Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Courtney Johnson: Career Cheat Codes to Stand Out, Get Promoted, and Win at Work | Career | E395

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's episode is sponsored in part by Shopify Quo, Indeed, and Experian. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you grow your business. Start your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash profiting. Quo is an AI-powered phone system that brings your calls, texts, and contacts together in one place. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash profiting. Indeed helps you attract interview and hire talent all in one place. get a $75-sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indy.com slash podcast. Experian is a financial app that negotiates your bills and cancels unwanted subscriptions.

Starting point is 00:00:41 Get started with the Experian app today. As always, you can find all of our incredible deals in the show notes or at young and profiting.com slash deals. It is an expensive lie to say you have to pull your head down, work hard, and everything is going to work out for you. because the opportunities do not go to the hardest worker, the opportunities go to the person who is most visible. Courtney Johnson, a personal brand strategist and content creator. Known for her career cheat codes,

Starting point is 00:01:10 she helps professionals build visibility online and turn content into real career opportunities. I want other people to have a shortcut, to where they don't have to go through so many ups and downs and so many problems in their career. They just understand the information and they can go. I got laid off. And so I was forced to post every single day for 365 days.

Starting point is 00:01:32 And that year completely changed my life. Consistency compounds. The only way to fail the entrepreneur game, the personal brand game, is to quit. It's to come up with an excuse and say, I'm going to come back in two weeks. For somebody who's looking for a job, what do they need to know about how hiring works today in 2026?

Starting point is 00:01:53 The biggest tip to getting a job as easy and fast as, possible is to build a personal brand. How do you suggest people decide what's the first platform they should focus on? I recommend people start with. Hey, young and profiteers. Today, we are taking a turn from our usual topic of entrepreneurship and we're going to focus on careers. So this episode is especially valuable if you are climbing the corporate ladder. But of course, we're going to touch on entrepreneurship because we always do a young and profiting podcast. If you're working hard, hitting your goals, staying loyal, but still invisible when promotions, raises, and big opportunities come around. This episode is for you. Today I'm interviewing Courtney Johnson in the flesh,

Starting point is 00:02:36 and she's breaking down the real rules of career success. She's a personal brand strategist, entrepreneur, and author of career cheat codes. And her message is clear. Opportunities don't go to the hardest worker. They go to the most visible worker. She's sharing exactly how to work out loud, build strategic relationships and position yourself so opportunities stop passing you by and start coming straight to you. But before we get into it, if you're just discovering us, I'm so glad you're here. Make sure you subscribe and follow us so you never miss a conversation. And by the way, me and Courtney did this interview in real life. So if you like to watch your podcast episodes and feel all that chemistry, go check it out on YouTube. All right, let's get into the conversation.

Starting point is 00:03:17 Courtney, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. I'm so pumped to be here. Me too. I'm so excited for this conversation. I feel like you've got so much to share in terms of career advice for people who are professionals and then also for entrepreneurs because you're an entrepreneur yourself. So you've got this new book called Career Cheat Codes coming out in April this year, which is like super exciting. And in the book, your premise is really like this old, you know, ad age saying of keep her head down, work hard, everything's just going to work out really just isn't true. And a lot of high achievers act this way. They just think they can work hard and good things are going to happen to them. Why is that an expensive lie? It is an expensive lie to say you have to pull your head down, work hard, and everything is going to work out for you because your work, like nobody's going to go out of their way to find your work.

Starting point is 00:04:12 Nobody's going to search through your Google Drive and say, oh, my God, that report was so good. Nobody's going to pluck you out of a crowd. And I think we have this idea. I used to have the same idea. And honestly, I think it was from hearing those stories of like Victoria's Secret models and like a South African mall. And they're like, you, like, we're picking you out of a crowd and now we're giving you a career.

Starting point is 00:04:33 That just doesn't happen. Okay. Maybe that worked in like 2008 in this one industry. It doesn't work, right? And Austin Cleon says, if your work is not online, it does not exist. I actually went to a bar one time. And that's kind of where this idea came from. And the band was really good.

Starting point is 00:04:52 And I went up to the band after and I said, wow, that was amazing. Like, can I follow you on Spotify? And they're like, oh, we don't have Spotify. And I was like, okay, YouTube, SoundCloud. Like, where can I keep up with your work? Especially since they said it was their dream to share their music with the world, to get a record label, you know, all the music dreams. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:11 They're like, oh, we're not online. We're not on Spotify. We're not on Instagram. But you can come see us at this bar every third Thursday. Oh, my God. And anybody that heard that would say, that is crazy. There's no way that you can have a successful music career just being at this bar every third Thursday. There's not like music scouts out and about going to give you the golden ticket, right?

Starting point is 00:05:33 You've got to put in the reps yourself. But a lot of us think like that when it comes to our careers. We're putting in the reps. We're showing up internally. But when we're not making ourselves visible externally, those opportunities just aren't coming to us. And I'm curious if you got that same advice from your parents. From my parents? No, my parents were from the Middle East. And so they were immigrants. And my dad was a doctor. And so for them, they were just like, you know, study hard, work hard. But they didn't have much career advice to give me. Like I felt growing up like really alone in terms of how to navigate the corporate world and the business world because they never had corporate jobs, neither of them. My dad just kind of like studied and went to med school. And that was the route that he knew. So no, I did not, you know, I was, I was like reading your book and I noticed that you had mentioned that a lot of people kind of grow up at the dinner table learning about how to navigate corporate.

Starting point is 00:06:27 No, that definitely wasn't me. I learned it on my own. Yeah, that did not happen to me either. And that's why I wrote this book because I was kind of given the advice like, you know, working class, just keep working hard and you'll get the opportunities. But the opportunities do not go to the hardest worker. The opportunities go to the person who is most visible. Because when you're looking for someone, when you're looking for a graphic designer to hire, you're looking for someone to book on a stage, you're looking for someone to bring on your podcast, you're looking for the person to give a promotion to, we're going to choose the easiest choice. We're going to choose the person that is obvious or it makes us look good to our boss.

