Remarkable People Behind the Podcast: The Power of Passion

Foreign. Hello everyone, I'm Guy Kawasaki. I am sitting in Santa Cruz, California and this is our weekly Wednesday podcast, whatever the hell you want to make it. Live video conference. So I'm going live right now on, let's see, YouTube. I just got out of the water. YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. So we're on four places right now. This is, this, this live conference every Wednesday is powered by and sponsored by Restream. So if you want to be on multiple platforms at live, Restream is definitely the way to go. I think they go up to 30. We only use four or five. But my mind, my head would explode being on 30 things at once. And one of the beautiful things about it is that by using a Restream you can see all the comments from all the platforms in one place. So good morning and this week. Hi Zach, how are you doing? Yeah, say hello. Say hello. And you know what, people? Well, we'd love to get more people watching this live. So tell your social media followers that Guy's live right now. Theoretically we could get about 6 million people watching this. So. But you know, I'm no Elon Musk and I don't know shit about cyber currency and I don't want to know anything about cyber currencies. So. But be that as may, please feel free to tell all your followers and your friends to tune in right now. And then the other thing you could do is I have created a text based sort of family and if you're in the United States and Canada, send a text message to 831-609-0628 and you will join a text based ohana. And the way it works is when I text the initial like an announcement of a new episode, it goes to everybody and then if you respond, your response is one to one, you to me, and then if I respond to you, it's all also one to one. So it starts off one to many and then it quickly evolves into one to one. And yeah, so that I prefer that way to interact than email. Although we also have a Mailchimp database that goes out to 19,000 people every Wednesday morning. In a perfect world, those of you on mailchimp who are in the United States and Canada, you could sign up for this text based service and get off mailchimp Because I think that people pay more attention to a text message than to, than to email. So. Hello Alex, you just flew by. I hope you guys are safe in Brazil. My goodness. So. Well, listen, I have a non theoretical, very important question to ask you. Which is, and I really am curious about this. So what is your dream car? What is your dream car? And I'll tell you my dream car. So my dream car has evolved. For the longest time it was a 911 and I've had several 911s, but I have to tell you that about six months ago I went and test drove a 911 and I came to the conclusion after about two miles that I am too old for a 9 11. It is too, shall I say, taut and responsive to the road and it's too low and it's too noisy. So I have evolved from being a 911 kind of guy to I don't know what kind of guy. So having said that, I still might buy a 911 someday just to have one more. And I love shifting. So the 911 is one of the few kind of cars that still comes as a stick. So if you see me in a 911, don't say, oh, God, you're so full of shit. You said that you're not going to get a 911. There you are in one. So I still might. But I have to tell you, man, I. I went home and I told my wife, oh, my God, you know, I must be getting old because at 911 it was just too bouncy and too noisy for me. And this is a brand new 911. So. So that's my story. Okay? So David. David wants a white Testarossa. Oh, my God, David. I mean, too much. Miami Vice. Are you, man, are you the Don Johnson character or the other character? Abdiel. Range Rover. Autobiography. Range Rover. That's interesting. I just have a. I have to tell you, I have. I'm a little leery of British technology in cars, I must admit, because the British cars that I owned, I can't tell you that I thought they were well made. But hey, you know, times change. So, okay, so dream car, cyber truck. Oh, man, I don't know. You know, I would love to buy an electric vehicle. And I just saw a report of the electric vehicles that get roughly 300 miles or more range. And it's basically Teslas and it's these startup electric car companies, which I would never buy a car from an electric, Electric car from a start. I would not buy a car from a startup at all. Although arguably Tesla was a startup. And I. One of my great disappointments in life is that Mercedes Benz, I don't know what they're waiting for, but, you know, you cannot go to a dealer Today and buy an electric Mercedes Benz. And the S Class is supposed to come out in the fall, which is okay, but I know, like, 20, 21 Mercedes Benz, like, what's the story here? No electric car. I don't get it. So what else? So now you may be wondering what Aston Martin dbs that. That. I wouldn't say. That's a daily driver. And it's spelled A S T O N, not a U, S. Unless maybe it's a combination of Austin in Texas and Aston Martin that has a certain appeal because it'd be so rare. I don't know where you get it service, but it'd be so rare. So you might want to know, what am I driving now? So now I have a 2013 Cayenne diesel. And I gotta tell you, 2013 Cayenne diesel gets 30 miles per gallon. 