LIVE from Independent Podcast Conference 2023 in Philly

How would it make you feel if you could increase the size of your mailing list? You can email people, have them purchase your products, things like that. What would it mean for you to be able to network with other people that you would meet through the interviews, open up JV opportunities, affiliate links or affiliate opportunities, maybe doing a webinar together? So you're exposing your audience to them, they're exposing their audience to you, which again increases your list and all that. You do that through podcast interviews. Podcasting today basically is like the modern version of the old fireside chats, right, where the president sat down just talking to the people, and that established a relationship even though it was just voice, You know, pictures of people, the old pictures where they're just sitting around the radio intent on what's being said. People today listen to podcasts. Most of them listen to it on their phone while they're doing other things. They don't sit in front of the computer sitting there listening to the podcast unless you're like me where I'm sitting in front of the computer all day. But, uh, you know, they're doing it while they're doing housework. They're doing that while they're out for a run. I listen to it while I cut grass, different things like that. So the mobile version of the podcast has really made podcasting more accessible. Now, you can also go on both sides of the mic. You can do interviews, or you can be interviewed. If you do both, that's going to give you more exposure, doubling your possible audience. Because now you're again being exposed to their audience, they're being exposed to your audience, and that gets that combination going where you can now do more things and things like that. So when you can double your exposure exponentially with minimal effort, makes sense to me, right? And that's where our podcast actually started growing, was once we started doing interviews, and then I learned, oh Yeah, I'll do all of your podcasts. That's where my audience really started, when I started doing both. Number one thing you got to understand when you're doing an interview, interviewing others on your podcast— we talked, someone talked earlier about do your preparation. It takes me as long, at least an hour, to do an hour-long podcast interview. Sometimes a couple hours just in preparation for the interview. Uh, you know, we talked earlier, uh, said about, you know, sending out this form and, you know, that how some people don't like that. When someone books an interview with me, as soon as they book it, because I have a scheduler they use, it automatically sends them this PDF form to fill in. And one of the items is give me 3 to 5 talking points you want me to bring out during the interview. Now they'll fill that out. I might use one, sometimes I use all three or five or whatever it is, but usually I'll use one or two because I have their website address given to me now, Instagram and, you know, Facebook and all that. I'll go and I start digging. That's where the research comes in for the interview. That's why it takes me as long as the interview is, 45 minutes to an hour, just to get the prep on my background. Sometimes they'll send a book. I'm not going to read 300 pages to do a 45-minute interview, but I go to the table of contents, find something that grabs my attention, go read that. I also go and find their bio and read about that, maybe start digging up a little bit on Facebook, LinkedIn, things that will— that's easy for me to access. And I always try and find something I think nobody's ever asked them this question before, because that makes you stand out from all the other ones. Think about it, if they hire a publicist to reach out and book them interviews, they might have 50 interviews in 2 weeks, and they're all asking the same 3 to 5 questions. Like they put down on the list, well, this is what I want you to talk about, about my book and this, this, this, and this. But if you start asking questions from their background, questions that they have not been asked very often, if at all, now you become a memorable interview, which when they get ready to have their interviews published and they're, you know, they're receiving— if they did 50 interviews in 2 weeks and now they're getting 50 links to share on their social media. They're not going to share 50 links on their social media. They're going to pick 2 or 3. Your mind— your interview with them is going to stand out. Oh yeah, this was a great interview. That's what you need. That's what you should be shooting for anyway. So always make sure that you use the curiosity factor. Get them interested in telling their story to your audience. That's what it's all about, is your listenership. It's not about you, it's not about them, it's about what they can do for your listeners, because that's what's going to make your listeners share that link, that episode out with their followers, which will do what? Increase your downloads, increase the people that say, wow, this podcast is great, and and we're going to subscribe to this one now. That's what helps you grow your podcast. So start by getting them to talk about themselves. That's the first question I ask. I get— do my intro, introduce their bio, and then I say, you know, welcome Bob. Now the first question I always start with is this, and if you listen to my episodes, that is my first question. The first question I always start with is this: other than that brief information I just shared, tell us in your own words, who is John Smith? And you'd be surprised how many times they have never been asked that question, because the normal podcasters just go through the bio and then boom, off they go into the interview. But I get— they'll say, oh wow, okay, uh, and then that tells me right there they haven't been asked that question very often.

