From Microphone to Movement: The Psychedelic Podcast Masterclass

One on One Video Call W/George
https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meeting

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Podcast Mastery: From Idea to Impact

The world is flooded with voices — but only a few know how to create something that truly resonates.

If you’ve ever dreamed of hosting your own podcast — or if you already have one and want to level up your craft — this is your moment.

Join a powerhouse panel of experienced podcasters, producers, and media creators as they pull back the curtain on what it really takes to build, grow, and sustain a high-impact show.

From pre-production strategy to high-quality interviews, from marketing magic to post-production polish, you’ll learn how to shape every phase of your podcast with purpose, clarity, and professionalism.
💡 

What You’ll Learn:

• How to craft a powerful podcast from vision to voice
• Secrets of pre-production and guest curation
• The tech, tools, and setups that make your show shine
• The art of asking unforgettable questions
• Promotion, distribution, and audience growth strategies
• Post-production workflows that keep your show sounding world-class

Featuring conversations with:

🎧 Brian Holler — Beard Bros Media | Beard Bros Pharms
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianholler

http://www.beardbrospharms.com/

https://form.asana.com/?k=446qDUAAC30RMQv3qucq5g&d=1201296811744852

🎧 Kat Walsh — Life With Kat Walsh

https://triponthispodcast.com/

http://www.instagram.com/lifewithkatwalsh

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-with-kat-walsh/id1617143220

🎧 George Monty — TrueLife Podcast

🎧 Cesar Marin — Cultivating Wisdom

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cesar-marin1

https://www.microdosingover50.com/free-e-book

MicrodosingOver50.com

🎧 Christian Gray — Podcasting Community Connector
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianlgray

One on One Video call W/George
https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meeting

Support the show:
https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US

Check out our YouTube:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Creators and Guests

Host

George Monty

My name is George Monty. I am the Owner of TrueLife (Podcast/media/ Channel) I’ve spent the last three in years building from the ground up an independent social media brandy that includes communications, content creation, community engagement, online classes in NLP, Graphic Design, Video Editing, and Content creation. I feel so blessed to have reached the following milestones, over 81K hours of watch time, 5 million views, 8K subscribers, & over 60K downloads on the podcast!

What is TrueLife?

TrueLife is a story-driven documentary podcast that explores the invisible threads connecting us to each other, the world, and the mysteries of life. Every episode uncovers extraordinary journeys, human transformation, and the relationships that shape our stories.

