Living In Survival Vs. Living In Creation And Freedom | Erik Cabral

People start to stress about a lot of things, especially during 2020, about things they can't control. You have zero control over this. So that's sort of the thing that helps me to get through it. Like, do I have direct control over this and the outcome?

That's the mindset that needs to be developed. But that's trained. You have to train that because it's not natural. The mind has a negative bias anyway. And it's not negative in terms of trying to be negative. It's in a survival mode most of the time.

To have success in anything, there has to be some consistency. And when you have consistency, how do you create that systems and processes. So that's where we come in, to create that consistency. So that sets you up for success.

Welcome to my podcast, you Must Be out of youf Mind. I've got a great guest today that you're going to love. I know he's got a tremendous amount of experience in the business world and branding. Eric, I guess, grew up in the entrepreneur world as a. In the business world for about 20 years and then got into doing his own real estate investing and development and a serial entrepreneur, which is always interesting to listen to. I'm sure there's a lot of different things that we can share about. Maybe if you're interested in your business or you're building your business, I know Eric can provide a lot of insights.

So.

Eric, welcome to the you Must be out of your Mind podcast.

I must be out of my mind, but not. Not in a negative way here. Dr. Dunn, I appreciate you having me here so much. I'm in my right mind to be here.

Perfect. Perfect. Well, I got. We got introduced, right. And especially because of what you do with podcasts, and we're growing our podcast. So I. I'd love to have you and. And share your wisdom with us on what we can do and what other people can do if they want to start building podcasts up.

Yeah, I'm happy to share and thread that throughout this show here. But, yeah, I appreciate you and the show and what you do for the world very much because I think that what we do aligns as well, because ultimately what we try to provide is people a platform to engage with their community and to grow that community to provide more value through podcasting. But a lot of it takes hard work. You know, the. Not. Not just the. The tactics of it, but the psychological aspect of it. And like, am I worthy of this? A lot of people, you know, they hesitate even approaching this. This. This medium because they're like, who am I? And I have a podcast. And like right over podcast, you, you, you have a voice and you have history and you have experience that people can learn from. But yeah, so we're kind of, we have that overlap.

Yeah. What's interesting is just what you were saying is how sometimes people have, I meet a lot of people who are very successful, but they have what is called imposter syndrome. They feel like, you know, somehow I just lucked into this. They have a lot of self doubt about themselves and yet they've got a lot of knowledge to pass on. But there's a fear and that's coming from, that's really what we do in our program is to try to help them. You know, our program is all built about performance through eliminating the effects of trauma. So, so tell me about like when you see people who are having those kinds of issues. Right. How do you deal with it? Like, how do you get them out of that, that thought process for.

Well, first I, I ask a lot of questions. You know, not everyone really typically is someone that we can work with if they have a lot of work to do on that end, you know, I'll be a friend basically and try to work through it with them. But you know, I leave that up to the experts like you and other people that I know and love that can, can sort of peel those layers back. But typically we, we try to find those that, that are ready to rock and they understand that it takes their effort and the work that they've put in at that level to, to engage and to create more content. Because the thing is we all have some limiting beliefs and we all have to kind of work through these things. And like I said, through our community, we kind of work together as a whole throughout meetups and.

Virtual events and physical events. And it gets very sort of symbiotic where we can sort of lean on each other and say, no, you're. That's a limiting belief. Let's work. Let's, you know what's going on. Why are you talking about yourself that way? But as I said, typically we work with people that have already sort of battled through most of that and are ready to just, hey, I'm going to do this, I'm going to share with the world.

Awesome. Is there something, what kinds of things are you looking for when you say what kind of person makes a good podcaster? What's an interesting thing that you look for?

I mean, everyone makes a great podcaster. I don't think there's any steadfast rules. That's the wonderful opportunity and day and age that we live in where everyone gets that opportunity and you could just take the reins and run with it. What I've noticed, though, and it all depends on your level of experience and what you value or define success as.

I gravitate towards those who are really dynamic people who can capture an audience with very few words and they have a high level of energy. And for me, I love when I can hear someone speak my language in terms of metaphors and analogies, because that's how I learn. And I love it when somebody can create a parallel like, of a complicated concept and then say break. Well, it's just like driving a car or it's like when you play basketball. And I'm like, yeah, that's. That's my language. That's how I can learn. But there are other people that can deliver a message very succinctly with. With, you know, very sort of flat delivery, and it doesn't have to be overly animated. And I often tell a lot of my clients who ask, like, how can I level this up? How can I be better? I'll tell them, turn the knob up. You know, like, you are operating and you're recording at a 7 or an 8, turn it to 11. And it may feel unnatural, but it translates well. Right. If the camera adds 10 pounds, well, it also sucks 10, you know, degrees of energy from you. So that's why I'm always like. And eventually you get used to it in. And. But some people, they struggle with that.

