Why Understanding How People Think Is The Key To Your Podcast Success With ST Rappaport Of LifePix University

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 bingeable factor. Now let's join Tracy as she explores how to rise above all the digital noise with the Binge Factor.

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Binge Factor. I'm Tracy Hazzard and I have the host of Life Picks University, St. Rapaport here. And there's nothing I actually like talking better than about the brain and cognitive functions. And I know you're probably going like, Tracy, that's the weirdest thing ever. But I love to think about the way people think. What makes them do something, what makes you binge on podcasts? It's exactly what I'm doing here is diving in to understand behaviors and how your brain works to make that happen. So St Rapoport has really made a really great study of this and her show has really shifted over time with over 380 episodes as of the time I recorded it. But she's really shifted the show in the last, I'm gonna say 35 to 40 of them. And so really different. More solos, lots more response from clients that made her do that. So we're gonna be looking at that. So if you're checking her out, you might see, oh wow, there's not 380. She has tons of em. They're just in the, in the archive catalog. But her current one, she's kind of narrowed it down so that you can be really concise with where she is now. And I think that's an interesting thing we're going to dive into when I talk to her on this show. So let's hear a little bit more about ST and Life Picks. ST Is a brain coach who works with high achieving entrepreneurs to unleash their potential via peak brain performance. ST assists them to rewire their brain so they can remove overwhelm, get more done in less time, and take their business to the next level. And that's exactly what she hopes she'll do on the podcast LifePicks University. So let's check out the show and hear what St. Rapoport has to say about the brain and how you think.

St. I'm so excited to talk with you. LifePicks University. I thought that is kind of an unusual name for a show. I mean it sounds like the name of a course and the same name of a program. And it is in a way, because it's the name of your program, but it's kind of exactly how your show goes. It's like a masterclass every time you listen. So I think it fits you.

Oh, thank you, Tracy. It wasn't like there's a name that evolved. It doesn't really have a meaning anymore, but it still like goes with the brand. And that way people find it easily. People understand things easily. And for branding purposes, it just made the most sense.

It made the most sense for you. Yeah. So you really have. And I gonna dive into this first before we talk about like, let me just start a podcast because I need people to understand they may only see like 30 to 50 by the time this airs. Right. 50 episodes or so of your show in the feed, but it says episode 380 or something like that. So you've been doing this actually a while, but you have carefully curated a smaller library. Why do you decide to do this? Why are you taking away some of your episodes? Yes.

Originally when I started, the podcast was on a completely different topic. It was on marriage. I am not an expert marriage. So I would interview experts and it was a much more interview typical style show. Now during that process of trying to grow the show, I spoke to John Lee Dumas from Entrepreneurs Empire and he told me, he's like, you need to put out more episodes. So what you have to do is listen to a guest even if you're not the expert in the next show. Right after the next day, pull out your three takeaways and record a short five minute episode of your three takeaways. And then that way you'll start looking like an expert, even if you're not an expert and in the marriage field. And so that is what I did. Now the response I got from those short episodes were crazy. Everyone was telling me they wished that the social like on the Spotify or Apple podcast, they could just like skip all the interviews and they could just do the short ones because they liked the perspective. So I knew that I had to switch something up. And that's what I did. Switch something up. And then after when I switched it and it was a completely different topic and we changed everything and there's that whole transformation that went into there. I was telling everybody, start from episode 350, start from episode 350 because you're gonna not be interested in things before. So I literally decided to take everything off. Everybody starts from 3:50 you can find the old ones if you want on YouTube, but they're not there, just so there's less confusion.

Well, you know what? I think this is such an interesting conundrum for a lot of podcasters out there. So that's why I wanted to talk about this at first. It's like a lot of us shift our shows over time, and there's a real big choice about whether or not we want to start a brand new show or. Or keep going in the same feed that we're in. And there's a power to it because you built up an audience, you built up listener numbers, you built all that up. And if you start again, you start fresh with none of that. So staying where you were was a really smart move. And recognizing that you had people who really wanted that solo show is an aha that a lot of podcasters get. But I would say they don't get that in the first year. That is very rare that someone would hear that. You'd have to already be a thought leader in an ex for someone to say, I really like your solo shows. I wish I could skip to only them. And that is, I hear it from a lot of podcasters. And so I have a couple podcasters right now who are well over 500 episodes, and they finally decided to stop taking interviews at this point. But if they had done this earlier, they might not have grown the audience to the level that they needed it, and they might not have grown in themselves in the way that they handle their and their own expertise and where they needed to be without that. So that journey of learning was really critically important for you, and I guarantee you, it makes your show so much better.

