How to Not Suck At Building Your Podcast

I’m pumped today because I love interviewing other podcasters because these usually have the most fire of any episodes that we do because we just have these wonderful exchanges. And get ready for this. You’re gonna want to share this episode out with at least three people today. If you like podcasts, if you want to start a podcast if you think you want to do anything with building a network or talking with other people, period. You’re going to want to share this out today. Because my guest has done over 800 episodes. That’s amazing. In his podcast, Next Level University, Kevin Palmieri Welcome to the show.

 

Rick, thank you so very much for having me. And if it’s any indication, our conversation behind the scenes I’m very excited to chat today and I’m sure it will be awesome.

 

Dude, same here, man. Same here. 800 episodes you know, when I was reading about you a couple days ago before our session today, man, I was like, Good lord. That’s amazing.

 

It’s difficult to say the least we do. We do one a day. We do seven, seven a week, every single day. Six solos, one guest and I always like to say this. We didn’t start there. We started with one just like everybody else so don’t let that number make you think you can’t start. Everybody’s journey starts in a different place and ends in a different place.

 

That’s so cool, man. The only other show that I know that has so many episodes like that is Entrepreneurs on Fire with God. I’ve been on his show before to man. It’s a good show. He’s a good dude, by the way a good vet veteran right for the armed forces as well. Man, I’m pumped because you made me think about something you know, nowadays we do two a week. It’s all in. We started with one a week, way back when two and we just shifted over maybe about two years into it. You know what, when did you make that shift? Because you started with one year and how did you see that ramp up to the seminar where you’re at right now.

 

So we started with it, so I started this by myself. It started off as the hyper conscious podcast because for most of my life, I was living unconsciously and I said what’s the opposite of that hyper conscious awesome. So I started doing one. Then when I partnered with my business partner, Alan, we went up to two in year two. Then we interviewed Evan Carmichael, and Evan Carmichael said, “Hey, you guys aren’t doing enough. You have to do more.” He challenged us to do another episode. So I think we went up to three then I think we might have gone from three to five and then five to seven. So it was kind of like year one, one to two to three was probably year two and then the last couple of years it’s just really really grown a lot for sure.

 

That’s so cool, man. I love it when those individuals come into our lives and we don’t even expect it right. Yeah. And they just challenge us to step it up. He’s like, I love what you’re doing. You could do more?

 

Yeah. Yeah, it was a nice kick, and it was a nice kick in the butt. You know, and he mentored us for a while, which was wonderful. He’s a really good human being. We learned a lot from him, but it’s that challenge of somebody who is where you want to be that maybe they see parts of themselves and you and they can say hey, look, I know where you were, I know what you’re doing. You got to ramp it up and you can, you’re capable of ramping it up, and I think that’s an important thing, especially from somebody who wants to see you win. You know, they have your best interests at heart.

 

That’s so cool, man. I love that you mentioned something that you said you know you started this way back when it was called the hyper conscious podcast originally, and before that you said you I can’t remember how you phrase it, but it was like you were unconscious almost for a long period of your life. You know, because I know in your bio, you know, it says that you hit rock bottom, you know and this was around your mid 20s or so. But it was in the midst of having pretty much everything right when this happened. Tell me your story, dude.

 

Yeah, so I grew up in a single parent household. I was raised by my mom and my grandmother, mom and Meems, Mima, as I call her, and when all of my friends decided to go to college, I said that’s not for me at the time. I was training to fight professionally. And I’m not going to go to college. I don’t want to be in debt. I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I’ll figure it out. So I just job hopping from job to job to job to job and I got this really unique opportunity when I was 20. I think I was 24 at the time or 23 when I went to this class for two weeks, and at the end of this class, you got hooked up with a job in the weatherization industry. 

