The Calum Johnson Show

Sahil Bloom is the King of the tweet thread. His content reaches well over 1 million people across the Globe. He's invested in over 40+ startups in the technology sector. He also has a newsletter, The Curiosity Chronicle that has over 125,000 readers and is currently authoring his own book. 👉🏾In this episode, we talk about: … (01:00) What is your biggest accomplishment? (04:50) What is Sahil's biggest comeback moment (LeBron James/ Dallis Maverick moment) (07:20) Experiencing your worst nightmare & fear setting (09:40) Regret Minimization (13:20) Why you must stop caring about the outcome (14:40) The importance of consistency when making content (17:50) Keeping your ego under control (23:10) The Thanos analogy (finite & infinite games) (27:30) The journey to becoming an elite writer (35:50) Letting the audience come to you (Tesla example) (38:10) Being consistent and creating value overtime (42:50) Dealing with uncertainty (54:00) “It takes a village to raise a child." (57:10) What makes someone standout (63:20) Realizing that doing things in a different way could actually lead to an outsized result (70:00) Why you must dispel Binary thinking (73:00) The best things come from tensions (The Shaq & Kobe story) (76:40) The importance of having friction in your life (79:10) Sahil’s superpower (82:00) The importance of always getting back up (Tyson Fury story)

David Morris the Chief Operating Officer at Neoinsulation and Blake Burge is the Director of Manufacturing. Blake has built a following of over 390K followers on Twitter & David has a following of over 66K followers on Twitter. They are friends and colleagues that come together in this episode to drop a lot of wisdom on how people can achieve their goals, live a successful life and stay humble along the way. This is one of the most inspiring, motivational episodes we have done yet. Tune in!!

@MacConwell is fluent in multiple languages. PHP, Python, HTML and another six, according to his Linkedin bio. He’s an important figure in the software industry, investing and mentoring underrepresented innovators. Mac Conwell is the definition of creating your own opportunity. He is the Managing Partner at @RareBreedVC, a pre-seed and seed fund for “a rare breed” of founders. Its mission is to bridge the gap in funding for minority founders that leave Black and Latinx women founders receiving 0.64% of all venture investment. Mac's story is a unique one, from earning 6-figures straight out of college to losing it all to building a multi-million dollar fund primarily through his Twitter account. Mac has over 84K followers on Twitter where he talks about Startups, Business Development, Sales, and every now and then his beloved Baltimore Ravens. In this episode we discuss

Amanda Natvidad is the VP of Marketing at Sparktoro, an audience research startup. Prior to that, she helped build Fitbit’s B2B marketing team. She has also worked as the editorial producer for tech news sites paidContent.org and Gigaom. In the last couple of years she has grown her Twitter following from 1K followers to over 116K followers. Her tweets are filled with personality as she covers all aspects of marketing and building an audience. In this episode we cover: 1. Amanda's unusual career path from chef to journalism to marketing 2. How to build a loyal online audience by being yourself 3. The untraditional job seekers’ Guide 4. The Journey to finding her dream job 5. The future of marketing and where its going

Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) is the Founder & CEO of @ourfuturehq, a media company curating business news in the form of bites for Gen Z audiences. They have exploded in the last year gaining over +500K cross-platform subscribers. In total, Mike has amassed 400M views over the years. Besides creating content for his own podcast, his company also runs the TikTok for @ShaanVP’s and @thesamparr ‘s pod @myfirstmilpod, one of the biggest business podcasts in the space. In this episode we discuss: - The power of podcasting - How & Why Mike started Our Future - How he went from recording 150 podcasts episodes to getting millions of views on TikTok - Crazy story about a big-time podcast guest he managed to interview - His first viral video on TikTok - How he started working with Shaan Puri and Sam Parr for MFM - How he overcomes doubt and burnout as an entrepreneur

This is episode 20 of the podcast. In this episode I sit down with my virtual assistant, Kolby to talk through reaching this milestone for the podcast. We talk about: Whats the podcast origin story? Lessons I have learnt from podcasting What motivated and continues to motivate me to do it Whats next for the podcast? What Mr.Beast taught me about producing content? What have been my favorite guests and how did they inspire me? Advice for someone who is looking to start building a following online?

