092 - Struggling With Burnout? Be "Intelligently Lazy" By Strategically Saying No

Saying no isn’t just about avoiding burnout—it’s a strategy for success. In this episode, I was delighted to have Deirdre Tshien, CEO and co-founder of CapSho, join me to share how saying no is actually a solid business strategy for consultants, entrepreneurs, and business owners. 

She broke down how trying to be everywhere at once leads to exhaustion, and why focusing on just a couple of key platforms can deliver better results without overwhelming you.

Topics included

🔹 Burnout is real – Trying to be on every platform can drain your energy and resources fast.

 🔹 Choose your platforms wisely – Pick the ones where your audience is active and where you actually enjoy engaging.

🔹 Saying no creates focus – When you stop spreading yourself too thin, you can double down on what truly works.

 🔹 Use AI and automation smartly – AI tools like CapSho and Riverside can help streamline content repurposing and free up your time.

 🔹 Be “intelligently lazy” – Work smarter, not harder, to create sustainable success without sacrificing your well-being.

🔷 Thank you for listening. If you found this episode relevant don't forget to hit that Follow Button to keep learning and growing with us.

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Transcript

[00:00:35.27] - Annette

Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you're joining us from. I'm Annette Richmond. This is Content Marketing School. And I'm so excited to have my guest here with me today. I heard you talking on another podcast, and my ears perked right up. You were talking about things like rethinking the idea of repurposing content, why maybe we shouldn't be everywhere, avoiding burnout. And the thing that really jumped out at me is the idea of saying no because it actually can bring you more. So before we dive in, please tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

 [00:01:17.12] - Deirdre

Hi. Thanks for having me on, Annette. My name's Deirdre Tshien I'm the CEO and co founder of CapSho, which is the world's first AI-powered podcast marketing platform based Basically, what CapSho does is it takes your audio or video file and it creates content marketing assets for you, which are text-based, image-based, and short-form video clip-based. So, yeah, we're here to help entrepreneurs who create content, identify their message and their voice.

[00:01:48.15] - Annette

Well, that sounds so cool. So let's dive right in. We were talking a little bit before we went live, and again, I mentioned the idea of saying no. For me, and I think a lot of people like me, we feel like we should say yes. Somebody says, Can you come and speak? Oh, yes. Can you be on the podcast? Oh, sure. How about doing this? Oh, certainly. Because we feel like we need to be out there and we need to grab every opportunity. I am just learning myself to say no. If you're asking me to speak and you're not paying me, if it's not an audience that might be potential clients, I understand now to say, no, I used to not. I'd pay to go and speak on a stage for people that really had no interest in ever working with me. So can you talk a little bit about the whole idea of saying no and how people can get over the idea that, oh, I always have to say yes.

[00:02:51.24] - Deirdre

I feel like we all go through that journey in it, where especially when we start and this is all part of marketing, and I'm a total marketing nerd, but sometimes we do just have to put in the hard yards and get out there and hit the state, all the stages and all the things. But I think it comes to a point where, and I know we're going to talk about this, but the burn out starts to happen. And I think when that, that's an indication, that's your body really telling you that you've really got to start saying no. For us, I remember when we had our first podcast, so I had a coaching business. It was 2021. Gosh, dates are escaping me right now. We got 2021 and I had a coaching business. And that was when we had our first podcast. And I was listening to the likes of Gary Vee and stuff at the time where it's like, content domination, you have to be everywhere all at once at the same time. I was like, okay, this is what success looks like. This is how I have to grow my business and my podcast.

[00:03:55.20] - Deirdre

And so we actually had, so between myself and my co founder, we had three other VAs that were supporting us in this business. All of us were working on some content marketing. It was insane. If you think about that, that's like five people working on content marketing because we believe we had to be everywhere. So I was shooting content. I had my podcast, obviously, but I was also shooting separate content for Instagram, for TikTok, for Facebook. Obviously, we're also on LinkedIn, on Twitter. Like, literally, we're trying to be everywhere. And you talk about burnout, personal burnout. My whole team burnt out. It was insane. It just got to the point where it's like, this is unmanageable. And when you then pull Peel the layers back and you see that Gary Vee has a full team. We're talking in the double digits. He's spending millions on content production. Same as the Alex Homozis and all these other people who we all follow and look at it like, well, we want to be creating content like them. It's resource-intensive and it's time-intensive. Unless you've got the resources and the time, that is not the path that we need to be on right now at this stage.

