Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Interview: Career Advice with Hala [ A Few Things Podcast] | Career

Episode Date: October 23, 2020

Today on the show we’re replaying a session from earlier this summer that I did for the Rutgers University’s Global Entrepreneurship Experience Teen Camp and college students. I had the pleasure of being interviewed by James Barrood, who’s a business and ecosystem advisor, global speaker and host of “A Few Things Podcast.” Jim has a passion for building and strengthening startup and innovation ecosystems. In the interview, we discuss insights from my side hustle and entrepreneurial journey, career advice and more!   Links:   Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com   A Few Things Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/21-hala-taha-host-young-and-profiting-podcast-influencer/id1526155088?i=1000491591974 

Hey everyone, it's Hala. Today on the show, we're playing a session from earlier this summer that I did for the Rutgers University Global Entrepreneurship Experience, Teen Camp, and College students. I had the pleasure of being interviewed by James Baroud, who's a business and ecosystem advisor, global speaker, and host of a few things podcast. Jim has a passion for building and strengthening startup and innovation ecosystems. In the interview, we discuss insights from my side hustle and entrepreneurial journey, career advice, and more.

If you enjoy the episodes, subscribe to a few things podcast. I'll put the link in my show notes. Talk to us about your story. Sure. So current, I'll start from the current. Currently, I have a number one how-to podcast. It's called Young and Profiting. And we help people grow financially and professionally by investigating a new topic each week.

I've had huge guests on the show like billionaires, CEOs, best-selling authors, and we cover topics like how to gain influence, the art of entrepreneurship, how to start a side hustle, and things like that. I also work at Disney streaming services. I work in marketing. I've had a corporate marketing career for almost eight years now, and I help run their email marketing at Disney streaming services. So that's what I do for my day job. And I also just launched a new marketing agency. So very busy. And, In terms of my background, I started my career in radio. So I used to work at Hot 97.

It's a number one radio station. After that, I started a blog site. At the height of it, I had 50 bloggers under me. We were called The Sorority of Hip Hop. We almost had a show on MTV, and that was really cool. If you want to dig into that later, we can. And after that, I got my MBA, and I had a job at Hewlett-Packard. and then I got the itch about four years in.

I thought I was never going to get back on a mic again. I thought my radio career was over. I had a lot of online radio shows all throughout Hot 97, and then also when I had my website, I thought my radio career was over, my broadcasting career was over, but I got the itch, and I started a young and profiting podcast,

and so that was like two years ago, and the rest is history. So that's me in a nutshell in terms of my career journey. That's great. Well, let's dive into that, that MTV story. That seems super fascinating. And I think I know for a lot of people who grew up with MTV, that, you know, that would be great. I mean, so great to have a show.

Yeah. So this was back right when Jersey Shore ended. So this is when MTV was huge, right? And now MTV, I feel like, doesn't have as much power as they did. But back then it was like, to get a show on MTV was like the biggest thing ever. And so we actually got scouted by them twice. When I first started my website, I was in college, my senior year of college. I had dropped out of college temporarily only when I worked out Hot 97 to explore that path

wholeheartedly, right? When I left Hot 97, I went back to college to finish my senior year. And at that time, I launched my website. Within three months, we were the 30,000th most popular website in the world. We were one of the biggest hip-hop websites and entertainment websites out there. And so right away, we made a lot of noise. I figured out this thing on Twitter where every time we had a blog post, 50 girls would tweet that blog post and we would at mention a celebrity.

And so that celebrity would retweet us. And nobody else was doing this. We were like the first ones to do it. And all the blogs followed suit later. But nobody was doing it at first. And so we got a lot of attention because Drake would retweet us. You know, you had 50 girls tweeting his song. He would retweet it.

And then we got really big, really fast. So three months in, MTV scouted us. They did like a small pilot. We didn't get the show, but we didn't care because we were like, you know what? It's three months in. And we already got scouted by MTV. We already almost got a TV show. You know, what could happen next? At the same time, I don't know if anybody on the line is familiar with love and hip hop. Mona Scott is a producer of love and hip hop. That's how Cardi B got her starred and all these huge stars. She was begging me to come on the show. And I actually had rejected her for MTV, which was looking back. I think it was a blessing in disguise, but at the moment, I was like, I could have.

have been on love and hip hop and I didn't take it, but that's how life goes, right? So anyway, two years into it, we hustled so much, we had online radio shows, we hosted concerts, we hosted events. That's really how we made our money. We had thousands of blogs by this time. We worked really hard. I had 50 girls under me, and we got another MTV reached out again. Hey, we really want to do it this time. You're really going to get a show this time. They signed paperwork. I was the lead. I was getting paid. They shot us for an entire summer. They got us a studio on Broadway. So think of the real world where they would like deck out a studio and put neon signs and all that. We got our makeup done every day. They followed me to the restaurants and walking in New York on the street. They came to my parents' house to film us.

