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
EP26: The Reversal: Colleen Kranz interviews the host, David Young
In this episode, Colleen Kranz interviews David Young about his journey as a solopreneur and podcast host.
They discuss the power of storytelling, the challenges of leaving a 9 to 5 job, and practical strategies for content creation on LinkedIn.
• David reflects on his personal journey and pivotal moments that sparked change
• The importance of storytelling in building a personal brand
• Overcoming self-doubt and taking risks in entrepreneurship
• Creating a consistent content strategy for audience growth
• The emotional impact of pursuing one's passion and authenticity
• Insights into client challenges and the significance of intention in content creation
• Memorable podcast moments and the importance of community building
This is an EP unlike any that has previously been released!
Colleen's LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/colleenkranz/
Colleen's Website:
https://www.catapultnorth.com/grow-north-thursday-newsletter
David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-young-mba-indy/
David's Website: https://davidjyoung.me/
Welcome to the Real you Podcast. I'm your guest host, colleen Kranz, and this is episode number 26. So I was guest number 8 back on the show back in early June, and today I am back to interview the creator of this podcast, david Young. So we thought this would be a cool way to wrap up his first year of podcast episodes. A cool way to wrap up his first year of podcast episodes. David started his solopreneurship journey in July of 2023 and launched this podcast in March of 2024. So he now coaches solopreneurs and other coaches on how to build their businesses on LinkedIn using the power of storytelling in their content creation. So today we'll recap his journey. Talk about the podcast LinkedIn content creation. So today we'll recap his journey. Talk about the podcast, linkedin content creation, the future of this show and much more. So I'm so excited. I have never been a podcast interviewer and now, david, you are a guest on your own show. Welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you, colleen. I appreciate that, and this is such a great idea. This is solely your idea and when you came, on. I don't even remember when we recorded. I know it released in June, I think we recorded it in like March or April, yeah. And when we got done, you said I want to come back and I want to interview you and I thought, well, that's a great idea. I never would have thought of that. So here we are, making it happen. So kudos to you for an outside the box idea, which is brilliant.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, it was kind of selfish because I always, like man, I think it'd be so cool to have a podcast. So this is kind of like my diptoe in the water and building my host skills.
Speaker 2:So there you go, a test run.
Speaker 1:Yes, Okay. So first question on the power of storytelling and I I am a follower of yours on LinkedIn and you talk quite a bit about storytelling as being the cornerstone of effective LinkedIn content and I see this all the time in your content. Can you share a story from your own life that became a game changer for your business and your personal brand that you're building game?
Speaker 2:changer for your business and your personal brand that you're building. Yeah, you know, what I've learned in this journey and then working with clients is people really struggle to tell stories.
Speaker 2:It comes really naturally for me. So you assume that it comes naturally for anything that you're good at. You just assume everybody's good at it, right? I don't know why we do that, but we do so. I just thought, well, like everybody has stories and everyone can tell them, like it's not difficult. But people really struggle. They struggle to identify them first, like what story should I tell? Because I have, you know, all these things happen in my life. But like I can't tell all of them, so they have trouble distilling it down. And then, even when they get there, they struggle to articulate, like the important points.
Speaker 2:And because in LinkedIn, right, you can't tell like the whole thing, so you have to cut certain stuff out. So they have trouble then identifying like okay, well, I'm going to tell this story and then they write it out and it's, you know, 4 000 characters. Like, all, right, I gotta cut a thousand characters. Well, like what, what do I cut? Like I need everything needs to stay and it's like it actually doesn't. So there's, it takes practice.
Speaker 2:So it's been eye-opening that people help, need help telling the story and the best content, especially these days with so much AI-generated content and copy and paste GPT, you can just tell not that you can tell what it is, but you can tell the posts that have some life to them and ones that are just very stagnant and very dull.
Speaker 2:And I think that's especially as the platform changes and the algorithm changes and organic reach continues to drop. Like that's kind of your ticket to still keeping people coming back is that they know you have something to say and you're going to tell it, you know, in an interesting way. So, yeah, the storytelling is very important In terms of a specific story. I think the main one is kind of the reason why we're here. Story I think the main one is kind of the reason why we're here, which is that day in the driveway would have been June of 23. With my oldest son, I was trying to motivate him to be more confident on the basketball court and to be more aggressive. I just kind of had that I don't know a strange moment in time when I realized in this little sliver I realized I was talking to myself.
Speaker 2:I'd been talking to him for years with kind of the same message and then, I don't know, it just kind of hit me, at least from a career standpoint and a work standpoint which I'd always struggled with. So I was like, oh well, if I just keep doing it the way that I've been doing it, not much is going to change. I can change jobs and industries and whatever. Doing it the way that I've been doing it, like not much is going to change, like I can change jobs and industries and whatever, and maybe I'll eventually stumble someplace. That is okay.
