Episode 47: Behind the Mic – Steve Reynoso on Radio, Podcasting & Finding Your Voice

In this episode of The Cameron Brown Show, I sit down with Steve Reynoso — founder of Media Group LPM and host of the Steve Reynoso Podcast. Based in North Jersey, Steve has built an impressive platform through podcasting, radio broadcasting, and creative storytelling, spotlighting entrepreneurs, artists, and changemakers from the NJ/NY scene and beyond.

We dive into Steve’s journey from growing up around music with his DJ father to launching multiple online radio stations and running a full-blown media company. We talk about starting from scratch, staying consistent, and building community through powerful conversations.

If you’re chasing something of your own — a podcast, a brand, a dream — this one will light a fire under you.

Subscribe to Steve’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Steve_Reynoso
Follow along for more: @thecameronbrownshow

🎧 Listen. Learn. Share. And as always…
Stay Curious, My Friends.

#SteveReynoso #LPMRadio #Podcasting #Radio #MediaInnovation #UrbanCulture #TheCameronBrownShow

Transcript

100% Just get make sure the motion's going Add some little I feel like it make for kind of an interesting like

0:13

workout uh influencer uh camera too Just follow you everywhere Yeah I've seen it

0:18

Was funny because when I bought it I bought the the camera back in August and I told myself and I told all my buddies

0:25

I'm like I'm buying this to record post every day because you could like connect it to your phone and upload the videos

0:31

really seamlessly I'm like I'm going to post non-stop And I just haven't done that whatsoever And then the second I

0:38

bought it a few months after I want to say by o end of October beginning of November I seen it like just be the new

0:45

fad on Tik Tok on Instagram like you have to buy this camera and I'm pretty sure it's like sold out everywhere you

0:50

try to buy it which is hilarious Well we were kind of talking about this before we started recording but everything has gone up and everything's gotten more

0:56

expensive with the tariffs and u this particular piece of equipment has doubled since you bought it So so good

1:03

thing you know it's it's literally following you up and down side to side Does it kind of roll around too or is it

1:08

just kind of on a on an X and Y axis no it's like let's test it out real quick

1:14

It does kind of roll with you though Yeah I can kind of like we get excited I could stand around which is pretty cool

1:20

That's a really good job This might be the most hype podcast I've ever done So

1:25

are the are the panels soundproof panels too they're they're not soundproof panels They're just used but they are

1:32

used for acoustic They help it out because like you know if we didn't have any of those panels all the sound would

1:37

kind of bounce off the walls and back into the mics So I can show you real quick because one fell off the wall Let

1:43

me see All right It's like also an acoustic

1:48

panel with your branding on it Yeah Like you see the back is like a foam and then this is a special This is

1:56

like a special um I forgot what it's called Yeah I forgot It's a good way to plug

2:02

the brand right now LPM radio coming at you live Yeah but it's like a special

2:08

kind of um like I don't know how to material so that the sound bounces off

2:13

of it because one of them was stained and my mom the other day was like you have to paint it I was like if I paint it takes away from all the additives of

2:20

the sound that we're looking for like I don't know Makes a lot of sense Do you uh when you order those like with the

2:26

with the custom wrap on it too do you order them from a certain company that then custom wraps them or do you order them and then have them custom wrapped

2:32

uh it's all in one company We just send them the logos they make it and then um

2:37

depending on the size of it like that one I just showed you is about $500 And then the smaller like red ones and we

2:44

have blue ones as well They're a little bit cheaper Not affected by the tariffs as well Yeah definitely Everything's

2:50

affected It's definitely not a Teimu um acoustic panel No out cuz we had to send

2:56

in like you have to take exact measurements of the room and um they'll

3:01

give you a layout of pretty much like what will work for your room and what won't because we also have some like

3:08

stand up real quick like we have some on the ceiling as well that help us out Yeah the blue hexagons or whatever they

3:15

are are um a good a really good touch though And I feel like not many people probably see those but you still even just for the aesthetic like you can now

3:22

walk around your entire room and the entire thing looks like it fits well together If you walked around my room right now you'd see like there's like

3:28

pillows and other random stuff over here on the right side Like you've got it all set up though I feel like it's really it's really well organized all together

3:34

Yeah definitely took a lot of time but it's come together really nicely But it's funny because I I've like messed

3:42

around a little bit with um live streaming a bit Yep And I live stream out of my room and my room is just a

3:48

mess I mean like right now I have probably like three TV screens behind me I have a green screen I pull up

3:54

sometimes and then my bed and shoes So it's a mess If I had a room like yours with a neat little corner it'd be

4:00

beautiful All right real talk Whether I'm gearing up for a tough workout or preparing for an episode of the Cameron

4:05

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4:55

Yeah Well I I guess we can say this Everybody starts somewhere right and um

5:01

it'll be fun to look back on this in five years and be like "Damn I literally started in my room and now you're here."

5:06

So um so that that's super exciting So Steve I'm going to let you go ahead and kind of dive into this and give us uh

5:12

give my followers nobody that's going to be listening to this kind of a better understanding of who you are your

5:17

background um what you're working on and then we will obviously just pivot accordingly into the rest of the

5:23

conversation But I'm going to let you do a little bit of an introduction first I got you So my name is Steve Reynoso

5:29

Right now I'm one of the owners It's me and my dad of LPM radio We also started

5:34

a full-fledged production company that's named Media Group LPM And what we do is

5:40

just help other content creators if they want to record any content produce any content that's where we come in If you

5:45

want to run out to studio use our studio If you want to send us videos like edit if you have also any music you want to

5:52

um you want to market we help people out with that because LPM radio and media

5:57

group LPM we're owners of eight online radio stations So through those eight online radio stations they all have a

6:04

unique following Some have um we have one that's at 75,000 monthly listeners

6:10

We have another that's at 100,000 monthly listeners but they're two completely different genres and also two

6:17

like I said two uh unique audiences which is really cool because like the other day I got an email and there was

6:22

some guy in Germany talking to me like "Hey your radio station shut down for a second Like check the servers." And I

6:28

was like "What the heck?" Because all those eight radio stations as of right now are in Spanish We actually started

6:34

our first English one Okay Um about two months ago and that one's called Retro Wave So it's for more like classic like

6:41

my dad likes to say like he wants to hear it when he's in the elevator and he's in an office somewhere Like that's

6:47

the vibe he's going for And then hopefully in the future um I'll put up like a hip-hop R&B maybe even country

6:54

station I listen to all type of music So it'll be interesting moving on But I don't really think you much of a country

6:59

guy but I guess you like a little bit of everything Yeah I I got into it um about a year ago

7:05

but I think it's just because uh my whole life has been surrounded by music Probably like in the womb and the second

7:12

I came out the womb listen to bachataong like all type of music So I've been

7:17

flooded with music 247 And ever since I could remember that iPhones iPods came

7:22

out like I' I'd be the person that goes to sleep with headphones on and then wakes up and puts them back in and like

7:28

just listen to music 24/7 So I feel like with that you have to kind of listen to

7:36

everything because at one point I got bored of something Like for me I was a big hip-hop and like hard rap guy But

7:43

when it's 7 a.m and you're just listening to a bunch of like hip-hop and rap it messes up your brain a little bit

7:50

But I got more into the flow of like listening to country just feeling out the vibe I don't know I just there's

7:56

nothing better for me now than like sun blazing windows down just bobbing some country Well I love love love to hear

8:03

that Um and a couple different notes on that too My my biggest thing with music is I will put on like new music Friday

8:08

or like random mix and I'll find like a random mix on Spotify Um whether it's I mean like it's it's like Latin music or

8:16

it's some kind of rap or some kind of country or jazz or like Frank Sinatra radio It's like it's it's literally all

8:21

over the place Uh and I I think it's really just trying to find that mood that you're in to make it match what

8:27

you're feeling at the same time But to your point running at 7 a.m on rap music can be a good thing if you're heading to

8:33

the gym but really bad if you're heading into work So just just depends on what kind what kind of vibe you're feeling Um

8:40

can you Sorry Sorry One thing you said that was cool was like I'm definitely that type of person to match my uh my

8:47

music to my mood like depending on the type of mood I'm in that's the type of music I'm listening to Like you said

8:53

like if I'm going into the gym and I want to get really hyped like maybe it's

8:58

EDM maybe it's rap but then other times honestly most of the times now it's been like more country soft side Billy Isish

9:05

I don't know I just love anything It's it's hilarious Well once again when you visit Charleston we'll have to hop on

9:11

the boat and we'll listen to plenty of music plenty of country music So that's that that's typically the vibe for the summer in in Charleston South Carolina

9:18

So I love love to have you join for that as well Um when you think about like

9:23

music and I think a lot about frequencies as well and what aligns with you and the time Uh I feel like it would

9:29

make for like a really good Black Mirror episode if somehow Spotify was able to figure out how to connect AI and also

9:36

figure out like your way like your brain waves and figure out a way to line those two up together So whatever you're

9:42

feeling at the moment it can just immediately match it which they they kind of have gotten to a point where they've been pretty good about matching

9:48

what you're feeling or how you're feeling um based off of what you listen to But I feel like that's kind of that

9:53

next level is just matching what's actually going on internally with music

9:59

So that would be spooky though It would be a bit spooky But hey if you put a neural link in your head I mean how how

