440. This Evaluation Shows How Small Changes Create Better Episodes

0:05 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Thursday, January 22nd, 2026 and today podcast evaluation and solo podcasting, Breaking down life fulfilled podcast with Bernie Borges exploring emotional hook structure, pacing, audio checks to help indie creators. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse with the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're catching us via podcast, YouTube, LinkedIn, etcetera, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and 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 Ronick and on stage with me we have producer Ashley Feller, Sid Meadows, Ralph E Step, Matthew Bliss, Jonathan Howard, Dr. Fay and Nick Naulback. And if you want to learn about any of these fine people, just go to the podcasting morning chat.com. And I'm that's not the you just go to podcastingmorningchat.com and slash slash. Well, actually just do that and then go to the about section. It's a whole thing with the URLs that I still have to fix. So again, podcasting morning chat.com and then go to the about section and you can learn about everybody who's involved here at the podcasting morning chat.

2:06 And today is the evaluation episode, as I said, at the top of the show. And before we dive in, I want to take a moment to explain the spirit behind these conversations. These evaluations exist to help indie podcasters improve. We're not here to bash podcasts or tear creators down. Anyone who submits their show is doing the work, and that deserves some respect, in my opinion, at especially here at the Podcasting Morning chat. At the same time, we don't shy away from constructive feedback because thoughtful and honest feedback is essential if you want to get better. Our goal is to highlight what's working, identify what could be clearer or stronger, and share practical insight that helps podcasters and anyone listening who's building their own show and these evaluations.

3:01 They're based on one submitted episode. Although I will say today's podcast, he did send a second one after the fact after some of us started already listening to the first one, but we'll talk about that. We'll also talk a little bit about his branding and we'll play some clips and share some feedback around the comments that we have for this particular episode. Again, Life Fulfilled is the podcast Bernie Borges, and I probably am not saying his name quite right, so please forgive me, Bernie. And the episode we're evaluating is called Stop Chasing Fulfillment.

3:44 Build it through self Discovery. First, before we start playing clips and talking about branding and all the things, let's first ask what is one thing that Bernie's doing really well in this episode? Ashley wants to start and then we'll go to Sid. Go ahead, Ashley. Hey, I remembered my answer. I thought something that he did really well was mentioning that you could watch the podcast on YouTube. As somebody who edits a lot of video for podcasters, I always see that the audio almost always outperforms the video. So for someone to directly call it out, I think that's really awesome just for folks to know it's there. Yeah, I'm with you there.

4:27 I have that as a note as well and we'll play that for everybody to hear it. I agree, great strategy. I think I've shared before when I've shared about Heather parody. I love that she does that on her show, the audio version when you first hit play. And I think Bernie does this with a dynamic ad using Buzz Sprout. But when you first hit play, it's instantly hey guess what? This is on YouTube also. I think it's a great reminder, especially in this day and age when video is so heavily pushed. I think it's a smart move. So good. Good on you, Bernie. Sid, how about you? What's one thing that Bernie does really well in this episode? I. Have two quick questions.

5:08 First, is this a video first show or is it a audio first show? My understanding because I do know Bernie a little bit from Pod Fest. My understanding is it's audio first but he has recently been embracing video. So the second question I have is, are we talking about the first episode? We started listening on the second one. Yeah, the. The first one, the one that he originally submitted. So one of the things that I really like that he did was incorporate personal stories, like he did a good job at bringing me into the story, identify himself into the lessons that he's teaching, and I thought that was really valuable. The other thing specifically to the video aspect, is he looks at the camera, which can be really, really hard when you're doing a solo episode. And I speak as a voice of experience there because I suck at looking at the camera.

5:59 I can't figure out where the damn thing is. So the fact that he's looking at the camera and trying to engage you with eye contact, I think it's also really good. Thank you, Sid. I appreciate that. And I think we'll get to that too, because my guess is Bernie might be using a teleprompter, but we'll talk about that. Matthew, you had something. Go ahead. Good morning. Good morning. I think it is incredibly clear from the structure of the episode, and particularly looking at the video that gets put together, that he plans it really well. He doesn't leave a lot to chance or fluff or improv, which, you know, comes with its downsides. But yeah, he definitely puts the effort in to make sure the episode is doing what he wants it to do. Awesome.

6:42 Thank you, Matt and Ralph. And then we'll go to Jonathan. Yeah, good morning. I thought his video production value was really great. When I look at that, it looks like a first class production and that was my initial take away is this. He's got good, you know, bottom third, everything looks sharp, everything looks excellent and very professional. OK. So Ralph specifically speaking to the video, is that fair to say, Ralph? Yeah, correct. That's what I'm talking about, specifically to the video. When I clicked on the video, I was like, OK, wow, this guy, it's not something he did on his iPhone. It was something that was you could see put together in a production way that looked very professional. Yeah, fair enough. Thank you, Ralph. Jonathan, how about you? He seemed to know his audience quite well and he seemed to to tailor that content towards his audience though there. So I think that was, you know, really, really good. It may not have been, you know, for everybody, but it was good for his, what seemed to be his audience. I'm with you there.

7:38 It's not going to be for everybody. And this is certainly I would classify this kind of podcast as a personal development type of podcast. So yeah, you have to be into that sort of thing in order to probably be interested in what Bernie's doing there. Anyone else want to share any feedback as far as one thing that Bernie's doing particularly well? And if not, we can move into some branding, into the branding category, and then we can start digging into the episode itself. Let's talk about some branding and positioning here. I think that what let's first talk about, well, when you first encountered this show, how does it make you feel from a branding perspective? Did you like the cover art?

