Shontavia Johnson (00:00:00):

 

What’s up, y’all. Welcome to The Shontavia Show, where my goal is to help you start a business based on your life’s vision. This ain’t gonna be your daddy’s business advice. I’m laser focused on entrepreneurship in the 21st century, vision and breaking the traditional mold. If you can get with that, you can get with me, be sure to visit shontavia.com for more episodes, blog posts, and other content. Thank you for listening. The show starts now.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:00:34):

 

Welcome to another episode of the Shontavia Show, where I want to inspire you to build the brand and business you were made for. And I am thrilled to have with me today, Stephanie Humphrey, she’s a technology and lifestyle expert. I get my entire life from her Instagram feed, her LinkedIn posts about just like using technology to make your lives better. So I want to introduce Stephanie to those of you who have not gotten your lives yet from her Instagram or her LinkedIn. She’s a former engineer who merges her passion for lifestyle media, with in-depth tech expertise, which I can attest to. Stephanie has this amazing background. She’s currently a technology contributor for ABC News. She’s worked as a, as part of the nationally syndicated Strahan Sara and Keke team, as well as contributing to Good Morning America. Before that she was part of the Harry Show hosted by Harry Connick, Jr.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:01:33):

 

Which I also love as a New Orleans boy, me having lived in New Orleans for a while, and Stephanie has a new book out called Don’t Let Your Digital Footprint Kick You in the Butt, which expands on concepts, revolving around maintaining a positive reputation online out in cyberspace. So Stephanie, thank you so much for joining me today.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:01:54):

 

Thank you so much for having me. I am super excited to be here.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:01:58):

 

So I mean it, when I say I get my life from your Instagram feed and all the different tips that you recommend, and I am so curious about your background. You’ve got all these different things in your background, from technology and engineering to modeling and television. What is your story? How did you get to this point?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:02:18):

 

It was definitely not a straight line. It was, I don’t know if you remember, like the Sunday comics at all.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:02:26):

 

I was a big fan of comics when people actually read newspapers and there was one particular comic called The Family Circus, which was about this little white family. And Billy was kind of the central figure in that, in that comic strip. And every now and again, they would do a one panel comic where his mom would say, you know, go to the store and bring back or whatever, but he would go all through over the river and through the woods and they’d show this whole little journey that he would take with these dotted lines where he’d stop and play with the dog and then, and then go climb a tree

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:03:00):

 

And then, you know, finally get to where he needed to go. And, and I always think about that when I think about my journey, because it’s been so varied and, and twisty and turny and, and up and down and left and right. And kinda not necessarily, you know, looking back big picture, it, it is not as all over the place as it might sound. I think all of those things played into, you know, where I am right now. All of it was training and education and, and preparation for that next step. And it all fits in very perfectly because, you know, God doesn’t do anything imperfectly. So it, it, it, it all fits in. But so, yeah, I was an engineer by trade and training proud Florida A & M rattler. And did my master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania and started working at Lockheed Martin and, and did what most people do – got a good job.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:03:57):

 

You know, you go to school, you get a good job. That’s what your parents tell you to do. And yeah, you making a decent living and you’re taking vacations and you’re, you’re shopping and, and you’re going to brunch and you’re just living your best life basically. And it wasn’t my best life. I wasn’t happy at all at that job. You know, I appreciate what it allowed me to be able to do outside of the company. The flexibility that it offered me to, to grow this other brand, but I did not like the work at all. Anybody that knows me from that time will tell you, my manager would probably tell you my, my performance reviews probably reflected the fact that I was not fulfilled there at all. It just, wasn’t the type of work that I saw myself doing for, for any long-term timeframe and retiring from.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:04:48):

 

So I started looking for something, some sort of an exit strategy, and I actually did a few different things before I sort of landed where I am now. I was very much into fitness and wellness. I still am, but at the time I thought I might be a personal trainer. So I was actually certified to teach group fitness. I was teaching kickboxing and, you know, doing all that kind of thing and thought I might be, you know, the Black Lucille Roberts at some point and franchise, this whole thing and, and whatever. But through that again, the, the, the path this way, that all means something because I worked out so much, one of the women that I was going to the gym with at the time asked me to be in a fashion show. She was the manager of a Dress Barn, a retail dress store, everybody knows the Dress Barns.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:05:38):

 

And she said, come be in my show, we’re asking some regular people to, you know, model and you’ll get a discount on whatever you buy that day for being in the show. I was like, Oh, absolutely. And you know, there, there was a woman there. She had she had invited a few regular folks, i.e., me, but she also knew a woman who ran a modeling school. So she taught runway classes and whatever. So she brought some of her students to be in the show as well. And she, and I got the chatting and she’s like, do you model professionally? And I’m like, no, what are you talking about? I’m not a size zero, and I’m not, you know, six foot tall or whatever. And she may or may not have just been trying to sell me runway classes, but but the seed was planted.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:06:25):

 

And, and, and it’s funny, I actually didn’t end up paying for any of her runway classes, but she paid me to offer fitness classes at her studio, because at the time, like I said, I was, I was looking for my exit strategy. So I was, I was certified to teach. So I was teaching kickboxing to her modeling students. And then she and I were just talking about the business and, you know, she was giving me tips and stuff like that, but that was a seed that was planted. And, and, you know, I looked at it at the time as something that would be a fun distraction from cubicle life, basically, you know, 50 hours a week of, of cubicle life. And then maybe on the side, I could go do a photo shoot every now and again and make a couple extra bucks to go on vacation with.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:07:12):

 

But as I sort of started getting more involved in that, in that business and doing more on camera stuff, because modeling is what it is, you know, no, no shade. If somebody wants to pay me to take my picture, I ain’t going turn the money down. But it wasn’t anything that, again, it wasn’t something that fulfilled my soul. I didn’t really think I was, you know, contributing anything of real value. And again, that’s not to put any other models down, but I personally was just like, I just don’t want to stand around taking pictures all day. But once I got a chance to be in front of a camera, speaking to people, you know, interacting, you know, with interviews and different things like that, I was like, Oh, now this could be something, cause I know how to run my mouth clearly. So that was sort of the, the, the the beginning of, of Tech Life Steph.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:08:04):

