[00:00:00] Hala Taha: jen, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast

[00:02:16] Jen Gottlieb: hi, so excited to be here. 

[00:02:19] Hala Taha: Likewise, I feel like our listeners are going to learn so much from you. And before we get started about PR and talking about your new book, I'd love to understand a little bit more about your career journey. You do not have the typical route when it comes to you becoming an entrepreneur and a business owner.

You actually were on Broadway at one point. You had an acting career. You were on cable television. So can you talk to us about some of your career milestones as an actress and what you learned from 

[00:02:46] Jen Gottlieb: your acting career? My friends and I always joke that if I went into a traditional job with a traditional resume, people would be like, uh, how do all of these dots connect?

How does this even make sense? All of the different things that I've done. And I think many of your listeners can probably relate when it comes to being a little bit all over the place. So maybe they'll be able to see themselves in me a little bit. I bounced around a lot because my initial role or role in life, what I thought my purpose was, was to be an actress and to have the life of an actor.

And I wanted to be on Broadway. I wanted to be on TV and movies. And so my whole. Educational journey was all around studying to be a musical theater actress. I was a musical theater major in college, dropped out of college. And I realized I'm like, I want to move to New York. I want to pursue my dreams. So I went to a two year conservatory program there that was all based around musical theater, singing and dancing.

That's all I did all day. And I actually ended up really manifesting my dream role in the Broadway national tour of Wedding Singer. So, you know, the Adam Sandler movie. Yeah. So it was a. Broadway musical that they took the movie and they turned it into a musical and I went to go see that show and I saw the character of Linda, the ex fiance that leaves Robbie Hart at the altar.

Okay, so I saw this character on the stage. It was this woman. She was like belting out this song and she was hilarious and I just resonated with this character and I said to my friend who was sitting next to me in like the back row of the theater, I'm going to play this part one day and he's looking at me like, You're crazy.

We were in school. I lived in an eight foot by eight foot dorm room with a twin bunk bed. There was no chance of me being on Broadway at that point in time. But I just resonated it for some reason. I never wanted to be like the princess or the good girl. I want to be this bad girl. She was like a rocker chick.

So I decided to make that my goal. And I decided to use visualization. Literally every night before I went to bed, I would visualize myself playing her. And I would sing myself to sleep. And I would envision the costume on my body and the audience there and like looking at me and the lights on my face.

And I would feel it every single day. And I truly believe that that helped me take the action steps to getting that part. Even when I got rejected time and time and time again, it helped me keep being persistent and resilient. And eventually I got that role and I played it all over the country. And when I performed it for the first time ever in front of an audience, the exact visual that I saw, the same audience, the same theater, the same costume that the woman on Broadway initially was wearing.

Everything was the same as my visualizing that I did when I was a student. And I walked backstage and I said to myself, I'm like, Oh my gosh, Jenny, like you can create anything you want. You just have to be persistent. You can't take no for an answer. You have to consistently follow up. You have to take unbelievable amounts of scary action.

And that's exactly what I did. So that taught me my biggest lesson in entrepreneurship in resilience and persistence and not taking no for an answer. And that led me down the path to my role in VH1, which you mentioned, which is crazy because it was a heavy metal talk show. On VH1, all about heavy metal music, and I don't like heavy metal music.

I got this job playing this version of myself, and I was an actress, so I was like, sure, I'll do it, I can sign up for this, I could be this girl. And that took me down a really dark path because I was out of alignment with who I truly was. And I was playing a version of myself and building a brand that was something that was completely inauthentic to me.

And I got really, really stuck in a really dark place because, have you ever had that feeling where you're like, I know that this isn't 

[00:06:19] Hala Taha: me? 100 percent just like you're not being authentic, you didn't even like the topic of what you're doing, but at least you were in the space of what you like to do.

So I'm sure that's what kept you going is the fact that you were acting, you were on TV, you were in the spotlight, which it seems like you wanted to be your whole life. 

[00:06:37] Jen Gottlieb: Exactly. So I was very torn because I had this perfect on paper life that many actresses would dream of. I was going to LA every couple of weeks to film this show at Universal Studios.

 I was getting paid really well. And if you were to look at my Instagram or my Facebook, right at the highlight reel, Oh my God, she's got it all going on. But behind the scenes, I was miserable. I was depressed every single day I woke up and I was having this internal battle with myself.

Like, this is not you. I would gain all these followers every single day. And none of these followers really knew who I was like they were following somebody that wasn't me. And so I was building a brand and being seen as an inauthentic version of myself. I truly believe that when you're living a life that's inauthentic to who you are, somehow, someway the universe will step in and it will smack you back into alignment.

And a lot of the times it will hurt. And a lot of the times that will be a hard lesson that you have to learn. So I spiraled down a dark, I was like severely depressed. I was severely bulimic. I was in a toxic relationship. And within a week's time, shit happens so the shift could happen and I lost the show it got cancelled the guy that I was with left me for One of our friends and I found myself in this tiny little Room with six other actors with a window that faced a wall.

I didn't have a job I'd spent all my money because I was a hot mess at that time and I didn't know who I was anymore and I had to start over and that was where not that moment I wish I could say at that moment. I was like, yes, I know what I want to do with my life now Let's go took a while. It took A lot of self discovery, a lot of personal development, a lot of therapy, a lot of work, a lot of connecting, a lot of putting myself out there, a lot of uncomfortable moments.

But that was the moment, the breakdown for the breakthrough, that really set me on a path of who am I? How can I start being seen as real Jen? And how can I actually live the life that I want to live and allow people to see me for who I really 

[00:08:20] Hala Taha: am? That's such a powerful story and I'd love to sort of touch on different parts of it.

So you talked about the law of attraction and you really visualizing and manifesting I had a similar experience when I was in college. I was obsessed with the law of attraction. 

And then that led to me working at a radio station and for the top radio show and interviewing celebrities and then just like spiraled into who I am today. But after rejections and failures, I remember there was a period of time where I lost. That belief that you can manifest everything, that everything is within your power.

