00:00:00.000 –> 00:00:03.540

Joe: It was Christmas Eve and I was waiting in line for bagels.

00:00:04.350 –> 00:00:08.910

As someone who grew up in New York, now living in Philly or close to

00:00:08.910 –> 00:00:13.500

Philly, I'm admittedly a snob about the quality of the bagels I eat.

00:00:14.430 –> 00:00:19.020

I am one of those people who would say it's in the water, like the

00:00:19.020 –> 00:00:21.900

Hudson River had better water than the rest of the country.

00:00:23.220 –> 00:00:27.330

That said, there is a bagel shop not five minutes from my house.

00:00:27.689 –> 00:00:33.749

That makes the best bagels I've ever had outside of New York and New Jersey, and

00:00:33.749 –> 00:00:36.360

they offer pre-orders for Christmas Eve.

00:00:37.230 –> 00:00:40.769

It's become a bit of a tradition in our house to get those bagels

00:00:40.769 –> 00:00:42.720

and do a Christmas Eve brunch.

00:00:44.069 –> 00:00:49.319

They also have a select stock for people on a first come first serve

00:00:49.319 –> 00:00:54.269

basis, and people who pre-order can also buy from this stock.

00:00:55.455 –> 00:01:01.574

That many pre-orders combined with the select stock creates a long line

00:01:02.415 –> 00:01:05.565

after all these bagels are superb.

00:01:06.585 –> 00:01:12.434

So we waited and during that wait, there were some people who complained

00:01:13.005 –> 00:01:18.705

about the weight, but no one left the line or canceled their order.

00:01:19.755 –> 00:01:23.024

After all, if they wanted bagels.

00:01:24.029 –> 00:01:28.559

If all they wanted was bagels, they could have gone to the grocery store just a few

00:01:28.559 –> 00:01:31.439

doors down and buy bagels immediately.

00:01:32.729 –> 00:01:38.550

But those are not even good bagels, and we wanted great bagels.

00:01:39.509 –> 00:01:44.039

See, there's a dirty little secret that no one wants to hear these days.

00:01:44.789 –> 00:01:50.460

Great things require time, and that's what I want to talk to you about today.

00:01:56.357 –> 00:02:00.737

hey everybody, and welcome to How I Built It, the podcast that helps

00:02:00.737 –> 00:02:05.147

busy solopreneurs and creators grow their business without

00:02:05.152 –> 00:02:06.827

spending too much time on it.

00:02:07.367 –> 00:02:12.677

I'm your host, Joe Casabona, and each week I bring you interviews and case studies

00:02:12.827 –> 00:02:17.227

on how to build a better business through smarter processes, time management.

00:02:17.427 –> 00:02:19.527

And effective content creation.

00:02:19.887 –> 00:02:24.057

It's like getting free coaching calls from successful solopreneurs.

00:02:24.687 –> 00:02:29.007

By the end of each episode, you'll have one to three takeaways you can

00:02:29.007 –> 00:02:34.617

implement today to stop spending time in your business and more time on

00:02:34.617 –> 00:02:39.717

your business or with your friends, your family reading, or however

00:02:39.717 –> 00:02:42.537

you choose to spend your free time.

00:02:43.173 –> 00:02:47.823

All right, so I am excited to talk to you about this topic.

00:02:47.883 –> 00:02:52.623

Uh, if you are listening to this, you might've noticed it came out a day late.

00:02:52.623 –> 00:02:55.383

Of course, after the first day, it doesn't matter.

00:02:55.388 –> 00:02:59.973

But I think I wanna highlight this because it really lends to the

00:02:59.978 –> 00:03:01.293

point I'm trying to make today.

00:03:01.293 –> 00:03:03.093

I was away at a conference last week.

00:03:03.453 –> 00:03:09.033

Instead of rushing to get something out for today, I wanted to spend

00:03:09.033 –> 00:03:12.783

a little extra time on it, get the script right, get the editing

00:03:12.783 –> 00:03:15.933

right, and put out something better.

00:03:16.683 –> 00:03:20.403

So it required time, but it was worth the wait.

00:03:21.528 –> 00:03:28.623

So what does this have to do with podcasting or content creation in general?

00:03:29.493 –> 00:03:32.493

I think we see a lot of things today that.

00:03:33.123 –> 00:03:38.433

Tell us we don't need to spend a a lot of time creating

00:03:39.243 –> 00:03:41.253

content or doing something good.

00:03:43.323 –> 00:03:50.943

So last week I was in Orlando for Pod Fest and whenever I'm in Orlando I have to

00:03:50.973 –> 00:03:54.573

take advantage of going to Disney World.