That. That's actually just. You just did what you said you like to hear people do is you put up. That adds 10 pounds or, you know, takes. That's really a good way. When you said that, that actually I visualized that I was like, wow, that makes a lot of sense. So if you want to. If you want to get more enthusiastic, you have to, because it's going to reduce that a little bit naturally when you get on a podcast.

Yeah. I mean, you know, Tony Robbins says it all the time. Know.

Emotion. What was it? Not physical. What does he say? The action creates emotion or, you know, physical sort of movements creates emotion. And before I got on this podcast, I literally did, like 20 jumping jacks. So really, you know, it's. It's. It's all the state that you're in, and you have to sort of prime yourself so that you are at an elevated state prior to turning a camera on or turning the microphone on because you don't want to put people to sleep. Right. You want to ensure that they're staying engaged. I think the, the average listener is in with, you know, between 10, 20 seconds. And if they don't like what they hear or they don't, you know, jive or vibrate with that energy, then I'm out, you know, and then they go on to the next person who's like, you know, it's always the loudest person, right, that gets the most attention. So. But the thing is, I don't want to discourage people from creating content. You know, there's value that you have and you can provide that, and your audience that. That vibrates on that frequency will show up. You know, it doesn't have to be tens of thousands of people. It can be, you know, 5, 10, you know, however you, you want to make an impact. I'm happy if one person, you know, listens to this podcast and says, hey, Eric, thank you for that.

Right. So if you had people where, like, you've taken in a brand and they've sort of been fledgling and you've taken them to another level, can you share an example of that or what you, how you help them do that?

So in terms of like, coaching, we engage at that level very early on, you know, like sort of six to eight week process when launching the brand. Now, we can't be there by their side every time, but we do check in. We do check in and we give what we call audits, the podcast audits. And it's a very robust analysis of your shows over the course of three months. And we do that every three months because we need that cadence. We need to see your flow, we need to see your evolution. And we, that's when we come in and we have our coaches come in and, hey, here's where you can tweak, here's where you can modify, here's where we, you know, think that you can add this or remove that. So, but in terms of like, coaching on a consistent basis, we don't necessarily do that, but we will sort of share our insights with our clients along the way.

Well, I know, you know, when we first got introduced, it was basically because of podcasts. And then you mentioned before we got on that you had watched the podcast I did with my daughter, like, so I'd really be interested and you can be as honest as you want. What did you think about it? Like, what were your thoughts?

Well, for me, because I'm an audiophile and like, before I even got into podcasting, I was all into home theaters and I used to rig my speakers. Dr. Don, back in the day when we had tube televisions and the speakers were gigantic cabinets of wood, a big woofer like that. And if you had a stereo system, that was a big deal. Oh, yeah. So I remember creating surround sound, but it wasn't legitimate digitized sound. It was analog. And I would split and split and split to create 6, 7, 8 speakers in my parents house. And then I blew the receiver.

But ever since then, technology caught up with me and I pay attention to all the little things. So whatever feedback I provide, keep that in mind.

And to be in the podcast industry and a podcast producer for not just myself, but for dozens of clients, that's the first thing I noticed. So when I listened to your first podcast, I was like, oh, man, I got to tell Dr. Donnie needs a microphone. A better microphone, a better space, because this needs sound absorption. You know, bookshelves, as you see behind me, help to sort of diffuse sound. I have a lot of furniture and pillows in the area. So there's certain things and little things that you can do to, to increase the, the quality and the level of your, your, your, your, your audio. There's not a whole lot you can do with your guests. I mean, we do send like a list of things like, like I said, that's like one of the many things that we recommend. But at least you can control your environment and your sound. But then our audio engineers are so good, they can actually make it sound better. So even though it's recorded in say like a gymnasium, it's exaggeration, but our audio engineers try to work the best they can. I remember this one episode where a guest of mine had their phone constantly ringing. He actually removed it. Like the software that he uses, he can identify that sound wave, really. And I was like, what did you do? And then he showed it to me. He's like, see that, that line there? And he was like, you just removed all those? And then just. There was no more phone. It's crazy.

Well, that's really, that's good advice because I never really thought about it because the podcast we actually did with my daughter.

We are actually in the same room and we recorded it on three different cameras. And so it was very different. Where what we're doing here today is we're both on our own cameras, on our own zooms, right? That is a lot easier. When we did that three camera. Oh my gosh.

Oh, yeah. That's a high production level.

Really high. And then just downloading that video and trying to send it in to get edited it was like, I don't know how they do movies because, you know, these are short clips and it was taking like a day to download them.

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, that is. That is something that is a constant challenge for video editors. Just the file sizes are massive. Especially now. Everything is 4k, 8k, you know, 5d, whatever it is. It's just memory intensive. And yeah, it's a challenge unless you have a local sort of local vendor that can help you with that stuff.

