Adult Autism & Perfectionism | Burnout Recovery Without Rigid Rules with Valerie

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[00:00:20] And you could replace this spot and be heard by millions See web page for T's and C's AudioStack.ai forward slash contest Welcome to another episode of CrazyFitnessGuy's Healthy Living Podcast Today I have my friend Valerie here Welcome to another episode of CrazyFitnessGuy's Healthy Living Podcast

[00:01:17] That's a mouthful Especially on a Friday Holy moly Today I have my friend Valerie here It's funny, I usually have people fill out a form to be on my podcast But I don't know what happened to it Maybe got lost in a shuffle of switching tools

[00:01:40] Not to soft, don't do that again Welcome Valerie Thanks so much for having me, Jimmy I'm glad to reconnect So tell me a little about yourself Yes, so I host the podcast Future Proof Career I call myself a recovering career stressoholic

[00:02:03] So I am trying to help people combat and squash that career anxiety And take control of their futures And what made you want to get into that kind of career? Yeah, so yeah, like I said, I'm a recovering career stressoholic And I still am recovering from that

[00:02:24] Just the sense of, oh my gosh, I could lose my job any day And what's going to happen to me? I'm not going to be able to support myself I have a family now and how am I going to support them?

[00:02:35] And I've just been noticing that regardless of what industry you're in You know, if you work for the government, if you're a teacher If you're working for a large corporation, a small company Everyone seems to be anxious now about their livelihood, about the futures

[00:02:51] So my show is helping listeners combat that And give them the skills they need to take back that control of their futures So we talk a lot about soft skills that you need A lot of jobs are being automated by robots That was expedited with COVID, of course

[00:03:11] And what can you do to compete with these robots? You know, can you analyze data? Can you improve your communication skills? Improve your relationships and your network? So I have a lot of guests on to talk about that

[00:03:26] And I do some solo shows where we really dig into those different aspects of it Now, when you say robots, do you think maybe some jobs are OK Being replaced with robots? Like, let's say sometimes customer service, depending how well that robot is trained I know like for

[00:03:52] Sometimes like with Amazon, they have a robotic chatbot And it can pretty much get all your order information So if you just want to refund, you can just do without even talking to anyone on the phone Yes, but sometimes when you're talking to, I don't know

[00:04:14] Comcast customer service, the lovely name brand and everything And no one you can understand in person on the phone And it is like, ma'am, why do they have customer service again? I know. Is it really customer service because I don't really sense the service part?

[00:04:34] Yeah, I totally agree. But I think automation is a great thing. I mean, really if it makes jobs safer, if it allows human beings to have the opportunity to make an impact in a different way, I think that's a great thing.

[00:04:49] And from the business perspective, it makes sense. You know, you can't fight it. You know, a lot of jobs can be automated and should be so So they should they should do that.

[00:04:59] It's just a matter of the individual who's in that role to be aware that that's a risk. And to be, I guess, self aware enough to know what to do to have an alternate plan if their their job was to be eliminated.

[00:05:14] And what kind of what are some of the tips that you go for? Like what are some helpful strategies? Anything that makes you a human is a good thing to focus on. That's kind of been the trend. So that's communication skills.

[00:05:34] Can you speak directly and clearly in a way that's not necessarily going to offend somebody? You know, can you make your point in a way that makes it clear so that person knows what you need to do?

[00:05:47] Can you lead that individual or can you lead a group of people and mobilize them to want to reach the same goal that you're wanting to reach? You know, a robot is never going to be able to be a leader in that sense.

[00:05:59] Maybe some people could argue with that. But, you know, most likely in our lifetime, that's not going to happen. I've seen a lot of people, which is it's kind of interesting, a trend of speaking in terms of like being on stage.

[00:06:14] So there's a lot of like I had a politician who had an acting background. So people who are sort of more in tuned with the arts is a trend that I've been seeing. So yeah, I mean, like I would say, probably the best way to sum it up

[00:06:29] is just be a human being and be an authentic person. And that's going to make you stand out. Well, that's what I try to do on social media every single day to be human. I'm messed up on quite a few things.

[00:06:45] And I even admitted it on social media. Oh, what did you mess up on? Well, surprisingly, I'm messed up the date of when the Golden Globes were. Well, I mean, to be honest, it used to be in January, but then in covid came

[00:07:06] and they moved all the way to the last weekend in February. And it's like, how much is this supposed to stay up on top of this? I haven't watched in years. I'm not going to watch again this year because yeah, other horrible movie music.

