Hala Taha: Transform Career Setbacks into Business Success | Entrepreneurship | 7 Years of YAP

24:04And I really rose up the ranks really quickly in four years. And then my last year at Hewlett Packard, I started my podcast, Young and Profiting as a side hustle. There it is. Then I moved to Disney streaming services with my podcast and my podcast got big right away. I actually started posting on LinkedIn and really focused on that platform, became an influencer on that platform. And then that popped off first. And then my podcast quickly popped off after that, I would say. You got us fired up here. I'm about to flip a table because what I resonate with you, you're hustling. I hustle too. I got a competitive fire in me.

24:36You won't believe, but check this out. You have, it sounds like this story that we keep oscillating between on this show, which is art listeners for the most part are job seekers, meaning we're all seeking, right? So they're on the one side of job seeking where it's really aggressive and active, or they're just looking or they're building. And what we've talked about in the show is there's two different paradigms here. There's one which is an intrapreneur, sort of what you built within Hewitt, right? You built and you worked your way up within the corporate structure. And then there's other folks like myself, the horror stories where I couldn't fit into the corporate space because I was so entrepreneurial.

25:11I cannibalized my own efforts within that. So I just wanted to say for you, you had this competitive fire. Did you recognize that even within Hewitt? Like if you laid off today or whatever, if like so many people getting low, would you go back into the corporate space? Or did you just know what the launch of the podcast and what happened afterwards, I'm built to be my own entrepreneur. So when I was at Hewlett Packard, I actually loved that company. And it was led by a woman, Meg Whitman at the time. And I literally thought that I was just going to be the CMO. Being a woman at HP, you got treated with the same amount of respect as a man, which is really not the case in a lot of companies.

25:51And the other advantage that I had is that I started as an intern and I wasn't afraid of being an intern. And so I paid my dues and everyone really respected me because I started as an intern and then I got my next promotion, my next promotion, my next promotion. And everybody saw me grow up at Hewlett Packard. And then I was really involved in the culture. So from the start, I was president of the Young employee network and then part of the global young employee network and would fly around, always just do things for the company. And when I first started at Hewlett Packard, I was really afraid because all my friends have been in corporate already for like four or five years.

26:26I'm starting so late. I have such a crazy resume and I joined the marketing team. And what I found is that I was light years ahead of everybody else. I was way better at social than everybody else. I had way more graphic skills and video skills and SEO skills and all these things that nobody else had because I had been teaching myself all that stuff for so many years, building my own stuff, that I was actually way more advanced than everybody else. They had institutional knowledge and I had the internet, right? And so I actually ended up crushing everybody else and like outperforming everybody else when I was scared that it was going to be quite the opposite.

27:02So it gave me a really big advantage being an entrepreneur. But I am so thankful for my corporate experience because it gave me discipline and I learned how to use PowerPoint and do presentations, it enabled me to become my full potential as an entrepreneur because I got to learn on Hewlett Packard's dime on how to present and how to create awesome content and so on. So I really appreciate that experience. But my experience at Disney was the total opposite. It was a boys club. So I look really young for my age. I'm 39. And even at Disney, I looked 10 years younger than I was. So I went to Disney, even though I had all the experience, they started treating me like an intern again.

27:41And I was running their whole like email mobile team, but not given the director position. I didn't get promoted. And everybody just treated me so differently than I was treated at Hewlett Packard. And that's when I started my company, Yap Media, like the actual agency, my social media podcast agency as a side hustle, because I was like, I'm never going to make it at this company. They poached me, paid me a lot more. But suddenly my career trajectory was so much lower. I might have just stayed at Hewlett Packard forever if I never left and just kept rising up the ranks. I wouldn't even thought of becoming an entrepreneur.

