Interview with Danny Miranda [Host of The Danny Miranda Podcast]

So this is one thing that Gary Vee really excels at, and that is paying attention without caring.

Yes.

And what I mean by that is Gary Vee is so tapped in to what people are saying, how they're reacting, what's going on, but he does not let it impact his own mentality, his own mindset. So he's tapped in but not caring, and it's the beautiful balance. I want to be the GOAT of podcasting. I want to be the greatest of all time, but I want to be the greatest of all time by playing it my way and doing it my way.

Hey everybody, welcome to the Build in Public podcast. I'm your host KP, and on this show I interview world-class entrepreneurs, ambitious startup founders, creators, and builders on the internet who are boldly building the future in public. This podcast is my excuse to take you all on a curious journey to understand, learn, and hopefully be inspired by the worldviews, insights, and stories of these fabulous people changing the world. So far, I've gotten the rare privilege to sit down with incredible guests like Gary Vee, Alexis Ohanian, Kat Cole, Sahil Lavingia, and many more leaders. So check out the full podcast listing at buildingpublicpodcast.com. Now buckle up and get ready for our latest episode. Hello everybody. I'm KP and welcome to yet another Special episode of the Build in Public podcast. I just have to say I'm super thrilled today and I'm pumped normally of all my guests, but today's guest is someone special, extra special, 'cause he actually understands my pain. He understands the life of being a podcaster and understands a lot about the game of podcasting. And so I'm super thrilled to trade notes in public and riff about the beautiful craft of podcasting and conversations and interviews. And so I'm thrilled again. Today, spending some chat, some time with one of the world's best podcasters, I think, who's grossly underrated in my view. And we'll see in the next 5, 10 years, you know, how that'll pan out. And I have a really strong belief that, you know, he'll be in the top, you know, 5 or top 10 in the world. And without further ado, want to welcome Danny Miranda to the show. Welcome, Danny.

Thank you so much for the incredibly kind introduction. I feel so, so warm right now. So thank you. I really appreciate it.

Of course, I was sharing with Danny just a few minutes ago before we turned this on that he's one of the 3 people that I watch almost every day. You know, maybe I missed a day or 2 here or there, but almost every day on YouTube. And the only other 2 people that I actually watch daily is shout out Gary Vee and shout out Marina, Silicon Valley Girl. She's a great friend of mine too, and along with Gary. The funny thing is all the 3 of them, I think Silicon Valley Girls, millions of followers, Gary's got millions of followers, and Danny's the only one who's got like, I think, I don't know, 2,000 or 3,000 on YouTube. I'm sure more on the podcast, the actual audio side, but it almost doesn't matter. At the receiving end, to me, these 3 are occupying almost similar distribution if you talk about it like real estate in my mind. So living rent-free in my mind, Danny. And so that's like, The premise of this convo, and I was very curious about your journey so far, you know, the reps and sets that you're putting into this game of podcasting. And so let's start there, right? So audiences, the stats, the numbers sometimes I feel are tricky and can discourage a lot of early stage beginner podcasters, you know, because they're not seeing millions, you know, they're not seeing hundreds of thousands of users or followers or audience. How do you reframe your numbers? How do you view your numbers, you know, in the grand scheme of things?

So important. And it's something I think about a lot is like, I feel as if the quality that I'm putting out is better than the views it's getting. So what really like helps keep me sane in that process is the real comments from people. When I go to NFT NYC and someone recognizes me, And someone says, wow, like, I listen to your podcast all the time. And this is like 6 months ago, right? And so, I'm still like holding on to that dearly. And the comments on social, the people telling me, you know, like, wow, man, like your podcast is underrated. I watch you all the time. This is why I'm interested. Like, I make sure to, whenever I can, either hold on to that moment from the person telling me that and/or screenshot it if it's on a social platform of some sort or text. So that's kind of how I'm able to reframe a lot of the numbers and to make it actual people. So you were saying some really kind words when we started. And so that's something that I'm going to keep in my mind as I go throughout the journey.

Do you ever get impatient about the journey or about like how, let's say you dropped a fantastic episode with like this morning you did one with David Perel. Or Rory Sutherland, legend. Like legend. When I was in college, I used to like watch his TED Talk and I was like, what a great guy. And to me, it's like, as your fan, as someone who loves your content, loves you, and like, I want to support you, it's almost a shame that YouTube's not giving more views than the 300 or 400 that I'm seeing under Rory's video. How do you contextualize that? Like, do you ever get impatient?

Yes.

Or if you do, how do you get beyond it?

Yeah. So I get impatient all the time and I'm like, yo, what's going on? Like, am I crazy? All right. Is what I believe actually reality? And so that's the thing about these numbers. But I also, what I think about a lot is I've only been doing it for less than 2 years. So it really hasn't been that long. And, you know, I've heard from Ali Abdaal that, you know, YouTube starts picking up after a year and a half. And so, I'm literally— I've been posting on YouTube for a year and a half. So, what that really helps put it in context of like, yo, it's early and I've been doing it for what feels like forever, but it's been not a lot of time at all at the same time. Right. So, really being patient with it and understanding that it's coming from a pure place. I want to have conversations that enrich people's lives and whether it gets 100 views or it gets 1,000 or it gets 10,000 or it gets 100,000, like, It's really about the conversation itself. And really honing in and framing that is really important to me because at the end of the day, I don't want a podcast. I want to connect deeply with people's souls. And that is irrespective of the amount of views it gets.

