Breaking Norms & Building Empires | Hala Taha's Adversity Story

24:22Hala Taha:Can you do that for me? Or how did you grow this podcast? Like, I see you on the charts. Can you build me a podcast? And they were very successful people who had a lot of money who I was talking to. And for the longest time, I, again, told myself the story that there's no money in this. this is just a hobby and like I've got my corporate career and just focus on your corporate career and do this to serve people and COVID hit and I found myself with so much more time and I decided that I was going to start offering social media services I had uh do you know who Heather Monahan is yes so she was my first client and uh she came on my podcast she asked me those same questions and she didn't leave me alone I had really cool videos and she would she would comment on my videos and be like, Holly, you have to teach me how to do videos.

25:11Hala Taha:You have to do this for me. And so I wanted her to be my mentor. She was who I wanted to be in 10 years. And so I was like, okay, Heather, I'll teach you how to do it on Saturdays. On Saturdays, we'll do like, I'll train you how to do these videos. And so I remember our first training session, it was like, I showed her our Slack channel. I showed her our processes. And then she was like, holla I'm never gonna do this I'm gonna hire you you hate your job you told me that like they don't appreciate you you already have a team I just talked to VaynerMedia I could give them my money or I could give you my money she's like what are you gonna do like I want to be your first client just say yes and I was like all right I'll do it so she paid me very little like a thousand bucks a month I was still working my corporate job but she was our first client and then our second client was a billionaire, Jason Waller, who paid us$30 ,000 a month to run his Instagram, LinkedIn and podcast.

26:06Hala Taha:And we grew his podcast huge. He became a really big podcaster. He quit podcasting since then because he had some like legal issues. But yeah, like then it just kept like skyrocketed. And I got like one huge client after another. Before I knew it, I was making over six figures a month with my social media agency and still working a corporate job. finally quit my corporate job six months into having my agency. I was making well over six figures a month and had 30 people all around the world employed at the company, Gap Media. So that's the origin story of my social media and production agency. Dude, that's badass.

26:44Hala Taha:Yeah. That's really cool, right? So I'm going to ask you a question because, you know, in this world, we talk to a lot of networks. We talk to a lot of social media, you know, agencies. What makes your network and what makes your social media agency so different? Oh, I know the biggest differentiator is that I'm my own customer. So I am my own customer. The same team that launched, that built my LinkedIn, that built my Instagram, that built my podcast, that monetizes my podcast are the managers of everybody else who do it for now my clients. And so even to this day, I am my own customer. So I have like more urgency for things like growth.

27:26Hala Taha:Like nobody knows more about podcast growth and monetization than I do. Nobody, to be honest, I have a joke with one of my executives on my team that I probably make the most money per download of any podcaster in the world because nobody knows that I monetize better than I do, you know. And so just the fact that I I want it for myself and I'm creative for myself and I innovate and I'm my own guinea pig. I'm so much more innovative than all the other podcast networks. And I also have much more of like a podcaster first mentality, a listener first mentality while also wanting to monetize and grow and build my brand.

28:04Hala Taha:So the fact that like everything is basically centered around me, we're innovating and experimenting on my account. And then anything that works, we then just scale it as a service and launch it to our clients. So I'll give you an example. I'm really big on the audio apps. I have probably 800 ,000 subscribers across all the different apps, do really well, have done for many years. And now we're really focused on YouTube. YouTube is the future, right? One in four downloads happen on YouTube. YouTube is a social media platform. You can go viral on YouTube. To me, that's like the future, and I need to future-proof everyone.

28:38Hala Taha:And so I've been just trying my best to grow on YouTube. I figured out how to do like in feed ads really well. I figured out thumbnails and titles and SEO and, you know, how to get organic as well as paid traffic to your YouTube. And I'm just going to scale that out to all the, you know, big OG audio podcasters in my network like Jenna Kutcher and John Lee Dumas and Lori Harder and so on so that they can just leverage everything that I spent money on and invested in to learn. And now they're just getting it as being as a part of my network. Right. So me also being my own client helps me retain my clients because I'm just always like ahead of the curve and like make sure that we're all ahead of the curve.

