's certain it could be because of energy red I don't have the energy for it right now I'm not going to have acid it's just going to show up weird I already have like kind of a reserved demeanor about myself so I really have to like keep energy to like keep that open and stay expressive so it's super important to me to like maintain that to timing so like timing is so important in our business so if it's just if it's coming before something that you should be doing yourself does that make sense like if you're going on a Sam going on like a TV streaming thing is that the best timing or should I be doing something on my own where I control the narrative first and then do that invitation right so I try to think about the timeline of of how people will perceive my brand because that's super important for me and then also like who are they like are they actually going to invite my messages and what I want to say or is it going to be more of like me I don't know defending myself because that's like not super funny either but also like putting myself out there and and what I do I'm not afraid of defending myself it's just are they giving you a fair chance to represent what you believe in yeah like are those four hours of me doing that actually going to create any type of inspiration in my community or strengthen my brand or yeah let me feel let me articulate myself correctly or is it just going to be like I don't know what you would say no I know I hear what you're saying and I feel like it's really just protecting protecting yourself yeah because you don't have an army behind you so you're protecting yourself you're protecting your message you're wondering okay if I do this is it going to be taken into context or is it going to be a net positive on the community that I'm serving and you again you're just sort of like focusing on your customer all the time which are the people to consume your content yeah and then like lastly like it's like it's really just about with with PR I think it's really about making sure that the person who's interviewing you is going to give you a fair chance to speak through your message which I think is a really important thing yeah especially when you have like a very provocative message right and there's sort of two groups that I think people have to sort of learn how to deal with so it could be external media as an individual creator it's not easy to navigate that but also brands because I see a lot of brands screwing over creators and not being fair with how they position sponsorships and deals this is something that I've heard from tons of different independent creators and you have some business experience there's people that have zero business experience that are just pure creator they're also trying to navigate so talk to me about being this indie creator working with different brands different things you have to navigate I know that there was even you even put a tick talk out about this really sketchy offer that one brand put out there was like daily posts or something like that for like $50,000 it was like you deal with all this stuff so maybe just a couple you know insightful words of wisdom for creators yeah when they're going out and they're trying to sell and monetize themselves and I also then we'll talk about like strategies to do that but I also want the red flags first oh okay I got what you're saying like red red flags when it comes to brand partners yeah yeah yeah exactly oh my gosh exposure doesn't pay gifts don't pay can't like you you cannot qualify for a home mortgage with a gift you know what I mean like you have to put your oxygen mask on and I think what happens in the content creation space or this influencer space whatever you want to call us is like we get so high off of the invitations and the emails and the oh this person wants to work with me and blah blah blah and it's like you cannot even buy assets with the things that they're trying to do they're not paying you like sometimes commission is great too but it's like they have the budget for more like you're also not only like the sales closer for them but like you're also like doing branding and actually you know going through like scripting you're being the model like you're being so many things like that has to be compensated to a certain extent depending on your relationship with the brand I'm trying to think of like more like clippy like stuff for concentrators though that would like be really good um so when you when you when you go and speak to brands yeah um you work with the agencies or do you usually work directly with brands um I would love to I would love to work with just the brand but unfortunately it's not the case not the case and they love to say oh our budget's only this I'm like that's weird because I know you took a lot of that money to say that my budget's this but yeah um so now so what happened with me we can talk about this actually because I think it'd be super interesting I had talent management um the like October to March of this year um and so I thought that that was the way to go I think that there's a huge math and concentration where it's like you have to have a manager or some type of talent agency in order to work with brands all you need to do is put an email address in your bio and then we'll come to you if they want to sell so if they want you to sell something like it's very easy um so what was happening was this agency was basically like yeah we'll manage your email inbox for 20% was basically what was going on it was just so ridiculous and so I was just like drowning like I thought that they were doing things and like nothing was getting done like it was such a I'm so grateful though that I had that lesson so early on in content creation though because now when I've done it's like I have my own team for that stuff because I literally was just like you're out of your mind like there is no ROI on this at all for me and I think what happens with content creators is if we don't have that business mindset we get trapped in that mm-hmm you know 100% we do we oh because we don't know any better right so this person was just basically saying we're gonna manage everything they weren't managing anything for 20% of whatever deals came in and then eventually just fire them to put everything yourself well I was okay with the level of service that was happening because I wasn't there wasn't any exclusivity to it in the beginning so it was basically just like I would bring them into any deal and like whatever but what happened is basically I was gaining a lot of followers it was right before the lazy girl job stuff that I was gearing up for so I was already I don't know probably getting at least like five to 10k followers a week which is pretty significant when you have like a smaller following account so they started to see that and then they were like oh well we're actually gonna do 20% of basically my IP so that would have been like speaking engagements and like I it was just before I did the lazy girl job thing so like thank god that I got out of that quickly but I was like oh my gosh you're crazy and I'm like this is why when you look at artists that you love today like Frank Ocean great artists not really an entrepreneur right and you go like what's happening with him or like why did his concert get executed in that way because he's an artist and he's not thinking about the