Episode 127: A multi-creative career journey — with Kevin Allen

Kevin Allen is a classically trained pianist, music producer, math teacher, guest speaker, entrepreneur and YouTuber. From spending 12 years working in the corporate world, to becoming a middle school math teacher, to really diving into music and content creation, Kevin has had a diverse and multi-creative career journey. He has been making music for about 15 years and just recently decided to begin sharing his content with the world through his podcast and YouTube channel.

During this episode, you will hear Kevin talk about:

• How he started making music as a young child, then rekindled his passion for music as an adult
• Why he created his YouTube channel, K_AL Experience
• The story behind his corporate career — how he got his first job while still in college, the different roles he held, and his decision to move on to pursue teaching
• How he balances his teaching, tutoring business, and YouTube channel
• How networking has been critical to growing his career
• The multi-creative “dream guests” he’d like to interview on his show

You can find out more about Kevin and his work on his YouTube channel K_AL Experience, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and on his official website www.kalexperience.com.

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The episode transcript is below.

Carolyn Kiel: Hello, and welcome to the Beyond 6 Seconds podcast. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel. And on today’s episode, I’m speaking with Kevin Allen. He is a classically trained pianist, music  producer, math teacher, guest speaker, entrepreneur, and YouTuber. From spending 12 years working in corporate to becoming a middle school math teacher to really diving into music and content creation,

Kevin has a vast and diverse background. Kevin’s been making music for about 15 years and just recently decided to begin sharing his content with the world. Kevin, welcome to the podcast.

Kevin Allen: I am so happy to be here, Carolyn. Great to see you. Great to finally meet you in person. And I’m just really honored to be here and talk a little bit about my journey.

Carolyn Kiel: Great, thank you. It’s great to meet you and finally get to talk to you in person here as well . So I understand that, you know, kind of the content creation aspect of what you do is relatively new.

So would love to hear kind of, how did you get the inspiration to start creating content like podcasts and sharing your music?

Kevin Allen: Yeah. Yeah. Great question. I would say as long as I can remember I’ve always loved music, listening to music. You know, analyzing music and even like dabbling and creating music, even as a child.

When I was in sixth grade, my father and my father and mother parents signed me up for piano lessons. They knew that I was kind of interested in it. So I did one half a year of piano lessons. And then when summer rolled around. I’m like mom and dad, you know, summer’s here, you know, sixth grade just ended.

I needed a little break from the piano lessons maybe to kind of take the summer off and sign back in the fall. And they said, sure. You know, they said, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. And then unfortunately never signed back up in the fall. And then from that moment from sixth grade, all the way until, and a lot happened in this.

Whatever 15, 20 year span, but all the way until I turned 30 a few years ago is when I really revisited the piano. And from there kind of the music production sound design, all that kind of stuff. And then I would say it’s, it kind of got rekindled at that point and then sort of right on the, on the tail end of me kind of diving deep into the music thing is when I started realizing that I have a true passion for.

More than just music, but the arts in general making videos or art not so much art, like drawing and stuff. Cause I’m not that good at that, but more so just visuals to accompany my music is something that I just absolutely love. Like something, a sad song that I make or uptempo or something like that.

And having some type of visual that kind of corresponds to it. So that’s something that I really kind of dove into. And just especially nowadays with social media and stuff, like. The world that we’re in is more, a lot more visual. So having both of those together was something that I just really enjoyed exploring.

And then right around that time too, is when. You know, Carolyn I learned or not learned. I kind of realized that I’ve had so many just amazing conversations with people over the past several years. And these conversations really shaped me to kind of help me become who I am today. And around that time, I’m just thinking like man, a goal of mine eventually is going to be, to find a way to record and get some of these conversations in a, in a really, you know, good quality content.

Or good quality way for people to be able to also be also benefit from them. That was like a thought that I had a few years ago and that of course sort of culminated in me starting my YouTube channel. And that’s just another real passion of mine. Like every time I talk to someone, if someone even has an inkling of something that I’m thinking like, wow, Pretty interesting or someone else can benefit from learning about that.

The wheels are turning and I already started thinking about, you know, the potential of having this person if they’re interested having them on. Cause like everybody has a story to tell whether the person has a huge sphere of influence or a small sphere of influence. The idea is like everyone has had experiences that can

impact positively impact someone that they may not even realize. And that’s kind of a mission, you know, on with the guests that I have on and everything. And it’s just been, it’s been a really amazing journey these past three years or past year, really, since I started the YouTube channel past three years with the music stuff, and I’m just really loving sort of the direction that it’s going in now.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow. That’s really interesting that you have this sort of combination of the, the audio with the music and the visuals that go along with it. And then of course the, the video show of the podcast as well with interviewing people. So do all, does all of your content kind of live on the same YouTube channel or do you have multiple channels?

