Strategizing A Podcast Series To Match Your Big Why With Mark Gober Of The Where Is My Mind? Podcast (Podfaded)

Wish you were one of those influencers with raving fans who binge on your every word, consume all your content, buy everything you have to sell, and demand even more. Then stay tuned while Authority Magazine columnist and buzzfeed contributor Tracy Hazzard shares strategies, tips and tactics from top videocasters, podcasters, authors and social influencers on creating that Binge bowl factor. Now let's join Tracy as she explores how to rise above all noise with the Binge Factor.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Binge Factor. I'm Tracy Hazard and I've got a person who's been swirling around our consciousness for the last month or so since I interviewed Laura Powers, the Healing Powers Podcast, and she mentioned a story about a listener who then wrote a book. And I said, I think I've heard that story before. I think I remember reading it. And sure enough, it turns out that Mark Gober was that listener and he was the one who wrote that book, An End to Upside Down Thinking of which. Then I interviewed him and wrote an article about him. So we had kind of a tie in and we didn't even know it. And that's why I invited Mark to come back on, because he has a podcast that he created from the book from interviews that he did with it. And it's a very interesting podcast. It's not our typical that we talk about here because it's only an eight episode series and normally even the ones that would do seasons here that we interview here have had more shows, have done more. But he's got a really interesting model for it. It's highly produced. It's Freakonomics. Like if you've ever heard the Freakonomics podcast or Harvard Business Review, the HBR Ideacast, those are kind of a similar feel to it. It's highly scripted. So it's a really different model for a show and I thought that you would find it interesting to hear why and what he's doing with it and how it has helped him as an author. So let me introduce Mark over to you. So Mark is an international speaker and the author of An End to Upside Down Thinking, which was introduced in 2018. It was awarded the IPPY Best Science Book of 2019. He is also the author of An End to Upside Down Living which came out this year and I am in the midst of reading. I have not quite finished it yet because it's quite intense. And he's also the host of the podcast Where Is My Mind? Additionally, he serves on the board of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the School of wholeness and enlightenment. Mark's background is in business as a partner at Sherpa Technology Group in Silicon Valley and previously as an investment banking analyst in New York. He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University where he wrote his award winning thesis on Daniel Kahneman's Nobel Prize winning prospect theory and was elected captain of the Princeton's Division 1 tennis team. Mark is just such an interesting person. He gets your brain thinking, but what he has is this business mind that turned to looking at consciousness. And so we're talking about a really large pivot. Which brings me to my other connection to Mark, which was actually how I met him. And that was on Adam Markell's the Conscious Pivot podcast. Adam and I. Adam's a client and a friend and he said, I've got this guy that you would enjoy talking with and Mark Oberwiss the guys. So we have lots of like connections here. And that's what this interesting look at consciousness that he's taking. So he's taking it out of this sort of business world, but he's applying business and science to it and flipping that so that we look at how we consider consciousness differently, that we turn it upside down. And the interesting part about how he's approaching all that is that this is in some way counter to who he is, who he's known for in business. And so he's written that book, done that thing that is completely counter to what other people in his marketplace are doing. Right. And so now that's put him into this interesting place of where you have to build an audience, where you have to find listeners, you have to really go out there and sell books and do more publicity. Right. And this is an interesting choice that he's made to develop the where is My Mind? Podcast. And so that's what I wanted to talk with him about and hear what's going on in March. Mind.

Mark, thanks so much for joining me today. I'm excited to talk where's my Mind. And this is a little bit unusual, as I mentioned in the opening, that you've got a season, a really short season, and we're talking to you because I want to know why just start a podcast?

