From Triple-Zero to Podcast Profit: Adam Schaeuble’s Playbook

Adam Schaeuble is an online business coach for podcasters. He teaches simple strategies to help them grow their audience and turn their content into new clients. He's been podcasting since 2015 and he's the host of the Top 100 ranked entrepreneurship podcast Podcasting Business School. With over 1,000 episodes and more than a million total downloads in his career, he knows a thing or two about what works.

Adam covers starting audio-first, the power of a consistent weekly cadence, using newsletters to convert and engage, and designing a business that fits your life instead of the other way around.

To learn more about Adam and The Podcasting Business School please check out his website at:

Podcasting Business School

For Pro Podcasting Tips Follow Adam on Threads at

Podcasting Business School on Threads

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:29

Hey everybody, welcome to Call Her Cat.

Welcome to Call Her Cat

SPEAKER_03 0:33

Today we're taking a left turn from our usual content and diving deep with someone who has not only mastered the art of podcasting, but is teaching others how to turn their content into a real business. We are thrilled to welcome Adam Shiberly to the show. Adam is an online business coach for podcasters. He teaches simple strategies to help them grow their audience and turn their content into new clients. He's been podcasting since 2015, and he's the host of the top 100 ranked entrepreneurship podcast Podcasting Business School. With over 1,000 episodes and more than a million total downloads in his career. He knows a thing or two about what works and what doesn't. Adam, thank you for taking the time to talk today. Kat, I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

I appreciate the invite.

SPEAKER_03 1:25

Did I miss anything in your bio that you want to add?

SPEAKER_02 1:28

No, that's that's great. I'm sure we'll dive into some different nooks and crannies of the story as we go along here. But yeah, no, I'm I'm just excited to be here. Anytime another content creator invites me to share their platform, it's always an honor.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

Thank you. I appreciate that. Especially as a new podcaster myself, I appreciate that a lot. Yeah. So you started podcasting in 2015. You've been doing this for a long time. What got you into podcasting? What was the initial like launch point for you?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Yeah, great question. I and this is different for everybody, you know, everybody has their own little motivator where they've been thinking about podcasting for a little bit and they've had some ideas like, ooh, that would be fun. Or I think I might be good at this type of a show. And and then finally we get the thing that this tips the scale and we we go for it. And for me, uh I owned a fitness facility and I was getting great results. And I actually had a lot of people that wanted me to franchise the concept. And I I wasn't a fan of being a boss of more people. I'm like, I've got 35 employees. I really don't, it's too much already. So I but I did like the idea of helping more people with my message. And I was I'd been kicking around the idea of a podcast. I was like, you know, I'm just gonna do that instead. So I launched a show in the health space and just kind of brought my version of fitness and and mental health strategies and things like that to a show and started to figure it out. So that was the thing, like it's really about helping and reaching more people. And I was uh interested as an entrepreneur about the online business aspect of things as

Transitioning to Digital Entrepreneurship

SPEAKER_02 3:05

well.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

So would you say that having had a background and already running a business, and because fitness can be that's a lot of moving parts too with fitness, that that helps you branch off more easily into kind of the digital world?

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Well, maybe I mean I think the main skill set that I had as an entrepreneur going into this was I had some thick skin built up already. And I realized that that there would be multiple attempts at trying to figure things out. And it was gonna take some time. Now, I thought taking time would be like, oh, six months, but really it took me about three years to figure out how to do anything. So, but I mean, content entrepreneurship, content creation. You've never done anything like that before. It is a foreign language. It's like learned learning Mandarin Chinese as somebody from the Midwest. I'm like, that's totally two different things, you know? And it's like I started what I call a triple zero podcaster. I had obviously zero podcast listeners, I had zero social media, like no social media followers, and I had no email list. And that's that makes things quite hard because you have to learn how to do all of those things in addition to creating your content. Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:17

Now, what are what are some things you learned along the way about people, what people should not do when they're first starting out?

