A Conversation With “The Larry King Of Podcasting,” Jordan Harbinger

There could be a millennial that works at some company that woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and there goes your income stream. I took a good look at a lot of my YouTuber friends that were highly successful, like, million plus subscribers, and I got some pretty disturbing figures to do 12 million plus view videos with people that are not 14 years old. That is, you are a unicorn in that space. So they can outsource the comments, the email, the customer support, all this stuff. They can outsource the editing. You can't outsource your personality. If you have to post 20 plus times per day, you have a content problem. I think there's still plenty of intelligent people that want intelligent content. It's just harder. Everybody wants every bit of celebrity's time. That's what they're into. And people think, oh, man, if I just had Shaquille o', Neal, I'd get this big bump in my show. So for me, it's all about this very, very loyal audience, and I focus on them, and I focus on what's good for them.

All right, Geor Jordan. So I thought I'd begin with a big question, which is, you just had a baby. You've gone through a huge business reinvention since, you know, one of the last times I talked to you. What terrifies you right now?

You know, what worries me is always.

There'S this old saying, I'm sure you've heard it or said it a million times, where they say, don't build your business in someone else's walled garden, Right? Because everybody who made Facebook pages and invested like $2 million in their Facebook PA now is to pay $2 million a month to reach the people that clicked, like, 10 years ago or whatever. And I go, yeah, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. Wait a minute. I have a podcast. So, theoretically, yes, it's open, but Apple still has 56% market share, 66%, depending on who you ask. Spotify has taken a 10% bite, and there. There's a bunch of different walled gardens, but at the end of the day, we're still. Or I am still beholden to the platform, which kind of sucks. Like, it doesn't stop me from doing anything. But as a friend of mine said, you gotta be careful, because if you wake up one day, you might have crossed a millennial that woke up. Well, speaking of millennials, we were talking about that pre show. There could be a millennial that works at some company that woke up on the wrong side of the bed. And there goes your income stream. And a lot of people say that's never gonna happen. But I was meeting with a company that, let's just say I'm trying not to, hard not to mention them, their name, let's just say they offer the ability for creators like you and I to take donations on a monthly recurring basis for, let's say, extra content. And they're very popular and they keep trying to get me to move over to their platform and start something on their platform. And I told them this and they said that would never happen. And then I go, but it happened with that person and it happened with that person and happened with that person. And they're like, yeah, but they were.

Doing things that are against our terms of service. And I said, what were those things specifically? And they just don't have an answer. And look, I'm not alt right or crazy left wing or anything, but you don't have to be. You just have to piss off the person who runs the content review team at some company and you're done. There goes all your income. So that freaks me out a little.

Yeah, yeah, it should for sure. And I hear you totally. I mean that going back, that was one of my excuses reasons for years and years when I had tools, you know, when I had Traffic Geyser, an instant customer, my message was always the same, which is get people from a platform over to you, own the relationship, get their email address and get their mobile number and build a real relationship with them, get them to your events and create high level relationships because it's easier to monetize. But we live in a world now where open rates and click through rates with email are miserable at best and attention spans are at an all time low. And I think most people would agree that the most engaging platforms are, you know, it comes through podcasting or you know, it could be through YouTube potentially. I think it really comes down to how you train your audience to react and respond to you. So there is no holy grail, that's for sure. And I haven't seen a magic bullet in a long time. Right now, I think right now it's more scattered than ever before.

I agree.

Yeah, yeah.

I. Can I ask you a question? And if you don't want to talk.

About it, you can find everything is, is everything's open.

So a lot of people have gone, hey, why don't you do more on YouTube? And I say, well, or in fact, I split off from my old show last year early, so about 18 months ago and I started a New iteration of the Jordan Harbinger show. And people go, oh, what are you going to do differently? Are you going to do YouTube? Because you always said, oh, maybe you should do YouTube. I looked at and I had a sort of a very. What do you want to call it? Like a come to Jesus with myself, I guess, where I was like, do I want to do YouTube or do I want to stick with podcasting? I ended up sticking with podcasting. And it wasn't because that's what I knew how to do, or it wasn't just because that's what I knew how to do. I took a good look at a lot of my YouTube or friends that were highly successful, like million plus subscribers. And I said candidly, I need you to not BS me about how much money in revenue and output and blah, blah, blah. And I got some pretty disturbing figures from some pretty people who I thought would be printing effing money on YouTube. We're kind of not barely scraping by, but certainly not wealthy because of it. And I'm talking people with seven figure subscriber things, streams, people that 2, 5, 3, whatever. Years ago, everyone had seen one of their videos because they were like just hilarious and new and innovative and they had millions of views and, and they're just. Now they're selling, you know, courses on how to make videos on YouTube or they're consulting or something like this. And I'm like, why? You have 3 million, 5 million subscribers, 2 million. So for me, and the other angle.

