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A
I'm 18 years old. I go to Kappelle High School. I run a digital marketing agency. In about four days, I'll be flying out to Japan to basically lead market an entire event over there. When I first started, actually you don't think of it as a business necessarily. You know, it was a big passion project for me.
B
That's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show is like what you've done at such a young age is super impressive.
A
One thing that I've realized that a lot of people in the older generation are a little lacking is social media and AI.
B
If you're not transforming your your daily work today, you're going to be transformed out.
A
Oh yeah. Welcome to Digital Voices where healthcare and life science leaders explore the real work behind transformation. This podcast is about people, leadership and the conversations that move healthcare forward. Now your host, Ed Marks.
B
Hey everyone. Welcome to another edition of Digital Voices. So excited today. Cause we're flipping it a little bit. We're gonna have a lot of fun here with an welcome to Digital Voices.
A
Hey Ed, thank you for having me today. I'm excited to hear about all the questions that you have for me and it's a blessing to be here.
B
Yeah, we like to mix it up a little bit. A lot of times we just have healthcare tech, but every, I don't know, seven or eight episodes, we like to do something different just to add a little bit of diversity and flavor. And you and I got connected actually because of your mom and dad.
A
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's a crazy connection. Cause it's like our, like how I know you is literally through my dad and my dad knows, like we basically got connected through the CEO. Like they mode basically connected us which is like crazy connections and such. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
B
We were at a party together. I forget what Indian celebration it was.
A
It was the related to Ganesh. Yes, yeah, yes, it was related to that. You know, we do it every year.
B
So yeah, it was a lot of fun. And then I found you to be super interesting. I mean you're like a high schooler, right?
A
I am a high schooler.
B
So tell us a little bit about yourself.
A
So I'm 18 years old. I go to cell high school again. He like, he said, my name is Anson Call. I run a digital marketing agency. It's called A1 Media. I've been growing it for about two and a half years now. I started my sophomore year of high school and you know, when I first started, I actually had a co founder When I first Started. So that's actually one of the biggest stories I like to tell people is like, if you're in high school and you're trying to start something, try to start it with someone because it's way easier to start something in high school with someone else because they're going to push you and motivate you to do better.
B
Yeah.
A
Than trying to do it yourself. It's like one of the biggest things that, like, I stood by at first and it helped me a lot. So when I first started, actually I didn't, you know, with any business at starting in high school especially, you don't think of it as a business necessarily. You know, it was a big passion project for me. I love taking photos and videos. Before even I thought about starting a company, I love just, I had a freelance page. It was called On Shinha Photos. Funny enough, my brother actually pushed me to start that Instagram. So we were on a little family trip in Vegas and he was like, hey, you know, you started taking photos and everything. I think you should start showing this to the public. And I was like, okay, maybe I'll start an Instagram. And that was kind of my step into like the photo world, the video world. Going into that first year, you know, my biggest thing was just like connecting with people and really learning the market, trying to see what I could do again. It wasn't in my mind that like, I wanted to start a business.
B
Yeah.
A
It was just like, hey, this is a big passion for me. I love taking photos. So yeah, that's a little bit about me.
B
That's another great lesson. Right. You have a passion and oftentimes, you know, you follow the passion and everything kind of falls into place. So before we get too much further, two really important questions I ask all my guests. And the first one, what songs are on your playlist?
A
Songs. Okay, so I'm a big, I'm a big listener to rap music. I love like R and B and rap music, you know, just to get me hyped and stuff, especially when I'm filming and everything. My favorite artist is. I'm not sure. Have you ever heard of Gunna?
B
No.
A
So he's a big. He's a big rap influencer. I just love his lyrics and stuff. I think it's. I find it motivating a little bit. But he's great. So some, some of my top songs sold out dates. I also am very. I'm very big into like religion and stuff. So I'm very religious. I listen to the Hanuman Chalisa Every morning. So that's always on my top. That's probably the top of my playlist, actually.
B
All right, we're going to add that to our playlist. We do have a digital voices playlist on Spotify. Yeah. So we're always asking, adding new music, and one of the reasons we asked that question and then the second thing,
A
are there like words that you live
B
by or quotes or mantras?
