Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast. I am your host, Roberta Angela. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development. And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify, leave us a rating and a review and what you'd like for us to discuss on this show.
00:29
Now let's get communicating. And let's get communicating today with Annie Margarita Yang, the bestselling author of the five day job search. Welcome to the show. I'm excited to have you here. Roberta, I am so excited to be here today to chat with you and share all of the insights that I've learned in the last 10 years.
00:56
Absolutely welcome. It's my pleasure to host you today. I love your story, which we're going to talk about in more detail. But before we get into that, please introduce yourself and give us a little bit of your background. I am an Asian American, originally born and raised in New York City to working class Chinese immigrants. My mom came here, my dad came here with only about $400 in their pocket about 30 years ago and
01:25
I am what you consider the classic Asian American. I went to the prestigious schools all throughout growing up. I had the straight A's in school, but you know what? My path diverged at that point when it came time to decide whether to go to college and I decided not to. How did that work with your parents? Honestly, you would think my parents would be upset, but they weren't as upset as I thought they would be.
01:55
because I had this guidance counselor who was Indian. And she was more upset than my parents actually. She had weekly sessions with me to tell me that I was gonna be an absolute failure in life if I didn't go straight to college. Yeah, weekly one hour sessions for two years straight. And at one point she pulled me into a special meeting with the head of the guidance department along with my parents without telling me beforehand. She just pulled me out of physics class one day and there were my parents, I was shocked.
02:24
She said to my parents, are you aware that Annie doesn't want to go to college? And my parents were not aware. I didn't tell them. So that was the first time they had heard about it. And she asked, well, what do you think? What do you think of her decision? And my dad simply said, after Annie turns 18, we're not responsible for her life anymore. She makes her own decisions and she needs to suffer her own consequences. And my mom had nothing to say. She was just completely silent. Beyond that, my parents never said anything.
02:54
But then my question is first, before we get to your parents' reactions, how did you decide while in high school, especially like you said, being Asian and teaching in South Korea, I know the expectations, at least the general expectation. How did you decide that college was not going to be it for you? There were two things. One is that my parents were always really against debt. Growing up, I always saw them spend money with cash.
03:20
Credit, I've never heard of credit cards before I turned 18. Like when I graduated high school, that was the first time I even heard of credit cards. From me to think like, oh my gosh, if I go to college, I might have to take on student loans. I was like, that's out of the picture. I'm not gonna borrow money to go to school, first of all. The second thing is during my second to third year, I spent the summer with my relatives in China. And that was the first time I actually got to like, do nothing.
03:47
Every summer I had to do something. That was the first time I actually just got to sit down and do nothing. And during that summer I thought, is this really all there is to life? I spent all my childhood years just studying away. I was like bored out of my mind. I thought there has to be more to life than just this. And I started spending my time that summer reading blogs like The Minimalists or Zen Habits. And these are people who were making six-figure incomes. They had debt. They paid their debt off. And then they decided to sell all their belongings.
04:17
just travel the world with a backpack. And I thought that, that is interesting. That's fascinating. I want to try maybe doing something like that. It's different. You know, I wanted a different experience. So that made me think. And then at some point with the guidance counselor trying to push me to go to college, I specifically remember that day with the meeting with my parents. During lunchtime at school, I actually thought maybe she's right. Maybe I should go. Maybe that's the right path for me.
04:45
But I heard this really loud voice in my head. It was like a man's voice with like the gravity of Zeus. It was insane. And it just said so loudly, Annie, if you go to college, this will be the number one regret of your entire life. If you go straight to college, you will regret this the rest of your life. Don't go. I've never heard that before, but I figured, you know, I'll follow it. Maybe it's right. It felt right in my heart. So I just felt like I should follow what I heard.
05:13
That is absolutely amazing. And as I said, especially going against the grain and imagine how impressionable you were at that young age and for a guidance counselor and you still went against that. So kudos to you. But then you have a lot of children, especially from the Asian community. Like you said, not everyone has your kind of courage to say all this against me. And I'm still going to take a different route. I would say that voice in my head, it felt so strong. It felt like.