Was I look and I'm curious, how much money are they making? Let's just get real here. For someone who's got like a million to 5 million subs.

Yeah. So there is a couple of people. Let me think about it, because it did vary widely and I'm going off memory here, but there were, there were people that if you discount their product sales, which you kind of have to, because that was like email funnel on top of the podcast, on top of the YouTube, full sales team, full production team, the P. Just AdWords or Google Ads in their YouTube videos. There were guys that were like making a million bucks, but there were four of them and they had a team. So they were all making six figures. But not Ferrari, not Lambo money. Right. Like they were. Not that they. Not that they were going for that, but they were doing something that was really good for. For guys who are screwing around most of the time and like meeting girls at a mall or something or like playing pranks on somebody. But now it's, it's not really there. And even if they bought out the other guys, they still then have to do all this work. And I looked at their day to day and I went, holy crap, you guys are 12 hours a day combing through all this. You can't outsource your personality. Same with a podcast. You can't outsource your personality. So they can outsource the comments, the email, the customer support, all this Stu. They can outsource the editing. You can't outsource you being the guy that does all the funny stuff in the videos. You just can't do it. And so these are guys that were making that, some of the people that were making a ton, more like the vlogger people who have, let's be Honest, won the YouTube business lottery because they'll make a video of them going through the drive thru at Burger King and throwing fries at each other and it gets 3 million views. The problem with them is, as we all know now know, advertisers have wised up to the fact that everybody who's watching that is 12 and doesn't have a credit card. And so they're getting AD CPMs that are like 1 to 2 bucks to put 2 bucks CPM to put that into perspective, as you know. But a lot of people might not. Podcast CPM is like 20 to $50. So we're making between 25 and 50 times as much per thousand people. Now granted, 3 million views on a video sounds like a lot, but when it's the same thing as getting 100,000 downloads of a podcast, you start to look at it and go, wow, it's really hard to get 3 million views on a video consistently. It's hard to get a hundred thousand downloads of a podcast, but it's certainly not as fickle. You know, if I read books and create good interviews, I do 12 shows a month on the Jordan Harbinger show. To do 12 million plus view videos with people that are not 14 years old, that is, you are a unicorn in that space. And it's very difficult and competition is really fierce. I know some people that were generating, and are generating to your question, seven plus figures on YouTube and have two 1 to 2 million subscribers. Their team is 16 to 20 people strong and they, they're there filming eight hours a day and cutting clips and they're gaunt. And I don't mean that as a metaphor. These are people that look like they haven't had a vacation in two decades, because they haven't. They're working their bones off on this. It's not a lifestyle business, but it's also not a growth company because you're the guy in the video. It's just not all it's cracked up to be.

Yeah, there's, there is, there is no asset to sell. So it's definitely not a. A real business. And I'm, I'm with you. So I know one of the things that we've been. We're chatting about pre roll is this notion of, you know, where the industry is going from a media perspective. Where's the opportunity, where's the money? And I think this is a great tunnel to go down because one of the things that I spend my time doing is working with, you know, my tagline is helping experts build empires. And these are people have real businesses. And for them, creating a category of one for themselves can mean that their personal brand can be worth millions of dollars with very few moving parts. But they're elevating their previous experience and expertise. They're doing this. They're knowingness and they've got some substance behind them. They're not just basically making goofy videos. And the question is what medium works best. And I think that really comes down to what your talent is. Right.

Yeah.

And, and in the case of YouTube, it takes a very different skill set, both from a team and an individual perspective. And, and, and just like any industry, as soon as the machines get involved, they figure out a way to squeeze out all the profit. It's. The insurance industry is the same way. Lyft and Uber is the same way. You know, you talk to an Uber driver, they make about 15 bucks an hour.

Yeah.

And I think that's kind of what happens to the talent as well. Now that there's a lot of it and even I've heard of. I was just reading that YouTube. There's someone trying to create a YouTube union, a talent.