Jeremy is the CEO and founder of two startups in the content ecosystem. @userp_io is an award-winning marketing agency focusing on SaaS brands, and @wordable_io , an application that makes publishing Google Docs to blogs easier. He has a twitter following of over 80,000, sharing advice on copywriting, a marketing skill he believes could make you millions. In this episode, we discuss: 1. How he started a successful agency business 2. The best way to acquire the necessary skills to run a business 3. The importance of having clear values when starting a company 4. How and why copywriting is a multi-million dollar skillset 5. How he got started writing on Twitter & his first viral moment 6. Work Life balance as an entrepreneur

Dakotah Rice is the founder of Poolit, a platform allowing users to invest in top private equity, venture capital, and hedge funds with no minimums. Before becoming a full-time founder, Dakotah worked for some of the most prestigious firms on Wall Street: Goldman Sachs (trading GS), Coatue and The Carlyle Group. Learning directly from global investment companies with billions under management, he provided a wide range of financial services for his clients with a key purpose to invest wisely and create value over time. With years of experience in the financial industry under his belt, Dakotah left his job to start @thepoolit. Backed by the co-founders of Carlyle and Coatue, Dakotah is laser focused on his mission of making the financial system inclusive for all. In this episode, we talk about The impact that working on Wall Street had on Dakota career & him becoming a founder How he managed to get into such a competitive industry & rise up the ranks so quickly How he made the leap from working in finance to starting his own company How to overcome fear and doubt in you career

Zach Pogrob is the creator behind @behaviorhack on Instagram, where he has racked up a following of close to 200K followers. As a multi platform creator, he shares and tweets powerful messages about following-your-obsession and entrepreneurship besides, of course, documenting his own views about building his brands. He is also the founder of @Peakphotobooths, an innovative photo booth company bringing fun moments for weddings and other events in New Jersey and New York areas. From starting his business with his own savings to sharing tips to fight procrastination, Zach’s motivation, as well as his obsessive approach to reaching his goals are certainly clever and inspiring. In this episode, we discuss about The right moment to monetize your audience How to overcome procrastination and manage your time Transitioning from a 9-to-5 to running your own business Adding value to commoditized products/ services How Zach built a large following & personal brand online How Zach built his content creation machine How he deals with burnout & FOMO when working weekends Does Zach feel satisfaction from his success?

Kirby Porter has been a prominent figure in the sports industry. As the founder of New Game Labs, she supports athletes by building their brands in the creators economy. One of the goals of her company for the next 8 years is ‘to inspire 1 million athletes to unleash their inner creator and leverage technology to scale their brands’ but her ambition doesn’t stop there. Kirby started her career in the marketing and communications department at PepsiCo (trading PEP) before venturing into her own businesses and is currently taking advantage of the power of web 3.0 in the sports industry. In this episode, we discuss: Finding your passion and putting it into practice How athletes can take a piece of the The $100B creators industry and the web 3.0 The massive investments athletes are receiving from brands Transitioning from athlete to entrepreneur Building and strengthening online brands and online audiences

Michael Karnjanaprakorn is behind many successful startups. He started Skillshare and Otis. He was also an early employee at Behance and Hot Potato (now part of META). Michael, who just turned 40, writes about life, money, entrepreneurship and business for his growing 34k followers on Twitter. When he’s not creating disruptive companies, he’s probably eating burgers, improving his golf score or watching UFC fights. In this episode, we discuss: The mindset changes you need to implement in order to achieve professional and financial freedom The power of boredom The concept of personal holding companies - the future of entrepreneurship Michael's experience doing a Dopamine Detox The keys to living the good life - a life of happiness and fulfillment

