Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Interview: Getting Ahead at a Young Age | MentorZ Media Podcast | Career

Episode Date: September 25, 2020

Hala gets interviewed on the Mentor Z podcast with Ava Wettrick. Top-of-the-Line Interviewing and Personalized Marketing - The Secret Sauce to Y.A.P's Success https://www.mentorzmedia.com/post/top-of-the-line-interviewing-and-personalized-marketing Hala Taha is the host to the Young and Profiting Podcast. She interview some of the brightest minds in the world with their main mission being to turn their guest’s wisdom into actionable advice. They are a top 10 Self-Improvement and How To Podcast on Apple Podcasts in US, Canada, Australia, UK and more. Hala herself started her career at WQHT Hot97 as the production assistant for Angie Martinez, then created “The Sorority of Hip Hop” - and an entertainment news, fashion and music blog that gained massive success. And now she works at Disney Streaming Services! Her days are with Disney and her nights and lunchbreaks are dedicated to her podcast! Interviewing Hala was such a fun experience for me personally. She is brimming with field experience and gives impeccable advice and directional pointers when she was developing her early career. One thing that had me absolutely floored was the fact that she dedicated almost all of her time to her personal development or her work. No slacking here! If you’re looking for an ambitious mentor, I’d like to present you to Hala Taha. Resources: Website - https://youngandprofiting.com/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/yapwithhala/?hl=en Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/young-and-profiting/id1368888880   Guest Links: Website - https://www.mentorzmedia.com/   LinkeIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ava-wettrick/   Podcast - https://www.mentorzmedia.com/podcast  

Hey young and profitors, it's Hala. This week, I want to present a bonus episode to you all, an interview replay. These days, I've been getting a ton of requests to be a guest on other people's podcasts. I'm doing like two to three interviews a week, and this is a big change for me as I'm used to being in the host seat. Being that I'm doing so many interviews and many of you have asked to learn more about me, I'll be replaying the best of these interviews on my podcast. I had the pleasure of recently getting interviewed by Ava Wetrick, She's a young, bright, and up-and-coming host of the Mentor Z podcast, which features top authors

and entrepreneurs. I was super impressed with her research and her questions. She's a mini-me, and she's one to look out for. If you want to connect with Ava or subscribe to her podcast, I'll put her links in the show notes. And without further ado, I give you my interview with Ava on the Mentor Z podcast. Enjoy the show. Researching you was really cool.

I did like a couple. I went to like the ninth page of Google for you. and at that point it was just like foreign languages. And probably other halatahas in the world. Yeah, there's a, like there's like a really big halataha and she's an orthodontist or a dentist. Yeah, have you talked to her? No, no, it's so funny. Everybody's always like, oh, you're probably the only halitaha in the world.

And I'm always like, no, there's actually a lot. It's a popular Arabic name. Yeah, I think it's beautiful. And so how are, like how are you doing? life been treating you? Everything's good, you know, just working really hard. You know, I, Disney streaming is my full-time job. And then I have the podcast, which is also like a full-time job. Then I took on a freelance project in addition to all of that. So I'm just like busy, busy. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I don't know how you do it, because that's something I really wanted to talk to you

about because out of all the interviews you done, out of all the research I've done on you, there's no sign of that burnout. But you take so much dedication and you have so much. much discipline. So you know, what does that 24 hours look like for you? Yeah. And how do you discipline and focus yourself throughout every day? Yeah. So I like to basically, my 9 to 5 is dedicated to Disney. So like I said, I work full time at Disney. So nine to five or six is really just dedicated towards Disney, except I do use my lunch hour to do interviews like all the time. So right now me and you are talking, I either use my lunch hour to do an interview on another podcast, or for my own podcast. I also wake up super early and I have a video editor in the Philippines.

So a lot of the times I work with her early in the morning and make sure that like our videos are good. I have a podcaster, clients, Heather Monaghan, and we'll be reviewing her videos and making sure that Yap has all of our social media content ready. And, you know, I'd just like to multitask. So we use Slack all the time. So I'm always communicating with my team throughout the day, making sure that, you know, everybody knows what they're supposed to be doing. And the beauty of what I'm doing is that I delegate a lot of my work. So that's how I'm able to manage so many things. I have a pretty decent team at Young and Profiting. I have about eight people who work on the show. And so I have support with research. I have support with social media, YouTube, you know, even booking guests. I have

somebody who works on that. So it's like everybody has like their little responsibility. And it's mostly interns who just want to learn about podcasting. And so it's, it's great for me because I, I don't necessarily have to pay for people to work on the show. It's people who are just really into what I'm doing and they want to learn. And so I get to be like a mentor, teach them everything. I have like one-on-one sessions with them. And basically, I create like the, the, either the process or the template or the standard. And then I teach them how to do it and they replicate. So it's good for everyone. And, you know, once they've graduated from that and they're not learning anymore, I bring a new intern. So that's kind of how I manage having a full-time job in a podcast. It's really just about