I love that. And I had to ask this because I know you have a healthy reframe around this, around being patient and around loving yourself regardless. I think one of the things a lot of people get tripped up about in any content journey, whether it's Twitter, whether it's YouTube, whether it's TikTok or whatever journey, in a broadly even an entrepreneurship journey. But let's just say content creation. I think people get tripped up because they're attaching their self-worth, self-value to the public perception or the public's approval at that micro moment of history of time. 'Cause that is so dynamic. It changes every day and you can't control it. And like looking at, You know, like some unbundling these 2 is very key for a healthy, sane, you know, journey. And I think, you know, you're doing it really well. Any comment on that or can I move to the next question?

Yeah, absolutely. So, I also look at people who are in other fields, right? And I say to myself, okay, if I was a pro athlete or if I wanted to be a basketball player and I had been playing basketball for a year and a half or 2 years, Should I be a pro? The obvious answer is no. No. Like, if I was a musician, could I expect to be a professional after 2 years? The answer is no. Like, some people could be like, wow, you got some talent here, or, wow, you're pretty skilled, or, wow, I could see you making it, but you have thousands of hours left. And I did the math the other day and it's like I put in 1,000 or 1,500 hours into the podcast so far. That's not 10,000. That's a lot.

Wait, 1,500 hours in actual record time or the prep and record and everything?

The prep, record, post-production, around 1,500 hours. And so that's a lot of time, but that's also not a lot of time when you compare it to the masters.

Yeah.

And so I think that's an important distinction to make.

Do you ever catch yourself thinking more in decades than in days or months? Is that something you practice?

Yes, absolutely. And asking myself, if I was on this mission, if I repeated today for another 10 years, would I be happy with how it's going to go?

Yeah.

And the answer, like talking to you, talking to incredible people, like I could see it building, but I don't know exactly how it's going to manifest into what I want it to be. But I can say confidently, the answer is many days, Many, many days. Resounding yes.

I love that. And then something that I think, you know, I think about a lot too is in all of my endeavors, especially the ones that I deeply care about, the question I ask is, if this is an infinite game, if I played this for 10 years and I got zero ROI, would I still be this excited about what I'm about to do? And if the answer is yes, I give no shits. I never ever look at the numbers, the analytics, the threads, the ROI, none of that. And I do it. And so it's almost sometimes confusing to people around me because sometimes I'd be spending, like sometimes I charge consulting like $500 an hour on like working on a specific problem to help like a startup founder for go-to-market or community. And then sometimes I'm like jamming with Ruhi or one of the new, you know, one of the people like you or whoever for free for 45 minutes. I don't give a shit. And so I don't measure it. And so the other day I had a call with one of my good friends and he was saying the same thing. He was like, KP, I'm stuck in this. freelancer mindset where I'm counting my time based on value. And sometimes I'm like, you know, feeling like I'm over-indexing on trying to extract ROI in many situations as opposed to really living the free life, right? And then not really counting it. And I'm like, dude, like the point about reaching that level in your career where money doesn't matter and you kind of transcend some of the basic necessities is the fact that you could do whatever the heck you want, which includes— Doing things that you completely enjoy for no other why, you know? And 'cause that's the only way you're gonna get to the 10,000 hours of iterations, you know? So completely agree on that one. So index cards. I pulled one of your playbooks, Danny, and this is like classic Danny where I did some research 'cause usually I don't do much research about the guest. I dug out some of the old videos about you, got into an old podcast from 2021, and I heard you say that you have, at the time you had an index card in your bathroom mirror. Yeah. You know, and you were, You know, if I'm not wrong, let me get this right. You were trying to say it had descriptions of the type of person you wanted to become. Who were you trying to become in that moment?

Yeah. So I wrote these index cards, which are still in my bathroom. It's in the bathroom walls. Still have them?

Wow.

Still have them, still hung up because they're just subtle reminders of the person that I wanted to be at that time. And the description that I have is like, I want to be somebody who reads, writes, meditates, creates every day. And I hadn't had the idea for the podcast, I don't think, at the time that I created the card. But it was just about, okay, if we can take the steps every day to be the person we want to be, we are already that person. So let me break that down a little bit. It's like people might look at an author like James Clear and be like, I want to be like James Clear. Well, the good news is you often can do that if you literally just write 1,000 words every day. Yeah. Or 500 words, whatever it is. So it's like, you want to be Joe Rogan? Okay, just record the podcasts that he records and you will— you are taking the steps that Joe Rogan would have taken if he was your age. And so I don't think it's really good to try to be some other person, but I think it's cool to look at, like, what are the habits that some of the people you admire do? And can you do them too? And can you live in that growth? Because what happens is when you start growing as a person like that, you start to feel more confident. If you're reading every day, if you're meditating every day, if you're writing every day, suddenly you're a creator, you have clearer thoughts. And it's about the process of becoming that person. And that process is available to us every day.

Right.

