#24 Hitting 1K Downloads: What I've Learned and What’s Next

Welcome to the Uncommon Excellence podcast, and today is my first day posting, um, something to my podcast feed in a while. But one thing I've noticed is that I reached 1,000 downloads, over 1,000 downloads. I think it's, um, close to halfway to 1,100, but I have reached over 1,000 downloads for my podcast, and I just want to say I am very grateful and just thankful for everyone listening to the podcast, everyone that has listened to just even one episode. I'm just very thankful and grateful. And I'll be honest, like, I thought that was something to accomplish by the end of the year. Maybe I could hit it. And I've accomplished that. Now it's October, a couple months before the end of the year. And I'm just, again, very, very grateful. And I wanna make this as like an official episode because I think this is something that is a memorial, like it's a spot to landmark. It's a great landmark. And I'm just very thankful. I've been very busy over the last month and just wanna take some time right now to just observe and really look back because I know this is something I will look back on, but 1,000 downloads is truly incredible. Um, and I just really want to say thank you. Um, I couldn't do this without you guys. And, um, yeah, I, I appreciate it. I never in my like thoughts or dreams at all would I think that the year I started, um, I'd have 1,000 downloads. Um, and I'm looking to, I'm looking forward to so much more. One thing I want to go through, and I want to kind of go through a couple of things in this episode, just as a memorial, like 1,000 downloads episode. But one thing I wanted to go through is just kind of like top episodes, some of the top episodes of the year so far, just kind of my process, tools that I've built and things I've gotten into, and then just things that will be next after this episode. And then just, you know, a look on the next, you know, couple of months. So I want to go through the top episodes of this year. I have a list of the top 3, and surprisingly enough, The Almanac of Naval Ravikant Part 1 is number 1. So the first episode of Disneyland was in like, you know, just outperformed everything. And The Almanac of Naval Ravikant has just outperformed every single just episode I've ever put out. I think I've put out close to like 25, 26 episodes, but a lot of those, you know, a couple of those are uncommon moments. So official episodes, that, that is the top official. That's the top episode. 115 downloads out of the over 1,000 now that we have. Super thankful and really grateful for you guys. Thank you for listening to that. The next episode is Isidore Sharp, founder of the Four Seasons Hotel, part one. Truly incredible. Actually just has over 100 downloads and just incredibly thankful. One that has been up there a lot in a series that you guys really enjoyed was How to Make a Few Billion Dollars Part 1. That was a really good series. I noticed all these 3, the top performers did really, really well in terms of series, like How to Make a Few Billion Dollar series did really well collectively. Isidore Sharp, I did a ton of episodes. I think I did 5 episodes on Isidore and the founder of Four Seasons. You should go check that out if you haven't. There was an episode that's like really sad and still like when I think about it, it's really sad, but it was just a great series to record. The Almanac of Naval Ravikant, again, another great series. We have Brad Jacobs, How to Make a Few Billion Dollars. That's just over 100 as well. So we have some really, really good episodes and series. We have the Shackleton series. We have all these top series that you guys just love listening to. The interviews, Jonathan Jarecki interview is in the top 10 of all episodes. And just again, really appreciative. Could never have done this without you guys. 1,000 downloads and hopefully many more over the years. Um, but I just want to list some of these because, you know, you guys deserve to know. You're the listeners. You guys are the ones who make this thing possible. So Almanac of Naval Ravikant is number 1, uh, episode number 14, if anyone's paying attention to the numbers. Uh, episode number— or top episode number 2, um, is episode number 6, and, um, that's the Isidore Sharp, founder of Four Seasons Hotel. And then episode 4 is number 3 all-time downloads and all-time listened to. So that's How to Make a Few Billion Dollars, Brad Jacobs. If you haven't already, go check those out. Those are really, really good. Just episodes and really good series. I think I have like 2 parts on Brad Jacobs' book and then I think 2 or 3 parts on Naval. And I have a good amount of parts. I have like 5 parts on Isidore Sharps, as I said, truly incredible. I've— so this is just a little, you know, slight detour, but I have been obsessed about the Four Seasons Hotel ever since I read that book. And that book is absolutely incredible because you get to see what it's like to build a hotel, to build a culture. You're learning about a culture. You're learning about like one of the world's best hotel chains. You're learning about Isidore Sharp. His humble beginnings, you're learning just so much about his family, the man he is like, just the culture that