How Do I Create a Breakout Podcast? | Jordan Harbinger And Cal Newport
Chapters
0:0 Cal's intro1:20 Harbinger's experience
4:20 Retention
11:50 Harbinger's runway
00:00:00.000 | All right, let's do some questions.
00:00:02.760 | Again, all these questions should relate one way
00:00:05.080 | or the other to the general theme of today's show.
00:00:07.560 | Our first question was about podcasting,
00:00:10.640 | the ambition to build a podcast.
00:00:12.320 | And so I asked good friend, Jordan Harbinger,
00:00:15.200 | host of the Jordan Harbinger Show,
00:00:16.520 | if he would call in and help me answer it.
00:00:18.880 | So Jesse, let's see if we can get Jordan on the line.
00:00:22.040 | - Sounds good, here we go.
00:00:23.660 | - All right, so it looks like the next question
00:00:25.340 | we have coming up is about podcasting.
00:00:29.720 | So I figured to get to the truth here,
00:00:32.800 | we should bring onto the show the person I know
00:00:36.680 | in this world who knows the most about podcasting.
00:00:40.120 | That's my friend and friend of the show, Jordan Harbinger.
00:00:44.000 | Jordan, thank you for agreeing to call in and help me here.
00:00:48.840 | - My pleasure.
00:00:49.760 | - Long-time listeners will remember
00:00:51.080 | we did a whole episode together,
00:00:52.960 | and we'll put a link to that in the show notes
00:00:54.880 | where we went deep onto the whole state
00:00:57.280 | of the podcasting industry at that point.
00:00:58.740 | So if you've not heard that episode,
00:01:00.920 | Jordan is the host of the Jordan Harbinger Show,
00:01:03.880 | one of the best interview podcast out there.
00:01:08.760 | Jordan, you've been doing this for a long time.
00:01:11.720 | I have memories, in my memory,
00:01:13.360 | I was being interviewed by you,
00:01:15.960 | and this might be an exaggeration,
00:01:17.600 | when I was in elementary school.
00:01:19.320 | - Yeah, that might be an exaggeration,
00:01:20.800 | but it has been 16 years.
00:01:22.560 | I think I've been doing podcasts for about 16 years.
00:01:24.600 | So depending on when you graduated from elementary school,
00:01:28.100 | that is possible.
00:01:29.400 | You were always a little ahead of your time.
00:01:30.960 | - I am.
00:01:31.800 | Well, you know, I'm 11 years old right now.
00:01:33.640 | So I don't know if that's a surprise,
00:01:35.420 | but I aged fast.
00:01:37.000 | It's a hard industry.
00:01:38.420 | I'm a doogie-houser.
00:01:39.260 | - Benjamin Button style.
00:01:40.280 | - I do have to say,
00:01:41.120 | and what I like about your show, of course,
00:01:42.740 | is the mix of guests.
00:01:44.200 | I think you're top-notch at this,
00:01:45.740 | that you will go from a A-list celebrity to,
00:01:50.740 | I mean, the last episode I heard,
00:01:52.360 | it was an Egyptologist.
00:01:54.600 | Am I saying that right?
00:01:55.420 | I mean, it's like an expert on ancient Egypt.
00:01:57.920 | You'll even occasionally have bums like me on.
00:02:01.680 | So just to kind of, you know, to shake it up.
00:02:04.580 | But I think you're the best in the biz at interviewing.
00:02:06.880 | Your show is sort of a standard.
00:02:08.720 | - Thank you.
00:02:09.560 | - Definitely at the top of my list.
00:02:10.380 | So. - I appreciate that.
00:02:11.560 | - Who else am I gonna call?
00:02:13.120 | Okay, so here's the question.
00:02:15.400 | And it's from Nathan.
00:02:16.760 | I've edited this a little bit.
00:02:18.640 | "What are all of the different factors
00:02:21.680 | that have to come together for a podcast to break out?"
00:02:27.720 | No, I think we have to define breakout probably.
