Cut The Tie Podcast with Rebecca Shaddix
What happens when your life, career, and identity have all been shaped by productivity, performance, and the constant pressure to “do more”? In this episode of Cut The Tie, host Thomas Helfrich sits down with Rebecca Shaddix, a tech marketing leader, Forbes contributor, improv comedian, and new mother who is redefining how we think about time, fulfillment, and personal priorities.
Rebecca spent years excelling in the tech world, structuring her life around deadlines, stakeholder expectations, and the validations that come with traditional career success. But motherhood, writing her book, and launching her podcast Time Billionaires forced her to confront something deeper: we waste time in ways we would never waste money — and it’s costing us the life we want.
In this episode, Rebecca shares her journey from corporate leader to creator, her battle with workaholism, the principles that guide her decisions, and why the smallest “hidden minutes” of your day may be the key to reclaiming your life.
About Rebecca Shaddix
Rebecca Shaddix is a Forbes contributor, tech marketing leader, and host of the podcast Time Billionaires, a show focused on how to reclaim the hidden gaps in your day and use them for a more meaningful, aligned life.
She writes about AI, data, business strategy, and the philosophy of time — blending analytics with human behavior to help people build better habits and better lives. Her work sits at the intersection of productivity, personal growth, and intentional living.
Rebecca is also an improv comedian, a mother, and a passionate advocate for using time thoughtfully instead of letting it slip away through busyness, distraction, and noise.
In This Episode, Thomas and Rebecca Discuss:
- Cutting ties with workaholism
Rebecca shares how her identity became intertwined with being “busy” — and how stepping away from corporate revealed how much she was losing. - Why we waste time but obsess over money
The concept behind her podcast Time Billionaires and why the small, fragmented minutes of your day matter more than the big blocks. - Letting go of perfection and embracing “scruffy hospitality”
The mindset shift that helped her break free from unrealistic standards at home and work. - The danger of holding on to identity safety nets
Why many professionals cling to what’s familiar — and how Rebecca learned to trust her own vision instead.
Key Takeaways:
- Your time has more value than your productivity
Reclaiming the hidden minutes of your day leads to clarity, energy, and better decisions. - Letting go of workaholism makes space for real insight
When she stopped signaling productivity, she finally gained perspective on what mattered. - Perfection is not a requirement for living well
The concept of “scruffy hospitality” helped her rethink what is truly non-negotiable.
Connect with Rebecca Shaddix
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccashaddix
📚 Forbes Contributor: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccashaddix
Connect with Thomas Helfrich
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelfrich
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thelfrich/
🌐 Website: https://www.cutthetie.com
📧 Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com
🚀 Instant
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Welcome to the Cut the Tide Podcast.
Hello.
I'm your host, Thomas Helfrick,and I'm on a mission to help you
cut the tide of whatever it isholding you back from success.
Now, you got to own your ownsuccess.
If you don't, you're chasingsomeone else's dream, and that's
no boy on.
Today I am joined by RebeccaShattox.
Rebecca, how are you?
SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
Great.
This is my first podcast sincemy baby was born.
So it'll be fun to jump back in.
SPEAKER_01 (00:21):
That's amazing.
Congratulations, by the way.
Um, it's it is a miracle.
People don't realize we justtake it for granted that this
little baby is here.
Um, if men had to do it, wewould have died earned one.
So I think we all could agree onthat.
I think that that we get a sick,like we get a little cold, a
head cold, we're down for aweek, right?
SPEAKER_00 (00:39):
It's so funny.
I had the opposite issue.
My husband's like, he pulled hisback and didn't tell me for a
week, and he's like hobblingaround now.
I'm like, should we do somethingabout this?
He's like, probably.
I'll just wear baby wear her.
But uh yeah, it's so funny.
SPEAKER_01 (00:52):
Tell your uh tell your husband, this is something
that the babies love, and tokeep avoid him from also
gaining, you know, maybe somebaby weight is to work out with
a baby.
They love it when you kind oflift it, move it, run around
with a beautiful, just use it asa weight.
SPEAKER_00 (01:06):
I like it.
Yeah, he's been walking with heron the treadmill, baby wearing
her while he's just typing onhis laptop, but I like it.
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
It's high risk.
We have to evaluate that one.
Um anyway.
Rebecca, congratulations to thebaby.
Uh, tell us tell me a littleabout who you are and what it is
you do.
SPEAKER_00 (01:22):
Yeah, I'm a tech marketing leader at Forbes
contributor and podcast host.
SPEAKER_01 (01:27):
What's a tech marketing?
What tell me, peel that up.
SPEAKER_00 (01:30):
So I yeah, led marketing teams for tech
companies, mostly software.
But now I'm focusing on writingand podcasting.
SPEAKER_01 (01:37):
So you've got you you've moved from um like
corporate world basically toyour own brand figuring, doing
this.
Okay.
Um, what's your podcast callcall and what's it all about?
SPEAKER_00 (01:46):
It's called time billionaires.
Uh the idea is that a billionseconds is 31 years.
So if you expect to live another31 years, you're a time
billionaire.
But we waste time in ways wewouldn't waste money, which is
ironic because time is theresource we can't get back.
And it's about how to spend thetime that you do have better,
really just the 90 second to 15minute gaps between the
structured parts of your day,how to spend it in ways that
(02:08):
feel fulfilling and align withyour values.
So, like uh every episode offerstips on that.
But so before I hopped on, I hadseven minutes between when I
joined and when you joined, andjust used some of those
exercises.
I did 10 push-ups, I wrote aquick note to a friend, and I
did a couple paragraphs ofjournaling.
And so instead of just scrollingwith more digital noise, it's
ways that I feel more energizedand then better ready to dive
(02:31):
in.
SPEAKER_01 (02:31):
I've mastered the seven minute now.
Just nice.
SPEAKER_00 (02:34):
It's a good one.
SPEAKER_01 (02:36):
It's truly like plugging a battery back in.
I'm like, those who don't takenaps criticize those who do, but
they don't know.
They don't, they just don't knowwhat seven minutes can do.
Just like right before you fallasleep, sleep, and then you wake
back up.
You're like your ear.
SPEAKER_00 (02:49):
It can be restorative for sure.
Rest even if you're notsleeping.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:52):
Amazing.
Uh on your podcast, you how longyou've been doing this for now?
SPEAKER_00 (02:56):
Just since July, so three-ish months.
SPEAKER_01 (03:00):
And so uh, you know, okay, as a podcaster, I have
pivoted my podcast to somedegree.
Every and we'll I look at itformally every 90 days, just to
be clear.
Oh, and um in right now, here weare in late 2020, or about start
Q4 of 2025.
Uh, I'm doing a massiveoverhaul.
You're actually one of the lastshows of the year because I'm
paused all shows.
(03:20):
I was I was booked out tillMarch, and I paused all shows
because we're gonna get thisthing to be you know, 45-minute
full interview and aseven-minute audio because I
have two masters.
I have downloads that are goingwell, and I also have top of
funnel that I have to that Ihave to address for your
podcast.
I I say that because I startedoff as one thing and mine became
another.
How has yours evolved?
(03:41):
And you've had a baby in betweennow, but how's it evolved since
July?
SPEAKER_00 (03:44):
It's a good question.
Yeah, I'd say figuring out, Imean, the very first thing that
comes to mind was figuring outthat the name.
I was back and forth betweentime billionaires and hidden
minutes.
The idea is that there's hiddengaps in your day.
And eventually just felt liketime billionaires was more of a
call to action.
If you are a time billionaire,you can spend your time like
that.
But the balance of soloepisodes, pre-scripted episodes,
(04:07):
guest episodes, that's anevolution.
SPEAKER_01 (04:10):
Yeah.
The I I uh you're just solo showright now.
SPEAKER_00 (04:15):
I'm the only host, but have mostly guest episodes.
SPEAKER_01 (04:18):
You have mostly guests.
Okay, so it's a guest-based one.
Um I will tell you, the onething I've found in podcasting,
it's been in most of the data Ithink will support this, is is
and we messed this up a bit, butyou say don't make the title
tricky.
I actually think hidden seconds,unless that's already taken,
would be perfect because it'sspecifically because you're
talking about, you know, be youknow.
(04:39):
So what we did with ours to bespecific, and and I'll tell you
why we did this, it's it's cutthe tie, which is the action.
Um, and but right behind it, youknow, in the in the in this when
you're in podcast, and if youhave a podcast, listen up, okay,
or you're trying to findpodcasts, this is how you find
them.
It's by the title.
And so we have cut the tie, weuse the little pipe thing, and
we write, own your success,because I want people to find
people who are looking forthings around success.
(05:00):
Um, not so much justentrepreneurship, because we're
our our conversations arebroader than just sometimes
entrepreneurship.
We have entrepreneurs on, butit's a different issue.
For yours, hidden seconds is uhbecome a time billionaire, or
you know, where billionaires,something like that, where it
kind of gives the subtitle ofmoney and value.
So I hear time billionaires, andI'm thinking, oh, it's a money,
(05:21):
it's a money podcast.
But this seems to be more of anefficiency or life's uh as you
described it, uh, the spacebetween its wellness and it's
happiness and its joy.
It's like the currency of life.
You know, you trade your time,you're trading true truly the
time life that you have.
Um, anyway, something toconsider.
Um, and by the way, my originalpodcast, if you guys are
watching, and there's a littleplaque two actually on the wall
(05:43):
from YouTube, they both saynever been promoted.
It's the same podcast.
After a million, we got amillion fifty-four thousand
subscribers.
I changed the name of the entirething overnight.
Everything.
It didn't afford it.
SPEAKER_00 (05:55):
Why don't you do that again?
SPEAKER_01 (05:56):
Yeah, oh I would I wouldn't have I would have done
it.
I wish I would have done itbeginning, but it didn't hurt
us.
My point is changing the name ofyour podcast isn't a big deal.
Um if if you have a URL andother things like that, you you
know, you you just deal with it.
SPEAKER_00 (06:08):
I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (06:08):
So don't be afraid of that, bro.
Don't overthink it.
We'll we'll get into thatoverthink it.
Don't be tricky with yourpodcasting, just be very clear
of what you get.
SPEAKER_00 (06:17):
That's great.
Good tips, thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (06:19):
It's hey, listen, if we can stop a show right now.
You can just, you know, I knowright now you're like, damn, I
got all this work to do.
Um the reason is because you'reyou're trying to help people
write you know, we're talkingabout the show, you know.
If you've listened to our showsbefore, this one's a little
different because we're we'repivoting to a different kind of
show.
So you're doing it already withme.
But you know, you're you have apodcast and you and we'll I
actually want to before I goback to that, you have a
podcast.
(06:39):
How are you using that with yourwriting?
And then how does all that cometogether to make money?
