The Reality of Career Pivots and Building an Authentic Brand with Tanya Harris

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Welcome back to another episode of the Food Blogger Pro podcast. I'm Anne from the Food Blogger Pro team and in this episod, York is sitting down to chat with Tonya Harris from My Forking Life. Tonya is a former attorney turned food blogger who gets real about the guilt, identity shifts and mental hurdles of trading in the courtroom for the kitchen. She opens up about the challenges of redefining success on her own terms and why aligning her work with your personal values is a secret to longevity. Tanya also touches on the business side of full time blogging, from the dynamics of working with her spouse to using AI tools to avoid burnout. She shares practical strategies for building a sustainable brand. We think you'll find this episode really insightful as you start to think about how you can be your authentic self online and grow your blog. And now, without further ado, I'll let Bjork take it away.

Tanya, welcome to the podcast. Hey, it's going to be a fun conversation. We're going to be talking about a lot of different things. Authenticity in the content that you create. We're going to be talking about email. You were featured on Kit around your email growth and how that has kind of played out for you and some strategies you've implemented for email growth. But before we do that, I want to hear about your story. Your previous life. You were an attorney. It's very much so one of those careers that usually people get established in their life as a career as an attorney and the like. Attorney to food creator, attorney to food blogger isn't necessarily a common path that you see people taking. So talk to me about what that was like and what that transition was like.

It feels like forever ago, but I kind of like one of so I was before that I was actually a track collegiate athlete.

Yeah.

And then I kind of was just like what's next? And I went to law school really Liked it, really got passionate about criminal defense. And so I ended up becoming an assistant public defender. And that's the. Basically the kind of law that I practiced the entire time I was a practicing attorney. And somewhere along the way, I started liking to cook. Like it was just a hobby.

Sure.

And I kind of knew that I wanted to do something outside of law at some point. I didn't know what that would be. But while I was learning to cook, I decided I was like, I'm just going to start a blog. It seems like something that would be cool where I can document it. And so I just randomly came up with the name My Forking Life and bought the domain name, got all the handles. And I kind of didn't know what kind of food I was going to blog about, but I just blogged about food part time. It was my escape from my job. And then eventually, somewhere along the lines I was like, yeah, I think I could totally switch to being a food blogger. Yeah. Full time. And so I was able to do that back in 2019.

Yeah. What was. First of all, what events did you run in track and field, if you were you running?

Yeah, it was in high. So I started in high school. I was doing the 800 and a 400. And then when I went to college, I exclusively did the 400 and the 200. So I turned into like a pretty much a sprinter in college.

Yeah. We had a. Recently had a conversation on the podcast about somebody else who's in track and field and we were talking about the 800 being like such a grueling. It's such a grueling race. Uh, I did track and field in like seventh and eighth grade and did 800 and it was like, oh, man, this is. You're kind of right in between a sprint and. And yet it's. Yeah, so. So kind of you have this period of time where you are an attorney and it's like you need this escape. The escape is food. But also documenting food, it's kind of a fun unrelated side hustle. Eventually you come to understand, hey, this could be a career. I could make something out of this. How did you navigate the transition into doing this full time? What did that look like?

A little bit hard. So even when I started the blog, I was very inconsistent. Um, and then I think there was just a period where I, I was reading income reports and I was like, oh, okay, I could actually start making some money. I didn't think it was going to be full time money. And then along the lines, it was actually after I had my second. My second child, my daughter. I was started really getting serious about. I definitely need to think about making this shift. So I was, you know, rather than going to lunch with colleagues, I would go and just learn more about blogging and how to build it. And then my goal was to at least match my income once I started making money, and then I started making more. And then even when I was making more, it was still very hard to leave this profession because friends and family would be like, are you serious? Like, you've got this steady job and you went to school for all those years to be a lawyer. And I would kind of just be like, I don't know, I'd had that guilt about leaving, but I eventually got to the point where I was just like, it just makes no sense. Like, I really need to bet on myself and go full time.

Yeah, I feel like that comes with jobs where you have worked really hard to get them. I think we all work hard to get a job, obviously. But, like, some jobs specifically around going to school, like, you go to undergrad and then you go to graduate school, or I think of, you know, within the context of an attorney, like, you have all of these years that you've gone through education system, and then you've also kind of worked your way up, maybe you've had entry level roles within that, and then you get kind of some seniority. You know, I know people who have gone through the process of becoming doctors, and it's like. And then they discover that they have this passion or interest maybe in content creation or real estate or whatever it is. How did you navigate kind of psychology of your identity shifting within the role? Because I'm guessing that was a part of it. Was it almost like a question of identity both for yourself and others?

Yes. And I think that's the thing is like, I think it. I finally got to the point where that identity mattered to other people more than it mattered to myself. Um, and then I really. I would always tell my friends this. Like, there was a point where I knew that I wasn't gonna be a practicing attorney forever. Like, I still have my license, I'm still a lawyer. I still. And go, you know, be in a courtroom. But I always admire, like, people laugh when I mentioned Jerry Springer. And I would be like, man, I really like him because he had this talk show, but he was a lawyer. Like, I really always admire people that just were able to do this big thing and be like, that's cool, let's see what else is out there. And so once I realized that that's what I cared about more than, let's say, being a judge, I was like, yeah, then I'm okay with, you know, making that transition.

