Produced By - From Burnout to Direction: Reinventing at Fifty Five | 147: Vaclav Sulista

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm all the time telling people this is something which I have in my back hand, which I'm going to sell to Hollywood. This is my love story with my Swiss wife because that was really a romantic, a dramatic thing. And we met in 1986 and fell in love 88 and got married two days after the fall of the wall in Berlin. So we got married on 11th November 1989. And then the regime collapsed. As I know, the so-called Velvet Revolution started. And I came to Switzerland after spending 41 days. with my wife in three years. And that was those days when you have to sleep in front of the German embassy on the floor to get a visa to Germany.

Starting point is 00:00:38 Those days when the Eastern Germans has been fleeing in the West German embassy in Prague. And the Prague was full of trabans. And we helped the people brought them, you know, warm water and baby powder and diapirs because they've been 5,000 people stuck in the garden of the Western Germany embassy in Prague. Those days when you could like smell the freedom already. So it was amazing. Before we dive into today's episode, please hit that subscribe button. Your support helps us grow and inspire more people on their journeys.

Starting point is 00:01:08 Thank you. Hello, Watslav. Thank you for join us today and welcome to the show. It's a big pleasure being here. Thank you, Tomash. So Wadslav, for those who don't know you, can you please introduce yourself? So my name is Watslav, Shulista, and not Vaklav, and not Faklav, as some people would pronounce. announce it and I'm collecting all those mispronunciation and making jokes about that.

Starting point is 00:01:36 So I'm a for the British people, most of them don't know that is the Wenceslas, which is the pretty famous Christmas Keller, good old king Wenceslav. So the Czech variation of it is Wadslav. I'm born and raised in Czechia, studied chemistry in Prague and I came to Switzerland in 1990 and so to live with my Swiss wife. So this is the very, very short introduction of myself. And that's also a reason why this episode is special to me, because we both come from Czechia,

Starting point is 00:02:09 although we both now live in different countries, but just to provide a bit of context, that's why this episode is more special than the other ones. Yeah. And Vatslav, as you said, you moved from Czechia to Switzerland. I'm sure that there is like a long and exciting journey, but maybe briefly, what was the reason or? why did you actually move to Switzerland? I'm all the time telling people this is something which I have

Starting point is 00:02:33 in my back hand which I'm going to sell to Hollywood. This is my love story with my Swiss wife because that was really a romantic, a dramatic thing. And we met in 1986, fell in love 88 and got married two days after the fall of the wall in Berlin. So we got married on 11th November 1989. And then the regime collapsed, as I know, the so-called Velvet Revolution started. And I came to Switzerland after spending 41 days with my wife in three years. And that was those days when the people have been, you know, you have to sleep in front of the German embassy on the floor to get a visa to Germany. Those days when the Eastern Germans has been fleeing in the West German embassy in Prague. And the Prague was full of trabans.

Starting point is 00:03:22 And we helped the people, brought them, you know, warm water and baby powder and diapiers. because they've been 5,000 people stuck in the garden of the Western Germany embassy in Prague. Those days when you could like smell the freedom already. So it was amazing. So this is a love story based on the turmoil in center and eastern Europe. That would be a good Hollywood movie because it was really a romantic drama. Yeah. If everyone is listening out there, reach out to Vazlash.

Starting point is 00:03:51 Interesting topic for book and adaptation afterwards. I'm a very, very lazy writer. I would write it down. maybe I do it once with AI, but now I'm too busy with my own business to do it. But it was really great and we are still happily together now. We have three adult daughters. The youngest, Christina, is my business partner in career consulting. And I've already two granddaughters.

Starting point is 00:04:13 So I'm a very young and very active grandfather. And to remind us what city you live in in Switzerland? We live in a small city called Ash, which is like 10,000 inhabitants, so basically a village, which is Canton Basel country. and 10 minutes by car you are in Basel City, which is the capital of the area, on the border of France and Germany, and center of the pharmaceutical industry. And that's the reason I am here because I got a job offer in 1996 to be a quality assurance head in a startup.

Starting point is 00:04:46 And that was the reason we moved here. And actually, out of curiously, has it been like your dream or goal to work in this industry since you were young? No. Funny enough, I ended up with natural sciences by accident. So my parents sent me to a specific grammar school focusing on languages. So I started to learn Russian, English and German pretty early. So at the age of 14, I spoke Russian, German and English. But then the communists decided this is all nonsense, these humanistic schools and they closed all this humanistic high schools. It was the reason I had to start in natural science. school and chemistry was something I didn't enjoy specifically very much but I have a good exams so at the end when you stand you know in front of a choice going for two years into military service as an infantarist or studying chemistry studying chemistry was the smaller evil so that was the reason I studied chemistry and we have been a very very strong

Starting point is 00:05:50 class so people like Jan Konvalinka the director of Institute of Organic chemistry and biochemistry was my peer and those people came all the time excited from the lab, you know, we did this and that and they spent weekends working in the lab and I spent weekends going home to my hometown Budweiss or stuff like that. So I managed somehow to go through the studies, but I was really never a good chemist. Yeah. And I was actually about to ask you also about the language because as you moved to Switzerland, but you answered that you've been studying different languages since you've been young, so it was, I guess, easy for you. It was pretty easy because I came to Switzerland at the age of 27 with perfect neat school

