How to Design the Life You Want w/ Dr. Bo Bennett

Does designing the life you want feel like a pipe dream to you?

Today's guest, Dr. Bo Bennett shares how it's possible to design the life you want no matter what that looks like.  His surprising journey as an entrepreneur will leave you wondering, "Could I do that?"

I'm here to tell you and Dr. Bo agrees, Yes. You. Can!

We examined how to define personal success by carving out a niche that resonates deeply with our aspirations. 

Bo, with a background that includes social psychology and entrepreneurship, sheds light on his philosophy of humanism and how it guides his approach to life. His insights on starting a podcast driven by his passion for public speaking are a testament to the value of creating content that's true to oneself, all while fostering genuine connections.

This episode is more than just another interview; it's a masterclass in stepping out of your comfort zone. We discussed the early struggles that come with starting a podcast and acknowledged the pivotal shift required to truly resonate with our audience.

To conclude, Bo imparts some seasoned podcasting wisdom, focusing on the delicate balance of aligning your work with the expectations of your listeners and your own creative spark. 

So if you're struggling to maintain a balance between your passion and giving your audience what they love, do not miss this episode.

Follow this podcast for more insight, tools, and strategies in podcasting. Also, please support the show by becoming a member. Thanks.

Transcript

Bo Bennett, PhD: 0:00

Keep that in mind, who you're podcasting to what your listeners want to hear, but also what you want to say, and make sure that there's a match.

J. Rosemarie: 0:11

My guest today is social psychologist, entrepreneur, author, producer, humorous programmer and Dr Bo Bennett. Welcome Bo.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 0:24

Thank you, it's good to be here.

J. Rosemarie: 0:26

Yes, for sure. All right, before we get into what you do, could you tell us who is Bo Bennett?

Bo Bennett, PhD: 0:32

Sure, well, you pretty much covered it, at least the summary part of it. I do a lot of different things in addition to business. I'm a father, husband and I enjoy I enjoy uh, exercise and uh just just being outside a lot. That's pretty much me. But uh, in, in terms of work and what I do, I, um, I've been working my own businesses ever since I was like in college, actually even before, like in grade school I never had a quote real job and I love it that way. And in the past I guess 20 years after I sold my first company of significant value I've been doing things that I really love doing, that I want to do business related like programming, creating different businesses and websites, doing podcasts I started a few different podcasts, writing books and actually went back to school to get my PhD in social psychology, so that was a lot of work too.

J. Rosemarie: 1:38

Yeah, I bet All right. So this wasn't one of my planned questions, but it just dawned on me when you're talking about not ever working for anyone, and this idea came to you while you were still in school. What was the motivation?

Bo Bennett, PhD: 1:58

Well, my parents were both independently employed, if you want to call it that. My father was an inventor, so he always worked from our basement. So I didn't know anything different and it was really odd to me when I went over my friend's house and they said, oh, my father's at work, what do you mean? He's at work, where does he go? My dad works, he works in the basement. So it was kind of an alien concept to me. But it was something that I grew up with and I really loved the idea. I liked how my father had that kind of freedom and I got to spend so much time with him a little too much time actually but I thought that that would be great for my kids and it was. It was great for me as well, so I really enjoyed it.

J. Rosemarie: 2:42

Okay, all right, good, thank you. I'm always intrigued by that insight. All right, so I'm going through we met on Podmatch and I'm going through your profile and I see a couple of words that I'm not really sure I understand. So the first one is humanist. What is that? Can you explain what a humanist is?

Bo Bennett, PhD: 3:04

Sure, humanists. What is that? Can you explain what a humanist is? Sure, Basically it's a philosophy. Some call it a religion, but it's kind of like a non-religion religion, if that makes sense. There's no supernatural, there are no beings or anything. It's just basically the idea that humanity is what's most important and that's what we need to focus on, like in this life, focusing on humanity. That would be the, that's the basis, the foundation of humanism, and that's what I like ascribe to. However, I've noted before that the American form of humanism has gotten very political and I don't like that. I really like just to keep things simple and I don't want to be bundled in with a bunch of political beliefs that I don't really subscribe to. So I'm not a fan of the label. However, at the core I still am am very much a humanist.