This is part 2 of our episode with Jack Butcher, Founder of Visualize Value. Jack spent 10 years working in Fortune 100 advertising in NYC as a creative director for multi-billion dollar brands. He then started his own advertising agency and is the founder of @visualizevalue - a platform that offers courses on selling digital products and creating high-impact, unique images. Jack @jackbutcher posts his unforgettable visuals to his 207.9k followers on Twitter. In this episode we discuss: Jack's journey to building Visualize Value How you can figure out what business problem you should be solving Selling 6 figure NFTs & the story of the $77 million NFT The power of brand & community in business

Today’s guest on the podcast is Jack Butcher. Jack spent 10 years working in Fortune 100 advertising in NYC as a creative director for multi-billion dollar brands. He has since started his own advertising agency and is the founder of @visualizevalue - a platform that offers courses on selling digital products and creating high-impact, unique images. Jack (@jackbutcher on Twitter) posts his unforgettable visuals to his 207.9k followers on Twitter. In this episode we discuss: How does the environment you live in influence your work ethic? The impact that moving to NYC had on Jack's career How too much knowledge can actually hold you back from starting new ventures (naivety over knowledge) How Jack made the pivot from working at an agency to starting his own business How Jack found his niche and escaped competition

Today's guest on the podcast is Dave Kline. He is the owner of Skillscouter, where he teaches leaders how to build great teams & level up in their career. Before that he worked for over 10 years at Bridgewater Associates, helping hire talent for the world's biggest hedgefund. He also worked at Moodys, one of the premier financial services companies in the United States. In the last year, he has grown his following on Twitter to nearly 60,000 followers writing on how people can level up in their career. In this episode we discuss: - How to Build trust in the workplace - Handling workplace politics - Finding a company that matches your superpower - Why you should always negotiate your salary - The importance of trying things - 10,000 iterations

Todays guest on the Podcast is Dakota Robertson. He is the owner of Growth Ghost, a six-figure “Twitter Ghostwriting Service” that helps grow intentional audiences, increase profits and decrease workloads for companies. Dakota started off as a “jack of all trades”, he worked as an electrician, security, even started his own drop shipping business. With a few self help books and re-evaluation Dakota began getting into Crypto and learning about Copywriting. From there Dakota created his Twitter account @WrongstoWrite to showcase what he learned about Copywriting and to help others. Dakota has grown his Twitter following to 94K Followers and growing. In this episode we discuss: - What inspired Dakota to start his own business? - Why people in their 20’s should take more risks? - How to change your Identity & improving self-talk - Best way to manage your invested time - How to find your authentic voice when producing content online

Barrett O'Neill is the Co-Founder of OnDemand Storage, a 7-figure storage company. He is also the Owner of BrightLine Media, a company that helps organizations rank higher in search engines. He also worked a year in corporate at Bain Capital. Barrett grew up wanting to be a professional Baseball player however an elbow injury derailed that dream. He started a storage company with his friend in college and has grown that to a 7 figure business. In the last year he has also grown his Twitter following to 60K followers, he tweets a ton of great advice on building companies & growing your online audience. In this episode we discuss: - How Barrett bounced back from a devastating sports injury to achieve his dreams in business - What sets the GOAT athletes apart from the rest & dealing with extreme discomfort - The smart approach to starting a successful business - The importance of moving fast to get what you want - The Winner effect - Being bootstrapped vs raising VC funding

Paige Finn Doherty is a Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures. It's a early stage fund investing in product led growth companies at the future of work and play at the pre-seed/seed stage & they are backed by Bain Capital Ventures, Tribe Capital, Bonfire Ventures among others. She has also written & published her own children's book, Seed to Harvest: A simple explanation of Venture Capital. She has built a following on Twitter & also hosts her own podcast, Seed to Harvest In this episode we talk about: - How she got into Venture Capital & the startup world - Paige's formula for sending the perfect cold email - The value of producing content online & building in public - Pushing through Imposter syndrome - The value of asking for what you want - how Paige built a twitter following, podcast, VC fund, published a book at 23 years old

