Make Money Online

Hi there, Kai. I am Nick Disabato. I’m a designer and writer from the city of Chicago. Chicago. I run a consultancy called Draft, which you can take a look at at draft. nu. I write books, I yell on the internet, I do lots of stuff. It’s all a riveting tapestry.

Sure, sure. Well, I’ll talk a little bit about what the marketing plan is because you love that term so much. It’s kind of threefold. I have a mailing list. You could go to draft. nu/slash letters if you. You hate yourself and want to sign up for it. Where I just write a letter to somebody every week, and it could be you, about whatever topic that I so desire. And I’ve been pretty freeform with it. Like, I use it for launches, and I use it. It’s a huge cornerstone of my business, and it has a lot of readers, and I’m really grateful for that. But it really runs the gamut. So, if I want to talk about that one time that I got drunk in Canada, I’m going to talk about that one time I got drunk in Canada. If I want to talk about leveraging A-B tests to build value for your business, then I’m going to talk about that. So, it really depends. The other two are a little bit more rigorous. I do podcasts, I never say no to promotional opportunities. So, I’ve definitely interviewed on Skype with a Graders doing their like capstone project in grade school. And probably their only person that’s ever going to see that or care is their teacher, and I don’t care. It’s still promotion, it’s an expert. And I was in eighth grade one point listening to Tool. And hating myself. So I feel like that’s a little bit more ambitious, like interviewing people and actually doing things with your life. And the third thing is guest blog posts. Reach out to a lot of small independent outlets and write on topics that interest me. And that’s again more thinky And business-oriented. I’m talking about specific things that I do to help out my clients and promote myself in that way. So, podcasting has been the majority of that sort of outreach work. And I found that this might be a topic worth talking about. Every time I end up guesting on a podcast, I get their audience too, right? But every time I post to my mailing list, I’m getting my audience. And my audience is, they’ve already been converted, right? Like they’re in, they know me, I hope, and they know what they’ve gotten themselves into a little bit. And, um, But on a podcast, I’m being introduced to an entirely fresh audience or mostly a fresh audience. I can promote the existence of the podcast to my audience, but then you’re doubling the audience, which is terrific. Yeah.

Right, right, right. Yeah. And I think it’s also important to keep in mind, like, the the podcast owner doesn’t know who I am either. And so I have to usually be intro To these people, or I have to do direct outreach. I have an assistant who develops leads for me so that I can go and personally reach out and be like, Hey, I’m Nick Disabato. I’ve been on these episodes. If you’re interested, we can talk about these topics. Shoot me back an email, and we’ll. What good time for it? People are generally amenable to that. I get a lot through intros with colleagues, and I find This is something I say a lot, work begets work. If you end up guesting on a lot of podcasts, you’re going to become known as somebody who guests on a lot of podcasts. And you’re going to get a lot of expertise about how to interview effectively. So, this particular conversation is, I mean, we’re very comfortable with each other because we’re friends, but like, I know how to do a good interview. And I know, but I learned that it was a skill that it took me a long time to build up, right? It’s not something that I just came out of the womb knowing how to interview a f. Effectively, it’s I put us together a bunch of crappy interviews that sucked and everybody hate and no one listened to. And my mom was like, Nick, you really shouldn’t have done that. I was like, I know. No, mom, thanks. So run up by your mom. That’s another tactic.

In these sorts of points, you only see the end game, right? You see the famous person getting on an interview, and you don’t know what they actually struggle to do. You end up slogging through a sea of garbage, both in terms of your own skills, your own imposter syndrome, your own battles that you’re fighting, in order to have a successful business. Know what you’re talking about and get in front of the right audience. Like you’re, you’re just, it’s like drawing, right? Nobody learns to draw by You know, being a perfect drawer and then you know how to draw. You don’t like to learn all of the skills and then start to draw. You learn how to draw by drawing horribly for a very long period of time. And you’re going to be speaking horribly for a long period of time. If you set up that expectation, it helps you squirrel up the courage to soldier through that. So, yeah, does that make sense?