Well, my background is in business. Went into investment banking out of undergrad. I was in New York from 2008 to 2010, so during the financial crisis doing investment banking and then joined a Silicon Valley strategy firm where I was a partner for 10 years. But in 2016, I was listening to podcasts myself. That exposed me to new information, ultimately led to My writing my first book called An End to Upside Down Thinking. And when I first got a literary agent, because I work in business and I wrote a book on consciousness, something that has really nothing to do with my business life, the literary agent said, look, it doesn't matter how good your book is in the world of publishing, you need to have a following. So whatever you can do to try to get your name out there in this consciousness space, that would help. So my first thought when he said that was to focus on podcasts, because I learned a lot from podcasts myself. I ended up texting a friend from high school because he's the only person I know in media doing shows, TV shows for Fox Sports. I said, hey, do you know anything about podcasts? This was 2017. And he said, you wouldn't believe it. I'm actually leaving my sports show to join one of the biggest podcast production companies very soon. So he and I were talking about different podcast ideas and I initially wanted to just interview many of the scientists that I wrote about and just put the interviews out like a traditional podcast. And my friend urged me to wait and try to make it more digestible. So the way we ended up doing the podcast called Where's My Mind? Which wasn't released until 2019, so there was a lot of thinking that went into it, is it's eight episodes that features clips from 50 interviews that I did. And those 50 interviews are hour to two hours each. So we took little bite sized pieces from those interviews. And in any of the eight episodes you might hear from 10 scientists, for example. And each of the episodes is structured such that I'm kind of narrating the stuff that I want to be talking about. And my producer, my friend who joined the podcast production company, he is kind of playing devil's advocate and asking the questions that the audience might have.

He's the skeptic.

Yeah, he's the skeptic. But we wanted to have that because some of the ideas I talk about are against what we're taught in school. So he's playing that role of saying, wait a second, Mark, that doesn't make sense. Or how do you reconcile this and that? And we just thought that would be a more engaging way of doing it than just a traditional podcast.

Yeah, well, you know, it's still. I hate to say this, but your book is like the. I'm a huge reader. I mean, these are like nothing in the background here compared to the library books I have out in the, in my living room. But it's your book was hard to digest. Right? It's really hard to read. You have to read it, reflect, read it, reflect. And so it was one of the ones that took me the longest to read and before I wrote an article about you, which is actually how we met, when I wrote an article about your end to upside down thinking the first time. And, you know, it's. I think the podcast was a little bit hard to digest still, Even though you did do an attempt at that. It was. I, you know, I'm, I'm a little bit much of a. Used to, you know, pod faster. Right. Used to speeding. And you can't do that with yours. And that's interesting. Right. And, you know, so it goes against the certain ways people like to consume podcasts. And. But it made me sit back, it made me really have to, like, not do anything else, which we typically do other things while we're listening to podcasts, but it made me sit down, sit, isolated, concentrate on it. So it's very different way to consume a podcast for me compared to what I'm used to. And so did you realize that that was happening as you were still doing it, as you were still trying to make it more digestible?

Well, we knew that the subject matter itself is very dense. I mean, we're asking people basically to take their worldview that they've been taught for their whole lives and to question some of the most basic assumptions about reality. And the topics themselves are also abstract. These aren't things we can touch. So we wanted to create a. The most convincing argument possible. And that's why we use many voices, and that's why we didn't want to gloss over things, because it's an area replete with skeptics who want to come in and tell you why something doesn't make sense. So we wanted to cover all the bases, and the way we did it, we thought was the. The most efficient way to do that. So it still took a lot of time and many episodes and dense. I mean, we, we say one very big idea, then it's on to the next thing. And like you said, it's hard to speed up for that reason, it's interesting.

So you also have, I'm going to call it premium content. And for those of you who don't know that, it's. It's sort of this idea of being able to throw out and say, I've got more of this interview, or I've got this in a membership area within my website, or I've got this somewhere else. So you're Sending people back to your website to hear the full interview that you may have done with a particular expert that you've excerpted on the show. How did that work for you? How did you find, Are people doing that? Are they going back and forth?

I would say it's a relatively low percentage of people that wanted to do that. So it's 50 interviews on my website. It's an unlimited subscription, so you can listen to all 50 interviews as much as you want. And if we add new interviews, which we haven't done yet, that would be included. So it's over 60 hours worth and it's priced at 30. So I mean, you could spend a year basically doing your own PhD course on consciousness. So it's $33 for that full package. And we found that the people who are really interested in learning more, those are the ones that have done it and they've given really positive feedback. Because as you know, in the podcast you only hear a tiny bit from each of the experts. And when I talk to someone, let's say, who had near death experience that changed his whole life, talking for an hour and a half, that is very different than hearing just a clip.

That's right.

