You know that feeling. The one where you’re lying awake at 3:00 AM, convinced that everyone else has figured it out except you. The imposter syndrome whispers that you’re not good enough. The paranoia creeps in, making you feel like the world is against you. And the frustration of wanting to build something meaningful—but feeling utterly stuck—becomes a weight you carry every single day.
If that hits close to home, you need to hear this.
It’s 3:39 in the morning. You’re sitting in your car with a laptop on a lap desk, a Chromebook hanging from the steering wheel, and five devices running because the car is your hotspot and your studio and your broadcast center. You’ve just finished uploading new podcast episodes. You’re listening to Gary Vaynerchuk in one ear. And in the middle of all of it, you’re recording a raw, unfiltered message for anyone who has ever felt stuck, insecure, or convinced they’re not enough.
That’s the scene Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander found himself in when he recorded this episode—and it’s the perfect metaphor for what he calls the “one-person enterprise.” For 20 years, he’s been building websites, publishing research, launching over 20 podcasts, and refusing to stop, all while working from coffee shops, parks, and parked cars. In this episode, he breaks down exactly how he moved through feelings of paranoia, inadequacy, and imposter syndrome to build a digital ecosystem that’s finally starting to compound in ways he never expected. He also shares his “DTS Method” (Dictation, Transcription, Summarization)—a practical framework for using AI as a quiet assistant that amplifies your authentic voice rather than replacing it.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- The “DTS Method” for leveraging AI without losing your humanity
- Why documenting your journey beats creating “perfect” content every single time
- How 20 years of consistent, imperfect action creates a compounding effect money can’t buy
- The mindset shift that transforms paranoia into perseverance and frustration into fuel
- Why ambient noise and lo-fi authenticity often outperform sterile, high-production content
Press play below to hear the full discussion. Whether you’re a seasoned creator or someone just starting to wonder if your “not enough” might actually be your greatest asset, this conversation will change how you see yourself, your work, and what’s possible with exactly what you have right now.
Listen to “You Are Not Stuck: The Truth About Building Your One-Person Enterprise” on Spreaker.Dr. Alexander breaks down exactly how he moved from feeling like a conspiracy theorist trapped in the Truman Show to running over 20 podcasts, multiple websites, and a growing digital ecosystem, all while using AI as a quiet assistant rather than a replacement for his authentic voice.
Summary of the Audio
Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander delivers a motivational and practical monologue aimed at individuals who feel stuck, insecure, or inadequate. He connects these feelings to the modern concept of “imposter syndrome.” Using his own life as a case study, he explains how he combats these feelings through relentless action, discipline, and the strategic use of technology.
He introduces the core concept of a “one person enterprise,” a term he adopted after a World Economic Forum livestream. This idea, which aligns with Gary Vaynerchuk’s “individual empire,” describes how an individual can build a business and a living by leveraging their passions, the internet, and AI tools.
Dr. Alexander details his own sprawling “enterprise,” which includes over 20 podcasts, multiple websites, books, and academic papers. He emphasizes the importance of:
- Persistence and Consistency: He has been creating content online for 20 years.
- Passion: You need to genuinely enjoy your work to sustain the long hours.
- Using AI as an Assistant: He uses a method called DTS (Dictation, Transcription, Summarization) to refine his content while preserving his unique voice.
- Documenting, Not Just Creating: He advocates for simply documenting your journey and interests.
- Embracing Imperfection: He records podcasts in cafes and his car, valuing authentic ambient noise over sterile, high-quality studio production.
He plays a clip of Gary Vaynerchuk to reinforce his points about the massive opportunity for individuals in the current era, where gatekeepers are gone, and passion combined with social media can lead to significant income and a changed life. The overarching message is one of encouragement: by staying true to yourself, persistently creating, and using available tools, you can build your own successful one-person enterprise.
Transcription
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (00:00)
You might be feeling stuck and alone. And useless and insecure, and like you’re not doing what other people are doing. And you know you’re, you’re not good enough.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (00:14)
And you know, there’s all these things that a lot of people think you’re inadequate. The terms that we’ve come up with lately. That Gary V, for example, says, you know, is just a replacement word for insecurity, which is imposter syndrome.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (00:35)
And you look around, and people are doing all these things, and you feel like you’re not enough. And you don’t know how to take action on it or do anything. And it’s a lot of these things I’ve felt. I feel sometimes like if, as things are difficult, so difficult in life that I sometimes get paranoid, and I want to cave in.