scaling my team and training my team properly. Yeah, I love the idea of that. And the fact that you have interns that you don't necessarily have to pay in order to work for you because you offer just quality services along the line, like along the board. You know, you have these top guests. You have such a huge background and marketing experience. And you have just a lot to offer. But, you know, to the, I don't want to say to the average podcaster because I know, for a fact. I love doing the research. I love handling the interviews. I love trying to control it all, but you need that team. You need to, so you can have more time to yourself to what really matter so you can help scale that. How did you find these interns? How did you find that team? And how did

you attract them? Or how could be a little more of like the average podcast to attract them? Yeah. So actually, everybody who's an intern on my show was originally a listener. And it was people who just felt so compelled to reach out to me and say, like, I want to help. What you're doing is awesome. I just want to learn. I want to be a part of the show. So most of it was people reaching out to me. I did have one push maybe six months ago

where I put out a social media post. We're looking for three new interns. I wanted somebody specifically for video and social media. They need a little bit more skills. And we recruited that way. And so I put out a social media post and it went a little bit viral and I got a lot of submissions. And so I just put out a Google form

and I had people fill out just like submit their resume, they fill out what they like about the podcast, why they want to be a part of it. But the best members that I've had on my team that really show up every day are the people who like reached out to me by themselves and just wanted the experience. And they just wanted to learn. And my favorite type of intern is the person is the one that's just like, I just want to learn everything from you and I want your guidance. And I just want to continue learning how to eventually one day have my own podcast or whatever it is. And I will say that I do pay some people on my team. So I pay my video editor and I pay my audio editor.

And that's because they have skills that are beyond my knowledge. So anybody who I can't do it as good as them, they get paid. Anybody who is, I'm more training them and they're gaining experience, they don't get paid. And I also love to do research. So even though I have a team, I'm just, we're basically doubling down on research because I'm listening to like 10 episodes per guest of their past interviews. I spend 10 to 20 hours of research. myself. I'm reading their books. I am usually the one that like dives deep. And my team does like

surface level of research. I'm obsessed with research. Yeah, that's something I really wanted to ask. You know, you take a lot of pride and you need and you should. And in terms of your amount of research and quality of research. And that's how you can get a really great episode. So in terms of your standards, not goals, in terms of your standards of research, what does that look like? What are you specifically looking for in those research points? And what do you present to your guests. Yeah, so I definitely have a flow of my show. I always open up with an intro to get a background of the guest. I feel that my listeners probably, even if it's a famous person, they usually don't know their background, right? So I'd like to get like their career journey

and ask specific questions about their path and like who they are as a person. And that's how I usually start off the show. And then I like to dive deep into one or two really big topics. So I like to figure out what their expertise is and then study everything about it. And so I have so many different topics on my show. It's not like just about, for example, if it was just about marketing, I would never need to study, right? Because I know everything about marketing, but it's, it's about everything. I talk about like mental health and, you know, real estate and like so many different random topics like biohacking and things that I need to like study. And sometimes it's really hard to learn in a short amount of time. And so I like to dig deep on those topics and kind of keep it

topical. I know a lot of podcasters kind of just go with the flow, jump all around. I know exactly what I want to ask them and what I want to get out of them. And I usually even know how they're going to respond because I've listened to their conversations so many times. So I even know like what my follow-up question will be if they ask me, if they say something back that I remember or that like a story that I'm familiar with, right? So I'd like to be really topical. And then I end my show with like, you know, what's your secret to profiting in life and, like, where they can find you. And so, like, there is, like, a flow and a format. In terms of the standards, I like to know, like, you know, all their big accomplishments.

I like, like I said, I like to really be an expert and become studied about what they're an expert on. And then I also like to see, like, who's not agreeing with their perspective. So one of the things that I learned, and that's from Jordan Harbinger, who's another podcaster that I've interviewed before. and he's huge. He told me to look at book reviews and not only the good ones, go look at the bad ones because sometimes you'll find people

who are in their field that disagree with what they're saying. And so I'll also try to like, you know, see like what the other perspectives are and see how I can bring out those other perspectives. That's really cool. Because something I, because you interview so many really,

you interview so many big people and something I was kind of debating on asking you is what happens when you disagree with a guest? Like if they say something, you're like, I actually think you're like, wrong. And if you're taking these other opinions, like, how do you incorporate that in terms of going through an interview and saying, hey, but there's other people that say they disagree with you?

