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Mike Bivens | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #88 | · The Christian Reeve Podcast

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  It's another episode of the Christian we've podcast.
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  But are you subscribed? If not make sure to like, share
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  and subscribe, spread the word about the Christian Reef podcast
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  and enjoy this episode. Hello and welcome to another
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  episode of the Christian re podcast.
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  Today's guest is a podcaster YouTuber marketing, professional
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  and comic book writer all the way from the USA.
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  His name is Mike Bivins. Welcome to the show.
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  Mike, how you doing doing great? How about yourself?
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  I'm doing very well, they're very well, I don't like it's
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  think things are going well. But it's not about you.
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  It's about you, you host a mental health podcast known as
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  silent Journeys. Tell us why you started this
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  podcast and what sort of topics you tend to discuss on the
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  actual show. Yeah, absolutely.
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  So Silent Darkness was actually kind of a covered project of
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  mine. I had a podcast previous to that
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  and as a kind of run its course and ultimately was more work
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  than the Half was and so I wanted to switch gears into
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  something new and so, you know, like a lot of people I was
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  dealing with, you know, different mental health,
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  complications being isolated and covid-19.
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  I had moved 2000 miles away from everyone and everything.
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  I had known and the middle of June 2015 2020.
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  So I was in a very new environment, not knowing
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  anybody. And so, you know, mental health
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  obviously kind of a rose and it's always Has been an
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  important topic to me, but I thought, well, let's, you know
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  how its can I engage in this and also, like, bring in my own
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  Hobbies of podcasting and so silent during his kind of born
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  as this opportunity to speak. And listen to other people share
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  their mental health stories and kind of share those out with
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  anybody. That was kind of wanting to hear
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  similar stories to their own, or here.
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  Just, you know, just to know that they're not alone in the
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  struggles that they have. Has talking to other people
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  about their conditions, kind of helped you with your own?
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  Yeah, absolutely. And as things have changed.
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  So I previously worked at a public university and so we
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  were, we were very much still working in person throughout the
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  pandemic and so, because of that, I did end up meeting
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  people and like associating with them a little bit at work.
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  And so that was also a big, big help for me, just kind of
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  getting over that mental hurdle. Love just feeling isolated.
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  And so I think also, you know, it was a combination of getting
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  that human face to face interaction.
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  And you know, having this opportunity to speak to people
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  really all over the world. During last year, I talked to
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  people from Pakistan, India, the UK around the u.s. some in
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  Canada. And so I really had the
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  opportunity to just like kind of decompress and talk through some
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  of these Very serious struggles and issues with people just
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  really all over the place which has been fantastic.
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  What would you say are some of the most kind of memorable
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  moments on the show so far? Yeah, I think some of the most
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  memorable moments is just been How Deeply open people will be.
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  If given the opportunity to share what they, what they've
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  been feeling. I have, I've had people come
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  onto the show and share just Some their Deacon deepest and
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  darkest moments that they've gone through in their life, and
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  they are totally willing to just lay it on all out there for the
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  entire world to hear. And so, it's been, I guess just,
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  every moment that I find someone who comes onto the show and is
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  willing to just be completely vulnerable with me and my
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  audience. Those are the most like
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  incredible, like, memorable moments that I've had on this
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  show so far, is that bend, anything sort of challenging or
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  my Not so good that you sort of had to deal with and how did you
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  kind of navigate it? If so, good question, I think
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  most challenging has been I've had two or three guests, who
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  have shared some really tough moments and kind of dealing with
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  the the empathy that I have when listening these and reflecting
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  on my own previous experiences in my My life and and thinking
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  back to, like, the places that I've been and not so healthy,
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  mental, mentally, speaking, and then having to hear these
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  stories, like you empathize with them, and you're like, you know,
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  it's that it's difficult to hear those and sometimes it's just
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  having to take a step back and like, you know, speak with them
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  afterwards and just like kind of relates a little bit and talk
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  through that. And I'm really good at using
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  humor to kind of diffuse Really tough like situations regarding
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  like mental health. Because I've had lots of
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  experience with it growing up and so using using humor to try
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  and you know relax and bring things back to kind of a cherry
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  level before, you know, departing ways from the
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  recording is has been my best way of dealing with it.
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  That's interesting. I should be you mentioned this
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  kind of off the sort of like Aftercare side of things.
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  Is that something that you kind of developed over time?
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  Or did you kind of set out? With that in mind thinking like
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  yeah, if I get something particular, I need to kind of
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  take the responsibility for that, I mean, because some
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  people would just be, that was not my responsibility.
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  But like, why for you is that important?
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  I think it's important to me, I have been working in student
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  affairs, which is essentially for those who aren't familiar
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  with student affairs. Think it's everybody that's on a
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  college campus who isn't teaching or instant were
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  essentially human resources for Students.
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  And so my education for that in my employment, in there has
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  always just been about like this ethic of care.
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  And and looking after one, another and ensuring everybody
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  is, you know, safe and healthy and feeling, okay?
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  And I think that that just naturally kind of bled over into
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  the show and at the end, like checking in on my guests and I'm
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  getting ready to actually reach out to my previous guest that
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  I've had and kind of just like, you know, Check in on the see
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  how they're doing. And so that's, that's something
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  I'm planning and I'm wondering, like, is there a way for me to
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  like kind of make an episode of it where I bring back some of
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  the guests, the to kind of talk about, like, where they, you
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  know, where they've gone since, you know, a year ago when I last
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  talked to them. Vanessa, very good idea.
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  See a lot of different creators doing similar thing.
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  I know, this isn't exactly the same.
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  I've been watching a lot of Gordon Ramsay's clips on
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  YouTube, Just in between editing and stuff.
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  And Yeah, that was one of the things that he would do is come
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  back a year later. See how they're doing?
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  And just bring it back to the point.
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  Like, you know, it's all well and good like saying like this
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  is my action plan, this is what we're going to do.
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  This is how I'm going to progress.
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  But then you know, when you're away from that person, who's
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  giving you that advice support, whatever the case may be, and
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  you're on your own, it can be tricky to put that into effect
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  and be more importantly being consistent.
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  I think is the is always the key consistency.
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  I think is the key to most things particularly when it
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  comes. To mental health because, you
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  know, it's like this, you know, every day is like that, you
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  know, and it's it can be, it can be tricky.
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  And yeah, different people do it, builds these things in
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  different ways, I feel. Yeah.
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  Like I'd so for me most of the time, I don't really have any
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  issues but I have that kind of like flip reverse thing.
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  So like, and that's already have it anymore.
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  I mean, I haven't had it for a long, long, long time, but when
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  I did have it, it was kind of like, A both like a physically
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  paralyzing thing if you know what I mean.
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  So like not only do you feel depressed, but your body's just
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  like letting you know, like the whole time.
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  And it's like, well, great. I can't do anything which isn't
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  funny but I don't know. It's funny in retrospect I
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  suppose. But anyway, yeah, you mentioned
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  in that that you deal with student affairs, I'm intrigued.
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  What are some of the sort of like craziest stuff that you've
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  had to deal with during that world?
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  Well unfortunately some of the craziest stuff is like under
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  privacy privacy laws. Preventing me all about it but
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  I've seen I've been a part of Investigations and and read
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  reports on investigations other people.
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  My office I've done I've just like some really insane acts
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  just like What, you know that makes you stop and think like
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  what was going through your mind when you when you did this and
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  why would you want to do it in front of people?
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  You know, knowing like not only does this break, so many school
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  ethics rules but it's also just bizarre acts that that make
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  really no sense and then, yeah, I wish I could share some of the
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  stories I have, but it will be a few years before.
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  Actually able to share like openly some of these things.
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  Nah, that's that's completely first sensible but on the bright
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  side it just reminded me of something that I've never
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  actually told either on my channel, the podcast before.
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  So and it's and it's on topic as well.
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  So, when I was at Uni, there was okay.
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  So our main campus Building is like an 18th century building
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  more. I think 90 19th century building
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  and it's beautiful. Well, if you're if you're
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  interested, you can check out Royal Holloway University on
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  Google and you can find a big Orange Building Cathedral type
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  style. Very beautiful anyway.
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  Yeah. It's a very old building and I
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  found out later that basically, because they did insulation
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  differently, many hundreds of years ago, apparently, I don't
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  know this to be fact, apparently, the insides of the
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  walls are insulated with things like animal fur and supposedly.
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  Celine, I don't know if that's true but apparently but one of
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  the things that apparently is true is that the building is
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  highly flammable. And apparently at one point, it
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  was one of the most flammable buildings in Europe.
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  Again, don't know the facts about this, this is just what we
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  heard. Anyway, one day there was a kid
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  who from what? I remember he'd ever been
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  expelled the year before or no. No that was it.
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  He was expelled in his final year so he'd messed around that
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  much that he Got expelled from University.
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  By the way, it's in school. This is University.
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  So do what the hell you have to do to get expelled from
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  University? I think maybe this was the thing
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  that going be expelled. I don't know.
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  Anyway basically I don't know if he was on drugs or probably but
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  he basically went and decided to set fire to this girl's bedroom
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  in this what we called Founders building right and obviously
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  because things you know light up like a matchbox It just
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  everything caught on fire, and there's two sides to this story.
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  So a that building was cordoned off.
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  We had like five or six fire trucks.
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  There you know it was kind of crazy this response time is
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  always like that because it's a listed building so it makes
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  sense but on the flipside of this there's a student living
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  there and it's like her first year she's European student,
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  right? She had no money and the
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  university were How can I get a bit that they were helpful but
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  like not as helpful as they could be and so and it's really
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  cool like our University or the students kind of pitch together
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  and basically got got her like I think another enough money to so
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  she could stay somewhere else but yeah the university didn't
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  offer that so yeah, do better. But anyway yeah.
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  So basically that got kind of got a leave sort it out later on
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  but obviously She was under distress and the guy that
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  actually did it. It was bizarre.
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  He ran halfway across the campus Because the campus base unit to
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  the other library that we have the old library and because it's
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  like a 24-hour Library. Like you could just kind of walk
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  in walk out. Something people would just
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  like, hang out there or times drink.
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  Those really weird like drinking at the library, you know.
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  But yeah. And he was just like shouting at
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  everyone and getting distressed. And it's the first time I've
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  ever seen someone get arrested and dragged out by police from a
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  University campus so that was, yeah, it was interesting.
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  But yeah, he needed he nearly burned down that building so
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  there you go crazy. Yes, answer.
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  And it fascinates me. I did not realize just like like
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  growing up. You see like crazy movies about
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  like, and saying, things college students, do and and you know,
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  you just take it as movies and then you get into college, you
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  know, like Oh, wow. Like people actually do Insane
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  things all through, like all the way up until right before they
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  graduate. They're still, you know,
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  stealing street signs and, and burning and starting couch fires
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  in the middle of the street. And it's you just shake your
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  head. Like, wow, it, I mean, the
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  movies aren't that far off? It's true.
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  There's always the weird kid, the crazy kid.
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  And the width, the the, I suppose the worst thing about
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  about it is when you actually ask them, why they did it,
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  you'll either get I was bored something to do, or that some
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  crazy answer, like something where you're, like, kids could
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  grow up to be a serial killer, like, yeah, there's this,
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  there's no doubt in my mind because it cause it's like, they
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  don't like function in a normal way to know what I mean.
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  Like, every kid, particularly boys, imagine growing up yet.
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  You've done stuff that you shouldn't have, you know, it's
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  that kind of classic boys being boys mentality, right?
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  But at the same time, it's like, everyone has like a limit I
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  didn't mean and especially when it comes to like setting fire to
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  like hmm things or destroying build it.
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  Like come on. It's like especially when you're
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  in school is that we want to at least graduate and not get
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  kicked out and you know, I mean it's like I couldn't imagine
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  getting to the and getting ready to the end and then giving a
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  child like man, all that wasted progress.
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  Well yeah especially University as well.
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  I mean here in the UK it's like nine Grandpa term.
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  So it's like You're in debt. You don't get your degree and
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  then I think, apparently, with this kid as well, like I think
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  his parent was one of his parents was like a professor at
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  the University. So it's like, oh yeah, and I
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  don't even think that could get him off.
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  Like, I'm pretty sure it the way it sounded was like he was like
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  this sort of rich kid messing around doing drugs and ended up
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  with that. And it's like, Goddamn.
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  That's, I mean, it's like you've got the easiest route for
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  yourself, you know? Yeah, absolutely.
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  And just pissed it all away. Oh wow.
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  Well, moving it forward. You also from my notes you also
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  pop hosts a podcast known as F in chat.
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  Mmm, tell us more about this podcast and what you tend to
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  discuss on this show. Yeah.
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  So effing share the name was caught is kind of born out of a
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  meme and essentially what it is is just kind of a buddy to chat
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  show where two of my friends and I just get together weekly and
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  we Talk about the biggest, the biggest news in pop culture,
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  particularly on the nerdier side of things.
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  And so we're talking about like news and streamer news with
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  streamers, talk about some video games stuff and industry news,
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  that kind of thing. And then we have a couple of
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  different arguments about just like a random topics.
