The Real Reason Most Founders Never Plan Their Exit with John Taylor | Ep05

What happens when the guy who built a podcast marketing agency also builds the AI tool designed to make that agency obsolete? John Taylor isn't afraid of the answer. He's already got a number in mind, and the day someone hits it, he's gone.

John is the CEO of Act3 Agency, a San Francisco based podcast marketing agency, and the founder of PodAgain.ai, an AI powered podcast promotion and content platform launching in weeks. Act3 already serves podcasters directly; PodAgain scales that same intelligence, including content repurposing, competitor gap analysis, cross show networking, and analytics driven episode ideation, into a self-serve SaaS built to turn static back catalogs into constantly working assets.

In this episode, John and host Anne Gillaspie go far beyond the pitch:

• Why John calls PodAgain his own "self-destruct button," and is fine with it
• Building a company you can sell on purpose, with a life already planned on the other side
• What 7 months a year on tour (MTV Music Awards included) teaches you about partnership and absence
• Marriage, divorce, and being a "cycle breaker" after watching parents make it work for 66 years
• Where AI should sit in a founder's workflow, as leverage for a human, not a replacement for one

John's blunt take on relationships lands just as hard as his take on building: "An affair is not the problem, an affair is a symptom of a problem." And on the exit he's already building toward: "When anybody offers me this number... I will retire, and you will not see me again."

This one moves fast between founder strategy and hard-won personal truth, sometimes in the same sentence.

Resources and links (John Taylor)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtnorcal/
Website: https://podagain.ai/

Agency: http://act3agency.com/

Watch this episode on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/-b0BMvv3YRE

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PuNBpWpZKzCnuwmFQOPI4?si=97a26df7e350478a

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/onlyfounders/id1832541527

Follow Anne Gillaspie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annegillaspie/

Follow Anne Gillaspie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annegillaspie/

Join Coffee Club: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSevT9HVr57sn4fFUVpsWpcO-ZMeQKgftrg19tdVXPPrM5xQIQ/viewform

Visit our website: https://theannegillaspie.com/ 

If this conversation resonated with you, subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with another founder who needs to hear it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:27

We are all the products of our upbringing and of how we were parented, our socioeconomic situation, all those things factory are. One of the takeaways for me is that in any parent, in any long-term relationship, whether you're married or not, going to come to a in that relationship. We're inside of it. That is preventing this relationship from going forward. Going into its next thing, becoming any better, going all the things. And you are going to have to sit down and deal with that thing. If you do, right? If you don't, or your partner does not, it won't.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

So this is what I was going to say. In past episodes, I have totally written, you know, read the bio of the guests, and I've and this is my experience when the bio is read, okay? So the host of the show will go, hey everybody, it's Ann Gillespie with OnlyFounders. Welcome to today's show. And then they go to the spreadsheet and they're like, and on today's show, it's Anne Gillespie, is the CEO and founder of Fixinfor. And you're like, what just happened there? And every time I read a bio, it's because you don't have it memorized for the guest and you're not naturally talking about that person. And I used to be like that. I thought I said that just sounds so stupid. So for today's guest, okay, I'm going to have John introduce himself because he's going to naturally tell his story better than I ever will. And I won't go in from welcome to only founders. And today's guest, John Taylor, is the CEO.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

That's okay, because I have it all written down right here. So this is the other way that it's done. It's like, and our guest today is John Taylor from the H.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

And before you hit record, you go, Can you please pronounce your name for me? So you know you don't botch it. And then they still botch it. Like I've been like, can you please pronounce your name for me? And I'm like, it's Anne Gillespie. And then we hit record and they're like, Ann Gillespie. And I'm like, fuck, you can't even get it right. So anyway, John, welcome to the show. Tell us about yourself, John.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Thanks, Ann. It's great to be here. Okay, so I'm John Taylor. I am I'm not the John Taylor. I'm not from Duran Duran, nor do I uh head up the Fed. I think in Kansas City, there's a John Taylor. So if you try to Google me, you'll never find me. So I am John Taylor from the Act Three Agency. I'm the CEO of the Act Three Agency, which is a podcast marketing agency based here in San Francisco. And I am the founder of Podagain.ai, which, God willing, will be released in about four weeks and is a revolutionary new podcast promotion marketing and posting platform that helps.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Everything that OnlyFounders needs, but we don't have budget for.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Well, it's in the budget. It's it's it's uh yeah, yeah, we're thinking that you know, hopefully the the the median price will be about 80 bucks a month and it will it will replace your talk about that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

This is turning into a sales call. You guys actually didn't know you're just joining a live sales call. That's what we're doing. All right, carry on.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

I jumped, I jumped on the sales too fast. It's uh it's an occupational hazard.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Okay, John. Thanks for introducing yourself. But so that's like all the bullshit that we have on our resumes, right? And we're like, okay, what do you do? And you go to a networking event, you're like, what do you do? And then I want to get into the juicy stuff because you are a father of three girls.

unknown 4:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Two girls, two girls, one boy. Got it.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Two girls, one boy. So does it go girl, boy, girl, girl for you?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

No, it goes boy, girl, girl.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

So ours goes, yeah. I've I I have kids from one side of the nation to the other. I've been married about a hundred times. So my son is 30 years old and living in LA. And then I decided to do it all over again. And so I have two daughters, 15 and 17.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

I love that. I love that you've been married a hundred times. That's great. We're we should talk about that too. And then we have a girl, boy, girl. So our boy is sandwiched in the middle, and ours are seven, nine, and eleven.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

He will be well adjusted.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

He will be such a good partner. My husband and I talk about this all the time. We're like, holy shit, he has three moms because the seven-year-old is bossy as shit. So she's like, no, this is my spirit animal. And then his oldest is like, well, she's like a mom. And then there's me. And so I'm just like, you know what? I don't need I don't have to say anything. Like when the girls take over and Clive's like, I'm like, oh, I'm out. You don't need another. Do you want a hug? Like, just come here. That's amazing. So, okay, first question, we're just gonna dig in. Like, why is marriage not your cup of tea? What's going on? Ha!

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Well, that's pretty ironic, actually, because my parents were married for 66 years. And my father just recently passed about a year ago, and they got married when they were like 20 and 21. So, I mean, I came from this incredibly, you know, strong foundation of what a successful marriage should look like. You know, I I I had to pay about $4,000 in therapy to come to all of this. So let me just save everybody the time and money. I thought of marriage as like a birthright, as like something that I would get and I would have and I would do and I would do well and everything would be great. And there was kind of this sort of, you know, Brady Bunch attitude to it of like everybody's cool, everyone's gonna work out their problems, everyone wants to default towards becoming a better human being, everybody is willing to work out their issues, everyone wants to be happy, and guess what they don't?

