IAM199- Podcast Hosts Chat with Guests On How To “Get There” as Millennials

Brock and Tiffany are hosts of the millennial lifestyle podcast called, Are We There Yet? Millennials are the most studied and talked about generation to date. Their podcast sets aside the studies and jumps straight to the talk. They sit down with friends and strangers alike to chat about their past, present, and future as they navigate how to “get there”.

• CEO Hack: Tiffany: Calm app for meditation.  Brock: Writing goals down on a physical planner
• CEO Nugget: Brock: Get up there and do it. Tiffany; Being intentional about what you do
• CEO Defined: Brock: Being able to evolve as things come along. Tiffany: The driver of the future of your company, doing something you believe in and passing that along

Website: http://www.awtypodcast.com/

Instagram: @awtypodcast

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresham from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very, two special very special guests on the show today. I have Brock Anderson and Tiffany Esco from the Are We There Yet? Podcast. Brock and Tiffany, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Tiffany Esco 0:38

Hi, thanks for having us on!

Gresham Harkless 0:40

No problem. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Brock and Tiffany so you can hear about all the awesome things that they are doing. And Brock and Tiffany are hosts of the millennial lifestyle podcast called Are We There Yet? Millennials are the most studied and talked about generation to date. Their podcast sets aside the studies and jumps straight to the talk. They sit down with friends and strangers alike to chat about their past, present, and future as they navigate how to get there Brock and Tiffany, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Tiffany Esco 1:08

Let's do it.

Brock Anderson 1:09

Yeah

Gresham Harkless 1:10

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So the first question I had is just to hear a little bit more from both of you about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to start your podcast?

Tiffany Esco 1:18

I think Brock let you talk about this because it kind of started on a cot in Guatemala, right?

Brock Anderson 1:24

It did. Yeah. So I was at the workshop out in Guatemala, doing some service work for everybody out there. And at night time, you kind of have a couple, couple hours of downtime. So you just start to talk and chat. And it was during this was four years ago, three years ago now. And the millennial bashing at the time kind of became a trend. I mean, as we've seen in media now is always buzzword stuff.

And everything is targeted around the millennial generation, you know, five things you'll never believe millennials are doing now. And just at that time, it was kind of just like a man, I am a millennial, and so is Tiffany. Just wanted a way to have resources for millennials to prove that we're not this, this norm that always people are thinking we are. And podcasting wasn't huge at the time.

And I thought like, you know, maybe I'll make a support forum for millennials to go on just to prove like, hey, we're actually doing cool things. We're not just living in our parent's basement, you know, just getting government money all the time. And the idea of the podcast came really all out of that and kind of just branched off from there.

Tiffany Esco 2:22

Yeah. And then for me, it's a little more simple than that. Brock approached me and said I am starting a podcast, want to join? And I said, Yep.

Brock Anderson 2:29

Yeah, yeah.

Gresham Harkless 2:30

No Guatemala for you?

Tiffany Esco 2:31

No, I didn't have to go through the whole like, Eat Pray Love experience. But yeah, I definitely was on board from the start. I'm a huge podcast listener and avid supporter of that platform. So it was given

Gresham Harkless 2:46

Awesome, awesome.

Brock Anderson 2:47

And Millennial supporter.

Gresham Harkless 2:48

There you go.

Tiffany Esco 2:49

Yes, of course.

Gresham Harkless 2:50

There you go. Yeah, I am a third millennial on here. So I would definitely say sometimes millennial is a curse word more than anything else. So I appreciate you guys for you know, bringing light to us, not, you know, taking government money and living in our parent's basement. And I wanted to drill down a little bit more here about like what you're doing with this podcast, you tell us a little bit more about like what your listeners are hoping to hear and going to be hearing in the podcast.

