Hala Taha: The Mindset That Turned Rejection into a Multi-Million Dollar Business | Human Behavior | YAPClassic

23:31And so I started working on this idea. I was fired on Thursday. I started working on my website and learning how to code websites on Sunday. By the end of two weeks, I recruited 14 girls off of Twitter and Craigslist. And we formed the sorority of hip-hop. And I was the president. And we started a blog site. I went back to school to finish my undergrad and make my parents proud. And at the same time, I was building this website. Within three months, we were one of of the most popular hip-hop and R &B stations and blog sites in the world. I also had about 50 girls at that time. I had 150 girls outside of the organization over about three years.

24:04So we got all this notoriety because I figured out how to hack Twitter. I got all these celebrities to retweet us, and we blew up that way. So three months into it, MTV scouts us. We did a little pilot. Nothing really came out of it, but we didn't care. We were like, this is three months in. What's going to happen six months from now. Who cares, right? So we keep building and building. We have online radio shows, interviewing celebrities. We're hosting concerts and events. We have this blog site that's going viral all the time. Everything's good. We're not really monetizing that much because I didn't really figure out the business aspect of it, but we were making a little bit of money.

24:39And finally, MTV reaches back out. And at the time, I was getting scouted for multiple reality TV shows. Love and Hip Hop wanted me to be on their show. Oxygen wanted me to have a show. and MTV was like, listen, Holla, we just had Jersey Shore. We're going to make you a star. Choose us. And so I did. I chose them and I was going to be the lead. I was getting paid three times as much as everybody else. And so they filmed us all summer. We were broke girls, catty girls. It was fun time and they got us a studio on Broadway and it had neon signs. It was hooked up with all this furniture. We got our hair and makeup done every day.

25:12We were mic'd up and filmed on the street. They filmed us in restaurants at my parents' house. They filmed us all summer. We had a concert. It was absolutely amazing. Unfortunately, when it was about to air two weeks before, my producer gives me a call. And she's like, Hala, I'm sorry, but we decided to move in another direction. And again, it was one of those moments where I was like, oh my God, like again? I did all the work. I did everything right. I made the right choices. I worked my butt off. How is this happening again? And they didn't give me a reason why they didn't choose the show, but they decided not to air it.

25:47And that was a moment in my life where I feel like my thought that life was limitless really fizzled out. And I thought, you know what, Hala? You're really unrealistic. And life is not this easy. Your parents are right. Your family is right. You should just be normal and get a real job. And it's time to just be normal. So I thought I'd never get back on a mic. I shut down the group. I had 50 girls that were extremely mad at me. but I shut down the group. I shut down the blog and I decided that I was going to go get my MBA and that I was going to be a normal person and get a normal job in corporate and that was that.

26:25I was, it's time to be a normal person. So I ended up wanting to get my MBA. Unfortunately, I had a 2.3 undergrad GPA. So it was really difficult to get into school. So I decided that I was going to use my networking skills. It's one of my strongest skills. And I decided I was going to target my alma mater, the director of alumni associations at NJIT, and I would beg her to get into the MBA program. And so I emailed her every other day for like a month, and I just wouldn't leave her alone. And I was like, can I get you a coffee? Can I buy you lunch? Can I come there? And finally, she agreed to take a meeting with me.

27:04And I explained to her my whole story, how I had the sorority of hip-hop, how I worked at Hot 97, and how even though on paper I looked like a schlub, I really was a hard worker. And she believed in me, and I told her, if you let me in this program, I promise I'll get a 4.0 and I'll get straight A's. And she said, Holly, if you keep that promise, I'll let you in the program. And she let me in the program. I ended up getting a 4.0, graduating with straight A's, number one in my class. And it really set off my corporate career. At the same time I got my MBA, I leveraged that to get an internship at Hewlett Packard, and I was making 70 grand a year.

27:38And to me, that was like a lot of money, and I was like finally making it. And I did that, and at the same time at HP, I started something called the Young Employee Network. So the Young Employee Network is an employee resource group at Hewlett Packard. Hewlett Packard actually has like an amazing company culture. And so in my office, though, there was no culture. Nobody talked to each other outside of departments. Like, it was super boring and bland. And I, being like the little entrepreneur inside the organization, was like, oh, no, like, we've got to change this. So I got everybody to sign a petition, and we started a young employee network at the office.