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  And and so, you know, last time, our last episode, we talked
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  about, you know, is the ocean a soup, and we kind of went back
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  and forth. Fourth.
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  And yeah, and just like fun little arguments like that, to
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  kind of like liven up and, and, you know, get a little
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  argumentative with each other and see where where it goes.
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  So what was the verdict is ICO? The ocean is absolutely a soup.
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  It's a giant soup. It's a giant soup.
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  And what was that based on? Give us a good base version and
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  it's just, it's a fish soup. It's full of fish and it's a
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  fish. Wow.
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  I've never heard it described that way.
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  If I could see it? I could say in India.
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  When it wouldn't taste good. It'd be a bad.
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  Yeah, no it's awful too. Salty seawater.
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  Absolutely so yeah. And so we just take you know
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  crazy opinions like this and try to argue back and forth and you
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  know we never really win all the the whether the ocean is a suit
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  was probably the first argument that we've all had like, come to
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  an agreement. So Greens on.
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  Other than that, we've always liked very much into the
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  argument saying, well, we have our own opinions and that's fine
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  and then we move on from there. And so it's just been a really
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  fun way for a couple of buddies and I just to connect and talk
• 17:43
  about just a couple of ridiculous things once a week
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  will give us some more examples will have a kind of crazy stuff.
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  Have you guys spoken about? Yeah, so this is actually a
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  carry over to the two of them talked on somewhat similar
• 17:57
  podcast where They were given like these roles and they had to
• 18:00
  argue who won this. Argument did not end in that
• 18:02
  podcast. They carried it back two hours
• 18:05
  and they continued it have. Yeah.
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  And so they they haven't resolved it and they fought at
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  your show and continue argument there.
• 18:17
  Yeah. And so it's the argument went,
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  who would win big? Who would win in a fight?
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  A witch who can Is unlimited cookies or big bird with a Nerf
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  gun? And, and it was just just crazy
• 18:35
  things like that. We're like what, you know?
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  Yeah, which was hilarious. And then we often times, we talk
• 18:43
  about food a little bit to we, all were all pretty big fans of
• 18:46
  foods, so we got in an argument about, you know, which fast food
• 18:49
  joint has the best breakfast sandwiches, and we all had our
• 18:54
  personal favorites. And we all got a little
• 18:56
  argumentative about, you know, very much.
• 18:58
  Much asserting who has the best breakfast sandwiches so it's the
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  the arguments that sometimes I feel like we get a little too
• 19:07
  much into the food side of it but it's we all have a good time
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  and you know, we all tend to laugh at each other and yeah.
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  So Awesome man. Awesome.
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  And obviously since you're doing a lot of different podcast, what
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  are the main things? You've kind of learned from
• 19:22
  podcasting, in general, man? What I had learned?
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  How do you be doing in Ashley? So I started podcasting in 2019.
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  Okay. All right.
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  So to yeah, so yeah, it's I mean, it's been a phenomenal
• 19:37
  journey. I started off knowing absolutely
• 19:39
  nothing about like producing audio.
• 19:45
  Audio editing. It I knew nothing.
• 19:48
  I know undergrad. I was a philosophy and political
• 19:49
  science. Major, and exactly.
• 19:53
  And so, I did not have a background in it at all.
• 19:56
  So, I mean I've had to learn everything about it, just by
• 19:59
  like finding things. And thankfully like, especially
• 20:02
  through this last year, where, you know, podcasts have just
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  dramatically increases spending. Such a crazy increase in
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  available courses and an educational materials for
• 20:13
  podcasting, which is Been helpful or the last year kind of
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  improving you no audio editing techniques and whatnot.
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  But my first podcast was I interviewed activists and
• 20:27
  Advocates about what they do and why they did it and which was
• 20:30
  just great to hear people speak. So passionately about everything
• 20:36
  about everything from environment, environmentalism to
• 20:40
  Black lives matter and and it just really anything you could
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  think of, I had the opportunity. To speak with someone about
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  this. And so I just one common thread
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  that I've learned through podcasting is how much I
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  genuinely enjoy learning somebody's story and, and just
• 20:59
  connecting it with something they care about it.
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  Has been, I had no idea how passionate I was about.
• 21:07
  Learning people's stories and understanding, like, what
• 21:10
  connects them and until after I, Podcasting, and I know what you
• 21:17
  mean. I didn't really know what to
• 21:20
  expect when I start doing this, like, I started this many years
• 21:24
  ago, what the thought process for setting setting one up, it
• 21:28
  was many years ago. It was only last year.
• 21:31
  I started doing sort of one with a couple of friends online and
• 21:34
  then I started this the Christian roof podcast and
• 21:38
  originally this wasn't supposed to even be an interview podcast.
• 21:41
  It's supposed to just be General discussion and it's kind of
• 21:44
  evolved. Into a mixture of both.
• 21:47
  Like, every guest I have on the show, you know, there's this
• 21:50
  standard interview, you know, all transparency.
• 21:52
  We plug that person. We talked about different assets
• 21:55
  of their life, but I am trying to get like a discussion out of
• 21:57
  that out of that person because I think that's always more
• 22:00
  interesting, you know. Like if you imagine that this
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  person that you're talking to is like I always treat it as
• 22:06
  though. My guest is a massive, big deal.
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  Do you know what I mean? Because people always say that
• 22:10
  like, oh, who have you had on your guest?
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  Anyone I would know. And it's like, yeah.
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  Okay, it's not it's not, I don't know.
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  What would be a good interview? I can't even think of getting
• 22:22
  interview. You know what I mean?
• 22:23
  It's not like this Grand interview show, but like to be
• 22:26
  fair when I think about like good interviews and a good
• 22:30
  interview shows, it's never really about, you know, like The
• 22:36
  guests per se, it's always about what kind of conversation they
• 22:39
  were able to draw out of that person.
• 22:41
  Like, were they able to make them feel comfortable enough to
• 22:44
  share things? You wouldn't normally hear them
• 22:46
  talk about and so on, I think that's more of the draw.
• 22:49
  But, yeah, just just bringing it back that, that's something that
• 22:53
  I've become really drawn to every time is learning about
• 22:58
  different types of people. You know, the way people sort of
• 23:02
  think feel different people's lives, obviously, and also,
• 23:06
  Yeah, just I don't know. I think it makes you a better
• 23:08
  conversation list in real life. Absolutely.
• 23:12
  I have, I have completely noticed as far as like, my
• 23:15
  confidence levels and talking to just complete strangers like a
• 23:19
  world of difference from before I started podcasting to now I,
• 23:25
  you know, I dealt with like social anxiety, a little bit in
• 23:28
  college, you know, if I wasn't familiar with you, I wasn't
• 23:30
  super great at making conversation.
• 23:32
  But now, both of my my first and second show.
• 23:36
  So five questions in silent Journeys, like all that
• 23:39
  interviewing, and all that talking to complete strangers.
• 23:41
  And like, especially like having these really deep personal
• 23:44
  conversations, like my conversational skills might
• 23:47
  comfortability with, talking to complete strangers.
• 23:50
  My confidence, especially in selling myself and talking about
• 23:53
  and talking about things that I'm passionate about.
• 23:55
  I've just absolute other side of the Spectrum in full confidence
• 24:00
  in myself. It's, it's crazy.
• 24:02
  Like the skill kind came from podcasting.
• 24:05
  We're so much. Of it.
• 24:06
  I don't even see their faces. It's so much of it.
• 24:08
  It's just been Audio Only. I love it.
• 24:12
  I also have gained, such a deep appreciation and and love and
• 24:17
  respect for like the power of audio and like power of
• 24:22
  podcasting. I don't know.
• 24:26
  I and I've loved it so much that I have chosen to pursue like
• 24:31
  podcasting more professionally and so up until now I've been
• 24:34
  such a hobby podcaster. You So for these two years and
• 24:37
  engaging, as many different spaces, talking to different
• 24:39
  podcasters and just like learning and now, like, I'm
• 24:42
  beginning, this journey of like, how can I turn this like deep
• 24:46
  passion and love for the power of audio?
• 24:49
  How can I turn that into, you know, a professional Outlet
• 24:52
  where I can pursue this as a full-time opportunity?
• 24:56
  And I just, I deep deep, love for podcasting is where I'm at
• 25:02
  in my life. It's the dream, isn't it?
• 25:03
  That's what it takes is, you know, at these Follower base,
• 25:07
  and then you can start pitching to two sponsors.
• 25:11
  Like people have said that to me as well before, like wider, why
• 25:14
  don't you try and get a sponsor? Believe me?
• 25:16
  I would love to but there's nothing that pitch to sponsors.
• 25:19
  It's like, hey come check out this podcast that sometimes gets
• 25:23
  views that sometimes doesn't mean there aren't.
• 25:28
  There are I've noticed on my audio platforms.
• 25:31
  There is somewhat of a regular listener can't but like there
• 25:35
  isn't An average like for instance if every episode had
• 25:38
  like 20 views or lessons about okay, here's a clear audience
• 25:42
  every time, right? This is something that can be
• 25:44
  rich, but the reality is it would be like one episode gets
• 25:47
  like 15 listens. The next one gets like 4 and
• 25:50
  then the next one is something six and it's like I can't tell
• 25:54
  if there's do, you know what I mean?
• 25:55
  Like absolutely. And one of the things I've
• 25:58
  noticed you is like it's so weird.
• 26:00
  Like I haven't worked on my first show since April of last
• 26:05
  year. And so I ran it for like, six
• 26:08
  months, five, six months. And to this day, there are some
• 26:11
  weeks where, like, I don't even know how people are finding it,
• 26:14
  but I will have more people listening to this old show,
• 26:18
  that's been over for been closed for over a year.
• 26:22
  Then I do like on the current show which I'm actively
• 26:24
  marketing, and, like, throwing out there.
• 26:26
  I'm like, where do you even? Like, where you know, where are
• 26:30
  people even finding this show? Like how are they like,
• 26:33
  Discovering it and listening to it too.
• 26:36
  So, discoverability is just so odd in the world of podcasting,
• 26:41
  you know what? I think.
• 26:43
  I mean, I didn't I am speculating at this point, but I
• 26:45
  think the longer you go with podcast in the greater the
• 26:49
  chance you have because, you know, there were so many
• 26:53
  podcasts out there. It's almost it's almost a mirror
• 26:57
  at this point. When you say, oh, I'm going to
• 26:59
  start a podcast. I could great.
• 27:00
  Yeah. Come join the ocean of.
• 27:03
  Yeah, it absolutely isn't mean. I think we, I mean, we hit two
• 27:07
  million podcasts recently, which, which is odd, but if you
• 27:11
  dig into the Verse and he went worldwide is.
• 27:15
  That's how many worldwide there are.
• 27:17
  Now, there are now over two million podcasts, that have been
• 27:20
  started. That's right.
• 27:23
  It's a bit low still, though. You would think so, but it's
• 27:26
  only been a recent number, but here's the thing, it's even
• 27:29
  bigger. A kicker is when you dig into
• 27:31
  the data and you show that of these two million podcasts, the
• 27:36
  number that have more than I think five episodes and like,
• 27:42
  and have released an episode within the last two months or
• 27:46
  something. The number drops down to 600
• 27:48
  thousand active podcasts, which to me, it seems like there's an
• 27:52
  absolute ocean and endless supply of podcast being thrown
• 27:55
  in your face all the time. These numbers seem so low and
• 27:59
  maybe he's, you know, I'll tell you what why that number so low
• 28:03
  right there, it's because everyone I've said this so many
• 28:05
  times, everyone gives up really quickly because they expect to
• 28:09
  just do their podcast and it's going to blow up and like most
• 28:12
  people Of course the actually do.
• 28:13
  Well, the person is already known, they've already built a
• 28:16
  following elsewhere. It's very rare that someone
• 28:19
  actually works from the ground up late.
• 28:21
  If you take someone like Joe Rogan, like Joe Rogan was
• 28:23
  already, you know, and I Know spoken about him so many times,
• 28:26
  but it's just like the quicker example.
• 28:28
  I can think off the top of my head because he, and he's
• 28:30
  interesting as well, because he was a comedian, he was already
• 28:33
  fairly known, you know, Fear Factor all those different
• 28:35
  shows, but when he started his podcast, no one cared.
• 28:39
  Yeah. A bit of a following.
• 28:40
  But not really, you know what he Really had to look like work his
• 28:43
  way up and you know, and I've said it before.
• 28:46
  So sorry for apologize for repeating myself.
• 28:49
  But yeah, I think it took him about to 300 shows before he
• 28:52
  sort of found his Groove in what we have now, the modern format.
• 28:56
  And then if you look at other podcasts, like, you know, I'm
• 29:00
  just thinking to YouTube ones at this point but like, there are
• 29:03
  so many that I don't really. I feel like it's a podcast if
• 29:09
  you know what I mean. Like it's it's people they say
• 29:11
  it's a podcast but it's not, you know, me like the best example
• 29:16
  of a good podcast Network, I can think of and you.