28:15Disney pushed me into becoming an entrepreneur because I was like, I'm not a man. And I see all these younger guys getting promoted because they're out drinking beers with the boss and nobody wants to touch me because I'm too pretty basically, because nobody wanted to be my mentor in that way. And so I just needed to do my own thing. There's two patterns that you can recognize, and maybe for some of our listeners to be paying attention to. The first is, in your case, clearly you were not a quiet quitter. You were actually quite the opposite at the Hewlett-Packard experience. And we talk a lot about on this show about how there's disillusionment in the workplace, and sometimes that results in a form of quiet quitting.

28:51The type that actually go on to create amazing companies and independent opportunities are the ones that are overachieving. And so if you find yourself in that realm where you're disillusioned, you're quiet quitting, that doesn't promise well in terms of how you're going to perform outside if you go independent. I think that's an important point from your story. But I think the second one, as well as how dramatically different an experience can be across different companies and cultures. And so night and day, you mentioned between Disney and... God, I hope Disney is not an advertiser in Glass Store.

29:22Disney Streaming Services, which was BAM tech, really. So it wasn't really proper Disney. It was Disney Streaming Services, which was really BAM tech. And so I think that's another lesson pattern for the listeners to be aware of is that dramatically different experience, just hopping different companies within similar or semi-similar industries. So, yeah, I just wanted to mention that. Hala, did Disney or Hewlett-Packard, did anyone have any negative feedback about the fact that you had your podcast? Were they concerned? I love this question. Was there any drama there? Hewlett-Packard was very supportive.

29:54In fact, I was more popular than both CEOs on LinkedIn than the CEO of Hewlett-Packard and the CEO of Disney. I had more followers than them. Oh my gosh. So Hewlett-Packard would ask me to like post stuff and like go to the conferences and post stuff and things like that. They were really supportive. They allowed me to like go home. My parents' house was right near the office. So I would go and record during lunchtime, my podcast. And like, they were all supportive. I was like a rockstar at Hewlett-Packard. They let me do whatever I want. at Disney. I also had my podcast. And when I applied for the job, I had to note that the podcast existed about six months.

30:33They caught wind of my podcast and how popular it was. They noticed Disney tried to say they owned my podcast. Oh, hell no. You carved it out. You carved it out. I did. So the VP of my department had to say no. And like, they were trying to say that they owned my podcast. And then I had to be like, it existed before I started here and I put it in writing when I started. So that went away. But yeah, at one point they tried to say that they owned my podcast. Real quick advice for our listeners, just based on a post where someone basically says, hey, listen, I'm applying for an internal job. I have a side hustle that has tons of relevant experience and I do it all in my spare time.

31:13Should I list this? Should I talk about it. On my resume, LinkedIn, etc., I have it listed that I'm a founder. So they're a bit worried. So you're kind of in that situation where you've seen both sides of it. Any advice for that? It's just opinion. But just from your point of view, with someone who has a relevant side hustle, but it's not deterring them from doing their work, is that something they should be scared of? Should they list their side questions? Yeah, should they list it? If it is related to the same industry, I think it's problematic. But if they have an Etsy store and they work at a tech company, I don't think you need to list it personally.

31:49I think that's smart. In your case, I think Disney wanted to own it because it was a piece of media. They're like, hey, this is a great addition to our portfolio. Luckily, or not even luckily, I mean, smartly, you had carved it out, right? In advance. And so, yeah, I think that makes sense. If it's in the same industry, you want to negotiate that upfront and just make sure it's carved out if you're going to post on your resume as it. So would it be fair to say that this entrepreneurial choice, whether Disney kind of puts you in that, or at least that experience with the Disney streaming services, puts you in that experience.

32:18I can relate to this. That said, as an entrepreneur now, I think if I have it right, like 2022 Yat Media, it launches correct as an agency? 2021. 2021? Okay. So 2021 Yat Media Network launched. And as of 2025, it's pacing to hit eight figures? Yeah. We're going to hit hopefully 10 million this year. So no big deal there. That said though, would you say that this entrepreneurial role has democratize the experience for you as a business person, as a business woman. I'm looking over at you, Leah, because Leah, you've done so many great things as an entrepreneur as well. Maybe you guys can chat a little bit just in terms of, do you feel that it changed the game as opposed to, let's say in the story we heard, sure, there's good cultures within companies and then there's cultures that are really bad, especially for women, especially for whatever, different experiences.