00:02:30.840 | - Sure.
00:02:31.680 | I think what he means is probably to get an audience
00:02:35.800 | where the creator can make a living.
00:02:37.480 | You don't want to define breakout as,
00:02:38.840 | all right, I'm the next Andrew Schultz,
00:02:40.680 | Lex Friedman, Joe Rogan, whatever it is.
00:02:43.340 | 'Cause that type of success comes from
00:02:46.400 | using social media effectively over time,
00:02:49.360 | going on the Joe Rogan podcast a bunch of times,
00:02:51.800 | ideally, and getting a couple million dollars
00:02:53.520 | in free advertising.
00:02:54.640 | You know, that kind of stuff really helps.
00:02:56.440 | But ideally, if you're able to create a show
00:03:00.400 | and make a living off of it,
00:03:02.320 | then the factors that need to come together
00:03:04.640 | are going to be consistently good content, but over time.
00:03:08.140 | So in social media, you can go, let's say TikTok,
00:03:10.720 | which I don't use, but I know enough about it
00:03:13.320 | from reading about how toxic it is.
00:03:15.000 | And I know other social media.
00:03:16.880 | So it's two guys talking about social,
00:03:18.680 | two guys who don't use social media
00:03:19.840 | talking about social media.
00:03:21.020 | But what we do know from that is
00:03:22.760 | you can go viral from one or two posts.
00:03:24.800 | You can end up building a little bit of a following.
00:03:27.120 | And you can go from there.
00:03:28.600 | With podcasting, it's kind of the opposite.
00:03:30.760 | You don't really go viral.
00:03:32.000 | It's really hard to share podcasts.
00:03:34.080 | You build one tiny little brick at a time.
00:03:36.600 | You put out a good episode.
00:03:38.520 | Your current audience of 50 people hears it.
00:03:41.840 | They share it.
00:03:42.680 | They say, "This is really good and interesting."
00:03:44.820 | You do that for a few years,
00:03:46.980 | and suddenly you've got enough,
00:03:49.720 | let's say, traction or momentum to start monetizing it.
00:03:54.000 | And then from there, you can start scaling it.
00:03:56.080 | And it's really all about
00:03:57.200 | consistently good quality over time,
00:03:59.120 | not one or two hit posts or interviews.
00:04:02.340 | That is how you do it.
00:04:03.600 | And all of the other things
00:04:05.440 | that people think grow podcasts are kind of,
00:04:08.000 | it's almost like a myth, right?
00:04:09.360 | Oh, I've got to be posting shorts on TikTok.
00:04:12.160 | I got to be posting shorts on Instagram.
00:04:14.880 | Cool, you might gain a couple of listeners a day doing that,
00:04:18.360 | but the juice usually ain't worth the squeeze.
00:04:21.400 | And retention is a real thing in podcasting.
00:04:24.680 | So if you're doing a show
00:04:25.520 | and it's 30 minutes or an hour long,
00:04:27.640 | you're asking people to commit to you.
00:04:29.400 | So if the content isn't that great,
00:04:31.520 | but you have really good marketing and social media,
00:04:33.840 | you're going to get a whole bunch of people in
00:04:36.440 | and they're going to leave.
00:04:37.440 | And it's kind of like trying to fill up a water bucket,
00:04:39.520 | but there are holes in the bottom.
00:04:40.820 | You've got to plug those holes up
00:04:42.240 | if you're going to be carrying that bucket
00:04:43.560 | from the well back to your house.
00:04:45.200 | So you really need to have that basis
00:04:48.120 | of consistently good quality.
00:04:49.640 | And that doesn't mean celebrity interviews
00:04:51.200 | that mean stuff that people can really sink their teeth into
00:04:53.320 | whatever niche you're in.
00:04:54.520 | So that's why you see successful podcasts
00:04:56.560 | that are very niche.
00:04:57.440 | Like my friend runs a podcast
00:05:00.360 | where she just reads court documents
00:05:02.480 | and talks about what's in the court documents
00:05:04.280 | for famous cases.
