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382: Secrets to Healthy Relationships: Insights from Make More Love Podcast with Ellen Dorian
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Sometimes the glue holding my relationship together feels more like Scotch tape—how do I keep things passionate, connected, and real when life (and business) gets in the way?
On this episode of Podcast Junkies, I sit down with Ellen Dorian, host of Make More Love, relationship coach, and entrepreneur with decades of experience helping high-achieving business owners navigate love, sex, and personal fulfillment. Ellen’s always been the ear friends turned to for advice, and she’s since transformed that talent into a thriving career guiding individuals to better, more authentic relationships.
We dive deep into the reality that intimacy can become routine and how introducing novelty—even on a monthly basis—can reignite the connection. Ellen shares candid stories from her own journey, demystifies the three-year rule in relationships, and reveals why strategic annual planning isn’t just for your business, but for your love life, too. Plus, we tackle topics like escaping “roommate syndrome,” the challenges of relationship growth for entrepreneurs, lessons from college, and why taking your clothes off (sometimes literally!) can help you focus.
You'll also hear why direct mail might be making a comeback, tips for overcoming tech overwhelm when starting a podcast, vulnerable reflections on aging, and how editing your own podcast can teach you more than you ever expected. This episode is packed with honest insights and practical wisdom—perfect for anyone who’s ever wondered how to balance their personal and professional ambitions while keeping their relationship front and center.
Ready to hear Ellen’s powerful strategies for sustaining love and intimacy—plus actionable tips you can implement today? Hit “play” and join us for this heartfelt and insightful conversation! Listen now to PJ382: Ellen Dorian.
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Key Takeaways
Spice Up Your Relationship Routine
Harry shares a practical relationship tip: even if you have a routine that works in your intimate life, make it a point to try something new at least once a month. Whether it’s a new activity or revisiting something you used to enjoy, fresh experiences can revitalize connection and intimacy.
Treat Your Relationship Like a Business—Strategic Planning Works!
Harry applies his business coaching experience to relationships by encouraging regular “strategic planning” sessions with your partner. He suggests sitting down at least once a year to set rolling three-year goals, create a 12-month plan, and break them down into actionable projects. This keeps both partners aligned and allows you to course-correct regularly.
Understand the Real Issues Behind Business Struggles
Harry points out that business owners often struggle with focus and growth because of unresolved relationship issues at home. By addressing the root personal challenges—instead of just business strategy—you unlock better clarity and decision-making in your professional life.
Start Before You’re Ready and Just Keep Going
Both Ellen and Harry discuss the challenges of launching a podcast (or any creative project). Their advice: Don’t get stuck aiming for perfection. Work through technical hurdles step by step, use cohort or group support if possible, and remember that every episode won’t be perfect. Publishing regularly is more important than waiting until everything is flawless.
Edit Your Own Content—At Least at First
Harry and Ellen both recommend editing your own podcast episodes when starting out. Doing this helps you catch verbal habits (like rambling or being repetitive), improve your narrative flow, and get more comfortable with your authentic voice. Tools like Descript can make the process more approachable and empower you to continually refine your messaging.
Memorable Quotes
"If you're in a relationship that involves sex, have it—because sex is the glue that holds intimate relationships together. Without it, you're just friends or roommates. And no matter how good or comfortable your routine is, try something different at least once a month. A little new stimulus can raise your whole sex life to another level."
"The reason people kept coming to me for advice is because I let them get the whole story out before jumping in. I became good at asking, 'What else?' so everything was on the table, which made people more open to actually listening and making positive changes."
"Entrepreneurship is challenging and it's not for everyone, but it's worth the effort to find balance. Don’t let your business be your whole life—even when it feels like it needs to be. Pay attention to your relationships and your own well-being, because that ultimately leads to a more fulfilling journey."
Connect with Ellen
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellendorian
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellen.dorian.7
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ellendorian
Resources Mentioned
Make More Love Podcast: https://www.makemorelove.show/
Podcast Junkies Website: podcastjunkies.com
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Transcript
The first to the last. And every once in a while, I put some kind
Speaker:of logical series together, group of
Speaker:ideas together. But so, you know, I tried it. We
Speaker:talked. You and I talked about doing a limited series first, but
Speaker:that just was. I was getting in my own way for that. And then
Speaker:I got the idea with you to do this
Speaker:podcast, and you started the group and you were going to take everyone through
Speaker:the group, right. And there was a lot of technical stuff to learn, and I
Speaker:always get a little backed up with that sort of thing because
Speaker:it seems to me that no matter what I do, it never works the way
Speaker:it's supposed to work or, you know, everybody feels.
Speaker:So. My good friend Ellen Dorian, host of Make More Love, thank you so much
Speaker:for joining me on Podcast Junkies. Hey,
Speaker:Eric. This has been a long time coming. We've been friends for so
Speaker:long, and I'm really looking forward to sharing your podcast
Speaker:journey because we've been on an entrepreneurial journey, probably going back to
Speaker:2015, I think. So we can talk about a lot of those
Speaker:things. But as the host of Make More Love, I
Speaker:thought it might be nice to jump into a quick
Speaker:tip for the audience on something they can do to improve
Speaker:their current relationship. Okay,
Speaker:great. Thanks so much. Thanks for asking that question. And
Speaker:I'm gonna go, like, straight to the meat of it, which is, what's your
Speaker:sex life like? Right? And if,
Speaker:you know, especially if you've been together for a while, we all do this.
Speaker:We start out all hot and heavy. We're trying new stuff, and then over
Speaker:time, we find some stuff that works and we stick with the stuff
Speaker:that works. And it's really nice and it's reliable and it
Speaker:works. I mean, for a lot of people, right? It works. But no matter how
Speaker:well it works, in the long run, it does get old. So
Speaker:my hot tip for you is, first of all, have sex. I mean,
Speaker:we started to start there. Have sex. If you're in a relationship
Speaker:that involves sex, have it, because sex is the
Speaker:glue that hold intimate relationships together.
Speaker:Without sex, you're just friends, roommates, all those things.
Speaker:So have sex. And then no matter how good and comfortable
Speaker:it is and no matter how what a good routine you've gotten into,
Speaker:try something different at least once a month.
Speaker:Right? Or one out of every five times you have sex, no matter how many
Speaker:times you have sex, right. Try something either new or
Speaker:bring back something that you used to use that you don't do anymore, or
Speaker:any of those things, because just a little bit
Speaker:of stimulus in your sex Life, something new and exciting
Speaker:will raise the whole sex, your whole sex life to an. That's
Speaker:a great tip. Thanks for sharing that. And it's a nice juicy way to start
Speaker:the conversation. Well, yeah, we, you know, we
Speaker:don't want it like slide in easy, do we?
Speaker:Moving on. So how long do you think,
Speaker:looking back, have people been coming to you for advice?
Speaker:Maybe not just relationship advice, but you know, can you kind of trace that
Speaker:back to when you started realizing that people were
Speaker:coming to you because of your expertise, your guidance, or just looking for
Speaker:a ear that would, or someone that would listen to them?
Speaker:Wow. I mean, honestly, this goes back
Speaker:as far as college in. When I was in college, I went to
Speaker:Wellesley College, right? And so I was in a pretty, pretty small dorm
Speaker:and people were always coming to ask advice on something.
Speaker:I mean, it wasn't always relationships, but they always wanted to talk something over
Speaker:and I was always game to do it. And it took me a
Speaker:while, like a couple of years to figure out that all this
Speaker:advice giving and all these people coming to me was getting in the way of
Speaker:my academics. And I actually developed a
Speaker:very ingenious solution to this problem because what would happen? People come
Speaker:knock on the door or I'd go sit out in the hallway on the floor
Speaker:and people would just come up. So what I started to do was when I
Speaker:had to study for a test or anything, I would take all my clothes off,
Speaker:I'd be naked in my room. And then if people came to the door, I
Speaker:wouldn't be tempted to go out the door like spontaneously cuz I'd
Speaker:have to put my clothes on. And if people came to the door and said,
Speaker:hey, are you around? Well, I'm naked,
Speaker:so you know, it would take me a while to get ready, but you
Speaker:know, why don't you come back later? And that way I actually did make time
Speaker:for myself to study. My grades improved
Speaker:considerably between sophomore and junior year as a result.