[00:07:23] Have you heard of the movie? Oh, music. I haven't heard of that. Yeah, it's a it's a really. Let's just say it's. They portray autism to be like the worst thing in the world. And I'm not buying a movie ticket to that and has a thousand bad reviews

[00:07:46] and has two nominations for Golden Globes. And I hope it does not win. But have you heard the drama about Emily in Paris? I don't think so. Yeah, so this made headlines because I don't know if you've seen Emily in Paris. I have. It is not award worthy.

[00:08:05] I think most people would agree to that. And it sounds like the show runners flew out all of these people from the Golden Globes. I don't know what they're called, whatever their organization is and treated them to like really fancy hotels and food and whatever.

[00:08:22] So people are like, well, that kind of was a little bit sketchy. You know, like are they just getting this nomination because they got all this great treatment? So, you know, who knows maybe with the movie music that happened to. You never know.

[00:08:37] So how many people do you help people one on one or do you just help people through your show? Yeah, I help people one on one too. I've helped a few clients that are earlier stages in their career

[00:08:53] because I think when we think about people who have career anxiety, you think of people who have been in a position for a long time and maybe their jobs being phased out. But I'm seeing that career anxiety happening earlier too, which makes sense.

[00:09:06] You know, so people who are in probably year one to five in their career. I'm helping them mostly at this point. Have you ever had a motivational speaker? Be one of my clients. No, I haven't. Do you think they would be a good client to have?

[00:09:22] I don't know. I'm just I'm just asking for a friend. For me. Well, yeah, Jimmy, let's make it happen. So how many how many years have your show been up and running for? Not years. It's been months since September of last year.

[00:09:48] And I do three shows a week. So I'm really hitting the ground running with it. Gee, yeah, I don't think I could do that. That's what everybody says. But I was inspired by Jenny Blake. She has a show called Pivot and she did for a while.

[00:10:06] She did daily shows and she said that it helped her overcome her perfectionism. And when I started the show, it like I was so sick about it, like just the pushing publish button. I was so stressed that it wasn't perfect. It took me hours to edit it.

[00:10:23] It was not sustainable. So doing it three times a week has helped me immensely with that perfectionism. For me, I just know I I know I can't do it because it's not because I'm lazy. It is I run my own website. I have my own blog.

[00:10:45] I guess I'm still in school. Yeah, you have a lot going on. Yeah. And and I'm speaking on many different podcasts as guests and conventions and as I know things. Yeah. Well, that's that's a good point, though, too. And that's something that can help people future proof themselves

[00:11:05] is knowing how to manage your time and to spend your time in ways that strategically make sense. And if it doesn't make sense to you to do three episodes a week and I think you do once a month, I mean, if that's fine, then then that works.

[00:11:18] So I got 1500 total plays for once a month. So that's awesome. Oh, total plays. Well, that's still good. I mean, that's if you think about it, this was the advice I was given. If you think about 1500 people in a room, that's a lot of listeners.

[00:11:33] Yeah. I don't again, I don't know my total subscribers because it's only an estimate. Yeah, it's not good. People out there who are innovators, this is an opportunity for you to come up with a podcast metric. Yes, in this case, you need a human to figure this out.

[00:11:53] How can I get? How can I know my total RSS? RSS subscribers, newsletters, subscribers, social media followers, podcasts, we found short. Yeah, it's strange because you would think it would be a lot easier than it is. Yeah.

[00:12:09] And you can and you know the total number of people visiting your website, but you can't know that the total number of people who's listening. Yeah, I don't think that. You have an estimate of 133. So you mean there could be more or less? How do you market this?

[00:12:25] Yeah, it's tough. What's people's interest? Well, this show is doing a lot. Very have a lot of plays. I don't know. Speaking of podcasts, are you on Clubhouse, Jimmy? No. Do you know what Clubhouse is? I've heard about it.

[00:12:45] I heard that they also got a data breach the other day. Oh, they did. I did not know that. Yeah. They got. Yeah, it was like a huge data breach now. Government's looking into that and I'm like, really? Yeah.

[00:13:03] I say, how do you get a data breach already? That's quick. I was wondering, too. What data do they have? It's all audio. People's voices. I guess maybe. I don't know. But anyway, Jimmy, I was going to tell you I love Clubhouse. Maybe I shouldn't go there.

[00:13:23] Yeah, it's nice. It's kind of like podcasting, but you can speak back and forth. Like as the listener, you can engage, which is pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, my someone invited me to Clubhouse, but I told them is that I can't be on one more social media platform. Mm-hmm.

[00:13:43] I feel like you'd be good on it, though, especially as a speaker. I think that would be a good fit for you. Yeah, maybe. Mail drive in summer, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. If it's still around, sounds like it might be going through a rough patch.