all right awesome we're all here live today to talk about podcasts and we've got people with different perspectives uh folks who have been podcasting about higher consciousness about tripping about plant medicine about cannabis and uh since i know these folks and i've watched them hone their craft over the last few years I just felt like it was time to share some of their wisdom with others. You know, I'm sure there's a joke somewhere about two folks walk into a bar and one of them is a podcaster. I don't know how that goes. We've gone from zero podcasts. There was a point in time where there was zero podcasts in the world. And now, you know, there's millions of them. And there's a lot of data that supports how many millions there are. And you can imagine with the long tail, there's some that get a lot of looks and a lot of views and a lot of traffic and some that don't. So let's kick it off today. I'm Christian Gray, aka Gray Matter. We can unpack that later. But what I was hoping is we just go around the room real quick, give everybody kind of a one-minute intro, kind of focused or emphasizing what you're up to in the podcast world. And then we're just going to have a really interesting conversation about podcasting, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So Kat, why don't you kick us off? Sure. And hey, everyone. Thanks, Christian. I started my podcasting journey in twenty twenty. The world shut down and I was like, this would be a good time to pick up, pick up a new hobby, which actually for me was really the start of a new life when I launched Trip On This, which is my psychedelic podcast. Trip On This has been going for four years. It's currently on hiatus and it's changed my life. Yeah. I mean, through and through every bit of my life is different because of that journey and the people I've met in it, now being a host and a DJ, and honestly, just getting to be a creative person in the world because I just took this crazy leap on myself to begin. And then I have another podcast called Life with Kat, which is going to be rebranded and relaunched next year as Kat's Meow Podcast. So that's me. Thank you. Awesome. Cesar, what you got? Awesome. I'm Cesar Marin. I'm the founder and owner of Cultivating Wisdom, which is a platform for people to obtain honest, open and objective information about microdosing and about psychedelics. I have a podcast called the Love You Wealth Podcast. The podcast is dedicated to men to sort of focus on looking at life, not in the sense of chasing F you wealth, but chasing love you wealth, right? That wealth that sort of fills your heart. And as long as you have what you need, everything else is a blessing. So I come from a broadcast background. I was a producer for a tv producer uh before getting into the psychedelic space i spent twenty five years at cnn so have now brought my twenty five year experience of of mass media uh into my own ecosystem my own platform my own network um and also you know trying to help people um figure out the best ways to navigate uh you know either being on screen or getting their message across Awesome. Thanks for sharing. And yeah, your background in television and producing is definitely playing a role in what you're up to. Brian, why don't you break it down? You're part of the team that I think has some of the largest reach and biggest impact in the cannabis space and beyond. So love having you here. Oh, well, appreciate it, Christian. Good to be here with everybody. I'm Brian Haller, Chief Revenue Officer of Beard Bros Farms and Media. We are a product line and a media company, really, when it comes down to it. But yes, how those play off of each other and all the different channels that we've grown into. I myself have been helping businesses grow for quite some time. I've produced. I don't know, somewhere in the neighborhood of I'm no shit, like, thirty podcasts, probably something to that effect. We currently do eight of them each month, and we have different hosts in the space that, you know, sort of have specialties and they have clients on them. for us it's developing a channel uh you know to continue to gain exposure in all channels for uh for people and then of course of course it's important for us to push forward all these positive and good strong messages about plant medicine fungus etc um and the whole sort of lifestyle that's associated with it and uh fortunately we're in a position where we are able to cover quite a lot of that and uh continue to grow into connecting the dots for sort of for lack of a better term uh mainstream audiences or you know more sort of larger plays it's just you know ultimately the i think the goal for all of us is to um at least have the whole world know about plant medicine and fungus and these products and how it's going to grow and the history and where we're going to go um so we aim for that and so uh and yeah and we try to help people um be informed and plants grow along the way think you're muted over there christian what you got george first off i'm so stoked to be here with every one of you each one of you is a legend in your own right i've gotten to see all your guys work i'm super stoked to be here i'm george monte true life podcast i got eight hundred and fifty episodes ranked top five of all podcasts been doing it since twenty nineteen I love learning and talking to people. And I feel like the podcast makes me an eternal student where I get to learn from so many unique people, from people at the top of their field to people just beginning to people in the struggle. I love psychedelics. I've used them almost my whole life going on, thirty plus years. I'm excited to be here today. Thank you. Awesome. Well, thank you all for being here and sharing some wisdom, not to riff too much off Caesar's cultivating wisdom, but I think there's just so many people that want to start a podcast or you are hanging out, I don't know, around a fire or maybe smoking something and someone's like, I have a great idea for a podcast or this guy would be an awesome guest or this or that. and you know i've been one of those people five years ago gray matter we're going to start the gray matter podcast and i have the google docs with here are the guests and here's our vibe and here's who's going to help me and i won't name names because it never happened but know i was given the opportunity uh very much thank you to george to kind of do a few co-labs to just see what it's about like get in front of the camera get brutal feedback from friends about what you're doing wrong and the ugly pauses and where's the camera and how's the lighting so i really wanted to focus this talk today or the conversation on either Brand noobs, never recorded, never been in front of the camera and some basics like what they should be thinking about. And then there's a number of other people joining us that have been doing podcasts for a while and we can all up level our game. So we can spin it around the room. Maybe one of you, one or two of you can just chime in. And like, if you are brand, brand new, like this was, you know, maybe twenty twenty six is your year. You're starting to get ready for it. What should you be thinking about and what are some of the key things you can do to prepare to make it successful or have come out of the gates running? So, Kat, let's go back to you and then we'll bounce it around. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think so much so much of podcasting is about first planning. and not rushing in, I think it's very easy to think that you're just like, I just need a mic and a friend to talk to. And it's so much more intricate than that. I would say however much time you think it might take, it's probably three to four times more than that. And so planning is really going to be the thing that helps. George, you and I were talking about banking episodes, right? first of all, what's your why? Like, why are you doing this? And I think really being honest with your why is going to be one of the biggest, it's going to help define what your strategy is. Because, you know, if you're, if you're just like, you know, I just want to, I'm a coach and I want to, you know, become a thought leader in this space. And I want to share some of my thoughts in depth, but you're not, your goal is not maybe to become the next Joe Rogan. That might actually inform if you're once a week or twice a week, like some of the Beardboro stuff, right? Where if that's about media, it's a much bigger commitment. And so I think getting very clear on what is your why, what would you like to happen, knowing that you can build on it. But what happens often with podcasting is people find out much more goes into it and then they give up early. And so if you can set yourself up for success, bank a lot of those episodes, start with your community, start with who you know. you know, before you jump in when you're talking about guests and thinking about how can you make it fun for yourself? I mean, really and truly, I think, you know, if being a lifelong learner, like George is saying, and wanting to do this, whether or not, ten people listen or a hundred thousand people listen. If it's still a yes for you, then it's just putting that plan together. And thanks to AI, I didn't have AI when I started a trip on this. So it was flying by the seat of my pants, folks. And I learned a lot in the process. But now we have so many resources and tools to be like, what is my plan? How many people should I be reaching out to? What is that process? I actually have a full-on checklist, but I'm going to stop here and I can talk about that later for anybody to just to go down a checklist of what do I need to think about even before I go into my strategy. So that's what I would say. Your why, why you want to do this. Yeah. What's your why makes me think about Simon Sinek. If you've never seen his piece on YouTube and what you're really, really powerful and bringing it back to, you have to really want to do this, whether you're making a dollar or a dime or a peso or a Euro, because if you're looking, if money is your primary motivation, you may not be at it very long. Yeah. That's not what it's, you know, I also think that, um, Good people, smart, intelligent people tend to overthink everything. So there's part of me that while I completely agree with Kat, it's a lot more than just take, throw on the mic and let's rock and roll. You do need to have a little bit of strategy, a content plan. Why the hell do I even do this? So yes, I do think there's some structure, but I also think people overthink it and overanalyze. At a point, just flip the damn switch on and get rocking. Make your mistakes. Get out there. It's like Christian was saying. I still struggle with ums and stuff like that. It makes me cringe every time. The thing is, other people don't notice it as much. except for people looking for them that are going to give you advice and take it for god's sake there's also tons of tools so if you don't know like if you're listening to a podcast like actually and you're not watching people and you're like damn nobody ever says um ah or like pauses They do, folks. They're just editing. There's AI that can literally just edit that out. So you're going to sound so dialed by the time you're talking. It's only on video. And even now with video, honestly, you're just going to see a lot of chip chops along the way. But yeah, if ums and ahs are a problem for you, there are solutions as well. Well, everybody's awkward. You know what I'm saying? It's like there's no one that doesn't think... really that I've ever met that isn't sort of like even the most like sort of front facing, you know, person is they still in their head a little bit or like, you know, I don't feel it today. All that good stuff. Like it's so normal. Like just, you know, like everybody's nervous. It's the one, the first time you jumped off the high dive, did you just go do it? No, you got up there and you're like, holy shit. All right, here we go. Come on, come on, come on, come on. And you did it right. That's how it is. And so that's okay. And it's okay to be that way. But yes, don't stall out because if you really want it, that's going to really mess with you. Like, you know, if you are that person that Kat pointed out, like you are about this, this is for you, right? That's going to mess you up too if you don't like just go, you know. There's really, I've noticed with even with George and I, I did a series of podcasts. This was twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen during kind of the first round of the hemp bill passing and a lot of hemp seed and genetics moving into mainstream agriculture and we did a series of podcasts some of them had several hundred people register you know we have a hundred plus farmers and they're giving us their precious time and wanting to take care of them and the dynamic tension i've seen with george and i is like i want to do