Starting point is 00:07:06 We're going to choose the person that is easy to enroll everybody into why we're hiring them, why we're promoting them. and you want to make it easy for people around you to say yes to you. And when you're hiding because, oh, I'm humble or because, oh, my work speaks for itself, you're really robbing yourself of all of these opportunities. Yeah. I remember, I forgot who I interviewed, but they told me that humble literally means low to the ground. So who wants to look up to somebody who's low to the ground? Right. Right. So you never want to be humble. Yeah. Also, like, you're robbing the world of your gifts and talents if you're staying humble, right? Some people are like, well, I don't want to make it all about me, me, me. It's not about you, you, you're about all the people you impact, right? Like,

Starting point is 00:07:52 young and profiting is not just about Hala, although you weave in your stories and your experience. Young and profiting is about all of the listeners, the millions of people who have listened to this podcast, learned something, implemented it, and changed their life in some way. And if you, if you were to stay quiet and say, well, I'm going to be humble, I'm not going to do this podcast. I'm not going to put myself out there, you are robbing those millions of people that have had massive changes in their life, massive improvements in their life, their business, their career because of you. Yeah. One of the concepts I loved in your book was this A player B player concept. So tell us, like, what does an A player look like? What do they do and what do they

Starting point is 00:08:31 not do? An A player is someone usually who comes from a family where they were told all of the unwritten rules of work. And for me, when you I got to the workplace, I saw all these A players, and I'm like, wait, why are they talking like that? Why are they doing that? I thought I would just do my work and everything would work out. I come from very much a B player background. So really the book is exposing all of the tips and tricks of the A players. And some of the things that the A players do, A players really, really understand psychology,

Starting point is 00:09:06 relationships, A players understand that they want to find out their boss's goal and help their boss achieve that goal. A players understand visibility. They understand that visibility is what gets their work noticed. A players also understand, again, relationships, how to build strong relationship across your company, with your clients, et cetera. And the main difference between A players and B players is that A players understand that it's a game and they embrace the game. And a lot of times we can be afraid to embrace this corporate game because it's fake, it's bullshit, whatever. But if you don't like the game of corporate, just gain power and change it yourself. So really A players play the game. They notice that it's a game. They see it's a game. They play the game. B players say things like,

Starting point is 00:09:59 oh, I don't want to play the game. I don't want to pretend to be someone I'm not. They're very resistant to the game. Yeah. But everything in life is a game and we can choose to learn the rules and play to win, or we can choose to be pissy about it and stay stuck. And one of the games that A players play is working out loud. Can you give us some examples of how you can work out loud? Yeah, working loudly would be something like when you finish a great project, talk about it in Slack or teams or whatever your company communication is. Share, hey, I'm super proud of our team and we accomplished this or that, I contributed in this way. Working out loud is also sharing your work publicly. I know a lot of people can't share their exact work publicly, but you can still

Starting point is 00:10:44 share what you're learning. So that means posting on LinkedIn. Working out loud means being open to speaking opportunities, to hosting opportunities. Even if it's not external, can you host a tutorial with a different department in your organization? Can you go to a conference, record a loom video about what you learned and share that with the team. It's really this idea of like bragging about our work because again, if our work is invisible, we're not going to be first for the promotion. We're not going to be first for those opportunities that we really, really like. Another way to flex working loudly is just to update your boss. Hey, boss, these are the things I did today. These are things I accomplished this week and start to make a trail of everything that you've accomplished. It makes it a lot easier

Starting point is 00:11:30 to get a promotion. And it makes them honestly like you a lot more and be a little bit less on your ass because they really trust you because they see that your work is visible. It's visible to them. It's visible to the broader team. So it's not really about necessarily doing the best work. Of course you want to do the best work. It's about the perception that you're doing the best work. Totally, totally. And you're exactly right. right, it's not the best, most talented work that gets the promotion or gets the opportunity or signs the deal. It's the one that's easiest for other people to see, right? And listen, it's helpful if you can do the best work, but the best work just isn't the differentiating factor.

Starting point is 00:12:16 Now, a lot of people listening to this probably are rock stars at their work. They're amazing at their work. So it's going to be even easier. But unfortunately, some people, are kind of shitty at their work and still get the job and the promotion and the deal. And I'm sure a lot of listeners listening to this right now are like, yeah, I've seen those examples. And I hate that that happens. Yeah. I wish it went to the best person, but it doesn't.

Starting point is 00:12:38 A lot of high performers, I think, fall into this bucket of not wanting to play this game because in school, it's not really about politics. You take the test, you get a good grade, you know, you get honors, and you keep getting rewarded. So they end up going into corporate, and they think it's the same system. when it's really not. So even if your work does get you shine and you're really talented, it could be the key differentiator where you're going ahead somebody who has really good work and good politics and they're going to get the promotion over you. Totally. Yeah. And you don't have to be perfect at either game. Like you're never going to be the top of the top, the best

Starting point is 00:13:14 at what you do and you're never going to be the most socially intelligent or aware, right? It's like how do you play into your own strengths and really amplify those? I feel like this is a lot of is also relatable to entrepreneurs working out loud. Totally. It's this whole concept of like documenting your journey, sharing before you're necessarily ready. Like everybody thinks they have to be an expert to share online, but you can actually share what you're learning. Talk to us about how entrepreneurs can use this concept as well.

Starting point is 00:13:43 Yeah. First, entrepreneurs can work out loud with their clients. So if you want to make sure you're retaining your clients or your users, make sure you're reminding them of the impact. Maybe you have a marketing agency. Hey, like we're super proud because we're seeing these results this week. We just have this major win or a small win. You know, you might text your client a screenshot of somebody that said,

Starting point is 00:14:07 hey, I loved that presentation. I loved that thing, right? It could be so small. Maybe you have an app. We want to make sure that we're continuously reminding our audience how much time they're saving or how much money they're making or whatever outcome that you're creating. that you're creating. So constantly remind your clients, remind your users, remind your customers,

Starting point is 00:14:29 the benefit that they're getting from your service, or they might forget, because they're not thinking about you all the time. It's like you've got to make sure that you're retaining these users as well. And then also for new users and new opportunity for new clients, for new prospects, we want to make sure we're building in public. So we are posting consistently, and it doesn't have to be crazy. You don't have to drop everything and become an influencer. Just give your audience routine updates of what you're doing, what you're celebrating so you can stay top of mind. Because when our audience comes to a buying decision, they're going to choose the person that's the most top of mind. In the same way, when your boss is looking for someone to promote, they're going to

Starting point is 00:15:11 choose the person that's most top of mind. They're not going to think and sift through and really get in the weeds. I wish they did, but they don't. So constantly remain top of mind. This is so smart. I love what you're saying about reminding your clients because they will come up with their own narrative about how the service is going, right? They'll remember like a few things from few meetings and kind of pieces together. And their narrative could end up being a lot more negative than the truth. So your job is to kind of craft the narrative for them and share it with them ongoingly, which I just think is so smart. Exactly. It's so, so important. So how can you make a good impression on your boss because it is usually your boss that is, you know, helping you get a promotion

Starting point is 00:15:52 or moving you along your career. So how can people better impress their boss? Yeah, you can better impress your boss. First, you got to learn what their goal is. Their personal goal and their professional goal is that their goal is to run a marathon this year. Okay, great. What can you take off their plate? Can you go to that morning meeting to give them time for their marathon training, right? Maybe their personal goal is to buy a house this year. Can you just give them some encouragement? Can you say, oh, great, you're touring with a realtor. I'll take that over that day.