8:22 Did you go to his website? Did you check that out? And we can talk about show notes and episode titles. But yeah, let's what did you first encounter Sid? Who as far as the branding here? So my favorite color is blue. So I identify with the blue in his branding I have pretty much every shirt I have has some color blue in it, so I can definitely identify with that. The only like real feedback I would give about the cover art in this is this is not my area of expertise by any means, but I want him to smile. Both the pictures of the show above pinned above and the other one, He's not smiling and he really needs to smile because a smile is welcoming. It brings people in.

9:04 And he's not smiling. And he does on the show and the video that I watched, but he's really not smiling in these images. And so I'd like to see him come up with different or new headshots that projected energy that is identifies with him personally. I'm with you, Sid. I think and knowing Bernie and meeting him in person every year at Pod Fest over the past few years, he's always smiling. He's got a great smile. So yeah, I would encourage that as well. Thank you, Sid. Jonathan, did you want to add something? Overall, I think the headshot is definitely something to improve. I would like to see some Boulder branding on it. The show is life fulfilled. Like it needs a little bit and you can't read the title on the cover art. So I'd like to see some Boulder more impactful branding. With the podcast as a whole, I think it could be easily accomplished.

9:53 I agree with you there. Did anyone else want to comment? Ralph, Go ahead and then we'll go to DDR. Here's something I will share, and this is, this is sort of constructive. When you go to his website at the top corner is it launches right into the Word Academy. And as soon as I see that from a branding perspective, I feel like this infomercial vibe. So that's my only take away to the branding side because I got deep into the website as well. I think what everybody said about the photo and all that could be improved. But then when you go to the website I almost feel like I'm getting sold something before I'm getting any value. So I guess the word Academy throws you and yeah, makes you think, OK, this is going to sell me something.

10:34 So let's be clear. This is all part of Bernie's business, right? He's using the podcast to help drive business. At least that's my thought. My opinion based on everything I see here and based on the episode itself, the business is fulfilled at Work Academy. And so maybe I'm not saying this is the way to go, right? But to what Ralph is saying, maybe the podcast have its own identity, but at the same time, it's hard for me to say that because he wants people to go to his his ultimately go to his business, go to his business website. But yeah, that that's a tough one for me because I can't knock the name as far as from a business perspective.

11:15 But yeah, I could see that maybe some people might be turned off by that. I think a big thing. So let's talk about this for a second with his website and then I'll go to some of the others. So his website fulfilled@workacademy.com and then the podcast is it. You go get to it by going to slash podcast. And I like the layout, but there's one thing that to me is just screaming that that it's missing something. There's no explanation of what the podcast is or who it's for. You immediately just get the title where you can listen and then the grid of different episodes below, but not once does it say who this is for, what you're going to get out of the podcast, etcetera. So I think that that is a huge area of opportunity for Bernie. Let's put a little bit of a description here to really draw people in because if this is the first time they're landing on this page with no information and yeah, they might be thinking a little bit more like Ralph here. What's going on here?

12:25 And is this ultimately just trying to sell me something right? Like let's make this page very valuable to a first time listener. Go ahead BC. Also while we're on the topic of branding and I mentioned this yesterday during my listen of the episode for the website, at least for the mobile, which was my experience yesterday. When you have a pop up like we see on the website and people can't at least on their phone easily see a way to the kind of move that out of the way so they can continue to enjoy the content, that can definitely be a cause for higher than preferred bounce rates for the website. And then also I'm seeing on the desktop version it those it's two layers of pop ups and they pop up more than once on the same page.

13:12 So that's another thing perhaps for his web design person to consider changing so that again the bounce rates don't end up being higher month after month than higher than they usually are. So just to help keep people there exploring, help the engagement stay up is my just kind of personal little copy out there. Yeah, Thank you. BC I think that's a really important point to share. There were several people that Bernie should know, several of us when we were trying to navigate that site. The pop ups were really getting in the way of the experience and I think hurting the experience as a listener. So I, I, I get pop ups, I know that they can be helpful sometimes, but I think we got to be careful how many we're using and that they're being used in a way that we can easily navigate away from them.

14:02 As opposed to, I know somebody found a solution yesterday. They were sharing with the group that when you turn your phone to landscape then you can find the little X to X out of the pop up. I've seen people flash their emojis and I admittedly wasn't writing anything down, so if you want to flash your emoji I'll OK there you. Go Dr. First because she's like flash that pepper like a dozen. Times, So thank you. And then we'll go to Matt Bliss. So this is going back to when you were talking about the podcast and how the title wasn't really telling you what it was about, who it was for, things like that. So I put 3 transcripts, 3 different shows, and the podcast description into AI and it spit out some pretty good subtitles which also could be transferred over to that website. So one of the subtitles is where leadership, self-awareness and workplace performance actually connect. Or a leadership show for people who want purpose, clarity and outcomes that last.

15:09 So I have I have a list of eight subtitles here that would go great on both the podcast and the website. I love that. Thank you, Dr. because for whatever reason that I, that just made me think what we, what would be really cool is after these episodes, we do run these episodes through AI and then we provide a formal evaluation that we can hand over to the podcaster. I like that. Yeah, I like that idea and thank you. DRI mean. I think that when I see life Fulfilled podcast, I personally have an idea of what I'm going to get into, right. I clearly to me that speaks personal development. I get that, but I do think it's. So broad.

