The School of Greatness - 914 The Unfiltered Guide to Starting a Successful Podcast with Chris Harder

Episode Date: February 12, 2020

So, you want to start a podcast? Well...it's definitely easier said than done.Entrepreneur and podcaster Chris Harder invited me to a special Q&A at his Mastermind where I answered some questions about podcasting. Honestly, I get this question a lot, “What’s your advice on starting a podcast?”...And I tell most people...they shouldn’t. With more and more people starting podcasts everyday, it will take so much work to stand out in the crowd. You can have the right intentions, but if you don't start with the right foundation, your podcast will probably disappear into the void.But if you are clear on WHY your podcast needs to be made and who you're serving, you stand a fighting chance.We just celebrated 7 years of The School of Greatness podcast about 2 weeks ago, and today my documentary Chasing Greatness finally premiers. It's been a long journey, full of ups and downs - moments of celebration and also hardship. Looking back, I'm proud of what I've accomplished. I'm excited about what I will accomplish. But mostly, I'm just so grateful. I’m so grateful to all of you who have supported us from day one. I'm always excited to hear about who has found this podcast helpful with growing stronger in their health, relationships, business, career, and more. I wanted this podcast to have an impact - a positive impact - on the world. You all have helped me get there. Today, I’m really excited to give you insight into how I approach creating this podcast every week for you. Join me on Episode 914 to learn my advice for starting your own podcast, dealing with negative feedback, and using it to grow in your personal life. Should anyone start a podcast? (0:21)When did you start doing video on your podcast? (18:25)Who is the most surprising guest you’ve interviewed? (23:12)What’s the biggest personal shift that has come to you from hosting your podcast? (27:48)Who is your favorite podcast host to listen to? (43:54)What is the why behind your podcast? (54:05)How valuable is it to be interviewed on podcasts as the CEO of your company? (1:01:15)What the year over year growth of the School of Greatness podcast has looked like (4:58)The most important psychological part of launching a great podcast (6:30)The difference between being a coach with a podcast and being a media company (15:03)How I get great guests on the show (24:50)How to choose the name of your podcast (34:30)How I take care of my voice (42:42)How to overcome the fear of judgment when starting a podcast (44:52)What not to do as a podcast host (1:02:53)Advice for re-launching an existing show (1:04:29)Why philanthropy and giving back are so important (1:06:54)Plus much more...If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/914 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes

This is episode number 914 on the ultimate guide to starting and launching a successful podcast. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Pablo Picasso said, the meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. Welcome to this special episode where I dive in and talk about launching a successful podcast. Now, my friend Chris Harder, who was a part of my Greatness Mastermind the last few years, he has his own mastermind and he asked me to come in and do a

special Q&A where I answered his questions and his members' questions about podcasting. And I get this question a lot. You know, Lewis, what's your advice on starting a podcast? And I tell most people that you should not start a podcast. With more and more people starting podcasts, I believe there's something like 700,000 podcasts out there. It's just going to take a lot of work to stand out in the crowd. But if you are clear on your why,

and you feel like there needs to be a podcast that comes out where you're serving, then you might have a fighting chance to get some attention and get some people listening. But most people, the reason I say you shouldn't is because most people start it and then they stop it like three months later because they realize how hard it is to build an audience, to make money. And it just takes a lot of time and energy. And if you don't know why you're doing it, if you're just doing it because you think it's cool, but you're not willing to put the time and the energy in, then it's going to be hard to sustain it. This has been around for seven years,

the School of Greatness podcast, over 150 million downloads. And it's taken time to grow and build a community of you, incredible individual who listens to this show and wants to learn and wants to grow. So again, we just celebrated the seven years of this podcast and I'm just grateful for each and every one of you who support us from day one. Some of you have been around since day one and you know who you are and I love you so very much.

I want to kiss you on the cheek. I want to hug you. I want to high five you, all that. And most of you come to our summit of greatness event annually, which will be our fifth annual conference coming up this year. It's crazy. It's been five years. Uh, so if you don't have your tickets yet, go to somewhat of greatness.com because that's where we really celebrate. We have incredible speakers, world-class speakers come and blow it up. And you come here to find this podcast to help you become stronger in your health, your relationships, your business, your career, and so much more.

And I'm really happy to give you insights into how I approach creating this podcast every week for you. And I hope this will give you clarity on your mission and your life. So in this episode, I give my unfiltered advice on starting a podcast. I go in, guys. I share a lot. I get open.

I get real, all that stuff. The psychological keys to creating great interviews. And here's a hint. The pre-show is the show. It's everything. The importance of clarity on your overall mission to know the direction your podcast and business is going, why I moved into recording every podcast on video and how that impacted and grew my audience, how to overcome negative feedback,

especially when you first launch your podcast. I answer a few questions about my favorite and least favorite interviews, and I discuss how this podcast, The School of Greatness, has helped me grow in my personal life. This is going to be a big one. Make sure to share it with your friends, lewishouse.com slash 914 on the ultimate guide to starting a successful podcast. to starting a successful podcast. So we're just going to do a little casual Q&A all about podcasts, but we can definitely see where this goes. And start thinking about your questions.

I'll kick this thing off. I hear a lot of people ask you, oh, Lewis, should I do a podcast? Oh, Lewis, I'm thinking about doing a podcast. And I've heard your answer be pretty consistent over the years. Not do one. Yeah, yeah. What's your true answer to should you do a podcast? Oh, Lewis, I'm thinking about doing a podcast. And I've heard your answer be pretty consistent over the years. Not do one. Yeah. Yeah. What's your true answer to, should you do a podcast? I don't think people should unless they have a clear plan for three to five years of doing it consistently every week. So unless you're committed every single week, because there's over 700,000 podcasts, why are people going to listen to you if you're going to just show up for six months and get

excited about it because you see 10 other influencers doing it and then stop in six months? You're wasting time. You're wasting energy. And I think you got to go into it with more of a mission as opposed to wanting to make money from it, which I know your whole thing is making money, but it's, you eventually want to make money, but you need to go into it with a mission. Like if you were going to do something for three to five years and not make money, then do the podcast.

If that's the, if you're like, I'm drawn to this mission because it's here to serve people with whatever. And I don't care if it's helping people make money, health, relationships, trauma. I don't care what it is, but it's got to be a purpose in my mind. Again, you can do it and you can make money if you're just going into it to make money. I just think you get burnt out quicker. So for me, I started it with the intention. I was like, I'm not going to make any money the first year. I don't want to make any money. I'm doing this because it's what I would want. It's what I would need. It's what I was seeking in my life. And I wanted to help people. And I just said, if I can help a few people every week, like overcome their biggest challenges, their insecurities, if people don't commit suicide, if people get out of toxic relationships, if people did that, then I

wouldn't need the money. Like for me, it was just so purpose-driven. And I really didn't start monetizing until a year and a half ago, two years ago with ads, five years in, right? I'll be in the seventh year in January. And we are making a little bit from sponsors in the first, maybe after the year one, we took on a few sponsors here and there, but it wasn't until year four, year five. And then this last year, this last year I said, okay, I'm going to go all in on making money with the podcast. Year six. And now we are making money around the podcast, promoting a book, promoting events. Like things came from the podcast because people asked for it.

But I didn't have the intention to do a big live conference, which I think a few guys have been at. That was my audience saying, we want this. We want to meet with other people, part of this community. I didn't have the intention of writing a book, but people said, hey, can you put it all into a book, what you've learned on this podcast for the first few years? I wasn't going to do a mastermind, but these higher level entrepreneurs kept emailing me saying, hey, can you coach me one-on-one? And I didn't want to do one-on-one. I just kept charging more and more for my time one-on-one. And after I was charging $10,000 an hour for a call, I was just like, I really don't want to do this anymore. I just kept charging more because I didn't want to do it. And then I said, maybe I'll do a mastermind.