SPEAKER_02 6:09

It's not that's you I bet you like woke up and you were so, so fucking surprised and disappointed when the reality set in that that's not actually the case. Yep. So I have a question. Your parents were married for 66 years, but were both of them happy and fulfilled in that partnership?

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Well, that's a great question. And I'm gonna have to say for that for the most part, yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

That's great. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

We came from terrible back backgrounds. Both of them were just, you know, both of their parents were just out to lunch, especially on my mom's side. My grandma was the worst. And so they came into the relationship going, look, we don't want this. We don't want, we don't want this, we don't want to be these people, and we don't want to do this to our children. And no, we have no framework, but the best that we can start with is let's not do that. And so that's how they focused, and that's how they, you know, so they did have hard times where they had to learn how to communicate and where they had to, you know, make decisions that were based on having no prior experience of what, you know, um the the role model should be or what the paradigm should be. So yes, definitely tough times. But, you know, they always found a way to work it out. And, you know, my parents took, you know, were incredible role models in terms of the career path as well. My dad was a super entrepreneur. I mean, in retrospect, we we call him an entrepreneur now. He was just a hustler back then. He was always, you know, doing something to uh, you know, that was kind of different or or entrepreneurial. Mom was a little bit more stayed and less risk, more risk-adverse. But they would, and they called it leapfrogging. They would sort of take turns like, okay, now we're gonna focus on my career, you stay home with the kids. Okay, we're gonna focus on my career, you stay home with the kids. And, you know, mom eventually became one of the first female tech CEOs back in the 80s and 90s. And uh, you know, where and my father became a very successful writer. And uh yeah, so you know, they did it.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

So would you say that your parents were your parents cycle breakers then?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yes, a thousand percent cycle breakers without a that's beautiful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

I am a cycle breaking mom. And I would say I I think my mom teased some cycle breaking herself to show me by example, which was great. And I think that the story you gave of the leapfrog, I've heard that before. I actually have heard that from an older, successful married couple as well. And they said the same thing. Our marriage took phases. It was sometimes we focused on her career and what she needed to do, and sometimes it was mine. And I really love that. I think it works well. My question for you is so you had this example, and now I feel like I got to peek into your your childhood and what your parents were like. So then where did that leave you with marriage for you? Was it maybe the naivete of what we had talked about, like the band-aids being ripped off, the wolves no longer over your eyes, and you're like, wow, not everybody is cool and actually wants to work on themselves and and do the work? Or was it because you had those parents as role models, you went into it thinking they make it look they made it look so easy? So of course I'm gonna be able to do this. And then when when you it was your turn to actually put it into to action, you realize, oh wow, they really lucked out in finding each other. Not everybody is like that.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yeah, all of the above. Yeah, everything you said is basically yeah, yeah. So it's both.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

I was kind of analyzing all that was. It wasn't really a question. It was like, let me tell you what I heard, John, because this is what I heard. This is it, this is the answer.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah, and it's it's it's true, it's true. And and, you know, there are we are all the products of our upbringing and our, you know, how we were parented, you know, our socioeconomic situation, all those things factor into who we are. And one of the takeaways for me is that in any marriage, in any long-term relationship, whether you're married or not, in any long-term relationship, you're going to come to a point in that relationship. There is something inside of you, a block inside of you that is preventing this relationship from moving forward, to going into its next phase, to becoming a better, growing, evolving thing. And you are going to have to sit down and deal with that thing. And if you do, great, because then the relationship's gonna continue and it's gonna move on. If you don't, or your partner does not, it won't. It won't. And then, you know, if you divorce and you'll see from a distance, you know, hey, look, you know, you never got over this. So you never, you never was your fault. No, and I was thinking, like, I'll I'll take I totally and absolutely take responsibility for everything that I did that that led to two divorces, but I did the work. But I did the work.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

And so do you think that your founder life at all with the all the things that you were founding and doing, also you were a rock star before founder life? Like, I there's so many fascinating things about you. I was like, we gotta dig in. But how do you think the journey that you've had in your work, and then we're gonna dive into that next, maybe impacted the marriages? What was that like?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Boy, that that's a really good question. Because I mean, because isn't that like that? That's sort of like the universal marriage question is like, how does your work affect your relationship? Uh, what are you prioritizing? Are you prioritizing your work? Are you prioritizing the marriage? And yeah, and there's three sides to that story, you know, his side, her side, and what really happened, right? In my first marriage, I was trying to become a rock star, and then I did ish. And, you know, what I was on the road for a long time. I'd be on the road in the in the latter part of it, I'd be on the road, you know, seven months out of the year. Okay. And we had a newborn baby son. And so that's not easy. That's not easy. I was a good boy on the road, had plenty of opportunities for the whole for the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

I feel the tension that you said that with, like, I could have, and I didn't. And so we will, we will. This is your gold star for that great work.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Thank you very much. Great job.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

You know, and I did my best to, you know, it give my wife all the support that she needed while I was gone, but it's still, I mean, did that, it's very complex. It's very unpleasant.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

You can imagine. Yeah. The only reference point I have to this kind of lifestyle is one of my really good friends married a musician, and she actually was one of their biggest fans since like college and would go to his shows and literally was like fangirling. And then it was one of those movie stories where she went to a show years ago as an adult, and she was single and just fangirlled, and then met him after the show, and she'd always admired the band. And then literally they met after a show and hit it off. And he realized like she was a fangirl groupie and had been around forever, and she was really into the the band and him and had this crush on him forever. And then he was like, Oh my gosh, you're amazing. And literally, it's that Cinderella story. They started dating, they were long distance, then they like made it work, and now they're married. And he's shifted and he's no longer on the road. He's still a musician, but he's he went back to school. He's like doing all this other stuff to try and settle down because the life of, I mean, when they were dating, I was just like, Oh my gosh, so like he's in Europe, like when is he gonna be home? And and then she's like, Well, I'm gonna go fly here. We have a we have a schedule, and she's like, I'm gonna go fly here, and then every two weeks, like I'll go out and like I don't know what y'all are doing, but cool. And also just the glimpse of anyone who travels for work consulting. My husband worked for Deloitte when we first dated, and he was on project in a different city, and so we literally would do the whole, well, he's gone Monday through Thursday and he's back Friday through Sunday every week, or he could alt travel, or I could go join him. And it was like we dated on the weekends, and that's just kind of what we did. But I think anytime that there is distance, there have been some cool ways to make that work. But when you throw in a newborn, nope. Like, I don't actually know how you would do that with children, to be honest. Cause I know you have three kids, I have three kids. Like having that newborn phase, I I literally don't think I would have been successful as a mother with all of the things that being a new mom and teal without a partner at home. It's so challenging.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Yeah, yeah, without a doubt, without a doubt. And the question then becomes were you ready for the challenge? Did you accept the challenge? And are you willing to do whatever work it takes to overcome the challenge? Right. I knew my f I met my first wife when I was 20 and she was 18. And she was there when I turned to her and said, I'm gonna start a band and be a rock star. And she was there when, you know, we played the MTV Music Awards, right? So she knew the journey the entire way. And, you know, when we finally did like sign and have that new opportunity to actually like make some money at it, you know, I was 31. So I wasn't a kid anymore. And I wasn't like, great, now I've got all the money I need for my Coke habit and a couple of Porsches, right? It was a fundamental understanding of like, I got maybe five years of this before my pre-pubescent audience throws me away at the whims of the next rock star, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

