TrueLife - From Microphone to Movement: The Psychedelic Podcast Masterclass

Episode Date: November 2, 2025

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Podcast Mastery: From Idea to ImpactThe world is flooded with voices — but only a few know how to create something that truly resonates.If you’ve ever dreamed of hosting your own podcast — or if you already have one and want to level up your craft — this is your moment.Join a powerhouse panel of experienced podcasters, producers, and media creators as they pull back the curtain on what it really takes to build, grow, and sustain a high-impact show.From pre-production strategy to high-quality interviews, from marketing magic to post-production polish, you’ll learn how to shape every phase of your podcast with purpose, clarity, and professionalism.💡 What You’ll Learn:How to craft a powerful podcast from vision to voiceSecrets of pre-production and guest curationThe tech, tools, and setups that make your show shineThe art of asking unforgettable questionsPromotion, distribution, and audience growth strategiesPost-production workflows that keep your show sounding world-classFeaturing conversations with:🎧 Brian Holler — Beard Bros Media | Beard Bros Pharmshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/brianhollerhttp://www.beardbrospharms.com/https://form.asana.com/?k=446qDUAAC30RMQv3qucq5g&d=1201296811744852🎧 Kat Walsh — Life With Kat Walshhttps://triponthispodcast.com/http://www.instagram.com/lifewithkatwalshhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-with-kat-walsh/id1617143220🎧 George Monty — TrueLife Podcast🎧 Cesar Marin — Cultivating Wisdomhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/cesar-marin1https://www.microdosingover50.com/free-e-bookMicrodosingOver50.com🎧 Christian Gray — Podcasting Community Connectorhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/christianlgray One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearist through ruins maze lights my war cry born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. All right, awesome. We're all here live today to talk about podcasts. And we've got people with different perspectives, folks who have been podcasting about higher consciousness, about tripping, about plant medicine, about cannabis.

And since I know these folks, and I've watched them hone their craft over the last few years, I just felt like it was time to share some of their wisdom with others. I'm sure there's a joke somewhere about two folks walk into a bar, and one of them's a podcaster. I don't know how that goes. We've gone from zero podcasts. There was a point in time where there was zero podcasts in the world, and now, you know, there's millions of them.

and there's a lot of data that supports how many millions there are. And you can imagine with the long tail, there's some that get a lot of looks and a lot of views and a lot of traffic and some that don't. So let's kick it off today. I'm Christian Gray, ACG, aka Gray Matter. We can unpack that later. But what I was hoping is we just go around the room real quick, give everybody kind of a one-minute intro, kind of focused or emphasizing what you're up to in the podcast world. and then we're just going to have a really interesting conversation about podcasting, the good,

the bad, and the ugly. So Kat, why don't you kick us off? Sure. And hey everyone. Thanks, Christian. I started my podcasting journey in 2020. The world shut down. And I was like, this would be a good time to pick up a new hobby, which actually for me was really the start of a new life when I launched Trip on This, which is my psychedelic podcast. trip on this has been going for four years. It's currently on hiatus. And it's changed my life. Yeah. I mean, through and through, every bit of my life is different because of that journey. And the people have met in it now being a host and a DJ and honestly just getting to be a creative person in the world because I just took this crazy leap on myself to begin. And then I have another podcast called Life with Cat, which is going to be rebranded and relaunch next year

as CatsMe Out Podcast. So that's me. Thank you. awesome caesar what's got awesome i'm caesar marron i'm the founder and owner cultivating wisdom which is a platform for people to obtain honest open objective information about microdosing and about psychedelics um i have a podcast called the love you wealth podcast uh the podcast is dedicated to men um to sort of focus on looking at life not in the sense of chasing f you wealth but chasing love you wealth right, that wealth that sort of fills your heart and as long as you have what you need, everything else, the blessings. So I come from a broadcast background. I was a producer, a TV producer before getting into the psychedelic space. I spent 25 years at CNN, so I have now

brought my 25 year experience of mass media into my own ecosystem, my own platform, my own network and also you know trying to help people figure out the best ways to navigate you know either being on screen or getting their message across awesome thanks for sure and yeah your background in television and producing is definitely playing a role in what you're up to brian why don't you break it down you're one of the you know you're part of the the team that i think has some of the largest reach and biggest impact in the cannabis space and beyond so love love having you here oh well appreciate it christian good to be here with everybody i'm brian holler a chief revenue officer of beard broves farms and media uh we are a you know product line and a and a media company

really when it comes down to it but um yes uh how those play off of each other and all the different channels that we've grown into i myself have you know been helping businesses grow for quite some time I've produced or helped to start, I don't know, somewhere in the neighborhood of I'm no shit, like 30 podcasts, probably something to that effect. We currently do eight of them each month. And we have different posts in the space that, you know, sort of have specialties and they have, you know, clients on them. For us, it's developing a channel, you know, to continue to gain exposure in all channels for people. And then of course, of course, it's important for us to push forward all these positive and good, strong messages about plant medicine, fungus,

et cetera, and the whole sort of lifestyle that's associated with it. And fortunately, we're in a position where we are able to cover quite a lot of that and continue to grow into connecting the dots for sort of, for lack of a better term, mainstream audiences or, you know, more sort of larger plays. It's just, you know, ultimately the, I think the goal for all of us is to, um, at least have the whole world know about plant medicine and fungus and these products and how it's going to grow and history and where we're going to go. So we aim for that.

And so, and yeah, and we try to help people be informed and plants grow along the way. I think you're muted over there, Christian. What you got, George? First off, I'm so stoked to be here with every one of you. Each one of you is a legend in your own right. I've gotten to see all your guys work. I'm super stoked to be here. I'm George Monty, True Life Podcast.

I got 850 episodes, ranked top five of all podcasts. I've been doing it since 2019. I love learning and talking to people. And I feel like the podcast makes me an eternal student where I get to learn from so many unique people, from people at the top of their field to people just beginning to people in the struggle. I love psychedelics. I've used them almost my whole life going on 30 plus years. I'm excited to be here today.

Thank you. Awesome. Well, thank you all for being here and sharing some wisdom. not to riff too much off Caesar's cultivating wisdom, but, you know, I think there's just so many people that want to start a podcast or, you know, you are hanging out, I don't know, around a fire or maybe smoking something and someone's like, I have a great idea for a podcast, or this guy would be an awesome guest or this or that. And, you know, I've been one of those people five years ago, Grey Matter. We're going to start the Grey Matter podcast, and I have the Google Docs with

here are the guests and here's our vibe and here's who's going to help me. And I won't names because it never happened. But, you know, I was given the opportunity very much. Thank you to George to kind of do a few co-labs to just see what it's about, like get in front of the camera, get brutal feedback from friends about what you're doing wrong and the ugly pauses and where's the camera and how's the lighting. So I really wanted to focus this talk today or the conversation on either brand nobs, never recorded, never been in front of the camera and some basics, like what they should be thinking about. And then there's a number of other people joining us. that have been doing podcasts for a while and we can all up level our games.

So we can spin it around the room, but maybe one of you, one or two of you can just chime in and like if you were brand, brand new, like this was, you know, maybe 2026 is your year. You're starting to get ready for it. What should you be thinking about and what are some of the key things you can do to prepare to make it successful or have come out of the gates running? So Kat, let's go back to you and then we'll bounce it around. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think so much, so much of podcasting is about first planning and like not rushing in.

I think it's very easy to think that you're just like, I just need a mic, you know, and a friend to talk to. And it's so much more intricate than that. I would say, like, however much time you think it might take, it's probably three to four times more than that. And so planning is really going to be the thing that helps. George, you and I were talking about like banking episodes, right? like first of all, what's your why? Like, why are you doing this? And I think really being honest with your why is going to be one of the biggest, it's going to help define what your strategy is. Because, you know, if you're just like, you know, I just want to, I'm a coach and I want to,

you know, become a thought leader in this space. And I want to share some of my thoughts in depth, but your goal is not maybe to become the next Joe Rogan. That might actually inform if you're going to have a couple podcasts a month versus once a week or twice a week like some of the beard bro stuff, right? Where if that's about media, it's a much bigger commitment. And so I think getting very clear on what is your why? What would you like to happen? Knowing that you can build on it. But what happens often with podcasting is people find out much more goes into it and then they give up early. And so if you can set yourself up for success, bank a lot of those episodes, start with your community, start with who you know, before you jump in when you're talking about guests

and thinking about how can you make it fun for yourself? I mean, really and truly, I think, you know, if being a lifelong learner like George is saying and wanting to do this whether or not 10 people listen or 100,000 people listen, like if it's still a yes for you, then it's start just putting, it's just putting that plan together and things to AI. I didn't have AI when I started a trip on this. So it was flying by the seat of my pants, folks, and I learned a lot in the process. But now we have so many resources and tools to be like,

what is my plan? How many people should I be reaching out to? What is that process? I actually have like a full on checklist, but I'm going to stop here. And I can talk about that later for anybody just to go down a checklist of, what do I need to think about even before I go into my strategy? So that's what I would say.