We wanted to make that available to people. Another thing that we did recently was to make two of the 50 interviews available for free on YouTube so people could get a sense of what it's like. And also at least one of the two was one of the more life changing interviews that I did. It was on this topic of a life review where a person has a near death experience and relives events of his or her life. So I interviewed someone who had four life reviews because he basically died and came back four different times. So that's available for free. And we found that people have enjoyed those too.

Well, that's a really interesting approach. Have you thought about maybe adding them as bonus episodes so people could get a taste of what they might get?

We have thought about that. At some point, maybe we will. The current eight episodes are very highly curated. We had two production companies involved. So one of the considerations would be whether we want to have a rougher interview that I was doing at home in Skype, on Skype versus I was in a studio in LA working with top notch editors for the other eight episodes.

So you needed it because you had the challenge of trying when you're trying to insert those kind of quotes from all the different people from these interviews that you didn't know you intended to air one day right when you started doing them. So you have different sound levels. You need a more heavy handed producer who understands sound engineering, understands the experience of listening to be able to make it so that it's not one of these things that goes. Sound goes up and down and people can't actually consume it, which makes it even harder to handle a subject as heavy as yours.

Right. And I'm not an audio expert. This is not my expertise. So fortunately we had some people that have done this before. And actually the editing process on my end was something I didn't expect. I mean, the number of times I listened to any given episode before it went out, and my producers, we went through rounds and rounds of edits and to the point of, I think we need an extra half second after the sentence to give people more time. I mean, that level of detail. Or we should cut out this word from this quote. So that was something where I was kind of giving the commands, but someone had to go in and execute and make it sound good.

Was it kind of like editing your book? Wasn't. Was.

But harder in a way because it's multi dimensional, whereas book is just words.

And they were your words to begin with. So. Yeah, exactly. You know, it's so interesting. Well, let's talk about the combination of the two. So has it done or is it still doing what you expected it to do in sort of creating this, you know, more engaged audience?

I think the podcast has reached people that the book did not reach, which is something I was hoping for. And I think part of that is because people, some people like podcasts rather than books. Some people just don't like to read books anymore. And podcasts, if it's something you can text, which is great, you can literally text the whole season and someone clicks on it while they're already on their phone and they can engage for free. So I think for that reason some people have been willing to engage, whereas maybe they wouldn't have otherwise. And also we're finding that people are still listening to it, like lots of new downloads on a consistent basis. So it's getting around somehow. I mean, I'm always doing interviews for around the topics generally, so maybe that's part of it. But we think a lot of it's word of mouth because people will reach out to me and they'll say that a friend or someone referred it. And that's what's nice about a podcast, is that it's technically out there forever. We don't know when someone's going to listen to it. Right.

And hopefully, you know, if you've done Your job because you're building a foundation here. It's Evergreen. Right. It'll still be valid tomorrow. Although, you know, that's one of the things it's like that gives you exciting reason for a season two, when something new happens in the world of consciousness.

We've been asked about that. Right now we don't have one in the works. We'd have to really think about what that season is, and I'd have to have the motivation to spend all the time that goes into that, and it would have to be at least as good, if not better. So that's a high bar. I'd rather do nothing than do something that's not as good.

Interesting. Well, so you've launched a new book this year, An End to Upside Down Living, which I'm only 3/4 of the way through that. I try to get through these books, but your books are more challenging. They make you really sit back and think and reflect. And has it helped. Has the podcast helped the second book launch?

I think it has. I found that. So the two books on the podcast have had a synergistic effect. And I know I spoke with one person recently who read the second book first and then read the first book and then has listened to the podcast. So.

So they're binging on you in all different media types. That's awesome. Well, you know, this is the thing. So, you know, here on the binge factor, we talk about binge listening and we talk about the binge factor. That, that. And you were a podcast listener first. So did you create an aspect of binge listening, expecting that, or were you not that type of listener?

Well, the podcast we created was not the type of podcast that I listened to. I was used to listening to long form, casual conversations, whereas we did an eight episode, highly curated, edited narration version. So I was relying more on my producers who work in the space and they know what's worked in other shows and what keeps people engaged and the type of music to do and cadence and all that stuff.

Yeah, so. Well, you know, this is interesting, though. You still have a season, though, because it's nice and short. Right. Even though it's still hefty in terms of getting through the eight episodes. But you need to finish them, right? You have them set up so that the next concept flows from the one before it. And so you're creating that tie and that binge ability from one episode to the next to the next.

