Bonus #50

Ellen Yin31min

Ellen Yin

00:00

Hey Hey, welcome back to another bonus episode of cubicle to CEO, the podcast where we ask successful founders, the business questions you can't google. Wow, bonus number 50. You all that's a lot of extra bonus episodes that we have recorded for you this year. And I'm so glad for those of you who were able to tune in 50 extra times this year to hear what's going on behind the scenes and our own business as well as hear from some special guests or get to, I don't know, bonus episodes have been fun, because we get to play in a different format than we normally offer for our Monday guest interviews, which are very intentionally structured as case studies. So anyways, thanks for allowing me to play this way with you this year in experimenting with bonus episodes.

Ellen Yin

00:53

And today's topic is one that I felt like was important to share, as I'm reflecting on the end of 2023, and headed into a new year, I think some of you may be able to relate to this and that this may resonate with you. So as you can see from the title, the one thing I regret from this year, this is not clickbait, this is truly something I do actually regret. And when I say regret, I do want to clarify that regret when I say that, I mean that it is something that I have learned from and now knowing better, I would do differently moving forward. But I never truly, quote unquote regret something in the way of I would go back in time and change it because I'm a huge like believer in that every insignificant or minor decision you make has some sort of ripple effect, right. And sometimes you can't see that full picture standing where you are now. So it's not like I would want to go and change something about what I had already decided in the past. In case it would have some unintended ripple effect elsewhere that I was not anticipating or not wanting. So that's just kind of the the preface I want to set there.

Ellen Yin

02:06

But I think you guys get what I mean by this, it's something I will not be doing in the new year. So that thing is this, I do not want to continue to say yes, to good opportunities, just because they're good opportunities. Let me explain. There are so many times in life where we are asked to do something right when we're given an opportunity. And I think most of us are pretty good at discerning if something is not in alignment with us or something that we wouldn't want to do anyways. And so we can say no more easily to things like that, where I have historically struggled is when I receive an opportunity, that's an amazing opportunity, it's a great opportunity, there's nothing that is not in alignment with me personally, or my values or anything like that, right. Like it's a really incredible opportunity. But the caveat is that it may not be a great opportunity for the priority or the focus of this particular season. And call it FOMO call it the I can do it all attitude or whatever it may be, or just the open minded curiosity in me where I'm like, I you know, you never truly know what something could lead to a result in. So if it's a great opportunity, I don't want to let it pass me by just because I may not see the exact fit it has for supporting a particular goal that I'm working on right in this moment.

Ellen Yin

03:43

But because of that I have said yes to so many things that when I'm looking back and reflecting on the year, I truly believe there are many great opportunities that I participated in, that it's clear now with some time and distance in between to see that that truly did not help me get closer to what I really was focused on or said I was focused on for 2023. and it in fact, distracted me from making greater progress towards those priority goals. So let me kind of just give you some general examples of this. I wasn't really able to pull like very, very specific examples. But I wanted to at least kind of give you an idea of some of the things I'm talking about.

Ellen Yin

04:32

So for one this past year, I don't even know I should have probably counted actually before I hit record but I have been interviewed for dozens of new podcast interviews this year for sure that at least I know for a fact more than 15 At the very least, but it's probably even more than that. And while I enjoy and love meeting people through podcast interviews on other people's shows while I always find value in creating and establishing new relationships with people through podcasting. I do feel that looking back on my year, I said yes to many podcasts opportunities, because of viewing it as Oh, this is a great connection point. Or I think, you know, like, if someone's inviting me to be on their show, it's never a bad thing. To have more visibility. I was kind of thinking more along those lines. But the truth is, there was no intentionality behind how I arrived to those podcasts, right? How I prepared for those podcasts in the sense that I was kind of just like, go with the flow, like all show up. And whatever the host wants to ask me, I'm more than happy to answer you guys know me, I'm a very open book. But because of that, and because for this entire year, we really weren't selling anything direct to consumer on an evergreen basis, right?

Ellen Yin

05:56

Like we had our two paid to create live challenges. The only evergreen offer I think we had the whole year was our perfect podcast pitch template, which is like a $27 product that we didn't even publicly promote. It was like people have been just finding that template, through old podcast episodes are by word of mouth, honestly, because it works so well for getting people on their dream shows and dream interviews, which is amazing. Again, if you're using that as a vehicle to support getting your message out there or driving people back to a specific offer. But we were so focused this year on building a solid foundation for the brand partnerships side of our business, that we weren't really until like December, selling any of our own digital offers directly to you all to our community, we were really just more focused on the client side of pitching brands and working with brands and bringing those campaigns to life.

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