Fastest way to Get Great And Take Your Goals All The Way: Steven Schrembeck Lays it all out.

Episode Transcript
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Tony Angelini (00:30):
Stephen Schrembeck!

Steven Schrembeck (00:32):
Hey, Tony.

Hey, how's it going, man?

You know life is is too good to me. I keep
waking up and thinking it can'tbe real.

Oh, really?

I love it. I really do love my life. And it
is an active thing that Icultivate that mindset. But it
works. And I'm just having fun.
I really am having fun. It's notall fun. But it's almost all
fun.
Yeah? Cool. What'ss fun?
I wake up every day, trying todo something, trying to make the

(01:06):
most out of the day. And this isagain, this is deliberate
mindset. I don't always didn'talways do that. But now I just
have this feeling that today islike potential. It's something I
can use to make somethingimportant happen. Right? This is
like my ammunition. This is allI've got. As opposed to just

(01:26):
waking up and trying to getthrough the day. I am waking up
like "how much can I squeeze outof this day?" in the best
possible way? I do a lot ofboring stuff. That's important.
But I don't look forward tothose things. Right. Those are
still painful. But I lookforward to what it means. I feel
like I'm making progress everyday. Right?

Forward movement, man.That's my phrase for 2021
forward movement. Well, I mean,how do you sustain that
attitude? I mean, what is itthat excites you? What's the
stuff that you're thinking ofthat gets you motivated?

Most of it comes from feeding a passion,
And it is a deliberate act ofwill. It isn't just something
you get. It doesn't just happento you. this kind of excitement
and fulfillment, you have tobuild it. And if the fire dies
down just a little bit, everyday you have to keep putting
logs on it. Right. I thinkthat's a very apt metaphor. So

(02:24):
what kinds of things are excitedme? Well, I mean, that's just
unique to me, right? certainkinds of projects, certain kinds
of ideas, get me really excited,you know, everyone's got their
own thing. For me, it'stinkering. It's figuring out
what the rules are for a systemand then breaking them, or
seeing just how far you couldpress them. It's, I'm heavily
motivated by curiosity. I'd saythat's a driving force in my

(02:46):
life, and everything. I'minterested in the moment I feel
like, I know what's going tohappen in whatever I'm doing.
I'm no longer interested. I needthat uncertainty to keep me
going. So I kind of live I tryto live on the edge. This sounds
very exciting. We're talkingabout like writing stories here.

(03:07):
Actually living on the edge. I'mnot like a stunt driver or
anything. But I love thatuncertainty. It's an it's
intoxicating to me, but alsopotential right, not just
uncertainty in a terrible way.
Is it going to hurt a five or isit gonna hurt? 10? Like, that's
not exciting. It has to be good.

Yeah,So I'm going to guess you're not the kind of
person that likes to rewatchmovies or tv shows that you've
already seen.

I hate that.
I don't understand it. I neverunderstood the people who did. I
watch it once and I love it. Nowthe very best, the very best. I
will watch again. But I willwatch them again like a year or
two later. Like Scott Pilgrimvs. the World. Okay, I probably
got five views on that. Andyou're like talking to the top
of the charts. Like that's themost I will ever watch a
favorite movie, which soundscrazy, but I would rather watch

(03:52):
something new.

Yeah, agreed Me too. Although recently I, I have
gone back and started watchingthings that I watched about 10
years ago. And some of them Iremember and I skipped through
those episodes.

Yeah. I watch it. But what's funny is when I
rewatch it, I watch it to findsomething new. Even then I'm not
just basking in what I alreadylove. I'm still looking for the
things I missed. And when I feellike there's nothing left there.
I'm out.

Also you're different. 10 years has passed,
I'm different. And I see thingsand find meaning in a different
way from from it than I did 10years ago when I didn't really,
you know, I never liked StarTrek Enterprise. You know, the
one with Scott bacula?

Yeah, I know you're talking about.

I watched maybe three episodes and said this
sucked and I hated Joleneblacklock Well, I not her, but
her character T'Pol. Justrecently have I gone back
because I don't watch that muchtelevision but I'll try it. I
may watch one episode a night,if I am really into the show,

(05:05):
and I really got intoenterprise. And I came to really
love the character of T'Pol. AndI watched the thing from start
to finish. And it's because I'mdifferent.

So what changed is you. It's like
changing taste, right? used tohate broccoli? Now you love it.
Right? You have to resamplethings because you change as a
person. Yeah, that makes sense.

What is collected stories?

So straight off the marketing Collective is
a immersive audio platform. Whatdoes that mean? Exactly? It's
these are just it's like anaudio book with sound effects. A
full team of voice actors,music, visual art, right? It's
everything I could throw inthere. That makes it feel like
you're actually there. Right?
It's like a TV show with thepicture turned off, right?

(07:26):
That's what I'm trying to do.
But there's a narrator. That's,that's the trick, right? I throw
that in there. So it is thosestories. Right now. It's a
podcast, because I am in thetrenches, like I'm building this
thing and getting practice. Andit's a podcast, just so I can
get it out there. Buteventually, it's a subscription
service, right? So sometimeearly next year. It's not just

(07:49):
art. To me, it's business. I'mgoing to bring in authors and
voice actors and artists andcomposers from everywhere. So
that is what it is, is thesestories delivered to you weekly,
kind of like a TV show, almostdropping into an RSS feed. But

(08:11):
really, that's just like, whatit is the reason behind it is so
much more to me. And I findmyself more and more motivated
by the why, that second reason,not just making the art, but the
purpose for the art. I find moreand more my motivation is coming
from that Why, rather than justself gratification and making

(08:31):
something cool. Now I still feelthat, and I still love it. I
still love making the art. Butnow that it has a purpose beyond
me, I'm that much moremotivated.

That's cool.
Well, it's it's pretty amazing.
When we first met when you said,This is what you were doing. You
know, my first impression wasokay, put it on audible.com and
it'll be like somebody reading abook. But it's not that at all.
It's extremely compelling. Thestories are really good. And the
production is is very good to.

Always improving.

Yeah, man, when you and I first met, it was just
you but you have grown this intoyou. Like you said, you hire
voice actors, you hire actors,and you are adding sound effects
and layered textures andnarration. I very much enjoy
this. I get into this stuff.

Yeah, it started as a theory and most
people have that reaction. Bythe way. It's an audio book,
right? What do I get it? So somepeople know what an audio drama
is? They may remember the oldradio dramas or know of them.
Right? It is. I described thisas halfway between an audio book
and an audio drama. I am soexcited about this format,
totally independent, what if I'mdoing I really hope it takes off

(09:49):
like totally separate from me.
Other people go off and makethis because I think it really
has potential. It is just so socool. It offers something But
none of the other mediums offer.
I'm getting into that and geekout on that. But ultimately,
that's part of what motivatesme. I think there's something
here. It's not something I made.
It has a life of its own, it isan opportunity in the world that

(10:12):
has already existed, it wasalready there. I'm just somebody
who stumbled on it, right. I'mnot even the first person to
stumble upon this idea. I'm justthe first person to take it and
use it in this way. For asubscription business, right?