And so really, we thought we were celebrities. We were like, we made it. We did it. Like we got a show on MTV. We're going to be the new Jersey Shore. Everything is great. And then we didn't get the show. they, after all that filming, I remember my producer called me up and she, she let me down. And I remember crying hysterically like somebody died because I was just, I thought I was like banking on all of this. And then I ended up actually shutting down the website after that and getting my MBA and kind of, that was like a point in my life where I thought like, I can't do this entertainment industry anymore. I worked so hard. I did everything that I could. And then like I was finally going to get my big break and it didn't happen. And so I decided I was going to shut everything down,

get more education and just be like a regular corporate worker. And that's what I thought my life was going to be forever. So that's that story. That's really interesting. So everyone is fascinating with celebrities, right? I mean, they're all over social media and then there's, I'm sure you have a number of stories. But is there anything that you can share with us about celebrities in general or experiences you had?

And is entertainment an area where people should, you know, it's very sexy and attracted? Should people want to go into that sort of industry, or is it more hype than it's worth? Well, I think there's a lot of people out there that you think celebrities are rich and this and that. There's a lot of smoking mirrors in that industry, especially in the hip-hop industry. There's definitely rappers out there who are wearing fake jewelry and say they're really rich, but then they're actually really broke and live in a crappy apartment and kind of it's all just fake. in terms of like getting into entertainment, I wouldn't discourage anyone from it.

I would say that it's a really tough industry to break into. You're like going to have to work at it for a long time. You need to have super hard work ethic. You're not going to make it to the top. It's so competitive. So it's like you're not going to make it unless you're willing to kind of risk it all and go day in and day out in order to be a singer or like whatever you're trying to be in terms of entertainment.

It's really hard. but I wouldn't discourage anybody from it because anything is possible. I believe that life is limitless. So I would say anything is possible. Yeah, I mean, I have funny stories about celebrities. I used to work at Hot 97 and I used to be in the studio area and I would meet literally every celebrity.

So I've met Jay-Z, I've met Kanye West, I've met Kim Kardashian, I've met J-Lo, Beyonce, I've literally met every single celebrity. Do they remember me? Probably not. But I have met them and I have funny stories. You know, but... That's really interesting.

So tell me, I think I read in one of your somewhere about you used to sing and songwrite. Is that right? I did, yeah. So I actually first took that internship at Hot 97 because I was a singer and I, you know, I was in college and my dream was always to be a singer. When I was in high school, I used to always have like a solo at every concert and like that was something I was always really naturally good at. And so I was exploring that and I did songwrite and I have a whole album with my boyfriend, still my boyfriend. His name is Harry Fraud.

And he's actually a famous music producer back then. But when we were doing my album, he was a nobody. And so, you know, I love to songwrite. I'm so creative. I love to sing. But at the end of the day, I knew that I didn't have the drive nor the talent to be a Beyonce. And so I quickly realized that if I wanted to be super successful, I probably should pivot into something else that I also enjoy, like radio and being an online

personality that's maybe not as so demanding in terms of being a singer. And, you know, being a singer is also like having to be like the best dancer as well. I'm a great dancer, but I don't think I'm like Beyonce level dancer and you kind of need like both. I feel like to make it. So I kind of like let those dreams go. And it's okay to let dreams go and kind of evolve. I think that in general, I wanted to use my voice for good, and I still get to do that. That's great. And there's a lot of young people on this call from around the world, and I know a lot of them are in the performing arts. So a lot of them have interests, and they may not use it in their first job or second job, but maybe ultimately they'll sort of, there'll be some interaction, you know, in industry. So I think it's not going to hear your

story about, you know, you didn't take the typical path, especially compared to other people, as you mentioned, in your family. Yeah, completely. And one thing I'll just add to that. I interviewed Kathy Heller on my podcast, and she's a huge songwriter. And one thing to think about when you're thinking about the entertainment industry, the typical path people think about is like, oh, I'm going to be a, like, for example, we're talking about a singer. I'm going to be a singer. She started as a singer, and then she decided she was going to pivot and be a songwriter and license her music. And she became super successful, you know, just licensing her music to movies and things like that. And that's what she built her whole career out of. And it's like, so you can think about

something that you love to do and then think about like, what does it take to, like, what are the other areas in which I could dabble in this like, you know, certain path that isn't necessarily the obvious choice. Yeah. Good. So, and it could be a side hustle, right? I mean, so that's what is so fascinating is that you are a successful executive, yet you're doing a side hustle. And it's really popular and it's really special of what you've created. So talk about that, that these days, you know, side hustles are sort of very attractive and it's okay. And how did you stumble upon that, you know, that side gift? Yeah.

So I think that nowadays it's really important to have multiple income streams. It's super important. I think having only a full-time job or like being employed is. actually more risky than having multiple sources of income. I think that nowadays, lots of people have multiple jobs. And having a side hustle is more normalized than ever. In the past, it used to be called like moonlighting and people used to kind of frown upon it. But I think more and more corporations are starting to realize that their employees are going to have other jobs outside of their normal nine to five. And for me, how it started is, like I said, I was working at Hewlett-Packard.

