Michael Bosstick - CEO of Dear Media on the Future of Podcasting and Digital Media

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am joined by Michael Bostic, the CEO of Dear Media. Michael, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Thanks for doing this, and I know we've been trying to make this happen for a while, so thank you. I'm glad we're finally getting to do it, for sure.

So first time at the office. You guys have quite the spot, man. I walked in and just like seeing the energy, right. When you walk in with the team and the different people walking in and out of the different shows, it's truly special. And as someone that has been following along Dear Media and has been in the podcasting space for six years myself, I want to take the people back because when you guys started Dear Media, I think it was 2017, right?

Yeah, a little bit towards it really didn't get going until, like 2018, but yeah, started officially in 2017.

Got it. What led to wanting to pursue a business in the world of podcasting? Because the business of podcasting was a much different place than what it is today. So what initially started that idea to go pursue that?

Well, I never wanted to build a podcast business, and I still don't. And I know that sounds strange because I've hosted a podcast with my wife for eight years now, and we produce a lot of podcasts, Podcasts at dear media, like 75 or 80 of them at this point. My perspective to back up a little bit is I was a commerce guy, had an agency a long time ago, helped a lot of early E Comm businesses kind of scale and build, started, you know, in that whole world back then. My wife was doing a blog before the term influencer even existed. Not to age ourselves too much. And we started a podcast together, being podcast fans, as a way to drive more attention to the blog, which that's now, like, kind of fully changed.

It's getting confidential.

Yeah, exactly. And so we started doing that, and during that time, we joined another podcast network. And you have to keep in mind, this was at a time when we had no experience. My background was not in media. Hers was was not in media. We had no broadcasting experience. And we thought, okay, we're going to join this company and they're going to help scale us to the moon and give us all this visibility. Quickly found out that wasn't the case, and also found out that that company had very little understanding of a lot of the platforms that many of us consume content on. Like, they did not understand blogs, didn' newsletters, had no interest in social syndication, no video. It Was like straight audio. A lot of former radio executives, not to diminish them, but their experience was just audio. And so as, I guess, creators that were working on other platforms, we felt it was like looking at a business, but only looking at 20% of the potential. And so we went back to self producing and started having a lot of success kind of taking this holistic approach with, I think everyone does now, which is like audio, video, newsletters, just the way we all consume content. And that was kind of the light bulb moment. It was like, okay, we need to create our own platform by creators for creators and not just be limited to audio, but have the ability to tap into all sorts of digital mediums or commerce opportunities or live events which you can talk about here today. So, yeah, it was like, I think we're known as a podcasting business, but we try to be much more than that.

Yeah, I mean, I remember when I first came across you guys, it's how you guys even phrase it, right? Like brand incubator. Right? Like podcast network brand incubator. It's you goes, you guys go well beyond just the lane of podcasting. Right? But to think about the roots of it and how people know it or maybe why they follow and they see the clips and listen to the show, it's. You guys have done such a great job at building beyond that. And when you say brand incubator, talk to me about some of the brands that you guys have incubated within Dear Media and how you think about that in terms of, you know, a lot of times when you're starting business, everyone is like, how do I get the word out about my company? You guys have the distribution, you have the shows, you have the media. Then you're launching products to fit within these shows and brands. How do you think about that from the early days versus today.

So here's how I think about brand. I, I think brand can cover a broad spectrum. Most notably is like it has to be recognizable in multiple established markets. And so to give you one example, what we've done with the Skinny Confidential, I think many of us know us from the show, but the success of that show and that blog and those social platforms have now launched two books, you know, a successful podcast. There's products that are on the table with us. It's a full commerce product business that's in retail and online. It's venture backed. And when I think about what we've done with Lauren's business is like we've tapped into all these mediums in media to then Go and build a whole nother business or, you know, Dear Media just did our first publishing deal with Simon and Schuster for one of our hosts named Elisa Pressman. And when I think of her brand, you know, she has a ton of prominence in her field, and she came here and started a show. And off the success of that show and some of the other things, she's now going into books and all sorts of different services and offerings. You know, we have a show here called the Toast, which many people know about. It's an incredible show, and they've now, on the success of that, launched their business Spritz Society, which Dear Media helped invest in as well. So I really, when I use brand incubator, I use it as a broad term to articulate that these properties can go off to be much more than just a podcast. You know, some of them are going to live events, some are going to streaming, some of them are going to have their own commerce businesses. And we never want to be limited in the ability to bring that opportunity to the people we're working with. Right?

Yeah. No, that's so powerful and something that I know you mentioned a handful of times now, but for the people that may not know you and your wife, you have built together when it comes to the show that you guys host. She has her own business. You have Dear Media, there's so many collaborative efforts. Talk to me about working with your wife, because I love it. Just for context, I got engaged this past summer. Congratulations. Thank you. To my fiance, Jacqueline. And my last company was a software business. And I remember my co founder, Kieran and I, we were initially, you know, hiring a CEO, and I was like, hey, let's hire Jacqueline. She has previous tech experience. Like, I really wanted to work with my partner. And, you know, you hear from different people and mentors in my life, like, don't do it. Some say do it. And it ended up being the most incredible experience working together, from ideation to fundraising to then when we got acquired. And to go through that process with a partner and beyond that, I've learned so much from it. I remember you said something on a previous show. It's like, if you can work with your partner, the marriage stuff, the other types of things you have to worry about with your partner, that's going to take care of itself if you can find a way to work with a partner successfully. So bring me back to when this came into your life, why you guys decided to work together and how it's been and have you navigated it.

I'm Fortunate. And not to get too sappy here, but Warren is my best friend and the love of my life. I know that's sappy, but it's true. And, you know, we've known each other since we were 12 years old. And I can't imagine, you know, going to a work setting or an office setting and like, spending all this time away. I mean, think about how much time you spend at your. In your business or in your job. And it's a lot of time. And so, like, I want to be with her as much as possible. That being said, we don't work on everything together, but we collaborate a ton. And so, you know, for us, I think it was a very natural evolution. We were always kind of talking and consulting with each other or she'd be working on something with her business prior to the time I got involved and I'd give my two cents and she would look at my business and good. And so we started the podcast to say, like, is there something we can do together that is collaborative? But we're also. We maintained our own independence and had our own things going. And so I think a common misconception for us is people think we work on everything together. Like, we're sitting in the Dear Media office. I manage this team completely separately. She's not involved in the day to day. She's a talent on, on the shows or on the, on the roster of shows. But like, independently, she's not involved in the day to day of Dear Media outside of being my wife. And then for her business, the Skinny Confidential. I'm obviously a partner and, you know, involved on the show, but she has her own team in her own operation. But what we figured out is we can collaborate on these things together and be partners. And what I think it brings is it's a more interesting marriage. We get to talk about a lot of things. We feel like we're building a life together as opposed to separately. We always say we're pushing the same boulder up the same hill. Right?

