So many of my clients struggle with, first of all, knowing what they want to do next, and then being married to that decision for the rest of their lives. They think that they’ll be stuck behind the confines of the decisions they make right now. But it’s not true! This is the beginning of your next evolution and you can always keep evolving! This concept can be hard to imagine, so this week I invited a very special guest to show you what always evolving can look like. 

Amy Landino is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and award-winning host of the popular YouTube series AmyTV. For over a decade, Amy has been a leading authority on getting digital attention and is a trusted educator by global brands, including Adobe, Oracle, Audible, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, YouTube, Intuit Quickbooks, and many more. An internationally renowned public speaker, Amy is a professional coach on how to leverage digital tools to increase brand awareness and build a profitable and sustainable business.

In this week’s episode, we have a very special guest. My (unofficial) mentor Amy Landino is joining me on the podcast! I’ve been following her on YouTube for over ten years and I’ve been on her podcast not once, but twice. Now she’s joining me on my podcast to talk about all things entrepreneurship, what she does when she’s feeling stuck, and how she finds the passion to take action. 

Follow Amy on:
Instagram @‌schmittastic

Youtube @‌AmyTV 

Website: amylandino.com 

Follow Erika on:
Instagram @‌theerikacruz
TikTok @‌theerikacruz
LinkedIn

Website:
http://www.theerikacruz.com

How to work with Erika:

Sign up for the “The Purpose Pivot” webinar here.

Join the waitlist for Courage Driven Latina here.

Join the waitlist for the Magnetic Mastermind here.

Podcast production for this episode was provided by CCST.

Episode Transcript:

Erika: Welcome back to this week’s episode of Chingona Revolution podcast. Do I have an incredible episode in store for you today? I have a guest who is somebody that I’ve looked up to for years and never did I think that we were going to cross paths and become friends because this is really somebody who was a mentor and maybe some of you feel that way about me, right?

This like an unofficial mentor that you come to the podcast to learn from, or maybe watch my journey and learn from me? Well, that is the equivalent for me, and this person is the YouTuber and bestselling author, Amy Landino. I’ve been following her YouTube videos for, I wanna say, over a decade. So it is just surreal to have her on the podcast.

today. And this episode y’all is good. We talk about making your dreams a reality. We talk about manifestation. We talk about the importance of connecting with others, the importance of service, the importance of a personal brand. We talk business. We talk about both of our stories. Amy shares some very Insightful, personal realizations, as well as stories that, oh man, like I almost cried on this podcast.

So please listen. Once you start listening, you’re going to be hooked. This is definitely one of those episodes that you might want to come back to and listen to. So who is Amy Landino? In case you don’t know who she is, which in my world, everybody knows who Amy is. But if you don’t know who Amy is, she is an entrepreneur, a bestselling author, and an award winning host of the popular TV series, Amy TV.

For over a decade, Amy has been a leading authority on getting digital attention and is a trusted educator by global brands, including Adobe, Oracle, Audible, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Intuit, QuickBooks, and many, many more.

As An internationally renowned public speaker, Amy is a professional coach on how to leverage digital tools and increase brand awareness and build a profitable and sustainable business. You can learn more about how to work with Amy by visiting her Instagram.

And I’ve got to say, yeah, visit her Instagram. Also check out her YouTube and her books.All right, let’s get into this interview.

Amy Landino, welcome to my podcast. 

Amy: Thank you for having me, Erika. I feel like I just saw you five minutes ago and I’m thrilled about it. I love it. I love being here. I love seeing you. It’s my favorite. 

Erika: Yeah. So before we started recording, I was reflecting to you that I was so excited to have you on my podcast for many reasons, but I think the biggest reason is that this is really a full circle moment for me because I feel like you gave me my big break before I even knew that I deserved it.

Because I was a guest on your podcast before I had a business before I knew what I was doing. I was simply showing up on Tik TOK. People were laughing at me because they were like, Oh, my little sister’s on Tik TOK. But you and I connected on Tik TOK and I was like, Oh my gosh, Amy Landino is on Tik TOK.

And I remember I followed you for years before that on YouTube and I always loved being productive and healthy habits. And you were the one person that was talking about that. So it was like this person that I looked up to acknowledge me and then gave me this opportunity. And then I was on your podcast.

And then I think a few months later I left my job. And then you were like, do you want to come back on the podcast and talk about this? Yeah. It was 

Amy: twice, wasn’t it? Yeah. That’s what I was thinking. Cause I know I talked to you before you left and after, Oh my gosh. Yeah. 

Erika: And after we ended the recording of the first podcast, because you were like, okay, Hey, what is this?

TikTok thing? Do you want to come talk about it? And I was like, yeah, we’ll come talk about it. And I remember you gave me such good advice. You were like, okay, what’s your plan? I was like, I have no idea. And you were like, if there’s anything I can say to you. Start collecting emails because whatever it is that you decide to do, you want to be able to have people’s contact info.

So it’s thanks to you that I have an email list and thanks to you that I have people to sell to once I actually had a business and a service. So thank you so much. I’m gonna die 

Amy: on the email marketing hill. Like I still, I feel like it’s actually. So commonplace for what the people who are running a sustainable business understand why it’s there But like you just don’t hear about it as much because everyone’s so busy talking about Instagram YouTube and sexy stuff on The front end.

So thank you for giving me that shout out I feel like that makes me sound old but also like the real ones know you need an email list 

Erika: Yeah. And you’re definitely not old. You just started young. 

Amy: Yeah. I appreciate that. But no, I mean, oh my gosh, no, it’s, it’s such a nice thing to hear all of that, that I’ve been a part of this journey for you at all.

And I want to commend you because first of all, Yes, I showed up on a little thing called Tik Tok one day and Miss Erika found me and was like, Oh my gosh, what are you doing here? This is so cool. And you DM me. Now let’s talk about that for a second because you reaching out to me. Is such a confidence move to say, like, I’m going to go to Amy and be like, welcome to the platform.

Nobody was like really DMing each other like that yet. Right. And it’s so ahead of your time or ahead of everyone’s time to be like, I’m going to go into someone’s DMS and be like, let’s, let’s talk. How can I support you? And there’s still not enough of that going on, but also like. I was afraid of DMing with anyone at that time.

