The Real You
1:1 Long-Form Interviews with Interesting People Doing Amazing Things
In-depth discussion of people's journeys to tap into their full potential and find ways to be the truest version of themselves.
The Real You
EP 21: A solo episode by me, your host, David Young - You'll laugh at least 1x
After a meandering 20-year career through industries as varied as pharmaceutical sales and data analysis, I've found my true calling in content creation.
This episode uncovers my journey from childhood dreams of being an NBA player to expressing myself fully through podcasting.
As I recount my transition from corporate life to the joys of storytelling and audience engagement, you'll hear how my experiences led me to a rewarding career that fuels my passion.
This solo episode is packed with personal reflections on The Real You Podcast's evolution and my plans to introduce a series focused on professional speaking.
I share insights into my initial LinkedIn experiments, which pivoted from hobby to full-time content creation and coaching, and storytelling's role in engaging audiences.
My son's curiosity about my online endeavors adds a personal touch, highlighting the uncertainties and thrills of this adventurous path.
You'll also get a glimpse of my life beyond the mic, including a story of my Wheaten Terrier's adventure at a pet boarding facility. These lighter moments reveal the companionship and joy my dog brings, especially during the work-from-home era.
Closing with gratitude, I express appreciation for the incredible guests who've enriched the podcast and the invaluable lessons learned from their diverse experiences.
Join me as I continue to explore the creativity and connection in this ever-evolving journey.
www.linkedin.com/in/david-young-mba-indy
Welcome to the Real you Podcast. I'm your host, david Young, and this is episode number 21. This podcast discusses tapping into your full potential and finding ways to be the truest version of yourself. Today I'm joined by no one. You are getting me live solo well, not live recorded when you listen to it, but no guests. Today I won't interview myself. I've been wanting to do a solo episode for a while and I had a guest and we just couldn't make our schedule sync. So you are getting me today, which is Wednesday the 13th, and I'm going to turn around and release this on Friday, the 15th. So you're getting a quick turnaround and what I'll do is I'm going to discuss the podcast, kind of how it started, how it's going, some ideas I have for the future. We'll talk a little bit about my background and journey, of how I got here, and I might throw in a couple of stories along the way. So thanks for joining me. So this is episode 21,.
Speaker 1:As I mentioned, so 20 episodes have been released. I have four more that will be released with guests. Those have already been recorded. That'll take us to episode 25. And then we're going to do a special episode for 26, which will be released at the end of the year, maybe the first part of next year, I haven't decided, but that will be kind of a special episode that will be somewhat of a surprise I guess, not really and that will be the last episode. And then, you know, going forward, I'm not sure I might keep it exactly the same and we'll just keep doing this. I have a list of guests that I'd like to have on. I have not reached out to most of them, but we would see who's interested. I also have thought about starting a second podcast that's focused more on people that do professional speaking, because that's a big goal of mine in 25 is to start doing professional speaking, which talks about my journey from corporate dissatisfaction for over 20 years and never really finding my way, and then finding content creation on LinkedIn and, you know, kind of changed everything and I want to start, you know, telling that story and hopefully inspiring people that not to give up if you haven't found it and there's something out there for you. It might not be content creation, but there is something that you're good at, that you enjoy and that you feel like provides value and can help people. So we'll see. So I don't know, it could be a second podcast under the Real you umbrella, or maybe I'll just do weekly episodes and we'll just mix it up with my usual diversified guests and then we'll have professional speakers mixed in. I haven't exactly gotten there.
Speaker 1:So when I was a kid, I played sports. Growing up and basketball was always my favorite and that's what I was the best at. So if you'd asked me when I was 10, 11, 12 years old what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said I wanted to play in the NBA. And I didn't realize how unlikely that was. And they don't tell you that as a kid, right? Yeah, that's a 1% of 1%, so you should have eight backup plans. So, anyway, people encouraged it and it didn't take me long shortly thereafter to realize that that wasn't going to happen. So my backup would have been if you had followed up and said okay, if the NBA just happens to not work out, what else would you want to do? And I would have said I want to be a sports broadcaster.
