How To Start A Podcast That Expands Your Life & Business with Jeremy Weisz

Eric: Hey, Jeremy, welcome to the show.

Jeremy: Thank you for having me. I’m excited.

Eric: Yeah, it’s my pleasure. It’s really exciting to get back in touch with you. You and I talked, I don’t know, a month ago now where we recorded a podcast for your podcast and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today, podcasting, how you got into it, why it’s awesome, why it’s beneficial. Before we do that, can you just give us a little bit about your background and the 30,000-foot view of who you are and what you do?

Jeremy: Yeah, no problem. I have a … when people say, “Oh, you help people launch their own podcast,” they are baffled when I tell them my background, because it has nothing to do with this, but my background actually, I studied biochemistry in undergrad and I went on to become a chiropractor and I have my own chiropractic office where I, myself, a massage therapists and also did stuff in the health supplement space, and throughout the years … and when you’re a business owner, you end up doing everything, right, so marketing everything. So, I had gotten into podcasting, back in 2008 and I’ve been doing it ever since and I still love the health care thing. I still have a chiropractic table in my office, in my home, so friends will come over or my family to come over, but I don’t treat patients.

Eric: Well, but if I happen to be passing through Chicago, and I’ve got a subluxated disc-

Jeremy: 100%.

Eric: I could come … Nice. So, you started your podcast in 2008 and I think since then you’ve recorded around thousands of episodes and something like that, with entrepreneurs, business owners. Now, how did you … what was the thing that actually got you started around that time, what led you to podcasting?

Jeremy: For me, I always look at ways to give to my relationships, with anything. So, I want to come in … if I’m showing up for Eric or anyone, I’m like, “How do I give this person? How do I add value to this person?” I was listening to podcast at the time and I was thinking, it would be amazing, I could add value to people, have them on, profile them. I could see how that’s a big value add for other people. It also is professional development. I can talk to some of the best people in the world, you’re one of the top people in the world on membership, in general. I can talk to you and ask you about it and then share your expertise with my network and other networks, you put it on social media. So, it goes a lot … It takes that conversation a lot further.

So, I was looking and I was listening to podcasts, and I was looking at ways like thinking about how do I give to … how do I add value to someone who maybe at first glance, someone who’s really successful, however you judge success, whether it’s health or wealth or whatever because I think there is a … I was having a conversation with someone via email the other day, and they made a comment about, “You’re more successful than me or something.” I’m like, first of all, you don’t know … I don’t even know what that means, what successful means and I go, “Why are you selling yourself short? First of all, you don’t know my situation necessarily, but don’t sell yourself short. There’s always something to add … value to add, no matter who the people are.”

You know what I mean? So, that’s what I was looking at and I’ve seen no better way to … over 10 years, to just add value to people by profiling them on a podcast, but it started off with me listening and seeing, thinking, how do I add value to anyone in the universe? That was one way I’m like, “Oh, there’s lots of ways to add value to people,” but that was one way that is in my control that kind of goes across the board.

Eric: So, what is your definition of success?

Jeremy: It’s a good question. I think since I am in healthcare, and I geek out on healthcare, I think the first one … when I used to think about it, my mind would jump to monetary stuff but as I get older, it’s really … success, for one is being healthy. Two, it’s having your family healthy, right, because if you don’t have your health, then you’re just only worried about one thing, which is your health, it doesn’t matter. I mean, I’ve met lots of really, really, really successful career wise patients and they would trade all the money just to have, whatever, it may not be the condition I was treating them for, for their back, but it may have been they had bouts with cancer or whatever it is. They would trade all the money just for better health. So, number one is, health just making sure there’s pieces of my health … and I even hired a health coach this past year because I was struggling with sleep.

It was self-imposed, by the way. It wasn’t like I have bad sleep. I just wasn’t going to sleep because I enjoy what I do and I was working really hard and working late hours and it was affecting my sleep and he’s like, “Jeremy, not sleeping like your sleeping is like smoking,” right? I’m like, “Okay, that hit home because I don’t …” I have two lungs so I’ve never smoked anything. Actually, I have two lungs, I’m like, “Why would I inhale, smoke into them?” So, that really hit home and so I hired a health coach to help with that, but it helped me Look at all the things. So, that’s what I would say is focusing on the aspects of health for me, and then, trying to nicely impose my values of health on my family and friends in as nice a way as I can, without becoming overbearing to them, because I care about them.

Then after that, it’s, what are you … controlling your destiny, so doing what you want, when you want type of thing?

Eric: Now, were those … around 2008 and when you started this journey with podcasting, were those things the same or were they reversed, or how did they evolve over that time in terms of what you thought success was?

