It's Not About The Money

Tyler and Steve discuss the first year of “It's Not About The Money,” including numbers (surprisingly not zero!), popular episodes, favorite episodes, paradigm-shifting episodes, and advice. 

Consistency is probably the most important factor, and the barriers to entry may be lower than you think. Pursuing creativity for its own sake has been rewarding. 

  • (00:00) - Tyler gets mistaken for an older person
  • (02:58) - The most important number
  • (07:28) - Downloads, "followers," impressions, etc.
  • (10:30) - Which episodes have received the most attention?
  • (13:43) - Advice for starting a podcast
  • (16:22) - Get better at it by doing it
  • (21:42) - Steve and Tyler's favorite episodes
  • (28:20) - Episodes that changed Tyler's perspective

Episodes mentioned today (in release order):
--- 
Steve Nay: 

Tyler Smith: 

Creators & Guests

Host
Steve Nay
Strategic tax advisor for solopreneurs. Enrolled Agent; Owner of Daybreak Tax LLC
Host
Tyler Smith
Financial coach for working professionals

What is It's Not About The Money?

Solopreneurs and small business owners: learn about leadership, operations, entrepreneurship, productivity, taxes, client creation, marketing, bookkeeping, and more.

Retrospective: The first year(ish) of the podcast
===

[00:00:00]

Tyler gets mistaken for an older person
---

[00:00:00] Tyler: Ugh, Steve, I had a gut wrenching reality check this weekend.

[00:00:05] Steve: Oh, no, what happened?

[00:00:07] Tyler: I was at church, and to one side of me was sitting a friend of mine. I am 37 years old, he's also, he's in his mid 30s, a couple years younger than me. To the other side of me was sitting an older gentleman. Emphasis on older, you'll understand that more in a second.

And

[00:00:22] Steve: Okay.

[00:00:23] Tyler: it turns to me and says, Oh, is this your son? Referring to the mid thirties person sitting next to

[00:00:30] Steve: Oh, no.

[00:00:31] Tyler: I'm just like, what? Like, I mean, we're like three years apart. I don't know what this means. I mean, I know I'm getting older, but come on. So yeah, I just, that made

me think about my life

[00:00:43] Steve: That, yeah, that's a real, uh, brush with, brush with death right there.

[00:00:48] Tyler: basically. That's what it felt like. It made me

want to turn to, I wish, you know, how you always think of good comebacks like later.

[00:00:56] Steve: Oh, I was just gonna say, there's a, there's a German word for this, and I can't [00:01:00] remember what it is now, but it's something like when you're climbing the stairs, uh, later on your way out of the conversation, and then you think of,

[00:01:08] Tyler: yeah, yeah, I, I was trying to think of like, what could I possibly have said? Because in real life, I was like, uh, no, it's just my friend. But later I was like, what could I have said to make that like maximally awkward for him? Because that seems like a nice thing to think. And I, I thought several things.

I'm like, maybe I could say like, no, this is my husband. And who's this? Referring to the guy's wife, your granddaughter. I don't know, just like something crazy to, uh, anyway, I

didn't because A,

I'm not witty and B, I don't know, that seems a little bit mean, I guess, but anyway, I'm sure he was

just trying to make conversation, but it, it, it caused

[00:01:46] Steve: Uh huh.

[00:01:47] Tyler: existential crisis.

So anyway.

[00:01:50] Steve: That's unfortunate. I'm sorry.

I did find the German word,

[00:01:53] Tyler: Oh, what is it?

[00:01:54] Steve: It's treppenwitz, and I think treppen [00:02:00] means stairs, and witz is, I don't know.

[00:02:05] Tyler: Wait, do you speak German?

[00:02:06] Steve: I took German in high school, so I can read a little bit of it. I wouldn't call myself a German speaker. I speak Dutch, which sometimes sounds similar.

[00:02:18] Tyler: true. Yeah. Hmm. I did not know this about you. That's cool. So treppenwitz, did I say that right?