Yes, we wanted it to be almost like a Netflix series, but the audio version, and we've Actually gotten feedback that people, some people do binge the season so a friend texts it to them and then they'll spend a Saturday afternoon because it's maybe four, four and a half hours total, each eight episodes of 30 plus minutes. 30 to 40 minutes. So if people are into it, I find that they binge it and then they say where's season two? So those that are into it, it's a like a. They're enthusiastic. That's what we find.

I usually handle the five questions here. And you know, some of that is going to be stuff that your producers, you. But I'd love to hear it from your perspective on the things that you had to work at and you had to do. So you don't have great guests because you're not doing that sort of casual interview style. But you did have to curate the clips from the interviews and what you did. How did you make those selections and how did you make those choices?

We transcribed the full length interview. So we had 50 transcripts that were very long. And basically I wrote each episode out and then would say slot in Dr. So and so who says something about this type of experiment? And then I go look for it. Or I'd remember that I spoke to someone about this. So it was kind of a. And then maybe I would read one of the transcripts and say, oh wow, we need to include that into the script. It was an iterative process.

Interesting and time consuming because it's. Because you're re listening to. To interviews or rereading them in this case.

And then I would, I would write a script and then my producers would look at it, say we need to change this. And then I would look at it and say we need to change this. We would read the script and then listen the episode and say wait, we've got to redo this and this. So we had multiple iterations where I flew down to LA to redo things.

Wow. Wow. That was quite, quite the process. And when you wrote it, because you have your co host in with you who is acting as a skeptic and so did you plan those in or did he sort of decide this is where I'm going to interject?

Initially we tried to do it kind of casually where we're literally just having a conversation and loosely working off of the script by the end, because I was so nitpicky about what we said, especially when it came to the science, we ended up going with a script and maybe there was a little bit of spontaneous stuff but we kept it pretty tight.

There's not a lot of ad libbing here.

Not as much as I thought there would have been because I was so picky.

Well, normally I ask about increasing listeners. So what did you do in that process? You said it's been somewhat organic, but what did you do to like announce your show and sort of get it out there so you could get some listeners?

Most of the PR I did was around my first book and that came out in October of 2018. So I worked with multiple publicists to help get me on shows and things like that. And that was able to help me build a mailing list and social media following, things like that. So I had a base of people that were interested and I had been telling them in advance, months in advance, that a podcast was coming. They just didn't know when for a while because we didn't know when. And then finally we had a launch date. So we had. I remember the first day it launched, we had a pretty good spike in listeners because of people that had knew my other work.

So you already had kind of a little built in list going there. That always helps. And then that word of mouth, that organic reach helps from there.

Have you seen growth in the website?

It's spiky. It depends on the time. So if there's maybe an interview that I do that has a large, large following, then I might see a big spike on my website or in the podcast or in book sales. I do find that interviews have varying levels of impact and sometimes the impact is high, but on a small number of people. And other times the impact is high, but over many people because a podcaster has a large audience. If I'm offered an interview, typically I like to do it because I never know who it's going to hit. But there are some where there's a much bigger impact than others, for sure. And we can see the numbers. My producer might text me and say, hey, did you just do what's going on? There's a huge spike in downloads and it's because a new interview came out where I had a. It was a big audience.

Nice. Well, we talked about producing in a professional way that you really worked with two production companies and, and you really took this approach and, and say that your show has a. I'm going to call it a Freakonomics feel, which the Freakonomics podcast is one of my personal favorites as is, you know, the idea cast and some of those other ones. So there are the highly curated shows, there's lots of scripting in there, but there's also Just a hefty topic to tackle. So they're breaking it down into understandable pieces for you, and that's the process that your show's taking. But, you know, the production is more than just that side of things. The production is also making sure that you have the good sound and all of those things. But what you tapped into is that you have a job to do as the host and as the curator on the production side of making sure that quality comes out. What was the most. I was going to say the production picky thing that was important to you?

