 How many lives have not been impacted because you haven't started yet? How many lives could you impact? How many people need to hear your message today? I'm going to be talking about how to start a successful podcast or how to start a successful business from a podcast or from your passions period. And, uh, this actually marks right now, you listening to this marks the 800th podcast that I've done of the mindset mentor and, uh, 800 is an insane number to think about, but, uh, I'm going to take you along the journey of what it was like to build this podcast, a successful podcast, and also a successful business from it. And, uh, it's been about almost five years now that I've been on this journey. And, uh, today we just hit 35 million downloads of the podcast. I had to go back and look through all of my numbers and, uh, and I went back and looked through all of my numbers and I wanted to see just because as you know, nothing starts off massive. Like people can look at the podcast, the business or some other company and think, Oh my gosh, I want that success or I want a million followers on Facebook or whatever it is, but I'm only at 47 right now. That's impossible. And what you have to do is that everybody starts at zero. Everybody starts at zero dollars. Everybody starts at zero followers. Everybody starts at zero downloads. It's about putting the work in and being consistent in everything that you do. And so I'm going to give you the five keys that I have to building a successful business that you love. And that could be a podcast that could be coaching, that could be, you know, doctor's office, whatever it is that you truly want to do. And, uh, and that's where we're going to go over. And I went back and looked at my statistics and I launched this podcast August 24th of 2015. And I had a whopping 44 downloads that day. And I want to share this with you because most of the time people think, Oh, if someone has a successful podcast or a successful business, it must have been massive right away. And that's just not the case. 44 downloads is what we started with. And that was the start. And I just decided to keep going. And the one thing I said to myself is just, I just won't quit. And that will help me win. And I'll talk about that a little bit more when I dive into my five keys in just a few minutes. But it's crazy to think that in less than five years, we went from 44 downloads in one day to now five years later, over 35 million downloads of this podcast. And lots of people like to keep their podcast number secret, like behind the wall of like, Oh, I don't know how many downloads you're doing. They're not talking about it. I don't think that's, I think it's ridiculous to not tell somebody how much your, your podcast is doing. So it's crazy. I think that we were from 44 downloads five years ago to 35 million five years later. And now we're averaging about 2.5 to 3 million downloads per week. I'm sorry, per month right now, which means in the next, you know, we did 35 million the first five years, we'll do at least 36 million in the next 12 months. And I'm going to give you my five keys of what I think really helped me build this to hopefully give you some inspiration so that you can go out and build your own. So the first thing is this, out of my five keys, the number one thing that I say is to make sure that your business or your podcast or whatever it is that you truly want to be doing is something that you love. And I mean, love to your core because all too often what we're actually doing is not truly chasing what we love. What we're doing is we're chasing a little bit of what we kind of love, but more than anything else, we're chasing money. That's what we're truly doing is chasing money and kind of doing something that we love. So, you know, a lot of times people say, this seems like a great business opportunity. There's people making a bunch of money doing this. I'm going to jump on and do it. And then they jump onto it and they start making money, but what they realize is it's not something that they truly love. So they resent the business that they've built. The last thing that you want to do is resent something that you're putting 20, 40, 60, 80 hours a week into, because it's going to be really hard to continue doing it. For me, I'm absolutely obsessed with personal development. Like in my free time, if I'm sitting around, it's usually me reading a book or me going onto YouTube and finding somebody that I want to listen to, a mentor or guru or someone else that's out there that's really versed in what it is that they do. I just love human psychology. I love the brain. I love personal development and I love just coaching people and then I love teaching it. Like I love it. Like it is people always ask like, I don't do any drugs. I don't really drink alcohol very rarely. Maybe like glass of wine a month. I'm like, no, because coaching people in teaching and learning the stuff and doing what I'm doing is my drug. It's like crack to me. And the reason why is because then I get emails from people saying how much I've helped them, how much I've changed your life. And when you get an email like that, you'll never be the same because you're like, Oh my gosh, I'm actually impacting someone else's life. So the first thing that I say is whatever that business is that you're going to be doing, whatever that podcast is that you're going to be doing, it needs to be like an arm of you. Like this podcast is my it's like my third arm. Like it is a part of me. It is literally something that I feel is a part of me and I can't even believe that I'm 800 episodes and I can't believe that it's been five years, but it has been one of the most consistent things in my life over the past five years, three times a week, every single week. And so that's the first thing is before you even start, make sure that you're starting doing something that you absolutely love because when you to be successful, it requires you to work your tail off and to work your tail off, if you have something that you really love, it doesn't feel like work and so you can love it, work your ass off at it and when you work your ass off at it, you can make a lot of money and truly that's what you're what you're trying to do. And that's that's the