Mastering SEO and Embracing Individuality with Atiba De Souza

Whenever Atiba De Souza walks into the room, the air will be electric with insights into Google's algorithms and the human stories woven into the digital space. In a heartwarming tribute to his mentor Ed McIntosh, Atiba underscores the profound impact of seeing value in everyone and offers a stirring reminder that respecting others shapes our personal and professional trajectories. During our conversation, we travel through the emotional as well as the technical side of navigating the ever-changing seas of SEO.

The purpose of this episode isn't just to crack the traffic code, but to delve deep into the soul of content creation. Instead of focusing on vanity metrics, we seek to create content that engages the audience with genuine appeal. From the humble beginnings of internet entrepreneurship to the dazzling effect of video content in today's digital ecosystem, Atiba presents a playbook for crafting strategies that resonate authentically. This will generate engagement that goes beyond the surface and creates a ripple effect of action and loyalty.

As we wrap up, we realize that our quirks and weaknesses are the essence of our individuality, the key to unlocking our inner power. This is a rallying cry for listeners to leave a lasting legacy by nurturing talent and embracing video content to create generational wealth. In collaboration with movers and shakers such as Atiba, we end on an invitation to direct communication, where further insights await those who are brave enough to step into the arena of personal growth.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:01

My guest today, Antiba D'Souza. Antiba is a content superman With decades of running an exclusive agency, combining with hardcore technical skills. He's talking code, people, real code. It made him one of the few people with skills and insights to marry emerging software and Google's algorithm With an intuitive feel from the culture of every social media platform. People with skills and insights to marry emerging software and Google's algorithm With an intuitive feel from the culture of every social media platform. His clients call him the SEO super sleuth, the business ninja, the build your team guru and the super connector.

Speaker 1: 1:37

He is killing search engine optimization before the term was even invented. He is killing search engine optimization before the term was even invented, ranking regional and national brands in the US on page one of Google for over 15 years. His content strategies are not just bells and whistles. His vision is inspiring and his voice is thunderous in the B2B CEO space. Kasim Asalam, owner of the number one way to Google ad agency in the US, was blown away by his tech-backed, ingenious process. No one else is doing this. You got stuff people need to hear. He told him we welcome him to the podcast. Well, so good to have you, Andy. How are you doing today, my friend, I am great. How are you? I can't complain about one single thing. It is great to be on a podcast with you and talk about video and SEOs and all those things that most of us have no idea what they are. So looking forward to having an in-depth conversation with you.

Speaker 2: 2:39

Fantastic. Well, I'm looking forward to it too. So let's jump in. Let's have some fun with you, fantastic.

Speaker 1: 2:44

Well, I'm looking forward to it too. So let's jump in. Let's have some fun. Let's have some fun, all right. Now I'd like to start with this question. Give me the best piece of advice you've ever received.

Speaker 2: 2:50

You know, the best piece of advice I ever received happened when I had to have been about 17, 16, 17 years old, 17. And I was walking on the streets of DC with my now wife we were not married then and there was a homeless guy and that homeless guy. I don't know how we ended up in conversation, but that homeless guy taught me that day the value of people around you, despite what they look like.

Speaker 1: 3:22

Wow Okay.

Speaker 2: 3:24

Right, because he dropped some knowledge on us that day about respecting people. That really rocked me at that point, because I would have just normally walked by a random homeless guy.

Speaker 1: 3:37

You typically do that right.

Speaker 2: 3:38

Yeah, typically, but yeah, it taught me about the value that everyone has. It reminds me of a story.

Speaker 1: 3:49

It reminds me of a story of there was a guy who was going around congregate churches as a homeless person and he would sit in the church and see who would talk to him and who would reject him, and the guy actually was a millionaire. I think is what it was reject him and the guy actually was a millionaire I think that's what it was. And he said it was interesting to see how people treated him when they thought he was just a homeless guy compared to anybody that's just walking off the street. So I thought it was interesting. Ever since I heard this story, I've always thought about people, like you said, a little bit differently, because you just don't know who you're entertaining as you're sitting there talking to people.