So that's just a powerful thing that I realized from writing down that note card, having that note card, reading it every day, and being intentional with that. And I got that practice from a Lanny Bassham book called With Winning in Mind. With Winning in Mind by Lanny Bassham. Lanny Bassham was a rifle shooter in the Olympics, and he won gold medal. And then he taught his son what he knew and his son won the gold medal as well. Wow. And so, yeah, incredible book, really practical examples from an Olympic athlete. And I highly recommended it. And that's the book that gave me the permission to write that note card and hang it up in my room.

So, continuing on the thread of practices and daily rituals, right? I think I've seen you talk about this in one of the recent YouTube videos around the practice of writing, I love myself. 100 times a day. Is that 100 times or 1 page full?

Yes, 100 times a day. Sure.

Okay, so let's actually, for— can you flash that? Yeah, you got it handy?

Yeah, I should. Right here.

That is wild, wild, wild, wild. And I'll tell you the reason why I brought that up. You're going to love this. Oh,

beautiful. That's beautiful.

It is something that I've started doing too. And you may or may not have had an influence on me subconsciously planting that seed in my mind.

Yeah.

But I wanna uncover that. I wanna unpack that for the readers or the listeners who are, or the viewers who are checking this out. Why that practice? You know, what made you come up with it? And then second, what were some benefits you saw specifically?

Yeah. So I read Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It by Kamal Ravikant. Kamal? Kamal Ravikant. Yeah. Naval's brother. And it was incredibly impactful for me at a time when I was deeply depressed. And this is like early March 2020. And so I read the book, I say, I'm going to commit to this. And he doesn't talk about writing it 100 times in the book, but just the practice of saying I love myself over and over again really helped me. I told the power of the book to a friend. And the friend said, I like the practices he suggests, but I actually like writing it down. So I was like, okay, let me try that too. And I tried that and it was very impactful for me. And I think the reason it works is because when we do so much of what we do in any given day, in any given mission, the core underlying reason for us doing it is so that we can feel deeper love for ourselves.

Yeah.

Why do we attempt to make a lot of money? Or why do we attempt to find a significant other? Why do we— I believe that the core reason of all that is to find love within ourselves for ourselves. And so what if you could just go to that right away? What if you could just start those interactions, that business before you have a relationship with that idea? of love for yourself? How much more joy could you give on a podcast or in that business? And how much more love could you spread if it started with that? And so, I found it incredibly impactful, the practice, and I haven't been doing it for the past, I would say, couple weeks. And I'm so excited you brought it up because now I'm going to get back to doing it.

You got to get back on that. And I'll— so, the funny thing is I've been on and off with that one too. And I read the same book by Kamal. It's such a short and punchy book. I read it, I think 2019 or something. Loved the book. It was almost like such a subtle awakening. It's like, wow, it's not complicated. Don't overcomplicate this shit. You know? Yeah. And I also used to meditate heavily, 2018, '19, '20, those 3 years. And so that kind of paired really well. When you meditate, when you sit by yourself, you're kind of like clearing your clutter in your mind. And then, you know, to like get this wave of love for yourself, you know? And so the funny thing about what you just said is a lot of people are even scared to go to that place of loving themselves.

Yes.

And modern society almost like stigmatizes like this notion of, no, no, no, no, no, no, you should not be, you know, thinking about yourself. You're too selfish. You cannot be loving yourself. Are you kidding me? Why would you love yourself? You should hate yourself. Hate yourself so much that you will get compassion or you will look for the other person and you'll try to help others. But I think it's broken and I think it's backwards. The only way I can show compassion to Danny Miranda or to some, my neighbor or to some kid in Africa or some kid in India is if I'm feeling full and happy and content and neutral. I'm not saying joyful, excited, like, you know, like a— No, no, no. I'm like, I won championship. But if I can get to the baseline happiness is when I can think beyond the ego and think that my time is limited on this planet. and I have a direct line to impact you, for example, in this case, or somebody else, let me just go act on it. As opposed to spiraling into guilt, depression, negativity, self-talk, negative self-talk. So that's why I love this practice. And I've been doing it actually ever since you brought it up. So it's funny now we're coming full circle.

Totally. And that's what happens, right? My friend, I told my friend about the book and he brought this practice back to me. And it's like, This is what happens. You give to the world and then the world will give you back. And when it's in love, it's really powerful.

It also can seem like it's crazy to the people around you.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's the best drug that I know, man, with no side effects, right?

And that's the thing. I don't think it's— I think that the reason why we're not sold it is because if you love yourself, you inevitably don't need the products that are being sold.

Yeah,

right.

Yeah,

but I think it's powerful if you you really find out what's important when you love yourself, when you're whole and content with yourself, you can make clear-headed decisions and be more present, and you you realize oh I don't need this drug or I don't need this vice. It's like you're you're more grounded and

peace.

It's not something that people are gonna yeah peace. Yeah, well said.

Yeah, no, I had this exact same conversation with Keihi. from the 10K Productivity. You know, he's big on Twitter too. And exactly the same thing. And it's funny because I think he's slightly older than me. Maybe he's 37 or something. I'm probably aging him. And I'm 33. And you're way younger than me. And it's funny how it doesn't matter almost what age or where you are, what city location. It's the mind space, right? Yeah. And I'm so glad that you're doing it. And I really want you to continue doing that. So I got another question for you. Who was your first podcast guest, like, ever on the Danny Miranda?