05:43
if I didn't follow it, it was as if I'm disobeying something, I would say. And that's been the case my whole career, like the last, what, I'm 28 now. I heard that when I was 16. So the last 12 years, I've continued to hear more and more. This isn't the only occasion when I've heard things. And I just feel like if I'm not listening to it and following that, I'm doing some sort of disservice. So everything that I've done has really been this thing that I hear in my head. Even writing the book, the book.
06:12
was dictated to me. Maybe you wouldn't believe that, but. No, we talk about inner voices and inner work and your inner communication. So yes, intuition and oh yeah, we know all of that Israel. So when you decided college is not for me, what was then the next step after you graduated high school? Since I didn't have any guidance and no one had advice for me, my parents couldn't give me advice on how to navigate the workplace in USA.
06:42
because they've never applied for jobs here, right? What ended up happening to me is I just worked a whole string of minimum wage jobs, from working as a cashier at ShopRite to being a cashier at another grocery place, at a hardware store, collecting basketball tickets. And at some point you'd be shocked to hear this story because I had a really abusive boyfriend at the time. He told me one of the ways I could make some extra money, a lot of extra money, real quick and easy, was to become a foot fetish model.
07:11
And I believe this guy. Like I genuinely trusted this boyfriend of mine and I didn't want men touching my feet, but my boyfriend said it'd be a good idea. Maybe I can give it a try. He said based on what he's right about it, there's nothing sexual. So I thought, okay. And I went there and my goodness, that was just a front for prostitution. I honestly can say at 19, that was my rock bottom.
07:40
glad it happened to me because it changed the trajectory of my life forever. I said, you know, I only want to do work that's aligning with my values. That's not my values. So going forward, I decided, even if someone wanted to pay me a million dollars to violate my own personal values, my answer is no. So when you were doing this minimum wage jobs, did you have like a plan of where you could take your life career wise, or you just thought you'll figure it out along the way?
08:09
Well, the thing is, even when I was working those minimum wage jobs, I was studying every week. So what I did was I made a whole list of things that I was interested in as potential career paths. Like, for example, back then, the things that I really liked were holistic health or yoga, sewing my own clothes. And I basically looked at this list and I borrowed books from the library based on the things that I was interested in. And reading more and more books...
08:38
just to see like, is this something I really want to commit my career to doing? If I'm reading enough books about it, if the interest doesn't fizzle out quickly, maybe there's something there. Maybe there is something potentially there. And after two years of doing that, I realized the one thing that never fizzled out that I just kept going back to over and over again was personal finance. I really liked to save money and manage money. And I figured that's what I want to do my career on. Like I want to help people.
09:06
save money, manage the money, become financially independent. And you were thinking about finance and saving money and financial independence while working those minimum jobs. Cause that takes a lot of discipline. Cause a lot of us think, Oh, I barely, I'm living from paycheck to paycheck. Don't even tell me about savings and investments. How am I going to invest when my paycheck is gone at the end of the month? I was really frugal. Yeah.
09:34
Even when I was working those minimum wage jobs, at any given time, every time I got my paycheck, I set aside 25 to 50% of my income aside just for emergency. And then the remaining that I was willing to spend was spent on necessities like food. At some point I even moved out earning $10 an hour in New York City. I did move out. I never asked my parents for money to help me pay the rent or food or anything at that point. And any discretionary income, I used it to spend on books and personal development.
10:03
That is amazing, especially for New York City. You know, it's not like you're in one of the Southern states where things are a little cheaper and you still have that level of discipline. So from minimum wage, you starting on this career path, you're becoming more interested in finance. What was the next step? At that point, I was really into Dave Ramsey. I love this guy so much. I loved what he was doing and I called up his company. I asked, how can I do what he's doing? And.
10:31
They said they have something that's like called a financial peace university coordinator. So I don't get paid to do it. I'm a volunteer, but I can teach us courses locally. So I figured, okay, I don't know where to get started, but I'll start with this. So I found a place out in Long Island. It took me two hours each way to get there, but it was a free place. Someone let me use it for free. So I figured, okay, I don't care what it takes. I'm going to do it anyway, even though it's like four hours travel time every week for.
11:00
the next eight weeks. And then I only had one student show up. I wanted to give up, but I specifically remember saying to myself, you know what, she's the first one. I'm going to dedicate all my time to helping her out. Honestly, I would say I really helped her because she was in the midst of divorce and she was fighting to keep her home. And in order to buy out the home, her portion from her ex-husband, she needed to have enough money saved up. In the end, she managed to keep her home. So kudos to her.