thing people don't really realize we're like, well, there's no money to be made in XYZ. The thing about it is if you chase money, you're not going to work as hard, but if you chase what you love, you'll work really hard just because you love it and in turn you'll make a lot more money. So key number one is you have to do something that you love. Key number two is this, it's super simple. Just start one of the things that really holds people back is not even starting. They start thinking too much. They get up in their heads and they think and they think and they think. And the beautiful thing is that you don't have to believe in yourself. I always say this, you don't have to believe in yourself to take action, right? That's a beautiful thing. When I used to be a sales manager, I had an office and I trained a few thousand sales reps, one of the things that holds people back the most in sales is making cold calls and so, you know, they would take their phone and they wouldn't be able to make as many phone calls as they wanted to because they were thinking too much and they're like, I don't know if people are going to answer. I don't know if I believe in myself. If I get a sales appointment, I don't know if I'm going to make a sale. I'm like, listen, it doesn't matter. You don't have to believe in yourself to literally push some numbers on a phone and then talk to somebody on the other line. All you have to do is just push some numbers, read the script that's in front of you and you'll eventually start setting up appointments. You don't have to believe in yourself at all to take any of that action. What's the beautiful thing about that? You don't have to believe in yourself at all to ever take action. So you just got to start. One of the things that really holds people back is the imposter syndrome. Who am I to start this business that I love? Who am I to talk about this in my podcast? You know, I almost didn't start this podcast, which is crazy to think because Tony Robbins exists. I thought who in the heck would listen to me when they could listen to Tony Robbins? Like Tony Robbins is like the mindset guy. He is the motivation guy. He is the pinnacle of personal development. Why would somebody listen to me? And I had the imposter syndrome kick in and I almost didn't start the podcast. And it's crazy to think that thirty five million sets of ears wouldn't have listened to my podcast. Had I not done it? How did I listen to that little voice inside of my head? How many lives would not have been impacted? I'm going to ask you this. How many lives have not been impacted because you haven't started yet? How many lives could you impact? How many people need to hear your message? Think about that for a second because it'll it'll grow fast that you could possibly imagine. So you just got to start. I remember before I started my podcast, I read an article that says the average podcast only lasts for seven episodes because the average podcast host gives up after seven episodes. And I thought to myself, oh, my God, that's such a low number to give up after seven episodes. Like you really can't see success after seven episodes. I probably had a couple of thousand downloads, maybe at seven episodes. And so I thought to myself, if that's the case, I'm going to double that before I ever even start. So I made a deal with myself. I will record fourteen podcast episodes because that's double before somebody quits. So if the average one starts at seven and they give up a seven, I'm going to go to fourteen and just see what happens. And I recorded fourteen episodes before ever launching and I launched it and then that gave me space to promote and to put it up on Facebook and put up on Instagram and try to get people to try and try and try to get more people listen to it, which made my user base grow very quickly in the beginning was because I didn't have to worry about the recording side of it. All I had to worry about was the promotion side of it. And so one of the things that really hit me, I saw a video not too long ago with Jared Leto and Jared Leto just so you know, is a musician, won a bunch of awards in musician. I think his band is called 30 Seconds, 30 Seconds Tomorrow's or something like that. Some more some along those lines. I don't know. Zach, I think it's 30 Seconds Tomorrow's or 30 Seconds from Mars. Whatever it is, he's won a lot of awards to a great singer. He's also an award winning actor as well. So he's succeeded at two things that's really hard for anybody to succeed at. And I remember watching him he was in an interview and he said one of the things that he realized as a child is that most people just don't start. And if he just started, he's already way ahead of everybody else. Think about that. So many people listening right now or watching this video want to start a podcast, but won't. If you just start, you're already ahead of all those people. So that's number two. And that brings me to number three. If you just don't stop, you're already ahead of everybody else that gives up. So most people don't start. And most people who do start give up, which means that if you just don't give up, you'll be light years ahead of everybody else. Right. It took about three years for my podcast to really see success, three years of work and work and work. If you do the math, three years, that's what, 450 episodes before my podcast like really exploded. So it's three years of work and work and work and work and work. And it was doing pretty well. And then something happened where it just exploded. And I was like, this is a frickin rocket ship that that I'm just trying to hold on to, but it wasn't right away. It took three years to get there. So what if I told you that you can have the business of your dreams and make the money of your dreams and the success of your dreams, but you got to put three years of hard work before you ever see it? Would you do it? Would it be worth it to you? Because usually that's about how long it takes for someone to really start to see success three, four, five years. But if you put in the work, the success will eventually come. And so just as Jared Leto says, most people don't start, I'm going to go ahead and finish that sentence and that phrase and say, most people give up that do start. So