370 - The Challenges of Copying Podcast Formulas

0:04 Good morning podcasting morning Chat. Today is Monday, September 16th, 2025, and today we're challenging copycat culture in podcasting. From formulas to fulfillment, we'll unpack originality, prescriptive advice, and how to push through the discomfort of the truly learning. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're listening live on YouTube or via podcast, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds. We'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here.

1:20 Good morning again, podcasting, Morning chat. Thanks so much for being here. I am your host Mark Ronik. Currently on stage with me we have Jonathan Howard, Dr. Faye, Matt Bliss, Sid Meadows, producer Ashley Feller and Alex Baelish. Glad to see all of my fine Co hosts here today. One name you may not have heard me say, or at least you noticed that you didn't hear me say, was Nick Naulback who is enjoying some time away I believe in Florida for his annual anniversary trip with his wife. I say annual anniversary. What I mean by that is every year for their wedding anniversary, they go to Florida and do the whole horror tour. They're big horror movie horror fans. Standing in line?

2:07 Yes, Millions of hours. Lots of hours in lines unless they get those VIP passes. We'll have to ask him about that, see if maybe he gets to cut the line with those VIP passes. Speaking of events and things to do, we are officially 10 days away from Empowered Podcasting. The conference September 26th through the 28th. I can't believe we're in the final double digit countdown. As of tomorrow we will be hitting those single digits. I am excited and I don't want to say nervous, but anxious might be the better word. This has been quite a journey, as I've shared with you guys since we decided to do the second annual conference. And yeah, we've had lots of challenges along the way and it's, I'm really proud and impressed with, despite the challenges, we've got a really great event that we've put together with some really awesome people. And you know me, I love community and I love being surrounded by great people.

3:15 And that is where the excitement comes in for me. I cannot wait to be in that room with so many of you, to learn from so many of you, and to connect with so many of you. So if you haven't, please come join us. Go to empoweredpodcasting.com. You can get all that information there. Look at that perfect timing. If you're listening live, just as I said, go to empoweredpodcasting.com. Ashley had the link posted to the top of the room here on Clubhouse. Please come join us. Please see if you can work. That Ashley's not feeling well today. No, I was going to bring that up too. Yeah, yes, we've got Ashley who is under the weather and Dr.

3:58 Who. I know her, some of her physical ailments that she's been dealing with is it's back and she's dealing with it again. Jonathan, are you recovered? You were one of our sick cast members last week. How are you? I was definitely one of the cast members last week, actually ended up in the hospital during the show on Friday, but I'm doing much, much better. Wow. May we ask what were the symptoms? What were you feeling? I had the worst stomach virus I've had in I think my entire life, and then that led to an infection in my intestines, which is always a good thing. Well, as a what? You met your goal weight for the conference, right?

4:42 I mean that would be positive. I wish, Alex, I wish. Yeah, I met my goal weight. I'm just not tall enough yet. Nah, yes. Yeah, that can make it a little more challenging. Funny, I had. I did say something. I did look at the bright side with Jonathan last week. I think I texted him when I was checking in on him, saying at least it's now and not ten days from now. I would be devastated if you couldn't be there, Jonathan. You did say that and I I'm happy it happened. Yes. Last week. Not anytime, anywhere near yeah. And to be clear, I'm not happy that it happened, but I'm happy happier that it happened now. Exactly.

5:23 Well, I'm glad you're on the mend, Jonathan, and feel better, Ashley. I know Ashley, you said you were having trouble. Your voice isn't working very well due to your illness, so I'm not going to make you come off mic and say anything about it. Just feel better. Both you and Dr. feel better as well. Let's dive in now. I'm glad Matt Bliss has joined us today because we are playing a clip straight out of his new series, Rethinking Podcasting. And I had reached out to Matt because if you guys haven't noticed yet, this is a newer segment that we're doing here on the Podcasting Morning chat where we're playing a clip from other podcasters, other experts, professionals, whatever you'd like to call them, who are talking about podcasting. We were playing those clips and then having some conversation around those clips, and I reached out to Matt to let him know about that.

6:16 A few weeks ago, he got a clip from his show. We're going to play that here. Matt, do you want to set this up at all for us before I hit play? Absolutely. So this is a conversation that I had with Mason Amadeus, who is 1/3 of the troupe that make Pod Cube a fictional sketch kind of podcast show. Imagine. I think Auntie Donner is the closest parallel. If you're familiar with that comedy group out of Australia, they do that. He also is a creative director as part of Eight Layer Media, working with Perry Carpenter, who's made Eight Layer Insights together.

6:56 They do at the moment, The Fake Files, which is talking about AI news in a very digestible way for people who don't know much about AI and the background. And more recently he's done a morning show with his partner that we might talk about a bit later on. But he's had a very diverse career from IT manager through to a bunch of different things. He mostly got his start in radio as a broadcast manager kind of thing, leaned into the the IT and he's been doing podcasts for a little while. But he's well, he isn't fully directed on podcasting per SE. He is one of those people who's a savant at creativity and just generally on the technological side of audio. But he's approach to the podcasting stuff is very interesting and I think it's aspirational the way that he considers the aspects of making Pod cube with his two Co hosts. All that being a tease for the full episode being available on Rethinking Podcasting.