33:08My point is, with that being said, does that just take away all that other shit and just say, let's equalize the playing field and let's make this a competition rather than a boys club? Okay, so for me and Leigh, I'm happy for you to chime in as well. I'll just say a couple of thoughts that I have. So all the things that were weaknesses for me at Disney, like I look really young, I look really feminine, all of those were advantages on social media. So suddenly I got to use all these things that held me back and corporate to my advantage because I was really smart and I was really a hard worker, but then I was judged.

33:45But on social media, that's a positive thing. So I was able to put photographs and videos and that like helped me build my personal brand. And essentially my whole business is built off the back of me having a personal brand. And essentially before the term existed, I was a creator entrepreneur. And so I built this asset, LinkedIn, and then I built another asset, podcast. And then suddenly I had an audience-based business and I could sell them anything. And so I had an audience-based business on LinkedIn and podcasts where I could get sponsorships, do affiliates, sell my own products and courses, sell basically whatever I wanted.

34:22And then the guests that would come on my show had a lot of money and I was able to sell them high ticket things like agency services or joining my podcast network where I get 30 % of all their sponsorships and the personal brand that they've built. So basically I was able to monetize in all these different ways. And it all started honestly with growing a personal brand with LinkedIn and the podcast. And like I mentioned, the things that held me back previously in corporate were actually accelerators online. I feel like a lot of women I'm sure can relate to that. And even within the corporate world, I was also told I was too girly.

34:59I was too nice. I basically came across as someone who was too friendly or too fun, essentially. And those were things that even within the corporate world, within the agency and the team that I built and the clients that I had, I was able to turn into advantages even in the corporate world. It was about finding the right agency, the right boss who appreciated those things because your team doesn't want to work with someone who's an asshole all the time. So it's crazy to tell someone in the corporate world, oh, you're too nice. Like, what do you want me to just be a jerk all of the time? Like, it's ridiculous.

35:35Proof that that was a sabotage tactic on both your parts is that when you took that same personality and demeanor to the public, to social media, you were absolutely embraced. You know, both of you have sizable influence level followerships on different networks. And so I think that's clearly corporate sabotage of the old school game type 80s and 90s machismo. One question, follow-up question I just had, Hala, is that you were really early with the LinkedIn influence. I think it's one thing to say, hey, you know what, there's an amazing opportunity here on Facebook or Instagram or even TikTok.

36:06But with LinkedIn, many people didn't look at LinkedIn as a place to monetize persona and likes and influence. And what was it about the network that had you embraced it so early on before others really saw that opportunity? I think some of it was strategic. Some of it was I had no choice. So I was shadow banned on Instagram. I'm Palestinian, right? So they've been shadow banning me forever, right? So I was shadow banned on Instagram since 2014. Was it because you're posting political stuff or just? There was a big war that happened or like situation that happened in 2014. that was the biggest thing that happened since what just is happening now, right?

36:48That was a huge thing where like, as a Palestinian, you have all this responsibility to try to save people that you don't know. And it's really tough. And so I ended up posting a lot just trying to educate people about the apartheid and all this kind of stuff that was happening there because the media did not do a good job of saying both sides of the story. So as a Palestinian, you always feel like you've got to be the journalist because the media doesn't talk about it. And you feel like you need to be the one speaking the truth to everybody. It's not a job that I ever want. I hate being political.

37:22And I wasn't political for many years. But every time there's something huge, as a Palestinian, it's like you've got all this guilt of being one that survived and trying to save other people that you don't even know. So I was posting a bunch of stuff in 2014 to try to educate people. And I've been shadow banned on Instagram ever since then. And so I was never primed to do well on that platform. I get all the features late. I got reels two years after it launched. I got broadcast channels two years after it launched. I never get the features on time, whatever. So to me, that was a dead end. So I focus on LinkedIn for two reasons.