[00:02:24] Steve: Treppenwitz. Yep. Yep.

[00:02:25] Tyler: when you think of a good comeback after the fact when the moment has

passed. Good to know.

[00:02:37] Steve: Hello there, dear listener. I am Steve.

[00:02:39] Tyler: And I'm Tyler and this is It's Not About The Money. A podcast where we discuss a wide range of topics related to creating and running small businesses.

[00:02:49] Steve: Tyler and I are both small business owners like you, and this podcast is our attempt to make sense of the world one episode at a time.

The most important number
---

[00:02:58] Tyler: And in this [00:03:00] episode, we're going to get a little bit meta, if you will. Uh, Steve, you and I started this podcast about seven months ago, and I thought it'd be fun to talk about, uh, how that's going for us, both in terms of,

you know, what we've learned, what we've enjoyed about it, maybe what we have enjoyed about it, like how are our numbers doing, uh, numbers.

It is at least plural. I'll tell you that they're not big, but,

uh, yeah. Um, and, and a few other topics that, uh, kind of go along with this because I don't know about you, but I've entertained the idea of starting something, whether it's a YouTube channel or podcasts for like. Ever, basically. Uh, and then you finally persuaded me to do it.

And so I thought it might be interesting for people to hear what it's been like for us in case they also have been thinking about it and maybe wanted to try it.

[00:03:52] Steve: Yeah, I like that. I've had, you know, various ideas over the years of, Oh, I should start a blog or I should do [00:04:00] a mailing list. Uh, a newsletter sort of a thing and, uh, in a podcast, this, this one actually, you know, worked out, but the, the others, like I've never stuck with them this long. And so I'm excited that we have like built something,

[00:04:16] Tyler: Yeah,

it's pretty cool.

[00:04:17] Steve: something it's out there in the world.

And I'm interested to see what these numbers are, because I haven't been keeping track of them. You've had a better pulse on them than I have over the months.

[00:04:25] Tyler: Yeah, well, and I think it's worth saying, uh, that keeping track of podcast analytics is a little bit trickier than say, maybe analytics for websites or YouTube,

where it's all on one platform and you have access to all the data because podcasts are syndicated across all kinds of platforms, right? And so you kind of don't, you know, you have to go across and gather all the numbers out. At least that's what I did. Um,

[00:04:54] Steve: Mm

[00:04:54] Tyler: and also an interesting thing about podcasts is usually the only analytics that you get, well, depending on the [00:05:00] platform, it's just downloads. So you don't know if people are really listening to it or not. You just know whether or not

the file was downloaded. Right. So, uh, I would say all of these numbers are interesting and perhaps conversation starters or, uh, you know, but not necessarily cold, hard facts or, uh, imbued with a lot of meaning per se.

[00:05:25] Steve: I think for us, the useful part will be the trend, because we're not on our way to become a big, uh, you know, podcast that will attract Squarespace as an advertiser, or whatever. But,

uh, so, so the, the, uh, precision of these numbers is not

[00:05:43] Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. This is just for us, like, to know. Because, like, yeah,

we are not on that path, at least I don't think we are. We haven't talked about being on that path. But to me, uh, the most important number is the number of episodes that we've published purely because that [00:06:00] denotes consistency. And like you said, that we, that we built something and we didn't just give up, which I think is pretty cool.

[00:06:07] Steve: I agree. So this is, uh, which episode will this be? This is 30, I think. Or close to that, if it's not exactly 30. Sometimes we record out of order,

[00:06:18] Tyler: true. Yes. Yes.

[00:06:19] Steve: but,

[00:06:20] Tyler: And I like to count the trailer even though it's only like a minute

[00:06:23] Steve: oh yeah, the trailer, episode zero. So 31 episodes in seven months, and it's been pretty much every week. We've skipped a few weeks here and there. Yeah.