I had gotten my MBA. I started there with an MBA internship. I worked my way up. I got promoted like four times and four years. And everything was going great. And my family was really happy because they like, you know, to them I was the black sheep. You mentioned that I have a successful family. All of my siblings are doctors, right? And it was actually very difficult for me when I was younger working in the radio and having my own website. Like nobody understood what I did. They didn't understand even though I was learning so much. And I I was becoming an expert in terms of digital marketing. They didn't really understand. They wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer. And they didn't really understand that like new world of digital marketing. It was like, you know, it was new to them. And so for me, I went to corporate kind of trying to satisfy everybody else, right? That I would get a stable job.

I would, and I worked my way up and I had this amazing career and I was making like a lot of money and everything seemed great. But I felt like I was unfulfilled. I felt like, you know, I missed. being on the mic. I miss interviewing people. I want to help people. I want to have my own personal brand. I used to be very popular on Twitter and like I had nothing anymore. My boyfriend was a music producer who was really famous. And here I was working. I felt like I was like the normal one and he was like the famous one and that was weird. And so like I just wanted to like have a personal brand and have a voice. And so I decided that I was going to start young and profiting podcast. And at first,

I had a lot of pushback. All of my loved ones, even my boyfriend. They were like, what are you doing? You're risking your career. You did all of this work. You've got a four point in your MBA. You worked so hard. You came from like, you know, being an entrepreneur and now you have some stable career. What are you doing? You're going to lose it all. And I was confident. And I said, no, like I believe in myself. I think that I can do both, which I am. I believe that I could create a platform that can help me become an entrepreneur one day, which is happening. And, you know, I just decided to go for it. And I think that when you start a side hustle, it's great because you have everything in terms of being able to explore entrepreneurship while having stability. And you get to do it slowly. So it's like you

started off on the side quietly and you kind of just build something up. And now I'm getting to the point where if I wanted to stop working at Disney, I could. You know, I'm just choosing to do both. I can handle both right now. But if I wanted to, I could now sustain myself. And there's zero risk because I've already built that. I've already built up the podcast and my business around it, whereas now I can roll off Disney if I wanted to. So it's definitely a path to entrepreneurship in terms of starting a side hustle. At YAP, we have a super unique company culture.

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Exactly. I know a lot of people have been sort of advising, just do it. Just get out there and do it. It's the best time. It's the best time. It is. And so what would you say? I know I was telling my nephew, you know, take this time and just drill down. You can't go out to any bars right now anyway. So just focus, right? Exactly. So I always say this. You have, everybody has the same amount of hours in the week, like whether you're Elon Musk, whether you're Jeff Bezos, we all have the same hours in the week. And like, I think it's 164 hours in the week. And so if you work eight hours a day and sleep eight hours a day, you still have like 60 hours to do whatever you want. Sure, yeah, you might have a commute, which now you don't. So that's not an excuse. But in general, you have like all this time and people don't utilize their time effectively. I don't watch any TV, none. Like I don't even open up the TV. I came to visit my mom for a couple weeks in New Jersey. I literally have not. touched the TV one time. It's been two weeks. How many people can say that, right? Probably not a lot of people. And that's because I use my time effectively. I don't waste my time. I still do stuff I love. I still work out. I still walk my dogs. I still, you know, see my friends. But I don't waste my time like scrolling on social media and they'll say, I don't do that. You know, I don't watch TV and do mindless things. Everything that I do is productive, either for work, for my podcast, for my brand. And because I love doing it, it's fun. So it's like working on my podcast is actually fun. And when you love doing

what you do, things are effortless and you'll have a great time doing it. So it's like a win-win, I think. Oh, that's great. Well, but speaking about social media, you are, you know, one of the top influencers. And so even though you're not on all the time, scrolling all the time, you are very effective in leveraging it. So can you some general, I'm sure we'll get some questions about it, but give some general sort of guidance on what people in general should be thinking about as they sort of on board. Yeah. So I'm like a really big influencer on LinkedIn, right? That's my main platform right now. And I think it's a great platform that's underutilized, especially from younger folks. They tend to think it's like just a job site, B2B, but it's not. There's lots of people on LinkedIn. And especially if you have a valuable message, they're there to hear you. So the first thing that I would do is actually, focus on your community. A lot of times people focus on the content, but I would say you want to

grow a really engaged community. And the way that you do that is you try to find people who may be interested in the things that you're going to talk about. So I would say, first you want to know what you're going to talk about. Like, what is your value statement? For me, I like to show people that life is limitless. And I do this by interviewing the brightest minds in the world. Right. And so that's my purpose and almost all my posts have to do with helping people become an entrepreneur or elevating themselves in their lives, becoming better people in general, right? And so that's what I, that's what I'm proposing. So what I did is I looked for other people like Gary V and Tony Robbins and Grant Cardone and other self-improvement people in my space. And I saw who is liking and commenting

on their posts. That's my audience. That's the people that I want to capture, right? So it's the people that are actually engaging on that content. So I invited them to connect. Hey, what's up? My name's Hala. I have a podcast. I noticed you liked Gary V's content. You may like mine too. Let's connect. Nine out of ten people accepted that invitation. And then I started to grow a very engaged community, people who were already active on LinkedIn, who already liked self-improvement stuff. And then when I posted, I was more likely to get likes and comments. And then there was like a circle effect where more people would see my post because so many of people in my network commenting on my post so it like boosted it in the algorithm. So that's kind of my biggest strategy.

