Picture this: you've been speaking for free for a decade and now it's time to get paid.
Fatima - CEO and Professional Speaker - shares how she leveraged the power of self promotion and thought leadership to build a career as a professional speaker. She opens up about the criticism that self advocacy often attracts.
Key Takeaways:
From the rugged landscapes of Iceland to sunny beaches of Barbados, Fatima - seamlessly combines work with the thrill of travel. As the CEO of Quill and Co-Host, Fatima has built location independent businesses she can run from anywhere.
Support the show:
☕️buymeacoffee.com/whatsyourfree
About the show:
Sam Laliberte - entrepreneur, digital nomad and freedom seeker, hosts the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast to expose people to the many ways you can design your dream life and unlock your own version of the freedom lifestyle. Her guests have empowered themselves through flexible work as a way to “have it all” - financial, location AND schedule freedom.
Picture this: you've been speaking for free for a decade and now it's time to get paid.
Fatima - CEO and Professional Speaker - shares how she leveraged the power of self promotion and thought leadership to build a career as a professional speaker. She opens up about the criticism that self advocacy often attracts.
Key Takeaways:
From the rugged landscapes of Iceland to sunny beaches of Barbados, Fatima - seamlessly combines work with the thrill of travel. As the CEO of Quill and Co-Host, Fatima has built location independent businesses she can run from anywhere.
Support the show:
☕️buymeacoffee.com/whatsyourfree
About the show:
Sam Laliberte - entrepreneur, digital nomad and freedom seeker, hosts the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast to expose people to the many ways you can design your dream life and unlock your own version of the freedom lifestyle. Her guests have empowered themselves through flexible work as a way to “have it all” - financial, location AND schedule freedom.
If you aren't getting criticism on your work, then you're not pushing the creative boundaries enough. It's better to get negative criticism or negative feedback than for someone to be indifferent about you, and to me, I'd rather fall into the negative camp than the indifference camp.
Speaker 2:You're listening to the Freedom Lifestyle podcast series. I'm sharing relatable stories of freedom seekers who ditched conventional office life and courageously asked for more. The energy just completely shifted. My entire being just felt so free.
Speaker 1:My business was still generating income while I was on the beach, I decided to quit and just stay at home. I really can't work for anyone but me.
Speaker 2:It's literally just doing whatever the hell you want to do. As for me, I'm your host, sam, and I've spent the last four years creating a business that allows me to work from anywhere. The Freedom Lifestyle looks different for everyone. What's your free? Today you're going to meet Fatima.
Speaker 2:Fatima is a member of the National Speakers Bureau, which means she is a professional public speaker. She speaks at various events around the world, on media, on tech trends, and she said keynotes on world stages alongside speakers like Gary Vaynerchuk. She's the founder and CEO at Quill, which is an award-winning production agency specializing in corporate audio. They're also the creators of Co-host, which is a podcast growth and analytics tool. She's won a ton of awards over the past few years, including two Top 30 Under 30 Awards, and has been featured by Flare Magazine as a Top 100 Women to Watch Coolest person.
Speaker 2:Of course, we get into how she became a professional public speaker. She talks about how she spoke for free for a decade, was unapologetically self-promoting herself on social media within her networks, and she has some really, really great advice about how to do that confidently and with ease and really what it takes. We also get into her personal life, so she shares how her and her partner. They have different levels of freedom. He's actually a bit of a federal judge and works for the government and can't travel that often. She talked a little bit about how they came up with a compromise for how much freedom and flexibility their life would have, knowing that they each come to that conversation with different angles. I love any time I get to chat with her. What's really special about our relationship is she actually finds me inspiring, which is just the best feeling ever. I love Fatima, so I'm just going to stop talking with no further delay. Meet Fatima. Fatima, welcome to the Freedom Lifestyle podcast. How is your day going so far?
Speaker 1:Thank you, so much for having me. It's been delightful, but this is definitely one of the funner parts of my day.