Yeah, so I'm actually recording a new. We've got our TIP program, which is what we talked about, which is our program that's used to try to help people who are dealing with trauma in their lives. We can eliminate the. The way your mind is responding to trauma, and so we talked about it with my daughter on that podcast, is that it's creating glitches and error messages so we can basically reset the minds just like a computer. We just have to reset that data from looping. But I'm actually working on another program right now. We're calling TIP Now. So TIP is the trauma program. TIP now is how do you deal with current stress that comes in? Because quite often I'd have people say, this was life changing for me. It definitely helped. I'm not having that loop anymore. I'm not dealing with that. But how do I deal with now my mother, right, who's constantly, you know, complaining to me and dealing. Dealing with that stress constantly. I work with professional athletes, so golfers, you know, so they're out on a golf course, they hit a shot and then they've got a few minutes in between shots, and their mind then starts going into these crazy scenarios, right? And they start thinking about things that have nothing to do with golf. And then they get stressed trying to hit their next shot. So the TIP now program is really coming up with ways to teach them how to stay present, how to shut off that noise. It's constantly running. And there's ways to do that because I talk about the conscious mind is actually what does the thinking. The subconscious mind is responding. So your subconscious mind isn't thinking, it just responds to its environment. And it does that on an autonomic nervous system basis. So it's either going to put you into a fight or flight or freeze response, or it's just going to basically absorb what's coming in with no response. But your conscious mind is what messes us up because it can imagine, can think about things that aren't happening. And the issue, here's where the issue comes in. Eric. Is that the subconscious mind is in the moment. So when the conscious mind thinks about something that either happened before or is going to happen next week or maybe something just totally imagined, your subconscious mind thinks it's happening now because it sees it in real time and it's designed to respond to threats. So if you start thinking about, oh, my gosh, I got this meeting next week, I've got to meet with this CEO, how am I going to handle that? Your subconscious mind's already in the meeting.

And it's going to try to. To do something about it. It's going to try to get you into some sort of an action. So I'm sure that happens, too. Like, you deal a lot with entrepreneurs and dealing with people. You know, investing, for example, you do a lot of real estate investing.

That's something that you work and consult with people on.

No, no, it's. It's more building, you know, our legacy and wealth and portfolio. Um, but it's not something that we're currently active doing for. For clients. Yeah, our focus is building podcasts for those real estate investors.

Oh, okay. So I was thinking that you also worked with. Because it said you did real estate, so you're doing it on your own.

Yeah, we're doing it for us. From time to time, people, they approach me and say, hey, I see what you're investing in. I love what you're doing. And then I'll. I'll make the introductions to my partners. But that's. That's the level of my involvement. But in terms of what you were saying, I was just talking about this with my wife. You know, she. She often thinks about things way, way in advance. Like, you know, something that didn't even happen yet, you know, two weeks, two months, two years from now. And she. You could just see it on her face. She's stressed out. I'm like, what's going on, honey? And exactly what you described. I'm like, she. Your. Your subconscious has no idea. This is not happening right now. And you're creating stress hormones in your body and you're carrying this weight. Let it go. Stop. Think about now. Think about what's happening now. What's beautiful right in front of you versus all the things that might happen and may never happen.

Yeah, and that's really what. Sometimes that's happening. That's what the TIP program helps with. Because if it's old stuff that continues to run once we eliminate that which we can. So we get people out of post traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, all of those things. Because the mind is responding to old data. Now what we're going to do is work on, you know, what's currently happening and the way the mind works. So just like you're talking about your wife, because my wife used to do that all the time where she'd always be imagining things and this could go wrong and what if this happens and that happens and then she'd be so stressed out and I didn't live that life. I had a very quiet, nurturing, loving family that I grew up in. I wasn't stressed. You know, I could get bumped here. You know, normal things. You know, a friend says something to you, or a coach or a teacher. But overall I was pretty regulated in my nervous system. And so if ever I had something coming up, so a big meeting or something that was going to happen, my wife would say, aren't you worried about that meeting next week? And I go, no, I'm not worried about that meeting. She goes, how could you not be worried about it? What if they ask you this or what if they ask you that? And I go, I have no idea what they're going to ask me. I'd never be able to guess it. So why would I want to waste that time and stress myself out? That made no sense to her. And the way she talked about it, which I thought was a brilliant way to explain it, is that she said, I have non stop chatter. Not schizophrenic chatter, but chatter. And she said after going through the program, the chatter quieted down and sometimes just shut off. She couldn't understand how I could just be at peace and not thinking about anything that made no sense to her because she had that chatter running. And that's generally coming from trauma before and also training your mind to stop that chatter. Does that make sense?

100%.

Yeah.

I lean closer to you, but I do have the chatter as well. Um, you know, my typical solution for that on a daily basis is meditation. And I noticed that if I don't do it for days, you know, consecutive. Missed consecutive days, I noticed the chatter gets, gets louder and louder and louder. So that is, that is one tool set that I, that I like to use, but it is constant. I mean, the majority of people I think are like that. No, doctor, don't.

Oh, yeah, most people are.