SPEAKER_02 4:26

So one thing I like to put out there as a caveat is that every podcasting journey is gonna look a little bit different, both in like the process and also in the result. And we all have that, like the longer you're in podcasting, you'll have this friend that also is known as your annoying friend that just kind of messes around and they end up blowing up and doing great. And we, you know, like we love them and everything, but we also they also kind of annoy us. Like, I'm working so hard and I'm getting 12 downloads an episode, and you just did some dumb TikTok video and it exploded, and now your podcast is exploding. So we kind of take them out of the equation. But we look at our own journey, we don't compare our results to somebody else's because that's just poison. Right. But so that's that's one tip is like as you're going into this, your journey is your journey. And you can't compare a health podcast to a business podcast or a super small niche podcast to a giant broad niche podcast, or your, you know, if you're somebody triple zero status like I was when I started, to Joe Rogan, who has a podcast studio, a full-time team, and millions of dollars of support. Like you just can't compare those two things. So that's probably the most important tip I could give people is just like hunker down and think about your own journey and focus on that. Put the blinders on and go, this is gonna take however long it needs to take. And if your kind of motivational big why behind this is bigger than the combined force of all the why nots, when it gets really tough, then you'll keep going. So that's that's one thing

Key Lessons for New Podcasters

SPEAKER_02 5:50

to think about. The other thing you always have to think about content-wise, across the board, the most important rule is what is my audience getting out of this? So, like obviously we like creating content, we like putting stuff out there, but the audience won't grow if they aren't seeing value out of it because there's a lot of options out there for people to plug us into their earbuds on their morning walk or whatever. So we have to bring value and we have to keep trying to increase that value and also increase our skill set along the way. You won't be perfect podcaster, you know, A plus person at episode seven, but you should be a little bit better at episode 100 than you are at episode seven. That's that's a valid, you know, metric to kind of compare and contrast. And you know, I've done, I think I added up the other day I was over 1,400 episodes between my shows.

SPEAKER_04 6:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

So I've had a lot of practice at this. And I tell people like, don't go back and listen to my first hundred episodes because they're pretty terrible. Like they're not good at all. So don't do that. Don't torture yourself by listening to those. But now I can flip on the mic and I can do some good stuff, I can do some damage. So I think those are a few of the basic things. It's just it's gonna take time. You have to compare your own journey to your own journey. And if I kind of go next level, I'm a I'm a big fan of a weekly cadence. I'm really big on that. And I realize some people are doing this very, very, very part-time, and all they can the best they can do is one a month or whatever. And I'm like, you do that. But have a goal of how can I get more efficient? Because these same people, a lot of times, like I can only do it one a month because it takes me 10 hours to edit a 30-minute show. And I'm like, do we see the problem here? Like they're you're spending way too much time editing your show. Uh, have you ever heard of something called AI that can edit your

The Importance of Content Cadence

SPEAKER_02 7:37

show for you? But like looking at the actual problem behind why we aren't able to release uh a weekly content, because weekly content is really magical because of the competition factor. And, you know, we're both audio primary or audio only podcasters. There's a little special sauce with the audio because people can take us on the go and they are doing other things when they're consuming our content. So I want to get in their life rhythm where like if you're a regular listener of my show podcasting business school, new episode comes out every Tuesday, you can count on that. So you're like, oh, Tuesday during my lunch, I always listen to Adam's show, or Tuesday when I'm, you know, doing leg day at the gym, then I'm listening to Adam's show or picking up my kids or whatever. And I don't want to skip weeks and give people a reason to listen to someone else's show and then forget about my show. So I'm I'm big on showing up weekly. That'd be kind of a next level beginner strategy.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

Now, you just are you you're just a fan of one episode a week? Because sometimes you'll see podcasters who do like a bonus episode or or whatever. You're just strictly just a one episode a week.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Yeah, I mean, I think there are opportunities and different situations where you can do multiple episodes a week. I I've done up to three episodes a week. For a long time, I did two episodes a week. One has become a sweet spot for me in the last year, especially. I've gotten better at kind of reading the room a little bit and trying to think through my my audience and your consumption perspective and going, okay, Kat listens to my show. Guess what? Kat listens to five other shows also. So if I am giving her three or four episodes a week, is she really going to listen to all of that content? And what's the sweet spot? So for me, I'm big on newsletters as well. And I've got a a uh thriving news email list. So I was like, let's back down from two to a week to one a week. And then I want my newsletter to kind of be that other half of the weekly content that's unique. It's different than my show. I'm big on that as well, like two different things. And that way you have A plus B equals C. You got two things that uh add value, and they and they can consume those in different ways as well. So uh that's what's worked really well for me. Other people, they're like, I really want to establish a lot of expert positioning, or I love doing interviews. They're like, okay, let's do a solo episode every week and an interview every week, or you know, or whatever. So it's not like set in stone across the board for every podcaster, but I think we have to look for the minimum effective dose. That's the key thing. Is like what what are my audience members going to be able to consume? And if I were to go fewer, would would that work? Would that work for me? Would that work for them? So it's just something to consider.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

