February 12, 2025 • 25 mins
Today we’re discussing how to develop yourself personally and professionally to become a great podcaster. My guest is Junaid Ahmed. Junaid is the Founder of Humblezone and Creator of Home Studio Mastery, designed to teach you how to build your home studio. He has two decades of video production experience, as well as designing websites & apps focused on a systematic process and seamless user experience. He provides podcasters, speakers, and content creators with a comprehensive plan for their studio equipment, lighting, and layout.
Junaid started his creative career creating fliers for his uncle’s business over 30 years ago. He then grew into graphic design, mobile app design, he just found himself creating, creating, creating. It wasn’t until 2005 that he discovered podcasting, but he didn’t really get into it until 2012 when a friend of his wanted to start a podcast.
Junaid ended up starting a podcast with two of his friends that lasted for four episodes. While that run ended abruptly, Junaid was bitten by the podcasting bug. He wanted to get back into podcasting, but he just didn’t have the drive until he read the book “Crushing It” by Gary Vaynerchuck. Gary wrote “Just go and document your journey…” Junaid started a podcast documenting his journey into becoming a podcaster, a beekeeper, and other hobbies he’s had.
Junaid says podcasting is elevating because when you empty your mind, when you put stuff down in Audio Note you’re releasing space in your brain to do other things and that’s how you start developing your personality.
What does using podcasting as a self-improvement tool mean to you?
When Junaid went to college for English Composition his teacher said, “Just free write, write whatever comes into your mind”. She was trying to get him to empty his mind because over time, your writing becomes more refined.
Junaid views podcast through the same lens because the more you record, the clearer your messaging becomes over time. As you’re recording the episodes you get to go back and listen to and critique yourself. You’ll get better as you do more of it. From that perspective it helped him develop his speaking voice, from his ability to talk about a topic or to teach him how to overcome something that he once struggled with.
What advice do you have for new podcasters about interviewing?
To become a good interviewer, you’ve got to be able to articulate the point of the interview. To get moving you can start out as a solo podcaster. When Junaid started his podcast, it was just him talking about what he was going through with his hobbies. The more he did that the more he understood how to tell a story.
It still wasn’t as refined as what he wanted it to be, so he started inviting his friends to be interviewed. The more he did that, especially with people he already knew, the better he got. It’s easier to talk to somebody you already know. It’s hard to talk to somebody brand new unless you have topics that you share a passion with.
Another way to be a good interviewer is to research who you’re going to be interviewing. We’ve seen some great examples of that, particularly people like Simon Sinek and Jimmy Fallon. They research the people they’re going to be interviewing. You can do the same thing. When possible, watch previous interviews of your future guests to know what other people are asking them and then ask different questions.
Suggestions for Finding Good Guests
A good guest is only as good as the topic that you’re going to come and talk about. It all comes down to the purpose of the podcast episode that you’re going to record. It all comes down to the focus of your podcast and what you are going to be talking about. This is decided by knowing who your target audience is. This will help the guest who’s taking time out to record the episode get a ton of value as well.
We also dive into topics such as:
How large or small of a niche should you pick as the topic of your podcast.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Idea Climbing podcast. Today, we're
discussing how to personally and professionally develop yourself
to become a great podcaster.
My guest is Junaid Ahmed. Junaid is the
founder of Humble Zone and creator of Home
Studio Mastery
designed to teach you how to build your
home studio.
He has two decades of video production experience
as well as designing websites and apps focused
(00:22):
on a systematic process and seamless user experience.
He provides podcasters, speakers, and content creators with
a comprehensive plan for their studio equipment, lighting,
and layout.
We dive into topics including how to best
get started in podcasting,
how to decide on and find a niche
market for your podcast,
tips for being a great podcast guest, and
(00:42):
how to get comfortable being one, and other
golden nuggets of advice. You're gonna love this
show.
Janae, thank you for making time to be
here for the Idea Climbing podcast. I really
appreciate it.
Absolutely, Mark. I'm super excited to be here,
honored to speak with you and
(01:05):
share what you, what I've learned over the
years.
And I'd love to jump into before we
jump into the strategies, as far as using
podcasting
as a personal development tool, I haven't heard
it said so eloquently before. I absolutely love
it. Before we get into some of the
tips, the tricks, the strategies, things like that,
what's your story? How did you discover that?
(01:27):
You know, I've been a creator for many,
many years. I started
from
creating flyers for my uncle's business using Microsoft
Word
over thirty years ago.
And as I grew into designing, graphic design,
mobile app design, I just
found myself creating, creating, creating.
(01:48):
And it wasn't until 02/2005
that I discovered podcasting,
which was like, this is pretty cool.
But I didn't really get into it till
2012 when a friend of mine said, hey,
I wanna start a podcast. I was like,
hey, me too.
So I start I ended up starting a
podcast with two of my,
(02:09):
two of my friends.
We relaunched a podcast,
which contained of only four episodes
because the technology wasn't there. This is back
in 2012.
And then
I kept wanting to go back and do
it, but
I just didn't have the drive
till I read the book, Crushing It by
(02:29):
Gary Vaynerchuk. And he said, just go ahead
and document your journey.
Whatever it whatever it is that you're going
through, you're gonna find the stories. You're gonna
find
value in it. So I was like, you
know what? I'm gonna start podcasting
for my sake, for documenting the journey of
becoming a podcaster, documenting
a journey of becoming a beekeeper, and all
(02:50):
the different hobbies that I had,
when I first got started. So it's been
it's been really,
elevating because
when you
empty your mind and when you put stuff
down on paper, when you stuff put stuff
down in an audio note,
you're released, you know, you're releasing
space in your brain to do other things.