Well, I've always been very concerned with the narrative and making sure that we. That there are few holes for the skeptics to hit because the topic is so controversial. So that was always my first priority, to make sure conceptually we were covered. We hit the appropriate science and we explained it in the accurate way because there can be ways of explaining something that's not quite true. So I wanted it to be as true and accurate as possible. That's where I started. But then we also want it to be as entertaining as possible. So we would redo lines. Maybe I would do a line and we're like, Mark, it doesn't sound right, or Matt, my co host, say that differently. And so we would do a lot of that. Or we need different music over this because it's a dramatic topic. Change the music change. The music's too loud here. We gotta. You can't hear Mark's voice. So all those little picky things usually came at the end. So it started with the conceptual, I think, making sure it was actually the right narrative. We wanted. And then we wanted to be the most entertaining possible, given the heaviness of the topic.

So the effect on the outside of that. Interesting. Now do you get engagement? Have you been encouraging engagement in the community that's reaching out to you from the podcast listenership? Do you ask them more questions? Do you, you know, what do you do to engage them with you further?

That's a good question. That wasn't part of what we were thinking of, really. We wanted people to. We thought that the topic itself would be thought provoking enough where people would then want to explore further. And sometimes people reach out to me and ask questions or they just give feedback. And that's been the extent of the engagement. But we thought is that we would give people enough of a base that they could engage on their own, that it was sort of like a research platform where they would hear a certain scientist and say, wow, I want to learn about that. Person.

Interesting, because I think that, you know, this could have been even more engaging in that you could get controversial. Like, you know, people could say, you know, hey, I question this. And then you'd be able to say, hey, there's this detail over here and there's this interview over there. And so it could have gotten into this heavy debate and discussion, which could have been an interesting group as well.

Wow.

So totally different model, but interesting nonetheless.

Yeah, well, maybe in the future.

Maybe that's next season two.

Yeah, yeah, it could be. And I think the people that engage with the podcast are open minded. The ones that are that don't like the topic or disagree with what I'm saying probably shut it off after the first.

Don't even listen.

Yeah, they won't listen. Yeah.

And so, you know, monetization. Everyone always wants to know what some of the best ways to monetize their show is. And you know, sponsorship, book sales, you know, what is your thought when you did this? Because you put about a lot of time and money into the production value of it. So what was your real thought or goal? And you may not have achieved it, but what was that about the monetization side of this?

It was not as big a concern for me just because I was in a unique situation at the time. I was still working and I wasn't thinking that way. I was doing this because I thought it was important information to get out. But at the same time, I have two production companies I'm working with who need financially. There has to be some profitability other for it to make sense because they have lots of projects going on. And for that reason the financial model was both advertising and also the, the $33 bonus, 60 hours of interviews on my website. So it's a multi pronged monetization. There's the subscription for one time, $33 payment. And then we do have two ads currently in some of the episodes and we have space for more. So a bunch of times in the show we'll say, we'll be right back after this.

And then there's no this sometimes there's.

No this sometimes there, there was an episode.

Right.

An ad. So it's there. And the way the ad market works, I haven't been as close to this. It's based on number of downloads and if there's a high concentration of downloads, then there's a higher likelihood of getting an advertiser to put something in.

Yeah. You know, and that, to be frank with you, I think that might be your miss because the production Companies are used to that broadcasting model of it. But in your particular case, I think your audience are highly active and interested in consuming more or they wouldn't go through it like they, as you put it, they kind of give up after episode one, if they even make it all the way through. So they're highly engaged, highly interested in learning more and getting more and going further into it. So it might have needed to have a different sponsorship model. And that's where we look at these alternative ways to monetize a show. And this is not that common in terms of the way that most of the broadcasting companies or the production companies look at it. And it just is the way it is. So you don't get advice to set your show up for success from doing that alternative model as easily. Now you still have your, you know, your great throws to the premium content and as you get more and more listeners who are of that, they're more likely to start to convert over time, especially as, you know, as we start to understand who's in that 50 interview, you know, circle of that. And maybe that's what you should do, maybe that's what you should start doing is inserting commercials for those interviews.

Use. It's something, it's, it's available to us because we left in that open ended break and part of the process for me was giving up control to the production companies. That's what I knew I was signing up for in exchange for having a highly curated, highly edited type podcast. There are certain things that the producers have to do, including advertising models and monetization models and I. And that's how they've typically worked is ads within the show.