Yeah, totally. And even for me, like, it happened a couple of years in, not in, like the first year or so. Right. And it was the process to decide, like you said, are we skipping or removing? It was actually decided because we didn't just switch topics. It was a very slow process. So we went from marriage to what I now speak about, like the thinking skills and cognitive functions and mixed in between, until eventually it became just what I spoke about. So the listeners were already listening to it like it made sense. They already into it, but when new people come in, they would just get confused. You know how, like, when you find a new podcast, first listen to the new ones, and then when you like it, you go all the way back to the old ones to like, okay.

Do you hear what she's saying? This is my description of what the binge listeners do. I told you this I don't know how many times on this show, that's what we do. We go to the most recent, we listen to a few, and then we go, this sounds really intriguing. And then we go back to the beginning and we listen all the way through. Well, and that's, I think, the one thing that is really. I don't want to say it's not frustrating, but it's like, I think it needs an explanation. And I'm so glad you put that. You have an episode, 3:49, and 3:49 is the description of the transition to this new phase of it. And I'm so glad you did that, because when you don't explain it, then I'm looking for the beginning, and I'm frustrated because I can't find. Find the beginning, and I know I want to go to the beginning, and so it makes it confusing for me. But you put that transition episode in there, and I think that's so critically important.

Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. So let's talk about this shift. So your business has shifted over time, and as you were talking, your speaking has shifted over time. It's actually, I think, gotten broader, not narrower, which is unusual. A lot of times they get narrower.

Yet broader in a way that it's related to more people. And the topic I talk about is related to many aspects of life, but it's in a very specialized type of field that I work in.

Let's tell the audience all about that part. Yeah.

So I'm a brain coach. I work with people to help them improve their thinking skills. Because thinking is not one big thing. Thinking is actually made up of 28 parts called cognitive functions. And naturally, we all have stronger ones and weaker ones. The thing is, sometimes those weaker ones get in our way, and it makes it challenging for us to do what we want to do. So all we gotta do is improve those thinking skills, and our life becomes easier.

I love that idea. Because what you're really doing with life picks university, and it's picks with an X at the end. For those of you that are listening and aren't seeing this on your app, it's P I. X. And so when you think about this, there's so much that you could dive in. There's so many areas of it. You talk about the 28 different ones. You talk about the groupings of them, the times at which you use them, the ways at which you use. There's so much variety in what you can talk about here. But this is a perfect kind of area for a podcast because it's not something you could just do in your course. So they can take their course, get the basics, get down and it's going to encourage people to go to it. But real life applications of things, how I want to use it, what's happening in the world and when does this kick in? There's so many different things for you to talk about that are ideal, that keep me engaged, using, remembering and re engaging back into my lessons and my course with you. And I think that what you built here is a really great nurture environment. So my question for you is, do you find that it benefits your clients more than it does someone new?

It's interesting because of the work I do takes a lot of education because before a person will actually sign up to work with me, they need to consume a lot of content. I mean, I don't know, I'm not like an expert in this field of how much content someone needs to consume before they actually buy from you. But just from like conversations with other experts, I think it's a lot more than what usually people do. So because it's a podcast, they could listen to much more, take much more in before they're ready to buy versus just like seeing a post on Instagram or watching a short TikTok. And this will really give them a lot of knowledge. They feel they get the value right away. And then they're like, okay, now I'm ready to work with you.

And you have a flow through. And so I want to describe your flow through here. So you have a flow through where you have an assessment, a quiz for some of you, Some of you might have a quiz on yours, it's called an assessment on yours, where you're coming in and you're doing sort of your cognitive style assessment. I explain a little bit about what that is.

Yes. So it's the assessment of the 28 cognitive functions, the 28 thinking skills. Now we all have them. Some of them are just weaker and some of them are stronger. So on the assessment you would see like it goes on a scale from 1 to 5. And then you could compare which ones are stronger, which ones are weaker, which ones you need to work on first, et cetera.

And so this is what I think ST does brilliantly and the podcast does so brilliantly is that she's talking to you like you have a sense of where you are in this. So she's already talking like you've taken the assessment. So as you're going through it, you're like, but I don't know where I Am I really need to take that assessment? And so, like, it's great. Is there, like, you feel left out in a good way, like, it's driving you to take that assessment? So I'm really curious to see, do you track specifically the listeners go through to the assessment as opposed to, like, when you give a speaking engagement and they go through an assessment.