Speaker:Who would have thought that all you had to do to improve your grades was
Speaker:to take your clothes off? Well,
Speaker:exactly. Well, you know, getting naked is the solution to a
Speaker:lot of different problems. It'll remove your inhibitions and
Speaker:a lot of times it's just the thing you need to get out of your
Speaker:own head. Well, I think you and I have
Speaker:talked about this. My most popular post ever, right on
Speaker:LinkedIn, on my podcast, on any content I've
Speaker:done is the podcast on Sleeping naked and the importance of
Speaker:Sleeping Naked. So like I said, yeah, but it goes
Speaker:back all the way to college. So if you think about those moments when you
Speaker:were able to get your clothes back on and be a sympathetic ear
Speaker:for your friends in college, what do you think it was
Speaker:that kept them coming back to you? Were you always a good listener
Speaker:or is that a skill you developed over time? I was always
Speaker:a good listener. I had a really good role mod
Speaker:because my dad was a great listener. He was the kind of person people
Speaker:came to for all kinds of problems. And he was my
Speaker:favorite human ever so. And his name was Henry. Oh, wow. I don't think I
Speaker:knew him. And so he was a good
Speaker:listener. I learned from him. But the big
Speaker:thing about it was, I think the reason people kept coming is because
Speaker:I would let them get the whole thing out. I would
Speaker:start diagnosing or helping or
Speaker:talking until they were done. I was good at asking, yeah,
Speaker:what else? And what else? So it was all out on the table.
Speaker:That is a skill that I learned over time because
Speaker:when I used to jump in before, I would realize I would be giving advice
Speaker:without complete information and, you know, and
Speaker:then I'd get a lot of what, you know, what you always get, which is,
Speaker:well, yeah, I tried that, but. Or, you know, well, that won't work
Speaker:cause. Or, you know, those kinds of objections that you get. So
Speaker:by giving people the opportunity to really get it all out on the
Speaker:table, I was able to change that dynamic
Speaker:so people were more open to listening and we could take different pieces and
Speaker:put them together. They were all out. Did you notice that
Speaker:as a skill, as something you began
Speaker:to get better at over time? Yeah,
Speaker:oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, it started in college. I was
Speaker:studying. One of my majors was philosophy. I had three
Speaker:majors in college, one of them was philosophy. And so it started
Speaker:there, but I really didn't get good at this until
Speaker:much later in my career. And I really didn't get
Speaker:completely reliable about that particular thing
Speaker:until I started coaching. Where you learn. I was trained as a coach where you
Speaker:really learned to shut up and listen to what people are saying. What took you
Speaker:down the path of wanting to be a coach?
Speaker:Well, people had always come to me for rent,
Speaker:always come to me for advice. And at the time I was looking for
Speaker:a career change. I was a high tech executive. I was a
Speaker:marketing executive in the software industry. I was working in a bunch of
Speaker:startups. And the last startup I worked for went under
Speaker:right after September 11th, so there was no money left.
Speaker:There was nobody to ask for money. It just went under.
Speaker:And I said, well, geez, you know, I like that I'm sure there's
Speaker:other things I could do. So I looked into
Speaker:a bunch of different ideas. Office coffee supplies
Speaker:in artisanal chocolate making, all kinds of things. And then
Speaker:I found out that there was this thing called coaching. And I was like,
Speaker:okay, well, that's cool. It was personal coaching. I was like, well, that's cool.
Speaker:I love the idea, but that's a little too warm and fuzzy for me, because
Speaker:at the time, I was, like, embedded in that corporate
Speaker:mindset. And then I found out there was business coaching. I was
Speaker:like, oh, sign me up. And so I did. I went and apprenticed with a
Speaker:business coach, and then I took formal training as
Speaker:a coach. And then I got into coaching. And what I quickly found out
Speaker:is that I was in there to do business coaching and strategic planning,
Speaker:and I was talking to everybody about their relationships.
Speaker:You were just. You're back to the college role? I
Speaker:was just, yeah. I mean, because. Well, because you and I have talked about this
Speaker:a lot. Business owners get involved in running a business, and it gets
Speaker:in the way of them having great relationships. And, you know, I would
Speaker:be working with these guys. I specialized in working with construction business
Speaker:owners, commercial construction business owners. They had pretty big
Speaker:companies, and their relationships were really
Speaker:taking a backseat. You know, some of them weren't even in the
Speaker:backseat. They were in the truck. Right. So. And it
Speaker:made it hard for them to focus and to feel like they could do what
Speaker:they needed to do with the business because there was this constant pull
Speaker:to be a better husband, to be a better father, to be more present, and
Speaker:they just felt that constant pressure to do that
Speaker:and distracted them. So I started
Speaker:working on a holistic basis with all my clients
Speaker:and, well, with all the ones who wanted to. And we would start addressing the
Speaker:relationships. And they trusted me already because
Speaker:they were already working with me. And that helped because a lot of them
Speaker:really weren't comfortable with going to therapy. Right. They would talk about going
Speaker:to therapy, and one of my clients said, look,
Speaker:it's too much time, it's too much money, it's too
Speaker:much talking. There's, like, too much. They want me to
Speaker:be too vulnerable, and there's no guarantee of results. If this was a
Speaker:business decision, I would have cut it off a long time ago. Right. That was
Speaker:their attitude. But since we were approaching a relationship using
Speaker:a lot of the same concepts that we were using to grow their business,
Speaker:they were much more open to it, much more open to experimenting with it and
Speaker:then coming back and making incremental change. And so that's how I do it
Speaker:now too. How did you get started in construction or working with construction business
Speaker:owners? You want all my backstory?
Speaker:So I told you I apprenticed with a business coach and I did that for
Speaker:a year. And so it started out with him teaching me his
Speaker:methods, his skills, his systems. And then one day about.
Speaker:It was a year long apprenticeship and one day, about 10 months
Speaker:into it, he looked like he's like, okay, time for you to get some
Speaker:clients now. Yeah, shit. How do I do that?
Speaker:So I did what I knew to do from marketing. I sent out a bunch
Speaker:of letters and one of the people. It was one of the few letters. Was
Speaker:it letters or emails where anybody letters. It was
Speaker:the paper guy. Yeah, okay, that's what I thought. Yeah, there was a. Yeah, there
Speaker:was 20 of them. I've been in the business 20 years. This is my 20th
Speaker:year as coach. So. Yeah. And it's not that email
Speaker:wasn't there at the time. It just wasn't ubiquitous,
Speaker:you know, and especially construction because they were
Speaker:behind technology wise. So I sent out and I just happened to
Speaker:send. I sent letters to 20 businesses in my hometown.
Speaker:And it's one of the few times anybody ever responded to my
Speaker:letter in any context. But the guy owned a commercial plumbing
Speaker:company. He was looking to grow from 3 to 10 million.
Speaker:He got my letter and he invited me in.
Speaker:We had a four hour sales call. Yeah.
Speaker:And then. And he hired me and he happened to be the volunteer
Speaker:chairman for trade association for construction companies.
Speaker:And he said, we need you here in this association to come in.
