Being Seen and Building a Business with Annie Riley

**David Nebinski** (0:04)
Hey, friend, it's David Nebinski here in Brooklyn. Here at the Portfolio Career Podcast, we will take ownership of your career and design a life that you want to live. This conversation is with Annie Riley. She is the CEO of Fort Light, a community-based business that has programs, a community, and content for high potential startup managers and team leads at scaling companies.
Annie is also the host of the Best Manager Ever podcast. As you can imagine, we chatted about all things podcasting and community building. The video of this episode will be available on my sub stack. You can find it in my newsletter that goes out every Sunday. You can find that and subscribe to that at davidnebinski.com/newsletter.
So excited for you to build and grow your portfolio career. Here we go with Annie.

**Annie Riley** (0:47)
How's your hair?

**David Nebinski** (0:48)
I just got a haircut recently. It looks nice. It was a little too short. I wish it was a little bit longer, but it had been like two plus months and-

**Annie Riley** (0:59)
For men, that's a lot, or for people with short hair, that's a lot.

**David Nebinski** (1:03)
Yeah. But I was like kind of like trimming it on my own and then it got to a point.

**Annie Riley** (1:08)
But I feel like there are two types of people in the world, people who will cut their own hair and people who won't. You know what I mean? And I'm definitely in the second category.

**David Nebinski** (1:20)
So we both have hair in common.

**Annie Riley** (1:23)
Yeah.

**David Nebinski** (1:24)
And we also both have podcasting in common.

**Annie Riley** (1:26)
Yes.

**David Nebinski** (1:26)
We're on a podcast right now. I think, right?

**Annie Riley** (1:33)
Like are we on? We are recording something. What you will do with it is up to you.

**David Nebinski** (1:38)
And but what do you love about podcasting yourself?

**Annie Riley** (1:44)
I love podcasting.

**David Nebinski** (1:47)
Yeah.

**Annie Riley** (1:47)
And there are many things I love about it. But the biggest one is I just get to be curious and meet amazing people and ask them questions for 90 minutes. And I walk away both having learned so much from every conversation.
And I find myself reference like referring back to those conversations in my day to day life. Something will happen. I'll be like, this kind of reminds me of this thing. Safe Salama said, right? I feel like I get to have this just encyclopedia of knowledge from all of these people who are kind of for those 90 minutes, almost acting like a mentor to me, even though that's not why they're there, but that's kind of how it feels. So I learn so much from these people, but also the connections that I get to make with them. I feel like I've grown.
It's been such a fun way to grow my network, and that makes it sound more transactional than it feels. But really a way to build relationships with people who maybe I otherwise would never have met. They came my way because I said, hey, I'm doing this show, who would be a good fit for it? And somebody knows somebody who knows somebody, and then we get to have this deep and meaningful conversation. It is just the biggest delight. I wish I had started it sooner. And I think anybody who wants to start something, like that brings other people into their world where they can learn from them, whether it's a podcast, a short form series, a newsletter, whatever. But if there's something interview-based that people want to do, I think they should absolutely do it. I don't think it's too late, because that's a big excuse that people have or fear.

**David Nebinski** (3:27)
It's never too late to start building relationships.

**Annie Riley** (3:29)
100%. And it's like, it's meaningful even if it goes nowhere. Do you know what I mean? But the fact that it helps somebody is like icing on the cake.

**David Nebinski** (3:38)
So basically you're saying this podcast episode can go nowhere, and that's okay.

**Annie Riley** (3:43)
I think as long as we have fun and we learn something, for me, that would meet the bar. Because I think sometimes people have this limiting belief that it has to get 20,000 downloads for it to be valuable or for it to count as a quote unquote success, and that is just not my bar.

**David Nebinski** (4:03)
Yeah. 100%.
I think we're on such a similar wavelength. And also, what's the name of the show?

**Annie Riley** (4:11)
Oh, the show is Best Manager Ever. And the whole idea is to talk about leadership and work in this moment in time, and to become the best version of ourselves as managers, but really as leaders, as operators, as we possibly can.