Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Hilary Billings on the Psychology of Attention, Mastering Short-Form Video, and Personal Brand Building EP 312

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

In this episode of the Passion Struck podcast, John R. Miles interviews Hilary Billings, the CEO and co-founder of Attentioneers and an expert in short-form video content. They explore the psychology of attention, personal brand building, and the power of creating compelling videos that captivate viewers. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/hilary-billings-psychology-of-attention/  Mastering Short-Form Video: The Psychology of Attention with Hilary Billings If you're feeling frustrated and overwhelmed by the lack of engagement and success in your short-form video content, despite your efforts to create and share it, then you are not alone! Many content creators and marketers on social media are experiencing this pain as their videos fail to grab and hold their audience's attention. Despite investing time and resources into crafting and promoting their content, they find themselves wondering why their videos aren't generating the desired results and leaving them questioning their strategies. It's time to understand the psychology of attention and harness it to create captivating and successful short-form videos. Brought to you by Nom Nom. Nom Nom is healthy, fresh food for dogs formulated by top Board Certified Veterinary Nutritionists, prepped in their kitchens with free delivery to your door. Get 50% off and unlock a two-week risk-free trial at https://trynom.com/passionstruck. --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Prefer to watch this interview: https://youtu.be/gmWbjVo4qtI  --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://youtu.be/QYehiUuX7zs  Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Catch my interview with Marshall Goldsmith on How You Create an Earned Life: https://passionstruck.com/marshall-goldsmith-create-your-earned-life/  Watch the solo episode I did on the topic of Chronic Loneliness: https://youtu.be/aFDRk0kcM40  Want to hear my best interviews from 2022? Check out episode 233 on intentional greatness and episode 234 on intentional behavior change. ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m  Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/  Passion Struck is now on the AMFM247 broadcasting network every Monday and Friday from 5–6 PM. Step 1: Go to TuneIn, Apple Music (or any other app, mobile or computer) Step 2: Search for “AMFM247” Network

coming up next on passion focus equals diluted result do is be very intentional on the messaging on the way that we are going to g that we want for people t that reputation to be abl hoping that at some point that it'll stick.

Welcome to Passion Struct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armeyles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock

the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become passion-struck. innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Episode 312 of PassionStruck, ranked by Apple is one

of the top 10 most popular health podcasts. Thank you to all of you who come back weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. PassionStruck is now on syndicated radio, and the AMFM 247 National Broadcast, it can catch us every Monday and Friday from 5 to 6 p.m. Eastern time. Links will be in the show notes. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. Or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or family member, we now have episodes

starter packs, which are collections of our fans favorite episodes that we organize. In the community of topics that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated, everything we do here on the show either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started. In case you missed it earlier this week, I interview Dr. Penelk Allen and Dr. David Kipper who uncovered the breakthrough science of neurotransmitters and why they reveal a clear path

to overcoming bad habits at sabotage your success, your career, love, and healthy living. We discuss their book, Override, discover your brain type, why you do what you do, and how to do it better. Last week I also had two great episodes, first with Joanna Grover, on how to use functional imagery training to unlock your choice points.

I also interviewed bestselling author, speaker and wellness expert, Chris Carr, that her upcoming book, I'm not a morning person, which launches in September. Please check them all out. And I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews. If you love today's episode or any of those others that I mentioned, we would so appreciate it if you gave us a five star rating and review and share this with your friends and family. I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. Let's discuss today's episode where I'm joined by my friend, the remarkable Hillary Billings, who is a leading authority on the psychology of attention. It's the co-founder and CEO of Attentioners and award-winning agency specializing in short

form video strategy, Hillary has empowered entrepreneurs and personal brands to drive reach and revenue in the digital landscape with her own impressive track record of growing her own following from 0 to 400,000 in just 40 days and accumulating over 1 billion organic views within 12 months. Hillary possesses a deep understanding of capturing and maintaining attention online. Her expertise has attracted the attention of prominent figures including billionaires, Victoria Secrets models, and New York Times' bestselling authors. Furthermore, as a valued member of TikTok's Advisory Board,

Hillary collaborates directly with the platform, further solidifying her influence in the industry. Not confined to the digital realm, Hillary's captivating presence has brazed stages across the United States, cheering her insights along icons such as William Shatner and Bon Jovi. For her engaging talks, she empowers audiences to cut through the noise and create compelling content that garners attention. Hillary has a diverse background as a former Miss Nevada journalist and on-camera host for traditional media outlets like E, Extrapp and USA Today. During this enlightening episode, we delve into the various aspects of her extraordinary journey, including the surprising turn of events that let her to become Miss Nevada, her experience as a red carpet interviewer and the significant role

it played in overcoming a poster syndrome. We also explore the profound impact of the digital landscape on our lives and the future of content creation. And as a bonus, Hillary shares invaluable advice or listeners on how to cultivate viral personal brands and harness the psychology of attention in their content. Don't miss this captivating episode featuring Hillary Billings. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me, be your host and guide