(03:11):
And and and that's how you, you know,
start developing
your personality.
So talk about a little more. Let's define
what what do you mean by using podcasting
as a self improvement or self development tool?
What does that mean to you?
So
for example,
when I was going to college,
English composition specifically,
(03:33):
my teacher said, just free write. I'm like,
what do you mean? Like, just write
whatever comes to your mind. But I'm like,
nothing is coming to my mind. And she's
like, exactly. That's the point. Just
write. Because she's just trying to get me
to write anything at all free write
to empty your mind because
as you start writing,
(03:53):
initially, it's gonna be all collaborative,
but then over time, it's gonna get refined.
And then I use audio or podcasting
as the same perspective because the more you
speak,
the clearer you get over time. And then
as you're recording these episodes,
you get the
opportunity to go back and listen to, hey,
(04:15):
how did I just do
as I just recorded this episode? Now as,
as we've seen athletes, we've seen cyclists and
whatnot,
they record
every run they do. Every
ride they do, they're recording that. So you
can look back at the data. Like, hey.
How am I doing this? How did I
run this
(04:35):
past
ride
versus how can I do it better? So
same thing goes with podcasting as you're recording
yourself speaking about whatever topic it is,
you're just gonna get better
as you do more of it.
And from that perspective, I think it helped
me develop
my speaking voice, my ability to
(04:56):
tell
a topic or talk about a topic or
teach something that, I was struggling with.
So when you were getting started and from
that experience,
what advice would you have for new,
aspiring or new ish podcasters as far as
interview style and pulling genius out of people
and learning? What what advice would you have?
(05:17):
Because not everyone can be a good interviewer.
No. It's that's
that's the hardest thing to become a good
interviewer.
You gotta be able to
articulate what you're speaking with. And to be
able to do that,
you want to
first start out as a solo podcast. So
when I started my podcast, it was solo
podcast. It was just me talking
(05:39):
about what I was going through as I'm
going through the beekeeping journey, as I'm,
started
to, you know, the bees are coming or,
you know, I was getting into beekeeping. I'm
building the equipment.
Now I'm installing the bees in the hive,
you know,
tending to them. So I'm talking about all
of these different aspects.
And the more I did that, the more
(06:00):
I understood how to tell the story.
But it wasn't still as refined as I
wanted it to be. So what I did
is I started inviting
people that I already knew. My friends, my
colleagues. I'm like, hey, come talk to me
on the podcast. Let's have a conversation. And
the more I did
that, especially people that I already knew, were
(06:20):
more comfortable with people
that you already know. It's very hard to
talk to somebody
brand new unless
you have topics that you're passionate about. So
for example, if I were to
talk to somebody about, let's say Top Gun
and Top Gun is their favorite movie, immediately
we're gonna hit it off because we
(06:41):
have that
same,
we're all on this, we're both on the
same page. It's almost like I mentioned this
yesterday.
If somebody plays
the song Thriller
by Michael Jackson,
we all already know the exact moves. Like,
everybody's gonna do this hand gesture because
(07:02):
we've we've gone through that. It's it's a
muscle memory now. Right? If you see a
QR code, what are you gonna do? You're
gonna pull out your phone, scan that QR
code.
So again,
when you are coming from a,
talking about a topic that you're both passionate
about, it's a lot easier to talk to
(07:23):
somebody new as opposed
to talking to somebody new and you have
no idea where you're gonna start.
I love the idea of finding that common
ground or something they're passionate about. What other
tips do you have for interview? For
again, newish
or aspiring podcasters, what other things have you
learned about doing good interviews? What are some
tips and tricks in that arena?
(07:45):
You know, one way to be a really
good interviewer is to know who you're going
to be interviewing.
Right? We've seen some really good examples of
that. If you've seen Simon Sinek interview, put
somebody or being interviewed,
or we see I've seen,
Trevor Noah being interviewed.
Jimmy Fallon is a great interviewer.
(08:05):
Right. They do the research of who are
they talking to. And if you,
for example, every once in a while, if
you're on YouTube and you're you're gonna go
down the rabbit hole of watching all the
interviews
that,
let's say,
Tony Stark or or Robert Downe Jr. Did
when the Ironman was coming out. You know,
(08:26):
everybody
kinda knows who the person is, and it
it goes to show how much research have
you done as an interviewer to understand, hey,
what kind of questions can I talk to
them, ask them about, and and go deep
into? Because
the more you know about the person, the
more you'll know what questions
have not been asked by this person,
(08:47):
you know, to this person. And then you
can then,
really refine how well
you do on the interview.
Let's take a step back from the interview.
How, what suggestions do you have for finding
good guests?
And not just anyone, but actual good guests.
What's what suggestions do you have in that
arena?
(09:07):
Great question,
Mark. See,
a good guest is only as good as
the topic
that you're going to come and talk about
because
people all over the world, we have ton
of learned experiences and all comes down to,
Hey, what is the purpose for the podcast
episode that I'm creating?
And based on this purpose, does this person
(09:30):
fit in that,
way, you know, are they going to deliver
good value
to the question that I have for them?
So I think it all comes down
to the main topic. So if you already
have decided, hey, I'm gonna be talking about
and this is an example that comes up
all the time.