15:52 It's so broad. It is. It is broad. And I agree with you that adding, especially on the website where I just shared that there's really no information about what the podcast actually is. The tag lines that you've shared I think really helps tie it all together. Hey, it's egg time. OK, I'll listen. Oh yes, it's egg time, DRS Got to go cook some eggs for the hubby. Let's see, let's go to Matt Bliss. Matt, go for it. I just want to come in with a few clarifications and corrections in case Bernie is screaming at his phone right now and needs someone to say these things. OK, all good stuff about the website. It's absolutely true. It's just called the Life Fulfilled podcast. There's thumbnails with headshots of guests and himself, titles and all that kind of stuff. But if you go to the podcast feeds, you'll find that the title of the show is actually Life Fulfilled Podcast. M Dash, Rethinking leadership for sustainable performance. So he has one there.

16:45 Has been some consideration, but I think the the discussion about improving the website for that kind of stuff. Also the other side of it is that the the podcast platforms don't have cover art for every episode. It is just the podcast thumbnail. If someone were to go onto a player, some of them have the episode art, some of them don't. From what I can see, none of them do OK, or maybe some of them do, I don't know. I haven't scrolled down far enough. But I think the important thing to note here is any feedback we're giving for thumbnails, at least for the last five to 10 episodes, would just be for visibility on the website and not on audio players. But there's also the thumbnail and title design he's doing for his YouTube component of this, the video component, which I don't know people might have good opinions on. I think it's probably doing all the right things for him to be discovered on YouTube.

17:37 But yeah, I just wanted to point out those things just as a bit of clarity. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'm sure Bernie thanks you as well. He does have a tagline and I would encourage him then to include that on the web page itself, the slash podcast page of his website. I think it needs at least that there and then a little thing, by the way, not a make or break situation at all. But he does have at the top right side of that podcast page, it says subscribe and listen on. The word subscribe is a little outdated these days. It should be follow and listen on, right? Because now subscribe on a lot of platforms means you're actually paying for the content, especially on Apple podcasts. They that's the big reason why we a lot of us still say subscribe is because it used to be subscribe to a podcast. You're subscribing to the free show. But then once Apple added the ability to monetize podcasts, they separated.

18:37 Now you subscribe if you want to pay, you follow if you want the free versions. So I would consider changing that up. All right, anybody else want to comment? What about the episode titles? Dr. Did you have any thoughts on that? Oh, no, she's actually cooking. I can't go to Dr. at the moment. I think that they seem to work fine. I mean, I, I stopped chasing fulfillment, build it through self discovery. That's pretty clear. I don't know if there are specifically because I'm not doing personal development, a personal development podcast. I don't know if those are necessarily keywords that his audience may be searching for. Something you mentioned at the very top of the show about audience stuff.

19:21 I think these titles might be doing either a good or a bad job of making the right people click on and listen to the show because that was a bit of feedback that I thought about that. The language is very jargon heavy and it's not directed at the general person to try and figure out what he's actually going to be talking about. But at the same time, this isn't for everybody. This is for growth leaders. I think he calls it on the website. New leaders looking to create fulfillment for their teams and for themselves. So leadership strategies, tackling job hugging and disengagement. Maybe that means something to someone who's just done a bit of PD in their job now that they've become a middle leader and are looking for that.

20:06 But that title doesn't mean a whole lot to me. By someone who works for themselves and probably won't benefit from much of what he offers. So it could be doing him favors, or it could be a downside. I guess it depends on the strategy. Thank you, Matt. Appreciate it. Yeah, I was trying to come up with some of my own titles for this episode just to see if I could come up with something that I felt might be stronger. The closest thing I came was to was why fulfillment starts with self discovery and then except I don't love using parentheses but I put them in parentheses because I couldn't think of anything better way. So it's why fulfillment starts with self discovery parentheses not more success. You could put maybe comma not more success. And to me, it's a short and sweet and I feel like it speaks right to it.

20:55 On the other one that I listened to, he was talking about 5 tips for I forget exactly what right, but he could. The title could be very pointed, like 5 tips to a more fulfilled life. Like tell Ralph kind of said this in the chat too. Like tell me what I'm going to get out of this in the title. And I mean, I know that we all struggle with titles and keywords and the length of them. I do think some of his titles might be a little bit too long, but I mean, this one, stop chasing fulfillment. Build it through self discovery. I mean, I get it, but I think it's also, you know, could be how to build fulfilment through self discovery. That may be even as long, but you get my point. Like tell me the action the take away in the title so that I want to click the play button to learn. The five tips to boom are the three tips to boom. Thank you, Sid.

21:42 I like that. Let's dig into the episode itself. What I think I want to do, I'm going to play it first, and then I want to hear how effective this opening was on an emotional level, right? In other words, just how did you feel after listening to it? Did it make you interested? Were you curious? Let's play it and then we'll talk about it. Hey, this episode's on YouTube too. Watch it now at Life Fulfilled POD. The link is in the show notes. Self discovery is foundational to understanding who you are at this point in your life. Let me repeat this because I don't want you to miss it.

22:22 Self discovery is foundational to understanding who you are at this point in your life now as in today. Because you may not be the same person you were 5 or 10 or 20 years ago for any number of reasons. Welcome to the Life Fulfilled Podcast because you know life's too short not to experience fulfillment. Bernie Borges, your host and the creator of the Fulfillment Centric Leadership Framework. No matter your age or stage, a more fulfilled life is on the table on the Life Fulfilled Podcast. Be sure to press that follow or subscribe button. So a few things there.