Wes Kao is the Co-founder of Maven, the first education platform to offer Cohort-based & Community-driven courses. Maven raised $20 million in Series A funding last year. Before that Wes built the Alt-MBA course with Seth Godin. She helped grow the business to thousands of students across 550 cities. She has over 130K followers on Twitter sharing her thoughts on marketing, online courses & mental frameworks. In this episode we talk about: - What inspired Wes to pursue a career in Marketing - How to push through Imposter Syndrome early in your career - How to get promoted & get more responsibility at work - The value of Rigorous thinking & noticing details - How to find & develop your career superpower

This is the 2nd part from our episode with Bilal Zaidi. Bilal is the Founder of Creator Lab, he is also the host of the Creator Lab podcast where he has interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim Urban & Shaan Puri. He is also 1/3 of the Not Investment Advice Podcast with Trung Phan & Jack Butcher. In the 2nd part of this episode we discuss: - Dating & relationships: finding the right life partner - The value he has got from having a podcast - How he got guests like Gary Vaynerchuk & Cenk Uygur on his podcast - How the Not Investment Advice podcast came about

Bilal is the founder of Creator Lab which is a digital marketing agency. He is also the host of the Creator Lab podcast where he has interviewed the likes of Gary Vee, Tim Urban, Anthony Pompliano among others. He is also ⅓ of the Not Investment Advice podcast with Trung Phan & Jack Butcher. This is part 1 of a two part episode. In this episode we discuss: - How Bilal started working at Google straight out of university - How anyone can make an instant impact at their job - How to succeed working in a big company & take your career to the next level . - How you can live life on your own terms

Today's guest is Tyler Schmitt. Tyler was AJ & Gary Vaynerchuk's right hand man for a number of years. He is now the General Manager of 137PM & the host of the Card Talk Pod sponsored by eBay. In this episode we discuss: How Tyler started working for Gary at Vaynermedia The power of punching above your weight How he became Gary's right hand man The importance of building leverage & stacking your chips How you can get your dream job working with someone you admire The best piece of feedback Tyler got from Gary Vee How Tyler became GM of 137PM How he started the Card Talk Pod Socials https://twitter.com/calum_johnson9 https://twitter.com/tySchmitt5

Today's guest is Nathan Baugh. Nathan has gone from 0 to nearly 90K followers on Twitter in less than a year. His tweets combine incredible storytelling with a focus on sports & business. He had his own newsletter called Sideline Sprint & now runs the World Builders newsletter, which focuses on making you a better storyteller. In this episode, we discuss how Nathan got into writing on Twitter, how he uses the platform to build relationships, the simple formula anyone can use to find their own "Zone of Genius". We also cover everything sports & business including how the modern athlete is taking over VC, the power of athletes owning their own narratives & the life lessons you can learn from sports Socials https://twitter.com/calum_johnson9 https://twitter.com/nathanbaugh27

Today's guest is Ben Levy. Ben is the right-hand man to Shaan Puri, he has worked with Shaan on everything from the My First Million Podcast to Shaan's Power Writing Course to the Milk Road newsletter. Ben is a master at building a trusted audience online & he shares all his tips in this episode Show Notes: In this episode we cover who is Ben Levy & what is he working on (2:20), what is great content & whats Ben's process to producing content (5:08), How to go viral online (8:04), how Shaan writes his viral tweet threads (8:56), the importance of authenticity (12:21), how to build a loyal audience (13:37), how Ben would build an audience today if he was starting from scratch (17:23), the importance of storytelling & how the sports industry does a great job of storytelling (19:46), how to actually get good at making content (23:56), the importance of getting a lot of repetitions (27:18), what makes the My First Million Podcast so good (29:18), whats the biggest L that Ben has taken in his career & how did he bounce back (31:45), the importance of getting feedback (33:35), making content is a grind, how does Ben handle that (37:22), successful people outsource everything (39:51), how Ben finds new trends early on (43:00), How Ben curated his twitter feed (46:05), the simple method anyone can use to get a job opportunity with their favorite business person (51:22) Socials https://twitter.com/calum_johnson9 https://twitter.com/benmlevy