Starting point is 00:06:34 high German. And then it took me like three weeks to understand Swiss German, which is pretty easy in Sangaalan because the dialect is not that difficult in Eastern Switzerland. And after three years, people have been starting to asking me if I am Swiss person from Canton Wallis. Because in Canton Wallis, the people talk in a very, very weird way, which means this is like my South Bohemian thing sang combined with my Eastern dialect of my Swiss wife made this bastard and people thought I'm from Canton Valley. So after three years people thought I'm a Swiss person, which is pretty cool. Out of curiosity, how many languages do speak now? So fluently, a German, Swiss German, Czech Slovak, then a pretty good Russian still because

Starting point is 00:07:19 this is something what we have been learning since the third class of the primary school. And some French, some Italian, some Spanish. I can do small talk in Mandarin. Oh, my. No, some Turkish, some Hindi. I'm a big fan of learning languages, and I'm pretty gifted in that. So, yeah, but I can introduce myself pretty well in Mandarin, but then Chinese think, okay, I can talk perfectly.

Starting point is 00:07:45 They start to talk to me, and I'm completely lost. Stop. Stop, stop. Stop, stop slowly. I was expecting many languages, but it was even more than I thought. So I think actually something because I used to like studying languages as well. What's like your favorite way or how do you learn your language so easily? I am the classic mosaic learner and I don't like grammar.

Starting point is 00:08:09 So if you push me to learn grammatics first, I'm lost. I hate this completely. I was never able to do it properly in German. But I was talking so much that I felt it what is the right way in the end. So and this is the reason why I like Mandarin that much. because mandarin is straightforward everything in infinitive genitive there is no declination conjugation nothing so it's like a beats on the line and it's so if you say for example i love to drink french red wine the chinese says organized country which is france organization country

Starting point is 00:08:45 faguo red hong putao are grapes zyo is alcohol very good drink so that's the way you say i love to drink cherns wine. So organization country, grapes, red grapes, alcohol, very good drink. And this is very, very easy. So from this, Chinese looks very, very difficult if you look at it for the first time. But if you have the ability to hear the tone differences and be able to reproduce them, then it's easier that you think. Writing is a different story. But talking and understanding is not that difficult. But if it comes to, for example, to Cantonese,

Starting point is 00:09:24 when they have eight tones, I don't hear anything. I'm lost completely. But the four of Mandarin, I can do pretty well. I mean, it's still very impressive. And then is there language that you still want to learn, or maybe that you are learning? I am now learning Spanish because I understand Spanish passively very well, but we are going to vacation to Dominican Republic this summer. And that's why I would like to improve a little bit. That's a good motivation. Yes, it is. It is. It is. And I have a good app on my mobile phone, TalkPal, which is AI driven. And this is really very, very good. This is amazingly done.

Starting point is 00:10:02 It's fun to learn. But I leave it to the last moment. Probably my wife is learning already now, and I will start somewhere in June. And then I will talk better than her. And then I'm really curious. You mentioned before that you've got daughters and even grandchildren. Do they speak Czech? No.

Starting point is 00:10:20 So I have three daughters, the big daughter I adopted. So she was five years old when we met and the granddaughters, they understand, you know, the typical Czech characters, Khrami like Wachomurka and those, you know, the Kirtek and all those names of the animals they can say. My own two daughters, they speak Czech on a level of a first grader with grammatical errors. But if we are together in Czechia and they have no one else talking Swiss German or any other language after one week they start to talk. and I'm pretty confident if they would stay there in complete Czech immersion after one month

Starting point is 00:10:56 they will talk very well Swiss accent. So I put, I planted the seeds and now it's their civic. Oh yeah, it's smart. And especially those words you mentioned like Kremi like I know how hard it was for me when I was younger. So it's tough one to start with. I had, yeah, I had the same. I couldn't say R and R and R and I have to go to Logopedy for both S, F, R, Both of those would be difficult.

Starting point is 00:11:21 But have a look on Wadslau. How well, he was not able to say the Rhe as well and he was president. It's very rare. I still remember myself. And then Vastlav, if we go back to your career, I know that you spent many years working in the pharmaceutical industry, but can you walk us through the progression? You said that you started working in a startup,

Starting point is 00:11:43 and of course you spent many years there. But just briefly tell us about, you know, what you did, how you enjoyed it, How was it for you? I started in Sangalan in eastern Switzerland in a very, very tiny startup, and I had to build up everything from scratch. So we had a building. Building was empty.

Starting point is 00:12:00 So I had got some money to purchase all the analytical instruments. And this was for me like the biggest shocker. It wasn't the chemistry because chemistry is everywhere the same. But it was the behavior on the market because I was not too used to negotiate prices, for example, with someone. So somebody made me offer, I accepted it. you didn't bargain anything. So I was very naive on that.