37:59One is it's professional. And I started this podcast called Young and Profiting, which was like a business podcast. I was no longer in the music world. And my Instagram was also really branded as me from Holla from Hot 97 and Sorority of Hip Hop and all that kind of stuff. So it was a chance for me to be somebody new with people who didn't know me. And so I basically started my brand completely from scratch and rebranded myself as a professional podcaster in the business world. And before I was this, you know, hip hop party girl on Instagram. So I got to rebrand myself and found a place where I had all my target audience.

38:38And then I also like had experience. I was posting on LinkedIn for Hewlett Packard and I kind of knew how it all worked. And I was like, I think I could do this. I think I can compete and do better on LinkedIn than I would on Instagram. LinkedIn then and now, is there a shift there? I mean, this is a different issue we were talking about before, but now do you notice an oversaturation? Every place, you know, wherever the eyeballs and the ears are, people run to. That's kind of part of the game. Yeah. I mean, now you go down your LinkedIn feed, you just have a bunch of errands. Errands, I'm not around.

39:09No, it's a very crowded space. There's a very crowded space. No one's watching Aaron's stuff on LinkedIn, by the way. LinkedIn's algorithm has changed over the years. You know, I've been running the number one LinkedIn marketing agency for a long time. We used to get our posts getting like 100 ,000 likes, 50 ,000 likes. Now something going viral and getting like 10 ,000 likes is a huge deal, right? And it used to just be easier to go viral. but one thing I'll say is that LinkedIn is a completely hackable algorithm still. I can teach people how to basically hack the algorithm. I have a masterclass.

39:41You just need to understand the publishing and engagement strategies. To your point, here's what I love about your approach, what I'm hearing is that, look, if it's a market and it's an open platform, make it an open platform. To your point, hacking to me is just giving it the equal opportunity to either be liked or not liked. There's nothing worse, whether it's shadow banned or suppressed or whatever. There's just nothing worse when you have something to offer and you don't necessarily know how to work the system because that's an impediment between you and a potential audience. What I love that you've done here is that you've opened up this system wherever it's at.

40:15You've gone out of necessities to these different places and you've tested the market in a fair and equitable way. It's a real marketplace. And you said, this is who I am. This is what I bring to the environment. This is my show. This is the advice I can create. And then you put it out there in a fair game. And then if it sucks, it sucks. But here's the point, it does it. And at this point, like you said, you've grown this agency. So kudos to you. That's fantastic. Thank you.

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44:43I'm obsessed with this model. So if you guys want to take the Working Genius assessment and get 20 % off, you can use code profiting. Go to workinggenius.com. Again, that's workinggenius.com. Stop guessing. Start working in your genius. Let's move on to the last part of the conversation here. I actually think it's perfect the way you highlighted navigating this digital landscape, being on social. In our audience, we have a lot of job seekers who are at work, and they too are building social media presence, whether it's personal or whether it's that side hustle we've been talking about, whether they're building it just for themselves or it ends up being something they can monetize, whether it's full-time or just part-time.

45:23And we've talked a lot about corporate surveillance here as a tool that corporations use to basically check and try to rein in this sort of new world of hybrid and remote work. At the same time, here's a post that says, I thought things were going great at work until my manager pulled me in to say, hey, they'd come across my private Instagram. A coworker had apparently shared a harmless post of me at a bar and a meme about hating Mondays. What? And now I'm being warned it could impact my performance. So I say all this to say, whether you're building a business on purpose. For the record, that company is a loser company.

46:00Yeah, that's ridiculous. That's the most mundane thing ever. Anyway, sorry. No, I was going to say, but to that point, Matt, and Holly, I want to get your take on this. people are building things necessarily, one for themselves personally, or for a business that might not interfere. To your point, there's some best practices. Make sure you're careful here and there. At the same time, how do you navigate that kind of scrutiny? Because you've dealt with scrutiny in a lot of different ways and not stop that thing, that side quest, the thing that brings you joy. What advice do you have for people who are kind of nervous in this new age of corporate surveillance, if that makes sense?