So you could do this in so many other ways. You can like let's say you are in real estate. You can go find other people who have real estate in their title on LinkedIn and invite them to connect. So now you have a network of real estate agents so that when you're talking about real estate agent stuff, they'll be interested in like and comment. So I would say growing your community is really key. Sometimes people just ask random people to connect. You don't know if they log on. You don't know if they like your stuff. And that's not targeted enough. So you need to grow a targeted network. Great. Great. And what about other platforms? There's a folks on this. Yeah.

Or everything. So what do you? Well, that goes, that goes for any platform. So, so you could do this on Instagram. It's the same thing. Whoever likes and comments on the post. You could do this on any single platform. You could also just look at people's followers. So if they follow somebody that you're interested in, you can follow those people and kind of grow that community that way. In terms of posting, I didn't really give any advice in terms of actually the content that you should post. You should always think about what's in it for the person who's reading that content. It should never be like just self-promotional. You should always have something where the person left learning something new. And that doesn't mean that you have to have original content in terms

of like doing your own research. It means that you pull for, different sources and you make something your own, right? So one of the ways that I think about the social media content that I'm going to do is I have an idea. Like let's say I want to talk about persistence or something like that. I'll go and look online for different quotes about persistence. I'll read a blog about persistence. I'll just get ideas, you know, anything about persistence, all the different ideas in the world. And then I think about it for a second. And then I make up my own post about persistence, right? And that's what creativity is. It's taking things from other people and putting it in a unique package. Everything in the world has already

been thought of, right? Being creative is taking those things and putting it together in a new way. And people will appreciate that because it's something new that you brought to them in a different way and they'll engage on it. And so I think that that's really key. I think another thing in terms of posting is to get your copywriting skills better. Like a lot of people don't really know how to write in an engaging way. They write very passively. They write in big, chunky paragraphs where on social media, people like line by line. They don't like to read a lot. They don't have like a hook. So you want to make sure that like your first sentence is really powerful and triggers emotion. So like there's a lot of things like that. And then the last thing I'll say is that you want to stand out. So there's so much

competition on social media. One of the things that I did for my podcast, if you guys check me out on LinkedIn or Instagram, my stuff is really bright, right? I have like neon colors and bright big patterns. I use animations. I use a lot of selfie videos. And that helps me stand out in the feed, whereas everybody else has like muted colors and things like that. And so your goal on social media is to stand out. That's the goal. So you also want to keep that in mind as well. Well, that's great advice. And I love how you mentioned that there are really no new ideas. It's just a combination of old like in a new format. So people get stuck on, I'm not creative or, you know, I can't develop something new. But the reality is everyone can be creative. They just have to work at it.

Exactly. That's really important. So what about there's so many social media platforms. So people are thinking about TikTok, you know, they're thinking about reals, whatever, you know, and others. Yeah. Anything that you see down the road that folks should be sort of thinking? Yeah. Well, I think TikTok is huge. I think it's already reached critical mass. But I still think that there's still time to get on TikTok and kind of create your brand.

And then I would say YouTube. YouTube is huge. YouTube is almost more popular than Facebook, I think. People spend a lot of time on YouTube. I feel like there's a lot of potential in terms of starting a show on YouTube. and really kind of blowing up that way and getting credibility. You can also monitor, after like 10,000 subscribers, you can monetize your show fairly well.

It's like a clear path to monetization, whereas other social channels, even if you have a bunch of followers, it doesn't mean that you're making any money, right? With YouTube, it's almost guaranteed if you make 10,000 subscribers. Like, you'll start monetizing your show. So I would definitely suggest YouTube, and that's where I'm focusing on next.

Well, and I just posted today, Apparently, Facebook has something called Watch, which has 1.2 billion viewers for users. Oh, wow. It's like it came out of nowhere. So there's things popping up all the time, right? And I think it's just people have to make a plan. Yeah. And test and, you know, try things out.

There's like no, there's no, you know, downside except you spend time, right? Exactly. And I think being an early adopter, you have such an advantage. Just being an early adopter, there's so many more. more chances for you to actually get those impressions, get those eyeballs. That's why Instagram is so hard now because it's just so saturated. It's so hard. You need paid advertising in order to get big on that platform, whereas platforms like LinkedIn are still growing. You don't need paid investment in order to make a brand on there. Before I forget, on LinkedIn, people always ask, how often should you post?

Yeah. Guidance there. Yeah. So I would suggest that you post just once a day. you could even post as little as three to four times a week. It's not like Twitter where you're going to post 10 times a day or even Instagram where you might post two times a day. It's really just like three, four times a week, really substantial, valuable posts. And the time that you post is really important. So you'd have to experiment in terms of your community and when they log on. But like for me, like 9 a.m. works great.