a tech call and a prep check and a choreography and let's talk about like just get on and hit the button like so Totally. Yeah. And there's there's different approaches to everything. So, you know, where do you fall on that on that spectrum? Caesar, is it get prepped, show up or something else? I love that you sort of pose it that way. And I tell a lot of people this. Look, when I started working in broadcasting. um you literally needed a studio you needed cameras you needed a control room you needed a director you needed to get it up to a satellite you needed to buy satellite space and you needed to then buy time on a network to get your message across now literally all we need is this that's right but the same way that CNN or a news station can have a program. If you're going to commit to doing a podcast, you have to be the same way. There has to be consistency. There has to be some time put into it. There has to be some structure. You can't just, you know, let's turn on, let's just, shoot the shit, you know, because then one day you have a ten-minute podcast. The next week you have a four-hour podcast, right? So whereas with that planning, with that preparation, and with that consistency, that's how you can really grow that podcast. And I love what you said, Christian, earlier where it's like if you're thinking, oh, my God, I have a great, you know, topic for a podcast. I have a great idea. You know, let's do it, and we're going to make a whole bunch of money. That's not going to happen. That's not going to happen. That's not going to happen. Consistency, right? Huberman has been on for such a long time. It's been consistent. His topics are consistent. Joe Rogan, consistent. It's consistency. And that doesn't mean you have to do a podcast every day. But just be consistent. Be consistent with your message. Be consistent with your offering. I think that once you do that and you sort of figure that out, and like you said, you plan. And I love what Kat said. There's a lot of AI tools that we can use, right? I don't have to sit here and go, oh, my God, I got to come up with twenty shows. No, this is my idea. These are some of the guests that I have. What topics can I come up with? It's a little bit easier than when I sort of got into production, into television and into broadcasting. So there's a lot of these wonderful tools that we can use, but it's always that consistency. In other words, CNN, even if there was a day there was not great news or breaking news, you still had to do a newscast. You still had to be part of it. And I think that's how you grow your audience. And I think the other thing is personal stories. Like that's what, you know, Almost everybody has a podcast, but what is it about your podcast? What is it about your story that sets you apart from everyone else that's out there? I think that that's it. Find your niche, find your story, find your why, and then be consistent with it. I think it's interesting to hear your perspective because in the old timey days, we didn't have it. I think the whole prep and then consistency, you and I have gone around around a little bit about like length of podcast. Right. And, you know, Lex Freeman's got a pretty popular podcast and that dude, I've listened on drives between Los Angeles and NorCal, you know, six hour podcasts on AI where Lex is going deep and six hours is a lot now. back to the editing sometimes i'll listen at one point five because i can still get most of the content and and crush how long it takes to get through it but talk a little bit about how you like to just let the conversation evolve or how long to let it roll and maybe we can get some perspectives from the rest Yeah, I see the spoken word as an art form. And if you're going to start a podcast, whether you're a business or whether you're an individual, you're pretty much an artist. And the people that are going to come to your audience is going to be people that are attracted to you, to your voice, to your content, whether you're Lex Friedman that has this genius ability to talk to some of the most incredible people in the world and take from them, whether it's Kanye West or whether it's somebody from Harvard who's speaking about neuroscience, that guy has an incredible incredible ability to bring about information that is contagious to the listeners. But it's so true for anybody that's going to start a podcast. You are a beautiful person. No matter anybody within the sound of my voice, you have a gift. You have something unique about you and you have to have the courage to let that fly. And I think that that sort of ability to have the courage to believe in yourself and to believe in others is how long the conversation is going to last. A good conversation for me is an hour. It's so difficult to bring about something beautiful out of somebody else in fifteen or ten minutes. And if you look at some of the popular podcasts, they're kind of going off the old methodology of we're going to cram everything into ten minutes. Well, what is a ten-minute story? A ten-minute story is a bunch of facts with no real adjectives behind them. And that's not a very good story for me. I think each conversation has its own sort of time frame. And the better the conversation, even though it may be long, it feels like a really short amount of time. So it just depends on who you're talking to. And like Kat said earlier, it depends on why. Like, why are you having this conversation? What's the point of this conversation? It's different for a business than an individual. A business may want to They may want to talk to some of their distributors and figure out why their products are good. An individual might just want to go solo and tell a story. So it's really dependent upon the individual and what message they're trying to get across. I think it's also important in the sense that if you have a guest, you know who your guest is. Not to the point where you have questions, right? Because then it turns into a Q&A. And I think the best podcasts are the ones that are like we talked about, George, conversations. And the best way to have a conversation is one, knowing who your guest is, knowing facts of them, And then just have conversations by listening instead of sort of, okay, what's my next question? I got to ask my next question and you're not engaging, you're not listening. Let the questions come from listening to what the guest is saying. Have that conversation. Don't make it, you know, this is me at Q&A, I'm going to bring in a guest and then I'm just going to ask him these questions, you know, and I've been a guest on several podcasts and the ones that sort of are red flags to me are the ones that, can you give us five questions that you want us to ask you? Right. So I got a question because it's real time. I'm curious. You know, there's all these vanity matrix or metrics out there, whether it's, you know, number of views, number of followers, ad nauseum. And, you know, analytics matter and folks want to grow their base, et cetera. But I would love to literally go around the room and maybe we'll start this time with you, Brian, and then get to the others. Can you recall a moment where you got. a warm fuzzy or a real sense of personal satisfaction because somebody heard one of your podcasts and then they brought it up to you, right? It's not a click. It's not a like, it's like a real world in the three D someone goes, holy beep. I'd never had heard that before, or that was amazing. Thank you for sharing or getting it out there. Yeah. Um, there's, I fortunately have a handful of those, you know, or, or a nice good handful of those. I suspect George, especially in cat while I have a bunch of shit on everybody on this call has a bunch of these examples, of course. Um, and so, um, Hey, that's always pledged. That's always awesome. Cause that's what you want. You want like first person feedback. Yo, I heard it. I love this. Oh my God. Of course. I, you know, you know, that's sort of what you're aiming for. Of course. Right. Um, But it's also more important, I think, to aim for that as opposed to worry about those vanity metrics. On top of that, technology and everybody is able to analyze things a lot better now. So your network and its worth are very easily understood now where they weren't before, and it was a volume game. It's not the case any longer. People don't know that, but it's the truth. You don't need to – you can build out – Whatever your community is, it's going to be valuable for you. So ultimately, that's basically what you're trying to build is a community. I don't care if you're a human just trying to talk to people about whatever it is that, you know, in your heart to, you know, be structured and talk about whether it's, you know, hey, I'm a single mom. And here's what it's like to be a single mom or, you know, something like that versus business, as George was saying, but still the same thing. You want to build that community and you want to really nurture that community. You don't want to worry about too much everybody else outside of it, but you do want to have bells and whistles so they can get triggered and come on in and join, of course, right? So that's marketing and promotion and strategically having certain guests on and co-promoting and all that good stuff. But it really just comes down to what everybody's been saying on this podcast here. which is it really matters what's in your heart what you want to do and really if you give a crap about what you're talking about whether it's from a business or a personal standpoint the people who mess with you especially first especially when you're first starting those become super duper valuable um and you don't have to worry about what the perception is because now the powers that be and the tools and everything are geared towards this So you don't have to worry. If you just continue to do what you're supposed to do, those things you sort of want to grow into will come to you. They will come as long as you commit, you're consistent to Caesar and George and everybody's point, and you really are about it. That's really what it is. You have to be committed, but you also have to be about it. You really do have to want it at a really You have to want to grow that community. You really do. You have to nurture it, not just through great podcasting, but through nurturing. Like, hi, here's what we did, and here's what's going on, and co-promotion, but promotion directed towards that community. because you're learning about what your audience wants to see. And of course, that's always just a nice balance for you, right? Like it's your go, so you choose, but you got to listen to that data from your community and what they want to hear. And sometimes people have a hard time pivoting or adjusting in that way. I think you should really listen and be more sort of fluid in how you're building your community. Cesar, do you have a story? I mean, you've touched so many different people in different ways, especially, I think, folks that are on the other end of the age spectrum, right? Like some of your audience. Do you have any kind of anecdotes? The first Love You Wealth podcast that we did, which, I mean, I think I set the bar so high with our first guest, which was Rick Doblin, the founder and president of MAPS. And it was just... getting the sense of having a conversation with him as just a human. It wasn't about drug trials. It wasn't about what MAPS is doing next. It was just him as a human being that was incredibly special. And it was good to hear from people who know Rick or know whatever and to say, hey, I didn't know that about him. You know what I mean? That's the first time I heard about that. I think that that sort of made it, that podcast in particular, special. And even though I was like, fan geeking the whole time, you know, because it's sort of fanboying the whole time. It was this genuineness about having, again, this conversation with this person who has done so much, especially for what we're trying to sort of be advocates for, the non-stigma and acceptance of psychedelics, to really have that conversation with someone who's done so much was really humbling to me. It was really one of those moments that I always held special. That's awesome. Kat, what about you? One of your shows that really made an impact or somebody spoke to you directly about it? Yeah. I, I just want to say like, even, even I have one story that I really can't wait to tell, but just even, I remember when I saw like a hundred subscribers, like on some, on my, the first time I got to see that just really taking, um, a second to be like, for someone to give an hour of their time to you, um, isn't a huge, is a huge thing actually. And, It's so easy to look at and how important that hundred is. And obviously this is the human mind as you get bigger and it starts becoming in, you know, more zeros get tacked on. You start thinking like a hundred, you know, like