00:05:05.600 | It sounds really boring, but they do a really good job
00:05:08.360 | because she's actually just reading court documents.
00:05:10.680 | And she's like, this is what this means.
00:05:12.640 | And people love it.
00:05:14.060 | It's very hard to do what, it's harder to do what I do.
00:05:18.120 | I wouldn't recommend interviewing people
00:05:20.340 | that you're interested in as a niche.
00:05:22.040 | It's a really crap niche.
00:05:23.280 | You're going to grow really slowly.
00:05:24.440 | The better you can niche together, niche down,
00:05:26.880 | I think they call it, the better off you're going to be.
00:05:29.200 | So don't make it about your personality
00:05:31.080 | unless you are a personality for a living
00:05:33.320 | like Andrew Schultz or Joe Rogan.
00:05:35.440 | Do something where you're like,
00:05:36.600 | this is the radio controlled plane podcast
00:05:39.360 | where I talk about radio controlled planes
00:05:41.560 | and not about what I did last weekend
00:05:43.360 | unless that involves radio controlled planes.
00:05:45.080 | I only talk about that.
00:05:46.340 | So that speaks to the content, right?
00:05:48.120 | You're not re-hammering off.
00:05:49.740 | It's well organized.
00:05:50.820 | It's delivered well.
00:05:51.820 | It's edited and produced well.
00:05:53.760 | And you do that over time.
00:05:56.180 | And that's what grows audience.
00:05:57.420 | And more importantly,
00:05:58.580 | keeps audience listening to you over time.
00:06:02.140 | People try and go too broad.
00:06:04.120 | They try and make themselves a personality using podcasts
00:06:07.100 | because they look at guys like me or Lex
00:06:09.460 | or Andrew Huberman or whatever,
00:06:11.860 | and they go, oh, I can do that.
00:06:13.820 | A lot of that is luck, time in the market, experience,
00:06:18.820 | picking a really good niche
00:06:20.040 | and having the qualifications to go for it.
00:06:21.800 | And as in the case of Huberman,
00:06:23.200 | who's like a scientist in his niche,
00:06:26.040 | that is not a strategy most of us can reproduce.
00:06:30.280 | - That's interesting.
00:06:31.120 | Okay, and so when you say,
00:06:32.080 | and I'll ask a follow-up on Nathan's behalf.
00:06:34.740 | So it sounds like when you're talking about
00:06:36.880 | content, content, content,
00:06:38.160 | which makes a lot of sense to me,
00:06:40.280 | content actually captures multiple factors.
00:06:42.840 | So it's a lot of what you're actually saying,
00:06:45.560 | but you're also counting in there,
00:06:47.620 | how does the podcast sound?
00:06:49.340 | How is it written?
00:06:50.440 | Is it tight?
00:06:51.280 | Is it professional?
00:06:52.840 | If you're gonna read court documents for celebrity cases,
00:06:56.520 | I'm assuming for that podcast to work,
00:06:58.120 | you have to figure out the format for doing that
00:06:59.940 | that's actually listenable,
00:07:01.200 | that you figure that out,
00:07:02.360 | that we do this and then it's this,
00:07:04.200 | and this is what's interesting and here's what's not.
00:07:07.200 | And so you're saying obsessed on content writ large though,
00:07:11.260 | basically everything that is going into the listener's ear,
00:07:14.580 | you wanna be thinking about all sorts of different angles
00:07:16.840 | on that, how could I do that better?
00:07:18.720 | Is this compelling?
00:07:20.200 | Why would I keep listening to this?
00:07:21.740 | Is there anything that's catching my attention as like,
00:07:23.640 | ooh, what's that?
00:07:24.480 | Why is there this?
00:07:25.440 | Why is the sound echoey?
00:07:27.040 | Why is this, he's rambling?
00:07:28.920 | So it's really an obsession with everything that comes out
00:07:31.880 | of that ear bud into the ear,
00:07:34.120 | continuing to push that better.