Speaker:So he got me to become a member and then he talked about what we
Speaker:were working on and that's how I got in. And then I ended up with
Speaker:all construction company clients pretty much. That's crazy. Do you remember the
Speaker:contents of that letter? Not all of them, but I
Speaker:do remember the letter had to have a sticky note
Speaker:on it that was part of the system. And it said
Speaker:in business there are reasons and results and without the results,
Speaker:reasons don't matter. That's what the sticky notes are. Oh,
Speaker:interesting. It's so funny because all the stuff that's old is new,
Speaker:like vinyl. Now people are like getting back into vinyl and they're like
Speaker:all the analog stuff. So I'm wondering if we're going to have a return to
Speaker:direct mail because I've begun considering it for my business.
Speaker:I was going to put a proposal together and I saw that the person I
Speaker:was on their website and I saw their address and I was like, I'm going
Speaker:to print this out and send it to. I didn't. I haven't heard back from
Speaker:that one person. But I'm wondering, you know, sometimes what's old is
Speaker:new again, and that's the type of stuff that gets people's attention.
Speaker:Yeah, I agree. If it doesn't look like junk mail, you might just
Speaker:be able to make some headway that way because look at your mail.
Speaker:Oh, yeah. Like, I mean, all my mail is junk
Speaker:mail. Yeah. You know, it's junk mail or it's invitations
Speaker:to weddings or baby showers or. Yeah.
Speaker:Short or wedding or big wedding anniversaries or something. That's it.
Speaker:That's all I ever get. So it's worth a try. It's worth
Speaker:a try. Nice paper. You know, handwritten with a real
Speaker:sincere, handwritten letter. I have a friend who sends
Speaker:handwritten postcards. Okay. Like every couple of months, she just
Speaker:sends them saying, I'm thinking of you. How are you doing? And she does it
Speaker:for no reason. She. That she started doing during COVID
Speaker:That's a good habit. So when you were brought into this organization
Speaker:and you started speaking to these business owners, I imagine the majority
Speaker:of them were likely male. Is that true? And.
Speaker:Yes. Yeah. You started talking about business stuff with
Speaker:them, and then I feel like it pivoted. Then
Speaker:once they had the Ellen Dorian ear
Speaker:and they realized you were a good listener, I imagine they probably started
Speaker:sharing more than their business issues with you.
Speaker:Well, that's. Yeah, I mean, that's it. And that's. I
Speaker:mean, look, I'm not going to pay all men with the same
Speaker:brush, but for a lot of men, they
Speaker:don't trust advisors easily. Even, you
Speaker:know, getting business clients in construction was always a little bit
Speaker:challenging because it took a long time for people to, A, admit that they
Speaker:could use help, B, find someone that they felt they could trust to help,
Speaker:and then C, develop a level of trust where they would actually open up and
Speaker:accept the help. Right. So once you have done all that work,
Speaker:that's a huge investment. And so now you have this one person you can talk
Speaker:to and, well, you want to go look for another one,
Speaker:you know, and start all over? No. So, you know, is.
Speaker:It looked like I was able to help and, you know, and it took some
Speaker:confrontation on my part sometimes to get that. But that
Speaker:first client who was sharing his relationship issues,
Speaker:it was that he was unable to focus on the
Speaker:strategic plan. And I finally said, look, you said
Speaker:you wanted to make some, you know, to make some big
Speaker:changes in your business. And you're not doing any of it. What's going
Speaker:on? Like, just the straightforward what's going
Speaker:on. And that's when he said, look, my. This
Speaker:and this and this and that. And I won't go into all the details of
Speaker:that, but that's how it started. And I was like, well, that's heavy.
Speaker:You know, I can see why you'd have a hard time working on your
Speaker:strategic plan with all that going on. So, you know, if
Speaker:you could change that, would you like to.
Speaker:Sorry, the NLP question. Yeah, that's a good question. Right. And he said, well, hell,
Speaker:yeah. And so we started working on it that way.
Speaker:And I guess what you found and what they found is when
Speaker:they addressed the root problem of what was really
Speaker:getting in the way, then they were able to find more
Speaker:clarity and to work through the business stuff once they got that other stuff
Speaker:taken care of, right? I mean, and it usually comes down to
Speaker:one big mismatch in understanding
Speaker:between that the owner and the partner. And that is
Speaker:the owner usually says, I'm doing all this for my
Speaker:family because I want to provide for them. I want to give them the life
Speaker:that I promised when I married her. Right? Because it's usually
Speaker:men. It's her, right? And so that means I have to work, and I'm
Speaker:putting all my time and energy into work so I can be successful.
Speaker:Okay, good. And on the other side of
Speaker:it, the partner's going, look, I married this guy and now
Speaker:I've got like an absentee husband. I am stuck here
Speaker:by myself for most of every week, all day,
Speaker:all week long. I'm with the kids, I take care of everything in the house,
Speaker:and he's nowhere to be found. And then even when we're
Speaker:on vacation, even when he's home, he's on the phone, and even when
Speaker:we're on vacation, he's bringing his computer. And I don't have a
Speaker:husband anymore. And so he thinks he's doing everything
Speaker:right to make the relationship successful. And she sees it like
Speaker:he's nowhere to be found. And that's the fundamental
Speaker:disconnect that a lot of them find themselves in. And once
Speaker:they both start to realize, that's when we start to make some change.
Speaker:But the important thing is I work with the business
Speaker:owners. That's my specialty, right? I work the business owners. So I don't.
Speaker:I do work with couples, but I primarily work with one
Speaker:person. And what they can change about how they show up,
Speaker:that's going to have a ripple effect on their relationship. It's not
Speaker:like couples therapy. And it's, you know, and it's not that
Speaker:because there's too much he said, she said. When you get two people in for.
Speaker:Sure, for sure, that's a different kind of therapy. Well, I mean,
Speaker:it's the traditional kind. Right. But most
Speaker:men. Now I'll say that the group of people that I work with
Speaker:skews toward traditional kind of alpha centric
Speaker:males. Right. But most of them will not admit that
Speaker:they're doing anything wrong in front of anyone else.
Speaker:So the only way to get them to see that there are changes
Speaker:they could make. I won't say they're wrong, but there are changes they could make
Speaker:is for them to be in a completely safe space. And generally that's one
Speaker:of them. Okay. Are they able to then finally confront those
Speaker:hard questions when they're in that safe container with you?
Speaker:Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, I have a
Speaker:non judge, I have completely non judgmental approach to
Speaker:things. I used to say that you couldn't shock me, but then some men
Speaker:were just taking that as a challenge. So I don't really say that. What I
Speaker:do say is you'd be surprised at all the things that I
Speaker:have heard about or that I know. So maybe even a
Speaker:few things that you've been worried about talking about. Yeah, I'm sure
Speaker:that's resonating with someone that's watching this right now. I
Speaker:imagine as you started having these conversations, you probably started
Speaker:noticing trends and these men were, some of these men were saying
Speaker:and repeating the same things over and over again. Oh, there are
Speaker:tons. Well, the one I talked to you about is the first one. The other
Speaker:one I noticed is the three year threshold. So
Speaker:the, another big one is the three year threshold. What I started
Speaker:to see is that the people that I was working with were
Speaker:giving up on their relationship and starting to look for something
Speaker:else after three years of not getting what they
Speaker:needed. And it was interesting the number of
Speaker:people who said it's been three years since we had
Speaker:sex, three years since she let me, blah, blah, blah. Yeah,
Speaker:three years is like this. That's the, seems to be
Speaker:the threshold. So that was an interesting pattern. So,
Speaker:so if we can catch that before it gets to three years, that's a
Speaker:big win already. So. And there's plenty of others. There's,
Speaker:you know, plenty of others. A lot of assumptions that people make,
Speaker:things that they're, they think that their partner will or won't agree to
Speaker:that they find out later that they didn't agree to Values that they thought
Speaker:they had in common that they don't anymore, futures that
Speaker:they thought that they both agreed to, that they've now diverged. Interesting. Yeah.