Speaker 2:But it wasn't going to really solve the true like doing what I want to do and not being tied to someone else's schedule and like all the stuff you have to do when you work for a company. So that moment really was the final push to start creating content, which was not intended to become a full-time thing. It was really just like something to do, an outlet, a creative process, and then within three or four months I realized I'd kind of found it. And then here we are. So that story or that moment, I don't know, without that I'm not sure. Maybe I would have stayed in the comfort zone and never actually pushed post on that.
Speaker 1:So that was a really pivotal moment for you and I think that so many solopreneurs when they're starting out it's just scary and it's daunting, and in that moment that was a pivotal point. But how did you overcome that self-doubt and the fear of taking risks when you left your nine to five, and how would you advise others feeling stuck in transition?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think to get me started, I think it might have been some desperation to the motivation and realize I was talking to myself. But I tried so many things. I had tried several career coaches and therapy and I'd read I don't even know 60, 80 self-help, personal growth type books, right, podcasts. I mean I collected quotes. I had a 14-page Word document with quotes trying to motivate myself. I tried a lot of things and I just hadn't gone. I didn't feel like I was making a lot of progress. So when I had the idea to create content, even though it wasn't long-term business and vocation thinking, there was some desperation and I just had to do something different. And I'd never put myself out there because I was very social media averse no Facebook or TikTok.
Speaker 1:Instagram you were. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've never had any of those accounts. I mean, I have a Twitter account. I've never posted. I signed up for a Facebook account many, many years ago and the only reason I did is because a triathlon coach I was working with that's how he communicated with the group, so I had to get on there just to get the updates. So that was it, and then, you know, never had an Instagram account. So LinkedIn was the only account that I had. It was relatively recent.
Speaker 2:I didn't sign up for LinkedIn until February of 18. And even though obviously it had been out many years before that. So I was late to that game too. I had maybe 450 connections, which were mostly just people I worked with or people that I knew. I just didn't have any social media presence and I didn't really want one. I didn't want people to look at me. I don't like looking at my own photo, let alone other people looking at it. I never thought I'd start a podcast, even though I wanted to in my head, I didn't think I'd actually do it because I was like, oh, just all the doubt that we carry. So that was part of it.
Speaker 2:Again, I think the desperation was like the final push in terms of starting the business. So once I realized that I was good at this and I wanted to figure out a way to do it full time, it was a pretty quick transition, probably within three or four months before I quit, which I don't overly recommend, excuse me. I would say if you're thinking about going out on your own, but you are working full-time, I would stay in that as long as you can, as long as it's tolerable and there's no really adverse or harsh conditions. It just makes it easier because you keep the money coming in. So then you're making decisions not based on revenue or sales. You're able to do it. You have a little bit more creative freedom.
Speaker 1:So you can kind of like prove the concept of what you're working on and then, once you prove that, you can kind of it's kind of like testing on the side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can experiment more because you're not worried about the outcome as much. If you just up and quit I mean again, depending on how much money you have saved and what your resources are you can start to feel a little bit of pressure, and then you won't make the same decisions because you'll start making decisions based on money and you might do some things that you didn't want to do, which isn't necessarily wrong, but you might not be that happy. And so then if you quit, if you're unhappy and you quit your job, and then you start your business and you start doing things that you're unhappy with in your business, then it's like a double whammy You're going to feel resentful about it Right and lose the.
Speaker 2:Right, I put myself in this box, right. So anyway, that's what would be my first recommendation is prove that you can make, prove that you can generate some consistent revenue with your model first, and if you can start to do that kind of month over month for three to six months, then I think you just have a lot more confidence in moving away from the nine to five, which of course it's really false, because the security of the nine to five is an illusion, because you can be let go at any time. It's probably not likely, but without getting into that.
Speaker 2:There is some safety right in the every other week paycheck In terms of what you're going to do or making the leap. I think it's just finding something that you're really passionate, really interested in. You know, like I love content creation, like it never gets old. Like creating content, engaging with content, helping other people with their content Like I just love it.
Speaker 1:Did you realize that you liked it so much Because you you talk about kind of having this aversion to it you didn't want to be too much in the spotlight? Did you know you were going to like it as much as you do?
