Why Tony Durso's Counterintuitive Strategy Crushed Traditional Podcasting

And I could tell you, out of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millionaires and billionaires and people at the top of their category, not one, maybe, maybe one, that's an anomaly. Every single one other than the possible one had to work for it. They did not have their life handed to them.

Welcome to Big Hitters. I'm Larry Weidel, and this show is for people who are done playing small. Each week we break down what it actually takes to win at a high level. The decisions, the discipline, the adjustments that separate those who almost do it from those who do it. No theory, no fluff, just straight talk from someone who spent 50 years building winners. If you're serious about momentum, you're in the right place. Let's get into it. Hello everybody. We're talking with Tony D'Urso. Hello, Tony.

Thank you so much for having me on your show, Big Hitters. It's quite the honor to be here. Thank you so much.

It's a privilege for us, and especially with someone who has so much background in talking with winning winners and discussing the subject of doing well in life, sales skills and communication, and probably very few people with more mileage in that arena at the top level than Tony. And so we want to dig into that. And Tony, so thanks for being on. And let's, let's, you know, we like to talk about winning. We like to talk about lessons you've learned. When did you start learning about, start noticing, you know, in life could be as you were growing up or whatever, that some people did better than others in life for whatever reason.

Maybe it was my Italian upbringing or dinner table topics, you know, at the table. I never was a go-getter. I never conceived even of aspiring to have a lot of money. We were just a poor immigrant family, so it was never anything in my mind. But one thing that I kind of learned from the school of hard knocks a little bit is that if you really focused on just one thing, you could make that happen. Whatever that one thing was, whether it was I was going to excel at school or I was going to get this job or whatever that was, if I just focused and really zoned in on that, that, that would occur. And that's kind of the mentality or the mindset that I carried through my life on whatever I wanted to do. But it was always in my mind, just that one thing, you know, it was like, can't run 5, you know, can't, you know, do 5 companies at once or whatever, but one I could do really, really good. So that was kind of, uh, how that, how I, I work things.

How did that idea come to you?

You know, I don't know. I think it was from, from being a paper route boy, which I did for about 10 years from the age of 5 to 14 in Chicago, one of the worst places, I think, because the wind—

5 years old? 5 years old? Wow. In Chicago?

That wind on Lake Shore Drive when you're 5 or 6 or 7 years old will literally pick you up. Up or knock you down off of Lakeshore Drive. Those wind gusts are very powerful. It was until I think I was 8 years old when I was able to have my own route instead of working with my brothers because these carts that you push the papers, the carts were, the wheels were almost as big up to my head or my neck. I couldn't push those things until I was about 8 years old. So, but I learned that just somehow whatever you focused on by trial and error, really, because so many times I wanted to do something or get something or achieve something and it wouldn't work because there were too many things I was trying to do, whether it was do well on school or do well on a test or whatever. I just somehow learned it. I'm not even sure where, Larry. I'm not.

What was your family focused on? I know when, when I was growing up, my family, my father was in the military and aunts and uncles, they were focused on surviving. You know, they, you know, I didn't come from a, you know, a line of senators and, and surgeons and things like that. You know, we were out working trying to make a living. And that was why my father was in the military was because he didn't He couldn't find another job that he could get satisfied with. And so the thing is that, you know, that upbringing affects your outlook on life to some degree. We all, you know, you have experiences based off where you come from. Where do you— what was your family focused on?

My father was the sole provider. We had— there were 6 boys, and my mother totally just took care of everyone. And the This is the world we're brought up in. This is the world we think of. We weren't in the world of business or entrepreneurs or doing anything other than getting a good job and working and doing well and paying for whatever you can. It was always drummed and beat in my head that we were poor. And it was just the way of life. It was just the life that we knew, just struggling. What I made as a paper route boy, I gave everything to my parents, 100%. I just gave them. That was just how I was indoctrinated into life until I was 14. Then I changed things. At 14, I got a job in fast food and I told my mom, I emancipated myself, I swear. I said, mom, I said, I got a job at a fast food restaurant. I said, from now on, I'm going to pay all my own bills. My school, my everything. And I did from 14 years on. So it was kind of the entrepreneur became free in a way. So I still had dinner and I still had room and board, you know.