10:05

difficult would it actually be if you've got something linked up to your brain at all times that's true And honestly I wouldn't mind like if I'm I don't know I

10:12

just love music so much And I just feel like it's also really cool because it connects all different types of people

10:19

Like like you said you never expected me to listen to country music So when I go out to like if I'm at a country bar if

10:25

I'm just at the beach listening to country like I know somebody's coming up to me and be like "What the heck are you doing listening to that?" Like "You

10:31

kidding me?" Exactly Well I say like like you're you're uh you're Dominican correct your dad's Dominican I was just

10:36

thinking a lot of like Latin music was kind of the vibe across the board but that makes total sense And it's it's always funny too because music just in

10:43

general there's so many different types of music that people can connect with So you never really know but um but I'm

10:49

glad to know it's not just me that feels like in a certain mood or has a certain vibe and then wants to connect with that kind of music Definitely

10:56

Your um the different radio stations So let's kind of dive into that for a minute Uh which one did y'all start with

11:02

which radio station did you all first start off with and how did you expand into the the different types of radio

11:08

stations from there so we started with uh LPM radio and that's why this studios

11:14

like mainly you saw the sign I just showed you was LPM radio Yeah And that one's like a allin-one like what we say

11:22

it's in Spanish it's ubana which means it's like kind of all different types of music depending on the hours of the days

11:28

because if you ever work with an online radio station or any radio station like they all um they all have a scheduling

11:35

to it So you know from 9:00 a.m to 11:00 a.m it's going to be a little bit softer and as a day goes on it's going to get a

11:40

little bit more upbeat depending like the day of the week depending the hour too like it's all going to change based

11:46

on that And just slowly as we started growing and then showing more people like hey listen to our radio station go

11:53

on LPM we started to realize that some people were like h I'm not really liking

11:58

this because like some wanted to just listen to bachata music some just wanted to listen to salsa things like that and

12:04

we were like why don't we just give you a radio station strictly dedicated to that and that's what we went ahead and

12:10

did instead of like having the all-in-one now you have now we have a radio station which is solely bachata So

12:18

it'll be like slower bachata in the morning and then upbeat And then we have one that's solely salsa solely ubana

12:25

solely like love music solely um church music So we kind of gave everybody who

12:31

has a vibe an opportunity to go listen to a radio station because we also came

12:37

out each of those radio stations have their own like individual websites individual applications you could go and

12:43

search on right about two three months ago we came out with Media Group LPM And that one is

12:49

almost like a Pandora I would say like a tunein radio where you could go in and see all of our radio stations that we

12:55

own You could just click and see what vibe you're kind of feeling Cool Do y'all uh I'm assuming the business model

13:01

is an ads model right Okay cool Is that is it the ma is it the

13:07

main not to dive too much into the business model necessarily but is that the main source of revenue is it an ads

13:12

truly a truly ads model or is there other other portions or parts of the the business model yeah for radio I would

13:19

say um definitely just mainly ads because you I mean that's really all you

13:25

could offer people in a sense It's all about like uh how you could help other businesses really because I mean there's

13:33

a lot of money spent on the back end to get those things running like we have two huge servers that have them running

13:38

We had to buy a console to make sure everything's running nicely and that console was not cheap It's funny because

13:44

um like even pre- tariffs Yeah definitely Oh if it was post tariffs I

13:49

don't know if we could afford it But even that console like that's a console

13:54

you see a Hot 97 Like it's gonna it's a state-of-the-art console It's one you see at any other like big time radio

14:01

station But like that is uh that's purchased due to ads you know what I

14:07

mean but the one beautiful thing about ads and because I've been mainly trying to sell the ads in the past year the one

14:14

beautiful thing is like we're genuinely helping other companies because we're going to companies and being like we

14:20

have 75,000 people listening to LPM radio How can our audience help your

14:25

company like do you need let's say it's um a local restaurant like do you need more people coming in the door and and

14:32

like returning customers like we have an audience in New York Or if it's like oh you have a restaurant in Miami Well

14:38

guess what we have a salsa radio station that's huge in Miami because we're able to get all the demographics see where

14:44

everybody's listening from and then see um what age group as well because like

14:49

that helps us pretty much navigate which uh businesses we're going to target and stay away from because we're not going

14:55

to we're not going to offer you guys a ad if like I know it's not going to help you in the long run like we're just

15:00

looking to help other people and pretty much uh just cover our costs to run the business Like when my father first

15:06

started this and I was just helping him out like it was all a hobby Like we did this for 10 years as a hobby and I

15:12

wouldn't say I would say it wasn't until like last year that we really started to take it as a business and just go all in

15:20

Right I feel like uh with with radio specifically there was a period of time where I kind of thought kind of

15:26

suspected that radio might be falling off or might be dying But what I've come to realize is that with any kind of

15:32

marketing strategy having like an omni channel approach is super important I think a lot of marketers have consistently realized that too So it's

15:39

nice to hit people where they are And people are still listening to radio consistently across the board Even with

15:45

all the advancements and everything else too people still like tuning into radio stations So doing it right which sounds

15:51

like y'all are doing it really really well um is obviously you know super important but also leads to more

15:57

businesses wanting to come and then give you money to get in front of your audience Definitely And one of the nice

16:02

things is that like you said not everybody is listening to radio anymore Like me personally I I don't go in my

16:09

car and turn on the radio I go in and connect my phone I have Apple CarPlay which is one huge thing that we've been

16:14

able to realize and adapt to It's like let's not focus on FM and Sirius even though there is still a very large

16:20

audience on it Let's focus on building our online um our our online presence So

16:27

that's where the applications come in and it's like when you connect your Apple CarPlay you see our app and you

16:32

could just run the app you know what I mean and then that's also where like uh contributing YouTube channels come in

16:38

because we have a YouTube channel for LPM radio and we also have Instagram pages for all the websites and radio So

16:45

it's like we understand that even though people might not be listening to the radio you're probably listening to

16:52

something on YouTube something on Instagram So if something catches your eye you're able to still be like "Okay

16:58

connect the dots and be like "Oh LPM radio Oh they have an app Let me go listen to them on their app." Because

17:04

right show those we run live through YouTube also run through the radio station which is cool So if you're in

17:09

the car and don't want to connect your YouTube don't have much that much Wi-Fi like you could go to the radio station

17:15

It'll be way more accessible Perfect I love that Um well it sounds like y'all

17:20

are modernizing which is great And then also you mentioned live streaming earlier too I want to go back to that just for a moment What were you live

17:27

streaming about when you were live streaming so right now we have a show that's called from Mero and it's just

17:33

like um it they like to talk about anything going on in

17:38

like that that world of music Like right now they're majorly talking about just like artists and stuff I like to compare

17:45

them to like DJ academics like they'll just pretty much keep you up to date to what's going on in the world in the

17:51

sense of like there was a tragedy that happened in DR recently where the roof of a club fell down and they'll like

17:57

cover that Um they'll cover any like pretty much just any news on like the

18:02

Latin space They try to focus on solely music but when it's uh tragedies like

18:08

that or something big that goes on in Dominican Republic they'll cover that as well Cool Cool But it's mainly Dominican

18:15

Republic or Latin music focused Yeah Or like Yeah definitely just Latin music

18:21

focused because it's all Spanish speaking audience which is cool because I get to produce that show and like sitting on the back end of it seeing how

18:28

that world works as well is actually really cool And are you are you personally live streaming anything

18:35

currently no I'm not I sit down with my buddies every night We hop on a Discord

18:40

call for like half an hour to an hour we're thinking about it because like I have honestly so many options and like

18:46

so many opportunities to live stream I just don't know what to do because like

18:51

I used to like playing some video games here and there and then I realized like if I were to live stream and I'd have to

18:57

go live every day playing video games like I wouldn't want to do that because there's some days like I only play for five 10 minutes you know what I mean and

19:04

then there's once in a month where I love to play for hours and it's like I don't want to force myself to doing that

19:10

I'm I'm I'm not sure that I could do it personally I thought I thought about it a lot And also so Kai Sinnet just

19:16

relive streaming course or program or whatever it was and launched uh Hogwarts

19:22

kind of theme and I was like man I was like live streaming really has taken off which I know it's been around for a while now It's not like it's last year

19:28

but um but it it it's amazing how much money people are making from just live

19:34

streaming just across the board Yeah I honestly think it's like income-wise it's probably one of the biggest ways

19:40

you could grow your income Like the one thing about it is there's such a huge audience and I used to think like um I

19:48

remember in 2020 I wanted to live stream because at the time I was at school surrounded by a bunch of buddies and I

19:54

bought this new PC and I'm like yeah live streaming's away but then I would like kind of psych myself out and be

20:00

like oh no it's too um it's too flooded like everybody's already too big like whoever made it made it and there's no

20:06

room for anybody else What I've seen is like there's a niche for everybody And I used to think like you had to be this

20:12

high energy like doing a specific type of content to blow up But honestly it just like anything else like if you put

20:18

your time and effort into it and you grow a nice community like you're going to be able to do really well on it Yeah

20:24

I think the biggest thing too with like content in general which I'm not the best I'm nowhere near the best u content

20:31

creator I just I'm trying to enjoy the process of of doing this and having these conversations and learning new

20:37

things along the way So I think the biggest thing is like enjoying it and staying as consistent as possible as you do it because ultimately if this for the

