Join us every Friday at 12pm EST in the Furlough Community Discord for our Mastermind session hosted by Joe Casanova & Ophir Gadot. Our guests change every week and range from experts, entrepreneurs and creatives to influencers, brands, nomads, investors and more!

 

A Little Bit About Andrew

Andrew Lopez is a Daily Show Producer of Elevated Shorts which runs on LinkedIn and works as a vessel to connect individuals with each other and to their audience. He interviews entrepreneurs & small business owners with the goal of creating a platform where others can share their voice and make an impact.

Check out the replay here:

 

Andrew Lopez 

Hey Everybody! I’m Andrew Lopez, a California boy who moved to Scotland. I’m super excited to be here and Bogdan thanks for bringing me on and glad to be here. As I’ve had a running show on LinkedIn for the past 15 months, it’s gone in three different versions. So if you look at my profile, it’s kind of what you’ll see. I’ve interviewed business owners all over the world, all via zoom. And it’s kind of what I do for my profession. Now, as well, I interview people. I also curate content in a very similar way for small business owners and coaches for people all over the world. So I’m all about connection. I think no matter what language we speak, no matter where we’re from, all of us are from all over the world, even on this call, we’re all looking for connection in some way, shape, or form. So I am here to kind of bring up all through connections. So a little bit about me. I’m moving over to the Netherlands at the end of the month, and that’s looking to be coming home. So yeah, I’m open to any questions. I’m open to connecting with you all on LinkedIn and having further conversations. And I’m just grateful to be here and on our way. 

 

Ophir Gadot 

Beautiful Andrew, what drove you to move to the Netherlands?

 

Andrew Lopez  

The people that I’ve met from there. I’ve had a lot of people from the Netherlands on the shows, and I’ve also had other friends in Europe tell me it’s a good place to go. I live here with my sister. I moved to Scotland first, since my sister was already living here. She goes to school here in Edinburgh. And I’ve been here since April. And over the last couple months just kind of been wanting to go to mainland Europe and to give it a whirl and it’s looking like yeah, Rotterdam I think is where I’m going to head first. But a lot of people that I’ve started to work with and I partner with and have had on the show are Dutch folks. So that seems to be where I’ll go first. But I’m open to anywhere else. As I said, kind of in my little intro thing, I’m looking to have a satellite office in a European country. So that is one of my goals for the future and hoping that maybe the Netherlands might be it, they might be somewhere else.

 

Ophir Gadot  

Beautiful, beautiful, tell me a little bit like what drove you to kind of go into that route of digital connections, and just communicating with people all around the world? I just have the same mindset or the same approach as well. Just want to know where you’re coming from.

 

Andrew Lopez 

Of course. I started my business, Elevated Shorts, at the end of 2019 inSeptember. I’ve always done videos. I started Elevated Shorts as a videography company, I would run around town, Orange County, California, just with a camera and my lights and all the goodies. And obviously the pandemic changed some things pretty quickly come March of last year. And one of my big reinventions was I simply just turned to Zoom. I couldn’t really film anything in Southern California because of the lockdown. And I kind of just thought, How do I get through this, right? We were all kind of sitting around, waiting. I’ve watched my fair share of Netflix, as we all did across the world. It’s just kind of waiting to see what happens in March and then comes April. And still no, nothing to shoot and nothing to film. I turned to Zoom, and I turned to interviewing. I used to think that you can only make an impact in the city that you lived in. That’s why once I keep the show going, if they snap their fingers, and we all went back to living the life that we knew before March 2020, I don’t think I would ever get my camera back again and start filming and being a videographer again, because I’ve been so fascinated with just people of the world who again, have opened my eyes to so many things, gave me the confidence, the courage to express and share. And I mean, it’s the reason why I left LA in April and I haven’t looked back since. I’m halfway across the world. I mean, if you would, if I was on this call a year ago, I would have had no reason to be like why  leave California, why leave the beach? Why would I leave? But it even changed a guy like me who thought that the world revolved around California. But again, here I am not wanting to go back, though, so that kind of answers the question. It’s kind of more. So just again, it’s been the perspectives of people across the world, the way people think. And I’ve been so fascinated with that. That’s kind of been the motivation of why I continue to do what I do every day and why the show goes on. And no matter where I am, physically in the world, I can still do this same thing. And there’s a lot of power and a lot of beauty in that as well.

 

Ophir Gadot  

 That’s beautiful, man. I can relate to that so much. I really appreciate you.

 

Bogdan Popa 

I was just curious why, video? 