Now, were you living in Chicago? That was— you're already in Chicago. The family had the Sicilian roots, but you were— you're in Chicago. And what did you— how did you get from that stage of life to where you got in front of the microphone for the first time? Because you've been in front of a microphone for a long time.

Time? Just 10 years. At 19, I went into what I call corporate, the corporate world, learned business, learned how to work with companies and groups. And the only position available at the time was to be a typist. And I've never typed. I knew what a typewriter was. So I took the position and, but it wasn't a trick. I went to the library. I got a book on typing and I self-taught myself. I became the fastest typist in the company. Wow.

But of course, now we can do the dictation as well. But tell me about how you worked your way to the microphone, you know, how you work your way. And all of a sudden you were like in radio. Was it radio first or was it a podcast first? By the way, if you're still listening right now, you're different. You don't just consume content, you're actively looking for an edge. And that's who who I built the Big Hitter community for. Not people chasing motivation, people chasing momentum. Not theory, proximity. Proximity to operators who are actually in the arena making real decisions and winning at a high level. Inside Big Hitter, you get conversations we don't have in the podcast, direct access to people who build what you're trying to build in a room that holds you to a higher standard every single week. This isn't a hype group. It's not network working for the sake of networking. It's where serious people go to sharpen their thinking and compress their timeline. If you're done just listening and you're ready to be in the room where it actually happens, head to joinbighitters.com or click the link in the show notes. The right room changes everything. I'll see you inside.

It was podcast, let me say, uh, around 2007. I Well, in the year 2000, I helped form a company and I did the fundraise for a company. And we raised $3.25 million in 6 months to start a company. It was just pretty much from angels, no institutional funding, just people that we knew or met on the streets, so to speak. And then, and I became the VP sales and marketing, and I really worked hard on lead generation for the company and really focused on it. It was like the big pandemic problem that we had. A couple of years back. Just down on your knees, just retool. So I look for, Larry, what can I do that I can control as best as possible and not be so like a leaf in the wind based on what the federal government or anyone says? And I kept hearing this word called podcasting. I'm like, what is this word? Maybe You know, it was like God's bringing an answer to me. It's like podcast. Like, what's this podcast I keep seeing? And when I found out, Larry, it was like lights. It was like, hey, I'm Italian, I can do this, I can talk. So I just went in the Italian way, Larry, and started Revenue Chat Radio. I spent a couple weeks like, what's a podcast? What do I do? How do you do radio? I got a mentor. Guys, to the audience, if you don't have a mentor, please get one. I got a mentor who helped me on how to be in front of the microphone. A DJ who just would, a couple of times a year, would check, or even more frequent, check my shows and give me pointers. And so I learned how to speak in front of a microphone from a mentor. You know, you can figure everything out, but it takes so long. So when you get somebody to help you, it goes faster.

Yeah. And how did you find the mentor?

My first my first guest, I went on because I had no experience on radio, no podcasting, no audience. I didn't know any elite entrepreneurs, let alone millionaires and billionaires that I interview today. I didn't know anybody. I had my, you know, my social media was itsy bitsy. So what I did was I went on social media and I looked for people that said things that were like, oh, this is interesting. I should interview this person. So I scanned the feeds for people to interview. That's how I landed most of my guests, including, you know, the well-known people that I interviewed today. And the first guest, I said, you know, I've never done this before, but I'm gonna do it. I'm very committed, you know. And he gave me a lead to a book from, oh gosh, I've said his name 500,000 times. I shouldn't forget his name anymore. Jordan Adler, Beach Money. So I read that book before I started podcasting it. And I'm going to tell you that story in a second, but I want to say a little commercial break. If there's an author who has a book to tape and his voice, he narrates it, get that instead. Because I chose to get his book to tape, his audio, so I could hear him read the book. Because sometimes they give more information and you get the inflection. You're not just reading the words, but you're getting the guy's life. So I really got it. And I told him, and he said, I know somebody who's been on radio might be able to help you. So my first guest gave me the info of the book and a world-famous DJ that he knew, whom I later interviewed multiple times. And it was just, it was networking.