Yes.

Go.

Tej Dosa, @ComedicBizman on Twitter.

Okay. Why is everybody raving about him? I haven't met him yet. How would you introduce Tej to me? Like, what is it about him that for you is unique?

He's somebody who is full of love and also so talented at copywriting and Business, I would say. I don't know of his business skills per se, but I know in terms of copywriting and in terms of giving love, he is top of the charts. And he'll never— he won't like write about loving yourself so much, or— but it's just like subtly in everything he does.

Mm-hmm.

When I did this program, 75 Hard, for the first time, it was based on the idea that Okay, I'm gonna do it. And then I texted Tej and said, yo, I'm doing this program. And then we would go back and forth every day. He said, why don't we text each other at the end of every day so that we're accountable to each other? And so that's just like a subtle way of giving love that's very practical. He could have easily said, yo, I'm gonna do this program on my own. Yo, good luck. And that would have been all good. Right. But instead he said, yo, let's make this, let's make this an exchange of energy where we go through this together. And I thought that was really powerful. And he's just an upstanding guy that I've never met, but just—

Who you never met?

Wow. Reading his tweets for the past— never met him. Reading his tweets for the past 3, 4 years, I've become really close to him and I just really appreciate his presence.

I gotta check this guy out. I gotta say hi on DMs. So now with the reason I asked you that question is, so he's your first guest. If you brought him back again today, What would you ask him? What's the one question that you would ask him today?

Yeah, I mean, we've actually done 2 or 3 episodes again. So like, we've had this rapport of building episodes together. And what I find so beautiful about each and every time we do, it's that it is— it's like a free-flowing exchange of ideas that we don't even know where it's going to go. And that's what makes those episodes in particular so valuable. A lot of times, I go in with deep research and the reason I'm doing deep research is so that I can help create that connection in the moment with the guests so that they feel comfortable to just be. Right. But with Tej, I've already built that and we have great rapport and great friendship. So, we're exploring ideas, going down rabbit holes, taking insights from places we've heard and it's just, it's so beautiful. So, I don't know what I would ask him. Whatever was on my mind, Maybe like, what's been the greatest thing that's happened in the past week is what I would ask him. But it's just the beautiful exchange of ideas with somebody you're comfortable with. That's why people love Joe Rogan is because he has friends on and with his friends, he can explore and he can be himself and he could just say things that are on his mind with no judgment. Whereas if he has a scientist on, he's got to prepare more and do more research and try to figure out what makes this person tick and why are they the way they are. Right. So yeah, Tej is an incredible person and I hope he comes on this podcast.

I'd love to, I'd love to chat. So as a podcaster, Danny, what are 3 qualities you think are super key in the journey of being a podcaster? Like what do you think from your experience are these 3 traits that are super valuable for the host?

Yeah, so one is, are you curious about, you don't have to be curious about everything, but are you curious about the people you're talking to? The subjects they're interested in. Can you listen is like a very important trait, the ability to listen. And third, I would say is patience. Podcasting is the hardest medium to grow. So be patient with the journey and find ways to reprogram in your head your own progress or lack of progress because there's a good chance that it's gonna— it might take longer than you think it might take.

I love that. Brilliant answer. So I want to ask you on the theme of podcasting, since we're on here, what are 3 predictions you have or you can come up with right now about the future of podcasting or the role it'll play in the next 10 years on the internet?

Yeah, so I think I heard recently that podcasting only has like a billion dollars of advertising budget behind it, something around that, maybe a billion or $2 billion.

Which is very less, right? Which is—

It could be less. Yeah.

Right.

And it's like, when you compare that to the projections of where it's going to go, some— I read one report that's like, oh, it'll be $4 billion by 2025. And if you compare it to radio advertising dollars,

yeah,

I think that there's going to be a lot of exposure of money into the ecosystem. And I think that podcasting will be There'll be a lot more money funneled into the ecosystem. Another thing that I think is that podcasters will be the equivalent of musicians. Here's what I mean by this.

Interesting.

When in the '60s and '70s, a musician going on tour, there were some, but it wasn't like anybody could create music and go on tour in the next week or month or year or 5 years, it was confined to less people because the distribution was less and the ones at the top got crazy distribution. And that's still the case in podcasting. However, I think the same way there's many musicians today who could sell out Radio City Music Hall, I think there'll be many podcasters who can do the same. And there'll be many podcasters who are signed by different labels or signed by different organizations that want them. And so I think the cutting edge of Spotify buying up shows like Joe Rogan, Call Her Daddy, Bill Simmons, I believe, that's just the cut of the iceberg. That's just the tip of the iceberg. And that's going to keep going. And it's going to continue far into the future.

Fascinating.

And so more money, more increase of the amount of podcasters who are going to be mainstream. And Let me see if I can come up with the third one on the spot.