A
So one of the biggest things that I actually stand by, I picked it up in early of 2025. It was called Kaizen. So Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy. It basically just means, like, continuously improving yourself or getting like 1% better every single day right around January of 2025. So early, early 2025, I was kind of plateauing. That was the time when I had realized that, like, I'm transitioning this from a passion thing to an actual business, and I had seen a vision in it. So going into 2025, I read a book called Atomic Habits. You probably know that. Oh, yeah, I have that great book. It's a amazing book. I suggest it for anyone in high school. It's an amazing book. Talks a lot about self discipline and really being able to do something crazy in high school. So one of the biggest things in that book was that phrase kaizen. And it had stuck with me really well. And I was like, this is something that I want to implement in my life.
B
Yeah.
A
So going into 2025, I implemented it, and I had seen so much growth with literally just that word. And I believe, like, God had literally put that word in front of me for a reason. So, yeah, I stand by that word all the time.
B
And so tell us about your life a little bit, like, growing up. So are you from Dallas? Fort Worth? Where are you from?
A
Yeah, yeah. So I'm born and raised in Dallas. I've always lived capel my whole life, which made it kind of easy to build friends and build relationships. I love moving around, though. I'm a big traveler, big adventure guy. So, you know, going on heights, doing all of that stuff. You know, just traveling to the beach, taking Airbnb here and there. Like, I'm a huge, huge advocate for that stuff.
B
All right, well, let's talk a little bit about A1 Media, because that's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show is like, what you've done at such a young age is super impressive. I mean, this isn't like. Like, when I was in high school, my business was I had a TP company, like toilet paper company where we would get paid to toilet paper people's houses. So this is much. What you're doing is much. Adding much more value to people's lives. Yeah, I mean it's significant what you're doing. So tell us. Maybe can't name them specifically, but tell us about a couple clients and what are you doing?
A
So, yeah, so a couple of clients. I actually just picked up one of my bigger clients just recently, Pylon Football. So they basically run seven on seven tournaments. It's a style of football that you can play where it's like two hand touch. So they basically run tournaments all around the nation. And I brought, I've been brought on as like the creative director of the brand. And this is like, this isn't like some small brand. Like this is global brand. So they're actually flying me to Japan next week.
B
That's crazy.
A
Yeah. So in about four days I'll be flying out to Japan to cover to basically lead market an entire event over there. And that's probably been my biggest breakthrough, my biggest opportunity that I've been given so far. Other than that, I work with Adidas as well. So I run a lot of the tournaments in the south region, especially on the basketball side, running a lot of those, lead marketing and also just creative direction on that stuff. But I'd say those two are my biggest fans currently.
B
Yeah, no, that's super impressive. You're like, you know my kids and we're not here to talk about my kids, so we won't, we're not going to go deep there. But they are surpassing their parents for sure in terms of what they're doing. You're doing the same great as your parents are. They're very great people. I really love Alecum, so that's really cool. And I know you're expanding, right?
A
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Tell us a little bit about that growing for sure. So actually one of my biggest goals for 2026 is to really building and expand my operational side of everything. I really want to grow more pillars of success within my business. So obviously we started with the media side of it. Going into 2025, I had picked up a mentor. Best decision of my life. I think anyone at this age should have a mentor. Like that is what changed my, the scope of my entire business. And that's actually when I picked up the marketing sector as well. So the marketing sector consisted of things like website design, running SEO, you know, building Google and Facebook ads for clients, social media management, all of those different pillars of success that I had added on that's one of the biggest things I'm trying to scale in 2026. So the media side is there. You know, I love it, I love doing it, but there's a huge market within those other four and five pillars of success that I'm really trying to get into. So.
B
So how, how are you learning all these things? So you, you come up with all these creative ideas. What's feeding you? You're pouring that out into. To others, into your clients. What's coming in? Where's the source of what's coming in?
A
Yeah, yeah. So I would say the biggest thing, I had mentioned it earlier is, you know, having a mentor. Yeah. So the mentorship is really good because you're able to learn from someone that's really potentially doing 8 to 10 times more or better than what you are.
B
Yeah.
A
And it's just like, that's going to give you the motivation and the kind of the mindset to be like, hey, you need to, you know, you need to do better every single day. Yeah. So he has taught me a lot on the marketing side of, like, things on the operationals, so how to build and scale a team, how to build SOPs, how to, how to run, you know, sows partially, all of that stuff. But it's not something of like, he's, you know, he's, he's doing all the baby steps.
B
Yeah.
A
Like, he's not making, he's not making me do any of this. He's like, hey, I'm giving you the asset for this. It's your choice to implement it. If you actually want to, you know, do something amazing, you have to be willing to actually put in the work and make, you know, something happen. Learning by experience is a huge thing for me. So making mistakes and understanding where I'm coming from through those mistakes, that's a huge thing for me.