And that's when I tend to post my stuff up because it gets the best engagement. Interesting. And what about general advice? for young people. Obviously, you have a really fascinating career. But in these days, as you know, kids are going to have multiple careers. Yeah. Anything you can sort of, you know, advise upon? Yeah. I would say that the biggest takeaway from my career is that don't let rejection stop you, right? I've gotten rejected so many times in my life. I worked for free at Hot 97 a radio station for three years and I was fired in the end of it after working for free.

I'm fine with the whole, like everything is fine. But I ended up getting fired and I was devastated. And then, you know, I started this blog site and I almost got a show on MTV and they didn't pick me, right? Then I like, you know, there's other stories of me failing. Like, for example, I was president of the Young Employee Network at HP. And then when I was, it was time for me to be president of the global network, they rejected me as well. And I didn't get it, even though I deserved it. And so there's so many times in my life where I failed and I got rejected and I failed and I got rejected. And you have to understand that when you get rejected, it's the gatekeeper in life. It's the gatekeeper, like the boss who didn't give you the job or the producer who didn't give me the show,

you know what it is or the HR person who didn't promote me to president of the young employee network. It's a gatekeeper. At that point, you need to take that negative energy and turn it into something positive, learn something new, and pivot your story and create your own path. So for me, when I left Hot 97 and they didn't give me a job, I channeled that positive energy within two weeks, started the sorority of hip hop, became one of the most popular hip hop entertainment sites in the world. The DJs who didn't hire me, then hired, who didn't hire me to work at the station, would then hire me to promote their parties. And I was on the flyers with them side by side instead of being their little intern, right? And so I elevated myself by starting my own path, right? And so when I

didn't get the show on MTV, I went and got an MBA. I got a 4.0. I channeled my energy into education. And I was like, I'm just going to do this and I'm going to give it my 100%. I ended up making like four times as much as I was making previous to that in my first job, you know, and I elevated my life. When I didn't get Young Employee Network presidency, I started a young and profiting podcast. And instead of, you know, representing 7,000 people at my company, I started representing 700,000 people on my podcast and being able to have a voice to that many people. So it's all about channeling any rejection or negative energy into something positive, learning something new, creating your own path, and understanding that, like, if you can believe it, you can achieve it. And like, as long as you're passionate and you take

action, anything can happen. And so that's what I would like to say to people is that just because you fail doesn't mean that you're a failure. Your failures are your stepping stones to success. And when you fail, you don't start from scratch. You start from experience. And that's the key. That is great guidance. All right. Let's get to questions. So, I think you gave some advice to students, but this question is about those that are looking to enter the job market today. What advice you get new graduates in general. I would advise you to start your LinkedIn profile, to start your personal brands. All the amazing jobs that I've ever gotten have been where I've been recruited off of LinkedIn.

Like, for instance, Disney Streaming Services recruited me because I had a personal brand on LinkedIn. And so I would say start your personal brand. The other thing that I would say is don't be afraid of internships. Even if it means that you're working for free, a lot of internships are paid now, but it doesn't matter. The key is getting experience and skills. That's what you want to focus on when you're young. The money will come. You have to trust that the money is going to come. It's more about gaining skills and experiences because that's what's going to get you hired. It doesn't really matter how much schoolwork you've done. If you don't have that real world experience, you're not going to get hired

as easily. And not to mention that getting an internship helps you grow your network with people in your industry. Great. All right. So here's a question about, is it from a college student. They know how you started a website when you're pretty young. So it's easy to start things for students that this person says. What would your number one piece of advice be for a college student in the same position that you were in with an interest in starting something of their own? So I guess the question is, if someone's going to start something today, what would you recommend in general? I mean, clearly websites one thing, podcast is your one sort of area which has the most sort of... Oh, you're saying like if somebody wants to start some sort of a show or some sort of a

platform, I would say it has to be what you're passionate about. Like, I can't tell you that you should start a podcast or you should start a website. It's really like, what are you passionate about? What are you good at? What are you interested in learning? Now everything is on Google. You can, I learned how to build websites by Googling it. I learned how to be a podcaster by Googling it, right? And so if you're willing to spend the time to learn those skills, that's a hint that you're really passionate about it. And as long as you're passionate about it, just do it. That's great. Here's a long question, but I'm going to distill it down. They're worried about political speech on platforms. What's your perspective on, you know, I guess the perspective, the advice is for people

are listening in viewing us, should they get political on platforms? I would say no, but I'm just curious see, you know, what's your perspective on there? Yeah, this one's tricky because I do think that, you know, when you get political, you automatically segment your audience, right? I've seen a lot of people who are building their personal brand, who went against certain things that were happening lately, and a lot of their followers stopped following them and everything kind of like went down the tank because they were very vocal about their opinions that was an unpopular opinion, right? And So when you have an unpopular opinion, you are at the risk of offending a lot of people and kind of shooting yourself in the foot in terms of the audience that you're going to be speaking to.