Kevin Allen: Yeah. Great question. So that’s something I really thought about a lot when I was starting out by all accounts, like all of the stuff that I’ve researched, kind of suggested that you really want to niche down or niche down, whichever is the word. I still don’t know which one it is, but you know, you want to have one main topic that you’re kind of, you know, kind of focused in on.

But I remember at the time when I was really thinking about this, I knew that, you know, it was definitely going to be music centric. That was probably towards the top of the list. I also knew that, you know, my experiences at VZ for 12 years conversations that I’ve had with mentors, who I still have, you know, close relationships with to this day, like these types of things I learned so much that I wanted to.

To share experiences that I had. And we’ll certainly get into sort of the, the main transition from VZ sort of out outside of VZ into education, but like talking about that transition it doesn’t, there’s really nothing real really music-related about why I, you know, left a six-figure job to become a math teacher like this, that, that was a really major part of my journey.

That I knew people wanted to hear people I felt needed to hear. But I really had to think about how to kind of group all these things together or do I want to kind of separate them? What I settled on was having currently at, at the time and still currently having one YouTube channel and really exploring.

Kind of how to bring some of these topics together in like a, a sort of uniform way. And that’s kind of the direction I’m going from the YouTube front. But what I just recently sort of realized is on Instagram. You know, I discovered that some of like I have one main Instagram sort of pers personal page, K_AL Experience, which is the name of my YouTube channel and name of my YouTube show.

And on that page lived a lot of my music content. Most of my music content and lived clips and promotions for the guests interviews that I’ve had some of which with musical guests, some of which with, you know Mike Mason from VZ who was, you know a leader in the company who I had an awesome opportunity to talk to.

And, you know, my, my thing was trying to figure out. Strategically. And this is, this has been a fun thing for me these past several months is like, I have this, these different things that my, that my toes are dipped in with the music and the interviews and then the tutoring stuff and what I ultimate. So those are three things.

And in addition to that, a very important side of myself, which you may not. Most people who know me know about this side, but people who are meeting me for the first time or see my content, maybe don’t know about, wouldn’t know about this side, but I’m just very much someone. who’s a very funny person. And I love joking around.

I love doing weird things. That’s just part of who I am. And it’s like, I never want to put on a front to not be that. And that’s part of things that I enjoy doing like little clips with my wife, like little videos and pranks and stuff like that. Right. So there’s, there’s. Me thinking of all these different avenues and how do I, you know, have channels specific to be able to get these, these thoughts and ideas out to the right people.

And that’s what I ultimately settled on, which is having an Instagram. It might sound like a lot for sure saying it this way, but this is kind of what it is. Having an Instagram account for my music stuff, specifically, having one that is going to be for more personal stuff, more joking stuff, kind of carefree.

If I just want to post something that I think is interesting, as well as the, you know, uplifting and the, the interview stuff. That’s like the K_AL Experience kind of account, which is going to, going to house all that stuff. And in my KMATS tutoring is going to be specific for, you know, children, people that, that need help with, you know, math studying for tutoring, as well as like dedicated like little mini math lessons and mini, like maybe piano things that I discovered in my piano journey.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow. So, yeah, that’s a real eclectic mix of talents and interests and content, and wow. That’s great that you’re able to, to. Share it all your different talents in that way. So you, you mentioned your, your career and that you’ve made a couple of pivots and I’d love to learn more about that because as I understand you, you started out in your career really as, as an engineer and you had mentioned you’d been a math teacher and of course a musician.

So yeah. Tell me about that whole journey, you know, kind of starting from, you know, your engineering days or around that time, wherever it kind of starts off.

Kevin Allen:  Sure thing. Yeah. So I went to school at Rutgers university and studied electrical and computer engineering there. And I was fortunate enough. I remember we were having as a freshmen, we were having a very important test in electrical circuits class, which was our first like major sort of major class within our specific major.

It was like introduction, principles of electrical engineering. And I remember that the day before the test, there was a big career fair happening at Rutgers. And I went to this career fair, knowing that most, and this, this career fair was specific for electrical engineering majors.

I knew that the majority of people that would want to go to this career fair also had this test the next day, including myself. So I knew a lot of people were going to be conflicted. Like, are they going to go here? Are they going to study? I also knew that like my main goal that year was obviously to do good in school, but also I really wanted to land an internship.