business side of things and there's probably someone else not doing it correctly because they're not him and they don't care as much so it's like if you want something done correctly especially something so important like your income as a content creator you've got to do it yourself or you're gonna find the right people that are gonna do it for you I just want to take a second and give a shout out to HubSpot and the HubSpot podcast network that's who brings you this show every single week if you love success story you love some other great podcasts in the HubSpot podcast network like creator science it's one of my personal favorites it's hosted by Jay Klaus creator science goes behind the scenes of today's top creators they do interviews and Jay explores how creators like Tim Urban, James Clear, Tori Dunlap, Cody Sanchez are building their audiences today and honestly by learning how these creators make a living with their art and their creativity creator science really helps you gain the tools and confidence to do the same this is where I go from my playbook on how to learn from the best creators listen to creator science wherever you get your podcasts I think that's so powerful I think you always have to sell yourself yeah I believe that closing deals yourself is very important yes I think navigating that whole process from reaching out to people that you want to do business with that have invested in content creators in the same category as you yeah I'm doing a little bit of outreach fine eventually you'll systematize it and you'll bring somebody else in that can do it for you but doing that and going through that whole process and jumping on the zoom call and negotiating and sending an invoice and understanding all these like it's so simple for somebody that lives in business yeah but it's so alien and foreign for somebody that's never done it before but it's so important yeah because then you see the process this is like not even a creator you know lesson this is like an entrepreneurial lesson it's like do everything yourself first yeah and then you know what good looks like you'll figure it out so when you built this brand out started to monetize what's the path to monetization is it ads is it product is it you know I don't think you ever went to paid speaking route I know some people do that which to me is wild it seems like a lot of work but not yet because it's a lot of work yeah I know I've found the invitations and then I'm like I don't even know what price to put on this because it's so much more so much work I mean between the travel and the hotel and I think it's like yeah I've only heard one thing about how to price stuff you put a price if 50% of the people say no then it's a right price I like that that's it I like that GaryVee says if you said a price and they said okay initially like it was too low so something like that I think but yeah it's like so probably my first thing that I was monetizing was career coaching which makes me want to like cringe thinking back to it because not scalable is what I learned immediately to absolutely no expectations in it so they like a lot of people bless them I appreciate the the business but it's like it was like a Q&A for it was it was such a mess and so I was like I'm gonna try to do like career coaching and I was like 23 and I maybe had like 30k followers on TikTok and I was like that's what I'm gonna do and you know it made like a few grand a month and it was great and this was before brand deals I didn't have enough following to even like monetize it in that way and yeah I would just say if you're gonna actually like sell your time one-on-one make it just respect yourself respect the other person's time like make it and an irresistible offer charge correctly and that's it but that's not the route that I take anymore because it's just it's literally not for me um and then with brand deals I think my first brand deal was so bad that they didn't go afford with the video but they paid me a hundred and fifty bucks just as like I thank you so that was click out like two years ago what was the video you recorded was just not it or they didn't feel like your creative interpretation of what they wanted to accomplish I think the lottery okay that's so interesting because your version of creating is let's talk about this too your version of creating is very different than mine yeah and I actually immensely respect your version of creating and it scares the absolute shit out of me it scares me because in my mind I need like a system I need a system and I'm just about to say your system scares me really yeah I wish I had it to me it's so comfortable it's so comfortable because I never have to like guess I never have to be like oh shit I hope like I think of something clever to talk about today I'm like I don't have to talk about shit you're talking about everything I don't have to even be that interesting like this is like how my brain worked when I started my podcast yeah and like yeah I'm sure because I've gone on stages and I've spoken about shit before but I don't want to have to worry about that every single week to me it's very stressful to me the ideal content format outside of like podcasts where like I bring cool people on they talk about their story is like if I just had like a videographer because then yes then I don't have to worry about I don't have to think about creative stuff right I just live my life and if I'm just talking casually to people throughout the day they'll be like enough pieces that somebody could mash together into something but you have like this creative outlook on content so mine is it regimented like podcast once twice a week turns into everything else news letter turns into real turns into whatever every short form tweet everything you're like you pick up your phone I think you still use your phone yeah so you pick up your phone and you just go off on like some random fucking thing that's in your head and it like just hits yeah yeah it just hits is there any like any strategy or is this just like the the beauty of off the cuff content creation mixed with democratized access to potentially going viral via tiktok and other short form video because you could go off the cuff with a tweet the day one and I don't think you would go viral like you could on short form video yes yeah yeah I leave a lot of like money on the table views on the table whatever one we want to say because I don't have a system so I'm aware of that but what I do to counter that is I make sure that I post every day so when I was first growing just tiktok first I was doing three posts a day and I made sure that I was only doing that because of what you were talking about I was like I think I'm like leaving a lot of money on the table like not doing all platforms at once but for some reason my brain was like because it is weird like it's just picking up the fucking phone and being like you know what's crazy about this shit guys and like just going off about something and it's everywhere it's like anywhere in your house anywhere on the street and I'm like like it could you not like if a book is out of place I'm like oh this is like not cool I got like the center my camera which is like the most toxic yeah do you know how good it would be good for engagement though if like the book is there and then it's not for one frame do you know how many people would be like oh