Starting point is 00:12:22 I had to learn all of this on the go. I was there first as analytical chemist. Then I moved into pharmaceutical production, learned a lot about how to produce tablets and capsules and granulates and stuff like that. And then I moved on in another company here in Basel area, and we've been packaging clinical trials for Novartis and for Roche of Manlaros. And after being six years there, then I changed to Novartis when I spent 16 years in different position.

Starting point is 00:12:50 And as I told you, I was not such a big fan of chemistry. So I tried to escape as quickly as I could from the wet lab. So I spent maybe the two first years as a chemist. And then it was more pharmaceutical engineering and quality systems, setting up quality systems, maintaining quality systems, training people. And then the IT implementation of SAP solution and then five years in supply chain. So basically I had in the 16 years of Novartis, I think like six or seven different jobs. But that's normal.

Starting point is 00:13:25 You said 16, right? 16 years, yes. I was 16 years of Novartis and probably six different jobs when I left and started my own career consulting then. I would say talking about working in Novartis for the movie when it's happening. But then what was like the moment, if there was a specific moment that made you to leave? the company and starts not any front? It was, I was 55 and basically I make this move out of total desperation. Because I didn't like my job that much.

Starting point is 00:13:59 That was, it was for me really a torture on Monday morning again to go back to work. Not because I didn't like the team. We had a fantastic team. We had a really good people there. But just the content of the work was so boring. It was just constant number crunching and the data analysis. First, I'm not very good at it. And second, we had a very severely sick family member at those days.

Starting point is 00:14:23 And I basically couldn't cope with all of this. Then I got a depression. And I decided, okay, I need to change something. I cannot heal my child. What I can do, I can change my job. So I left the corporate world and started my own business. And that was basically my grandfather who was guiding me from above because he was an entrepreneur, built up.

Starting point is 00:14:45 huge textile dealership from scratch from zero, from the poorest to the poorest, from the biggest textile dealer in the entire region. And he was like my role model. So I say if a grandpa could do it, I can do it myself. And out of desperation, I started my own business. But it worked out very well. Yeah. Firstly, sorry to hear that what you said, like behind the reason and why we did it.

Starting point is 00:15:08 And when you started then your own business, did you like know what to do, such as some kind of plan B? or was it also just trying randomly some idea? No, I had already a clean plan B, and this was preparing people for job interviews because in 2007, we had the amazing course at Novartis interviewing for managers. So how do you to learn all the psychology and emotions of the interviewing process? And I liked it so much that I started two practices on my own,

Starting point is 00:15:38 still as Novartis employee, for free from my colleagues, because there have been many reorganization, many of my friends has been made redundant, So I told them, hey, let's train it together. I learned a theory. Now we need to practice. You can profit something. I can profit as well.

Starting point is 00:15:53 And I was getting very, very quickly amazing feedback from the people that I do it really well. They help them in the process and they get new jobs. And then I registered myself as a corporate volunteer of Novartis and started to work as a mentor of qualified female migrants in Basel. So I all the time I get some. And I'm doing this now for 15 years or 15 years. so. So you get a qualified female person who cannot find a job. You help them into a job and then you get the next one. And that's the way. And out of this, I learned different skills, different coaching techniques and so on and which build a foundation of the own business. And how did you,

Starting point is 00:16:31 because I can imagine it must have, did you feel like excited again, building something new from scratch or I guess it was maybe a challenge at first as well to build a business or what did you feel like. To be honest, I don't know. It just happened. I didn't. I just, okay, let's start something else. Let's start something new and I'm an eternal optimist. So my, I see everything as an opportunity and not as a threat. And if I am anxious about something, I simply suppress the feeling of anxiety. Okay, let's do this. And it took like two years, but then it started to, then it started to run. And the moment I found on the honorary consulate, my current digital marketing partner who showed me how to do the digital

Starting point is 00:17:17 marketing right. And from the moment onwards, it came like avalanche. So that was the reason I could even hire my daughter to be 100 person, my business partner. And we both can live on it. And the business is growing. So it's good. Started compounding from there. So the first idea was preparing people for job interviews.

Starting point is 00:17:36 But then I quickly realized that the market is too small. Not everybody is going to the job interview, but almost every person needs a good LinkedIn profile and good LinkedIn presence. And then I again by coincidence. And this is funny in my life. The most important things in my life happened by doing something for free. I guess that's a good message for the audience. I helped someone from Czechia. I don't know what it was.

Starting point is 00:18:02 And he put me into contact with Tom Kent, who is a career consultant. He has Czech roots as well, but grew up in Texas, United States. amazing career consultant and he showed me LinkedIn and since the moment I met Tom I never saw LinkedIn with the same pair of eyes like before and yeah and this was basically there and combination of this business acumen business knowledge from the pharma industry plus LinkedIn as a tool this enabled us to to grow as Shulista consulting pretty quickly and I really like the mindset always positive something that I'll I try to adopt myself, although it's not always easy, but important.

