You can likely reach out to guests that you don't think would agree to come on the show earlier on than you might think a lot of people struggle with this imposter syndrome. But I will also say it's helpful to get a few reps under your belt before you're reaching out to the people who would make or break your show.
Dylan Schmidt:This is the show for creative entrepreneurs who have a message to share and want to live a life of freedom. Learn how to grow your network and net worth. Hear from exciting guests and more. My name is Dylan Schmidt and Welcome to Digital Podcaster. My guest today is Danny Miranda. He is the host of the Danny Miranda podcast which is currently in the top 1% of listen to podcasts in the world. He's had everyone from Gary Vaynerchuk Tom Bill, you Thomas Frank and Colin and Samir on his show what I loved about this episode, and what I think you're gonna really leave this episode with after listening is Danny's enthusiasm for podcasting. It's infectious. Danny is on a mission you'll hear please enjoy my chat with Danny Miranda, Welcome to Digital Podcaster. Danny, I'm so glad you are here been watching you for a minute. So let's cool. And finally have you here in the virtual studio.
Danny Miranda:Thank you for having me, Dylan, I really appreciate you taking the time to invite me. And I'm excited to dive into podcasts. And today
Dylan Schmidt:what I noticed you have done great. And something that I noticed a lot of podcasters struggle with is have a great caliber of guests, right? So people have guests on their podcast just to have guests on their podcast, because they don't know really what to do. But one thing I've always noticed about what you do is you have a standard and you have a bar that you set. And that really comes across to the listener that they can enjoy it, it feels like you really care. First question for you, Danny, how has hosting your podcast changed your life,
Danny Miranda:I think that there's no thing that I've done in my entire life that's impacted me more than having a one hour conversation with three different people a week for the past two years. It's like, it's insane what happens when you're actually forced to sit down and talk to people and hear their perspectives and hear their ideas. I'm sure you noticed this as well. It's like every person imprints on you in a different way. And the podcast itself is not just about the conversation. It's also about the pre conversation of researching the person going deep on their story, figuring out what I want to talk to them about. And then it's the post conversation of like, how do I get this into the minds and hearts of enough people? So there's been nothing that I've done that's helped me grow more than starting my podcast. But the truth is, I didn't predict that when I first started, it was just a matter of oh, let me follow my own curiosity, my own joy and and take it from there. And that ended up turning into the podcast and what a what a crazy journey. It's been.
Dylan Schmidt:Yeah. And does it feel like it's just starting to?
Danny Miranda:Yeah, man. It's like, I love having something where I've been doing it for two years. And so in some sense that feels like I've been doing it forever feels like the podcast is a part of me. But in another sense, I can't wait to be doing this for 1020 3040, hopefully 50 more years. And so that's really exciting for me as well.
Dylan Schmidt:It's refreshing to hear you say that to the long term view because social media and content in general, generally speaking, it's just a short term view. And so refreshing to hear you say like 20 3040 years because, man, imagine like, how old are you? Were 2727? Yeah, I'll forever be 27. So even when I'm 57 I'll still say 27. But it's refreshing to have that long term view. Because man imagine like 37 You've got this huge past, you know, Library of guests, you spoke with all the networking. This isn't one of the questions I wanted to ask you. But like the networking aspect of it has to have been incredible, right?
Danny Miranda:Here's the thing about a network that I only recently realized is, the more connection points anything has in a network, the stronger it is. So for Facebook, for example, the more friends you have on Facebook, the more likely you're going to use your Facebook account, Facebook itself, the more connections Facebook has to Google to Apple to other platforms, the more likely it is to stick around. And so that works for a podcast as well. The more guests that I have the more people who look at me and say, Oh, that's my friend, or that's somebody I'm connected to, or that's somebody I trust or care about the stronger that is. That means that the stronger the podcast is as a whole as well. So it's like you look at somebody like Tim Ferriss who's got 600 Plus episodes, or Rogan, who's got almost 1900, that's 1900 connections, he has two different people in the world. And when those people happen to be pretty powerful, like in the case of Mark Zuckerberg, or Rick Rubin, like it's it's incredible what happens when you have the connection points of so many different people. So I guess for a lot of things in my life, I've stopped and started and not known why it hasn't felt right to me. But for this podcast, it's like I'm increasing the size of the network. And that's been a key part in keeping it going for me because I'm getting so much out of it just in the short term of Meeting people connecting with people and learning about their story.