It's interesting because it's not the only place I promote the assessment. So many times people first take the assessment and then they go to the podcast to get more knowledge. Like, okay, so because assessment doesn't tell you now how to improve it. Like, I can't go through all the 28. Like, you're just going to be overwhelmed instead by listening to, like, short episodes, you could actually apply it. I don't know if there's especially more. I would say it's like, pretty equal. But most definitely, if someone comes to the podcast, like, I've got a lot of that. People came to the podcast, they heard on a different podcast, they come to the podcast and then they're like, okay, I need to take this assessment and I get to stick it in everywhere. Not without it being too promotional. Like, it just makes sense. Like, if you're going to want to understand this better than take this as map.

Well, I think if there's anything that I could recommend you to do is to actually create a specific landing page that's just for the podcast listeners so that you can track it separately. Because I think that's really powerful. Because eventually when they're in your customer management database, whatever you use for your CRM, you would know where they came from and you would know. Maybe you could go and ask them the question, like, how many podcast episodes did you listen to before you took it? You'd be able to go back and ask them those questions and help yourself, refine your marketing later. Because I think you have probably are getting a high conversion rate on that. I think because as a listener, I had no idea what I was coming into. I mean, we met where I was like, this sounds like fun. I'd love to talk about brain stuff. It intrigues me. This will be a fun conversation, but I didn't have a sense of like, I was coming to you because I wanted to listen to this already. And before I was even done with the first episode, I was like, I'm taking the assessment. Like, I want to know where I am. So I think you must get a high conversion rate on those that haven't taken it already.

Yeah, I know. I get a hard Conversion rate. I just don't have the number, so.

I'm going to have to go.

Great. That landing page.

Get a special landing page, like a.

Bitly link or something.

Yeah. Even if you're using a bitly link, you're just tracking how many people click through that to then how many people fill out the assessment. You're at least having a sense of that. Or in your assessment, one of the questions are, where did you come from? And you just have them even say, podcast is one of the five choices or something that you have there. At least you're tracking it that way because I think long term you're going to see that that's really high. And I know on my end, and I hear this from a lot of other podcasters, that the conversion rate to clients is faster when someone's come through the podcast, right?

Oh, yeah, 100%.

I see you nodding away as we're talking here. Yeah. So you know that when they've already listened here, the touch points are less. You have to have less conversations with them. It's easier. So you already know that. So you do want to track it.

Yeah, totally.

You have a goal of 1 million listeners by the year 2025, and I love that goal. I think it's really the power of the impact you want to have. It's not about a vanity piece at this stage. It was a vanity piece. You'd say 2023, like, you'd make it, you'd accelerate it. And that's how I know it's not a vanity piece for you. This is the impact you want to see rolling and having by 2025. And I think that's admirable that you had that goal and you put it right out there for your listeners.

Yeah, so I had it, like, pretty early on in starting the podcast, but in the beginning, like I said, I didn't put it out so much. And I was like, what am I trying to hide? Like, if I want people to really know about this, like, that's why I'm doing it, because I want more people to know about cognitive functions to be like an everyday word. Everyone should know what we're talking about because we can understand ourselves better, we can understand other people better, then I can do this by myself. Like, I need the listeners to help me. I need people to be able to do this. So when it becomes not my goal, but our goal, how can we together get to 1 million? Then it works really well.

I like that. So let's talk about that start, because you just mentioned it let's talk about why did you think that starting a podcast was really going to serve your goals?

Yeah. So like I mentioned earlier, my original reason for starting the podcast was because at that point my business was a little bit different. I was working with the cognitive functions, but I was also combining it with like photography and a few other methods that eventually picks.

Now that picks part is making sense, right?

Yes. And eventually, like it got fine tuned to what I do now. But at that point, like I said, I wasn't the marriage expert and I found most of my clients were couples who needed additional help in the marriage field. So I was like, how else can I serve my clients without pretending to talk about something that I'm not an expert in? And so that's how it started. I found it fascinating for myself because just in general, I love relationships and people and I just loved it. And it evolved to what it came to today.

So do you think you're gonna miss asking questions and interviewing people?

I do sometimes. And sometimes I still do it for my YouTube channel. Like I'll do them for YouTube channel people, like a mix up sometimes. But because like you mentioned earlier, the podcast is such a specific format, I won't just stick in an interview now because I think it would like throw.