It. And we'll talk about that more as well. But this idea of defining your own game, I think is so important because it can be so easy for us to get caught up in what other people are doing or, you know, how other people are doing what they're doing, even, like, getting caught up in the priorities of other people. And to the degree that we can really look at ourselves and say, like, what matters to me? And it doesn't always have to be that it sounds inherently selfish, but what matters to me could be, like, it's really important for me to have 10 hours a week of nonprofit work. Like, I'm not saying I actually do that. That is a component of, like, how I view things is not 10 hours a week, but. Or for some people it might be. It's really important for me to have, you know, two to three days at home with my kids, or to drive my school kids to school every day, or it's really important for me to work 10 hours a day. Like, we're all so different in what our hopes and dreams and like, ideal best life looks like, but sometimes I think we can get caught up in looking at somebody else's and then like absorbing that and kind of becoming that. So how did you work through that and unravel other people's thoughts or expectations or even like your own desire to fulfill those other people's desires or expectations? How did, how did you sort through that? Because I think we're always doing that and I'm guessing people who are listening are thinking about that and processing that as well.

Well, like, it's just been the story of my life, right? Like, it's just always been different transitions. So even when I went to law school and I chose to be a public defender, I got people that would say, oh my gosh, you need to go get a high paying job. Or, you know, you should be working at a law firm, you should try to be partner. And I. It's hard, right? Like, it's just something that I have to practice when where usually I would just shut out all the noise and then I would always just try to listen to whether it's a podcast or just people that were doing things that were more aligned with what I felt I wanted to do. So there was a part of it that I do have to be. And I think this is probably gonna happen to me again, where I'm gonna be in a certain position, everyone's gonna say, you should do this, you should do that. And I'm just gonna have to shut off that noise and just really dig into what are the things that spark joy in me? What are the things that I really am happy with doing what? You know, what can I go to bed at night when you know, and then think about and say, wow, I had a really good day. So those are just things. It's a lot of mental work, but it's not easy, definitely.

Yeah, well, and the reason I bring it up is because I think so much of what we do is that mental work. And you know, we have these roles which are like knowledge jobs, knowledge based jobs. And the primary way that we are creating value in the world isn't through other jobs that I've had, which is like laying blocks in construction or like shoveling snow or working at ups. Like those are all value add jobs. But it's pretty obvious how you are adding value. Like when you're doing something physical or even like I think of people who are. We just, just did a big kitchen project and man, we gotta work with these people who are just artists when it comes to cabinets and like. But for us, it's really like the art, like it's our mind and it's our brain and then we take that and we create with it a digital thing that communicates something to somebody else's mind and brain. And so for us to be in a good headspace as it relates to the work we're doing is so critical because the main mechanism, the main output, you know, the main thing that we are doing is creating and creating from our own thoughts. And if that is misaligned, then the output is gonna be misaligned. So I think it's super important to talk through. What does that look like now for you today? So you've made this transition, you're doing it full time. You've built the business to the point where not only met your previous income, but surpassed it. How are you able to show up day to day and be in good relationship with your work? And what are the things that in the day to day that you are doing right now that are most valuable?

That's the hard one, because I even felt like I'm going through a transition kind of right now. But as far as my day to day and what we've kind of. Because I do work with my spouse and what we've done and I talk his ear off about it. It's just really honing in on whether it's recipes or topics that really mean something. There's that selfish part, but really means something to me, but that I know that would provide value to other people. Which is weird, right? Like, you think it's just really general, but I start to realize, like, wow, if I'm developing a recipe, I'm really, like, why? Like, I'm really thinking of, like, well, why do people need to hear about this from me? Like, what is my personal experience with this? And really honing in on sharing those kinds of things. Which also means that I may not be producing as much content as I'd like to, because it does take a little bit longer to think through all those types of things. But that's pretty much my goal is to just really dig deep on not even just the kinds of recipes, but how I'm sharing them, how I'm presenting them to my audience and the new audience, and exactly what kind of value they're getting from that, whether it's seeing it or whether it's the way that I'm saying it, or whether it's just an extra fact that I might put in there. So that's kind of what I've been focusing on mostly now.

Yeah.

I hope I answered your question.

Yeah, it is. I think it's like. And, you know, as we were shaping what this conversation could look like, it's one of the things that you pointed out was this kind of inflection point. It sounds like within your content creation process, which is starting to focus on your unique angle, your voice, and kind of that authenticity, authenticity piece. And it sounds like not only has that resulted in you being more aligned with the content that you've created, but maybe it has also impacted the growth of your content or your followers or email subscribers. Like, can you talk about anything that you've been able to see that has been kind of a correlation between those two changes for that change?