Starting point is 00:16:22 Or, oh, my cousin's a realtor. Here you go. So you want to figure out their personal goal. You also want to figure out their professional goal. Maybe they want to get promoted. Maybe they want to raise. Maybe they want to achieve a certain outcome or metric. And you want to create your focus around helping your boss achieve that goal.

Starting point is 00:16:39 A lot of times we get caught up in the weeds of what we think we should do, maybe even what's best for the company. but really if you want your boss to be obsessed with you, figure out their goals and help them achieve those goals as your very first priority. The next thing you want to do if you want to make your boss obsess with you is to give them more updates than you think. I call this the Monday, Wednesday, Friday rule. So Monday you're going to tell them, hey boss, here are my five priorities for the week. Wednesday, you're going to send them a quick update. Here's how we're progressing on ABCD. On Friday, you're going to send them a summary of here's what I accomplished. They

Starting point is 00:17:15 are going to feel like a load is lifted off their shoulders if you do this. They are going to be way more hands off, let you run on your own because they are always visible into what you're working on. And this is going to give you a lot more time because now that you have your priorities, you're giving your boss to updates, they're not going to be micromanaging you. And you could take that extra hour to go work out or go on a walk or go to the park with your dogs. Take some of your time back. Young improfitors, raise your hand if you've ever Googled one tiny symptom and then five minutes later, you're convinced that you're dying.

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Starting point is 00:18:56 That's ZOC, doc, doc.com slash profiting. Zock.com slash profiting. And thanks to Zock doc doc for sponsoring this message. Hey, Yapam. I'm not afraid to say producing this podcast requires skills I do not naturally have. From audio engineering to video editing, I have to hire experts who are way better than me in those areas. And as I scale my podcast, this becomes more and more important. And every time I need to hire, my first thought usually is, this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. When you sponsor your job

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Starting point is 00:20:06 indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now, and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire. This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Yaff gang, one of the biggest challenges of building a business is staying responsive because the best opportunities don't always show up during perfect working hours.

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Starting point is 00:21:06 so that nothing falls through the cracks. That means your business stays responsive even when you're offline. And now we use Quo very creatively at YatMedia on the social and production side of our agency. We have really busy super high profile clients that don't want to log into Slack. Their team communicates with my team in Slack, but if a high profile client wants to message our team directly, they can use Quo and my team can monitor that inbox together. So they can text at any time. It's basically like a high profile client hotline.

Starting point is 00:21:36 And that's just one idea. You can use Quo in really creative ways to level up your business, no matter what type business you have. Make this season where no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.com slash profiting. That's QUO.com slash profiting. Quo, no missed calls, no missed customers. You give such cute hacks in the book. One of them is the snackable surprises for your boss. I love that hack. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, this is fun because, you know, we have this, there's this concept of like iterative wins or iterative surprises, right? Where if I brought donuts to work in every single day, you would start to expect it from me.

Starting point is 00:22:19 But if I bring in fun little surprises ad hoc, you become more addictive as a person. This is actually how toxic relationships work, but we're just using it for good. So for your coworkers, bring in a little surprise, offer to help somebody, offer to help your boss, take something off of their plate. But if you don't want to be held to it, do it a little bit more intermediately rather than consistently. But you want to consistently give your boss to them Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Got it. So in terms of these snackable surprises, from my understanding, it was basically like surprise them with like information or something that can help them that they, just weren't expecting. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, this can also be information. This can be,

Starting point is 00:23:07 again, something like, I think you would love this article. It could be, again, something like you go to a conference or you attend a webinar that they don't know about and you send them what you learn from it or the three actions that you're taking. Again, it's really being proactive and going above and beyond. Something else I think is super helpful is there is a, I think it's a 1% rule or 10% rule, you just want to go like a tiny percent above what everybody else is doing. So if your boss asks you to do a report, do a report and tell them the three predictions for the next report. If your boss asks you to make a pitch deck, do the pitch deck and draft the pitch deck email. Like how can you anticipate and take one extra micro step above everybody else that's really going to

Starting point is 00:23:53 make you stand out? And that also will make you stand out an interviewer. So for all the entrepreneurs was listening to this of like, how do I hire an A player? Look out for these things in the interview. Are they going one extra step in the job application process? Did they, you know, email you after to thank you? Did they send you a quick video? Did they share with you three changes they would make or a, you know, high level of a 30, 60, 90 plan? Those are the people we really want to hire because those are the people that are going even just one tiny step above and beyond. As I was learning about some of these strategies. I kept thinking about my own journey as an entrepreneur. And when I heard about this, like, you know, snackable surprises, I realized, like, this is what I do to get mentors now. This is

Starting point is 00:24:36 what I do to get, like, really high-level clients because people who join my network have to have, like, a certain amount of downloads. They're typically, like, really famous. And I've got to, like, stand out and impress them somehow. And so what I'll do is just, like, try to be helpful. And not an annoying, like, spammy way, but, like, if I have a piece of information that, they could, you know, really use or implement a, like, you know, shoot a loom video and, like, send it to them. And until finally, like, they want to have a call with me or they realize that I've got value to share. And so you can also use this strategy to get clients and mentors as an entrepreneur. Totally. Like, introductions is a great way to do this of, hey, I would love,

Starting point is 00:25:16 like, for a couple of people, I've been like, hey, I would love to introduce you to my book agent. I know that'd be really valuable for them. That would deepen the relationship. it could be, hey, I have an extra ticket to this conference. Like, do you want to go? I'll give you this ticket for free. I love the information. I actually had somebody use this on me last week. They were like, it was somebody that worked at LinkedIn.