SPEAKER_00 (06:44):
Yeah, the uh podcast actually spun out of a book I'm
writing.
It I started with the concept ofa book and just realized that a
lot of these chapter ideas thatare going into the book make
really good episodes.
And it's been a prettyinteresting symbiotic loop then
of writing a chapter, having anidea for an episode, hearing
something from a guest, puttingit into the book.
(07:06):
And that's been reallyrewarding.
SPEAKER_01 (07:09):
You know, when I work with clients on them
growing their business and kindof getting them set up so they
can use AI, use tech, and likewhat are they need to grow a
business, right?
Uh, the first question I askthem was what's the critical
problem you solve?
And how would you answer that?
What is the critical problemyour business solves or your
book or your podcast?
SPEAKER_00 (07:28):
Yeah, busy people really feel like we don't have
enough time to do the thingsthat we want to do because we're
just chasing the things that wehave to do.
But really, if you work 50 hoursa week and you sleep 50 hours a
week, you have 68 hours a weekto do whatever you want with.
But the problem is they'resprinkled throughout the day.
You don't have 68 open hours.
And so it's about reclaimingthat you can get a hundred
(07:50):
push-ups in in 10 seconds at atime.
You don't have to set big goalsof spending two hours at the
gym, for example.
And so it's really about that.
If you want more time to connectwith people, you want more
exercise, you want more nature,there is time for it in your
day.
But how do you reclaim that?
And that's the problem thatwe're solving.
SPEAKER_01 (08:10):
Is your is your business model then gonna be,
you know, let's get some moneyfrom this podcast, sell a book,
go speaking?
What's your uh what's your moneyplay?
SPEAKER_00 (08:18):
Nailed it.
SPEAKER_01 (08:20):
All that podcasts have one or two masters.
They have downloads, which isentertainment, value, people
sponsor eventually, you know, itit takes a while.
Um, or you have a top of funnel,right?
Where you're bringing guests onbecause you help them.
There's a probably a third play,I think that it's a top of
funnel, but yours is morecredentialing to go speak,
(08:40):
right?
I think you want a TEDx talk orit would be a probably path,
things like that.
Is that fair?
SPEAKER_00 (08:45):
That's right.
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (08:46):
But you're still ti you're writing on tech too.
SPEAKER_00 (08:49):
I am.
I'm a big data forbescontributor and just writing
about AI business strategy.
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (08:54):
Are you gonna bring those two together at some
point?
SPEAKER_00 (08:56):
I have no immediate plans too, but they definitely
inform each other.
So my thoughts on timemanagement came from being a
tech leader.
My thoughts on, or basically theway I use AI and think about
business strategy definitelyhelps inform my book and podcast
planning.
SPEAKER_01 (09:14):
Now, if you fast forward like let's say uh two
years from now, and it's verywell, I'm actually I'm gonna
make no assumptions.
What pays the most right now?
The writing, the podcast, orwhat what's uh where's revenue
come from right now?
SPEAKER_00 (09:28):
Two years from now or right now?
SPEAKER_01 (09:29):
Right now, right now, sorry.
I don't want to make anassumption there.
SPEAKER_00 (09:32):
Uh can we cut this part?
I've done this for two monthswith a baby.
I have no revenue from it.
SPEAKER_01 (09:38):
No, that's okay.
Listen, you there's no right,and that's okay.
I mean, I actually I would leaveit in.
My being, and that was myassumption that you're just you
just started and I was gonna beblown away.
Like, no, I got like 10,000 amonth from an end sponsored.
I'd be like, please tell me now.
This show is gonna be reversed.
We're gonna learn from her.
Um, I would assume nothing, likeI would assume that, because
we've been doing ours for almosttwo years and we still don't we
don't look for a sponsor, but Idon't think we're really
(10:00):
sponsorable.
We're it's still a top of fall.
The reason I say that is, but ifyou fast forward two years and
the podcast exceeds any revenuethat you could ever do writing,
do you drop one?
SPEAKER_00 (10:10):
I don't think so.
I think that there's a lot of Ilove writing.
Writing was, I mean, the idea ofstarting a podcast didn't come
up until I was writing.
I like the flow of ideas inwriting go into podcast
episodes, ideas from podcastepisodes go into writing.
It is a pretty fun repackagingexercise right now of things
(10:32):
that come up in both.
I think they each tend to makeeach other stronger, at least
for now.
unknown (10:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:37):
And the reason I say it is uh what happens to a lot
of entrepreneurs, at least I'veI've like that I've worked with
or met, is they have tie back towhat they did and they hold on
to it as long as possible as asafety net.
Hmm, interesting.
I need to get back, I gotta havethat just in case so I can have
credit, something so I don't gettoo outdated.
And I was just wondering is thatis that in the back of your
(10:58):
mind?
Is we were talking aboutoff-camera, like, hey, what's
the current tire cutting?
Is that something that's in yourmind that I need to kind of keep
a safety net if this doesn'twork?
SPEAKER_00 (11:05):
Definitely an interesting question.
Yeah, I think so much of mylife, so much of my career was
all planning five years.
And now it's a lot more dooropening opportunities, things
that I couldn't have envisionedbeing possible five years ago,
or very much are.
So yeah, I would say I'mdefinitely a cautious person by
nature.
I like contingency plans.
(11:28):
And I never envisioned not goingback to a corporate job after
this.
This was going to be a funcreative year.
But I so I don't know.
Um, I I think we'll see.
SPEAKER_01 (11:37):
It's a I mean, it's a it's a loaded question.
And I'm trust me, I'm I likethat.
It's what I'm supposed to bedoing or something.
So it's a very loaded question.
Uh and as I see what you'redoing, right?
I can see the bridge of AI,data, uh, and where that applies
to business life, which has gotthe you know, those, you know,
family, all the things that youyou do, because it's just time.
(12:00):
How do you use technology thento accelerate?
Uh, you know, that becomes ahuge speaking book consulting
opportunity for you because youlike I talk about time in this
other sense, this thing waydeeper, different, you know, has
some things to do with tech,sometimes it just has to do with
philosophical, whatever it is,right?
And and then you apply itdifferently like to business.
That is a consultancy of ofmaking you know a company's way
(12:23):
more effective with AIleveraging data to make the
decision.
Like I see that consultingbridge instantly.
So I don't know if you saw it,I'm hoping you, but that's it.
I mean, that's easy.
That's uh they are completelyrelated, I'm looking at, because
one's a tool to get more life,if you let it be.
Or it could be a tool to ruinyours, which is death scrolling.
SPEAKER_00 (12:42):
Yeah, yeah.
And I'd say that even in thosegaps, right, if you use them for
reflection to ask reallyimportant questions for thinking
and learning, to read a page ata time of a book, you're
actually going to be askingbetter questions and using all
the time that you have moreeffectively and more
productively.
So even the questions you ask AIto solve for you become better
(13:03):
if you're using these hiddenseconds better.
SPEAKER_01 (13:06):
I I and what I love about AI in particular, if you
if you know how to use itcorrectly, uh specifically, is
it runs stuff in parallel whereI may ask it a series of
questions, and I'll go off andanswer those questions and say,
How did I answer relative to mycomplete ignorance of the
subject and learn from myanswers relative to what the
experts or whatever else say andhave a conversation with it?
(13:27):
Because then your learning justgoes multiplied.
You you've shared your originalthought and your thinking, your
logic, and then it says, Well,here's what the experts say, and
here's why that's that kind ofthinking, if you can do that
effectively on a topic, allowsyou to get really insight in
depth and also helps you fromnot stepping under um your feet
when you go talk to people whoknow what they're talking about,
so you don't say somethingthat's clearly not gonna work
because of the you you're you'renascent, you know, if you're you
(13:49):
know so you could scale yourspaces between by having
technology do stuff for you.
SPEAKER_00 (13:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (13:57):
So you have a baby and do you catch yourself
looking, going, how is thattime?
All right, let me say it.
You're gonna go forward andyou're under a parent for
teacher conferences at somepoint, and you're gonna see
those as complete wastes oftime.
Have you thought startedthinking through like, you know,
as you you evolve the parentingangle and children and how they
(14:18):
suck up that other 68 hours aweek?
SPEAKER_00 (14:22):
Yeah, I would say most of my time feels much more
fragmented now.
No idea how long she'll benapping, anyone's guess roughly
when she'll need to eat again.
So just knowing that puts a lotmore urgency on how I choose to
spend that time.
I'm much more intentional nowabout if someone else could do
something, they should.
I think I was a lot more casualabout, sure, it's fine.
(14:44):
I'll do the dishes now, I'll dothe load of laundry now, et
cetera.
And now it's like, well, no,nanny's coming later.
Nobody else can write thischapter of the book.
I have these 20 minutes, maybemore, maybe not.
I'm only going to use this timefor things that I can uniquely
do.
And I think it's made me muchmore intentional about what is a
bad use of time.
I think the little productivitythings of, yeah, it feels nice
(15:07):
to vacuum, but does it actuallyhave to get done?
I'm much more mindful now of thereal opportunity cost because
sure, before the energy cost wasthere.
If I used that time, I couldn'tuse it for writing.
But I still felt like I hadenough control over my time to
do the things that I had set outto do.
Now I really see that if Ichoose to unload the dishwasher
instead of working on a podcastepisode, I may not get to that
(15:29):
podcast episode this week.
And so I'm much more mindful.
SPEAKER_01 (15:34):
There's a mindset with that because uh like at our
house, you know, for sure.
My my wife is definitely onethat's gonna we're gonna clean
everything, run everything donebefore we go do anything fun.
Like I'm oversimplifying it, butlike the idea that we're gonna
load, sweat, then we'll leave togo.
I'm like, that shit will be heretonight.
Let's go.
Um, you know, the that crumb onthe floor will if I sweep up
tomorrow morning or to thisafternoon.
SPEAKER_00 (15:54):
Or never.
It probably doesn't reallymatter, right?
SPEAKER_01 (15:56):
Probably doesn't matter.
It does matter because it getsaround the house.
I I get that.
I like to wake up to a cleankitchen too, but but I I tend to
favor fun and other thingsbefore work versus let's get
some stuff done.
And that that mind shift forsome people is very difficult.
So we're also different people.
For you, um, what do you thinkyour number one passion is?
SPEAKER_00 (16:13):
I want to click on that really quickly before we
come back to it.
Uh, this concept of scruffyhospitality I learned in Oliver
Berkman's Meditations forMortals.
And he's really the first personwho challenged my I have O C D,
so cleanliness, et cetera, justdidn't feel like a negotiable.
I felt like I had to.
If something was dirty, I had togo clean it because there was
some big crisis.
(16:33):
Um, but he introduced me to thisconcept of scruffy hospitality.
And he has this line in hisbook, a perfectly kept house is
a sign of a poorly lived life.