 

Andrew Lopez 

You’re the voice, I’m pretty empathetic. So all these zoom conversations that I’ve had, I’ve seen a  connection between humans shine through, it might sound cliche but  I’m fascinated with that. I’m a writer as well, I could write, there’s a couple of us on the call that are content writers, and I’m sure there’s so much expression in the words that we can, the voice that we have, even though it’s not vocal, but it’s still powerful. Using zoom as the platform, you get to see people, you get to hear people, you get to understand, whether they laugh and the way that they smile, and I think it’s cool, I think it’s one of the best ways we can connect in the world that we live in, right ? We’re still kind of socially distanced, in some ways, we’re still not back to what we always knew. So video for me always has been that vessel for connection. A phrase that I always say, with my business is “I use video as a way to connect with people”. And, I like seeing people for who they are, whether it be their messy bedroom, or whether it be their living room, it’s more so just, we’re getting to see people at the ground floor. I think that’s been the one thing that we’ve all kind of come together in some way, shape or form, because we’re all at that ground floor. Right? We’re all going through something in a similar way. We all have all of us on the call. We’re all small business owners, we’re all trying to figure out how to navigate these waters still and how to still we still have questions, we still have answers we’re looking for, and I think things made us realize that we’re more in common than we are different.

 

Bogdan Popa 

I love that. It’s all about finding that connection and finding other people that you can relate to, and then you realize that we can all relate to each other. And as you said, everyone’s got things that they’re dealing with. We’re all normal, we’re all in our messy bedrooms. So I think video is definitely more personal and dynamic. And it brings us together. I definitely agree with you on that. I was curious to find out how much effort you put into the process, how much planning goes into your process? And how much is just natural on the spot?

 

Andrew Lopez 

You mean in regards to just video in general, or just in the show capacity? What was what specifically?

 

Bogdan Popa 

 Just in your show? Yeah.

 

Andrew Lopez 

 Yeah. So over the last year, I’ve kind of gone through different versions of it. The show that I started in April of last year was called “Reinvention daily”. I was fascinated with reinvention. Because again, we were all going through some sort of reinvention, right? Whether it was a personal reinvention or a professional reinvention. I ran six seasons that went from March or April of 2020 to November of 2020. And I would go every day, Monday through Friday, and I would do 20 episodes per season. So what I started to do, as I kind of got better at it, was I would actually stack my content. So I would spend two or three days and just film 20 episodes, which would last me a month and then I would edit it all and then I would just have episodes to post. And then in the second version, which was “Elevated Conversations”, which ran from December to until about a month ago, it was the same thing. I would post every day Monday to Friday on LinkedIn, but episodes I would record would air three, four weeks later. So I was always two to three weeks ahead. And then now it’s been a little bit more hectic just because I’m trying to bring together people from different time zones and I’m here in Europe, but I tried to do the process there. Anything that I do when it comes to the show or even just the clients that I work with, I try to have people record their content sooner and then, we can have it canned for several weeks. So that’s how I’ve done it. I don’t put too much content out of myself, I used to do that. And then because my show is daily, and because I ask the same two questions, I use the show to connect and find other people to collaborate with. That’s kind of my content as well, even though I’m not the guest. I’m just the host, I’m just the guy who presses play and answers or asks the same two questions to people all over. So hope that makes any sense. That’s how I’ve done it as I try to stack as much content ahead as I can. And I keep it evergreen. That’s why on the show today, I never have a date drive. What’s going on? It’s July 2, I try and keep it to where it looks like even if we filmed it a month ago. It looks like we filmed it yesterday. That’s one way I try to stay ahead.

 

Bogdan Popa

Well, that sounds great. I think that being one step ahead, helps in the sense that you never know what comes up. And you never know if a guest cancels. So if you already have content prepared, then you can adjust. I think that’s great.

 

Andrew Lopez

Of course, I mean, the people that I interviewed this week, I won’t air until the third week of July, so yeah, even now I’m a few weeks ahead, which helps my sanity and just the whole process itself.

 

Joe Casanova

I got to say,  the focus on evergreen content, it’s a big issue a lot of people have, where they focus on what’s going on right now today, and they’ll reference things that are in that time frame, and you’re so right, especially on that fact. I can imagine you’re doing some of the transcribing of your episodes and realize just how important evergreen content is for indexing on Google.

 

Andrew Lopez

I mean, everything I do man in all honesty, is through LinkedIn. I mean, I manage just the content or sorry, the comments and the engagement. I don’t put everything on YouTube just for storage. But I’m not pushing the YouTube channel on the show like, because to me, all I care about is engagement and involvement. And LinkedIn is the best place for that. At least for me.

 

Joe Casanova

It really is.

 

Andrew Lopez

That’s why I keep it there. So many people ask me, “Where else can I tune into the show”? And I’m like, well, here’s past episodes. I have 200 and I think 230 episodes between the three shows over the last 15 months. So I’ve had 230 people.

 

Joe Casanova

Someone’s been working.