Yeah.

And I think what you're referencing is I'm very hesitant to tell other couples to do it because it is for sure been the hardest thing to figure out in our marriage. Who's leading, who's following, who's responsible for this, who's responsible for that, who's taking the lead in this conversation and taking the backseat. It's a really unique dance. Fortunately, we. I think we've figured a lot of it out, you know, as well as bumps, of course. But what I said is figuring that out Was much harder than figuring out how to be a married couple and how to co parent. Like, I think the work stuff was way more challenging and the other stuff has just become easier since.

That's so great. And you said you guys have known each other since you were 12.

Yep.

How did this initially happen? You guys born in the same town?

She showed up to my school when I was in sixth grade, and I swear to God, I thought she was the substitute teacher. She was fully developed, you know, full. Full set of tits. I don't know if there's audio. Hopefully it's audience ages up. And I was 12 years old and I looked over and I was like, sold. And, you know, I'd like to say it was love at first s. We really, like, started hot and heavy and developed a really serious life. We haven't been together that whole time. We both were separated during high school and went to different colleges, but after that, since we got back, we've been together ever since.

Wow. So powerful. So when you were going to high school, go to college, did you come from a family of entrepreneurial background? What did that look like in terms of where you brought up? Let's talk about just the early childhood of where you come from, siblings, family, how that all blossomed into what you do today.

I think as I've gotten older, I've analyzed this a lot, and I've almost realized that maybe my upbringing was somewhat unique in the terms of how my dad framed the mindset. So I never believed that I could get a job anywhere. Not that I didn't think I was qualified, but I remember he would do these things, and I don't know if this is right parenting or not, but he would always basically only talk about entrepreneurial paths for me. Like, he would be like, okay, when you do this, you're gonna go work for yourself. Or like, there was never, like, hey, like, I've never had a resume in my entire life. I've never applied for a job. The last actual paycheck I took from somebody other than myself was from McDonald's when I was 15.

Wow.

He always instilled work ethic, but he was always like, go start your own thing. So I think with that framework, imagine being a kid and never thinking that even getting a job was an opportunity that you had to start something in a way that's like a decent amount of pressure, but also freeing up, because I was never distracted thinking, like, oh, I could go apply and work for somebody else. Also, I was really bad in school and really poor at Kind of following rules. And so I always felt much more natural, kind of taking an entrepreneurial path. That being said, I don't think this path is for everyone. I think I came out with the proper mix of just entrepreneurial spirit and kind of grit and tenacity with some of these things. Definitely not the smartest person, but I'm willing to learn and figure a lot of things out the hard way. But I think it was unique because he was such an entrepreneur. Like, when I, you know, when they ask you, you're. When you're a kid, like, what do you want to be when you grow up? My image was something like my dad. Like, I remember him coming home with a briefcase. He never went to a desk job. He always worked for himself. He was a developer. And that was like my example. It's like, oh, you go and just like you're a businessman, like that. That's what I thought I wanted to be when I grew up as a businessman. I didn't know what the hell that meant. It was just like, the example. And I was so close with my dad that I think a ton of that just rubbed off on me.

Yeah, that's so powerful. Speaking about that childhood development, it's interesting for me, you know, I come from a very small town in Virginia. My dad, he was. Worked at Philip Morris for 30 years, still works there, a tobacco company. My mom's a special ed teacher. And for me, I got injured when I was 15 years old, which put me in a neck brace for six months. And I went from playing football, excited about life, to depressed, and have no clue what I wanted to do with my life, my path. And it was during that deep, this six months during my life where I took a step back and, you know, I guess I could say I had a lot of time on my phone to follow people like Tony Robbins and Gary Vee and all these different characters online that by the end of it, I was 15. In that timeframe of my life, where it's like, hey, go get a job. Go make your own money. And still to this day, I've never had a formal job. I really never had a resume.

Incredible. You're like a prodigy. But, you know, I think also in a way, keep in mind, when I was coming up, I didn't get a smartphone until I graduated college. It was like the last year, I remember, it was like we had these weird kind of like flip phones with screens. But, you know, Facebook came out the year I started as a freshman in college. And at the time, it was Limited to only college students. And we would upload all of the digital camera albums. It's so cringey, the whole thing of whatever was going on. And so, you know, I was aware of all of these characters, but I wasn't necessarily consuming a lot of the content, and I didn't necessarily have the access. And so I think for your generation, I think it's so awesome when you get turned on to those kind of people that early. Cause I'm sure it would have. I'm sure it shaped you and probably would have shaped me even more. But this was a different time when we were kind of just like filtering through television and there was a little bit online.

Yeah, no, it's. It's. I. I think back on that a lot where, like, even younger guys that I connected with. Now I'm 23 for contacts. It's like I see them 15, 16, 18 years old. And it's like that content that you consume, like in this world of an abundance of content, like choosing who you follow and not only just who you follow, but who you actually listen to, so important, so important that you can be guided in the wrong direction. And then three years later realize, like, whoa, what do I think? Instead of, like, this over intoxication of, you know, hustle culture, or just like, these other ideas that are not necessarily, like, true to your character. But I want to talk about that for you, you know, as someone that is living and breathing in the world of media when it comes to the production side of the business, of all the shows you manage, what has been some of the most challenging aspects of maintaining and scaling the production side of media? Because, you know, we're here in the studio, people are on their phones, they're seeing all the incredible content that comes out of here. But I want to hear from you. Michael, is it CEO that's putting out all this content? Like, what have been the biggest challenges of maintaining that over time?