Speaker 2: 4:21

Absolutely, and it goes the other way too is understanding that people have that bias right. And look, we can sit here and talk race, religion, all sorts of biases right. But the fact of the matter is we judge each other by the cover, doesn't matter what all the other stuff is right by the cover, doesn't matter what all the other stuff is Right. And so if you know you're walking into a place where you need to receive something, you need to be taken seriously. Sometimes it's important to consider what is it that I look like walking in here? How do I present myself Now? At the same time, I'm not saying that we, any of us, should cowtail to society and just become what society wants us to be Right, Like you have to still know where you are. Like for me, I don't care where I go, I'm always in the hat Right, and that's not changing. And you know like, sometimes I go to restaurants and I'm like, sir, please take your hat off. You know like sometimes I go to restaurants and like sir, please take your hat off.

Speaker 2: 5:27

You know, and I want to respect your restaurant while I'm there, and you asked me that, but I'm never coming back Right, because you're not going to respect me for me and that's okay.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Yeah, the thing about that part of it, yeah, I'm curious. As we talk, I love to get to know a little bit about people who have served to inspire you in your life. Is there somebody you want to kind of give a shout out to, a thank you, because they've meant so much to you?

Speaker 2: 5:51

Yeah, yeah, so my very first mentor, ed McIntosh, who's no longer with us, died a couple of decades ago actually longer with us, that a couple of decades ago actually.

Speaker 2: 6:06

But I remember my first day of high school and you know you, you do in the summertime, high school orientation, a couple of days before school, when you're a freshman, and they give you a schedule that you have to follow and at the lunch part of the schedule, I was scheduled to meet with someone named Ed McIntosh who was a teacher, and I was not happy about that because lunch is free time and I don't need a mentor, is what my naive 14-year-old brain thought. But Ed McIntosh became so much to me in terms of a guide, in terms of an example, in terms of a man, in terms of a leader, in terms of a follower, and I learned an awful, awful, awful lot from him, and it's not just me awful, awful, awful lot from him, and it's not just me. You know, he's left a legacy and there's a whole group of us who are now all grown men who trace back a lot of where what binds us to Ed McIntosh.

Speaker 1: 7:14

That's so neat. That's a neat story that he had that kind of impact on your life and so many other lives.

Speaker 2: 7:19

Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, I mean, it's a long list of us.

Speaker 1: 7:27

Yeah, what made him special?

Speaker 2: 7:31

You know, I think the thing that made Ed McIntosh special was it was never about him.

Speaker 2: 7:37

And here's somebody who he was a teacher in a high school teaching science, who left a world where he owned one of the first black radio no art galleries in this country.

Speaker 2: 7:50

He owned one of the first black art galleries in this country. Okay, and so you're talking about somebody who has stature in a community and left that stature and left all of that to teach and left it to teach to be able to pull guys like me aside and set us straight. And it was never about him. Every interaction you knew you had with him was even when he was hard on you, even when, when it was stuff you didn't, you knew it was because he wanted you and he saw greater in you and he was trying to help you get there and he was focused on that. And I think that's the thing that, when it all was said and done, that we all really appreciated and respected Because we knew we had somebody in him who truly, truly loved us, for us and where we were going, not where he wanted us to go, what he wanted us to do.

Speaker 1: 8:50

I love that. It kind of goes back to what we started talking about before we actually got on. The podcast is like all of us have in the side of us, like you said, a kind of a superpower, and it's like he saw that everybody had value, Everybody had something inside him that was unique and special and didn't want sounds like from just listening to you didn't want to see people, especially like young men, not take advantage of that something special inside of them.

Speaker 2: 9:18

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And you know it's funny looking back on it now because we didn't realize it going through it, that that's what he was doing, right, right.

Speaker 1: 9:43

And you know we didn't realize it going through it, that he had a different relationship with every single one of us, because every single one of us needed something different in order to become who we needed to be.

Speaker 2: 9:48

Yeah that's unique, that's special.

Speaker 1: 9:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got CEO before CEO was popular, so tell us how you started on this journey ahead of other people who had maybe tapped into that yet.