Starting point is 00:25:35 He said, hey, Courtney, here are three things that are kind of under the radar that I've learned. Like, I would love to come guest speak and they want to guest speak. And the way that they're putting their foot in the door is telling me these like kind of three bits of insider information that only they would know, which is really, really cool. So, yeah, I love that. I love implementing information as a leverage point and as value that you're giving, tidbits of value. Mm-hmm. So you were just mentioning the hiring process. For somebody who's looking for a job, what do they need to know about how hiring works today in 2026?

Starting point is 00:26:11 Yeah. Right now, the hiring process, the hiring landscape is completely different than it looked even one year ago with AI, with massive layoffs. I mean, it is competitive and it is wild. A couple of things I would want somebody to know if they were applying to a job right now. First, your volume has to be higher than you think. A lot of people come to me. Courtney, I'm trying, I'm applying and applying and applying, and I haven't gotten any interviews. And I asked them, how many jobs have you applied for? They might say, oh, 10, 15. It's going to take a lot more than that. It's going to take a hundred, 100, 200. Second, you want to make sure that you're working with recruiters and that you're connected

Starting point is 00:26:57 with a bunch of recruiters on LinkedIn. So I actually tell my clients, they are not allowed to complain about not having a job unless they're connected to 200 recruiters on their LinkedIn. And people say, oh, but Courtney, my inbox is going to be annoying. I hope your inbox is annoying. Yeah, that's the point. That's the point. Like, I hope all these people are fighting to place you. So you want to make sure that you are connected with a fuck ton of, of recruiters. Next, you want to make sure you're always going one step above and beyond. So you're sending them an extra message, an extra video,

Starting point is 00:27:31 you're sending them some things that you would implement or change. And the biggest tip to getting a job as easy and fast as possible is to build a personal brand. Yes. The simplest way to do this is just post on LinkedIn. Start posting on LinkedIn weekly. It's going to put you above every single other person that's competing for that job. because they're glancing at your LinkedIn profile for maybe a second. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:27:55 If it looks really professional, if you look like a thought leader, you look like you're educating others, you post consistently, you're immediately going to gain higher favor. Because I have what I call a three-second test on LinkedIn, and it's really like a one-second test. If you just glance at your profile for a couple of seconds, what are people thinking? It's not even what they're thinking. It's what is the unconscious biases that start to come out. And I use the word bias as a neutral term because it could be something like, oh, you

Starting point is 00:28:21 speaker in your bio. And in my mind, speaker has positive attributes and sounds like you're really qualified. So I see speaker, the biases, oh, you're probably really qualified, right? Or it might be more negative. I might see polka dots on your shirt and you're wearing a college graduation cap. So I assume my bias is, oh, you're young and inexperience. So you also want to make sure that your profile is reflecting the positive biases that if somebody just glances at your profile, they're taking away things that are going to support that hiring decision. And then once you start posting, opportunities are going to come to you. So few people do it and so few people stay consistent with it that if you are posting consistently,

Starting point is 00:29:01 it is going to make you stand out. Again, if you're connected, if you have 200 recruiters in your network, you're posting once a week and they're seeing those posts, their unconscious biases, oh, this person's going to be really easy to place. Yeah. Like, they're hardworking, they're going above and beyond. like I'm going to go out of my way for them. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:29:18 And either way, if you don't end up getting a job, your personal brand can help you, you know, become an entrepreneur. So either way, you've got to leverage your personal brand, I think, to get a job or to become an entrepreneur. And I feel like a lot of people in corporate, they're kind of scared of creating a personal brand. They feel like because they're in corporate, they don't need one or they even might get in trouble for starting one.

Starting point is 00:29:43 Talk to us about why it's so important to build a personal brand, whether you're in corporate and you've got a stable job or, you know, you're looking for a job. Yeah, this is so important. I get the question a lot. I'm in corporate, but I feel weird because what is my boss going to say about me posting on LinkedIn? Or what if I get fired for posting on LinkedIn? There is a lot of fear that comes up around this. But the truth is, the odds that you're going to be at that company forever are very, very, very small. So even if something does go wrong, were you going to stay there forever? Probably not. The best way to be. You're going to be in there forever? Probably The best way to avoid any negativity from you posting on LinkedIn, one, block the people that you're

Starting point is 00:30:21 afraid of seeing your stuff. Like, it's that simple. You can block people. Second, share your mission with your team. So if you're a little afraid of what your boss is going to think, figure out what your underlying mission is and share that with them. For example, Hala, you're my boss. Hala, I just wanted to let you know, like I started posting on LinkedIn. I'm really excited because first, I think it's really going to help us get more visibility into XYZ product. But two, it's always been my passion to inspire young women. And my posts are, like my intention for my post is to inspire more young women to go into engineering. What are you going to say? Oh, you can't inspire young women. Yeah, of course not. Yeah. If you position it in a way that's sharing that your intention is to elevate the whole company,

Starting point is 00:31:07 not just you, and to inspire some group of people, I've never seen that not work. Because they don't want to look like an asshole. Yeah, and you will actually become more valuable because you're gaining new skills. So let's say like you're in finance, but now you're dabbling on LinkedIn and now suddenly you're good at marketing and writing and your boss or your company can find more opportunities for you. Totally. I remember when I started working at HP. That's when I started posting on LinkedIn. And I became a big influencer and I became more popular than the CEO at HP. I love that. And then suddenly they were like, go to every conference, you know, interview the CEO at the town halls. Can you help train our sales team on LinkedIn? And I was actually getting more opportunities because I was posting on LinkedIn.

Starting point is 00:31:53 And at first, it was really my peers, my coworkers who were like, what are you doing? Like, why are you doing that? But all the executives actually loved it and thought that it was a strength that I was posting on LinkedIn. So I also think there's some benefits to it that people don't necessarily like realize right at first. Like maybe at first there'll be pushback. But, if you actually start to gain traction, you become more valuable. Totally. And also you become more visible to other companies who might poach you for a higher salary or something like that.