Because yeah, deep cleaning yourhouse feels very productive
until you ask, did it actuallyhave to get done?
Is it just that you had to bemore tolerant of laundry mess,
et cetera?
And so it's it, those are aquick little dopamine hit check
(16:55):
boxes, but they're not movingthe needle of your life forward
necessarily.
So changing your standards ofwhat's non-negotiable, more fun
in your day for you, maybe, uh,is really worthwhile.
And so that's sort of where someof that challenging came from.
SPEAKER_01 (17:08):
Really interesting.
I I will ask you if you can sendme that.
SPEAKER_00 (17:11):
Um Yeah, yeah, I will.
Uh, and and the definition ofscruffy hospitality, he talked
about how he likes to host andentertain, but oftentimes
getting the house perfect,making it perfectly clean,
cooking something that feltworthwhile was an impediment to
seeing friends more often.
And seeing his friends moreoften was the goal.
And so he started just embracingloads of laundry will not be
done.
Maybe my kid wants to flush thetoilet.
(17:32):
Oh, wouldn't that be mortifying?
No, it's whatever.
It's scruffy hospitality.
And it actually makes ourfriends feel more connected to
us more authentically.
And yeah, I loved applying thatto other aspects.
SPEAKER_01 (17:42):
I mean, I hosting's a big thing.
I get having a clean housebecause you want to present well
and do that.
Um, you know, but any given houryou can come to our house and
wait.
It's not not museum level, butit's close.
Um, I but I I would think youdon't want to trade life for
that.
But but his this thing though,doesn't that other person
potentially have happiness fromthat?
They find happiness in theorder.
It's it's uh anyway, we getthat's a debate.
(18:04):
What okay, your top passion isit writing, thinking?
SPEAKER_00 (18:08):
What would you call your kind of my single top
passion is just time with myfamily, mostly outside.
And everything else adds to myfulfillment of life, my feeling
of contribution, connection.
But ultimately, it's justnothing better than being
outside and being with myfamily.
SPEAKER_01 (18:26):
And to get to do that, if you can make a living,
make money in the minimal amountof time, you have more time left
over on the other side.
SPEAKER_00 (18:36):
Yeah, it's all about the output.
100%.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that was a really bigmental shift for me.
I love corporate life structure.
I very much have had to cut thetie with workaholism.
It is very fulfilling day to dayto feel important and needed and
high urgency, high pressure.
There so much has to get done.
(18:56):
So cutting that, I didn't, Igenuinely did not see any
problem with having my liferevolve around work.
The very first vacation I'veever taken, probably since I was
14, that I didn't work at all.
So, like when I was 14, I'dstudy for the SAT, et cetera,
was my baby moon with my husbandthis summer.
And he asked if we could make itcompletely work-free.
And I truly did not understandthe point.
(19:18):
I agree, just say fine, whateverif that's important to you.
But I literally went into thatthree-week vacation thinking,
what is the big deal?
If we're just going to besitting here watching TV, why
can't I be answering emails?
Fine, okay, if it matters toyou, I won't answer any emails.
Stress me out.
And I actually found that sotransformative.
So just the habits of, oh, ameeting popped up.
(19:39):
I have to jump into it.
I have to respond.
I have to be responsive.
I have to look reliable.
That was addicting.
And so cutting that from theselike signals of being productive
or busy or efficient orimportant to what is my actual
output has just let me be a lotmore efficient.
SPEAKER_01 (19:55):
You know, it's a I'm about having that much insight
into it.
Mine was more of uh I'll giveyou an example of, you know, I
from the start, our teams haveworked uh four-day work weeks
because I said, hey, I want youto about you know, relative to
market, you have a full day off,go do what you want, go get
another job, just don't becompetitive in what you do and
get your shit done.
Then we're, you know, justperiod.
I do the same thing where I takeone day a week to learn, maybe
(20:16):
just get some stuff done in thebusiness.
I just know expectations forreturning emails, right?
Um that that is such a reveal.
I tell people, and the otherpiece was I I never found time
to work out forever.
And I was like, you know what?
I'm just gonna start going tothe gym every day at eight,
seven days a week because Ican't break a routine or I'm
done.
Um, and that routine, some daysI just don't want to be there.
And it's like, oh, if 100% isthe best you can do, I might be
(20:38):
at 4%, but I'm there.
I'm gonna do something, doenough reps.
But the point being is that thatuse of time when you create
space, I was worried aboutletting off the gas.
Like, oh, I gotta work.
I've been way more productivebecause I guess got rid of all
the shit I don't need to do.
Um and I still look at and and Ilook at my time, I go, man, I
can still be way moreproductive.
(20:58):
And some of the stuff you justtouched on become outside of
around uh scruffy house, I can'tread your, I'm gonna read that
scruffy hospitality, and andit's okay.
And you know, and like thosemind shifts are major.
And you know, don't worry aboutreturning to corporate, by the
way.
Uh you have a little child,they'll be all the intensity,
focus, or you'll have it allright there.
So did that's that you can apply100% to that.
(21:20):
You're like, it's good.
SPEAKER_00 (21:22):
Um yeah, it surprised me though that you've
been more productive, right?
Because you've made space tothink about what actually
matters.
I think I think that's thebiggest difference that you
don't see the opportunity costuntil you have it.
When the doing constant output,like I really thought of myself
as a doer.
I got things done.
There was some clear measure ofoutput.
(21:43):
When that's your measure, youspend a lot of mental energy
signaling that you're doing it.
I'm so look how reliable I am.
I'm responding at 9 p.m.
last Saturday.
But that takes the mental spaceto actually ask is this project
that I'm pushing so hard on withthis really tight deadline, even
when we should actually bedoing.
And if you have the space to askthat, everything gets better.
The output gets better, theresults, the quality get better.
(22:05):
And you don't realize there isthat opportunity cost until you
have that space, at least Ididn't, because I did not see
anything wrong with 12-hourdays, six days a week.
SPEAKER_01 (22:16):
Well, you can either you do, but you're a doer, you
get it done.
SPEAKER_00 (22:19):
You get it done.
And it feels right because youcan say, look, check us off.
And I think that shift that wasreally hard for me to go from
corporate output, where meetingsand projects and stakeholders
were a big part of my day, towriting, which is solo and by
myself.
And it takes months or years foranything external to come to be.
What a good use of a day wastotally rocked my brain because
(22:42):
suddenly I I could be spendingmonths on something that wasn't
promising.
And I could never do that with acorporate job because no one's
gonna let me spend months onsomething that doesn't have any
business value.
And so suddenly just having tohave more confidence in myself,
in the space that it took todecide if it was worthwhile, in
the ability to revise, thatreally took space.
SPEAKER_01 (23:01):
I think if you uh if you extrapolate, it's like a
coaching session.
Here we go.
If you take what you do, I seesuch an opportunity because you
have a passion for writing andan uh you're doing passion right
now is writing, right?
So like writing thinking andapplying it.
If you apply it just in themoments of a daily journal of
with child, parents, hey, theparents about to go from the
(23:22):
shift of corporate to here andbecause you're gonna go write it
five years ago, you'll forgottentoo much.
Interesting.
And you write it now of like,hey, this is what it's like to
have a kid, but this is how youcan maximize it without feeling
like you've completely lostyourself, like idea of how to
get your time right to tobalance it.
Or if you've you're now astay-home mom and you you figure
out the audience who wants to doit.
(23:42):
Like I went from a corporate jobto this, that's a pretty good
audience that has money that youwould be writing to.
And from a from a businessstandpoint, um, you know, then
how do you make the return back?
And like like you could writeshort books on this of like
little 10,000, 12,000 word bookson here's here's what I did, and
this is this is how you can getyour time, and you become a time
(24:03):
expert.
Um, and get in the nerdiness ofit.
It's time even exists.
Start talking about that stuff.
Like it because how can I behere, my team's in the
Philippines, and yet it's 12p.m.
and it's 12 a.m.
We're not the same time, but weare.
SPEAKER_00 (24:17):
Anyway, I love that.
Yeah, it's so funny.
I've been thinking of this aslike a single big debut book and
then spin-offs, but you'reright, there's nothing stopping
it from being smaller series.
SPEAKER_01 (24:26):
Oh, I so every year I I live this cut the tie
principle.
What first year was like, hey,stop drinking, I started working
out, got men's hormones right,and then this year is ADHD for
adults.
Had them a whole lot.
Medicational therapy, you know,what I have gone to learn from
kind of that whole thing is um Ihad a book.
I was literally literally aboutto click publisher's copy from
(24:48):
KDP.
Uh, and I was but I was like,all right, my wife gave me some
feedback and I started editingit again.
And I was like halfway through,I was like, God, this is too
effing long.
No one's gonna, I don't want toread this shit.
Who and then and then I waslike, 75,000 words and there's
no action.
And I'm like, what is this?
A complain session or rant?
Like, this is like a memoir thatpeople talk about after
(25:08):
someone's like, you know,climbed up in a tower and shot a
bunch of.
No, I'm like, we're not doingthis.
That's okay, that's too much.
But I was like, I'm gonna getthis down at 12.5.
I did I you started focusingdown AI.
Like, I'm like, hey, look at allthese episodes.
What's really, what are peoplereally cutting ties around?
Um you had to classify yours,right?
Yours comes down to kind of thisrelationships, leaving the
(25:31):
relationship of a job to focuson the relationship with the
with yourself and baby.
unknown (25:37):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (25:37):
And I say even the relationship of self-validation
changes.
Very external when it's acompany willing to pay you for
what you're doing.
You know there's some value init.
The relationship of my ownconfidence and what was worth
working on had to change becauseI had to be confident.
It's funny, I was talking to afriend of mine about how did I
know this was good, and she justdidn't get it.
(25:58):
I could tell, like, my brain andher brain didn't work.
She's like, well, there's justvalue in producing something
that you know is good.
And I was like, but how do youknow it's good if no one tells
you?
And she's just had such internalconfidence that if she thought
it was good, if she thought itwas art, it was.
And I had such a stakeholderexternal feedback, hey boss,
(26:18):
what do you want from mementality.
That I was like, well, I don'tknow if it's good, if I'm the
only one who likes it.
And so just even that mentalityof this external validation had
permeated into just my abilityto trust my own decisions.
I didn't realize was a tie forsure.
SPEAKER_01 (26:34):
I'm not you're not a therapist by any stretch of
imagination.
The the need for validation is,you know, it's it's love
language, but it's also tiessometimes back to childhood,
other things.
But uh, that comes in thisrelationship idea that I don't
need anyone else but myself tovalidate this.
You're a data person.
You can say, how many women arelike me that are smart,
(26:54):
successful, could have made themillions of years, and be like,
there's a lot of those, and Idon't need that many to make
money.
What can I give them that Ihave?
SPEAKER_00 (27:03):
You know what's shocking about what you just
said?