 

I see, I see. So gosh, so many questions. I feel like so many of us have this experience where we go out, we get that first job. We think, wow, this is life. We get degrees. We get our this and our that, and it just, ain’t what it seems like when you walk into that position. I, yeah, I had a very similar position. When I graduated from law school, I went from engineering to law, out into this big firm, making a bunch of money. It looks great on the outside, but I cried every day on the way to work. And I’m wondering for you, how did you know that moment when you needed to transition. So many people get to that point? Right. But they just stay, they feel like this is what you do. What was that moment for you?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:08:52):

 

That’s a great question. I’m not sure what finally made me say, you know, I’ve, I’ve had it, cause you know, like you cried every day. I was angry every day, like just from the commute and, and you know, the people around me, like literally fist balled up when I got home and it would take me a minute to decompress. And when I got in the, in the building every day, it would take me a moment. Like people literally wouldn’t come speak to me for like 15, 20 minutes after I got to work. And then they’d be like, is it okay? Because I wasn’t even on some angry black woman, I just, I was, you could, I guess you could just feel my energy and, and the tenseness that I, that I brought into that space with me. And it was just, and I just felt, I don’t know, I got to a point where I just felt like I couldn’t do it anymore.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:09:42):

 

I was working I don’t know if it was necessarily anything at work, any one thing at work that I was like, this is it. This is the straw. But I had gotten to a point with the other stuff I was doing with the, with the modeling and acting stuff that I was doing, that I was actually making a pretty decent part-time living doing that. And I was, I I’ll tell you what it really was. I was getting sick, like literally twice a quarter. I would get really, really sick because I was running myself ragged before I left my job, um I was already working part-time at QVC as a model. So I had what I called my 2:00 AM rule there. And cause QVC is 24 hours a day. It’s live television, 24 hours a day, every day, except Christmas Day. And so my 2:00 AM rule was if I got finished at QVC at 2:00 AM or earlier, so 1:00 AM midnight, 11:00 PM, something like that.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:10:45):

 

I would go home. I would sleep. I would go into work late, like 10, 10, 11 o’clock in the morning and then stay late. But if I got done at 2:00 AM or later, so 2:00 AM 3:00 AM, 4:00 AM. I would go straight to work and sit there by myself in that cubicle, by myself at that computer by myself, you know, nodding like this and, and, you know, I’d get to leave a little bit earlier, but I was literally working around the clock. So I was getting sick. I used to get really bad sinus infections a few times a year. So I was getting sick a lot and just, it was just getting to be too much. And I’m like, something has got to give here. I’m not sure what this career’s gonna look like just yet. Because Tech Life Steph wasn’t quite born then, but I said, you know what?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:11:30):

 

I might be able to make something out of this. If I can give myself the space to do it for real, for real. So it took two years, actually I had a two year plan where I I traded in my car. I had this huge SUV that cost a ton of money and guzzled a bunch of gas. So I traded that in for something smaller and cheaper and more fuel efficient. I refinanced my house to sort of massage the, you know, escrow and, and, and the payment together, but separate. And I had a dollar amount that I wanted in the bank that I would be comfortable with, you know, that would sustain me for six months or whatever, you know, and while I was working to figure it out, and once that got done, it was time to go. I, I, it was time to go, but it was, it was a, it was a combination of things of just, you know, seeing the potential over here with the money that I was making and, and just wearing my body out completely. So it was like something something has to give. And since I don’t like the job, it’s going to be the job.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:12:39):

 

No, that’s so, gosh, I love this advice so much because I talk about this a lot. When I was growing up, I didn’t really know people who liked their jobs. I thought, you know, work was just something you did. You just did it. That’s exactly right.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:12:57):

 

I got bills to pay!

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:12:57):

 

That’s right. So I love that you say you left the thing you didn’t like, and you went to do these other things. And now you’ve created this brand Tech Life Steph is very well known. Obviously you’ve worked with some amazing people, you still continue to work with amazing people. And you said you hadn’t really started it as Tech Life Steph the brand when you left. So at what point did you go from working as a model doing QVC to a brand of your own and a business of your own? How did you do that?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:13:26):

 

So that’s a fun story. Because before, before Tech Life Steph was born, I thought I might be an entertainment journalist. I was very much into celebrity and pop culture back then. I mean, just literally every day I had like seven different, you know, entertainment blogs that I read voraciously every single day. I had to know what was going on in everybody’s life and, you know, Perez Hilton and, and The Shade Room and, and all, I was just, I was obsessed with celebrity culture back then. Don’t ask me why I have no idea why, but obsessed with celebrity culture. So I thought I would be an entertainment journalist and do red carpets and who are you wearing? And, and all that kind of stuff. And I actually did get to do a little bit of that. I did a couple of jobs with Rolling Out magazine out of Atlanta.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:14:14):

 

So we, you know, I got to be on some red carpets and all that, and it was cool. But it’s a very, very hard area to break into because everybody wants to do that. That, that seems like the glamorous, you know, thing. And, and there are a ton of actual journalists that want to do that. So as I’m, you know, you know, submitting to news networks and, and E and all of that, they’re like, Oh, where’d you go? Where’d you get your journalism degree from like I don’t have a journalism degree. So that was, that was a huge stumbling block and roadblock for me at the time. And then at, and I don’t think necessarily that there were people there were some people that were building brands doing that, but at the time, I didn’t really want to sort of start from scratch and have to, you know, even though that’s what I ended up doing with tech, but I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to have to go that route.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:15:09):

 