I think the biggest challenge in any business is people, right? And in my case, it's not only people that work internally here at Dear Media, whether it's a salesperson or a producer or, you know, video kid or whatever. It's also now working with the numerous talent that we have on the platform. And so being able to scale that and have candid conversations and hold people accountable when either they're doing something that we feel is productive or not productive and having honest conversations with feedback is hard. I think when it comes to producing content and making sure it's relevant, we are not interested in trying to Capture everyone. We just did a whole team meeting and said, dear media, one of the first things we describe ourselves as is we're focused, and we're focused on the audience we're trying to serve, and we're very in tune with giving that audience what they're asking for. I'm not placating or pandering to different people based on whatever the political strife in the country is or whatever kind of social media stripe is going on in the country. It's like, what does our specific audience want from us? What are they asking more of? What are they not liking? I stay very in tune with that. Even taking it to Lauren and I's show, we are very close to the person who's listening or watching at the end, making sure that engaging their temperature, like, hey, do you like this? Do you want more of this? Do you want less of this? We're never trying to, you know, kind of go beyond our reach or capture everyone. I think a lot of modern media companies struggle to stay focused and they're jumping onto the next flashy thing, or maybe something's trending and they try to jump on the trend. For us, it's like blinders on. Focus on the audience, focus on who's there, who's your real fan, and then just serve them more, though. That is your best marketing.

Right?

Like those people going out and telling 18 other people how great it is and how. And how good they feel after either viewing or watching or listening. I think a lot of companies, not just media companies, lose sight of that. They try to be for everyone and not just focus on who they have.

Absolutely. It's something I. I listened to the podcast that you and Lauren did with Sriram Krishnan and his wife. I love the dynamic of, like, the two couples on the mic.

He's brilliant, by the way.

Yeah, he's. He was, actually. He's been a friend of mine for probably the last year and a half now, and he was an investor in my last company. And seeing his show, dynamic of how they've navigated it, I always, like, drew that parallel. So when I saw you guys both, you know, they host you guys, like, this is great. I've never seen, like, just two business minds, their other, like, partners.

But, you know, I'm fortunate. I'm a little bit older than you, but I look up to guys like that and to couples like that that are a little further along the line. Here's the thing. You're never too old or too accomplished to find great mentors, like, even mention people Like Gary Vee. Gary Vee. That was the first public platform I ever went on and we're getting ready to do another show with him. And I'm so grateful to him because he was the guy that I looked at as a young guy and said, quit fucking around and quit talking. Sorry if I can't cuss here and focus on actually getting the work done and doing it. And like that example, I always tell people that are consum they choose to consume content, be very careful who you listen to and pay way more attention to the people that are doing things. Like, if you look at Gary, just to single him out, he says a lot of stuff, a lot of time. But if you look, he's actually real. He's building all the stuff, he's writing all the books, he's creating all the content. So, you know, there's a lot of people that sell information. There's very few that actually have the backing of doing things. And true Ram too is, you know, I was talking to him this week and he's navigating a similar dynamic. Like, hey, we're starting to host this show. It's with my wife, we have kids, we're running businesses. Like, how do you do all this? And that advice is not going to be the same as somebody who's maybe single and just creating content for a living and doesn't have children yet, right?

Absolutely. No, it's, it's, it's so cool. But it's something that I remember Shrim saying in that is, you and Lauren know your audience more than you know a brand that he's ever seen in terms of, you know exactly who your customer and the listener is. How can brands do better at that? You know, there's so many people and even individuals, right? Not necessarily brands, but personal brands that are putting out content, that want to cater to an audience. A lot of people do exactly what you said. They feel that they need to jump on the next trend, they need to follow the next wave. But the people that actually stay focused, as you guys do here, typically win.

Brands do a terrible job of actually listening, right? They don't. They just, they assume a bunch of people get in a boardroom or in a meeting and they assume they know best. So it's like, we are not geniuses over here. We just listen really carefully. Even if you look at Lauren's product line, we ask the audience all the time, what do you want? What is the content you're responding really well to? When we talk about this routine, what, from an analytics side is spiking the most and people asking more for from the show. Same thing. I think businesses, media companies, brands, make this way more complicated than it needs to be. Listen to your audience. And the biggest problem is then they get an audience or a consumer that's excited and they're like, cool. Got them onto the next and they abandoned them and try to get somebody else. No, there is a customer service element to every business. And I don't remember that book that just came out. You might know it. There's a book all about hospitality and customer service that was written. I think the guy that did 11 Madison park just wrote it. I don't know, Taylor, maybe look it up. But we talk about all the time here. Service the customer, service the audience. Make sure you're listening. Pay attention to what they're actually asking for. If you do something and they push back and say, I don't really. That wasn't really my thing. Like, don't just blindly go and say, hey, this is the board plan and we're going to keep falling. Like, pivot, move. Give them the stuff they want.

Yeah, no, I love that. Exactly what you said. Like, being a listener. A quick, fun story is I had the opportunity to sit down with Larry king back in 2019.

Awesome. Legendary.

It was great. I mean, I was 19 at the time. He was 87. And that interview, like, I always go back to it because the word of being a listener was like. Like, it. It became so clear to me, you know, I. I was talking about, like, what makes. How do you build curiosity into your conversation? He's like, you got to listen. You know, I've never learned anything while I was talking. And this idea of just being a listener was just, I felt, branded on my subconscious from that moment to the point now where my new company, listener.com like, I fully embrace this idea of, like, what a listener is. And I want to ask you, as someone that has hosted so many shows with your wife and as a part of so many shows within Dear Media, what makes a good listener and a good interviewer in that context, from your.

Perspective, somebody who's actually listening. And I know that sounds like a strange question, so I'll kind of like, get detailed there. So many of us do this thing where somebody speaks and then we stop and we're listening to what's coming out of the mouth, but we're not really paying attention and we're waiting and we have the next question in our mind to ask. So, like, you just would have told me all that stuff about Larry King. I could sit there in my mind like, okay, when he's done talking, I'm going to jump in about my point about Larry King. That's not listening. That's just, you have a turn, I have a turn. So I think what makes the best listeners and what makes the best hosts are people that are actually paying attention and going with the flow of the conversation. I may have. Lauren and I always have these briefs that we print out for every guest, and we take all this time to develop questions we'd like to ask. But if we start going into a story with someone and it starts to take a left turn, that has nothing to do with our brief. We're going to follow that thread through and we're going to stick with that story and listen to what the guest is actually talking about. Now there's guardrails and boundaries. You can't let people ramble on irrelevant things. And you have to kind of decipher that. I think that's part of being a good host is deciding what is rambling and what is beneficial to the audience. I get in trouble all the time for interrupting on the show, but a host's job is to keep the conversation flowing and interesting. But I think we do a really good job at looking like we're listening and a really poor job of actually listening. And what I've seen not only hosting a show, but now producing a ton of shows is the people that have the most success are the ones that able to have a fluid conversation and actually follow that thread through. And the ones that struggle are the ones that's like, it's so formulaic, it's so Q and A. It's like, I got all my questions. We have to. I mean, sometimes we don't get to any of our topics or questions if it doesn't make sense for the conversation. But I think it makes for a more interesting, less predictable show.