• 29:20
  Okay, this is nice to wrestling. So like if you're not a
• 29:22
  wrestling fan you won't get this but there's a guy called Conrad
• 29:25
  Thompson, who's like a mortgage advisor in Texas and he's built
• 29:30
  up. So not Texas, Alabama, and he's
• 29:32
  bought up. He's built like a podcast
• 29:36
  network of about Five different types of podcast, plus, like a
• 29:40
  couple of companies, he set up a yearly event that has like
• 29:44
  essentially like a wrestling convention, right?
• 29:47
  As he's done, all of these different things and it's
• 29:49
  working Without Really successful famous wrestlers, and
• 29:52
  former personalities from the industry and stuff, right?
• 29:55
  And He's been doing it for a long time, maybe five years, six
• 30:01
  years or something, right? And it's very, it's very clever.
• 30:03
  You know, he has like sponsors that pay him and they also
• 30:07
  promotes his own business for it.
• 30:08
  So make sense but the one thing is always remained and still to
• 30:12
  this day is is a podcast. It's not like two guys dicking
• 30:16
  around or just people, I don't know having a laugh at
• 30:21
  something. It's like I'm not saying that
• 30:23
  like podcasts have to follow like strict strict rules but you
• 30:26
  know I've said this in previous episodes.
• 30:28
  You do have to have a basic format, you have to have
• 30:30
  something that people can follow and work with every single
• 30:35
  episode that people treat their tune into my my podcast.
• 30:38
  I like to think that, you know, they know that they're going to
• 30:40
  get either a very solid interview or a discussion that
• 30:43
  structured. There's easy to follow, you know
• 30:46
  what I mean there won't be too much backtrack encircling back
• 30:49
  any of that, unless it's absolutely necessary or I can
• 30:52
  spot like an interesting sub direction for the podcast to go
• 30:56
  in or something like that point is I'm always Thinking about
• 30:58
  that, I'm trying to work on that.
• 30:59
  And improve that, I think many of those podcasts, even the ones
• 31:03
  that are active. And still going, the reason they
• 31:04
  never get anywhere is because they're not growing, they're not
• 31:07
  learning, they're not trying to, you know, better themselves each
• 31:11
  and every time. Like there's people that I've
• 31:13
  seen, they've got way more than episodes than I have.
• 31:16
  They Don't Really, they just throw them out today, they just
• 31:20
  smile whatever. Okay, now 200 episodes Is that?
• 31:24
  Okay, great. But like how many of those are
• 31:27
  like memorable? You know how many moments were
• 31:30
  memorable? That a thing for me that really
• 31:33
  helps is after every single episode, I cut it up into Clips,
• 31:37
  which I have to do anyway, right?
• 31:39
  But it's good because it forces me to watch it back.
• 31:42
  Whoops, and kind of look at it, like, okay, was this a good
• 31:46
  episode? Where would the good moments the
• 31:49
  highlights? Because that's what you're going
• 31:50
  to put into the clips and at every single time, I To find
• 31:54
  them which suggests to me. That I'm doing something right.
• 31:58
  Okay. Yes, it's subjective.
• 32:00
  But if I couldn't find any and it was just boring even for me,
• 32:04
  then it would be like there would be a problem, you know
• 32:07
  what I mean? And I think that that is it is a
• 32:09
  big factors like the replayability of your podcast.
• 32:12
  Can you come back to this in a year from now and appreciate it?
• 32:15
  Or is it just total? Rubbish.
• 32:19
  And not worth your time, you know?
• 32:22
  That's just my two cents on that.
• 32:24
  Yeah. No.
• 32:25
  I completely understand. I think about that too is as I'm
• 32:29
  like progressing towards podcasting and like a
• 32:33
  professional atmosphere. I've been I've been really
• 32:35
  taking a lot of time to sit back and say you know if I'm going to
• 32:38
  produce because there's a for me personally, there's absolutely
• 32:42
  no way for me to take silent Journeys and and monetize it
• 32:46
  because I would just feel really scummy.
• 32:50
  Like, how can I monetize Eyes people sharing their deepest and
• 32:54
  darkest moments in their life and like how can I, you know,
• 32:58
  monetize getting people talking about mental health?
• 33:01
  Like to me, I just don't feel right doing that and so I've
• 33:06
  been like also sitting back and kind of thinking like, what
• 33:11
  podcast can IV engage in and produce that can be marketed and
• 33:19
  and you know, be a professional source of income.
• 33:22
  Um while also producing you know it's not just targeted at
• 33:25
  towards like Trends and and things that are going to bring
• 33:29
  in sponsors. How can I produce quality audio
• 33:33
  that you know is going to be timeless and people can continue
• 33:37
  to appreciate and I can come back to and feel that same way
• 33:40
  like you do where I can go through while editing and just
• 33:43
  like really pick out like all these Great Moments and and sit
• 33:46
  back and say, okay, that was a great episode every time And I
• 33:51
  watch, this is why it's so tough to get people interested.
• 33:54
  You know, like I've been doing this podcast now since we are
• 33:59
  still kind of early days. But since June of 2020 and I'd
• 34:05
  say, some of the key things that have changed is, I've kind of
• 34:07
  slowed it down a little bit. I go based on the demand and
• 34:12
  what I mean by that, is every month, I'm looking for guests
• 34:16
  and then search and I'm always kind of booked Ahead.
• 34:19
  So I right now I'm booked up until like the end of May going
• 34:23
  into June, right? But April was a lot, you know,
• 34:27
  busier, you know, episode after episode after episode, right?
• 34:30
  But I made sure to try and get myself breathers between each
• 34:33
  episode and stuff like that. And may is even as even less
• 34:37
  episodes, right? But it's good, I think that's a
• 34:40
  very key thing to do because a less-is-more be you know you you
• 34:47
  don't realize until you start doing.
• 34:49
  Like how much is actually involved in it and I won't go
• 34:51
  into details because I've said it a million times I don't want
• 34:54
  to bore the listeners but yeah there was a lot of
• 34:58
  behind-the-scenes stuff and as a person particularly when it's
• 35:01
  just you doing everything that can really weigh on you and he
• 35:05
  you don't want to like end up resenting it or hating it, you
• 35:08
  know, no one likes heading, no one likes doing that, but at the
• 35:11
  same time, it's got to be done. So I think if, if you have it
• 35:14
  less often, it gives people a chance to kind of Soak in the
• 35:19
  last episode and you know, I don't know.
• 35:22
  I mean just in general that seems to work for me.
• 35:25
  You know on my main Channel I don't always upload stole our
• 35:30
  have like several days. We don't upload anything and I
• 35:32
  think it actually helps in a weird way.
• 35:35
  You know, there's different schools of thought, some people
• 35:38
  say you should upload every single day and always do that
• 35:40
  and other people say you shouldn't.
• 35:41
  And you know people have asked me like what what's the
• 35:46
  Frequency of the podcast and I typically just say, like, you
• 35:49
  know, several times a week, but they'll normally say, like,
• 35:52
  always it bimonthly, is it monthly?
• 35:54
  Is it weekly? And I didn't even think about it
• 35:57
  because originally, I thought, shall I set myself a day every
• 36:00
  week that to me is, is that too stressful.
• 36:05
  And that sounds crazy because like no, I completely
• 36:09
  understand. Like and I feel like so many
• 36:12
  people think like podcasting, it's like you have to produce
• 36:14
  like you. you have to have like a set production schedule, you
• 36:17
  need to have it come out, you know, every week or every two
• 36:20
  weeks or like once a month but like you have to have it on a
• 36:23
  set day set time at the SAT like a set frequency and it it kind
• 36:29
  of like to me that just stifles creativity and and can so easily
• 36:35
  lead to diminished quality Productions and I'm like, I wish
• 36:43
  people would be more experimental and And more
• 36:45
  comfortable releasing not on a set schedule, you know,
• 36:50
  releasing you know, maybe I'll do six episodes this month but
• 36:54
  only do like to the next month because it's just what was
• 36:58
  quality and, you know, not and I'm so guilty of this as well.
• 37:03
  Like, I try very hard to stick to a schedule to silent
• 37:07
  Journeys. Doesn't always happen as much
• 37:09
  because, you know, sometimes I just can't find guess, but I,
• 37:13
  sometimes I'll beat myself up, like, I can't Can't find anyone.
• 37:16
  How can I stick to? I try to do every other week,
• 37:19
  you know, putting out an episode and when I can't do it,
• 37:21
  sometimes it beat myself up and I have to remind myself, like,
• 37:24
  how much do I advocate for people?
• 37:26
  Not having to stick to a strict schedule especially when it when
• 37:31
  you're trying to produce quality content?
• 37:35
  Yeah, you know, it's funny. You say though?
• 37:36
  I remember, when I started up my podcast, that the first thing I
• 37:40
  saw was concerned with was like, firstly, it was topics because I
• 37:43
  thought it was just going to be Russian based and I thought it
• 37:47
  was just going to be me as well because I wanted to have guests,
• 37:50
  but I figured like, oh, that's going to be really hard getting
• 37:52
  guests every week, right? And then it became more of an
• 37:56
  interview podcast. Like yeah, I've been doing much
• 37:59
  more discussion based stuff recently but you know,
• 38:03
  predominately is an interview baseball cast and I think it
• 38:07
  works better that way. It's much more interesting for
• 38:10
  me to be honest. When I just do it myself.
• 38:12
  It just feels like a standard video.
• 38:14
  I mean, I have Still go through the same process of preparing it
• 38:18
  but it's like it's just not as fun, right?
• 38:22
  But to be honest, now that's my, like, Last Resort.
• 38:26
  That's like, if I couldn't find any guest ever and I don't know.
• 38:31
  I've been very lucky in that regard.
• 38:33
  I mean offer out some resources there for podcasters, that don't
• 38:38
  know people that setting up. Go check out Matchmaker.
• 38:41
  Go check out pod it go check out all the different sub reddits
• 38:45
  on. On Reddit and also reach out to
• 38:47
  people as well, you know, in places like Instagram.
• 38:49
  I sometimes, I'll get guests from random places.
• 38:52
  Like I started playing around with Tick-Tock recently and you
• 38:57
  know, I set up one for myself for just for my own content and
• 39:00
  then one for the podcast and I actually found a guest that I'm
• 39:05
  going to have on the show next month through that.
• 39:07
  So that there's different ways to do this but I think what you
• 39:11
  can't let the Panic set in and to get to my Main point with all
• 39:16
  of this is like I do have like a like I'm an Excel sheet
• 39:21
  somewhere like a bunch of, you know, topics I could potentially
• 39:25
  do. And it's like I've never needed
• 39:27
  to go to it because I always had guests.
• 39:29
  There's never been any form of a drought and you know what?
• 39:31
  I put that down to and I think it's a combination of a couple
• 39:34
  of things. One is the setup, you know, like
• 39:37
  you don't need to have loads and loads of episodes every month I
• 39:42
  think even just one a week that that's Enough.
• 39:45
  If you think that you know you're going to clip it up
• 39:48
  anyway. Let's say that's the only
• 39:50
  content you ever did. Right.
• 39:51
  You did one podcast every week and had some clips, right?
• 39:55
  The clips, you know, depends on how many you do.
• 39:57
  I kind of go crazy with mine but you could have like, five or six
• 40:00
  clips or something, right? And that's that's a week right
• 40:03
  there. That's a week doesn't need to be
• 40:05
  any more than that, right? If you want to do more, that's
• 40:07
  up to you. But you know, like I said
• 40:10
  before, it depends on the demand.
• 40:13
  Like sometimes you have more, sometimes you have less, but
• 40:15
  Wow, crucially. I don't panic when there's less
• 40:18
  because it's like, okay. Then there's less that's fine.
• 40:23
  And especially I think once you've built up a lot more, you
• 40:26
  know, like we've got I think eighty eight episodes that this
• 40:30
  is 88 episode. There's a lot of stuff to for
• 40:34
  people to go back to, you know, if there's no new content so to
• 40:38
  speak. And I don't know, I think I
• 40:41
  think it's the sort of thing where if you, if you have
• 40:45
  certain goals and you keep doing what you, what you want to do
• 40:49
  and keep pushing with your Asian then it will work out.
• 40:52
  You know what I mean? Like if it's an interview based
• 40:55
  podcast, people will can't people are always looking to
• 40:58
  promote themselves. I think one of the benefits of
• 41:01
  being set up on those websites that match maker and pot.
• 41:03
  It is that you can just set yourself up on there and people
• 41:07
  will contact you so that saves you time having to go and find
• 41:10
  people because it used to be that I would just go on, read it
• 41:12
  every month or so, and be like, hey guys, I need guests.
• 41:16
  And then I just hope to God the people would message.
• 41:18
  And normally they do it goes crazy.
• 41:20
  And You know, whoo. Exactly the same form.
• 41:24
  Yeah, yeah, blasting. You're at it every couple of
• 41:27
  weeks and then like I tried out Matchmaker and people message me
• 41:31
  I was like oh this saves me so much more time and then those
• 41:34
  people know people that would be interested.
