Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Debates, Business, and Podcasting

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

We will have the normal Friday Q and A, but first, a few words on the debate... Did it matter? Do we know any more about the candidates? Does the format serve the intended purpose? Could we make the format better? Switching gears to normal Friday programming: Embracing Life's Big Changes: A 30-year-old listener is on the brink of several life-changing events—marrying the love of his life, becoming a homeowner, and launching his own land surveying business. How do you navigate these milestones successfully while minimizing missteps along the way? Cross-Border Concerns: An audience member from Eastern Canada raises concerns about gun trafficking and the influence of U.S. gun laws on Canadian crime rates. Citing statistics about firearms from the U.S. being involved in crimes in Ontario, how could changing gun laws help reduce criminal access to weapons? Growing a Passion Project: A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, fire captain, paramedic, and podcaster shares his struggle to expand his podcast's audience and attract guests. Despite positive feedback from listeners, growth has been slow. How can you amplify a message and sustain a passion project?

Well, hello, everybody. It's Friday. We're going to get into some listener submitted questions. But due to the ungodly volume of people that have reached out with their thoughts on the most recent presidential debate, I will begrudgingly talk about it a little bit at the beginning. and I'll explain why it's begrudgingly when I begin. So, away we go for this Friday. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Okay.

Here we go. As I said in the beginning, I don't actually want to talk about this topic because I don't think that most people actually listen. If you say something about their team or trium, tribe, however, they would want to describe it, and it aligns with what they believe, they will get the pom-poms out. If you say 99 things that align with their team or tribe, pom-poms all day long. If you say something negative or critical, the knives come out. And it becomes vicious and in my mind utterly pointless. I wish that we lived in a world

where to use politics, I'm going to narrowly talk about politics for a second and political candidates, where you could discuss your team's captain, the person that you want to see running the team, and you could discuss the things that you like about them and in the same breath, talk about the things that you wish that they could do better, perhaps their missteps, even their failures, which we all have, by the way, every single person, listening and watching to this has both of those things. And I don't think anybody listening or watching would want to have their entire life judged by those things, because I think most people, they learn from them, they adapt because of those things, they change the person that they are

going forward. I look at myself in the mirror. Am I the version of who I want to be? In some areas, yes. In some areas, I still fall short. and probably consistently have throughout the majority of my life. I've made improvements in some areas, and I absolutely have an ungodly amount of improvement to make in others. I don't understand why in the world we live in a negative comment, or, you know, negative is not even the right word critical, a critical comment about something that you may disagree with or want to see improvement in somebody else. And again, specifically political candidate that the baby has thrown out with the bathwater. I hate politics. I hate the topic of politics. People lose their mind. A few weeks ago,

I got a text message from someone telling me that I need to check my team Trump card. or my Trump membership card. And if anybody is looking for a way for me to never communicate with them again, let me just tell you right now. That's a way to do it. And of course, this was under the guise of, well, we're friends and friends have the hard conversations. A conversation is exactly that. An utterly emotional and unhinged string of text messages is not that.

And anybody who knows me knows that I'm actually not a palm palm bearer for either of these teams. And let's just go right into the actual debate itself. I have been asked so many times, who do I think won the debate two nights ago? I'm recording this on a Thursday the day before it comes out. So I think there was two nights ago. I was on the road to New York. It was in a goddamn time warp. I think I spent more time in an airplane than I did on the ground.

Digress. Who won the debate? Nobody. Nobody won that goddamn debate. Because I don't even think it was an actual debate. We all lost. We look like shit heels. I am embarrassed at what we have presented to the world.

We can do so much better. And I have received quite a few messages from people overseas. that I'll summarize for them. What the fuck was essentially the emails? And I don't have a good answer. I think one of the issues is how the debate is actually structured. And I have some suggestions. As somebody who is actually interested in watching two people think their way through questions in real time,

not having been given to them before, and I'll talk about some people who have said that Harris was given the questions before. And we can talk about people saying that the moderators were biased because actually I think have a solution for that as well. But I think first, maybe we talk about whether or not we think that the debates are meaningful. Should we have them? Are they meaningful? To me, the answer to both those questions is yes. I think we should have them for what I was talking about just a second ago.

