Learnings and Missteps

From Broadway to Brand Building: Liberty Cogen on Reinvention

• Kaelalosey • Season 3

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In this episode of the Learnings and Missteps podcast, host Jesse Hernandez sits down with Liberty Kogan, a construction social media expert with an impressive background in musical theater and business. Liberty shares her journey from performing in Legally Blonde to launching a successful babysitting agency in Atlanta and eventually transitioning into social media marketing for construction companies. Throughout the conversation, they discuss themes of vulnerability, the importance of human connection, and finding fulfillment in one's career and life. Liberty emphasizes the significance of doing what makes you happy, the challenges she faced, and how she rediscovered her passion for theater under different conditions. The episode is filled with insightful and heartfelt advice, making it a must-listen for anyone seeking to navigate their own career and personal growth.



00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
01:29 Getting to Know Liberty Kogan
01:57 The Power of Vulnerability on Social Media
09:00 Liberty's Journey in Theater
17:57 Transitioning from Theater to Business
19:21 Starting a Babysitting Agency
31:40 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
39:46 Auditioning for Kiss of the Spider Woman
41:52 The Importance of Human Connection
43:09 Returning to Atlanta and Facing an Existential Crisis
44:28 Realistic View of Pursuing Arts
50:27 Transition to Social Media for Concrete Companies
54:01 The Power of Authentic Social Media
58:37 Encouraging Vulnerability and Storytelling
01:11:37 The Promise You Are Intended to Be

Set the stage for an amazing new year with the Self First Framework.

https://calendly.com/jesse04/self-first-webinar

Download a PDF copy of Becoming the Promise You are Intended to Be
https://www.depthbuilder.com/books

SPEAKER_03:

If it's not making you happy, don't do it. And it doesn't, and even if you are making a million dollars and it's not making you happy, don't do it.

SPEAKER_00:

What is going on, LM family? Back again. And this time I feel like I have a celebrity or at least a celebrity in my mind. I've been following her on LinkedIn. She is a fespian, a truth teller. And the words that I got to pull off of her profile was construction social media expert. But when you see her stuff, it's a whole lot more than just construction social media expert. She's got some serious game. She's helping construction companies out there market themselves, build their brand, make, and more importantly, make connection with other human beings. And that is no small feat. Her name is Liberty Kogan. We're about to get to know her, and I'm excited because this is the first conversation I've ever had with her. So I get to learn all kinds of stuff with you guys. And before that, if this is your first time here, you are listening to the Learnings and Missteps podcast, where you get to see amazing make it happeners just like you that are sharing their gifts and talents to leave this world better than they found it. I am Jesse, your selfish servant, and we're about to get to know Miss Liberty. Miss Liberty, how are you?

SPEAKER_03:

I'm great, Jesse. I'm so thrilled to be here. First of all, I can't believe this is the first time you and I have ever spoken face to face because I feel like we have like five times.

SPEAKER_00:

I agree.

SPEAKER_03:

I agree totally. But I guess we've just been like chatting on LinkedIn for like four or five years or something at this point. So it feels like I already know you.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to like I want to comment on that to help the LM family out there kind of get some context. I know for me, I have this comfort level with you because of how much you've shared, like your vulnerability, the truth that you've shared about yourself, and not just like yourself, but like your business, the way you think about things, really made it easy for like this person is like, I gotta spend some more time with this human being, even though it was at first just on LinkedIn and then now here, and then who knows what's coming up in the future. But there's extreme value. I mean, maybe that's a data point in terms of how valuable it is to show up. I don't know if the words authentic or whatever, but like to show up the way that you do. I'm just gonna say that. What do you think?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, first of all, thank you for saying that. That really means a lot. It feels good to know that the content that I put out there isn't just disappearing into the void. People are reading it. Hopefully, it's helping people. And some people have shared a woman a couple of weeks ago, or maybe it was last week, I can't remember. And I can't remember what my post was even about, but she shared this beautiful story in the comments about her sister who had passed away from cancer. And she shared about the beautiful moments that she got to spend with her. Oh, I remember because I had talked about I went to New York, I came back home, but I got to be close to my family, and a great positives came out of it. And she said she went through something similar. She went, she moved away from home because she felt like she should and she needed a change, and then realized that she was actually really lonely when she moved away. And so when she moved back and got to spend time with her, I don't know if it was her nieces and nephews, but with her sister and got that valuable time with her sister before she passed away. Like the fact that people will even write that as a comment on one of my posts, I've already won. So experiences like that on LinkedIn really touch me very deeply. And it feels good to know that there are other people, like you said, that are experiencing similar things out there, and you never know until you put yourself out there and say it first.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So well, and I'm gonna go a little further, Library, because I don't think I I need you to see this in case you don't. Your vulnerability is giving other people permission to be vulnerable. Right. And the fact that they're doing it on the internet is uh I think signals something deeper in that maybe they don't have the conditions in their life, like in their immediate circle, IRL circle, to be that vulnerable. Yeah, but because you are demonstrating that behavior, it is emboldening them to come at the same depth. Yeah, and that's like your fault and your gift, I think, even more appropriately, it's your gift to inspire that type of interaction. So you're amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, thank you. You're amazing, you're amazing. I have been following you for, like I said, it's gotta be at least like four years now, and I have always been impressed by your ability to first of all constantly put yourself out there. I remember for a while on LinkedIn and probably like on Instagram and TikTok too, you would like go on like these morning walks. I'm not sure if you're still doing it, but you would just like film yourself, just going on the walk, just like stream of consciousness, just whatever was going on in your mind. And I was like, I wish that I had the ability to put myself out there more like that, and not care about what other people think and not care about judgment. But you, I'm sure you obviously helped me in that way, but you helped other people in putting yourself out there like that. And so, and what I'll say too about the aspect of being vulnerable and I guess talking about yourself on LinkedIn, which that's what we're doing. We're talking about ourselves. In my personal life, I don't really get the opportunity to talk about my work and what I do. My husband and I and my two kids, we live in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I mean, it's on my LinkedIn profile, you can't miss it. So if you're in Tuscaloosa, give me a shout. We moved here in 2018. So we don't have a lot of like, we're from Atlanta originally, we don't have a lot of friends here. Like, I have a couple mom friends here and there. My husband has a couple colleagues that he's kind of surface level friends with. And so when I meet like moms on the playground and stuff like that, they never really ask me, or if they might ask me about what I do, and if they do ask me about what I do, they're like, What the heck is she talking about?

SPEAKER_00:

Like, all right, is that a real thing? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm like, honestly, I don't know. Like, it's a miracle anyone pays me, to be perfectly honest. Because, like, what is it? I don't know, but I never get the chance to talk about my work and how much I love it and how important it is to me. And so I think LinkedIn for me has become that place where I can do that because I'm talking amongst peers in my industry, but also in other industries too. And so for me, it's kind of therapeutic in that way to laugh with people and have DMs with people that aren't business related but are that are just like conversations that springboarded for maybe a post I made or a post they made, and we just become like LinkedIn friends. So I wish I had those LinkedIn friends here in real life, but to have them virtually and to show up every single day means a lot. So that's what LinkedIn has really become for me.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, I think I love the way you're using it because there's I know you know this because this is your profession, but people use it differently.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I don't think it's wrong, like whatever's working for you, do that. Right. But I have a deep appreciation for people like yourself for the way that you show up, because it helps me. Because I'm like, okay, well, then I'm like, I'm not the only one. Right, right. Not because I've chosen or kind of decided like people always ask, like, man, you're crazy, like you don't care. Like, oh no, I do care. Like, my I do have feelings. I get my feelings get hurt and all of the things.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00:

But I do it anyways, because like you said, it can connect with somebody in a certain kind of way. It I mean, hell. So those month, those walks of where I'm just the Monday morning hug. Yeah, those videos you're talking about, I've turned that into a newsletter. Right. So now it's a the newsletter, right? On LinkedIn. It's still the Monday morning hug on all the other platforms. And just the other day, I was talking with Stephanie Wood, another LinkedIn friend. Yeah, and she was like, Jesse, that hug that you put out today was exactly what I needed with the really difficult decision. I'm like, oh my God, that happens once maybe every two years, but it's enough.