• 41:36
  I'm like, beautiful beautiful, because there's like
• 41:39
  person-to-person recommendations have been phenomenal for me.
• 41:42
  Yeah. Do I want to add to this is what
• 41:44
  do you get? Because I want to run a little
• 41:46
  bit for just just a minute e. Okay.
• 41:48
  Do you get people that contact you?
• 41:50
  Three places like read it. No, no, read it.
• 41:52
  Sorry Matchmaker and pot it and they don't say like, oh, hello
• 41:57
  Mike blah, blah blah. They just post the blurb at you.
• 42:01
  Yeah. What the hell is that?
• 42:06
  I don't know, it's I guarantee what this is is the, the person
• 42:11
  has some kind of like product or something.
• 42:13
  You know that they want to promote and what it is is they
• 42:15
  hired somebody to just blanket contact as many podcasts as
• 42:20
  possible to try and get their person on and sometimes like
• 42:24
  they're just it over each. I had somebody that wanted to
• 42:27
  come on to my mental health podcast to talk about
• 42:30
  Dermatology and I was like you're missing the Mark just a
• 42:35
  little bit. Because I put myself as a health
• 42:37
  category and so they like, oh, I'll just shoot this.
• 42:39
  I'm like, so you didn't read like the first five words of my
• 42:42
  podcast description. Before you sent me this link
• 42:45
  this whole like bio. I'm like, no.
• 42:49
  And and that's definitely that I think that reflects more.
• 42:53
  So on the person they hired to just like do this because the
• 42:57
  person like the person that wants to be interviewed hired,
• 43:01
  like some freelancer is like, you know, I'll give you 20 bucks
• 43:03
  or whatever if you just like shoot it get me.
• 43:06
  You give me books on a bunch of interviews podcasts or something
• 43:10
  does not care about my product, and it's so disappointing
• 43:13
  because it's so frustrating, especially on this and to deal
• 43:16
  with. Yeah.
• 43:18
  And, you know, I mean, I've set this on the podcast before about
• 43:21
  people contacting me, just in general being like, hey, check
• 43:25
  out my content. Hey, check out this thing.
• 43:27
  Hey, check out this. No piss off. when it comes to
• 43:32
  the podcast, it's like I mean, okay maybe I just get a bit too
• 43:37
  riled up with this but I'm like no no say hello.
• 43:44
  Say State, your intentions and and you know former connection
• 43:49
  from a conversation with me. Yeah.
• 43:51
  Like when they post those blurbs like I'll be honest, like the
• 43:55
  first time I see it. I mean, yeah, I didn't even
• 43:57
  think of that, that's probably exactly what it is.
• 43:59
  But I kind of just thought, like, what are they just do?
• 44:03
  They expect me to be like, oh my God, that's amazing.
• 44:05
  Like yes, I would love to have you in my shirt, like, what?
• 44:08
  Like know, you know? Yeah.
• 44:11
  And and the whole point as well, but that, that is that
• 44:13
  interactions eat. You're not necessarily going to
• 44:16
  have that person on your show. Like I'll be, I'll be honest.
• 44:20
  I don't there's only like one or two people I've ever rejected.
• 44:26
  One of them was because they were just under age and at this
• 44:28
  didn't feel, it was appropriate but not too young but just that
• 44:32
  I think they were like 15 16 or something.
• 44:34
  And I've I've had in the very beginning of the podcast that
• 44:36
  had very young people in the show and I treated it like I
• 44:39
  would with any other it like, you know, exchange.
• 44:42
  But then later on I was at Genoa, I just don't feel like
• 44:46
  this would be appropriate anymore and I sort of just drew
• 44:48
  a line under that and you know, you could still go back and then
• 44:50
  hear those and they sound like perfectly normal interviews but
• 44:53
  it's just like I felt like if you're doing podcasting, you're
• 44:57
  interviewing someone. I think it's better to if there
• 45:00
  are of age and it's, you know, they're able to, you know, just
• 45:02
  understand exactly what's going on everything to me.
• 45:06
  So that's like my only real prick prerequisite.
• 45:09
  Other than that, I guess it would be like, no hate centered
• 45:15
  people at hateful people. I don't know.
• 45:17
  I mean, I basically never say no and unless it's like that or
• 45:22
  like, if it was a hard call, Business.
• 45:27
  Situation. Whether it because lately I've
• 45:29
  had business owners contact me and they've been on the show and
• 45:32
  they've been excellent guests. You know we spoke about about
• 45:36
  their business obviously and their product.
• 45:37
  But then we also spoke about just business in general and I
• 45:40
  got to pick their brains about a bunch of things and that made it
• 45:42
  more interesting and I think that's better and they know that
• 45:45
  as well. It's better for their business
• 45:47
  because it's like, hey, here's the person behind the business.
• 45:50
  Here's what they've got to offer.
• 45:52
  Here's what your kind of buying into do not.
• 45:54
  I mean, you're buying them for that person's knowledge and Is
• 45:57
  Bubba, blah. So works better as a marketing
• 45:59
  tool in general for their, for their company.
• 46:02
  But when it is, someone who just wants to come on and just be
• 46:04
  like, you know, hey buy my product and then that's it's
• 46:08
  like when it's this, come on. Hmm.
• 46:12
  But yeah, I don't know, man, it's whole thing with podcast.
• 46:16
  I think it's just easy Journey, really isn't?
• 46:18
  It's, you're always building and growing and I suppose for me,
• 46:21
  I'm pretty interested to see where it goes.
• 46:25
  But yeah, I think since There aren't that many active podcast,
• 46:29
  every interesting to see if that number deteriorates, as we sort
• 46:33
  of slowly return to normal. Hey, I'm really interested to
• 46:37
  see how many pandemic podcasts actually end up like continuing
• 46:42
  and how many of those kind of fall through and are they
• 46:46
  replaced our, you know, more people going to produce podcasts
• 46:49
  after the pandemic is over or, you know, as life returns to
• 46:52
  normal and people are more interested in getting out and
• 46:55
  getting away from home. Yeah.
• 46:57
  See the end and you're shaking your head.
• 46:58
  No, and I completely agree. I think we are going to see a
• 47:00
  dramatic shift in like the number of podcasts available.
• 47:02
  I think the few that you know, the few pandemic podcast that
• 47:05
  shot up in popularity and you know gained like a strong
• 47:09
  audience and have turned into Revenue generating
• 47:12
  opportunities. I think we'll see.
• 47:13
  We'll see those continue for obvious reasons, but I think the
• 47:16
  majority of I think a lot of these hobby ones that were
• 47:21
  started just because out of boredom and nothing else to do
• 47:23
  in the pandemic I think the we're going to see it.
• 47:26
  A huge drop in those. Even with these top Revenue
• 47:32
  earning ones, I still don't think they'll last very long, if
• 47:39
  the people operate in those shows, don't seek to improve
• 47:43
  them because it's still a former content.
• 47:46
  If you're watching on YouTube, let's say you're watching one of
• 47:48
  them on YouTube, right? Especially with you too because
• 47:53
  it's video graphic content, right?
• 47:55
  You want to see something that Different every time and really
• 47:58
  is intriguing and interesting, and makes you think or compel as
• 48:02
  you or even just distracts you for her long, right?
• 48:05
  But if it's just, literally, like a few people just laughing
• 48:09
  like, you know, looking at some dumb stuff on the internet that
• 48:13
  because that's some of the ones that I've said there's fuck it.
• 48:16
  Also. So the H3 H3 podcast, right?
• 48:20
  That's the what big one, right? Couple of years ago, I think
• 48:23
  this is actually pretty good. They had some really good guests
• 48:25
  on the show. I was like, hey Hey, fair
• 48:27
  enough. Yeah, they're one podcast is in
• 48:30
  the beginning but now they are kind of grooving into it.
• 48:34
  And in more recent years I just feel like it's it's not the same
• 48:38
  anymore. It's like, very it feels kind of
• 48:43
  lazy, to be honest. It feels like there's not much
• 48:45
  effort into. I mean, the whole Frenemies
• 48:47
  thing is kind of cool. I like that.
• 48:49
  I think there's a nice Dynamic there.
• 48:50
  There's at least some kind of thought and effort that goes
• 48:53
  into that but their actual just standard one.
• 48:55
  It literally just feels like two people and unless that team,
• 48:58
  just sitting and chatting, and Sometimes it's interesting, you
• 49:05
  know, something something. I'm not going to sit here and
• 49:07
  lives out on never watch because the clips are sometimes
• 49:09
  interesting. But I feel like To listen to an
• 49:13
  entire podcast of it, that's not as interesting, I don't feel for
• 49:19
  two hours, three hours because okay, when you condense down
• 49:22
  that two or three hours into into Clips, Great best moment,
• 49:26
  but can you sit and listen to that for two to three hours in
• 49:30
  one sitting? And it's still be interesting
• 49:32
  because I know there are people that follow me the listen to the
• 49:35
  entire podcast, they might not do it all in one sitting that
• 49:38
  you know, I know there's sometimes they'll listen to like
• 49:40
  half an hour here then listen to the next hour.
• 49:42
  Of the day, but they still listen to the whole thing
• 49:44
  because they deem that it has value.
• 49:46
  And they know, for instance, I won't clip on everything.
• 49:49
  Look at the clip of every single thing from the episode.
• 49:53
  And I guess that's my overall point with this is, if you're
• 49:55
  doing those long-form podcast, I think even if you're at the very
• 49:59
  top, you know, I know they're successful, I know they've got a
• 50:01
  very good brand and everything and but the thing is, they built
• 50:04
  that brand through high quality, diversity of content.
• 50:09
  Right? Whereas I don't feel that that's
• 50:10
  really the case anymore with the podcast and it's not just them,
• 50:13
  not shown a sit-in attack K, 3H feet.
• 50:15
  There's many podcasts are like this.
• 50:17
  And many of them have started in the Prague in the pandemic.
• 50:20
  Some of them has just started in the podcast in crazy over the
• 50:22
  last five or so years, you know. But it'll be interesting to see
• 50:27
  if they continue and continue to be successful because, you know,
• 50:30
  pop cause there's like ourselves, you know, we're
• 50:32
  trying to make a living at is because we like podcasted, we
• 50:35
  enjoy it. You know, for me personally,
• 50:38
  it's the Interviewing, I love interviewing people like I
• 50:41
  imagined that one day. I might turn this into a show or
• 50:45
  something, maybe, I don't know there's different ways.
• 50:47
  It could go, but I just love the concept of interviewing people
• 50:51
  and I'll never get bored of that.
• 50:52
  And my goal is to just get better and better and better and
• 50:55
  better but like I feel like you can't just get stagnant.
• 51:00
  You can't just stop. You don't let me copy.
• 51:02
  Like, okay, well we're successful now we have a big
• 51:04
  audience so now just don't bother anymore.
• 51:06
  Don't put as much effort in like I thought you'll lose your
• 51:09
  audience, you know, I mean you're not given a the audience,
• 51:12
  the reason to stay and just because they're here now doesn't
• 51:15
  mean they're going to be here in a year from now, two years from
• 51:17
  now, five years from now. This is what I think.
• 51:22
  Yeah I think you're right on the nail there so let's let's let's
• 51:28
  put a bow on the podcast and section of this.
• 51:30
  What tips would you give to budding podcasters?
• 51:34
  Oh man. What tips that I could give for
• 51:40
  budding podcasters would be just, I mean, the, the big one
• 51:44
  that I see a lot that I would also Echo is just do it.
• 51:48
  You know, if you can't sit on, you know, your idea forever and
• 51:53
  generate, you know, get a backlog of 20 episodes and then
• 51:56
  start just get out there and do it.
• 51:59
  Like, if you're, if you're passionate about a topic,
• 52:01
  absolutely, go for it. And I think the future of
• 52:04
  podcasting, there's there's a really big feet.
• 52:07
  Sure for Niche podcast. And so you know if you are
• 52:12
  really passionate about fishing and you just want to share
• 52:16
  fisherman stories and and go on about that do it just do it.
• 52:21
  Don't be afraid to get on the mic and you know if you're like
• 52:25
  I just don't have the money to buy a microphone.
• 52:27
  Just use your just use your iPhone.
• 52:29
  Sure the audio quality isn't going to be the greatest, but
• 52:33
  what pulls in a guest is what pulls in a listener is the
• 52:36
  quality of the content. Intent, not the quality audio.
• 52:39
  And don't get me wrong. If the audio is just absolutely
• 52:42
  god-awful. Yes.
• 52:43
  Okay. That's going to pull some people
• 52:46
  away. But at the end of the day,
• 52:48
  people care so much more about what they are hearing rather
• 52:52
  than you know. Are there a few Mike scratches?
• 52:55
  It are there a few cops that got left in?
• 52:58
  Sure. Like that happens.
• 53:00
  But that doesn't mean that it takes away from the overall
• 53:03
  quality of the experience the the the listeners getting From
• 53:08
  you sharing this you know ridiculous story of how you
• 53:11
  caught a largemouth bass out of, you know some insane Pond
• 53:16
  somewhere. You know it if your Niche is
• 53:21
  that you really love Woodworking and you just want to share your
• 53:25
  tips on Woodworking and talk about projects and just do that.
