Podcasting Momentum - The Marketing Flywheel for your Businesss
Welcome to Podcasting Momentum, the show that helps business owners and marketing managers like you get to the heart of what makes a podcast successful. In each episode, we will do a deep dive with fellow podcasters to uncover the real stories behind their shows. We skip the small talk and get straight to the actionable advice that will help you gain traction and build a loyal audience with your podcast.
From the origin story of a show to the technical challenges and strategic pivots along the way, we'll give you an inside look at how real podcasters build momentum. You'll learn how to overcome common mistakes, create engaging content, and turn your podcast into a powerful business asset.
We focus on the topics that matter most, including:
- The Origin Story: Discover why people start their podcast and the specific problem it was designed to solve.
- Overcoming Challenges: You will learn how podcasters navigate technical hurdles, audience growth issues, and even major life changes that could get in the way.
- Audience-Centric Content: We will help you understand how to provide real value to your listeners, making them a part of your journey, not just a metric. This is where they turn into customers, not just downloads.
- The Business Impact: Explore how a podcast can be a powerful tool for your business and lead to new clients and opportunities. It's not just about an audio file that you're sharing. This is audio, video, reels, blogs, emails, and more!
Your podcast can be one of your most powerful marketing tools. It's a way to establish yourself as an expert in your field, build trust with your audience, and create a continuous stream of content for your entire marketing ecosystem. From the core audio and video content to repurposed blogs, social media posts, email newsletters, and more, a single conversation can power your content for weeks.
Ready to level up your podcast? We've got you covered. Sign up for a free 30-minute no pitch podcast consultation with Josh and his team to get personalized feedback on your podcasting journey. You'll walk away with actionable tips on improving your camera and microphone setup, and how to structure your show for maximum impact.
Podcasting Momentum - The Marketing Flywheel for your Businesss
Success Isn’t a Destination: The Life Pivots Nobody Warns You About
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What happens when you follow the roadmap to success only to discover the destination doesn't exist?
In this episode, we sit down with James Walter, creator of the Joyful Rebellion podcast, to discuss the unexpected twists, career pivots, and life-changing moments that force us to redefine success. After spending more than three decades as a professional wedding photographer, James found himself navigating personal challenges, questioning fulfillment, and ultimately building a podcast dedicated to helping people discover purpose beyond traditional definitions of achievement.
We explore why success doesn't always create happiness, how adversity often leads to growth, the power of storytelling, and what makes truly memorable podcast conversations. James also shares insights from interviewing people who have overcome major life obstacles and transformed those experiences into opportunities to help others.
Whether you're a business owner, podcaster, marketer, or someone navigating a major life transition, this conversation offers a valuable perspective on embracing uncertainty and finding meaning in the journey.
Topics Covered:
- Why success and fulfillment aren't always the same thing
- Career pivots and reinventing yourself
- The transition from photography to podcasting
- Finding purpose through storytelling
- Building meaningful podcast conversations
- What makes a great podcast guest
- The business and personal impact of podcasting
- Lessons learned from interviewing resilient people
If you're interested in brand building with podcasting, marketing with podcasting, podcasting for marketing, client attraction podcasting, and practical tips for podcasting, you'll find plenty of insights throughout this episode.
