Episode 197 - Sam Webster On How This He Built A Loyal Audience Of Automotive Enthusiasts

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. Oh, my gosh, you guys. I love doing new things and joining new programs because I get to meet really cool people that are doing really similar things to me and that want the same things, and then I get to interview them on my podcast, and it's the coolest thing. And my next guest, that's how we met. We both joined Ryan Moran's incubator program, and we met through that because we're both on the videos together and all the meetings that are going on, and we connected because he also is starting a podcast, and he's up to amazing things with different things that he's offering. And it's been great to get to know him in that way. And I just immediately knew I had to get his whole do the Thing story, because I feel like when you get to this place where you're starting something new and you're feeling that passion, and it's like you're starting to notice what makes you feel alive, and then you're able to actually push forward and do that thing, it's such an exciting thing to see someone go through, and then also to get to talk to them about it at this point, because a lot of times people are held back by so many things, and by hearing his story, that could help you get the courage to maybe just take one step in the direction of something that you want. So I am so excited to welcome Sam to the show. Hey, Sam.

Hey, Stacy. How's it going? Thank you for having me on the podcast. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, I'm so excited to have you here. I feel like every time we talk and every time I even see you in the group that we're in together, I just feel like you have such a desire to want to. To grow and to evolve, and you're just very down to earth with the way that you approach things. And I just really valued the time that we've been able to spend together.

Well, thank you. That's nice of you to say. I definitely am kind of more low key than some other entrepreneurs that you see that are really kind of boisterous and. And kind of in your face. I'm not that at all. I'm quiet and I spend a lot of time. I'm more of a listener than I am a speaker. But I enjoy talking about entrepreneurship and the journey of going through that because it's truly what I love. And I know you're on that journey as well, and it'll be fun to kind of swap some stories and tell you about my journey and where I'm going with it and my aspirations and desires.

Yeah, and I love that you said that too, because I think a lot of times people will see someone that is boisterous and all over and out there and then they try to compare themselves to that person but. Or they even try to be that person and they don't realize you don't have to be like them. You can be like you. Because it just. We all have our own strengths and things that we're able to do. And I think the idea of you being a good listener and being able to understand what people's needs are is also such an amazing way to be able to get what you want and do the things that you want.

Yeah. And I've struggled with that. You know, I'm trying to figure out what my voice is, the message I'm trying to get out there. And I think you tend, in the beginning, you definitely tend to emulate the people that you're listening to or watching on YouTube or TV or whatever. And I did that in the beginning and it's like, oh, I gotta be loud and in your face. And I just felt so disingenuous and I felt like I was trying to be someone that I was not. And I just didn't like it. It just felt icky. And so it took a while for me to just say, just be you. Whatever you're interested in, there's probably other people that are interested in it also. And so just talk about it and you'll find the people that resonate with your message. Rather than trying to create a message for the people you think you want in your audience, it just kind of naturally evolves as you are documenting what you're doing. And that's all I've done is just document the stuff that I'm interested in.

Yeah. And it's so perfectly timed what you're saying. I just published an episode on my podcast today that I just recorded here at my table. I didn't use my mic, I just used my phone and I pretty much. Cuz I'm trying to really talk to people about the start of podcast challenge that's coming up. Because a lot of people are like, how am I going to record and what do I do? And all these fear questions are coming up with the how. So to me I'm like, I just need to show them. I'm just going to take my phone, do it on my voice note. And then one of the things I Said, which just is really aligned with what you said, is do the thing is about being messy and imperfect, and that's giving you the courage to also be messy and imperfect. And if you don't like that, then it's okay. This is just not the right thing for you. And I think it's really important to get to know whatever it is that each person wants the people to connect with their message and realize you don't have to connect to everyone. You can just connect to the people that really are going to resonate with you.