• 53:30
  Go for it like whatever that is, whatever you're passionate
• 53:34
  about. If you also care about
• 53:35
  podcasting don't Don't be afraid to sit down with a mic, sit down
• 53:40
  with your phone, talk about what you want to talk about and just
• 53:43
  put it out there, you know, I think and if you're worried
• 53:46
  about oh you know like what if none of my friends are
• 53:49
  interested in this and that's what's holding you back, throw
• 53:52
  it out there, you know, you're gonna you're, you know, you're
• 53:55
  thrown out that net on your social media and on your
• 53:58
  personal one. So you just saying, hey, I'm
• 54:00
  doing this thing because I enjoy it.
• 54:02
  People care about you and people want to know like, people want
• 54:06
  to hear more about what you care about.
• 54:07
  Out, even your best friends can learn more about you, especially
• 54:11
  through something like podcasting, wish it was like
• 54:14
  that for me. She's like, when I started like,
• 54:19
  I don't know, very few people that I know of actually showed
• 54:22
  an interest. I think that's the story of my
• 54:24
  life. Moving it Forward, people's
• 54:29
  thoughts on Multi content creators tend to be quite mixed.
• 54:32
  You know, some people say, we release too much content and we
• 54:35
  should just focus on a particular Niche.
• 54:37
  Others say variety, is the spice of life?
• 54:39
  Where do you stand on that? I love producing content, it
• 54:45
  just in different forms, whatever the medium that
• 54:49
  content. Being produced on, like I can
• 54:51
  just find myself getting lost producing all sorts of different
• 54:55
  content. So, I tried out.
• 54:57
  I did you tubing for the last couple of months, just to, like,
• 54:59
  video logs of my content creation just to like build up
• 55:03
  skills and stuff. And, and so like, I just talked
• 55:05
  about like, the different projects I had open and because
• 55:09
  I was, I had tried to do this. There was I one year length,
• 55:18
  YouTube channel called Una's honest, where they, they created
• 55:22
  one video every day for a year that and that was something that
• 55:24
  really like inspired me to like, really kick up my game and, and
• 55:29
  do more content creation. And so, I started creating
• 55:33
  something one, one day, or one thing every single day, of
• 55:38
  course, that got trailed off, just because life is too
• 55:40
  difficult. And, you know, you get
• 55:42
  distracted. And so the, the Vlog was started
• 55:47
  as a way to Keep myself like grounded and and try to stay
• 55:52
  focused on you know, like oh I gotta create this Vlog.
• 55:55
  I got to talk about what I did that we can so it kind of helps
• 55:58
  me keep accountable to creating something every day and it was
• 56:01
  also an opportunity to kind of develop video editing skills and
• 56:04
  learn like, see that process behind behind the screen so to
• 56:08
  speak or behind the curtain. I'm sorry.
• 56:16
  What was the question last there?
• 56:21
  No, I basically I just wanted to know what you make of that, the
• 56:23
  criticisms that people have because Okay, the reason I ask
• 56:26
  this is because I don't often meet other fellow multi content
• 56:31
  creators normally. It's like, okay, this is my
• 56:33
  thing, this is what I do. Maybe I have some other interest
• 56:35
  but predominantly I'm this thing.
• 56:37
  Where as for me I've always been, you know, actor, musician,
• 56:41
  pod monster, you know, many different things.
• 56:46
  And I refuse to stick to one because there's just not What I
• 56:50
  want to do and there's a lot of people that are critical at that
• 56:54
  and say, you know, I know it's done in your ability to grow or,
• 56:57
  you know, you'll never build an audience because you know you're
• 57:00
  not focusing on the niche or whatever and I just wanted to
• 57:02
  know like what you think about that?
• 57:04
  Like do you agree with that disagree and why?
• 57:07
  I think flat out I would disagree with that.
• 57:11
  I think following your creative passions, and engaging,
• 57:14
  whatever, whatever mediums you care about.
• 57:17
  You want to produce content in. I think that it's Spoiled to,
• 57:21
  you know, kind of spread yourself out a little bit and
• 57:24
  engaging these different platforms and still have, you
• 57:27
  know, an audience. They may not transfer between
• 57:30
  you might have smaller audiences for you know, your YouTube
• 57:35
  versus your podcast versus some, other creative Outlet, you have
• 57:41
  but you know the day I guess, you know, ask yourself.
• 57:45
  Why are you creating this content?
• 57:47
  Is it to engage in your passion? If so Oh, then what does it
• 57:51
  matter if you don't have a large audience?
• 57:53
  What does it matter? You know, if you have several
• 57:57
  different small audiences for each of the platforms you're on?
• 58:02
  If I mean if your if your goal is to obviously make a career
• 58:06
  and like hey like I just want to make a bunch of money from
• 58:09
  podcasting or I just want to be really big YouTuber then then
• 58:13
  maybe you know consider focusing in a lot more but ultimately I
• 58:20
  am always a full supporter of pursuing whatever creative
• 58:24
  passion you have. And if it means, dragging
• 58:27
  yourself out between different platforms, go for it.
• 58:31
  Obviously be where, you know, I think multi content creators,
• 58:35
  run into this burnout issue pretty easily spreading yourself
• 58:40
  out too thin, but just if that's who you are and then check in on
• 58:45
  yourself and know like recognize the your own personal signs of
• 58:48
  burnout and And begin to learn how to take some self-care and,
• 58:53
  and how to learn how to rejuvenate yourself.
• 58:56
  But I fully support anyone, that wants to be like a multi content
• 59:00
  creator. Just go for it.
• 59:02
  I think it's, I think it also allows you to express more
• 59:06
  creativity getting to pursue different options and different
• 59:11
  ways of doing it. If you, you know, if you have
• 59:15
  different creative Outlets, you have more of an opportunity to
• 59:18
  explore your Creative side just a little bit more.
• 59:21
  I think. You mentioned earlier that you
• 59:24
  should do in like Vlogs of night.
• 59:28
  So I guess of you doing your podcasting or talking about your
• 59:32
  projects. Is that right?
• 59:34
  Yeah. So it's kind of like a weekly
• 59:35
  recap where I would talk about like how I engaged in podcasting
• 59:39
  that week what I did and like what I'm looking forward to.
• 59:41
  And then so I like break it up into sections, where I talked
• 59:45
  about like different, the different creative Outlets I
• 59:47
  have and like, how like I've worked on one or the other over
• 59:51
  that last week. so, if you Are you doing any kind of other
• 59:57
  types of called you intend to release any other types of
• 59:59
  content on YouTube and twitch? So I'm getting ready to do a
• 1:00:06
  major career shift. Its kind of already started, but
• 1:00:12
  that full launch of moving in to create a freelancing starts on
• 1:00:19
  May 1st. I've kind of already started
• 1:00:22
  engaging in it just to kind of start.
• 1:00:25
  My name out there and gets smaller projects, you know, I
• 1:00:28
  just because, you know, get some testimonials and that kind of
• 1:00:30
  thing but with that that you know, free time quote-unquote,
• 1:00:36
  you know, where I'm not working and I'm not in class or, you
• 1:00:39
  know, it's because I'm taking classes right now.
• 1:00:42
  What do you study while I was studying student affairs.
• 1:00:46
  So I was trying to get my mask. Oh, okay, yeah.
• 1:00:48
  And so, all of that is being left behind as I choose to
• 1:00:51
  pursue create a freelancing instead, so, We're seeing a
• 1:00:56
  major dramatic shift in my, in my career trajectory but I think
• 1:01:01
  this is what's best for me. And so, So what's what's the
• 1:01:08
  creative freelancing? Going to be in then?
• 1:01:10
  Yeah. So obviously I would prefer to
• 1:01:13
  be focused and podcasting you know offering editing services
• 1:01:17
  produced or Services, whatever that can look like.
• 1:01:20
  But you know, while I'm trying to navigate that way in the
• 1:01:26
  field and create a name for myself as far as like among the,
• 1:01:31
  my freelancing peers for podcasting work.
• 1:01:34
  I'm also looking at opportunities of like, What
• 1:01:37
  what's similar and transferable? And so, one of the things I've
• 1:01:40
  come to is project management and I have a lot of project
• 1:01:45
  management experience from higher education, which is what
• 1:01:50
  I've been working in. And so like also looking for
• 1:01:54
  those opportunities maybe not directly with podcasting, but
• 1:01:57
  what other what other creative Outlets are looking for project
• 1:02:01
  managers that I can kind of get involved with and start working.
• 1:02:06
  In more closely with other creatives awesomo best of luck
• 1:02:09
  with the hope it goes. Well let's talk about your comic
• 1:02:13
  book writing. So when did you get into comics
• 1:02:17
  and also just copy writing in general?
• 1:02:20
  Yeah, so I got into podcasting or podcasting.
• 1:02:25
  Look so on top. So on that today, comic books, I
• 1:02:30
  got in the comic books. I think I was about, I was
• 1:02:33
  either 14 or 15 years old and I walked into a thrift store.
• 1:02:36
  Our and somebody had just donated a full box of DC and
• 1:02:40
  Marvel Comics. Oh wow.
• 1:02:42
  And I looked at that and I was like, I've never seen a comic
• 1:02:45
  book outside of TV before and so I picked it up in the very first
• 1:02:50
  comic I picked up was an issue. One of the Green Arrow and I was
• 1:02:57
  like, okay cool. Why not?
• 1:02:59
  I'll buy this and so I bought a couple of comic books I don't
• 1:03:01
  even remember what the other ones were.
• 1:03:02
  The the Green Arrow was just the one, I remember the most and it
• 1:03:05
  was the first Oh, I picked up and from their Green Arrow has
• 1:03:08
  always been like my number one favorite, like superhero.
• 1:03:11
  Even the Green Arrow doesn't really have any superpowers and
• 1:03:16
  and so I guess I've been a fan of comic books ever since then,
• 1:03:21
  I enjoyed the short form format with with you know combining the
• 1:03:26
  pictures and being able to tell that story in 24 pages and like
• 1:03:31
  it's just I guess I've just found that Medium to be very
• 1:03:37
  entertaining and I never thought about writing my own comic book
• 1:03:41
  Intel. October of this last year.
• 1:03:47
  And I at the time was actually writing a novel.
• 1:03:51
  I got about 25,000 words in it, and I was like, kind of starting
• 1:03:56
  to feel burned out and I was like, okay, what else, how else
• 1:03:59
  can I write this story in a way? That's perhaps more entertaining
• 1:04:05
  and I can do in smaller chunks and so I was like, what about a
• 1:04:08
  comic book? And so, I've switched stories up
• 1:04:12
  a little bit and So I was like, okay, let's look, I can produce
• 1:04:16
  this comic and so I'll do like a series and I haven't really
• 1:04:20
  decided how long that series is. But I'm and that's, you know, I
• 1:04:25
  spent the last three four months just really building out the
• 1:04:29
  world. I have this world pretty built
• 1:04:31
  out already because it's the same one that I've played
• 1:04:33
  Dungeons and Dragons with my friends in for several years
• 1:04:36
  like it's an entirely home-built world and all of us have played
• 1:04:39
  characters in it and whatever. And so we've we've done a lot of
• 1:04:42
  like Co World building in it. It and then you know spending
• 1:04:45
  the last few months like really Shoring up the different details
• 1:04:48
  and creating these characters and solidifying what this world
• 1:04:51
  looks like and you know, kind of the laws of it.
• 1:04:53
  And so, and now I'm I've got this comic book, you know
• 1:04:58
  written up. It's pretty much done, being
• 1:05:00
  drafted. Sent off to the artist and
• 1:05:03
  Kickstarter long stint launches, in June.
• 1:05:05
  Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about that.
• 1:05:07
  What's your Kickstarter goal? So the goal is only a thousand
• 1:05:12
  dollars. I I have, I know, I know I have
• 1:05:17
  enough money in savings to mostly pay for this being
• 1:05:22
  comfortable but, you know, life circumstances as they are, I
• 1:05:26
  will need, you know, a little little bit of assistance to get
• 1:05:28
  this project off the ground and start an IV.
• 1:05:32
  Yeah, exactly. And so, I just need a little
• 1:05:34
  little Kickstarter to get those going and or finished really.
• 1:05:38
  And so a good, like I said, it's written, it's sketched out.
• 1:05:43
  And the draft is well underway will be launching the
• 1:05:46
  kickstarter with several pages to show like this is something
• 1:05:49
  that's actually being produced. You know, I this may be my first
• 1:05:53
  comic that I'm, you know, putting out there but I can at
• 1:05:57
  least provide your preview of the quality of the writing and
• 1:06:01
  the quality of the art to show, you know.
• 1:06:02
  Like this this will be worth your ten ten or fifteen dollars
• 1:06:06
  to back it and receive your own physical copy of it.
• 1:06:12
  But yeah, so it's you know it's a low Kickstarter goal.