Good luck. Yeah, not going to happen. You know, it's funny, you just reminded me of what I. Sorry, I'm a little bit of a tangent here. The. My original point was people who optimize for YouTube. Speaking of which platform is going to be good. So what I've noticed is there are a lot of podcasters that go, hold on, growing. This podcast has been molasses. I started off with zero. It's been a year and a half. I've got 17,000 downloads per episode. What's going on? And then they try YouTube and they go, I got 17,000 video views after my first couple of months. And so they like doing that. But what they've done is they went from having intelligent conversations like more or less what we're having now, or they'll read a book on stoicism and they'll have a conversation, they're like, wow, this is really good. There's a lot of value here. People tune in for an hour, but then they go on YouTube and they find, oh, well, that long format content conversation doesn't do as well as when I cut it into clips. And those clips don't do as well as when I cut it into really, really short little vignettes. And those vignettes are better when they're animated or when I have graphics. And then suddenly instead of having a long format one hour conversation with an expert on marketing or stoicism or infectious diseases, They've got a 38 second or minute and 8 second animation with a bunch of stupid stuff that's basically a not even a topical overview of what their show was. And they have to optimize for YouTube so their content goes from what they really enjoyed and what they were really getting value out of and what the audience was really getting value from. And now it's Instagram bs. I don't know what I'm allowed to say on your show. It's garbage. And it's, it's, it's just fluffy BS. And they can't go back because now they've got 2 million YouTube subscribers, zero of which want to see them have an hour long conversation with the chairman of Google. And all of whom are just like, I need motivation now. Yay. And the other thing, I don't know if you've seen this and I don't know what your policy is on this, on the show, but you run out.

Let's, let's just pretend for a moment anything can go because I'm interested in what's real and raw, and so is everyone else who subscribes to this.

Good. So you're topical and timely. Have you seen this whole Jay Shetty drama?

Yes. Matter of fact, a good, very good friend of mine is friends with the woman who blew up Jay Nicole Arbor.

Yes.

Yep. And. But I'm curious. Yeah. Give me your take on what you've seen and noticed. And I'll tell you just for the record. First of all, I, I felt as though social's been a cesspool for a couple of years. It's one of the reasons I basically left that side of the business. Even though arguably you could say I was one of the first people in the business. Back in traffic geyser days. You know, automating this and promoting it. And the second thing is, from the moment I saw. I saw that guy, and anyone who knows me knows I said this, I said, I don't trust him. I think he's a scam. And all he's doing is recycling the same old stuff. And so are, I'll say, almost everyone he's produced, because I've met some of the people he's produced. They steal stuff. And for anyone who doesn't know the story about Jay Shetty, he has pretty green eyes. He's this nice Indian boy whose story is his backstory, which there's. There's no backup to this. He became a monk for a certain period of time.

Yeah.

And he's built a massive audience. He's become Facebook's darling. And a woman did some research, which wasn't that hard, and found he's basically stolen everything. And he tries to come across, and he's. And there's a few gurus who are friends of ours who have been on his butt saying, stop doing what you're doing. And eventually, this woman just made this incendiary video, and she must have embedded at least 30, 40 instances of him completely stealing quotes and content and pretending it's his own. So take it from that point.

Yeah. So, and to be clear, this isn't like I posted a cool quote that I found, and then Mike takes it and puts it up there, and I'm like, hey, I posted that first. It's like I wrote a book. And then. And then this guy is doing videos where he's pretending like he's talking off the cuff in his living room. And he's literally, word for effing word, reading what comes out of, let's say, Mark Manson's book or, like a Mark Twain book. So what Nicole Arbour did is her video. She took this, a bunch of his clips, and then posted the original or an original excerpt. And it is not like it's not even rewritten. It's not synthesized. I mean, it is like they. He. If he changed any word, it's like he dropped the F bomb and put friggin instead because he was giving a talk in public. Or it's got to be like PG13 for Facebook feed. Facebook watch. And so look, all the moral judgments aside, I don't think we need to beat that horse to death because it's really clear that he's in trouble right now. The reason that he did that is not because he's some kind of dunce. He's built a huge 20. He's got like 4 billion views platform wide. I mean he's clearly knows how to do business. He went to business school in London. Like he's not a moron. What happened was he ran out of stuff because he's optimizing for social. And I looked at his Facebook yesterday and the day before just out of curiosity. Before 2pm Eastern he had posted 12 times on Facebook. And I'm talking about not updates like videos, images. If you have to post 20 plus times per day, you have a content problem. You can hire 100 people and they can't come up with original stuff at that pace. You literally have to steal if you're going to not say the same thing over and over. And I'm not excusing this, but that's what happens when you optimize for social. How many influencers really set themselves apart? How many influencers are saying anything novel? They're not. They can't. There's not enough out there. And in order to have a substantive, substantive conversation you need to have time. And they don't have time. They have 32 seconds to hook your interest and they've got to do it 40 times a day or a hundred times a week. You can't come up with good stuff that's going to fit in there. So I've seen these YouTuber or these podcasters and other people who are writers and really good at what they do, start going for the volume play on YouTube and so then they have to optimize for YouTube and Instagram and it's. I call it the Jerry Springer effect. Do you remember when Jerry Springer was a serious talk show host and he had like really intellectual topics and was smart?

Yes, I do. And, and I will add just my little two cents on this, which is appealing to the lowest common denominator is unsustainable business.

