FS_Podcast_with

00:00:00.000 | Hello, everybody. It's Sam from the Financial Samurai podcast. And in this episode, I have

00:00:05.080 | a special guest with me, Srini Rao. He is the founder and creator of the Unmistakable

00:00:10.780 | Creative Podcast that was launched in 2010. And it has over 1,300 episodes. I can't believe

00:00:18.400 | it. That's about 10 times what I've got here on Financial Samurai. So, Srini, welcome to

00:00:22.360 | the podcast.

00:00:23.360 | Yeah, thanks for having me. It's kind of fun to do this. I mean, I've known you since like

00:00:27.440 | we started the podcast. You're one of the earliest people I ever interviewed.

00:00:32.120 | No, you're right. I started in 2009. You started doing something in 2009, right?

00:00:37.560 | Yeah. I mean, I started my first blog in 2009. Mainly, the irony of it was the reason I started

00:00:42.520 | the blog was because I graduated from business school without a job. And, you know, because

00:00:46.640 | 2009 was a terrible time to get out of any kind of school. And, you know, the job market

00:00:51.440 | was terrible. And if you're submitting resumes, you were kind of done. Like, there's no way

00:00:54.600 | you're going to stand out. So I started a blog, ironically, as a way of standing out

00:00:57.600 | of the job market, which, you know, eventually that ended up just kind of becoming the job.

00:01:03.000 | But there's a lot of precursors that, you know, sort of people don't know about because

00:01:06.760 | you like at a certain point, like if you do something well, all the shitty things you

00:01:10.760 | did before kind of get hidden and buried. I don't know if you can find them on the internet.

00:01:14.920 | But the first real blog I started was a website called 100 Reasons You Should Hire Me. And,

00:01:20.120 | you know, I couldn't come up with 100 reasons why anybody should hire me. So it was like,

00:01:24.080 | all right, this is because basically what I did was I saw somebody who had a really

00:01:27.920 | interesting website, this girl, Jamie Verone. She'd started this website called Twitter

00:01:31.200 | Should Hire Me. And that was like hugely successful. She actually knew what the hell she was doing.

00:01:35.600 | Like she had real branding experience and design experience. I literally just threw

00:01:39.760 | up like a bullshit logo. I used to make this logo look like the Google logo with some logo

00:01:43.920 | generator. And it was a blog. I mean, I didn't know what I was doing. But I think the value

00:01:49.120 | in those... The funny thing is that that project itself, believe it or not, like really actually

00:01:54.840 | informed the entire ethos of what I ended up doing because I was like, oh, I just copied

00:01:59.600 | what somebody else did. No wonder this didn't work. You know, and that's like the thing

00:02:03.800 | I rail against the most because I mean, you know, I've seen it like, you know, in 10 years,

00:02:07.440 | like you see these people who will take an online course, they'll like go to a podcasting

00:02:11.240 | course and they literally try to replicate the exact thing the person who taught the

00:02:14.520 | course does. And it's like, no, you know, like you're missing several things. Like the

00:02:19.800 | thing that people never get about all this is like there's one gigantic variable that

00:02:24.060 | throws off that entire idea. And that's you. Like look in the mirror, you know, like you

00:02:29.800 | and I could do the exact same things. And it's like inevitable that we would get wildly

00:02:34.000 | different results just because we have different strengths, different personalities. You know,

00:02:38.640 | like there are certain things like so, you know, I started in 2009, right? Like there

00:02:41.880 | are things that you probably have done that are a lot smarter than I did. Like for example,

00:02:46.040 | your email list is significantly bigger because you know, you were smart about prioritizing

00:02:49.600 | the business aspects of it. I was just creating endlessly and I wasn't really thinking about

00:02:54.680 | it from that standpoint very well until I got the book deal. You know, like and a lot

00:02:58.660 | of whatever I've accomplished has been very accidental and serendipitous, but it's also

00:03:03.140 | through a lot of like, you know, trying things and doing things endlessly. So that first

00:03:07.500 | project was important, but it was a joke. It was laughable.

00:03:11.680 | But you pivoted. So you went to Berkeley for undergrad and then you went to Pepperdine

00:03:15.480 | for business school. You said you graduated during a difficult time and it costs a lot

00:03:20.360 | of money to go to Pepperdine too, right?

00:03:22.320 | Yeah.

00:03:23.320 | And how did you decide to go finally all in on podcasting?

00:03:29.040 | Well so it's funny. I think that there's this sort of myth, right? Because what you see

00:03:33.960 | on the surface is not like the real story because you know, we put like this image for

00:03:38.960 | everybody in the internet is playing a character where they admit it or not. Right? Like you

00:03:41.720 | have a brand. I mean, you didn't even reveal your real name for the longest time. Like

00:03:44.520 | I remember I had no idea what you looked like until I met you in person. You had that like

00:03:47.920 | bizarre avatar. Actually you have it on your.

00:03:49.840 | I still have it.

00:03:50.840 | Yeah. So the thing is that, you know, like there's certain things about being a public

00:03:55.800 | figure where you have to be mindful about how you come across what you showcase. Because

00:04:00.040 | like nobody cares about your problems, right? It's not that I don't have problems that

00:04:03.400 | I don't have issues. People want you to solve their problems. And at a certain point, as

00:04:07.320 | your presence becomes bigger and bigger, there's a sort of fine line you have to toe between

00:04:12.400 | what you're, what is for public consumption and what's for not. Now I'll be, you know,

00:04:15.880 | I'll be transparent with you. Like I still have plenty of debt from business school,

00:04:19.120 | but going all in for me was accidental because I didn't have much of a choice. Like my job

00:04:24.120 | history is pretty checkered. Like I'd been fired from all my jobs. But I mean, when I

00:04:28.640 | got out of business school, like I looked at this resume and I was like, wow, the biggest

00:04:31.960 | problem with this resume is that it's not tangible evidence of anything I know how to

00:04:35.040 | do. It's just a bunch of bullet points and like bullshit. Like I became the master of

00:04:40.040 | spinning bullet points and to bullshit. I was really good at job interviews. Like I

00:04:44.360 | could go into a job interview and I could charm any interviewer because there was a

00:04:47.720 | way to do it. Like I don't remember, I don't remember, uh, vault. It was a website called

00:04:52.440 | vault.com. You would, my wife used to internet vault.com in New York. Yeah. Well, you're

00:04:56.000 | a finance guy. So you would know this, right? So vault had these guides on how to do interviews.

00:05:00.880 | And I remember they had this like formula called star. I don't even remember what the

00:05:04.520 | hell the acronym stood for. So I memorized that thing and like looked at it so I could

00:05:08.760 | go into any job interview and I could impress the hell out of the guy who was interviewing

00:05:12.720 | me. But I was always terrible at the job because it was all bullshit. Yeah. So I became like

00:05:17.480 | the master bullshit artist. And the problem with that was that eventually it just all

00:05:20.520 | caught up with me. So, you know, my job history wasn't impressive by any means. So like for

00:05:25.280 | me, this was almost forced upon me. I didn't really feel like I had much of a choice. It

00:05:28.760 | was like, okay, I kind of know where it's going to head if I go and find a job. And

00:05:32.520 | so the thing is that I also made choices that, you know, like a lot of people don't have

00:05:36.920 | the luxury or freedom to make. Like you have a family that changes a lot of things. Um,

00:05:40.800 | but I was, I was single. I still am. So, you know, I chose to live at home for God knows

00:05:45.560 | how long. I mean, you remember this like early days of the podcast and this past year I've

00:05:49.320 | been at home mainly out of choice, not out of necessity because my sister had an eight

00:05:52.760 | month old. So I came home to spend, you know, that time with him and had so many family

00:05:57.320 | events that I was like, all right, my parents like, well, why would you move now? We're

00:06:00.120 | going to India for six weeks. I'm like, yeah, you're right. Why would I move now? We've

00:06:02.800 | got this, you know, six bedroom household to myself for six weeks. So I'm like, yeah,

00:06:06.120 | I'll stay here. Um, and it's been great because like I got to travel this year, like I gotta

00:06:10.360 | do a lot of things that other people don't get to do, but I also, you know, there's always

00:06:13.600 | trade-offs. This is the thing that people don't realize that every decision you make

00:06:17.640 | in your life is a trade-off between freedom and security, right? You trade off the, you

00:06:22.440 | know, freedom of being single for the security of family, but it also comes with all these

00:06:26.200 | other things like, you know, connection and love and, you know, all these things you trade

00:06:29.520 | off the, the freedom of not being a parent for the joy that comes with being a parent.

00:06:32.960 | But guess what? Now you have all these responsibilities. And so there's always this trade-off, like

00:06:37.400 | we're always making trade-offs and you have to kind of decide like, what's the trade-off.