Speaker 1:I loved Bob Costas as a kid, and just Al Michaels and Brent Musburger, and listening to Keith Jackson, listening to the various major sports calls, and I thought, oh well, I love sports and at that age I didn't know if I could talk into a microphone, but I thought that would be something to pursue and I thought so much of it that I didn't do anything as an adult. Once I went to college I didn't take a communications class, a journalism class, broadcasting. I didn't volunteer, I did nothing to make that happen and it didn't. So that worked out and now I feel like with the podcast it has given me. It's kind of given new life, second life to my broadcasting dreams, if you will, and it gives me a way to speak and talk and it's something that I love. The podcast is probably my favorite thing that I've done since I've started this journey and I'm so happy that I did. I've talked to so many great people and they've been so great on the show with their messages and their background and lessons learned and life stories and I've just gotten so much joy and satisfaction out of hearing it and the relationships that have been built and it's just been so rewarding and so I'm really looking forward to year two and keeping it going.
Speaker 1:So, speaking of basketball, I'll mix the story and I told this story recently. I hadn't thought about it for a long time because it happened 30 years ago, but I was running this week and I for some reason remembered it. So I played a year and five games of division three basketball. This will not be the story about the five game second season, but the first season. So this would have been. Well, it happened in the second part of the year, so this is like spring of 94. And so it was division three.
Speaker 1:We had four teams in our conference and we were probably the third best team, and so we were on the road again late in the season, so February timeframe, and we were playing the best team in the conference. They'd already beaten us once in our gym, so we had traveled up to their place. I think it was about a three or four hour drive from where we were, cause our school was in Northern Kentucky and the school was in kind of middle Indiana. So we get there and we're warming up and getting ready to play. And they were a little bit better than us. We would have been expected to lose. We would have needed to play quite well to beat them. And so we're getting ready.
Speaker 1:The game's getting ready to start and I'm starting and I'm kind of on the right wing. You know, the referees in the middle circle getting ready to throw the jump ball up, and there's this guy in the second row, a pretty heavy set guy, and he starts heckling me. This is right before the game is starting. Now, I don't know why he targeted me. He didn't do this to anyone else on our team. We didn't have names on the back of our jerseys. I was number 14. So he just referred to me as 14. And just for reason, he just decided it was he didn't like me and he was gonna harass me the entire game. So he starts with you know, hey, 14, you suck, and you know you're too skinny and you, your team sucks. You guys are gonna get killed today and whatever the guy, the kid that was guarding me, how much better he was than me and how long of a day I was in for, and just just non-stop. Again, game hasn't even started.
Speaker 1:And then it continued throughout the game always 14, always saying something, always running his mouth, and so we, we keep going, and it obviously got annoying and frustrating. Um, if anything, I was like can we just maybe pick on somebody else for a couple minutes, like there's, I have teammates that you know. Um, it's not one-on-one. So there's about seven or eight minutes left and I wasn't playing very well and our team wasn't playing very well. We were losing I don't remember 15 points. It wasn't particularly competitive. So anyway, seven, eight minutes left and I'm inbounding the ball, kind of right where he's sitting, and the referee hands it to my teammate, he inbounds to me and then my teammate starts jogging up the court and then the referee starts moving down the court as well. So I don't know why I did this and, like I said, I haven't thought about this for a long time, but I kind of just snapped.
Speaker 1:And so he was sitting there and he was still running his mouth and I took a couple dribbles. I got to about half court and I just turned and looked at him right in the eye and I said fuck you, fat man, and it just felt so good. I know it wasn't the best response, but I was 18 years old, but it just really felt great. And he and all the people around him who heard it, they were all up in arms. They're all standing up, you know, giving the technical sign like give him a tea, give him a tea. Nobody knew what happened. Nobody else really heard it. I didn't say it that loud, so like my coach didn't hear it or whatever Referee didn't hear it, but anyway it felt great. He didn't say anything the rest of the game. And then I was mad that I just didn't do that at the beginning. I should have just said that before the ball even went up. I could have just stopped that before it even got started. So I was like I'm going to save myself an hour and 10 minutes of heckling, anyway. So I wrote this post, not that post. I wrote a post this week on LinkedIn about my journey, so we'll talk just a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:You know I got a degree. I followed the script, the societal script right, get a four year degree, which I did. I did go to three colleges to do it. I don't recommend that. Anyway, they finally let me graduate from one of them. And you know I got a degree in biology. And the only reason I majored in biology? Well, two reasons. One, I was good at science and math, so that kind of made sense.