Speaker 2:Yay, I feel the same way. One question I like to ask all of my guests is where in the world are you taking this interview from? What time is it, and what would you normally be doing if you weren't having this fun interview with me right now?
Speaker 1:I'm actually in my office and, surprisingly, I'm in Toronto for once. I just got back from Iceland, which was amazing, so I'm going to stay put until next week, where I'm going to be heading off to Barbados, and right now I'm in my home office in Toronto, canada, with my cat Charlie.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Those are two pretty cool destinations. I'm going to Iceland at the end of November Not the best time to go. It's going to be like no sunlight. What was it like for you? I guess you went in September.
Speaker 1:It was amazing and I would say that we beat the summer rush, so that was really well timed for us. I think that the time that you're going isn't necessarily a bad time, because you really do avoid the crowds of tourists and really up your chances of seeing the northern lights. So I would say it's just going to be a different experience than going to Iceland in the summer, but not necessarily a bad one. Layer up, it was really cold when I went in September, so I can only imagine how cold and frigid it's going to be in November. But I'm so excited for you. Are you doing the whole loop?
Speaker 2:I'm doing we'll start in Reykjavik and then we're going to the most northern town. It's like Sigliforj. Yeah, we went there. Yeah, oh, you did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did. We did the whole loop and went as north as possible. So we went to Scafftafeld as well and we went all the way to the north to see the Puffins. Puffin Island is like you have to go north to be able to see like Puffin Island. It's funny most people that I know have been to Iceland have just gone into Reykjavik and done day trips from there. But I would say the real beauty in Iceland starts after you leave, like an hour away from Reykjavik.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, that's the vibe I'm getting. Yeah, I'm actually going for work. I'm putting on an experience for a remote company, so they're flying the whole team to Iceland and they want like a really wild, authentically Iceland experience. So we're like we're not going to the city, then we're going to pick the most northern town in Iceland, we're going to get you all there. So we'll be there for a week. That's great to hear that you did that too, and that was like the right call then of me going.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100%. And the people are amazing, just amazing.
Speaker 2:What were you doing in Iceland, Barbados? Are these work trips or these play trips? What's that mix like for you?
Speaker 1:So I think I've kind of just set myself up professionally where I can work out of wherever similar to the life that you live, which is like the freedom lifestyle, and we want to be able to work and see the world at the same time and not be prohibited by those geographic boundaries. I think I feel very lucky that Coil is exclusively a remote company. Our entire company is remote, which means that you can work from pretty much anywhere. They're all Canadian and American employees, so we do exclusively hire from the US and Canada, but they can live out of wherever they want. So we have folks down in Costa Rica right now. We have folks in Panama and Mexico, people who picked up as soon as they started working for us and moved to Squamish, bc, kelowna, tafino, people in the East Coast as well as like LA, chicago. So I think it ultimately just comes down to a lot of these trips. For me they're personal trips, but I'm also working from there.
Speaker 2:So you essentially are picking destinations you want to go to and then just bringing your laptop with you.
Speaker 1:That's exactly it. I'm trying to hit 100 countries before I turn 35. And I feel like the like I can't just stick to my like, allocated six to eight weeks of vacation a year, like there's no way I'm going to be able to to hit those milestones or destinations. So that's exactly it. I just pick up my laptop, my headphones and my microphone and that's really all I need.
Speaker 2:Amazing what a time. You wrote in the form that freedom lifestyle for you is about creating the life that you want. So what type of lifestyle do you feel like you're creating right now, and is there anything missing for you that would just make it like even more aligned, or do you feel like you've nailed it?
Speaker 1:It's really interesting that saying you can't have it all, which I highly disagree with.
Speaker 1:I think that maybe you can't have it all at the same time, but balance is balanced over time, and I did set my entire life up in a way that I could be financially free but also could live from wherever travel the world.
Speaker 1:Ironically, I ended up with a partner who is a federal judge essentially, and he cannot lead Canada, so he cannot work outside of Canada due to privacy, security reasons involved with his job, and so I wouldn't necessarily say that I have all of the freedom and flexibility that I would want, but what I can say is that I have maxed out my opportunity with my current situation, which means every month I go somewhere new.