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We're always taught that success is a destination. We're supposed to go from point A to point B, but really, when you get into life, you think that point B doesn't exist. And there's all sorts of questions around why that happens. Like, am I lost? Can I like, did I do this wrong? All those types of things. This week's guest has made a podcast talking with people about where they ended up, how they ended up there and what the pivot was that got them there. It's a really good one. You're going to want to stay tuned. James, thanks for coming on the show today. I got to give the, the the shout out here. First off, three decades as a wedding photographer, as someone that does some photography myself, anyone that can do weddings, I have instant respect for because there is not a snowball's chance in July that I would be able to take even remotely decent pictures of a wedding, let alone dealing with bridezillas and all those other things. So my kudos to you for three decades of that. But you went through a series of life altering events where you're like, okay, now what the hell do I do? Um, yeah, from that, you built a Joyful Rebellion podcast. Um, you're talking about success and how it doesn't always bring fulfillment and how there's a pivot in things. Is that a good way to summarize that? Yeah, that's a really good way because it, it comes down to living that adventure that we call life. And sometimes you think you've got the roadmap and then you're like, whoa, they the road's not here anymore. I was like, what happened? I was going, I was going, going down the road. And suddenly it wasn't a road anymore. AM I bad at reading maps or does the road does not exist anymore? Or is this a really old map or what's going on? Exactly. And sometimes I think so many of my guest people I talk to, and I've had this happen, and it happens at different stages in life in different ways. So it's not just a midlife crisis thing. It's not just a I'm getting ready to change careers kind of deal. It's like, hey, all this stuff I've been told for so long that was going to work in this adventure called life, that was going to either work to make me successful. And if I became successful, it was going to work to make me happy about it. Yeah. It doesn't always work. No, that's what I like to talk to people about. It's so funny you say that. And I love that because like I was sold the you go to college, you get a job and you're just happily ever after. And I found step number one, which was go to college. Absolutely horrifying and miserable for me that. So I'm like, well, I skip step one. How the hell is the rest of things supposed to happen? Yeah, you just tumble down the hill from there, right? The visual you get. Yeah. Right. Why, like, why did you go to a podcast for this? I mean, I know it's, it's the like to me, I do it for the stories that where it stemmed from. But what, what made you think? Yeah, you know, podcast, I'm going to spend my entire life in front of a microphone and camera talking to people. Yeah. Well, it's funny you mention the, the wedding photography because it is something I did for a long time. And I went, I actually went to college for photography and back then that was the nineties. And it was for me. I was passionate and really into commercial photography because I love to be able to create what I thought at the time. You know, being twenty, you see the world really different. Nineteen, twenty years old. And I was thinking, oh, I'm going to get to work for companies. I'm going to get to shoot some of their ads and work for magazines and maybe shoot some fashion. And that was really appealing. It sounded creative. And I did that for a while until it became boring, because if you have too much control all the time, and that's, that's the whole game of advertising, photography, you have control over everything. Absolutely everything. There's no windows in the studio. If it looks like sunlight streaming in, it's because you put a light outside of a fake wall and you streamed in that sunlight, and you made it look a certain way to give people that emotional feel about whatever product they're looking at. So that was fascinating for like a solid ten years for me. But then I needed more of a, I need more of a challenge. And the one thing that I never thought I'd do when I was in school was wedding photography. Because like, that's, that's something you only do like on Saturdays and you're working with all these amateurs. They're not models. They don't know what they're doing. Well, I realized that that's exactly the challenge I needed in my life at the time. People showing up, maybe showing up, but if they do, some of them, they show up on different medications than you would hope for. And it's like, that was a very polite way to put that. Yeah. And sometimes you, you scout out the location a week or two before and now it's under construction. So you have to figure out what to do. But but then the thunderstorms coming through because I live in the south where, you know, the, the weather is basically on meth most of the year. And it's like, you don't know what you're gonna get. So you have to be prepared. And at the same time, you have to deliver good images. And what I'm getting down to is, is it comes down to, like you said, those stories and I'd been telling other people's stories. Other companies stories for so long. And then I started to go through some things in my own life and some things in life. They don't