EP 124: How to Succeed in the Digital Age | Molly Pittman

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Hi.

Welcome to the Radical Responsibility podcast. I'm your host, Fleet Maul. And today, in this episode, you, you're going to learn from an amazing young woman named Molly Pittman. Now, if you have any interest or have ever had any interest in starting your own business, especially some kind of online business, you really want to give this a listen. Molly Pittman is someone who went from working at an hourly job to taking the leap into being an entrepreneur and mastering online marketing and becoming one of the leading executives at at a major online marketing firm. She's the co host at Perpetual Traffic and is really a leader in the world of digital marketing. And she's been incredibly successful. And the important thing is that she's done this on her own terms. She has lived where she wants in the US And Europe. She's worked the hours that she wants. She's maintained a very healthy lifestyle and at the same time, been a very successful entrepreneur and done it all online. So I really, if you have any interest in the world of online marketing, digital marketing, starting your own business, really about anything, then you want to give this a listen. And Molly Pittman, regardless, is just an incredibly inspiring young woman. So I really encourage you to check it out.

Welcome, Molly.

Thank you so much for having me. Hello to everybody watching. Really appreciate it.

Well, thank you so much for joining us. It's really great to be here with you on this day focused on financial, health and abundance. And so I want to tell our audience a little bit about you and then we'll just jump into our conversation.

Sounds great.

Great. So in 2012, Molly left a bartending job in Kentucky to become an intern at Digital Marketer. Just four years later, she became vice president. From intern to vice president in four years and another two years later in 2017, she walked away from Digital Marketer, which was her dream job to really strike out on her own, living life on her own terms, doing what she loves to do with people she loves. Well, that sounds like all of our dreams. Right?

That's the goal.

Right. And Molly speaks on live and online stages around the world, including really large events like traffic conversions, one of the biggest events in the digital marketing world, and best of all, gets to help thousands of ordinary people and entrepreneurs grow their businesses. So through her digital marketing courses and her new book, Click Happy, she helps Ordinary people take the next step in their digital marketing journey by landing their dream job or advancing their career or transforming their business or starting a business. And she has now joined Smart Marketer as as their new CEO. So we'll hear more about that.

Yeah, that just happened earlier this year.

Good. Well, let's just, let's just see, see where this goes. So our summit is all about how we can create 2021 as really the best year of our life. And for some of our attendees, that may include finally starting a business that they've always dreamed of or going after their dream job or make either that, you know, that promotion or that career change. And the theme is really around how to create financial health, well being and abundance, which could involve taking just steps to get out of debt, or it could involve all kinds of strategies for creating wealth or abundance or financial independence or even financial freedom. That ultimate goal of only working because you have to work. I mean only because you want to work, not because you have to work. That's great.

So let's start with your amazing story and journey. How did you get started? And you know, as I mentioned in your bio, you were bartending at one point in Kentucky. Is that where you grew up, in Kentucky?

Yes, I grew up in Kentucky. I'm actually here right now visiting my family. I moved to Amsterdam last year, so I feel really lucky to get to come back right now. And I've been here about six weeks. But yes, I grew up in Kentucky, went to school here. Really no one in my family for generations has left this small town that I'm from. So my journey has been pretty abnormal.

But my family is very supportive, so that's great. Well, Kentucky is a great state, the Bluegrass State, and I was privileged to do some work down there. I was making quite a few trips down there a couple years ago. Great people here, enjoyed a little bourbon while I was down there and so forth.

Yes, I actually worked at a bourbon distillery. So before I was bartending and working at Buffalo Trace Bourbon Distillery, helping them a bit in their marketing department. And then I realized that I probably wasn't going to get a full time job there. And I didn't really know if I wanted to be in the spirits industry forever for multiple reasons. Still love my bourbon. So I went out on a limb and decided to move to Austin, Texas. Someone had told me that there was a lot of opportunity in Austin, that they could see me in the tech industry. I had never even been to Austin, but I don't know. And my gut told me to Go. So I moved there with, I think about $1,000 in my bank account and, you know, everything has happened from there.

And were you helping keep Austin weird?

Always. I think it's less weird than it used to be.

But back.

I've been there over the years and I think they have lost a little bit of their weirdness in recent years.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. So. So you moved to Austin and you applied for a job. You found a job somewhere. What took you into marketing? Was that just something that was available or is that really what you wanted to do?

Well, I moved to Austin. I did have a marketing degree, but to be honest, I didn't learn a whole ton about marketing, you know, from a textbook. It's why, you know, our company, Smart Marketer exists, because higher level education just really struggles with teaching digital marketing because it's so current. You really have to be consistently doing it to know what's working, because it changes.

But I was on Craigslist. I was looking for any job really. But I did find this marketing internship through a company called Digital Marketer. So I went, I applied, I got the job. They hired 12 of us, actually at one time. We went through a three month program where we learned a ton about digital marketing. We did a bunch of group projects. They were basically trying to decide who, which of us they were going to hire two or three of us full time at the end of the three months. So we went through this program and then I was lucky enough to be selected as one of the full time employees after that internship. And, you know, the rest is history, as they say.

Well, you clearly progress quite rapidly in that organization, which has been one of the premier digital marketing organizations in the country. So. And so you got to vice president level and this is your dream job and then you left.