8:04 It came out a couple of weeks ago. So if this teases you, this little clip we're about to play, then you can listen to the rest. And like every podcast that's a little bit longer, there's plenty more to digest from that conversation than just this clip. But this little section, this 2 1/2 minutes is a point we got to towards the end where he was talking about learning and understanding and whether imitating what you see without diving deeper on the stuff that you're interested in to learn. Exactly how it works largely in the context of the technological side, but it applies to almost every aspect of podcasting.

8:44 I think it's a very telling clip which Mark will lead us through a couple of discussion questions and I'll I'll contribute as well. You can extrapolate a lot from it, even though it's just 2 1/2 minutes. So, Mark, if you want to roll the tape, we'll give it a listen. I will and I know that that was a beautifully set up. That was a beautiful set up. I should have said. And before I play it, I just want to quickly because community is so important to me. I want to shout out Amanda Yoa, who I asked to come up here on stage. Amanda, I was perusing TikTok those by the way, those words. A kid who's using TikTok would never say that. I was perusing TikTok and I landed on one of yours and I saw you were published in a magazine. And I just want, I know that we usually do our wins at the end of the week.

9:35 But being that I see you here and I saw and felt that excitement, that enthusiasm through the TikTok video, I just wanted to give you a moment to share with us. And then I'll go play the clip from Matt and Rethinking Podcasting. So Amanda, tell us what the magazine was, what you wrote about. Tell us how it happened. Oh my gosh, thank you. Congratulations. Yeah. I appreciate that it was a full circle moment for me. I think it was very nostalgic because I it had a nostalgic piece to it rather because I the picture where I chose to get my pictures taken for the magazine. But it's a pretty popular magazine in Philly. It's called the Philly Current, so it's a subscriber only magazine.

10:17 But what I love the most about it was just the artistry and the writing in that magazine. I remember when I first got my hands on it at a Philly event and was, you know, flipping the pages. I'm like, this magazine is beautiful. Like, no wonder it's subscriber only. It's always been a goal of mine to get myself in there just because I appreciate it. The artistry of the magazine itself, and not to mention the founder of the magazine, Eddie, is absolutely wonderful. His staff is wonderful. I've been a follower for a while and then he just recently asked me if I would want to be a feature. I'll be doing things with the magazine later down the line. Not sure what yet.

10:58 Well, can't really say what yet, but definitely a part of the PC family now. And it was just AI shouldn't say just it was a six page write up on it was so it's the business issue. So it was a lot of people who are in business. So it just talked about, you know, my husband and I owning the restaurant, me getting into comedy and doing my thing and the podcasting thing and wrapping up with, you know, you know, being a mom and just really honing in on bringing you into everything that you do because that's when you really stand out. Talked about my Philly roots. So it was such a beautiful article and it had me in tears, as I'm sure you saw in my TikTok video, because like I said, you know, for me, it, it took me a while to figure out where my place in life was.

11:48 And I remember sitting on those same steps and not being sure if God had a plan for me. So then get my pictures in that setting for that purpose, knowing what I'm doing and how I'm just, you know, really taking off. It was a definitely a moment I'll remember forever for sure, so thank you for allowing me to share that. I appreciate it. You're welcome and thank you for sharing that with us. Congratulations again, Amanda. That's really exciting and I love full circle moments like that. It's so cool to to hear and I'm just thrilled for you. And I'm hoping that that story inspires more of us to, to really do whatever we can right to, to whatever lights us up to pursue that thing and make it happen. And you know, Amanda's story is a great example of that. So thank you, Amanda, congratulations to you. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. And please feel free to stay up here. Amanda.

12:48 I think that you'll have stuff to contribute to this conversation as well. And by the way, a hello to Chris Vaglio, who has joined us on stage as well. Let's play this clip that Matt so beautifully set up that the I then derailed. Let's go for it. This is from Rethinking Podcasting. I don't think the culture we have at the moment to carbon copy people that we aspire to, to be able to do the things that they can do is healthy. I really don't think it leads to the fulfillment that you talked about that comes about as a result of Pod Cube as well. Like it necessarily leads to the product that you you love making and you'll continue to make it regardless of the level of success, whatever that success is. But also that you are the kind of person who's built to create this product at this time with your skills, with these people that you love hanging out with.

13:39 It's OK to bask in the, the confluence of all those things to create the thing that you wanted, But I don't think it's, it's beneficial for people to look at that and go, I can do that by doing all these things. It's just, you know, be your own podcaster, create the thing you want to make. Yeah. Like we can't just listen to this advice and then completely ignore it by going like, you know, Control C, Control VI can do it, you know? No, but if you, if you want and like we always seek prescriptive paths, right? We are always and this is the thing that I encounter the most when I'm working with people on like audio. Everyone is just says how do you set your compressor? What are your compressor settings? I can start by being like, OK, well, that really depends on like what, what are we driving it? What is what is driving it?

14:20 What's the input level? What kind of a signal is it? What do we want to achieve here? Everything is case by case. You don't achieve anything by just following procedural steps. The real if you want something actionable, understand what you're doing from the bottom up. Try and break it to the most basic component of what you're looking at. If there's something that you do that you don't understand what it is, you don't, you can't describe or tell a 5 year old what it is that it does or how it works, learn it, Google it, like dig, dig in. That feeling you get when you're overwhelmed by something you don't know goes away. You can push through that and that is like a skill, just like exercising a muscle. And it, that is something I don't hear talked about a lot, is overcoming that initial learning resistance. If there is one skill that I have as a person, it is that because I will sit down and hit my head against something until I get it.