00:03:54.573 –> 00:03:55.683

My brother works there.

00:03:55.683 –> 00:03:57.123

I, it's like my happy place.

00:03:57.663 –> 00:04:00.663

And of course, I'm a huge Star Wars fan.

00:04:01.993 –> 00:04:05.843

One of the routinely panned lines in the first Star Wars movie is

00:04:05.843 –> 00:04:10.793

when Han Solo claims he did the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.

00:04:11.993 –> 00:04:15.323

To most people, it seemed like a Parsec was some in

00:04:15.323 –> 00:04:17.603

universe way of measuring time.

00:04:19.793 –> 00:04:25.328

A parsec is actually a real world way to measure large distances.

00:04:26.528 –> 00:04:31.118

In other words, bragging that you did the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs

00:04:31.628 –> 00:04:37.448

is like saying, I traveled from New York to California in less than 2000 miles.

00:04:38.558 –> 00:04:42.248

You can't, it's physically impossible.

00:04:42.818 –> 00:04:46.118

It, there are 2,500 ish miles.

00:04:46.628 –> 00:04:54.098

Between New York and California, but the shortcut sounds impressive.

00:04:55.538 –> 00:05:00.128

There are plenty of coaches, gurus, and influencers who are trying to sell

00:05:00.128 –> 00:05:07.358

you the ability to do the impossible shortcut because it sounds impressive, and

00:05:07.358 –> 00:05:09.998

therefore it's going to be an easier sell.

00:05:11.438 –> 00:05:14.108

Let's look at an example of this.

00:05:15.563 –> 00:05:16.523

Writing a book.

00:05:17.933 –> 00:05:22.463

I was reviewing the many podcasts in my podcast feed when I came

00:05:22.463 –> 00:05:29.513

across an episode about how to write a book in seven days with ai, and

00:05:29.513 –> 00:05:32.423

there is a lot of content like this.

00:05:33.023 –> 00:05:36.593

I came across another article on Medium about how to write

00:05:36.593 –> 00:05:39.383

a book in three days with ai.

00:05:40.403 –> 00:05:45.563

My immediate reaction to this content is always, yeah, it'll

00:05:45.563 –> 00:05:47.543

be a book that no one will read.

00:05:48.723 –> 00:05:53.613

My feelings about using AI to write just about anything are well documented.

00:05:54.333 –> 00:05:55.503

I'm not a fan.

00:05:56.193 –> 00:05:59.253

I've talked about it on LinkedIn and other social networks.

00:05:59.253 –> 00:06:00.573

I've talked about it here.

00:06:02.043 –> 00:06:06.158

I've debated my friend Alister McDermott on his podcast.

00:06:07.983 –> 00:06:09.813

It's a hill I will die on.

00:06:10.803 –> 00:06:15.453

I've even equated it to using a car to run a marathon.

00:06:17.313 –> 00:06:24.243

The problem with the very premise of writing a book in a week at all is

00:06:24.248 –> 00:06:30.903

that anyone who's written a book know that this is BSS to write a book.

00:06:30.908 –> 00:06:34.293

You can't just say, I'm gonna write a bunch of words and put them together.

00:06:34.293 –> 00:06:34.353

I.

00:06:35.043 –> 00:06:38.283

You need a good premise, an outline.

00:06:38.463 –> 00:06:42.273

You need to flesh out that outline more fully before you start writing.

00:06:42.513 –> 00:06:45.123

You need lots of research to support your claims.

00:06:45.333 –> 00:06:49.293

You need case studies, especially if it's a non-fiction.

00:06:49.293 –> 00:06:51.033

This will help you kind of book.

00:06:51.663 –> 00:06:54.483

You need personal stories to support your claims.

00:06:54.723 –> 00:07:00.693

You can't just say, this is a thing that I believe, and then not back that up.

00:07:01.638 –> 00:07:04.518

Podcast swaps will grow your podcast.

00:07:05.238 –> 00:07:07.998

If I just say that, no one will believe me.

00:07:08.328 –> 00:07:12.138

I need personal stories and I need case studies, and I need data.

00:07:13.158 –> 00:07:16.428

If you're writing a fiction book, you need character development.

00:07:16.578 –> 00:07:19.638

Heck, even if you're not writing a fiction book, you need

00:07:19.638 –> 00:07:21.168

character development, right?

00:07:21.168 –> 00:07:26.598

You need a a story arc where the reader is the hero.

00:07:27.678 –> 00:07:30.558

After you have all that, then.

