How Josh Gale Grew His Audience to 1.2M+ in Under a Year by Leading with Storytelling

Yeah, I think a lot in terms of what are similar industries that you could compare this to and one that I like to use is music.

And, you know, I think of people who are really incredible musicians.

And do those people want to build a following online? If they do, the obvious massive asset that they have is their skill as whatever it is, you know, classical guitarist or a singer or a songwriter.

And then now that you have this raw material to work with, the multiplier becomes some of the technical stuff like shooting, editing, you know, lighting.

But, uh, I think sometimes we get trapped in thinking that those things that are the multipliers are the raw material.

Oh, you got to get really good at shooting, editing, uh, the tactic, but like, those are all just multipliers.

And I think one of the things that's important to point out in your story is like you had the raw material of the An undeniably deep passion and expertise in food, which verified, you know, social proof by going through the process of applying to be on these shows and then being like, yeah, you would be a great fit for it.

And then coming into it and saying, okay, how can I learn a new thing? That new thing being social platforms and creating content.

But it's not easy to do it, but it's a lot easier if you have the raw material.

In this case, it's a deep expertise of food and food content and then using the multipliers on top of that.

So you had so much coming into it.

Talk a little bit about your previous experience.

You worked in restaurants, you private chef.

Like what did that do to set you up to be able to pivot then into content?

Yeah, I think that's a good question.

I think a lot of what I'm focused on right now is storytelling and trying to bring more of myself into my content.

And again, we're kind of like a year into this journey, and it's really only right now where I'm really trying to onboard a lot more of that.

I think at the start of this, because I wanted to... basically like validate that yes I could you know be successful in the space I want to get views and I saw the quickest way to do that was to like create some really aesthetic really cool pretty food that at the end of the day wasn't necessarily you know interlaced with my story who I am what I've done where I've come from that sort of thing and so now a year into it I find myself trying to really figure out that piece how do I start to tell my story more and more you know a great example is when I was on MasterChef about 15 years ago.

I was...

I think in like 11th or 12th and I found myself in a cheesecake showdown.

And at the time I'd never baked a cheesecake before.

First time, side note, first time that's ever been said on the podcast, cheesecake, cheesecake showdown,

cheesecake showdown.

Yeah.

Um, I mean, this is so funny because this has become, become like pretty iconic for me, but, um, yeah, I'm in this cheesecake showdown.