[00:13:57] Look what they say about Facebook when it first started. Yeah, that's true. Now people either love it or hate it. Yeah. I'm in the middle. Do you use Facebook much or what social media tool do you use? I use a lot. I use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

[00:14:19] I use LinkedIn pretty much every podcast. Pretty much every podcasting platform. Yeah. Maybe not 100, not maybe not all of them because there's so many gosh darn podcast platforms. Yeah, there are. And they pop up and it's like, wait, I've never heard of this.

[00:14:38] Like I've never heard of this. I think I heard of Hydrogen a little while ago. I was like, OK, that's new. I mean, maybe they have better analytics. Maybe I should look into them. Is it free? Right. Yeah, it's a good question. I don't know.

[00:14:52] I might have to check them out now. I'll send you a link. You put it in the show notes. Yeah, show notes. So if somebody was struggling and I don't know, let's use the media example. If somebody was struggling for looking to get more speaking gigs

[00:15:17] and whatnot, how would I go about doing that? I mean, may not necessarily speaking opportunities, but if I'm afraid did I just do my last one or is anybody of them might be coming dry, stale, boring, et cetera. Yeah. So the pillars of my program are stamp.

[00:15:43] So savings have savings. And that has helped me a lot. If you're worried about not getting your next gig, maybe you're going to get laid off. If you have a buffer or financial buffer, that's really going to help you feel better about that.

[00:15:57] So stock up on some cash. Have more than what some of the experts say. I would suggest having at least 10,000 per what your salary is per month. So if you make like 50,000 a year, try to have at least a five month buffer in addition

[00:16:14] to whatever else you're going to need. So have savings, work on your transferable skills. So for you, Jimmy, that might be like your networking, your sales, your marketing, work on those skills that's going to help you get your name out there a little bit more.

[00:16:30] Amaze your employer, continue doing great work. Follow up, send follow up emails. Send thank yous. So I think a lot of people get so stressed out that they forget to do the work that they're supposed to be doing. So keep doing awesome things.

[00:16:44] And then I think a big thing for this would be mindset. That's the M in stamp. So why do you think you're done after every gig? You know, that's not a healthy way to be living. That's not really a mindset of abundance. So, you know, continually reassess that.

[00:17:04] Why do I feel like that this is this reality or is this just my anxiety sinking in? And then P is have a plan B. So I know speakers were hit hard with COVID, you know, that's reality. So have some sort of plan B for you too.

[00:17:19] So, you know, like, well, if speaking doesn't work out, I can do this other thing. I don't know. I have a course or I do physical training or athletic training or whatever it is. So that kind of helps to to know like,

[00:17:33] hey, if this thing doesn't work out, I'm mitigating my risk. I have this other thing that I can push on a little harder if something does happen. So good tips because I mean, I feel that way. I just thought of some weird example. I don't know.

[00:17:53] Well, and I think for the mindset piece too is and what's tough for me is like put it out into the world just say like on all your social media, hey, I'm looking for more speaking gigs. Anybody know anyone, you know,

[00:18:05] and just start putting yourself out there more and it may not result in anything, but it might and just by you like putting it out there more, you might see more opportunities come to you. I also noticed that there's been just by enough for myself

[00:18:22] that maybe not even for myself, but I know some days where I do feel kind of nervous about certain things just like am I doing enough to get my name out there. That's funny. Yesterday, I had this.

[00:18:44] I had an operate one of my blog posts that was recently published a week ago. Yeah, a week ago. It feels like a lifetime ago. And this I was using a new tool for my researching process for because I like to I'm my one main focus this year.

[00:19:08] And I'm many different focuses, but my most important one is to work smarter, not harder. Yeah. And because I want to be able to provide great value. I want to keep showing up, but if it's going to take me 10 hours to do this one thing,

[00:19:26] I hope it's not. Yeah. But it could sometimes it does. Yeah. And I'm not saying that I don't enjoy what I do, but I'm thinking it's like, is there a smarter way of doing this instead of just doing everything manually?

[00:19:41] Because there's so many questions that could be asked in Google and you have no idea what you can cover and you want to have a thorough post. And so I found this tool and the other. I think it was this year beginning of this year,

[00:20:03] and they were doing this like one time purchased thing. Their regular plans cost like $5,000 or $5,000 a month and it's like, holy crap. And it's like, maybe I should get in one of these. One of these codes to try it.

