Host Of Readily Random Podcast: Larry Roberts AKA The Readily Boss – S2E19 (#47)

S2E19 – Larry Roberts – powered by Happy Scribe

Here. All right. Am I loud and clear on your. You are you separate actually so this is really not cool.

I think we both have the whole studio thing going on, so. All right.

So three, two, one. Welcome. Welcome back to Boston College podcast on today. We have a fellow podcast or business owner. And as the story progressed, you’ll learn that we have six degrees of separation going on. So without further ado, Larry Roberts, welcome to the show. What does that mean?

Everybody, thank you for having me on. And this is great. I’m excited and I appreciate the opportunity.

Great, great. Great. Yes. I mean, I’ve met Larry is kind of we met through Bedfast Fest, but had come to find that we also have some common friends as well, Kelly Stevens, which you guys may or may not be familiar with, but he was like, I think episode three or four of this particular podcast.

So let’s just dove into your story a little bit like who are you? Who am I? And I’m trying to figure that out. I’m forty eight and I have no clue. But for the last five years I’ve been a podcast or so. That’s pretty exciting there. And a quick glance, I realize why I’m friends with Kelly because he is a voiceover artist and I was doing some voiceover before I got into podcasting and I actually did a little more as podcasting progressed.

But eventually podcasting took over and the creativity that I was looking for was much more readily available in podcasting than it was for me with voice acting. So that’s how I ended up here, honestly. I mean, that’s kind of that’s one side of the story. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that. But that’s that’s how Kelly and I are are associated with each other, which, of course, in turn causes us to be associated with each other, which is great.

Yeah, definitely.

And it’s kind of funny cause I think that when I was one of the attractions that I wanted you on the show, obviously, you know, you did a great presentation on Vitez, but your voice had some similarities. And I’m like, how does he sound familiar to me? Just a little bit. And then as a result, I’m like, no wonder. I mean, you and Kelly. So it makes perfect sense.

So if you have to define yourself in three to five words, what three to five words would you choose? Wow, three to five words always striving for perfection. It’s kind of cheesy, but it’s true and you know what, I don’t say that to make myself stand out or make myself sound like everything that I do is perfection. But I am a bit of a perfectionist and it has pluses and minuses on both sides of that coin. You know, a lot of times I find myself getting locked up by perfection, paralysis, which just you’re not going to do it until it’s just, you know, everything’s perfect.

And instead of doing that, there comes at a time when you have to go, look, man, this is as perfect as it’s going to get. Get it done. Get it out there, go out there, promote yourself, step up and start that next part of your progression.

So, yeah, obviously, I’ve been following you since we kind of made the connection. So it sounds like you just took a 60 minute improv situation to wear on your Facebook page. You do this on a daily basis, right? Every single day you put out like a 60 minute words of wisdom. So you want to kind of talk about, like, how did that came to fruition and how and how long have you been doing it?

Actually, 60 seconds, but it sounds like 60 Minutes sometimes.

Would he please shut up? No, but what it is, man, is I started doing this in an effort to get going on.

Tick tock. Everybody’s talking about tick tock is the next big platform. It’s where you need to be is where all the hype is. And so I was like, man, what am I going to do? Dancing’s probably not going to work for me at this age. Athleticism kind of out the door, out the door there. So that’s probably not going to happen either. What can I do? And so motivation and inspiration and affirmations became my point of reference for my Tick-Tock videos.

And while I have probably published maybe I was like 20 to 30 of them, they’re doing better on Facebook than they were on Tick-Tock. So I get more feedback, I get more engagement, I get more response on Facebook and Instagram than I do on tick tock. So I’m still figuring the tick tock Rubik’s Cube out there. I hadn’t quite got all the same color yet. We’ll get there. Got you.

So I mean, just talk about I mean, you’re you’re you’re fulfilling two separate podcasts. So let’s just talk about both those podcasts and the journey of the directions those podcasts are going it.

Well, you know, it’s interesting. I’ve had three podcasts overall for the past four over the past five years. The first one was a comedy podcast. I fancied myself a bit of a comedian, did a little bit of stand up here and there as well. So and that’s kind of what brought me into podcasting to start with. I had been an alcoholic for years and years and years and recently came out of rehab back in twenty thirteen. Actually I came out in fourteen went in and thirteen at the end of thirteen and I was looking for some kind of outlet.

At that point I needed to be creative. I needed something that would get me fired up. I needed something that I can invest my emotion and my time into. And a buddy of mine, Kip Hamami, he’s like, Dude, listen to Joe Rogan podcast. I said, Look, dude, podcasts are for nerds. I’m not going to listen to that. It’s not going to happen. And I say that because you look behind me all I’ve got to wonder Batman toys.

So you want talk about nerds. I’m a you know, I fit the category, but I wasn’t into it, man. But then eventually he kept hammer and kept hammering. And I listen to Joe Rogan and. I don’t know who he had on the day that I listened for the first time, but it was a comedian friend of his, probably Tony Hinchcliffe or Joey Diaz. And dude, I was Rolin. I could not believe what I was hearing.

I couldn’t believe what they were saying.

I couldn’t believe that this was like legal, you know, it wasn’t that bad, but it was like what it was like the 80s comedians all over again, man. It reminded me of the Sam Kinison and the Andrew Dice Clay days and the Robin Williams days when they were all doing their thing in the mid 80s and. It just fired me up, man, I was like, holy crap, this is a forum where I can tell my jokes and I can do whatever I want to do and nobody will find out.

And so I started the show and it was very successful. Honestly, I ended up taking it to a local Dallas Fort Worth radio station, was on there, took it even as a live show. And to this day, the club where I started that as a live show, it turned into an open mic night. And today it’s still one of the largest open mikes in all of Dallas Fort Worth. So I wear that badge with a little bit of pride, but it started kind of getting to the point where.