SPEAKER_03:

I know, yeah, those moments make it all worth it. I know that sounds super crazy, but it's really true.

SPEAKER_00:

It totally is. Okay. Now I know that this social media marketing expertise world that you're in now is not where you started. No, you started, well, from what I know, or what's caught my interest enough to yes, you were in my theater. You're touring doing legally blonde, which was your dream. And so here I got a simple, like kind of simple question. Yeah. Is that okay? Yeah. So how do you reconcile living your dream and being miserable?

SPEAKER_03:

Girl, you're gonna make me cry. Well, here's the thing. So I I moved to New York right after I graduate college. Uh at a BFA in musical theater from one of the top musical theater schools in the country, which is amazing.

SPEAKER_00:

Amazing. Um I'm gonna do the LM family member shout-out. And this one goes to Miss Rocio, my sister, former guest of the Learn Inns and Mystebs podcast. And she says, Jesse Hernandez is the man. I've had the pleasure of working and being in a couple of his organization class, the best class ever, according to Rocío, not me. So he helped my squirrel brain get focused and organized. Uh Mr. Rocillo, thank you not only for the beautiful, amazing review, but taking the time to be in the things, because I do crazy things and you never know what to expect. Uh folks, if you're wondering what she's talking about, it was the self-first Time Mastery workshop that she was in, and she was also an emotional bungee jumpers. Anyways, uh Rocil, thank you for taking the time to leave that review. And folks, you already know I love attention. I need attention. So anytime you take your precious time to leave a comment, leave a review, it gives me an excuse to celebrate you in the future and it feeds my ego. So please do some of that.

SPEAKER_03:

Moved to New York in, I want to say it was like May of 2009. I booked Legally Blonde in January of 2010. And yeah, no, I was very lucky. I mean, like I said, I came from one of the top schools, so I like I had a showcase in New York where my class got to perform in front of agents. We had a step up, we had a privilege that we had this opportunity to get in front of the top people in the city. So I gotten an agent from that. So I had an agent that was able to get me into rooms I would not have been able to get into myself. Um so I booked Legally Blonde in January of 2010, which was incredible. I was only 23 at the time. So I was like one of the youngest people in the cast. I I thought I was a cat's meow. Okay, let's just say that.

SPEAKER_04:

Of course.

SPEAKER_03:

I thought I was a Snapdrag. I love all my animal references. But so I go, I like literally like less than a week after I book the job, I'm on a plane to somewhere in Oklahoma. I can't remember. I'm on a plane to Oklahoma. And so right away I start learning the show. I want to say a couple weeks later, I like had my debut in the show because I was replacing someone that was leaving. Did that for seven months, had the absolute time of my life, was making a lot of money, way more money than a 20, 23 year old probably should be. Um, and I was able to just put it, keep it in my bank account because I really didn't have any expenses. I was subletting my apartment in New York, so I wasn't paying rent there. So it was great, it was amazing. And I remember the day that I got back to New York after the tour ended, because our last city was DC. So we had played DC, then we just took a bus up to New York because it was very close. And I remember just like having my bags and walking back into my apartment and be like, okay, that was fun. What's next? Because I was terrified of never booking a job again. I just like had in the back of my mind that something like that was never gonna happen again. And even while I was on tour with Legally Blonde, I remember we were in, we did we played Toronto for five weeks, and I remember like going to this park by myself alone in Toronto, like during the day before show, and just like sobbing because I was so terrified of going back to New York and having to relive the whole audition experience again. And I just had in the back of my mind that like this was gonna be the only job I was ever gonna get. So I get back to the city, I'm still with the same agent, they're sending me on auditions, nothing is clicking. I change agencies, thinking, okay, well, maybe someone else will, I don't know, change my trajectory. Got really close to booking Sister Act on Broadway. I had like 11 callbacks or something crazy like that. Didn't get it, was totally devastated. That one I don't think I'll ever get over. I know everyone's like, oh, get over and move on to the next thing, but that was it was very emotional. And so basically for a whole nother year after that, I just kept auditioning and nothing ever clicked. And so probably every day that year, I would just call my dad sobbing on the phone, being like, I can't do this anymore. I'm so unhappy. I felt untalented, I felt unworthy. It just felt terrible. I was extremely depressed. Looking back now, I didn't know I was depressed at the time because I was so young. Right. Looking back now, I'm like, oh no, you were definitely depressed. That is impressive behavior. So eventually in March of 2012, my agent at the time calls me and he was like, Oh, by the way, we're dropping you.

SPEAKER_00:

And I was like, Oh, geez. Another nail, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But you know what my first thought was when he said that?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, I thank goodness leave now.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh I mean, I was no, go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, and man, if I go too far, just tell me back off because I have a habit of dig in. Was it how much of it was like the rejection? How much of it was it the like the unknown, like not knowing?

SPEAKER_03:

I guess because I had such a big job so early on and so fast. And that it's not that I expected that to happen again, but I just had in the back of my mind, and I I probably defeated myself at the end of the day. I'm sure that I went into every audition just thinking like you'll never get that again. Like that was a once in a lifetime. That was just pure luck.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, where did that idea come from, though? Was it just you just decided that or I don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

I because right before I booked Legally Blonde, when I went home for Christmas in like December 20, 2009, like the day before I got back on a plane to go back to New York, I remember saying to my parents, like, I don't want to go back. I don't think I can do this. But they were like, Liberty, you just got there. Give it some more time. Like, this is what you've this is what you've wanted your whole life. And that's true. From age three, I was like, girl, I'm gonna be on Broadway. That that that was the only life goal that I had, and that's what I knew I was gonna do. So I was like, okay, so then a week later I booked Legally Blonde after I said that to my parents.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Or do the show for seven months, and then yeah, I don't know, I don't know what changed in me. And also when you're when you go to a school like that, like the school that I went to, and you see your classmates succeeding at a very high level consistently, yeah, you can't not compare yourself to that, right? You're like, why are they getting all this stuff and I'm sitting like a bump on a log? It just makes you feel very less than and very untalented. Yes, and that's why that industry, any performing industry, is so tough. I mean, you when they say you gotta have a thick skin, that's baseline. You need to have skin and nerves of steel. And I I guess I just didn't have that. But I would but and I just remember thinking while I was there and while I was so depressed, I was like, I'm just like not happy. Should I just I'm just gonna like live and not being happy for the next 10 years and still be going to open calls when I'm 33 years old with 23-year-olds that are gonna be shooting me out of the water? I would see older women at these auditions that I went to, and I was like, I don't want that to be me. Not because I didn't respect them, but I just knew that's not what I wanted for my life.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

So, so yeah, so my agent dropped me. I think literally, like my dad, I think called my landlord and was like, dude, you gotta help get me out of it. Help us out, help us out. Please break this lease. I don't know what kind of deal they came to. Somehow we got out of the lease, moved back to Atlanta. I remember just like arriving back at home, being like, What the heck am I gonna do?