29:24Yeah, I think that's important because from what I've seen out there in the social media world, everybody thinks it's about, and again, it is about views. It's about engagement, but it's gone about in such a weird and basic way where you could just tell like this isn't the right way to go. You know what I mean? Like, how did you, how did you, because you've mentioned this a couple of times, right? And I don't want you to give your secrets on air, but share to me, you said hack social media three different times in our multiple conversations. Is there any definition you can give me to that without giving away your stuff for free?

30:02Hala Taha:I don't mind giving away my stuff for free. I teach all of this stuff. I'm very transparent. And when I say hack social media, what I really mean is just understanding your growth levers and the algorithms. Hacking social media is just understanding the algorithms. So, you know, on LinkedIn has a different algorithm than Instagram. But right now, everything is the TikTokification of social media, which is what Gary V taught me about. So in the past, old school LinkedIn, old school Facebook, they're the friend graph model. And basically in the past, your distribution on social media depended on how many followers and subscribers that you have.

30:45Hala Taha:And, you know, it was just like, you know, you post something up. If you had a lot of followers, you got more visibility, you got more engagement, you ended up, you know, going viral and so on. Now it's the interest-based model where basically even if you have zero followers, it's all dependent on how good your content is, how easily the algorithm can find you based on like the keywords that you put in your posts and like the repetitiveness of your posts so that you know who to send your content to, the engagement and the engagement that you get, right? And so somebody with zero followers can go viral.

31:22Hala Taha:And I've seen this firsthand. So I have my Instagram profile, which I have not spent a lot of time growing my Instagram. My Instagram is something I've only focused on in the last two years. I solely focused on LinkedIn and podcasting for a very long time. And now I'm really focused on Instagram and YouTube as my next things that I'm going to try to really, really grow. Starting something new is straight up scary. I remember thinking, what if this fails? What if nobody listens? But taking that leap changed everything, and having Shopify on your side makes it a whole lot easier. Get started with your own design studio with hundreds of ready-to-use templates to build a beautiful online store that matches your brand's style.

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32:43Hala Taha:And I started this other channel on the side that is, I'm Palestinian. And so I started a channel that is like, you know, called Four Piece Media. And I launched a little volunteer team to create content that I felt really passionate about that didn't fit my business brand. And so I wanted to post it there. That content went so viral so fast with like no followers because it was the topic. People are passionate about the topic. So I could try so hard on Instagram to talk about entrepreneurship and business or whatever. And it's great. But people aren't like, you know, going to fight for that topic, you know, and like really want to contribute and talk about it.

33:30Hala Taha:And, you know, and so in this social media world right now, it's to me like the secret is like, what is that passionate topic that you're going to talk about? And you also have to be realistic. There's topics that you can own. And there's a cap to how many people are going to interact with it. Right. So if your content is about like, you know, cat lovers or whatever, there's a lot of cat lovers out there. You're going to get a decent amount of views if you can trigger people's emotions to why they feel so passionate about cats, you know. And so for me, I think a lot of hacking the algorithms these days is like understanding the power of the topics and like the emotions that you can bring with those topics is how you actually get visibility.

34:18Hala Taha:And if you have good engaging content and so on, you could, and train the algorithm on what you speak on, you'll do well. That's interesting, right? Cause the word, the A word algorithm that has creators spiraling, right. And into a point where they'll chastise Instagram for not showing their content, you know, and then I look at my certain situation and we've grown, but at the same time, you would think that having a good guest on a big name, a recognizable face would do a lot more than it actually does. And it doesn't do much on Instagram. It really doesn't. So it's like, I feel like I'm constantly fighting, scratching and clawing for every single view.

35:02And we'll have some that go to 450 ,000 views, right? We'll have some that go, you know, 250, 197, but I still feel, and I, and I'm like you, I'm an open book. Like I will say this, so I'm blue in the face and I'll tell everybody how I feel about my platform. I feel at times because of the types of conversations we have, it's, it can be very vanilla at times. It can be very, you know, inspirational and helping people get over their fears and, and how to be better and more disciplined in their life. But that's not necessarily what everybody's looking for right now, but there's creators like myself that say, wait a second, I'm not going to change who I am based on the algorithm, right?