B
Yeah. What about creativity? Like, how do you think you were just born with it? Or what are some other things that happened in your younger self that helped you to be creative and be the way that you are?
A
So the creative side, that's actually. That's a great question, actually. So on the creative side, I would say I picked it up really through. I actually love playing the drums. So. Yeah. So in middle school, I played the drums for three years of my life, and I enjoyed it so much. Like, I found a lot of passion and just like, you know, with the marimba, there's so many different keys and stuff, and you have to be so creative with that. Even if you had a script of Music like you had to be able to be creative on how you would get to those notes, how you would be able to, you know, influence people with that music. So I feel like that's actually kind of where my creativity had spanned out of. You know, it's kind of crazy from something like, from something like drums and stuff. But I would say even before that I loved, I've always been in like the sports realm, so it doesn't have anything to tie into like creativity necessarily, but like just, you know, being with sports and such, I feel like I found a lot of enjoyment in that and just like that kind of helped me find a passion in something. So.
B
Yeah. What about parents? Are there anything your parents ever made you do that you kind of rolled your, now you're 18, we can, you can talk or face, then it kind of rolls your eyes. But kind of like in hindsight now as you're growing up and building this business, you're like, I'm glad they sort of made me do that.
A
Yeah, A hundred percent. Like, I mean I couldn't have been in the position that I am without my parents. Like that's just like a God given gift. Like genuinely. I don't. What they do for me is like more like it's, it's amazing, it's. And it's so blessing for someone like me and I, I appreciate all the opportunity that I have. So I, I, you know, I'm, I'm a huge advocate for school and such. Obviously they want me to do the best that I can in school, but just me being a 17 year old doing the things that I am, I had a little bit of an ego and it was just like an arrogance thing. Yeah. Nowadays I understand where from, but you know, I, I kind of wish I hadn't obviously I wish I didn't have that arrogance and stuff.
B
Yeah.
A
But it was just like a thing of like, oh, like obviously I'm going to do good in school. Like I'm going to get, get as good as great as I can, build the relationships that I can do all of that. But it's just like I really want to build this business. Like I'm just so passionate about it. I love it so much. So that's probably the biggest thing is they just make me stay grounded on the school and stuff. And that really helped me, you know, understand how to build discipline and do all of that really good stuff.
B
So you know, often times we talk about mentoring, you mentioned quite a bit. I'm also a big believer in reverse mentoring. So this is the younger generation mentoring older generation. So let's just say that, that I, or a prototype, someone like myself is your mentee. What are some words of wisdom when you look at the kind of the next generation above you that's, you know, older.
A
Yeah.
B
People. What are some words of wisdom you might drop on them?
A
Oh, that's a great question. So that's a great question. I would say one thing that I've realized that a lot of people in the older generation are a little lacking is social media and AI. Yeah, I'm a really big believer in building a personal brand. So building a brand around yourself, even if you have a business, I think building a brand around yourself is a huge thing. And I feel like a lot of people older than me, they don't understand that part of it. They're like, oh, you're building A1 Media. Why are you trying to build on Singh hall on top of it? Isn't that too many things to cover? That's a huge thing. I feel like. And I feel like a lot of people around yalls age kind of likes that. That and also AI. I think learning AI is just like a must have at this point.
B
Yes.
A
I mean, I feel like you're gonna fall behind if you don't. So that's something that, you know, they kind of have to incorporate in their life whether they like it or not. Like it's just kind of has to happen.
B
So yeah, a lot of people were sort of raised in this I, I call false humility.
A
Okay.
B
And so you can't talk about yourself, you can't build a brand. They would never use the word brand. Build your brand because that means that, you know, you're all about yourself. But those same people are the ones that are a little bit of trouble right now. And so there's always a careful battle. So I'm a big believer in building your brand. What's next? Like you're building your business, you're expanding, but like if you could look out even further, like you know, you're 18, like when you're about to hit 30, what do you think your work might look like?
A
So on the long term scope, I really want to. Another one of my biggest beliefs and one of the biggest things I want to get into is full philanthropy. I love giving back. Like I just realized that how much I love being able to give value to people, especially people that haven't been given the opportunity that I have, if I can give them any type of value, whether it's knowledge based, whether it's an actual opportunity. I would be more than happy to do that. So obviously when I'm in, when I'm in my 30s, I want to be able to really get into philanthropy in the sense of like giving out free knowledge. And I want to start that now at 18. I'm doing that now. I post on social media about different frameworks that I use. One of the frameworks actually I just implemented is called the A3 framework. Have you ever heard of it?