Yeah. Well, you know, what's a thread that's, that's coming up here is you are pretty darn good at sales at this, you know, already in your life because you, you raise the money.

May I say I was not, what's it called? Series 7R. I didn't have a license. So yet, so all I did was met the people and told them what we were doing with the company and we're starting the company. The company didn't exist. It was on paper. And got them so interested saying, I want— can I be a part of this? I say, well, go talk to that guy. And then they would go talk to that guy and give the money. And it was just like that.

I find in sales, you know, I have found in sales forever, it seems like the people that are the most infectious in sales are the ones that are more excited about the product and what's going to happen and they're talking about it spontaneously to people. You know, it's just like, I can't believe this is happening. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. With no particular overt reason for doing other than just, here's an interesting thing. If you hear about this and can get people fascinated because they can decide they're interested rather than you approach them.

I never asked for a penny, not even one penny. They would say, I've got $10,000, or I've got $50,000, or could you use $100,000? I say, yeah, go talk to this guy and he'll address it. The first book was sales and it taught me so much. It taught me the world of marketing. It taught me, for all you authors out there, when you write a book, it's just like writing a book and then you go out deep in the forest and you put your book on an easel. And then you come back home and tell me how many sales you get. That, that first book really taught me marketing, or should I say the lack of. Boy, did I learn stuff after that. Yeah, I've, uh, I'm a 5-time Amazon bestseller, but I've learned a lot from every single one.

Yeah. And, uh, as you— where did you learn your sales skills? Let's say, you know, because, you know, along the way, you know, you go from being this, uh, incredible typist where, you know, It's great, but you're sitting in front of a typewriter, you know, and so you gotta get— go from that to transition to where you're not spending so much time looking at the typewriter, but talking to people and moving products. Where did you pick up that skill?

In the corporate world, working with groups and teams and being yelled at a lot. I'm teasing. I just learned how to deal with people, or not deal is not the right word, communicate with people, get things, you know, learn from mistakes. You know, you, you shouldn't ask people this way. You're not supposed to talk to people that way. Just how to deal with people, social graces, how to explain things, how to get things, how to be a subordinate. I was a subordinate for a long time. I worked in what I call corporate America, business world for 30 years, and I was an entrepreneur for what I consider as 30 years if you count my paper route experience. So I just learned how to be with people and deal with people. And if you went back in time and it was like you had a computer that said, what does Tony say a lot throughout his life? It's let people be themselves. I just always felt let people be people and not grumble. Not that I never grumbled or complained, but just people are people and they have their how their mindset of how they've dealt with whatever. And maybe it's the Italian-ness, I don't know, maybe you can tell me better, but just, I really like people. I like people for what they are. And I'm always learning something from them and fascinated with them, you know, in life. So it was just become something that just kind of grew with me in terms of that. You know, I did study religion. I've studied religion a lot all my life. I've studied all the major religions. I've read books to this day. I've studied every single major religion as a passion since I was 19. Well, excuse me, since I was 7, 6 or 7, when I went to first grade.

As you went into your podcasting business, your instincts were right on. Let's just point out to people what you did right. You jumped in, you know, you did a little bit of research, you did, you know, reading this, that, and the other. But you jumped in, you got on. And somehow where I say I noticed that you had a sales ability, you got guests. That's not easy to get guests, especially if you go in there and you say, I'm getting started. I don't have a, you know, you want to be able to tell them you got 100,000 downloads or 50 million downloads like you got. You like to be able to tell that. It's easier to get the, uh, the, the more important or high-profile people, but you know, it's hard to get that. Like I think you said, I hear when you got started you had 10 listeners or something your first, your first week or something. And, uh, but yet you got these good— you, it seems like you were getting good guests right from the beginning, Tony. You You must be some kind of salesman, man.

I have no idea. You tell me, because I won't listen to my earlier shows from 10 years ago. You know what I knew then and just how to communicate. And just because if you're indoctrinated in the corporate world in the, I want to say '70s and '80s and that protocol and regimen of how you deal with people. It's so different than it is today. And so, you know, how you answer. And so I would deal with my guests, deal or speak or chat as if they were like my senior or my boss. And, you know, okay, yes, sir.