(09:51):
Basket weaving
underwater.
Right? Yes.
And if you talk about that specific topic,
well, you're gonna find very
specific people and their techniques on how
calming it is to weave baskets underwater
water because
everything just flows. So, again, it all comes
(10:12):
down to, hey, what's the focus of the
podcast?
What are you gonna be talking about? And
who's the target audience that's going that you're
curating these questions for? So that,
not only are they getting value out of
it, but you're also getting value out of,
this conversation, as well as the guest who's
taking time out to speak on there is
(10:32):
getting a ton of value as well.
How would talk about finding, finding your niche?
How niche should you get? I mean, there's
marketing and then there's content marketing and then
there's copywriting and or sales or so many
things you could talk about. How niche do
you think people should get?
They should get as niche as they can
because
(10:52):
there's
eight billions of us,
in the world.
And every single person,
even if they're twins, have totally different stories
and journeys on how they grow up. And
that's specific
to who you are.
The more niche you get, the more
relatable you become
(11:14):
to the people,
that might
wanna follow you, or that might want to
learn from
that learned, that lived experience.
Because for example, I'm a father of four
kids. So anytime I speak about something, I'm
always mentioning my kids. I'm always bringing them
up and I'm always
(11:36):
looking at things from the perspective of being
a dad.
So people that rest are resonating
with me are again, also dads. They're also,
you know, they also have kids. They also
understand the value that I'm bringing because being
a father. So that again,
even though I'm very niche,
(11:56):
but if you look overall,
people are gonna pull from it
based on where their mindset is and mindset
is and how they
see,
being a parent
as well.
And you had mentioned to me, you found
your business niche because of podcasting and the
self development journey. Could you explain what happened
(12:17):
to you? How did you find that? How
did that happen?
Oh, my god. So
I've been a
tech enthusiast for many, many years.
And, I was handed my I bought my
very first camera for a dollar,
when I was about 11 years old.
It was a film camera.
And since, ever since then, I've been, you
(12:37):
know, a photographer, a filmmaker.
Now, during the pandemic, I've already been a
photographer and I've been
making films and short films and whatnot for
a very, very long time.
But as the pandemic hit, number one, I
had already been podcasting. So I was not
really in front of the camera, but I
was having conversations with people
(12:58):
on the other side,
remotely and whatnot.
But as the pandemic hit, I was able
to bring in my photography and filmmaking
into my stage and creating my own stage
around it. And as people
saw me,
as they saw my video quality, they kept
asking, hey, what camera are you using?
(13:18):
And I would tell them, well, I'm using
this camera. Here's my light settings. Here are
my other settings. Here's microphone. And they'd stop
me and they're like, no, no, no. I
just wanna know what camera you have. Right?
And then they would go buy the camera,
come back to me, like, hey, I bought
the camera, but I
still don't see
the look that you've created.
(13:39):
I'm like, well, you didn't let me finish
because it's,
you can't just make cake with flour or
just chocolate chips. You need all of those
things to jive together. You need all those
things to mix in together.
The variables
are very important for it to come out
the right way, those cookies.
So,
as I was
(14:00):
explaining this to people, people were like, okay,
that makes a lot of sense. Can you
help me? Right? So I started helping people,
and I formed the business Home Studio Mastery,
during the pandemic because people started seeing
what I was able to accomplish for myself
and they wanted the same kind of results.
And back to the self development side, as
(14:21):
far as starting a podcast,
there's so many reasons to do it. I
know it ranges from there's the curiosity to
the other end where, oh, it's it's a
business play. I'm just gonna invite potential clients
and pitch them, or I'm establishing myself as
a thought leader. Do you have a preference
or from your experience
how to decide what topics to pick? I
mean, should do you sit think personal development
(14:44):
is better than the business niche, or is
it a thought leader is better? How do
you know what kind of podcast to even
have?
You know, that's a very
good question in that
you're trying to make sense for yourself,
right, as you're starting your podcast. Hey, what
(15:05):
why should I even start a podcast? What
is it gonna do for me? And
all of those
reasons are really good business,
you know, using it for business, using it
for lead gen, using it for
audience growth. Like, all of those are great
aspects,
but
that also means that you're really good at
(15:27):
speaking in front of the camera.
It also means that you're really good
at going on stages
and telling people what to do and they
do it exactly what they do. For example,
Alex Hermosy
did not have a podcast
till just recently.
And this guy has been crushing it for
the past
three, four years.
(15:48):
So what's his
journey look like? What did he do before
he decided he wants to start a podcast?
So there has to be
certain
growth within you, within your business acumen to
say, okay, now
this makes sense for me to start a
podcast.
So, from all those perspectives, you wanna think
(16:09):
about, okay, what's
the easiest thing that I can go and
do? If that's a podcast, then go do
the podcast because it's gonna help you grow
your authority. It's gonna help you grow your
mindset and you're gonna attract people
that that are gonna be like, oh my
God, this is so powerful.
(16:29):
A really prime example is of my friend,
RJ Ahmed. His, podcast is called Interview with
Entrepreneurs.
He's brought on some really top notch people
on his podcast.
And I'm not sure what season it is
he's on, but you can see literal growth
of his setup
over the years too.
(16:52):
Because he was not he was hungry to
go get it. He knew the people. He
was connected to people and he was also
serving,
in a way. So that helped him not
only grow his brand and his podcast, but
he was
also able to create an agency
around others
around helping others launch their podcast. So again,
(17:12):
it all comes down to, hey, which path
do you wanna go to?