30. And you know, your electric guys are saying, big freaking deal. But an SUV getting 30 miles per gallon on diesel, I mean, and a diesel engine is so simple, it's gonna last forever. And Cayenne hasn't changed so much that, you know, it's really obvious when you have an older one. So, yeah, so that's my daily driver. I also have, believe it or not, I have two mattresses. One has already been converted by Peace Van, so it's a weekender. And the second mattress is now at Peace vans getting converted. So now you're wondering, where the hell are we talking so much about cars today? Well, it's because, duh. This week's guest on Remarkable People is a guy named Rich Benoit. And I have to tell you that I think that this may be the wittiest episode of Remarkable People. And that is saying a lot. I could make the case that he's tied with Margaret Atwood, but, boy, this guy is one funny guy. And I will tell you in advance that if you own a Tesla, you might not like it. If you are a TEDx speaker, you also might not like it. But just FYI, I am also a TEDx speaker. So when you hear me sort of position what TEDx means, it applies to me too. I. E. I have never been to the big top. I have never spoken at Ted Ted. I've only spoken at TedX. So let's see. The people who are who might be offended by this episode are Tesla owners and TEDx speakers, to which I say, you know, grow a pair. What can I say? So now, Rich Benoit. So this is the story with Rich Benoit. So what he does is he's an IT professional. He lives in Massachusetts. And he wanted a Tesla. This is like 2016. He wanted a Tesla and he couldn't afford a Tesla. So he goes on a wrecked car site where you can buy wrecked cars, and he sees a Model s for sale, 14,000 bucks. And it, you know, it's, it's kind of wrecked and flooded and not by fresh water, but salt water. So anyway, he buys this, he buys this wrecked, flooded Model S 14 grand, tows it to his garage, which, that alone, just getting it in the garage took a few hours because, you know, how do you roll off a Tesla? Anyway, so, so he puts it in his garage and he begins this saga of rebuilding a Tesla. Now, little did he know that Tesla won't sell you parts. You can't just go to, you know, Pep Boys or autozone and buy parts for a Tesla. You got to get them from Tesla. But Tesla won't sell it to owners. Tesla is not exactly a great believer in the right to repair laws. So he, he can't even get a cover for a bolt. So. So that he has to buy multiple Teslas to cannibalize them. And he starts documenting this process in a YouTube channel called Rich Rebuilds. And I tell you, if you are into cars, this is the funniest channel. So this is he. And you know, besides the fact that it's funny in cars, there is a lot of ingenuity and perseverance and just sheer Cleverness in his YouTube channel and this episode. So if you're a car person, this is the episode for you. I promise you, you will. If you're, if you're not in stitches after this episode, you're not a car person. That's the bottom line. So, okay, so we've established many people's dream cars and I guess the follow on question in the theme of this podcast is, well, what would you do to get your dream car? Because obviously a Model S was Rich's dream car and he was willing to buy a wrecked one for 14 grand and rebuild it, not being able to buy parts. So I would say that that is way beyond what I'm willing to do to get a car. Now, he has a very, he has two recent and ongoing projects, and you're gonna have to wrap your mind around this one. The first one is called ice tea. Not iced tea, the wrapper I C E T. And the ice in this case stands for internal combustion engine, Tesla. So what I'm trying to tell you is he is taking a Tesla and he is putting a V8 into it. So I'll say that again. He's taking a V8 and putting it into an existing Tesla. Now, you might make the case that if you took a V8 out of a car and put an electric motor or motors in, you know, you can wrap your mind around that, because electric motor, there's no fuel tank, there's no exhaust system, there's no catalytic converter. Obviously there's batteries, so that adds a lot of weight. But just sort of chemically, I would think it's much easier to take an internal combustion engine car and make it into an electric car. Of course, he does the opposite. He takes an electric car and puts in a V8. Now, when you do that, well, everything changes because now you need a fuel system, you need a fuel tank, you need an exhaust system. Anyway, so he talks about his project, ICE T. Internal combustion engine, Tesla. And another thing he talks about is that his assistant was homeless, so they buy an old Sprinter and they're. They're customizing it as a home for her. So that's another aspect. So