00:06:40.280 | And for me, the trade-off was okay, I'm going to live at home. And this is something that

00:06:44.680 | I realized was, you know, yeah, during probably the first three to four years, like my earnings

00:06:49.840 | were not increasing, but what was increasing was my earning potential, right? Because you

00:06:54.480 | know this, like the way that you become, you know, more like, like, like your cable, your

00:06:59.880 | earning potential goes up, it's not linear. So you'll spend years doing all this stuff

00:07:04.120 | that basically seems like it's going nowhere. Then, you know, you get a book deal and before

00:07:08.240 | you know it, you're like, wait a minute, I just made $10,000 in one hour for getting

00:07:12.160 | on a stage and talking, you know? And if you think about that versus before, I didn't make

00:07:17.560 | that in three months at a day job, you know? Like, so that over time it increases. So,

00:07:23.080 | you know, going all in was kind of accidental, but then, you know, bit by bit, I was really

00:07:27.400 | fortunate in that I had an amazing mentor named Greg who really kind of took me under

00:07:31.880 | his wing. Then we raised a round of money in 2018, I think, from Podfund. They had started

00:07:37.720 | a venture fund for podcasts. So, I mean, it's had its ups and downs, man. Like the thing

00:07:42.600 | about, you know, Unmistakable that's kind of weird, we're this anomaly in that we started

00:07:45.880 | long before everybody else, but our audience is smaller and we grew slower. But what we

00:07:49.280 | do have are loyal and raving fans. You've seen our iTunes reviews. Like, I think it

00:07:53.840 | was like a thousand five-star reviews and none of those were people we coerced into

00:07:57.640 | giving us reviews, or like participated in, you know, review exchanges or any of that

00:08:01.320 | bullshit. Like those were all legitimately earned. And then there are a few, you know,

00:08:05.240 | handful of like reviews of people that hate us and I'm like, great, then unsubscribe.

00:08:08.280 | That's just the way it is. Yeah, dude, you just wrote a, you know, I'm sure like anybody

00:08:12.400 | who's ever written a book that reaches a lot of people, they learn pretty fast that it's

00:08:16.840 | a really bad idea to look at your reviews. Like there's nothing that will trigger your

00:08:20.960 | insecurities more.

00:08:22.160 | Well, I think you just have to manage expectations when you're a creative, you put yourself out

00:08:26.840 | there. Try not to take things too personally. Just accept that maybe 10 to up to 20% of

00:08:33.720 | your reviews will be bad. That's just the way it is.

00:08:36.720 | Well, the thing is the more people you reach, the more likely you are to reach somebody

00:08:39.600 | that you hate.

00:08:40.600 | Right. Or that hate you.

00:08:42.600 | Yeah, exactly. So go look at Mark Manson's book, right? The Subtle Art of Not Giving

00:08:47.200 | a Fuckin' Go look at the one star reviews. I mean, that book sold what, like 20 million

00:08:50.480 | copies? Of course, there are going to be one star reviews.

00:08:52.600 | Right.

00:08:53.600 | You know, it's like some religious person might be like, oh, I hate this book because

00:08:55.960 | he used the F word in the title, which has nothing. And often you look at the reviews,

00:08:59.640 | they have nothing to do with the actual content.

00:09:01.200 | Or like Amazon's packaging.

00:09:02.200 | Yeah, people will be like, oh, this thing didn't show up on time. I'm like, what does

00:09:05.680 | that have to do with the product? Nothing.

00:09:07.920 | Yeah.

00:09:08.920 | You know?

00:09:09.920 | And so as a creative, you know, we put our heart and soul into the things we believe

00:09:13.600 | in and then we want people to listen. We want people to read. And it's just so sensitive.

00:09:19.560 | And then when we get smacked down, it's like, oh, man, why'd you got to smack me down?

00:09:23.560 | And then some people just quit.

00:09:26.360 | So here's the thing that I realized about feedback, right? Is you've got to be really

00:09:29.960 | mindful about whose feedback counts. And this is the other thing. I mean, like even when

00:09:33.680 | I was at the beginning of this, right? Like I get people in my family questioning my sanity.

00:09:36.400 | Like I had a cousin who told another cousin of mine that, you know, what I was doing was

00:09:40.360 | a waste of my education. And then the day that, you know, my book came out, that same

00:09:45.280 | person who said that congratulated me on my book launch. And I told my mom, the joke is

00:09:48.880 | like, this person is off the wedding for, you know, like my wedding invite list for

00:09:52.080 | the wedding that hasn't even been planned yet.

00:09:54.640 | But the thing is, like what I realized from that is that you have to think about, you

00:09:58.440 | know, when you think about these critics, it's like, OK, who's going to live with the

00:10:00.880 | consequences of your choices? Them or you?

00:10:03.560 | So and you know what? All creative work involves risk. Like there's always a risk that somebody's

00:10:07.840 | going to hate it, whatever it is. I like the Seth Godin attitude of this might not work

00:10:12.480 | because then you kind of go in sort of detached to the outcome and you focus on the thing

00:10:17.400 | you can control, which is the process.

00:10:19.160 | And that I think is really where a lot of creatives get derailed. They put so much sort

00:10:23.020 | of value and attachment to, OK, how are people going to respond? Like all these things that

00:10:27.920 | you have absolutely no control over. You know, like when we rebranded, for example, we thought

00:10:32.280 | we were out of our minds. They're like, why would you change the name?

00:10:34.400 | Blogcast FM, it's such a good name. Can you imagine? We would be obsolete today if that

00:10:38.080 | that we had to listen to that advice. And we you know, we didn't even bother to serve

00:10:42.360 | in the audience about changing the name. We're like, we're just going to do it like, you

00:10:45.240 | know, because one issue we were running into, we said if you go back and look at early reviews,

00:10:49.520 | there are a lot of people would say this show is not actually just about blogs.

00:10:52.720 | It's about a lot more. But a lot of them wouldn't tell their friends simply because of the name.

00:10:56.320 | They're like, my friends won't listen to this because they're not interested in blogging.

00:11:00.520 | And so we looked for sort of the anomalies and the outliers instead of looking at the

00:11:03.480 | masses to determine what we should do.

00:11:06.680 | Got it. You know, what I hear from you after graduating is that you kind of fell into this

00:11:12.920 | and you kind of had no other choice. But to produce thirteen hundred episodes over a 13

00:11:20.240 | year period is quite impressive. So how do you how do you keep on going? What was your

00:11:26.220 | driving factor?

00:11:27.420 | Well, there are a couple of things. Right. So let's look at this from sort of I'm not

00:11:32.060 | going to give you the sort of inspirational bullshit answer. I'm going to give you the

00:11:35.580 | straight up behavioral science answer. So the thing is that, you know, the greatest

00:11:41.540 | source of motivation for all of us is visible progress. Right. So and this is based on the

00:11:46.700 | work of Teresa Amabile, who's a professor at Harvard who wrote a book called The Progress

00:11:50.260 | Principle. And so this is why if you look at sort of that whole don't break the chain

00:11:54.660 | method, people who put those calendars up stick to workout habits, you know, savings

00:11:59.020 | habits or whatever it is, because when you start to see yourself making progress, you

00:12:02.740 | are motivated to keep going.

00:12:04.260 | You know, like if you see that chain, it's like, oh, OK, I actually have maintained 30

00:12:09.060 | workout days. Like, well, now I'm motivated just because you don't want to. You're so

00:12:12.060 | motivated by what you see in front of you. The problem is that people measure progress

00:12:16.160 | with outcomes they can't control. And that's where they get into trouble. Right. So because

00:12:20.660 | I remember some podcasts are asking me about this. He was like, you know, probably 50 episodes

00:12:24.180 | in. And I'm like, OK, well, you could measure this in one of two ways. You could say, OK,

00:12:27.380 | how many people are listening to this thing which you have absolutely no control over?

00:12:29.860 | Or you could say how many times how many episodes have I created? And so the other thing that

00:12:34.140 | happens is when you have progress, progress leads to momentum and momentum increases motivation.

00:12:38.620 | So you basically just get into this sort of virtuous cycle. Yeah. That basically eventually

00:12:44.140 | hits sort of escape velocity. Right. Because if you go back and look at a lot of the bloggers

00:12:48.780 | who started when we did, you'll see these inflection points that happen for people like

00:12:52.780 | you and I, where it was like, boom, boom, boom.

00:12:55.340 | We're just like consistently, consistently, consistently nothing special. Like it wasn't

00:12:58.460 | like you were, you know, Wall Street Journal bestselling author or whatever it is. I mean,

00:13:01.820 | look, you got your book deal two years ago. And I remember when you said to me, oh, wow,

00:13:05.740 | that's cool. And if you think about it, the same thing kind of happened to me. Right.

00:13:09.380 | It was like 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013. In 2013, people call that, you know,

00:13:18.300 | it's like overnight. Trini came out of nowhere and had this self-published book that became

00:13:21.340 | a Wall Street Journal bestseller. But what they forget is like, by the way, there are

00:13:24.500 | a thousand blog posts that came before that. And even after that, before I even got a book

00:13:28.220 | deal, like I didn't get a book deal for two years after my Wall Street Journal bestseller.

00:13:31.860 | Like that didn't attract the attention of any publishers until probably February 2015.

00:13:36.620 | Yeah. Why is that, you think? Well, OK, so self-publishing is kind of weird.

00:13:42.700 | One thing, if you self-publish a book, you can't be on the New York Times bestseller

00:13:46.420 | list. Because remember, I told you the week your book launched, I was like, hammer your

00:13:49.940 | email list. I don't care if you get subscribers. Like I remember that. I remember you sending

00:13:54.060 | me an email. I'm like, all right, dude, send one last email. Don't you think that's a little

00:13:56.900 | too much? I was like, don't you want to hit the Wall Street Journal bestseller list was

00:13:59.740 | my response. And you did. So you can thank me for that. You're going to send me half

00:14:04.100 | your advance on the next book. OK, sounds good.

00:14:08.420 | So the thing is that but the thing is, you get to a certain point where you hit momentum.

00:14:13.380 | And so my mentor, Greg Hartle, taught me about this concept called a momentum window. And

00:14:19.220 | this is something that if you play your cards right, like you just did it. And what you've

00:14:24.540 | just experienced in the last year and a half is probably a fantastic example of this. Right.

