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The Level Up Creators podcast is for digital creators ready to take their business to the next level. You'll learn valuable strategies and hear engaging stories from industry pros and digital creators who have walked the path of scaling up.
Whether you're tired of tap dancing for the algorithm or seeking to build real wealth - without the burnout - this podcast offers proven methods and practical advice to help you elevate your business, on your terms. Join us!
Amanda (00:00)
Hey, hey, you're listening to the Level Up Creators podcast. Amanda Northcutt here, founder and CEO. We help creators and digital thought leaders like you create monthly recurring revenue. And we are so glad you're here. Welcome.
My special guest and I have so much wisdom to share with you about personal branding, running your creator business well, dealing with burnout and so much more. And speaking of which, I have the pleasure of chatting with my uber talented creator guest, Lenka Shehanova, an actor, writer, content marketer extraordinaire with a strong personal brand. Lenka has had a super interesting creator journey so far that has included things like using her unique skill set and background.
to do things like normal people do, like help Hollywood actors and others around the world develop their personal brands on social media. I don't know about you, but I work with Hollywood actors all day, every day. No, never once. That is so cool, I can't wait to talk about it. But your award nominated blog has been featured on Huffington Post and Lenka now writes Creative Coffee, a newsletter where she documents behind the scenes of building a new creative project, Lenka on the Run.
where she explores both running and building a sustainable career online as a creator that went through burnout, which we're gonna dive into today. Welcome, Lenka.
Lenka Šilhánová (01:09)
Well, thank you for having me and wow, like what an introduction. I think I'm going to be blushing for the rest of the interview.
Amanda (01:24)
And we're on video so people can see it too if they're watching on YouTube. That's okay. That was a well earned intro. You've been there and done that and got the t -shirt. So I'm excited. But if we could start with you sharing just a little bit more about yourself, your background and your journey to becoming a full -time creator, I think that would be a great way to kick off.
Lenka Šilhánová (01:28)
Okay, all right. No worries.
Okay, well, I actually kind of became a creator by accident. I had no intention of becoming one because back when I started my blog that was documenting my journey to become an actress, actually, it wasn't a creator economy wasn't a thing. So I started blogging about it just to stay in touch with friends, to practice my writing in English because I'm not a native English speaker. I'm from Czech Republic, actually.
And the blog kind of took off a life of its own and I started to get offers to write, I started to get offers to teach actors about social media because the way I was using social media generated me work as an actor so actors started reaching out to me and I had this amazing casting director and author of Self -Management for Actors book reach out to me and she was like, hey, do you want to teach like my actors? And I said,
Thanks to her, I was able to do this. Without her, I don't think I would be able to. I wouldn't even dream of that. Then it kind of led to one -off jobs. Then I was hired by agencies. I started doing marketing. I actually studied economics school before I studied acting. But I was like, I'm never going to do this. This is so boring. I want to be an actress. I ended up doing it anyway.
But back when I was studying it, digital marketing was not a thing. Social media wasn't a thing. So a lot has changed in the space ever since. And yeah, so I built a career in both marketing and as a creator, I went through a burnout and now I'm kind of like overhauling my career so I can kind of like rebuild that creative career, but this time be smarter about it.
Amanda (03:37)
And I want to really dig into that because, I mean, based on everything you just said, I can see how you got to a place of burnout. I mean, my goodness, that was a lot in a compressed period of time. And so that was just, you know, on the, a good friend of mine actually is throwing in the towel on her creator business right now and having a complete career change because she's just hit, she has just hit a wall with burnout. And so,
hyper relevant topic and I would love for you to share sort of whatever you're willing to share about that, but maybe some inflection points on what got you to be in a place of burnout. But then importantly, for those who are listening who are in that place, well, we want you to see the signals as you're heading toward it, how you dug your way out of it and what you're doing now to prevent it from happening again.
Lenka Šilhánová (04:21)
and
Yeah, let's, I'm happy to share it transparently. So basically what happened is that the burnout with me happened like very gradually over time and I didn't notice it. It's, I would kind of like compare it to that story about a frog who is in a water and it's warms up and she doesn't even realize she's boiling. And so that was my experience with burnout and that's why.
probably let it go a little bit too far because the tricky thing is, the entire time I felt like I was living my dream. I was making a living by creating content, by telling stories and by working with exciting brands and clients. And I was happy that this is the direction that finally after years of like trying to make it happen, that it actually happened. And then...