00:07:31.188 –> 00:07:33.558

You can start writing each chapter.

00:07:34.218 –> 00:07:38.478

You need an editor to review for grammar, clarity and accuracy.

00:07:39.598 –> 00:07:47.458

Not to call out specific authors, but $100 million offers by Alex Hormoze.

00:07:48.358 –> 00:07:51.868

Might have great advice and it's a nightmare to read.

00:07:52.408 –> 00:07:58.918

There are so many grammatical errors and maybe it doesn't matter to most

00:07:58.918 –> 00:08:04.078

people, but that immediately cut against his credibility for me.

00:08:04.288 –> 00:08:09.268

This guy's teaching me how to make nine figures, and he couldn't be bothered to

00:08:09.268 –> 00:08:16.048

hire an editor for a thousand bucks to read this book and proof it a little bit.

00:08:17.848 –> 00:08:21.988

After that, you need a round of rewrites for the editing and

00:08:21.988 –> 00:08:23.428

then another round of edits.

00:08:23.938 –> 00:08:28.738

And that's just to get a manuscript that you can put into production.

00:08:29.338 –> 00:08:34.828

And again, this is if you want people to read your book, and yeah, maybe

00:08:34.828 –> 00:08:40.528

if you're famous like Hormoz or Joe Rogan or whoever, maybe you don't

00:08:40.528 –> 00:08:45.478

need to do all this, but the vast majority of us are not those people.

00:08:46.678 –> 00:08:50.758

We need to put actual effort into what we're doing.

00:08:52.648 –> 00:08:56.128

It's taken me longer than a week to write articles.

00:08:56.758 –> 00:09:02.698

In fact, I wrote an article for rss.com that was published last week that is

00:09:02.758 –> 00:09:08.968

over 5,000 words, and it took me eight days from when I started to when I said

00:09:08.968 –> 00:09:12.688

it was ready for review from my editor.

00:09:12.693 –> 00:09:13.468

For my editor.

00:09:14.188 –> 00:09:15.448

Took me eight days.

00:09:17.248 –> 00:09:23.458

Anyone who is telling you a shortcut to writing a book has

00:09:23.458 –> 00:09:25.858

never written a book worth reading.

00:09:26.128 –> 00:09:26.758

You know what?

00:09:26.788 –> 00:09:30.178

They've probably never written a book period.

00:09:31.228 –> 00:09:34.048

And I know I've written five books.

00:09:34.323 –> 00:09:38.938

You have people who are saying, I'm gonna write eight books this year.

00:09:40.858 –> 00:09:44.578

They're not putting any real effort into writing their books.

00:09:45.643 –> 00:09:50.743

They are claiming to do the Kessel run in less than 12 Parex.

00:09:52.273 –> 00:09:53.803

So what's my point in all this?

00:09:54.493 –> 00:09:59.353

Well, let's get into that after a break from our sponsors.

00:10:00.283 –> 00:10:04.183

My point in all of this is you need to spend time on the important stuff.

00:10:05.293 –> 00:10:07.723

All of these examples illustrate the same thing.

00:10:08.548 –> 00:10:14.428

People are trying to take shortcuts for things that will and should take time.

00:10:15.568 –> 00:10:18.358

They want the best bagels without waiting for them.

00:10:19.438 –> 00:10:23.758

They want to get to a destination without traveling the distance.

00:10:24.838 –> 00:10:30.328

They want to write a book without putting the proper effort to write the book.

00:10:32.218 –> 00:10:34.528

And the key word there is effort.

00:10:35.698 –> 00:10:38.878

These shortcuts make it seem like you can do great things with

00:10:38.878 –> 00:10:43.738

minimal effort, but here's a nice cold bucket of water for you.

00:10:44.848 –> 00:10:47.908

That's not going to happen.

00:10:49.468 –> 00:10:51.748

People take the same approach with podcasting.

00:10:52.648 –> 00:10:56.578

They wanna take shortcuts on research, the script, the edit, and

00:10:56.578 –> 00:10:59.098

the content because it's easier.

00:11:00.268 –> 00:11:02.818

But these are the things you need to spend the time on.

00:11:04.228 –> 00:11:07.858

Listeners don't want to hear the raw interview.

00:11:08.758 –> 00:11:11.788

That's a thing lazy podcasters tell themselves.

00:11:12.748 –> 00:11:17.698

And if we look outside of podcasting, the same thing goes for writing

00:11:18.028 –> 00:11:21.358

or videos or artwork or whatever.

00:11:22.558 –> 00:11:27.148

The stuff that stands out is the stuff that took time.