00:14:28.380 | So the thing is that when you hit a momentum window, if you play your cards right, like

00:14:33.260 | think Mark Zuckerberg at 100,000 Facebook users, right? He's no longer dealing with

00:14:37.540 | the problem of, you know, hey, you know, like we're having issues with servers in our dorm

00:14:40.820 | room or whatever it is. From that point forward, he's in a momentum window. And if he plays

00:14:45.500 | his cards right, he never will be back down at the same level of again. Like if you think

00:14:50.540 | about the growth of Facebook from that point forward, with the exception of the last year,

00:14:54.620 | like just let's discount that for now, because that's not the point of this story. It just

00:14:59.100 | basically was exponential from that point forward. Facebook just grew endlessly, because

00:15:03.900 | if you play your cards right in that window, then you'll never go back down to the same

00:15:06.940 | level of again. But if you fuck it up, I know this because I did. Then you basically have

00:15:11.540 | to start all over to build up momentum. Momentum is incredibly hard to build, but it's incredibly

00:15:16.820 | powerful once you do, and it's very hard to get it back when you lose it. And so that's

00:15:20.980 | basically what's happening when you think about sort of progress. So, you know, as far

00:15:26.060 | as what motivated me to keep going, yeah. Did I want some of those external accolades?

00:15:30.460 | Absolutely. Like anybody else, I, you know, I was somewhat driven by those things. But

00:15:35.100 | the irony of my book deal was what led to the book deal was me giving up on getting

00:15:39.380 | a book deal, because I realized I was like, I have no control over this. I'm just going

00:15:43.460 | to do one thing. And I mean, you've probably seen this article, like Julian Smith turned

00:15:46.980 | me on to this habit of writing a thousand words a day. And I was like, OK, you know

00:15:50.700 | what? I can do that. Like I'm already doing close to that. But like if I just do this

00:15:55.160 | one thing consistently, let me see what happens. You know, and six months into that, I self

00:15:59.140 | published two books, one sold a thousand copies. The second became Wall Street Journal bestseller

00:16:03.260 | and led to a six figure book deal. And I kept that habit up for almost four years. Like

00:16:07.500 | I've changed that now because of the sort of new systems that I've learned for writing

00:16:11.060 | and knowledge management. And we can talk about that if you want. But the reality is

00:16:16.620 | that like, you know, if you are measuring progress, let's take another simple example

00:16:21.980 | of like weight loss or going to the gym. Right. You can't necessarily control how quickly

00:16:27.020 | the pounds are coming off. And if you're going to measure by the scale, then you're going

00:16:30.980 | to look at the scale every day and be like, OK, I still weigh the same that I did every

00:16:34.020 | day. And then yesterday, you know, I got to hell with this. I'm going to not go to the

00:16:37.420 | gym. I'm going to sit around and eat ice. Yeah, that's kind of me. Yeah. Yeah. But if

00:16:41.340 | you if but the thing is, if you say, OK, look, I'm going to just measure how many days in

00:16:45.100 | a row that I go to the gym, then you see progress. Yeah. Like the progress starts to appear.

00:16:51.740 | And the funny thing is that outcomes are usually delayed. Like positive outcomes for good habits

00:16:56.740 | are almost always delayed. There's you know, you have sort of habits with delayed consequences

00:17:01.380 | and we have good and bad habits with delayed consequences. Right. Like smoking is an example

00:17:05.020 | of a bad habit with a delayed consequence. Like, you know, you and I could be smoking

00:17:07.980 | cigarettes from the time we're 20 to 30 and probably we'll be OK, you know, during that

00:17:12.660 | time, even if we quit. But that might come back to haunt us when we become 70. Yeah.

00:17:17.940 | But the thing is, that's whereas the same thing occurs with positive habits, right?

00:17:21.340 | Like this thousand word a day habit. So if you look at sort of the outcomes of this habit.

00:17:26.060 | Right. So the first six months I did it, you know, the first three months it got me invited

00:17:30.260 | to speak at a conference. The fourth month it got me to write, you know, self publish

00:17:34.980 | a book that sold a thousand copies. The fifth month or sixth or seventh. I don't remember

00:17:39.460 | what month it was like. It led to the self published Wall Street Journal bestseller month

00:17:44.820 | something like 18 on the habit. It led to a six figure book contract. And from there,

00:17:51.540 | if you look at sort of like the earning potential that went public. So from there was like speaking

00:17:55.380 | gigs. So suddenly this one like simply simple little habit that took an hour every morning

00:18:01.940 | literally probably has generated close to half a million dollars in income for me. Right.

00:18:07.060 | Like indirectly, indirectly. Right. Right. Right. Wow. So with with this knowledge in

00:18:12.940 | mind, why do people give up? Why not just keep going instead of giving up? Why quit?

00:18:20.460 | Well, so so here's the thing. Like so one is, you know, the the progress thing. Look,

00:18:25.260 | there are times when it makes sense to quit. Like true. True. You know, like so why do

00:18:30.020 | people quit? One, because there are times when it makes plenty of sense to quit. And

00:18:34.780 | like, but you should know, like, am I quitting because I'm, you know, like frustrated or

00:18:39.380 | am I quitting because I know this is going nowhere? So there are certain points where

00:18:42.660 | you can say, like, all right, look, this is actually not going to lead anywhere. You know,

00:18:46.660 | it's so the irony of me starting a podcast and getting a book deal, the publisher, you

00:18:50.860 | know, I started the podcast because since of our told me I wasn't a good writer and

00:18:54.820 | he was right. Like, honestly, I don't disagree with that assessment. And I still don't disagree

00:19:00.300 | with that assessment, because like if you look at just the sheer numbers, right, is

00:19:04.660 | that if you compare the number of people who read my writing to the number of people who

00:19:08.300 | listen to my podcast, like the writing pales in comparison. So the numbers kind of are

00:19:13.300 | a pretty clear indicator. Like, if you like I said this on a podcast before, if you got

00:19:18.220 | readers of mine and Mark Manson, and ask them, who's the better writer, they would all say

00:19:22.900 | Mark and so would I like and I wouldn't be offended by that, right? So that's one thing.

00:19:29.300 | The other thing is people don't give it long enough to see progress that they quit before

00:19:34.820 | they hit the inflection point. They don't realize that, by the way, just because you

00:19:39.460 | can't see the progress and this takes us right back, I realized this is going to feel some

00:19:43.180 | of the circular. But part of the reason is that people are impatient. That's another

00:19:48.740 | reason they quit. They want they basically like I want to start a blog today and I want

00:19:52.220 | to be in New York. I mean, you saw this with me, man. Like, I guess I'm pretty sure you

00:19:55.900 | called me out on it in one of your blog posts.

00:19:57.940 | Yeah, I wasn't pretty. I wasn't nice. But I was I was befuddled at the time. I didn't

00:20:02.940 | name names. But I was like, but here's what you went to Indonesia or somewhere you're

00:20:07.940 | surfing or Costa Rica and you're like, I lost a year like since of our made a good point

00:20:13.620 | and he was right.

00:20:14.620 | I don't disagree with that assessment. Don't get me wrong. That was actually a very important

00:20:18.060 | point because it did actually inform a lot of the writing I did later on. So you don't

00:20:22.740 | always know, like how it's going to help. Like that actually ended up being a very instrumental

00:20:26.360 | sort of part of this entire journey. But on the on the flip side of that, since of our

00:20:31.420 | studies, like I think that like living in Costa Rica for six months cost you a year

00:20:35.780 | in terms of progress. And so that's the thing, right, is that like you look at the people

00:20:40.900 | who do this. The other thing is like at that point, my ego was way too fragile to hear

00:20:45.500 | the things I needed to hear. I only wanted to hear what I wanted to hear. Yeah. Whereas

00:20:49.300 | now like I'm giving feedback to a friend on a book and I told him I was like, look, you

00:20:53.220 | know, you and you guys want feedback on a manuscript. Just know that I don't have any

00:20:57.620 | ability to sugarcoat. I'm not going to tell you anything good. I'm going to probably tear

00:21:01.140 | this thing to shreds. And he's like, that's exactly what we want. And you've been through

00:21:04.740 | this process. You know what that's like. It's it's like an it's like an emotional root canal

00:21:09.020 | to have an editor work with you on a book. Yeah, because you have to learn to separate

00:21:13.180 | the feedback, you know, on you, like from feedback on the work. And because I had a

00:21:18.540 | writing coach and she had edited books for Seth Godin, this woman didn't sugarcoat shit

00:21:22.420 | like literally the closest thing I ever got from a compliment for her in two books was

00:21:28.580 | good. That was good. Most of the comments were lazy. Try again. Wow. Lazy. Try again.

00:21:35.860 | Ooh. Yeah. The thing is, well, here's the and I specifically chose her for that reason

00:21:41.220 | because I knew that she would hold me to a high standard like, you know, and that and

00:21:46.260 | even my mentor, Greg, like he rode my ass and you know, uh, there were times when I

00:21:50.260 | hated him for it. And I realized what he was doing was he was preparing me for higher stakes

00:21:53.900 | situations where I would have to be able to handle myself mentally. Isn't that interesting

00:21:58.460 | though? When we are younger, you know, we're less experienced and our Eagles are, I guess

00:22:05.060 | perhaps more fragile, but that's when we need the most amount of feedback and criticism

00:22:11.140 | to get better. And that's when we're the least open to it. Yeah. Yeah. So we think we know

00:22:15.420 | everything. I might have to write something about that. That's kind of like a, well, so

00:22:18.620 | I wrote this piece, um, titled advice to freshmen based on a conversation I was having with

00:22:23.060 | my cousin's friend's son who was starting college this year. It's on, on medium. And

00:22:27.220 | I think it, like I open it by saying, you have no idea how full of shit you are right

00:22:31.260 | now is like the whole sentence. Because think about who you were when you were 20 something

00:22:35.820 | versus who you are now. And think about how many things have changed, how much your perspective

00:22:39.380 | has changed. Cause I remember asking you about that blog post in which you called me out

00:22:42.300 | and even you admitted, you're like, yeah, I could have handled that better. Right? Like

00:22:45.020 | the, cause like, I remember at first I was like, ah, I'm like, you know, I was just like,

00:22:49.500 | cause I remember I used to think it was like, like I remember there's this long period probably

00:22:53.420 | here. I was like, Sam is a, the biggest dick. And then I remember the portfolio book came

00:22:57.740 | out and I was like, all right, you know what? You're part of the same imprint. And I was

00:23:00.860 | like the fact that you got a book deal with these guys, I'm like, I need to read this.