Speaker 2:No idea. I mean, if you had told me when I started that this would happen, I wouldn't have believed you. It just took a few months for me to really figure out a cadence and a rhythm. I started out posting two times a week for the first month to test it out. Then the next month I moved to three times a rhythm. You know, I started out posting two times a week for the first month to test it out, and then the next month I moved to three times a week, and then I actually did three times a week for about six months before I finally went to, you know, four or five times a week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I love is you incorporate those metrics posts so you like go back and you share with us, like, okay, this is what I did in the last month and this is the results and here are some of my learnings about it, which is really helpful for people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that post does.
Speaker 2:That post always does really well every month. I really it takes a while for me to put that one together because I pull the data and then I put it in a carousel and it's a little bit time consuming, but I enjoy doing that one and people, I think, get something out of it just to see what other people are doing and things they can then implement into their creation and content. So I think that's been a big. You know I've looked at the numbers almost from the beginning. I know I built my own Excel dashboard that I use.
Speaker 2:Obviously you can get them through third party sites like Shield and Authored Up and many others if you're, if you don't want to do the manual route, but I think it's important you don't have to look at them as much as I do. I probably look at them too much, to be honest. But think a regular check-in of like what's happening like now with the you know the for whatever reason, in december, you know impressions are way down for most people, um, and they've been down. They've been trending downward for two years and now in december it's even a bigger drop. So it's just, it's just good to be aware of that and if you're just kind of posting in the dark. I mean, obviously you can see your impressions, but if you don't know what your impressions did the previous couple months, it might not be obvious that they're significantly lower. It's just good to be aware of what's happening and what works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's so many different factors going into that. So starting to learn the science behind it. What does a piece of content do versus what's going on in the algorithms all those different factors and we're starting to get into trends and things that you're learning. What are some other trends that you're seeing? You coach so many solopreneurs with their content. What's the challenges that you're seeing around trends with your clients? How do you help them understand it and navigate it?
Speaker 2:I think the biggest thing my post tomorrow is going to be a little bit about this. It's really about intention with your post and your content. So it depends on where you are in the journey. Right, if you're just posting to post because you want to build followers and connection, that's totally fine. But you're going to take a different approach than someone who's trying to sell their product or service right, it's a different. First of all, it's a different mindset. Second, you have to have much more intention in the content when you're trying to move people towards eventually working with you. So if you were just posting to get engagement, that would not be nearly as difficult because you could do infographics and selfies and very top of funnel content and it will typically get more impressions and more engagement, but it's not really going to move people towards your business.
Speaker 2:So, like a current client, when we started working together a few weeks ago, she had some ideas about what she wanted to do, but there just wasn't a lot of intention about thinking far enough ahead with her content, of how to attract people and then move them into working with her, and so that was the biggest change we made in her content was. You know, I gave her post ideas with the idea of letting them know A who she was, why she's doing it and what she does. And now that's pretty much all she's talked about and in just a couple of weeks she has a new offer. It's a three-day workshop in January. She already has two signups and she has a third inquiry. Awesome, yeah, it's, it's great and so it just it isn't me, it's. I mean, she's written all the posts, but it's where I've come in is just getting her to think differently about like what she's writing and how she's writing it in order to get people into, because I just, I think for her, a lot of people just didn't know. I just don't think they really knew what she did. It wasn't that I even said I was like I'm not really sure what you do.
Speaker 2:So you have to spell it out and you have to keep talking about it, because not everybody sees all of your posts. You know people are worried about being redundant, but if you have an offer, you have to talk about it pretty frequently because, yeah, people are a you don't know who's seeing it, but even people that see a lot of your content, they're not seeing all of it. They're coming in and out, so you have to be repetitive. You don't have to be people overhead with it. I'm talking about it in every post, but not every post needs to be a sales post. But you can still talk about what you do without selling, but it has to be really obvious if you're trying to run a business Like this is why I'm here. This is what I do.
Speaker 1:Excuse me and this is.
Speaker 2:You know, this is what it takes to work with me. So that, so I think, the intention. I think even people running businesses sometimes forget. They just kind of, even if they come up with a content plan, it's very loose, like well, I'm gonna talk about, I'm gonna post five days next week, and so I'll talk about these five things, but I don't think they really sometimes think about the point of what are those five posts doing? Are they all working together? Are they five separate posts? Do they build off of another? There's a lot more that's kind of what I talk about tomorrow in the post is there's more to it than just sitting down and crafting and writing content and hitting posts. You can do that but you won't get very far or it'll take you a lot longer. But if you think more intentionally and it does take longer, like it's more effort, but I think you'll you just you'll find you get results faster because you have a plan.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, I see that being really helpful one, because oftentimes, when we're in our own heads, we make an assumption about you know well, they know this. Well, maybe they don't. And I also think it's interesting because you're thinking about the journey of how the audience will perceive that content, both when they catch the posts and both when they don't catch every post, and that's kind of a difficult bridge. So that's important. So you're getting at the strategy in front of the content and then helping someone be able to execute on that effectively. So that's really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it varies, right. Like you know, she's not like this particular client. You know she'll run this workshop in January, but then it's going to change for her. Unless you know, Unless she wants to run the same workshop in February. She could, and then the content would be very similar, but maybe she wants to pivot to more one-to-one offering or group coaching. So then the message tweaks to changes a little bit, right? So you always have to kind of be aware it's not something that you can just decide on one day and then be like I'm all set forever, right it can change.