23:07 First, Borges, I was right. I don't know why I wasn't connecting with it when I was actually listening to the intro cutting that clip. But yeah. So that is the correct last name. I felt like, well, I'll let others respond first. So Ashley, I'll go to you since you flashed an emoji. First, your thoughts on the opening? It's funny, we talked about smiling, or maybe lack thereof, a few minutes ago. I felt like I could actually feel him smiling just by listening. And I didn't watch the video, I just listened in my car. Yeah, I felt that too. You, you could feel the personality coming through there a bit. I agree with that. I do like the direction to YouTube like hey didn't know the shows on YouTube.

23:49 My feedback is there needs to be a pause right after he does to go to YouTube. Take a breath at a second, at 2 seconds, at a swoosh, whatever. There needs to be a pause because he goes right into the intro and then what? You don't hear after the fact after the played the played intro intro, he reintroduces himself again so he says hey I'm Bernie twice. So he plays the one that he's like already recorded as the show intro and then he does another introduction. So I would not do it twice. Add a pause after the ad, let the audio play and then just jump right in. You don't need to introduce yourself twice. I don't think that's make or break, but I agree. I think maybe it might feel a little repetitive to some listeners.

24:31 I can feel that. So I'm going to disagree with everybody. I think I don't like the YouTube thing at the beginning because if I'm an audio only listener, I'm like, I don't care about YouTube. I'm here to listen to you. So that was a turn off to me. And it's something he could change in the editing process real easy. He could have an audio version and a video version with just some simple editing. That's the first thing. Second thing, as I'm listening to this, Bernie, you're, you seem like a great guy. You seem like a heartful guy, a guy that I would like to get to know. But I felt like Deja vu a little bit at the beginning of this. Like you just told me who you were. Now you're telling me again and now you're trying to sell me something. And I put on my evaluation that it felt like an infomercial from the very beginning. And I mean that from a constructive place. It just, if that's your intention, great. It worked, but it wasn't good for the listener as it relates to me being the listener.

25:22 Thank you, Ralph. I think that's fair feedback. I do disagree. I think the YouTube reference was short and sweet. And again, it's just a reminder to tell some listeners who may be interested in video that they can go catch that. But I saw Billy agreed with you. He flashed the 100% emoji. So Billy coming to you. Any feedback on the intro? Good morning. I agree with Ralph, I disagree with Sid, which is the reason I came on the. Stage, of course. Oh good Lord, of course I don't. I mean. I don't mind the call to action YouTube, I just mind the placement of it. I was very confused.

26:03 It's kind of like you go to your neighbor's house, they invited you over for dinner and they're like, actually, you know what? We're going to go down to the Mexican restaurant and get some tacos. You're like, oh, OK, well, I guess I'll see you. Do you know, it's kind of how I felt. I was like, why are we? This is not a hook to get me to stay. It's a it's a call to action to give me the leave. That's how I felt. Billy, what if he did that? Maybe as a mid roll, he does a little call to action. They're like, hey, if you're enjoying this episode and you want to watch it, we're available on YouTube. What if he did something like that halfway through? I would probably look at my analytics and figure out where people consume my content the most. Like when I had my solid fishing show, we had more people watching on YouTube. So the call to action was or the reminder was hey you can also check this out in audio only.

26:53 So I would just cross reference the least popular engagement, you know where I'm getting the least amount of engagement and promote that. And it looks like also Ralph is agreeing with you as well. So yeah, well, maybe that's something for Bernie to consider. But again, I personally liked it. Ashley personally liked it. Matt Bliss, what say you? I both agree and disagree. I think Billy had it right. You got to look at the analytics and make the placement work for you. I think it was a really excellent point brought up that they're there for the audio, and if you're told immediately that you can go somewhere else, even though you found it here and we know how much effort it takes to get to the audio for a thing potentially, then maybe it's not the best position for it. I don't know.

27:34 It's up to them. But I really wanted to talk to the kind of intro Stinger before the canned intro that I felt was a lot of setup, but the hook was missing. This is just this particular episode. I haven't listened to more than just the second one that you sent through, but I think they needed to be a little bit more there. Like, OK, yes, self fulfillment, it's the most important thing. It's the most important thing. Do do do do do do do do do. Like I, I don't know, what are we sticking around for? I think just one sentence there. Like today, I'm going to be telling you about how this fulfillment will bring you to clarity and remove the fog from what you experience in your leadership role. Yeah, I think that's all it had to be.

28:16 But it may have just been a narrow miss, You know, he's got a full catalog there. I think that's important, right? It's what's the transformation that's going to happen by the end of this episode? How what's that epiphany that I'm going to experience? What's, you know? Yeah. I think saying that right out of the gate only helps people stay hooked longer. I'm with you there, Matt. Brausch said something a few minutes ago that I wanted to just highlight. I do believe that he has two different tracks. That's the wrong word that he uploads. I think he's got an audio track and then he's got a video track that he uploads because on the video version he does not do the canned intro. He only does the canned intro on the audio version. He does not do the YouTube ad, obviously, on the canned version.

29:06 So he's got the two. I'm calling them tracks, whatever you want to call them. So he could make a couple of a Ralph had mentioned a couple of little edits there for the YouTube audience. You could do that because the audio is different on YouTube than it is on the actual podcast itself. Thank you, Sid. I think Matt wanted to comment on that. I think that would be a workflow change for him because my feeling is considering the difference in quality of the YouTube version audio compared to the actual audio. And the fact that he has hosts on Buzz Sprout tells me that much of the insertion and production improvement likely happens at the host as opposed to anywhere else, because Buzz Sprout has that extra, you know, improve the quality of your episode. Thing, yeah, the magic or whatever it is, magic episodes or whatever they call it, yes.

