Ep114 Your voice deserves to be heard with Ronsley Vaz

Ronsley Vaz, welcome to her Empire Builder.

Thanks, Dina. This is so cool.

It is. And I don't have many men on the show, so I'm really happy to have you here today and be able to have you share your women with your wisdom with all of us women.

Oh, I'm so excited. You know what? I think it's about time where I was the odd one out. And I think women have always been the minorities, I suppose. So. I love this space and I'm learning so much by just hanging out, even in clubhouse rooms, only with women learning lots and lots that I didn't know. And it's good to be here.

There's some positives and negatives to it. Yeah. I mean, I had a conversation with someone the other day because there was a guy that was like, I love everything in your mastermind. And it's like her Empire Builder and it's only women, but will you not let me in? And I'm like, you know what? No, I won't let you in. He's like, well, that's sexual discrimination. Well, it's happened in the reverse so much in the past that you kind of have to do it to equal it out. And for a lot of women, they can't thrive in an all male environment.

You know what? I didn't understand that until I realized that men have been coming into women's spaces and telling you how the space is supposed to look like professionally. And then I started to realize that it's been happening for so long that you need to have your own spaces to actually figure out what it looks like for you. And that's the main reason, right, that you have to have your own space. And I think, yeah, you don't have to justify to any men for sure. But I found it easier to like reconcile that within myself when I thought of it like that.

Yeah. And it's just so different. I mean, obviously I've been part of so many business groups throughout the years, and most of them like majority men. And, you know, you walk around a room, you do different things at events.

And it's like, yeah, man.

Yeah, man, I did this. Oh, yeah. And it's like kind of thing. Whereas all of as you walk around, you're like, oh, my God, I'm so proud of you. This is so amazing. I love you so much. And it's. It's such a different vibe. I love it.

Yeah, it's. And you know what I keep saying? So I've said this on my show, which you're going to come on the psychology of entrepreneurship. And the thesis of the show is that I believe mothers are the original entrepreneurs and they've got to do every. The things that every, you know, entrepreneurs have to be mothers of the chef, the driver, the hug giver, the psychologist, the everything. Right. And the teacher. And entrepreneurship is quite similar. And I, yeah, I'm constantly surprised at how it has been underappreciated. For sure.

Yeah, well, I didn't mean to talk about that at all. But now you are a super interesting dude. I first met you, I think we were talking about this the other day and I think it was like around 2010ish. It was a long time ago and you were doing super interesting things then. Now you've got like books and TED talks and conferences and all these things. And the stat that I read that I was like, you have an audience of 2.5 million people in 133 countries. Pretty impressive.

5 million now.

5 million. Holy guacamole. Is that through, like, through podcast downloads and webinars and all?

Yeah, all podcast downloads.

Wow, that's a big ass podcast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been doing it for a while, like, you know, seven years. And I've interviewed so many amazing people and I've realized that I'm a bad listener.

Obviously not. So with numbers like that, which is crazy. And you say, you know, I've been at it a while, seven years. I mean, dude, I've been podcasting for three and a half years and we have 3,000 downloads a week. And I'm like, oh my God, this is amazing. So, yeah, don't undersell your awesomeness at all with that. So how did you, how did you get started in business? Like, what's the origin story there? Because a lot of people will see that and go, wow, like, how did that even begin?

Yeah, so I, I didn't think of myself as entrepreneur. I had a 9 to 5. I said to you at the start that I'm Indian. So I did it to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. And I did a bachelor of engineering in computer science.

I love that you just like embrace the stereotype. You're just like, of course how we roll.

I put that in my TED Talk, actually, you know, because for the longest time I realized as well, when I was in Australia that I was called onto stages and I was the only brown guy. So I used to use that as, oh, I'm here just for the diversity. And you know, I would just say that and everyone would Laugh. And they would be like, oh, yeah, he's the only brown guy. And they will not even realize that, you know, that there's only one perspective being shared. So I think for me, what happened was I got the entrepreneur bug and I didn't know what to do with it. Like, I knew I wanted to start a business and the best thing I could think of was, you know, people love my food when I cook for them. People have cried. People have like this different mental stuff that has happened. Right. So I'm like, alright, let's start a restaurant. So that was my first business. I put all my life savings.

I didn't even know this.

Yes. All my life savings into a restaurant. Which was the first Indian Portuguese restaurant. So it was Indian spices with Portuguese flavors. It never existed on the planet. It was my dad's Indian. My mom was Portuguese. So I brought them two together and.