Is that going to open the door to them to give a bunch of backstory that we don't need?

In a way, but you got to be able to control the conversation. That's one of the next points. You control the conversation. If they start going off into, uh, you know, well, when I was 9, you know, you know, this— you're keeping it kind of centered on what their bio— the bio is that they gave you. Go ahead.

Do you ever ask a question they're not asked and you get like pushback or kind of like, you know, who the hell do you think you are asking me that?

Or—

never had it. Interesting. Okay, never had that. At all. Amen. Good questions. It went away.

Uh, you hit the blackout. There we go.

Okay. I also try and use humor during the course of the interview. Okay, by introducing humor, you are one, becoming memorable again, but, you know, not turning an interview into a comedy session, but I'll just give you an example. During my research, remember I said I'll try and find a question that I know nobody's probably ever asked them before. And here's one example. This lady, her job was, uh, booking people to basically help them get a job and interviews and things like that. Well, she wanted to do an interview. I'm running down this list of— going through her bio, and she gives me the website address and her Facebook thing. Well, you know, I went to LinkedIn. Oh, I'll draw LinkedIn. And then I— oh, that's a different website address. Went to that one, and then there's a link to her blog. The blog had not been updated in 5 years, but it was still active. So I'm reading through the bio on the blog, and one of the things it said was something to the effect of, uh, I live on this farm with my husband, 2 kids, and 5 crazy ducks. So that's the question I'm going to ask her. So we got going through the interview, and well, we're getting ready to wrap up. So there's one more question I have to ask you. Tell me about these 5 crazy ducks you got. And she started laughing. She goes, oh my God, how did you— you really know how to do research. And she started laughing. She goes, nobody has ever asked me that before. This is awesome. And then she told about, you know, living on the farm and all that stuff. But, uh, there's— those are questions like that that I'll try and find when I'm doing my research. I always have at least one, and it might not be that crazy, but it might be something along the lines of, uh, you know, the most memorable event they had was when, uh, at their wedding, they went up and the wife, you know, they were on the stair steps of this spiral staircase, and he stepped on her dress and ripped it as she was coming down the steps. And so that made for a memorable moment that she never lets me forget. And I'll bring— somehow bring that up during the interview. Well, didn't you have some incident happen during your wedding that your wife never lets you forget? They'll start laughing again, right? What's the laughter do? One, it breaks the tension. Two, again, you're standing out in their mind. Wow, this is someone who really knows how to do the research. This one is someone who just doesn't take the information I gave them and ask me the canned questions that every other interviewer is doing. This is a great interview. And when I send them their link and the social media graphics that go with it, 90% of the time I find it because, you know, I'm tagged and all that stuff, and they're, they're sharing that on Facebook and all the other places, which exposes our podcast to their audience because they want to make sure that that gets himself because it was such a good interview. So to be a memorable guest on other podcasts, you need to do the same thing. Research the podcaster. Do your research on what they're talking about, their background, and that way they can come up with, you know, during the course of the interview, you may have a question for them. Well, you know, Jack, this goes right in the long line. I know you enjoy canoeing, and I've been on, you know, doing this and you just bridge that gap right there, it shows that, wow, he researched me type thing. So that makes you stand out in their mind. They're going to be willing to help you out there as well. The, uh, be in charge of getting your points out. I always tell people you should have at least 3, maximum 5 talking points you want to get in on your interview that you're going to be on someone else's podcast. When you are talking about your subject matter, whatever it might be, and they say, okay, well, this is a half-hour podcast, blah blah blah, just make sure that during the point, during the conversation, you get in your talking points. That's the reason you're on their podcast— get in your talking points. I was on a radio program somewhere up in New York. I think it was in New York City. This is about 4 or 5 months ago, and it was a 4-minute interview. I got in all 3 talking points. If I'm on a half-hour podcast, I get in all 5 talking points. But I use that— it's on my website— as an example of get your talking points in. So my coaching students, they see Oh, this is the same subject matter on the half hour as it is in the 4 or 5 minute interview. He's getting in all the same information that's being put out because you are controlling the conversation. You're making sure you're on there to get your talking points in, which is the whole point. And I always recommend having at least 2 subpoints to each one of your talking points. So you got talking point 1. Sub-point A, sub-point B, so that you can go in depth. Because the interviewer may say, well, go into that a little bit more. Great. And you're already prepared. You know what your subject matter is. This is the main point. You want me to go deeper? Great, I can. By doing that, you're showing that you're prepared, you're a great guest, you keep the conversation flowing. You don't have this, well, uh, let me see if I can think of an example for that, you know. You're just answering the question as soon as it comes up. Be authentic. You have to be authentic. You can't pretend that you're on there doing something that just doesn't feel natural to you, right? I'm not on Insta— well, I'm on Instagram, but I do the auto-posting thing about my social media graphics and all that. I couldn't get on Instagram, pretend I'm an influencer on Instagram. That's not me. I can't get on Facebook, pretend I'm an influencer on Facebook. That's not me. But I can be on a podcast, I can be on the radio, and I can talk the lingo, and they understand that that's my background. You have to be authentic, and don't try and dominate the conversation if you're on someone else's podcast. Let them lead down the path they want to go. But always what? Make sure you get in your talking points. Again, use humor. Don't take yourself too serious. Share something funny, something unique that's happened to you. By doing that, again, you become memorable on that. And I always say use the element of surprise because if you can share a funny anecdote that, you know, relates to the topic of conversation, That's going to make you stand out. It's going to make them want to promote you more. It's going to add to the referrals you'll get from them, you know, because at the end I say, hey, is there someone else that you, you know that does interviews? And I'd be, oh yeah, yeah, I know exactly who I'm going to introduce you to. That helps you grow your list even more. Now, always leave them wanting more. Don't make it so long, so in-depth, that it seems like, you know, it's a college-level thesis that you're trying to give. Always leave them wanting more. Get in your talking points, and if they say, well, what else is there? Well, you know, go to my website, and that's what you can do. Because if you leave them wanting more, they might ask you to come back on again. If I'm interviewing someone else and they start, you know, well, then we also have this book. I'm interviewing them on this book, but then I got my other book over here. Well, I'll tell you what, I'll have you come back out, we'll talk about that book. Because you want your audience, their audience too, wanting more information. You don't want to exhaust the topic. He's just saying—