20:44

record if this leads to you know an additional listener on one of your shows or a client of yours or something like

20:50

that it's it's a huge win for you Um we obviously build this relationship which is amazing too Um but it doesn't have to

20:56

be millions of listeners right off the rip right it and it's obviously not going to be if you are not a Kardashian

21:02

but you have to be born to that family Congratulations or a Brady or something like that But um but uh but yeah it's

21:09

truly a matter of just being consistent But I guess with live streaming especially if you're live streaming like your entire day I mean that's almost 20

21:16

that's pretty much 24 hours of full content that somebody like Kai Sennet is creating on a daily basis So which is

21:22

insane to me because I that's one thing I definitely couldn't do I mean back in the day I know that psyched me out a ton

21:28

too Like I used to think that you had to live stream for eight hours or 12 hours a day and do stuff like that And for me

21:36

now if I were to go back to live streaming at max I would do an hour a day And maybe if that like and then

21:42

right now everything that's important is just short short clips like short form content Like you got to be able to focus

21:48

on that Like how could I bring people into my live stream and then once you have those short form content kind of

21:54

have like your clips planned out and have a strategy of how you're going to attack the live stream then I would say

22:00

go for it and then continue doing that until you grow a decent audience But I wouldn't put yourself in front of a

22:05

camera that has zero viewers for eight hours a day just kind of wasting your time when you can be doing other things

22:11

You're kind of kind of grueling honestly Definitely not not very enjoyable So you're So the transition to the podcast

22:18

when did you start your podcast this is kind of a a newer thing for you correct yeah I recorded my first episode in

22:26

August and I think I didn't post anything till mid November end of November Okay And I think that that was

22:33

just because um same thing like psyched myself out Like to be honest I I never really felt comfortable in front of the

22:39

camera like the microphone I'm more like I was way better behind like just producing shows and being behind the

22:45

scenes I always thought like that's where I was at And then I don't know just something in my life just told me

22:51

like I got to wake up I got to give myself the opportunity and the chance Like just like anything else in life

22:56

what's cool about podcasting is like you're not going to be great once you start Like you know what I mean there's

23:02

room for growth And I just wanted to start something new where I was actually really terrible at it and I could grow

23:07

in it I love that Yeah I um It's It's funny because I I was total [ __ ] when I

23:13

started this Like awful It was so bad And I'm not going to say I'm any better now I think I've just gotten a lot more

23:20

comfortable doing this Uh and I enjoy it a lot more because I've gotten more comfortable doing it Whereas initially I

23:25

thought man I've got to do everything right I've got to say the right things I've got to move this conversation in a certain direction I think the biggest

23:31

thing for me the biggest focus is I ultimately want to make sure that people stay engaged and I want to have good

23:37

conversations that people actually get value from but the only way to really get there is to truly be myself And um

23:44

and if people listen to me and they like this and they like me then ultimately they'll listen more Same thing for you If they like you they listen to you they

23:50

trust you they'll probably listen more to you too Uh but so many people are moving away from mainstream media and just looking for real honest people that

23:58

maybe aren't always right or maybe aren't always wrong but at least they provide some kind of genuine authentic approach to the the way we present media

24:05

and news across the board Definitely because I just like took a look back at what type of content I was watching at

24:12

the time and I realized I was just tired of all the fake stuff I was seeing like all the flashy and like just showboating

24:20

type of stuff that didn't really seem real to me And I know it isn't real because we live in the real world So

24:26

when these cameras turn off when we go and like get off our phones and we just interact with real life people you see

24:33

that isn't how life is actually lived Regardless if you're like on a yacht you're in a Lamborghini you're flashing

24:39

hundreds of thousands of dollars that doesn't mean they're genuinely happy behind the scenes You know what I mean y

24:47

it still works I mean that's still a good strategy for the record Yeah Yeah definitely Definitely It's not It truly

24:52

is though It's once again human psychology is an interesting thing But the people that do post the Lamborghinis

24:59

and the yachts uh that buy the followers that buy the whatever they do right just to make it seem as though they are

25:05

bigger than they actually are Um it's not like it doesn't work right to a certain degree So I'm not going to sit

25:12

here and be like "Oh it's a terrible strategy." Because hey like you know to each their own But I don't think it's the way that like I want to go about it

25:17

or I want to grow because it's not the approach that it's not what I want I don't want people to think that of me personally So yeah for sure And I could

25:25

respect that And the one thing I will say is like I just feel like um there's

25:30

no longevity in that The only person I see and have longevity in that is Jack Dohy but then like you lead a life where

25:36

I feel bad for the kid honestly Like he's 21 years old and like he's just getting attacked on the daily Like I

25:43

understand Listen I'm a person that honestly if I started to get hate comments like I wouldn't really care

25:48

because there was moments in my life where like I was my biggest hater You know what I So anything like somebody could say to me online is like probably

25:55

something I've already said to myself 10 times over So it won't affect me But

26:00

like for years on end somebody tell saying this or that about me and me constantly seeing it all the time Like I

26:06

would I really truly wouldn't know like how I'd feel mentally and especially being 21 regardless of all the money

26:12

I've made or regardless of what else is going on Like I don't know I just I feel like personally I wouldn't feel like the

26:18

best person I don't know Yeah I feel like you'd you'd burn out at some point right and he went on um oh god what's the guy's name that was uh George Jenko

26:26

Thank you He just went on the George Jenko show I was about to say I saw a clip like yesterday and I think George was trying to kind of talk to him and uh

26:33

bring him back down to earth a bit which was which was actually kind of kind of cool Uh I don't know that if if I were

26:39

in Jack's shoes that I would want to get on a show and have somebody talk down to me necessarily or talk to me about being

26:44

a better human I'm not really not really sure that I'd be a huge fan of doing that But the kid is he is 21 years old

26:50

So it's like hey he might he does need some good mentorship and leadership in his life Um but he's also for the record

26:56

he's also done well financially But if that's the only measure of success in this life then what kind of life is this

27:02

that's kind of my approach right um I making money is an amazing thing when we should all try to strive to make as much

27:08

money as possible but with everything he goes through on a daily basis Is it truly worth it at the end of the day

27:14

yeah definitely because getting scrutinized 247 online like I understand

27:19

um a lot of it for the clips like we just said short form content is king and it's still a very good way to monetize

27:26

and blow up but it's like for that to happen constantly and then you be out on

27:31

the streets getting harassed by anybody even though I don't know if that's true you know I mean half the time like these

27:37

Twitter comments and Tik Tok comments and all the comments online like they just aren't real life people in the

27:42

sense of like when you see Jack Dhy on the people usually aren't harassing him for the most part but nowadays I see it

27:49

becoming more and more like prevalent that people are bothering him and are saying this stuff when they see him or

27:54

like he's not getting certain type of collaborations and it's like in that sense I do feel bad because like people

28:01

don't think about the opposite side of things like when he first came in the money the kid was 15 like you put

28:07

yourself in his shoes where you become a millionaire at 15 and how would you come out with the way the world is where it

28:12

just only fans models being push Like we go back to the to the the Lamborghinis

28:18

the chains the watches the alcohol Like it's a hard world to grow up in especially when like you're that young

28:25

that much money and you're your own boss I'd probably tell everybody to [ __ ] off too Like do the same thing at 15 years

28:31

old which like thank god I didn't fall into millions at 15 years old because I wouldn't would not would know what to do

28:37

at that time You you mentioned like the comments too the hate comments across the board I actually had this conversation with a good friend of mine

28:42

who has a fairly large following online She's probably close to a million across platforms and she gets hate comments all

28:49

the time Fitness influencer gets a bunch of hate comments And I thought about it too I was like I don't get many I don't

28:55

know if I've really received I've received a couple on on YouTube through the podcast but nothing crazy But I

29:01

don't know if I was getting if I was getting 50 hate comments a day I don't know what that would do to me mentally Would I also burn out pretty quick maybe

29:07

Um at this point I'd like to think I have pretty thick skin I don't really care that much but 50 to 100 hate

29:12

comments a day what would that do to a person's like psyche probably mess with you pretty bad Definitely I believe like

29:20

um it's just hard because these people don't live in your shoes You know what I mean they don't especially now that I've

29:27

started creating my own content because it's one thing producing it for somebody else Like I you really don't see the

29:33

effort that goes in on the back end of stuff Like it's one thing to just sit down and record a podcast and be able to

29:38

send it over to an editor send it over to a team but it's another thing when like you're the one searching for the

29:44

guest you're the one editing you're the one searching for all the B-roll you're the one searching for everything Like

29:50

it's a lot of time that's consumed in that So then when you put let's say 12 15 hours 16 hours into an episode and

29:57

you're getting hate comments like that could deter a lot of people And another thing that I see deter a lot of people

30:02

is like when they only get a few views Like me personally I get like 70 views on my TikTok and I remember that feeling

30:09

like being being like "Oh my gosh I don't even want to post anymore because they're just doing shit." And I was

30:15

upset But then I realized like 70 people is a lot of people Like if you if you had to speak in front of 70 people in an

30:21

empty room you'd be scared especially if you'd never done it before So you just really need to open up your mind and

30:27

realize like you're not going to get millions of views in the beginning You have a lot of developing to do you have

30:32

a lot of figuring out to do in the sense of like how do thumbnails work how do how does the SEO work how does the