And I'll try this because I have this great smaller group of people in my community that are high caliber like Chris that could really benefit from being in a group. And I think I could curate a good experience. So I was making money around the podcast with courses, membership, mastermind, book, live event, coaching, all these different things. And then I said, okay, now I'm going to actually make money with the podcast. And now my business has transitioned into being more of a media business as opposed to what it was before, which was courses and events and things like that. So my opinion is the intention to go in making money is the wrong intention. It should be, what would I do on a podcast that would light me up at least once a week for three to five years.

Do that thing if you're going to do a podcast. And you want to be strategic and also think, well, how could I make money in a year or two? Like, don't just be broke with the podcast. But I think you want to, when you come from a place of mission, people really feel that. But I've seen so many people in six months after they launch a podcast,

you don't get the views, you don't get the downloads or the listens, and it's just you're like, why am I doing this? I need to go make money. I need to go put my time into somewhere useful. But if you're focusing on serving people, then you're going to do it for a long time for free. And I just continually thought, like, would I keep doing this for free?

And I would. You had a slide up when I saw you speak at 10X last. And it's the first and only time I've ever seen this slide. And you may or may not remember the numbers, but it showed year one, year two, year three of your downloads. Do you know, or can you estimate what those are from year one, two, three, four, five, six? Because it blew my mind. They picture you now, they forget about the first couple of years. Yeah. The year one was like 750,000 total downloads. Total. 750,000 in one year. That was every week, not missing a week for a year. And year two, I think

it was, it almost doubled every year. So it was like one and a half million downloads after maybe 3 million total downloads in two years right so it still wasn't even that well big then year three i think it had three and a half million downloads year four it had something like eight million then it was 16 and uh now it's like last year we had, I think it was around $40 or $45 million. And then that year and then last month, a month and a half ago, we broke $45 million for the year. So we're on pace to like $70 million this year alone. But it's really just because I've been consistently showing up.

You know, it's 860-something episodes. It's just every week we've been consistent. And we try to be better every time. And I gave this speech two weeks ago. Does anyone go to Influencer, the event Influencer, a couple weeks ago? Bernie Bouchard's event? It's good, so I'm not repeating myself. I talked about these 10 psychological parts of making a great podcast.

I was just like, what are the things that you can't Google on how to launch a podcast? Because Brendan asked me to come speak at this conference he had. And I told everyone, don't do a podcast unless you really think about these 10 things. And one of them, I'll have to get my notes out because I can't remember all what they are. But I said one note that I was like, ah, this isn't going to be a big deal. People aren't going to be able to think of this. One thing I said to people that was the thing they remembered the most from these 10 things. And how many of you have a show right now? Just show of hands.

You have a podcast. And how many people want to launch a show? It's about half as many hands as before I said don't launch one. Yeah, yeah. You know, the psychology behind a great podcast that I've learned over the years is how many of you have an interview style show where you want to interview people or you're thinking of doing an interview style show where you're maybe some interviews, maybe not. I told a story about how I had a chance to interview Kobe Bryant last year. And I got there to his office an hour and a half early before the time was supposed to be.

I drove down to Orange County to go to his office and set up. I got there like 6.30, and I think the interview was at 8. And I'm walking around. There's no one in the office except the assistant who lets me in. We're walking around this office trying to find the location to set up the video cameras. And I walk by a long kind of alleyway in the office. And there's windows of offices on each side. And one of these offices that I walked by, the lights were off.

And I just walked by it, checked out this other room, and I came back. And as I come back and look at the window, I realized Kobe Bryant's sitting in the back of this office with the lights off in his desk, computers off. He's just like sitting here looking up at the ceiling. It's 6.30 AM. No one's in the office. And I was like, I saw him really quick. And I was like, oh shit, that's Kobe. Like he's sitting here. And I was like, I saw him really quick. And I was like, oh, shit, that's Kobe. Like, he's sitting here. And I asked his assistant. I was like, is he, what's he doing in here at 6.30 a.m.? Like, the light's off. No one else is here.

And she goes, he's the first one in every day. He'll be in here. He's been in here for like 30, 45 minutes. And I'm like, what the fuck is he doing here? Like, it just blew my mind. Anyway, so I'm like getting set up. And we're setting up right next to his office. So he can kind of see maybe out of the corner what's happening, but he's like looking a different direction focused. So I've got an hour and a half while we're setting up

wondering, is he going to come out? When are the lights going to come on? Is he going to come say hi to me? Like I had no clue what was going to happen. It's 10 minutes before our time where we're supposed to start. Now it was kind of crazy because people were in the office at that point and there was another production company that was setting up at another location. He was doing an interview with me. Then he was doing, little Wayne was interviewing him right after me. So the publicist is now there. The team is now there and they're like, okay, you've got 20 minutes. And they give me a long list on a piece of paper and said, you can't ask him anything about these things.

Right? It's like all this stuff from parents to his wife to this, all this stuff. And I was like, okay. And the lights come on about 10 minutes before we're supposed to start. And she's like, you've got 20 minutes. He's going to come out right at the time. And then you've got 20 minutes and you're going to be done. I was like, okay. And three minutes before the start of the time, like he's walking out with someone. He comes right out to me and he says, hi. So I know I've got three minutes before this interview starts. And I knew from my six years of experience that these three minutes is what the show is. The pre-show is the show.

Most people think it's the questions you ask. Kelsey probably knows. It's like, it's not the questions you ask. It's not the content within the show itself, the interview. It's the minutes before, if you have minutes, or if you have 30 minutes. And I did my research. So I was

like, I knew if I only had a moment with him, what I was going to ask him before we started. Because for me, I knew this made or braided the entire show. So right away, his whole team is around. There's just a lot of people, commotion. We're setting up the mic on him, we're seating him down. And I try to connect with him for three minutes. And I say to him a few questions. The first thing, I acknowledge him. I just say, hey, man, I want to acknowledge you for taking the time to do this with me. Congrats and everything. And also, I have a lot of Olympic friends who said that you're so kind and giving during the Olympics when you played in the Olympics. Like you're always so welcoming. You would take photos with everyone.

You would show up to other events. And I just wanted to say it's really cool that you did that. And I play on the USA handball team, and it's really cool because a lot of people aren't that big in the Olympics, and it's really fun for them. And he goes, you played handball? He goes, in Italy growing up, that was like my sport. So right away I'm like,

yes. And so he's talking to me. He's telling me a story about handball. He's like, yeah, I used to play in high school or middle school and elementary school. And like, I used to watch on TV. These guys are amazing. He's like, that's so cool. And then the publicist said something and was like, yeah. And he's interviewed some other people, some other big athletes. And he was like, oh yeah, who have you interviewed? And I was like, some guys that you know, we have some mutual friends as well. And he goes, yeah, who's that? I was like, yeah, Novak Djokovic and so-and-so. And he was like, Novak is my boy, right? He was like, Novak's amazing. And I just searched to see who he was following on Instagram and who I knew. I was just like, and I'm not mentioning other athletes that I'd had on, but I was like, who does he know?

Yep, smart. And he was following like 50 people or something, and Novak happened to be one of them. Wow. And I mentioned someone else, and he was like, oh, that's a good dude. Yeah, that's a good guy. And then I asked him like one other thing,

and we just chatted for three minutes, and then I said, Hey, listen, I know we only got 20 minutes and your publicist gave me a list. Like their team was like kind of back in the background now. And I was like, your publicist told me all the things, what not to say, is there anything else off limits that I don't, I shouldn't ask you or shouldn't talk about? And he goes, take your time and ask me anything you want. Wow. And I was like, yes. Because you struck that rapport with him. That's amazing.

Yeah, I mean, I had three minutes. But here's the thing. If I would have just said, hey, good to meet you, Kobe. I'm excited to do this. Let's sit down. And question number one, tell me about this. The pre-show is the show, if you're doing an interview type of show. And Rob's done a great job with this when he's interviewed me.