So I studied beforehand. Right. And I knew that the day before I wasn’t gonna, I was gonna be doing minimal studying. I was definitely going to go to this career fair. And I was fortunate enough to, to land my first internship at VZ through that career fair, which, you know, as fate would have, it was basically empty.

Nobody was there because everyone was studying. I was just bouncing around as I, Hey guys, you know, I can just talk to whoever, you know, whatever job I want. I can have any internship here. So I, I got, I was fortunate enough to have a, you know, first internship at VZ in the network operations center in Bedminster.

And it was a job that was very I was, it was a foot in the door job. It was a routine kind of thing that I was doing every day.  I was appreciative of the opportunity. Obviously you have a job over summer some experience all that stuff . I wanted to do something else the next summer, which I did. So I interned for three years while I was still at Rutgers. And something really kind of amazing happened when I was a senior at Rutgers and I was interning my, my

last  internship at VZ, there was a full-time job, job opportunity for the type of job I was doing in the Jersey city MITSA or the switch is what it’s called. And by all accounts, this is a job that a lot of people really, really, really want. And very few people leave this position. So it was very rare that there’s an opening here.

And because I was an intern. There was like a good chance that I will be able to get this. The thing was, I still had a whole semester at Rutgers to go before I could graduate. So I had to make like a decision of, you know, not graduating, but accepting the job, which could have been something that I could have considered, of course, graduating, continuing schooling, not accepting the position right away.

And then seeing what happens in a few months when I graduate. Or being strategic, which is what I ended up doing. And I ended up doing both. I ended up like leveraging some of the experience that I got as a full-time as like a co-op program. I was able to get credit my senior year for working, which was from what I understand

unheard of. That’s not like a thing that usually happens and, but I was able to do that. And the crazy thing is I was able to get tuition reimbursement. For my senior year, exactly. Senior year teaching someone was like Kev at VZ, be like, Kevin, you know, if you’re still in school now you’re working full time.

They’re like, did you consider, you know, doing the tuition reimbursement here? And I was just excited that I had the job that I was kind of in that position, but they were like, They told me that. And I’m like, yeah, you know, I’m definitely looking, looking forward to graduating and then pursuing my master’s degree to, to use the tuition reimbursement and stuff.

They were like, no, no, I’m talking about like, you’re in school right now. You can possibly do that. I applied for and got it and bought my first car or a second car with that money, which is like a crazy, unheard of just random conversation. But it resulted in something pretty, you know, pretty powerful. So that was my first job in VZ in Jersey city.

I worked in a switch, which was a close knit group of four guys that work there. Some of which I still keep in touch with about two guys which is pretty cool. And my first day there, you know, this is a 24 seven operation, first of all. So a lot of people, you know, it’s like two guys work in this segment and then they leave and then two more guys, and it’s kind of just rotates.

But my first day there, this was a technician position and I knew that. I had an engineering degree and I’m like, I want to be an engineer. That’s like what I studied for. That’s what I want to kind of get to it’s my first day, you know, they’re like, everyone’s curious, who is this new guy as a college student?

Like, what’s he all about? You know, I go and I’m like, Hey, nice to meet everyone. And I told them, I said, Hey, Happy to be here, you know, but I’m like, I’m looking forward to this position being like a stepping stone for me, because I’m looking to eventually get to an engineering role. And, you know, you can imagine these are people who are older than me who are, you know, providing for their families with this job.

That was not something that was smart to say. . So I had to really, really work hard to dig myself out of this hole, which I did and ended up leaving there. And I’ll kind of just kind of go quickly through like the, the overall span.

I spent 12 years at VZ and worked maybe about seven or so different jobs at VZ from marketing to product development to Engineering to the switch to device testing. And it was a, it was an amazing road, amazing experience there. My favorite position was one called systems integration engineer.

It was like a perfect blend between project management and engineering. And I just loved that. I loved having my toes in the engineering technical side, but also being like the orchestrator of these migrations that we were doing at the time. And that was, that was a fun time. I really enjoyed it.

People came to me, me and look, looked at me with respect. Like they, they respected every, you know what I was, what I was able to accomplish in that role. And I definitely will never forget that. From that point I had about two or three to two other roles in the company, but towards the end of my time there, when I, when I moved to basking Ridge and was working headquarters is kind of when I started realizing there was something more for me to be doing. And then I’m like, wait a second. Like, I worked really hard to kind of get to where I am right now, and I’m not stressed at my job.