• 1:06:15
  I'm also you know I'm dipping into my savings a little bit for
• 1:06:19
  this project but I really believe in it and I have a
• 1:06:23
  really deep love for this world and they characters that I am
• 1:06:29
  going to be presenting you don't to do our world through this
• 1:06:32
  comic book and yeah, I don't know.
• 1:06:35
  I'm just very excited to actually see this, you know,
• 1:06:38
  hold this project in my hands. What can you tell us about?
• 1:06:41
  Out, this this komak the main character villains.
• 1:06:45
  Any well, what can you tell us about this comic book that you
• 1:06:48
  making? Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:06:49
  And so this comic is taking place, right?
• 1:06:53
  At the end of an age. In this world, the world is
• 1:06:58
  called alarm, and the story is going to focus on these massive
• 1:07:02
  writers. And so they're, they're just
• 1:07:03
  little halflings that ride around on, on Mastiffs, like
• 1:07:06
  dogs. And so, they're kind of cavalier
• 1:07:09
  Knights who are kind of a secretive order and there, All
• 1:07:12
  about preserving and and protecting their their people.
• 1:07:19
  And so they kind of live on the fringes of society looking for
• 1:07:23
  looking for any threats they might pose.
• 1:07:25
  And so they're going to be some of the first people who see like
• 1:07:29
  the the beginning changes that are going to happen on this
• 1:07:31
  continent. So ultimately there's like this
• 1:07:35
  demonic Army that will be invading the continents and it
• 1:07:38
  happens after the comic book. And so this is kind of like a
• 1:07:40
  Prelude. To this major world shift where
• 1:07:44
  there's a lot of Devastation and a lot of changes that are
• 1:07:47
  brought to everything that they know.
• 1:07:49
  And so these characters are going going to be going through
• 1:07:52
  a journey of investigating these threats to their, to their
• 1:07:57
  families, and their friends. And and it's a little, it's a
• 1:08:01
  dark fantasy and so it's not going to necessarily be a happy
• 1:08:04
  ending, but it's going to deal a lot with kind of I'm pulling in
• 1:08:10
  this like familiarity with Mental health.
• 1:08:12
  And so I'm going to be exploring some feelings of isolation and,
• 1:08:18
  and, you know, this over stress on the mind and these tricks
• 1:08:23
  that are being played played on them mentally.
• 1:08:26
  And so we're going to be exploring some like internal
• 1:08:29
  factors of like the stress of war.
• 1:08:31
  And and what can really happen after being exposed to Danger
• 1:08:36
  constantly as the series progresses, so, those are the
• 1:08:40
  interests to Medical think of any Major comic books that stand
• 1:08:45
  out where they've kind of tackled the mental health aspect
• 1:08:48
  of things. Obviously, maybe trauma to some
• 1:08:50
  extent in in certain comments. But yeah.
• 1:08:53
  Is there any particular comments you take inspiration from as far
• 1:08:56
  as it pertains to that you know I can't say that I have that I
• 1:09:02
  have any particular like comic series that I'm taking
• 1:09:04
  inspiration from I'm trying to I haven't explored I have not
• 1:09:09
  explored similar, comic story He's to this of like dealing
• 1:09:14
  with trauma because I want to try and keep this a little bit
• 1:09:18
  more fresh and a little bit more original based on just like my
• 1:09:21
  own interpretations. And and, you know, not being
• 1:09:24
  professionally trained in comic book writing, I think this gives
• 1:09:28
  me a little bit of an opportunity to come in not being
• 1:09:32
  influenced because if I was to like, really sit down and like
• 1:09:35
  invest in like investigate how comic book writers have like
• 1:09:39
  told these stories, I feel like having not been professionally,
• 1:09:42
  Trained, I might try to pull subconsciously.
• 1:09:45
  I might try to pull a like like their ways of doing things and
• 1:09:51
  so that's one of the reasons like I've been trying to stay
• 1:09:55
  away from from some of their stories to try and keep it a
• 1:09:58
  little bit more original, a little bit less influenced.
• 1:10:02
  And you notice that's very logical.
• 1:10:05
  Yeah. Best best of luck with.
• 1:10:06
  That sounds really like a maze. Do you have a working name for
• 1:10:10
  it? Yeah, or yes.
• 1:10:11
  So it's going to be called the The last of the Mastiff writers.
• 1:10:15
  Cool. Awesome.
• 1:10:17
  Awesome. Well yeah.
• 1:10:17
  Best of luck with that and yeah, I hope you achieve your goal
• 1:10:21
  real soon. It doesn't seem that far away
• 1:10:23
  June. I think that's that's do but
• 1:10:25
  thousand seems I think that's a more sensible way to go about it
• 1:10:28
  or people I see that you know I could go like 10,000 or so and
• 1:10:31
  it seems really high. Whereas if you set a smaller go
• 1:10:35
  like a thousand, I think you're more likely to surpass that and
• 1:10:38
  go further to know - that kind of less is more kind of concept,
• 1:10:42
  but yeah. Best of luck with that.
• 1:10:47
  What's the biggest life lesson that you've learned in your
• 1:10:49
  life? What a question that is the
• 1:10:54
  biggest life lesson. I have learned in life.
• 1:11:07
  I think the biggest life lesson, I've, I've learned is just the
• 1:11:16
  value of commitment and hard work.
• 1:11:19
  I was raised in a single single parent household and I was the
• 1:11:27
  oldest of four and so a lot of the times responsibility was
• 1:11:33
  shifted towards me to help. Get my siblings ready for
• 1:11:36
  school. And get their homework started
• 1:11:39
  and and stuff like that because my mom would work up to three
• 1:11:41
  jobs trying to support us and, you know, provide everything
• 1:11:45
  that that she could. And so this like hard work and
• 1:11:51
  and strong worth it. Work ethic was kind of instilled
• 1:11:54
  in me in an early age and like this need for responsibility and
• 1:11:57
  so and I see it. My mom has absolutely risen to
• 1:12:05
  entirely different much more elevated economic status because
• 1:12:13
  of just like her constant hard work and, you know, working
• 1:12:16
  three jobs and you know not you know maybe she didn't rest as
• 1:12:20
  much as she should have been taken that like self-care that
• 1:12:25
  we so often in force and that I definitely try to encourage in
• 1:12:29
  my friends and and myself but her commitment has absolutely
• 1:12:35
  returned dividends and Seeing like from when I was a kid to
• 1:12:40
  where she is now and seeing that growth has you know, it's
• 1:12:43
  phenomenal, especially when it's your own mother getting to see
• 1:12:46
  these getting to see that change.
• 1:12:49
  And so I think that in turn has just been my biggest life lesson
• 1:12:55
  is just, you know, commitment and and and responsibility and
• 1:13:00
  that work ethic. So I grew up in a single-parent
• 1:13:04
  family as well but by comparison I mean just first of all.
• 1:13:10
  Well, done to your mom, that's amazing.
• 1:13:13
  If you don't mind, I'd like to sort of ask more questions about
• 1:13:17
  that first. Okay?
• 1:13:19
  Yeah absolutely, I'm very open. So where was like the your
• 1:13:25
  father in this situation? I think it would be the first
• 1:13:27
  question I'd have. Hmm, my Dad was deployed in the
• 1:13:34
  Middle East for a few years and absent for for one reason or
• 1:13:43
  another after returning, back from the Middle East and going
• 1:13:48
  through his own life struggles and the the responsibility for
• 1:13:52
  us kind of went to the Wayside. So was that like completely tied
• 1:14:00
  with the war? Was that just I'm elated?
• 1:14:04
  I think there was some influence.
• 1:14:06
  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he has, you know, some
• 1:14:10
  of the things you can expect, veterans to come back from who
• 1:14:13
  have seen action, you know, he's got PTSD and some stuff and so
• 1:14:18
  that definitely adds onto and, you know, kind of pound some of
• 1:14:22
  the issues that we've had to tackle and I don't mean to say
• 1:14:27
  he was never there, but Not there enough.
• 1:14:33
  I think is the best way of putting that because I had a
• 1:14:37
  similar situation growing up like to say, my dad was never in
• 1:14:40
  my life, would be a lie. But like he kind of left when I
• 1:14:44
  was like quite young, but two years old or something.
• 1:14:47
  And I didn't really have like a relationship with him until much
• 1:14:52
  later. Maybe 10 11.
• 1:14:55
  And that was because of my stepmom, she reinforced that,
• 1:14:58
  cause she was like a big family person.
• 1:15:02
  I don't like my mom. Didn't try to force that with me
• 1:15:05
  and my dad, but he just never happened before, then.
• 1:15:07
  And In fairness, they were like, really young parents.
• 1:15:10
  So, you know, my dad needs to become a man as well to whom.
• 1:15:14
  He had his own stuff that he was contending with, and it's all
• 1:15:17
  gravy now everything's good now. But it's just like it's
• 1:15:20
  difficult to understand that when you're a kid, right?
• 1:15:23
  Oh yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I guess why I wanted
• 1:15:27
  to know when there's so many things I could ask you, but What
• 1:15:33
  would, what would the kind of different things that you and
• 1:15:37
  your siblings had to kind of contend with, as a result of,
• 1:15:41
  you know, it's a single-parent family and obviously, with your
• 1:15:45
  mom working, so much. So many hours in the day,
• 1:15:47
  there's only so much kind of attention.
• 1:15:49
  She can really give all of you like, was it boys and girls but
• 1:15:53
  only boys and the girls. What's yeah, the two of us.
• 1:15:57
  Two oldest are boys and then two girls after that.
• 1:16:00
  Oh well, okay. So, and yeah you said your their
• 1:16:06
  eldest, right? Yes, so what age did you really
• 1:16:09
  start to kind of feel? No pressure.
• 1:16:13
  Exactly, but like that your mom was leaning more to you like hey
• 1:16:19
  I need your help kind of thing honestly, I don't really
• 1:16:23
  remember a time where I didn't have some additional level of
• 1:16:30
  responsibility I guess. It's like before I can even
• 1:16:33
  really remember. I was definitely like helping my
• 1:16:38
  mom and, you know, sometimes being a shoulder for her and
• 1:16:42
  her, oh wow, aren't part of her support because I just assumed
• 1:16:49
  you met, you meant just like, you know, made menial tasks like
• 1:16:51
  you mean like an emotional crutch as well.
• 1:16:53
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:16:54
  Absolutely not just helping raise, you know?
• 1:16:57
  Being a co-parent which is also interesting because sometimes
• 1:17:02
  Led to a strain on the relationship with specially with
• 1:17:05
  my brother's only 15 or 16 months younger than me.
• 1:17:10
  And so that that Dynamic is also cause you know, some strain,
• 1:17:17
  obviously things are far better now that we're fully adult.
• 1:17:20
  But did you mean like they have different relationships with
• 1:17:24
  your mum compared to you? It was more so just like it was
• 1:17:29
  difficult because like, you're my brother, you know, what are
• 1:17:32
  you Doing boss me around like this but it's, you know, like
• 1:17:35
  frustrations of stuff. Don't try to be our dad when we
• 1:17:40
  have a dad and, you know, you're only a little bit older than me.
• 1:17:44
  You can't be telling me what chores to do that kind of thing.
• 1:17:47
  It's Tricky though, isn't it? Like yeah, like I remember like
• 1:17:52
  with my mom. She kind of had to like play the
• 1:17:55
  role both parents you know and and here and there like certain
• 1:17:59
  father figures will come in and out of my life but it wasn't
• 1:18:01
  really until my now, step that came into my life at like, I
• 1:18:06
  guess 12 or 13 that, like, I really started to have like a if
• 1:18:11
  you want like a new normal nuclear families, per se, but
• 1:18:15
  interestingly he chose to kind of Take a sort of a side seat
• 1:18:20
  and let my mom just continue with that, not because he didn't
• 1:18:22
  want to get involved with. Like he felt that that was more
• 1:18:26
  the right thing to do. And I think he was right in
• 1:18:29
  doing that, I respected that and he was still a father figure
• 1:18:33
  anyway, you know, so it worked out, it worked out nicely but it
• 1:18:39
  is very interesting because now I've got like a younger brother
• 1:18:44
  who still a kid. Now I think he's like, Nine or
• 1:18:48
  ten or something. And I don't remember because
• 1:18:51
  I've got four brothers. One of my mom, say three and my
• 1:18:53
  dad says like, I don't know. There's a lot of them right?
• 1:18:56
  Just yeah, yeah. The he's the youngest and it's a
• 1:19:02
  very different relationship naturally and I imagine it's the
• 1:19:06
  same for you as well, like because you spend so much time
• 1:19:11
  being there because like for many years me and my mum were
• 1:19:14
  like Like more like friends, like it, there was always that
• 1:19:19
  Dynamic always, always respect. Always that's just that will
• 1:19:23
  always be there. But it was also like, yeah, we
• 1:19:26
  would confide in each other and yeah, there would be that and
• 1:19:29
  like she'll never have that was with my younger brother.
• 1:19:32
  Like they might be very close and they, you know what I mean,
• 1:19:35
  but it will never be quite like that because I think it's it
• 1:19:41
  comes more down to when you have a kid young age.