It was growing, but I was seeing that I was going to have a hard time transitioning to mainstream acceptance or monetization with the content that we were putting out. So I started to do some evaluating. I did some self check ins, and I thought, you know what, I’m going to change it up. And this time I’m going to do a show that contributes back to society. So I started Readily Random, which is still out there on iTunes today.

That was it started off being a podcast with stories of success, stories of overcoming stories of of retribution. And it it was great for a while, but I think maybe I was still too raw at the time to to hear those stories day in and day out and know that I had lived that story. Right. And so I’m making these comparisons, but it just wasn’t really fitting my vibe. So it slowly started to evolve. I had some entertainers that were on the show, a couple of actors and actresses and a couple of musicians even.

But eventually it evolved into a business podcast, which was more of an entrepreneurial front. I had some big time entrepreneurs on there, some highly successful entrepreneurs, some not quite successful, but they’re working on it. And it was doing this thing really, really well.

And then I started teaching podcasting, I started going, here’s how you can launch your show, here’s the rules. Great, quote unquote, the rules. Here’s the best practices of what you need to do to launch your own show and. In looking at that and realizing what I was saying and then looking back at my show, I was definitely coming in with a do as I say, not as I new perspective, because as a podcast or I’m sure, you know, the riches are in the niches.

So you need to nesh down. You need to have a topic. You need to have a focus for your podcast, something that sets it apart from every other podcast that’s out there. I think we’re probably up to one point seventy five million podcasts out there on iTunes right now. And we’re increasing at the rate of about one hundred thousand a month. It’s insane. That’s one of the things that twenty twenty has done for us. It’s blown up the podcasting space.

But again, we were talking about Nicias and readily random, just the name itself. Not very nesh doesn’t really tell you anything other than you don’t know what you’re going to get. It’s readily random. So that was breaking one of the cardinal rules of you got a niche. So I said, all right, here’s what I got to do.

I got to reevaluate. I got to practice what I preach. I’ve got to change things up. I got to focus. And what I ended up doing was launching the one big win podcast, which is what I have now, where we talk about moments that we put into motion and we take one step closer to life mastery and that launched on November 1st of this year. So we are rocking and rolling. We’re getting ready here we are the middle of December.

We’re going to do another big launch in January for it. I think I made another mistake. And, hey, I own it, right? I launched a podcast three days before one of the biggest elections has ever taken place. And I like, you know what? They ain’t got nothing on me. They just presidents and they know, thanks, I’m alone. And lo and behold, that’s not quite the case. So we’re going to call that our soft launch and then we’re going to have a big launch come January one.

Oh, cool.

So, I mean, in that I mean, you gave a complete visual of kind of the parts of your journey. Right.

So let’s just jump around this a little bit more like why did you get into podcasting? Like, what really sparked it? And I know you’re saying that you saw Joe Rogan, you listen to him, but internally for you, what emotion that made you say, hey, I need to do this outside of the fact that you were recovering from alcohol, why did you do it?

It was the freedom of expression. It was the unabashed freedom that this platform provided. I looked at it because I tend to talk a lot. I tend to tell jokes that might get me in trouble in the wrong environment, which is pretty much any environment sometimes. But but when I heard this and saw the absolute freedom to create whatever I wanted to verbally create blown away and I haven’t been that excited about an opportunity since back in my teens when I found out what Corradi was and I started training martial arts, that it reignited that same type of fire and that same type of drive that karate did for me and my teen years and my twenty years and my thirties.

So it was something that I hadn’t felt in a long, long time. And it was tremendous. And I was motivated. I was inspired. And I took ended up taking out an entire room in the house, turning it into a studio. I bought so much equipment. I know what to do with it. I probably got some still in boxes that I haven’t opened, but don’t tell the wife she thinks I use it all. But it’s just one of those scenarios where I just I jumped in and five years later, I’m still just as fired up about podcasting as I was on day one.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

So it sounds like you had a cool Burki moment and you just went all in one hundred percent, 100 percent. So, I mean, just talk about your your backdrop a little bit. I mean, obviously in podcasting, backdrops are just as valuable as the host. A lot of times people don’t realize that. So I mean, kind of tells that the journey of like, why did you pick that backdrop and what you got going on back there?

Well, that’s all real. I can reach back and pick up any thing. So it’s not just a backdrop, it’s the real deal. Holyfield but what it is, is I fell in love with these little things called vinyl pops, and I’m sure you’ve seen them. They’re little figurines, about three and a half inches tall. He got big hands on a little bitty bodies. And although they were the coolest thing I’d ever seen in my life, which is just kind of a cute side, I mean, I shouldn’t be sharing with people, but, you know, I’m sensitive.

All right. So I had started collecting these and other Batman I’ve collected Batman stuff since as far back as I can remember. I mean, there’s a picture of me when I’m about three years old standing outside our apartment building and I’m wearing my Batman t shirt. So I’ve always loved me, some Batman. And up until recently and actually I’ve still got another week and a half left. I was still in corporate America and I had my my cubicle, my little prison cell decorated with all this cool Batman, or at least I thought it was cool Batman stuff.

I’d been there 20 some odd years. Right. So it’s it’s not like I just did this out of the blue. Well, I end up getting a new manager. He ended up not liking it at all and had to take it all down. So I’m like, well. So I one on my back man stuff, so in creating the studio, the studio has evolved over time. I mean, it’s changed, it’s grown, it’s become better, it’s become more robust, it’s become fancier, whatever, all those good adjectives.