 

Andrew Lopez

It again, is my walking billboard; it’s how I connect with people. That’s where I always say I use video as a vessel. If it wasn’t for the show, I wouldn’t know the people that I’ve gotten to meet, I wouldn’t have met any of you guys. Bogdan saw an episode of my show, and he’s going to be on it next week. And it’s just that how I was led to all you wonderful people is through an episode being commented on and then connecting further. And now he is on the show, which will air in a couple of weeks. So it’s my own version of SEO. It’s when you’re a small business owner, as we all are, right, we’re all trying to figure out ways to do it and not get overwhelmed. And that’s just kind of been my marketing strategy. That’s funny, it just kind of came to me and I just… it started to work after all of this stuff.

 

Joe Casanova

I have to say, the best marketers I found are just not marketers, like they don’t go into it thinking I’m going to do marketing to do it. They just truly provide the best value possible and it ends up happening organically. If you look at all these influencers who have done great stuff with their brands and built an actual audience, this is what you’re doing. It’s just saying I’m not trying to do a strong call to action and figure this out.It’s like, I’m just going to do a great episode with content that’s always going to be evergreen. It’s always going to be insightful, it’s always going to be valuable. And doing it in the timeframe that you just said, with episodes that you’ve produced, this has been, it’s commitment.

 

Andrew Lopez

100%, it’s commitment just on a different level. Because, again, I’m able to still have conversations with people when I book a 30 minute meeting with anyone that’s on my show. The recordings are only two to three minutes long. I mean, as you can see on my LinkedIn, my episodes are between two and three minutes. I’m able to get two questions answered. Now, some people will go six, and I’ll just always shorten it. Yeah, thanks Adobe Premiere for saving me there. But it’s really just focusing on that short content. I kind of get all of our attention spans now. Yeah, we’re working from home, and we’re digital, and we can do so many more things. But I’m still also trying to give people my show that has been deemed by a couple of friends. They call it the Daily Express shot. It’s like, you can take a shot of an impactful conversation for two, three minutes,  and oh my gosh, there it is like, Alright, cool, it’s good, but then we can get on with our day. So, I’m always so thankful, and I’m always so appreciative for anyone who tunes in, who comments and gets involved in the conversations that we start every day. And the two questions that I ask are very simple questions. They’re kind of laughable if you think about it, but one of them is simply just who you’re looking to connect with. And I have people basically just describe their ideal client, it’s that simple. And then from there, hey, I’m looking to connect with X, Y, and Z. I simply say, “What’s the conversation that you want to start with those connections”? And the conversation question has been a question I’ve asked in all three versions of the show that I’ve had. And it’s such an open-ended question, right. But at the same time, it sparks so much engagement, and it sparks so much more conversation. And I’ve had the most random conversations to the most emotional conversations. For me, All I care about is that people get involved, so…

 

Joe Casanova

That’s great. Have you ever I’m just curious, of course, you have, I just would love to hear about it. Some of the people, one of the people, asked, “Who do you want to meet? Who do you want to connect with”? I guess someone in the comments saw the video, and they’re just like, oh, let me connect with that. I’m that person, I guess. Is there a success story that you’ve had that you could share?

 

Andrew Lopez 

I mean, yeah, most of my guests come from the comments. Bogdan’s living proof of that, he came into an episode last week, and we connected and I was just like, “Hey, man, let’s connect further, I’d love to have you on the show, if you’re open to it”. And most of my guests either come from a referral from the guests that go, “Hey, you should interview my friend, you should interview my brother, who’s got this company”? Or it’s people in the comments that I have a couple of lines of dialogue with, and I simply just say, “Hey, do you want to be a part of this show, too, and you’ve seen the episode”? To me, that’s what I call my show, even though some people call it the special shot. I call it the virtual watercooler because it’s almost like we’re all the WeWork. The posts that I have every day, Monday through Friday, like anyone can come to it, get involved in the conversation and have access to everybody that’s on there, grow their network, start conversations, spark collaboration, it’s almost like the, it’s me giving people to the world, that’s kind of how I’ve, I’ve deemed it right, it’s that virtual watercooler where you can all meet for two, three minutes in Oh, who’s Andrew got today? Oh, what a powerful, powerful quote, or what a powerful episode by so and so we’d love to connect with them further and maybe collaborate with them. A lot of the people I interview are coaches. A lot of people are putting it on. But again, it’s not always just a conversation about coaching. It’s not always a conversation about marketing. It’s, I’ve had marketing people say, I want to talk about leading with more love in the world. They don’t say anything about marketing. I’ve had HR people say, we need to lead with the feminine energy in the world, with love, compassion and kindness. I’ve had other coaches that focus on the mindset and want to talk about different things. So it’s, it’s open ended. And that’s what’s so beautiful about it. But it’s an open invitation for anyone who tunes in, whether you’re a daily viewer or not. There’s people in there that like what I’ve said. More people, I believe, are listening, paying attention and seeking to be understood more than ever before. That’s where people come together.