So when you DMed me, I was like, Whoa, she reached out. She’s been in my community. She welcomed me here and I’m not comfortable. That’s such a vibe. I need to know you immediately. So for anyone who’s listening, I need you to hear how important that is. Like, if you think that someone is Either your peer or not your peer or superior to you or not superior to you has more experience has less experience.

Just like do something cool and reach out and say, Hey, you’re, you’re awesome. And is there anything I can do to support you? It will change your life to the point where I was like, dude, I love talking to cool people on the internet, on my podcast. And I think someone like you needs to sum up for everybody, why we need to pay attention to Tik TOK.

So can you do that? And for you to come on and talk about it and like, still not even Know exactly what you’re doing in your business. It takes a, you take a chance on yourself and you do that. And I want more people to do that. So I needed to make sure everyone really got that spelled out. It wasn’t like I came to Erica and was like, nice job on tip shop.

You reached out, you did the work. You don’t just show up as a brand. You actually. Go the extra mile, and people need to hear that. 

Erika: I appreciate that, and I received that. Thank you for saying that. And one of the things I want to highlight about what you just said, is it wasn’t like I messaged you and said, Hey, I want to be on your podcast.

It was like, Hey, I’m so excited you’re here. I’ve been following you. How can I support you on this new platform? So I think, As people are reaching out to others, always look at it from a service perspective. How can you serve? What is it that you can offer that person? Because nobody wants to feel like somebody wants to take from you.

And I think that’s what made this work so well for the both of us. 

Amy: Because now we know the DMS be all up in the spam land. And I still spend a lot of time there because I like to talk to my community and the DMS, but I have to filter through a lot of people who are lazy and just copy and paste, join my thing, hire me to edit your videos.

My favorite thing in the world is somebody will DM me, your videos are so bad and your engagement is so low. And I’m just like. That’s a great way to open a sales conversation to not continue So it’s it’s like be genuinely curious with people and ask them questions and see if they respond and see if a relationship grows from There it will change your life 

Erika: Yes, yes, yes.

100%. I knew this was going to be a great interview. I haven’t even asked you any questions and it’s already. I know. I just kind of, I’m sorry. I just like ran with it. I didn’t mean to take over. I love it. You’re welcome to do this. So, obviously people have heard your introduction, what it is that you’ve accomplished, Three time best selling author, speaker, I mean, YouTube of over half a million at this point, right?

You have 

Amy: Um, almost. Almost. Not quite. Okay, we’re Maybe by the time people listen to this show. 

Erika: Yeah, here we go. Here we go. And Um, one of the things that I wanted to ask is, you know, even when I see you, cause I read your book, Good Morning, Good Life, before I was on your podcast. So I really, I really was a listener and a fan and I followed you and I remember reading the book and thinking, it’s so crazy to see you as this person who didn’t have a morning routine or didn’t have all of these, all of these healthy habits.

So my question is, was there ever a moment in your life when you felt stuck or unsure of what your next path was? 

Amy: Every day, every day. This is what people misunderstand. The stuckness, the resistance, it’s all the time. We see people who are motivating us, oftentimes thinking they’ve got it all figured out, but all they’ve figured out are some standards that need to be in place in their life.

By hitting those standards. Um, you, it’s kind of like, it’s kind of like bumper bowling. Have you ever been bumper bowling, Erica? So you know, it’s like you could just go bowling. You might hit the gutter, you know, and it’s like, I don’t want to hit the gutter. I want to be mostly there. I want to get the ball down there.

Okay. Even if we don’t get it perfect, when you have standards in your life, like what you do to start the day and what you say no to and what you do consistently so that no matter what you get better. They’re kind of like the bumpers, they, they keep you on the lane and they keep the ball going in the right direction, hopefully, and not onto someone else’s lane, a lane we shouldn’t be in.

So it’s, it’s kind of like that. So the stuckness and the, and the feelings of not enough and having resistance pop up, you have to assume it’s going to happen. And so successful people simply have standards in place that are like, okay, if I just, you know, I start the day with healthy protein, the rest of the day will be a little bit better.

Or if I start the day with a workout, the rest of the day will be a lot better. So no matter what happens, when things go rogue, my kids go crazy. Um, I don’t get to bet on time. Some other things are going to happen. I’m in a million meetings and I didn’t get the one thing done I needed to do today, which was focused work.

If you’ve got some standards in place, you’re mostly on the up and up. You have the ability for things to kind of fall off every once in a while. And your mindset is going to fall off every once in a while. The better you are with the right standards that help you with that, the better off you will be, the more consistent you’ll be, the further you will get.

There’s a standard I have in place for how much I consume that I need. To consume. So I’m not talking about consuming the news or consuming a TikTok scroll. Even I’m talking about, I like to listen to Jim Rohn videos on YouTube. I like to listen to my favorite YouTubers, um, motivational leaders, certain podcasts with certain people.

And I read 10 pages of a nonfiction book without mist every single day. And that nonfiction book is something that is going to empower me. I’m not a fan of fiction, but if maybe if I was, I would love reading that when I’m on vacation, on a beach and I don’t want any, I don’t need any empowerment. I need to let go.

Right. But I’m reading something that’s going to give me intention today. So if I was waking up, wavering a bit, I’ve done something to give myself any percentage of realignment I can get. So, so many times have I been stuck and there’s little stuckness like that. But that accumulates if it goes on for too long.

And then there’s big stuckness where it’s like you took a really wrong turn somewhere and you have a lot of fixing to do and it’s going to take time and you have to chip away at it. Regardless, you’ve got to have standards in place that make you better every single day. So that’s what I would answer to that.

Because I’ve had plenty of opportunity to be stuck and miserable and depressed and feel like it’s never going to end and not going to get better, but I’m choosing things that are hopefully going to put me in a better place. If I trust the process, follow it, stick with it. And then you, you, there’s going to be another end to it.

Erika: Okay, Amy. I love that response. And I can already hear some of the listeners thinking, well, that’s easy for Amy and Erica because they already know what their purpose is. They already have businesses.

They’re already living a life that they love. So what would you say to somebody who is. Starting out with living their purpose, living their passion, maybe they’re working a nine to five that feels unfulfilling, which I think both you and I were in that situation, where we had good jobs, but we knew that we wanted something more.