And I think the takeaway for this, at least for me, I’ll be entirely honest, and this is going to sound incredibly cavalier, but I personally, right now, am not focused on the quality of the conversation we’re presenting. Having. I’m focused on the conversation. I’m focused on having, like, listening to you and echoing this point back and doing it in a way that is thoughtful and contributes to the conversation. And the more you think about making points, okay, how do I make a point? I know this is terribly meta listener, but please bear with me. Like, the more you focus on making the points, the better points you’re going to make. And the more you focus about, I have to, I’m going for broke, I’m going to have the best podcast appearance of my life, it’s in front of an audience of 48,000 people, you’re going to be paralyzed. The more you think about the quality of your work, the more it’s going to give you stage fright. And I have known and felt that better than a lot of people. I will give one example. I wrote a book called Cadence and Slave. About interaction design in late 2010, it came out. And two weeks after Kings and Slang came out, my friend and colleague Chris. He was like, hey, you were really good. I really like this book. You know, I’m giving a talk with two other people at South by Southwest Interactive, and I know you’re going. So how about you know this one person dropped out because she’s about to have a kid. Can you replace her? I was like, all right. What’s it about? Well, it’s about interaction design. I’m like, great, I’m it. I’m going to give a talk about interaction design to South by South. Where’s it at? Ballroom A, 3 p. m. Okay, great. Ballroom A, whatever. If you’ve been to South by Southwest, you know what ballroom A is. Ballroom A is more like airplane hangar A. Ballroom A has a capacity of at least 2,000 people, and there was standing room only, people in the aisles, and Jeffrey Zeldman looking very stern in the front row. And um yeah, I that was my first ever public talk. Oh my god, that was deep end. I got really drunk after that. Public talk because I had no idea what I was doing, and I was focused on having a good talk. And people told me it was good, and they really enjoyed it, and they appreciated the topic. But, like, I know with my speaking experience in the past five years, I could have done better on that. That talk. I know I could have, but I was just blinkered by the fact that I was in ballroom A, freaking out, out of my league. There’s a reason why only famous artists play stadiums. It’s because they work their way up from the 200-person club. And now they’re in a stadium. I think that is a very important lesson to keep in mind when you’re podcasting, start small. Start small and don’t focus on the quality of your output. Focus on having a genuine conversation with someone who cares about you. And then it’s going to be fantastic. And it’s just going to stay fantastic because you didn’t ballroom A yourself.

We’re free next March and get in line behind Seth Godin, right? Like you’re dealing in a different league. Yes. The public speaking corollary for this, and I tell my coaching clients this all the time, is the meetup. Go speak at 10-person niche meetups. Because they’re going to care more about what you do. They may not have 300,000 Twitter followers, but they’re, and you’re working your way up. Like one of them knows a person, maybe a CTO at an organization, and have, say, 3,000 Twitter followers. followers and um they’re gonna take they’re gonna give you like the big fancy talk at like a local meetup like a one hundred person talk and you go from like ten to fifty to a hundred to two hundred and eventually you’re doing larger talks at bigger co Conferences and you’re getting paid for it. There’s a similar ladder for podcasts. One of the best talks I ever did on a podcast was. For my colleague Philip Morgan. And the name of the podcast was, I believe, the Consulting Pipeline Podcast. You have to know a lot about consulting in order to be a really avid listener of the consulting. Pipeline podcast. And that is not a slag on Phillips podcast or the quality of it. It’s just a very niche positioning. And so you start with something you geek out on. You’re going to get on it super easily. You’re going to have a wonderful conversation. Because you both care about the exact same highly granular topic. And then you’re going to work your way up to, you know, the 50,000-person podcast where people are only barely interested in what you do. A thing that I find with the audience, as my audience grows, is they start to care less and less about who I am. They just, like, a friend recommended me to them, and they’re like, okay, well, is this guy charismatic? Cool, boom, podcast. And it’s like. But why? Yeah. You know? Does that make sense? I feel. Yeah.

And yeah, I think the more likely you are to work with an experienced interviewer, the more likely you’re playing the interviewer’s game. And so it’s an away game for you. It’s not an opportunity for your personality to shine through. And so, you know, I think if I got on the podcast, you may Mention Entrepreneur on Fire, which I’ve never heard of before, but I’m sure is fantastic. I would probably just put it on my webpage and say, hey, I’ve been on Entrepreneur on Fire. I’ve spoken at Web 2. 0. I’ve spoken at At South by Southwest. Does anyone care about the content of those talks three years on? No. They care about the fact that I was able to entertain them and impress them at Web 2. 0 or make them think about behavior design decisions at South by Southwest. And like, Like, it’s going to go obsolete in two years anyway, because you’re in the tech industry. Nothing you talk about will be relevant in six to eighteen months. You just have to keep doing it and make it into a practice.