Speaker 1:And then I played golf with a guy I was a sophomore in college and he talked to me about being a drug rep, a pharmaceutical rep, and so I thought, all right. Well, majoring in biology, that would make some degree of sense. Mostly he just said I would get to play golf and I think that's the only reason that I pursued it. So I got the degree and then I ended up getting a job with Roche Pharmaceuticals. This would have been summer of 99. And anyway it seemed great.
Speaker 1:I had a degree, I had a good job, company, car, pretty good money, we got to travel. But I only really liked it for the first year. And then my boss got promoted and then it was just a few years of misery as I bounced around different managers and territory changes and layoffs and all that kind of stuff. So the problem was I didn't really have a plan. After that I accomplished the first part, the degree and the good job, but I never really thought well, what if that doesn't work out? Or what if I don't like it? And then that kind of was the beginning of 20 years of a strange odyssey between bouncing around different jobs.
Speaker 1:I got more sales jobs, which was not the right thing to do, but I didn't know any better. Did those for a few more years. That didn't work. Saw my first career counselor. He told me to do something more detail-oriented. He recommended I work in a bank, which sounded terrible, and so I didn't do that. But I did end up in an office or an office-based job which was a call center and I took inbound customer calls. Now it wasn't the general public, so it wasn't like Verizon or Comcast or something like that. It was a manufacturing company and so we had a relatively small maybe 2,000 or 3,000 customers. So it was a lot of the same people called in because they were getting pricing and quotes and order status and product type questions.
Speaker 1:Anyway, it took me, I would say, about six months to really learn everything to where I felt really knowledgeable and then after that I was really good at that job. So after a few years I went back to school. I got my MBA, still kind of wondering what the future was going to hold and what I wanted to do. That eventually got me into finance. So I did accounts receivable for a few years. I was good at that and I liked that job. But again, society, corporate promotions, you want to keep moving up, making more money. So I got a promotion into credit risk analysis and that was kind of the beginning of the end with that company I think I wasn't very good at that job. I didn't like it. I was really bored.
Speaker 1:That eventually led to another promotion, which was billed as financial analysis. It was really cost center accounting. So I was doing journal entries 20 or 25 of those at the end of every month, the whole month in closed process reconciliation, cost centers, trying to get them balanced, and budgets and all that and it just on paper. It looked okay but it was a terrible fit for me. Way too much working in the gray, not nearly enough repetition. It was just meetings always getting scheduled and rescheduled, which drove me crazy. It was basically like having eight bosses at once and it was really just a terrible setup for me. So I grinded through that for 18 or so months. They finally just let me go, which was for the best. So this would have been summer of 17, I believe, and so I was going to take the summer off and kind of find myself and try to figure some things out. But I didn't end up working out and we needed the money.
Speaker 1:So I applied for more jobs and ended up going back to accounts receivable with a different company, which again it was a good fit and I'm good at that. I was and am good at that job. I did that for four years. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with it, but I was bored and just always felt like I was just capable of more. I had more potential to offer than just asking for invoices to be paid and helping companies reconciling accounts and providing credit memos and invoice copies and all this kind of stuff providing credit memos and invoice copies and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:And so I thought at that point I think I was on industry three and company five and kind of getting close to just really unsure about what to do. But I love data and I love Excel. And so I had a friend who worked at a company who was doing some data analysis, and so I thought, all right, like I've kind of wanted to try that and I'll give that a shot. So he helped me and I got a job, you know, doing data analysis, which again it's another one of those that on the surface seemed like a good fit and it just wasn't. I just never really caught on. I had a hard time, you know, understanding their methods and I just didn't caught on. I had a hard time understanding their methods and I just didn't do a very good job and it just wasn't good. I didn't like it and I don't think they particularly liked what I was doing, and so that was 14 months, kind of difficult and challenging months as well, but in the middle of that tenure. So now we would be like summer of 23,. That's when I had the idea to start creating content, which I don't still to this day.