Speaker:People change over time, Right. And if they don't continue the conversation and keep
Speaker:up to see where the other person's at, is that you start to
Speaker:diverge paths. Absolutely. Well, that's why one of the
Speaker:things I do with all my clients is strategic planning for your
Speaker:relationship. At least once a year we're going to sit down and lay
Speaker:out a plan that's a rolling three year plan. So it's very
Speaker:business like, Right. It's a rolling three year plan with a 12 month
Speaker:goal and then projects you. And this must be sounded
Speaker:familiar to like a series of projects that get you to the one year, the
Speaker:one year gets you to the three year. And then you have to reevaluate
Speaker:at each milestone to see if it's actually. Working
Speaker:and have, do you see like when they are committed to the work and they
Speaker:do the work, that they start to see the difference in the change in the
Speaker:relationship? Yes, well,
Speaker:yes and no. Yes, sometimes and.
Speaker:But what it really does is some
Speaker:relationships are not to continue.
Speaker:They run their course. And a lot of times what happens
Speaker:is that there's a lot of investment in the relationship,
Speaker:especially if you get married young and now you've built this business and you've had
Speaker:this partner and you've had these kids and you have these houses, right?
Speaker:Because it's not just one, it's several houses. And all your friends
Speaker:are joint friends and your families are all. And so now here
Speaker:you are and you're like miserable. But that's a
Speaker:lot to have to give up, right? So you really
Speaker:have to think, is this worth it? Right? And so a lot of
Speaker:people will say, I'm just not sure. And they'll be not sure for
Speaker:a decade or two. Right. And in the meantime, they're getting older,
Speaker:right. And then what ends up happening? I've seen this a few times.
Speaker:The guy will get to be in his late 50s and all of a sudden
Speaker:he'll go, you know what? I can't, I'm not gonna live forever. I
Speaker:can't live like this anymore. And then they end up making, after all these years
Speaker:of indecision, they end up making a rash decision that ends up costing
Speaker:them. And then they, generally speaking, if they get
Speaker:divorced at that time, they'll find themselves with a much younger
Speaker:woman and they'll have to make the best of
Speaker:that because they'll be like a lot of 57,
Speaker:very dangerous year. 57, 56, 57,
Speaker:58. If you've been married all this time, you
Speaker:know that and unhappily so
Speaker:that's a time when that's a real, like a real turning point
Speaker:for a lot of people. They see 60s coming and they go,
Speaker:is this all there? Is this it me for the rest of my life? Right,
Speaker:so. And then they end up making poor
Speaker:decisions. So what I see happen is people put the
Speaker:work, if people put the work in and the
Speaker:relationship doesn't respond, the partner doesn't respond and things
Speaker:don't look better, they are in a much better, more
Speaker:controlled place to make that decision, to move on. And
Speaker:that makes the process of moving on less painful.
Speaker:Not that it isn't painful, but less painful, much
Speaker:less costly. You can maybe do it using a collaborative
Speaker:approach rather than an adversarial approach. If everybody's above
Speaker:board about the money, because that's a big point of contention. And
Speaker:then people can move on with their lives. Yeah, it's
Speaker:so interesting how you see trends, you know, the three year marker
Speaker:and then this 56, 57 age. And it's like human
Speaker:nature is like, we think we're all living these individual,
Speaker:independent lives and you know, we're making decisions based
Speaker:on our own unique circumstances. But I think human nature is
Speaker:human nature and I think when people, you know, there's certain, you
Speaker:know, periods of time together or certain milestones that they approach
Speaker:that in general, just like you said, make people do
Speaker:interesting and sometimes rash things. Well, and I also
Speaker:think we overestimate how unique our lives are. Like,
Speaker:sure. In the, in, you know, if you look at it in terms
Speaker:of the people, you know, the people we know, your
Speaker:life might be unique. But if you look at it in terms of megatrends.
Speaker:Right, megatrends. And then look at American life, let's
Speaker:say it's not only Americans that I work with, people from all the English
Speaker:speaking countries, but let's just say Americans, our
Speaker:lives compared to the lives of other people in the world
Speaker:are not as unique as we think they are. So of course
Speaker:we're going to see patterns. Of course. And then if we narrow
Speaker:it even more to business owners, then that becomes
Speaker:even less unique, even more prone to
Speaker:being part of patterns. So yeah, it's interesting
Speaker:because I know folks that are business owners can definitely relate if you let
Speaker:it all consuming. And you know, we've been together, friends
Speaker:through our entrepreneurial journeys. We met, I think we met in 2015
Speaker:through our mutual coach Taki I think black belt.
Speaker:And it was interesting at the time because I was coming out of corporate and
Speaker:I had no idea what entrepreneurial life was. I mean, besides a couple of things
Speaker:I'd been dabbling in. So I call it my digital Narnia moment,
Speaker:when just come into this world and you know, you see all these
Speaker:six figure, seven figure business owners and you're like, who are these people? I didn't
Speaker:even know these people existed. And so you have to, you have to learn
Speaker:a lot and it's not for everyone. And I think, you know, being an entrepreneur,
Speaker:it's probably been one of the most challenging things I've had to do
Speaker:in my career. It's a lot of ups and downs, but I think what you
Speaker:learn to do is get up faster from your failures and recover
Speaker:more. And I think just coming back to these conversations you're having,
Speaker:you know, you do have to be aware of not
Speaker:letting it be everything or be your entire life, even when it feels like it
Speaker:needs to sometimes because you got to pay the bills and you've got to, you
Speaker:know, you just lost a couple of clients and you got to recover. And so
Speaker:it's like it's way different than just, you know, getting that paycheck deposited
Speaker:in your account twice a month. So it is challenging
Speaker:and it's not for everyone, but I think it's something that deserves effort if you
Speaker:gotta find that balance. And I think I just came back from a men's retreat.
Speaker:I've been to another one a couple of weeks ago, and it was helpful because
Speaker:I had the phone off for three days, Thursday to Sunday. And
Speaker:it was just a reminder of how much it's a part of
Speaker:me and almost like a third limb. Like I was
Speaker:reaching for it a couple of the days, like on Friday and Saturday in my
Speaker:pocket, and I was like, oh, it's in my bag and it's off. So I
Speaker:can definitely, like commiserate. But I think it's important for our
Speaker:own sanity and our own health of ourselves and our relationships
Speaker:to do things that can help us find some balance.
Speaker:I agree. And, well, I think if
Speaker:there's ever been a case study for the law of diminishing
Speaker:returns, it's overwork. As an entrepreneur, you
Speaker:can do work for 40 or 50 or 60 hours a week,
Speaker:let's say, and then. But somewhere in that
Speaker:you start to become less productive. And then what you do is you end up
Speaker:working 80 hours a week because you're less productive than if you
Speaker:just worked 30 hours a week instead
Speaker:that it's really a skill that you have to learn.
Speaker:Right. And I don't know about you, that took me a long time
Speaker:to learn. You know, even when I was in corporate, I was
Speaker:bad about that. Bringing your work home. I was, well,
Speaker:what would end up happening? I worked for Dragon Systems. Right. The
Speaker:speech recognition people. It's the only startup I ever worked for that people
Speaker:would recognize today. And I was working
Speaker:like, hours, like 60, 70 hours a week.
Speaker:I was at the office that many times. But in retrospect, what was
Speaker:happening is that I was putzing around during the
Speaker:day, I was talking to people, having conversations,
Speaker:brainstorming, doing all those things and not getting my work done. So I
Speaker:wasn't starting to work until 4 in the afternoon. So of course I had to
Speaker:work until 6 or 7 or 8 at night to get my work done.
Speaker:After I spent all day in meetings and socializing.