B
Yes, I have actually.
A
It's a great framework. It's problem solving framework. Just actually started implementing that. But like, things like that, I want to be able to give value like that. Even in, when I'm 25, 30, I want to be able to give as much as I can to the people that don't have as much opportunity as me. It's just like the creative. I feel like as I'm going to get older, the creativity might fall apart a little bit. You know. Who knows though, when I'm 30, I might want to sell the company, you know, and go straight into building something new. And also, you know, devoting a lot of my time into philanthropy and actually giving back to people. I actually tell you a funny story. So I was, I hired a video editor for my personal brand. He basically scripts all my content, does basically everything for my personal brand and just really builds it really well. I had gotten on an hour call with him at first we were talking about how to color grade and everything, you know, how to make the footage loop, how to cinematic and really beautiful. But it got really deep. And he actually just got married after a seven year relationship. And he was like, oh, you know, like my wife is moving to Canada and I won't see her for a year. And like the, the thought after he had told me all of that stuff, he basically was like, oh, I'm going to move to Canada in like five or six months. And I'm thinking like, I'm going to drop the agency, like the video editing agency and pick up plumbing. And I was like, man, I was like, where is this thought even coming? You're like one of the best editors I've ever worked with. And the thought of you going from video editing to plumbing, that didn't even like shock my mind. And he had told me that and I had realized, I was like, I mean this guy's working 20 hours a day on video editing. Like he's, he, I mean his opportunity and obviously him living in India and stuff, it's way harder him telling me that story. It like, stuck to me and I was like, man, like, that really motivated me to be like, if I can do something amazing in life.
B
Yeah.
A
I want to be able to give people like him an opportunity because he's, he's passionate, he loves and he's disciplined and it's just that he doesn't, he can't grow it well because he doesn't have the opportunity. Right. So like that, that just stuck with me and it's just something that I really want to do, especially when I grow older. I think giving value at 18 is a little bit. You have to be more credible. But, you know, I think any type of help I can give.
B
Oh, yeah, yeah. That's very cool. So our audience is primarily healthcare. Okay. And I know you're 18, you haven't worked in healthcare, but your dad works in healthcare.
A
Huge. Healthcare.
B
And so when you take what you do know about healthcare, what are your ideas around healthcare, how can we improve healthcare? Whether it's the experience or medicine or, you know, any thoughts about it.
A
Healthcare. Okay. So the healthcare sector, I'm not a huge healthcare guy, obviously. I'm big into like the business and marketing and all that. On the healthcare side, I really want. I'm just, I would say I'm more curious about what's going to happen on healthcare, especially with AI and stuff. I'm really curious. What do you actually think? What do you think about like the healthcare sector in the next 10 years?
B
Yeah, well, I think it's going to completely get blown up from what we know today and that, you know, you won't be seeing a primary care doc to control everything that you do. I think you'll use AI. I'm already doing that.
A
Yeah. Yeah.
B
I've been doing it for over a year and I talk to other people and it's just the wave. Yeah. No one's going to stop it.
A
Do you think it's an exponential growth?
B
Yeah, I think we will see a hockey stick type of probably in the next year, you know, Chad GPT, we're recording in January 2025 chat GPT just came out, their health version. There's a wait list and I think as that gets better, it's kind of like Waymo. When Waymo first came out, people were like, oh, it's going to get an accident. Sure enough. I don't remember the exact number, but, you know, he had twice more accidents than you did a person driving, but now it's twice less.
A
Okay.
B
And it's going to keep getting less, like flying an airplane. And so why would you not want to do Waymo? It's the same with AI and healthcare. Yeah. Probably right now there's still some junk out there and you know, you got to be careful, kind of double check, whatever. Yeah, but there's a lot of low risk things that you could do yourself now and that, like, that's what I do. And I think a lot more people are doing it. And as it gets better and better and better, I think that risk goes way down. And as that risk goes way down, utilization goes way up.
A
For sure. For sure.
B
And then, you know, we talk about how healthcare has a crisis in terms of a shortage of physicians, stuff like that. Well, I think it solves that shortage. And those physicians, instead of doing mostly primary care, will. Will do specialist type things.
A
Okay.