if you just start and you just don't give up, you are light years ahead of everybody else in the world. Hey, if you're enjoying this video, do me a favor and hit that like button down below. It helps with the YouTube algorithm so that more people can see this message because it helps us get it out organically. So hit that like button and I appreciate you. So that's number three. Just don't stop, man. Just do it. Just go out. Do it every single day. Show up like I can tell you this for the past five years. I have not missed a Monday, Wednesday or Friday episode in five years. I was just like, I'm going to be consistent. I'm going to be consistent. I'm going to be consistent. There's days where literally my podcast, I've uploaded it and it didn't pop up. Like for some reason there was a there's a problem with the system and it didn't go out. I got emails at like 839 o'clock from people who listen to my podcast that I've never spoken to before of like, Hey, Robert, you OK? The podcast didn't come out because people were expecting it and it held me accountable to holy crap. People are expecting this. I've got to put this out. So you just don't stop once you start. OK. Step number four is you've got to be authentic. You've got to be truly yourself. Who you are. You've got to be yourself. One of the things that I see with a lot of people is they have like their their normal personality and then they have their business or podcast personality or their Facebook videos personality. You can't do that. You've got to be the same person because being fake, even if it's just a little bit fake, gets very tiresome after a while where you just get tired of playing this role, this character that's not truly you. And one of the things that I always hear from people like if somebody listens to my podcast and then they go into one of my coaching programs and they work with me for a while, they're like, you're literally the same person in your podcast as you are on your your zoom calls and you are on your coaching calls and all that stuff. And I'm like, yeah, because I want to show up and be the same person every single every single time. Like if you hang out with me on the weekend, if you listen to me on my podcast, if you see my viral Facebook videos, if you talk to me on a zoom call, I'm the same person. But you'd be really, really surprised to learn that a lot of people are not. A lot of people that you might see that have podcasts, they put on a face, they act like there's somebody else. You've got to be truly authentic to who you are. And what I mean by that is not just who you are, but how you speak. Like if you if you speak normal and then you go out and you have to you have to get on your podcast and you have to speak eloquently and use big words that make people feel like they're not understand what you're saying. You're going to people are not going to be attracted to that. If you cuss, cuss, be yourself, be who you are. Right. I've had to realize and I went through this process of really realizing this myself is that I love to cuss like I just love to you. I think it's I just think it's a great way to to put emphasis on certain things, right? And for a long time, I didn't cuss in this podcast. And the reason why was because I would get a few emails and say, hey, you know, I love your podcast, my kids and I listen to it on the way to school. You know, they love your podcast. They always talk about listening to Rob Dile on the way. I was like, man, I don't know if I want to cuss then if kids are because they're going to be listening to it. And then I realized I had done about 400 episodes. And if somebody doesn't want to hear me cussing, they can listen to my first 400 episodes. If somebody wants to just listen to me and they don't want to be offended by words, which are just sounds coming out of my face, there's no reason to be ever be offended by a word. That's just part of your programming. But that's a whole other episode. I've already covered that in past episodes of, you know, how your program to think that a word is bad when it's just a sound coming out of your face. But I love to cuss. So I truly want to be authentic and give you everything, every part of me because if I love to cuss and I'm not cussing, I'm not giving you me. I'm not giving you all of me. And so I want you to be truly authentic in if it's a podcast, if it's a business, if it's growing a following on Facebook, be who you are because there's something, some receptor that's deep in someone's brain. It's like a sixth sense where if you're being a little bit fake, they're not attracted to what you're putting out. So if you're trying to build a following, if you're trying to build a business, if you're trying to build a podcast, whatever it is, and you don't feel like you're truly being authentic to who you are, people are not going to get attracted to it. And you're gonna be like, why are people not listening to me? Why are people not continuing to come back? Why is my message not getting out there? It's because people can, they can sniff the inauthenticity. You've got to be you. You've got to be yourself. You've got to be authentic to who you truly are. And then the fifth tip that I can give you for starting a successful business, successful podcast growing a successful following is to connect with your tribe. This is a huge thing that I see that people really mess up on. They grow a Facebook following for instance, and then they never talk to the people who follow them. They start of a podcast and they never talk to people who follow them. They start a business and they never talk to the people who grow who have bought products from them. One of the things that I did about 30 episodes in was I opened up my calendar. It was literally here's my calendar link. I made the announcement and said, let's just talk. And I started getting on the phone with people and hearing who I was talking to and what they were struggling with. And I talked to like 80 people. It was literally two weeks straight of phone calls, talking like 80 people and it gave me a much deeper understanding of who my following is, what they're dealing with, how I can help them. And I think that that was a massive step for me of helping take this to another level was because I