Beautiful.

Yeah. And made up a menu, paid a head chef to train me to get my chefing license. Because I didn't, I would, you know, and then ran that business. And, you know, from day dot, we were like, negative 200 grand. You know, the business was running from negative 200 grand onwards from day one. And then 2011 hit, like, long story short, 2013, I think it was, that. That shut overnight. The locks were changed and I had $478,000 of debt three months. Three months after being married. And that's the origin story.

Wow. Okay. So definitely wasn't 2010 that I met you. It was much later than that. Wow, okay, so you went from that and then how do you pick yourself up after? Because you would have felt like a big, massive failure and gone, what do I do with my life now? How do I go from there?

Yeah. You know, before I got married, I kept asking people around me what the role of a husband was. And everyone kept telling me that different versions of being some sort of protector and, you know, the old normal sort of. And I felt. And I felt, I mean, now in hindsight, when I look back, I feel like the universe wanted to teach me to be a real husband. And I just borrowed courage from my wife, really, to be honest, that's really what happened. She just gave me her courage and I just put one step in front of the other and we paid off. By the way, that $478,000 got paid off in two years and one month.

Wow. Okay, I'm gonna get back to that. But so you'd just been married for a few months when that happened. Like, that's a huge Amount of pressure on a new marriage to be able to do that. How did you rally through that?

I got goosebumps thinking about it even. I think during that time, we both saw versions of ourselves that you can't run away from. And we just saw each other for who we were. And you know what? She. I remember this particular fight, to be honest, and I don't think I've shared it, but I think it's important. But we were having this argument and obviously the fight. People who have been married and been long know exactly what I'm talking about. We were not saying good things to each other. And Rachel just stops 20 minutes in and just looks at me and goes, ronci, I love everything about you. I love how you stick to your guns. I love you. I love how stubborn you are. I just love you. And I cried for 45 minutes.

What a wonderful wife.

Yeah, right. And that's just context. She's an ICU nurse by trade, so I think she was training for me.

And she's made of tough stuff if you're an ICU nurse. Yeah.

So, yeah, that's really what happened. And I think it's fascinating when I think back about it, think back to it, because she could have easily said to me, you know, do this. We got to do that, or put pressure. It was none of that. It was like, you know what's best. When you're ready, you do what's next. That's it.

And so you made it back in two years. I mean, for that, I can completely, 100% relate. I had a similar moment, not in as much debt, but when we couldn't afford to live in our house anymore and I had to basically make a call straight away to either lose the business or lose the house. And so I put all the money into the business and then had to tell my husband. I've just rang the real estate agent. We're renting the house out so that we can keep the mortgage and keep the house, but we can't live here anymore. So we rented a dingy granny flat to live in with two bedrooms with a two year old and a three year old. And it was awful. But I remember sitting on that back step the day that everything got moved out and just sobbing uncontrollably, feeling like I was just the greatest failure in the world. But what it did from that is it lit the most incredible fire in my belly. And no matter what I think of that moment, every. I reckon not a month would go by that something doesn't happen. And I think of that moment and go, I didn't know what I was going to do when I was sitting on that step. And if I figured that out and did that, there's no problem that can happen that I can't deal with. Was it a similar thing for you where you kind of were like, I've gone through this. It's only up from here.

Not. Well, not really. I do look back at that point constantly when hard things come up.

Yeah.

And I go, what's the worst that can happen from here, really? And I think what I do remember was growth. Like, I do remember the. I do. I. I am way more resilient now in the sense that there are things that would affect me then that don't even touch the surface right now. So I feel so different to the person that went through that. And I also think that one of the biggest learnings I've had over the last couple of years is learning to love that failure. Honestly, that did that because that was this, you know, the sprout for everything else that was to come.

And so what did you do next that allowed you to build?