Starting point is 00:18:45 And just to give us a bit of context, because I always like to ask about the time, such as when you started on LinkedIn, because I think that people often, you know, want overnight success and think that it happens just like that. So do you remember, like roughly what year was it or how long ago? So I left Novartis in 2018 and took me like two years that I could sort of live out of my business. So it's two years of hard work and I was living on my savings naturally and I'm forever grateful to my wife which never pushed me for more. Basically my wife trusted me and said you can do this. Take your time, you know, and she was not annoying me. You have to make more money

Starting point is 00:19:28 or something like that. So it would be probably contraproductive because I will do into a rebel mode. So I could build it slowly, but it was a lot of work like everything. You know it on your own. How difficult is to build a podcast which people are listening to. Yeah, it's a process. It's everything takes time and people think that it's, you know, happened somehow overnight, but don't really see like all the hard work and days you've been showing up before. Exactly. And this is it. You have to show up consistently. You have to build your brand. And again, many, many people. And this was probably my biggest advantage. As I was doing already so many things pro bono in the past.

Starting point is 00:20:09 that I had a decent propaganda army in the bank. And many of the people I used to help for free are now my regular paying clients because imagine somebody picks you up when you are completely lost. And three, four years later, you are in a position and I would like to do a next career step to whom are you going to return.

Starting point is 00:20:31 And the whole pro bono staff is nothing else an investment into the future. If I would look at it like from the pure egoistic point of view, everything what you do will come back, but it takes time. Yeah, of course, and you never know. And even if not, just be nice to people. I mean, why not? We need to be positive and be nice to others.

Starting point is 00:20:50 This is it, definitely. And I'm raised like this. This is the background of my Roman Catholic upbringing when we have to suffer a lot in the old communist days because of that. We have been ridiculed and we had problems. That was the reason I couldn't study languages because with my profile of Roman Catholic,

Starting point is 00:21:08 former bourgeoisie, And what was even worse, we have uncle in South Africa, which was like the absolutely no-go to have a relative in this regime. So, that was the reason I had to pick chemistry. People cannot imagine something like that. You basically, ah, I would like to study this. I go and study it. Forget it. At the 80s, I started to study in 1981.

Starting point is 00:21:29 And there was a numerous clauses almost everywhere. And with my profile, HR profile of those days, my chances to get admitted, for example, to study languages. has been almost zero. Yeah. I was lucky to be born after the regime that we discussed, but I would encourage people and or if anyone is interested, check out something about the history because it's interesting and obviously said what happened in our country before.

Starting point is 00:21:56 Yeah, but still again, we have to put it into relation in communist China or Soviet Union. Probably my family would be terminated and dead, you know. We could sort of survive. And this is still the positive side of the things Because for sure, if you look at cultural revolution in China Where hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people Has been killed because they had a small business in the past

Starting point is 00:22:20 Yeah, so this would be our fate as well So the regime in Czechoslovakia was shit But this was still not so bad as in Stalin-Soviet Union Or Mao's China to bring it into relations Quick one before we get back to it If you like this kind of conversation I've started sharing short videos on YouTube, where I break down what I've learned from more than 150 episodes. Content, podcasting, personal brand. No fluff? Just what actually works. Just search

Starting point is 00:22:55 Produced Buy on YouTube or don't. And keep figuring out the hard way. And if we move to actually to discuss your business, Walslav, there are many people on LinkedIn that focus on branding and stuff like that. But can you introduce us your business, what you focus on, what makes you different than others? So we are clearly focusing on a pharma and supply chain and combination of both. So our typical client is either a person who would like to move from academia to the pharmaceutical industry. so somebody who finished master or PhD or a postdoc and would like to make the transfer into the pharmaceutical industry. Mostly those people, the younger people, are being managed by my daughter.

Starting point is 00:23:42 And I am working more with senior leaders, people over 50, who are either searching for a new step in their career or have been made redundant and searching for a new job. And so this is our clear focus. And in the beginning, I had the feeling, I need to embrace the whole world and help everyone and everybody is a potential client. And then my digital marketing partner, Patrick Doja, told me, Wadslav, the better the focus, the better the results.

Starting point is 00:24:13 Today, if you put pharma jobs, Switzerland into Google, you find me. You maybe answer it now, but I was about to ask you if you focus on the clients actually from Switzerland or like Europe or even global. Global, global. So we had already clients from the whole world. So we help people from Australia to get a job in Switzerland. We helped even entrepreneurs in Africa to build their business. We had clients from South America, Canada, US, you name it.

Starting point is 00:24:40 But naturally, the biggest part of the clients are people who are EU citizen and would like to have a new job in Switzerland or advance their career in Switzerland. This is the typical career. And the gender split, 65% of our customers are women. Yeah. And I think something I'm curious about is like your advice. I'm sure that you see it on LinkedIn. It's quite a popular topic that people discuss whether you should niche down or not. So firstly, what's your advice on this? How do you see that? And then secondly, maybe advise how to find your niche. Because for you, I guess it was kind of self-explanatory based on your history, but maybe for others. I think for me it was pretty easy because you have this background in the pharmaceutical industry, in the

Starting point is 00:25:26 pharma development. So I basically cover the entire area from development, from solid dosage forms of talmics and sterile dosage forms. So basically the basic science from the pharma industry developing drugs as well as the generic coverage, because I've been working in both areas. So this was very natural to me. And this niching down was basically ignited by discussion with my digital marketing partner who told me, Wadslav, we have to pick something. you cannot be here for everybody, for everyone. And from the moment onwards, it's really started to work. And clearly we started to invest into Google Pay Per Click campaigns.