• 1:19:45
  Like my parents were like 17 when they had me, so she's in
• 1:19:49
  her 20s. I was like, you know, becoming I
• 1:19:54
  was a child and, you know, by the time she's dirty, I'm in my
• 1:19:57
  teen years which is kind of weird, you know what I mean?
• 1:20:00
  It's very much the same for me and my parents were 18 and 19
• 1:20:04
  there. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:20:05
  Has some. So, yeah, it's odd.
• 1:20:07
  It really is Specially, when you, I think, when you start
• 1:20:11
  hitting like 16, 17, 18, 19, my name is suddenly.
• 1:20:15
  Like, I remember trying to get used to that like, oh, okay, I'm
• 1:20:20
  an adult now. And you treat me like an adult,
• 1:20:22
  but you've always kind of treated me like an adult, but
• 1:20:24
  now now it's like we've pretty much just removed that whole
• 1:20:28
  parent thing. Mmm, but yeah, I know what you
• 1:20:31
  mean because it's like that starts from a young age like
• 1:20:35
  when you're in that kind of a situation obviously for
• 1:20:38
  yourself, it's a bit more different.
• 1:20:40
  As you laid out there like you had to be in more of a kind of
• 1:20:43
  like father like roll. Let's explore that a little bit.
• 1:20:47
  So like did you kind of Have to. T, or I don't know.
• 1:20:58
  Okay, let's take like your you the brother under you?
• 1:20:59
  Did you have to teach him like, man stuff for example?
• 1:21:04
  Well, here's the thing, I I didn't have anyone, I didn't
• 1:21:07
  really have men to teach me man stuff.
• 1:21:09
  Either like my mom, you know, taught me how to pee on a tree,
• 1:21:13
  you know, at when we're out camping, you know, like it's the
• 1:21:15
  stuff like that. Like, it was my mom teaching me.
• 1:21:18
  And so it's not like I could, you know, then take that and
• 1:21:20
  teach my brother like for, you know, kind of, we were close
• 1:21:22
  enough in age that we're definitely learning these things
• 1:21:24
  together. But I we were both kind of
• 1:21:29
  fumbling in the dark so to speak.
• 1:21:32
  Yeah, they because, you know, my mom can you teach me as much as
• 1:21:36
  she knows but you know at the end of the day she's not a man.
• 1:21:39
  So she doesn't know all the little things.
• 1:21:43
  So he's tricky is yeah, is this thing for me?
• 1:21:45
  Like it wasn't until I got into my mid-twenties that I started
• 1:21:51
  to realize like why it's so important as a man.
• 1:21:56
  Growing up or boy growing up why you need a father figure and
• 1:22:01
  also to a lesser to Greater extent, sorry why it's important
• 1:22:06
  to just have both parents from the get-go early on, you know.
• 1:22:10
  But I think for a boy, becoming a man, like, you need someone to
• 1:22:14
  teach you all these things and it's more to do with things like
• 1:22:18
  how to deal with this situation. Like I had to teach myself how
• 1:22:23
  to be like calm when there's panic.
• 1:22:27
  Like things that you do know me because a lot of the time
• 1:22:30
  especially these days that the guy is expected to kind of
• 1:22:32
  absorb a lot of that and kind of be that calm responsible person,
• 1:22:41
  like, we can't really, like, break down.
• 1:22:42
  Like I know society says that we're supposed to be able to now
• 1:22:46
  and we are the beginning to see that, but I feel like in
• 1:22:50
  actuality when, when you go into like business situations, like
• 1:22:57
  Situations where there's a lot of pressure.
• 1:22:58
  There's still that expectation upon men to kind of not crack,
• 1:23:02
  you know? I mean, it doesn't matter what
• 1:23:03
  Society is saying, that's great, but like, in actuality what you
• 1:23:09
  have to deal with is very different.
• 1:23:10
  You know, an employee for instance, I always use the
• 1:23:12
  example of employees. They might say, you're weak or
• 1:23:15
  portunities, we're carrying we want, we want to provide
• 1:23:20
  support, and be there for people and stuff, even when they're
• 1:23:23
  dealing with their difficult situations.
• 1:23:27
  What they're really saying is like yeah I know we're taking
• 1:23:30
  off the boxes because this is what Society expects but like if
• 1:23:34
  we find that you're like that we're going to find a way to
• 1:23:38
  remove you in the best way possible that's that's the
• 1:23:42
  reality. You know the mean and yeah it's
• 1:23:45
  very difficult for me. Growing up to kind of figure out
• 1:23:49
  how to do these things and I feel like the best way to put it
• 1:23:53
  is that I had to take the long hard way around of coming a man,
• 1:23:57
  and I think that like, If I ever become a father, I think at
• 1:24:02
  least I'll have something to work with.
• 1:24:04
  I'll be able to teach my son or daughter or whatever.
• 1:24:06
  Like, okay, these are life lessons, this is what I learned,
• 1:24:08
  here's what to avoid. Here's what to focus on Bubba,
• 1:24:10
  Bubba blah. But this so important is so so
• 1:24:14
  important. Like I didn't really, you know,
• 1:24:17
  like I mentioned earlier, I had like a stepdad around but like,
• 1:24:21
  he, I think, like, he always kind of wondered like, well,
• 1:24:25
  what is my place here? Like I know I can help a bit but
• 1:24:28
  like, I don't feel It's might really my place to maybe be as
• 1:24:32
  forthcoming as I'd like to be. And I understood that position.
• 1:24:35
  I probably would be the same in his position, you know, I mean,
• 1:24:37
  it's doing because I have a father, you know, he's out there
• 1:24:41
  do remain and and I have a relationship with him and
• 1:24:45
  obviously these days, it's totally fine.
• 1:24:46
  Everything's fine, it's German. But when out in the formative
• 1:24:49
  years when algobit says most important, you don't realise
• 1:24:55
  quite how what happens to you as a child has such a drastic Take
• 1:24:59
  effect on when you're an adult and like because when I was a
• 1:25:02
  kid, I was like, ah, you know, I had it pretty easy like okay you
• 1:25:06
  know we kind of had like we grew up in a poor household.
• 1:25:09
  Things were difficult and such but like I had what I needed and
• 1:25:13
  you know there wasn't anything particularly trauma are canned.
• 1:25:16
  You know, we got to adulthood right.
• 1:25:19
  But then when you start seeing yourself in emotional situation,
• 1:25:22
  particularly in relationships, I find that's when you really
• 1:25:25
  start to figure out like, oh, wow, I got some problems stuff.
• 1:25:29
  It's a walk. Oh yeah.
• 1:25:31
  I can absolutely, because I remember there's two things like
• 1:25:35
  first that relationship. Like absolutely my mom had a
• 1:25:39
  unfortunately, struggled finding a competent partner.
• 1:25:46
  All right. Yeah, and so just seeing some of
• 1:25:49
  these male figures come into my life and just like them being
• 1:25:53
  wrecked. So just like there was a lot of
• 1:25:55
  things about relationships that I just was not able to learn
• 1:25:58
  from either. Of my parents because neither
• 1:26:01
  one of them were having particularly healthy
• 1:26:02
  relationships. And the second thing, you talked
• 1:26:05
  about these things like that happen to your childhood like
• 1:26:07
  carry over into your adult life. And one of those for me was that
• 1:26:11
  social anxiety that I talked about earlier that podcasting
• 1:26:14
  helps me get over. And what I mean by this is, I
• 1:26:19
  was so busy trying to be like a pseudo co-parent that I did not
• 1:26:26
  spend a lot of time socializing I almost never went to a
• 1:26:30
  friend's house for a sleepover, they would come to my house, you
• 1:26:35
  know, and and and if it did happen and and even when they
• 1:26:41
  did like, you know, there is sometimes still expectations
• 1:26:43
  that I, you know, or not expectations, but still the need
• 1:26:47
  for me to help my siblings sometimes and so, and so I had a
• 1:26:51
  very small friend group growing up and I didn't really explore
• 1:26:54
  like friendships and and and social skills because I just
• 1:26:59
  needed to help, you know, help my siblings out.
• 1:27:02
  And I just, and I like, hey, you know, focus in school too and so
• 1:27:06
  like more time with put towards school and stuff and so I
• 1:27:10
  remember when I was, I was in the 11th grade and my mom sat me
• 1:27:14
  down, it was near the end of 11th grade so I'm almost done
• 1:27:17
  with school. Okay we're done it.
• 1:27:20
  We're done it. End of 12th grade 12 12th grade
• 1:27:23
  C and of it. That's when you graduate and
• 1:27:25
  move on stage 18. Yeah.
• 1:27:28
  He's usually about and so I was, I was, I think I was 17 and my
• 1:27:33
  mom sat me down and she's like, I remember this conversation.
• 1:27:38
  She sat me down and she's like, you need to go be a kid and I'm
• 1:27:42
  like, What do you mean? I don't understand.
• 1:27:47
  She's like, I need you to go mess up.
• 1:27:50
  I need you to go be a kid. I go and make mistakes.
• 1:27:54
  I need you to go have fun. Go to football games with your
• 1:27:57
  friends. I need you.
• 1:27:59
  Like, I'm in a place where I can, you know, take care of all
• 1:28:05
  of our, all of your siblings, you know, I need you to go and
• 1:28:09
  live and I, as I remember being 17 and going, What?
• 1:28:15
  I don't even know how, I don't even know what my peers do.
• 1:28:19
  You know? I had no idea how to how to be a
• 1:28:22
  kid and she was telling me to do.
• 1:28:24
  And so like there was so much of a learning process and like so
• 1:28:27
  many of these like socializing skills that I never really had a
• 1:28:30
  full chance to develop like like so many of my peers did and, you
• 1:28:34
  know, some of that naturally became just like social anxiety
• 1:28:38
  not knowing how to act or talk in different social situations
• 1:28:41
  and It has been so much of a development I had through my
• 1:28:45
  time at University and then and you know, podcasting has been a
• 1:28:49
  phenomenal way of like really developing those skills
• 1:28:52
  especially like around talking to people.
• 1:28:55
  I'm you know, nothing about no you know nothing about who I've
• 1:28:58
  never met before or know very little about.
• 1:29:00
  But yeah, things like that or just like these very unique and
• 1:29:06
  hard difficult situations that kind of uniquely occur in family
• 1:29:12
  situations. Ins like like the like that we
• 1:29:15
  both have had growing up. Yes, it's Woods like I think
• 1:29:25
  I've said this to my mom as well over the years, because, you
• 1:29:29
  know, we would argue would fall out and stuff it happens.
• 1:29:32
  But I'll always have a, like, a lot of respect for like, what?
• 1:29:39
  She did, how she pulled it off. Endless respect.
• 1:29:44
  Yeah, it's mad. Like Especially now, now that
• 1:29:49
  I'm approaching these ages that she would have been thinking
• 1:29:54
  about how my life is, and I Cal her life was and I'm just like,
• 1:29:59
  I'm even more grateful now and amazed how it was possible, and
• 1:30:04
  she just laughs, she's a star, you know, you just found a way
• 1:30:07
  whatever. Like you just figure out like,
• 1:30:10
  no, no, no. I have my age.
• 1:30:12
  I would have had you had three kids?
• 1:30:13
  No. Looks like.
• 1:30:14
  She used to tell me this funny story.
• 1:30:17
  And so she told me that like, I back in the day, this is like
• 1:30:21
  90s 2000s. However, I should get like let
• 1:30:24
  us through the post, right? Where it's at bills and back in
• 1:30:27
  the day it's like she'd never pay them on time like because
• 1:30:31
  she just couldn't afford to write.
• 1:30:33
  So you'd get like the first bill.
• 1:30:35
  Second Bill, third bill and the third of it was like they change
• 1:30:38
  color. Select final bill was always
• 1:30:39
  like red and I was just it. She told me about this and I was
• 1:30:42
  like, how did you not freak the hell out?
• 1:30:45
  Like how are you not like oh my God.
• 1:30:47
  Going to leave the house. This gonna happen is gonna
• 1:30:48
  happen if she's just like oh well you know you just look at
• 1:30:51
  it like it's like, you know it's just delayed like you got a bit
• 1:30:54
  more time to let you figure. Okay, when it goes to the red.
• 1:30:56
  Okay, now we've got our apt and we've got to try and do
• 1:30:59
  something and stuff, but you know before then if you've got a
• 1:31:02
  bit of time to work late and you don't care what they say because
• 1:31:06
  it's just them writing you a letter, who cares.
• 1:31:09
  But once it gets to the red Parts like that, we got now, we
• 1:31:11
  got salt this or like bayonets or calm or something and she
• 1:31:15
  always kept me safe from that source.
• 1:31:16
  But there was always this funny little things that I've
• 1:31:20
  mentioned this a little bit before, maybe you'll relate to
• 1:31:24
  some of this. So like things like, Like in our
• 1:31:29
  house, we had a key for the electricity so like it was like
• 1:31:34
  a separate little closet and the electricity would always go out.