Yeah, I was flattered. I loved my job as VP of marketing, but I also realized that there were some things about my life that I needed to change. So I was really grateful to have had that experience, to have acquired those skills. One of my mentors while I was in that position, I was kind of worried about my work life balance and my happiness. And I felt kind of trapped.

I wasn't really small things like that.

Yes. I wasn't able to travel and have the freedom that I was really looking for. And one of my mentors at the time said, molly, realize that in a situation like this, the biggest benefit is that you are acquiring a skill set. Right. You are learning something really important that's very relevant to today's economy and where we're going in the future. And if you can just look at it that way and remember that you can take this skill set anywhere after you leave here, you can apply this in any way you want. Whether you want to start your own business, work for someone else, whether you want to enter a vertical or market that might be interesting to you, it doesn't matter. Remember that right now, this is all about acquiring a skill set. And that's really how I looked at it. So in 2017, I realized, okay, this is the time for me to go out on my own. I've spent six years here, acquired this skill set, and now it's time to move on. So after that, I started my own agency and consultancy, started taking on clients. I moved to Colorado, which has always been a dream of mine, and I learned really what it was to truly own my own business and be my own boss. I learned a lot of lessons the first year or two after I left Digital Marketer. And then things came back around Ezra Firestone, who founded Smart Marketer, he and I have been great friends for a while. He was needing someone to come in and teach more classes and kind of needed another authority figure, let's call it, for the Smart Marketer brand. And so we tested that out with Train my traffic person that, you know, Eric, your business partner, has gone through, and things went really well there. I had been missing working with a team of people. There's something about that that just feels so good to me. So he said, okay, let's combine forces. Why don't you become a partner in Smart Marketer and the CEO? And here we are. And I just got word that we're up 35% on last year, which is very exciting, especially during these times. So I feel really good about how things have progressed. And of course, I got to move to Amsterdam, which it's always been a dream of mine to live in Europe. So, yeah, it's fun to see how all of this is unfolding. And it really goes back. It all goes back to the acquisition of that skill set that I was talking about. So being able to learn and understand and practice something that does have such a big impact on businesses and the economy. I know that because I've done that, you know, at least for the next 10 years, let's say. I feel really stable and comfortable in that, that I'm always going to be able to figure it out and be financially successful and abundant.

Well, you managed to live in some of my favorite places. I love Austin, and I lived in Colorado forever. I Lived in Boulder for about 20 years.

Oh, I love Boulder. I was in Telluride.

Yeah, well, that's, that's really, that's really. Well, you. Were you hanging out with Jeff Walker down there?

No, but I know he's in Durango.

Yeah. And then Amsterdam. I visited and decided to stay. So that's another beautiful thing about working on the Internet.

Yeah, I was just in Amsterdam last fall. I just love being. I've been there a number of times and I really love it. I could just walk around the old town part and, you know, sip espressos and hang out forever and such a beautiful city.

So I want to talk more about your journey and your work in a moment, but generally about this industry that you're in. And we are in the digital age, the information age. And, and it seems like, you know, the, you know, that's, that's the space where there's the most opportunity right now, both career wise and for people starting businesses. So what do you see in terms of the opportunities? You know, I mean, I have.

My.

Stepson who.

Was going to medical school and he decided to stop medical school and go to a coding boot camp and become a coder. So he's doing really well. And that was, that's a, you know, a great career track. Although with artificial intelligence, that could really shift big time because coding may go away because the computers are going to be coding themselves. But, but, you know, marketing is always going to be there. If there's business, there has to be marketing. So I'm just curious about what you think about that as a career opportunity for people today, younger people or even for somebody later in their life who wants to jump in.

Absolutely. I mean, I don't think there's ever been a better opportunity in the digital space. And a lot of that is because of COVID 19. We saw online consumer spending increase to where we thought it was going to be in 2030, just in three months here in 2020. So that's crazy. And it shows you, you know, as marketers, you want to be where consumers are. You know, you want to be in front of people where they're spending time and where they're making purchasing decisions. And for online consumer behavior, that's just simply the amount of money that people are spending online. For that to accelerate to where we thought it was going to be 10 years from now in this year, it's insane. I've never seen growth in our industry like I've seen this year. And I think also what's really exciting, exciting about it is what we were discussing earlier in terms of higher level education. Nothing against going to college or university, I took that path. But they are not built or ready to educate digital marketers for many reasons. So another exciting part of this industry is that the entry, the barriers to entry are very low. You know, this is not the medical space where you're going to be in school for, you know, a decade before you're even able to start making money. This is something that you can learn through Google, through YouTube for free. And because that barrier to entry is so low and the opportunity is so high because of where we're going as a civilization, I mean, that just creates, I think, one of the best opportunities we've ever had as humans to make money and to be happy and to be free and be able to live life the way that we want to.

Yeah, that's so important. And I, I'm in touch with a number of different groups that are trying to change the education landscape internationally. And they've got some alternative kind of something like universities going, but they're more competency based and they're trying to improve access so the access becomes universal, that it's a lot less expensive, but so people can go after the competencies they actually need to succeed in the marketplace. Now the downside of that is you might, you know, lose that wonderful liberal arts education and the journey, the, you know, that that rite of passage of young people go when they go to college. For better or worse in some cases. Right. But, yeah, still. But, but I think, you know, education does need to change.