Starting point is 00:26:07 And we could improve then or optimize them in a way that now I'm paying 20% of the stuff I was paying in the beginning and still making the same revenue through Google. So many people are still coming from Google, which I'm surprised because the young generation is searching everything in JetGPT and per place. But still, JetGPT recently several times in Ero named us the best career consultancy in pharma in Switzerland, which is funny. So several clients have asked who is the best one to get a job in Switzerland and Chulista consulting. And I don't know how this works. It works somehow.

Starting point is 00:26:41 Nice. Yeah. There's the combination of the many Google reviews plus the strong LinkedIn presents. So, yeah. So and more and more people are coming through LinkedIn without having any sales funnel on LinkedIn, I was too lazy to build it up, maybe complacent because there is enough business going in. So why should you waste time on building LinkedIn sales funnel? And many, many people are finding simply my daughter and myself through the content which we are

Starting point is 00:27:10 creating. You have to talk about the pain points of your focus group. And I see it even with the new algorithm. Every time I'm posting something which is not in line with my banner, with my headline and with my about section, the outreach goes down the drain. So I'm basically hung up by writing about job interviews. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Motivational letters busting some myths about the workplace.

Starting point is 00:27:36 So I will be here tomorrow at 15 past three. I'm running LinkedIn Live with Andreas Schultz, hiring manager and recruiter from Bayer. And we will exactly talk about the most popular myth, which are on the job market, ATS bulletproof CVs and some other nonsense. Nonsense, yeah. And it don't make sense to me. And then if there are people who are struggling with finding their niche, have you got any advice how to find it or what will be like first steps?

Starting point is 00:28:07 Maybe two niche. What I would do today, five years ago, I would tell you, take a piece of paper and write everything what you are good at and what you love to do and where you see potential, create your ikigai, as the Japanese call it, and try doing that. Today, I will ruthlessly go to Claude or to chat GPT and I will start discussion with the AI because you don't have a better sparring partner than this.

Starting point is 00:28:32 That's the way I would do today. Describe yourself in such a level of detail, as detailed as possible, and the system will provide you for sure with a good advice. That is what I would be now. That is true and it's a good point. Then, Watslav, curious, as you mentioned it now, how do you use AI?

Starting point is 00:28:50 Are someone who's interested in AI? How do you see the whole, you know, AI boom and development, progress and everything? It's breathtaking. Still, I'm not afraid that AI would take me as a career consultant and destroy me or destroy my business. For me, it's a very, very useful tool. It's an enhancement of my brain and the combination of,

Starting point is 00:29:15 when I just look back three years ago, We spent a long, long time creating perfect about sections of people. Today, my daughter has written like a two pages long prompt on chat GPT. Then we upload the anonymized CV of the person into the tool. Five seconds, you have a perfect about section done, which has all the code words, perfect structure, looks nice, beautiful. So this is the way what is for me, AI is saving my time. so I'm able to work one-on-one with people.

Starting point is 00:29:49 So instead of spending endless hours on polishing CVs and writing motivation, letters and so on. And the way I'm using it, I'm using combination of Claude and Chad GPD, using Claude as the writer and chat GPT as the challenger of the output. Because what I realized, that chat GPT is a little bit deteriorating right now. So I find Claude the better writing engine,

Starting point is 00:30:16 but CheGPT is an amazing critic. So grab output of cloth and get it refined by CheGPTN, but definitely then I never take the output the way it is. I all the time rewrite it to put my voice into it. Yeah, I never forget. Then just copy and paste so that then it sounds... No, everything sounds generic. Everything sounds the same.

Starting point is 00:30:40 And if you use AI, make sure that they are definitely sentences, which you are the only person on earth who can writing it based on your authentic background. I use as well scribe written with P, S-C-R-I-P-E, which is a specific tool for writing content. And I use it a lot in the past. I'm using it fun enough less and less. But I love the tool because it provides a fantastic analytics of your post. You have a beautiful dashboard with what works, what doesn't, da, da, da, da, and you can scroll up back on LinkedIn eight years back and you find all your or your posts without scrolling on LinkedIn like idiot.

Starting point is 00:31:24 And this is really fantastic. So for me, I use this tool not that much for writing, but much more for analytics now. Yeah, I think I've never heard of the tool. Or maybe heard, but never tried. So I will make sure. It's really worthwhile trying. and what I like the most, that was developed by three ladies. One is from Austria, one from Germany and one from Switzerland.