How do you take that information? How do you do that? I never want to make a guest feel uncomfortable. That's the last thing I want to do because then the conversation will go south. So I'll be like, what would you say if somebody said X, Y, Z? And then I'll say the negative opinion. Or what do you say to the naysayers who say X, Y, Z? And I make it more of like, what do you say to other people who come at you with this opinion? And usually they have a prepared. answer because they've heard that negative feedback about their perspective before. And so it just helps like give their reason as to why they're right. And then, you know, I might counteract with, oh, well, you know, the other perspective is blah, blah, blah. So I just say it in a way where it's

not going to be offensive, but it still lets my listeners know that there's other opinions out there on the topic. That's cool. I, oh my God, I want to try some, I want to try that out later on. That's a really cool tactic that, oh my gosh, I'm sorry. Like, I don't know, I geek out about some of this kind of stuff. And honestly, on the on the topic of negativity, something that I learned about your story, which is really interesting, is that the environment you had in middle school and high school and then later on when you had this passion of like, I want to be a singer and then you're like, well, now I work at this radio station. Your parents kind of were like, okay, but all of your siblings are doctors and we don't

like the idea of you deviating from that path. So yeah, in a lot. And again, like, I remember you saying during the time of high school, when you were in high school, that's when 9-11 was a really, you know, big deal. And you're like, one Palestinian. So it was really interesting. How did you face all of that adversity and then really rise to the challenge or, you know, especially with your parents, kind of say, hey, I love you, but I want to do what I want to do. Yeah. So I like, great job on your research. Not a lot of people do their research. So great job. You remind me of myself. So, yeah, I'm Palestinian-American. I grew up in a family of all doctors. my dad's a doctor, my uncles are doctors, and my siblings ended up being doctors. So like you said,

it was pretty difficult kind of to persuade everyone that like I'm going to be in broadcasting. And basically, I just had such a passion for it that I just decided to go for it. And in the beginning it was difficult, but my parents saw like the potential in me. And so just to give everybody some more context, what happened was is that when I was in college, I had dropped. out because I had an internship at Hot 97, which is the number one radio station in pretty much America, especially at that time, on the number one show, the Angie Martinez show, and I had the opportunity to be her assistant. I was an intern and I wasn't getting paid, but I worked there for three years. And that's what a lot of the interns did at the radio stations. Basically,

to be an on-air personality on a major radio station, something like Hot 97, you basically have to be an apprentice for like five to 10 years before you actually get that. And so that's what I was, I was basically getting primed to be like Angie Martinez's replacement. She ended up leaving the station right after I quit. So it's great that I didn't continue on that path because I would have just been kind of screwed. So anyway, I dropped out of college and I was definitely the black sheep of my family for doing that. I'll be transparent. It was pretty difficult. I always felt like at family dinners, everybody would be, my cousins and my siblings would be talking about what residency program they're in and who's graduated what and what boards are they taking. And I would be like,

yeah, I work for free at a radio station. Like, look at me, you know. But you know what? Everything happens for a reason. And I ended up, like, gaining a lot of skills. And I, you know, once I left Hot 97, I started a website that became really popular, like, super fast. And I hosted parties and I interviewed like celebrities and I started like skill stacking and learning how to do web development and social media and copywriting and blowing up on social media and strategies to do that. And, you know, I did really well there. And then my parents started to trust me a little bit more that I knew what I was doing. And then I ended up getting my MBA and I got a 4.0. I studied my butt off.

And at that point, that's like the turning point. My parents were like, okay, she's not stupid. you know, she's doing great. And I did actually take like a five-year break from the entertainment industry. And I worked at Hewlett-Packard. And I just kept getting promoted and promoted. And it was mostly because I had such a different background. And I was like so outgoing and, you know, had so many skills that like as a marketer in corporate,

I just like stuck out like a sore thumb and kept rising the ranks. And then my last year at Hewlett-Packard, I launched Young and Profiting Podcast. And, you know, the rest of his history, that. And then I moved to Disney and got that job. But once I was in corporate and I was able to, like, really have a successful career, my parents kind of got off my back and were like, do whatever you want. You got it under control. And even though I was the Black Sheep, they still always treated me with love.

So I don't want to act like they were bad parents. They weren't. They just wanted me to be successful. Yep, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. we even call ourselves scrappy hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees. My team is growing every day.

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And something that she struggled with is that later down the line, she's like, I love my mom. I love my mom. But she tried to hold me back out of love. She's like, oh, you know, like I don't want to, you know, the world is scary and I kind of want to protect you. She's like, mom, I need to, I need to be out there. And so I completely get it. Like, they mean out of love. They do.

But they're just a little, they're a little afraid. It's like, well, if it's like, your siblings are doctors. And yeah. I have a funny story. So when I had the hip hop website, I was scouted by MTV to have my own real. TV show with them. Yeah. And so they did it twice.