 

Joe Casanova

Absolutely. And I’m just curious where it was. It’s all on the LinkedIn group, right? That’s a sensor on LinkedIn. I’m not familiar with LinkedIn. My communities are…

 

Andrew Lopez

No, it’s just me on my page, like I post every day, just openly, I use the hashtag #elevatednetworking, all one word, so you can click on the hashtag. And you can follow that if you want. Or if you just connect with me, and you’ll see it in your feed. And I put everything on YouTube. But like I said, YouTube, for me, it’s just the storage so when someone says, Hey, do you have any examples of your show? I can say, Oh, yeah, here’s all the episodes I’ve done in the last year and a half. But everything that I do is simply just on LinkedIn. I post on my personal page. I give every guest a copy of the video and the raw footage so they can do what they want with it. They can post it on their page, post it on their Instagram, they could send it to the mayor of their city like whatever they want to do. I don’t hold any footage hostage. But for me to view it, I mean, simply just my LinkedIn page or the hashtag, I don’t have any special group like you don’t have to join like it’s, it’s a show. It’s basically just my daily post. I’ve just chosen to make my daily posts Monday through Friday, and a form of a two minute interview about connection.

 

Joe Casanova

That’s great. Have you experimented with YouTube shorts right now? I’ve heard it’s doing very well on the organic reach side on the short form.

 

Andrew Lopez

Have not actually, no, I …

 

Joe Casanova

Any plans? It’s a two-minute video, from two to three minute videos. I think it’s a cap. It’s a TikTok competitor, same with the reels but they’re rewarding, YouTube, if you know about YouTube’s creator fund, about half of their proceeds go to creators…

 

Ophir Gadot

Okay, I think we lost you there. And we lost you in the middle of the sentence…

 

Joe Casanova

Sorry. Logged down logged in technical side. Cool. So keep it up, keep it going. Keep watching. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong…

 

Ophir Gadot

 I will step in, because I have many more questions, if you don’t mind.

 

Andrew Lopez

Yeah. Fire away.

 

Ophir Gadot

What advice would you give to someone who starts their own business today? From my experience?

 

Andrew Lopez

I mean, I’m no business expert, my friend. I’ll tell you that, right now. I’m just a 29-year-old boy trying to figure it out, like we all are every day. But I think when it comes to just eating, we all have a passion inside, right? We all have something that we want to do. We all have a skill. We have multiple skills, but there’s something that really shines within us. If you were to ask me what my best skill is, I don’t even say video. I basically help people just express themselves. I call myself a chief expressionist. If anything, I use video as a platform to express myself. My show is a way for people to express themselves. So I’ve built a business around expression, and I never thought that would be something I would say. But it’s something and it’s different. It’s never something I would have imagined. But I think…

 

Ophir Gadot

This is a great statement. By the way. First time I’m hearing it.

 

Andrew Lopez

Yeah, run with it, take it. I think, any advice I would have for anyone at any age is kind of just now is the time. Now is the time to press play, as I say, and I don’t even mean it from a recording standpoint. No, I know, It aligns with what I say because I press play on a camera or on the zoom camera all the time. But now is the best time to press play, whether it’s starting a business, whether it’s writing that book that you want to write, whether it’s recording that song as a musician, whether it’s telling that person that you love them, whether it’s mending a relationship, like whatever it is, now is always the best time. I feel it’s what I’ve come to know. And I’ll be honest, I spent 27 years of my life, not pressing play and not doing things. And then finally at the end of 2019. I was like, Alright, maybe I should. And yes, I’ve gotten punched in the nose so many times, right? Just with COVID. And with learning all these things, there are so many things that you learn, but I’ll tell you, Elevated Shorts has allowed me to grow more personally and professionally. More than anything else I’ve ever done in my life. I was grateful for my college education, but I’ve learned more as a business owner learning on the fly with accounting systems and how to communicate with people than I ever did, going to school for journalism, and I’m not knocking that I’m just saying like, it hardens you up. It softens you up at the same time. It’s an interesting thing. So I guess, for anyone out there who might be working even on this call, who might be working at a company still who’s thinking about, hey, maybe I’m going to give my shot at that marketing thing. Or maybe I’m going to give myself a try at that photography thing on the side, whatever it is, like, I think it’s just, now is the time, because now is always the time. It’s not yesterday, it’s not tomorrow, it’s always, perpetually now. So it’s whenever people are ready. I think again, it took me 27 years to give it my try. So…

 

Ophir Gadot

You need to go for some, let’s say school shift along the way. So don’t be too hard on yourself. 29 is young enough to be a business owner. And then the position you’re in so I would feel comfortable about myself in your position.