15:14 And I think that anybody can do that. I don't think that that is unique to me, but it is uncomfortable until you build it. So like if you can't, if you encounter something, I'm trying to think of like what is an actionable axiom someone can take? I guess if you encounter something and you don't think you could explain it to a 5 year old, figure it out until you can and then you'll be that much better. And like, you'll be surprised at all of the connections you draw. There it is. Thank you, Matt, for that clip. Really, there's so much to unpack from there. And I know for me personally, the overcoming that learning resistance that he talks about, that is not a skill that I have that I, and I'm envious of him for saying because he said that he has that skill at it.

15:57 Just full transparency, that is something that I am really working through a lot this year. I have a strong awareness around that resistance and it's driving me actually absolutely crazy. The thing I think it's going to arise a whole lot more as the AI conversation starts to proceed, especially in education. But learning how we learn the best is a skill unto itself. The translation of that is people talking about how their that critical thinking isn't taught in schools anymore. It absolutely is. It's in the background and there's kind of an impetus from whatever curriculum there is to push students to think in a different way.

16:44 And that doesn't stop after you leave school. You learn how you learn best. And after this kind of editing, well, I had the conversation and then I edited the conversation with Mason. And what you you find out is that he's not a professional podcaster. He's a professional learner who's just excellent at hyper fixating and digging right into whatever he is putting his mind to. And that's why he can have the fake files with Perry Carpenter at the moment, because Perry Carpenter, if you're not aware of him, he's one of the chief evangelists at know before, a cybersecurity awareness company and has his own unique path. But ultimately, he is a very high up in the cybersecurity space and he wrote fake a book talking about the ways that that regular people can approach AI and the ways that it can infiltrate our lives and cause a lot of issues and how to deal with that.

17:46 But Mason didn't come in to that conversation at the beginning, knowing everything he does. And then they made the podcast, he spends a lot of his time digging into all the AI models and all the way that ways that it interacts. And then they have these conversations for the podcasts that are just really enlightening. So being a professional learner and understanding how you learn best leads you to the the advice he has in that little segment about if you don't understand it and you just want to copy paste it and you can't explain what you're doing, then it benefits you greatly to dig a little bit deeper into that so that you can understand what you're doing a little bit better, bit better.

18:29 And once you've done that, you can start building on that knowledge and it becomes a snowball that rolls down a hill. But obviously we don't, we want to kind of segment the things that we want to pick out of this a little bit, don't we, Mark? Yes. But thank you, Matt. I appreciate that. And in the clip, you had reminded us how tempting it is to look at someone else's success and think we can just copy and paste our way to the same results. And you pushed, or was it you? I think it was you. There was pushback in the clip saying that real fulfillment comes when we create something that's ours, right? With our skills and our timing and with the people we love to work with. So let's explore that a little more.

19:11 First, how do we avoid falling into copycat culture and what does originality really look like in podcasting? That's where I want to go first. So how do we avoid the copycat culture especially? I mean, let's maybe put on our newbie hats for a second, right? As new podcasters, how do we avoid just copying what our favorite podcasters doing? Or maybe taking it a step further, we know we're going to start podcasting and we start listening to other podcasts to see what they're doing. You know, where do we draw the line from the research to copycatting?

19:54 I saw Dr. had something she wants to add, and then I see Janae has joined us on stage as well. So let's dig into this. Go ahead, Dr. Equate this to when I was singing professionally. I was a jazz singer for many years, toward Asia for many years singing jazz. And when I developed my jazz style, I instead of the word copying, because that would be kind of talking about my skill as a, you know, impersonator. So I would use the word inspired. I was inspired by Barbra Streisand's breath control. I was inspired by the phrasing that Diana Krall had.

20:38 I was inspired by something else that, you know, like the tone of Ella Fitzgerald. So I would use those inspirations and I would like, bundle them up and put them in a nice velvet bag, sort of. And I put that bag in my soul. And so these are the kinds of things that I thought about when I would sing songs, you know, especially from the American song jazz. And after so many years, you hone it, you file it down, you Polish it up, you do this, you do that, and eventually it starts becoming your own style.

21:22 You just fit into it very, very well. And that's kind of how it happened with my singing career. When it comes to my podcasting it, we've talked about my ferocious hunger for education and master classes and courses and I mean, you name it. Yes, our most educated person in the room, I would say. Well, a lot of that has to do with my age. I really wanted to become in the household. I wanted to become a viable bread earner. I didn't want my husband to carry the note for the entire thing.

22:04 And let's face it, I'm in my 60s. I don't have, you know, I'm not in my 30s where I had years and years to get this going. I had to get it going quickly. So I took in everything I possibly could. And The funny thing is, is now that I'm, I've reached this point in my journey, I can look at things and say, Nope, done that. Nope, Nope, done that. I can look at things and now and say that three or four years ago I was, I, I'd be, I got to have that, you know, there's a shiny penny I got to pick up. So now it's slowing down a little bit. There's very little new stuff to learn. I'm not saying there's nothing to learn. Everyone has something to learn at all times, but I'm talking about the basics.

22:58 You know, the, the microphone should go here in relationship to your mouth, that kind of thing. I take in the stuff that I learn. I utilize them. But maybe I hear something really, really amazing and really new and I think, I think I want to try that. I try it and if it doesn't work, I throw it out. It's not part of my repertoire. Love that. Thank you for digging deep into that DRI. Appreciate that, especially coming, as you said, from experience in two different areas and then also coming from somebody who is so well versed in podcasting based on all the different ways that you consume that info, what are sometimes, well, let me go to Janae first and then I'll ask my follow up question.

