198. 6 Lessons From Our Hiatus
Eager for some real talk after a brief hiatus? 🌱 Phil and Lauren are back in the saddle to share the vital lessons they've learned over their 3-month break. From the art of delegation to the magic of consistent action, this episode is a treasure trove of insights. If you've been feeling like a hamster in a wheel or simply need a jolt of inspiration, this episode is your wake-up call. Tune in to find out why breaks can be blessings, how to fuel your curiosity through content, and why your community is still out there, waiting for you to lead. It's a comeback episode you won't want to miss! 🚀
Episode transcription
Phil
Knock knock.
Lauren
Who's there? Like, I'm scared.
phil
Phil and Lauren from Brand Therapy.
Lauren
Oh my god. Listener, he's motioning me to talk after that.
phil
We're not done the joke.
LaUREN
Oh, oh, great. Oh my god. Okay. Should we do this again?
Phil
No
Lauren
I obviously haven't done a knock knock joke in probably 30 years. Phil and Lauren from Brand Therapy who?
phil
Yoo hoo!!
Lauren
Oh my gosh. Well, we're nice and mentally refreshed from our three month hiatus.
Phil
That didn't even make sense. No, I made you follow the rule. And then I broke the rule of the classic knock knock joke. Oh, my God. Well, we're back at it.
Lauren
We're back at it and might I add Phil that you have professional training in this? I don't.
Phil
Professional training in what, talking?
Lauren
Yeah, broadcast journalism, radio, tech stuff, being an on camera personality, hosting. And I know it can be challenging to unlearn that and be more casual. And I think this knock knock joke is a great example of how far you've come.
phil
Oh, that's interesting. I think you're right. I am much more comfortable hitting record and just going with the flow. Going with the flow. You're right. I still still listener you heard it before if you listen to our previous episodes, still not love with tiktok because of that. Just so as you all nature of just turning on your phone, no quality, no nada, quality in the content you cover. And that's what you love about it is that it's so stripped down. But yeah, you're right, I'm much more comfortable being less buttoned up rehearsed. You know, all of that!
Lauren
Yeah. Yeah. Great. Well, let's go into our episode for today.
Phil
We are talking about our biggest lessons learned in the time that we've been off. First of all, can I start?
Lauren
Yeah.
Phil
First lesson, it was a good decision to take some time off to come back recharged and ready. That's my first.
LaUREN
Totally. Huge, huge we were like hamsters on a wheel. Just creating episodes because we kind of had to Yeah, and poor listeners probably every time heard us say how we didn't want to be recording that episode.
Phil
No, we said that a few times out loud. But I think the lesson is, take a break. Or maybe the lesson is don't put undue pressure on yourself. We create these rules, these content plans, content strategies, we're gonna post every day we're gonna go to the gym every day, after having not done it consistently for a year. And it's not sustainable.
So a way to make a podcast or long form content creation sustainable, is giving yourself a break. Yeah, same in various aspects, not just social media completely.
Lauren
Okay, so that's your first lesson.
Phil
That's my first lesson is that a break was required to come back refreshed and ready. So I want the listener thinking god, what do I need a break from right now? And focus on the benefits you'll get from taking that break? Parenting probably doesn't count and probably can't take a break from that. But everything else is fair game.
LaUREN
Completely. Okay. So the lesson that I learned during our break first one, that I'm constantly having to remind myself about is that you can figure out solutions to not do what you don't want to do. And I didn't, I was trying to think of how to say this without a double negative. But essentially, what I mean is that you don't have to always do things in whatever way you think you have to.
And for me, personally, I always just kind of do things because it's on my task list or because it needs to be done. And I don't put a lot of thought into, does this actually make sense for me to be doing? Or could I use a tool to help with this? Or could I just ask someone else to do it?
I'm still very much in eager first year salary kind of mode, where I feel like I just need to do things because they have to be done. And so before I went on my vacation, I went through a lot of effort of making a list of everything going on and telling the team and you were on that slack thread. But basically, I was like, here, I need you to do this when this person says this thing and just like take care of it and It was really freeing and empowering to remind myself of that.