You're why. why you want to do this yeah the what's your why makes me think about simic if you've never seen his piece on youtube and what you're yeah really really powerful and bringing it back to you have to really want to do this whether you're making a dollar or a dime or a peso or a euro because if you're looking if money is your primary motivation you may not be out of very long as you're not yeah that's not what it's you know i also think that um good people right smart intelligence people tend to overthink everything. Right.

So there's part of me that while I completely agree with Kat, it's a lot more than just take throw on the mic and let's rock and roll. You know, you do need to have a little bit of strategy, you know, a content plan. Like what are we, you know, what, why the hell do I even do this, right? So yes, I do think there's some structure, but I also think people overthink it and over analyze over like at a point, just flip the damn switch arm and get rocking, you know, make their mistakes. Get out there.

It's like Christian was saying. I still struggle with like ums and you know and you know stuff like that it makes me cringe every time but the thing is other people are notice it as much except for people looking for that that are going to give you advice and take it for God's. And there's also tons of tools. Right. Sorry, there's also tons of tools. So if you don't know like if you're listening to a podcast like actually and you're not

watching people and you're like, damn, nobody ever says um, ah or like causes, they do. Folks. They're just, that's editing. There's AI. that can literally just edit that out. So you're going to sound so dialed by the time you're talking. It's only on video. And even now with video, honestly, you're just going to see a lot of chip chops along the way.

But yeah, if ums and Oz are a problem for you, there are solutions as well. Well, and everybody's awkward. You know what I'm saying? Like it's like there's no one that doesn't think really that I've ever met that isn't sort of like even the most like sort of front facing, you know, person is they still in their head a little bit or like, you know, I don't feel it today. all that good stuff like it's so normal like just you know like everybody's nervous it's uh when the first time you jumped off the high dive did you just go do it no you got up there and you're like holy shit uh

all right here we go uh come on come on come on come on and you did it right that's how it is and so that's okay and it's okay to be that way but yes don't stall out because if you really want it that's gonna really mess with you like you know if you are that person that cat pointed out like you are about this this is for you right that's going to mess you up too. You don't like just go, you know. There's really, I've noticed with, even with George and I, I did a series of podcasts. This was 2018, 2019, during kind of the first round of the hemp bill passing and a lot of hemp seed and genetics moving into mainstream agriculture. And we did a series of podcasts. Some of them had several hundred people register. You know,

we have 100 plus farmers in there giving us their precious time and why didn't you take care of them and the dynamic tension I've seen with George and I is like I want to do a tech call and a prep check and a choreography and let's talk just get on and hit the button like so totally yeah and there's there's different approaches to everything so you know where do you fall on that on that spectrum Cesar is it get prep show up or something else I I love that you sort of pose it that way and and I tell a lot of people this look when I started working in broadcasting You literally needed a studio. You needed cameras.

You needed a control room. You needed a director. You needed to get it up to a satellite. You needed to buy satellite space. And you needed to then buy time on a network to get your message across. Now literally all we need is this. That's right. But the same way that CNN or a news station can have a program, if you're going to commit to doing a podcast, you have to be the same way.

There has to be consistency. There has to be some time put into it. There has to be some structure. You can't just, you know, let's turn on and just shoot the shit, you know, because then one day you have a 10-minute podcast, the next week you have a four-hour podcast, right? So whereas with that planning, with that preparation and with that consistency, that's how you can really grow that podcast. And I love what you said Christian earlier where it's like if you're thinking,

oh, my God, I have a great, you know, topic for a podcast, I have a great idea. You know, let's do it. And we're going to make a whole bunch of money. that's not going to happen. That's not going to happen. Consistency, right? Huberman has been on for such a long time. It's been consistent. His topics are consistent. Joe Rogan consistent. It's consistency. And that doesn't mean you have to do a podcast every day, but just be consistent. Be consistent. Be consistent with your message. Be consistent with your offering. I think that once you do that and you sort of figure that out, and you plan. And I love what

Kat said. There's a lot of AI tools that we can use, right? I don't have to sit here and go, Oh my God, I got to come up with 20 shows. No, this is my idea. These are some of the guests that I have. What topics can I come up with? So it's a little bit easier than when I sort of got into production, into television and into broadcasting. So there's a lot of these wonderful tools that we can use,

but it's always that consistency. In other words, CNN, even if there was a day there was not great news or breaking news, you still had to do a newscast. You still have to exist. You still had to be part of it. And I think that's how you grow to your audience. And I think the other thing is, personal stories like that's what you know every there's almost everybody has a podcast but what is it

about your podcast what is about your story that sets you apart from everyone else that's out there i think that that's it like you know find your niche find your story find your why and then be consistent with it i think it's interesting to hear your perspective because in the old timey days we didn't George, I think, you know, the whole prep and then consistency, you know, you and I've gone around, around a little bit about, like, length of podcast, right? And, you know, Lex Freeman's got a pretty popular podcast, and that dude, I've listened on drives between Los Angeles and NorCal, you know, six-hour podcasts on AI where Lex is going deep. Six hours is a lot now. Back to the editing. Sometimes I'll listen at 1.5 because I can still get most of the content and crush how long it takes to get through it.

But talk a little bit about how you like to just let the conversation evolve or how long to let it roll and maybe we can get some perspectives from the rest. Yeah. I see the spoken word as an art form. And if you're going to start a podcast, whether you're a business or whether you're an individual, you're pretty much an artist. And the people that are going to come to your audience is going to be people that are attracted to you, to your very, voice to your content, whether you're Lex Friedman that has this genius ability to talk to some of the most incredible people in the world and take from them, whether it's Kanye West or whether it's somebody from Harvard who's speaking about neuroscience. That guy has an incredible ability to

bring about information that is contagious to the listeners. But it's so true for anybody that's going to start a podcast, you are a beautiful person. No matter anybody within the sound of my voice, you have a gift, you have something unique about you. And you have to have the courage to let that fly. And I think that that sort of ability to have the courage to believe in yourself and to believe in others is how long the conversation is going to last. A good conversation for me is an hour. It's so difficult to bring about something beautiful out of somebody else in 15 or 10 minutes. And if you look at some of the popular podcast, they're kind of going off the old methodology of we're going to cram everything into 10 minutes. Well, what is a 10 minute story? A 10 minute story is a

bunch of facts with no real adjectives behind them. And that's not a very good story for me. I think each conversation has its own sort of time frame. The better the conversation, even though it may be long, it feels like a really short amount of time. So it just depends on who you're talking to. And like Kat said earlier, it depends on why. Like, why are you having this conversation? What's the point of this conversation? It's different for a business than an individual. A business may want to, they may want to, you know, talk to some of their distributors and figure out why their products are good. An individual might just want to go solo and tell a story. So it's really dependent upon the individual and what message they're trying to get across.

I think it's also important in the sense that if you have a guest, you know who your guest is. And not to the point where you have questions, right? Because then it turns into a Q&A. And that's, I think the best podcast are the ones that are like, we talked about, George, conversations. And the best way to have a conversation is one, knowing who your guest is, knowing facts of them, and then just have conversations by listening instead of sort of, okay, what's my next question? I got to ask my next question and you're not engaging, you're not listening. Let the questions come from listening to what the guest is saying, have that conversation. Don't make it, you know, this is me a Q&A. I'm going to bring in a guest, and then I'm just going to

ask them these questions, you know. And I've been a guest on several podcasts, and the ones that sort of are red flags to me, are the ones that, can you give us five questions that you want us to ask you. Right. So I got a question because it's real time. I'm curious, you know, there's all these vanity matrix or metrics out there, whether it's, you know, number of views, number of followers, ad nauseum. And, you know, analytics matter and folks want to grow their base, et cetera. But I would love to literally go around the room and maybe we'll start this time with you, Brian, and then get to the others. Can you recall a moment where you got a warm, fuzzy, or a real sense of personal satisfaction because somebody heard one of your podcasts and then they brought it up to you

right it's not a click it's not a like it's like a real world in the 3d someone goes holy beep i'd never had heard that before or that was amazing thank you for sharing or getting it out there yeah um there's i've got a handful of those you know or or an a nice good handful of those i suspect george especially in cat probably have a bunch in buff shit on everybody on this call has a bunch of these examples of course. And so, A, that's always pleasant. That's all awesome because that's what you want. You want like first person feedback. You know, I heard it. I love this. Oh, my God. Of course. You know, that's sort of what you're aiming for, of course, right? But it's also more important, I think, to aim for that as opposed to worry about those vanity metrics. On top of that,

