Unfiltered Sessions
Unfiltered Sessions Podcast
Raw. Real. Unfiltered.
Building a business isn’t just about numbers and strategy—it’s about long hours, sacrifices, and the relentless pursuit of something bigger than yourself. Unfiltered Sessions is where we strip away the fluff and talk about what it really takes to scale a business, balance life, and delegate like a pro.
From personal updates on the journey of growing my own business to candid conversations with entrepreneurs and industry experts, this podcast is about the real stories behind success—the struggles, the wins, and the lessons learned along the way.
If you're a business owner trying to do it all, wondering how to scale without burning out, or just looking for honest conversations about life and entrepreneurship, you're in the right place.
No filters. No sugarcoating. Just the truth about business, life, and the power of delegation.
Unfiltered Sessions
MAXIMIZE Your TIME and PRODUCTIVITY Through Strategic AUTOMATION and DELEGATION with Joe Casabona
Unlock the keys to reclaiming your time and enhancing productivity with podcast systems coach Joe Casabona. In this episode, Joe shares his insights on balancing automation and delegation, helping entrepreneurs optimize their workflows without falling into the trap of constant busyness. With over a decade of experience, Joe reveals when to adopt new tools or hire a virtual assistant to streamline operations. From his symbolic hourglass hat to actionable strategies, this conversation offers a roadmap to true productivity, freeing up time for what matters most.
The discussion also touches on balancing technology in family life, exploring how screen time impacts parenting and personal habits. Joe shares his evolution from micromanagement to effective delegation, using tools like Loom for clear communication and task management. Whether you're looking to boost your efficiency or improve your work-life balance, this episode delivers practical tips and relatable stories to inspire meaningful change.
NOTABLE QUOTES
"I'm here to save you time, the only thing you can't buy more of." – Joe
"Being busy is a badge of honor and it shouldn't be." – Joe
"Bored people are creative people." – Joe
"Unfortunately, while AI is a buzzword and AI has so many great things to it and can do so many awesome things, it's starting to eliminate that critical thinking." – Philip
"If you are sending data from one app to another, perfect candidate for automation." – Joe
"When the inputs and outputs aren't clear, you probably need somebody with critical thinking skills, and so that's really the dividing line for whether you should automate or delegate." – Joe
"I'm not running my business to scale huge. My business is a relationship business." – Joe
"If you want to grow and scale, you're going to have to start automating and delegating." – Philip
"There's times that we're doing things that don't even need to be done. We're just doing it because we thought we needed to do it." – Philip
"What you want to focus on is your area of expertise." – Joe
"I don't want parents to have panic attacks because they don't feel like they can handle everything that they have to handle." – Joe
"Work is not everything, no matter what Gary Vee or Alex Hormosi says." – Joe
"Why I started my business, too, is to help myself, but then it turned into helping other people out as well, to be able to get that time back." – Philip
RESOURCES
Joe
Website: https://casabona.org
Streamlined Solopreneur Podcast: https://www.streamlined.fm/sessions
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jcasabona
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcasabona
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/creatorcourses
Philip
Digital Course: https://www.speakingsessions.com/digital-course
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions
What's up guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Speaking Sessions podcast. We've got Joe Casabona. I almost butchered it again.
Speaker 1:We just talked about this offline about how we'll ask and we'll butcher it. But hey, we're here, we're going to have a lot of fun with this, but we're going to teach you ways to not butcher your business here in a minute. But he is a podcast systems coach who helps busy solopreneurs take back their time. Some even say he perfectly blends content creation and technology, like it's the best cup of coffee you've ever had and really he says that. But we're not judging there the best out there. But Joe's strategies come from his many years of experience over 10 years creating podcasts and more than 15 years teaching and over 20 years as a web developer. And today we're going to talk about, essentially, delegation how do you automate things? When do you automate new software versus when do you delegate to a person, such as a virtual assistant, things like that. But we're going to have a lot of great conversation today. Before we get into that, joe, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much. Thanks for that great intro. I'll say the best cup of coffee part is the thing I made up because I love coffee, technology and content creation. So you know it's a way for me to get a lot of things in there in that one sentence yeah, yeah, no, I love it.
Speaker 1:I love the, the humor there as well. I can't help but think about when you see, like uh was, I think it's the elf movie. There's some movie that they made fun of that, where there's like some character he's like an adult technically but he has the mind of a child and he goes oh my gosh it's number one coffee, like coffee or pie in the world and he goes and tries it out.
Speaker 1:He's like, oh my gosh, he's like so excited. And it's like everybody says that, oh, we're the best, we're number one, when really, who are they? Who are they doing that? Who do they sample for that? And most likely, and for me, usually, when I say I'm the best, it's because my mom told me I was so just don't tell my brother hey, no, mom's the way.
Speaker 2:I'm the oldest of four boys, so mom's the word yeah, yeah, exactly she, she knows best.
Speaker 1:She's right, you know, my mom's the best but awesome.
Speaker 2:As an italian, I do often say that I'm like my mother makes the best chicken cutlets, you know so love it.