Starting point is 00:31:47 So this is a typical, as we call it, the A-C-H-Dach region and young ladies until under 25 who developed the tool and it's really, really great. Yeah, sounds good. And Vatslav, I would regret not asking you for our audience. What's like your advice or any tips how to grow on LinkedIn? I don't want to say how to go viral, although that's what people often chase, but how to build your brand, because obviously you've got a strong brand, recognizable big name. So any tips, ideas or recommendations? First thing, there is no quick fix on LinkedIn.

Starting point is 00:32:24 And LinkedIn is a marathon and definitely not a sprint. So if you think you go viral, that something is going to happen, no. And there's all the big gurus, Richard van der Blom and Yasmin Alich claim it. This is all vanity metrics. So my most viral post had like 250,000 views. 200. Oh, wow, that's crazy. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:32:47 One, one. But it was a nine second video when I was doing a yoga exercise. I'm ADHD brain. And when I showed people this, in Europe, almost no one knows it, the so-called Ganesha squats. So basically grab your e-lobes, cross your hands and doing squats. I think I didn't know it to be honest. Yeah. And this is amazing exercise because it improves your focus because it's connecting both brains half.

Starting point is 00:33:17 And in India, this is used as a quote unquote punishment of pupils who are disturbing the class. So they have to come in front of the class, but it's not punishing them. It's basically healing their brains. And somebody reshared it in India, you know, and then it started like an avalanche. One of our colleagues just one million followers re-shared it and then it started I have to save as well

Starting point is 00:33:41 it's cool, it's so funny, blah, blah, blah. Now, to cut a story short so you had 250,000 views how many paying clients out of it? One. And this is basically the relation. So if you have one million of something on LinkedIn,

Starting point is 00:33:57 you get maybe four inbound leads. This is my experience. So build it step by step, show up consistently. Don't follow every new trend like two years ago. Yeah, you have to be on video. If you are no video, you are lost.

Starting point is 00:34:13 I don't like videos that much. So I didn't do anything. And maybe I did one. And now the trend is over. So it was like that Facebookization first, then TikTokization, whatever. There is one simple thing. Simply add value to the people who are following you. That's it.

Starting point is 00:34:32 And for this, I'm strongly recommend. everyone to generate your own newsletter. In your newsletter, you can really go deep. You can show know-how. You can discuss things from different angles. And for me, newsletter is a fantastic tool to get visibility, get new clients, and using it as a storage of everything what I learned on LinkedIn. So newsletter is so simple to set up. And then you basically use LinkedIn as your marketing partner because LinkedIn will send out your articles written in the news letter via email to your connections. And important to know, you are talking to a guy who I was sitting in the same chair

Starting point is 00:35:13 in a different office seven years ago and I was telling, no, content on LinkedIn, no, no, I'm never going to do content on LinkedIn and I'm typing only with two fingers and I'm so slow. And my sister is an excellent writer and I can talk, but I cannot write blah, blah, blah, Who would be interested in this in my nonsense? And Tom Kent tortured me and told me, Wadslav, there is no other way. If you would like to be successful on LinkedIn, you need to generate content. And basically broke my resistance.

Starting point is 00:35:40 And I started to grind my knees and my teeth and started to do the first article and the second. And today I look forward to generating content. And I claimed I would never do content. So give it again. Let's see what happens in the next how many seven years or something like that. And I'm very happy to have my daughter as a business partner because Christina sees the world with different pair of eyes. She's 30 years younger than me and she's picking up the new trends, analyzing the new things. And with her background as a social worker and a lot of empathy, she can manage her clients very well and getting excellent feedback.

Starting point is 00:36:20 So we have now the, you're not the boast. She can manage the young guys. I can manage the more senior guys. So it works very well together. And you are writing a LinkedIn newsletter, but do you have also like outside platforms, such as I don't know, some tech, beehive or something like that?

Starting point is 00:36:35 No, no. The only thing I have is the LinkedIn newsletter and then some LinkedIn posts from time to time. I reduce the amount of posts. I was by used to post like four to five times a week. Now I do maybe three times a week. And if I'm on vacation, then I maybe do once just or nothing.

Starting point is 00:36:54 and nothing is going to happen. And I am focusing much more on commenting and writing comments which makes sense and sort of add value to the community as well. If I don't feel this is something which will be interesting for the people, I simply let it go. When I started to write content on LinkedIn,

Starting point is 00:37:15 I used LinkedIn like my private blog. So I put a lot of private stories into it. But the funny thing, people don't care who you are. as a private person unless you are proven expert in your area of experience. You know, so it's first ad value show that you have expertise in your area and then people might be interested in your hobbies like in my ISO Kigo attending. That is true.

Starting point is 00:37:40 But I think maybe like in the future with the emergence of AI and often seeing the content that looks a bit soulless or artificial, I think it's maybe going to be a bit more important or to stand out when people share especially stuff about themselves to stand out and show that there is actually a real person behind the screen and... Yeah, yeah, that's for sure, but it shouldn't be only the private part. You know, it's all the time... There should be all the time something like underlying business message in it. And what about some other channels?