Tiffany Esco 3:12

Yeah. So kind of piggybacking off of what Brock said, for me, I absolutely love my family. But I grew up with a family that did exactly what Brock was saying, my generation got pigeonholed, we got put into little checkboxes of what our personality is, you know, we're entitled or this or that. And while I think we're definitely a different generation, I wanted to work with Brock to kind of shine a light on the individuality that's within this giant group of people. And so what we do is we are an interview style podcast, and we sit down and we talk with people within our generation, sometimes we have what we call pitstops, where we talk to people outside our generation, just to add a little more duality and get both sides of the coin.

And we literally just sit down, have a pretty casual conversation, we get to know them what their life is, like, what they were like growing up what their interests were. And oftentimes it ends up being a discussion leading up to what they're currently working on in their career business-wise, or some projects or hobbies that really taken over their life. And oftentimes, it's a really awesome story. And we get to know people at a more intimate level than just little checkmarks of what their personality should be based on the latest BuzzFeed article or whatever.

And so yeah, we'll talk a lot of times, there are friends, a lot of times they're strangers, we talk about their past, present future, and ultimately what their goals are and how they're working to get there and whether they feel they are there or not. And the conversations kind of take a really cool turn and people you'll find that a lot of individuals have really interesting stories and completely different life experiences that have brought them to where they are now. And so our ultimate goal it's just to sit down, get to know people more, and shine a light on some awesome individuals who are doing some pretty incredible things within our generation

Gresham Harkless 5:09

Absolutely love the name of the podcast, obviously from you know, the road tripping in thinking about that. And also like the visual, you kind of get where I guess you correct me if I'm wrong, everybody has like a different get there. So it's just kind of documenting, like where they are in their process and what steps they've taken to get where they are now, but also where they're going in the future.

Tiffany Esco 5:27

Yeah, and you know, Gresham, the coolest part for me has always been the very end of the episode, we'll ask the same question to everyone. We ask them. Are You There Yet? And where's there for you? And the answer is always, without fail, blowing our minds, and they're all completely different. I don't think we've ever had

Brock Anderson 5:43

Not even similarly close to the same answer, which is unbelievable.

Tiffany Esco 5:47

Yeah.

Brock Anderson 5:47

Interesting, interesting. Yeah, that also brings light to like, like you guys were mentioned, like pigeonholed and holding millennials into one box and saying your X, Y, and Z when in reality, we all are different and unique, just like every other generation.

Tiffany Esco 5:59

Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 5:59

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And you might have already touched on this. But this is what you feel kind of distinguishes you or your organization or your podcast.

Brock Anderson 6:09

I would just say yeah, taking back off with what Tiffany said very just the target demographic of our whole podcast is definitely no generation just that secret sauce. I think the millennial generation alone just had that secret sauce. Just when you look at, you know, generations across the board. If you were to say what millennial generation, or what generation has the most secret sauce of anything, it's got to be the millennial generation. I mean, I think anybody would agree that it is so unique, and just such a special special thing.

Tiffany Esco 6:34

Yeah. And I think we don't, what's kind of crazy is we don't necessarily have an agenda beyond shining a light on people's stories. So we're not necessarily trying to guide people to only talk about their careers, or only, you know, we're not trying to shine a light that millennials are exactly the opposite of what people think. So sometimes we'll talk to people who kind of do follow that trajectory of, you know, all those personality traits, but there's still something really special about them. So we try to be as authentic as possible

Gresham Harkless 7:05

Absolutely, absolutely. And authenticity is definitely one of those buzzwords as well, too. So get an opportunity to have kind of that conversation about, you know, where somebody is, where they're going. And, you know, like you said exactly what that means for them is definitely something great that you guys are putting together. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or a habit that you have, but it's something that you guys felt makes you more effective and efficient.

Brock Anderson 7:05

Oh, this is a good one.

Tiffany Esco 7:30

Yeah, Brock is the ultimate, he comes to mind. Right? Think of this question. I'll say really quickly. For me, it's actually a life-slash business. That's the key word those two together with the slash, one thing that has been really helpful for me is the calm app, which is kind of counterintuitive. But I think when you're going all day, you're hustling, your mind is not stopping. There's something awesome about that. But there's something to be said about shutting it off, and kind of being a little more present and finding your inner dialogue. And then I think that helps my productivity a lot more than the next day. So I use the calm app to kind of self-meditate or walk myself through a little bit of breathing and chill out every once in a while. And I think it kind of helps everything else full circle.