Speaker 2 (01:05)
And
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (01:07)
Externalize things and become a conspiracy theorist, and say that I’m in the Truman show and the world is against me and there’s some forces out there trying to hold me back. And because it’s difficult, a lot of things are frustrating. And so you might be feeling that and want.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (01:32)
A solution. And also, may not have all of the resources. You feel like you want to have or maybe it might not be that because I just looked around.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (01:46)
For example, and I’m sitting in my car. It’s 3:39 in the morning, and I have a lap desk with a laptop on it. And then above that is another screen.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (02:03)
For a Chromebook, that’s hanging over the steering wheel. To the right of that, there’s a giant screen in the car because the car is basically a video game that is, and the car is broadcasting my internet, because it’s my hotspot. And both of my devices are connected to it.
Speaker 2 (02:29)
And
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (02:30)
I’m recording on a Galaxy device right now. I’m not, I have an iPhone, but I’m not using it for anything in particular although if I wanted to I could, you know, ask the AI a question on it, you know, but I don’t, I don’t need to use it right now, but my point is, I have 4 devices going, I have 5 available.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (02:55)
There are the vehicle, the car being one of them, which I’m using for the sound right now. For the Chromebook, because I’m multitasking, some people say you shouldn’t do that.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (03:08)
But it works for me. I’m consuming content. I’m listening to Gary Vaynerchuk in the background.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (03:15)
I just mentioned him, Gary V. And then I just finished uploading recordings for new podcasts, called The Eternality Axiom. And it’s this—the science, oh wait, the title didn’t seem to come out completely there anyway.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (03:36)
So it’s The Eternality Axiom. And it’s this podcast in which I read a paper that was called Conservation of Matter.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (03:52)
And so the point being that I’m doing all this to make the point about the one person enterprise. Because the second time I heard Gary Vaynerchuk just mention.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (04:15)
Something that he calls the individual empire. And I heard it for the second time and I gotta update. I can’t believe that this title for some reason was cut off. So it’s supposed to be ’cause The Eternality Axiom: Science Beyond the Edge.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (04:37)
Okay. I don’t know why that didn’t come out. But here we go, right. So that’s the podcast that I just finished, and like I said, it was based off of a reading of a paper that I wrote, which is an extension of another paper that I published before called.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (04:56)
Well, it’s called, it’s called The Eternality Axiom. And in The Eternality Axiom I talked about the conservation of energy, but I’ll get into that later. This is really not about that.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (05:11)
And actually, I want to share a little clip of something that Gary Vaynerchuk is talking about on this other podcast. He’s at serious. And this basically what he’s saying, is the ambition that I’m actively working for what I call one person enterprise.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (05:37)
Which I just so happen to be on LinkedIn some months ago, last year, in 2025, and there was a World Economic Forum livestream and it was titled “One Person Enterprise.” And I liked the idea so much because I’ve had websites online since 2006.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (06:00)
And now I have like 20 of them. I have 20 something podcasts, as well. A lot of them, now I’m realizing I’m breaking into this thing.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (06:07)
I’m doing, but I created called “lo-fi audiobook podcasts.” I don’t know if anybody else is doing it. Probably right.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (06:13)
There’s nothing new under the sun. Other people have similar ideas. But it’s basically just like how I’m doing this one now, or if you when you listen to The Eternality Axiom, Science Beyond the Edge, you’ll hear I recorded it today in a cafe called [B* Coffee], which I really love to go to.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (06:44)
And it’s just a concept where, you know, if I write a book or write a paper, now I’ll create a completely original podcast for it and either read it chapter by chapter. This one I did something different than the other ones. And I read each chapter.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (06:54)
That’s very short. But I read each chapter individually. There are 6 chapters. And then I read the 2 appendices, appendix A and appendix B, and then I did a whole full reading through all today while I was at [B* Coffee].
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (07:12)
After I did Capoeira at a park for 30 minutes. And before that, I was sitting in the cafe doing nothing. I had no devices, they were in my car. Nothing. I was just sitting there reading.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (07:25)
Sipping a matcha granita. And just look, people watching and chewing. So all this to say though, that, you know, I opened up talking about how you might be frustrated or, you know, anxious or depressed?