Now you touched on something that that some people have like very strong opinions on, which is just being an audio-only podcast. And some people who and video editing can take you a long time, especially if you're just doing it solo or have a another person. What was the deciding factor for you to go only audio?

Starting with Audio Only

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Okay, so for me personally, and this isn't prescription for everybody, but you know, in my opinion, you can always add video. I I think a lot of people should just start audio because you have to learn how to do things. That's kind of like training wheels on a bicycle. Like we're not just gonna jump into a mountain bike and go riding down mountains. Like that's that's a lot of of preparation for that. That's kind of like what video content is. So I think it's a good idea to start audio only. For me, I've dabbled in audio for a decade or in video for a decade, and I've never gotten traction with it. I'm like, I've given this 10 years. I really don't need to give it any more years of my time. I'm I've given it a solid shot and like YouTube. I try all the different things. I'm like YouTube Shorts, all right, lives, okay. Posting natively on YouTube, okay. And all I get is angry teenager comments telling me, you know, bro, you suck. I'm like, okay, thanks. You know, get off my lawn. And like, like that's that's all I got. The minimal growth, but like, but yet with the audio show, like one of the things I'm most proud of is I started in Health Space, took that show, past half a million downloads, completely different niche, podcasting business school, business show past almost 700,000 downloads now. It's like that, I'm really, really proud of that. And that is working. So why not focus more on what is actually working than bang my head against the wall, going, oh my gosh, I got to figure out YouTube because all the experts say that you have to have video content and video is killing audio and all this other stuff. I'm like, what's the reality that I'm experiencing? And I can, you know, I can record, I do a lot of solo episodes and they're about 20 minutes long. So I can record three of those in an hour, and everybody else is editing for six hours on video. I'm like, I don't know. I I like being a dad and a husband also. So like I gotta I gotta have some time other than video editing.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

So it's about balance. You don't just want to spend in play in front of a computer your whole time. Exactly. And one thing that I like about you is that you're not necessarily about more social media. You are more streamlined with your approach. You're not like on TikTok, you're not on all these other things. You just you're specifically on threads, is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Yeah, yeah. It's weird, right? Like, I'm like the the black sheep of the social media herd and everybody's like, must do video fear of missing out, must be everywhere. That's the thing. Like, that's the strategy. Be everywhere. And I'm just like, how does this make sense for anybody? Like the only thing that makes sense is like, oh, now I see why, you know, the stat is I think 17 only 17% of podcasters make it to episode 10. This is probably why. We're trying to spend hours on video, and it really like we end up throwing up in our mouth a little bit every time we sing a single time we have to edit a video after like video three, and then we're trying to be everywhere on social media and we're getting mean teenager comments everywhere or no comments, and we're going, well, I'm spending 80 hours a week on my show and nothing's working. I quit episode six versus let's just do low-hanging fruit, let's find that minimum effective dose. So for me on social media, again, I've getting it given it a solid decade, and you know, with my health audience, I built a really thriving community on Instagram. I did really well there, and all the right things were happening. So I'm like, okay, podcasting business school, let's build on Instagram, let's kind of focus on that. Let's do a little TikTok, let's do a little bit of. I mean, I've tried Pinterest, I've been on LinkedIn, like I've given it effort, and it just didn't click until I got on threads. And like for like about 18 months now, like when I post on threads, I get engagement. I get comments, I get new followers every single day. Uh, I get new podcast listeners every day, I get new email subscribers every day, I get clients, you know, at least a week every week. I'm like, okay, why why do I need to be on Instagram? Why do I need to be on like learning other languages when this language is working really, really well for me? So maybe it's just as I'm 45 years old now, it's like as I get more seasoned and like uh I just get I feel like I didn't get smart until like a year ago. And I'm like, okay, now I'm intelligent.