Absolutely. So I will say, like, I'll even particularly talk about email. And I recall, like, you know, when everybody was. This is probably a while back when everyone was like, okay, let's do those sequences and stuff like that. And a lot of the sequences that I created were from, let's say, categories that were doing well on my website, but they were categories that I was really passionate about it. So for me to do a sequence, it wouldn't be so generic. Like, it might be. I might be giving you recipes that. That were just different. Right. Maybe I didn't write them for SEO, but Maybe I did it because, like, I'm thinking of an air fryer recipe. I may have done something that I just thought was super cool, super passionate about it. And I put those in that sequence. And what happened is people would go through those sequences, but they would really just be super excited about it. Because my wording was super excited about it. I also.

Because you were super excited about it.

Yeah. So it came across at that. And then there was these. I started getting into. My mom's family is Jamaican, and that's all I knew growing up was Jamaican food. So I'm like, okay, bet I started doing those on my website. But then I would do like an email funnel about that. Just like, you know, modern Jamaican cooking or modern day Jamaican cooking. And I was passionate. I'm still passionate about that because that's the food I grew up eating. I talked about ways that I might change it to suit, you know, my family. And I believe that people could see that in the content that I was creating, and that's what helped. And it was also easier for me to keep sharing and keep promoting that stuff. Like, it's hard for me to promote something that I've just not her passionate about. Like, if it's just a regular recipe, I'm not gonna. You could just tell. It's just gonna be like, you're just doing this just to do it.

Yeah, it's. Lindsay talks about that within the context of the recipes that she does. Like this idea that we are marketers and what we are marketing is a piece of content. And in our world, the content almost always is recipes. And in order to market something well, you have to be believable. You have to be excited about it. There has to be some kind of genuine, authentic communication around why it's great and why you're excited about it. And I think you might be able to act and pretend, but, man, that's going to be like recipe for burnout. If you are a content creator who needs to constantly be creating and promoting content, and the content that you are constantly creating and promoting is not inspired content. Like, it's content that is a drag and you're not excited about it. And I think more and more, it's important for creators to understand marketing within the context of social media, within the context of email. Like, all of these are channels for us to promote the content that we're creating, and we need to be excited about it. So can you talk about what the process looks like for you or looked like for you? You know, as you were creating a Recipe. Where were you talking about that? You have your YouTube channel, you have email. All of these are substantial channels for you. What have you found to be most effective for these recipes that you are excited about and inspired by to then go and promote them?

So it's funny, I was just looking through my. We started. We took a break from YouTube, but we started going back into YouTube. And honestly, it would just be like by accident, Like I might just be talking about something and then I might say, oh, yeah, I learned this, I learned that. So for me, it's just making sure that there's just some. Whether it's two sentences, a paragraph. Back in the day, my blog post, it would be like a whole long, long story, but for me, it's just like, just thinking of like one important facts to put in somewhere. I know, like, short videos are kind of hard to do that, but I was even looking at some of my Instagram reels that did a lot better, and a lot of them were aligned with a small bit of story, not like a ton. But I could say, like, you know, oh, wow, I used to make this for my then boyfriend, now he's my husband, and people would attach to that. So I think it's just important. So whatever we're promoting to just think of like, what we can say that draws on people's emotions. Like something that makes them go that they can relate to or they could learn just something. I used to do it by accident, but now I'm starting to like, think like, okay, let me be more intentional with just making sure that every piece of content I put out there has something that could spark some kind of emotion.

Yeah, it's one of those things the. I remember Ed Sheeran talking about, like, the reason that he can write good songs today is because he wrote so many songs to get to the point where, like, you know, you start to develop a kind of sixth sense around what's going to work Well, I think the same thing really applies in the world of content creation, where part of it is just reps. You continue to create content and suddenly you start to realize, like, hey, did this. This did well. Let me like, spend a little bit of time thinking about why that might have done well. Let me maybe do a version of that again and see if it does well. Oh, it did do well. I wonder if there's a pattern there. But I think especially in the early stages for people who are creating, it's an important reminder that, like, part of what you're doing is just trying to understand what's going to work well and what doesn't work well and you'll get better with it over time. In the kit conversation, it was really cool to read through that. You know, you talk about this period of growing your email list by 7,000 subscribers in seven months. And they mention, you know, having almost 70,000 email subscribers. I don't know when this was published. Um, yeah, so it was last year. Um, my guess is that number's grown a little bit. Um, but what.

And then I cut it.

Sure. Yeah. Okay. Like kind of getting rid of cold subscribers, which great practice to get into for anybody who's has an email list. Not only does it like save you costs, but also it keeps your list healthy. So, but tell me about email. Like, what's been. How are you using email? You had mentioned sequences. Were you. Was that in reference to like, if somebody signs up, they go through a certain sequence where they're able to like get certain content if they opt into it or whatever. What. What does that look like for you? How have you been using email as a platform?

And so the way I've kind of slowed down so I did the sequences is for my most popular categories. So like, you know, just went through my analytics, like, okay, people, for example, people loved air fryer stuff. So I did a sequence and I did one of those like welcome five day sequences where each day they get an email, but within the actual email language, I might name it like, you know, day one, air fryer, baked goods or something like that. And then I would make sure that the language was more conversational. And then I would have the links to those particular blog posts with that. So that actually worked really well to get the people to log on the list. And I think it's a great way to give people like I would name it something like a guide. So that way people would think of it like it's like an important, like thinking of like it's an important piece of paper, but it's really just a bunch of emails.