And so I just need to like push it and and just suck every penny out of it until, you know, until we're cast aside. And then I can go, bye-bye. Sure, great. You know, I got my money, I'll do whatever I want, and everything's gonna be fine. And, you know, so you know, the it is the the reality of that and the demands of that harder than, you know, when it's actually upon you and upon your partner. Yes, absolutely. But like I said, I mean, you have to overcome it, right? And she had issues that she was not willing to overcome.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

And I don't, I'm not trying to like relitigate it, but trying to, you know, in the context of it of like, okay, I'll give up everything. I'll drop from the band, I'll stop, I'll just throw all my dreams of this away for you and our family. And she's like, no, no, don't do that. I'm like, okay, then we need to do this, and you need to do this. You need help here. And she's like, no, I'm not going to do that. And so what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Right, right. You know, it's interesting. My husband and I often say now, we've had we had a really great kind of rock bottom. It could not be our only one in our marriage. We'll be together 18 years this fall and married 15 years.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Yeah. And I would say it only is successful because we had to face some really hard truths. And we went to the table with those conversations, and we go to the table with those conversations often of I'm not feeling this, I need this from you. And we always say marriage is a choice. Marriage is this, like this is not a handcuff. And we we very much transitioned years ago into that thinking, whereas before it was kind of like, well, you put it on and you're done. It was like you said it and you're done. And a lot of people think that that's what marriage is. He and I did not have a great framework either of what a successful, happy marriage is. His parents are still married, you're talking years, like years, lifelong marriages, but I don't know that they're both really happy or fulfilled or even the right partners for each other because it's just ugly. Like it's it's not enjoyable when you're around them, right? So it's like, I don't give a shit how long you've been married. I actually don't. I give a shit if you've been married a really long time and happy and both feeling fulfilled and both feeling like yourself in that relationship. Otherwise, a 70-year marriage, fuck it. I don't give a shit. If you lost yourself in that and then it was miserable the whole time, why'd you stay together? You know, like I celebrate divorce. I think divorce is very much a choice of two people that's very mature that says, hey, this is real gonna be a lot of work. Divorce is really a lot of work and ugly, but we're so convicted that we are not the right people for each other anymore in this phase of life that we're gonna go through the the hard and the ugly to go find ourselves again. And I think that's beautiful. And I come from a very, you know, dysfunctional home, divorce, you know, a lot of different types of abuse. And it's like they stayed together longer than they should have for the kids, which then I'm now the proponent of the kids saying, Well, I was 12 when they split, 13 when they divorced, and I think they probably should have split when the red flags were appearing when we were born. But of course, back then it was a different era in the 90s. So, you know, I just think it's interesting. I think marriage, the ring is not a handcuff, the vows are not a handcuff. Yes, you take the vows seriously, absolutely, and they should not be to the detriment of your soul for a lifelong bound that is no longer serving you or the other person. So we always say, I choose you every anniversary. It's like I fucking choose you. Marriage is a daily choice of this is who I am. There's no surprises, you gotta show up honestly. Your truth has to be safe. Your truth has got to be safe in the marriage. If your truth is no longer safe and you can literally share everything of who you are to that person and they don't make you feel safe and they cause shame or, you know, they are manipulated like with emotions, you know, all the emotional manipulation, anything at all. That's a choice. You know, do you really want to continue building a life with this person, raising kids with this person? You know, who your partner is, I think is the most important decision of your entire life because everything else that you do, that's like that's your home, that's your cave, that's your nest. You have to go back to that every single day. So if your partnership is not supportive, you know, it's a choice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Yeah. I think that's incredibly wise and and it's a really good perspective, uh, a really a good way to look at it. And especially when you know when you talk about the kids, I think one of the great lies that we tell ourselves is that kids are resilient. They're not. Kids are not resilient. Kids are sponges. They are sponges and they are soaking up everything around them all the time. And then they become adults and they go to therapy.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

What is what what is it that you work out in therapy? What's the main thing you work out in therapy? What happened to you as a kid?

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Exactly. You your inner child work, emotional regulation.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

The very first thing they ask you, well, tell me how you grew up. Tell me about your parents. That's the first fucking thing every time. Yeah. Because kids are not resilient. Yeah, that's a lie that parents tell themselves to rationalize terrible behavior.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

Well, and the mistreatment of kids and also not doing the work themselves and expecting the kids to have to figure it out. And the funny part is the household that I grew up in was extremely emotionally abusive and manipulative. And I realized my parents did the best they could with what they knew at the time, and they also chose not to do the work. And they were the adults and we were the children. And so a lot of times I hear, you know, but she's your mom. I'm happily estranged for my mom in this phase of life. I'm happily estranged from my older sister in this phase of life. And I was estranged from my dad for eight years before he passed away. And I think, you know, I have a lot of people that will still tell me this, say, well, Anne, that's your mom. And like, like the shame should be put on me as the child. And I'm like, yeah, she's my mom. Isn't that awful? I I'm her child. And so I I switch the tables and say, look, as adults, it's our responsibility to show up and make these choices. It sounds like with the divorces, you are making decisions that are an adult choice, regardless of a child being involved or not. And I always say, too, like, one of my good friends are going through a divorce now and they have a child. And I say, he will be stronger for this and more resilient for this as a human being when he's older, because you two are showing him what it looks like to take your own happiness into your hands. And do you think that he likes being at home confused with two adults who aren't agreeing on anything and fighting and he doesn't know where his boundaries are as a child? Or do you think he's going to celebrate looking back on this time and saying, ooh, that was really hard. That was really ugly. And I'm so proud of my parents because they made the choice and separated. And I got to go to two different houses with two adults that were finding themselves or we're finding their happiness and we're defining what made them then that I got to be raised by two adults who weren't arguing and you know who who were figuring themselves out, you know, and modeling what it looks like to get your shit together. Because that's what kids need. Kids need examples and modeling of adults figuring their shit out. Cause guess what? Every kid is gonna need therapy at some point. I always it's easy to think I'm I'm a recovering perfectionist, right? So, like as a mom of three, and I'd be like, I don't, like I don't want to screw them up, I'm doing it all wrong. My husband's like, damn, every single child is gonna have to go to therapy as an adult. There's no way to have like a perfect, even if you're cycle breaking and you're figuring all this shit out, they're still gonna go to therapy for something. So you're fucking them up. Just which way and how hard are you gonna fuck them up so that they have a therapy bill later?