that, that's something that's obviously needs to check. But really thinking like one hundred people decided to give their day to me or, you know, one full hour because you could actually see the metrics. And I was like, wow. So just that alone was like, girl, you're doing it like, wow. When I really, really felt that, though, was I so much of where I speak in my world was is in the world of like rave culture and dance music. It's a huge part of my life. And I had Claude Von Stroke on my show as a big house music producer and DJ. And I went to a festival called Dirty Bird Campout. And it was my first big in-person press piece that I was doing for them, interviewing people for the podcast, being invited there was press, like, you know, having all the bells and whistles because of it. And I was this was like after work now and I'm just dancing. I'm alone, having a great time. And this woman comes up to me in her cute little rave outfit. She goes, are you Kat Walsh? And I was like, yes. She goes, yes. and starts to cry to me and said your podcast has changed my life i've now come out of the closet around psychedelics i've told my family about how they've changed my life like you've given me the courage to talk about it she brings over she goes i need you to meet my boyfriend like her boyfriend comes over i felt like the biggest celebrity of all time and it just was like man like here i am just talking about how psychedelics literally changed my life And the fact that I knew in that moment that I was on this individual level of giving permission for others to come out of the closet, because that is how we just destigmatize psychedelics as a whole, was just huge. And the last little bit I want to say is on my other podcast, which is much smaller, I feel like I was talking to just such smaller numbers in comparison to Trip On This, which is how most people know me. But Life With Kat was very, very personal to me. Obviously, it's about my life and my spiritual journey and everything. And a woman who, kind of like your Rick Doblin, Cesar, she, this is how you never know with like miracles. I get suddenly like reposted about how everyone needs to listen to Life with Kat. And she had like, five hundred thousand followers on her thing. Like she's, she was already someone really doing it. And somehow my quote little story with having this like small podcast where I didn't even know how to market it, you know? was touching her in such a profound way that she's sharing it on her story for other people to listen to and and that's what i always say to people is like you really don't know how miracles and and the way this this thing works like there's no to-do list for some of the incredible blessings that have come into my life by just saying yes i'm gonna start and see what happens and uh it's exciting Yeah, it's really interesting to me. So much of the plant medicine, psychedelic cannabis space has been led by outlaws and the underground and all these people that They're George's people, if you didn't know. Just burn it all down. But the ability to share authentically things that can be scary or were shame-based or people talking about their prison time or putting their family at risk, real risk, real personal risk. And what's the risk in telling stories? There's a risk in being out in front of your community, out in front of your family. And it's not for everybody. So, you know, I think this is a good place to pivot. Jesse's got a brilliant question. And you want to go first? I was going to say, yeah, I was actually going to feed off of what you were just saying, Christian, and look at Jesse's question. Jesse, look, at the end of the day, it's someone's opinion. And the only opinion that matters is yours. That's it, you know? um criticism is always going to come and criticism comes when you're doing something well when someone oh whatever she's doing this but you know i mean it's this but and that's fine criticism is fine it's all good and it and it i think it's when we learn from the criticism because we can say hey you know what no that's not what it's about or hey you know what maybe they maybe there's a point there When we look at that negative or that criticism as something positive or how can I use that negative to my positive? Because then if they want to be negative and they want to be sour and they want to have that energy and that vibration of being negative, that's up to them. That's up. That's on them. But for me, how can I use whatever someone's throwing at me negatively to see how maybe, oh, yeah, you know what? Or they're making a point and I can do better. Or you know what? eat shendai it's my podcast i'm gonna do what i want yeah yeah like it if you and here's the thing if they're watching it they're watching it if they're commenting because they watch this that's right you must be doing something right if they're if people are barking at you that way um that said if the majority of people are barking at you that way and then maybe that's something you need to look at and analyze for yourself But the other side of that is I don't think like when you're that vulnerable. Right. And when you're putting yourself out there like that and then people cut on you as a result of that, that's tough at first. Like Jesse's question is very appropriate. You know, how do I get thick enough skin? It's just by repetition and doing it and not internalizing what you see. That's a big one. That is not you. What they're saying has almost zero to do with you often. It more has to do with them. It has a lot of different things that are going on. To Cesar's point, you should a hundred percent look at what they're saying, but take it as feedback if you can, regardless of how it was delivered. right that's a that's one thing that i you know a not everybody's articulate some people understand clickbait or whatever or just trying to get a little buzz to or they just don't have to like you know ask you a question in a way that's you know appropriate maybe they're triggered by something you said they reacted you know what i mean like that's those are things that you have to remember that are going on with those people You know, in their case, you should go a little deeper into this because because what I'm kind of hearing from you folks is like constructive criticism or people are taking a shot at you about this or that. George, have you ever had a personal attack where someone's like, what are you talking about? Yeah. when it comes to podcasting there's a lot of shit that you don't even know what you're talking about you're gonna get on the mic and you're gonna say all kinds of things you're gonna realize i'm a fucking retard i should not have said that It's probably the most important part, though, because you have to understand like you don't know, like you're going to go on and talk as if you you you're a expert in something, but you're not like you are a person with an opinion. And there are really, really intelligent people out there that know exactly what they're talking about. So if you get some negative feedback, you should be like, oh, shit, I need to read up on this. Is this person right? Like that negative feedback. And you guys all know this. You can get a thousand great comments, but it's that one negative comment. Like, why don't say. that how come they said i don't even like this person you go through that whole defense mechanism of like these people are wrong but that's that's where the gold is where you stumble is where you find the gold is so when you get that kind of feedback jesse that's gold like who is this person what are they talking about what don't i know And that's a good invitation to invite that person on and have a real discussion with them. That's where the good content is, that sort of discrepancy in what you know. That's what people want to see. They want to see the conflict. It's nice to talk about things that are flowery and beautiful, but that conflict is contagious. People love that. They want to learn. And that's where the learning is done, in my opinion. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that's the real conversations that happen is when you have diverse opinions. If everybody's all singing from the same hymnal about everything all the time, it's not the most interesting conversation. So it's good to have diverse opinions today. Do you guys want to talk a little bit? Cause I think you touched on it, Brian, but you know, how do you grow your base? Like how do people find you? Is it word of mouth? Is it an email campaign? Is it socials? Is it the AI in the sky? Like how do people find out about your podcast and, and do you even put effort and time into growing it? It depends. Yes, we do because, you know, ultimately the, the, the channel itself, right? Like just podcasting in general, such a valuable one. And people, it's very easy to like, people love those conversations where they're in a B to B situation or individuals. So, yeah. the way that we do that is fortunately we have a lot of different channels that we you know uh maximize and so we're able to co-promote promote like work it into the equation of our own dna and our own uh in our own processes but also with our clients as well um and so you know how do you do that well people like we we keep it basically like people who are who are on the show are not paying to be on the show There's a whole nother topic. That's a whole nother topic. But you can promote us though, or you can promote our network and be seen, right? So there's a fine line there and that's for other people to decide. This is not like, I'm not here to tell you how to monetize your platform, but ultimately that's how we parse it because we're a trusted media outlet. So I feel comfortable saying, yep, you know, these people are collaborators so they can collaborate. These people pay and our job is try to make sure that the audience is still respected and that the sort of tone and voice is still that sort of bearded rose feel, right? And as long as you do that, I think you can do a lot, right? And so ultimately it's a matter of marketing yourself, yes, but there's a lot of innovative ways to do that, right? Like Kat Walsh would have a different approach than what we do to a degree because she's Kat, and so she her brand her she hi is the business right whereas me brian pauler i'm a nice accentuation to the beard bros platform right i'm a leader in the board right so i i personal brand i you know and i promote in that way right or uh we strategically um yes if we like a prospect or somebody that really has a good following and we feel like we can get them on a show yes You know, we want to make sure that we can promote to their audience, too, because it's about not only that pro promotion, but that merging of audiences to George's point earlier, confrontation or discussions that are, you know, contentious. I mean, that does work, too. But but if there's a nice debate point there. that makes a lot of sense for everybody. That's where the sweet spot is, I think, because you can still co-promote and everybody's friendly, but you have enough of a difference where it's like, hey, this is important to talk about. We really need to drill into this because this is common in our space, right? And so that's how basically we market, you know, it's word of mouth, but it's also paid ads and it's also, you know, it's also pushing forward on email and social and making sure that you're maximizing clips and things like that to a degree, right? If you don't record live, then that gives you some advantages and that respect as well, which we don't. If you do, then just make sure that you're promoting afterwards and you're doing something to continue to nurture that. And also take advantage of sub-communities that you can easily tap into, like an IG channel or a LinkedIn group or different things like that. You can really just... continue to grow that community and everybody really does feel like they're part of something special that they're part of like oh man i can't wait to tell everybody because they don't know about no you know cat walsh or they don't know about season they don't know about you know george like i'm gonna tell them you know because it's really cool right you know and then basically for the the hosts like cat was explaining that's where some real magic can happen because all of a sudden somebody who really is somebody catches a wind of you and likes you and all of a sudden it's like they're co-promoting you just because they like it Yeah, well, this is a whole lot of options. Yeah, we can do a real time here. I'm curious because, Cesar, I think out of all of you, I've seen you on stage the most live and Kat's done a bunch of shows. Where do people find you? How do folks find out about Cultivating Wisdom on the podcast side? i think so i was gonna say two things one um email email email email email email's your gold email email is your gold and during