28:18And I ended up launching their first holiday party, their first company picnic, all of their charity events. And I infused the whole office with culture. And so at the same time, I was doing amazing in my career. I thought I was going to be so behind everybody else because I started my corporate career so late, but that wasn't true at all. I had learned outside of an organization. And so I was so tech savvy and I was like the digital whiz kid. I got promoted from role to role. I had every single job on the marketing team. And I was like the C-suite pet, especially because I was doing all this cultural stuff.

28:51And I was interviewing the CEOs, the CEO and the CMO all the time. And I was really the face of the young employees at Hewlett Packard. So I did this presidency of the Young Employee Network for two years at Hewlett Packard. And then I finally thought, you know what, let me set my sights even higher. I want to be the president of the global Young Employee Network. And so I was on the recruitment chair of that organization, and I paid my dues. I created something called HPE Spirit Week. At the time, there was 300 ,000 employees across the organization, and I launched a week-long event with daily themes around the world where I was emailing the entire organization every day as if I was the CEO, and they still do this event to this day, and I created it.

29:33It was like a week-long event called HPE Spear Week. So I thought I for sure was a shoo-in to be the president of the Global Young Employee Network, but of course I was wrong. The HR director for some reason didn't like me. She didn't give me the position. She gave it to a guy who never was even involved in the organization, And they didn't even keep me on the board. They kicked me out. And I was, again, like, what did I do? I just worked for free. I basically had a side hustle inside of this organization, and they just stomped me out. And by the way, that HR director left one month later. I left too.

30:04I went to Disney Streaming Services. And at the same time, I started Young and Profiting Podcast, and I decided that if I couldn't lead the 7 ,000 young employees all over the world at Hewlett-Packard, that I would lead 7 million young professionals across the world instead, and I'd start my own thing, Young and Profiting. So I started Young and Profiting podcast in April of 2018. I'm going to fast forward to 2020 now. 2020 was both the best year and the worst year of my life. 2020 was the year that my life changed forever, and I feel like that's the most pivotal year in my whole life. So I'll start off with January.

30:45So at the time, I was with my ex-boyfriend. We were living in Brooklyn, and he was super paranoid about COVID. We had some friends overseas who were telling us it was pretty bad. And in America and New York, nobody cared, right? It was just business as usual. But it was his birthday, and that morning, we decided we were going to go to the pharmacy, and we were going to try to get some masks and alcohol and gloves and just play it safe. And so we go to one pharmacy. We go to the aisle. Nothing's there. Okay, this is weird. We go to the next one. Nothing's there. We go to 10 different pharmacies.

31:15We cannot find any alcohol, any masks, any gloves. At this time, nobody knew about COVID. And we're like, everybody, like a lot of people know something that we don't know. And things are about to get real. I remember wearing a mask on the train. And I was the only one on the train wearing a mask. Everybody looking at me like I was crazy. But I was trying to be ultra protective of my father. because at the time, my father had diabetes and he had to get his toe amputated. And in January and February, he was in and out of the hospital. And so I remember working at Disney Streaming Services at the time I had my podcast.

31:45And so my days were like this. I'd wake up at 6 a.m., work on my podcast. On the train, I'd do my LinkedIn post. I was growing my LinkedIn following. I'd go to work during lunchtime. I'd be interviewing people like Brian Scudamore in the phone booth. And then I'd finish work, go home. My boyfriend at the time was a music producer. or he worked nights. And so I was able to work on my podcast at night and I do my engagement on social media. And I literally just work all day, all night and all weekend too. And I did that for many years. Around February, March, lockdown happens. So this was actually in March.

32:18Lockdown happens. Disney tells everybody to start working from home. We're in lockdown. First, nobody knows anything about COVID. I don't know anybody who had COVID. All we hear about is just the crazy stories. I'm deathly afraid of getting COVID. I am the most protective person, and I was for months, about not getting COVID. I remember being on LinkedIn and telling everybody how to wash their hands properly and how to go grocery shopping in the right way and trying to be like a role model about how to not get COVID. And so March hits, a week into lockdown. My sister gives me a call. A little bit of a backstory here.