B
So you always need the specialist. Yeah, but man, basic primary care. I could go on and on and I don't want to steal this, this time from you, so. Yeah, but I'm always curious, you know, what, what, what younger people who are sort of tech. Tech forward think about, man, because I, you know, it's kind of ridiculous the way that our healthcare system always.
A
Oh, yeah, for sure. And I think I'm. That's, that's just one of the things I'm curious about is like, obviously moving into. I think more specialized jobs are going to be more. So I don't think, I mean, do you think those are going to get taken?
B
No, no. I think you always need, you know, specialists that are going to, you know, have to get in and cut you or what have you. But even a lot of that's going to be AI driven or although you think it is AI driven. Yeah. But there'll still be that need. It's, it's interesting at Arizona State University, which I think is by student population may be the biggest, they have a new med school, I think maybe one or two years old, and all physicians not only are getting their medical degree, but also engineering.
A
Oh, wow.
B
And to me, that makes total sense.
A
It does, it really does.
B
You want to know how to prompt, though. You want to know how that tech part of it.
A
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I know a lot of colleges are implementing AI classes now too. Like I had. I remember some school. So I just got into the school of smu, the SMU School of Business. So I'm actually just committed there. And one of the programs they offer is like an AI, an entire course around AI. So I'm definitely going to take it and just kind of see, you know, how, how can they teach me and what are they going to teach me about, I mean is it going to be prompting, is it going to be like what model to use? Who knows?
B
Like, yeah, it'll be, yeah, it'll be super interesting to watch. And again, I think it's all the EV is so fast. It changes. Oh yeah. Where in the old days, you know, even though things were definitely transforming was just taking years and years, you kind of take your time. But like you said, you know, I think it's a great lesson for our audience is if you sit, you'll be way passed up. Yeah. And it's gonna be hard to catch up. I always tell people, you know, try everything, all the new stuff, try it, experiment. And if it's, if you're not transforming your, your daily work today, you're, you're gonna be transformed out.
A
Oh yeah, 100%. Especially these days. That's, that's the biggest thing.
B
So, so as we, as we wrap up, you know, we talk a lot of, a lot of different things. Got some new music, learned a lot about you and learned about your business that you started a couple years ago and now it's growing, growing, growing and some of the customers are just amazing logos that you have and your whole future and some of your thoughts. If you think about my audience one more time, being mostly healthcare and mostly probably around, I'm going to say the average age is 40. So you can have some early career. We can have some people like me that are past 40 that are, I don't want to say towards the end of our career but you know, getting into that next generation words of wisdom,
A
what else would you say to them? So one actually another thing I would say, I think a lot of people, like I said about opportunity, I think a lot of people have so much that they could give to people my age value wise. If people were to post. Kids are all over social media. If you were to start a social media and literally just talk about something healthcare related or something in the medical space that is, you don't understand how influential that is for someone like that. Because that's the best way to learn. Learning from someone else is so, it's so impactful. I mean like genuinely that's what's helped me grow what I have. And that's one thing I would tell people at Your age and 40 year plus is that give value to people like me as much as possible. You know, whether it's on, on social media, whether it's in person, wherever it is, just give value. You don't know what that that value could take in someone. Like it could change someone's life. You don't know.
B
So yeah, I love that. Especially in this day and age. Old tech, right? Back in my day, didn't really have that ability. Unless you met someone.
A
Exactly.
B
And happenstance. But now with media, we can scale. Exactly. You're a delightful human, a great person. I've earned a lot and I know my audience does as well. Thank you for being my guest on Digital Voices.
A
Thank you so much. And I appreciate you having me on here. So thank you for listening to Digital Voices. We hope today's conversation sparked ideas, reflection and connection. Subscribe on YouTube, Apple and Spotify podcasts so you don't miss an episode.
Podcast Date: June 11, 2026
Host: Ed Marx
Guest: Ansh Singhal
Main Theme: Young Entrepreneurship, Continuous Improvement, and the Power of Digital Transformation
In this engaging episode, Ed Marx sits down with 18-year-old entrepreneur Ansh Singhal to discuss the journey of launching and scaling a digital marketing agency while still in high school. The conversation spotlights the power of starting with passion, the philosophy of “Kaizen” (continuous self-improvement), the shifting landscape driven by AI and social media, and the generational exchange of wisdom in the context of healthcare and digital leadership.
For more inspiring conversations about digital transformation in healthcare and leadership, subscribe to Digital Voices on all major platforms or visit marxadvisory.com.