SPEAKER_00 23:06

And I was like, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

Hey man, you know, like just take the load off, just just heal in front of them. That's what I've been doing. Like, if if anyone's been following along with me in my journey, it's been the six year transformation. In my mid-30s of literally healing and breaking in front of my kids because I realized that wasn't modeled for me. And I just, I, you know, I don't care how bad you hit rock bottom, but you better repair after. And as a as an adult, when you show your kid, hey, I'm not perfect, I'm I'm really struggling, or I'm failing, or I failed you. You know, I was wrong. I was really sad that I handled that that way. And you repair, that's all they need. Like it's really simple. I think once I hit that place, I was like, I can do this parenting thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

So let's let's talk about you being a single dad of three kids. What is that like? What are their ages again?

SPEAKER_00 23:55

So there's 30, he's on his own and doing great, and then 15 and 17.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

So are those girls split custody with you and your ex?

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yeah, so we we have uh we've we've evolved into a very happy co-parenting relationship. I mean That's beautiful. We're fundamentally different people, and so heads are gonna butt, you know, and there's you know, different, you know, different approaches, different styles, okay? But you know, as long as you're okay with like, you know, look, the kids are safe, and of course they, you know, they are. It's not that sort of thing. Then you just sort of leave that alone and okay, cool. So it's a complete 50-50 split. We only live a couple of miles from each other. Yeah, so that works out really well.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

I'm gonna applaud that. That's huge because I think you doing that move shows the girls boundaries. It shows them that their mom can be on her own, their dad can be on his own, and they still get access to both of you. That's like the best of both worlds. That's all you could ask for.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

And that you guys live close, like it's not this dramatic change of life, change of scenery for them. I've also heard of some parents that split and they're like, well, you know, I need to go back to Florida or Nebraska or whatever. And then one parent's like, okay, well, let's just send them on a plane. Like, I feel that's so disruptive. I feel like we should change the narrative instead of staying, you know, together for the kids. It's let's divorce amicably for the kids. Like the whole language should change. And that should include, let's, while we're raising children, stay in a similar location so that their life doesn't change, regardless of who is the guardian of them. And let's be a little selfless in that phase of life. And let's make sure they're at the same school and they're not having to like fly on a plane to a different place, you know? Yeah. That's that's where I think it's not not stayed together for the kids, but let's split for the kids and how can we make our co-parenting as best as possible. And then when we're empty nesters, get the fuck to Florida and Nebraska. I don't care where you go, but like that's when your life can begin again for you. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Yep, yep, exactly. And a strange reality or phenomenon, maybe, of our crumbling 21st century uh culture is that there are divorced couples now that actually never move out of the house.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

I've heard of a lot of that.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah, can't afford to.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

I actually think that's awesome. That's a that's a smart thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

If you don't, if you know, if you've managed to do it amicably and you don't hate each other and you can see each other in the hallway all the time, then yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Well, and this is what's interesting about that. I find it where if you are not romantically partnering good for each other as a partner, but you guys do great with raising the kids. And you wouldn't have a problem if there's like a guest room in the basement or like a different side of the house. So it's almost like a roommate situation, but you have a wing or you have like a level, a floor, and you have conversations that are very mature around this marriage isn't serving me as a partner and and you know, a romantic partner that I'm getting fulfillment out of. But I love raising the kids and running a home with you, and we do that well. You know, in this kind of economy, I'm now like grandpa. In this economy, it does not make sense to have two houses, two locations, two sets of bills. And if both of you can come to the table and say, look, are we going to start dating other people? How do you feel about that? Could we have nights where you're on the kids and then I'm on a date and I can have someone back to my room or the basement or whatever? Like, if that is a mature conversation where you say we're split and also we're gonna do the life thing together, but be roommates, if there was a level of best friendship there in the marriage to begin with, and that could happen, why not? Right. And the kids still get to see both of you in the same house, but not trying to like be this romantic partnership for each other that isn't working. I actually have had a few friends that have gone through that split where when they stopped trying to be each other's romantic partner and like the expectations of society on a marriage, all the shit started working because they just kind of let it go and they're like, we don't have to have sex. We gave up, like we're done. And then it was like the tension was done because the pressure was gone and the shame and the guilt they were putting on themselves of like, I don't want this with this person anymore, but I have to. It's like when you release the shoulds and you just fuck off to it and you're like, we're gonna just make the rules what we need it to be. I feel like you can really settle into a friendship and a co-parenting ship that you're like, okay, this can actually work. And then the kids can get their family together amicably without seeing their parents trying to force everything.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Right. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it also raises a really important point that one of the things that one of the vows that we fail to remember is this whole till death do us part. And that's a long freaking time. And if you're 25 and you're getting married, if you're 30 and you're getting married, and you know, you're again you're expecting somewhere in the 50, 60, 70 years of marriage. Life moves in cycles. When you're married for 60 years, something can be shitty for four years at a time, for six years at a time. And it's not always like, oh, we this sucks. I fucking hate you. We need to divorce. It can be like, you know what, this isn't working for right now, for these, and it hasn't worked for years. And you know what? It might not work for a couple years more, but then again, it might change. So you just sort of have to accept and and change the rules, change the dynamic of your marriage, and say, look, you know, we're gonna have to just sort of like I guess the classic example is you know, stepping outside the marriage, having sex with other people, right? You're like, oh, I've lost it for you. I don't have uh the emotional connection, I don't have the physical connection. And then it's like, okay, well, then maybe we just open things up, go nuts. And, you know, and then and and maybe that's a a two-year, three-year, four-year cycle, you know, and then through that cycle, you realize, okay, you know, that dopamine of the first time that we hit the mattress is fucking awesome. But I've done that four times now, and I've come to learn that like that's not everything. And I don't like these people that I'm sleeping with, and I don't want from them what I had from you. And you have this time where you learn and you grow, and then you started and you come back and you're like, you know what? Went through that, discovered this. Let's stay together.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

I love that perspective.

unknown 30:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

The perspective that you're giving is what I would consider just an open mindset in general, right? When you shift from being a closed-minded person, it's open-minded. And the fact that you said, if we're gonna do this thing for a lifetime, we are gonna have phases. There's gonna be cycles of us as people. And remeeting your spouse in every different phase and cycle constantly and being curious about them and making an active choice to show up in that, I think makes a huge difference with an open mind. And I love curious so much. I have a tattoo, curious, right? I think when you are curious about your partner, when you're curious about yourself, to know what to show your partner to choose. When you're curious about your kids, it makes you a better parent. When you're curious about your family, you know, people evolve, and we always just kind of think as a human condition, well, this is who I fell in love with. And so that must be forever, right? And how dare they change? But I think what's interesting is you said you open up. Have you actually been in an open marriage? Did one of your marriages ever open?