Speaker 1:I know I can't pick up and leave for three months at a time I mean I guess I could, but I think John would be really sad about that but I can't pick up and leave for three months at a time, like you can with Jared, and I'm so jealous because I would love to do that. But my happy compromise is going somewhere new at least once a month, seeing somewhere new in the world at least once a month, and that amount of time away from my partner is justified and okay for me. So I think what I'm getting at here is that the traditional nine to five, the structure, the having one place or one nuclear home, like to me, I, just you can curate the life that you want and live a life that's true to yourself rather than what people might expect of you or what you might think is traditionally conventional.
Speaker 2:Maximize the situation that you're currently in. I think that is amazing and just a really great reminder to some people, because you're not the first person I've met who is in that situation where one person in the relationship has more freedom than the other. And it is about how do you navigate that and how do you find a compromise for that and how do you think like a we instead of a me, which is kind of annoying to have to do sometimes, but it is what it takes and for the right relationship will do that. So how were those conversations to kind of find that balance of, like the ones a month, does you go separate from him, right?
Speaker 1:Sometimes he'll come with me, but sometimes he won't. I have tons of girlfriends that I love to travel with. I travel with my sister a lot, my team a lot. You know, when he can make it he does and it's always a blast. He was in Iceland, he's coming to Barbados, we're heading to Chicago for the long weekend in Europe. In December we're doing a Euro trip. So certainly isn't that he's not. He travels more than most people but like, maybe not as much as I'm able to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sounds like it. Okay, that's awesome, really beautiful life that you've built for yourself personally. So let's segue into some of the cool professional things that I've seen you do since I've met you. You've been a professional speaker for over five years now. I'm guessing that, similarly to many of us, it started with and correct me if I'm wrong maybe doing some speaking gigs for free. Maybe speak on a panel here and there, give a complimentary talk here and there. When or how did you realize that this could be a legitimate revenue stream for you?
Speaker 1:Interestingly enough, I did like about a decade of free speaking engagements.
Speaker 1:It was about 10 years of just putting myself out there, advocating for myself, putting my hand up for the opportunities, taking credit from ideas and work like all of the above that promoting myself.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes it's the women in my network that I find her hesitant to do that because they feel like they're going to be too promotional or too opinionated or too aggressive or whatever that narrative is, and so I've sort of done that an apologetically for about a decade.
Speaker 1:And then actually I got approached I the first few speaking engagements where I started getting paid and then eventually realized that it's a lot of work managing a speaking career and negotiating fees and booking travel and negotiating with contracts. And so I got approached by a bureau, a speaker's bureau, and we sort of set up an agreement where they would bring deals over or I would bring deals over and then they would take a percentage or a cut. But working with a speaking agency wasn't really on my radar, so it was more of an inbound. I think what's important to highlight is that I did it. I did the work for 10 years and did it for free and focused on topics where I knew I was a subject matter expert and oftentimes the more niche you are, the bigger the community seeking out your content.
Speaker 2:And do you still speak for free on the right occasions and, if so, how do you gauge when to speak for free versus when you should always be getting paid?
Speaker 1:Definitely do speak for free. I would say that if it's a not-for-profit, a charity, something that directly aligns with my business so if it's something that's going to support quill or co-host mission in any way, then absolutely open to doing it for free. I think the paid opportunities for me really come in when I think that I could be spending that hour generating revenue through another source or stream. So if I'm going to be spending five hours to 10 hours putting together a presentation, it's usually a lot longer than that. Actually it's usually about 20 hours of work putting together a presentation for a speaking engagement and then traveling and speaking. What could I close in the 25 hours that I spent on the speaking engagement? And so that's how I always look at my time. There's an opportunity cost for everything and cashflow is king. If this isn't directly impacting my business or a charity or a cause that I'm passionate about, then I'm going to expect my speakers fees.