What's also cool is you do it all by yourself.
But at least you're doing itright now by design. Other
companies that are What did yousay? graphic audio. They have a
huge budget and lots of peopleworking on it. Why did you
decide to work on this and doall the recording and editing

(10:51):
and marketing and everything allby yourself?

First of all, yeah, graphic audio is probably
my closest competitor in format.
And huge props to those people.
I love their productions. Ithink it is so cool. Like, I'm
not trying to put them down atall. I see. Really no
competition there. That's anillusion. But yes, at face
value, it looks likecompetition. But yeah, they've
big teams, big production,right? Compared to me, right?

(11:16):
It's all relative. The reason Ichose to do it alone, and I've
been at this for eight months,everything except the writing,
right? I've been writing for 16years, but not ever
professionally. So eight monthson this skill set, yes, I do the
narration I do the sound design,I do the directing, I do

(11:37):
everything, everything, which isnot the voice acting, and the
visual art and the music,composing. But even then, I went
in there, and I did most of themusic myself. And the reason I
do all of this myself is becauseI have plans to eventually
direct experts who are going tobe better than I ever could be
at any of these skills. Becauseit's the one thing they focus

(12:00):
on. I know that's where I'mgoing. But I need to understand
their problems, I need tounderstand how they think and
how they build their part of thestory. Once I become an expert
in each of these pieces, right,some of them I care about more
than others to be frank. Thoseare the ones I've outsourced
already. But I just know that ifI can master these skills, to a

(12:26):
sufficient degree, that when itcomes time to tell them what I
need from them, I know how toget the best out of them. I can
direct this diverse team, Ibelieve fundamentally, that to
be the best leader, you have tounderstand every single one of
the people under you, you haveto be able to do their job
doesn't mean you have to be ableto do it better than them. You

(12:46):
shouldn't otherwise it's kind ofpointless, right? You can just
do it yourself, I think that youneed to understand their
problems. And that's what I'mdoing. I'm forcing myself to be
in the thick of it. So that whenit comes time to start
outsourcing sound design, ormixing or whatever I'm doing,
not only do I know theirlanguage, I know how to do their

(13:06):
job. So first of all, it's wayeasier to hire and to you can
never be BS-ed by somebody,because you know how to do it.
So there's a lot of reasons toknow this from a business
perspective. But also, I hatenot understanding things. We
talked about how I was motivatedby curiosity. I hate not

(13:26):
understanding something and howit works, especially the thing
that I'm building. Right? I haveto know how all the pieces work.
I don't need to be the best atit. But that's how I feel. So
I'm learning how all the pieceswork. I guess it's the fastest
way to answer that.

Yeah, that makes sense. You're acquiring skills
that will make you a betterleader, and producer. You have a
long term vision for this. witheverybody I've interviewed so
far, there seems to be a patternof pronouncing your intentions
almost as if the pronouncement,it's a step that you can't skip.

That is exactly right. Plans are
pointless. But they are alsoessential. I think that there's
a famous quote here that I'm notquite hitting, but you
understand what I mean, there issomething intoxicating about
saying "eight ball cornerpocket" and then lining up the
shot and then sinking it. Right.
It is the intention to gosomewhere that matters. That
clarity resolves your entirepath for you. You know what to

(14:28):
do from that point forward. Thepoint of the goal is not to be
right at the outset. 10 yearsfrom now, here's where I'm going
to be no matter what, that's notimportant. It's actually not
even important that I reachedthat point. Because there was a
99% chance I'm gonna move thatgoalposts to somewhere else. For
a lot of good reasons, not justbad reasons. Like oh, turns out
that's actually not what Iwanted or this wasn't the best

(14:50):
way to get there. The point ofputting that goal there is to
give yourself certainty. It isIt is critical to motivation is
the shortest way of saying that.
And there's something aboutsetting an ambitious goal and

(15:10):
knowing that you will reach it.
That is just so intoxicating. Ithas a motivation of its own. And
it I think, is an important partof any plan, you can't simply do
it. You can't just sit down andgo, I could have sat down and
said, I'm gonna make some AudioStories. That sounds like fun.
That's okay to start there tosee if you're excited about it.
Right? That's actually the bestplace to start. Don't start by

(15:31):
saying I'm going to conquer theworld with my Audio Stories, I'm
going to take over the wholemarket, I'm going to put audible
out of business, right? Youcan't start with that. That's
insanity. But you can't startwith do I like this. And then
once you realize you like it,and once you realize this is the
thing, "I could do somethingwith this." That's when you set
your big ambitious goal. Right?

(15:51):
And that that's the right timeto do it. And that's where I'm
at. I have big ambitious goals.
I made them very clear. And theyare incredibly motivating.

And you've told other people about them?

Yeah. So that's essential. I have always
wavered on, should you tellpeople your goals or not? This
is a common commonmisconception, I guess a
contentious topic. It dependsfor me. Action is so important.
It is much more important forpeople to see me doing things

(16:26):
and getting results than it isfor me to tell them and I get
this gross feeling like I'mgoing to do this, I'm going to
be great, because it just feelslike empty promises. So the
reason I like to not tell peoplemy goals is because I want them
to see what I'm doing. And beshocked by it. Like, what the
heck is this guy up to? Like,how is he accomplishing all
this, right? I want that. But atthe same time, you need to tell

(16:49):
people, because otherwise theycan't help you. But also because
it reinforces your own identity.
Once you've made that part ofyour identity, like you can't
not do it. Like it is as if ithas almost happened. And once
you get to that level of selfconfidence, you know that you
can say something and you willeither make it real or break in

(17:10):
the process. And then that'swhen your promises really have
power over you. is when you knowthat okay? I said I was gonna do
it. I have a least reasonablepath to get there. I'm either
gonna do it or it's notpossible.

You're a member of a few accountability groups.
Why And What are they and whatdo they do for you?

So the foreword to that is if I looked
like I have it all figured out.
That is an illusion. It is anillusion that anybody has it
figured out. The metaphor isthat it's a puzzle that can
never be solved. Nobody can haveall the pieces. It's not
possible. But I mean, figuredout I mean, have it all, like no
doubt as to what they're doing.

(19:14):
No doubt fundamental, even thething I just told you about the
promise that I'm like, I'm gonnahit this huge ambitious goal. Of
course, I have doubt about that.
Of course, I have doubt aboutevery single thing I'm doing now
to varying degrees. Nobody hasit all figured out. So that's
the preamble to this. The secondpart is that I have a long, long
series of starting and giving upon projects.

Oh, really?

For the past.
Whoo, whoo. Forever for the pastforever. So it's the same
pattern over and over again,every few months, new
fascination, way into this.
Start to get self doubt, right.
Crash and burn. It's just slow.
Slow anxiety creeping in, can Ido this? Is this gonna work? Do

(20:03):
I really want to do this? That'sthe real kicker. Do I want to do
this anymore? Right? It alwayserodes it, I move on to the next
thing. This time is different.
And the reason this time isdifferent is that for the first
time in my life, I'm not goingit alone on something very
important to me. And that hasmade all the difference. So I am
in accountability groups, I'm inan accountability group.

With me!