I just want, I wanted to, I wanted to get a job, you know, I want to get a job at a news network or something, you know, talking about entertainment. And it just, it was happening in, in dribbles, but not really. So I had an interview. I had a meeting with, I lobbied very hard to get a meeting with may, I’m going to go ahead and put a name out there cause he don’t work for them any more. Payne Brown was the VP of Diversity at Comcast at the time. And Comcast is headquartered in Philadelphia where I live I’m right outside the city. And at the time Comcast owned a part of TV One and TV One at the time had a show called TV One Access, which was a spinoff of Access Hollywood that Shaun Robinson…

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:15:55):

 

Yes! I remember this, right, right.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:16:00):

 

It was just like, I mean, Shaun Robinson, ain’t gotta be all greedy taking all the jobs like they could have somebody else for TV One.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:16:06):

 

And she could be like on NBC and, or I could at least be a correspondent and get in there and dah, dah, dah, you know what I mean? I’m like, she shouldn’t be hogging all the, all the TV jobs. And not that she was, but that in my mind, I’m like, come on. So that was my goal in getting the meeting with this guy at Comcast was to convince him that I was super fabulous and that they needed to put me on TV One Access. I was very specific in my intention and getting this meeting with this man. So it is January 2011, January 2011. I will never forget it. Cold is all get out snow on the ground the whole night. You know, I finally get this meeting with this guy and a friend of mine, very good friend of mine is a, is a stylist and brand image consultant Toi Sweeney.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:16:53):

 

And she had helped me pick out this outfit and it was– you know, showing all the curves, everything. And so I got– I’m in this dress it’s freezing– I ain’t got no stockings on. I’m in shoes that are like a half size too small, but they were the shoes that had to go with the dress. And I was like, I don’t care. This meeting is everything I got to make this meeting work. Wig, child, the whole nine hair makeup wig. So get to the, get to the meeting. And the first thing that should have alerted me to the fact that this wasn’t going to work out well for me was his receptionist, his assistant. I get in there and she’s like, Oh my God, you look amazing. You look just like a member of En Vogue. And I was like, what? And then don’t get me wrong. Those ladies are beautiful Terri, Cindy… But at the time, that was 15 years prior to that time. So I was like, that’s not really the look I was going for. I wasn’t really going for 1998 R & B groups.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:18:10):

 

So, so if that’s what she, if that’s the vibe she’s getting, I probably didn’t put this together as well as I thought I did. I was just like, Oh I it’s a compliment, but not so I was like, dang. So I get in there. Hi, Mr. Brown, you know, thanks for taking this meeting. You know, I appreciate it. I’m Stephanie Humphrey, I’m an engineer, but what I’ve been doing all the duh duh duh duh, so I’m running down, you know, my entertainment resume to him and he’s sitting there like this, literally his face and I’m like, you know, blah, blah, blah. So I talked for like 15 minutes straight. And and he’s like, what are you doing? That’s literally all he said, he said, what are you doing? And I’m like, as my bottom lip starts quivering, I’m literally trying not to cry at this point.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:19:03):

 

And he, and I’m like, I don’t, I don’t understand what you mean. And he’s like, what are you doing? I don’t understand what you’re talking about, he said, you came in here, you mentioned you used to be an engineer in passing and you haven’t talked about it again. He said, what are you doing? And, and it still hadn’t clicked for me. Cause I’m still like, I don’t know. And he said, listen, he said, I know thousands of pretty girls that want to be on a red carpet. He said, I don’t know anybody that looks like you that could do what you could do. He said, this ain’t you, this is not you. What he’s like, I don’t even know you. And I know that this ain’t, you, you are t-shirts and jeans and sneakers and you know, tomboy and all he’s like, what are you, what are you doing?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:19:57):

 

And I kid you not, God spoke to me right then. And I said, and I and I sat there for another 15 seconds. And I said, I could be a tech life expert. That was literally my response to him. I could be a tech life– He said, there you go. And Tech Life Steph was born January 2011. In that office at that moment it was like, what I’ve. And I literally spent the rest of that day. Cause I had to go, I was reporting traffic at the time because that’s a part of the journey too, me reporting traffic for the news and talking about how backed up 95 is on camera. So I had to go straight to work after that, but I literally spent the next like 36 hours wondering how I didn’t think of that myself. Like, why didn’t I think of that?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:20:48):

 

Like what have I been doing this whole time? I’ve wasted, you know, years, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what I came to understand was that number one, it wasn’t a waste because I needed the media training anyway. And I think I had so closely associated the idea of being an engineer with being at the job I hated that I throw the baby out with the bath water. You know, I was born an engineer. I’m always going to be, I always want to know how things work. I always want to solve problems. I always want to figure stuff out. You know what I mean? That’s all engineers do is figure out how things work. And so, you know, that’s never going to go away and, you know, understanding how I can put that together with now this new found love of running my mouth on camera was, was, you know, I just needed someone to connect those dots for me. And, and, and once he did, I was off and running.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:21:47):

 

I love that. So, so many light bulbs are going off as I’m listening to you tell that story. That Is amazing. So Tech Life Steph was born. You had not put it together in that way, but you had all this amazing background and you turned all the stuff you already had in your toolkit into a brand.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:22:07):

 

That’s right.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:22:08):

 

So it’s nine years later. You now have this amazing thriving brand. You’re on Strahan, Sara and Keke, you’ve done all these different things. You’ve become like a personal branding expert. And I’m wondering like how you view your brand and your business. Is it that you are in media and you teach people about brands or you’re a branding expert who happens to also do media. What is your brand right now as you have all these different things in your toolkit. What is the brand?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:22:39):

 

It’s so funny. That’s a great question. Cause I, I do find that I’m, I am asked now for that expertise where I don’t necessarily consider myself a branding expert. I mean, clearly something I’ve done has worked out, you know what I mean? But, but I, I don’t know that I would, I would, because I’m, I’m, I’m old school in the sense that, you know, I feel like instruction also has to come with experience, which is not necessarily true, but that’s just the way my mind works. I’m like, I’ve not taken a class on branding and I don’t have any kind of certification. And I don’t, you know what I mean? But, but clearly the experience speaks for itself and where I’ve been able to, to place myself. I would still consider myself a media personality. I am a media personality, I’m a tech contributor to a large media company.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:23:30):