your podcast incentivate people to give you their email hey we'll give you this free top ten whatever we'll give you incentivize people to give you their email because when you have that then you have a captive audience then you have an audience in it and if it and if through that email you use promotions you you have maybe a newsletter that goes along with the podcast you're giving people what we would call on TV appointment viewing. There's an appointment that I know that on Tuesday I'm going to get that newsletter. I know the podcast is only once a week or once every two weeks, but I know I got that newsletter. And the other thing is reels. Reels. You can literally take a half an hour podcast and cut it into twenty different clips to put them out there because that's how people are going to find you. They're going to find you mostly because they're on social media, because it's a small clip of you. They're not going to sit and find your whole podcast. But if they find that one clip and that one clip is engaging, that one clip is interesting, that one clip leaves you curious. Like, wait a minute. Hold on a second. I have to hear more. Like, I have to stop what I'm doing. Where is that link to go listen to that full podcast? That's the trick to keeping that captive audience. The other thing I tell people, and I've seen this a lot, remember, you're talking to people. So find where that camera is and talk to that camera. That's how you engage people. That's how people feel like, wait a minute. Caesar's talking to me. George is talking to me. Cat is talking to me. Christian is talking to me. I'm talking to that guy over there. I find a lot of podcasts, and especially when we're the host and we're also producing the show and we're also trying to sort of find out different information. If you can't take yourself off camera, put the other person on camera. If you're doing it post, it's sort of that sense of engagement, that sense of me feeling that you're talking just to me. You're not talking to a whole podcast. You're talking just to me. I think that that's really important. I want to grab this question from Jacob. Hi, Jacob. He's also here in Oaxaca. And I think it's pretty interesting because he's asking specifically about the value of dialogue versus monologue. And I'm wondering, George, for sure I know you have some monologue because some of those early shows I've listened to them. And there's a very different dynamic, right? You're a solo... conversation, from your perspective, can you keep the audience's interest? Do you have enough charisma and presence to talk for forty-five minutes or an hour and make it land? Or is it really all about interviews and having a dialogue with someone else? Kat, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, as somebody who's had literally two separate podcasts, both my podcast, so Trip on This is a conversation-based podcast, so I'm interviewing people on it. And then Life with Kat was quite literally a solo podcast, so it was just all monologue. And in terms of my personal love is, I mean, I love the monologue format just because it's I can giggle and go off just a silly stream of thought. And I found that even though Trip On This was a bigger podcast, the overall feedback that I would get actually was people fucking loved Live With Kat. Those that were on board with wanting to, I would cry and I would you know, laugh and, and I would say, um, and I talk about stumbling all over myself, but, but I purposely really did not want to edit that podcast because I wanted it to be like, we're just friends having a chat. And because of that, there was this, um, camaraderie. I think I built with the audience that was quite different than trip on this though, which upon this, I still liked to do that at times. And I would tell stories. Um, but I did see from, I know Jacob's question was around, uh, engagement. And for me, um, when I engage you, the camera, the listener and the viewer, and you can really drop in and actually feel like you really are talking to them, you know? And I do think that takes practice at the end of the day, getting comfortable and, and realizing like, you know, it's just, that's just practice at the end of the day. But yeah. I just want to quickly also, I want to end on that, but also guest collaborations, just going back to the guest format and growing your, your podcast is having your guests collaborate with you, collaborate on posts, leaning into their audience. It's a really great way to build and cross pollinate. Um, and having really smart, like now that I've noticed like smart SEO, or AI terms, right? Like keywords. I have a podcast that went really big because I think I just said growing mushrooms and I had the right words where people just discovered it because they were looking for topic specific things. So really remembering that sometimes people just put like the name of their guest and that's fine. That's a choice. But if you're not a big person, you're not Lex Friedman yet, uh it might be interesting to grab people that are quite literally looking for that very specific thing that you are laying down in that episode so i just want to go back to that and i'll yeah absolutely yeah i think that like format matters too like podcast is a pretty broad term now like there's a lot of different ways to to do a podcast like for instance we did an ask me anything which is a very under you know a very known format but very different than a conversation right it was like a you know somebody's moderating and then there's somebody on the hot seat being asked questions right generally speaking a vip of some kind or somebody that you know right or somebody said you know influential in space that's one way to do it um also there's certainly monologue versus dialogue right um some shows mix it up right some shows uh some people use uh the monologue as a way to point to the show right they build their brand through monologue and then point to that um there's a lot of ways to to go about it i agree with cat though that in terms of like intimacy and real like uh me to you when i'm looking at this camera and there's nobody around and i'm looking right at you that's about as intimate as you can get in the format you know beyond just being in front of somebody right um that said i think in a general sense it's easier to capture more interest if you're talking with somebody right so general interest or like people who didn't know you from Adam and like oh shoot let me go here you're more likely to maybe uh tap into that because of your guests maybe or like the general theme of your show or whatever as people kind of flirt around with you or as you you know get known on social and build up your audience and stuff but then of course the you know the opposite once you have done that then yes working some monologue I think into there is real because you know it is to catch that's a big one that's a high wire act you better yeah craft your skill a little bit i was gonna say i was i was gonna say definitely monologue podcast the ones that captivate the most are the ones that are good storytellers sure that's a good story so if that's if that's what your niche is that's what you're planning hone your storytelling skills. Hone that first. That's- I think we got a lot of comedians that are really great podcasters. And a lot of them have a lot of things they've dealt with, right? That's a lot of things that make a comedian very effective, right? I think that's why you have a lot of successful ones. And then the smartest ones, like a Theo Vaughn or whatever, have really just leaned into themselves. Like he's now a more personal coach, self-help than he is like funny or interviewing people. Why? That's what his niche was. He started evaluating himself and he realized his guests were really into that. And then everybody experiences, you know, bullshit, you know, as they go on. And so he was basically able to tap into that. So he leaned into that. He's really famous to begin with. So he didn't necessarily have to do that, right? Did Joe Rogan always have the format straight out the gate? No, he didn't. If you went back and looked, it wasn't always three hours at first. He kind of grew into it, understood. Like, oh, shit, you know, this is working for me. Let's go, right? So I think a lot of people can sort of take some, you know, solace in that. There's a lot of different ways to do it. And there's a lot of, and again, it goes back to what we've been talking about some time. You got to start, got to be consistent. You got to have a plan. Good, good segue, George. I know you've been playing with some of these tools. I've even heard, I won't name names, that some people use AI to help do introductions for some of their amazing guests. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, but let's talk a little bit about what Clint's bringing up, like AI for podcasting. Where does it show up for any of you? Like, what are you using it for? Is it post-production and the edits you're talking about, Kat? Or is it getting prepped? And maybe even if you want to be in the flow, but you want to have some good prompts or questions, Cesar, it might be interesting to analyze a guest and see what they find out in the internets with AI doing some analysis or research for you. It just saves you a little bit of time at the very least, right? Yeah, yeah. So, George, Caesar, I was gonna say real quick, George, with tools, obviously, you know, whatever platform you're using is going to be your first real AI massive tool that you use. Let's say Riverside. Riverside is a platform where you can record your podcast and then you can literally tell it, hey, give me five tools. you know, thirty second clips where I'm talking about this or the best, whatever, and it will literally put them out for you. So in other words, make sure that at least that first A.I. tool that you're using is the tool for your platform that you will be recording on, that you're going to get the most out of it, that you're able to cut clips, that you're able to get a transcript of of the show, because then you can throw that into A.I. for your intros for for seo stuff that you're going to get in there so just make sure that that first ai the most important one to me i think is that your platform that you're recording your podcast on has as many bells and whistles that you can get right from there so we'll bring up uh riverside just i think i have a screenshot just to so people can anchor it and then maybe we just go around the horn like what platforms are you using and then we can kind of come back to the ai implications on it so caesar's riverside cat what do you use primarily for streaming or management For my recording or for AI tools? Yes, and. Yes, and. Okay. Well, what I want to say is AI is moving so quickly that I feel like hopefully what I say is not outdated because I've been on a hiatus for about one this year. But the one that I did use was... So if you have Premiere Pro, which a lot of people don't, but if you do, there is a plugin called Autopod, I believe it's called, that will like... not only auto cut your like if you say you have like two angles even um it will go in between cameras based on the speaker and like chip chop it up so suddenly you in six minutes it'll go through like an hour long and you have like different angles and you name the speaker so it can understand like this is you make like cat you see like my picture that's cat my voice cat and then My guest, Christian, Christian. And so it's just going back and forth based on what it's hearing. It's pretty incredible. Now, that being said, it was still enough oversight. It was still like, I have to watch it, right? Like, okay, I'm a little bit... picky when it comes to like the creativity I put out there. So I have yet to see a true AI, like straight, um, Descript is another tool that uses kind of like what, uh, Cesar is mentioning, which is using basically, um, Riverside and Riverside and Descript both use the script basically like the words and you can cut out ums and ahs. So we can actually cut that out for you within, you know, a second. Um, Not as much creative cutting that I've seen with those platforms, like Autopod, for instance, where you can actually go in between different multicams if you have a multicam. A lot of people don't. A lot of people do remote podcasts. I've used Riverside. I like it. I don't know if I'm going to be jumping back into it for myself other than I don't think I use enough of the tools for myself to justify it. I think I'm going to try OBS Studios, which is a free broadcasting platform. It is a little bit more of a setup, but you can actually kind of flow through You can have like an opening card. Like if it's like a streaming, if it's a live stream, you could have like a coming on soon and you have to press it or a producer, but it's right in front of you. And you just kind of press between like, now