Mr Meaningful work Tim Olaore shares how his emerging Vodcast is engaging a growing community con...

I'm not an expert, but my goal was to explore how do we define and make meaningful work practical. And I just wanted to invite folks along on the journey as I, as I explored that.

Tim Elare, I have been watching and listening to your podcast, Mr. Meaningful Work, which is going out, and you recently interviewed Kate from Lately. So that also caught my eye. Tell us about your show.

So my show is The Late Afternoon Show. In the middle of pandemic times, I was just thinking of some creative ways to talk to interesting people and have fun. And I've always been a fan of the late night shows that we have here with, you know, Jimmy Fallon and Trevor Noah and, you know, Jimmy Kimmel and things like that. And so I've been seeing them do it remotely and virtually and having fun with it. And but what I haven't seen in, in podcasts with professionals and stuff is them actually just having fun. Like, I always just like to have fun. It's cool to see an interesting person, a big name person on a podcast, but we hear them all the time. So I was like, if I can have a different approach, like a late night show where we play a game, we have fun, we have audience engagement, that would be a different take on it. So I created the Late Afternoon Show, which was just my attempt to talk to smart people and get their definitions on the idea of meaningful work. And so we get folks on the show. I do some corny jokes at the beginning. So I have somebody help me me put some jokes together about current events and politics and things like that. And so I tell some jokes, get the audience warmed up, and then we have the guests come on. We have them introduce themselves, and then we play a game with the live audience that's streaming. And so when you saw, we were talking to Kate and we played charades. And so having her act on the screen was really cool.

Yeah.

We've had previous guests do 2 truths and a lie. Pictionary. I mean, we had somebody draw and have folks do it. So just a fun little time. And then we talk about what they're doing and what their goals are.

I noticed that because on LinkedIn, it had a comment about someone saying, you know, is she really supposed to be doing that? So now running a podcast, but you're doing live streams. Interesting in having a conversation with you. It's quite a different strategy to the one that I've been taking, a much more, frankly, much more fun, I think, a much more lively one. It's not your regular job though, Tim. What do you do for a living? And Why did you get involved in this idea of meaningful work?

Yeah, so what I currently do is I lead— I work in leadership development at a large healthcare system out on the West Coast in the United States. So part of the leadership development organization, I lead leadership residency program, which is folks coming out of college into healthcare and being trained to enter into leadership positions. So it's a 2-year program. But I also lead the internships. So for students, college students that are in their sophomore, junior years, they're spending a summer with us and hopefully coming back into our program as we build our pipeline of leaders. So that's my day job, but I've taken such a wild journey to land here in different things from entrepreneurship to gig work to, at some point I was actually working for my wife.

So— I wouldn't wanna comment. It was interesting. I'm sure she's a lovely lady.

Best boss, best boss. Yeah, mine too. Yeah, and so it was just that journey of like, you know, different things and me finding out what I really love to do, right? Because I would leave jobs or take jobs based on what I felt was energizing or what I felt was boring and things like that. And so at the top of last year, because I like creating video content, I like the creative outlet that that, you know, gives, I wanted to focus on how do folks find out what it is that they're excited about in the job or the work that they're doing. And so meaningful work is a term that's been thrown out so much but didn't really have a lot of practical application. It's kind of like this nebulous idea. And so my goal was to explore— I'm not an expert, but my goal was to explore how do we define and make meaningful work practical. And I just wanted to invite folks along on the journey as I as I explored that. And so that's where Mr. Meaningful Work came, which I do alongside creating executives for healthcare.

Tim O'Leary, and I think I pronounced that just about okay. Tim O'Leary, is that how I pronounce it?

Yeah, yeah. Okay, that is, that is, that is good.

Perfect. Because we English are not famous for our, for our languages and our pronunciation.

So just your accents, your accents are the best.

That's— yeah. Well, that came for free, luckily, with the passport. So Tim, wonderful. So this idea of people coming on the journey with you, it's a new way, I think, of treating the podcast because many people, including me, right, I kind of have this idea with the Speak PR methodology that I've got a skill set that I can share with people. But what I really like about your approach is that you're really reaching out to get people to share with you more. Can you tell us from a practical point of view how you're growing the audience for the Meaningful Work Show? Because that's one of the main challenges, isn't it? The concept is lovely. Yeah. Getting people to listen, who I'm sure once they've listened will love it. How are you solving that problem?