and like oh that's actually smart that's actually very smart do you know what I do sometimes my blue yeti microphone I never use it for recording just keep it this sometimes I keep it there and I turn it the wrong way and people get so mad at me and they start like man's planning like how the microphone works and then actually what happened recently was like an audio guy that's like all he does on tiktok he actually stitched it he's got like six-figure view like followers I don't know how many he had and he like sent all his army of people to come to the video and like he's so mad about you putting them like the wrong way social media is so strange yeah but it's so it's but it's so cool to be able to just pick up a phone and talk about something and put it out there like there's a lot of courage yeah versus like a scripted podcast mm-hmm not even scripted I mean it's like a casual conversation it's like probably not a scripted as like a youtube video or something that's like you know three hours of footage pressed down to 10 minutes mm-hmm but it's still like it's a pretty regimented process and then like the derivative clips are like good like you'll get like a 30 second talking head that will go onto tiktok or instagram but it's not going to be as good as if it's like original off the cuff content yeah yeah it's crazy I don't know and then the hardest part too is when I'm trying to collab with like friends and stuff because we'll be like what's your content schedule like next week and I'm like I don't even have anything planned for tomorrow like and I don't want to say that to people because that's crazy but it's true like I really I think I do actually I'm gonna get myself credit I do have a scheduled reel for tomorrow yeah but I think that you actually bring up a point yeah talk about talk about as a creator focusing on things that you like doing mm-hmm because I think that's lost I think in the in the listening to Gary V and to listening all these content creators sometimes you feel like you just have to do everything I mean that's how I felt mm-hmm I need to find a way to show up everywhere yeah so you mean like what do you mean specifically you create content the way you like to create content yeah yeah yeah and that's worked for you and it's allowed you to do it for a period of time yeah it's turned into an actual career yeah whereas I feel a lot of people create content for the sake of creating not for themselves and then they'll turn content they'll they'll for example they'll say like listen I hate writing I hate writing but I'm gonna write every day and I can't stand it and then they burn out after like three months mm-hmm because they don't like doing it whereas you you're like I don't give a shit about writing right now I'm not gonna I'm not gonna pretend that I want to start a newsletter or I want to start tweeting every day yeah create the content that I actually care about yeah I have limited energy I'm I'm not a super um I don't know yeah I'm you understand what I'm saying I do understand what you're saying because that's the thing too when people are like why aren't you on YouTube but I'm like because I like I can't like I can't do long farm and it's not me like doing a self-limiting belief I guess I should shift it to like I don't want to like I just literally don't want to this painful this podcast no no this is fine I love other people's podcasts because what happens is like I love to do podcasts but then someone has to edit it and I'm like oh my god who's doing that no it's great to be on peoples because then they just take care of it yeah just eating the shit and you're like oh my god there's such pretty reels thank you um no it's like yeah I don't know so I try to stay super self-aware because you know this like content creation is a long game it's a marathon like it is not if you're trying to go viral that's dope but what you also realize after you go viral a few times is like no one cares about you the next day anyways so it's like it's fucking ruthless like and also I think something too that I always told myself is like oh when I have X amount of followers or you know whatever when this happens like then I'll be rich or then I'll be happy because I still have that like conditioning in me a lot and it's like no fame or followers however you want to call these things attention arbitrage like it's a resource it is not nothing's guaranteed out of it so that's a game that you have to play too and I know people that like literally just like being micro influencers and are not trying to go viral and there's also something really special about that too because right now what what do you quote unquote sell you sell ad space like you do like claps yeah um you you are you comfortable talking about like how much you make okay so how much you make now with like brand deals yeah brand deals and so I for transparency I charge 5500 for one TikTok post okay um so typically I can do I can go all the way up to like eight of them a month but that's really crazy and hard for me to do so I typically do around like three to four of those um and then I also have digital products too so that one thing that I thought about really early on was actually creating like a sub brand so anti-work girl boss is like the brand from me and so the intention of that is to slowly take away my face from the messaging that I want um and we've talked about this a little bit of just like using AI and things of that nature for the messaging that I actually want to talk about it's very uh challenging sometimes being the face of everything that I want to say especially in like my personal life so um I try to create some form of like segregation or where like anti-work girl boss like is this clear offering for my community um and it also gives me freedom to show up and I want to and not show up and I don't want to um and then other ways that I do like user generated content I'll do it for myself personally it's hard to make it worth it because I'm not at the point where I'm like super recognizable but like there is something especially if you want to leverage like the lazy girl job thing with like career um brands and stuff like that that want to do you GC so that's hard for me to like make that worth my time and I usually burn out when I'm doing you GC um and then like I don't know what else am I doing right now that's about it but I'm really trying to focus on like meaningful subscription offerings too because I think that's the product base is like where you're where you're going yeah yeah okay you find that there's a there's a positive correlation between like follower growth and revenue or is that pure vanity after a certain point oh my goodness so like you're charging fifty five hundred a post yeah and you don't really have you have you have product funnel set up to a degree yeah but I'm do you notice like even when you look at analytics like his growth linear across follower increase week over week and for example um like product sales and conversions you see that level of granularity or is it too soon I think it's too soon because what happened was like I doubled my following um in a few months this year so it's it's still hard to like tell with that yeah but does it does it impact um like add uh or collaboration conversation oh yeah yeah like people I think people who are on content creators think like we get paid when