[00:06:36] Tyler: I'm proud of us. That is remarkable consistency. to be honest,

[00:06:41] Steve: And I think that is probably the biggest, uh, factor in our, uh, success in Giant Air Quotes so far is just that we, we kept doing it. It

[00:06:53] Tyler: I would argue that is our success because that's really the only measure of success that we've ever talked about. We've never talked about [00:07:00] subscribers or downloads or anything like, or even like, uh, you know, conversions to clients or anything like that. We, we just. At the beginning, I remember we talked about, we just wanted to do this kind of for us to talk about things that we are experiencing and that we're learning and actually just create something.

So I think we have been very successful by our own criteria, if that makes sense.

[00:07:24] Steve: It does. I agree with that.

Downloads, "followers," impressions, etc.
---

[00:07:28] Steve: Do you want to tell me some, uh, some of these other numbers you've collected?

[00:07:32] Tyler: Sure. Yeah. So I looked across the various platforms where we have data for, so that includes Spotify, YouTube, and Transistor. Transistor is the platform that we're using to distribute. And so across all those platforms, we've had 1, 257 views or downloads.

[00:07:58] Steve: Okay.

[00:07:59] Tyler: Again, what does that [00:08:00] mean? I don't know, but it's interesting.

It's more than I thought we would have.

[00:08:04] Steve: It looks like kind of a big

[00:08:05] Tyler: Yeah, definitely. Um, um, okay. So there's that. And then another number that I tried to get, which is kind of tricky again, is, is I guess, subscribers or followers. And, uh, the reason again, that's tricky is because people can subscribe to podcasts all kinds of different ways.

So this is kind of an estimate, but again, across all those different platforms, it looks like we've got about 32 people who are regularly downloading stuff and by stuff, I mean,

episodes.

[00:08:36] Steve: That's, that's a bigger number than I expected.

[00:08:38] Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know some of those for sure are friends and family. Um, and. I don't know who the rest are, which I think is a good thing. Cause if we knew literally everybody who was listening, then we really would not have, you know, expanded our audience much.

[00:08:55] Steve: That's true.

[00:08:56] Tyler: Um, and interesting. I, I, I'm, I'm intrigued by the [00:09:00] YouTube platform because really we're, you know, we don't put videos on YouTube.

We just upload the audio part of our, you know, our podcasts and put it on a podcast on YouTube. And that is where

we've had the

most impressions. So the, the platforms that gave us information about impressions are Spotify and YouTube. Spotify, I could only find impressions for like a 30 day period, which, you know, they've given us 3, 289 impressions over the last 30 days. And our total impressions on YouTube are 14, 112. So that's just how many eyeballs spy one of our videos on YouTube as they're scrolling or whatever.

[00:09:40] Steve: that's like they saw the thumbnail.

[00:09:43] Tyler: I believe

so. Yeah. And we've got seven YouTube subscribers and that's way more, that's, I don't know where they came from. I love it. So I do know I have at least one friend.

I'm going to give a shout out here to my friend, Marcus, who's been a devoted listener and his preferred platform is YouTube. So thanks, Marcus. He, he always

sends [00:10:00] me nice messages after he listens to our podcast. So we couldn't do, we couldn't do it without people like that.

[00:10:06] Steve: That's nice to hear. Yeah, it is always fun to get feedback

[00:10:09] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:10:10] Steve: Hey, I love what you're doing, or I feel like I. Know you, now that I've listened to you, which is kind of a weird

[00:10:18] Tyler: Yes.

[00:10:19] Steve: for someone to say that who doesn't know you, but, but I have experienced that on the other side as a listener.

[00:10:24] Tyler: A parasocial relationship. If you

[00:10:26] Steve: Uh, yeah, yeah.

That's the word, parasocial. Yeah.

Which episodes have received the most attention?
---

[00:10:30] Tyler: Um, I also thought it was interesting to see which of our episodes have received the most attention and it's different per platform. On YouTube, our top episode is called "Bookkeeping: YNAB versus QuickBooks." That's also the only episode that we've received. a YouTube comment on, and someone actually asked us like a legitimate question. It was crazy.