SPEAKER_00 31:09

It was more like she wanted it open and I didn't. She'd she'd had an affair, we knew there was a problem. At that point, I was able to recognize that the affair is not an affair, is not the problem. An affair is a symptom of a problem, right? Smart man. And so I'm like, a part of me was like, okay, go do this, and we'll meet again and you know, see what's what's really going on.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

And but she was so convinced that she was, no, this is love. I'm in love with this guy. Um this no.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

This is so it was not necessarily open, it was battling her primary partner interests.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Yes, but there were multiple, there were multiple times during the after the initial, after the initial time, there were multiple times where she was like exploring. She's like, okay, you know, am I in love with this guy? And and then she came back, yes, yes, I am.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

And during this time, John, had you two had conversations that were hard around her doing this when it was happening. So it wasn't like she was blind blindfolding you to the whole problem. It was like, let me bring you in on this, but this is what's happening.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Well, I mean, there was the let me bring you in on this that I'm having an affair, you know, and I I suspected, but I didn't know up until then. And then from there, the dialogue became much more open of like, you know, okay, what is this all about? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

I love I love this conversation. So you're probably like, well, why is Ann asking me questions? So I'll share here candidly too. My husband and I are in an open marriage now. And I know so much about all of this because years and years and years ago, um, when I was dying a slow death, it was one of my many rock bottoms, and I was in therapy, I was slowly associating to younger versions of me going through puberty and dating and college and all of the things. And because I had finally found autonomy at like 36, right? I realized with my therapist that I I had the most amazing marriage, like in the early days. And everybody just thought, you know, my husband and I are like this lighthouse couple. And and I was slowly in my 30s, like, you know, feeling the urge to step out, but also like not feeling as fulfilled by it with myself because I didn't realize that I was in a severe depression and I had lost myself through motherhood. I had never actually known myself because of the family I was raised in. And so I didn't really know what I was starting with until motherhood hit, and then I continued to completely disappear from what even was there of Anne. And so I believe that I truly found Anne in my late 30s and as a part of that realized for this phase of life, which is why I love open versus closed mindsets, I probably have always not been a monogamous. Uh preferably, I didn't even know you could have a relationship structure choice until therapy in my 30s. And I was like, shit, you can actually choose your relationship structure. I had no idea. And it was a year of like the word open kept finding me. I'd like to meet random people who were open at this couple. And through, you know, some networking, we're like, well, we're in an open marriage. I'm like, well, you just said that. Like, how dare that was weird. And I just was like, what the fuck is this? And then slowly, like service providers who I'd been seeing, I started kind of being more open to the concept. And they're like, oh yeah, my husband and I are open. And I'm like, like, why does this keep finding me? And so I realized it was because it was a truth of mine that was a fear for so long because I was ignoring it and it it changed my identity of how I was raised, of everybody who had, you know, known me growing up. It's like completely opposite of how I presented when I didn't have autonomy. And so with my therapist, really worked through a lot of concepts and realized, oh, I'm probably an ethically non-monogamous person by choice, but I had been societally forced into monogamous relationship structures because that's just what you did. And I wasn't really always happy with a lot of that because I'm very poly. Like I have a lot of capacity and love that I could have multiple partners. I call them multiple bucket fillers, but I believe we have multiple soulmates, and those soulmates could be delivered to you as a business partner, as a best friend, as a lover, as a spouse, as a partner. And I think that when you're open to that and you do the work to open your mind, it doesn't really matter if you're physically open or closed. When you have opened your marriage, and it sounds like you have opened your mindset, right? When you open you have the realization with yourself, regardless of being physically open or closed, that's kind of what my husband and I were talking about when we opened. So we've been open for three years. And that whole like two-year span before we got to that point, that's why I say we're like two dot into our marriage of really seeing and giving each other what we want and need for right now, for this phase of life, right? And it is working beautifully for us. And it is so ethical, and it is literally like skyrocketed our already amazing communication to the next level of amazing communication and more therapy and healing and growing ourselves as independent people in this, that it's made our partnership so much stronger to where it could be a lifetime. And we always say that when you're mentally open, you can physically open and close for the rest of your life because it's your choice of what you guys need, what you just said. You could, you could choose for this phase of life, this is what we need. And then in the future, like, yeah, I did it. And I really just miss you. I want you in this regard. And so I think that that open mindset, when we opened our marriage, I then opened my mindset for businesses, for how I am a founder and a CEO, for how I am as a boss, for how I am for new concepts, for friendships, for the rules of engagement, for any relationship I carry. It was like Anne's little closed-minded from her sheltered, controlled upbringing just exploded. And the amount of acceptance and gratitude and openness I have for energy and different kinds of people and clients and, you know, all the people that I thought were bad and good in life, there's no such thing. Like you just, you have to navigate it completely differently. So I love that you went into that because this is the first time on OnlyFounders I've talked about my journey of that. But I have never felt so seen. The last three years have been some of the most joy-filled years of both of our lives. Didn't even know my husband needed it too and loved it and craved it. And he's just thriving in this, this, this the way that we are. And it's really supporting both of us, and it's really beautiful. And so now, as our kids are a little too young, but when they're going in through puberty here in the next five or so years, we plan to use it as a guiding tool for them in relationship structures. And as they're choosing partners, we say, look, did you know that you can choose your relationship structure? And there's monogamous and non-monogamous. And and you know, dad and mom are choosing non-monogamy right now ethically, and this is what that means. And and just giving them that choice because my whole, you know, teen and high school and college years would have been so different had I been given permission and information on how to do it ethically and safe. And there's a whole lifestyle of people out there that are super healthy and have done the work and they're in the open community, and there's also a lot of very toxic, unhealthy, mentally unstable people, of course, just in great space. You know what's funny with all this? So, of course, our kids are too young and they don't know about any of this, nor should they. But it was funny because there was a school dance, and my son, who's eight, turning nine, um, he asked two girls to the dance. And we were like, Why, well, why did you do that? And he was like, Well, because I like both of them. And we're like, Well, but why didn't you just choose one? He's like, Because why wouldn't I take both of them? And we're like, I maybe she's not monogamous. And so we're just laughing because it's like the early days. My husband and I are joking about it. And he's like, and then our son literally said to us, he goes, Well, mom, I told both of them. And I was like, What do you mean? He goes, I was honest. He said, I told the other one that I asked the other one. I said, He's like already ethically non-monogamous. I said, Did they have a problem with it? And he goes, No, it was fine. And he's like, But I need to go to the store and get two bouquets for both partners. And I was like, Well, he's doing it right. I was like, That's fantastic. This conversation in like five years is not going to be a challenge because they're all just gonna be like, Yeah, that makes sense because it's the whole younger generation. And I also guest lecture. And so in some university classes, I've been hearing the younger generation talk about, you know, how they're moving through dating and relationship structures and support. And so many of them are talking from this kind of polyfluid open place that I feel our older generations could really learn from because the way they talk about ethical relationships and being open and well, why wouldn't you have, you know, multiple partners because it's unfair to put all of your expectations and support on one person and it's rare to find one person to satisfy everything. It's it's really been interesting.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