on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. I always love doing episodes, but I absolutely love it when I get to bring a personal friend on the show. And today I have an amazing guest for you, Hillary Billings. Welcome, Hillary. Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Yes, gosh, thank you so much for having me. I'm so

excited to be here. Yes, what's so great to see your smile again. And for those of you who are listening, you can catch it on our YouTube channel. I love to ask this question. We all have moments that define us. How did a firework accident eventually lead you to becoming Miss Nevada? a firework accident eventually lead you to becoming Miss Nevada. Mm, talk about a defining moment in my life. I, at the time, was an international travel blogger, and I had just gotten back to the States from living with the firewalker tribe in Fiji, who claims to be the originators of the practice of walking on hot coals. And it was right around the 4th of July, I had a friend that was having a 4th of July party. And they were lighting a fireworks like any normal person would on the 4th of July. And it just happened to be a freak moment where one of them, the fuse lit up, the fuse

went down and nothing happened and everybody went quiet. As you know that something is wrong when the fire worked and it didn't explode and then it exploded in all the wrong ways. And the fuse ended up traveling 30 feet on fire in the air curved around, hit my sunglasses and went down my shirt. And I ended up suffering second and third degree burns to my chest and my stomach. And at the time I was doing some modeling. I was traveling a lot. I had all these travel plans for the summer and for the fall. And everything in my life was put on pause while I was trying to heal.

Doctors didn't know what my healing time would look like. They didn't know if I'd look normal, fun fact, but chest is the slowest healing part of the body. Being in my mid-20s at the time, it was a really interesting time. I was having to redefine what it meant to feel feminine and beautiful and to accept my body and all of the healing that was happening to grapple with the fact that I was defining myself by my career. And I always had by my success. And being a travel

writer and a travel blogger, I just went underground and I didn't tell anybody that I had this major life change. I was just continuing to blog about what had happened to me in the past and places I traveled before. I felt so embarrassed by the situation, even though there was no reason to. And it was the new years going into 2013 that I was hired for some modeling gig and I was feeling really good about myself. And then I just happened to look in the mirror as I was hired for some model in gig and I was feeling really good about myself and then I just happened to look in the mirror as I was leaving for the event and I saw my scars and I just had a breakdown and I was so tired of throwing myself as pity party. So I decided to put myself in the most uncomfortable situation that I could think of. Nothing sounded more terrifying

than being on stage in a bikini and having someone judge me based upon my appearance. Never done a pageant before, never had any interests before. Still didn't really have any interest, but I wanted to overcome my confidence issues. And then lo and behold, I would go on to win the pageant and become Miss Nevada, work with the Bern Institute, the Bern Foundation, someone of that a firefighters, and it was a really life-changing experience, specifically because I made the decision to take action in a time where everything felt so dismal.

You hear these horror stories of accidents people have with fireworks, and I remember as a youngster when I was in middle school, myself and a group of my friends all would go in together and we'd buy these box of fireworks. I'm not sure my parents know, but we would end up having like bottle rocket fights and rowing candle fights up and down the neighborhood streets. And I look back and I'm like, we could have so entered ourselves, but man, it was fun. Yeah.

Yes, I was definitely a casualty of that thinking. But I think again, it was such a formative experience for me and really allowed me to push me on my thinking as to what my life could look like and how my impact could be seen and felt in the world. At the end of the day, I'm glad that it happens because otherwise I wouldn't have had the opportunity to connect with so many people and to make the impact on my community that I did because of my involvement with pageantry. And it's still an organization that I'm still very closely tied to and being able to help empower and foster the next generation of beauty queens who are just women that want a platform who are super smart and have an agenda to making the world a better place.

And so I think it's a pretty interesting and cool organization to be a part of that prioritizes community service, that prioritizes scholarship service, that prioritizes scholarship in that way. And it's been a lot of fun to have this interesting feather in my cap over the years. Yes. This question just came into my head. And that is once you win a pageant like that, are you kind of part of that organization for life at that point or do you after time period move

away from it? I think it really depends upon the woman. I would say that there is opportunity to create a strong sisterhood. I actually just went to a wedding of a former Miss Nevada front of mine. There was a number of us there and so it was fun to see the beauty queens from over the years and how we continue to support each other. I think the great thing about the organization is that it gives you an opportunity to connect with other women who want to make an impact, who are looking for ways to get involved in their community, and who have all gone through something in one way or another that has led them to be more ambitious. And one of my best friends was my first runner-up from the year that I won, and we're still incredibly close today. So I have had the opportunity to judge for many

Miss USA pageants, coach a lot of girls to the Miss USA and Miss America stages. And I think now, as I get more into focusing on business and different opportunities. I'm not as heavily involved as I was closer to my reign, but yeah, it's one of those systems and organizations where you can be involved for life, and I think a lot of women are because of the community that it can foster. Well, you left that, and we all see these people at the Oscars, or Golden Globes, or major events, I'll see these people at the Oscars or Golden Globes or major events interviewing these Alistars and you often wonder how in the heck did they find their way doing that? And you yourself were one of them interviewing Alistang celebrities on the red carpet. How did doing that make you passionate about helping people overcome imposter syndrome and developing confidence where we feel authentic in ourselves.

