Welcome to Digital Podcaster. My name is Dylan Schmidt, your host. And today, I got another road cast. That's what it should be road cast. For you, if you listen yesterday, you heard me say how excited I was to record a podcast in the car. And that's again what I'm doing today. Cuz why some of my favorite ideas and urges to feel what I feel urged to speak on, come inside the cart. So that's what I'm going to be doing today. And not every episode moving forward, of course, but probably occasionally keep popping in this way. So today, I wanted to share a little bit about what I have been experiencing with Digital Podcaster. And really, it's been a great journey so far, but it's coming up on a year. I know, it probably seems like I've been doing this for a lot longer. But well, in some ways I have. But Digital Podcaster itself is only a year old. Which is feels long and short. At the same time. I will say that because I have published a ton during that time. And I have created like multiple products. And I have helped hundreds 1000s of people in in a really short amount of time. And while on one hand like it was one of the reasons why I stuck with Digital Podcaster was because I got traction, pretty early on in making content like it just started out as an Instagram account. Of course, I had like a one I wanted to, you know, make it like share it on a website and things like that. But the simplest place where it all started was just an Instagram account, where I made posts, and we started posting regularly. And then like my first post got like a couple of likes, and I was like oh, I kind of see how I would share about this. And I had like started and stopped so many times before starting Digital Podcaster. Like if you've heard me talk about this before, it took me like eight years to start Digital Podcaster. But before that I had a life coaching business called stay on target. And it was just me. And I was coaching older successful men. That was like my primary primary clientele. But similar to Digital Podcaster. It wasn't only like, men, there was like men and women. It was a little bit of everybody. But I didn't have social media to my advantage back then it was just an email, I would send out one email every week. And I would spend so much time overthinking and putting all this work into each email. And each email was maybe like 400 words. This is around 2012 ish, maybe 2011 2012. I was around 2122 years old when I started it. And I put so much time into each email, and then I'd send it out. And it took a lot of energy and one email. I couldn't imagine doing a podcast, I did try these like little video cast things, but they were so much more awkward because it's obviously harder recording video. And it just wasn't I was able to share the message on how I wanted to share it, it I just didn't have much practice. So I would do these weekly emails. And that went good. And then I got basically, I got bought out, I got a client that offered me a bunch of money to basically he's like, one, he was like, actually, I want to buy your company. And I was like, No, I'm not selling it. But then he basically was like, I'll pay you to do a bunch of stuff. And I was like, alright, so I basically kind of wind it down my coaching business, and then just started helping him and then helping other clients along the way. And that's basically what I've been doing the last few years helping more people behind the scenes, but not publicly, like I was for that period during my life coaching business. And so, you know, during that time when I stopped doing my own thing, I always felt like a calling to do that thing. And I felt like in the back of my mind, I was like, not that I sold out but I was like just helping people differently. And people were like, Why don't you do because they you know, people that knew me, family and friends knew that, you know, I had my coaching business. So they would call me a life coach for a while. But the reality is, I hadn't like I mean a while meaning like even up until like a couple of years ago cuz they just didn't understand how I was helping people or how I was making money. They're just like, I don't know what you do, but whatever you're doing. You're coaching thing I'm like I'm not actually the coachee I am kind of it's more like marketing, podcasting, all that stuff behind the scenes. And but I always felt like, like, so they would be like, Why aren't you doing for yourself like you're doing for all these other people. And I thought that was like true. But I always had the same exact response for years. It was, like, I just, I don't feel called like, I don't want to be the center of attention, I don't want to be the person that is in front of a microphone in front of the camera. Like, that's, that's not what I want to do. Like my thing is behind. My thing is directing and coaching people that are influencing, like, I have a much further reach at, at that time. Helping people that already had an existing like business, essentially, instead of working with all the people is like, oh, cool, I just go right to the source. And that's still something I do. Like, I still work with people in that way. But I wasn't making content, I wasn't doing things like that. And I kind of felt a calling I guess, to do more stuff like I'm doing right now. And I kind of got back in the saddle, I guess you could say. And that was around 2020. Like, I guess it would been 2020. But it didn't really happen till 2021. And that started with Digital Podcaster. And then I, you know, just started with me posting on Instagram. And I had a logo I made up it wasn't my profile photo, it wasn't really me. It wasn't supposed to be just me actually. It was like a company. It wasn't really like a personality, because I didn't want it to be about myself. I wanted it to be about a company. And then I hired a guy from Egypt that was like a social media marketing kind of manager. And he didn't tell me this when I hired him, but But I basically it was like I'm putting in your hands. Like if you told me to do something, I'll do it. I'm all good with that. Just give me like you tell me what to do. And I'll do it. Because I didn't have a strategy. I had made plenty of strategies. super successful, like, not exaggerating when I have helped, like, been directly part of strategies, created strategies implemented strategies that