Adrian Au
- Jul 18
- 19 min read

(S2E3) Transcript - From CEO to Podcaster: Why I Quit My Marketing Company

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Just a second.

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All right, so welcome to the Meaningful Jobs podcast season two.

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I'm your host, Adrian.

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And today we are really grateful to welcome Paul,

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who has a media and marketing background

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to come onto our show and talk about his passion in his work

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and how he found meaning in his work.

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So welcome Paul, hope you're well.

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Yeah, thank you, Adrian.

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I appreciate it.

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So, well, I think the reason why I reached out to you

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is because I saw your impressive work in terms of

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how you set up your own company and executed on a lot

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of inspiring projects in the marketing

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and your media industries.

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So could you maybe talk us through how we got started

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in this industry?

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Yeah, so first off, I live in Texas

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and I grew up here my whole life.

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And when I was about 20 years old,

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I got a job working for a public policy organization.

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And I was still in college at the time.

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And I was helping them do legislative work in Texas.

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And for the next, I guess, next eight years,

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I did some type of legislative consulting

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or political consulting for about eight years.

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And through that, I think I just realized

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that I had a natural knack for marketing.

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And it must have, I guess it just came to me intuitively.

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And it wasn't like, oh, I was so great at like, you know,

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coming up with these long scale marketing plans.

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But I think I was really good at just coming with creative ideas

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and just trying to think like, how does a consumer

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think about things?

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Yeah.

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And so we've got to launch a lot of videos

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and viral videos and campaigns and things like that.

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And really kind of bootstrapped, scrappy type things.

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Right.

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Limited budget, but big impact type stuff.

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What's it like a startup?

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Yeah, it was like a startup basically.

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Yeah.

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All these things were like, and so I

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think I specialized in almost this idea of like,

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sometimes I'd be plugged in with another organization.

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But then I would be in charge of like coming up

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with brand new ideas and just kind of like self managing

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an entire project from beginning to end.

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And I might incorporate other people.

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So like, I was working with a handful of companies.

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I was doing political consulting,

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then it was marketing consulting.

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But of course, I was basically go one man shop.

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And I would bring in contractors for different projects

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that were going on.

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So it's basically like you're like an entrepreneur.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Basically like a paid entrepreneur.

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And so it's almost like they would bring me in as like,

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if this is consultant just to execute particular projects.

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Well, one example is we had this one client in Austin, Texas.

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And they had like, they were like the largest privately

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owned janitorial company in Texas.

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So they had like maybe 3,000 employees, 2,000,

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something like that.

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And they did commercial cleaning.

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So like all the high rises in Austin,

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they did like 80% of the Austin market, 50% of the Houston

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market, stuff like that.

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Anyways, COVID happened.

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And suddenly, they realized that there

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was a unique opportunity where there were all these college

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kids that were at the top of their classes,

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but there were certain fields that were no longer hiring.

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So that might be petroleum engineering,

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because right people stopped driving their cars for like a year.

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So petroleum engineering, hospitality.

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So like maybe there was this kid that was like the 99th percentile

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of his hospitality, you know, MBA or whatever.

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And now these kids didn't have jobs.

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And so they came to me, one of these clients came to me and said,

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hey, Paul, how do we go about and finding all these kids who

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are obviously very sharp, very dedicated, competitive,

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and they would be great hires in their industry,

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but their industry is no longer hiring.

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How do we find those kids and bring them

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into our set of companies?

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Because even though our companies have nothing

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to do with petroleum engineering,

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we're a commercial cleaning company,

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but we're looking for leadership talent.

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How do we get those kids?

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And so my job was to come up and figure out a marketing plan.

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How would we attract those kids?

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And so we spun out this creative idea like, hey,

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we'll set up this thing we'll call Leadership Academy.

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And we began, we launched this program to identify these kids.

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What's this entirely, your own idea?

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Yeah, it's pretty much my idea.

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Yeah, well, I mean, it was a collaborative idea.

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We talked through iterations.

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And so I was in charge of launching the marketing

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campaign, coming with the name of the thing,

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figuring out the curriculum.

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And I worked with other people too.

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I shouldn't take all the credit for it.

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But I was in charge of launching this thing from an idea out

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into the market within two months.

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And so within two months, we launched this thing.

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I think we had 3,000 applicants.

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And we had a kid, and we chose the top five.

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And we had the pick of the crop.

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And so we had this one kid, and he had just

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missed the US Olympic team because he was seed number four.

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And they took the top three into Kathalon.

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So he missed the Olympic team.

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But highly competitive, very sharp guy,

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got his MBA in business.

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And he was just a really, really sharp dude.

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And so we brought him into the program,

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had this other guy, and he was like a sharp dude too.

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He had gotten his master's in law,

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and he had doubled major in chemistry and stuff

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and all this stuff.