And so I think that there's a fine line because there's always the premise of being morally correct, you know, and you always want to do the right thing. So if you feel in your heart that it is your moral duty to post about something and raise awareness about it that you feel very strongly about, then yeah, you should. say it if you really feel that your voice will impact something and change society in a way that you really feel. So for example, I was supportive of Black Lives Matter and I was vocal about it. And I posted that on LinkedIn and I supported it. But I didn't go to the extreme, you know, like there's there's always the extremes. I didn't go to the very extreme where I'd be very

offensive to anybody. I was just, you know, trying to make sure that I did the morally right thing, in my opinion to do, which was to speak about it and use my influence in that way. So it's really a balance. And I would say that you've got to be careful when you're talking about politics. And if you don't really care, you should probably not say anything if it's not that important to you. But when it is important to you, you should speak your mind, in my opinion. Great, great. So let's see, there's a bunch of questions here. Connecting with celebrities, Did you interact with them differently at all? That's a sort of interesting question.

Did I interact? No, I mean, it was at the station. I was really young, and I did interact with them all the time. I used to go out with them, and we used to go to parties, and, you know, Jay-Z put his arm around me before, and I have lots of stories. But, yeah, I interacted with them. I was in that industry, in that scene,

and a lot of the celebrities would come to Hot 97, pretty often and so they knew me that I would be there and some of them became my friends. That's awesome. That's awesome. So which form, here's a LinkedIn question or social meeting. Which format gets better engagement? Short form or long form content? It depends what platform. On LinkedIn, I would say that both do well. LinkedIn short text posts actually get a lot of attention because most things are long. And so again, you want to stand out. it really depends on the platform like Instagram stories do the best and like regular images do better than videos it just it depends on the platform but if we're talking about LinkedIn which I'm really the expert in I would say that text just text posts and text with images do the best videos do the worst in my opinion

interesting okay here's sari who says great energy and tips thanks halla okay My question is for people who are in a certain professional track with a specifically strong skill set in finance, what tips would you have for them to use social media to build their brand? Yeah, well, you basically said it in your answer. You provide, you can provide financial value, right? You can provide advice in terms of finance. So maybe you want to find a specific niche in finance to talk about. But like I said, to grow your personal brand, you need to find other folks who may be interested in finance. So that's step number one. And then you need to figure out what your niche is in finance because that's a broad topic.

So what makes you different? Why would people want to go to your feed and trust you? And then also, how do you build credibility? So if you're brand new in the field, it might not be time to really launch your personal brand. Maybe your goal is to actually gain more experience and credibility first, whatever that may be, whether that's getting a job, whether that's writing a book or, or whatever, are creating videos, whatever it may be, but getting some more credibility before you actually launch your personal brand,

I think is key too. Because a lot of people, you know, they don't end up being successful because they don't really have credibility around them in terms of what they're saying. Great. Here's a question. I'm not sure you can answer, but I want to mention it. And we're still getting more questions, so feel free to submit them. This is a question about Robert Eiger.

You know, they're asking. read his memoir on leadership and success, and what can you share about the experience working under him? Yeah, I never read the memoir. I work at Disney streaming services, so we're just like one arm. We're like the startup within Disney, and so I feel like we're like not Disneyified at all. And so I have never read his book and nobody ever talks about Bob Eiger. We actually have a completely different CEO. But in terms of working at Disney, it's great. I mean, I work with super smart people. I've learned so much. I feel like at streaming services specifically, I'm on like the cutting edge of technology in terms of targeting and, you know, retaining subscribers and all the

different things in terms of mobile messaging and all of that. And so I've learned so much. I used to be at HP and it was kind of like a dinosaur of a company. It was a great company in terms of its culture. But in terms of marketing, I kind of was like an outdated marketer by the time I left there because it was like we always did the same. same stuff. Then I got thrown into Disney and it was like a whole new world, literally. And I learned so much so. I loved the experience. Well, I have to ask this thing, Mulan is coming out tomorrow. Yeah. Oh, my God. Everybody's working like crazy. I always couldn't, I almost couldn't do this show because it was like, Mulan fires everywhere. But yeah, everybody's going crazy to get ready for Mulan.

That's going to be amazing. All right. So here's a question. How do you socialize and engage with family and friends while remaining productive or super productive as you are. Yeah. One thing that helps is that my partner, who's been my long-time partner, is also really motivated. And so I chose somebody who also has really big ambitions so that sometimes we'll be working next to each other, but it will be fun because we're together and we're, you know, even though we're both working. So that's one way is to but find somebody that has common interests in terms of, like, who your spouse is. Secondly, I have best friends, and that's really who I spend my time with. And, like, my cousins and my siblings, I don't have, like, many acquaintances that I spend

my time with. If I am going to talk to an acquaintance, I do something like this where I have a platform and I get to talk to you 300 people at the same time and not just, like, a one-on-one thing. So I tried to spend my time strategically, so I'm being smart about my time. So I would say that I don't really waste my time with many different friends. I just have like my core friends and then I make time for them. Like I said, there's a lot of time in your life. Saying you have no time is just an excuse.

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are provided by Intuit Payments Incorporated, licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. That's great. So here's a question about the switch professions from radio to industry. How did you handle that? That's a pretty big shift. How did you handle it? And what was the biggest sort of surprise for you? That's a great question. One thing that I would say is I was actually really successful in my corporate career right out the gate because my experiences were so unique. And so like I said, my family was worried because when I got my MBA, I was like 27. I was like on the older, like they thought that I was on the older side or whatever. And in terms of like starting my corporate career, most people start their corporate career when they're 22, right?