Yes.

And there is no money. And it is a race to the bottom in the new economy. I've been calling it the super being economy. We live in a world right now where the true winners, especially as virtually anything that is doing oriented or knowing oriented is going to be automated, roboticized or aied in a very, very short period of time. Faster than most people can possibly imagine. You've got to focus on the highest value people in the fewest. And now.

Never before has it been more important than to have intimate real conversations. I believe our resurgent. There's going to be a massive resurgence towards experiential businesses and that is about again becoming a category of one making sure. Your message is clear and focusing on a thousand true fans or even 100 true fans. And this is evidence of that. You know, the Instagram world, you know, as I would say, the moment social became Kardashianized, it was doomed because no one can follow that with any level of true authenticity, especially the false prophets who are talking about authenticity. And it was Jay Shetty. It was a grand lie. So I agree.

You know what's funny? I was thinking about this, too, that you said Kardashianized, and I went, yeah, but you know what? I thought about this a lot recently because it's been, again, what do I do as a content creator who likes having real conversations? I will say this. It's not new, because it's not just the Kardashians going back to the Jerry Springer effect. And again, feel free to use and steal that, because I think I. I think it's pretty creative. But what happened was he was. I don't know what it was like, 91 when he first started. He was like the mayor of Cincinnati or the governor of Ohio. I forget what it was. He had a really intelligent talk show. He. He was like Phil Donahue, if you remember him. Because I. You know, we're all old fogies now, apparently, and Phil Donahue had a serious talk show. What happened was Geraldo Rivera, if you remember him, of course he's still around. He had white supremacists and I think some, like, Black Panther type people on. And there was a brawl, and he got hit in the face with a chair, and it broke his nose. And it was completely unplanned and accidental, but his ratings went through the roof. Then he did his show as normal, and his ratings sank again, and he went, wait a minute, I've got to do this BS every time. And then Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, and all the other daytime TV hosts were like, what's happening to our audience? Oh, they're all watching Geraldo Rivera because he's a clown, and he's literally acting the fool and causing trouble. So Jerry Springer, not to be outdone him and Maury Povich and Jenny Jones and all these people, they started out doing each other, and now Jerry is literally associated with just an absolute daytime TV circus. So anytime you appeal to those lowest common denominators, you do ruin that industry that you're in. But I will say this. Who was the number one most popular daytime TV show host back then during those days anyway? Oprah. She never did this stuff. Who's the most popular media personality on the Internet right now, Debatably. Joe Rogan, he doesn't say, you're good enough, you're smart enough. And doggone it, people like you look in the mirror and think how good for yourself. He just has real conversations. Sam Harris Massive, Massive Podcast. Tim Ferriss, massive Podcast. None of those guys do this crap that, that where they appeal to the lowest common denominator and they are a cut above and they have a bigger audience than most of these copycat jackoffs. So I think there's still plenty of intelligent people that want intelligent content. It's just harder because you have to be smart, you have to plan, you have to get good guests, you have to care about what the guest is saying, you have to call them on their bs. You have to bring it to your audience. It's just easier to post a tweet that says, Mike, if you're feeling down today, just remember you are loved. And then all these 12 year olds are like, like, like, like, like, like, share, share, share, share, share. You have this illusion that you're doing great.

You're just kind of doing the same thing as everyone else. And like you said, it's a commodity. I can't wait until there's an anime character run by AI that just steals everyone else's stuff, credits them, so it's legit. And now you don't need Jay Shetty, you don't need any of these people because a literal cartoon can do it. They have no actual skill. They are just parrots.

Fair. And I was going to say a moment ago, and after Jerry Springer and after, and then you had the Apprentice and then we elected. Oh no, that's. Sorry, we won't go there. But you know, we do get exactly who we deserve when we allow the lowest common denominators to have a vote. And it's been my opinion for a while that one of the smartest things we could do, although this gets into the world of at least it appears to be censorship to some degree, but it's sort of like, here's what I want. I want a blockchain based rating service where you don't get a vote unless there's a true verified identity behind you. And I'm not interested in any conversations without that. And, and it also would drive us towards being paid for our personal private data if we want to expose it. And that is whoever does that first. That's when Facebook and for that matter Google are in true serious trouble. It's whoever does that first because that is ultimately what's going to happen from a content perspective. So I'm curious. I do want to deviate a little bit because one of the things that you've been able to do with the Jordan Harbinger show, and maybe just as a little bit of background or for someone who didn't research you ahead of time and maybe didn't get the intro, why don't you just tell people briefly the size of your platform right now and where it was when you started the Art of Charm, where it broke and you then decided to reinvent and create a named program. Because I want to ask you a few questions about your path to power and the way you're doing things now and the way you do them in the future.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I'm all. I'm an open book on most of this, some of the stuff. I am in a lawsuit with the old show, the old company right now. So there's going to be some stuff. But I'll just tell you what that stuff is if it comes up.