And this was on your site, to be clear, like, you're talking about this on your site.

Yeah. So if you were on the site, so and the reason why you want to do it on your highest category pages, because you're going to get the most traffic there and those people are intentionally looking for something. So if you're intentionally on a, let's say air fryer recipe, it makes sense to give them like an air fryer guide on that post to let them join.

And is that within. This is a super specific question. Is that like an in line within the post itself prompt for somebody to sign up, or is it like a pop up? Like what, what have you found to be most impactful?

Pop ups? Those are pop ups for those particular ones with the sequences. So I do that. I've also done the share it on social media. So if you have like a ton of content that might align with, you know, I don't know, one of those categories, you could just share it with the real comment, whatever for the, you know, for the signup and then you can have them on a landing page. So I actually had some pretty good success with that. But then my whole goal too is not even just to really scale the email list as much. It's really to get those people that are logged in to start interacting with them more. So I haven't done too many sequences. It's mainly because I do want to keep cost low and I'm trying to get people that are invested to, you know, want to hear the emails. So one thing we did recently is just increase the number of emails we're sending. I'm sending four emails a week as opposed to like two that I was doing before. And they're, they're just random. Like it could be like, here's a new YouTube video, here's a new recipe. Sometimes they're roundups, but we haven't had any complaints and it's been doing really well as far as open rates and click throughs. And I'm also being able to see like the kind of content at least my email audience wants to see from me.

Wants to? Yeah, I think it's one of the most common things that I'm starting to hear is just people sending more email. Like, what's the easiest way to get more clicks through email? It's like send another email. To the degree that some people I think are sending multiple emails a day, we're not that point. We're similar to you, I think three or four emails a week. Um, but it's one of those things that, you know, one of the great things as a content creator and having a content business is we have a thousand different levers that we can change and adjust and those can have a positive impact on our business. The hard part is knowing which levers do you shift and adjust. But one of the easier ones is, hey, if you already have a system in a process for sending out emails, think about potentially sending another one. And maybe you send one that doesn't require quite as much effort or lift, whether that be like a roundup or Maybe you sit down one day and you Brainstorm, you know, 50 different recipes that are the highlight and, or kind of the shining stars of your site, and you send, you know, schedule it out for the year, you know, a link to one of the recipes. Like all of that stuff can really add up over a long period of time. I'm curious to know, in this season, what are the things. What are the things that you feel like are the highest leverage when we talk about those levers? What are the things that you feel like are the highest leverage items for you right now within the business and the way that you're working?

I would say email one, but I think it's hard to say leverage. I do, I think, for sure, video, but that's also because that's something that I actually enjoy doing. So I enjoy getting in front of a camera and speaking. Is it the best return on investment? I don't know, but I like, you know, getting in front of a camera. I think it gives people the chance to feel like they know me a little bit better and to trust whatever I'm saying, a little bit better if I'm able to do that. So that's something that we're focusing on. And the other one isn't really like a platform, but I'm really working on my systems and just trying to make things easier and more simple. I think when I first started blogging, let's say, for video, one of the ways I would do it is like, I'd set up my DSLR and get all these big lights, and now I'm just like, nope. If I'm doing reels, let me figure out how to do it on this phone and just simplify the system as opposed to the way I used to do it. So that's been kind of hard because I was so used to doing everything one way and now I'm shifting it to saying what is causing me friction, what steps can I eliminate, and how can I be more efficient with my time so that I can either produce more content or just actually make it more sustainable? Something that I could do week after week without feeling like I'm getting burnt out.

Yeah. Do you feel like you've come up against that, feeling burnt out?

Absolutely. All the time, whenever I get burnt out, I just stop. I just like, oh, nope, nope.

Yeah. Can you talk about that like other people who have. Who are experiencing that or, you know, inevitably, if you do this long enough, you probably will come up against it. What would your advice be for people who are in it or who Might come up against it.

And also, I think it's easier for me to say this. Well, no, actually took a break even when I initially started. It's like, depending on how you build your business, you can take some time off and you. You will still make money. Right? Like, especially if majority of it's like ads or affiliates. But I think it's just good to like, take a step back and then just try to remember why you're do even doing it. So that was what I had to do just recently. I'm like, why. Why am I still showing up? And that may just make you say, for me, it didn't make me say I wanted to quit, but it did say, okay, I just need to be more intentional with the kind of content that I'm promoting, the kind of content that I'm creating. Like, I really need to love this recipe down before I put hours into filming it and taking video and writing it. So for me, it's just like, take that pause. Really try to remember. And also, like you said, just remember that it doesn't have to look like everybody else's. Like, you don't need to be publishing a recipe every day if that's not what you want. Like, just figuring out what you truly want.

Yeah. Do you. What. When you went through that exercise, when you stepped back and kind of reflected, what was the. Did you come up with the answer, like, why you're doing what you're doing? And was that what was motivating to, like, help you continue to go forward?