There’s a fitness app called Couch to 5K. It’s very famous, and it is exactly what you think it is. It is a running and workout routine that takes you from being a sedentary slob to running a 5K. And I think it’s in like a very short period of time to like a month or two, where you’re going from, I can’t work out, and you’re not buying the app, you’re buying the five Right, you’re buying the capability of running the 5k. And this happens in any product, any design decision you see. But with podcasts, you go on the podcast. They’re having you on in order to make a better podcast. They’re not having you on in order to fulfill Nick Disabato’s ego. Which while very large and enjoying that it gets fed, like that’s not the point of it, right? So so I think that’s important to to keep in mind.

Well, there are several results that are and aren’t related to me. I’ll be selfish and talk about the ones that are Related to me. Gets people to buy my book. Gets people to sign up for my mailing list. Gets people to read more about who I am. If those metrics happen as the result of a podcast appearance, that’s terrific. I feel really great about that. There are metrics for them, too. If it becomes a well-downloaded episode, that is a smashing success. Right? Because it means that I was able to benefit them. If it results in intros from them for more podcast appearances, if I can come back on the podcast and talk more about what I’m doing. Fantastic. Anything like that, like and none of that is like you’re kind of doing business goals by adding these metrics Around it, but you’re also helping the other person make a better podcast. And you have to recognize that to a degree, it’s a selfless act. You’re taking time out of your day. You love the sound of your own voice, but they do too, right? Because they’re fueled by it in order to have more podcast episodes. So I think that You know, it’s you need to recognize that you’re helping them too. If you just come in selfishly motivated, they’ll be able to smell it. They can smell a fraud from miles. Anybody who runs a podcast. And gets people begging to go on episodes and stuff like that. I’ve had, I haven’t even started this yet, but I’m thinking of coming out with a podcast in a few weeks. People are all like, I’ll be a guest on it. I’m like, you don’t even know what the format of the podcast is. You don’t even know what it’s about. For all it is, it could be the chartreuse podcast, where I just talk about my love of VEP green chartreuse every day. And you’re a consultant, and I’m going to have you on and be like, which vintages of VP green chartreuse have you had in the past six weeks? And you’re going to look blankly at me, and it’s not going to be a very good podcast episode. We will not have fun in this scenario. You will have fun. I’ll probably be drinking chartreuse on the chartreuse podcast because what else? So I’m going to have fun, but I’m going to be like, where’s your sniff, John? And John named. Person is going to be like, oh God, I’m Mormon. I don’t drink. And I’m going to be like, well, you picked the wrong podcast now, didn’t you?

It has to be a mutual win-win, right? And it’s not just there’s a third party involved. I think you hit on this perfectly. The third party is the audience. What’s in it for the audience? Because it’s when I talk as an interaction designer on products, I’m not saying what’s best for you, which hurts. I say what’s best for the nameless customer that’s out there, JoeQ Public, that’s wondering whether or not to buy a product, because they’re the only thing that matters. The goal is to make a product that people want to buy or download or invest their time and attention in. did an extensive survey of my mailing list for a bunch of podcast resources and asked them like why do you listen to podcasts and what do you think of in your podcast listening? Listening routine. And the number one thing I got was people having 500 unlistened episodes on their podcast and feeling bad about it. If that’s the case, their time and their attention are the most precious commodity that you are trying to siphon away.

Let’s say that every time you guest on a podcast, exactly 10 people listen to it. Just thought exercise. Sure. And you’re in a guest on 20 podcasts, and that means every time you have 10 listeners. The first podcast you do, because as we’ve previously established, it’s going to suck and be terrible. Maybe two people will feel like they enjoyed listening to the entire thing. And then three or four more are going to get like maybe 10 minutes of value out of it, or they’re going to get one or two interesting points, or something like that. And then the rest of them are just going to be like, nope, unsubscribe, we’re done here. Those three groups, you know, obviously it’s a spectrum, and the middle group is probably going to be pretty broad. But the more you do it, the less time you’re going to waste. And by the time you’ve done episode number 20, we’re going to talk, say, six people will get a lot out of your episode. Three people are going to get a little bit out of your episode, and one person’s going to be like, whatever. You are never going to please everybody. And really, you shouldn’t try to please everybody. If I anger and upset somebody who’s listening to me right now on this traffic manual add-on, then I’m doing my job because I have an opinion. And I find the people that I want because I have an opinion. So it’s kind of two things going on there, which is that like you’re never going to be able to please everybody. And by my highly logical estimations, that is a very good justification for how I’m able to be an insane fire brand. Mm-hmm. Mhm.