again, if you're a car person. Yeah, so. And I think there's a lot of lessons, you know, forgetting simply the car business. Okay. What? Maria? I would wash other cars to earn enough money to buy mine. I hear you, but that's a lot of cars you're gonna have to wash depending on what's your dream car. So. So this is, this is about dreaming and perseverance and. But mostly it's about cars and witty wittiness. Like at. When you listen to the introduction of the podcast, I couldn't even do the intro with a straight face. I had to, unless Jeff cut that part. But I was cracking up from the get go. So, yeah, Rich rebuilds. Rich Benoit, this week's Remarkable People podcast. So I'll tell you something, if any of you know anybody who owns a Tesla, you have got to send them a text or an email telling them to listen to this episode. They will truly enjoy it. Hate it. Anyway, so do you have any questions for me? Well, what is your dream job? That is a good question. Yeah, so my dream job is being a podcaster and a chief evangelist of Canvas. I have achieved my dream. The only dream I have not achieved is the ability to walk to the nose of a surfboard. And that's taken me longer than anything else I've tried in my life, actually. So. So send a comment. What is your dream job? But also send questions. We are standing by. Send us questions. We are ready to rock and roll because off we go. Come on. Guy. Guy, what are you up to these days, apart from the podcast? Well, I do this podcast. I am chief evangelist of Canva, so I'm convincing people to use CANVA to become better communicators. And I surf a lot, and I have four children. And also I have developed an interest in sporting clay shooting. I never knew it was so much fun to shoot sporting clays. You may find that hard to believe, but sporting clay shooting is very fun. So, yeah, I'm just going back to my pioneer roots. So what other questions? What other questions? Send them on. Jeff. Well, what is my dream job? Already did that. Yeah. Have you had a dream that you worked to turn into a reality? Yeah, so people tell me. Have you had a dream that you made into a reality? I should answer that question. I mean, I kind of have a dream job right now. I kind of have a dream life. I mean, four kids, great wife, surf every day, podcast and canva. And Canva is doing, shall I say, remarkably well. I like to have several professional activities that count as a dream job. I don't know how to pronounce your name. Sojcik. I would say, you know, you get to define your own dream job, and if you have several professional things going on at once and that makes you happy, freaking A. That's a dream job. You know, doesn't have to be one. Who said it had to be one job to be a dream job? Not. Not at all. That's up to you. Okay, what you thought about financial independence when you were a teenager. Huzzah. I mean, I gotta tell you, it was so long ago, I don't remember what I thought as a teenager. I'm 60, so that's like 50 years ago, half a century ago. I really thought that, if I remember correctly. Well, I really. I was in Hawaii, and I was just enamored with entrepreneurship and starting a company. This particularly happened when I went to college at Stanford. It really kicked in. So I would look at Silicon Valley companies and Hewlett Packard and those kind of things. I said, man, this is where it's at. You know, coming from Hawaii, Hawaii was always about tourism and agriculture and working for the government, none of which appealed to me. But Silicon Valley, that was magic. And so, yeah, that's what I wanted to do. And lo and behold, I did it. And so, yeah, that's what I was thinking of as a teenager. Okay, what else? Are you a born public speaker or did you learn it? Olga? I would say that most public speakers are made, not born. And for me, I will tell you that I started public speaking in about 1987. I was terribly, I was terrible, period. But I was also terribly intimidated because around that time I was working for Apple. And of course, you know, if you try to compare yourself to Steve Jobs As a public speaker, 99.99999999% of the world is going to come up short. So it was very intimidating. And what helped me is that it was just the sheer quantity. I speak for the last, I don't know how many decades, 50 to 75 keynotes a year. And so I've given thousands of keynotes to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people in person. And so after a while, just the sheer repetition of makes you better or you fail as a public speaker and you don't do it. So the repetition definitely made me better. And I'll tell you something, I'll give you a little tip right now. Like many of you, I used to live in a PowerPoint world. So I would give 50 to 75 speeches a year in PowerPoint. And usually you send the PowerPoint file before the meeting so that the AV people can have it all lined up and, you know, on their Windows laptop. And now even in the day of pandemics, many of my keynotes are prerecorded and the others are obviously