technology and everybody is able to analyze things a lot better now. So your network and its worth are are very easily understood now where they weren't before and it was a volume game. It's not the case any longer. People don't know that, but it's the truth. Like you don't need to, you can build out like whatever your community is. It's going to be valuable for you. So ultimately, that's basically what you're trying to build is a community. I don't care if you're a human, just trying to talk to people about whatever it is that, you know,

in your heart to, you know, be structured and talk about. Rather it's, you know, hey, I'm a single mom and I hear what it's like to be a single mom or, you know, something like that versus business as George was. saying, but still the same thing. You want to build that community and you want to really nurture that community. You don't want to worry about too much everybody else outside of it, but you do want to have bells and whistle so they can get triggered and come on in and join, of course, right? So that's marketing and promotion and strategically having certain guests on and co-promoting and all that good stuff. But it really just comes down to what everybody's been saying on this

podcast here, which is it really matters what's in your heart and what you want to do. And really, if you give a crap about what you're talking about, whether it's from a business or a personal standpoint, the people who mess with you, especially first, especially when you're first starting, those become super duper valuable. And you don't have to worry about what the perception is because now the powers that be and the tools and everything are geared towards this. So you don't have to worry. If you just continue to do what you're supposed to do, those things you sort of want to grow into will come to you. They will, they will come. As long as you commit, you're consistent to Steezer and George and everybody's point, and you really

are about it, right? Like, that's really what it is. You have to be committed, but you also have to be about it. You really do have to, like, want it at a really good level. And you want to, you have to draw that community. You really do. You want to, you have to like nurture it, not just through, you know, great podcasting, but through nurturing. Like, you know, hi, here's what we did. And here's what's going on. And, you know, co-promotion, promotion directed towards that community because you're learning about what your audience wants to see. And of course, that's always just a nice balance for right like it's your go so you choose but you got to listen to that data from your community and and what they want to hear and sometimes people have a hard time pivoting or adjusting in that way

i think you should really listen and be more sort of a fluid in how you're in how you're building your caesar do you have a story i mean you've you've touched so many different people in different ways especially i think you know folks that are on the other end of the age spectrum right like some of your audience. Do you have any kind of anecdotes? The first, the first Love You Wealth podcast that we did, which I mean, I think I set the bar so high with our first guest, which was Rick Doblin, the founder of president of MAPS. And it was just, it was getting the sense of having a conversation with him as just a human. It wasn't about drug trials. It wasn't about what MAPS is doing next. It was just him as a human being.

that was incredibly special. And it was good to hear from people who know Rick or know whatever and to say, hey, I didn't know that about him. You know what I mean? That's the first time I heard about that. I think that that sort of made it,

that podcast in particular special. And even though I was like fan geeking the whole time, you know, because it's sort of fanboy alert. Fanboying. Yeah. Yeah. It just,

it was this genuineness about having, again, this conversation with this person who has done so much, especially for what we're trying to sort of be advocates for, the non-stigma and acceptance of psychedelics, to really have that conversation with someone who's done so much was really humbling to me. It was really one of those moments that I always held special. That's awesome.

Kat, what about you? like one of your shows that really, you know, made an impact or somebody spoke to you directly about it. Yeah. I just want to say like even, even I have one story that I really can't wait to tell, but just even I remember when I saw like 100 subscribers, like on some on my, the first time I got to see that. Just really taking a second to be like, for someone to give an hour of their time to you is a huge thing, actually. It's so easy to look at and how important that 100 is. Obviously, this is the human mind.

As you get bigger and it starts becoming in, you know, more zeros get tacked on. You start thinking like 100, you know, like that's something that's obviously needs to check. But really thinking like 100 people decided to give their day to me or, you know, one full hour. Because you could actually see the metrics. And I was like, wow. So just that alone was like, hey, girl, look, you're doing it. like, wow. When I really, really felt that, though, was I, so much of where I speak in my world was, is in the world of like rave culture and dance music. It's a huge part of my life.

And I had Claudevon Stroke on my show as a big house music producer and DJ. And I went to a festival called Dirty Bird Camp Out. And it was my first big in-person press piece that I was doing for them interviewing people for the podcast being invited there was press like you know having all the bells and whistles because of it and uh i was this was like after work now and i'm just dancing i'm alone having a great time and this woman comes up to me in her cute little rave outfit she goes are you cow walsh and i was like yes she goes and starts to cry to me and said your podcast has changed my life i've now come out of the closet around psychedelics i've told my family about how they changed my life like you've given me the courage to talk about it she brings up where she goes i need

you to meet my boyfriend like her boyfriend comes over i felt like the biggest celebrity of all time and it just was like man like here i am just talking about how psychedelics literally changed my life and the fact that i knew in that moment that i was on this individual level like giving permission for others to come out of the closet because that is how we just de-stigmatize uh psychedelics as a whole um was just huge and the last little bit i want to to say is on my other podcast, which is much smaller. I feel like I was talking to such smaller numbers in comparison to trip on this, which is how most people know me. But Life with Cat was very, very personal to me. Obviously, it's about my life and my spiritual journey and everything. And a woman

who, kind of like you're Rick Doblin, Caesar, she, this is how you never know with like miracles. I get suddenly like reposted about how everyone needs to listen to Life with Cat. And she had like 500,000 followers on her thing. Like she was already someone really doing it. And somehow my quote little story with having this like small podcast, I didn't even know how to market it, you know, was touching her in such a profound way that she's sharing it on her story for other people to listen to.

And that's what I always say to people is like, you really don't know how miracles and the way this thing works. Like there's no to-do list for some of the incredible blessings that have come into my life by just saying yes. I'm going to start and see what happens. And it's exciting. Yeah, it's really interesting to me. You know, so much of the plant medicine, psychedelic cannabis space has been led by, you know,

outlaws and the underground and all these people that they're Georgia's people. If you didn't know, just burn it all down. But, you know, the ability to share authentically things that can be scary or were shame-based or, you know, people talking about their prison time or putting their family. Real risk, right? Real personal risk. And what's the risk in telling stories? There's a risk in being out in front of your community out in front of your family. And it's not for everybody.

So, you know, I think this is a good place to pivot. Jesse's got a brilliant question. And you want to go first? I was going to say, yeah, I was actually going to. feet off of what you were just saying, Christian, and look at Jesse's question. Jesse, look, at the end of the day, it's someone's opinion, and the only opinion that matters is yours. That's it. You know, criticism's always going to come, and criticism comes when you're doing something well. When someone, oh, whatever, she's doing this, but, you know what I mean? It's this, but, and that's

fine. Criticism is fine. It's all good. And I think it's when we learn from the criticism, because we can say, hey, you know what? No, that's not what it's about. Or, hey, you know what? Maybe there's a point there. When we look at that negative or that criticism is something positive or how can I use that negative to my positive? Because then if they want to be negative and they want to be sour and they want to have that energy and that vibration of being negative, that's up to them. That's on them. But for me, how can I use whatever someone's throwing at me negatively to see how maybe, oh, yeah, you know what? Or they're making a point and I can do better or you know what?

Each shouldn't die. It's my podcast. I'm going to do what I want. Yeah, like it. And here's the thing. If they're watching it, they're watching it. If they're common things because they watch this. That's right.

You must be doing something right if people are barking at you that way. That said, if the majority of people are barking at you that way, and then maybe that's something you need to look at and analyze for yourself. But the other side of that is, I don't think, like, when you're that vulnerable, right? And when you're putting yourself out there like that and then people cut on you as a result of that, that's tough at first. Like Jesse's question is very appropriate. You know, how do I get thick enough skin? It's just by repetition and doing it and not internalizing what you see.

That's a big one. Do not, that is not you. That is not like what they're saying has almost zero to do with you often. It more has to do with them. It has a lot of different things that you're going on. To Caesar's point, you should 100. look at what they're saying, but take it as like feedback if you can, regardless of how it was delivered, right? That's a, that's one thing that I, you know, A, not everybody's articulate. Some

people understand clickbait or whatever or just trying to get a little buzz to, or they just don't have to like, you know, ask you a question in a way that's, you know, appropriate. Maybe they're triggered by something you said and they reacted. You know what I mean? Like that's, those are things that you have to remember that are going on with those people, you know, in their case. You should not We should go a little deeper into this because what I'm kind of hearing from you folks is like constructive criticism or people are taking a shy at you about this or that. George, have you ever had a personal attack where someone's like, what are you talking about? Let me tell you this. 800 episodes.

No one has ever disagreed. When it comes to podcasting, there's a lot of shit that you don't even know what you're talking about. You're going to get on the mic and you're going to say all kinds of things. you're going to realize I'm a fucking retard. I should not have said that. You said that. You're going to get a whole segment. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. You're right. It's probably the most important part, though, because you have to understand. Like, you don't know. Like, you're going to go on and talk as if you, you're a expert in something, but you're

not. Like, you are a person with an opinion. And there are really, really intelligent people out. there that know exactly what they're talking about. So if you get some negative feedback, you should be like, oh shit, I need to read up on this. Is this person right? Like that negative feedback, and you guys all know this. You can get a thousand great comments, but it's that one negative comment.