Yeah, when you say, you said balancing that line, a lot of that comes down to intuition, if I think about that. Is that something where. If you're talking to people that want to start a show today, how do you teach that? For me, it would be, you got to go through the process to really understand that balance. What would you say to that?

So some of it can be taught and approved upon. If you listen to early episodes of Lauren and I's, you're going to. And we leave them up, some of them are atrocious. We interrupt, listen well enough. We're not great at framing out questions. We're not good at Structuring a show. Right. So a lot of it is experience. You got to put in the repetitions.

Absolutely.

Some of it is natural talent. And I think people have to be honest with themselves at times. Like, do you have. What I believe is everybody has a natural talent for something, but sometimes people are not honest with themselves about what that natural talent is. So what I'm very cautious about when I'm signing talent at Dear Media is if anyone comes in and says, I'm gonna be the next Casey or I'm gonna be the next Lauren or I'm gonna be the next I kind of am like, ugh. Immediately, I'm like, wait a minute. I want you to be you. I want you to be the first version of you. Because that is not replicatable. And if you're the next version of something that we already have, that is great. It's like, you're always gonna be the second rate of that. So there is some natural talent and then there's some practice. But I also think part of my job at this point is to try to figure out both and recognize who's got the natural talent and is willing to work to improve. If you come in, you have no natural talent and you don't want to improve. I shouldn't be signing you, but sometimes you get. You'll see someone that really is going to put in the work, but they just don't have the thing. There is a thing.

In some cases, when you say people come to you, they're pitching shows. How often, as someone that runs a successful brand podcast network that represents talent, what do the pitches look like? How often are you guys getting pitched? How often are you guys signing new shows? And has that theory changed over time?

So in the beginning, I took all the pitches. Obviously, when there was nobody, there was a very, very small team. Now the team, we have a talent development team and show development team that takes the majority of the pitches. Once in a while, I will find somebody or people will pitch me directly. What I think the best way to kind of do that with me is to have some kind of creative outlet or some kind of creative perspective or something that stands out to catch the attention. Because typically then I'll pass it if it's lazy. It's like, hey, I heard you guys do podcasts or shows. Like, we want to do this. You haven't done enough research to think this through, but it's happening a lot. And I think that speaks to the volume of creators that are jumping into this medium. But again, our job is to Manage the expectation on both sides. So the biggest thing for us is one, do we think our audience is going to resonate with this and they'll be happy or excited about the sign? Two, do we feel that we will be a good partner? And that's really actually important. I am very hesitant to sign shows where I feel like we're not going to be able to deliver on. We are an under promise and over deliver operation as opposed to, I think a lot of businesses in entertainment are an over promise and under deliver, which is kind of like how this thing got started. So yeah, I mean, I get a ton of different pitches all the time. For creators out there thinking about how to pitch, one, I would ask yourself, do you really need to join a company like this right away or can you self produce for a minute and like get some traction? And two, are you being thoughtful and creative with that pitch? Not just like, hey, I see you do this, you know, sign my show? You know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely. I want to talk about the business of Dear Media. I know you guys raised, I believe, a Series A round, right? Just $12 million if I'm not mistaken.

We did. So we bootstrapped the business and self funded it to series A. Then it started to get to a scale that, I mean, you know all about this. It started to get to a scale where we just couldn't keep up with it from a self funded funding perspective. And also like, we needed some capital to do what we were doing. So we brought on an $8 million round in March of 2020, literally the Friday before the pandemic hit.

Wow.

Talk about if my partners are listening, if you'd have held on one more week, you would have got a much better deal. But no, and you know, honestly like the kind of all that process of, you know, going through the paperwork and pitching and all that was kind of well and done. We had a term sheet and we're going, we're in long form since November before. So it's. It took a while to get it done, but yeah, and then we did an inside round which I think is public just in July of 22, namely because the market started to turn and we didn't want to be in a position where we got capital constrained. It was just like, as you know, businesses got shaky. And so that's all we've done is just we've done those two rounds. You know, we're profitable now and we're not doing anymore. But yeah, I mean, I think it's in some instances it's very relevant and very worth it to raise capital. But my advice is also to not raise capital for as long as you can and learn about the business as much as you can before you do it. And also, you know, keep more control.

Yeah, absolutely. So when you guys went to go do this, when you think about, I guess you could say for founders, bootstrapping, when did you guys make that decision to go after and raise and what was your. I know you talked about some of the prior experiences you have business wise, but was this your first time raising.

A round of that size, institutional and this size? Yeah, I mean I've always been a bit of a control freak and not a control freak and I need to manage every process. We got a great team that is doing all sorts of stuff that I'm not involved with in the day to day. And I'm not a micromanager. But when I say control freak, I have always like my big pursuit in life is freedom. And I don't mean like it's not like financial, but it's freedom to live how I want, when I want, how I want, with who I want without having a lot of oversight. I think I probably have some PTSD from school being controlled by all sorts of teachers and principals and so anything I've ever done, I'm like, I would rather keep more control and have less oversight and be able to operate how I want with flexibility I want and with that means, like sometimes you can't raise capital or bring on a partner for this particular venture. I really believed in the direction we were going and knew that in order for us to execute properly and get it to where we needed to go, like I needed a capital partner. So for this one it made sense. But. But for bootstrapping, when I say that I think a lot of founders raise capital so early and they raise so much and then your exercise is like, how do you deploy it so fast? Like for us, I remember I signed all the talent, I did all the sales, I built all the marketing channels, I remember building all the production processes. Like I did all this myself. So by the time now at this stage, I've had my hands in so many areas of the business where I can find and I think as an operator I have more empathy for the people in the business and I have a little bit more control and understanding of how things actually work on the scaled sense. But I would recommend anyone do it. Not to mention you keep way more control and I think just become a better operator if you learn to operate efficiently.