People off, would confuse people. This binge factor developed out of feed your brand. So feed your brand was our podcast first. It was tips and tools and resources for podcasters and we would do interviews of interesting people. And then I decided to do a couple of interviews of podcasters just in general to find out what they were doing and how they were working for my own purposes so that I could learn from them. And people liked them so much, but they muddied the show. So I spun it off. And that's like a case where you might want to split.

Right.

And that's what we found worked for us. It's a whole lot more work because you got like two shows, you're running two sets of listeners, like, it's different, but listeners who want the interviews, who want the stories, who want that are listening to the binge factor, and listeners who want to know how to do something, they're listening over to feed your brand. So it's working because the personalities are very different. Their cognitive functions are different, their modalities of learning are different.

Yeah, exactly. So I guess technically you could say the fact that just putting it on YouTube is a different channel.

Well, it is. It's a different model and. Exactly, you're getting that anyway, so let's Talk a little bit about our three things and when you were getting guests and shifting out of that, now you have the choice of how do I decide what my topic should be for this week instead of who should be my guest for this week. So you have a different choice. So that's what I really want to ask you. Like, what goes into your thinking and how are you developing this? Because I hear from a lot of podcasters that it's daunting to figure out how to fill their content, how to think about what that next topic is going to be. How do you do it?

Yeah, so I actually plan and record my content three to four or five months in advance. When it's just me. I like in general to batch whatever I'm doing. So takes much faster. Spend two weeks in the next four months, I am done with it. I am working really hard for two weeks, but it's worth it.

No, that's admirable. I find so few people who batch record at that kind of pace. That's amazing. So good for you. Yeah.

So in the time in between where I don't have like the pressure, oh, I have to put out an episode right now I am looking like my eyes, my ears are open the whole time. What are clients? What are listeners? What are people saying? What are they interested in? And I just like keep it in like a running list of like brainstorming things, dump it all on there. And then when it does come to plan, then I could pick and decide what's coming up, what events are happening, what things they're doing, how it's related to. Like, I have already like a hundred ideas and I could just decide which ones I want to do.

Yeah. And I'm sure you don't find a shortage of ideas, I bet. No, that list is probably way bigger than you're going to record in a two week period.

Yeah, sometimes I'm like, okay, I want to like record like, I just want to put out five episodes every day if I'm like the amount of work that goes into it.

So are you doing all your episodes video as well?

Yeah, video as well.

Even though they're not interviews, you're still doing that?

Yeah, I use it a lot afterwards also for repurposing. So one of my tools to help me grow the podcast is short form video.

Yeah, that's really great. I think that's really powerful with the any of that brain content. It's going to hit well if somebody is also viewing it. So. Okay, well then let's talk about listeners. You said that a lot of your clients listen to the show. People who come through the assessment. Are you actively really marketing the podcast into that community group and what are you doing in that side of it to help grow engagement into the show?

Yeah. So there's different aspects. There's people who don't know this show at all, people who don't know the show at all. I do things like going on other podcasts, like social media, like TikTok. Like, I do a lot of TikTok. Like, those go to people who don't know at all about the show. So that's for people who don't know at all, people who know already about the show. There's the other social media content that's specifically, like getting them to the show or email lists, things like that. Actual clients, I don't specifically promote it to them so much more. What I do is if there's a specific thing that I need to work on, I will send them to a showbot to a specific episode. Because my clients, they don't have any, like, prerecorded courses or things like that. All my clients I work with, like, in person. Because everything's, like, customized based on what their cognitive functions are. So right away, it's really easy to me for. To say, okay, like, listen to episode three 73. That's going to help you.

This is something that I think is really, if you've discovered this problem, you numbered your episodes and now you don't have all those numbers in the episodes. So it confuses the numbers. Like when you look at it on Apple, it says 33, and it's really 3:80. And there's a cognitive dissonance on that. Actually, that happens for some of us, like, meticulous numbers people. So that's a difficult place. But at the same time, when you're using it as a reference point for clients, that becomes critically important. So if I can make a suggestion to you.

Yes.

I'd love to put the episode numbers at the end of your title instead of at the beginning.

Okay.

So that the numbers aren't side by side confusing.

My question is. But I'm just, like, curious, because this is a new thing. You know how, like, it doesn't show the whole title if it's a long title. So how are they going to see the number? Like, they're going to have to click through every single one? No.