The worst you can be is mediocre and forgettable. That’s every artist’s fear. Mhm. That’s every musician’s fear. That’s every really a lot of designers’ fears. They don’t you you want to make an impact on the world, and you don’t do that by being timid.

Right. And you want to do this in a way that doesn’t make you an actual jerk. Like, there are some people, actually, no, I should say, you can be a jerk on a podcast. Don’t be a jerk in real life, okay? I know a lot of people who come off as like really pointy on podcasts or in talks. And they’re kind of jerks. And then you and then you talk to them on Twitter, you talk to them in real life, and they’re like the warmest kind of souls. So, like, don’t, you know, if you, if you Choose to go the jerk route, don’t let that consume your personality. I try and do it in a way that’s I don’t know, firm but warm at the same time. And I think that works well for me, but like nobody ever got anywhere on a podcast without developing their own distinctive voice. And trying to actualize themselves on that front.

You’re learning fundamentals, right? And it’s okay if you do a bunch of wooden podcasts, because part of what makes for a good podcast. Is that kind of distinct personality, you know, and figuring out what that looks like for yourself is just a lot of existential agony. Like, I’m very excited and terrified for you, dear. Listener, that you will be going through this process because it sucks and it’s horrible, and you’re going to come out awesome.

Right, right, right. Yeah, and nobody can answer that for you but you. Right. Some people might be able to come in and give you really good action. feedback. Um and but I I think you’re probably that’s that’s like a once a year thing. Um you’re probably not gonna get very good feedback. You’re gonna get get opinions and armchair analysis and you’re gonna wanna throw most of it away. Way. But yeah, I mean, that’s what happens as you kind of level up over the years. Yeah.

That’s very, very good point. Another way I’ve gotten value, just to build on that, is When I go on podcasts that clearly get an insane amount of guests and/or have an assistant managing the process, um You end up getting onboarded in this incredibly effective way. You get like a tome of documentation, and a lot of it is like tips for like How to prepare your room for a podcast, how to reduce echo, recommendations for specific microphones, and just tactical stuff that nobody bothers telling you about. There’s Dan Benjamin has, I believe, podcastguide. co. That’s a good place to get. I think most of the equipment you’re looking at in this frame right now came from there. And probably I I think Kai and I, you you have the same like stand, it’s a road. Yeah, right. Hi, there you go. Um and and yeah, I think that like Keeping those things in mind, like you’re working on tactical stuff, but you the broad strategic stuff about what your voice looks like and what your strategy looks like, those are business decisions, and they pretty much have to come from you. You might be able to get some feedback from like a Bootstrapper mastermind if you have friends or colleagues that are helping you along the way. But really, you just got to sit down and do the work. And it’s hard and worth it. It’s entirely Worth it.

You will rarely get opinions occurring like a thunderclap to you. At least for me, that happens. Maybe once every couple of years. Opinions evolve slowly and get iterated over time. And what you’re doing in that process is Basically, carving out what makes your opinions distinctive from others, and you’re becoming more you. It’s not a process of self-reinvention, it’s a process of self-actualization. You are taking a brick of marble and carving kayak. Out of it. You are making the most Kai that Kai can be, and finding a way to make that legible to other people. Because obviously, and you know, probably the listener is thinking, well, I am this person. What? I’m not, I’m still the same person. Well, you are, and you aren’t. Like you evolve your own brain to think in a certain way and to think in a certain distinctive way. And the matter is not becoming that person, it’s becoming that person to the audience and finding a way to express that effectively. And it’s a practice, right? Like, I don’t think I’m ever going to be 100% able to Be Nick D on a Skype call that’s uh going to be turned into a video, you know, like, but I’m more and more there every day. I’m less and less wrong about the way that I work and the way that I think. And I think that’s all you can hope for: just being less wrong about it.