It's like, it just makes me feel good. you know it's just making someone feel good making me feel appreciated like you understand them simple stuff like we all do this probably very well but the show actually doesn't matter if you don't get the pre-show right and so for me that is everything and I think if you're not doing an interview show it's still the pre-show is the show because if you just like have your notes and you like turn on the mic and you're doing a solo episode teaching something about whatever you're teaching, you need to really make sure you ground yourself for those three to 10 minutes in the pre-show and think about what, I think, try to think about one person who's left a comment on my Instagram or DM me and answer that person's question and really try to think about, man,

what is this woman going through right now in her life? And this interview is for Susan, who's really struggling. She's in a toxic marriage. She's trying to get out of it. This is for Daryl, who's like, he's in a good corporate job making six figures, but he's miserable and dead inside. This is for whatever. I'm just thinking of the person before I turn the mic on and I'm speaking to one person's energy and heart. And that's what I try to speak into when I'm doing solo. And then when I'm interviewing someone, I'm trying to really connect with them and think about who are the people that need to hear this and where do I need to go and how do I need to build that connection? So to make a great podcast, I think you need to think about the psychology of

it first, not just the mechanics of it, because you can Google how to launch a podcast and how to get more downloads. You can find all those steps, but the thing is understanding the person you're talking to across the mic and the person who's listening and just really having empathy and compassion for those individuals. You know, I've learned that the hard way over years of just messing up. So you, uh, you offered me such clarification once we're sitting in a Soho house and we're kind of planning out my next year. And you said, listen, you are either a coaching company with a podcast or you're a media company and you have to choose which direction you're going. Can you explain to them that difference? Cause that shifted everything

for me. Yeah. It's funny. It's like I was trying to do both for a long time and actually next year, I'm pretty much getting rid of everything on my plate and just going all in on the podcast because I realized that I was just doing so many different things. I was in coaching. I was in courses. I was in membership. I was in events. I was doing everything. And I was interviewing. And I was doing all the booking, doing three shows a week. I was just doing a lot. And kind of everything was at an 80% good level. Like I was getting results. I was making money. Things were great, whatever. Oh, and I was in book publishing and all this stuff. But I really, in the last year, transitioned more and more into just being, I'm going to be a media business

first. And in order to do that, I'm focusing everything on maximizing the podcast first. I'm going to be cutting out other parts of my business that are multiple seven-figure revenue generators, which is scary to do. Like I've got multiple seven figures coming in that I'm going to say, you know what? I just don't want that next year. To go all in on media because I want my business to be that. Because I want to impact 100 million people a week. And when I'm doing multiple different projects

that are impacting 50 at a time or a few thousand or whatever, it's not serving the higher mission. And so I'm just getting clarity. And I think it's important for everyone to get clarity on, is it to support your business or is it the business? And is it for your mission? Is it for credibility? I think you just want to get clear on what's it for. And I'm not saying you need to go, podcast should be the only thing you do and you got to go all in on it. You just got to get clear on why you're doing it and what it's going to serve in the next two, three, five years.

Does anyone not want to do a podcast or doesn't have one or is not thinking about it? Okay. The clarity it offered me was, you had said, you either just have to have a good enough podcast to sell as many mastermind spots

or whatever it is you want, or you have to burn the bridges, go all in, and be a true media company and make your money that way. Make money that way, yeah. And that gave me the freedom to have one that is just good enough to reach the right number of people. So you don't have to obsess about downloads anymore. Yeah, and it gave Lori the opposite.

Lori's not doing any more influencer work, no more courses, no more anything ever again. Just podcasts. Her podcast and the alcohol company, and that's it. Yeah, I think it's smart because otherwise you're obsessing about downloads, trying to make money as a sponsorship game and do courses and coaching.

This is a great model that Chris has and I think it's probably great for a lot of you to follow this model where I'm assuming you have coaching, consulting, courses, events, stuff like that and really say I'm not going to obsess over trying to get all the downloads all the time. It's going to be more of a credibility play where I can send potential customers and clients, high-level coaching customers, to the podcast to listen to get to know me

and make it a showpiece where you're going to get the right amount of people in to listen, and those people are going to sign up. Like Brooks was telling me before, I did a Facebook Live, and I sent two people to it, and it made me like 70 grand or something. You know, it doesn't matter if 100 people watch that or 100 million. You're looking for the right people to see it. So you don't need to assess,

like how do I get more views? How do I get more views? I need 10,000 views to feel good. Like no, you just need a couple thousand probably, a few hundred, and the right topic, and the right people to see it. And that's the key.

Wow, that's the key. That was really freeing. All right, you guys got questions? I remember, when did you start doing video? I think it was like three years in. It was four years ago we started because I hired Tiffany four years ago. So I guess three years in. Okay, I remember when you were thinking about doing it

and you're like, I'm going to do it. I was like, shit, nobody's doing video. Like you pioneered this, right? Now all of a were thinking about doing it and you're like i'm gonna do it i was like yeah nobody's doing video like you pioneered this right now all of a sudden everybody's doing it so the question is for those of us that are not doing video now what advice would you have about the difference between doing it on camera versus doing it you know just over the internet and how challenging is it to get people to show up at your house? Like, for example, you know, if I, if I wanted, if I wanted to interview you, you got to get in your car, you got to fight LA traffic. It's a half a day for you.

Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about like that world. I mean, for Kobe, I'll go to him. But yeah, I made a decision. Everything I do in my life is probably not smart. But I try to be, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Financially, time-wise, it's probably not smart. But I remember around that time, four years ago, more and more people were getting in a podcast.

And now it's like every year more and more, right? But at that time, it was like the second wave. Maybe the third wave. I would say I was like part of the second wave seven years ago. First wave was like Joe Rogan and like the Tech Weird podcast, right? Then I came in in 2013, January 2013. Rich Roll came in right at the same time you know Pat Flynn like a couple of the guys kind of came in in that same six month window and then the last few years it's been like the whatever third fourth fifth wave and everyone was doing audio and I just

remember saying like how do I differentiate myself and how do I attract and impact more people I was like I think I got to do video but and I also knew that my interviews weren't as good over Skype, over the phone, as they were in person. They were just so much better when I did interview in person. And I just made a decision.

I was like, I'm setting a new standard for myself, and maybe I'm going to miss out on opportunities, but I'm going to set a new standard that every interview is in person moving forward. I haven't done one interview over Skype since four, four and a half years ago. Yeah. And it's a lot of work, you know, especially doing two long form interviews a week that I post. It's a lot of work, eight a week, eight a month, right? So I'm constantly having to feed the beast of interviews. It's a lot of work, but, and it also hurt me

financially because I sell sponsorships based on the audio downloads. So now I'm telling people, go watch this video on YouTube, go watch it on Facebook, go watch it on Instagram. So I'm losing money every time I put a video out. Losing money. Imagine if I had double the audio downloads as opposed to no one watched any video content anywhere and they just had to listen. I would make double the revenue.

But I'm attracting, but I'll always ask people when they say like, I love your podcast, people come up to me all the time and say like, I love your show, I've been listening for a couple years and I'll always say, how did you find it? At least half people say YouTube. So I'm like, and go more viral. You can't make an audio go,

I've yet to see an audio go viral from anyone. Maybe there's like a Joe Rogan podcast with, I don't know, the president or something where then you'll go listen to the audio and that kind of like gets triple the audio downloads he normally gets, but it's the video that goes viral always, the video clips that go viral. So for me, I just knew that I needed to have a way to differentiate myself. I knew that I knew if I wanted to make it a better podcast, I had to do everyone in person. If I'm going to do it in person, I might as well videotape it. So I have that asset so I can put it on long form on YouTube, short clips for social media. It just made sense. It didn't make sense financially,

but it made sense in terms of the impact and the mission that I have, which is impacting more people. Yeah. I mean, which is impacting more people. Yeah, I mean, I've been trying to get people for years who are like, we'll do a phone interview, but yeah, it's harder. But it's also I've set a new threshold and a new standard for myself that, okay, well, maybe if I really want the person, I'll fly to them or I'll drive to them and I'll set up and do it there. And if I want it that bad enough, then I'll do whatever it takes. It's just trying to set a new standard.