Speaker 2: 10:10

Yeah, no, absolutely so. In 1996, myself and two friends started a company and we were working in computers. So it was called a computer consulting firm because in 1996, that's what it was called, right, that's what it was called a computer consulting firm because in 1996, that's what it was called, right, that's what it was. We were doing everything from laying cables to writing programs to building websites. And because we were a computer consulting firm and we were fixing printers and all sorts of stuff and half the time we didn't even know what we were, you know people would call we would do work. We were like we got to figure it out. Know what we were? You know people call we would do work. We're like we got to figure it out.

Speaker 2: 10:45

Um, and so we were online on the web in 1996 searching for stuff, trying to find websites, and it was a. It was a chore, but we had a ton and we had a ton of bookmarks, and bookmarks in 2024 suck in web browsers. They were way worse in 1996. So we just had this mass of stuff and we got to a place where it was like, okay, we can't keep up with all of our bookmarks and what they all do and what information was on all of them. And so we said, well, what if we could figure out a way that we could search them, and so we could just type in a search and find an answer and know which websites to go to. And so that was our very first search engine and we had it online. Actually, we were online before Google. That's my big claim to fame in life. We ended up making $2,500 off of our search engine. I would say we missed the mark by a little bit, by a little bit, but $2,500 in 1996, we thought we had done something.

Speaker 1: 11:59

Right.

Speaker 2: 12:02

You know, we were kids, we were kids, we were on top of the world.

Speaker 1: 12:06

Right.

Speaker 2: 12:08

Right, but obviously you know it's one of those things where it's okay. So we kind of missed that boat. But missing that boat put us in a place where what we understood was how the search engine worked from the inside out. Okay, within the next couple of years my two business partners left and it was just me running the company and I ended up taking the company into the public sector and building systems for the government. We built systems for almost every government agency, every three-letter government agency out there, and we built search systems for all of them.

Speaker 1: 12:45

Wow.

Speaker 2: 12:47

And so, from small to large, up to $10 million search systems we've built, and so that was kind of the genesis of it all there, because we understood people are searching, we've got the data. How do we give them the data that they want and make sure it's relevant? Guess what y'all that's called SEO. That's what SEO is all about, right, it's making sure your stuff shows up.

Speaker 2: 13:12

I left the public sector around 2005 and then came back private and businesses were having a hard time ranking in Google because Google was having a hard time with his algorithm and needed to make changes. Anybody who knows the history 2005 to 2007, google made some major changes. I put a stake in the ground and said, well, I know exactly what they need to do to fix this Now, granted, they're doing it on a much bigger scale, but I understood theoretically what they needed to do to fix it internally in order to get better results. And so I said, well, if that's what they're going to do, then I'm going to bet that if we create content for our clients that told stories and took advantage of the way the algorithm thought, we can get them to rank on page one of Google. And so, yeah, we created that specification and it worked, and it worked beautifully, and we've ranked thousands upon thousands, upon tens of thousands of pages on page one of Google at this point. And then, in 2020, we switched from written to video, and now we do 100% video Wow.

Speaker 1: 14:18

So, as a content creator, seo has always been kind of one of those things that is really hard to wrap your mind around. So give us some advice. If you are a content creator, what are you? Some key things, or even, because I always get these things about, here is a free SEO search engine Get our subscription and we'll get you ranked on Google, and it just seems like that. Just seems like that's not really the best use of your dollars, or even advice, so tell us behind the scenes, Waste it. That's what I figured.

Speaker 2: 14:50

Absolute waste of your time. If you want to spend money that way, I will give you my cash app. You can send it to me instead. Okay, no, but seriously, it is a waste of your time, and here's why. And so this is the fundamental truth, and so this is what we realized back in 2005, 2006, and the spec that I built way back then, and it is still 100% valid today, because this is the fundamental understanding of what Google is attempting to accomplish. Okay, so let's not talk about SEO for a moment, because SEO is a bit of a nebulous topic, but instead let's talk about the fact that what you want to do is get eyeballs on your website, on your thing. Whatever it is that you have out there, you want people looking at it right.