really they're not happening to you. They're happening around you, but it definitely pulls you in. And so if it's something happening to close family, then you've got to react to that. And maybe it didn't. Maybe it's a health thing that's not affecting your physical body, but it's still taking a lot of your thoughts, your energy, your attention to be there for those people. And that's what was going on for me about fifteen years ago now. And it was just one thing after the other, though. So it was a big series of things that made me step up, be really responsible, and kind of made me forget myself for an extended period of time. And going through that, I realized that there were a lot of other people going through that. And then I found this thing called a podcast, and I started listening to them. I was a consumer at that point of podcasts. I was not a producer of them because I was still over here in my world of taking pictures, telling people's stories through images, and a lot of those podcasts that I was listening to at the time, they were like on the personal growth side, and they were just helping me figure out, okay, where are my blind spots? What, what do I need to pay more attention to in my own life and my own habits and my own day to day to figure out how to get to this place called happiness? And I was even reading books on being happy. I just wasn't happy. And there was a point at which I was like, you know what? I could listen to more of these, or I could go have actual conversations with people. My whole career involved being in a person's world for a specific amount of time and recording that somehow. I used a camera with podcasts. We use audio equipment and cameras as well, and then I would take that story through an editing process, and then I would release it to either the world or, or that family or whatever was appropriate for the job I was doing. So the workflow of podcasting was like, this is I'm used to this, but now I get to have conversations with really cool people who have a story to share. And the cool thing I found about people who have been through stuff is they figure it out nine times out of ten, and then they come out on the other side wanting to help other people who are going through similar stuff. And that's where you get people who went through the crushing depression, and they wrote a book about how they got through it or they, you know, had big upheavals in their life and they decoded it for themselves. And now they are a coach who wants to help other people, maybe going through something similar. So that's what I get to do every week now. And it's really, it's filled my life with a lot of joy that I probably wouldn't have had if I was just going to stick to taking pictures. I love that because that really does go along with the, the kind of the old saying of smooth seas don't make for great sailors. You got to go through some rough patches. And those are typically some phenomenal people that you can find and stuff like that. When you're looking for guests, it's always something that's difficult. It's always something that's tough. I mean, we joked about it, we talked for five minutes before the show started, and we joked about how guests sometimes are wonderful, and sometimes they surprise you with what they come out with and all those other things when you're looking for a guest. What are some of the things that you're looking at and both from, what do you want out of the guest and what are you looking to grow for yourself with that? For me, I'm looking for some sense of depth. And what I mean by that is a lot of times we're going based off of their bio, we're going on a little profile. I'm always looking for a little bit of quirkiness, a little bit of whimsy that speaks to me because if they are willing to just put it out there and talk about their, some of their darkest times sometimes, and my, my show is not all about the darkest things that ever happened to people. Try to keep it uplifting, try to keep it, uh, in a direction where people want to end up and not just focusing on the negative stuff, but when it comes to looking at someone, maybe hearing their voice, hearing how they relate, do they have those three word answers? Or are they willing to go down a rabbit hole with me? Because it's not one of those shows where I have a set list of questions and I say, tell me about the way your life started. And I've had a couple of those. I've been on a few of those shows and I'm like, oh, wow, okay. You see, I'm old, right? This goes back a long time and are you sure we want to start there? Can we start like six months ago or maybe even five years ago? But this, this do we have enough time for this? Yeah, yeah. This I, this is like a, is this like, uh, what season one of my back story, right? Because it goes back a ways. Once again, there's enough gray in my beard to, to go along the same lines here. My story did not start yesterday. Yeah. And I'd love to have a conversation with my guest. And if I feel like it's the kind of guest who is up for that and not just going down a checklist of bullet points or presentation notes, then that's what gets me excited about someone, because I do love to dive into the story, and I tend to want to figure out an angle that they haven't really talked about yet. And I'll be really up front at the beginning of my time with them when they when they get on and we haven't hit record yet, I'll just say, look, I know you've been on a lot of podcasts. I know you're promoting your book and I know you