Ep286: Hala Taha – Invest Your Time Into Something That You Own

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community we know that to win in investing, you must take risk. But to win big, you've got to reduce it. This episode is sponsored by a stocks Academy's online course how to start building your wealth investing in the stock market. I wrote this course for those who want to go from feeling frustrated, intimidated or overwhelmed by the stock market to becoming confident and in control of their financial future. Go to my worst investment ever.com slash deals to claim your discount now. Fellow risk takers This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz and I'm here with featured guests. Khalid Taha Hello, are you ready to rock?

Hala Taha 00:47
Yeah, let's go What a great radio voice you have

Andrew Stotz 00:52
used didn't always be that way. But I've been improving. All right, well, let me introduce you to the audience. And let me go through a few of the highlights of your impressive career. How long is the host of young and profiting podcasts, a top 10 self improvement podcasts on Apple with over 1 million downloads on the recently recently launched yap media, a full service podcast production and marketing agency for top producers, celebrities and CEOs projected to generate over $2 million dollars in revenue in its first year. Holly is also known for her engaged following an influence on LinkedIn. Hello, take a minute and filming for the tidbits about your life.

Hala Taha 01:43
Cool. Well, thank you, Andrew for having me on. Like you said, I'm a top 10 self improvement podcasts on Apple, a top 1050 sorry, top 50 education podcast on Apple. I currently work full time at Disney streaming services. And before that, I worked at Hewlett Packard, so very busy life running a top podcast, a marketing agency, that's a real business, I was a side hustle that kind of just blew up this summer, and working at Disney. So very busy life, lots of radio experience and digital marketing experience and just happy to be here to share my worst investment

Andrew Stotz 02:18
ever. Fantastic. And for the listeners out there, you know, there's a lot of people that feel like oh, but you know, you had some experience when you were younger with radio and you know, you, you you you had all of these things. But take us back a little bit and tell us a little bit just briefly about kind of how someone could see your journey as something that they could emulate. They could follow.

Hala Taha 02:42
Yeah, so I started my career in radio in college, I got an internship, which anybody can get in without any experience at Hot 97, the world's number one hip hop and r&b station in New York. And I ended up loving that internship. They promoted me from the corporate area to the studio area were only like 10 people were allowed. And that's where all the celebrities were. And, you know, it was like this coveted intern spot that they promoted me to. And then Angie Martinez, who was the number one radio host in New York at the time, she was called the voice of New York. She wanted me to be her assistant. So I ended up dropping out of college to take this opportunity at a radio station. My parents wanted to kill me all my siblings were in med school. And here I was dropping out of college to work at a radio station. And so I did that I dropped out of school. I almost didn't go to school for two years. And I ended up going back and graduating but I took a break. And I was basically a glorified unpaid intern who was Angie Martinez, his assistant that everybody kind of, you know, wanted that job. When I was younger, it was so much fun. I met every celebrity possible. I went and hosted parties with the DJs and made my money you know, booking showcases that night and I just had this like really fun life for a young 20 year old to have. And again, a lot of experience. I had lots of online radio shows on the side, I learned how to do audio production. I did research for this show for this lady Angie Martinez, who was a huge personality who taught me a lot and it was super fast paced, and I really grew my radio chops, you know, in that job for about three years.

Andrew Stotz 04:20
I then know that you wanted to be in radio or that just like oh, here's an internship, I'll just go apply for that.