And I was starting at 27, but I had all these experiences. I was in radio. I started a blog site. I had digital marketing, whatever, right? And so I ended up pivoting into my corporate career from my MBA. I got an MBA internship. But right away, I stood out at that company because I had amazing networking skills, right? I started the young employee network and immediately got the attention of the CEO and the

CMO and was asking them for budgets to start company picnics and holiday parties and stood out that way because I was just like an entrepreneur within the company, right? And so I just grew this network and became like the face of the young employee. because I had these unique experiences. It actually wasn't a deterrent to my success. And within four years, I had like surpassed my peers who might have started when they were 22 because I had more experience. I knew how to video editing, create websites and do this and do that and where other people were stagnant and only learned what their company provided them. Or I had the whole internet to learn from. And so I learned from the entire internet instead of just the in-house knowledge

of the company where so I was further ahead than everybody else in terms of my skills. And that's what I said when I went to Disney. Now everybody, I was like, because I stayed at that company for so long, I like lost that time to just learn and learn and learn all the new cutting edge stuff. And then I felt at Disney that I had to catch up again because I was like in this corporate job that was like kind of outdated in terms of their marketing where I was the most technical person instead of like learning. So I would say, I don't know if I answered the question, but. I think that was a great answer. So here's a question. Elon Musk has a quote that says, starting your businesses like eating glass and staring

into the abyss. I feel like this applies to any endeavor. I'm currently trying to learn a new skill to become employable and have a deadline and goal and the date. However, it is still nerve-wracking. How do you stay positive during these periods when there's so much uncertainty and whether you'll achieve your goal. I would say just keep channeling your energy into learning something. That's the key. Like just keep learning. Like instead of driving yourself crazy with worry, am I going to get a job and am I going to do this? Just keep doing positive things like learning something new, meeting new people online, networking. Just keep doing things that are going to help you no matter what get closer to your goal. And don't forget about like, you know,

don't worry too much about the outcomes. Just be in the moment and just try to learn as much as you can. That's great. So what about when this COVID thing is over? And we get to meet people in real life, right? So right now, what I've been recommending is people to build their network, strengthen those ties. But when we can meet in person and go to conferences and go to activities,

is there any things that you're thinking about, particularly that you can relate to people who are listening? in? Yeah, I mean, I think going to a networking event, especially when you're young and you haven't done it so often, it can be really, like, hard because you don't really know, like, what to expect. You might be nervous to go up to people, to have conversations. One of the things that you can do is look at body language. So I interview, like, ex-fBI agents on my show and, like, really cool experts on body language. And Dr. Jack Schaefer, who was on my show, taught me this thing where if people's feet are pointing towards each other when they're having a conversation, that means that they're not open to talk.

But if people's feet are open as if there's an opening in their circle, that means they are open to talk. So you can walk up to them and have a conversation and be confident that they'll be open and they're not having some private conversation. The other thing I would say is to really just try to be confident with yourself. I know that's easier said than done. but just understand that everybody is human, everybody is like, you know, insecure. That's even if they're really successful, even if they're really attractive, like deep down inside, like they're actually really insecure and everyone is human. And so as long as you're a nice person, as long as you're smiling, you've got good hygiene,

you know, you don't just talk about yourself and you're interested to learn about other people. That's also really key, like being exploratory when you're talking to someone and asking about them instead of making it all about you, you'll do fine. You know, so it's just like, just understand that everybody is insecure and that will make you feel more confident. So here's a question that, you know, I'll chip in as well, but I want to get your perspective. How can you beat the competition that you are facing?

Oh, so like other podcasters? Well, it's always about switching up your strategies, right? So I've grew my podcast completely organically up to this point, right? And so I've gotten to a point where I don't think that I can grow unless I start doing more paid advertising. And the other, so I decided that I'm pivoting my strategies and I'm actually starting a side business where I'm pooling all my money that I make off of it, most of it, into paid advertising so that I can play with the big boys like Jordan Harbinger and Tim Ferriss and other people who are really pumping advertising into their podcast. And that's why they're so big. The other thing that I do is I actually don't have competition. All my competition is my collaborators, right?

I believe in collaboration, not competition. And so any top podcaster that I come across, I invite them to, I have a podcaster mastermind. I have a monthly call with other podcasters where we talk about tips and tricks and they become my friends. And then they become my collaborators and they give me tips. And we talk about how to grow each other shows and they hand me opportunities. And I hand them opportunities. is I don't hoard my network, I expand my network. And so that's also key to just not have that closed-minded mindset,

I believe in abundance, that there's enough for everyone. And definitely there's people who, you know, don't give me the time of day. But there's a lot of big podcasters that have become my mentors and become my colleagues. And so I believe that if you, as long as you don't see competition in that way, I think that's helpful. And I'll just mention that. there's so much opportunity, right? It's not like zero-sum game where you're getting more viewers

or more listeners than the other person's getting less listeners. There's so much potential and demand. Yeah. The market is really wide open for everyone to have a little, to have their niche. Yeah. And that's a great place to be in. That's the benefit of the internet, right? That's the benefit of all this easy access

to... Totally. But that's really... I'm glad you mentioned that because some people can feel intimidated by starting a podcast or by competition. Yeah.