Phil
Good lesson. Also, I think about a quote from Eric Huberman years ago on the podcast I had previous to this one, I interviewed him when I lived back in when I lived in LA, founder of Hawk media, and he's a good friend. He said, you know, because I asked him how do you delegate and scale at the level that he has his humongous company? (they grew from zero) And he said, you have to trust in other people's ability to do the job. And also accept that they're not going to do the job at the same way that you do the job. They'll do it differently. But they'll do the job. And I think a lot about that.
lauren
Yeah. It's amazing insight for sure. Okay, what's another lesson that you learned during the break, Phil,
Phil
During the break, so we're talking specifically into the summer, I was three months in Europe and I've made a very conscious effort to pivott I hate that word. And made a call, Let's confront and find a different word, I made a conscious decision to adjust the content that I was creating, which was a little bit hamster wheel. I'll be honest, once a month, here are the updates on Instagram. And I got to the point where I was like, I hate researching this, why am I researching it? It's actually very similar to the point you just made.
So I made a conscious effort to refocus my YouTube content to teach me about things that I want to keep learning about. And that more recently has been AI, specifically AI tactics and strategies for small business.
So that was an effort a refocus this summer, unfamiliar nerve wracking territory. But I guess the lesson if I had to wrap that up in a bow would be you have the ability to use your own content creation, as a way to learn new things, as a way to research, as a way to because it counts as work put in your calendar, you know. Use content creation selfishly, more so than to serve an audience, which is advice we've given before but actually took that advice this summer, refocused my content on AI.
Lauren
Love it. And it's been very successful.
Phil
Very successful. I've already given two well I've given one keynote already. Another one secured in November, speaking shortly, while next month, and Adobe MAX AI is infused what I'm talking about done two podcast interviews, and more confirmed it's like, yeah, it's been the ride very much worthwhile. Even though I don't consider myself an expert, I feel confident in my ability to curate tools and resources that are useful for people that are trying to learn about it so.
Lauren
Completely, completely.
phil
That's lesson number two, make sure your content right now, your content creation process is working for you.
lauren
Yeah. And that it fuels your own curiosity. Yes. Bingo.
Lauren
Okay. So another lesson that I learned is the importance of taking action.
Phil
Hmm I don't know where you're going with this one.
Lauren
Really? Oh, well, since our our last episode, I have basically devised and sold two reading retreats to people on tTiktok. I know, it's been so much has happened since our last episode.
Phil
Tell people about this in a little bit more detail.
Lauren
I've been posting about books to tick tock and I, in April posted an idea for a book club weekend. So instead of meeting with a book club every week, and having that ongoing commitment, I thought it would be fun to rent out a place and just go to bed at a reasonable hour and focus on a book for the weekend and drink wine. And that went viral and was shared 20,000 times and people were commenting being like, Oh my God, I want this sign me up. Where do I give my credit card, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So then I created a survey where people could sign up and tell me what they wanted specifically, like how much they pay, how many nights where it would be, where they're based, what types of books they would read. And basically, I was just doing that so I could see if there was interest because you had to fill in like 20 questions. And then I'll add that I just because I was like, Is this gonna be worth my time or not? And then also to really be able to serve people exactly what they were asking for if it was viable.
So 2400 people filled that in. Obviously, not all but like, some of them were like, I want someone. Some of them were like, I'd love to do this for five days with all meals included, and be $500. I'm like, Yeah, okay. Like, okay, so maybe someone can sponsor that. But that's not going to be me.
So anyway, I organized it. And then I think this just sort of came back to the lesson is that I think it's really fun and it can be safe to stay in idea land, but at the end of the day, you kind of just gotta take the leap and believe in your ability to to like figure it out and risk falling flat on your face. I don't know anything about event organizing, but I signed a big scary contract with a venue. I even hired an event planner to help me research and ended up firing her. And really, created a Patreon that people were paying for to even like be able to get to the sales page,
Phil
People are paying for present tense.