Speaker:That's funny. I do remember that. I mean, it's interesting because when you think
Speaker:about how much actual work gets done in your corporate, you know, job,
Speaker:I mean, I'd have to be at my desk at 9 just because everyone has
Speaker:to show up at 9. It's. We've all been indoctrinated into this,
Speaker:you know, corporate mindset and. But there's those times
Speaker:when, like, you know, some people would take smoke breaks or just go hang out
Speaker:in the break room and then. Or just take a longer lunch and, you know,
Speaker:and I think about that as an entrepreneur, like, how much, like,
Speaker:time I was wasting socializing. And it's part of the, you know, they become
Speaker:like your second family, you know, your work family. Yeah. And so
Speaker:that's something you have to. I think what's been challenging for me is learning how
Speaker:to cultivate that here as an entrepreneur working from home, like, I
Speaker:gotta work harder to make sure just my. All my relationships are
Speaker:not all zoom relationships and like, no podcast interviews. I've got to
Speaker:actually cultivate real conversations with people. And as you get
Speaker:older, for men too, it's just like challenging, especially being in a new city
Speaker:and, you know, getting out of my comfort zone. And sometimes I feel like a
Speaker:kid in sixth grade asking the other kid in class if you want to come
Speaker:to your birthday party. Like, hey, you want to go out? You want to, like,
Speaker:meet for a drink or you want to grab some coffee? You know, you got
Speaker:to build these relationships. Yeah. But if you hit other
Speaker:entrepreneurs, they're like, hell, yeah. Right. Because we're all
Speaker:different. Yeah. You know, I know if I don't
Speaker:plan it. I could be. I could not leave my house for a
Speaker:week or two at a time, for sure.
Speaker:So. And of course, all of our friends,
Speaker:because of how we met each other. Right. All of our friends are all over
Speaker:the world. So a lot of our relationships have to be zoom based.
Speaker:That was the benefit of that group we were in. We were meeting, I think
Speaker:it was twice, two or three times a year in like off location. Yeah, three
Speaker:times a year. Those are some good memories there. And now it's just
Speaker:once a year. In an exotic location far away.
Speaker:Yes. Well, next year is in Thailand. I don't know if you heard that
Speaker:this year was. I'm glad I went this year it was in Mexico.
Speaker:That's been a while since I've been visiting. Last time I went to Thailand, I
Speaker:almost died. Really? Wow.
Speaker:I spent eight weeks in Thailand right after I graduated from
Speaker:college. Yeah, it was fabulous. I'd like to go back. I'll
Speaker:see. We'll see. When it gets to be closed, I'll. Go visit my VAs too.
Speaker:So that'd be fabulous. Well, that's a good thing. That's
Speaker:probably part of it too. I'm sure there's a lot of folks that have their
Speaker:VAs there. Well, my VAs are in the Philippines. I
Speaker:wonder how hard it would be to get them to Thailand. That would be a
Speaker:good read. So talk to me about your podcast journey. When did you start?
Speaker:You know, I imagine you started as a listener first. I
Speaker:did start as a listener, but I was a very casual listener. I
Speaker:mean. Yeah, but I mean, you know this. I tried to start a
Speaker:podcast four or five times. Right.
Speaker:I even tried a couple of times with you. Right. We did. It was.
Speaker:We didn't launch. Well, the first time it was my. It was all me because
Speaker:I just didn't have the self discipline to do it.
Speaker:But. But I always thought I would love having a radio show
Speaker:I used to listen to. I used to listen to this restaurant
Speaker:radio show on Saturday mornings on rko
Speaker:and. And then I would listen to. There would be like there was a
Speaker:restaurant show, a dating show, and then they merged and so it was like a
Speaker:dating and restaurant show. I used to listen to that. And I always think, yeah,
Speaker:I can do that. What do you think it was about the medium
Speaker:that was pulling you? Because you said, you know, there's a couple of false starts.
Speaker:But what kept you coming back? Like, what was it that was coming alive for
Speaker:you? I knew I
Speaker:had something unique to say.
Speaker:I knew that I had so Much information
Speaker:in my head and so much information on scratch of
Speaker:paper, like hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker:pages of notebooks and scraps of paper. And I knew I had these
Speaker:ideas, and I thought that a podcast with a
Speaker:regular publishing schedule was gonna be the way to
Speaker:eventually get it all out the door. And it took me a long time to
Speaker:figure out that or to really get my head around the fact that it
Speaker:didn't have to be serial. Yeah, right. That it didn't have to
Speaker:flow logically from one end to the other. And now I don't
Speaker:worry about that as much. It's. My podcast is a stream of consciousness
Speaker:from the first to the last. And every once in a while,
Speaker:I put some kind of logical series together,
Speaker:group of ideas together. But so, you know, I tried
Speaker:it. We talked. You and I talked for. About doing a limited series first,
Speaker:but that just was. I was getting in my own way for that. And
Speaker:then I got the idea with you to do
Speaker:this podcast and you started the group and you were gonna take
Speaker:everyone through the group. Right. And it was a lot of technical stuff to
Speaker:learn. And I always get a little backed up with that sort of
Speaker:thing because it seems to me that no matter what I do, it never
Speaker:works the way it's supposed to work or, you know, sure, everybody
Speaker:felt, but. And so going through it with you step by step,
Speaker:and I don't know if you remember this, but the podcast had a different name.
Speaker:Yeah. Before. What was it? The first one, Ed. It was Rock Solid
Speaker:Relationship. Yeah, that's right. Right. And I published the first
Speaker:trailer. And it's not like I didn't do research. We did a lot of research.
Speaker:Right. And. But then I put it out there and I put up
Speaker:the trailer and the next thing I see is that there's this
Speaker:already a podcast that's been going on for five years
Speaker:called Rock Solid Relationships. And so I ended up
Speaker:having to change the name. And I was like, well,
Speaker:I said to you, well, I would do this one, make More love, but it's.
Speaker:Isn't that too racy? Right. And it's like, isn't it?
Speaker:And we decided after, you
Speaker:know, after I had to change the name pretty quickly,
Speaker:I decided to go with it. And now I love it and I tell people
Speaker:what it is and everybody's eyes light up when I say, yeah. It'S one of
Speaker:the interesting things. I remember those conversations because I think I've
Speaker:just become more aware of it after launching, like, over like 130 shows
Speaker:since 2015 for clients. And I Wasn't as focused
Speaker:as it in the beginning, but as you start to learn
Speaker:how people discover shows, what fields are
Speaker:SEO available in a Google search, there's only three for
Speaker:podcasting, there's the title of the show, the name of the
Speaker:show, and then there's the author tag, and then there's the
Speaker:title of the episodes. So what I started to
Speaker:learn is that making them outcome based so that when like the minute
Speaker:people see the name, you know, and yours is called Make More Love, it's like,
Speaker:okay, like, there's no doubt about what the show is about. And
Speaker:it really, you know, entices people. It's a little. In
Speaker:this day and age, it's probably not really racy considered. Really racy
Speaker:considered anyone else is out there now. Yeah. But I
Speaker:think it's one of the best ways and how I continue to coach, you
Speaker:know, students and clients is like, you know, people should see it and right away
Speaker:know, like, what it's going to be like. It does what it says on the
Speaker:label, you know, like. Like they say. And then we also talked about, like,
Speaker:making the episode titles outcome based too, so that people, you know,
Speaker:what's happening is people are going into Spotify, they're going
Speaker:into Apple, and they're searching for pain points, you know, like troubled
Speaker:relationships or entrepreneur relationships or, you know, just like,
Speaker:you know, business owners, as my partner, just, you know, they're like, looking for these
Speaker:things. And, you know, I know some of these are topics you've covered. And so
Speaker:what was it about the. All the kind of being able to pull all the
Speaker:systems together and helping you with, like, reduce the tech
Speaker:overwhelm, you know, how was that helpful to
Speaker:keep you moving forward, you know, and get you publishing as
Speaker:opposed to, like, with previous false starts? Well, I.
Speaker:If it weren't for the group, I think having the group really helped.
Speaker:You ran a weekly group, right. And it was. Everybody was doing it,
Speaker:if not together, at least close to somewhat close together.