There was a period of time when I was working in corporate, because I had gotten rejected from radio, from TV, from a bunch of different things right before I started my podcast, that I'd stopped believing in myself. And so I wonder, after You lost your job at the TV show, you were the host of a very popular VH1 show, and your boyfriend left you in the worst way.

Did you feel lost at that point? Like, you didn't believe in yourself anymore and you had to sort of like, rebuild that belief in yourself, or were you like, I know, I'm gonna make it, and... I just need to figure things out. Oh my gosh, 

[00:09:30] Jen Gottlieb: Holla. I was a hot mess. I wish I could tell you that I was like, I'm going to figure it out.

I've got this, even though I knew how to manifest because I manifested Linda, like you said, exactly a very similar journey. I manifested that role in the wedding singer and figured out I could create whatever I wanted way before this happened. So I knew it. But a lot of the times I see this a lot in entrepreneurs or even just people in general, we know what the answers are.

We know what we have to do, but sometimes we self sabotage. Our limiting beliefs get in the way, fear gets in the way, and even though we know in our gut what we need to do, and we know what's right, and we know our truth, fear is very loud, and fear shows up in all kinds of ways that don't necessarily seem like fear.

Perfectionism, analysis paralysis, imposter syndrome, comparisonitis, comparing yourself to other people, and all of that was happening to me, and I remember sitting there in that little room, staring out that window, I remember it like it was yesterday, and all I could say to myself was, One day, I'll know why this happened.

One day, I'll know why this happened. That was the only thing I believed in and I always tell people. You don't necessarily have to believe a hundred percent that you're going to be okay. A hundred percent that your business is going to be amazing a hundred percent, that you're going to find the relationship because we're humans and we don't necessarily always believe a hundred percent.

I think a lot of people on the internet are like, you've got to believe, and if we wait to take action until we believe a hundred percent, we're going to be waiting for a really long time because, fear is always going to be there. There's always going to be some doubt. There's always going to be some resistance.

There's always going to be some uncertainty, some uneasiness. But you only need to believe a little bit more than you don't. I believed like 51 percent that I was gonna be okay. It was like 51 percent of me was like, one day I'll know, one day I'll know, one day I'll know. And a really crazy thing happened.

So my mom came into the city because I was so depressed and I could not get out of bed. She came in, she took me to dinner at this Italian restaurant and we sat there and my mom is very into personal development and I was not at the time. It manifested the wedding singer, but then I was so lost. I was like, I don't believe in this anymore.

Just like you and my mom handed me this book and it's called, you can heal your life by Louise. Hey, it's a book full of affirmations. And of course my mom was very smart and she knew I wasn't going to read the book because I was just a hot mess and I was like affirmations. Come on mom. Really? So inside the book, she's like, just open the book when you get home, I go home, I open the book and she photocopied one of the affirmations for me that she wanted me to read.

And on the back of the photocopy, it said, Dear Jenny, I hope you find yourself again. And so I looked at the affirmation and I said, okay, I'm not going to read this book. I will just read this stupid affirmation every day. That's it. That's all I'm committing to. And I put the affirmation on my refrigerator and I said, I'm just going to read this every day.

Even if I don't want to, even if I don't believe in it, I'm just going to read it. And what's so crazy is I don't know if it was the affirmation itself or if it was the act of sticking with a commitment that I made with myself consistently saying I was going to do something and repeatedly doing it that actually got me out of my hole.

But every single day and every time I read that affirmation, I slowly expanded like I slowly but surely got myself out of the house, got myself trying new things, got myself to the floor of Barnes and Noble reading personal development books and entrepreneurial books and got myself to my building my first business, which was in fitness.

Got me essentially to where I am today where I'm a very successful entrepreneur, but here's the catch. This is what's crazy I wrote my book Last year really was in the process of finding the best publisher for my book and my agent and I were pitching all different publishers And I was getting some rejections from some publishers that didn't get it.

They didn't understand. And I was also just getting some that wanted to publish the book, but it didn't feel like the best fit. And then the last publisher on the calendar, the last call that we had, I look at it and I'm like, Oh, Hay House, Hay House is Louise Hay's publishing company. Louise Hay is no longer with us.

She passed away, but she built one of the most successful publishing houses for personal development books. And I get on the call with them and I'm like, Louise Hay changed my life. And everyone's crying, everyone's emotional. And they're like, of course, this is where your book is supposed to be. This is who's supposed to bring your book into the world.

And so this actually touches on Holly, what you told me, like you got rejected a lot and you stopped believing right in the power of the law of attraction. But what if all of those rejections were part of the law of attraction, working its power to get you to this podcast, which was really the manifestation that you were waiting for.

Exactly. 

[00:13:52] Hala Taha: I do believe that, I do believe that, you know, rejection is redirection and all those kind of things because even the skills that you learn along the way and the fact that you get these opportunities to get, like, the opportunities itself are a blessing, right? The opportunity to fail and learn from those failures.

I'm totally aligned with that. Looking back, I'm like, thank God I didn't get those things because I wouldn't be who I am now, I wouldn't have learned what I learned, I wouldn't have created this business and so on. 

So when you were trying to transform your personal brand, because at this point when you got off VH1, you were pretty famous as a rocker girl, right?

You had a totally different brand. You weren't being marketed as like a PR expert yet. You were a host and in this rocker persona, which wasn't even you and you had all these fans. that thought that was you. So how did you go about being like, well, guys, this isn't the real me. And did those fans continue to support you?

Or did you just sort of start fresh? 

[00:14:54] Jen Gottlieb: It was really scary. Being seen as who you really are is the most vulnerable, vulnerable thing to do. Because it's like, oh, if they don't like me for who I really am, then what? It's a lot easier to be seen with a mask on or as somebody that you're not, actually, if you think about it, because it's almost like protection.