Gosh, it was such a privilege to be asked to be a part of that world. It all started actually when I was still Miss Nevada, so I had just gone to compete at Nationals. It was actually a year to the day that I was burned with the firewalk that I was competing in the swimsuit preliminaries for my title. Shortly thereafter, I had won a local blogging award for a Las Vegas magazine that was highly reputable and revered. And I think it was about two weeks after I got back

from the National Pageant, where I got a phone call from USA Today. And they were interested in having me come on as a journalist. And I remember the phone call with, it was the president of the travel editor and their division. And I was so nervous. And he's talking to me about what they wanted to do and what they were thinking about

and how we could do the six-foot trial because I had this blogging experience but I didn't have formal journalism experience. And I remember being so serious, I was like, yes, okay, of course, we can happily do this. And he said, just it's supposed to be fun and exciting. And I was like, yes, I am excited. I'm also just so nervous. I want to show you that I'm taking this seriously.

And I think we got a week or two into that trial. And there was an opportunity that came up for me to be on the carpet for the I Heart Radio music festival that was going to be here in Vegas. And so they called and asked if I be willing to hosting for them. I said yes. And then I hung up the phone and started freaking out about it. You say yes, the opportunity. Then you have the freak out, then you go do it. That's my philosophy. And they sent their top music journalist from Nashville. Essentially, the baby sent me, he was so wonderful and he and I joke about this now because he's still a fantastic mentor and friend, but they didn't know if I would be good at it or how it would

go. So they wanted to make sure they had a professional there as well, but I was able to help guide the process. And my first interview out of the gate was with Ryan Seacrest. So just the interviewer of all interviewers, no pressure whatsoever. But between Ryan and having Brian Mansfield, who have been with USAIDA, as their top music editor for so by fire, of how to do this well. And both Brian and Ryan were very great at making you feel like you were the only person in the room, prioritizing the relationship. And that was something that,

even with USA Today in general, at the time, they were very well known for, which was they would prioritize the relationships over being the first ones to break a scandal a story, at the end of the day it mattered to them to be able to have access long-term. That really shaped the career for me and provided an opportunity for me to continue to do these red carpets. And even though I would get super nervous going into these interviews, the thing that I realized, the more that I did these interviews with people that I idolized and all of these incredible celebrities was that they're just like us, right?

They have the same self-confidence issues, they have the same imposter syndrome issues, they're dealing with the same things and you can even see that reflected in their interviews sometimes, which was really fascinating. But at the time, it was something that we weren't talking about, and it really made me passionate about wanting to bring that to light, to showcase and see how we can help especially women when we have all these impossible standards that are being put on us at all times, to look a certain way, to act a certain way, to have all the energy in the world and do it effortlessly and also run the UN and cure cancer and look great doing it. That's just not the reality of the people that we look up to either.

And how do we start having more realistic conversations? So it was through that experience that really motivated me and brought my passion out about helping people overcome their feelings of insecurity and build authentic confidence. Yeah, I've recently had on Dr. Halerman, who now is a psychologist, but at one time, she was one of the top agents in Hollywood. She represented Ben Stiller, Vince Fawn, Jamie Lee Curtis, the list goes on and on.

And she said the same thing that you just brought up that when it comes down to it, they are just normal people just like you and me. And have the resources that we don't necessarily have to make them look amazing every single day and to help pull some of the pressure off of them that they're dealing with on the daily. And I just saw a photo of Tom Cruise when he was in Jeremiah, compared to now. And it looks like he's younger now than he was then. I'm like, wow, I need his health program. Gosh, he has some great genetics, doesn't he? No.

Oh my gosh, yeah, I wish we all had that same ability and money to do what he's able to do. Oh. Well, you end up jumping from that. And alongside it, you become a personal brand strategist. And I wanted to ask you why is it so hard to build a personal brand and what are some of the reasons that you have found working with people why most personal brands don't survive. So I think for starters when it comes to personal brands everybody is a personal brand Whether or not they realize it in their business, you are known, you have a reputation for your

results, you have a reputation for the amount of people you impact and how you do that. So we all have a personal brand. So for starters, there's a lot of saturation in the market. In my experience and what I've learned with working with clients is the biggest reason that people are not breaking through to the next level to where they want to go, is they are trying to do too much. They are trying to break through on every possible front. So whether that's they've got a million different social media profiles, they're trying to break through on YouTube,