Speaker:Yeah. And so I think that helped because then we were looking
Speaker:at trailers one week and we were working on our trailer, and then we
Speaker:were working or titles or covers or whatever it was. So one
Speaker:hurdle after another. Because every one of those things had been a hurdle.
Speaker:Every single one. Right. I mean, people think, oh, when
Speaker:I'm starting a podcast, what do I need for a microphone? It's
Speaker:like so far down the line. Yeah, of course, compared to all the other stuff
Speaker:that you need to do first. Right. And getting. And I still need to go
Speaker:back and rewrite my podcast description. Like, when I look at it now,
Speaker:it makes me cringe. When I wrote it the first time, I was like. And
Speaker:now it's like, oh, but having that group
Speaker:of people, that cohort that where we work through all those issues together,
Speaker:having also having the support of those people, several of the people in our
Speaker:group listened to every episode and gave me props and,
Speaker:you know, and promoted it and liked it and reacted and all those things.
Speaker:And that was awesome. But the important thing was
Speaker:having that. Having you to talk to every week and say, this is what
Speaker:I'm dealing with, this is what went wrong, or this is what I'm trying to
Speaker:figure out and what does this mean? All of that.
Speaker:So just that's it is. It's like you knocking the blocks
Speaker:down every week that made that work. And, you know, you
Speaker:and I had been friends and you had been helping me as a friend, but
Speaker:this was more structured and I think that made the difference.
Speaker:And now tomorrow I'm dropping
Speaker:episode 70. Wow.
Speaker:Congratulations. Yeah. So, and I just started
Speaker:in October. I'm going to two episodes a month
Speaker:instead of weekly because I'm going to be doing more other
Speaker:kinds of content. Okay. So I'll be doing more
Speaker:videos and I'm gonna be doing, you know, more various kinds of
Speaker:different kinds of clips and shorts and that sort of thing on other
Speaker:platforms. And so in order to make time to do all that,
Speaker:I decided to cut back. But all of that is driven off
Speaker:the content of the episodes so that the
Speaker:episodes come first and the rest of that comes after. So you started with
Speaker:solo content, then you started moving into interviews. How did that process go?
Speaker:I love doing the interviews. I love doing
Speaker:them. But I quickly learned that there's a whole new level of
Speaker:tech and I had a lot of tech
Speaker:problems. Like one of the interviews, the favorite
Speaker:part of my favorite interview I've ever done, I never published because I can't get
Speaker:it to work. That was the one with Kylie
Speaker:Ryan. That was the part two of Kylie Ryan. I've never been able to get
Speaker:it working. And then I've said I'm going to do more interviews, but
Speaker:getting them lined up is a little bit harder these days. I think during COVID
Speaker:it was a lot easier to get people and now it's. Everybody's super
Speaker:busy, but I'm trying. And I'm always on the lookout
Speaker:for someone I think would be a fabulous podcasting
Speaker:partner because I really feel like a part, you
Speaker:know, a partner co hosted podcast on this
Speaker:topic would really be.
Speaker:It would take it to A new level. Sure. Someone to bounce ideas off of.
Speaker:Yeah. Somebody with a totally different perspective. And so,
Speaker:yeah, so I'm always looking for someone. I have a couple of ideas in mind,
Speaker:but I'm not going to say because I haven't asked them yet. Well, first you
Speaker:got to get them on as a guest, and then you could see what the
Speaker:dynamic is like and see what the banter is like. And a lot of times
Speaker:that's a good way to see how well you work together and how you work
Speaker:off each other. That's true. Well, and
Speaker:after my first podcast interview, I had like four hours
Speaker:of content, and I had to. And I made. So now I have a rule
Speaker:that all my interviews are two episodes, and
Speaker:my episodes are 15 minutes. My solo episodes are 15 to 20
Speaker:minutes, and my. And my interviews are 25 to 30 minutes.
Speaker:So people are listening to an interview. They know
Speaker:that it's going to be longer, and they know that there's going to be two
Speaker:parts. And so that helps me
Speaker:organize it better. But editing that thing
Speaker:was awful. It was so awful. Does it get
Speaker:better now? It was so difficult. Well, I haven't.
Speaker:No, because the squad. I have to try. I'm not going to say what I
Speaker:have trouble with in the tech, but I've been having trouble with the tech.
Speaker:But for these kinds of interviews, the one that I did with Manny
Speaker:Wolf was a little bit easier. It still took a lot of time. But that
Speaker:one, I used the tool. I used the tools for
Speaker:multi cam, multicam, multi speaker,
Speaker:and I was able to do that. That first one was on
Speaker:Zoom, and so it was. It was a single stream. It
Speaker:was really nasty. Right. I used Descript, as you and I
Speaker:know, and it's. I would not be able to do the
Speaker:podcast or really any other content without default.
Speaker:It is great because it allows me to.
Speaker:I don't have to worry about what I say wrong. I can edit things. I
Speaker:can change things now with the AI Voice tool, I can. You know,
Speaker:it's gotten pretty good not only at my voice, but also at
Speaker:inflection. Good. I haven't seen. I haven't tried that new version recently.
Speaker:So it's gotten good at that. So I don't have to worry so much anymore.
Speaker:So when you. If looking back, you know, I'm sure people. Now that people know,
Speaker:and I get this all the time when they find out you're podcasting, you know,
Speaker:what advice would you give someone who was in your shoes? You know,
Speaker:whether they're thinking about starting a show or you know, struggling to figure out if
Speaker:a podcast is for them. I would say,
Speaker:well, it is fun podcasting. If you
Speaker:think you have something unique to say, podcasting is fun.
Speaker:If you just like talking, podcasting is fun.
Speaker:But also, let's see,
Speaker:what else could I say about it? There's so many things to say about it.
Speaker:So that is. But you've also got to be ready
Speaker:to make it your number one priority. Before I
Speaker:started the podcast, I was talking to my husband. We were on one of
Speaker:those four hour drives that, you know, couples tend to go on. And I was
Speaker:talking to him about, and I was unhappy with the way things were going in
Speaker:my business. I was feeling really burnt out. He asked me what
Speaker:I really wanted to do and I said, well, I always wanted to do a
Speaker:podcast. He says, I think he'd be great at it. I said, there's no money
Speaker:in it. He said, so what? Go do it. Have fun.
Speaker:We'll figure the money thing out. And
Speaker:so there was that. So you have to have either have the money
Speaker:so that you don't need to worry or have someone who supports you and doesn't
Speaker:care about the money, you know, but you got to be prepared for it to
Speaker:become the, your first priority. That's very important.
Speaker:If I don't do anything else in a week,
Speaker:I do my podcast episode. That's, you know, and even then I
Speaker:don't get one done every single week. I have, I do take occasional
Speaker:weeks off. That's the other thing I learned. It's okay if
Speaker:one doesn't end up coming out. Yeah, it's just communicating to your
Speaker:audience what's happening. I think that's what I've learned as well. And I think for,
Speaker:I don't know that I'll ever stop the this show because it's just a beautiful
Speaker:way for me to a connect with friends, connect with
Speaker:podcasters, meet interesting people. And the
Speaker:only entry ticket is that you have a podcast. So it's, you
Speaker:know, and it's a great door opener. I bank with a company called Northone and
Speaker:I saw that the CEO of the company of the bank had a
Speaker:podcast where he interviews entrepreneurs. And I saw that on the website and
Speaker:I was like, I pinged them on LinkedIn. I said, hey, Eitan, I'm
Speaker:a customer of North One. And I also, you know, interview people who have podcasts.
Speaker:Would you like to come on my show? And he came on and, you know,
Speaker:so interesting because I like, you know, talking to people from all
Speaker:walks of life and doing different things. And it pushes me out of my comfort
Speaker:zone about like, you know, for some people, I'm very comfortable talking to
Speaker:like, you know, friends like you and I have been for a long
Speaker:period of time. They're more relaxed and conversational and others where
Speaker:I, you know, meeting them for the first time. But I have to give it
Speaker:a different type of attention and just ask, you know, more open ended
Speaker:questions and maybe do a little bit of research. And so they all sort of
Speaker:keep me on my toes in different ways. But it's just a beautiful skill set.