The vast majority of people are. But you can train it not to do that. And especially like when I work with the golfers, I, I want them to be able to stay in the moment, stay present, so I give them tools to be able to do that, and if they find themselves, there's nothing wrong with their mind wandering sometimes and going into that. So it's not like there's a, a dysfunction. It's just the way our minds work. We're an advanced species. We have this 5% logical, reasonable, our mind that can imagine all kinds of things. And it's created the world we live in, computers, automobiles, airplanes. So it's, it's a good thing. And sometimes, unless it becomes a distraction. And when it becomes a distraction is when it turns negative. And then the mind starts thinking about things that could go wrong. And the issue is, is that the subconscious mind will see that thought as something that's happening now and then activate your nervous system to get you into a response. But there's nothing you can do. So what can you do about it now? And that was what I always used to try to explain to my wife, is there's nothing I can do about the meeting next week right now. Right. I've prepared for the meeting. I know what I know. If they ask me something I don't know, I'll just say, I don't know. That's a good response.

Yeah. Doesn't it stem from lack of or feeling the lack of control? Because then people start to stress about a lot of things, especially during 2020, about things they can't control. You have zero control over this. So that's sort of the thing that helps me to get through it. Like, do I have direct control over this and the outcome? If not, I'm not going to worry about it. I'm going to think about it. You know, I'm going to control what I have, what I can control.

That. That's the mindset that needs to be developed. But that's trained. You have to train that because it's not natural. The mind has a negative bias anyway. And it's not negative in terms of be trying to be negative. It's actually in a survival mode most of the time. So it's looking for those kinds of threats because it's trying to protect us. So it's not hurting us, it's actually trying to protect us. But it tends to think more on the negative side because we've maybe been hurt. So if you had a lot of experience with pain, a lot of experience with trauma, it's going to be exaggerated because I didn't have that. It was very difficult for me to have that kind of mindset. And there's actually a fascinating article that just came out, so I'm writing about this as well. So I'm a contributing writer for Brains magazine and one of the things that I'm writing about is this recent Harvard study that came out. And it's like, I've known this for a while, but it's like this is something new they just discovered. What they're saying is people who have a lot of distress, emotional distress, you know, whether they're dealing with depression or anxiety or whatever, at are a much higher risk of contacting Long Covid.

And what they're saying is they're starting to study this. So they did a study at Harvard led study, they did one in the UK as well, studying people since 2020 and finding a correlation between these people who have all this mental stress and the number of people who are not only contacting Covid, but contacting Long Covid, which has even more things that are going wrong. And so, but I've always known that. And I, I've been healthy all my life. I've always been very, very healthy. I don't generally, I very seldom will get a cold or a flu. It's very rare.

But what I'm talking about. So I'm going to write about this article as well and say, this is actually one of the things that I've been saying. If your mindset is constantly doing that in that negative state, then that's draining energy. And so if you're draining energy, the colds and flus and, and covet is basically a flu cold, right. It's going to be able to intercept in your system and beat your system down. But it's like the, the analogy I sort of use is the United States military is the greatest military in the world. But if we spread that military over 150 countries around the world and then somebody attacks us at the United States, they're going to defeat us because we don't have enough power to fight. So if you can't get your mind to stay in that positive mindset and you can, even though people say, well, how do you do that? It's training just like anything else. If you want to run a marathon, you just don't run in the first marathon you see. You train for the marathon, right? And the same thing with this. You can train your mind to stay in that positive mindset. It has a direct connection to your health.

I love that analogy too. I'm gonna borrow that from you.

Yeah. So the way I say it is when you change the way you feel, you'll change the way you heal.

That's great.

And so there's absolutely a Correlation between those two things, health and your mindset. And the only way to get your mindset to stay in that positive state is to actually work on it, you know, so even in terms of when you're talking to entrepreneurs and their brands and things like that, the more enthusiastic they are about their brand, the probably the better they are. Their podcasts. Right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's, it's a constant, you know, battle that we all have as entrepreneurs, especially with, like you said earlier, the imposter syndrome.

And one of the ways, I guess, and I never really considered it, training, you know, that I trained my brain over the course of years to be a little more, not impervious, but just not as susceptible as I used to be to negative thoughts and chatter and letting it take me down. So something hits me.

On any level, whether it be professional or personal.

Maybe it would have taken me out for years. Now I can get over it over the course of days or weeks and process it. And.

Trying to achieve the highest level of self awareness and emotional intelligence has been beneficial. But yeah, I think entrepreneurs have a lot of challenges daily because just so many people that you're talking and touching and experiencing and, you know, you can, you can let that energy affect you whether you like it or not. How do you create boundaries? Like, how do you create sort of things so that you don't get affected by other people?