[00:20:24] And the worst case, I got 60 days money back guaranteed for any reason. And what's funny, one of my articles was shared on a Facebook page from this company that has 69,000 likes and followers on it. I'm like, that's the first time ever that my blog post has

[00:20:48] gone shared on a company's Facebook page. Wow. So it worked. Yeah. I love you too. It's like you're the best thing I've ever purchased. Oh wow. Do you know the name of it? What is this thing? It's called Market Muse. So far I found it helpful.

[00:21:10] And it's kind of cool. And again, for people who's listening to this, I'm not an affiliate marketer for it and I'm not a partner with it. I've used it twice so far. And just because of my weekly blog posts and I do it once a

[00:21:29] week, researching for my posts. And what's kind of cool with it, do they tell you, hey, here's what your competitors are ranking for here. And like in the color coats stuff for you. And it shows you as like, here's what they haven't covered.

[00:21:51] And I think the red one is that it, I think the red means that they either covered, I forget the color coding. You can eat people can easily Google it and what the color coding means, but it tells you what the competitors covered and what they haven't covered.

[00:22:10] And if they, and even if they covered something, you can still cover it, but make it your own because Google likes people making their own. And by just including it helps a little bit to get your name out there and say, hey look, I'm,

[00:22:29] I know what I'm talking about with this topic and here and there. And I have my own experience with this topic. And so I find it pretty helpful. And when I saw that, I say, I don't know if this is because

[00:22:43] of this tool, but what I was doing before was not really working, but I saw a difference. I haven't been yet pinpointed as to, but hell, if anything's working, sure, it's worth a minute for me. Yeah. It sounds kind of like TubeBuddy on YouTube.

[00:23:04] You can type in your keywords for your YouTube video and it tells you if that keyword is strong or not based off of the demand of that phrase that you're using and how saturated it is. So like, I looked up like business school is overly saturated,

[00:23:21] but business school right out of undergrad is a better one to use. But yeah, I like that. I've heard some tips for podcasters that to grow your audience, you need to figure out what your audience wants by looking at Google search metrics and things like that.

[00:23:36] And I wasn't sure how to do that. So I'll have to check out that tool. It saves a lot of hours of Googling stuff because or even I even have a keyword research tool. I know I still use that just to find my main topic,

[00:23:55] but then when I find, oh, here's what I want to rank for and when I want to go after four, then I plug into this tool and say, oh, here's it gives me so many different alternatives of what I can put in the copy and whatnot.

[00:24:12] And as I hit the jackpot, I'll have to try it out. Yeah, I can send you the link to it after the show. Sure. Yeah. And I think you should reach out to them to be a sponsor too. Yeah, I probably should. Right. No, we don't do sponsors.

[00:24:34] Yeah, you never know. Mindset. Companies don't want to pay extra. Yeah. Yeah, I know. But they've got budgets. So yeah, get your customer service first. Yeah. Depending if they're bad or not. I'm not going to name any names. Gankest. Sorry, I just sneezed.

[00:25:01] Yeah, I don't think they're known for that. No. So do you enjoy what you do? Do you enjoy helping people with what, as your for your career? Yeah, I do. I do enjoy that. And with podcasting, I think it's brought on so many other things too.

[00:25:25] Like personally, I've grown my network. You know what we wouldn't have met without podcasting. I think that's awesome. And it's also helped me with my own personal confidence too. You know, I just talked to another guest and I'll be sharing it soon.

[00:25:39] And we talked about how, you know, we feel like now our voice is out there into the world and our voice matters. And I think that's a huge personal win for me as well.

[00:25:50] So yeah, some personal things as well as just the excitement of helping other people too. I agree with you as well. I've, I know for myself, I like the feeling that I get to know that, hey,

[00:26:08] people want to know what I, people want to know what I want. I have to say I even keep like, I know for myself is I know I get tired of watching the news, listen to people's politics.

[00:26:29] So I have, I've always promised myself if I'm going to be on the internet, I'm going to podcast. There's no politics, money, religion or anything. And just to keep it to myself and because you want it. Go to audio stack.ai forward slash contest.

[00:27:10] Give us just a few details and you could replace this spot and be heard by millions. See web page for T's and C's. Audio stack.ai forward slash contest. Okay, round two. Name something that's not boring. A laundry? Ooh, a book club. Computer solitaire, huh?

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[00:27:50] Why do I want to piss off half of my audience? Yeah, yeah. It's like what Johnny Carson said, the talk show who used to be around. And he has to say, why would I want to piss off 50% of my audience? I wouldn't.

[00:28:08] I think that that's true, but sometimes there may be a point where it's worth pissing off some people too. You know, like you were talking about how that movie, you know, maybe wasn't really portraying autistic people in the correct way.