SPEAKER_00:

Like, I feel like you didn't even have a plan. You're just like, I'm not gonna do this. No, I don't know, like I'm just not gonna do this. Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03:

Because all I had known for my whole life, and what I wanted my whole life was just to perform. That's all I wanted. Sure. So I didn't other professions or careers never entered my mind ever. Because I was dead set on that goal. So yeah, I get back. I had my boyfriend at the time. So we had done long distance the whole time I was in New York. I get back, he's in Atlanta, my parents were in Atlanta, so I go and move in with my boyfriend, which we've never lived together before, but I'm like, guess what? I'm coming in. Luckily, that was all okay. Yeah, that was probably a little strange for a while there. But when I was in New York, what I did for work was I worked for a babysitting agency as a babysitter. And I really enjoyed that. I it was an easy quote unquote gig, paid decently for young girls that were in college, fresh out of college. And so somehow, right before I moved back to Atlanta, I convinced our CEO. I was like, what if you let me open up an Atlanta branch of this? And she was like, she was like, okay, like we can give it a try. So literally I moved back to Atlanta. She's paying me$200 a week. And I am starting from nothing. I don't have any clients, I don't have any babysitters, I don't have any anything. But it forced me to, I mean, I'd always been like a hustler my whole life. I was very dedicated to everything I did. Everything that I approached, I wanted to be the best at it.

SPEAKER_04:

No matter what it was.

SPEAKER_03:

So when I got this, when I started this new gig, I started connecting like with old. Families in like the neighborhood I had grown up with. Started reaching out to like colleges, seeing if there were any guys or girls interested in babysitting. And just slowly started to build that. And I kind of got addicted to it. It like I loved pairing great babysitters with families that they would call on again and again. They were like, Oh, we love Allison so much. She's so great. Can she come back? I'm like, yes. So that was kind of like a high. I really liked that feeling. So I guess I was kind of like a recruiter in some sense. I didn't know her at the time. But as I was doing that, Atlanta is, I'm I don't know if you've ever been to Atlanta. I'm sure you have at some point.

SPEAKER_00:

I have a couple times, but just kind of in and out. Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

Atlanta has a huge art scene in every facet, whether it's theater, opera, dance. So I found theater opportunities for myself there. I started working in some regional theaters there. I was a I was a member of Actors Equity, the Actors Union. So I had kind of a leg up there. So during the day, I was babysitting matchmaker extraordinaire. And then at night I went to go rehearse. I would get casts and shows. I would go and rehearse, perform the shows. And it felt so good to do it because I wanted to do it and to be there with people that wanted to do it. Like these were people that were working nine to fives driving. When you live in Atlanta, all you do is drive. You live in your car. So these people are like getting up at the crack of dawn and then they go to rehearsal at 11 p.m. because they love it. Because the, I mean, the pay was not great, but they're there because they love it and they want to do it. So it reignited my flame for performing and for theater. I met some amazing people, got to be the lead in several shows, which I'm extremely grateful for. And so I it felt good to have a creative outlet that wasn't like the end-all be all. That was like if you don't get a job, you're gonna starve. Not that I ever would have starved. Luckily, I had a man.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a different experience.

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly. It wasn't life or death.

SPEAKER_00:

So I got two questions, Liberty. One is totally selfish. Love it. And the other one I think will be helpful for the audience. But I'm gonna be selfish first. I since I was in elementary school, we watched West Side Stories, and this was back in the 80s. Yeah. And I just knew that's what I wanted to do. Now I was raised under different conditions. It said there ain't no way in the world you're ever gonna don't get that thought out of your mind. Right. But now I can do it. So not that I have the skill set, but I have the buying power and the decision-making authority to do that. Right. What advice do you have for me? Do I get an acting coach? Do I just go to an audition? Like I have I'm going from zero.

SPEAKER_03:

So so going into like theater jobs, right? Like auditioning for shows?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. To do like that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, okay, so you live in San Antonio, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

So where you live, I'm sure, first of all, again, there's another huge art scene in San Antonio. I'm sure there are a lot of opportunities for acting classes, singing lessons for people of all ages. So what I would definitely recommend is if you're interested in theater acting, which it sounds like you are, but it might, but that might evolve into like TV and film acting. Who knows? The sky's the limit.

SPEAKER_04:

Who knows?

SPEAKER_03:

But I would definitely recommend finding an acting class, adult acting class. So everyone's kind of experiencing everything at the same level, like a weekly acting class that you really love and that you really you vibe with the teacher, you vibe with your classmates. And that will open up opportunities because they'll make you aware of like, oh, this the blah blah blah theater is doing a production of Pippin soon. Here, here's all the auditions that you know, here's the auditions that are happening. Let us help you prep for your audition so you're not just going and cold turkey. But yeah, I would recommend adult acting classes because I'm sure in San Antonio there are really great resources for that.

SPEAKER_00:

Awesome. Yeah, I wrote it down now, which it's just a matter of when I do that. But I get this.

SPEAKER_03:

You better keep us posted.

SPEAKER_00:

I will you better, but I'll be posting about it for sure.

SPEAKER_03:

I want you posting monologues on LinkedIn, like videotaping yourself doing monologues, or you like doing a scene as Bernardo in West Side Story. I want to see all the behind the scenes, and then use your LinkedIn fandom to give you tips. Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh man, we just started up dangerous ball rolling. I love it.

SPEAKER_03:

This is the construction slash theater. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

We'll do something with it, but yeah, yeah, we'll come up with some awesome, yes, a new community. I love it. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01:

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, the other valuable question for the audience is you started a business. Yeah. You didn't have any experience on around, I'm assuming, on how to start a business. You just said I'm going to start one.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And then so there's two buckets. I want to pick that apart because I think there's a lot of value there for people. Doing something you had no experience or training or certification for, and you did it. The other bucket, and we'll come back to that here in a bit, is doing the thing you love under different conditions and what that felt like. So we'll come back to that one. But first, in terms of like starting this business, where did you get the courage or the momentum, the drive to because there's a ton of shit you gotta learn.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So what was the support system? Where did the drive come from? What did the how did you overcome the I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm gonna do it anyways.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. Well, and too, like it's Atlanta, it's a big city, right? There's other babysitting agencies there. I wasn't afraid of like, I wasn't gonna do like a market research. I probably should have, but I wasn't afraid of competition because I was like, I know, first of all, I've been working for this company now for three years. I know the caliber of what we offer. And same thing with LinkedIn. I know that I'm different. So I have my own unique superpower, if you will. So other real seating agencies, yeah, I'm sure they're great, but they don't have me. So they don't have my connections and my connections, meaning people that I knew from my past, right? I grew up there. So they don't have my connections, they don't have my network, and they don't have my psychotic drive that I have in my mind that I can't start. So I was lucky in that I was like, okay, I want to open an Atlanta branch. At the time, they had a New York branch and a San Francisco branch. So the there was already a basic infrastructure there. Like they already had a website, they had a financial person that was in that like handled all of the billing. So my job was to introduce it to Atlanta and convince people that I knew that this service, this babysitting service, is if you're a if you're a mom or a dad, you're gonna want this. Because the sitters that we brought on, they weren't just like random people. It wasn't like care.com where you go on there and you're like, I need a sitter for Friday night. And 20 people that are in like a five-mile radius pop up. You don't know anything about them. Like these people were reference-checked, background checked. I interviewed each one of them personally, so I knew that they were a very good caliber. And they did it because they really enjoyed working with kids. So my job was to convince families that yes, this is an expensive service, but once you start it, you're never gonna go back to the other way. Yeah. Because it's reliable, you're getting a great person. And whenever you want a babysitter, you just at the time we didn't have an app or anything. This is 2012. You just log into your account on the website, type in a date and time, you'll see who's available of sitters that I have vetted personally. They're CPR certified, it's top-notch people, and you'll be able to book sitters that way. And then if there's a specific person that you want, you can email me, oh hey, Liberty, we're going out Friday night, is blah, blah, blah available. Let me check and see. If they're not, here are some other wonderful people that are available. So, so yeah. So I just went to, like I said, people that I grew up with, moms that I knew. I wasn't a mom at the time, moms that I knew, and just kind of, I don't know, just slowly worked my way up. And it just became like a word of mouth thing, right? Oh, call liberty, call liberty. Don't call the name of the company at the time, they don't exist anymore. It's called Sensible Sitters. It wasn't called Sensible Sitters, it was called Liberty. So, and that's what I wanted. Slowly over time, I was bringing in more families. I was slowly bringing in sitters from, and again, Atlanta has a ton, and around Atlanta, there's tons of colleges. There's a huge resource of people, of babysitters that you can get to. So, yeah, I just found creative ways to slowly build it. And then by the time I left in October 2015, I was at the point where I had like 20 babysitters working a day, like going out a day. And it felt great. Unfortunately, the CEO and I kind of had a little bit of a falling out, and that's why I eventually had to leave. It happens, and then I got to another point of okay, what am I gonna do now?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm like, okay, next one.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I and I think that's kind of been my life, likewise. I mean, I've stayed in the construction space the whole time, right? It's like, okay, I did that now. What? Yeah, but I want to like summarize a couple of points for the LM family out there. Like, one, and these two for the first two are true for everybody. You have a special, like you are unique. You have you, right? And you embraced that. Number two, you started with your network. Right. Everybody has that. They have their own uniqueness and their own network. So you can and you leverage that to start this thing that one freaking 20 sitters a day. That's not a small thing. That's a big, it's a pretty significant thing. Now the third thing that I'm hearing that not everybody has rather I'll say it this way not everyone has access that you did was your confidence, your self-confidence to say, I'm gonna figure it out and I'm going to do it. So this that self-confidence, which I like to put in the bucket of like uh being resourceful. Confidence is a resource, but if I'm not resourceful, meaning I don't know how to access the resource I have, it doesn't matter. Right. So having access to it and being resourceful is two different things. Do you have any advice for somebody out there that's got a like a tingling, tickling of an idea that they're like, oh, I don't know. Do you have any insider advice for them in terms of like getting started? Maybe not bringing it to full birth, but just get the ball rolling.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I mean, you kind of hit the nail on the head that you there is no other you on planet Earth. Okay. So you in yourself, you are unique. You have your own network, you have your own connections. And you, it's really comes down to it, really comes down to does this make you happy? Right? Like, yes, if it makes you money, great, awesome. But you and from just what I've learned from all the ups and downs that I've been through, if it's not making you happy, don't do it. And it doesn't, and even if you are making a million dollars and it's not making you happy, don't do it. Because I've worth it. I've had clients that were paying me a ton of money, but it was a miserable experience. So I was like, I'm out, I can't do this. It's not worth the stress, or it's not worth being miserable. So yeah, I I mean I wish I had more like business insight to offer. I I wouldn't say I'm the most business savvy person, but what I do have to offer is that drive and that entrepreneurial push. So if there is something that you really want to do and you want to be the best at it, like in your mind, like you're like, you I know I can do this, and I know I can do this well.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Go for it, try it, and it might lead to other things.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03:

The people that you meet, and again, LinkedIn's a great example of this. The people that you meet along the way are gonna open up more doors and more doors and introduce you to more people. And so you might start with something that you think you really wanted to do, and you're like, oh no, actually, I really want to do this, and I really want to work with this person or these people. So that's really what it's all about. Putting yourself out there, meeting as many people as you can. Like if you're an introvert, like I feel for you, but you gotta get out of that bubble a little bit and you gotta force yourself to get out there in a way that's comfortable for you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Oh, solid, solid. Because I feel like the business stuff is tactical. Yeah, there's a million resources out there, and it's just really a matter of who you resonate with, and you can like copy paste that stuff. Yeah, but this kind of the mindset, the thinking, and more importantly, the awareness of the resources we have just because we're a human being that we can't see. You can't, I can't see my network, right? Like my buddy, I have a friend who's a state senator. He's still the goofball that always wanted to play basketball who's shorter than me, right? Like, I don't think of him as a state center, I think of him the guy that liked to DJ and wanted to be a professional basketball player. Like that was crazy. Right. But that's that guy's in my network. But and so we're blind to that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And the other thing too is you never, ever know when someone is gonna come back into your life in a different role, in something that you will that will introduce you to someone that you're gonna work for or that you will work for, that you will work with. So, I mean, this sounds pretty basic, but like don't burn your bridges and just keep in touch with people, keep tabling people that you grew up with that you haven't seen in 20 years. There is a good chance they will come back into your life in some capacity and open up a door that you never even thought existed. Because I've had it happen several times. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, love it, love it. There you go, folks. Write those down.

SPEAKER_03:

I have one more, I have one more. And if you so I'm like more of like the creative entrepreneur-hustler type person, I'm not very good at I don't have the business savvy, I don't have like the technical stuff, I don't have there's a lot of skills that I don't have. So if you know your weaknesses and you know the skills that you don't have, find someone that is really good at that stuff that either wants to be on the train with you or that is willing to just like do kind of some kind of like mentoring session with you. Lean on people that have other skill sets than you and you do what you're really good at, but then trust them to do what they're really good at. And forces combined, you're unstoppable.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my god. Yeah, and you don't have to, you don't have to do it all alone. So yes, amen. Amen to that. Yeah. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh my god, I'm such a genius. It's amazing. You are, girl, you are.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Now I opened the loop a little while ago about doing the thing you love, like the performing, under different conditions. So when you were in New York, it was like, I need to do this to have a living. There was some comparison going on to like, man, everybody else is doing better than me. And I know what that causes for me, right? It's like, man, I must suck, I'm defected, I'm less than, I'm in inadequate, and it creates this kind of situation. And then it's compounded because I need to make a living. This is supposed to be my career, the bookings, the revenue, the earnings, all of that are all indicators that I am successful, and because I don't have them, I'm a freaking failure, and right, like blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. That's what my brain is.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep, same.

