Building INFLUENCE SHOW
WATCH SEASON 1 EPISODE 3
MIKE SAYS
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
This is Episode 03 from Season 01 Education, which contains eight episodes featuring guests from the education sector. Guests share the ups and downs of their career journey, providing a candid and unfiltered sneak peek into their lives.
ABOUT MIKE YATES
Mike has made it his mission to transform the K-12 education experience. It was a bold goal but given his background and passion, I know we have exciting things awaiting us. Mike has won teaching and coaching awards and is bringing innovation to the learning experience by utilising adaptive learning software.
He is the co-founder of Guide, once a social e-learning app but now a B2B SaaS platform. Mike is also working on the development of a school reinvention lab (21st century Learning Lab) to ensure that every student in Austin, Texas can receive a phenomenal education. A two-time TEDx speaker, Mike is also the host of the Schoolish podcast.
SHOW NOTES
Note that there is a small glitch at 22 minutes but it goes away after a few seconds.
- I didn’t intend to be in education. In fact, my mom told me, “Never be a teacher. Never go into education”. Well, I ended up doing it anyway (02:41)
- I made a calculated move to leave the system but this is what I did not anticipate (03:13)
- I want people to know that I am creative. I write poems, I dabble in graphic design, I sing, I record music (04:31)
- Took my love of sneakers and design and combined them with a partnership that we’re running now with a sneaker brand (05:04)
- Key to building my presence is authenticity and not taking shortcuts and consistency, never backing off the messages that I believe and yet open enough to change my mind when the evidence presents itself. I want to learn out loud and in public and I want to be my authentic self online (06:50)
- Whether you have 10 followers, 10,000 or 10 million, you should be you (09:11)
- When I first started my journey in personal branding, I used to be so afraid to post something and that no one would like it and then I realised that it’s not really about that (10:03)
- Dismantling the education system (10:19)
- But then people would say, “But what if it’s been said before?” Everything’s been said before (11:00)
- I post what I like, I post about what I want to know (11:48)
- Go when you are ready to go. Do it when you are ready to do it. Don’t put it off but do it when you are ready to do it. My recommendation for people is always start yesterday (13:20)
- For someone who is completely new to networking, I think one of the most important things is curiosity (15:46)
- What I did to grow my network (19:06)
- What do you need that I can give or help you with? (19:08)
- I am building a personal branding community to help educators who feel stuck, to take control of their career and move to the next place or next school (21:24)
- To me I want 100 active followers rather than 10,000 stagnant ones (23:33)
- I am really clear about my messaging. I am not a motivational speaker, it’s not what I do. (29:34)
- But when I reach out to new people, I actually go outside education because I believe I can learn, I can glean new ideas from people outside education (25:43)
- One of the best connections I made was with a guy named Mark Baldwin who worked at Tesla (27:00)
- I only reach out when I have a real interest in meeting or talking to that person and I’ve really followed through on that interest (27:56)
- I used to believe that no one is an expert but I now accept that people have expertise (29:47)
- Living in Texas (37:49)
- Failures and missteps (39:25)
- I made a conscious decision two years ago to start claiming my intellectual property (43:35)
- I have a blog that no one sees where I keep a copy of every article and newsletter that I write (44:20)
- Be very clear about who you are and what you want to get out of this (46:46)
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- Gary Vaynerchuk’s podcast
- Mike Yates‘ LinkedIn Live every Friday
- Mike Yates – The Schoolish podcast