I would say, like, whatever you're doing, find other people who are like at your level and start a community. And you'll just have that support system and lift each other up and give each other opportunities. That's what I did. And it really worked out.

So here's a series question. What do you think about ageism in the market in both directions? And what do you think we should all be doing about that? Oh, that's a tough one. I think that it's true. A lot of people, you know, are looked down upon because they're young and people think that they don't have experience. And then there's a lot of older people where they're looked at like they're not, you know, tech savvy and they also don't have the experience needed. I think that in order to change that mentality, we all need to do our part. So if we are hiring managers, you know, to give people a chance, I definitely hire young people and old people. There's people older than me who work on my podcast and that's totally cool, you know. It's just really, you know, if they're passionate and have the skills, you should be open-minded. I don't think I have like a great answer for that. I think that it's like as an individual, you need to try to make a change if you can.

And also, like, be vocal about it. If you see somebody getting discriminated against because of their age, be vocal about it and kind of stand up for them. I think that's the best things that we can do. I think that's a perfect answer to that question. Now, what about women in business? Yeah. Clearly, I'm sure you've had challenges. Can you talk about that, particularly for a lot of young women on this call?

Yeah, sure. It's, you know, being a woman, you've got to deal with so many. different things. So like I'll give you a personal example. I just posted about it on LinkedIn. So I do a lot of videos on LinkedIn. I'm very busy as all of you guys know. I have a full-time job. I have a podcast. I have a business. I have a boyfriend. I have friends. I have family. So I've a busy life, right? And somehow I make it happen. I make a live interview on video happen every single week, sometimes twice a week. And then I do interviews as well like this. And sometimes I'm I don't have time to do my hair.

Even right now, this is my natural hair. I didn't blow dry it. I don't have time to blow dry my hair. I don't have two hours to blow dry my hair. I did my makeup today because I was going to be on an interview. And I always like do my makeup a little bit, but I don't have fake lashes on. And, you know, there's girls that spend hours doing their hair and makeup. And I just don't have time for that.

My message isn't about, you know, frolicking on the beach like an Instagrammer. That's not me. I'm actually teaching and educating people. I study a lot from my interviews. I have value to say. And what I do is meaningful and takes a lot of effort. And I've had fans approach me. Oh, it looks like you just got out of the shower.

Oh, it looks like, you know, this is what you should look like. If I post a nice picture of me and a dress, you look in the part today, Hala, like, great job, you know. If I, you know, don't look great one day. You look tired. Why do you look so tired today, you know? And it's never about what I'm saying or my content. And that's the thing that is tough because as a woman, sometimes you're judged on your looks and not what you're saying, right? And if I was a man, nobody would be commenting, oh, your hair looks like you just got out of the shower.

Oh, oh, you look tired. Like nobody would be commenting that. But because I'm a woman, they think that I'm supposed to look like a doll all the time. Or maybe because I'm a pretty, like, not to, like, I'm a fairly attractive woman. So they expect me to always look like a doll because I had pictures that make me look like a doll. doll. And so they want me to be a doll all the time, but that's not reality. You know, I'm authentic and I have a busy life and it's not about that, right? And so what I would say is that you're going to get that feedback. You're going to have people that try to value for what you look like instead of what you

have to offer to the world. And you've got to be stern and you've got to tell those people like, you have no right to talk to me like that. I'm not a doll for dress up. I'm a human with a mind and beliefs and value to provide to this world. It has nothing to do with what my body looks like. It has nothing to do with what my hair looks like. That's not what it's about. And I would say that, you know, you're going to have to grow some thick skin because people will try to take advantage of you, but you just need to make sure that you can realize it right away and stop it right away and be assertive. That's my advice to all the women who are watching right now. Be assertive and know that like you have value and you have no additional standards to live up to you than a man does.

And if some man tries to, and a lot of the times they don't do it intentionally. It's just they believe that, like, they really truly believe that, like, your hair should be perfect all the time and they don't realize how much time it takes and whatever. You could just nip that in the bud right when it happens. Thank you for that thoughtful response in a holler. So we're just coming to the close of our show. We have a tradition here of having guests read out poems. So, share with us a poem.

Sure. Let me just pull it up. Okay, this is Success by Ralph Waldo Emerson. To laugh often and love much, to win the respect of intelligent persons, and the affection of children, to earn the appropriation of honest critics, and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to give of oneself, to leave the world a little better, to leave the world a little better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition, to have played

and laughed with enthusiasm, to sing with exultion, to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is what it is to succeed. That is a perfect way to end. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please write us a review or comment on your favorite platform. Nothing makes us happier than reading your reviews. We'd love to hear what you think about the show. And don't forget to share this podcast with your friends, family, and on social media. I always repost, reshare, and support those who support us. You can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name.

It's Hala Taha. Big thanks to the Yap team. As always, this is Hala, signing off.