So two questions. Number one, who's been the most surprising interview that you've done where, you know, you had an expectation of who the person was and you interviewed them and you were like, holy, I did not expect this to come from that. And number two, you know, a lot of people do interviews and we're always looking to attract the right person or reach out to people the proper way. In what you do, what would you say is the proper etiquette

to reach out to an influencer or a person that influences you the right way? Most surprising, I feel like every year there's always surprising people. It's like the people that I didn't think were going to be that fascinating or I wasn't sure about that like blew me away. Like Marissa Peer was someone that blew me away and I didn't really know who she was. And I think her team pitched her to be on my show and I was like, it was, they pitched a few times and I said no. And then someone on my team watched a video of hers and was like, I think you should have this person on. And I go, nah, I already passed them a few times.

Like, eh, I don't even know who they are. She's like, no, just watch the video. And I watched it and I was like, okay, I'll give it a try. And I had her on. It was like one of the top five most downloaded episodes. Yeah. And I think it was, I think a lot of it is timing. I think a lot of it is the title I think a lot of it is the title

and then the content, the topic, obviously. And I remember, cause no one knew who she, I didn't think people knew who she was. Maybe a small segment of my audience knew her name, Marissa Peer. And so I said, okay. And so if they're a big name, I put their name first in the title. If they're an unknown or someone that doesn't really know them much, I have a catchy headline with their name at the end. So I was like, no one's going to know who she is, maybe a small segment. But the whole time I had my jaw dropping for an hour in this interview, and I was just like, this is mind-blowing.

So I was like, people need to hear this. How do I get their attention? And I just came up with the headline, Your Thoughts Will Heal You or Kill You with Marissa Peer. And for whatever reason, that headline just worked, whether it was the timing, whether it was that part of the year that it caught people's attention, and it just spread everywhere. So I think the title got people in, and the content made it spread.

Yeah. So you need both. I mean, you need all of it. For the guests, I book everyone myself. I get pitched a lot and I say no 99% of the time because the people I want on usually aren't pitching me. They're people that I can't get. So I, like for the last three, four months, I've been messaging back and forth with Tyrese because I knew he had a movie coming out, right? And he follows me.

He's been following me for years, but we never met or anything. Everyone know who Tyrese is, the actor? He's got this movie out. So I've been messaging him back and forth like, hey, man, you're going to be in L.A. We'd love to have you on. And again, mentioning other friends we have in common, mentioning other stuff, interests, and not asking for anything. I'm just like, I want to promote your mission. I want to promote your cause, which is his movie right

now, which is about a lot of the brutality and the police, the African-Americans. And I'm like, I want to support this mission because it's unfair what's happening. And so we've just been going back and forth like every three days I'm messaging him. I'm like, when are you going to be in LA? What's going to, do I need to come to Atlanta? Like, what's it going to happen? And he's like, stay on me. He's like, I'm not sure when I'm coming, but hit me up in three days, hit me up in four days. And so I'm just staying on top of him. And I'm just making it about him. I'm not saying like, can you help me with this? Can you help me with that? I'm just saying, how can I serve you and your mission? And it's timing. Like it wouldn't work if it was a year ago. It's like,

he's got something he really cares about right now. So people with books coming out, that's when I hit them up. It's like how can I serve your mission and sell a lot of books for you? So a lot of these people I wouldn't be able to get on unless they had a mission or something they cared about, a book, a movie, or something like that. And I'm just constantly in relationship with people, constantly messaging them. For years before I ask them to come on, I'll be talking to them.

Years. Sending them video messages, sending them auto messages, just adding value on their page, just whatever I can do. And I'll just, like Hilary Swank just started following me, and I've been commenting on her stuff for years because I want to interview her.

And she messaged me and she just said, hey, I would love to be on your show. But I didn't ask her. She just finally found out who I was, saw my page, saw the content I was adding, saw that I kept adding value to her, saw we had a bunch of friends in common. She said, hey, I'd love to do a podcast sometime. Now I replied to her and she hasn't got back to me in like two weeks because she hasn't checked her DM. But it's like, I'm constantly in relationship with people and I'm constantly in relationship who people. And I'm constantly in relationship with who I've also had on. So I don't know if that answers the question. But again, I'm in the relationship business with an interview podcast.

So I'm just thinking of serving people the whole time, not what can I get out of this relationship. And I never ask for anything. And I think that helps. What's really coming through for me and what I'm curious about is, what is the biggest personal shift that you've had, either emotionally or spiritually, that came as a result of a message that came through one of your podcast guests?

I mean, for me, it's inner peace. That's easy for me. I went through some challenging stuff at the beginning of this year in a personal relationship and I was just like okay what's the lesson I need to learn where do I need to drop into like who do I need to learn from can you share what guests that came through

it was a bunch of them but I was like I need to find spiritual leaders that that can help me figure out what I need to work on myself. Like where I need to come to Jesus with myself, where I need to like own my wrongs or whatever it is. Like I just like, I'm just not feeling inner peace. I hadn't been feeling it for a couple of years

because of some personal stuff I was going through. But, and when a lot of, I was getting a lot of hate online and a lot of my friends were, I felt like betrayed by a lot of people. I was serving for years, helping for years. And I was just like, wow, this really sucks that people that I've been giving to for so long were so quick to judge something that they actually know nothing about. And they knew nothing about, and they wouldn't even ask me about it. So I felt very like, I was like, man, look at everyone.

You know, I was like, why am I giving to so many people all the time when people are just like quick to judge something when they actually don't know what's going on? And so I was really struggling. I was like, man, why am I helping so many people? Why am I giving to so many people for years, trying to help their mission, promoting them, have them on my show when they don't care about me, when they actually were just using me

the whole time? So I felt very used and very hurt by a number of different people. And I started reaching out to these spiritual people and I was like, come on my show. Like I need to learn. I need to learn like how to find peace with, uh, you know, what I was going through peace with the people who are judging me or talking crap about me. I was just like, I need to find some peace and understanding. I need to learn how to forgive more. I need to learn how to forgive myself. I need to learn how to heal, grieve, like all these things. And Erwin McManus was one of them who I didn't really know who he was, but he's a pastor here in town. I haven't been to church in, I don't know, 12 years or something. And he's a

pastor. I spoke with another meditation leader who's from India. She came on. I spoke with Robin Sharma, who's another spiritual teacher who wrote a book, Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. And it was just kind of like, again, that's what I need in those times. I think I had Marissa Pierron. I was just like seeking support for myself. Self-awareness. Yeah, I was just like, what do I need to learn? Is there one particular...

Rob Bell. Something that came through, but without even the person, is there something in particular that came through that you can identify as, this was my biggest breakthrough moment in my spiritual ascension? It was like a combination of all of them. But Raman Sharma was really powerful in the sense he was like, all of us need to go through a purging process in our life. And you need to purge the people in your life who you've been giving to

that just have been taking this whole time. If they're so quick to judge without actually having a face-to-face conversation and talking and asking how are you feeling, how are you handling this, like what can I do for you, as opposed to just quickly to judge. He was like, this is an opportunity for you to cleanse yourself, cleanse your soul, and purge your environment, the people in your life, and really reflect on what's working, what's not working, and move forward with a new vision for your life.

So that was really powerful at that time when he shared that just because I was like, man, I felt like everyone was against me. And I was like, man, no one actually reached out to really ask. So that was very challenging because I felt like, man, this whole time I've been trying to give my best to the world, to my friends, to all these people. And people hear one thing and they assume it's true when it's not. And I couldn't do anything. So I was like, my greatest fear was like probably like my ego, killing my ego, right? It was just like people judging me when they don't know the truth.