 

Andrew Lopez

No, I know. I was just saying there were certain things that were holding me back like personal things, family stress, like that’s where I didn’t press play. Just different fears that I think now made us small business owners realize that the times that we live in; the personal professional life aren’t two things, it’s kind of all blended is one, it’s all aligned with self. And I think that was the biggest lesson I had learned. I had six months of being a business owner before the pandemic, and I was kind of like, Okay, this is my business. So I wear this suit, or I will wear this shirt when I go to this meeting, because that’s my business face. And then when I go home, I can wear my Adidas track pants and my hoodies, because this is my non-work self, but then doing all the things that I do, whether I, it’s like, you see me on my show, I only have like seven outfits to my name, because I had to fit all this stuff into a suitcase, to move halfway across the world. But I give people myself, I don’t always put pomade on my hair. For every meeting that I take, I give people me, because it’s the work that I do. I tell people on the show that I work with on the video stuff, like just to be themselves. I think it’s because of that alignment, our business, our brand. Our personal lives, our professional lives are kind of all together in one, especially when we’re a business owner, I get that if we work for a corporate job and you work for someone else, you might have to, not fully be yourself, which is bad in some ways. One of my closest friends works in HR, and she sees so many people who work and have a double life. And so it’s just I’ve tried to just align everything with…

 

Ophir Gadot

Don’t you think it’s a definition of this function, having your professional self and your private self in a way?

 

Andrew Lopez

Like, all together in one?

 

Ophir Gadot

Yeah, I don’t think it can work. Like for me, the only way to be successful is when it’s not a hustle, or kind of a costume you put on when you go to work, but it’s like, genuinely what you want to do. And like when it’s become rather than hustling. It’s become motivation, right?

 

Andrew Lopez

Oh, yeah, that’s just passion when we’re doing what we do, of course, I mean, I think I don’t know. I mean, it’s what’s worked for me and what I do. Right now, what I do might not be the 30 more years of my life, but I think time will tell. Yeah, it’s, I’ve found what I do, I’ve kind of just allowed myself to. It might be just, American culture too for me, like, we live to…

 

Ophir Gadot

Every culture that gives maternity leave of six weeks is insane. In my eyes. I mean, as an employer, I’m just saying, if I’m expecting an employee to come in after six weeks of her baby boy or baby girl, I’m crazy.

 

Roslyn Fawns

I’m child-free. And when I heard that, I was like, wow, how do they do it?

 

Ophir Gadot

They don’t. It’s simply insanity. Nearly insanity.

 

Bogdan Popa

I’ve seen a big difference in that here in Sweden, both parents can share the maternity leave. So the mother is first obviously and she’s home for like six or seven months, and then the dad can be home as well for like six months as well. So that’s a breath of fresh air on that side.

 

Kingsley Oseiabrah

Yeah, that’s a lot of fresh air.

 

Joe Casanova

Not America.

 

Ophir Gadot

I know you’re going to have fun as well outside the US. It’s just that this culture is crazy.

 

Joe Casanova

Right? It is capitalism at its finest.

 

Ophir Gadot

So if you don’t mind, tell me how you run, like the conceptualization process before creating content?

 

Andrew Lopez

What do you mean, specifically?

 

Ophir Gadot

As a content creator, there’s a process of basically conceptualizing what I want to do. How I want to do it and tying it with goals and deliverables. So I wanted to kind of hear from you because it’s something I’m very lacking in.

 

Andrew Lopez

I think it just depends on the direction you want to go with your content again. For me, I do the same thing, I stylize my content in the form of a show. So the process is simple. The brand is simple. And like, I ask the same two questions. So creating in my senses is easy, but I guess to go back to when I first started it; I had to understand what direction I wanted to go. And I kind of just in all honesty, with where the world was a year ago, and in April when I started the first version of the show, I literally just pressed play. I started a show about reinvention because my friend Leilani, she and I were on a call together and she used the word reinvention on a client call that we were working with. And I was like, wait a minute, reinvention. Okay, that makes so much sense. So I just mustered up two questions, kind of just over the weekend, and I’m like, oh, we’re going to run with this and kind of just give it a whirl, right, as the startups would say, the whole A/B testing, right, and all that kind of stuff. And I just, I kind of just ran with it. And then everything else that I did in between, when I would take two weeks off for the show, and to record stuff, I would just, I would use content. I would record my conversations with my friends, I would jump on a zoom call with my friend in Denmark, and I would say, Hey, we’re going to record this for 30 minutes, just ask me a bunch of random stuff. And we’re just going to kind of record it. And then what I would do is I was just, I would like, work backwards, I would just say, Oh, that was a good thing that I said, for 20 seconds, I’m going to use that kind of old Gary Vee micro-content model. So in that sense, when it comes to me, the way that I do content is so simple. The hard question from an answer, I guess I apologize, I can’t fully give you the answer. But because of the way that I stylized it, it’s very, very simple and very, very much the same. If that makes any sense.