We didn't get the show twice. But the second time that they filmed us, they invested a lot of money into the reality TV shows. So they might have invested $150,000. They got us the studio in New York. We threw concerts that they paid for. And, you know, it was really cool. And they filmed me.

I was like the lead in the show and me and like five other girls, but I was like the main one. And so they would film me at home. And they would film me like with my friends, with my boyfriend. And I think one of the reasons why I didn't get the show is because my family was not into being filmed. And so, like, they didn't want to open up. They weren't interested in the show.

And that really hurt me back then because, and I've never said this anywhere. So you're the first one who knows about it. That I felt like I might have not gotten that opportunity because they felt like, well, like, the main lead of the show, her family doesn't is not like opening up. And they kind of wanted to position me as a black sheep, which I was. but at that time, my family still loved me and they wanted more drama than they were willing to do because they didn't want to look at, they didn't want to be portrayed as I was the Black Sheep

on national television, which maybe in the end was better for me, you know, but that's probably why I didn't get the show, honestly, is because my family didn't want to be on it and they probably felt like, well, there's not enough for the lead character to play off of, so. Yeah, that is the MTV way to, like, really interject a lot of drama. Yeah, they were like, you're, tell us why Halas sucks. Like, that's what the type of questions they were asking my

family and they're like, I'm not going to say that. So. Yeah. So, so on national television. Like, yeah, it's like a weird understanding. You're like, oh, I love you, but like maybe you should say why I suck. Yeah, like, just a little bit for the pilot. I kind of want the show. Yeah. Yeah. There's so much to talk about here. Like, I don't even know what direction I want to take right now. Because like, something really cool that you said is like, I kept getting in the ranks. You know, you, especially in the corporate world, you kept, but the reason why is you kept making your own opportunities, you kept building up. I know in the corporate world, like, when the companies you went into, you're like, I'm going to create my own organizations. I'm going to keep showing up.

I'm going to take all of the, like, in a way, like, when you really started out, you did a lot of the bitch work, like, which I hate to say that, but you're like, I will do whatever it takes. And same with your interns. You know, they're coming to you creating their own opportunities, which I find amazing. And, you know, for people who don't, especially young people, they don't really know how to do this yet. Is there like a loose template or a format you can give young people to say, hey, if you want something, here's how you can create and develop your own opportunities. Oh, that's a good question. So a template to help people create their own opportunities. First of all, I would say be open-minded. Look around. So like, let's start with a corporate

environment. You get your first job or your first internship. People like, people like proactivity. that's like probably the number one thing that you need to do is be proactive. Look around and say, what is something that my boss or my coworkers need help with that I can help fill that gap without anybody even asking? And then show up and be like, look what I did. You know, there's this, you know, everybody does these reports. And I thought that I could standardize a template.

Let me know what you guys think. And just like do little proactive things like that. Right. So that's one way, which is like actually, directly helping the business. The other way is to help the culture of the organization. So, for example, when I worked at Hewlett-Packard, they had employee resource groups, which basically their organizations for minority groups in the company. So whether it's women leadership or black employee resource groups or young employee resource groups or veteran employee

resource groups. A lot of these big corporations have these type of opportunities. So I went to my office and there was a pretty large community of young employees and there was also mostly older employees. And so the young employees kind of felt like left out and they were dispersed across departments and they didn't really know each other. So I saw the opportunity. There's a global young employee network and they had local chapters all around the country, but there was no local chapter in New Jersey. So what did I do? I started the young employee network and I recruited everybody and we ended up throwing our, like, I was the one who organized my company's first company picnic. I was the one who organized my company's first holiday party. I was the one that started our tradition of our Valentine's Day

like Heart Association Drive and colon cancer cake walk and like all these different things. Yeah. And then I started all these yearly traditions and they still are happening. I left the company. and they're still there happening. And it's like all these like templates that I started and like frameworks for organizing the events and even like posters that I created, they're still using them. And like it's like a whole other set of people. And it's like I kind of just like pass that down. And so I helped facilitate a culture within my organization and that helped me get visibility

to leadership. So all of a sudden the CEO knew my name because I was asking him for money for a picnic. You know. That's so cool. And all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So I would say that's one of the best ways is to think about how you can enhance the culture. And in that way, you not only get respect from your colleagues because you're putting on really

cool events for people and making them like have a more fulfilling time at work, you're also getting visibility to leadership and getting new skills. Like event planning wasn't part of my day job, but then it became a skill that I learned because I started the young employee network. So that's definitely another way, another aspect. avenue to succeed and get recognized at work. Yeah, I mean, not only did you take on the work that no one else really wanted to do at times. You're like, yeah, if you need help, I got you, you went out and you sought your own, you're like, hey, what does the, what does the company need? You looked around and