That I never made thisconnection until right now.
Being a data person, being amarketer, I actually think has
has impacted how I judge thiscreative process.
So as a marketer, there havebeen so many times where I said,
this is a better version, thisis better copy, this is better
creative, this is betterobjectively, it's better in my
mind.
Ship it.
And it performed worse thansomething I thought was worse.
(27:26):
So I think for the last 12years, I've had examples of my
opinion being disproven by databy the measures that matter.
And now this is a wholedifferent workflow that I'd
never really connected.
That doing that process ofshipping, getting really quick
data and feedback and iteratingand letting that guide.
This writing feels creative in asimilar way, but it's it's a
(27:47):
completely different motion.
SPEAKER_01 (27:49):
Yeah.
Well, and if you learn like I'mspeaking out of turn because I
haven't published my book, butthat is what December is all
about.
So I'm also pausing the podcastjust to finish it and do it.
But I will tell you that I I didsend it to like 40 people and
they read it and they gave methe feedback that I discovered
myself, they did it nicely.
It's pretty long.
I got through eight chapters,which is like 12.
(28:10):
And like they said it nicely,and they're like, but I really
like the storytelling.
So I did really goodstorytelling.
And they're like, and it reallywas impactful, but they didn't
share like it, but so what now?
And they gave me the feedback,but kindly.
And and I think where you, youknow, you struggle, like I
struggle with similar things.
Every time I think it's a goodthing to do for social media,
that the the it's terribly, it'slike the worst.
Every time one of my Gen Zerogoes, No, do it this way, I
(28:32):
could you just do it.
It does freaking amazing.
I'm like, it looks so shitty.
The Gen X, or I hate that, butokay, whatever.
Um, anyway, the point being isif you write enough and you know
there's value, throw throw theturd on the table and let's see
if it gets cleaned up.
SPEAKER_00 (28:50):
No, I think you're saying you're like know your
principles of how you want toget things done, which I would
agree with.
SPEAKER_01 (28:56):
If you focus your personal brand, I think around
time.
And I think around how do youuse it to get the most out of
your life.
Even writing that sentence inthe book, right?
And you say I'm gonna apply itto my life and share it with you
the whole way, like kids as awoman, this and you have a
market that's successful, womenthat's your age now, that's the
next age, whatever, you alwayshave an audience, they'll follow
(29:16):
you, they'll listen to yourpodcast, they'll probably pay
you to come speak, and you haveeverything you need to make, be
outside of your doors, and justyou're almost a comedian, just
taking everyday life and puttingit into thought.
Hmm as a creator, orchestreprocess with it.
And like every six months I'mgonna write one about what's
going on.
SPEAKER_00 (29:33):
And yeah, kind of look at that.
Did you say as a comedian?
Sorry, I think I had a delay onmy end.
SPEAKER_01 (29:38):
Yeah, as the comedian, like you're like you
know, the Nate Bargazi just kindof like I was getting Starbucks,
and now it's like you know, he'smade a few million from the
jokes, right?
Like the point is just takeeveryday life and how does that
apply with time, or you'rewatching people order something,
and you're like, that's notreally the same that works.
Yeah, go ahead.
Good.
SPEAKER_00 (29:54):
I'll give you a Okay, I probably do improv
comedy, and I couldn't rememberif I told you that or not, if
that was what you were.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (30:00):
It's on my bucket list of uh the two one open mic
night.
Yes, I I've written the I'vewritten it now.
I I don't know why I I justwon't go do it.
I don't I know we'll take thatoffline.
SPEAKER_00 (30:11):
Resistance, yeah, creative resistance.
Have you read The Artist Way byJulia Cameron?
SPEAKER_01 (30:16):
No, you're gonna have to send me that one then
too.
SPEAKER_00 (30:18):
Yep, yep, yep.
It's good.
Uh the first thing that come tomind is morning pages.
So every morning writing threepages by hand free form if you
can to really talk about theresistance and what's holding
you back from it.
But I think again, in 15 minutesa day, if you were to spend 15
minutes a day just memorizing itor tweaking it, you would be
done the bit.
SPEAKER_01 (30:37):
I've done the, I mean, I I go through what, you
know, I do know the brand sexyvoice guy.
But the funny thing is I leavethat, but then I get into this
different thing with the if ifwho picks what kind of LLM is
the kind of this short, becauseonly you're like two minutes.
It's like perplexity.
It's you know, it's it's oh fun.
SPEAKER_00 (30:53):
I want to see this.
Okay, this is awesome.
See, I want to see this.
This needs to exist in theworld.
It sounds awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (30:59):
I mean, it's like you know, rock.
That's like a dirty gaynightclub, and I love that one.
Oh my god, it's so good.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:04):
I mean, so the reason I improv was literally
for work.
My entire life has revolvedaround work.
I just noticed I wasoverthinking things.
And then my husband and I wentto an improv show just for fun.
And I thought, you know, whodoesn't overthink things is
improv actors because theyliterally it's not so improvy,
as you know.
SPEAKER_01 (31:22):
Improvs are there's they've set it up.
SPEAKER_00 (31:25):
Well, there's different principles.
Well, I'm gonna do improv, butbut improv itself, there's
principles, but but yeah, improvitself is not exactly the same
as open mic.
You wouldn't script it.
We would go in and get asuggestion from the audience and
just riff on it, and you createthe scene and the world there.
There are different approaches,but but really, no, uh it's
completely free forum.
We don't necessarily evenremember what happened
(31:45):
afterwards.
SPEAKER_01 (31:46):
But I would like to do blackout.
Yeah, I could do blackoutimprov.
SPEAKER_00 (31:50):
Yeah, I didn't remember the first, I mean, I
threw up before the first fiveshows.
I didn't remember the firstfour.
That's the point though.
Like it's so low stakes, andthat's really, I think,
something that helped me is it'sreally low stakes.
Getting myself even just out ofthe car was just asking what's
the worst that could happen.
SPEAKER_01 (32:04):
I think I'm I think you you turn around.
So I think from a new podcastidea, blackout improv would be a
good one where you're like, hey,we're gonna go rip on a subject
and not remember anything.
Or fire it and forget it.
Unedited.
Here we go.
I think it'd be fun.
Um open mic, love it.
Let me give you an example inreal world, though I think also
people that I think this is likea business example, I'd say,
(32:25):
from time, right?
Okay, and from a marketer.
Every concert I've ever been to,I never get merch because
there's a line forever, and Iwon't I don't do lines, and nor
will I get to a show super earlyto get a t-shirt that costs too
much.
And by the time I've ever gottenthere, I've I've been
disappointed they never have mysize.
So I just I just don't do it.
(32:45):
I said, however, if you had a QRcode and I can only scan it here
and I can be G lo geolocated touse it, and I could then order a
shirt that that's on that wallthat will be delivered in a few
days, and I'll probably add asticker and some other shit.
But I can only get it right nowin this time window because this
is when the concert is, theywould have sold thousands of
dollars of stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (33:06):
Yeah, it's a few shipping, right?
To not say it in line.
SPEAKER_01 (33:09):
They would have probably on-demand print shred
ship, they would have noinventory, and you could say,
hey, you buy it here, you scanit, it shows up your house in a
few days.
I mean, it would be the biggesttime savings and moneymaker.
It's an example though.
My point is there's stuff I seethat stuff all the time, and I'm
like, why?
So anyway.
(33:31):
We're way over time.
I love this flow of the show, bythe way, because you're a real
entrepreneur that's really juststarting it and you're figuring
it out.
And I hope I think you got somewheels turning now where you're
gonna go make some money withit.
SPEAKER_00 (33:42):
Yeah.
I hope so.
SPEAKER_01 (33:44):
I know you've already I know you already had
some.
I hope I've helped you inanyway.
All right.
I always ask this question nomatter what the show is.
If there's a question I shouldhave asked you today, though.
SPEAKER_00 (33:52):
Yeah.
Uh what are the principles youlive by or what are the
principles you make yourdecisions through?
I think it's super important.
And I wish I had defined themearlier.
Uh, I found that every time Irun a decision that feels sticky
or hard through my principles,it's immediately obvious.
And I've never regretted adecision I made through the
principles, even if the resultsweren't what I wanted.
(34:15):
Um and I assume you want me toanswer that.
Yeah.
100%.
Oh, cool, cool, cool.
Yeah.
Uh so the first one is makedecisions from a place of
empowerment, not fear.
Playing small, trying not totrying to minimize a downside
was a really big goal for muchof my life.
And trying to maximize theupside is now a focus I have,
(34:36):
even if it's just skewing what Ithink about to the upside.
So uh that's one, make decisionsfrom a place of empowerment, not
fear.
Uh, take up space.
So keeping myself small, tryingto just like please everybody
else was a big driving force inmy life.
Um, my mom talks about how I wassuch an obedient, compliant
child.
I was so sweet, I did anythingshe asked without even asking
(34:58):
why.
And that was great for myparents, but it didn't
necessarily serve me in figuringout who I was and my goals.
So taking up space is another.
Uh, don't sit on the bench.
This is one my husband talksabout from when he was in high
school and was sitting on thebench in basketball.
He just quit with no otherideas.
Pardon?
SPEAKER_01 (35:17):
What's the point?
SPEAKER_00 (35:18):
Exactly.
Yeah, but it's kind of scarybecause saying that he was on
the basketball team felt good.
It was a good identity.
He got to wear his jersey toschool.
He could put it on his collegeapplication.
So just quitting the basketballteam with no idea how we'd spend
that time was scary.
And he had no idea how to spendthat time.
But then he started makingmovies, which is what got him
into coding, which is what hedoes now.
And if he hadn't, we wouldn'thave met.
(35:39):
And so just he had no idea whyhe was getting off the bench.
Like he just quit, but he filledit eventually with something
good.
And so now it's don't sit on thebench.
If you're in a job that isn'tusing your skills well, if
you're sitting on the bench in afriendship, just get out of it.
You don't have to know what elseyou're doing with that time.
But it's scary because sometimessitting on the bench in a safe,
cushy job has its appeal.
(36:01):
And so if you're actually goingto get yourself off the bench
with no idea what you're jumpingto, it can be scary.
But again, I haven't regrettedit.
And uh the last one is makedecisions from a place of
internal fulfillment, notexternal validation.
So I used to think a lot, howdoes this look on a resume, et
cetera?
But now I just ask, how does itfeel to me to be in this job, to
be in this role?
(36:21):
And those are the four.
SPEAKER_01 (36:22):
That I mean, that's a I mean, I think there's some
hard decisions that can filterthrough there, sure as life hits
you.
Uh, but that I think that'sgreat.
SPEAKER_00 (36:30):
And I think that's the pieces, right?
SPEAKER_01 (36:32):
Like that's a that's a that's a 10,000 word book
right there.