 

Joe Casanova

Actually, if I could just follow up, I have a few questions. So it does remind me of my friend’s business model. I mean, this model as well, where he asked whether companies’ mission mattered and asked, “What’s your mission”? And that’s all he does. He just gets people talking about their passions and the missions and that short form content is so easy to replicate and go on. So I guess the creation aspect on your site is quite simple. How do you determine if, like, what KPIs or like metrics are you looking at to say that was a successful episode? That was, that was an awesome guest, we need more like that. What determines that?

 

Andrew Lopez

Just the level of engagement, I don’t look at likes, I don’t look at views or comments. I just care about the comments. If an episode only has five comments, I take it as like, maybe the conversation that the person wanted to start wasn’t as engaging. I even take it as myself, could I have asked a better question? The way that I post is the same. It’s very simple. Like I have the title and I put the heading and, I follow the traditional LinkedIn ways, but I try to get people there. Even if they don’t watch the two-minute videos, I try to ask a question based on the guest’s answer to get them to engage or to get them to just comment. For me, that’s gold. When people express when people are willing to share, That means the most to me. So that’s where I don’t look at any episode as like, oh, that didn’t reach enough people or that didn’t get 1000 views. So that episode was a failure. Like, I take it on myself. How could I have asked that question better? Maybe not the question itself. But how could I have asked it better in the post? How could I have taken what so and so said in the two minutes, and asked a better question to get more people to respond. So I don’t ever take it from a guest perspective. I was kind of taken by how I could have maybe done better as on the post of it. But I can’t. I don’t look at the views. I don’t look at who’s watching it from where? Because to me the gold is in the comments, I think I mean, that’s kind of how I’ve always thought with a lot of content that we share is you mean you can post something. And whether it be a video, whether it be a picture, whether it be whatever you want, a slideshow – if 10 people comment on it, but out of those 10 people, it turns into connections that lead to your ideal client means more than having 1,000 comments that don’t get anywhere. So I think it’s just what you choose to do with the comment. And I do it for more of a purpose than overperformance. So I think, I don’t know. Yeah, I mean, it’s so different from what I do. And I know it’s like I don’t. I don’t look at those metrics. So to say.

 

Joe Casanova

That was spot on.

 

Ophir Gadot

It was on point. Yeah.

 

Joe Casanova

Because Sure, I mean, it’s all quality. It’s not quantity. Like I’ll take one comment if that one comment ends up leading to I mean, I’ve had posts kind of go viral before and nothing comes out of it and people are like wow, it kind of gained traction but nothing came out of it at all. And then you have one post, I got one comment and someone DMed me, and that one led to something crazy that no one saw except the one person so totally resonate with that, I think it’s awesome. Through these episodes that you’ve done, obviously you’ve done a ton. There had to be something that you’ve learned that kind of caught you by surprise. Whether it turns out asking a question in the comments and increasing viewership on the video for some reason, like what is it that’s something that you would have told yourself that you only found out through the data doing all these episodes, I would have In the beginning?

 

Andrew Lopez

I think so I mean, to be honest, I know I sounded so simple in my last answer. But I mean, in my first couple of seasons of reinvention daily, August or April, May, June, July last year, I was caught up in the metrics. I was trying to do that. I was trying to put sponsors on the show. If you were to look on the YouTube channel, and like you look at season four of reinvention daily, like I had a shelf behind me and I had coffee mugs with logos that were put on from Adobe Premiere. And then, in season five and season six, I had Canvas squares that were behind me. And I was trying to reinvent the way that you sponsor a show. I wasn’t trying to go the Joe Rogan route and say, Hey, this episode is sponsored by, I was trying to just throw logos behind me and pop it out and put a value on a season like, Hey, would you sponsor a season? It’s 20 episodes. I get this amount of engagement every day for 20 days, what’s the value? And it was the end of reinvention daily that made me realize like, Oh, I’m trying to, I’m still leading with connection. I’m still connecting with all these people and getting great value that way and providing value, but I was getting caught up in like monetizing the show. It was that moment that made me realize like, Oh, this is getting to be way bigger than, like, way bigger, more overwhelming. So I sweat why I stopped the show at season six, I took a couple of weeks off. And then right around Christmas, I just renamed the show. I didn’t put any logos behind me. I just went straight for it. I only asked one question. In the second version, which is called Elevated Conversations, I would ask just the conversation question. Hey, so and so good to have you here. What’s the conversation you want to start as we move forward? And it was elevated conversations where I kind of realized that more people were getting involved on that show. Because it’s like, oh, this kid just having people answer a simple question. I dropped the logos I dropped like the whole I mean, I was building a website called friends on the wall dot COM And I would have nine Canvas squares behind me with nine logos, and then the website matched the background and I was trying to do all the KPI, all that stuff, man, it just got to be too much. And I, you put a price on something, sometimes it kind of can change things. So that was kind of the big lesson that I learned. And I just kind of I was going through, I was working with a coach and his name is Archie Houston. He’s in San Diego. And one of the biggest things he had said is Andrew, he asked me two questions. He was like, are you doing this for purpose? Are you doing this for performance? And that question alone made me think, okay, I’m getting caught up in the performance game here. Like I’m trying to do so many things. And this and that. And the second thing, it wasn’t even a question, he just simply said, Andrew, you just need to share and not compare. And it was those two phrases that actually made me realize that what I was doing was bigger than the sponsorship, I could have put on it or, so that’s where I made video, the vessel for connection, and I monetized other things, and not the show.