...for creatives. Yeah, I'm in your
accountability group., I'm in agoal setting and accountability
group on a weekly basis. I am ina business accountability group,
I have a creativity coach, Ihave a productivity coach. I
have a health and wellnessdoctor expert, right? I have a
psychiatrist, I have surroundedmyself with so many people that

(20:54):
I cannot possibly fail. In fact,I actually promised myself
yesterday, I would remove the Fword from my vocabulary, because
it's not useful to me anymore.
So I'm going to stop using itfrom this point forward.

You and I are so much alike.

I cannot stop now. And that has made all the
difference. And it sounds socrazy. But I have always had
this feeling that if I didn't doit myself, it didn't count.
Which I is. absurd. It was acomplete misconception. First of
all, nobody ever does anythingalone.

Well, first of all, you are doing it all
yourself.

I'm doing the important parts.

What you're getting help with is the is the
mental stuff. There are thingsthat I start and don't finish as
well, more than I care to admit.
And I think I wonder if there'sa connection between that and
not wanting, not going back andwatching TV shows again. Because
once you get into the grind,it's like, okay, I've done this

(21:59):
before, it's not new, eventhough you, you might have a
plan, a long term plan, when youget down to the daily is like,
sometimes it's often the samething over and over. And I
wonder if that's connected.

So I've done a lot of soul searching on this,
obviously, this moment happenedto me really early on in this
process for this goal, right?
Why is this time different? Ihad to ask myself that. I have
stopped dozens of times onprojects of this size. Why is
this one different? And I justhad this moment like, I have the

(22:36):
same pattern over and over andover again. So part of it is
ADHD. Right? That's absolutely apart of it. And that's really
just the same thing as normalhuman problems with a couple of
the dials turned up, right tovarying degrees. And one of
those is novelty seeking. Thatis the desire again, part of why
motivated by curiosity is thedesire for novelty, to see new

(22:59):
things. to think you understandsomething, but instead get back
a different result. TheUnexpected, right, seeking that
out new experiences morestimulation. So to some extent,
once I've gotten to a pointwhere I feel like I kind of get
it, it makes sense thatmotivation would start to waver
and something else would startto look more interesting. It's

(23:20):
always replaced by anotherproject. So to some extent, it
was that some of it is whenyou're by yourself, it is an
echo chamber of your ownthoughts and doubts. All you
have coming back to you at somepoint is your own anxiety,
bouncing off the walls over andover and over again until that's
all you can hear. It doesn'tmatter how much you want to do
it anymore. Because you're justcrushed by your own doubt.

(23:42):
There's nobody to step in andsay something, even if you know
it to be true. This isn't aboutlogic. It's about emotions. Even
if you feel logically you knowthat this is possible, this
thing you're trying to do. Butby then it's too late. You just
need somebody you care about whois at least a little bit
invested in your work to say,Oh, I think you can do this. Oh,

(24:05):
well, why don't you try thisinstead? I'm sorry, you're
feeling that way, even just tobe heard is often enough. Even
just to speak to another personwho he knows sincerely wants the
best for you, who actually wantsyou to succeed? Even that is
enough. So I'll never go italone, again, is the biggest
change I've made. And it hasbeen a monumental change. So I'm

(24:27):
at eight months now. Sosignificantly past my usual
breaking point. And I am ifanything more motivated than
ever. So yesterday I had ameeting with two literary
agents, right. So part of mygrowth strategy is to pull on
established authors, borrowtheir audience and get them onto
my subscriber platform, right?

(24:49):
That's not gonna work. flat outright that talking to those two
very incredible people veryknowledgeable. If anybody would
know whether that would work ornot. It's these people they were
rock star. All right, it's notgonna work. Now, they did
validate my core premise,selling Audio Stories, immersive
Audio Stories to people on asubscription does look like it
has potential. Right now whetherI can execute on that is totally

(25:12):
separate, but the core thesis isintact, the growth strategy I
had, is not going to work. It'sjust not gonna work for a lot of
reasons I won't go into. Ithurt. That was the kind of event
which would have crippled me inthe past. That's the beginning
of a downward spiral. But I didit.

Why did it hurt?

It hurt because I had a theory about how
the world worked. And I had apath that would get me there
that I had invested a lot oftime and emotion into that I had
a lot of mental momentum andemotional momentum like, this is
where I'm going, right? You tellyourself, this is where I'm
going every day when you wakeup, and you're excited about it.
And then somebody who youabsolutely should believe, tells

(25:54):
you it's not going to work for alot of very good reasons that
actually makes sense to you. Youshould take the same thing to do
is to tear it down. Right? someprogress is destructive. I told
my productivity coach thisyesterday, again, surround
yourself with people don't goalone. I told my productivity
coach says yesterday, someprogress is destructive. And

(26:15):
while I know that that it wouldhave been completely foolish to
keep going down this path,because it is not going to work,
even if it did, it would work solittle for the amount of effort
invested, it doesn't make sense.
What makes sense is to take allthe pieces, build a new plan,
get them get invested in thatnew plan, and try again, you
know, that one might work alittle bit, it might work a lot.

(26:37):
It might work not at all, and Ihave to tear it down and make a
new one.That hurts. But it's notgoing to stop me. And that was
not true until 32 years old. Soand the difference is I have
surrounded myself with peoplewho care whether it works to
some extent or another. And Ican't let them down. And they

(27:01):
all they do is they just stepin. And they just tell me one
simple truth that I already knowis true. I know like, I could do
this, if I were a robot that Icould program. Robot Steven
would have no problem followingthe new path, right? No emotions
invested in it at all. But I'mnot that person. And even

(27:21):
hearing the truth come from aneutral party. That's enough.
Totally dispels the anxiety.
Like, okay, on to the nextthing. No big deal.

Awesome.
awesome.Well, just to be clear,you're not talking about
scrapping the idea. You'retalking about taking the idea
and just changing your plan.

Exactly. This is all about my growth strategy.
How do you go from, you know,whatever, a couple 100 unpaid
listeners to a couple 1000paying listeners to a couple
100,000 paying listeners to acouple million paying listeners.
Right, that strategy. My initialforay the shot I took in this,

(28:06):
like, oh, okay, so the rightthing to do is to take a
different position and takeanother shot, which is what I'm
going to do. So no, the corepremise is exactly the same,
what I'm building, the goal isthe same, the goal hasn't even
changed, but the route to thegoal has fundamentally changed.
And that's okay, it hurts alittle to have that broken down

(28:27):
and to have to start over againwith a new plan. But that's how
it is.

What does that say about your mindset.

That I've grown a lot. That the fact that
something doesn't work is not areflection of me. It's got
nothing to do with me. To theextent that I have succeeded
more is, the more I am... is theamount relative the amount I've
pulled my ego out of what I'mdoing. What I'm doing is not

(28:58):
mine. It's just the way theworld works. It's a combination
of economics and humanpsychology, and fundamental
rules of the universe. Whether abusiness idea will work or not,
you could swap me out withanother person trying to do the
same thing. And it should work.
Right? It's not mine. It's notme. Now I have my own approach.
I'm my own person who brings myown skill set, right? All of

(29:20):
that changes it for sure. Butthere's nothing special about me
that makes this work. I am justisn't it. This is just a dig.
I'm just trying to findsomething that is true. and
utilize it has nothing to dowith me as a person. It's not a
reflection of me if it doesn'twork. It may be a reflection of
my skill set where I am whetherI can make it work or not. But

(29:40):
it's not a reflection of me as aperson. And I don't judge myself
for it anymore. And that hashelped a lot.