we're like mentioned in the news that's what I get asked a lot from people like oh do you get paid by these people and it's like no that's why I asked you like a few months ago because I was like should I be getting like is that a thing um and like of course like down the road you can talk about that too if you want because that's an interesting yeah debate yeah and I like I've said I know you like two very different answers I did yeah I know yeah okay we'll go into that after so then no it's a good it's a good topic so then I was like yeah okay well I'm not gonna sit here and split hairs with the journalist because I'm like they have a job to do anyways they're not gonna sit here and negotiate with a fucking influencer so I literally would just put all these brands on drip campaigns and that's what I've been doing since I've been full time and I just I'm like do you want to partner with the lazy girl job girl or not and like give them like a whole update on like the news mentioned so far like really like my brand equity as a whole like I really try to keep them updated um and that's been like wildly successful so like anyway that you can like automate brand outreach some people are like super against that because it's not like personalized and stuff but I think it's so funny because every brand outreach that we typically get isn't personalized like there is of course like the ones that care it's super personalized like a generic last and like you're lucky if you're not like on a BCC yeah yeah they don't give us shit they don't care and it's like I've had my old talent management agency before I like built my own team she was like I was like oh can you reach out to and I gave her a whole freaking list of brands that I wanted to work with and let's try to strategize all this and she goes oh well the brand's actually really like when the creators reach out because it shows that we're more willing and I'm like okay so then the next time that I get an inbound from a brand I'm gonna go wind in the CEO of email me if they're so into like partnering with me so it just gets so crazy but like like small ways that you can like really brag about yourself is so important as a content creator um okay so let's talk about that the the concept of press and PR yeah um because you got a couple press opportunities and I said just take it yeah and then another friend said charge for it and it's so interesting because obviously I've done the thing that I suggested which is I've jumped on so many stages for free because I want to keep doing that it's actually you know what it's interesting I've never charged for any sort of exposure I'll jump on every single podcast I'll jump on every single stage I'll do especially if it's like local for like you know in person events if it's if it's distanced if there's like a trip like they'll they'll pay for like the you know the hotel and like the flight whatever but I've always always wanted to like give as much knowledge away for free and like assume that all PR is sort of top of funnel and then I can convert them into products later I can convert them into listeners or whatever but I'm like if I can just jump on every single stage for free I think that's also because I'm at the point of my career I'm not getting inundated with like 30 different requests per week right I'm sure that somebody like Gary V does have to like filter it out for example and even yourself when you go viral you got like this huge influx yeah but I've always been of the mind even with the podcast like there's nothing gated there's no subscription behind the scenes no patreon that gates episodes whatever it's like without an insane amount of value for free and do that for like 10 years and then like don't worry you'll be fine that's how I look at it I know yeah which I do really like about you I think you do a really good job thank you I appreciate yeah but I am a like I am a firm believer in playing the long game if you do anything for 10 years I think you'll be successful at it and especially if you just put out free content because I look at the creators that do this well I look at you know Tim Ferriss I look at Tom Billy you even Lewis House yeah even Joe Rogan like they just put out free shit for like 10 15 years and like all of a sudden they're like incredibly successful not even like a little bit successful like insane insane successful right by any normal person's metric so I'm like I'm not worse than them I'll figure it out along the way but I think that a lot of people I see this they they gait their knowledge I think sometimes I gait it even if they don't deserve to gait it and I see people that are unknown trying to charge to go to events and I don't like that it's like throw it throws me off because I'm like listen until you have like a billion dollar exit or your name is synonymous with a category or you have like a million different fans like maybe there's rooms where you can get your knowledge but I still think you should put yourself out them or because your brand's not big enough yeah no I definitely agree with that and that's that's the route that I took with the lazy girl job stuff was this all when I kept telling myself like when it was kind of complicated or I would get frustrated of like why can't I just charge you know these people and blah blah blah it was like this will make sense down the road like this will be something that I can leverage but for now it's kind of where you have to to eat it and kind of earn your place with it so I was okay with taking that route but with the speaking engagement that's the only time that's like really hard for me because it's like if it's a panel right that makes a lot of sense we just show up in the expertise that you have but like if we're doing like a full on like keynote thing like that's where it gets challenging would you do a keynote at South by Southwest without paid if you're in front of I'm trying to pay to do a keynote at South by Southwest right so I think that I think that I think the context really matters yeah context really matters yeah so there's a friend and he's been on the show Ben Nempton he was on the Buried Life and now he does speaking as a job so I don't know why anybody wants to do this I don't yeah it seems like such I love him but like my god every single day he's on like a flight somewhere else and to me that's not a life that I would ever want to live that's why I started a podcast yeah I don't want to leave my house so he but he goes any any you know he speaks in front of so like it would be like Duncan Donuts corporate retreat and he'd be paid to speak there okay okay fine yeah maybe maybe Duncan Donuts is not the target demo that you're trying to use it but look me although it could be but I mean if you're doing this for a living but I would say that you have to again a lot of this confusion comes down to not defining your north star oh yeah yeah that's a good way to put it that's a really good way to put it what else is like going to say about the whole there was something I was gonna say about the PR situation um oh this was it so there's certain things where context is super key like I'm like you're saying where you know some type of crunchy event will be like oh you should go here and you know I'll be like why and they're like for exposure that's sometimes really hard with content creators because it's like I could just make