get a lot of the same questions, but is there anything you wish you were asked, or is there anything that no one's really let you talk about or a riff on that you would really love to cover. And some of them think about it and they're like, no, no, I'm good. I'm, I'm good to roll with it. That's like nine times out of ten. But every once in a while that one person will say, you know what? I've done like five podcast interviews this week and no one's asked me about this. And I think this is really important. So can we talk about that? And I'm like, absolutely. And then I have to figure out really quick, okay, how do I work? How do I work this in? But it usually works out. How do I put this in there? Speaking. Speaking of authors and books, you have a couple of books yourself, correct? That's true, that's true. Have you found as a host, I know we like everyone in podcasting. I mean, I know we all kind of joke about it that in so many cases, if you just want to find a guest for your podcast, just look at what books have come out in your area, send them a message. And those people will be like, oh my gosh, let me on every single podcast, and you can always tell when someone's released a book because they go on podcasts every podcast they can for four months, and then they disappear off the face of the planet. It's like, right, they're just gone. And then like, once they get that initial run of the book sold and they're like, okay, I'm good. I don't need to come back here anymore. But with that, with you having books like have. Have you noticed that the podcast has driven anyone to, to your books? Have you. Has it driven anyone to your website? Like, like I the real question that I'm kind of trying to get to is like, what's been. I know there's a huge personal impact for you. What's been some of the business impact for you? I've treaded really lightly on that and probably to my detriment because I was so focused in the beginning on the craft of the podcast. And then the next. I was really focused. Once I got all the craft, as far as I was concerned, down where I wanted it to be, and everything's in evolution. But when I got that part down, then I started thinking about the guest experience and the quality of the guest. And so every day I keep thinking, oh, I need to slide something about my book into this. Or if I'm coming out with something new or if I'm doing this speaking engagement, you know, let people know about it. I have always been behind the scenes. This is the first time I've actually not been behind the scenes telling someone else's story. I'm kind of along with the listener. So I am trying to retrain myself to be that host who is not behind the scenes as much as I was used to as a photographer. So that's a long way of answering the question, what have I seen business wise? I have seen people get interested in going to my website, going to some of the other things that I do that have nothing to do with the podcast. And then that will manifest itself in the the discussions we have. Like if they send me a DM and it's like, hey, I had no idea you did, you know, X, Y, Z or you had written a book about the very first book I wrote was thirteen years ago, and it was about being a wedding photographer. It was a memoir of sorts. It was called Accessory to Marriage, and you can probably see the cover over my shoulder maybe. But it is a collection of stories because every person I met and they said, oh, what do you do? And I said, well, I take pictures. I'm a photographer. They automatically assume that meant weddings, and I don't know why, but this was around twenty ten, twenty thirteen. And when I wrote it, that was when all the reality, like bridezilla shows were happening and people were just so fascinated about being me, having the chance to be behind the scenes at all of these weddings, and they're thinking like, it's pandemonium. Things are going crazy every day. And I will say like, if you are in a world like a fish doesn't know that it's in water, right? And, and if I'm going to these things every single Saturday and I'm seeing all these emotional blow ups and things, well, that's just my Saturday. Whereas to other people, they're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that happened. I can't believe she said that to her mother in law or whatever the case is. And I'm like, no, that pretty much happened. I mean, you put people under stress. That's every week you put them in, you put them in uncomfortable clothes. And really a wedding is I mean, it is a theatrical production. It's got a script, it's got a stage, it's got wardrobe, it's got an audience, it's got a backstage where all the people backstage helping it go on. But the thing people don't think enough about is that it's a theatrical production with all amateur actors. They've rehearsed it once the night before, and they're hoping everything's going to be flawless. And I'm like, guys, that's not the way this works. Things are going to happen, things are going to get a little interesting. So I wrote a book about that and, uh, yeah, I've have had people who from the podcast discover that book because it's been out a long time and they're like, oh yeah, I had no idea. I'm like, oh, well, enjoy the stories. I truly love that. And the way you presented that as the amateur cast of characters, that really does lend it to the drama that unfolds. And, uh, yeah, no, I am not, I am not the type of person, like just in the short time that I have talked with you, I know that you're the type of person