Got it.

Okay, good. You know, you know, things like that. And I spotted, I was like, what are you doing, Tony? You know, but I always thought every guest I had was superior to me. I really, truly did. And I still do.

Yeah. Well, everybody we meet knows something. There's some subject they know a whole lot more about than we do, no matter what, no matter who they are. And so they deserve that kind of respect. And so as you get into the flow of your podcasting, right from the beginning, you had the idea, I would like to interview high-profile people. Now I know why. You know, we went through this last week. You know, I know why I was interested in that, because I was interested in real-life lessons of winning and losing and what, you know, how people look at things, you know, how to look through the eyes of a winner. You know, I can copy their thinking. I can't necessarily copy their athletic ability or inventive ability, but I can copy their thinking. And so that's what fascinated me. That winners thought differently than everybody else because that triggered the use of the precious 24 hours a day that we all have. And so that's why, you know, I— that kind of relates back to how I got on this road. But with you, what fascinated you about the high achievers and the high-profile people where you said, I want to make this the focus of my podcast? Was it the fact that it was just— they were entrepreneurs?

My first podcast, Revenue Chat Radio, which was 176, 178 episodes, were just successful people or authors or just anybody who would chat with me on the podcast. When I went into Voice America, they actually asked— I was kind of asked, they knew who I was and they asked if I would join their influencers group. And I was by that time, I think I was doing between 10,000 and 20,000, 25,000 downloads or listeners per episode on Revenue Chat Radio. This is in my first year and a half. And so I thought, well, if I'm interviewing successful people here, what am I going to do with this show, this new show that I'm going to create? Who am I going to interview? And then I started looking back. Well, I've been interviewing millionaires and I didn't even know some people were millionaires till later. And so I thought, well, they're really special entrepreneurs. What can I make that's two words? And I was like, you know, we didn't have computers like we have today. So I was like, what's two words, you know, that could say I interview super entrepreneurs, brilliant entrepreneurs, elite entrepreneurs. I go, that's it. I interview elite entrepreneurs. And that's where it started. Like people who are like at the top of their category, and then all evolved that way.

And why? And that makes it more fun for you. What do you find? What I find— I'll go ahead and tell you what my side of it. I find that all of my life I try and set things up to make things easy for Larry. And because if I make it easy for Larry, then I'm likely to do well. If I make things hard If I set it up, I don't think my way through it. I make it hard for Larry. Then I'm likely to bomb more and not as much fun, not consistently as, and do as well. But as in interviewing with people of accomplishment, you know, the thing is elite entrepreneur, that means they've been in it quite a while and they've overcome usually to do elite things. You've had elite challenges, you know.

Absolutely. They've been, they've, they've been, I could tell you out of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millionaires and billionaires and people at the top of their category, not one, maybe, maybe one. That's, that's an anomaly. Every single one other than the possible one had to work for it. They did not have their life handed to them. I actually know one person who had his life handed to him, which he never really amounted to a whole lot compared to others that really had to struggle. It's when you have to struggle hard and push and push and push, those achievements become more monumental and more important. And you wind up learning that you can push through and battle this problem, this issue, this big change in the, in the world, like, you know, this big protocol change and whatever. And, and, and, and they, they're, they're better at achieving because they didn't stop. That's the whole big difference is they didn't stop. The world changed, the pandemic hit, they didn't stop. They said, I'll figure out a way around it.

