72. How Visibility Leads to Personal + Professional Growth with Tyler McCall

I’m thrilled to share with you my recent conversation with Tyler J McCall on how visibility served as a catalyst for his business growth.

If you haven’t yet met Tyler, he’s a business and Instagram marketing strategist for online business owners and digital entrepreneurs. 

In this episode we’re talking about Instagram (of course), but also the behind the scenes of putting yourself out there and key lessons learned on his journey.

EPISODE  SHOW NOTES👇

➡️ https://heathersager.com/episode72/

📣 WORK WITH HEATHER  → https://heathersager.com/

📧  Get the Hint of Heather NEWSLETTER → https://heathersager.com/newsletter

Connect on Social:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theheathersager/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathermsager/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/HeatherSager

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

If this episode hit home, I'd be so grateful if you took a second to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people find the show.  Thanks for tuning in to the Hint of Hustle podcast! See you next week!

Transcript

Copy

Tyler McCall  00:00

In 2018, that was the year my business really took off. I went from $70,000 in revenue the year before when I was running an agency and doing coaching and consulting to over $700,000 that year. So my revenue like exploded in one year's time. And a lot of that was because I said yes to every opportunity to be visible on someone else's platform. I'm going to say that again so you pick up the important part of the story. I said yes to every opportunity. That's not the important part of the story. The story, the important part of the story is this, I said yes to every opportunity to be visible on someone else's platform. That's something a lot of people don't realize is the quickest way to build your presence, the quickest way to gain visibility, the quickest way to build your platform is to get on someone else's. So getting on someone else's podcast, going live with someone else, guest teaching in someone else's program, guest blogging for someone else's blog, I said yes to all those opportunities. Now you can decide what filters you want to say yes to or no to. But I will caution you on creating all these filters and putting things in place where you're only saying yes to people based on how big their audiences, or how many followers they have, or how many downloads they get. Because a lot of this you're creating these like evergreen pieces of content. I have podcast episodes I was on years ago, including Amy Porterfield's podcast, that's just continue to grow my business because those things are evergreen, so and that year, I was saying yes to everything because I wanted to get visible. I knew that the key to growing my business was getting in front of more people and it was going to be a heck of a lot easier to do that by leveraging someone else's platform than doing it on my own.

Heather Sager  01:51

Well, Hey, friend, welcome to another episode of The Heather Sager Show. It's me Heather Sager and I'm honored to be your speaking coach here today in this episode. I've spent the last 15 years studying and building my communication skills to inspire and teach business owners and their teams from stages around the world. I've had the honor of speaking on more than 1000 stages on topics of leadership, premium brand positioning, sales, and of course communication. And now my focus is helping fellow online entrepreneurs become magnetic speakers, so they can make a bigger impact in the world while growing their income. This show right here was designed to give you a dedicated space each and every week to grow your skills and keep your big goals front and center. And if you liked today's episode, be sure to grab a screenshot and share it on Instagram and tag me @theheathersager so I can give you a shout out and celebrate the work you're doing. All right, let's dive in friend. It's gonna be a good one.  Well, hey friends, welcome back to another episode of The Heather Sager Show. It's your coach, Heather, and oh my goodness, we have a good one today, friend. My friend, Tyler J. McCall, is in the house. You've heard me talk about him on the show before. I had the honor of helping Tyler a few months ago with his keynote presentation for his big live event, The Online Business Summit, where I helped him tell some pretty damn funny stories that had a really big impact sharing a message to business owners to all over the world. And it was just such a pleasure to work with him, get to know him in a different way. I've been a member inside his community for two years. I've been a member of his program, Follower to Fan Society. I'm also a member of the Online Business Association. We're going to talk about both these things in the interview. If you don't know who Tyler McCall is, so Tyler is a business and Instagram marketing strategist for online business owners and digital entrepreneurs. He focuses on using Instagram and social media to tell stories. We love that around here, right? Build relationships and convert followers to fans join from his 10 years experience in nonprofit marketing and community organizing. Since 2015, Tyler has taught thousand of entrepreneurs, yours truly included, how to start, grow, and scale their online businesses. He's the founder of the Follower to Fan Society, an online Instagram marketing training program, and the new Online Business Association, the first and only professional association for online business owners and digital entrepreneurs. Like I said, we talk about both these things in this episode. But here's the thing, I wasn't going to do an episode just around Instagram. I wanted to talk to talk with Tyler about some real things. I think a lot of times on podcast interviews people are, they're pitching themselves to be on. I'm gonna go on a side tangent here real quick so follow me. I think a lot of times we're doing visibility. We're like we want to get on podcast to talk about our core message and our signature talk and we want people to know us for the certain thing. And I say that knowing that's what I teach. I teach people how to use their signature talk on podcast, in different stages so they become known as something. But I think when we put all of our time and energy on that, it doesn't necessarily create room for interviews that talk about other things because as entrepreneurs, we are multifaceted. We have different interests. We need to talk openly about some of the hard things in business, not just about our expertise or what we teach. So Tyler and I had a pretty open conversation about a lot of things.Yes, we talked about Instagram. We talked about how Instagram is an incredible virtual platform for all of us, as entrepreneurs, and we need to be taken advantage of it. In fact, I learned a few things from Tyler in this episode that I've already put into practice, it is awesome. So you're gonna get some Instagram little nuggets there. But I also loved how we talked about Tyler's approach of taking the emotional ego out of things and putting on what he calls like our scientist goggles, so that we can make smart business decisions, not ego driven ones. And I think this is especially important. We talk about how when it comes to getting more visible in our businesses, it creates a lot more emotions, right? We get a little more insecure. We're highly aware of what other people might be saying about us, we get a little like, oh, a second guessing about all those things. So he and I talked about how you manage that and how you use those sciency goggles to deal with it. But then we also talked about how visibility and how him really getting outside of his comfort zone and getting out there in a big way, doing a ton of podcasts back in 2018, how that made a significant difference in the numbers of his business. We're going to talk about actual numbers. He's also going to share a few bold decisions he made this last year, how he took a step back financially over this last year, and he's pretty vulnerable talking about how his business lost money in 2020. I don't think enough entrepreneurs are boldly talking about that. So as you can tell, I love this interview. I like this guy like Tyler is awesome. I know you're gonna love him too. But most importantly, I hope from this message or this conversation, it allows you to really start thinking about not only being strategic with showing up, but also thinking about how you're going to manage your head, your thoughts, your feelings for when you do. Because the next level of you, the next level of your business is going to require a next level of thinking, a next level of managing some of these self doubt and emotions and we have to be having the conversations openly to to navigate that. I hope this show becomes a great resource for you to remind you that your voice is amazing and you have incredible things to share. And you know, I'm here for you. If you want some help being more strategic and using your voice, if you want help having the confidence to share your voice and all kinds of stages, and you want to share your voice and use it to actually create meaningful change in your business, friend, have you checked out my brand new just came out within the last week or so, new free training, my master class: How to fill your programs using guest speaking. The strategy that Tyler talks about in this episode around using podcast interviews or guest speaking that helped accelerate his growth, I teach you how to do that in this masterclass. Even if you don't have a large audience, which let's be honest, not all of us have the 10s, and 10s, and 10s, or hundreds of thousands of followers online. So if you are working on building your mighty business and you want a little boost around how to do it strategically and start sharing your message, head on over and watch that on demand training right now at heathersager.com/speak. All right, I'm not going to make you wait any more. Let's jump to my interview with Tyler J. McCall. Hey, Tyler, welcome to the show. How you doing today?