Speaker 2: 15:39

And you want people who are looking at it, who want to buy it. That's, ultimately, what we all want, right, right, and that's called traffic. So what we're going to talk about is traffic. How do we generate traffic? Okay, the three keys. Three keys to generating traffic.

Speaker 2: 15:59

The first one the first one is being obsessed with your customer. Understanding your customer better than they understand themselves, understanding what motivates them, what pain points they have, what brings them joy. Really and truly understanding your customer is the start, because if you don't understand your customer, you can't get to step two, which is a content strategy, which then tells you how to communicate to your customer and what to communicate to your customer. So many of us want to jump in and just start talking and sharing, and you're just creating noise. You're creating noise that nobody wants to listen to, not even your mama, okay, and what you want to do is start with understanding who your customer is and what they want to know. That's all that matters. In order to sell your thing, you have to tell your customers what they want to know. It doesn't matter what you care about. If they don't care about it, it doesn't matter, right? So, first key to traffic obsession with your customers. Second key to traffic a content strategy. The bridge between those two is the pain points that your customers are in. Once you understand who they are and you understand their pains, their pains fuel your content strategy. You talk about what hurts them Because ultimately people only move to get out of pain.

Speaker 2: 18:36

Ultimately, it does make sense. But people like to argue too and say oh well, what about love? People move for love. No, you don't, because when you fall in love, what do you do? You sit on the couch and watch Netflix all day. You don't get up. You don't get up until you get real hungry. Why did you get it? Because you got hungry, because you had a pain in your gut.

Speaker 1: 18:53

Right.

Speaker 2: 18:55

We move on. Pain. That's why pain links your obsession with your content strategy. And then the third piece get this. The third piece of generating traffic is SEO. But SEO doesn't matter if you don't do the first two. And if you master the first two, seo happens naturally. Get that. That's why those guys didn't it, it does.

Speaker 2: 19:29

Right, but that's why those guys were telling you hey, $2.95 and we'll do your SEO $6.95. No, If they're not starting with understanding an obsession of your customer and creating content strategy, they're wasting your time Absolutely. Just send the cash out.

Speaker 1: 19:46

I'll send you to my cash and just send me the money. Well, either one of us the money, if you want to do that.

Speaker 2: 19:53

Well, the only thing I'll tell you about sending me the money versus sending Keith the money is if you send me the money, I guarantee I'm going to get a plane ticket, I'm going to come to you and we're going to go to dinner. Ok, so you don't get some of it back Now. He might take the money and run.

Speaker 1: 20:10

I don't know.

Speaker 2: 20:14

Well, there's a Marvel movie somewhere around, come on now.

Speaker 1: 20:18

But what you just said really makes a lot of sense. I think you know as a content creator it is hard, because you do get trapped in that idea of you want people to listen to your content, you put a lot of time and effort into it and you fall for those traps of people saying, hey, I can make you, I can get you 100,000 likes. I always ask the question like have you even heard the podcast? Why would you give me a hundred thousand likes if you haven't heard the podcast? Do you know if it's any good or not, before you start to sit there and try and tell me you can get me a hundred thousand downloads? I don't know that if you don't know the content. So I, even intuitively, you kind of go. That just doesn't make sense. If you don't know what you're selling, how can you sell it?

Speaker 2: 21:02

Yeah, yeah. And that's the fundamental problem with, sadly, a lot of agencies that are out there that don't actually understand principles. They understand tactics, right, and they aren't based in principles. And the other side of that is, once you get stuck in tactics, you also get stuck in vanity metrics. Now, what am I talking about? Likes, shares, comments, those are all vanity metrics, y'all Right, because let me be real with you and people say, oh, but comments aren't a vanity metric. Yeah, I'm going to tell you why it's a vanity metric.

Speaker 2: 21:38

When was the last time the mortgage company called and said, oh, you don't got it this month, just send me it in comments. You can't pay your mortgage in comments. They make you feel good, though, set off all kinds of tingling inside of you. I get that, but that tingling inside of you don't mean jack if it's not converting. That tingling inside of you doesn't mean jack if it's the wrong people. Okay, it's about making sure you get the right eyeballs on your stuff. I don't care if it's 10 people. If you got 10 eyeballs and four sales, great, absolutely wonderful. It's about getting the right eyeballs on your thing.