Brock Anderson 8:17

This one I'm very passionate about. I used to be very scatterbrained and very, I would miss appointments, I would miss meetings, homework wouldn't be done in time, whatever it be for the week, and somebody told me that, hey, you know, writing it down really just makes it stick in your brain a little bit more. And I had read all this stuff about research about how when you have a planner, and you write down what your tasks are each week, that it just something about writing it down just makes it official, and it kind of sticks in your brain a little bit more. And honestly getting a physical planner and writing stuff down what I have to get done for the week, as far as tasks go.

And then also on that same week, I write down bigger goals that I have to do for the month. So every single day, when I open that planner, I see things I have coming up in the week, and then bigger things that I can be working on to maybe check off by the end of the month. And also it could just be my personality or just a certain type of personality type, I guess. But cross off those items as you complete them. It's just such a good feeling. I don't know what it is. But I've tried a bunch of mobile apps and stuff too.

And pushing a button that removes the screen is there's just it's just not as rewarding as just drawing that line through these items that come every week. I just can't recommend it enough to get something physical that you can really write down and really just go and accomplish when you get things done every week. It's just It changed my life for sure.

Tiffany Esco 9:37

Yeah. And I will say I can verify this Brock is like the modern-day clerk cat. He's one of those guys who can somehow get more accomplished in a day than there is enough time to actually get it done. So if you look at everything you can get done in a day. You try to add the approximate time you think it would take somehow it's not possible but he makes it possible. So trust is a big

Brock Anderson 10:00

That's a great way to put it

Gresham Harkless 10:01

You are a superhuman, Brock, thanks, for letting us know that. And I definitely would say that if you're getting so many things then and I always like to cross things off, because there's nothing that replaces that.

Brock Anderson 10:10

Absolutely. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out a way to put more hours in a day, but haven't quite figured it out yet.

Gresham Harkless 10:15

Yeah. If you figure that one out, let me know as well, too.

Brock Anderson 10:17

Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 10:18

All right, cool. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Brock Anderson 10:29

Oh, this is a good one. We actually kind of went through it really, when we first started, we were trying to just really plan out the whole thing. We didn't really know much about podcasts. And as we listened to a lot of podcasts both of us did, but we didn't really know a lot about the technical side of it, you know, the recording that how do you set up an interview? How do you, you know, how you structure questions, who says what, and when. And then we went on somebody's podcast at Drama from Fantasy Factory, Robin, and big stuff like that.

And he told us, we were just asking questions about, you know, like, we're trying to launch this thing, giving you tips and advice, and he told us, you've gotta get out there and just do it, no matter what, just get out there and do it the first couple of times, it's going to suck, and absolutely true, I wish that we would have started sooner than what we did. And just got out there and just do it. Because the things that you learn as you do, it is invaluable. You, there's no book that's going to tell you certain things, or certain things that are going to come up that you're not going to be able to wrap your mind around until you get out there and actually do it.

Tiffany Esco 11:25

Yeah. And on top of that, I would say for me personally, just being intentional about it. So a lot of times we have a side hustle or something that we want to do in addition to our full-time jobs, or whatever. And I firmly believe that if for myself, I wish I would have done is gone back and made sure to even though it's a hobby or a side hustle, I would have made sure to allocate time and be really intentional about it and make a lot of time in my week or on the weekend or whenever to just sit down and work on nothing but that I couldn't make excuses or other things couldn't take priority over it. And it would actually happen

Gresham Harkless 12:04

That makes perfect sense that I think those are two great nuggets, just because a lot of times, you know if you have a vision for something that you want to do, you have to make sure you dedicate that time in order to do that. But you also have to just sometimes jump in the deep end and get started because even podcasting and you know, everything technology really is so kind of new, sometimes you're still scraping the surface. So even if you read a quote-unquote, book that has everything you need to know about podcasting or anything, there's always some unique wrinkle, or there's some new evolution in the industry that can kind of change things.