Speaker:I'm closing in between both my shows on 500 interviews.
Speaker:Wow, that's amazing. And it's just, it's made me a better
Speaker:listener, you know, and hopefully someone that has translated into real life and
Speaker:a better communicator and just being more naturally curious about people
Speaker:and how they ended up where they ended up. So I think it's, I
Speaker:call it your virtual, your virtual stage. You can decide who you want to invite
Speaker:on and also who you want to be, you know, build a relationship with too.
Speaker:Because a lot of times now with business owners, I'm like, hey, maybe you can
Speaker:talk to your ideal prospect and you know, always be thinking about how you
Speaker:move people from becoming a listener to like an email and do you have a
Speaker:lead magnet and just kind of thinking about those things that a lot of times
Speaker:most podcasters don't give a lot of thought to, so.
Speaker:Well, this is very true. And what you said did remind me of something
Speaker:else that I could say about when you're starting out.
Speaker:So my favorite podcasters are like the biggest names
Speaker:in the business. The Diary of a CEO podcast, Mel
Speaker:Robbins podcast, and Trevor Noah's podcast. And
Speaker:if I just listened to those and said I want to be like that,
Speaker:I would fail. I wouldn't get started because there's no way I'm going to be
Speaker:able to do it like that. Right? So
Speaker:just like there are master, you know, virtuoso
Speaker:musicians, there are virtuoso podcasters. And you can't compare
Speaker:yourself to that. But funnily enough, the one who inspired me
Speaker:to do it the most is Arnold Schwarzenegger. I
Speaker:don't know if you've heard his podcast. He does a daily seven
Speaker:minute. Really? That's so funny. And it's, I
Speaker:forget what it's actually called, but he calls it the, your
Speaker:positive quarter of the Internet. And he just
Speaker:goes on, there's no music, there's no intro, there is just
Speaker:welcome to blah, blah, blah. And then he goes for seven Minutes,
Speaker:you know, no intro, no outro, nothing. Seven minutes on something. He
Speaker:talks about something that's on his mind and it's usually something to do with
Speaker:mental, physical or emotional fitness. And he does it every day.
Speaker:And I was like, well, if Arnold can do it and he doesn't have intro
Speaker:music and he doesn't have like, you know, then I guess I can do mine
Speaker:without intro music. And to this day, I don't have my intro music set up.
Speaker:I picked out the clip and everything. I just never. That's so
Speaker:fun. That's so fun. I'm just envisioning because he has that
Speaker:unique voice, you know, it's Arnold as soon as you hear him. So. And he's
Speaker:been a part of. Anyone who grew up in the 80s or 90s, you know,
Speaker:has probably seen plenty of his movies, so.
Speaker:Exactly. And you know, and he has a lot of very good things to
Speaker:say. I might not agree with everything he says, but I do
Speaker:like that mission, having a positive corner of the Internet. I
Speaker:think it's more important than writing. I don't know if he's still doing
Speaker:it because I don't listen as much anymore, but I did in the beginning was
Speaker:I was using it as, you know, as role modeling and
Speaker:a psychic go. Because those earlier three you mentioned, I mean, they've got
Speaker:production teams, they've got like probably million dollar budgets and like,
Speaker:you know, they got all the people doing all the work for them. They just
Speaker:have to show up. So that's why. And they sound absolutely well, I mean. Like,
Speaker:Trevor knows that Starbucks as the sponsor. Right.
Speaker:You know, all of them have massive sponsorships and all those things. So.
Speaker:Yeah, so you're not going to get there. And they all have books and they
Speaker:all have other things that, you know, and so you're not going to get there.
Speaker:And they're all hours long. That's the other thing. They're all like an hour and
Speaker:a half long each episode. So
Speaker:there's formats. So. Yeah, there's formats for everyone. Yeah.
Speaker:Nope. If I had just only had them to listen to, I
Speaker:probably would have gotten discouraged. So having, you know, having
Speaker:that little seven minute a day podcast
Speaker:that helped me stay on track. I like that it's seven minutes too.
Speaker:Yeah, Seven minutes every day. Seven minutes. One of the things that podcasts, there's
Speaker:new podcasters, they ask a lot, is like, how long should my podcast be? And
Speaker:the best answer I've ever heard is that every minute of your show should be
Speaker:adding value to the audience and you can have that. Define
Speaker:that however you want. You know, if you have a three hour long conversation like
Speaker:Rogan does, and you have an engaging guest and you know, I've listened to episodes
Speaker:on these ancient civilizations and I'm glued to my headset. Hey,
Speaker:God, this is fantastic. I love every minute more I'll hear a three hour
Speaker:conversation and I'm ready to like, I'm like, all right, I want another three hours.
Speaker:Let's keep going. And then sometimes, you know, it's like seven minutes
Speaker:is enough, you know, and then that's all you need. So I think there's. You
Speaker:just have to keep that in mind if you're just getting started, like, you know,
Speaker:serve your audience first. Yeah, well, and the great
Speaker:thing about using something like Descript is that even after you've
Speaker:recorded, you can ramble on as long as you want. Yeah. But then when you
Speaker:have to. Well, I do my own editing and I rec. Oh, I recommend
Speaker:that everybody do their own editing. To start. Yeah, for sure. To start. Now
Speaker:I know you work with people and you help them do all that and you
Speaker:make a professional podcasts out of it and everything, but for me,
Speaker:I need to do my own editing because I very
Speaker:quickly start to hear where I've gone off track, where I've gotten.
Speaker:More often I've gotten repetitive than I've gone off track. I've got said
Speaker:the same thing 15 times. Oh my God. So I go back and I have
Speaker:to like re, you know, pull that out and change all that. And I'm sure
Speaker:that a great editor can do all that too, but it actually helps me get
Speaker:my thoughts together. Sometimes I have to rerecord the whole
Speaker:episode because I'll get through it. And then,
Speaker:yeah, it's too disjointed. There's new
Speaker:features in Descript that are still beta, but they're
Speaker:AI tools. And it has like a chatbot feature.
Speaker:I don't know if you started to play with it, but there's a AI tools
Speaker:and there's a little dialogue box at the bottom. Right. So
Speaker:you can say, you can test this out, you know, make a duplicate of your
Speaker:productionary composition. Say, tighten up this.
Speaker:You have to transcribe it first so it has the text. But basically you're going
Speaker:to say, tighten up this conversation. So
Speaker:there's. It's not repetitive and it's
Speaker:punchy and to the point. So like that, you can type that in and it'll
Speaker:go. And it'll do a. You know, it's still beta, so it may Be a
Speaker:little janky, but try that, you know, play around with that. I think you might
Speaker:be interesting. Let me know how that works out. But it's like they're trying to
Speaker:make it. They're calling vibe editing or I think that's the term now because like
Speaker:vibe coding now with websites, it's very common. So the founder of the script
Speaker:was like big on just making editing. You know, they
Speaker:were early with the text based editing. You know, that was edit there was.
Speaker:That was. It was. They were kind of pioneers in that space. But their
Speaker:whole objective has always been to like democratize editing. You know, it's not this,
Speaker:you know, thing that you used to have to pay an editor like 300 for
Speaker:a video edit. You know, it's like, you know, and now you can
Speaker:just chat into a box and just, hey, clean up my ums and ahs and
Speaker:it'll do it. Well, I mean,
Speaker:yeah, $300. You know, when I was back in tech, we
Speaker:would pay $15,000 for
Speaker:a 20 minute corporate video that went on our
Speaker:static website. You can. Yeah, I mean they
Speaker:come in with a production crew and it was lighting and all these things and
Speaker:music and the whole thing. And they would deliver this 20, 20 minute
Speaker:video and it would be 15 grand to do that. And think about the
Speaker:stuff that people are producing with these AI tools within like a minute with a
Speaker:one sentence prompt with just bananas. So it's
Speaker:challenging for people that are in that industry right now. They've got to like make
Speaker:sure they're continuously reinventing themselves or staying abreast of some of these
Speaker:tools. But. Yeah, but nothing is as good
Speaker:as AI. It's not as good as human beings.