Starting point is 00:32:23 Totally. Yeah. I think as long as you're getting ahead of the narrative and then again, sharing those wins. So, hey, a customer DM'd me on LinkedIn and they said they really, really liked this feature. That's so cool, right? Like even these little breadcrumbs of positivity, again, just in the same way we're like,

Starting point is 00:32:40 we're shifting the narrative and we're controlling the narrative. of our customers by sharing wins with them, we're going to do that internally. And we're going to share with our boss. We're going to share in our company, wins channel, even these tiny things. As simple as a customer commenting on your LinkedIn post, a narrative there is simply, look, I'm fostering relationships with our customers. Like, I'm using this as an additional touchpoint. And we know the more touch points we have with our customers, the longer they retain or whatever it might be. And then also, I would make sure that you have a good mix of things about your company, but also things about you. So you were probably talking about HP, but you're also talking about

Starting point is 00:33:14 the mentorship you were getting, the books that you were reading, like things outside of that one job because you definitely don't want to be pinned down to one specific job if you're not going to stay there forever. I totally agree. Now, something that's not so obvious to people, especially people who haven't built a personal brand before or haven't spent a lot of time with algorithms is that keywords really, you know, are a big part of strategy online, even a big part of resume strategy. So help us understand why keywords play such a big part of getting your resume found. And then also how that translates to being an entrepreneur and starting an online brand. Totally. Well, both in our resume and in our content, we have AI algorithms that are picking up

Starting point is 00:34:01 certain keywords. So if you're really into baking, it's picking up keywords around recipe, around healthy eating, around whatever, in order to feed it to you because the algorithms want to feed you content of what you like. So we just want to make sure that our resumes are very keyword rich in whatever job we're searching for. So let's say I'm a general marketer. I'm going to apply to a social media job over here and I'm going to apply to an email marketing job over here. I'm definitely going to want to shift my resume a little bit and have more social media keywords over here for the social media job or more email marketing keywords over here for the email marketing job. And you can use AI to do this. You can put your resume and chat GPT whatever your

Starting point is 00:34:44 favorite AI is and say, hey, can you help me optimize this for this specific job? One of my favorite things to do is just take that job description, copy it, put it into AI, put it into chat GPT, and ask chat how to optimize your resume tailored to that specific job application. There's so many tools and resources to optimize your resume. I used to do this manually for hundreds of job applications. I'm so happy that you can do this on your own. You can do this automatically. And then as far as building our personal brands, same thing.

Starting point is 00:35:19 We can ask our friendly AIs what keywords to sprinkle in to our content. Although, I find it happens really automatically. Like, if you're talking about software engineering, you're probably naturally going to bring up a lot of keywords that people are already consuming and already searching. I would say it's more strategic on your resume. Yeah. On LinkedIn, the algorithm is so, like, straightforward where basically, like, every user has two clouds. One cloud is their, like, interests, their profile, the keywords that's found in their profile and their content. and then one cloud is like the stuff they engage on.

Starting point is 00:35:57 And so the algorithm's just matching people like, okay, what does this person engage on and who talks about that? And it just matches each other. So the same keywords you're probably putting in your resume. You want to make sure it's in your title, your bio, your description, even your description of the past jobs that you've had on LinkedIn, right? All that metadata is fed to the algorithm and then they'll know, the algorithm will know, like you're an expert in XYZ and creates a keyword cloud for you. So I feel like people just understood that. they could get so much further on LinkedIn. Yeah. It's also important to remember that just because your company has this like crazy word for your job title, that might not work on your resume,

Starting point is 00:36:38 right? If your job, like I've worked at some startups where the social media manager is like the social media guru, like I don't know, there's some bullshit names. Like you want to make sure you have a standard job title or elevate it a little bit. Like, it's like, it's a little bit. Like, If you worked as a waitress, maybe you're not writing waitress. Maybe you're writing like hospitality associate or something. Yeah, totally. So what do you think about imposter syndrome? You know, this is like a hot topic. Everybody, you know, talks about imposter syndrome. What's your take on it? Yeah. So imposter syndrome is when we feel like we're not qualified enough or we don't have all of the information that we need to do a certain task or to do a certain role or get a

Starting point is 00:37:22 certain opportunity. And the truth is, we are literally cyborgs. Like, we have all of the world's information at the tip of our fingers. And right now, in job applications, in career, in entrepreneurship, you do not have to know everything. You just have to be able to figure out the problem. Like, problem solving is the most important skill, not you know, you already have memorized how to do this thing. Like, that's so silly. So to what I would say to people dealing with, with an imposter syndrome is you don't have to know the answer. You just have to know how to figure it out. And in terms of getting a raise, how do you suggest that people approach getting a raise in their job? Yeah, when you want to get a raise, you really need to understand the value that you bring to the company.

Starting point is 00:38:08 So most of the times, you're either making the company more money or you're saving the company money. If you're not doing one of those things, you probably wouldn't have a job. And you might think, well, I work in this other department that doesn't have any revenue attached. No, everything has revenue attached to it. Or you would not work there. Maybe you're saving the money because you're mitigating some risk. Or maybe you're bringing in money, you're bringing in users, et cetera. Yeah, retaining clients. Retaining clients, exactly. So the first thing is really understanding whether you're making the company money or saving the company money. And then starting to quantify that. You can just have a conversation with chat GPT and say, hey, here's my role, here's what I've done.

Starting point is 00:38:47 Can you help me understand how I'm saving or making the company money? And you want to really have a raised conversation of tying it back into the money. Because honestly, nothing else really matters. We think, like, oh, well, the client said this nice thing about me, and I accomplished this, and I worked for this long, and I went above and beyond in these ways. And although that's all great and shows you have a great work ethic, what your company wants to know is a client gave me this compliment, and that led to them retaining, which led to an extra $100,000, whatever. Or, you know, Instead of taking six months to hire someone, as an HR professional, I took three months. That cut our time to hire in half, which time to hire, you know, it really costs us an extra $10,000 a month.

Starting point is 00:39:34 So I saved us $30,000. Like, you want to really find areas. And again, I coach people on this and they might say, well, there's no way. Like, I didn't do anything to make or save the company money. And you absolutely did or you would be fired. Yeah. I love that. Such great tips.

Starting point is 00:39:51 So you wrote this book Career Cheat Codes. Why do you feel so passionate about this topic? You also blew up on TikTok initially talking about careers. Why do you feel so passionate about this topic? I feel so passionate because it took me a long time to understand these cheat codes, and I had to figure it out for myself. And I want other people to have a shortcut to where they don't have to go through so many ups and downs and so many problems in their career.