But. I had to make it me, I had to make, you know, my my bat cave essentially is what it amounts to and that’s where it’s at now. You’re going to see some other things in there. There’s even a there’s a where’s the Danielsson Chia Pet, which I see that is on there. We got the baby Yodo over here doing his thing. We got there’s a couple of GIGO ones there. Storm Shadow. He’s a dijo guy, but most of it’s Batman stuff.

So but I like to mix it up a little bit, you know, so that’s what it’s all about, you know, and it’s a great conversation starter. Everybody has to have a comment about my background and I love it. It was actually inspired by Gary V. When you look at some of his older work, he’s in his office and he’s got action figures and all kinds of cool stuff just crammed on the shelves was like pretty cool look.

So that was another inspiration for the overall schema that I’ve got going back there as well. So you alluded to corporate America a little bit.

And obviously I think both of us are very big entrepreneurs, business individuals. So currently you’re saying you’re transitioning.

So what do you do in corporate America, wise and obviously the transition into monetizing your podcasts and your other adventures, what does that look like? Well, I had been a corporate trainer, that’s kind of the direction that I ended up heading in my early 20s, I don’t have a degree. OK, so I worked into these positions. I started off at Texas Instruments, which is a giant cotton manufacturing company. And yeah, calculator’s of course. So I started working there on the line.

I was just an assembly line kind of guy just doing my thing. And a job opening popped up for a corporate trainer so I knew I could talk. So I thought, what the heck, let’s see what we can do. And they ended up giving me the job and I got into corporate training and I did that for about three and a half years now. I’m also from a small town way north Texas called Dennison, and it’s got a population of about, I don’t know, thirty forty thousand people, probably bigger now, but that’s what it was back then.

And Auclair had dreams and aspirations for living in the big city. So I had to get down to Dallas. That was the goal. And I reached out to some companies down there, applied several times men. This job that I ended up with, I came down seven times for interviews and some of those interviews were like, oh, thanks for coming in and then sending me back home an hour and a half drive. Right. It was it was horrible.

It didn’t suck. But anyways, I ended up landing it and I ended up moving down to Plano, which is just north of Dallas. It’s a suburb. And with this company like, say, twenty one years now, I’ve been with them. So I came in as a corporate trainer and more of a corporate training manager position. I had six trainers that were underneath me and I would develop screening policies and procedures and then they would go out and they would train the masses.

And eventually this evolved to bring me into. We rolled out a massive, massive software program for all of our facilities across the globe. And it’s I mean, the project is still going on right now. And it started in two thousand. That’s how big the project is. And they needed somebody to come in and help with training. So they brought me up and I ended up in it. And during the downtime of not really having anybody to train, we were in between facilities or whatever it may be.

They needed somebody to start looking at data and doing some data analysis and doing some reporting. And I kind of moved into that realm. And now today my formal title is business intelligence analyst, which is just a fancy way of saying I do reports and look at data. So but now it’s been a great ride. It really has. I put my notice in at my job about two weeks ago and we’re calling it a retirement. So I’m going to hang out for the rest of the year.

And then come January 4th, I have to make an appearance and then that’s it. Then I’m done. And then I’m an entrepreneur. And, you know, this has been a journey in and of itself. It’s not my first foray into entrepreneurship. I usually always have some sort of side hustle going, whether it was eBay or it doesn’t matter. I always had something going. And back around 2007, I think it was, I started a swimming pool company and it was it was like a route company.

Come by, clean your pool, repair your pool. I grew it to about 50 clients or 50 houses that we were servicing in a couple of hotels as well. And he got to the point that it was so big that for me to do the route, I couldn’t I just couldn’t do the route and I couldn’t hold my full time job regardless of what I did. It was just too big. And it came down to the point of, hey, man, you got to jump ship and you’ve got to go do pools full time or you’ve got to let go of the pool business and stay corporate well, corporate one.

So I ended up selling my pool business there, made a little change on the side. Nothing too crazy, but I was pretty happy with it. I think I got a new truck out of the deal and some furniture. So that worked out. But that was my biggest foray into entrepreneurship at the time. Now now is the real deal, man, because I have quit my job. I have made my podcast is great is I can make it at this stage of my career.

I know I’ll continue to evolve. I know I’ll continue to grow and I know my shows will continue to get better. But I’m at that point where it was like, you know what, let’s do this, man, let’s do it. So here we are.

Nice. So I mean, in that right? I mean, obviously, you’re a big logistics guy. You’re analytic guy just based upon, like your position and what you’ve grown into. So and even a podcast developing on monetizing or just entrepreneurship is always hurdles put the best way to overcome a lot of these hurdles, just having systems in place. So what systems do you have to continue growing and making your podcast prosperous in the future? Probably isn’t the answer that you’re looking for, but my systems began with planning my exit from corporate America.

So I’ve positioned myself. I’ve paid off one car, I sold the other car my house is in with within PAY-OFF range, got rid of most of my debt and put myself in a position to where even if I don’t quite meet my personal goals for the year, I’m still going to be a OK when it comes to my standard of living and day to day expenses. So that was the first step that I took that I thought was going to be the most critical.

The other is men. Establishing relationships is the key to this whole game men and I say that about this game, but it’s that way with every game. It no matter what you’re doing out there. Relationships make or break your situation. And I have worked hard to align myself with some of the best in the industry and not just as a fan boy, but as a student. I’ve hired some of the best coaches that are out there. I’ve paid pretty decent sums of money to get them on my team and I’ve learned a lot from them.

And the whole thing is that I know and it’s kind of keeping that ego in check. You know, back in my Karati days earlier had an ego in need and keep it in check at all. And it led to some pretty bad things, like getting kicked out of the karate school. And it was bad. It was horrible. It sucked, but it got a little too big for my britches. So that’s not what this is all about.