on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on TikTok, on Clubhouse, on Pinterest. They're trying to build their email list. The same time I'm trying to build a podcast. At the same time, they're trying to write the book. At the same time, they're trying to write the show. And they have so many course offerings or different types of business models. Their messaging isn't clear. At the end of the day, my mentor and coach, Rayvaden,

says all the time that diluted focus equals diluted results. So what we want to do is be very intentional and hyper-focused on the messaging, on the intent, on the way that we are going to go about getting the results that we want for people to just hyper-focus that reputation to be able to break through. Otherwise, it's like throwing spaghetti at a wall and someone's hoping that at some point that it'll stick. And now in my career, helping people wish short form continents a very similar challenge that people are running into. It's the half-hazardness of it all. You and I were talking before we started recording about how a lot of people will see what some of these huge personal

brands are doing right now, like Gary Vee, like Mark Cuban, and they will be copying what they're doing because they see it working for them, but the challenges they've already had at least 10 years in the marketplace to build their reputation. So they can do things that people that are less well-known necessarily can't or won't work for them that people that are less well known necessarily can't or won't work for them because of the reputation that they have going back to Tom Cruise, he has, I think, two million followers on TikTok, he hasn't made a single TikTok post, right? So it isn't about content, it's about his reputation,

people are already following him, just waiting, hoping for some sort of fun top-gun clips that are potentially gonna come out on that platform. So we have to think about it differently and not necessarily apply what the current leaders in the industry are doing to what you're doing. So first and foremost we have to get hyper-specific, hyper-clearing or messaging, hyper-clear on the goals so that a proper strategy can be put into place as to where and how people are going to find you. Yes, so I just had Rory on the show as well. His episode of Someone Once Here It is 248. And one of the biggest things I learned from him is that a lot of people go into their personal

brand and service of self. And I think one of the key messages he has is personal brands really flourish when you're in service of others. And you're typically most inclined to serve the person that you once were. And I think that's where a lot of people go wrong. I know I did when I first started this because a lot of times you don't want to see the person that you once were. Oh, yeah. Because doesn't that just remind you of all the inadequacies and insecurities that you felt? And that's a hard place to have to grapple with and to sit with that.

But I think once we are able to look at our previous selves with compassion and embrace that they had so much to give and so much heart and forgive ourselves for the transgressions or whatever ego at the time wanted us to do. I went through the same thing even when I was on red carpets and there was a lot of validation that I needed in that time and being in that role that now I don't. And I think that it's such a beautiful place when you can finally look at your prior self and say, gosh, I feel for them and embrace them and recognize that there are so many other people out there in your sphere and in the world that need the knowledge that you now have and how can you help them to gain that.

I think that's so powerful. Well, another question I just want to ask you on this because I think it can help listeners is, how do you find your uniqueness and then exploit it in the service of others? I think what's important to mention here and we're talking about a uniqueness, it's the unique way in which you solve the problem for your audience. So for me the problem that I was solving once I was working on red carpets was overcoming inadequacy. So inadequacy was the problem. And I think what tends to get in the way of most people's personal brands is that they see that there are a lot of people in their space and then they get discouraged. So for example, if you own a gym or you're in the health and wellness or beauty space, there are literally hundreds

of thousands of other gyms and other types of exercise and other ways to achieve the aesthetic that people want. And so it can feel like you're up against the world, but the truth is it's really you against the problem in the unique way that you do that. Because the way that you are going to solve a problem for fitness and whether that's through intermittent fasting or hit workouts or even just it's a perspective problem, and that creates this really interesting DNA as to who you are as a personal brand. When you're thinking about how do you find your uniqueness and how do we exploit it in the service of others, it usually goes back to your prior self. How did you overcome? How do you know how to do what you do now? And it usually stems from you having overcome

it yourself or you doing something and just taking the time to take the 30,000 foot view and document out that process. So when it comes to overcoming inadequacy, for me, I found that it wasn't really about even getting to confidence. I really struggled with the whole fake it till you make it adage that was out there at the time and was really popular because I felt personally like that was a way to just only increase your imposter syndrome and to feel like you weren't being authentic and everybody knew and got forbidden. They did like you or they did feel you were confident for faking it. Now they didn't actually still like you for who you were because you weren't giving that opportunity. So for me, it was about taking the step, building the bridge, not taking the leap. How do we continuously move

closer to confidence? And that came from coming back to neutral, coming back to a neutral place where these experiences that you were having weren't so charged by the perspective of inadequacy and instead they didn't have to mean anything at all. So my uniqueness for overcoming the problem of inadequacy was about coming back to a neutral place which is unique in comparison to a lot of ways that people think about confidence. So it really starts with looking at how did you overcome this problem for yourself and a lot of that will probably be hidden in how you handled it and serving again yourself. So that's where I encourage people to start. to really doing it through unique lens, the hockey stick effect was almost overnight and has just increased because what I have found is once you find that lens, you tend to do everything through it, like who you bring on the show, who you bring into your life,