30:38

algorithm work on every individual app like you have to go through the trials and tribulations of struggling before

30:44

you make it You know what I mean if you're going to be afraid to fail and afraid to post a video that you wasted

30:49

hours on not even wasted used hours on and only get 70 views 50 views 10 views

30:54

whatever it is like you're not you're never going to make it in this game Absolutely It's probably a good thing

31:00

that when we first start we don't get millions of views because what that probably ultimately leads to is those

31:06

millions of people seeing our stuff and then not really wanting to come back to it right you build it up you get better

31:12

you learn you experience things then you produce better content you you yourself

31:17

grow and then you ultimately become what you need to be in order to keep those people around So I think of like an unsubscribe rate or um a bounce rate of

31:24

sorts with like emails It's kind of like the same thing right you produce quality stuff people are probably gonna want to keep coming back to it But if for

31:30

whatever reason the algorithm just catches on to it and it's like "Oh this is kind of an interesting post one time Are you a one anddone kind of guy or are

31:36

you actually going to stay consistent and keep it going?" Um regardless 70 to 100 people is still you know bigger than

31:42

most college classes right so you're still speaking to a pretty pretty goodsized crowd Um but it's just I think

31:49

the modern era has told us a lot about and made us think that hundreds of people is just not a big crowd or even

31:56

hundreds of followers But if those hundreds of followers end up turning into buyers or subscribers or clients

32:01

and they build a great relationship with you doesn't matter Um at the end of the day you don't need millions of followers

32:06

to do well You need in people with intent to engage in your content for it

32:12

to do well Yeah One one thing I I believe that people don't really understand if you have I'd rather have a

32:19

hundred followers that engage on with my content on the daily than 10,000 that

32:25

never look at it and never engage whatsoever Because selling ads and selling to a company and like being able

32:32

to help another company are doing brand sponsorships and deals like that like it

32:37

it just pays back way better when you have people who actually engage in your content that when you're able to go to a

32:44

company let's say like this water company I'm like "Hey I have a hundred people engage with my stuff every day."

32:49

And when I say "Hey go buy move hydration." I know those 100 people are going to go buy it Like you're offering an a company 100 new customers compared

32:56

to "Hey I have 10,000 followers but none of them engage None of them do anything with anything I say Like it means

33:02

nothing So yeah I rather have like I rather have followers who actually engage in my content who actually get

33:08

some value out of it because it just means a lot more down the line and also gives me a lot more opportunity to grow

33:15

Speaking of value here because there were there were certain times where you were like I'm not going to do this or

33:21

you maybe thought um negatively or were skeptical of the future of your podcast and you know the production space etc

33:27

you were in a job a different job or you were on a different career path I guess before this and then you made a jump

33:33

over into the production um space in the media space So what was kind of that final straw for you to to make the jump

33:40

from corporate America into what is now your your own thing

33:45

i would say there wasn't really a final straw I just feel like um at least

33:51

talking to my buddies it's just something that a lot of 20-year-old men go through Like just feeling lost in life especially the day and age we're in

33:58

right now It's like we are not all able to afford a house We're not all able to start building our family So it kind of

34:05

messes with your head a little bit And then I just kind of took a step back and realized like maybe corporate America

34:11

isn't for me And I have an opportunity where we already had something built in the studio we already had something

34:16

built on the radio station where I could kind of say like f it and go all in in the sense of like I have nothing to lose

34:23

Like I don't have anybody depending on me right now I don't have a house where if I stop paying the mortgage right now

34:29

somebody's going to come and take it Like I have a great opportunity to kind of lose everything And if I get on my

34:36

like if I land on my butt and I fail it'll be nice because I have a like a family that'll be able to help me out as

34:41

of right now You know what I mean and I don't have like a wife or kids that are depending on me to create something or I

34:48

don't know there's just not as many pressure So once once I realized that I was able to just kind of take a step

34:54

back and say let's go for it Like what am I going to lose at the end of the day i still have the degree I could still go

34:59

back to corporate America That's something I could always still do But to be 24 again to be 25 again and like

35:06

giving it my all towards a podcast that's not something you could always do And then if you don't do it the mental

35:12

is just going to get worse and worse Like just like anything else I see people

35:17

one of the things that I changed in the past year was like my gym habits because I see people who are like 35 and they

35:23

say how hard it is to get back into the gym or this and that but it's just because how many years you spent doing

35:29

those bad habits and having those bad habits So being in my 20s and now being

35:35

26 one of the big things I wanted to implement in my life was building great habits for the future So I never got to

35:41

the point where things became too difficult to turn back from or things got to the point where it felt like they

35:47

were too difficult because it doesn't matter what age you are Like if you put it into your mind that you want to do something and change something you'll be

35:54

able to do it I've seen six year olds change their entire life Whether it's eating habits whether it's work habits

35:59

like whatever it is if you put your mind to it you could do it But I just wanted to build those good habits now that I'm

36:06

young and like able to and have the time honestly because once the kids come once the responsibilities start piling on I

36:11

definitely understand it becomes 10 times more difficult For sure Yeah Well um I'm sure it will become a lot more

36:19

difficult And I think about this too like if you were kind of want to ask the question like if you had a family and kids right now do you think you'd still

36:25

have taken this path but I guess we don't know right we don't know in that universe what what you would have end up ended up doing So it's not not really a

36:31

fair question Um but I I kind I could be honest I know I wouldn't be I just like

36:36

I know myself like I want to be for my future family I want to be a provider I want to be able somebody who like like

36:44

all their problems whether it's financially whether it's mentally physically like I want them to look at me almost as like their Statue of

36:52

Liberty I don't know Like I want you to look at me like a beacon of light Like I want to be the head of the family in

36:57

every sense of the the way and I want to be able to provide So if I were to have a family now I wouldn't feel comfortable

37:04

like sitting in front of a camera making not that much money and then knowing my

37:09

kids are hungry or my wife is hungry and she wants more Like it would suck honestly And that's why like I had to

37:16

step away from any relationships I was in in the sense like I know right now I'm not pursuing any women because I

37:21

need to focus on myself and I need to build myself to be in the position where I could be the provider because just the

37:27

type of person I am like I know I'm going to be uncomfortable if like if like uh I just can't afford

37:35

certain things like it's hard it's hard to have a girlfriend even nowadays and like go through Christmas and you can't

37:40

afford the gift she wants You know what I mean like I want to be able to provide that for her So it's like how would I be

37:46

able to sit through here and do this podcast and kind of take a risk on myself and not be able to afford it while I also have that other pressure

37:53

like that just more pressure building up for my life unnecessarily Well we're on the same page with that one I think the

37:59

hardest part for me is that you know I' I told myself in my 20s I was going to take all my risks right so 29 now and uh

38:05

I've I feel like I've taken almost every risk in the book um and finally getting to a point where you know things are

38:11

definitely moving in the right direction which is which is good Um and it's not like things have ever been bad necessarily right i've stayed consistent

38:17

I've continued to work Um but when you take those large risks you can always expect like massive returns immediately

38:22

too right it it takes time U biggest thing with the podcast is the podcast is something that I've you know you

38:27

committed to it and you said you were going to do it so you did it right i talked about this two two well three years ago now I said three years ago I

38:34

was I'm gonna start a podcast It might be like a marketing or a sales podcast or something like that And then I was like no It's like if we're going to do

38:39

this for the long run it's got to be something that I can do consistently and enjoy So it's just this is just going to

38:45

be my show right just like it's it's your podcast It's your show You can bring on whoever you want You can talk about whatever you want It doesn't have

38:51

to be business or production or media It can be whatever the hell you want to talk about So um so kudos to you for for

38:57

doing that And also kudos for for um understanding what you need to become in order to be able to provide properly for

39:03

a family right huge A lot of guys don't get that nowadays So um so understand

39:08

that respect the [ __ ] out of that too Yeah it's it's cool you started your own uh podcast as well because I understand

39:15

like how hard it could be And like it's also um it's also pretty freeing to have

39:20

your own thing Like you said you get to run it Like you get to decide what we talk about Like is it going to be aliens

39:25

today is it going to be business is it going to be motivational like that's one of the coolest things I could ever ask

39:30

for Like I could kind of just be myself And that's one of the things like I really wanted to push on this year not

39:36

only to myself but to everybody around my life Like life is way too short for you to be unauthentic in any sense of

39:42

the way Like I've seen stuff uh floating around social media where people say they need to like switch the terminology

39:49

once they're in the office or something like that And I I completely understand it Like when I was in office there was

39:55

certain things I wouldn't say certain things I would say and then certain like just my frame of mind was completely

40:00

different And I and and in some sense of the word like I felt unauthentic and like one of the cool things about being

40:06

able to build your own podcast and platform like you could just be you 100% Like or you could be this emphasized

40:12

version like if you wanted to be like it's almost like Julian said it uh

40:18

during our podcast like you kind of go back got to back go back to the being this little kid and being curious and

40:24

like just just exploring and doing whatever you want Like it's that's one of the coolest things in in the world

40:30

honestly Absolutely So I'm actually probably going to drop this hat to you here soon but my um slogan theme

40:36

whatever you want to call it is stay curious It's very simple very straightforward So I've I've stuck with that and um so I've got some um some

40:44

hats coming here soon which should be kind of fun So I'll I'll definitely send you one of those Not that you have to wear it but

40:49

I will have one of those coming soon I also I saw something today as it relates to you know human beings and like