Speaker 1:People have asked me like why LinkedIn and why content? I don't really know. I think LinkedIn because it was the only social media platform where I had an account and I didn't have to start from scratch. I had about 450 connections and followers and that was it. I didn't have Instagram, I didn't have TikTok. I have a Twitter account, but I never really do anything with it, and no Facebook.
Speaker 1:So LinkedIn made the most sense and content-wise, I just felt like I had a lot of stories. I had a lot of career stories, career dissatisfaction, my sports background, following sports, playing sports. I've done some racing, with half and full marathons and triathlons, more recently obstacle course races, so I have stories from that. My kids are a little bit older, they're now 15 and 10. So I thought I've got stories from there and so I thought, okay, I just, you know I'll just try it. It'll be a hobby, a creative outlet, just something that I hopefully enjoy. We'll see. And then you know I did it.
Speaker 1:So that was summer of 23 and I started posting content. I did two posts per week for that first month just to kind of get a feel for it. Per week for that first month, just to kind of get a feel for it. Then I moved to three posts a week for the next, I think, six months, and I think it was right around the four-month mark, kind of October-ish, maybe November, of 23. I thought I'd found it, I thought I'm good at this and I like it. I was meeting a lot of really cool and interesting people and it felt like I was kind of in the right place.
Speaker 1:And that's when I really first started thinking about doing it as a business, doing it full time. Can I make money doing this? Is this recurring revenue, month after month, year after year? Is that possible? So I started looking into how to make that work and then, a few months later, which would be February of this year, I quit that data analytics job and moved full-time into content creation, starting this podcast, which the first episode launched in March, and then starting to coach, and then that's been where I've spent a lot of my time these last several months is trying to figure out who to coach, what to coach. And then that's been where I've spent a lot of my time these last several months is trying to figure out who to coach, what to coach, how can I best help people, what's the best use of my skill set. And so now we've kind of settled on coaching content. It doesn't necessarily have to be LinkedIn, but that's where we focus and it's taking everything I've learned.
Speaker 1:I've written over 250 LinkedIn posts now. I've generated I don't know 450,000 impressions, 30,000 to 40,000 engagements, and I've built and trying to expedite the process on how to grow their account, grow their business, how to write engaging content, a lot of focus on storytelling, your background, your lived experience, moving away from just the dry, like here are 10 tips or 10 steps to do X. We can get those anywhere. We can Google those, we can GPT those, we can YouTube search a lot of that. So it's trying to put your personality and your spin on your expertise and your story, which will then draw and attract people to your brand and to your business. That's the idea, and so that's where we are, and we've been focusing on that for a few months, and tomorrow I'm actually doing my first LinkedIn live event, which by the time you hear this will have passed, but I'm really looking forward to that.
Speaker 1:It's an ask me anything on content creation. There's about 27 or 28 people that have registered. About 14 or 15 have confirmed that they're coming, so we're looking forward to that and hearing what people have to say and what questions they have and how I can answer my 10-year-old, who takes some interest in the business, I think mostly because he wants to be a Twitch streamer when he grows up. I don't know if they'll still be playing Fortnite when he can do that, although they've been playing Fortnite for quite a while, so maybe it'll still be going, but he wants to make money full-time, professionally streaming video games. So I think he's interested in what I'm doing because it's making money online.
Speaker 1:So every once in a while he'll ask, and so last week he asked me how it was going and what I was doing, and so I told him that I was going to host this event on Thursday, the 14th, and so he was asking some questions about it and I said it's a Zoom call and there'll be people on the call and then you know, it's just kind of an open forum for you know asking whatever they want on content creation. You know questions, ideas, tips, tricks, whatever. And the first thing he said was what if you don't know the answer? What if they start asking you questions you can't answer? I was like that's such a question for him and I was like, well, that's probably going to happen. I don't know everything. Almost nobody does.