Streamlined Social Media Strategy

SPEAKER_02 15:06

I'm gonna quit wasting my time. I finally grew up my brain region, and let's do what actually makes sense, which is for me less but better.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

And do you think sometimes content creators can be too many places? Like they can you can oversaturate yourself and all these channels.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Yeah, and just spread yourself then, especially if you're a solopreneur. Yeah, you know, because the be everywhere strategy works. Everybody's like Gary V. That's the big one. Or uh what's the I've uh uh hormose, the Mr. Nasal strip, flannel shirt, nasal strip, mullet, and backwards hat, you know. So I I dressed, I dressed up as Alex Hormosy for Halloween a couple years ago, and I was just shucking million-dollar books. But like those are the two guys, see, be everywhere. They're famous and rich, yes, but guess what? They have teams, they have multi-million dollar advertising budgets. They've got like all this stuff didn't just like happen. You know, Gary V blew up on Twitter first, and then he added a podcast, and then like everything started to grow out of that. Now yeah, now he's everywhere. Yeah, you know, Pat Flynn, people like this, like they didn't just start out like I'm creating content everywhere and it's all successful. That doesn't happen. So when we start as a content creator, as podcasters, especially, I don't think we can model our game plan after Alex Hormozy or Gary V, because get that just isn't going to work. And or even worse, all these people that have talking with their friends shows and like, we're gonna be like the Breakfast Club, or we're gonna be like insert famous actors talking to each other. Like, guess why that works? They're famous actors. Yeah, it's not because just because they're they're good looking and interesting people, like I'm good looking, my friend's good looking, we're funny, we're gonna blow up, we're gonna be sponsored by underwear companies and mattress companies and mushroom tea companies in in no time, and then they're really sad face when that doesn't

The Reality of Podcast Monetization

SPEAKER_02 17:05

exactly work out.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

No. No, and I think sometimes people, sometimes they get into a podcast thing, it's gonna be an easy way to get revenue. Because I've heard that a bunch of times. That is, as you've illustrated, it took you what three years to get monetized.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

I made 37 total dollars in my first three years, which was you know, off of mushroom coffee affiliates. So that was Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

So if you're thinking of like you're just gonna jump in and start making thousands of dollars, it's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

No, it is there's no going viral in podcasting, and there's no like get rich quick strategy unless you are that person that is just masterful at sales. I've seen a few of those pop through where you like you and a lot of people like, oh, still ice cream Eskimo, whatever. Like that, like legitimate. Like you come from the a sales background and you are really good. Like I knew one guy that started a regional-based show, went out and sold sponsorship to local businesses and got six figures, and he had like no no downloads yet or anything, just because he's really, really, really good at sales. That's an anomaly. That is a major, major outlier. Uh for most people, like if you want sponsors, here's a scary number. And I think it's only getting worse. Sponsors, in my experience, will not talk to you unless you're doing at least 20,000 downloads a month. All right. So if you're releasing one episode a week, that's about 5,000 per episode. 80% of podcasters don't even do a thousand downloads an episode. So the numbers don't add up. And there's a little thing called CPM, cost per mil. This is the sponsorship pay rate. So what that means is cost per mill, mills is I don't know, Latin for a thousand or you know, Mandarin Chinese for a thousand. I don't know. I don't know what language it comes from. But cost per mill, cost per thousand downloads, a sponsor will pay you between eighteen and twenty-five dollars. Let's run the numbers. Only 20% of podcasters do a thousand downloads an episode, and then for those 1,000 downloads, a sponsor will pay them between $18 and $25. This is trash, as my 15-year-old son will say. Dad, that's trash. Like it's not great. That's why all these, you know, these famous celebrity people, they're doing 500,000 downloads an episode. Guess what? That works out for them. The numbers work for them, not for normal person Adam guy over here. Uh that's why I like to convert listeners into paying clients, where I create content that calls to a certain type of person with a certain type of pain point. I teach them how to start solving those pain points. And guess what? You can invest in my programs, products, and services, and I can help you solve those even faster. That's so much easier to monetize. That's such a lower uh audience growth point. And that's why that's why I teach.

SPEAKER_03 20:05

Is that why you started the podcasting business school?