Hala Taha 04:27
Well, I knew that I wanted to do something with my voice. I always was a great singer. So like my whole life. I always was a singer I was always in plays and I loved my voice and I always had two dreams either to be a singer or to be like an on a TV host or some sort of an on air personality. So it was a great fit for me because at the time when I was in college, I was writing music and being a singer. And so really I got the internship because I thought I wanted to push my music to the DJs which I did at the time and even my boyfriend now is like a famous music producer that I met back Then, and he was my producer and everything. But I don't do music like that anymore. I kind of just evolved my dream a bit, which is totally okay. For everybody out there listening. It's always great to evolve your dream. And so yeah, I really started it started out sort of like a mistake, I wanted to be a singer and thought that was a good path for me to get to know people in the industry, which it was. And then I fell in love with radio and realize that Oh, like, I'm really good at this, and this is what I could do. But there's not a lot of money in radio. It's there's really not that's why most people who get an honor personality job in radio, they have to work for free for maybe 10 years before they get that spot. And so it's not really about who's the most talented. It's not about that. It's literally who did the most grunt work and worked for free for the longest, and then you get a spot on the radio. That's why there's a lot of shitty radio hosts out there, because that's the loss. Yeah, who could who could just work on pennies for the longest? Right? So you know, I decided to leave the radio station and I went back to school tried to think about, okay, what do I want to do with my life, I ended up launching a website, my senior year of college, it was called the sorority of hip hop. And we became a very popular website super fast. At the height of it, I had 50 female bloggers under me. And the way that we got popular is we have some automation from our blog, where every time we wrote a blog, on Twitter, Twitter was big at the time, like 50 girls would be at mentioning the celebrity who we wrote a blog about, and that would all happen automatically. And we were like the first ones to do that. And then, you know, what would Drake do when he sees 50 pretty girls tweeting the same thing with his name in it, he's gonna retweet it. And so we blew up really fast. And we actually almost got a show on MTV twice. You know, throughout the three years that I was doing this, this website the first time, they shot a pilot with us, and it was really small scale, and it was just three months in. And so I was like, you know, what, it's been three months. I'm like, 24 years old, I was gonna show on MTV, who cares, you know? And, and then, you know, two years later, they approached us again, and they did like a huge three month pilot with us, they got us a studio on Broadway as if it was like the real world with neon signs and all of that we got our makeup done every day. They filmed us in restaurants, and at my parents house and fighting with my boyfriend, and like, it was like some whole big production. So we thought we made it, we thought we were the next jersey shore was right after jersey shore ended. And then, you know, we were let down. MTV told me, you know, we thought we were gonna go with your show, but we decided not to. And last minute, they pulled the plug. And I was devastated. And so I shut the sorority down. I went and got my MBA, I focused everything back on school. As I told you before, my all my siblings were in medical school. At that time, all my siblings were doctors pretty much already. And so I was like, I need to get my shit together. I feel like I'm a failure, even though I did so many cool things. But now I feel like I'm a failure again. So I shut down my website. A lot of those girls are still very mad at me. And I got an MBA got a 4.0 and went to corporate. So I got a job at Hewlett Packard, that was my first real corporate job. I entered the job market as a much older I was 27 or so once and like having my first corporate job because I was an entrepreneur, straight out of college, I worked at a radio station, I did all this really cool stuff. But it was my first job. But I quickly got up to speed and promoted over people who are my age and, and it was because I went to YouTube school. And I had amazing digital marketing skills and video editing skills and networking skills that a lot of people who were my age working in corporate for four or five years didn't have and I just crushed them when I got into corporate.

08:51
Mm hmm.

08:52
And yeah,

Andrew Stotz 08:53
I think that's gonna lead into your worst investment ever. Because, you know, one of the interesting things about corporate life is that sometimes success really helps. And sometimes success attracts, you know, failure, they attract people that, you know, doubt you and people that you know, it's amazing. In fact, uh, you know, one of my businesses in Thailand is a small business, it's a factory and we supply coffee to, you know, businesses and I always say never, ever fear large competitors. Yes, they have their strengths. But man, their political infighting and the inability to accomplish some of the basic things that a small business can do. You know, if that is your key advantage in a small medium sized business, is your ability to to, number one, bring everybody together on the same page and with the same passion. And number two, you can shift the focus and really move much faster than any large company. So I think maybe it's time For me to ask you the question, which is now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one ever goes into their worst investment thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it. And then tell us your story.