Speaker 1:I love the accent and everything there. That's, that's awesome, yeah, especially the italian thing. I I don't have any of the the uh nationality like that to be able to share those things uh, unfortunately but yeah, that's awesome. Well, dude, I'm excited to get here and talk here. Before we really get into it, for those that are actually watching right now, I want to talk about your hat real quick and the symbology behind that. We talked about it offline. I think it's really cool, like these three arrows kind of coming up and out. So tell us what does that mean, which I think will go into your business, and I would love to talk about what your business is exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll start with this. I've been podcasting for 12 plus years, and my most successful podcast was originally called how I Built it, where I would interview web developers. I stopped doing web development, I stopped talking to web developers, and so earlier this year, as we record this, I decided it was time finally for me to rebrand my podcast to fall more in line with what I am talking about, and that's helping solopreneurs save time. And so I wanted to come up with this concept for a really clear piece of art for the podcast artwork. And I thought what about if the sand in the hourglass, in an hourglass, is going up instead of down? Right, you're getting your time back, and so that's what the three hour. You know you can't really tell with the hat because it's black on yellow. I have a lot of navy blue hats because I'm a Yankee fan, so it's a different color there, but it's sand going up through the hourglass to signify I'm here to save you time.
Speaker 1:The only thing you can't buy more of. Yeah, and we need to save time, especially in this busy world. I've had conversations with plenty of business owners. Actually, I was talking with one the other day. We had a scheduled call. He was late to the call. We had to call him to bring him in and then when we're on the call, he's sitting there doing 20 other things because he has so many things going on at the exact same time and actually, ironically, I was making some video content today, kind of going through that, and I had a play on the whole Kamala Harris thing where she was on the phone and her camera was on, and so I'm going to make a post later about that and and the fact that she or like for me that you know, if you're a busy business owner and you're just trying to look busy, this is what it looks like, kind of thing, something along those lines, but like showing that you see the camera.
Speaker 1:But I'm trying to act like I'm busy and that's a lot of times what we do and it's almost like a badge of honor that, oh, I'm so busy, I've got so many things going on and yet here I am, faking that I'm on a phone call but you can see the camera and everything. So I'm going to go along those lines on that post when it gets posted out. So it might be before this episode goes out, might be after, but that's, I think, what happens a lot of times. So what have you seen, especially from the podcast side? Uh, well, I guess, before we, we get to that, talk to me about what your, what your services are, and then we'll go into what you, what you, the common things you see with most podcasters that they're doing and how you kind of help them fix that yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think the I mean to go back to that line in my bio right combine content creation and technology, or I think that's what it is. I don't have it up in front of me and I wrote it a long time ago, but that's really. I think that's my. I believe that's a special skill of mine because of my background in programming as well as the fact that I'm an extrovert and I did drama club and so I'm good at the performative side of things too.
Speaker 2:But I noticed exactly what you've noticed. Right, being busy is a badge of honor and it shouldn't be right, it's good when business is good, but we shouldn't be so busy that we're not present in the moment right, and when you're not present with a stranger, the impact doesn't feel as big. But I've got three kids and one day I was on my phone and my daughter said Daddy, why are you on your phone all the time? And I was like this is such I don't have a lot of time where my kids actually want to hang out with me and I'm wasting it like doom scrolling or whatever or like checking email on a Saturday, and so I want to create that space so that people, especially business owners who are also parents, can be present in other aspects of their lives, and I do that through helping them build systems and processes so that they don't have to perform every task in their business, because the truth is, most of the things that you do for your business, somebody else or something else could probably do better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent. And yeah, I've got a three-year-old and an eight-month-old and my three-year-old, of course, she's got her own fake phone and stuff. And that really hit me because I think it was yesterday, that yesterday, the day before one, it was this week for sure where she had her phone. I had mine and I was looking at it and she's like, hey, let's put our phones down. And she put hers on the table. I'm like, okay, I'll put mine down. I'm like, man, she's noticing this. I know my wife gets on to me and I know I'm not great about it and there are times where like, hey, I'm actually trying to drum up some business and know there's definitely excuses, some valid, some not. Depends on how you look at it and everything. But yeah, when the, the child, that baby, tells you, that's when it's tough.
Speaker 2:And how old are your kids by the way, my oldest is seven, my middle list is, my boy is four and my youngest will be three right around the time. I think this episode is coming out, if my math is right so she was born on on christmas eve. So okay uh, yeah, so she'll be three on christmas eve man, man.
Speaker 1:So yeah, you're right there in the sink of it with me. But but you're right, you know, as they start getting older they're not wanting to be around you near as much. Uh, that's not making me feel too good that it's at seven but so I'll say, at seven she's still very much.
Speaker 2:I mean, there was, you know, I took her to like a daddy daughter dance and she went off with her friends, but she's not too cool yet.