But you seem to be learning.

Always better. Right?

Yeah, right.

I was thinking about this. When you
asked her I've been at this fora long time now, making stories
producing them into AudioStories. And the way I got
better was by I don't want tosay not caring about the
quality, but caring about thevelocity and not the position to

(30:18):
get into a physics term, theposition is totally irrelevant,
except for the fact that I needit to be at a certain position
to be to reach my goals, right?
That's the only reason I care.

Sure,

When I say position, I mean, a quantitative
measure of skill. Can I producethe thing I need to produce? In
whatever skill? I have focusedonly on quantity produced, how
much can I make, And am Iimproving? I don't care how bad
I am. I do not care how bad I amat all. Am I improving? And I

(30:51):
fixated on that. And that madeall the difference. I stopped
caring whether it was bad rightnow. And I cared only about is
it getting better? Am I makingenough?

So you dropped your perfectionism in order to
reach new heights as far asskill?

Yes, but perfectionism even is too
simple. Because it perfectionismimplies that I think it could be
perfect i f I spent enough timeon it, I don't even believe that
anymore, I believe I have, Ihave a fixed ceiling, on what I
can produce with my currentskill level. Now the skill level
can increase, which means theceiling can go up. But it does
not make sense to try and pushthe ceiling higher from where I

(31:32):
am, I need to practice to raisethe ceiling, it doesn't make
sense to just work, bash myselfagainst this project over and
over and over again, becausethat is not going to improve me,
what I need to do is get it outinto the world. Learn from it,
get feedback, whether that's myown feedback, or somebody
else's, learn from it and takethat into the next project. And

(31:56):
then make that one better,because now my ceiling is
higher. What is the point I'mspending 10 times longer on this
thing when I'm hitting againstthe same ceiling when I could
just raise the ceiling. So Ihave fixated on raising the
ceiling of what I can produce,rather than trying to make it
the best it can possibly be.
Because I have seen more gainsfaster, paradoxically, by caring
about the quality of the worklike I am trying to push myself.

(32:18):
But the moment I feel like Istart hitting that skill
ceiling, I'm getting diminishingreturns like yeah, okay, I could
spend 10 more hours on thissound effect to get it perfect.
But I'm not going to learn fromthat. Or will I learn from
making 100 more sound effectslike it in that amount of time?
And the answer is obviously thesecond one. And I have grown so
much faster because of it.

So what you're interested in is seeing a
progress growth as far asskills, you're comparing
yourself, your current selfagainst your skill level last
week or last month, and as longas the graph is up, then that's
your goal.

Yeah, I fundamentally value myself as a
human being, for whether I am onthe path is a concept I came up
with, like, I don't know howmany years ago, seven or eight
years ago in a journal, the pathbeing a line that moves up into
the right, if I am improving asa person, and you kind of know
whether you're improving or not,whether you've gone horizontal

(33:18):
or down, you know, prettyquickly, whether you feel like
you've had made progress lately,If I am making progress, I'm
satisfied with myself as aperson. Now I try to crank the
knobs on that progress to tryand improve as much as possible.
But I don't value myself for howfast that goes. I value myself
or am I sincerely trying toimprove myself? If yes, and I am

(33:40):
growing as a person in some way,or good? That's all I asked
myself in life, am I improvingeven a little bit, even a tiny,
tiny, tiny bit, it counts? Icall that being on the path,
you're either off the path or onthe path. And when you decide
when you realize you're off thepath, all you have to do is say,
Okay, I'm back on the path. Now,I'm going to go and prove myself

(34:02):
again. Because sometimes youdon't want to improve because it
hurts.

That's cool. I call it forward movement. It
helps me sometimes to create aphrase like that forward
movement is I call it thatbecause it's meaningful for me.
But if it's not meaningful forsomebody else, then they can
find their own.

Yeah, sure.
Make your own thing make it likethat gut check. When everything
is crazy. Everything is goingwrong. Nothing seems to be going
my way. Am I on the path? Yeah,no, it's binary. If yes, I'm
doing the right thing. Itliterally does not matter what
I'm doing or whether it works ornot. Because I'm doing the right
thing. If no, that's the onlyway I could be doing the wrong
thing. I could be making abillion dollars a year and not

(34:43):
being improving myself and I'mdoing the wrong thing.

You don't mean in a narcissistic way. You mean in
a healthy way?

Yes, absolutely. But because to
improve myself in a narcissisticway would not be improvement. So
it would be Because that's notwhat I value. That's not who I
want to be, I would not considerthat improvement. I would
consider that an illusion. Andthat would be false. I would not
be improving.

You're talking about improving your skills,
what specific skills are youtalking about for collected
stories?

So I have them listed. I'm maniacal about
this, I have become that I don'tstart this way, I feel like I
really need to hone in on thatpoint, I did not start this way,
I decided to become this way.
And it didn't happen overnight.
It happened in fits and spurts.
And it was slow and winding.

(36:31):
That's how I got here, I have alist of the skills I want to
master and to what level I wantto get to them, and I have a
list of the things I need to getgood at, and then immediately
get rid of because I don't wantto be good at them. I have an
order in which I want to get ridof the skills. So in short, they
are narration, I need to getroughly to an eight out of 10
attend being world class.

Do you mean your performance?

Yes. So eight being very good, because that is
what I need to believe that iswhat I believe I need to be at
to convincingly sell stories,right? That doesn't mean I'm
always going to be the narrator.
That is good enough to me,writing roughly eight or nine
out of 10, you see a commontrend hear sound design, because
that's right at the point ofdiminishing returns. The
difference between an EIGHT anda 10. Most people will never

(37:15):
notice only the biggest. Onlythe people who truly understand
the craft will know thedifference at that level. If
such fine grained details, youcan hit the high note so you're
going to get 90% of the results.
Yes, the best in the world willbe able to outdo you. And yes,
some people will notice on asubconscious level what is truly

(37:35):
masterclass and what isn't. Butyou just need to get to a point
where you can sell. I say youas in me, because this is it all
comes back to where my goalscome from, I know what I need to
do. And from that all otherchoices become clear. Now that I
know what I need to do, whatskills do I need to get there? I
literally wrote them all out.
Okay, now, which ones do Iactually want to be good at. And

(37:56):
so I very quickly crossed outthe ones I didn't want to do, I
don't want to be an actor, Iwant to be an actor, it doesn't
motivate me, I don't care aboutthat. And ultimately, I don't
want to be the editor. I don'twant to do the mixing. There's a
lot of things I don't want to begreat at. But there are things I
do want to be great at, even ifI do eventually outsource them.
And primarily because I love it.
And because I love it. I know Iwill be great at it. If I

(38:19):
continue to put in the time,what are those things that you
want to be great at sounddesign, narration, writing,
there are some that I want to begood at. And there's a lot of
those,

What are some things you want to be good at?