saw that young people were kind of, you know, keeping their head down and kind of scared of the environment. I can help you. And setting up the picnics and I didn't know about some of the cake block stuff and the picnics. And that's really cool. And I feel like you really did have a huge mindset shift in your college years. Something that I've been learning from my friend, Trey Coughram, he's fantastic, is he doesn't call it the law of attraction, but it is the law of attraction. It's, you know, these affirmations, these visuals that you give yourself. And when you were 19, that's what you really got into. And honestly, for you personally, what were those beginning affirmations, what were those beginning visuals? And what did you want to manifest

for yourself? Because a lot of people think it's a woo-woo magic topic. But it's not. And it really builds on top of each other. Yeah. So I would say before I was like in college, I was I was pretty average, right? I was really good at singing, but other than that, like I was like a B student, like nothing spectacular. I would try out for like the cheerleading team in high school didn't make it. I'd try out for the talent show. They didn't let me be on even though I had the best voice in school, but maybe it was some aura about me that they didn't put me on. I tried out for the volleyball team. I didn't make it. So it's like all these things. Like you would think that I would have grown. up being like, I can't do anything because nobody ever picks me, right? When I was 19,

I discovered Abraham and Esther Hicks, and they were a lot of books about the Law of Attraction, and I would listen to their tapes on repeat. And it really helped transform my mind because I started to realize that like what I think I believe and anything that I believe I could eventually achieve. And so I would just write down everything that I wanted. I wanted to be successful. I wanted to be in the entertainment business. I wanted to be in radio. I wanted to, you know, land a great internship. I wanted to have a great love life. I wanted to have great friends. I wanted to, you know, be successful. And at that point in my life, when I started kind of like turning my energy around and focusing on positive things and really believing that I could do anything

I wanted, I, you know, landed the lead in the play in college. I was, you know, on the executive board of my sorority. I was the co-captain of our cheerleading team. I was like did so many things. And that was because I actually believed in myself. And then I of course landed that internship at Hot 97 and ended up like getting promoted to work in the actual studio area. And I as like a 20 year old, I had like the coolest job ever. I was meeting celebrities every day. I was hanging out with celebrities. I dated Chris Brown for a hot minute. I didn't know that. Yeah. That's cool. It's just like lots of things, you know, that I have so many stories. And really, it just, that's when everything just started to escalate. And then I never like look back. It was like the old hollow was gone. And it was just this new positive holla that could do anything and that got so many different opportunities. And I think it's really about a mindset shift. And I think it's about shifting your energy and shifting your confidence. It's like I actually became more confident because I believed in myself. And I think that's the key there. It's actually getting that confidence. I think that I probably was talented when I was younger. I was not confident. And so it was not until I actually

believed in myself. And then I interviewed John Asarraf, who was like an expert in the field of law of attraction and this kind of stuff. And he told me that, yeah, he told me that the way, the reason why scientifically the law of attraction works is because you bombard your subconscious mind with these positive affirmations. And your subconscious mind and your conscious mind can't tell the difference between what's reality and what's not reality. So when you either write the same things down over and over again, when you listen to the same things over and over again, when you take action towards the same things and visualize the same things over and over again, you start to train your subconscious mind that the thing that is actually not here yet is here

and your subconscious mind believes it. And then you end up making decisions that will impact you in a positive way towards the thing that you were thinking. about and that you want. So it's actually, you know, retraining your brain to think differently and to believe in yourself and whatever goals that you have. That is really cool. Like, again, I've just barely scratched the surface about learning about these type of things. And just to hear from you like, hey, here's how it works scientifically. Here's how it worked for me. Here's the big takeaways I had. It was honestly really, really enlightening. It gives me a lot more courage to kind of enter that. Because like you are. You're mentally, you know, beating up.

your subconscious saying, hey, everything you assume negatively about yourself is wrong and here's how we're going to change it. I just think it's so cool and I'm excited to dive more into it on my own time. Something really cool that you have been able to do that I've seen that you don't really, I haven't really seen you talk about a lot on other episodes or other articles that I've seen about you is, you know, your sheer like marketing finesse. You have some serious marketing skills. It's something I admire right when I saw you on LinkedIn. Honestly, I saw a bunch of the colors. And I was like, I was like, who drew her guests? That is so cool. And like, that's why I just, you know, I fell in love with your work because of how bright and how colorful it was and how

unique it was. So, you know, in those, in you exploded, in terms of how young your podcast was into what it is now. And like, I really want to know in those beginning months, how did you market? How did you, like, analytically, tactically, you know, what steps did you take in order to make it a big thing besides having some head? heavy hitters right off the bat because like you had some killer guests right away and I thought that was so cool. So you had those audiences to build off of, but what did you yourself do or your team do to help build? Yeah, I think that's an awesome question. Thank you for asking that. So the strategy that I took when I first started was I was going on all channels. So I started posting on Instagram and