Yeah, it is interesting. And I I, you know, in retrospect, I mean, there's uh from what I've learned, you know, I wish I could go back and and sort of do it all over again because we've been handed down generation after generation these sort of norms and standards of what a marriage is, right? You can go all the way back to like, you know, marriage is your relationship. Is it signify uh it's symbolic of Christ's relationship with the church, right? And that's why we get married. And and and then all the other things, all the other traditions and and standards are like, well, you know, monogamy is really all about a man being able to trace his lineage and pass on property, right? Because property only goes to men. So I need to know that you're not fucking around and that this guy is actually my son, so that he gets all the property. And, you know, once you deconstruct these things and, you know, really look at them for what they are, and then sort of sort of combine that with asking your own questions, like what do I want? What works for me, you know? And that's those are the sort of things I'm trying to pass on to my daughters. Like when we do talk about marriage and stuff like that, you know, one of the one of the primary things I say to them is, well, you have to define what marriage is. What does that mean? What does that mean getting married? What does that what does that mean to you? What do you want? What's, you know, if you were to make your vows, but what vows would those be? You know, skip all the vows, you know, that that that have come down through tradition. What makes sense to you? What do you want? Why does this, you know, like yeah, write your own story and and make it work for you. And that's I love that.

SPEAKER_02 40:59

That's you cycle breaking right there as a dad. Like you're telling your girls, hey, you don't have to, because I was very much the tradition, the religion, the conformity, you know, as a as a girl navigating all of that, I didn't really have that mindset from a parent of you, you can choose. Like the whole idea of choice wasn't really in my narrative. It was, I was a good girl. You said on tour, you're a good boy, and I just resonated with that because I like grew up as a good girl and realized being a good girl and being a good boy is garbage. It's fucking performative and it needs to go out the window. And so when we're looking at not breaking the rules or or conforming to some type of expectation of ourselves, have we asked the questions with ourselves first of what constitutes my being good or bad to myself? Which is really going back to honesty. It's right, you got to tell your truth.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:47

And you can't, you can't let your fear of whatever that truth is going to disrupt run the show. That's like my whole thing, right? That's my brand. It's like you have to share your fear, and it starts with truth telling. What is your truth?

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Yeah. Yeah. What is your truth? It comes from you. Because this whole thing, I mean, if you want to go down this rabbit hole, you know, the whole thing of being a good girl, that's a patriarchal construct. That's not that's Yes, it is. Yeah. That is like, you know, and and also this whole idea of like, well, it shouldn't be your choice. That's a Judeo-Christian patriarchal construct, right? Because if, you know, the whole reason, the whole reason that we are punished and go to hell is because we're exercising choices instead of listening to God, right? So, you know, yeah, if I can't control you, what's the point? So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

Ding ding ding ding. John Taylor today on the reasons why religion don't work.

SPEAKER_00 42:45

Yeah, it's all it's all tied together. It's all all of it is tied together.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

So 100% you nailed it. So, okay, this has been a beautiful personal story. I love it, but I want to know more about your new business, the AI business that you're doing, because as a podcaster, I'm really interested to hear more about what you're doing with that whole SaaS, you know, platform that you're building, but why? And also with the all of the tools of AI, you know, do you think that it's going to be used? What is does the market exist for what it is? So let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

I'm sorry, Ann. That's just too personal of a question.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

I'm sorry. We can't go there. So no, and I get the X for that. I shared that I'm in an open marriage for the first time on air. And here John says, no, we're not talking about AI. That's too personal. No, no, no, that's not today, Anne, not today.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

All right, so I've been in digital marketing and whatever for way too many years that I that I care to explain. And when I started my agency a couple of years ago, we pretty quickly fell into podcast marketing because background is marketing, background is podcasting. Hey, podcast marketing, it all makes sense. And which quickly read led down the rabbit hole of AI, you know, as a as an emerging technology, which I, you know, use on a daily basis in my podcast marketing agency work, which kind of got the wheels turning and and really made me come to a realization that within the next two to three years I won't have a job, that all this, all of what I do and what a lot of the six billion dollar social media marketing industry does now is going to be replaced by AI. So I figured I'd just get in on it and make some money off it and retire before uh before I just lose my job. So so here you are, you're a podcaster, and you've got all these episodes that you've created. And one of the main problems in podcast marketing is that podcast is a contained unit of content. It is trapped inside of an audio, it is trapped inside of a video. So this is why we make clips, and this is why we make blogs and summarize transcripts and all this sort of thing, is to take that content out of the podcast and put it into a format online where AI can find it, where SEO can find it, where people online can just find it, right? So with Pod again, what we're doing is we're giving podcasters access to their own content. What it does is it takes your library of episodes and creates a searchable knowledge base out of it. So think of think of it as a chat GPT. Only uses your proprietary content as its knowledge base. So you can go in there and you can query, hey, uh, there was an episode with a guy named Chris, and he said something about not uh ethical non-monogany. What was that? And it'll come up, oh well that was episode number 125. That was Chris Porter. This is exactly what they had to say. Great, make an episode out of that. And then it will write a whole script based on everything that you've talked about to that subject. It'll create an entire podcast script. And you can go in and edit it if you like, or you can just print it out, or you can click the button and it will clone your voice and spit it out as an episode. You can go in there and say, give me my five best cookie baking tips for the holidays where I talked about gluten-free cookies with frosting, and it'll spit out a whole script of your five best cookie baking tips.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