no, no, I saw, I saw it when it was That's Joe.

I literally just go, I think that's us.

But, you know, the, uh, by doing that, leave them wanting more. It captures their attention. They want to get you back on, which now gives you more exposure on their podcast. Or same thing here, you want them back on your podcast, it allows you to do that. Again, the free offer is right there. Just scan that. And this goes into what the surprise was. We have a newsletter for our, our podcast, and it's called Faithcasters Connect. It's at faithcaster.org, and it connects great Christian podcasters with great Christian guests. That's what the newsletter is for. We just started it in July. It's already growing and it's published every other week. And this newsletter is free for anyone that wants to go do it, go look at it. And you just click, you know, if you're a podcaster looking for guests, you click on that button. If you're a guest looking to be on podcast, you click that button. And all that information is free. If you want to add your profile to the newsletter That's a subscription cost, of course, and it's not unreasonable. It's $15 for either one—podcaster looking for guests, guests looking for podcasters. If you want to do both, you get a discount. It's $25. But it is—everyone here can subscribe and receive the newsletter for free. Just use that QR code. And this is an unannounced gift. That happened after I sent you this, the slide decks. There's not a slide for it. We have a business that helps support our ministry and the podcast outreach. And you've seen— some of you guys probably remember these days, other people are younger, they're all used to digital stuff. Remember when in high school you had to sell a little magazine thing? They buy the trinkets or something to get the little discount You know, all this stuff. That's how we bought— purchased a batting cage for my high school when I was in high school. But, uh, now it's all digital. Anyway, this company has authorized me— any person who does subscribe to the newsletter, free version of the newsletter, can get it— will receive a $50 restaurant discount card absolutely free of charge. Okay, uh, not $50 cash, but it's like, you know, this one might be 10% here, 15% here, till you spend the maximum $50 on it. Okay, but they've authorized me to, to go ahead and give every person who subscribes to the newsletter through that QR code a free $50 gift card. And if you decide to add your profile to the newsletter, it's a $100 gift card. Okay, so that's All I got. Any questions?