 

That, that is my job and slash public speaker, because Til Death Do You Tweet is the, is the other side of that coin. And that, and that’s where the book comes in and, and the workshop and the seminar, and there are some, when I, when I do, Til Death Do You Tweet for professionals, cause there there’s three versions of it. When I do the version I do for professionals or college students, there is a content strategy conversation that happens in that workshop. But I don’t know that I would add, you know, media personality slash public speaker author slash brand. I don’t know if I would add that third slash slash branding expert to the end of it. I mean, it it’s something I can do. And maybe at some point, you know, you’ll get me, you’ll get my brand life together and help me figure out how to, how to fully incorporate that into everything else and make it make sense. But right now it’s kind of a, an add on kind of a little bit of gravy that you would get with with some of the other stuff that I do.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:24:38):

 

Yeah. So all of that is so indicative of what black women do every day. We take all this stuff. We have, we have all this knowledge, we work, whatever the full-time job is. We have all these things we’re doing outside of a full-time job and you, more than many people, I see on social media and in real life, you balance those things really well. And I would love to talk about how you do that, how you balance the tech life contributor stuff with, Til Death Do You Tweet, which is your business and your brand, how do you do that? Is it that you spend just like nights and weekends on the, on the business or how do you balance all those things?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:25:20):

 

Well, no, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s always together and happening cause I’m not on television every day that I think it would be different if I was, I have a freelance contract with ABC News, so I’m kind of on an as needed basis. So I, I, I’m not, if I was on TV every day and if I was like Robin Roberts, Hey Robin you know, where I was getting up at 2:00 AM and was doing this thing every day, it would probably be a little bit more challenging with that. But since I’m not on television every single day, most of my days are free to work on content, you know, for Til Death Do You Tweet, to put forth marketing efforts for the book to, you know, do outreach to schools and companies and things like that. So, so there’s, there’s a lot more time in any day. I think that people realize just because I’m not on television every single day.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:26:15):

 

I see, I see. So a lot of the people who listen to the podcast who watch the videos online on YouTube are working professionals who want to start a business. They want to figure out what a business looks like. So what does your business look like? I think I know a lot of the tentacles that you kind of operate within the business, but what does your business look like?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:26:37):

 

So it’s, it’s, it’s the media stuff. So, you know, I do get paid for, for the television work that I do. It’s the public speaking stuff I do probably I’d say 3.5 speaking engagements, well maybe 2.5 speaking engagements a month. And then it is, you know, now, now it’s the book as well. The book has been actually doing pretty well. I’m pretty happy about, you know, Amazon and I’m working to the, the intention and the, and the game plan behind the book was to get it to schools. So I’m working to, you know, get it in the hands of every high school student in the country. So so there’s that I also have an online course for parents to help them understand, you know, how their kids are behaving online and social media, stuff like that. I don’t do as much marketing for that as I need to be doing. So, so those are right now, my four it’s so funny, you asked that because I was just sitting here last night, like I need another source of income. I need another revenue stream. And so they, and, and thinking about what else I could be doing passively you know, but those are the sort of the four things. So television speaking, the book, and the online, of course.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:27:59):

 

So with the book, which just came out recently, I read it, I have a nine-year-old who will be ten soon, and I had her read pieces of it and I was blown away by how much– cause I, I picked it up, well, I ordered it from Amazon and as I opened it, I thought, okay, well this is a book for kids, but as I was reading it, there’s so much advice that is also identical for adults, for entrepreneurs who are people who are building their brands online. How did the idea for the book come about? So why did you create the book in this way, whereas really marketed, like you mentioned, the high school students where there’s so much good information in there for adults and lots of different folks.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:28:40):

 

It’s so funny. And I’m so glad you said that. And I it’s been, it’s been very gratifying to hear adults say that. But the, the impetus for the book was Til Death Do You Tweet. So Til Death Do You Tweet is a, is a seminar that I do before 2020 in schools for students, parents and professionals, students, parents, or professionals that helps them understand how to be better digital citizens, how do we be better online? And I’ve been doing Til Death Do You Tweet for since 2012, really. Well, actually, I’ve been monetizing Til Death Do You Tweet since 2012, but I’ve been, I had been doing it even before that it actually sort of was born out of out of a need for relevant content because when I was working at Lockheed, I had top secret clearances. I wasn’t really at liberty to discuss and any real detail what I did.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:29:36):

 

So when my friends that were educators would ask me to come to career day and that, that, happened a lot, Oh, you’re an engineer. Oh my God, come speak to my students, come speak to my students. All right. I really, wasn’t going to show up and say, I do performance analysis and requirements verification like that, you know, and, and I, and I thought about all of those career days I ever attended as a student where you’re just falling asleep and the person’s in a suit and you can’t relate, and they’re just droning on and on about accounting or, or something. And I was just like, I will not be that person to a child. You know, I can’t do that to a kid. So I started doing this for that purpose. So I, you know, I would tell my friends, I’m like, yeah, I’ll come in and talk about being an engineer.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:30:20):

 

I was like, what? I was like, I want to talk about this first, give me, give me 20 minutes to talk about, you know, social media responsibility and, you know, all of that. And then I’ll answer any questions that kids might have about, you know, what it takes to become an engineer. And, you know, it was right around that time where we were seeing a lot of suicide, cyber bullying related suicides were happening. And I was just like, there’s, there’s something here. You know, there, there’s definitely something here that, that is not being addressed at scale in this country. And these kids are dying, so, you know, what can I do? How can I flesh this out and make it into a thing that I can then, you know, present to schools and do. So it started, you know, like it’s a very small, it was just for students at first, and as it grew and evolved that added the piece for parents and then added a piece for professionals.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:31:13):

 