Yeah, definitely. And we were on an incubator call a couple of weeks ago, and you were talking about how you're just like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just going to go and just do it. And in my head, I think there's something sexy about that. But it's hard for me to actually do that because I'm. I'm really analytical, and I want to. I love learning. And so I'm like, before I do anything, I have to learn about it and learn and learn, and then I end up not doing anything. And that's a problem for me because I need to just do the thing. I want us to start a podcast because of you. You are a major influence on that. After we've been talking and, like, I don't know how to record. I have edited videos and I've done a lot of that, so I understand editing software, but I'm like, how do you push it out to all the different podcast platforms? What do you talk about? How do you find your guests? I'm just like, screw it, Just do it. So that day, after I've heard you on that on the incubator call, talking about just do something, I went out on Instagram and all of my close contacts, I just hit them up and was like, hey, you want to be on a podcast? And I didn't know how I was going to record it. I didn't like nothing. It was just like, just do it. And all of a sudden, there's this snowball. You've got home. And so I did that and got a bunch of responses. And last week I recorded my first four podcasts.

Oh, my gosh.

Which is super exciting. Yeah. And so as I'm talking to you, I have another screen open of the editing software, which I'm. It's different than what I've used before, and I'm starting to edit it, which is great. Again, don't know what I'm doing, but I'm Just gonna kick the can down the road and see what happens.

Oh, my gosh, that's so cool. Oh, I would love to. If you end up doing the editing. Because right now I'm encouraging during the start a podcast challenge for people not to do editing just to keep momentum going. But if you have something you are using and you end up using it, that would be cool. If you want to do a little training with me during this sort of podcast challenge for people that want to do editing.

Yeah, I think I've found some pretty cool tools and I'm. You don't have to be a real video editor. This is kind of like canva for editing podcasts. There's not. You don't need a lot of technical skills. You're actually editing it like a Word document. It makes a transcript. Then you got the video on the other side and you just edit the transcript and it edits the video, which is super slick and.

Oh, is that the descript thing you were telling me about? Oh, yeah, we totally. That'll be fun. So we should put that on the calendar. And this is cool because now we're setting up accountability. You're going to be so excited when you get to share this with my community. It's going to elevate you to a whole nother level. Because that's what happened with me, I think. Three weeks in, I got to share how to start a podcast with people that were just starting and I hadn't even published my podcast yet. And I was the expert, but I was new. I was more knowledgeable than the other people and it was really cool to be able to train something that I didn't even think I was the expert yet. But the people got so much value from me just even being where I was at. And so anyway, it's kind of cool now I'm going to have you do that.

Yeah, totally. I'll go stumble through it and figure it out and then I'll share the tips. And so far it's great. I've had a couple of little technical details, but their customer support has been great and helps me kind of work through those. But now I'm to the point where I feel pretty comfortable and I'm taking. So there's the long form podcast that I'm doing that's going to go up on the platform that you helped me set up. I'm forgetting the name of it. Yeah, callcast. Yep. Yeah, so Stacy helped me do the Callcast kind of integration thing and so that's ready to go. And Then I'm going to upload a YouTube video also so people can watch the long form content and I'll splice in some videos of other things. I guess it should give some context for people who don't know. You can probably tell behind me there's a car on the wall. So I work in the automotive industry. My business is a car club. And so what I want to do is help car enthusiasts build their dream cars by just kind of providing them resources and solving problems that they have along the way. And a huge part of that is going to be connecting with experts in the field because I've had some great mentors and those mentors of mine have pushed me along a lot farther than just watching YouTube videos or reading forums. And so the podcast is how I'm going to be able to get in front of these experts and provide value to my audience. And I'm going to. For people that are not apt to watch an entire podcast on YouTube or listen to a full hour of a podcast app, I'm breaking it up into little chunks. And so I can really easily take the video and splice it into, with descript, splice it into YouTube shorts and Instagram Reels and TikTok videos with captions and little videos just by dragging and dropping text. And so it's really cool. So Yesterday I made 10 Instagram reels in about an hour with captions and a video.

Wow.

Yeah. And so that's 10 days worth of content in an hour. And I'll probably try and post twice a day or something like that, but you can crank out an enormous amount of content based off of just one conversation. And so that's kind of what I'm working through now is what's my workflow look like, Learning how to use the tools and then starting to post things and automate as much of it as I can. So it's not super time intensive.

Yeah. It's so exciting to me to see you on this journey and this quest of learning that you have because you're keeping an open mind. You're comfortable asking for help. You're able to move before you know every step. And by that you're now optimizing the things you're doing and you're learning stuff that I don't know yet. And it's cool. And I've been doing this a year and so it's neat. And now we can share tips and you're able to help my community and me personally with things. And so it's just kind of neat. The way that works. Right. And it's all because you moved. Right. Without knowing every single step.