Speaker 2:No, I love that. I mean it makes sense, if you have an existing company, for you to speak for free, if it raises the profile. Do you think that is required for someone to be a speaker? Or do you think now, today, 2023 and beyond, you can build a career just as a public speaker, just at your talk and just get paid for that. Or do you think you need to always be? They say selling from the stage or like having some additional revenue that comes from the stage.
Speaker 1:I truly believe in Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule, like when you do something enough, you become the expert at it. I would say that I know a ton of people that have chosen to just go the professional speaking route and then just share their life experiences. But I think it's important to know when you decide to become a full-time speaker, you need to have enough life experiences to share, and so you can't just wake up one day and not have sold a company or a couple or 10, built a really amazing not-for-profit, traveled the world, like there are a ton of dues that you have to play along the way and check marks that you have to sort of cross off before you can build a 24-7 professional career. I mean, you look at celebrities, influencers, thought leaders, subject matter experts they all had a career before speaking that allowed them to become the subject matter expert or go-to expert.
Speaker 1:I also don't want to be taking advice from somebody who hasn't walked the walk and been successful. So if you're a financial coach doing a talk on financial literacy, well, are you a multimillionaire? Because if you're not, then are you credible and qualified to be giving this talk? And the same rule applies in essentially every aspect of speaking and subject matter expertise. So I haven't taken the plunge full-time into speaking because I don't think I've accomplished enough with my life to be able to be considered a thought leader and subject matter expert. Once I feel like I'm there, then maybe I'll just become a full-time speaker. But you have to pay your dues.
Speaker 2:Would you like that? Would that be? A dream of yours is to be a full-time speaker. Do you enjoy it? Probably not.
Speaker 1:No, I think my dream is to like literally travel the world and and curate travel experiences. So I think, like if money wasn't an obstacle and I had the world with my oyster and I could curate any life I wanted after a quail, I think that is the space that I would want to go down.
Speaker 2:And create experiences for other people in different locations around the world.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's exactly it Creating itineraries and experiences for people similar to what you're doing. It's very impressive. You're very much living the life that I one day hope to have. So isn't that funny. We were both inspired by each other in different ways.
Speaker 2:Totally. Yeah. Well, I'm like, oh, you got this. And you're like, oh, you got this. And we're like but no, seriously, like how do I got this?
Speaker 1:And then that's the thing like nothing is forever, and so this is what makes sense for my life right now, and I think quail will give me the financial freedom to be able to curate my next sort of steps very carefully and definitely something in the travel space Amazing, so excited.
Speaker 2:Well, keep me in the loop for that, because I love to travel in and that sounds amazing. You and I have never traveled together. I think we should put that on our bucket list.
Speaker 1:Yes, we definitely should. I would love to hear about what your winter plans are Okay deal.
Speaker 2:So you said that for 10 years you were speaking for free, unapologetically, self promoting yourself, pitching yourself for PR opportunities, claiming your space, and you acknowledge that that's not the norm for women. Where did that confidence and courage come from to be able to do that? Was it hard at the beginning or was this something very natural for you? I know it's definitely hard.
Speaker 1:It's still hard. I feel like we are definitely held at a different standard and not to get too political about this but we are definitely held at a very different standard and for me, confidence comes with being over prepared for every opportunity, because the margin of error is razor thin. Generally, when I do a autopsy of my entire network and the many years that I've been in the professional space, I would say it is oftentimes women who don't want to put up their hand, don't want to take credit for ideas. They constantly have imposter syndrome. And look, imposter syndrome is completely normal, but I think ultimately you have to realize that you are CEOs of your own brand and no one else is going to advocate for you. So if you don't, then you're going to lose the opportunity to someone who does. And so I always say advocate for yourself for sure and realize, while imposter syndrome is normal, no one else has more or less of a right to be doing exactly what you're doing.