And I have flexibility at my job. And I have, you know, these things that are, that are, you know, it’s a good paying job. So it’s a lot of, a lot of positives there. And so I thought I can start volunteering for like big brothers, big sisters to get my foot in the door around that time, I think is kind of when I started doing like little one-off kind of tutoring, just to kind of start working with children and stuff.

But then I soon realized that that I needed to take it to the next level. And what kind of ended up happening is when this, when all these thoughts were kind of going on in my brain is when I, you know, around that time my position ended up being eliminated.

But I, I was in a place where it’s still kind of, it’s still kind of surprised me a little bit, even though I was kind of anticipating the possibility of it, but what from that moment is it’s kind of where everything else kind of just happened just kind of crazy. I got the news about being laid off and this was in November.

Happened to be a networking event that same day and a networking event that wasn’t hosted by VZ, but a lot of people from VZ were going to be there. I knew about it in advance. And it took all the power in me to like, not go home.

I was like, let me go to this event. And that changed everything going to this event because I met some amazing people, high ups in the company. And I went there not to find another job, but just, just, just to network just to be myself and just to talk to some people or anything like that.

And a lot of people were taken aback by a person like myself with, to, to, to mass. I didn’t mention about the two master’s degrees. I have two master’s degrees, engineering background, a lot of experience in the company, a lot of successes in the company, but unfortunately the, the timing of the position I was in, it wasn’t me being eliminated.

It was the role. But one of the people I met there was looking for someone with experience that I had. He just came out of a workshop on this thing called Thingspace and I had experience in that, in that field. He’s like the leader in this organization. He ended up creating a headcount for me by the end of the year against all odds. So that’s where I ended up working for one more year.

And then when the voluntary severance package came down the pipeline a year later is when I said, all right, now’s the time. Because by that point I knew that my foot was like already halfway out the door, but I’m like, this is awesome experience. Let me get some more experience. Let me give back again, because I’m not going to just accept the position that someone opened and just, you know, and just bake it in.

Or I think that’s how the phrase goes. But so I, I, I worked there for yeah. A year and that’s when I left the company without having a teaching role lined up, but knowing that that’s what I was absolutely going to do next, continue working on my tutoring business and having those few months of not having to wake up and go to work was.

It was amazing as you can imagine, having to like work and go to school and do all these things for so many years in our lives, and then having the ability to not have to do that and, and not be lazy, but be strategic. All right, let me go meet with this person at this college, because I think I want to do some adjunct professor.

Let me call. I ended up calling a few, a few schools like Rutgers prep. I called them up and I ended up landing like a substitute teaching job. That was my first sort of teaching experience. And I was like, I was like, I love it. I was nervous the first day. Of course, after that, I was like, I love this.

This is so fun. Like being here, just being myself in front of the students and connecting with them and stuff. So that laid the groundwork for me, applying and getting a call back from Princeton charter school, which is where I currently work my second year teaching there. And when I tell you my favorite professional, you know, year of working.

Not not, it’s not even really close. It was last year. My first year of teaching was just such a amazing experience. It was so many like just moments of, wow, this is really nice. And this is where I belong. I belong here in the classroom, working with students and being myself and letting my genuine passion and, and care for the students, letting that kind of show and students are so receptive to that and understand when, when teachers do, and don’t really care and stuff.

And it was an amazing experience. During the time teaching there is kind of around the same time that the music stuff started. Maybe like a little bit before then. So I had the music stuff going. I had the whole revitalize sort of career, right. I have the teaching stuff where I’m not stressed and it’s, it was fun.

And I just truly enjoyed it. Great school, great students, great staff then come home and I’m started working my YouTube channel and starting to work my music, spend time with the wife, all that stuff. So it was a lot of really nice stuff last year, and really laid the groundwork for, you know, kind of where I’m at right now, which is the tutoring business.

You know, I can, I can mention it. I just post something on Instagram. Cause it’s kind of a big deal for me. You know, hitting, hitting a $1,000 net income from my clients in one week for the first time. And so for me, like working so hard teaching during the day, having about four hours every day between my, my math, tutoring, and piano lessons that I’m working with students on it, this is the time where I think in the future, I’ll be able to look back and say, this is like the hardest, maybe that I’ve maybe that I’ve ever worked.

I mean, it’s other the times I worked hard, of course, for, for sure. But like it’s re it’s like pressing a little bit, right. Having something to do pretty much almost every hour of the day, but I know it’s not going to be that way forever. I’m laying the groundwork for, you know, w what the next steps are. So that’s a lot of words there, but that’s kind of, I guess, a overview of how everything kind of ended up going.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s amazing. And just the, you know, the, the stories of, I think one thing to take away is like the the importance of networking and even getting out to those networking events, even if maybe you’re not in the mood to go, or maybe they’re not your thing, but it sounds like those, you know, you mentioned two critical events that you went to, that you, you found opportunities to continue moving your career forward.