SPEAKER_02 20:08

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the whole methodology behind what I've been teaching since 2018 on podcasting business school. And it's I'm out there just connecting with podcasters like yourself, trying to kind of pull them over that that giant wall. Like I'm just reaching over and pulling people over that mud run wall that you know that you you get if you've never if you guys have ever done a mud run, there's always that one like wall that's too tall. You can't get over it by yourself. You have to have somebody pull you over. And that's kind of like what monetizing your podcast is like. And I'm sitting on top of that sucker, and I'm just pulling people over, going, listen, I know you want to get mushroom coffee coffee sponsorships. You get some of that athletic greens cash, like your favorite podcaster, Tim Ferris or Lewis Howes, but guess what? It's not gonna work. Let's go get some clients for you, or do paid communities or something. It's just like I see podcasters replacing their income, leaving their nine to five, and they're doing 500 to 700 downloads an episode. Like that's a nice little sweet spot. That's doable. And we can't even get an underwear company to pay us $18 at that same point. But I get people replacing their job income and going full-time. That's just the difference on how the system, the two separate systems

Defining Your Podcasting Success

SPEAKER_02 21:23

work.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Do you think it's important when somebody like an aspiring podcaster starts to have their own definition of what success looks like?

SPEAKER_02 21:32

Yes. Yeah. I mean, it goes back to my first point of we can't compare our journey to anybody else's. And and I've been doing this long enough. And I talk to a lot of my listeners, and I do coaching episodes and stuff where I'm almost becoming a part of the problem because people have I've got 614 episodes of my show.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

There are people that have listened to hundreds of them, and they start to come up with like their Adam rules of like, I know you say to do this, but I'm doing this slight variation. I'm like, listen, that is. Totally fine.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

I'm not gonna like ring my Game of Thrones bell of shame at you or anything like that. Like, you didn't follow my perfect podcast naming protocol. Shame. Like everybody's journey is gonna be a little bit different. And we do have to start setting our own unique goals, as you alluded to there, Kat. I mean, this is a great question because we go, okay, I'm doing 39 downloads an episode right now. I, you know, next benchmark, 100. You know, like that's like 100 people showing up to listen to you speak is awesome. 39 is awesome. But you're like, I want to double that. I want to get get closer to 100. Okay, that's my next benchmark. And you just got to pin your ears back and focus on that. Or, you know, I like really setting uh 1,000 true fan goals, and I encourage my listeners and clients to do this in three areas. So I'm like, I think that even if you're a smaller in each podcast, we can still gun for a thousand downloads an episode event like down the road. That's a great, go, very doable goal. And by the way, if you do a thousand downloads per episode regularly, you are in the top 20% of podcasters as far as downloads go. So that's cool. So that's that's one. I'm a thousand true fans there. I like to get people a thousand on their email list and get at least one social media platform where you have a thousand followers there. Like that's those are nice, I mean, very doable. I've seen very, not my clients, of course, but like mediocre people out there like getting to those numbers. I'm like, okay, if they can do it, we can all do it. And so I like, you know, people do ask me, what's good? What should I shoot for? And again,

The Role of Newsletters

SPEAKER_02 23:37

everybody's journey is is is unique to each their own goal-wise, but here's some ones that just kind of like I'll put those numbers out there from like, here's some things that are possible that are because that's part of it for a lot of people like, yeah, I don't know what's possible. Should I be shooting for, you know, fame and fortune in in six months? And or like, what do I do? The journey just has so many vague points and variables that it helps just have a little bit of clarity. And that's where I try to give people some benchmarks. I'm like, here's where you're at, here's the next thing to go, just focus on that, you're gonna be good.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

I I was listening to one of your episodes yesterday about newsletters because you're big on newsletters. And the way you use them is is really interesting. Can you touch on that a little bit? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

So again, another way that I'm weird and different in the industry. The standard is I'm a podcaster. I put out a weekly podcast. I also have a quote unquote newsletter that is basically a either a transcript of my podcast or just a promotional email for my podcast. That's that's like industry standard.