Starting point is 00:38:13 Have you tried or are you on any other channels outside of LinkedIn or focusing on? I have a YouTube channel which is complete amateur style. I'm using my YouTube channel as a place where I dump all my videos. So if I, for example, do a LinkedIn Live, then I record it on Streamyard, then I upload it on YouTube and keep it there. And then I can send it to my clients. If you would like to have a philosophy of proper networking, here you have the video and here it goes. And from time to time, I can generate shorts out of the LinkedIn lives with some. But for me, it's not that important.

Starting point is 00:38:48 I got many, many offers. Yeah, I would improve your YouTube channel. Oh God, I get it all the time as well. I'm like, come on. If I see, you know, how many people who are much bigger than me with much bigger followership and they have like a five likes on YouTube. So for me, YouTube is a place where I can store my materials, but not more. Maybe I'm seeing it wrong.

Starting point is 00:39:10 And maybe one day someone will re-share and you never know when it hits again to 50K followers. Could be, could be. I was pretty active on Facebook. I used to write on Twitter a lot or X today. I don't like Instagram. I wouldn't go on Instagram if friends wouldn't tell me funny videos from Instagram. The main reason I'm going to Instagram, somebody sends me something. I refuse to go on TikTok.

Starting point is 00:39:36 And so I focus on LinkedIn and that's it. I think honestly it's better to do quality work on one platform than overstretch everywhere. You cannot be everywhere because that's clear. Or you have to hire a team of people and again, which push you to have much more revenue and so on. And this is a never ending cycle. Exactly. Exactly. And I don't have to have a million on my bank account when I die.

Starting point is 00:40:04 I would like to make some decent income, maintain decent quality of life, helping a lot of people. Because if I put it all together with the honorary consulate, mentoring of qualified migrants here helping. Ukrainian refugees. I work probably one day a week for free. Yeah. No. I was going to say that I feel like that you do already a lot. So I would be surprised if you still had time or bandwidth to do much more. No, no, no. And Valslav, just to be aware of time, I like to ask kind of lighter questions by the end. So what is it that you like to do in your free time or what are some of your hobbies? So my winter hobby is Isooky goldending.

Starting point is 00:40:49 So I'm an ice hockey goaltender at a veterans team. And it was my childhood dream because I grew up with the hatred message, Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia in the old days. And all the time our goaltenders made the difference, Rado Zurila and Ii Holechek, which was my specific hero. So I was a big fan of him. That's why I'm playing with the number two on my jersey, like Iri Holechek had number two.

Starting point is 00:41:12 And so, and this was my childhood dream. which I could never realize. And I was telling my friends, you know, in next life I will be a professional ice hockey goaltender until my best Swiss friends told me Wadslav, don't wait for the next life. In Laofen, they are searching for a go there. So I went for the first training. I couldn't move like four days after the first training. And then I started, yeah.

Starting point is 00:41:36 And so I realized my childhood dream at the age of 46. And now I finish my 16 seasons there. That's impressive. I never late to start, right? Exactly. It's never late to start something new. It's never learned to learn a language or learn a new skill and so on. For example, on the 5th of February, we had Simon Hrubetz, the champion goaltender from CTSC Lions. And with his father, who is like a guru of the Czech Aizoki goaltending trainers,

Starting point is 00:42:05 they gave a training for our youngsters in Laofen. It was fantastic. They brought the Champions League Cup and the Swiss League Cup with them. and that was really fantastic. So this is something which, you know, if I can connect Switzerland and Czechia both together, this makes me very, very happy. So this was one of the occasions. I read a lot, read a lot about politics.

Starting point is 00:42:26 Sorry, Valslav, just before you say that, when there is, because there was obviously Winter Olympics, but who do you actually support a Czech team? Czech team? I came to Switzerland at the age of 27. So, you know, if Czechia is playing Switzerland in Isocki, it's like 60, 40. And the Czechs lose against the Swiss, I'm minimum happy for the Swiss that they want something. But this was a typical setup. You have two irons in the fire and both are cold in the end.

Starting point is 00:42:57 So that was the typical situation. I can tell you, I cannot watch the Isock when the Czechs are playing. I'm so nervous. I'm almost dying in the game. I enjoyed the finalist, Canada, Canada, US. That was the only game I saw entire. But if the Czechs are playing, I think, oh, when I watch them, I bring them bad luck. And if I watch the online, I bring them bad luck and all this type of stuff.

Starting point is 00:43:19 So I suffer. I don't watch it. And even worse was tennis. And this is funny. If Roger Federer was playing against Tomas Berdich, I was cheering for Federer. But if the Czech ladies play against Swiss ladies are almost dying for the Czech ladies. This is something. You have this mix.

Starting point is 00:43:39 up identity, you know, and Roger Federing from our surrounding here, so from the same canton, so that's why I liked him very much as a gentleman of sports. Yeah. No, sorry for interruption. I just wanted to know before you started talking about the books. No, no, no, no, problem. Yeah, so what are then some of your favorite ones, the books, if you like to read? I am now a big fan of Yaroslav Rudish, which is a Czech author who writes a lot about driving

Starting point is 00:44:09 the trains and beer. Oh, I wasn't expecting that. Yeah. So Jaroslav Rudish, he writes in both languages and Czech in German. So I'm currently reading a novel, and I'm reading a lot of books of facts, a lot of books about history, politics and stuff like that, for sure, watching the news and, yeah. And I'm also into like personal development books? Funny enough for a career consultant, not that much.