00:07:36.240 | - Agree, yeah.
00:07:37.080 | It has to do with,
00:07:38.140 | and I'm not saying you have to hire a producer
00:07:39.840 | for $500 an hour to make and have music behind everything.
00:07:42.980 | What you should avoid are the easy to correct pitfalls.
00:07:47.100 | I was listening to a show the other day,
00:07:49.160 | really interesting content, really, really good.
00:07:51.080 | The interviewers weren't bad,
00:07:52.720 | but there was a point at which the dog was barking
00:07:54.620 | and he goes, hold on guys, I gotta go let my dog out.
00:07:57.540 | And there's just silence for like 30 to 40 seconds
00:08:00.560 | where this guy goes and lets his dog out
00:08:02.180 | and he left it in the show.
00:08:03.580 | And I thought that was an inside joke at first,
00:08:05.420 | but later on I heard his phone ring
00:08:07.580 | and then he got a phone call and took it for a second
00:08:10.560 | and said, I gotta call you back and hung up.
00:08:12.120 | And I thought, oh, this is a person who doesn't understand
00:08:15.080 | that every minute of mine you waste,
00:08:17.520 | you're telling me you don't value my time.
00:08:19.980 | And so that's not a good look for a podcast host.
00:08:23.120 | The tighter it is, the better.
00:08:24.520 | And I'm really cognizant of that.
00:08:26.300 | I read all the books for my guests, if they have them,
00:08:28.920 | when they're on the show,
00:08:30.080 | as you probably remember from me interviewing you.
00:08:32.780 | And people will say, why aren't your interviews
00:08:34.800 | two or three hours like so-and-so's podcast?
00:08:36.840 | And the answer is because I don't need them to be.
00:08:39.120 | I read the book.
00:08:39.960 | I know where the important stuff is.
00:08:42.120 | If you're digging for gold and you have a map
00:08:43.840 | where the gold is buried,
00:08:45.000 | you don't have to spend three times the amount of time
00:08:48.160 | looking for it and meandering around
00:08:50.120 | and talking about aliens or whatever.
00:08:52.200 | You can focus on the topic and the task at hand.
00:08:55.000 | And that's really, really beneficial
00:08:57.000 | because now I can get the best bang for the buck,
00:08:59.720 | the best per minute value for my listener.
00:09:02.960 | And that's what keeps people sticking around.
00:09:04.560 | I routinely get feedback like,
00:09:05.800 | wow, I heard so-and-so on your show
00:09:07.800 | and I heard him on this other show
00:09:09.120 | and the three-hour interview on this other show
00:09:10.920 | had less actual meat on the bone
00:09:13.720 | than your 49-minute interview with that same person.
00:09:16.680 | And that's really, what that does is says to the listener,
00:09:19.840 | I value your time, we're going for it.
00:09:22.320 | This is going to be high signal, low noise.
00:09:25.600 | And that retains people.
00:09:27.200 | - And it's why I like,
00:09:28.120 | that comes through in your show, for example,
00:09:30.080 | because there are other people
00:09:31.720 | who are going all in on the interview format.
00:09:34.320 | And what you're saying, by the way, makes sense.
00:09:36.120 | Don't try to be you, don't try to be Joe Rogan.
00:09:39.520 | If anything else, it's just a grind
00:09:41.600 | if to try to get enough guests on.
00:09:44.360 | A lot of the even up-and-coming hosts whose names,
00:09:46.900 | I won't say any particular names, it wanders.
00:09:50.080 | And okay, and your show does it, right?
00:09:51.960 | It gets right to the meat of it.
00:09:53.520 | And you're saying, yeah, because you spend a lot of time.
00:09:55.760 | You read the books, you think about it.
00:09:57.720 | You're really obsessing about,
00:09:58.920 | I want this to be very interesting.
00:10:01.400 | You're not just putting weight on,
00:10:03.060 | I'm an interesting guy, which is like the Rogan,
00:10:05.440 | like Joe Rogan gets away with that.