At the same time, I was getting progressively worse with my mental and physical health. I was starting to lose sleep. I was stressed all the time. And of course, working in two time zones was taking a toll as well. Because let's say during the day here in Prague, I was working for clients and I came home and people in LA were just waking up and I had, let's say, two, three consultations lined up late into the night. And the next day I had to get up and go to work. And...
Anyone who has worked in advertising agencies knows that it's a challenging work on its own. So to do both, it was a dream come true for me. It was fulfilling and fun. So that's why I didn't feel like I was like doing anything wrong or something was happening, but it slowly happened. And I think the breaking point came when my doctor basically looked at my blood work and she was like,
I don't know how are you still like sitting in front of me and if you don't make any like changes right away You will end up in a hospital in a very bad state. So that was like wow. Okay. I didn't realize it was like this bad so Obviously, I couldn't afford to like just quit my job and do nothing and recover so I kind of like gradually finished up all the projects and finished up all the
all the things I decided to let go of this project with actors because I just wanted to focus on working in this time zone ideally. And yeah, I took time to recover and I think during that time I also started to... and also the pandemic happened. I mean, so that was right at the beginning of my like starting to make big changes. So...
Amanda (06:55)
Hehehe
Lenka Šilhánová (07:14)
It was also yet another kick and I started to get interested in health and well -being and I made myself a promise that when I recover, I will start running again because I used to run quite a bit and then as I had a lot of work lined up, I kind of like put myself second and I just put the work first. And so creating balance in my life in general and what I do.
was important to me, so gradually I made that shift and I got back to running and now I even have a project about running and we can talk about that as well.
Amanda (07:53)
Yeah, yeah, I definitely want to dig into that. Okay, so you were really, I mean, down to the, this seems like the perfect analogy. You were burning the candle at both ends and on different continents and time zones and you're working your day job and then basically your night job with your folks on the West Coast, which is so far from you. It's a nine hour stretch or 10, nine or 10 hours. And so, my goodness gracious.
Lenka Šilhánová (08:14)
Right, yeah. Yeah.
Amanda (08:18)
So were there things about what led you to that doctor appointment? Was it like you were seeing symptoms or was it just an annual checkup and all this came up or how did that happen?
Lenka Šilhánová (08:30)
Well, just overall I started to have these like random health issues that didn't seem like any like illness, but it was just like I was like falling apart. It felt like so I just wanted to check like what was wrong because I was looking for answers. I couldn't sleep properly because my brain was like always going and obviously I tried all the like productivity tips and...
I tried to reduce my time on social media, which is hard when social media is your job. But I tried all of the tips of what I should be doing, but none of that was doing. So I was thinking that maybe there must be an answer somewhere. So I just asked my doctor to draw my blood and I described her the symptoms. And basically she didn't tell me it was burnout because I don't think she knew of burnout. I think burnout became...
Amanda (09:00)
Yeah.
Lenka Šilhánová (09:27)
a topic during the pandemic and this was like maybe a year before the pandemic that I was at the doctor. So she told me that it's a lifestyle thing that I really like work too much and I need more balance in my life and I need time to recover. And to me that was like a scary concept because...
when you are basically like living your dream and doing your thing you feel like if you are gonna drop the ball and take a break it's going to go away so i wasn't saying no enough and i wasn't like choosing enough and i just wasn't resting enough yeah
Amanda (10:07)
Okay, there's a lot of really good nuggets in there that we could kind of double click on a little bit but you're saying things like you weren't sleeping sounds like a lot of anxiety your mind was racing and maybe I'm assuming maybe you had some Inflammatory markers showing up on your blood work stress can cause inflammation which causes all sorts of interesting things To happen in our body. So that is so good that you were paying attention Even if it was a little bit late to the game you went to a doctor
Lenka Šilhánová (10:30)
Mm -hmm.
Amanda (10:36)
and you listened to them. Sounds like on the first try, right? Did you see multiple people or was it that one that was really eye -opening to you?
