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Welcome to Communication Connection Community the podcaster's podcast. This podcast takes a deep dive into modern day communication strategies in the podcasting space. We chat with interesting people who make the podcasting and speaking spaces exciting and vibrant. We also dive into the podcasting community with news updates, latest trends and topics from this ever-evolving space. So strap in, it's going to be one amazing ride.
Speaker 1:Let's dive into today's episode. We're talking about the guesting experience. Now we've touched upon this just more in the sense of here are some of the things you need if you're looking at being a guest on podcasts. But who better than to bring somebody on who has not only been a guest but has been a phenomenal guest and gets booked on some pretty high profile shows?
Speaker 1:So I'd like to introduce you to Jem Fuller, who has lived a colorful global life, from barefoot backpacker to corporate leader, fire dancer and traditional tattooist, a kindergarten teacher to motorcycle courier, masseuse and reflexology to laborer and travel consultant. Now his time is as a partner and father, coach, facilitator and a retreat leader as well. He is the author of the award-winning book the art of conscious communication for thoughtful men and can be seen delivering his TEDx talk on YouTube, which, if you haven't been on the TEDx stage and you are a coach or a consultant or you just want to get your message out, it's certainly a great place to do that. He's a sought after guest on podcasts as well, and we're going to chat about what it takes to be a phenomenal guest on shows. Jim, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:G'day Kyle, how are you going?
Speaker 1:Fantastic. I'm so glad we can have this conversation, because this is something that, when people come to me and say I'd like to get into podcasting, but I really don't want to do my own show or at least not yet I don't see that on my radar what can I do? Guessing is certainly a great place to start. Before we go down the guessing road, though, let's talk about in a little bit depth what it is that you do. So give me the Colesnose version of what you do.
Speaker 2:Leadership coach is the overarching kind of banner, and then culture creation. So I get into organizations and help them create vibrant workplace culture. So that's the overarching part of what I do. Within that. What I'm really interested in is helping to create more conscious leaders, so leaders who are more aware, and to help them improve their human capabilities, their ability to not only communicate but to inspire, to lead, to build deep rapport with the people that they're working with, to get better at understanding humans and what it is to be human and work together. That's kind of in a nutshell. There's international retreats that I run in the Himalayan mountains and Bali and the deserts of Australia. There's online courses and all the stuff that goes with it, but essentially, leadership coach.
Speaker 1:They'll sound like horrible places to go experience a retreat at. I'm just kidding, of course, but it sounds like the work you do is just phenomenal and is really making a huge difference in the lives of the people who you serve. So thank you for doing that. It's something that's truly needed. I'm going to ask you what might seem like a glaringly obvious question. It's possibly very obvious to you, but for some people it's not necessarily the case. Why, of all things, did you choose podcast guesting as a way to elevate your credibility to springboard?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I chose podcast guesting as a way to help me extend the reach. I'm on a mission, my work is very purposeful and I'm super clear on what my mission is. Every single morning I'm saying it out loud and I'm looking at what can I do to further this mission. Writing a book was a part of that. I didn't write a book to make money. Not many people make money from writing a book and I didn't write a book, although people will say if you write a book, then it positions you as an expert.
Speaker 2:That's not why I wrote the book, believe it or not, old fashioned. I wrote the book because I was hoping it'll help people, but it can only help people if people read it. So then, after having the book published and released, I was like right, how do I get out there and connect with more people and get the message out to more people? And I've always loved podcasts as a listener.
Speaker 2:I've been listening to podcasts for a long time and it's been a primary source of my intellectual stimulation, my growth, my learning, opening my mind to other perspectives. So there was that part of it. And then finally, conceptually, philosophically, I believe that, having good conversations about topics that we should be talking about is a vital part of improving humanity. It might seem like, oh well, we're just talking about it, nothing's actually happening, but conversations are massively important, and having solid conversations with people like yourself, you know, meeting other people around the other side of the world, having a good, solid conversation about something that matters and then sharing that for people to listen to, I think is an important part of the way forward.
Speaker 1:I like about guesting is and maybe this is what you experienced too is you can still reach out and impact the lives of so many people by not having your own show, by being a guest on others.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I'm a subscriber, a member of a community and here's a little plug for my mate, Alex. But Podmatch is one of these platforms that's like tinder for podcast hosts and guests. Yeah, and you have your profile on there and it matches you up with shows that thinks you might be good for. You get to meet each other, you dance a little bit and you find out whether you want to be on their show. The platform's really sweet. It's got statistics because it records how many shows you've done and what the reach is of those shows, et cetera. So on your dashboard, when you first log in as a guest, it says you've had 1.734 million social impressions, You've had approximately 76,000 listens, You've had approximately this many downloads. So it's just nice and I mean these statistics will be ballpark, but it's nice to look at it and go, wow, I've potentially positively influenced that many people. For me, that's the point of it. But I also am a conversationalist. I love meeting people and having a chat.