Yeah. And I do.

Especially how expensive it is. I mean, you can't absolutely. You spend a hundred thousand dollars on a wonderful liberal arts education, spending the rest of your life paying it back.

Yes. And the rest of your life may be working a 9 to 5 job that you're not excited with. You know, something that I notice when I come back to Kentucky, like, let's use my dad for an example. He's worked for the company he's with for over 30 years and he dreads it. He dreads every day. He's in such a better mood on the weekends. And it breaks my heart because he is such a fun, happy person and this job is something that he feels he has to do. And I think that our industry provides. It doesn't. You don't even just have to be in marketing. You don't have to like marketing. You know, I just got off of our yearly review with our project manager. You know, she's not a marketer, but she gets to work in this online world and work on her terms and work where she wants to work. Same thing as you're talking about with coding or people that are developers or designers or artists or our coo, you know, this is available even if you don't want to be a marketer. It's just the thought that so many businesses are going online, and that's what really gives us the freedom.

Yeah, just with my own business, you know, we're working with contractors who do different things for us that are in Poland, that are in Czechoslovakia, they're in the Philippines, that are in India, that are in, you know, all over the world, as well as here in the US and so forth. Yeah, yeah.

And I love that because as a business owner, you. When you're not confined to the people that live in the city that can come work in your office every day, you know, that really opens you up to so much more talent.

Well, in terms of if someone's aspiring to finally start that business they always dreamed of starting, really, the barrier, I mean, the world has become incredibly competitive, obviously, and we're encouraging that right now. We're encouraging people to get out there and get into that space. So, you know, it is more competitive than it's ever been, but it seems like there's more opportunity. And the barriers to entry or the cost of entry has gotten so low. I mean, you need, I guess you could start a business on a smartphone. You could. I'm sure people do. I mean, it'd probably be helpful to have a laptop and you could probably. Smartphone.

Yes, I agree. My advice to that person would be, you know, 10 years ago, we could build a quick website and pretty much sell anything. Because buying something on the Internet was a novel idea. It was fun. It was different, and things are different now. So my biggest piece of advice. Well, really, it's two parts. So the first is simply solve a problem. Right. So you don't want to go into this thinking, okay, you know, what can I source from China and sell? Because I'm going to have good margins. You know, you want to think of this as, what problem can I solve? Because that's going to help you stand out in the marketplace. A good example of this, I just talked to a student. They're called Door Buddy is their business. And it's a really cool strap that keeps your dog from going into the room where your cat's litter box is. If you have a dog and a cat.

I've been there.

Yes. And so this is a problem. My student, Chanel who started the company, she had this problem herself, and so she decided to solve it. You can also use it to help keep dogs out of trash, things like that.

I tell them that dogs like poop.

They do.

And it's an unspoken thing about our wonderful canine.

Yes, it's pretty gross. And so she solved a specific problem that she was experiencing.

That's great.

And number two, she also really enjoys it. So I would recommend not only solve a problem, but serve a market that you are actually interested in and that, you know, because if not, it can get dry, it can get boring. You will get sick of it. So, number one, simply solve a problem. Number two, really enjoy and get excited about the market that you serve. You know, she loves animals. She loves cats and dogs. It's why her ads are amazing. You know, she said something was a catastrophe, and that's silly. That's funny. She knows the market. And so if you can do those two things, you will succeed. So don't look at it from your business mindset of what's going to have the best margins or things like that. If you want to stand out, especially through social media and the way that we need to advertise online today, you really need to feel it. So, for example, we will probably be launching another E commerce business this year, which is really exciting. And the parameters going with are really the two that I just gave you. What's a problem we can solve and what's a market of people that we can really have fun with and enjoy?

That's wonderful. And, you know, that's a big message of the summit is for, you know, help people really not give up on their passions, to discover what, what is our passion and to really follow that. And, you know, there's probably more possibility and opportunity to really follow our passions than there ever has been because it really has been so democratized and the barriers to entry are so low that if we're willing to really get fired up about our passion and just, you know, where there's a will, there's a way I'm going to make it happen. Right. I think that's really important advice to start with what they're actually passionate about. And then, I know another thing we often hear is if you, if you can get really specific about that, this idea of having a really well defined niche, even if it's really specific, like, like, you know, that that person that started a business with the dogs, you know, something really narrow, it's a lot easier to stand out.

Oh, it absolutely is. And, you know, business is still hard. This is not always easy. It's always going to be difficult. So if you enjoy it and you're actually passionate about it, those are the people that win or succeed because you're able to get through the tough times.

Absolutely. So, you know, whether it's, you know, some of us are going to prefer the security of a job. Although, you know, I like what you said earlier about really mastering your skill set, because job security today really has to do with our skills. It's, you know, that the era where you went to work for a company and you were pretty much as long as you stayed out of trouble, could have employment there for your whole career. That's kind of gone away. We all know that. And, and so there's much more instability in the marketplace and, and also a lot more fluidity. And so there's a lot of opportunity, but there's not as much security. So what makes us secure is having a marketable skill. So that, that would seem to be, you know, if we do want to go work for others and that having a really marketable skill and really honing our craft in that way. And then if we do want to get into business for ourselves, there's always risk involved and, and the success rate for small businesses is not high, actually. But, you know, I think it's. If you really look at the, at the people who are starting businesses with a clear vision, with good alignment with their passion, like you're talking about and, and kind of getting the right advice and realizing what it really takes to run a business, I would say the success rate is probably a lot higher.