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Really sharp kid, but he just didn't have job prospects.

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And so we got all these sharp kids, brought them in.

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We did a one year class with them,

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and we showed them our series of companies

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that we were working with.

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Because it was not only the janitorial company,

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there was also a landscaping company that was all

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owned by the same set of partners.

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And so I was working for all of them.

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And in the end, we're now in our third year,

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about to launch our fourth year of existence.

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And of the 15 kids that I've gone through a program,

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I think 14 of them have stayed around to actually stand

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our series of companies.

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And so it's been wildly successful.

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So those are the types of things that I was tasked with doing.

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And I know it took a long time to tell that story.

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Oh, it's completely fine.

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I was fascinated by it.

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And more fascinated by the success rate of only five out

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of 3,000, basically.

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Yeah.

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But that's even harder to get into than an Ivy League

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school, I guess.

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Yeah, yeah.

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It's really true.

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And we had kids from Ivy League applied to our program,

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actually.

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Yeah.

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We had the captain of the Notre Dame football team

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join our program.

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I mean, really sharp guys.

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So how did you actually find this passion of yours

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in marketing?

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Yeah, great question.

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You know, that is a great question.

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I think I sort of stumbled into it.

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Because I think marketing was just a natural fit for me.

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And I couldn't even really encapsulate

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why I felt passionately about different things.

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But sometimes I could look at someone's marketing and just

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be like, I wouldn't even call it marketing.

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I would just look at what they were doing

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and what they were saying publicly to the audience

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and how they were trying to get customers.

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And I would just be like, well, that's not compelling.

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There's no reason.

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I wouldn't choose your product.

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But here's the things that would.

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And so just some things came naturally.

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Again, I'm not like a genius marketer.

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But there's just some things came real naturally.

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And then I think I always love reading marketing books.

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I don't know if you can see the books behind me, though.

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Are they all marketing books?

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A lot of them are.

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Yeah, all of these are marketing books,

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or business books, leadership books.

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And I love to read these things just for fun.

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In fact, actually, it goes like, I

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don't know if you can see my camera.

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The books go like three levels deep, actually.

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Wow.

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I just saw one level, and two showed me the three level.

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Yeah, so.

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But I love reading.

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And it's like, yeah, I love just reading these books.

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So I could just get a couple ideas from each person.

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That's why it's probably great for people

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to listen to your podcast, actually.

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Because just listening to people,

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not everyone's a genius.

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But there might be a couple of smart ideas from each guest

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or each book that you read.

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As long as you're kind of inundating yourself

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in that culture and that.

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Some things will eventually stick.

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That becomes part of your memorandum of operation,

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your MO.

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Because I always think that it's important

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to find your passion early in your career

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so that you don't so-called waste time, I guess.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Not all people can do this.

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And you said you somehow just stumbled into this.

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So would you say it's more luck or would you,

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or if you think about it, any instance?

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Yeah, I don't know if it's luck.

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I actually think God also really

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helped guide me through this process, too.

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Even though, in retrospect, I can tell God was the one

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guiding me.

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But I don't think I really understood the time.

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So interesting thing.

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So I stayed in the political arena for about eight years.

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And I was doing marketing-type stuff

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for different political candidates.

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But then back in 2018, I got really tired with Texas politics,

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really burned out.

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The political arena was no longer healthy for me.

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I think I was taking it too personally.

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And so I shifted entirely into business marketing at that point.

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And around the same time, started my own podcast.

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And I think, for me, I think it was a better fit,

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because now I was actually finding better fit,

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just for my own self, I think, of where my skill sets really

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aligned clearly.

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And instead of thinking about candidates,

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I was thinking about companies.

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And it was really healthy for me at that point, I think.

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So you mentioned quite a lot of big switches

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within the marketing and media industry.

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So whenever you make a big switch,

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do you go through a decision-making process?

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Like, how do you determine the point?

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Yeah.

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I do, actually.

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Yeah, glad you asked that.

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So when I was in 2018, one of the things was,

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I was just sick and tired of political consulting.

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And I knew I had a penchant for doing business consulting.

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But there was this awesome thing where

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I still wanted to be creative and think of my own things.

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And I'd been creating stuff for other clients for years.

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But now I wanted to create something of my own

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that I would control the destiny of.

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And also create something that was long-term.

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And so that's why we kind of thought of the podcast.

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But the way we came about that process,

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because I knew I wanted to create something of my own.

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But I wasn't sure what was it.

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Was it a product? Was it a course?

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Was it a community?

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Was it a pot?

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I don't know.

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And so there was a book that I read around that time,

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which is where-

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Oh, you have it here.

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Yeah, I have it right here, actually.

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It was called Nothing to Lose Everything to Game.

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And it's actually a story about a gangster act,

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a true life story about a gangster

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and how he became a business guy

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and left the gang world and everything.