And it could also be,
if you
think it's too hard to start a podcast,
maybe you wanna stick to the guessing route.
Maybe you just guest as much as you
can, and then you start seeing the value
and then
find the right team that can then help
you launch a podcast. Because
(17:35):
when I first started my podcast, I was
like, oh my God, this is so much
work. I
didn't know how much work was involved. And,
you know, as a podcaster, there's a there's
a ton of different variables. There's 10 different
things that we're doing when
this conversation part is just only one part,
one of the 10 things that we have
to do. So again, looking at all of
(17:57):
that, you want to, as somebody who wants
to start out,
you know,
experiment or just
try it out. Hey, try out with a
guessing route. Try out with, maybe you want
to do a 10 episode
short podcast.
That's going to talk about who you are
and what you do as a business.
(18:18):
I love the guesting route. I think that's
a great way you, because you had mentioned
getting comfortable on camera and I know
with myself too, guesting helps you get comfortable
on camera. When it comes to guesting though,
same thing as podcasting.
The question would be, what makes a good
guest? If someone say, oh, I could I
could I'll get I'll dip my toes in
the water with guesting. What kind of things
do they need to know about being a
(18:39):
good guest, if not a great guest?
You know, one thing that I would recommend
is to go check out
Podcasting Made Simple live.
It's it's an event that happens every quarter
and
the guests that come on there, or the
the speakers that come on here are focusing
on
podcast guesting and podcast hosting. And they talk
(19:00):
about what it takes to be a really
good guest. So I would recommend,
go check out podmatch.com
forward slash,
podcast,
because all the speakers that go and speak
at this quarterly event
are speaking to podcast guests and teach you
the things you wanna think about as being
a really good guest.
(19:21):
How long do you think it takes somebody
that's newer,
how long do you think it takes them
to get comfortable?
Because you can tell, I know when I
watch podcasts
or any interviews, but we'll stick with podcasts,
you can just tell some people are comfortable
on camera, there's an ease about them. But
if someone's thinking, I'm not that comfortable yet,
is there, is it amount of time? Is
there amount of guest appearances? Is it amount
(19:42):
of your own podcast? How do you, how
long does it take and how do you
get more comfortable on camera?
That's an awesome question. And I wanna quote,
Brendan Kumarasamy,
who's an amazing,
guest. He's an amazing speaker.
And,
believe it or not, he did over
400
speeches in four years
(20:05):
in,
when he was gonna undergrad.
Now,
you might be thinking that's insane,
but if you look at somebody who's an
athlete,
how many times do they have to practice
to then go to play to to play
the game? Right? So it all comes down
to practice. How many times
(20:26):
are you
recording
video,
talking in front of a camera,
being in Zoom meetings, and being very present?
And how many times are you doing this
actively
on a daily, weekly basis?
Because the more you do that,
the more comfortable you're gonna become.
(20:47):
So once you get us go ahead.
Simplest simplest is the more practice you do,
the better you will get. So if you're
just starting out, guess what? You've already been
talking to people,
not on camera. Right? So bring that personality,
bring that
calmness when you're on camera. Because we don't
need to rush anything. We're just having a
(21:09):
conversation.
And how about for established podcasters? Because it's
up and down. Like you said, there's so
much that goes along with it. There's so
much behind the scenes work.
For those times when maybe they didn't get
the right guest or they weren't quite on,
what advice do you have to keep on
keeping on once you're established? Because it's not
always, you know, everything's perfect and I have
(21:30):
the best interview and the best guest. How
do what would you tell people to keep
on keeping on? How do they do it?
How do they stick with it?
Man, to stick with it, you want
to be around people who are encouraging.
Right? When you when you,
join a team,
(21:51):
a sports team, or cycling team, running team,
whatever have you,
you have people
around you that are,
that understand these struggles
of being an athlete, that understand the struggles
of being an entrepreneur,
that understand the struggles of being a parent.
Like, all of those things, right? So you
wanna be around people who are always encouraging
(22:13):
you and not putting you down.
They're always in, you know, you could do
this and you can do this too. So
they're always encouraging you. So if you surround
yourself with people like that, it becomes a
lot easier
to do it. As opposed to, if you're
on the court and your coach is just
yelling at you, guess what, you just don't
want to do it anymore. So you wanna
(22:34):
make sure you're surrounding yourself with people that
care for you, that are encouraging you.
And, you know, you're constantly
encouraging
others as well, putting the
putting the one foot in front of the
other.
That is awesome. We have covered a lot
of ground in a really short period of
time. Mhmm. When it comes to podcasting as
(22:57):
a personal development tool, whether it's reiterating something
you've said or something you haven't touched on
yet, if you were gonna give some advice
and say, you know what? If someone's interested,
like, I get it. This is a lot
of good info.
If you were to say at least do
this one thing,
at least this one thing
to get rolling and to keep it going,
what would that one thing be that you
would tell people when it comes to podcasting
(23:17):
for personal development or podcasting as a whole?
Mike, what the one thing that I would
tell
somebody who's looking to get started is just,
is to just get started no matter what,
where you are,
no matter
what equipment that you think you might need,
you don't need any of it.
All you need
(23:38):
is your
smartphone. That's in your pocket.
Take it out, turn the voice notes on
and start talking because that's how I started.
My literally my first episode
was recorded on my phone in my car.