Jeremy: Yeah, it definitely has evolved because for me, when I was younger and you feel more invincible, but you’re not even thinking that’s a thing, right? Unless you’ve struggled … I mean, there’s people unfortunately … growing up, I know people who had childhood cancer, like other health issues, but if you haven’t and you’re young, for me at least, you’re not thinking, “I’m getting get sick or I need to take care of my …” you just kind of go full speed. I mean, if you look at what college kids eat, and the way you eat 20 years from then, I mean, I was shocked of what the crap I was putting in my body. You’re eating pizza every night and I have 48 pack a Snickers, just the crap I was eating-

Eric: You’re eating pizza at like 11 PM.

Jeremy: I mean, probably three times a day, and like midnight … 8 PM, midnight, “Oh, we need to go to this place at 1 AM,” and you’re eating … I mean, so now, I’m like lactose intolerant, so that’s probably because of all the crap I ate. Yeah, we totally have changed and the focus in what I … The values of certain things and the awareness of certain things have changed for sure.

Eric: Now, with podcasting, there’s a lot of objections that somebody may have, if they get it in their head that they want to start a podcast. In no particular order, I’d like to talk about some of those. I think, one of the top ones is well, how am I going to get any guests? I mean, if somebody peruses your list of people you spoken to, one of the first things they’ll notice is that you had some incredible people on your show, some of the biggest names in entrepreneurship, marketing and business. So, one question a beginner might have is, well, how did you do this? What are your secrets to getting great guests on your show?

Jeremy: I love that question. I love objections. We could talk all day about objections. That is a common one. It is, “Well, I’m just starting, I don’t have a list. I don’t have connections. How do I get guests or good guests?” I had a conversation this morning with someone, by the way Eric, really successful person. They’ve been in the industry for probably four decades, their industry and they go, “Jeremy, how am I going get … like, I don’t have a connection. I don’t have a list.” I go, “Are you joking me? Are you kidding me?” I go, “Look in your phone. Okay?” I go, “Pull out your phone, ” like, “I don’t have a formal list.” I go, “Do you have like amazing connections in your phone?”

“Everyone has some kind of connections, whether it’s social media, their phone,” but if you look at the past guests, I think I’ve had the founder of Atari, P90X, Einstein Bagels, how did you get those people?” I go, “One, I ask. Okay? I mean, there’s a little more to it than that. How do you get great guest?” People ask me that question, I picture that … I don’t know if you remember that there was like this Craigslist case study where someone traded a paperclip up to getting a car or something at some point. It’s the same premise. You don’t start off with the biggest names in the industry, you start off with your network, and everyone has someone in their network or if someone in your network isn’t maybe a good guest for what it’s a fit for, you can still ask your network of, “Here’s what I’m looking for. Who do you know in this industry?”

Even if it’s not an industry, you have to start somewhere. You start with someone who’s maybe high level in your network that is not in that industry but you always start somewhere and with the podcast also, it makes it very easy to introduce people to you because you’re adding value to the world and that person, so when you have the guests on, you ask them very simply, here’s what I’m looking for. Do you know anyone that I should have on? Who do you know? I had someone on a couple weeks ago and I was like, “Okay, well, I’m going to have some more VCs on my podcast,” right? This person was not in the VC world at all but I’m like, “I’ll just ask him,” because they asked me. They said, “Jeremy. I love to refer you guest? What are you looking for?” I go, “Well, actually, I know you’re not in this world but I’m looking for VCs,” and like “Oh, actually, I know a few.” I’m like, okay.

So, you never know who other people know. So, you just start somewhere. I mean, it’s very simple and then, with this person, when they said that, sometimes it’s a self-imposed barrier, because I’ve seen the most well-connected people say that very thing like, “How am I supposed to have guest? I’m looking around.”

Eric: Right.

Jeremy: What are you talking about? You know a lot of people, they’re in your phone or they’re in your social media.

Eric: Yeah, and speaking of self-imposed limitations, I mean, it may be that that’s what they’re saying. The issue is, but there are lots of other reasons why people might get the concern about starting a podcast, they’re like, “I’m not good at speaking,” something like this. I think as soon as we consider the prospect of putting ourselves out there in any way, whether it’s a podcast, whether it’s live video or anything, one of the things that I’ve noticed useful in my journey with it is, it’s like entrepreneurship in a way. It puts a spotlight on parts of you that may be uncomfortable doing certain things. So, whenever something like that happens, you have a choice of whether you’re going to go into that or you’re whether going to allow that fear to stop you from doing something.

Jeremy: Yeah. Most of the time, people worry about things that never happened, myself included and when they do happen, they’re usually not as bad as I thought they were going to be, right? I mean, at the beginning, the fact is no one is listening so it doesn’t matter.