[00:05:20.20] - Deirdre

And so, having gone through that, burning up personally, burning up my team, which is the last thing that I wanted to happen. I think it's funny, We take more accountability for other people than we do for ourselves. But that's another- Absolutely. Yeah. And so with that happening, it was just like, we have to rethink all of this. I mean, part of that was the reason why we also created CapSho, because I knew that there was a smarter way that we can use technology and automate and do things differently, which is great because that is burnt off another business. But really, when it comes down to it, even with Capsho, which can help people. When you look at the surface or face of it, it's like, yes, it's a content repurposing tool at the end of the day. It could allow you to be on multiple platforms at the same time if you wanted to. But I'm a staunch believer, even as the head of the business and the face of it, I will still show up to interviews like this and tell people, do not try to be on every platform. It is not going to be worth your time.

[00:06:29.08] - Deirdre

You will not get results and you will burn out.

[00:06:33.11] - Annette

Yeah, it really is challenging. And so I guess my second question is to ask you about how do we decide? Because right now, I'm primarily linked LinkedIn is my biggest platform on TikTok. I'm not big there. I have enough followers. I can go live and things like that, but it's not huge. And YouTube, I'm really trying to work on a little bit. But But then thinking about other things like content that does well for me on TikTok and also LinkedIn, surprisingly, because LinkedIn is getting less, Oh, yes. Let me show you my PowerPoint slide and teach you something, to more of the social media type videos. Just tanks on Instagram, because Instagram, if you don't let them put your music on it, they don't show it to anybody. So it's like, So how How do you decide, someone like me, who are basically the people that listen to this podcast, how do we decide where we should be between Twitter and threads, and I mean, there's like Blue Sky. Oh, yes, Blue Sky. I forgot about them. So what's What can you... How can you help us?

[00:07:47.17] - Deirdre

Yeah. Okay, well, the starting point is obviously always, where is your audience? But in this day and age, your audience is everywhere. You'll find your audience on really any platform, so it's not really super helpful. So So what I always lean in is, what is the platform that I actually want to be on? Where do I want to spend time on? And the reason why is because, and this goes back to being really... For me, I have to be really, really disciplined about going two platforms max for me is all I can handle. And there's a few reasons why this is the case. One is because we can only, in terms of time wise, for us to show up authentically and to actually activate that platform and activate Cooperation means actually finding the right people to, A, to follow, but also to have follow your back.

[00:08:37.13] - Annette

Exactly. To actually have meaningful conversations with them as well, whether that's in the DM's or through commenting or whatever But also importantly, and I think this is the one that we actually skip over a lot, is putting in a bit of time and effort, even as a user, to figure out what is that platform actually wanting to push out?

[00:08:58.15] - Deirdre

To your point, Instagram I am, is only going to push out content that has its music on it. Also, you only know that when you're on a user of the platform and you're deeper into it. If you're trying to be on every platform, you can't get that deep into it. You just wouldn't know, right? Because you're not there looking at the data, you're not there looking at what other people are doing on there who are getting success. You're not there seeing, well, this used to work for me, but now it's not like, why is that happening? And you can only do that when you can meaningfully on a platform. And so that's why I say two max, because that's probably for any one of us, unless, again, we have the time and resources like the Gary B's and whatever. That's probably all we have the time and resource to actually devote to it. So that's what I would say to how to choose if that answers your question.

[00:09:51.07] - Annette

No, it does. So I'm guessing that maybe, like with me, we test out our results. I love TikTok. I like video. I don't like photos of myself. I don't have photos of myself. I hate to see my face, hear my voice. But at a point, you just get over that. When you do it, you get over it. If people could only realize that, it would make it so much easier for them. So I like video. It's easy to do for me, and I enjoy the other content on TikTok and also on LinkedIn. And I think LinkedIn, partly because I know I have a network there, and I know a lot of people, so I'm actually interested in who's doing what today. So I hear that idea. So when a new platform comes out, say, threads, I mean, I jumped right on there because, Okay, this is a new thing. Everybody's on there. And then Blue Sky, which I like, and I dabble a bit. So could there be a strategy where maybe I'm maybe posting almost daily on, say, LinkedIn, and frequently, multiple times a week on TikTok, maybe five times a week on TikTok.