Like, oh my God. I'm gonna talk about
this topic. I don't know what the podcast
is gonna be like. You start messy. You
start ugly.
(23:59):
Book by
Chris Christos,
Start Ugly.
He's the,
he's been running Podfest for the past eleven
plus years. He wrote the book Start Ugly.
Because when you start ugly,
you're just testing out what it looks like.
Like, imagine the first time you had to
make scrambled eggs.
(24:20):
I don't even remember the first time I
tried to make scrambled eggs. Because we don't,
right? We we get better over time. So
just get started because as you get started,
you'll realize what you're missing and you realize
what you're already good at. And then you
can tweak it along the way.
This has been excellent. And if people wanna
find you online, what's the best place or
(24:41):
places to go?
Alright. So
to find me online, I'm at SuperJinaid
on all the platforms. But if you're interested
on home studios,
check out my book, homestudiobook.com.
It'll take you to my site, homestudiomastery.com,
and you can find all about me over
there. If you wanna listen to any of
my podcast episodes that that I've interviewed over
(25:04):
600 guests on my show, hacksandhobbies.com
is the place to go.
Thank you again. This has been a great
J'Nay. I appreciate your time.
Absolutely, Mark. Thanks so much for having me
and, have an amazing one.
And
scene. Thank you for joining us today. I
hope you enjoyed the episode. I also hope
(25:25):
that you'll subscribe to the Idea Climbing podcast
and rate us on iTunes.
Visit ideaclimbing.com
to learn more about Idea Climbing and hear
more episodes about mentoring,
marketing, and big ideas.
Welcome to the Idea Climbing podcast. Today, we're
discussing how to personally and professionally develop yourself
to become a great podcaster.
My guest is Junaid Ahmed. Junaid is the
founder of Humble Zone and creator of Home
Studio Mastery
designed to teach you how to build your
home studio.
He has two decades of video production experience
as well as designing websites and apps focused
(00:22):
on a systematic process and seamless user experience.
He provides podcasters, speakers, and content creators with
a comprehensive plan for their studio equipment, lighting,
and layout.
We dive into topics including how to best
get started in podcasting,
how to decide on and find a niche
market for your podcast,
tips for being a great podcast guest, and
(00:42):
how to get comfortable being one, and other
golden nuggets of advice. You're gonna love this
show.
Janae, thank you for making time to be
here for the Idea Climbing podcast. I really
appreciate it.
Absolutely, Mark. I'm super excited to be here,
honored to speak with you and
(01:05):
share what you, what I've learned over the
years.
And I'd love to jump into before we
jump into the strategies, as far as using
podcasting
as a personal development tool, I haven't heard
it said so eloquently before. I absolutely love
it. Before we get into some of the
tips, the tricks, the strategies, things like that,
what's your story? How did you discover that?
(01:27):
You know, I've been a creator for many,
many years. I started
from
creating flyers for my uncle's business using Microsoft
Word
over thirty years ago.
And as I grew into designing, graphic design,
mobile app design, I just
found myself creating, creating, creating.
(01:48):
And it wasn't until 02/2005
that I discovered podcasting,
which was like, this is pretty cool.
But I didn't really get into it till
2012 when a friend of mine said, hey,
I wanna start a podcast. I was like,
hey, me too.
So I start I ended up starting a
podcast with two of my,
(02:09):
two of my friends.
We relaunched a podcast,
which contained of only four episodes
because the technology wasn't there. This is back
in 2012.
And then
I kept wanting to go back and do
it, but
I just didn't have the drive
till I read the book, Crushing It by
(02:29):
Gary Vaynerchuk. And he said, just go ahead
and document your journey.
Whatever it whatever it is that you're going
through, you're gonna find the stories. You're gonna
find
value in it. So I was like, you
know what? I'm gonna start podcasting
for my sake, for documenting the journey of
becoming a podcaster, documenting
a journey of becoming a beekeeper, and all
(02:50):
the different hobbies that I had,
when I first got started. So it's been
it's been really,
elevating because
when you
empty your mind and when you put stuff
down on paper, when you stuff put stuff
down in an audio note,
you're released, you know, you're releasing
space in your brain to do other things.
(03:11):
And and and that's how you, you know,
start developing
your personality.
So talk about a little more. Let's define
what what do you mean by using podcasting
as a self improvement or self development tool?
What does that mean to you?
So
for example,
when I was going to college,
English composition specifically,
(03:33):
my teacher said, just free write. I'm like,
what do you mean? Like, just write
whatever comes to your mind. But I'm like,
nothing is coming to my mind. And she's
like, exactly. That's the point. Just
write. Because she's just trying to get me
to write anything at all free write
to empty your mind because
as you start writing,
(03:53):
initially, it's gonna be all collaborative,
but then over time, it's gonna get refined.
And then I use audio or podcasting
as the same perspective because the more you
speak,
the clearer you get over time. And then
as you're recording these episodes,
you get the
opportunity to go back and listen to, hey,
(04:15):
how did I just do
as I just recorded this episode? Now as,
as we've seen athletes, we've seen cyclists and
whatnot,
they record
every run they do. Every
ride they do, they're recording that. So you
can look back at the data. Like, hey.
How am I doing this? How did I
run this
(04:35):
past
ride
versus how can I do it better? So
same thing goes with podcasting as you're recording
yourself speaking about whatever topic it is,
you're just gonna get better
as you do more of it.