00:10:07.240 | He's like, I'm a professional talker.
00:10:08.920 | I've been podcasting for 80 years.
00:10:11.760 | I'm an interesting enough guy at this
00:10:13.440 | that we will chat for three hours
00:10:15.980 | and I can somehow make that interesting.
00:10:17.660 | But that's like saying,
00:10:19.640 | I can pitch a baseball 102 miles per hour.
00:10:22.480 | Like, yeah, that'd be great.
00:10:23.440 | You're probably gonna get a reliever role,
00:10:24.720 | but that's not a strategy for everyone else
00:10:26.460 | to try to follow, if I'm understanding that right.
00:10:29.600 | - Yeah, exactly.
00:10:30.680 | And I would even argue,
00:10:32.160 | and look, this is probably an unpopular opinion,
00:10:34.320 | but I would argue that Joe Rogan
00:10:36.160 | would be a better interviewer
00:10:37.200 | if he would read and prep the interview before the show.
00:10:39.520 | Because his curiosity takes him
00:10:41.400 | to a lot of interesting places,
00:10:42.920 | but he could also keep that curiosity
00:10:45.200 | while not just meandering around
00:10:47.740 | and then getting stoned and talking about DMT.
00:10:49.920 | But again, I know not everybody agrees with that.
00:10:52.520 | That's just my two cents.
00:10:53.920 | That's the style in which I do my show,
00:10:55.720 | which is more focused.
00:10:57.280 | And look, even if I'm wrong about Joe Rogan,
00:11:00.080 | we're not wrong about the other 10,000
00:11:01.960 | Joe Rogan wannabe clones out there
00:11:03.680 | who are trying to do the same thing
00:11:04.920 | and wondering why they can't get traction.
00:11:06.880 | That's one of the reasons.
00:11:08.040 | - All right, so then one other quick follow-up,
00:11:09.400 | just a timeline question.
00:11:10.880 | I'm gonna put some actual projections on this.
00:11:14.720 | So let's use my own show as a case study.
00:11:17.680 | It's two and a half years old.
00:11:19.400 | Does that put it pretty much still
00:11:22.040 | in the finding your feet, finding your audience stage?
00:11:25.400 | Is that relatively young sometimes for a podcast?
00:11:27.880 | Where am I?
00:11:29.680 | - Yeah.
00:11:30.520 | - In a life cycle of a long-term show?
00:11:33.040 | - It sort of depends on the niche, right?
00:11:34.680 | If you're a true crime podcast,
00:11:36.200 | you can get traction in season one.
00:11:37.800 | And it's like, wow, this is the biggest thing.
00:11:40.060 | Look at how many downloads this murder,
00:11:43.440 | people getting murdered in parks podcast is crushing it.
00:11:46.360 | That's different than this is a guy
00:11:48.520 | who answers questions or gives advice.
00:11:50.280 | That might take, that could take years to get traction.
00:11:53.400 | That's why I always tell people like,
00:11:54.680 | don't try and emulate what I'm doing.
00:11:56.400 | I had an 11 year runway before this stuff was really,
00:11:59.440 | or seven years before this is really doing something.
00:12:02.600 | The better of a niche you pick, the better off you are.
00:12:05.320 | The more narrow of an issue you pick, the better off you are.
00:12:07.800 | So I don't know, two and a half years,
00:12:09.520 | you've got plenty of traction on your show.
00:12:11.540 | Is it gonna be bigger in two and a half more years?
00:12:13.740 | Of course it is because you're doing well,
00:12:15.480 | but you're, look, you've been teaching for a while.
00:12:17.400 | So you bring that skillset in.
00:12:19.020 | You've got professional recording equipment and help.
00:12:20.920 | So you've got that skillset.
00:12:22.160 | You work with some really good advertiser,
00:12:25.240 | ad sales guys that I know,
00:12:26.980 | and some production people that I've worked with.
00:12:29.200 | They're good.