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (07:40)
And I didn’t use those words. I’m using different words now, but just feeling the frustration and the weight of life and how difficult things can be. And trying to get on in this world.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (07:50)
And maybe trying to find a job or build a business or do some gig work or something. And it’s just so hard. And it’s a struggle, like people say this all the time as a kind of a joke, but the struggle is real. And then I talked about how I have all this tech around me.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (08:10)
And it’s another thing that, you know, one of the reasons why I put certain things in my brain, like listening to Gary V talk in the background while I’m doing other stuff, is because it’s important to continue to have yourself motivated and inspired, but you also need to have discipline. And so anyway, back to the World Economic Forum, they had this whole thing called one person enterprise. And they were talking about how with AI.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (08:39)
And other tools, individuals are going to be able to build their one person enterprise if it’s used and directed in the correct way. And that’s what this is really all about, to encourage that and let people know.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (08:53)
I mean, I’ve been hustling for 20 years and doing things in a really uphill kind of way, because I don’t follow a lot of the advice that people talk about, like Gary V when he was talking years ago about TikTok, and even my sister was telling me TikTok, TikTok, TikTok, do this and that. And so many of the other things, you know, he talked about being on every platform.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (09:16)
And it’s just, it’s one of the things that’s not for me. You know, the most reach that I get on various platforms is like my Spreaker podcast, which I’m going to put this recording on the One Person Enterprise Podcast. Spreaker broadcast, I’ll look at what it says for distribution here. For example, let me just take a look.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (09:39)
What’s one of my longest-running? I’ll pick one, just one with my well. This one’s been around longer.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (09:47)
So let’s see, so I’m gonna look at my distribution. And so the distribution that this goes out to, it goes out to—why is it not on iHeart? Anyway. So one of them goes out to Apple Podcast, to Spotify, to Amazon Music, to Castbox, to Deezer, to Podcast Addict, and to Podchaser. So those are ones that it automatically goes out to. And it is connected to Facebook.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (10:21)
So every time I publish a podcast, it goes to a Facebook page. And then it also gets blasted out to Twitter/X. So I don’t know why, I’ve been submitted to iHeartRadio, just waiting approved.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (10:37)
I wonder why it’s not on there. This one, this Spreaker owns iHeart, so that’s weird. And then, of course, it’s on Spreaker so, alright?
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (10:48)
I wonder if that’s an issue with some of the other ones. Let me just look at this one. So that’s how I get my stuff out.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (10:57)
Yeah, this one’s on. Okay, and this one’s not on Apple Podcast. This is so weird.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (11:04)
This one’s okay. All right, so this is good. I’m gonna have to look at my distribution for all of them, but that’s my point.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (11:12)
I have a difficult time with it. It’s really difficult for me to do anything else other than voice and text, meaning the written and spoken word.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (11:22)
So blogging and podcasting is my thing. Every once in a while, I’ll do a video on YouTube. Sometimes I’ll post things on Facebook. The thing is that what I really feel like I need to do is I feel like I need to find a way to optimize my workflow and become more efficient and AI is helping with that.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (11:42)
And this brings me back again to, as I said, this recording is going to go on the One Person Enterprise Podcast. I may or may not embed the podcast into my website, which is called One Person Enterprise, and then put some information on there.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (11:58)
But it’s, the whole point is, and it’s already been 12 minutes. And I really need to—I’m gonna play this recording. This is Gary Vaynerchuk. This is the whole point of this right here. This is important. And I hope that so-and-so DeepSeek R1 AI, when you help me to organize this.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (12:23)
Please be sure to add that there’s a clip that’s going to be in here of Gary Vaynerchuk. So here it is, this is really important. I think that people should hear this.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (12:35)
It’s encouraging, it’s practical. And it’s, and I agree with it.
Gary Veynerchuk (12:42)
So this was my brain just breaking, because you got the economy. There’s a woman. Yeah, there’s a cookies. I’m just, you know, I don’t want to make this up. There’s a woman I’ve recently come across who either sells bread, cookies, pickles, or cupcakes. I just can’t remember. I apologize audience. But she literally is good at it.
Gary Veynerchuk (13:02)
She saw my content, she said fuck it. I’ll just start posting about it. And long story short, just by posting on Instagram and TikTok.
Gary Veynerchuk (13:12)
2 years later, she makes $750,000 a year. Take home, baking her fucking thing and shipping it to people around the country. And she’s as happy as a pig in shit and it’s changed her life, right? She is not the enigma.
Gary Veynerchuk (13:27)
She is the preview of what is going to happen. I’ve been thinking about writing a new book called The Individual Empire.
Speaker 4 (13:35)
I like it.