23:48 Janae, welcome back to the stage. What did you want to add? What were your impressions of today's clip? I love the clip and there's there's a lot of truth in it, right And the beautiful part, by the way, good morning, everyone. Excellent podcast. Rethinking podcasting because even though it's been around for 20 years, it's always going to be a new experience or somebody stepping in. And one of the reasons why people want to know, hey, how did you do that is because they haven't done it before. Now the cool part about me is that I've got 4 kids and I'm seeing them copying me copy their siblings de facto, right? And then the kids will like the siblings will be like, hey, don't copy me.

24:31 So that's how we learned like when when kids are going to school, how are you going to learn the alphabets? You're going to copy exactly how it's written. You're going to have your own creativity and and and way of writing it eventually. But I'd love to read this read this passage that these to e-mail my friend Joe Cassabano sent says there's a story that won the speech for great moments with Mr. Lincoln was recorded. Walt Disney insisted on The Voice over actor doing the speech over and over and over until he sounded exhausted and even a little frustrated because what Walt didn't want the perfect oration.

25:13 He knew that Lincoln would have been tired and war weary physically unable to deliver a perfect perfect speech. So he got to take after take until he got that one sounded authentic because he valued authenticity over manufactured perfection. And that's where we're talking about here, right? When you copy over and over and over, you're going to get tired and then eventually you're going to just develop your own style. And as somebody who's stepping into podcasting, somebody who's stepping into something new, we're all like a child when we're going to copy from somebody who we admire and who inspire us. So I love the conversation and just wanted to enter to recording. Thank you.

25:55 Thanks Janae and Amanda. Yoa did you did I see your mic come off mute? Yeah. I wanted to add to the conversation. Yeah, go for it. OK. As I talked about earlier, always bring who you are to what you're doing because that's when you're going to stand out. But I also know that consumers and audiences, they like familiar. I can't even say that word familiarity. And you see this honestly, if you really think about it, you see this in different industries, at least in the United States. You see it in the movies that you watch.

26:35 Oh, this actor actress reminds me of this actor actress from back. And you know, they're they're not around anymore. They're not doing the thing. Granted, they do it in their own way, but that foundational familiarity, that word I cannot say is there, For example, in my in my niche in comedy. We all remember Andrew Dice Clay, right? Big comedian there's a new comedian up and coming. He started on kill Tony. His name is Timmy no breaks. When you watch him, you can tell who hit, who's inspired him to do his thing, but he brings it in his own way and he's become a hit overnight.

27:17 I mean that man is just doing the thing he's taking off very quickly. So I think you know, it, it really comes back to and I and I think they are touched on this like, you know, having your inspirations, but also go in and look and see like what is missing in your industry right now? Was there a guru or you know, someone who was top of the charts that is no longer doing the thing? Does that industry need that foundational, you know, familiarity again, but you bring it in your own way. All the industries do it, movies, comedy, even. We could probably talk about music as well. There was a singer and forgive, forgive me or forgive me because I forget his name.

28:04 But listening to him, my first thought was, Oh my God, he sounds like Biggie Smalls. He reminds me of Notorious BIJ. He brings it in his own way. But that was familiar for me and people love that. So there's perhaps what you're suggesting is there's kind of a a Gray area right where yeah, the influence, like Dr. was saying, the influence bringing on an influence is OK as as long as you are injecting your own style. And I feel that with music, I get that it's a great example. And I feel like it might be a little different for podcasting because it's not our singing voices, our singing style, right?

28:51 Where if we're doing an interview podcast, I'm using that as an example because it's so common, right? It's it's how do we grab inspiration from a host without just flat out copying? Or without your excellent introduction, Mark, I was going to suggest as a starting point that we begin with where a lot of podcasters start and they say I want to be like Joe Rogan. I want to have a three hour long chat with someone and have it be hugely successful. And people love Joe, so why wouldn't they love me doing the same thing? But invariably people may not see it that way. Or when you get into it, you realize it's a bit harder to do what Joe does than anything else. Or, you know, he's still occupying a large space, like Amanda said, and he hasn't yet left an absence for you to fill his shoes potentially, which was a really interesting take, Amanda.

29:51 I really enjoyed hearing about that. But I think Jonathan's getting a bit hot under the collar over there. I think we need to give him a shot. Lungs and the mic. Jonathan, do you want to add something to the conversation? I was just throwing the Chili Peppers because, you know, that's what we do. I was going to say I actually, Matthew start like on the other side. I don't want to be like anybody else. Now. I know that because I love to learn and I hate prescriptions, but I don't want to be like anybody else. My whole, you know, business model is how can I help people not be like anybody else and actually be themselves? So I find that when I started my podcast three months ago, I mean, there was a lot more work before, but I went through this process of I wanted to research and learn and consume, consume, consume all that I could consume for a couple months. And then I stopped consuming and I let that consuming like took a really long break.

30:53 And then I iterated what I learned and tried to make something into something that would work. My podcast had three iterations before it actually recorded the first episode. And then after I iterated, I took a break. And it wasn't until after that break that I started to actually create content because I was far enough away from what I consumed. And then I'd iterated a little bit that I could at least have something come out of my head that was obviously inspired by all the things I consumed, but not a direct copy of it. And I find that for me, because I, I won't, I don't use AI when I plan for my podcast unless once I'm doing show notes maybe.