[00:10:52] Steve: Oh, okay.

[00:10:53] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:10:53] Steve: Not just like a drive by comment, but like actually,

[00:10:56] Tyler: Yeah. They had a

[00:10:57] Steve: actually about the subject matter,

[00:10:59] Tyler: and I [00:11:00] replied because I'm a good YouTuber, I guess. Um, and then after that is the, our book club episode on Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. And third place is the book club episode on the book called The Prosperous Coach. This is kind of interesting.

[00:11:18] Steve: Okay.

[00:11:19] Tyler: I suspect that that episode, and based on the comment that we got on that, uh, YNAB versus QuickBooks episode, that people are searching around for that, like how to do bookkeeping somehow, or like how, you know, which software to use, and somehow, somehow, some way. We got surfaced to a few people on that and they were interested in it. So kind of interesting. That's more of a

search driven thing, I think, as opposed to our podcast downloads on Transistor, which I can't explain, but our top episode there is also about bookkeeping. It's the episode eight, "Bookkeeping: What is it and why do it?"

Which is way back from June. It [00:12:00] was one of our earliest within the first

month or

[00:12:02] Steve: that was like right. Mm hmm. That is fascinating. The YouTube ones that you mentioned, uh, do seem like the titles would, uh, be well suited for keyword searches. Dave Ramsey, YNAB, Prosperous Coach. So, but that's, that's interesting about the bookkeeping one on Transistor.

[00:12:27] Tyler: Yeah. I mean, that's something for us maybe to consider. We have done basically zero SEO or marketing of this other than telling our friends and family, unless you've been doing stuff

so, uh, you know, that's one thing we could consider is, you know, doing, uh, titles of episodes that are a little more search friendly.

I, I don't know that we're interested in that, but it's something to consider.

[00:12:46] Steve: Yeah, possibly, but if nothing else, it is a signal, uh, that folks are interested in those topics. So maybe we should do more of like the practical

[00:12:57] Tyler: Talking

about

YNAB.

[00:12:59] Steve: a

[00:12:59] Tyler: [00:13:00] Oh, okay. Sorry. Yeah.

[00:13:00] Steve: Hey, I think we do plenty of, uh, talking about YNAB regardless that will happen anyway, organically. But yeah, like, uh, what kinds of things does it take to run a business, and the bookkeeping is a big one of them. How do you know what money is coming in and out of the business?

[00:13:22] Tyler: So yeah, I don't know if that's, those are the numbers. That's all I know. I don't really know what to make of it. I'm, I'm pleased that they are greater than zero and that they appear to be consistently growing, not exponentially or anything. Right. But you know, there's a, there's a continual flow of, of downloads and listening, so that's nice.

Oh

Advice for starting a podcast
---

[00:13:43] Steve: So given that, uh, if somebody were considering starting a podcast, what advice would you have for them at this point beyond consistency? And like, if it sounds interesting to you, try it and try it [00:14:00] consistently and see, uh, what

[00:14:02] Tyler: yeah. Uh,

my only advice really would be to think carefully about your purpose. Behind having a podcast, right? Because you're going to take different actions depending on what outcomes you're looking for. Like we just talked about, we're not out there trying to get sponsors and make money off of this.

This is more of an exercise in our own creativity and like ability to talk about our subject matters more fluently. And, you know, there's a lot of benefits to just doing it. So we have not done marketing. We haven't done SEO. We haven't done any of those things that I think if someone's goal was to grow a podcast, you would probably approach that differently.

It might be more about, um. Trying to understand your audience or your niche, like very specifically. And we do, we do have a niche, right. Um, and we're in that niche. The niche is basically people like us. So that's been pretty easy for us. Um, but like we haven't paid for [00:15:00] ads. We haven't, you know, other than just letting our friends and family know about it at the beginning, we haven't really pushed it or like done anything like that.