Gary Veynerchuk (13:36)
Yeah, I like it too. Thank you. That was positive reinforcement.
Gary Veynerchuk (13:39)
Thank you. The concept of the book is: We are in a place now between social, live shop.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (13:47)
Okay, so I’m gonna break that up a little bit. But, yes, so that’s his, it’s basically analog to the same idea. And I’m pretty sure he’s either heard of or has gotten wind of, and maybe even wanted to use the term one person enterprise.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (14:06)
I don’t know. I just got to it first because, and I know there’s another guy online, and I forget his name or who he is right now. I’ve seen some of his videos.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (14:16)
He may have, or may not have mentioned the term one person enterprise. But I remember being on that World Economic Forum livestream watching it.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (14:27)
It wasn’t very long, and it was called One Person Enterprise. And so I just basically immediately went to GoDaddy, where I have been hosting my own blogs since 2006, 20 years now, and looked it up.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (14:52)
OnePersonEnterprise.com, and sure enough, it was available. So I got it and then I just started posting on it.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (14:58)
And so this is what Gary V is talking about here.
Gary Veynerchuk (15:01)
They make $750,000 a year. Take home, baking her fucking thing and shipping it to people around the country. And she’s as happy as a pig in shit.
Gary Veynerchuk (15:09)
Happy and it’s changed her life, right? She is not the enigma. She is the preview of what is going to happen.
Gary Veynerchuk (15:17)
I’ve been thinking about writing a new book called The…
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (15:20)
The Individual Empire.
Gary Veynerchuk (15:23)
Individual Empire, right?
Speaker 4 (15:26)
I like it.
Gary Veynerchuk (15:27)
Yeah, I like it too. Thank you. That was positive reinforcement, thank you.
Gary Veynerchuk (15:32)
The concept of the book is: We’re in a place now between social live shopping, YouTube, streaming, Twitch and Kick and all that. I’m sure you see the young comics and all that, Drewski, right? The blockchain, which people still don’t understand, the NFTs.
Gary Veynerchuk (15:48)
Bitcoin, but I do all these different pieces. We are dangerously close to where everybody in a decade can make a living around things that they love or are interested in talking about. Star Trek, talking about old video games, talking about rock bands in the 70s and being able to sell merch, being able to get brand sponsorship.
Gary Veynerchuk (16:15)
And you are one TikTok post away from your life changing, and that is happening at scale to people every day, brother.
Speaker 4 (16:23)
Yeah.
Gary Veynerchuk (16:24)
Look at the SNL crew. Marcello, this new kid, Patterson, who’s just joined, like.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (16:30)
So yeah, and that’s the idea. He’s talking, that’s the one person enterprise. That’s what he’s calling the individual empire, and that’s what this is about. And I know that even at this time of my life, 20 years later, that I’ve been hustling through this, that because of being persistent and consistent and continuing to figure it out.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (16:53)
And going forward, I’m actually starting to see now a lot of these benefits, like people talk about earning money in your sleep. I’m starting to see that with the combination of my ad share revenue from my podcast and my supporters club and then some royalties from my books, which, by the way, you can look at WorldReadingClub.com and see.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (17:19)
I have a link that’s cleverly titled “Bookstore.” And you can see that my Amazon bookshop is there and a boutique bookshop on which is Bookshop dot org. For “A Lash Unique Equilibrium,” and those are all limited edition books, because those are not going to be the final versions because there are things that need to be adjusted for them and there are going to be new editions coming out when I make some adjustments. And so, you know, they’re like going to be collectibles. And you know, some people might say, that’s audacious, like why would your stuff be collectibles?