And me having to like have that assumption. Yeah, and just be like, wow, actually, it made me drop into more humility. It made me drop into more service giving in a different way. But I was like, I'm not just going to give to takers all the time. But it also made me have a lot of compassion for people. Because I think if I reflect back on my life, I was probably just as judgmental of people in similar situations, or if something happened where I saw something, I'd probably quickly judge people. It made me be like, wow, you know, I've probably done all the same things they've done to

me. So how can I just be better moving forward? How can I learn from this and really improve my life and set a new vision and really a standard for myself? I think the breakdown allowed me to say, okay, never again am I going to do this. Never again will I do this. Never again will I do this. I'm always going to be set to a new standard. And if there's consequences, at least I know that I'm like completely cleared in my heart. I did everything with the highest level of my word, with a good intention. And so I really used that time with those leaders who came on to just be like, I'm an open vessel, like teach me. What's her name?

Byron Katie came on and I was just like, you know, holding her hand and crying and doing the work with her. I'm just allowing myself to be a vessel for like my audience. And I'm just like freaking, you know, Gabby Bernstein was just on and she's like, we're having a moment. I'm allowing myself to be so vulnerable again for a mission, not like to make money, but to serve. And if I didn't make money, I would still do this. And I think that's the difference maker. It's like, I would do this for free. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I want to just reflect back to you. I saw you speak at Bliss right after Mask of Masculinity came out. And so I do spiritual work.

Your frequency that you're carrying is so much clearer, more intentional and balanced in this room right now than I, and you did an amazing job there and you were super influential, but like, you can tell that you've been doing the work. And so I just want to like acknowledge you for that. Thank you. So I have two questions. I hope that's okay. First is really around like your self-care practices when using your voice. And do you work like with a vocal coach at all? Because obviously on an audio platform, I'd just love to know kind of what you do to do that. And my second question is, I have been wanting to start a podcast for over a year and I'm stuck on a name, which I feel like is probably just a lot of resistance, but how... What's the mission? I just, honestly, for me personally,

when I was in a place where I felt really stuck and needed inspiration, I was feeling incredibly isolated. And Lori's podcast was actually the first one that I listened to. And it allowed me to get around people that could pour into me without even knowing that they were pouring into me.

And I want to give back in that way, and I just love connecting. What's the intention of the show? Who is it for specifically? If you could think of one person that you would speak to every episode, who is that person and what are they going through? And what's the biggest thing you need to overcome? Yeah, it's that woman that's just stuck. What's her name?

Who's the person in your life that you know? Like who's the girlfriend you talked to or the mom, the daughter, the who is it that you know in your life that you're like saying this to, that you're supporting or that you wish you could say this to? What's her biggest challenge? Confidence, belief in herself. Fear that if she really steps into who she is, that she might lose job security, that people are going to judge her. She lives in a small town. Fear of upsetting the container that she's in right now. Okay.

And why would people listen to you? Because what I have to say is important. But why are you credible? Why would they care that you? Because what I have to say is important. But why are you credible? Why would they care that you're asking and interviewing these people? What do you have over the other thousand women that do a podcast show like this? What's different and unique about you that no one else has? I feel like I have the ability to really see things and help people connect dots that they can't see for themselves. Like I can literally sit down with someone who's stuck and within about 45 seconds

to a minute, I can map out an entire solution for them that they didn't think of before. So what's been holding you, what's been keeping you stuck for a year of actually launching something you want to do? Again, it's resistance, distraction, belief that it's going to take a lot of time, that it's going to be overwhelming. I don't have the money to do it. I'm blocked in my own personal life. I think I have fear around really identifying to what I want to call it. What if I change my mind? What if I want to shift it?

There's just a lot of excuses. So if you had to do the same thing every week for three years, and you'd be excited about it from the first time to the third, you know, the 300th time. Yeah. And obviously it would evolve and it shifts, but what would that thing be where you didn't make money? What would that be?

What would that, just helping women, would it be for women? Yes. Helping women get unstuck in their personal life, their business, their career, figuring it, navigating all the mess of life? Yeah, I just, like if I could do anything every single day, it would be getting on stage with a microphone and inspiring people.

So if I can do that. But you've been resisting doing that for a year. Yes. So it doesn't, there's a disconnect for me. It sounds like if I could do this every day, I would, but you have the ability to do it, but you're not doing it. So what's the real resistance? Is it the fear? Is it the money? Is it the time? Is it like, what's the main thing? I can't think of a name. Like, if there's one thing that's holding you back. Yeah, it's the name. It's like really like...

A name is holding you back. Not knowing the right name is the biggest thing that's saying, well, I'm going to spend another year until I get the right name. So you're telling me that your resistance to the right name has been robbing women of freedom. When you put it that way, it sounds... You're stealing from women the ability to go live their dreams, the ability to have a better relationship. When you put it that way, it's selfish.

You're hurting people every day that you don't do it. If you truly believe this is a mission of yours, I'm not saying this is not like your calling or your purpose, then don't do it. But if you're like, this is my duty in the world. Like for me, I feel like it's a responsibility and a calling. It's not like, yes, I'm building a business around it, but it's a duty to serve. It's an honor to serve people. When someone messages me and says, I just heard you open up for the first time about being sexually abused. And this happened to me at seven years old. I just got this yesterday. And I finally, after 40 years, had the courage to tell my wife, thank you for setting me free. It's a, dude, it's like a, such an honor for me. And I don't care if 100 million people listen to it a week

or one person, it helps. Feel some peace. For me, that's my calling. And I think you got to think of it as like, for you, a calling. And it doesn't have to be this like emotional, like cry fest, like deep, heart-opening calling thing. Like, you know, Chris is helping people with financial freedom. And it's sure there's some emotional ties to it, but it's not like, let's sit here and kumbaya and have therapy session, you know, every interview, but you're going to have that intention. That's, then it doesn't matter what the name is. You can change the name. You can shift the show. You got to have the intention behind your calling. In my opinion, it's just one human being's opinion based on the results that

I've seen for myself and other people come and go. It's like they don't have that thing. And it could be a comedy podcast and you can do all these other things too. But for someone like you, like you've got to be driven by a purpose to continue on for many years. So I think your exercise should be writing down one page, manifesto to the exact woman that you want this podcast to be for. Write a page like today and have it by tonight for dinner time. There's a manifesto to the single person you're doing this podcast for. And imagine that you're going to take this person on a journey over the next six to 12 months. What does she need to hear every week from step one to step 12 months, right? What does she need to hear along her journey? And maybe this person is you. Maybe this is a personal journey that you need to go on for yourself to get unstuck in a certain

area of your life. And you're doing it for Susan and you're doing it for yourself. That's kind of what I did when I started. I was like, I'm trying to figure out this life thing. This is a school for me. And I want you to learn from the professors that I'm learning from and how I'm using and applying this in my life. And I want you to learn with me.

So I kind of use it as a platform to learn myself and for people to go along the journey with me. So I think for you, write it out like who the person is. I'm going to do a podcast series for a year for you. And this is what it's going to be. The first episode, I'm going to really address this. Because I know you're stuck here, here, here, here. And I want you to have some relief.

And I want you to have some clarity in your life. And I want you to feel so alive, so driven, so excited about what you're creating for yourself that you feel on fire. That's what I'm going to create this for. In the first episode, I'm going to talk about this. Then after month two, we're going to go into this. Then by month 12, I'm going to have a whole year game plan for you. I'm going to bring in expert guests.

I'm going to bring in a therapist. I'm going to bring in this. I'm going to do some solo stuff and speak right to your heart. You ready to go on the journey with me? Let's go. And write, yeah, exactly. Write that down. And the name's going to flow. You can call it your name if you want to. You can call it The Unstuck Show, whatever. It's like you can change the name if it doesn't feel right. Change it after two months. Like, it's okay. But I think you've got to get clear on your mission, and you've got to ask yourself what's your biggest fear and resistance.