Joe? All right. Everyone just throw the mic down over there. All right. Joe, did you see I sent you a new version of my slides? A new version? Uh, I got— yeah, I got the one, the second one you just said. Yeah, yeah. All right, I'll grab that mic up there. All right, all right, so, uh There was, uh, we were supposed to— there was two other speakers that were supposed to have this slot, uh, this morning. I elected to not go for a run at 5 o'clock in the morning. Instead, I sat down and made, uh, put a few slides together because I thought that this topic is, is really important for, uh, anybody to hear, um, but specifically podcasters and creators at large to, uh, to hear. Do you want to run it? Sure. Okay. That'd be great. I'll be the—

I am the timer.

I mean, Amy's not here, so we need to do Amy. I know. Well, Amy will be here next year. She promised. She did promise on that. Anyway, this talk is called Appreciation. One of the things that I think that we don't do enough of is being grateful and appreciative not only for the opportunity of the day, but the people around us, and even the people that we don't appreciate what they're saying, but we appreciate the person taking their time, which is, as I said earlier, time, energy, money is the most important resource that we have. So for anyone who wasn't here earlier, I do a show, it's all about Shark Tank. I think pretty much everybody was here except maybe you, Kate. So Uh, yeah, I do a review business education channel. I use Shark Tank to educate people on business, getting better at business, using those as real-world examples, uh, to not necessarily about the Sharks. That's not really my— they're, they're great, whatever, but it's about the entrepreneurs because they're the real people not playing characters on the show, right? They're— that's the real business. That's what they're really invested in. Regardless of how truthful or maybe stretching the truth that they may actually be, I have theories, but that's, that's what I do. So that just gives you a little bit of background on some of these comments that I appreciate receiving. Like, I'm not, I'm not going to read every single one of them. I'll just wait a few seconds and talk through it. But, but receiving these comments, I think for me has been, uh, both enlightening and, uh, endearing, um, having people come from all over the world to write how much they appreciate what I do. They see, they see the value in it, uh, they learn, they understand nuance of that. I'm not just, uh, there to pretend to be a shark or anything like that. That is far from what we're doing here. Um, this one is like super long, uh, but basically it's like they prefer watching the show with me in it versus watching it without me in it. Um, and that's just one comment. I've had quite a few over the years that like, I can't even watch— I just don't even watch it when it airs. I wait until you drop your episodes later that, you know, that night.

Like the bottom, hire this guy, make it official.

Uh, yeah, yeah, this, this, uh, this— I think this was a couple years ago on that comment specifically. Yeah, one day ago. Yeah, it was a day ago whenever it was. Whenever. Yes, when the screenshot was taking place. Um, so, you know, so it's, it's in here like, hello from Brazil. Um, it's, you know, it's always been incredible to me bringing people together. It's one of the reasons we have IndiePodCon. That's one of the reasons I've been a content creator since '96, writing about video games as a 10-year-old boy, making a blog and building websites and things of that nature. I love bringing people together. So, you know, I absolutely appreciate all of that, and I think you should value those comments that you receive. I screenshot a lot, like a lot of the positive ones and the negative ones, which we'll get to in a second. But, uh, and I have them in a folder and I read those comments. These comments get read at the end of every video, so I read one comment per video. So it's like a feature thing for people who stick around and actually like what I'm doing. Uh, oh yeah, this is, uh, you know, always, always learning a lot from your channel, uh, which, you know, again, absolutely, um, means the world to me. People and relationships are the most valuable thing that we get Um, why is this negative? Did I talk for 20 minutes already? Oh, oh, it was the pre— I think it was the previous timer. Um, thanks, Chris. Sorry. Oh no, nope, nope, this one, this one. Uh, there.