really good content and get really good exposure to and especially that's harder for me to play like to play with me in that situation because it's like I've got like there's tens of thousands of like news mentions now so it's like I do have that exposure but something that a lot of people that are more like more like hyper local kind of people instead of like online people like I am like they'll say to me like it's about the quality of the exposure versus like the quantity of it and so that's something that I'm still like I'm very early in the process with that that I'm sure I will transition down the road into a more like quality um importance but for now I don't know I'm just so early in my brand that I just I really want the quantity of exposure um but I I do understand the in context when exposure makes the most sense but if you're an influencer or content creator and a brand's like will boost your ad and not pay you and that's good exposure like that's not no I don't agree with that I think there's a special there's like a magic of like an in-person exposure that you can't replicate online yes and I also this is you won't go down this path but a double-edged sword because I just spoke at an event and I saw other people that I followed online speak at the same event and there's two things that can happen from you speak at an event you can either show up and you can blow people away you can be like holy shit this person who I just saw online is so legit and so real in real life and after I went up to them after you know they spoke they were answering questions they were so good they involved the crowd or it's like wow this person's content online is super edited and they are not good in person and I no longer look up to them so I think that's that's my take away from in-person so it can be super impactful or super detrimental to your brand oh I like that that's a good I do really like that because I think that will well but what I was going to say with that person like well what should they do in that situation I think it's just all kind of what you were saying it's all about your North Star so it's like for them like they want that curated experience they want to speak at skill on on social great so yeah it's just it's interesting it really just depends on what you want to do um one of the things that you brought up which I thought was interesting was indie influencing um because I think that this is again sort of like a just like a master class on on what you should be doing if you want to go into content creating and a lot of people think that they have to have massive followings yeah make any kind of money uh myself included to a degree like I feel like it's hard to make money with a small falling but I know that other people have really niche down and they have done like a really good job of productizing themselves yeah um walk me through what you can do with a small following because I think that you probably are tied into this very unique group of creators podcasters are slightly different because all we do is we just how we start out is we just usually just start with ads then eventually we'll find a product and I'm also like a little bit different because I was sort of working while I started the podcast so I didn't like go 100% into productizing it right away and whatnot so like I'm still navigating until joining myself yeah but you know for a for a creator that which their job doesn't have any income I have like a couple thousand followers yeah what do they do oh that's such a good question yeah so like a couple thousand followers just on like one platformer like combine or something like that so what I would do is I would create like a really unique offering and it's got to be super super authentic and aligned because you don't have that credibility of a lot of followers yet so it's not like that cult following that you have yet to you you you don't have the privilege of what you're and for like I really like the idea that you do where you don't get anything that's such a power move to do but it's a privilege because these people don't have it so they have to understand that it's delusional to give everything away at the stage that they're at or if it is really important for them to play the long game then you gotta get the full a different job and and make it work until you until you can do it by yourself um but I would do yeah I would create like one big irresistible offering that you can scale correctly it's not like you're like selling your your time one on one or something like that um and it's got to really fill a problem that you haven't seen before because people aren't just gonna like buy it because you said so like you have to I think there's a little bit more work that needs to happen um and also like this is kind of crazy too you're gonna get a lot of nose but like you can do brand deals at that size there are some brands that do want to dip into that stuff it's usually going to be a little bit more of like local businesses um in your area that make a lot of sense to collaborate with or something that's you know pushing you know a live event um something like that um but that's I guess how I would approach it but it's super super interesting like how you don't need a million followers anymore to make a lot of money online which that was like completely different 15 years ago um do you feel like there is a signal when you should leave your job and pursue content creation full time yeah so I had a following when I entered my quote unquote lazy girl job it was maybe 50k followers collectively like nothing super crazy um I think talk right I think all take talk yeah at that time I don't even have like my Instagram and stuff yet so what I said to myself going into that job is when my job gets in the way of TikTok stuff I guess it's how I called it then I need to leave I love it TikTok stuff my TikToks um so that was like the pledge that I made to myself almost because no one's gonna tell you to not do everything that was the thing like I was waiting I literally this is so please do not ever do this I wish that I would get laid off at my job because I didn't want to take the responsibility of taking a risk on myself right isn't that kind of crazy it it is but it isn't yeah exactly what you're talking about yeah I wanted someone to push me out because it was what was happening like late last year is it my job was getting in the way of all of my TikTok stuff and uh I was like so worried I don't know I was like so scared to like finally face that that I was like oh I wish that like they could just like lay me off or something so I could just go do it because I was so afraid of like if I failed then I would be wrong but you knew that if somebody laid you off fired you whatever I would have crushed it you would have crushed it you wouldn't have gotten another job at this point yeah yeah and there's actually I think there's like a point where you're like you know what if this blows up I'm not getting another job I'll just figure it out and I think that's a point it's like it's a really empowering point but I think a lot of people are scared to even take the jump at that point yeah because the system doesn't reward that this is like and also to like going back to my stick and my spiel of everything that I talk about all the time you know some of my community is super into side hustles and wants