Mixing, editing, directing,I need to be
slightly better at drawing, Ineed to be good enough at music,
composing in production and inorder to be able to guide the
people under me and to be ableto talk what they talk in an
intelligent way to get the bestout of them. So those are I need

(38:54):
to be able to do everything onthe team for the most part, to
at least an adequate degree. Butthe three things I'm going to be
great at are narration writing,sound design. Now, narration of
those three is the one I carethe least about. And that may
sound bizarre, but I believethat the writing is the most
important. If that foundation isnot good, nothing else matters.

(39:15):
Fantastic, fantastic sounddesign and acting on top of a
crappy writing literallynobody's gonna care. Right?
Sound Design is right afterthat. It's so important to the
immersion of the story.
NARRATION as long as I amconvincing, I care less about
the perfectionism there, it justhas to be good enough that you
don't notice me. I want to fallinto the background to the point

(39:37):
where the narrator becomesimmersive, essentially, to the
point where I'm just telling youwhat is happening and you don't
hear my voice anymore. You justsee the story that is unfolding
in your imagination. That's thepoint I need to get to. I don't
need to get to the point whereyou're like, wow, this guy's a
great narrator. I don't careabout that. I just need to get

(39:57):
to the point where I fall away.
You don't notice what I'm sayinganymore? Like, yeah, that
sounded weird, or that soundedstupid, or that was bad acting.
Once I get past that point, it'sgood enough, right? The writing
and sound design needs to be alittle bit higher.

Well, the stories are really great. And you
actually you have rules for yourstories, right? Even though
they're, they're multipartstories, right? They're like,
four, or five or six or 12parts. But that's it. And then
there's another story. And thenthere's another story. But But

(40:33):
you said, you wrote down rulesfor you're work, that all of the
stories have to live by.

Yes, I do have a rule. So I have a theory
as to what makes a satisfyingstory in this format. And this
is why I'm one of the reasonsI'm so excited to be on just the
format. Okay, so it's immersiveAudio Stories, cool. Whatever,
right? Anyone can do it, right?
There's not that much bar of acompetition. Anyone can learn
how to do the sound design andthe voice acting and all that
and the directing and they canput it together, right? This

(41:02):
isn't rocket science. People canfigure this out and they have
figured out in the past. So whatmakes me special then, right?
What do I have over graphicaudio, or any of these audible
originals are audio dramas thatare coming out? And I think that
there are layers on top of this,that in time are going to make
the difference. At first, I needto make the core product good
write the stories. Beyond that Ihave a set of codified rules for

(41:26):
what I think every story I makeand every story that I involve
other people. And these are therules they need to play by, I
have a very strict rulebook asto what makes a good story in
this format. Because this formatis more than just immersive
audio, it has a set of rules,too. So some of them are things
like just to make it concrete,have characters that are flawed,

(41:46):
but not stupid, are self awareand motivated enough to not
frustrate the reader? And thatsounds simple. But how many
books and how many times ifyou've been frustrated by a
character that has an own goal,right? It's a typical romance
plot where they bothmisunderstand something and then
they go off and it's totallycontrived. You know, like, this
is so stupid. If they wouldliterally have a one minute
conversation, they could resolvethis in a second. No, I'm not

(42:08):
doing that. If they have one.
That doesn't mean the two peoplecan't come to in conflict with
each other they will. But ifthey do, it's for reasons that
make sense to you. In fact, thatis because the next rule is most
conflict comes from hardchoices, opposing but plausible
worldviews or forces of nature,not own goals, or Deus Ex

(42:29):
Machina. Now, alright, so it'sthese kinds of rules? And I've
got a lot of them.

Did you make them them up yourself?

Yeah, I mean, but everything is derived from
something else. But yes. Butyes, these are rules that I have
codified. And every story Iwrite will follow these rules to
the tee.

Why? Why do you have rules that all your stories
have to adhere to?

Yeah, that's what it is. And it's this kind
of structure seems imposing,like, Okay, great. So anyone, I
asked us to follow all this hugelist of rules. Like that's kind
of ridiculous. But I havelearned more and more that the
structure sets you free, becausethe very last rule is, and
everything else is purepotential. Because human beings,

(43:13):
the way our brains work, we dohorrible in a vacuum. Limitless
possibility is the worstpossible thing you could do to
creativity. It sounds insane tosay that, but the moment you
start adding structure, if yougive somebody a blank canvas,
and like a marker, and you saymake something wonderful,
they're gonna be like, I don'tknow what to do. But if they're

(43:33):
like, you have to do this, this,this and this, you can only use
these colors, you can only usethese shapes. Now watch them go.
And they'll just go right intothe task is crazy. It too much
ambiguity is bad. So all ofthese rules pin you in. Now they
pin you in in such a way thatanything inside these bounds
inside these boundaries is goingto be a good story. Right? And
there's so much space left herefor potential that doesn't even

(43:57):
matter. There's infinite storiesstill within this space to get
mathematical.

Well there are only eight notes on the piano.

Yes, yes.
Yeah, you're right. That's agreat point, exactly like that.
The structure sets you free. SoI'm pinning you into a specific
kind of structure. And I thinkthat something else that I'm
excited about is how can I makethat even cooler? How can I make
this not like a top down thingwhere I'm hitting people over
the head with art, you forgotrule number seven here. And the
way I did that, is that part ofmy story world, my story world,

(44:31):
which is going to be our storyworld is a community driven
multiverse, which I've calledthe eternium. And this is a very
fancy way of saying that if youmake a story on our platform, it
isn't just a story. It's a storyworld. And that world is an
actual place in the canon. Allof these stories are in the

(44:51):
world. So as long as it meetsthese bars, as long as it passes
all these rules, and someeditorial process, right? That's
TBD It's canon, your story worldlives next to mine. And while
they have some method ofinteracting, and I won't get
into that, because they followall the rules they fit into our
world. Furthermore, there islike a pantheon of gods above

(45:13):
all of this, and those are thecreatures, the intelligent,
sometimes malevolent forces thatare enforcing all these rules.
The reason that only theseworlds can exist in this
multiverse is because everysingle one of these rules is
personified. By some, you know,sometimes malevolent deity who
wants this thing, right? There'sthe revealers, the one of the

(45:36):
main main Gods like goddesses,she wants basically to reveal
secrets. And that motivationcauses you to have stories,
which feed the reader mysteries,but slowly unveil them, right
you don't have and this is toprevent you from doing things
like loose threads. Looseplotlines having no mystery,
right? I'm just codifying whatis already a common story trope,

(46:01):
you hint at something weird,like you tease some readers with
some mystery. And then later youpay them off, right? You pay
back that debt. All I'm doing istaking that rule, and I'm making
even the rules themselves partof the story world. So you know,
that parts of an experiment,we'll see if it works, but I
feel like that turns somethingwhich would be annoying to

(46:21):
anybody working with me intosomething. Okay, cool. Now I can
use this. Now these rules areactual characters. And these
characters come into conflictwith each other. And I can use
that in my story that gets meexcited.

Tell me about mortal steel.

So that is this show. I'm currently airing,
right? This is the first fullseason. So for seven ish months,
I all I did was write producestories for them on a podcast,
podcast feed. Like I said, I wasobsessed with quantity and
progress. That's all that was.
So my theory there, I had asecond goal. My theory was I am
building a backlog of content.