J. Rosemarie: 4:06

Okay, all right, thank you. Thank you for explaining that. And you mentioned selling a business, a successful business, and you meant you're a podcaster as well.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 4:20

Yes. Yeah, I can talk about that as well.

J. Rosemarie: 4:23

Yes, I'd love for you to mention, to talk about that as well. So, having I know you had your parents as examples, but you've had your own success. What does that success mean to you?

Bo Bennett, PhD: 4:46

my company, my first company of significant value was in 2004. And the first chapter was all about define success. What does success mean to you? And it's the importance of you have to define it yourself, because if you don't, you never know what you're actually going to go for, what you're trying to get, and you're not going to know when you actually have it.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 4:59

So it's important to really define it and what it means for you personally. For me it basically meant on the financial side. It meant kind of financial freedom, not having to worry about money, being able to do the things I want to do because I want to do them. And I realized too that just like lying on the beach or or fooling around, like that's not what I wanted to do. I really wanted to contribute, I wanted to build, I wanted to create, and fortunately those kinds of services usually reflect in some kind of income as well. So I was able to keep that financial freedom. And then the personal side of it it it meant, besides doing, what I really like is just having good relationships in my life, and I focus on that as well.

J. Rosemarie: 5:48

Okay, All right. Yeah, it helps to know to define your own success. Otherwise you get a little confused when someone is pushing their success agenda on you, right?

Bo Bennett, PhD: 6:02

Sure yeah.

J. Rosemarie: 6:03

Yeah, okay, all right, so tell us about your podcast.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 6:08

Well, currently I don't have any podcasts, but I started podcasting I think it was back in 2010. It was it was really early on and my years are getting a little confused when I actually started this, but I was involved in an organization called Toastmasters International and it's all about public speaking, if you're familiar with that, and I wanted to, well, do more of that, basically do more public speaking and I found out about this thing called podcasting and it was really cool how you could have like your own radio show over the internet and I just thought that was the best idea. So I started, with a friend of mine, a podcast for our local Toastmasters club and then I made it just kind of like our state, so in the state of Massachusetts, I covered like all the area clubs and news and information, and then it really took off. So I proposed it to Toastmasters International, the international organization, and they loved the idea. So we became the official podcast of Toastmasters International. So we transferred all the rights over to them and I ran that podcast for probably about eight years. It's still going now.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 7:25

Um, however, I'm not a host, even though my picture is still on there. The the current host never got a chance to update the icon but I haven't done it in a few years. But that was like a really successful podcast that took off and it's been going on for over a decade an episode a week about.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 7:43

Yeah, and then in addition to that, I've done a lot of other small little podcasts that I just kind of lost interest. They didn't pick up the steam, and you know how it is Like if you have the feeling that nobody's listening. You kind of get bored, so you stop doing it.

J. Rosemarie: 7:59

All right, okay, so let's get into a little bit about podcasting. I know it's not your main thing right now, but I always like to get a feel for why you started the podcast. I know what the topic was, but why did you feel that that was the media to go to use, and what are some of the challenges you face while you were, you know, starting and growing that podcast? Sure?

Bo Bennett, PhD: 8:33

Well, I'll talk about the Toastmasters podcast first. I mentioned how I just really wanted to talk. I wanted to practice public speaking and that was a good way to do it and I really enjoyed. Well, my co-host and I we were like best friends, so I really enjoyed speaking with him and just chatting and it was a lot of fun. So here was an opportunity to possibly get compensated for talking to my best friend about things we enjoy talking about. So how could you go wrong? So that was one of the main reasons for starting it.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 9:03

One of the challenges we had is kind of funny and when we were creating the podcast and writing the episodes and talking about things, we were, I guess, like alienating a lot of the audience because we didn't really define our niche, like we didn't really define our voice, like what are we going to be? Who are we going to cater to? And it turned out like initially, my friend Ryan and I we were just talking, like we talked to each other, joking around and laughing. We were having a great time and, granted, there was a tiny segment of our audience who absolutely loved it, right, but the majority of them just really wanted some like information, kind of more serious information on Toastmasters International. They wanted tips on public speaking. They wanted something, basically, that we weren't providing them.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 10:00

So that was one of the lessons we learned early on. It's that we really have to understand our audience and what they want and then kind of cater to them. So when we actually did transfer the rights over to Toastmasters International, we took a different direction and it became more of a serious podcast. You know, every now and then we'll throw in a little humor, but the organization, they didn't really like that that much. They just wanted us to stay on target and do some kind of serious interviews, and so that's what we did and that's why I like. Frankly, that's why I got bored and it wasn't for me, so that's why I stepped out.