Well, I. I started a podcast for a chef business that I was running, which was like, chefs were plugging in into people's homes and cooking their whole meals for them, really, for the week and putting in the Google Calendars. And so I started a podcast to kind of educate parents that if they were giving their kids a Happy Meal after, like, this incident, then the kids would have that food memory and would always resort to a Happy Meal. So this relationship with food was such a deep one. Right. Because we were cooking for, like, these high performers that we'd find, like, fish fingers in the freezer and, you know, like. So I wanted to have those kind of conversations. And I didn't think much of it, really. It was Bon d', Appetit, name of the chef company. I started the podcast and I released it Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 8am and iTunes decided to put it on the banner section next to Triple J and ABC Radio for, like, three months or four months or something. Yeah. And then I just got really famous for being the podcast person. So a bunch of people, a bunch of my friends who are the similar sort of entrepreneur space in Australia, they were like, help me start a podcast. So I created my first training program in a week. Eight people were in there, 32 grand in the account, which went straight to paying the debt. I did 17, 18 rounds of that training, paid that debt off. But in that time, I started the first podcasting conference in Australia in 2015, and then amplify agency, which is basically now our bread and butter, is starting 2016. So, yeah, April 2016 is when we went debt free.

Amazing. Amazing. Okay, so my first question is.

What.

Did you do that made you so special with your podcast? I mean, first podcast to get there and get next to Triple J and for it to gain so much traction. What was that, like, special sauce that made it so good, Tina?

I don't know, to be honest. My wife keeps telling me.

I love that. It's like, I teach podcasting. I don't know.

I don't know. There's magic. There's magic inconsistency. There's magic in repetition. There's magic in. In. And that's what I. You know what I love hanging around in women's spaces is like, I want to learn how you have intuition. Like, your intuition is off. We can learn so much from your intuition. And I think that is the ma. We think it's magical for y'. All. It's just like another sense. Right. And it's magic. Yeah, it is magic. It is. So I feel like if you put your reps and you put your thing in the right order, the universe works in magical ways. I can't repeat that necessarily, like, and say, oh, this is what's going to happen to you if you do that. But I didn't give itunes my artwork. Like, I don't know how they got it. I literally, I swear to you, I have no way. I have no way of knowing how they took my. And it was different from anything that I had. I don't know how they did it. I don't know where they got it from. I don't know how they put it up there.

So a very important person listened to it and loved it.

Yeah, well, wow. You know, I never even thought of that. I just.

And putting that on the banner. That's happening. Yes.

I just accepted it, and I was just so grateful. I couldn't believe that people cared about listening to me, really, to be honest.

Yeah. And so do you think there's a difference between. Because you mentioned you released that three times a week. Is there magic in. Like you said, consistency and frequency? Have you found something works? Because I know traditionally, and I do it as well. The weekly podcast, have you seen that more frequent ones work better?

Yeah. Anything that you do more times is more reps. Like, if you. If you run three times a week is very different to you running once a week.

Good analogy.

So I think just in that Alone is a big. Is a big learning. And then if you think, if you have an interview style show and you're talking to three amazing people three times a week. God damn. So that's literally right now how I introduce myself, Tina is. Hi, I'm Ronsley. I'm best known for having famous friends. It's true. It's because of my podcast. It's true.

Who's been the most exciting? Like, who's been the person that you've been most excited to interview?

I just interviewed four gentlemen that are on Death Row.

Shit.

That was probably the highlight of my interviewing career in the sense that I would have never imagined that will come across my desk. One of them 27 years, one of them for 21 years who claims to be innocent of the crime. And I interviewed them not necessarily because they were. I mean, yes, they're on Death Row, but they're award winning poets, artists, rappers, music, MCs from behind bars. I have goosebumps.

Are they in America?

They are in America. North Carolina. On Death Row. Yeah. So that just blows my mind. I became godfather for the second time because I interviewed a friend. Well, I interviewed someone I never knew, but interviewed her a few times and then we became buds and she had a second baby and made me godfather. Like, I just blown away by the people I meet on my podcast. I interviewed my dad. That is just. I mean, you know, I knew more about him in that one hour than, you know.

So there is something beautiful about being. To ask, being able to ask questions to people and getting into an interview space.

Yeah, yeah.

Is there someone that you're wanting to interview that's like top on your list? That's like your most exciting?

No, not really. I mean, like, you know, so for example, I'm a weird person, like in the sense that we all are. Michelle does me that all the time, by the way. You're just the weirdest boy I've ever met. Yeah. So VaynerMedia, Vayner Talent, they're all clients of ours. But I have no interest in getting Gary on the show necessarily. You know, like. And it could be quite simple. I mean, I'm not. I think I just feel like I am in a pursuit of trying to get voices heard that traditionally are not heard because we are pushed in society and how we're trained, like sort of teachers to keep quiet and not ask and not question and not critically think and have other people tell us how to think and what to think. So I feel like my role or my responsibility is almost to find Voices that have not been heard and make sure that they get heard.

