Reflecting on 2023 and Planning for 2024: Growth, Networking, and Adventures

Welcome back to this podcast episode. This is take four that we're just doing right now.

Today has been a struggle to record this. I don't know what is happening with technology or the Internet or 5G or whatever, but everything's going wrong today. This is our fourth attempt.

Yeah. And if you hear this, great. If not, we're not gonna air this podcast. So hopefully this makes it into the cut.

I think it will. I think this one's it. So what are we talking about today?

So today we should talk about how the TEDx. The TEDx talk went and what. Reflecting on 2023 and what we're going to do in 2024.

Okay, that's a lot.

We'll wrap it up in 15 minutes.

Okay. All right, so first, the TEDx talk. So if you've been living under a rock and are not following me on any social media platforms, first of all, shame on you. Second of all, I just finished up, as you know, my TEDx talk in Hartford, Connecticut. I think it went well. What do you think?

Yeah, went really well. Yeah.

Thank you for coming, by the way. I loved having you there. Did you? I made eye contact with you during my talk. Did you notice? Like, once or twice?

Yeah. Should I send an invoice to the company for that?

No, but you just made me feel, like, less nervous having somebody I love just right in front of me. But anyways, it was great. Connecticut was lacking a little bit in the fun department.

Two nights in a row, they forgot my food, and I sat at a restaurant for an hour with no food. So wasn't. Wasn't that great for me.

But what's the common denominator in that equation?

The food in the restaurants.

You. Yeah, we didn't love Connecticut. I mean, okay, we did do the Mark Twain Museum. That was really fun.

Super cool.

My dad came, our friend came, my sister came.

That's really cool. Yeah.

Yeah, it was really cool. I met a lot of really awesome people that were like, hey, I follow on Instagram. Like, I came to see this. So a shout out to everybody I met that night. You guys were awesome. Um, that was my favorite part of the night, meeting people.

So the video's not out yet, right?

No. So today, let's see. The Talk was on December 3rd. Today's December 11th. The organizer said he'd have it on YouTube in the next few weeks, before the end of the year. So I will share it. You will not be able to miss it if you have a pulse and breathe air. Trust me.

Okay. So sweet. So we'll send that out. And how did 2023 go for you?

2023 was our best year yet.

Really?

Hands down.

Come on. Right? Yeah. Yeah. What's. We got a lot of different opportunities coming.

We cracked the code on networking this year.

Did you notice? That was huge.

Yeah, that was huge. We. We have elevated our friendships, our business relationships, our partnerships. I feel like 2023 was the year of meeting people and taking networking seriously.

Yeah. I need to turn up the screen.

Now you're looking at. Okay, so if you're listening to this, Rico's looking at the podcast receiver right now, looking to see if it's turning green when I talk.

So Hallie wants to whisper into the microphone and hope it to pick it up. So she's always so quiet. She's like a little church mouse.

Just. So you want me to talk like this instead?

Yeah, so. So normally she has this preposterous voice in the morning where she's just like going crazy and like super loud, super, you know, like super presence. But everyone, we start filming a podcast or recording one, the voice just all of a sudden just starts to whisper away.

All right, I'll try harder. Is this better? I just feel like I'm yelling at you. I'm not angry with you. Why would I be yelling?

No, but that's how it should be. But, you know, now we're okay.

All right, so back to 2023. What was the highlight of your year or what did you think? We totally kicked ass on this year.

So we totally got some brand partnership deals going. We just signed a university client for marketing. So we're taking over their social media as a. From a college that is a huge, huge milestones in our company. If you are at college and need help or support, reach out to the contact@alisonpacket.com we'd love to help you out. And yeah, you will see, we're going to reveal at one point or it might be obvious which college we're helping.

Out, but let us know if you think you can tell which college we are managing their social media. I don't think it needs to be a secret. It's a good thing.

Yeah. So we'll reveal that and it's going to be huge because we get some fun stuff that we're going to do with that with our social media and it's going to be. It's going to be really cool. So that was probably my biggest highlight of the year.

Yeah. Wow. And that only happened like three days ago.

Yeah, I thought it's going to take us longer to network and trying to get the foot in the door. But we did it. Yeah, we really did it.

That business opportunity came from a relationship that you began establishing, like, five years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy how. How that took so long to build that relationship, but. Yeah.

And what I'm noticing in 2023 is that networking isn't very transactional moment to moment. It's more like you plant a seed, and then it. Maybe it grows later.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I loved that. All right, so what didn't go so well in 2023 in your mind?