Yeah, so it's super typical. But you know, so this is interesting. So now that you went through all that effort and your business model's shifting a little bit as you kind of referred to. And although I haven't gotten to the end of the end to upside down living, I have a feeling that's what it's going to tell me at the end as to what you're doing now. And so, you know, are you thinking that, you know, this was worth it and maybe you will do something again like this?

I think it was definitely worth it. I think it was worth it in that it's, it summarizes a lot of the ideas that I've been researching for a long time and it's in one place and it has lots of different voices. So. And we got great production companies. I'm happy with that in terms of next steps and whether we would do things differently for something in the future. Future. I'm open. We don't have specific plans for another podcast or for another book, for me, at least. I left my firm, actually, right before COVID hit. I didn't, of course, know this was going to happen, but it coincided in an interesting way. And I wanted to give myself space because I went. I've just been kind of working nonstop and then was writing books and doing a podcast while working and wanted to give myself the time to just breathe a little bit and see what's next. And I'm still in that phase. I don't know exactly what's next and just want to wait for what I feel passionately drawn towards.

Interesting. Well, and, you know, doing things like reaching out there and connecting, that all worked in your favor. So I actually want to touch on that because I think that, you know, based on the topic of consciousness, I think we were meant to be connected here. And the funny part about the story, so I touched on it briefly that Lauren Powers, who is one of the podcast interviews that I did, I did about a month before yours here, and Lauren was on the show, and she's telling a story about a listener who listened to her and then wrote a, like, sitting back thinking to myself, that sounds eerily similar to the start of Mark's book that I read. And that the story he talked about listening to a podcaster who I know was in the consciousness space. And so the whole connection in my brain went off that I knew who she was talking about. And so I said, lauren, would you tell us who that listener was? And she said, your name? And I was like, I knew it. Like, so that's so interesting how that comes together, though, and that at this moment in time, you also needed to, you know, you need to reconnect and reach out about a new book. And here I am, am with an opportunity for you to be featured as well. So, you know, those type of connections, I don't believe that they just happen.

Yeah, well, we can't prove it, but I tend to agree with you that it seems a little amazing probabilistically that that would happen. But it also shows the power of podcasts that Laura. Many of the episodes I listened to of her podcast in 2016 were interviews she did in 2011.

Right.

That led to where we are right now, having this conversation. It inspired me, you know, through lots of other chains of events, to do my own podcast, which who knows who's going to hear? But I think anyone who's thinking about doing A podcast, it could be inspiration because you just never know what impact it will have.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I mean, that's the thing is, though, is that for. You can start to see the impact, though, of podcasts and books and media in general having on our consciousness, right? Because for me to be able to pull out the connection to that story when I've interviewed literally thousands of people so over the last six years, that there's just, you know, the chance that you left that big an impact on it, her story. And I went, I've heard this before. That's a real, you know, that says that there was an impact that was left by what the story you told, and by the way, she said it as well. So you had an impact on her just by reaching out back to her. So that's really where I think the true power of the podcast community, you know, the dynamic between the listeners and the hosts, where we're really getting into an interesting place of that relationship building and that higher consciousness.

And then, interestingly, I was interviewed on Laura's show, and she was interviewed on my podcast. She's featured as well.

What advice do you have for other authors out there? Because there are a lot of authors thinking about this, thinking about what you were advised at the very beginning that you touched on, which was that you need a platform, right? You need an audience, that you need to have this in order to successfully launch a book. What is your advice to them about starting a podcast?

Well, my advice would be for people to ask themselves a question, both for the podcast and for a book, is, why am I doing this? What do I hope to achieve from this? And for me in both cases is I thought there was important information that was out there in the world, but it was kind of spread out and scattered, and I wanted to bring it together in one place and create a context so that people could understand things that might seem to be disconnected and hopefully have a positive impact. And then after creating that, I wanted it to get to as many people as possible so that those who are interested can engage. But I think part of the challenge of being a content creator is that we don't know who we're going to impact, and we also don't know when we impact someone. So the number of people that I've heard from, relative to the number of people that have consumed my content, it's a low percentage. So it's hard. It's hard to know sometimes. And I think for anyone who hasn't done this before, just to be ready for that, that you're not necessarily going to know what the impact is. So it has to be about what you. Whether or not you feel good about what you did. I think that's first, that's the highest priority, and that's the best you can do.