 

Joe Casanova

That’s great. That’s great, isn’t it, like, I know, the whole streaming game and the content game, it’s really a grind. And then when you really shift gears and start focusing on the monetization, and really the value of what you have there. I mean, honestly, stop looking at the metrics, and just really focus on putting out the best stuff possible, it all kind of falls into place. And I really like what you said about the guests and their content. It’s so easy to blame someone else, but it’s such a childish response. And we just said it was like, it’s on me, like I change the caption, I take that. And I mean, I know, you have to take 100% responsibility for your life, whether it’s something in your control or not, it’s your reaction to it, and you can do something about it, because sometimes your reaction can ultimately affect the outcome. And even if it’s changing a caption, just by a word, it might end up making that your worst performing post, your best performing post. So, that’s a little key thing there, which is great.

 

Andrew Lopez

Oh, of course because I can’t edit. I mean, I can edit things, but I can’t fully edit what they say. I can’t take sentences and make it sound like what I want to sound to change the episode. So that’s where again, I realized that I couldn’t do that. So I just said, Okay, yeah, how could I have asked that question better? How can I maybe change the title to make the title more engaging? So again, if someone’s watching it and not listening to it? How can they get involved? So I think it’s one of the things as a host, that a lot of people miss a lot of people. Yeah, that guest wasn’t very good, or they didn’t have as many followers. I have a lot of people that come to me that are like, Hey, I want to start a show. But, I want my first 10 guests to have followers that are over 30,000 people on LinkedIn following and I’ll be honest, I’ve had four or five people who’ve had 30,000 plus followers on my show, and like in the beginning, and I’ve had people that have had 1,000 followers that have gotten three times the engagement and three times the value out of an influencer. So it made me realize even to like it’s not about who you have on the show. It’s what you do with it as, as the host, like, I respond to everybody, I connect with everybody who likes and who comments. I send connection requests. And I try to get to know the people who take the two, three minutes out of their day. It’s like one of the greatest gifts that people can give me . Oh, I got involved on this kid’s show, and I paid attention for three minutes, and I’m so grateful when I’m so passionate about it. So that’s where I take it upon myself. And that…

 

Joe Casanova

You’re killing it right now. What, why three minutes? What gave you that time window/frame? Why not 60 seconds? Why not 10 minutes? Why not five, eight?

 

Andrew Lopez

Because I was asking two questions. Reinvented Daily was two questions in a three minute format. A lot of people ask me, Hey, why don’t you just interview people for 30 minutes? I was trying to steer into the skid of people’s attention span online. 60 seconds was a tad too short. There were a couple of episodes where I got 60 seconds on the second version, Elevated Conversations, which was just the one question. But so I tried to live in the 90 seconds to 3 minute world. So even now. It’s just digestible. People can tune into it. They can get everything they can out of it. And then they can continue on with what they’re doing. You can post a clip, but then it’s hard to get people to commit to 45 minutes. I mean, again, I see content all the time. And there are times where I want to sit and just listen to all these people, for 45 minutes here, 45 minutes there, but it’s hard to grasp everything. So that’s where I just kept it short and sweet. And the continuation of the conversation is just when you connect with the guest and have your own conversation with that. And that’s the extension. I’m just the guy who provides the initial expression or initial conversation.

 

Joe Casanova

Amazing. Awesome. Cool. Anyone else got anything? Any comments? Question?

 

Zane Joseph James

Yeah, I’m just going to say that I really love this conversation. Like, I’m getting some new ideas from this, like, you’ve really got some good stuff going on. Keep it up..

 

Andrew Lopez

Oh, yeah. Thanks, man. Keep doing what you’re doing and keep pressing play on that camera.

 

Zane Joseph James

So, of course, you put out so much content, like you said, you used to post every Monday through Friday. And I’m sure you have other stuff to do as well. So, how do you manage to keep your stress levels down, Keep your focus up and still don’t lose quality with every piece of content that you put out?

 

Andrew Lopez

Great question. If you look at the episodes, everything is the same. I use the same banner. I use the same font. I use the same footage. I don’t even color-correct. While I’m somewhat of a video editor, like I don’t color-correct. Like it’s the raw footage. So I…

 

Zane Joseph James

It all comes from the heart?