00:23:03.340 | And you know, like, and the funny thing is like, again, part of that was my own ego as

00:23:07.540 | well, you know, and probably part of that was yours.

00:23:10.060 | I need to give some background cause I don't think listeners know what we're talking about.

00:23:14.200 | So I wrote this post called, uh, are there really people who work 40 hours a week or

00:23:19.300 | less and complain why they can't get ahead? Okay. And I was right. I think I wrote it

00:23:24.180 | in 2009 when I was personally dying, uh, working 60, 70 hours a week, I was just getting pummeled

00:23:31.180 | and my stock portfolio and real estate portfolio were getting pummeled. So it was really more

00:23:35.240 | of a frustration and reflect a representation of how I was feeling. Like I was frustrated

00:23:40.220 | and I heard people complain like, wait, why don't I have more success and everything while

00:23:44.500 | I was just dying at in the office.

00:23:46.100 | Yeah. But you weren't wrong. That's the thing, you know, that's the best part is that you

00:23:50.500 | weren't actually wrong.

00:23:51.820 | Well, I mean, I definitely could have been more cordial, but you know, that was just

00:23:57.100 | kind of like me being young and being frustrated.

00:23:59.580 | But again, this is actually one of those interesting things about the way we create, right? Like

00:24:03.100 | you could have been more cordial, but you could have just done what you did, which meant

00:24:06.580 | it was more authentic. And you know, anytime you're going to create something that resonates,

00:24:09.860 | it's inevitably going to, like most polarizing things are usually the most resonant.

00:24:13.100 | Yeah. I mean, the post did do well. It did well, but it made no friends. It wasn't like,

00:24:19.660 | oh, Sam, come on my podcast. You know, it's like, so be careful people because I mean,

00:24:24.340 | you can be irreverent like I was and probably still am, but you got to be really confident

00:24:29.860 | in your ability if you're depending on whatever your creative endeavor is to grow.

00:24:33.820 | Well, not only that, like, you know, as you become, you know, as we talked about, as you

00:24:36.020 | become more and more of a public figure, everything changes. So like I wrote this entire piece

00:24:40.660 | about the psychology of building an audience on Medium. And like, it's probably the one

00:24:44.180 | of the most popular pieces I've written. And it was, it hit pretty hard. Like I didn't

00:24:48.300 | sugarcoat anything because I was like, look, I'm like building an audience is not just

00:24:51.980 | an exercise in marketing. It's also an exercise in your own mental, you know, psychology and

00:24:56.460 | how you come across. Like if you're a public figure, how you come across matters, right?

00:25:02.260 | You have to be able to control public perception. So you like, you think about the difference

00:25:06.220 | between somebody like a president tweeting, you know, versus you and I, like if what you

00:25:11.140 | say basically gets shared or heard by millions of people, you have to be mindful of how it

00:25:18.140 | can be twisted and misinterpreted. Like it's, you know, it's like this giant game of telephone

00:25:23.220 | where everything goes wrong.

00:25:24.220 | Cause like, I remember meeting Glenn Beck, you know, for the first time and like, this

00:25:27.260 | is something I learned from, we just asked, you know, watching him. I mean, Glenn has

00:25:30.580 | a, as a reputation that honestly he kind of brought on himself. Like if you go back and

00:25:34.020 | look at some of the things that he said, I asked him, I was like, you know, my audience

00:25:37.300 | kind of hates you.

00:25:40.140 | But I was like, but I was open minded enough to meet him. Cause I was like, clearly you

00:25:43.300 | and I agree on something. You loved my book. So why would I not want to talk to you? I

00:25:46.540 | remember that time. Yeah. You know? And I'm like, I didn't even know Glenn Beck was until

00:25:50.180 | then. Like literally I was like my dream media appearance of the daily show, which is literally

00:25:53.740 | the opposite of Glenn Beck. But you know, I just looked them up and I was like, Glenn

00:25:58.020 | Beck, I'm like, Oh, this guy worked at Fox news. And I just went to his like, you know,

00:26:01.300 | email form and I was like, Hey, I heard you mentioned my book on your show today. Thanks.

00:26:04.500 | I've always wanted to sell a thousand copies of a book. I really appreciate your shout

00:26:08.020 | out. I literally had no idea who he was.

00:26:10.900 | It's pretty random. He just picked it up.

00:26:13.380 | And then I remember I emailed a friend of mine, my friend Angela, and she was like,

00:26:16.860 | Srini, I don't think you realize how big a deal this is. She was like, go look at your

00:26:19.260 | Amazon dashboard. And the book had sold a thousand copies in one day. I was like, okay,

00:26:24.220 | wait a minute. And then he wrote back and you know, the whole media circus unfolded.

00:26:28.140 | But because I asked him about this, like, you know, you have this sort of persona and

00:26:32.340 | everybody who creates media in the public eye has a persona and there's always a gap

00:26:37.220 | between who you are on the internet and who you are in real life. Because listen, there

00:26:40.420 | are things that I will say to you off the record are off air that I would never in a

00:26:44.820 | million years say on a podcast, things that would basically be a PR crisis in the making.

00:26:51.380 | And so that's what you kind of have to realize. Like all of us have this persona when you're

00:26:55.900 | in the public eye, how you come across matters. And this is something I also learned from

00:26:59.740 | the whole Netflix reality TV thing. I mean, I know about that, right?

00:27:03.580 | Yes. Indian matchmaking. Srini was on episode, season one, episode one?

00:27:09.020 | Episode two, yeah. Or yeah, season one episode. But you notice the girl they matched me with,

00:27:12.220 | how much like negative press she got, right? Oh, she was kind of...

00:27:16.460 | Well, that's the thing. What that indicates in a lot of ways is her lack of self-awareness.

00:27:22.460 | Like, "Hey, I'm on camera. Millions of people are going to see this." There's a big difference

00:27:27.220 | between being genuine and authentic and just shooting from the hip and saying whatever

00:27:30.420 | comes to your mind. And I was already a public figure at that point. And when you're in the

00:27:34.260 | public eye, there are a lot of other things that come into play. So even you, for example,

00:27:37.900 | right? Now you are a portfolio author. So everything you do in the public eye reflects

00:27:42.500 | on your agent, it reflects on your editor, it reflects on portfolio. So suddenly your

00:27:48.500 | actions have consequences for other people. And that's what changes with growth. So if

00:27:54.740 | you think about famous people, the thing about the same stupid scandal that Justin Bieber

00:28:01.500 | has or Britney has, if you and I went and did whatever stupid shit they did, nobody

00:28:05.340 | would care. Or if you went and punched a random guy at an awards show, nobody would say a

00:28:10.540 | damn thing. But if Will Smith does it, the whole world knows because he's Will Smith.

00:28:18.020 | Like these things matter a lot and people don't really think about that.

00:28:21.820 | Yeah, it's something that I really don't like the limelight. I don't like any of that. The

00:28:28.140 | main reason why I came out to have a public face during the pandemic was because of all

00:28:33.820 | these incidences of Asian hate. And that really bummed me out.

00:28:37.020 | Yeah, I think that was a good reason.

00:28:38.020 | And I was like, "Let me show my face. Let me be more representative of the Asian community.

00:28:43.020 | Let me try to provide some value to people and maybe that'll provide more love and empathy

00:28:47.260 | for Asian people in this country."

00:28:49.220 | Yeah.

00:28:50.220 | Yeah, I mean, again, there's this guy, Steve Goldstein, who wrote a book. I don't remember

00:28:55.420 | the title, but the subtitle is How the Most Powerful People from Washington to Wall Street

00:29:00.060 | to Hollywood Get People to Like Them. And he had been a producer for Oprah and it's

00:29:04.220 | a really good book. It's one of the best books I've ever read. If you want to build a brand,

00:29:08.380 | anybody who's building a personal brand should read that book.

00:29:10.860 | Because there are a couple of things I took away from that book. It was like, okay, one,

00:29:16.980 | the public doesn't want to hear about your issues, right? Why does your audience turn

00:29:21.020 | to you? Because they want to be inspired. They want advice. They don't want to hear

00:29:25.580 | that, "Oh, I had a rough day because my kids are misbehaving." They don't give a shit.

00:29:31.340 | Yeah, unless there is a lesson in there for them, they don't care. And this is something

00:29:35.660 | ... There's this fine line between vulnerability and airing your dirty laundry and being a

00:29:40.820 | train wreck. And a lot of people don't know where that line is. Because it's really easy

00:29:44.540 | to get attention on the internet by being a train wreck. So I'll give you an example.