31:38 But I want what comes out of me to be somewhat natural and somewhat it's. I mean, everything's been done already, but at least have some semblance of being me. Yeah. And I think you've described an opposite approach there, but it's just it's a different path than I think that that I think is the standard path that we're talking about here like for. Most people hate going that way, yeah. They do, but like it for you. It's suited really well that you bury your head in the research knowing that what you're going to do isn't going to be a gradual release of the prescriptive copy into what is your creative vision for it. You knew you'd had a vision that what you wanted to do was going to be 100% you.

32:22 So you just compartmentalized all of the, the practice, the research, the look into the podcasting stuff and then knowing yourself and who you are and what you want to do, separated that out into the neat little, you know, your copycat bit wasn't actually copying, it was just catting until you knew as much as you needed to, to be able to do what is your own original work and then progress that work as you got better and better. It sounds like you have a strong understanding of either how you learn or how best to iterate on the work that you do and that, and that's a major component of this as well. I don't think anyone's path will be the same. Like DRS is going to be different to Jonathan's is going to be different to Amanda's, but understanding that that journey will be there, that there's going to be a bit of copying and a bit of inspiration that then leads into an understanding of yourself and the material and how it works. And then the Sky's the limit.

33:20 And that's what Mark said before. Podcasting is different. I think the sky is literally the limit with podcasting, with how you can create your own niche. You don't just have to wait for someone to step off stage for you to fill that space yourself. You can find the space that you want to fill. Thank you, Matt, and thank you, Jonathan. And I appreciate the opposite end of that spectrum being shared. So thank you for that. And we have multiple people on stage wanting to chime in and I know Sid wanted to chime in as well. I'm going to go to you first, Sid, because my gut feel is that you want to add on to what Jonathan and or Matt is saying and then we'll jump in with Billy and DJ Rez. Yeah.

34:01 Good morning, everybody. Mark, thank you so much for allowing me to go before Billy. So I really. I debated it. I debated it because I figured he might say something, but go ahead. I'm in Team Jonathan. I'm trying to be the best version of me. I'm not trying to be anybody else. I'm not trying to mimic anybody else. I'm just trying to lean in and be the best version of me that I can possibly be when I'm podcasting and doing anything else for that matter. But I do listen to a lot of podcasts. I'm an active consumer of podcasting or podcasts, sorry. And I have a note in my notes app that's called podcasting best practices. And so when I hear something that I really like, then I think, oh, this is interesting.

34:48 I put it in there just to help me remember what are things that I can do to prove my show because I'm on this mission to really reinvent season 7 of the trend report, which might also include a rebrand. I don't know. I'm thinking about it. So up these notes down. So like I hear this one podcaster, one that I listen to to my weekly playlist, he says welcome back or welcome to. And I thought, I really like that you're acknowledging the people that come regularly. Welcome back. If you're brand new, he's saying welcome to. So I've started incorporating that into my intro as I'm, you know, saying my intro, right? I also, there's another guy that I like that does rapid fire questions.

35:34 And I used to do that. And I'm thinking, why'd you quit doing that? That was actually really good. These rapid fire questions are fun and they kind of change up the dynamic. So season 7, I'm going to have rapid fire questions, right? Another podcaster that I know says something like, now here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours. I love that phrase. Now while I use that phrase, probably not. I might use something like it, but I think it is absolutely OK to take what you deem to be best practices from other podcasters and try to incorporate it into your show your way and be the best version of you rather than try to be a copycat of someone else. Thank you, Sid. I think, yeah, you're hitting exactly where I was wanting to go with this was really identifying some areas where it's quote, quote, UN quote, OK to copy.

36:24 And I love what you're sharing. You know you're hearing different things from different podcasts and you're hand plucking out the things that call to you and you're trying them out. Yeah, Jonathan's actually on my list of best practices. I love the music that he created. He wrote a song, he had it produced and it's it's tied directly to his show. And I actually want the music in his show to play longer. So I like it so much. But it's got me like on my list saying, do I want to create a custom song question mark that's unique to me? That's a Jingle that people will remember are recognized immediately when they hear it.

37:05 So I think there's best prices on your relatively new podcaster, right? Some of the people I'm talking about, the others are seasoned podcasters. And there's something to be learned from anybody and everybody. Thank you, Sid. Yeah. And I think whether you're writing your own song or you're using some music that's license free or that you pay to use it, use the license like ours. That song I constantly hear from people that it's an ear worm. It sticks with them. They they listen for it, they want it. I mean, heck, our own Co hosts when I can't be here, some of you insist that we play the music anyway because you need that music, right?

37:45 Dr. Oh my God, who must you be? Talking about that music was the inspiration for my music. There you go, there you go. So we've got a copy of a copy. Again, mine wasn't 1 custom made. I found that I think on audiojungle.net and paid probably 5 to 20 bucks for it. All right, let's keep it moving and go to Billy. Billy, thank you for waiting patiently. Thank you for allowing Sid to go ahead of you. And what did you want to add? Good morning. I was on the edge of my chair just listening for something. I would disagree without a Sid's mouth so I could just go at it. But I, I actually agree with everything because I do think we're all made-up of the influences in our, I mean in every part of our life. It's like we're made-up of the thoughts, the things of the people around us, of the culture around us, you know, the environment.