So I think you could grow a lot faster by doing things like that, but you'd only want to do that if you're, if your goal was like growth, does that make sense?

[00:15:16] Steve: uh, it does. Uh, I think interviewing guests is probably

[00:15:20] Tyler: Oh yes.

[00:15:21] Steve: growth strategy in that toolkit as well. We have done one interview and that was, uh, that was useful in that he brought his audience to the podcast a little bit as

[00:15:33] Tyler: That's right.

[00:15:34] Steve: and so if you get good guests that folks in your industry or your niche already know and they

they can drive traffic to you, that could be.

[00:15:42] Tyler: And that was very generous of him too, because we didn't have any audience at that point and still barely

do.

[00:15:48] Steve: did not.

And, and he barely knew me, but I have a lot of respect for him, uh, you know, before and after that. So, yeah, that was, that was good. We should do some more interviews

[00:15:59] Tyler: That would be fun. [00:16:00] That'd be really fun. Uh, uh, this is all I'm going to say about this, but Steve and I do keep a list of people who we'd love to have on the podcast. It's very aspirational. Let's just put it that way.

Our little, our heroes, our role models, so

maybe we'll have to work towards that, uh, next year.

Get better at it by doing it
---

[00:16:22] Tyler: I don't know. What about you? What would you say to someone who, or what, yeah, what, now that you're a sage? Experienced podcaster, what would you tell the people who might want to be doing a podcast themselves?

[00:16:37] Steve: Uh, I would say that the barrier to getting something out there of decent quality is probably lower than you think. The, the, the, the equipment was not that expensive. It, it didn't take a whole lot of time to learn how to edit and produce the podcasts and get it up onto [00:17:00] the right platforms. And especially like we started with a software platform called Alitu, which did, it was like all in one package, the recording and the editing and the publishing and the website.

And that was really helpful at the beginning. And we kind of outgrew it a little bit for their feature set. And so we diversified into these other tools, but, uh, it didn't, it didn't take a whole lot of effort to learn those skills to, you know, just good enough to get something out there. And then we've gotten better at it over time.

[00:17:32] Tyler: That's interesting. I would say what I hear and what you're saying is the hard part is actually starting to talk and record, not.

[00:17:41] Steve: Mm hmm.

[00:17:42] Tyler: out technically how to accomplish this. Because if you've got any kind of recording device, even your phone, honestly, this is so you could record stuff on your phone, probably edit it on your phone, or like there's, I know there's free, uh, audio editing software for computers and things like it's the hard part is just doing it, uh, [00:18:00] getting yourself to start talking, hit record. And, uh,

as we've learned, maybe, debatably, you, it, you'll, it'll be bad at first or, or not, not super fluent, maybe depending on your public speaking. I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, just go for it. That's interesting.

[00:18:17] Steve: Yeah. Well, and that's another good point that, uh, to get better at something, you have to do it. And the first ones that you do are necessarily going to be lower quality than once you are good at it.

[00:18:30] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:18:31] Steve: sounds kind of

[00:18:31] Tyler: Well.

[00:18:32] Steve: What am I trying to say? You got to get through, think of it as you're going to produce a bunch of bad things at the beginning.

Just power through it, do those things because that's how you'll learn to get better at it. And then you will get better

[00:18:45] Tyler: Yeah, that's interesting. I feel like for me personally, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this. Uh, it hasn't been linear either. Like there are episodes where I felt like really into it and like we were vibing and like things, conversation was happening and it was great [00:19:00] and smooth. And other times where, you know, it just was like, uh, I don't know.

I don't know if we quite. And I

don't really know what that depends on. It could be, I thought like maybe preparation sometimes, maybe, but maybe not. Maybe it's just like a board. It turns out we thought it would be interesting, but it wasn't that interesting to talk about. Or maybe we were tired that night or, you know what I mean?

I don't know. Just so yeah, it's, it's interesting. Yeah.