46:32So one of the things that I would say is personal brand is probably one of the most valuable assets that you could have. If you think about all these big entrepreneurs out there, Alex Ramosi, Russell Brunson, Gary V, they've got$100 million plus companies already, but what are they investing their time and money in into their personal brand? Because that's the only thing that can help you create a moat around your company where nobody can copy you exactly because you are the brand, right? And you can pivot any way that you want because you have an audience that's going to buy from you no matter what.

47:04It is the best insurance policy. It's a transferable asset that you take from company to company. And so building your personal brand is a non-negotiable with a company. And I think that if you are able to post in a way that is respectful, in a way that doesn't compete sales-wise with your company and follows your own passions, on social media, everything is based on this interest graph, right? where you want to post about one to three topics over and over again using the same keywords, if those topics don't interfere with your work or make you a thought leader within your industry and make you more valuable at work, your goals are aligned where you're just using your thought leadership to become a better salesperson or close more deals or whatever it is, then there's absolutely no problem.

47:51And if the job has a problem with that, you should get a new job because building your brand, I think is one of the safest things that you could do moving into the future. So I would just say, think about building your personal brand, do it in a way where you're not going to step on toes at work, but also don't be shy about it. And don't let a job prevent you from creating a security blanket for your career. I love what you said about treating it as a non-negotiable. Because I mean, when you think about when you apply for a job, you're negotiating and there's a bunch of criteria and conditions and that you negotiate.

48:23I don't think it's common for folks or professionals to look at your personal brand as a non-negotiable. And I think treating it that way is really smart and puts you in a position to look at it differently, not just like this add-on or this maybe, but like, hey, no, I need to start investing in this, particularly in the age of AI. I know one of the questions we have teed up here is around, I think, AI and maybe potentially the way you see the personal brand space evolving, progressing around AI. One thing, though, before that, let me actually tee this up. And Aaron, feel free to rephrase this question because I think you're better at this question than I am.

48:59Something we've noticed in the personal brand space is that it's kind of evolving or progressing from pure thought leadership where there's someone who's very informed about a topic and can talk about it charismatically to some of that, but also about authenticity. You know, like the Joe Rogans and a lot of individual personalities who may not actually be educated at all formally about some of these topics, just having a lot of trust. How do you see that playing a role in your own evolution and just for others looking to leverage their personal brand? I mean, is that real, this authenticity thing?

49:32And how do you play into it? So there's a lot of things that I can say with this. Number one, authenticity and trust is huge when it comes to building any sort of brand. And the way that you do that is by giving away personal details. The more personal details that you can give about yourself, the more that somebody trusts you, right? For example, if you were to give somebody your bank account information, likely their first name, their last name, you know where they live, you know who their kids are, you know everything about them. Because otherwise you don't trust them enough to give them your bank account information.

50:01So that's how you need to think about trust online. People think it's stupid to take pictures of your food. Well, that's going to build trust because you know what that person's eating. You know what they're doing. You know what their kids look like and so on, right? So the more personal details that you can share, the more trustworthy. As someone who's starting to tiptoe into a personal brand, that one, I totally get it. It freaks me out. How do you get over not wanting to overshare it? Because maybe you're an individual who's been raised where like, yeah, privacy is paramount. Some of it is like an age divide, right?

50:33What are you saying about Matt? No, I'm the same age as Matt. I'm just saying when Facebook was coming out, they were like, don't post too much on Facebook. You'll never get a job. And then the world has changed. And now it's like, post your life on the internet and it will help you maintain a job. And you don't really want to work for a company that doesn't value that aspect of your life. I think it's also about your own mindset there. I saw this meme that when it comes to becoming a creator, creator entrepreneur, everything you want is on the other side of cringe. Oh, that's the truth. You've got to just like be cringe for a while.