[00:28:24] You know, you might offend somebody like, I love that movie. I've worked on that movie, you know, and it's okay. It's worth it to you just to say something like that, I think.

[00:28:34] So just kind of knowing yourself and knowing when it's worth the fight and when it's not. Well, I forgot to mention about the movie. There were also 45,000 people signed a petition from the autism community and no one liked it. Oh really?

[00:28:56] They just generally wasn't a good movie either. Yeah, I mean like people want this to be, I even considered for the two Golden Globes that's nominated for. And they put in the movie category slash music slash comedy. That's a comedy that's very sick. Really?

[00:29:20] Yeah, I'm like, that's a stretch. I think maybe you should just have maybe maybe you should just put it in the category called music because perhaps it did have really good music in it.

[00:29:33] I don't know because I'm not watching it and I'm not going to pay for a movie ticket that somebody has a strong opinion that I need to be fixed. Yeah, yeah.

[00:29:45] I think that this though is what makes you have a good platform though, you know what you stand for and you stand for it, you know, you don't agree with that movie.

[00:29:53] I think people want to hear that they don't want to hear someone who's sort of wishy washy about things like well maybe it's okay. I don't know. So I think to have that conviction about what do you believe makes people want to listen to the show.

[00:30:06] And I also tried to, I even tell people is like if you, if you like, as I give you have a different opinion than me, sure. I was like, I don't mind.

[00:30:20] As I as I tell me what your thoughts are tell me how you feeling as I as I as I we don't need to fight about it. I'm open to discussion. I can see different people's positive views on stuff. I'm an open minded person.

[00:30:37] Yeah, be open minded but then still stand for something. Yeah. I'm not one of those people like la la la not listening. La la la la. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:48] I was like, I have a new street reader I can read from different perspectives like one person says this movie music is awesome and people should go see it. 45,000 people absolutely hate the movie but I'm in the middle of I'm just not seeing it. Uh huh. Yeah.

[00:31:08] I can say I physically hate it because I I tell people on my last episode never seen it. I think a movie that I've refused to see probably scary movies. I hate to watch anything like that horror movies.

[00:31:22] What about what about one of the scary movies that but as a spoof off of a scary movie like scream back in the day? Did you ever watch that? No, I never watched it but I what about the movie scary movie? I've never seen it.

[00:31:38] I never gave it a chance. Should I? Yeah, they're funny is like scary movie three is funny. They based off their ring and it should be funny.

[00:31:50] Like at some sometimes it's kind of like if you first seeing it and it's kind of I don't say dark but you might yeah.

[00:32:02] Like feel off about it but then when you're watching with a friend or are you just seeing it multiple times that you just you just know which parts come in next and say, oh that's funny. Yeah, right? You have to be in that right headspace maybe. Yeah.

[00:32:17] Uh huh. So do you have any other tips that might be useful to our the listeners? Yeah, I would say never stop learning and be really conscientious though of how you're learning if that helps.

[00:32:37] So I know a lot of people right now I just did an episode on MBAs and the application rates are soaring for MBAs right now. People are losing their jobs. They're worried. They're trying to pivot.

[00:32:51] So a lot of people are running into some of these master's degrees and I would just caution people to really think about what your goals are and don't make decisions based off of fear.

[00:33:04] You know maybe an MBA is the right decision for you but really look at how much it's going to cost and what are you hoping to get out of it?

[00:33:12] You have to have a purpose and we talked a lot about MBAs on my show this week and I just that's something on the top of my mind right now. How much did it cost like six billion dollars a year? Pretty much.

[00:33:25] Well the high the top tier schools are between like 150,000 to 200,000 so it's pretty expensive and then if you look at the salary coming out of those schools it's like an average of 150,000 which is a high salary but I kind of I actually expected them to be higher coming from like a Harvard or something like that.

[00:33:45] And then you can get I found that the lowest MBA lowest cost MBA program that you can get is from I think it's called like Georgia Southeastern University. It's online and that's $7,000 for the entire program which is amazing.

[00:34:03] And so you know just really look at the cost of things. If you're trying to go to a top tier school do you want to be like a C-suite corporate employee at one point? Is that why you're doing it? Are you just looking for the name?

[00:34:17] If you're looking for the network that's great they have a great network but there's other ways to do that too. So just be smart right now just be strategic because it is stressful like career anxiety is at a peak right now.

[00:34:31] So take a second step back journal do whatever you need to do to really come up with a plan. Wow you know here's an idea for Zoom you know they need them on the I don't know have you ever seen maybe called the mask with Jim Carrey?