 

So just think about energy efficiency and state owned buildings, and we got to the final exit interview and they said you did great. We have a company for you. The only downside is there’s a lot of travel involved and I said not for me. I don’t want to do it. They said but you’re going to be making anywhere from 50 to $100 an hour. And I said, What are you talking about? There’s a 0% chance this is real. And you know, as a kid in his early 20s with no college degree. I’m in. I’m in my first job. I met my boss the week prior. I got into a car with him. We drive from Massachusetts to Delaware. We stay in this unbelievably nice rented house and I go do a job that I’ve never done before with people I’ve never met and that turned into me making a lot of money which seemed like the answer to everything in you know I did that for a couple years and my rock bottom.

 

I actually have a rock bottom and a rock bottom basement but my rock bottom was when I was 25 I had the car, I had the body, I had the model girlfriend. I had money in the bank. I had all the things that you could think you wanted. But I was super insecure. I was super unconfident. I was depressed. I was anxious. I just didn’t feel good about myself and my girlfriend left me because I just wasn’t I wasn’t a bad person. I just didn’t have a lot to offer. I was just a shell of myself, and when she left me, Rick, I had to look in the mirror and I realized that I am not what I claim to be and I am not what people think I am. I am just terrified of everything. Even though I have tattoos. I’m a bodybuilder. I’m not what people think I am and for me that was my initial dive into self improvement. I started listening to Tony Robbins, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you know all those things. That people get into it in the very beginning and I remember that I would lay in bed and it was just quiet and lonely and this empty feeling and I used to say positive affirmations before I went to bed. I said, I am handsome. I am talented. I am worthy. I am intelligent, and this year I’ll make the most money I’ve ever made. 

 

Problem is I leaned into that last one more than the other four, and the next year I got a promotion. I was the foreman of this company, and out of the 12 months I was on the road for 10. And when I say on the road I mean I was home for four days. Out of the week I was only home Saturdays Wow. And I loved it though. Because I was making a ton of money, and that drove me. I love that I would do anything. We were driving eight hours working eight hours. I was going to the gym . It was heavy, but I love the paychecks, and I remember standing at my kitchen table opening. I didn’t have any chairs because my ex had taken them and I never got any because I wasn’t home so it didn’t matter, and I was opening my final pay stub and I said “Did I do that? Did I make the six figures that I wanted to make?” No college degree did I do it and I did. But nothing changed. It was the same thing. I did it again. I thought all this external success was gonna bring me happiness. That’s when I really decided that I wanted to go all in on the podcast and it got harder and harder for me to go to work because almost overnight I stopped caring about the job. 

 

I stopped caring about the money. I was calling out I was leaving work early. I was at one point I was sleeping in my bed from 10pm until one in the morning, getting up and driving six hours to New Jersey straight to the job and just not sleeping. I was working out at all hours of the night in the biggest shift in my life. I was sitting on the edge of a hotel bed Rick in New Jersey. I was lacing up my work boots, cold morning, winter, dark, just grungy hotel and I’m lacing up my work boots and the best way to explain it is there’s 10 televisions on in my head at the same time and every single one is on a different channel and one is saying you’re stuck here. Two is saying how are you so miserable? Three is saying what are your friends gonna think if you leave this job, what will your family think and allow this one is do you really think you can be a successful podcaster and in that moment, I genuinely felt like the best thing for me to do would be to end my life because if I ended my life I took my problems with me. 

 

Luckily I have a wonderful supportive business partner I messaged and he talked me off the ledge, so to speak, and three months later, I left my job and went full time into speaking coaching and podcasting, and I would love to say that’s the you know, everything was easy and it just worked. Obviously it didn’t there’s there’s a lot that goes into that. But that was the pivotable pivotal point in my life. Where I went from old Kevin to new Kevin and greatest thing but also the most painful thing that’s ever happened.

 

Yeah, for sure, man. You’re really touching my heart with your story today too. I appreciate that, and that transition period. I’m thinking you know, because it’s difficult. I’m sure it was difficult sitting on the edge of your bed at that moment. When you said hey, I’m going all in on the show that’s not like a cut and dry shift or pivot is it? No, you know, there’s probably some lingering stuff that that carried in. How did you deal with all that too, because when those feelings prop back up again on you?