29:57 Magic somewhere, technology, etcetera. But yeah, I've got a feeling that's it. So I said it's probably shifting that portion of the process back into a platform for the fixing up or the post production or whatever. Thank you. And that reminded me of something that I think Sid said earlier, which I just don't want to blow right by yet. There needs to be some separation or a sound effect or something for if he's going to keep using the YouTube CTA call to action at the front, he needs to have and Buzz Brown allows you to do this. If it's a dynamic insert, add a little something, a little a short music, a a, a swoosh, A whoosh like we play here sometimes something that creates a little separation because it feels like it's all part of the same paragraph that you're saying and it doesn't make sense. And that happens again.

30:51 And yeah, we should have some time to get to that in just a second. But yeah, that that happens again at some point later in the show when he does his mid roll ad. Speaking of swooshes, a quick heads up before we move on. While we're we were attending Pod Fest last week, we ran a special ticket offer for the Empowered Podcasting Conference and we've decided to extend that to our community. That means that tickets are just under $200, the lowest public price available. And this deal is available through the end of January. So to grab it, go to empoweredpodcasting.com, click the little Buy Tickets Now button or however it reads, and use the promo code PODFEST 26. That was the code that we were giving out at Podfest, so that's why it's titled as such, Podfest 26. If August is already on your radar to come to Charlotte and the Empowered Podcasting Conference, now's the time to get your tickets.

31:55 For the lowest price, you can get it between now and August. OK, let's go to the second clip. This is him now. After that, music played him, setting up a little bit of the episode. If you've ever said to yourself, I should be happier, I should feel more fulfilled than this, you are not alone and you're not broken. The truth is, most people look for fulfillment in all the usual places. Their job, a relationship, a fresh start. I know I did. But the real shift doesn't start out there, it starts inside.

32:38 Now if this sounds trite, stay with me because in this episode I'm digging into why self discovery is the starting line for a fulfilled life. Not reinvention, but uncovering who you are. Today. I want you to understand why transitions, not necessarily transformations, can trigger the right questions to ask, how to spot misalignment across your life pillars, and how to start building fulfillment rather than chasing fulfillment. OK, so now we've got a little feel for what the show is. I particularly think that he does articulate the idea of what he's going to get into on this podcast.

33:23 I connected with it. Ralph, what say you? So in a lot of ways, Jonathan put some of the comedy sounds like Ralph and in a lot of ways I can feel this guy because he seems like I was maybe 6 months ago. It's pretty clear to me he's reading from a prompter or something like that, which isn't a bad thing, but here's some feedback that we can give him. If he could find someone to help him with that process, he would be so much more impactful because he's got good content, He's got a heart for what he's saying. But just the way he's saying it, the words just get a little wonky sometimes. And you can tell he's and trust me, I'm, I'm speaking about me because I do this all the time. He's speaking from a prompter and I need to hear him speaking from himself.

34:07 And that's something that he could improve with getting some coaching, working with his, his presentation skills. And like I said, if you're listening this Bernie, I'm right there with you, my friend. So I'm not saying anything to you that I'm not criticizing myself for, but it makes you so much more impactful if you can do that. I felt that, and I've heard an episode or two of Bernie's podcast before, and I know that that's been one of the things that I've noticed out right away. It does feel like he's reading. I mean, he does a good job reading, but I think a lot of us here anyway feel like we could tell and then that loses something, right? Well, I mean, we talk about authenticity all the time and it doesn't feel as authentic when we know the person is reading, right? Dr. You want to comment?

34:55 I listened to this episode like 3 times and each time I didn't feel as engaged as because the subject matter is something that I would be into, but for some reason I wasn't as engaged as I think that I would be. And transparency, Mark and I were talking, you know, backstage behind the scenes, and I think it really had to do with his delivery and the fact that he was reading this. And so just little human esque things like that. Did you hear what I said?

35:36 And I said, and I elongated it and I paused. That's just a human kind of thing to do. And you want some of those human types of things in your delivery. I really think that because I was like, I don't know why I'm not connecting. And Mark, you put it right on target for me. The fact that he was reading it and not really delivering it, as you know, from his heart. And we talked about notes and maybe bullet points, but this guy is like approaching 300 episodes. It's fine.

36:18 It's easy for me to say, you know, you really need those notes with the bullet points instead of a script. But actually making the transition when you're 300 episodes into it is really tough. Could be. Agreed. And Dr. and I were talking this morning behind the scenes about the fact that we think we like his pacing, right? He's good. The pacing is good, but it's just the reading comes through way more and it just, it feels like the delivery needs work. And I know Sid wants to chime in and I'm going to go to you in a second. Sid, I want to follow up with Ralph for a second because Ralph, you know, you were relating there, you know, to Bernie and you've been there and you, I know, have also hired somebody you work with a coach, your delivery and and that sort of thing. Do you have any piece of advice you could give Bernie that you've learned, that's helped you with your, we'll call it, script reading?

37:15 The first thing I did is I put a person in front of me when I'm talking. I actually have an assistant that joins me When I record. I see her face in the screen and it helps me immensely because I'm talking to her. I did that started doing that about six months and that six months ago and that was a huge change. The other thing I do and I do this every single day. I talk to the, I talk to the camera. I've I've come up with a topic and for 5 minutes I just riff about it. No script, no bullet points. I just talk and what that's done for me, it's giving me confidence behind the mic because one of the things that Dr. said, he's 300 episodes into it. I get that DRI was about 700 episodes into mine when I made the change. And it is hard because is you go back to what works, you go back to that flow that works for you.