I am curious about one other thing as you riff on the third one. I haven't seen really like the big giants get into podcasting yet. I think about Apple, right? Like we're seeing Apple and Apple TV, the Apple-made movies and Apple-made, like, you know, they're touching the cinema, they're touching the animation side of things. But I haven't seen like something like Apple-produced podcasts, you know, like how Spotify got James Joe Rogan and so on and other, Great podcasters. I feel like Apple could do something like that too, and I haven't seen them move into it. You know, same thing with Meta, same thing with, you know, other like top, like Google, right? They're just platforms, but we're seeing platforms becoming publishers. Same thing with Spotify. They were just a platform, but they became a publisher by, you know, collecting these great podcasters. I think that could be another trend, you know?

Yeah, that's a great point. And on that topic, I think that It's so early in the podcasting ecosystem that Spotify releasing the ability to put videos on the platform, that happened in the last month or something.

Right.

And it's just like, oh my God, like I'm at the forefront of Spotify having video. And so that's what made me tweet the other day, the resistance is the opportunity. Because in order to publish on Spotify, a video on Spotify, I need to switch My provider or my— I think it's provider. Libsyn. Like I use Libsyn and now I use Anchor. And so I had to switch. What is that called? What is Libsyn and Anchor?

I guess podcasting platforms because I use Riverside. Are they similar? I don't know.

Yeah. So Riverside is where you publish on Riverside?

Right.

Directly? Do you? I'm asking. I don't

know. No, no, no. Actually, I record it on Riverside. Yeah. And then I published in Transistor.fm. So I think they are, whatever Transistor.fm is, whatever the category is, I know what you're talking about. That's because I used to be on Anchor and I left Anchor to come to Transistor.fm.

And

I think Libsyn is similar, right?

Yeah, exactly. It's somewhere in that category of maybe a podcast distributor.

Yeah, I think that's it. I think that's a distribution platform.

Yeah. And so what I did was I transition from Libsyn to Anchor. And I was like, I don't want to do this. This is going to be some work that's going to be annoying that I don't want to do. And then I was like, well, a lot of people are going to be feeling this.

There's upside.

And there's upside there because it's new. And if I could be one of the first video podcasts that's highly produced on Spotify, that could be a massive opportunity for me. And so I have these new episodes with Carter and David Perell, and I have one coming out with Nick Maggiulli. And I'm like, I can't wait to put these on Spotify because maybe those videos are going to get increased distribution because there's less video on Spotify.

Right. No, great predictions. I mean, I think they're all directionally exciting. And again, we'll have to wait and watch to see which of these will manifest. But I fully agree on so many of these Especially like the ad dollars, I think in podcasting is grossly under-indexed at this point, you know, compared to like radio or compared to, you know, even billboards, man. Like I never ever look at a billboard. I never— I'm driving, I'm just driving. I never give a shit about what's on the billboard. I never, even if I care about what I saw, I would never pull out my phone and then punch that exact URL into my Google search engine, right? And so But there's so much money in billboards. And I feel like it's much more likely that if you mentioned while you had that 5-minute clip on YouTube on journaling, if you mentioned a particular journal, that it's more likely that I would buy a journal from you from the mention, 'cause you were talking about daily journaling and the I Love Myself practice, than I would ever look at a billboard and buy it from there. So I think that will happen, that shift will happen in the future. So

dude, wait, that's a great idea. I love myself journals.

Yeah.

I'm writing that down.

You're writing it down? Okay, cool. I mean, look, that sounds so brand— that's so on brand for you.

Absolutely.

And I would buy it if you drop one because, you know, I'm always running out of journals. Look at this. I don't even know where I bought this. So I'm always running out of them. So the next question I have for you is, this is actually fun. What are some reasons that you deeply believe that people should not start a podcast And then answer the other way, which is what are some reasons you deeply believe that people should start a podcast for?

Yeah, so I think you shouldn't start a podcast if you are looking for some quick money because there's an infinite number of ways to make money faster. And if you are hard-pressed for money in any given moment, it might not be the best idea. And maybe that's just my own failings of like Not monetizing in particular ways and really just taking a really long-term approach. But yeah, I think money is one reason not to. Another reason that's not to is like, if you don't like people, if you don't like talking to people, I mean, it's obvious, but—

Right.

If you start a podcast and you realize you hate people or you don't like talking, then it's not going to be a good fit for you. When I look back at me getting kicked out of class for For talking too much. It makes sense and everything goes into place when I'm looking at like myself in 3rd, 4th, 5th grade. So yeah, those are 2 big reasons not to start a podcast, money and just having a curiosity about people in general. Reasons to start a podcast are infinite. I mean, where do you wanna start? It's like you get access to speak to some of your heroes. You get to ask them questions that they might not have heard. You get to learn yourself. You get to enjoy conversation yourself. You get to have a period of time for 1 hour or more or a little less maybe where you're not looking at your phone. There's so much. When was the last time I went an hour without looking at a device and had a full screen immersed focus? It's only during podcasts really is the only time. I love that.

I love that that's actually one of the benefits too. You're right. I mean, I haven't picked up my phone in the last 40 minutes and And I'm always like, you know, fiddling with my phone. So I love that. Now let's talk a little bit more on the podcasting theme. If you had a, in an ideal world, if you had a dinner table filled with podcasters, who are you inviting? 5.

5 podcasters in the world.

Right. To have dinner with.

Just us 5? Wow. Oh, that's juicy. That's exciting. Hopefully I can make this dinner happen in the next 10 years.

Right.