What it’s about is evolving and growing and. That’s where we’re going with this. That’s my plan, is to continue growing, continue evolving and continuing to establish long lasting relationships. That’s not just knowing somebody, but that’s like, man, if you need me to do some for you, a hit me up, I’ll be more than happy to help you out, you know, vice versa, that sort of thing. It’s definitely not a one way street in any regard.

You need to be willing to give away some of your best stuff for free just to set that standard. Drives my wife crazy because she goes, you getting paid for this one? I go, No, honey, I’m doing this one from Free’s. I’m getting some of them attention books. And she goes, Well, that’s all good. But attention books don’t don’t pay the rent, you know? So she’s going to get pay some green and get off these attention books.

But it goes a lot further than you would ever. Expect when you’re giving away your talent and you’re giving away your time and you’re giving it away to people that respect that and respect you for the fact that you’re willing to give it pays back. So it’s just tremendous. You get back so much more than you end up giving out. And that’s one approach that I’ve seen worked tremendously well in this industry.

Nice. Nice. So with that right, I mean, you’re still on the journey, but you’ve had multiple levels of success on that journey. And we always hear the perception of it takes 20 years to become an overnight success. That’s perceived to happen literally two days. Right. So how long how long have you been on your journey to get to where you are currently from?

Podcasting? I mean, I’ve been I’ve been doing it about five years, and I’m going to be flat out honest with the first podcast. The numbers crushed the numbers that I have now. As far as downloads go, it was tremendous. I couldn’t believe it. Now, there’s also this thing I have to say, though, and I can’t prove or or debunk this, that back then on social media sites, especially sites like Twitter and whatnot, they had a lot of bots going on back then that would pick up and it would look like your podcast is being played, but it really wouldn’t.

So the numbers back then, can I rely on them? I don’t know. It seemed to me it was it was very well received. Everywhere we went, people were laughing. We were having a great time. I had a co-host as well. Jamie Graybill was his name. He’s now touring with Eddie Griffin, the stand up comedian. He opens for Eddie wherever he goes and even got his name in Lights on on Eddie’s latest CD. So that’s kind of cool or even it’s special.

I think it’s working on HBO or Cinemax right now, but so that’s cool, man. He’s gone on to achieve great success in the comedy arena. And I’m just trying to keep up with my boy man. He’s like, Oh yeah, you’re doing this. Well, I did this. Oh, crap, man. OK, now I’ve got to go. But yeah, it’s been five years, you know, and I can remember telling Jamie, as a matter of fact, when we first started the podcast was like, man, this is a long game.

This isn’t an overnight game. Anybody that’s out there that is overnight, they’re coming from a massive background of of mainstream media. They’ve got massive support. They’ve got audiences that already exist. And that’s one of the things that I think so many people get disheartened about because they see Joe Rogan. I see, man, he just signed one hundred million dollar deal with Spotify to give me some of that money. But they don’t realize that it’s not just Joe Rogan’s podcast that got him there.

Now, he’s been podcasting for thirteen years, for starters. That’s just his podcast. Let’s not forget that he had an acting career on news radio. He had his own sitcom on NBC. Of course, everybody knows about Fear Factor, right. He was on Fear Factor for God knows how many seasons he’s the UFC for UFC. Exactly. And he’s still doing that today. So Joe Rogan sells out stadiums, stadiums, football stadiums. He sells about for his comedy.

Who does that besides him? And and and maybe what’s a little guy? Kevin a bit harder. Yeah. I mean, you know, him and Kevin, they’re neck and neck right now. And I personally don’t think Joe’s on that.

Funny.

I mean, don’t tell me I said that, but I don’t get his comedy. I love his commentary on the UFC. But it’s comedy to work for me, bro. I don’t I don’t know why I was.

I put your career in a chokehold, man. It’s not that hard to break out of that. So I know he’s a bad ass, so I will mess with it, but. Oh, well, that’s definitely hilarious, man.

So on this journey, what’s one thing you would have done differently to get you to where you are a lot faster if you could do it all over again?

I would have learned more before I got started, I would have hired a coach right out of the gate, I would have done my research, you know, and it’s interesting, back then, it was it was more difficult, I think, to find information on podcasting and to find out the basics of podcasting.

You could find videos here, videos there. You couldn’t really find a whole series. Some people were charging exorbitant amounts to train you on how to do a podcast. I’m talking thousands. And that wasn’t my game, wanting to pay somebody that kind of money to learn how to do this fancy new hobby that I have. But I ended up doing my own Google researches and reading and watching vids and this and that and eventually pieced it all together. Now, how I ever recorded that first show, I’m really not sure.

I don’t know what cables I had going where or what connected to what or how. But I managed a managed to get it out there. And it was like, whatever you do, don’t touch it because I don’t know how to put it back. But it’s one of those things, man, that today what I’ve done is I have a course on YouTube called One Plus One equals podcast where I take and I break it down. And the sub line is that we simplify the equation of podcasting success.

So I give you step by step instructions. Do this, do this, do this, do this. And then I give you three options when it comes to gear. Here’s this gear package. Here’s this gear package. Here’s this gear package. And I’m not selling the packages. It’s just a set of gear that I recommend for different levels of users or depending on how much you want to invest, because, I mean, it’s up to you to get it.

Again, I’m not selling these packages. It’s just something that I wanted, something where people would get my course and go, wow, this is so straightforward. I can do this, too, because I think everybody needs a podcast. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Definitely. So. I mean, obviously, you have a very tenacious. Entrepreneur spirit, and you’ve been in business for a period of time, did you get that from your family? Do you have entrepreneurs in your family, like your mom, your dad and your uncles in a barbershop? I mean, where are you getting your hustle from?