But, but what I found, and, and this is probably why it resonates so well across all demographics, because what I found actually resonates with the students the same as with adults is the idea of your brand. You know, it’s like, I taught that they get that same instruction. You know, when I come in to speak to them like, you know, who knows what a brand is, and then everybody’s like, Oh, Nike and blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, do you think you’re a brand? Nobody raises their hand. And I’m like, guess what? You know what I mean? So, so, you know, we start that conversation there. It gives them that ownership. Now everybody’s sitting up, their oh, my brand, oh, shoot my brand, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, especially now we’re where influencer is a more coveted job for students then engineer, you know, they study that people want to be YouTubers before they want to be doctors right now.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:32:04):

 

So, you know, kids are actually very mindful of that. They just hadn’t made that connection for themselves. So when you do that, now you can go and talk about, okay, so now here’s what can happen to your brand if you’re not being careful, but here’s what you can do to grow and develop your brand. You know? So now it’s a whole different conversation. So so that’s Til Death Do You Tweet, and the book is just an extension of that really, because, you know what I had been finding as I was talking to kids, anytime I went into a school, a principal or of school or somebody like, do you have any other resources that we could have so that we can keep this conversation going? And, you know, or if they’re an, you know, and I had like one sheets and, and, and infographics and things that I would send to them, but I was like a book would, you know, like you got to have, like you said, the multiple streams of income, thinking about how to extend the brand, you know, a book would be great, cause then they can buy and then they could duh duh duh duh duh.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:33:06):

 

So you know, I was like, I do, I’m working on a book. I’m like, it’s coming. I promise. And I was finally able to get it done. So, so it’s, it’s a lot of the same messaging, but I added exercises in there that the kids can do that a teacher would be able to, you know, kind of work through and kind of create almost a mini curriculum around and different case study examples that I use in the in-person presentation to just reinforce, you know, cyber bullying and sexting and, and things like that. And then there’s actually in the book, there’s a big LinkedIn section as well for students because, you know, if you’re in high school, like you should have a LinkedIn profile like, you should. So, so we, so there’s a big section on that in there. Some content strategy tips as well. So the book just takes Til Death Do You Tweet a few steps further.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:33:59):

 

Okay, Steph. So, gosh, so you just ruined my whole flow because I wanted to ask you all these questions about the book. But as I’m listening, I have so many questions about the book, how you built the business, about all of these things. So I wouldn’t even know where to start, but what I think I will start is with the book, because you mentioned the LinkedIn section.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:34:20):

 

And when I tell you, I took that LinkedIn section, I went to my LinkedIn page. I was like, wait a minute. Did I do this is my picture right? Do I have, you know, all these things?

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:34:33):

 

Yes. I so appreciate you including that LinkedIn section. And I actually, I’ve worked with you to get my LinkedIn stuff together, which I appreciate and respect your advice about LinkedIn. And I’m wondering why you think LinkedIn is so important for both high school students, but also for professionals who are looking to build their brands. What is it about LinkedIn? That’s different from like a Facebook or an Instagram or Twitter or whatever.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:35:00):

 

There’s so much other noise on those other platforms. You know, and, and you, you know, you, you can have a presence, I have a presence on all those other platforms as well, but you know, LinkedIn is where you handle your business. It’s the world’s largest professional social network. So I think if you’re, if you’re in business, you should be in a place where, you know, business people are. Depending on the nature of your business. I don’t know. I can’t think of a business that, where it wouldn’t be appropriate to have a presence on that platform, but it’s, it’s low hanging fruit, you know, it’s free. Basically, I mean, I wouldn’t pay for any of those premium features. So it’s free. I have, and I wouldn’t, and I, and I can tell you why later on, but you know, it’s free, it’s, low-hanging fruit, it’s, it’s it’s a place where all of your information can live if you don’t have a website yet, or if you don’t have, you know, an about.me page or something like that, yet this is sort of that digital resume where you can have, you know, upload media and photos and, and, and different things about what you do and talk about your certifications and your licenses and, and languages that you speak.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:36:10):

 

So it’s a, it’s a great repository for all of the information that makes up your personal brand. And, you know, there’s with 600, 700 million other people on there. I think there’s an expectation that you’d have a presence there. And for, you know, as we’re, as we’re really getting granular into brand and talking about SEO, you know, in your SEO strategy, like LinkedIn should, should definitely be there because they rank really high. And when someone looks for you, you want them to be finding those, those good things about you, that that best reflect your personal brand. And LinkedIn is a great way to do that.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:36:52):

 

I love that. I love that. And as you’re talking about the personal brand, that LinkedIn strategy component comes toward the end of the book. At the beginning of the book, you talk about how your personal brand is really represented by three different things, your in-person strategy, your in-writing strategy and by other people. So, and LinkedIn, I suppose, is the culmination of all three of those things in one place. How can we, as we’re building our personal brands online, whether it’s LinkedIn, which you’re convincing me, I need to do more on LinkedIn.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:37:25):

 

I mean, it wouldn’t even take extra work on your part. You do these great podcasts regularly, you post tons of content on Instagram regularly, clip it, take it apart. You know what I mean? Like, as you’re doing it, you know what I’m saying? Like, while you’re doing it, put, take another little clip and, and, and just throw it up on LinkedIn or, or throw it in your, you know, whatever scheduling tool you might be using. Throw it in for LinkedIn too. It’s, it’s not, it doesn’t, you don’t have to make it extra work. It doesn’t have to be extra work.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:37:56):

 

Duly noted, duly noted. And as I’m doing that, and as I’m thinking about my personal brand strategy on LinkedIn and elsewhere, how can you make sure all these things are working together? I think the thing that is most frustrating for me as I build my own brand as I work with other people to build theirs, is that third party component, the “by other people.” You know, like you can control what you do, the way you show up in person. You can control what you put in writing. You can’t control what other people say about your brand though. So how can you make all these things work together?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:38:31):

 

Right. So I, I get a question, a lot about people who do still have, you know, the full-time day job and, and try to get the side hustle go on. And, you know, my boss don’t want me, Bubba, Bubba. I mean, there, there, there is a case to be made for, for doing your best to try to separate those two things, but I don’t necessarily think that works very well.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:38:51):

 