Agreed.

And, you know, there's. I, for me, there's nothing more exciting than the creativity of, you know, it's all on you and the team you build, obviously. But, you know, you're putting yourself out there and, and try to get really creative, how to make it work. And it does take hard work and a lot of creativity, but the excitement is huge.

Yeah. And it's worth it.

So what about marketing? I mean, a lot of people are pretty allergic to sales and marketing or at least feel they are. You know, they've been had. Tons of people try to market stuff to them and sell stuff and the whole idea of being salesy and it seems commercial and, or maybe some of us may think, you know, oh, that's all just the consumerist world, that's what's destroying the planet. And, and those are all reasonable feelings. But is there a way that we can understand marketing and sales, that it's really about Value exchange. And one of the ways that we can actually express ourselves and really add value to people and maybe even change the world and save the planet while we're at it. Who knows?

Yeah. I mean, our motto at Smart Marketer is serve the world unselfishly and profit. So you're first serving a group of people and. And then you profit. And the reason for that is that we see that in this space, there are sleazy marketers and salespeople that are just in it to make money. And we believe that those people are being weeded out. And they're being weeded out because marketing is transitioning online to these social platforms, which are about the consumer. You know, when you're running ads on a platform like Facebook, the more social proof that you get, you know, positive comments, shares, reactions on your post, the cheaper your ads are going to be. The better they're going to do, the more sales that you're going to get. So because marketing is moving to these platforms that are social, that are consumer first, it's actually changing this entire space. And that's something that we've really planted our flag to say. We only want to do marketing. We only want to teach marketing that is good and positive for the consumer and for the planet. And a good example of this is our makeup brand called Boom by Cindy Joseph. And it's a makeup brand for women over the age of 50. And one of the reasons that this makeup brand has worked so well, we'll do about $30 million this year, is because of the messaging that we're using. And that is, hey, we're not going to talk about anti aging or anti wrinkles or tell you that you're broken or that aging's bad or that you should look younger. We are pro age. We think that aging is beautiful. We think that aging is a good thing. It's something that should be celebrated, and that's really what our products are built for. And if I were to choose one reason that this brand has succeeded, it's simply that and consumers want that fresh messaging look. Most makeup brands, whether it's on tv, the radio, social media, I see them every day. You know, do away with your wrinkles, look younger. That's the messaging that we hear as consumers lose weight, you know, get rich, right? It's really made to make people feel that something is wrong with them and that that needs to be fixed. So I guess my message is, if you are against that, which most of you are, if you don't enjoy that, you don't have to do that. And it actually works better if you take the contrary approach and use a message that's more consumers love it. Whether it's makeup or whether it's smart marketer, where we're saying, hey, actually give value first, serve your people and then profit. That is a breath of fresh air for consumers. So if you feel that way, it's actually a good thing for your business because that's what consumers are looking for.

Well, it does seem to have been a shift in the marketplace. I saw a video just a while back. I regretfully can't think of her name, but it's a woman who started.

A cosmetics company, and I guess it became one of the biggest successful brands. And I think she sold it for over a billion dollars to one of the big companies. And she very much came from that approach of real healthy cosmetics for ordinary women who have, you know, or not the photoshopped kind of image. Right. And been really successful with this very honest message of reaching. And her first big break was actually on, I think, Home Shopping Network or something like that. Right. She had. She had one shot. You know, you get enough sales that one shot, and she insisted on taking all her makeup off and having all her blotches and everything shown. They said, you can't do that. You can't do it. No, I'm going to do it. This is why I'm honest. I'm going to say I'm a real person. No, no, you can't do that. They tried to talk her out of it. She insisted on doing it, and the whole thing took off as a huge success. Right. So it does seem like there's a shift in the marketplace that people are really looking for that honesty and that vulnerability and humanness in what we're in, how we're trying to communicate value.

Yeah. And that's exactly what we do for our makeup brand. If you guys see our ads, you'll notice that we only use real women. And they do start the video with no makeup on, and they apply the makeup and they're real people. You know, my mom is one of them. And that feels good. And I think that is where we are going, which is wonderful for all of us.

Well, you mentioned before now, you know, you're able to do what you love and work with people you love. So I wonder if we could talk a little bit about the community aspect. I saw a video a couple of years ago that was really making the rounds as kind of a. A powerful marketing and sales message video, which was about a woman owned business and they were making a line of bras, something all women use and need. But their success was really about creating raving fans, obviously, but creating a community of raving fans, like it was all about creating this community that had this shared interest and really loved the product. Obviously they were creating a really quality product that was about real people and really worked. But the success of the business was largely about not just having customers, but having a community.