11:29
kudos to her and to you as well for helping her with that process and then speaking of having one person but still doing your very best i remember there's a guy his name is paul fink he's a speaker he says for his first speaking assignment when he showed up at the venue i think there are only two people instead of the 75 he was hoping would have shown up
11:53
But he said, I still gave those two people my very best as if the 75 people showed up. And one of them gave him so many referrals afterwards for speaking engagements. That's how his business blew up from those two people. I agree. I mean, regardless of whether you think it's a good opportunity or not, you got to always put in your best. You don't know what's going to come of it. Absolutely.
12:18
So from that Long Island, the seminars you were having there, that's how you started to develop your business? Yeah, I started with that. The next thing I did was I went to this small business expo in Manhattan at the Javits Center. It was free to attend and I figured, okay, I don't know what's going on. Let me go check out what this has. And I came across this sales pitch. I was in the middle of the sales pitch and they were talking about this new workshop they were doing called publish a book and grow rich.
12:47
And if you buy it now, buy a ticket for the workshop now, it'll be only $97 and you can bring a friend. I was earning minimum wage at the time. So I thought, okay, $97 is a lot of money. I don't have that kind of money. So I turned to the person next to me and I asked if she was interested. She said, yes. So I said, okay, let me pay the 97. Why don't you pay me 45 back? Oh, for half the ticket. Cause you can bring the friend for free with the 97. I can call you my quote unquote friend. Yes. Yeah. So we did that.
13:17
And we split the cost and I ended up taking the course and I ended up writing 1000 One Ways to Save Money. Wow. Yeah. That was my ticket to be able to call myself an author, even though it's a self-published book, after that I was able to call myself an author because in that workshop that they were teaching, they said, to be honest guys, the secret is most authors don't even sell 2000 copies, so don't write a book with the intention to sell.
13:44
100 copies. Don't even do that. What you do instead is you write this book that no one's going to read and you position yourself as being able to call yourself an author. And all of a sudden people see you as a credible expert and you're given all sorts of opportunities like speaking engagements, getting on TV, getting more business referrals. So basically you use the platform of being able to call yourself an author to build an entire business around that. That's how authors make money, not from their book sales.
14:14
It's the tool to open the other doors, to get to the other opportunities. That's right. Hmm. Because then, yes, I can imagine a lot of people that say, I can put all this work into writing this book. What if I only have two sales at Amazon? Just see it as a vehicle to get to much more than that. And then after you wrote the book, what happened? When I wrote the book, I was working at Domino's Pizza.
14:39
in the middle of nowhere in Texas. There were no job opportunities there. I was working five part-time jobs. I worked every day of the week. I really wanted to hustle and work, but the opportunities just weren't there. And finally, my husband and I, we moved to Boston because he's going to to Boston University for school. And I thought this is my opportunity. There's something here. I'm gonna make my mark. I'm gonna make a difference. People are gonna know my name.
15:05
What I did was I applied to a whole bunch of accounting jobs with no accounting degree. I applied to 50 a day. I ended up getting an accounting job. I read that I'm like, she better tell us how she did that because that's a very specific, you know, it's not like me saying, oh yeah, I got into customer service. I've never been a customer. Accounting is very specific. We got people doing masters in accounting. I know, it's technical. I said, she better tell us that story. All right. In my time in Brooklyn, before moving to Texas, I was working as a bookkeeper.
15:35
minimum wage bookkeeper, but still a bookkeeper. Then in Texas, one of those five part-time jobs I was doing was also bookkeeping. Honestly, I learned bookkeeping by reading Bookkeeping for Dummies. Podcasting for Dummies, bookkeeping for Dummies. And then then in Boston, when I was applying for jobs, well, I could now put I'm an author. So I wrote on my resume right on top of my degree where it says BA in communication, I wrote author of 1001 ways to save money.
16:03
So I kept getting interviews after interview during that one week. And they said the most impressive thing was like, wow, you're an author. How did you become an author? Is this a real book? Is this legit? And I said, yeah, it's legit. You can buy the book on Amazon. It's a real book. It's not fake. I know. So yeah, I got the accounting job. That job was toxic. Because of the people or because of the technical skill required.