Well what is it? He talks about it with A B testing. So um he says that it’s it’s basically failing your way forward ‘cause the majority of A B tests fail. Fail or they’re inconclusive. And so you’re just like, well, why am I doing this? Right? Like, I’m constantly screwing up. That’s valid. But yeah, it’s definitely like a. A question of figuring out who you are and doing it in a way that’s mostly screwing up all the time, and you don’t have a game plan for that. And some people just kind of soldier forward, and other people find every reason why they don’t want to do that. And it’s like an internal psychological thing. I tell people: like, one of the best things I’ve ever done for my business was to get a therapist. And just like help me get over myself like ninety nine percent of the time. And it sounds weird because this this talk was initially about podcasting for consultants and I don’t think that a tactic of get a therapist would be on typical podcasting For consultants guide, but like that’s how you find a way to fail in these ways and be okay with it. You could lose a client and be okay with it. You can get a new client and negotiate yourself effectively and be okay with it. You can screw up a podcast, dust yourself off and move on. And all of those things are valuable. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it’s fear. That’s what it is. It’s it’s and it’s stage fright because you’re recording yourself. And even though it’s a conversation with somebody else, you know it’s going to be put out on radio eventually. It’s what podcasting is. It’s just radio. All of the medium is the same. Right. So, yeah, I think that’s. It’s hard. Like, I hate to make the broad strategy get over yourself. But I had to get over myself, man. So maybe I’m not alone.

It means your terrible consultant should quit the business and begin bagging groceries for a living. Easily. Right. Yeah, obviously. Because that’s what I’ve done every time I failed at something. So that’s definitely something that like I think that people need to understand that. I don’t know a single good business book that doesn’t deal with psychological Stuff. It is the common thread through all of these things. Josh Kaufman’s personal MBA, about one-third of that book is about eating better and getting over cognitive biases and not burning out. Yeah. That’s what it takes to get an MBA, right? It’s not like learning case studies or understanding a PL sheet or knowing what those wor letters are. Like it’s figuring out how to be a like better, kinder person to yourself. Alan Weiss says, The first sale is to yourself anytime that you make a business decision. And it’s true, you have to convince yourself that this is the right thing to do. Because it’s our nature not to do it.

So, yeah, I think that’s, you know, any business book. Philip Morgan talks about. The fear in changing your business’s positioning because it could be your paycheck, it could be your family. And yeah, that’s terrifying. But you have to, you’re going to get penalized harder for not doing it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

It’s probably easy for this person to say this, but Elon Musk says, there’s not really a whole lot of harm in starting a business. It’s like, what’s the worst thing that can happen? Like, you can feed yourself. You’re not going to go homeless. You’re not. Come on, if you’re listening to this, you’re probably in the tech industry and you probably have a cushy knowledge work job. The worst thing that happens is you get hired by an awesome company and work full time for them, and you have your health insurance taken care of. Darn. I’m so sorry that this happened. You know, my friends are off food stamps. Like, come on. Like, this is not. You’re playing a game against yourself. That’s what it is. It’s got very far away from podcasting, but I think it’s important. I think it is. Now it’s going to it.

Period. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Like, like, what’s the worst thing that happens to me? Like, I basically have, like, an open job offer at, like, one of my favorite design agencies in the city. If I ever decide to quit, like people keep taking me out for drinks, and like, if you ever want to not do draft anymore, just like a creative director role, just like, and I’m like Great. Great. There’s my safety net. I’m not going to go bankrupt. Yeah. I’m going to put that over here right now and continue making business decisions. But when I keep making business decisions and the market doesn’t work out, hi.

Yeah. And be like, let’s get a better outline for this, and I’m sorry. And you’re the one that has to do the cleanup work for this because you’re imposing on their time. But like, that’s literally the worst case. It is a very, very safe way to figure Fail. And I’m just, that’s it. I mean, now you know how to podcast.

I’ll float two or three to the person, but it’s generally based on the particular show I’m doing. So, you know, if it’s the positioning pipeline podcast, for instance, I. You know, promoted two or three, and then Philip was like, How about we just talk about boredom? I’m like, Okay, fine. If they come back with a different topic, it’s fine. I feel like I keep settling on the same, like, one or two topics, which I Guess is kind of inevitable when you’re known as the productized consulting guy, and everybody wants to learn from you about how to do that. But, like, I try and go further afield and talk about other things. Things. And keep in mind, like, you can mention a topic and then go in a different direction from that topic, like I just did five minutes ago.