All right.

Um, yeah, they— so, so it's, it's always awesome to get these, these comments from people around the world and to be able to, uh, have that, like, that connection. Um, and I get to see— I don't have— some of the best comments I've also gotten were in the live stream. Um, but because I'm usually playing a video game while I'm live streaming, it's, you know, I can't screenshot that as easily. Uh, just a couple more until we get to the, to the other side. Um, And yeah, here's, uh, out of the Philippines. And this is like, oh, uh, all the way from India. So we got India in the house and, uh, in the comments. In fact, India is like between number 2 and 3, uh, of my subscribe— of the, well, the viewership of my channel. They're always in the second or third spot, uh, usually fighting with Canada for, for number 2. Uh, love your videos, big from Philippines. Um, So one of the things I always say when I reply to them is, you know, I appreciate you, and I mean that because, you know, again, going back to the time thing, people take their time to let you know what they think, right, wrong, indifferent, happy, sad. It does not matter. It's when you value the time and you value their time and you value your time. It's one of those things that I think it helps you, um, it helps you have a different understanding of, of where people are coming from, looking at the different, uh, angles and perspectives and such like that. So, uh, thanks for your input. This was actually way longer than I meant to. I didn't want to make it too short, but I didn't want to make it too long. Um, I think there's just one or two more. And oh, so this is a great example of somebody who was a fan of the channel, commented for like a year, told their partner, hey, we're gonna go on Shark Tank someday and this guy Joe is gonna interview us afterwards. And he spoke it into reality because this is his comment talking about, being on the show because he was on the show. I didn't realize it was him at the time until I saw the comment. I was like, oh my goodness, that's Hank. I've, you know, seen his comments come through and all that. And like, I, I wish I had thought about it before I recorded the video or knew about it before I recorded the video because I would have said something about him being in the super community. So then there's the dark side, right? And this is where the appreciation really has to— you I really— you really gotta like live, breathe, eat it, and under— to understand it. Um, uh, like, dude, close this page, you suck. Now this is one person within the same like minutes of each other, right? Yeah. So, uh, it's always funny to me to see people who habitually hate the channel, um, or hate on me Uh, this one, like, you are effing nobody, get off YouTube. How I came to say I appreciate you watching and commenting. Um, yeah, that's so good. Yeah, I mean, what else can you say? What are you gonna say, like, oh, my Lambo begs to differ? Like, what? Like, who cares? Like, what does that mean? Like, what? Like, flexing is not— they don't care. Right? They're random person on internet. Yeah. Or if that person keeps writing the same kind of comment to you over months and months and months, means that he's watching. Who cares, right? Right. Well, that's that, you know, that, that comes along with that. And, right, and I'm not like ignorant to the fact that, you know, some people do watch my channel because they don't want to pay for Hulu or Amazon or don't have access to it because I made the mistake of saying once, well, why don't you just go to Amazon and watch it? That person wasn't in America or a country that they could easily just go and pay for it. Not that— and most of the people that are commenting would go and pay for it because that's not what they're there for. And, and that's okay, right? Um, literally the worst video I have ever seen. Yeah, I mean, literally, it's, it's just petty Teddy knows what they're talking about. Uh, who else skips when he talks? Look at that! What's that? What is that? That's him subscribe— Buck Snyder subscribes to the channel and says that. A level of an appreciation for what I'm providing so you don't have to go and pay for the show. But like, try to cut deep. I, you know Whatever, right? Thanks, Buck. Thanks for subscribing. Thanks for putting, you know, ad revenue in my pocket, right? Yeah. Flawless G, always skip the pointless pauses, so effing annoying, and stop stealing Shark Tank content. Um, I appreciate you watching and commenting, G. This is a business education channel. So that's pretty much my boilerplate. In fact, um, it's a keyboard shortcut on my Mac. I, uh, I, A, I, A, U, uh, W, and then it fills out, and I put their name, and then TIA B is— this is the business channel, and it, you know, expands to that. Uh, dude, nobody cares. Nobody comes here to watch you do your talking at the end. And, and you know what, that's fine too. Like, the checks I collect every month does not really matter, like, um, on that front. Clickbait, uh, yeah, a little bit, a little bit. I, I used to put my face in the thumbnail, and some of you who are friends with me on Facebook might have seen like, oh, oh, look at this, what's going on, like the facial reactions that I would record, you know, take pictures of myself or whatever. And I got rid of all that. I just went straight for, you got a shark, you got the entrepreneur, they making faces at each other. And it— I'm not in it. So, uh, I would say, I don't know, it's like 10% clickbait. The whole episode's in there, the whole video was in there, so it's not like I'm like cutting it out or something. Did you do that to capture people who thought they would get the full episode? Yeah, but they are— I mean, it's there, it's all there, so it's not like I'm You know, now I'm just gonna narrate the episode to you. Like, you clicked on it thinking you were getting the episode and all you're getting is me talking about— and there's plenty of channels like that out there that'll like, right, like talk about the highlight of that pitch or whatever. But no, I don't, I don't feel bad at all. In fact, I've only got maybe 2 or 3 clickbaits ever, like people writing clickbait. Uh, you talk too much, your voice is annoying. Yeah, yeah, well You know, what can you do about that? It's not— my voice wasn't my choice, just saying. Uh, his commentary sucks, nobody cares what you have to say, so annoying. You know, you could just not click on my channel again. The amount of people that have written something like that, I've, um, I'll get to how we handle that later, uh, but they continue to write and comment. Over and over and over and over again is kind of— yeah, it's actually a running game. I, uh, okay, I take the, the naughty list and, uh, and then I save it so that I can recheck the names when they come back around, right, right, a week or two later. So this one: pathetic, just shut the F up, and the episode role, whom the F needs you? Well, I appreciate you watching and commenting, Cliff. The ladies of, uh, Stacked love the video and are scheduling to come on for an interview. I don't always try to be like that because again, uh, it opens the door too much where I could just say like, I appreciate you, you know, hug, hug the people, they need hugs. Uh, I've always been curious, what's the ratio between nice people and horrible people on the internet? So if you— I mean, not that I screenshot every single comment, um, I have about 100 negative comments to like 350 of the positive, maybe closer to 400. So yeah, every 4 nice people. Yeah, pretty, pretty much.