So what would you say to those people who feel stuck with what direction to take in life? Should they just follow the same steps? Standards that you mentioned, like the 10 pages of nonfiction, which by the way, I also am a huge fan of nonfiction. I can’t get myself to jump on the fiction train. I think that’s just part of who we are.

We just love the learning and the, and the self development component. And you’re right. It really does motivate you. But let’s say that somebody is really in this place where they’re really feeling sorry for themselves. They’re like, Oh, it’s easy for these other people because, you know, they had. Both of their parents growing up, or they had opportunities I didn’t have.

And maybe they are keeping themselves in this place where they feel powerless. Like what would you say to those people who also feel stuck and maybe don’t have a direction to go to in life just yet?

Amy: It’s probably a pretty familiar place to be where you are stuck. So I would encourage you to define it. Define the environment. Define the stuck environment you’re in. Where do you live? What time do you wake up? What do you wear every day? What job are you going to? What’s your commute like? Start defining what it looks like.

And then if you can cross a couple things out, like, could I change this? Could I change this? If you don’t like where you are, something has to change. Who you surround yourself has to, with has to change or who you allow to influence you has to change. Right. The things you’re, if you are falling down the fiction rabbit hole and you’re reading a lot of fiction stories.

I love fiction books. They make me feel free and happy. Cool. You know something you love. We’ll keep that. Great. But we can maybe add on a little bit of flair, a little bit of a different way of thinking. Maybe you can read a little bit of a self development book in addition to start your day, give you a confidence boost.

What would you be replacing if you did that? So if you know for a fact you are in a place that is not good, the current situation is not good. Then, define it. Start to figure out, like, literally write it down. Get a note card, get, start typing it into a note in your phone. Here are all the things about my life and I don’t like where I’m at.

Great. What can you change? Because there is at least many things you can change that you have control over. Yes. I was at a job that I thought I was going to be in forever because I had told myself this story of, well, I got a job at a law firm because I thought I was going to go to law school. I was in the midst of an undergrad degree.

For political science. There were a lot of people I went to school with who were graduating college and not getting jobs and moving back in with their parents in 07 and 08. And I was already at the firm. The new governor of Ohio took office. His lead finance director came and worked for the firm and started the public policy sector.

I got promoted to work for him. So I didn’t have to do the crappy legal secretary work that all the corporate attorney’s assistants were doing. I got to go work for somebody who was moving, shaking, booking appointments with the governor, raising money for political parties. Like this is the job I would be getting.

If I graduated with my undergrad degree, I would be pining for this job. I had the opportunity because I was already there. I was going to go work for him. And I dropped out of school because I couldn’t finish my degree. I was too busy doing the job that nobody else could get. So I assisted him for four years.

And in the midst of that, I was fine with it. And I thought this is, oh, I figured it out. This is great. This is how I survived not having a degree and I got a job and I have a 401k, I have a nice cushy chair. I have all these things. But then I fell in love with something else. And I was like, Ooh, this is an interesting feeling.

I have a creative bone in my body. That’s fascinating. And I’m going to do these things. I’m going to try this out. It’s what I do for fun. It’s my side thing. Then someone else came into my space. This is my current space. And somebody who’s different from me came into my space and said, you’re really good at that.

Did you know that people do this as a business? I was like, what are you talking about? People, Facebook for a business. That doesn’t make sense. And no, no, no. I’m from San Diego where people are very ahead of the curve and I’m a graphic designer and I get hired by companies to do stuff. And so do social media managers.

And I was like, what? Are you talking about someone came into my space, told me something no one else in my inner circle could have ever known. I wouldn’t have known to Google it at the time, nothing. And now I begin to learn. Now I fall down this rabbit hole. Now I fall in love. And that is what empowered me to end up leaving the job I was going to stay at for the rest of my days because I found something else.

So part of it is where you’re finding a level of passion, but there is no ability to define my worth in my own career and work for myself without being able to solve problems for other people. And I had discovered that I was learning a craft that was becoming a business skill that solves problems for.

businesses. And once I learned that and realized I could create something of value, that’s how I started to unravel this whole thing around business. You can’t have these things hit you like a ton of bricks, the aha moments that we are just craving. You can’t have them unless you are genuinely curious and figuring out what’s right for you.

We’re always looking at what everybody else is doing and if we should do what everybody else is doing instead of being intuitive to ourselves. All of that happened very organically by just leaning into the things that I’ve, that, that I found exciting or worth spending time on or where I wanted to be.

And that’s what I would say to someone. You don’t have to have it figured out right now. You can hate your job. Great. We have data. What do you hate about your job? Do you hate your boss? Do you hate the work? Do you hate where you are? Just get the information. What do you like? What do you dislike? Take the data on yourself so that you know more and then you can work with that.

Okay? Well, actually the job’s not bad, but there’s some toxic people here. Okay, cool. Let’s reroute now I actually hate the job, but I’m afraid to leave because of how I was brought up Got it. Let’s unpack that. You have to know what problem you’re solving so you can reverse engineer it. And then you’re going to be so interested.

You’re going to want to read so many nonfiction books because they’re going to give you answers to questions that you are just like asking the universe. That’s what it means to find your passion. It gives you the drive to continue to dig into it every day. 

Erika: What a beautiful response. And thank you for sharing your story to really Allow us to visualize those points that you made because what I find is that people, they want to know the answer and then they want to go after it.

And it doesn’t happen that way. Notice for you, it was first Facebook. And then after Facebook, was it YouTube? 

Amy: YouTube came first, but it was like fate, but Facebook was like, I wasn’t even looking at YouTube as a social network. It was, Facebook was really the first one that it’s like you’re interacting with.

People write YouTube. It was like I was publishing content and there were people in my comments and it was like, this is interesting. I don’t understand what’s happening. Uh, but no, it was very much like this is where you post content and this is where you interact with people. We’re talking early days though.

So that of course continued to evolve. 

Erika: Yes. And it was, it was all about you taking one step and that one step leading to another step. There’s no way that you could have known who is it? Is it, um, Steve Jobs, who says you can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking back. And now you’re connecting the dots looking back for us, but you couldn’t have done that.

Had we interviewed you back in 2008, 2009, there’s no way you could have told us that you were going to be where you are today. Just like the day that I was on your podcast, I couldn’t have told you, One day I’m going to have a podcast and Amy’s going to be on mine. So I love your response because it’s not this massive thing that people have to do.