is your intro plays and now you can press onto yourself. And that can also be live stream. So that's where I'm going to be tootling around for myself. When it comes to the social media though, my big thing is I feel like visually, if it just looks too... This is where I feel like I can get out of my own way a little bit, but I like full screen. I like it to feel as native to social media as it can. Not like stitched together videos from podcasts. I feel like they don't pull in as much engagement. I don't know if it's actually using monologue with clips. I'm talking about psychedelics and this with a neuroscientist. Check this out. And then you just throw in your clip. but something that pulls, I find that like just conversations, unless you're saying something so hot and sexy or outrageous or something, people can kind of get a little, kind of blur over a little bit if they just see like a, like just appearing in another conversation. Yeah, I know. So I want to be thoughtful. We're coming up on an hour. Some folks have a hard stop and they might need to peace out. Some might want to stay around a little bit longer. So anybody want to say good night and, You're hanging, hanging, everybody hanging for another twenty minutes. I'm following George's lead. You know, he likes to do these two, three hours. We're just getting warmed up. Yeah, a lot about platforms. So Riverside, StreamYard, OBS. We've got three or four of these in the if you want to pull them up, just the screenshots, George, to help educate folks. whether it's Clint or Jonathan. What's been your default platform, George? What are you using? Or should I not ask you while you're bringing things up? You know what? I've used a variety of them. I've been on multiple places that have Riverside. I like that as a platform. I use StreamYard. My podcast is more of a live stream. I used to do a lot of editing and... uploading there. But what I have learned is that that takes a lot of time. And if you're just an individual who has a really cool message, or you're someone that wants to talk to lots of people and get that message out there, I feel like the live stream is the way to go. I feel like there's a much more authentic conversation that happens. A lot of the times where people stumble is where the gold is, like we said earlier right there. Those are good points to talk about. It's also a great reflective tool to go back and listen to what you had to say and realize where you stumbled. I like StreamYard. I've met and talked to some of the people that created it. And I like the fact that it's an easy way to stream at one place and have your content pushed to all your other places. You could stream to five channels, seven channels, or fifteen channels. It also gives you the freedom to bring on other people. It allows individuals that come onto your platform on StreamYard to stream to their channels. So now you can leverage not only yours, but each individual can stream to two of their channels. You're going to get a lot more reach with StreamYard if you're going to go with a streaming platform. There's so many cool tools out there. On the topic of AI, I believe it's sort of a flashy frame. It's like a flashy jacket. I think your content is what's important. And while AI tools are amazing and they're beautiful, they're kind of dangerous because you can get so caught up in the minutia of trying to put up good clips or trying to do some really cool pre-production that you're taking away from the conversation that you should be having with people. That time should be spent focusing on the person, reviewing the person, understanding their message, and your content is what's going to ultimately grab people out there. tools can i can also sort of address jonathan's question too via the tool thing too right have you do you recommend both audio video formats or just success with audio uh recommend both uh and build it into your process right if you can it's not too hard to establish a um a spotify account or an apple music account uh and then just rip your you know uh file that you did on stream yard which is what we used to george um and uh and ultimately put it up there you know, just bake it into the cake of your process. That's another thing I want to talk about is it's process, which is different for everybody, right? We do seven, eight a month and there's distribution and, you know, all this stuff. But the process also can help dictate your tools. And so, you know, what you're doing could be maybe influenced by that. That will help you decide on which tools to use, right? You're a, you know, just you, maybe you want an all-in-one or maybe if you have from your pro like Kat does, that might be like Autopod. might be a cool option for you. You've heard us talk about Opus several times on this. That's a great one for clips. You can just throw your large file into there and it'll automatically create a bunch of them and it'll prioritize by what it thinks will be the most viral, which is pretty darn cool. And that allows you to basically bake that into whatever your content distribution cake is. So that's up to you and what you're doing. Let's see, obviously we talk about chat TPT a lot, great for prep and all sorts of different things. Also, Canva is a good one, right? You're great at creating graphics or you're getting things done that way. We also use... or podcastle or like clean voice, it depends. But those are ones that clean up your ums and ahs. And then there's all-in-ones too. There's like a, what's it called? And I'm not very familiar with it. Alifu or what is it? Alitu? Yeah, that's right. It's Alitu, sorry. And that's a nice little all-in-one, and you're gonna see more of that for sure. Riverside, as you can tell, has grown into that. They're just one of the more preeminent ones. So the pricing is a little higher. some stuff like that you know and it might not be right for you it just depends you know but um it's also about distribution like it's about you know how you're putting it out there right and i liked george's point don't get caught up in the minutiae because boy oh boy that will water oh yeah yeah You know, so it's important though to just, so again, in terms of this whole thing, like this whole conversation has been about like, yo, there's a fine line. You gotta just pull the trigger, but you gotta be prepared. You have to basically, you know, go here and go to these places, but don't get bogged down in the marketing and promotion. This is all true. That's why it's so easy. It's not cut out for everybody. Not everybody's cut out to do it. Not every business has to have one. Not every person has to have one, right? You know, ultimately, really, really, really, you know, focused on what's the best tools for you, not just within budget, but for what you're trying to do. Like focus on that. I'm super curious because, you know, we've talked about some newbies or rookies or people are just going to be jumping into the podcast pool in the next few months. what is the real, like, give you all a minute to think about, and then we'll go around the horn just quickly on this. It's like, how many hours, if you think about it from the minute you think about a guest and then you reach out to them and hopefully you connect and you maybe do a pre-interview, other folks don't, they just want to get it live raw the first time, then you have the day of, right? And you have your promotion engine. So you got to send out the links and you might be doing an email to your list Caesar's talking about. So now you've promoted it. Then you have day up. You don't just show up the minute the show starts, right? You're there at thirty minutes earlier, fifteen minutes earlier. Your guests are showing up. Now you turn everything on. You got your distro rolling. Well, it's not over when you're done. Now you're done. Now you got post-production, potentially AI or a human. So just all of you just think about it for yourselves. no right or wrong answer but just come up with a number of hours per episode whatever frequency whether you have a team or not that you have to put in to do a good show and then we'll just go around quick answers and then we can kind of unpack what goes into that but uh George start with you how many hours or how much time do you put into a show five hours is okay all right five hours for George and that does that include the three hours you're doing the actual podcast I would say it's average five hours. If I'm going to do a long podcast, it's probably closer to eight. For an hour show, five hours. Uh, Kat, what do you put into yours? Cause it's probably different. Like when you're doing the trip on this versus the life of, yeah. Yeah. I would say very different. I'm going to go trip on this just because I'm like, life has got much more low lift for me. Um, but probably closer to nine. I don't feel like I'm a, I'm a woman. So like I get ready, like, and like, and I do do a question outline. I do like to research my guests, especially if I don't know them, like, i'll be listening so it could sometimes be more like nine to twelve depending on the depending on the podcast so we got a we got a five ish from george we got a nine to twelve with cat caesar where are you coming in i was gonna say again it sort of falls in between that you know it's five to ten hours right again how long is the podcast Um, how much information is there for me to research on this guest? How much prep am I going to be into this? You know, is this someone that I know, you know what I mean? And we're just going to shoot the shit. Or is this someone that I really need to research and have some good information so we can have this conversation. And then the most time consuming, obviously, if you're not doing it live, like George does, which I think is brilliant. I think there should be more live content out there. There has to be. Everything is so packaged. Everything is so perfect. Hey, this is live. This is live. Yeah. So, yeah. So I love this. More. More. More of this. But then afterwards, let's say something like this, if it's not live, then do we go into post and let's put some video here. Let's add something here. Let's add some text here. Let's add the website. Let's add. That all adds up. That all completely adds up. And if you're editing, yes, of course, if you have a tool like Riverside where it's going to edit a lot of things for you, that's fine. But you also have to go back in and, hey, you know what? Is the person that's on camera at that time, the person that's actually speaking, or did Riverside make a mistake and they just had the guy sitting there looking off, picking his nose or whatever it was, right? So that all takes time. So I'd say – Between five and ten hours, right? Five, that really smart show. It's quick. It's dirty. It was a great conversation. Ten hours. You know what? This is going to need some time. This is going to need some love. This is going to need some polishing. This was a really good guest that I really want to make sure that the audience gets the most of it. It's going to be ten hours for an hour show. Yeah. If you're doing all the editing, like if you're trying to edit audio and trying to edit the video manually, which I did in the beginning of trip on this, it would be days. Like I literally, I was like this, I'm doing five jobs. I don't sleep. This is insane. I have found that the live is great, but I just wanted to also mention that like, depending on how much editing you decide creatively for your podcast, you might be doing a, a hybrid storytelling conversation type of thing. The more intros and things like that, like some, some of the platforms have a built in, but sometimes that's editing and sometimes it's creative editing. If it's not just a conversation, you know, if you want music in it, right. There's a lot of different types of podcasts. And I think out of the four of you, three of you clearly are kind of more in the solopreneur getting it done yourself. Brian, you guys have a team, right? Yeah, there's more. We have guests or we have hosts for each of our podcasts that are collaborators close with the org, et cetera. We want to just basically people who we respect and admire as thought leaders in the space that had specialties, right? Like a retail, finance, culture, marketing, et cetera. My show with Aaron is really about talking to leaders in the space about their sort of personal journey that they went on along the growth of their company or how they got to where they are. Right. And we focus on sort of, you know, it's sort of like a men's mental health and like, you know, different things like that are just mental health in general. So with all eight episodes a month being pumped out by the beer bros network, How many hours are you putting in personally when you're a guest versus when the whole team is? There's two things I want to talk about. One, when you have that sort of situation going on, you got to shrink