Well, it's actually, it's a great point is I had a lady who come in and she'd gone through our program and definitely cleared all her trauma. She says it's been amazing, but it was life changing for her. She says, but says, how do I deal with, you know, a current problem I'm dealing with? She goes, my mother is so negative. Like she's constantly, you know, sitting me down and tell me everything that's wrong in the world and politics. And she says, it just drains me. I love my mom, she says, but it's very hard. And I said, then you have to take a deliberate action. I so she gave me an example. She says, we're my sister and my mother and I play tennis together. And she's in. My daughter had to get the vaccine in order to get back into school because I really didn't want to have to do it, but I didn't have a choice, I had to do it. And my mother starts saying, oh, don't do it. Look at the mistakes. She's just pulling up all of these negative things on the Internet to show her all the dangers and why she shouldn't be doing it. And she goes, and what am I supposed to do? How do I deal with that? And I said, well, the way to deal with that is I said, think of it this way. You wake up in the morning, just like your cell phone is powered up, you have 100% of your energy available. How much of that energy are you willing to give to your mother to deal with that? Because whatever you give her, you don't have available for your children. So if you power yourself down with that kind of a conversation with your mom, by the time you get home to sit with your children, you got 20% of your energy left. Are you willing to give up that much? She had to see that visual in her mind to realize how much she was taking away from her children. And so she was like, that had a big impact for her. So I said, the way to deal with it is to say, mom, I love you. I love that you care so much about your granddaughter. However.

Right.

I'm here to play tennis today. Right. And thank you for your caring and loving. Right. But let's just go play some tennis.

Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's. It's, it's, it's easier said than done, I imagine in a lot of scenarios where, you know, history and, and relationships and, oh, what are you cutting me off? You know, I'm just trying to help, you know. Then all of a sudden it's like all this ping pong back and forth. But you reminded me of A quote though, Dr. Don There, where, you know, especially in the entrepreneurial space, but then even people who are in corporate, as I was for over 20 years, is.

You give everyone throughout your day your best, and when you get home, you give your family the rest. And I always thought like, man, that's what I do. And I know it's cyclical, but I try to be conscious of that reserve. Like you said, enough energy so I can pour into my family and be present and have a conversation at dinner and be engaged. It's tough every day.

It is. But the thing is, is if you can put a value on it, just like you talk. So think about it from a business standpoint, right? If you said, okay, I'm opening up my doors in the morning, but my friend comes in every day and wants to sit with me in the back. So I can't open the door for my business yet until I hear all his problems, right? Or until they vent all of their stuff, would I close the door to my business while I did that? You wouldn't. And so it's a hard thing to do, especially when you're dealing with people you love and care about. But if you don't do it, something's going to suffer. And so what's the most valuable thing I said to her, I said, what's the most valuable thing in your life? She goes, my, My children. Right. So the most valuable thing you have in your life deserves the most. Give that the most. And that was all she sort of needed, was to get that visual in her mind. And so she says it's really helped tremendously because she does it with respect with her mom. She goes, mom, I just really don't want to do that right now. Let's, you know, table that or. And she says she's found her mom now, is respecting it a little bit more. And she can cut, I said, drive a wedge in that conversation. Give it a minute or two. Let her get what she's trying to get out. Say, thank you so much for the information. I appreciate it. Right. However, I need to do this now or I need to get this done. And, you know, so she does it respectfully, but her mom has sort of responded to it, and she's not done it in a. In a mean way or getting mad at her. You have to do it respectfully, but you can. But you have to make that conscious decision to do it.

Yeah, but with. Without having a distinct reason why you're doing it, it's very hard to do so until she gave that conscious thought about seeing her children. Right. Not getting, you know, you can do it in whatever sort of analogy you want. It's your food. You got so much food every day. How much you gonna feed your mom?

Right.

And then you. What do you have left for your children? It's the same thing, is how much do they have left when you get home to eat?

100%.

Yeah. So it's just a. Just a way to sort of visualize it and. And think about it. So that's our new program that we're working on. We're going to have it developed here very shortly to really help people in that side as well. But in terms of, like, entrepreneurs that you sort of work with when they're doing. How often should a podcast air? Like, how many podcast episodes or what? Is there a formula that you work with?

Yeah, typically we've noticed that, you know, to have success in anything, there has to be some consistency. And when you have consistency, how do you create that, you know, systems and processes. So that's where we come in to create that consistency. So that can set you up for success. So the, the cadence, the normal cadence of a podcast is at bare minimum one a week. This way, you know, people will. And the promotion of those episodes. So, you know, there's a lot of podcasters out there now and you know, they do the episode and they just throw it out there into the wild. Hey, maybe somebody listened to it. But in this day and age where there's so much information and so much noise, how do you stand out? Well, you have to have consistent content that promotes that episode. So that's what we recommend. A weekly podcast at the very least. I know people that do daily or two a week. I don't think that's necessary. Definitely could be helpful because you're putting more content out there. But yeah, at the very least, weekly, with weekly social media promotions on all platforms, we find is the best sort of tool set that we provide our clients.

Is there one that's better or does it depend on the topic?