LinkedIn the same amount. I quickly realized that people were more interested on LinkedIn. So I literally like abandoned my Instagram page. I didn't even think about it anymore. And I just focused everything on LinkedIn. And when I first started, I was getting like 30 likes, you know, 20 likes, even on big guests. And I was like embarrassed. Like, oh my God, this isn't working. I quickly decided like, I need to be more proactive. So one of the strategies that I took is I took other influencers that had similar topics about self-improvement and growing professionally. So, for example, like Gary V, Tony Robbins, those type of people. And what I did is I looked at everybody who liked and commented on their posts. And anybody, especially comments, I think are worth more at people who comment.

And so I would invite people who commented on those posts to connect. And I'll be transparent. And I used an automation tool, which you shouldn't do anymore because LinkedIn can catch you, but back then it was a free game. So I used an automation tool, and you can do this manually too. It will work just as well. It's just a little bit slower. And I scraped to everybody who commented or liked on the post,

and I would send them an invite. And I'd say, hey, what's up? My name is Hala. I noticed that you liked Gary V's content. I have a podcast. I notice you like Gary V's content. I have similar content and a podcast too, hoping to provide value on your feed,

looking forward to connect, right? So nine out of 10 people would accept those requests. And then I would follow up with another message, like giving some baseline information about my podcast, like what the topics we cover, who our latest guest was, what the episode covered, links to listen. And then I always asked for feedback because I wanted people to start a conversation with me. So once they responded, which usually a lot of times I did, they'd either say thanks, thanks for sharing, or they'd respond back, hey, I listened and I thought this and that. It was amazing.

And I would just have a normal conversation with them and start a relationship with them. and then people would start commenting on my post. So the best part about this is I gained new listeners very proactively. I would say, honestly, I can't really tell how many subscribers on Apple, but on YouTube, for example, I just did a big push of this last week, and I started messaging all my recent connections. I messaged my last like 1,000 recent connections. I got like 60 new followers just on YouTube, you know?

And like that doesn't sound like a lot, but like I gave them a list of like 10 different platforms. if I got 60 subscribers on YouTube, imagine how many more subscribers I got on the other platforms that are even more popular than YouTube. And so it's like people are really receptive. Like you can proactively message people. And when it's free, useful content, and I strategically connect with people

who would be interested in my content, it's a high ROI for your work. So that's what I did. I basically one-on-one grew my following. And then, you know, at a certain point, maybe like a year ago, I stopped doing that because I didn't need to do that anymore.

And people just started to like, because they were engaging on my content, it just started getting pushed up in the feed. And then second connections and third connections would find me. So that's one way, being proactive. The other way is being really consistent with your content and having really good content. So I would say that a lot of people who do podcasts, they have audiograms, right? But their audiograms always look the same. They look exactly the same.

I know. And it's so stupid, right? It's like everybody just has like an image and then there's like a waveform and there's text going and that text highlights and like almost everybody's audiogram looks like that. And so I was like, I don't want an audiogram that looks like that. I'm going to make something different. So I started off with these cartoons and I have a sponsorship with Fiverr and I ended up getting them on Fiverr and I made a relationship with a graphic designer who does them. And every time I had a new guest, I would get their cartoon made. and then at this point, I never did a video podcast.

It was just audio only, so I needed some way of having, like, who's speaking something dynamic in the video. And so I just started doing this, like, comic book style audiogram, and those really took off, and those helped me stand out. So I tried to do something different. One of the things that you want to do is you want to stand out in the feed. So how did I stand out? I stood out with my bright colors, like you said,

my bright patterns, my cartoon images, and like that's how I launched off my brand, and then I started getting a lot of traction. What really brought me to the next level is once I started incorporating personal video, I realized that people not only wanted to hear about the podcast, they wanted to hear what I had to say, and people were interested in me as a personality.

So I started doing more video content where people could see my face. I started to just do like selfie videos, and like then everything really started to blow up for me on YouTube once I started to do like showing my face a little bit more. At first I was like kind of like behind the curtain, and I was just like writing text posts and doing these audiograms with cartoons instead of my real face. And then I was like, you know what? I don't care if I look like shit today. I'm going to go on camera and just be me. And people love authenticity, you know?

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slash profiting. Go to Shopify.com slash profiting. That's Shopify.com slash profiting. Yeah, fam, hear your first. This new year with Shopify by your side. Yeah, you know, I, right when you said the audiograms look the same, I, I like side with you. I, like, as much as I love LinkedIn, as much I love podcasts and the content, They create the audiograms, they are very similar.