00:29:49.740 | I saw this post that this girl put on Facebook. She walked in on her boyfriend cheating on

00:29:54.500 | her and she literally posted it like 20 minutes after it happened. And of course, there's

00:29:58.700 | this outpouring of attention. The problem with that is that that doesn't serve anybody.

00:30:03.940 | And Danielle LaPorte actually had a really good way of describing it. She said that,

00:30:07.820 | "I don't write about or talk about a difficult experience until I finish processing it and

00:30:12.700 | there's something of value that I can pass to my audience from it."

00:30:15.380 | Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. I mean, it is interesting that nobody really cares because everybody's

00:30:21.500 | got their own problems. But at the same time, people like to be entertained. That's why

00:30:26.020 | reality TV shows ...

00:30:27.900 | Well, okay. Reality TV is not reality. Let's be honest. Reality is pretty boring. Because

00:30:34.940 | if it was like reality, anybody actually filmed the day-to-day reality, it's like, "Here's

00:30:38.620 | Srini brushing his teeth. Here's Srini taking a shit. Here's Srini taking a shower. Wow,

00:30:42.660 | this is really not that interesting." Reality TV is all made by editing, man.

00:30:46.820 | Yeah. No, I totally agree. I was on a reality TV show for one episode of My House is Worth

00:30:53.580 | What on HGTV. Yeah, and it was pretty interesting. Eight hours, seven hours of filming for like

00:30:59.860 | six, seven minutes.

00:31:00.860 | Exactly. I mean, I was in Houston, I think, for two days and you saw probably 20 minutes.

00:31:06.740 | But I also knew ... I had a cousin who told me, I asked him about this. He's like, "Look."

00:31:10.620 | He was like, "In reality," he said, "no matter what the media really says, he's like, 'Anybody

00:31:15.140 | can make you look like a jackass with the way they edit.' He said, 'But you got to remember

00:31:19.260 | the only thing they can use is what you give them.'"

00:31:21.860 | Right. Right. And you gave them good stuff. You didn't look like ...

00:31:25.260 | I gave them nothing that they could do against me. That's because I understood how to play

00:31:29.820 | it.

00:31:30.820 | Right. Right. Man, it's just such a crazy world. It's kind of ... The more attention

00:31:37.340 | you can get, if you're a creator or a business person, generally there's a correlation with

00:31:42.420 | revenue. And it's just how do you ...

00:31:44.140 | Yes and no.

00:31:45.140 | What? No?

00:31:46.140 | Yes and no. So, okay. I think that ... Here's the thing. I wouldn't necessarily say that

00:31:50.620 | attention equates to revenue because you know what? You and I could go just ape shit and

00:31:55.620 | you could be like, "All right, Shringy and I are going to go out and do cocaine. We're

00:31:58.300 | going to film the thing. We're going to go to strip clubs. We could put it on Facebook,

00:32:01.500 | Instagram."

00:32:02.500 | Okay.

00:32:03.500 | We'd get millions of views. I don't think that would do much for either of our bottom

00:32:05.500 | lines. So, attention directly doesn't correlate to revenue because there are different types

00:32:11.660 | of attention. You can get attention for being a train wreck or you can get positive attention.

00:32:19.220 | There are varying degrees to that. It's nuanced. I wouldn't say it ... Unless it's like, "Hey,

00:32:24.060 | I own BuzzFeed and I'm going to basically publish these bat shit crazy stories of people

00:32:28.060 | like Shringy and Sam going out and doing all this crazy shit." They would be the ones making

00:32:31.100 | the money. You and I wouldn't.

00:32:33.060 | Or like Gawker, but then Hulk Hogan sued Gawker and then they went out of business. So, that's

00:32:37.740 | not good.

00:32:38.740 | Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's nuanced, right? So, that's the thing. This is why context

00:32:43.300 | matters a lot. And this is, I think, the thing that was so sort of overlooked by almost everybody

00:32:49.860 | in a lot of ways. I always jokingly say that my first book, Unmistakable, could have been

00:32:53.740 | called Everybody is Full of Shit, even though I'm sure Penguin wouldn't have been ready

00:32:58.780 | to publish that. But I have been working on a book about cognitive biases called Everybody

00:33:02.360 | is Full of Shit, including me.

00:33:03.820 | I think that would be a fascinating read.

00:33:06.460 | Well, if you think about it, in various contexts, this is something that I will say to your

00:33:11.860 | audience that I've said over and over to people on podcasts is that you should consider the

00:33:15.380 | possibility that every single thing I have said up until this point is potential ... like

00:33:19.300 | complete bullshit, because in the context of your life, it could be. You change the

00:33:24.380 | context and you change the results that you get. All prescriptive advice is context dependent,

00:33:29.700 | right? So let's just take the example of like a ... so let's take a podcasting course as

00:33:36.100 | an example. Two people sign up for the course. I sign up for the course, let's just assume

00:33:41.700 | it's 2009, which is already one major point of context, right? I have people come and

00:33:45.300 | say, "Well, you teach me how to start a podcast." I'm like, "I don't know the first thing about

00:33:48.180 | growing a podcast. I started 15 years ago and I was lucky. I don't know jack shit about

00:33:53.580 | marketing a podcast. I literally plugged a microphone into a laptop and I had a 10 year

00:33:58.300 | head start on something that was a gigantic cultural trend. I know the things I've learned

00:34:03.580 | from people, but let's say you take me and we put me in a podcasting course. As you know

00:34:09.780 | from knowing me, I'm fairly outgoing. I like to talk to people. Then we bring in this introverted

00:34:14.540 | visual artist who's really great at making visual art and some friend of hers is like,

00:34:18.860 | "Oh, you got to get on this podcast bandwagon." Who do you think is going to be successful

00:34:23.060 | regardless of the ... even though we're taking the same course, we're doing the same things,

00:34:26.900 | I'm going to absolutely obliterate her because of the fact that the context is different.

00:34:31.020 | I'm coming to it with a different set of strengths.

00:34:33.300 | Granted, now let's say we reverse the situations. We're signing up for an online art class and

00:34:37.900 | I'm like, "Okay, everybody should start making their own art and posting it on Instagram."

00:34:41.420 | So I sign up for the class and she's this incredibly talented visual artist. Guess what?

00:34:45.380 | She's going to obliterate me in that case because the context matters. We don't like

00:34:49.580 | the idea ... there are a lot of things people hate in self-improvement. One of the big ones

00:34:53.060 | being genetic determinism. That's nonsensical. Your genes matter. I'm sorry to say that.

00:34:59.500 | You and I are not going to the NBA. No matter how hard we work out, you and I are not going

00:35:04.300 | to be competing with LeBron James. He wouldn't even play a game of pick up with you and I.

00:35:07.340 | Unless you gave him a shit ton of money, which you might have in your bank account, but I

00:35:11.780 | don't.

00:35:12.780 | Yeah, I was looking at becoming a video coordinator for the Warriors. That would be fun. Just

00:35:17.140 | get on the plane with them.

00:35:18.140 | That would be a fun job, right?

00:35:19.140 | Yeah.

00:35:20.140 | I remember when Eric Spolster, Miami Heat became ... the only reason I know these things

00:35:25.220 | is because I play NBA 2K. That's how I've learned all these random facts from video

00:35:29.660 | games. I didn't even realize the Denver Nuggets were the champions until a night ago. My cousin

00:35:34.900 | was like, "Oh, the Nuggets won the championship." I was like, "Really? I didn't know that."

00:35:40.740 | Talk to me about the business of podcasting because it's grown huge, but it seems like

00:35:47.300 | there's step functions. How does one get sponsors? How does one make money from podcasts?

00:35:53.500 | The way that all media makes money. Media makes money ... Generally, if you look at

00:35:58.060 | media from the get go, let's just go back to the early days of media, pre-internet.

00:36:04.060 | How did radio shows make money? How do television shows make money? Why is your cable $20 a

00:36:09.180 | month? Because somebody is always subsidizing it. No matter ... even if you consume something

00:36:13.620 | for free, somebody is always paying for that. That's why when people bitch about ads, I'm

00:36:18.460 | like, "Great. Then send me the check that comes from my advertiser and we'll get rid

00:36:21.780 | of the ads." I'm like, "Otherwise, stop complaining about it." You can't complain that you're

00:36:26.200 | getting something for free. Why are people complaining about free content? Why? Don't

00:36:30.980 | get me wrong. That's a whole other rant. Think about it. Even the people who ... Let's talk

00:36:36.340 | about this from the standpoint of your newsletter so people have a better context. All the people

00:36:40.020 | who read your newsletter for free, who've never bought your books or done anything,

00:36:43.980 | guess what? All the people who buy your books are subsidizing their ability to consume that

00:36:48.540 | content. They're the ones that are paying for everybody else. That is at a foundational

00:36:53.820 | level kind of how media works. Somebody is always paying for you. There's no such thing

00:36:58.980 | as content that's free. Somebody is always paying for it.

00:37:01.580 | Except for this podcast so far. I have no advertisers.

00:37:05.300 | The thing is, you have an email list. Those same people who basically bought your books,

00:37:09.660 | whoever has made ... Anybody who's ever paid you any money, or in this case, you might

00:37:13.580 | be the only person subsidizing it, which for a lot of creators ... Let's say you start

00:37:16.820 | a newsletter. You're the one subsidizing people's ability to consume that free newsletter. That's

00:37:23.420 | sort of the base level. We need sort of a foundation to start with.

00:37:26.340 | Now, of course, how does media get measured? With impressions. If you think about why is

00:37:31.020 | a Super Bowl ad, God knows how much, a million dollars for 30 seconds? You'll have to fact

00:37:37.420 | check.

00:37:38.420 | I think it's much more now.