deeply understood them. It wasn't me thinking that I understood them even though I never met them. It was me having real conversations with them and getting to know who they are, what their struggles with, how many kids they have, what their families like, how they were raised, which allowed me to be able to create content that they I knew would connect with them. So if you're trying to start a podcast, talk with your people, if you're trying to start a following, talk with even if three people follow you, ask them if they want to hop on a phone and just chat. Or if you have a business, how often do you know if you have a Shopify store and you're drop shipping stuff to people's houses, how often are you hopping on the phone with them and just having a conversation to see how you can provide more value? Right? There's so many businesses that don't do this. They don't connect with their people. So that would be number five is connect to people and hell, I'm going to give you a number six just popped up in my head because I feel like I truly want to in this is it is to be obsessed with giving more value than anybody else in the marketplace. Be obsessed with giving more value than anybody else in the marketplace. Be obsessed with giving value. Everybody wants to make money. Money's great. You can make a lot of money. That's fine. But do you want to hear a secret to making a lot of money? Give a lot of value. Money is just a byproduct of the value that you give the world. Let me say that again. Money is just a byproduct of the value that you give the world. If you go out there and give more value than anybody else that's out there, you're going to win. You always will. And that's the thing that I've always told myself. People are always like, why do you make so many podcasts? Why do you make so many videos? Why do you put up so, you know, 12 posts a day on Facebook and three posts a day on Instagram? And why do you make so many videos? And you make like because I want to win at the value game. I want someone to go Rob cares more than anybody else that I follow. And I really truly feel like I do. Like I want to impact whether somebody ever buys any product for me later on down the road doesn't matter to me. But if somebody listens to my podcast, they watch my YouTube or they watch my Facebook or they watch my Instagram, if I've given them some value, I've helped change your life in some sort of way. Maybe they're having a crappy day. They get onto their Instagram. They see my Instagram post. I have a video about XYZ and that video about XYZ helps them feel better. And then they go into their office and because of fact that they're in a better mood, they treat people better. And then everybody else around them treats everybody else better and it's a ripple effect. The money doesn't matter to me. The money comes. That's just the way that it goes. But for me, dude, I'm going to give more value than anybody else in the marketplace. That's just what I'm going to do because that's what I truly want to do because I love what I do and I truly want to impact people. And when I first started this podcast, about two months before I started it, I went to a podcast event and I told people about it, other podcasters we spoke about it. Everybody said the same thing. How do you plan on monetizing your podcast? Like how do you plan on making money off of it? And I said this to every single person, I don't care. So many people started podcasts because they found it is another way to make money. So many people started podcasts because it was another form of advertising for their business. My idea was this, I'm going to be going to act like on Facebook and Facebook before they ever started any advertising, they grew as big as they possibly could before they tried to make any money. And I said, I'm going to be like Facebook, I'm going to grow my podcast to as big as I possibly can and give more value than anybody else out there. And then I'll figure out how to make money from it. And so what I say is this, go out there and give more value than anybody else that's in your category. And you'll win. You'll win every time. I've never seen somebody like literally think I can't think of any person that I've seen on Instagram or Facebook or podcasting or YouTube or any of those things. I've never seen somebody who is the number one creator that creates and gives and gives and gives and gives and gives and hasn't been wildly successful from it. I have not seen it happen today. And I don't think I ever will see it happen. And the reason why is because I feel like it's just you got the good vibes, the universe rewards you for helping people. And when you're out there just giving value, giving value, giving value, money is going to get thrown into your lap. What's crazy if you do it for two, three, four, five years, you'll develop 10 sources of revenue that come from places you never thought was possible. So I think it's just important to just love on people. Just be you, be true and authentic to who you are and then just don't stop. Right. So number one, make sure it's something that you love to do. The business, the podcast, the thing that you're talking about on Instagram or Facebook, make sure it's something that you love, like you truly love not kind of love it, but like I will die for this message is the way that I feel about it. Number two, just frickin start. Just do it, man. Stop asking, you know, ready, fire, aim, just do it, go stop thinking about the is my is my logo, right? Is my slogan, right? Is my music, right? All of those things can change. Who cares? Just frickin start already. Number three, don't stop. Most people don't start and most people who start, stop, just don't stop and you'll win the game. You'll be the only one there that's at the end of the race. It's a marathon. Right. Number four, be authentic, be true to who you are. And number five, connect with people that follow you. And then number six, the one that I wasn't even planning on talking about is give more value than anybody else and you'll win. Watch this video as well. How do you get out of your head during this pandemic? What are the top three books that you would recommend? Do you believe in aliens is the next question? You want me to be honest with you?