The job of president is not scripted. There are, of course, things that you do that are scripted dinners and press conferences and all of those things. Not that the questions and press conferences are always scripted, but there's an aspect of that point being. You're sitting in the chair. You're in the Oval Office. Even though, I don't know if most people realize this, the Oval Office is largely ceremonial.

There's a working office in the White House. Again, I digress. You're going to be presented with things that are going to surprise you that you're not going to know about. and you're going to have to work through the information you have in the moment in real time and figure things out. And that's what I want a debate to be. I want to see the two people who are running for office, or I guess there are debates that have in the primaries and things of that nature. I'm focusing, man, the debates in the primaries with more people, I think that's a little bit more complex.

What I'm talking about is specifically the presidential debate between the final two candidates. I want to see them ask questions that they don't know where coming. I want to see them have complicated questions presented to them, and I want to hear them think through it in real time. I don't expect them to have crystallized answers to every question, just like I don't expect them to have crystallized answers to every situation that is presented to them when they are the president. That's why they have a cabinet. That's why they have an inner circle. That's why they have people who represent all the arms of government, and they can work through those things. Now, of course, on the presidential debate, you don't have those things, so it's more an individual's ability to think and react and respond in real time.

I think the debates are incredibly useful or would be if they were under that format. Now, let's talk about the format that occurred. I don't know any more about either of those candidates than I did before. And I don't think that the debate itself really is going to have that much of an impact. And I say that because there's three categories of people. People who watch the debate and were already on Team Trump. People who watched the debate who were already on Team Harris. And the people that sat in the middle who maybe lean one direction or the other and are a little bit uncertain. The first and the third of those categories, or the first, no, the first two, because I went Trump. Paris first. The first two of those, you can get rid of. Nothing that anybody saw if you were on Trump's side of the House is going to change your mind. And nothing that you saw if you were on Harris's side of the house is going to change your mind either. Whether or not people were going to be swayed by what they saw last night, I guess, is left to be determined. But from somebody trying to

look at this objectively, I don't really know any more about those candidates or their potential policies than I did going in. I guess I know a little bit more about their behavior, but I'll get into that in a minute. So I do believe that these debates are important, but they have to be restructured in my mind if we are going to continue doing this as opposed to wasting people's time. If they were ever to ask me, what changes would you make? Well, I've put a little bit of thought into this, and I'm going to put my King Andy hat on for just a moment. So if they put me in charge of the presidential debate, I have some thoughts and we'll base this around some things that I've heard about the debate itself. Well, the moderators were incredibly

bias. I'm not an expert on bias, and I'm going to let the experts determine the answer on that one from somebody objectively watching it. Did it appear as if they were more challenging to one side than the other? It did. But look at the two people who were doing the challenging. And I mean the moderators and not the people who are involved directly in the debate. They come from traditional media. And it's pretty easy to figure out traditional media sources which side of the aisle that they fall into. And that's okay. Like get your news and align with whatever you want to. But if you agree to a format that is going to be hosted and moderated by people that may have a political leaning, you know, then don't necessarily be incredibly shocked if that's the case.

Okay, how would you solve that? Well, King Andy for a day would take this out of the hands of traditional media. And my initial thoughts were, you know, we live in a world where there are content creators, and trust me, I am by no means recommending myself in any of this. But there are content creators in people who are really good at facilitating communication that I do think are moderate, that probably have a foot in the liberal bucket and the conservative bucket. And you can find a couple of those people. And you can take this out of the hands of the networks, because I think they have shown that they can't be impartial. And that's okay.