35:42So what would you give a creator like myself or somebody like me the advice of like, what can they do to broaden the horizon, stay on brand and to understand the algorithm a little more to kind of catch it and ride that tailwind?

35:57Hala Taha:Yeah. So I think aside from the topic, which is basically you're saying like, right, there's certain topics that just do really well on Instagram and social media, like working out, doing your makeup, fashion, because people are really passionate about these topics and also people like to be entertained, right? And so like when it comes to our type of educational entrepreneurship, pretty serious content, it's really difficult to get that engagement and get people to follow us, right? And that's why there's some things you need to think about. First of all, like, are you on the right platform? Because for example, LinkedIn loves this type of content.

36:34Hala Taha:I'm one of the biggest influencers on LinkedIn. I get so much more engagement on LinkedIn than I do on Instagram, right? So are you on the right platforms? Long-form platforms like YouTube do really well with this kind of stuff. Audio podcasts, which are crushing it, right? LinkedIn. But Instagram, we still want to grow on Instagram. We still want to go viral. The other thing you need to think about is like what features are working right now. So every platform has different features that are working. On LinkedIn, vertical photographs and really keyword-heavy, meaningful posts do really well, okay?

37:06Hala Taha:Videos don't yet. They keep trying to push video. Videos don't really work on LinkedIn yet. On Instagram, it's reels, right? It's short form video that is getting all the views. It's carousels that are doing really well. And those are the two content pieces that by far are doing the best, right? And then every social media platform has like the same rules, right? So number one, it's like engagement. So for example, watch time is super important. That cuts across YouTube. That cuts across Instagram. That cuts across TikTok. That cuts across LinkedIn video. When it comes to videos, the algorithm wants to know, are people watching it?

37:45Hala Taha:For how long? Are they watching it multiple times? Then are they engaging? Are they liking, commenting, and sharing? And all these little engagements are weighted differently. That's what people don't realize. So likes and comments are the lowest. Liking is the least desirable viral action. And a lot of people measure their success based on the number of likes, right? Comments are better. Longer comments are better. Comment conversations are even better. Shares are by far across all the platforms the number one thing that will help you go viral and get you impressions, right? So you always want to optimize for shares.

38:22Hala Taha:So that means you need to have shareable content, right? So a lot of people's content is like about me, me, me. And nobody wants to share that. Nobody wants to share some random conversation about, you know, business usually to their followers. They might like it themselves and want to hear it, but it's not important enough for them to actually want to share, which is why it's really difficult for like this type of entrepreneurship content to actually go super viral. Okay. But of course, if it's really great, people are going to share it. So it's like, how do you make your content even better?

38:57Hala Taha:Another thing is like thumbnails, right? So this is really important for basically all the video platforms, even short form content like Instagram and LinkedIn. Your thumbnail is really important. People want to know what are they going to stay and watch for? Like they want to know what the video is about and you want your thumbnail to look really engaging and welcoming for people to want to actually click and watch. and your thumbnail essentially is what is going to optimize your click-through rate and how engaging your video is what's going to optimize your watch time. And clicks plus watch time is retention and growth, right?

39:35Hala Taha:So it's like you want to get people to click on the video. You want to get people to watch it and watch it multiple times and engage. And the best engagement metric, like I mentioned, is a share. So like that just cuts across all the social media platforms in terms of how to do well. No, it's awesome because, you know, for a creator like myself, right? I'm good at actually doing the content. Like we are going to have a conversation and it's really hard for someone like me or other creators to think of the ideas of what's going to actually work, right? What keywords do I need in my LinkedIn post, right?

40:11What kind of keywords do I need to my Instagram caption or Facebook. It doesn't matter. The SEO on YouTube, the titles, the thumbnails. Now your agency, I would imagine you guys do that research and you help your clients through that. So it's kind of like, hey, this is, here's this post. Here's this caption. Here's this thumbnail. Is that kind of how it works?