And something that I did, I don't even care. Like, you can totally use this. I can show you what I do. It's really fun. I take audio clips. And instead of making it to an audiogram, I make it into a video. And I just use a bunch of, I like have a little title slide just to make sure it's like, oh, it's, you know, what I do.

And then I use a bunch of stock footage. Later on down the line, I would love to use a video from like my actual guests. Yeah. But right now I use like the stock video in order to help show a story. about what they're talking about. And like, I'll use the concept of like, oh, painting. And then I'll like, I'll like do a whole arc of like, it'll be about getting mentors to become better or something like simple. And it'll be this one girl and she's like doing spray paint on the side of the wall. Like, oh, she's uneducated or something like that. And it looks like she's not a good artist. And then you

have her painting with mentors and talking with friends about her artwork. And then at the end, you see like a similar girl or a similar guy, you know, making like a whole beautiful mural instead of like spray painting outside. So I, like, I'm like, I'm like, I. I think doing those are so much fun because it's like, okay, I can tell a little bit of a story while kind of promoting my podcast. So it's something really fun that I've been testing out. I don't know how it's going to turn up because I'm still struggling with the algorithm a little bit. But it's a lot of fun. And I would say to people out there, like what we're talking about is a lot of post-production. Some of my most successful pieces of content on LinkedIn have been like

done in five minutes. I'd just take a selfie video. I say what I want to say and then I gets a thousand and likes, you know? So it's like you don't need so much time in post-production, but you do need to somehow stand out. So whether that's just through video, because LinkedIn doesn't have a lot of people just posting video or whether that's through bright colors, you know, you just want to stand out. Yeah, like, yeah, like Hala has beautiful themes. Like, so like, you know, you can use the themes to show. Yeah, like the comic book style thing is really cool. And actually, on the, so we're talking about, you know, the creation side, but interviewing is a whole process. Yeah. You know, being a great interviewer. And so for you,

you, you know, in your industry and you've had this, this killer experience down the line, what makes a great interviewer and how do you present yourself in front of your guest? What questions do you, not even what questions you want to ask because we talked about that. But how do you introduce yourself and make sure they feel comfortable, things of that nature? Yeah. So when I first hop on the line with my guest, I usually tell them, you know, a little bit about my show. I tell them what my audience is like. I have mostly millennial listeners on the older side, mostly male, actually. I have like 80% male listeners, which is interesting. And I tell them, like, listen, I've done my research. You don't have to go too long on questions because I've already done my research. I know I'm going

to ask you follow-up questions. Also, if there's something controversial that I'm going to ask them, I tell them before we start. So, for example, I interviewed Dean Graziozi, and I wanted to ask him, like, you know, how do you, like, he has a new wife, right? And he has an ex-wife. I wanted to ask him about his relationship, how he maintained his relationship with his ex-wife, but I wanted to make sure that he was comfortable with me asking that. So anything that's a little bit controversial or that I feel like might rub them the wrong way, I ask them in advance, like, if it's okay. And usually they say, yeah, yeah, I'm an open book, no problem.

And then they like respect me a little bit more for that. The other thing that I like to do is during the interview, I like to listen. I'm definitely, my podcast isn't about me. I'm really trying to just like pull gems from my listeners. So I'm all about listening. Some listeners don't like that. They're like, you need to talk more about yourself. So I'm trying to do a little bit of both now.

But I really like to listen and give people their space to tell me because they're the experts. They're the, you know, usually whoever I interview is like, you know, three levels above me. And I know that their time is more valuable than mine. So I just like try to let them speak and listen. And I like to give them the respect of doing my research. I think that's like the respectful thing to do. I think it's pretty disrespectful when podcasters have people on. And I've been on podcasts where they haven't studied me one bit.

And I'm like, okay, like I'll just go off on my tangents because you haven't studied anything, you know? So like you're doing a great job. And that's because you've done your research. So I think you've got a bright future ahead of you. Oh, thanks. I just think it's fun. Like I like to pull fun things from people. Like Stephen Kotler, for example, everyone says like, oh, he's like this flow master.