[00:19:27] Steve: Yeah, I think the ones that have turned out really well, where I felt like the, the artifact that we produced is a good, projection of our personality and our philosophy and our thoughts and ideas, uh, the ones that turned out the best are where we had a, a good topic with enough material to discuss, but we weren't too rigid about the, The outline going into it, like we both knew the material and we had things to say, but we weren't like trying to follow a slide deck.

[00:19:59] Tyler: I think for our [00:20:00] style of podcast, which is basically just conversation between two people, maybe that's what, yeah, I think you're right. I feel the same way. Those have been the most fun to record for me. I feel like they've also produced the best outcomes as opposed to where on some episodes I've tried to like put together an outline and make, make sure we cover this, make sure we cover that and like, there's nothing wrong with that, but, and there are whole types of videos and podcasts that are. Like that, right? Like they're educational, more like teaching or like lessons than just a conversation. So, and those ones for me were not quite as natural. I don't think I have developed that ability as much as just shooting the breeze as it were.

[00:20:37] Steve: Yeah. And interesting you say, uh, developing that skill because that. That again is something we can get better at, because I think it is useful for us to have those kinds of episodes, especially like for me as a tax pro, to be able to point potential clients to like, go listen to this episode if you have questions about like, do I need an LLC or an

[00:20:56] Tyler: Uh huh.

[00:20:57] Steve: kind of thing, just having those sort of evergreen [00:21:00] resources.

I want to have some of those in the podcast feed.

[00:21:04] Tyler: Absolutely.

[00:21:04] Steve: going to take some practice working on those to, to get good product out there.

[00:21:09] Tyler: Yeah, I agree. And I'm excited. Uh, at some point in the future, we're more planning on doing a little mini series, for example, on the YNAB method. And I'm excited for that because I think it's going to, that's something that comes up a lot in my business with clients

[00:21:24] Steve: Yeah,

[00:21:25] Tyler: um, Yeah, I'm just looking forward to practice it, continuing to practice talking about that in ways that like connect with people, if that makes sense, and, you know, to help them understand

and, and I think doing those episodes are going to be a great exercise in that for me,

[00:21:40] Steve: Yeah, I'm looking forward to that series.

Steve and Tyler's favorite episodes
---

[00:21:42] Tyler: Okay. So speaking of episodes that we felt went more smoothly and were a better final product than others, I'm, I've been dying to ask you this, Steve, of all the episodes

that we've recorded, well, or released, I should say so far, [00:22:00] what are some of your favorite ones and why?

[00:22:05] Steve: Uh, I'm glad you didn't ask me which, which one is my favorite because I, uh, I get hung up on that question. Like, wow, was it this one or this one? Analysis paralysis. Which ones? This is good. Okay. I have a few I could mention. Um, Episode 20, which was called Appliance Repairs, or What Is The Client Really Buying?

That one was fun. We talked about, like, me repairing all kinds of Uh, appliances around my house as a way to talk about when a client comes to hire you, what are they actually looking for? Are they looking for the, the thing? Are they looking for how to turn a screw in a driver, in a dryer? Uh, how to replace a belt?

Or are they looking for a working

[00:22:52] Tyler: That doesn't squeak

[00:22:53] Steve: that doesn't squeak?

Exactly.

[00:22:55] Tyler: You know, I actually thought about that episode recently. As I was [00:23:00] descaling my water heater, I was like, Steve would be proud of me.

[00:23:04] Steve: yeah.

[00:23:05] Tyler: So what was it about that episode that you liked so much?

[00:23:09] Steve: That was one where we were just kind of having fun telling stories, uh, but it also had like a useful takeaway, uh, of how to think about something differently in your business, in how you sell what it is you do.

[00:23:25] Tyler: Yeah, that's cool.

[00:23:26] Steve: Why don't you tell me one of your favorite episodes while I poke around at these

[00:23:31] Tyler: Sure. One of my favorite episodes, uh, more recently is episode 26, where you shared how things were going for you implementing the Getting Things Done method and just, you know, shared your experiences, ask some questions. And I was able to share some potential answers to those questions as someone who's done that method for a lot of years.