Yeah. And that was a great learning experience because I tend to do the opposite. And so hearing you talk about how you were doing something, I can't remember what. What.

The actual street interviews.

The street interview, okay. Yeah, yeah. And you're like, I've never, I've never done it. Not sure what it's going to be like. And just like, all right, Stacey's doing. I can do it. Just, you know, these people already just go ask them if they want to sit down at a computer for an hour and have a conversation about the thing that you both mutually love. I can't think of anything better than that. And already it's really interesting. I didn't expect this to happen. I don't think. In the automotive space there are a whole lot of podcasts. And so the people that I've reached out to, some of them I felt intimidated to talk to because they were the influencers in my world that I consume their content and see what they're doing. And you reach out to them and they're like, oh, yeah, I've never been on a podcast. That sounds awesome. And it's like, cool. I'm not going to tell them I have no idea what I'm doing. But they want to be on it and they want to have a conversation. And all of a sudden you're like, this is a relationship building tool. This is something that all of a sudden gives you credibility. Even if you don't feel as you have the credibility and people that you didn't think you could access, all of a sudden you have access to. And so I had a guy that I did a podcast with who was a huge influencer in the space, and it took a couple of DMs and he was like, yeah, man, send me a link to the signup page and we'll do it. And I did it and do another one. And so all of a sudden I have this relationship with this person with like 10 minutes worth of work via Instagram DMs that I never thought that I would have. And then there's a huge automotive. They make brakes for high end race cars. I somehow stumbled across the email address of a guy who was their sales director. And like, I'm just going to cold email this guy and see what happens. And he knew me from Instagram, from my projects already and was like, hey, do you want to be on the podcast? And he said, yeah, sure. I've only been here for a little while, but I'm sure there's somebody in the company that, that would be interested in doing that. He goes, by the way, do you know this guy? And this guy and this guy? I'm like, yeah, there's celebrities in my space. And he goes, well, they're just right down the road. We're good friends. Maybe they'd be interested in coming on your podcast. And my mind was blown like, holy crap.

Yeah.

And this is in one week. And so I can't even imagine what it looks like a year from now. All of a sudden I think I'm going to have access. I'm going to be the guy in the space that interviews all of these influencers and these celebrities in our world because no one else is doing it, which is super exciting. And it's because I just did it without knowing what in the world I was doing.

It's so cool. And I love hearing you say that. I did a post in the community yesterday and it basically made it shared a clip from some of the street interviews that I did. And I pretty much had said, I can't wait for you to help you guys on this journey of starting a podcast because once you do, your whole world opens up. And I think that you're really speaking to what I mean by that. You get to now talk to anyone that you want. And in my world, I just went to New York. So I went to the Museum of Failure in New York, which is this traveling museum. It's an exhibition which shows all the things that people have failed at and it encourages people to innovate and do new things without being scared of failing. And I emailed the main guy of the museum and asked him if he wanted to be on my podcast and I'm interviewing him next week. And that's what I mean by your world opening up is I never would have had that connection had I not had a podcast. And it sounds like you're really speaking to that by being able to see that already even just a week in.

Yeah, exactly. And the world that I operate is it's a really tight knit community, especially the guys that have large followings because they're all on each other's YouTube videos and working together so that they can cross promote whatever they're doing. And so as soon as I get in with a couple of those people, the seed will be planted and be like, oh, I went on this podcast that this guy was doing, maybe you could do it. So every person that I interview, I'm going to say do you have three people that might be interested in doing this? And what's cool is it doesn't have to be a specific type of person. As long as we can talk about cars, it's great. So I'm interviewing one of the top off road racers in the world mid April. This guy is a big name, and I met him randomly at a car show and didn't know who he was and kept in touch. And I'm like, holy shit. This dude is a legitimate race car driver that everybody knows. And so I got his number and I texted him. I was like, hey, wanna do the podcast? Oh, yeah, I've never done one of those. Sweet. Cool. And so I'm doing that. A guy that's a Ferrari master technician, so I can pick his brain about working on some of the most expensive cars in the world. Guys that build cars for one of the largest automotive YouTube channels. They're actually the shop that they use. And so that can tie me into some of the biggest YouTube channels that are out there in the automotive space. And then just friends of mine that are into cars that have really interesting projects that don't have a lot of attention, but they have the technical expertise on certain topics. And so it's this wide blanket that you can cast as long as it ties back into whatever the subject is with your do the thing podcast. It doesn't have to be about podcasting. It can be about just doing whatever, taking that step and taking action. And so it's super exciting and very uncomfortable. Weird. But I'm having a good time so far.