00:12:30.040 | So you've got, I would say,
00:12:31.720 | performance enhancing drugs in your repertoire here, right?
00:12:35.960 | With those kinds of things.
00:12:37.120 | If guys are in their garage basement,
00:12:39.120 | they're college students, they're doing this,
00:12:40.400 | they can't afford to hire people.
00:12:41.840 | They've got whatever they got.
00:12:43.400 | Their acoustic environment is what it is.
00:12:45.100 | They can't go to a studio.
00:12:46.040 | The microphone they got is the biggest expense they have.
00:12:48.320 | It's going to take a little bit longer
00:12:50.200 | because they're not necessarily going to have the option
00:12:52.940 | to have professionals helping them out.
00:12:54.580 | Does that mean their show's going to stay small?
00:12:56.440 | Not necessarily.
00:12:57.760 | But again, I'm thankful for the amount of time
00:13:02.400 | it took me to become successful
00:13:04.480 | because during that time I learned how to interview.
00:13:07.040 | I don't think you can really speed up experience that much.
00:13:09.640 | Of course you can a little, but it's very difficult to do it.
00:13:12.640 | So I'm almost, you wouldn't want to start a podcast
00:13:16.080 | and then end up on the top 10 shows all overnight
00:13:20.940 | because what'll happen,
00:13:21.780 | you wouldn't want Joe Rogan to find you and go,
00:13:23.240 | "Come on my show!"
00:13:24.240 | And have 10 million people go and listen to your show
00:13:26.880 | and 9.9 million of them go, "That was terrible.
00:13:30.360 | This guy is terrible."
00:13:31.920 | You want to slowly build that audience,
00:13:34.760 | that loyalty over time and have them share
00:13:36.720 | because the snowball is packed tighter,
00:13:39.700 | if that analogy makes sense, right?
00:13:41.320 | The people stick around longer,
00:13:42.740 | your experience speaks for itself after a bit of time.
00:13:46.000 | You really do have your niche set,
00:13:48.520 | your personality is set, your style is set.
00:13:51.080 | It's something that's really hard to rush.
00:13:53.440 | - Yeah, and I agree with that example
00:13:56.820 | because I'm just thinking,
00:13:57.660 | I know a lot of people who have gone on Joe Rogan's show
00:14:00.920 | and nothing particularly explosive happened.
00:14:04.200 | But when you see like the other characters you mentioned,
00:14:06.440 | like Lex or like Andrew doing frequent guest spots,
00:14:10.420 | they were doing that at a time,
00:14:11.680 | especially in Lex's case,
00:14:12.840 | where he had a very matured product ready.
00:14:15.960 | I mean, he had been doing the AI podcast for a long time.
00:14:18.720 | He had found his voice.
00:14:20.000 | He had a good audience.
00:14:21.720 | That's a whole different situation.
00:14:23.240 | So now you have your thing figured out
00:14:25.240 | after years and years of work,
00:14:27.020 | then you start getting big exposure.
00:14:29.260 | You can actually harness it.
00:14:31.140 | So that all makes sense.
00:14:31.980 | And I will say, okay,
00:14:32.900 | so because I'm closer to Nathan,
00:14:34.860 | where he would be if he's starting a podcast
00:14:36.700 | and obviously you are right now, Jordan,
00:14:37.820 | you've been doing this forever.
00:14:39.160 | My thing, Nathan, is this is very hard.
00:14:41.360 | This has been basically my experience
00:14:43.820 | is podcasting is very hard.
00:14:45.620 | There's a million aspects to go into it,
00:14:47.940 | but just the writing of material,
00:14:49.900 | communicating clearly, making it interesting.
00:14:52.220 | It's a slog.
00:14:54.100 | People do not wanna give you their time lightly
00:14:56.920 | and it's really hard to earn it.
00:14:58.600 | And it really does feel, to me,
00:15:01.440 | I don't know if you have the same feeling
00:15:02.760 | so far into your career, Jordan,
00:15:04.120 | but for me, it's month by month, season by season,
00:15:07.680 | it always feels so slow to me.