Do you ever bother to click on and find out more about— oh, I do.

Oh, every time I want to see like, what, what do your videos look like? And I can speak petty like that, be like, where's your video? Where's your video at?

Um, but doesn't—

most, most— there's like, maybe I could give like 2 examples of people who actually had a channel that where they were actively feeding. Uh, but I mean, they're not like big— I wouldn't say like huge creators or anything like that. Uh, Kate?

Yeah, I just kind of as an additional comment here, I'm in wrestling media and our viewership is 92% male, so a lot of this very much resonates. But what I always find so interesting is when you get comments like that and you do see that pattern of behavior, the thing that I always go to that shuts everyone up is empathy. It's crazy how much you're like, wow, it must 'You must be in a ton of pain if it makes you feel good to be mean like that.' And I never hear from them again. It's crazy how quickly that shuts things down.

Um, have you ever thought about, like, do you do any reaction videos to the comments? I did one with Larry Roberts like 2 years ago. Watching you do this is like the mean tweet segment on Jimmy Kimmel. Yes, yes. Um, I do share a lot of these Like if you're friends with me on Facebook, I share them. I use them as marketing. I don't share, as I mentioned earlier, I don't share direct links to the videos because I don't want people to click on it and be like, ah, there's Joe, and then click out and tell YouTube that somebody didn't want to watch my chat, you know, watch the video. But what I'll do is this, and the other reason I do it like this by sharing this stuff is because I want people to see that love and appreciation can conquer this nonsense. Um, or this— the prep, like, sadness, I guess, is really what it is, because you're shouting into the void of the internet, um, at somebody who owes you nothing. Like, I owe them not— like, literally nothing here. Um, and, uh, I want people to go to YouTube and type my name in to go find my channel, you know what I mean? So it's like, hey, like, do you see that comment? Like, you should totally— like, as a, as a carrot to, like, go and tell YouTube, hey, people are searching Joe Barton. So just another thing. Uh, did you have another question?

I was going to say, some of the people just do it for fun. I interviewed John Kruegel. Yeah, he said he'll go to a show, people who are trolling come up and hug them because even though they're trolling them, they do it for fun. I mean, some of these people probably just do it because they want to hear themselves heard. They sit there, they notice that they think— and when you give them that, they're probably saying, wow, he responded to me. Now they start coming back at you, then you have to worry. I think a lot of times they just want attention. They like what you do. They figure if I just put this, or if I say, 'F you, you suck,' they'll say something back.

I've gotten quite a few, um, 'I'm sorrys,' maybe like 5 or 6 over the last 2 and a half, 3 years of people like, like, 'Wow, I didn't realize that you would even respond to this,' you know. And, and I'm, I'm monitoring the comments because I don't, you know, I used to let this stuff build up, um, this stuff built up on me. And, and what I realized eventually, uh, is that a lot of this is just self-projection of them, you know, self-projecting to the internet of what they, you know, what their problems are, what they have going on, what they don't have going on, what they feel I have going on that they don't, and, and so on and so forth. And When you start to look at it, um, through, through self-projection, you start to be like, you know, feel bad for these people again shouting into the void of the internet to somebody they never likely meet or owe them nothing to begin with. So I, you know, I think when you frame it in the, the, in a self-projection kind of manner, um, it made me feel a lot better because for a while there, I left all those comments up because I, I wanted people— I wanted other people who actually gave a shit to, like, click to see what my reply was to that and see, I appreciate you, thank you, you know, for, you know, for watching. I appreciate you watching and commenting. Um, and I wanted something, you know, people to see that and say, oh, I identify