Okay. So maybe the, the backgrounder is, why don't you tell folks for the sake of it. So the Jordan Harbinger show, as of the time of recording this, you're around, I think it's 350 episodes or so. Is that correct?

That's a good question. I'm actually not totally 243 aired.

243. Okay. I know. I was just looking at it before we started. So, yeah, 243. Sorry about that. I got my numbers inverted.

And.

So where are you right now in terms of total episode, total downloads and episodic downloads?

Approximately Total downloads right now since February of 2018 for the new show, 76 and a half million. And what was the. What was the next question? Monthly downloads.

Yeah, what? You know, like per episode or per month? I'd like to break it down and get a little bit. Yeah, fractional.

Yeah, so I'm looking. It's funny, I just brought up my stats before and I didn't close the window. So I'm looking at like the up to the minute stuff. Total downloads for the. So total downloads since February of last year, 76 and a half million total downloads for this month so far. I think that's a 30 day rolling thing. I don't think it's like the past 27 days or whatever. Whenever this comes out. 5.836 million. And then total downloads today. Although the day of course is far from over. So far, 200,072.

Okay. So the bottom line is you got some real followers here and at the present time, the way you're currently monetizing is what, like how are the different, what are the different ways you monetize you as a show? So let's call that your, your product, your commodity and you as a person.

Yeah, so that's funny you should ask because I am under monetized. I think you would agree.

I completely agree for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Like right now all I have are ads on the Jordan Harbinger show. I mean, of course not. That came out weird. I have a show with ads, but the only way that I'm monetizing is through ads. There's four ads or five in the hour plus long show. So they're pretty minimal, but they're paid nicely because my demographic is affluent, educated, etc. Well above the US average. However, when I had my old company, I was monetizing much differently because I had ads, but I also had training programs and I had online software. Since I restarted last February and had a kid, as of a month ago, I haven't developed products for sale. I do speaking, I do government and non government consulting and training, which is nice and easy really because it's the same stuff. And I, you know, I train like security forces and secret service and intelligence and things like that. But most of my revenue, the vast majority, comes from advertising now that is under monetized because it would be really easy for me to come up with like one product in an area where my audience is interested and probably double my annual revenue. Because you can charge like as you know, as everyone listening to you probably knows, you can charge. I mean, the last product I had with my old company was I think a 1500-2000 price point, depending on the tier you got. And we sent six emails and sold like $900,000 worth of it without even coming up with like quote unquote, a funnel. And this isn't ads driven traffic. This was six emails to our existing list. This wasn't like click on this Facebook thing, get this free thing, go through the email. This was like, buy this now if you want it. And that was a nearly seven figure kind of deal. So I know what kind of money is out there, but I also know that I don't want to do week long training programs like I used to do. So the sweet spot for me is going to be something of value that is online and scalable. I know that is not news for you at all. This is literally your business and your art. So that for me would be a good way to monetize however, right now all I have are ads. Yep.

And, and definitely I think there's an in between, especially now, you know, because one thing that you and I have talked about briefly. But you know, as of last year, I decided to get out of the info product business primarily because I just became bored of it.

Yeah.

The story I tell, which is not a story, it's real, is I outgrew who I was, what I did, why I did it, who I did it for. I loved the people, but the pathway to getting customers required a lot of social ads. And I just got sick of funnels. There's too many funnels, there's too many ads, there's no inventory. It's a bad business to be in. And my attitude is as soon as the majority of the lemmings are running towards the cliff, it is time to run away from it as fast as you can differentiate yourself. And again, all that's happening and has happened is there's been a massive race to the bottom. There's no inventory for ads, it's too expensive. And you're surrounded by me too, copycats who are in the business of stealing intellectual property in general. Okay. Or what I would consider a low frequency audience and a true race to the bottom. And that's, that is the time to reinvent long before the industry falls apart. And, and I, and again I see that like all overall, I see all of our major institutions reaching a low frequency breaking point right now. They're all extinct in general. And this is time for, this is great opportunity for creators and innovators. And that's why for, for you, I would say what you've managed to do is build a certain type of celebrity for yourself that you have definitely under monetized. And I also believe that you undervalue your true skills and talents. And some of that has to do with your ability to attract celebrities and build those relationships. And some of your soft skills are also not packaged and productized. And that'd be a conversation you and I can have offline because I've got ideas here just about how to monetize you just as I'm spinning this around in my head. But I am curious. Well, first of all, any comments on that before I move on? Because I do have another specific question for you.