have resulted in like, millions and millions of dollars. And here I am outsourcing my own strategy to this guy more of a kid in Egypt, who's super nice guy. But I was just kind of like, alright, this isn't my thing. I'm not trying to make it my thing. Let's just get some feedback. And he was like, you know, you should use your face. I'm like, Okay, I'm just like, not gonna say no to this guy. And if you've ever read the book, the surrender experiment. I didn't realize it. But I guess in a way, I was kind of living that into give you a one sentence summary of that book. The author, Michael singer, basically just surrenders to the universe. And he's like, I'm not going to, if something's like not right to do, like, I know, it's not right. Basically, I'm going to trust my gut, and follow my gut and see what happens. And then he ended up creating the super successful software company, and went on to have this like, incredible life by trusting his gut. So I was like, Alright, I'm gonna trust my gut more. Kind of didn't really know it at that time, because I didn't read that book yet. But that's what I was doing. And just be like, alright, you told me cool. Let's do that. Let's do that. Because it felt better hearing him tell me what to do than me doing it myself. Like, I didn't want to make it about myself. If someone like he told me to put my face as my profile picture, or he told me to record videos of myself talking. I probably wouldn't have done that. And he didn't have to, like coach me to do that. I was just like, Oh, is that better? Like, like, oh, they people want to see my face. You know? Okay, that's weird. That's news to me. You know, I didn't. There was no discussion. It was just like, Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Let me deliver those videos. So that's what I did. And then I started getting more traction. I'm like, Oh, this is working. People are responding to videos in my face. Because I insecure? Sure. I mean, still, I'm insecure in some ways. And was I like nervous about doing that. Sure. Still in two. But one of the things that I found, and I said right from the beginning was I'm going to do things that people aren't doing because then I started noticing real quickly that people weren't putting their face and stuff like, Oh, I didn't realize at the time but amongst the people that were following me or I was interacting with on Instagram, at that time, most people didn't have their face and all their stuff. And I was like, all right. I may be insecure, I may be uncomfortable talking to the camera. I may be all these things, but I am going to do the things that people are afraid to do in an effort to get the results that most people aren't like I know. Like I know anything like I know the sky is blue On a clear day that most most majority of people are not comfortable with talking to the camera and putting their face and everything they do. I'm not comfortable with it either. But I was like, I'm gonna do that because it will lead to success in a way that just hiding behind things won't. So I was like, I'll fight through this uncomfortableness. And that's why I'll be successful. And I made an Instagram story saying that exact thing like a month after, because I got people must have been when I was putting out there, but I got people. Now you're probably like, oh, he just is so used to putting himself out there. But I had people before that were like, how do you have the courage to do this? Like, how do you create that courage? And I'm like, I don't feel courageous. I am just doing the thing that I'm scared to do. And it's going to give me this result. Because I know this. It's a proven strategy. If I was working with someone else, I would tell them the same thing. And I know it would be true. So someone told me that to do it for my own thing, and I'm like, oh, yeah, you know, that's obviously right. But all this to say, you know, I had started and stop things so many times before starting Digital Podcaster. It started like little things that were just unclear, like they had no purpose. But I wanted to do something. And it wasn't until I started talking about podcasting that they gave me a thing. And there have been many times in like the past year where I've been like, man, podcasting is too specific. Man, I've got way too much to say that like podcasting just doesn't fit in. And I feel like maybe I've been limiting myself. And I'm like, oh, I should go back to not being only talking about podcasting, I should be talking more about life. And I should be talking about, I don't know so much more than just podcasting. But what's been cool is focusing on podcasting has allowed me to do is go deeper with one thing. And inside of going deeper on that one thing, I have discovered a lot more about myself. And I've discovered a lot more, of course, about podcasting and how to help people. But I've realized the gold is going deep about one thing, but then using it in ways that like fit your personality. So for me, like this podcast, is this episode is talking about, you know, things that I've gone through impostor syndrome, fear of being seen, not, you know, feeling like, even though I can help others like that I can, you know, can help people through this format, like all the reasons why I thought that previously why I had started and stopped so many times. You know, I had done that so many times, like so many times, I got started an Instagram account, and then stop it. Alright, start, you know, a Twitter and then stop it or think of a name for a website or a company and then stop it. And what changed for me was with Digital Podcaster, what changed was a couple of things. But I think one was really important was having that feedback from that guy in Egypt, where he gave me like, instructions on what to do. But he was not attached. He had no idea about my history, he had no idea about my results. He had no idea about like the culture, really, he had never been in America. And like, you could say he wasn't qualified in a lot of ways to help me. But I wasn't qualified, in many ways to help people when I was 22 years old, coaching a millionaire on how to live a successful life, which is what I was doing when I was 22. Which it sounds silly, maybe to you, and it sounds silly. It sounds silly to him, you would tell me do that one client. But the truth is like, he's like, you're