32:53My dad was getting hyperbaric oxygen treatments for his toe because he got his toe amputated. And me and my sister and my brothers were begging them, like, mom and dad, stop going and getting the treatments. But it was the only way that my dad was going to get better, and they really wanted the treatments. I actually spent$20 ,000 to buy my dad a hyperbaric oxygen machine at home, but it was too late. And so my sister gives me a call, and she says, holla, mom and dad have COVID. Your brother's home. He has COVID. And your aunt and uncle down the street have COVID too. I didn't have a car at the time.

33:28I was living in the city. I'm going to pick you up. And like, if you want to come, I'm going to pick you up in like an hour. You have an hour to decide if you want to come home. Being the, like, considering my parents gave me everything in life. I was like, of course I have to go home. I don't, if I'm going to get COVID, I'm going to get COVID. But of course I have to go home. So my sister picks me up and we go home and she's a doctor. So we have like full hazmat suits on. We have an N95 mask. We have sunglasses, gloves. And, um, you know, I remember walking into the house and my house usually smells lovely of food or, you know, flowers.

34:05It smelled so bad of sickness. And I was like, oh boy, like this is crazy. And me and my sister were so paranoid. We thought we were going going to die? Because at the time, nobody, it was so scary. We didn't know anybody who had COVID. We were the first family impacted out of everybody. And so we were like, are we going to die? Is everybody going to, like, is everybody going to die? Like, what is happening? And my sister played the role of doctor. And I went from, like, top podcaster and, you know, business executive at Disney to janitor. That was my job. And so I was just focusing on cleaning the house, cooking, making sure everybody was okay.

34:45And for two weeks, we would be in full gear. And the only time we would eat would be at like 10 or 11 p.m. once we were done taking care of everybody. All we had was like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We were living on the couch. We had like old blankets from when we were kids because we didn't know anything about the disease. So we assumed everything upstairs was just like contaminated and had COVID all over it. So everybody started to get better except for my dad. My dad started to deteriorate even worse. And so at a certain point, me and my sister were like, you know what? F it. We're going to get COVID.

35:16It's obvious. Like, who are we kidding? And I stopped wearing even a mask and I just concentrated on being with my dad. And so we were feeding him. He was like coughing in our faces. We didn't care. And so we just were like trying to take care of our dad. And then a point came where we felt like we had to send him to the hospital. And we didn't want to send him to the hospital because at that time, the hospitals were totally packed. And we knew that he had really bad eyesight and that it would be really difficult for him to be alone in that hospital setting. And we knew we wouldn't be allowed to visit him.

35:48But it came to a point where we had to make that difficult decision. And I remember when we had to take him, that was the last time I spoke to my dad when he was alert. And he said, if you guys send me to the hospital, you're never going to see me again. But we had to make that decision because we were trying to save his life. And he was right. That was the last time I ever saw him alert. And so I remember that time being so difficult. We were, I was working from home. I remember working at HP. I'd be working at HP and have my dad on Zoom next to me with, he was trached. He had tubes in his nose.

36:22He always looked super uncomfortable. Like he didn't look peaceful. He looked very suffering, you know? And so that was super hard and I still had to go to work and figure that all out. And the thing, the biggest regret is that we weren't able to actually visit him in the hospital. We weren't allowed to go visit him. And actually, I didn't see him until he died. And so that was super difficult, but they allowed me to be on Zoom. And my dad couldn't see well, but I thought that he could hear my voice. And so I spent most of my time during the month that he was in that hospital, I didn't do anything really other than work and then sing to my father on Zoom and try to make it as peaceful as possible for him.

37:07And so he passed away May 15th. That's actually the same day as the napkin day that is commemorated. And he passed away on May 15th and he had like the shittiest funeral ever. They buried him with his shoes, with his cell phone. Only six people were allowed at the funeral. And it was really hard for me. And you would think that that would break anyone. You would think that I would just sign off for the year and that, okay, this year is over, worst year of my life. But it wasn't. It was actually the best year of my life because that was the first half of 2020. And the second half of 2020 ended up being the best year of my life.