You were made for podcasting. Oh, my gosh. I see why you're so good at it. Yes, that's a beautiful mission to have. Mine is Delta Goodrum. She's like my number one.

Oh, really?

One day, I will be able to interview her. Yes.

I might be able to make an introduction. Just.

I don't even know how I could. Roncy. I'd lose my shit. It.

Yeah, just. Yeah, I might be able to make an introduction.

Look, I started crying, like, straight away when you say that. See, I just. I can be cool with so many people. I've met so many amazing business people and done so many cool things, and I've only ever lost my shit a couple of times. And there'd be, like, three people. She'd be one of them. Yeah. Anyway, I'll talk to you about that later.

2021.

Okay, so I want to talk about. For other people doing their podcasts, because a lot of listeners that we have to the show are course creators, and they're women who have had a huge amount of experience and expertise in. In corporate and in business, and then have packaged their expertise into online programs and now building through personal branding. And to me, such a large part of that is podcasting. I mean, I know I'm talking to the converter, but podcasting just. It opens up so many roads in being able to have really good conversations with really interesting people, learn so much, but also be able to open to a wider audience that you've never been exposed to before. For people that are reluctant to podcasts, what do you think are the biggest benefits?

Well, the people around you see that you're using your voice is the biggest benefit, that you're just setting an example. And sometimes we think that no one's looking, but everyone's looking. Kids are looking, partners are looking, parents are looking, families looking, friends are looking. And I think that that's probably the first main thing is like, using your voice to talk about things that you really care about, like, really care about, and then find a way to, like, link that into. Into your business. Because, you know, we've heard this. People don't. People love buying stuff, but they hate being sold to. Right. I think that's a Glenn Carlson maybe quote.

I'm going. I've heard that a few times. So it might be Glenn.

But when they want to buy, they want to buy the person like they buy you, Tina. That's why personal branding is so important for everyone. So just using your voice and then refining the argument. So when you're having the conversations with people, that's the way I see it. If someone asked me, what is the silver bullet? And I had to say, well, this is the way I suggest you do podcasting is when there's a great quote by Philip McKernan, who's a friend of mine, he writes, the quote is, your greatest gift lies next to your deepest pain or your deepest wound. And your audience have these conversations in their head. They have these questions they're asking themselves. And when they're asking themselves these questions, they feel like it's only happening to them. They feel like they're alone. And if you can have the conversations around those questions and make them feel not alone, you're winning from day one. And you're creating this community around you, and you're also being the hub that brings the right people to allow those conversations to be put in perspective so that the people who are struggling actually get the right information.

And so with that, how have you dealt with. Because, you know, obviously you've got cultural things that you talked about before as well. And then coming into Australia and now having such a global audience, how have you developed personally in terms of being comfortable being so heard and being so exposed with the world?

Well, you know, Tina, when I got to Australia 20 years ago, I spoke English my whole life, by the way. So English is my first language. I studied in English, but when I came here, I spoke funny. And I had to give three English exams to become Australian. And I only found out Last year, after 12 years of being Australian, that the history of my country is really, really bad. And I'm like, wait, I was trained in all these aspects, but I wasn't told the basic history of my. So I find it constantly constant. I constantly find I'm amazed that I'm in this role that I, you know, I'm heard so much. But also, I feel like I have to have practices to keep me grounded. I have to have people around me to, like, keep me grounded. I really have to put things in perspective and not, I suppose, let the ego take over.

Yeah. And so what practices have you got that stop you feeling like you are master of the universe?

Well, I do think I am master of the universe, unfortunately.

I mean, when I, like, even, like, when we just reconnected, and I'm like, so, Ron, what have you been up to, Ronsley? And you're like, oh, you know, I did a TEDx talk talk that got turned into a TED talk. And I'm like, Like, if that was me, I'd be like, a whoop, whoop, a whoop. Like, just happy dancing across the screen. Like, do you still. When you say keep your ego in check, you still give. Have those moments where you're like, oh, my God, I just did the most amazing achievement, and I am. Actual awesomeness. Do you give yourself that?

That's hard. I have to admit that that is one of my entrepreneurial wounds, I think. I think I just kept going from one accomplishment to the other and then just kept collecting them. And I'm getting better at loving myself. And this is a new thing. This is really new. Maybe a year and a bit. And I'm like, Tina, I'm like you. I'm really surprised when things happen like, they happen every week. At the end of last year, on the 31st of last year, I got a video to be on a paid board membership for a castle in Ireland. What? What? I could have never put that on a vision board.