Eric: Right.

Jeremy: People are all worried about it and I say, “Okay. Your mom or dad are maybe listening and your siblings are probably listening,” in the beginning, no one is listening.

Eric: Right.

Jeremy: So, if you mess up, who’s listening? There is like three people and they’re like, “Oh yeah, Jeremy. Yeah.” Even when people start listening, I mean, we’re way, a lot of times, more critical on ourselves than anyone is critical on us-

Eric: So, do you have any … when you’re working with people getting started with podcasts, do you have any advice for them to help them overcome this common thing?

Jeremy: Yeah. I mean, really, how they overcome it is just reps. You just do a few and you do a few with people who you’re comfortable with so that when you do it, you’re like, “Oh, that wasn’t bad. That wasn’t so bad.” It’s flexing a muscle, right? I mean, if you go to the gym, you’re flexing … you’re working on your muscles, so once you do it two, three, four times, it just doesn’t become a big deal anymore.

Eric: What was your first podcast episode like?

Jeremy: I’m trying to remember back who it was with and I don’t remember the person it was with. I kind of clump them all together into a group, but it was people I knew really well and we just had a natural conversation. So, it’s someone I had talked … these kind of batch of people, I had talked to hundreds of times already. So, it was like, just hitting record and part of it, what gets people comfortable is if you have a pre-interview process and … because listen, let’s say you’re comfortable and a lot of times, I have someone this week, who’s like, “Jeremy, I’m really nervous.” I mean, they just said it and by looking at them, I would never be able to tell like, “I’m really nervous.” I’m like, “Are you serious, you’re going to be awesome, you’re great.”

I go listen, and I take them through a pre-interview process, which gets them comfortable even if they didn’t say that and part of the pre interview process … because more likely, when you start getting comfortable with it, your guest is going to be nervous because they’ve never done it, but if you prepped them with a couple … “Okay, here’s a couple questions I’m going to ask,” even if it’s conversational like, “Here’s a couple questions I’m going to ask you,” and they kind of in their mind go, “Okay, I could totally answer those and I’m fine with that.” Once you … The first three minutes of the conversation, they forget even your recording and they’re just talking?

Eric: Yeah, that’s a really interesting phenomena that I’ve noticed because yeah, certainly in the early days, it was about being comfortable myself with the process, finding out where my natural personality was in interviewing people, which is constantly evolving, but once I kind of gotten into a rhythm, it was more about, “Okay, how do I help get the guests to feel comfortable,” because it’s like, for me, I like to approach it the same way. We’re just having a conversation. Nobody is nervous about having a conversation but the fact that it’s recorded, it changes psychologically something about the situation and for me, like my stuff is not scripted. The only thing that’s the same in every episode is like, “Hey, Jeremy, welcome to the show.” That one line … and sometimes with guests, I haven’t done that in the beginning.

If I know that the person is nervous for some reason, I’m just do a rolling start. “Oh, we’re just talking,” and then at the end, I’m like, “Hey, I need to record the intro right now.” It’s something about that one phrase that changes things.

Jeremy: I want to point something out Eric, which I think is important. If someone’s listening and is like, “I am just ultra-nervous. I am frightened about doing it,” or of the thinking I would never … I just don’t have the time. I know it’s valuable. I’m not going to do it. What I would challenge people to do is you could start off without even recording it on audio. You can just email someone a question they are interested in and go, “Hey, Eric, I want to publish this on my blog, on my website. Here’s one question that I love to ask you,” just one question and you could then go, “You know what, I could take that and just get on and record them answering that one question,” and they kind of already know the answer to it. So, there’s really easy ways to step into this, to doing it without making it overwhelming.

Eric: Yeah, I was talking to a friend last week who’s thinking about starting a podcast, and he was giving me some of his objections and one was, he was basically taking the … he was making more complicated than need to be, trying to figure out all the technical aspects and like, “Oh, but I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know …” I said, but it was clearly the whole process that he was going through, it’s keeping him from getting started at all, and he would have never gotten started. So, I said, “Look, just email somebody you want to talk to, hit record but don’t tell yourself that it’s going to be a product. Don’t think that you’re going to release it. Just have it be recording and just have a conversation.”

That’s actually how I started. My friend, Matt Brown, who’s a member of MemberMouse team, we just sat down and had a conversation and recorded it. At that point, I was not planning on doing a podcast, we just recorded a conversation. In fact, if you go back and listen to the first seven episodes, the name of the podcast changes, my stated intention about what I’m doing changes. It’s completely different but ultimately, it turned into a podcast, but some of those psychological tricks are helpful in the beginning because a lot of the times, things that are keeping us from moving forward is our psychology.