And from that perspective, I think it helped
me develop
my speaking voice, my ability to
(04:56):
tell
a topic or talk about a topic or
teach something that, I was struggling with.
So when you were getting started and from
that experience,
what advice would you have for new,
aspiring or new ish podcasters as far as
interview style and pulling genius out of people
and learning? What what advice would you have?
(05:17):
Because not everyone can be a good interviewer.
No. It's that's
that's the hardest thing to become a good
interviewer.
You gotta be able to
articulate what you're speaking with. And to be
able to do that,
you want to
first start out as a solo podcast. So
when I started my podcast, it was solo
podcast. It was just me talking
(05:39):
about what I was going through as I'm
going through the beekeeping journey, as I'm,
started
to, you know, the bees are coming or,
you know, I was getting into beekeeping. I'm
building the equipment.
Now I'm installing the bees in the hive,
you know,
tending to them. So I'm talking about all
of these different aspects.
And the more I did that, the more
(06:00):
I understood how to tell the story.
But it wasn't still as refined as I
wanted it to be. So what I did
is I started inviting
people that I already knew. My friends, my
colleagues. I'm like, hey, come talk to me
on the podcast. Let's have a conversation. And
the more I did
that, especially people that I already knew, were
(06:20):
more comfortable with people
that you already know. It's very hard to
talk to somebody
brand new unless
you have topics that you're passionate about. So
for example, if I were to
talk to somebody about, let's say Top Gun
and Top Gun is their favorite movie, immediately
we're gonna hit it off because we
(06:41):
have that
same,
we're all on this, we're both on the
same page. It's almost like I mentioned this
yesterday.
If somebody plays
the song Thriller
by Michael Jackson,
we all already know the exact moves. Like,
everybody's gonna do this hand gesture because
(07:02):
we've we've gone through that. It's it's a
muscle memory now. Right? If you see a
QR code, what are you gonna do? You're
gonna pull out your phone, scan that QR
code.
So again,
when you are coming from a,
talking about a topic that you're both passionate
about, it's a lot easier to talk to
(07:23):
somebody new as opposed
to talking to somebody new and you have
no idea where you're gonna start.
I love the idea of finding that common
ground or something they're passionate about. What other
tips do you have for interview? For
again, newish
or aspiring podcasters, what other things have you
learned about doing good interviews? What are some
tips and tricks in that arena?
(07:45):
You know, one way to be a really
good interviewer is to know who you're going
to be interviewing.
Right? We've seen some really good examples of
that. If you've seen Simon Sinek interview, put
somebody or being interviewed,
or we see I've seen,
Trevor Noah being interviewed.
Jimmy Fallon is a great interviewer.
(08:05):
Right. They do the research of who are
they talking to. And if you,
for example, every once in a while, if
you're on YouTube and you're you're gonna go
down the rabbit hole of watching all the
interviews
that,
let's say,
Tony Stark or or Robert Downe Jr. Did
when the Ironman was coming out. You know,
(08:26):
everybody
kinda knows who the person is, and it
it goes to show how much research have
you done as an interviewer to understand, hey,
what kind of questions can I talk to
them, ask them about, and and go deep
into? Because
the more you know about the person, the
more you'll know what questions
have not been asked by this person,
(08:47):
you know, to this person. And then you
can then,
really refine how well
you do on the interview.
Let's take a step back from the interview.
How, what suggestions do you have for finding
good guests?
And not just anyone, but actual good guests.
What's what suggestions do you have in that
arena?
(09:07):
Great question,
Mark. See,
a good guest is only as good as
the topic
that you're going to come and talk about
because
people all over the world, we have ton
of learned experiences and all comes down to,
Hey, what is the purpose for the podcast
episode that I'm creating?
And based on this purpose, does this person
(09:30):
fit in that,
way, you know, are they going to deliver
good value
to the question that I have for them?
So I think it all comes down
to the main topic. So if you already
have decided, hey, I'm gonna be talking about
and this is an example that comes up
all the time.
(09:51):
Basket weaving
underwater.
Right? Yes.
And if you talk about that specific topic,
well, you're gonna find very
specific people and their techniques on how
calming it is to weave baskets underwater
water because
everything just flows. So, again, it all comes
(10:12):
down to, hey, what's the focus of the
podcast?
What are you gonna be talking about? And
who's the target audience that's going that you're
curating these questions for? So that,
not only are they getting value out of
it, but you're also getting value out of,
this conversation, as well as the guest who's
taking time out to speak on there is
(10:32):
getting a ton of value as well.
How would talk about finding, finding your niche?
How niche should you get? I mean, there's
marketing and then there's content marketing and then
there's copywriting and or sales or so many
things you could talk about. How niche do
you think people should get?
They should get as niche as they can
because
(10:52):
there's
eight billions of us,
in the world.
And every single person,
even if they're twins, have totally different stories
and journeys on how they grow up. And
that's specific
to who you are.
The more niche you get, the more
relatable you become
(11:14):
to the people,
that might
wanna follow you, or that might want to
learn from
that learned, that lived experience.
Because for example, I'm a father of four
kids. So anytime I speak about something, I'm
always mentioning my kids. I'm always bringing them
up and I'm always
(11:36):
looking at things from the perspective of being
a dad.
So people that rest are resonating
with me are again, also dads. They're also,
you know, they also have kids. They also
understand the value that I'm bringing because being
a father. So that again,
even though I'm very niche,
(11:56):
but if you look overall,
people are gonna pull from it
based on where their mindset is and mindset
is and how they
see,
being a parent
as well.