Tyler McCall  09:17

I'm good, Heather. Thanks for having me.

Heather Sager  09:20

Of course, of course, we were just joking about how we're in different time zones right now and I'm drinking my coffee in the morning. It's afternoon for you on the east coast. So a little bit of a different experience. But we're gonna dive into a good conversation today. I am so excited that you are here. Truth be told, you have been one of the names on my list since I started the podcast of people that I would love to have on so I was thrilled when not only did you say yes, you actually asked me if you can be on the show.

Tyler McCall  09:49

Yeah, well, it was like the end of 2020 and we were getting ready to head out for the holidays and then figuring out when we were publishing your episode on my podcast in 2021 which y'all if you missed it, you definitely need to go check it out the Online Business Show. Heather came on it, talked all about using virtual status to grow your online business. And I was like, wait, why am I not on Heather's show? So I just messaged you and said, hey, can I be on your podcast?

Heather Sager  10:18

It's like when you were kids, where you do the awkward thing where you ask Johnny, if you can come over to his house and play, where you like invite yourself over where our parents say that that's inappropriate. But I think it's totally an okay question so I'm glad you asked.

Tyler McCall  10:32

Yeah, what look like most of the things from my childhood that were told not to do we do them now like talking to strangers on the internet, like you and I get paid to do.

Heather Sager  10:42

This is so true. Okay. I'm excited to have this conversation today. For those of you who do not know, Tyler, if you are familiar with him, you'll know him as an Instagram expert enthusiast, great storyteller, also the founder of a newer organization here in the online space, the Online Business. Oh my gosh, why did I just have a brain fart, the Online Business Association. I almost freaked out and said society, but no, it's Fans to Follower Society, which I am a proud member of both. So hey, Tyler, let's get the little like simplicity's out of the way, share a little bit about what you do in the online space so that those who maybe aren't familiar will fall in love with you very quickly.

Tyler McCall  11:25

Yeah, so as you said, I started my career as an Instagram marketing strategist for digital entrepreneurs. In particular, I worked with creative entrepreneurs in those early years. I ran an Instagram marketing agency for a number of years. I was an Instagram marketing coach, and then went on to launch the Follower to Fan Society in 2017. And since then, we've helped thousand of entrepreneurs create their own custom Instagram marketing strategy, to generate more leads, inquiries, and sales from Instagram. So that's what I've been doing for the past four years now, which feels completely wild. I feel like having something that has like some staying power in the online business space is rare these days. So that's like, one of the things I'm most proud of, is that we started something and it's still here. That's what I've been doing since 2017 with Follower to Fan Society. In 2020, we launched the OBA, the Online Business Association that you mentioned. We're the first and only professional association for online business owners and digital entrepreneurs. The idea is that learning in the online business space and finding community to be a part of is kind of siloed and everyone's at their own table in the cafeteria. Our goal is to create a place where everyone belongs and where you can get access to training, coaching, community support and an inclusive environment that prioritizes you, as a human first, that prioritizes diversity, equity and inclusion. That's what we're building over at the Online Business Association.

Heather Sager  12:56

Oh, I love it. We're gonna dive into OBA quite. I have some questions for you around that. I need to talk about that. I am curious, thinking about, your background, you were working at the YMCA. You did community organizing for a while in your career. I was curious, when you started your business and kind of like as a digital agency, what was it about Instagram, specifically that attracted to you? Why did you choose that specific platform?

Tyler McCall  13:25

Yeah, as you said, when I first started my business, I had come out of the YMCA. I was just doing general marketing at the time. And the agency that I ran with my business partner, we were working with local businesses and we were like, yeah, we can do whatever you need us to do, Instagram, sure, Facebook, totally, blogging, why not, email marketing, yeah, we can watch a YouTube video and figure out how to do that. So like, we were doing everything for everyone. Over time, a couple of things happened. First of all, we really started seeing the results we were getting for clients on Instagram. Of all the work that we were doing for clients, Instagram was the platform where we were having the most conversations with customers, where we were getting the most feedback and connection with our clients, customers and then we started hearing from our clients. And that was the coolest thing as an agency owner, hearing from our clients like, Oh, yeah, we had people come in this weekend who saw us on Instagram, or Oh, yeah, someone called and made a reservation that saw us on Instagram, or, oh, yeah, someone called and asked if they could order something and we could ship it to their house because a friend shared one of the posts from Instagram. At the time we were working with local brick and mortar businesses. It was really cool to have a local brick and mortar business that didn't offer online shopping, that didn't have e-commerce. Have people sharing their content with their friends, or colleagues, or whoever it may be saying, hey, you have to go check out the store when you visit Asheville. And the person sharing it had never been themselves, right? They just found them on Instagram. And I was like, oh, there's something to this Instagram thing for creating connection and conversation. And then I thought, well, if it's working for our clients, I should try it for myself. I started building my own presence on Instagram, started creating content, started getting in front of new people. I saw what was happening for the business as the business was growing. I thought, oh, wow, there really is something to this Instagram thing. It's working for clients, it's working for myself. And I think Instagram, the thing I've always loved about it is it has such a low barrier to entry for people. This is one of my Instagram soapboxes is that it is still one of the only platforms. I think the only platform that competes in this regard is Twitter. It's the only platform where you can have direct conversations with your customer and where you can find your customer, preemptively engage with that person to attract them to your brand. And then from there, they can be introduced to your brand, they can learn about your product or service, and they can choose to work with you so not a lot of platforms allow you to do that but Instagram does. 

Heather Sager  16:04

Yeah, oh my gosh, it's so does. I fell in love, I think everybody has their own platform that they love. If you're hanging around with us, most likely Instagram is it but I was always really curious around with digital marketers, where and why they choose to niche down to a specific platform. Around here, we talk a lot about speaking. I mean, well, duh, I'm a speaking coach so most people come to me because they want to use their voice more. And the thing that I keep saying over and over again, especially in the year 2020, where we pivoted from, like in person conferences to people really adopting virtual stages. I always say a stage is just a place to share your message so you have to get comfortable with those. The stage of Instagram, I don't think people really consider Instagram as a stage to speak up but it totally is. On Instagram, you have your feed, you can do video, IGTV, stories, all those things. I want it I want to talk a little bit about Instagram as a tool for visibility and speaking for a moment and then we're going to talk a little bit more about visibility and all the other things. Okay, I told you this. I did a little stalking. Okay, actually side note. I don't know if you know the story, Tyler. I'm going to share with you my creep stalk Tyler story.