Because I feel like there's something else that's, like, really resisting. I don't know if it's you don't think people are going to listen or what it is, but some of the resistance. Because if it's just, I can't figure out the name, and I haven't launched it in a year because I don't know the name, I think that's, so I don't know. That's my thoughts. Is that helpful? Very. Thank you. Cool. And what are your practices around your voice? Oh, my voice. I started taking a vocal lessons this year because I noticed myself clearing my throat more and more in, in shows. And I was just feeling like tired after I do two interviews, even if I want to talk much, for some reason, my voice would get

tired. I don't know why that is. So I started doing vocal lessons here in LA and that's been really helpful. I haven't done them in the last few months, but it's really helpful at the beginning of the year. And I want to do more of those. And the vocal coach, like I hired like a top professional vocal coach who works with all like, like Sia as her client, like all these other people that can sing. I can't sing, but she works with other, yeah, exactly. She works with like other voice individuals like Joe Buck, who's an announcer, sports announcer, works with her. And she's really helped me have more control. So I still have a long way to go, but I'm more aware of it. And I think something like that when you're ready, but

drinking lots of water. Two simple questions. Who is your favorite person to listen to, to enter like their interview style, like just not necessarily who they have on or who do you love to listen to that does interviews and who's the one guest that you really, really want on? I really like Rob, actually. Rob's really good. He is. This Rob? Yeah. He's one of my favorites, too. He's great.

Yeah, he's fantastic. I think Rob is an amazing job. I actually don't listen to too many podcasts because I'm doing so many interviews that I'm listening to so many every day by just doing it. And I want to listen to more. Oh, just interviews in general. Yeah, I think Rob does a

great job. Just off the top of my head. Yeah, I mean Rob, I mean Oprah, you know, Oprah does a great job. Yeah, exactly right. How did you get over or did you have, either one of you can answer this, a fear of judgment when you started it? And how did you get over that? Is that the two questions? The other question I have is, who's the biggest douchebag that came on that you were like, oh my God. Take a guess. I don't know. Yeah. How do they overcome the fear of judgment of who is listening? Is that what you said? Yeah. I think I went into it in the beginning just saying, hey, guys, I'm just starting this thing out. I don't know what I'm doing. I wasn't like, I'm an expert.

Listen to me. This wasn't the Lewis Howe show. Everyone's like, use your name. I was like, I don't want to have that pressure of like, I need to be the expert. I'm not saying that's bad. I just, for me, I didn't want that pressure of being like, I need to have the answers or something. And there's, I have lots of friends who have their names or show and it's fine. That was just my personal thing. I wanted to be something bigger than me. So, so I was like the school of greatness with Lewis Howes. So I just

kept saying early on, like, I'm going on a journey. I'm going on a journey. I want you guys to join me on this journey. I'm going to discover things about myself. I want you to discover things about yourself. And I got so much negative feedback in the first six to 12 months. Like every episode I would do, people would send me negative emails. Like you interrupt too much. You say um too much. You cough too much. You say wow too much, which I still say wow all the time. They just say all the little things they pick at me, right? I think I was, again, I'm so focused on the duty and the mission that I was just like, ah, you know, my ego would get hurt. And I would like, in the beginning, I used to defend myself to all these people and like reply back to them. And now I just say, thank you for the feedback. I'm just like, thank you. If I missed

one person from them resonating, if they listened to something that didn't work for them, then I lost them. And so it's my job to get better. It's my job to listen. Even if I feel like it's irrelevant, I lost this person. Or they were distracted by something I did, which I don't want to do. So how can I take this and remember it for the next time and just try to be less interrupting, try to do less of this, like just do a little bit better job. So really try to listen and take what makes sense and move on. And again, I'm just like so committed to the mission that I'm willing to look like a fool and be judged and be criticized and be shamed and have people freaking hate me, if that's their, if that's, it's more of a reflection of them, you know,

which I've learned over the years. Like their judgment, their criticism, their hatred is something they're feeling inside. It's one of the reasons why I almost, I can't remember, so I don't want to say always, but I don't leave negative comments or negative reviews anywhere for anyone because if you're a creator,

it's hard to criticize other people at the same time because you are getting so much criticism. It's the people that are criticizing, they're not creating something. And I'm just so, I just have compassion. I'm like, okay, they're afraid, they're ashamed, they're not doing what they want to do. And so they're criticizing me. Like they're going to find something they don't like about me

because they're upset I'm doing something they wish they were doing. And I'm not better than them. I'm not smarter. I'm probably the dumbest person in this room and in lots of rooms based on books and reading, writing and memorization and all these things. But I've just, for some reason, figured out how to overcome the judgment by finding a meaning to my life and being okay with it. And so the beginning of this year was rough. I mean, I feel like everyone was against me. And so that was really rough to learn the lesson, but it was the greatest gift ever. And I'm like, I'm glad it happened. And I would wish for it, not again and again, but I would wish for it to happen again.

If someone was like, could you go through that without it? I would say, no, I want it again, because it brought me so much peace. It brought me so much more love in my life. And it got me out of a toxic environment that I was in for many years that I didn't know how to get out of. And so I'm like, to have peace, I'll, I'll spend millions of dollars to have peace and love and real intimacy and not be, you know, in a toxic experience. So let me rephrase my second question because that wasn't appropriate to throw somebody under the bus, but are there interviews or people that you really looked up to and really looked forward to interviewing that you really felt let you down? There was one interview maybe.

I don't want to say his name. He was tied up. I interviewed him a few years ago. He got tied up in the Me Too movement a year or two ago. And kind of he was a big name, big name that had done a lot of stuff for many years that I used to watch on TV and other stuff. And he didn't let me down based on like what happened with the Me Too stuff, even though I was like, you get what you deserve, I guess. Right. But that didn't let me down. The way that let me down is the way he treated my camera person. Like he was very, you know, I

have a female, black female camera producer, Tiffany, who's been with me for four years. And he just was really dismissive. And this is a black guy. And he was really dismissive, rude. And I didn't respect that. I was like, I don't care. I'm not going to judge you on other stuff you do in the world. Like, whatever. I don't know what's true, what's not true. But, like, to treat someone who's maybe lesser than you or at a different level or something, for me, I've always just been taught to really treat people

who have nothing with the most respect and really be giving to those individuals. Because I remember when I had nothing, and there were a few people that really were kind to me and I remember those people. So I've just always been, so I was really let down and he was just, it wasn't a good interview. Like we were in his office, he was sitting up and then he starts laying down on his couch

in the middle of the interview and I was just like, so she had to like adjust the cameras constantly. It was just weird. I'm like talking to him while he's down on his couch in the middle of the interview and I was just like so she had to like adjust the cameras constantly it was just weird I'm like talking to him while he's laying on his couch and so I was just kind of like yeah anyways yeah any other questions yeah go ahead in the back so I am a very tactical person so I know that this is a very creative process and I understand that okay I just want more technical help on format so ideally I would like to well I rolled out a show just basically interpreting what is being said in the economy in a really simple way so that people know how to use it to shop better for their home loans. Ideally what I'd like to have as a show is that part, that news and noteworthy part of it be an aspect of it,

but then also talk about like real things that happen with people's credit. And I know this is very niche, but it's my passion and love in the world. But I have like a really hard time cause I'm like a rule follower. So I would like a format, but then there aren't formats and then I haven't heard a podcast like mine great then make what you want you know make it the way you want to do it I think all right no no no I know guys look I get you're all

creatives and this is like your dream but I like a format you want me to like tell you a format well I want to like hear maybe good like transitions and like what makes something super interesting I mean I don't know a hundred percent that I'm going to follow that, but I love to know examples. And like, that's just how I learn. Like a format of one episode? Yeah. How long do you want it to be? Well, right now they're somewhere between like 10 and 15 minutes, depending on what I'm talking about.

So like this last one I did about how like the Fed just dropped interest rates. I knew that they were going to talk about it, how the market already repriced that and how it has no impact on actual mortgage rates. Okay. So like, you know, is this a weekly show? Is this a daily show? It's a weekly show. Okay, cool. There's a show out there that might be interesting for you to listen to. It's like a daily news show. It's like a daily recap of the news for like dumb people. Yeah, but mine is like on basic finance, right? Like basic money stuff.