Lauren
Still are and put it for sale. And I basically sold this idea that had never been done before to a bunch of strangers. And it sold out, which is really exciting. And then so I did a second one, too, that also sold out. I mean, these retreats haven't even happened yet.
Phil
When is the first one?
Lauren
In October, the last weekend of October. And then the second one's in January?
Phil
What a where when's the third one gonna be?
Lauren
The third one, it looks like it's gonna be the first weekend of May in the Catskills.
Phil
Where's that?
Lauren
It's like in just above New York state. So it's a place where a lot of people go and have cottages in New York. But that one hasn't been announced yet. I'm still working out some ideas. And I don't want to sell that one until I've actually had an actual retreat. But I think a lot of us filter ourselves before and make assumptions about what people will pay for before we even put ourselves out there.
And if the logical side of me had been thinking instead of the instinctive side of me, I think logical, Lauren would have been like, well, you've never done event planning, these are strangers on the internet, you really don't have that big of a following compared to people who normally sell things like this, you like you have way better things to be doing with your time. And that might still be true. But the fact is, is that if I had listened to that side, I wouldn't have tried anything, I wouldn't have even created the Patreon sign up because it was felt too risky. But I'm glad that I didn't listen to that side. And I'm glad I tried something out. Because it's been pretty fun. And I've learned a lot.
phil
There you go. I think that's incredible. Considering that it didn't exist just a few months ago, and you already sold out to reading retreats, how many people per retreat,
Lauren
The first one had 40 people, well, it actually originally had 30. But then I saw how 30 spots, but then I was seeing how many people were the Patreon so I increased it. And then the second one originally had 30 spots, but then I increase it to 34.
Phil
That's a lot of people to be responsible for
Lauren
74. And what's interesting is for the second retreat, about six, six of them are coming to the first retreat, so they bought two, and they're in the Patreon as well.
Phil
That's amazing, when they meet, you're gonna feel like they're meeting a celebrity. All thanks to the internet,
Lauren
I take their investment really seriously. And I really, really try to listen to those people because they're the ambassador's kind of thing. And I guess this is a bonus lesson because this wasn't on my plan for what I was going to share today.
But the second group asked when I shared the details of what I was thinking for the second retreat, and I did this for the first one before booking or signing any contracts or making a deposit. So I was like, hey, this is what I'm thinking this is the venue, this is the cost. What do you think? And people when I shared the second retreat, they were like, wow, I wasn't thinking of coming to the secretary. But now I want to come Would you be open to doing a payment plan? And then I hadn't thought about doing a payment plan before. But then I decided to create one and I added a 15% markup because it is a risk for me doing that. And interestingly, 25% of the tickets for the Secretary are on payment plans.
Phil
Wow. So that's gonna give you ideas for the future one,
Lauren
Totally like it ended up being like a little extra boost in income that I wasn't expecting. And that was because I ended also ease the financial burden immediately for the people who want to come to the second one. So if I hadn't listened to those people, then I would have missed out on that big idea.
Phil
Success leaves clues.
Lauren
It does, it does. And I think that your audience will tell you what they want, if you just create a forum where they feel free to share their ideas.
Phil
So maybe the third lesson I have to say is that it's still possible to build a vibrant community on social media in 2023, the lesson as told by you and what you've done in a short amount of time. Yeah, I
Lauren
I think so. I mean, I do think about how hard it would be to have a big audience of like hundreds of 1000s I know you've mentioned this before with some of your friends who have that really big audience and how they envy like this more middle tier size that you have and that I kind of have on tiktok. And what's so nice about this size is you can actually get to know people on an individual basis and I think it would be pretty difficult to manage if it was bigger.