Today's guest is Chris Hladczuk. Chris is a recent college graduate & he is absolutely killing it. He has a built an audience of over 160K followers on Twitter, tweeting about interesting business stories & frameworks. He was also the host of the Yale Entrepreneurial Society Podcast, where he interviewed the likes of Emmett Shear (Co-founder & CEO of Twitch), Michael Seibel (CEO of Y-Combinator) & Kevin Ryan ("Godfather of NYC Tech"). Today he is an Investment Banking Analyst at Goldman Sachs. Show Notes: In this episode we cover what Chris' mindset was heading into college (2:15), running the Yale Entrepreneurs Society like a startup (5:34), Starting a podcast & getting great guests like Michael Seibel (6:54), the cold email playbook (10:55), the importance of following up (16:21), How he prepared for podcast interviews (17:25), Research process for podcast interview (21:10), How he stayed in contact with podcast guests after the episode (23:48), The importance of providing value (26:31), How he started producing content on Twitter (28:27), The story of his 1st viral tweet thread (31:37), His sporting background & how it helps him today (33:49), How does he stay consistent on his goals (36:08), Chris' process for writing tweet threads - must listen (38:17), Imposter syndrome on Twitter - can anyone build a following? (41:04), How he networks on Twitter (43:02), Chris' formula for sending DMs to influential people (46:30), The CNBC anchor who replied to his tweet (48:22), Being Shaan Puri's apprentice & what he learnt from it (49:56), Where you can follow Chris (50:58) Socials https://twitter.com/calum_johnson9 https://twitter.com/chrishlad

Today's guest is Blake Burge. Blake runs the manufacturing arm of a business in Oklahoma. He has also built a huge Twitter following in the past year, going from 0 to over 150K followers in 10 months. He tweets out life advice, business stories & productivity hacks. Show Notes: In this episode we cover what topics Blake finds interesting (4:18), how people can get started working on their goals (7:44), how Blake grew his following so quick (14:15), the first tweet that Blake posted which went viral (15:53), How does Blake find interesting topics to write about (18:17), How people can find their unique voice/ style on Twitter (23:22), More on Blake's writing process after he has an idea (31:36), The power authenticity (36:47), The story of Blake meeting Sam Parr, host of MFM (39:52), The importance of positive momentum (44:22), How Blake grew such a massive following (45:15), The importance of going all in (49:32) & How does Blake stay motivated when things don't go well (55:36)

Today's guest is Ruben Harris, CEO & Founder of Career Karma. Career Karma gives you the information, tools, and support you need to quickly get into a tech career. In this episode we discuss Career Karma's recent $40 million funding round, how anyone can find their purpose & why its so important. Finally how Ruben finds emerging trends early & the value of an incredible network. Show notes: Career Karma's recent $40 million dollar funding round, why Ruben started the importance of finding your purpose (3:47), What inspired Ruben to publish content online (5:55), where does Ruben get his confidence from (8:54), why entrepreneurship media can be toxic (14:07), How Ruben turns losses into Ws (17:35), How Ruben broke into investment banking (20:07), Why succeeding in today's current job market is mostly psychological (22:10), How employees can win in today's job market (25:42), Why timing is everything (27:49), Why now is the right time for a company like Career Karma (29:09), How think clearly & predict trends (33:53), What pushback did Ruben get while fundraising (36:55), Who inspires Ruben (41:49), How to build a world-class network (44:43) Ruben Harris: https://twitter.com/rubenharris https://www.instagram.com/rubenharris/