51:05Yes, people are going to judge you. Yes, whatever, but you're building an asset. You've got to think about it as like an investment in yourself. The other thing I'll say is for job seekers out there, one of the most important things you can do is build your personal brand, especially on a platform like LinkedIn and become searchable for the fields that you want to get a job in. I remember the reason why I actually left Hewlett Packard, which ended up being great, but at some point I thought it was a mistake, was because Disney saw me on LinkedIn and poached me. You know, they're like, oh, she's got podcast experience.

51:37Nobody knows anything about streaming. We need to hire her. So it can be an advantage in terms of that's how recruiters find you. That's how employers find you. And they'll reach out to you directly on LinkedIn for jobs. So also like growing your personal brand is really important to get a job. The first thing to getting hired, you got to be likable, right? Before you have the skills, are you likable? We had Alison for Gail, she's an author, and she recently came out of the book and she's pointing out what you're saying, which is the synergy between what you two are talking about. And by the way, which I've been, hold on, I've been preaching it for years.

52:11They're finally coming around, Hala. They're finally coming around. Look, it's storytelling. At the end of the day, to your point, you got to be able to tell your own story for our job seekers out there, for our listeners. People think, okay, I'm just going to deliver. I'm going to go in there. I'm going to be a great employee. Cool. But you got to tell your story. You got to leverage a narrative. And what Hala's talking about is wonderful in the sense that part of that is vulnerability, sharing personal details. It can be selective. It doesn't have to be everything. You don't have to document from morning to night.

52:40As a storyteller, when I check in seven minutes on audio with an extemporaneous story with all my audience, I'm just sharing portions of my life, right? But to Hala's point, you're giving something and you're saying, hey, listen, I have something to risk here. Here's a promise I'm going to make you. First, I'm going to take you from A to B to C. Second, I'm going to share something of me with you. And to your point, that's probably why you've noticed that trust is built over time. And I think what Matt, what you were saying where you can kind of still parse out the folks that are out there touting to be halatahas and saying like, okay, yeah, and you know, it's the differences, you won't trust them because they're not giving anything of themselves.

53:17It's sort of just a facade, it's performance art. So it is a new skill we have to have in this digital age to figure out who are the people who are giving something about themselves, sharing value, willing to be vulnerable, to your point, on the other side of cringe, and those who are just willing to give you a facade. And if you can tell that, that's where the trust factor comes in. To that point, for a lot of people sitting right now, some of you guys are sneaking hash browns in your pocket in the cafeteria. I know those listening right now. You're hiding in the bathroom at your job. Maybe your work made you come back into the office and you're tired of it and you're listening to the lonely office.

53:51Maybe you have this sense that you want to grow inside your company. Maybe you have this sense that maybe it's time to leave. Holly, you've been through a lot as far as the obstacles that you've overcame, as well as the media empire that you essentially have built. Are there certain skill sets outside of just your personal skill set? Are there universal things that you see that people can hold on to as a lighthouse to know that no matter what happens, they have the tools to still be able to overcome something as scary as, oh, something shifted. I got booted. My dream was deferred kind of deal.

54:25Any sort of motivational advice or at least some insights there? So one thing that I'll go back to is start building your personal brand. I don't care if you feel like you have nothing to talk about. One thing I want to know, and it goes back to something I think Matt was asking about, is that you can have whatever relationship that you want with your audience. You don't have to be the expert. You can be the cheerleader. When I first started, I was a reporter. All I did was interview really smart people. I didn't think I could teach people yet, right? And so I would just interview smart people and report out what I learned.

54:57And that was my relationship. Other people, they're more of like hype women, hype man. There's so many different relationships that you can take with your audience. It doesn't have to be expert yet. Or you could be somebody who's documenting their learning journey on a certain topic. They want to become an expert and they're going to show you how their transition, right? Everybody loves the transformation. So there's so many different roles that you can take with your audience. So don't let you feeling like you've nothing to talk about stop you from building your personal brand. Y 'all get that?