Yeah, it really sounds similar to how mine started because I started interviewing people that I saw doing really cool things. And then as I'm interviewing people, it then expanded. I'm like, wait, if I'm going to be interviewing people that are doing cool things now, I need to interview experts that help people overcoming doing cool things. And then it turned into me doing expert panels for different challenges to now celebration interviews. When people complete a challenge and it's going on to street interviews, there's lots of things that are happening now, but it's like it evolves as you go, and unless you move, you don't really know what it's going to be in store for you. And it sounds like you're really seeing that already, even after just a week.

Right. And so a week's worth of podcasts, so four podcasts, that gets me a month worth of content. So probably worth that. But in terms of releasing a podcast, I think it's totally feasible to Release one podcast every week. So I'm going to do these first four and bank them. And then that gives me three weeks of waiting in case something happens and I can't get it under the guest or whatever. But I'm going to try. And I think it's doable to do 52 podcasts in the first year. Totally. If it probably more than that, honestly. But that's the goal.

I'd love to hear. So you mentioned you heard me say the figuring things out, but I think it was probably that day that Stan said the messy imperfect action or something like that. And that was so funny. And I'm using that now all the time. I used imperfect action before, but he used specifically messy massive action or something.

And I just.

I liked that wording even better. And then what got you to actually move so from hearing that to just starting.

Honestly. So most of the people that are in our program are physical product brands. Right. And so it's little bursts of energy to kick the can forward, and then you're waiting on a manufacturer or whatever. What I'm doing is I'm building a community, which you do as well. So building the infrastructure for that, building the messaging, doing all that, it just takes forever. And I just felt like I feel stuck. I feel like nothing's happening. Even though it is. It just. I'm ready to take that first sale. I want to do this. And this was a great way for me to do something that I could quickly have that win of. There's progress, there's something new. You're building your audience. And it was honestly just me being sick of feeling like nothing's happening. But I know that's not true because I work on it every day. Yeah, I'm constantly grinding to make that happen. But three or four months of putting it together, not having that first sales, kind of a bummer, because that's what I want. That's what we all want as entrepreneurs. Let's make that first sale and let's figure out how to scale it. And that was the ultimate thing. I think a lot of people can resonate with that. They feel like they want to do something. They just. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen fast enough. And I heard you and Stanford going back and forth. It just. Just do it. What's stopping you? You have the time and the technical abilities to do it. And so that's why when we connected you, it's not that hard. Here's how you set up call cast and a couple of things to think about. And I just went for it.

And I'd love to hear what you got from the interviews. So after you're interviewing the people you did four last week, what did it feel like when you're connecting with someone about something that you love and they love? What was that like for you?

It's fun. I felt a little stiff. I felt almost like it was a traditional interview versus feeling like a conversation. I mean, this feels like more of a conversation to me than it did when I was interviewing my people, but it was great.

It's embarrassing, but after the big guy in the industry that I interviewed, I got done just like, yes, I can't believe I did that. This guy's my friend and I get to go and do more cool things with him in the future. And it just felt great. And every single time I think I'm going to loosen up a little bit. I'm going to understand how to direct the conversation. The other thing I didn't realize is I don't really say anything. I'm just kind of sitting there letting the other person talk. And you can kind of guide the conversation a little bit, but for the most part, the person you're interviewing is just going to talk about the things that they're going to talk about. And so it takes, I mean, the hard work is not doing the podcast. The hard work is editing it and doing all of that. Yeah. Which I wasn't expecting.

Yeah. And for you, the listening thing, it comes into being a superpower when it comes to podcasting, right?

Yeah, totally, totally.

I'd love to also just hear, how did you even get into cars? What's that story? Like?