Yeah, I mean, that's everything, especially moving into 2021. And I think that's sort of part two of what I touched on, what you should look at when you're starting a business actually wanting to serve a group of people. So with Smart Marketer, I mean, what gets me out of bed on my bad days are our students, our followers, our email list. The people that I know are enjoying our, that they don't need us, but they want it. We are enriching their lives. And so I think it's really hard to have a direct to consumer brand, especially moving into 2021, if you aren't focusing on that community. And a lot of that is distributing great content to them. Whether it's blog posts, whether it's podcasts, YouTube videos, we do all of the above. Whether it's Facebook groups, however, you can continue to give them value and distribute information that's valuable to them and when possible, make it a two way conversation for us. A lot of that used to happen at live events, which is obviously a little tough now, but we're making it work virtually. I think that's the difference between a company that's going to be here next year versus ten years from now.

So I'd like to come back to your career track again a little bit. You know, so you, you've worked for others and been very successful doing so. Then you struck out on your own, you had a book and successful courses and so forth. And you're building your own brand, Molly Pittman brand. And now you're working with Smart Marketer as a CEO and a team again. And yet I think you still very much have your own brand. So I'm curious about that in today's world, I mean, that's kind of a newer phenomena that somebody might be working within a company, but it's still building their brand at some time. And how that can work, how, you know, there's in some ways, if we're, if we're going to, we're going to be in a marketplace, whether we're working for others, working for a big corporation, a small business or Starting our own business. The idea of personal brands still applies somehow, doesn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. And even when I was working at Digital Marketer, a big part of what I was doing was building my personal brand, because that is an asset I'm able to take with me wherever I go. So I think when you're looking at, should I work for someone else or should I look work for myself, it's really two things. The first is, do you feel like you. Do you feel like you still need to acquire more skills? So the reason that I worked at Digital Marketer, and one of the biggest benefits that I got working there was the acquisition of all of these skills that have to do with digital marketing that are very valuable to me today. And at the time, I didn't have the means to start my own business. That would have been very risky for me. It probably wouldn't have worked out so well, you know. So the second part of this is also risk. You know, how much risk are you able to take on currently? And is that something that's interesting for you? And so I've kind of, you know, wobbled between these two. Obviously working at Digital Marketer, then going out on my own with the agency, and then coming back and working with Ezra as an owner in the company, but still with a bigger team. And I think my current situation is the sweet spot for me, and the reason for that is the team. So we have over 30 employees, and I really love working with other humans. Like, that is what very much lights me up. And on my own, I wasn't really prepared to hire a team of that size. So with my current situation, I'm able to have the best of both worlds. You know, I'm still an owner in the company. I'm an entrepreneur. I make a lot of the decisions that are being made day to day. You know, my butt is still on the line if something goes wrong, but I do have these two other business partners that are there to help. We all bring different resources and skill sets to the table.

And.

And I'm able to serve such a larger community and work with more people because of that. So when I'm looking at working for someone else or starting my own business, you know, the first thing is, do you still need to acquire skills? I'm always learning, but I'm not really in a position where I need to work for someone else to acquire a skill set. But I have in the past, and that was very valuable. And then the second thing that I look at is risk, which it can be very Stressful. Owning your own business and knowing that you are on the line for paying your bills and it's not just a paycheck that is always going to show up in your bank account. So, again, I kind of have the best of both worlds right now. But who knows what happens moving forward? I might work for someone else again. I might start a business that's just Molly. But something I've always done is develop my personal brand because I know that no matter what, just like with my skill set, that's something that I can take with me, you know, the rest of my life.

Yeah, I think that's really insightful and something for all of us to highlight and pay attention to, whatever it is. And our personal brand can be something very simple to something, you know, obviously Oprah or something.

Could even be just relationships you have. You know, in the current company that you work for, it doesn't have to be a Facebook page with thousands of likes. A lot of it is relational. And just remember that, just like your skill set, you take those relationships with you wherever you go.

Yeah, I remember. I remember some kind of training or course that I read. It was probably a decade ago, but it was some. They were using the term me business, which on the face of it, I'm not thrilled about that languaging. But what they really meant was we're all in business. Whether we're working for somebody else, we're all in business for ourselves. Even if we're working in some huge corporation, we have to think we're in a value exchange. I'm offering my time and my skills. I'm getting some confidence compensation for that. And then I have to work with that compensation in the best way that's going to build financial independence and security for me and my family. So we're all in business.

Yes.

And. And we're all taking risks. So, you know, I think that's a helpful construct to realize. Oh, oh, there's like the people, business owners, and then there's all the rest of us, and we're all in business on some level.

We sure are. Absolutely.

So how long ago did you leave Kentucky Frosted?

About nine years ago.

I think in less than a decade, you went from bartending to where you are today, living in. In Amsterdam. Being able to work with an international team, doing the work you really love. And. And I assume you're doing relatively well financially. And. And, you know, sometimes people. I mean, that's how much the world has changed. Because I don't care who you were unless you were somebody Lucky to get recognized as the next starlet or something. But several decades ago, you didn't do that in 10 years. You're talking 20, 30 years to get to that, to get to that position almost no matter who you are or how smart you were. So the world has really changed.

Yes. And thanks to the Internet, it's accelerated everything. And like you said, this would probably be, you know, before the Internet, I would be where maybe this would be late in my career. You know, I would be ready to retire at this point. And I just turned 30. And that is a product of how quickly all of this is developing.