40:56

controlling the mind of human beings um psychologically and ultimately the the

41:02

quote from whatever philosopher it was from talked about how uh ultimately our

41:07

controllers right the the puppeteers of this of this game that we're playing in uh will ultimately allow us to argue

41:14

within certain confines or talk within certain confines without us even knowing it Right we will we they will ultimately

41:20

control the narrative and they'll control what we think about and or discuss and or argue about the discourse

41:26

in general uh without us truly understanding that they are controlling the basically the the barriers in which

41:33

we can discuss things And I thought about that deep today and I was like man I'm going to have to bring this one up to Steve just to know kind of your

41:38

general thoughts on that But also to say that the point of this is to be able to talk about [ __ ] that would frankly

41:44

probably get me fired in a corporate [ __ ] setting And I'm to talk like that as brutally honest as possible

41:50

because I've gotten to a point where I'm like I don't want to be I don't want there to be any way that somebody can keep me from saying what I feel and or

41:56

think and or discussing topics that um that I want to discuss right and so once

42:02

again that might get me sued at some point Now that's not that's totally possible but at the end of the day if

42:08

you truly think about what what people maybe can control about the way that we think and or discuss things if that is

42:14

actually happening um I want to make sure I do everything in my power to make sure that people never get confined to a box Yeah Truly do You truly stay curious

42:24

at the end of the day I love that And I definitely am going to need one of those hats because that's probably the most

42:29

important thing people could do in this world Like stay curious and stay hungry in the sense of like always be willing

42:36

to learn and always be willing to like take a new opportunity and new risk Because one thing I saw I've spoken

42:42

about this on pretty much all my episodes Like I see it a lot people

42:48

coming out of college like they kind of just stop Like they they feel like that's the end of the road for them

42:53

they've achieved everything they could achieve in the sense of like there's nothing new they're doing anymore

42:59

They're already good at everything they're doing in their life You're already good at working Like you know how to get your job done really well

43:04

You're good at communicating with the friends you have You're not meeting a new group of friends Like you're not growing And it's just scary to me

43:11

because I'm like what i looked around like what the hell's going on like all my life I was always learning I was

43:16

always curious I was always building And then I looked around my life and I'm like all right like what like a video

43:23

game like am I done with the story mode like no like you gotta keep creating your story where every day you gota like

43:29

keep creating good memories every day and you like you said you can't be boxed in I feel like that's what a lot of

43:35

people do nowadays Like they box themselves into like okay I could afford two vacations a year I could afford this

43:41

Like my life is good But it's like when I was 10 years old I dreamed way bigger than that You know what I mean i had to

43:48

like remind myself of what it was like being a little kid And one of the cool things like I used to have a journal

43:53

when I was a little kid because of my English teachers and I was able to look back at that journal and just see how I

43:58

was thinking as a little kid And obviously a lot of it was delusional But bringing that word up it's like you have

44:05

to be delusional especially in this game Like when you start your podcast like maybe five 10 people might follow you

44:11

Like but beyond that like in order to grow your audience you need to be

44:16

delusional and believe you need to you're going to be able to get to the top If you're not delusional if you don't have the self-belief in yourself

44:22

that you're going to get to the top like you're never going to make it And it's kind of it's kind of rough I see a lot

44:28

of people who come into the game and aren't delusional and that's that's their downfall But in anything you do in

44:33

life if you never done it before you have to be delusional It hasn't been done So you have to build it in your mind like it's already happened

44:40

delusional unique different whatever you want to call it but tr I go back to like authenticity at the end of the day just

44:46

like truly being yourself and going for what you want right and I think a lot of people a lot of people stop setting goals and they stop um trying to move

44:53

beyond their their current conditions Now once again if your current conditions are great and they are

44:58

amazing and you're super happy and you're set and you're settled in life that's great I I'm not one to judge anybody in that setting right but if you

45:05

are um like-minded or if you're you know getting kind of a situation like us where you know that there's a lot more

45:11

to life there's a lot more to figure out um and a lot more to learn than you're going to be constantly looking for and

45:17

trying to figure out more about what makes you know makes you tick Um and so

45:22

I feel like we're we're constantly searching which is totally uh totally fine But for those that are okay and

45:27

they're they're good to go with where they're at that's amazing Support that 100% But if you are constantly searching for or looking for your next thing or

45:34

trying to better yourself um I'd say support those friends more than you more than anybody else Those people that are

45:40

actually actively searching for sure Yeah that's one big thing Like I think also people need to support their

45:46

friends more You see it all the time like they start that Instagram page they start that Tik Tok page and you see it

45:54

people just slide by like "Oh yeah he posted." They might throw it in the group chat make fun of him They might

46:00

not They might like it once comment once Like if you really understand the game of engagement you should understand how

46:06

big it is to like it every time to comment every time to share it every time Like how is it hurting you by

46:12

sharing your own friends content like I never understood that And I I recently

46:18

had a bar owner who like emphasized this and it's just like it makes no sense You

46:23

know what I mean like it really is the people closest to you that don't support you which is funny to me But it's also

46:29

fine with me because my audience isn't the people closest to me You know what I mean my audience is probably like 18 to

46:37

35 year old men Like I'm more trying to motivate people to go after it and get it Like my audience could be anybody So

46:43

once I realized that my audience is in my best friends is in my family Like I stopped taking offense to it And I'd

46:49

also recommend that to like any content creator watching this Like don't take offense because people don't do that But

46:55

then like if you're a friend realize how big it is when you do do that Yeah 100% I also think about people that are not

47:01

posting online right like content is not everything in life right there are so many people that do the vast majority of

47:07

the population does things that are offline right and so I think about that too It's not just supporting them in clicking on something liking it online

47:13

It's also supporting them in you know starting a bakery or starting a coffee shop or you know creating a product and

47:20

selling it right whatever that is right go and and support them as best as you possibly can because you know as well as

47:25

I do that getting that additional support from your friends is huge Um and I may be in an interesting situation where like you know my mom will text me

47:31

and she'll be like hey I I watched this episode that was super cool I'm like that's amazing Thank you so much mom U

47:37

but uh but at the end of the day it's like that's if you don't get that that's totally fine There are so many people out there that would love to support you

47:44

and you got you got to find them U but they're definitely out there They will connect with your stuff They will click

47:49

with your stuff You just got got to keep creating it at the end of the day Yeah You need to give yourself an opportunity

47:55

to be seen And the the time we're in right now like you're not giving

48:00

yourself an opportunity if you're not posting every day Even me today like I had a clip that I wasn't going to post

48:06

today And then I wasn't going to have any clips to post But then I remembered and I reminded myself like if I'm not

48:11

posting every day people are forgetting about me You know what I mean like people aren't by tomorrow people forgot

48:17

about me Like you need to give them a daily reminder Like this day and age nobody has the attention span anymore to

48:22

remember who you are unless like you're reminding them constantly You could also just show your ass tomorrow and by next

48:28

week nobody would remember it too right It's kind of kind of wild though that

48:33

crazy crazy things are happening every single day in this world A bomb gets dropped here you know something else

48:39

blows up or something another war starts Pakistan India like that's the most recent one right all these crazy things

48:46

are happening um new pope right which I don't think that's been announced yet Um but all these crazy things were

48:51

happening I'm like that was that feels like it was a lifetime ago It was like last two weeks ago the pope died Three

48:57

weeks ago the pope died Um but it seems like it was last year So to your point you've got to stay consistent with this

49:03

stuff Yeah because people I feel like we all have this century overload type of thing Like you said for me that the pope

49:09

died if it feels like months ago Like I really went through all my emotions and it feels like it happened over a year

49:15

ago Honestly even though I know it was fairly recent like that just how much information my mind is taking in So like

49:23

constantly I just even by the next week like when I record a podcast edit it and

49:29

post it by next week I forgot I did all that And that's me the creator So imagine as a viewer like you have to be

49:36

pushing pretty much yourself down their throats every day or people are going to forget Gotta stay consistent Gotta stay

49:42

consistent Um what else so outside of work and podcast and all this other stuff what else is going on what else

49:48

you do or is this is this everything for you right now yeah right now I mean I'm seven days a week just pushing pushing

49:54

content working 247 and then just I I like to play basketball go to the gym I

50:01

think that's huge for me Um because one thing like I don't really drink anymore

50:07

just because of how busy I am and um it's done not like it does anything good for you anyways Yeah exactly Like I'm

50:14

not against it don't get me wrong Like I'll still go out with my buddies whenever I do have some extra time and I

50:20

do get the invite but it's not how it used to be where like I'm getting drunk at all Maybe I'll have a drink or two

50:26

and it's just to have a good time and be outside because the one thing people also might not know in this game like

50:31

you spend a lot of time alone So like what I recommend to people like if

50:36

you're scared of being alone if like you're scared of yourself and your thoughts at night like go through that

50:41

like it's going to suck like anything else that sucks in life but you have to go through those hard stages because

50:47

once you get to the other side of things and you find that like self-love and that motivation where you don't need anybody else to be pushing you to do

50:54

something like it's amazing like you'll see yourself doing things you couldn't even believe yourself were capable of

51:01

honestly Absolutely Absolutely So the yacht when is the yacht coming i'm just

51:06

curious We talked about yachts earlier I feel like uh that coming soon No no no I I honestly