Um it just gets so tricky. I think while you’re at your job, you know, within the confines of whatever your company policies are or whatever, I think there’s a way to combine, you know, what you do with what you do, basically, if that makes any sense. I think, I think there’s, I think there’s a way to, to marry those two things. So because, because the, the lessons really translate across industry, the lessons of perseverance and the lessons of sticktuitiveness and, and of, of trial and error and, you know, those, those, those stories and those stories translate across, you know, industries.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:39:37):

 

So I think you can, you can share those things on the same platform while also promoting your side business. So, so for instance, let me give you a for instance, so say, say you were an attorney, but you also baked, you know, on the side and you were trying to get your baking business that, that you, you, you, you may want to like, have a separate Instagram for your baking business, because Instagram lends itself to visual. And, you know, you throw some beautiful pictures of cupcakes up, and people will love that, but on LinkedIn, how do you do that? If you don’t want to have a whole separate page just for your baking business right now, because it’s not your full-time thing, you’re like, I just, I only have this and I’m going to be transitioning anyways. So how do I start? What’s the content strategy that connects those dots?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:40:26):

 

You know as an attorney, you know, you’re, you’re privy to your you’re in IP, you’re working with that. So you’re so-so then you have that conversation about it. So when I was setting up that dah, dah, dah, dah, I used my understanding of intellectual property law to come up with a custom, you know, technique for my, my, my cake business. So you have to be very creative sometimes and, and, and inventive and thinking about how you, how you connect those dots. I think, you know, ultimately you sort of want, and, and, and ultimately it’s only going to be just you, so you, and whatever else you do will hang off of you as the brand. So it’s, it’s not really gonna matter that you think that the things you do are, are so disparate because it’s really you. So, you know, you’re, you’re just telling your stories.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:41:25):

 

You’re, you’re relating pieces from this job pieces, from this job pieces, from, you know, home life and family life, pieces, from the stories with the kids, all of that is just going to go into, you know, brand you. And, and so that’s, that’s, I think how, how you get around that and how you think about it. I don’t think you need to try to make the separation in your mind of I’m Stephanie, the media personality, but I’m also Stephanie… I’m just Tech Life Steph. You know what I mean? And, and we’re going to make all of this make sense, you know, some kind of way. And, and, and that’s the that’s, the challenge is, is to make it all make sense, because cause people are gonna want to know all of those pieces about you,

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:42:11):

 

Right? And that’s what people love the most. We love stories. We love knowing that you’re baking. You’re also a lawyer. That you have an engineering degree and you also do this other work. And now I love following you because you do this really well. There are two people who I think do it really well. You’re one of them. The other is Bozoma Saint John, who is a marketing officer, chief marketing officer, just the way she does it, the way you do it, I think you both do it phenomenally well.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:42:40):

 

So I’m taking notes, definitely taking notes from both of you about those strategies. And the other thing you say in the book, as you’re talking about building your brand with all these different strands and insuring that there’s one picture of you, there’s also the bad stuff, right? So you go off on somebody on social. We do what Kanye West did this week, lose your damn mind on Twitter. You know, these things where there’s bad behavior. And I love your chapter in the book about this bad behavior. So I’m wondering what suggestions you can offer to people when they do mess up, because we all mess up. We’re human.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:43:20):

 

Yes, we do. We fall down but we get up.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:43:21):

 

Like your shirt, you’re wearing a shirt right now that says grace and mercy. We need it.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:43:28):

 

So the first thing you gotta do is own it, you know, own it, own it and own it and own it and own it again. I think, you know, I think that’s where Kevin Hart got messed up when he got all jammed up with that Oscar stuff. He got very defensive about the fact that I already apologized for this. You know, why do I gotta keep talking about this? Because you do, because the way social media works, that apology you gave two years ago, probably only a hundred thousand people saw it, the other billion people on the planet, didn’t see it. You know what I mean? So it, you may have to keep owning it and keep apologizing. And you can reference the fact that like, I’ve addressed this before, but I realized that not everybody may have seen that on the other apology. I want to go on record as saying, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:44:16):

 

So that’s the first thing you got to own it. And then you have to be sincere about changing and, and being better. And then you have to use SEO your advantage again, search engine optimization. So consistently start to populate the internet with better stuff. You know, eventually that stuff will sink down further and further in search results. You know, somebody is always going to be able if they just really have a mind to try to dig up some dirt on you, they’re going to be able to do that no matter what, but you can make it harder for them. You can make it as hard as possible by, by pushing that content off into the, into the internet ether, if you will, by being consistent about the stuff you do from this point on. So, you know, even if you’re just curating other people’s posts and you know, I, or, or use it to your advantage, you know what I mean, to, to sort of maybe splinter your brand or evolve your brand in a different way.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:45:18):

 

You know what? I used to be super, super homophobic, but since I’ve been studying this issue, I’ve found this and this, and I wanted to share this article to let people know, and I want to do, you know, and you don’t necessarily have to take up that particular cause. But, but if it, if it’s something that, you know, you did that you legitimately regret and that you’ve legitimately tried to educate yourself on going forward, you know, you can use that to your advantage as well, and, and, and, and start sort of adding content to what you do around, you know, your understanding of, of where you’re at now with that issue.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:45:57):

 

Yeah, no, that’s great advice. And the other advice you give a book on this topic is no matter what you think you’ve deleted or how much you think you’ve scrubbed the internet, nothing goes away,

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:46:08):

 

Til death do you tweet That’s why it’s called that, it ain’t going nowhere. It ain’t going nowhere. No how. There’s just way too– like I said, you know, you may, you, you may be able to effectively bury it so that the average person can’t get to it. But you know, it’s a 15 year old with a computer in his mom’s basement can pull up anything. So, so, you know, you don’t want to get lulled into a false sense of security that, well, I deleted that post, you know, a while back. So I don’t have to worry about that. Like it still could come back, you know, it’s still very searchable and recoverable, so you gotta be mindful of that.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:46:52):

 

Yes. Excellent advice and excellent book. I encourage everybody who’s listening. Or if you’re watching this on YouTube to pick the book up, Steph has it behind her there and I’ve got my copy right here, that I’ve been reading and sharing with my children.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:47:07):

 

If you work in high school, a college and middle school, kids need this book, they really– adults need this too. They really, really do. And so a couple other questions for you, Steph, as you were talking–

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:47:20):

 

I’ve got all kinds of time, child!