Speaker 1: 22:28

Right Not the vanity. Right, so you've switched now to video marketing. Tell us some keys about making good video, Because you know, besides those cat videos on YouTube which are, you know, they're awesome if you like cats. But if you want to make something deeper than a cat video, what are some keys for?

Speaker 2: 22:55

us. Well, guess what? The keys don't change, right, and that's one of the beauties the things don't change. You still have to be what? Obsessed with the audience. That then leads you into understanding their pain points. That then leads you into a content strategy. All of that's still place, so it doesn't matter what the medium is, and so that's where you have to start.

Speaker 2: 23:22

And I tell people, the easiest way to do that if you're just starting out you've never created a video before the easiest way to do that is to stop and think back through your customers and think up two or three of them that were the absolute best, your favorite customers. And now, before they started working with you and that's the key, before they started working with you, what were some of the questions that they asked you? And go back and remember those and write those down as best you can. Then, when you create your video, answer those questions, you see, because what does that do? Well, sure, you didn't go through the painstaking exercise of being completely obsessed with your audience, but what you've done is you've gone and said, okay, this was my audience, this was my best audience, and so I at least know that I do like them.

Speaker 2: 24:18

Now they've asked certain questions. Those questions were born out of their pain. You don't ask what do you want to eat if you're not hungry? Right, right. The question is born out of their pain. So now, if it's born out of their pain, remember, pain is the bridge over to your content strategy and in your content strategy, you need to tell them what they want to know. Well, they asked a silly question. Answer that, that's what they want to know. That's what they want to know. So, if you're just starting, that's where you start, right there. Don't overcomplicate it, yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:06

See, now you made a lifetime and a business out of common sense stuff. Yes, it's funny because I think about my own career as a pastor and I work a lot with congregations and they're trying to kind of do what you're talking about. How do I reach for lack of a better term the customer who's not coming to my church? And I always say, well, why would they come? And they get offended. Sometimes I'm like are you offering? Are you putting down what they want to hear? And I don't mean to change the message, but are you giving? Are you really talking to the hurts that they have?

Speaker 1: 25:46

And if you're not talking to the hurts that they have, then they're not going to come and people don't understand. I'm not being rude, but I'm like there's hurts out there. Do you know what they are? Do you know what music they like to listen to? Do you know what they are? Do you know what music they like to listen to? Do you know what they're afraid of? Do you know what their family situation is? If you're not addressing those things and the messages you're giving, you're not relevant to them.

Speaker 2: 26:11

Yeah, if I could for a moment here on this, because this is yeah, let me just say what I'm going to say. Let me just say what I'm going to say. How about that? Let me be straight with you. Especially if you're a church listening to us right now, if you're putting out a message and it's not offending some people, you're not doing it right. Right, okay, you're not doing it right. You're trying to placate and be nice and say, well, you know, jesus said we were here for the lost and to save everybody. No, no, no, your church wasn't here to save everybody. Your church is here to save a specific set of people. That specific set of people that's your audience, and people outside of your audience should be offended by you, and that's okay. And it's okay because you're oh my gosh, they're going to hate me and they're not. So what? That's okay, because they belong somewhere else and you've got a specific thing to do.

Speaker 2: 27:14

I'm going to tell you a real story here. So one of the things and I don't think you know this about me, but I am I've pastored a church myself. How did I know that? No, yes, I'm a former church planner, and so we pastored a church in what was the first deliberately integrated community in the United States? Okay, community in the United States, okay, so just to give you a sense of the community that it was deliberately integrated, okay, and we went in and I did church in a movie theater and we put out, we bought a list and we did mailings and we fly people's cards and we put up road signs, and you know what it was. It was a really depressing looking guy in a jail suit standing inside of a prison and it said church shouldn't feel like this. Wow, church shouldn't feel like this.

Speaker 1: 28:20

Wow.