to talk about that stuff but they're scared to start because of the regular stuff that you and I we don't need to like beat it over everyone's head but it's like the whole like oh I don't want to be judged by people but it's like our system rewards you putting your eggs in one basket for one company like no one's gonna sit there and be like oh like what if what if it doesn't work out right like it's a side hustle or something so it's like why can't we bring at least some of that energy into our other passions and stuff like that like I don't know so um for me yeah I just I had to make like a really hard line of like when this stuff gets in the way of my social media stuff like I do need to leave like that you put yourself yeah yes did you have like a because I've heard like you're supposed to make like twice as much as your salary before like all these different ideas opposite was happening that's why it's making half as much that it was going down my incumbent for my social media was going down oh shit so that's why it wasn't like you it wasn't like oh I'm working a job and I'm killing it killing it killing it that that I want to quit my job it was like shit it's peaking and then it's it's declining I couldn't hit like the critical mass point that needs to take off because what was happening was my employer was doing the the scope creep stuff and they literally changed my employee agreement and they made me sign off on new job responsibilities and in that meeting I was like I think someone else should work this job I couldn't even say like I quit like I was so scared I would just be like I think this is a great job for someone else like and it would be like and that's really passive aggressive so passive aggressive way to quit but it was like I meant it so innocently but yeah thinking back to when it's like girl just like ripped the band it off and I was like oh well I think in the beginning I said something like I don't know but it was crazy and so I was just towards the finally at the end of the call you know 20 minutes in like I finally I'm like no like I can't do this anymore because what was happening was I was saying they were basically asking me to do more work but there was no talks of a pay raise and it was taking me away from all this ample time that I had with my business so I was like I like I have to leave like this is like a complete rest to be for disaster so I literally quit my job and I was only making 2K a month at that point for my social media because I didn't have time to do anything in the business and so it was crazy it was so crazy and then I just remember like Grant Cardone says like like all the shit that he says about 10x and stuff like that I was like I'm only going to do that um and so yeah 10x in whatever that was it was under 60 days because basically what happened it was like January I had that meeting with my employer and I was like I can't do this they were like I had an individual contributor job so it was very much like oh can you stay till the end of the quarter um since you know you don't have a hard date it makes everyone whole just with our our bonuses and stuff like that and I go yeah that's fine so I basically had like under two months to like figure it out um that's good yeah so at least you know where you were yeah and you figured it out and those two more or less yeah but it was probably like the crazy I would not recommend that route I would not recommend it you have to feel it right so like I felt it the it I don't know how to say it like I felt like there was an intuition there where it was like you know you have to double down on this that's what's happening it's not a some an execution issue it's not a strategy issue like you you need to double down and you can anymore because of the job like you have to go but I think sometimes what we do is we go oh like I need to be a full-time entrepreneur full-time content creator for like other people to notice that or something like there's something sometimes it's where you go to well you have to make a decision what what you identify with yeah so it's a very easy litmus test you how do you introduce yourself at parties right yeah when somebody asks like what do you do and you know like you know because the answer comes to you and it may not even be the thing that you are actually doing full-time but it's a direction you want to go in mm-hmm and all of a sudden somebody asks you what do you do and you're going to have an answer so if you have a job and you're you know you're doing content on the side you'd be oh you know I I create content around whatever whatever whatever if you don't even mention your job mm-hmm and it's like a very easy decision to make yeah but again we sort of like latch onto things that are comfortable and safe all the time um have you found you if there's more of a deeper deeper question or like an esoteric philosophical question mm-hmm have you found that when you create a ton of content and you create a persona online do you feel like your individual identity suffers and becomes more of that persona online in your offline life if I choose to allow that to happen yes and that's the crazy part is like it will happen sometimes mm-hmm you know like I'll be home my laptop should be closed I should have everything my screen should be away but it's one of those nights where like I didn't do that and so I'm just sitting there like spinning my wheels and you know I still feel like I need to perform and it's really like just Matthew and my dogs you know what I mean and it's like they don't care like they don't care at all and like I like yeah so there's certain moments where because I'm very early stage with that too is like the separation of like what the the personal images versus like my personal life things like that um the scariest part for me that I thought was gonna be the scariest part was my friends and like co-workers finding my social media but it's actually um the new one is like just acquaintances asking me about my content and stuff like that and saying like oh I saw you on this article or saw you on this one because you know like I'll just be like the yoga studio and I'm like oh I like I'm just I'm trying to do yoga right now but and I also don't know which article you're referring to and like what the tone was of that article and I don't want to get into it right now so like that was it but I would say like um there has to be a separation of you and what you put out there because what we were talking about before we were recording a little bit is like overselling and overexposing yourself in the trap that you can get into so we think a lot of times especially when we're like growing as influencers of like oh my followers need to know everything that's going on in my life and how I feel about everything they don't because if you don't set that boundary there's like there's a resentment down the line whether it's on your side. I don't think it ever ends yeah and it doesn't end I mean you you have the luxury of sort of fencing your following at this point into 30 to 60 seconds yeah so it's hard for them to be invasive and like really I'm you know uncover who you are but I have friends who are youtubers and like we even spoke about a friend who quit youtube because it was just too much after she made her money but friends that are active youtubers now and it's like one of them is pregnant