And then again, so you're literally curating your own content that's evergreen. And you're you're reformatting all the work that you've already done to then produce a net new episode from your own shit.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Exactly. Exactly. And so well, I thank you. And uh so it does a couple things. One, it's it's great, you know, if you're running out of ideas, if you want new ideas, if you want to find where the gap is in your ideas, it's great if you're a high frequency podcaster. That's our very that's our primary market with the first release is these podcasters who are doing seven shows a week, ten shows a week, and you know, and and and need something like this to help in the ideation and production process. It's also the antidote to AI slop because it's not slop, it's your stuff. So unless you were slop, it's not producing slop, it's producing you.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

So it's like repurposing evergreen. It's like evergreen content that it gets repurposed as more evergreen content, and then it's just going back into the pool of your wisdom. And then, and then does it do anything else other than go back and curate a script for a new episode to release it? What else does it do, John? Tell me more. Well, let me tell you.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

So in version one, in version one, which hopefully is coming out in the next three to four weeks, so it can do these pull quotes, it can do research, you can download other people's RSS feeds. You can't clone from them, but you can do research, right? RSS feeds are public, so there you go. But version two, version two is the one that's gonna get me in trouble. So in version, so now imagine you've got this, you've got your searchable database, your searchable knowledge base based on your information. In version two, the AI learns and it starts to understand the way you talk and the way what your brand language is, what your key differentiators are, what are your core concepts? What is your business? What are you trying to do? How are you converting listeners into clients and customers? So this becomes sort of the operating system of a whole posting and promotion workspace. So now you can say to it in version two, you say, All right, give me a title and a uh and a description for YouTube for this episode. And it goes into the knowledge base and it says, these are the words you use. These are the words, these are the keywords that are popular right now. This is the way that YouTube runs its algorithm. So this is the suggested title. And based on all these different factors, algorithmic, competitive, your knowledge base, where the gap is, everything. So, and the more you do it, the more it learns. And the more competitors you tell it to monitor, the more it understands where your space should be. And the more you tell it about your business, the more it understands how it should make its descriptions based on getting conversions more efficiently. So it does all that posting and promotion for you. It'll make your YouTube titles, your Spotify, your Apple. It'll post to Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. It will, so it does all of that for you. And then it's little happy competitive AI agents go out into the world and start gathering market intelligence for you. So it'll come back to you and say, hey, there's a LinkedIn post that talks about XYZ, which you discuss in episode 132. And you made this point. Do you want me to post that as a reply? Do you want to edit it? Tell me what to do. So it targets where your social media should be instead of just like spamming it out there. It creates relevancy to what your social media should be.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

Love this. That is amazing. Well, so you're literally you've figured out a way to make AI work for you to still show up human.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Yes, yes. But the the real sort of thing here is that it to me, it's using AI the way AI should be used for speed efficiency and for taking in an ocean of information that a human brain could not possibly get through in less than like days, right?

SPEAKER_02 50:01

And it's going through and curating and fine-tuning and associating those different pathways of content from you, right? And then from the relevancy of the world with marketing and all of the things. And it is literally spitting out these specifically targeted streams from that ocean that makes sense in alignment. And that's exactly how AI should be used. And that is 100% the boat I'm on with AI, and still being a human-centered speaker, a human-centered branding founder, human-centered relater on this podcast. Everything I do is human-centered, but I fucking love AI. And you're seeing AI the way I see it is AI should be a support mechanism for your human function for you to create and respond and exist in a human way with the support of AI to take in all this information that we're we're information overloaded now in this day and age, right? That's why everyone says it's so noisy in marketing. It is. There's just too much. But it's it's if it's used to be your curator and to go through all of that in seconds, and that's how it saves you time. That's kind of how I've been using AI the last couple of years as an executive. It's like it's not gonna do things for me, but it's going to help me get, you know, all of the things in order that would normally take me, you know, weeks and days of time. I could do it in seconds and then I can just spit out a result that's mine. I can react to it.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

Thousand percent. And that's that's what we're trying to have it do to you, do for you in uh in one sort of easy workspace where you know these these sort of intelligence modules are doing their things and are just delivering this to you. Hey, these 53 competitors that you have, they're not covering this topic. And we think this topic is important in your industry. Do you want that to be the subject of your next podcast? And then it's also going to network. So anyone who uses it can opt in to the user network. And in the user network, the AI agents will talk to each other about each other's podcasts and it will say, hey, this podcast over here is doing something that has a very similar audience to yours. You guys should do an exchange of ads, or you guys should swap episodes, or hey, this guest over here, they'd be a great guest on your show. You should contact her. Here's her contact information. And or hey, you and these 10 other podcasts, if you combined all of your numbers, you would make an actually great network for a sponsor. That is, by the way, this sponsor who is looking for this audience that you would create as a group. Why don't you explore that opportunity? So, yeah, it's sort of a comprehensive way of using AI to market for a podcast.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

Okay, so hey, I joked about this being a sales call that we hit record on in the beginning, but now I'm like, no, I'm fucking serious, John. Are you having beta testers? And how do I get like an early sign-up? Because of this out.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

So as soon as version one is available, I will totally let you know. Put me on your list. Yeah, thank you. Uh, if anybody is listening now, you can contact me, John at act3Agency.com, act three, the number three agency.com, send you the free trial. And our free trial, it's not like a freemium thing. We give you absolutely everything and you can use it for a week. And if you like it, you go. And if you don't, you don't.

SPEAKER_02 53:10

Love that.