Speaker 1:It's constantly changing.
Speaker 2:It can change week to week. I've started to do some live events so I've done a lot more posts about promoting the live event, right? So if I wasn't running the events then obviously I wouldn't be writing content about it. So that kind of stuff. When you have one-offs or two-offs or six-offs throughout the year, then you have to make sure you're building those in, you're factoring that in to your content. So I just think, thinking a little bit more seriously about the journey, like I think you mentioned the journey like it's the journey you want people to go on and that could be within one post or it could be a series of posts or your entire plan. But, um, you know, people kind of have to see themselves in your content, to start to envision working with you and like how you work. So that's why storytelling is important, because you want them to see yourself again the story.
Speaker 1:I like how you phrase that. People have to see themselves in your content. So, yeah, when? When you work with people, do they fit a certain role, or what types of people do you work with?
Speaker 2:I'm still kind of figuring that out. I have to keep reminding myself. It feels like I've been doing this for a really long time, but it's really only been about eight months in terms of having an offer.
Speaker 1:So I keep having to.
Speaker 2:So I keep having cause. I didn't really. You know, I quit February of 24. I didn't have the first offer until April of 24. Hey, that seems like a really long time ago, but you know it really wasn't. So I have to remind myself. I'm still new, even though.
Speaker 2:I don't feel like it. Uh it, it depends. Like I just I just haven't gotten, I don't. I haven't worked with enough people where I'm like, okay, well, I just work with these. So I mean, most of the people I've worked with have been some type of coach. They have some type of service, consulting or coaching offer and then you know, the idea is to get people into their ecosystem and towards working with them. That's been, that's been the most I would say popular for lack of a better term. But you know, I would say popular for lack of a better term.
Speaker 2:But I kind of started out with just content only. But now that I've done enough business stuff with myself, the current offer is more content is the base, and so that's where we start. But it's really about using content to grow their business. Because content just for the sake of content, while it's nice to get more impressions and reactions and comments, that feels good, but it doesn't really matter if you're not ultimately moving people you know closer to working with you. So that's so now it's more of kind of a hybrid.
Speaker 2:So we work pretty closely on the content to get started, and then you know like one was working, you know they were doing a workshop. She's doing a three-day workshop. You know other people are doing masterclasses, others are doing just solely one-to-one. You know 90-day or you know six-month coaching. So you know it does. It does vary but and maybe eventually it'll be like a specific type of coach. But I don't have enough data to say yeah, you know it's, I only work with people that you know do X, yeah, it's all, I only work with people that you know do X.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and especially with with what you're learning now, you can create impact for so many different types of people. So, yeah, you're kind of like showing those results and building that body of evidence, which is really cool. And that said, too, I mean huge that you've now been like one year into this podcast, Like that's, that's a milestone from I don't want know what I want to do in my life. I'm like going through this river of like nothing feels right to you, found content that like creating like content lights you up, storytelling lights you up. And now, like you're one year in and you feel like way more fulfilled it sounds like than before in, and you feel like way more fulfilled, it sounds like than before. So, like one, let's celebrate that milestone. But also like what is one either interview or moment that stands out to you that's been like especially memorable in your podcast journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know the podcast has been. You know, like I said, I thought about it for a while, like I wanted to be a broadcaster as a kid and I was, you know, podcasting didn't exist. Then it was mostly sports broadcasting and then, of course, I put it on the back on the shelf for 30 years. And then, a few years ago, I thought about doing I was going to do a show with a couple of friends. We were going to talk about sports, sports, gambling, and then we were going to drink bourbon during the show.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that sounds fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was like we had a title that probably wasn't very good, but it was something about like bourbon bedding and something. So we did one. It wasn't even a test episode, we just got on and recorded ourselves talking and it was just literally us talking and I listened back to it and I just didn't like the way it sounded and so I pulled the plug.