Oh no, it’s another talk with Nick D about the same three points about productized consulting. Like, as a listener, I might get a little fatigued. But that’s only if you’re a listener that was already in my audience. Again, you’re expanding out to a variety of different audiences, and I think that’s important to be keeping in mind there.

Broader in the business, I’m this is very much a do as I say, not as I do thing. So I think it makes sense to target as few audiences as possible. And in an ideal scenario, you are targeting one audience. And you have a very clear sense of what that audience is. If you’re just starting out, you may not have a fully coherent vision about what that audience looks like, and that’s hard, but it’s something you absolutely should work on. So, Brennan Dunn, for example, he’s a good friend of you and mine. And he has a book that he gives for freelancers. He has a course that he has for freelancers. He has a mastermind for freelancers. He has a set of consulting engagements that he can give freelancers who’ve leveled up. You may notice something that’s common here: it is that he writes all of his stuff and does all of his work if you are a freelancer. And if you are not a freelancer, the door is that way. I have three audiences, and that is stupid, and I hate it. I have interaction design engagements, which I love doing. I have AB testing engagements, which people think are marketing and end up being interaction design engagements because I love springing that on them. And then I have professional coaching and services for independent workers. I love thinking about the business of my design practice, and people look to me for that. So I do that. And it’s kind of in that order, like descending order. And I focus on these in varying proportions in my work. But I would like to cultivate my practice more as a designer. I just feel like I don’t have a good strategy. Strategy for it right now. And so, what ends up happening is most of my podcast appearances are about the business of design. And I’ve built out on that front. And that’s fine. It means that I have a waiting list a mile long for coaching stuff. And I don’t hate that. You know, I’m okay with the wait list. But yeah, I’ve served those right now, and I’ve been niching down. Like, I’ve been putting out some things that are focused toward. SaaS businesses and bootstrapped businesses, because those are the types of people that I prefer to work with. But the broader takeaway is you should be finding ways to pigeonhole yourself. And serve a specific market and a certain type of problem that you want them to solve. Don’t do what I do and just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. You need to be a little bit more deliberate with your practice. Practice. I will continue to cite Philip Morgan. He has a book called The Positioning Manual for Technical Firms. If you’re not done buying books today, may I recommend that one?

Positioning sounds terribly boring, and it might be for a certain type of person, but it really infuses all of the decisions you make. Your business? Who am I talking to? What am I doing for them? Answering those two questions is very hard. Very hard. And that’s why he wrote, what, 200 odd pages about it. So go and read that. I’m not even recommending my own book here. Like I wrote a book and go read his.

Well, I I’ve given her a process for this, but I think about a lot of like other bootstrapped podcasts that I’m on because I work on productized Consulting stuff and then interaction design type podcasts that are with more famous people in my field. But, you know, I feel like this is kind of going to be a short answer. It just is what matches the positioning. And I say, find podcasts that fit this broad positioning. And and that’s really on her because I just hired an assistant. But if I did it, then I would try And answer the same question. I would use a search engine called Google. It’s based in Mountain View, California. I would use I would ask friends and colleagues who knew more about what I was doing. I would ask them what podcast I might ask my mailing list and try and figure that out. Yeah, I don’t know. Just internet sleuthing, man.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s this is research might be the easiest part of it. It’s just finding things that resonate with you. It’s finding things that, you know, is this the kind of stuff you would want to listen to? Okay, great. Does that mean it’s because it’s incredibly famous and amazing, or because it fits your niche? If it’s incredibly famous and amazing, pitch them in a year. If it’s in your niche, pitch them in a week. That’s it. It’s it you don’t need to overthink what you like or don’t like. You know your taste. You know it. And you know when you feel squipped out about going on a given presentation. So, yeah, I think that’s. It’s not as hard as people think. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just really good at research. I don’t know.

Yeah, and just not settling, right? And again, you have to make it, I keep talking about podcasting as a practice. And it’s just something every week, pitch it to one person, and then you’re on one podcast a week. And within a few months, you’re going to end up getting released once a week, and you’re going to be in front of people, and you’re probably going to run out at some point. Hopefully, you get some repeat appearances. And figure out a system for coming back to those podcasts that you did well on. If you don’t like that, make one of your own. I mean, there’s nothing stopping anybody from making a podcast and practicing in that way. And your first eight episodes will suck. And that’s fine. I think it’s fine. I would give you a hug right now if I could and just tell you it’s going to be okay. I know you’re upset about that podcast that bombed, but like it’s it’s you’re fine.