It depends on your following. So for example, we have a client that is a B2B and they are always looking for other big businesses to provide value to as well as continue staffing. So LinkedIn is a good platform for them. So they, they constantly push out their content through LinkedIn because it, it helps with staffing, it helps with their culture to, to put out their culture so that people know what they're joining and who they're going to be a part of. And then it also, you know, it speaks to their clients that all live on LinkedIn. So it really depends on your platform. Some people are really strong in Instagram. You know, they have a huge following on Instagram, so we lean heavy there. So it all depends on the individual thought leader.

And how much do you have to put into paid advertising? Like is that a big component of.

It or it's, it's debatable. I, I sit on the other side where I'm a very sort of front facing guy, as you can imagine. I like speaking on stages, I like doing podcasts like this. I like to handle the front end of things. Now in terms of backend when it comes to data and analytics and buying ads, and I place that into that category, not necessarily my personal wheelhouse. And I created a company where we don't necessarily focus on that, but we appreciate it and we know that, you know, you can't make well informed decisions in life or business without data and information so that you can make, you know, well informed decisions based off what you have there. So there are people that like to buy ads and spend thousands and thousands of dollars a month to push out their podcast to other platforms and other, you know, other channels and other communities. It's hard in the podcast industry, from my perspective, to.

Gauge exactly where that's all going and where it's coming from in terms of am I getting legitimate downloads? That's my question always. Like, or is this a farm in Asia that has a warehouse full of hundreds of thousands of iPhones and Android phones that are just, you know, like, like, like, like, like. Right. And, and, or, you know, or are they engaged, real people that will like my content, potentially buy something that I'm, you know, that I'm putting out there or join my community, you know, and really benefit from the value that I'm providing? I would much rather, I'm about quality over quantity, and I would much rather have 100, 200 downloads per episode versus someone who's got, you know, their, they love vanity metrics, what we call it. And oh, look, I'm getting a ousand, I'm getting 2000 downloads per episode. Really? How many of those are real people? How many of those actually care about what you're saying? It's easy to tell. You can see, especially on Instagram, things like if these are profiles that are not real profiles, they don't really have real content. This profile is closed, or something like that. There's evidence that it's not real. So that's where I would caution people like, you want to get more downloads, ask yourself why, you know, is it for vanity? Is it for ego? Or is it for because you truly want to make an impact? Well, for me personally, that happens organically, like over time, and it needs patience, needs to marinate. So that's, that's, that's where I come from.

So you take the, the average, you know, people who aren't big, big podcasters yet, they, they're growing their business. What should they be get? What would be a good average for them to be getting in terms of downloads?

So the average. Now, when I started PODC podcasting several years ago, the average downloads per episode was about 100 to 200. So you have 150 downloads per episode. That was good. Now, since 2020, many, many, many, many people have come to create a podcast. Now, a lot of them have what we call pod faded, meaning they haven't gone past seven to 12 episodes. So a lot of those are not considered in this. But there are 2.8 million podcasts now. Wow. Of which, though a very small percentage of I think less than 400,000 are active, meaning they published over the last 90 days. So it's still hard to tell. But.

You have to consider all of that has changed over the course of the years. So now the average has gone down because of all the new podcasts to a whopping 29 downloads per episode is the average. So if you have 29 or above, you are average or above average. So I would consider that a win.

Wow. So yes, that's a big change. Just a lot of content out there. But are more people watching podcasts now than they were before?

I, I, yeah, I, I definitely see the tide and that YouTube and videos for your podcast are definitely increasing and more and more people are demanding that. So yes, if, if, if you can create a YouTube podcast and video first, that is going to set you up for success. If you're in this for the long term, you know, if this is something because it's a commitment and it's, and it's an investment to create videos. As we were talking about, it's a heavy lift to create a video podcast. What we recommend to start out to see if, hey, this is something that I may want to try and I always recommend you try this for at least 12 months to see if this is going to create something for you, which from my perspective and my experience, yes it will. But there is a video component to it. Even if you just do an audio podcast and record like this via zoom, that can all get chopped up. You don't need the full interview. We don't need to be Joe Rogan or Tim Ferriss with the full interview. People most likely won't want to watch that, but they do appreciate the clips. They do appreciate the 30 to 90 second stuff like, oh, that was great. And then they go listen to it. So that's the call to action. It's like, go listen to the podcast.

Interesting. Is there a certain length of podcast that's sort of ideal?

Yeah, there. So there are outliers like Joe Rogan who can have a three hour podcast. Right. He's the pod father, so he gets to create the rules and do whatever he wants. Now if you want to do that, that's your right, you could do that. But I think it's beneficial for the listener and that is truly who we want to engage and communicate with. Anywhere between, I think the sweet spot is like 20 to 45 minutes for an interview style podcast. It's difficult to have a 20 minute conversation because you gotta prime the pump and kind of get to know the flow but those would take a higher level of editing if you want to get to the meat. But yeah, I'd say under an hour. So 40, 40 minutes to 45 minutes is typically what I recommend.

Yeah, that's generally where we've been trying to stay. But I did have one person who's got a huge following more on YouTube and he said the longer the better. People love long, long videos.