Started in high school, I think. I've always kind of liked cars. But I, I remember this, My sister was dating this guy and he had this really loud car that would, they would always sit outside of the house and just hear the car idling for like an hour. And I remember just for some reason that's burned into my mind, like, man, that is a cool car. I want to go hang out with this guy. And he became my best friend after they broke up. And he was a major car guy and worked in a couple of. Worked for BMW as a technician and kind of worked his way up to now building million dollar race cars. He's been really successful what he's doing, but I was always hanging out with him as he was cutting cars apart in his parents driveway. And we would take these cars that were so loud you couldn't talk to each other as you're driving down the street and go race them on the freeway in the middle of the night and hang out with other car people. And it just hooked me and became something that I'm so passionate about. But I never took a deep dive into building stuff for myself, because in high school, he was making a lot of money for high schooler to go and do these things, and I didn't have a job, and so I was just following him around. And when I started making some money, I'm like, all right, tinker here and there. But I wanted to do something big because there are guys on YouTube who I would love to interview on a podcast, who their entire channel. They go to salvage car auctions and bike wrecked supercars. And I was watching these videos at work and downtime, stuff like that, and thinking, man, these guys make a living buying wrecked cars and posting videos on the Internet about it. And they had this fleet of insane cars and.

Do something about it. And I didn't have a good project. So I started looking around online and at the auctions, learning how the auctions worked. And I want to build something really special, something that I will push my boundaries and take my skills to another level. I had no intention of building an audience. I had no intention of building a business around it. It was, I just want to do the thing that I haven't been doing yet, which is build something crazy. And so I sold my perfectly good pickup truck, and I started bidding on Rex Toyota Tacomas. I did a lot of research beforehand, knowing what are the good ones or the bad ones, and ended up buying one. And I remember I was at work and I bought it and texted my wife and was like, we have 48 hours to get from Salt Lake to Reno to pick up this Rex truck.

She's like, oh, my God. All right. So we rented a trailer, went out there, picked it up, brought it out on a forklift. I mean, it was destroyed. It didn't run, it didn't drive. All the suspension was broken, all the windows were broken, all the airbags had deployed, and it looked like it was going to be scrapped. And so I just figured out how to fix it. And I was going to swap out most of the body parts and suspension stuff anyways. And so if that stuff damaged, it doesn't matter to me. Ripped it all off. And I had never done bodywork. I had never done suspension work. I had never done any of that stuff. But I just went on YouTube and figured it out, just did it, started posting about it on Instagram. Just because I had family on the east Coast. And I wanted them to kind of see what I was doing. It started getting some attention, like, what is this guy doing in his driveway? So about six months after that, after realizing there might be some opportunity here, I started tagging all the big companies in every post that I made, just because I wanted them to see what I was doing. And I didn't know where that would lead or what would happen, but I thought it might be a good idea. And a big YouTube channel ended up seeing what I was doing. And they messaged me one day after it was done and said, we've been following you for the last five months. We love what you're doing. We'd love to do a story on you for our YouTube channel. And this guy was an idol of mine that reached out to me, which was insane. And so they came out, did this YouTube video. This is like one month before COVID hit video came out, and it blew up. The first video on the channel would get over a million views. I think people just resonated with the story of just doing the thing, just going for it, not knowing what's going to happen and picking up the skills along the way. And that kind of launched me into this thing of like, hey, this social media thing could be a powerful tool, and let's see what I can do with it. And so just kept posting things, started my own YouTube channel documenting what I was doing on there. Instagram started picking up pace, getting a couple million views a month. And people started to know who I am. Both other creators as well as businesses, and picked up sponsorships. And I still didn't know how to monetize it. This is cool, but I'm making 2, 300 bucks a month in ad revenue off of the stuff that I'm making. And this is not a way to make a living. And so I decided I'd been following Ryan Moran's podcast for a long time because I've always had that entrepreneurial mind. My dad is an entrepreneur, too. And so it's just kind of baked into me. And eventually an opportunity popped up to join an incubator again. Just do it. Just see what happens. And it's expensive, too. It's not a cheap thing to do. People are not listening. It's $18,000 to join this program. I got into the program without knowing what I'm going to do with it. I just knew that I needed mentorship, I needed guidance, and eventually I'd figure it out. And so went through that. And it's kind of blossomed into this thing that I'm really starting to love, which is I don't want to sell them physical products necessarily, because it's a really competitive space to get into. But the thing that I think I can do better than anybody else in this space is make connections with people that are experts. I've had amazing mentors because of social media. One guy I met in a parking lot, and he ended up becoming one of the best mentors I've ever had in the automotive world. But I'm building this club now where I connect people with mentors. I connect them with resources. Like, I've reached out to a bunch of different automotive brands to provide discounted goods just for our members. And so they can save money on their projects. In fact, they can probably save more money being a part of the club than it cost them to be in the club. Wow. Which is ideal because I want them to get a lot of value out of this. And then the podcast also, which I touched on earlier, is going to help me build that network of experts and bring them into the club and teach people and just share the passion for this thing that is all encompassing and completely obsessed. It's all I think about. And I know there's a bunch of people like me that are out there as well. And it spiraled into podcasting. Meeting you. It's just this weird windy road that I had no intention of any of this happening. But opportunities came up because I put myself out there. And I think that's the sentiment that you put out. All of your stuff is just go, and then the opportunities will come.

