Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:05
Introducing Holly Shannon: For the love of Crypto, Entrepreneurship, and of course Podcasting!
And some of the things that you talked about with podcasting really translate to anything that we do in life because we're always sort of positioning ourselves and branding ourselves. Not only does she have the podcast, but she also has a book that's on the bestsellers list at Amazon. So she really helps people from step to step how to become a really great podcaster. So, Holly, thank you for being here. I really look forward to this conversation growing
Was it something that you just studied in College or was it something that you got out into your career and that's something you kind of took on? I'm curious to hear kind of your experience with entrepreneurship. Have you helped Kickstart anything or what's your experience with that? But more specifically, I want to know your thoughts on, I would say, the current growth that we are having in entrepreneurship
Hi, Holly. I have a question for you about cryptocurrency. Within the past few years, we have really seen this explode and really start to take off know, and you see a lot of different places where you can get crypto from. We have, like Coinbase finance, Kraken, Gemini, Toro, of course, like Robinhood Coin Mama Cue Coin list goes on and on. And I guess my question is somebody who is interested in not only learning more about crypto, but possibly investing in it
And so I kind of want to know what your advice is to have a really great podcast or just have a really empowering message that people are going to be compelled to listen to and not just continuously scroll through
Kenzie Kettwig
@kenzie · 0:28
Hi. My question is why should people care about cryptocurrency? Because I know that like, it's really prevalent in today's culture. I hear a lot of people talking about it in school and everything like that, but it seems like a really difficult subject to get into when you know absolutely nothing about it. So another question I have would be where is a good place to start and how did you get into it and what advice do you have for people starting out
Hi Holly, I'm so happy to speak. I have two questions I want to ask you today. First, I was wondering we talked about like in your introduction, marketing yourself. And I was wondering if you have any advice because I feel like in life a lot of times you have to learn how to pitch yourself and learn what you bring to the table. So I was just wondering your thoughts on that. And also just like what's your advice for someone wanting to start a podcast?
Holly Shannon
@HollyShannon · 4:51
Now in terms of freelancing and the pandemic, it really spurred a lot of growth in the freelancing platforms like Fiverr and Contra, and there's a whole bunch of Upwork, just to name a few, really took off because it was an opportunity for people to use their skill sets or try to grow a certain skill
Holly Shannon
@HollyShannon · 5:00
Let's see, as for I'm probably going to get cut off here so I'll probably have to add but I think the reason why people like the idea of it is that it's desired because they feel like they have autonomy and that there's no government to it, that they can exchange cryptocurrencies and it's money that they can take care of and exchange peer to peer and not have the government involved in it
Holly Shannon
@HollyShannon · 4:00
But people are using cryptocurrency because the people have their mobile phones. They can't go to a bank, but they have their mobile phones. So if they can get money into a wallet that holds cryptocurrency, they could maybe make transactions using that. So just a couple of interesting use cases, I guess I just threw in there and maybe those are a little maybe would be considered over the top
Holly Shannon
@HollyShannon · 5:00
And I think a lot of the way things were handled changed or like how companies were run and the way culture was now established because everybody was work from home. Sorry, my clock is like binging in the background. So I changed it to include emerging leadership. And then I got to a point where I realized that the show had really talked a lot about there were topics on mental health, diversity, equity and inclusion, and on the gig economy
Holly Shannon
@HollyShannon · 1:24
Just one, like try not to write full sentences because it's really hard to read the sentence and stay present and organic in your answer. So in answer to your question, I wrote down you wanted to know about great podcasting. So I wrote down that to summarize. And then I wrote underneath the consistency, curiosity and passion. And then under passion, I wrote two words, change and rebrand. And then when you said about struggle with words, I wrote keywords next to that
Holly Shannon
@HollyShannon · 2:08
So I think if there's something that you're really excited to talk about and curious about, there's a spot for everybody. And frankly, the more niche down you are, the better. And that makes you more discoverable and will probably make your content especially interesting because you will be really laser focused on it. Happy to come talk to your group at UC Berkeley
Holly Shannon
@HollyShannon · 3:29
I did mention in previous Swell with another person that there's just some interesting things. You see what's happening in Ukraine and nobody has access to a bank, but they have mobile phones. And by using cryptocurrency they might be able to survive like buy food and things like that. So there's just some interesting use cases. Make no mistake. I mean, banks are starting to accept it. I believe Mastercard is restaurants are people are starting to buy property using it
Holly Shannon
@HollyShannon · 2:32
So personal branding, I think requires a lot of vulnerability and to put yourself out there, number one, and then to put your real self out there. So I wish you a lot of luck with that. In terms of starting a podcasts, it's also a great way to brand yourself and let people hear your thoughts and ideas. I think everybody should own their own microphone, especially women. I think there should be more female voices out there. So I would encourage you to do that
Caitlin Jensen
@Cait.Jensen · 0:33
So something that I'm interested in asking is that I was wondering how it works. Kind of being your own businesswoman and cohesively being kind of like an entrepreneur for your podcast, for your or book and honestly, how to time manage that in day to day life and find time to do things like cryptocurrency and all these other hobbies that you may have alongside kind of like running a business. The podcast, if you will
Caitlin Jensen
@Cait.Jensen · 0:38
Another thing that I was interested in is as a woman, I feel like financial literacy is not a very big thing for women or lots of young adults have to educate themselves in financial literacy. And so I I was just kind of wondering how your cryptocurrency journey started, how that works, what it was like building portfolio and if you are into other things, such as investments in stocks or other types of investing and how it Rachel into cryptocurrency
Holly Shannon
@HollyShannon · 1:58
I think I'm answering all these replies at 1130. So it's been a long day. Anyway, she is really good at financial literacy and really helps create an understanding about cryptocurrency and Bitcoin and NFT from that perspective. And she's funny as I'll get out. So I will find a way to attach her episode so that you can learn about her and yeah, so that's it. Thanks
Holly Shannon
@HollyShannon · 0:37
Okay, so it's Brooke Lacey and it's episode 90 on Culture Factor. So I think this is probably going to come up before my actual answer to your question. It's going to probably be out of order because I'm a little newer to swell and it's late and I'm really sorry, but you got the information, which is really what my goal was. So again, her name is Brooke Lacey
Holly Shannon
@HollyShannon · 4:12
I think as an entrepreneur you're just always iterating on what the next thing is you want to do or learn about. I think if you're kind of a born entrepreneur like I am, you can't help but be curious all the time and try and take on new things. I probably take on more than I should. So you're probably asking me a little bit about time management and how I get everything done
Kenzie Kettwig
@kenzie · 0:52
Hi, Holly. Thank you so much for sharing and answering my questions. While I was listening to your Swell, I had a couple more questions for you, and I'm not sure that they've already been addressed, but I wanted to go ahead and ask them anyway just in case they haven't. So my next question for you is how do we make sure that cryptocurrency is safe and protected? Is there any way people can go hack into banks, networks and things like that?
Holly Shannon
@HollyShannon · 2:45
So I'm not sure that we're always 100% safe. I think wherever there's money, there's always going to be good institutions and good measures put in place to protect us, but there's always going to be those bad actors. I would say that there are different types of wallets involved in all of this that you could deploy for yourself. So you can get a warm wallet to store your cryptocurrencies and never share your secret phrase. Usually I think it's something like twelve words