Like, why don't say that? How come they say that? I don't even like this person. You go to that whole defense mechanism of like these people are wrong. But that's where the gold is. Where you stumble is where you find the gold is. So when you get that kind of feedback, Jesse, that's gold. Like, who is this person?

What are they talking about? What don't I know? And that's a good invitation to invite that person on and have a real discussion with them. That's where the good content is, that sort of discrepancy in what you know. Like, that's what people want to see. They want to see the conflict. It's nice to talk about things that are flowery and beautiful. But that conflict is contagious.

People love that. They want to learn. And that's where the learning is done, in my opinion. Yeah, I think that's the real conversations that happen is when you have diverse opinions. If everybody's all singing from the same hymnal about everything all the time, it's not the most interesting conversation. So it's good to have diverse opinions today. Do you guys want to talk a little bit?

Because I think you touched on it, Brian, but, you know, how do you grow your base? Like, how do people find you? Is it word of mouth? Is it an email campaign? Is it social? Is it the AI in the sky? Like, how do people find out about your podcast? And do you even put effort and time into growing it?

It depends. Yes, we do because, you know, ultimately. maybe the channel itself, right? Like just podcasting in general, such a valuable one. And people, it's very easy to, like, people love those conversations, whether they're in a B-to-B situation or individuals. So the way that we do that is, fortunately,

we have a lot of different channels that we, you know, maximize it so we're able to co-promote, promote, work it into the equation of our own DNA and our own processes, but also with our clients as well. And so, you know, how do you do you do, that well people like we we keep it basically like people who are who are on the show are not paying to be on the show there's a whole other topic that's a whole other topic but you can promote us though or you can promote our network and be seen right so there's a fine line there and that's for

other people to decide this is not like i'm not here to tell you how to monetize your platform but um but ultimately that's how we parse it because we're a trusted media outlet and so I feel comfortable saying, yep, you know, these people are collaborators so they can collaborate. These people pay and our job is trying to make sure that the audience is still respected and that it is, and that sort of tone and voice is still that sort of bearded rose feel, right? Yeah. And as long as you do that, you know, I think you can do a lot, right? And so ultimately, it's a matter of marketing yourself, yes, but there's a lot of innovative,

innovative ways to do that, right? Like, Kat Walsh would have a different approach than what we do to a degree because she's Kat. And so she, her brand, her, she, hi, is the business, right? Whereas me, Brian Poller, I'm a nice accentuation to the Beardbrose platform, right? I'm a leader in the board, right? So I personal brand, you know, and I promote in that way, right? Or we strategically, yes, if we like a prospect or somebody has a good following and we feel like we can get them on a show, yes. You know, we want to make sure that we can promote to their audience too because it's about not only that pro promotion, but that emerging

of audiences to George's point earlier, confrontation or discussions that are, you know, not contentious. I mean, that does work too. But if there's a nice debate point there that makes a lot of sense for everybody, that's where the sweet spot is, I think, because you can still co-promote and everybody's friendly, but you have enough of a difference where it's like, hey, this is important to talk about. We really need to address drilling on this because there's the common in our space, right? And so that's how basically we market, you know, it's word of mouth, but it's also.

paid ads and it's also you know it's also pushing forward on email and social and making sure that you're maximizing clips and things like that to a degree right if you do record if you don't record live and that gives you some advantages and that respect as well which we don't if you do then just make sure that you're promoting afterwards and you're doing something to continue to to nurture that and also take advantage of like sub sort of communities that you can easily tap into like an IG channel or like a you know what I mean like or like a LinkedIn group or you know different things like that can really just continue to grow that community and everybody really does feel like they're part of something special that they're part of like oh man i can't wait to tell everybody because they don't know about no you know calas or they don't know about ceasers they don't know about you know george like i'm going to tell them you know because it's really cool shit right you know and then basically for the the host like cat was explaining that's where some real magic can happen because all of a sudden somebody who really is somebody catches a wind of you and likes you and all of a sudden it's like they're co-promoting you just because of the like it. Yeah, well, this is a whole lot of options. Yeah, we can do a real time here. I'm curious,

because, Caesar, you do, I think out of all of you, I've seen you on stage the most live and Kat's done a bunch of shows. Where do people find you? How do folks find out about cultivating wisdom on the podcast side? I think so I was going to say two things. One, email, email, email, email, email, email, email, email, email is your gold. Email, email, email. Email, email is your gold. And during your podcast, incentivize people to give you their email. Hey, we'll give you this free top 10, whatever. We'll give you incentivize people to give you their email because when you have that, then you have a captive audience.

Then you have an audience. And if through that email, you use promotions, you have maybe a newsletter that goes along with the podcast. You're giving people what we would call on TV appointment viewing. There's an appointment that I know that on Tuesday I'm going to get. get that newsletter. I know the podcast is only once a week or once every two weeks, but I know I got that news. So that, and the other thing is reels. You can literally take a half an hour podcast and cut it into 20 different clips to put them out there because that's how people

are going to find you. You're going to find you mostly because they're on social media because there's a small clip of you. They're not going to sit and find your whole podcast. But if they find that one clip and that one clip is engaging, that one clip is interesting, that one clip leaves you curious, wait a minute, hold on a second. I have to hear more. Like, I have to stop what I'm doing. Where is that link to go listen to that full podcast? That's the trick to keeping that captive audience. The other thing I tell people, and I've seen this a lot, remember, you're talking to people. So find where that camera is and talk to that camera. That's how you engage people. That's how people feel like, wait a minute, Cesar's talking to me. George is talking to me. Kat is talking to me. Christian is talking to me.

I'm talking to that guy over there. I find a lot of podcasts, and especially when we're the host and we're, and we're also producing the show, and we're also trying to sort of, you know, find out different information. If you can't take yourself off camera, put the other person on camera, if you're doing it post, it's sort of that sense of engagement, that sense of me feeling that you're talking just to me. You're not talking to a whole podcast. You're talking just to me.

I think that that's really important. I want to grab this question from Jacob, Hyatjointed. Jacob, he's also here in Wohaka. And I think it's pretty interesting because he's asking specifically about the value of dialogue versus monologue. And I'm wondering, George, for sure, I know you have some of those early shows. I've listened to them. And there's a very different dynamic, right? You're a solo conversation from your perspective.

Can you keep the audience's interest? Do you have enough charisma and presence to talk for 45 minutes or an hour and make it land? Or is it really all about interviews and, and having a dialogue with someone else. Kat, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, as somebody who's had literally two separate podcasts, both my podcasts, so Trip on this is a conversation-based podcast, so I'm interviewing people on it. And then Life with Kat was quite literally a solo podcast,

so it was just all monologue. And in terms of my personal love is, I mean, I love the monologue format just because I can giggle and go off, just just a silly stream of thought and I found that even though a trip on this was a bigger podcast, the overall feedback that I would get actually was people fucking loved Live with Cat. Those that were on board with wanting to, I would cry and I would, you know, laugh and I would say um and I talk about stumbling all over myself, but I purposely really did not want to edit that podcast because I wanted it to be like, we're just friends having a chat. And because of that,

there was this camaraderie, I think I built within the audience that was quite different than trip on this. Though with chip on this, I still liked to do that at times and I would tell stories. But I did see from, I know Jacob's question was around engagement. And for me, when I engage you, the camera, the listener and the viewer, and you can really drop in and actually feel like you really are talking to them, you know? And I do think that takes practice. at the end of the day, getting comfortable and realizing like, you know, it's just, that's just practice at the end of the day. But yeah, I just want to quickly also, I want to end on that,

but also guest collaborations, just going back to the guest format and growing your, your podcast is having your guests collaborate with you, collaborate on post, leaning into their audience. It's a really great way to build and cross-pollinate. And having really smart, like now that I've, notice like smart SEO or AI terms, right? Like keywords, I have a podcast that went really big because I think I just said growing mushrooms. And I had the right words where people just discovered it because they were looking for topic specific things. So really remembering that,

sometimes people just put like the name of their guest and that's fine. That's a, that's a choice. But if you're not a big person, you're not Lex Friedman yet, it might be interesting to grab people that are quite literally looking for that very specific thing that you are laying down in that episode. So I just want to go back to that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we can go. I like format matters too. Like podcast is a pretty broad term now. Like there's a lot different ways to do a podcast. Like for instance, we didn't ask me anything, which is a very unknown format, but very different than a conversation, right? It was like a, you know, somebody's moderating and then there's somebody on the hot seat being asked questions, right?

Generally speaking of a VIP of some time or somebody that you know, right? Or somebody's, you know, influential in the space. That's one way to do it. Also, there's certainly monologue versus dialogue, right? Some shows mix it up, right? Some people use the monologue as a way to point to the show, right? They built their brand through monologue and then point to that. There's a lot of ways to go about it.