Yeah, it's really amazing. So maybe a little bit about. Because part of what we're talking about today in the summit is wherever we are in our life in terms of career or business, but just financial well being and health. So what have you learned along the way? Some of you have learned something about your personal finances and taking care of yourself. And I don't know, maybe you, maybe you're sitting in huge credit card debt, you're not managing your finances at all. But I doubt that. Right. I kind of doubt that. So, yeah, anything you can share with us about along the way, learning to steward our own resources in a way that, you know, all the work we're putting in can actually lead to some kind of financial freedom.

Yeah, well, I mean, the first thing that I've learned is that health is one of our greatest resources, if we want to look at it in that way. And that was an issue that I had when I was living in Austin, working a 9 to 5. I mean, I was completely burned out. I wasn't taking care of myself, eating terrible things, drinking a lot, not sleeping well, tons of caffeine. All of the things that we think, oh, I'm hustling like I'm out there getting it done and I'm grinding. And you know, that is, especially in America, for some reason, what we have put on a pedestal. You look at Wall street or you look at any real definition of success in mainstream American media. A lot of that goes back to this idea of working yourself to the ground to be successful. We think that the harder you work, the more money that you make. And that's completely untrue. So the first thing is just acknowledging that you are your health and you are your greatest resource. And the more time that you prioritize taking care of yourself, the better all of this will work because you will feel better, you'll be able to show up in a better way. You'll be able to get things done quicker. So it's really acknowledging that, of course you've got to do the work, but it's not, you know, more work equals more money. And that's been one of the greatest lessons that I've learned. And because of that, I enjoy myself so much more. I'm in a better mood. I actually have work, life balance. You know, I realized a few years ago, why am I doing this? Why am I hustling so hard to make all of this money if I'm not going to enjoy it? And I don't want to wait until I retire to enjoy my life. That's a broken model. And so just understanding that health is always first priority. It will always be more important than the amount of money that you're making. And now, on the monetary side, I think my biggest suggestion or my biggest lessons have been around when I switched from employee, where I had more of a fixed income, moving into this entrepreneur mindset. And for me, I was lucky enough to. When I made that switch and I started bringing on clients, I was making way more money than I ever had in my life. And at that time, one of my mentors said to me, molly, just because you are earning so much more money does not mean you need to immediately adjust your lifestyle.

To meet the amount of money that you're making right now. He's like, I would wait a few years before you go buy the fancy car and house and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Again, other ways that we identify success here in America, which is pretty unfortunate. And so I've seen a lot of my friends, when they make this switch.

They. Not that they're necessarily living outside of their means, but they immediately bump their lifestyle up to meet wherever their business is at that time or beyond. Or beyond. And unfortunately, business fluctuates. Things happen. I mean, look, this year has been so hard for businesses, and I'm really grateful that, you know, of course, I've moved to Amsterdam and I do spend money and I enjoy my money, but I didn't make this huge shift that could have made things very complicated for me. So I guess realizing that when you do move from the employee mindset to the entrepreneur mindset, not that you still have to think of it as fixed income, but you have to realize that business does fluctuate. And, you know, I was just very aware of that, and I'm glad. And for me also, and this might be a personal preference, but for me, monetarily, I like to spend my money on experiences. You know, I Live a very minimalist lifestyle. I moved to Amsterdam with two suitcases. Pretty much all of my personal belongings still fit in those two suitcases. And for me, that just keeps things simple and it really decreases the stress. I've had a lot of friends and still do that. They are so.

Overspending, I guess, or their lifestyle is more lavish than mine. And that creates a lot of stress around business because they're not operating in business out of the want or need to serve a community or want or need to grow the business. It's the need to make more money to sustain this lifestyle that they built for themselves. And when you operate from that energy level, which is way more scarcity than an abundance mindset, things change and you're simply not as fulfilled. And then you're having to make decisions in your business based off of your personal finances and not what is best for the overall growth and health of the business. So for example, with Smart Marketer, we try to reinvest as much money as possible. You know, we all take a pretty reasonable salary out of the business. But otherwise I want to reinvest as much as possible so that I can buy more advertising so that we can grow more quickly. And that is my priority. Over buying fancy cars, I don't own a car. You know, buying fancy clothes, it's just not really what's interesting to me.

Well, that's, there's a lot of wisdom there. And unfortunately that kind of has been somewhat the cultural thing in the west and especially the U.S. you know, if you start doing well, you need to have, you need to represent that, right? You need to show you have the status symbols to represent, represent that you're doing well in the houses and the cars and all the rest of it. And you know, what you're talking about points to another one of our summit days which is focused on simplicity and minimalist living and having more eth friendly relationships. So I love what you said about you like spend your money on experiences, right? And so I think that's, you know, that's really great. I feel similarly. I think the one thing, I don't need a bigger anything than I have today, but I would like to travel more when we get out of the COVID 19 for pleasure. I don't want to travel for business the way I used to, but. And that's, that's one of the big lessons learned for me here. I used to be a road warrior and my business since COVID 19 hit, I'm not on the road, not burning myself out on the Road I'm home and my business has doubled and I'm doing it from home, you know, so that's like.

You probably wouldn't have made that shift to online without Covid happening.