SPEAKER_00:

But you go back into the water, meaning to act and to perform. Yeah, but now there's not the pressure of like it being your career. Same thing. You're still in the water, just different conditions. Yeah. And so what were your takeaways from that? Like the second attempt. What were the revelations you got from doing that again? Because a lot of people would say, I ain't touching that ever again. Like that was never.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I mean, I definitely still to this day, like the wounds are there for sure. I can't, I have a very hard time. Like, people that from my past that I know are very successful, when I and like obviously social media doesn't help.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

When I see them like booking a Broadway show or like doing something incredible, I'm not gonna lie, it still hurts. It still hurts because I'm I still deep down, I'm like, that could have been me. But then I have to think too, they don't have they have an amazing life. They're doing what uh it seems like they want to do, but they don't have my life, they don't have my family and this community and my job and my house. So I have I have to look at it that way. But yeah, so the wounds are still there, and I still have a very hard time engaging in musical theater like I used to, because back when it was such a pipe dream, and now it just it it hurts to look back and see that I didn't I didn't continue on the path, even though I was miserable. Right, I understand but so when I moved back, I I moved back in April. At the time, I was like, I'm never doing theater ever again. Like it's too painful, it hurts too much. I'm done being judged, I'm done auditioning, like I'm not doing that anymore. I've been doing that literally my whole life. So I went the whole summer and then a theater that I had gone to several times growing up, a local theater in Atlanta, was doing a production of Kiss of the Spider Woman, which the movie just came out with J Lo. I haven't seen it. I want to see it. That wound I can take because I did the show. And I was the Spider Woman, so Oh, of course.

SPEAKER_00:

You gotta see. Check the competition.

SPEAKER_03:

Me and J Lo, I mean, we're basically the same. So I'll see how she does. I guess she's okay. No, if I look at that good at her age, girl, I'm winning. But uh, so I auditioned, I was like, okay, I'll audition for Kiss of the Spider Woman. I was nervous about it because I was afraid of feeling all those same feelings again. But I went into the audition, I auditioned for the role of the Spider Woman, got the role. And then had just like met the loveliest people that again are doing nine to fives during the day and then show up at 7 p.m. after driving all day and working all day and being with their kids and just show up and we just get to have fun and we just get to be creative and be like musical theater nerds. So doing it in that setting because with Legally Blonde, I really only had like one good friend on that show in that cast. I didn't really drive with a lot of my cast, so it wasn't while it was a great experience performing, the outside of the performing part, like we went all over the country. I there were so many things that I wanted to do, like I want to go see this, I want to go see that, but I didn't want to do it by myself, so I just didn't do it. So I have regrets there. But because I didn't, I wasn't close with anyone. And so doing shows with people that get to be normal humans during the day and have perspective and are doing this for maybe like$200 a week, it's gonna be a totally different experience. They're not, they don't think they're all that in a bag of chips, they're there because they love it. Yeah, so it just made it different. It it made it very authentic and genuine. I got to do several more shows, luckily as the lead role, which was awesome. But yeah, it was just an overall totally different experience. Hard to describe, but very different from what I experienced in New York with people that are extremely narcissistic and which kind of in that industry you kind of have to be.

SPEAKER_00:

If you don't think you're guilty and proud.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, if you don't think you're great and you're gonna book it, you're probably not gonna book it. So, yeah, so just being with different types of people, it just made a difference.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. So here's what I'm picking up is the like the big difference, or one of the big differences was the level of human connection. Touring with legally blonde, there was one person that was a friend, you didn't dive with the rest of the people, so there was no connection to share the experience with.

SPEAKER_03:

No, exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

And now you've got folks that you can connect with, and it totally transforms the experience. Sure, I mean, different scale, different scope, whatever. But the experience is more meaningful, which I think ties back to what you said earlier. Uh like if you're doing something that that's making you miserable, like you don't have to do it. And I, and you we're both in the playing the construction industry now, I think the substance abuse, the mental health uh crisis that we're in is due to a lack of connection.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, a lack of connection.

SPEAKER_00:

And like find the people, right? Find your people. Like you don't have to change, right, just find your people so that you can be connected with them. And I think that's true for any industry.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And it sounds like it played, it transformed the experience for you to continue doing what you love, but now you're experiencing connection, and so it's a positive experience.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, yeah. No, all of that. And yeah, I mean, because when I moved back to Atlanta and I had no job lined up, no shows lined up, no dance classes lined up. I mean, I had an existential crisis. I was like, what am I? I've done this my whole life since I was three years old. I've gone to dance classes, I've gone to singing lessons, I've prepped for this audition. That was all I did. I went to a performing arts high school where we would rehearse every day after school and then Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. That was all I knew. So if I'm not doing that, what am I? Who am I? I had no idea. And it took time to find that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my god, I love it. And thank you. I really appreciate like the depth of vulnerability that you're sharing because this is heavy stuff. Uh I feel like awesome.

SPEAKER_03:

And it's important for because I've talked to a lot of groups, like even here at University of Alabama. I've done master classes with their theater kids there, which they probably don't love because all I do is talk about how terrible it is. I'm like, don't do it. It's real. Thank you for destroying our program and preventing future students from applying. So I'm like, just get up. And so I I want it's really important for people like young people that are in the arts that want to pursue the arts to have a very realistic view of it and to know that it's like movie stars. The 1% of the 1% makes it, and it's the same way with theater. Like, okay, you want to be on Broadway, great. But those are very few jobs and very few people. And so to try to show them that you need to find other things in your life that make you just as happy. I know you can't see it now because you're only 18 and you are blinded by the New York City skyline. I get it. That was me. I was like, I'm gonna make it. You don't need a backup plan. What are you talking about? Um and I'm not saying you have to have a backup plan. I'm saying if you want to do it, go for it. But you have to realize that there are other things in your life that are going to fulfill you and make you just as happy. You just can't see them yet. Yes, and it's well said, yeah. So it's really important for me to get that message out to young people that want to be in the arts and even to my own kids. I mean, my kids are still young, they're seven and four. But like my six-year-old. Oh, nice things. Yeah, my seven-year-old, you know, she loves to sing and dance. She was just in a local production of Annie here. She had the time of her life. But I don't want her to go into theater because I know the heartbreak that's there. Right. And it's really hard. So if you want to do it as a hobby and if it makes you happy and you make great friends doing it, absolutely do it. But you also, I would I just want you to consider other things, I guess is the moral of the story. Fair.

SPEAKER_00:

Fair. Yeah. I think, and I think there's a there's a thing about fulfillment there that maybe we'll I'm gonna put that one in the bag. We can come back to it. Fulfillment and just wait. Underline. So theater launching and running a babysitting business, and then construction. Yeah, that's a weird one. I love that so much.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, let's see. Okay, so in 2015, my husband, who at the time was working for a big country band, very well-known country band. I won't name drop on here, but they he was working as a recording engineer for them in Atlanta. They closed their Atlanta studio and they're like, Oh, we actually want you to come work at our Nashville studio. So we talked about it and we were like, it's a new experience. I can still run my Atlanta babysitting agency from there. It's not a long drive. We didn't have kids at the time, so it's like do whatever. So we move up to Nashville, and then for a few months, Sensible Sitters is working, and then it's just not due to again stuff that happened with my CEO that I just won't go into. But uh so I quit that job and then I'm back. I feel like I'm back at square one again. And I'm I love it. This is 2015, so I'm almost 30 years old, and I'm like, okay, yeah, what am I gonna do now? Don't know. And in that and a national, I don't have the network. I don't have I mean, I number one, I don't have my family, but I don't know anyone here.