I think what we could improve on is just clear path, you know, like, there's people out there, friends of ours, that have a product that they want to sell, and they need to build marketing around their product. We have the marketing in place, but not a clear strategy on what we're trying to sell or which road to pick. So when we pick a product, like, let's say we want to sell computers.

Or Tupperware, the book that I wrote.

Or the book Rational, there's like, a clear path to selling a book. Find the right audience and do it. But we have the audience, but we don't have the. We don't know what we want to sell.

I mean, essentially, we're selling a personal brand. We're selling multiple things. Like, we can support people on the social media side of things. I would consider us experts with social media marketing. We can support people on the career development side of things. I would consider us experts on that. And then there's everything in between. We can make websites, we can do photography and video editing. There's. There's, like, so many things we've gotten really good at. Um, but 2024, I'm very excited about. Yeah, especially when it gets warmer because it's so cold in Las Vegas right now.

Absolutely. Not impressed.

And we have some trips coming up before the year ends in, and they're gonna be even colder. Should we tell people where we're going?

Yeah, go ahead, tell them. Yeah.

Okay. So I am going to Switzerland and London before New Year's Eve.

And then what are you doing in London?

London. I'm gonna meet a new friend named Rachel. Super excited about that. I hope it works out that we can meet. And I'm going on a ladies trip for a couple days in London. I've never been to London before.

And.

I'm really excited to meet all these ladies and my new friend from LinkedIn and explore London. So if anybody has any recommendations for London for the first time I'll be staying near Paddington and let me know what I should do and what I should see.

Nice. Nice. Yeah.

And where are you going?

So I'm going to Switzerland, the same thing. But instead of me going to London, I'm actually heading to Bangkok afterwards. Heading to Thailand, get to soak up some warm sun.

You need that.

So on January 2, I'm heading to Bangkok till like the 14th. So I have two weeks of like nice weather. So I'm really stoked about that. Really stoked about it.

Yeah, I'm excited for you. You loved going to Asia.

Yeah, I liked it.

Yeah. Awesome. Okay, so we have some fun trips planned to end the year with and this will be your second time flying around the earth in the last six months, is that correct?

So what's funny is when we booked a flight, it was. Was actually cheaper for me to fly from Switzerland to Thailand and then from Thailand to Las Vegas than it was from Switzerland to Las Vegas. So doing a world trip is actually cheaper than it was, you know, with the airline and the tickets we booked beforehand. So that was just an interesting take.

Yeah. So a couple months ago we went from Vegas to Switzerland, to Bali, Indonesia to the Philippines, back to Vegas. And this time we're going from Vegas to Minneapolis to Amsterdam, to Zurich, Switzerland and then you're going to Bangkok, Thailand, and then Phuket and then back home and I'm going to London and then Vegas.

Yeah. So it's going to be huge starting off the new year. Good. You know, you gotta, you gotta do that. So, so.

And then we get back home in January and we have some exciting opportunities for 2024. I have. So first thing I want to mention is I have a new LinkedIn learning course coming out in January and it's called, it's a nano course. So I think it's about 20 minutes long, total 10 videos. And it's titled Setting healthy Boundaries and expectations in the Workplace.

Okay. I like that.

That's something that everybody could get better at.

Yeah.

Wouldn't you agree?

Yeah, 100%.

That's how you can prevent burnout.

Especially Gen Z. I just saw this show from German documentary that they said that employers are having the hardest time to actually recruit talent. Not only in the United States, also Germany, that Gen Z says, I'm only going to work four day week. And then they're like, well, I pay, you know, huge amounts of overtime on Saturdays and if you come, you know, and we get certain, you know, milestones, I pay bonuses. And this woman got interviewed and she said, nah, my mental health's worth more than, than the money and I only work four days a week so I can recoup.

Wow. People are putting a high. Gen Z is putting a very high price on their mental health. This is so many businesses I've recently heard of are not able to hire full time employees. They hire a bunch of part time employees, which it sounds like is more expensive for the company.

Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. But that makes, you know, that makes sense. People don't want it, you know, work like the boomers did and just, I.

Don'T want to say slave away, I don't like using that word. But keep their heads down. Work for 40 years at the same company.

Yeah, work 40 years and just keep it, keep at it, keep at it, keep at it, keep at it. And now they're like, let me do a four day work week and maybe I'll work one or two days of my own thing, you know, get my own stuff started. Yeah. So it's just different times, you know.