And you had mentioned to me, you found
your business niche because of podcasting and the
self development journey. Could you explain what happened
(12:17):
to you? How did you find that? How
did that happen?
Oh, my god. So
I've been a
tech enthusiast for many, many years.
And, I was handed my I bought my
very first camera for a dollar,
when I was about 11 years old.
It was a film camera.
And since, ever since then, I've been, you
(12:37):
know, a photographer, a filmmaker.
Now, during the pandemic, I've already been a
photographer and I've been
making films and short films and whatnot for
a very, very long time.
But as the pandemic hit, number one, I
had already been podcasting. So I was not
really in front of the camera, but I
was having conversations with people
(12:58):
on the other side,
remotely and whatnot.
But as the pandemic hit, I was able
to bring in my photography and filmmaking
into my stage and creating my own stage
around it. And as people
saw me,
as they saw my video quality, they kept
asking, hey, what camera are you using?
(13:18):
And I would tell them, well, I'm using
this camera. Here's my light settings. Here are
my other settings. Here's microphone. And they'd stop
me and they're like, no, no, no. I
just wanna know what camera you have. Right?
And then they would go buy the camera,
come back to me, like, hey, I bought
the camera, but I
still don't see
the look that you've created.
(13:39):
I'm like, well, you didn't let me finish
because it's,
you can't just make cake with flour or
just chocolate chips. You need all of those
things to jive together. You need all those
things to mix in together.
The variables
are very important for it to come out
the right way, those cookies.
So,
as I was
(14:00):
explaining this to people, people were like, okay,
that makes a lot of sense. Can you
help me? Right? So I started helping people,
and I formed the business Home Studio Mastery,
during the pandemic because people started seeing
what I was able to accomplish for myself
and they wanted the same kind of results.
And back to the self development side, as
(14:21):
far as starting a podcast,
there's so many reasons to do it. I
know it ranges from there's the curiosity to
the other end where, oh, it's it's a
business play. I'm just gonna invite potential clients
and pitch them, or I'm establishing myself as
a thought leader. Do you have a preference
or from your experience
how to decide what topics to pick? I
mean, should do you sit think personal development
(14:44):
is better than the business niche, or is
it a thought leader is better? How do
you know what kind of podcast to even
have?
You know, that's a very
good question in that
you're trying to make sense for yourself,
right, as you're starting your podcast. Hey, what
(15:05):
why should I even start a podcast? What
is it gonna do for me? And
all of those
reasons are really good business,
you know, using it for business, using it
for lead gen, using it for
audience growth. Like, all of those are great
aspects,
but
that also means that you're really good at
(15:27):
speaking in front of the camera.
It also means that you're really good
at going on stages
and telling people what to do and they
do it exactly what they do. For example,
Alex Hermosy
did not have a podcast
till just recently.
And this guy has been crushing it for
the past
three, four years.
(15:48):
So what's his
journey look like? What did he do before
he decided he wants to start a podcast?
So there has to be
certain
growth within you, within your business acumen to
say, okay, now
this makes sense for me to start a
podcast.
So, from all those perspectives, you wanna think
(16:09):
about, okay, what's
the easiest thing that I can go and
do? If that's a podcast, then go do
the podcast because it's gonna help you grow
your authority. It's gonna help you grow your
mindset and you're gonna attract people
that that are gonna be like, oh my
God, this is so powerful.
(16:29):
A really prime example is of my friend,
RJ Ahmed. His, podcast is called Interview with
Entrepreneurs.
He's brought on some really top notch people
on his podcast.
And I'm not sure what season it is
he's on, but you can see literal growth
of his setup
over the years too.
(16:52):
Because he was not he was hungry to
go get it. He knew the people. He
was connected to people and he was also
serving,
in a way. So that helped him not
only grow his brand and his podcast, but
he was
also able to create an agency
around others
around helping others launch their podcast. So again,
(17:12):
it all comes down to, hey, which path
do you wanna go to?
And it could also be,
if you
think it's too hard to start a podcast,
maybe you wanna stick to the guessing route.
Maybe you just guest as much as you
can, and then you start seeing the value
and then
find the right team that can then help
you launch a podcast. Because
(17:35):
when I first started my podcast, I was
like, oh my God, this is so much
work. I
didn't know how much work was involved. And,
you know, as a podcaster, there's a there's
a ton of different variables. There's 10 different
things that we're doing when
this conversation part is just only one part,
one of the 10 things that we have
to do. So again, looking at all of
(17:57):
that, you want to, as somebody who wants
to start out,
you know,
experiment or just
try it out. Hey, try out with a
guessing route. Try out with, maybe you want
to do a 10 episode
short podcast.
That's going to talk about who you are
and what you do as a business.
(18:18):
I love the guesting route. I think that's
a great way you, because you had mentioned
getting comfortable on camera and I know
with myself too, guesting helps you get comfortable
on camera. When it comes to guesting though,
same thing as podcasting.
The question would be, what makes a good
guest? If someone say, oh, I could I
could I'll get I'll dip my toes in
the water with guesting. What kind of things
do they need to know about being a
(18:39):
good guest, if not a great guest?
You know, one thing that I would recommend
is to go check out
Podcasting Made Simple live.