37:48So at the time, when my dad was in the hospital, I met this lady named Heather Monaghan. Heather Monaghan is a huge influencer on LinkedIn. and I interviewed her for my show and she kind of wouldn't leave me alone after. I had a team of volunteers since I started Young and Profiting Podcast. By episode two, I had my first volunteer. He's now my business partner. By episode eight, I had 10 volunteers in a Slack channel helping me work on my show and so I knew everything about podcasting. So I teach one guy in Estonia how to build websites and run that for me. I teach one guy in Atlanta how to do my videos.

38:22I taught one person how to do my social and I would just teach all these interns and volunteers how to work on my show. And we created a Slack channel. And that was basically like our office. And Heather was like, your videos are so good in different holla. Like, can you do this for me on LinkedIn? And I was like, nope, I'm really busy. Like my dad's in the hospital. Like it's not the right time. I just have a volunteer group. Like I can't do this for you. We can only do it for me. And she wouldn't let up. And I was interested in her being my mentor. So she asked me for a call so that I could teach her how to make those videos.

38:54And I was like, sure, I'll teach you how to make these videos. So I take a call with Heather, and I show her my Slack channel. I'm showing her all our processes and our templates. And she's like, Hala, I just had a call with VaynerMedia. Your stuff is better than theirs. I have to be your first client. You have to start a business. Just trust me. And I was like, all right, I'll do your videos. And so she paid us like$600 a month to do our videos. I was like, it was nothing. But then it ended up being, I took over her whole LinkedIn. Then I took over her whole podcast. Our second client was like a$30 ,000 retainer, and it was a very powerful billionaire client that we got.

39:30And then everything changed. I was able to hire all my volunteer team. I was able to expand my team and continue to grow this side hustle.

39:39Hala Taha:Young and Profiters, this year I'm all about not missing opportunities. And for me, that starts with not missing any calls, because a missed call is money walking out the door. Quo, spelled Q-U-O, is a business phone system that helps you and your team handle calls and texts from one shared number. Think of it as an email inbox, but for your phone. Everything stays in one place, so no conversation gets lost and no customer gets ignored. I've seen how much calmer things feel when everybody in your company can see the full thread. All the calls, texts, voicemails, all together in one place. Replies are faster, customers feel heard and taken care of, and the team stays aligned.

40:20Hala Taha:Quo even uses AI to log calls, summarize conversations, and flag next steps, which takes a lot off your team's mental load. It works right from your phone or computer, lets you keep your existing numbers, and grows with your business. That kind of setup makes a real difference. Make this a year where no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try Quo for free, plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to quo.com slash profiting. That's q-u-o dot com slash profiting. Quo. No missed calls. No missed customers.

40:56Hala Taha:Hey, App Fam. I know a lot of you are working hard to hit new financial goals this year, but it can be tough to get ahead when subscription creep is quietly draining your bank account. I can't tell you how many times I thought I canceled something only to realize later they were still charging me or how many times I tried to cancel, but it was so difficult I couldn't figure it out. And if you're like me, you have way too many subscriptions and bills, and you're probably looking for a way to track and manage them all. Lucky for us, Experian handles all that heavy lifting. Check out Experian Subscription Cancellation and Bill Negotiation, two powerful features that can help you save with minimal effort.

41:34Hala Taha:Experian scans the accounts that you link, finds reoccurring charges, and puts the power in your hands. You can keep the subscriptions you want and cancel the ones that you no longer need or use. Experian can cancel over 200 eligible subscriptions from streaming services to entertainment apps and more. And it doesn't stop there. If you want to also try saving on everyday bills, experienced expert negotiators could help you by finding better rates on eligible bills you're already paying. The best part, you get to keep 100 % of your savings. Get started now with the Experian app and let your BFF, big financial friend, do all the work for you.

42:11Hala Taha:Disclaimer, results will vary. Not all bills or subscriptions are eligible. Savings not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required. See Experian.com for details.