Lenka Šilhánová (10:45)
No, I actually visited the doctor multiple times and when I was there like I think it was my third time I was actually previously like I visited like a nutrition specialist that would help me with my stomach and she was like, you know, you can ask actually for like this advanced level of blood work that will actually show more markers which could tell us a little bit more what is going on. So I went to her and I asked her and
I was also in different specialists and none of the tests came to give me any answers until the blood work, the advanced one came in. My cortisol levels were insane and my hormones were out of balance and I didn't have enough vitamins. Vitamin D I had like so long.
Amanda (11:27)
Yeah.
Lenka Šilhánová (11:38)
And that's actually advice that I got from the nutritionist to not only have your blood work done but also have your like vitamins and minerals checked because they play a big role in all of the chemical processes in your in your body and You maybe are not sick. You maybe have like deficiency in some of the vitamins like for example vitamin D which also impacts a lot your your mind and
Amanda (12:02)
Mm -hmm.
Lenka Šilhánová (12:09)
So I don't want to get into details because I don't specialize in that. But I learned a lot from this journey to learn more about my body and how to take care of it. And I didn't think of these things before, so I would definitely wish I had known that.
Amanda (12:09)
Yeah!
my gosh, yes. And this is, I mean, stuff that obviously you're from Czech Republic and you're calling from Prague today and I'm in the United States and we have very, very different healthcare systems. But I'm willing to bet just based on what you're saying that your country's educational system is similar to ours and that these kinds of things are not taught in schools. Like vitamin D is a hormone and it's a precursor to all of these other chain reactions in your body that are vital for your body to be carrying out. Anyway, we don't know each other very well yet.
Lenka Šilhánová (12:48)
Not at all.
Amanda (12:55)
I've had like tremendous ongoing health issues and I'm maybe at the end of it, but I've had these since I was 12 and mine is disease related, but the bottom really fell out of my health right after giving birth to my son. I did not take a maternity leave and just, I mean, I was already completely burnt out and into workaholism and was very successful at a young age. And I mean, just...
the bottom fell out of my health and our life. And so I know I'm speaking your language. I understand exactly what you're talking about. I was not paying attention to the signals though. I was like, I'm in my twenties, everything's fine. My body's fine. I just treated it just like a machine. Turns out that was a really bad move. Okay, so this was 2019. All of this health information services, you have this kind of light bulb moment of, my gosh, I can't continue to burn it at both ends or this is gonna get worse and worse. And...
Lenka Šilhánová (13:22)
Mm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Amanda (13:49)
the writings on the wall, right? Okay, so then the pandemic happens. If you could take us through, you know, kind of maybe some recovery period in the pandemic and then all the way through now and talk about your journey with Lenka on the run.
Lenka Šilhánová (14:06)
Okay, so I actually during the pandemic I made and I mentioned this earlier, I gave myself a promise that when I'm gonna get healthy, I'm gonna start running again. So I kind of I knew that that was the goal. So I kind of tried to like reverse engineer the process that I have to take to be able to do that because I also had and maybe that might be different for people who go through burnout because they might want to change careers.
But I have the clarity since I was 10 years old that I want to be telling stories for a living. So I knew that I want to keep doing this. I just have to go about it a different way. So I started this reverse engineered process of like, okay, so how can I learn more about my body, how it works, what can I do? And the more I was learning about running and how athletes actually operate, the more I realized like,
actually as a creator I need to operate kind of like an athlete because athletes when they are racing that's like very small portion of what they do most of the time they spend training and recovering and that recovery process is so important and crucial and they are trying to perfect that you know it consists of good sleep good nutrition
other like types of training such as like let's say yoga or pilates or if they are runner they do like compensation and no impact sports such as swimming or stuff like that they are taking care of their bodies as instruments and their minds as instruments because running is both about the mental game and the physical game so I realized like this is where I made the mistake I just was
basically racing all the time and I wasn't like properly training and recovering. I thought that is time wasted when that actually is the main thing that I have to be doing in order to perform well and on a high level. So when I learned that I started to learn how can I do that best so...
slowly over time I'm improving my nutrition, improving my sleep, improving my training and improving my racing, which is content creation and I'm trying to experiment with ways of how could that look like because sadly there is no like advice on this online. I feel like we are all trying to navigate this and find out what works. So yeah, I'm in the process of experimenting with different
to content creation after burnout.