Tyler McCall  17:15

Tell me. I'm so excited.

Heather Sager  17:16

Okay, I'm gonna have you talk about just a moment your visibility strategy for the year that you did a ton in 2018. That was the year that I discovered you. You were discovered. I was like, found you in Hollywood. There's Tyler who's gonna be a big deal.

Tyler McCall  17:30

Thank you. Oh, my God.

Heather Sager  17:31

It was I remember the moment I was listening to Amy Porterfield podcast on a walk. I had a newborn baby with me. we were strolling through the little neighborhood by my house. I remember listening to your episode with Amy where you were talking about stories. I had just made the decision that I wanted to start my business. I'm like, oh, Instagram is where at. So I remember getting home and trying to figure out okay, so what do I do? I had my little Instagram that had pictures of my baby all over it. I'm like, should I start a new one? Oh, my gosh, I have no idea. I did this thing where I got super sweaty. I'm like, I'm going to message Tyler. He told me it was okay to DM him, like send him a DM so I'm going to message him. I sent you a message from my like, personal personal Instagram. And I asked you, hey, should I start a business Instagram or should I keep my personal? I will never forget this. I remember you answered my question within like 10 minutes, and it was you and you recommended a business platform and that day I started what's now @theheathersager on Instagram. But I remember thinking like, huhm, he didn't try to pitch his course at me, or, huh, he didn't like have any other agenda except for just answering my question and being like, how else can I help you? And that was like the moment when I realized I like this guy. Like, I really like him. I like his heart. I love how he shows up. He's totally authentic. I fell in love with you just a little bit in that moment. But that's like what started this thing in my mind of going, that's the kind of business that I want to be one of service who just is helpful, because helpfulness pays off over time.  I don't know, I don't think I ever told you that before. But that little one moment in the DMs totally changed things between you and I. 

Tyler McCall  19:10

Wow, you haven't told me that. But I love to hear that and like even to this day, on Instagram, and it's not just me anymore. I'm grateful that I have a team. I have support with Instagram direct messages, because y'all it gets to be a lot sometimes which is like a blessing that I'm able to have so many conversations with people but that's our goal. At the end of the day, it's like let's create content of value and God I think after 2020 like going into this year, that's even more of the name of the game is like, let's create content of value. Let's be of service to our community. Let's focus on, I was just doing having a conversation yesterday with Natasha over at Soul Studio Marketing on Instagram Live and I was talking about one of the ways that one of the things that's made Tiktok so successful is that creators on Tiktok are on there for the sake of creating it. I think if we can get more of that back on Instagram, like let's create for the sake of creating, let's create for the sake of beauty, for service, for connection, for community. Let's kind of strip away some of the, Oh my God, I need this many followers, oh, if I'm not getting this many likes, it's not worth it, or Oh, I'm only doing it to promote my business, like, let's strip that away. Let's get back to the point of just like connecting with others, serving people creating for the sake of creating, it's gonna be a heck of a lot more fun, first of all, and we're gonna get more of the results that we're after. So, I love that story. I'm glad you shared it.

Heather Sager  20:30

I totally agree. And I think I think a lot of times entrepreneurs have a hard time going, okay, they think it's mutually exclusive. This idea of just showing up and being of service and being helpful, and sometimes to the point where it's extreme, where they're just so helpful, but there's no business strategy, there's nothing that connects back to, or on the other side, the other extreme is like just selling, selling all the time. How did you find the balance between being that service oriented mindset of just being helpful without the like, sneaky tactic sell, but also, it pays off like your your business grew exponentially in 2018 when you had all those conversations and you were being more visible. So mentally and then also maybe logistically, like, how did you balance wearing both of those hats?

Tyler McCall  21:10

Yeah, and 2018 was an interesting year, because that was, like, the year after my father had died. He died suddenly in 2017. My life kind of changed to have this tumultuous change in my life. And in 2018, that was the year my business really took off. I went from $70,000 in revenue the year before, when I was running an agency and doing coaching and consulting to over $700,000 that year. So my revenue like exploded in one year's time. And I know a lot of that was because I said yes to every opportunity to be visible on someone else's platform. I'm gonna say that again. So you pick up the important part of the story. I said yes to every opportunity. That's not the important part of the story. The story, the important part of the story is this. I said yes to every opportunity to be visible on someone else's platform. That's something a lot of people don't realize is the quickest way to build your presence, the quickest way to gain visibility, the quickest way to build your platform, is to get on someone else's. So getting on someone else's podcast, going live with someone else, guess teaching in someone else's program, guest blogging for someone else's blog, I said yes to all those opportunities. Now you can decide what filters you want to say yes to or no to. But I will caution you on creating all these filters and putting things in place where you're only saying yes to people based on how big their audiences, or how many followers they have, or how many downloads they get because a lot of this you're creating these like evergreen pieces of content. I have podcast episodes I was on years ago, including Amy Porterfield podcast, that's just continue to grow my business because those things are evergreen, so and that year, I was saying yes to everything because I wanted to get visible. I knew that the key to growing my business was getting in front of more people. And it was going to be a heck of a lot easier to do that by leveraging someone else's platform than doing it on my own. And there were also two really important mindset shifts. And I know we talked a lot about mindset and online business, but two shifts, that happened for me in 2018 that made the biggest difference. The first shift was a realization I had in 2017, after my dad died, and that was that I was sharing openly on Instagram about losing my father suddenly. And I was I posted for a number of weeks kind of talking about the experience of grieving his loss, talking about the lessons I was learning, talking about trying to get back into work after my father's death. And the conversations I was having in my direct messages were just, they were so life affirming. And if you've ever been in a place where you've had something difficult that you've shared online, like loss, tragedy, disaster, whatever it may be, I would hope that you've also been on the receiving end of so much love, and care, and concern for people that follow you on Instagram. And that was just this realization, which is really basic. But that experience helped me realize that there are other human beings on the other end of this screen, that I'm not speaking into the void, that I'm not just putting things out there for no one to hear, or see, or read, or whatever it may be. And that whenever someone has made the decision to follow me, they've made the decision to allow me to speak into their life and that is a decision I don't take lightly. I think that comes with so much responsibility. I think as content creators if we would just for a moment, just stop and consider the responsibility that comes with someone consciously choosing, someone consenting to letting you say something to them, to speak into their life in some way. It's it's a huge responsibility and I don't say that to overwhelm you or to burden you but just to inspire you to think about how much good you can provide for this other person. So the realization there was another human being that was a game changer. And then this idea, and Heather, I can not remember where I heard this. I need to dig deep and figure out where I heard this idea. But it was the idea that as a creator online, as an entrepreneur, whatever it may be, one of the most powerful mindsets you can have is that of a fiduciary. I know pause for giggles, I know, it's a funny word. 