It’s really like become aware of your current circumstance and situations and start making those small micro changes. And that’s what leaves leads to massive, massive results. 

Amy: Absolutely. It’s, it’s, it’s like a lily pad. Like you have to get onto it. And in order to get onto it, you have to hop over the water to get onto it so that you can get to the next one.

And I, I’ve, I feel like every time I’ve connected the next dot, it was because I took the leap. And there’s going to be big leaps and there’s going to be really small ones that don’t feel like that big a deal, but that’s because you’re getting better every time and it just becomes how you do things. And now when I think about leaving my job, that was such a huge leap.

That was a huge leap. But now I look back on it and I’m like, wow, she was. so brave. And that same person now, just like, I was just invited to speak in Saudi Arabia a couple of months ago. And it was just like, okay, I just got to get on the plane and go to Saudi Arabia. And it’s just like, that’s a normal leap.

And that’s so weird. That’s not a normal leap. That’s a big leap, but you just get better at taking those chances. 

Erika: Yes, definitely. So now knowing what you know about personal brand, and if you could talk to Amy back then and give her the advice that you having the knowledge that you have now about personal branding, obviously it all worked out for you.

But over the last few years, you’ve learned a lot about personal branding. You are a personal branding expert. So what would you say? To Amy 10 years ago that you of what you’ve learned about personal branding. So if you could talk to her for 20 minutes or so, or maybe let’s just say five minutes, what would be some of the main points that you would tell her 

Amy: 10 years ago?

Let’s see. I would have gone back to her and said, There is no wrong answer. I think the biggest thing that people struggle with, and I certainly was struggling with it 10 years ago, is, is this really it? Is this what my name means? And at that point I’d made a lot of content. But for the normal person that’s just getting started, they’re like, What’s my niche?

What do I do? How do I sum myself up? And they’re afraid to figure it out because they’re afraid to get married to it. So in 2015, I would go back and I would be like, girl, just keep swimming. Okay. Because what you’re doing is helping people. And that is all that matters. If you know a way to help people right now, just do it generously to the greatest of your ability, monetize the brand, stay sustainable, but give generously, keep the brand as helpful as possible because what would come to be is I.

Got to a point where 2017, I put out my first book. It was called vlog, like a boss. I had created a thousand videos about how to create brand with video on the internet. And I was like, okay, I’m done with that. Now, after a year of promoting the book and all those videos I’d made, I was like. I just feel like my purpose is bigger than this now.

And so I got married in 2017 as well. By the end of that year, I had changed my name, which is the most exhausting process by the way, especially when you already have a brand and your first book has your maiden name on it. I changed my name. I was ready to change what we were talking about on the channel and go deeper and higher level.

Um, I changed the channel name. Like I changed so much and I ripped that bandaid off on January 1st of 2018. It was the best thing I ever did and I could have had the confidence to do a lot of those things sooner and not as significantly and it still would have worked and I could have been implementing that even sooner the way I felt like I wanted to.

The reason I didn’t was because you get so worried about what people know you for that you’re afraid to get outside of it. And at the same time, people get so consumed with it being their own name that they think that they have to also be the most interesting person in the history of the world. And it’s like, no, that is no, that is not true at all.

We don’t need to know what you had for breakfast if it doesn’t apply. Okay. It’s okay. You don’t have to share it. It’s fine. And you can also be of value by sharing your breakfast if it’s in the context of how you bring value. People are going to ask me about my breakfast only because they want to know how I had the chance to meal plan and, and feed my kids and run a business at the same time.

The context of that meal is completely different in the way that I would talk about it. And this goes back to the number one rule of personal branding. People care about who you are, but they don’t care about you. It sounds aggressive and mean, but it’s actually very freeing. When you take the responsibility of I have to be super interesting off of you and you just say, I need to serve people.

What do people know about who I am so that they can communicate that so they can internalize it so they can know it so they can choose me to come back to me for that. People know me as high performance, productivity, personal branding. That’s what people know about me. That’s how they know who I am. And the more I continue to contribute to that, that cause, that brand, that information, the more I help that community.

I don’t have to worry about being the most interesting person in the whole world. If I’m super productive, I’m actually the least interesting person in the whole world because I’m doing a lot of same things all the time. But that’s, I would go back and tell her, don’t worry about the fact that you have to be talking about this topic right now.

It’s what you know, you’ll continue to grow, you’ll continue to get better and you will evolve as you get better. So for someone to take the shortcut and not come to that conclusion, you know, seven years into their career. I would say if you know how to serve people right now, just do it. And if right now it’s, I’m a personal trainer and you’re like, but I don’t want to be a personal trainer for the rest of my life.

You don’t have to be how you start does not have to be the whole story, but you have to start with something you have to bring value. So don’t worry about the pivot that will happen someday. It will work. It will be fine because you will be more confident and you will evolve as a human. And Beyonce evolved as a human.

We all got on board so you can do it too. 

Erika: Love that response. And I would add that allowing people to be a part of your journey and a part of the changes is actually what builds really loyal. following. I remember people who’ve been following me since I got started on TikTok. I mean, back then I was figuring it out.

I was, I was a yoga teacher and I was working in tech. So I was posting yoga videos and then I was posting just overall wellness videos. And then I transitioned more into life coaching. And then I started a business and then I started talking about business and people have been, they feel like they’ve been a part of my journey and cheering me on every step of the way.

And I remember I changed my name as well because it used to be like health with Erica. It was in Spanish. So it was salud, which means health, but it also means cheers. So it’s like a double meaning. So I was like, Oh, cheers with Erica, like health with Erica. So that was my name. And I remember when I changed it, people were so sad.

And I don’t know if you have that experience whenever you went from, was it savvy, sexy, social, yeah. Um, to your name. And it’s like people, even if they are sad or resistant to change, they get on board, just like you said. 

Amy: They do. They, here’s the thing. They’re looking to you to be the adult in the room that you didn’t just make this flippant decision.

Yes. You came to it intentionally. So they’re going to be like, Hey, I’m going to miss it too. And we will have fond memories, but here’s what we’re going to do now. And then it’s going to be better? Come on! They’re not going anywhere. And that’s just, that’s just the reality of it. Savvy Sexy Social was gone.