40:33Hala Taha:Yeah. So basically on their behalf, we're going through their content. We're picking the best content that we think as a chance. for creating the thumbnail with the, you know, short headline and really engaging facial expression so that people will actually click on it. And the other thing we're doing is thinking outside the box, right? So everybody is so focused on these talking head reels. But for instance, on Instagram now, this like comic book style graphic posts where it's like, let's say like me and Grant Cardone, and it's like me on top as a graphic and then like us both on the bottom. And it's like me asking a question and it flips to him, just a static graphic with like him answering the question.

41:15Hala Taha:And people like to engage with that more. They want to read your podcast, surprisingly. Right. Interesting. And so it's also like thinking outside the box and not just doing, you know, the same thing that everybody else is doing. That's that's really how you cut through the noise is like being one step ahead of everybody else. Now, also on Instagram, they just rolled out that you can have like different sizing, right? And so we're seeing that less tall vertical stuff that is performing better because it just stands out. People are like, well, what is this? This looks different than everything else I'm scrolling by.

41:50Hala Taha:So you want to stop the scroll. And sometimes that means like breaking whatever everybody thought is like best practice, which is talking head reels, right? Let's stop doing that and try other things that might stop the scroll and get engagement. Well, see, because the talking head videos is very hard for creators, right? Because you have to think of the idea, you have to get the script, you have to talk into your camera. And I don't do any, you know, camera facing things anymore. It's all here, right? It's all here because none of that was flowing for me. So I can imagine the value of creating other types of content to bring people to you, right?

42:27And then if they like you, they stay, then they listen to your talking head stuff. they listen to your show, they go to the other places that you are because they end up liking you and want to support you. But it's very hard for a creator. It's very, I mean, I mean, from my, from my seat, right? Because I only know how to do what I know how to do. And I don't claim to know how to hack social media or to create the best graphic or to create the best type of content to go along with what I'm saying, right? I just don't know how to do that. So I would imagine a lot of creators the same way.

43:02Hala Taha:Yeah, it's really hard, especially when you're an entrepreneur and you're not like just a full-time influencer. Like I really wanna get super, super good and lean into video this year. Like I'll just be honest, like me and Cody Sanchez, right? Cody Sanchez is huge now. Last year, we were at the same level and she just leaned into video and now she blew up. And she's my friend, right? And like, I'm so proud of her. But she leaned into short form video and she's like light years ahead. Like, you know, I do well and I've got a business and everything, but she's like crushed on Instagram, crushed on YouTube.

43:42Hala Taha:Cody's great. Cody's awesome. She's doing amazing, right? And we were at the same place a year ago in terms of like influence. You know what I'm saying? But it's because she went full steam ahead and dedicated the time to create video content that is engaging, that is not podcast clips of her podcast and very intentional. She's doing fashion reels. She's going to car washes and doing like fun little videos. She really leaned into it and invested the time. and that is what you need to do as a creator if you wanna stand out. You really need to invest the time and you can't do the cookie cutter things.

44:20Hala Taha:But not everybody wants to be as big as Cody Sanchez and a lot of folks don't have a lot of time. So one of the things that I found that I love to do is I do a lot of webinars. So with my podcast network, I have a podcast network now, one of the things that we're known for is pioneering 360 campaigns and something that I do as a creator as part of my creative campaign options is I do webinars where like Teachable will sponsor me or Opus Clip or Pipe Drive. And for example, for like a Pipe Drive webinar, I do like a 45 minute sales training. It might include like a five minute demo of Pipe Drive and then Pipe Drive pays me.

44:58Hala Taha:And now I record them in this beautiful studio and I'm really passionate because it's like me teaching sales material and things that I love and it doesn't feel scripted and it doesn't feel fake. And then we chop that up and use that for social media content. And it performs way better than any talking head video would from like a podcast, right? So we've tried to figure out ways in which we can just incorporate like my day-to-day process, like me doing a webinar to then create really great content out of it. And then to take it to the next level, I've got to be intentional. I know you always talk about intention.