Yeah. You really speak to something that I say a lot on my podcast because it's almost like the thing that you want. It changes and evolves as you move because you can't even imagine what you're going to do. So that's why I like the idea of a rough draft goal of an idea of what you want, because it's okay for it to flex a bit and expand as you move, because new things open up and things like that.

And I think that should be expected. Don't go into it thinking this is a straight line that I'm following to get to from point A to point B. It's like, goes all over the place.

Yeah. So there's something I'm noticing about you and I'd love if you're open to being vulnerable for a minute, which you have been. So I think we're good. But because you've mentioned the figuring things out thing, sometimes it's Hard for you. You did it with the car, right, when you sold the diesel truck and you got the Tacoma and then you figured things out. And then with the podcast, you're doing the same thing. And I'm wondering if you're more open to figure things out when you kind of assess the risk. If that's when you're like, okay, there's really no risk in either way, or at least minimal risk. I'm just curious what you think about that.

Yeah, the. To be honest, the risk thing, I do think about it for sure, but I just. Even if it is risky, I'm not afraid to move forward. Like with the truck. It's a lot of money that I was just throwing on the line to do something like that and just did it. The podcasting is way less expensive, but I don't know. I'm not scared to do things. I'm completely obsessed with learning. I just love it. And I dedicate time every single day to learn something new, and that's just a common string. I was a terrible student, terrible high school. I graduated with a 2.8 GPA and I was. Didn't go to class, and I just couldn't do it. It was awful. Same in college. First few years were terrible. I ended up. I'll be horrible here. I ended up essentially failing out of the first couple years of school because it just. It wasn't for me. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do the social aspect of it. I went to a big pump work university, University of Utah, 300 students in each class. And it just. I couldn't. Couldn't make it happen. But on the flip side, I was learning all this other stuff. I just wasn't interested in it. I couldn't connect with the material that was being taught. And it was one of those things like, why am I wearing this? It doesn't apply to my life. Eventually, I ended up figuring out business is the way I want to go. And I got into another college that is just down the street from me, a little private college. And the teachers were fantastic. They were ex business owners. They had real world stories. Oh, this is. I dig this. This is cool. But the learning thing, I think for anybody is a key thing to being an entrepreneur or starting a podcast or doing any endeavor that you haven't done before. It's just expected that you need to dedicate the time to learn how to do the thing. And that doesn't stop. That's forever. And it's a good expectation to set as you begin Something new.

And I think what I was trying to get to and I think you got there with me. So thanks for expanding on it because I noticed for me, I have that muscle of figuring things out in my life and it comes from me not being good at things. Normally when I start, I'm terrible at everything. Honestly, it's like I'm. And I'm so bad that if someone gives me instructions, even at the gym, I've been working out for years and I still went to a new gym this morning and they're showing the things and then we're in a group of four and I still watch the person next to me do it because I can't capture all the instructions all at once. And so that's just one example. And I have a hundred more examples that I even did a comedy routine on, on how bad I am at things when I first start them. But what that did for me, the gifts that gave me is it gave me patience with myself when I am starting something new that I am comfortable figuring out because I always have to do that. And so I think you spoke to that with being in school. Right. And having trouble with being a student and really kind of getting there. And that's where maybe your quest for learning came in because you're like, oh, why isn't this driving for me? And then you realized it was maybe just the wrong thing you were learning or you couldn't apply it to something in the future.