42:25Hala Taha:Yeah, fam, 2026 is the year I'm fully focused on growing my personal brand. I'm taking it to the next level. For years, I was focused on my company. Now I'm focused on building my brand. I'm launching a book and I'm upgrading and updating my website. My website has not been top of mind for years, and it drastically needs an upgrade. And when I was talking to my team about what we're going to do, they strongly recommended that we switch our platform to Framer, which they said is a modern way to build websites in 2026. That's why so many companies from leading startups like mine to Fortune 500 brands are turning to Framer.

43:01Hala Taha:Framer is a powerful website builder and design tool that helps businesses create better websites faster. With Framer, you can design and publish beautiful, high-performing websites without ever touching code. It's a visual drag-and-drop builder with smart AI tools that help you create responsive layouts quickly. And these websites are beautiful and look super custom. Nobody would ever know that you used a drag-and-drop tool. Everything you need is built into Framer, including SEO support, analytics, and collaboration, so you're never duct-taping multiple tools together. It's one of the easiest ways to launch a high-performing website or landing page that looks custom, polished, and professional on any device.

43:38Hala Taha:Learn how you can get more from your dot com from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com slash profiting for 30 % off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com slash profiting for 30 % off. Framer.com slash profiting. Rules and restrictions apply. So one thing leads to another and I end up where I am today. I'm a full-time entrepreneur. I quit my job at Disney. I ended up being able to reinvest in my podcast and grow it very large to be the number one education show across all podcasts. I got the cover of Podcast Magazine January of 2021. I learned that I was going to be interviewing Matthew McConaughey at the end of 2020.

44:19And so my whole year turned around. And in my podcast, I always ask one question at the end of the show. And Brian and Darius both know this. I always say, what is your secret to profiting in life? And so I always interview all these people who are mega successful. And I never, ever thought that I had value to actually contribute to that question. What is your secret to profiting in life? And then after 2020 was the first time that I actually felt like I could help answer that question with my secrets to profiting in life. And so I'd love to go over that with you guys next. And I hope you're enjoying this conversation.

45:06Okay, so secret number one, create your own lane. When a gatekeeper is telling you no, instead of going and trying to beg that gatekeeper, instead of looking for other similar gatekeepers, create your own path. Because I found that creating my own path was always a fast track to success. When I was fired from Hot 97, I started StrawberryBunt.com and the sorority of hip-hop, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. It didn't end the way I quite imagined, but I learned a lot of skills, and it was still one of the best experiences of my life. When I didn't get MTV, I ended up, you know, owning my own life, going back to school.

45:47When I didn't get the Young Employee Network, I started Young and Profiting Podcast, and thank God for those no's, because if it wasn't for those no's, I wouldn't be where I am today. And then in terms of creating your own path, there's some ways to turbocharge that. Having a team, which I always had, and having a team believe in you. And then also having somebody other than yourself believe in you. So I felt like my father also turbocharged my destiny because he always believed in me, whether anybody else did or not. And then the second secret to profiting in life is finding your talent stack.

46:22So I actually learned this from Scott Adams. He's the creator of Dilbert. So that's a very famous cartoon. It's syndicated in all the newspapers. And it's basically like a funny cartoon about this guy who's in business. And so Scott Adams really taught me about this idea of talent stacking. So for him, he was a decent writer. He was a decent drawer. And he was funny. And he knew a bit about business and computer and the IT world. So he put that all together and he created Dilbert and it was a massive success. Now he wasn't the best in all of these things. He wasn't the best drawer, the funniest guy in the world.

46:59He was just decently good at all of it. He put it all together and he had a unique offering that he could share to the world. I think that my story is very similar. I was a great podcaster and my show took off right away because I had the experiences to build my talent stack to make me the best podcaster and eventually the best CEO of Yap Media. I had radio experience. I had blogging experience. I had ran multiple social media channels for Fortune 500 companies. And I put all these things together and knew how to build teams and recruit teams. I put all those skills together and created the podcast and then eventually Yap Media.