Hala Taha 10:14
Yeah, so perfectly it up, I gave you guys a good background in terms of where I was. And so you have to understand I got this job at Hewlett Packard. And Previous to that I was a CEO of a company of 50 girls. And so I had a lot of leadership skills under me, I also was the president of my Alumni Association and had you know, a, you know, 100 people under me and that, and so I was very used to being a leader. So I get to Hewlett Packard, and I'm the freakin intern, right? I'm the MBA intern. And I had a lot to prove. And I was like, Damn, like, I miss being a leader. I used to lead all these people. I used to be the boss. Now, when the intern How can I like lead again, right. So I saw this, I was looking into the company and trying to get my bearings in terms of like how to make an impact and probably thinking a lot more strategically than the average person who, you know, started their first job at a corporation. So I saw that they had this thing called the young employee network. And Hewlett Packard at the time, was a huge company got split up a bunch of times since I worked since since that time, but at the time, there's like 300,000 employees, and maybe like 100 offices around the world. So lots of people, huge reputable company in America, so and all over the world. So at these big offices around the world, they had these employee resource groups. So there was like the young employee network, there was the Women's Network, the black employee, network, the veterans network, all these different, like special groups for segments of the employee population. And it was a way to, you know, have like, company culture to learn. And he actually has a really great company culture. So I was in New Jersey and Berkeley Heights, and we had no culture. There was no employee resource group resource groups at our office. There was lots of young employees and lots of old employees, and nobody talked to each other. And, you know, everything was very siloed in terms of the departments and none of the young employees knew each other. And so I saw an opportunity. I was like, I'm gonna start the young employee network chapter in New Jersey, right. And so I got a petition, I had to get 100 signatures, I went around the office and got the signatures. And I started this from scratch. And at the time, my company office had no company picnic, it had no holiday party, they never did charity events, it had no culture, right. I went in there, and I like infused everything with culture, I started our company holiday party that they still do this year, I designed all the posters for our stuff, I did a American Heart Association every Valentine's Day, we would do something for the American Heart Association and put hearts all over the office. With people signing and donating, we did a cakewalk for colon cancer, we did an amazing company summer picnic every year that was like super extravagant. And I just like, just basically created a culture for this, like, people like 2000 person office, and I was completely the face of the young employee network. I was the president for two years of this chapter. And it also got me great visibility with the CEO, because I was the one asking for money all the time, right and pitching all these ideas. And so I would come up with these proposals, and we could, you know, get the highest senior executives to give me money. And it really helped elevate my career at the time, you know, but I put a lot of time into it. I, you know, would work full time at this job. And then at night, I would be working on the young employee network. And I was so passionate about it. I really loved it. I loved my friends who were in the network and I love to being a leader. So then the next logical phase for me they have something called the Global young employee network, where leads from all the chapters around the world run all of the young employee networks and like set the global strategy. So my foot in the door for that was being the recruitment chair. So I was the recruitment director for the young employee network across the world, which was over like 7000 people were in that. So I was the recruitment chair and then I started this event globally for Hewlett Packard called HP spirit week, and it was a huge event that they still do. It's a week long event themed days. I had 500 people working for me for this event. We through over 120 events around the world that week. And it was a huge slash I was emailing the whole entire company the whole company every single day coming from holiday haha. Explaining like what the HP spirit week was this this this day and then talking about the results and it was like this huge thing that I created called HP spirit week, which they still do today. So again, I started the holiday party, the company picnic and then globally HP spirit week, which Every single office in the world did because of me because I created this idea and I executed it. And I created all the templates and they still use it today. Okay. So, obviously, this is exactly so. So I did all of that and out of the global, the global young employee network board, I was like the standout obviously I created hv sphere week, all my peers agreed I was doing the President's job. And, you know, it's all good, no hard feelings towards anyone. But it was then the next the next year. This is now my fourth year into young boy network. I wanted to be president. And I earned it. I did everything right. I was president of my chapter for two years, I did the HP spirit week, I knocked that out of the park. I had like 50 people record video nominations for me that wanted me to be president. My board wanted me to be president. But the gatekeeper was this lady who was the like the HR director, she was like a VP in HR. And she didn't like me, I don't know why I never I barely even talked to her. But she never liked me. So she was the ultimate decision maker. And when it was time for me to become president, they gave it to somebody else who had zero experience. Zero never was in the young employee network period. And I was crushed. I was so confused. Like, damn, I just put in almost four years that I could have worked on a side hustle into this young employee network thing, then that lady who didn't give me the position quit a month later, God. And could you imagine how upset all the other VPS and CEOs who loved me were when they're like, Damn, this lady quit and then didn't put Khalid and president and then what did I do? I left I went to Disney after that, you know, because I was feeling burned. Like, wow, I just did it, I would have just stayed here and become the CEO, if you guys would have let me but you, you kind of dissed me. And so I'm out. I'm going to Disney, you know, and so I did, I left. But what I did what it's actually the biggest blessing in disguise what happened to me, because I would have kept spinning my wheels working for free doing extra work for a company that was never going to reward me or, or, you know, advance me the way that I deserved. When I didn't get that position. I started young and profiting podcast, that's when I was like, wow, I have all this free time. Again, I don't have to worry about the young employee network, I still want to have a voice for my generation, I want to be leader, let me do something I own this time, let me put all my energy into that.