16:32
The boss was timing my bathroom breaks. We got a break at 10 AM every morning. One day I left at 1001. So I thought, okay, we got 15 minutes. So I came back at 1016. He's a micromanager. He was looking at the clock and he said, young lady, come over here. And I said, what, did I do something wrong? It's 1016. You're stealing one minute of paid work time. And I thought this is not the place. When did he have time to do his own job if he micromanages so much? Anyway.
17:01
I love your story. Being an author is what got you those interviews. That was more impressive than the degree. And I wrote that book in only three months versus most people take four years to finish college. Yeah. Wow. You keep being impressive. I don't know where this conversation is going, but I really like it so far. And then absolute pleasure for sure, Annie. And then after you left the toxic job, what happened?
17:31
I applied for accounting jobs again. Like that day on the train to that toxic job, I was on the train applying on Indeed with the one click apply on my phone. And then by the end of the day, I had gotten a request for an interview. So I went to that interview and they gave me the job as well. Imagine with no accounting degree. No accounting degree. And then a year later.
17:58
What I did was I wanted to buy a house. I calculated how much money I would need to make to even qualify for the mortgage. I realized that I needed to make at least 70,000 and watching how my boss for the entire year at that job said no to someone else getting a raise. This person who was asking for a raise was asking for just a dollar an hour raise, and I'm here thinking like, I'm looking for a $30,000 raise. Like this is, this is not enough, right?
18:25
And they're probably going to say no to me. So I'm just going to apply for more accounting jobs and see what I can get. Maybe I can get something. And I started doing it again. I applied to 50 jobs a day in accounting. And this one, I landed in five days, which is why it's called the five day job search. Yes. So now let's talk about your book, the five day job search. There's so much that's going on, especially since the pandemic jobs being lost, especially in the tech field.
18:53
Let's just start from the beginning. First of all, so when you wrote the book, please take us through that process. This book, like how I came about writing the book. Yes. I'll be very honest. You're the first one who asked me this story. I didn't want to write the book. I was working a full-time job, which I still work, but I was building my accounting firm on the side. So I had a side hustle and I wanted to grow that. Let's pause a little bit. Yeah. You got an
19:23
degree and now you were building an accounting firm. Yes. Basically doing what I was doing at my job, but offering it to clients. Oh, wow. So just the same thing, a different format or style. Okay. It's your own business now. Yes. Okay. Business. Yeah. I was working on growing this and then one day while I was trying to fall asleep, I heard a voice in my head. It said, you need to write this book. I was like, I don't want to write this book. I'm growing this firm.
19:52
And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, you must write this book. There was like 10 different voices in my head telling me in this book, you need to put this, this, this, this, and this. And I said, you know, it is 1 a.m. right now, I have to go to work. I need my beautiful sleep. Come back in the morning if you want to talk to me. Right. And the chatter in my head wouldn't stop. So then.
20:18
I was like, okay, fine. I'm just gonna get up and write down everything that I'm being told must be in this book The next night also 1 a.m. I said to these voices before they even started. I said don't come to me tonight I'm very tired because last night I slept only three hours. I'm done. You know, I don't want to write this book and Again, I heard voices. Okay, the book needs to have blah blah blah blah blah blah blah And they just completely ignored my plea to not write this book. So I slept at 4 a.m. Again
20:47
And then finally it was just like, okay, I don't know why this book is so important. I'm just being told you got to write this book. Finally, I just said, I'll write the book. I dictated everything I heard and then I turned it into a book. That's the story. Yeah. You literally wrote it like that. And like you said, based on your experiences of finding the job within five days. This is everything that I've learned over the last 10 years, how to become the kind
21:17
that it takes to land a job in five days. It's not necessarily like how to do it in five days, but what I've suddenly realized is I've become the kind of person that's worthy of landing a job in five days. Like people are just impressed by me. Right. They just want to throw a job at me. You know, whatever opportunity. Just like I was so impressed. I'm like, I have to have on the show. The listeners are going to love her. So let's start with the bamboo metaphor in your book. Can you share that with us again? Yeah.