Tiffany Esco 12:32

Yeah, life happens fast, man.

Gresham Harkless 12:34

Awesome, awesome, awesome, man. Now I wanted to ask you guys my absolute favorite question. And I know you mentioned you asked everybody to define what there was to them. And we ask what being a CEO means to you guys. So I want to ask you guys, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Brock Anderson 12:47

Oh, this is tough, because I've worked at a lot of different companies and been under a lot of different CEOs, totally different styles of things. And I think that my perception of it over the years has changed, it's evolved. And I think the word evolve is, is one thing that really sticks out for me is being a CEO, whether it be a podcast or a company, being able to evolve as things as things come along. I think a good CEO evolves with whatever you're doing, or whatever the nature of the company has. So to me as CEO really is being that top evolver. That'd be a company.

Tiffany Esco 13:21

For me, kind of like Brock, I've worked with a few. I think whether you have a team of one or yourself, I think it's important to be the driver of the future for your company, kind of what Brock said that your eyes are always ahead, and you're kind of inspiring everyone to move forward with you in whatever direction that may be. And I think a great CEO is doing something that they truly believe in. And they're also passing that down-waterfall effect to everyone else so that everyone's really on board. It's not just necessarily a job to them. And then I think that they also are trusting fully in their team that everyone has their purpose and is smart and knows what they're doing. And we're all working for the single

Brock Anderson 14:08

Means out there too, that has been popping up a lot recently too. And those images of a good CEO versus bad CEO and there's images and the bad CEO where say they're rowing a boat and the CEO is up at the front just yelling at them giving them direction and so the good CEO is in the boat with them in the front of the boat rowing with them. And I mean that those images, have you seen more and more I think the true definition of what a good CEO can be.

Tiffany Esco 14:31

Yeah, jump in the trenches, everyone.

Brock Anderson 14:34

Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 14:35

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, Brock and Tiffany I truly appreciate you for taking some time out but I wanted to do is pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and how best they can get a hold of you and of course subscribe to your podcast.

Brock Anderson 14:47

One thing that I would say for all that just in touch and how to reach us and all that good stuff too and whatever other comments but one thing that I really want to put out there that we we haven't really just flat out said is back to the millennial bashing and stuff. Is that if you are a millennial out there and you are in your parent's basement or doing whatever you know the stereotype might be that you have to keep in mind that you are capable of so much. Just because you're a millennial doesn't mean that no matter what you hear from your parents or what you hear from you know, older generations you're just not going to not say anything that that is absolutely not true. If you go back and look at what Windows is doing right now we're doing so much we're we have started more businesses and run more companies that have become big really fast than at any time in history. So just because you're a millennial doesn't mean that you're not capable of doing anything and honestly, anything you put your mind to No, it sounds really corny, but anything you put your mind to is capable.

Tiffany Esco 15:40

And hey, don't knock on parent's basements, so many huge companies were started in basements.

Gresham Harkless 15:43

And garages

Brock Anderson 15:46

And garages. Exactly.

Tiffany Esco 15:47

Yeah, I think that's 100%. kind of the message we want to get out there. As far as getting a hold of us. You can subscribe to us on iTunes or on Stitcher, SoundCloud. It's called the Are We There Yet? Podcast AWTY Podcast. We also have you can follow us on our Instagram account and Twitter, which is also at AWTY Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 16:09

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much. I truly appreciate both of you for your time and all the insight that you're providing. And of course, the podcast that you have. We'll make sure to have those links in the show notes and I hope you too. Have a great rest of the day.

Brock Anderson 16:20

You too.

Tiffany Esco 16:21

Thank you. You too. Thanks so much for talking to us.

Outro 16:23

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co

I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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