It kind of changed, but I think initially it was just more so. Like, I don't. It's one of the things where it's just like, there's only one me. Right. Like, there's plenty of people on the thing, but there's only one me. And I'm just really. I'm really passionate about learning about food and cooking, so I'm also just really passionate about sharing that information. So that's just what made me say, okay, it's like, that's a dig deep down. Like, I like finding a really random fact about a recipe and being like, hey, guys, I really want to share it. And so for me, that was like, my why outside of money, whatever, all that stuff. For me, it's just like me being myself, Tanya Harris, and being out there to share it, because I know that there is somebody that wants to hear it from me. I don't know who that person is yet, but that's just what kind of for my. Why. It's just like, I'VE got to be the person that shows up and does it.

I don't know. Yeah, well, I think it's clarifying in that what you come away with is here are the things that I enjoy, I enjoy learning, I enjoy sharing those things. And so if I'm doing that, I want to do it around things that I'm passionate and interested in and at the pace that feels like sustainable. It's kind of like a version of what I heard you say. Maybe it's a little bit. Is that okay? But I think what can sometimes happen is because of the way our brains are wired and how we exist within the world, we can hear on a podcast interview somebody saying, I'm publishing, you know, a post a day or I'm updating 20 pieces of content or I'm making a hundred thousand dollars a month or whatever it is. And sometimes, oftentimes for myself at least I can kind of anchor on that and be like, oh man, this person is scaling their team. This person is, you know, 2Xing their email list. This person is whatever it is, fill in the blank. And because of, I don't know, some psychologists would probably know pattern matching or competition or the desire for more. I don't know what, what it would be. Can often find myself being like, hey, maybe I need to do that. I need to X, Y, Z this within my life because I've seen somebody else do it. And it feels like one of the really hard things to do is to have this like really tight self awareness around the why and to know that somebody else's why is gonna be different than mine. But it doesn't mean that, you know, you can't learn from them, but you're probably gonna like execute and implement differently. So with, with that mind, like, are there things that you feel like you've intentionally said no to or have decided not to do in service of better alignment with what you actually want from your business and your life?

Oh yeah. The biggest one I talk about now is I think at one point I thought I needed to just hire a ton of people and I did that. I've had a full time employee. And then it got to a point where I was just like, oh wait, this isn't aligned with what I wanted just because everyone else did it. But you said something just recently when you were talking about that and this is something that I have to sometimes remember is like, go back to track Tonya. And the reality is like, I had a really good track career. I'm in my school's hall of fame. But I was never always the fastest, right? So, like, I would get on a track, sometimes I would be the fastest, but sometimes I would go against, like, former Olympians. Right. And I would sit in my lane. And my goal was never really to always just win the race. My goal was always just to get faster, right? It's like, to pr, like, how can I. And then I would run my race differently compared to those. Some of those girls would run faster. Towards the end, when I was trained, I was told to run faster at the beginning. Like, you know, it's like, just different things, running my own race. And so sometimes when I'm comparing myself to, like, oh, my gosh, this person is publishing five times a week. Oh, my gosh, this person is, you know, on TikTok, I have to remember, like you said, and go and be like, okay, I'm in my own lane.

It's like, so applicable for track. You are literally running your own race and in your own lane.

Yeah. And then, only thing that I need to focus on is my pr. So, like, if I set a goal for, like, email, for example, like, okay, you know what? I'm going to do my own email thing. And I just want to add two emails. I don't need to do two emails a day. I just need to hit my pr. And if I hit it, yay, it's a success. If I did it, let me figure out how I can tweak things. But I think that's what I have to sometimes remember, is just to go back to that brain and say, I'm not competing with everybody else on the Internet and I can cheer them on. I think it's great that they're doing what they're doing, But I have to remember that this is my forking life. I like saying that, but this is.

It works.

This is my race. And I need to make sure that I am just, like, here with it and just focus.

That's great. And I think it, you know, we've been in some way, shape or form creating content for 15 years, and still every day I need to remind myself of that. Like, what is the race I'm running? Why am I running it? And in some ways, it almost becomes more of that the longer you do it. Like, once you get to the point where you've, you know, you've replaced the income that you had from your job. Oh. And you've replaced the income and you're making a little bit more than you did before, like, initially, that can be the race. Hey, I want to get to this point financially and there's probably always those goals where you want to continue to stretch and grow and. But eventually it's like, do I want to do that in place of picking my girls up from school? You know, maybe, maybe not. Like that's gonna be where you have those individual decisions. So one of the things I wanna ask you about is you had mentioned working with your husband. Tell me what that is. Like, like, what has that process been? What have you learned? Because I know that there's a lot of people who are in this world of building a thing and eventually it gets to the point where it makes sense for them to do it full time and they continue to work on it. And then it also gets to the point where it potentially makes sense to have a partner or a spouse leave their job because it's more beneficial to grow the thing and work on the thing, whether it be part time or full time. But then it's a really unique relationship that you have working with somebody that you also live with. What has that been like, what have you learned? And any advice for other people who are working with a spouse or partner?

Oh, I was like, no, I. And I think it was one of those things where I saw like, saw you and your wife like, you know, working together. So I will see other people and be like, oh, well, clearly it will be just easy. Like it's, it just depends. Right. Like it's, it's not bad. It's never been bad. But it did take us a while to figure out, okay, where you should be in the business.

Yeah.