I agree with Kat, though, that in terms of, like, intimacy and real, like, me to you, when I'm looking at this camera and there's nobody around and I'm looking right at you, that's about as intimate as you can get in the format, you know, beyond just being in front of somebody, right? That said, I think in a general sense, it's easier to capture more interest if you're talking with someone. Right. So general interest or like people who didn't know you from Adam and like, oh, shoot, let me go here, you're more likely to maybe tap into that because of your guests maybe or like the general theme of your show or whatever

as people kind of flirt around with you or as you know, get known on social and build out your audience and stuff. But then, of course, the opposite. Once you have done that, then, yes, working some monologue, I think, into there is real. Because, you know, it is the most. It is the, you got to get to catch me. That's a big one. That's a high wire act.

You better craft your skill a little bit. I was going to say, I was going to say definitely monologue podcast, the ones that cativate the most are the ones that are good storytellers. Sure. That's a good story. So if that's what your niece is, is that what you're planning. Hone your storytelling skills. Hone that first.

That's why you've got a lot of comedians that are really great podcasters. And a lot of them have a lot of things they've dealt with, right? That's a lot of things that make, you know, a comedian very effective, right? I think that's why you have a lot of success awards. And then the smartest ones like a Theo Vaughn or whatever have really just leaned into themselves. Like he's now more personal coach, self-help than he is. like funny or interviewing people why that's what his niche was he started evaluating himself and he realized his guests were really into that and then everybody experiences you know bullshit you know as they

go on and so he was basically able to tap into that so he leaned into that he's really famous to begin with so he didn't necessarily have to that right did joe rogan always have the format straight out the gate no he didn't if you if you went back and look it wasn't always three hours at first i really kind of grew into it understood like oh shit like you know this is working for me go, right? So I think a lot of people can sort of take some, you know, solace in that. There's a lot of different ways to do it. And there's a lot of, and again, it goes back to what we've been talking about some time. You got to start, got to be consistent. Got to have a plan. Good, good segue. George, I know you've been playing with some of these tools.

I've even heard, I won't name names, and some people use AI to help do introductions for some of their amazing guests. I don't know. What are you talking about? Yeah, but let's talk a little bit about what Clint's bringing up like AI for podcasting. You know, where does it show up for any of you? Like, what are you using it for? Is it post-production and the edits you're talking about, Kat?

Or is it getting prepped? And maybe even if you want to be in the flow, but you want to have some good prompts or question, Caesar, it might be interesting to analyze a guest and see what they find out in the internet with AI doing some analysis or research for you. It just saves you a little by the time at the very least, right? Yeah. So, George, you mean, Caesar? I was going to say real quick, George, with tools, obviously, you know,

whatever platform you're using is going to be your first real AI massive tool that you use. Let's say Riverside. Riverside is a platform where you can record your podcast and then you can literally tell it, hey, give me five, you know, 30 second clips where I'm talking about this or the best, whatever. And it will literally put them out for you. So in other words, make sure that at least that, first AI tool that you're using is the tool for your platform that you will be recording on, that you're going to get the most out of it, that you're able to cut clips, that you're able

to get a transcript of the show, because then you can throw that into AI for your intros for SEO stuff that you're going to get in there. So just make sure that that first AI, the most important one to me, I think, is that your platform that you're recording your podcast on has as many bells and whistles that you can get right from there. So we'll bring up Riverside just, I think I have a screenshot just so people can anchor it. And then maybe we just go around the horn, like what platforms are you using? And then we can kind of come back to the AI implications on it. So Cesar's Riverside, Kat, what do you use primarily for streaming or management?

For my recording or for AI tools? Yes, and. Yes, and. Okay. Well, what I want to say is AI is moving so quickly that I feel like hopefully what I say is not outdated because I've been on a hiatus for about one this year. But the one that I did use was, so if you have Premiere Pro, which a lot of people don't, but if you do, there's a plugin called Autopod, I believe it's called, that will, like, not only auto cut your, like, if

say you have at two angles, even, it will go in between cameras based on the speaker. And like chip chop it up. So suddenly you in six minutes, so we'll go through like an hour long and you have like different angles and you name the speakers so it can understand like this is you need like cat you see like my picture. That's cat, my voice cat and then my guest Christian, Christian. And so it's just going back and forth based on what it's hearing. It's pretty incredible. Now that being said, it was still enough oversight. It was still like I have to watch it. Like, okay, I'm a little bit picky when it comes to like the creativity I put out there. So I have yet to see a true AI like straight.

Descript is another tool that uses kind of like what Caesar is mentioning, which is using basically Riverside and Descript, both use the script, basically, like the words. And you can cut out ums and ahs. so we can actually cut that out for you within, you know, a second. Not as much creative cutting that I've seen with those platforms, like Autopod, for instance, where you can actually go in between different multicams if you have a multi-cam. A lot of people don't.

A lot of people do remote podcasts. I've used Riverside. I like it. I don't know if I'm going to be jumping back into it for myself other than I don't think I use enough of the tools for myself to justify it. I think I'm going to try OBS Studios, which is a free broadcasting platform. It is a little bit more of a setup, but you can actually kind of flow through. You can have like an opening card. Like if it's like a streaming, if it's a live stream, you could have like a coming on soon. And you have to press it or a producer,

but it's right in front of you. You just kind of press between like now is your intro plays and now you can press onto yourself. And that can also be live stream. So that's where I'm going to be tootling around for myself. When it comes to the social media, though, my big thing is I feel like visually, if it just looks to, this is where I feel like I can get out of my own way a little bit. But I like like full screen. I like it to feel as native to social media as it can, not like stitched together videos

from podcast. I feel like they don't pull in as much engagement. I don't know if it's actually using monologue with clips. Like I'm talking about psychedelics and this with a neuroscientist. Check this out. And then you just throw in your clip. But something that pulls, I find that like just conversations, unless you're saying something so hot and sexy or outrageous or something,

people can kind of get a little, you kind of blur over a little bit if they just see like a, like just appearing in another conversation. Yeah, I know. So I want to be thoughtful. we're coming up on an hour. Some folks have a hard stop and they might need to piece out. Some might want to stay around a little bit longer.

So anybody want to say good night and you're hanging. Everybody hanging for another 15, 20 minutes. Okay. I'm following George's lead. He likes to do these two, three hours. We've got nothing to warm up. We're just getting warmed up. Yeah, a lot about platforms.

So Riverside, Stream Yard, OBS. we've got three or four of these in the, if you want to pull them up, just the screenshots, George, to help educate folks, whether it's Clint or Jonathan. What's been your default platform?

George, what are you using? Or should I not ask you while you're bringing things up? You know what? I've used a variety of them. I've been on multiple places that have Riverside.

I like that as a platform. I use Stream Yard. My podcast is more of a live stream. Like I used to do a lot of editing and uploading there. But what I have learned, is that that takes a lot of time. And if you're just an individual who has a really cool message or you're someone that wants to talk to lots of people

and get that message out there, I feel like the live stream is the way to go. I feel like there's a much more authentic conversation that happens. A lot of the times where people stumble is, like we said earlier right there. Like those are good points to talk about. It's also a great reflective tool to go back and listen to what you had to say

and realize where you stumbled. I like Streamyard. I've met and talked to some of the people that created it. And I like the fact that it's an easy way to stream at one place and have your content push to all your other places. You could stream to five channels, seven channels, or 15 channels. It also gives you the freedom to bring on other people. It allows individuals that come onto your platform on Streamyard to stream to their channels. So now you can leverage not only yours, but each individual can stream to two of their channels.

You're going to get a lot more reach with Streamyard if you're going to go with a streaming platform. There's so many cool tools out there. on the topic of AI, I believe it's sort of a flashy frame. It's like a flashy jacket. I think your content is what's important. And while AI tools are amazing and they're beautiful, they're kind of dangerous because you can get so caught up in the minutia of trying to put up good clips or trying to do some really cool pre-production that you're taking away from the conversation that you should be having with people. That time should be spent focusing on the person, reviewing the person, understanding their message. And your content is what's going to ultimately

rad people out there. Tools, I can also sort of address Jonathan's question, too, via the tool thing too, right? Have you, do you recommend both audio video formats or just successive audio? I recommend both and build it into your process, right, if you can. It's not too hard to establish a Spotify account or an Apple music account and then just rip your, you know, file that you did on Streamard, which is what we used to, George. and ultimately put it up there. You know, just bake it into the cake of your process.