Yeah, no Absolutely. It's one of the things where when we went to go raise capital for my last company, it was free context. And for people listening, mediakits.com is the easiest way for creators to aggregate all their cross platform data and to easily share with the brand. And it updates in real time. And I remember when we were first going out, we primarily raised from angel investors. We had a couple of smaller funds within that frame. It was 37 angel investors. And one note, I always like to say of like, my core purpose of always hosting my show over the last six years has been really three things. One, meet great people, learn from them, and of course, create business opportunity. And after hosting the show for three years, when we were to go raise capital for media Kids, about 80% of the capital raise was from prior podcast guests. And not in the sense of like, hey, I'm gonna go pitch all these people. I know, but, but genuinely wanted to go get feedback. Hey, let me know what you think, Shree. I'm like, what do you think about this business? This is how we're doing. This is. We're obviously raising capital and taking through the whole process of it. But for me, when I think about relationships that come from the show and why I do the podcast, it is just compounded over time in terms of how I view podcasting as the medium of conversation in depth. Right. Like for people listening, you know, we've talked on Instagram a handful of time. We have more mutuals than. And I, I was looking at our mutuals. It's crazy. But, but we have never sat down and got to know each other and have a conversation. And today, you know, we'll sit down for 50 minutes. When you think about in depth relationships through podcasting, how has that ex. How has that changed over time in terms of the relationships and how you view that medium?

Overall, the ROI that mourn and I have received from hosting a weekly show for eight years has by far been the greatest. If you call it a hack or you called it a networking tool that we've ever had, I mean, let's be honest, everybody's busy. Everybody's trying to run a company. Everybody's, you know, trying to raise a family, be a good husband, be a good wife, be a good partner, whatever it may be. You only have so many hours in the day. And I remember the days before the podcast, like, oh, do we go to this networking event or do this? And so many people, we get all these people. How do you network? How do you network? We have met so many incredible people Yourself. You know, I've had some of our favorite authors, we've had all sorts of entrepreneurs. We respect John Stamos. Yeah, John Stamos. Being able to bring these people and sit with them in an intimate setting like this for hours and just shoot the shit and get to know them is so much more powerful than meeting someone at a 15 minute networking event or even like at a packed dinner with a bunch of people. You know, I. We do very little. Lauren and I like, quote, unquote, like, networking events. We don't do like industry stuff. We show up, you know, we don't do influencer, all that stuff. We do a lot of this. And to your point, like the relationships that have been built and the information that been exchanged and the things we've learned has by far been the greatest thing I think we've done for our lives. And not to mention now that we've built a business off of it, which is fun, I would still to this day, even though we've built a business off it, do the podcast for free. Just for the connections and people you get to meet.

Yeah. When you think back on all the interviews you've done together, are there any that stick out as. I don't want to say the favorite interviews, I've never liked that question, but interviews that have had a profound impact on your life. When I think about Larry King or someone like Toman Fertitta or even someone like Shriram, I can reference key moments of this has impacted me and here's how and why. What does that look like in terms of the catalog that you guys have had on the show?

So I would say, I mean, I can rattle off a few guests, which I will, but I would say for Lauren and I specifically, a lot of couples, I think, you know, in many cases sometimes start to live even though they're in the same life, start to live separate lives. And if couples therapy is a real thing, Lauren and I have 700 hours of sitting on a mic and talking to people openly and candidly about an assortment of different issues. And sometimes I'll sit there on the show and hear her say something that is relevant to something her and I are going through. But because there's a third party or a guest there saying, hey, couples in this or people in this situation or whatever, handle it this way, we are almost both more receptive to receiving that information in that setting. And I think it's enhanced and helped our relationship because, say you have, it's so powerful, you know, like you have a behavioral therapist or you have someone who's a relationship therapist or even someone like Robert Greene who talks about just different kind of personalities and human nature traits, almost like sitting together, even if it's not directed at her or me, hearing that guest say this thing or talk about this issue, it rubs off. And so I think we've been able to sit in those kind of intimate conversations with some of the more prominent thinkers of the modern world and say, oh, fuck, that's like really rubbing off. I mean, I love Robert. Yeah. I mean, he's incredible. He's like one of the guests that comes on. You know, we've had celebrities and listen, I love you, Stamos. And that was fun. But I'm such a big reader and I admired his work and I remember being like starstruck by him the first few times we've had him on the show because I was like, this guy's been in my head for so many hours.

Yeah.

And I'm sitting with him and I'm like, is this guy analyzing me? Like, is he trying to like figure out my human nature? Like, is he thinking I'm like one of these personality traits? But you know, you never know with Robert. Yeah, for sure. But even like a guy like Gary or you know, like other people, other creators we admire, sometimes it's surreal to sit across from these people and one realize everybody's just a person and they're all just trying to get by and make a living and they all have their own issues and they all have their own struggles and, you know, good qualities and bad qualities. But two, it's like, yeah, sometimes it's surreal to sit there and be like, whoa, I'm talking to this person. It's like an out of body experience.

Yeah, you know, Absolutely. That's so cool to see for someone like Robert too, you know, someone that. But him and his essence, I believe, is so powerful. You know, you read his books, but the moment that I remember exactly what you just said when you first met him, it just kind of takes you back. Like that level of thinker I remember hearing, I think it was Ryan Holiday. Talk about like Robert Greene. His books, the pages are so dense where you can see like a paragraph that is a real paragraph of dense knowledge that took, took time. Right. And like just his level of thinking is incredible. So love Robert. Shout out to Robert. Yeah.

And then like, but even taking it a different, like in a different direction when we had Michelle Pfeiffer on, I remember just sitting there being like, man, when I was a kid and you were Catwoman. I was like, that's a. You know. Or when you, you know, Elvira and Scarface. I'm like, these are like formidable years for a young man. But we talked to her just about her as a person and an individual and, like, how she thinks about things and some of the things she's passionate about. And it wasn't like this, like, hey, what's your movie and what's your role? And I just, I remember sitting in that moment being like, oh. Even though some people have maybe more platform or notoriety than others, at the end of the day, all these people are people and they have a story and they have experiences. And if you're savvy enough to sit there and listen, back to the listening. There is a ton of knowledge that you can take and apply. It's like, even when we interview reality stars, there's all sorts of people have interesting messages and stories and educational points to share if you just pay attention.

Yeah, absolutely. I want to go back to the. The relationship dynamic of you and Lauren. When I was. When I ran into Lauren outside before this interview, I said, what's the question? Like, what. What should I talk about with Michael that would be different? She's like, you know what? Michael is so smart with finances and how he thinks about investing. You should talk about that. So when you. When you think about either for brands that you're investing in through Dear Media, or just from a personal perspective, angel investing, investing in different markets, how do you think about investing overall from a business perspective, personal perspective, and yeah, shout.

Out to Lauren for the.

For the top.