And he is. but I like I want to interview him soon. I'll get the opportunity to, but I really want to talk to him about his Chihuahua Ranch, you know? Like he owns like he has like 20 or 30 Chihuahuas that he just has a ranch for and it's his Chihuahua Sanctuary. And I'm like, yeah, we can do neuroscience later, but like I want to talk him to Chihuaharanch. I think that's so good. Yeah, that's awesome. I interviewed him. If you want an intro, I'm happy to intro you. Oh, that would be fantastic. Actually, he's a really great family friend of ours. Oh, perfect. So I've just been working up the confidence. too. Actually, I talked to him at one point. It was about books, you know, because I started to really

get into neuroscience, and I took some of his book recommendations, and I said, hey, what else do you have for me? And we had like a six-minute conversation. He's like, okay, this, this and this. I asked him about one of the books, and he was like, that one's stupid, so don't read it. Like, that neuroscientist is wrong. I was like, oh, shoot. But yeah, like, he's, like, he's fantastic, and I love him, but I would like, I would die. Like, intro from you would probably mean much more of him. Yeah. It's going to happen. You don't need my help, but it's going to happen. Actually, something really cool that I really loved about, like, your episodes now, like, fantastic. Your like first couple, I think like first three or four episodes, oh my gosh, I could see

all of your radio experience just come into fruition. You had like, it reminded me of Freakonomics. It reminded me of like NPR of the whole chopping up interviews, having narration within it. it was so cool. And like now that you are like you have this big podcast and you have a team to help you, would you want to go back to that format of like interviewing multiple people at a time? You know what? It was a really hard format. But now that I have a team, I might consider it. So to give everybody some some context, you did kind of, you did a good job breaking it down. But my first three episodes would take me like a month long to put out because I would have to interview two to four guests. Like you said, chop it up, narrowing in between. It was a,

ton of work and they're really hard topics. Like I talked about cryptocurrency for episode two and three when it was first coming out. So it was like really tough. It was like taking a college class to do those episodes. Like it was a lot of learning. Yeah. All the research. Yeah, it was crazy. And now I'm like a crypto expert. I definitely need to brush up. It's been too long. But back then I knew everything about it because I did those episodes. But long story short, the way that I, like how busy I am now, I still don't think I could go back to that format. It is so tough. At that point, I was working at Hewlett-Packard. I was doing really well there. I was kind of coasting in that job in terms of like it was just literally nine to five. And mentally, I was not drained every day.

I had so much energy to do that side project because I was so comfortable with my job and it wasn't that challenging. I then decided to leave and go to Disney because it was more challenging. So now, by the time I'm done with work, I'm like pretty mentally drained and I have so much to do and I have so much like my LinkedIn to keep up with and making sure that I get my podcast episodes out, even their regular interview style now. I feel like I can get just as much quality content with the style that I have. But in the future, I definitely want to have more podcasts. I definitely don't see myself working in corporate forever. I'm going to be an entrepreneur relatively soon. Once that happens, I'll probably have other shows. So like I might keep young and profiting.

as my guest interview show, but then I might have like other more like maybe a history show. I recently interviewed Jason Pfeiffer. He has this show called The Pessimus Archive. And he talks, yeah, it's so cool. He talks, he goes and just like has like a history lesson about why people resisted technology in the past. So like why people were afraid of the elevator and what people did to stop being afraid of the elevator and like that progression, right? Or like why people were afraid of bicycles. They thought that you were going to have bicycle face because you were going too fast and that your face was going to start, you know, melting off.

Yeah, melting off. They were totally wrong, you know? And it's like people are so scared of technology. So like something like that or similar to what I did with my first three episodes where I just like really broke down a topic and interviewed multiple experts and perspectives and tied that all together. I would definitely be interested in doing something like that. But I would have to be once I am an entrepreneur and podcast.

is like my main focus. Yeah, that is like that is, oh, I don't know, I just think it's really cool. Like, you know, your style, your format. And even now, you just have such a high quality. And like, I could talk to you forever. I could talk to you for so long. But like, I want to, I want to stop it here just because I want to respect your time. Like, where can everyone find you? Your work, your podcast, reach out to you. Yeah. So you can find me on LinkedIn. That's my main social media. Just search for my name. It's Hala Taha. And I'm on Instagram at Yap with Hala. And you can find my podcast everywhere. We're on Apple Podcasts is our biggest platform.

We're a top 10 how to and self-improvement podcasts. So you can follow us there. Spotify, YouTube, Overcast, CastBox, IHeartRadio. We're everywhere. Just search for young and profiting. And you'll find the podcast. We talk about productivity, self-improvement, the art of entrepreneurship and side hustles. So if that stuff interests you, please go check it out.

Fantastic. And I hope they do. And if you do and you look at all this stuff, please let me know. Please tell me you saw her stuff because it's fantastic. And I respect her so much as a podcaster and an interviewer. She's fantastic. And Hala, thank you so much for being on. Thanks, Ava.

You did a great job. I'm really proud of you. And I hope to see your podcast really succeed. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or comment on YouTube, SoundCloud, or your favorite platform. reviews make all the hard work worth it. They're the ultimate thank you to me and the Yap team.

The other way to support us is by word of mouth. Share this podcast with a friend or family member who may find it valuable. Follow Yap on Instagram at Young and Profiting and Check us out at young and profiting.com. You can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name, Hala Taha. Until next time, this is Hala, signing off.