They're not, I think they like to pretend, and the networks, I think they like to pretend that they're impartial, but they're not on either side of the aisle. So let's just recognize that. And like I said, my first thought was maybe we give this to content creators. And then I was thinking, maybe we can do even better than that. Can't we find some scholars, some experts in industry or economics or world affairs, and find some people that don't have direct ties in the way that traditional media figureheads do, and allow them to moderate the debate. I think we could. And I think if we took it out of the hands of traditional media, I think that that would be improved. Now, before I go to the next one, there are some things I really like about the debate format.

I enjoy the fact that there is no audience because it's very easy to play to your audience. And what is the point of that if you are actually going to be dissecting ideas as opposed to throwing out talking points that you know your audience is going to respond to. You can still do that in a format where it's just you and somebody else, but you're not going to get the response from the crowd that you might be looking for. And the crowd's not going to be there when you're in the Oval office anyway. So I like the idea that it's just two people up there. Because to me, that simulates a little bit more of a real life environment. I like the idea of people being fact-checked. But I would bring those people into the room.

And I would have them doing it in real time. And I would explain the process to the viewer of how it is happening. And honestly, I would give them the opportunity to watch it. I don't know how many people ABC had fact checking, but bring the people into the room and have a bunch of them. Somebody else can pick the number, but have a bunch of them. And on a different, I don't want to say stream, but on a different screen, have a different screen. have what they're doing show up. If they find something that was said that was factually untrue, present that to the moderator

and allow the moderator to present it. But it has to be applied equally on both sides. So the size of the team and the mechanics of this is probably pretty difficult to figure out, especially at the velocity and in real time. But if these things matter, let's fucking figure it out. The biggest change that I would make is I would penalize the individual who does not answer the question. If they're going to be given to stay with the format, I think they were given two minutes to answer and then often a one minute rebuttal,

and it would kind of go back and forth. And that rule actually wasn't stuck to very much because as they started going back and forth at each other, I don't want to say it got off the rails, but I think it got a little bit less productive. When you're asked a question, whatever amount of time that you spend not answering that question is subtracted from your overall time that you are going to have to present your platform. And so maybe we'd have to change the time format of the debate. If it was going to be 90 minutes, that's what you start off with. Each of you, I mean, I'm sure they could figure it out where each person commercial break, things

like that. But let's just say that you could have 45 and 45 to cut it down the middle, even though, of course, there's the moderator talking and all those things, but just for easy math. If you spend half of your time not answering the question, you lose that at the end, up to and include losing your ability for your closing statement. I think that would keep people a hell of a lot more honest, especially if one side realizes what's going on and one side is wasting their time doing that while the other one is actually sticking to policies, which is what I think the American people need to hear about.

They don't need to hear about feelings. They need to hear about policies. I would penalize the people who are debating. Stay on track. Answer the fucking questions. Or the time that you have allotted to present to the American people, who you are and what you stand for is going to be reduced. I think it would have an amazing difference. So that's the changes I would make. Like I said, who do I think won the debate? I don't think anybody won at all. I think we all lost.

I think if you ask me who presented themselves in a more professional manner, if I'm being objective, I got to give it to Harris. the single quality that I admire the least in Donald Trump, which is probably the single quality that a lot of people perhaps appreciate the most or like the most about him, is his inability to not engage when somebody challenges his ego. There were a few examples that I think that were pretty close. clear where Harris said something and was trying to actually goat him into a response.

And it worked every single time. I'll give you an example. The size of his rallies and whether or not people are leaving early. In the grand scheme of things, who fucking cares? If somebody really cared, and that was their issue, they could very easily, A, attend one of the rallies for themselves to look at it with their own eyes, or B, do some research on these rallies. There is so much video that is collected from start to finish, and you can make up your own mind. it is an absolute waste of energy and the time that you have available to force a response to that. And it happened more than once.