That's another thing I wanted to talk about is it's process, which is different for everybody, right? We do seven, eight a month, and there's distribution and, you know, all this stuff. But the process also can help dictate your tools. And so, you know, what you're doing could be maybe influenced by, that that will help you decide on which tools to use, right? You're a, you know, just you, maybe you want an all-in-one, or maybe if you have from your pro like Kat does,

that might be an autopod, might be a cool. option for you. You've heard us talk about Opus, a few times on this. That's a great one for clips. You can just throw your, you know, your large file into there and it'll automatically create a bunch of them and it'll prioritize by what it thinks would be the most viral, which is pretty darn cool. And that allows you to basically bake that into whatever your content, you know, distribution cake is. That's up to you and what you're doing. Let's see. Obviously, we talk about chat TPT a lot. great for prep and you know uh you know and all sorts of different things um also canva uh is is a good one right uh you know you're great creative graphics or you know getting things you know

done that way um we also use uh or podcast or like clean voice it does been but in that sort those are ones that clean up your ums and oz um and then there's all in ones too there's all you know there's like a what's you call them and i'm i'm not very familiar with it alifu or what is it lead to you guys right it's lead to sorry um and that's a nice little all-on-one you know and you're going to see more of that for sure riverside as you can tell has grown into that you know they're just for one of the more preeminent ones so the pricing is a little higher some stuff like that you know and it might not be right for you it just depends you know but um it's also about distribution like it's about you know how you're putting it out there right and i like to george's point

don't get caught up in the minutia because boy oh boy that will water oh yeah yeah you know so Yeah, lots of many. It's important, though, to just, again, it turns to this whole thing. Like, this whole conversation has been about like, yo, there's a fine line. You got to just pull the trigger, but you got to be prepared. You have to basically, you know, go here and go to these places, but don't get bogged down in the marketing and promotion. This is all true. That's why it's all easy.

It's not cut out for everybody. Not everybody's cut out to do it. Not every business has to have one. Not every person has to have one, right? So, you know, ultimately really, really, really, you know, focused on what's the best tools for you not just within budget but or what you're trying to do really like focus on that i'm super curious because you know we've talked about some newbies or rookies or people are just going to you know be jumping into the podcast pool in the next few months what is the real like give you all

a minute to think about and we'll go around the horn just quickly on this like how many hours if you think about it from the from the minute you think about a guest and then you reach out to them and hopefully you connect and you maybe do a pre-interview. Other folks don't. They just want to get it live raw the first time. Then you have the day up, right? And you have your promotion engine. So you got to send out the links and you might be doing an email to your list Cesar's talking about. So now you've promoted it. Then you have day up. You don't just show up the minute the show starts, right? You're there 30 minutes earlier, 15 minutes earlier. Your guests are showing up. Now you turn everything on. You got your distro rolling. Well, it's not over when you're done.

Now you're done. Now you've got post production, potentially AI or a human. And so just all of you just think about it for yourselves. No right or wrong answer, but just come up with a number of hours per episode, whatever frequency, whether you have a team or not, that you have to put in to do a good show. And then we'll just go around quick answers and then we can kind of unpack what goes into that. But George, to start with you, how many hours or how much time do you put into a show? Five hours is standard. All right. Five hours for George.

And does that include the three hours you're doing the actual podcast? My longer, like, I would say it's average five hours. I'm going to do a long podcast. It's probably closer to eight for an hour, show, five hours. Kat, what do you put into yours? Because it's probably different, like, when you're doing the trip on this versus the life of, yeah? Yeah, I would say, very different. I'm going to go a trip on this just because I'm, life has cuts much more low lift for me.

But probably closer to nine. I also, like, I'm a woman. So, like, I get ready. Like, like, there's really stuff. Like, to be thinking about. And, like, and I do do. question outline i do like to research my guess especially if i don't know them like i'll be listening so it could sometimes be more like nine to 12 depending on the depending on the podcast so we got a

we got a five-ish from george we got a nine to 12 with cat caesar where you coming in i was going to say again it sort of falls in between that you know it's five to 10 hours right again how long is the podcast um how much information is there for me to research on this guest How much prep am I going to be into this? You know, is this someone that I know, you know, I mean? And we're just going to shoot the shit. Or is it someone that I really need to research and have some good information so we can have this conversation? And then the most time consuming, obviously, if you're not doing it live like George does, which I think is brilliant.

I think there should be more live content out there. There has to be. Everything's so packaged, everything's so perfect. Hey, this is live? This is live? Yeah. So, yeah, so I love this. More.

More. More. More. More. More of this, but then afterwards, let's say something like this, if it's not live, then do we go into post and let's put some video here, let's add something here, let's add some text here, let's add the website, let's add that all adds up. That all completely adds up. And if you're editing, yes, of course, if you have a tool like Riverside where it's going to edit a lot of things for you, that's fine. But you also have to go back in and hey, you know what? Is the person that's on camera at that, time the person is actually speaking or did Riverside make a mistake and they just had the guy sitting there looking off picking his nose or whatever it was right so that all takes time so I'd say between five and 10 hours right five that really smart show it's quick it's dirty it was a great

conversation 10 hours you know what this is going to need some time this is going to need some love this is going to need some polishing this is going to this was a really good guess that I really want to make sure that the audience gets the most of it it's going to it's going to be 10 hours for an hour show. Yeah. And sometimes longer. If you're doing all the editing, like if you're trying to edit audio and trying to edit the video manually, which I did in the beginning of trip on this, it would be days.

Like I literally was like this, I'm doing five jobs. I don't sleep. Yeah. This is insane. I have found that the live is great. But I just wanted to also mention that, like depending on how much editing you decide creatively for your podcast, you might be doing a hybrid storytelling conversation type of thing. the more intros and things like that,

like some of the platforms have it built in, but sometimes that's editing. And sometimes it's creative editing if it's not just a conversation. You know, if you want music in it, right, there's a lot of different types of podcasts.

And I think out of the four of you, three of you clearly are kind of more in the solopreneur getting it done yourself. Brian, you guys have a team, right? There's, you guys,

yeah, there's more, you know, we have guests or we have guests for each of our podcast that are, you know, collaborators close with the org, etc. We want to just basically people who we respect and admire as thought leaders in the space that had specialties, right, like a retail, finance, culture, marketing, etc.

My show with Aaron is really about talking to leaders in the space about their sort of personal journey that they went on along the growth of their company or how they got to like where they got her, right? And we focus on sort of, you know, it's sort of like a sort of like a personal journey that they went on a It's sort of like a men's mental health and like, like, you know, different things like that. Or just mental health in general, I should say. We have lots of women. So with all eight episodes a month being pumped out by the Beer Bros Network, how many hours are you putting in personally when you're a guest versus like when, you know, the whole team?

Yeah. So there's two things I want to talk about. One, like you, when you have that sort of situation going on, you got to shrink that 10 hours to, you know, five or something if you can, right, without losing credibility or losing the feeling of the bottom. That's really hard for everybody. That's tough. But also the CRO and me is like, hey, by the way, you're not only doing work, you're also promoting someone else. And there's a price to that.

It's not just about hours. There's a cost to the production of each podcast. And it is a dollar sign that you can attach to it. And once you know what that is, now you're ready for a lot of other opportunities because now you know how to you will be able to pitch or you'll be able to get sponsors you might be able to get and as long as you understand where you are in the hierarchy of everything you know once you hit a good threshold of a few thousand followers and maybe you got 500 folks on like YouTube or whatever you can start chipping away at this you can like offer a very modest package and start going for it so

again the money guy and we cannot just sit here and let us talk about having time spent and oh let's just give all this away to everybody you fuck that like you know ultimately you definitely have to basically, you have to figure out a way to do what you want to do. The best way to do that is to basically work with the businesses that are largely affected by what you're talking about because they're going to give a shit. And if you're really personal too, right,

this is why all these other people aren't here kill it so much. They know this and they are themselves and it allows them to basically not have to be businessy, but attract businesses. Although I need to over my shoulder and be like, you should charge for that. Just remember that too. So again, for us, it's probably about three to five hour, five-ish for each podcast.

But thankfully, we have a lot of process and structured, and we've been doing it two years, and we continue to improve the process through tools, collaboration with our hosts. You know, there's a lot of ways to, like, galvanize, especially if everybody's got skinned. Yeah, I think Jacob, you know, he was either reading your mind or you were reading the question before you. how do you, how do you indirect or direct? And, you know, I think we don't want to shy away from Harry topics here. So pay to play, right? There's podcasts where you literally write a check to get in that seat and be interviewed.

I'm not going to make a judgment about that business model. That's, you know, if you're a journalist and you're trying to put out objective news, that may not be the right play. But I know conferences that charge to put you up on the dais as well, right? Or on a panel. So pay to play is a business model, whether it works for you or not or your integrity with your audience. If you disclose it, that's a different issue. What are some other ways to get monetization?

We know advertising, sponsorships. You got a lot of stuff going on with substack and Patreon. Like where do the dollars actually flow for any of you that you actually know that like this works? This brings in dollar bills. I would love to hear from like Kat or I can talk to you about this from our perspective, but I want to hear about like that people want to hear out solo from your achievements. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this has always been the one where it's, I would have loved actually to have someone like you, Brian, like on my shoulder when I hit 2,000 listeners to understand that that was enough to make a play.