Andrew Stotz 17:34
There's something that you said there that just kind of made me think, you know, you said I did all this work for free. And it reminded me back to when you talked about how when you started as an intern at the with the radio and how with the radio station and how you know, the job of an intern is to do all that work for free and hope that you get something out of it. And it's just the reason why it was just resonated with me because I think that, you know, we're often taught, you know, put in the effort, you're going to be recognized, you know, and there are times where you can do all the work, and maybe you will get recognized and maybe you won't. So it just kind of made me think about you're the type of person that just immediately dedicate yourself to what it is that you have and think that the results will come. And then I've worked in the corporate world with some people that they say, I'm not dedicating myself to anybody or anything, I'm just going to, I'm going to try to get the result, and then I'll do some work. And in the corporate world, you know, both of those can sometimes work. I mean, I've seen people rise that didn't put in all that work, but they did it in some other way. So just maybe about the whole mess of the corporate world sometimes, you know,

Hala Taha 18:45
oh, yeah, for real, it is such a mess. And it's a lot of luck. You know, it's really just a lot of luck if you're in the right place at the right time. I mean, I always believe that if you have good intentions, things will work out like do I like it was my worst time investment ever. Because I wish that I did young employee network for like, a year or two, not four years, you know, because it's like, I really thought that it was going to lead me to becoming a VP at the company and all this stuff, because it was giving me good visibility, and it was cool experience experiences are worth something right. And so I did learn from that.

Andrew Stotz 19:21
And it should have because in the sense, the whole part of the whole reason why a company is trying to do something like that is to try to see who does rise up. Who does Yeah. Who does have the leadership skills. So, you know, it should cause you to be up, you know, to a higher and higher level. So I'm curious, how would you describe the lessons that you learn from this?

Hala Taha 19:44
Yeah, so in terms of the lessons, the biggest thing that I learned is you want to have, you want to spend your time on something that you can take with you wherever you go, no matter what job you're in, and no matter you know where you are in life. And that's one instead of investing in a company, like Avenue like employee resource group, because I had the same opportunity when I got to Disney, everybody thought that I was going to do that, because they saw on my resume, like how I was president of this president of that they thought that I was going to do that. And I was like, You know what? No, like, I actually I have a podcast now. And that's where I focus my free time. And it's so important to have an asset. And for me, that's like my podcast, my personal brand. I used to spend all my time on LinkedIn promoting HP, you know, and it's like, what is that going to do for me in 10 years, when I don't work at HP, nothing, right, you have to focus on your personal brand and, and creating an asset that you can take wherever you go, your personal brand never leaves you, your network never leaves you, right, your job can leave you at any time, job security is no security, there's no security in jobs. And that's why multiple income streams are so important right now. Because really, now more than ever, there's no security in a corporate job. And so that's why I decided to never do that again. And that I fulfilled that experience that need of having to, you know, help build company culture, I did that before. Now I'm focusing on myself, my podcasts, my brand, and it's working out so great, because I can leave Disney whenever I want to now because I literally could make more money off my podcast and side hustle than I do on my corporate job. Now I've gotten to that point. And it's because I invested my time into something that I actually own. And so the main lesson is that you've got to invest your time, when it's the right time for you into something that you own. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't get experiences, and you shouldn't work for free. Because I think part of the reason why I'm so successful is because I've done so I've had so many experiences, and like I worked really hard for a long time, you know, and I was the one doing all the grunt work and the legwork for a really long time. And so you need the experiences, but at some point you need to realize, Do I have enough experience to do something on my own? I think so. And you need to go for it. And you need to pull that trigger, probably sooner than you think.