and she doesn't want to talk about it and everyone's like why aren't you talking about it she's like I don't want to talk about it and it's like you just like it's it's like you're arguing with a hundred people in comments about why you aren't talking about your like yeah it's so difficult because you let people in and then once you let them in once they do everyone wants more because you become like their their favorite reality TV yeah like and you know like look at like Bravo and like the crazy fans they have right so you become the reality TV and they just want to go down this rabbit hole but then it's like you don't have producers you don't have agents you don't have the support just you solo like navigating this yeah you find that people are invasive all like with the even in the tiktok world yes they are yeah and I'm at the point now where I do get um recognize a little bit it's not super crazy but I'm at that point where at least like my voice gets recognized so um that part gets a little bit interesting too just because um how would you know that your voice gets recognized um I've been like talking like a lot of times what will happen is like I'm out in public and I'll be like talking on the phone or to matter whatever and they'll be like how do I know you how do I know you kind of thing and I'm like I'm on tiktok and they're like oh okay so weird yeah it is weird um but I think also too because my videos have been clipped on like Fox so many times and stuff like that I think people have like heard it in the background kind of I don't know I don't know anyways it hasn't been that much yet though but it's something that's like starting to happen um and so that's something that is like new for me to grow into to where I almost have to tell myself like it's okay that I'm not on right now with this person and that's okay right like you don't like you don't have to give them a performance and if these people do really care about you like they'll know you're a human too like they don't want you to just like act like how you are on tiktok like that's crazy um so I don't know but you definitely have to separate a lot what happened recently was I went to Houston a few weeks ago to go see Drake and so I typically don't talk about my interests a lot I do unlike my personal Instagram or whatever just you do make that private my personal Instagram is not private I don't think so yeah I know so like people can follow that one if they want to but that's it's a pretty clear I'm just like this is me just not being an anti-work girl boss like this is me just like me yeah like I'm just like this is me being a 20-sexualed person so what happened was like I I freaking love Drake like Drake is very important to me and so I was like let me like green screen this on tiktok and like show people I like this like maybe this is something interesting plus like 24% of my audiences from Houston for some reason I don't know why so I have like there's Houston people so this one what I'm getting at is this one commenter was like Drake has a really abusive past this is this isn't a good look for you and she follows me I checked it and I was like there's so much to unpack with it right so like it's okay that she commented that I'm totally cool with that but the fact that like it's expected still that influencers have to share the exact same values with you or um that influencers like can do no or no or know everything about I know Drake I didn't even know that yeah I googled it and some of it was like assault charges and stuff like that totally not uh arguing arguing that that's not violent or not but not good but it's like okay yeah a lot of people like Drake and his music and his music is not bad yeah I enjoy him as a performer yeah I didn't say I enjoy him as a performer and I endorse his background check like I didn't you know like I didn't say that on the tiktok so like that's weird stuff sometimes too where um I feel like there's this responsibility that influencers are held sometimes to constantly do their own due diligence with things and I understand that because like we're also part of our job is like literally selling our influence which is intrinsically related to due diligence and having your own uh value system and stuff like that like that is part of like our product our IP that we're putting out the real day so it's like this double edge sort so it's like it's hard for me sometimes to because it's like you made your bed like that that's a part of it I don't want to sit here and like complain it's an influencer but also that comment that comment lacks empathy for the for the evolution of Drake as an individual too like I mean like there are people that put millions of dollars in money promoting him every single day because you hope that at this point he's a good individual and a great and a great performer whatever yeah and people don't all have the best path but you assume that people become better individuals over time so it's like yeah yeah I mean if if he does something you know next week um okay fine I have an opinion of him because he assaulted somebody last next week or whatever last week right but I think that also you have to give some you know you have to some grace to people for becoming better people over time when I looked at both of the charges and it was literally people were getting on stage when he was on stage and he touched them I was like that's not that's not that's not even what I thought it was for no it wasn't like past before like he haven't him having a phone like it was literally within his career and I'm like okay but like that's a huge other conversation of like the intent of the people on this stage and what was going like we weren't there anyway so like why are we like coming for my character because I went to a specific concert and then I posted about it so it's just like interesting this like and I think it comes with age I think it comes with like sometimes I think people put too much pressure on Gen Z where it's like oh Gen Z fills this way Gen Z fills this like the world's over Gen Z is 11 to 26 years old so yeah they're iPad like I'm the oldest Gen Z it starts 97 it goes all the way to 11 year olds when these are like iPad kids so they're still in that black or white concept of when you're younger and it's like everything to do they're good or bad so sometimes we have to have like I like I showed up a lot of empathy with my following too where it's like they're just figuring everything out too anyway so like I'm not going to judge that even though that they're judging me like I'm going I think it's important for me to like let it go because they need to grow too like my followers that's fair it's so tough navigating this world yeah it's very very tough like it's obviously as you you know as you sort of walk through your journey it's there's a lot of like these minefields that you have to sort of navigate right it's not it's not an easy journey but it's a super filling one if you say at it and you iterate through all these problems to wrap up I just want to give like some last chance for words of wisdom to young creators or even older creators that are starting out fresh what would be some things some last things that you would want to teach over to them that we haven't come into if you want to make content about something and you've never seen content be made about that that's because