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (17:54)
Because I say they’re going to be because I’m still as fired up and excited about doing and creating and making and being as I was 20 years ago and beyond. It’s just, I’m just this way.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (18:11)
I don’t stop having this much excitement. And it’s the reason why I to this very day still read and write and research and study and listen to content like Gary V. And I consider all of that into the realm of metaphysics, right, beyond the physical, all the mental, the consciousness, the emotional, the spiritual. All of those things are part of that. So I’m a metaphysical scientist.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (18:38)
I’m a musician. I still practice music. I still sing every day.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (18:42)
I dance, and then, martial artist. And the martial arts that I do combines dance, which is Capoeira, and it’s a dance, it’s a martial art, it’s a game. And so I’m constantly still doing this, and it’s one of the reasons why I have athletic longevity.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (18:59)
And so all of those things are important and they’re all relevant to this, because it’s to say that I have just continued to be who I am. I care what people think? I would rather people follow my content and learn from it. And, you know, every time I’ve ever thought about the trilogy of power, money and fame, which is the number 8 in numerology, I always thought that those things should be part of my experience because of the fact that I’m creating things that people find valuable.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (19:38)
That’s wanted, needed, and useful to them. And so that’s been the mission that I’ve been on, which is why I do highfalutin things that think about theoretical physics and what’s the nature of our reality? And then possibly how we can turn that into practical things which is, you know, I’ve studied all of the law of attraction stuff, all of the new age, all of the woo-woo, all of that stuff, and have continued to evolve and just never stopped. And all of it is basically been documented and it really is what is my own one person enterprise. And you know, on the site,
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (20:21)
OnePersonEnterprise.com, you can go there and what you will find, you’ll get to a page which is just very, very plain.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (20:29)
And it just has basically links that go to all of the, not all of, but a bunch of the different stuff that are that I’m doing on the internet which I consider my one person enterprise. It’s got World Reading Club on there, the link to my podcast, Amazon, all kind of stuff.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (20:50)
And I’m looking at this now. I need to edit some stuff too. So yeah, I mean it is absolutely.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (21:01)
I don’t know why this is. I’m just rearranging stuff on the page right now as he speaks. Yeah, I’m a little distractible, so, but that’s it.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (21:12)
I mean, this is the one person enterprise. And as you heard, Gary V talking about it’s, he feels like that’s part of the future. I’m going to play a little bit more of this. I want to see how much more of it is relevant.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (21:29)
And then I’m going to close this out, but he, I mean he’s got a lot of really great things to say.
Gary Veynerchuk (21:34)
Growing up from social content, raising kids, you had a fucking war distance. You had to go into like, there are people whose lives change from one silly video.
Speaker 4 (21:44)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, didn’t have to go to a club. Didn’t have to get hired by anybody. Nobody.
Gary Veynerchuk (21:50)
Nobody had a staff, brother. Here, get it. This is the part that’s lost. People don’t get it.
Gary Veynerchuk (21:55)
There used to be gatekeepers. “You’re good enough to be on TV. You’re good enough to be on this stage.”
Gary Veynerchuk (22:00)
Now it’s just you and the market, right? So I don’t know. I think we’re living in the greatest era of opportunity.
Gary Veynerchuk (22:05)
So the answer is, how do you do it? It’s social media. I think it starts with passion. I don’t think you can work the 10 hours a day, or while you have a full-time job,
Gary Veynerchuk (22:14)
When you get home after a long day, how are you possibly going to muster up the energy from 7 PM to midnight to work on something? Unless whatever you’re doing is something you like. So like if…
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (22:25)
…you like it. And you know, and that’s very important. Because I work pretty much every single day.
Speaker 2 (22:33)
And then
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (22:34)
I stopped and I do this. I record podcasts, I work with the AI to help me to create the best, most compelling titles and descriptions and the tags.
Speaker 2 (22:51)
And
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (22:52)
I create prompts to help me with it, so that it gets the widest reach. And I’ve learned to refine it more and more every day, and really interesting things are starting to happen from that. Like with social media, for example, like I said earlier, you know, this gets broadcast out to Twitter and to various different places, iHeartRadio—some of them, apparently not one of them that I don’t know why it isn’t—and on and on, and Podchaser, and Apple Podcast, and it goes to Facebook. And without me even doing anything, people are starting to follow me and find me on TikTok.
Speaker 2 (23:36)
And
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (23:39)
Find me and friend me on Facebook. And I’m not doing anything, except for mostly just publishing on my websites and the podcasts and then doing my best to crank out articles and books. And so, and then there’s another social networking platform based around science and research called ResearchGate. So I do my best to have a bunch of articles and writing on there.