[00:11:06.28] - Annette

And then maybe I'm just throwing a post on Blue Sky once a week or something like that. So what do you think of something like that?

[00:11:14.19] - Deirdre

I mean, I mean, like again, we're all different. And if it works for you, then awesome. I do always go back to like Blue Scro is a little bit, it's like any new platform. And I think Clubhouse is always like, we always talk about this, but obviously during COVID, it really took off. And it was super big and then it just died. And I think that's for some people, you either take the one of two learnings. It's like either you go, yes, you want to be an early adopter of a platform because that's probably when you get the most traction. Honestly, my first business, which was in hospitality back in 2013, we rode the wave of the growth of Instagram at that time. So I am a believer in being an early adopter, but only, again, if you can actually dedicate the time and also knowing that maybe it's not a platform that might be around forever or that might necessarily take off, like the Clubhouse lesson. So there's definitely a time and place for that, for sure. If on On the other hand, you're more of, for example, I have a really good friend, Katie Brinkley.

[00:12:36.13] - Deirdre

She's also a social media expert. And she is definitely, I think she grew a huge following on Clubhouse, and I think through that was like, okay, I see all these things coming out, like threads, but I'm not going to jump on them because I've done that thing and I got burnt. And for her, it's also because it's not worth Given her circumstances, it's just not worth her time and effort to be on that platform. I think it really just depends on each of our individual, what it is that we like to do. Definitely, Annette. If you really are enjoying Blue Skye or threads, and you want to maybe potentially get deeper into it at some point, then sure, go for it. There's no right or there. It's not like I'm going to come right with a ruler and tap you on the roof. You can't reach me through the screen.

[00:13:35.14] - Annette

Exactly. I love that you brought up Clubhouse because I love Clubhouse myself, and I was never huge on Clubhouse. I wasn't early enough to be huge, but I met a lot of people there, actually, who I ended up meeting a lot of LinkedIn people on Clubhouse, and that's how I started growing my network on LinkedIn. And as probably anyone listening to this is aware, that LinkedIn went and they had their audio for a while, LinkedIn audio. And I did a monthly audio show with a colleague of mine, and we did it. And then when they changed it, and really it's like LinkedIn Live, but without the video, we stuck with it for a few months and decided, just after our last, we're just going to move on. We're going to abandon it. But what I find really odd is a lot of people that I know are, Well, we're going back to Clubhouse. And I'm like, How can you be going back to Clubhouse? Because that is something that actually takes time. You can't just post on Blue Sky and look around a little bit, make some comments or something, and then move on. You have to invest time to be on Clubhouse.

[00:14:58.04] - Annette

And I don't know how it's going, but I remember people talking about, Oh, yes, we're going back to Clubhouse. I was like, Okay. But I find it really... I don't know. It's not understandable to me to go back to, and I've heard that it's really different there. But it also brings one thing to mind, the idea of at least having two platforms, because if you do get big on one, like all the people that are really huge on TikTok. I know a couple of people, one video coach in particular, a million plus followers on TikTok, and she's a coach and trainer, and I'm part of a group, part of her community, and I love learning all these cool new things. But what if it goes away? Then you have to have something. Even though LinkedIn has been around, I think I just read it's like 22 years old, you never know what can happen. And so that's, I guess, the thing that keeps me in like, well, I feel like I have to have a little finger or something in a few more pots. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

[00:16:21.28] - Annette

I guess it's that old FOMO, right? That like, oh, maybe something's going on there and I'm missing out.