SPEAKER_00 53:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:12

That's great. That's incredible. I'm really glad that you started that because I think that there are so many different AI tools out there that if you wanted to kind of build and hodgepodge your and piece together your way of like, well, let me use this for this. And then there's Claude, and then there's, and oh, I'm gonna build this whole agent to work behind the scenes. Like, if you're not actually the master of AI and the tools and you don't want to yet learn another fucking AI masterclass, which I'm I'm checked out of that. Okay, I started two years ago. I I got some AI consulting. How I bet I built a second business on the backbone of AI because we were delivering brands in 10 days with tend to launch using AI. And so like I got very in the wheez with that as the founding member of that company. And then now I'm going, you know what? I actually don't want to take another mastermind. I don't want to get your guide on how to set up Claude to do all of my shit. Because guess what? I don't want to fucking do it because I'm 42 and I don't execute anymore because I'm tired and I have three children at home and three businesses. So I'm now gonna take a step back. I'm gonna say, hey, I want to pay a service that is going to do all of that mastery for me and has it all figured out and has all of the things that I haven't thought about because that to me is worth my time and money. And I think this is exactly what I'm seeking for only founders, but also I think many of us who have these podcasts, we we have the podcast, right? You can go get it produced, you can produce it yourself, you can get it published, right? So we're there, like we're publishing on YouTube, you're publishing on the audio version, and it's there. And then you're like, oh, I'm gonna take these clips and I'm gonna go post it on social media, and that's my marketing. And it's like, even I know, like from the beginning, like that's not podcast marketing. Like that sucks. You do like a post and then oh, another post, and then you tag the guests and all of their things, which is what we're gonna do for you. Like, hey, we're gonna tag all of John's things here so you can go find him, but then it's dead. And what you said, like all of that content. I mean, OnlyFounders isn't even a year old. But all once we start really cooking again and we get all of these episodes, but this is already like episode uh 69, I think, for the show, but episode no, this is in as in our 70s because I already have guest uh shows coming out before this one. So as a solo show now that's just mine, like we're already in the 70s for overall, but this is like episode five or six for me in just a month. And I just feel like all of that, you're only giving one or two LinkedIn and YouTube shorts and Instagram clip mention for what that show was, and then it's just there. And you're praying that your description and your title and your tagline are gonna survive on YouTube to be evergreen content that people constantly go to. But if you're not bringing attention to it, it's not dynamically evolving. Just like your in-rolls, mid, and out rolls on Buzz Sprout is dynamic. I have a dynamic setup. So every time I rerecord those, every episode has the new stuff. But your listings for these past published podcasts are not dynamic. It's just static content that sits there. And like you said, like you could have years with some of these podcasters of just it's like dead weight. It's like this vault of all this good stuff and this work that you put into it. And then it's just locked. It's like, oh, well, you did one, maybe you could do that the clip again, you could share that again, but you're not having the intelligence of relativity, which is I think your biggest, you know, seller. It's like relativity. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 56:25

So if if you know you you start to understand or you look at your analytics, which version two will do for you, you look at your analytics, and your analytics say, Hey, this, these, these podcasts where I talk about you know marketing, when I talk about marketing, they do really well. So then you're like, okay, well, then what do I do? Do I do another okay, I should do another podcast about marketing? Okay, well, then you can go into pod again and you say, Hey, the analytics are showing that when I talk about marketing, that's when I'm getting the biggest numbers. Create an episode all about my five best marketing tips, or these specific types of marketing tips, or blah, blah, blah, blah. So now you're able to, you know, not just have to sit down and remember everything that you said, or, you know, you can have the app do it for you and say, you know, this is, and it can do anything from saying, here's an essay on everything you talked about, to here's a script that you can use. And again, in version two, there will be an absolute correlation between analytics and what you talk about. So that can it'll constantly tell you, hey, you're really trending this way, right? This is where you're getting your best numbers.

SPEAKER_02 57:27

And is the new AI SAS, right? It's called Pod Again.

SPEAKER_00 57:31

Pod again, yes.

SPEAKER_02 57:32

Is Pod Again designed to eventually put you out of business with your agency?

SPEAKER_00 57:38

Yes, yeah. So brilliant. One of the things, one of the primaries. Hit my self-destruct button. No, this is my construct button because I'm there's I've got this number in my head. And when anybody offers me this number to take me out of this company, I will say yes, and then I am going to retire, and you will fucking not see me ever again, right?

SPEAKER_02 57:58

Where are you gonna be? Where are you going?

SPEAKER_00 58:00

On the beach in San Diego, more than likely. Love that. And yeah, and I will never go on social media ever again. I will watch every sunset, I will drink all the wine, I will continue raising and interacting with my wonderful children. I will write music, I will write books, I will do everything that I want to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

And that's beautiful. Yeah, that's that feels like a really good close to the show. I think you've like walked through this whole evolution of your life of starting from this chaos and your, you know, days on the road as a band member to like this beautiful picture of retirement and the sunset in San Diego, which San Diego, great choice. It's who would not want to go to San Diego.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:43

And I think it's a really great picture of you not losing yourself in both founder life and parenting. And I think a lot of people can lose themselves in both. And now in your latter years in life where you say, look, these are the lessons that I've learned and this is what I want to do. And, you know, social media doesn't exist there for you. And that's that's there for a reason. Because when you have truly feel like you've you've done the things that you wanted to do, which with your businesses, you're like, yep, I'm gonna create this. This is gonna be income. This is gonna buy me out. You know, I'm done building and this is how I want to spend my time. I think that's really important because as a founder and a single father, you don't have that time to go, you know, a lot of people would say, Well, do it now. You know, why wait? Go sit on a beach, go drink wine, go to and you're like, I'm building. Like you have to build and you have to put in the grit work and the, you know, ugh, all of the hard stuff right now to build for the future that you want. It sounds like you're really focused on that, which I feel is gonna make you extremely successful because when you're manifesting that sale, when that number is gonna hit, which it will, you're gonna get the number that you want because you know what you're gonna do after. And that's the thing. A lot of people toward the end of their career, they say, I don't actually know what the other side of this looks like. And it's lonely, it's boredom, it's you know, the come to Jesus of like, shit, I haven't checked in with my spouse or my relationship in years, and we're actually not good for each other anymore, you know, when you're empty nesters.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:07

There's too many people that are like, I love what you said to your daughter. I'm gonna bring it back back to that as we close. It's like you have to choose what you want your marriage to look like. Look like you have to build it, you have to be intentional about that. And it's it seems like you're living with intentionality now and the fact that this is what I want to have happen when I sell my business. This is my intention, this is how I want to spend my time. And you know that that can change because you have an open mind. For this season in life, that feels good. Well, guess what? You have a lot of life left to live. So you could do that for a couple years and be like, and I'm gonna start my next company. I'm done because I have energy now, I have zest, right? I've done the beach time. So that's what's really powerful about all of it is it brings it back to that whole thought of how we raise our children and how we're in our marriage, is for this phase of life, this is what feels good. And there's no handcuffs to any of it. It's you've got to evolve and change and be curious about where you are in each phase of life. So that's exciting. Well, I'm definitely, definitely interested in pot again for sure. That sounds amazing. Put me on your list. And then John, tell everybody where they can find you, where they can access you online.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

Absolutely. So you can find us at actthreeagency.com, act the number threeagency.com. I am John, J O H N at Act3Agency.com. I'm on LinkedIn at JT NorCal, YouTube, Instagram, also act3Agency, and pod again.ai. So check us out there. And yeah, that's me. That's us. That's a lot of me. This is a lot of you.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:32

That's a lot of you. Yeah, you exist a lot online. So when you go to your beach in San Diego, you're gonna have to make sure you've wrapped all of those places up, or you just have an AI agent that's just you know keeping them up so you can go to the beach.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:44

That's answering for me. There we go.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:46

This has been lovely. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate talking with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

Thank you, and I really appreciate it as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

You bet. All right, guys. Well, that does it for OnlyFounders. Thank you so much. We'll see you next time.