You know, the thing is, this, this is a little bit of, uh, this program is going to be kind of behind the scenes with, with, uh, elite entrepreneurs big hitters, high achievers, because you and I have talked to so many of them. And, you know, we've got a little, little bit of credentials more than most about the reality of that world and what these people are like. And I'd like to hear you comment about this. The misconception of the whiners out there and the people that hesitate is like, but I've got it hard. You don't know my problem. You know, I'd love to do this. I'd love to do that. But I don't have the advantage of so-and-so, so-and-so. you know, you know, Grant Cardone. I don't have the, you know, like I don't have that advantage. Yeah. Grant Cardone grew up in a, you know, his father left at 5 years old, you know, you know, it's, you know, had a horrific upbringing, but he said that's a blessing, you know, because it taught him to, you know, to get to be self-reliant and all of that. And so you, you go out and one by one by one, You hear people idolize and basically they gloss, they just think the people on top just have it easy. They just somehow, they cannot believe they had it tough or sometimes, and I'll know these people and I'll know like in this year they had more disasters they had to deal with you know, their mother was in a car wreck and was in the hospital for life or death for 4 months. And then they had an injury here, you know, that they had to go in for surgery. And then they had a financial thing where they're all in this year, but you never know about it because they just keep working and they come through it and figure, learn lessons that now they're doing 2 or 3 times better. And all people notice is, oh, they're doing 2 or 3 times better this year. What an easy year it was for them. But Behind the scenes, you don't get a free ride. You just overcome it.

Since we're really zoning in on this, I'm going to issue a little modification on that. There is that group or level that has the world handed to them. They're born as millionaires, billionaires. They have everything and anything they want. And when they do whatever They put out a YouTube or a book. It's a, it's a New York Times bestseller. They're, you know, they start on day one on YouTube with a million followers or whatever, whatever, whatever.

Right.

There is that band or group.

Yeah.

They don't necessarily do interviews on my show below them. The millionaires, billionaires that had to struggle, that had to work, they wind up, they wind up being the ones that I interview a lot. I mean, and that's who I'm, and that's who I'm referring to. There are, there's a, there's, you know, whatever, couple hundred thousand people in the world that have anything and everything they want since they were kids. But that's a whole different story. That's not quite the material, I don't think, for my type of podcast.

Well, the thing is that the people who had to work for it seemed to be a lot nicer and more eager to share because they had to go through those kind of things. That's been my experience.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. They've had to struggle. They've had to work. I've interviewed a millionaire who at one time was homeless, had no home. Can you imagine that? Have no home. Living on the streets, but he didn't stop. He kept on and he became a millionaire. That's absolutely amazing.

Let people know behind the scenes. It's one thing to say, okay, Tony started this, this deal and became a podcaster and all, but give them an idea how much work it is to start a podcast back in 2007. And, you know, and what you had to do. Did you have a huge staff? Did you have hire 10 employees right off the bat. And, you know, what was it like? How much, you know, what were you doing?

80 hours a week, easy, plus 7 days a week. Just everything I had to figure out, you know, and putting the show together and promoting the show and writing the show notes and writing the description and doing the banner. I did everything. I did almost everything that I could myself. I found a company that I use called Fiverr where I would hire people to do banners and things like that. But I did my own edits. I did everything else because there's no money. There was no money for a year or two easy. There was no money. So I had to do everything myself and foot the bill and work on other things to bring in income. But I just knew that this podcast thing I think this podcast project I'm on could someday be successful. It's just, but I wasn't able to see the future 'cause it was so brand new. There were no precedents for it. Nobody knew what podcasts could do or where you could go. So it was just, I just had to figure it all out.

Yeah, and the thing is, when you think about all of the things there are to figure out, to me it's almost like being a parent. You know, and all of the skills that a mother has to have, you know, to be, to be a functioning mom, you know, cooking and the kids and the housekeeping and the this and the that and the other, there's 400 different jobs. To be, to run a podcast, you have to be familiar with all the different social media where they're changing all the algorithms all the time. You've got to be able to, you know, I'm looking to hear you are the same thing. We're looking at lighting. You know, it's not like, okay, go get some good lights. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. How much time can you spend and how many versions you go through before you settle in? Just the light and then the microphone and then the camera.

And so many microphones and so many systems and learning so many things and just still trying to get the lighting better, the microphone better. There's new microphones to upgrade. It's never-ending, but I'm always trying to figure out how to be better. And you have to be willing to look at that and go, boy, that was a great interview, great information, but my audio was terrible. You couldn't hear my words. You couldn't hear the client's words. All these things I would have to address after the interview and fix better for the next one. And that was a constant. Constant challenge for me.