Heather Sager  25:29

Fudiciary? We're getting fancy today.

Tyler McCall  25:32

I know. If you don't know what a fiduciary is, it's in the financial realm. And the idea is that a fiduciary acts in the best interests of their clients financially. They tell their clients, yes, no, you should, you shouldn't and all of that. And it's always in the best interest of their client and financials. So the idea of acting as a fiduciary as an online business owner, is that I am always acting in the best interest of my community online. And sometimes, this mindset shift, that'll be a game changer for you. Sometimes the best interest of your community online is not to sell them your product or service. Sometimes it is in the best interest to tell someone that no your program, your coaching, your package, whatever maybe, it's not the right fit for them. Sometimes it's in the best interest of your community member, someone who follows you online, to send them to a competitor. And when you can act as a fiduciary for your community online, when you're acting with their best interest in mind, you're going to reap the benefit of that in serving your community. And you're just gonna feel a heck of a lot better about what you're doing online. I think it makes it that much more meaningful and that much more valuable. That's a very long winded answers.

Heather Sager  26:39

Beautiful answers. I love that you brought that up. You know, that second part of what you were saying, fiduciary. When we're talking about an idea when you say sometimes we have to be willing to say you know what, maybe our product or service isn't the best thing for them. I think that's really, really important. You know, I had Andrea Howe. She's an expert on trust and relationship building. She was on the show earlier in 2020. I'll link to this episode in the show notes. But she talks about some of the characteristics of trust and what breeds trust. And that's one of the fundamentals is being willing to make a different recommendation that is not in your best interest, but keeping the other person's best interest at heart. It scientifically is linked to creating trust. People need trust with you as a personal brand, with you as a business. I think that's critical because we're all walking around, metaphorically speaking, walking around surfing around online. With this level of skepticism that we're waiting for, it's like our butt cheeks are clenched all the time anytime anyone DM us, because we're like waiting for the pitch. We're waiting for the sale. And when we go against that, and we just show up and have conversations and be of service, it actually catches people off guard. Yeah,  I think it's a really, really beautiful thing so I 100% cosign on both of those things that you just said.

Tyler McCall  27:57

Well, thanks. And I like look, the butt cheek clenching is real in the online business world, like there's a lot of crappy people out there doing crappy stuff. And there's a lot of people with unsubstantiated claims, we got it.

Heather Sager  28:10

Words are hard. Well, I mean, let me tell you. Clean up words are hard over here.

Tyler McCall  28:15

But people making these claims about their income, or their results, or their clients results, or how fast they did, or how easy it was, or whatever it may be people who have the worst of intentions, people that are just showing up online doing things like from a purely capitalistic purpose, just to make money off of other people like that's the reality of this online business world. But at the same time, there's so much, there's so many incredible people that are out here that are focused on serving and supporting other people, their customers or clients, their community, whoever it may be. And really the only way that we can continue to make our industry a better place, the more ethical place, the more inclusive place and the only way we can pursue you know, justice and equity in the online business space, is by doing our best to not have any of the BS practices that other people have and to push those people out and like make sure they fade into obscurity. We have to do that by ensuring that people that are doing things ethically and consciously, and with real purpose and value behind what they're doing that, we are platforming those people, we're sharing their content, we're giving them our money, we're making sure that they are the people we're listening to and that we're amplifying their ideas into the online business space and like keep your butt cheeks clenched, for sure. But just know, there's a lot of people out here who have the best of intentions. I think together as a community, this is something we're really trying to do through OBA. We can create this movement of business owners that are creating real value in the world and are really serving their customers and clients through their products and their content. That's the top priority.

Heather Sager  29:53

Yeah. Okay, since we're here, let's talk about this for a moment. I want to come back because I have some fire round questions. I want to ask you about Instagram as a speaking platform. But let's talk about OBA because I would imagine this was a decision that did not come lightly for you of going, Okay, I just had, record breaking, you're in my business, Fans to Follower Society is doing amazing. You have a thriving and engaged community. And then you're feeling this calling to do something different. Can you go back to the early moments when you have this idea about OBA and what was the thing, the clincher, I guess that made you go Okay, I'm actually doing this and bring it out in the world.

Tyler McCall  30:32

Yeah, also, we're talking a lot about clinching things.

Heather Sager  30:34

I know, I just you never know what you're gonna get on my show. I have weird analogies. And I, we just go with it.

Tyler McCall  30:40

I love it. Yeah, so the idea for OBA actually goes back to 2017 after my dad died. After he died, I was out of work for a number of weeks. I was taking care of my mom, helping her navigate everything my dad died without a will or anything like that, which, you know, side note, don't do that. It creates a lot of like frustration and strife. My dad died without life insurance, don't do that. It's not a good idea. I was caring for my mother. My partner and I had already decided we were moving to Chicago at the end of that summer. So we were getting ready for a move. Life was really crazy so I was out of work for a number of weeks and my income dried up really quickly, which if you're an online business owner, especially if you're doing coaching, consulting, anything like that, you know that the money can dry up pretty quickly and that was my experience in 2017. I reached a point where my husband, Eric and I, we had moved to Chicago. We paid rent and we were out of money like for real out of money, not like oh, things were tight. No, like out of money, credit cards maxed out, didn't know what we were gonna do. And I thought back to my career at the YMCA, and I remembered one of the coolest things about being an employee of the Y, in addition to the 12% retirement fund that was paid for you on behalf of the Association, oh, y'all, I miss anything. It's that 12% retirement fund. But another benefit of being a full time line professional is that you get membership in something called the Association of YMCA professionals. It's called something different now but it's a professional association for YMCA folks and they have an Emergency Assistance Fund. We're in a time of crisis, death, disaster, whatever it may be, this fund could be activated and they would give you grants to help cover your mortgage or medical bills, or whatever you were coming up against. I saw it. In 2017, I was like, why do we not have this in the online business space? Why is it that like, because something went wrong in my life, I'm now like risking losing everything, including my business, including my home and there's nowhere to go. And if I were to like talk about it, it makes me look like I don't know how to run a business. You know, we have all this, like, all this preconceived notion around people, whether or not they're making enough money, whether or not they're profitable or not, which is all BS by the way, like, we closed out 2020 in our business, we lost money. We were not profitable in 2020. We spent more than we made, tons of lessons learned from that. I don't feel bad about it or shame talking about it. You know, there's so much BS in the online business space about that. But that was the moment I was like, wait, why don't we have this for online business owners? And I thought, well, maybe one day, I'll do something about it. But not now because I gotta pay my rent next month. I launched follower to Fan Society and went on to grow that and that became my focus. In 2020, I was really craving something new and something different in my business. I realized that I did not want to be known forever and ever amen as the Instagram guy. I'm grateful that I became known as that. I'm grateful I've been able to build a business on that but I have more to give, I have something else I want to do. And there was another realization I had 2019 going into 2020 is that I also didn't want to just be the Instagram guy. I also didn't want to be the sage on the stage. I didn't want to be the guru. I didn't want to be on a pedestal. I wanted to have an idea and I wanted to bring that idea to life by putting together a team of creative people that could execute on that idea. But I didn't want it to be the Tyler Show anymore. And so OBA is not Tyler J McCall, It's Online Business Association. I'm just using my personal brand to get it off the ground and I'm bankrolling the whole thing so using my money to fund it until it gets to a point where OBA is OBA. And I can just kind of fade into obscurity and be the I don't know the wizard behind the screen maybe. But that's what I want. Like that's, that's what I'm after. It's gonna take time to get there but that's what I'm looking to create. I want to create something bigger than me. I want to create a movement and something that is scalable to the point where it's serving people and it's not dependent upon my ability to serve those people. I also reached a point where I didn't want the implied liability or the implied responsibility for the success of my clients. It was just for my mental health and my well being, it was not in service to me. I felt a ton of responsibility for the results that my clients were getting. And that's another conversation for another day. But I felt so much responsibility, I felt so much judgment for myself, when there was like a negative client experience. It just wasn't healthy anymore. So OBA is kind of my way to fix some of that and for me to show up and serve in a in a way that makes more sense for me.