I wasn’t that version of me anymore. So if I want to get burnt out and hate my job and hate my boss for the rest of my career, I’ll stay in the box I defined for myself forever ago. Or, I can choose to start the day on my terms, go after the life I want, good morning, good life. All these things that ended up coming as a result of me just leaning into who that next version of me was.

And I saw an opportunity when we were talking a lot about the stuff in business to start my channel was based on like, you know, how we, how we help small businesses. Talk about themselves. There were people in my community who left comments every video, Amy, I’m never going to take any of your advice, but I love watching you on video.

So I’m just here. And the reason I am never going to do these things is because I don’t have. Time, but I’m going to keep watching. Okay. So interesting point. You have time to watch my videos, but you don’t have time to take my advice, but you trust me and you’re listening to that advice and you’re not going to do it.

So now this is really interesting to me. I’ve evolved into someone that’s fascinated by people who don’t make the time for things that could be priorities to them, but they’re not. Why are they not priorities? How are you spending your time? What does that management looks like? Look like what’s your energy like?

That became the next iteration of the channel because I just agreed to continue to be curious about my community and they grew with me. So we evolved into a more productive lifestyle channel in terms of like, how do you grow? So that you can take advice like that, not discounted as something a little YouTuber can do, but I don’t have time.

No, no, I was like you once and I did it and you can do it too. I felt compelled that I needed to educate on that. I would never have guessed that in a million years, that that would eventually be my forte. I had to go through all of that initial experience. To now get to this point, to know these things.

Erika: And I, you know, you could have easily read those comments and taken it personally and like, Oh man, people aren’t going to take my advice, but you use that data as information to curate your content and to address that objection. And that I think is what makes you such a great market, marketer and, um, personal branding expert, because you were able to take what people were saying and turn that itself into content and almost pivot because you were listening to your.

audience. Yes. I think a lot of people just don’t do that. And you have to read the room. You have to know who’s in your community. 

Amy: And that’s the hard part because people don’t want to hear that because they get really afraid of comments. You know, YouTube used to be the place where terrible comments lived.

TikTok wins now. Yes. Take that. Um, but, but I have been very fortunate that my comments have been. Something that I would, you know, you get the, you get the usual, like just troll stuff, but you can recognize the difference between let’s just a troll comment. I don’t have to internalize that. What you should internalize and carefully so that it doesn’t take you down is the constructive criticism.

And the way you do that is you look at it as What is the human nature? What is the human element of this? Why do they feel compelled to say this? Which part of this is about how I could be better and which part of this is their frustration with their own life? And there’s nothing I can do about that. If you can get a thicker skin around Differentiating between the two you don’t have to be afraid of getting Feedback and I’m saying this as somebody who has a very hard time taking feedback very since the beginning of time Period.

Like, firstborn complexes about feedback, period. But that is so interesting when you can see a comment that’s like, I would do this, but I don’t have time. And like, oh, you, you know, this isn’t very relatable because X, Y, Z thing. Right? Oh, don’t you love it when YouTubers talk about how to be productive?

They literally get to do whatever they want all day long. That’s an easy excuse, but rather than me discounting your comment, I now have been challenged To show you why it’s not true. Yes. But that challenge is on me. If I choose to get better at my craft and not stay in a vacuum about my content. 

Erika: A hundred percent.

I love it. Okay. I want to switch gears a little bit. I feel like you are a master. Um, how the heck, that’s a great, that’s great. I would love to hear it. I love to hear it. I hope I am. How did you end up connecting with Gary Vee and 

Amy: becoming a Vayner speaker? Dude, I, that’s true. I am a master manifester. I didn’t even think about that.

That’s an, that was just like so organic. It was just so organic, truly. So I love this story. Can I go down this whole of this story? Okay. So Gary Vaynerchuk was introduced to me. Interestingly, um, Gary Vaynerchuk was, I don’t think I’ve ever said this on record. I met with Lewis Howes for a coffee. Um, Lewis Howes from the school of greatness.

He’s from Columbus, Ohio, which is where I’m from. And I met with him. At the time, I think Lewis was still sleeping on his sister’s couch. Like he was just in the come up. He was just in the, you know how Lewis talks about being on a sister’s couch. I’m talking to him then. It was like, maybe he was off the couch.

Maybe he got his own apartment at this point. I’m not really sure. It was like 2008, seven or nine maybe. And, um, and he introduced me to crush it. The first business book by Gary Vaynerchuk. So I read crush it. And I was like, this is a good book. And so I just started following Gary because, you know, at this time there were not a lot of thought leaders.

You have people like Gary Vaynerchuk on the internet every time you turn around now. But, but Gary was obviously his, the first Gary. So you start following him, whatever. And, and, um, every time he publishes a book, he does every time, I think he still does it. He does an eight hour live stream. And he did an eight hour live stream for the book, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.

And this is years later. I don’t remember what year it was. I think it was like, I don’t remember 12 or something. And he was on a live streaming platform. Guys, the internet was so young. The live streaming platform was so weird at the time. And he was able to do like we’re doing, pull people up from the audience and put them on camera.

So I joined this stream and I see him talking just like this, where he’s talking to someone and they’re, they’re jamming out and I’m like, Oh, they must be friends. This is interesting. And there’s a lot of people watching. Wow. They must know each other really well. And he was answering this guy’s question.

And then he says at the end of it. How many books are you going to buy? And I was like, Oh, they must be good friends. They must be really good friends. And the guy’s like, I’m going to buy eight. I’m going to buy eight. I’m buying eight. Thank you, Gary. Thank you. And he gets off. And then another person comes on.

I go, Oh my gosh, he has no idea who that guy is. He just asked his question and then he told him to buy eight books. What is happening? And then I realized. He’s got people coming up and he’s answering questions. He’s giving a ton of value and he’s just encouraging everyone in the audience. If you guys buy eight books, I’m doing an eight hour live stream.

If you guys buy eight books, it helps me sell more books. And I was like, like, I was just blown away by this marketing. I was blown away. I decided to raise my hand and ask a question. And I asked a question and I said, Gary, you know, and I got to say, I asked a great question. It’s not worth repeating, but I asked a great question.

Most people are asking questions like, how do you stay motivated? And I was like, how do you fire a client that you kind of like grew out of? Like, and he was like, well, that’s an interesting question. And it resonated with him. So when, and then he mentioned he was coming to Columbus. Now this is before Uber existed.