Yeah. And I think I'm still in the process of figuring it out and learning and just kind of experimenting. The idea came from, you know, I like, I like meeting people, and I feel like I have the ability to engage and have interviews and conversations. I did sales for a long time. So the ability to just connect with somebody cold, and find something that we're connected on and then have a meaningful conversation is a skill that I've been able to practice over the years. And so what I started off with was just inviting my friends, like folks that I knew that had some level of influence, whether they're a micro influencer or a major influencer, and hopping on Instagram Live just to have a conversation. But I also wanted to see what folks were saying at the same time. And so that was the original idea, is to talk to people And you kind of get 2 channels of feedback, the person that you're talking to who's helping you learn and the people that are watching and contributing in the comments or what have you. And so that was a great way to engage with the audience while engaging with the guest. And so I just kind of stuck to that model of a live interview so you can get live interactions and answer questions and add value in the moment, as opposed to, I think, the traditional way of, you know, a podcast, you record it, you send it out, and then People can download it or send emails or send comments kind of after the fact. And so I wanted to kind of capture that live feedback loop. Yeah. And so we just continued to build that with Instagram, and then we moved it over to LinkedIn, and then we were able to multi-stream for not just LinkedIn, but to Facebook and to YouTube Live as well. So we can get multiple feedback inputs. And then if folks can't catch it live, they can still watch it later and then add their comments or add their feedback. You know, later. So my biggest thing was just how do I engage and get feedback from the audience as quickly as possible?

That's really nice, Tim. So are you saying that one can stream to LinkedIn and Facebook and YouTube simultaneously?

Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of different platforms. The platform that I use is StreamYard. It has an icon of a little duck or goose or something like that. So I use StreamYard and you can multicast Or multi-stream to LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. And there's a number of other multi-stream platforms that are out there. But I think for me, it helps capture folks with a wide range. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Because Zoom, we can do live stream to Facebook, to Workplace, and YouTube, or a live custom streaming service. So using StreamYard, and then you record presumably just to the one camera, and that is Connecting to your different platforms, is that right? Automatically. Yeah.

Um, another so it streams to those platforms and then it lives there.

Nice. And then in terms of getting people to come, because that's always the hard thing, right? I mean, you can you can be there, but doesn't mean that other people are gonna be there too. Yeah. How have you done the marketing?

So for a long time, it was just me, right? I'll just invite folks on Facebook or on LinkedIn and just say, hey, I have this show that's coming up. We have this really cool guest, come and check it out. What I have found to be more successful is if I can get the guest to promote it and they bring their tribe. So Kate, for example, was a phenomenal example of her and her employees and folks like were in her— I think she's already great at just building evangelists. Like folks are just crazy excited about whatever it is that she's doing.

Yeah.

And so having her promote it and repost and comment and things like that was really, really helpful. And we've had previous, you know, guests in the past that have come alongside us in the promotion, and, and that's always really cool. And, and then what I do is after the show, I do a recap. I'll do the 3 takeaways for folks that missed it. So we'll do like the highlights, and I'll put— I'll do a screenshot of maybe the most exciting time of both of us laughing or, you know, whatever, to show folks, oh my gosh, what was, you know, what were they doing, to help them be encouraged to come and check us out next time and see what all the fun and the energy and vibe is about. So getting the folks to, to promote with and for me, like the guests that are coming on, and then capturing really exciting moments to encourage folks to come for the next ones.

I know you Sending these out as audio and video or just all video?

So right now it is video. And then in the future, we will take all the audio and then put it to an audio only on Spotify and Apple and the other podcast platforms. So, but for right now, it's, it's, it's, it's a video vodcast. I think that's a new term for video podcast. That's a vodcast. And then we'll transcribe it to a traditional podcast here in the future.

Thank you for sharing. You've given me a lot of food for thought, really. I've taken a very conventional podcast, produce it, send it out. It's a rather British middle-aged approach. I say you've got much more West Coast young and trendy approach, which is great. I just wonder what game we should play. Of course, charades doesn't work with audio only. That's the problem.

It's funny. And then what's it called? Clubhouse. They actually did The Lion King play, like completely audio. So folks were acting. And so I think there's a— it's an interesting opportunity for folks to— it's like, how do we act out something, you know, whether it's with sounds or with, you know, whatever, to have folks guess what it is. So you might have an opportunity there.

Yeah, some impromptu podcast theater.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that could be really interesting. I think there's a whole idea of new formats. but also about content. The Meaningful Work, what sort of guests then are you looking for? I was reading that one podcaster only takes people on their podcast if they've got a bigger audience than they do, which I can completely understand and applaud from one perspective. But that also means that maybe there'll be people that get left, you know, by the side.

Yeah.

How are you finding those people? And is there some kind of piece of work or philosophy that they espouse that gets you excited?