Phil
I think a lot about that, and I'm glad I obviously I want it to grow bigger because it can turn into more of a business pillar, but at the same time, sometimes it is such a waste of time replying to comments and having that one to one. Even though I know it's public to other people, it's like, I'm sitting there doing it going hot damn, this is a waste of time, even making ourselves this up. I enjoy it. I enjoy the process. And I know it's valuable for a lot of people. But there's times when there are other things I need to be doing right now. Yeah, so I kind of don't want it to grow bigger.
Lauren
And that burden will only increase with size.
Phil
What's your final lesson?
Lauren
Well, we skipped yours.
Phil
Mine was community.
Lauren
Oh, okay. Great,
Phil
That it's still possible to build a community on social media in 2023. Because a lot of people would say, oh, algorithms oh, it's too hard now. It's not.
Lauren
Yeah, for sure. Okay. And then my final lesson is consistency is critical. And you and I have been talking about this quite a bit offline. And you also shared it in a recent Instagram post by for background listener, we ran a group coaching like a group Challenge program last month, with a few clients. And the goal was to post everyday for 30 days, which is super, super intense, not necessarily feasible for people to maintain long term. But it was amazing to see the results people got because the more you post, the more you learn.
Phil
Every time you post, is there opportunity for feedback. From others from us, in this case, running the challenge. But it was also just learning moments for themselves what they enjoy creating.
Lauren
Yes. And something that I was noticing at the very beginning of the challenge that ended up petering off at the by the end was impatience. We'd be three days in and I remember one client was like, Why haven't I gone viral yet? I should have a million views. And I was thinking well, no, you shouldn't, you haven't earned it yet. Like the chances of going viral with one of your first posts in a month is really, really slim. And you haven't earned it. You earned it by posting for years, like really like a very, very long time. And I think that a lot of people when they start posting with content, they don't have that long term vision in mind like you with YouTube, you're like such a perfect example of that.
Phil
Yeah, I mean, I'm always striving to make sure a video does well, but I don't get hung up on it, because I have so many posts that I just keep trucking along.
Lauren
And when you started, I feel like your mindset was really great.
Phil
It's always been about just enjoying the process of creating, I just enjoy making videos. So it's nothing more than that. I honestly, I need to think a bit more about it as a business pillar. And I would like to be more strategic, and maybe some hire some expert advice to evaluate where I'm at and what I could do. But beyond that, I mean, I just kind of trim trucking along because I enjoy the process. And I do think that's a healthy mindset.
Lauren
Yeah, yeah. It comes from a place of enjoyment and a desire to learn and then share what you've learned, first and foremost, and I don't know, I feel like you're going to be posting YouTube videos forever.
Phil
Well something interesting, I'm thinking a lot about how video creation as a resource for people can actually be a pillar of the business, because I do it so consistently. That it makes sense for it to be a business offering at a premium level beyond what people can get for free on YouTube. Because I do it. So consistently. I do it more consistently than anything else that I do in my life, other than drink wine. So that's, you know, success leaves clues.
Lauren
Yeah, absolutely.
Phil
Do we like these lessons?
Lauren
I like them. Do you want me to do a quick recap of them?
Phil
Sure. I didn't write them down.
Lauren
I did. Don't worry. Of course. Don't be scared to take breaks, you can outsource the things you don't want to do, construct your content to fuel your curiosity, the importance of action, it's still possible to build community and consistency is critical.
Phil
Bingo. Bango. Bongo.
Lauren
Oh my god.
Phil
Those are some good lessons. I hope you take those and marinate on them and let us know if there's one or two that resonate with you you know where to find us @philpallen
Lauren
@thelaurenmoore
Phil
We're back at it feeling good. Feels good to have this microphone out. Although I'm hungry and I want to eat make a lot of sacrifices for you listener! We will be back next week brand new episode, guest that you're gonna love. Till then. Leave us a review you thought I was gonna forget to mention it five star five star that helps other people discover this podcast and we work hard to create for you and see you next time. We'll be back Thanks for kicking it with us. It's good to be back.
Lauren
Bye bye.