how you're talking about things, the questions you're asking and it makes such a profound difference. And what a powerful thing, because it also, I remember when you and I first started working together and talking, there's so much overwhelm in feeling like you have to do it all, and that you have to take every opportunity, and you have to bring everybody on the podcast, and you have to create all of these relationships all the time. But once you find that uniqueness, and you live in that uniqueness and you also know what your long term and short term business goals are, it really allows you and gives you permission to release all of these things that aren't for

you. So you can focus on that hyper specific, hyper focus of your differentions to get through the wall. And it provides some peace, I'd say, and feeling like you don't have to do it all the time Yeah, I would agree with that and as you're well aware of this podcast is focused on how you create an intentional life and that is really mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And I have come to firmly believe that it's the culmination of our daily choices that determines our long-term synomial greatness.

And I'm going to ask you a philosophical question along these lines. And that is, what is the key for translating our highest ambitions into what you want your life to look like in the future. Ooh. I think it's providing space to sit with yourself to understand what those are and how you want your life to look like. We were talking about this before, as someone who is a content creator who helps people with their short form video and social media strategy and personal brand strategy, it's so easy

to see what others are doing and to be consuming and to get lost in, I've got to do that too. Instead of looking at what works for the end goal that I want to be achieving. And I think in order to do that, you have to take a step back at some point and probably pretty regularly to do an audit and see if the life that you're creating and the actions that you're taking, if those align with your self-worth and your deservingness and where you want to go in your life. So I would say that's a big

piece of it that we don't do enough because we are so plugged in all the time. I'm not sure if you know who Juliet font is, but she has a great book called A Minute to Think and it's all about this topic and she gives us great metaphor that people want to start a fire in their lives or their career. But if you think about actually starting a fire in their lives or their career, but if you think about actually starting a fire, nothing happens without air. And the one thing that we're missing so much in this digital world that we're going to start talking about is white space. I recently interviewed Rob and Sharma about the power of focus and the impact of distraction.

And during our interview, he told me that we have a choice. We can go about changing the world or we can play on our phones. We can't do both. And I wanted to lead in with that because how do you think the digital world we find ourselves immersed in is impacting our lives? In every way, it's impacting our attention span, it's impacting how we process information, it's impacting how we connect with others, it's impacting the types of content that's getting made, it's also impacting the celebrities that are now arising in our world and the people that we consider influential, even down to actors and actresses that are getting booked in movies and people that are we consider influential, even down to actors and actresses that are

getting booked in movies and people that are getting book deals, there are so much that is being dictated by what's online. And I think it's a really powerful place to be because there's fewer gatekeepers than there used to be. So there's obviously positive negatives when it comes to what's happening in the online world. And I do think that we can often get stuck not intentionally thinking about our time online. I believe I went to Elizabeth Gilbert's book launch of City of Girls and she was talking about how you can either be a creator or you can be a consumer but you can't be both at the same time. And I remember at the time I was just getting into content creation when I went to see her and it was a very powerful statement because we spend so much time consuming and that

was a lot of how I learned my process for how to make good videos when we were first given this opportunity to have this Facebook watch channel. I was coming off of doing hundreds of videos for USA Today, my co-founder and partner. He was a former Billboard charting artist and musician and had this huge background in TV and film. And so we thought we got this. We could make content all day long.

And we were terrible at it. And we couldn't figure out we were so frustrated that we couldn't get our videos to work. And there was this turning point of we either had to go all in and figure it out, or were so frustrated that we couldn't get our videos to work. And there was this turning point of we either had to go all in and figure it out or we had to abandon ship and try something else. So we sat down and watched hundreds and hundreds of viral videos and mapped them out. We put them in a spreadsheet. What's happening at second three? What's happening at second five? What's happening at second 15? How many people are in the video? What's the framing? What are the colors?

What's the captions? Is there music? How long is it, what's the themes, and through that we started to see patterns emerge. So we took that learning and applied it to our next video, which did 5 million views, and then we took those learnings and applied it to the following video, which did 10 million views, and not to say that every video that we did since then was a hit, certainly not. But through this process of initially consuming and then translating to intentional action from that learning, we were having been able to do over a billion organic views. I grew my tick-tock following from zero to 400,000 followers in 40 days and we realized that we had created a system for how to help people authentically,

especially brands and entrepreneurs to make and authentically connect with the people online that they want to find. But it really comes down to that piece of intentionality. 20 million new videos are uploaded to social media every single day. And that's a lot of noise that everyone's up against. And frankly, a lot of it is bad noise. It's half-hazard. People are just trying to keep it with the Joneses. They see

someone doing something, they're copying it, hoping it'll work for them. They don't have a strategy, they don't have a voice, they don't have a uniqueness. They're not pushing towards a goal as to where they want to drive that traffic. If something does go viral, they don't know why it does. They're not able to replicate it. It's a lot of half hazard work, which is creating a lot of noise. And also creating a lot of consumables that aren't incredibly helpful.