Heather Sager  35:55

I think that's a beautiful way to look at it. I think we're so used to online being shown that there's this one way to do it. And that one way is the star at the center where all roads lead back to them.  I think it works for some people. Here we are sitting on the Heather Sager show, I'm finding the spotlight, but also, not everybody has the exact same personality, right? We all have different strengths. We all have different desires. We all handle spotlight different, like there's so many different factors that go into it. And I think it's an incredibly courageous thing that you listened to their own little nagging in your head of going this is not the type of business that I it got me here, but it's not necessarily what I want my legacy to be. And I love the fact that you were thinking so far ahead around that legacy. Legacy card. I'm not trivializes it. But you know what I mean? Like, it's that there's a bigger thing at play here. And you knowing what you want your role in the business to be, I just think I think it's incredibly courageous and I commend you for it. I love the fact that you started with something so special to you, and you're evolving the association as you go. You're figuring out what works, what doesn't work. You're evolving it, but you're making it really be about the people and not about you and your ego, which I mean, that's one of the reasons I love you so much.

Tyler McCall  37:13

Well, thanks. Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, I had an interesting experience, just before the holidays as I was wrapping up business for 2020, where we were sending out a fair amount of surveys to people like we sent out a survey after we did our online business con event, we sent out a survey about Follower to Fan, about the framework training in there, about how we can improve it, and then we sent out a general like member satisfaction survey for OBA. Three years ago, I would have never read those responses. I would have been terrified by them. Now I'm like chomping at the bit. I'm like, Oh, my God was someone else, please fill out the survey, like, please tear this apart, please give us feedback, please tell us what's not working. Because, and I hope if you're listening, like you can get to that place in your own business, because that's the only way we get better. I see people all the time share on like Facebook or somewhere that they got a negative review or negative feedback, and then everyone pours in, they're like, No, that's not true. That's like, well, what if it is true? What if you did deliver like a crappy experience or a crappy product for your customer? Like wouldn't you want to know? Wouldn't you want to know, so you could do it better next time? So I I'm at a place where yeah it is about like making it better. I do not take lightly that people are spending their hard earned money on my program or my product. For follower to Fan Society, it's $750 a year, that is a lot of money for someone to invest in their business. And to give me that money, I do not take that lightly. I am grateful for them. I'm grateful that they are supporting us so that we can keep doing what we're doing. And I'm excited for them and the results that they can get from Follower to Fan. And for me, it's not just like another cog in the machine.  I think all of that in all that's immense growth and development that I've had to do personally, but it makes a huge difference.

Heather Sager  39:02

It really does difference. So you just serve me up perfectly for my next question, because I love one of the things you talk about a lot, which I noticed a lot of really strong business owners who had fast growth between 2018 and 2020. They use similar thought process here. I think this is a lesson you learn in the early days of your business. But it's stepping into more of a role of a like a business scientist. You talk about like putting on your scientist goggles and studying your business from a different perspective to take that emotional piece out. Two things Tyler, can you first talk about that concept of being kind of a scientist in your business? And then also, since you were just talking about how that separation was three years ago, you wouldn't be able to read those surveys, but now you can. What really was the click that shifted for you and being able to make that mental shift because I think a lot of people listening when they think about putting themselves out there, they are terrified for the feedback. They're terrified for the feedback because they are attaching it to themselves, and their self worth or whether or not they're messages perfect means that whether or not they're perfect. So I think a lot of people were in that mode where you were three years ago. So just share a little bit on that for me.

Tyler McCall  40:08

Yeah, so I used to always say when you're in your business, you need to put your scientist hat on. And then I remembered from like high school chemistry that you can't wear hats when you're in

Heather Sager  40:16

So they're still hats so I love the imagery. I envisioned like a puppy chef's hat for some reason. Yeah.

Tyler McCall  40:24

I'm the same way. Like the last thing you would want to wear in like an active lab. But yeah, putting your scientists goggles on is what I say now. The idea is that, when a scientist has an idea about how something happens in the natural world or how to create something new, like we're living in an age of scientists, thank you scientists in like developing vaccines so quickly, like, how do they do that? Well, they have an idea, which is called a hypothesis, and then they develop an experiment to play out their idea, and then they observe how that experiment plays out. They gather data from the experiment, they draw a conclusion and then they either prove their hypothesis or they disprove their hypothesis. If they prove their hypothesis, they do it again to make sure it works. If they disapprove it, they go, Oh, shoot, let's try it differently. Let's do something different this time. You want to know what scientists don't do is when they disprove their hypothesis, they don't sit on the couch and eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's and complain for the next week that something went wrong. They don't quit science. They don't think they're horrible, terrible, awful, stupid person, because it didn't work. They don't totally have a completely ruined mind. They don't post in a Facebook group about how terrible it was that this thing didn't work, like, sure they may feel crappy about themselves for a minute, or they may be like, Oh, God, I thought that would work. But whatever I'm gonna try differently.

Heather Sager  41:51

Hold on, you know, you're not in the scientists Facebook group. I mean, that's a very active Facebook group. I mean, you don't know those conversations.