Well, you know, I think that's so true. And I was talking with Shane Snow, an author that I admire. His book Smart Cuts is one of my favorites and one of my all time on my all time bestseller best list personally. And when I interviewed him, he said that he had an interesting phenomena start to happen when Kindle books came out and that he could see the passages that were highlighted. And so all of a sudden he had some insight into what was resonating with people prior to. Even as an author like you, very few people still reached out to you and let you know they were touched by your work.

That's right. And very few people leave reviews on a relative basis compared to the number of people that read a book or download the podcast. That's hard because it's like you put something out and then you want the immediate feedback almost. It's like. And then it doesn't work.

And it doesn't work like that.

It doesn't work like that.

So having some patience is required in both authorship and podcast hosting.

Patience, Patience, definitely. But being sure that you're happy with yourself, that's the first step. Because if you do the best that you could do, that's it. And then whatever happens, sometimes beyond the person's control.

Well, Mark, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us in podcasting and I'll make sure that everybody knows how to reach you.

Okay, thanks for having me.

So I'm sure you found that quite enlightening and interesting and a different view of it. And of course, course, not everyone is ready to put that amount of work into a show where you're really doing that heavy scripting and that highly edited and you're spending hours and hours on the audio that you create. Some of us like to do this just off the cuff, right, and do the interview processes and build that in. But remember that this is all a part of that why that Mark talked about, right? That why am I doing this? And then what fits that why you know, the format has to follow, why you're doing this, how the listeners are going to receive that, and the strategy around that is critically important. So the fact that he spent so much time thinking this through, working with producers, figuring this out and developing it into a format that is really going to enhance that is why its listenership is way up. So he's being really modest here in that he wasn't really telling you how many listeners he had. Has over 70,000 listeners on the eight episodes already. So, you know, considering how short, how few episodes he has, that's a great set of download numbers. So he's done really, really well with this show and it's only going to increase over time as more people search for this topic, as this topic is becoming more and more mainstream, as other shows are being built around various aspects of the topic, whether, whether it's afterlife experiences and they'll reference maybe his show. And so as those mentions and as those increases and as that organic sharing grow, it's going to create quite the network that is going to still continue to boost a show even after you've recorded it, done it, and put it out there like a series. So it's not always necessary to continue to create content unless that's a part of your business plan. And right now, Mark's in transition. He doesn't really know what that is. And until he does, I agree with him. He should sit back and wait and then make a decision about whether or not podcasting's or another book or what might be next for him and what might be that to meet that why of why he's gonna do that. So I love that advice from Mark and I really appreciate, I appreciate him being brave to come on the show because, you know, you're talking about this and, and it's a really interesting subject and it's not in your normal area of expertise and he is always so scripted and researched and all of that. And we asked him to come in and talk off the cuff. So appreciate Mark for that as well. So, Mark Gober, where's my Mind Podcast? You definitely want to check it out. Really interesting show. Really thought for provoking topics as well. I have to tell you, like, this is not one I was serious about that. You cannot podfast this show and believe me, I tried, but you cannot do it. You will have to re listen. So one of those shows that's just very different in our school of how we look at different shows and different structures and different reasons why we're out there podcasting. So as always, you'll be able to find Marc, all of his books and everything about his programs and his show. You'll be able to find that all@thebingefactor.com and I'll be here next time with another show for you. So also don't forget to check out the Laura Powers episode, the Healing Powers Podcast so that you're able to hear that connection that I made when I made the connection to the fact that we both knew Marco over. So always an interesting trade off to find these deep connections and networks in what we do. It's one of the powers of this podcast I absolutely love is that connection and that networking. It is what I get the most out of on my show. It's my number one reason for doing it. So I thank Mark for making that connection for me, Laura and Adam as well. And so don't forget to check out all those shows by going to the blog post for this episode at the Binge Podcast. I'll be back next time with another bingeable podcast host here on the Binge Factor.

You've been listening to the Binge Factor Podcast. For more information on podcasting and video casting success tips and tactics, please go to thebingefactor.com and be sure to listen to our other show for podcasters called Feed you'd Brand. If you'd like to be interviewed on this show as well as featured in Tracy's column, please go to thebingefactor.com guest and apply.