So when I went out into the world as being seen as my first business that I built was in the fitness space. I was really scared that I was like, I have to start over. These people aren't going to like me anymore. They're all going to unfollow me. They're going to say that I was a fake, that I was a liar.

And I'll tell you the first story of how it really happened. How I realized that my VH1 story was actually the lean in story that made me stand out in the fitness space. So, and this, this ties into PR and being seen and everything. So I think your listeners will appreciate this. Uh, one of the biggest, PR segments that I ever got to do when I was transitioning my brand was this show called life and living with Joanna Gagis.

It was a TV show where she would interview experts and, and it was a pretty big opportunity. It was my first opportunity where I was going to go on and be a fitness expert. I was transitioning the brand. I was like, I'm so excited. I'm going to wear my fitness outfit and me and Joanna are going to do squats and I'm going to tell her about how to eat right.

And it's going to be great. We're going to transition the brand. This is going to be the beginning of it. So I go prepared in my like Lululemon outfit and my Nike sneakers. To be fitness girl and I sit down for the interview and Joanna is wearing this beautiful white dress with heels. Clearly she's not going to squat with me.

Clearly. And I'm in this fitness outfit and I immediately am like, Oh my God, can I please leave? Like I felt mortified, but here's the key. The whole segment, the reason why she wanted to interview me was to talk about my journey from going from a host on VH1's That Metal Show and former Broadway actress to now celebrity fitness instructor and fitness person, Jen Gottlieb.

That was the story. That was what she wanted to talk about. That's what made me different. She didn't want to talk about what everybody talks about, exercising and eating right. She was like, the interesting story here is your mess as your message, where you came from, how you got here. The fact that I was on this heavy metal show wasn't something that hurt my brand.

It was actually something that was part of the story that made me unique. So I always tell people have a story that maybe they're like, Oh, that doesn't have anything to do with what I do now. I don't want to talk about that thing. I'm like, that's probably the thing that's going to make you stand out amongst all the other people that do the exact same thing as you.

you notice, I'm not a heavy metal girl anymore, not even a fitness girl anymore. Like I've done so many different things, but all of those dots. Have connected me to where I am now. And they're all stories that make me unique. And they're all stories that other people can relate to in a different type of way will make me a little bit different than the other person that they follow about personal branding.

And so I always tell everyone, like if you teach Pilates, if you're a doctor, if you have a med spa, if you are interior designer, what's the thing about your story, that's really different. Maybe it's something that you don't necessarily want to talk about. Your messiest parts are usually part of the message that makes you unique.

I 

[00:17:46] Hala Taha: love that. And so I know that you give this advice to people who are pitching themselves in PR to use their lean in story as a way to get your foot in the door because that's really the most interesting thing. It's the story that you tell where we're at a party and everyone's really engaged. Not the story you tell where people stop paying attention or whatever.

So you need to figure out what that story is. And I love that you say that it doesn't matter if it's in your past, right? It's not about what you're doing now. It's not about what your business is now. It's how you ended up where you are today. What is your most interesting, unique story? And that can get your foot in the door for PR, even when it's related to what you do today.

But it's the way that you kind of get people 

[00:18:26] Jen Gottlieb: interested. Is that right? A hundred percent. Like when you were just telling me that you had a radio show and you were a radio host, I was like leaning in. I was like, Oh, tell me more about that. I didn't know that about you. That's so interesting. Right? Like, I think that your start can often be your story.

And what you talked about when you're at a party and like, people are leaning in, or people are like, not paying attention. So that not paying attention thing, I call that the meerkat. So you know, when someone, like, if you're telling someone a story and they go like this, like, they're looking over your shoulder for somebody else a little bit more important to talk to, you know?

If someone starts doing that with you... Maybe that's not a lean in story. Maybe that I like to listen, like give me feedback on what I'm saying. If it's boring and you're meerkatting me, then I know that that's not something that the media is going to want to pay attention to. That's not going to get me engagement on social.

Like that's just not an interesting part of my story. And usually we're too close to our own stories. And we think that the most perfect stuff is the stuff that's going to resonate. And often it's not people like to relate to the realness. People like to relate to the authenticity. The messier part of how you began, the mess ups that you had, the failures that you had, all of those are all the little gifts that make you who you are and make you real, make you relatable and make people want to listen and pay attention.

So I do personal 

[00:19:33] Hala Taha: branding for people on LinkedIn and things like that. And I have a lot of clients that are like, oh, I've said that story a million times. I don't want to say that story anymore. And I'm like, no, you need to tell the story over and over and over again, because you have new people coming in.

People don't remember your story the way that you remember your story. You can tell your story in a million, million different ways. So, these are stories that really don't go away when you're branding yourself. Your past doesn't really go away. 

[00:20:00] Jen Gottlieb: A hundred percent. And people aren't paying as close of attention as you think.

And people need to hear the same story in different ways at different times in their life and it's going to resonate differently. I have so many people that have heard my story at a keynote. They've heard the exact same keynote twice. And they came up to me, this one specific woman. I'll never forget.

This was just this last weekend at this event. She's like, Jen, I've heard that story from you now four times. And this time it hit me differently because she was clearly at a time in her life where it resonated differently. Everyone's at a different journey of their life. If somebody is going through something terrible in their life, they're going to hear your story in a different way.

It's going to empower them in a different way. If they're going to hear your story in a different way. And I don't know about you, but I love listening to, let's say someone does a podcast tour for a book or something like that. And they're on a lot of podcasts. I like to listen to each one and I like to hear them tell the story in a different way because sometimes I'll hear it differently and it resonates a little differently with me.

Another analogy I love to make, and this will resonate with some of your listeners is. Taylor Swift had a billion dollar tour. Do you think that any of those people that went to Taylor Swift's concert never heard a Taylor Swift song before? They've probably listened to those songs hundreds and hundreds of times.