You know, that’s that’s a great question, because I have no clue other than I grew up in a trailer park. I grew up poor as dirt. And I’ve been there. We’ve eaten the spam. We’ve eaten the government cheese. I remember standing in line at the Baptist Church to get the government cheese. There was a time when I was a little kid where we didn’t even live in the trailer park. We lived in the maintenance shed in the shed behind the trailer park where the maintenance guy hang out.

And that’s where my my dad was the was the maintenance guy for this little crappy trailer park in Stockton, California. And I knew all that sucked. So as I got older, I was really fascinated with business and art. I was that nerd that got business and art on his high school ring instead of his basketball number. So, you know, don’t don’t don’t judge me for that. But it’s just something that I’ve always been I’ve been pulled to.

You know, I thought I was going be a stockbroker when I grew up. It didn’t work out that way, but that was what I was like. If you remember Family Ties and I’m dating myself, I know you got oh, Alex P. Keaton. I wanted to be Alex Pkwy. And that was that was that was why, I don’t know, he was successful, in my opinion, at least back then. I probably hate his guts right now, but but back then I thought he was the stuff, you know, so that was where I was headed.

And I’ve just always had it. I’ve always had a hustle. I’ve always had some kind of side thing, whether it’s stolen papers or mowing yards or whatever it took to grab some cash and and get stuff that I wanted, because otherwise I really wasn’t going to. Oh, yeah.

It’s just kind of cool that you brought up the mobile home park because I’m actually diving into that space as far as mobile home investments and just understanding like pound for pound, there’s no better, you know, when it comes to real estate, looks like the best investment on the damn planet right now. So I don’t know if you’re if you’re in that space, if you haven’t looked at that. But I mean, that’s really cool that you come better because you have an inside niche that most people don’t have.

Oh, I grew up in a trailer park my whole life. I mean, you know, we had a couple of rental houses here and there, but primarily out in California was a trailer park. That’s where Grandpa live. So that’s where we live because we needed some free rent or whatever. And then when we moved back out to Texas, I grew up, we were in a trailer park from, I don’t know, probably nine years old until I graduated high school.

So, I mean, I literally grew up in a trailer park. So I definitely have that experience. And as far as the investment goes, I don’t have any experience in that arena, but I’m familiar with it. A buddy of mine, he was investing in it quite heavily. I don’t know if he still is, but I know that he was in all the forums and he was talking to everybody online and he was learning everything he learned.

And he invested in a course in all kinds of stuff. And I recall him looking at a couple of trailers. But it’s funny because he actually worked at the same company where I still am employed and that’s how we knew each other. But we used to sit in his office and go, oh, what can we do next?

What’s going on with us? Outhustle? And I’ll be damned if he didn’t end up starting a bakery and he left the company he still owns. He said his bakery open now for about eight years, him and his wife, and they have a cupcake shop and one of the malls here locally. So, you know, props to him. But he’s always doing something. He’s even worse than I am. I can remember the first time he and I went to get our new businesses because he started to pull business as well.

But he was building at the time he was going to build and I was going to repair and maintain and we were going to compliment each other’s businesses that way. And we want to get our business names or our DBAs, and they pulled his name up, I was sitting there with all these businesses that he had with like, dude, when is one of these going to work? Like, man, I don’t know. But I’m a guy, so, you know, and that’s what he did.

And now he’s a baker. I mean, he’s not a baker. His wife’s a baker.

But I mean, that’s a solid point. I mean, he has enough tenacity to realize that you just don’t quit. You just keep going until you figure it out. I mean, I always talk about, like the movie The Founder and the whole McDonald’s thing. I’m like the guy you didn’t crack, didn’t make it until he was like 60, 70 years old. And shortly thereafter, he was a billionaire. Right. So, I mean, it’s never too late to kind of stay stay on the ground and keep moving.

Right. So what’s your work? Hustle. Right. How do you juggle? Because it seems like when you’re in, you’re a thousand percent in whatever it is you’re doing. So how do you juggle your work life with your family life?

Well, you know, my family life is in a position where I can my wife is here. She’s working from home most of the time now because of 20, 20, because of the whole covid gig. So she’s actually in another room right now working. So her and I are together. Most of the time my kids are grown. So that puts me in a position of where I don’t have any responsibilities there. Once, once married and got one kid, one’s on his way to being married and they’ve both graduated college.

They’ve both done their thing and made something of themselves. So, I mean, in that arena, I got it made in the shade. And that’s great as a huge advantage that previously when you still had those those people that were depending on you and those responsibilities that were right there, it makes a lot more difficult, a lot more difficult. And I don’t think for a minute that that didn’t play into the factor of me selling the pool business as well.

It was just too much on the line. You know, I was still paying child support back then. I was still providing insurance for my kids back then. I still have insurance for my wife and I. So all those responsibilities definitely played a factor in my decision making process with my power company. But I don’t have that same pressure on me now. And that’s why I think this is the time for me to do it and do it right.

Gotcha. Gotcha.

So with that, what is your morning habits, your morning routines, sleep?

You know, my morning routine consists of I do like to get up early, even though I’m not doing I’m not going to a job per say, like I’m working from home this week as well.

So you’ll still see me roll out of bed at six o’clock in the morning. Same time my wife, she’ll get me up if I’m not up already and we make the most of it. She does her thing. I do mine. I like to read a little bit. I like to check my emails. I like to get caught up. I like to make sure that my day is is really tucked away and ready to go before eight o’clock, before everybody starts hitting you with all the phone calls and and all the other responsibilities kick in.