Amanda (16:51)
One sentence you said in there is just ringing very clearly in my mind and I think will cut through all the noise with everybody listening right now and that is the most important thing that you can be doing in order to be, well, I'm misquoting you, but the most important thing that you can be doing to be successful and perform well is to rest. Did I get that right or right enough?
Lenka Šilhánová (17:15)
Yes. Yes, absolutely, you nailed it.
Amanda (17:17)
Yeah, and that's basically like the antithesis to Western culture. Also, just I'll go ahead and like point that out really clearly and that we do not do a good job of practicing it. That and I personally do not do a great job of practicing that much better than I used to. But that is such an important and key point that I want everyone who's listening to take away from this interview is that in order to perform at your best, whether it's running or whether it's in business or content creation,
You have to do it in rhythms. You can't just be sprinting all the time, right?
Lenka Šilhánová (17:52)
Yes. No, no. It's a marathon. It's not a sprint.
Amanda (17:53)
Mmm. my gosh. That was great. Thank you so much for sharing that. All right. Well, tell us a little bit more about the newsletter and how it also how's running going? I mean, have you had like a nice ramp up period? Are you running marathons? Are you headed that way? Where are you at?
Lenka Šilhánová (18:12)
Well, I might be headed that way. I just actually finished my very first half marathon. So that's the 2021k. And I did that like a year after I started running again. And I, together with the half marathon training, I started my YouTube channel because that was a long, long dream of mine to create videos and...
Amanda (18:15)
Nice.
Lenka Šilhánová (18:39)
have a little bit more fun with content because I also feel like given the direction of my career that it kind of like took off how people started asking me about things I started doing educational content and educational content is brilliant like we all love it we all benefit from it it's the easiest way to give value but also you can give value by telling story and making impact with
just sharing your life. And I used to not do that because I used to think that my life is not interesting enough. But I realized the value in sharing your progress because I'm very not athletic person. I've never been good at sports. I've been picked last at school, like gymnastics or whatever the class, how you call it in the States.
So I never thought of myself as someone who is a runner or an athlete even. But when I started sharing the progress of how I learned running and I became a runner, I realized from the feedback from people that they actually resonate with that and they value that as well. And that to me was like such a...
such a fulfilling thing for my heart and that's where I feel like it started to come back, the love for creating again. So this whole experiment with finding the passion again in creating, that really helped. And the Creative Coffee is a newsletter that I used to write. It was mainly focused on like a...
giving people inspiration for their creative careers. And now I turned it into like behind the scenes of this whole process of becoming a creator again after burnout. And I'm still in the phase of experimenting with that. So I don't have any like concrete idea of like, this is what it has to be and all of that. And I think also that is very helpful for the post burnout phase.
content creation to not limit yourself too much and give yourself the space to play because the playfulness should be a part of a creative career that's what made us like fall in love with creating but it can feel like social media can feel a little bit rigid in lately at least to me.
that everybody is like, you have to do it this way and this, if you are doing this, you are doing it wrong. And I don't know about you, but I used that like killed the joy of creating for me when more and more rules and best practices kept being introduced when it's actually all about like connecting with other human beings through stories and social media as a platform to distribute that to people and talk to people.
So this simplification in my mind was very, very helpful.
Amanda (21:50)
Fascinating. And I mean, obviously, just based on your explanation here this morning, you've set your newsletter up for this long -term sort of parallel track, this analogy of running and content creation and these rhythms of rest and sprinting or running long distance, as it were. But I want to come back to something you said earlier really quickly. How did you know that you wanted to be a storyteller when you were 10?
Lenka Šilhánová (22:08)
Yeah.
It was this feeling, I was like, I remember until this day, you know, I was like standing on a stage and like for the first time I saw my parents just being like easy and like laughing and having fun and all the other people and I realized like, wow, this is like really like a cool thing to do, like very powerful thing to do when people can forget their worries.
and they can just have fun and laugh and smile and be kind of like back to themselves because you know I was born in 88 so I was like year and a half when the Belvederevolution happened so the economy was in a turmoil in Czechia like it was crazy after the end of communism so it was like very hard on my parents to just
make sense of life and they were 21 when I was born so like really really young so like seeing them like finally having fun that was the moment but when I was just like it really clicked with me and also like maybe the influence of my grandmother who was like telling me stories all the time and I was just like having a lot of fun with that.