So we'll put Joe Rogan, we'll put Tim Ferriss, We'll put Chris Williamson, who hosts the Modern Wisdom Podcast.

Yeah. Interesting.

Okay. He— people think I'm the most underrated or one of the most underrated podcasters in the world. Chris Williamson's got 400,000 subscribers on YouTube. And he, I would argue, is more underrated than—

I actually never heard of him. So I think he's underrated. Yeah.

The amount of smart people who I've told that to, and they've said the same exact thing. I'm probably the biggest advertisement for Chris Williamson. Because he is so— Chris,

if you're

listening, this segment Yeah. Well, we'll clip this and send it to Chris.

Send it to him.

No, I really appreciate the work that he does. He's so peaceful and present in a conversation. He's had big guests, massive guests like Jordan Peterson, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and a lot of people who you might be familiar with. So, he is somebody who I'd love to have. Right. That's 3. I'd love to have Sean Puri too. Yeah. I think he's so brilliant. He's so creative. He's so great with design.

Entertaining too, right? Yeah.

Entertaining. Yeah. And

did you listen to the one that he did with Hasan Minhaj? Like, Sean did a great episode with Hasan, and I thought that was brilliant, both of them. All right, who's your 5th choice?

My 5th choice would probably be— oh, that's tough. That is tough. Who I really like— Eric Zimmer. Eric Zimmer from The One You Feed. He asks really deep questions, thoughtful questions. Never heard of him either. Yeah, his podcast has been going on for 8 years and he did 1 a week and then he transitioned out to 2 a week. And he's a really deep thinker who I just think would ask brilliant questions at the table. And I don't think this conversation could be like a 1-hour thing. Like, yeah, the dinner would be hours and hours. But those are a few dream people around the circle. But maybe I'll have to invite more people. Yeah.

I love the answer. Now, this is actually a great segue to another question I had, which is kind of related. If someone came to you who wants to start a podcast today and they're just completely new in the game, they never picked up the mic, never had a podcast before, whose work do you recommend that they study for, I don't know, for at least 2, 3, 4, or 5 weeks? So that they understand the craft better and understand the mechanics and the dynamics better.

Okay. So I have to add a 6th person to the list.

Okay. Who is it?

It is Sean Evans. Are you familiar with Sean Evans from Hot Ones?

Hot Ones. Yep.

Yeah. He is so incredible at what he does, the deep research he does, the way he's able to frame specific questions. And he is somebody I would recommend people study to be a better interviewer. But I would also want Oh, and Joe Ferraro too is incredible. The 1% Better podcast. I mean, like, this is the thing. I love the craft so much that it's like once I started doing it, once I started getting into it, I started studying far and wide. I probably listened to 5 to 10 podcasts to prepare for every interview and guest I have. Wow. So, it's like I'm constantly looking who's doing this well, who's excelling, what could they be doing better, why are they doing the things they do? I think what I would tell to that person who's starting is, whose style that I like is similar to them? And are they more of a conversationalist? Then I would have them really go into Joe Rogan and look at his progression. Are they more of a deep researcher? Then I would send them Sean Evans or Tim Ferriss. Are they more of a peaceful and present person? I would hand them to Chris Williamson. Or Eric Zimmer. So, it's like you have to look at the person. And what I really like doing is looking at them at the current stage that you are in. Are you in episode 7? Okay. Then literally listen to Tim Ferriss episode 7. Right. Then listen to 700. And that's great. We're talking about different things that help you go along the path. I was listening to Chris Williamson yesterday talk to David Sinclair. Him, This was a year and about 9 months into his journey. This was last night I was looking at it. And that is a good representation of where I'm at. And he has improved so much from that single in-person interview. And I'm like, oh my God, this is so exciting. He's around the same point as I was. And I could see how much he's improved. He was amazing on that episode. But I think comparing apples to apples, what is your episode versus the person you're looking at in comparison to the amount of episodes that they have recorded and you have recorded. It's so easy to look into the distance. Look into the present, in your present moment versus the person, what they were like in that moment.

I love it. I love it. And it's so contextual too, right? It's not comparison just sheerly based on the final output after, I don't know, 4, 5, 6, 7 years, but like really get the context of where they were and try to like understand That's what you might sound like today. And that's okay. You know, I think a lot of this is about being okay with the incremental progress you're going to make early on.

Yeah. And another thing on that point is like, how many podcasters have been around in history? Like podcasting as a medium is so new, right? It's not like your parents or our parents grew up with favorite podcasters. They grew up with favorite radio broadcasters. Or favorite television hosts, but that's different.

Right.

So, it's like, this just makes me so excited because radio and television are still around as mediums and people do have favorites on those mediums.

Yes.

So, podcasting, people have favorites on those mediums for the next 50 years.

Yes.

And so, it's really exciting.

We're still early. We're super early.

Very early.

Yeah. You know, in my early days, as you mentioned, the other media, in my early days, or actually when I was getting started with this podcast, by the way, I just finished 25 episodes published.

Wow.