21:47
I'll share with you this is in the introduction of the book because the whole reason why I even named the book the 5-day job search is because I know people want instant results. They want to know what's the secret sauce, how can they do something so quickly. And what they don't realize is just how much work and effort it takes into getting that kind of result. Actually like a 10-year overnight success was 10 years in the making, but it's something you discover someone overnight, you know?
22:16
So I use the bamboo analogy because bamboo is something that you have to water and take care of for five years while you see nothing growing above the ground. And then after five years, all of a sudden the bamboo grows like five yards a day. So then I have to ask, did this bamboo take five years to grow or did it take five days? People only see the visual, like the actual tangible result. They don't see all the effort it takes behind the closed doors, all the midnight oil that was burned.
22:46
And a lot of the time, that's why I say successful people need to share more of these stories with us because a lot of the time we do just get caught up in the, oh, he's an overnight success, but he was an overnight success for 10 years. Like you said, people just throw jobs at you, right? That means you brand yourself, you present yourself in a certain way. Would you like to share some tips with us on how you do that so that we can also have them just throw things at us? Because that's a great love to live.
23:16
Yes, I have to say one of the first things that I did was I made sure I had a professional headshot. So even in an entry level accounting position, I was 24 years old, very young. I wanted people to take me seriously. So what I did was I, I didn't have the money at first. I had to save the money for this. I saved up $350 to pay for a professional photographer to do my headshot. Yeah. Now back then.
23:44
I was limited on funds, so all I could do was get this like affordable haircut from Chinatown and then walk over to his studio. Yeah. And then I had to do my own makeup as well. But I have to say this new book that I wrote, I got a new headshot just to promote this book. And my goal is to look like a famous celebrity. So I've spent a lot of money on this headshot. And I have to say the headshot makes a huge difference.
24:14
a high-end hair salon, using a professional makeup artist, making sure my clothes look great, and then also finding the best photographer that I can afford. I used a makeup artist that did makeup for Steve Jobs and the Royal Family of Morocco. That's the kind of level I went for, a celebrity makeup artist, along with a celebrity photographer. So he shoots people. I'm not sure if you've heard of Ramit Sethi.
24:42
No, he's, he's really popular. He's, he's on Netflix now and he founded, I will teach you to be rich.com. He, I mean, he shoots like really, really famous people. So I went to that kind of person for this headshot. Yeah. You really went for the trim of the crop. And that's because you saw the value in how branding yourself. You'll be taken seriously. You come with that way of presenting yourself. And that's why they.
25:08
just throw things at you. Cause they wanna be associated with someone. We wanna be associated with somebody who presents themselves that way. I think the problem is people are so focused on the kind of job they have now rather than who they want to be. Like even for the first headshot that I got when I was 24, the photographer asked me, what do you wanna be? I said, I wanna be a future CFO. Make me look like I'm a future CFO in the making. And so that's the kind of...
25:37
shot we were going for to put on my LinkedIn profile. That's what makes people like more receptive over the last few years to talking to me. And at some point back in February, I was actually offered a CFO position, which I No way! I turned it down. You are a miracle, seriously. But you have to look the part. I mean, it's really important, you know, because I used to be really frugal.
26:05
come from making minimum wage I thought why do women spend so much money on beauty it's such a waste of money what people should care about is your personality I think that's more important your character that is far more important than how you look but then at some point I really like sat down and I admitted to myself you know honestly I have self-esteem issues I feel like I look ugly I haven't put any effort into my appearance I know I'm not ugly but back then I felt that's how you felt okay I felt about myself and
26:35
I just sat down and I said, you know what, maybe I need to work on this. Maybe it's not just about putting my best foot forward in the actual work and the skill, you know? But I actually have to put my best foot forward in my appearance, like everything about myself. So in the last few years, not only the headshot, I also paid an image consultant $3,000 to teach me how to trust myself. Like I, I asked her what colors look the best on me because I realized from watching videos of myself on YouTube.
27:04
some colors made my skin look greenish, you know, it made me look a little sick. And I realized colors and how they, they work with your skin are really important. My mom used to say the same thing when I started working, I used to just buy black, like suit, black shirt, black, everything. And one day she said to me, your wardrobe looks exactly the same. I say, what do you mean? My, I buy different things. So no meaning color. Everything is black. She said to me,
27:32
Have you noticed how white women look so beautiful in the LPD, the little black dress? I'm like, yeah. She said it's the contrast of the skin. So if you try bright colors with your black skin, imagine. That was a game changer for me. Yes, it does. What you're explaining, it really does work. You must always choose colors that work very well with your skin tone. Yes, but most people don't know that. I didn't know that. I didn't know that until I went to an image consultant.