45:33Hala Taha:I've got to be really intentional and create that content. Absolutely. Let's shift gears. Thank you for all that. because I want the audience to get to know you much, much more and dive more into your story on how you've overcome. Because to me, you've overcome a lot, right? I mean, it couldn't have been all sunshine and rainbows. Other than your family, you know, being in medical school and people telling you you're too old and you can't do it, who do you think you are? You got blackballed out of an industry that you loved. You thought that was your path. What other hard moments of adversity did you have?

46:10Did you have to overcome in order to build what you've built? And like you said, you've done over$1.4 million just in your own show this year. That's shit and easy.

46:19Hala Taha:Yeah. There's a couple like pivotal moments in my life that I think I had to overcome. Number one, I'm Palestinian and grew up in my teenage years. You know, when I was 16 years old is when 9-11 happened. Right. And so that was really tough. And I remember just, you know, our family was treated so much differently in that moment. We grew up in a very white town. My dad was a surgeon and like very successful. And we were treated like all the Italian kids, all the Portuguese kids, like we were treated like, you know, an immigrant family. But everybody was like, I was popular. Everybody was like, I had friends that would sleep over and everything was normal.

47:14Hala Taha:Like my brother was captain of the football team and we were loved, you know. And then suddenly it's like in one day, it's like I was an outsider and people would scream at me in the hallways and I wasn't invited to the parties and I wasn't getting on the cheerleading team and I wasn't in the plays anymore and I wasn't allowed in the talent show. And it was like one thing after the other. And like, uh, I really feel like those three years in high school, um, were not that they were like horrible but it's like I wasn't living like I wasn't holla anymore you know and like I was just this very like bubbly person who was like always like you know lead of the plays and then suddenly it's like all these opportunities were stripped away from me but I I hate looking at things like in a victim mindset and like for me it's like I'm so like grateful that happened to me because then when I got to college I ended up getting into like a regular school because I had like no extracurricular activities because I literally was not basically allowed to participate in anything in high school.

48:20Hala Taha:And I got into like a school that was really diverse in Newark, New Jersey called NGIT. And when I got there, there was like black students, Spanish students, Indian students, Arab students, and actually not many white students. And suddenly it was, I was equal again. And I was getting all the opportunities. And so I became very like ambitious and popular. And I also like didn't fear rejection anymore because I got rejected so much. Like imagine like literally everything I wanted to try in high school, I was denied. So I was just so used to rejection. And that gave me like really thick skin where like I didn't care.

49:02Hala Taha:I tried for everything because I just figured rejection is just part of the process. And I just got very used to it. So I think it gave me an edge, which is why when I was 19, you know, I was already working at a station, hanging out with celebrities and, you know, doing really cool stuff when everybody else was like doing their regular college thing, you know. So I'm grateful for those experiences. But that definitely was a big thing I had to overcome. And I feel bad for all the Arabs and, you know, folks that that really got mistreated for no reason, especially from like a family like mine. Like my dad loved being American.

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50:41Hala Taha:Like my dad used to tell me all the time, like, we live in the best country in the world. Like, you should be so grateful you're in America. Like, he really was the embodiment of the American dream. So such a slap in the face to like a family like mine, you know, that is absolutely heartbreaking. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I mean, that can't be easy to talk about. I mean, the sheer thought of judging somebody because of what they look being profiled. That's mortifying to me. I can't stand it. And the fact that you had to go through it and you've come out on the other side with such gratitude.

51:15I mean, truly, those were hard moments. Right. And that's what this show is based on. The Determined Society is going through hard moments. Sometimes it's, you know, maybe a family member leaves you, a family member passes away, but you dealt with a whole community discounting, turning their back on you because of your ethnicity, because of what happened that you'd had nothing to do with, but you were paying the price. You were paying the price and you built thick skin through all of that. You were used to the rejection. There's no question in my mind. It is the reason why you're such a damn badass now.