51:13

I'm the type of person if you would have asked me like three years ago I would

51:19

say 23 and under I would have say hell yeah like it's coming next year But um

51:24

the type of person I am like I tell everybody on most my podcast this black tea I wear I have a rotation of like 15

51:30

to 16 of them Like I just kind of always wear the same clothes because I don't really reinvest into myself Like my

51:37

happiness and my purpose nowadays is kind of like uh reinvesting into the people around me Like that's awesome

51:43

Like how can I my sister wanted to go to she's a flight attendant now So and now

51:48

she wants to go to pilot school Like how could I help her build that you know what I mean if I got some extra money help her fix like get a little bit of

51:55

extra money in the savings Like what do my parents want to do because obviously like I mean God willing even though it

52:01

sucks to say it's the truth but like your parents are going to pass before you You know what I mean so I kind of want to give a ton back to my parents

52:06

It's like they work so hard to give me the opportunities I have today and to be and to have the life I have today So

52:13

it's like anything I kind of earn from this I want to give back to them first It's almost like a tier list of people I

52:19

want to give back to before I I get to think about the yacht the cars whatever I want in the future But honestly I want

52:26

to live a very simple life Like I'm not saying I I'm I'm not going to cop a yacht or like buy a Lamborghini in the

52:32

future but it's going to take some time for sure I gota Well it seems like your priorities were the only place which is

52:38

awesome Um but hey when you do cop the yacht let me know So yeah I gotcha I

52:44

just started fishing my first time I went fishing the first time last year

52:49

actually one of one of the people that helped us uh build the not build he

52:55

helped us install the new console His name is uh Dave Anton He's huge honestly

53:00

Like he's he just put me on so much stuff Like have you ever heard of the NAB show no It's like a national

53:08

association for broadcasting It's just a huge show where like um like a

53:13

conference Yeah huge conference where like Blackmagic all the companies who sell

53:19

microphones to speakers to anything you could imagine in this world of TV live

53:24

streaming any of that It's just a conference for all their new gadgets like and I fell in love with it So he

53:31

put me on to that But he he brought me fishing this summer and I fell in love with that So that's probably the only

53:37

reason I'd buy a boat sooner rather than later because that's what I want to do Like if you invite me out to a boat and

53:43

you're like "All right I got a six-pack of book skis." Like come on that's a good time playing some Logan wall and

53:49

some Zack B There's nothing better than a six-pack in fishing on a boat Honestly there's come on That's just that's a

53:55

great time for me So well once again we'll have to make that happen when you come down to Charleston So sure Let me

54:01

know about that for sure I have a kind of a followup question on this too because the I reached out to you because you've posted content with Julian Dory

54:08

Yeah and and I uh I've been following him for a while listening to a lot of his content There's a c certain individuals that I just feel like are

54:15

hitting the mark on the head with um properly with podcast and doing it in a real authentic manner Um they're also

54:22

creating really good content too It's not like they aren't I mean they're creating really good catchy content but it's also at the same time it's truly

54:29

them right they're talking about whatever they want to talk about and that's awesome Um but you you kind of gave me a little bit of a better

54:34

understanding of how you got connected with him If you're cool with that I'd love to kind of dive into that too and just say like you know what it what

54:40

basically what it looks like to connect with certain people as well to give people a little bit of a taste and a better understanding of what this

54:46

process is truly like to get in front of big names or bigger names at this time Yeah I mean um I just sent him an email

54:53

like I found his email somewhere or I actually believe one of my buddies that

54:59

I met through the podcasting world like he got a chance to meet him and interview him So that's how I got his

55:04

email But when I got his email it wasn't like I got his email and I instantly got an interview It was like I got his I got

55:11

his email and I had to email his team a few times and then I had to email him a

55:17

few times and then there was like a dead gap Let's just say I had to send over 12 15 emails before we ever got to sit down

55:23

in front of each other and get the opportunity to talk And then the one

55:29

thing I would say about that is like following up staying consistent and showing people like it matters to you

55:35

and you really want it Because there was a time where I emailed him and I didn't hear from him for like three four weeks

55:41

because y somebody at that level like he's dropping three-hour episodes three times a week two times a week Like

55:47

that's a lot of work He's super busy So for him to take time out of his day to have somebody who at the time I only had

55:54

I want to say like 40 50 subscribers like it was definitely under a hundred Like it was my fourth episode Like so

56:00

for him to take time out of his day to do that I feel like you need to show him you really want to and like you need to

56:06

give him a reason why Even though I I think Julian would have said yes regardless of me not giving him a reason

56:12

He was just genuinely busy and like didn't see it The guy gets thousands of messages daily Like I just stayed

56:19

consistent and stayed persistent which is the important part Like and the one beautiful thing I found through all of

56:24

that was like these people want to be interviewed You know what I mean a lot of these big names and big guys like

56:30

aren't being asked to get interviewed because people are scared And I was one of the people who was scared to ask You know what I mean there was a lot of

56:36

times where I would be sending emails and be like I don't I feel like I feel like a [ __ ] sending this Like you

56:42

know what like I just feel rude like blowing this guy up But it's like you you can't feel like that Like you need

56:49

to give yourself the opportunity until somebody says no Like I just genuinely can't Then that's when you maybe follow

56:55

up in six months but yeah It's also it's also like a testament to the kind of person that he is that he's willing to

57:01

hop on with somebody that might not have a bunch of followers right and and I think that's that's huge for a lot of these guys that we listen to And it also

57:07

just confirms why we listen to them too right it's like they're actually they're genuine people They're real people that

57:12

want to talk with other real genuine people And just because you don't have millions or hundreds of thousands of followers does not mean you're not an

57:19

intellectual individual that has a lot of knowledge or a great perspective that should be heard right your message should be heard too U but you might not

57:26

have as many followers and so be it You will eventually Um but that once again back to that It's just a testament to

57:31

the kind of kind of person that he is So I'm glad to hear that also and I appreciate you kind of sharing the story

57:37

too because it takes following up takes touching base and actually engaging with somebody Things don't happen overnight

57:44

So don't send one email or make one phone call and expect all the [ __ ] to just fall in line for you It takes

57:50

consistency Yeah definitely The one thing I will say about Julian like you said he's just a genuine human being

57:58

Like he's probably one of the nicest guys I've met in my entire life which I've met a ton of people over the course

58:03

of my life but he's just really down to earth and just another guy which is was

58:09

really cool to see because at the time that was my fourth episode I really didn't know where my podcast was going

58:14

Every episode before that I was in a suit I wanted to be like more businessoriented And it wasn't until I

58:20

met him and I got the opportunity to sit down with him and just really like talk about the podcasting game where like my

58:27

mind just kind of opened up and that belief He kind of gave me a ton of belief in myself at the time because

58:34

honestly I I don't know if I didn't do that interview I don't think I would have probably been podcasting still That

58:40

interview was kind of what launchpaded me into like all right we're doing this and we're not stopping Like right Like

58:45

which was amazing And like you said he he didn't owe me that Like he's at the size where he doesn't need to do that

58:51

for anybody but he's still willing to do that Like if anybody hits him up and he has a time he will take the time out of

58:58

out of his day to be on an interview because he understands what it's like trying to find a guest at whatever size

59:04

you're at and he understands like something you just said a lot of people have value in this world and just

59:10

because you don't have a lot of followers doesn't mean you have you don't have interesting conversation to be had you know what I mean so it kind

59:16

of gives everybody an opportunity we all have a unique experience unique upbringing unique perspective it's kind

59:23

of like the word perspective gets used a lot too I think it's I've seen it used a lot more as of late kind of like the

59:29

founding purpose of the podcast was just be like okay this person has an exp experience that's different than mine how can I learn from their experience

59:35

and gain some knowledge from that and then move forward and live a better life because of that experience that and that that message that they shared with me Uh

59:42

but it's like that was kind of like for me too I living in small town South Carolina US small town USA my entire

59:49

life There's a whole lot outside of that that I did not experience until I got to college and then went and studied abroad

59:56

and then was able to experience that and live abroad and be like "Wow the world is wild outside of South Carolina." Uh

1:00:02

but it took me till then to like actually experience that So uh being you know understanding different cultures

1:00:07

understanding different people's backgrounds um it it's truly necessary to to be able to better understand and

1:00:13

be able to create your best um put your best foot forward in life in

1:00:18

general Yeah 100% I I would say one of the one of the things it was um it was

1:00:24

humbling because I would say even at that point that was probably back that was early December where we recorded it

1:00:31

Yeah And even at that point I was like the mentality I had where I was like "Oh if I blow up like you know what f all my

1:00:38

friends who weren't supporting like I'm gone from all these guys Like if anybody wants to collab I'm not helping you This

1:00:44

that." And it just changed my mentality completely Like it was really cool

1:00:49

because like now I've opened up my mind I am more I'm more of the person that everything I learn I want to give back

1:00:55

Like how can I give back like I want to use this platform to see how I could give back to the world in the sense of

1:01:01

I'm adding value to you Hopefully I'm adding some motivation and then maybe as

1:01:06

we grow monetarily I could give back in the sense of I could get an editor um

1:01:12

give him an opportunity I could give back to my friends like hey you want to start this Tik Tok you want to start

1:01:17

this YouTube channel I'll teach you honest because I'm not afraid to to teach you everything I know like I