And there might be some things where I'm like, okay, you totally should take over this department. And then I'll come back and be like, maybe not. And it's not like they're not capable, but it's just, it could just be. There are other things that I'm passionate about that I shouldn't be handing off. So currently my spouse, he does like my editing for my long form videos in the YouTube and he is also pretty much the like the primary caregiver when it comes to our two children as well. So takes them to school, does all the running. But that's because he really loves doing those kind of things. So like for us, we just really focused on the things that we were really more passionate about. I'm way more passionate about recipe development, taking the pictures, you know, doing the shorts, where he's more passionate about editing the videos. And if they call, they need a parent, that's him. And anytime I'm like, Hey, I need extra hands on this. He's there to help out.

Yeah, there's. I. I did this for a while. I'm trying to think I could even pull it up now. And look, I think I had a note just, like, in the notes app. And it was just as, like, a exercise. I was creating a list of, like, all of the things that I do. And I haven't done this with Lindsay before, but it. It would probably be a good exercise. And I think I just called it Things I Do. Uh, I. Yeah, Things I Do. And it's probably, you know, 30 or 40 things long right now. And it included, like, everything. Like, anytime I was doing a thing, I put it down. So it was like, put away laundry, clean out the coffee, make coffee, drop items off at Goodwill, text friends, unsubscribe from email, you know, oil change for the cars, book, rental cars. Anyways, it was a little bit of an experiment just to see, like, what am. What does a day look like, what does a week look like, what does a month look like, what does a life look like? Like, when I put all of those things together, what does that. What does that list look like? And from that, I think one of the things that's so cool being a business owner is you can start to make decisions around, okay, what do I, for surely want to continue to do? For me, it's like, there's an item here where it was shopping with our daughters, looking at dolls and toys. It's like, well, of course I'm not going to, like, outsource that to somebody. That's going to be me doing that. But, like, oil changes and car maintenance, would I want to do that? Would it make sense for somebody else to do it? Maybe it is me. But then it gets really interesting when you then have the time and availability of a spouse to say, okay, collectively, if we have this list of 200 things that cover 90% of what happens within our life and our business, what does it then look like to say, here's what I do, here's what you do, and then potentially here's what somebody else does, either within our life, like our personal life or our business. So have you. Is there anybody within your business, like, on a contractor basis, like, that you have found or within life that you've found who's been able to come in? Or do you feel like for the most part, you and your spouse right now, your husband are able to, like, have coverage of everything within life and business?

No, we have help. And so, like, and it will be like occasional, like, you know, you're thinking of like house cleaners. We have someone that comes over even like doing my daughter's hair sometimes I'm like, I don't have time to do it. My husband actually took a class to try to learn love that it wasn't working.

I need to do the same thing. Lindsay's like, it would be super helpful if you could figure out how to. In our. In my case, it's like braid the girl's hair. Like, this is probably something that I. Yep.

So we found someone else to do that because he tried. And I was like, yeah, so we'll have, we'll hire out hope for that. And I guess that's where delegation is just a little bit easier for me outside of like business tasks, but household related tasks or, you know, accountants and all that stuff like that. Well, it's easier for me to delegate that than something entirely in my business. Yeah, yeah.

And it's all the time is no different. An hour is an hour is an hour. But the time is different when you slot it in within the context of your business. Because if you are working an hour on a piece of content that then goes onto your blog, the value of that is pretty amazing. Like potentially. Uh, but if it's like an hour within the context. I used this example recently because it just happened. Like we have a pet frog rice. Rice needs to eat bugs. And like we hadn't been to the pet store to get crickets recently. So like I found myself one morning walking around looking for bugs in our house to like feed our pet frog rice. That's not something that's happening all the time. But there are lots of different things that I think we could start to surface that number one, we don't actually like to do and that we don't want to do within the business or within our life that if we can think strategically around, okay, if I don't like to do it, if I don't want to do it, and if I've built a business or built, you know, through work of W2 job, contractor job, plus the business to have some disposable income, then to think really strategically around how you start to trade those hours of things that need to get done for things that maybe don't need to get done but are going to be more value add if they do get done. So feels like one of the kind of games that we get to play as entrepreneurs and business owners or more broadly just in life as we think about time and money and whatnot. So for anybody who is working with their spouse, I feel like that's an ongoing exercise and Lindsay and I are always talking about it. It's always like revisiting that conversation. And realistically, that job description that we each have is ever changing and ever evolving as well. One of the things that I wanted to talk to people about on the podcast more often is tools like tools and processes. So are there tools that you are using right now that you have found to be especially helpful? It could be scheduling tools, it could be social media tools, it could be, you know, plugins. Like the really open ended question around, we talked just recently about the, you know, delegation within the context of people. But I think another form that that can happen is delegation within the context of tools that help us get things done. Software, whatever it might be. Anything that you'd point to that has been especially helpful for you as a creator and business owner.

Do you have another hour? No, I'm joking.

Yeah. Okay, great.