From what I can see, when that happens specifically with Trump, he begins to not attack issues. He digs deeper into ad hominem attacks, which is an attack on the person. And when I look at the behavior of somebody that I want sitting in the seat in the Oval Office, that is the exact opposite of what it is that I am looking for. On the other side of this coin, from Harris, I personally, and people can agree or disagree with this, do believe that one of the hardest questions for her to answer when it comes to her policies, which I am still very largely unclear on, is that if you believe that is the policy going forward,

why didn't you fight for that and change that the previous three and a half years? And people will say this. Well, the role of the vice president, you know, it's not their job. And I was thinking about that. I think the role of the vice president has more to do with the person than the actual office of the vice president itself.

I'll give an example of an incredibly powerful vice president. Dick Cheney. That man wielded a goddamn broad sword. Now, is that because of the relationship that he had with George Bush? I don't know. It's probably a combination of that who he was before coming into the office, and maybe he was executing the powers of the vice president in a more effective way. And by that, I mean the amount of influence he had. People can argue about the effectiveness of what he was doing. I'm talking about his ability to influence. and exert power. Maybe he was better at doing that and all vice presidents could. So maybe it is more about the person. Maybe it's about the person and the person they work for, the president

themselves, all of those things. I don't think that the vice president is just a long for the ride. I think they can be if they want to, but I don't think they have to be. And that if the advice I would have given Trump, which I was not asked for. by the way, would be to leave the ad hominem attack alone and focus on policy. Not only your policy, but the challenges that I would have presented to Harris would have been on hers. And that wasn't the case. And I think because of that, the American people, we lost out. And I'm not putting on that all on the head of Trump by any stretch of the imagination, because I also don't think that Harris showed us anything about how she was actually going to govern

if she became president. Like opportunity-based economy? Yeah, tell me more. Child tax credit, could that be beneficial? For sure, $50,000 for startups? Okay, like, tell me more. Where can I go to hear more about this? And also the fact that she has not presented herself for open and transparent discussions and interviews, that's problematic to me.

I think the people that we are voting for, if you're going to run for the highest office in the land, you have to get out there and show people who you are. If you don't do that, the hair is start coming up on the back of my neck. So it was a shit show. I think it could have absolutely been so much more. I don't think anybody won. I think one person presented themselves a little bit better than the other. But again, that's just my opinion.

and nobody in politics asks me for my opinion. Nobody in politics has ever asked me what changes that they think should be made. But if they did, that's the things that I would say. We can do so much better. The American people deserve so much better. And I don't know what it's going to take for us to make these changes because it just seems to be accelerating to me in the wrong direction. What do you think?

Should we get into some questions? I think we should too. I have a little sip of my fieldcraft water because it's the only thing you can have if you're trying to survive. All right, here we go. To set the stage, I'm 30 years old and I just purchased our first house last year. Awesome. Congrats. Two months away from marrying the girl that I think I was waiting my whole life for, and I just started my own land surveying business.

My fiancé, who just finished her PhD in the spring and I have clicked off every goal in the last year, and we're about to start our marriage and on my end, a small business. What advice would you give to me to be cognizant of so I get all or most of it right the first time? Oh, I wish it was easy. I wish it was that easy. I'm aware there will be bumps along the way, but I just don't want to fall flat on my face. Well, I think there's broad advice and then there's specific advice. Let's start with the specific one first, which I can't provide you a lick of. But my advice to you is somebody starting their own land surveying business is find a mentor. I suspect you know people who also do this, who,

who have probably been doing this for a really long time, and they are probably really successful, approach them, ask them to be your mentor. And maybe you need to find a market that you wouldn't be directly competing with them in. Perhaps it's a solvable problem. But if you can find somebody specifically in your job field that you are pursuing that has already gone through the bumps and bruises,

the band aids and, you know, all of the growing pains and painful tuition payments, you need to find that person. You may still repeat some of those mistakes, but I bet you you can at least shorten or round the edges on the learning curve there. The broad advice that I would give you is don't be afraid of failure. You know, everybody says two things that are certain in life

are death and taxes. I actually think failure and suffering could be added to that list. I think a lot of suffering that we do is self-induced, but failure. I don't know anyone who has not failed in their life personally and professionally. It's going to happen to you, but I like where your head is at because you're talking about you don't want to fall flat on your face and what can you do so you get most of it right the first time? Ask more questions. Use your ears and your eyes more than your mouth.