[00:16:28.25] - Deirdre

Yeah. I know. I mean, FOMO will never go away. It feels like no matter what age you are, because I thought, yeah, as I get older, surely I'll get less FOMO. Sometimes in some things, yes. But yeah, a lot of times the FOMO is real. I just have to almost just block it out. Just like, you know what? No, unless I want to... And again, what motivates each of us, right? For me, it's like, well, unless I want to give up-time with my walking my puppy or spending time with my husband and we're about to actually have a baby, so there's going to be even less time. So for me, it's always like, hey, well, what would I be having to give up if I was going to invest time in something else. So that's what always... But going back to what you were saying about these platforms potentially going away, that's such an interesting... This is why we call social media platforms, especially like renting land, right? Yes. And really, it's all about how do we actually start to bring those people into our world, which is our email list or some other way for us to, quote unquote, own data ourselves so that we can actually reach out to them, even if these platforms went away.

[00:17:52.21] - Deirdre

And I think it brings into as part of this conversation, a really interesting strategy about how do we actually... Because, again, this is probably something that we may not think about enough, maybe, depending on where we are in our marketing journey. But how do we actually lead people off these platforms into our worlds? That's actually a really interesting question to be answering, actually.

[00:18:22.22] - Annette

So what are your thoughts on that? It's one of the reasons that I like having a podcast. As I mentioned, this is my second podcast, and I'm approaching my 100th episode, so I'm excited about that. It's been just a little over a year.

[00:18:36.10] - Deirdre

Congratulations.

[00:18:36.19] - Annette

It's doing pretty well compared... Because I'm learning to focus on how to promote it et cetera, et cetera. But the idea of bringing people on to our email list, which is something that I've been working on in the last couple of years, wishing I had been doing it 10 years ago, like my friend I told me, but what can you do about that? I can't go back. So do you have any tips for doing that?

[00:19:08.26] - Deirdre

Yeah, actually, we have a strategy that we've actually built into CapSho. So CapSho can actually If you want to use it, it can actually generate a lot of these assets for you. But essentially it's a strategy I call the three, say me posts. Now, the caveat to this is I've only ever personally tested on Facebook, so I know that it It works on Facebook. I haven't yet tested it on other platforms like LinkedIn or Instagram, but there's nothing to say. Just try it, right? Try it and test it. But essentially there's three posts that I would do. The first is basically that it's just a like a statement post on Facebook, the ones that grab attention are the white text on those purple background. And it will literally just say something like, currently working on a checklist that X, Y, Z solves a problem, creates a solution, who wants it? So CapSho actually creates a checklist lead magnet, but it also does draft this this statement post. And the whole purpose of that is to have people literally, maybe not this part is not literal. They'll raise their hands. The literal part is where they say me, right?

[00:20:26.09] - Deirdre

In the comments, they'll be like me because you're asking who wants it. And again, as long as you have the right audience following you and you're hitting on the right problems or solutions, you will get a lot of people raising their hands to say me. And just with that one post, when you do that, what you want to do with the people that are saying me is then you want to bring that conversation into the DMs. Now, this is really powerful because you can just use that conversation anyway to start uncovering needs or And or because you want to give them the checklist, you want to fulfill the promise, you can actually put that on behind a registration page so that you are also getting emails at the same time. And we've done both. We've done somewhere, we've put it behind a registration page. We've done somewhere, we've literally just sent the PDF or whatever directly to them. It really doesn't matter. So that's the first post. The second post, I call it the why post. Still the same theme, but it's really going deeper into the problem or the pain point that you're solving for.

[00:21:37.06] - Deirdre

Why is that people need this checklist? Why is that people need this resource that you're working on that you're going to give them? But it's the same call to action. Who wants it? And again, because you want people to raise their hands and say me. And it's the same process. Get them into the DM, start uncovering needs, get them onto your email list, give them the resource. The third post is, I call it the BTS It's the behind the scenes post. The one that I really love for this is either if you have a case study or maybe even the way that you've used the strategy that you're talking about, that you cover in the lead magnet and how you've gotten results or the case study maybe was a client or something, or if you're not quite there with your stage of business, because I get that, then it could literally just be a quick pick of you working on your laptop and it's like a behind the of like, I'm currently working on this. It's a reminder of like, hey, this thing is still available. Again, it solves this problem. Who wants it? And so that's just a really, really simple way that we've packaged up a strategy to go from And because Capsho is anchored in content that you've already created, ie, a podcast episode or a YouTube video, it will actually take that content.