And two, I would love to learn more about. Cause it sounds like by the time you were ready to move on from your your, your work in engineering and sort of do more teaching, you had already sort of started exploring teaching or doing some tutoring, perhaps. So I guess at what point in your career did you realize, you know, I wanted to do something more meaningful and what that is, is teaching.

That’s what I want to do. Teaching math, teaching music, and sort of, how did you kind of start. I guess fostering that interest while you were working so that you could make that transition.

Kevin Allen: Yeah, definitely. I do have a quite a strong recollection of when this would, this would, would have actually been, which is kind of surprising that now that I think about it, but this would have been in my second job in the company.

So when I started full-time at VZ. Was in Jersey city. I spent two years in the switch and then I moved to Bedminster as a device tester  and towards the middle or tail end of that position is when I started having the thoughts and really brainstorming pen and paper at home and just saying, all right.

What is it that I’m good at? What do I enjoy doing? And I tell a lot of people, this is trying to find the intersection. And I think back to, you know, I have a younger sister and an older brother, I think back to growing up how much I enjoyed teaching math to her, right? Growing up. And she didn’t enjoy it.

She tells me that she kind of just did not like me explaining it. And the way she would explain it is she would say that like, I guess I would get so enthusiastic about what I’m explaining and like my enthusiasm made her less enthusiastic, so she just didn’t care. Yeah. She’s, she’s, she’s pretty funny. But so that, that was something that I thought about why I enjoy doing that.

I also am very aware of how, when something comes natural to you, Carolyn, and you kind of have like a a thing that comes natural to some people may say it to you like, wow, you’re such a blank. And it it’s such a good thing. Why you’re so blank or you’re such a, you know, this type of person you probably might think kind of like how, how I did, which is,

I never really thought of myself that way, because it’s just who I am. It’s just, it comes natural. I’m not some, I’m not, you know, I’m not actively thinking about that when I, when I act that way. So when I think about being a patient person and someone who’s very even keeled and, you know, unflappable maybe is a good word.

I think that that element of me and my love and, and, you know, knowledge on the mathematics subject and being a Black male, those things together, I said, all right, there’s something here. There is a ton of people in the world who struggle with math. I know that for a fact, I know that a lot of people just do not like math and I love it.

And so when I worked. When I work with students fast forward a little bit about like, sort of my mentality of, of having the workshops. I’ve really workshops and tutoring. I really make sure to tell students, like my goal is not to make you love math. I want you to understand it and I want you to hopefully appreciate it.

Appreciate the. The idea that I give you a problem and you could go a different route to get to the answer and I can go a different route where we can arrive at the same answer. Like that type of thing is, is I think. Cool and interesting. The thing like you said, or the question that you asked it all happened when I was at, when I was at that second job.

And that’s when I started having those thoughts, I alluded to earlier about, you know, what would it look like doing something else? And that, that was what, four years in the company, but I ended up not leaving the company until eight more years later. But I knew that eventually, you know, when things, I, at the time, I felt like there was more for me to do at VZ.

And looking back in hindsight, For sure that was the case. There were more people for me to meet. There were more experiences for me to get for me to, to kind of foster and I think one of them sort of major things you’re talking about networking just now, one of the major things that I love is that the stuff that I learned at VZ, the importance of networking that is coming just absolutely full circle.

Now, from the standpoint of me interviewing guests. Now that is all about networking. It’s about me reaching out to people and being mindful about their time and being mindful about them. Not maybe not knowing me and like, sort of, sort of what, what is in it for them type of a thing, like building my platform so that it’s worthwhile that type of thing.

And then them saying, Oh, you should talk to so-and-so because they’re also into this. And it just kind of happens organically. And that’s kinda what I’m seeing now. And you know, a lot of people may not, I’m sure a lot of people know the importance of networking, but I would say that being able to apply it to something that I’m more passionate about and something I care deeply about and being able to do it so sort of eloquently is, and I guess naturally is something that I’m, I’m loving to see, like what that’s creating, what opportunities that’s creating.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, and it’s wonderful to really be able to network in the context of something that you’re really passionate about because I mean, networking, it’s really, it’s making that connection and having, you know, like a true conversation with someone. Sometimes networking gets a bad rap and people kind of have a negative connotation with it, but really if it’s something that

you’re doing that you’re passionate about that you care about and you find other people who share that interest and on certain levels with you. So I could I know from me having a podcast, it’s kind of been a great excuse to network and that I’ve just met a lot of great people because I have a platform and a lot of people come on who have, you know, sort of wonderful stories to share.