Yeah, I'm saying in the early days, as if we've been doing this for a long time. It's only been like 6 months. But in the early days, it was about just kind of getting that reach. So, I was looking for folks with big LinkedIn audiences or big Instagram audiences just to kind of get the reach out there. And then, we would formulate the conversation to fit what it is that we're doing. So that's still attractive for us as far as large audiences to help in our reach. So we're looking for business leaders, tech leaders, communication experts, and things like that. However, the approach that we're taking this season and what we're gonna be doing next season is to get all sorts. Because now, because I've been able to define, okay, we're trying to figure out what meaningful work looks like for folks that are still in the journey, right? They're still in the process. They may not have landed at that plateau of success, if you would. Like, hey, we've reached this point, but they're still figuring it out. So this season we're gonna have folks that are on their way to the— like on their way trying to get to the Olympics, folks that are trying to graduate from medical school, folks that are doing gig work and doing it. So we will get folks that are kind of like in the process, maybe haven't reached that level of success yet. Like we had Jeff Hoffman, who was a previous CEO of Priceline, and he's doing, you know, crazy big things in the global entrepreneurship network. So you have like that kind of huge level influencer, and then you have folk that are, I'm just trying to be a pediatrician, right? And graduate from medical school. What does meaningful work mean to me? Or I'm a high school student trying to swim and qualify for the Olympics. What does meaningful work mean to me?

Nice.

And so that we can get folks along that range. So we're trying to diversify it a bit and then really kind of fine-tune what adds value to our audience as we go through.

Tim, that's amazing. I really love as well that you're making an inclusive platform, you know, from big and small, and makes it accessible too, doesn't it really? In terms of— it's not your day job. I mean, you've got these 3 amazing children you've kindly shared, who obviously will want as much of dad as possible, but you do go to work. How has the company that you work for Viewed the podcast? Have they been receptive, or do they say, you know, your meaningful work is with us in the daytime?

I have been incredibly blessed to work in an organization that embraces, you know, my personal strengths and the nuances of who I am and how I— my creative outlets. And so they have embraced it. In fact, my previous boss, um, an executive that I used to work with kind of caught a glimpse of the show and she was like, Tim, you're doing all this stuff, like, why aren't you inviting me? I was like, I didn't know you wanted to. And so she was like, put these on my calendar every week so I can see when you're doing this, even to the point where, you know, in future episodes I hope to even interview our CEO as a guest on the late afternoon show. And so I think for me there's a relationship, right? If folks see Tim, Mr. Meaningful Work as a personality, and they see that I'm associated with Adventist Health, that's the organization that I work with, it would get, I think, especially for generation, you know, millennials and Generation Z who are already kind of in that gig mindset, entrepreneur, trying to do their own thing. And they see, hey, Tim can work for this organization and he can, you know, build his personal brand. You know, what type of environment do they have in there that is supportive of this, that's empowering of this? And And it just makes it easier. I know for me, it makes it easier to recruit because if I go to a school, you know, I'm not anywhere type of famous, but I could go to a school and folks like, oh, Mr. Meaningful Work, like I saw you on LinkedIn and this and this and that. And this kind of helps in attracting talent to the organization and just paints the culture of the organization in a very good light. And I think my organization appreciates that and they support it.

Tim, if there's one Last comment. If you had to define what is meaningful work, what would meaningful work be for you, Tim Olare?

So for me, I've gotten a lot of definitions over the last, you know, little bit. The definition that I've liked the most, and I feel like I've been running with for at least the last month or so, is the one that I got from Jeff Hoffman, previous CEO of Priceline. He said meaningful work is work that is impactful and fulfilling. So you have like that internal fulfillment, hey, I'm doing something that makes me excited, but there's also external impact. The world is being benefited as a result of that. So for me, meaningful work is any activity that I'm doing that energizes me, but also adds value to my community in some way. It doesn't have to be huge. It could even be marginal as we're kind of progressing. So impactful and fulfilling for me is the definition of meaningful work.

Mr. Meaningful Work, where can people find out more about you?

My website, mrmeaningfulwork.com, is the easiest place. And I'm on LinkedIn, just search for Tim O'Leary. And then on Instagram and Twitter, it's just Mr. Meaningful Work. You put that in and you'll be able to find me. Same thing on Clubhouse if folks are using that audio drop-in platform. You can find me on Clubhouse as well. So, and YouTube, Timothy O'Leary on YouTube.

Perfect. And I'll put it also, of course, in the show notes. Tim, thank you so much for joining me and sharing about your really meaningful work. I've loved it.

I appreciate it, James. Thanks for the opportunity. This was fun.

It's a lot of fun. So you've been listening to the Speak PR program where we try and share tools and tips and introduce you to people that are making a difference and using communications to make things better. So until we meet again, I wish you the best of health, a profitable business, and that if you're working, I pray for you that it's meaningful work that you're enjoying during lockdown. Thank you so much for listening.