[00:34:50] Oh right well a long time ago yes. You know I think they should have like some kind of I wouldn't say a Zoom background but some kind of like you know like on Facebook and social media you can add like those funny faces to your face.

[00:35:11] So they should have like one for the mask and so just the one where it's George is dropping up and like every time I tell him it says a dollar and math like. That'd be good in like a really stuffy business meeting you know.

[00:35:30] We just lost the smart money. Have you seen the it's like a viral video where there were some attorneys and they were in court via Zoom and he was a cat. Have you seen that? No I haven't.

[00:35:45] And it was like this really serious meeting and he's like I'm not a cat I cannot get the cat off of my screen and everybody was just being really serious it's funny you should check it out. Yeah.

[00:36:00] Yeah for me I know I always try to learn new things every single day. I read a lot of books in total so far I've read like 240 books. Wow. That was like it was not a whole life. Okay. I don't know how I would do that.

[00:36:26] Yeah unless it's like cat in the hat and some books my kids read that has like one word on each page. I finished. Yep. The cat jumped. Right. Yep. Man if only I could write a book like that.

[00:36:44] I know you know it seems easy to write a kid's book until you actually try to write a kid's book. I don't think I could do it. No it's not as easy as it looks there's definitely a lot of bad kid books out there.

[00:36:56] None comes to mind at the moment. For me it's usually ones that have like unnecessary name calling and stuff like that. It's like why you know it's usually from a few decades ago where it seemed like the norm for kids behavior was different.

[00:37:16] You know when you look at old Disney movies it's definitely changed a lot. That's for sure. Yeah. So how many people do you normally help in a day? Oh goodness. Well I do still have like a regular full-time job, a corporate job.

[00:37:41] So I like to think I'm helping in a different way in that role. Probably like I'm still starting out so one-on-one clients. I've only had a few of those at this point. And then I like to think I'm helping people when I do my interviews too.

[00:38:02] So I don't know if I had to quantify it. Maybe I reach out to individual people like five times a week, five individuals. And do all they mix up or? Oh no. No, no, no. Like my guests definitely don't.

[00:38:22] I would say the hit rate for guests is like 30% maybe say yes. Yeah. And this is another thing with podcasters. I think there's some who only reach out to warm leads and that's a lot easier. So if you already know the person, you know, like what we're doing,

[00:38:38] that's a lot easier of an interview. But sometimes I'll see an interesting person or a celebrity and I'll be like, hey, can you be on my show? And I never hear back. And then I follow up and I still don't hear back. That happens.

[00:38:50] But I still think, you know, trying to be an optimist 30%. It's pretty good. You know, that's 30% that said yes. Glass 30% full. I'll take 30% and I take anything. For me, I've been, I think, I don't think,

[00:39:14] I've been since my, one of my friends, but kind of just had a friendly bet with me about getting on many podcasts as possible before Thanksgiving last year. I mean, I was still doing quite a bit of shows,

[00:39:28] but I couldn't crank it up because it's like, are you kidding me? I was like, no one should bet me. Did you have any favorite shows or any shows that stood out? I don't know.

[00:39:42] There was a lot of them, I would say they were probably if it sound very corny, if I say that they were all my favorite. I had to say it kind of is all my favorite. Yeah, well, that's good though.

[00:39:56] That's good that you didn't have any like notably bad experiences. I mean, I noticed some of the other ones where I had poor lighting on the show. And then I had to move to my dad's office and the house.

[00:40:15] And now I finally got my own ring light, which is pretty good. And I think it changes colors. I'll get some blue. Can give you a tan. Yeah, give me a nice tan. Yeah, I'm at the beach. I'd love to be at the beach.

[00:40:34] Yeah, that would be nice. You're in Pennsylvania? Yeah. Yeah, not a beach area. No. I'm in the cold Arctic area. Same here. It's warming up though in Wisconsin. So hopefully spring is on its way. You know, I used to go to Wisconsin every single summer. Oh, nice.

[00:40:57] But that changed. I can't say that. Why it changed? Hopefully Wisconsin didn't do anything to you. No, no. So I don't represent the whole state. No, not yet. Yes. Mindset. That's true. I don't represent the state yet. I like that.

[00:41:21] So where can people follow you on social media? Yeah. I'm on a future proof career. It's my podcast and you can find me on LinkedIn Valerie. Z like zebra a R I C. And that's my handle pretty much everywhere. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, clubhouse.

[00:41:45] If you're on clubhouse as well. And do you have a website as well? Yes, Valerie is Eric.com. And you can listen to podcasts on that site as well. You can apply to be a guest if that's something you're interested in.