Jeremy: I mean, there’s so many things that hold people back, Eric, and in the beginning, when I was doing my podcast, I didn’t know what to call it. That’s a common one. So, what most people do is they just like … they need to figure out the perfect mic, or they needed to figure out the perfect name, and what I did, I just was like, “Whatever, I’m just going to start recording it.” I’m also like, kind of a high quick start in the Colby score but I just started recording it without a name. I’m like, “Hey, it’s Jeremy here. I’m the host of the podcast,” and I’m like, “I’ll think of a name later.” That’s what I did. I just like … so if you’re thinking about it, just don’t worry about the name, just start getting your voice and just start doing it and I think I was like three months in that I finally … like you said, you can change the name a couple times.

I had no name, and just said, “Hey, I’m the host of the podcast,” and my URL was jeremyweisz.com until I then changed it to inspiredinsider.com, but it was just my name, is the podcast, so yeah.

Eric: Yeah. Now, how do you personally prepare for your interviews? Do you research your guests, so they can ask specific questions or do you kind of go on the fly with it?

Jeremy: Yeah, so I am a not on the fly type of person, Eric. So, I like to do a lot of research. So, again, if someone is like, “Jeremy, I don’t have a lot of time,” right? I do probably five to 10 hours of research on a guest but if you don’t, at a minimum, look at their LinkedIn page. Look at their about page on their website. I personally like to … if they’ve written stuff, I like to read it, if they’ve done other interviews, I will listen to them and I listen to them, I have the Chrome plugin … I’m not even sure what it’s called. It’s like a video speed adjuster or something. So, I listened to those things. So, when I say five to 10 hours of research, that’s equivalent, I’m listening to everything on three times speed. So, if it’s five hours or 10 hours of stuff, it’s not 10 hours of me doing the research.

Eric: Right, warning, following this approach might mess with your sleep schedule.

Jeremy: I mean, here’s the thing, if you look at the LinkedIn or you look at their about page, what I like to really … what I tell people to do, just to keep it very simple with the research is be selfish in the sense of ask what you’re curious about. So, if something jumps out, if like, they go, “Eric studied philosophy,” or something, that’s weird with what he’s doing now, let’s just make that up and I would just pull out things that I’m curious about and ask about them.

Eric: Right.

Jeremy: Or, I have a curiosity about a topic that you’re an expert in, I would ask about it. So, it’s not like you have to do tons of research to do that but sometimes, it helps to pull out like the nuggets within the stories.

Eric: Yep.

Jeremy: So, that’s how I approach the researches and I recommend, when you’re on with the guest, when I’m on with someone, there may be something … I spent 50 hours researching, I couldn’t get when I’m in front of them and I say, “Hey, like what’s top of mind lately? What are you working on?” Sometimes they’ve never shared it before and we talk about that, also.

Eric: Right. Yeah, I’m looking at an image right now of your notebook page that you had one when you interviewed me, that you have mailed me after the fact. It’s like this kind of like mind map scroll of like this huge web of topics with arrows and things circled and things with square, we’ll put it in the show notes so people can see the method behind your madness, but is this all from the time we talked live?

Jeremy: Yeah.

Eric: Okay, so this-

Jeremy: No, that’s from a time we talked live. So, what I may start with … I know we’re not recording the video, but I may start with just a sheet of paper with the person’s name and what I’ll do is I’ll just put like maybe three bulleted things that I’m curious about. So, on there, it probably started … if you link up that image, it started with just three little bullets and then as you started talking, I just would make notes of other things that I’m curious about as you’re talking and I don’t want to interrupt you, so I’ll just write it down, I’ll put my pen on it and when you kind of finish your story, I will look down and I’ll be like, “But Eric, you said you do like these tea tours, what’s going on with that?” So, it just kind of the next leads to the next.

Eric: Right and I definitely can’t make any sense out of it.

Jeremy: There’s some gems in there, for sure but it is just a stream of kind of curiosities throughout when you’re talking about it.

Eric: Yeah, but I think the lesson here is like there’s pre-preparation and then there’s … I think I’ve also found in my style and approach to doing podcasts that I do … there is a preparation process, ours has to do with a pre-interview, which we basically like figure out what the general outline will be and then we type that up, break it down into sections, like what we want to get out of this particular episode but then I love the stuff, the nuggets have come up in the moment live. So, I also have my … I don’t stick to that. I follow it loosely but then I have my notes that I’m taking during the interview. Here’s something I want to ask what you, at what your experiences with this. I noticed like sometimes when I’m recording a podcast, I need to listen to it after I’ve recorded it to know what it was about.