So what happens is, is that they search. They use the search function.

Okay. Using the search. Right.

We use the showcaster at potatoes. That's what Our clients and everyone here listens to have heard me talk about before. The showcaster has a search function and that helps with that. So if your Showcase player doesn't have a search function, find another one. Like, there are lots of free tools and lots of other ones out there, but use one that has a search function in it. So that's really critically important on your blogs, if you've got blogs, or if you've got every kind of short format that referencing it on your website. So if you've ever seen it where you do like sort of a short comment and then a colon and then something else after it, you could put it at the end, right before the colon. And so, like, that's also another spot you could do it. But when you put the numbers right next to each other, that's what creates this, like, confusion to people. And it really is hard because it happens to all of us. At some point, there'll be a guest we want to purge from our system. There will be an episode you want to delete, and you delete it. And now all your numbers are off. And what are you going to do? Go through and renumber everything. When you've got 380 shows, you're not going to do it. So, like, and in your case, don't go back and fix them, Just go forward and fix them. Do it differently going forward. Like, I never recommended somebody, like, go back and fix it.

It's like, yeah, like, people get to see the transformation, right?

Yeah, it's like, it's okay. And as long as you have your explanation episode, which is really important, which you did, like, they can go back and listen to that. And a real listener will do that. A real binge listener will do that. But yeah, that's the only thing I say is because sometimes it's like, where is everything else? And they can't get their answers. And then they're distracted. And we don't want them distracted. We want them doing what you want them to do. So that's my recommendation for you.

Thank you.

You're welcome. So let's talk about conversion. Because you were nodding so heavily when I was saying about how you're very sure that you have clients who come to you with less conversations. So where are you seeing the biggest return on investment from the podcast?

Yes. So most definitely, like, clients who, before they show, come up, like, before we have a call, because all my things are higher. And so, like, I talked to everyone before to, like, select them. We do in groups, whatever. And the clients who are Eager to do it, like they actually want to do it. They know how the transformation is going to happen in their lives. All listened to multiple episodes first because the episodes are not just educational, they're also give you like a little transformation that you can have today by you applying some of the things that you did. So it's not like a lot of fluff or a lot of like not sureing what to do or it's like actually listening, understanding how it's going to make a difference and then applying it to their lives. Then when they come, they're like, okay, I know this works.

Like, I've already already gotten success.

Exactly, exactly. So. So I'd say like the people who convert really fast, really easily, like 90 plus percent of people, like they've all listened to the episodes before. And I heard recently someone was saying if you know what your success clients do, like force people so cool to do it. So like I'm thinking about like adding to the application. Like if you didn't listen to this episode, like you have to listen to episodes 4, 5, 6 to make people get that first. So that way they actually have that transformation first.

That's great. I love that. I think that that's understanding how someone can be successful and using our podcast to narrow that focus to the most successful to come through when they've taken action, when they've listened, when they do. They're going to have better outcomes. Like, there's just no question about it. I know that if someone shows up on my coaching calls, they have higher success rates, they have higher numbers on their show, better conversion rates, they last longer as clients for me. So like every success metric measurable happens when they show up on a coaching call. But I can't make you show, right? Yeah, I can't make you show. But I know if you do, it's worth my time because you are going to be successful with it. It's just proven right.

It's not just worth your time, it's also worth their time. It's not like you're coming up for a show and like coming up to the call and like whatever.

Yeah, exactly. It's like show up because it's my requirement. It's not. It's your requirement for success. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Well, I want to share your binge factor with everyone else because if you haven't gotten it already, this is the thing. When you listen to ST show, when you listen to Life Picks University, you are jumping in to a class mid semester and that is what makes you Want to go and listen to every single episode she has. It makes you want to go back to the beginning because she doesn't coddle you. She tells you what we're talking about today. That's it. We've talked about this in the past. Go to another episode. Go take the assessment, Find out where you are. She's getting you right in the middle of action and encouraging you to take even more. And that's why people binge listen.

Oh, yeah. I don't like the fluff for this stuff. Like, they're all super short, as you.

Saw, but I think it fits your audience. So, I mean, look, cognitive functions and I've written enough articles for INC Magazine. They love to write about the brain. When I was writing for INC Magazine, if I wrote about the brain two, three times a month, it wouldn't be shocking. They love that. So people love to read about that. People love to listen to it, they love to hear, to watch it. Like, they love that kind of thing. But too much is too much. You can't absorb that much.