But they paid big money to go to that show and hear her sing the same song they've heard maybe over a thousand times. Because they wanted to hear it in real life. They wanted to hear it in a different way. We listen to songs over and over and over again for where we are in that moment. And they feel differently and they sound differently for what we're experiencing in that time.

So tell your story over and over and over again. It is content forever. Tell it in different ways. Tell it with different experiences tied to it. Tell it with a different photo, a different reel, a different article. That's your gift that keeps on giving when it comes to building your personal brand. 

 Mm. 

[00:21:53] Hala Taha: We are so on the same page with this.

So you have an amazing company. It's called Super Connector Media. It was named as one of the fastest growing companies in America, private companies in America. So congratulations. What inspired you and your husband to start Super Connector Media and how do you serve your clients 

[00:22:09] Jen Gottlieb: right now? So when we started the company, it actually was birthed out of an event.

Uh, when I met my husband, he was doing an event called Unfair Advantage Live and it was an event that connected entrepreneurs to media professionals. So they would come to this event and they would network with media professionals so they could get those relationships and connections and then get their brand or their business featured in the media was in New York City where we live.

And when I met my husband, we came together and we were like, what if we partnered and made this into something really huge and made it into a big educational events company. It eventually turned into an agency and we had a PR agency where we were representing some of the biggest personal brands in the world.

Biggest companies in the world. And here's the thing about the P. R. Agency. It was very successful. It was very profitable, but we weren't that passionate about running an agency. It kind of happened by accident. And I think many of your listeners by listening like, Oh, I built a business by accident to it kind of just started happening.

People started asking for it. We started delivering before we knew it. We had this huge agency. And we're very successful, but we looked at each other and we both knew that our passions really lied in the education in teaching entrepreneurs how to own their own relationships, how to get themselves in the media, how to be seen, how to build the brand, how to build the website, how to tell the story, because when we were doing that, they were having huge transformations bigger than are done for you agency clients.

So we took a big risk and we made a big pivot and we sold our PR agency over the summer. It was acquired and we focus now completely on events, masterminds, courses, teaching entrepreneurs and business owners how to be seen. We teach how to use artificial intelligence to create better content, more powerful content, and we do events all over the country.

I speak all over the world now. about how to build that brand, how to be seen, not just with mainstream media, but social media and, and all different types of media, because really when it comes down to it, it's all about attention. And it's all about getting your message out there to the people that need to hear it so that they can be helped by you.

[00:24:02] Hala Taha: Yeah. I love that. You know, I hear so many entrepreneurs. Where you start off as an agency because people are asking you for something and it's easy to just serve them, right? And you can make money and build your brand. And then once you have money, you could do whatever you want. So it's like you sold your agency and you started doing something that you were more passionate about that you felt like you were really helping people's lives.

So I love that. And when I went on your website, I noticed like your big message point right now is AI. We help you leverage AI to grow your brand, to build communities. Can you give us some examples of how you guys are actually leveraging AI to do 

[00:24:35] Jen Gottlieb: that? Yeah, it's so cool. So Hala, have you started playing with it at all yet?

Of 

[00:24:40] Hala Taha: course. I'm like, I'm like, I'm doing all these different things. I'm trying to like, regenerate my voice so I don't have to record commercials and doing 

[00:24:47] Jen Gottlieb: all this. Yes, we've been doing that too. So there's so much. It's a little overwhelming at how much and how fast it's happening. But There is so many amazing tools out there right now, even just using chat GPT, forget all the hundreds, thousands of tools that there are to generate voice, generate images, repurpose content, generate video.

There's so many tools, but really chat GPT alone can help you create so much content at scale. So for people, and the biggest excuse that I hear that people give me on a regular basis as to why they're not posting and why they're not sharing is because they don't know what to say. They don't have any ideas.

They don't know what to talk about. I'm like, you no longer have that issue. You no longer have that issue because you have chat GBT for, and you can literally just go in there and have it act as your personal content creator assistant. And it doesn't mean that it needs to write all of your stuff for you, but you can have it as your assistant, help you come up with ideas, help you come up with podcast ideas, names of episodes.

different posts that you can do. It can, we use all kinds of different apps to crop our videos and make our reels and give us scripts for YouTube videos and YouTube ads and Facebook ads. The opportunities are endless. So we're doing actually monthly challenges where we're teaching just beginner beginners, how to understand these technologies so they can slowly start to implement them into our business because we're still early.

The most of the world still doesn't understand this or know how to use it. And so if you could just get on board early, your business is going to skyrocket way faster than all the other ones that are going to eventually have to get on board because it's not going anywhere. In fact, the CEO of Google, did you hear this, said that AI is more profound than fire and electricity.

Wow. So it's pretty awesome. I get that it's scary for some people, but also what's really important to remember is that A. I. Is not necessarily going to take your job. However, maybe somebody that understands and knows how to use A. I. So it's important for everyone to start just learning, just playing. All you got to do is start playing with it.

You don't have to become an expert right away, but just familiarize yourself with it. And If it can help you create content and take that fear out of the way of not knowing what to say and not knowing what to write, it can really be an amazing sidekick for you. 

[00:26:57] Hala Taha: Yeah. I recently just interviewed Mo Gowdat.

This was such a good episode. AI is scary, but it's also very exciting. And what I'll say to my listeners is that it's not going away, right? It's totally not going away. So you may as well embrace it. You may as well try to leverage the different tools for your business. You should understand how to use it so that you can actually influence what AI turns into in the future.

I feel like we all have a responsibility to understand how to use it so that we can make sure that we are part of that transformation of the world and not just bystanders of it. Also, there's two different types of like old people out there, right? And I don't mean to say old, I've got listeners of all ages, but you know, you've seen it where you've seen like a 50 year or 60 year old person who doesn't know how to use a computer, who is really dependent on their kids or grandkids to help them with anything.

And then at the same time, there's people that age who are like whizzes on the computer and totally self sufficient and, and transforming their career because they, they have kept up. We want to be that type of person in the future, right? So, I don't know, just don't sleep on AI. If you're not starting to play with it now, you're, you're late already.