Speaker 2:I was like, no, I don't do it, and so it was always there. But again, that whole like putting yourself out there and, like you know, sound of your voice and will people listen, and all this stuff. So then I thought, okay, when I started creating and then had some momentum, I was like, well, if I'm ever going to do it like now's the time like there is, there's never going to be a better time. And so that's when I started thinking about it and, you know, started booking guests and so, yeah, we're episode 26. I'm getting ready to record, I think, episode 32 tomorrow. I'm planning on doing 50 shows. I did 20, obviously about 25 or 26. In 24, I'm planning on doing 50 in 25, which will be almost one a week. And I've just been really lucky.
Speaker 2:Most of the people I've asked have said yes, and it's been a very diverse, very diverse group of people. So the stories and the insight and the lived experience and the journeys have all just been fascinating for me to hear and learn and get to know people on a little different level. Some people like yourself, like I've met, we've met in person and we've talked a few times. So you know, it feels like. I know you a little bit. Other people come on. I've never. I've never talked to them before, like the interview is the first time we've ever spoken. Now usually I've seen their content, I've seen their LinkedIn profile, so you know, I know a little bit about them, but I've never heard their voice.
Speaker 2:I think the one thing that really surprised me when I had her name's Amanda Kwok. She's a coach in Toronto and she talked about being an introvert. And I'm a lifelong introvert. But I always equated introversion and shyness as the same and she pointed out that they're totally different. So you can be introverted and not shy. You can be shy and not an introvert. And the introversion was simply how you get your energy. So in groups of people, typically that's a very, it's an energy drainer for introverts, whereas being in a small group or by yourself, you know, is energy a filling, and then vice versa. But it doesn't have anything to do with like, because in school I was pretty shy, like I didn't speak up in class and I would sit in the back and I would never volunteer for anything. So I just associated that with like being an introvert. So she was like it can be, but they're two totally separate things and that for some reason, just really really like stuck with me. It's like how am I this old and just learning this?
Speaker 1:Fascinating Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it was really interesting.
Speaker 1:So, in your case, you get your energy from either small one-on-ones or by yourself, but you still enjoy social interaction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the beauty, I think, of social media for me, linkedin specifically is I can choose when I get on and off. So if it feels overwhelming or I'm not enjoying it or I'm tired, or the content that day is just boring and dry, I can just log off. I can do something else. There's no obligation for me to stay on, whereas if I were to go to a party it's kind of rude if I leave early, right, like if I'm there for 20 minutes and I'm like I'm actually going to leave, I'm not, this isn't fun for me.
Speaker 2:Then someone's probably going to be offended, right? So it's, you have much more control over it. But yeah, so if I so like, if I was either one-on-one or in a small group and I'm comfortable with you, you would see a different version of me than if I didn't know who you were and we were in like a large group. It would be almost like two totally different people.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that you know that about yourself too, so you can play to those strengths. So, like when, when you have your engagement time on LinkedIn, do you find yourself needing to build in a break after that, or decompressing?
Speaker 2:A little bit. I'm usually on 7.45 am Eastern Time and then I'm on pretty consistently until probably 9.30 or 10 Eastern Time, monday through Friday. That window is pretty set. And then, yes, after. So yeah, when that's over, I'm here in my office. Then I almost always get pretty pretty set and then, yes, after. So yeah, when that's over, I'm here in my office. That I almost always. You know, get up, go downstairs. I usually let the dog out and if the weather's good enough, like I'll go out in the yard and you know throw the ball with him or just, yeah, just take like 10 or 15 minutes screen free and maybe do some breathing exercises or just sit in silence.
Speaker 1:Ooh what, what breathing exercises do you do? That's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's just a lot of deep breathing. Some people call it box breathing. Okay yeah, just different breathing patterns.
Speaker 2:Just to break up, I'm a shaman naturally shallow breather which I've just learned about myself, and so it's really just trying to expand my lungs and my lung capacity and just get more oxygen in the blood, because I think most of us throughout the day, right, you're just normal shallow breathing as you're doing everything, so it's just pausing, it doesn't have to be a lot of time, but it's just again just trying to invigorate, calm the nervous system and, you know, just kind of a little bit more peace, like in your head and in your body.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so just a little, and I try to do that a little bit throughout the day, so it's just not, you know, nonstop just sitting on the platform and I mean there's diminishing returns, like anything. If you stay on LinkedIn and just engage and comment all day like that's great but it won't, at some point it just stops being effective and you have to do other you have to do other things.
Speaker 1:So that is a great segue. So I read this stat you grew your audience by 548% in just 15 months. That's really impressive and awesome. Okay, so let's get maybe a little bit into strategies and systems and I'm curious if you can share or are open to share. What did you do to actually implement it? What did you do to make that happen, and can you break it down a little bit for anyone looking to grow their audience?