00:37:39.420 | It's just a random number. We're just doing this for the sake ... Because it's based on

00:37:43.340 | the number of people who watch the Super Bowl. That's why. The flip side of that is what

00:37:50.860 | has happened as a byproduct of the internet is that the media landscape has become much

00:37:55.140 | more fragmented. What has happened is that people like you and me with damn near free

00:38:00.380 | or low cost resources, tools, and distribution channels can get on the air, have a conversation

00:38:05.540 | like this, and you can send it out to 50, 60,000 people. That is like a game changer.

00:38:11.100 | Now, what that creates, of course, is massive fragmentation in the media landscape because

00:38:15.980 | basically, I think Seth Godin put it well. He said you went from 500 channels ... Because

00:38:21.540 | if you think about it, before the internet, what did we have? We had sort of 500 channels

00:38:24.980 | maybe maximum to consume content, whether that's TV, radio, newspapers. You went from

00:38:30.620 | that to 500,000 and at this point a million.

00:38:34.380 | So inevitably, there are two things that have to happen. One is that standing out in that

00:38:38.020 | sea of noise is not a matter of success. It's a matter of survival. That was one phrase

00:38:44.100 | that I'd said over and over in blog posts. I was like, "I really wish I had actually

00:38:47.380 | got that phrase into the book because I thought it sounded so punchy and I never managed to."

00:38:52.740 | But it's true. You have to be able to stand out in the sea of noise. That's why this whole

00:38:57.300 | "Let me do what everybody else does and make it work" very rarely works. You bring a unique

00:39:02.860 | perspective and unique voice. You brought your perspective. Perspective is really important.

00:39:07.300 | Point of view is the thing. Justine Musk put it well. She said, "If you have a bold and

00:39:12.100 | compelling point of view, it's probably going to piss somebody off." That's okay. It has

00:39:15.860 | to. You have to be willing to do that if you want to stand out.

00:39:20.500 | So now you have this fragmentation issue. So with fragmentation, what changes here is

00:39:26.300 | something different. Loyalty becomes a lot more valuable than reach. Sam Altman put it

00:39:32.580 | well. He was talking about this in the context of startups. He said, "It's better to have

00:39:36.420 | a small number of people who absolutely love what you do than a large group of people who

00:39:41.860 | are lukewarm." Because the thing is that small number of people who love what you do is way

00:39:45.900 | more scalable over the long haul. You want fanatics, not followers.

00:39:52.220 | And that's the thing. You want the people – so think about it. An email list – I'll

00:39:55.780 | give you another example. I have a friend who started his business long after I did.

00:39:59.820 | It was like three or four years ago. We had an email list of 6,000 or 7,000 people. He

00:40:04.940 | had an email list of 200 people. First product launch, I think, generated something like

00:40:08.700 | $25,000 or $30,000. And why is that? Because those people were very specific, qualified

00:40:15.740 | people for the thing that he was selling. So these are 200 people who want to hear from

00:40:21.140 | him every week. So you're better off with 5,000 people who open every email you send

00:40:25.900 | than 50 million who don't open half of them. I mean, inevitably, those numbers will change

00:40:30.180 | as you grow.

00:40:33.260 | But the thing is that – and I realize you asked me about the business of podcasting,

00:40:36.900 | but you kind of can't talk about the business of podcasting without talking about the business

00:40:39.920 | of media at large. So if you think about sort of what has happened, right? Over this time

00:40:45.300 | period, as this media landscape has become fragmented, it's not just people like you

00:40:48.780 | and I who are also trying to figure this out now. The big media companies, the biggest

00:40:52.420 | threat to them is people like you and I. Like the fact that Joe Rogan is more popular than

00:40:58.420 | some well-known media pundit who's been working at CNN for 30 years is very telling.

00:41:04.700 | And so one of the things that happens – and there are a lot of people who are like, "Oh,

00:41:08.060 | I want to be the next Oprah." And I was like, "That's absolutely not a smart goal.

00:41:11.900 | It's in fact a stupid goal. One, because you're not going to be the next Oprah. But

00:41:15.540 | two, the reality of our media landscape – and WBEZ did a podcast about this called The Making

00:41:20.500 | of Oprah, and one of the producers of Oprah herself said there is no way there will be

00:41:24.180 | another Oprah because the media – because think about when Oprah started. Like you didn't

00:41:28.660 | have the internet, right? She predates the internet and by the time the internet came

00:41:32.220 | around, Oprah was already Oprah. And so when you have such a fragmented media landscape,

00:41:38.460 | there's just no way that's possible in this environment. But loyalty on the other

00:41:44.460 | hand scales very well. So then how do you monetize that?

00:41:48.820 | Ads – unfortunately, ads basically depend on one thing and that's numbers, right? And

00:41:53.380 | so advertising for the most part is a pretty shitty business model for independent creators.

00:42:00.100 | We just happen to be in a position where we can generate enough off of ads to make a decent

00:42:04.300 | living, but there's no way I could depend entirely on ads. Like I have an online – like

00:42:07.860 | I've started a completely separate business which is like a knowledge management business.

00:42:12.220 | That will – my guess is in – it's like a knowledge management and AI consulting business.

00:42:17.740 | Within the next year, I'm pretty sure the revenue from that will dwarf the revenue from

00:42:20.980 | Unmistakable Creative unless we hit millions of listeners. So it depends. Like if you're

00:42:25.420 | Jordan Harbinger, yeah, I mean he's probably banking $60,000, $70,000 a month easy, maybe

00:42:31.060 | more.

00:42:32.060 | Trevor Burrus: Who's Jordan Harbinger?

00:42:33.060 | Patrick Shephard: Jordan Harbinger runs a podcast called The Jordan Harbinger Show.

00:42:35.220 | It's like wildly popular. He's got – I think he actually signed a $2 million or $3

00:42:40.700 | million contract with Podcast One or one of these big like podcast networks just because

00:42:46.300 | he had the audience. He had the numbers. So if you have those kinds of numbers, then you

00:42:52.540 | can support yourself with ads. But for the overwhelming majority of people, especially

00:42:56.460 | people who are starting out, it's just not viable. You also want to think about, "OK.

00:43:01.700 | Is this really the best way to monetize my skills? Is this the channel where I'm going

00:43:05.700 | to shine?"

00:43:06.700 | Why did I take the podcasting? Because Sid Sivar said I was a shitty writer and he was

00:43:11.820 | right. Like I'm a much better interviewer than I am a writer and I know that. Like I'm

00:43:16.100 | aware of that. That's why I have no like issue saying – like I didn't get another

00:43:18.660 | book deal after my books came out. I was like, "You know what?" Like I came to terms

00:43:22.100 | with the fact that I write for myself if my audience happens to like it, great. But the

00:43:25.260 | podcast is what I do for my audience primarily.

00:43:27.460 | Trevor Burrus: Right. So it sounds like a tough road to make enough money from a podcast

00:43:34.460 | to provide basic living expenses. So for those who are thinking about – I mean so I guess

00:43:39.860 | one, how can listeners support us creators, us podcasters? And two, should people start

00:43:46.420 | their own podcast?

00:43:47.420 | Steven Wooten: Well, let's talk about supporting creators. Like I think that they're really

00:43:51.140 | sort of different forms. I mean you can support people by supporting them financially. Like

00:43:55.700 | buy Sam's book if you haven't bought it yet. So shameless plug for Sam's book.

00:43:59.020 | Trevor Burrus: And Trini's too.

00:44:00.580 | Steven Wooten: Yeah. But the other thing, the big one really is tell other people, right?

00:44:06.620 | Because your audience is like your ideal marketing channel because they don't cost as – it's

00:44:10.940 | like if you're going to consume this for free, help us spread the word for free. That

00:44:15.580 | is what I would say is that – and it's not easy. Like look, you and I probably – I

00:44:20.420 | mean how much content do you and I consume that we never share? Let's be honest. Like

00:44:23.500 | I probably read hundreds of articles. I don't tweet those articles, share them with my audience

00:44:26.940 | or anything like that.

00:44:27.940 | Trevor Burrus: Sure, sure. That makes sense. Yeah.

00:44:28.940 | Steven Wooten: It's not easy. I mean we're – but the thing is like share with somebody

00:44:33.260 | who you actually think would benefit from it. So that is one thing I do do is like I

00:44:36.700 | share with friends and family members. When I read something interesting, I'm like, "Oh,

00:44:40.020 | OK. Cool." Like this person would find this interesting. That's actually how a lot of

00:44:44.220 | our growth happens is like we have people who – like if you look at some of the writings

00:44:47.820 | reviews, like one woman is like, "My entire family listens to the show." That's what

00:44:51.620 | you want, right? Those are really – that's a huge form of support. Spreading the word

00:44:56.740 | is literally the most supportive thing you could do that costs you nothing other than

00:45:00.500 | a few seconds of your time.

00:45:01.820 | Trevor Burrus: And how valuable or invaluable are reviews? The number of views, the level

00:45:07.580 | of reviews?

00:45:08.580 | Steven Wooten: So there's – the iTunes algorithm for podcasts is kind of a mystery

00:45:13.540 | like everything else at Apple. It's like the Bermuda Triangle of information. Rumor

00:45:18.780 | has it it actually has more to do with the number of weekly subscribers, new subscribers

00:45:23.980 | than it does reviews that determine like where you go in the rankings. Reviews are social

00:45:28.260 | proof though, right? Like I don't know about you. I very – even on Amazon, I almost

00:45:32.580 | never read the book reviews. I just download the free Kindle chapter first because like

00:45:35.460 | I don't care if somebody else hated the book. I want to know if I'm going to like

00:45:37.780 | it.