Starting point is 00:40:16 They just understand the information and they can go. And I think of this as information, I think we talk about a lot of different types of equity and equality in our world, how to make the world more equitable. We talk about it in terms of money in terms of where we come from, et cetera. And the type of equality I've just been really passionate about is information equality because I have seen so many stories where somebody comes from a really rough background. Somebody comes without having access to some of these job opportunities, et cetera. And they can work their way up just by having. the information. One of my good friends, she is from the Philippines, and she's from like a very

Starting point is 00:40:56 small village where the average salary is like $200 a year. And she just through watching YouTube videos, she learned how to be a VA, eventually made her own VA agency, now she has a seven-figure business. She travels the world. She's literally living her dream. Amazing. Because of information equity, because somebody decided, hey, I'm going to put what I learned on YouTube. Hey, I'm going to put what I learned into a book. I'm going to put what I learned on social media. And I just think the more we can give out information, the more we can ungatekeep because I know some people like to gatekeep shit. Yeah. Some people like to say, I'm not going to share this with others because I want this to be my own special advantage. What I want to see in the world,

Starting point is 00:41:35 and my vision for the world, is we're not gatekeeping this information. Like, we are actively sharing information and education with others so we can level the playing field and have a more equitable world. Yap, gang, on the show, I've sat down with Robert Green, Seth Godin, Alex from Mozy, Gretchen Rubin, James Clear, so many epic, epic guests. And what do all these guests have in common? Every single one of them has a best-selling book. And every one of those books are on Blinkist.

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Starting point is 00:42:39 pull out the key insights, and then I decide which ones I want to read fully. Between meetings, at the gym, whenever I have 15 minutes, I'm listening to Blinkist. In a world where everybody is copying the same AI output, reading is the thing that can make you different. Grab your free trial plus an exclusive 30% discount at Blinkist.com slash profiting. That's Blinkist.com slash profiting. Hey, yeah, fam, if something unexpected happened to you tomorrow, would the people who depend on you be financially okay?

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Starting point is 00:44:14 Life Assurance Company. Not available in certain states. Price is subject to underwriting and health questions. Yeah, bam, what's your weekday breakfast actually like? Be honest, because for me, it used to be coffee and starve myself till noon. Then I had Dr. Amy Shaw on the podcast, and she said something that I won't ever forget. She said the number one way to get more energy in the morning is a 30 gram protein breakfast. And that stuck with me and that changed everything. Now, every weekday morning, I go for my 30 gram protein breakfast, and when I'm in a rush, I grab for Hewle Black Edition ready to drink. It's 35 grams of protein, 27 vitamins and minerals, no artificial sweeteners, it's under

Starting point is 00:44:56 five bucks, and the chocolate peanut butter flavor is just so dang good. A complete meal I drink on the way to the studio, and I'm full for hours, and I do this about three times a week. Now, I got sick a lot this winter, and so I made a decision. This spring and summer, I'm going all in on my health. No more drinking and a lot more fuel consistently. I'm not very good at remembering to eat, let alone taking my vitamins. So I've used habit stacking to help me. I do liquid vitamins in my coffee like B12. And my rule is if I don't have a hule protein in the morning, I drink my hule at lunch. That's the daily greens,

Starting point is 00:45:34 42 vitamins and minerals and superfoods and only 25 calories. And it is absolutely delicious. It taste so good. In fact, I have to hide it from my boyfriend so he doesn't finish them all because I need them for my lunch. Protein at breakfast, multitasking my coffee, and greens at lunch, done, done, and done. Hopefully I don't get sick again this year. Heel has a limited time offer. Get 15% off with my code profiting at Hewil.com slash profiting. New customers only. Again, that's Hewel.com slash profiting. And thank you to Heel for supporting the show. Talk to us about how you first started as a creator. From my understanding, you got laid off, and that really, that stepback actually turned into an opportunity for you.

Starting point is 00:46:14 Tell us how that unfolded. Yeah, so as I actually, most of my career has been being a ghostwriter for other people. So building other people's personal brands. So I was posting on and off very inconsistently, but I got laid off. I think this was 2019 or 2020. And that's what finally catapulted me because I was like, I wish I could say that I bravely quit my job I decided to go all in on myself. But I didn't. It was forced. I got laid off. And so I was forced to post every day. I was like, fuck, I got to get a job. I got to figure this out. And through that

Starting point is 00:46:50 process of just committing, I'm like, I'm going to post every single day no matter what, no matter if it's a bad post, no matter if I don't feel like it, no matter if I'm sick, I am posting every single day for 365 days. And that year completely changed me. And that year completely change my life. I mean, absolutely insane. But yeah, I mean, that was basically my journey. I had seen so many other people succeed with their personal brand. And I was like, I want that for myself. How did you laser in on your niche? Like, were you testing different topics or were like, I'm just going to start with careers and land there? I love this question. I actually started posting about everything. I started posting about my dogs and living in Austin and my house and

Starting point is 00:47:36 and career and personal brand and all these other topics. And I just looked at the data of what are people liking. And it was a lot of career and personal brand. Another way that I would figure out what to post is I would ask my friends, hey, what advice do you ask me for? I would notice what advice my friends are asking me for. I would also ask my friends things like, when you think of me, what do you think of? So a lot of times our zone of genius is so obvious to us. that we don't even consider it. But our zone of genus might be mind-blowing to somebody else. And for me, that was career. I thought these career cheat codes were obvious. And so I was like, I would never post them because, like, duh, people know this, or it's easily Googled, or there's

Starting point is 00:48:20 already a lot of career creators. And it wasn't until my friend was asking me throughout her whole job application journey and had a really good result, that she was like, hey, you should share some of this stuff. And so I started cheering it. And I know that you're a proponent of like sharing stuff even when it's not perfect. You call it B plus content. Yes. Why is that so? Because I see people all the time, overthink, overthink, overthink their content to where they don't actually post.

Starting point is 00:48:50 Or maybe they'll post once or twice fall off for a couple months, do it again, and never actually get consistent. Which that was actually me. I was overthinking. I was trying to make it so perfect that I never actually gained traction because I never actually gain traction because I never actually was consistent. I actually believe there's two skills in personal breadth. Well, there's a lot of skills, but there's two main skills. One is the skill of consistency. Second is the skill of optimization. You cannot optimize if you're not consistent. So some people, they try to make like a 12-point strategy with their seven content pillars

Starting point is 00:49:23 and the perfect time of day and the perfect whatever before they even get started. But the truth is, that's going to be completely irrelevant in like a couple of weeks or a couple of months. So, I believe you should start posting consistently, even if it's bad, even if it sucks, even if it's just an Instagram picture of your dog every day and like what you're feeding them. I don't give a fuck. Just start posting consistently every day. Once you have the habit down of posting consistently, then optimize. I love the book Atomic Habits. And it talks about a similar example of if you really want to get really fit, build a gym habit, have the best technique. The very first skill is just driving your car to the gym. Can you do that every day? Can you drive your car to the gym and literally sit in the parking one? Okay, now once you've mastered that habit,

Starting point is 00:50:12 go into the gym, it doesn't matter if you're walking on the treadmill for five minutes and you leave. You're just doing something. Yeah. Then you're going to slowly optimize. But the reason why people fail at the gym is because they get this crazy seven-week program

Starting point is 00:50:27 where it's super hard and they're so sore up to the first day. It doesn't integrate into their life. But consistency is more important than anything. Like, there has not been a single person online that has showed up consistently every single day, slowly optimized, and not seeing success. It just doesn't happen. It doesn't exist.