And I’m sure you have the same experience as well with your with your shows.

Kevin Allen: Oh, 100%. 100%. Yeah There are so many people with stories to tell. And I think that if you’re like, so, so you, you might be able to relate with me on this, is that like I remember in trainings when I was at VZ and this, this was, this was a, it’s not a random thought.

It’s like a, it’s a, it’s a thing that happened in a conversation that really opened my eyes up a lot. I was in training and there was a whole bunch of people there and during lunchtime we were, I was sitting with a few other people and we were just talking about what we do and background stuff like that.

And I remember saying, I was like, yeah, you know, I’m, I’m an engineer. So I have engineering background at the time. I probably was doing device marketing or something at the company. And it was like, engineer? Wow. Like that, like you, you don’t seem like an engineer, like, you know, you seem more sort of like like personable and this and that.

Like, you know, like the, the sort of idea of an engineer, like quiet or reserved or whatever, that type of thing. So that, that spoke to me at that moment where their reactions really said a lot to me, like, okay, I have the aptitude to be able to get through that curriculum and understand it. But my personality is one that is different than what most people would, would perceive as an engineer.

So that was one thing that happened in that conversation where I’m like, okay, something like, I need to be communicating with people. I need to be on stage talking, like doing something that’s like, you know, galvanizing people that, that type of thing at that time I was thinking. And then another thing that happened at at the time that made me really think about.

I think it kind of, yeah, made me think more strongly about the tutoring and mentoring thing is I forget how it came up in conversation, but some, some conversation about counseling came up probably during that same day. And I remember thinking to myself, I was like, man, I’m someone who cares deeply about people.

Like, if you right now were to tell me, like, you know, you know, Kevin, thank you so much for being on, but I really need someone to talk to about X, Y, and Z something I’m going through, like instantly, I’m going to be like, let’s talk. Like I just, I just like care about like, we just met today, you know, but I want to like help people through their issues and stuff, which is I think a good trait.

Good quality. And I think I know it’s a good trait good quality. My sister who’s second time she’s coming up the conversation. She’s someone who advised me about the importance of not always like like giving advice sometimes just listening. And that’s been challenging for me sometimes to kind of know that, like, if she has something to share with me, like, sometimes it’s better to just listen to what she has to say.

Maybe she’s not saying it because she needs something to do. She just needs to, you know, be able to say something. So that was something I was aware about. But back to the counseling thing, I remember thinking like, Man in an alternate universe, I could, 1000% see myself in an office sitting on one of those chairs. I’ve taken

I’ve been on the other end. And I’ve been to some counseling sessions stuff, which I think is by the way, like, I think everyone should do it. I think everyone should do counseling. I think everyone should do marriage counseling. I think marriage counseling should be like requirement for the first year of marriage.

It’s like, this is a little bit of a sidebar, but I just, I, we had such a great experience. My wife and I You know, and I, I just think that it’s super important. And so anyone listening out there, if you’re thinking about it, go look up, look up marriage counseling, and go to go check that out. But I was just thinking about how that sitting in a room where it’s like, Oh, Mr.

Allen, or Kevin Allen’s office, and then helping people overcome their challenges is something that, to me was like an absolute perfect fit. I would want, I would, I feel like I would love doing that, but I’m like, so I thought for the tiny bit of time, I’m like, man, what would it look like for me to go back and have my engineering and two masters, but go back and study counseling?

Like, do I, can I do this? Can I do it? And then I’m like, no, that’s not, that’s not on the, on the cards right now. I’m not passionate about that, but I can find a way to do something similar. And what did I do? That’s kind of what’s going on right now. Right? That’s kind of a little bit with the conversations with people on my show to help inspire other people who may be watching, but certainly a lot more more with the students that I’m working with one-on-one and tutoring and mentoring them.

And it’s been just a amazing journey. One that w when you were given my, my bio, just now it reminded me about my plan of mine, maybe by the end of next year, it’s a longterm, but I want to make it good, but like to write a book about this journey from like a few years ago to, you know, to now-ish about kind of, I think things are like taking off right now and in the, in the most beautiful way.

And now it’s like all the stuff that I did up to this point needs to be, I think, chronicled. And that’s going to be something that I think will be a lot of fun to work on.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow. That’s fantastic. Yeah. To just have so many different interests and areas that you’re, you’re talented in. And it sounds like you’ve really been able to combine a lot of your, your strengths and your skills into this kind of unique career path that I think a lot of people could really learn from and be inspired from, you know, it’s, a lot of people have things that they’d like to do, and sometimes they’re stuck or they just don’t know how to go forward or what to do.