live. So even in the beginning of the pandemic, even those I was using PowerPoint. But then Canva made some major improvements to their presentation template. So now you can go into Canva, you can select the 16x9 presentation template, and there are hundreds, literally hundreds of designs. And so you can make a really beautiful, trust me, really beautiful presentation. And then if you need pictures to illustrate stuff, you can search through millions of pictures and get them for, I don't know, a buck or two. And it may be even be included, I forget, in the enterprise membership of canva. And so there are millions of stock photos and millions of graphic elements. It would be hard to imagine that you need to go outside of Canva for stock photography. So anyway, so you create that and now you're asking, okay, so guy, you're. Yeah, but I still live in a PowerPoint world. What am I going to do? Sorry, my nose itches because I just surfed. And so, but the answer is, lo and behold, you can take a Canva presentation and export it to a dot PPT format, a PowerPoint format. So wrap your mind around that, you build it in Canva and you export it as PowerPoint. Now you might think, okay, so it's exported as PowerPoint. When I open up the PowerPoint file, it's just, you know, static graphics and text. But no, when you open it up in PowerPoint, it really is PowerPoint. I mean, you can select the text, change the text, change the graphics. I mean, it is, it is PowerPoint, PowerPoint. So you can, this is how many ways you can deploy your Canva created presentation. Export as PowerPoint, export as PDF, export as PNG and JPEG. Those are, you know, each slide is a picture. You can also share a link to the, to the presentation. So you could send that to your friends. You could export it as a video that plays. You could also export it as a video that plays with you recorded picture in picture. So wrap your mind around that. You want to send someone your presentation and rather than just getting the presentation and hope they click through and understand every slide, you will be part of a video recording where you're in a round, obviously round circle, it's kind of redundant term. You are in a circle in the lower left corner. It's your face. And you're just using your built in, you know, camera. So you record. Okay, slide number one. Let me tell you about jumping to the next curve. You explain that slide, you click, you go to the next slide. Let me explain the next concept so you can send a video with you explaining your concept from Canva. Wow. So I don't. We got on that. It's kind of a deep hole I took you into. So the bottom line is if you live in a PowerPoint world like I used to, Canva will set you free. No kidding. You can live in a Canva world, which is much better than living in a PowerPoint world. What could be a dream job for a 70 year old? Well, I don't. You know, I gotta tell you, when you, I'm close to 70 already, your priorities change, which is to say you just don't give a shit about what most people think. So, you know, how do I know what your dream job is? And you might want to be a surf instructor, you might want to be a podcaster, God forbid, you might want to be a chief evangelist of the hottest graphics company. I mean, at 70 years old, you know, the clock is ticking. I mean, just do whatever the hell you want, man. What are you waiting for? You know, an education. So go for it. Okay, any other questions? How to be a successful podcaster? How is it different than presenting in front of a large room audience? Well, a successful podcaster. Well, first of all, not clear to me. I am a Successful podcaster. But I have insights into how to become a successful podcaster. It depends how you define success, but I would say for successful podcaster, and I will give you the extreme case because I am extremely OCD and a perfectionist. So let me tell you how this podcast is created. So I personally invite guests. I get probably 75 success rate. So I invite the guest. The. The next step is I have to do two or three hours research about the guests. So this is watching them on video, listening to them in other podcasts, reading their current books, looking at all that stuff. So I spent two or three hours of research, maybe three or four hours of research for every guest prior to the interview. I tell you something, a lot of podcasters, they just look at the Wikipedia entry for that person and they wing it. That's not what I do. I really want to ask great questions. So three to four hours there. Then the recording itself takes, let's say, an hour or two. And then I turn over these files and I have. I use Squad Cast. So my setup is Squadcast records locally my side and the guest side. So now there's two MP4 files. And then I use a Rodecaster Pro, which can also record locally. So I record locally to my Rodecaster Pro so that I have a backup. This assumes that I press the record button, as we know. So now I have like multiple copies of this. So Jeff C. The amazing