 

Yeah, so it was very much. When I left my job. It was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. It was this weird, surreal moment of like, Wait, I don’t ever have to go do that again. shortly followed by Oh God, what do I do now? Like I don’t I’m not gonna be able to pay the bills. What am I? What do I do here? Like you’re gonna be for a while. Yeah, it was. It was this weird, comforting but also terrifying feeling. Now the beautiful thing is, I had kind of set myself up for this. I moved in with my buddy. My rent went from $1,400 to 500. We were splitting cable. We were splitting electricity. We were splitting everything. So I cut my bills by like a third. Or maybe a quarter. setting myself up for that. Honestly. I didn’t look back, Rick. It was the best thing I ever did. 

 

There was very little part of me that said you made a mistake or regretted it or doubted it. Now, in fairness, my business partner is an amazing business person, MBA, very intelligent, one of the best technical schools in the world. So I’m grateful to be paired with that. And that’s an important part of the story. I can’t take credit for all this but he’s been my mentor since the beginning. So I’ve always had somebody in my corner and I think my circle is very small, very tight, but very focused on growth. So that was almost me taking the training wheels off and saying like, let’s do it. Let’s just see what happens here and we’ll figure it out or we’ll go broke and die trying.

 

That’s awesome and you leaned into it hardcore. Obviously you went all in and that’s what this show is about. That’s the theme of my life, and you started out as hyper conscious, right, and it was that almost, I have this envision of you, you know, like, to where you were coming from and everything. It’s like, watch what I’m gonna do and you’re just like giving it the finger right in the middle. I was unconscious there but now watch this. Yeah. Me going forward now. Yeah, that’s so cool. That you delve into that way. How did it become you know, cuz you were doing one episode a week but how did it become the next level university you know, and then you had a coaching program around that too, and all this started with a podcast, right? 

 

It’s interesting because the one thing I’ve coached a lot of podcasters and we have a lot of clients. The one thing I noticed is the people who succeed at podcasting are the ones who treat it like a business and the ones who don’t succeed are the ones who do it just for passion. And I don’t mean that in a negative way. But a business requires being built. And it requires leadership and it requires monetization, and I think a lot of people have a very short vision of what they want their podcast to be where my goal is to have the most successful podcasts in the self improvement space. So what will that take? That’s not going to you know, I can’t do one episode a week, it’s not going to work, and the deeper part is, if you want to be the best at something, you have to master it more than anybody else. So I’m just convinced if I do more reps than anybody else, I’ll just be better because I’ve just spent more time in front of the mic, and if I’m not relatively good at this point, I am in trouble, and I’ve invested a lot of time into something that’s not going to pay. 

 

So rep reference from the body, but I saw some of your photos when I was researching it to man.

 

Yeah, I appreciate the amazing. Thank you. Thank you and that’s but that’s I mean, that’s taking something concrete like fitness and bringing it into 1% improvement over time, a 1% improvement over 850 episodes that adds up. So I’ll say this, Alan, and I realized that if we want to have the impact that we want to have we have to monetize quicker than most other human beings took us a long time to monetize. But now I don’t care nearly as much as the listeners or over the listeners as I do about how much money we’re bringing in because I realized that that money is now feeding the mission. So there are many that I’ve seen. Only care of the number that they are caring about more than anything is listening. I think that’s super important. I care more about how much money we’re making as a business. Because the podcast is the top of the funnel for the business and the business and the coaching and the speaking and the group coaching and the services. That’s what actually drives revenue and I think it’s an important thing that if you’re doing something and it’s not making money, it’s gonna be very hard for you to pour money back into that and it’s just not sustainable. It’s gonna burn 

 

Oh, yeah, for sure, man, that’s any business or that’s even anything in life, right? Yeah. I even go to the gym, let’s say, you know, and I’ve noticed this right, because I work out at home, and that’s how I’ve put the muscle mass that I have, but I noticed that it was an issue for me to go to the gym. That was one of the barriers that I had, you know, so I didn’t need to be around a group or anything like that, but I then invested in my own equipment. Yeah, at home, just like somebody would invest in a gym membership or something like that. You know, I’ve found out too that if you don’t have that investment into whatever you’re doing, just like you’re talking about right now. You will just do it, it will fail. Because there is no more money that’s invested back into it. Almost everything in our lives has to have some sort of investment and skin in the game in order to have a meaning.