Speaker 2:I think this was like last year or two years ago where she was like why are you on your phone? But it's like the wisdom of a child is devastating, right. So that was, that was a really big wake-up call for me and, like the other, the other thing I'll say is, you know, we took our kids out to dinner and we have a very like for the littles, if, like, dinner's getting too long and you know they're just like getting antsy, like we'll give them a screen. But for my seven-year-old, I think we implemented this like when they turned six them a screen. But for my seven-year-old I think we implemented this like when they turned six no screens. When we're out to dinner and we saw a family of five, the parents were on their phone and each kid was on their own kindle fire thing and I'm like, yeah, what is the point of being here if you're all just gonna sit and not talk to each other?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, and I think that's been the detriment, a lot been the detriment, a lot of the detriment to the family, one of the many things out there and it is sad to see my wife and I talk about that a lot. And, yeah, we are the same way. We hate giving that phone, but, yeah, if it goes late or you know, the service is really slow, whatever it may be, we're like, okay, we're going to finally give it and usually we're pretty good about getting out, but it's like waiting until that service happens and sometimes it takes 20 or 30 minutes.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, we're like, okay, we've been trying to get her to sit here, let's just give her that screen for a little bit, but then we take it away because it is an important thing that they can sit there and sit still. So I like that. Yeah, six, I definitely think, is a good age to get them to finally stop being on that screen and using that as a crutch. That I mean for me, like I'm guilty of that, like, oh, I've got two seconds, hold on, let me. Let me look at my phone and do some doom scrolling while I wait for the next thing. It's like what? Like why can't I just sit here or do?
Speaker 2:something different yeah, I my, my, I mean we're on a tangent now so I'll wrap this up but she recently my oldest recently said to me like I'm bored, and I said, good, bored people are creative people. Like, if you're just like, you know, I know people who don't think for themselves because they always have something in front of them telling them what to think. Or I was talking to a guy recently who, um, he like he would share links but he doesn't read the links. He has ai summarize the links and I'm like my dude, like you're not even going to take the time to read a 400 word news article to get the facts and form the opinion yourself. Like you're gonna outsource the critical thinking part to a robot Like that's, that's bad, and so I don't. I want to teach my kids to be bored and to critically think. Uh, and limiting screen time, I think, is a really important part of that.
Speaker 1:Oh, completely agreed. Yeah, cause you can get zoned in on that screen and, yeah, you lose that critical thinking in. Unfortunately, while AI is a buzzword and AI has so many great things to it and can do so many awesome things, it's starting to eliminate that critical thinking rather than having to think about it. And, yeah, there's different ways you can really streamline your processes, but at the end of the day, you still need to be able to critical think, and that's really sad. I've never heard somebody going that far, but I'm not surprised either that somebody would do that. I guess at least, rather than just reading the headline and saying, oh my gosh, I'm gonna send this to my friends, they're at least letting ai go through it so they can actually say something about it, because, I mean, I've been guilty of that probably a time or two too many. Uh, that I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this and I send it without reading the full story myself. But yeah, it seems crazy.
Speaker 2:Here's a quick hack for that, right, because, like, ai could hallucinate stuff, right? So you're not even. It's like, not even like secondhand source, it's like fourth hand source. If I see a headline that seems boombastic, we'll say clickbaity, I guess is the word we use. Now I will scroll to the very last two paragraphs, because that's usually where they tuck in the actual facts and a quote from an actual expert, and so if I want to understand an article quickly, I'll usually scroll to the last two paragraphs to see what they have to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, they're never. Yeah, I shouldn't say they're never, but most likely they're not going to have it near the top, because they want yeah, they want it to be clickbaity. They want you to say this and share it because that's alarming, which, unfortunately, is a lot of what marketing is nowadays. But let's get into the podcast system.
Speaker 1:So I know this is something we're going to talk about is when to automate versus when to delegate. So talk to us about, especially with a podcast, because there's so many things that we can do and definitely different routes we can go. We could literally delegate it to somebody and, depending on their services, it could be very expensive, but we could also use software and, depending on the software and I'm sure there's different softwares out there that are better than others, but they're also probably a little bit pricier but typically the software is more affordable than hiring a person to do that work. So talk to us about this, especially from the podcast side, some of the things that you see that people are doing, that they could really start automating or delegating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, I think the biggest thing right is you and I were connected on Podmatch, I believe, and Podmatch is an amazing tool for finding and booking guests right. Instead of you having to scour the internet and do research and then reach out and hold outreach to that person, you are getting a at least lukewarm connection right. Like I get a lot of pitches, I know that there are people who just pitch every podcast that's recommended to them, but, yeah, you're at least getting like a lukewarm list of potential guests or a potential podcast that you can guest on right, and, and the really nice thing that they've done at Podmatch right is they've streamlined that flow. So you put in your booking link right, and they almost require you to have one right, because that's the next step in the process, and a booking link is so much better than going back and forth via email, right, yeah, what I love about the booking link, though, is because this is what every surface-level podcast expert will tell you oh, you need to use Calendly, right, that's going to save you so much time. Yeah, I say that, but then I say, but the real magic is that Calendly is the first, or whatever. Calcom, acuity, whatever right.