you're supposed to be doing it it's for you so like I there was no one making content like me it didn't make any sense to monetize anything like that and it works out so sometimes like if no one else is doing it that's not something if someone if you're afraid of doing it do it anyways because that's the really exciting part I'm trying to think of like other more like new ones things that are like more specific to my experience as a whole it's okay to kind of what we were talking about earlier like if you're not full-time in it yet like that's that's okay it's okay that you don't want to be monetized if you don't want to be monetized too I think that that's super important it's also really important to sell yourself every day relentlessly and be okay with that we get a lot of nose and it's like a muscle that like we really really have to to work every day and I think that that's really important to hold that and to stay now I don't even think about it like I'm sure I'm sure you even feel this more than I but like if I get rejection now I don't even get mad I'm just like oh I don't care yeah like I literally don't care and thank you for responding and like we'll probably chat again at some point like there's not even any like animosity to it you have to recognize how how impactful and hurtful some rejection can be for somebody it doesn't experience so yeah oh yeah yeah I work with with my girlfriends company and we just hired sales reps yeah and one of the one of the sales reps is a little bit younger and she just got this strange strange email from some one of the person people that she reached out to and it was like you know I I don't usually give away my time for free like this better be worth my time or something at that she sent it to me and she's like what did I do I'm like nothing that guys crazy like just like don't worry like like you get some like really off-color strange people when you put yourself out there oh yeah like very very strange and in sales I mean you're not you're not really protected by anything you put yourself out there again again again so as an influencer that should be selling you're constantly exposing yourself to opinions of everyone yeah yeah yeah and eventually you'll get this armor but day one it's very very stressful yeah and it's not your job to like if someone has some type of feedback about you that isn't necessarily what you wanted to hear it's not your job to fix it or to make up for the difference or anything like that too and I'm starting to learn that at a really really big level now to where like a lot of my community thinks that I'm anti-capitalist um probably just because of you know whatever like certain concepts that I do talk about but that's not necessarily true and so I held a lot of guilt with that where I was like oh I'm gonna like cancel because these people you can get canceled for being anti-capitalist you can also be canceled for being too capitalist yeah yeah yeah so it's like you can't win and you cannot win and then I'm like no like I don't have to what am I gonna do get a whole different political ideological system like that's crazy plus I don't even make like political or like economic content that's much more about like your relationship with work but anyways so yeah it was just you know if there's certain things that you're getting negative feedback on it's really not your job to um fix it but it is your job if if you keep trying to pivot or like hit a certain messaging and it's not hitting um like that is your responsibility so like like that's really hard to balance the two where it's like if you get negative feedback a few times in the comments not your problem but if like you're you're trying to do something and you keep getting negative responses like that's really proof yeah I'm proof right so it's like that that dance that you have to hold with yourself but try first but always try first and keep trying and even when you don't want to keep trying do it when it's mess like super messy do it when you're tired like all that stuff yeah um if you could tell your younger self one thing what would it be oh my goodness I don't know I like that question like it'll all make sense I don't know how I said because I don't want to say like oh just relax because I feel like that work ethic like got me here I don't know I feel like I needed some of that like trauma to like make it spicy I don't know but it's something along the lines of like yeah it all works out it just it won't make any sense why it does and I'm sure you could understand it even like I can you just keep trying until it does and it will eventually like even 15 years ago you can you have been like yeah not at all I can't even do like a year ago me yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah like six months ago I don't know you know like it's just the internet's crazy now it is it's a good grad you follow um jack butcher um jack butcher yes there's like one of he does a whole bunch of these like drawings right yes the visualization or visualize visualized value and I think there's one that's very famous and it just coat it shows like all these little pegs that are like small little pegs in a row yeah and it shows an arrow it says like you are here and then after that it's like a hockey stick curve of all these like little bars going higher and higher and higher and showing like obviously there's like a period of time where you were doing all this work and nothing was happening and then you are here is pointing to that point right before this huge inflection right and that's that's the business journey that's a creator journey that's the entrepreneur journey that that thought exercises what keeps me going it because that's that's my biggest fear that's like major major major regret that's regret that you don't even know you experience which is even like crazy or scared to think of um but yeah that type of regret is something that's why I do speak so much about like the crazy work concepts that I do because I'm just like okay do you want to be uncomfortable now and try to fix that for do you want to wait till you're 65 you regret everything and you don't even know your grandkids are like I don't know um and then last question what a success mean to you at this point in your life oh my goodness getting ready oh my god well success to me is is liberation I think that's the best way to put it so if you look at a lot of my content I'm actually talking about um liberation and finding peace peace and and freedom in in your I don't want to talk about like oh successes you know time like when you have like you know freedom of your schedule and stuff like that because that's like really challenging like even as like a business owner like yes we have um freedom of you know your your schedule and time and stuff like that but there's certain commitments that you have like you literally can't be like oh well I'm the boss here so now like you have like there's certain momentum that you're like you know collaborating with with people um but I would say like if you can experience liberation from like yourself and and conditioning that you've been rewarded to you know follow and you can actually look at it almost from like a bird's eye view I think that's true freedom it's like freedom of self freedom of liberation of like from oppressive beliefs mm-hmm I love that I think that's success personally