Well, I mean, I was doing some stuff online already, but I wouldn't have made this dramatic shift. Right. And so just things are amazingly possible in the world we live today. And making that adjustment, you know, to that we're. The world is constantly changing and it's changing right before our eyes. I mean, artificial intelligence and all kinds of things are so good, and it's so radically change our landscape as long as we don't do ourselves in in the next 10 to 20 years. What about also, you know, so if we're not going to spend our money on status symbols, right, and ostentatious toys that we don't really need, closets full of clothes that we don't wear very often off and so forth, what about the notion of giving back and the notion of, you know, being. Being in that blow? You know, the old model was you had to wait till you were super wealthy. And then actually the statistics say that the super wealthy give much less money away than ordinary people. Now they may give in actual dollar amounts a big chunk, but it's a much smaller percent of their income. Fortunately, there are people like Bill Gates. Whatever people think about Mr. Gates, he's dedicated to giving away all his money in his lifetime or most of it. And so there are some major philanthropists, but in general, a lot of times people wait to get in. You know, I'm not going to be able to give until much later. And so I think ordinary people at all levels of life give a lot to their churches, if they're involved in churches and so forth. But you know, I just wondering what that brings up for you. A flow of generosity and giving back. And how does that resonate for you in terms of. Of not as something separate from making money or separate from your business, but some way in which the whole thing is integrated?

Yeah, great question. I mean, I do think you first have to take care of yourself. And I think a lot of what you see, let's talk about like buying fancy cars or clothes. When I see that, I see someone that possibly is insecure, that isn't completely satisfied with themselves and therefore feels like they need to show up in a way to overcompensate. So the first thing I want to say is I think the best thing you can do for the world is be at most peace with yourself as possible. And for Me that's come through a lot of personal development books, courses, being more in touch with my spirituality and really being at most peace with myself as possible. So I first want to put that out there because I think you will be of most service to the world when you are operating at your highest self. And that's not just health, as we discussed earlier. A lot of that has to do with your mental health, spirituality, et cetera, the people that you spend time with. Now, once you feel solid in that area, then you are very prepared to give back. And that can look like a lot of things. For us, a lot of our giving back is giving scholarships to our courses, going above and beyond with students that we know are doing really good and impactful things in the world, because I know if I can help them, that has so much more of an exponential effect on the economy and the world as a whole than any amount of money that I could give to an organization. Now, that said, we do a lot of giving back every year. We do choose an organization that we feel.

Really passionately about. This year it had to do with racial injustice in America, and we do just outright donate money. But a lot of what I do in terms of giving back right now, I'm actually in the process here in Kentucky in the next year or two of buying land and opening an animal shelter that will be funded by an E commerce business that I start. And so to me, that is so much more fun and impactful than, you know, giving another animal shelter money. So I guess what I'm saying is I am more fulfilled by being involved in the giving back than just the giving of the money. But, you know, obviously there's nothing wrong.

With that too, you know, and obviously I think there's a lot of things we need to do to better regulate capitalism at the large scale. But nonetheless, you know, this, this actual direct engagement in creating. Creating opportunity, creating abundance, creating wealth, and, you know, the idea of socially purposed businesses and the marriages between for profit and nonprofit, you know, the idea of starting a good for profit business that is designed to then fund some kind of traditionally nonprofit project. I've been involved in both worlds for a long time. I'm still very involved in the nonprofit world, but I like something about the bottom line in the for profit world. And, and actually most nonprofits are having to embrace. Creates more of a bottom line mentality these days. But I like the idea of how you can.

Change the world through actually creating abundance and creating opportunity.

Absolutely. And for me, it's so much more powerful for Example for me to teach a brand to buy advertising profitably than me donating $25,000 to them. Because that is again, a skill set that will continue to propel that business moving forward versus a one time, you know, sort of fixed asset. If you want to look at it, that I'm donating. Again, nothing against that. Like, I love donating money, but I like to donate something that I know is going to perpetuate that cause for years and years to come.

This may be an unusual question because this is something that maybe usually more occurs in our 40s, 50s and 60s, but. But, you know, you've had your mentors and you know, I love. There was a book I read, I don't know, 30 years ago called Mount Analog. It's kind of a spiritual fable. And the idea you're going up that mountain, right? Well, you can't climb higher on the mountain until you create a situation for the people behind you to be able to come up to where you were. Right. So they have to put all the stores there and equipment. So then the next, you know. And so are you, ma. Are you mentoring the next Molly Pittman anyway?

Oh, I mean, in lots of ways I've had many mentors throughout, really my whole life wouldn't be here without them. And people that really reached down and saw something in me and helped me move to the next stage. And so really, as soon as I entered this world and I started experiencing that, I've started doing that. So I would say there are lots of people in the world that I mentor. A lot of them are students, but most of them right now are currently working for Smart Market Marketer. And that's really what I love about stepping back into the CEO role versus kind of just being a consultant, hanging out on my own because I know the impact that I can have on this team. And the goal is to hire as many people as possible, right? Instead of us taking more distribution, let's hire more people so that they can acquire this skill set so that they have the same opportunities that we do. And our other business partner, John Grimshaw, he's actually someone that I hired six years ago when I was a digital marketer. He came on as a marketing assistant, went into the data side of things, really found his niche. We left digital marketer at the same time, and now things have come back around where I was his boss. Now we're business partners. And a lot of times he tells me what to do, and I'm happy with that. So it's also fun to. To See the role reversal, you know, now he is a mentor to me in a big way. But for me, people are everything. You know, not just the people that we're serving, the people that we sell things to, the people that we help, but the people that I get to work with. You know, I find myself as a mentor to them and likewise. And I just think that's fun to really get to work with people where you enrich one another's lives. Because think about it, when you are running a business or you're working, I mean, you spend more time with the people that you work with than anybody else in your life. It's very true. And so make sure those are people that make you feel good, that lift you up, that enrich your life, that inspire you. For me, that's so much more important. If I'm looking for a job or looking to own a business, then the amount of money that I'm making. So a lot of my fulfillment comes from the people I'm around and really not the quality of people, but, you know, making sure that it is a win win.