Speaker 2:The scheduling link is the first step in a long line of processes, because when someone puts in data into one of those scheduling links, you can take it using Zapier or makecom and send it to other places like Notion, like Google Docs. And now you're not just automating the booking process, you're automating the planning process, you're organizing, you're looking at your pipeline in a place where you always hang out, and so I always say if you are sending data from one app to another, perfect candidate for automation, in most cases right, especially like Zapier. Zapier integrates with everything, right where the, and so the way I word that at a high level is are the inputs clear and are the outputs clear? Do you always put in the name, an email address and a time you're going to meet and do you always get a calendar invite out of that right? When the inputs and outputs aren't clear, you probably need somebody with critical thinking skills, and so that's really the dividing line for whether you should automate or delegate.
Speaker 2:I can automate the booking process, I can automate, you know, when I drop files that are ready for my editor into Dropbox, he automatically gets an email and my Notion board is automatically updated to episode is out for edit, but when it comes time to publish my episode, I want the format a certain way. I want to make sure the show notes are right. I need to put it in my podcast host and also on my website, which uses a custom way. I want to make sure the show notes are right. I need to put it in my podcast host and also on my website, which uses a custom template. The inputs are clear, but the outputs are not, and so my VA does that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that's super ultra repetitive tasks. That's literally going to be the same, no matter what. That doesn't need that special touch or that that little extra polish here and there. Those are the things for sure that we can automate, and I like that you said, especially a software. If it's a software to another software, there's probably a way that you can make it talk for sure.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, using the VA for the other side. I completely agree with you there and that's yeah, I like that you explained it that way, because a lot of times we don't think about it that way. But even then, on the other side too, when it comes to getting that VA, a lot of times we just want, oh, just do it, just get it done, but we don't even know clearly what that is and everything. So how do you help clients break down, how to find out their process? Because that's the other side of the story.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, I want to be able to automate this, or I want to delegate this, but then they don't really know what that is like. Oh, I want to, I want to, you know, automate booking podcasts. Okay, cool, that sounds great in theory, but what are all those steps? Like you said, there's probably 10 steps there, even though we're thinking, oh, it's just one or two, because we tend to just do it. So how do we, or how do you, go about clearly defining that and how can the audience start to clearly define their steps so that they can figure out? Can I automate this to a software or do I need to delegate this to a virtual assistant?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is a great question. I have a framework for it, so feel free to interrupt me at any point if you want to dig deep. But this is really where my background in software engineering oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh because they were mismanaged. And knowing this caused a number of software developers in 2000 to write the Agile Manifesto, and so the way that software used to be developed is okay. Well, we need to build software that allows people to put in orders, manage inventory and then send an invoice to a customer. Each of those things I just mentioned there have a bunch of steps underneath, and the reason that those projects would fail is because the steps underneath would get missed. Nobody would really think through the process and budgets and timelines would blow up. The Agile Manifesto says every major feature essentially I'm paraphrasing heavily here Every major feature can be broken down into smaller steps and as you approach what you do in your business, you should think about this the same way. So I have the PER P-E-R framework for everything that you do in your business. I want you to break it down. So I want you to perform the task that's the P and as you're performing, write down every step you have to take as you perform that task. So booking guest is not just book guest, it's determine the topic, find an expert on that topic, reach out to them, see if they're interested. If they are, book them, do some research on them. Probably do that before you reach out to them, but do some research on them, figure out the questions you're going to ask right, write down all of those things and then the E is evaluate For that task and for each step in that task, evaluate.
Speaker 2:Do I personally have to do this? The answer is going to be no most of the time. Then ask yourself do I want to do this? Because we're in business, because we are autonomous and we want to work the way we want to work and we've selected the type of work. We're in business because we are autonomous and we want to work the way we want to work and we've selected the type of work we're doing. And so I don't personally have to find guests for my podcast, or I don't have to personally find sponsors for my podcast, but I choose to do that because the relationship building is critical to me. So that is something that I personally don't have to do, but I choose to do because the benefits of me doing it outweigh the time that is saved by me not doing it.
Speaker 2:So do you have? Do you personally have to do it? Do you personally want to do it? Then you can ask yourself are the inputs and outputs clear, like I just said, if they are always the same, you ask yourself does a person actually need to do this? Because the answer, there is probably no right. If the inputs are always the same and the outputs are always the same, then you can set up an automation in zapier or notion or wherever to say when you get this information, when this thing happens, do this and do it every time. If the inputs and outputs are not clear, that's where you go to hire a VA, and then the R is remove it for you.