So I said, oh, I’ll pick you up from the airport. He’s like, he’s looking around. You know how Gary is with his entourage of people, like always like around him. He’s like, well, I’m just going to let this girl pick me up from the airport. Like, and I looked at him. I was like, what? You’re not, you’re not, what are you going to refuse me?

If I come to the airport and pick you up to take you to your hotel, you’re going to refuse me? So it was this running joke. And I, you know, I, he’s like, I’ll get back to you. Whatever. A few hours later, I go to work. I work on my business and I come back and I check the stream. He’s still there. I’m like, this is crazy.

And I just type in the chat. There’s thousands of people in this chat type in the chat. Gary, have you peed? Today. And he’s like, Hey, get Amy back up here. Get Amy back up here. So anyway, this all was a long story long. This all results in my friend, Janine and I ended up going in on probably a hundred book by she picked him up from the airport, took him to his hotel.

My job was to take him from the hotel back to the airport. So she was, she did it one day. I did it the next, we split the bill. We split the responsibility, all this kind of thing. She ended up starting, uh, An amazing company sold it. I mean, a lot of it came from that car conversation. By the way, guys, drive to the airport, 10 minutes, 10.

It’s not a long airport drive. We don’t, you don’t get copious amounts of time with Gary Vaynerchuk. We each got about 10 minutes nervously driving Gary Vaynerchuk in a car. Okay. And 

Erika: it’s not 

Amy: even like you can take notes because you’re driving. No, there’s no like what I’m not recording this. There’s no vlogger in the back.

Like it is so, you guys, I can’t even begin to explain. This isn’t even half the story, Erika. Anyway, so I have my time in the car and I ask questions and, and I’m asking stupid questions because like, you’re just so nervous and, and he really just, he just put a calming in me and helped and just made me feel more confident about what I was doing by the end of that car ride, which was good.

Then I get my books in the mail and I read Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. I was like, this is the best book I’ve ever read. It was like a picture book for social media professionals. So I made a music video about it the day the week he was launching the book. I made a music video I sang Mariah Carey’s all I want for Christmas is you but it was called All I want for Christmas is jab jab jab right hook and I published that video and he found out about it on the internet Because people were sharing it and he reshared it and it was this huge moment blah blah blah people found out who I was And it was great.

That was the beginning. It was truly just so organic And we stayed in touch a lot, um, just sort of on those terms. When the next book came out, Ask Gary V, he was like, Amy, are you going to do another music video? And I was like, well, if you insist. So I did another music video and we just had a banter back and forth.

I didn’t ask him for any time. I didn’t ask him to go to lunch. I didn’t ask him to be my best friend. He knew I existed. I brought him value. He brought me value. That was good. And then, um, when he announced he was launching his own speaking agency. Because he was, you know, wanted to keep all of his speaking money because he was giving CAA so much of his fee and he was making a lot of money as a speaker.

I was like, Whoa, I wonder if I could speak for Vayner speakers. And I reached out and I was like, I think I should be a Vayner speaker. And he was like, yeah, I agree. And I was one of the first 12 people on the roster. I’m still on the roster. And I’m still not done because it, it took a minute for that company to launch and for them to announce it.

And between them asking me to be on the roster and the announcement that VaynerSpeakers existed, and I was on that roster, my little brother passed away and my little brother has a twin. And when Gary found out that Johnny passed away, he emailed me, he fired off an email and he just said, I’m so, so sorry.

And you know, please tell me what you need. And I replied to him and I said, I don’t know what I need. I just need to make sure my other brother is okay. And he said, bring Jimmy to me. So we got on a plane and I took my little brother Jimmy up and during one of the hardest moments of his life, a twin who had lost his twin to go see Gary and Gary made that time for us.

So it’s like, it’s not even manifestation of some cool stuff. Like. It is a true relationship that has just been built on just nice, just kind, kind gestures from the heart. And, um, it’s, I tell that entire story cause I just want people to know there’s no hacking a relationship like that. You just do good by people and people will notice you.

Erika: Wow. Thank you for sharing all of that. I, I knew about your younger brother because you talk about it in your book. But, um, yeah, that’s, I don’t even know if I have, have words. I mean, I’m sure Yeah, it’s, it’s, 

Amy: it’s a lot. It’s a lot. There’s nothing you can say because even if you’ve had a loss close to you, everyone else is going to be like, But you don’t get it.

Yeah, because because you don’t and we can only be as supportive as we can with somebody when they’re going through that and Gary knew that 

Erika: yeah, 

Amy: and if there’s anyone who knows that it’s Gary if you ever ask him like how do you stay motivated? How do you get focused? How do you do this? And he says I Imagine somebody I love very dearly dying, and it makes me very grateful for them.

And it makes my demeanor better every day. And it makes me a better person. And it makes me, I mean, he gets it. He gets it to the core of humanity. And that’s why I feel aligned with him in so many things. He’s just. Very kind, and I want people to remember that, that everybody seems really loud and obnoxious on the internet because brand gets shrunken down into these small videos that are super shareable and out of context.

And a lot of people don’t know that about Gary because they’re only paying attention to these little snippets that cannot fully encapsulate a complicated and layered and amazing human being like that. Definitely. 

Erika: Definitely. Thank you for sharing that very interesting story with us. I feel like you took us on an adventure right now.

We did 

Amy: because it, yeah, because, you know, instead of just, instead of just thinking it’s, it’s manifestation. The reason why manifestation works is because feeling is involved. So what compelled me to share that was like, you have to understand how many, how much feeling was involved in that. There’s so much feeling involved in that relationship.

And, um, It’s cool. It’s really cool. But if anyone knows anything about manifestation, you know, you can say some things and hope some things will happen, but unless you have the faith that it’s real and that you put real invested feeling in it, feelings are going to help you to be that kind, amazing person that it takes to be on someone’s level like that.

Definitely. 

Erika: Yeah, and I want to switch gears, but before I do, I’ve just got to say that, knowing you as a person, obviously, I don’t know you know you, but we’ve met in person already. I’ve been on your podcast a couple of times. I’ve watched your YouTube videos. I’ve got to say that your siblings are really lucky to have you, and I don’t think it’s an accident that you were the first to come, that you were the, the big sister, um, because if The way that you serve your clients and serve your audience is above and beyond.