00:11:28.618 –> 00:11:32.308

There was a guy a few years ago who took a picture of himself.

00:11:32.668 –> 00:11:39.178

Every day for a number of years, and he put that collage together.

00:11:40.288 –> 00:11:42.088

It showed him growing up.

00:11:44.008 –> 00:11:45.328

You can't rush that.

00:11:46.048 –> 00:11:50.338

You can't take 365 pictures in one day and say, I got it.

00:11:50.683 –> 00:11:54.448

You actually have to live each day and take a picture.

00:11:55.403 –> 00:12:00.563

Walt Disney would spend years on movies, making sure the script

00:12:00.563 –> 00:12:04.433

was right and the animation was right, and everything looked good.

00:12:05.483 –> 00:12:08.453

But people don't want to do that these days.

00:12:09.383 –> 00:12:14.693

They want to rush content out the door, and I think it's

00:12:14.693 –> 00:12:20.273

because we've been trained by the internet by two day delivery.

00:12:21.923 –> 00:12:27.023

Buy a whole bunch of other stuff that we can get things instantly

00:12:27.023 –> 00:12:32.183

and we can do things instantly, but the best stuff still takes time.

00:12:33.113 –> 00:12:35.393

And you can tell the difference.

00:12:36.353 –> 00:12:41.843

You can tell the difference between a YouTube video where someone just

00:12:41.843 –> 00:12:45.773

turned on a camera and talked and turned it off and uploaded it, versus

00:12:45.773 –> 00:12:47.963

something like what M-K-B-H-D or Mr.

00:12:47.963 –> 00:12:48.413

Beast does.

00:12:49.628 –> 00:12:57.668

Where they put a ton of time and effort into their videos and it pays off spending

00:12:57.668 –> 00:13:05.828

time, crafting the story, doing research to support your claims, finding the right

00:13:05.833 –> 00:13:11.348

stories to drive your point home, or extract great answers from your guests.

00:13:12.728 –> 00:13:14.198

Editing with care.

00:13:14.828 –> 00:13:17.648

This is the stuff that turns content from.

00:13:17.678 –> 00:13:18.278

Okay.

00:13:18.878 –> 00:13:19.508

To great.

00:13:20.948 –> 00:13:27.638

It's what separates a song like Love Story by Taylor Swift from a song like Friday by

00:13:27.968 –> 00:13:30.398

whoever wrote that song for Rebecca Black.

00:13:31.338 –> 00:13:35.178

But that doesn't mean you need to do everything manually.

00:13:35.388 –> 00:13:40.308

You can still save time, you can still leverage the shortcuts.

00:13:41.418 –> 00:13:45.078

After all, if you wanna go to California from New York.

00:13:45.678 –> 00:13:48.168

You can walk, drive, or fly.

00:13:49.188 –> 00:13:54.288

You still have to do the full distance, but each of those will get you

00:13:54.288 –> 00:13:56.298

there in different amounts of time.

00:13:58.018 –> 00:14:02.038

Save time in other parts of your process.

00:14:03.028 –> 00:14:08.038

Use AI instead of actually writing the content to help you come up with

00:14:08.038 –> 00:14:09.988

ideas that you may not have thought of.

00:14:11.638 –> 00:14:15.358

Again, don't use AI to write the script or the questions.

00:14:16.648 –> 00:14:19.228

Don't skimp on guest research.

00:14:20.338 –> 00:14:24.088

Instead, make booking and scheduling easier.

00:14:24.598 –> 00:14:28.618

That way you send your guest one link and you can spend the rest of

00:14:28.618 –> 00:14:31.408

that back and forth time on research.

00:14:32.878 –> 00:14:34.768

Don't release the raw interview.

00:14:35.428 –> 00:14:38.548

Use DSS script to edit through text, or even better.

00:14:39.358 –> 00:14:46.708

Hire an editor, use social media software, leverage AI to create the initial social

00:14:46.708 –> 00:14:53.758

media assets for sharing tools like Cast Magic will at least pinpoint some areas

00:14:53.758 –> 00:14:57.898

that you could highlight even if you don't use exactly what they give you.

00:14:58.678 –> 00:15:01.708

You have 10 timestamped quotes to use.

00:15:02.698 –> 00:15:06.418

Maybe there was something better that.

00:15:06.778 –> 00:15:08.818

The AI prompts you to think about.

00:15:09.768 –> 00:15:16.218

If you want to create a great podcast or YouTube video or article or book,

00:15:16.908 –> 00:15:22.968

you need to spend time on the tasks worth spending time on, the ones that

00:15:22.968 –> 00:15:26.568

will lead you to create great content.