sound designer, takes the best versions of those files and puts them on the script, and then the script combines them into a sequence. This sequence has two tracks, me and the other person. And then what it does is it uses, you know, AI or whatever, and it creates a written transcript. Then I take the written transcript and I spend, I don't know, maybe four hours editing the transcript. And the way it descript works is you edit the transcript and you're editing audio. So wrap your mind around that. I am not using software where I have to, like, go back and forth with the audio to figure out what to cut and when to cut it. I read a text file and if I say cut this text, it cuts out the audio. If I say ignore this text, it. It also cuts out the audio. So you can ignore or you can delete. All right, so that's. I say another four hours. And then Jeff C. Re takes over the sound file and does his magic, in some cases undoing my edits, but in most cases, just adding sound design and advertising and all that. My podcast is sponsored by Remarkable tablet. This live stream is sponsored by Restream. So I really have two, two sponsors. So now he spends probably five or six hours on the sound design. In the meantime, I have sent the description transcript, I have exported it to Word, and I also take the raw audio prior to the sound design, and I send the audio and the word file to an independent person who listens to the audio and makes the text match the audio. Because I recently interviewed someone who's deaf and blind, and I have been convinced that I have a moral obligation to have a great transcription of every episode. So now that person, this, this transcriber editor, English God or goddess, spends three hours making sure that the text matches the audio. Okay, so now we have a transcript. This is probably way more detail than you ever wanted to know. We now we have a transcript and we have a sound design file that goes to Peg Fitzpatrick, the social media goddess. And then she takes that and she makes the, the social media posts, the album posts, you know, the remarkable people post. So she's using the web, she's using all social media. She puts it on WordPress into my website. And then she scheduled all the broadcasts. She drafts a letter for mailchimp. We also send out a text message through subtext, which is that number 831-609-0628. What a great producer Jeff C. Is. He knows that. Put that right up. So come Wednesday morning, simple Cast blasts out the episode, mailchimp blasts out an announcement, subtext blasts out an announcement, and we start pounding on social media. All of that is kind of done by Peg Fitzpatrick. So she probably spends another five or six hours. So if you were to add up all the hours that all the people spend getting a one hour podcast out like Rich Benoit today, it's probably five, let's see, 10, 50, it's probably 20 hours, probably 20 hours of hardcore human work to get one hour of podcast out. Now if you're a podcaster or no podcaster, and if you tell them that the guy spends 20 hours to get an hour, they're going to tell you I'm nuts. That what they do is, you know, they, they turn on Squadcast or they turn on Zoom or they turn on something, they get the audio file and they post. They don't care if there's, you know, they don't care if there's like people, I don't know, burping, saying, you'd be amazed. Some of my guests in a one hour presentation, one hour podcast, they say, and literally 250 times. 250 times. So. Right. Well, you know, if you added all those up maybe three or 400 times. So guy in his analness, I take all of those out because I want people to sound as remarkable and intelligent, as great as possible. So I just told you in great detail, probably more detail than you ever wanted, what it takes to get one episode of a podcast out. So I hope that you appreciate that and spread the word, because there is a lot of love in a podcast. Anthony, do you do podcast recording face to face? I have not done a face to face podcast recording since February of 20. 20. 20. Right, right, 2020. And, you know, I used to prefer to do face to face pod recording because I used to think that, you know, now you can look in people's eyes and have better rapport and more emotion and all that, but not worth dying for. So I have not done a face to face recording in the longest time. And I got to tell you, you learn to embrace and adapt to that. And I may never do a face to face again. And so, you know, case in point, Rich Benoit. So he lives in Framingham and I live in Santa Cruz. So I guess maybe we could have both been at south by Southwest, or I could have been in Boston or, you know, whatever. But I tell you what, you listen to this podcast of Rich Benoit and you tell me that it could have been more personal, more emotional, more witty and more funny if it were done face to face. There is no freaking way it. I'm really proud of this episode. So just go to remarkablepeople.com and test me. So what other questions? Let's see. Have you