55:27Yeah. Don't let fear get in the way. That's what I'm hearing. Don't let fear. think about like, okay, what are you passionate about? What is the relationship with your audience? What is the topic and the keywords that you're going to focus on so the algorithm knows how to find you and show you to the relevant users? And just do that over and over and over and over again until you get better at it. And that's going to give you insurance in this world because AI is coming. And I really think that the most successful people that I even see now, I see all my friends who stayed in corporate, a lot of them, unfortunately, are laid off or they're unhappy or their salary hasn't changed in five years.

56:03Meanwhile, I'm making a million dollars a year personally. I've 10X what I used to make in corporate. Is Hot 97 still around? They're asking me how can I grow a podcast? I've got the DJs like, how can I get in podcasts? So it's all coming full circle. But basically what I'm trying to say is nothing will compare in terms of the scalability and the compounding that will happen with your ability to make income more than building a personal brand. Nothing compares right now. So every successful person that I know that has an extremely successful company also, for the most part, has a really great brand or they've been doing it for 30 years and they've been able to like skirt around it.

56:42You know, but anybody who's somebody younger, under, you know, 60 years old, 50 years old, You got to have a personal brand. This is the future. AI is scary. The other thing I'll say is I interview on my podcast, Younger Profiting, a lot of AI folks. And this is going to go really deep, but we might be the last generation that is able to really live our own purpose. How so? Go further with that. We might live in a world soon where all the problems are solved. And so it's like a wake-up call. It's like, what are you going to do to live in your purpose? We might be the last generation or the last generations of people that actually have a purpose because there's still problems to solve.

57:22Just on that note, I got to share the story. There's a well-respected VC I worked with before recently. They just posted about an incident where they met up with a college dropout from Stanford. He dropped out freshman year and he asked him, why are you dropping out? You know, everybody's given multiple reasons. It's not a new narrative. He said because he was afraid this is the last opportunity to kind of lock in his status, his wealth, you know, etc. Before his funding, before AI takes it all. Yet clearly there's this fear, you know, whether it's irrational or rational is another podcast. We can talk about it, but this fear does exist.

57:59And we know it exists even amongst the professional listeners to this podcast. We've talked about it many times and called in and get questions on. their further job is being automated away. Something that we thought only would happen to blue-collar workers in Ohio is now happening to the white-collar class. It is. It is going to happen. I've talked to every single expert. I've talked to all the inventors of AI. It's really scary. It literally is going to happen. AI is going to basically automate almost every single job that we can think of. What about storytellers, Hela? One of the only things that it's not going to be able to take away is sports, maybe some sort of art storytelling it might be nostalgic to listen to a podcaster and a real human but a lot of things are going to go away and what you need to figure out is how you can basically take ai and make yourself more powerful this concept of ai agents there's going to be a world in which you can have a whole company that's just you and your army of ai agents and you're able to work on things and have extreme intelligence and it's just you and a bunch of agents.

59:05People are going to be co-founding companies with their AI agents. I can attest to that one. I think I mentioned on this podcast before, the new startup I have cooking, I've elected not to take a co-founder on or even a chief of staff because I found my AI partner has done that job. And he'd done it really well, frankly, where a co-founder I usually needed just to bounce ideas off of or achieve the staff I needed to research areas, I can do it in minutes on the podcast. The one thing I want to say is, by the way, Aaron doesn't know this, but I've already cloned and developed 10 Aaron AI agents.

59:40I'm ready to just outsource. Is there anybody out there? You know, dismiss Aaron. Oh my gosh. People who are strategic, who are creative thinkers, people who are smart now and great entrepreneurs now are just going to keep becoming smart people now and creative entrepreneurs in the future with AI, right? It's just don't be scared of it. Use it. Figure out how to take advantage of creating business models around it now while everybody wants AI and it's still new and there's still opportunities to monetize leveraging AI. Think about how to use it in your workflows. It's going to be basically working with it for a while until it's not.

1:00:14And hopefully things go well and it's more of like a positive world where all the problems are solved and we're all rich and, you know, or it could go a whole other way where it's AI takes over and we're more treated like animals now. It is scary. If anybody wants to take a listen to some of my episodes about it, it's like every big expert kind of has the same but different opinions. It's like it could just swing either way. You know, I always say on this is I always say we're either going to live in a Star Trek world or a Matrix world. The Star Trek world is a hybrid world where we use it to our advantage and adapt.