Speaker 1:So you know, if that does occur, then you know we'll, we'll figure it out as a group. We can, uh, you know, talk it, try to talk it through, and if we can't come up with something, you know we'll do some research and we can get back to people. Uh, so I don't expect to have all the answers, but I just thought that that was really funny. That was his first question and his concern Are you going to look bad? They're just going to start peppering you with questions. You're like I have no idea. This is a bad idea. It's just a board to hold call.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of where we are and I enjoy helping people, especially when they're newer or they're struggling with the LinkedIn platform and their content's not being seen by a lot of people. It's a lot of engagement and they just kind of feel like they're putting in this work and, you know, nothing's really happening. Um, you know, trying to diagnose that and and figure out ways to, um, you know, make it better and more personal and, um, a way that people can respond more easily, and I don't know. And so that's kind of where we are, and I'm also, and when I say considering, I'm going to do it, I don't know when, but sooner rather than later, I'm going to start a YouTube channel. I haven't decided exactly what the premise will be. I've considered calling it life as content, because that's kind of how I see everything now and I kind of did it before I started doing this officially.
Speaker 1:But I just would have all these ideas and stories from just my life, and I mean even sometimes just running a simple errand to Kroger, I feel like ends up with like four stories. You know, the people in front of you leaving the carts in the parking lot, walking down the aisle in the middle of the grocery store as slow as possible but taking up space so that no one can go around you, looking for a product and I'm standing right over their shoulder, not too close because I don't want to be that guy, but close enough. You should be able to tell that I just need to reach pretty much right where you're standing, but really having no idea that anyone's behind you, and you just stand there and you're looking at every label of every product for like 25 minutes and I know I could just say excuse me, or I could just reach across, but a lot of times I just like to stand there and just see how long they can go and you'd be surprised. It's pretty long. People have no awareness. They people have no awareness. They have no idea. It's like they rented kroger out. They think they're in there by themselves, uh, like they just called up and said, yeah, between noon and one, I'm just, I'm just gonna grocery shop solo and that way I can just, yeah, there won't be any noise, I can pick the music, uh, that comes through and I'll read every label of all the products. So you know things like that. I just have, you know, observations of what happens when I go out, which always seems to be something. And that leads me to my second story, and I don't think I've told this one.
Speaker 1:So our dog turns four next week, kobe. He's our soft-coated Wheaton Terrier, our COVID dog. We got him in January of 21, and he was was eight weeks old and he turns four next week, so I'm going to write a post about this next week for his birthday. But when we got him, it was a real struggle for me. I was his primary caretaker and I'd never had a puppy before. I really struggled with just taking him out all the time and all the puppy training and just everything that goes into that, and I was still trying to work full time and all this stuff and it was a real challenge. And I there were times when I just wanted to give them away. My wife and youngest son were so mad at me all the time, I ever even threatening to do that. Uh, obviously I didn't. We still have them and now I'm so happy that we do.
Speaker 1:But I needed a break, and so this would have been like April of 21. And I just I just needed a couple of days away. I think it must've been spring break, because my family was out of town and so it was just going to be the dog and I and I thought, well, I'm just going to board him just for a couple of days, just just so I don't have to take care of him for two days. And so I we, we found a place and I take him. I made an appointment, for it was like I was dropping off like thursday morning and picking up saturday morning, and so I take him over there.
Speaker 1:So this is like thursday, april, whatever of 21, and I get there, the place opened at 7 and I get there like 7 15 so I walk in and I have him on the leash and there's no one in there, not surprising, and there's one guy working and he's on the phone. Now he's not on his cell phone, he's on like the company type phone and it's there's like a booth. So you have like a walk-in and then it's like a square booth, almost like a concession stand kind of, and he's in the back there and that's where like all their stuff and you know books and computers and all this stuff are. So he's on the phone. I don't know who he's talking to at 7 15 on a thursday morning, but you know someone and he makes no effort whatsoever to even come over to help me. Um, I was a complete nuisance and he talked for a while it was probably like two or three minutes and finally he was like all right to go. So he hangs up the phone, he saunters over and he's like can I help you? I was like no, I'm just looking.
