This episode of your daily Lex is not meant in any way truly to be a humble brag or a brag brag It’s me processing in real time with you my dear friends on this podcast Let’s do a theme song and then we’ll get into the not humble bragging Your Daily Lex Just this morning unrelated to my intro just this morning I was thinking maybe I’ll do a a fresh version of the your daily Lex theme song I was like, well, I can’t change the themes I’m like I could do a cover of my own theme song like an updated version and I thought I had people like what’s there I don’t know.

So the theme song is the theme song for the time being but anyway, I Keep getting recruited To be the CEO of podcast companies So and I keep saying no but I’ll have my third conversation this week with a third company.

That is Honestly of all the ones that have reached out to me the most interesting but companies that are in the podcasting space that are finding Me on LinkedIn or they’re getting my name as a recommendation from you know the folks doing their searches whatever and they want to talk to me about will I become the CEO of these podcasting companies and It is in some ways flattering and in some ways, you know, not exactly imposter syndrome triggering But something pretty close to that because I don’t know Could I be the CEO that coming in but like when I started doing consulting full-time?

The biggest question I ended up getting was is this a stopgap?

Like are you waiting at a non-compete or is this temporary?

Is this until you find your next thing and you know after certainly after six months to a year of doing it I was like well I mean when I started doing it my goal was to do it not to do it for some finite amount of time But once I found that I really liked it and was pretty good at it Which is you know small part why I like it I was like if I ever take a full-time job again working for somebody else Then something has gone wrong because I really like doing this the thing that I like the most I was just talking about this with Lauren yesterday is the work-life balance aspect like my mental health and Overall well-being is certainly much higher as a consultant versus working for a giant company like Amazon I have had a ton of fun working at startups and Amazon is not a startup Although it likes to pretend that it’s the world’s biggest startup I’ve had a ton of fun working for startups But I don’t know that I I’m not certain I want to do that ever again because it’s a lot of work And you know if I don’t sell another Company, then I won’t sell another company, and that’s okay.

I sold a couple companies.

It’s pretty good.

That’s exciting Not everybody can sell companies, and I did it a couple times which is crazy, and if I if I just keep doing what I’m doing now, you know a fascinating games business Intense podcast revenue from shows like the rebound and friendly competition and not playing and the show doesn’t make anybody and You know my day job of being a consultant, then you know I’ll never have hey you sold a company payday And that’s okay by me The thing that shocked me the most when I left Amazon was people who didn’t know that I had left or people who You know didn’t know that I had been I guess struggling at Amazon They would see me like wow you look great like you look so much better And I didn’t know that I had looked not great when I was working in Amazon, but I guess I was wearing some of that stress On my face and honestly the stress of Amazon wasn’t that it was a lot of work although It was a lot of work I certainly thought that when the startup I was at r-19 got acquired by Amazon that it would mean that the workdays got less Crazy because it wasn’t at a startup.

It was at a profitable company, but that was not the case it was really Which is much harder to take enjoyment from my workday Which is I was gonna say it’s not Amazon’s fault.

It’s entirely Amazon’s fault, but isn’t necessarily Amazon being malicious It’s just that Amazon, and I are incompatible which is fine except for buying stuff I’m very compatible with that, but anyway these companies keep coming to me and say hey do you want to be our CEO and This one that I’m gonna talk to you later on today is the most interesting I probably still don’t want to but it’s interesting to talk about it’s nice to be wanted It’s also crazy like and I was talking earlier in this episode which has been more rambly than I intended But your daily likes guarantee But really think about this you know am I even the right person to do this In this case is a company.

That’s I love when people write to me like hey.

This is confidential It’s not confidential if I didn’t agree that it was confidential, but I kept the confidential for them because I’m a nice person But they’re like hey this company is about to be acquired and we’ll need a new CEO And they even made some reference because we know it’s post acquisition We intend to you know make it blah blah blah wonderful for the CEO that comes in But I don’t know I really enjoy not having a boss other than myself.

I really enjoy setting my own hours And I really enjoy I was gonna say I really enjoy that the stress that I wear on the workday is for me It’s certainly also for my clients, but what I mean by that is when I was working for Like early days at mid roll I go in there as it’s you know head of sales and eventually chief revenue officer especially you know the the first couple years we were Struggling isn’t exactly right, but we were working really hard, and I had this ongoing fear.

Hey if I don’t sell enough ads this week Will we be able to make payroll and the company wasn’t like ever in dire straits?

But it also for a while wasn’t comfortable, and that was a lot of stress I don’t like having I don’t like having to wear stress in general But having to wear that stress for everybody not just for me was extra stressful So I like that in doing less streaming consulting.

I’m my only I’m only taking care of myself and my clients, but it’s not the same thing if you know what I mean I don’t know if I’m making sense.

I’m making sense to me, and if you don’t understand then you know tomorrow I’ll probably sing silly songs again, but anyway.

It’s just weird.

It is it is Sweet and and flattering I guess when these companies reach out And man, I just think I’m probably a terrible choice because I don’t want to do it Which only makes them want me more hard to care really works you guys anyway.

Have a great Wednesday.

Goodbye Lex