Speaker 1:That's the other thing I find with whether you're a host or a guest. It is about relationships. Let's take a deeper dive into the guesting experience, because I know that, speaking of Podmatch, that you've been featured as a guest in one of their publications and you have your own book and, by the way, all of those links will be in the chat later. So, if you're listening, you'll be able to reach out to Jem after today and get all of that information. But let's talk about the guesting, because you've mastered this, you've become really good at it. So what's the sweet spot? What? What's the sweet spot? What does it take, quite simply, to a stellar guest?
Speaker 2:Carl, I think it's good to take a step right back and remember for someone who has been a guest, perhaps a few times or many times, and to remember that for people just starting out on this, there's some nerves that are involved. You, quite understandably, might get nervous because you're getting recorded on a show that's going to be available to the world. So I think the mindset to help with that coming into a show is to remember that it's an act of service. It's actually not about you. That seems counterintuitive. You're saying, yeah, but it's a show and I'm the guest and so the show's about me. But if you can get your head into the right place of service, this is not about me. This is about the host. This is their show, this is their audience, this is their platform. This is not about me. This is about the host. This is their show, this is their audience, this is their platform, this is potentially their livelihood.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to come and serve, right, I know what I know. I don't know what I don't know. I'm not going to try and pretend to be more of an expert in something that I'm not. I'm just going to be honest. And then, when you get onto the show, a key is listen, really listen to your host, listen to the questions that they're asking you. Just be present in the conversation. I mean, some guests will do a whole bunch of research, they'll go and listen to a ton of episodes before going on. They really want to know the show really well and if that works for you, that's great. I like to go somewhere in between. Obviously, I like to understand the host a little bit and their show a little bit, but I don't want to know too much because that then flavors the way I'm showing up. I just want to show up as me and have a chat.
Speaker 1:Very well stated, especially the piece where you said it's not about you, and I think that, as a host, I could say you're right, it's my show, it's not your show, and obviously, as a host, I want to make sure that I'm inviting the right guests on the show, which, by the way, you are, so thank you for being here today. Really appreciate that. But, like you also indicated, though, it is about service, and I'm very much in that mindset as well, that otherwise, why? Yeah, there are a lot of podcasts about interesting things. There are podcasts about sports and religion and comedy, entertainment, true crime, health and wellness. All of those are very important, but, at the end of the day, they're still serving the listener. If you're not serving whether it be entertainment, comedy, spirituality, whatever it is if you're not serving the listener, why should they tune in, regardless of what the show's about?
Speaker 1:I like the fact that you said you wrote a book not to become the next Stephen King of the writing world. You wrote a book because that's an extension of what you do, and if it can help people and somebody buys the book and it makes a huge difference, then you've served them. Similar to the podcast, you're a guest on a show and that's connecting in the way you want it to connect and that changes lives too. Also kudos and thumbs up. But I like how you framed that, because I think that those are pieces that sometimes get forgotten when we get into the minutiae of especially hosts will maybe take you down a path. Hopefully I'm not taking you down a path now, but sometimes there's a lot to unpack sometimes, so sometimes the message gets lost. But I like how you nailed it by simply saying it's not your show and it is about service.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. And the other thing, too, is that it's a really helpful perspective to keep coming back to, just as a person, and it helps in so many ways, because most of our struggles is when we get in our own way, because we're making it all about us right. When you take yourself too seriously, that's when your problems are mountains. When you take yourself too seriously, that's when the nerves or the anxiety get in the way. When you take yourself too seriously, when you're making it all about you, we tend to be less effective in terms of what we're actually trying to do.
Speaker 2:So to remember to not make it about you, you know. Make it about serving, make it about the quote unquote greater good. Make it about the greater good, make it about having some sort of positive impact in somebody else's life, and then it gets easier. It just gets easier. The nerves are less, you know you're suffering, your problems are smaller. So, without going too deep, too quickly on your show but that's the truth, that's just the bottom line Get out of your own way and make it about other people and things get easier.
Speaker 1:I think some of that anxiety that you mentioned you're right we do get in our own heads. Then that's the biggest piece Get out of your own way, because we have this preconceived notion that I'm going to be a guest on the show. I need to know what the questions are going to be so I can write out my answers and have them scripted and ready to go. So when the host asks them that I know exactly what to say. And, truth be told, we're just having a conversation right now. I didn't give Jem any questions. We just had an idea as to what we were going to talk about and I think the discussion is going very well.