It's it's an event that happens every quarter
and
the guests that come on there, or the
the speakers that come on here are focusing
on
podcast guesting and podcast hosting. And they talk
(19:00):
about what it takes to be a really
good guest. So I would recommend,
go check out podmatch.com
forward slash,
podcast,
because all the speakers that go and speak
at this quarterly event
are speaking to podcast guests and teach you
the things you wanna think about as being
a really good guest.
(19:21):
How long do you think it takes somebody
that's newer,
how long do you think it takes them
to get comfortable?
Because you can tell, I know when I
watch podcasts
or any interviews, but we'll stick with podcasts,
you can just tell some people are comfortable
on camera, there's an ease about them. But
if someone's thinking, I'm not that comfortable yet,
is there, is it amount of time? Is
there amount of guest appearances? Is it amount
(19:42):
of your own podcast? How do you, how
long does it take and how do you
get more comfortable on camera?
That's an awesome question. And I wanna quote,
Brendan Kumarasamy,
who's an amazing,
guest. He's an amazing speaker.
And,
believe it or not, he did over
400
speeches in four years
(20:05):
in,
when he was gonna undergrad.
Now,
you might be thinking that's insane,
but if you look at somebody who's an
athlete,
how many times do they have to practice
to then go to play to to play
the game? Right? So it all comes down
to practice. How many times
(20:26):
are you
recording
video,
talking in front of a camera,
being in Zoom meetings, and being very present?
And how many times are you doing this
actively
on a daily, weekly basis?
Because the more you do that,
the more comfortable you're gonna become.
(20:47):
So once you get us go ahead.
Simplest simplest is the more practice you do,
the better you will get. So if you're
just starting out, guess what? You've already been
talking to people,
not on camera. Right? So bring that personality,
bring that
calmness when you're on camera. Because we don't
need to rush anything. We're just having a
(21:09):
conversation.
And how about for established podcasters? Because it's
up and down. Like you said, there's so
much that goes along with it. There's so
much behind the scenes work.
For those times when maybe they didn't get
the right guest or they weren't quite on,
what advice do you have to keep on
keeping on once you're established? Because it's not
always, you know, everything's perfect and I have
(21:30):
the best interview and the best guest. How
do what would you tell people to keep
on keeping on? How do they do it?
How do they stick with it?
Man, to stick with it, you want
to be around people who are encouraging.
Right? When you when you,
join a team,
(21:51):
a sports team, or cycling team, running team,
whatever have you,
you have people
around you that are,
that understand these struggles
of being an athlete, that understand the struggles
of being an entrepreneur,
that understand the struggles of being a parent.
Like, all of those things, right? So you
wanna be around people who are always encouraging
(22:13):
you and not putting you down.
They're always in, you know, you could do
this and you can do this too. So
they're always encouraging you. So if you surround
yourself with people like that, it becomes a
lot easier
to do it. As opposed to, if you're
on the court and your coach is just
yelling at you, guess what, you just don't
want to do it anymore. So you wanna
(22:34):
make sure you're surrounding yourself with people that
care for you, that are encouraging you.
And, you know, you're constantly
encouraging
others as well, putting the
putting the one foot in front of the
other.
That is awesome. We have covered a lot
of ground in a really short period of
time. Mhmm. When it comes to podcasting as
(22:57):
a personal development tool, whether it's reiterating something
you've said or something you haven't touched on
yet, if you were gonna give some advice
and say, you know what? If someone's interested,
like, I get it. This is a lot
of good info.
If you were to say at least do
this one thing,
at least this one thing
to get rolling and to keep it going,
what would that one thing be that you
would tell people when it comes to podcasting
(23:17):
for personal development or podcasting as a whole?
Mike, what the one thing that I would
tell
somebody who's looking to get started is just,
is to just get started no matter what,
where you are,
no matter
what equipment that you think you might need,
you don't need any of it.
All you need
(23:38):
is your
smartphone. That's in your pocket.
Take it out, turn the voice notes on
and start talking because that's how I started.
My literally my first episode
was recorded on my phone in my car.
Like, oh my God. I'm gonna talk about
this topic. I don't know what the podcast
is gonna be like. You start messy. You
start ugly.
(23:59):
Book by
Chris Christos,
Start Ugly.
He's the,
he's been running Podfest for the past eleven
plus years. He wrote the book Start Ugly.
Because when you start ugly,
you're just testing out what it looks like.
Like, imagine the first time you had to
make scrambled eggs.
(24:20):
I don't even remember the first time I
tried to make scrambled eggs. Because we don't,
right? We we get better over time. So
just get started because as you get started,
you'll realize what you're missing and you realize
what you're already good at. And then you
can tweak it along the way.
This has been excellent. And if people wanna
find you online, what's the best place or
(24:41):
places to go?
Alright. So
to find me online, I'm at SuperJinaid
on all the platforms. But if you're interested
on home studios,
check out my book, homestudiobook.com.
It'll take you to my site, homestudiomastery.com,
and you can find all about me over
there. If you wanna listen to any of
my podcast episodes that that I've interviewed over
(25:04):
600 guests on my show, hacksandhobbies.com
is the place to go.
Thank you again. This has been a great
J'Nay. I appreciate your time.
Absolutely, Mark. Thanks so much for having me
and, have an amazing one.
And
scene. Thank you for joining us today. I
hope you enjoyed the episode. I also hope
(25:25):
that you'll subscribe to the Idea Climbing podcast
and rate us on iTunes.
Visit ideaclimbing.com
to learn more about Idea Climbing and hear
more episodes about mentoring,
marketing, and big ideas.
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