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:47:20):

 

I do not want to take too much of your time, but you said two things earlier that I just cannot let you without talking about because you know, so many people, like they start their side hustle, they start their thing and may do one event or they sell one product or 10 products or whatever. And it doesn’t go that well, you talked about your first event having four people. And now like your book was, wasn’t it like on the, on the scroll in Time Square?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:47:51):

 

It was a hot new release!

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:47:56):

 

It was a hot new release in the middle of Times Square in 2020. So how did you do that? So like the first couple of times, it sounds like you, like many of us start small and you grow. Did you ever, did you ever feel like, okay, this isn’t working because it’s small. What advice do you have for people when they’re starting small?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:48:15):

 

I didn’t. And, and, and, and I’ll tell you why. Because I, I am a person of faith obviously clearly. And I didn’t choose this for myself. That’s the thing. I think that, and people are very surprised when they, when they find that out because yeah, Oh my God, you’re so good on TV. You always want to be on TV. I never wanted to be on TV. I never had any aspirations to be on television. And not even because I didn’t think I could do it, or, Oh my God, I’m not pretty enough to be on TV or I’m not this enough. Or I’m not enough. It had just never even occurred to me. You know, the idea that I could create an, a whole, a whole nother career on television. You know what I mean? Because you think about TV and it’s actors and people that want to be movie stars and all that different stuff.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:49:03):

 

And I never wanted to do any of that either. I wanted to be an engineer, like I was doing what I thought I wanted to do. I was doing, I was doing exactly what I thought I was put on this earth to do. And so, so the idea that that I’m doing, this was not my plan. It was absolutely God’s plan from day one. And I had to be obedient to that. So I don’t feel like I necessarily had a choice in the matter, because once He once He showed me what was possible, and, and how I was going to be able to help people. You know, especially once, once we made that pivot and Tech Life Steph got, got going, I was like, Oh, snap, like people need help with technology. Like people really need help. So, you know, it was that idea of I can really help people.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:49:55):

 

And if I’m going to help people, I might as well do it on the biggest platform I can, I can, you know, achieve for myself. And I like running my mouth, so why not do it on TV? So it was different things, but it’s, it started, like you said, very small, very humble beginnings. You know, I was, I was basically starting over because up to that point, like I said, I had, I had acted. I had been in two feature films. I had modeled for QVC and, and other print publications. I had reported traffic for the CBS affiliate here in Philadelphia in 95, southbound jammed from Woodhaven road down to, you know, the whole nine. So, you know, I had legitimate media experience and credibility, but I still had to start over in this space as a, as a tech, you know, personality and contributor.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:50:48):

 

So I started a blog like everybody else was doing at the time. You know, my blog was called “A matter of life and tech,” and I would just write about stuff that I thought people would care about. And, you know, let’s talk about this app today, or there’s new iPhone coming out. Let’s talk about that. Let’s write about that. You know, eventually it, it never really got super, super popular and I wasn’t necessarily trying to become a blogger per se. I just wanted to use that platform to show that I could write and use it to get bigger profile, higher profile writing assignments, which is what I did. So from that, from my own blog, I started writing for theroot.com way back in the day. They weren’t even doing tech back then. I actually originated a column for The Root called Tech 2 Go back when Sheryl Huggins was the editor.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:51:39):

 

Yeah, it was, it was like Tech and the number two and go, I originated that column there at The Root. And because that was when social media was like, really everybody had a Facebook page and Twitter was popping and, and, and Cheryl, the editor was, was very into kind of the digital space and wanted to really do a lot around that. So, so I started doing, I started writing that for, for The Root for free use that to pitch to ebony.com. So I became the tech contributor to ebony.com and Ebony Magazine for free at first. And then Jamilah shout out to Jamilah. She did start paying me and then use that to parlay on to TV, you know, because again, it was like, you know, I assumed like, okay, I’ve been, I’ve been in the media space now for, cause by, at that point it had been probably like a good five years, you know, that I was doing all the other stuff that I was doing and I got two engineering degrees. So you would think it would be just a natural transition, like, Oh, let’s bring this young lady on to talk about technology. And it was like, no, who are you? I don’t know.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:52:51):

 

What have you done? What have you done for me lately? Basically. So, so the writing was to, to build the authority that I needed to get to television because they didn’t introduce me when I got on TV as former engineer, Stephanie Humphrey, they introduced me as tech writer for ebony.com. Stephanie Humphrey is going to tell us about this new app. So, you know, you needed that street cred basically. So I spent, you know, a lot of time I spent about two years really building up that street cred as a, as a technical person, nobody even believed I was, you know, knew anything. I was like do I have to? Do I need to shrink my degrees down and put them on a button and wear them right here. So people need, people need to recognize that worked hard for them. You know, so, you know, so it was very humbling actually to have to, you know, start over for all intents and purposes and, and, and, and prove to people again, that, that I could do this in this space.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:53:48):

 

But, you know, from those writing assignments and, and outposts, I was able to get on Fox 29 here in Philadelphia, Good Day Philadelphia did segments for them, did weekly segments for them for free for like two years. And I still go on every now and again and talk about whatever. But I was able to get on QVC. I went back to QVC as the rep for HP.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:54:16):

 

Um so I sold laptops and printers and stuff for HP on QVC for two years from there. Somewhat I, and I was doing little stuff still with news and media. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do because of con because of a conflict of interest things with QVC, but I was still doing little stuff and someone saw me saw my YouTube channel, one of the producers at the Harry Show saw my YouTube channel and was like, we’re trying to get our Harry Connick is getting a talk show and we’re getting all our experts together and you would be perfect at the tech expert and blah, blah, blah. So did that. And then, you know, parlayed that into at right after Harry got canceled was when Strahan, Sarah and KeKe it was actually just Strahan and Sarah at the time. Keke wasn’t there yet, but that started happening right at right as, as I was transitioning from Harry when his show got canceled. So was able to kind of get a foot in the door there. And you know, I’ve been rolling ever since.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:55:14):

 

I hope this is the second book. This whole, the memoir, and really the importance of content, your content is your currency.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:55:24):

 

That’s right.