Starting point is 00:44:37 I have few favorites, like Never Split the Difference by Chris Falls, which I recommend every client to read. This is a book which I took a lot. But you know, my time is limited as well. You have your business, you have your family, you have your kids, and I sometimes have 16 clients meetings every day and talking the whole day. So when you come home and I open a book, then I probably fall asleep after 15 minutes. Even quicker. And I know you mentioned it before, but is there actually, do you have it like seat in your own? mind to actually write a book one day. Yes, yes, that would be that would be good.

Starting point is 00:45:13 This is but maybe when when I reduce my my workload career consulting maybe then. Yeah. And if I don't write it down, nothing is going to happen. We just, we just be disappointed. No. And Vatslav, do you have like any plans, goals or anything that you are willing to share with the audience to be kind of excited about whether it's in upcoming, I don't know, months or years? Personally, I would like to sustain the business the way it is. And at the moment, no high flyer goals.

Starting point is 00:45:48 I define, yes, VR numbers driven people, yes. I spend many years in supply chain. So I'm setting my goals for the revenue, which I would like to achieve. But when I miss it by 5%, I'm not crying before I go to bed. So I don't set many, many street goals. I'm a big fan of daily work showing up consistently and of tiny, tiny steps, and then the success is going to come. So this is my philosophy. I never made huge, like you have to, you know, dreams.

Starting point is 00:46:22 What is a dream? Like being an ice hockey goaltender, it was dream for me. It was completely unrealistic. But when you talk about it a lot, suddenly it happens. And this is something which might sound like a zottery. nonsense, but I've seen it in my life several times. For example, I grew up in a flat which was plastered by pictures of Switzerland. Oh, yeah, yeah, I see. And Switzerland was for us in those days so far away, like if somebody would tell you, you will be an astronaut and fly with NASA or to the moon. It was

Starting point is 00:46:55 like, or actor in Hollywood, absolutely unreachable in those days. And suddenly you fell in love with a Swiss lady and you marry her, you ended up in Switzerland, which is, yeah. So maybe there is really something that the power of images and power of. Maybe visualization. Yeah, visualization. And this I use a lot because we all have dark hours. You know, we all have our problems, even if everything looks like a huge success and blah, blah, and career consultant and honorary consul diplomat and all of this and living in Switzerland,

Starting point is 00:47:27 perfect life. I have my dark hours as well and then I use positive affirmations to motivate myself again, you know, calm myself down. We all know it. Sleepless nights.

Starting point is 00:47:41 You know, it's not. It's not always sunshine and rainbows. No, no, no. And the more people I see, you know, and there are hundreds of clients, people on the consulate, everything. The more people I know, the more terrible things I see in the background.

Starting point is 00:47:57 We are all suffering. offering human beings, you know, why should we pretend that we are superstars and superheroes? And this is what makes a lot of people angry about LinkedIn. This all, you know, self-promotion, this superficial backpadding of each other and this kind of stuff. This is something which gives LinkedIn a very, very bad image because there are many, many people doing exactly that. I try to keep that in mind and remind people as all that you never see the whole picture, that people are going to flex or show you the wins, but you don't know the picture,

Starting point is 00:48:30 you know what's the whole story, and you don't know, for example, how many failed attempts are there behind it. So see, that's inspiration, but don't compare yourself. Yeah. And you don't know, you know, how many people lost their loved ones, how many people are struggling with the health of their kids,

Starting point is 00:48:45 with their own health, and people mostly don't talk about it and just simply carrying the cross, the same way as I do. And Vaslav, can you then summarize or tell people where they can find you, follow you and also promote any of your services? So people can easily find us on LinkedIn. And my name is very, very seldom in Switzerland. So we are the only solicitas in the whole in the whole Switzerland.

Starting point is 00:49:13 And or sulista.com. Where is my website where is everything or our website where is everything described? I'm fully transparent with the prices with everything and everything. published there. So if somebody is interested, take a look. I will as always leave any links in the show notes. And very last question, Vazlav, is there anything I should have asked you? Not any final message or anything you would like to share with audience before we finish? No, I think it's good. Thank you. Thank you so much for being the host here. I enjoyed our talk very much. And yeah, if somebody, some interesting other

Starting point is 00:49:52 person from Czechia or from Switzerland comes to my mind who who might be a good guess for you I will connect you thank you wanslaph I appreciate it too as I said it was a special episode for me it doesn't happen every time that you get to speak with someone from the same country so I want to say huge thank you as I said amazing chat as well would be happy to catch up anytime in the future again so thank you much uh uh at so you da's I'm not. I thank you. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:50:20 Also. Ahoi. Hi. Thanks for listening to Produce Bye with Tomen. Check the show notes for all the links. And don't forget to subscribe, like and share your feedback. Speak soon.

Produced By - From Burnout to Direction: Reinventing at Fifty Five | 147: Vaclav Sulista

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