I have a colleague named Frank Shimiro who. He buys notebooks that, and he just scribbles nonsense on the first page of it. And the reason he does that is because that way he’ll never do anything worse than that. And that’s that’s great. Like, what are you going to do? Lose your marriage over a podcast appearance? Are you going to go bankrupt over a podcast appearance? Are you going to lose your house because of a podcast appearance? Well, if so, good job, because you must have said something amazing on that podcast appearance. But I don’t think that that’s ever going to happen to you. Yep. I would be more impressed if that happened to you. You’ll be able to turn that into an amazing story, an amazing. Oh my God. What a think piece. I will read if that happens to you. Nickd at nickd. org. Write a think piece, post it to Medium, and email me, and I will send it to my entire mailing list. I’m dead serious. It will be the entire installment of my mailing list. Mailing list. I will cross-post it for you if some seismically awful thing happens to you. Like you give a podcast appearance and your mom dies because of the podcast appearance. If that happens, standing offer for everyone listening to this. That is N I C K D is in Dog at Nick D. org.

Nothing. I feel very safe making this incredibly highfalutin claim. Like, I’m going to forget about it in an hour because I know that it’s never. Going to be actually collected on. And I’ll feel very sorry if I’m like, no one got fired for podcasting unless you had it in your contract and your work, in which case, quit. Or change the contract. Contract. Right. And you should not have signed that contract. But, like, come on. Like, if I get, if my mom dies right now, I’m going to feel really bad about it.

Thought catalog is going to hire me. It’s going to be amazing. Can’t wait.

Well, if you’ve been on podcasts recently, one thing that I do, and this is the most narcissistic thing you’re going to hear on this call, is I listen to myself and I write down what went well and what didn’t. And that is a cringeworthy moment for anyone. You hate your own voice. You hate your own delivery. You have to face it. You really do. You have to go and analyze yourself and figure out ways to deliver. Deliver better. I say I’m less as a result. I actually show more emotion as a result now. You wouldn’t believe how wooded my early podcast opinion appearances were. You learn how to be comfortable in front of the media. Kai, right now, you’re the media. Like, anybody who interviews me on a podcast is the media. So go back and listen to yourself and figure out what you’re doing right and what you’re not. Doing right? What points do you want to hit? Write them down and put them on a post-it note below your monitor the next time you give a podcast appearance, and it’s going to work out really well for you. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Okay, I have a solution for this. It’s called Blanton’s. It’s a six-year-old bourbon. I believe it’s made by Buffalo Trace. There’s a little horse on the top. It’s made out of pewter. It’s very cute. And you’re going to pour yourself a nice little sniffer of Blantins, and you’re going to sit down and you’re going to start drinking the Blantins. And about 10 minutes into the Blantins, you’re going to set a timer for 10 minutes. Begins. Ten minutes into the Blantons, you realize the timer’s going to go off, and you’ll be like, Now I have to listen to my podcast episode. And then you’re going to take your pad of paper and pen, and while continuing to drink the blantins, you are going to analyze yourself. And everything will be okay because you have Blantons in front of you.

Yeah, you have to pick your own. Stuff apart. I mean, this is every TV show I’ve ever heard of that does well. Anytime I see a teardown of how, like, the back behind the scenes Stuff, they’re watching the TV show and fixing it because that’s what’s happening in reality. That’s the stuff that your audience is actually listening to. And you owe it to yourself to make that the best possible product imaginable. And that’s why there’s Blantons. Because your microphone costs you probably $150, and Blanton’s is $80. You can afford Blantons. Make it a business expense. I don’t care. If you don’t like Blantons, Brooklotti is great. It’s not a very peaty scotch. And it’s maybe $60 for the classic variety. It comes in a Robin’s egg blue bottle, and it’s delicious. I recommend anything. What do you have for gins?

Yeah, Leatherby is the best gin. It might only be available in the Midwest, but you should go online and see if you can get a bottle of Leatherby gin. It’s fantastic. Yeah, strong recommendation. I’ve been more of a Tanker A10 man.

If you want to have some regrets in your life, you can sign up for my mailing list at draft. nu/slash letters. If you chop the letters from that, that is my business’s website. If you want to know more about my book, you can Can go to cadence. cc. And I’m Nick Disabato, Nick D. And thank you all so much for taking the time to listen to me. Excellent.