(48:43):
Like I'm building the first twoepisodes of long form stories,
so that when I launch thisthing, I'm not just going Can I
write a new story? Can I keepthem excited? Like, I have this
huge catalogue of potentialright now I'm gonna have to
rework all of them, right?
They're not ready. Mortal Steelwas just one of the 12 stories
that I released. So I basicallywhen I was ready to launch the

(49:05):
first season and like, okay,pick from these 12 stories,
which one of these has the mostpotential? Not even that for the
very first one, I said tomyself, "which one will teach me
the most, which one am I themost excited about?" Forget what
anyone else wants? What am I themost excited about? Because if
I'm excited about it, it's goingto come through in my work, if I
don't care, even if it's thebest story, I think to launch

(49:27):
with from a businessperspective, or even for reader
interest. I knew that if I lovedit, it would be the best one,
which is kind ofcounterintuitive. So Mortal
Steel was that one. It's basedon a short story I wrote a long
time ago. It is a story thetagline is Pastor Ethan cutter,
Cyborg and ordained priest hascome to bring a little faith and

(49:49):
justice to old Los Angeles, theruins of old Los Angeles. And
that's the tagline. So you kindof get it. It's been described
as campy and I don't pretend Butit's the best thing ever. It's
again, it's not about that youalready know what I value myself
for. I value myself for makingthings as fast as possible and
improving.

It's not campy.
Cool. Okay. Well, depends onyour perspective. Well, I mean,
nothing is for everybody.

Right? If you if you think diehard is stupid,
this is not for you. If youthink diehard is awesome, this
is for you. Right? That's it,like I knew my audience, right?
That's what it is, you thinkaction movies are dumb, then
this isn't for you. It's notjust an action movie. And it has
real characters and real thingsare happening. And I treat it
with I give it both a head nodto I know, this is dumb, but

(50:41):
it's also cool. And but alsolike, hey, there's a real story
here too. Because, you know, youhave to actually care about the
characters. So yeah, that's thestory. I what I'm most excited
about is not my story, or what Iwrote is the people who brought
it to life. So there's a team of10 voice actors. They're
incredible. They really are. Andthese people are essentially

(51:05):
volunteers, right? You know,they were paid a pittance more
or less, and the promise of Ipromise, there will be more
stories in the future, we'regonna make money eventually.
Right? They were paid mostly onpromises, and they killed it.
They really did. It isincredible what you can get out
of people who are motivated tohelp you with your cause. Not
even because it's your cause hasnothing to do with me. They are

(51:28):
motivated to work on somethingcool. And that is what I focused
on for this production is, howcan I make this seem so cool,
that people would be dying to bea part of it? And that's what I
did. And that's what worked andnothing to do with me.

What was it like working with voice actors for
the first time?

it was initially terrifying. It is an
entirely different skill setlearning how to direct people in
a way that is both constructive.
So all you theatre people outhere you already get it like you
don't, you're not learninganything. But in a way that
makes the performance better.
And what your story needs. Mostimportantly, better is like,

(52:09):
what does that mean? It fits, Itell every voice actor now at
this point, there is a range.
For this character, there is arange of space where your
performance makes sensenarratively. Now, there's a lot
of points in that space, you canlean on this part of the
character, you can lean on thatpart of the character, you can
come up with your own thing,that's fine, too, this space is
I did not imagine, for thischaracter behave. But it needs

(52:32):
to fit within the narrativespace of this character. There
are ways to perform thischaracter that are completely
contrary to what is necessaryfor the plot, and for the story
and for their interactions withother characters. So you have to
be in that space, it is my jobto get you into that space,
right. And to get the best outof you, right? There are better

(52:53):
points in that space as well. Myjob is to make it so that you
fit the character, your voicefits the character. Beyond that,
the rest is your art. I'm notgoing to micromanage you, I'm
not going to tell you how to doanything beyond it needs to fit
the story. And if it fits thestory in a totally unexpected
way. And by the way, multipleeven the main character is

(53:15):
totally unlike what I expected.
Totally. I'm like how I wrotehim. But it's awesome. And
that's what matters. It'sawesome. I didn't say you need
to sound like this, you need todo this. In fact, all I did is I
always say hit me with yourintuition first. I don't want to
tell you what it is. Let me tellyou who they are, where this

(53:37):
character comes from theirpurpose in the story, because
you need to know what my endgoal for the character is. As
long as you get there, the restof your art, do not care. So
that's my directing style. Now.
I was absolutely terrified. AndI probably made a lot of stupid
decisions early on, where I wasunwilling to push them into that
space. Because I was notconfident yet in my ability to

(53:58):
do that, right? Because theyknow so much more about this
than me. They're actors, right?
Some of them are new, some ofthem are not new. They know what
they're doing. And I am thisdebut director do not know what
I was doing. But when I showedup and I got this advice from
you, Tony. When I showed up Iopened with I have no idea what

(54:20):
I am doing, please give mefeedback that said, here's what
I need you to do. Right? I justflat out I opened with I'm not
pretending to be an expert here.
So if I'm doing something dumb,tell me. Otherwise, this is what
I need. And I think that madeall the difference. And they
were totally willing to correctme or to insist. And it made a

(54:41):
big difference. We wereteammates instead of a top down
thing. So now it's all that nowI can do it. No problem.

Awesome. How did the mechanics of it work though?

So for the recording?

Yeah. So did you get all of the actual all in the
same room, or did...

So I'm very open about this. The cost of
producing mortal steel was$1400. Approximately. Plus or
minus some plugins and othersoftware I'm forgetting about.

Not bad. How many episodes?

12.

Okay

25 minutes with full design, sound design
music. Now, obviously, I'm doingall the post production myself
beyond the art and the music.
But still 1400 bucks ain't tooshabby. And I know the next one.
I know, it could be cheaper,too. I know how to make it
cheaper. I'm not going to.

But how did the actual mechanics of the
recording, working with theactors go?

Yeah, this is related. So we are recording
asynchronously, what happens isI deliver the script. And so I
format the script, I give themthe exact lines, they have a
spreadsheet of all their lines.
First of all, that's totallyseparate, just so they don't
miss them. All the lines areindividually labeled with
numbers IDs, in the order ofappearance, their character
names are associated with them.

(55:59):
So their job. So you have 12lines in episode one, right? So
we recorded in four episodeblocks at a time. All right, due
date is next Wednesday, I wantyour four episodes worth of
lines back in this Google Drive.
So here's your folder. here'shere's all the information about
how you need to record and whatthe sound format is. And all
this. Here are the numbers ofyour lines and the line

(56:20):
associated with it. And parentmedicals. If it matters, right,
you go off and do it. Right. Andyou have the instruction that if
you are in dialogue with anothercharacter, you listen to the
dialogue line before yours. Ifyou're if their line is already
in, if their line is not in, youget to set the pace for the diet
for the conversation, right? Yourecord all your lines as if

(56:41):
there were a phantom they'retalking to you. And then they
listen to yours to make it flow.
And it is shocking how good itis. Now there are times when it
comes out.

You gave the recording. So if two people are
in conversation, person numberone records their lines with
gaps for for the other person'sdialogue. And then you give that
whole recording to the secondactor.