SPEAKER_04:

Right. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So somehow I get connected to someone through my Atlanta network that is working at this brand new company there, that their goal was to be like the Netflix for dance. They wanted to be a streaming service of all dance programming, which I actually I think is a great idea. So dance movies like step up and so you think you can dance, all that kind of stuff. Very niche, but also very broad audiences as well. So I somehow finagled my way in there. I don't know how, I just knew some guy that actually got fired like the day after I started. Sorry about that. I didn't take his job, we didn't do the same thing, but I was like, thanks for the job, bye. I didn't really know him that well, but I appreciate his help. Started there as just like an assistant to the CEO. A few weeks later, the CEO and a bunch of the upper management, they all get fired actually.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, geez.

SPEAKER_03:

It the whole thing was just is that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

It's so awesome.

SPEAKER_03:

It just it was red flags from day one, but I didn't have anything else to fall back on. So I was like, sure, I'll stay. You guys are gonna pay me a little bit of money, sure. I because of all of that turnover, I became their social media person there. They like five, they like had a big agency that they were paying a ton of money to do their social media, and it just wasn't going you anywhere. I was like, well, I have danced my whole life. I think I know a little bit about this industry, and so I just kind of fell into that social media role there. Now it's not like what I do now. Like LinkedIn wasn't right. I mean, it's dance. LinkedIn's not exactly like the place dancers and dance lovers to hang out. So it was like Instagram, Facebook, and actually we started a podcast there that I volunteered to be the host of. I was called the bar tender, but bar is called B-A-R-R-E tender.

SPEAKER_04:

Of course.

SPEAKER_03:

So I did that for a while. I interviewed like huge people in dance, like choreographers, dancers, like people that I had looked up to my entire life, which was really cool. I don't think I was very good at being a podcast host, but I tried and it was fun. Sure. And and then, so how it got into construction is uh my parents at the time, who were still back in Atlanta, they were working for a concrete company in Atlanta. So my dad was the head of estimating, and my mom was like the admin person for the residential department. So I knew, and my dad had been there since 2003 or four. He'd been there a long time at this point. Okay. So I knew I knew the president, I knew the vice president just from interactions and social gatherings and stuff like that. And so I was like, well, I'm doing social media now. I was like, why don't I maybe I can meet with their president and like convince him to let me take over their social pages? So we met in Nashville for coffee one day, and because they had pages, but no one was running them, no one was posting on them. LinkedIn, again, it's not what it is now back in 2017.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it was different then.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. But I was like, let me just take over. You guys can just like pay me a little bit of money. And so they said yes. So I started doing that in addition to my dance network job, probably way more than my dance network job secretly, but not so secretly. And once I started marketing myself as that on LinkedIn, like that I do social media for concrete companies, it was an immediate differentiator. People are like, Oh, I didn't know they had social media people for concrete companies. I was like, Well, they don't really, but here I am. Uh I'm doing it now. So it just the power the power of LinkedIn, it just snowballs from there, where people, random people would reach out to me and be like, Oh, we have these pages. Can you run them? Sure, why not? And it just became a word of mouth thing, a LinkedIn thing. And so I just kind of ran with it. And I ended up quitting Dance Network after I had my first daughter. I quit Dance Network because I didn't have, first of all, the means to have full-time childcare or and I didn't want to put her in a daycare. Again, didn't have the means to do it anyway. So I quit that, and I'm just living off of my concrete social media money, which is not very much. But um simultaneously, my husband gets a job at University of Alabama here in Tuscaloosa. So we leave Nashville, we move to Tuscaloosa, I'm just being stay-at-home mom and doing a little bit of social media here and there, and the snowball just took off. And I just decided to dig in and say, okay, this is, I guess, what I'm gonna do. I get to be creative, I get to be my own boss, and it just became addictive. And it became that high that I experienced with sensible sitters, it became that because whenever I see content doing well for my clients, you I'm sure you feel it too. You're like, oh yes, this is awesome. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and they and then they tell me they get clients from their content. I'm like, oh my god, that's amazing. So that's how it happened.

SPEAKER_00:

It's okay. I again one thing I want I hope people are seeing why like dramatic shifts. Yeah, theater, babysitting, podcast hosting, construction, dramatic shifts. Yeah, and I believe that's possible for everybody. Yeah, and now I'm not advocating for everybody quit their career and go do because it's not easy, right? Like that's not a lot of people like, man, I like you gotta understand there I have no people, plants, or pets to distract me. Right. So that means that's why like I spend a lot of time how much time it takes doing the things that I do. Um and so I'm not advocating necessarily for you to quit your comp, quit your job, yeah. Right. But that thing that you're thinking about, you can bring it to life. Yeah, without any certifications, training, or whatever, right? I mean, you've done it multiple times. I've done it multiple times. Uh it is possible. And I think I'll just leave it there for the family, the LM family out there. Like, it is possible. You just got to start working on it. Yeah, no. You got into social media for con for concrete companies, very specific. The market responded. I'm sure they started saying, Hey, can you help us? Can you help us? Yeah. And I from what I see, it's expanded beyond concrete companies, right? More and more. And so how much has the market informed your services versus saying, I'm gonna deliver these services and let me figure, let me tell the market about it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Is it one or the other? Is it kind of a mix?

SPEAKER_03:

I guess kind of a mix. I mean, I've tried my hand at doing other things for clients that maybe like weren't 100% of my wheelhouse that I could do, but that I maybe necessarily wasn't great at, that there are other people much better suited for those things.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

But what I tell clients when I speak to them, like if we have just like a, they're like, oh, can we I just learn more about you do more about what you do, and we'll have like a Zoom call. I tell them that everything that I do for every client is very tailor-made. There's no one size fits all because every company is different and every their goals are different and their platforms are different. So my job is to, and what I bring to the table is my creative background, my you know, music that I know, and ref pop culture references that I know, and just wanting to be creative and have a creative outlet and being able to write, which I've always enjoyed writing, because I guess never found a place to do it until LinkedIn came along.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That was that's really what they see in me and what they come to me for, and what I kind of like market myself as just from what you see on my LinkedIn. So what I tell people now, and yeah, it's evolved over the years because platforms change and I find what I'm really good at, what I'm not so good at. And so what I tell people now is like, I'm going to, I'm gonna turn your LinkedIn or whatever social media platform it is, but for construction, it's primarily LinkedIn, just because it's where a lot of those people live. I'm gonna bring your company to life there. It's gonna be kind of like a living, breathing website where people can actually can interact with you, with the decision makers in real time. There's not all this red tape to go through anymore where it's like, can you get me uh the phone number or the email address of the president? It's like, no, dude, just connect with them on LinkedIn. Yeah, duh. I but you know, a lot of people are very fearful to that, which I was the same way. So I tried to do it forever. And now I'm just like, nah, screw it. But it's gonna be, it's gonna be very bespoke. It's going to be creative, but it's gonna be in your voice. I have monthly meetings with my clients to learn about not only the projects that they're working on, but their history, the people that work there, their culture, all of that is what is that that's their superpower. That's what makes them different. There, yeah, there's a million concrete contractors out there, but there's none of them that are just like you. So I want to bring those special things to life. And that's really what I sell, I guess you could say.