 

Yeah, you need necessity. If there’s no necessity, there’s no reason if there’s no reason. The first convenient excuse that comes along is going to be the right one. I’m going to want to join podcast groups and somebody said this recently and I don’t mean this to disparage this person, but it’s just the mindset of it. This person wrote and said, “Hey, why should I pay for a podcast host when I can just host on YouTube for free?” It’s like if you’re not willing to spend $9.99 to get your message out. There either you don’t value your message or you’re not sure of it or you know, you’re not as committed as you need to be in order to get the results that you probably want. And I think that’s just a lesson for life overall.

 

For sure. It’s so interesting because as we were talking, you know, a little before the show, it’s like the stuff for this show for all it is on YouTube. Everything’s there, but there’s no money that’s invested there whatsoever. It just up there just to have video, you know, for clips or whatever else, all of the dollars that had been reinvested back into this as into the audio platforms, which is 1000s of dollars and that’s how it’s been able to fulfill its purpose and its reason

 

Yep, yeah, it’s a different mindset. I mean, you’re talking you’re investing in growth where other people are just trying to say, “I want to get the most results with the bare minimum effort. Now, I think you want to get the most results with the lowest viable amount of effort in terms of finances and productivity and efficiency.” Yes. But you have to start somewhere. You have to start it at level one. And I think a lot of people are trying to sneak in under the bar and it’s just not a sustainable thing.

 

For sure, man. So going back to when you started the show one episode a week you said right, you quit your job. I understand you reduce your expenses. How the heck are you paying the bills?

 

I saved money. Luckily, I saved money. Luckily, and the other part of it and this is I love telling this because I don’t think a lot of people are willing to. I also ran $35,000 up on credit cards. I lived off of my savings. And I lived off of credit cards for the next two years, and I went broke and I struggled, and that was it. That way I didn’t do a lot of nice things that other people were doing because I didn’t have the money. I didn’t have the resources. But I focused on building myself, my character and my abilities. That’s what I did. I use the 10k I had in the bank and I use $35,000 worth of credit cards to survive for the next few years until we start getting clients.

 

Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s really cool all your shows at the top of the funnel too. And that goes into the coaching program after that is up.

 

So we have like, God, we have so many things. It’s just free, and then it’s one on one coaching group coaching. It all depends on the person. Our thing is we coach, I have podcast clients who are multimillionaires, I have podcast clients who also don’t really have a job other than the podcast, they’re trying to figure it out or they’re early entrepreneurs. So our goal is to have a fit for anybody wherever they are in life. Easier said than done because that requires a lot of back end stuff. But yeah, it’s one on one, group consulting, we have services, different different things. 

 

That’s awesome. For somebody that’s just starting out because I keep using this phrase and maybe I should come up with something different but it was like over the past two years, you know, with all the work from home stuff. It was like everybody in their grandmother started the podcast. Yeah. You know, I was going on before then, which was great. This was already gaining some momentum but a lot. What’s the average number these days at one time was like seven episodes, right? 

 

That the average podcast lasts or something like that. between seven and 21. Before pod fade kicks in. Yeah.

 

That’s insane, man. Yeah, and I was talking with a platform host, the owner of a host that’s out there, and he was saying that a lot of these pod faded shows are even available for purchase to which is intriguing to me. You know, it’s because there’s so many of these shows out there that have some sort of subscribers but they just died. Yeah, you know, and what do you see is the reason for that because you’ve so many that started on these things, and I’m sure you’ve seen them when they’ve been going for a while at the multimillionaires. Some people that are just starting What’s the biggest reason you see for the pod to fade?