Speaker 1:Before we get to that, real quick, I want to add one other thing I like when I think about the evaluation side is does it make me money? That's something that I might put off actually delegating or automating. Well, I guess delegating because now I'm probably going to pay more the automation side of it makes a little bit more sense. But I always look at that Is that going to make me money? Because I mean, we think about like a sales call. Maybe I hate sales, but the sales calls make me money. So I might not want to delegate that right away. So I like to throw that in on that evaluation. I like the way we're breaking this down so far, but I just want to kind of throw that in real quick. Is uh, is it make me money or not? And maybe you're gonna put that on a different order on that list too.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's a really good point, right, like we can tuck that right in with. Do I want to do it or like, should I? Should I personally do it? Maybe is the better question, because you're right, I uh I had a? Um, a remote assistant, right? Um, a friend of mine who was on my podcast. I I hired her and her agency to do some stuff for me and I realized that she was doing some outreach to start sales calls and I was uncomfortable with that and so every time I got on a sales call they would say something from the conversation that she was having on my behalf and I wasn't as prepared. So I'd be like I got to be honest with you, it wasn't me who did the outreach and I I always felt like that hurt the relationship a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that you're right Like I can have somebody do outreach to sponsors or people on LinkedIn, but I'm not running my business to scale huge. Yeah, my business is a relationship business and so, yeah, that's that's the calculus you also have to make. Yeah, my business is a relationship business and so, yeah, that's the calculus you also have to make yeah. Sales calls and discovery calls aren't my favorite thing, but having good conversations about how I can help people, they're great right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, are you just trying to sell a widget too with that? So if you're just trying to sell a widget and no big deal, you don't want the relationship, then maybe that works for you. But then, like you said, it sounds like you're really wanting to build a relationship. So that was you realized. Oh that's, I need to take that back, because I can't really build that relationship the same way if I don't do that task. So, yeah, we got to really think holistically on this as well, cause like, okay, cool, yeah, you can delegate everything you want, but is that the way you want to run your business too? Cause there's no right or wrong way. We're not saying that you have to automate and delegate, but it's probably gonna be better for you. But it depends on where you want to be at in business. If you want to be a solopreneur and doing every single thing the rest of your life hopefully not. But if you do, then yeah, don't automate or delegate anything.
Speaker 1:But if you want to grow and scale you're going to have to start automating and delegating, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so important. I decided before I was married and had kids, I would say I don't care if I'm married or have kids, as long as I'm a millionaire by 30. And then I met the woman who would become my wife when I was 26. And I was like, oh my God, I don't care about being a millionaire, I just want to make enough money to support my family, and I can support my family on way less than a million dollars a year. A million dollars profit. A million dollars revenue could be zero dollars profit. Negative dollars profit.
Speaker 2:My goals changed and my approach to my business changed too, because, instead of trying to scale and get a huge audience, I want a handful of clients who know I'm not available nights and weekends to help them grow and have an impact, and that makes more than enough money for me. So it's all about your goals. The R in per is the easiest one. It's remove it, right, if you have determined that you don't have to do it. You don't want to do it, you shouldn't do it and it could be um done by a robot or another person. Send that. Send that off into the ether, take it off of your plate and relish in the amount of time each week that you're saving by not doing that task I like that, and even then, maybe you don't even need it at all.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's something as well. There's times that we're doing things that don't even need to be done. We're just doing it because we thought we needed to do it. So even with that remove, I would add that in there too, which I think would go back into the evaluation.
Speaker 2:It doesn't need to be done. Also, but, yeah, I like that, remove it from. Yeah, that's, that's a really good point. Yeah, either, yeah, remove it, either give it to something or someone else, or completely eliminate it, because you're right, like we. There are some things that we just did when we started and we keep doing it and we never take the time to be like why am I? Why am I doing this? Yeah so always good to think about that Exactly.
Speaker 1:So, out of these three phases, or, in this framework, the perform, evaluate and remove, where do you think most people spend most of their time, or they should spend most of their time?
Speaker 2:I think it should be in the evaluation phase, right? The perform that's basically giving you your standard operating procedures. You're documenting your process, which is great, and you should definitely do that for everything, and having a VA can help that a lot, because you're going to have to for someone else. Right, they can't just download your brain. You need to tell them what to do and, depending on the level the VA is at, you might need to tell them this is always step one, this is always step two, this is always step three, but it's the evaluation phase where it's almost like I know that, oh my gosh, the Katamari method. Marie Kondo, I know she doesn't practice that anymore because she has kids and most advice for most people is for those without kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it changes as soon as you have kids. It's just like throw it out the window, start over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, exactly. Someone asked Tim Ferris a bunch of years ago like, hey, how do you get so much done? And he's like, well, I wake up and I meditate for two hours and I'm like cool, you don't have kids. I wake up and I slam coffee in hopes that my kids don't leave their room before their clock turns green, like that's, that's my morning routine, right? Um, so that's not entirely true but. I know it is for a lot of people right. I wake up early to beat my kids.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I'm like oh cool, I'm going to get up at four and be up before my kids, and that's the day they're like oh, I'm hungry.
Speaker 2:I want to clarify that I, I want to. I wake up early ahead of my I said to beat my kids. Uh, and I don't't. If I ever run for office one day, this is going to be the sound clip that sinks me. Uh, I wake up early to wake up ahead of my kids so I can enjoy a cup of coffee.
Speaker 1:But thank you for that correction for those that were confused out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unfortunately yeah, this guy sounded like a real guy, sounded like a really good dad in the beginning. Yeah, yeah, uh, but anyway, you guys sounded like a really good dad in the beginning. Yeah, but anyway it's screen time.
Speaker 2:But in the evaluation phase it's almost like the Marie Kondo of like does it spark joy? I imagine a lot of people start like everything sparked joy for them, right, and so they didn't get rid of as much as they hoped. Everything sparked joy for them, right, and so they didn't get rid of as much as they hoped In the evaluation phase. I really, really want you to think about what it is that you have to do, because when it comes to podcasting, there's three or four things right. One is talk. Obviously, it's your podcast. Don't outsource that to ai. Yeah, there's actually podcasts out there.