Yes. So I'm referencing audio. So YouTube is a platform where people engage long form content. You know, they actually sit down and watch. Now if you want to have a podcast that people will listen to on their commute, I think the average commute time is 30 minutes or less. So that's the sweet spot, you know, and they may most likely engage in that last 10 minutes of the podcast on the commute home and then listen to the next episode and then it just keeps going. But yes, he is right. People who watch YouTube love long term, long, long form content.

It's a good place to put your, your full interview.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, it's fascinating. Like I said, we're, I'm loving what we're learning about it as well. It's just a constant. And the big thing is that's why I'm glad to have you on here because so many people don't know where to go. So when they can hear someone like you that knows their business, a lot of people out there say they know things. You know, we've gotten pulled into things. Oh, yeah. I can get you this and I can get you that. Right. And then, you know, it ends up costing you a lot of money. You don't go anywhere. So it's nice to be able to find people that are, that are real, you know, and you got recommended to me as somebody who's real. Right. That knows what they're talking about is going to lead you in the right direction. And that's hard to find. So that's why I'm glad to share this time with you and to be able to let people know if you are looking for help in this area. Eric's a great guy to talk to because he can definitely help you with that.

I appreciate that, Dr. Don. Yeah, I mean, it's all in our network, right? Our network is our net worth. So, yeah, I try to surround myself with people like J.M. big shout out to J.M. ryerson, who. How we met. Yeah. Just knowing people that are good people beget good people and just want to make sure that we all sort of stay clustered and close Together so that, you know, you're not going to get, like you said, somebody's going to like pull the wool over your eyes and.

Gotcha. And then move on to the next thing. And the thing is those people are going to learn the hard way. Right? They're going to, that's not a long term strategy.

Right.

You have to jump from industry to industry. I've seen it.

Yeah. Or sometimes you get somebody who's legitimately just trying to break into the business and they exaggerate their credentials. Right. Because how do you start in this? Right. I'm sure, you know, when you start off in any kind of business, you know, regardless of what it is.

Right.

How do you get your first customer? Right. Nobody wants to be your first customer. Right.

Well, if you have, if you have people that trust you, you know, they'll, and you, and you're upfront and you manage that expectation, like, hey, this is a new thing. We did that when we, when we launched YouTube podcasts, we told them, hey, you're, you're the first of a few clients. And we just want to let you know, full transparency, that we're building the systems and processes behind this. But we do have a track record in audio podcasts. And they came on, they said, yeah, I'm all in love and trust you. And you know, we're willing to, so it's, we're willing to be the guinea pig. So that's the thing is just finding people, you can genuinely put yourself out there as a, as a good human being. People will support that and say, hey, how can I help you? Dr. Don, I know you're, you're risking this and you're putting it all on the line and I'll do it with you.

That's, that's great advice for anybody too. So if somebody says that to you, you tend to trust that. It's when they come up and they've got a story, but they have no way of backing the story. Sometimes they, they get afraid that if they're honest. Right. That that's not going to work.

That's what I've noticed in this day and age. The highest form of currency currently is vulnerability.

And this is like your thing, this goes along with what you do is you put your most authentic self. And it sounds very cliche and everybody's saying these words, but what's the meaning behind it is truly just don't be afraid of just being vulnerable and putting yourself out there. And the biggest problem that I find people have is they fear being judged and they fear what poor people think of me. And I just say, who cares? And I put my stuff out there. And when I started doing that. Dr. Don, that changed everything.

Yeah.

It was the same for my wife when I first met her. Right. She had some trauma, and so she said to me, well, before we get married, I want to tell you what's happened. I want to share this with you. But she swore me to secrecy. She says, don't ever tell anybody. This is between you and me. You got to swear to me that this doesn't go any further. And I was like, but why? Right. She's, well, people will judge me. They'll judge my family. And I was like, but I'm not judging you. Yeah, but you're different. Right. It's that fear of being judged. And until you really realize that most people have had things like that happen to them. Right. And so it's not like you. We talked a little bit before as well. When you heard my wife's story, you were sort of saying, that's my childhood. And if you had the same kind of childhood, all of a sudden, that vulnerability from my wife to be able to share that actually healed so many people that what she was totally afraid of in the beginning has actually turned out to be the opposite. People go, you're talking about me. You know, I heard myself. I heard my wife's story, heard my husband's story, my child's story. In your story.

Yeah. There's something powerful behind that, Dr. Donwin. You can put real stories out there. You know, so I put a. I put out an episode where I talked about one of my failed businesses, and I put it out there, you know, like I was still healing from it. They often say talk about the scars and not the wounds, but this was sort of in that transition, getting close to other. Each healing. And I put it out there and literally got a phone call from one of the. My listeners, said I had to pull over. He was. He was crying, and he said, thank you for putting that out there, because now I know I'm not alone, and I'm not a failure. And I was like, I don't want to get emotional, but I was like, this is why I do what I do.