 

Andrew Lopez

Yeah, exactly. It’s a raw expression that business owners of the world have given me, and I’m giving it to the world through video. So I did that with Reinvention Daily. Again, the first version, I used to color-correct it, I used to spend hours on an episode sometimes. And I’d be like, why the hell am I doing this? So now I just chose a different color scheme for this, I have the captions ready. Adobe Premiere actually has a new kind of thing with captions. So it’s been very, very easy to do that, and very quick. But that’s where a lot of the stress has come off because I keep everything the same. And I also use the same font. I mean, you guys can look at these episodes. Like I say the same six sentences for the reasons I don’t want people to listen to me. I want people to be like , ”that guy Andrew, he’s going to say the same six sentences, he’s going to say the same intro”. Like, I don’t need people to listen to me, because it’s not my show. I’m just the host. I’m just the guy who’s here to ask those questions. So when I realized that I didn’t have to get caught up in the post-production all those months ago, it made the stress and it made my life a lot easier. Now the only real stress comes down to just the scheduling sometimes. But that’s forcing it all into a matter of like, you’ll see. So I have episodes that run until the week of the 19th. And in the week of the 19th. I’ll actually film 15 to 20 episodes with people in the Netherlands since I’ll move there on the 26th. But I’ll spend that last week here, just hammering episodes, and then the week I’ll take the week of May 26  to the, I guess 31st off, like I won’t post that week, but I’ll edit everything. And then August 2, I’ll go live with the new version of the show. But everything will be pre-canned and pre-edited. So then all I got to do from August 2 until September 1, it’s just post at 10 am. My local time.

 

Ophir Gadot

I have a question, Andrew. So I mean, if you had access to all the resources in the world, What do you need to do to take the next steps with your brand? And with your venture?

 

Andrew Lopez

Solid question, I think for me, I’m in the process of trying to build some sort of networking platform as like an extension of the show. I have all these people that I’ve interviewed, and there’s a lot of gold there, right, just for the rest of the world, even. I’ve had some of the greatest people on my show. And these are just ordinary, everyday heroes that have been heroes to me. So I’m trying to figure out, how do I take that? How do I use my own name and my business? How do I elevate those people and bring those people together? So I think the thing that I’ve been trying to find, and it’s something I’ll build over the next couple of months is how do I be on the show? How do I bring people together? Is it a community like this? Is it a community? Is it a LinkedIn group? Is it a whole website with a portal and a membership? Like, I think that’s been the big thing that I’ve been sitting on, especially my whole time here in the UK the last 11 weeks. But if that makes any sense. But that’s kind of what I’m looking to do is how do I add to what I’m already doing in that same sense? Do I take the gold from the show? I take the people from the show, and how do I bring all those people together to continue the collaboration, to continue the conversations, to continue the value? And that’s kind of what I’m, I’m trying to piece together, like, everyday, you know? So that’s where I’m, that’s why…

 

Ophir Gadot

Sounds good. Joe, it seems like something we can help with.

 

Joe Casanova

I’m sure, I’m definitely sure. Sounds like what you’re doing is awesome. And it’s aligned with a lot of the stuff that we’re doing too. And, any way we could support we’d love to, that’s what this community is all about. And I mean, you’ve obviously had plenty of insights and experiences that you’re already giving back to all of us. So definitely appreciate what you’re doing here right now.

 

Andrew Lopez

1000% yeah, this has been awesome. I mean, I appreciate all you guys so much already, and would love to, further conversations with anyone who’s open to me. I mean, I’m a pretty open guy. So feel free to get involved in the show, I post everyday Monday through Friday, 10am. British Standard Time at the moment. So I know it’s early in the morning for some of you back in the States, but…

 

Joe Casanova

amazing, it’s fun to close out this recording. Well, obviously, we’ll still be hanging out in the lobby. Any closing remarks, and obviously plugging your channels and your socials one more time.

 

Andrew Lopez

Oh, yeah, I mean, for all of us here, thanks for having me. Absolute pleasure. And the advice that I always say is, just don’t be afraid to press play. And that can be on a video, that could be just, again, starting that business, starting that new widget, starting a new community, telling that person that you love them, writing that song, writing that book, whatever it is, just don’t be afraid to press play in your life and take a hold of what you want to do. It’s been the greatest gift that I’ve given myself. And I know that’s one of the greatest gifts that we can give to ourselves. So don’t be afraid to press play and get after it. For me, LinkedIn… Instagram’s kind of more for my singing and dancing and lighter side of life. Find me on LinkedIn, Andrew Lopez. I know it’s a common first name and last name, but you can just put in Elevated Networking or Elevated shorts and you can find me there but that’s kind of where I do all my connecting and teaching with everybody. Yeah, I don’t have a website yet. That’s the next resource question. I think next.

 

Joe Casanova

Let’s be on the lookout for that soon right?

 

Andrew Lopez

100%

 

Joe Casanova

Beautiful. Awesome Andrew, appreciate you.

 

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