38:38 And then as, you know, kind as a kid, it's like you're just a sponge of like whatever whoever believes around you that you look up to is older than you, that tells you what to think or do. And then you reach a certain age where your brain works for itself and you're like, wait a second, I can make these decisions on my own and I can decide if this is what I really believe or not. And you can start to question those things. And I think it's similar to any business or content creation. And not Dang sure. If I had to have brain surgery, I hope that brain surgeon copies the shit out of the guy who was better than him, who taught him how to do brain surgery. I hope he's a copycat. But then there's probably at some point in his life where he goes, you know what, I think I can do this different variation of this one thing.

39:23 And when he has that experience and that expertise. So, you know, especially as a content creator, I think we're all in the beginning stages. We don't know what we don't know. So we're just like YouTube University or getting a coach or whatever. And it is best to just go with the training wheels. It's like you ride a bike with the training wheels and then when you realize it, you pop them off and then you can cruise by yourself. And then you're like, oh, I think I can pop a Willie. Oh, then I think I can jump a ramp. Oh, next thing you know, I'm like a professional BMX rider or whatever you want to do. And I think in our culture, especially in the United States, everything is just so fast that people forget like, and I forget this. Life is a process, creativity is a process, becoming a doctor is a process.

40:08 Like everything is a process and no matter how quick you want to cheat that process, it's going to be there to some degree. I think we get it easier now with technology and, you know, the ability and access to people and access to communities like this. You can shortcut a lot of it, but there's still work to do. So it's like I can consume all day long, but if there's no implementation, I'm going to get the same results as I did before I hit record, which is nothing. So yeah, that's fine. Thoughts about it? So yeah, for the record that I agreed with Sid this week, he agreed with me last week. There's a there's love in the air, Billy. Everything is a process. I just wrote that down. It is so true for me and it's it's a reminder too, that it's something that I keep reminding myself of, especially the idea, taking it a step further, that we're always growing. I have this poor wiring in my brain that expects that once I've gone through some sort of growth, that's it, That's I'm done.

41:14 I don't have to grow anymore. There isn't anything more to do. I've achieved it, it's done. But the there really is no end game in this thing we call life until we breathe our last breath. I'm saying this out loud to remind myself and maybe somebody else who needs to hear it. Once we solve problem A, we feel great. We should celebrate that, and there's going to be challenges, BCD and E waiting for us on the other side of that. I think it's important for us to remember. Yeah, to remember that. Matt, did you want to add something? Well, that's how I can adequately describe my journey through audio quality improvement for podcasting. When I started, I started off with one problem that I solved and then that revealed 3 or four other problems as I started to hear more and more in the audio that I had a problem with and created those solving of problems which ballooned into even more problems until I started to solve enough where it narrowed to the point where the amount of learning I can do has very little growth impact to what my output is. But there is always places to go. Absolutely.

42:27 This is why I don't mind doing this show every single day. Why I don't mind sharing all of my experiences, my tips, my tricks every single day, whether it's here on the podcast, whether it's on social media, etcetera. Why? Because I know that yes, I'm probably going to help somebody solve a problem who's never going to well, who in this instance isn't going to come to me now and pay me to help them, right? I've just given that free advice. I'm OK with that because I know they'll solve that problem and then have three more that they're going to need help with. I'm here to serve, serve, serve, and eventually my expectation and my experiences shows that people will eventually come to me when they need me and pay me for that.

43:19 So I don't mind giving away the free advice. It does come back. Go ahead. It does that in podcasting particularly. I think there's a lot of value in giving a lot of value for people to do what we're talking about today, to discover their own creative method and how to approach things for themselves. I think it really does help. Now I have a question that I think will leave us, lead us down the merry path towards the end of the show that I want to ask you specifically, Mark. OK, Hold it, Hold it one second, Matt. Hold it one second raise. Down the bottom, what's to to contribute? I imagine you're going to say Mark. Yeah, I just want to go to Rez first and then I'll, I want to come to you for that question. So Rez, good morning to you. Welcome to the stage.

44:00 What did you want to add? Good morning, Mark. Honestly, I personally don't think there's such a thing as copying and podcasting. Like even if you take your inspiration, borrow some techniques, it's going to still come out different because it's coming from you, your perspective, your delivery, your personality. And at the end of the day, it's your uniqueness that is what makes it yours. So I think adapting is totally fine as long as you bring your own voice to it. Like think of it like a sales, sales reps, right? They're all given the same exact script word for word. Yet some of them close deals, most of them don't. Why is that? It's not the script, it's the delivery. It's their personality, their sense of humor, their energy. And I think podcasting works the same way. So if you even if you borrow someone's format or technique, but you deliver it your own way, that becomes different and uniquely yours.

44:53 Thank you, Rez, I appreciate you bringing that up. And so let me give an example of kind of where you're going with this, right? Like I don't recommend, let's say you love the way, let's say you listen to this show regularly and you love the way that I close it out. Make it a great day everybody. First of all, by the way, I didn't come up with that phrase. I got it from someone else, right? That was a straight up copy. But they weren't doing it on a podcast. They weren't doing it as their podcast sign off. It's just a phrase I heard and I adopted. Why did I do that? Because where I am copying other podcasters is the ones that I've heard that use those catch phrases. I'm attracted to those.