you're helping me get results. And that's what's important. And so, so I guess I say that because, like we all, you know, you could go so far, like, well, we live in the age of Amazon, where you could go on, you could go on and you read reviews, or you want to like find the best of something. And I'm not saying like don't do your research, or don't do you know, any of your homework and due diligence about hiring someone. But at the same time, I gotta say, going with your gut is one of the most powerful tools you could possibly go with. And, again, if you're needing a doctor, you don't want to go to the doctor. Even if your guts telling you like, maybe I should just go to this holistic thing that no if you've got like three doctors opinions, I don't know. I'm just saying like, make sure you got a qualified individual for when you need a qualified individual. But there's other times in your life where a person will say synchronous synchronicity really that the word, though they'll come into your life where even though they're not necessarily qualified in the ways that you will If you want someone to be called qualified, they can help you. And maybe that's just simply listening. I think that's one of the key pieces I did. When I was younger. When I was doing the life coaching was, I was just really good at listening, I would meditate a lot. I still pride myself on listening, I just talk a lot here, because this is a podcast, and we'll be, we could just sit together. But, you know, when people can kind of just listen, it's just helpful. It's helpful for you. And it's helpful for me. And sometimes we just need a good listener. And that is worth its weight in gold, a good amount of time. And all that to say, you know, if you feel like you're onto something where you keep starting and stopping, I would I would it what's worked for me over the years has never been stopping again and again, and again, like, yeah, okay, of course, everything leads to something. But at a certain point, you just need someone to help you like, if you find yourself starting, stopping starting and stopping, I would say find someone to help you. And it doesn't always look like the most qualified person. But anybody that can help you get the result, the ultimate result of something that you might like, for example, that might be having an online business, for example, that might be making money online. Or that might be if you had, I know, I talk about marketing, entrepreneurship, and mindset stuff, all that stuff on this podcast, but it also might look like even if you were looking for, cuz I was a personal trainer way, way back before the life coaching business. One thing that that would look like too is, you know, sometimes you don't like I would have clients that weren't like, What qualifications do you have as a trainer, but I would get them results. And I would get them results, because I would listen to what they needed. So I guess that's, at the end of the day, the most important thing, when you're trying to find somebody to work with is, are they good listener? Are they really hearing the results you're going after? And are they really taking into consideration when they help you? Those things that are a mix of one, trying to make sure that they reach you reach your goal, which is the most important and to are they seeing something bigger than you can? Because I think that is at the end of the day two most important, like, I think the two examples I shared in this episode, the one being about the the successful client I had when I was younger, he I was always seeing things bigger than he was, even though I'm like 22 years old. And if he's this successful, older man who has had built a successful business, he might have had businesses at this point at that point. But he had like a grandkids, grandkids, I think. And I saw, I still saw things bigger than he did. That was like one of my gifts. And I think that's what he liked. He's like, Man, this guy sees things bigger than I do. And I've seen all these things. And I, I just think of like, my Egyptian friend that was helping me too. He saw things bigger than I did. I was like what you can really think people want to see me listen to those things. So get yourself a good listener, get yourself someone who can see things bigger than you can. And I think you're gonna find yourself being way more successful than just simply hiring someone because they can promise XYZ results. While that is good. I've worked with enough people over the years to know that a lot of people can promise a lot of things. And they have, they might have their own agenda. And I would say a good chunk of people out there have their own agenda, and aren't always helping you see a bigger version of yourself than you can see. So I hope that message helps in some way. I am, you know, pretty amped about being able to consistently share and Digital Podcaster in grow in this whole podcast that day, for the month of May has been a really fun experience. So I hope you've enjoyed this episode, I would appreciate it. As always, if you'd reach out and let me know your words mean the world to me. And it opens up to be a little bit more of a two way conversation. Because like I said, I didn't go into podcasting into content creation with myself. Unlike with other people what I would have them do unlike with myself, it wasn't always comfortable. So I do appreciate anytime someone leaves a comment or reaches out hello at Digital Podcaster is the email at Digital Podcaster on Instagram or Tiktok. We're at Digital Podcaster on Twitter. Any of those places you reach out it's super cool. And and we can see each other in a way doing the thing. Even if you don't feel like you're doing it on the scale you want to be doing it. Just I think that visibility of being seen is important. And in a world where there is a obvious overabundance of information and people out there making noise on their platforms where it seems that way, we can connect with people. Maybe who kind of, I don't know, understand your words on a deeper level. This is sounding super personal, I guess. But it just it's cool to be seen, I guess. And that's my goal as much as possible in content in sharing with others. So all that to say even if you don't reach out, I still hope you're doing great. I hope you're having a great week so far. And I will talk to you soon.