 

It’s hard and you don’t see any results. It’s like the gym. I started a diet three. I started a diet at the beginning of November, which is not good. Don’t do that. Because there’s too many holidays right before the holidays. Yeah, not a good not a good decision. But I track my weight. I track my calories. I graph it out and the first 13 days I didn’t lose any weight. I gained weight in peaks and valleys and then it started to level out. Podcasting. You’re not going to see results for a long, long, long long time. And what I find now particularly is as the barrier of entry gets lower, for some reason the expectations of success go up. I don’t know why that is. Yeah, that’s what I’ve seen is it’s easy. All you need is a cell phone, a pair of headphones and you can go right on Anchor FM and start your own podcast, super easy. You can do the editing on your phone, but they matter to friends, right? Yeah,

 

Of course. Right, anybody? I think it’s it’s that and it’s the fact that it was a wave. So in the clubhouse, everybody said, “Kev, why aren’t you in the ClubHouse?” It’s a wave. It’s a womb. I don’t. I don’t want to be there. I’m a podcaster. I’m going to keep podcasting. I think that podcasting is somewhat of a new way where people jump on and when they realize this isn’t this isn’t delivering me to where I want to go. They jump off and I just think it’s just a flashy thing. You know, it’s a flashy thing that if you don’t have the passion for it, it’s very hard to continue, particularly if you’re not willing to do it for free. Because the vast majority 99% of podcast not make $1 Everyone

 

I see. Yeah, this is interesting, too, and we could probably even have long conversations about this because all in we don’t do sponsors. We don’t do promotions, anything like that whatsoever. All of our growth has been organic. Every single bit of it has been just like yours, which is where I feel the way to go for the most part. There’s no monetization, no direct monetization of the show. So it’s a passion that, like you’re saying, is the reason that I do this, you know, to give other people exposure but at the same time, there is a reason for it because it contributes and brings credibility to everything else that we do. You know, whether it’s the cybersecurity company, whether it’s public speaking, whether it’s global media, which all ties back to the things that do produce money, this becomes one of those reasons. So how are you about doing shows because you said 99% of them? Maybe qualify that a little bit, you know, don’t make money. But does that mean that they don’t monetize them directly? Or would they have a benefit elsewhere?

 

So I would say across the board 99% of overall podcasts started out of that I think it’s probably 2.4 million now. They do not ever collect a dime in alignment with their show or brand and the reason is, there’s a couple of reasons. everybody not everybody and I sound like I’m getting very fired up about this and I try not to sound negative. I don’t want to sound negative, but I do think it’s a mistake to do it this way. So many people say I want to grow an audience so I can run ads. Why don’t you just create a product or service and run ads for yourself? Yeah, that’s, that’s a sustainable business model. If you’re relying on somebody else to send you money, depending on the amount of listens, it’s not sustainable. It’s not sustainable. So I just don’t think people have the business sense. And I didn’t. In the beginning I’ve relied heavily on my business partner.

 

Again, he’s very good at business. So if you don’t have a way to monetize in terms of a product, a service, a community, something to add value, which many people don’t, because that’s not why they start the podcast. They start the podcast because they want to get an advertiser who will pay them X amount per 1000 downloads. The problem is, it’s going to take you way long to get 1000 downloads per episode. So you’re going to be hustling for nothing. So I think a lot of people go in with the wrong intention, where I had a client recently, and she was eight, seven or eight months into a podcast and she said I really want to start monetizing as a cool thing. This is what you do. You take a mid role and you offer coaching. When somebody reaches out you give them a free call totally free. Do not even try to sell them, just add value and then see what happens. And then she got three clients, like awesome cool, that’s an extra however much you charge a month. Yeah, it’s huge. It’s huge.

 

I love that. Even those who I’ve seen say, Well, I’m just gonna put it on YouTube, and I’ll allow them to run ads during my show. Yeah, you know, I saw the stats because I’ve never even pursued that either. But I was looking at the threshold for that, and it’s 1000 subscribers, you know, fine. That doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. But then it’s 4000 watch hours per year. Yeah, that’s big before YouTube even accepts you to be able to be part of their partner program. Yeah, in order to run the ads. That’s a lot of watch hours, man for somebody who’s only thinking seven to 21 episodes and then a fade away.