28:02
And I said, this is ridiculous, I've struggled with this, I've read books on it, I still can't figure it out. I just need to pay someone to teach me exactly what I need to know from my own body. Because I didn't know. After that, I went to a makeup artist. Because I was watching videos on YouTube, these beauty gurus teaching you how to do makeup, and I couldn't get it right. They're putting their eyeshadow here and it looked so weird on me, I couldn't figure out why.
28:27
You know? So I finally just said, I just need to pay a makeup artist to teach me how to do makeup on my face. I got that worked out. Then I went to a hair salon. You know, I had to figure out what kind of hairstyles looked nice on me. And then recently, actually just this year, I figured why stop there at my appearance? Why not smell nice as well? Yes, have your signature perfume. Why not? I've always hated perfume. I always thought it was obnoxious. It made me feel sick. But I thought to myself,
28:56
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I have like a misconception about perfume. Maybe what I hate is someone walking by wearing cheap perfume. Or when they sprayed all over. You shouldn't smell it from 10 meters away. So I figured maybe I gotta test this belief that I have. So what I ended up doing was I went on microperfumes.com. I bought a hundred samples of the best-selling perfumes. And I just tried all of them. I was wondering, I don't know how other women...
29:25
figure out their signature perfume. Did they just try five and they're like, okay, that's my signature. I mean, how do you really know it's absolute favorite? So, you know, when you go to a perfumership back in South Africa, it's called Red Square where it's a big department chain of cosmetics, perfumes and skincare. So obviously they have testers, right? I used to just know that, okay, I think I have about like top five at best. Estee Lauder Spellbound, which you don't find at shops later.
29:53
Dolce & Gabbana, the one, the original, not the one that they made some changes to. I'm like, no, no, no, the original one. Aromatics, elixir, which when I went to South Korea, I hardly was able to find it. And even at airports, Versace Bright Crystal, when you go through testers for me, it's, it's what if I put it to, I want to just keep smelling it and not stop. That's, that's my criteria. I don't know. I want to just, I have to have this.
30:22
You know whether I'm buying it that time. I'm like when I come back later, I know it's straight exactly I won't even go to the test. I'm like red square. I'm buying this one today because I didn't know You know why not big go big and try it off, right? So you put everything together externally so that you are very appealing your energy but more than anything Let's talk about now the internal
30:49
First impressions, what's gonna make them want to know more. So you are right. It's important to have the outside being perfect. Now the soft skills, the communication and how you sell yourself now and how you present yourself from the inside, because now we've dealt with the external. So what tips do you have for us in that regard? I would say the number one thing that has made the biggest difference for my career in terms of
31:17
being able to communicate with people was public speaking. I went to Toastmasters and I just kept going back every week, I did a speech a month. Now, if you do less than one speech a month, you're not gonna improve, but if you do at least one a month then you build with that momentum based on the feedback you got previously and you can improve with each speech. I did that for two years and then with all the table topics questions that had thrown at me and I had to present in front of people, I feel like...
31:44
With that, I got very comfortable in my job interview so that I wasn't on a glass door trying to figure out ahead of time what the interviewer was trying to ask me. I was just, you know, being myself in the interview. Now I'm being my best self, right? What I found is a lot of people don't actually truly care precisely what I'm saying, the content. What they really like is the energy behind what I say. Just like I'm enjoying this interview. Exactly. Yes. That was really...
32:14
I think the biggest key for landing all the opportunities I've had, it's the energy, along with being able to have the eye contact and being pleasant, smiling, right? It's not necessarily what I say. You know why that point is important? Because I've had several guests on the podcast saying, if you are 10 out of 10 with your technical skills, but you are a poor communicator.
32:42
Even the very technical stuff that you know, people won't even perceive you being that good in it. Interesting. Because everything is perception. I mean, that's true, right? Because if you're not able to communicate it, how do people figure out that you're good? There's no way for me to figure out that you're the best dentist out there or you're the best accountant if you're not able to tell me in a way that you are. Exactly. So the perceptions are not just the physical, the outside but...