Yeah. And as you, you get in there, you have to— you got to come up with the material. You got to contact the people and follow up with your, your guests and keep up with those calendars. There's so many things. And then you've got to post them. You got to post these with the— that like Joe is listening here, the producer that I use Fame to help make my life tolerable. In that arena. They do the 40 functions. I don't have to do the 40. I can just get in and have fun with you.

Oh, see, I do, I do every single one myself. And when this interview is done, I will post it myself. I will put it on social media. I will put it everywhere.

It's—

I do almost, almost everything myself, though I do have a team that I hire out to do specific things, mostly edit or graphics or give me some shorts on the videos or what have you. But I find, not that I have to micromanage, but just I have this understanding after doing it for 10 years that how this should work over here or how this should work over there. So I wind up just doing almost everything myself.

Yeah. And the thing is, even if you use Fiverr or some of these other, you outsource, you still have to review their stuff.

No, and then find another one if you don't like them, find another one and find another one until you've got someone that can handle what you want and understands enough. And today, I, you know, the people that help me, the— would call them subs or independent contractors, they've— some have been with me for, I want to say, 8 years. I mean, I keep them. They know my stuff. They know what I need. And I don't, I don't go, I don't, I don't, I won't leave them because somebody else is cheaper.

Well, it's, it's just amazing how these little jobs can be, even when you're having other people help you and you're outsourcing, like, like it's getting close to Christmas. I'm always getting my Christmas cards ready and I'm one of the few that still sends Christmas cards out. You know, I'll send out, I'll send out 800 and I'll get 80 back. But I don't care. It's my way of you know, sending out or reaching out to people. And so I take the picture. I'm a photographer. I take the picture.

Commercial break. Getting 80 cards is amazing. Good for you. I've never gotten any cards in one year. Okay. Just ever. So that's fantastic.

Thank you. But, you know, I write the copy that goes inside the card. I make the picture. But even still, you know, you send it off, they mock it up, they send it back. Okay, we've got to change this, that, and the other. Okay, wait for the changes. And this, that— I can't tell. It's like 6 different little follow-ups to get a Christmas card, which is— and people will get it and they'll open it up. Very nice. Close it, stick it on the counter. But all the little jobs that you go through when you're doing it yourself, the fact of if you, if you don't really love it, you know, and you don't feel like this is gonna go somewhere and you see the potential, it's hard to keep your energy up. And how, what kind of battles have you gone through with yourself over that?

Because of my corporate training, let's call it, and the sales that I did or the promotion, I learned the most incredible thing in the world, Larry. It's how I made $3 million. Was spreadsheets. I just had a spreadsheet and the spreadsheet would just have, okay, get contact the guest, get the information on the guest, get the photo on the guest, uh, get to write a description on the guest, get a banner on the guest. I know as tedious as it was for everything, I had a spreadsheet. I had a spreadsheet for the show which included promoting it and where to promote it. And I'd sit down when it was you know, which is most of the time, just work on the spreadsheet. I had a spreadsheet for each guest and it just ran my life for me.

The way I look at that, you took the guesswork out of it. And, you know, there's a reason why airlines and pilots use checklists. They got a checklist, preflight checklist. They've got a pre-ignition checklist. They got an ignition checklist. They're pre— you know, before they back away from the thing, they got checklist, checklist, checklist. And why do they do that? Because they work.

100%. And that's how you do— hey, for everybody in the audience, whatever business you're doing, this is something really new and unique that I don't think I've ever spoken about much in my interviews. Just as Larry said, just as I said, whatever it is, put it on a checklist and then you don't have to think. You don't have to carry all this information in your head. You don't have to— not whether it bothers you sleeping or not of all the things you have to do, but just go sit at your desk, open up the checklist. So I've got to show this one. Monday, what's, what's, what's left to do? Done. And the rest is time off.

And when you come from, uh, like you listen to, let's just say you interview somebody this week and they come up with a great idea because you already have your systems, your checklist, and like you say, I'm gonna add that line item in there. I'm gonna make sure I, isn't that right, Larry?

I, I have to scan my 10 years of podcasting, but I will, I'm willing to bet you that this. I never had the same checklist because of what you just said. I would get ideas, I would think about stuff, I go, oh, this didn't get done yet. Oh, I should put this on the checklist. And it just, it ran my life for me so easily.