that can see that kind of drama and roll with it. I'm the type of person that sees that type of drama as like, I'm out of here. There is no nope, I'm not dealing with any of this. I am out of here. So kudos to you for having that skill set with that. You mentioned podcasting is not as hard as people think. Um, I truly love that because there's, I always feel like there's this knowledge gap that people have. Like when people see big shows like, let's say Smartless or, um, the, any of the podcasts or pivot or any, like anything like that. They see like this big machine working in the background. Mhm. Um, and then they see like the basic shows where they're like, yeah, that's, that's a little too amateur where someone's, someone's holding their cell phone talking into it and it looks like they're shaking. Like, I mean, like they're trying to pour out some salt. Um, yeah. When you say like podcasting is not as hard as people think. What's made it easy for you and what, like, what's the thing that the, the skill that has gotten easier for you over time with it? Um, that's, I love that question because I talk to people all the time. And I was like, oh, I'd love to start a podcast. I've got this angle, I've got this idea. And I just, I don't know enough about it to start. And I'm like, well, just, just start. I mean, hit it. Go talk to some people. I made the mistake when I started podcasting, I went to a big podcast convention and I thought, okay, I'm going to go check this out. It was in Vegas. So I mean, there was enough pulling me there. I was like, okay, let's go check out Vegas. And, and luckily there was a photo convention happening the week before. And then I could wrap that up and then roll right into the podcast thing. I was like, this is perfect. And I got there thinking I was going to learn about the craft. I was going to learn about microphones. I was going to learn about how to best record and best edit all this stuff, because it was all new to me. Instead, I learned a little bit about that stuff at the trade shows from the people who sold the things, but mostly it was about the business. It was about the networking, it was about monetization. And I was like, dude, I'm so far away from that that it's not even funny. So what I had to do is I had to get real with myself and say, look, I cannot compare my show or whatever my show is going to be to those big ones, to the ones that have all the sound design that have, you know, ten people on staff who can produce it, who can get the editing done. And then after all that, get the sound design. And then, oh, by the way, we've got the business department over here making the deals, maybe securing the, uh, you know, whatever, whatever deals you got going on with the sponsors and also maybe the, the guest and doing reciprocal, uh, interviews and that sort of thing. So I had to get real with myself and say, if I think about all that stuff, my head's going to explode. What I need to think about right now is getting some audio on a recorder and then taking it through the process of getting it out to a potential audience. Because at that point, I had no no guests. I'd had no audience, I had no recordings. I said, let's do that little step first, and then we'll think about all that other stuff when the time is right. So far, the time hasn't been right for all of it, but I'm getting I'm getting to where I'm hitting a stride that I feel really comfortable with quality wise. I'll put it that way. I love that, and to me, it's it's so interesting because I do see that at some of the podcast conventions and I understand why it's for the professionals, but it's, it's not always marketed that way. So someone's like, oh, hey, I can go learn about podcasting. And, uh, it's like learning how to drive by jumping in a race car. Um, it's like, wait a minute. What, what are all these buttons? Do you, don't you like your first time flying? You don't, you don't jump into a seven, seven, thirty seven or whatever. Um, you start in a two seater Cessna that has four buttons, six knobs and a stick. Um, there's a reason for that. I, I truly love that. And like, I love your willingness to, to just jump in and be like, ah, let's try it. Let's see what happens. Let's try it. Yeah. Why not? Uh, as you look towards the future, I know you've talked about reclaiming stories, and I know so many stories are, uh, this is one of the it's one of the reasons why I got into podcasting is because I get to, I get to talk to so many people and I get to hear their stories and I get to, I get to learn about them. And we. There's stories that I get to hear all the time that you may like. They may not ever have seen the light of day without a conversation like this. What's, uh, like is recording midlife breakthroughs, the is that the foreseeable future or what? Like, what do you see as the future as you start to move forward with your podcast? I'm kind of excited and a little bit, uh, hesitant. Not the word. I am interested to see what happens because it's unfolding in real time and it's so cliche, but it's also true in in my experience so far with the visual and the audio medium, that story is one of the most foundational. And it's one of the oldest things that makes us human. We're the only animal that passes down stories, and the more that a business or the more that an individual person can help other people either tell their story or share their story or celebrate their story, because we're all running around in our own little movie, right? We're, we're the