38:00 So Bernie put somebody in front of you, however you can make that work, or a picture of somebody. But then the other thing I would say quick take away is go out to like a random topic generator. I use one all the time. Go there and let it pop up a topic and then just riff about it for 5 minutes. Because what that does is it allows you to talk normally and then you can start to break away from that script some. Thank you, Ralph. I love those tips. And I personally actually, again, this was something Dr. and I were talking about. I think a mix of scripting and bullet points might be really helpful for Bernie because again, he does read the script well, right? It's not like he's being very robotic. It's just we can tell the difference between someone reading and someone speaking more from the heart. And so I think if he had a script, but then maybe add somewhere in the script a story that you're going to tell a personal story, whether it's yours or it maybe it's a client you worked with.

39:00 Yes, you want to protect their name, but still you can tell their story. And but and go off of the bullet points, right? Maybe you just want to outline that story. And then this way, you're speaking more from the heart. You're telling the story as if you are sitting across from somebody and telling them that story. I think that mix would help a lot. Matt, did you want to respond to what I'm sharing? Just to say that I think Ralph is spot on that imagining yourself talking to someone or having someone to talk to is a really key way to get that humanity in frame. This is probably going to be a controversial opinion, but I think some people don't necessarily benefit from the script only a bit and bullet point the rest kind of advice, if only because I can imagine that Bernie is the kind of person speaking to leaders that he gets brought into organizations to deliver sessions. Maybe those sessions can also benefit from a bit of audience interaction in the same sense that we're looking for here. But this is going to be made me making a bunch of assumptions, Bernie.

40:06 So when you feel a little shivers fall up up your arms and like Matt's rankling me in the wrong way. I mean, that's my vibe at the moment. But anyway, let's just roll with it. I think the style of leader that he's trying to target has been in the industry that long, that this was the style of delivering content. And in teaching, it's often called the information funnel, where you put as much information in as possible, but also frame it in a way that makes cogent sense, not just when spoken and delivered, but also when written. And for podcasts, it doesn't necessarily fit the very same way. But at the same time, people who are like that, not all of them are comfortable with doing an improvisation, improvisation, improv, improvise. Mark, help me out here.

40:54 You're the expert anyway. Just playing, riffing on a bullet point, it doesn't come as easily. So you do have to have the practice to do that. So I think practice is probably the abstracted advice that I'd layer on top of Ralph's. I can't argue with, I can't argue with practice as a piece of good advice, yes, I'm with you there. And I know Bernie well enough to know that it's my belief that he could handle that transition pretty easily. I mean, he's a good storyteller when I've sat and had to drink with him at Pod Fest and he he can tell a good story and he didn't have any script in front of him when he did it. That's why I think, you know, knowing him the way I do, I think that he could benefit from that. It's worth a test in my opinion.

41:38 But you're making some good points too, Matt. I'm not trying to discount what you're saying either. Sid, thank you for being patient. What did you want to add? I feel like I am his target audience. I'm a leader. I'm in an age bracket that I think he's trying to talk to you, right? But I will tell you I got lost in the content. I got confused. I got lost. I was, I lost what was trying to tell me what was the key point? And in both episodes that I watched, I felt like I got lost in the content. I got distracted by all the B roll in the video one that I watched. So it was hard for me to connect with the content because I, I, I didn't feel like it was like on point with the topic, if that makes sense.

42:23 The B roll could be a little distracting if there's a real art to to B roll. And I see that when people haven't quite figured out B roll, sometimes they either let it go too long or maybe not enough. And I think in some cases with Bernie that the B roll, I noticed we're just going on a little too long. Is B roll on the jargon wheel? No, it probably should be. You want to explain it real fast. I don't even know if that's the right word. For it is like in the beginning of that video of this particular episode, he starts talking about the foundation and then it cuts to some B roll of construction workers building a foundation. So in the literal sense, right, And that's OK, I get it.

43:05 Like we can't, we need that kind of metaphor, we need that visual to tie that together. If he wants to use some B roll, I just think that he made it last a little too long to then to where you then start questioning the B roll. Is that why am I looking at these construction people at as you've already moved on from that point about the foundation. So I would just tighten up some of the B roll a bit. And yes, B roll. It's it is the right word. It I think unless said you're talking about something entirely different. But B roll is the the reason why it's B. It's because it's like the secondary video footage. So a roll, even though that's not really a term that's you on camera.

43:46 That's Bernie on camera talking to us on camera. The B roll is filling some of that. It's either designed to keep your attention or it's designed to cover up some kind of flub. There is probably there sometimes is an edit that you need to make and you can cover it up by putting up that B roll. That's the definition there. I want to address also the confusion as because I know we're starting to get close here to time and I want to play what I think a lot of people got confused with. And this was that mid role we teased or talked about a little bit earlier. He's talking, he's doing the content of the show and then all of a sudden the mid role kind of sneaks up on you. So let's play it, and then I'm going to play what I think might work better.

44:38 So first the original clip. But if you've been in denial, you can start by having clarity on this misalignment. You can start by clearing the fog. Then, and only then, you can begin to think about your options to fix this misalignment that you now have clarity on. Is employee turnover quietly draining your bottom line? I've been there. I learned the hard way that the cost of replacing just one employee. So there you go. There it all of a sudden just kind of snuck up on you there. I'm just fading it out here. I also felt like it might have been a little too long for my personal taste, so I just faded it out there instead of playing the whole thing. But yeah, that felt really confusing to me. I actually had to go rewind a few times because I thought honestly, ADHD was getting the best of me and I had lost my, my train of thought or following along and had to rewind and come back.