Andrew Stotz 22:06
Yep. Okay. So let me summarize some of the things that I take away. I mean, the first thing from your story is the idea of differentiating yourself, you know, that, ultimately, to be successful in anything that you're doing, you've got to figure out what's my angle. And that angle could be in your case, organizing, you know, really bringing a lot of energy to that for other people, it's going to be something else. But for a lot of young people coming out of school and young people coming into the workforce, they really come with nothing that differentiates themselves. For me, when I was starting my career at Pepsi, I had studied finance, but I went to work in the factory. So I was one of the people that came to the factory with financial skills and also Excel skills in a day, you know, in 1989, when nobody really had that, I was able to differentiate myself. And then I stumbled across a teacher who is doing seminars, a guy named Dr. Deming. And he and I just went and learned everything I could about statistics from him, and all that. And I basically was able to differentiate myself relative to my peers. So lesson number one to everybody listening out there, what is your differentiating point? And the second thing is I was I wrote down, you know, the best rise to the top? Well, no, in fact, in business, you have to, I mean, I, I had an experience where I had a guy that he and I worked together running two different parallel park departments, and our minds was so different on the logical, left, left brain person structured planning, and he's like, just do it. Let's go, come on. And just like, I just thought, there's nobody that could deal with that kind of thinking. And then next thing, you know, he gets promoted. Next thing, you know, I'm fired. Oh, wow. And, and, um, you know, I'm not a young guy, and I'm just sitting out there on my butt. And I'm just thinking, how could that be that that guy maneuvered me. And now, you know, he and I are good friends. And I look back. And I think, you know, the reason is, because I thought that success was all about hard work. And I thought that preparation, hard work, study, you know, bringing that value to business. But what I learned in a corporate environment is that it's probably 50% hard work, and it's 50% relationships. And that's where I think that the best don't always rise to the top. And you know, that that works. You know, in some ways, you know, it's nice to have people that can build good relationships that rise up, but sometimes it doesn't work and that I want to just give a shout out to all the listeners who have small businesses and feel scared and intimidated by big companies. My challenge to you is drop that today. Forget that. Big companies has had major weaknesses, and one of them is that they can vary Rarely, politically, get everybody going in the same direction, but a small business, your business, your small business, can get everybody together on the same page. And goes, second thing is that, as a small and medium sized business, what do we want to do, we want to attack the weakness of our big giant competitors, just figure out that one thing that they do not do well, and do it amazingly. And that's the, that's the second thing about this best rise to the top. It doesn't happen in business. But you can do that in your small business. And the last thing that I take away is, invest in life skills. No, try not to just invest in you know, obviously, we want to invest in companies that we work for, and we want to be loyal employees. But, you know, I go back to my father, who started from the day he graduated from university went to work for DuPont. And then he worked his last day of work was at DuPont when he was 58. And he retired, and DuPont took care of him. And it doesn't happen anymore. And so it's a very different world now, where you really need to invest in what are the skills, skills are writing the skills of leading the skills of presenting these individual personal development skills are the types of things that you anyone out there can develop, whether that's speaking or whatever that is, find your personal development skills and develop it, and it will add value at your company. But most importantly, it's a transportable skill that you can bring anywhere. So those are some of the things I took away anything you'd add to that?

Hala Taha 26:35
No, I think you I mean, you, you knocked it out of the park, I think that's really key, I think, you know, I don't want to deter people from having experiences and you know, exploring things that aren't necessarily going to benefit them in the short term, you know, but in the long term stacking your skills can really get you far. And so it's important to have those experiences. But like I said, previously, it's important to know when you're ready to do something on your own and try to pull that trigger sooner than later.

Andrew Stotz 27:05
sooner than later. All right, based upon what you learned from this story, and what you continue to learn what one action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Hala Taha 27:17
What one action, I would say when you're in the moment, and you really want something really bad. Think to yourself, is this something I could do on my own? Do I really need a gatekeeper to tell me Yes? Is this something that I can start on my own that I would own? Whatever I'm working on, and whatever I'm spending my time on, if it's Yes, and you feel like you can do it on your own? Don't go work for that person. Don't go intern for that person. Don't go volunteer for that person, go do it on your own, and start your own thing. That's what I would recommend.

Andrew Stotz 27:52
Beautiful. All right. Last question. What's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Hala Taha 27:58
My number one goal for the next 12 months is to be a top 10 education podcast on Apple. I'm doing everything I can to do that you guys should go check out young and profiting podcast. We've got a lot of loyal listeners. I've interviewed bestselling authors like Robert Greene, Mark Manson, Seth Godin, you name it, we uncover a new topic each week. And I provide actionable insight for my listeners of all ages, even though we're called young and profiting podcast and so check us out. You can find us on Apple Spotify, wherever you like listening to your podcasts.

Andrew Stotz 28:32
Yes, so even us. So if you're old and loss making, go to young and profiting and you will transform yourselves. Alright listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. Remember to go to my worst investment ever.com slash deals to get your discount on the course how to start building your wealth investing in the stock market as we conclude Hello, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Hala Taha 29:10
Thank you guys for listening. Hope you enjoyed the show.

Andrew Stotz 29:13
All right, that's a wrap on another great story to help us create grow and most importantly protect our well fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying I'll see you on the upside.

Hala Taha 29:28
Thank you as Q