And based on what you just shared with us about your, your younger brother, um, the twin and how you were able to show up for him, like that just takes a tremendous amount of courage. And I just see the light in you and I’m sure that your family feels very lucky to have you. 

Amy: Thank you. That’s very nice of you to say.

Thank you. So tell us about the fake assistant. I love the fake assistant.

Dude, it’s my favorite trick. I’m not being tricky about it either. It’s actually meant to trick the person using it. So I made this video about the fake assistant. I’ve actually been talking about it for a while. I talked about it on TikTok first. Before anywhere else and, um, for some reason, you know, didn’t, didn’t go as viral as Instagram, but still did crazy well there.

The idea is that you need an assistant. Most people don’t level up to get one because they don’t feel worthy. And. They’re not saying they’re not worthy of an assistant. They’re saying they’re not worthy of making enough money to hire an assistant because it requires a little bit of responsibility. So usually you don’t come to terms with the fact that there actually really is that workload available for a person to support you on.

And you just keep doing everything yourself. Hiring a fake assistant literally means pretend like you have an assistant, give them their own email account, give them their own little platform and have all of your administrative emails go to that. Place. So if you’ve been doing things on your own until now, and it’s like my little business at gmail.

com, then, okay, let’s create the assistant email. That’s separate from that. Start copying that email address on all of your correspondence. Susie wants me to be on our podcast. Cool. I’m going to copy my assistant Joseph and Joseph’s going to set that up for you on the calendar. It’s a little bit of a ruse, but the point is that you start manifesting having an assistant by pretending like they’re there.

Now you’re going to go to your admin email and you’re going to do all that admin. If you don’t have an assistant, someone’s got to do it. Right? But now you’re in your admin email. You’re like, wow, I have all these things I have to schedule. I have invoices to pay. I have to send my invoices out. I’ve got all this stuff I got to clean up.

My accountant’s asking me for this. There’s this, this, this. You start realizing that there’s a real job description here. There’s a real assistant amount of work to do. And so now you’re seeing it real separated from whatever you’re doing as the talent or as the creative in the business. And you’re like, wow, actually, I really could have an assistant.

So while you’re being your admin in the fake assistant account, you’re setting up exactly how you would train someone to be your assistant. However you send those emails, however you manage them, however you label them, however you handle that stuff, you could document it by A, doing it in that designated place and B, record yourself doing it and talking through why you do what you do and how you handle these different things.

You come up with that archive of video recordings and you have that. Email to access from day one. The second you have a real assistant, they get in there, they can learn how to do the job with a lot of the training already done on your end if you did all of that. So I love talking about this because again, most people don’t level up to getting an assistant because they don’t feel like they can until you realize, no, actually I want to get this work off my plate and I need help.

And you can set them up for success when they do. I have a whole cheat sheet for it. Just come to my Instagram at Schmittastic, search for Amy Landino. You’ll see the Hugh Grant video about the fake assistant method explained there too. But if you send me a DM with the word Olivia, you’ll get the cheat sheet.

I’ve got a full playbook for it. We’re all with like canned email templates and everything. Just come grab it. It’s free. My gift to you. But like. It is a game changer. That’s manifesting. You are manifesting your growth by acting as if. It’s not lying. It’s setting a system up and taking your business as seriously as you hope that it will be so that it will support you.

Erika: And we will be sure to link all of your socials and links down below in the show notes. But the other thing that the assistant can do, which I’ve heard you talk about as well is negotiate on your behalf. Hmm. 

Amy: Hmm. Hmm. Definitely. Definitely. It’s my favorite thing. Worse. Here’s the thing. Okay. I see that I need an assistant.

Now I need the funding. Now we need to cashflow it. Great. Use your fake assistant as the scapegoat. I love this email template that’s in my playbook. It’s will help you double your rates. Immediately. Just copy paste this email. It’s basically saying to someone who reaches, let’s say somebody reaches out and says, I want to work with you, but I need to know how much you cost.

If somebody is jumping straight to your price, then we should not be giving them the, they’re literally only judging you on price. They’re not judging you on value. There needs to be a little bit more of a conversation around. Um, not sales so much as understanding how you can bring this person value. So the email template is great because it’s like, Oh, cool.

 if you want one on one, then that’s like my highest price thing and it’s really in demand right now. So we’re booking about three to six months out and you tell them a price and the price for that should be 10 times. What you’re charging right now. So even if you’re charging 200 a month for your services, I want you to multiply that by 10 and then multiply that, multiply that by 12.

So say, listen, we don’t have an opening until June, but you can lock in the seat when it opens up. It’s just going to be a one year commitment for 12, 24, 000. That would be 12 months at 10 times your rate. Okay. That’s interesting. I told you I was going to double your rates. That’s going to 10 X your rates, right?

The person’s going to see that the high end here is 24K for a year. The next paragraph says, however, if you would be interested in this other thing I have, has a media availability, there is a lot more momentum that you can get by being a part of this program. Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And um, it’s definitely better economically and could be something, um, of an alternative.

Would you like details about that? You end it by saying, would you like to lock in the one on one rate? Or would you like details about my other program? Now that’s interesting. You get a reply to that. They already know they’re not going to pay 24 if they say they don’t want your one on one. Everything else that’s less than 24, 000 is going to sound like a bang up deal.

Okay. So you figure out what is the more sustainable offering. So many people are offering one on one coaching. And, and they’re using up all their time on that, which is why it should cost the absolute most. It is the least scalable thing. So you need to have a different type of offering that makes it possible for you to affect more people.

Whether it is DIY through a course or done with you, um, which maybe is more group element, something like that. Find the more sustainable offering that you can give to people that actually is worth building a business on. Because if you always have to have one on one clients in order to be able to do your work, it’s going to be a lot harder to take you out of some key processes.

I really love that template because most people need to reassess what business offering they have in the first place and they need to charge more money. And this is a great way to tee yourself up because if somebody responds to the email after saying, I want to work with you, but I need to know how much it costs.

And you tell them that your super desirable offering is that’s a lot of money is not available right now. And they still reply to you. That’s a great way for you to be able to feel more confident and not thirsty about getting a client. That they’re like, okay, yeah, I am interested in something else. What would that look like?