Yeah, totally. It was part of the process. Evolution of the process, like figuring out what's the sweet spot for people for that it's enough information without it overwhelming them.

Without it overwhelming them. Exactly. Now let's talk a little bit about. Because you are an expert in cognitive functions here and this is what you do. What works so well with podcast listening that is really hitting into our ability to trust someone, want more from them, absorb what they're saying, like what's in the action there.

Yeah, I think it has to do a lot with the way that when you're listening to podcasts. Right. You feel like you're having a conversation with the person. So either the podcast dose is really good in bringing you into the conversation or you get a really cool perspective of like being the fly in the wool. But it's cool because you don't usually get to have that in every day. So you feel like you know the person really well. They could be doing so called bad thing. Not really bad, but like they could.

Be manipulating it is what you're saying, right? A little bit of that or a.

Little bit of have like habits that you don't really like, but because you know them on a more intimate level, you're more willing to be forgiving, like people that you know well, your friends, your family who do these weird things. You don't think that they're weird because you know more about them versus if you see a random person on the street doing it, then you're like, oh my gosh, that's weird. Like, why is that person doing it? You actually understand them from a different perspective. And there's like that intimacy.

It's that intimacy, right? That's what you're saying. Yeah. And I think at the end of the day, I know you said you moved away from marriage, but this is really about relationship building. And that's what podcasting does so well, is that when we're tapping into those cognitive functions, we're doing a better job of building relationship with someone over time, whether it's years of marriage or whatever. So as we're recording this, my anniversary is actually tomorrow, 31 years.

Happy anniversary. Wow.

Tom, who's my co host on the feed your brand. We have our 31st anniversary tomorrow as we record this and we were saying, like, it's almost like a shorthand. That's what happens when you have a long term relationship. Someone. And when you crash course, binge listen to someone, you get that intimacy level faster.

Yeah. Literally. What do they say? Build relationships, those deep connecting conversations. And you get that with the podcast.

Yeah. And so I find that's the funniest part. And honestly my favorite part. Like, I love it when somebody comes up to me and says, oh, I've been binge listening to your show and they dive into something and I, I'm not caught up on the relationship obviously, but they are. I find that's just so awesome. Like, it feels like really amazing on my end. But how do you feel about that when people come up to you and you're like, I've been listening to your show.

Yeah, it's a bit interesting, like conversation, because they know you really well or from whatever side you want to show on the podcast, but they know you and you don't know them because it's only a one way conversation.

You gotta catch up. Right?

Yeah, exactly. Right. But without it being like, oh, you're a stranger. No, like I actually hear about you and I've been doing this for you and I actually want to see you like in real life, how it's happening.

Okay, so I haven't taken the assessment yet. All of you. I'm gonna take it before I do the close out of this conversation. So before I do my outro for all of you who are listen, listening in, make sure to tune in because I will have taken the assessment. But what I want to know before is, is there a cognitive function that helps me build that intimacy faster on my side? Is there one of those that I can work on so I can jump into getting to know them better faster. Yes.

So actually, one of the cognitive functions is called considering another perspective. One of the easy ones to understand, and my favorite way to get better at this is, is to think of the movie playing in your head. When we are having a conversation with someone, automatically, without even realizing we are playing a movie of what they are saying and processing it, how we view the world when another person is talking for just that moment, put your movie on pause, watch their movie, what's going on in their brain, and then as soon as you respond, you could go back and play your own movie. But just while they're talking, see it, like, stand in their shoes, watch their movie, and you'll get a whole different perspective that you didn't get before.

Well, and that's what I hope we do here on the vinge vector is get a perspective on how you podcast, what you do, how things work. So before we go here, I want to make sure that we hit on that. What is it that you found to be one of the most challenging parts of podcasting? And you kind of alluded to this because you were saying it's a lot of work. So where do you put that work in, and where do you find that it's challenging for you?

Yeah, I think when I started doing solo episodes by myself, that's where all of a sudden I got the big challenge. Like, I love talking to people. I love interviewing people, asking people what I'm curious about. I like, not so much to prepare. Obviously, I would like prepare about them before, but a lot of it, I would just wait to hear on the podcast because I want to hear, and I would ask them and record it. When I'm doing it by myself, you don't have the energy of the other person. You don't have anyone asking you questions. You have to really come prepared. Especially with the type of podcast that I do with, like, giving you exercises and with explaining how your brain works, there's a lot of more preparation that goes on in between and that shift from just being able to show up versus having to come fully prepared.