Speaker 1:I just got up like an hour ago with my dog and we've just been driving around and I didn't really have a plan. But I saw that you guys had a picture of a German shepherd like on top of your building and so I thought, well, you guys must do something with dogs. Let's, let's just stop in here and see what you guys have. And uh, I was like yeah, I have an appointment, uh, boarding two days. And he was like all right. And so he goes, grabs a computer and he's like what's the name? So I said young, and he scrolls through and he's like I don't have it, we don't have it, we don't have you down, no reservation. I was like all right, because if you have any space like, you have room to board one you know, 30 pound, four month old wheaton terrier. And he was like yeah, yeah, we do.
Speaker 1:And so he takes all my information and gets it booked. And so then he goes and grabs this other. It's like a clipboard. He needed, he needed some information. So he starts asking me questions you know how often he gets fed and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:And he says, uh, he said, do you want to give the dog, do you want us to give the dog a bath before he leaves, before you pick him up? And I was like, how much is that? He was like well, it depends. I was like, okay, he was like it's, usually it's it's between like 30 and 40. So I was like, was it like, depending how much water you use, or like how much shampoo, like is you have? Like a meter, if you hit a certain level, if you stay below a certain level, it's 30. You get to the middle, it's 35. And if you just, if you just max it the fuck out, like you just use so much water and soap for that dog, you're like that's a 40 bath. What do you mean? It varies. Uh, I mean I could see it varying if it's like a small little dachshund or you know, like, uh, newfoundland or something. But you know middle sized dogs, I feel like we can have a set price. But but no, anyway, so we go through that and I said, I said yes, so it keeps going.
Speaker 1:And then other questions. This took forever, by the way, and so he's doing this from a distance. He's in this whatever area, and he now walks back closer to me. I guess I have to sign the thing. And this is only a few minutes after we've talked about the variable price bath, variable price bathing. And he's like, did you want to get a bath? So this time I was like, no, we're all set. So I don't even remember to this day if he got one or not, Because I said yes and went through all the questions the first time and then I said no the second time. I think he ended up getting one, but I can't be certain. Maybe I paid for it, maybe I didn't. I should have paid more attention to see exactly how much water and soap he used. So they took him. This woman did finally come out of the back and took him and I gave the food and a couple of his toys and, yeah, I'm sure it was terrible for him for a couple of days, but he's fine now Anyway, so the dog turns four next week and we love him and he especially with being, you know being home, you know post COVID, you know working from home, kind of all this time, and now doing what I'm doing, it's he provides.
Speaker 1:He provides a lot, of, a lot of joy and comfort. He's mostly sleeping, but I like to watch him sleep and a lot of times I think it makes me sleep. I think that's why I take so many naps, because he's just sleeping all the time and I'm like, oh, it looks good. I'm going to go lay down too, but he gets me outside and chasing the balls in the backyard and walking him and whatnot. So, yeah, he's good, he's a good boy. So let's see, we're approaching about 30 minutes.
Speaker 1:I didn't have no idea how long this was going to go. I could keep talking. I could tell a bunch more stories. I don't know how relevant that would be. But yeah, this is a lot of fun. I'm going to do more of these. I think We'll see what the response is If anybody that listens to other shows also happens to catch this one. I'd love to get your feedback on what you thought about this and if I should do more or not. But it was a lot of fun and, like I said, I can keep going, but I think this is a good place to stop.
Speaker 1:I appreciate everybody who's listened to the show and supported the show. I've been very lucky A lot of great guests, people have been very forthright and forthcoming with their journeys and stories and I appreciate them and I'll eventually mention them in a post and write up a year-end review of the podcast. But, like I said, it's been a great joy for me, extremely rewarding. So many great people have come on, diversify, very diverse backgrounds, experiences, knowledge, insight, life lessons, life journeys, overcoming obstacles, persevering really just been almost a magical experience for me and I'm very grateful to have started this and for the help and support that I've received. So thank you to everybody that's come on, everybody that has come on that hasn't been released yet and then for anybody in the future that I asked to come on that does truly appreciate it and couldn't do, obviously, do the interview show without you.
Speaker 1:So again, a lot of fun. Hope you enjoyed this and I'm out in under 30 minutes, which is a lot shorter than most of my episodes, because my interviews tend to run quite long. In fact, the episode I did we recorded last week is my current longest an hour and 20 minutes. So that comes out in a few weeks and that's just. We had a lot to talk about. So again, appreciate you guys, and that's it for now. Take care.