Speaker:And honestly, you can tell. Yeah, for sure. Can you tell when
Speaker:you read it? It's terrible. In fact, on Facebook,
Speaker:I read all these posts. I read posts and they start out to
Speaker:be really interesting and then you get into it and there's that
Speaker:sentence structure, the giveaway sentence structure. That's not this,
Speaker:it's that, you know, 15m dashes
Speaker:later, I mean, you know, it's, you
Speaker:know, it's generated by ChatGPT. I use
Speaker:ChatGPT to help me with my episode, but I don't let it
Speaker:write it for me. Yeah. And even though I give it instructions not
Speaker:to let it spy, I always say that was in your voice, not my voice.
Speaker:You know, please go back and redo it in my voice.
Speaker:And even then it
Speaker:slips in. I never feel I can make a
Speaker:comparison on my own anymore. I can't say oh, it's not this, it's that. Because
Speaker:then it sounds like AI. That's true. Yeah. It's a fine line. And
Speaker:I think more and more, we're going to get to a place where Powered by
Speaker:Humans is going to be like the tagline. You're like, oh, this was actually powered
Speaker:by humans. So we're heading into some, like, crazy times.
Speaker:It's true. I have a couple questions that I always wrap up each
Speaker:interview with. I can't believe the hours gone by so fast.
Speaker:What is something you've changed your mind about recently?
Speaker:Aging. Okay. I've been really
Speaker:worried about getting older because I am getting older, and
Speaker:I've been really worried about it. And I know you've known me a long time.
Speaker:I've lost ÂŁ125. It took me 10 years to do.
Speaker:And so now I finally feel like, oh, I'm in better shape.
Speaker:I'm healthier on this than I ever was. But I'm still getting older. And I've
Speaker:been really sensitive about it. But I just came back from
Speaker:Steve's, and my 10th anniversary trip was a biking river.
Speaker:Oh, nice. And it was nice. And my episode
Speaker:is about that. Tomorrow's episode is about that. And
Speaker:one of the things is that it skews older. The people
Speaker:on this, on the Viking cruises tend to be between
Speaker:65 and 85. Yeah. We were among the youngest people on
Speaker:the cruise. And I had been concerned about
Speaker:it because I, you know, because I'm sensitive about that. But what I saw
Speaker:was that these are folks who have
Speaker:really made a commitment somewhere along the way, and not
Speaker:like, not one of those 75 hard kind of commitments, but more
Speaker:of a daily. More embedded, more internalized.
Speaker:75 take care of themselves. Yes. Or, you know.
Speaker:Or 75 years. Yeah, yeah. Once in a while.
Speaker:Soft, but still taking care of themselves and seeing
Speaker:that's okay. So aging is one of the things. So that's one thing I've
Speaker:changed my mind about recently. Yeah, I can definitely relate to that. I just turned
Speaker:55, and I gifted myself that men's retreat. I talked about
Speaker:it. I did a sweat lodge for the first time ever. That was one of
Speaker:the most challenging things I've ever done. It was nice to be among a group
Speaker:of older men, but I could, you know, I'm making a conscious effort to work
Speaker:out three days a week. Thankfully, I've got a decent weight set here
Speaker:at home. And it's just one of those things that I
Speaker:have just committed to doing for the rest of my life. It's not like I'm
Speaker:gonna keep on working out. And then I hit a certain age and. Because, you
Speaker:know, for most adults, especially men, I think it's after 40, you
Speaker:start losing muscle mass rapidly if you don't work out. And so
Speaker:I've been more conscious of that as well, and just being fit, I
Speaker:think. And then with all the advancements in stem cells and,
Speaker:you know, I want to get to the point where I can start, you know,
Speaker:taking advantage of some of those things. And it just. So it just motivates me
Speaker:to know that if I can, you know, be successful in my
Speaker:business and, you know, and then maintain a healthy lifestyle, that
Speaker:there's ways to, you know, live a good life and different than when
Speaker:our parents experience. Although my parents are 82 and they're still kicking it,
Speaker:going on trips and then. And so I've got good genes, thankfully.
Speaker:Well, that is good. And my mom is 85, and she's
Speaker:doing pretty well. I mean, for she, you know, she is doing pretty well,
Speaker:I couldn't really complain. But she is starting to slow down a little bit.
Speaker:But one of the things Steve and I noticed as we were there is there
Speaker:were a lot of people there who are like, coming up on their 50th
Speaker:wedding anniversary. And we figured out that in order for us to make
Speaker:it to. Well, we won't make it to our 50th wedding anniversary,
Speaker:but to our 50th anniversary of knowing each other, we're going to have to be
Speaker:94 and 96 years old. And so we made a deal.
Speaker:We definitely gonna have a 50th anniversary
Speaker:party. So that'll be a fun one.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. What is the most misunderstood thing about you?
Speaker:I have. You might laugh when I say this, but I have kind of
Speaker:a good girl Persona. Okay, you know me
Speaker:better than this, right? But I do have this kind of a good girl image.
Speaker:I'm a nice, nice girl, and.
Speaker:Not true. Not true. I'm dirty
Speaker:and I'm snarky and I'm lazy and a
Speaker:bunch of other things. Yeah, I think it's always
Speaker:interesting, like, sometimes people get a little tripped up by that question. They're like, well,
Speaker:I don't know what other people perceive of me, but sometimes you do get the
Speaker:sense that how people interact with you is based on just
Speaker:a surface level. And then your true friends, like, know you at that more
Speaker:intimate level. So I'm grateful for the opportunity to have gotten to know you
Speaker:better over these years and done a lot of trips together and
Speaker:A lot of entrepreneurial experiences and a lot of commiserating as well together
Speaker:about our respective journeys. So it's. I appreciate your friendship over the years and
Speaker:it's been fun to see you on this podcast journey and you know how
Speaker:that's transformed you and getting out of your own way to
Speaker:have these conversations and to speak up and share your voice,
Speaker:because it's one of the things I'm so adamant about. But I feel like everyone
Speaker:has a voice inside them that needs to be heard, you know, and you've got
Speaker:an ex. Just an incredible journey that you've had in your
Speaker:own life, your lived experiences, and I'm so happy that you're sharing
Speaker:those with a broader audience and I'm excited to see what's next for you.
Speaker:Well, thank you so much. And I'm just so excited to be on this.
Speaker:I mean, I would never have been able to guess three years
Speaker:ago that I would be interviewed on a show of people
Speaker:who had podcasts. So. And thank you. I can't
Speaker:thank you enough for getting me, staying with me,
Speaker:keeping on me, helping me, supporting me, getting
Speaker:me to the place where I can publish
Speaker:podcasts every week or two. That's awesome. Where's the best place for folks
Speaker:to hear the show? So you can hear
Speaker:it on wherever you listen to your podcasts. But if
Speaker:you want to find that, go to makemorelove show and then
Speaker:pick your platform and subscribe and listen. Or you can
Speaker:listen right there on the website or you could go on YouTube.
Speaker:So we have it everywhere. I love that we've got that URL too. I just,
Speaker:it's one of the things I'm so adamant about. Just make it an easy to
Speaker:remember URL and make more love that show. It's just the perfect
Speaker:URL, the perfect. Win for the show. We'll have all those links in the show
Speaker:notes. Thanks again, Ellen. Really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you again,
Speaker:Harry.