So that’s that is definitely my morning routine. And it’s that way means that we on Saturday, it’s that way on Sunday, Monday through Friday. It’s always that way up early and up late.

It’s funny that you said because I mean, the more I do this podcast and the more entrepreneurs that I talk to in the more level of success of the people that I’m speaking to, the common denominator is always the same one. You wake up early right there, too. There’s some kind of ritual that that you did and you kind of alluded to reading. Right. And that’s that’s another big thing is usually coffee and reading or reading and coffee. So in the reading, what books are you reading right now?

Are you there? It is Monster and reading is how I do it.

But I call that Crackerjacks. That’s correct. You can read whatever it is. I love it though. It’s the book that I’m reading right now is it is called In LP the the overall introduction to an LP. So I’ve heard a lot of neurolinguistic programing and how it can benefit you going forward in your entrepreneurial career with the focus and understanding how to control your mindset. And that’s the one that I am reading right now. I’ve also got a book.

I cannot remember the name of it. It’s about storytelling. It’s sitting in there on my other desk. I should go in there and get it. But it’s a great book on how to properly tell a story, which the reason I’m reading that is because I want to learn how to tell stories. I want to learn how to get my points across with stories. I want my podcast to evolve in the way that I present myself and present the stories and the guests that I have each and every time.

So those are the two books that are sitting on my desk in there right now. But man, if as long as it’s something positive and something educational, to a certain degree, I’m textbook, but as long as I’m learning something out of the deal, I’m I’m definitely going to read it.

So nice. Nice. Right. So what do you see yourself in 20 years from now? Did not know. No, I’m forty eight, so twenty years from now with a 68, I can do some math.

Man 68, I don’t see any reason, you know, who knows if everything stays the same, I’m sure I’ll still be broadcasting something somewhere. Somehow. It’s just what I love to do. I love having a microphone in my face. I love being in front of people. I’m trying to transition into the speaking circuit now, which I’m already speaking on a variety of different platforms. When it comes to online conferences. I’ll always be a staple, at least at this point on Bedfast and IT podcast.

Once we start having live events there again, I will be on stage there as well. So that’s kind of the direction that I’m headed. So if I can do live audiences and if I can achieve that goal and I think that that around me out pretty well. Nice, nice.

So understanding that again, your analytics guy, you have some systems in place, you had a business, you’re in podcasting. What tools are you using to kind of maintain and juggle all these things?

I use Outlook a lot and I use my wife a lot. My wife is she she’s the one that keeps me straight, honestly, because I do tend to get a little little, little, little frayed on the ends, you know, because I try to do everything all at the same time and you really can’t. So my wife sometimes has to sit me down and go, dude, what do you have going? OK, break it down and then we break it down.

We get it organized, we get it back on the calendar and we start watching our PS and Qs again till the next time she has to scold me. But in I use cowardly a lot for scheduling all of my interviews. Counties, great use outlook a lot. I use Trello quite a bit. I’ve just been introduced to Trello over the past couple of months. I like it. I think it’s a great tool to use as well. I use some booking agencies, you know, to get guests, booking agencies, reach out to me, go, hey, would you like to have so-and-so on your podcast?

And some of the guests are great. Some of the guests are not a fit for my show, but I’ve landed some insane people just from the referrals from the from the booking agents. So I use a ton of different tools, meaning if something new comes along that I think is going to help my process or help me be a better person or be a better entrepreneur or a better podcast or in bed, I’ll jump on it.

Nice, nice, nice. So I mean, I think that’s a hell of a gateway to step into this next question. Right. So let’s say I am 36 years old. I’m in corporate America and I’m trying to figure out my way out. Right. And I’m looking at podcasting. I’m looking at media. What words of wisdom would you give me to influence me to make that jump? Understand what you’re getting into. Make sure you understand that monetizing a podcast is not easy.

People seem to think that it’s extremely easy. Oh, you can just put a paywall in front of a new a patriot and then you can get sponsors and you can have this. And it doesn’t work that way. Folks, it sounds great when you’re listening to the presentations, but it’s not that easy. And again, I go back to the built in audience. You have to make sure you understand that who you’re comparing yourself against has an audience.

So they’re already, you know, doing what they need to do in order to make that money. So what you need to do is understand what your podcast can do for you in the realm of making money. Your podcast itself is going to bring in very little, most likely. But it’s a tremendous platform to launch other avenues of revenue, meaning I use my podcast to speak. I use my podcast to sell my book. I use my podcast to sell my course.

I use my podcast to sell consulting. I use my podcast to sign deals like I just signed with Preska Mitsos to build courses. And Chris and I, Chris is the owner of podcasts. He and I are going to create a minimum of four courses together and we just signed a contract yesterday that’s going to lead to some great resources and great opportunities there. So it’s understanding. And what does that go back to that I mentioned earlier, relationships. Make sure you have your relationships.

Make sure you understand that you’re going to need multiple streams of revenue in order to make this thing work and make sure that you have all your ducks in a row before you jump.

I mean, that’s the solid golden nugget, seriously. So how can people find you online? I mean, what’s your Facebook and Instagram handle your podcast address?

You can find everything that I’m looking for right now is a big win pod at big win pod is all the social big win pod. Dotcom is the is the Web address. The site is up. It’s looking really nice, but it’s growing as well. So we’re transitioning away from the really random to the big win podcasts. So there’s still some stuff on readily randomize as well. So you kind of caught me in an in between state, but I want everybody to find me a big win pod.

So look for me on Facebook, Instagram, tick tock, everything at Big Win Pod.