No, no.
That's not streamlined enough.
So what happens is they areresponsible for chopping up
their own clips. So 1_137 isthis line, I want that clip
1_137.wav in my folder by thisdue date. And I have all of
these individual Lego piecesthat I can move around to change

(57:28):
the timing of the dialogue. It'snot one track, I have made an
extra ask you chop it up for meand organize it so that I can
just assemble the pieces later.
It's even better than that. Soyeah, they listened to the other
dialogue clips before them sothat if you press play, going
all the way down, you would hearthe episode minus narration. So
the whole show was recorded with11 people talking to themselves

(57:50):
in a closet, you know, orwherever the recording spaces no
person talks to themselves live.

Wow. So they were never in the same room?

Nope. Not once. Did we ever talk together?
And I mean, I challenge you tolisten to it and see if you can
tell. There are some times whenit falls a little flat. And it's
you know, it comes with theterritory, but that kept costs
down.

No, I thought it was great.

Yeah. So it works. And it's very important
because it kept from businessperspective, because it keeps
costs down. All of these peoplehave day jobs, you know, they
work in bars, they work retail,they work customer support. And
some of them work overtime,right? They're busy, right? This
is their passion. So whenthey're coming home in 11
o'clock, and they have to gettheir voice lines, then the last

(58:34):
thing you want to tell them is,hey, you have to be here at this
time for two hours to record thetwo lines that you have in this
episode. It's an ask too much, Icould do it. But then I would
also need to pay them 1000s ofdollars. Because it's no longer
a passion thing. It's like a youknow, they're made, they're here
for a job, which is fine. And Iwant to get to that point where

(58:56):
I can do that. But when you'restarting small and cheap, you
have to get creative aboutsolving the problems to get the
cost down. So for reference, Ithink I told you this, Tony, I
read an article recently thatdescribed how to make an audio
fiction podcast. And part of itthe last third is talking about
budget. And so they go throughthis whole step by step about

(59:17):
how they produce their own showand what they did. Their budget.
actual dollar spent was $75,000.
And they told you it could notbe done for less than 50 and it
should have taken them $125,000but they were so proud of
themselves for saving money. Andit blew my mind now I've
listened to their show and notto throw shade on other artists.

(59:38):
It's not about that. This isabout the business of what
they're doing. For the outputthey got just objectively
speaking. It was worse thanwhere I am now. And that's it's
sad. It's it's not a good thing.
This is not like oh yeah, I'mflexing on you if you get
something out this is sadbecause it deters other people.

(01:00:00):
from thinking they can makeincredible things on a budget,
and you can solve so much if youare willing to get creative and
approach a problem with asolution mindset, instead of
giving up and paying people tosolve it for you, you do not
need an expert for everything.
You can be that expert in shortorder. It's been, what, eight
months? And I mean, it's atleast convincing, right? I don't

(01:00:23):
sound like a master in any ofthe things I'm doing. But I
sound good enough to sell ornearly so. And isn't that the
bar? If that's not, I don't knowwhat it is.

Tony Angelini (01:00:35):
And you're learning, you're striving to get
better. But you understandgetting better as a process,

Steven Schrembeck (01:00:41):
You don't start ready. And you don't need
to start with $100,000 to makesomething incredible, just start
doing it. And you will learnvery quickly whether you need a
real expert or not. And foralmost everything you do not.
And when you do at least youwill walk into it knowing like
okay, yeah, the experts reallyare worth the money on this one.

(01:01:02):
Like, yep, for sure. Like theguitar player I got for the
intro and outro we're going tolearn how to play guitar, I'm
not going to learn how to shredlike, it's not worth it. I paid
him $200 on Fiverr. And he washappy to do it for me in two
days. Right? They spent $3500 ontheir composing and producing,
because they hired aprofessional composer and
producer, who was set up tocharge that much. They did

(01:01:24):
totally custom work. They didn'tgive them the freedom. They went
top down on everything. This isexactly what I mean. They went
through a ton of takes, Itrusted an expert to give me
something good on theirtimeline. So by being way less
needy about what I got, in theend, give me something good. I
don't care what it is, this isroughly what I want. Give it to
me and see what you can do. Andfor 200 bucks, this guy was able

(01:01:47):
to do it. No problem in his freetime probably took him a couple
hours. He was happy. I washappy. nobody got hurt in the
exchange.

I like that, because he's the one composing
the music. You wanted him to bemoved by the story. I will tell
you that I charge a lot morethan that.

And there's nothing wrong with that. There's
nothing wrong with payingprofessionals.

Yeah, you're talking about the level that
you're at right now. And yourgoals? When my daughter was
growing up, I used to tell her.
Don't worry so much aboutschool. That's not to say school
isn't important. But it's to sayyou don't go to school, because
you already know this stuff.
You're there to learn what youdon't know. And that's kind of

(01:02:30):
beautiful to me. Your goal wasto produce these things, because
you're going to school, you areteaching yourself how to be a
great producer. One great reasonwhy I really wanted to talk to
you about your process. And allof this is because if you think

(01:02:51):
of the arch of No, not not anarc, because an arc implies an
up and down, let's say curve.
There's a tipping point in thatcurve. After the tipping point.
There are people after thetipping point, Josh Weeden.
Aaron Sorkin you know, bigBroadway theaters, you are just

(01:03:13):
before the curve, you are goingaround that curve. And I caught
you just before the curve. Andthe story, where you're at right
now is extremely intriguing.
Because there are other peoplewho are in the same place as you

(01:03:33):
just before the tipping pointjust before the curve. And they
give up.

Can I do this? Can I do this again, I do
this and then the wheels falloff.

Yeah, and instead of, but here's the thing, here's
the difference. And here's whatI love about you. If the wheels
fall off, like you said aboutthe literary agents, the people
you spoke to, the difference iswhen the wheels fall off, you
say, Okay, why did they falloff? Let me learn from that and

(01:04:03):
put it back. Let me figure outhow to put the wheels back on
and maybe the wheels don't comeon exactly the same way. Maybe
you have to take a differentpath. That's the difference.

It can all be distilled down to this one
reaction. When you get punchedin the face, do you fall down
and think to yourself "I'm nevergonna do that again. That hurt."
or do you think "I need to getbetter at avoiding getting
punched in the face?" Like thatis it everything now there's a
lot of ways to change reaction.
We talked about all thatsurrounding yourself with people

(01:04:34):
who can get you back up and getyou better at dodging punches,
right? But all of that is in asolution mindset. When I get
hurt, do I think I'm going to doless of that. That hurt, or do
you think "I can do this. I justneed to figure out how to not
get hurt again. Let's getbetter." Like how do I get
around this obstacle? You haveand this isn't something that

(01:04:56):
just happens Do you flip aswitch one time and you're done.
A solution mindset is somethingyou will continually,
continually continually have topound into yourself. When you
get hit. You have to bethinking, "How do I get around
this next time?" And it is veryhard because your initial
reaction, especially if this isnew to you is to think I never
want to do this again, I justgot told no in that pitch. Well

(01:05:18):
screw that done with this? Youmay not say it in as many words,
you may just think "I don't wantto do this anymore. That felt
bad. Let's do something elseinstead." But instead you think,
"well, that hurt. There'sprobably something to learn
here." And even if you're notready to hear that right away,
the next day, when you wake up,you think, Okay, what did I
learn? How can I move forward?