Amanda (23:33)
That's fascinating. And you're exactly right about play. And a lot of Brene Brown's research in the last decade has brought the concept of play to light and the importance and the scientifically proven importance of play and what that does for our brains, especially for creative types, for content creators. And I love your love of storytelling because we learn best in stories, right? And so this is such a unique and interesting blend of your background. I mean,
Lenka Šilhánová (23:44)
Yes.
Mm -hmm.
Amanda (24:01)
personal experience. I mean, my gosh, yeah. That you live through all of that happening in the Czech Republic is fascinating. I'm sure you're a wealth of knowledge and experience and stories as a result of that and have a lot to offer in that way. So I love how you're sort of marrying all of these, you know, seemingly or potentially like disparate pieces and you're putting them together into something very meaningful and you're sharing that with the world. So I think that's really cool. And,
I learned about you on LinkedIn and you were a post of yours ran across my feed where you were talking about a series of creator experiments that you are running. And the particular post that I found was about a post or an experiment that you're running on the ConvertKit creator network. But I know that's not the only one. So how did you decide to start doing creator experiments, first of all, and how are you defining that? Where are you at with that? What have you learned so far?
Lenka Šilhánová (24:32)
Thank you.
you
Well, that's a great question, thank you. So the experiments are actually my way of trying to figure out how to navigate my creative career after burnout and find a better way to do all of this. I've already like touched on the whole like YouTube thing, how I'm experimenting with the storytelling and the next thing that I'm experimenting with is to...
connect with other creators in a meaningful way because I think a part of burnout sometimes for us creators is that we work in isolation. We sit at our computers all day every day and maybe we don't have a support system around us. I have a very supportive family but they have no idea what I'm doing in a sense that...
They know it's like videos and articles and stuff like that, but they don't really know what it really means or what it entails. And it's just so important to be surrounded by people who get you, who go through the same things, who are also trying to create something and help each other. So my whole idea behind this, reaching out to 100 creators on this network, is to basically find my creative buddies in a...
in an organic way, in a human way. I don't want to do this network thing in a sense like, hey, can we exchange recommendations so we get more subscribers? That just feels icky to me. But if I connect with creators in a natural way when I discover them, I subscribe to their newsletters, I read about it a little bit, I take notes on...
like where we could help each other and then I will be reaching out to them and I would like to connect and work with a lot of creators and create something valuable for our audiences.
Amanda (26:58)
I mean, you're definitely hitting the nail on the head here as every content creator knows that content creation is an unbelievably lonely and isolating process, which I feel like is one of the greatest ironies of the entire creator economy since we are individuals creating content in a silo in our studio, in our home, walking down the street in our car, whatever the case may be. We're by ourselves 99 .9 % of the time, but then we're trying to create for hundreds or thousands or hundred thousands or millions of individual people.
So there's a significant disconnect there in the production process and what the burden that that places on the creator versus what the intention is in terms of consumption. So I think that's sort of fascinating, but I love that you are leveraging the internet and the ConvertKit creator network, like people who have already aggregated potentially like -minded creators and that you are taking basic human...
Lenka Šilhánová (27:30)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Amanda (27:54)
connection psychology that we would use, you know, one -to -one in person or even in a setting like this on one -to -one and taking that to the creator economy. And you're taking that in a totally different approach than like, yeah, let's exchange recommendations. Like you are doing research on these people. You're reading what they're writing. You're taking a direct personal and intentional interest in them so that you can approach them in a genuine way. And I can see that you are a very genuine individual.
Lenka Šilhánová (27:59)
Okay.
Hmm.
Okay.
Amanda (28:22)
And so it's so refreshing also to hear that someone's not looking for some ancillary benefit or they're not just teeing themselves up to ask for a favor, but just like, I'm looking for genuine human connection. And because of the internet, we have this incredible opportunity to do this in a different way with people all over the world. So I think that's really cool. What other experiments are you running or are planning to run in the next year or two?