Starting point is 00:50:46 Yeah. How do you suggest people decide what's the first platform they should focus on? And did you focus on one platform or did you focus on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram at the same time? I started on LinkedIn, and I was only on LinkedIn for about a year before I went to TikTok. and I was on LinkedIn and TikTok for like two years before I went to Instagram. So I recommend people start with the platform where they will be the most consistent and where they will actually start.

Starting point is 00:51:13 Because then when you move to the next platform, you have a lot of content, you can repurpose, it makes it a lot easier. But a mistake I see people make when they're building their personal brand is trying to be on 10 platforms at once. It's best to really understand one platform, optimize for that platform. And then once you're in a good rhythm, once you've built the habit, it once you've really optimized, then pick your second platform and your third platform. Now, if you have a whole team or you're hiring a massive agency, you can skip the step,

Starting point is 00:51:42 but most people don't have those resources. For most people, it's just them. I totally agree. And I feel like the other thing that we need to talk about is everybody's strengths are different. So a lot of people are like, you know, I can't do social media because I'm not good at video. And LinkedIn doesn't need video. Substack is huge. That doesn't need video. is blowing up. That doesn't really need video. So I feel like there's other avenues for people who don't necessarily want to be on video. Do you agree? Yeah, totally. I have a client right now that's like making a ton of money on Instagram threads and does not require any video at all. Yeah, I mean, first of all, I'm bad at video is just not true. It's a skill. It's like saying I'm bad at

Starting point is 00:52:25 guitar. I've never been to a guitar lesson. I can't say I'm bad at guitar, right? If I go to a guitar lesson three times a week for the next 10 years, I will be good at guitar. Totally. Seamus video. If you create a video every week, three times a week, every day for the next few years, you will be good at video. It is a learned skill. However, starting with video can be very scary, very overwhelming, and you might not get

Starting point is 00:52:50 very far if it's not something that's sustainable for you. So, like I said, I have a client right now that's just absolutely killing it on threads. Start with the thing that's most comfortable for you. If that's writing, great. If that's photos, great. If that's LinkedIn, if that's substack, what is the most sustainable? Start there. Build the habit and then slowly grow. And it's also like our comfort zone, right? Like, we got to push the edges of our comfort zone in our nervous system. And if you overwhelm your nervous system and go straight to like, I need to create all these fancy videos, it's going to be really overwhelming and you're not going to stick with it.

Starting point is 00:53:26 Yeah. And I feel like sometimes you approaching a platform differently. Like everyone's posting reels on Instagram. But then you have like Case Kenny who posts like little like handwritten quotes. And that's his thing. And he posts a handwritten quote every day. And he's got like millions of followers now from doing that. It can also help you stand out to think about what's your strength and how can you apply that to the platform. Totally. Yeah. It's like what are you obsessed with? Like for him, he's obsessed with like visual art, topography, writing. That's incredible. Like what what is somebody else obsessed with? Maybe you're obsessed with long-form content. Maybe you're obsessed with video editing sunsets and landscapes. Like that, whatever you're obsessed with, your obsession will lead you

Starting point is 00:54:10 down the path that's the most authentic to you. And I love that you bring up that example because there is also no right answer. Everything I have said today about career, about content, there are some people that's not going to apply to. There is some people that a different way is going to suit them by doing it the wrong way is going to be better. Yeah. So it's also important not to think that I got to find the perfect formula that is proven to work, that always works, that will work perfectly for me. That does not exist in anything that we do, not in entrepreneurship, not in career. So figure out what's authentic to you and take baby steps towards that. How did you make your first dollar online? Oh my gosh. The first dollar I made online was

Starting point is 00:54:52 freelancing. I started posting on LinkedIn and somebody reached out and said, hey, can I get on a call with you to talk about LinkedIn, and I think I charged him 50 bucks. The first dollar I made from something outside of me was from an e-book. I wrote an e-book. I didn't write an e-book. I wrote LinkedIn blogs and my top-performing LinkedIn blog. I copied it, pasted it into a PDF, and that became an e-book. Amazing. I listed on Gum Road, and yeah, that was my first digital product sale. And today, how do you, like, what are all your different revenue streams today? Yeah, I've narrowed it down. a lot. I'm glad you're asking me this today and not a year ago because I simplified.

Starting point is 00:55:32 So I have my content club where we meet every single day on Zoom and I give you a content prompt. We work on it together. I have level up on LinkedIn, which is my LinkedIn cohort. That's very much around mindset of building your personal brand on LinkedIn and overcoming any visibility blocks. I do speaking. I have my book and I do brand deals. And that's all. That's so cool. So what kind of freedom do you get from having all these diversified income streams. Yeah, I mean, it's so helpful because if something isn't going great one month, another income stream will help. And I even have things outside of my business, too. I have like real estate and investments and all that. And it's really

Starting point is 00:56:16 helpful because the market can change, social media can change. So to have backups and have that security of multiple income streams just makes me feel so much better. And they're all kind of scaling and compounding on their own independently, which is really, really beautiful. What's the thing that's, like, working really incredibly well right now, either platform-wise or revenue stream-wise? Great question. What's working well right now for recurring revenue is getting people to commit to a year. I've tested a lot in my content club, and I just find that when people commit to a year and having really solid offers of, like, yes, this is a month-to-month subscription, but when you upgrade to a year, you get all these extra bonuses,

Starting point is 00:56:57 their results are so much better. Just the mindset of them being locked into a year, they're showing up way more committed. They're so much more excited. They're excited to bring in other people. And it's a win-win because that helps my revenue a ton because now I'm creating much larger ARR. Yeah, and consistency.

Starting point is 00:57:17 Yeah. And then platform-wise, in terms of like getting leads to your content club, what's working? What's working really well right now is two things. One on LinkedIn, storytelling, especially sharing personal stories, the more vulnerable I am on LinkedIn, the more people want to work with me. And I find that true for a lot of people around me. It can be really scary to be vulnerable on LinkedIn. But I highly recommend it. It's back to standing out and doing what everybody thinks is the wrong thing to do on LinkedIn.