So I think your, your example would be just really powerful for people. So that is really cool.

Kevin Allen: Thank you. Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. So yeah, I would love to kind of, you know, I guess we’re getting close to the end of our time here. Would love to kind of give you an opportunity to give a bit of a shoutout for your show.

Maybe. I don’t know if there’s anything you need for your show, if you need guests or if you just want people to subscribe to your YouTube channel? Definitely let us know more about how we can find and listen to your interviews on YouTube.

Kevin Allen: Absolutely. Yeah, I appreciate that. So it hasn’t always been this way when people ask for my show, my, my info on YouTube, when I first started, I would have to like, have them look up.

K underscore Al space experience, like spell it out. And it’s like hard to say sometime you’re like yelling across the street or something, but so now you can look up my name on YouTube. You can look up Kevin Allen, Kevin K E V I N, space, a L L E N. You probably can look it up without the space. It probably will show up, now cause enough I have enough traction there, which is pretty, pretty cool.

But yeah, definitely my biggest place right now is, is my YouTube channel. And secondary will probably be my, my Instagram account. So definitely the YouTube channel. If you go there, you’re going to see playlists set up with all my interviews. So I have actually 50, I just hit my 50th episode of KAL experience. First 10 or so have been just me.

And then from there is when I started introducing guests. And of all, you know, all walks of life, just great conversations, ones that will eventually get moved into the pod, the actual podcast format, that just the audio I’m going to be moving those over once I find the time or the person to do that for me.

But just because I think, you know, they, they would serve very well because it’s a conversational kind of thing. But yeah, that stuff and a lot of my music content is on there as well. A lot of my piano stuff and a lot more like music production. So you definitely could check that out. And then Instagram would be the second place you can look at which is K underscore A L experience K AL experience is my main Instagram handle, like I mentioned earlier, there’s going to be others, but they’ll all be intertwined. I’ll be tagging the other ones so that, because they kind of are all a little bit related little intersection between the three. So you can definitely check me out there and my website is kalexperience.com that has just more info information about myself and stuff.

I would definitely love to stay connected. Right now I’m taking a little break on, on interviewing new guests. I’ve reached a point. It has been, it was actually interesting right now. I have about eight to nine either guests or episodes. And when I say episodes, I have like one, one of which with like three people on but eight to nine of them that have been recorded

but not released yet. And what was happening was I had, you know, all of these ideas and I’m like, okay. I, every week, every Wednesday from whatever six to nine is like my interview day. So I was like really doing every single week, sometimes back to back on Wednesdays. And I was just accruing all these, you know, guests, which has been, which was awesome.

But then I was just realizing, like, in order to get these out the right way, like edit them, take my time, not feel rushed to do it.  I had to take a break because even right now there’s still, there’s still like maybe 20 to 30 people that I’ve reached out to. And again, all walks of life. One of them just through social media and one of them is like Is like she’s put, she posts like amazing pictures of her doing.

She’s like a Marine biologist, not like, she is a Marine biologist and she posts like pictures of her under water and all this stuff. And I’m like, Oh, this sounds amazing. I want to know about this. And therefore, this is a perfect opportunity to have her on. So I reached out, that’s like, that’s just one example.

But then I realized like, all right, I need to get these episodes out first and then get closer to being done with them. And then start, you know, scheduling on and using your eloquent Calendly hard to say, but using that to kind of help take some of the stress off of sending those emails, that was becoming a nightmare, having a look at the dates and do all that.

And I was like, all right, this is, there has to be a better way.

Carolyn Kiel: Oh, fantastic. Yeah, I can, I can totally relate to having a lot of interviews and then having a bunch of recordings to edit and then feeling like this isn’t going to come out for six months. So yeah, absolutely understand the pacing.

So that’s wonderful. I mean, that’s great that there’s such an interest in, in your show and you know, it’s going to be even more and more episodes and you’re really excited about that. So yeah, I will put the links to your website and your Instagram and your YouTube in the show notes of the podcasts so people can just click on them and visit from there.

Kevin Allen: That’s awesome. I appreciate that. I was going to say one more thing too. I was telling my wife the other day about like, I have a few artists slash celebrities, people that are, you know, very pop, very popular, who I really just like their work a lot. And I. I have a goal of mindset that I want to talk to every single one of them before, like eventually on my YouTube channel.