Dylan Schmidt:Anytime anyone's doing something like I don't know if it's right for me or I don't know if this thing's right. They don't know if they feel in alignment or congruent with what it is that they're doing with what it is they want to be doing. And you can hear in your voice, how much it is in alignment. It's not Oh, is Danny, is he really interested? There's not a second guess you are determined, and you're driven. And that doesn't happen by accident, it happens because you're actually into the thing that you want to be creating. Just so cool. leads me to my next question is what has been one of the biggest things you've had to overcome as a solo podcast? Host?
Danny Miranda:Yeah. So the interesting thing about doing it solo is that there's nobody there to tell you. All right, you want to do three episodes a week, do three episodes a week, and then you actually have to be the one to publish them. You know, let's say you say, Alright, I'm gonna do one episode a week. All right? Well, you have to be the one who's pushing yourself and who's keeping yourself accountable. So at some parts of my journey, I've been really motivated and really excited and really, really on the ball. And that's like, my first year, maybe a year and a half of the journey is doing three episodes a week. At some point, though, I said, Okay, let me see if I can get this job or work for this company and do podcasting for them. And I worked for a little bit as an NFT podcaster, for this great company called Lucky trader. And so what was struggling for me was, how do I balance these two podcasts that I'm creating, they want me to do three episodes a week for them, I want to do three episodes a week on my own. And so at some point, it started to clash. And it started to be a huge difference. The hardest part for me has been setting those deadlines, keeping those deadlines for myself, and making sure that the other things I was bringing into my life weren't clashing with the things that I was trying to build.
Dylan Schmidt:Yeah, like, no listener is going to be coming over to your house and being like, Danny, we got to get this episode out, you know, no listeners gonna be like, Danny, we need to get Wednesday's episode. But so it's all on you. It's all on you. And and it's kind of one of those things, right? You either grow through it, or you just say, Hey, I'm not going to do this, right? There's only really two options. Either you figure it out and make it happen. Or you're like, I'm not going to do the podcast and move on to something else. Yeah. And
Danny Miranda:I think this is true for any creative endeavor, as well. Like, if you have a newsletter, or you have a YouTube channel, or you have a blog, it's like, those are all things that when you're starting them, no one's going to be like, I'm so excited to read your thing or see your thing. And it's like, do you have the discipline in that moment, to keep the promises that you make to yourself, and so I've gotten better at better when I was starting the journey, I was really good at that. And now in the past, I would say like month or two months, I've also become really good at that as well. And just understand that it's a journey, you can be good at something at one point, not be good at something at another point, and then get better at it in the future. Like, these things are cycles. And we tend to beat ourselves up for not being who we once were. But if you can just have a little bit of compassion for yourself and say, You know what, I used to do this, I'm not doing it anymore, but I can tomorrow if I so choose. That's been really helpful for me personally.
Dylan Schmidt:That's incredible. I was just a guest on an interview couple days ago and something similar, they asked me something. And it was funny because that compassion piece, same thing, man, compassion has been huge. Because it's so easy to be our own worst critic. How many times do we want to stop something before we even start it?
Danny Miranda:Yeah. And the thing is, it's so easy not to have it. It's so easy not to have the compassion and there have been times in my life when I haven't. But just being at peace with myself and being at peace with what I've done, and treating the past as fate and the future is freewill has just been very impactful for me to be a happier and also more hard working person in the future.