 

Shontavia Johnson (00:55:26):

 

You parlayed your content from, it sounds like humble beginnings, your own blog into these huge platforms. Like in the scope of, I don’t know how long we’ve been talking, but you’ve dropped like all the things I love all the names of things I love, and you’ve done that through your content. So that is really, really incredible. Thank you so much for chatting with me today. This has been great.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:55:50):

 

It has been my pleasure. And I would just say, you know, to anybody that, like you said, did the one event and then things didn’t really seem like they was popping off. And then they decided that maybe this is not for me. Like, honestly, all of this is great that we just talked about for the past hour, but it’s the persistence that’s going to get you there. And it’s going to take, as long as it’s going to take you have to, you have to really internalize that idea and be okay with it, you know, and if that means you might need to keep another little side hustle just to keep the lights on in the meantime, you know, then so be it. But none of this would have mattered. Had I, because there were plenty of moments when I could have like, this ain’t working out, somebody else had told me, no, I’m sick of this.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:56:35):

 

I’m saying, you know what I mean? There were plenty of moments where I could have just chucked, chucked up the deuces and been like, I’m gonna just go back and get me a real job and, and forget about it. But you know what one, again, it was, it was my faith, because again, I, I did not choose this. And the fact that things kept working out, I was like, well, clearly, you know, I’m supposed to be here cause thing keep working out. And I, and I, and I have been trying to be, you know, at obedient to God’s plan as I can, but, but also I do actually love this. You know what I mean? Cause, cause God knows better than I do. And, and I love this. Like I love that I’ve been doing it for a long time without pay.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:57:18):

 

This is you know, find something you would do, even if you didn’t make a dollar, you know what I mean? All those little memes you say like, I would, I would be doing this regardless. I don’t get paid for the 60 Second Tech Break, but I love putting that content out there. But if there’s a sponsor watching you know, please feel free to reach out. But I just, I love to do it because I know I’m helping people. This is my ministry. This is the way I serve. So you know, I do it with the understanding that the reward, whatever, whatever that reward you’re seeking, will come, you know, and it might just be the satisfaction of knowing you help somebody save some money with the app they just download. Maybe that’s all you get that day. You know, maybe that’s all you get that month or that quarter.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:58:04):

 

As far as payment goes,ubut you know, I’m, I’m focused on a bigger picture. I know, you know what God has in store for me. So you really, you really have to fix your mind with the understanding that it’s going to take a while.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:58:21):

 

You know, you might get lucky and just go viral and blow up and be able to ride that wave to retirement. But the likelihood of that is very, very small. It’s probably gonna take a lot longer than you think. And so that’s why you need to make sure that it’s something that you actually want to do. I think, you know social media has gotten us on this entrepreneur culture kick that got everybody looking for a side hustle and doing stuff that they don’t actually even want to you don’t like real estate tell the truth.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:58:51):

 

You don’t really want to be a, you don’t want to flip houses. You don’t even want to, you don’t even like home improvement. You know what I’m saying? So, so why are you just trying to be on this bandwagon because that’s what everybody else is doing because it looks hot on Instagram. So, you know, that’s the first thing you gotta do is make sure that this is something you actually want to do. And you love to do because it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s not for suckers. You know what I mean? You gotta make sure it isn’t something you really want to because they’re going to be those moments where, you know, you don’t think you can keep going. And, and thankfully, you know, I’m a company of one and the things that I do are, are largely just coming from my own head.

 

Stephanie Humphrey (00:59:30):

 

So I don’t have the overhead of a, of a physical location and, you know plant paying employees and things like that. So I understand those might be considerations for, for people. And they feel like I can’t keep this up and it’s a lot to do, but, but I think there’s always a way to pivot. You know, if it’s something you truly love, I figure, I feel like there’s always a way to pivot to do it, you know, more cost-effectively and and, and you, you, you just gotta hang in there that that’s I wish I had something else I could tell you that was going to be like, you know, you did it, but it honestly is. You just got to hang in there.

 

Shontavia Johnson (01:00:07):

 

Girl, pass the collection plate, because I’m in your hallelujah corner right now. I feel like this is a good message for everybody. Me included. This was awesome. Steph, thank you. So, so, so very much and tell the people how they can find you. How can we find you? Where can we get the book? How, what is all your information?

 

Stephanie Humphrey (01:00:31):

 

All that, all that https://www.tildeathdoyoutweet.com one L T I L https://www.tildeathdoyoutweet.com. You can get the book there. You can find out about the seminar. You can find out about the online class for parents, and you can follow me all around the web at @TechLifeSteph, because brand consistency.

 

Shontavia Johnson (01:00:49):

 

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Shontavia Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, subscribe and leave a comment wherever you’re listening. You can find me on social media everywhere, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and wherever else @ShontaviaJEsq. You can also visit me at shontavia.com to find a transcript of this episode along with other show notes. While you’re there, please be sure to subscribe to my email newsletter.

 

Shontavia Johnson (01:01:20):

 

The information shared in this podcast and through my other platforms is designed to educate you about business and entrepreneurship. And I love to do this work while I am a lawyer, though, the information I provide is not legal advice and does not create or constitute an attorney client relationship.

 

Shontavia Johnson (01:01:38):

 

The Shontavia Show is a LVRG original. The show is recorded on site in South Carolina and produced at Sit N Spin Studio in Greenville, South Carolina .Original music and sound design is by Matt Morgan and Daniel Gregory. And the video is by GVL Media.