that ten hours to five or something if you can, without losing credibility or losing the feel of the podcast. That's really hard. for everybody that's tough. But also the CRO in me is like, hey, by the way, you're not only doing work, you're also promoting someone else. And there's a price to that. It's not just about hours. There's a cost to the production of each podcast. And it is a dollar sign that you can attach to it. And once you know what that is, now you're ready for a lot of other opportunities because now you will be able to pitch or you'll be able to get sponsors. And as long as you understand where you are in the hierarchy of everything, you know once you hit a good threshold of a few thousand followers and maybe you got five hundred folks on like youtube or whatever you can start chipping away at this you can like offer a very modest package and start going for it so again the money guy and we cannot just sit here and let us talk about having time spent and oh let's just give all this away to everybody that Like, you know, you definitely have to basically you have to figure out a way to do what you want to do. The best way to do that is to basically work with the businesses that are largely affected by what you're talking about, because they're going to give a shit. And if you're really personal to write, this is like my cat. This is why all these other people are here. Kill it so much. They know this and they are themselves. And it allows them to basically. Not have to be businessy, but attract businesses. Although I need you to be like, you should charge for that. Just remember that too. So again, for us, it's probably about three to five hour, five ish for each podcast. But thankfully we have a lot of process and structure and we've been doing it two years and we continue to improve the process through tools, collaboration with our hosts. You know, there's a lot of ways to like galvanize, especially if everybody's got skin in it. Yeah, I think Jacob, you know, he was either reading your mind or you were reading the question before. You know, how do you indirect or direct? You know, I think. We don't want to shy away from hairy topics here. So pay to play, right? There's podcasts where you literally write a check to get in that seat and be interviewed. I'm not going to make a judgment about that business model. That's, you know, if you're a journalist and you're trying to put out objective news, that may not be the right play. But I know conferences that charge to put you up on the dais as well, right? Or on a panel. So pay to play is a business model, whether it works for you or not, or your integrity with your audience. If you disclose it, that's a different issue. What are some other ways to get monetization? We know advertising, sponsorships, you got a lot of stuff going on with Substack and Patreon. Where do the dollars actually flow for any of you that you actually know that this works, this brings in dollar bills? I would love to hear from like Kat or I can talk to you about this from our perspective, but I want to hear about like the people want to hear out solo. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this has always been the one where it's, I would have loved actually to have someone like you, Brian, like on my shoulder when I hit two thousand listeners to understand that that was enough to make a play. Because I think I I think understand like the warped nature of like how to price myself has been a journey with Trip on this. Ultimately, say it again. very hard yeah yeah and and i i didn't really know anybody actually to like ask i probably could have but i think i was maybe shy about it and i think that's probably what i would learn going forward is like literally just have open conversations with with people and creators and podcasters on how to um really make it work because resentment can come up if you are working really hard and you are in the red which i was in the beginning and had to really shift my mindset around when am I worthy for sponsorship? Long story short, I've have gotten to a place where I have sponsorship money, certainly like a very traditional way from brands. Um, there's not a ton of brands that I've noticed yet, although I haven't really made a huge push because I have trip on this is on, on, uh, hold right now anyway, but it was like brands, like you're saying, like, you know, um, ones that either are very pro psychedelic and they're like openly psychedelic or they're kind of in the space. I haven't Yet I've tried to kind of reach some maybe of the more like mainstream brands. And I think psychedelics as a whole was still a little bit of that. So full disclosure, I was talking to one of the large talent agencies at one point in their podcast division. And I think what it ultimately came down to for one of the team is how do we sell this? to, in real, in real, many zeros, right? Because that's how they're thinking. They're thinking of, if we produce a show, it's three hundred thousand dollars a show. Therefore, the revenue has to come in. So as a person to make some money, I think there's like smaller brands that are doing it. I would be curious to hear from these guys that there's big money coming into the psychedelic space in terms of sponsorship. And then like other events, you know, hosting events, DJing events, because I'm an online presence, you know, like now I'm a content creator and a voice on social media. I now have a brand that other companies now tap into to, you know, use me as now like an asset for them indirectly. Right. You're asking about like indirect. Yes, there are social media views, but like There's that. And I'm going to be starting a sub stack as well. So yeah, this has been a little bit of an anomaly for me as well. It's been slower than I, I didn't know how to do it in the beginning, but I started to come around to it. Definitely want to get after Cesar and George around this, but one of the things that comes to mind for me is, Kat, you should ask me next time you want to figure out some monetization. Happy to help. I would. Oh, yes, absolutely. And people like Brian, right? Like the fact that he's working with so many different brands and there's a meat work. People like, I think, us inside the tent want to help each other, right? Like whether it's cannabis or psychedelics, because it is so hard to make a real living that's legitimate, that is not putting you in harm's way. And like we talked at the top of the hour, like if you're trying to pay your rent, if you're trying to make a mortgage, if you've, if you're growing a family, right, you got college in eighteen years, podcasts may not be the way to get there. But I feel like another spoke on a hub, right? Like, you know, Everybody can self-publish now. So you can be an author, but you can also like, you know, with a stack or articles, but you can write a book and get a self-published book pretty easily. Don't plan that that book's going to take you to the bank, but it might open up consulting opportunities or it might open up other things. Same with the podcast. And really, I see the partnership that you have with like District two sixteen and Jacob is you guys really are helping each other grow in so many ways. And it's all the things outside the podcast that can potentially monetize, like you're getting DJ gigs or you being brought in the conference host or whatever. So love all that. Cesar, George, where are you seeing the dollar bills? I see some merch behind you, Cesar. Yeah, well, again, merchandising is important, right? It's your message of what you are, what you're doing. The more you can promote that, it falls off the tree, as they say in Espanol. The other thing is affiliate marketing, right? Look for affiliates. Look for, hey, if you're talking about psychedelics, why not affiliate with somebody that has a grow kit? right and it could be some type of barter hey you know what come and be a guest you know i mean you send me all the grow kits i need just you know i mean whatever whatever that is find those partnerships that it doesn't we're always we're always chasing that dollar right i need to see a check um there's we're in a situation where not everyone's at liberty to write a check There's a lot of people saying, okay, well, what is, what is my ROI on this? You know, what's, what's my ROI on a product that I have that I might be able to give out as a sample that you can use to, you know, you don't have to then buy my kits. You have my kits, but then it's also, we're cross promoting. So finding that affiliation that you can cross promote with them. And then even then, Hey, We're affiliated with whatever bags use this code, and I get some money. That's right. So there's all these little ways, right? Are we not going to be happy until we see that million-dollar check? Yeah. If I can see a million one-dollar checks. I'm fine with that, too. I'm fine with that, too. Yeah. Yep. So I think it's really interesting you bring up the affiliate networks and working with so many of the conferences personally and seeing what's happened in the areas of sponsorship for legitimate, let's say, legal brands versus all the fun and crazy stuff going on in the underground. George, I'm going to throw one screen up while you talk a little bit about it. I'll add an image. And this is a personal project. So disclosure, I'm involved in this personally, but I also think it's timely to bring it up. And you guys did it. So George, maybe share a little bit about what you've seen around monetization, good, bad, and ugly. And I think you've had some recent success. I don't know if you want to name names. Yeah. I think over the last ten years, we saw a sort of exodus from brick and mortar to virtual, like everybody went online. But I think looking forward to monetization, the next exodus is from online to brick and mortar. And one way I've seen success in this now is that there are some local places around where I live in California that are starting up their social media. And they had come to me, George, we saw you do some social media. Can you help us out? But the transition from online to brick and mortar is, look, let's do a live podcast from your warehouse. Let's invite people from the community that are already doing things. We can interview them there. We'll do it live. And then we'll use that live content from an actual event. as our clips as our so much like cat and jacob are doing i think it's a brilliant strategy and i think more people online that are doing podcasting look to translate your skills from the virtual world into the brick and mortar world because ultimately like i believe media is moving into a more meaningful content it's nice to have the clips that are flashy and stuff like that but if you have a product or a service you want your social media to reflect that And nothing comes better to that messaging than the actual conversations with people that are in the warehouse, that are working on the assembly line, that are packaging things. That is great content. And that's the kind of content that I think is going to turn into more monetization for an individual who's in the world of podcasting at this point in time. Nice. Will you bring up that image, George? I just wanted to highlight this. Of course. So this is a work in progress. Oh, nope. Keep going. Keep going. It's the last one. There's tools, more tools keep going. Let's see. Let me see these two right here. You should be able to keep going. There's two more. A little plug for StreamYard. Yeah, imagine that. Full disclosure, we're getting... There we go. Of every StreamYard Riverside. There we go. Where's those deals? And you just go and blah, blah, blah. Sign up for StreamYard. Those are those deals too. Look, if you're using StreamYard and you promote StreamYard, and StreamYard's sending you a couple bucks. Yep. They've got the affiliate code. You can put it right onto your show. You can talk about it on the air. Exactly right. So this is a work in progress. Very, very early days. You can tip your hat to Greg Schenken in Colorado, involved in Gloss and the Colorado Psychedelic Society. And he has done some testing of several affiliate platforms and actually looking to roll this out for the plant medicine, psychedelic cannabis community. And so it's early days and affiliate networks only work when you get so many people on the advertising side and the offers and so many people on the publishing side or as affiliates. But it's a pretty interesting way to overcome a lot of the challenges with the shadow bands, the deplatforming, the inability to buy AdWords around certain keywords or find certain markets is that if you get enough folks supporting the specific segment that we're trying to cultivate and nurture, you're going to have a way to reach them here so if you want to take a look at that later and you're a content creator we can tell you more about it but yeah i just wanted to highlight