Hey, so in the multiple to our point, right. There’s some people that they just want to start podcasting, some people that have started podcasts. And to your point, they realized they didn’t do enough research and now they hit that hurdle of like, shit do. I kind of scratched his podcast and start a whole new one, like how difficult is it to kind of have a podcast, leave it up and running and cut it off and start a whole new brand?

You know, it was real easy between my first and second podcast because it was such a drastic shift, I didn’t expect to maintain listeners from the first show or my second show. So I knew, all right, we’re cutting our leg off to spite or face our nose off to spite our face. We’re cutting off all of our all of our listeners. We’re doing everything boom. But we’re done. I’m done with it. I’m done. And I’m starting from scratch.

One big win is a refinement of readily random. So I am looking for those listeners from readily random to come over to one big win. And it is more difficult than I would have thought.

You know, I did two months, two months of promotion before launching the show. Then I promoted each and every day, all the month of November. And so three total months when promoting one big win. And although it launched well, it was it was something to be proud of. It wasn’t the massive boom that I was looking for. And that’s why we’re doing it again in January. So if you do make a mistake, something similar to what I did, regroup, don’t take it.

OK, well, now I just have to fight my way back to the top. Now, don’t fight. Do it right. Plan it out. And then once that thing, I hired new coaches. Now I have two coaches now for podcasting. My regular coach and I have this launch coach specifically that’s helping me with this launch in January. So don’t be afraid to invest in your education. Don’t be afraid to look to others to help guide you where you need to go.

That’s huge.

When you’re making that transition, understanding your revenue sources understand what the podcast is going to do for you and that also being humble enough to suck it up and go, look, I still got stuff to learn, even though I’m going out here on my own. I don’t know everything. I’m not I’m not the kid daddy just yet.

Yeah, I mean, that’s it’s funny. Like, you’re dropping this information in a way that’s not only transparent, but it’s very useful for people to understand that just because you started something and you hit a particular hurdle, sometimes it’s better to scratch it than to keep pushing through, knowing that you’re going down the wrong rabbit hole. So I definitely appreciate that. So in going into the bonus round.

Right, OK, I can kind of guess what this answer is going to be if you could be a superhero.

I mean.

Yeah, you bet. So why the question is and why why would you want to be Batman? Man, I think if you look at the psychology of it, I guess it’s I was a very frail, very tiny kid. I was born with a birth defect. My chest was sunk in Oregon for growing out. My ribs and everything were growing in crush and everything. So I’d have a massive surgery when I was four years old, super fragile guy, super skinny up until I became an alcoholic.

And then after I got out of rehab, now I’m fat. But I was skinny as hell up to that point and skinny all my life. I think the fact that I like Batman is the fact that he made himself what he is. He doesn’t have any special powers, didn’t get bit by a spider, come from a different planet or I mean, that’s cool. I love Spider-Man two. It’s cool cat, but it’s just that he is powerless, persay, other than the money, which of course with money comes to power.

But he trained, he learned, he taught himself and ah, he reached out and found coaches that taught him and he put himself in a position to succeed. And I think that’s what always resonated with me, because I hated being female, I hated being protected and I hated being made fun of for being so tiny and so skinny and so quote unquote fragile. And it was that’s what drew me to Batman. That’s what drew me to martial arts.

I just knew if I could pass, I’d be the cat daddy. And it helped some, you know, but then I became just an egomaniac that I was a horrible, horrible human being. So it supplemented one thing, but left me with a big hole in the other, you know what I mean? So but it all led to where I’m at today, and that’s what’s great about it. But I think that’s it, man. I think it’s just I hated being frail.

I hated being fragile, and I hated being made fun of.

So on the bed. Nice, nice.

I mean, I think with that is a great testament to who you are because I mean, you’re saying that through martial arts, kind of like the Cobra Kai model, right. You became a real badass and you started using the good for bad, but you recognized it, right? You recognize it and you kind of turned a new leaf. So, I mean, that’s definitely a positive attribute to who you are. So going into this next question, right.

If you could spend 24 hours a day with anybody dead or alive, who would it be and why? Mm.

Twenty four straight hours. Yes, straight hours. Twenty four hours. You have one time dead or alive.

Are we doing business. Are we hanging out or.

It’s up to you anybody that that you could think of that you would want to spend twenty four hours with dead or alive. Who would it be. Awah.

I don’t know man. I’d probably go with Samantha Fogg’s. People I don’t know who that is, but but no, I never when I was a kid but no, in all seriousness, I’d probably I’d probably want to hang out with Robin Williams. I think he’s a cool dude. I think he’s got a lot of ah, he had a lot of insight. But he’s also obviously was very troubled. And I think there is a tremendous amount of insight that is to be learned from someone like Robin.

And he’s also always fascinated me my entire life. So, you know, from seeing him when he first debuted on Happy Days and then, of course, Mork and Mindy and then all of his movies and his stand up, his stand up was just next level stuff. And it was one of those guys. We loved him or hated him because his personality was so big.

And I’ve often had that larger than life, that louder than life personality. So I could always relate to that as well. So I go, you and Robin, we’d kick it for twenty four. Yeah.

I mean I could definitely see that. I mean Robert is a great choice just because I think he is so dark that he could reach into a comedic side that most people can’t even comprehend because he is that dark. And I think, you know, movies like one hour photo was kind of like a little peek into how dark he really is as an actor. It was like it really shined in that movie, right? Yes, it did. So, I mean, I’m going into kind of your most significant achievement.

Right.

What would you say outside of the kids? I’ve learned of asked that question enough time that most people they always say to kids. Right. So I kind of took that off the table outside of your kids. What’s your most significant achievement today?