he has put together. And it's one of the greatest books I've read on hotels. And this one of the only books, but one of the greatest books I've ever read on hotels. And I, based off of reading that book, I would argue that the Four Seasons Hotel is one of the best hotels in the world. That is personally, that is a hotel that I would stay at. Like, I would pick that almost over any other hotel in the world. And it is just based off of reading that book. I really highly recommend it. You got to go read it. It's a must read because everyone stays at hotels and this is like the luxury, the top of the top for hotels. So I really recommend reading that. You get to see what it's like to build a hotel. You can apply these lessons to your business, but also just your personal life. The, the whole quote, like, excellence is the capacity to take pain, was actually brought from this book. Incredible book. You have to read it. I— if you go to the episode, there's a link to the book. So go there to get the book. Truly incredible book and one of the best books I've read on the hotel industry. But another thing is that it is truly not only one of the best hotel books, but it's one of the best books I've read for the podcast. And it's just a book I keep coming back to. Isidore Sharp, Isidore Sharp. Like when people ask me questions about business, it's like, Isidore Sharp. He's just a great standard of excellence, his business, everything. So that is something I would go back and listen to, um, get the book if you haven't. But anyways, what I was talking about, the Four Seasons hotels— I've stayed at the Four— like, we went to, um, I went to Maui, and in Maui they have a Four Seasons hotel, and we would go there almost every day just to see it, um, because you get to read about it in the book and to actually see it in real life and be like, all right, this is what Isidore Sharp built, this is what he did. This is back in the '90s when they established it, they built it. Like, you can see the whole vision, and you just— it's beautiful there. If you ever get to go to any Four Seasons in the world, it is top-notch and top location, top luxury. They like— in, in that episode I mentioned a lot of things, but like they invented the idea of valet. Like the whole idea of valet, they just invented. They, they came up with so many different things. But again, go read that if you haven't. Um, listen to the episode first, uh, just You know, I do more detailed podcast episodes, so it's a little bit different than just an overview. So I would, you know, read the book, listen to the episodes, figure out if that's something you really like. And again, guys, thank you for listening to this. I'm just really grateful. Go listen to that if you have a chance. Another thing is I want to go into like how I do my, how I work on my processes. I know I answered this in a Q&A on my on a newsletter that I have. But one thing that I do in order to like just put this whole thing together is I really— I spend time reading the whole book and I'm— so normally when I read, I read pretty quick in some ways. Some ways I'm really fast with reading if it's something that, you know, it's not for the podcast. But when I come down to sit, when I come to record, I try to come with some of like the— like I am sitting down and reading every single page in detail. You would not believe how many sticky notes I have in my books. I, I probably go through like— so I'll get like the big sticky note pads and I'll just be tearing them into thirds and I'll just literally highlight like almost the whole book with those sticky notes because you literally will see the book and look at the side and it's just all sticky notes of all different colors. I have probably hundreds and hundreds of those and I've tried to do that less and less, try to go to a notebook, put notes there. I use Readwise, I take notes there. There's so many different things, but I spend the time to actually just fully, fully read the book. I do researching if I have to. And if I need to, I look into it. I try to compile this all into notes. And so I start taking these notes. I basically transfer what I've learned in the books and start putting it in. It's very time consuming, a lot of hours into each episode. And so trying my best. That's why when you don't have— when you don't see an episode being uploaded for, I want to say, like a couple of weeks, it's probably that I either, one, I listen to I've made it a rule for myself. I have to listen to every single episode over again to just make sure it's good quality and just make sure it's top notch. And so especially with the video, the video episodes I've been doing with the interviews, I try to make it top notch. So I'm always listening to it when it, when it comes out on Spotify, I'm always the first one to listen to it. I try to take pride in my podcast and what I'm doing. Because I want to make sure this is good content and I'm not wasting your time. I want every minute to be the best minute that you listen to, um, one of the best podcasts you can listen to, and that, you know, every time you're coming to my podcast, you're not wasting time, you're actually gaining knowledge. And I want this to be a podcast that stands out. And so that's why