Making An Investment In Yourself

By Cheval John

Photo Courtesy of Podcast Movement

Photo Courtesy of Podcast Movement

People who are successful in their businesses or careers always do one thing that others don’t do.

They invest in themselves.

Whether it is buying information products about the public relations industry or attending conferences, they know that they will improve their skills because of the lessons learned.

That is why people who are achieve success are not lucky like many would say.

They also have the entrepreneurial mindset in which they don’t wait for permission to achieve their goals in order to make other people’s lives better.

People like Sara Blakely, who solved a problem for many women when she create the company Spanx, which made billions of dollars.

Or Patty Elizee, who decided not to settle for the status quo of working the 9-5 and founded her podcast, the Brand You Economy.

Ms. Elizee’s story is really awesome because she started that journey to freedom when she set goals for herself.

Among those goals were to participate in Cliff Ravenscraft’s “Podcasting A to Z Course” and to attend the inaugural Podcast Movement that took place last year.

It was there that she met Jared Easley, who was one of the co-founders of the conference.

Now there is a “twist” to the story of how Podcast Movement was founded.

Mr. Easley was attending the New Media Expo, an annual conference held earlier last year in Las Vegas.

This conference is geared towards evolving media like YouTube, podcasts, etc.

It was there that he over-heard a conversation of people who were wondering, “Why Isn’t There A Conference Exclusively For Podcasters?” #paraphrased

Mr. Easley was wondering the same thing and in that moment, he was thinking about the idea of creating a national conference for podcasters.

The reality of bringing together recognized speakers, securing a venue, and the costs to put a national conference together could have stopped Mr. Easley, Dan Franks, Gary Leland and Mitch Todd from creating the first national podcast conference.

However, they thought outside of the box and launched a Kick-Starter campaign to see if people would be interested.

The campaign goal was to raise $11,000 dollars in 30 days.

To their surprise, they achieved that goal in 9 hours and eventually raised the money by three times the amount in 30 days.

That was the signal that they needed to go out and create a national conference for podcasters

After much hard work and dedication, the first ever Podcast Movement took place in Dallas, Texas with over 600 attendees.

Seeing amazing commentary on how many past, present and future podcasters learned from each other and the meetups that transpired was great.

At the same time, I was sad because I missed out on this amazing conference.

I made the decision that I was not going to miss this year’s Podcast Movement.

Even though this will probably be the only conference I attend this year, it will be worth it because I will have the opportunity to meet great podcasters that I have built strong friendships with on social media and interviewed on my very own podcast, “What’s The Word?”

I honestly believe that if anyone will invest in conferences like Podcast Movement, they will be able to take their careers or business to another level that will allow them to make the world a better place.

The only question is “Are You Willing To Invest In Yourself?”

About Cheval John

Cheval John is the Founder and CEO of Vallano Media, LLC, a marketing agency which helps small to mid-sized businesses use social media correctly to build a loyal following and in the process become more profitable. Cheval is also the host of "What's The Word?" a podcast about finding out what inspires people to choose their respective careers and how social media impacted their lives and business. He is the author of two books including the Amazon Best-Seller, "8 Lessons Every Podcaster Needs To Learn." He has spoken at Social Media Week Lima in Ohio and at Social Media Day Houston 2017 about topics around live streaming and podcasting. Cheval has been featured in media outlets including Ebony Magazine, Social Media Today and Forbes. He was named a Houston Top 25 Social Media Power Influencer (2016 and 2017) and a Twitter Top 50 Influencer by Onalytica in 2018.

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