SPEAKER_00:

So one thing, one crazy lesson I learned, I came up as a plumbing apprentice, journeyman plumber. Then I went to work for the big gigantic general contractor, and then I went to work for another national brand. And in my brain, I expected when I went to the first leap, like there was just gonna be the titans of industry, right? That they talk super fast and they're super witty, like on a few good men. And then when I got there, I'm like, oh, they're like me. Like there's there's some of them are as dumb as I am. Like, okay. Right, like, oh they all everybody has insecurities, everybody has strengths, everybody has fears, and it doesn't matter what their socioeconomic background is, it doesn't matter what their education is or what their backlog is, hundreds of millions or billions, they still have insecurities, fears, and strengths. And so I think it's easy to think, well, the uh uh business owners, uh right, and I'm sure they're probably running several million dollars of annual revenue, maybe hundreds of million dollars of the your clients that you're working with. Uh it's very easy to assume that, well, they have a clear plan, they have like this is their strategy, and they're just executing on the strategy. Uh but they're human, they're probably struggling with I don't know if what if. So uh the question is this how do you help them get comfortable with telling their story, meaning disconnecting from the corporate polished, glossy stuff to doing or giving you the space to do your thing?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I mean, it's not always easy. Some clients are more open to it than others. But typically the ones that eventually sign on with me and come on board with me, they have already kind of accepted that. They already kind of know, like, okay, we're gonna do these monthly Zooms. Like, I'm all in. Like, I'm going to be vulnerable. I'm going to share our history, share our story, whether it's my company or I've just been working here for 10 years and this other guy, Bob, started it. So typically, by when the top by the time they get to that point, they are already comfortable with doing that. And once we get into that Zoom, like the first 10, 15 minutes might be a little like stuffy and fearful, but then I'll ask them a question that they never expected me to ask. Because they're like, How the heck does this relate to what you do for us?

SPEAKER_04:

Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

And then they'll start talking about it. And I'll be like, Do you realize that you just wrote like 10 posts in five minutes just by talking about something completely unrelated? And we're gonna tie that in to, and again, it depends on. Who it is within the organization, or if it's writing for their personal page as opposed to their company page. But everything that they spout out is valuable in some sense. And everything, things that maybe you did 20 years ago, or even like as a kid that you don't think is important anymore, it's like, oh no, you're actually doing that exact same thing now. You're just doing it on a different scale and in a different way. So if you talk about what you did as a kid and how it was like something that you were passionate about, or something that you learned from somebody that's stuck with you all of these years, how is that informing what you're doing today? And how does that bleed into your company? Let's tell that story. Let's that's 10 million times more interesting than project announcement. We'll be working the new blah, blah, blah. Which again, like we can interject those here and there. I'm not against that. We have to show that we're making some money, right? But also, and also framing it in the sense that like you have to think about social media, the content that you put out in social media, you have to think of it in a very, I'm sure what's the right way to say this. Think of it as first of all, you're propping up the your clients and your team. You're not propping up yourself. You are not the greatest. They're the greatest. So tell us why you're the greatest. And think of it as in a very selfish way. It's like if you make this post and you tag your client or your GC or whoever it is, first of all, they're gonna feel so good. They're gonna feel famous, and they're gonna be like, oh, we love blah blah blah concrete. They promote us on their social media, they're getting more eyeballs because of a post that you made. And so if you can think of it, if you can reshape the way that you think about the way that you put content out there, you're gonna have way more success if you think about it in like they want you to tag them, they want you to talk about them because it makes them look good. But you were the ones that helped them reach that goal. You were the guide in their story. They're the hero, but you're the guide. And that very much comes from I don't know if you've ever read the book Story Brand.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Right there. I mean, I read that book and it totally reshaped the way that I think about content.

SPEAKER_00:

So I'm let them be the hero of the story. Yes. I'm the guy.

SPEAKER_03:

Right, right. So think of it in that way if you tag them, they're gonna freaking love it. Because it gets them more business, it's it gets them more eyeballs, and it shows how great they were. So, and I was talking to a prospective client at the time, but now a current client, and he was it was so interesting. He was talking to me, asking me about what I do and how I work. And he was like, So, right now, the way we do our social media is the there's the social media person our team will come to me and be like, Okay, tell me every single thing about this job that you did. Who do I need to tag? How many square feet was it? What were the vendors that you used? And for he's like, It's just so much work for me. He's like, I don't have the time to go through every single job. He's like, it's more work for me to have a social media person because they come to me with all the questions. So when I told him that every single post doesn't have to be a job update or a project announcement or a project completion, that blew his mind. He was like, Really?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I was like, Yeah. I was like, just talk about I don't know, the funny thing that happened at lunch today. Or like how you found this guy that started out as an intern and is now one of the top people at your company. I was like, and we'll cover that in that one hour Zoom. I'll take it from there. If you can give me one hour a month, that's it. Because my job is to make your life easier, not to make it harder.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes, wow.

SPEAKER_03:

So when clients realize that not every single post has to be like down to a science, they're like, oh wow, that's so much easier. I'm like, yes, exactly. That was so that was very eye-opening for me. That I'm like, okay, there are people out there that think that every single post has to be like that, and it has to be perfectly crafted and strategized beyond a shot. Like, I'm like, girl, you can strategize all day long, every day until you're blue in the face. The post that you're gonna make day of that you thought of five minutes before is gonna be 10 times better than something that you scheduled a month ago. Like I do very little content scheduling. I I mean, I like to make my life harder. I would much rather write something spontaneous based on either something that they just told me or something else that I saw on LinkedIn. I would much rather write about that than schedule something a month in advance, because then by then it's it might be sale, it might be old information. Um, so you don't have to think about strategy and your voice and your tone as much as you think that you do. And so teaching people that can sometimes be a little bit of a barrier. But once they realize that, they're like, ah, this is easy.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I I again back to your uniqueness, Liberty. Because I've worked with people and listened to people and stuff, YouTube, my YouTube education. There are a I would say the majority of the people that I've listened to and things that I've talked to and heard. That's the template. Right. Right? Like peep, there's service providers, I'll say it that way. People, your competition, folks out there that are providing a similar service, that is what they have conditioned people to expect. Like it has to have all of these things and these bullet points and the data.

SPEAKER_04:

No.

SPEAKER_00:

It it doesn't have to be that heavy. No. But your uh well, again, to your uniqueness, you know that and you're helping them with that. Where I think a lot of folks are not doing that, they're making it heavy because it's the only way they know how to do it, which again taps into your life's experience of like, no, I'm creative, I got some game, let me help make this fun and massive business value.

SPEAKER_03:

Right, exactly. If you're looking for very in-depth analytics and like the clicks to the website, like there are people that do that stuff very well, and that are they have that savvy. That's not me. So if you're looking for something like that, I'm I might not be the right person for you, and that's fine. But if you want real, human, fun stories that are gonna be different from everybody else, then I'm your girl. So a lot of people like they ask for like, okay, well, I want can I get like an analytics report of the clicks that we got and how well is it? I'm like, go on the LinkedIn page, go see it for yourself. How many people liked it? How many people commented on it? And I'm not saying that there are a lot of we do people on LinkedIn talk about this all the time. The lurkers, right? The people that just look at stuff, yes, they never engage with it, they don't like it, they don't comment on it, but they saw it. So focus on impressions, don't focus on the actual clicks or the likes on it. Focus on the impressions, but the post right there, they'll inform you everything that you need to know. This post is great because it was this hilarious thing that happened, or this guy that we hired. You don't need to dig into the in-depth analytics of whatever it is that you have in your head. If you want that, go find that elsewhere.