it's okay to start slowly and build and not present yourself as somebody who knows at all. Because first off, none of us do, but you're going to be starting this career, as everybody does when they start a new career, with a lot of enthusiasm and a very little amount of experience. And eventually, hopefully those buckets, I don't want them to switch because I don't want you to lose enthusiasm and have a bunch of experience. But you can start throwing more into that experience bucket, which is going to help you when you encounter unknowns. Ask a lot of questions, take a lot of notes. And when you do fail, this is the advice I'll give you. When you do fail, wrap your arms around it.

Take the time to analyze why you failed, all right? You can take the what out of that. What happened is that you failed. Focus on the why. What things led up to that failure that you had control over? What things that could you do or change? Did you provide, you know, I'll give you an example of something from a construction world. You do a job and the quote is horribly off and you end up eating it. Okay, why did that happen?

Where did I make my mistake when it came to this quote that you provided? Did I miss measure? Did I miss something? What can I do and create a template for myself so I don't repeat that going forward? That is what I would do. Wrap your hands and your arms and hug the mistakes and develop a template so you can analyze them and do something with that information. Otherwise, you're going back to what a lot of people consider to be the definition of insanity, which is doing the same thing over and over. again, but you're expecting a different result. Don't do that. Find a mentor and analyze your mistakes. Those are the two biggest pieces of information that I think would be helpful for you. Two, hello, Andy, a long-time listener of the podcast and first time writing an email for a

full out of Friday. I was curious your thoughts on certain states changing their gun laws to help reduce gun trafficking and keep weapons out of the hands of the criminals. For clarity, I grew up in Eastern Canada, and I'm trying to educate myself on the topic of gun trafficking after reading blood gun and money by Eon Grillo? I think that's Eon Grillo, Long Grillo? Man, I don't know. In my research, I've noticed that a lot of handguns and other weapons are making their way into Canada and driving violence. For example, 300 guns involved in crime in Ontario were traced to have come from Texas.

Another fact I found out is 73% of guns traced and involved in crimes in Ontario came from the United States, not trying to sound anti-American. with my email. Just interested in your thoughts on this subject. Sorry for the long email. Have a great day and keep us, keep up the awesome podcast. Okay. You're not being anti-American at all. The United States has far more guns in it than Canada does. So it doesn't surprise me that given the differences in gun laws and regulations that you are going to have an influx of guns from the U.S. to Canada. Okay. Gun trafficking. I don't know shit about gun trafficking. But I would imagine it would take a route similar to narcotics that and I have at least a little bit of insight from the people I know locally at a state in a federal level. I here's something to remember for anybody who wants to talk about laws and regulation. They of course have their place. But criminals don't give a shit.

So I don't know how a state actually writes a law. that would restrict gun trafficking because the inherent nature of that is that it's illegal, so nobody who is going to be trafficking them in that way is going to give a shit about what the law says. That is at least what I am hearing from the people who work in this world, whether it's narcotics or human trafficking. Human trafficking is illegal and it's prevalent. Narcotics, the way that they're getting into the United States is illegal and it's prevalent. So, yeah, the legality of that isn't stopping it. From what I hear, from law enforcement, state and federal, when it comes to the guns that are making their way from Texas in a variety of other states, this is an issue where I

live in Montana. So I'll talk at the local level first because I suspect this is the same issue nationally. A lot of the gun trade is closely tied to the narcotics trade. And I have empathy for people who are addicted for sure. Not a lifestyle that I would recommend. When people choose that lifestyle or it gets its hooks into them and they are unable to find their way out of it, the one thing that they need and are going to get is their fix. And in talking to law enforcement here, and this is something that is baffling to me is just the laissez-faire attitude that gun owners have when it comes to not securing these items that are designed to take life. We're talking pistols and cup holders, which I suspect is a Texas thing too.