Now you can have a conversation. Okay. Well tell me about your work. Tell me about your goals. Tell me about your business. Tell me about your trajectory, whatever you coach them on or whatever you’re selling to them. Now we’re leaning in about how we can help somebody. That is how you raise your price. You have to become more valuable to the person.

You don’t have to give them more time. You don’t have to give them more features. You need to be more valuable to them so you figure out what’s valuable to them and then you put a number on it Love it. I have like three more 

Erika: questions, but I want to be time So I’m ready go with how has becoming a mother shifted the way that you run your business Because, I mean, we’ve been following you, I mean, we, the people that have been following your YouTube since almost the beginning, um, we’ve, we’ve seen you evolve and get married and then become a mom.

So how has that shifted the way that you run your business? 

Amy: You know, the biggest feedback that I got in my comments, and I kind of talked about it earlier, right, was, um, oh, little YouTuber telling us how to be productive, right? Well, the other comments I would get were Oh, just wait till you have kids and then we’ll see if you can take this advice, lady.

And that’s a fair assessment. But the beautiful thing about my work is that I was learning all those skills for a reason. And it’s that they would come in very handy when the stakes are higher. Having to raise your price so that you can hire people is. Nice. Having to raise your price because you already hired people and you need to sustain is another level.

Being productive when you work for yourself and you just get to decide what your day looks like is nice. Being productive when you have kids and you run your own business and the stakes are much higher is another level. So I was learning all the things I would need and now I need them. And they are the standards and I have to follow them so that they actually work.

So what children have done is hold me accountable. Kids hold me accountable to being productive in the best way possible. No ifs, ands, buts about it. If I’ve got dishes in the sink. But I’m also delaying procrastinating a project that’s bringing in real revenue to the business. I have to pick the revenue generating project and hope that the dishes are going to get done in some other way.

You are going to be more productive when the stakes are higher. You have to step into a version of that before. You need it. And now that I need it, I don’t have a choice. I have to get the same or better results. And this time I have less time because I actually want to enjoy the existence of my children while they’re children.

This is a really good example. Right now. I’m talking to you on a Thursday Mondays. I shoot YouTube videos Thursdays. I coach and I talk to people on podcasts on the other days. I have a 10 month old at home and you know what? She’s moving and shaking a lot, not multitasking very well when she’s here, but this is the only time.

In her life, she’s going to be 10 months old. And before I know it, I’m going to be shipping her off to school because she’s going to learn better from somebody else than she’s going to learn from me. I’m going to get my time back at some point, but in the meantime, I still need to get results with the time that I have.

We all have excuses as to why we don’t have enough time. We don’t have enough energy. We don’t, we have kids, we have this, we have that, we have, we have the excuses. What are you doing with the time that you have? Are you focused on the most needle moving thing you could be doing in that time? Or are you just saying, well, I have to wait until all conditions are perfect.

So what I’m not going to do anything until she’s shipped off to school or I’m going to be more focused about this time. I wish Thursdays were like a chill day. Thursdays and Mondays are not chill days. They just happen to be the only days I am alone to do the things that I need to do. I have to be on calls back to back.

What do we need to achieve? What’s the next thing that’s got to get done? I have to use that time wisely. So it all comes down to energy management and becoming a mom is extremely fulfilling, but it reveals a lot about the current existence of yourself. And if you’re not happy with who you are. You’re going to project that onto your kids and you’ve got to rectify that.

What standards do you have in place that you are also, by the way, teaching them in real time? What are you teaching them by executing it with your day, with your time, with your life, the way that it is right now? 

Erika: Wow, that was so good. A lot of my listeners are moms and I think they resonate with this and I love that you specifically pointed out where how can you be present and enjoy the time that you have with them because they’re only this age for so long, but the time you do have.

It’s game time. There’s no I mean 

Amy: The stakes are high. Yeah. I know when I’m picking her up, I am not going to be late. So it’s on me if I did not deliver until that time. And then she has my undivided attention. Once she’s back in my arms, it’s game on with her. Right. And there’s no balance. It’s just where your intention is at any given moment.

Yes. Definitely. 

Erika: Is there anything I didn’t ask you that you want to share?

Amy: Just that I think you’re so freaking cool. Like, I just think you are so cool. Like, do you have any idea how, how special that you are for the fact that you leaned into something that you found interesting and you turned it into a business and you have stuck with it? It’s extraordinary. I want you to know that 

Erika: I received that.

Thank you. And I mean, same for you, right? You could have stayed in that job and you, I mean, I mean, I’ve read your book. People thought you were completely insane by making these videos, especially when you did. Right? So people like you have made it possible for people like me to follow this path. And I appreciate you.

And I also, I was reaching over because I, um, Thank you. Appreciate all of the things that you’ve made for us as well. Look how pretty it 

Amy: is! 

Erika: But the Good Morning, Good Life 12 Month Planner. Um, where can people find you? How can, I mean, obviously they can watch your YouTube videos. They can buy your books.

They can buy your planner, which is a beautiful planner. Um, sorry, if you can see my cat, she’s like, no, I 

Amy: love the cat, 

Erika: a little, little cat ear in on the screen, but yeah. So tell us, how can people connect with you? How can they stay in touch with you? How can they work with you? What products should they, should they reach out to?

Amy: Yeah, no, I mean like, listen, I hang out a lot on Instagram. Come over to Instagram, Amy Landino at Schmittastic, um, and send me a DM to get that framework. I can link everything to you there. I love chatting with people. The planners are at shop. amylandino. com. The YouTube is youtube. com slash amytv. It’s all, it’s all linked on my Instagram.

It’s probably just easier to come over there. Okay. Fantastic. 

Erika: We will be sure to link that in the show notes as well. Amy, thank you so much for spending a little over an hour with me. I. I feel like I can talk to you forever, but if there’s anything that I can do to support you, I mean, I’m sure you’re probably cooking up another book whenever you do come back onto the podcast.

We’d love to have you. I’m doing it. Don’t 

Amy: you just, you said it. It’s happening. Thank you, Erica. It’s so nice to be here. 

Erika: It was a valuable conversation. It was heartfelt. It was very inspiring. So thank you for being vulnerable and sharing your journey. And just thank you for, for being you and for all of the resources that you have for us.

We will see you on this podcast very soon. 

Amy: Thank you.