So I think, let me see what this is called. And it's not dumb people, just people who don't know you. Yeah, dumb people. Yeah. Like dumb people like me.

They're like, I don't know what's going on in the news. I don't know what's going on in politics. I don't know what's going on in the banking industry. Like dumb people like me. Yeah. So people that have no clue. Let me see. There's a show. I mean, you can like me, yeah. So people that have no clue. Let me see.

There's a show. I mean, you can check out. Oh, it's called The Newsworthy. It's a daily show called The Newsworthy. Listen to this show. I think it's five minutes or ten minutes a day that is called Fast, Fair, Fun, which is she's recapping what happened in the last 24 hours,

like, in the world. Like, it's like a debrief of things you really need to know don't scroll on your apple news don't go on cnn like if you got five minutes here's what you need to know i think that could be cool for you to kind of mimic that format she does like an intro she does different segments whatever it is like here's politics here's this here's that and it's five or ten minutes so it's called the newsworthy um i would just mimic that and like a dave ramsey and kind of like create your own thing politics, here's this, here's that. And it's five or 10 minutes. So it's called the newsworthy. I would just mimic that and like a Dave Ramsey and kind of like create your own thing. Thank you very much. Yeah. So my question for you is over a Monday, we had a dinner with Rob and he talked about always keeping the end in mind. I would love to hear like, what is your end in mind?

And at the end of the day, what is this all for? I know that your mission is to serve other people. You clearly do it really well, but when it comes down to the root of it, at the core of your heart, what is all of this for? It's for love and peace for me. It's for like intimacy, love, fulfillment, peace. I know Rob's, Rob's very goal oriented with the end in mind. I'm very goal oriented as well in certain areas. He wants, you know, he's very goal-oriented with the end in mind. I'm very goal-oriented as well in certain areas. He wants, you know, he's got the freaking mansion. He's building the forever land of his own thing, which is amazing. And I think that's great to have those goals as well. My whole life has been based on end in mind results as an athlete.

It's always like, what's the goal? Be a champion, to be the best, to win, like all these things. So for me, I just think I'm thinking differently right now. I'm thinking about end in mind, like each month and each year for my business. But personally, it's always evolving. It's like a growing organism that I'm thinking about. Like what I wanted three years ago is different than what I want now. You know, I'm in the relationship of my dreams right now, which I never had before. I was always in different relationships that were like,

I know I shouldn't be in this, but I don't know how to get out. Like I lacked the courage. And so I've never felt like, I've never known what it felt to be loved before this year. Like I was always in relationships, but I chose the wrong people. And I was always giving relationships, but I chose the wrong people. And I never, and I was always giving, giving,

giving, but I wasn't getting what I wanted to receive. Like they weren't either able or I was just choosing the wrong people. Right. They weren't able to give it to me what I wanted or was choosing the wrong people. And, um,

and I feel like, wow, I finally chose someone that is magical for both of us. Like we're both lifting each other up and I'm like wow this is a different life. A 35 36 year old man and I've never felt this and I'm like now I have different

visions for my life where I never thought about having kids before because I never trusted the women I was with that if I died they would take care of my kids. So I can never so I was always so protective of like anything because I was like, my intuition says I can't trust. If I die or if we get married and get divorced,

they're going to try to ruin my life because that's the type of people they are. And I found out the hard way, thank God, that I was right in a lot of cases because of how they ended the relationships and how they tried to ruin things and cause a mess. I was like, thank you God for allowing me to not have kids with all these women I've been with. Because, because you, can you imagine, imagine the stress I would have had for 30, 40 years having a child with someone that was just manipulative and toxic and wanted to ruin me as opposed to really lift me up. And so now I'm in a relationship where I feel like someone just wants the best for me, which I've never had in my life. And I was like, I always see Chris always talking about it.

He's like, yeah, it's like amazing. I'm like, I've never experienced this. I have no clue what you're talking about. So my visions of the future have evolved where it's like, wow, I'm talking about kids for the first time and it's weird and it doesn't, it's scary, but it's not scary. It's like, what? Not that I want them right now, but I'm like four or five years, I could see myself having a child. And I'm like, Oh, that's freaking, I got a dog and I'm like, this is scary. You know, I got, so I'm thinking of goals for my business, but I think, I don't know. I've just changed so much this year that I'm,

I was with a guy today that interviewed today who had open heart surgery, 24 hours. He had to do it really last second. And he was like, we just don't know when something, he was a 12 year NFL veteran. He's just like, I was in the top of my fitness game. And then was like, we just don't know when something, he was a 12 year NFL veteran. He's just like, I was in the top of my fitness game. And then I had to check up with the doctor and the guy was like, you need surgery now. Like you're about to die if you do anything else physical. And he's playing in the NFL. And he was just like, my whole life changed. You know, we don't have tomorrow guarantee. I could walk out of here and not see Chris again. And so I'm just changing the way I think about it.

Yes, I'm having goals in my business, and there's organization and structure. But I'm not like, I need my forever land home, and I need this right now. Maybe when I get married and have my first kid, I might start thinking that way. So just where I'm at in my life right now, it's different. I'm still focused on impact.

I'm like, if life right now it's different I'm still focused on impact I'm like if I can create content and information to serve 100 million people a week I will have anything that I want at any time if I focus on the work if I focus on the mission if I focus on serving people even if it's one at a time

I'm going to be the wealthiest person in more than just money a million times over if I focus on the work. Yes. Now, listen, I also focus on the money, too. So I'm not trying to say I don't do that. Like, I have financial goals. I have all this stuff.

But I try to not distract myself with that anymore where I used to focus on just the money. Like, we've got to hit this goal this month. We've got to hit this goal this year. We've got to hit eight figures. And now it's like, no, let's hit the impact goal first. All that money is going to come. Be strategic. Be smart.

Make sure I have everything in place. Don't be dumb. I do a lot of stuff where I'm dumb because I should be making a lot more money, but I say no to so many money-making opportunities. I'm giving up seven-figure revenue streams next year. No one knows. I'm going to tell Chris this weekend more. But it's like I'm giving up seven figure revenue streams next year. I mean, no one knows. I'm going to tell Chris this weekend more, but it's like, I'm giving up so many things in my business because I feel like I'm going to gain so much more when I focus on the mission more. So I don't know,

I'm not sure if this is the, I'm the right person to tell you these things, but I'm just, no, that's exactly what I want to hear. So ultimately chase fulfillment over everything. I just think like, again, this guy was interviewed was interviewing today, he was just like, this guy went through a crazy life. He was 12. His dad murdered his wife. His dad murdered his mom. And he had open-heart surgery. Like, he had all these crazy things happen to him.

And he's just like, I was angry and resentful for years at my dad for killing and murdering my mom and then being sent to prison. And for 20 years, I didn't go speak to my dad. And I finally went to go speak to him five months ago to forgive him. And so I didn't have to live in pain anymore. So I just think learning forgiveness, learning joy and happiness and love and peace is what we all want the most. And we do all these other things to get that. We build a business to find fulfillment. We make money to protect ourselves.

But it's like, let's just serve our soul and our hearts first. And I think that's, I don't know, just everything else is going to come. Again, I don't know. Well, I am genuinely so happy for you. And thank you so much for sharing your heart. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other podcast questions? I don't want to just talk about my life right now, but I want to make sure I'm serving. Yeah, go ahead. So my question is more about the, not necessarily the interviewer, but the interviewee. How much value do you place on showing up as the person on the opposite end of a podcast,

and particularly for someone who is a owner or a CEO behind a brand, not necessarily a face. Being interviewed, is that what you mean? How do you show up for the person interviewing you? How valuable do you think that is for someone to do? What do you mean? For you to go on other shows or? So I don't own a podcast.