It's a Montana thing or just unsecured firearms. Well, in the criminal world, the theft of an unsecured firearm can be traded upstream for narcotics. It can essentially be used as a currency, and it is often. What they do with those things, I'm not an expert on how you make a weapon untraceable. I know they come with serial numbers and all those things, which, you know, things can be done to the serial numbers to make them illegible. But once they enter into that ecosystem, that upstream ecosystem and they're starting to be trading for narcotics, I mean, what law and restriction is going to stop that level of gun trafficking? So I'm going to assume that there is crime in Canada.

I'm going to assume that there are drug issues in Canada. I'm going to assume that there are violence in Canada. And sometimes, as per your email, they involve guns. In a country where it is difficult to get one of these handguns, but is geographically attached to a country that does not have those same restrictions, handguns, you know, very conceivable, smaller footprint. can travel and pass along easier. It's easier to travel unnoticed with a pissell than it is a rifle, right?

And so it doesn't surprise me, and I bet you a lot of the guns involved are going to be handguns. They enter into that ecosystem, and if there is a desire or demand for them coming north, they're going to come north. Ways that states might be able to impact this a little bit. I mean, we have an, I don't want to say an in an ordnit. We have an exceptional amount of gun laws already on the books. there are restrictions on what people can buy, the ages that they can buy them. But again, there is no restriction or regulation for how people should store them. And I'm not trying to infringe on people's Second Amendment rights.

To me, it just doesn't make sense to buy a tool that is designed to take life and then treat it as anything but that. So I actually think secure storage of firearms at all times would be the biggest thing. thing that you could do to impact this. However, people are going to break the law, are going to break the law. Your proximity to the U.S. and the volume of guns that are in the U.S. is going to be the most likely avenue that guns make their way there. That doesn't surprise me at all. Because like I said, it's a currency and it's valuable to people. And they want it. So they're going to get it. The border between the U.S. and Canada, whew, that's a long one.

Pretty porous. You know, I know there's some electronic means that it is monitored by, but it wouldn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out a way to cross and a location to cross and put whatever the hell you want to in a backpack. And you know what?

You can fill the backpack with more handguns than you can rifles. And I'll leave it at that. I don't want to give anybody ideas. But I understand the issue. These numbers don't surprise me. And I really wish that there was I don't think you legislate your way out of this problem, to be honest.

I think this is more of a changing a culture and a behavior if you're talking about the guns that originate from the United States and making it harder for people who are going to do these type of things to actually get those guns in and of themselves. Hopefully that helped. Hopefully I give you at least a little bit of an explanation. Last question for today. A little bit more survival water. All right.

My name is redacted. I'm a USMC. Marine Corps veteran, fire captain. and Paramedic, small business owner, and a podcaster. I have really been struggling to grow my listener numbers on my podcast. Everyone who tunes in says they love it, but I am not seeing any growth. I don't care just for numbers, but I want to reach more people and stick with it. I'm doing this podcast entirely by myself from recording to editing and all the PR and social media. What advice would you give for me in growing this passion project? I'm having trouble finding enough people to come on the podcast, too. Granted, I would love to have you on.

which I know wouldn't be possible, but any advice you have or any advice you may have would be appreciated. I'm kind of just winging it, but I believe I have a great message and have learned a ton from listening to every one of your episodes, along with many other influential shows I follow. It is called, and I'm going to say this even though you're going to be able to figure out who this person is, because maybe this guy has something that is awesome and more people need to hear it. It's called The Triumph Podcast. Any answers would be great. Thanks again. I love everything you put out there. Keep it coming. man I feel this email for five years five and a half years I did everything by myself too I did all of the editing I still do all the booking of the guests on my own having Michael has been wildly helpful it went from me having to watch back conversations that I already had and doing the video cuts to cameras watching a conversation for the second or third time is mind numbing especially if you're a part of it I don't like the sound of my own voice I suspect a lot of people are the same way, having him in the room real time, working cameras, the ability to look stuff up, it has been a tremendous help. And then within probably 10 minutes of recording an episode, we could probably