Speaker 2:I think at first I didn't really know what I was doing, other than just I was being consistent. So, like I said, it was two days a week for that first month and then three days a week, and I'm very process oriented, I'm very detail oriented in terms of I like things that repeat and I like things that I can become an expert at so that I can then repeat them. And what I didn't realize is, in those first three or four months of content creation, I was creating a system that was very easily repeatable for me, like I was doing the exact same thing every day. I was writing, I was writing posts the night before, posting them, engaging for a certain amount of time. I took a day off. I did the same thing.
Speaker 2:I took a day off and then it expanded as I posted more, but the process was the same. It's a little off, and then it expanded as I posted more, but the process was the same. It's a little bit different now, but and then engaging like that, even the time that I mentioned again, it wasn't the same when I was working full time, but that's 745 to kind of 939, 45. I do it that way almost every day, like it's almost exact, like when I log on to log, log into LinkedIn, like the way that I do things are very systematic, like it's almost exactly the same way and I don't think that's super common, I think that's just like how I do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm so curious like what does that look like for you? Because here here I am in my head like sometimes I, I like my post goes up at 645 central, and then sometimes I'm post posting while I'm getting my kids ready for bed and it's a shit show, and then sometimes I do it here and there. But I can see how creating that repeatable system that's realistic for you is super helpful. So we are David, we're logging on in the morning. What exactly does that look like for you? Yeah, so I log in. First thing I do is look at in the morning.
Speaker 2:What exactly does that look like for you? Yeah, so I log in. First thing I do is look at clear the notifications, see if there's any notifications that are either a comment that I made on a post or somebody. If there's a new comment on mine, then I'll go and respond to those. If there's any DMs, then I'll respond to those. Then I'll go to my homepage. I'll check profile views or any new followers, see if that's changed. I'll update metrics from what's happened overnight and I'll update my last few posts with impressions and reactions and then I usually then will check the. I will have already written the post for that day. I'll usually pull that up and just read it through one or two more times just to make sure it's saying what I want it to say, and then at that point I start engaging. So I have I created, I started with doing individual. You can book people's activity links so you can just see all of like one person's activities.
Speaker 1:But then people get-.
Speaker 2:You said, book people's activities, you can bookmark, so like I can bookmark your activity and I can just save that and then it would show me all of your posts, so it would be like Colleen's activities, right? So if you have a recent post, that would be on top, I could see it. So that's why I did it for a while. But then people kept pointing out that I could do these custom searches, which was more efficient, and they finally wore me down and they were correct. So now I have you can do saved LinkedIn searches by people. So you can do a custom, you can customize your feed, basically, so you can have up to 20 creators in a search and then you save that search.
Speaker 2:So then you can just always pull up those 20 anytime you want and if they've posted, you can do the last 24 hours or last week. I do the last week. If they've posted in the last week, you'll see their content. So I can go through in that 7.45 to 8.30 before my post goes live, because I posted 8.30 Eastern time. In that 45 minutes I can comment a lot because I'm simply clicking on the folder and just going through the saved people and go and comment. So I can knock out a lot of people and then my post goes live at 8.30.
Speaker 2:And then I go right back into commenting. I usually let mine sit for about 10 minutes, and especially now because it's taking longer to start getting pumped out. It used to happen pretty quickly, but just the way it happens now it's a slower process for people to start to see it. So I don't waste that time. I go right back in and start commenting and then, as comments start coming in on my post, I respond to those right away.
Speaker 2:And then now these days my youngest son he's 10, uh, fifth grade his I start getting him. I don't really have to get him ready, but I just go down and make sure that he's square and didn't forget his ipad and his earbuds and like all the stuff, and then and then I see him on to the bus and then and then I'm back, so it's like a 15 minute break. Usually at that time I come back. There's been a few more comments on mine. I'll respond to those and then it's just a. It's a process of just engaging on others and come and responding to comments on mine again somewhere between nine, 30 and 10. That's, that's how I do most mornings every day.
Speaker 1:That's cool. Thank you for sharing. Okay, so the safe search is huge. I could see that as being a real time saver. So you have just all that listed and I'm curious if we could step into now like this is a piece of you know, career for David. But if you look at how being a podcast host and a creator like has changed you personally, like what is there anything that you've learned about yourself in this process that you've gone through?
Speaker 2:I'm a lot nicer and I have a lot more patience now.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Because I'm not miserable at work.
Speaker 1:Hmm, okay, wow so the whole.