Because there’s these multiple levels of listening that need to happen, because it’s like I’m listening to you and also there’s a part of the mind that gets engaged in, “Okay, strategically, when is this going to stop? What’s going to be the next point?” So, this is balanced between active listening, so you can be in the moment and not like because the opposite of that is if you just have a bullet point list and you’re just rattling through some list, which everybody knows when they hear that, it’s kind of boring because it’s like, “Okay, the next question has nothing to do with the previous question and there’s no arc or flow.”

Jeremy: There’s no flow of the conversation, totally.

Eric: So, what’s your experience like with that?

Jeremy: Yeah, that’s a great point because it’s hard to be thinking of the next question and be listening, and you want it to be a free-flowing conversation. So, what I do for that is kind of … that’s what you see, that chicken scratch craziness allows me to be more of an active listener because if I already kind of wrote that one, the next question like I’m curious about. I will continue to ask questions that I’m curious about on the story you just told but when that stream of stories and thoughts goes away, you can’t just sit there and be like, “Well, what’s next?” So, I have my pen, I have the next kind of question that I have not related to this necessarily, this topic, and I’ll have my pen on it.

So, I could just be listening to the person and not nervous, like when they stop talking, what am I going to ask? So, I already have kind of my next question planned but I don’t have to remember it. So, I like write it down, I jot it down really quickly and then I can just not worry about it. That’s my methodology to just stay in tune, stay active listening or some people have a Google document and they just have some questions that they ask.

Eric: Here’s something that I want to hear your stories about, because we also have a post editing process. We record the interview and then we record the intro and outro separate. When we deliver a final episode, it’s very polished but there are some crazy stories about what happens in the recording sometimes, like my internet connection will drop and the guest is still talking and they don’t know that I’m not there and I have to jump back in and then re-enter the conversation or somebody stops talking and my mind is completely blank about what question I ask. So, I’m like sitting there in silence and I’m like … and then we kind of have an off the books conversation about where we want to go with it.

So, I think it would be valuable for people to hear some of this stuff, because they may think, “Oh, delivering a polished product is about doing it perfectly when you’re doing it,” but there are some like on the fly stuff that can happen.

Jeremy: Yeah, so everyone has different thoughts on this, like the internet cuts out or something like that, like I had someone the other week, no matter how many times you’ve done this, you’re going to have technology issues. I mean, someone is going to have a technology issue. This person, they were vacationing and they were in Africa and they were in some room and the internet connection was horrendous and it kept cutting out so I do my best to minimize post steps, so I will just pause … I use Zoom so I will just pause the recording at that point and then, I wait for it to comeback and then I had that conversation like, “Okay, you were saying this, just pick up where you left off, and then I’ll unpause it.”

For the most part, probably 99% of my interviews, I don’t do much post edit. I don’t do any editing, if there’s a technology issue I do but if there’s not, I kind of keep it in there and I’m fine with my mistakes or if I say something, I just keep it all in there. I mean, I remember one, Eric, someone … there was a bee that came in the room and they … and then first of all, when a bee came on, I just run like a school girl around trying to get away from the bee. I know you’re supposed to just not move but I never really did that. So, I will just run around and try and get away from the bee. This person was like swatting at the bee, and I thought it was a funniest … I kept it in.

I mean, I did not cut that part out or like, “Hold on, there’s a bee,” and just swatting. I thought it was funny. I just leave that stuff in there and people like authentic conversation. So, also, if someone’s worried about, “Well, I have to do all this post production.” You can but in my opinion, you don’t necessarily need to and people are totally fine with some issues or pauses or mistakes or whatever.

Eric: Yeah, I agree with you.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Eric: Like I mentioned, we do post production but not to the extent that it loses the authenticity of the conversation. It’s not like a heavy edit. I remember my first five episodes, I was editing myself and if you literally looked at those files, there was like 300 cuts, I was cutting everything. It was ridiculous. So, the editing process in some way, as time went on, it reflected my comfort. The more comfortable I got, the less that I was doing.

Jeremy: You mentioned something really important there, as I’ve … there’s one show that I was listening to lately, I won’t mention the name of it. It’s a really good podcast, but it was so overly produced, like I felt it was … I want to just listen to the whole conversation. I felt like they kept cutting it and it was very well produced, overly produced and I felt like I lost that flow of the conversation because they cut it so many times.

Eric: Yeah, the ones where there’s music outros, like 15 minutes in, 30 minutes in and messages from sponsors like who’s this … it’s just really weird.

Jeremy: It is, true. Yeah, you’re spot on. It was like, they had some background music like pipes in and yes.