Not to scare you, but get on, get on, on top of it. 

[00:28:11] Jen Gottlieb: Get on it. Yeah. It's kind of like when Facebook first came out and everyone's like, oh, I don't want to be on that. Now everyone's on it. Or maybe even when the iPhone first came out and people were attached to their BlackBerry, they're like, I don't want an iPhone.

I want a BlackBerry. Now everyone has an iPhone. It's going to be something very, very similar, so agreed. 

[00:28:25] Hala Taha: So I remember the first time I heard about you was actually on Clubhouse.

Back in the day when Clubhouse was hot, I remember being like, who's this Jen girl? And that's when I first knew about you and you were doing such a great job, even with just your voice branding yourself. Commanding authority. I think that's what I remember most about you is that. In Clubhouse, it was like, who were the voices that commanded authority?

Those were the people that got followers and who started hosting rooms and so on. So what's your advice to others who are looking to command authority since you're so 

[00:28:59] Jen Gottlieb: good at it? Okay. So in the book, I talk about the CIA method and it's so important to have those three letters, CIA, credibility, influence, and authority.

When you have credibility, influence, and authority, people will trust you. People will follow you. You have that authority. So the analogy I actually like to use is A CIA agent, like an undercover agent. So let's say you go and you, and someone randomly at a restaurant tells you, you know, Holly, you need to sit down.

You're going to be like, no, I don't, you don't need to tell me to sit down. But then they flash their authority, their badge, and they showcase that they have authority. And suddenly you're like, Oh, okay. Yeah, I'll sit down. Right. And it's a subconscious thing. The only thing that changed, they were the exact same person.

The only thing that changed was that authority, that badge. So how can you be thinking around about flashing your badge in every way that you possibly can with your business? All the time when building your personal brand, it's almost like an undertone. It's showcasing your credibility markers, whether that be the testimonials that you have, the case studies.

The number of people that you've helped and served, the book that you wrote, the publication that you were featured in, the podcast that you were featured on, how many listeners, how many downloads, all of those little credibility markers. It's not bragging. It's just showcasing your credibility so that people will trust you.

It's actually helping them be helped by you because the more that they trust you, that you're not just some Joe Schmoe on the internet and they know that you've got that credibility backed behind you, that trust. They're gonna listen. So it's about really amplifying all of the good stuff that you're doing.

And I do think that there are many people out there that have amazing businesses and are helping people so much, but they're scared to showcase that because they don't want to be braggy or self promotionally. Two things. First thing. If you're worried about being a bragger, you're not a bragger because braggers don't worry about that.

They just brag. Okay. So if you're worried about it, it's not going to come off as braggy. And the second thing is, is that visibility is your responsibility. If you have a service, a story, or a product that helps people. Because every day that goes by that you are not making yourself visible and showcasing your credibility and showcasing the ways that you help people every day.

You're not making yourself visible to those people that you can help is another day. Those people are going to go follow someone else or pay someone else. That's not as good as you and doesn't care as much as you simply because you're too insecure about talking about what you do. So it's actually a responsibility to be seen.

And when you stop thinking about you and what you look like, and if you're going to be judged and if people will like you or not, and you start focusing on what we like to call it, super connector media, hope H O P E help one person every day. And just think about helping that person. Think about like, I'm talking to this one person today.

I'm going to provide them value in whatever way I can. I'm going to showcase that I'm a trustworthy source by sharing my credibility markers, by sharing my authority, by talking about what I do. And hopefully they'll be able to find me and get helped by me. And I always think back like, Holla. There's so many people.

That maybe we're and I'm sure you have endless stories of people you coach and people that listen to this podcast that were helped by you in a massive way. And if you didn't start this podcast and be seen and start making your voice heard and talking about it and promoting it and like having all your branded stuff and being seen in a big way, they would not be able to have their life changed by you and they might still be in a bad spot.

So it's like talking to that person and that helps take the ego out of it. It takes the fear of being seen out of it. It takes the insecurities away from it because when you're just having a conversation with your friend and you're just trying to help them, you're not worried about what you look and sound like.

And if people are judging you, Just like I want to help you right now. And that's what I focus on every time I take a big stage that I'm nervous to be on or do a podcast. Maybe I'm nervous about the interview or do a publication or share a win that I had with a client. It's always for that person out there that needs to hear it because maybe it can help 

[00:32:35] Hala Taha: them.

I love this advice. Visibility is your responsibility. Help one person every day. That is so brilliant. I feel like I'm going to use that when I'm talking to people about Tristone Branding. Because I always say that like, don't worry about being humble. Humble actually means low to the ground. Mm hmm.

Nobody wants to be low to the ground. Nobody's going to trust somebody who's low to the ground, right? So if you want to be seen as somebody who's an expert or role model, you've got to talk about what you've done so that you have the social proof to your point. Okay, so let's move into PR. I want to get some actionable insight in terms of how people can market themselves.

We talked about the lean in strategy for pitching. Let's talk about earned versus paid media. In my opinion, paid media. It doesn't really do much.

I feel like people don't really read those articles. It's good for Google SEO and social proof, but aside from that, I don't really think people are going to get like lots of hits or visibility from their PR. So I have two questions for you. What is the purpose of PR? Is it actually to get clients and leads?

And my other question for you is like, what's your perspective on paid versus earned? Where should people focus? 

[00:33:42] Jen Gottlieb: Yep. Great questions. So first of all, 20 percent of the value of the hit that you get, whether it's a TV show or a publication or a podcast is the actual piece of content. 20%. Okay. Not many people, I'm sorry.

Some people will, but not many people are going to read the article. Not, not as many people are going to listen to the podcast in full. Not as many people are going to read the book in full. 80%. Is what you do with it and how you use it to amplify your brand.

So the question I want you to ask yourself when you're deciding on what to do PR wise for your business is not how many people are going to watch this daytime talk show that I'm on this local show and hear about me and then go take action because of it. The question is how am I going to amplify the crap out of this?