Sure. Yeah. I actually don't disagree with any of that. So I have routinely people go, hey, why don't you charge for this? Why don't you have meetups doing that? Why don't you do live events doing this? A lot of it is right now me saying, look, I know what makes me happy and fulfilled. And I'm very hesitant to mess with that recipe because I spent 12 years prior to the Jordan Harbinger show doing something that I liked, but then ended up not liking at all. And then it ended up being a huge pain and I had to start over. So I can see how quickly you can have things get away from you. But I also. The other thing is, candidly, and we were just talking about kind of the edge of this. I look at some of these other people that have big podcasts, for example, or YouTube channel, and they're having live events and I go, this is absolute snake oil. I don't want to be lumped in with these people. So I don't then have a live event. I don't do a book that I hire someone else to write. I don't do a bunch of stupid mastermind stuff because all of these charlatan a holes are doing it and I don't want to look like them. So that is on me. And there of course are ways to do things where you don't look like a total wanker, but I am just very careful to not fall into that because I don't want to look like these other guys. I don't want to. I think they're disgusting. I think they're scamming people. They're taking people for a ride and they don't care. And it's all ego. And for me, I'm like, wow, half the day I'm in my underwear doing an interview or I'm doing a live interview, then I'm wearing pants, just for the record. But I'm hanging out with amazing people. I get to read 60% of the time to prep for these interviews and then I get to throw them up online. And hundreds of thousands of people are like, hey, that was really cool and important to me. That's so much better than when am I going to get my next check for this thing? How am I going to monetize that? I realize there is a happy medium that, that makes more sense. Like I could have products for sale and a book I'm proud of and that would make potentially multiple seven figures per year, which is a life changing amount of money, unless you're already making 100 million a year, which I am not, just in case anyone was wondering. So, yeah, I, I think you're right. Yeah, I mean, I know that you're right.

Yep. And I'm not here to push you because I unraveled from A lot of profit, but a lot of risk and a lot of things that created a headache. And I think you witnessed that too. And you had the art of charm is you were able to take advantage of the momentum that you had from a lot of goodwill over time. And just like anything, once that goodwill and momentum is out from the current audience, a well managed business knows how to manage its growth and scaling isn't necessarily good. It generally brings misery to the founders and the owners and their wives and the children. Right. And the health of those people. And I'm a little bit older than you, but I've got, got 50 some year old friends, some of which are just dying right now because they, they were, you know, you know, trying to hit, hit the home run and in the process forgot about everything that mattered most. Which you're, you're pacing yourself right now and I admire that. So I do want to ask you though, with this good fortune that you have, and looking back again from the fact that you had the art of charm, that was a multi year, that was eight years, is that how long it was?

12? No, no, sorry, 11. 11, okay.

A long ass time. And it reached its eventual demise for a variety of reasons. And then you decided to start this new podcast. You've been at it now approximately, it's 18 months, is that right?

Yeah, just about. I started late February 2018. So depending on when this airs. Yeah, about 18 months, maybe a little bit less.

Great. So the net net is. Here you are, you got traction right away, your folks didn't abandon you, which is beautiful. It just goes to show you're providing great value and you've got nice income and revenue. But I'm curious now, knowing what you know at this stage, let's pretend you had as much financial breathing room as you've deemed necessary to have a creative reinvention without any pressure because you've got a kid now, you're married, and you know there's always the 30 day monster knocking at your door unless you've got your FU number in the bank. But I'm curious what you do differently or what you. Based on all the trends you have access to and the fact that you've got visible data.

From the current podcast, you know what your monetization is like. What would you do right now if you had to start all over again and you had some latitude some time?