Put me on the spot. So here's the thing. I am not a financial guru. I don't position myself as a financial advisor or an expert even. I think that people over complicate personal finance mainly because there's a lack of understanding and also a lot of disconnect on how people think about money. I mean, money's in a very emotional thing for a lot of people, depending on how it affects you. You know, we just had Morgan Housel the show who wrote the psych. He's amazing. And he wrote the Psychology of Money and he said, you know, whether you like it or not, there's two things that affect whether you like it or not, which is health and money. Like, they're just in personal finance. So I think for the average person who just wants to save a little bit and invest, like, it's very simple. Spend less than you make.

Right?

Like, I know that sounds simple, but it is. Don't carry debt you know, take a decent portion. I may say 10%. I think if you can do more, put that aside and invest it into at this point, maybe Treasuries because it's so good, but index funds or whatever, something you're not going to think about. I think if you ever get a paycheck and you get a raise, increase, don't change your lifestyle that day. Wait a year, and then decide if you want to. I think anytime you're thinking about buying something, wait three months, decide if you really still want it. These are basic things for people that want to dive into angel investing. And you know this as well. I would say that any money you think about investing as an angel check is money you should write off in your mind. It is, is. I personally write checks to learn more, to develop relationships, and to potentially get involved in something that is going to give me a massively outsized return on that money. But I go into every angel investment with the idea that I will likely lose that check. I mean, you know, to get it a step further, when I think about what to invest in, it's like, am I interested in this business? Do I believe the founder has the juice and the drive and the tenacity? And third, I think for Lauren and I is do we believe our platforms will give it outsize advantage or growth? So we may look at a business and say, if we partner Dear Media or some of our platforms with it, we are protecting our investment because immediately plugging in here, so there's, like, advantages. But if I did not have certain advantages built in, I would say maybe don't go the angel route in the beginning. And there's safer things to look at. And then I think when there's things that you believe with your heart and soul are the next big things that you should fully go. And, like, then I would go as far in as you can. You know, like, Dear Media, we went all in with personal money. Skinny Confidential, all in personal money, the podcast, went all in and didn't make a dime for two years. I think people are too hesitant to go after the big things aggressively and too eager to go after the small things aggressively. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Like, they like, oh, I'm gonna. You know, I heard this crypto thing or this, this thing's gonna be the next big thing. Let me take a portion of my life savings and dive in there. But then when it comes into the thing that they're most passionate, oh, I better be careful and not try that. That, oh, I want to do this. I Want to build my own business, but no, I'm not going to invest there, but I'm going to throw money at this thing I know nothing about.

Yeah, right, Absolutely.

So I just think about, it's like, it's common sense.

Yeah. Also too, like goes back to investing yourself. Right. Like what, what's good for you versus just what are things that you can control at the end of the day. Right. Especially in the early days of your career, like what are things that you have full control over? And that's, you know, if it's a business, like you get to really decide what that is. I want to talk about outside of business. When you think about self care, you obviously, you work out, you take care of yourself. How has being a founder and taking care of yourself from a health perspective collided and has it changed over time? And what's your advice for founders that are either, you know, that it's tilted one way too much to then really get back to more of like a fully holistic, centered life.

I had a whole epiphany moment. So I've always, I've always worked out and I've always, you know, I was athletic and did things, but, you know, I think we get discombobulated when we start to build careers or businesses or whatever it may be or become parents and you start to kind of put some of those things on the back burner. And what I looked at myself after, like in the middle of the pandemic and I had our first child and I always thought I was in decent shape. And I saw this picture and I'm like, holy shit, I got a full dad bod. I don't have any muscle mass left. I am pale as a ghost. And I was like. And I was burning myself out. I looked at that picture. I was like, at that time it was way too much work, way too few Fs given about personal care. And I was like, yeah, the businesses were going well, but I was personally not as happy as I should have been. Didn't feel good, wasn't sleeping well, probably testosterone, not where it needed to be. All these things. And I think we do a really good job as life gets busy about confusing and tricking ourselves into thinking certain things are more important than others. Anybody that talks to somebody who's ever been sick and knows somebody that's got any kind of terminal illness or any, you know, Lauren and I just interviewed somebody that had cancer. It doesn't matter. All the money in the world, all the business success, when you take someone's health away. All they care about is their health. They don't care about anything else. And with that perspective, now, in order of importance, and I did a full episode on our show about this, a solo about the priorities in life. And number one for me is my health. Number two is mental health, number three is my relationship with my wife, number four is my children, and number five is my business. The problem is, I think many people get those backwards. They put their business first, their kids second, their relationship third, their mental health fourth, and their physical health last. And if you think about it, that's so crazy, it's like you've got this whole thing flipped where the stuff that's actually least important, the business is at the top of the heap. And when I say, like my relationship with my wife is more important than my kids, the distinction is if we're in a happy, healthy marriage and relationship that's good for our kids, our kids see that they model it. That's what they seek in their future. But if I'm not mentally and physically healthy, I can't be a good husband, I can't be a good father. And I'm honestly going to be a poorer operator. By putting the health stuff first ahead of everything else, I've found that you get better at everything else. I become a better operator. The businesses have scaled more efficiently. I'm able to deal with stress that comes with with being an entrepreneur in a much better way. And honestly, shit happens all the time in business. You know, this people, there's always a problem. But when that stuff happens now I'm in the mindset and in the health space, I'm like, cool, like, we'll solve it, no problem. I don't get stressed. Like Covid happened, wasn't stressed when market downturns, wasn't stressed. I think if I was behaving and not taking care of myself the way I was priority, there's no way I would have gotten through a lot of those things. So I just, you know, it just comes first. That's it.

Yeah. What does that look like in your life in terms of how you prioritize health routine? You're in Austin, you travel to la, you said every eight weeks. What does that look like when you're back home?

So even when I'm here, like today, before I came in the office, I got in here today. Taylor. What time did I get in here? Like, you know, maybe 10 or 10:30. I was in the gym this morning. I was up early. I had like a really high protein breakfast. Did all this Stuff to take care of my. I did all the stuff. Did a meditation read. I read the book. Not a whole book, but I read a lot, lot. I did all the stuff before I came here. I knew I was gonna be doing interviews, knew I was meeting this one, knew I had to conduct a leadership meeting. All of this stuff. I feel if I don't do the other stuff first, everything's just like me dragging ass throughout the day. So, you know, I prioritize sleep. I'm in the gym if you want to get specific about the routine.