00:15:27.648 –> 00:15:31.548

If you wanna write a book, you need to spend weeks, likely months crafting

00:15:31.548 –> 00:15:32.928

something that's worth reading.

00:15:34.493 –> 00:15:37.848

That is the only way it will be great.

00:15:39.408 –> 00:15:40.248

After all.

00:15:40.458 –> 00:15:46.788

If AI can write a book for you, what's the benefit of hiring you over ai?

00:15:47.928 –> 00:15:51.918

If all you're doing is having a raw conversation, what's the benefit

00:15:51.918 –> 00:15:56.778

of listening to your podcast over the thousands of other podcasts?

00:15:58.308 –> 00:16:01.608

All you're doing is turning the camera on talking at it for a

00:16:01.608 –> 00:16:03.258

while and uploading it to YouTube.

00:16:03.858 –> 00:16:09.078

What's the benefit of watching your video over someone else's video?

00:16:10.308 –> 00:16:12.168

These are the things that you need to consider.

00:16:13.248 –> 00:16:22.038

Yes, 80% is good enough most of the time, but you make standout content.

00:16:22.038 –> 00:16:26.778

You make standout anything when you get it to 100%.

00:16:28.383 –> 00:16:33.513

Cheating by using AI or some other tool is never going to

00:16:33.513 –> 00:16:36.003

get you to a hundred percent.

00:16:38.253 –> 00:16:40.983

Thanks so much for listening to this podcast.

00:16:40.983 –> 00:16:41.913

I hope you enjoyed it.

00:16:42.183 –> 00:16:43.323

If you do, let me know.

00:16:43.323 –> 00:16:49.713

I wanna do more solo episodes this year because I want to create great

00:16:49.713 –> 00:16:55.983

content and writing out the script and allowing me to tell a better story.

00:16:56.673 –> 00:16:57.963

Helps me do that.

00:16:59.043 –> 00:17:04.533

And the shortcut there is that I'm not scripting with another guest or doing

00:17:04.533 –> 00:17:10.893

raw interviews with guests and then creating documentary style episodes.

00:17:10.893 –> 00:17:16.413

That's something that I can't do right now, so I'm taking the shortcut I need

00:17:16.413 –> 00:17:22.203

to take to create great content, and I'd love to hear what you think about that.

00:17:23.403 –> 00:17:28.413

Now all of these thoughts kind of came to me, uh, over the time

00:17:28.413 –> 00:17:32.433

between Christmas Eve and last week when I was at the conference.

00:17:32.438 –> 00:17:38.013

This was like a, this, uh, topic was a long time brewing for me

00:17:38.973 –> 00:17:42.123

and in the Pro show for members.

00:17:43.173 –> 00:17:48.753

I do want to talk a little bit about my conference going process and some

00:17:49.203 –> 00:17:51.003

things I've been thinking about there.

00:17:51.003 –> 00:17:51.063

I.

00:17:51.603 –> 00:17:57.363

So if you do want to hear that as well as some more things I'm trying, uh,

00:17:57.363 –> 00:18:04.803

a, a conference focus mode and how I'm finding inspiration, you can become a

00:18:04.803 –> 00:18:09.483

member over@howibuilt.it slash join.

00:18:09.748 –> 00:18:14.583

Uh, if you're listening right in Apple Podcasts, you can

00:18:14.583 –> 00:18:16.683

subscribe right in Apple Podcasts.

00:18:16.683 –> 00:18:17.583

It's very easy.

00:18:18.138 –> 00:18:23.478

For you to do that, you'll get ad free extended episodes and bonus episodes

00:18:23.478 –> 00:18:25.248

as well as a weekly newsletter.

00:18:25.278 –> 00:18:28.758

So again, that's over at How I Built Diet slash Join.

00:18:29.118 –> 00:18:36.168

Today I'll be talking about going to conferences, my plan, uh, my

00:18:36.168 –> 00:18:40.248

approach, and how I still managed to find some inspiration there.

00:18:41.598 –> 00:18:43.008

But that's it for this episode.

00:18:43.008 –> 00:18:44.568

Thanks so much for listening.

00:18:44.568 –> 00:18:45.558

I really appreciate it.

00:18:45.858 –> 00:18:49.578

There will be a written to be read article of what you heard

00:18:49.578 –> 00:18:52.308

today over@podcastworkflows.com.

00:18:52.308 –> 00:18:56.718

I'll link that in the description, but thank you, thank you, thank you.

00:18:56.898 –> 00:19:02.448

Thanks to our sponsors and until next time, get out there and build something.