Lenka Šilhánová (28:35)
Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah.
Well, definitely I want to figure out more the video thing because that's something that I used to shy away from a little bit because I always like saw myself as a writer more than a video maker and one thing was like as an actor to just point the camera on yourself and do a performance but when you are vlogging you actually have to be yourself which is a little bit intimidating because you know we all are
our worst critics and so like learning to be myself on camera, learning to trust that my stories will find the right people and impact the right people in the right way. So that is definitely something that I want to experiment with more. So I'm not like hiding behind a persona of what I think people would want to see or want to consume, but allowing myself to be myself. So...
That will be one of my experiments and I want to learn how to make the videos in a good way. Because right now I'm filming them on an old iPhone and editing them on my old MacBook Air but I actually want to get a proper camera and start storytelling in a better way, in a cinematic way. And I want to connect with others and cover other people's stories. So...
Amanda (30:11)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Awesome. And I also want to point out kind of an interesting thing that you're doing. You went straight for the email list, not just growing a social media account. You went straight for the email list. And so at Level Up, we talk a lot about the importance of quote, like, owning your audience and not renting your audience on social media platforms where you're relying on our governments as the case is right now with the situation with TikTok.
Lenka Šilhánová (30:23)
That might be some of the experiments that I'm planning also.
Amanda (30:49)
And Elon Musk bought Twitter last year and the name changed and the algorithm changed and everything changed. So you're kind of building on some shifting sand, if you will, if you are relying on social media to keep your audience and your content safe. So what are your thoughts on that? And how did you know to go straight to the newsletter rather than trying to build up your social media following first and then back your way into a newsletter?
Lenka Šilhánová (31:00)
Mm -hmm.
Thank you.
Well, first of all, I totally agree with what you are teaching. I think that's very, very important and very good. And for me, I guess that's the marketer in me a little bit because you know, you are always taught in marketing that you have to like drive the traffic towards you, something that you own. Because after all, like social media is an amazing opportunity to...
reach people and reach them kind of like cheaply because it's not completely free because you are paying with your data after all and So it's it's a sandbox on which you can play but it's somebody else's sandbox. So you bring your tools there you can Make some friends, but you need to bring the friends to Sandbox that you own and that is because like
At any time there can be a hack or they can, like you said, Elon Musk can buy a platform and just turn it into his own circus. And that, if you have built your career based on a platform, then you are completely dependent on somebody else. And...
And I think in a creative career it's important to kind of like distribute your influence and build multiple things and own the relationship that you have with your audience.
Amanda (32:47)
Yeah, exactly. It's like taking your friends from the sandbox at the park to the sandbox in your own backyard sort of a situation. I do like the sandbox analogy because everyone resonates with that. So what are your, if you know your future plans with your email list, for instance, is consulting on the horizon, digital products or where are you headed?
Lenka Šilhánová (33:00)
Yeah, yes, exactly.
Yeah
Well, definitely both because I feel like I can help the most through consulting. But when you do consulting work, you have limited amount of time that you can dedicate to helping others. But if you create digital products, you can help many people and you can actually make it cheap because it makes sense business -wise. So definitely digital products. And where I'm at currently is I'm trying to talk as much as I can with my audience, figure out...
what of what I'm sharing right now would be the most beneficial for them and create the digital products based on what they are saying because I think that's also like a common mistake that we create something that we think it's a good idea but then nobody buys it because they don't want it. So I think it's the really important part of this work is to actually have conversations with people, get to know them, figure out what are their problems and how you can help with your skill set. So...
Amanda (33:55)
Right.
Awesome, okay, so that makes a lot of sense to me. And what kinds, I'm just curious personally, what kinds of digital products are you considering most heavily and what do you anticipate being the biggest hurdles to overcome or sticking points that you're not yet familiar with in an online or digital business?
Lenka Šilhánová (34:16)
That's where I'm at at the moment and where I'm headed in the future.