45:33 And finally I realized, oh, wait, there's a commercial here. So I think adding again, adding that little swoosh or some kind of sound effect. And if he's using Buzz Sprout for that, as far as like a dynamic insert, again you can add a sound effect at the beginning and end of any dynamic insert on Buzz Sprout. Here is the clip again with the example I'm trying to convey here. Then, and only then, you can begin to think about your options to fix this misalignment that you now have clarity on. Is employee turnover quietly draining your bottom line? I've been there. See, I think that that works a lot better. It helps me sort everything out in my head. Bernie, I would strongly suggest to add some kind of transition there.

46:26 Or if you don't for some reason have the production skills to do that, although I'd be happy to show you how, If that doesn't work for you, at least give us a pause. That's probably my biggest constructive criticism for Bernie throughout this is that whenever you're going to insert an ad, make sure that we know about it. I know that in some ways there's might be a strategy to this, right? Like you don't want to separate it. You want people to just, you want it to kind of sneak up on them. But I think that that's doing them a disservice. It's doing you a disservice in your show. Mark, I think you're missing a point there. You could transition into that if you had connected with me earlier, if you had given me some value, if you had given me some validation of like I'm looking at the name of this stop chasing fulfillment. But he never brought me into, OK, what am I doing that's making me chase it?

47:19 And how, what self discovery can I do? Because then the transition could have been like, if you're feeling this way right now, I can help you. You don't even need a transition at that point because it just takes you right there. But I think at the beginning that he had, he given me value and brought me in and connected with me to you could sell me, you know what they say, sell ice cream to Eskimos. At that point, because I'm connected with you, I'm buying into it. But he didn't connect with me. That's what I hear Sid saying and other people saying is like there was no connection there. I think that was the piece that's really missing here. And I know he's got great ideas, he's got great content, but connect with me. Don't talk around me, talk to me. Bring me me into what you're going to do to help me. Fair enough.

48:00 And the big point that I heard there, Ralph, is that, yeah, sometimes maybe we don't need a sound effect for a transition, but instead just weave it into the content like you said. You know, if this is resonating here is a a potential solution for you, just as an example. I'm not thinking that through clearly, but you get the point, is it? Instead of just jumping right to the commercial, let's transition using your words instead. Yeah, because an effective commercial shouldn't sound like a commercial. It should sound like you're just talking to me. You're leading me down this path of where you're trying to get me to. I don't need a swoosh. I don't need something. Because as soon as you do that, I think you've just lost the connection.

48:41 I would disagree with that last point. I don't think you could you lose the connection if you're delivering what you've promised throughout the episode and then you're moving into the the ad. But overall, I'm I'm agreeing with what you have to say. Ralph, go ahead, Matt. There's a thing that happens to me when I listen to this episode and I think Ralph might be hinting at it. I'm not 100% sure, but Ralph, you tell me the what I called it in the chat was intonation fatigue. And I think that's what we've been driving at with the delivery stuff quite a bit. But again, like that fatigue is just when it feels like there's a wall of text and no breaks and it's just the information's flying at you and you're not sure where you need to pause to stop, to process, figure out where you are in the conversation, and then keep going. I mean, the ad is an interruption for that actually calls it out.

49:33 Pacing important. I think what Bernie could benefit from is a few gaps, a few silences, maybe even a slower delivery to pause. And then those pauses being marked will help him find the natural period or exclamation mark that he's looking forward to, pace out the intonation and make sure that we can keep up with it. And like, it may just be an effect of reading a script. It may be the fact that there's common advice out there saying that podcasts shouldn't have silences or any gaps and there shouldn't be spaces. And also people will click away and skip if you tell them there's an ad coming. So the ad has to what I like there, Mark, you said sneak up on you. I think it needs and could help with balancing out all of this stuff is from the structure to guide the delivery and perhaps even after writing the script, taking it to an AI or just looking at it again, categorizing the session sections and the transitions it makes between the actionable points.

50:43 The explanations like what the listener should be getting from each section and how it progresses to him delivering the value. But to his point. Again, I think this episode might be a standout with Mark and Sid indicating earlier that we were actually told to listen to two for the evaluations just to get a bit of context. I think this one was a particularly large one and needed a big explanation that occupied an inordinate amount of time before the ad came to explain what fulfillment is through self discovery and guiding oneself through that fog and that clarity. We hadn't gotten to the bit that says what's beyond the fog, and that value comes after the ad, unfortunately. So that ad placement may have been something else that needs to be fixed up just through this particular episode. But I want to make sure that Bernie gets a bit of doubt benefits there, that this doesn't extrapolate to his entire catalog, that perhaps this episode was just representative of that particular problem that we found, and that it could be different in other episodes. And you know, one of the things as you were sharing about the adding some more gaps or pauses, my guess, because I think we're all guessing that he's using a teleprompter. And my guess is the reason why the pacing might, even though he does, I believe he does have

52:13 decent pacing. I think that there aren't those bigger gaps, bigger pauses for effect because he's chasing the teleprompter. And I say this because I've been there when I've made content that I'm actually using a teleprompter, it's hard to pace because that stuff is scrolling right now. Some of the newer technology with the teleprompter, if you have the right equipment, if it's strong enough to handle it, you can actually now it has built in on the Elgato teleprompter. It has built in some AI technology where it will continue to scroll as you're reading, but if you stop, it stops with you. So it's a really huge advantage.