Yeah, it's a matter of automating things. And basically you're taking the guesswork out of consistency and success. And we know that consistency is what allows you to be successful over time. It's, it's it never fails. The consistency never fails, but you have to freshen it up. You have to be improving what you do on a consistent basis. And so I'm going to say this. I'm going to tip my hat to you as I rethink back. Took me 20 years of trying to do podcasts before we actually got going on podcasts. And the only way I was able to get podcasts going is COVID and the lockdown and the, you know, Zoom, the explosion of Zoom, because all of a sudden everybody anywhere in the world knew how to use Zoom. And now before that, okay, one of the things I went through in the early days, which you were back in the beginning of, I ordered crates of microphones to send to guests. That's so, cause they, you know, and then I would have my people on my, the reason I couldn't get it going was we were spending all of our time educating people over the phone, on your laptop, download this program, and then you plug this microphone in and just, just, am I bringing back memory? But you fought your way through that. You know what the biggest problem was?

You know, it was an even bigger problem than that. Was I learned quickly on, well, you know, you listen to other podcasters that are more seasoned, but I learned quickly on that Wi-Fi and the Bluetooth and cell phones don't interview anybody on there. They have to be hardwired and nobody, very few were hardwired. So I would, I wouldn't, I wouldn't interview them because the audio would be so bad. So I would wind up educating my guests on how to get there, on how to hardwire their computer or their microphone and not use the microphone on the desktop. Yeah, so there was that education. Yeah, yeah, you're bringing back the memories.

Yeah, but salute to you. Whatever you made out of this, you should get 10 times more for fighting your way through and getting your— you know what it allowed you to do is get your foundation in place and being able compound and multiply those original efforts because you kept the consistency going. And so where do you see this thing going? You know, what do you see from your vantage point? You know, the outreach from podcasting, you know, where— what's your insider's view of podcasting and, and how important it's going to continue to be for us moving forward?

That is a very long answer. I see podcasting as a big wave of the future, even though there's 2, 3 million podcasters, even though a majority of podcasters fail after, uh, after half dozen, dozen episodes because they're not, they don't make money. And I can address that. So many fail, but so many more come up, but it's the way of the future. It can augment or help you in whatever Trouble you may be having. You could be an accountant, a cashier, a store clerk, or whatever. But podcast, you know, one show a week or whatever about what you love, what you're passionate about. And I see more and more people, if they listen to what I'm just saying now, I, Tony loves orchids. I love orchids. You know, start a show about orchids and then the care and the feed and the, and the this. And before you know it, you'll get sponsors or affiliates. With gardening gloves or gardening tools or fertilizer or different things for orchids. And you could start making a little bit of a business on it. I think that's really important because I think if you and everybody in the audience look around, everything in your room, your chair, your computer, your desk, your lights, it's because of an entrepreneur.

Yeah.

It just didn't come up by itself. And you—

That's a great point.

And you can push things or sell things even if it's just— but it's got to be with your passion. Please, please, please. I said it 3 times. I know. Don't listen to what the big experts say because they'll tell you just go for the money, but it doesn't last. Yeah, it's your passion that will let you through. I podcasted for a couple of years purely on passion with no income. And look, you know, now, yeah, 50 million downloads later, number 1 show internationally chartable, literally worldwide. 2024, my show. You know, it's things like that because that passion, I love learning from people. And you know what's really cool when you interview successful people? You mentioned this earlier. You get to learn something. Everyone's taught me something. You've taught me stuff. You've taught me stuff just, just by chatting, which is, it's just never ending. And that helps make a better podcast.

And of course, vice versa. And so, and let's talk about learning. I'm the happy owner of one bestselling book, and I came up with the— all of my advisors said, you've got one. Everybody's got one good book in them. I think that was bad advice, but anyway, I believed it. And so I was— I intended to write three, at least three or four. I blocked out about 50 or 60 different books before I ever wrote one, and I wrote one and stopped. But now you've gone on and you've got, what, 6 bestsellers and so 5 bestsellers. And so what have you learned from compounding your best-selling? I mean, you're a, you're a serial, you know, my book was called Serial Winner. You're a serial bestseller.