when you don't see an episode coming out for a couple weeks, or like it's been for a month, I've just been very busy. But You know, I'm trying to make sure it's top quality. I have, you know, just episodes. I have a series lined up that I want to put out on the podcast. I still got to record a couple more episodes, but I have an episode done, but I still got to listen to it. So that's another thing, right? Where I'm just listening to it. You know, I need to put the notes down. I have all that stuff. So, yeah, I just want to say like that, that's how, that's kind of my process. I do spend a lot of time reading, researching, and taking notes. And what— so one of the greatest things that has come through the podcast is being able to innovate with so many different things. And one of my favorite things about it is I get to play around with all these things. So I'll just go through some of the things I've been doing, and you may or may not know about it. I've kind of plugged it here and there. But one of the coolest things I built was actually an Uncommon Excellence AI bot, or just AI. So you can call it and you can text it. And text it as in like chat with it, just like ChatGPT. Call it and you get my voice. You actually get my voice. I had to put like sound. It recorded a couple minutes of my voice and then it basically, you know, went over and cloned my voice to this AI, but I'm able to chat with it and it's just like chatting with me. So it, and also the crazy thing is it's a lot smarter than me because it's taking notes from all of my Readwise highlights, which I'm actually, Readwise is an affiliate of this podcast or I'm affiliate of Readwise. And so you can actually get 3 months off when you use my link for Readwise. And it is one of the great— like, I'm so grateful for that tool because I've been using Readwise to export my highlights. And then when I export my highlights, I put them into my AI. So my AI is like me and my podcast. It's like this podcast, but like 100 times more like just smarter because it like knows everything about business, like quotes from Warren Buffett, like Naval. The episode that you guys loved about Naval, it has all those insights already built in. How to Make a Few Billion Dollars, Isidore Sharp. I did an episode on like Estée Lauder and the Telewoman System, and it like knows all that now. So it's progressively getting better every time I make a podcast episode. So it makes it really easy for you guys because all you got to do, log on, and there's always a link at the bottom if you want to use it. In the bottom of the show notes and you can just go in, you know, click on it and just use it, talk or chat or whatever message with it and basically get business knowledge. Another thing, so like what I love about the podcast too is I built so many other things. So I have the Uncommon Excellence AI. I have a newsletter, so I haven't posted on it in a while and I need to. But it's a newsletter where you basically can get my top highlights from every single podcast episode that I've done. And I do these, I've done it for the earlier ones. I need to do it for the newer ones. So again, like you, there's a link in the description below. So that, that's awesome. I call it Uncommon Excellence Notes. It's great. And then another thing that I've really dived into is just the social media end of things. Social media is really powerful and I've been posting a lot. You can find me at— I don't know the handle, but Uncommon Excellence. If you just look it up on Instagram, X, or TikTok or YouTube, I'm on all those platforms, social media, and I've really been enjoying the interviews. And the interviews are just something I love to do. I'm trying to incorporate the learning from history's greatest entrepreneurs, founders, like leaders, thinkers, idea makers, builders, all that. But then also I want people that are actually doing it right now too. So it's a mix between the interviews, which like I've had that with Jonathan Drecke, I've had that with Tyler Schuster, I've had that, and I'm very grateful, very thankful. And so I have interviews and I have, um, getting these episodes out that I normally always do. So there's kind of a mix between that and the other thing, the interviews and the, you know, sitting down, reading through books, taking notes. And so, yeah, it's something I've been very grateful and thankful for. Made some really good, you know, I've met some really good people along the way and I'm just very grateful for the interviews. I hope you guys are enjoying it as much as I am. And again, so interviews, social media, newsletter, the AI, and then Readwise. So I love using Readwise. I try to use it every day. I was on like a 285-day streak for Readwise, just, you know, using it every single day. And sadly, I, you know, like got like off on a couple days and then, you know, it just ended, which is really bad. Or too bad and unfortunate. But now, like, I love that app so much because you can just learn. You be— because Readwise is like taking all the knowledge from all these books that you might have or have not read, and it just gives you the knowledge. So it gives you like, what did Warren Buffett say in his book? What did this person say? What did that person say? Oh, and