Yeah, I asked you. So Diego, we've been friends now for about eight to 10 months his last summer, really. He's a bodybuilder. He was just at the Arnold Classic out in Columbus. And I'd love to get specific. Dude, we got Diego in the room too. So we want to chat after too.

Diego, you might relate to this or not. So in my younger years, I got really big, so I'm about 170. You were jacked. Yeah.

So love that.

I'm about 170 now, comfortably. I got up to like 195 at one point, which is big for my frame, you know, I was like. At one point, I put up four plates. I was fucking. I looked like a fucking upside down triangle. But I had nothing to. This was back in the. No explode nitrics take as much cyto gainer. Yeah, I think Jack3D even came after. But. But heavy stuff. And that's all I did was. Was lift heavy weights.

I don't know. That is jack. What is that?

It's like, it's a. It's a pre workout.

Okay, okay. But it's like, probably illegal.

I remember I used to take like those pre workouts and then go out on the town at night in college. I'll like slam one of those, like, cool, we're going out. But you know, again, like, I. I was very small through middle school and high school. Played football. Had to quit freshman year just because I was getting destroyed by the giants that were in there.

You didn't break your neck, so that's positive.

Thank God. And then I started boxing and I found out, okay, I like that a lot because it was individual weight classes. But when I got to college, I was like, it was the first taste of actually gaining size. And I think, Diego, you may know this, as a man, you start to gain some muscle and the confidence you gain from doing that is immense. But anyways, now at the stage I'm in. I'm almost 37, two kids not trying to be an athlete, not trying to do anything other than live for a really long time and have really strong structure and be able to pick up my kids and carry them around and carry all their shit. It's very simple. It follows pretty much a Peter Attio Huberman routine, which is I'm lifting heavy weights at least three days a week for an hour. I'm doing three days of just long zone two cardio, long walks, hill walks. I am doing, of course, cold plunge saunaing. I know that's a big thing, but to me it's.

You guys got the epic setup.

Nostrils, shout out, blue cube and sluice sauna. No, we put it at the house. It's a big thing. Again, I use that more for just recovery. Here's the thing. You guys are young. I don't know how old this audience is. Is after 30s, things start to crack and creak and you start to hear noises and things start to happen. Pops that you're like, what the hell was that? So again, this is all just function for us. And then one day a week, it's super intense cardio. Like maybe call it 20 to 40 minutes of that assault bike. Just like punishing the hell out of myself. But again, it's like I want to have proper heart. Heart function, and I want to have enough muscle mass to kind of get me through and keep my structure strong. You know, I think that. That it's. It's important to have a rigid fitness routine. One, for self discipline and two, just like going back to health, like, you will just feel better and operate better, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. I love it hearing that too. Just I wish Diego got to pull up, get a mic on. So I've been working out with Diego at the Gold Gym in Venice for the past six months. And I've always been active, played sports my whole life, and I was never in the category of like, overweight or even like a slab of that. So for me, when it comes to working out, ever since I started working out with Diego, it's just. It's different. Like being in that Gold's gym around all these bodybuilders that just operate to a certain degree in the gym, it's. I've learned so much from. From Diego and just everyone in that place, but also too just on the discipline front for context, where, you know, 75 hard, right? So we're both on day 65 right now, and I always do it once a year. And I was on Andy for this podcast.

It's no alcohol.

Yeah, so it's no alcohol. You have to do two workouts a day. So this is 75 days. Two workouts a day, both 45 minutes. One has to be outside. Gotta read 10 pages of some type of nonfiction book. Physical pages. You have to stick to a diet. And what am I missing here? Drink a gallon of water. So I got my gallon somewhere in here.

But you know what's so crazy to me? Like, okay, first of all, whenever I see somebody that I can tell has maintained their physical body, and I don't take all of the material or cosmetics just like somebody who's done that immediately. To me, what that tells me about that person is they have self discipline and that they have self respect. And I get in trouble on our show sometimes because I don't understand when you have this whole world of, like, oh, let's just be who we are to accept who we are. It's like, no, not really. You could be better. You could work harder. You could take care of yourself. There's this idea that we should just let ourselves go over time because of gravity and age is crazy to me. You should be doing everything you can to live as long as you can, as healthy as you can. And anybody that says different to me, I think is like, we are never gonna relate. We are not on the same side of the conversation. I'm not gonna tell people. If that's how you want to live, fine. But you can't sit there and tell me that that's a better way of life, because I just. I know it's not. Right?

Absolutely.

And you know, when you hear things like 75 hard. I'm sure Andy gets a ton of pushback from all sorts of people, but that sounds extreme.

Yeah, it's crazy. Like, big media outlets.

Yeah, but it's crazy. But it's like, his message is. Sounds pretty good to me. You cut a lot of alcohol out. You drink more water, you work out more, you eat in a rigid way that's disciplined to feel better. Like, that's the whole. Like, it always drives me nuts when I see media outlets or people diminishing that message. You may not want to do it yourself, but it's a good, positive message. Especially I wish I had those messages when I was a younger guy. Right.

Have you had Andy on the show? Have you guys done anything together?

We're in conversation with him, and his wife has corresponded with us over the years. She's lovely.

I love Andy. And speaking about culture, too, and 75, hard for people that may not know it, it has nothing to do with the physical elements of it. And last thing I forgot, you got to take a physical accountability picture in the mirror every day. So you experience these physical changes, but the whole thesis is the mental toughness and more so the discipline of that and how that translate into every area and aspect of life. And I remember sitting down with Andy last year in his office in St. Louis and I met him when I was 18. So you know, he's seen me progress in my career over the years and he's like, man, the reason I do all this shit is for people like you and in terms of being able to create that voice and those foundations for people that not necessarily young but just want significant change. You know, I was the 16 year old kid in Virginia, so that as exactly what you said. Like I wanted to completely change the direction of my life. I didn't want to settle for, you know, as you said, like, oh, what I have and this is my path and this is what I'm destined to do. And I just love Andy so much for that because he is so in his own lane, right? Like when you walk into his first form facility and you meet all the people, like the culture there is just. And I've been to a lot of like great, you know, met a lot of great founders as you have, like, it's just so special how you feel walking out of that facility. So I'm looking forward to the day to seeing Andy and Dear Media and all the stuff you guys do.