Speaker 2: 28:24

Did we piss some people off? Yeah, did my phone ring a lot with a lot of hate? Yeah, but we also. We also brought in people who were Jews from the streets, who were like you know, I'm done, I'm done, I need something. I've heard I need more. We also brought in people who were strung out on drugs, who were like you know, I felt judged in other places and like I couldn't be myself. We brought in these people, we helped them and we helped them move, yeah, and we helped them grow. Now, I knew that that was our role. Our role was those people who were so dead and lost and scared that they needed a place that was going to be avant-garde enough to accept them. And when they left, it was great. When they left and matured and went on to other churches, it was great because we did our part.

Speaker 1: 29:31

Yeah, it is interesting because what you're saying applies broadly across so many different spectrums, because we missed the pain points. Because we miss the pain points, we miss it in politics, we miss it in church, we miss it in business, we miss it in relationships. You know why are people attracted to you? Because you meet their pain points, you stop the hurt. And we miss all that sometimes because we're looking for the flashy answer as opposed to just keep it simple. What's the hurt?

Speaker 2: 30:05

How do you address the pain? Well, there are a few things that happen. One is the flashy answer. The other one, which is very, very true because we want to look cool, we want to be the superhero You're right, you're right. We want to be that person, we want to be the influencer who gets the thousands and thousands and millions of likes yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, whatever. But then there's the other side that I deal with a lot with my clients, which is the curse of knowledge that you know so much that you over-communicate to the level where nobody understands what you're talking about. But you look deep. But they are. But it's not that. It's because they've learned so much and they're so far inside that they forget what it's like to communicate to someone on the outside.

Speaker 1: 30:50

Right.

Speaker 2: 30:52

Right, I give you a perfect example. Before the show I was telling you that I just got a new camera in. Okay, and I'm reading through the instructions on this new camera that I just bought. Okay, and I'm reading through the instructions on this new camera that I just bought, and it's talking about setting the date and time. So the first instruction is set a date and time and I'm like I can't find the power button. But instruction number one is set date and time.

Speaker 1: 31:20

I'm like how, where's the power button?

Speaker 2: 31:22

first, and that's sometimes how we communicate. We communicate and tell people go set the date and time. They don't know how to turn a silly thing on.

Speaker 1: 31:32

Right.

Speaker 2: 31:33

Right, and it's because we're so far in and inside and we have so much knowledge that it's hard for us to break that back down into simple things. That's a major problem with communication.

Speaker 1: 31:51

So I love our conversation and I'm curious for you in this season of your life, what are you most excited about?

Speaker 2: 32:02

Yeah, that's a great question and thanks for asking that, and it may surprise the audience a little bit because it has nothing to do with video.

Speaker 2: 32:11

It has nothing to do with SEO.

Speaker 2: 32:17

No, right now, what I'm most excited about is and it's funny because you asked me the question and I answered you about Ed McIntosh earlier and I never realized I shared that quality with him that ability to see the best in people, to see where they're going and help them get there.

Speaker 2: 32:33

And so right now, I'm actually building a network of people who are ready to explore their inner superpower, People who are at that place where they know that they were called for more, that they've been stuck in neutral and they need something to help them get unstuck because there's so much greatness that they need to do for this world. It ain't about them making tons of money or anything like that, but it's about the legacy and the impact that they can have on their part of the world with and the impact that they can have on their part of the world with whatever it is that they do. So I'm super excited about that. I'm super excited about the opportunity and the people around me that I get to help with that and watch them grow and become, because that that is beauty.

Speaker 1: 33:22

That is awesome. I love that. I was going to ask you actually when you told me a story about Ed who are you doing that for now? So that was a good question. I was thinking in the back of my mind because it's like if he did that for you, I'm sure you are passing that down to somebody else. So I'm glad to hear that you did that. Yes, thinking along those same lines, here's your chance. You got five minutes. If you wanted to pour into someone for five minutes, what would you say?