I feel incredibly proud. And this is something I shared with one of my friends that I've done so many other projects. I've done so many public-facing things that were more creatively challenging. But this is the thing that I'm most proud of because this gives me zero ROI in my day job. Literally zero ROI. In the last 2 years, I made so much money Doing everything else. And this is the least ROI of my time because I get 50 views, I get 8 downloads sometimes, I get 40, but I don't give a shit. This is the only thing that I do where I bring my full self, where I feel like I go into supernova mode. I have no qualms about this. And I don't even think myself as a wannabe podcaster. I just think that I'm KP on the podcast and I'm gonna keep doing this for the next 30, 40, 50 years. And I don't know how many episodes will accumulate, It'll be whatever number. And so that's the funny part. Like when some people like talk about how many episodes or like what's your annual goal? And I actually have no goal. My goal is to do it until I die.

Wow.

If I can't schedule something on the last day of my day, 'cause it's just fun. It's like saying, what's the, like how many coffees are you gonna have? I love coffee. I don't ever count how many coffees I'm having. Like I drink every day, but there are also days where I miss that. Wow. So I feel like a lot of people go— That's a great way to frame it. Right, a lot of people go into this like, oh my God, I gotta track everything in a streaker. And like, I gotta like streak. No, I don't give a shit about streaks. I think if you can transcend keeping score of it, I think you really won. Because keeping score of it, it still means that you're still playing the game. You haven't broken the cheat code. You're still like within the constraints and the confines of the game design. That means you're still like saying, I gotta work out today, or I gotta do this, I gotta— but when you stop genuinely counting is when you go into a whole new meta level. And then you think about decades and you think about impact and you don't ever worry about I only got 50 views. That's why in the beginning I asked you, do you even care about 300 views? Because how does it matter if the 344 people who saw are people like me and I'm telling you to your face that I put you on the same pedestal that I put Gary Vee on or Marina on or so many other people on? That's, dude, that's, you can't buy that shit. So when I listen to, when I like listen to some of the feedback I get about the pod, I get like one DM or one message or someone says like, KP, I listened to you for an hour and a half on loop. Or on like back to back. I just took no-code seriously after your episode with that person and that changed my life or XYZ. And I'm like, that's it. That's what I'm doing this for. You know? And that's why I don't like to call myself a podcaster because it's so easy to be tempted to compare yourself with like other podcasters and what they're doing and, you know, compare numbers and notes. And I'm like, I don't, I don't, I'm doing podcasting, but I'm KP. I'm not a traditional podcaster, you know? So.

Oh man, there's so much there. I want to talk to you about. So this is one thing that Gary Vee really excels at, and that is paying attention without caring.

Yes.

And what I mean by that is Gary Vee is so tapped in to what people are saying, how they're reacting, what's going on, but he does not let it impact his own mentality, his own mindset, So, he's tapped in but not caring. And it's the beautiful balance.

It's the beautiful dance.

Knowing what others are doing but not— exactly. It's a dance. And I love what you said about transcending.

Yeah, go on. Finish the line.

No, transcending the score, transcending the game is so impactful if you can do that. You're so right. I never think about it.

Let me tell you this. Tell me like this year. Let's talk about this year. Stephen Curry. Steph Curry became the GOAT, all-time shooter, the greatest of all-time shooter at MSG. You know, it's in your own New York City, Madison Square Garden, where he surpassed every living and dead shooter on the planet in terms of total—

Incredible.

3-pointers and everything, right? My question to you is this. When he did it, the whole world stood up. I watched it, I had chills. I had like those 7 moments when they froze everything, they paused the game. I had chills. My wife had, we were like watching and I was crying and everything. And my question is this. He transcended the scoreboard, the counting of these 3-pointers. Yeah. Because if he really cared about it, he would've worried about, should I do this in this season, the last season, the pre— my question is this, the man never gave a shit about that record. Although subconsciously also he knows that he's going to get it. But why is he doing 4 or 5 tunnel shots before a game? Why is he doing circus shots before a game? Why is he doing shit that doesn't— like, my point is this, you can't count those. They're not in the game. You're not getting any ROI for that. But so Steph is not playing basketball for the scorecard, although he's the world's greatest shooting guard, or I mean, world's greatest point guard, but he's playing it for his internal scorecard, which has no stop and start. He's just doing it because it's fun. It's joy. So I think among the living players that we— I know I'm subjective here, He's transcended the game. He broke the matrix. That's why he does some things that you see and you're like, how is that even possible? How can he go that far out to the backcourt and still shoot? Right? Because he transcended the game. He's just broke the matrix, in my view.

Yeah. And when you transcend the game, you are able to just have fun and play joy and play with the whole thing. And it's like realizing that it's not about You know, the amount of views, or it's not about anything other than just having joy in the moment. And that's winning.

That's it. And I think the little kids, you know, I have a 1-year-old kid and I see him when he's like trying to like take steps and he falls, he trips, he stands up, trips and stands up, falls, stumbles. Their brain, their programming is set that way that he's looking for that joy and constant pushing. I still think you need to push yourself to get better. But it's not coming from a place of trying to compare himself with like our neighbor kid or some other cousin he may have in India or some other— he doesn't give no shits. He has no scorecard. The plain, pure mind of a child. I think that's what Kanye was talking about in his great— one of his great songs, right? It's like childlike curiosity.

Yeah.