SPEAKER_00 (36:35):
Yeah, there you go.
Well, thanks.
SPEAKER_01 (36:37):
And you gave a few AI prompts on how to figure out
what your four principles shouldbe, provide that as kind of the
download.
I think you got it.
Um that could actually be a freedownload for you just to give to
people.
We'll think that all this iswhat I do.
You didn't ask for it, but yougot it anyway.
SPEAKER_00 (36:51):
Well, thank you.
It's been great.
SPEAKER_01 (36:53):
All right.
I you know, I I usually startwith a stalker session early and
I missed it because I'm I'm outof my own rhythm a little bit
here.
Uh how should someone's properlystalking and who would you like
to stalk you?
SPEAKER_00 (37:02):
Yeah, let's just connect on LinkedIn, Rebecca
Shaddocks.
SPEAKER_01 (37:05):
It's S H A D D I S.
Thank you, Rebecca.
You rock.
Thank you so much for comingtoday.
SPEAKER_00 (37:11):
Thank you.
It's been great.
SPEAKER_01 (37:13):
And listen, everyone who's still here, thank you for
being here.
You get a minute, go check outuh Rebecca's LinkedIn and then
uh one day we're gonna get herto get a better call to action,
but we'll talk to her offlineabout that.
But uh get out there, go cut atie.
Let nothing stop you fromachieving your success.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to the Cut the Tide Podcast.
Hello.
I'm your host, Thomas Helfrick,and I'm on a mission to help you
cut the tide of whatever it isholding you back from success.
Now, you got to own your ownsuccess.
If you don't, you're chasingsomeone else's dream, and that's
no boy on.
Today I am joined by RebeccaShattox.
Rebecca, how are you?
SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
Great.
This is my first podcast sincemy baby was born.
So it'll be fun to jump back in.
SPEAKER_01 (00:21):
That's amazing.
Congratulations, by the way.
Um, it's it is a miracle.
People don't realize we justtake it for granted that this
little baby is here.
Um, if men had to do it, wewould have died earned one.
So I think we all could agree onthat.
I think that that we get a sick,like we get a little cold, a
head cold, we're down for aweek, right?
SPEAKER_00 (00:39):
It's so funny.
I had the opposite issue.
My husband's like, he pulled hisback and didn't tell me for a
week, and he's like hobblingaround now.
I'm like, should we do somethingabout this?
He's like, probably.
I'll just wear baby wear her.
But uh yeah, it's so funny.
SPEAKER_01 (00:52):
Tell your uh tell your husband, this is something
that the babies love, and tokeep avoid him from also
gaining, you know, maybe somebaby weight is to work out with
a baby.
They love it when you kind oflift it, move it, run around
with a beautiful, just use it asa weight.
SPEAKER_00 (01:06):
I like it.
Yeah, he's been walking with heron the treadmill, baby wearing
her while he's just typing onhis laptop, but I like it.
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
It's high risk.
We have to evaluate that one.
Um anyway.
Rebecca, congratulations to thebaby.
Uh, tell us tell me a littleabout who you are and what it is
you do.
SPEAKER_00 (01:22):
Yeah, I'm a tech marketing leader at Forbes
contributor and podcast host.
SPEAKER_01 (01:27):
What's a tech marketing?
What tell me, peel that up.
SPEAKER_00 (01:30):
So I yeah, led marketing teams for tech
companies, mostly software.
But now I'm focusing on writingand podcasting.
SPEAKER_01 (01:37):
So you've got you you've moved from um like
corporate world basically toyour own brand figuring, doing
this.
Okay.
Um, what's your podcast callcall and what's it all about?
SPEAKER_00 (01:46):
It's called time billionaires.
Uh the idea is that a billionseconds is 31 years.
So if you expect to live another31 years, you're a time
billionaire.
But we waste time in ways wewouldn't waste money, which is
ironic because time is theresource we can't get back.
And it's about how to spend thetime that you do have better,
really just the 90 second to 15minute gaps between the
structured parts of your day,how to spend it in ways that
(02:08):
feel fulfilling and align withyour values.
So, like uh every episode offerstips on that.
But so before I hopped on, I hadseven minutes between when I
joined and when you joined, andjust used some of those
exercises.
I did 10 push-ups, I wrote aquick note to a friend, and I
did a couple paragraphs ofjournaling.
And so instead of just scrollingwith more digital noise, it's
ways that I feel more energizedand then better ready to dive
(02:31):
in.
SPEAKER_01 (02:31):
I've mastered the seven minute now.
Just nice.
SPEAKER_00 (02:34):
It's a good one.
SPEAKER_01 (02:36):
It's truly like plugging a battery back in.
I'm like, those who don't takenaps criticize those who do, but
they don't know.
They don't, they just don't knowwhat seven minutes can do.
Just like right before you fallasleep, sleep, and then you wake
back up.
You're like your ear.
SPEAKER_00 (02:49):
It can be restorative for sure.
Rest even if you're notsleeping.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:52):
Amazing.
Uh on your podcast, you how longyou've been doing this for now?
SPEAKER_00 (02:56):
Just since July, so three-ish months.
SPEAKER_01 (03:00):
And so uh, you know, okay, as a podcaster, I have
pivoted my podcast to somedegree.
Every and we'll I look at itformally every 90 days, just to
be clear.
Oh, and um in right now, here weare in late 2020, or about start
Q4 of 2025.
Uh, I'm doing a massiveoverhaul.
You're actually one of the lastshows of the year because I'm
paused all shows.
(03:20):
I was I was booked out tillMarch, and I paused all shows
because we're gonna get thisthing to be you know, 45-minute
full interview and aseven-minute audio because I
have two masters.
I have downloads that are goingwell, and I also have top of
funnel that I have to that Ihave to address for your
podcast.
I I say that because I startedoff as one thing and mine became
another.
How has yours evolved?
(03:41):
And you've had a baby in betweennow, but how's it evolved since
July?
SPEAKER_00 (03:44):
It's a good question.
Yeah, I'd say figuring out, Imean, the very first thing that
comes to mind was figuring outthat the name.
I was back and forth betweentime billionaires and hidden
minutes.
The idea is that there's hiddengaps in your day.
And eventually just felt liketime billionaires was more of a
call to action.
If you are a time billionaire,you can spend your time like
that.
But the balance of soloepisodes, pre-scripted episodes,
(04:07):
guest episodes, that's anevolution.
SPEAKER_01 (04:10):
Yeah.
The I I uh you're just solo showright now.
SPEAKER_00 (04:15):
I'm the only host, but have mostly guest episodes.
SPEAKER_01 (04:18):
You have mostly guests.
Okay, so it's a guest-based one.
Um I will tell you, the onething I've found in podcasting,
it's been in most of the data Ithink will support this, is is
and we messed this up a bit, butyou say don't make the title
tricky.
I actually think hidden seconds,unless that's already taken,
would be perfect because it'sspecifically because you're
talking about, you know, be youknow.
(04:39):
So what we did with ours to bespecific, and and I'll tell you
why we did this, it's it's cutthe tie, which is the action.
Um, and but right behind it, youknow, in the in the in this when
you're in podcast, and if youhave a podcast, listen up, okay,
or you're trying to findpodcasts, this is how you find
them.
It's by the title.
And so we have cut the tie, weuse the little pipe thing, and
we write, own your success,because I want people to find
people who are looking forthings around success.
(05:00):
Um, not so much justentrepreneurship, because we're
our our conversations arebroader than just sometimes
entrepreneurship.
We have entrepreneurs on, butit's a different issue.
For yours, hidden seconds is uhbecome a time billionaire, or
you know, where billionaires,something like that, where it
kind of gives the subtitle ofmoney and value.
So I hear time billionaires, andI'm thinking, oh, it's a money,
(05:21):
it's a money podcast.
But this seems to be more of anefficiency or life's uh as you
described it, uh, the spacebetween its wellness and it's
happiness and its joy.
It's like the currency of life.
You know, you trade your time,you're trading true truly the
time life that you have.
Um, anyway, something toconsider.
Um, and by the way, my originalpodcast, if you guys are
watching, and there's a littleplaque two actually on the wall
(05:43):
from YouTube, they both saynever been promoted.
It's the same podcast.
After a million, we got amillion fifty-four thousand
subscribers.
I changed the name of the entirething overnight.
Everything.
It didn't afford it.
SPEAKER_00 (05:55):
Why don't you do that again?
SPEAKER_01 (05:56):
Yeah, oh I would I wouldn't have I would have done
it.
I wish I would have done itbeginning, but it didn't hurt
us.
My point is changing the name ofyour podcast isn't a big deal.
Um if if you have a URL andother things like that, you you
know, you you just deal with it.
SPEAKER_00 (06:08):
I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (06:08):
So don't be afraid of that, bro.
Don't overthink it.
We'll we'll get into thatoverthink it.
Don't be tricky with yourpodcasting, just be very clear
of what you get.
SPEAKER_00 (06:17):
That's great.
Good tips, thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (06:19):
It's hey, listen, if we can stop a show right now.
You can just, you know, I knowright now you're like, damn, I
got all this work to do.
Um the reason is because you'reyou're trying to help people
write you know, we're talkingabout the show, you know.
If you've listened to our showsbefore, this one's a little
different because we're we'repivoting to a different kind of
show.
So you're doing it already withme.
But you know, you're you have apodcast and you and we'll I
actually want to before I goback to that, you have a
podcast.
(06:39):
How are you using that with yourwriting?
And then how does all that cometogether to make money?
SPEAKER_00 (06:44):
Yeah, the uh podcast actually spun out of a book I'm
writing.
It I started with the concept ofa book and just realized that a
lot of these chapter ideas thatare going into the book make
really good episodes.
And it's been a prettyinteresting symbiotic loop then
of writing a chapter, having anidea for an episode, hearing
something from a guest, puttingit into the book.
(07:06):
And that's been reallyrewarding.
SPEAKER_01 (07:09):
You know, when I work with clients on them
growing their business and kindof getting them set up so they
can use AI, use tech, and likewhat are they need to grow a
business, right?
Uh, the first question I askthem was what's the critical
problem you solve?
And how would you answer that?
What is the critical problemyour business solves or your
book or your podcast?
SPEAKER_00 (07:28):
Yeah, busy people really feel like we don't have
enough time to do the thingsthat we want to do because we're
just chasing the things that wehave to do.
But really, if you work 50 hoursa week and you sleep 50 hours a
week, you have 68 hours a weekto do whatever you want with.
But the problem is they'resprinkled throughout the day.
You don't have 68 open hours.
And so it's about reclaimingthat you can get a hundred
(07:50):
push-ups in in 10 seconds at atime.
You don't have to set big goalsof spending two hours at the
gym, for example.
And so it's really about that.
If you want more time to connectwith people, you want more
exercise, you want more nature,there is time for it in your
day.