 

The other thing too, is we see, and again, I mean this with all the love to everybody, but like, we’re not Joe Rogan. Yeah, there’s one Joe Rogan. There’s a lot of other shows, you know, entrepreneurs on fire. You talked about that. But yeah, he was doing it at the very beginning. He’s been doing it. I don’t even know how many episodes he has at this point. So for reference, and I don’t think a lot of people would agree with this. Joe Rogan selling his podcast to Spotify was not a good business move for Joe Rogan. Because now if he’s exclusive on one platform, you can’t monetize on the other ones like you would have if he made 100 million for 10 years? Yes, sure. But he has billions of listens. If he had merchandise or if he had something else. He could have monetized in a different way. He doesn’t want to do it because he’s got so many other things going on. But I do believe the overall thought there is well I’ll just let somebody else monetize for me. Yes, it’s possible, but it’s not. It’s not the same. It’s not the same.

 

Right on when you have complete control of your products and services and the funnel that goes into and that’s where you make the most money. Absolutely.

 

Absolutely, and you can do whatever you want. That’s the other thing. There’s nobody telling you like, Hey, I know you want to have this person on but it’s not in alignment with the brand. It’s like, well, the brand I thought was mine.

 

I love that for every branding agency that’s ever said no, you can’t do this because right there, listen to Kevin. Dude, this is phenomenal. You know, this is great advice for anybody who’s looking to start anything in the podcasting realm, and let’s look for some tangible things, right, because a lot of the stuff that we’ve been giving some very good strategy and mindset and everything have but some tangible things. You’re just starting out, right what, what’s a good way because this is where I think imposter syndrome can kind of creep into where it’s like, well, if we don’t have it sounding the best, or if it doesn’t look the best, you know, or I have to, you know, get ready and put my notes down for the 10 first episodes first before I even press record, you know, the all these things that come into play that say, “Oh, well, you shouldn’t start yet.” You know, what’s the best way to just get up off your ass and do it?

 

Yeah. What helps me and what helps a lot of people I’ve worked with is understanding that nobody’s gonna listen in the beginning anyway. Like the five people who listened to your first episode or 10 or 15 people. They’re not as focused on your insecurities as you are. That’s such a huge thing of I would rather you just start because you can’t improve a product that doesn’t exist yet. Just start, take, take the reason you wanted to start in the first place and really sit with that, and then you don’t even need a microphone start. Get a pair of wired headphones, plug them into your laptop, plug them into your phone and just start recording, and honestly, I think that once that part’s done, you can figure out how to record an intro you can figure out how to record an outro and a metro and you can figure out how to get the music and what hosts to use. But you have to understand that one of two things is going to happen, and this is what I’ve seen in the very beginning.

 

Everybody is going to support you, everybody, your friends, your family, they’re going to be like oh my goodness, I can’t believe you did this as the most amazing thing in the world. Two months later, they’re all going to trickle off and they’re going to forget because it’s not the new thing, and that’s where it really starts to matter. That’s where your 1% provement that’s where you’re focused on making the product better. It starts to matter in the very beginning. Just create the least viable product, like the lowest viable product, whatever you can do to get out there and then focus on the improvement. I think too many people want to launch perfectly, and there is no such there’s no such thing. There’s no such thing. I’ve had clients who they’re very averse to technology, and in my mind I want to set them the money they have, which means I want them to get a Sony A seven three like I have. I want them to get a mixer and an audio interface and the best microphone and the lighting, but it’s not doable. It’s too overwhelming. I have to lower the barrier to entry so they’ll actually start and get momentum. 

 

So that’s what I would say is understand. Go look at Joe Rogan’s first podcast go look at John Lee Dumas this first podcast, Evan Carmichael’s first YouTube video. The people who are prolific in this, they sucked at the beginning too. They sucked at the beginning too. And I’ll add this, I still get imposter syndrome. I still get that. That’s I think that’s par for par for the course for a lot. of people. It’s okay. It gets easier as you get better. But that’s something that you overcome with reps. That’s something you overcome with the internal game more than the product. You can have the best product in the world, the best studio in the world. If you feel like an imposter, you’re actually gonna feel more like an imposter. 