Speaker 2: 33:53

So if I had to pour into someone for five minutes, I would start by helping them understand that their individuality is their strength, that their individuality is their strength. So many of us run for my individuality and want to conform, and what I mean by that is I've got a good friend who has a voice that makes Barry White sound like a teenager Okay, like a teenage boy, crackling Right, and I'm like dude, when you speak, you command the room and you're super intelligent and he hates his voice. Oh, my word. And in a room he doesn't even like to ask a question out loud. Okay, and my point there is that's that thing that makes him super unique, that's that thing that will draw people unto him so that, so that his message can get out and he's got a great message to get out.

Speaker 2: 34:55

And the thing about it is we all I mean, you know, like I do it the bible says it right the stone that the builder refuses shall always be the head corner stone. And that's the thing. If I had five minutes with you, I would help you understand. What is that stone that you are refusing? What is that pain from your past that you think happened and you bury it down because you're ashamed of it, because, guess what? That is the thing, that is the catalyst, that is the beauty that everything you're supposed to be is going to be built on.

Speaker 1: 35:28

I love that. I've often shared with people kind of along the same lines. The one thing that we are most gifted is is the one thing that we struggle with the most, and Satan will tell us that that is not your gift. So for years I struggled with public speaking and I would talk too fast and it was like I could not get out of my own head, got in my own way and I realized that preaching is one of the things I love to do, but it takes so much effort to do and no one understands it.

Speaker 1: 36:02

Who's watching on Sunday morning how much work it takes for me to get up in there and do that? I have to go through all the nerves. I have to fight and battle my own sense of incompetency and and every single time I do it, they're like you seem so natural up there. It's like, yeah, but if you could see the behind the scenes work it takes to get there, you'd understand how, how difficult that is. So I get what you're saying. It's like if he understood just how that gift that he struggles with the most is his superpower and he needs to find the tools to work through that superpower and use that and wrestle with it. It's okay to wrestle with it and question it and doubt it.

Speaker 2: 36:43

Yes, that's why it's there. It's there. Satan doesn't want you to use it. Yes, you got to wrestle with it. And guess what, after you wrestle with it, probably your name will get changed. Huh, how about that? Exactly? Right, but that's yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:02

If I had the five minutes, that's where I'd spend, because that's where I spend time with people now is really trying to create environments to help them recognize that that thing that is your pain is your greatest strength. That thing that is your weakness is your greatest strength, that thing that you're ashamed of, right, and the thing that you have to create is born out of it. So I'm creating this network, and one of the things that is a cornerstone of this network is the concept of rest. And it hit me like a ton of bricks because I suck at rest. And it hit me, and he said that I had to create this and make rest the center of it, because all the other people, like me, are also afraid of rest and suck at it, and that's been the thing that we've refused. And so, in order for your superpower to really come out, you have to be able to embrace rest. And I'm like are you freaking, kidding me? I've been running from rest for 40-odd years. Why are we all starting now?

Speaker 1: 38:16

Right, oh, my word. I'd love to ask my guest this question what do you want your legacy to be?

Speaker 2: 38:26

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:30

So there are two sides of it for me.

Speaker 2: 38:34

So number one I wake up every single day with my company, the agency, and one of the things that we've had the pleasure of doing is taking our staff international over the last four and a half years or so, and I've completely fallen in love with the culture and the people of the Philippines and recognizing that there are some amazingly talented people there who have no opportunity. Opportunity Worse or worse, if you will, is the reality that because people have started looking at it as a virtual assistant place, that they also think that these people are less than they get treated like it, but some of them are some of the brightest people around, but some of them are some of the brightest people around. And so I'm on a mission, company-wise, I'm on a mission to change the financial destiny of 100 Filipino families, wow, okay, now I'm not just talking about this generation, I'm talking generations to come. So we're working on generational wealth stuff, but we're dealing with little things. We had a lady on the staff realize she didn't have a fridge that closed.

Speaker 1: 39:51

Oh my.

Speaker 2: 39:51

God, her fridge door couldn't close. Okay, had someone else didn't even have a stove. And you're talking about incredibly, incredibly bright people who just have no access to actually make money to afford the things to live comfortably. Okay, we just helped one of our staff members buy her very first car.

Speaker 1: 40:21

Wow, that's cool.