00:45:38.780 | Now again, for certain products, like there will be certain things that I want. Like so

00:45:42.580 | for example, if I'm going to buy – like I'm trying to find – I've been wasting

00:45:45.580 | money on lattes at Starbucks and I don't really care that much about lattes. This is

00:45:48.940 | like one of those things. It's like I should cut relentlessly on this because I don't

00:45:51.860 | give a shit. But I want a latte maker that I know will take as little time as possible

00:45:56.340 | in the morning because I don't want to sit here with a stupid – that I would actually

00:45:59.620 | go and look at the reviews to see if the function is there that I need.

00:46:03.620 | I bought a tool, a microphone when I was traveling and I wanted to make sure that the sound was

00:46:07.420 | good. So I looked at the reviews for things like that. But like – so reviews – like

00:46:13.620 | reviews are social proof more than anything else, right? Like if you go into – and I

00:46:17.060 | will tell you this. Like I've had people who try to email me and be like, "Hey,

00:46:19.540 | I have a podcast," and I go and look and I'm like, "OK, this thing has like two

00:46:22.380 | reviews." I'm like, "Nobody listens to this show."

00:46:24.780 | So it's like, "OK, if you see a podcast with 1,005 star reviews, it's like, OK,

00:46:29.020 | there's some cred there. Like there's credibility."

00:46:30.860 | Oh, absolutely.

00:46:31.860 | That more than any – it's just – reviews basically – I don't know how – what

00:46:34.380 | impact they have on rankings. You will have to fact check me on this. But I think more

00:46:37.740 | than anything, they just shape perception. Like you're much more likely to subscribe

00:46:41.460 | to something if there are 1,005 star reviews than if there are like zero reviews.

00:46:45.340 | Right. You know, one of the interesting things I've noticed about the creator economy

00:46:49.580 | is that there are people who don't seem to have the experience, the relevant experience

00:46:56.300 | and talk about things that it doesn't seem like they should be talking about.

00:47:01.100 | That's the entire internet, man.

00:47:04.380 | One of the reasons why I started Financial Timeline in 2009 was because I felt I needed

00:47:08.980 | at least 10 years of experience in finance before talking about finance. So I graduated

00:47:13.660 | in 1999. So I was like, "I'm going to wait for 10 years." But before that, I

00:47:17.300 | was just – I was seeing people, how to get rich.

00:47:20.180 | So you noticed – do you notice the one topic that I very rarely talk about on anything

00:47:24.900 | I write is money? Why? Because I don't have any credibility in that arena. Like I need

00:47:29.740 | to learn from people like you. Your evidence backs it up. Like you have experience. But

00:47:34.100 | I will write – like I don't think you could hold a candle to me when it comes to

00:47:37.140 | writing about creativity. Like that's my expertise, right? And if you want to talk

00:47:41.580 | about building systems for productivity, like I would outperform you by a long shot on that.

00:47:49.900 | But again, to your point, like there are a lot of people – basically it was like the

00:47:54.620 | curse of knowledge. What is that – there's a term for this, the Dunning-Kruger effect

00:48:00.620 | where people think they know more than they do.

00:48:02.300 | It's delusion.

00:48:03.300 | Yeah.

00:48:04.300 | But how do we help listeners and readers separate reality from fiction I guess? Or is it just

00:48:10.980 | entertainment because it just doesn't cost anything?

00:48:11.980 | Well, on the internet, you – so part of it is that. But you also have to be willing

00:48:16.660 | to question and like have skepticism about what you're hearing. Like I told you, you

00:48:21.620 | should think – consider the possibility of everything I'm telling you is bullshit

00:48:25.100 | because you need to think about everything that you hear in the context of your own life.

00:48:29.220 | Like I remember some girl wrote this piece about the creator economy being a gold mine

00:48:32.660 | and I was like, "That's horse shit. It's not." I'm like, "The creator economy

00:48:35.620 | is a developing country. It's ripe with inequality." Like you can't use outliers

00:48:41.060 | to make generalized statements.

00:48:43.020 | This is actually one of the big problems with success literature in general is that almost

00:48:48.420 | all success literature is based on stories about buyers. Like because you don't put

00:48:52.420 | people on the covers of magazines when they spend years working their asses off and amount

00:48:55.420 | to nothing.

00:48:56.420 | Yeah.

00:48:57.420 | And so like if you read stories – and even Paul Graham talks about this in his essay

00:49:00.580 | on wealth which if you're just having read that, you should link that up for them. It's

00:49:04.380 | really good. But he says at the very beginning like people like Bill Gates are not good role

00:49:08.540 | models because he's an outlier.

00:49:10.540 | Yeah.

00:49:11.540 | He said he's like Bill Gates, people seem to forget, was like the beneficiary of one

00:49:14.900 | of the most spectacular blunders in the history of business. That IBM selling him that operating

00:49:19.420 | system for 50 grand. He said from that point forward, all he had to do was execute. It's

00:49:23.020 | like would Bill Gates have been rich? Yes. Would he have been Forbes top 10 rich? No.

00:49:29.700 | And so we forget that, right? So like the problem is that if you – or you look at

00:49:34.540 | Elon, right, as an example. It's like Granted, Elon has gone off the deep end but the problem

00:49:40.140 | is that – my mentor Greg used to talk about this. He's like there's this distinction

00:49:43.680 | between probability and possibility, right? Like is it possible that you could achieve

00:49:48.740 | at the level of Elon or Bill Gates or you and I could get to the NBA? Yeah. Is it probable?

00:49:54.740 | Hell no. Especially the NBA thing. So that's where you have to really understand is the

00:49:59.540 | distinction is like, OK, and what determines the probability of your ability to accomplish

00:50:04.940 | something is the context. Like context plays a big role in the probability of your success.

00:50:10.900 | So think about – go back to the podcasting example. You can't deny the fact that I

00:50:17.460 | had a 10-year head start and that was pretty damn instrumental in me getting to where I'm

00:50:22.380 | at. Like I wouldn't be where – like if I started today, nobody would know who I am.

00:50:28.060 | I mean relatively speaking, nobody knows who I am. Like I always say I'm the most connected

00:50:31.860 | person nobody knows. Well, in terms of outliers, do you think we are outliers or we are just

00:50:38.260 | people who just kept on grinding to get to where we are? So you and I have some – we

00:50:42.860 | had outlier advantages, right? So let's look at where we are outliers. One, we had

00:50:48.220 | a big head start on something that – like even blogging, we're well ahead of the curve.

00:50:52.700 | By the time – even 2009, we were kind of late to the game but we were way earlier than

00:50:56.660 | most people. Like it was a lot easier to build an audience back then than it is now.

00:51:00.300 | Well, think about it. Right now, it's easier than ever to start and it's harder than

00:51:04.580 | ever to stand out. Like back then, it was pretty simple. It was just like you build

00:51:07.620 | a blog, you comment. I mean how did I meet you? I think it was because I commented on

00:51:10.500 | your blog post. Like literally that's how we met and that was kind of part of the way

00:51:13.300 | you grew. You basically commented on other people's blogs and you just – and the

00:51:17.420 | same things that worked then wouldn't work now. So that plays a role, right?

00:51:24.420 | The other thing we have to think about is like look at our backgrounds. I mean I don't

00:51:28.060 | know what your parents did for work but we came –

00:51:31.220 | They worked in the government.

00:51:32.940 | Yeah. So relatively speaking, we came from privileged circumstances. Like my dad being

00:51:37.740 | a college professor, there's no question whether you or I were going to go to college.

00:51:43.220 | So you can't basically say, "OK. Well, why is the person who grew up in the hood

00:51:47.140 | getting shot at who has the same books that you and I do not getting the same results?

00:51:52.140 | Well, you and I didn't grow up getting shot at, watching people sell drugs on the street

00:51:56.540 | corner. That makes a difference. Context matters a lot. So yes, in some ways you and I are

00:52:03.140 | outliers. Like maybe not – so we have to think about this outlier thing to varying

00:52:07.140 | degrees, right?

00:52:08.140 | Yeah.

00:52:09.140 | Are we Elon Musk outlier? No. But are we outliers? Yes.

00:52:13.940 | Interesting. It is interesting because the longer I go about the creative part of things,

00:52:19.180 | the more I think, "Well, if you just keep on going, something good will eventually happen."

00:52:25.260 | I feel that.

00:52:26.640 | There is a grain of truth to that but again, context, right? So there are times when it

00:52:33.100 | would make sense for you to stop, to quit where you're like, "All right." So I'll

00:52:36.860 | give you an example. So when my friend Gareth launched his Airtable consulting business

00:52:42.700 | and I saw it like just blossom into this like wildly successful business in like nine months,

00:52:47.100 | I thought to myself, "Well, you know what? I use Notion. I really love Notion and I don't

00:52:50.700 | even use Notion anymore. So I'm going to basically use his exact same model and I'm

00:52:54.540 | going to basically start putting these tutorials on YouTube for Notion."