 

So I just got to launch you just got to launch It was on a coach of mine once I’m a media coach of mine. I’m talking like TV media and everything to you guys. If you play it cool. You look like a fool. Yeah, it’s like just getting on there. Just do it. You know, all you have to do is be yourself and even more so be like extra yourself. Yeah, you know not but you feel people want you to be but everything that you feel is a good quality about you just put it out there to the world. Yeah, yeah. You know, and Kevin, I think everybody can take a note from you today, too, you know, especially like the story that you told today, right? Which is so heartfelt and just so human and for everyone who’s listening to that vulnerability is also so important when you do these things for sure. Because the story you absolutely don’t want to tell is the story that you most likely should be telling everybody that’s going to connect with people. Yeah,

 

My business partner Alan and I do a live podcast every week. We’re coming up on week 100. I don’t know, it’s been almost two years, and we do one live in our Facebook group every week, and we did one on the power of vulnerability, and I talked about how I dealt with a pornography addiction. And it’s hard and it sucks to talk about it’s embarrassing, but afterwards, I had people message me that vulnerability opens the conversation. It’s the bridge that allows somebody else to say, “Ah, me too. Me too.” Right? Because it’s very hard for somebody to come out and say this is happening to me. But when you say it, they can say Yeah, me too. Me. too. They can say quietly from the shadows and they feel safe. Vulnerability is such an important thing. I feel that particularly as a man with tattoos and you know, a bodybuilder who loves combat. I think it’s important for me to be that because I want to be an example for other people. I think it’s super important.

 

Right on brother right on. I love how you say he just started there too, because you just need the headphones and everything else. Yeah, when I started the show, it was in a professional studio. That’s just because I hired a branding company. Yeah, I’d already made it to a certain level in business, but I pulled from a lot of my musical background. You know, so I’ve been on stages you know, and even some of that stuff when we built the studio here I pulled which is why I don’t use regular headphones I use in ear monitors, you know? So I can be, you know, completely hot plus I don’t like stuff squashing my hair. It’s just a personal preference of mine, you know, but I remember going all the way back because it wasn’t you know, the guitars I ended up buying you know, ended up being like $4,000 Taylor acoustics, you know, but where I started was a cheap Pawn Shop guitar for $10 that I had to swap the saddle on myself. So I put another $10 into it, and that’s the thing that I used to get up in front of 300 people and play music at church. 

 

Yeah, you know, at the very beginning, it’s like, whatever it’s not gonna stop me you know? Yeah, and I look back at that, and I found the guitar a few years ago, and then I think I ended up throwing it out. I’m like, Well, I can’t play it anymore. But then I looked at him like Man, where everything started. Yeah, you know, it was just such a humbling place. For all of this, and even when you look back, you’re like you said it was your first podcast. Episode and I look back in mind, you think? Oh, that was pretty horrible. Was it? Like, how many downloads did we get on that? Like, three?

 

Yeah. I did that last night. Rick, when I get high emotionally and things are doing really well and business is going great and everything seems like it’s awesome. I always look back at how I don’t wanna say how bad but how much I’ve grown. I looked at episode 100 of our show. We weren’t in a studio. We had different mics. The lighting was garbage. The backdrop was just a black curtain. And we had a skeleton as a mascot with a tank top on. So it’s awesome. So it’s important to understand that, you know, 100 episodes in you think you’d have it figured out but you always have room to figure it out more and you’ll never get to 100 If you don’t start with one.

 

Dude, that’s incredible. That’s it. You still have that skeleton.

 

No, no, his name was Steve McQueen. He has moved on to the afterlife.

 

It’s hilarious, and I really appreciate you being on and just having Toriel talk about how to get started on these things. Then an incredible man. We can find you at the next level, universe calm of course. But I love your Instagram handle and never quit, kid. Yes. That’s incredible, dude. Keep going. I’m sure you will. Thanks so much for being on Kev.

 

Of course. Rick. Thank you. I enjoy the conversation and I enjoy what you’re doing very much.

 

Thank you.

 

Important Links:

Evan Carmichael

ClubHouse

Joe Rogan

Entrepreneurs on Fire

Imposter Syndrome