actually have it ready for upload. I do it on his schedule, but it helps so much. And actually doing it on a schedule brings me to one thing here. You're having trouble finding enough people to come on the podcast. You get to decide how often you do it. You don't have to do it every week. and maybe for you one episode every two weeks, one episode a month. I don't know if that would actually be enough. I started off with one episode every Monday. And years ago, I started doing the Friday episodes to try to handle the volume of questions that came in.

And I really enjoy doing it because it forces me to think about what I believe. But that's the pace that I am on. And you don't have to be on that pace. So there's a chance that you could slow down the tempo a little bit, and perhaps that would help with your guest search. why wouldn't it be possible for me to come on your show? You'd be surprised. I say yes to podcasts all the time. Sometimes they don't work out. Sometimes they do. But, I mean, I'm not necessarily against it. Shoot me another email and give me an idea of what you would want to talk about. And we can at least have that conversation.

The best advice that I can give you, if this is a passion project, is to stick with it and be consistent. once you determine the release schedule that you want to be on, don't deviate from it. I don't think I've missed an episode release in three or four years. I actually take that back. I might have missed one when I was in the hospital a Monday episode. I might have been short or late a day on a Monday episode when I was in the hospital for my intestinal surgery. Other than that, I have not missed one for years. And that is exhausting.

There are days and times where you're so booked up that the last thing you want to do is create an episode, but I believe that consistency is important. There is such a volume of content that is out there that you have a limited amount of time to capture people's attention. And if they find something more interesting while you take a break for whatever reason, they may never come back to you. And I can't blame them. If you follow a half a dozen podcasters right now, good luck trying to keep up with everything that comes out. good fucking luck. It is almost impossible. If you think it's valuable and you think it's meaningful,

stay with it. Do not think about the economics. Don't think about advertising or monetizing or any of those things. If you're doing it for the right reasons, focus on that consistency. Focus on the quality of what you're doing. Is there a format change? If you're having long form open-end to conversations, could you reduce it down and maybe be a little bit more targeted in? in an hour. Would that allow you to tighten up your message and make it even more impactful? I don't have any clue, but I'm just trying to throw out things that you might want to play around with. Also, shorter episodes, depending on the guests, can be easier to digest for the listener. I would, one thing you might want to look at doing is using some AI tools to develop some shorts of your,

or short form content of the things that you're putting out in long form. It's amazing how many people, the virality of short clips, whether people agree with them or disagree with them. Man, it draws their attention. I don't know which one of those is better. Regardless, if you're looking for attention, it draws their attention. And that's a way that you can expose yourself

to people or an audience that you may not have had exposure to before. If you're going to do an audio-only podcast, focus on absolute quality of your audio and recording devices. If you're going to do video, don't make it too complex to begin with. You could do a single camera,

if it's just you and a guest to begin with. You could go, and I used to do this. It'd be like me looking at a guest and the camera is off either my right or their left shoulder. You could go to two cameras when you get to that point, but allow the demand for the podcast to set the duration for that growth. If you have the economic ability to do it overnight, awesome. I mean, by all means, go ahead. But if you don't, cool. Who cares?

Use what you have, but maximize the quality of what you have. Like if you're doing this on an iPhone and you're shooting it in 720, bump that thing up to whatever your iPhone can do. At least get the most out of what you have and what you're using. If it's audio only, I definitely would recommend a high quality microphone and a high quality recording device. You have to have those things. If your audio sounds like shit, your podcast is not going to catch on. That's just the way that it is. So that's what I would do. And if you're passionate about it and you believe in it, just whatever you do, don't give up. And that's all I have for this Friday.