But how do you reclaim that?
And that's the problem thatwe're solving.
SPEAKER_01 (08:10):
Is your is your business model then gonna be,
you know, let's get some moneyfrom this podcast, sell a book,
go speaking?
What's your uh what's your moneyplay?
SPEAKER_00 (08:18):
Nailed it.
SPEAKER_01 (08:20):
All that podcasts have one or two masters.
They have downloads, which isentertainment, value, people
sponsor eventually, you know, itit takes a while.
Um, or you have a top of funnel,right?
Where you're bringing guests onbecause you help them.
There's a probably a third play,I think that it's a top of
funnel, but yours is morecredentialing to go speak,
(08:40):
right?
I think you want a TEDx talk orit would be a probably path,
things like that.
Is that fair?
SPEAKER_00 (08:45):
That's right.
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (08:46):
But you're still ti you're writing on tech too.
SPEAKER_00 (08:49):
I am.
I'm a big data forbescontributor and just writing
about AI business strategy.
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (08:54):
Are you gonna bring those two together at some
point?
SPEAKER_00 (08:56):
I have no immediate plans too, but they definitely
inform each other.
So my thoughts on timemanagement came from being a
tech leader.
My thoughts on, or basically theway I use AI and think about
business strategy definitelyhelps inform my book and podcast
planning.
SPEAKER_01 (09:14):
Now, if you fast forward like let's say uh two
years from now, and it's verywell, I'm actually I'm gonna
make no assumptions.
What pays the most right now?
The writing, the podcast, orwhat what's uh where's revenue
come from right now?
SPEAKER_00 (09:28):
Two years from now or right now?
SPEAKER_01 (09:29):
Right now, right now, sorry.
I don't want to make anassumption there.
SPEAKER_00 (09:32):
Uh can we cut this part?
I've done this for two monthswith a baby.
I have no revenue from it.
SPEAKER_01 (09:38):
No, that's okay.
Listen, you there's no right,and that's okay.
I mean, I actually I would leaveit in.
My being, and that was myassumption that you're just you
just started and I was gonna beblown away.
Like, no, I got like 10,000 amonth from an end sponsored.
I'd be like, please tell me now.
This show is gonna be reversed.
We're gonna learn from her.
Um, I would assume nothing, likeI would assume that, because
we've been doing ours for almosttwo years and we still don't we
don't look for a sponsor, but Idon't think we're really
(10:00):
sponsorable.
We're it's still a top of fall.
The reason I say that is, but ifyou fast forward two years and
the podcast exceeds any revenuethat you could ever do writing,
do you drop one?
SPEAKER_00 (10:10):
I don't think so.
I think that there's a lot of Ilove writing.
Writing was, I mean, the idea ofstarting a podcast didn't come
up until I was writing.
I like the flow of ideas inwriting go into podcast
episodes, ideas from podcastepisodes go into writing.
It is a pretty fun repackagingexercise right now of things
(10:32):
that come up in both.
I think they each tend to makeeach other stronger, at least
for now.
unknown (10:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:37):
And the reason I say it is uh what happens to a lot
of entrepreneurs, at least I'veI've like that I've worked with
or met, is they have tie back towhat they did and they hold on
to it as long as possible as asafety net.
Hmm, interesting.
I need to get back, I gotta havethat just in case so I can have
credit, something so I don't gettoo outdated.
And I was just wondering is thatis that in the back of your
(10:58):
mind?
Is we were talking aboutoff-camera, like, hey, what's
the current tire cutting?
Is that something that's in yourmind that I need to kind of keep
a safety net if this doesn'twork?
SPEAKER_00 (11:05):
Definitely an interesting question.
Yeah, I think so much of mylife, so much of my career was
all planning five years.
And now it's a lot more dooropening opportunities, things
that I couldn't have envisionedbeing possible five years ago,
or very much are.
So yeah, I would say I'mdefinitely a cautious person by
nature.
I like contingency plans.
(11:28):
And I never envisioned not goingback to a corporate job after
this.
This was going to be a funcreative year.
But I so I don't know.
Um, I I think we'll see.
SPEAKER_01 (11:37):
It's a I mean, it's a it's a loaded question.
And I'm trust me, I'm I likethat.
It's what I'm supposed to bedoing or something.
So it's a very loaded question.
Uh and as I see what you'redoing, right?
I can see the bridge of AI,data, uh, and where that applies
to business life, which has gotthe you know, those, you know,
family, all the things that youyou do, because it's just time.
(12:00):
How do you use technology thento accelerate?
Uh, you know, that becomes ahuge speaking book consulting
opportunity for you because youlike I talk about time in this
other sense, this thing waydeeper, different, you know, has
some things to do with tech,sometimes it just has to do with
philosophical, whatever it is,right?
And and then you apply itdifferently like to business.
That is a consultancy of ofmaking you know a company's way
(12:23):
more effective with AIleveraging data to make the
decision.
Like I see that consultingbridge instantly.
So I don't know if you saw it,I'm hoping you, but that's it.
I mean, that's easy.
That's uh they are completelyrelated, I'm looking at, because
one's a tool to get more life,if you let it be.
Or it could be a tool to ruinyours, which is death scrolling.
SPEAKER_00 (12:42):
Yeah, yeah.
And I'd say that even in thosegaps, right, if you use them for
reflection to ask reallyimportant questions for thinking
and learning, to read a page ata time of a book, you're
actually going to be askingbetter questions and using all
the time that you have moreeffectively and more
productively.
So even the questions you ask AIto solve for you become better
(13:03):
if you're using these hiddenseconds better.
SPEAKER_01 (13:06):
I I and what I love about AI in particular, if you
if you know how to use itcorrectly, uh specifically, is
it runs stuff in parallel whereI may ask it a series of
questions, and I'll go off andanswer those questions and say,
How did I answer relative to mycomplete ignorance of the
subject and learn from myanswers relative to what the
experts or whatever else say andhave a conversation with it?
(13:27):
Because then your learning justgoes multiplied.
You you've shared your originalthought and your thinking, your
logic, and then it says, Well,here's what the experts say, and
here's why that's that kind ofthinking, if you can do that
effectively on a topic, allowsyou to get really insight in
depth and also helps you fromnot stepping under um your feet
when you go talk to people whoknow what they're talking about,
so you don't say somethingthat's clearly not gonna work
because of the you you're you'renascent, you know, if you're you
(13:49):
know so you could scale yourspaces between by having
technology do stuff for you.
SPEAKER_00 (13:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (13:57):
So you have a baby and do you catch yourself
looking, going, how is thattime?
All right, let me say it.
You're gonna go forward andyou're under a parent for
teacher conferences at somepoint, and you're gonna see
those as complete wastes oftime.
Have you thought startedthinking through like, you know,
as you you evolve the parentingangle and children and how they
(14:18):
suck up that other 68 hours aweek?
SPEAKER_00 (14:22):
Yeah, I would say most of my time feels much more
fragmented now.
No idea how long she'll benapping, anyone's guess roughly
when she'll need to eat again.
So just knowing that puts a lotmore urgency on how I choose to
spend that time.
I'm much more intentional nowabout if someone else could do
something, they should.
I think I was a lot more casualabout, sure, it's fine.
(14:44):
I'll do the dishes now, I'll dothe load of laundry now, et
cetera.
And now it's like, well, no,nanny's coming later.
Nobody else can write thischapter of the book.
I have these 20 minutes, maybemore, maybe not.
I'm only going to use this timefor things that I can uniquely
do.
And I think it's made me muchmore intentional about what is a
bad use of time.
I think the little productivitythings of, yeah, it feels nice
(15:07):
to vacuum, but does it actuallyhave to get done?
I'm much more mindful now of thereal opportunity cost because
sure, before the energy cost wasthere.
If I used that time, I couldn'tuse it for writing.
But I still felt like I hadenough control over my time to
do the things that I had set outto do.
Now I really see that if Ichoose to unload the dishwasher
instead of working on a podcastepisode, I may not get to that
(15:29):
podcast episode this week.
And so I'm much more mindful.
SPEAKER_01 (15:34):
There's a mindset with that because uh like at our
house, you know, for sure.
My my wife is definitely onethat's gonna we're gonna clean
everything, run everything donebefore we go do anything fun.
Like I'm oversimplifying it, butlike the idea that we're gonna
load, sweat, then we'll leave togo.
I'm like, that shit will be heretonight.
Let's go.
Um, you know, the that crumb onthe floor will if I sweep up
tomorrow morning or to thisafternoon.
SPEAKER_00 (15:54):
Or never.
It probably doesn't reallymatter, right?
SPEAKER_01 (15:56):
Probably doesn't matter.
It does matter because it getsaround the house.
I I get that.
I like to wake up to a cleankitchen too, but but I I tend to
favor fun and other thingsbefore work versus let's get
some stuff done.
And that that mind shift forsome people is very difficult.
So we're also different people.
For you, um, what do you thinkyour number one passion is?
SPEAKER_00 (16:13):
I want to click on that really quickly before we
come back to it.
Uh, this concept of scruffyhospitality I learned in Oliver
Berkman's Meditations forMortals.
And he's really the first personwho challenged my I have O C D,
so cleanliness, et cetera, justdidn't feel like a negotiable.
I felt like I had to.
If something was dirty, I had togo clean it because there was
some big crisis.
(16:33):
Um, but he introduced me to thisconcept of scruffy hospitality.
And he has this line in hisbook, a perfectly kept house is
a sign of a poorly lived life.
Because yeah, deep cleaning yourhouse feels very productive
until you ask, did it actuallyhave to get done?
Is it just that you had to bemore tolerant of laundry mess,
et cetera?
And so it's it, those are aquick little dopamine hit check
(16:55):
boxes, but they're not movingthe needle of your life forward
necessarily.
So changing your standards ofwhat's non-negotiable, more fun
in your day for you, maybe, uh,is really worthwhile.
And so that's sort of where someof that challenging came from.
SPEAKER_01 (17:08):
Really interesting.
I I will ask you if you can sendme that.
SPEAKER_00 (17:11):
Um Yeah, yeah, I will.
Uh, and and the definition ofscruffy hospitality, he talked
about how he likes to host andentertain, but oftentimes
getting the house perfect,making it perfectly clean,
cooking something that feltworthwhile was an impediment to
seeing friends more often.
And seeing his friends moreoften was the goal.
And so he started just embracingloads of laundry will not be
done.
Maybe my kid wants to flush thetoilet.
(17:32):
Oh, wouldn't that be mortifying?
No, it's whatever.
It's scruffy hospitality.
And it actually makes ourfriends feel more connected to
us more authentically.
And yeah, I loved applying thatto other aspects.
SPEAKER_01 (17:42):
I mean, I hosting's a big thing.
I get having a clean housebecause you want to present well
and do that.