Because I think I understand like the warped nature of like how to price myself has been a journey with Trip on this. Ultimately, say it again. It's very hard. Yeah, yeah. And I didn't really know anybody actually to like ask. I probably could have, but I think I was maybe shy about it. And I think that's probably what I would learn going forward is like literally just have open conversations with people and creators and podcasters on how to really make it work.

Because resentment can come up if you are working really hard and you are in the red, which I was in the beginning and had to really shift my mindset around when am I worthy for sponsorship. long story short I have gotten to a place where I have sponsorship money certainly like a very traditional way from brands there's not a ton of brands

that I've noticed yet although I haven't really made a huge push because I have trip on this is on hold right now anyway but it was like brands like you're saying like you know ones that either are very pro-psychedelic and they're like openly psychedelic

or they're kind of in the space. I haven't yet. I've tried to kind of reach some maybe of the more like mainstream brands. And I think psychedelics as a whole was still a little bit of that. So I, full disclosure, I was talking to one of the large talent agencies at one point in their podcast division. And I think what it ultimately came down to for one of the team is how do we sell this to, in real and real many zeros, right? because that's how they're thinking. They're thinking of if we produce a show, it's $300,000 a show.

Therefore, the revenue has to come in. So as a person to make some money, I think there's like smaller brands that are doing it. I would be curious to hear from these guys that there's big money coming into the psychedelic space in terms of sponsorship. And then like other events, you know, hosting events,

DJing events, because I'm an online presence, you know, like now I'm a content creator and a voice on social media, I now have a brand that other companies now tap into to, you know, use me as now like an asset for them indirectly, right? You're asking about like indirect. Yes, there are social media views, but like there's that.

And I'm going to be starting a substack as well. So yeah, this has been a little bit of an anomaly for me as well. It's been slower than I didn't know how to do it in the beginning, but I started to come around to it. I definitely want to get after Caesar and George around this, but one of the things that comes to mind for me is, Kat, you should ask me next time you want to figure out some politicization. I would. Oh, yes.

And people like Brian, right? Like the fact that he's working with so many different brands and there's a meat work. Like people like, I think us inside the tent want to help each other, right? Like whether it's cannabis or psychedelics, because it is so hard to make real living that's legitimate that is not putting you in harm's way. And like we talked at the top of the hour, like if you're trying to pay your rent, if you're trying to make a mortgage, if you've, if you're growing a family, right, you got college in 18 years, podcast may not be the way to get there.

But I feel like it's another spoke on a hub, right? Like everybody can self-publish now. So you can be an author, but you can also like, you know, with a stack or articles, but you can write a book and get a self-published book pretty easily. Don't plan that that book's going to take you to the bank, but it might open up consulting opportunities or it might open up other things. Same with the podcast. And really,

I see the partnership that you have with like District 216 and Jacob is you guys really are helping each other grow and so many interesting things. And it's all the things outside the podcast that can potentially monetize. Like you're getting DJ gigs or you being brought in the conference host or whatever. So love all that. Caesar, George, where are you seeing the dollar bills? I see some merch behind you, Caesar. Yeah, well, again, merchandising is important, right?

It's your message of what you are, what you're doing. You know, the more you can promote that, that's, you know, it falls off the tree, as they say, in Spanish. The other thing is affiliate marketing, right? Look for affiliates. Look for, hey, if you're talking about psychedelics, why not affiliate with somebody that has a grow kit, right? And it could be some type of barter. Hey, you know what? Come and be a guest.

You know what I mean? You send me all the grow kits I need. Just, you know what I mean? Whatever, whatever that is. find those partnerships that it doesn't we're always we're always chasing that dollar right i need to see a check um there's we're we're in a situation where not everyone's at liberty to write a check there's a lot of people saying okay well what is what is my r oi on this you know what's what's my r oi on a product that i have that i might be able to give out as a sample that you can use

to you know you don't have to then buy my kits you have my kids but then it's also we're cross promoting so finding that affiliation that you can cross promote with them And then even then, hey, we're affiliated with whatever bags, use this code, and I get some money. That's right. So there's all these little ways, right? Are we not going to be happy until we see that million dollar check? Yeah. If I can see a million one dollar checks, I'm fine with that too.

I'm fine with that too. Yep. So I think it's really interesting you bring up the affiliate. networks and, you know, working with so many of the conferences personally and seeing what's happened in the areas of sponsorship for, you know, legitimate, let's say legal brands versus all the fun and crazy stuff going on in the underground. George can, I'm going to throw one screen up while you talk a little bit about our, I'll add an image. And this is a personal project. So disclosure, I'm involved in this personally, but I also

think it's timely to bring it up. And you guys, you guys did it. So George, tell, maybe share a little bit about what you've seen around monetization, good bad and ugly, and I think you've had some recent success. I don't know if you want to name names. Yeah. So I think over the last 10 years, we saw a sort of exodus from brick and mortar to virtual. Like everybody went online. But I think looking forward to monetization, the next exodus is from online to brick and mortar. And one way I've seen success in this now is that there are some local places around where I live in California that are starting up their social media. And they had come to me, George, you know, we saw you do some social media.

Can you help us out? But the transition from from online to brick and mortar is, look, let's do a live podcast from your warehouse. Let's invite people from the community that are already doing things. We can interview them there. We'll do it live. And then we'll use that live content from an actual event as our clips, as our stuff. Much like Kat and Jacob are doing.

I think it's a brilliant strategy. and I think more people online that are doing podcasting, look to translate your skills from the virtual world into the brick and mortar world. Because ultimately, like, I believe media is moving into a more meaningful content. It's nice to have the clips that are flashy and stuff like that. But if you have a product or a service, you want your social media to reflect that.

And nothing comes better to that messaging than the actual conversations with, you know, people that are in the warehouse, that are working on the assembly line, that are packaging things. Like, that is great content. And that's the kind of content that I think is going to turn into more monetization for an individual who's in the world of podcasting at this point in time. Yeah. Nice.

Well, you bring up that image. George, I just wanted to highlight this. Of course. So this is a work in progress. Oh, nope, keep going. Keep going. It's the last one. There's tools, more tools.

Keep going. Let's see. I only see these two right here. You should be able to keep going. there's two more a little plug from stream yard yeah imagine that yeah

those little love full disclosure we're getting there we go of every stream yard rivers there we go there's those deals and use code

blah blah to sign up for stream yard go ahead those aren't those deals too look if you're using stream yard and you promote stream yard and streamrards send you a couple bucks yep

They've got the affiliate code. You can put it right under your show. You can talk about it on the air. Exactly right. So this is a work in progress, very, very early days. You can tip your hat to Greg Schenkin in Colorado, involved in Gloss and the Colorado Psychedelic Society. And he has done some testing of several affiliate platforms and actually looking to roll this

out for the plant medicine, psychedelic cannabis community. And so it's early days and affiliate networks only work when you get so many people on the advertising side and the offers and so many people on the publishing side are as affiliates. But it's a pretty interesting way to overcome a lot of the challenges with the shadow bands, the deplatforming, the inability to buy ad words around certain keywords or find certain markets, is that if you get enough folks supporting the specific segment that we're trying to cultivate and nurture, you're going to have a way to reach them here. So if you want to take a look at that later and you're a content creator, we can tell you more about it. But yeah, I just wanted to highlight that. And let's, you know, we're getting close to almost 90 minutes. I don't know. I'm getting a little nervous, George.

We can. I think I want to give everybody their time back and be thoughtful to the viewers. We'll see what editing magic happens afterward. So a couple maybe quick questions. And then I want to go around the horn and give you all a minute to think about a new project, something you want to promote, something you want the audience to share with others that that would be. be worthwhile to bring up at the end of the show. Out of all the work that you guys have done with podcasts and podcast production, and maybe you're the exception, Brian, because you guys have a team at Beard Bros.

Have any of you, I guess Caesar and Kat and George, have you ever outsourced? Have you hired someone to help you with pre-pro? Have you ever hired someone to do post-production? And what was that like? And was it worth it? Just curious about getting help and paying for it, pain for help. I could time in real quick. I had hired someone. I was I was left. I felt like I was left with an end with a half empty bag because there was a lot of there was a lot of tools or things that I could have gotten from another platform that I didn't get from them. So yeah, there was a whole bunch of good little things that they did that made the podcast a lot easier. But there was also things that you know I I ended up doing myself. Right. So so do your homework. Right. If you're looking for a producer, if you're looking. for someone to outsource, make sure that they're giving up or offering exactly what you're looking for,

right? And not, oh, yeah, I'm only going to do this, but I mean, this one company we worked, we wouldn't even get a transcript. We didn't even get a transcript of the podcast. And I was like, okay, how is that even possible, you know? So, so yeah, just do, definitely do your homework. And then look, ask around, ask for reviews. Ask other people. See who they're working with. Yeah, that's me. That's goes. There you go. That's Brian. Have you hired anyone or had any support?

