121: Be More Clippable

Dan Benjamin (0:11)

If you're listening to QUIT, this is a podcast about change, the challenges of improving your career, making tough decisions, and starting something awesome. I'm Dan Benjamin, and you know, today is November, is it important to say the day? I think it is November 13th, because it's Friday the 13th. And for this day, I could only possibly have one person join me today, and that is, of course, Sean McCabe.

Sean, welcome to the show. How are you? You were just telling me before we started, when the last time was that you were on the show, and it shocked me.

Sean McCabe (0:43)

I had to look it up. It was back when the show was called GRIT.

Dan Benjamin (0:46)

Right.

Sean McCabe (0:47)

Episode 62, 2014

Dan Benjamin (0:50)

I mean, that is hard for me to believe that it's been six...

We've talked in the last six years, though. This isn't the first time that we've spoken.

Sean McCabe (0:57)

That's true, but it's been a minute.

Dan Benjamin (1:01)

It has been. It has been a long time. And it's weird to me to think that that many years have passed, and that's just bizarre. It's just bizarre.

I'm getting phone calls right now. A phone call I've been waiting for all day long now is when it comes in right when I'm doing the show. Isn't that always the way that it is? So, Sean, what have you been doing? You have done so much in the last six years, let alone the last year.

Bring me... First of all, who are you, Sean? Who are you? And tell the audience who you are. I think they'd be curious to know, too.

Sean McCabe (1:35)

That's a great question.

I've done a few things, I guess, since we last talked. I used to be a hand letterer back then. Right.

Dan Benjamin (1:43)

I was going to say that when you came on the show last, we were talking all about your hand lettering. And can I say this? You've famously done like six figures of sales in an hour, and it was a big deal, right? And now you still do the hand lettering?

Sean McCabe (1:58)

No, I stopped like five years ago, honestly.

So, mostly just helping people get unstuck, start their business, quit the corporate stooge job. So I'm all about it.

Dan Benjamin (2:11)

So if I remember right, you had come, you kind of had Cinderella Boy coming out of nowhere and you had...

Sean McCabe (2:18)

What is that? What does that mean?

Dan Benjamin (2:20)

Cinderella Boy, it was your story. It came from nowhere, and all of a sudden you're a hand letterer. You're internationally famous.

And I still have some of your stickers. You did some Austin stickers that were wonderful, that I have always put on my laptop. Every time I get a new laptop, I put the Austin sticker on it.

And you had come out of nowhere and done this amazing lettering course that people loved, and they went nuts for it. And this kind of helped get you out into the public eye, right? Am I right about that? Is this was kind of your gateway, like you'd been doing other things, but this really launched you into public awareness?

Sean McCabe (2:59)

That's, yeah, that's fair to say. And I started just sharing what I was learning about business and marketing as I went. That's when I started podcasting back in 2013

So it's been, we just, I think we're actually at 499 episodes.

Oh, wow. So almost the big 500, but podcasting just unlocked everything for me, you know? Just relationships, met people, went to conferences, you know? And so I owe a lot to podcasting, started listening to Back to Work. I think I found it in 2011 So going on a decade now, but you were always a big inspiration to me to get into podcasting.

Dan Benjamin (3:39)

I'm so glad that you're here. You know, podcasting, as you know, has exploded like crazy. I mean, back when I started doing it in 2006, no one knew what it was, and there was no way to make any money from podcasting. It was just for fun.

And then a few years later, it started to become something that people took seriously. And they said, maybe this is a real thing. Maybe I can do this, not for a living, but maybe... And I said, I'm going to try it for a living.

And you've come so far. I mean, you do the video stuff.

You're helping people across the world. How does the evolution from lettering and teaching people that evolve into all the stuff that you're doing now, video, podcasts, and everything else? How does that happen? I mean, was it a plan? Was it something that you thought of? You said, this is what I want to do, and the hand lettering just got me there?