Yeah, I. Since I. Since this is not that much of a hypothetical, because I did have to start over again. I mean, what I did was. And what I would do Again was I simply started. One of the best pieces of advice that I got was from Norm Pattis, who owns Podcast One. He also founded the Westwood One radio network. So he's, I think he's probably a billionaire, 100% self made, one of the wealthiest people in California, as per the all of the relevant lists. And one of the things that he told me was when I split from the old company was don't lose momentum because you think you're going to settle this lawsuit in a couple of weeks or a couple months. You don't know that. What you need to do is stay relevant. That's how showbiz works. And believe it or not, podcasting and social is showbiz. He's like, start your new show, start the Jordan Harbinger show now. We'll run some ads for it on the network and your audience will slowly figure out that you've left the other one because it sucks now and doesn't make any sense and doesn't have you on it. And they'll Google and they'll find you. And I was like, is that gonna work? And sure enough, I still get messages every day. I can't believe it. I finally found you again. How did I not know I was so far behind on the show? Or I took a hiatus from podcasts? Cause I work from home now and now I'm back on the commute and I looked for you and you're gone. Like, so I get that a lot. So it's slower. It's not an email list where you can email all your audience and say, hey, I moved over. It's not social. So it's a slower reaction. Slower reaction. But your audience is so loyal because remember, they're spending with me anyway. They're spending between one and three hours with me per week and if not more, if they're going through the back catalog. So that's a much stronger connection than somebody who's eating crackers and scrolling to their phone. So for me, it's all about this very, very loyal audience. And I focus on them and I focus on what's good for them. Because a lot of times this is my personal sort of motto for content creation or doing my show, doing the Jordan Harbinger or anything that I do is I'm, as you may or may not know, I'm a former lawyer, so I'm an advocate for the audience. So that's what I think about what's good for my client, which is the audience. And when I look at a lot of people who are selling things online or doing social or doing any of that stuff. They're not keeping that in mind. I just turned down an offer that was pretty generous to put an episode of my show in with a CEO of a company that's. They're not a bad company. It's just not going to be a good interview. It's not going to be exciting. It's not going to be up to the standard that I want. And since they're paying for it, they would want their certain talking points in there. And I'm just like, I don't want to do that because I'll lose listeners or listeners will go, you don't have enough integrity. You took a paycheck for this. And it's really obvious. So I turned it down. And my network was like, what are you doing? Come on, man, this is good money. It's easy. We threw you this deal. It's going to be really simple, and I just won't do that. So I have to be the advocate for the audience, and that has served me really well. So starting over, I don't want to optimize for YouTube because of the reasons we talked about earlier in the show. I don't want to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I'd rather work really, really hard again, which I still am for 5 more years, whatever, to rebuild my audience or 10 more years to build a different audience of smart, intelligent people, because those are the people. Those are the 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 true fans that are going to keep me doing what I love for the rest of my life. So I wouldn't start another business and be like, oh, I'm going to be an online crypto investor or like a real estate flipper. That stuff is all trendy and possibly a fad for me. My audience sticks with me because of trust, so I just don't screw with that trust. And I do what they want. I make what they want to see from me, which is long format, intelligent conversation. And that's why I chose podcasting. It's literally the only place you can do that and succeed.

Right on. Yep. That makes a ton of sense. Now, the other thing that I'm curious about, which is a little bit of a non sequitur, but you've lately been getting quite a few celebrity class folks on the show. I know you just had Chelsea Handler, Levar Burton, Burton, Howie Mandel. I'm curious, what is it that changed in you to decide to reach out to that level of person? How easy have they been for you to reach. And what's that look like right now? I guess that's something that folks would ask me. I've been focusing on approaching talking to celebrity class, but I'm curious what your experience is right now to get them and how are you making that happen.