45:35 I like those. I think that my audience would like those. So I adapted. I adopted. I brought something in. I didn't use the exact catch phrase that another podcaster was using. And that's the difference, right? It's I, I wouldn't recommend you go now and use make it a great day as your catch phrase. But if if you're attracted to that, if you like that style, then that's what you I encourage you to copy. Billy, did you want to add add on to that? Well, this reminds me of the story I just read and had a conversation about yesterday because someone was talking about my pleasure. And if I say my pleasure, everyone in this room, if you live in the States, knows I'm talking about Chick-fil-A. And so they were like giving their pontificating on all this, you know, mental game of like, why they say that and all this. And I go, I read, I don't know if you read the story, this guy, Kathy Truitt was at a Ritz Carlton or whatever, and he had a waiter come up and say my pleasure. Like when he said thank you or whatever, he just had my pleasure and he liked it and he took it and he ran with it. And so it's like, but you'll never know about that waiter or maybe even the Ritz Carlton, who probably has their employees create that experience for their customers. But he took it and ran with it.

46:52 And now if I say my pleasure, like everybody knows what I'm talking about. Right, yes, the great example, Billy. And that's one that always sticks out for me, too. If I'm ever in a Chick-fil-A now, I almost listen for it because it's such a common thing. Yvonne, I'm coming to you. And then we're going and then we're going to go to Dr. and then we're going to go back to Matt to find out that question. Go ahead, Yvonne. Good morning. And Speaking of, we've been talking about this has been a community filled with ailments. And I know that Yvonne also saw one of her video shorts on Instagram, I believe. Yvonne, you had a little spill on the roller skates. Huh, I did. Oh boy.

47:34 I did, I did. It could have been a lot worse. Sid sent me and I told you that message. I thought of Sid when I saw you in that sling. I said, oh, Sid is definitely jumping in on this. Yeah, and here's the thing, I get so much, so many good things out of skating that as soon as my arm is healed, if weather allows, I'm back on my skates, man. But this whole conversation has me thinking back to when I was when I was an actor just learning my craft. Went back in theater school and we would let's say we were doing a show. And the advice that I was given was if a movie had been done of the same story, don't go watch it because you don't want to copy the other actors.

48:29 And I essentially overtime have come to disagree because very often I will learn so much from watching something that has been done already in the same, in the same idea of a story. But nothing is going to be the same once the new this new production is done. It. It's all going to be subtly different because it's a whole new group of human beings collaborating and putting it together. And no matter what, if I were to try to copy a performance of another actor is not happening, it's still going to be me doing that.

49:10 And and then additionally, one of the things that I learned craft wise on stage is that you make decisions about how you want to tell the story and all those things. One of the things that you're constantly trying for as a performer is being in the moment because that's what makes the story live and breathe for the people that are watching. But how do you be in the moment and not be in your head with all the decisions that you have made to try to tell the story? And that is the special sauce. I'm just going to say it's, it's a constant quest to find the moment to say, OK, I did the work, I made these decisions and now it's go time and and I'm just going to do this thing that I do and trust that all the things that I had, all the decisions I made and all the things that I put in place, they're going to be there or they're not. And maybe something new and magical will be there today instead.

50:13 So is it fair? Thank you, Yvonne. Is it fair then to say part of quote UN quote copying? Acceptable copy copying has to do a little bit with your intention. How you how you intend on quote UN quote copying? Is that is that fair to say? Yeah, I mean, there's nothing new under the sun, right? There just isn't. We're all borrowing, you know, And if you can do it from a place of trying to expand upon instead of trying to copy, then I think you've got something. Yeah, Thank you, Yvonne. And I'm going to come to Dr. in a second. I just, I saw Rez wanted to chime in real quick. Go ahead, Rez and then we'll check in with Dr. As Yvonne pointed out.

50:58 I, I think, I think it's always, we're always borrowing like, like, for example, think of all these self development concepts, like all the self help gurus out there. Do you think they came up with that stuff on their own? No, we just resonate to different people as an audience. So Tony Robbins, there's all the coaches he has that are essentially giving the same message that he is. It's just we resonate to different voices, and I think as Yvonne pointed out, we're always borrowing from each other. And if you add your own voice to it, that's what makes all the difference. Yeah. Thank you, Rez. And again, thank you, Yvonne. Dr. Did you want to add something it? Was a comment on Billy's. If you're in America then you know that the Chick-fil-A. I can't even get into my Chick-fil-A but Dan's drive through is like 24/7.

51:50 It is around the block. I'm like it just there. Just cannot be a chicken sandwich worth putting in my mouth. I mean I. Don't even have a Chick-fil-A. There you go. There you go. But yes, it is. It is a national phenomenon. It I feel like every Chick-fil-A I see, if it's not Sunday, it's got a line. The drive through line is crazy and you can't blame it on them. As far as running an inefficient drive through, they run it very efficiently from everyone that I've gone through. Not that I go through it that often, but in my history, yeah, it's pretty amazing. OK. Matt, did you have that question still ready to go?

52:33 I do. First of all, Chick-fil-A. Even I'm aware of it as an Australian living in Ireland. Nice. Having only been to America once and wasn't aware of it then, That was probably about 12 years ago. I don't know how long it's been around, but anyway, I think. Pickle juice. I heard that that was the secret. Dip your chicken in pickle juice. And This is why American culture, food culture is a very interesting and diverse one. But let's not go there. Let's that can be the subject for a Friday. Maybe what I wanted to ask and and for everyone to start thinking about for themselves is what is what's one thing in podcasting that you're currently trying to dive into or maybe not even podcasting. It can be, as we're aware, even just adjacent, adjacent door 10, tangentially connected to it, but something that you're exploring at the moment that you're trying to learn more about and dive into.