Yes, I would do that.

I'm constantly amazed. I'm doing a clubhouse in a couple of weeks with Naveen Jain, who is the guy that wrote Moonshot, and is. Is mining gold and cobalt from the moon and curing chronic disease with his other business, Biome. Like, I can't. You know, I'm constantly, like, I'm surprised, and I have to keep that. I don't know how to. I don't know how to contain it sometimes. I don't know what to do with it. It's like, I felt it this morning with your puppy Instagram. I felt like that it happens to me, and I don't know, I get to share it with people like you who understand. My wife doesn't know. Yeah, whatever.

I do sometimes feel like, and I mean, as entrepreneur, I do think we definitely. There's huge elements of luck and the universe and magic in there, but there's also. We create these opportunities and, you know, even unconsciously, we do put ourselves in the path that. To be able to be ready for these things and do them. But I, like you just said this morning, I am constantly in the situation where. And I'm generally excited and enthusiastic about life, and I will literally bubble over and just, like, have to stand there and just. I'm so excited and happy and grateful that I just don't even know what to do with myself. And I have to, like, now I take very seriously my meditation and my yoga, because otherwise, I. I'm literally too emotional. I'm all over it and just. It's too heightened. All the time.

But that's beautiful. I think emotional. The thing is that we feel the emotions, but we are so good at holding it. But you've got a skill that you don't have to hold it. How amazing is that? Like, I mean, I feel that people keep telling us how to behave. And, you know, you're so special, Tina. I mean, when we catch up, like, we just. I mean, you can tell, right? Like, you can tell when someone creates magic on the planet. Like, you can tell someone else.

I've actually got emails from. Because this is what I want to loop back to as well. So I've got emails from people telling me that I'm too happy. And it's really disheartening to a lot of people that I give this fake depiction of life, of life being so happy and rosy when it can't possibly be. And I always go, I actually downplay on social media how awesome my life is, because I don't want to do that. But I am just a naturally happy person. I had an email from a guy last year that told me I giggle too much in my podcasts and I'll never be taken seriously when I giggle.

And.

And so, like, you would get with that much audience, you would get feedback. How do you deal with that negative feedback? And go, you know what? I'm here to serve the people that are engaged and everyone else. I'm just going to block that out.

Oh, that's such a good question, Tina, because I, first of all, I just listen to you and I feel. I feel for you listening to those dumb dumbs who don't even know who you are. Right? They don't know anything about you. And it annoys me that some guy tells you how to be professional. It's so. It's like, what? It's like a priest giving you marriage advice. It's. Anyway, I can get on a soapbox about that. I really feel like it's important to put it in perspective as who's giving me where it's. Where's it coming from and why are they having that reaction? Because we all have these wounds that basically are meant to trick the right people at the right time. I consider that to be the best gift I could give anyone. Like, I have realized that my whole life, I've asked a question where someone has gotten upset. The reason they've gotten upset is because I've unconsciously asked the question and never questioning anything but just asking a question that they were hiding from the world. And that was my gift. What my gift was to find was to unconsciously let people be freer from their past, I suppose. And I'm saying this for the first time, so I've never thought of this stuff before. It's not a pitch, but I think that that is what I've been doing and I've been doing, and I've just embraced it, and I've kind of gone, well, it's great. It doesn't have to be the reaction I want. Like, you know, it can be the reaction that they're having, and it's their journey, and if I tell them what reaction they're meant to have, there's no different than them telling it to me. So that's the way I went.

It went into the TED Talk stratosphere for you. Did you feel more pressure from that? Because I know I listened to an amazing podcast after Brene Brown's TED Talk went viral. And Brene Brown, I think it's like, one of the most exceptional people on the planet. And listening to how hard she found it to deal with negative feedback. Have you got any of that or have you just like.

Of course. I mean, comes all the time, Tina, like, negative feedback. If you look at the TED Talk, I'm pretty sure there is. There are comments on there. I don't remember what they are, but I did remember when it first came out. Like, it came out in 2017. So it was around for a little while before, you know, last year. At the start of last year, I found out that it's on the Ted.com thing. So that's so cool.

To me, that's, like, the coolest thing. I like when he says, like, yes.