51:52Hala Taha:Mm-hmm. So there was a gift from it. Doesn't take away from the fact that it was, that's just, it's horrific. But I mean, do you ever look back and wonder if that hadn't happened, would I be where I am now? Yeah, I do. Cause I feel like everything is like the butterfly effect, right? Like little things in your life position you differently later on. And yeah, I do feel like if that didn't happen to me, I don't know if I would have been so ambitious and to be honest, me in college, I just wanted to try things. I actually never went to class because I got into the radio club and I got into my sorority and I was on the cheerleading team and I was the lead in my play.

52:37Hala Taha:I just wanted to try and try and try things because I was denied for so long to do anything outside of just class. And so I was like, wanted all these experiences and I think it was me thinking outside the box and being more excited, not about my education, like unfortunately or fortunately, not about like me going to class. I was more excited about doing other things, like being in the radio club, right? Yeah. And so it just gave me like a different perspective, I think, on like how I wanted to spend my time. Mm, mm, that's so cool. What would you tell somebody listening right now that is going through something, maybe not exactly similar, but there's a lot going on in the world right now.

53:19There's a lot and it's a disgusting place. at times to live in. And we have to hold on to the beautiful parts because I truly do believe that this is still a great country. There's still a lot of beautiful things going on. We just have to focus on those. But what would you tell a young holler right now or a young boy that's being persecuted because of the way they look, maybe not be their skin, maybe it's a personality thing that nobody likes. How would you help them? What would you say to them to get through that?

53:48Hala Taha:That's a good question. I think number one, I think it's important to ensure that you do not allow other people's beliefs to like infiltrate you. Right. I always knew and it could be that you have nobody in your life that is giving you these good beliefs. So it's up to you to try to make sure that you know that you're a person who is capable, that you can accomplish your dreams, whatever your goals are, you want to make sure that you truly believe that you're that type of person. And for me, that was using like affirmations, where I literally would when I was I remember being 18 years old in college, and writing down everything I wanted to feel, like I'm confident, I am beautiful, I am outgoing, I am social, everybody likes to be around me, whatever it is, writing it down, and then I would record it and listen to it all the time.

54:43Hala Taha:right until I really felt that way and I showed up with confidence and I and I showed up differently you know and so I think uh like almost tricking yourself to believe until you become right and so I believe that that is like really important so like having really great self-belief even if nobody else believes in you and everybody else is doubting you like you've got to believe in yourself and like no one's gonna do that for you. Like you've got to do that for yourself. So I think that's really important. No, thank you for that. There's something in there that I feel is the key that I feel without a shadow of doubt from an objective standpoint, that was the reason it happened.

55:27What do you think the key was? I'm interested on your perspective because a lot of people do affirmations to be quite honest. They do them. They're not as effective for everybody else as they were you. Why do you think yours works so much?

55:38Hala Taha:I think it's because I paired it with like really taking a lot of action and obsession, like pure obsession. Like I like let's talk about my podcast and like what it took for me to launch my podcast. Right. I was working a corporate job. I remember I would stay up till midnight prepping, doing whatever I need. And at the same time, I was growing my LinkedIn profile. So like the two things I had going on was my corporate job and I was like a LinkedIn influencer and I had a podcast, right? Before nobody was a LinkedIn influencer or had a podcast, right? And so I remember I was – I would stay up to a minute.

56:19Hala Taha:I had a Slack channel with like eight volunteers or something and like it grew over time. And I would get all my stuff prepped for the day in terms of like what am I posting on LinkedIn? What am I posting for my podcast? If I have prep, whatever, research. I remember I would study 20 hours a week for my interviews. I was insane. And I would read every single book and listen to every single interview. And I had really great guests from the start because I stood out as somebody who like really tried hard, right? And then I would wake up at six in the morning and do whatever I needed to do or like even earlier than that and be at work by nine and do basically work for my podcast before I even got to work, right?

56:58Hala Taha:And then I do my posts on the train and then I do my interviews at lunch. And And like, I was just working around the clock through the weekends and just busting my ass and not only trying to figure out how to be the best host, but everything else, how to market, how to monetize, how do other people monetize, how do other people grow? What are the experiments I can do? And I got really obsessed with it to the point where two years into my podcasting journey, they called me the podcast princess. I did read that somewhere. Yeah, I did read it somewhere. You know, all those things that you're talking about are very important.