52:58 But if you don't have that, it's hard to keep up. I know a lot of people wanted to chime in. There's a couple things I did want to address. Some of the feedback that Bernie also received that we haven't talked about here is with some of the audio quality. There were a couple of things that were pointed out. For one, Bernie, with all due respect, some people were sharing that there was some mouth clicks, some lip smacking. It sounded like maybe he needed to hydrate more. And this is a common problem that we hear among podcasters. So Bernie, you're not alone on this. And I can say that a quick, easy solution is to run it through something like Offonic. It does a great job of that, specifically of getting rid of those little lip smacks, those little mouth noises that sometimes happen if your mouth is dry. And it'll also, I think, help sweeten the overall audio as well.

53:53 The audio is a little bit echoey. That's just from being maybe in a slightly echoey room, not particularly treated well for sound, but it doesn't sound horrific. It's not terribly distracting. But I think if you ran this through something like Authonic, Adobe Podcast, Enhance, I think that it could really help improve all of the little things that we feel need improvement. I hope that's fair to say. And Ashley, I saw you wanted to chime in. So you made the same point I was thinking of with offonic. But another thing that can help with eliminating mouth noise, it'll help dry up if you have too much moisture, because sometimes that can be a factor, is eating a couple of salty snacks like pretzels or chips.

54:40 Very cool coming from the musician. I I will take that seriously. Thank you, Ashley. Let's go to Sid. I got no tips on the audio quality because I didn't know that you needed to drink water and that you could tell that. But. I did notice, I think I mentioned this in my evaluation, the s s and the PS and the QS you could hear a little bit, I don't know what that's called, Mark, where you could hear the S sounds, right. And so that may, again, I'm not an audio expert here, but I think that might have to do with the positioning of the mic, maybe move it back just a little bit so that it's not getting those positive is, is that a accurate statement? That is absolutely accurate.

55:20 And as I've shared before, another way to do that is to put place your microphone a little bit slanted instead of talking directly into it like I have it right now. If you're watching on YouTube, it's just off to the side of my mouth a little bit so that this way it still picks me up very clearly, but I'm not popping my peas into the microphone BC did you want to add something? I was actually going to say just that. You know, having it off to the side helps to avoid explosions. That's the industry term for when you have those big those consonants that release a little burst of air and it kind of receives, it's not well received by the mic. So having it off the side there is definitely a good tactic to help avoid and lessen those.

56:08 And there can be a number of things that 'cause this syllabic, I'm not sure that's a word, but sound that I know I noticed during my listening time to the episode. It can be psychological, it can be those specific sounds, P's, B's, T's, or C's, but also can happen as as a result of someone who doesn't have good pacing. And it's can be a result of trying to over project or trying to over perform. So a lot of times I know what I like to do to help avoid that is to not try to push too much air out, not try to over perform. I like to try to have a bit more of what I called kind of an intimate relation between myself and the mic so that I get a lot more bang for my buck, so I'm not having to re inhale, re exhale too often. I can get a lot more speech out with a singular breath and that helps me to avoid saliva production and having those kinds of not too idyllic sounds come through the come through on the mic.

57:07 Thank you BC great tips. I appreciate that. I think that's really, that's really helpful. A couple of things I didn't, I didn't even know. So thank you for that. BC I want to wrap us up the way that he, Bernie wraps up his show. I want to play his outro for you, his closing. And then I want to play one little fix that I added to it. So here is the original close of the episode. I'll leave you with this thought. Fulfillment is a performance strategy wherever you need to achieve optimum performance, whether it's at work, at home, or in the community. Fulfillment is your path to performance optimization and it begins with self discovery.

57:51 I'm Bernie Borges, you are a fulfillment architect. If you enjoyed this video, please like it and subscribe to my channel. Stay fulfilled. OK, so first of all, I I like the little wrap up. I think, you know, at least ties it up all together. The constructive criticism is is there was and this is again, not necessarily a make or break. It's more of a polishing suggestion. There is a pause between when he signs off and that music plays and that feels a little awkward to me. So I would tighten it up just like this. I'll leave you with this thought. Fulfillment is a performance strategy wherever you need to achieve optimum performance, whether it's at work, at home, or in the community.

58:41 Fulfillment is your path to performance optimization and it begins with self discovery. I'm Bernie Borges, you are a fulfillment architect. If you enjoyed this video, please like it and subscribe to my channel. Stay fulfilled. Just makes it sound more professional in my opinion. So that's just a little piece of production advice for Bernie. I hope that we've provided plenty of good feedback for Bernie today. It certainly feels like we did. I hope you'll take some of that into consideration, Bernie. And you are more than welcome to follow up with us if you have any more questions and you listening right now, if you are interested in having your podcast evaluated, you can go into our show notes, click the link and apply today. We'd love to do your evaluation.

59:35 And I think we might be moving this to every two weeks. Full disclosure, I feel like a big PIA to our team because I'm constantly asking, have has everyone listened? Has everyone evaluated it yet? I want to leave a little space there so that everybody stops getting so annoyed with me. I'm making assumptions. I don't know if I'm really being annoying or not, but certainly feels like it. So we might. I'll let you know. But we are back tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern Time with more podcasting content to share, more advice, more tips, etcetera. So come join us live on Clubhouse. And if you can't, you can pick this up as a podcast just a couple hours later.

1:00:17 So until tomorrow, make it a great day everybody take care.