How am I going to take it and use it to make lots of content showcasing my credibility that I was on TV. Lots of photos, lots of reels. Lots of different ways to put it on my website or put it in my email signature, or maybe even talk about it in my email sequence when I'm promoting my stuff, or maybe use it in a follow up to a sales conversation.

So it's not about the actual article. Many people don't even read 

[00:34:47] Hala Taha: them anymore. This is so brilliant. This is such an important point. 

[00:34:50] Jen Gottlieb: Yeah. It's about how you leverage it. So, okay, let's talk about paid. Okay. Paid versus earned. Earned is always the best. Always the best because it's earned media, right? They chose you to be on their platform.

They chose you. So it's always going to be the most organic. It's always going to feel the best. It's always going to actually elevate your brand. Some forms of paid media, you can actually tell it was paid. And so that it can actually kind of make your brand look a little shitty. Excuse my language. It can do that, but here's the thing.

Sometimes, sometimes I have seen clients that have maybe done a paid sponsorship on a big show. Or strategically did some paid media where they were prepared to amplify it in a way that was going to create more credibility, influence and authority in a big way. So as long as you know that you're going to, like, let's say you do a paid sponsorship, you've got a product, let's say it's, um, it's a food product.

And I know that the today show, good morning America. Sometimes they'll have sponsors. I know that I think some of the other daytime shows like Drew Barrymore, like you can pay to get your product on that show. So if you go into it, not like, okay, all the people on the show are going to watch and see it.

That's amazing. But how am I going to take this actual segment, this clip that I have, or this photo of me and my brand on the show and amplify it, send it out in emails, put it on my website, make 85, 000 reels out of it, make an entire podcast out of it. Use AI to take the actual content, repurpose the transcript of the entire interview and make so many posts and tweets and threads.

You could take one segment. And you can make a year's worth of content out of that one segment. If you do it that way, I don't care what you do. If you pay or if it's earned, obviously it's always better earned, but it's what you do with it that counts. Hmm. This makes 

[00:36:29] Hala Taha: total sense. I really, really like what you're saying here.

And then in terms of PR help, right, do you suggest that people go about it alone? Should they hire a publicist? Like let's say they're just starting out. What should they do? 

[00:36:41] Jen Gottlieb: I always say it depends where you are in your journey. If you are a huge multi million dollar company and you actually don't have the time to pitch yourself, then maybe you want to have somebody internal that has that job or you want to hire maybe an agency.

But if you're just starting out, there is absolutely no reason for you to hire anybody to do this. It's actually way easier than you think. And I actually have a super, super simple, actionable tool that you can all use right now that will help you get media today. You want to learn it? Yeah. 

It's in the book. It's called the top 20 tool and it works a hundred percent if you use it, but you have to do it. It's a little scary and uncomfortable, especially for people that are more introverted. But it works so you have way more relationships than you even realize and way more ends to getting media hits than you even know in your internal network that you already have.

There's probably people listening to this right now that are thinking, no, Jen, I don't know anybody in the media. Yes, you do. I promise you just have to do this tool. So you make four columns on a piece of paper. So everyone that's listening right now, you're going to draw four columns, vertical columns.

And then in the first column, all the way on the left, you're going to write top 20. And you're going to put 20 people in that column. That have any sort of connection to anybody in the media that you know, and it doesn't matter how well you know them. It doesn't matter if they're your Facebook friend or your clubhouse friend that you spoke to one time in your life and you know that they've got a connection or if they're your sister's ex boyfriend and they're a producer at a major show.

I don't care who they are, how well you know them, 20 people that you know, go into the context of your phone, go into your Instagram, go into your Facebook. You will be able to find 20 people that have some sort of connection to the media. Then in the next column over, you're going to rank each one of those people on a scale of one to 10 on how likely they are to help you.

So if it's a random person on the internet that maybe you spoke to twice at a party and you guys connected on Instagram and you're just kind of Instagram friends, I would say maybe there are two. They're not so likely to help you, but you know them and that's amazing. So they should still be there. But if it is your best friend or a client that you've helped so much and they're obsessed with you, maybe there are 10, maybe there are nine.

So then you move over to the next column, the next column, you're going to rank those same people on a scale of one to 10 on how influential they are, how likely they are to help, how influential they are. So let's say it's a producer of a major show. There are 10. Let's say. They know the camera guy at the local TV station that you want to be on.

Okay. Maybe they're like a four, right? So you've got two scores, how likely they are to help, how influential are they? You're going to add up those two scores and you're going to get a grand final score for each person. Then you're going to sort those scores in descending order. So the highest scored people are at the top and the lower scores are at the bottom.

Now your job is very clear. People at the top of the list. They're highly influential. They're highly, very likely to help you. So you're going to reach out to those people and you're going to say, Hey, Hala, I'm trying to get in the media. I heard this podcast, this girl Jen, she told me to do this and ask if I have this great pitch.

Can you connect me to XYZ who you know? Or would you like to, could you put me in your article about whatever and have a timely pitch, be ready to go. Reach out. I guarantee you, you have a very, very high shot at getting that opportunity. Now, the people at the bottom of the list, those are people that aren't that likely to help you because you don't know them that well.

So instead of asking them for help, Your job is to work on garnering that relationship. And the best way to garner a relationship is to help somebody else. So you're going to figure out how to provide value to those people consistently. You're not going to ask for anything. You're just going to figure out what they need help with.

And you're going to consistently provide value, provide value, provide value, provide value until one day they're going to my God, Holly, you've done so much for me. Thank you for always following up and commenting on my posts. Thank you for the review that you did on my podcast. Thank you for buying my books.

You're amazing. Is there anything that I can do to help you? Well, of course. I really wanted to, whatever, whatever. And that's how a lot of our, our mastermind members, that's how I've gotten a lot of my media. It's all relationships. It's all who, you know, and how you can provide value to other people and create win win relationships.