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the internal as well, do you communicate? And then, so when you have job interviews, what other tips can you share with people to land or to improve themselves so that they land these dream jobs? I would absolutely say it is not only just the public speaking, but that energy, that's the hardest thing. People don't know how to tap into that energy subconsciously. Now, the thing is, right now I'm in the middle of like coaching people and helping people with the resumes.
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They're so uptight when they first come to me. They're like, I don't think I can land a good job in five days or whatever. They get really uptight and anxious and they have all these limiting beliefs. And then they're also telling me, I don't think I have any accomplishments. I don't think I've done much at my job. But the thing is once I start asking certain questions about what they did at their job, they loosen up. They start saying, Oh, I helped the company increase sales by 15% in nine months. And I was like, well, what is 15%? They're like, 1 million.
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I increased sales by one million. That's big! I know! That's amazing! Here I am, I'm learning that other people have what I think is far more accomplishments than me in the actual workplace. They've done very well, but they're not able to communicate it because they have this energy that kind of says like, I don't think I'm worthy, I don't think I'm capable, but the thing is, once I start asking those right questions, they're just like being themselves. They're like, oh yeah, that's what I did at that job. Like if they can tap into that and bring that same energy.
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that's just like very chill, kind of like talking to a friend, oh yeah, this is what happened at work today kind of vibe, then they loosen up, they let go. And the interview conversation really just feels like chatting with your future coworker rather than being feeling like you're in a straight jacket and trying to figure out how to like make a bomb not detonate. I like that metaphor. Yes. And the thing is, it's funny how
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they downplay their achievements? Why do you think that is? I think some people genuinely can't tell that something is an achievement. The people that I've been speaking to, like they genuinely can't tell it's an achievement. When I asked them what they did at their job, they start telling me, but then I start pushing for numbers. I start asking, well, how many cages did you clean when you were working at the animal shelter? Or how many audit engagements did you do at this accounting job? And they tell me 48, 18, right?
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I was like, well, that's a lot, you know, but even the way they do it, it's so nonchalant. Like, oh yeah, whatever. It's not a big deal because then the reason I ask a lot of people make this mistake of saying, Oh, I was an accountant at this firm. I was a customer service rep at this firm. You sound like everybody else, but if you can tell the story of I helped the company with make a million dollars more.
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that last quarter. I would have hired that one when right away if she came to me and she's like, I can help you sell a million more books a year. I'd be like, why do they not say that in interviews? Why do they not think that that's important? Cause people just list the stuff that's on the resume and HR personnel is not impressed. This drives me crazy. So one of the people that I'm helping now, he kept coming to me every single session. His first question was what certification?
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do I need? And I said, okay, so let's forget about the certifications here. I think what people's focus is what's the next certification or the next license that I need to up level in my career. But my mindset was never that. I mean, you're talking to someone who didn't go straight to college, right? So my mindset was always like, how can I help you? I'm here to serve. What, what do you want me to do? Is there a problem you want me to solve? Maybe I can help you out. Like I always just came with that mindset.
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Yeah. Yeah. And those skills, the transferable skills, especially because you didn't go to college. So you had to learn on the job and doing those minimum wage jobs. You you learned them quickly, basically, because you were right there deep in the trenches. Yeah. And so what would you say? What would be your last words of wisdom for someone who's thinking maybe college is not for me? Because, you know, they still get pushed from parents. Most people. I don't want to leave people.
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with the thought that college isn't for them. I really want to lead people with a thought that you need to think about what you want to do with your life first. I think what people do is they go to college and they're saying, I'll figure it out there. But then they're spending up, what? The average cost is 36,000 a year now. So we're looking at 144,000 in tuition. I don't think that's financially smart. And I'm always for being financially savvy and smart. Yes. To money.
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My advice would be is to figure out first, maybe follow what I did, right? Make a whole list of your interests, read 20 books on the subject, see if it, if your passion fizzles out or not. And if it doesn't, maybe there's something there for you. And then figure out, is there a career based on this passion that you have? What kind of job titles are available for this passion? And do those job titles require a college degree? And then that will be the starting point of your schooling.