Yeah. How valuable is it for you to be interviewed as a CEO of a company I mean if you're looking for a promotion or publicity and promotion or for more leads then it's valuable if you're on the right shows but I've done so many small shows over the years that are just a waste of time so I think making sure you choose the right shows that have the right audiences and thinking about serving those audiences, not trying to sell them anything. You lose the audience when you start pitching something. So serve them and then they're going to want to follow you and learn more if you transform something in their life or an idea or a thought

or serve them at the highest level. So don't, I almost never talk about my book when I'm being interviewed for my book. You know what I mean? Like at the end, I'll be like, yeah, go check out the book, you know, but it's really trying to serve people. I should probably do a better job of saying, buy my book, buy my book, but I'm not because I want to leave an impact on a deeper level where they're like, man, I really like the message. Let me go follow him. Let me go see more about him. Let me go opt in. Let me go check it out. And then they may or may not buy the book right then, but hopefully they'll buy it eventually. So that's just my mentality. Thank you. Here's my question. You know, we all learn so much from other people's failures. So my wife's a a podcaster and you know, her following is so loyal and she

learns that the more transparent she is about her failures, the more they just eat it up. Of course. And so I'm curious, you might be able to compress the time that some of us are making these failures with, with some of yours. So could you like rapid fire a couple of the don'ts of your podcast experience? What not to do? I don't know know just don't be a jerk don't be an asshole i mean i think just do what you say you're gonna do i don't know i mean i just i do a show monday wednesday friday it comes since every time people know when it's happening it's just being consistent with your word to your audience and um i just try to be as honest as possible with my audience like all the time i try to reveal more to my as honest as possible with my audience, like, all the time.

I try to reveal more to my audience than I would for my friends sometimes. You know, I open up more. And don'ts, I don't know, like, selling them stuff all the time, don't do that. I think you just got to focus on how can I add value. And, you know, I've got a few spots where I have sponsors for a few minutes out of a 60-minute show or an hour and a half show. It's like three to four minutes of sponsors. So it's trying to just make sure that I think about the experience as a user first. Not like, what do I want out of

this? If I was listening, what would I want? So as a listener, so I just kind of create the show based on like, if I was listening to this, what would the flow be? What would the process be? What would make me feel like, man, that was awesome. I want to listen to another show. Just think of the user experience. And I would love to hear what advice you would give for someone who's had a show for a while. And now it's time to like relaunch. And I keep the name, I'm fine with all the branding. It's more about making sure, and I love what you said about the mission, but when now I'm in this like relaunch and I don't really know how to kind of map that out

in a way that stays on brand for me, but also enhances the experience for my end user. So any advice there? Yeah, I think do a one page manifesto. It's like, as if you're doing an intro for your audience, like, hey everybody, I'm relaunching this show. And for 2020, this is my mission. Like all year, we're going to be working on all the things we talked about in the past and business mastery or whatever, you know, whatever the thing is.

I'm going to be diving in each week with experts or solo. I'm going to be doing the research and giving you what I'm learning. I'm going to be showing case studies, just like reclaiming the mission and sharing that right away and doing a, you know, announcing it everywhere. Just announcing your mission for 2020. We're doing this once a week. We're doing this every month, whatever it is, and just be your word based on the mission. If you're going to do it every week, do it every week. If you're going to do it once a month, cool, do it once a month, but just be very clear on what you're committed to doing for one year consistently and show up with that the same attention with the direct to audience shows right like it was just me you know sharing dropping nuggets whatever you

want to call it do you think that there's value and also doing the video recording of that and putting that on youtube also to enhance search? Depends on your mission. I mean, for me, I was trying to reach more people and YouTube is a way to reach more people. So it just depends on what your mission is. But I think, yeah, if you're doing more solo stuff, then this is like every week I'm going to give you a masterclass on a specific topic. I'm going to walk you through 52 weeks of masterclass, and it's going to be a journey from this point to this point. So it's going to be a masterclass, and every quarter I'm going to break down case studies

and success stories from my students who have gone through and applied this and gotten results. I'm going to be bringing some of you on who are coming on the journey with me. Live coaching, kind of, yeah. Exactly. So it's like more master class really creating experience great thank you lewis all right so my last question for you is is this you've been such

a good friend and such a good mentor and one of the areas that you really walk your walk and and are a great leader in is in generosity and philanthropy um you turned me on to pencils of promise we've been to gu Guatemala together, thanks to you. And you do a lot of work for a lot of foundations. Why is it so important to you to be philanthropic? And what advice do you have for them on how they should find a cause that means something to them? I didn't really start thinking about being philanthropic until I started making money probably eight or nine years ago. So I probably wasn't as like a generous thinker in the terms of giving money until I was creating it, which is probably the opposite way I should be thinking.

I was giving up my time and other resources but not money. I just think like if I was going to die today, like was I using myself up enough to leave the world better? That's what I think. And that might sound super cheesy when I'm saying it, but I really don't want to be like, this is my last day. And man, I had all these opportunities to help more people, but I just wanted to be selfish, and I wanted to be lazy, and I wanted, like, I just wanted to be selfish, and I wanted to be lazy, and I wanted to have more money in my bank account. So trust me, I have goals to make lots of money.

I'm investing a lot. I'm saving a lot. But I'm also just like, what else can I be doing every year to help more? And the things that I care about, like education for me is important because I was a horrible student. But there were certain people in school and teachers who stood for me every day when I would struggle, they would stand for me. So I'm not saying I agree with how schools run, but the people behind it giving someone like me an opportunity, I wouldn't be here without them. So I'm just trying to think of other ways that I can constantly give that

makes sense. I don't want to give all my money, but it's like, how can I give a little more every year? So I don't know. There's a lot of people that are giving a lot more than me, but I'm just trying to think of, like, what can I do to incorporate a 360 approach into my mission? It's not just I want to have 100 million people a week that I impact on my podcast. I want to make nine figures. I want to do this. For me, it's just a 360 approach now. How's my health going to play with everything, the decisions I make? Again, like I still eat meat, so I get criticized for eating meat. And like, I'm not perfect. Like, I'm sure there's like some leather on me or something.

It's like, but I'm trying to be more and more mindful and intentional in a 360 approach of just how do I leave it better? I make a lot of mistakes. I don't do the right thing all the time. Like, you know, I'm eating meat still. I'm not like fully plant-based, all this stuff. Like, I'm sure there's leather, like all this stuff. You know, he's made in China, a sweatshop. Who knows? It's like, I don't know everything that I'm, I don't know. I don't know every, like made. It could be a better decision, right? But I'm just trying to say, how can I do my best every year to be better and learn and just be more humble, more compassionate for other people, less judgmental, and more peace? That's just what I'm trying to do.

And giving brings me more peace. It brings me peace to know like, okay, if I died, at least I gave something. Yeah. All right guys, give him a round of applause. Thanks guys. My man, I'm so grateful. Appreciate it. My friend, thank you so much for being here. Whether you are a podcast creator yourself, or you're just thinking about starting a podcast, hopefully this gave you some clarity. Maybe it excited you and empowered you to launch tomorrow. Maybe it scared you from wanting to launch because of all the work involved. Either way, I hope it gave you some clarity,

some insights, and some wisdom on how to best take action in your business and in your podcast. Again, big thank you to Chris Harder for having me on. Make sure to check out his podcast. He's got some good stuff. Check him out on Instagram as well. Chris Harder, he's got a great mastermind, a lot of great things that he's doing with his wife, Lori Harder. So make sure to check them out. And if you want the full show notes on this, you can go to lewishouse.com slash 914. Again, this is all about the pre-show guys. Remember if you're doing the interview series, it's about the pre-show. So again, I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you did, let me know, share with a friend. If you have a friend who's

interested in podcasting, text them lewishouse.com slash 914. And remember, Pablo Picasso said, the meaning of life is to find your gift the purpose of life is to give it away make sure you're creating your gifts every single day and giving it away to as many people as possible i love you so so very much i appreciate your time and energy i'm so grateful for you and we are changing lives together we're making an impact on the world together get your ticket to summit of greatness because we've got some incredible speakers and I want to see you there. And also, you know what time it is.

It's time to go out there and do something great.