Speaker 1:The only difference is actually going for it, and I think the difference for me was I surrounded myself with very strong, powerful, intelligent, hardworking women who are still my mentors today. They're all women and they've been really supportive, pulled me up with them forced me to be competitive, and I've had role models to sort of emulate and look up to, and that's probably what's propelled me to never really care whether or not I'm qualified for the opportunity. I'll say yes, and then I'll figure it out later.
Speaker 2:No, that's huge Just having women around you who change the standard Because, like you said, we're not really supposed to be self promoting ourselves and advocating for ourselves and celebrating our wins or talking about how great we are. We're supposed to be humble and that's kind of like a weird expectation about women. But personally for me, when I see you show up on the social media and you advocate for the press that you're getting or the speaking opportunities you have or the money you're raising, I'm like so inspired by that and you're such an expander for me. Did you ever worry what people thought about you doing that and posting about like your well deserved accomplishments?
Speaker 1:You know, I really appreciate you saying that for so many reasons. But I also want to highlight you have been really supportive, like and it's been very genuine. You always reach out, you're always championing people around you. I see the work that you're doing on social. You're always quick to engage and it comes from a place of like being very genuine. I do also talk to a lot of people who are like oh, you popped up on my LinkedIn again today, you know, and it's not with the same tone of you know, this is amazing or congratulations. But oftentimes I am told that, oh, you're everywhere and it's not necessarily meant in a positive, encouraging way. Do I care? I used to.
Speaker 1:I think I've come a long way. I think I've just learned to understand that if you aren't getting criticism on your work, then you're not pushing the creative boundaries enough. It's better to get negative criticism or negative feedback than for someone to be indifferent about you, and to me, I'd rather fall into the negative camp than the indifference camp. If people have something to say, today I mostly just chalk it up to. Well, at least they're noticing and you know I'm obviously doing something right in terms of pushing the creative boundaries. It was a bit of a learning curve and I think that how and who you surround yourself with is really important. I mean it's kind of cliche to say, but you're the average of the five people that you hang out with. The average of my five people are strong women who promote themselves or are unapologetic about it, or doing really great things, and they're talking about ideas, not people. So personally, it stopped rubbing me the wrong way over time.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that was so good. I honestly can. I need to hear this and when I, do you know comment on a post that I see of, like this is epic, like I genuinely think it is epic. And I appreciate you saying and being honest that even at your level, some people are like, oh, you're on my feet again and you get that tone of you're everywhere and not in a good way, because that's kind of what it takes.
Speaker 2:Like I'm about to launch this new season of my podcast. It's going live in a couple of days and I have a ton of content created and I was looking at all the content created and I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to be sharing all the time and immediately, those stories of just. Is that too much sharing? Am I taking up too much space online? Is that going to be annoying for people? What is the like guy from high school going to think? What is my friend that I met at Burning man who just sees me as like this fun personality and doesn't know that I have this like career going to think? And we have to just like literally ignore that to get to our next level.
Speaker 1:Totally, and it's funny because when the 21st century it's 2023, unfollow me if you don't want to see my content, mute my posts and notifications. There is a plethora of options than having to like make that comment about. You're everywhere and you know, I think, that for your podcast, and one of my favorite things about podcasting content is that you're only reaching those who are seeking out your content. Those who aren't interested in your content won't listen to your show. So I would say that it's a public service that you're thinking about sharing all of this evergreen content with people and the people that are in your network following the work that you do. People like me would be thrilled to see as many posts as you put out in terms of the content that you're sharing. We're subscribing to your show, we're championing you and we want the best for you, and if you don't fall into that camp, then there's an unfollow button.
Speaker 2:There it is, one button away. Okay, I love that. Let's transition to podcasting, because you're doing such cool stuff in the audio space with Quill. You got into the audio space at such a perfect time. You were early, you could see where it was going. You've got in there. You've been evolving Quill from a marketplace to a production agency to building your own software. So I'm curious, like what actually was the catalyst for jumping in this space? Was it opportunistic? Were you truly like this is an entrepreneurial opportunity? Was there a passion for audio in there? Was it a bit of both? I actually learned on the job.