Speaker 1:That are ai podcasts, which is crazy to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's bad, but but, like you know what like those are, no one's gonna listen to it. Like, no one's gonna listen to those unless it's just like a straight like, unless you're just looking for like a straight reading of facts. Yeah, okay, fine, great, right, it's like the same people who listen like the fan noise podcast because they don't want to sit in silence. Um, yeah, there's like a lot of those out there, so, but that's not right, that's not the goal of podcasting for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you start to think, well, I need to edit it, because no one's going to edit it like me, there are people who are going to edit it way better than you I, I, unless you are yourself an editor, I and even then, right, because you're going to be more critical of your work than someone else. So, like, editing is something I strongly recommend you outsource. Oh, I need to publish it because my process is complicated. My process is complicated. It's even more complicated than it was when I hired my VA because I publish it in multiple places, and so we just wrote down the steps for everything in order, and now my VA does it. And my VA does that better than me now, because she actually refers to the list and I don't. I'm just like whoops.
Speaker 1:I forgot. I think I got everything.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it's like hubris, right, like I've been doing this for 12 years. Of course, I remember how to publish my own podcast and I'm like, shoot, I forgot to write fill in this one field. Um, so, if you think it's too complicated, it's probably not like. If you're like a competent human being, another competent human being can do it. What you want to focus on is your area of expertise. What are the things that you do best, and that could be relationship building. It's definitely talking, right. It could be figuring out the clips or writing the questions. Those are all fine, right, because no one knows your audience as well as you do. But, by and large, you can take most of that stuff off of your plate. So, in the evaluation phase, really think and then prioritize. Right, because you're also not going to take everything off of your plate all at once. That's too much change, too fast. Things will fall apart. So pick the two or three most highest impact things and start with those.
Speaker 1:How do you go about evaluating, especially, I would say on more of the VA side? I mean, you can also look and see, based on the automations, whether they're working or not. Obviously, but when it comes to the VA side, how are you evaluating if the work's getting done properly, because that's definitely something that it feels like you're almost micromanaging if you're constantly like trying to jump in and check on these things. So how do you go about that without going to that micromanagement side of things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is something that was really hard for me, because I don't think I'm a micromanager, but I was definitely a person who was like no one does the work better than me. And, to be fair to past Joe, past Joe was the guy in college who had to do the group projects, or would delegate something to someone and it didn't get done, so he'd end up doing it Right, um, and he, you know, past Joe is a bad manager, but I had, I had life experience reinforced that thinking, and so here's what I do with both my editor and my VA. My editor I've been with for like seven years or something like that now, um, so I don't even check his work. Really, you know, um, I don't actually check his work at all, and my VA will let me know, you know, if something seems off, because she also transcribes the episodes. Uh, with my VA, what I'll do is and I should say here that my va is like an entry-level va she's based in the philippines. Uh, I believe english is her second language and so I'm gonna assume english is her second language because she's in the philippines, um, and so, um, this is how I work with her when you, if you work for a higher level va, right, someone? You're paying 25 an hour or something like that.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, you, your approach could probably be different because their tasks are going to be different, but for my va, what I'll do is I will record myself performing the task as I narrate it, and then I have her transcribe the video and write out the steps. And so the first check is I'll review the steps that she wrote out and if the steps are wrong, I'll review the transcript because maybe I forgot something. And if she has any questions because the benefit of the video too is she can see when I don't say something, right, she could see me do something and I might have not said it. So she can always ask like, hey, you didn't mention this, but you did that thing. And I'm like yeah, I'm, I'm dumb and forgot to say it.
Speaker 1:um, are you using loom? What are you using to record?
Speaker 2:yeah, I use loom for that. Yeah, um, I use both loom and tella. Uh, tella is really more for like client facing stuff because it's nicer.
Speaker 2:Loom I have for free because I worked at the university of scranton for a while and they gave away free edu accounts so hey, yeah, so, um, I think if I was like picking one today and I didn't want to pay for both, it would be tella, because tell is nicer, but it's neither here nor there. Loom is very well known and and pretty easy to use, right, and I I think it's probably embeddable in more places. So that's the other thing. I have a I have a VA task manager thing built in Notion and I will embed the video there and then she knows to put the transcript and the steps there, and so that task board is also like the Goodhouse Media that's the name of my company Goodhouse. Is Casabona, translated from Italian to English, the Goodhouse Media Handbook, right, yeah, company. Good house is casabona translated from italian to english, uh, the good house media, the good house media handbook, right, yeah, um, so that's the first check and then the first few times she performs a task, she'll ping me to let me know it's done and I'll go in and check and if she does it right three times in a row, three is a arbitrary number that's commonly used in everything. So if she does it properly three times in a row, then I kind of let her do her thing, right.