And what’s, what’s interesting and fun. I, I didn’t put it on my, on my board over there yet, but just like, kind of thinking about that, like I know that if that’s what I mean, that that’s, that’s not, it’s not like once I do it, like I I’ve made it, I can go, you know, retire on an island, but it’s certainly something that, that I will do.

And I’m excited about sort of having that. You know, like working towards that kind of like, and I’m sure you could, you could probably relate to this too, like sort of building your platform up to a point where people are your people are now reaching out to you to want to be on. And so getting close to that point, and then you can’t obviously say yes to everyone at some point it’s kind of, it’s kind of like, okay, you have to kind of pick and choose and be strategic.

But I’m excited about that being a goal of mine. And I just, I’m excited to learn from these individuals. One of them is Dave Chappelle. So he’s all like art, like comedians and artists and stuff. So Dave Chappelle is someone, he’s just amazing. He’s so funny, but he’s also, he can be on stage just talking about whatever and he’s so smart and he’s such a thinker and I absolutely just love just hearing him talk every single time.

So he’s one person, one person is a, is an artist musical artists named Tyler, the creator. Who kind of shaped my, changed things a lot for me, musically, because he came into, he came into the game as a completely different artist than he is now. He recently won a, won the hip hop album of the album of the year award, even though his album is not a hip hop album, as he would say.

And as, as fans of his would say it has, it’s just. This is a culmination of all these different genres, like different genres. And it’s like, it is so different than what he came out with when he first came up. And to me as someone who makes music, that it, that is destined for video games or commercials or cartoons or shows and movies, that’s where my music

is going to live like once it reaches the right person, as opposed to, you know, for artists to sing or rap over or something. That the type of stuff that, that he made on there, he’s also, you know, a pianist. So you can hear the theory and the chord progressions and stuff, and it just kind of blows my mind.

So he’s someone I definitely want to talk to. The next person is someone by the name, a producer director, actor by the name of Jordan Peele. Have you ever heard of the movie called Get Out before?

Carolyn Kiel: I have, Oh, Jordan Peele. Oh yeah. From Key and Peele, the early days. Of course, he’s had such an amazing career for years and years.

Kevin Allen: So amazing. And so, so yeah, I mean the show that show, I didn’t watch it when it was out, but now on YouTube, it’s like, it’s the perfect medium for those sketches. And it’s so funny. And Get Out, I absolutely just was obsessed with and. I even watched him when he was on Mad TV well even before then, so he’s someone. And then last but not least is someone named Childish Gambino.

Who’s who’s like, you’ve heard of Jamie Foxx. You guys know Jamie Foxx, if you don’t know Childish Gambino, he’s kind of like that in a standup comedy standup comic actor, singer, rapper, and producer, he does kind of does it all. And just does it. So he has a show called Atlanta, which is like extremely smart and clever and interesting show.

So these are guys that influenced me in terms of their, their artistic direction and their attention to detail. And yeah, I’m excited. Next time we talk, maybe I’ll have a, have had a conversation with at least one of them.

Carolyn Kiel:  That’s fantastic. Yeah. I’m thinking though, the common thread through all of the people who you just mentioned is that they’re all other, very talented multi creatives.

So, you know, they have incredible talent in multiple areas that sort of bring together all of their art. So yeah that’s fantastic. Yeah. I absolutely believe in kind of putting that out in the universe and, and saying like, these are the people I want to interview and, you know, I’ve, I’ve had the opportunity to interview people who I’m

very much admiring of, I still have other people on the list I’m trying to get to, but you know, absolutely. It’s you know, it’s gonna happen. So I’m excited to follow up with you and hear those episodes when you get to talk to them.

Kevin Allen: And right back at you.

Carolyn Kiel:   Thank you. I appreciate that. That’s wonderful. Yeah well, Kevin, thank you so much for being on my show.

I enjoyed our conversation. I think it’s, you know, loved learning about your career journey. I think that’s going to be really inspiring and exciting for people and just loved learning about all of the great art and and wonderful teaching and coaching all the great things that you’re doing these days. So thanks again for sharing your story on my show.

Kevin Allen: Thank you so much for having me. This is a lot of fun. I had this date marked off on the calendar  and I’m super excited to, to be here and excited to get the finished product.

Carolyn Kiel: Great. Thank you. Thanks again.

Carolyn Kiel: Thanks for listening to Beyond 6 Seconds. Please help us spread the word about this podcast. Share it with a friend. Give us a shoutout on your social media or write a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. You can find all of our episodes on our website and sign up for our free newsletter at www.beyond6seconds.com. Until next time.