Speaker 1:For anyone who's feeling imposter syndrome, I was not an audio expert when I launched this company. The difference is I launched the company and learned on the job. I'm now an audio expert. Now I could say I've done the 10,000 hours and mastered the skill, but I had no idea what I was doing when I first launched Quill. The reason I launched the company was I was running another agency at the time. I was running sales for this other agency and it was right before the pandemic.
Speaker 1:We were starting to see a little bit of an uptake in audio format shows. One of our clients wanted us to create a podcast Back then. Something's happened in the last six years where the production agency landscape is really blown up and saturated, but back then when I was trying to put together a branded podcast, there was very few options on the market that were affordable. There's Pacific Content who's amazing and they put out such great content, but our client couldn't afford the rates. There was CBC, also very expensive, and that was pretty much it in terms of what was available out there.
Speaker 1:What I did was I hodgepodge a bunch of freelancers together to execute on this show. We had a producer, we had a script writer and researcher. We had an audio engineer, we had someone who's responsible for the technical productions, the hosting and distribution, and then marketing we did internally. I just thought it was such a chaotic process of piecing all that information together. Nothing was centralized. It was such a fragmented experience.
Speaker 1:I thought wouldn't it be great if you could go to an agency that was affordable? I would argue that we may not necessarily be that affordable anymore, but we were when we launched. I thought wouldn't it be great if you could go to an agency that was affordable and get everything done Like a one-stop shop? Someone who can come in and do your podcast strategy, script your entire show, take care of all the production, audience growth, marketing, help get your show top five, top 10 on Apple charts. That's what we ended up doing At the time. I wasn't an audio expert, so I acquired a company in the early days called Origins Media House. They were production experts. I did what I did best, which is sales and running a business and thinking about financial acumen, business acumen. They did what they did best, which is creativity, production, creating awesome shows. That was a while ago and we haven't really looked back since.
Speaker 2:That's cool. I didn't realize that you had also acquired a company in a sense, as part of it. Super smart. I'm sure it was more than just this one use case. Of course you had a project where someone was hiring you for, where you really got to see the problem and the opportunity. But what else were you doing to educate yourself, to be confident that podcasting was a good bet? Because, like I said, you were quite early. I remember years ago, when I was in Toronto, we were talking about this and you were talking about your vision for this. I was like, wow, interesting. You had a whole vision for what you thought was going to happen with the industry and it has come true. How else were you educating yourself?
Speaker 1:Back in 2014, when Serial became a household name and everyone really started to listen to podcasts, I started thinking about it as a brand opportunity. My entire career has been agency sales and so thinking about how to make clients money. It was just a really interesting experience for me, because I remember BBC putting out a study in which they talked about different stats. I believe the stat was 94 people who listened to a 30-minute audio episode end up listening to the entire episode. So, like you and me chatting for 30 minutes, if someone starts, 94% of the people who listened to this episode will listen to the whole conversation, whereas a 30-minute video only has a 12% completion rate. And I remember thinking, well, why the disparity in stats? And it was like it clicked. For me. It was well, you can drive to work and you can listen to a podcast, but you can't watch a Netflix video. You can walk your dog and listen to a podcast, but you can't really be reading a book or an article, and so I thought what an interesting opportunity for brands to reach an audience during a time that is not available to any other advertiser. You can't compete with digital marketing budgets, you can't compete with PR, can't compete with any other content medium and you're actively engaged in an activity, another activity, and that activity increases your engagement rather than hurts it. So, whether you're driving, doing your dishes, walking your dog, that component of being engaged in something increases the likelihood that you're going to continue listening to that content. It was such a fascinating sort of like realization for me as someone.