Eric: Like we’ll be right back, where are you going? Where am I going? I’m not going anywhere. I can listen to this if I need a bathroom break, I can keep my headphones in. Yeah, it seems like that happens with at least the ones that I’ve heard, they’re more popular in terms of like … they’re going down a certain track and using their podcasts in a certain way for monetization or for something related to something else. I’m not sure what but yeah.

Jeremy: It’s more of like … yeah, if they’re using that as a … that is their business, right? It’s the business of the media, right? If CNBC … I mean, it’s going to be highly produced, it’s just different from if you’re a business owner, and you’re just getting … don’t compare yourself to like NPR. It’s just, a totally different thought process, and goal and even style of a podcast. So, I think it’s pretty … and I guess the overarching thought is just don’t overcomplicate it. Buy a USB mic on Amazon for $100, but people get caught up on the technology side, right and I say, keep it simple. You could use … we’re using Skype right now. You can use Skype. You can use Zoom. If you’re used to using … just use whatever you’re used to, you can hit record on Zoom. Get a USB mic or use an internal mic at the computer to start and just get going.

Eric: Right, there’s no reason for anything to stand in the way. So, let’s talk about some of the benefits of having a podcast. So, in your opinion, why would it be good for someone listening to start a podcast or become a guest on someone else’s podcast? What impact can that have on our businesses and careers and our influence?

Jeremy: Yeah, so people ask me all the time, actually, it’s a good point, “Jeremy, why should I start a podcast when I can just be a guest on other podcasts?” They can do all the energy … You know, it’s not an insignificant amount of work. You spend the time, energy and money producing it. You put it up on all the platforms, you create a post out of it, you put it on social media. I go, “Yeah, that’s totally true.” Being a guest is probably easier. You show up, the other person does all the work and publishes it but here’s the thing, I said, you’re dependent on them to say yes to you. So, now you’re dependent on someone … your destiny is dependent on someone else saying yes. Okay. So, is it a good thing to do? Yeah, totally. Everyone should do that but it’s not to replace, in my opinion, having your own because now you are in control.

You choose how you build your network, you choose what guests you have on. You are now the gatekeeper on who comes on yours, right? Now, it is going to be more energy and work than being a guest. So, I think people should do both and you get exposed to different audiences when you are a guest, obviously and also, when you have your own, your guests will share the episodes. So, you get exposure to audiences as well. When this goes live, you’re like, “Hey, Jeremy, it’s live. I’m going to post it on … like, “Hey, we did a great episode on Eric’s podcast. I’ll put it on my LinkedIn. I’ll put it on my Facebook. We’ll email it out.” They’ll get to hear and check out more episodes of your podcast too.

Eric: Right.

Jeremy: So, what I see the benefits of a podcast are in … here’s the thing. When I think of this, if someone has a business, okay, there is … someone has a business and now, I’m talking to business of podcasting, meaning like some people think of … they ask me two questions, what’s the technology setup and how do I get downloads and subscribers? So, if you’re in the business of podcasting, meaning, you’re trying to get sponsors, trying to build up an audience to get sponsors, that’s very, very, very difficult. Okay? So, when I’m talking about someone, I think all businesses should have a podcast. A platform where they’re producing regular content and the benefits are one, amazing networking. Giving to your network. So, you have people on who you admire, you respect their thought leadership and you-

Eric: You are good at basketball.

Jeremy: You are good at basketball. Exactly. So, you can play, it’s a real relationship, like when we’re in the same city, we’ll play horse or something, right?

Eric: Exactly. Well, you’re going to win.

Jeremy: I don’t know about that.

Eric: I’m really bad at basketball. Really bad. So, anyway …

Jeremy: I’ll give you a handicap.

Eric: Okay. Great.

Jeremy: It’s like, we’ll start you off with like five, five to zero or maybe that’s your way of hustling me. You’re like, “All right, Jeremy, let’s bet on the next one.” You form a real relationship with your people and to me, that’s invaluable, to really deepen relationships in my network. Then obviously, it’s professional development. You can learn from … I remember, we had a question, we’re like, “How should we approach this hiring stuff in our business.” I’m like, “Well, why don’t I just interview three of the top HR professionals who’ve hired thousands of people and ask them,” and it would be valuable … it’s valuable for anyone to listen but let’s say I was just having conversation with them.

It evaporates into the ether, that knowledge. Well I want to record it, now I can share it but I can also learn from those people. So, professional development, I know people who go, “I have a podcast that no one was listening, just because I get to talk to really smart people and learn from them,” and then, there’s obvious benefits of producing regular content because when you have a podcast, a 30-minute episode can go across 17 or more channels. You can take that one thing, put it on Spotify, Google Play, iTunes. You can put it on your podcast or on your website. You could put it on social media and there’s an SEO value to that and there’s also an audience reach for that. For me, audience reach is secondary to all the other things.