00:15:09.560 | I feel like, why can't I gain traction?
00:15:11.360 | Now, if I zoom out, I say, okay,
00:15:14.580 | there's a reasonable trajectory here.
00:15:16.040 | I remember I started taking on advertising
00:15:18.940 | when I could hit 15,000 downloads an episode
00:15:22.000 | 'cause you could do two episodes a week
00:15:23.600 | and aggregate to 30 and it was the barrier of entry.
00:15:27.240 | And now we'll do maybe 50,000 downloads per episode.
00:15:31.160 | Zooming out, I'm like,
00:15:32.120 | there's a reasonable trajectory there.
00:15:34.040 | Every inch along that way has been frustration.
00:15:36.640 | - I agree with you.
00:15:37.480 | - This is not growing.
00:15:38.320 | This is barely growing.
00:15:39.760 | Also, the stupid download calendar, it's very seasonal.
00:15:43.640 | So you're always having, in the short term,
00:15:45.960 | dips because it's July.
00:15:48.800 | And so you always feel like you're losing listeners.
00:15:51.000 | You really have to zoom out before you feel
00:15:52.840 | like you're making any traction.
00:15:54.800 | All right, final follow-up.
00:15:56.680 | When do you know to pull the ripcord?
00:15:58.040 | Most podcasts don't succeed.
00:15:59.280 | So let's say you're like, I'm into it, I'm committed.
00:16:02.160 | I'm putting time into it.
00:16:03.640 | I want this to succeed.
00:16:04.800 | I'm willing to spend time.
00:16:06.120 | What's the signs that this is not going to,
00:16:08.800 | you're stuck at 10,000 downloads or whatever it is.
00:16:11.160 | This is not gonna grow enough.
00:16:12.640 | It's not where it needs to be.
00:16:13.480 | It's not gonna grow anymore.
00:16:14.300 | What are the signs for pulling the ripcord?
00:16:16.200 | - Sure, so I was speaking with Andy Duke on my show.
00:16:19.000 | It was a recent episode.
00:16:20.040 | I wish I had the number in front of me,
00:16:21.180 | but she talked about quitting.
00:16:22.480 | That's her new bit of work.
00:16:23.800 | She's a professional poker player.
00:16:25.360 | She talks about kill criteria.
00:16:27.640 | And so kill criteria is where you say,
00:16:30.160 | before you're, the worst time to make a decision
00:16:32.280 | is when you're in it.
00:16:33.120 | So you say, if I'm not able to pay for the expenses
00:16:37.600 | of this podcast by next year, I'm going to stop doing it.
00:16:40.720 | Or if I'm not able, if I'm not enjoying this in six months,
00:16:45.080 | I'm going to stop doing it unless it's making X dollars.
00:16:48.240 | Right, something like that.
00:16:49.560 | So if, look, the first thing is it could be a hobby.
00:16:52.520 | That's totally okay.
00:16:53.400 | In fact, I'm usually against people turning hobbies
00:16:56.760 | into jobs because it's a great way to,
00:16:58.520 | it's a good way to ruin your hobby.
00:17:00.440 | So if you're doing a podcast and you like it
00:17:02.520 | and you don't have that many listeners, who cares?
00:17:04.660 | Just keep doing it.
00:17:05.600 | It's a hobby.
00:17:06.720 | But if you are deluding yourself and saying,
00:17:09.520 | this is going to be my job, but you have 500 listeners
00:17:13.360 | and then a year later you have 600 listeners,
00:17:16.280 | it's very unlikely that you are going
00:17:18.840 | to build enough traction to create a living for yourself.
00:17:22.000 | Again, if you enjoy doing it, who cares?
00:17:24.400 | Just keep doing it.
00:17:25.600 | But don't try to make yourself the exception in your mind
00:17:30.280 | that you are going to be the special one
00:17:32.240 | who's going to turn this thing into a job overnight
00:17:34.040 | because it's very, very hard to do.