Everybody that's just starting out, you don't need a publicist. You just need to start connecting with humans. This is such good advice. 

[00:40:47] Hala Taha: Relationships and learning how to connect with people and how to serve people. It's so underrated, I think, in business, like not enough people talk about this. It's really all about who you know.

Like even when I think of my, I have the number one business and self improvement podcast network now where I grow and monetize shows. Let's go girl. And it's just people who know me and they're like, I want to join your network. I'm not doing advertising. It's just all these people come on my podcast.

They want to join my network. It's so interesting. That's really what pushes business 

[00:41:17] Jen Gottlieb: forward. Opportunities come from people, no matter what way you want to look at it. People are like, I want more opportunities. I'm like, how many people are you providing value to today? How many people are you asking for opportunities today?

Zero. Well, then how many opportunities are you going to get? Right. And I think people go about it. The wrong way often. So old school networking is thought about there's a whole chapter networking my book and it's it's all backwards because most people will go into an event or networking opportunity or any kind of experience like that and think about, okay, how can I make myself look amazing?

How can I get things from people in this room? How can I sell myself to everybody here? Desperation attracts more desperation, right? It actually repels people. You want to flip that around. And I always go into any networking situation, just focusing on listening and being interested in people and figuring out how it can help people in the room.

I don't want to talk about myself. I don't want to pitch myself. I don't want to say anything about myself. I'm going to focus on what do you need? How can I help you? What is interesting about you? And then believe me, there's something called the law of reciprocity. It is a law and people love to talk about themselves.

They love it. That's their favorite topic and the best way to walk away from any conversation and that person you were talking to thinking that you were the most interesting, amazing, incredible person in the world is to just ask questions and allow that person to talk about themselves. They will feel so seen.

And then if you know how to follow up, it's really creatively with value. I always say, follow up with value. Don't just say, Hey, it was great meeting you want to meet for coffee, follow up with, Hey, I loved our conversation that we had about your kids soccer. And also that you love that sushi restaurant.

Well, I'm going to recommend a great one for you when you come visit New York. It's this one. If you want a reservation, let me know. By the way, next time you're in New York, I'd love to take you there, right? Following up with remembering the conversation. I also love the selfie game. When I meet someone at a networking event, I'll often take a selfie with them and send it to them and be like, this is a fabulous photo of you.

I just wanted to share it with you. We took this last night. You look amazing. I loved our conversation. And it's a great way to be memorable and make the other person feel seen. Because I find that the number one way to be seen is to make other people feel seen. 

[00:43:27] Hala Taha: And this is such a great transition because your new book is called Be Seen.

Yay! And it's out now so everybody can go get it. Tell us why you wrote this book and who 

[00:43:37] Jen Gottlieb: it's for. This book is not just for the entrepreneur and the business owner. This book is for anybody that feels like they just are hiding a little bit in their life, whether they're hiding in their personal life and maybe they're being an inauthentic version of who they are, or maybe they built this life that was based on what other people wanted for them and they feel out of alignment with what they're doing and they feel like they are not being seen in all of their greatness.

This is a way to tap back into that real version of you, figure out who you want to be. You 2. 0, what do you see yourself doing in your ideal version of your life? And then actually having the marketing tools and the strategies in order to start building that brand and the networking skills to be able to connect with the people that can get you closer to it so that you can then be seen it living that life that you really want.

So it's, I mean, nowadays, everybody, it behooves everybody to be visible. It behooves everybody to have some form of either online visibility or visibility in their life, stepping forward in their truth, letting people see who they are and what their message is. And I find that the people that I meet that are the most fulfilled are the people that are, that are living in their truth.

And that's really at the end of the day, what this book helps you to do. It helps you to connect the dots, your entire story, all the weird, wacky things that you've done in your life that you think doesn't don't make sense at all and tie them all together to put that picture out into the world of who you truly are so that you're no longer like feeling that internal battle with yourself and you can live a life that feels fulfilled because.

That was my story. And I tell the story, I tell a lot of really embarrassing stories in the book. And so it's, it's stories and strategies so that you can fully be seen. And I 

[00:45:11] Hala Taha: know that, you know, you call yourself a no BS New Yorker girlfriend. You're saying this is, this is what you can expect from me. So talk to us about the tone of the book and sort of the way that you give advice.

Yeah, 

[00:45:24] Jen Gottlieb: I'm very straightforward. I don't have enough energy to, to fluff it up and to lie to you. So I say what I would have needed to hear back in the day. And I'm from New York city. I don't beat around the bush and I say it like it is. So there's a lot of, there's just straight talk in it. And you're going to feel like you're having a conversation with me.

Like I said, I like to live with hope, help one person every day. So when I was writing this book, I'm not a writer. So I was just thinking of talking to my girlfriend. I was like, my girlfriend is reading this book right now. I love her. I knew exactly who she was. And I talked to her. So you're going to feel like we're literally having a conversation.

It's very easy to read. It's very fun. I'm very honest, vulnerable, open. I share lots of stories about my personal life that I've never shared. And I allow myself to truly be seen so that you can too. Awesome. Well, I want 

[00:46:10] Hala Taha: to give everybody a little preview of the book. And I know that in your book, one of the key concepts is creating success and you 2.

0. Can you take us through that at a high level so people can know what's in your book? 

[00:46:24] Jen Gottlieb: So creating you 2. 0, that's in the section, be creative. So the book is broken up into four sections. The first section is be courageous and talks all about how to overcome fear and really tap into who you truly are So that's for me that was tapping into real Jen when I had lost her at that metal show and then part two is be Creative so creating the version of yourself that you want to be seen as creating you 2.

0 So holla when you think about who you want to be right years from now I know you're always growing you're always improving and and you're always striving for an even more evolved version of yourself What do you see for yourself? I'm curious. I really want to know. Like, what do you see, like, five years from now?

Hala 2. 0. 