ever tried to build something from scratch? Wait, am I supposed to ask that? Are you. Are you asking that of me, Jeff, or am I asking that of people? Regardless of how that question was meant, I will tell you that one of the beauties of writing a book or doing a podcast is that for person who is not a program or an engineer, it's really like you're a creator, right? So if you're a marketing person, salesperson, management, you know, blah, blah, blah, you usually, you know, they send you, they say, okay, this is the new version of Canva, or this is the new Macintosh, or this is the new car, and go and go forth and schlep that baby and sell it. But with podcasting and writing a book, you are the programmer, you are the engineer. You can do anything you want, good or bad. And so that's part of why I find podcasting so rewarding, is because I am the God of the podcast and I could change stuff within the narrow confines that Peg and Jeff allow me. But more or less, I'm the engineer and that is a beautiful thing. So. Yeah, okay. Hey, Guy, how would you define your purpose? Terry Dean Pepper My purpose is to empower people. So I empower people with my writing, speaking, podcasting, investing and advising. At the end of my life, I want people to say guy empowered me. Empowered me to dent the universe, if you will. Okay? So believe it or not, I gotta go do some yard work. So you've got any more questions, fire them away. Otherwise I am going to bid you a fond aloha for the day. In these pandemic times, what do you suggest to a. To new entrepreneurs, especially professionals leaving steady jobs to get in their own business? Well, Naveen, I. You know, I don't know. Obviously, the pandemic has created special different challenges, but the fundamentals are still the same. I mean, you gotta. You gotta make something great, you gotta get it out, you gotta convince people to buy it and then you have to support it after sales. Now, the method of doing those things may have changed. In a pandemic, for example, you're not exactly making sales calls by getting on a jet anymore. But all the processes or all the goals are the same. You may still have to do all those functions. So I think the means to an end is different, but the ends are the same. Okay, so I am going to ask you to Text me at 831-609-0628. A server is standing by to help you join my text based ohana. And again, sorry it's only Canada and us. It's the way the company is set up because of all the privacy laws in all the other countries of the world. So remember, go to remarkable people.com. remember to tell your friends who own Teslas or electric vehicles or are just into cars, send a text message or email to all your car friends to tell them to listen to this episode. I would be astounded if they don't find this episode interesting. So that's Rich Benoit. I'm Guy Kawasaki, Remarkable people dot com. This live stream is sponsored by Restream. And that's what we're using to be on multiple platforms at once. Seeing comments from all the platforms in one place. Okay? So take care. Mahalo, aloha. And by the way, by the way, seriously, a serious moment here. Freaking get vaccinated. Don't be a dumbass, okay? Get vaccinated. The vaccination is not only good for you, but let's say you're asymptomatic. Let's say you don't get vaccinated and you're asymptomatic, and so then you spread it to other people. There may be people who cannot get vaccinated there. They have immunosuppressed diseases or some cancer treatment or, you know, I don't know what, but they may not be able to get vaccinated. So, you know, if you're vaccinated, at least you won't have coronavirus to spread to those people who cannot get vaccinated. And until you get vaccinated, wear a mask. And I don't know about the rest of the world or country, but in California now, I think they lowered the age to. Wow. The youngest person in my family is 16, 15, and I know he got it. So is it 12? I don't know, but it is much younger than it used to be. It's either 12 or 2. But anyway, so get vaccinated, okay? Just do society a favor. Get vaccinated. And. And then the beauty of that is, you know, once you're vaccinated, then you can hang out outside. You can, you know, be social. You can go inside restaurants, although I still won't do that. You can fly with greater peace of mind. So, you know, get back your life, get vaccinated. And I'll tell you something. At least in California, you make an appointment, you show up, you're in and out in half an hour maximum. In many places. You're sitting in your car, and half of the half an hour is you are waiting for the reaction in case anything bad happens. And hardly ever anything bad happens. I mean, I used to get allergy shots. I had to wait 15 minutes to see if I went into anaphylactic shock. So it's no worse than getting an allergy shot. So, you know, there's. And it's free. I mean, there's just no excuse. Get vaccinated, okay? So end of. End of lecture about vaccination. And so have a great week and mahalo and aloha.