Starting point is 00:57:46 Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, the thing that you struggled with is the thing people are going to connect with you over, right? Something else that's working really well is just giving free resources on Instagram. I love many chat. Adding a keyword that goes to a free resource and bringing them into my top of funnel is really valuable right now. Very cool. So I know one of the things that you're known for is public speaking and a lot of people who are creating online brands. That's really their end goal. They want to get speaking engagements. Maybe they want to become an author. What is your best guidance for somebody who wants to get started in speaking and and get these gigs.

Starting point is 00:58:22 If you want to get started speaking, this is a little bit of a problematic tip. You start by creating your own events. You want a keynote? Make the event you're keynoting at. Make your own conference. Put together a get together with others and speak at it. Make a retreat that you speak at. This is one of the best ways to get speaking gigs because you're guaranteeing it.

Starting point is 00:58:44 Last year at South by Southwest, I applied to be a main speaker. I didn't get it, so I made my own South by Southwest event. And I had a ton of people come and I got to keynote my own little mini conference that I made. So that's how I would get started. As far as how to monetize your speaking, you've got to be posting every day. That's so, so important. And when you're applying to speaking, make sure you're following up with everybody on LinkedIn. You can circumvent, like any time there's like a speaking application, you can circumvent the entire application just by reaching out to.

Starting point is 00:59:19 one of the people that work on staff, seems kind of sneaky. It is sneaky. In the same way that if you're job hunting, you've got to be connected to 200 recruiters. If you're looking for speaking gigs, you've got to be connected to 200 conference organizers. Yeah, event plan others.

Starting point is 00:59:37 They will reach out. And then also get sneaky with the budget. So sometimes they're not going to have, they're going to say they don't have a budget to pay you, but they do have a budget from some other department. They might have a, consulting budget, a marketing budget, whatever, and you can offer them something else, throw in something. There's always a budget that you can find. So yeah, those are my speaking

Starting point is 00:59:59 tips. Okay. So before we go, just a couple last questions. For those in corporate, what would you say is like one easy thing they can do today to become more visible at work? Ooh. Mm-hmm. I mean, if you want to be more visible at work, one thing you can do today, go post something on LinkedIn. It really is that simple. Post on LinkedIn and just put yourself out there. Yeah, post something on LinkedIn. What's amazing is that if you haven't posted on LinkedIn in a while, that initial post is going to remind so many people of you. And LinkedIn often will send out that post more, right? Like if it's been a while. Yeah. Another thing you can do is just share one win on Slack or teams or whatever today. Just one tiny win. Share it with your boss. Share it with your team.

Starting point is 01:00:48 Just elevate your work a little bit. Yeah. Well, I loved your book Career Chee Codes. It was awesome. I feel like it's going to be so valuable for those in corporate. I also feel like entrepreneurs can learn a lot from it. So I in my show with two questions that I ask all my guests. The first is, and this can be related to the episode or whatever you want. What is one actionable thing our young improfitors can do today to be more profitable tomorrow? Ooh, one actionable thing that, young and profiteers can do today to be more profitable tomorrow. Love that question. Set up a free call with 10 prospects or clients. It could be a 15-minute call. What you're going to do is you're going to ask them their problem. So, Hala, I know you really want to build a personal brand.

Starting point is 01:01:33 Like, what's in the way? Like, what are you struggling with? I really want to understand your language. I'm going to transcribe all 10 of these interviews on Zoom or Otter or whatever. Put them in a at GPT and pull out the language of my audience. So a lot of times when we're creating our landing pages, we're creating our social content, it's from our perspective and our words. When you flip that to your customer's perspective and words, you're going to get way higher conversions and thus be way more profitable. So go give out some free interviews, ask people their problems, take their exact language and start to sprinkle that language into your marketing materials. So smart. You always want to talk like your audience so they feel like you're a like-minded friend. Yeah, they're like, oh my God,

Starting point is 01:02:13 how are you in my head right now? Like that is what you want. And what would you say your secret to profiting in life is? Secret to profiting in life is consistency. It's just showing up every single day even when you don't feel like it. Consistency compounds. The only way to fail the entrepreneur game, the personal brand game is to stop. It's to quit. It's to come up with an excuse and say, I'm going to come back in two weeks, right? Show up with a micro step every single day and it's going to compound and you will be successful. Consistency is everything. It really is. It really is. Courtney, where can everybody find more about you and everything that you do? Yeah, you can find my book, Career Cheat Codes on Amazon and all the places books are sold.

Starting point is 01:02:57 You can find me on Instagram at Cortland Johnson or TikTok at Courtney, period, period, Johnson. If you just Google Courtney Johnson, all my stuff will come up. So I hope to see you all my socials. Amazing. And I'll put your links in the show notes. Thank you again for joining us on Young Improfting Podcast. Hala. Well, young improfitors, what a masterclass from Courtney Johnson today. She shattered the biggest myth we've been fed, that if you keep your head down and work hard, you'll automatically get rewarded. You won't, not unless people can see your work. The real differentiator is visibility. Courtney calls it working out loud, and it's simpler than you think. Start with the Monday, Wednesday,

Starting point is 01:03:35 Friday rule. Tell your boss the top five priorities on Monday, give a progress report on Wednesday, and send a win summary on Friday. That single habit builds trust, reduces micromanagement, and puts you front of mind when promotions are handed out. Next, stop optimizing for effort and start optimizing for impact, specifically your boss's goals. Know what they're trying to achieve both professionally and personally and align your work to that. Then add one micro step beyond what's expected.

Starting point is 01:04:05 It's not always about being perfect. It's about being the obvious choice. And finally, build your personal brand, Now, yesterday, in fact, post on LinkedIn Weekly, connect with recruiters, strengthen your profile with the right keywords. You don't really need to go viral, but you do need to stay consistent because consistency compounds and invisible talent stays overlooked, so stop hiding yourself. And if this episode inspired you, help Young Improfiting get seen too.

Starting point is 01:04:33 Share us, comment on our show, and leave us a five-star written review. That's how we grow this movement. You can now watch all of our live and in-person interviews just like this on Spotify video and YouTube. I also love connecting with you guys personally, so come say hi to me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or connect with me on LinkedIn by searching my name Hala Taha. This is your host, Hala Taha, aka the podcast Princess, signing off.

Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Courtney Johnson: Career Cheat Codes to Stand Out, Get Promoted, and Win at Work | Career | E395

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