Yeah, I've had help sometimes with editing the podcast. I would do all the editing myself. I preferred it. It wasn't a lot of necessarily creative editing. For me, though, and I would say this to anyone like editing for me is I can't stand it. It's what takes the joy out of my podcasting. And it got to the point where I said, I have to change. something I either need to have somebody else I need to offload this or it is taking the joy out of me doing this right now because it's so long it's so many hours it's I literally can't do it and so for me it was always worth it but then it needed to be like that's also because I had gotten to a place with the podcast at least where I was you know breaking even basically by getting editors it was just going right back into it basically out of the joy right like

I was paying for it just so I can keep doing it because I knew that there was going to be no way if I didn't get help with it. Even with Autopod and things like that, I ended up, it still took so much of my time that I really, that is the one place that I'm really looking at OBS and live as the way to get out of the way with that

because editing is that thing for me where I'm like, somebody do it. I'm very happy to offload that. And if people love it, great, do it. For me, it was pretty crushing for me after years of it. So as a non-editor. So yes. George, you've hired any help pre-pro or post or anywhere in between?

Just sparringly, I think as an individual creator, you should try to do everything yourself in the beginning. That gives you a fundamental understanding of just how difficult it is. Like when cats talking about editing, it's so much work. You want to put in this song. You're so critical of it. And it eats up all of your time. but it's an imperative lesson for you as a podcast or someone in media to understand what that

process is like so that when you do hire someone, you realize this person knows what they're talking about or hey, I think I could have done that, you know, but I think it's a necessary step when you farm it out. For me, I don't farm out anything. I've had some people, I've gotten to trouble where I had a few audio problems where there was like glitching in the background and I farmed that out to some people. You can find people that will do an episode or two for free to show you their work. So I would recommend if you're new to the game, test out some of this free stuff because there's a lot of talented people out there that will showcase their work and they'll do an episode.

If you find like four or five of them, you can get five episodes edited for free in that aspect of it. But I would recommend doing it yourself. And I found that a little bit, but I find joy in trying to do it myself. I should probably ask for more help from time to time. I like the free trials and people. I also like low cost, right? Like if someone's no way to do 100 bucks an hour to do post-production editing, maybe offer them 25 or 50 and just be like, hey, I don't want you to do it for free. And I know what your full rate is.

So if we end up working together long term, but let me at least pay for some of your time. Or, you know, just kind of being thoughtful because they're given their time and creativity as well. So, you know, one of my favorite shows is that hot ones. You know, where they have the hot wing. So into the show, this camera, that camera, that camera. Let's go around the horn. Brian, what do you guys got coming up at Beard Bros? I know MJ BizCon is right around the corner and you're on fire with all your different ventures.

What's the hot topic? You know, thank you very much. First of all, Kristen, we've been to all of you for this awesome conversation. Really, really appreciated it. It's good. I look forward to doing it again sometime, to be honest. Yeah, go to Beardbrosefarms.coms. That's Farms with a pH.

And you can find a lot of good information there. Yeah, gearing up for Vegas with MJ BizCon, continuing to onboard tons of clients. We help you grow. Like that's what we do. We help all sorts of businesses, not only just in cannabis hemp, psychedelics, mushrooms, everybody ancillary to it, wellness companies. We continue to grow at a nice slip. And then, of course, we have a product line.

RSO products. You can go catch those in California, Massachusetts, on Missouri. Feel free to use our store locator to find one near you. Thank you. And of course, check out the Beard Bros. Media Network on YouTube because that's where all of these podcasts that we do are mostly resigning. And so thank you very much for the opportunity, Christian. I hope you all have the great day. Thanks for coming, buddy. Caesar, what's popping? Well, of course, check out cultivating wisdom.net, the apparel brand where you can manifest the fact that you're using psychedelics without looking like you're going to a grateful dead concert, not that there's anything wrong with tie dye. We'd love some tie dye. But if you want to have an honest, open, and objective conversations, you'll look a lot better having cultivating wisdom apparel. Also, obviously, microdosing over 50. If you are over 50 and want objective information about microdosing, check that out.

But the biggest thing we have on our plate Christian right now is this thing behind me. This is a collector's item masterpiece that we're auctioning off right now. I'm going to put the auction in the link. We're starting bids on Monday. I collected signatures from pretty much all the important past, present, and future people working in the psychedelics, everyone from Paul Stamich, Rick Doblins, Kat Walsh, Hamilton Morris, which Christian had a wonderful picture of me and Hamilton. So I'll thank you for that, my friend. And everyone else, everyone else that's really making a difference in the psychedelic space. So it's up for auction. Part of the proceeds are going to go to the Pearl Institute, a wonderful institute in Asheville, North Carolina.

Part of the proceeds are going to go to maps, and part of the proceeds are going to go to a foundation working with indigenous healers in Columbia. So the link is in there. It is a high-ticket item. It is a collector's item. This will be definitely a piece of history. The auction will end December 2nd, giving Tuesday. So if you have that type of flow and you want to give somebody a wonderful gift, I know that there's not a lot of people with office spaces left, but this would look awesome behind any pipe. So definitely look at that.

So bring it home. And I think I have an image you can throw up there if you want to. There's the up your bros and then the shirt if you want to bring that over. And yeah, that shirt has seen a lot of interesting characters and a lot of great. Yeah. check that out. Kat, what do you, what do you got coming on? Yeah.

So right now, social media is my most active thing right now. It's at Life with Kat Walsh, Cat with a K, on TikTok and Instagram. TikTok is more storytelling stuff. And Instagram is a storytelling light. Different, different kind of audience and vibe there. I am going to be, if this solo, storytelling podcast Life with Cat Walsh

is available now and I'm rebooting it as Katz Meow podcast realistically the beginning of 2026 and that podcast is going to now be kind of like a hybrid. It's just going to be my next journey between I would say

like a kind of a mix between Trip on this and Life with Cat where it will be a hybrid between solo conversations, probably predominant, but then also conversations as I want. You know, I think for me, I just needed like a creative space to do what I want. You know what I mean? Like, that's very much part of my personality.

I don't like to be confined by what a format. And I finally, I'm like, you're in charge, girl. Do it. So, do what you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So trip on this is going to live as this like archive of conversations that people can, they're timeless, you know, so much of this podcast is about storytelling. So these are people's stories that are not necessarily.

I mean, there is some stuff with like research that's going on. I launched this actually right before. I won't go into that. But anyway, and the other big thing is, so that's Life of Cat is going to be turning into Casmeo on podcast. And then I'm going to be relaunching my website. And my big thing is just focusing on hosting, hosting more events. I was telling Brian the other day,

I want to host a TV show. I literally want to be like ancient aliens and it's like how to change your minds. You know what I mean? I'm just going to keep saying it now until a producer's like, you know who we need and maybe like house music. Yeah, I'd be like,

manifest. Yeah, and I'm also a DJ, cats me out. So I'm always like, you know, doing a lot of interesting shows and events and yeah, if you need an electronic music, I was DJ, you know who to reach out to. Boom, boom.

Thank you. And thank you, Christian, and, and George for this lovely conversation. Everybody, obviously, y'all are podcasters because this was a lot of fun. George, final shot. What do you got going, buddy? Nice. Thanks to everybody for being here. I'm stoked to be in all your guys' presence.

I think you're doing a phenomenal job. I got a few things coming up. First off, there's a movie coming out called I Bogus Saves. I'm partnering with Awake. We're going to be going down to Mexico and interviewing, like Tom Leonard, Gareth Moxie, the fish leaves are going to be down there. So many cool people in the world of Iboga. So check that out.

I'm going to have a go-fund me for people that want to look into that or see what they can do. Second off, I want to send everybody over to Anselmo Ibogain. I've been working with Tom Leonard. He's a phenomenal individual when it comes to changing lives in the world of people that might be struggling with addiction. Highly recommend them. Check out the new site, Enzelmo Ibogain. I just partnered with Blue Morpho. Shout out to Maestro Hamilton.

Incredible individual. doing incredible things in Peru. I'm looking to bring a group down there, probably next year. So if you're interested in that, reach out to me. And additionally, if you want to know anything about podcasting or you're looking at putting up a show or producing one, reach out to me. My name is George Monty. My email is G-E-O-R-G-E-P, M-O-N-T-Y. I would love to help you with that. And I got a lot of great connections out there. Christian, thank you so much for the time today. I really appreciate it. I thank all of you for making your time. And the wisdom shared, right, It amplifies the message.

It creates ripples. You never know where it's all going to go. And we'll try this again in a few months. Maybe we'll check in early in 2026, see what's been happening. Sounds like a plan. Awesome. Thank you, Christian. Take care.

Much love to everybody. Much, much, much, love. All right.