00:17:36.400 | And so I would set up kill criteria.
00:17:38.080 | And I would say, look, if I don't enjoy it,
00:17:39.640 | I'm going to stop doing it.
00:17:41.200 | And if you're trying to monetize this
00:17:43.200 | and you're sort of halfway there,
00:17:44.440 | like maybe you're making a few thousand dollars a month
00:17:46.760 | for a year and it's not enough to quit your job,
00:17:49.680 | then you have to decide what you're comfortable with.
00:17:52.600 | If you're spending 20 hours on your podcast,
00:17:54.640 | but a lot of it feels like work
00:17:56.040 | and it's not paying for itself,
00:17:57.520 | set up kill criteria where you decide,
00:17:59.640 | this is when I'm going to stop doing it
00:18:01.520 | and this is when I'm going to really go for it.
00:18:04.440 | There's not a go all in type of thing
00:18:07.520 | unless you're really hitting those financial metrics.
00:18:10.360 | What I usually recommend instead of trying to figure out
00:18:13.120 | how to make this your job is partially monetize it
00:18:15.880 | if you're in that position to do so.
00:18:17.240 | Let's say you're making $500 a month,
00:18:19.200 | use that money to take the part of it
00:18:21.360 | that you don't like doing,
00:18:22.760 | maybe the editing you don't like doing.
00:18:24.600 | Hire an editor.
00:18:25.600 | Now you've got a hobby where you just do the fun parts.
00:18:28.000 | It's like, if you're really into radio control cars
00:18:30.320 | and you've got money from it,
00:18:32.160 | let's say you're making a YouTube channel for that
00:18:35.920 | and you're making a thousand dollars a month,
00:18:37.720 | take that money and pay someone to fix the cars
00:18:39.760 | when you break them, then you're just running them.
00:18:41.800 | Now you've got a great hobby
00:18:42.860 | where all the stuff you don't like doing
00:18:44.240 | is not your problem anymore.
00:18:45.840 | That's the way to do this.
00:18:47.440 | Start outsourcing as much stuff as you can
00:18:49.880 | so that if you do hit that sort of inflection point
00:18:52.840 | where you're making enough to make it your job,
00:18:54.800 | you're not then doing everything yourself
00:18:57.720 | and becoming miserable in the process.
00:18:59.720 | You've already outsourced everything else.
00:19:01.400 | So now your hobby happens to be lucrative.
00:19:04.120 | Now that's the best position for you to be in,
00:19:06.740 | in my opinion.
00:19:07.580 | - Jordan, great advice.
00:19:09.640 | I appreciate you coming on to help me with this one
00:19:11.680 | because I'm usually just grabbing in the dark.
00:19:13.360 | Also a great time to announce my new podcast.
00:19:15.560 | It's called Deep RC.
00:19:17.320 | It's all about radio-controlled cars.
00:19:19.280 | And I just get into it.
00:19:21.120 | It's four hours per episode and we do circuit schematics.
00:19:25.480 | We just walk through the circuit schematics.
00:19:27.320 | It's scintillating audio.
00:19:28.680 | So you say, okay, and then just--
00:19:30.040 | - Actually, there's no plan for the episode
00:19:31.840 | in the beginning whatsoever.
00:19:33.200 | - Exactly. - Whatever we want.
00:19:34.400 | - Yeah, it's me and eight other people
00:19:35.920 | and we record it outside.
00:19:37.200 | All right, Jordan-- - On AirPods.
00:19:38.720 | - On AirPods, exactly.
00:19:39.920 | I appreciate it.
00:19:41.280 | Everyone, the Jordan Harbinger Show,
00:19:42.960 | I think it's the best interview podcast out there.
00:19:44.600 | If you wanna see how a pro does it, listen to that.
00:19:48.320 | You won't regret it.
00:19:49.520 | All right, thanks, Jordan.
00:19:50.640 | - Thank you.
00:19:51.480 | (upbeat music)
00:19:54.060 | (upbeat music)