good quotes. And then you can favorite it and highlight it, and you can also make your own notes. I love this feature because you just take a picture of the page of that you're reading. You can crop it, um, it has a little like blue highlighter thing and you can crop it to the highlight that you want. You click done or next and then it's like, oh, is this a highlight? You can edit it, you can put the page number, additional note, additional note. And if it isn't a book, like if it's an essay or article you're reading, you could put that into its own book. So you can create your own book. So I just love Readwise. Definitely recommend it. You get 3 months off if you take the link and use it in my description. But again, it's amazing. And just in terms of the future, I'm working on the Sam Zimmurray, The Banana King. I'm working on that series, America's Banana King. Incredible series. Still need to finish the book, but I'm more than halfway and I'm really loving that book right now and it's a great book. I have episode 1 done and I want to wait for the right time to put that out, but I'm going to put that out and let all of you guys listen to it. And then I'm— I still need to make episode 2 and 3, but again, I have to listen to the episode to make sure it's good quality. So just want to let you guys know about that because I want to keep the standard of excellence within the podcast. To the highest standards. And so I'm making sure I'm listening to every single one. And the ones that I know are good quality, you know, you know, you can— I always try to make sure I listen to the video ones at least, because you got to make sure they're top-notch. And again, you know, thank you guys. I just want to say before I close this episode out, this is just the beginning. You know, we have hit collectively because this, this is not just me. This is everyone listening to this podcast. We have all— we have hit 1,000 downloads. I've hit 1,000 downloads, and I know that we can go further. And if you guys are enjoying this podcast, please feel free to share it with a friend. Leave a review. I know if you leave a review, it, you know, makes the podcast look more reliable. So if you're really liking it, leave a review. Share it with a friend. The best system that, you know, the best marketers are the people listening. And I want to always remember that because you guys are the people that make this podcast run. It's not me, it's you guys. So every time that you share it with a friend, you leave a good review, just, just know that you guys are helping you know, build this podcast up into something bigger and contributing to something bigger. And feel free to reach out to me with your thoughts, whether you like it, leave a comment below, reach out to me and just say things that you like or dislike or what could be improved. But if you have any thoughts or opinions, let me know. Feel free to to just reach out and I'd love to hear your thoughts. And I just want to say, let's keep building this together. I'm going to keep out— I'm going to keep putting out podcast episodes. I'm very grateful and thankful for the platform that has already been built, um, that I've already built with this and with your guys' help. It's been amazing. And I just want to say thank you to everyone who has been listening. And to the people that are new here, um, just really thankful for your listening, like go back and listen to all the episodes because there's gold in every single one of them. And for my next goal, it's going to be 5,000 listens or downloads, and I can't wait to reach that. And I know with your guys' help, we can do that. And just before I close out this episode, I just want to say thank you again. I'm very grateful, very thankful, and I hope you guys have a good rest of your day. And be uncommon and do that with excellence. You know, you have to be different in order to be— well, you— in order to be successful, you're not— you can't follow the herd. You know, you have to be uncommon, you have to be different in some sort of way, and you can't just follow the herd. The herd is going to tell you you shouldn't do things. I know I just watched a MrBeast video that he was reacting to the high me in 10 years. And the crazy thing about that is he was looking back and he was like, you know, I was a freak. I like— people told me I could never do YouTube. All you do is talk about YouTube all day, all this stuff. And I just want to, you know, take that same encouragement that if you're obsessing over something, you know, just remember, like, it's not everything for you. But if you focus on one thing and do it well, I will I can guarantee success, you know. And even if you don't get success in materials, you will get— you will get success in, you know, your just like personal life, you know. You will feel accomplished and you will feel that you have accomplished something. Like, even if the— it didn't turn out the way I wanted to, at least a failure is better than not trying at all. And so I just want to leave that with you guys as this can be something to keep on going. And I can't wait again for the podcast. And I'm just very grateful and thankful. And thank you guys for listening to this episode. And I will talk to you guys again soon.