with that, not with this trash up top, right, this sadness up top. I always say I make stuff for anybody, but it's not for everybody. And that's just the nature of what it is, right? And then I realized that this isn't a democracy, it's a dictatorship. This is my channel, it's not their channel. And, you know, one of the reasons it also to get to a point where I said, you know, said, you know what, I don't want this, all of these comments, especially the meaner ones to remain on there because I, you know, trying to foster the super community. I don't want other people to look at that and be like, oh, I might get judged. Oh, I might have to deal with somebody like trying to like, you know, make fun of me or whatever. So once I realized that this is a dictatorship, I invited everybody to the block party and utilizing the power of the hide user from channel, you know, I still reply. And a lot of times what I'll do is I'll let the comment sit for a day or so and give that person an opportunity. Because once I hide from a user from the channel, that comment is gone. They'll still see it. But it won't come back. So even when I go and I do the unblock party where everybody gets unblocked and then I wait and see who come— who's still watching the channel, um, there's a handful of them that are, but some of them aren't because they're mean to me. Their comments are just really derogatory, like really not okay. Um, usually it's about the females on the entrepreneurs that are on the show. So I was just like, yeah, no, like you're still blocked, like it's gone, right? And, uh, when you un— block somebody, their comments are still gone. They can still see them. They, they aren't— they— nobody else will ever see those comments. So use it, invite people to the block party. Then you get people that say things like this: I used to skip through you talking, but now I realize I'm learning a lot from you, Joe. You know, that's— sometimes it takes 2, 3, 4— I mean, we say it's about what, um, advertising, right? It takes used to take like 7 times to have to hear a message. And then as our attention spans have gotten shorter, it's like 20 or 30 or some obscene amount of times, which is why the same car commercial runs every commercial break because we gotta hear Fleetwood Mac every time. Frequency, baby, frequency. Yeah, right? So, you know, so people do come around to the channel, which is great. I've been watching your channel for a while now. I discovered your channel when you reacted to the slimy honey. Love being a part of the super community. So yeah, it's awesome to get to foster that. This is another gentleman from India who has— I think he's up to 3 factories now. Yeah, he's in the comments quite a bit, Sam. But, uh, you know, and then you got Locutus who recently just sent me, uh, English chocolate, uh, Cadbury chocolate. Has anybody had Cadbury chocolate from England? Like, I mean, I've had like the American eggs, but, but from England is like, it's really good. It's real. I know. Thank you, thank you, Barry. Um, so you need to hug, you know, haters will be hugged. I think that's really the best, uh, approach. That's what I try to embody. Yeah, of course I you know, have the expletives in my mind and want to be like, ah, you know, screw them and whatever, they don't matter. But like, at the end of the day, they're just people that are just shouting into the void of the internet. Um, and many of them are faceless and nameless. And meanwhile, I got my face and name out there, you know, my reputation out there for what I put out there, you know, what I say and have to stand behind. And then if you remember Cliff over here, pathetic, just shut up. Um, about a— I don't know, a day later, not even a day later, Joe, I apologize, I'm a subscriber, keep up the good job, I am a fan. Okay, thank you. Oh, on a side note, I'm 8 subscribers away from 15,000, so you don't have to go subscribe, especially if it's not your jam, but like if you're you know, think, oh, I'm at $15,000. No, I'm already there. Oh, you're already there. No, okay, cool, awesome, thank you, thank you, thank you. Um, but yeah, so, um, we're gonna take a quick, uh, I mean, was there any, any last second questions? I'm already over time. It's great, awesome. So it's working at 5 o'clock, it's giving up my run in the morning for this. That's so— that, that means a lot.