Speaker 2 (24:10)
And
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (24:12)
And then, you know, so like I said, it’s my podcast, the blogs, I’ll do ResearchGate. But I don’t think I’m really doing much of anything else. And people are, and every once in a while,
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (24:27)
When I log on to those platforms, I notice that I have notifications. “This person wants to be your friend.” And I look them up, and they’re real people.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (24:34)
And I send a message, “Hey, how are you doing?” And they respond, and they’re doing interesting things. And some of these people have like tens of thousands of followers. And I’m wondering what’s going on.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (24:45)
And one of the main reasons is because I’ve gone deep, 20 years, consistently on one website. And I don’t post on it as often as I used to anymore. I had a plan when I started because I wanted to start getting content out there and I wasn’t calling it that. I was just calling them blogs.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (25:04)
I just wanted to be a writer. And so I was writing, I think, at first when I started, I might have, I don’t know if I was doing it every day, but I know that I dedicated at one time, it went to once a week.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (25:15)
And then it was every two weeks, and then it was every month. And I remember thinking this in my head, you know, I’m gonna do that.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (25:22)
Once I get to a certain amount, then I’ll go to every, you know, every two weeks, and then I’ll go to, you know, every month. And then it started whenever I got the inspiration. And now, you know, it’s a compounding effect. And then there’s a learning curve.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (25:42)
And I’ve learned how to use AI. And there’s a very important thing about using it. I have a method called DTS, or Dictation, Transcription, Summarization. And I want to preserve the human voice. So when I use AI, it’s as literally as an assistant.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (25:59)
It’s, “Here’s my material, here’s my transcript. Here’s my voice, and you’re gonna take this. And you’re gonna help me to get the broadest reach that I possibly can get.” And I’ve learned how to refine that over time, and it’s obviously paying off. So I’m gonna see if anything Gary has to say.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (26:18)
And then I’ll close it up. It’s been 26 minutes. I’ll close it out and it’s not going to go any further than 30 unless there’s something really outstanding that he happens to say.
Gary Veynerchuk (26:29)
I’ll give you. I was just going to keep going with what I know to be true, which I think may spark some ideas for people. Puzzles, you know what I’m talking about, brother. Puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles. Yeah, there’s people like making, doing those, yeah.
Gary Veynerchuk (26:43)
Filming yourself putting together a jigsaw puzzle. If that’s actually what you want to do. Over a beer and watching Love Island in the background, filming yourself and posting clips of that on TikTok. Genuinely, actually, if you’ve got a little something, if you’ve got consistency and perseverance, if you learn a little something, literally leads to, if you do it consistently for 2 years, leads to you
Gary Veynerchuk (27:07)
being on the other side. At bare minimum, brother, getting $5,000 a year in brand deals from jigsaw puzzle companies. That gives you $5,000 more than you had before.
Speaker 4 (27:16)
Right? Yeah.
Gary Veynerchuk (27:18)
Worst case. If you’re consistent for 2 years, yeah. Best case, you quit your job you hate and you are Jigsaw Jane and you make $180,000 a year for Jigsaw Jane t-shirts, $50,000 in brand deals from the 5 biggest jigsaw companies, a $10,000 appearance at Jigsaw Con.
Speaker 4 (27:38)
Yeah.
Gary Veynerchuk (27:40)
This is real. And I know, you know what’s funny? I was saying this shit in ’08, ’09, ’10, and people laughed at me. Now, what I just said is real, right?
Gary Veynerchuk (27:49)
It’s real.
Speaker 4 (27:50)
Yeah.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (27:52)
It’s getting, yeah. So I mean, that’s really it. It’s, you know, I know that there’s a lot of things that I have to refine.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (28:00)
There are some familiarity zones, certain things that I have some barriers. I need to push. But I’m also really innovative.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (28:10)
I push a lot. I’ve been doing a lot. It’s just interesting that, you know, I’ve been on YouTube as long as Gary has.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (28:19)
The one difference is that he was doing it in a very focused way with his Wine Library, and I was just documenting. But then, he even mentions things like that. He says, “Don’t try to create content, just document.”
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (28:31)
And I’ve been doing that, and you know, I don’t know how that’s going to pay off eventually. But I haven’t taken anything down, and I’ve been experimenting, and I’m just gonna keep going. And I’ve found something that works. Like my superpower right now is I really love this idea of the lo-fi podcast and the lo-fi audiobook podcasts, which is a really cool thing that in the cafe…
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (29:02)
When you go ahead and check out a bunch of my podcasts on Spreaker, you’ll see that all of them, like I have “The Passports of the Solar System,” which is one of the books that I wrote, and different things like that, you know. And a lot of them, I’m just recording at a cafe or someplace. And there’s ambient noise in the background. Right now, my car engine just kicked on, and that’s going to be in the background. And there’s whatever, and I’m not in a studio with super high, clean, high-quality production.
Dr Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander PhD (29:34)
But the signal of my voice is greater than the noise, the background noise, which just creates an ambiance that I really like. I’m Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, One Person Enterprise.