1:01:23

really don't mind that like it's just going to be even cooler because now I get to see how my friend grows like we

1:01:28

got to speak on it uh on the phone the other day a little bit where one of my buddies has a Tik Tok channel now and he

1:01:35

was kind of losing motivation and the drive and then just seeing me build my podcast and seeing me like slowly build

1:01:41

my audience and just staying consistent has motivated him to start doing it again and then reach out to other

1:01:48

creators and other DJs and like connect with them And then I remember we hopped on the phone one day after he met his

1:01:54

first content creator and it was hilarious because his reaction and just his emotion through the conversation was

1:02:01

exactly how I felt after talking to Julian And I remember like being so excited about talking to Julian just

1:02:08

being so pumped And at that time like nobody followed at me and nobody cared

1:02:13

Like I called my friends I remember and I was like "Yo I just interviewed Julian." Like it was sick Like I loved

1:02:18

it It got cut short because I was bit I had uh I had some I had something to do

1:02:24

that day that I couldn't miss out on But I was like I am so excited Like you don't know how huge of an opportunity

1:02:29

that was for me Like they just didn't understand like how excited I truly was and how big of an opportunity it was And

1:02:37

I just kind of like kind of pushed pushed away from everybody for a little Like I I kind of just got into my own

1:02:43

bubble where I'm like "All right not everybody's going to be as excited as I am and not everybody's going to realize

1:02:48

like what opportunity it is So I just got to focus on me and like keep pushing me." And then once I have those thousand

1:02:54

followers 10,000 100,000 whatever it is like people are going to realize how big that opportunity really was and like how

1:03:00

big taking that leap truly was Because that's one thing I told my friends early

1:03:06

on like I understand nobody's going to follow me when I have 25 followers 10 followers Like that's just something

1:03:11

that nobody does Even myself When I see a video that's really good doesn't matter I hop on their profile see 10

1:03:18

followers I used to not follow them Now I do because I know what it feels like to be on the other side But it's just

1:03:24

that it's in society I don't know what it is with people's minds that numbers game Well let's be honest When I saw the

1:03:30

clips that you that whoever I guess it was you sharing but I saw them I was I was like I was like damn I was like So I

1:03:36

checked out your YouTube I was like all right You know he's got some subscribers was like "But I'm I'm I don't really give I don't really care about the

1:03:41

subscriber count I don't care about the follower count." I was like "This guy had the gumption to reach out to and connect with with Julian Dory and some

1:03:46

of these bigger guys." I was like "How do you like what is the story right like how did this guy do it what kind of

1:03:51

mentalities and approaches is he taking on life to be able to get in front of these kind of people?" Um once again a lot of people a lot of people don't even

1:03:57

take that leap of faith So that's huge That's awesome Um something that kind of came up too while we're talking through all this is like when when I think about

1:04:04

a good person or like a genuine human being or somebody that um has successfully hit like a happy stage or a

1:04:10

good stage in their life or become a truly good human being One of the key indicators of that for me is somebody

1:04:16

that um in a certain time of their life they've done super well at something right they've either gotten super fit or

1:04:22

they've committed to a podcast or they've accomplished something amazing and other people have started to reach out to them and they've started to

1:04:28

connect them and put them on game which you've obviously done for your friends When that friend though happens to surpass you or do much better than you

1:04:34

you keep supporting them even after they've surpassed you I'm happy just think Yep So that that

1:04:41

for me is like that I think I feel like you're one of those guys too which is which is huge Um and and I think we need

1:04:47

more of that right where people recognize like hey you go you went and did something big or you helped a friend

1:04:53

get to a certain go uh goal and they accomplished it and then they spoke with this person they hit a million subscribers before you hit a million

1:04:59

subscribers or they made a million dollars before you made a million dollars Like truly being happy for that

1:05:04

person in my opinion is a mark of a really good person Now will we truly

1:05:09

know if anybody else is really truly happy for that person i don't know Maybe maybe we won't But at the end of the day

1:05:14

I think that there's something to be said about that kind of appro taking that kind of approach to life where you

1:05:19

connected them with somebody it turned into a million- dollar deal or a million subscribers and you genuinely appreciate

1:05:26

or uh support them and are happy for them at that time So yeah and I

1:05:31

definitely I believe that's like you said it's hard for a lot of people out there and I even myself when I was

1:05:38

younger I wouldn't have thought that It just comes with comes with age I guess at least in my life just through

1:05:43

experiences and stuff like you're not really gonna get anywhere being jealous of other people because like you're focused on what other people are doing

1:05:51

so much like how are you going to focus on your own plate kind of stuff like you

1:05:56

need to just focus on your life and and focus on how you could better your life and for me to see my friends doing well

1:06:02

chasing their dreams like not just bettering my life like you know what I mean I'm surrounded by great people who are doing great things like why the heck

1:06:09

would I ever be upset like oh it's not me Like maybe it's not me for a reason Maybe you know what I mean i didn't work

1:06:15

hard enough I didn't do this enough Like there's there's always a reason but you can't be like down and out because of it

1:06:22

Like it you're taken away from your friend's success and that's that's just not it honestly Yeah it is It is hard

1:06:28

though at a younger age to be able to like mentally understand that giving and doing and

1:06:35

supporting and providing or connecting right is actually going to provide you that long-term return right you don't

1:06:42

you don't think about it like that at the time You're just like I just need to finish this I need to graduate high school I need to graduate college I need

1:06:47

to do whatever's next I need to get that job Uh but it's it's true Like if you can truly be a giver and a connector and

1:06:54

a networker and a builder of other people it pays back tenfold in so many different ways that it might might not

1:07:01

just be monetarily but in other ways as well because your network is everything and your the people you build relationships with is everything in this

1:07:08

life Yeah Because I find it so cool Um one of my friends we got to speak about this on the phone as well One of my

1:07:15

friends he's a producer in Miami now and he's he lives in Fort Lauderdale but he

1:07:22

just made a music video with Antonio Brown and he's been really like just locked in on his thing and like he's

1:07:28

been doing really well But the thing is like I have videos of us sitting in an Acura TL like five six years ago like

1:07:35

him freestyling to me us singing like the same song things like that And like him in my basement just freestyling And

1:07:42

like in those videos when he would post them or any type of music like people in

1:07:47

our hometown would always just like make fun of him or really not not make fun of him but just really not believe in him

1:07:53

And I remember being one of those people like "Dude you're freaking super talented." Like I would I would literally hang out with him because I

1:07:59

was like "Yo this is sick Like you're creating something and like you're really good." And I just always would

1:08:04

push him like "Dude just keep freaking going." And like we would always have conversations where we know it was rough

1:08:11

Like being any artist you're taking a leap and like you're not taking the regular route We actually went to the

1:08:16

same school together at first because at that time we were both going to Mammoth University and I remember he dropped out

1:08:22

and uh went to SAB which is a sound engineering school in New York and just him taking that leap like kind of

1:08:28

inspired me to start taking more risk in my life because he was a year younger than me and like he was just kind of going for his dream and a lot of people

1:08:35

at the time probably looked at him like what the heck is this kid doing like why would he be doing that like oh I'm going

1:08:40

to do so much better than this kid But now to see him like be in a place to be where he's like kind of dominating the

1:08:46

space and like moving up in the world and meeting all these guys that people in our hometown or people around us

1:08:53

would freaking cry to me You know what I mean but now he could call them friends and call them collaborators and call

1:09:00

call them mentors whatever they are to him is amazing Like I remember calling him the other day and just telling him

1:09:05

like how how freaking proud I am of him because I got to see his like struggles and his trials and tribulations where

1:09:12

there was days where he's working two to three jobs just to be able to produce and continue doing what he loves And

1:09:18

like seeing that grind in him seeing that like constant constant drive in him

1:09:24

like motivated me to start this as well you know what I mean so I love having him as a friend and he knows like

1:09:30

regardless if he was making music with AB or nobody Like I I'd still love him as a friend still be proud as hell of

1:09:37

him Like it's never been about who he's with what he's doing how much money he's making It's always been about him as a

1:09:43

person and the drive and like actual talent I see in him Yeah I think about like a lot of my friends locally that

1:09:49

have their own bands and they're a part of the band or they're the lead singer or whatever their their role is in the

1:09:56

band and they play at smaller venues and I'm like you know you never know like which one of these people a lot of these

1:10:02

guys have other jobs they do other things too It's not like they're everything but they love doing it and they all would love to see it blow up

1:10:08

and so I try my best to go to as many of those small concerts as possible right try to support them as many things as

1:10:13

possible It's not it's not just people in bands or trying to be creative or just you know the creative folks It's

1:10:18

people that actually have a goal set and they're trying to accomplish something in their with whatever they've decided

1:10:24

they want to accomplish in it whatever path they've decided to take U but I've tried my best in that regard to support

1:10:29

my musically talented friends Like y'all are incredible Your ability to pick up a musical instrument and sing

1:10:35

simultaneously and also produce the content is something that frankly the vast majority of the population can't

1:10:40

even fathom doing It is so difficult for the vast majority of the population So to see somebody that is actually good at

1:10:47

it you're like "Hey keep this [ __ ] going man This is awesome This is really cool." So try to support as much as I

1:10:54

possibly can on that front For sure And even just be honest about it Like I remember him like giving me like he

1:11:00

sends me tracks all the time but even back then he'd send me tracks like what do you think and a lot of them I thought they were amazing because I'm like I