Yep. Yeah, that's exactly it. And it was the subject matter that was, was the thing that needed to click for me. And I think that's a. The education thing, the grades, there's a stigma attached to it. If you're a bad student, you're going to be, you're not going to go anywhere in life. But I truly don't believe that. I think it's just, I'm a huge advocate in you go to school to learn how to learn and then you can go and find everything you need. I'm to the point now if I need to learn how to do something, I'm going to go and find a reputable company or someone like you who can teach me how to do the things, just that specific skill and move forward rather than, you know, going and getting a couple year degree. I just found out I'm going to be a dad. And it was exciting.

Congratulations.

Thank you. And I'm already thinking, what is school going to look like for my kid?

Yeah.

When they get to that age, go to college, like, is it even worth it to go and get a college degree. Maybe we'll do something a little different with their education. Sorry, I'm going off on a tangent. It's good.

No, we're memorializing this moment. Your kid can hear this in 18 years. Will be fun.

Yeah, exactly.

That's the other cool thing about a podcast. We're having the moment of you finding it out and then you questioning the thing. So it's going to be cool to listen back to.

Exactly. It's exciting. Another thing. I have no idea what I'm doing, but sure, I'll figure it out.

It's so funny you said that. I think about that a lot with parenting, is that people go for that because that's what they want. But it is. You're constantly figuring it out. Once you think you know what you're doing, it's a new phase, it's a new thing. You figure it out. And it's that muscle of figuring out over and over again. But when they're doing something new, like maybe a business or trying something new, that's different, maybe a podcast, whatever it is, for some reason, people look at it differently. I'm trying to figure out why are they so open to doing the parenting thing and figuring it out, but not open to doing some other things. And maybe because it's more widely acceptable to be a parent versus starting a business, but so more culturally acceptable, I guess I should say. But. So those are just some things that I've been exploring with do the thing. Because I think that's true, is as a parent, you are constantly figuring out and it works that way.

Yeah, totally. And I think there's different personalities. Some people are just fine with being where they are and they don't need to grow. And that's totally fine because to be honest, it's exhausting.

Constantly be learning and doing new stuff and failing. And you do it because you hope there's going to be a payoff at some point. But it does sound kind of nice to just sit in an office and do your thing and disconnect when you leave at the end of the day and not learn anything new. And I think that's great. People want to do that. That's killer. But I'm not wired that way. And you aren't either, I imagine.

Yeah. It's funny with you. And it's cool, though, because once you figure out the thing that makes you alive that you're aligned with, it's like a gift, pretty much that you're giving yourself every day.

Yeah.

Yeah. So since you just started a podcast, and I just happen to be starting a Do the Thing, Start a podcast challenge April 17, I'd love to have you just kind of share with the people maybe listening that have enjoyed yet, or maybe they joined and they're scared. Whatever you want to share with them. I'd love to just hear some advice for people that are in that trepidation moment.

Sure. Well, I'll just tell you how I did it and how it worked. So I think the idea with a podcast is to pull out information from someone else's head and get to talk about it and share that value with other people. And so I just went to the people that were close to me, which happened to be through Instagram, where we share a specific hobby and passion, and just asked them if they wanted to have a conversation. And it's amazing the responses that I got. I didn't have a single person say no. And there's a few people who are trying to work out scheduling conflicts, but everybody was like, yeah, man, this sounds great. This sounds really fun, and it's something new. And I mean, the first podcast that I was on, it was so exciting to be a guest. Holy crap. I'm doing something that someone else will be interested in talking about. That's fun. And the people you want to be on your podcast are going to have the same reaction. Even if they have been on podcasts before, I think they'll still have that reaction. And so I just. Just reach out to a bunch of people, and then all of a sudden you have to move because you have told the person that you're going to have them on a podcast and you have to deliver, otherwise you're going to look really dumb if you don't make it happen. And there's a bunch of different ways you can record it. Like Stacy was saying, record it on your phone. If you have a tape recorder, two people can get together, do that. Everything that I'm doing, the people are located all across the country. And so I have to do it via a program called Riverside. You can use Zoom also, as Riverside is just another way of doing it. And YouTube is your best friend. You can learn anything on YouTube, and there are just countless videos on how to do it. Just move. And I'm really glad that I did it, because all of a sudden, I have this fire inside of me to create the content, build the relationships, and see where I can take this. I didn't identify as someone as a podcaster. That just felt weird to me. And I didn't think that people were actually going to listen to what I had to say or what the other people had to say. And in the beginning, probably people aren't going to listen to your stuff, but you're going to build this crazy network and these relationships with people that you didn't have before. And I think that's the huge value add. In the beginning, it's just quickly building the network and then by having an hour long conversation with somebody, you build some rapport and you build a relationship really quickly. And this is the third or fourth time Stacy and I have chatted. It's great. I feel like there's more stuff that we can do in the future and that's going to happen to you guys too as you go on. So I challenge everybody to just find 10 people that you would think would be interesting podcast guests and just talk to them. Even if you don't have an idea of what you want the podcast to be, just go talk to them and see where the conversation goes. I might spark an idea that gives you a direction to which your podcast is going to go.