SPEAKER_04:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And it's not like I'm working for like a shoe company that's like, okay, we need to make shoe sales, so we need people clicking on this link that takes them to the shoe sale. I would never be very well suited for that. But if you want to just want to build your brand and you want to give people a real picture of who you are, then call me.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. And I think construction companies, like that's the game because there's not like direct conversion. Like you said, if you're selling a widget, you can track the clicks and you can track the conversion or you can track all of those things, but construction projects don't function that way. No, you don't want to convert 50% of the people that engage on that click on your content. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

Because you don't have the workforce to do all the stuff. Exactly. Yeah, like if like if you're gonna ask me for the ROI, I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I know what I see on my end and I know what's performing well. And the best ROI for me is when you tell me, like, I shared this testimony a few months ago. My concrete client that walked into one of their meetings with a huge GC, and they're like, oh man, who's running your social media? It's so good. That's the ROI, not the number.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, they already know before they walk in the room.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. And you know why they love it? Because you tagged them and you made them look so great.

SPEAKER_00:

That's it, success. Okay. Now, for the folks out there, like, man, I need to talk to Liberty. So if they want to work with you, where do we send them? Where what's the pathway to spend time with you?

SPEAKER_03:

Honestly, LinkedIn. I'm on there all I'm on there all day, every day, literally. I check it way too much on my phone. But yeah, connect with me there, shoot me a DM, I will always respond. That's really the best place.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. I love it. All right, folks. We'll make sure we have the link in the show notes and all that good stuff. Because one, you're just awesome. So if you folks, if you don't know she's awesome, like, come on, man, connect with her followers, support her, or you want to be a lurker, be a lurker. That's okay. Because I know how valuable the lurkers are. Yes. But if you want to like increase your presence and people know you before you walk in the room, she can help you with it.

SPEAKER_03:

Just the last thing I'll say, the main thing I'll say, what when people ask me what the goal of social media should be, it's that they already have every question answered before they call you. So by the time they call you, they're ready to buy. Because they've already told them everything.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. Same, same for me. It is 100% about building a community. Yeah, that's what I'm doing with social media. And like you said, people will real quick know I ain't the kind of clown that they want to put in front of their people. Good.

SPEAKER_03:

Great. Don't call me.

SPEAKER_00:

Don't call me because I'm not that guy, right? I'm not the poly, like, well, here's the magic. Clients that I talk to or prospects before their clients, they're like, Man, I'm reaching out to you because I saw some of your stuff wherever. And my people, I think my people are gonna, you're gonna resonate with my people. Right. That's why I'm calling. And I'm like, and that's on call one. Right, exactly. Because of all the garbage that I put out there. So it's super, super valid.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. Like if we have to go through five phone calls for you to like maybe consider working together, I'm like, we're probably not the right fit. And that's okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Yeah, and that is okay, 100% right. All right. So are you ready for the grand slam question? I'm scared. Yes. So I don't be scared. I'm excited because I'm suspecting that it's going to be a really deep and meaningful response. It's going to help people and give them more insight into like all your unique awesomeness. Knowing that you have designed your life around fulfillment. This is what I'm like, okay, this is gonna be some heavy stuff. So I've got my Kleenex here ready just in case you're gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, I don't have any, but I'll be okay.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, so here it is. What is the promise you are intended to be?

SPEAKER_03:

What do you mean when you say promise? Elaborate a little bit.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll give you an example.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. So I was in rehab. This is almost 10 years now. And because I've wrestled with addiction the majority of my life. I've been sober nine and a half years. Thank you. Thank you. Um, and I had a one of my counselors was calling me on my stuff. And he's like, Jesse, you don't have a problem admitting that you're an addict, alcoholic, et cetera. He says, You have a problem accepting. And I said, What games are you playing here? And I said, No, you haven't accepted that if you continue to live life the way you're living it, you will never become the promise you are intended to be. And in that moment, I just it transformed me because I felt it. Like all of the aspirations that I had in my head, the hopes, the potential, all of the things that I told myself chill out. You're not that special, it's not that big a deal, be more practical. All of the disappointment that I caused because of living a very selfish life of consumption, being a black hole of need, is like that's getting in the way of me doing these things. That is the promise that I'm I just got to change the way I live so that I can achieve and become that. Does that help?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Oh man. Well, as a mom of two daughters, I mean, I guess for me, and it's really just to be an amazing role model for them.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Career-wise, health-wise, life-wise, being just being a good person. I'm not a religious person. What's most important to me is just being a good person. So, and just trying to instill that in them and showing them that I have had a lot of ups and downs in my life. Have I ever like lived on the street and been homeless? No, I'm lucky enough that something like that has not happened to me. But I have had many points in my life where I felt you're making me crash, very lost, very conflicted, very confused, and that like I didn't know what I was supposed to do or what I was supposed to be. Because when you have this thing that your whole life that you're like, okay, that's what I'm gonna be, and then you stop doing that, you're like, I feel completely lost. So showing them that it's okay to you're gonna do a lot of different things in your life. I don't like the question, like, what do you want to be when you grow up? Because you're gonna be like 20 different things at 20 different points. And so showing them that it's okay to have questions and to do a bunch of different things, to literally just do what makes you happy. And especially again for young women that you know, mental health and ideas that we have about our bodies in our heads, and like that you need to be thin, or you need to be this or you need to be that. I have to teach myself constantly, like, I'm never gonna say in front of my daughters that I don't like the way I look or I feel fat or I feel ugly, because they're gonna copy that exact same behavior. And so teaching them that have dessert, be creative, be unique, wear the weird stuff. Don't worry about what all your friends are doing. And I believe me, I know as a young person that's hard because all you want to do is fit in, right? You want to be one of the cool kids, one of the cool girls. So teaching them to be unique and individual and have their own personality and to not be afraid of that. I guess that's the promise. Just that's doing that for them.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, from my perspective, Liberty, you are doing that magnificently.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, thank you, Jesse. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00:

It's clear. Like, just keep doing it. Did you have fun?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh, let me think about that. Yes, I had the best time ever. I don't want it to end. I know. Let's just talk all day. Let's make a really long podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, oh man, but it's it's me, it's oh, we gotta look it's gotta have to be like a series, like a Netflix series.

SPEAKER_03:

Or we'll just live stream ourselves all day long and see if anyone watches it.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh I like live streaming. I've never done it. It's I'm too scared. Oh, I know you it's just like this, except live and other people asking questions.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, no, I would love the question aspect of it. That would be cool. Well, if you ever want to do one, let me know.

SPEAKER_00:

We need to get it on the board. Let's just say that. Okay. Thank you for sticking it out all the way to the end. I know you got a whole lot of stuff going on. And in appreciation for the gift of time that you have given this episode, I want to offer you a free PDF of my book, Becoming the Promise You're Intended to Be. The link for that bad boy is down in the show notes. Hit it. You don't even have to give me your email address. There's a link in there, you just click that button, you can download the PDF. And if you share it with somebody that you know who might feel stuck or be caught up in self-destructive behaviors, that would be the ultimate you sharing that increases the likelihood that it's gonna help one more person. And if it does help one more person, then you're contributing to me becoming the promise I am intended to be. Be kind to yourself, be cool, and we'll talk at you next time.