This is a very unique question you're asking. So I'm really thinking, but it seems to have parallels to social media today in the world and to podcasting and everything else. I think it's gotten more difficult, you know, um, you know, back, back in the day, if I could be silly to say that, if you, if you, if you had a good audience and you put out a book, you could get a good amount of book sales. But there's so many more books out there. There's so many more videos out there. There's so many more this and that. It's like, I've been hesitant on even putting out my next book. It's like, do people even want this? Information that I can give them on how to achieve your vision. I have a great book that I wrote, and I have the draft sitting there on how to achieve your vision, which is a whole conversation. But do people even want this information, or am I trying to ram it down their throats? The world's changing on us, Larry.

And how have you noticed with the publishing? Are you more friendly to the self-publishing, the Kindle type books, I mean, using Amazon to publish, you know, through there and self-publish or go to a regular publisher.

It's the same thing. You self-publish, but you self-publish it through that platform. Really easy to do. But even then, doesn't make, doesn't give you a bestseller or sales. You've got to promote it, promote it, promote it. You got to be your own talking commercial, walking commercial.

What do your instincts tell you if you were to, where you are today, or if you were a new person starting out writing books, what is your instincts? Which way would you lean in, in putting a book out right now, going with self-publishing or looking for a publisher?

Well, also, there's do you want to write fiction or nonfiction? And I am well known as what's called nonfiction, serious books about sales and marketing. And I've, in the past couple of years, I took on a co-author. Together we wrote a fiction, but that's, I think, acceptable. I think that's acceptable because it's, there's another person that helped it and I helped with my knowledge, put it together. So, but pick one. And then I think, uh, just like the, the little quip I made at the beginning, you write a book, you put it in the forest, what happens? I think to self-publish your first book is good so you can learn because there's a lot of moving parts, guys. I mean, it's more than you can think. And yes, you can hire a company that can do something, but they're just, um, it depends on what you want to do and your money. Do you have $5,000, $10,000 available or not? Because you're going to spend that. To put together a good book, you know, so it just depends.

Yeah. And it goes down to everything. It's like if you got a burning desire to do it, then do it, you know, get that, get that. But there's a reason you have burning desires and you should follow through with them. Tony, thanks so much for talking to us. This has been so much fun. And, you know, I really appreciate the time we've had to spend over the last week. And I'm curious, Larry, to wrap up this public portion of the podcast, what kind of final word would you like our guests that have been listening to us and stayed with us all the way through to take away from this as their parting ideas?

What I would like to say is just take action, guys. Success is there for those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds. In other words, don't lie down when another protocol comes and says, everybody's got to do this from now on. Don't just give up. Sow good seeds, create that future, and do good deeds, and things will start changing and become better. Those are really, really powerful. And I say that at the end of every one of my episodes. So if you're going to podcast, come up with a good phrase and use that at the end. That's a very important thing I learned 10 years ago.

Fantastic. And if you've gotten something that's meaningful to you out of this, hit the like, hit the subscribe, and more important, give us a comment. Give us your feedback. You know, you got to massage this stuff in, folks. You can't just listen to it. You've got to digest it. And like Tony said, write, write something back and look for Tony's books. And, uh, you know, leave him some comments, leave him some reviews, because I know you'll get some great information there.

And the podcast is called The Tony D'Urso Show, and you can get all 10 years' archives at TonyDUrso.com. There, just go to podcasts and all my episodes, including the ones I won't listen to anymore.

Yeah.

From 10 years ago. Yeah.

I'll let them be chock-full of names that you will recognize there and be interested in, uh, getting some insight. Thanks so much, Tony.

Uh, thank you. It was definitely a pleasure and an honor. I appreciate it. Thank you, sir.

That's it for this episode. If this resonated with you, do me a favor, share it with someone who's ready to level up. Winners find winners, and the right conversation at The right time can change everything. Want to go deeper? Join us inside the Big Hitter community at joinbighitters.com. That's where the real work happens. And if you haven't already, subscribe so you don't miss the next one. Remember that you're either growing or dying, and there's no standing still. Keep winning, and I'll see you next week.