Oh yeah, that's being clipped.

That's so good. I'd love to also hear your number one piece of advice for the listeners on doing the thing.

I go into everything with fear, but knowing that nothing bad is going to happen because of that fear. It's like this weird primal thing that is just. It doesn't make sense in the modern world. And so even if you are scared, that's good because it means you're doing something that's pushing your boundaries. And that's where I operate most of the time, as being scared to do things, but you just do it anyways. And that's going to give you a wake up because there's a lot of people that they get paralyzed by that fear to take on new projects or have a conversation and so feel it and just move forward with it and it'll go away. And then that bar, that threshold for fear gets moved a little bit and you end up making a lot of progress before you in the void of an eye.

Yeah, I like that you said that. Because I don't think people realize that the more you do the scary thing, then the easier it is to do the scary thing the next time because you're like, wait, I've already done this and this happened. So you're able to do more things in that way.

Right? Fear is a legitimate thing that everybody goes through. And there's a great podcast called the Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo, and she does a great job of talking about all the things that hold people back. And one of the episodes she does, she talks about dread sprints. And so we all have things we dread doing. And every time we do those things, you get a hit of dopamine, because you won. You got past the thing. And so she has this idea that whenever there is something that you are dreading doing, just do it instantly, as fast as possible, just do it. And what that's going to do is rewire your brain. It's going to rewire the reward system of your brain to the point where you want to do the things that you're dreading doing, that you're fearing doing, because you know you're going to get that dopamine hit. And if you can train your body, train your mind to just do the things you're uncomfortable doing, you're going to hack it. You're going to tell your right, oh, those are good things. And you're going to want to keep doing those things. And so I'm dreading doing my taxes and compiling all the crap, and I have this long list from my accountant, and it's like, just do it now. Get that dopamine hit and move forward. Because I see that as a mental block for me at the moment, because I know there's that thing lingering in the background. It's like, I have to do that. I have to. I don't want to, but I have to. And if you can push past those roadblocks, whatever that roadblock may be, you can start moving a lot faster.

It makes me think of why I love the street interviews that I'm doing now so much, is because I'm like, It's not even that I dread it, though, because I do like it. But it's the dopamine hit I get from seeing someone that I'm stopping and them saying yes, and getting that moment of, how's this gonna go? And then them seeing that it works out. And it's just. There's something about that that is really exciting.

This is exciting. And I actually noticed that after the first podcast, I got done with it. Ten minutes after that, I started shaking. Almost like, what is going on? And I'm realizing it's the adrenaline. Your body is having this actual physical effect, the adrenaline pumping into your body as you were doing the thing you were scared to do. And my body was kind of coming down from that adrenaline high. And so, I mean, it's real, and you can harness that. And I mean, I struggle with it. It's something I work on all the time and by no means a master of it, but something you can work towards for sure.

So exciting. And I'm so excited to have gotten a chance to talk to you about your story. And then I'm excited about the new things you're doing too. I mean, with the starting a podcast and the new community, I'd love to have you share it with people where they can learn more about you and follow along.

Trip. Yeah. So Instagram is probably the best way to track me down. Samweb S A M M W E B and then my website is websterautocollective.com you can kind of see what we're doing there. Currently in the middle of a prelaunch phase. Like I said, I'm still working on building in the community. And then the podcast is called behind the Build. So we're telling stories of the people behind all of the amazing cars and businesses in the auto running space.

Thank you so much Sam for coming on and for the listeners, do the thing, don't wait for opportunity, create it.