[00:42:00] And there I think there's a link to like leave the show or review to just always helpful for us in podcast land. That's for sure. I'm always looking for reviews. Always finding them trying to find them. Yeah, I heard a theory that what gets podcasts ranked is not

[00:42:21] necessarily reviews. Like I've always been told that but it's actually subscribed. So, you know, subscribe to the show too. I'll just put that out there. Subscribe to all the shows you like. I think that does help us. And it's really funny.

[00:42:36] I don't know how the, how those platforms know how to, how many people subscribers that they have because if it's all an estimate, then we shall be at the top. Yeah, that's a good point too.

[00:42:52] Well, so I listened to a podcast and they did some testing and they outsourced this service from on Fiverr. Do you ever get these services where they say, hey, I can promote your podcast for you for $5 or whatever? Probably like 2,500 a day. Oh goodness.

[00:43:12] No, this is like an inexpensive and they basically have like, this is my impression like computer farm where they're just subscribed, subscribed, subscribed through all of their iTunes accounts and they said that's what gets you up in the charts.

[00:43:25] So like the top 100 and that's going to get people to find your show. But it is against the terms of service to do that. So yeah, I'm scared to do anything like that that could get my show in trouble.

[00:43:37] So I don't think I'm, I don't think I've gotten into trouble yet with Apple. Not yet. There's always that maybe I probably, I probably ticked him off a few times. Let's just say it was not my glorious moment. Got to hear the story. Okay, fine. I'll tell it.

[00:43:59] Let's just say I was trying to get on today or news platform and I was trying to get on today. I was trying to get on today. I was trying to get on today. I was trying to get on today.

[00:44:11] I was trying to get onto their news platform. They gave me like kind of the worst response ever. And I called them out multiple times through it on social media. I didn't like the response. I was like, come on, that's ridiculous.

[00:44:32] And then so their PR person actually reached out to me. Oh wow. And they said, and I was like, I'm so sorry for the response that we gave you. You deserve more than what we gave you. Oh, nice.

[00:44:47] And I actually still kind of keep in touch with that person. Just to have a relationship with Apple. Hi. And I was like, this is the first time a company actually apologized to me. That's pretty good though. So see, you're probably not on the bad side.

[00:45:05] That was pretty, I don't know. Good of them to do that. Yeah, I was like, wow. I was like, no, if only could get some other companies to do that. Yeah, right. Right. It would be nice. You know, I had to quote my one of my,

[00:45:21] one of my favorite shows called the blacklist. And I don't know have you ever seen it on NBC? Yeah, I had to quit though. It was too much. Is he the dad? Is he not the dad? Is he the, her father? Is he not?

[00:45:34] And I was like, Oh my gosh, I don't care anymore. I watched like seven episodes or seven seasons and I was out. So I'm going to get back into watching it because I just love all the lines and I want to know who he really is.

[00:45:49] And I actually watched behind the scenes of it. I mean, like, oh, some of what the director said and is like, you're not going to know who he really is until these shows is completely over. And I was like, I was like, I want to be, get canceled.

[00:46:06] You'll know who he is. Your time out the James Bader character. And I was like, I wanted to find out who we were here. It's too much. I don't know if I can, I can't, I can't do it.

[00:46:18] It's too much of a commitment to make it to the last episode. I've done it on a few different shows. But one of my favorite quotes, I think that would be appropriate was it's like something along the line of, oh, geez. There's so many good quotes.

[00:46:42] Now, of course, when I'm looking for it doesn't come. But anyway, I, I, I, it is a funny, well, I would say funny, but it had some funny lines in it and. It was written well. It is, I would give it that I enjoyed the seasons I watched.

[00:47:00] It was just time for me to part with it. But yeah, I definitely want to go back to it because it's just, just the funny lines. And it's like, yeah, some of them is like, it's like, right?

[00:47:16] There's something that there's a fun in it or something like that. And yeah, well, I actually use one that Jeff saw, one of their guests on Facebook yesterday. And like I was getting all these emails every single day by this person

[00:47:32] and say, hey, can you add a link to my website and everything? I'm like, if I have an answer to the first three times, let's try four or five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Yes. Well, at least they're persistent. Yeah.

[00:47:44] And I was like, why can't email be smart just to get rid of these people? Yeah. Yeah. Dream world having an assistant to take care of that. You know, people, the companies and you make emails super smart.

[00:47:58] And it was like, this person is abusing the system and abusing this email address automatically get rid of block. Yeah, right? Yeah. I was like, I hate email. Yeah, I know it's hard to keep up with it.