Speaker 2:So right now we're going through this process with initial research for potential guests. A lot of my guests come from Podmatch, but people can also pitch themselves to me, and so I make them fill out a form. That form goes into Notion. My VA gets pinged and she knows to look for five things that I want to know about this guest, including the transcripts of two recent podcast episodes, and then she'll put all of that into a Google Doc and I'm going to get a little extra here. I'll finish my thought first. So I've been reviewing that before I decide okay, this is something that you can definitely do, but so far so good. I mean, she's also been like hey, just so you're aware, most of these are AI-generated transcripts. Is that okay? And I'm like yep, I just really need the broad strokes.
Speaker 2:What I'm really looking for there is what did they talk about on their last two podcast appearances? Because I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about something different. So far, so good on that. I'm ready to just let her run with that task, because that's then that does save me time, right? I don't. People are pitching me and I don't have to go off and figure out if I actually want to have them on the show To bring the worlds of virtual assistant and automation together. My next step is when she creates a Google Doc. I'm going to have her do it in a specific folder that's being watched by Zapier, and then Zapier will take the content of that Google Doc and send it over to ChatGPT and ask ChatGPT to summarize the transcripts. What are the things they talked about? What are some questions I can ask that weren't asked, and put that back into the Google Doc, and I'm reasonably sure I can do that. I haven't done it yet, but all of the pieces I need are there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. I like that. You're going to automate some of that as well and obviously on your end, you're going to read through those questions and then, okay, I wouldn't ask it quite this way or whatever, but you can get a good idea of what that question would be that you could ask. That would be different and everything. So, yeah, I like that a lot. I think that's awesome. And then, like you said, kind of going back and forth and actually have a controls background. So I'm an electrical engineer by degree, so I think about that.
Speaker 1:It's always easiest if you can automate things. You have automation working with automation versus kind of semi-automatic, so you have human intervention with automation. That's the hardest thing to combine, which is essentially what you're kind of trying to do there. So you've got some inputs from a human and then it goes to your VA who's then going and deciphering through, and then she tries to put it in and now you're trying to automate another part. To come back to you and everything, that's always the hardest part. I mean, you know that from computer science side to having human inputs, how do you automate that? Or figure out how to systematize I guess probably be a better way to say that systematize it where then you can go and do more computations and everything it, where then you can go and do more computations and everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the big benefit there is AI, like ChatGPT, has the potential to have the full context of my podcast. My VA does transcribe every episode, but she doesn't. As far as I know, she doesn't have an eidetic memory and so she doesn't remember everything, surely? But ChatGPT also knows the kind of things I'm thinking through for an eidetic memory and so she doesn't remember everything, surely? Yeah, um, but chat gpt also knows the kind of things I'm thinking through for future episodes and so it has the context of my thinking process. Hopefully, um, and it, you know it it will do, I think, a better job of summarizing the parts that are important to me in the context of the prompt I give it, uh, whereas you know, my VA is really good at a few, uh, at a bunch of things.
Speaker 2:Right, if she left, honestly, if she left, I'm like the wheels would fall off pretty fast, um, but I like she's been like sick this week and so I'm like, oh, I got to publish my episode, I've got to do it. Oh, man, that's why that example was fresh in my mind. But you know, she doesn't necessarily know what I'm planning for the future the kind of topics I want to cover. Her doing the initial gathering is great, and then feeding that into an AI that has the full context, um, will get me closer to where I want to be by the time all of that stuff gets to me, and then and then, ultimately, I'll use all of that to make a decision on when I what if I want to have them on the show or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I like that great system there. I appreciate you explaining that, something that we've talked about a little bit. I would love to kind of go back into this because I think we're all guilty of that, and I'd probably say more so as men, because you know, we can't ask for directions. We just know where we're going and stuff like that too. But when it comes to the business and trying to let go of things, you know that's our baby, that's the thing that we do. So what was finally a catalyst for you to start to let go of those things, whether it was through the VA or through automations?
Speaker 2:In November 2020, I had a panic attack. That's really what it was, because my wife's a nurse. It was the middle, I guess, of the pandemic. Maybe it was the height, right, it was flu season and whatever. She was working a lot. The height, right, it was flu season and whatever. Yeah, she was working a lot.
Speaker 2:Uh, my oldest was three and my middle list was the youngest and he was just a few months old at that point and because school was closed and she still had to work, I was watching the kids and I was running my business part-time, but my business was still the one bringing in most of the income. And so one day, my son threw up and my oldest is having a hard time and I hadn't worked in a few days and I had my first ever and only panic attack. I'm sitting on the floor of my kitchen, I'm crying and my daughter brings me a bottle of water and a towel and she says it's going to be okay, daddy, and I thought this isn't okay. My three-year-old shouldn't be taking care of me, and so I got myself together and I made a promise to myself that I physically couldn't do it at that time, and so fast forward about a year later it was November 8th I had, so it was like we just passed.