[00:47:02] Hala Taha: I see myself, uh, the CEO of a hundred million dollar network, which is what I'm building now. And an author, speaker, a lot of the same stuff that I'm doing now. My show is bigger. My company is bigger, but I really just see myself. Growing as a brand, being known as really the number one female podcaster, the same way people think of like Tim Ferriss, they think of Halitaha, right?

Alright, 

[00:47:26] Jen Gottlieb: so that's done, alright? And so it is. Congratulations. We are there. It's happening now. I have a lot of strategies in the book for the Be Courageous section that combine the law of attraction with a very, very, very important other law, the law of action. I truly believe that you don't manifest things by sitting around and thinking about them.

I believe that manifestation is actually subconscious reprogramming because that's what I did to manifest everything that I've ever had. I've reprogrammed my subconscious to believe that the thing was mine so that when I went to go take action on the things... I was a lot less scared. My subconscious mind was like, Oh, duh.

Yes. Go take that opportunity. I already did that in my mind. I already believe that this is mine. I believe that I have this role. I believe that I'm married to this man. I believe so that normally if I didn't do that, I might've been a little nervous. I might've gone a different direction. I might've been scared.

So there's all kinds of stuff in the book about how to reprogram the subconscious, how to take action. I talk about doing dares of the day and wonder walks and walking around the planet as your ideal self, as you 2. 0. So. Holla, you could go for a walk today as like that boss that you see yourself as with the hugest podcast network and the number one podcast host.

And what I want you to do is just like, go walk around your block, listening to an empowering song and walk around as that woman, like you just found out that your podcast is like. You were named number one podcast host. You're making hundreds of millions of dollars. Someone just offered you a ridiculous number to exit your company and you're just like thriving and go take a walk as that woman practice being in her body and experiencing what that feels like.

And if you do that enough, you're going to start to take action towards getting that a lot more because you're just going to believe a little bit more. You're going to have shifted those limiting beliefs that maybe you have deep down and start to take action and you'll get there a hell of a lot faster.

So the entire second section of the book is all around that. 

[00:49:09] Hala Taha: I love that. Well, I believe that anybody who's looking to be visible, level up their personal brand needs to get Jen's book, Be Seen. We'll put all the links in the show notes. So Jen, this has been such an amazing conversation. I always end my show with two questions.

The first one, and by the way, you can relate this to your current work. It doesn't have to though. So answer however you feel in the moment. Okay. So the first question is what is one actionable thing that our young and profiteers can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? 

[00:49:44] Jen Gottlieb: Hmm. My one actionable thing would be that top 20 list that I taught today.

Go do that and watch everything start to change. That is an action step that you can do to work your network to actually make results happen. I love 

[00:49:58] Hala Taha: it. And what is your secret to profiting in life? This can go beyond financial and business. 

[00:50:04] Jen Gottlieb: My secret to profiting in life? Is to take action and be okay with being uncomfortable.

My favorite concept is that discomfort is temporary and growth is permanent. And the more that I can consistently take action and be in the discomfort and do things that scare me and do things that feel uncomfortable and do things that other people don't want to do. I'm going to stand out. I'm going to be more successful because every single time you do something that's hard and you get to the other side, you become a more confident version of yourself.

You prove to yourself that you're capable of doing hard things. So the next time something difficult comes along, you're going to be amazing at that. You're going to be a little bit better. You're going to be a little bit more confident to go crush it. And I believe that, I don't even believe this, I know because I get to meet a lot of really successful people.

And the advice that they always give to me is you got to get really, really good at doing things with fear and discomfort there anyway. Because all of the most successful people, the only thing that they have in common is that they're able to experience that discomfort and get to the other side because if it was easy, everybody would do it.

So the best way to become successful is to get really good at doing things with fear there anyway. I love 

[00:51:05] Hala Taha: that. And I'm so happy that you brought that up. Jen, it was such a pleasure to have this conversation with you today. Thank you so much for coming on Young and Profiting Podcast. 

[00:51:15] Jen Gottlieb: You're amazing. This was so fun as I knew it would be.

And I'm sure I'll see you again.

[00:51:19] Hala Taha: I am so grateful that Jen came on the show because she's got such an amazing story and she shared some incredible tips for how we could raise our profiles and boost our brands as entrepreneurs. Here are just a few of Jen's many insights that I took away from our conversation. First, messiness is what makes you unique.

We all spend so much time trying to fit ourselves into boxes that we think will make us successful or that other people will like. Jen spent years trying to be a heavy metal girl when she didn't even like the music. But once she realized who she was, even the messy parts, then she could cultivate a brand that was really authentic and unique to her.

Then once you figure out who you are and what you want, you've got to hone in your lean in story. The one that will get them to stop whatever they're doing and lean in to hear more. So think about what that story is. And don't be afraid to showcase yourself, even if that involves a little bragging. You have to engage in some self promotion sometimes.

Visibility is your responsibility if you have a service or a product that helps people. Jen says that every day you're not making yourself visible to those people that you can help is another day they're gonna follow someone else who's not as good as you. Networking, after all, is all about relationships and you have to put yourself out there.

If you're just starting out, you don't need a publicist, you just need to start connecting with other people. And a great way to cement those connections is by following up. Take a selfie with that person and then send it to them with a nice message the next day. It can be as simple as that. Make yourself truly memorable and you'll stand out from the crowd.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting Podcast. If you listened, learned, and profited from this conversation with the dynamic Jen Gottlieb, please share this episode with your friends and family and drop us a five star review on Apple. If you prefer to watch our podcast as videos, you can find us on YouTube.

Just look up Young and Profiting and you'll find all of our episodes on there. You can also find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn by searching my name. It's Hala Taha. Before we wrap up, I did want to give a shout out to my incredible Yap production team and all my team at Yap Media. You guys are awesome.

Our network is crushing it. Thank you guys for listening to this show. Thank you for supporting me and thank you for allowing me to follow my dreams. This is your host, Hala Taha, signing off.