It is. Because I didn't have any say and I didn't know how to. How it got made. It was no tactic. It was no getting on this list. I didn't, you know, mail my subscribers anything.

Yeah, that's it. It's like, pure, like, worthiness.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel the same way about the TED Talk, by the way. That's why I put it everywhere. Because I'm like, first of all, I can't believe I have a TedX talk. Then. I can't now. I can't believe it's a TED Talk. It just blows my mind.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I get. I get it all the time. People call me a creep. People call me different things, but, you know, I understand their pain. I understand. I understand. I. I understand where they're at because I used to also look at other people and call them creeps.

Interesting. Okay. I'm Going to get back to podcasting when people are starting it. Once you've. All right, I know I'm going to need this for my personal brand. I'm going to get over the fear of judgment. I'm going to put it out there and then people will do it and they get their consistent hundred downloads a week. What kind of strategies can people use to grow their podcast?

Well, there's multiple now and podcasting is so much more mature now than when it was seven, eight years ago. So one of the best ways to do it is who has your audience and has no competitive overlap with what you do. Right. Like and then find all those podcasts and say, hey, I've got this 30 second promo for my show. Do you mind just putting it at the end of your show and I'll put yours and you create this really amazing 30 second promo for your podcast and just do those swaps and those are just ads on everyone else's. It's simple to take a podcast listener from one similar podcast to another similar podcast. That is definitely one strategy that is good to work. There is an amazing. So we've got a event coming up next week which I'm really excited about because it's probably the first time we. Our podcast has a. All keynotes are female and I'm really excited. So one of the keynote is how to do a $5 a day Facebook ad funnel for your podcast. So there's obviously a way to take your podcast and get really good video content that you can create a $5 a day ad and drive traffic to increase more listeners. When you know the audience, that's obviously one. Two strategies. One's a paid strategy and one's a partnership strategy that works really well for growth.

Yeah, nice. And when you said, you know, you get to interview, you've got now all these famous friends. How do you go from. Because I know when I first started my podcast and I wanted to get, you know, these amazing people and they didn't even respond to my pitch emails. It's taken a long time to be able to do that. Is there a certain strategy people can use to go how do you get the good guests?

Yeah, I have a very simple strategy in the sense that it's think of it as a pyramid and you put your most. The guest that you want the most up the top. And then you say to yourself, when I pitch to this guest who two other guests would I have to interview already that this guest would go, oh, this is a no brainer.

Ah, that's so Clever.

Yeah. And then you do it. So then you have those two, and then you go to the left hand side and you do it again. And then you do it one more. So you have three levels. So you have at the bottom, you have eight boxes of people in your immediate network that you start interviewing now and you work your way up.

That is so clever. I've never heard anyone say it that way before, but it is so clever and so true because I know I only started getting more higher profile people when I lucked out, getting one person to say yes, but then other people would see that, they said yes and go, oh, okay, well, if they're on the show, then it's okay for me to be on the show. And now I get other people say, hey, can I be on your show? And it's like, but at the start, it's so hard. That's a beautiful strategy. You guys listening, do that. That will work. And then, so podcasts, a lot of the feedback that I hear from people is podcasts are all well and good, but how do they actually translate into business? When you're working with people with podcasting, how do you. Do you use call to action strategies, or how do you get that to actually grow the core business?

So amplify the agencies we specialize in. I suppose they're all personal brands because they are, you know, actors, politicians, entrepreneurs, influencers, athletes, artists. So they all have a personal brand. They have a business or multiple businesses that are attached to their personal brand. Really? So the thesis is that everything you touch goes up if your personal brand goes up?

Yeah.

Really? That's what we do. And we. There's no way to substitute voice. That's why Clubhouse is the most social platform. Because I can't have my assistant on there. Right. I have to be there myself. And it's my voice. And when I say something, you can tell if I'm a jackass, right?

Yeah, I do think. I mean, it's one of the main reasons I love podcasts is to get that know, like, and trust factor. People can get to know you so well from running a podcast.

Right. And you hear people say things like, hey, Ronsley, how are you? How's Rachelle? You're like, yeah, she's fine. Hi, what's your name? So it's great in the sense that when it comes to business, the podcast factor, people think. The podcast element, people think is the lead attract part of the business, but it is not the lead attract part of the business. It's the lead nurture part of the business. And there's no form of content that's more engaging than Voice. That's why parents sing to their kids before they're even born. Voice is just so captivating. So if you take all your attention pieces and you drive it to this engagement piece, which is your podcast, you have to then work out from your podcast, how do you translate that to sales, which is get attention, get engagement, get sales. This is the principles of marketing. Now, to get sales, you have to have your. You know, you have to have something to sell. If you. If it's sales that you're after or enough. Enough downloads to warrant a sponsorship, however, you get the sustainability of the art that you're creating, you have to make sure the sales allows you to sustain this art. And it has. It can't be as. It can be a hobby podcast, but it has to be sustainable.