I would love to meet him. I love anybody who's completely unapologetically themselves, authentically as themselves. Like I may not agree with everybody, but whenever I see anybody that is just doing their thing, how they want to do it, you know, obviously not trying to harm anyone, but just like being who they are, sharing their vision the way they want to share it. Like I always like respect, you know what I mean? I think too many people are scared these days to just to do that. And there's this whole running to your media has been interesting for me because I've been running a front. I've always been a behind the scenes guy, but I am now running a front facing media company. And during a time when there's so many people pressuring media companies like, hey, tone that back or don't say this or don't say that, I'm like, fuck that, we're going to say whatever we want and people are going to like, I'm not pandering to an audience that I know is set on disagreeing. Or disliking me. I'm speaking to the person to your point. I want to speak to the person that is looking to have positive change in life and resonates with the message we're sharing. There's plenty of. That's the great thing about the Internet. There's plenty of options. Not everybody needs to be for everybody.

Absolutely. I love that. A couple more questions before we wrap up here, Michael. I know you guys have a lot of exciting things going on, but when you think about the future of Dear Media, what excites you the most about it? You know, you got, you do live events, you launch brands, you live shows. But like taking this, taking a step back and really thinking about what excites you and the team into the future, what is that?

It's good timing because we just did this whole exercise and I just orated and probably bored half the team with this long winded speech I did today. But I am not a great operator when things are going well and consistent. And what I mean by that is, is say that in our world right now, the shows are doing well from an audio perspective and people are making money and it's like turnkey. Everything's kind of going the same and predictable every day. I am not a great guy at managing that process and just sitting there and being like, cool, let's just now sit here and watch this run. Well, I'm mostly excited about the thing that I've always been like, what's next guy, what's the next thing? And for me, now I get excited. I just talked to the team, I said, Dear Media is not a podcast business. It is not a podcast network. It is not just podcast. Dear Media is a modern media company that can have its hands in all sorts of things. We are going heavily into video, we're going heavily into live events. Like I said, we just did our first book publishing deal. Should we do more of that? Should we stand up more commerce businesses that make sense for our audience? We have this amazing flywheel. What else can live here? And I think so many people, they get comfortable with like, okay, we've made it here and now. Let's just like, let's just guard this thing. Why they is like, cool, that's done, like, check what's next. And I just get excited as an operator to think that the potential is unlimited, has to be focused and you have to be smart about it. And you can't just do everything but unlocking the potential of different things. And even when I work with people, it's like whether they're an employee or a team member or a talent, let's unlock further potential as opposed to just being comfortable where we are. So that's what keeps me exciting. Honestly. If we were just a company that was monetizing podcast shows, you don't need me anymore to run that business that's already set and done. I could go off and do something else. You could get any number of managers or career executives that just manage the process. For me, I'm the guy that let's go build the next thing.

I love that. Great timing on that conversation. Last thing is just when you think about your entrepreneurial career, but also the relationship aspect of building a business with a partner. Partner. I'm someone that, you know, I've built a company with my partner as someone like she was the first hire and to now like moving into my next venture, I know she's going to be strongly involved. I would love to hear your thoughts and advice to yourself as an entrepreneur, but also to working with a couple and advice more so to me and people that have ever thought about doing.

That in relation to partner, meaning like your significant other.

Yeah.

Okay. Again, everyone's different. You're going to have to, you know, know each relationship's individual. But what's really worked for Lord and I is we were very clear in the beginning not only aligning on the vision, but how far we wanted to take that vision. So I think a lot of couples get into a relationship and start to build a business together where one person wants to build, you know, the mom and pop pie shop that reaches, you know, the community. The other person wants to build the pie shop that is going global, worldwide and reaching millions. Now you both have the idea to build a pie shop, but the end destination is two different places. So if you're not aligned on that vision, that's going to be difficult. Lauren and I are very aligned on how far our ambition wants to push. 2 Defining the lanes early on and setting, you know, it's a collaboration always and you're going to always seek each other's advice. But for example, in our world, when it comes to maybe day to day operations or finance, she might say this is Michael's lane contract, you know, know, partnerships, whatever, like let him. She's gonna let me lead on that. And if it's a creative community design thing, I'm gonna say, you know, this is really Lauren's house and she's the final say on that. I'll give my perspective and advice. But like point blank, like she's the final say over here. I'm the final say. We do we define those lanes. I think this is harder. I think some couples try to be like, okay, well, at six o', clock, we're not gonna talk about it, or this is gonna be like, dinner time. The fact is, is all of this bleeds over into life. And I don't want to. I told the 1. I don't want to be able to not talk to you at dinner about stuff that is interesting at work.

Right.

That's our life. This is part. Like, all of this is part of our life. I can't imagine doing this show today and then going to dinner and saying, like, I can't talk about the show I did with Casey because that's business. Like, no, I want to talk to her about it. I think being aligned on what you want to happen with your family, if you decide to have one, and how the kids are going to either interact or not interact. We're very careful with how, you know, with what we do, how the kids are featured or not featured. I think all these little details where people say, like, I want to build a business or I want to build a. Like, get into the minutiae. Get into, like, in this scenario, how do we think about it? In this scenario, how do we think about it and, you know, get aligned early on. Because what I find is that couples that struggle have not had the tough conversations of getting aligned, defining the roles and really deciding what they actually want to happen at the end of that business or event. Makes sense.

That's powerful. Appreciate that last thing. So you guys have some exciting things going on. A live event coming soon for everyone listening or watching? First off, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show today, but where's the best place for everyone tuning in to follow you, to stay connected with Dear Media and to learn more about the live event and everything you guys have going on this year and years to come.

For me personally, and I could be better at this. It's just Michael Bostick on all platforms for our. I think our show is a great place to get us to get more, like, I guess, a different perspective. If you're not familiar with Lauren and I, we have all sorts of great people on the show. Entrepreneurs, authors, celebrities, you know, all sorts of different personalities. Sometimes we do solo stuff and then, yeah, Dear Media, we're doing our first live event, or not our first live event, but our first live event this year. We did one last year called Dear Media, IRL, where we're getting about 15 to 20 of our hosts to show up for a day of different panels. Think relationships, business building, marketing, entrepreneurship, wellness. It's going to be in Austin, Texas. Tickets are on sale right now@dearlymedia.com and then, yeah, if you don't, if you're like, hey, this guy's a wacko and I don't like listening to him. We have 75 other shows on Dear Media that you can find. We're everywhere. Just go onto dearmedia.com or Dear Media on all socials.

Love it. Well, Michael, thank you so much for making this happen today. Long overdue. Super glad we got it done and really appreciate you.

Thank you for having me, man. Of course, you're, you know, all the success. I can see why you do so well.

Appreciate it.

Thanks, man.

Thank you.