53:28 Like Sid even mentioned having his podcast mastery note for best practices. That could be one option. Mark, you said this is something you're exploring, so I figured you might be a good place to start. Yeah, or the opposite. I could be the worst place to start because that's my big issue is I do fully admit I have a resistance to learning. Does that mean I don't go and learn? No, absolutely not. But when it there's something that I'd like to learn that feels big, it feels overwhelming, I tend to avoid it for a while until I can't anymore, right? And then it's more in, it sounds so dramatic, but I'm more in desperation mode at that point to learn it because, yeah, there's no waiting anymore. I've got to use this tool in order to take that podcast to the next level.

54:20 For me, I would say it would be to relearn how to make effective shorts. I believe that I make shorts. I make some engaging shorts, however, the results are not proving that well. I'll show 1 of you one of the shorts that I put up before I put it up, maybe just to get some feedback. And most of the time it's wow, that's really good. How did you do that? I want to do it do that too, right? Like I'll get that kind of feedback and then I'll put it out there and I'm not even really worrying about the view counts. I want to see engagement.

55:01 I can't, I haven't been able to get people to engage with my content. So I've been resisting to learn a different way. And I need to because that's part of my strategy is to put out these social media shorts. It helps people find me. It helps me get business. It has in the past, but where it's there's, they seem to be falling flat or not as effective. It's time for me to learn something, relearn something to see if I can make it more effective. So that would be the area that I'm resisting that I need to jump into. Sid, did you want to comment? So, Mark, could I encourage you for a moment to ask a different question? Sure.

55:46 Your question is how can I make better short videos to drive engagement? What's a better question you could ask? How can I create more engaging short form content? I'm going to build on Sid here just very quickly knowing that we're rounding out to time what I hear what what I see. Mark, with Sid asking you to ask a different question. The reflection I have on that is that Mark, you're looking for the way to get feedback from a grey, foggy cloud. We know that social media is like that. Things get engaged, things don't. There's a lot of things out of your control. Maybe there's a different thing that you can target as part of your creation of reels for that engagement that might make it more rewarding for you.

56:35 And I only say this as someone who's currently exploring it myself, having been very active on LinkedIn and then not very active for the last week because I'm going through an existential crisis of what I think about social media. But that's a different discussion. So what else? If it's not engagement, what else could you get from improving your ability to create? Shorts. Wow, I'm really in the spotlight here, huh? Ah. It's OK. It's OK. For the next episode, if it's a, you want to see one a little bit, but that kind of question like it reframing your thinking a little bit with how you approach the learning, you might think you're on a path. And I hear it with Dr. as well. In the last couple of times that it's come up, she's starting to emerge from the beaten path of podcasting and starting to see that some of the opinions change. Once you have a bit more experience doing it for yourself and doing it for others, and you start to get your own views and your own approach to things.

57:34 This might be one of those times for you where it's a fork in the road. Do I want to target engagement, or is there something beyond that that then secondarily leads to engagement, but that I can target a bit more easily, that gives me the reward I want from being able to do this work. That gets further work in my pocket, but it's very highfalutin for the end of the show. I'm. Going to throw you a line after the show mark. OK, Jonathan, I'll. Get you out of this. He wants to Get Me Out of this. OK, that's cool, Jonathan. I will accept that. And Sid did. Let me give you the final word. Thank you, Mark. I love this dialogue. And so my encouragement is just to ask a different question because what you're really looking for is not how to improve your videos. This is my opinion.

58:16 What you're looking for is how to create conversations, how to create engagement with your thought leadership. That's what you're looking for. It's not about creating better videos, right? You're looking how to create conversation and engagement. That's the question you should be asking. And it may be beyond videos. Maybe it's taking a controversial position on something. I don't know. There's a lot of different answers to this question, right? Which is why I'm saying just ask a different question. Maybe ask, you know, in the world of Kaizen, which is a manufacturing philosophy, it talks about, ask yourself why. So when you come up with the idea or the the problem or whatever the sentence is, then ask why.

58:59 Then ask why. Again, you ask yourself why, why five times you should get to the root cause that you're looking for. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with questioning what you're doing, why you're doing it, how you're doing it. To do what your goal is, which is what I'm hearing your goal is, is to create more engagement and more conversations that leads to more business opportunities. And I don't think you can leave that out. So just keep asking and it's absolutely 100% OK to test and measure. Thank you, Sid. What a great way to wrap up and I, I hear that advice. I I take that on both from you and Matt. I think that's really valuable and really the same thing can apply to your podcasting when you are considering quote UN quote copying somebody.

59:46 I think asking those questions that why, why do I want to take this from that podcaster and then ask another and then you get your answer. Ask why again, like I I think that helps you understand the motive, understand the reasoning behind it, and then make. That helps you make the stronger decision whether or not you want to adopt that thing into your podcast. So thank you, Sid. I think that's great place to wrap up today. And a big shout out. Thank you again to Matt Bliss for providing the clip from his podcast Rethinking Podcasting. Go check that out on your favorite platform tomorrow. We're back at 7:00 AM Eastern talking all the headlines around the world of podcasting. So we will share some of the what we believe are the most important headlines over the past week and then we'll comment, talk and learn from that. So please join us live on Clubhouse, live on YouTube, 7:00 AM Eastern.

1:00:44 And if you can't, just catch the podcast a few hours later. So until tomorrow, make it a great day everybody. Take care. Go listen to Rethinking Podcasting.