J. Rosemarie: 10:37

It wasn't fun anymore, right? Yeah, yeah. My co-hosts, the ones doing it now, but we're trying to serve others as well, and so we have to know how to create that balance so that we don't scare away our audience, right? Sure, yeah, yeah, okay, all right. So you had this question. What is so important about uncomfortable ideas?

Bo Bennett, PhD: 11:12

All right, one of the books I wrote is uncomfortable ideas.

J. Rosemarie: 11:16

Okay.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 11:17

And I wrote that book because I was discovering that conversation was changing in a way that more topics were becoming taboo. And that was kind of odd to me, given becoming taboo. And that was kind of odd to me, given, like, how we progress as a society. You would think that the things that you can't talk about, like in the 1950s and 1960s, you could talk about them now and communication was more open. But I discovered well, I really discovered, I realized that it was going the wrong way.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 11:53

And there were more and more of these uncomfortable ideas that people didn't want to talk about. They were things that people didn't want to say out loud, and if you did say them out loud then you were like socially penalized for doing that. So I wanted to write a book from a psychological perspective, about, like why you know why this happens. What are uncomfortable ideas? What categories do they fall in? Why do we avoid them? What happens if we do? What happens if we don't? And my recommendations basically are is and not to avoid uncomfortable ideas, but to be open to them, to talk about them, and then also kind of draw that line between, uh, the difference between an uncomfortable idea and like a totally inappropriate conversation or like something that you wouldn't have with a certain people in a certain situation, and then also, uh, I kind of delineate between the idea of like an uncomfortable idea and honestly talking and discussing, like academically especially, an uncomfortable idea versus a kind of an excuse just to um, talk about or get out your like hatred or or bigotry or uh, whatever. You know there's a difference with that too. So I wanted to really write all about that from a um, from a psychological perspective and outline that, and that's what the book's about. It's a. It's a lot of fun.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 13:27

And I even tell people in the book like, uh, you're going to be offended, like absolutely, because I didn't write the, because I didn't write the book from a certain religious, political or sociological perspective. I did all perspectives. So I threw out ideas from, like, all different beliefs and walks of life that may be uncomfortable to people. So I usually get the responses and I get comments and feedback Say, oh Beau, I loved your book, it was great, but you know what, I didn't quite agree with you when you said this. Or there's always something, yeah, and I tried to make it clear too Like these aren't my ideas, these are just ideas that are uncomfortable, that you should think about. So people don't usually listen to that too. They just kind of take it personally, yeah.

J. Rosemarie: 14:18

It's a shame really. The other day I was thinking about when I was growing up as a college student. Debate was one of the big things, and not necessarily about politics, but about everything. And somebody would shoot off their mat and say something and we'd all debate. There was no fight and we hugged and kissed and drank beer after we were done. But nowadays it's a lot more. What's the word I'm looking for? Violent, isn't it? Discussions, yeah, yeah.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 14:48

It's unfortunate too, because people appear to have stronger identities, personal identities, and they attach their identities to their religious, their political or their sociological beliefs. And when they do that, if you're questioning a belief, then it's like you're questioning them and you're attacking them personally. That's how they feel, but that's not the way it is and it's not the way it should be. If you're attacking, like, a specific belief or you have ideas against a certain belief, then you should make that clear and the person should kind of detach themselves from that belief and just look at the belief and understand like look, I am not that belief. I happen to hold that belief, I happen to have that belief, but I am not that belief. That belief is separate from me.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 15:43

And if you go into debate or argumentation or even just a good conversation with somebody with that mindset, you're going to be much better off and much more open-minded to get rid of that belief. Disassociate that belief or idea with you if you are convinced that it's not a good idea. But that's the problem when it's part of you, when you see that belief and idea as part of you, it is virtually impossible to say that's not a good idea or that's wrong, because you're essentially saying you're not a good idea and you're wrong and people don't like to do that.