Speaker 1:As a millennial, I constantly want to be busy and productive while I'm also entertaining myself, and so the podcast medium really worked for me. So I became a consumer. I started listening to 10 podcasts a week. I stopped Netflix, I stopped Amazon Prime, crave, apple, I stopped watching movies and I just started consuming audio format shows. I've listened to like out of the two million podcasts out there probably listened to half, by the way, I love your show, very honored that you asked me to be a guest on it. And when I started listening to all of these shows, I was like yes, this is a really unique marketing opportunity for anyone who's looking to reach a global audience and create more of a humanized, intimate connection with their stakeholders, customers, listeners. And just really going down that rabbit hole eventually was like you know what I actually want to take a stab at this industry and try to make it a better, a better space.
Speaker 2:Well, it seems like it's. It's really worked out for you and you've grown so much. Like I said, it started with the marketplace to production agency. Maybe you're affordable. Before Now we've gone up funnel or up market a little bit, which is amazing Reading over the bio that you submitted and just following you online for years now. You always have so much going on professionally and I really admire just how much variety you always seem to have in your life always different projects, opportunities, businesses all seemingly quite exciting. What's the most exciting thing you're working on or working towards right now?
Speaker 1:So I think professionally in the podcasting industry there there is just a really big gap in terms of the ROI that that industry is showing us, and COVID was really great for the podcasting industry.
Speaker 1:But I think everyone saw a bit of a lull after COVID and budgets were being reallocated and I think the conversations our team were having were really around how do you show folks the ROI and podcasting to justify the creation of new production budgets? And that's when we decided to build our product, cohost, which essentially now is the Google Analytics of podcasting, and so obviously very excited about, like the steps that we're taking, some of the contracts that we're closing. On the professional side, personally I am the co-chair of for the Sick Kids Foundation Tech for Sick Kids and we're mandated to raise 25 million a year and so working along a lot of projects to engage the tech ecosystem in North America to help fundraise, sponsor corporate donations, pledging their equity. There's a variety of fundraising tactics but ultimately that's been really rewarding because we're trying to build a new emergency wing for Sick Kids Hospital. That's really been the priority project this year.
Speaker 2:I think it's so amazing that you are so involved in that project and I think, at least for me, I like long for that in my life, like I have a charity strategy and I do donations and I have a few organizations I regularly contribute to financially. But I would love to have an organization where, over my lifetime, I feel like I'm making a significant contribution to and in a meaningful way, right, and it feels like that's what you've really been able to do for yourself and you've also been able to make it kind of blend over both worlds, like by engaging the tech world and your existing network. How did you identify this organization and your ability to get involved in this way?
Speaker 1:You know, it was actually very accidental.
Speaker 1:I got approached because my background is in sales and so fundraising and actually Sick Kids Foundation that approached me and they asked if I'd be interested in joining the council years ago and I actually said no because I felt like my passions were more aligned with, like the humane society and some of the animal charities that I was volunteering for at the time.
Speaker 1:And, don't get me wrong, I'm still very passionate about those charities. But I think how things changed for me is they asked me to come in and do a tour of the hospital. I went and spoke to a bunch of like the staff, the doctors, the surgeons, the lab scientists and technicians doing the work that they do and it kind of clicked for me that this isn't just a children's hospital, it's the world's best children's hospital, and the reason that they're number one is they're using tech, data and AI to be more proactive with child and pediatric health care than reactive. So rather than treating every child that comes through the door, how do we find preventative ways so that they don't have to show up? And then you think about the research that's going on at Sick Kids and how it can be translated into third world, countries around the world. I realize that this isn't just a children's hospital. You don't have to have children to be on board with the idea that the research that they're doing is innovative and groundbreaking.
Speaker 2:That's what I was gonna ask is did you have a personal connection? I know it's kind of maybe a sad question to ask, but it sounds like no. You just really believed in the innovation and the work that they were doing and you thought, okay, this is something I can really contribute to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exactly it. You hit the nail on the head. I had zero personal connection at the time when I joined the council, which was years ago. I only became co-chair two years ago, but I had not only no children, but I hadn't even met my partner, john, so the idea of having children wasn't even on my radar.