So going back to what we were talking about earlier, creating that space within your own business and your own brand to sit and think about what are we actually trying to achieve here and then going forth with intentional actions with that content I think is so powerful but yeah I think the playing on the phone analogy is so powerful we can either be a consumer or we can be a creator we can be making impact or we can be consuming and getting impacted and it's really our decision as to when we want to do that

in our lives because we have to have both, but making sure that both are intentional and neither one is by accident. Well, I loved that you brought up the words attention span because yesterday, I interviewed Dr. Gloria Mark, who's an award-winning psychologist, she teaches at University of California Irvine, and she has studied the science of attention

and multitasking for two decades, and she released a new book in January called Attention Span. And she has found through her pioneering field work that we spend an average of 47 seconds on any screen before altering our attention, 47 seconds. And it just makes me want to ask because you are well immersed in this digital economy. Where do you see the future of attention going? Short form content has certainly changed the game across the board.

Even the way that we consume content on socials is now even affecting and impacting how major film and TV studios are making decisions about shows. They're all about optimizing for watch time, which is exactly what we're trying to do through short form content. I don't think short form content is going away. I do be recently released to study. 80% of the time that you're on your cell phone, not making phone calls or texting, you are watching short form video.

And I think that number, that 80% of the time, is only going to increase over the next five years. And regardless of what platform that's on, everyone's playing catch up with TikTok right now, but what about Instagram Reels or YouTube shorts or Facebook Reels or whatever the next thing is, it is going to be based in short form content, which is affecting our attention spans overall, even with how they're now making movies and TV shows. Things are so much quicker. If you go back and watch shows, even from the 90s or from the 80s, there is a major difference between how quickly we are dropping into a storyline and how quickly we're getting to learn about characters and action is happening because of the consumables and the way that we want to see content happening. You see it in music, you see it in podcasts episodes, you see it in books and how we write, everything changes as the zeitgeist

of how we consume changes. So I would say short form is definitely continuing to lead the charge of how we consume and our attention. As much as there is out there, I would say that there isn't a ton of great content that's cutting through the noise. And that's part of our mission is we want to help people to really make an impact and be able to cut through those 20 million videos.

So yours is the one that people stop to scroll on and helping people intentionally set those up so that they can be seen and heard and get their message out there. Miller, that was a great lead in into where I want to take this, but before I go there, I just have to say that we all wanted to go see Avatar until we saw that it was three and a half hours long. Yeah, the long movie. And I'm like, how in the world can you sit there through three and a half hours? It went the opposite of this short form content.

Yeah, but it did impact your decision to go. You decided not to. And I remember, this is going to date me, but I remember when the Titanic came out. And everyone was like, oh my gosh, this is the first three-hour movie to ever be made. And none of us could wait to go to the theaters to see it. And there was an intermission.

It was the first time I'd ever experienced an intermission in a movie because it was so long. And it came out and had those three VHS tapes all next to each other because they couldn't fit it all on one. Yeah, it's fascinating to see how the pendulum has swung. And it might go the other way. I think that we all need to be very aware that we have to be better about saying what we want to say in a much clearer,

concise and intentional way, because there is no half hazard attention being given anymore. There's just too much out there, and that's a really important thing is we have to earn attention. This is all about making your content as compelling as possible. So it's really removing the ego, and that's a lot of what we do. If you're looking at your content through the lens of a stranger who doesn't know you, who doesn't care, how do we get them to care? How do we get them to give you another two

and a half seconds on a video? And this is where we really start to craft intentionally and make your content so compelling, it can't be denied. I think it was Steve Martin who said, be so good they can't deny you and it's the same thing that we're dealing with now in short form content. It used to be a lot easier. It's not anymore. So now we have to earn the attention, but that's okay because it can be

earned and especially by the right people. Yes, you're absolutely right. And I think you just answered the next question I was going to ask you, which was, how can a listener leverage psychology of attention to share their passions with the world? Everyone has a personal brand. Sometimes it's easier to create one in certain career paths. For instance, when I was at Lowe's come and prevent the last thing that they wanted. Any of the employees to do was to have a brand outside the company. They wanted everything to come through that lens. And I know a lot of people probably are in professions like that.

But what I learned looking back is that there are many things I could have done, even by publishing articles or expanding my presence that would have benefited lows, but it would have benefited me on a personal basis as well. And I had a here at Dell, Victor Federer, who did an amazing job with balancing both. So it doesn't matter if you're in a healthcare profession or corporate profession, an attorney, whatever, anyone can cultivate a personal brand.