I, I just really enjoyed that one.

[00:23:53] Steve: Oh yeah, I liked that one a lot too.

[00:23:55] Tyler: It was really fun to, like, I, you know. [00:24:00] Just hear, hear what it's like for someone who's never read the book or done the method in its fullness before, like going through that. And it's fun to hear how much you were enjoying, like labeling your, your file folders and

also just kind of like, it was also, it was kind of validating to me because some of the questions that you were bumping into are questions that I. Faced and remember struggling with in the beginning for myself. And so it was kind of fun to, Hear about that and kind of share how I overcame them and yeah, that was a lot of fun for me.

[00:24:30] Steve: Mm, good, yeah. I, we should do, uh, probably another one of those in A few more months when I have some more experience under my belt

[00:24:39] Tyler: the weekly reviews.

[00:24:40] Steve: next, level of questions.

Okay.

[00:24:46] Tyler: And then I, I really also enjoyed the book club episodes because I just, I don't know, surprised. I, I've enjoyed that more than I expect to, expected to. If reading a book as the same time as someone else and kind of discussing what we learned from it, that's been, that's been [00:25:00] pretty fun for me.

[00:25:01] Steve: Right. I've never been part of like an actual book club. Uh, so I do, I do enjoy that of the shared experience of we're reading this thing together and then discussing what we got out of it. And we get different things out of it.

And that's always interesting to

[00:25:19] Tyler: it really is. Yeah.

[00:25:21] Steve: Another one of my favorites was Creativity and the Drive to Create. This was episode 23. This one, uh, was just like a good, I felt very real in the conversation. The two of us, real humans out here trying to make

[00:25:38] Tyler: which we are, by the way, this is not an AI generated podcast.

[00:25:43] Steve: Yeah. Uh, yeah, just, um, like making something in the world. It's, it's very fulfilling, you know, even if nobody ever listens to it, which it turns out there are people actually listening to us. I joke all the time that nobody listens to this podcast, but [00:26:00] maybe, maybe some people actually are, but even if it was just for you and me practicing our craft of explaining what it is we do and, uh, you know, talking through these kinds of issues that individual people and business owners and solopreneurs have, because that is useful for us.

in our, our work, you know, even if it was just for that, it's been very beneficial to me.

[00:26:24] Tyler: Yeah. And I feel like that concept of the creativity and the drive to create, I think we both relate to that. We've talked about it on various episodes and things like that. That is something that this is fulfilling for both of us, regardless of what happens, right? So that's cool. That's cool. Any other ones you wanted to recall or think about?

[00:26:48] Steve: Uh, I also liked the book club episodes. I think Psychology of Money has been one of my favorite books that I've read this

[00:26:55] Tyler: Oh yeah.

[00:26:57] Steve: Uh, it was just a very, [00:27:00] useful way of understanding not only The way I think about money, but the ways other people might think about money. And that, that knowing that needs to inform how I interact with them,

uh, because everybody has a different experience and perception of what money is and what it is supposed to do and what it is not supposed to do. And that spills over into the way they live their life, the way they run their business.

[00:27:26] Tyler: Yeah. I was something I remember from that episode specifically was that, you know, your personal experience with how money works represents like 0. 000000, whatever 1%. Of the entire human experience of how money works. Right. But it

also forms like probably over 80 percent of how you believe and think money works. So it's just another way of saying like, yeah, we all have our own individual experience. It was a good reminder, right. That no one really

does anything. Well, maybe this is too generous. No one, no one does [00:28:00] things because they're stupid. That's not necessarily a true statement, but no one makes money decisions, you know, uh, without it making sense to them at the time that they make the decision.

[00:28:09] Steve: Right.

Yeah.

[00:28:10] Tyler: So, well, cool. That's awesome.

[00:28:14] Steve: Yeah. A lot of favorite episodes.