But you're not scripting.

Not scripting, like, word for word, but you're outlining. Yes, exactly.

I can tell the difference. I can clearly tell when somebody is reading something versus, like, doing it off the cuff or in that kind of model, and you definitely aren't reading it. There's no way that I was like, there's no way she's reading that. But an outline makes sense now. Yeah, I think that's such a good point, though, that the solo shows have a different energy. They're really not as easy to do. It's why I like that I have a co host on mine because we feed off of each other's energy, and it really helps. And I feel like I'm lecturing, like, on the other side of that, so it's not my favorite place to be. Like, I don't want to be a teacher. It's just not my thing. So I feel like that. So it gets a little too heavy in coaching if we don't have each other to kind of bounce that off of. So energy is hard, right?

Yeah. But keep it up.

Keep it up. It's working for you. It's obviously working for you. So now that you've done this shift in your show, what's next for you?

Yes. Really focusing on now that I know very specifically what the audience like. Right. Like in the beginning, people would like this episode more, that type more, that topic more. So it was like, a little bit all over the place because I was trying to just really feel what people want at this point. I think I have a very good pulse on what type of content people like and what sort of topics people want, things like that. So really just expanding that because now I feel very proud of what it is like before. I was. I don't think the podcast didn't have value before, but now it is something that it's, like, amazing now. It really does deserve the binge fact there.

Yes. Well, you should be so, so proud of it. St I think you've built a beautiful show here that adds a lot of value to people's lives, is such a great support for your client base and such an attractor for new leads. I just don't see how it isn't going to continue to really build your business.

Oh, thank you. Thank you, Tracy.

Well, do you have any last piece of advice for the audience?

Well, I would just say to make sure to develop your growth mindset. I don't know if you ever spoke about that growth mindset by Carol Dweck, but there are challenging parts of podcasts, and some days it gets hard and some days it's easier. But when you have your growth mindset and you look at it more of a game and more of, like, it's okay to make mistakes and it's okay to fail because it's just part of the game, then it becomes a whole lot easier.

Thank you for sharing that, and I'm so glad you did that. It's funny Because I think a lot of us adults have gotten this new idea of growth mindset, but they're teaching it to my third grader. So our kids hopefully are not going to have this problem of understanding what that means.

Oh, yay. I love that.

Well, st, keep it up. We'll keep following you, and I can't wait to take your assessment and let you know how it goes.

Awesome. Thank you, Tracy.

As I mentioned on the show, this is something that fascinates me. It's something that we actually use in our business. Not quite the same program that ST is working with, but it's something that we have used to great success, both in hiring for our company, in how we evaluate and communicate with our customers, how we handle our sales. So these kinds of things are key to really getting you where you want to go. There's a lot holding you back that you may not even realize. Some of it may be the team you're working with, some of it may be your own cognitive blocks. Some of it may be challenges like tech problems and other things. But there's always a way to figure it out. When I really enjoyed testing out our program, diving in and kind of going through that quiz to really figure out where was I in the process. And I've had a lot more training than most, so I think that was an advantage. I really knew I'm at a different place in my career, and I'm at a different place in how I've studied and how I've reflected on myself and how I've improved myself and how much self development I've done. And so I think there's a really clear difference to the stage that I'm at. But I could really clearly see how someone going through and answering those questions would be sitting back, really being honest with yourself and saying, hmm, is this really something important? Because it's here and something I haven't thought about before, and maybe this is a key to my success. And that's where one of ST's episodes comes in. And so I could see as you're taking the quiz, you're going back and saying, I'm going to look for an episode about that. Go back, listen to an episode, and before you know it, you're on a phone call with st. And that's the brilliant model of this sort of coaching live on air. But I can't ask her the questions I want. There's a brilliance to that model, and ST's really driven it and made you feel like you're just along. You're right. In the middle of the program and you might as well get with it and start from the beginning. Or you might as well get with it and work directly with her. Great model for a podcast. Great model for a business. Really impressed by st, and I think you will be too. So go check it out LifePics with an X at the end University and check out the quiz and go take a look at your own cognitive functions and see how they're working for you or working against you. So if you want to reach ST and LifePicks University, come to the blog post for this episode@thebingefactor.com I'm Tracy Hazzard and I'm going to be back next time with another great podcaster bringing you insights in how you can become bingeable too.

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.