lead character in our own movie. And to us, that's our story. But there are all these other things, the, the history, the, the past little nuances that make our story ours. But there are a lot of themes that sort of reoccur because we're human. But now we're, we're kind of rubbing up against this technology that is taking a lot of our humanity from us. And if anybody's wondering, it's AI. Yeah. And we are. That's a new thing that's been in the news recently. I haven't heard much about it. No, it's totally new. I am the first one to mention it on your show ever. Please give me that. No it is. It's creeping in. And I keep hearing people who are saying, oh, yeah, it's it's making us stupid. It's doing all these other things. And then the counterargument is no, it's like a tool. Just treat it like a tool. But there are parts of it that are stripping away. And social media has done this long before I ever showed up to the party is stripping away some of our humanity, and I feel like these stories are going to, no matter how we arrive at them, because there are a lot of new, really cool tools that are out there to help us get these stories to people a little and a little faster, a little wider, you know. Cast that net a little broader and hopefully those tools will help us keep that story, keep that humanity intact. And I, I kind of see people craving that a little bit more as we move into the future. That human to human, just storytelling exchange of that kind of thing. Because I feel like there's going to be a point in which we realize that we miss it. It's funny because in saying that, you made me realize something because we do a lot of stuff with AI in that, and I've realized that AI outputs are an aggregate. It's taking everyone's input and saying, okay, this is the average of that. So that's what I'm going to shove out. And the interest is truly in the individuals in that aggregate. It's, it's, that's where the interest is. I'm not interested in the the whole story because it's it's mushy. It's kind of this big fluff ball. Give me the hard things that are from those individual stories, those specific things. That's a I, it's a realization that I've really just kind of come to through that. I, I love that that's, that's a great way to put it. And capturing those stories is awesome. If like the question that I always like to start to wind down with is if you could give like that one piece of advice to someone that's thinking of starting a podcast and we may have already covered it may have already alluded to it, but I always tell people, you cannot say, just press record. That is the lamest answer ever. So I'm, I'm rug pulling that from you like actionable advice. What would you tell someone as maybe they're just they're a couple of episodes in. What would be that one thing where you'd be like, hey, this will move you forward or don't make this same mistake that I did that held me back. What would be that piece of advice? Oh man, I've got a lot. And none of it is about hitting record except one. But it's in the framework of nothing changes if nothing changes. I love that quote. Yeah, because I talk to a lot of people and I've been this person who was like, oh, I would love to start a podcast, but I need to know like, what's the best platform to host it and what's the best microphone going to be and what's the best way to go about? And I'll do that rabbit hole, like, what's the best this and that for, you know, till the cows come home, as we say in the South. But it's not until I actually do something and make some progress. So I would suggest just get out your phone. And the first thing to do for people who have never recorded a podcast before, just record your voice and get over that mortification of hearing your voice back. So record your voice. Sound like us and listen to it. And you're going to go, oh, that, that is awful. And then get used to that being the way your voice sounds. Unless you want to go to a voice coach. Then you can ease yourself into the next step. Okay, go have a conversation with someone and record it. Not to be distributed, but just to have a conversation. What are you asking? Questions that you wrote down on a piece of paper? Or did you do a little prep on the person? And it could be your parent, it could be your child. And just ask them, walk them through a story and see how that goes. See how that's comfortable for you, because you might find that you are a person who does need notes and you need to refer to those. And if you need notes and you want to really polished show, I would suggest the next thing you need to think about is how you're going to edit it, because some people can have an amazing flowing conversation and they need a tweak or two here or there. But some people, and this was me in the beginning, it was a lot more robotic, and I was wanting to make sure I hit all the points. And in order to not have a lot of long pauses and silence and ums and ahs, it took some editing. And now I edit less because I've gotten used to it. So I guess my, my biggest thing is get started in some direction and then also build up reps because the more you build up reps and the only way you're going to build up reps is do it over time, which means you need to start now and be really bad. I'm a big fan of the Stoics, the stoic philosophers, and one of them says, if you want to be good at anything, you have to be willing to basically suck at it for a while. You have to bring your ego down low enough to be bad, and then you can get enough reps in