You know? And he doesn't give a shit. He's not looking at like, how many times am I falling and tripping? He's doing it for the pursuit of it. And by doing it, he's transcending the challenges and then he's going to be a walker or whatever, the next challenge, the next challenge. So I think we somehow get lost after that 4 or 5 years, 6, 7 year period. And then we get into this society and then we're like, oh, now we have, all of us have a metric we're tracking. And then it all becomes about the metrics. So yeah, anyway.

How do we make it more about the joy? What little things can we implement in our own lives that That help us make it more about the joy?

I see what you're doing now. You just turned the tables back to me and I became the guest.

I'm just curious.

This is the genius of you. I mean, it's just the constant reminders. It's because it's society. You're playing the game of living as a human being in society and you can't escape society. Like Naval talks about it, right? The real freedom is freedom from society's expectations of what you should be doing, but also the meta freedom is the freedom from your mind. 'Cause your mind is a mirror of society's expectations. So your mind is constantly trying to tell you, you should do this, you should be focusing on the number, you should be focusing on this, you should be focusing on, you know, repurposing content, you should be focusing on what Danny's doing, what Huw's doing. But then shutting it down and like quieting it down and then going to the OG intuition that is your real mind that you were born with. Mm-hmm. I think, and then staying true to that and saying, what does my intuition say today? My intuition right now made me ask these 7 questions that I had no prep for, for you. I literally had no prep for. I had like some pointers, but I literally let my intuition dictate the terms as opposed to thinking about what would be a great soundbite from Danny. So I think remembering that it is ultimately, and maybe it's like Daniel Kahneman talks about, I don't know if it's in the book of Thinking Fast and Slow or Slow and Fast. There's a concept around system 1, system 2. And like, it's— he talks about how our brain has 2 systems. It operates in like deliberate mode and then some subconscious automatic mode. I feel the same way. There's 2 ways of living. Either you're living by following your intuition, or you're living by following your mind's voice, which is really the mirror of society's expectations.

Oh, that's so powerful.

And the more you drive your attention towards the former, the happier you are in the moment. And ironically, The score catches up with you and somehow you somehow become the GOAT in whatever you do. I don't know how, I can't explain that part, but somehow you transcend anybody else who's competing with you because you're playing at a meta level. Nobody can compete.

Yeah, if you do talk to Tej, you definitely have to bring up the point and the term of OG intuition because if there's anyone who would appreciate that, it's definitely him.

There we go. We got to get that on the calendar for sure. And I would love an intro if you can make one or if I'll DM him directly. One last question for you, Danny. What is your vision with the podcast? And I think I know what it is, but I wanted you to articulate it.

Yeah. I want to be the GOAT of podcasting. I want to be the greatest of all time, but I want to be the greatest of all time by playing it my way and doing it my way. And like we were talking about before, I mean, I want to take my craft and the thing that I think that I was brought into this world to do is like podcasting. I feel like in this moment. And just my parents are both question askers and curious people and good at research. And they're able to bring that all together in questions. And I'm like, oh, wow. Like, you guys do this. I could see how I do it too. And I want to do that at a level that makes my current self not upset, but makes my current self like proud. Yeah. And I want to be so proud of the person I am 30 years down the line of doing this craft that I'm just like, wow, like I built on this and I built on. And what I love about podcasting and knowledge work in general, of like writing similar, is that I'm a rookie and I'm not even close to being a rookie yet. And what I mean by that is like an athlete's lifespan is 20 years maybe.

Right.

Right? They have— they are 30, maybe they go from 10 to 40, they play. And it's like, for somebody in podcasting, it's like, okay, you start at 25.

80. Right.

80, 90. My grandpa's 85. His mind is sharp and he's able to read great books still. And it's like, okay, that's the potential. Hopefully, I'm still doing this at that time. And so, getting lost in the game, doing it at bigger and bigger levels, talking to my heroes and talking to your heroes and talking to people who have achieved incredible things and also people who are just excited by life in any facet. That's what I hope to do. Continue taking step after step, going on world tours, doing this, just doing it to the highest level possible. I love it, man. That's the vision for where I see it going.

I love it, man. It's so energizing and it sounds so inspiring. But at the same time, as you and I know, It's inevitable. I think you'll make it happen. And you have the drive, you have the passion, and you have the commitment, which is the hard part, which is the discipline. And I'm rooting for you, man. You know, in 10, 20, 30 years, you will be properly rated. I think you're right now underrated. You'll probably stay underrated for maybe a decade. And then, you know, you'll get your due recognition, you know. But you're building great fan base already. You're getting this, you know, people like me, appreciate you, look at you, study your work even now, even with like 1,000 followers or whatever, you know, the YouTube thing shows. Because it's, again, people like me, I feel like I don't give a shit about how many you got. I'm looking at the content, the quality, and the authenticity, you know? So keep doing that. And I hope to bring you back again in one of the future episodes. And it's been a pleasure chatting with you.

I appreciate you so much. And it just builds the story, right? Like the longer it takes to actually go,

Yes.

Like to where I wanted to go. I look at Jack Harlow and I look at his journey. And I've been like, wow, like he spent 8 years before he had a song blow up. And so it just puts it in perspective. And all those kind words are really appreciated. And they mean more to me than you possibly could know or understand. So thank you so

much, man. You're welcome.