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So don't figure it out while in the middle of the student loan debt. No. If you do go to college, it's because you have a plan. You've done some introspection, some questioning of yourself. Because if you don't, then you're going to be aimless. I believe a large majority of college students change their major at least once. Many of them change three times. And every time you change, it costs you more time or money. Wow.
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You'd be surprised to learn this statistic. So we think the success rate of graduating is actually four years for a college degree. Right. Actually, successfully graduating is six years. That's how it's measured. Of a four year degree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's 150% of the normal time. So if you manage to graduate in six years, you're considered a success. Which means two more years of the debt? Yes, that's right. Annie, if I
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could keep you for the rest of the evening, I would, but I know you need to go. I know you have several freebies for our listeners from all your wisdom and all the things that you've learned that you're gonna share with us, so please. Yes, Roberta, if your listeners are interested in getting a personally signed copy from me and with a 10% off discount and free shipping within the United States, they can go on
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Communication 10 when they check out. Communication 10, thank you for the 10% discount of a personally signed copy of Annie Yang's book. So that's the five day job search, right? For the five day job search. Yes, and I believe you have some other worksheets as well that are very helpful and some templates too. Yes, all throughout the book, there were exercises that I wished people could do as well alongside the book.
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that I wish I had known about back then. I couldn't include them in the book itself because these are things that you would have to write on and I don't want people to write in the book itself. So that's why they are available for download on www. And also if anyone's interested they can also get the audiobook for free right now on www. as well. Are you narrating the book? I love it. I narrated the book myself but honestly even if they get the audiobook for free
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They would want to buy the actual physical book because there's so much information in here. It's something you want to keep referring back to and doing that with audio wouldn't be so easy. Yeah, you wouldn't be able to, it's not practical for sure. Thank you so much for being here. I had so much fun with you.
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This is so far like the best podcast interview I've been doing. Thank you so much. You are too kind. I love it. No, I love it. I absolutely... Now I see why people throw things at you. You're just so much fun. I don't want you to leave. Thank you. My absolute pleasure. Thank you for being here. Before you go, where can we find you if we want to know more? If you want to know more, you can also find more content on YouTube. All you need to do is search for Annie Margarita Yang, and I should show up there.
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Okay. And YouTube and then Annie Yang Financial, that's the website. Sorry. Thank you. Annie Margarita Yang, bestselling author of the five day job search, the accountant with no accounting degree who's showing us that it all depends on our mindset. Thank you very much for being here today. Thank you so much, Roberta. Have a good night.
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So Annie, you say that you use AI to help your clients with their resumes and LinkedIn profiles. Can you give us a snippet of how that is done? Yeah. So what I do is I tell these people to look for their ideal job title. For example, if one guy wants to be a hotel manager, I tell them to look for 20 job listings through a Google search. And then I have this person, I don't want to do the work myself. I give them this as a homework.
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they need to copy and paste the listing into Chat GPT-4, not 3.5, but four, so the one you pay $20 a month for. And we prompt Chat GPT to analyze job listing. So we say, please analyze the following job listing. What are they looking for in an ideal candidate? And how should the resume be written so that we come across as that ideal candidate? And then we copy and paste one listing. And then we do that 20 times.
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so that we get 20 different analyses. And then we copy and paste those 20 analyses into Word doc. And I have this client group the themes. So like, let's say all the themes for education should be in one section or like number of years of experience should be in another. What kind of soft skills are they looking for? Do they need someone who wants flexibility? So we basically start grouping everything. What kind of technical skills and then a section for software. So basically,
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An analysis of the analysis. That's the best way I can put it. And then once I start helping them write the resume, I take a look at their homework that they give me, and then I start asking questions based on the analysis. Like, well, do you have experience with this software or, or do you have this kind of technical skill that they're looking for? So that way we end up writing the resume targeted for the specific position that they're looking for. Absolutely amazing. Annie.
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Thank you so much. Thank you for joining the Speaking and Communicating Podcast once again. The Speaking and Communicating Podcast is part of the Be Podcast Network, where there are many other podcasts that support you in being a better leader and becoming the change you want to see. To learn more about the Be Podcast Network, Don't forget to subscribe, leave us a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify.
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and stay tuned for more episodes to come.