Speaker 1:And I've been a part of Sick Kids now for quite a few years and leading tech for Sick Kids in the past couple of years, and now John and I are starting to have conversations about having children soon, and I just automatically feel a sense of peace, knowing that we live 10 minutes away from the hospital and knowing that if we did decide to have children, that they would be treated to the best hospital in the world, best doctors. They're in the 90th percentile in terms of success rates for people coming through the door, which is pretty remarkable in pediatric healthcare in terms of stats worldwide. So for me, it started off as an accident. It's been a cause that I've been really passionate about over the past few years, and now it's translating over to my personal life as well.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's really awesome. Yeah, I'd really admire that, and I also think it speaks to the life you've built for yourself that you're able to have both the time freedom and, probably, financial freedom. I'm sure you're contributing financially as well and being able to do that, and that's one of the perks about our lifestyle is you have the extra extra time, extra money to contribute to things outside of just your nine to five job. So I think that's something that I don't talk about enough on the podcast, but it's always like an unfulfilled part of my life, like if I could make my life even more aligned and even more perfect and even more my version of the freedom lifestyle, I would be involved in a bigger project like the way you're doing. So I'm super inspired by that. We're heading into a new year. 2024 is just a few months away. What does leveling up or your next level look like? What are you making happen next year for your business, for your personal life? What are we dreaming?
Speaker 1:So ideally, next year I'm gonna yes, I'm gonna turn 35 or 34, oh my goodness, 1989, 35 next year. So the hundred countries is definitely a personal goal of mine to see more of the world and hit that milestone. I'm getting married next year, so that's another personal milestone of mine. We're having a wedding in Morocco. We've never been. It's a destination wedding, two citizens of the world and I think, professionally, I'm just very committed to continuing to scale the company, both on the product side and the agency side, and do more for the podcasting industry in terms of the data that we can provide.
Speaker 1:So we've already sort of innovated in that, where the only product that can now provide you demographic data age, gender, household income, occupation, social media habits, lifestyle of your listeners we can show you what companies are listing to your podcast. But I wanna take that one step further. So, showing you your loyal listeners and your engaged community, I wanna be able to show things like insights, so powering some of our features with AI to be able to give you insights on what's working, what's not, where the drop-offs are happening, what you could be doing to really level up your show, potentially monetize better. Ai has been pretty revolutionary for a lot of industry so far, but I think the podcasting industry can utilize it more to scale.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that would be huge. Please keep me in the loop with all of that. Yes, because you don't get a lot of information when you have a podcast and you don't have those insights that you can actually take action on. Like, yes, I can see, okay, my downloads have increased, which means usually, like, your marketing is getting better. And I can see, okay, my consumption rate is here, which usually means, okay, the quality of my shows is where it's at. Being able to get more granular than that, I think that would be awesome. So we'll include links to co-host quill all the cool stuff you're doing in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, it's been so nice to see you. I love any time we get a chance to chat. So thanks for saying yes.
Speaker 1:Of course, thank you so much for having me. Honestly, it's an absolute pleasure, and I'm honestly just so proud of the life that you've also curated for yourself. You're like an inspiration, and if something ever happened to either of us tomorrow, I think we can both confidently say we lived a life of no regret. We lived more in our lifetime than most people do, and so, yeah, it's just remarkable, and I know that you've probably inspired a lot of people to live a better version of themselves as well.
Speaker 2:Thanks for saying that we're crushing it, and I agree I would be okay if it ended tomorrow, but I hope it doesn't, because I still have a ton of things I still want to do. So do you so? Hope not, but if so, we've done great. Yeah, we've done great. Thanks so much, fatima, take care. Thanks for tuning in to another episode. If you like what you heard today, you got some value, some inspiration, maybe some clarity on your next step. Please consider supporting the show and also fueling my caffeine addiction. You can now make donations to the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast at buymeacoffeecom slash what's your free. That's buymeacoffeecom slash what's your free. Every one of your coffee contributions not only helps keep me energized when I'm producing this content, but it also really helps remind me that what I'm creating here is valuable and it is helping people and it is worth continuing. So until next time, freedom Seekers, enjoy your freedom.