SPEAKER_04 24:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

And then people wonder why their email open rate kind of sucks. Like people are like, I don't like getting promotional emails. You know, like I want to open things that are of value. So my philosophy is I put out a podcast episode every Tuesday. It's on one topic. My Thursday podcast and business school newsletter will be on a completely different topic. Now, I do mention my latest episodes, like it's like a two-liner towards the end. Like, hey, if you haven't listened, here's why you should go check it out. But it teaches, I write for an hour when I make that newsletter on a totally different topic because I want people to consume both. I want them, you know, it was weird at Podfest. I missed this past year's Podfest, but two years ago, I had more people come up to me and go, I I read your newsletter than I listen to your podcast. And I was at, I was a featured speaker at a podcasting convention and people are talking about my newsletter more often. I was like, that's interesting. And I see more people convert into being clients as well. So I really sort of double down, doubling down on not only building that newsletter list, but also just the content and the value add and the strategy behind that, because I just think that when people are listening to podcasts or doing something else, they're less likely to take action, like buying something or signing up for Discovery Call. When people are reading a newsletter, that's a little bit more of a captive eyes on a screen audience. And we're used to clicking on eyes on screen links and buying things or going down a rabbit hole. So yeah, that's become a very, very important part of my strategy. And I and to make that work at all, I have to incentivize people to want to open those emails and and read those. And I mean, I burned the ships. I got rid of all my other lead magnets. I don't talk about there's no other way to get on my email list than to subscribe to my newsletter. And it's really worked. Like I since I'm everybody's like, you're an idiot. You don't do, you don't do lead magnets, you don't have a scorecard, you don't have a funnel. And I was like, I don't know about you all, but like I'm not that person that's like, yes, I want this scorecard. And then please deliver 47 emails and try to sell me something that costs $8,000 every third email. You know, said nobody ever. Like that's that's the that's the thing. I'm like, am I the only one that thinks logically about you know blasting people with all these emails and everything? But yeah, that's worked tremendously well for me. I've doubled my email list size in about a year just by focusing on the newsletter. Who would have thought?

SPEAKER_03 27:08

No, but I like the way you do it because you're not just bombarding people with the same information, you're giving them the new information. Yeah. You know, you're not because how many emails do we get a day? And yeah. You know, and so I like that strategy because you're giving them something new, not just regurgitating the same thing. Because they already know where to find your podcast. Exactly. And so you're giving them something new and different to look forward to opening from you with like a little hey by the way about my episode.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

That's the strategy. You nailed it.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

Now I am curious, like you're a busy guy, you do the podcasting, you do the business school, you you have a family. What do you do when you're not like doing all this? Like, how do you like rewind? How do you relax? How do you find balance with all this stuff?

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Yeah, well, the nice thing about the way I've built my business is I've got a three-day work week. And really it's like two and a half days because and what I do is I I full day, Tuesday, and then half days on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. So I'm actually working four days of the week. But if you add it all together, it's about two and a half days. I'm like, you're like one of the last things I'm doing on a Friday. Boom, we're done. I'm off to the gym. But for me, I'm heavily invested in being a dad. I'm heavily invested in being a husband, a friend. I've got lots of hobbies. I go work out, like I'm obsessed with like all the 45-year-old man health hacking things. And I wrote about that in my newsletter the other day. I was like,

Balancing Work and Family Life

SPEAKER_02 28:39

maybe this is TMI, but I was like, I'm standing completely naked in front of my red light, sipping mushroom coffee. I think I'm listening to many health podcasts at this point. Like that's I do all those things. I love reading. I'm reading an 800-page book about Abraham Lincoln right now called Team of Rivals, and I'm obsessed with it. It is so good.

SPEAKER_04 28:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

You know, just like I'm I'm big on consuming content, getting outside. Like I'm learning how to like garden and grow flowers and stuff that just doesn't make any sense. Like, like even like 10 years ago, me would be making fun of me right now, all the all these like like, bro, you're growing flowers.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

I still do squats, man. I still do squats and deadlifts. It's all good. Never skip leg day.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

But no, like I like the coolest things in my life are my children. Like they just seeing them grow up and you know, my son just started high school this year, and my daughter's doing amazing things. They're both athletes. It's just like watching them do their thing. I'm like, this is like crazy cool to sit back and watch them do their thing. And I'm yeah, I'm I'm a big fan. That's one of my goals this year is and going forward is like to not miss their games and anything like that. Like I have designed my business, my and my schedule around being able to show up for them and and help them out with their workouts and coach teams and and be at games and make meals and pick up, drop up from school, all that stuff. That's I keep I keep playing. I'm I'm more busy. I'm busier on my non-work days than I am on my work days. That's just from all the all the family stuff.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