Tyler McCall  41:59

You're right, maybe something's happening that I don't, that I'm not aware of. But the biggest difference here is they're not attaching meaning and they're not attaching their personal worth to the outcome of the experiment. And the really cool thing is that we can do the exact same thing in our businesses is that we can treat all our marketing, all the strategy, all the launches, just treat it like an experiment, that's all you're doing really, is you have an idea about how to sell this thing. So you're developing a hypothesis, you're gonna launch this thing, you're gonna put it into the world so you're running an experiment. And then most importantly, this is the one thing, Heather, where most entrepreneurs don't do this is then you collect the data. You observe the data. You use the data to influence, determining whether or not it worked. And then guess what, you do it again, and again, and again. I credit so much of my success in 2018 and 2019, to doing something once in my business, getting the data and the information and then doing it again, and again, and again. And guess what, doing the exact same thing, again, with minor tweaks along the way. Until 2020, I had sold the same thing for three years. I had improved the product, I tweaked it on the back end, we redid it, we refilmed, we added content, we changed the landing page here, we changed the webinar there. I sold the same thing for three years. Just think about how much time I would have wasted if I would have hit these moments of well, this didn't work so I'm going to launch a new thing. This didn't work, I'm going to do this instead. This didn't work, I'm going to launch a new offer. I would have been distracting myself. And I couldn't have done it because I'm at the time, I was like a one person show. And then as my business grew, I had a little bit more help here, a little bit more help there. So this whole idea of approaching your business with scientists goggles on is just looking at it as an experiment, you have ideas about how it's going to work, you're going to try something, you're going to see if it works or not, and then you're gonna move on from there. And the key here is that you are not attaching your personal worth to the outcome of the experiment that at the end of the day. And this was the biggest shift for me, Heather, and why I can sit here today and I can read feedback from customers that some may perceive as quote-unquote, negative feedback. I can read that because at the end of the day, when I shut my computer down, when I go sit on the couch with my husband, when I turn on Fargo or binge watching Fargo right now, the series not the movie. When we spend 45 minutes trying to figure out what we're going to order on doordash for dinner, I'm inherently worthy of all the love that I want in the world. I'm inherently worthy of friendship, of connection, of success of all those things and that what's happening in my business has nothing to do with that. It doesn't take away from any of that. If I really want, this is the the other thing. If I want to be really good at what I'm doing, I think this is where the concept of mastery comes into play and I don't think we talked about this enough in entrepreneurship is like, I don't want to be a half-ass entrepreneur. Like, I don't want to just like kind of figure out how to do it. Like, I want to be good at this. I left behind my job, a career, like I had a clear trajectory for my nonprofit career. I left it all behind, took a massive risk. I had massive financial risk, almost lost everything time after time, after time, after time to get to where I am in business. I didn't do all that to half step my way to success. Like, I want to be good at it. I want to master my craft. To be a master at what you do, you got to figure out why you're not being good at it and you got to improve. You got to either hire someone to fill in the blanks, hire someone to learn from, read a book, take a course, listen to a podcast, figure out a way to get better at that. That's why I hired you last year. I've never been afraid of public speak. I mean, I'm always comfortable. I think I'm a pretty good speaker. It's not something I struggle with. I got lots to say. I love the sound of my own voice. Alright, so I'll talk. But I want to be better. I want to master it, right? I want to have that mastery and how I speak and how I'm onstage. So I'm going to hire an expert to help me do it. Does that make sense?

Heather Sager  46:20

Yeah, it's so so good. You know, as you were talking about this piece, okay, abstract little thing here. I just wrapped up, I finally watched the the Queen's Gambit last night. Just finished the last episode last night, my husband and I. We waited to watch it so we can binge it over a week so we just finished it. And I went to bed last night with this thought in mind, what I noticed was as they would go through, so if those of you haven't watched it, it's a show on Netflix. It's about chess. There's this girl who's like extremely phenomenal at chess. And they have all these just chess matches. I'm not going to talk about the show, just go watch the show. It's really good. But here's the thing that I noticed.

Tyler McCall  46:57

It's sounds really boring.

Heather Sager  46:58

I know. I know. There's like dramatics. There's drugs, there's I don't know. Let's make that sound sexier. Okay, so here's what I notice. Every time there was a chess match, there was a level of mutual respect that happened that regardless of what happened to the game, even the person who just had their ass handed to them, they would reach across the table and shake the hands of the other person and have a respect and reverence for the game. Now, there were outliers, where sometimes somebody would throw a tantrum and leave like pissed. But for the most part, nine times out of 10, you'd have these grown men who were just had their ass handed to them by a 14 year old girl on a chess match. And they reached across the table and like, shook her hand out of mad respect and then they studied the game. And I kept thinking, I was like, you know, I have a kindergartener at home right now. He gets so frustrated when he doesn't do things perfectly. I have a perfectionist on my hand, and he's just like, ah, and I'm trying to teach him this reverence for struggling through the process and figuring out what you need to do better and then do it but enjoy the process a bit more. And I think about both of these things, in respect of what you're talking about, is when it comes to business, I think we have to put on that scientist hat. I also think we need to have reverence and respect for the quote-unquote game, where we detach our own life outside of the game, is there something different there, so we can walk away from it with respect for ourselves, but also other people. You know, one thing that I hear a lot, you interview a lot of people, and there's always this quiet whisper that happens. I see this happen a lot for my audience where they see somebody else speak at a conference who does what they do, and they are secretly judging the hell out of them on the inside, because they really are going, why wasn't me on that podcast or on that stage. And there's a sense of jealousy there but we posture it with like, oh, we're like angry and we like are judging them. And that's another one. So side note,  I want you to talk about this piece because I think not only do we need to grow from the lack of competence in ourselves and treating the game as a game but I also think we need to have a mutual level of respect for the players in the game and the other people in the industry, even our competitors. I'm sure you experienced this a bit as you were growing, especially as you got more visible, more people are noticing, oh, there's other Instagram trainers or oh, there's other people that do this. How did you navigate that within yourself around that comparison to other people to maintain the right headspace to be present for your for your people? I know I went there.

Tyler McCall  49:34

Yeah, I like what you said about respect for the game and then also the study of the game. That's just one thing I want to point out. If you're running your business right now and you're launching and promoting and doing all the things and you're not taking time to do the post mortem, you're only doing half the work.

Heather Sager  49:52

Yes, that's so true. So true.

Tyler McCall  49:54

Like the the debriefs, the study of what you just did as equally as important as all the planning. You put it I mean, you're doing

Heather Sager  50:01

Let me add to that since we're in the world of speaking. The same thing if you do a podcast interview and you don't go back and listen to it, you're not studying your game. If you do a video or if you anytime you speak, most people want to do the little, what animal is that that sticks their head in the ground? Is it a flamingo? I don't know. Ostrich, ostrich ostrich, whatever the animal is, you are sticking your head under the ground and just being like, Oh, I'm going to get better if I don't look at it. Watch your game tape. Watch your footage if you want to get better, like respect the game by having the respect for yourself to get better but continue. Yeah.

Tyler McCall  50:35

I had an interesting experience several years ago where I met one of my competitors for the first time in person. This is someone, I'll have to say her name because I've talked about this beforre. Jasmine star. Have you heard me talk about this?

Heather Sager  50:51

I heard you talk about this in passing the interview. I will tell you I was like I love the fact that he called this out because people need to hear this which is secretly why I brought it up. Okay.