Hmm, that's a good question. Well, I'm the most familiar with creating ebooks, but I feel like ebooks are a little bit overdone. It has to be something really valuable so that people actually end up reading it. So what I also want to create is videos or short webinars that people can watch and that will be very practical and that you have the combination of, let's say, a workbook.
with a video because that way it plays into people's learning styles because there are like I think four different learning styles. Some people learn through interacting, some people learn through listening, some people like audio visual and there are other types that I can't think of now but when you are creating digital products it's good to think of that so that you have variety.
of ways to teach that to your audience. And I guess the biggest challenge is to figure out like where is some kind of like space that or some kind of information that people are not getting elsewhere. Because for example, if I were to create like things about content creation, everybody and their grandmother is creating content about that. But if I can find a topic within that,
that nobody is talking about, possibly the whole like return to content creation after burnout or something else, whenever I find out by talking to my audience, that is I think the most challenging part to not get fixated on what you think you want to create, but really something that is kind of like unique or at least, I mean, it's hard to find something unique, but maybe...
a unique way of thinking about a usual thing that might be another thing.
Amanda (36:32)
Yes, yeah, I think you have a lot of potential ways that you could take that. But yes, it's like coming up with a list of problems that you personally are uniquely positioned to solve for your unique audience. And yes, those may be problems that other creators or businesses are addressing elsewhere. But the cool thing about the creator economy is it's the information plus the person that is delivering the information. And so when you can match those up and then gather, you know, a...
group full of people who represent your customer persona, it's so much easier to identify the problems that you can solve and then rank order those from most painful to least painful and then figuring out, you know, the packaging is just the delivery mechanism, whether you package something as a master class or a course or a paid newsletter or a membership community or mastermind or consulting.
Lenka Šilhánová (37:19)
Mm -hmm.
Amanda (37:25)
That's just the packaging and price is certainly like what you can charge. Obviously you can charge a lot more for consulting than you can an ebook. And those are kind of like two opposite ends of the spectrum. But I think that's going to be very interesting to see how that unfolds for you. But come talk to me when you're ready to go to the next steps on that. And I'd love to have another chat when you're a little bit further along in that process. But I love how right now you are laying the groundwork and getting to know your audience and gathering your group of like -minded people that you are well positioned to help. So I think that's cool.
And I'm going to start to kind of land the plane here. So if our listeners took away just three pieces of advice from today's episode, what should those three things be?
Lenka Šilhánová (38:01)
Thank you.
Yes.
Hmm, okay. So number one, burnout is not the end. It can actually be a beginning of like the next chapter of your career where you approach your career maybe from experience, from a smarter way and you actually figure out something new of how you can do it in a way that works for you now. Number two is to be, don't be afraid to experiment and do something different because it can feel like very construct.
in a sense that everybody gives you all of these ideas or all of these like advice of how you should be doing things otherwise you are doing it wrong. So don't be afraid to make mistakes and do experiments and be in this process of like okay I'm gonna try this I'm gonna evaluate it from kind of like a little bit of a distance.
where you are not judging yourself and your worthiness based on how it performed, but you are judging actually the output itself and you are thinking critically about that. So the experiments and thinking critically about your content and maybe don't be alone in pursuing your career. Like surround yourself with a community, have a few accountability buddies. Even if you're an introvert, like you don't have to be alone, you can find...
fellow creators and just talk to people. It makes such a difference.
Amanda (39:36)
That's great advice. Thank you so much. And thank you for joining me today, Linka. I really enjoyed our conversation. Where can our listeners, thank you, find you online?
Lenka Šilhánová (39:47)
Me too, thank you.
Well, if they are interested in watching like realistic and relatable running content from a person who is not an athlete at all, who is trying to tackle on running, then they can follow me on Instagram and on YouTube at Lenka on the run. And if they are interested in my newsletter, then on convert kit as creative coffee.
and they can also follow me on LinkedIn if they are interested in that I occasionally post something as well.
Amanda (40:18)
Definitely, and we will have all of that linked up in the show notes as well. Time is precious. Thank you for sharing yours with us. We help creators like you at levelupcreatorschool .com where our team becomes your full stack team of advisors and includes no fluff courses for creators, a vibrant community and more all on a subscription basis. And as ever, we still offer consulting and implementation work through our consulting firm, Level Up Creators. See the show notes for more information and a suite of high value free goodies.
Lenka Šilhánová (40:26)
Overlay. Thank you.
Amanda (40:45)
See you next time on the Level Up Creators podcast.
Not right.