No, I am. I love a tool, especially one that can like eliminate friction. And I've been really into more of like AI tools as assistants. So I really like Claude is a quad. And yeah, I use that. So I use that a lot to like help with learning, like not writing content, but like if I'm writing a caption, I'll be like, what could I say to draw on people's emotions and you know, based off of the facts that I'm giving you. And it does a pretty good job doing that. And I use it for like data analysis and all that kind of stuff. It's just way faster than my brain. So I really like that. I really am obsessed with. It's called whisper flow.

Yes. Okay. And this is like exactly my world as well.

Yeah, I love whisper flow because like the way you're just talking to it and it just basically makes everything perfectly. So a lot of times I might use that to maybe to even just talk to everybody. But also like in cloud or whatever. Or even that. Yes, also really like Gemini for email responses. I realized for a while I wasn't really responding to emails like I should because I'm like, oh, I don't feel like putting the brain power. And then I realized Gemini's in my email, so it's easy to respond to. Usually I'll get like general, general, general, like emails like, oh my gosh, I love your blog so much. It's easy for me to just click a button to have a really thoughtful response. So I use that. I use ClickUp to have all my data and Store all my data. And then I thought there was another.

Can you talk about that? Have all your data and store all your data within ClickUp?

Yeah. So I really struggled with organization forever. And so now, rather than using ClickUp as just like a task management, I put everything in ClickUp. So all my blog posts are in there, all the photos are in there, all the videos are in there and organized. So that way, whether it's me or I tell someone to, like, grab a file, it's just easy. Because when I was trying to use other tools, like, let's say, something paired with Google Drive, there was friction. Like, I'd have to, like, go to a Google Drive link to get something. So now, because ClickUp, I get unlimited storage with everything, I draft blog posts in there. I put my photos, my videos, and then it's just easy to grab stuff to reshare it.

That's awesome. So, like, it's literally like your media library that has access to all of blog posts, but then also photos. It has access to videos. We were just having this conversation this week. We're starting to think more about Facebook. How can we be more strategic on Facebook? And we're like, where can we easily access all of our videos? And right now the system is that Jenna on our team and Lindsey use icloud, but it's like, oh, we actually need to put those into a spot where everybody be able to more easily access those and organize them. So we're just starting to have that conversation around, like, what's our media library look like? Because also, once you get to a certain point where you have hundreds of pieces of content, videos, blog posts, photos. Part of the strategy isn't creating the next new piece of content. Part of the strategy is revisiting old content, including it in an email, publishing it again on Facebook, creating a carousel of content, publishing that to Instagram. It's like remixing that content or even like playlisting that content. And so I think the easier it is to access it, the easier it is, the easier it is to access it. And the better organized it is, the easier it is to put that stuff together. So that's interesting that you can do that within ClickUp. I thought of it always as, like, task management, but media management is a really cool way to use it.

So, yeah, and if I just need something, I just search for it. And I have different. I have a setup where it's like, I'll use it to, like, plan my content. And you mentioned Facebook. I do use Smarter Queue for Facebook. And I Just load that up to continuously share things forever and ever.

Can you talk about what Smarter Queue is and how that works?

Oh, yeah. So Smarter Queue, and it was something that I wasn't using efficiently until recently, but it's basically like it's a scheduler and you can use it for more than just Facebook. I think they have Facebook, Instagram, a lot of different platforms, but I use it primarily for Facebook because I'm sharing so much on Facebook. So what it is, is you can put your. Your media into the Smarter Queue. You can write different, varying captions. You can also vary the media and it could run forever, or you could have it run for, like, a specific period of time. So the reason why I like it, it does take a little bit of upfront, upfront work. But the more you do it, the more you'll realize you'll have a lot of content that's in there that will just continuously share, even when you're not thinking about it. So that's the beauty of it, is that I'm still sharing on Facebook and I just maybe queued it up like a month ago, and it's just going.

And will it take a piece of content, like post it every three months as an example, or like you load it up, schedule it, it publishes it, and then would you need to schedule it again manually in order for it to publish?

Sometimes it depends on what. So I don't think you can pick it by month, but you could. It's like a queue. So like, for my Smarter Queue, I might have different categories where I might say air fryer recipes, Monday at 9, you know, and then at 12, it might be a different category. And then I fill those categories up with content.

Sure.

And then what it will do is just, it will just put it all in order and then it would just continuously go through and some of this stuff can go on forever. I usually don't like it to go on forever because I always want to kind of just have the habit of going in and check. But it will do it. It won't do it. The more, I guess, things you have in the database, it won't be like back to back that you're seeing the same kind of content.

Sure.

Yeah.

That's great. And kind of touches on one of the things that we were trying to figure out. Do we post natively within Facebook? Do we use a tool? This kind of touched on something that we had hoped for, which is like just putting a bunch of stuff in and then letting the tool kind of run through and publish it, which is great. I want to go back to what you had talked about before Whisper Flow and just how great that tool is, especially for somebody who would prefer to speak over type. Which what I've noticed is the more that I've used it, if I'm in like, a quiet library or like, with a group of people and I can't use Whisper Flow or I'd feel weird using it, I'm like, oh, shoot, I have to type. Like, I get so used to it. And I think the key point that you made is that you can speak, but then it cleans it up. Like, it creates a grammatically tight version of what you said. And it's also pretty good about understanding contextually where you are. Like, you can change the behavior if it's like, in messages versus Slack versus Email. And do you use it then, like, if you're talking to Claude to build your prompt?