Tyler McCall  51:02

Yeah, so when I was starting my kind of Instagram Expert business which side note, I never call myself an Instagram Expert. Pro tip: never call yourself an expert. Allow other people to call you an expert. When I was starting my Instagram business, I follow Jasmine and I loathe her. This is stupid. But I was just like, oh my god, like, I can't stand her. I can't stand what she does, what she says, has all this stupid stuff. It was all jealousy. It was all just this idea of like, what she should be doing based on what I should be doing based on all these preconceived notions was all BS. I carried that with me for a long time. And look, I'm say this, I'm not ashamed to say it because I know y'all are like this too. Like, I know you try your best to not be like that. But I'm, I know, y'all  hate following someone on Instagram. We all do it. I felt like that for a really long time. I met her in person at an event. This was in 2019, maybe I think beginning of that year. She was speaking at an event that I was attending. I was in the back of the room. I was in the back of the room and she came in the room for the first time. She came in the back door. I was standing there and she walked right beside me and I turned and looked at her and she said, Oh my gosh, you're Tyler, I've heard so much about you. I was hoping you would be here. And she gave me a hug. And I was like,

Heather Sager  52:34

What is happening?

Tyler McCall  52:37

Are you kidding me right now? We chatted for a second. We were friendly. After her talk and after she kind of worked the line and said hi to everyone, she was leaving. And I said hey, do you have a minute I'd love to, I just have something I'd like to share with you. She's like, Oh, of course. So we walked outside. I said, I'm so glad I got to meet you today and I owe you an apology. And she said what for and I said, I just want to apologize for like the idea I had in my mind of who you were and all the things I thought about you that were completely untrue, that we're coming out of a place of jealousy for who you are and what you have and what you've built. I wanted to apologize to you for that. And just let you know, it was such a, it was like a real honor getting to meet you. And I'm so glad I met you and I hope to see you again at events in the future. She like teared up and she was like, thank you so much that means so much to me, and I'm so glad I got to meet you too. And that was such a powerful moment. And I was like, Oh, I have like nothing to be jealous of, I have nothing to compare myself to. She's doing her thing. I'm gonna do my thing. At the end of the day, we're both inherently worthy of like living the life we want to live, and being loved and supported, and having families and all those things. And that was a really like powerful exchange for me. Part of it came from an experience I also had. I don't know 2018 I guess where I like went into this.  I don't know what it was like this kind of like session, like this personal development, like session kind of thing. You were supposed to go into it setting an intention and my intention is I wanted to come out of this experience being confident myself and letting go of animosity and jealousy towards others. I came out of that experience with that. That was the result it was a life changing experience. I think that had a lot to do with it as well but like having that conversation with her was a game changer. And now like we follow one another on Instagram. We chat in the DM sometimes, like we've seen each other at events. We always say hey to each other, like and I love what she's doing. I love what she's building. She's, you know, very inspiring for what I'm building in my own business. And then the other part of this, Heather, is the realization that all these people I think I'm competing against in the online business space, we share customers like people that have bought my thing have also bought Jasmine sings, they bought Jenna Kutcher stuff, they've bought stuff from Sue B. Zimmerman. They bought stuff from Alex to me like they've bought Vanessa Lau's programs like, we all share customers. At the end of the day, the goal is for people to use Instagram to grow their business. And if they need to learn from me, and learn from her, and learn from her, and gather all these different strategies, and try it out and figure out what works best for them, more power to them like that's the goal. That's the end goal so that was also a big learning for me.

Heather Sager  55:29

I love that you brought that piece up. First of all, thank you for being, I think real and be able to share that perspective. I remember when I heard you, I don't remember which podcast you were talking on or maybe it was a video. I don't remember. But I remember hearing that and like,  I think these are the real things that we think, right but we think that we're terrible people for thinking it so we don't voice it. But the reality is, we're all thinking about it. We're like, oh, especially when we get into the visibility piece, where we're wanting to put ourselves out there. I can't tell you how many times I do little surveys on Instagram where I ask people, do you want to speak like this year? Or have you, the question asked recently, have you ever experienced jealousy when you see somebody on stage? And then I asked like a follow up question which the majority of people did. The follow up question was, but did you actually raise your hand for that same speaking opportunity? Or is your jealousy misplaced, right? You're jealous because they were courageous enough to put their hand up, like you're still sitting there on the sidelines. I think we have to be really aware of where that judgment comes from around I think we're jealous of other people's opportunities, because we're scared to put ourselves out there because we're scared if we do, we'll get rejected. It's an interesting thing. So I want to do a little fire round with you and talk about some tangible things that people can do to get comfortable, because we talk a lot about guest speaking, like getting on other people's stages. But I think a lot of people miss the boat of not showing up on their own stage they have, which I would imagine Instagram is that for a lot of people. Maybe one little quick thing that I teach on is I talk about if you're going to go do visibility on other people's stages, make sure your home is taken care of. Make sure your Instagram page is worthy enough that people want to stick around when they search you after you're on a podcast where they're like, ooh, I want to stick around and follow you. So what are some things that people can do to show up on Instagram and maybe practice like speaking a bit and getting more visible on their own quote unquote, stage?

Tyler McCall  57:27

Yeah, so stories, and reels are like the two biggest places you can start showing up right now. They are easy, they have no like virtually no barrier to entry. It's just you and your phone talking into the into the screen. So Instagram stories and Instagram reels. If you have trouble thinking of reels and you're like, but I don't want to dance in point, because that's what I feel like I should be doing. You don't have to just treat them as 32nd Instagram stories, that's all they are. Start showing up now. Don't worry about your hair and makeup, slap the filter on it. And just do it like start by documenting your day, start by doing a Q&A, start by if you have a program or a coaching program or something and you do coaching calls, as you're doing your call and you're taking your notes, or you're kind of jotting down what you're going to answer for your clients. Pick one of those topics that you discussed on your call. As soon as that call is over when you're still in like front facing mode, hop on stories and say I just got off a coaching call with my clients and my program. Someone asked this question, I thought it was such a good question. I want to share with you what I shared with them, like hop on stories and do things like that or hop on reels.

Heather Sager  58:30

Love that. That's a good tip. But that's something especially people who are one on one or even people who are in groups, if you see a question come up in a group that you like, Oh, I would tackle this answer. Same thing. Like I think that's a great prompt.

Tyler McCall  58:41

For sure, the other thing is make yourself a burner Instagram account. If you're like Heather, you may still have one full of baby pictures from 2018. I don't know. Make yourself a backup fake burner Instagram account that you don't use for business. Practice going live on there. Just get on there, hit the live button, talk, press all the things, figure out how to do a pinned comment, figure out how to add a title, figure out how to add slides how to add an image, how to end the live, what to do once the live is over. test that out. Just play with it that way you can do the same with stories. So many people are like, well, I don't know what to do or how to use that. Can you teach me how? No, I'm not gonna sit here and hold your hand as you figure out how to use the function of Instagram because first of all, it's gonna change next week. And secondly, you need to play around with it yourself. So make yourself a burner account and do that. I think that's another great way just to like get over a bunch of those like fumbles and stumbles as you get started.