[00:48:14] And there's so many places you can get emails or whatever you call it now. Messages, there's like LinkedIn messages, Facebook messages, Instagram messages. And it's like, do I have to like really check all of these different places? It's a lot to keep up with.

[00:48:29] And I liked all the sponsors messages on LinkedIn and say, hey, did you know you can do this? And say, Hey, did you know I don't care. Now you're, you're going to get a apology note from LinkedIn. Well, I mean, it's not even from LinkedIn.

[00:48:48] They're just a bunch of companies and people sending me a sponsor messages and say, it is a lot. I feel like it. But you know, I said my 30% hit rate was good. Maybe they get 10% hit rate of people who actually open the emails

[00:49:02] and that's probably a lot of people for them. I just ignore it all. Yeah, I usually do too. The only time when I either don't ignore is I'm looking for something specific for someone, but that's not the specific person. Done trash, ignore.

[00:49:26] Yeah, you don't have time for that. You have too many things going on, Jimmy. Especially when people just message me and say, Hey, never hear back from them again. I was like, who the hell is this person? Yeah. Yeah, hopefully I haven't been guilty of that. Hey Jimmy.

[00:49:43] And then I failed to follow up. Well, some person like message me like the other day, asking me if I still want to be like, I mean, didn't even ask me. It's like just send me a calendar link and it's like, who's this person?

[00:49:57] And I didn't even introduce them and say, Hey, I'm from so-and-so group. I'm in like 20 different Facebook groups and say, who the hell are you? And then I had to ask the person, are you legit? And it's like, yeah, I'm legit.

[00:50:13] And I was like, I'm just making sure. I'm not trying to be offensive. But it did a lot of spam. I got like the thousands of spam messages a day and email and Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn and I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's a lot.

[00:50:28] Can I have a filter that says legitimate only? Oh really? I'll have to check that out. I mean like, I would love this be if you can. Oh, okay. I was like, that's kind of funny that LinkedIn would offer. That would be nice. Yeah. Hey, opportunity app opportunity.

[00:50:45] Exactly. Exactly. So before we wrap up, do you have any other suggestions? Probably my final suggestion. I think that there's a point where career anxiety is kind of normal. You know, everyone's a little bit curious about the future and very few people feel like excited about the future

[00:51:05] every single day. So there's some level of anxiety that's normal. And if it's not normal, you know, if you're feeling, you know, like physically distressed, mentally distressed at all, then definitely get some help. There's so many resources now, especially with COVID,

[00:51:21] you know, virtual resources that you can utilize if that stress is getting to be more than what you think is healthy. And yeah, for one more thing, there's, I know for myself that writing in a journal has helped me deal with some of the stress.

[00:51:44] I even have a blog post that a company shared on their Facebook page. So they must really like that post as well. Nice. Yeah, it's not like I told them to share it. They just mentioned my brand name, Crazy Fitness Guy,

[00:52:00] along with the post and it's like, wow, I actually got shared on 69th person likes and followers Facebook page inside. Yeah. Exciting. I'm going up in the world. I hope that's where I'm going or I don't know.

[00:52:19] I would suggest for you to is like doing some outreach to press as well, you know, being, you know, you can reach out to press with pitches of different stories and articles to get your name out there as well. You mean like the local press?

[00:52:35] You could do local and then work your way up to some of the bigger press. How would you go by doing that? Yeah. So I did a boot camp class about how to do this. There's people you can hire to help you with it,

[00:52:50] but you can just send a pitch. So say like whatever your pitches, movie music or was it, is that what it's called? Music the movie doesn't represent the autistic community. It could be your pitch and then send it out to different outlets and see if someone picked up.

[00:53:07] You might get a 1% hit rate. You know, you never know, but just like pitch some different story ideas out there. And then when you're doing that, then you say, Hey, and I'm crazy fitness guy. Check out my site. I might try that. Yeah. I would try that.

[00:53:23] And the other thing you could do, there's Harrow help a reporter out. Are you on that? Yeah. I haven't done anything in a while with them. Yeah. I never, I haven't had luck on there, but a lot of people have. And then there's another tool called quoted qwotd.

[00:53:39] Yeah. Tell me that link to that one. Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of like a Harrow where you connect with reporters, but you have such a good niche that I think there's opportunity for you. I hope so. Yeah. I think so.

[00:53:55] And thanks for being a guest on crazy fitness guys healthy living podcast and let's stay in touch. Thanks so much, Jimmy. It was great being here. Okay. Round two. Name something that's not boring. Laundry? Oh, a book club. Computer solitaire. Huh? Ah, sorry.

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