Well, I know there's going to be a tremendous amount of inspiration, motivation, knowledge, expertise, wisdom that our audience is receiving right now, and hopefully it's going to inspire a lot of people to take creative leaps in their own life. And I wonder if, you know, maybe just a final message you might have for our audience in the context of, you know, some of us may be doing quite well. I mean, COVID 19 has actually brought on a lot of opportunities because everything has shifted so much online and everybody's on zoom and all the rest of it. And some of us may very much still be back on our heels and feel like we're kind of just coping, just getting through it, or people in the restaurant industry, you know, really suffering. And then, you know, there's a whole lippage. A lot of what we're talking about. People would say, well, this is a conversation within kind of a privileged world, and there are those that don't have access to these opportunities. And, and you know, I, I, that's very much true and I think, but I think it's, in a lot of ways what we're all doing is working to give more and more people access. So, and, and, and so, you know, I think there's a message that I'm hearing from you anyway, and I wonder if you might, might dig down and articulate in that in some way that really wherever anybody is, a message that they could grab onto and feel like, okay, I can empower myself and go after my dreams.

Yeah, I love that. And I actually was having a bad day last week.

One of our customers sent a really nasty message, which happens no matter what business you're in. And I called my business partner, Ezra, and I was upset. I was telling him how this affected me, and he said, molly, we all have to enjoy where we are right now. And part of being a human is of course, enjoying happiness, enjoying fulfillment, enjoying joy. And again, especially in America, we've normalized that, right? Like everyone should be happy all the time. And that's not true. Part of being human is also this binary of feeling sadness, feeling defeat, feeling these bad emotions. And if you allow yourself to sit in that for a minute and feel it, it makes the happiness and the joy so much more special. And I thought that was amazing advice because he was basically telling me, don't fight it. You know, like, don't sit there in it, but don't fight it. Because that is as much a part of being a human. Being an entrepreneur, a marketer, an employee, however you identify, that's as much a part of it as the joy and the happiness and the positivity that we are all reaching for. So I guess that would be my message because that really helped me. And what was interesting, once I did accept it and sit in it, it went away pretty quickly. And I was able to see a clear path forward to feeling better versus me fighting or judging myself about feeling bad. We don't realize a lot of times when we are feeling bad, most of it is just our judgment about feeling bad. And if you just let yourself feel it, you can sort of clear that out of your body a lot more quickly. And then the next steps just become so much more clear.

Wow, that's great. Yeah, I think for all of us, you know, empowering ourselves and embracing ownership for regulating our own emotional life and our mindset, because we're going to be a lot more creative and a lot more successful when we feel good about ourselves and feel a sense of possibility about life. And it's easy to get knocked off that course, but we can learn simple skills. We all have the possibility to shift our state to work, not to repress our emotions, but to feel them and work with them and not get stuck and to get keep working with having a mindset that's positive and so forth and all that is within our reach. And there's so much the information that's available today from people like yourself and so many amazing teachers about mindset and about self regulation. And then how to be successful. I mean, it's just all right there in ways that have never been available before.

So just remember. Yeah. Remember, you're in control and everything you need is out there.

Yeah, yeah. So what's next for you, Molly? Are you got another book on the way or what do you think next for you?

No, no book. Right. I'm heading back to Amsterdam soon. I'm going to take a little bit of time off before the new year refresh and then come back in for a big year. So we're launching new products. We're actually going to be launching a job board to help digital marketers connect with business owners. So I think that will be fun. That is very needed. So just doing the work to make sure that people see the opportunity in this industry and they know where they fit in and they know how to get started.

Did. So I assume you ride a bicycle in Amsterdam.

I do every day.

Anyone who hasn't been to Amsterdam, they have these huge bicycle parks. Until you see them, you can't believe it. But there's thousands and thousands. I don't know how you everywhere when you come back to find your bike, I'm not sure how you find it. They're just like everywhere.

But I have to remember.

If you.

Get into the central core of Amsterdam, if they allowed cars in there, like we have normal, there's no way it's an old city with these tiny, narrow streets. Yeah. But it's such a cool.

I live right downtown and so I've gotten used to the. I just follow the Dutch people they know and I just stay right behind them.

So you have a view of one of the canals or something right on the canal.

Yeah, that's. That's f. It's amazing. And I think part of too, you know, it sounds fancy and cool that I've lived these places around the world, but part of that is just if I feel good in a place, I want to be there. And I don't analyze really much about it other than how I feel in it. So just remember that business, your job, most of that is about how you feel and just be in touch with that.

Great. Well, thank you so much. And for our audience, find all about molly@mollypitman.com and you can also check out Smart Marketer. And really, thank you so much for spending time with us today.

Thank you guys so much for having me. And I'll see you later.

Okay, Take care.

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