that eventually you'll be good at it. It's great to hear that piece of it. And I truly do love that because there are you don't necessarily need to come out of the gate thinking like, hey, I'm going to have this big, great production. The other thing that I really like that you said in there, and this made me think of this, and I have given this piece of advice a great way to get rid of ums and ahs in your podcast is to edit it. Because if you're the one that has to edit those things out, you every time you have to cut one out, you're like, dang it, I gotta do that again. Dang it. I got to do it again. So it's like this punishment for every time you say it is this self-punishment, you learn very quickly when you have to pay the cost for every um, uh, or, or whatever that you say that that is a, that's great advice. I have always, uh, when I work with photographers who don't edit their own work, I see that they don't grow as quickly as a photographer because they don't see their mistakes. Uh, someone else is seeing that one bad habit. I had one photographer who just, they have just a little tilt to every picture. And I'm like, you know what? If you edited this, you would see that you have to correct it every single time. But I will say it's a double edged sword because I have some people very close to me in my life who they in real time, not on a recording, just in a conversation, walking down the street. Um, is something that occurs a lot and I just want to tap them on the forehead to delete it out every time. And it's never gone over well. So you. It's hard on friendships. It is. It can be. Yeah, because you're fine tuned to it at some point and you want to eliminate it from the world. So just be careful. Be careful out there. With that being said, and I am I'm going to do this very intentionally. Um, where can people find you, James? Well, I try to make it as easy as possible. I've got a website that is James Walters dot com, and it kind of has a list of all the things I've got going on, all the things that I'm into the blog. This show will be on there soon enough, and the books that I've got going on, even the projects that I'm working on, a couple of documentary films will be listed there as well. So I just, I have to stay busy and that's where all the stuff gets, uh, dished. I love it. I appreciate you coming onto the show. Thank you very, very much. It's been a pleasure to have you here. And for everyone else, I will be right back. I got I got my notes here as always, and I'll be back with the summary. Thank you James. Thank you. My summary this week is going to be a pretty quick one, a pretty simple one. There's three main points that I really would like to cover. The AI, one that we kind of discovered together I thought was really interesting. AI is an aggregate of all the information that's out there. It's a it's a summary. It's an average of that. I don't know about you, but I don't like to think I'm the average in some cases, I'm very average. I'm five foot nine. I'm the exact average height of a, of a male in the US right now. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about my stories, my experiences. Those are not the general averages, and I'm willing to bet yours aren't either. To me, that's what makes individuals so wonderful. And it's sometimes when I'm in public, I mutter under my breath that I hate people, but I truly love individuals as a whole. Sometimes things don't go right, and as an average, we're not always that interesting. As individuals, we truly are interesting. And that's one of the things that I love about podcasting is it does is it lets the individual shine. It's your stories, it's your information, it's your lived experience. That's what's getting out there with the podcast. To me, it's one of the things that I love about it, and it's one of the things that I feel like is going to let podcast endure as we move into this AI age, is it going to change? Yes, one hundred percent. But I feel like these stories, these individual stories are what's going to be amazing. The other piece is, what I alluded to in the beginning of the podcast is success is not a destination. I one hundred percent thought I had this path laid out for me. If you would have asked tenth grade. Josh hey, what's what's life look like? Well, it's this, this and this. And I realized there is no destination. The only destination we have is typically a pine box that ends up six feet in the ground. To me, it's it's success is enjoying every day. Success is finding those pivots. Success is it's finding those adventures, finding those things that you love every day. Because getting there isn't the big deal or arriving there isn't a big deal. Getting there is the big deal. The last thing that I want to cover in this, this is another brilliant, brilliant point from James is the start simple and build you don't like. Everyone feels like they need to make this big production out of it in order for anyone to like it. That's not the case. Start raw. Start with yourself. Build. Get better. Listen to it. See what you need to get better with. Maybe it is your mic placement. Maybe it's your camera placement. Maybe it's just the words that you use. Be willing to start small. Be willing to work on those things and be willing to build off of that. That is a great way to start your podcast, to build your business. Do me a favor. Take care of yourself. If you can take care of someone else too. I will see you very, very soon.
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