And I don't blame Gen Z for doing that. I, I wish I could, I wish I could just totally fully back this corporate job thing. Like everybody should have a 9 to 5, but even I couldn't do that. Back in 2020 I had a 9 to 5. And you and I both started this personal brand endeavor because we thought it could open up doors and it sure has. I would encourage everybody to start growing their personal brand because it, if you don't want a 9 to 5 in corporate someday, or if you don't want to work retail or hourly or be a part of a union, doors will be opening to you. But you need to plant the seed ahead of time.

Yeah, it, it takes, I think without a bunch of money, takes about three to five years to grow personal brand. If you can throw a lot of money at it, you can do it overnight. But most people do not have a lot of money to throw at it. With ads, with nice equipment, paying somebody that's already done it. So you don't make the mistakes. And that's basically, you know, interesting, interesting take. You basically exchange money with somebody else's experience to get ahead.

Yeah. And that's something we have not done. We've done everything ourselves up until this point. We've learned how to edit videos, record podcasts, film videos, do every single social media platform.

We did mistakes. We did basically everything in the, in the book that you can do.

And even now, you and I didn't go to a podcast studio and pay 200 an hour to record. We bought the equipment ourselves. We bought the headphones. We got GarageBand. We got the microphones, we got the receiver, all the cords that plug in.

Yeah, we could. We have a mobile podcast studio, so we could record anytime, anywhere at any given location.

But I see 2024 as being less of that because our time is becoming more and more valuable as we have more value to provide for other people. And so I see us leveraging other people's time rather than our own in 2024.

Yeah, I think that's. That's a really, really good take on. That's probably a really good motto for 2024. Leverage time. Yeah.

Yeah.

Whoa.

Did I just come up with that?

Pretty. Yeah.

Dang.

So we're not going to keep this podcast episode for too long going. So this is just a reflection of what's coming.

Yeah, I still want 2024. I still want to go hard on TikTok and Instagram Reels and stories. Um, I'd love to keep growing on LinkedIn. I'd love to hit 20,000 followers on LinkedIn. That'll be a goal of mine for 2024.

That will happen. That will happen.

I think I'm going to blow past that goal, but it's just. I'm going to set that goal.

Yeah. Nice. Oh, I like it.

Um, also, did you know that people are a lot more likely to achieve their goals if they tell somebody else or write them down and say them out loud?

Yeah. So underneath this podcast, post your goals or your aspirations that you try to achieve.

Yeah. Comment them below. Literally look up studies. They say you're more likely to achieve them if you either say them out loud, tell a friend, or write them down. So comment below. Actually, you can't comment on Spotify.

Of course you can. There's a question bar that you can actually post or ask a question, and you can just post your comment or your goals that you try to achieve.

Oh, my God, that'd be so cool.

Who's a podcast guest you want to have in 2024?

Ooh, Obama is the first person that comes to mind.

You want to have Obama.

That's because I watched that movie with Julia Roberts, leaving the world behind. That was a crazy movie.

You need a pony of the big Dallas to have Obama on your podcast.

Or I could help him with his personal brand.

He already has one. Doesn't need one.

True. Okay, okay, let's see. Podcast guest, ideal podcast guest, Simon Sinek. Okay, Simon Sinek.

Not bad. Yeah, he might do it.

He might do it.

So we'll see. We're going to see.

Yeah. Matt Huberman would be another cool one.

Yeah, I think Ally Camilla would be cool, too.

Yep. Love her.

Yeah. If you.

Joe Rogan, as long as we're shooting for the moon here.

Joe Rogan. Yeah. Yeah. I think Ali Kimberly would be able to jump on a podcast with you.

She's so cool. I met her in Vegas. She's an AI expert and used to work for machine learning, department of aws and now she's a public speaker. She talks about everything AI and she's who I go to for all AI news. So I would love to have her on.

Yeah, I think that's pretty good. Yeah. Joe Rogan be. I think you'd be on Joe Rogan's podcast.

I don't know much about the Egyptian pyramids, though, so I don't know how much use I'd be on his podcast. I feel like that's all he talks about.

Yeah. Yeah. He does go off topics because he's interested in it. So I don't know. Those are great goals to have.

All right.

And yeah, let us know which topic we should do next. And this was it. And we will see you in the next episode.

Thanks for listening to Valley from Corporate Podcast.