Yep.

This is it right here.

Yeah. Being honest and vulnerable. I'm. I'm a member of the Genius Network. I don't know if you know, the Genius Network with Joe Polish. Right.

Of course.

The thing that I love about Joe is he's. He is so vulnerable. He talks very openly about his. His growing up and the lifestyle that he led and that he'd gotten into all kinds of drugs and he got into, you know, abuse that he dealt with and all the things that he dealt with. And what I found, what was really interesting about the entire group, there's some very, very successful people in this group. I mean, highly successful people, even billionaires, they're all vulnerable because it's a place to come in and be vulnerable, and there's no judging. And it's amazing to hear these people that you're looking. Most people from the outside would be saying, oh, they don't have any problems, they don't have anything that they're dealing with. And they start sharing some of the things that they've been dealing with. And it's a safe place. And, you know, that's what I think is so good about what podcasts do, is they provide that place to hear what you needed to hear that you may not have heard. All my friends were getting emotionally, physically, sexually abused when I was growing up. Nobody, Eric, talked about it because it was all that shame built around it. So I'm growing up thinking everybody's leading my life because nobody wanted to say, here's what's happening inside my home. My wife didn't want to. So she didn't say anything to anybody. And it wasn't until I was around the house all the time that I was like, something's wrong here. I don't know what it is, but there's this tension in the home, you know, and then I started to see it. They couldn't hide it very. Because I was around too much. But that's so true. And I think what podcasts that. What I love about podcasts is I was on. On a podcast with Ben Greenfield and we had a guy call in who was a, like, world famous athlete and said, when you talked about your wife, you were describing my wife. He goes, we're millionaires, we fly in private jets, we have everything we wanted. But she was. When you. I talked about my wife, as I said, I felt like she wasn't enjoying the success we were having. And. And the reason it wasn't that she wasn't grateful and she wasn't high functioning. The problem that she was dealing with is coming from her childhood, because when she was younger, things would go good for a little while and then they'd crash, and then they go good for a little while and crash. So what she was actually trying to do is protect herself from being hurt. Don't get too excited. Don't get Too happy about anything, because if you do, you're going to get hurt when it comes down. So she tried to sort of stay level, and that prevented her from truly enjoying what the life we were leading. I was totally like, this is great. And yet I could see in her that she wasn't experiencing what I was. And when. When this gentleman heard that, he goes, now I understand with my wife, it's not what I was doing wrong. I kept thinking, I'm not making her happy enough. I'm not doing enough. Maybe I got to make more money. I got to do this. I've got to do more.

Right?

And it wasn't coming from that at all. It was coming from her past experiences, her prior life.

So it's very powerful. And when people hear those, and that's really what we're doing in our program, is helping them identify why these things are happening. And, Eric, I say to everybody when they come in, the first thing I say to them, there's nothing wrong with you, and there's nothing wrong with your mind. Your mind works perfectly fine. What's interfering with your ability to enjoy and perform your life at the best possible level? And chances are it's coming in from traumatic events and experiences that keep interfering with your ability to stay present. Because if you could stay present, you'd be enjoying life to the fullest.

Yeah, I work towards that every day, brother. Every day.

Awesome. Well, I so appreciate you coming in. I enjoyed our talk even before. I know we talked before, a few weeks before. And I appreciate J.M. you know, recommending you. And I also want to make sure that people know that if you're looking for somebody that can help in this area, that you're definitely an expert in that area. And I know you could be a big help to a lot of people.

I appreciate that, Dr. Dahn. Thank you very much.

So is there any. So how do people reach you? What's the best way to reach you if they want to find out more?

Yeah, I want to give something to the audience that will be beneficial if you have a podcast or you're looking to start one. It's something that I've collected over the years, all my experience. Experience. And I put it into something called a podcast, Do's and Don'ts Guide. So you can get that on my website, which is Eric, My name's spelled with a K E R, I K Cabral. Eric Cabral Co Guide. And then you can get a free PDF there. But all the do's and don'ts in podcasting and if you feel inclined and inspired to. I feel my. My most valuable commodity at this point in my life now that I just turned 50, is my time and I'm putting it out there. So there is an actual calendar. If you want to book some time with me, I'm happy to share some ideas, kick some things around, hear what you're trying to do, what you're trying to create.

And offer some value in your life. So, yeah, Eric Cabral co guide is the place to go.

Awesome. Well, I certainly appreciate all your time and I already learned a lot about what we're doing as well. So definitely I want to look at the. The audio stuff. So I appreciate that. On its own, I appreciate you.

Thanks for having me.

All right, well, you take care. Thanks. Eric, that trauma loop that you were just describing, it's creating a glitch. It's an error message. Post traumatic stress, all those kinds of things are glitches and error messages.

There are ways for you to be free. Whether you're. Our life is being impacted with anxiety or with some physical elements that are a result of what has happened in your life negatively, like the. The trauma being kind of stored and coming out through auto. Autoimmune disease.