• 1:31:38
  So I'll be sitting there like playing the Xbox or something
• 1:31:40
  and it just got off either that or like watching TV or I might
• 1:31:44
  be sitting like actually doing homework or something it just
• 1:31:46
  goes off. And for the first couple of
• 1:31:48
  times it happened, I was like, Mom.
• 1:31:51
  Let's just do these go off again.
• 1:31:52
  She's like I'm sorting it. And basically after a while, I
• 1:31:56
  just Start doing it myself. As I got older, I wouldn't even
• 1:31:59
  react. We just be like we both pretend
• 1:32:01
  it was like a horror movie and we're like we just have fun with
• 1:32:04
  it. But basically what that meant is
• 1:32:07
  we'd run out of electricity and you could sort of turn this key
• 1:32:11
  fob thing and it would give you like electricity electric cars,
• 1:32:17
  big emergency, electric power. I don't know how long for, but
• 1:32:21
  presumably not that long. Maybe like a day or something,
• 1:32:24
  but she then go to like the local store and like buy some
• 1:32:27
  more. And load is like pay-as-you-go I
• 1:32:29
  suppose and we had gave us something like that.
• 1:32:32
  Something we had can't say that I have no, I I definitely need
• 1:32:37
  to like look into this because this is such an interesting.
• 1:32:41
  I don't know. I've never heard of an
• 1:32:42
  electricity system like that and so I.
• 1:32:44
  Yeah, I definitely. This is interesting to me.
• 1:32:47
  Did you have any like challenges?
• 1:32:49
  So similar to that anything, but a key.
• 1:32:54
  Hmm. I just I'm trying to think here.
• 1:33:04
  My I guess on the topic of finance, my mom was always been
• 1:33:07
  like very open about it and you know, like this is this is what
• 1:33:12
  we have and and so like understanding what a dollar can
• 1:33:15
  buy and like hmm how easy it comes and goes as always been
• 1:33:20
  like a discussion in something I've been familiar with and
• 1:33:23
  understanding like this is just not something that we have money
• 1:33:26
  for right now and and knowing that bills and they come first,
• 1:33:30
  it has. It's been a I'm very fortunate.
• 1:33:34
  In understanding that at such a young age because today I like
• 1:33:39
  I'm very good at balancing a checkbook and and knowing how
• 1:33:42
  much money I have and how much I'm spending at any given time
• 1:33:46
  and I track all of this stuff just to be in the know and it's
• 1:33:50
  probably something I'm always you know say I absolutely win a
• 1:33:53
  lottery, I guarantee I'm still going to be the person like
• 1:33:56
  okay, let's see. I spent, you know, 102 dollars
• 1:33:58
  on groceries this you know this this week or whatever and
• 1:34:01
  tracking all that. I like I it's probably
• 1:34:03
  permanently Ingrained in me, I could be on my deathbed and
• 1:34:06
  like, oh, better update my budget sheet, you know?
• 1:34:08
  And so I think just always knowing like where we're at in
• 1:34:14
  finances and having to balance like okay what can we do to go
• 1:34:18
  have fun and be a family while still knowing like this is this
• 1:34:22
  is what we have to work with and there's no room to to move that
• 1:34:26
  needle. Just cause Havoc.
• 1:34:27
  How did your mum managed to kind of give you guys sort of a fun
• 1:34:32
  childhood with the bare minimum and Taking me wrong, I know
• 1:34:35
  parents could be very creative. Like my mom was very creative to
• 1:34:38
  with things like, but like, what kind of things would she do, you
• 1:34:43
  know? Because obviously most kids that
• 1:34:44
  are, I wish I had this, I wish I had that, you know, I mean like
• 1:34:48
  how did she navigate that? Yeah, this is actually the
• 1:34:53
  reason why this is such a big hobby for me.
• 1:34:57
  Now board games, board and card games.
• 1:35:01
  That was what quality time was growing up.
• 1:35:04
  Was we would get together and playing board and card games and
• 1:35:09
  they were always always playing games.
• 1:35:13
  I from long before I could remember, I knew had a I knew
• 1:35:17
  how to play you know, like once my Started forming, I remember,
• 1:35:21
  you know, holding cards and playing 31 and, and Skip.
• 1:35:26
  Oh, and Domino's and whatever that might be and games.
• 1:35:30
  Like, sorry, in life and Monopoly.
• 1:35:32
  Like, all of this was like, it was like, I was born with this
• 1:35:35
  knowledge. Like, that's how, like, that's
• 1:35:39
  how, you know, I guess sacred. It was in our family of board
• 1:35:42
  and card games. And now I like now I collect
• 1:35:45
  these. Now I collect them and I have a
• 1:35:47
  massive collection of board and card games that I will probably
• 1:35:49
  never be able. Able to get through all of the
• 1:35:51
  games. I play, I own just because of
• 1:35:55
  the sheer amount of them, and I guess I probably dramatize the
• 1:36:02
  size of it but some of these games are quite extensive like
• 1:36:05
  long rulebooks. I like I'm fascinated by like
• 1:36:07
  these deeply intricate games, that have 50-page rule books to
• 1:36:11
  learn, and that's why I'll never actually get to them.
• 1:36:15
  But That was how, you know, we came together and spend that
• 1:36:22
  quality time and had such a fun childhood at that.
• 1:36:27
  And we lived in Idaho, which is a Northwestern state in the US.
• 1:36:33
  And it's it's a low population state with a lot of mountains
• 1:36:39
  and lakes and rivers, and forests.
• 1:36:42
  And so we spent a lot of time going camping and, and fishing
• 1:36:47
  And, you know, you find ways that are kind of lower cost and,
• 1:36:52
  you know, can absorb a lot of time, I spent a lot of my
• 1:36:56
  childhood out in the forest, you know, camping and and just
• 1:37:00
  enjoying the outdoors and appreciating nature sounds like
• 1:37:06
  the perfect childhood honestly like, yeah.
• 1:37:10
  It was very similar with, with me and my mom as well.
• 1:37:12
  Okay, we grew up in London so we didn't quite have like that.
• 1:37:15
  But yeah, I remember Amber her taking me.
• 1:37:18
  And this, this really helped with my creativity.
• 1:37:21
  I think it's largely responsible for it because she would just
• 1:37:25
  take me around like our Galleries and museums and stuff
• 1:37:28
  and like she was studying our University and stuff.
• 1:37:31
  So there was some reason, but like a lot of the time, it's
• 1:37:34
  like, hey, let's just go here, this is go here.
• 1:37:37
  Well, I sometimes we'd go, there was this place in London.
• 1:37:40
  I got very fond memories obvious, a place called the
• 1:37:42
  truck. Cordero is sort of nearly
• 1:37:45
  Leicester Square, and it was like, a Big massive games arcade
• 1:37:50
  but she just take me to places like that and we would just have
• 1:37:52
  fun because she was pretty young to she was like I guess she
• 1:37:55
  would have been early 20s mid-20s at this point and I was
• 1:37:59
  like 9, 10 11, whatever, right? But younger and we would just
• 1:38:03
  have fun and play games as this stuff like that.
• 1:38:05
  I like it was just cool. I don't know.
• 1:38:08
  Yeah yeah it's just so I know where you're coming from with
• 1:38:11
  that it's and there's a lot to be said for that.
• 1:38:13
  I imagine that all you guys must have a pretty strong with it
• 1:38:16
  relationship with her. Now because you spent so much
• 1:38:19
  time bonding stuff right? Oh absolutely.
• 1:38:22
  It's I couldn't imagine having as deep of a connection with
• 1:38:28
  with with anyone as I do with my mom.
• 1:38:32
  It's just, I mean, how can you not after you know, two decades
• 1:38:38
  of just always relying on each other and you know, co-parenting
• 1:38:42
  and supporting one another and you know, there there's to this
• 1:38:46
  day. There's no Topic, that's not up
• 1:38:49
  for discussion between us. There's you know, some of my
• 1:38:53
  friends are just bewildered at the the lack of I guess privacy
• 1:39:00
  between us and like it. Now there's no father's 9.
• 1:39:02
  Neither of us like we are fully open and transparent about
• 1:39:06
  everything in our lives. And sometimes my friends are
• 1:39:09
  just like, whoa, how can you be so open about your mom about it?
• 1:39:12
  Like even topics, like like sex and like, how can you talk to
• 1:39:15
  your mom? So openly About each other's,
• 1:39:18
  you know, sexual health. And it's just like, I don't know
• 1:39:22
  if we just always been each other's Rock and, and we just
• 1:39:27
  grown up together, being comfortable, sharing, and open.
• 1:39:32
  Obviously, for anyone listening my mom did not share her sexual
• 1:39:34
  health and Chuck, you know, long until after I was under adult,
• 1:39:38
  let's be clear. I'm just saying, like, to this
• 1:39:40
  day, nothing is off the table because like, we've always been
• 1:39:45
  so comfortable talking about like really tough Mental Health.
• 1:39:47
  It's tough. Really tough just subjects in
• 1:39:51
  our lives and, you know, she's always been open about like she
• 1:39:55
  had a tough upbringing to and like what that upbringing was
• 1:39:57
  like and how it's, you know, how it impacts your, you know.
• 1:40:01
  So thank you very much for sharing.
• 1:40:04
  I really appreciate that. And I think I'll distance will
• 1:40:06
  get a lot from that. I know I did.
• 1:40:09
  So thank you for that. As we draw things to a close for
• 1:40:12
  today. Do you have any upcoming
• 1:40:13
  projects or maybe some final thoughts you'd like to share
• 1:40:16
  with us? Yeah, I guess my final thoughts
• 1:40:20
  in projects, like I said, I have my comic book.
• 1:40:24
  The kickstarter is releasing on, on June 1st.
• 1:40:26
  And so I would absolutely love to share this world that I've
• 1:40:31
  really I've been creating, I've been developing this world for
• 1:40:35
  almost five years now. So I've got a lot of a lot of
• 1:40:39
  World building that that'll keep out, or Peak out throughout the,
• 1:40:43
  the comic series and and the different projects that I have
• 1:40:46
  planned around there. and so I would love to share that with
• 1:40:50
  people that are interested, but I guess my final thoughts are
• 1:40:55
  just And I guess just continued to chain gauge in podcasting if
• 1:41:06
  you're a listener and you thought about like how cool it
• 1:41:08
  would be to guest on a show, I promise you.
• 1:41:11
  If there's a topic that you are interested in, if there is
• 1:41:14
  something you're passionate about, there's a podcast that
• 1:41:16
  exists out there that you could find.
• 1:41:18
  And if you want to engage in this Hobby and some other way,
• 1:41:21
  like, pursue it because all of us podcasts are always looking
• 1:41:24
  for somebody to come and share their stories and and And to
• 1:41:30
  what you have to say and talk with you.
• 1:41:31
  And so, just engage in podcasting, I always promoting
• 1:41:37
  podcasting. Anyway, you know, I'm always
• 1:41:39
  like, trying to share new podcast, I discover with friends
• 1:41:43
  and and, and promote shows that I have no connection to just
• 1:41:47
  because I love podcasting so much.
• 1:41:49
  I just wanted to continue growing like it has been these
• 1:41:52
  last few years. But yeah, I guess that's my
• 1:41:56
  final. Note is find a way to get
• 1:41:58
  involved in a podcast somehow, because this is just a
• 1:42:01
  phenomenal Outlet to share. I mean, look at this, we've
• 1:42:05
  talked about everything about, you know, podcasting to comic
• 1:42:08
  books to mental health, to family upbringing all in the
• 1:42:10
  same episode. And so, this is just a
• 1:42:13
  phenomenal medium to even just reflect on your own life.
• 1:42:17
  You don't realize like how much sitting back in and, and an hour
• 1:42:22
  and a half interview podcast how much you can Reflect on your
• 1:42:25
  life and lessons you'll take back later.
• 1:42:28
  So yeah, next and yeah couldn't have put it better myself.
• 1:42:34
  Thank you very much for being such a wonderful guest and for
• 1:42:37
  sharing your story and being so candid.
• 1:42:39
  And yeah, I wish you the absolute best of all your
• 1:42:42
  projects. Thanks again.
• 1:42:43
  Yeah. Thanks for having me here to
• 1:42:45
  everyone listening to the question we've podcast or
• 1:42:48
  watching on YouTube. Make sure to like, share and
• 1:42:50
  subscribe. Leave us a comment.
• 1:42:52
  Let me know what you think of the show.
• 1:42:54
  If you're listening on Spotify Google podcast up or podcasts
• 1:42:58
  droppers follow, leave us a rating.
• 1:43:00
  Let me know. Your thoughts be vocal, there's
• 1:43:03
  a Discord, there's an Instagram, there's a tick tock.
• 1:43:06
  Now even I'm always looking at messages, I'm always up for any
• 1:43:11
  kind of feedback constructive criticism.
• 1:43:14
  I'm always reading. I'm always this in if there's
• 1:43:16
  any Fang in particular that you'd like to hear on the show
• 1:43:19
  in the future, let me know any particular guests.
• 1:43:22
  You'd like to see on the show. Let me know.
• 1:43:24
  And as always be safe, be well, and I'll see you in the next
• 1:43:28
  one.