J. Rosemarie: 16:21

Yeah, I know, and do you think that, and forgive me for misinterpreting what the term humanist means do you think that it's because we're not viewing each other as human beings anymore?

Bo Bennett, PhD: 16:38

Well, that's part of it.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 16:40

I mean, there are ideas in psychology where we dehumanize other people and we do that by calling them animals or associating them with animals, and that's a common way to do it.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 16:56

But there's other ways and when we do that, of course, yeah, we don't see each other as human beings.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 17:02

But I guess one of the core philosophies of humanism basically and I even go beyond humanism to an idea called centriocentrism which basically is you respect like all forms of life in proportion to how sentient that form of life is or is likely to be. Since we can't really directly detect the sentience of every form of life, we have a pretty good idea. For example, we know that pigs are incredibly intelligent and incredibly sentient beings as opposed to like a chicken, which is like far down the ladder and we could tell from like their cognitive activity and other factors. So it's clear and like a fish too, and then like a worm, and there's a certain hierarchy. But to respect and see like all life as something that's important and something that's meaningful, because we give meaning to it, then when you do that and you see other human beings as sort of like the top of the ladder in terms of that life. Then you do start treating people differently and you see as like you're all connected.

J. Rosemarie: 18:22

Okay, all right, thank you. I am enjoying this conversation, but tell us how you help your clients and how we can get in touch with you.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 18:32

Sure, yeah, I've got two websites. One is Archieboycom, that's my business website, where you could see a lot of my different businesses, and the other one is my personal website where you can see all of my books, and that's bobennettcom B-O-B-E-N-N-E-T-Tcom.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 18:49

And that's where I'm currently, where you currently find my books. One website I do want to mention current project that I'm working on that's really exciting, to me at least is called bookbudai. That's B-O-O-K-B-U-DAI and that's a website. I'm using artificial intelligence to help authors create nonfiction books and publish everything. So create like an ebook, a print book and an audio book within a few hours and then have everything published.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 19:20

Now what's great about your audience is I'm assuming your audience are people who do podcasting or interesting podcasting which is perfect, because one of the best ways, as you probably know, to really advertise and promote your podcast is to have your name out there. Get your name out there and just imagine if you could write a book on your topic like you might write a book on the art of podcasting or something and everybody has a book that they could write on about what they're podcasting about, and then you put your information or contact in your podcast information, podcast information in the book itself. You've got like the most incredible business card that you could get out there. You could sell the book, you could even give it away. So normally you couldn't do that, because it takes like months and months to write a book, but with BookBudai you could literally do this in a few hours. So it's an amazing opportunity and it's cheap too, compared to like paying ghostwriters, and it's so much cheaper.

J. Rosemarie: 20:17

So check it out All right. So that's Bookai. It's BookBud, bookbudai. We'll put that link in the show notes as well. Cool, thank you, that's very interesting. I like that. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Okay, so what's Dr Bo?

Bo Bennett, PhD: 20:34

grateful for today. I'm grateful for this interview. I thank you for it. You're welcome. The day is young, so I'm sure I'm going to be grateful for other things, but right now I'm grateful for you. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.

J. Rosemarie: 20:45

Yeah, thank you for coming. I appreciate your time. Any parting shots, a piece of advice for a podcast or anything?

Bo Bennett, PhD: 20:53

Well, I think one of the things that we discuss is really good it's just define your audience. Think about who you're podcasting to and it's always a tricky situation because, like I said, I found out who I was podcasting to and it's always a tricky situation because, like I said, I found out who I was podcasting to and it ended in me getting out of the podcast because it wasn't what I wanted to do. So if you can keep that in mind who you're podcasting to, what your listeners want to hear, but also what you want to say and make sure that there's a match, because if there is that match, then it's going to be fantastic. But if there's not that match you're talking about something your audience doesn't want to hear, or your audience wants to hear something you don't want to talk about then that's kind of a recipe for failure.

J. Rosemarie: 21:35

Yes, thank you. Thank you, Dr Bobeni, for coming and talking to us on Tools of the Podcast Trade. I appreciate you.

Bo Bennett, PhD: 21:41

You bet, thank you.