Heather Sager  59:34

Yeah. Which I mean, I think people think that if they plan a little bit longer, if they think about it more, if they watch anther training that they're not going to experience those little fumbles and stumbles. No, you're just delaying them and building up your expectations to like fall in crash like even further, so just do it. I love that tip. Okay, we've covered a lot of ground today I want to start bringing this thing home here and what I want to do is end on a topic that I know we're both usually passionate about when it comes to growing up businesses, when it comes to getting more visible to bring people back in our communities, I think there's this feeling that a lot of times in the online space, even though we're with people all the time, like air quote with people, it can feel really lonely, which I know is one of the reasons why you created OBA. Will you talk a little bit about community and what community means to you in this online space? And how maybe other people should be thinking about building community? 

Tyler McCall  1:00:29

Yeah for sure. Look, I mean, we all know community is important. But I want you to think about those moments in your life where community has really been, like the backbone of what you're going through in those moments. Think about what that looked like for you and how that felt and why it was so important for you. For me, there's so many of those moments in particular. I had an experience in college that was really life changing. I remember it was like the first week in college and I was so excited because I had survived high school. I grew up in the south. I still live in the south as of right now. I grew up in the south, this chubby gay kid wasn't athletic, never fit in anywhere. I remember getting to college, and I was like, Oh my god, finally, like, this is my moment, I can finally shine here, I can make a new like life for myself in college. And that first week, I was at lunch with two of my friends who were also some like academic misfits. We were sitting there eating at that point, probably like a salad and a bowl of Froot Loops, and chicken strips, and pizza, and hamburgers with like a Dr Pepper 'cause that's the college cafeteria, especially in those early weeks, they know what I'm talking about. And we were minding our own business talking about class, my friend April is probably like droning on and on about a syllabus or class that we were taking. I don't know, she was such a nerd. And I remember like, out of the corner of my eye catching this glimpse of, I want to say they were like a basketball player. And then I looked over to the other side, and there was like a table of cheerleaders. And then behind us was the volleyball team and it was one of those moments like, I swear to God, like the cast of Mean girls could have walked through, like, that's how it felt because we were not in the right place, like everyone around us, was different than us. There were all the athletes and the cool kids. We did not fit in like that. It's not where we were supposed to be. Over the next few weeks, like I kind of finally found my groove and figured out where I could fit in. And over the years that followed, I really found my people and found my community. And it was those people that got me through all those awkward experiences of realizing I was in the wrong place, or realizing I didn't fit in to where I was. It was that community of people who accepted me unconditionally, who encouraged me and hyped me up and like supported me no matter what I was doing who always had my back or who were by my side. That made the most difficult parts of college bearable. And that made the most amazing parts of college that much richer and more meaningful, because I had this community alongside me, and in online business, we can have those same opportunities. Once we get the right community of people around us that makes entrepreneurship so much more richer, it makes the work we're doing and the lives we're impacting, it makes it so much more valuable and worth it. I find, but I think what we have to be conscious of is that, just like in that college cafeteria, where there were the cool kids around, and the places where we felt like we should be sitting or if I were just a little bit different, as if I were a little more fit, if my hair was a different color, if I had more money that I could sit at those tables, I could belong, we can do that a lot in entrepreneurship too. We can then go find us have more followers than I'll fit in. If I just joined this person's program or mastermind, then I'll fit and if I just have a business that's making six figures or seven figures, then I'll fit in and I'll be a cool kid, whatever that means. But the reality is like, we don't even know if we belong at those places. We don't know if the people who are the cool kids in the online business world, these people we don't even know if like they're decent human beings. We just like think we should have what they have or be where they are in business. We don't know if they're really happy in their business or in their life. We don't know what they had to sacrifice to get there. We don't know what values they have that dictate how they show up and run their business. We don't know if it's in line with who we are or what we're working to create. So instead of trying to be the cool kids or sit with the cool kids, we can create our own communities, we can create our own cool kids table. And instead of trying to fit in at whatever corner of the internet feels like where you should fit in, you can just decide that you're going to create your own corner of the internet and surround yourself with people that get you and get what you're doing and that have a shared mission and idea for what you're creating and forget about the rest. And that community is going to make the lowest lows that much more bearable and the highest highs that much more exciting and meaningful.

Heather Sager  1:04:57

I 1,000% agree. I think finding your people, whether it's your string of ladies that you Vox with every single day, or your little corner of a Facebook group, or like OBA, I love that. One of the things that you said around your intention with OBA is to not be the guru in there. I love that you don't position anyone as the guru in there. I think you have a variety of teachers, you have a variety of discussions where it's really, it's like an association of the people like the true people in online business. That's why I love it. I love being able to go in there. I don't feel like anybody's outwardly trying to convince me using marketing tactics to buy their program. They're just, they're in service to help their peers, which I think is so great so I just pitched it for you. But Tyler, where can people learn a little bit more about OBA if they are looking for a community like that?

Tyler McCall  1:05:46

Yeah, well, we'd love to have you come join us. You can go to joinoba.com and learn more there. The doors are always open. There's no kind of weird like, timer price or anything like that so come on in. We'd love to have you check us. 

Heather Sager  1:05:59

Perfect. And where can people connect with you? I mean, I think Instagram would be the best place for people to try to chat with you so was that? Yeah.

Tyler McCall  1:06:07

Yes @tylerjmccall over on Instagram, or right now wherever you're listening to this podcast search for the Online Business show. You can subscribe there, check it out new episodes every week all about how to start grow and scale in online business. You can check out my episode with Heather that we just dropped a few weeks ago so you definitely want to check that out as well.

Heather Sager  1:06:25

Okay, I'm gonna link to that in the show notes. I'm also going to link Tyler one of the episodes that I love that you did when you were talking about being vulnerable already earlier. You slid right over this, but you did an episode debriefing 2020 where it was a difficult year for you but big learning coming from it. I thought that episode was exceptional and I think every business owner needs to listen to it. So I'm going to link to that one in the show notes too. And I appreciate you so much. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for your continued leadership in the space. I think your courage to continue to speak up and have a voice around issues that make other people uncomfortable but need to be talked about. I commend you for it and I am in awe of you and I just really, really respect you, love you and I thank you so much.

Tyler McCall  1:07:05

We'll thanks, all the same back to you, Heather and thanks for having me on your show.

Heather Sager  1:07:09

Of course, alright, friends, thanks to listen to episode. We'll see you back next week for another one. Same time, same place. Hey, friends, thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you liked what you had to hear, and you're looking to make a bigger splash with your brand online, then you've got to check out my brand new free video training. You can get it over at Heathersager.com/minitraining where I'm going to teach you the three speaking strategies that every online business owner needs for this virtual world here in 2020 hint You don't have to be some big pro speaker to make speaking work for your business. Go grab it now. Heathersager.com/minitraining and I'll see you on the next episode.