Speaker 2:As we record this sorry, I'm like timestamping your podcast the four year anniversary, right Of this my first and only panic attack. And fast forward a year later my youngest is born and I took an entire month off uh, paternity to spend time with my family. Um, because I had those processes in place and so I'm doing this. This is also when, like, the scope of my podcast changed. I don't want parents to have panic attacks because they don't feel like they can handle everything that they have to handle. And it was a really important kind of nexus in my life and I'm not happy. I had the panic attack, but I'm happy. Something finally forced me to be less hands-on in my business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and unfortunately that's how that happens. Sometimes Things that are maybe out of our control a little bit happen and it forces our hand to do something, and good thing you had that perspective. I've heard of business owners that crazy things will happen to them and they're like oh, I just keep going, no big deal, rub some dirt on it, keep going, it's sad that we do that.
Speaker 2:I know guys who had heart attacks. I'm 39. They were younger than me and they had heart attacks and died because they were so stressed about their business. My kids and my family are my prime objective, like the be there and take care of them, and so, yeah, I mean the perspective. Like you said, everything changes with kids. It's easy. It was easy for me to to make that change.
Speaker 2:The last thing I'll say here I was listening to. I don't want what I'm about to say to be construed as a political statement. I listen to a lot of different political podcasts on both sides of the aisle, but one of my favorite is the Remnant by Jonah Goldberg. I just think he's a really smart, down-to-earth guy who's very consistent in his views, and he was doing an interview with a politician and he quoted a philosopher that basically said and he was doing an interview with a politician and he quoted a philosopher that basically said hey, most people need to feel the pain to make the change, and that's a paraphrase, but it's absolutely true. Right, in web development, whenever I tried to get people to take preventative action to to save their data and not have their site hacked, they would say no, and then their site would get hacked and then they'd end up paying me twice yep um, and so I don't want people to feel that pain.
Speaker 2:I hope my story was enough for people to be like oh man, I got to do less. For whatever reason, if you don't have kids, maybe it's just like can you sit on your patio and read a book without picking up your phone? Can you go visit your parents? Maybe your parents are getting older? Can you go visit your parents? You just take a vacation, right, yeah, those things are so important to our like work is not everything, no matter what gary v or alex hormosi says, right, like work is not everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm on a mission to to help people see and internalize that I love it, and that's a lot of why I started my business, too, is to help myself, but then it turned into helping other people out as well, to be able to get that time back, because we only have so much time, especially as being a parent also, it's such an important thing to be able to still get things done even when I'm not doing it. And so this is, joe. I appreciate you sharing that, especially that story, man, that's. That's something that's hard to share, for sure, but it's definitely something that needs to be shared so others can know that, hey, you need to make a change, things need to happen.
Speaker 1:This is there's something possible. You don't have to be the only one to do it, and I think, as business owners, that's the hardest thing is to let go of that piece of your baby, because you think you need to do every single thing and you don't, and you can't, not for the long run. Yes, at first you're going to do that because you don't have the resources to do it or there's not that much work, but eventually you have to start letting some of that go so you can be able to do the things that you want to do, like for us spending time with our children and and our wives, of course, as well but yeah, with our family. Yeah, that's a second though, yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that reminds me of like ryan. Ryan reynolds said when his first daughter was born like uh, he said that he thought like uh, his wife blake lively. Uh, he said like oh, before my daughter was born, like I would take a bullet for my wife and there was nothing that would change that. As soon as my daughter was born, I realized that I would use my wife as a shield to protect that child. And I know he's's joking, but it's kind of funny that. It's funny how much your perspective does change.
Speaker 2:And I'll end with this because there's something not that I'm wrapping up your show, but I no, we were getting there, man, so you're right there on the right path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I delegated the wrapping up of my show to you. Perfect.
Speaker 2:Perfect. It bums me out when I talk to people and I ask them what hobbies they have and they say, oh, my work is my hobby. And some people will look at that and say, great, you're doing what you love for your job. But I look at that and I say, when do you stop thinking about work? But I look at that and I say, when do you stop thinking about work?
Speaker 2:Isn't there something else that you could do to work a different muscle or part of your brain or give you a different perspective on way? That, I think, gives you a very narrow worldview and you need to make time for hobbies. Right, I play the drums, I do Lego with my kids or without my kids, because I like doing Lego. I smoke cigars, I watch baseball, I smoke cigars, I watch baseball and all of those things exercise a different part of my brain. And let me think about a different problem. And the side effect of that is that when I come to do my job, I have maybe a different way of solving my own problems that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. You know we definitely need to get outside of our jobs or our businesses, for sure, and do that. But yeah, that comes with, like we said, the delegation and the automation. But for those of you that are listening right now, I know you got something out of this. Make sure that you go take some action on that, whether it be deciding that, you know what I need to start figuring my life out. I'm figuring this business out. It doesn't matter Automate, delegate, whatever you need to do, but at least use that framework, the PER framework, perform the task, evaluate it and remove it in one way, shape or form. But, joe, once again, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. If people want to get in touch with you, where's the best place for them to go?
Speaker 2:You can check out my podcast, streamlined Solopreneur, where I talk about all sorts of stuff like this. If you go to streamlinedfm slash sessions, I will have the subscribe buttons real easy there for you. But I also have a subscribe buttons real easy there for you. But I'll also have a free resource for you if you want to get my automations database to see what's possible.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, Joe, thanks for that and thank you again for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. This was great.