Speaker 2:Like you know, you see a lot of posts about like work-life balance and not bringing your work home, and even when people were working in offices and you know, leave it at the office and when you come home that doesn't happen. If you had a terrible day at work, I don't know too many people that can just literally turn that off and be like totally different for the next five or so hours with their families. Like that's really difficult to do, yeah, and I was not very good at it. So I you know I would be miserable at work and then I'd come home and be miserable at home. And it wasn't on purpose, I wasn't trying to take it out on them, but who? Like they're the people that around you. So of course they're gonna, they're gonna hear it and face it, but I don't.
Speaker 2:So I don't really have that anymore because, like I wake, up with energy and excitement and what I, what I'm doing, feels good, feels aligned, and so I'm just generally happier. I'm not in a bad mood that often and, yeah sure, I get frustrated and I wish things were different in certain areas and all that kind of stuff, because that's going to happen no matter what you're doing. But just my overall general sense of feeling is significantly higher, so it's just easier. I'm just easier to get along with.
Speaker 1:That is fantastic, and the fact that you know, when you and I met, you had talked about working with many different career coaches and things that you've learned about yourself, and the fact that you've come to a point where you found what lights you up and content and storytelling is something you truly enjoy, and how it's impacted both your career and your life. It's it's really awesome and it's a cool story to hear. Um, okay, so like looking back at everything that you've accomplished this past year, like what stands out as something that you're really proud of.
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I will answer it in one second. So just a quick point about your point there about the career coaches.
Speaker 2:This is not to knock career coaches in any way, because I love them and, like I said, I hired three of them and worked with four or five, because one of the places I worked with had several. I made the mistake with career coaches, thinking they were just going to solve the problem for me. So I thought I will hire you and we will go through your process and I'll take your test and then at some point you're going to tell me you should do this job right.
Speaker 1:You should do this and it's going to be perfect.
Speaker 2:Correct and that's going to be it Right, and that's not true for any coaching, right? No one is going to magically solve all of your problems. That's not what they're there to do. They're there to help you and guide you and help you learn about yourself. Ultimately, it's up to you. My point to that is none of those coaches ever said, no, we think you'd be a great podcast host and content creator. That never came up.
Speaker 2:That never, showed up on any tests. That was never a conversation that any of them ever had with me. So the point is that you sometimes just have to do you can take all of that and it's all great. I'm not again. I fully advocate for hiring people like that, but go into it knowing that they're there to help you. They're not there to solve your problem.
Speaker 2:And they still might not tell you the thing that you're supposed to be doing, because I kind of did it again out of desperation and having a strange kind of white light type moment, for whatever reason. And then here we are. So if that hadn't happened, I would have. I was working with a career coach at the time that I started posting. If I hadn't started posting, we would have gone the traditional. During that time we were working on identifying two or three industries where we thought that I would be a fit and then identifying roles within those companies. And then I would have followed the traditional trying to find jobs and reaching out on LinkedIn to people that work there and all the type of things you do to try to get in. I would have done that. I mean, maybe it would have worked, maybe we would have found something Probably not. Or it would have been okay or better than what I was doing. Right, because that's usually how I was judging it. Is it a little bit better than what I'm doing? Awesome, yeah, so you have to think about that Again. I just did something. I just did it and then it happened to be right.
Speaker 2:But I think, people, if you have something inside of you that you've been thinking about doing like. I've been thinking about my like unfulfilled potential, and that I had all this potential for probably 10 or 15 years. When I was stuck in the cubicle, I knew I was capable of more than just showing up at nine o'clock and punching numbers and spreadsheets and going home at five. That seemed very unfulfilling to me and I was like this seems like I'm wasting whatever ability I have, like my short time on earth. This doesn't seem to be a great use of it, but I never knew what to do with it. So I had these ideas, but I didn't know how to put them into action. Well, ultimately, it was taking action which happened to be creating content.
Speaker 2:But that could be. That doesn't have to be for you. It's whatever you're thinking inside, like if you're, if you have something that like keeps coming to you and you're like I wish I could do this, or I want to do this, or I think I would be good at this, or I would like to try this right. If you're having any of those kinds of thoughts, you just have to do it, even if somebody tells you it's crazy or they're like that'll never work or you're not good enough, whatever.
Speaker 2:People are very quick to shut down your dreams, right, like if your kids come to you and say you want to be an astronaut, the first things you're going to hear like, oh, you're too old, you're not smart enough, it's too hard, you know how long it takes, it's very expensive. Like, sure, you want to do that. You just get hit with all this negativity, right, and that's just how we're, that's just society. So my point is if you're thinking about anything, just do it Again. But you might just want to do it, so you'll never know if you don't try and you can think about it forever and that will get you nowhere.