Speaker 1:And that's the magic in this is when you remove all of that. As you say, get out of your way and you just go in. You go with the mind of service and that it's not about you. Let's have a conversation, let's see where this takes us. There's where you have that impact on people's lives, and not only that, as you say, it gets easier and you get invited back or you get invited to shows that you never even thought would be on your radar, and that's happened to you where you've been a guest on some fairly high profile shows. Talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess the highest profile show that I was a guest on last year. It's called On Leadership. Scott Miller is the host. Franklin Covey, the leadership company Franklin Covey. Stephen Covey wrote the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, so it's his son's company Business. Now Scott invited me on that show. It was quite an interesting fluke story how that happened.
Speaker 2:I was going for a run one day and I listened to podcasts when I run and I thought, instead of listening to the same old shows that I always listen to, I'm going to just pick a random podcast. So I literally just did a random. I'm going to listen to this show and it wasn't on Leadership, it was another show. I can't even remember what podcast it was, but Scott Miller was a guest on this show and I had no idea who this guy was. I'd never heard of him before, and so I'm going for my run and I'm listening to this interesting guy. Obviously I'm down in Australia, so I'm listening to this guy from Salt Lake City and he was talking million miles an hour about really good stuff. I was really enjoying the show and listening to him and I thought I'm going to reach out to this guy, and so I did? I emailed him and he actually emailed me back the next day, which is quite amazing.
Speaker 2:He's a multiple award-winning author as well, and yada, yada Anyway. So I had no idea about his podcast or anything. I just emailed him. His executive assistant teed up a time. We met on Zoom. We got along. He gave me some advice. I took his advice, put it into place. He was watching from afar and he saw that his advice wasn't wasted on me. I wasn't one of these people that said yeah, yeah, and then didn't do anything with it. I took action and so he decided to meet with me again.
Speaker 2:By now I knew who he was and I'd listened to a few episodes of On Leadership, including authors like Deepak Chopra and Daniel Goleman and Matthew McConaughey and people like this, and I was like, wow, imagine if I could be a guest on this show. I've got no idea why he'd want me on there. I'm this obscure Aussie who's not that well known, but it'd still be great, anyway. So I jumped onto this Zoom with Scott and he invited me on the show as a guest, which was amazing. So I went on the show we recorded.
Speaker 2:You know, it's next level. It's a full production. He's got a full film crew in the room and it's all the sound engineers and everything, and they even take their show on tour. I think they're currently on tour, maybe at the moment, and they're about to interview the likes of Brene Brown and Simon Sinek, etc. Right Anyway, so that was wonderful, did the show with him, and then he offered to represent me as my literary speaker agent in the States. He has just launched his agency called Gray Plus Miller, and so I flew over to LA a few months ago and sat down and had a long lunch with Scott and his business partner and we went over the nuts and bolts of what that would look like and I signed the contracts and so now we're mates and he's representing me over there in the US.
Speaker 1:Wow, what an amazing story, and from something that started out as being okay, I'm going to listen to a random show just because and I'm going to take action and email him.
Speaker 2:That was the thing, and he even said in that show he said email people and ask for help. And he just came up with these two random authors, both of whom I follow and read their books. He said email Seth Godin Seth at SethGodincom. Email Dan Pink Dan at Danpinkcom. So I did, I emailed them both and they both emailed me back. Dan Pink said send me a copy of your book. I'd love to read it. Thanks, dan, I hope you enjoyed the book.
Speaker 2:And Seth pointed me in the direction of some of his blogs for authors. It was really about reaching out and, funnily enough, carl, one of the first pieces of advice that Scott gave me in our first Zoom meeting He'd just met Alex Sanfilippo the name comes up again and he'd just interviewed him on his podcast about Podmatch, the platform that he was building, and he said just go and join Podmatch. I didn't even question it, I just opened it, joined it, started subscribing and paying straight away. And then he sent me a link of a post that Alex had done on Facebook or something, and so I reached out to Alex. We had a WhatsApp call. We got along like a house on fire. This was back in COVID, and now we're mates as well. So, yeah, it's funny how the world turns around, huh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he is a phenomenal guy. But man, oh man, that story of just like you say, that's part of the problem, part of being in our own way. Is that all that negative speak right, that, oh well, they're not going to put me on their show or I'm not good enough, or whatever it is? You don't know. And what's the worst that'll happen? You'll get crickets right and the best that can happen is well, jem just explained to you what the best is that can happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, when we sat down for lunch in Newport Beach, Scott handed me the actual physical brochure of the podcast, which is this glossy kind of three-page thing with all the headshots of all the guests in there, and I open it and I was just pinching myself there's a headshot of me literally next to Scotty Pippen and Matthew McConaughey and Daniel Goleman, who wrote Emotional Intelligence, and all of these authors and I was just like what? So, yeah, look, I guess the message from that story is have a crack. We say here in Australia and it's an Irish expression have a crack, which means have a go.