Uh, yes, or I will. And I think it's even like, for like, blog posts, I. I use the term, like, word vomit. But, like, it's easier for me to talk about, like, tell a story versus writing it. So, like, let's say I'm developing a recipe and I want to talk about my experience. I will just go to Whisper Flow and be like, you know, please, you know, give this information or whatever. And then I might go to Claude and prompt it and be like, okay, I said a whole bunch of stuff. Just gimme like the most two important things.

Yeah.

That I need to really reference. Not the 10 that I just told whisper flow, but the two that might, you know, be the best. And so I use it for those kinds of things just to help kind of tighten things up.

Yeah. And the thing that's that I feel like that gets out, which is great for us to be thinking about, is it's your original story, it's your voice, like you were literally, you know, talking. And it's shaping it. But the 80% of the work around, like, creating a tight version of it, putting, like, actually getting it onto the computer, all of that can be to somebody who doesn't want to do it, can be lifted and tightened up a little bit, but it's still the. You're shaping the initial part of it. You, it's your voice, it's your story, it's your reason for creating the recipe, whatever it might be. And then you're also shaping it on the back end. So once it takes that story, it revises it, it says, here's maybe the two most important bullet points. Or then you put Your kind of final touches on it. And so obviously a thousand different ways that people can be using AI, but it's cool to hear that version, especially paired with voice to text, which is just getting so good. So we'll add those to the show notes. Smartaq Whisper Flow is a great one, Claude, for people who haven't used it. You know, ChatGPT, I think a lot of people are familiar with some really great tools to use. So how about as you look forward, so we've talked a lot about like what's gotten you to this point, the things that you've learned, the things that are working well now, when you look forward, what do you hope to be true for your business, for your site, for your social media, you know, as you look into the next year and what's to come down the line and 20, 26 and beyond.

I think the biggest thing for me is positioning, which sounds weird. Like when people are like, what are your goals? I'm like, I just want to be in a good position. And what I mean by position, like just altering like that's why I'm doing more videos and showing my face more on camera. Because I always say like, or maybe opportunity, right? Like if ever a company wanted to put me on tv, they're not going to do it if I'm not showing my face, if I'm not telling my story. So that's just where I'm shifting more in my head just to showing up more, being my authentic self, just for discoverability, but also for opportunity. That probably sounds very dreamy, but no, it's something that I focused on and.

I think it's super aligned for how creators should be thinking about their business moving forward. Because content, generally speaking, is getting easier to create. It's showing up differently, you know, Google, AI overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini. But I think the future is really bright for people who are excited about and interested in showing up, being personable, being relatable, telling stories. You still need to understand all of the technical stuff. That's still super important. But I think especially over the next five to ten years, maybe not five to ten months, but over the next five to ten years to be a creator and to have a creator based business, your own personality, your own brand, your own humanity is going to become more and more important to be integrated within it. So for those of you who, for those who want to follow along, Tanya, with what you're up to, what you're doing, where are the best places to do that? Obviously the site. But what's Your like favorite social platform and.

It depends on the day.

Sure. Today, as of today, what's your favorite social platform?

Um, I'll say. I would say Instagram. It's just I'm, I'm on there. Or Facebook, but yeah, so link to.

Those in the show notes. Uh, thanks so much for coming on Tanya, sharing your story. Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Hey there, this is Emily from Food Blogger Pro. Thank you so much for listening to that episode of the podcast. As we kick off a new month, I wanted to let you know what you might expect in the Food Blogger Pro membership for the month of February. If you didn't already know, in addition to the Food Blogger Pro podcast, we have the Food Blogger Pro membership. Over the last 10 years, the food Blogger Pro membership has helped thousands of food bloggers start grow and monetize their food businesses. We have hundreds of course lessons, monthly live Q&As for our members, monthly coaching calls with members, a member forum, and so many other incredible resources. So if you're not yet a Food Blogger Pro member, we would love for you to join us. You can join as a monthly, quarterly or yearly member and get access to all these incredible resources. Our membership is always changing because we are always adding new and improved content and updating old content and the month of February is no exception. Starting on Thursday, February 5th, we'll be releasing a brand new coaching call with Celeste Meredith from the Food Blog the Whole serving. You can watch the video replay or get a link to the audio replay within the Live tab in your Food Blogger Pro membership. Next up, on Thursday, February 12th, we'll be releasing a course update to our sponsored content course. You'll be covering how to find the right brands, how to reach out to brands, when you can start reaching out to brands, and how big your food blog or social media accounts need to be, how to determine rates, how to maintain good relationships, all of those nitty gritty details to sponsored content. Last up on Thursday, February 9th, we'll be hosting our rescheduled live Q and A with Jasmine Lukuku, our designer at Food Blogger Pro. All about branding for your food blog. If you'd like to submit a question in advance, you can do so under the Live tab on Food Blogger Pro and you can also add the event to your calendar. We're really looking forward to all of these new pieces of content and events this month. We can't wait to see you in the membership and we'll see you back here next week for another podcast episode. Make it a great week.

Sat.