And I think it makes you that much more alluring to other career prospects to have your name out there. Absolutely. And I would like to say at my health is that a lot of these bigger organizations and corporations that previously didn't want their employees to have those brands. I think they're starting to see the importance of it and recognizing that whether or not they're involved in the process and they're encouraging that process, personal brands are happening because again, your personal brand is your reputation.

It is what people think of when they think of you. Muhammad Ali has a personal brand. Hitler has a personal brand. They can be both positive and negative, right? And mother Teresa has a personal brand. I think the language that we use to describe it is a little bit different now, especially in our social media age, but it is cool to see that organizations are recognizing that they can't necessarily control it, but they can cultivate it. And the more that they cultivate and encourage their employees to own their personal brands,

they can leverage those for more sales and better reputation of the company. So I'm 100% with you. I think there's a lot that can be done that doesn't necessarily make you a threat to the organization. And if the organization does feel threatened by that, it might give me pause to look at if this is the right fit for me moving forward, knowing that the end goal is to just bring in more revenue, more bottom line and a better reputation for the organization that I'm a part of. There's something we share in common is that when TikTok was first out there

It's a platform that neither of us really cared for and in fact now I have people coming to me all the time. Why aren't you doing more TikTok? Do TikTok do this to that? And you are adamant you wouldn't get on it wouldn't change I was exhausted. I think like a lot of business owners and a lot of personal brands. There's already so much that's required of us outside of our day-to-day job. Outside of the thing that brings us in money, we have to fill that top of funnel and having that personal brand out there in a lot of different ways. Through LinkedIn, through Facebook, through Instagram,

through doing newsletters, having blogs, updating the websites, doing speaking opportunities, it's exhausting being a person in this age. And to add one more platform that I didn't know, I didn't wanna learn how to use, that wasn't for my generation, that seemed to be all about dancing, it was too much. And I was not

interested whatsoever. And I was very adamant to Rory many a time that I put my foot down, I would not go, I would not eat green eggs in him. And it wasn't until I had a major issue on my Facebook page. I waited just posted a video, it was going viral, things were going well, and there was a glitch on the back end of my page, which demonetized the page. And Facebook was working on it with some sort of tech issue. But I'm just watching this video. I think it ended up getting about 15 million views, bringing in zero dollars. And my heart is just breaking. And I just couldn't look at it anymore. And I had to give myself something else to do. So I said, okay, I guess I'm gonna go see

what this whole TikTok thing is about. And I spent some time, and we did a very similar methodology to when we started working on Facebook where I spent a lot of time studying different videos. And then from there, made some guesses of my content that had done well other places, what might work if I reworked it and edited it accordingly.

And almost right away, we started to see great results. And it was really fascinating to see the growth happen so quickly. There is also something called the new account advantage, which happens on every platform, regardless of whether it's YouTube or TikTok, where the platform will artificially lift your first couple of posts because it's trying to help you find your audience. It's trying to figure out what types of content you fall into, which categories, as well as it's trying to keep you on the platform. So we were able to really leverage that to my advantage. Without really recognizing that was a piece of what was happening at the time, But it quickly turned into a, okay,

something's happening here. There's a shift that's occurring and really starting to delve into the opportunities that TikTok has presented. And now, again, over the course of the past few years, it is the leader in the space. It is the number one search engine for millennials and Gen Z. It is the way that people are getting their information. And so with it, media is getting its news headlines. Have you noticed how many news articles are

based around a viral video that's happening on TikTok? We joke that people are getting their news on Instagram, the TikToks, on Instagram a week later as to what's really cool and happening in the space. So, there's an incredible opportunity. It's still very possible to grow organically. I think the thing that people struggle with the most is having the bandwidth to do it all. And what we found with attention ears and with our clients is that now if we take a TikTok first approach, even if the content doesn't go on TikTok,

but we think about intentionally curating the content for that platform, it's a one way street. So that content will work on Instagram reels. It will work on YouTube shorts. It will work on Facebook reels. It doesn't go the other way. So a lot of the exhaustion that people feel a lot of the exhaustion that I was feeling. And having to put together your stodoposts and these stories and these highlight reels and all these different pieces for these different platforms, all that goes away. Again, 80% of the content that people are consuming now online is short form video. And when you start with TikTok first in mind, you can really make a bigger impact in splash. So it's from that random fluke that I ended up on the platform. And I'm very happy to say that I am. And how much I guess I would say importance goes into how you describe a video on TikTok.

So this is interesting because I think that I get this question more than anything else. So, hey, what are the hashtags that I should be using? I have this 5, 10, 5 strategy or what time of day should I be posting and what does my caption need to look like? And I found that all those pieces are important and they can help to lift a video, especially now that TikTok is cataloging videos on Google, especially now that people are searching for videos in TikTok. So there is more lift that can come to that. But at the end of the day, none of it matters if your content isn't compelling. So we take a creative first approach. We see videos do exceptionally well that didn't have a single hashtag or even a caption attached to them because the creative is so strong. And we've also seen our videos, unfortunately, do very well on other people's accounts when they steal your videos and post it up to their thousand followers.