Um, you know, but any given houryou can come to our house and
wait.
It's not not museum level, butit's close.
Um, I but I I would think youdon't want to trade life for
that.
But but his this thing though,doesn't that other person
potentially have happiness fromthat?
They find happiness in theorder.
It's it's uh anyway, we getthat's a debate.
(18:04):
What okay, your top passion isit writing, thinking?
SPEAKER_00 (18:08):
What would you call your kind of my single top
passion is just time with myfamily, mostly outside.
And everything else adds to myfulfillment of life, my feeling
of contribution, connection.
But ultimately, it's justnothing better than being
outside and being with myfamily.
SPEAKER_01 (18:26):
And to get to do that, if you can make a living,
make money in the minimal amountof time, you have more time left
over on the other side.
SPEAKER_00 (18:36):
Yeah, it's all about the output.
100%.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that was a really bigmental shift for me.
I love corporate life structure.
I very much have had to cut thetie with workaholism.
It is very fulfilling day to dayto feel important and needed and
high urgency, high pressure.
There so much has to get done.
(18:56):
So cutting that, I didn't, Igenuinely did not see any
problem with having my liferevolve around work.
The very first vacation I'veever taken, probably since I was
14, that I didn't work at all.
So, like when I was 14, I'dstudy for the SAT, et cetera,
was my baby moon with my husbandthis summer.
And he asked if we could make itcompletely work-free.
And I truly did not understandthe point.
(19:18):
I agree, just say fine, whateverif that's important to you.
But I literally went into thatthree-week vacation thinking,
what is the big deal?
If we're just going to besitting here watching TV, why
can't I be answering emails?
Fine, okay, if it matters toyou, I won't answer any emails.
Stress me out.
And I actually found that sotransformative.
So just the habits of, oh, ameeting popped up.
(19:39):
I have to jump into it.
I have to respond.
I have to be responsive.
I have to look reliable.
That was addicting.
And so cutting that from theselike signals of being productive
or busy or efficient orimportant to what is my actual
output has just let me be a lotmore efficient.
SPEAKER_01 (19:55):
You know, it's a I'm about having that much insight
into it.
Mine was more of uh I'll giveyou an example of, you know, I
from the start, our teams haveworked uh four-day work weeks
because I said, hey, I want youto about you know, relative to
market, you have a full day off,go do what you want, go get
another job, just don't becompetitive in what you do and
get your shit done.
Then we're, you know, justperiod.
I do the same thing where I takeone day a week to learn, maybe
(20:16):
just get some stuff done in thebusiness.
I just know expectations forreturning emails, right?
Um that that is such a reveal.
I tell people, and the otherpiece was I I never found time
to work out forever.
And I was like, you know what?
I'm just gonna start going tothe gym every day at eight,
seven days a week because Ican't break a routine or I'm
done.
Um, and that routine, some daysI just don't want to be there.
And it's like, oh, if 100% isthe best you can do, I might be
(20:38):
at 4%, but I'm there.
I'm gonna do something, doenough reps.
But the point being is that thatuse of time when you create
space, I was worried aboutletting off the gas.
Like, oh, I gotta work.
I've been way more productivebecause I guess got rid of all
the shit I don't need to do.
Um and I still look at and and Ilook at my time, I go, man, I
can still be way moreproductive.
(20:58):
And some of the stuff you justtouched on become outside of
around uh scruffy house, I can'tread your, I'm gonna read that
scruffy hospitality, and andit's okay.
And you know, and like thosemind shifts are major.
And you know, don't worry aboutreturning to corporate, by the
way.
Uh you have a little child,they'll be all the intensity,
focus, or you'll have it allright there.
So did that's that you can apply100% to that.
(21:20):
You're like, it's good.
SPEAKER_00 (21:22):
Um yeah, it surprised me though that you've
been more productive, right?
Because you've made space tothink about what actually
matters.
I think I think that's thebiggest difference that you
don't see the opportunity costuntil you have it.
When the doing constant output,like I really thought of myself
as a doer.
I got things done.
There was some clear measure ofoutput.
(21:43):
When that's your measure, youspend a lot of mental energy
signaling that you're doing it.
I'm so look how reliable I am.
I'm responding at 9 p.m.
last Saturday.
But that takes the mental spaceto actually ask is this project
that I'm pushing so hard on withthis really tight deadline, even
when we should actually bedoing.
And if you have the space to askthat, everything gets better.
The output gets better, theresults, the quality get better.
(22:05):
And you don't realize there isthat opportunity cost until you
have that space, at least Ididn't, because I did not see
anything wrong with 12-hourdays, six days a week.
SPEAKER_01 (22:16):
Well, you can either you do, but you're a doer, you
get it done.
SPEAKER_00 (22:19):
You get it done.
And it feels right because youcan say, look, check us off.
And I think that shift that wasreally hard for me to go from
corporate output, where meetingsand projects and stakeholders
were a big part of my day, towriting, which is solo and by
myself.
And it takes months or years foranything external to come to be.
What a good use of a day wastotally rocked my brain because
(22:42):
suddenly I I could be spendingmonths on something that wasn't
promising.
And I could never do that with acorporate job because no one's
gonna let me spend months onsomething that doesn't have any
business value.
And so suddenly just having tohave more confidence in myself,
in the space that it took todecide if it was worthwhile, in
the ability to revise, thatreally took space.
SPEAKER_01 (23:01):
I think if you uh if you extrapolate, it's like a
coaching session.
Here we go.
If you take what you do, I seesuch an opportunity because you
have a passion for writing andan uh you're doing passion right
now is writing, right?
So like writing thinking andapplying it.
If you apply it just in themoments of a daily journal of
with child, parents, hey, theparents about to go from the
(23:22):
shift of corporate to here andbecause you're gonna go write it
five years ago, you'll forgottentoo much.
Interesting.
And you write it now of like,hey, this is what it's like to
have a kid, but this is how youcan maximize it without feeling
like you've completely lostyourself, like idea of how to
get your time right to tobalance it.
Or if you've you're now astay-home mom and you you figure
out the audience who wants to doit.
(23:42):
Like I went from a corporate jobto this, that's a pretty good
audience that has money that youwould be writing to.
And from a from a businessstandpoint, um, you know, then
how do you make the return back?
And like like you could writeshort books on this of like
little 10,000, 12,000 word bookson here's here's what I did, and
this is this is how you can getyour time, and you become a time
(24:03):
expert.
Um, and get in the nerdiness ofit.
It's time even exists.
Start talking about that stuff.
Like it because how can I behere, my team's in the
Philippines, and yet it's 12p.m.
and it's 12 a.m.
We're not the same time, but weare.
SPEAKER_00 (24:17):
Anyway, I love that.
Yeah, it's so funny.
I've been thinking of this aslike a single big debut book and
then spin-offs, but you'reright, there's nothing stopping
it from being smaller series.
SPEAKER_01 (24:26):
Oh, I so every year I I live this cut the tie
principle.
What first year was like, hey,stop drinking, I started working
out, got men's hormones right,and then this year is ADHD for
adults.
Had them a whole lot.
Medicational therapy, you know,what I have gone to learn from
kind of that whole thing is um Ihad a book.
I was literally literally aboutto click publisher's copy from
(24:48):
KDP.
Uh, and I was but I was like,all right, my wife gave me some
feedback and I started editingit again.
And I was like halfway through,I was like, God, this is too
effing long.
No one's gonna, I don't want toread this shit.
Who and then and then I waslike, 75,000 words and there's
no action.
And I'm like, what is this?
A complain session or rant?
Like, this is like a memoir thatpeople talk about after
(25:08):
someone's like, you know,climbed up in a tower and shot a
bunch of.
No, I'm like, we're not doingthis.
That's okay, that's too much.
But I was like, I'm gonna getthis down at 12.5.
I did I you started focusingdown AI.
Like, I'm like, hey, look at allthese episodes.
What's really, what are peoplereally cutting ties around?
Um you had to classify yours,right?
Yours comes down to kind of thisrelationships, leaving the
(25:31):
relationship of a job to focuson the relationship with the
with yourself and baby.
unknown (25:37):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (25:37):
And I say even the relationship of self-validation
changes.
Very external when it's acompany willing to pay you for
what you're doing.
You know there's some value init.
The relationship of my ownconfidence and what was worth
working on had to change becauseI had to be confident.
It's funny, I was talking to afriend of mine about how did I
know this was good, and she justdidn't get it.
(25:58):
I could tell, like, my brain andher brain didn't work.
She's like, well, there's justvalue in producing something
that you know is good.
And I was like, but how do youknow it's good if no one tells
you?
And she's just had such internalconfidence that if she thought
it was good, if she thought itwas art, it was.
And I had such a stakeholderexternal feedback, hey boss,
(26:18):
what do you want from mementality.
That I was like, well, I don'tknow if it's good, if I'm the
only one who likes it.
And so just even that mentalityof this external validation had
permeated into just my abilityto trust my own decisions.
I didn't realize was a tie forsure.
SPEAKER_01 (26:34):
I'm not you're not a therapist by any stretch of
imagination.
The the need for validation is,you know, it's it's love
language, but it's also tiessometimes back to childhood,
other things.
But uh, that comes in thisrelationship idea that I don't
need anyone else but myself tovalidate this.
You're a data person.
You can say, how many women arelike me that are smart,
(26:54):
successful, could have made themillions of years, and be like,
there's a lot of those, and Idon't need that many to make
money.
What can I give them that Ihave?
SPEAKER_00 (27:03):
You know what's shocking about what you just
said?
That I never made thisconnection until right now.
Being a data person, being amarketer, I actually think has
has impacted how I judge thiscreative process.
So as a marketer, there havebeen so many times where I said,
this is a better version, thisis better copy, this is better
creative, this is betterobjectively, it's better in my
mind.
Ship it.
And it performed worse thansomething I thought was worse.
(27:26):
So I think for the last 12years, I've had examples of my
opinion being disproven by databy the measures that matter.
And now this is a wholedifferent workflow that I'd
never really connected.
That doing that process ofshipping, getting really quick
data and feedback and iteratingand letting that guide.
This writing feels creative in asimilar way, but it's it's a
(27:47):
completely different motion.
SPEAKER_01 (27:49):
Yeah.
Well, and if you learn like I'mspeaking out of turn because I
haven't published my book, butthat is what December is all
about.
So I'm also pausing the podcastjust to finish it and do it.
But I will tell you that I I didsend it to like 40 people and
they read it and they gave methe feedback that I discovered
myself, they did it nicely.
It's pretty long.
I got through eight chapters,which is like 12.
(28:10):
And like they said it nicely,and they're like, but I really
like the storytelling.
So I did really goodstorytelling.
And they're like, and it reallywas impactful, but they didn't
share like it, but so what now?
And they gave me the feedback,but kindly.