[00:28:16] Tyler: That's a good sign. I think, I think that's a good sign.

[00:28:19] Steve: I think so.

Episodes that changed Tyler's perspective
---

[00:28:20] Tyler: There were just two. I know this is kind of getting to be a long part of this segment. And I guess we like our episodes. What can I say? But there were two that I wanted to call out, not because I necessarily liked them, although I did, but because they actually like really impacted me and made me realize something or like, think about things in it, like a way I grappled with, you know what I mean?

And one of those was, uh, to niche or not to niche. Because

that's been a huge struggle for me starting this business is figuring out what is my niche and should I you know, should I spin my wheels, trying to find that before I do anything else? And, or should I just move forward and maybe find it organically?

Like, this is still a question that like I'm still grappling with. So that one was really impactful for me.[00:29:00]

And then the, uh, one of our more recent episodes where we, uh, talked about our business finances for 2023, you know, roughly a year into our businesses or, or more, I guess at this point, I just. And I've listened back to it and I don't feel like it came across, which is fine.

Cause it was like internal, but I just remember being like, Whoa, I do. There's so much. I don't know. And I think you had a phrase for like, uh, ignorance. What was it? Um,

[00:29:28] Steve: The Orders

of

[00:29:29] Tyler: of Ignorance.

that has resonated with me. And it was so cool to be like, wow. Okay. So now I've got like a year or so. Yeah. Now I've got some time under my belt and just starting to know what I don't know. Just barely

[00:29:44] Steve: That is really interesting.

[00:29:46] Tyler: anyway.

[00:29:47] Steve: That's another way of saying that, uh, the way you learn about something is doing it because there's, there's a, it feels like this fractal complexity of [00:30:00] you, the more you learn about something, the more, Uh, the more complexity you discover underneath it, and as, and then as you dig down into each of those things, they become fractally complex as well.

Like, there's always something to learn as you go further and further down the levels and get more and more experience.

[00:30:18] Tyler: Yep.

[00:30:18] Steve: That one, that episode, uh, about the, sort of the business financial retrospective. Felt very vulnerable. And I think it will be super interesting to listen back to in a year or two years or five years from now to be like, Oh, look how far we've come.

[00:30:34] Tyler: Yeah. We'll see if I was, uh, you know, I was pretty confident about the fact that I was going to have revenue next year. So that'll be fun to see if, if that

materializes.

[00:30:44] Steve: Does that, yeah.

[00:30:46] Tyler: Well, good. Hopefully these thoughts have been, you know, helpful or interesting. I, if there's anyone out there who feels like we did that the, the itch to create something. You know, [00:31:00] there's lots of ways to do it. Podcast is one of them. And now, you know, a little bit more about our experience doing it.

[00:31:05] Steve: And and it might be podcasting for you. It might be blogging. It might be, I mean, it might just be building the business cause there's, there's so much to learn there too, and, and practice and discover. So, but whatever it is, like if you're, if you are having that, that drive, that itch, I say, try it out, see what you can find,

[00:31:28] Tyler: Yeah. The worst thing that could happen is nothing. So,

[00:31:31] Steve: nothing,

[00:31:32] Tyler: what do you think? I think

that's,

[00:31:33] Steve: or you, lose some

[00:31:34] Tyler: or you lose some

[00:31:35] Steve: which both of us have

[00:31:36] Tyler: Yes, true. The worst thing that could happen is that you lose some money and that's, that's our experience so far, but

[00:31:44] Steve: which is, which is not nothing, but, uh, in the, in the grand scheme of the vision that both of us have for our individual businesses, I, I think it will be well worth it.

[00:31:57] Tyler: it's an initial investment in something that should pay [00:32:00] dividends in the future. So. Well, good. I think that's a good place to leave it.

[00:32:05] Steve: All right. Thanks for tuning in. Uh, you can email us hello at notaboutmoney. com and we'll see you again in another episode of It's Not About The Money.