Yeah.

If that makes sense. So there are different ways, obviously. There's courses, masterminds, there's different ways to use your podcast to make money. But. But I think when people think about making money from their podcast, they only think about sponsorship, and that's really limited in what that can do for you.

Yeah. Yeah. Great. And you mentioned Clubhouse just before. What do you. I need to know your views on Clubhouse. Is it gonna be here to stay? Is it gonna go? What do you think?

Three or four years ago, Tina, when I was doing keynotes and I was convincing people to start a podcast in Australia, which, you know, back then, three or four years ago, was a big ask of people, I was saying to them things like, can you imagine what will happen when we have social media for audio? Right now, we have social media for images, and we stop our most favorite events to capture this image. Because there's social media for images now with the most connected form of any content, which is Voice, we have social media for voice, which has come out now, like, four years later. So I've been saying this for three years. It is so insanely connected. That's why you can separate. Like, you can kind of go into a room and go, that guy's full of shit. I don't want to be in this room. I want to go somewhere else. And you start to understand that this Voice thing is really, really powerful. There's a stat being thrown out, and I've tried to verify it and try to look for the actual origin, but I couldn't. But the stat, I've heard it more than once, IS clubhouse is 370% more addictive than any other iOS app in. In the History of apps.

Really crazy.

That's crazy.

Yeah. So how do you. Because I was actually on your room on the weekend. I was like, oh, you know what? I've got a minute. I'm going to go on. And that was the second time I'd been on Clubhouse, because I go, who has the time to sit there listening to people live? Because it's live. So podcasts I love, because you can kind of on demand, when you're in your car, do that. Clubhouse, I'm like, you've literally got to sit there listening. I'm going, who are all these people that can do this? How much time are you spending on doing this?

A lot. But for me, it's my business. Like, not only my business, it's also the only platform that I've been more social on. Like, I. I've been off email, Tina, for three years. I don't see how. I just don't see email. Jenna handles all my email. I don't see email at all. 0. The last time I checked, every time.

You say something, I've got, like, 10 more questions that I want to ask you about the thing that you just said. I'm coming back to email. Keep telling me about how you do Clubhouse without going insane and losing your day.

So I've never been more social. Like, I don't like hanging out on Facebook. I don't like hanging out on Instagram. I don't like creating content for either one of those spaces, LinkedIn either. And Clubhouse, I just feel drawn to have conversations with people. I am drawn to listen to voices. I'm drawn to, like, hearing people speak up for the first time. So just that in itself feels like that's my platform. So that's problem number one. Addictive nature number one. And addictive nature number two is I will start a room and some. One of my famous friends will pop in and that room will blow up. And that's. So I used to introduce myself at the start of the year as Ronsley, making podcasts for amazing people. And since starting Clubhouse, I've realized that that is not what I do. I just have famous friends that make me look good and they like. So. So that's.

Even though you yourself are one of those famous friends for other people. Right?

I know, Tina. I know. I think that I'm gonna work on.

You owning your awesomeness throughout the year. Yeah.

Yeah, It's a problem. So, yeah, I think Clubhouse. So I'll put it in perspective of followers. Right. Amplify Agency has been operating for five years now. And Facebook, we've got maybe two and a half thousand followers. I've been on Clubhouse for one month and two days, and I have more than that in followers, so. And my club has 1000 followers on top of that.

Yeah.

Which is great.

At a club as well. You are next level Clubhouse.

Yes, I've got two.

I wanted to start a club, and I couldn't figure it out. And then I had to put time in. I'm like, no one's got time for this. So you think it's worth the time then? Is your answer to that?

Yeah, I think it's worth the time. I think it's not worth the time doing what other people are doing and just hanging out in these big rooms. I think it's important to have a strategy on what content you're going to create on Clubhouse. And then what content do you support and what time you support someone else so that they can support you when you're creating your content.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. Okay. All right. I'm gonna. I'm gonna do a room. I'm gonna do one.