47:35So find your talent stack. And the next one is that life is limitless. When my father was dying, I never felt so much fire in my belly. I wanted to take over the world. Heather Monaghan gave me a kick in the butt. And after that, I was ready to take over the world because I realized that life was limitless. Like my father loved to live. He still was writing a book. He wasn't finished with life. And I felt like, man, like life can just end at any moment. You never know. And not only that, I felt like I was playing small. To the outside world, it probably seemed like I had made it. I had a great executive career at Disney.

48:13I was running all their email and mobile marketing. I had a top podcast. You would think like, oh, this girl's got it all. But to me, I was actually playing small. Like my whole life, I wanted to be a star. I wanted to be famous and to make a huge impact on the world. And so I realized I was playing too, too small. And so I finally got back to that 19-year-old Hala who is obsessed with the law of attraction and who really believed that you could create your dream life. And I got that fire back in my belly. And Robert Greene, who I also interviewed on my show, he's the author of the laws of human nature and the 50th laws of power, huge author.

48:51And he taught me about the law of death denial. So in the law of death denial, it says that most people are actually scared to confront the idea of death. They don't even think about it. They avoid the thought of death. Now, Robert suggests that instead of doing that, you should embrace the idea of death. Think about your death so that it actually motivates you to a life of purpose and fulfillment. And so my ask to everybody here today is not to wait until you're on your deathbed, not to wait until somebody you love is on their deathbed to feel that fire in your belly and realize that life is limitless.

49:30Thank you.

49:48Guys, we have time for questions. I did want to give you your present. Thank you. Oh, thank you. You were amazing. Thank you. That was really good. Thanks. Yeah, we have some time for questions. So I have a mic, so let's go to Brian. Yeah, thanks, Hala. Good to get to know your personal story rather than just, you know, you and I have interacted on Zoom and a few side conversations, but it's great to hear the personal side. So thanks for sharing. Are you on a quest or a path? A quest or a path? You know, I, right now I feel like I don't know what my ultimate vision is, but I know that I'm focused on making a huge positive impact with the world.

50:32And one of the things that I recently did was launch my podcast network, which I'm super excited about. But I feel like there's another element to my life's purpose that I haven't discovered yet. And I think it probably has to do with Palestine. But I feel like, to be honest, I'm not ready yet to do that. So, because I know you'd always think big and execute big. If you could think five years into the future, what would you manifest? You want me to answer that question? Well, I think, yeah, media is going to be a thousand-person company, 100%. I think I'm going to have the biggest podcast network in the world, and we're probably going to be bought by Spotify or something like that.

51:13And I think that at that point, I'll be so secure in my career that I can start really giving back and help educating people about some of the oppression and occupation and issues that are going on in Palestine that in this very juncture today, I can't do yet because I'm not successful enough to do that. From your perspective as the youngest person in the room, what is the future of marketing? The future of marketing. So I don't think obviously social media is going away. I do think that platforms like Instagram and Twitter are definitely going to fizzle out. They're already losing their organic growth.

51:51I believe that social audio still hasn't found its footing. And I believe that social audio will find its footing. And that's going to be huge. In terms of podcasting, I think it's going to turn into like VR and more of like a VR experience. And that's definitely the future of podcasting. And in general, I just think like the metaverse is going to be the future of marketing and social media, making sure that you're relevant in the metaverse. And companies will have real estate in the real world and the metaverse. Social audio. Social audio? They probably know what that is. So social audio, it's, it's, um, so there's these apps like Clubhouse and Greenroom.

52:30And basically it's a type of technology or social app where it's just audio only, but it's very engaging. And so there's usually like a stage where there's a panelist and then you can kind of bring up audience members. And it's basically like an interactive podcast is that you can think of it. The, the foundation that your dad was and what he did for everyone. How's the family now? And how's your mom? How's everybody doing? How's everybody come together now that your dad's passed? Our family is doing amazing because I feel like my dad left with such a strong foundation. So my mom's doing great.

53:07My brothers and sisters are all doctors, super successful. We're super blessed. So everybody's doing great. Thanks for asking. I'm a little nervous to ask this question. So let me see if I can get it out. Okay. your 12 year old little girl was being attacked by a country for being who you were and there are children in states right now that are trans children that are being attacked for being who they are what do you wish rooms like this would have done for you when you were a little girl when you were under attack for that's a good question Wow, that's a good question. So, like, let's just face it.