I’m not worried about … concerned about audience reach. I’m concerned about creating something valuable with people who are experts, that stuff will come.

Eric: Yeah, I think in my experience, the reason it even came up at all was because I had been in probably nine years into MemberMouse at that point or more. I was like, I have so many conversations all the time and I repeat myself a lot. People are asking me the same questions. I’m giving the answers. I should be recording this. So, I feel like anybody who has some sort of experience, pretty much any experience, if people are coming to you and asking you questions, that’s perfect opportunity for you to record that, put it up as an episode and it can be any length. I mean, I’ve seen episodes that are like 12 minutes long or less. So, it’s not that episodes need to be a certain length or formatted a particular way.

It’s literally … it can reflect your personality and we have to allow for evolution to be a part of the process, like where we start is definitely not going to be where we end up.

Jeremy: You bring up a really good point, Eric because … so if you categorize episodes, it could be an interview with an external person or it can be a thought leadership with your internal thought leadership and those internal thought leadership … and so people kind of go on both ends of the spectrum, right? All of their podcast is just them talking or all of their interviews or all of their podcast episodes are interviews and then there’s somewhere in between, but the thought leadership piece is so critical, what you just said because if you find yourself repeating things over and over, go, “Hey, before we talk, why don’t you just listen to this. I’ll send you a link to this episode, and it may answer some of the biggest mistakes you’re making with your membership when trying to grow your membership.” Then they don’t ask you those things.

Eric: Yeah, we use a lot of the episodes and this wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t strategic thinking, foresight but we end up using a lot of the episodes to help with our onboarding process, to help with our sales process to help with people at different stages of running successful businesses, because you end up talking to people about what you’re interested in, if you’re interested in it likely, a lot of people are in your community are interested in it too.

Jeremy: 100%. Yeah. No, Thanks for pointing that out. That’s a huge benefit. You use it in your regular process, whatever you’re doing.

Eric: Yeah. So, not only are you a podcaster, but you’re also an entrepreneur, do you have any big lessons you’ve learned on your journey that you feel would be valuable for our listeners?

Jeremy: Yeah, I think for me, one of the most valuable things I wish I would have learned earlier in my career is really find a mentor, find a mentor who is doing what you want to do but also embodies what you want to embody. So, even if it’s, I find my mentor … let’s say it’s a business mentor who’s really successful and achieved certain pinnacles in their business. I also like to have a mentor who may be … has a successful marriage, potentially. They haven’t been divorced, like seven times. So, I think, for me, mentorship in all avenues. Whether it’s health, whether it’s wealth, whether it’s … whatever it is. If someone is trying to achieve something in their career or in their personal life, find a mentor.

Even if you’re like, “I really geek out on guitar.” We’ll find a mentor, find a real mentor to walk you through it, so you could … because that may be a little costly, more costly in the front end but in the backend … like the time, energy and money you’ll save by having an expert, the times … I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, Eric, but there have been times in our house of like, “Oh, just try and do this,” and then every time … I take a bunch of time, I ruined it anyways and you end up hiring the expert regardless. So, in the end, I just think saving myself the time and anguish and just go right to the person who knows what they’re doing, because they have the roadmap. There’s also things that I don’t even think of that they’ve already been through this journey and so I just seek out mentorship whenever possible.

Before it may take me like the hard way, like three times to do something, before I realized it. Now, I think, who’s the person I need to talk to you and just hire or help and you don’t even need to hire. I mean, you could add value to people and it doesn’t have to be super expensive either, thinking of how you add value to that person and have a mentee-mentor relationship.

Eric: Yep. A general perspective that I’ve heard you express in two different ways now has been reflective of the evolution that you’ve taken in your journey with your podcast, in your journey with your entrepreneurship. You’ve come to a more holistic perspective, you talk about your definition of success now being … starting with your health first, starting with things that you understand are foundational elements. Things that are part of long-term thinking. When we’re younger, we’re like, we just burn the candle at both ends because we have a particular amount of energy. Now, you’re talking about too, like in terms of helping your business looking for people who have the experience, leveraging other people’s experience.

So, this lesson, ultimately, you got to that point because of your path and taking the different approaches. Do you think you could have avoided that?

Jeremy: Avoided kind of that … You mean, come to it earlier on?

Eric: Yeah, like for example, if you were talking to yourself while you were in college, and you had the attitude of, “Oh, whatever my health, it’s all good. I can eat pizza three times a day,” or like would you have been at all to come to the place of wisdom you have with these things, without having the experience of trying it the other way?