1:11:06

could never do anything like this So I tell him straight up like yo I love it But then there was some where I'm like

1:11:12

it isn't the best And then I tell them why it wasn't the best But then I'd also tell him like hey you got to remember I

1:11:18

might not be your audience for this certain song Number one Number two I know nothing about creating music so you

1:11:23

can't take my word full like through and through I don't know So it's just like I just always love to be honest about him

1:11:29

That's why he knows like he could always send me music And I think that's why he still does and show me stuff because he

1:11:35

knows like I always be honest like whether it's good or bad Like I'll never lie to him just to like hype him up or

1:11:40

this and that Like I was always honest since day one and I was always supportive which is the biggest thing

1:11:45

because good or bad that's still one of my best friends and I was supportive of his his dream and now to see where he's

1:11:51

at man Like I said it's inspiring him It's inspiring and I'm really proud of him and like I honestly couldn't be more

1:11:57

proud of him I almost shed a tear thinking about it Like tough love is is a huge part of that too right like being

1:12:03

actually being honest with your friends where it's like hey I am supporting you this kind of sucks though uh you should

1:12:10

consider another direction not saying that all your stuff is bad but hey maybe you should consider editing this

1:12:16

especially if you do have experience with it and you're like hey I have exper now that you have experience with podcasting or you have experience with

1:12:21

with production and media you can say hey your video quality kind of sucks here's a suggestion for a camera right

1:12:27

instead of just being like your video quality sucks here's here's a new cam DJI that I bought that's now a thousand bucks but it 500 bucks But

1:12:36

here's a good example of of a a piece of uh or equipment that's actually going to make your life that much better because

1:12:42

you actually are good at what you do You just need this this and this So speak speaking of providing value I was going

1:12:47

to kind of dive into this real quick on your equipment that you use the setup so on and so forth Are you okay sharing

1:12:54

some of the stuff that you use just for people that are maybe listening that want to get into and dive into this as well yeah I mean my specific setup I

1:13:01

don't I don't know if I'd recommend to start off because it's a few expensive but I could show you guys right here Like this is um this is what the

1:13:09

microphones we use This is a RE25 or RE20 sorry These microphones are

1:13:15

like honestly top of the line These are the best Like I see you got the shore Is that the MVB7

1:13:21

yeah this is like the level below their top of the line This is like the 200 $250 one not the whatever next level is

1:13:28

Yeah Like this one is is 500 bucks I mean you see the shock mount we got on it It's huge And same with the mic arms

1:13:36

Like when I walked in Julian's studio like he had the same mic arm So I was like I was like "Oh [ __ ] maybe we are

1:13:42

doing pretty good." But we have one two three we have eight microphones in this studio They're all all RE20s And then

1:13:51

you kind of see like let's see if I stand up real quick Oh it's moving It's moving

1:13:57

Is it oh this black camera Yep Like these are P these are a little bit cheaper because at the time they were

1:14:03

expensive When we bought them a few years back they were $1,000 each Now everybody's in 4K These are 1080p

1:14:10

cameras But the issue is we have eight cameras So to replace eight cameras you're talking a lot of money And these

1:14:17

are these are nice because uh we have a controller that's able to like I could click what camera I want and then uh

1:14:24

maneuver it around and just control it So if you're sitting on the opposite side of the room and I need to zoom into

1:14:29

that person real quick I could do that Cool And then we also have uh let me see if I stand up again How many how many

1:14:35

camera angles are you using for your podcast for my podcast I use one for myself and then three for my guest

1:14:43

because sometimes like the lighting and the colors come out different on some cameras just because I'm not the best at

1:14:48

lighting and there's a lot of people like we rent out the studio so there's a lot of people that come in and out so

1:14:53

sometimes like the lighting's a little bit off and since I kind of run it myself um and I'm a producer for most

1:15:00

shows I'm not able to sit behind the cameras and like adjust it as the show's going on So I just have three cameras on

1:15:06

the guest in case anything goes wrong or if like sometimes the episode they all come out beautiful So I kind of use it

1:15:12

just to mess around and give people different angles because one thing I realized after interviewing with Julie

1:15:18

and it's like how well he cuts his cameras in and out and that adds a lot of value uh to the podcast when people

1:15:25

are watching it because it's like it's it's grabbing the attention because maybe what I'm saying doesn't grab the

1:15:31

attention but the camera might grab the attention Absolutely Speaking of cameras I'm like

1:15:36

looking at mine right now and it looks like it's trying to die but it's plugged in which is one of those weird things

1:15:42

We're like I don't know if it's actually going to die or not But um but before it does I wanted to kind of wrap things up

1:15:49

so that we don't wrap up and then have to change a different camera angle make it weird at the end So in in conclusion

1:15:55

here Steve um what do you what do you want to leave people with what what additional info value insights etc uh do

1:16:03

you think would be kind of a good um good concluding thought for today's episode uh I just want to leave people

1:16:09

with like just start Whatever you want to do in life just start Like I understand the fears in life I

1:16:16

understand being afraid with wanting to start something new regardless if it's a business regardless if it's going back

1:16:22

to school content whatever it is Like you just have to start And then you're like don't be afraid to fail I know it's

1:16:28

cliche I know everybody says it but it's everybody says it because it's the truth Like you can't be afraid to fail Like

1:16:35

you're not going to be perfect when you begin I'm far from perfect You know what I mean like every video I post I post at

1:16:42

what I consider to be like the 60% rule Like once I think it's 60% done I'll just post because if I wait till perfect

1:16:49

like I'm never going to post anything I'm never gonna think it's good enough So Steve I'm like the 10% rule I just

1:16:54

like 10% That's Let's get it out there So but that's a good rule Like it's it in the beginning it really doesn't

1:17:00

matter that much Like as long as you're at least in content like as long as you're getting stuff out and you're just

1:17:06

giving yourself an opportunity and a chance like we spoke about earlier like that's what really matters And then like

1:17:11

as you grow you'll just start to learn more because for me like I've only had a YouTube channel for six months and the

1:17:18

amount of change and growth I've had in those six months is tremendous Like I never could have imagined I could speak

1:17:24

for an hour and a half two hours and a half three hours and a half without being like without stuttering without

1:17:29

doing some crazy stuff Like I don't know like to be able to sit comfortably behind a camera for even longer than

1:17:36

five minutes is something really cool and something I this time last year I didn't think was possible for me So like

1:17:43

things are always going to be impossible until you start Like once you start you're going to start to realize like

1:17:48

things are possible Just like we talked about Julie and like how did I land him like I thought it was impossible at one

1:17:54

time so I gave myself the opportunity and I started and now like I see myself landing bigger and bigger guests but

1:18:00

that's only because of I'm giving myself the opportunity I'm constantly like the other day I sent 60 emails out You know

1:18:06

what I mean and those 60 emails I'm probably going to receive two to three people back and like that doesn't really

1:18:11

matter to me I'm just going to keep giving myself the chance and keep going for it Awesome That's awesome Well I've

1:18:17

got uh a couple things on my to-do list as a follow-up to this Of course we have to edit this this episode and get it

1:18:23

produced so I can share that with you But I also am going to send you a stay curious hat once they come in which

1:18:28

should be in the next couple weeks along with uh our show sponsor um which uh I

1:18:33

actually a bomb energy I need to drop you a a few of those drinks as well I'm not sure if you're an energy drink guy

1:18:39

but they're really good and they're also uh the neutropics in them are really good for focus too So they're not they

1:18:46

don't they're not near as jittery as like a C4 or a Monster which I really like about it And the guy's a veteran

1:18:51

Great dude But uh the product's really really good So I'm going to I'm going to package up a little care package for you I'm going to send it over to you in the

1:18:57

next couple weeks with with some merch and with an Abomb energy um or two And

1:19:02

uh love to know what you think about those also Beautiful I appreciate I definitely I love the energy drinks Like

1:19:08

I'm about to head over to the gym right now and probably take a cell see see if it may sell Well en enjoy the workout

1:19:15

And that was kind of one thing I was talking about earlier too is the why I wouldn't really mention the gym specifically but it's my daily

1:19:22

consistent thing It's like even if I go to the gym and I just sit in the sauna or steam room I'm going in regardless I

1:19:27

h I have to go in uh because if if not I it just messes with everything So yeah

1:19:33

good on you for hitting the gym right now at uh at 8:30 at night

1:19:38

but pretty late At the at the end of last year I signed up to a 247 gym for

1:19:44

that specific reason to like not give myself excuses Like doesn't matter what time of the day whenever I have some

1:19:50

energy I can pick up and go to the gym Whether I wake up in the middle of the night whether it's late at night like it

1:19:55

just no excuses And like you said it's that one little thing Like it's all about them small daily wins That's what

1:20:02

it's really about Like they just really multiply and add up over time They definitely do They definitely do Well

1:20:08

Steve once again man I really appreciate it It's been a pleasure to get to meet you and get to know you a bit better through this episode Uh looking forward

1:20:15

to sharing it and uh really appreciate you sharing genuine uh information

1:20:20

knowledge content with people and uh hopefully this will gain you a few subscribers on your podcast as well I

1:20:28

hope so And your yours as well I hope this helped you out Thank you for inviting me on It was huge man

1:20:34

Absolutely Steve We will talk soon Of course Take care