53:49I'm just going to call it how it is. Most of the people in this room are white, right? White men. So I remember being a little Palestinian girl, thinking I was just a regular American girl. And I remember having parents' friends. They'd ask me, what's your heritage, Hala? Where are you guys from? And I'd say, I'm from Palestine. And literally multiple times I've had parents say, Palestine doesn't exist. Imagine being a little girl and being told that like your whole life is a lie and you don't even exist, right? So one of the things that I would say is educate yourself. Have some compassion, you know.

54:24Educate yourself about what's really going on. And the other thing that I would say is for me, I'm in a really tricky place because I've seen things with my own eyes. I feel a very certain way about it, but I've been canceled. I didn't tell you guys every story of my life. You know, I've been canceled multiple times for talking about Palestine. And so I'm like, you could ask Darius, I wasn't even going to mention it today.

54:48Hala Taha:And he was like, he was like, you better mention it. I took it out of my speech because I was like, I don't want to get canceled. Like my career is taken off. I don't want anybody to hate me. Like I love people like, and I try to stay out of it because I understand that I'm not powerful enough to talk about it yet, but maybe some of you guys in this room are. And so I want to wait until I've got so much foundation that nobody can tear me down because I've been torn down before. I've been shadow banned on Instagram. Like I literally, one of the reasons why I blew up on LinkedIn is because Instagram shadow banned me for so many years and nobody saw my stuff.

55:28And so I know what it's like to be canceled. And so what I'd ask is that open your mind. Don't just look at the media. Don't listen to the same stories that everybody told you. Like there's stuff going on in the world that you need to learn about and do research about and listen to the people who are going through it and then be an advocate and stand up for them if you have the power and if you have the foundation where no one's going to tear you down. But there are people like me and people who are transgender or Palestinian or, you know, whatever it is, whatever the minority group is, who don't have the power to stand up for themselves and who will be canceled and their life will be way more impacted than if you stood up for them.

56:11And I know it's a hard thing to ask because people are scared to speak out because everybody's trying to protect their livelihood. But at some point, people need to stand up for what's right and equal human rights across the board for everyone.

56:31So I have a question. Thank you for your presentation. And as one of the non-white male guys here, wearing my fucking NFT shirt, okay? Actually, a serious question. Have you ever thought of, like, you know, having your voice on the blockchain where it is actually sensorless? Like, you can't be canceled, so you can actually have your voice out there? Yeah, I mean, I've started to dabble in NFTs and getting involved. But I haven't figured out my master plan there yet. But I think that's a great opportunity for me to kind of speak out and not have as many of the risks as I would if I did it on, like, Instagram or LinkedIn.

57:10So, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. I just had something to say. Happy birthday. Thank you.

57:22It was yesterday, yeah. We could do a belated happy birthday, couldn't we? It was Justin. Yeah, we got to sing it though. We're going to sing you a belated happy birthday. Come on, everybody. On three. One, two, three. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Hala. Happy birthday to you

58:01Hala Taha:Thank you, everybody.

58:07Thank you. All right. Is there any other questions for Hala? Oh, let's go for it. Sure. You know, being counseled and all, all over and over again, you were quits. People quit on you and fired you. What was that thing that kept you going and believing in yourself? Honestly, it was my dad. It was knowing that my dad got out of poverty when all the odds were stacked against him. Like, he was literally the, like, his dad didn't even have a first grade education. And he went off to become, like, chief of surgery of multiple hospitals. And so for me, I always felt like I had zero excuse to not be even 10 times more successful than he was.

58:48And so really, it was always my dad thinking about, like, everything that he sacrificed. because all he did was study his whole life and all he did was give back his whole life. His whole life was like for his family and dedicated for his family. So for me, that was always a driving factor to make sure that nothing he did was in vain and that I would help build my family's generational wealth and 10X it, hopefully. Any other questions? We have one more. As you noticed, you just sent me a LinkedIn message about 15 minutes ago. Congratulations, I didn't see you do that while you were on stage. I have a good team.

59:21she geofenced the whole room and you all have invites too that's so funny thank you guys all right thank you

59:32thank you