And and I think where you, youknow, you struggle, like I
struggle with similar things.
Every time I think it's a goodthing to do for social media,
that the the it's terribly, it'slike the worst.
Every time one of my Gen Zerogoes, No, do it this way, I
(28:32):
could you just do it.
It does freaking amazing.
I'm like, it looks so shitty.
The Gen X, or I hate that, butokay, whatever.
Um, anyway, the point being isif you write enough and you know
there's value, throw throw theturd on the table and let's see
if it gets cleaned up.
SPEAKER_00 (28:50):
No, I think you're saying you're like know your
principles of how you want toget things done, which I would
agree with.
SPEAKER_01 (28:56):
If you focus your personal brand, I think around
time.
And I think around how do youuse it to get the most out of
your life.
Even writing that sentence inthe book, right?
And you say I'm gonna apply itto my life and share it with you
the whole way, like kids as awoman, this and you have a
market that's successful, womenthat's your age now, that's the
next age, whatever, you alwayshave an audience, they'll follow
(29:16):
you, they'll listen to yourpodcast, they'll probably pay
you to come speak, and you haveeverything you need to make, be
outside of your doors, and justyou're almost a comedian, just
taking everyday life and puttingit into thought.
Hmm as a creator, orchestreprocess with it.
And like every six months I'mgonna write one about what's
going on.
SPEAKER_00 (29:33):
And yeah, kind of look at that.
Did you say as a comedian?
Sorry, I think I had a delay onmy end.
SPEAKER_01 (29:38):
Yeah, as the comedian, like you're like you
know, the Nate Bargazi just kindof like I was getting Starbucks,
and now it's like you know, he'smade a few million from the
jokes, right?
Like the point is just takeeveryday life and how does that
apply with time, or you'rewatching people order something,
and you're like, that's notreally the same that works.
Yeah, go ahead.
Good.
SPEAKER_00 (29:54):
I'll give you a Okay, I probably do improv
comedy, and I couldn't rememberif I told you that or not, if
that was what you were.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (30:00):
It's on my bucket list of uh the two one open mic
night.
Yes, I I've written the I'vewritten it now.
I I don't know why I I justwon't go do it.
I don't I know we'll take thatoffline.
SPEAKER_00 (30:11):
Resistance, yeah, creative resistance.
Have you read The Artist Way byJulia Cameron?
SPEAKER_01 (30:16):
No, you're gonna have to send me that one then
too.
SPEAKER_00 (30:18):
Yep, yep, yep.
It's good.
Uh the first thing that come tomind is morning pages.
So every morning writing threepages by hand free form if you
can to really talk about theresistance and what's holding
you back from it.
But I think again, in 15 minutesa day, if you were to spend 15
minutes a day just memorizing itor tweaking it, you would be
done the bit.
SPEAKER_01 (30:37):
I've done the, I mean, I I go through what, you
know, I do know the brand sexyvoice guy.
But the funny thing is I leavethat, but then I get into this
different thing with the if ifwho picks what kind of LLM is
the kind of this short, becauseonly you're like two minutes.
It's like perplexity.
It's you know, it's it's oh fun.
SPEAKER_00 (30:53):
I want to see this.
Okay, this is awesome.
See, I want to see this.
This needs to exist in theworld.
It sounds awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (30:59):
I mean, it's like you know, rock.
That's like a dirty gaynightclub, and I love that one.
Oh my god, it's so good.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:04):
I mean, so the reason I improv was literally
for work.
My entire life has revolvedaround work.
I just noticed I wasoverthinking things.
And then my husband and I wentto an improv show just for fun.
And I thought, you know, whodoesn't overthink things is
improv actors because theyliterally it's not so improvy,
as you know.
SPEAKER_01 (31:22):
Improvs are there's they've set it up.
SPEAKER_00 (31:25):
Well, there's different principles.
Well, I'm gonna do improv, butbut improv itself, there's
principles, but but yeah, improvitself is not exactly the same
as open mic.
You wouldn't script it.
We would go in and get asuggestion from the audience and
just riff on it, and you createthe scene and the world there.
There are different approaches,but but really, no, uh it's
completely free forum.
We don't necessarily evenremember what happened
(31:45):
afterwards.
SPEAKER_01 (31:46):
But I would like to do blackout.
Yeah, I could do blackoutimprov.
SPEAKER_00 (31:50):
Yeah, I didn't remember the first, I mean, I
threw up before the first fiveshows.
I didn't remember the firstfour.
That's the point though.
Like it's so low stakes, andthat's really, I think,
something that helped me is it'sreally low stakes.
Getting myself even just out ofthe car was just asking what's
the worst that could happen.
SPEAKER_01 (32:04):
I think I'm I think you you turn around.
So I think from a new podcastidea, blackout improv would be a
good one where you're like, hey,we're gonna go rip on a subject
and not remember anything.
Or fire it and forget it.
Unedited.
Here we go.
I think it'd be fun.
Um open mic, love it.
Let me give you an example inreal world, though I think also
people that I think this is likea business example, I'd say,
(32:25):
from time, right?
Okay, and from a marketer.
Every concert I've ever been to,I never get merch because
there's a line forever, and Iwon't I don't do lines, and nor
will I get to a show super earlyto get a t-shirt that costs too
much.
And by the time I've ever gottenthere, I've I've been
disappointed they never have mysize.
So I just I just don't do it.
(32:45):
I said, however, if you had a QRcode and I can only scan it here
and I can be G lo geolocated touse it, and I could then order a
shirt that that's on that wallthat will be delivered in a few
days, and I'll probably add asticker and some other shit.
But I can only get it right nowin this time window because this
is when the concert is, theywould have sold thousands of
dollars of stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (33:06):
Yeah, it's a few shipping, right?
To not say it in line.
SPEAKER_01 (33:09):
They would have probably on-demand print shred
ship, they would have noinventory, and you could say,
hey, you buy it here, you scanit, it shows up your house in a
few days.
I mean, it would be the biggesttime savings and moneymaker.
It's an example though.
My point is there's stuff I seethat stuff all the time, and I'm
like, why?
So anyway.
(33:31):
We're way over time.
I love this flow of the show, bythe way, because you're a real
entrepreneur that's really juststarting it and you're figuring
it out.
And I hope I think you got somewheels turning now where you're
gonna go make some money withit.
SPEAKER_00 (33:42):
Yeah.
I hope so.
SPEAKER_01 (33:44):
I know you've already I know you already had
some.
I hope I've helped you inanyway.
All right.
I always ask this question nomatter what the show is.
If there's a question I shouldhave asked you today, though.
SPEAKER_00 (33:52):
Yeah.
Uh what are the principles youlive by or what are the
principles you make yourdecisions through?
I think it's super important.
And I wish I had defined themearlier.
Uh, I found that every time Irun a decision that feels sticky
or hard through my principles,it's immediately obvious.
And I've never regretted adecision I made through the
principles, even if the resultsweren't what I wanted.
(34:15):
Um and I assume you want me toanswer that.
Yeah.
100%.
Oh, cool, cool, cool.
Yeah.
Uh so the first one is makedecisions from a place of
empowerment, not fear.
Playing small, trying not totrying to minimize a downside
was a really big goal for muchof my life.
And trying to maximize theupside is now a focus I have,
(34:36):
even if it's just skewing what Ithink about to the upside.
So uh that's one, make decisionsfrom a place of empowerment, not
fear.
Uh, take up space.
So keeping myself small, tryingto just like please everybody
else was a big driving force inmy life.
Um, my mom talks about how I wassuch an obedient, compliant
child.
I was so sweet, I did anythingshe asked without even asking
(34:58):
why.
And that was great for myparents, but it didn't
necessarily serve me in figuringout who I was and my goals.
So taking up space is another.
Uh, don't sit on the bench.
This is one my husband talksabout from when he was in high
school and was sitting on thebench in basketball.
He just quit with no otherideas.
Pardon?
SPEAKER_01 (35:17):
What's the point?
SPEAKER_00 (35:18):
Exactly.
Yeah, but it's kind of scarybecause saying that he was on
the basketball team felt good.
It was a good identity.
He got to wear his jersey toschool.
He could put it on his collegeapplication.
So just quitting the basketballteam with no idea how we'd spend
that time was scary.
And he had no idea how to spendthat time.
But then he started makingmovies, which is what got him
into coding, which is what hedoes now.
And if he hadn't, we wouldn'thave met.
(35:39):
And so just he had no idea whyhe was getting off the bench.
Like he just quit, but he filledit eventually with something
good.
And so now it's don't sit on thebench.
If you're in a job that isn'tusing your skills well, if
you're sitting on the bench in afriendship, just get out of it.
You don't have to know what elseyou're doing with that time.
But it's scary because sometimessitting on the bench in a safe,
cushy job has its appeal.
(36:01):
And so if you're actually goingto get yourself off the bench
with no idea what you're jumpingto, it can be scary.
But again, I haven't regrettedit.
And uh the last one is makedecisions from a place of
internal fulfillment, notexternal validation.
So I used to think a lot, howdoes this look on a resume, et
cetera?
But now I just ask, how does itfeel to me to be in this job, to
be in this role?
(36:21):
And those are the four.
SPEAKER_01 (36:22):
That I mean, that's a I mean, I think there's some
hard decisions that can filterthrough there, sure as life hits
you.
Uh, but that I think that'sgreat.
SPEAKER_00 (36:30):
And I think that's the pieces, right?
SPEAKER_01 (36:32):
Like that's a that's a that's a 10,000 word book
right there.
SPEAKER_00 (36:35):
Yeah, there you go.
Well, thanks.
SPEAKER_01 (36:37):
And you gave a few AI prompts on how to figure out
what your four principles shouldbe, provide that as kind of the
download.
I think you got it.
Um that could actually be a freedownload for you just to give to
people.
We'll think that all this iswhat I do.
You didn't ask for it, but yougot it anyway.
SPEAKER_00 (36:51):
Well, thank you.
It's been great.
SPEAKER_01 (36:53):
All right.
I you know, I I usually startwith a stalker session early and
I missed it because I'm I'm outof my own rhythm a little bit
here.
Uh how should someone's properlystalking and who would you like
to stalk you?
SPEAKER_00 (37:02):
Yeah, let's just connect on LinkedIn, Rebecca
Shaddocks.
SPEAKER_01 (37:05):
It's S H A D D I S.
Thank you, Rebecca.
You rock.
Thank you so much for comingtoday.
SPEAKER_00 (37:11):
Thank you.
It's been great.
SPEAKER_01 (37:13):
And listen, everyone who's still here, thank you for
being here.
You get a minute, go check outuh Rebecca's LinkedIn and then
uh one day we're gonna get herto get a better call to action,
but we'll talk to her offlineabout that.
But uh get out there, go cut atie.
Let nothing stop you fromachieving your success.
Thanks for listening.
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