Jeremy: Yeah, I would say I highly doubt it. I’m just trying to think of, would I have even listened to myself. I listen to someone because if I was … I mean, there’s certain things maybe at the time I would have been open to and there’s certain things I would not have been open to. So, I feel like I would default to the answer, probably not because I may have not been even open to those things early on or discounted them like, “Oh, they don’t know,” or whatever it is. I consider myself a pretty highly coachable person in general. So, I try and stay open to a lot of things but we all have our preconceived notions. So, I would say, there’s certain things. I guess we just have to experience for ourselves or hear maybe 10 times before we listen to them.

Eric: Yeah, for sure.

Jeremy: Maybe someone will listen to us and be like, “You know, it’s the 17th time someone said, “You know, I really just should find a mentor,” and maybe that makes them do it or maybe it’s the first time and they’re like, “Yeah, I could just do it myself. It’s fine. I’ll figure it out,” right?

Eric: Yeah. Well, in any event, I think that with regards to podcasting, like a lot of journeys, the definite way to start the path is to take the first step. Just do something and whatever that first thing is, don’t overcomplicate it. As you said, keep it simple because ultimately, whatever those complications are, you’re going to learn through the process and not as a prerequisite for starting at all.

Jeremy: Yeah, I know, we’re probably wrapping up but I want to finish with one thing and I like turning inspiration into action, right? So, like, doing something, right? So, this is all great. So, what I would challenge people to do, if you’re listening to this, if you’re still listening to this, awesome. Forget about podcasting for a second and just think of adding value. So, what I would challenge everyone to do is just write down three people in your universe, your world that are really important to you. Okay? Send them a text. Send them an email. Call them and just thank them, like appreciate them. Appreciate them, thank them and thank them in sense of like, “I appreciate …” it could in the business context. It could be like thank you for helping with XYZ in the business and go, “You’ve been so good to me, I just want to find out what you’re working on and how I can help.”

Come from a place of service and just email or call one of those people or all of them and just thank them and get on the phone with them and see how you can help. That’s it. If you do have a podcast you’re listening, well then, say … afterwards just say, “Hey, I would love to feature you and profile on my podcast,” or a blog post or whatever it is. That’s it. Just come at a place of how can I add value and give first.

Eric: That’s amazing advice and it will lead … and the nice I like about that is it removes the pressure of expectation on yourself and what can result from that is happy accidents, surprises, things like this. Yeah, I think that’s really great advice. Thank you, Jeremy, so much for coming on. It’s been great to talk to you again. Also, a side thing about doing a podcast, this is like the adult … one of the adult versions of having a sleepover. It’s like, I was on your podcast, you’re on my podcast.

Jeremy: I’m going to put that as a tag line on Rise25.

Eric: Yeah.

Jeremy: This is the adult version of a sleepover.

Eric: Yeah, because it is different. It’s a totally different energy, having to be the guest versus having to be the host. The host holds the space, even though they’re not probably talking as much. For me, I always appreciate being a guest because I can relax more because I don’t have to think about anything. I’m just answering the question based on the person who is running the show. I definitely appreciate how you run your podcast and create that space. It’s a very naturally relaxed opening and enjoyable environment to be in. So, I think that that’s definitely, part of your success is your ability to do that and your ability to do that probably is the testament to all the experience you’ve had.

Jeremy: Cool. Thank you so much. It’s an honor and a pleasure, Eric. I appreciate you having me.

Eric: It’s my pleasure and if people want to check out some of the great podcast episodes that you’ve put together, where can they go to learn more about you?

Jeremy: Yeah, you can go on inspiredinsider.com. All the episodes are there. It’s completely free and you can probably check them out on any of the podcast apps that you listen to but all the episodes are video and audio on inspiredinsider.com and check out more there and there’s an about page there and there’s an about page on rise25.com/about to learn more about me too.

Eric: Awesome. Thank you so much Jeremy.

Jeremy: Awesome. Thanks, Eric.

OUTRO:

Thank you so much for listening to my entire conversation with Jeremy. I hope you have an expanded perspective about the benefits of podcasting and what it can do for your life and business.

Many thanks to Jeremy for coming on the show and sharing so freely from his years of wisdom and experience.

To get links to all the resources we mentioned in this episode, you can head on over to SubscriptionEntrepreneur.com/169.

There you’ll also find the complete show notes and a downloadable transcript of our conversation.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more interviews with successful entrepreneurs, experts, and authors, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or Stitcher.

We have a growing library of engaging episodes with many more to come.

Thanks for being here and we’ll see you next time.