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But he had an interesting premise in there,

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an interesting exercise, which we did,

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which he said, when you're ever trying

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to make a major life decision,

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maybe for business, like,

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I'm gonna switch my career path

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or maybe I'm gonna start a business.

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So one of the best things you can do

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is sit down with a piece of paper.

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And this is tedious.

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It's gonna take a time, but do this.

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Make a huge list and write down three categories.

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Write down a list of your assets.

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So it's basically like stuff that you own,

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your money, your stocks, your bonds, your house,

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your cars, anything that you have access to.

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Maybe you've got a friend and they let you use them.

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Just make a list of your assets.

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And then make a list of your life experiences,

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things that you're good at, your skills.

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Like, you know, I did this, I did this, I did this,

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I'm good at that, make that whole list right there.

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And then make a list of your relationships.

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Because relationships are so important.

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So like, I know this person and they do this.

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I know this person.

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Go through your LinkedIn, go through your Facebook.

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That might take you all day long

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because you probably got 2,000 Facebook friends,

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couple thousand LinkedIn friends,

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some of them there's some overlap.

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But just go through the exercise

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because you'll remember stuff like,

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oh yeah, I've totally forgot about this guy.

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But I'm good friends with him or I would feel comfortable,

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at least giving him a call and asking for a favor.

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So go through the exercise.

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It's gonna take you all day.

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But then when you're done,

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then begin looking for kind of broad categories.

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Like, are there like things that like,

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okay, these are kind of clusters.

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Like, hey, it's weird.

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I happen to know a lot of people in the real estate space.

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Or I know a lot of people in the film industry.

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Or I know a lot of people in the,

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and just kind of think of these broad categories.

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And then look for what is your unfair advantage?

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What is it that like you and your life experiences

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that God has given you,

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is going to allow you to have an unfair advantage

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that most other people wouldn't be able to have?

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So you're looking for those categories.

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So you're taking, it's basically your asset inventory, right?

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You're like, yeah.

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And like, after you do this,

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see what is it that you might be able to do

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that no one else is gonna be able to do

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the same with excellence that you can do?

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And through that process,

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that's how we decided to start the podcast

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that we have now.

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Wow.

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I can totally feel your passion,

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excitement when talking about this.

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And I think I'm very impressed.

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Your passion, the energy you have.

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And I always wonder how people can become so involved

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in what they do and become really fully immersed in it.

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Aside from obviously the monetary rewards that come with it.

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So can you really talk us through how you can just,

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immerse yourself and not just pull up with the money?

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Yeah, yeah.

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So when we first started our podcast,

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so for some context, my podcast is called Compell.

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I interview people with unique stories

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how Christ has transformed their life.

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Right.

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And these are always really interesting stories.

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We had one lady and she came face to face

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with an assassin who was sent to kill her

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because she was defending Christians in court.

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We had another lady and she and her husband

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were missionaries in the Philippines

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and they were kidnapped by terrorists and held in the jungles

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for a year as hostages.

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We had another guy and he was at the Pentagon

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when the 9-11 plane hit the building

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and he was about a hundred feet away from the plane,

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covered in flames, burning up and he was going to die.

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So each of these people have a really unique story

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of how Christ transformed something in their life

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or how they saw God at work.

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And when I say Christ, I mean Jesus Christ,

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who I believe is the Son of God.

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And I know that maybe not all your listeners believe that

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but I believe it and my audience does too.

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So that was the show that we created.

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And so that was something I felt really passionate.

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So in 2018, I did this activity and I was like,

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okay, I want to do something

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and I'm just going to start out with it.

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It may not make a lot of money

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but it needs to be something that I'm passionate about

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because my passions are going to what's going to keep me doing

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it and hopefully it becomes something

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that I can continue doing long term

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even though it may not make money at the beginning.

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And so that's how we ended up deciding to start a podcast

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because we could be doing that exercise

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to realize like we had the right connections

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in different spaces and we knew the right people

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that would be great guests.

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So we made this podcast and for the next five years

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it didn't make money.

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I mean, it made a little bit of money

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but it wasn't like paying my household expenses

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or anything like that.

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So instead what was going on is that I would still do

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business consulting for about nine months out of the year.

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You would save a bunch of money

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and then for three months out of the year

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I would then close my client books

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and I would just work exclusively on the podcast

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and just do a big long sprint

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on creating these really high quality episodes

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that I had a team I worked with

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and we would subcontract them out.

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And so we would raise just a little bit of money

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from our audience and from donors

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and with that money we were able to cover expenses

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but then my living expenses were always covered

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just by my consulting work I did.

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And so I would do nine months of consulting

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take three months off do the podcast

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and then do nine months of consulting again

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take three months off do the podcast

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and we did that for five years.

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And every year that we did that

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every time we came back with another podcast season

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the show would grow more and more and more.