[00:22:53.23] - Deirdre

It'll create a checklist. Here are the 5, 9, 7, 10 steps to to XYZ, and then it will create those posts for you. And so it's actually a really, really simple way to start to get to use, to activate the platforms that you're on to get people from there into an email list or even just into a DM conversation.

[00:23:18.07] - Annette

Yeah, it's really interesting. And it is true. And I will say that I do have several platforms that I use, and that was part of the reason that I started doing my audio podcast on video, because then I can get clips from it, I can get a transcript from it, I can create things from that. And I use a lot of different AI platforms. But it sounds like yours is like it all rolled into one, so I'm going to have to check that out. But that, I think, is... And when I look at all the different platforms that I'm using for something, some things are just different to help you write or do research or things like that. And I think of like, Oh, man, I'm counting up this and that, this and that. But then I think of the time that it saves me that I don't have to go someplace that I can have ChatGPT analyze a transcript and pull out whatever or description for the podcast episode. So we're getting close to the end. The time has gone by so quickly here. So you promised to tell Tell me a little bit about your mascot next to you there, and then I'm going to ask you for your final thoughts, because it's been a good conversation.

[00:24:40.09] - Annette

I've learned a lot from you. And then if you wanted to share whatever you think could be helpful for the audience.

[00:24:47.12] - Deirdre

Yeah. And this may actually be the final thought, but in terms of... So we talked about burnout and we talked about... I've been through different stages of burnout. With my hospitality business, we grew that to... We had five locations of dessert bars. We had two locations of burger restaurants. Total burnout by five years in, I was just done. I talked about burnout from a content perspective. We can burn out at any stage. And I think when we started CapSho, and it was really because of that burnout, and there's got to be a smarter way of doing this and helping others do this, I I almost felt like I needed a reminder myself of how to be intelligently lazy. That's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to be intelligently lazy. That's why Monty, our sloth, is our mascot, because he's our reminder to how do we just be intelligently lazy. To your point, yes, we're paying for AI tools here and there. And all of them, it's really hard to find an all-encompassing one that will... Because Each have their own expertise and their own special, and they should. And when we think about, oh, my gosh, this tech stack is adding up, but then you go, but what does it do?

[00:26:09.10] - Deirdre

It's helping us be intelligently lazy. It's helping us actually... It's buying time back for ourselves to not burn out, to actually do the things that we enjoy. And so that's what I'm always more and more leaning into. It's like, okay, how do I remind myself? Monty is going to remind us to be intelligently lazy. What does that mean? That means that maybe we do have to spend a little bit more here or we have to do less there or we have to make the hard decisions to not be on every platform and saying no. These are all the things that wrap up into let's be intelligently lazy and first and foremost, look after ourselves. Yeah, I know.

[00:26:48.12] - Annette

I love that. I love that phrase intelligently lazy. I'm going to have to put that because I have little things around my office to remind me. Because I think of it, my word for this year is intentional, to be intentional about what I'm doing and not be so random here and there. And I was actually looking for something in particular on TikTok. I love TikTok. I learned how to DIY and whitewash the fireplace and cut my hair during the pandemic and everything. But I was looking for something, and the next thing I knew is I was doing some research. It was like an hour later, and I had sent my husband some funny videos, and I'm like, Okay, this is the last one, but it's easy to get sucked in, particularly on a planet and a platform that you really enjoy. So I thank you so much for being here with me today. I learned a lot. I will definitely have to be checking out your platform. And how would people, if they wish to follow you, connect with you? Are you on LinkedIn? Would they go to your company site? How would people connect with you?

[00:27:55.02] - Deirdre

Yeah, I am primarily on LinkedIn or Facebook

[00:28:32.29] - Annette

Okay. All right. Well, I thank you so much. And I guess it's time to say goodbye. We are just about hitting that 30 minute mark, and I try to be mindful of everyone's time. So thanks so much for being with me. Thanks to everyone who is joining us or listening on the podcast. And I will see you next time..