And then it gets them 50,000 followers because the creative is so strong. There is a component of yes, it is important and we want to think about it, but I don't want that to replace focusing on creating compelling content. It's the creative that is going to maximize your watch time, which is what you want to optimize for. And it's all about substance before strategy. And then the strategy can help move you further down the path. But if we don't have the substance, the strategy is going to give you little to no lift. Well, and Hillary, I think the last thing I wanted to ask so that you could give the audience an example is you've had clients gain millions of impressions and even when shorty impact awards for their videos

that you help create. And you give us an example of a client you've worked with and how you have leveraged the psychology of attention we keep talking about and their authentic voice to create compelling content. Yeah, again another one of the resistance pieces I think we come across a lot is I don't want to dance I don't want to participate in trends and we totally get that and in fact our strategy we work with clients is to not embrace trends because if you are following a trend, you are by definition a follower. And we want to help brands stand out

and put their own stamp on the platform and communicating connect. We have a client, they're based out of Canada, they're called Lighthouse Immersive. You're probably familiar with them. They run the immersive Van Gogh experiences and they're about to launch the immersive Disney experiences across the country.

And when we were initially talking with them, they've got a beautiful, very visual product. They mention that they have a lot of proposals that happen at their exhibit. And we're like, wow, what a really cool moment that we could try to capture. How do we showcase that this beautiful opportunity can happen here?

So we staged a proposal video. And again, thinking about the psychology of attention, there's three things we want to do. We want to grab attention. We want to spark an emotion. And we want to create a curiosity gap. So in this video, we're grabbing attention. We're starting with the action.

Guys already on us, me, on the ground. We see the woman. We know who our target is. And we're sparking an emotion, right? Oh my gosh, with excitement, there's surprise or anticipation. And then as far as the gap, what is she going to say? Is he going to get caught while he's setting up this proposal? And this video created such a beautiful opportunity for viewers to comment on the proposal and commonly experience and share in that moment of how special

something like this would be to them. So it really did all those things. I think before we started working with them, they were averaging, let's say, 150 views a post. And that video did 350,000 views. My math's not great, but it's a giant increase. Again, just thinking about what we have on hand, what's unique and special about what they do and how to leverage the ability to spark the emotion to grab the attention and create a curiosity gap. So I think that's a great example as to how a client can do that with their content

without having to dance or put on a show they don't wanna put on. Okay. Well, and Hillary, I'll end with this if listener wants to learn more about attention ears or about you, where can they find all things Hillary? The best place to go is attention ears.com. It's attention ears, ears.rs.com. You can also book a free call with us at attention ears.com. Backslash free call. We're alwaysers.com backslashfreecall. We're always looking and excited here,

what people are working on and what their goals are with short form video content and if we can help. So that is the best place to find me and to connect. Well, Hiller, I so enjoyed having you on today and love having my friends on the podcast. So thank you for being here. It is such a pleasure, John. It's always great to see you. And I hope this conversation is valuable.

I love that interview with Hillary Billings. I wanted to thank Hillary for joining us today on the show. Links to all things Hillary will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show. All proceeds go to supporting the show. Videos are on YouTube at both John R. Miles and Passion Struck Clips. As I mentioned at the beginning, we are also now on

syndicated radio on the AMFM 247 National broadcast every Monday and Friday from 5 to 6 p.m. Eastern time. Links will be in the show notes. Advertisers deals and discount codes are in one community place at PassionStruck.com slash deals. I'm on LinkedIn where you can sign up for my newsletter or you can also catch me at John R.iles on all the other social platforms where I post daily bits of inspiration.

And if you want to know how I book all these amazing guests like Hillary, it's because of my network. They're out there and build yours before you need it. You're about to hear a preview of the Passion Struck podcast with renowned experts, Christina Maslack and Michael P. Leiter co-authors of the Burnout Challenge, who share their invaluable insights on tackling burnout, improving workplace civility and fostering engagement. Don't miss this enlightening conversation that could transform your perspective on work and well-being. We want to feel like we belong to the unit, the team. We want to feel that we're psychologically safe, that we can raise the criticism if we see something going wrong, we're not going to get put down, that it's okay to ask for advice or help, and feeling that we're being treated fairly, and that we're doing something that I'm feeling good about. And so that's where these matches that I'm talking about is really getting at what makes

people tick, what makes them thrive, what makes them grow, develop and do well in life, and those needs are true in the rest of our life, not just in the workplace. The fee for this show is that you share it with family and friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know someone who is interested in the psychology of attention, then definitely share today's episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you

can love what you listen. And until next time, go out there and become Ash and Strong. you