Speaker 2: 40:24

And so, yes, so with her. Yes, she's now in a different place. She's got a car that's working. Her children see that. It changes the standard of living that her children are expecting. Right, and we keep working from there to change generational wealth. So, 100 families, that's my goal with the company. That's why I keep pushing with the company. The company makes great money. We don't need to make more, but we're making more so I can pay more people. Okay, so that's the goal there. On the other side, it's really and I don't have a quantification of it, but when we talk about legacy it's he saw the best in me and helped me bring it out.

Speaker 1: 41:08

That's good, I love that.

Speaker 2: 41:13

That's me.

Speaker 1: 41:15

And I can tell you have a sincere heart to really want to see people find that superpower. I mean, I keep going back to that, that idea that someone sees in you something you don't see in yourself. And it's so powerful to know that someone else believes in you and oftentimes that may be the first person who's ever believed in you and gives you the confidence to go farther than you ever thought you could possibly go.

Speaker 2: 41:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and we all need that, we do, we all need that. And the reality of so? People look at superpowers, people look at superheroes, people look at movies and you always see the hero. But understand that and I'm not saying this to toot my horn, because that's not the point but understand that every hero needs a guide.

Speaker 1: 42:04

Right. Every hero in every hero needs a guide.

Speaker 2: 42:05

Right. Every hero in every movie has a guide.

Speaker 1: 42:10

Right.

Speaker 2: 42:13

I'm just here to be your guide.

Speaker 1: 42:15

Love it. Anything, I haven't asked you that I should have asked you.

Speaker 2: 42:24

Yes, actually. Why video? Because so many people are listening to us right now and we started talking about video a little bit earlier and we got off of video, so I'm going to go back to it in SEO, and most of you are probably like whoo, I'm glad he got off of that crap, because I ain't doing no video, I'm not getting on camera. You out your mind thinking I'm going to get on camera. You stupid. Yeah, that's probably what you thought. But listen, I'm glad that you're still here with us, I'm glad that you're still listening, and so I'm hoping that you hear me now on this.

Speaker 2: 42:51

Okay, the future of marketing as a whole and in your industry is on video. Why? Because there is no medium that exists where you can connect one-on-one with someone and actually have them feel and understand you like video. That's number one, and people are craving that. Coming out of the last five, six years of fake news, election stuff, coronavirus, wherever you land politically, everyone is sick and tired. That's the fact, no matter what side of the fence you're on, and everyone wants to connect with real people right now, and video allows you to do that. So that's number one. Number two the war the war of video has been going on for a while between Google, tiktok and Instagram, and that war is only going to intensify, and Google is doing more and more and more for it to intensify.

Speaker 2: 43:56

It's almost impossible for you any of you listening to me right now, I guarantee it to go write a blog, put it on your website and have it rank in the next three weeks on page one. It's almost impossible for any of you to do that. However, you can do that with video. You can create a video and end up on page one, which is something that you can't do any other way. The future is video. The time is now. Believe me, it's only going to get more and more and more expensive and harder and harder and harder to get in. Your competition isn't there yet. It's your time to actually grab the spotlight. So go grab it. I love that.

Speaker 1: 44:41

Where can people find you on social media and follow along with what you're doing?

Speaker 2: 44:45

Absolutely so. I probably opened up more questions than I answered today. When we're talking about video and SEO, I already told you. I know you're a little pissed with me and I probably didn't make it any better than just now, but that probably leaves you with some questions, and I get it. I totally get it Right. So here's what I want you to do Go to meetatibacom. That's meet A-T-I B as in boy A dot com. That's my first name meetatibacom. Once you do that, it's going to take you directly to my LinkedIn. Do not hit the follow button. Hit the connect button Right. Go to more and come down to connect, and I want to let you send me a message. Tell me. You saw me here on Keith's show. Ask me your question. I want to talk to you one on one, me and you Send me a message. Let's talk.

Speaker 1: 45:38

I love it. Ativa, thanks so much for what you do and provide some inspiring content, and this was a great conversation. I'd love to have you back on again so we could talk some more, because we only only scratched the surface, it would be my pleasure.