Why Making Mistakes Is The Best Way To Launch Your Digital Career

About this episode

Want to launch an epic digital career but feel like you need to have your entire life figured out first? If you have always been the unofficial tech support person for your parents, you are absolutely in the right place. In this episode of Behind the Future, we sit down with Mike, the Search Strategist and founder of Tangible Digital, to talk about his incredibly relatable journey from school side-hustles to running his own successful SEO agency.

If you are currently stressing about your exams and feeling the pressure to get perfect marks, Mike’s story will definitely make you feel a whole lot better. Even though he runs a tech and marketing agency today, he actually admits that his absolute lowest grade at A-Level was in IT! Instead of letting a grade define his future, he leaned into his natural entrepreneurial spirit, which started by buying cheap sunglasses and selling them to his classmates for a profit.

Mike breaks down exactly what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) actually means and shares how he truly learned the ropes. He didn’t just read textbooks; he literally built his own messy website selling fidget spinners. Through trial and error, he learned how to buy domains, secure hosting, and even order stock from China. He explains why putting an imperfect project out into the world and making massive mistakes is secretly the ultimate cheat code for building a highly successful digital career.

We also dive deep into the reality of AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude. Mike explains how teenagers today can use them to build websites from scratch without knowing how to code, but he drops a major warning about why you can't just blindly trust a robot to do all your work, because AI is notorious for being confidently wrong. Finally, Mike shares incredible advice on why you shouldn't rush to be a founder right out of school. Tune in to discover why joining a great company to learn the ropes, taking the pressure off yourself to be perfect, and unapologetically bringing your true personality to the workplace is the ultimate secret to winning in your digital career!

Behind the Future is a podcast for the next generation of digital talent, offering weekly interviews, real-world insights and career advice. Subscribe for more conversations like this, and follow us on TikTok and Instagram @aspirationdigital.

Hosts: Becky Simms & Kiya Lawford

Guest: Mike Alexander

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