I man, I’d say get my black belt. That was huge for me. I mean, I cried. It’s still hanging behind me. Is right there. I mean, let it go. Got two stripes, I became a second degree black belt and it was just it was everything, it was life to me. And there was a time in my training and in my my practice of martial arts that I reached a mental level. That was something I’ve never I’ve never gotten it back.

I lost it when I became an eagle bad guy. But it was just. I don’t know how to say it other than you were I was like high on life. It was just everything around me seemed inconsequential. It’s like no challenge was was that too big? No person was too big to intimidate me. Or I mean, it was just I reached this echelon of just I don’t know, you don’t call it enlightenment or something cheesy. That’s fine.

I don’t care. But it was it was amazing to feel that way. And as an example, you know, back then, there was a time when I got into breaking a lot. You see karate guys always breaking bricks and breaking wood and this and that. And I chose the concrete brick route to to break. And my my specialty was the scalloped gardening blocks that were two and a quarter inches thick and about two feet long and. At my very best, I did 12 of those with one smack at one hundred and fifty five pounds.

That’s a lot of concrete for 155 pound dude to to crush. And it was tremendous because I did it in front of a big audience. It was awesome. And, man, I was high on life.

It was so little, 150 pound me a little frail, me the crushing concrete and it was so cool.

But as I evolved and as my ego started to take over, interestingly enough, I lost the ability to do that. Oh, and it was all mental and it was all mental.

But I started having doubts for some reason. Why would I have doubts? But it got so bad that I stuck, meaning did not break a fall break break in front of hundreds of people at an arts fest parade. They were all outdoors. They were surrounding us. We were doing this big demo, Here comes Daddy Brick Breaker.

And I don’t think that’s a city with the elbow, you know?

I mean, I managed to get it with the elbow. But my point there is, is that I hit four bricks. I couldn’t do anything with it.

I hit twelve when I was at my mental peak and destroyed it in getting to that level of mental competence, of mental oneness with whatever spiritual power you want to look at or however you want to rank it, I don’t know what to call it, but it was something that I’ve never achieved again.

And I miss that. I miss that focus. I miss that drive. I miss that laser focus on life. And it was it was tremendous, but it slipped away. I let it go. And I’ve been trying to get it back ever since.

Huh. So I would I would think we could rewind back fifty minutes and you could talk all the shit you want to about Joe Rogan now, because I mean, now that I know you got a second degree black belt, I mean, obviously you because you get a job interview, he he accomplished a lot.

He is a bad day. He was he was he was really, really good back in his day. So he’s probably still good today, as a matter of fact. But, you know, it’s just one of those things.

But I’ll talk smack. I don’t. So going into closing, man, I always give opportunity for any one of my guests.

You know, we talked about a lot of different things and any questions may have popped up. So do you have any questions for me?

I love the name of your show, and I’m kind of curious as to what inspired you to call it boss uncaged kind of an analytical guy. So I’ve done a lot of research on just like the words and everything about what can I get a trademark on? What can I get domain’s for that? Somebody in the millions of people in podcasting and in web development has already captured. So thinking about the variables of being a boss and to your point, most people think, boss, they may hate their boss, so they may love their boss or they want to become a boss.

So it’s one of those three, right? Right. Then breaking out the cage is either you want to leave behind the bosses pissing you off or you want to break out the cage of being broke and you want to become a boss or you want to become a better boss. So the uncage part is kind of like a lion symbolizing breaking out of the cage and getting to your freedom. And that’s the combination of the words to make the podcast. That’s tremendous.

Dude, I love that. That is such a great analogy and it’s a great name. So this was a this was actually a great time.

Yeah. Yeah, it was crazy, man, because when I when I first developed the podcast was January of this year. Oh, wow. So then you’re talking about sixty days later it was like, holy shit, I couldn’t predict that any better. I couldn’t create a podcast at a better time, so I just definitely happened. So I mean, yeah, I’m definitely happy with I mean, it’s one of those things. I mean, I’m doing to your point, I have books, I’m working on courses.

I have an agency, a digital agency, and I’m doing all the different things. But for right now, I think the thing that I love the most is the podcast is the most fruitful as a person and gives back the most. And to your point, there’s a million different tentacles that I can monetize at a drop. Right, right. Right.

And that’s what people don’t realize. That’s what people don’t understand. I still have people even just yesterday I posted on one of my soon to be ex coworkers Facebook page and said, yeah, you know, I got a couple of weeks and then I’m off to my new adventure. And in so many people that worked with us, they did not know I was leaving, were like, what? What you’re doing, what you’re leaving, what you’re doing, podcasting full time.

What does that how do you what do you mean you’re doing podcasting full time? That sounds a lot. Yeah. So I can relate to that. But it’s just that it’s that lack of understanding, the medium that keeps people from understanding the potential that’s there and the potential that’s definitely within reach if you do it right. Gotcha. Gotcha.

I mean, yes, I definitely concur with that. I definitely agree. It’s one of those things. Once you’re in the know, then you realize that you don’t know shit and there’s more for you to know.

But what you’re on that journey of learning and then it’s kind of like, OK, now you start to get on that bicycle versus trying to run on foot. And then after the bicycle, you move to a motorcycle and eventually you’ll be on a jet plane. But the stages to get to that. So I definitely appreciate that.

Yeah, well, I appreciate this opportunity. It was great. It definitely rounded out my morning and got me all fired up. I was going to be a great day. So I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much for having me on. Definitely. I appreciate you coming out again, I mean, by all means. The goal would be I want somebody to take this particular episode and learn from from from your example, and that’s the goal of this podcast.

So without further ado, Matt, I definitely appreciate you coming out again. Larry, in secret over. No. Thanks again.