Speaker 1:Anyway, that was the no and I, I love that one because, also, you finally suppressed that nagging in the back of your head Like you can finally like that. There must've been a weight like that, that feeling like I have this potential, I want to try this thing. So I assume it being like, really almost like a weight has been lifted and even for someone having that itch of doing something, even just doing it, will allow that, that lingering, to just subside and that, that weight, which is fascinating. Okay. So tip here, paying attention to what your mind is drawn towards in those peaceful moments. Wouldn't it be cool if thoughts like listening to those? That's cool.
Speaker 2:David, thank you. I waited too long, so if you're hearing this, don't wait as long as I did Act sooner. In terms of the accomplishment, I don't know that's hard to pick just one. I think A just sticking't know that's hard to pick just one. I think A just sticking with it. It's very hard.
Speaker 2:Starting your own thing is much more difficult than anyone talks about. You see a lot of stuff on LinkedIn people making $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 a month and recurring revenue and all this stuff and that's great. That's not common, so they're in the minority. There aren't a lot of people that are doing that. So it's hard. It's hard financially. It's hard to sign clients consistently and you have up and down months and it's not like we talked about with the nine to five, where you're getting the same money every other week or every month and you can count on it. So it's a totally different. It's different psychologically, it's different emotionally. So just the fact that I've stuck with it feels good. But the podcast I think most podcasts stop after I think it's 10 episodes and I think less than I want to say, like less than five percent ever make it to to episode 20 and typically the reason is people. Just it's hard to get people to listen and so you're like, well, nobody's listening and so what's the point? And so they just stop. So the fact that I'm still doing it I have, you know, many more planned that feels feels an accomplishment.
Speaker 2:But then, meeting people I came to Minnesota and met you and Lindsay and a couple other people. I'd never been to that state before, I hadn't flown in like six years. So just doing stuff like that, I went to Toronto. Yes, prior to that, I met five people in Toronto for three days. I've never been to Canada. To that, I met five people in Toronto for three days. I've never been to Canada. So it's like the expansion. This whole process for me has just been one big expansion on all these different levels.
Speaker 2:And so that was traveling and meeting people who were literals A year ago, less than 14 months ago, you didn't even know I existed, right? No? So the magic of of social media gets a bad rap for a lot of negative things, and rightfully so. But there's a lot of good and positive too, and so this is like the positive power of social media and being able to find and connect with people, um, and build relationships and then meet in person like that's I again. I wouldn't have believed you if someone had come to me again like two years ago. I'm like this is what. This is the next two years of your life. Like you're completely making this up. There's no way that like any of that's gonna happen. Like you're completely I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah but, you followed that spark, that spark, and then one step in front of the other, in front of the other, and then some Colleen and David met on LinkedIn and started building a friendship through the platform and DMs and supported each other.
Speaker 1:I can think of numerous DMs throughout the past year where we asked each other questions and we supported each other.
Speaker 1:And then you come and visited us and we had dinner and you met Ed, and so, for everything, I think that you hit the nail on the head and something that you know for its good and bad LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:You can make a choice to really focus on leveraging the positives, customizing your feed like you talked about, like using the platform to work for you and help support the life that you want to live. I'm really grateful that we met and got to be friends and I'm super grateful for this opportunity to interview you and be my first podcast host and be able to highlight your story, because you have really been beautifully authentic and vulnerable about the things that you've gone through and the challenges that you've faced and turns that ended up going sideways, and I think that that voice and that story is really important in the world of AI because we can really create that bridge and know that. You know you don't have all the answers, even people on LinkedIn that create impact like you do, and the results that you did. They're constantly facing challenges, but you made the choice, so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I appreciate you saying that. It's very kind of you. Same way, I'm very grateful that our paths crossed and your story also is just so authentic and real and your plane building and now the sauna and just the close knit family life that you lead and it's a beautiful thing and I'm happy to be a very small part of it. So you coming on my show and then being able to meet you and now coming on and interviewing me is I'm super appreciative of you and what you stand for.
Speaker 1:Awesome, Super cool. Well, thank you, David. Again, if you want to listen to David and my conversation, it's back, I think number eight.
Speaker 2:Episode eight Yep I'll link that specific episode and I'll link the folder. If anybody's listening that uses LinkedIn and wants to create the custom search, I'll put that in the show notes and then we'll put all of your information in there as well, and you write one of the best newsletters. I don't read a lot of newsletters, but I usually read yours, so if anybody's out there looking for a good newsletter, sign up for Colleen's, because it's one of the unique, unique good ones.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of not good ones. I appreciate that Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Look at the show notes for all the awesome tips that David shared. Thank you, David. Hope we get to talk again soon.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thanks, Colleen Bye.