Speaker 2:Just put yourself out there and even if you're experiencing negative self-talk which is a very human thing to do even if you're experiencing the negative self-talk like why would this person want me on their show, or no listeners are going to get anything from what I've got to say, or who am I to be a guest? Or any of your negative self-talk put it to the side and just take action and get on with it. Right, stop making it about you, because everybody's story will resonate with someone you know and if you have the courage to come into a conversation with a host and just sit there and chat, trust that the host will ask you the questions. They're supposed to Just be in the moment and have a conversation and answer the questions. If you trust that someone out there will resonate and go oh wow, that's meaningful for me or that inspires me to have more courage, or that motivates me or that helps me understand my own stuff a little bit more, your story will be relatable to somebody somewhere.
Speaker 1:I think the other piece of that, too, is have fun with it. Yeah, especially if you're new to the guesting thing, that again we get anxious and being anxious isn't fun. We think of this as work. We have to be on our yeah, okay, I have to be on your A game, but you can still be on your A game and have a blast doing it. We've had a blast chatting today. We don't even know we're recording. We are recording, by the way, just so you know we are recording.
Speaker 1:Remember to hit that record button yes, and that platform reminds us when it says the recording has begun, or whatever it says. So, anyways, jen, this has been fantastic. I do want to give you the opportunity, though, to share something with the audience, if you have something to pass along to them that can help them. You mentioned your book and some other things, so whatever it is that you'd like to share, I'll give you the opportunity to do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. One of the practices that I have created into a habit, so it's habitual for me. Now it happens daily is a practice of mindfulness meditation, and I've had a deep practice of this for 10 years now. The reason I'm sharing this is because it has many benefits.
Speaker 2:Mindfulness meditation has many benefits, one of them being that you can be more in charge of your physiology, so your mental, emotional, physical state of being. So say, for example, you're about to be interviewed on a podcast and you're nervous. Before going into the show, into the conversation, you can come back to your place of calm, centeredness. This is an ability that you can develop, anyway. So I have got an introduction to mindfulness meditation course on my platform and you can pop the link in the show notes, and I'd like to make it free for your listeners. There's normally a cost associated to it, but so, to your listeners, if they just go into the coupon code section of the course and type in podcast, then they'll get access the coupon code section of the course and type in podcast, then they'll get access to that course for free and they can download it and keep it forever.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, jim. That's very generous of you. We'll make sure that that link the link to his book and also his opportunity to be featured in the Podmatch publication that they did. We'll make sure there's a link to that. All of the links to Jem. They'll all be there as well. Oh, where's the time gone, jem? It's been a phenomenal conversation. Time flies when you're having fun, huh.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:See, that's the thing If you're not having fun, but anyways, yeah, it's been phenomenal, and I look forward to the moment where we'll be able to shake hands in person, now that we can do that again, be it on your turf or somewhere on North American soil or somewhere. But before I turn you loose on the world to be of service to the world, I'll give you the final thought.
Speaker 2:Here's the final thought to the listeners You've made it, you've made it, you're here, and by that I mean that you are exactly where you're supposed to be, apparently because there you are. You're not yet where you're going, but you shouldn't be because you're not there yet. And you are exactly who you're supposed to be right now as in, apparently because there you are Now. This might sound an oversimplification, but this is liberation, carl, when we can really pause and say well, right now, in this moment, I'm exactly who I'm supposed to be and I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. Just take a breath, you know, because we're always in such a hurry to get somewhere when I have that house, or when I have that promotion, or when I have this much money, or when I slow down.
Speaker 1:You've made it, it's okay.
Speaker 2:You made it to this moment. Just take a breath and smell the roses.
Speaker 1:Jem. I think that's a great place to leave it. Jem Fuller, thank you so much for being my guest today.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1:Carl, and thank you for joining us today. Special thanks to our producer and production lead, dom Coriglio, our music guru, nathan Simon, and the person who works the arms all of our arms, actually my trusty assistant, stephanie Gaffour. If you like what you heard today, leave us a comment and a review and be sure to share it with your friends. If you don't like what you heard, please share it with your enemies. Oh, and if you have a suggestion of someone who you think would make an amazing guest on the show, let us know about it. Drop us an email, askcarl at carlspeaksca. Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter as well. You'll find all those links in the show notes, and if you're ready to take the plunge and join the over 3 million people who have said yes to podcasting, let's have a conversation. We'll show you the simplest way to get into the podcasting space, because, after all, we're podcast solutions made simple. We'll catch you next time.