That's nice though, because it seems like you've streamlined your business where it fits your life. Not where you work your life around your business, but you work your business around your life.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

Yeah. There are there are like electric fence boundaries on my schedule. And that's you know, that's a big deal. That's that's if you don't do that, your all the stuff will creep in. And like three of my favorite books, I'll talk about this. So one of them is called The One Thing by Gary Keller, J Pop is on. There's another one called Essentialism, Greg McKeown. And then the third one is I got I'm looking at my bookshelf, uh, 10X is easier than 2X by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. And like those three books, I I I invested in Dan Sullivan's program. He was my coach for seven years, and like the first thing he taught me was taking days off and like how to effectively not work and track those non-work days. And I know that my non-work days need to be between 160 and 200 days a year. And if I do that, I'm gonna make more money than if I'm working 365 days a year. So a little bit of rewiring went on during that time.

SPEAKER_03 31:24

And that's a hard concept because a lot of people are taught to work more, work harder, work faster, work longer. And you see so many people just burning themselves out, especially on social media, because they're not like ingesting anything other.

Final Thoughts on Podcasting Journey

SPEAKER_04 31:40

Yeah. Yeah, but I mean that's absolutely right.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

It you seem like your life is very fulfilling. Or the gym, you have a family. You know, you have your mushroom coffee, you know.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Make jokes about mushroom coffee.

SPEAKER_03 31:55

Is there any last words of wisdom or tips you can live leave us with today?

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Well, I think I I briefly mentioned it earlier, but like whether you're a content creator or you're trying to get healthy or you're trying to improve your life, your relationship, the whole thing for me is been like the why versus the why not equation. Like, what's the reason you want to actually do this? And is that bigger than all the combined force of all the why nots? Because all the why nots are gonna happen all at once. And if those are bigger, they're gonna win and you're gonna quit. And with content creating, with podcasting, like the attrition rate is so ginormous. Only 5% of us make it to 100 episodes. How many episodes are you at, Kat? Where are you at right now? Like 21. Boom. Got to get to 100. Be in being that 5%. I'm gonna I'm gonna be watching you, Kat. I'm gonna be supporting you. So like that's but that's just like it's just getting the reps in. When I hire when new clients hire me, I go, okay, first hundred episodes, you learn how to be a podcaster. Like you don't even know how to be a podcaster until you've done 100 because you're gonna screw things up. You're gonna find things you like, you're gonna find things that you're like, oh, I hope I never hope no one ever listens to that one. And then you start to kind of get your cadence and you're like, this is who I am as a content creator. Here's what I like talking about, and here's who I like talking to, here's what I like learning about. And you just start to kind of grow the grow this new skin, and you're like, oh, this is this is me as a content creator. So I think you're doing an awesome job. Oh, for your for your audience. Like, watch Kat's journey. Like, she is on this journey, she's gonna get that 100 plus episodes.

SPEAKER_04 33:30

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

And you know, keep bringing value. You've asked amazing questions today. This was a great interview. So uh I'm all I'm all frothed up and fired up now. Like I gotta go make my kids lunch, and I'm like, they're gonna be like, what's wrong with dad? I just did a podcast interview with my friend Kat.

unknown 33:45

What's wrong with dad?

SPEAKER_03 33:47

No, I love it. Thank you for the for the boost of confidence. I appreciate that. And I think you left us with a lot of good stuff today. And I've I've enjoyed talking to you. And I think you touched on a lot of good points, which isn't specifically how to make money on podcasts, because I think you gotta enjoy what you do and then the money will will come over time. But it's it's from my perspective, you get into it just for money, you're gonna be very disappointed very quickly.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Um get into be rich and famous, it's probably not gonna work out so well.

SPEAKER_03 34:20

No, no, but thank you so much, Adam, for talking with us today. Um, I don't want to take up too much more of your time. I know you got a gym to get to. Lunches to make, and uh especially it's Friday, I want you to enjoy your Friday. And I want to remind everyone to check out Adam's Podcast, Podcast Business School, and his website. Sign up for his email, find him on Threads, his insights. Game changing. You did a lot for us today. Um, everything will be in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for the conversation, Adam. Um, I appreciate it. And that's all we have time for today. Thanks, Ken. Thank you.