1:00:46And a Matrix world is we're all batteries. So that being said, hope we don't go down that world. And for a bit of a balm for the listeners, I hear what you're saying and it's real. on that note for folks that don't have the entrepreneurial gene what i'm hearing from you because a bulk of our listeners too are within the corporate structure or small medium-sized businesses the skills you're talking about though challah those can be applied inside your job i have worked at places where it was like i made up my own title i became like storyteller and chief you can do whatever you want you can take an entrepreneurial approach and become an entrepreneur so that's another thing i always want to talk to listeners about don't just rely on the skill set.

1:01:22Matt always says, change is happening. We all know that's inevitable. And just adapt your skill set to be like an entrepreneur inside. And then to your point, they come to you as a thought leader in those spaces. You've seen that in your work. They come to you. How do you do that? How do you leverage AI? Work that side hustle and you can integrate it into a job as well. I'm not trying to make it sunshine and rainbows, but I'm saying there is in between the here and the, you know what I'm saying? There's ways we can adapt in the corporate space and outside of the corporate space as well. Yeah. And I think it's just learning how to use the tools so you can 10X your output.

1:01:55Don't be a quiet quitter like we were talking about before. Nobody's going to want to keep a quiet quitter around, especially if you can easily be replaced by AI. Leverage AI to create 10X better productivity than you had before. My whole team uses AI, right? If you leverage AI and you become worth 10 employees, you're not going to get let go. So it's like, how can you step up what you're doing and improve your output with AI in the interim and hopefully everything will be all good. Hala, it was amazing having you here. I know we went over a little bit. Thanks for the extra time. There's going to be all the call to actions, all the links, all the stuff in the episode description on all the platforms for people to check out.

1:02:34Anything in the pipeline, though, that you want to plug? Anything going on? Because I know you got a thousand things going on that you want to talk about right now. If you guys are interested in agency services or production services for social media, gapmedia.com. And also I have a podcast network. So if you have a large podcast and you want sponsorship, hit me up. It was a pleasure not only having you, but also you choosing to join us on The Lonely Office. I know you're busy. Your schedule is busy. Thanks for coming onto the show, and hopefully we can have more conversations in the future. This was awesome.

1:03:08Young Improfitters, I had such a great time being on The Lonely Office podcast. I love their format. It was super unique. So huge kudos to Matt, Aaron, and Leah for having me on. And I hope my story reminded you of how powerful your personal brand can be. Because for me personally, for years, I gave up everything working on other people's dreams, working on a brand that wasn't mine. I worked for free. I played by the rules. I waited for somebody to give me that big break. But the moment I stopped waiting and started building, I took back all my control. My personal brand became my power source.

1:03:43It opened up doors. I was able to build trust. It gave me the leverage I never had in corporate. And here's the truth. Jobs, they come and go. Titles change. But your personal brand, that's yours forever. It follows you from job to job, from industry to industry. It is one asset that just can't be taken away from you because you own it. So whether you're working a nine to five, launching a side hustle, or navigating a major pivot, start building your brand now. It's your ticket to freedom, influence, and future-proofing your success. Yeah, fam, thank you for your attention. I know there's so many other places that you can direct it, and I'm grateful that you're spending time with me on Young and Profiting.

1:04:25And if you listened, learned, and profited from this conversation, please bring it to somebody else's attention. Share this episode with somebody who you know could benefit from it. Also, why not drop us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify while you're at it? It just takes a second, and nothing helps us reach more people than a good review from you. You can also find me on Instagram. at Yacht with Hala or LinkedIn by searching my name. It's Hala Taha. And of course, I've got to give a special shout out to my Yacht Media team. Thank you so much for all your hard work. My show is produced in-house by our award-winning podcast production team.

1:04:58You guys are rock stars. This is your host, Hala Taha, aka the Podcast Princess, signing off.

1:05:15Thank you.