Yeah, it's actually one of the toughest parts of this business because everybody wants every bit of celebrities time. That's what they're into. And people think, oh, man, if I just had Shaquille o', Neal, I'd get this big bump in my show and it would be amazing. Actually, that doesn't happen. When I had Shaq, I saw a 5 or 10% bump. Maybe a single digit percent of those people stuck around. But I've gotten maybe one or zero emails where people say, I found you because you had Shaq on and someone shared it with me. I mean, it's pretty rare that I see that, and I can't think of one off the top of my head. So celebrity stand. There's a bunch of marketers that I know who teach podcasting stuff will be like, stand on the shoulders of giants. It doesn't do anything. Maybe like 10 years ago, you could be the YouTuber or the email person that had a selfie with a celebrity, and people would go, oh, my gosh, that doesn't happen anymore. It's table stakes. The reason I have celebrities on now, there are people that I'm interested in. I get their time, and I make them teach something to the audience. Because every episode of the Jordan Harbinger show, the whole point is somebody teaches something to the audience. So Levar Burton was easy enough because a friend of mine knew him, reached out through that Chelsea Handler. She was publishing a book. The publisher came to me and gave me the catalog, and I said, I want Chelsea. And they said, it's going to be impossible. And I said, well, that's funny. You didn't say that about any of the other 20 people that I've booked from your publishing house this year. What can you do for me? And they were like, all right, fine, Tuesday. That kind of thing. You know, with some of the other big, big names, it's either personal connections that I've painstakingly cultivated, right? Like now I know the coach of this team that coaches this person that coaches this Olympic team that works with this NBA player that knows this person that knows his agent. And then I go through that whole chain and then dot, dot, dot, Kobe Bryant, right? So it's tough. It's. It's probably another full time job. And I've tried hiring show bookers and even the top sort of celebrity talent booking agencies. They just hand me the exact same people that I can get on my own, usually a rung or two lower. Because they aren't in the business of hustling really hard to get somebody that's on your wish list. They're in the business of going, gee, I hope all my clients don't know that I'm just getting a publishing catalog from Simon and Schuster and then emailing the publicist and setting this up in two seconds. They're not in the business of hunting down the guests that lists that you want. So you have to make inroads with people that really are well connected in a list circles. And that means have. For me, that has meant doing a show with a comedian like Neil Brennan, for example, and having him come on and then go, wow, that was better than I thought it was going to be. That's one of the better interviews I've done. You do that through painstaking preparation and execution. Then you email his agent and go, hey, Neil said this was one of the best interviews he's ever done. What do you think? And then the agent listens and goes, wow, that was pretty good. And I go, who else do you have? And they go, well, this person and this person. This person, this person. Are you interested in them? Yes, I am. And you rinse and repeat with consistency until that agent knows that not only are you selling books, not only are you doing volume for their client, but that when their client goes there, they go, dang, that was good. That was worth my time. Which they don't do unless it's. That's Jimmy fricking Kimmel. Right? So you got to be the digital space or one of the few destinations where they know that they're not going to regret having booked them on your show. And you got to make it really easy. You know, with somebody like Kobe Bryant, it's like, well, what are you going to do? Skype? No, I'm going to fly down there, drive to the office, show up an hour early, set everything up, hire a videographer. And then when Kobe gets to the office, he's going to finish his Starbucks or whatever and he's going to sit down and do the interview. Then I'm going to pack up. Nobody has to bother me. I don't waste any of your team's time. And then I get out and I do my thing, right? You have to make it really easy, really professional, and you have to Work every angle. Because a lot of people will go, well, my show's bigger than this, or my channel's bigger than this. Why aren't I getting celebrities? And the reason is because they don't give a crap about the size. It's about the quality. Unless you're Oprah. You know, you're just so massive that they can't say no. Like you're a night that you're Jimmy Kimmel. Literally write your nighttime TV show. You're not bringing numbers that they need. Anybody who's an A lister that releases a book, they're going to hit the bestseller list. They're going to sell a bunch of copies. They don't really need you. The publisher is going to spend 2 million on marketing. They need you because they have to do some media to spread the word around. So you need a combination of numbers and you got to not screw it up. And the only way they know that is by looking at the past. So you've got to work your way up the ladder. You know, I know a ton of people that are like, oh, I'm going to have all these big names on my show. Not gonna happen. Publicists have to be very careful not to put you on a show that's filmed in your basement because it'll make them look Mickey Mouse. And they can't afford to do that because they'll lose their client. Does that make sense?

Totally does. I get it. And, you know, that's something that you and I both appreciate is I love impeccability and quality. It's even one of the reasons, even though we're doing a Skype video, I like to make sure I create the best intimate connection. And it's why I built this new studio, too. In when I interviewed Yakov Smirnoff, he saw it, I gave him kind of like a little walkthrough and he was like, that's what I want. He says, will you help me with that? You know, it was, you know, because he's in the process of starting his own show too. And that guy's still doing comedy after all these years.

Crazy.

Really impressive guy. So. Well, here's the way I'd like to wrap things up with you. Jordan is. First of all, do you have a dream come true or a big ask other than sending people over to your six minute networking course? I know that's one thing that you've put together, but. But anything else, of course I'm going to include show notes to your podcast, ask people to come on over and subscribe but what's your ask?

You know, I like it that people check out the show. Of course, of course. The six minute networking. I really don't, man. I don't have anything other than that. My mission is to help people think better and be better critical thinkers. And that's what the show does. That's what the networking course does. I would say that if you find value in what we talked about here, share it with somebody. Because.

Most people are not thinking two or three steps ahead. They're just looking at whatever comes into their inbox. And as you and I talked about pre roll and a bit on the show, a lot of that is just garbage, stolen fluff. You need to dig a little deeper. And it's rare to get a chance that. It's rare that people will bother doing that because of the energy it takes. But we see what happens when we just look at what we're handed and we don't think critically. So think critically about everything you see and hear. That's my big ask. It has nothing to do with me because that's, that's what's going to make our country better. I know that's a big statement, but it's true. If people would just think about both sides of an issue, I think we'd be a lot better off than we are right now.

Man.

I couldn't agree more. So, well, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to let you go. I appreciate you and just from an offline perspective, I'm going to give you a buzz in just a second as soon as we're done rolling here. And I want to thank you for. This has been awesome, as usual. It's always great chatting with you, Jordan.

Thank you very much. It's been a fun conversation.

All right, chat soon. Thanks a lot. This is Jordan Harbinger, ladies and gentlemen. Please make sure that you do the usual, which is comment and vote, give this an upvote and like Jordan asked for, just share this with someone else that you think this will make an impact with. So thanks so much for being here on the Capability Amplifier show.

Ra.