that and let's uh you know we're getting close to almost ninety minutes i don't know i'm getting a little nervous george we can uh i think i want to give everybody their time back and be thoughtful to the viewers we'll see what editing magic happens afterward so a couple maybe quick questions and then i want to go around the horn and give you all a minute to think about a new project, something you want to promote, something you want the audience to share with others that would be worthwhile to bring up at the end of the show. Out of all the work that you guys have done with podcasts and podcast production, and maybe you're the exception, Brian, because you guys have a team at Beard Bros. Have any of you, I guess, Cesar and Kat and George, have you ever outsourced? Have you hired someone to help you with pre-pro? Have you ever hired someone to do post-production? And what was that like? And was it worth it? Just curious about getting help and paying for it, paying for help. Um, I could time in real quick. I, I had hired someone. Um, I was, I was left, I felt like I was left with an end with a half empty bag because there was a lot of, there was a lot of tools or things that I could have gotten from another platform that I didn't get from them. So yeah, they, there was a whole bunch of good little things that they did that made the podcast a lot easier, but there was also things that, you know, I ended up doing myself, right? So do your homework, right? If you're looking for a producer, if you're looking for someone to outsource, make sure that they're giving up or offering exactly what you're looking for, right? And not, oh yeah, I'm only going to do this. But I mean, this one company we worked, we wouldn't even get a transcript. We didn't even get a transcript of the podcast. And I was like, okay, how is that even... So, yeah, just definitely do your homework. And then look, ask around. Ask for reviews. Ask other people. See who they're working with. Yeah, that's me. There you go. That's Brian. Have you have you hired anyone or had any support? Yeah, I've I've had help sometimes with editing the podcast. I would do all the editing myself. I preferred it. It wasn't a lot of necessarily creative editing for me, though. And I would say this to anyone like editing for me is I can't stand it. It's what takes the joy out of my podcasting. And it got to the point where I said, I have to change something. I either need to have somebody else. I need to offload this or it is taking the joy out of me doing this right now because it's so long. It's so many hours. it's, I literally can't do it. And so for me, it was always worth it, but then it needed to be like, that's also because I had gotten to a place with the podcast, at least where I was, you know, breaking even basically by getting editors. It was just going right back into it, basically out of the joy, right? Like I was paying for it just so I can keep doing it because I knew that there was going to be no way if I didn't get help with it. Even with autopod and things like that, I ended up it still took so much of my time that I really, that is the one place that I'm really looking at OBS and live as the way to get out of the way with that. Because editing is that thing for me where I'm like, somebody do it. I'm very happy to offload that. Um, and uh and if it's if people love it great do it but uh for me it was pretty crushing for me after after years of it so as a non-editor so yeah george you've hired any help pre pro or post or anywhere in between Just sparingly, I think as an individual creator, you should try to do everything yourself in the beginning. That gives you a fundamental understanding of just how difficult it is. Like when Kat's talking about editing, it's so much work. You want to put in this song. You're so critical of it. And it eats up all of your time. But it's an imperative lesson for you as a podcaster or someone in media to understand what that process is like so that when you do hire someone, you realize this person knows what they're talking about. Or, hey, I think I could have done that. But I think it's a necessary step when you farm it out. For me, I don't farm out anything. I've had some people – I've gotten into trouble where I had a few audio problems where there was like glitching in the background and I farmed that out to some people. You can find people that will do an episode or two for free to show you their work. So I would recommend if you're new to the game, test out some of this free stuff because there's a lot of talented people out there that will showcase their work and they'll do an episode. If you find like four or five of them, you can get five episodes edited for free in that aspect of it. But I would recommend doing it yourself. I found that a little bit, but I find joy in trying to do it myself. And I should probably ask for more help from time to time. I like the free trials and people. I also like low cost, right? Like if someone's a hundred bucks an hour to do post-production editing and maybe offer them twenty five or fifty and just be like, hey, I don't want you to do it for free. And I know what your full rate is. So if we end up working together long term, but let me at least pay for some of your time or, you know, just being thoughtful because they're given their time and creativity as well. So, you know, one of my favorite shows is that Hot Ones, you know, in the hot wings so end of the show this camera that camera that camera let's go around the horn brian what what do you guys got coming up at beard bros i know mj bizcon's right around the corner and you're on fire with you know all your different ventures what's what's the hot topic You know, thank you very much, first of all, Kristen, and all of you for this awesome conversation. Really, really appreciated it. It's good. I look forward to doing it again sometime, to be honest. Yeah, go to beardgrowsfarms.com. That's farms with a PH. And you can find a lot of good information there. Yeah. gearing up for um vegas with mj bizcon uh continuing to onboard tons of clients uh we help you grow like that's what we do we help uh all sorts of businesses uh not only just in cannabis hemp uh psychedelics mushrooms uh everybody ancillary to it wellness companies we continue to grow at a nice slip um and then of course we have a product line rso products you can go catch those in uh california massachusetts uh on missouri feel free to use our store locator to find one near you Thank you. And of course, check out the Beard Bros Media Network on YouTube, because that's where all of these podcasts that we do are mostly resigning. And so thank you very much for the opportunity, Christian. I hope you all have a great day. Thanks for coming, buddy. Caesar, what's what's popping? Well, of course, check out cultivatingwisdom.net, the apparel brand where you can manifest the fact that you're using psychedelics without looking like you're going to a Grateful Dead concert. Not that there's anything wrong with tie dye. We love some tie dye. But if you want to have an honest, open and objective conversations, you'll look a lot better having cultivating wisdom apparel. Also, obviously, microdosing over fifty if you are over fifty and want. Objective information about micro dosing check that out. But the biggest thing we have on our plate Christian right now is this thing behind me This is a collector's item masterpiece that we're auctioning off right now. I'm gonna put the auction in the link We're starting bids on Monday I collected signatures from pretty much all the important past present and future people working in the psychedelics everyone from Paul Stamets Rick Doblin's cat Walsh and uh hamilton morris which christian had a wonderful picture of me and hamilton so thank you for that my friend um and everyone else everyone else that's really making a difference in the psychedelic space so it's up for auction uh part of the proceeds are going to go to the pearl institute a wonderful uh institute in uh ashville north carolina part of the proceeds are going to go to maps and part of the proceeds are going to go to a foundation working with indigenous healers in Colombia. So the link is in there. It is a high ticket item. It is a collector's item. This will be definitely a piece of history. The auction will end December second, giving Tuesday. So if you have that type of flow and you want to give somebody a wonderful gift, I know that there's not a lot of people with office spaces left, but this would look awesome behind any podcast Oh, Teddy. So definitely look at that. So bring it home. And I think I have an image you can throw up there if you want to. There's the up your bros and then the shirt if you want to bring that over. And yeah, that shirt has seen a lot of interesting characters and a lot of. Yeah, check that out. Cat, what do you what do you got coming on? Yeah. So right now social media is my most active thing right now. It's at life with cat Walsh cat with a K on Tik TOK and Instagram. Tik TOK is more storytelling stuff. And Instagram is a storytelling light different, different kind of audience and vibe there. I am going to be, if, This solo storytelling podcast, Life with Kat Walsh, is available now. And I'm rebooting it as Kat's Meow Podcast, realistically, at the beginning of And that podcast is going to now be kind of like a hybrid. It's just going to be my next journey between, I would say like a, like a kind of a mix between trip on this and life with cat, where it will be a hybrid between solo conversations, probably predominantly, but then also conversations as I want. You know, I think for me, I just needed like a creative space to do what I want. You know what I mean? Like that's very much part of my personality. I don't like to be confined by what a format. And I, Finally, I'm like, you're in charge, girl. Do it. So guys- Do what you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. So Trip On This is gonna live as this archive of conversations that people can, they're timeless. So much of this podcast is about storytelling. So these are people's stories that are not necessarily, I mean, there is some stuff with research that's going on. I launched this actually right before, I won't go into that, but anyway. Um, and, and the other big thing is, so that's life with Kat, um, is going to be turning into cast me on podcast. And then I'm going to be relaunching my, uh, my website. And my big thing is just focusing on hosting, hosting more events. Um, and, hosting, I was telling Brian the other day, like I want to host a TV show. I literally want to be like ancient aliens meets like how to change your minds. You know what I mean? So I'm just going to keep saying it now until a producer's like, you know who we need? And maybe like house music. And I'm also a DJ. So I'm, I'm always like, you know, doing a lot of interesting shows and events and Yeah, if you need an electronic music house DJ, you know who to reach out to. Boom, boom. Thank you. And thank you, Christian and George for this lovely conversation. Everybody, obviously y'all are podcasters because this was a lot of fun. George, final shot. What do you got going, buddy? Nice. Thanks to everybody for being here. I'm stoked to be in all your guys' presence. I think you're doing a phenomenal job. I got a few things coming up. First off, there's a movie coming out called Iboga Saves. I'm partnering with Awake.net. We're going to be going down to Mexico and interviewing Tom Leonard, Gareth Moxie. The Fishleys are going to be down there. So many cool people in the world of Iboga. So check that out. I'm going to have a GoFundMe for people that want to look into that or see what they can do. Second off, I want to send everybody over to Anselmo Ibogaine. I've been working with Tom Leonard. He's a phenomenal individual when it comes to changing lives in the world of people that might be struggling with addiction. Highly recommend. Check out the new site Anselmo Ibogaine. I just partnered with Blue Morpho. Shout out to Maestro Hamilton. Incredible individual doing incredible things in Peru. I'm looking to bring a group down there probably next year. So if you're interested in that, reach out to me. And additionally, if you want to know anything about podcasting or you're looking at putting up a show or producing one, reach out to me. My name is George Monty. My email is G-E-O-R-G-E-P-M-O-N-T-Y. I would love to help you with that. And I got a lot of great connections out there. Christian, thank you so much for the time today. I really appreciate it. I thank all of you for making your time and the wisdom shared, right? It amplifies the message. It creates ripples. You never know where it's all going to go. And we'll try this again in a few months. Maybe we'll check in early in twenty twenty six. See what's been happening. Thank you. Take care. Much love to everybody. Much, much love. All right.