00:52:59.460 | The thing that had happened by that point is I was so far like so late to the game for

00:53:03.180 | that. There were already like a hundred people doing tutorials on Notion who were doing better

00:53:06.520 | tutorials than mine. But when Mem, the tool I use now, came along, I saw an opportunity

00:53:12.820 | and I was like, "You know what? I have an opportunity here to actually be the de facto

00:53:16.180 | guy." Like Mem, even the team at Mem calls me their product evangelist. And I was like,

00:53:22.580 | "Okay." Because what was different? One, is I was first. Two, I had all this knowledge

00:53:26.860 | that I could apply to it. And three, the timing had changed. Like now AI is generative AI

00:53:32.060 | is huge. Like there's all these trends in generative AI. And I know how to use this

00:53:36.140 | stuff in a way that most people don't. Like I know a lot about automation that I learned

00:53:39.460 | from my friend Gareth's Airtable consulting business. And largely because I built these

00:53:44.180 | systems for running my own business. So like all the systems I use for running my own business,

00:53:48.060 | I was like, "Wait a minute. This is a business in and of itself." But it was like a business

00:53:52.140 | that emerged organically. And the way I went about it was very different from Unmistakable.

00:53:56.260 | Right from the get-go, I was like, "I'm going to create YouTube videos. I'm going to collect

00:53:59.340 | email addresses and I'm going to use those email addresses to sell these people a course

00:54:02.480 | and sell them consulting." I was like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So it was very intentional

00:54:06.820 | right from the get-go. And I've spent $5 a day driving ads to these videos. And I think,

00:54:10.500 | I mean, relatively speaking, it's small, but we have about 2,000 subscribers on this YouTube

00:54:13.980 | channel now.

00:54:14.980 | Okay. And it sounds like this opportunity came about because you've been in the game.

00:54:20.620 | Yeah. I mean, so that's the thing, right? So there is value to continuing going. So

00:54:25.580 | you kind of have to think about, okay, you can't let sunk cost bias keep you doing something

00:54:30.140 | that you shouldn't continue to do. It's worth having kill criteria where you say, "Okay,

00:54:34.380 | this is what any Duke wrote about this in her most recent book of the power of knowing

00:54:38.020 | when to walk away." And there is value in that. It's like, okay, I'm going to give this

00:54:42.860 | to like X date, because otherwise it's very easy to just get into this sort of Sisyphean

00:54:48.700 | effort that leads nowhere. Like if you spent 15 years doing something and it's not getting

00:54:53.860 | you somewhere, then maybe you should call it quits. Because I think that that's the

00:54:58.780 | problem with a lot of prescriptive cliched advice is that it just gives you these nice

00:55:03.800 | motivational slogans like winners never quit, which is horseshit. Like that's terrible advice.

00:55:08.460 | There are times when you should quit.

00:55:09.980 | Yeah. You know, you've interviewed so many creators over the years. What would you say

00:55:16.580 | the two, three attributes are that they have that maybe non-creators or just regular folks

00:55:23.460 | don't have? What makes them stand out?

00:55:25.820 | I think that the things that make them stand out are there in everybody. They're just latent,

00:55:29.660 | right? So the first one I think is a really bold point of view and a willingness to express

00:55:37.820 | that point of view unapologetically. The second is the ability to overcome their social programming

00:55:44.460 | and basically write their own script, right? Because like if you think about it, all of

00:55:47.660 | us are the byproduct of inherited scripts that we've inherited from media, parents,

00:55:50.660 | peer society, whatever. Like we've been told all these narratives our entire lives. So

00:55:54.140 | like this is what your good life is supposed to look like. But that's based on somebody

00:55:58.340 | else's script. Like that's not what your good life looks like necessarily. It's like, you

00:56:01.460 | know, Rameen talks about in Rich Life, he's like, your rich life should fit you like a

00:56:04.260 | velvet glove. Like you and I probably have very different versions of what a rich life

00:56:07.060 | looks like. And we should. And that's one big problem on the internet is that people

00:56:13.060 | basically look at other people's goals as their sort of baseline. They think that they're

00:56:17.940 | their own goals, but the reality is like you're basically letting somebody else determine

00:56:21.420 | how you live your life.

00:56:23.660 | So like even what you go back to this four hour work week idea, right? I was like, oh,

00:56:27.820 | is that really success on your own terms? I'm like, you've literally just traded in,

00:56:30.900 | you know, the sort of corporate America definition of success for Tim Ferriss's definition of

00:56:34.140 | success. That's not your definition of success. So overcoming their social programming is

00:56:40.300 | one. And then I think the other one is just a relentless work ethic. You know, like every

00:56:45.100 | one of them works. Like I mean, to your point, like the funny thing is like I realized once,

00:56:51.260 | you know, reality set in and I knew that I wanted to really build a business like, like

00:56:56.060 | it's no coincidence that when I came back from Costa Rica and I started working and

00:56:58.860 | consistently busting my ass, the business changed for the better. Like, you know, do

00:57:04.300 | I still want to like be able to surf for a couple hours every day? Yeah. And ironically,

00:57:07.340 | now I have more freedom to do that and I spend more time working.

00:57:11.580 | The success of work often is more work. So be careful.

00:57:15.100 | It's yeah. Be careful what you wish for because like the the other, oh, actually this is really

00:57:20.340 | actually probably the foundational thing at the core of all of it is the ability to

00:57:24.740 | manage their psychology. Right. They don't like if you look at sort of high performers

00:57:30.220 | at every level, they like just were talking top of their game. And I never forgot this.

00:57:34.780 | This was like one of the most useful nuggets I got from the Tim Ferriss interview. Right.

00:57:38.300 | He was he was telling me a story about how he was with Matt Mullenweg, the founder of

00:57:42.060 | Atomic, the guy who created WordPress. They were like Indonesia. Yeah. And apparently

00:57:48.180 | one of their data centers was down and somebody called that and he was like, OK, great. He

00:57:52.300 | was like, well, tell him we're on it. And Tim Ferriss looks at him and he was like,

00:57:56.140 | isn't that a big deal? Which you think right for WordPress, a data center being down is

00:58:00.020 | a big deal. Yeah. And he was like, yeah, there's nothing I can do about it. People are working

00:58:03.780 | on it. And he said that always stayed with him. And so he had this sort of phrase that

00:58:07.060 | he would ask himself any time something crazy happened. He was like, what would Matt Mullenweg

00:58:10.220 | do? And it's funny because I noticed that in myself, because I remember once when I

00:58:15.820 | was having a hosting issue, this is like in the day, like early, early days of blogging,

00:58:19.020 | like my site went down and I was because we had a post go viral or something like that.

00:58:22.540 | And we're on go to stressful. Yeah. And but the funny thing is that like I had an issue

00:58:27.820 | with one of our online courses where people couldn't access the course for about two days.

00:58:32.500 | And I was like, yeah, guys, I'm on it. You know, like I was like, what is the point of

00:58:38.460 | me freaking out over that? Because I realized like my mom is like this and I realized my

00:58:42.420 | mom would be a billionaire if she could take her energy and put it into non-trivial things.

00:58:45.780 | But she puts so much energy into trivial things like, oh, the towel needs to be hung like

00:58:49.220 | this. So it dries the shoes in the shoe closet need to all be symmetrical, which they never

00:58:53.420 | are. I'm like, like if you would spend this energy and directed towards something important,

00:58:58.300 | then you could actually accomplish something. It's like they don't spend time, energy or

00:59:01.900 | attention on trivial things. And even on important things, they understand that like freaking

00:59:08.380 | the hell out over it doesn't change the situation. So they really know how to emotional regulation

00:59:13.580 | and managing a psychology. That's the foundation, I would say, of all of them. We're really,

00:59:18.220 | really good at what they do. Like nothing really rattled. Like even if they're rattled,

00:59:22.180 | you would never know it. Yeah, that's I think that's so true. And that takes us back to

00:59:26.980 | the public for you and I don't have the luxury of being rattled. So I'll give you an example.

00:59:31.380 | You know, I met this girl in India and she came to visit and, you know, it didn't work

00:59:37.100 | out. I mean, she kind of just blew me off. And I remember the night before my brother

00:59:41.700 | called me. He's like, Yeah, man, are you OK? I was like, Listen, man, I don't have the

00:59:44.060 | luxury of like sitting here crying over some girl. I'm like, I have a speaking engagement

00:59:47.660 | tomorrow. I got to be on my game. That's the other thing. You are never not on your game.

00:59:52.380 | Like that's just the reality of public eye. No matter what. The truth is that your personal

00:59:57.140 | life is basically like your own problem. When you're the guy, you cannot have meltdowns.

01:00:03.580 | Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate that insight. I mean, the podcast is amazing.

01:00:13.540 | Your endurance for 13 years recording all those episodes. I'm basically starting off

01:00:18.900 | on my interview journey. So I really appreciate you coming on. It's been wonderful. Yeah,

01:00:22.740 | man, this has been fun. I love conversation. It's like one of my favorite things about

01:00:26.980 | like the interviews. I rarely get interviewed. Like I'm always doing the interview. But like

01:00:31.100 | I've walked away from this with like a, you know, you made me think about the outlier

01:00:33.980 | ideas like, Oh, I have like three different blog posts I could write based on this conversation.

01:00:37.660 | Well, that's awesome. Well, I hope we keep in touch. Yeah, I'm always around. And I really

01:00:42.940 | admire that you've had so much grit to keep on going and grow your Unmistakable Media

01:00:47.360 | podcast and all your businesses. So it's been great seeing you stick with it. It's awesome.

01:00:53.060 | Yeah, well, I mean, people can find out about us at unmistakablecreative.com. And that's

01:00:58.020 | where you can find the podcast. And then we have an online note taking course called maximize

01:01:01.540 | your output.com, which basically will allow you to use, you'll basically be like Tony

01:01:05.540 | Stark having your own Jarvis with your knowledge management system. That's awesome. And we'll

01:01:09.460 | link to those shows and products in the show notes. All right. Thanks so much. Yeah. Take

01:01:16.460 | care.

01:01:16.740 | - See you later.

01:01:18.080 | ♫ music ♫

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