Well, this is like the worst part of it, you have to talk about it. Somebody the other day told me my channel was like a channel for how to get fat, and I was like, dope.

Wow, wow.

I did a 2-hour post-show for, um, like a 2-hour wrestling show and a 2-hour post-show, and someone specifically commented on everything they hated about it. And I was like, you sat through 2 hours of me talking about wrestling to tell me what you hated?

Oh my God, get a hobby, man. They paid ultimately at price their time, you know. But, but it also might be their way of critiquing to like to get better, right? Some people don't know how to verbalize, uh, constructive criticism. They only know the other form of just like suck. Negatism. Yes, negatism.

Yeah, I guess a lot of people really don't— they don't have an art form of communication. They just explode or get fat. I don't know. I'll teach you. Can you put like links in a response? Would you like, here's a link to like a webpage about how to write constructive criticism or—

You're shopping for better health?

Yeah, here's a link to BetterHelp. So one of the things that you didn't see in here though was, and one of the reasons I'm very encouraged is the negative comments I get are never constructive criticism of what I said. They'll, you know, they'll be like, oh, you know, they'll just— they'll say something that's outrageous, or they'll just say, you don't know what you're talking about, right? So then I, you know, I appreciate you watching, comment, what part was I off on? And then they just forget. It's nothing, you know, like, great, like, you, um— and that's the thing, it's like, I, I think I could maybe have one example, but even then it was just a difference of opinion. A lot of times I get like, oh, the Sharks are all billionaires, what do you mean $500,000 is, you know, is a lot of money? Well, one's— for the record, one's a billionaire, that's Mark, and the rest aren't. So $500,000, even to Mark, is still a lot of money. Yeah. To put into one business that will maybe go to zero, right? So yeah, like, that's, you know, so you get some of that, but for the most part, people just, uh, you know, they're just there looking for this show, and I'm there ready to take the hits. I don't know where I'm at. Like I said, I used to internalize it and it beat me up until I started to say, this is a dictatorship and there's the door. And like I said, I do the unblock party like twice a year. So thank you, everybody. So we'll just take like a 10-minute break. Good?