(01:05:41):
It doesn't feel good, it neverfeels good to get punched. But
if you can continually improve,it'll happen less and less. And
to the point where you don'teven feel it anymore. You know,
it's crazy, Tony, what's reallycrazy is one day, you start
waking up hoping you getpunched, because it means you're
learning something. It meansevery time you do it, you start

(01:06:03):
craving it. That's when youknow, "yeah, I'm gonna make it"
and I haven't made it over thebend yet. I'm close. But I feel
like when you start craving theknowledge, when you start
wondering how you're wrong andactively seeking out, I bet I'm
wrong about this. I'm better.
I'm wrong about this. How can Ifind out if I'm wrong about
this? Now you might not be youmight be right. And for once

(01:06:23):
you're like, Yay, I did it righton to the next thing. But if
you're wrong, like I wasyesterday, I sought that out
because I craved it. I wanted toknow how I was going to fail.
And I knew that when you startwanting to know how you're bad,
you're not only willing to hearcriticism, but you you desire it
because you want to succeed somuch more than you want to not

(01:06:46):
get punched in the face. Whenthat scale tips. I feel like
that's when you make it. I willsee right? Yeah, I'm not
speaking from the top of themountain. I'm speaking hopefully
from the way up.

Now, getting back to the mechanics of the way you
recorded it. As a sounddesigner, I know that if you
have all those little snippets,those clips of actors lines,
putting all that together is anightmare. Even if it's only 20
minutes. Are you going to do itthat way again? Or? or What did

(01:07:24):
you learn from that experience?

I knew that I had to do it. I knew that it was
important to take a wrong step,even if it was inefficient. And
a bad decision. I knew I neededto take action. I knew I needed
voice actors. I knew I neededtheir clips. And this was the
only way I could think of ofgetting it on a reasonable

(01:07:47):
timeframe in a way that let meaccomplish all my other goals.
So ultimately, I had to do it.
Because I knew that it was okay,I was gonna learn from it. I was
going to figure out whether thisworked. Either it doesn't work.
And I have to go do the hard wayof scheduling everybody getting
them in the same room, whethervirtual or not. All right, it
gets a lot harder. I knew that Iwas more likely to fail. By

(01:08:08):
mulling on whether this was theright choice or not. I was more
likely to fail because I did nottake action. And I overthought
it and I gave up. And I didsomething else, then I was to
fail if I did it wrong and itwas hard work in order to make
it work again. So the shortanswer is it took about six

(01:08:29):
hours the first time I measureevery single step of my
production just to get moreefficient. So the first time it
took about six hours the secondtime it took about two hours.
Not that hard. I have it downless than that now, because I
got good at it because likeanything else, it's a skill.
unlike anything else. You canfigure out how to do this. So
now I have a way of recording mynarration. That makes it very

(01:08:50):
simple. I literally just clapand I say the numbers of the
clips because they're allnumbered, right? Remember that?
They're all numbered. I say 47,48, 49 I sound insane, right?

That slating that's called slating You know
the old movie clappers? That's aslate, and they would put the
chalk in the same room.

Again, another idea came from you. You
Tony's advice is great,everybody. So and then by
threading it that way. He can'tsay but I can. So it made a huge
difference. And I can do it. Andyeah, there are some drawbacks.
But there's a lot of upside foran independent producer. So
don't be afraid to break themold. If it's forward progress,

(01:09:37):
if you're going to learnsomething, worst case scenario,
it failed miserably. I'd have togo back and do more takes we
scheduled at some point in thefuture where we can start
recording episodes it wasrecoverable. So I knew that I
would learn something and if itworked, it would make everything
easier. I could have recordingdone in three weeks, and I don't
have to do anything. I literallyjust directed them each for one

(01:09:58):
session. I just ran through 10lines. So for each character, we
narrowed down their voice. Andthe rest was like, okay, have
fun. See you later. And theirclips just started showing up in
the drive. Now, of course, I hadto push people for deadlines and
all that like, but for the mostpart, these guys were
professional guys and gals, theywere all professionals, like it
was shocking what a group ofvolunteers put together by

(01:10:20):
themselves with nothing but aset of rules that I cooked up on
the fly, and motivation for aproject for a dream. It's
shocking what you canaccomplish.

Thanks, Steven, thank you very much for talking
and sharing some of yourexperiences. If you were to give
any advice, let's say there'ssomebody listening, who is just
before the tipping point justbefore the curve, and the wheels
fell off, what would you tellthem?

You have to know why you're doing what
you're doing. Are you runningaway from something? Are you
building something, and I hadthis realization, talking to
another person. Again, givingadvice is a great way to learn
about yourself. I realized thatthere is no right path in life.
Which is why I go back to mymetaphor, the being on the path

(01:11:10):
or off the path is not why it'smore complicated. Is it the
right path, there is no rightpath. There are aspects of your
personality, that you canemphasize. There are dreams, and
all of them are valid. Some ofthem have trade offs. Some of
them have pros and cons, theyall affect your life in some
way. But once you've chosen oneunderstood that none of the

(01:11:30):
other paths are better than thisone, this thing you chose to
make, which you believed sodearly. And up until this point,
you're sitting there looking atyour car, all the wheels are
off, to go back to the metaphor,you're thinking do I want to put
this back together? Do I want toget back together and try again,
even though it hurts, this pathis not better than any other,

(01:11:51):
those other paths are not betterthan this one. Now, you may find
out that you actually truly donot enjoy this path, that's
fine, move on. Don't judgeyourself for it, like I used to.
Don't judge yourself for itanymore. But if the thing is
that you're just avoiding pain,know that all those paths have
breakdowns on them, too. Thereis no way to avoid this pain. So

(01:12:14):
if this path truly isn't theright one, this project, this
thing you're trying to buildisn't the right one. That's
okay, move on. Don't put it backtogether. That doesn't make
sense. But all of those pathsare hard. If you're doing
anything meaningful, everysingle one of them is hard. So
you're not going to be able toavoid pain. And none of them are

(01:12:34):
better than this one. So you areprobably better served - I got
this advice recently - followinga bad goal to its completion,
then you are attempting to makea new goal and giving up early,
you will learn more following abad path to its completion, then
you will learn from switchingpaths because one looks better

(01:12:57):
than the other. That's what I'llsay. So set a goal, reach it.
And when you reach that goal, ifyou've decided it didn't give
you the feeling you want, thenmove on.

Nice. Thanks, man.

Thank you, Tony. And one final pitch. Tony
is incredible. I have learnedso, so much from him as a
creative coach. It really is oneof the reasons that I am still
on the path for this goal andnot on something else. And I'm
not just just trying to butterhim up. It really is a

(01:13:29):
fundamental piece of success. Itdoesn't have to be Tony. But it
should be somebody. You shouldhave somebody in your life. Who
cares about what you'reproducing, no matter how bad it
is. Somebody who will pat you onthe back and say "When's the
next one?" That's what you need.

Oh, thanks. I'm not sure I'm going to include
that but but let me tell youthat's very meaningful for me.
Thank you.

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