57:33I think they're very pivotal, obviously. Right. And it's kind of like when we talked on your show, it was your process. It was your strategic activity. You were clear on what you needed to do and you continue to do it over and over and over again, no matter if you were tired, no matter how you felt emotionally. But are you interested in to hear what I feel it was the main key in your affirmations? sure most people will write down affirmations right they'll journal it or they'll hear something they'll hear a motivational podcast that's full of affirmations but what you did differently was you recorded your voice saying it to you to me that's the key because people can tell you anything that anything they want they can tell you how they see you they can tell you how powerful how beautiful, how smart, how successful.

58:27But if you don't believe it yourself and you don't hear it in your own voice, it's not going to work as effectively. So I just thought that was interesting because most people say, yeah, I do affirmations in the mirror. And when people do affirmations in the mirror, on the ones that they feel most conflicted on, their voice cracks, it gets lower. They're not as powerful with it. So you don't emotionally feel it. But hearing it over and over again, to me, that was a pretty nice touch. I like that.

58:55Hala Taha:Yeah. And it reminds me of what you told me about how you wake up to an alarm that says, I love you. And it's you, it's you saying that, right? No, I just wrote it down. It's like, I named it as I love you, Sean. No, it's like, you know, like on the Apple, the iPhone, I love you, Sean. It used to say things like, get up, bitch, you know, no one gives a shit, work harder. And then I realized that was all me operating out of, you know, scarcity. Like I'm not enough. So let me start programming myself to read something positive right away. It's like, I love you, Sean. And now everything I do in the morning and throughout the day, I'm operating out of love for myself.

59:30That's a completely different thing for me now, right? So I just thought that was a really cool point to pull out that it was in your voice. I think that was a pivotal move right there. Very strategic. I like it. I like it. Hopefully the audience, guys, if you're listening, hopefully if you're having an issue, believing that you are what you think you are, record it and listen to yourself. I mean, truly, you're never too far ahead to do that. I was, when you were talking about that, I'm like, man, maybe I should try that. That's pretty damn cool. As we, as we start to wind down, we're coming towards the end of the show.

1:00:04And I always like to ask one specific question on my show. This is the determined society. And you have given a very good picture of who you are as a face of determination, but how do you truly define what determination means to you?

1:00:24Hala Taha:To me, determination just means showing up every day and doing your best job. Do you believe every day you have to be as good as you were yesterday or it doesn't count? No. I believe that some days you show up 50%, some days you show up 300%. And I just think there's you've got to you've got to just keep trying and keep putting in the reps and and also respect yourself enough to do what you say you're going to do. You know, and and and to do what you say you're going to do and to hold yourself accountable, even when nobody else is holding you accountable and to have that accountability. You're speaking my language, Allah.

1:01:07You're speaking my language. I love that shit. Well, no, because it's important, right? Because the reason why I asked, do you feel like you need to be as good as you were yesterday? Because a lot of people will feel if they don't perform or they don't give the exact amount, a hundred percent that they gave the day before, that the day is a failure. And it's not. You're a hundred percent. Sometimes it's going to, you're 50%, you're a hundred that day, but you just can't have a zero day. yeah and you can't judge yourself you just got to keep going right so you know in closing like where can people find you um how can they work with you i definitely want you to plug that

1:01:44Hala Taha:tell the audience yeah if you guys want to listen to another awesome podcast i've got young and profiting it's on all apps it's on youtube uh yap is what a lot of people call it uh if you guys are interested in social media or podcast services you can go to yapmedia.com and if you're another podcaster who wants to monetize, you can check out our Yap Media podcast network. Love it. Thank you so much for coming on, Hala. It was a great pleasure to connect with you. I feel like we've been a part of each other's lives all afternoon. It's been great. Thank you for your time. And I look forward to speaking to you further.

1:02:20Hala Taha:Likewise, Sean. Thank you. Absolutely. For the audience, share this episode with someone you know, love and trust that can learn from Hala and then also just learn a story of determination. She went through a lot and she overcame it and she's a very successful individual because of it. So until next time guys, stay determined.