Dylan Schmidt:Sometimes it's crazy to think that Digital Podcaster is already on its way to cross over 15,000 followers on Tiktok and Instagram, I try my best to post engaging short form content there that gives you bite sized tips so that you can incorporate things in your show and provide a better listening experience for your audience. Just go to tick tock or Instagram and search Digital Podcaster. And I will see you there. All right, next question for you. What would you recommend beginner podcasters do who want great guests,
Danny Miranda:I would say first thing is that you can likely reach out to guests that you don't think would agree to come on the show earlier on than you might think a lot of people struggle with this imposter syndrome. But I will also say it's helpful to get a few reps under your belt before you're reaching out to the people who would make or break your show. For example, when I first started my podcast in August of 2020, when I first started recording episodes, my next door neighbor asked me, Hey, what would you do if Joe Rogan or Gary Vaynerchuk came on the podcast? And I said that'd be insane. But I honestly wouldn't want that right now. Because I know I'm going to grow as an interviewer over the next few months over the next few years. And so hopefully, when I get to that point of having them on my show, I will be a better interviewer. It just so happened that three months later, Gary Vaynerchuk did agree to come on the show, which was a funny story in its own right. But it just goes to show, when you're early on, you can get great guests, but you might not want them because you're going to grow as an interviewer. But let's say you are in that position, the first thing I would do is get my paid newsletter, Danny Miranda dot sub site.com, where I actually go down, and I'm like, This is what I did in the early days. This is the exact message I sent to Colin and Samir to get them as guests is the exact message I sent to Ed Lattimore, or Alex Lieberman, the morning brew founder. And it's like, there are little things you can do little tactics or tricks of the trade, so to speak, where you can make it more likely for them to agree to it. But I will say that, overall, you want to just keep your message short, you want to mention some of the previous guests they've had, that they know, and that they respect and admire. And keep the ask simple and short. So that's what worked for me. But if you want to see any of the tools or tactics, check out the sub stack.
Dylan Schmidt:And what I noticed you didn't say it was just think about reaching out, but don't actually reach out, or only reach out to people that you know, would say yes, or only reach out to people who maybe have around the same audience sizes you might currently have.
Danny Miranda:Maybe, yeah, maybe in the beginning, like reach out to people, you know, like maybe for your first time guests, but after that just go crazy, reach out to the most insane people you can think of, because there's a good chance right now that podcasting still in its infancy, and that people want to spread their story and share their story. And if you have over 20 episodes, that's more than 90% of people I've ever put out. So there's something there, I just
Dylan Schmidt:want to highlight one thing that you do so great. And you and I are against similar in this way of planning for success. So many people are like, well, what if this the like, I never once talking with you get any idea of Oh, what if this doesn't work out? It's literally just banking on your six, like, you're gonna be successful because you're setting yourself up for success. And you're doing all the things necessary. There's a need to be a reason for, well, what if this doesn't work? It's working out, and it's gonna continue to work out? You know, there's no doubt in my mind, and obviously not a doubt in your mind.
Danny Miranda:Yeah, well, the way I look at it, it's kind of like the gym. If you go to the gym 1000 times and do 1000 workouts to the best of your ability, it is virtually impossible for to not work out, you will be in better shape, you will look good compared to 99% of people and you will feel better yourself. So when I look at that, and I know that that's worked for me in the gym, why would that not work for me for podcasting, if I show up three times a week, I do the workouts, the mental workouts and I do the work needed, and I put my all into it, of course it's going to work out, it'd be silly to assume that it wouldn't. And so when you have that frame of mind with the gym, which I had, and then apply that to podcasting, it's really simple to be like, Alright, I just show up, I do the reps, I do the sets and I will be better and I will improve. And people will ask how was this done? And I will just say I did the work.
Dylan Schmidt:Did the work? Danny I know you already shared it. But what's the best way people can get more Danny in their life?
Danny Miranda:So Danny miranda.substack.com is where I am writing daily Monday through Friday, and Tuesdays the paid version of the newsletter for more insight tactics but also on social media at Hey Danny Miranda on Twitter and Instagram.
Dylan Schmidt:Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. Danny, appreciate you