Actually, you know what, Tina? I'm gonna invite you. When I do the one with Naveen Jain, I'm gonna. I'm gonna add you as a moderator so that you can come and hang out with us.

Okay, I will. Do, you know, like, talking of that. So I was talking to someone the other day and using this analogy of the small rooms are better than and the big rooms. Do you go to south by Southwest in Texas?

I haven't been, but I know.

Oh, my God, you would love that so much. It's like a conference made for you. And at south by Southwest, they have, like, 20, 25 concurrent sessions running. And so you go to the one that you want. And often I go to the really big ones with, like, Barack Obama and Brene Brown and all these amazing people. And one day, I just could not be bothered doing lines. So I went. I'm just going to go to the little ones that I find interesting. And I went to this one that had Ron Garan, who wrote a book called the Orbital Perspective, who's an astronaut. And he'd gone there the month after landing back from, like, three years in the space station. And he was talking about the whole experience of coming back to Earth. And there was like, 15 people in the room. And it was the most incredible talk I've ever heard in my life. And that's. Yeah, that's what I mean by small rooms. It's. Sometimes you just never know what you're gonna get.

And you know what, Tina? When I first started my room, the first room was I think on the 6th of January or something like that. I was alone in that room for seven minutes. It was the loneliest seven minutes of my life.

And did you just sit there or did you talk? Were you just sitting there silently or did you talk?

No. Talk to whom? Like, there was no one in there, so I was just like, oh, okay, someone please.

Oh, yeah, because it's not like, see, like if you go on live, like a Facebook Live or an Insta Live, and no one's there, you got to talk because people are going to watch it back later. But it's just disappeared, isn't it?

Correct. It's just live. And it's like a talking stick, right? And that's the. Here's where you notice people's demeanor, right? Or their character or their politeness, I suppose, is how much they interrupt someone. Because it's like a talking. There's only one person talking at any time and you have to listen longer than you speak. And hopefully people starting Clubhouse or getting into clubhouses are thinking of that. And unfortunately, what happens is with the other platforms, right, it is more about publishing and I think the automatic response is, oh, I've got to speak. If I'm not speaking, then I'm not being valuable on this platform. But it's actually the opposite because you have to listen. You can't interrupt the conversation and just say what you want. And if you do, it's really off putting for everyone in the room. So, yeah, it's really fascinating. Fascinating.

Okay, you've inspired me. I'm gonna give it a red hot go then. Because Glenn was talking to me about it the other day to Glenn Carlson, for everyone listening, runs key person of influence and is an absolute business superstar. And he was saying, come on, Tina, you've got to get on there. And yeah, okay, I'll give it a go. We'll give it a go. The last thing I want to ask you about is this email situation. So how do people get in contact with you and how do you, how do you do this?

Well, people send me emails, but I don't see them. I mean, Jenna sees them all. She processes them how they're meant to be processed. I just see the things that I need to see. She sends stuff that needs to go to accounts, to accounts. She sends stuff that partnerships or, you know, getting another podcast or whatever, really.

That's why you have time to go on Clubhouse, correct? Yeah. You outsource all of that.

Correct. And email was a big one for me because I noticed my energy levels and my emotions were being dragged around and dragged around by people I didn't even know. And I didn't want to put myself through that day in and day out. And Jenna's removed from it or whoever's in that position is removed from that, and my day is happy.

Oh, my gosh. I love that so much. I could talk to you for, like, hours and hours more, but I've just looked at the time and gone. Okay, wrap it up, Tina. You know, I said at the beginning that you're such an interesting guy, and you are such an interesting guy. There's just so much that goes on. The last thing that I want to ask you, though, is, like, what's ahead for you? What are you working on this year?

Well, I'm just working on myself, really, to be honest. I feel like me just understanding myself a little bit better and understanding the wounds of my past and why I do certain things, it makes me more empathetic towards others. I don't really have goals for my business, necessarily. I'm really in the moment because, you know, even the last two weeks, I couldn't have imagined what has happened. Like, there's no way I could have written that down as gold. So I've started to. I just opened my heart, really, and reach out like, you know, us. Us having this conversation was pure intuition and synchronicity when you think about it. Right. And I'm constantly in awe as to how women use intuition and how it's such a powerful sense, and I'm slowly starting to tap into that and understand that.

I love it. Ronsley, thank you so much.

Thank you, Tina. I'm so, so happy to have this conversation. So cool. Thank you.