Navigating Haters and Trolls with Joe Pardo

Hey everyone, Ashley here with RSS.com and I'm so excited to have Super Joe Pardo here. Joe welcome to the show. How are we doing famous Ashley Grant? I am very excited, very, very excited. Can you do us a favor and tell us what it is you do? What is it that I do? So I am a business optimization strategist working on operations through the team to offer in the process. I've been a content creator since 1996 with blogging and eventually in the podcasting as well as YouTube.

And I love working and helping small business owners because I grew up around small business myself. And it's, you know, to me it's all about helping people and helping the families of those people. So it's incredible when I get to work with people that, you know, it amplifies what I'm capable of doing for all those people and all of those families that depend on it. And it's to me, it's like the most important piece of it all.

Well, I mean, business optimization strategist, that's a very large phrase. What exactly does it mean? Yeah, so like working on the operations, the processes, so it might involve the technology. Sometimes it involves just people and going through the process of like working through the problems that people are having because like businesses are like robots. They're like hard, they're rigid. They want to like operate 24 seven, go, go, go.

But they're filled with like soft gooey insides called people. And those people have problems. Those people have outside influences. They have illnesses like they have like all kinds of like other, you know, they got to do the things that they want to do right at the same time. So when you're when you're working with real businesses, you're working with more than just like a numbers on a sheet, right? It's people, it's the stories, it's the customers that they help.

And to me, creating the best processes, it create a great experience, not just for the customer, not just for the employees and the team members, but also for the person who owns it and operates it and helps them ultimately get to building a business that's for their lifestyle instead of their lifestyle for their business. So when you know, because you can like absolutely have a business that runs your lifestyle and some people love it, right? Like my grandfather loved it. My dad loves it.

You know, some other good friends of mine love it. But I think that not everybody does. And just because they don't doesn't mean that they make some bad a business or make some bad people. But I think it makes them realistic because I think that a lot of like, you know, you look at like the Gary Vaynerchuk, the Casey Neistat, the, you know, the gurus that are like, oh, you got to work, work, work, work, work and all that. Like, yeah, that works for them. That's great. Like that's awesome.

They figured out what works for them, but that doesn't necessarily work for everybody.

And not saying to the opposite extreme of the four hour work week, but just somewhere in between that makes people have a better appreciation for what they do, feel less jaded about what they do and the people that they do it for and ultimately gives themselves a better life because they can do more of the things that they love while optimizing the process so that people that work for them actually want to stay longer, you know, and be a part of the business.

I grew up in a family business that started in 81, but I've been, I'm like a seventh generation entrepreneur going back into the 50s with my great, great, great grandfather,

great grandfather and even before that. But it's crazy that people, you know, they look at how other businesses are run, other small businesses. They look at how the big corporations are run. And I always think like, look, I think that there's a lot of bad things we could say about corporations and there's a lot of good things we could say for them. But I think if you look at it objectively, you take the things that make the most sense and you add the human element to it.

You'll end up somewhere in between that enables people to feel like you care because you don't have the advantage of like maybe huge paychecks for all your employees, right? You don't have some of the health insurance benefits that can come along with being a huge corporation. But what you do have is you have the ability to have more of a human touch instead of like an Amazon that like, oh, I went to my locker today and told me I was fired. But I didn't get to meet with anybody.

Nobody talked about it, blah, blah, blah. And now Amazon has a problem with their literally running out of people in certain communities to be able to hire because they've already fired those people or they already work for them or they work somewhere else and they're not looking to come to work for Amazon.

So you know, in just a few short years, they've blown through some work, you know, workforces and the only way to get more of those is people got to age up into work into the workforce or they need to like lower their standards a little bit, which I think they could learn a thing or two about doing. Well, so when did podcasting come into your sphere? So I have been listening to the podcast since 2005. Huge Disney fan. I listened to a show called WWW Today.

And for me, like I learned so much about podcasting from them without even them talking about podcasting just from listening to every episode three days a week for the better part of like well, almost almost a decade. Yeah, almost a decade. So once I actually became friends with all of them, the four guys and female that were a part of the show. And they were like, oh, Joe, you should totally have your own podcast. You could like talk about Disney and all stuff.

And I'm like, yeah, and I probably get bored with that. And I because I knew I know I would. And that was in like 2011, 2012, something to that effect. And so fast forward to 2014, I put out my first I'm also a DJ as well since like 2004.

And I put out my first DJ album and I was doing a bunch of interviews on Disney podcasts. I made this mashup album of Disney music and hip hop instrumentals and tells the story of Pixar's up. And we raised a bunch of money for Give Kids the World on it. So I was doing all these interviews on podcasts and that's when it like the bug really got to me. And I was like, I really want to do something with this.

And I left my family's business at the time I was totally fed up and leaving a nine figure business behind is super scary because like I don't have a degree. I didn't just parachute into another job. The only other jobs I'd ever worked were side gigs for some you know, some website building stuff and and DJing gigs. So for me, it was like, oh, wow, like this is this is going to be different. This could be real different.

A month after that, I was on a flight to Disney World and I was talking to a friend of mine who I was going to run a race with down there. And I was like, oh, is there any other Disney podcast that I haven't reached out to about being on? I showed him like a big old list. I was like, oh, have you heard of this show called like Entrepreneur on Fire? And this was in 2014. So John had just started. I was like, no, what's the guys like? Oh, he just interviews entrepreneurs.

I was like, oh, I never thought about podcasting in that in that light. To me, it was just a bunch of Disney heads or whoever was really into a thing sitting around talking about the thing that they were interested in. So I was like, oh, wow, like I could totally do this. And I started up the dreamers podcast when the plane landed. I registered the domain name, the Twitter handle, the Facebook page before we got to the rental car.

And two weeks later, I had put out my first episode and then I was off the races. I had to do it noteworthy. Eventually went to write my first book of four and went to like the podcast awards.com became the best business podcast of 2017. And that was an awesome day because we also found out the gender of my son, which was pretty cool. There was actually a vlog was vlogging at the time. So that was really cool to get to have that experience in there.

And yeah, so it's just kind of evolved into eventually just really about business and really about entrepreneurship and really eventually turning into the YouTube channel and Shark Tank reaction videos and all that along the way. Now how intertwined is podcasting and your business for you?

Pretty intertwined. I mean, it's the megaphone to the business. It's also, I started up the independent podcast conference in 2014 as well at the end of 2014, which has grown immensely since then. And we've held five in-person events and eventually we'll hold a sixth in-person event. It was supposed to be this year and I actually haven't fully made the announcement. I changed everything on the site, but it's good. We're pushing it to 2023 because there's just not enough people in our community.

Everyone's like, I would love to come way too much uncertainty flights are a mess. Gas is terrible. COVID is still out there. You know, I don't, I don't know. And I was like, well, I'm not going to gamble a couple thousand dollars on that. So like, let's, let's just, you know, it's not the main focus of my business. It's more of a, a passion project that does bring money, but it, you know, it's, it's a passion project at the end of the day. And I just, I love the community.

I love bringing people together. I've been doing events, whether it's, you know, raves, land parties, working, you know, doing our, when I worked in my family's business back, you know, back pre 2014, setting up the annual events that we would have at a local caterer here where we'd have like a thousand plus people come through in about five hours. They'd go through all the vendor booths, go to a open, open bar and free buffet.

And it was, it was a great, I mean, I went to that show when I was a kid running around grabbing pens and stuff. So for me, you know, getting to take it over was, was really special. And they kind of played into the, I love hosting events. I love bringing people together and just having a, having a really great time with really great people and connecting. Would you say that podcasting actually helps you to find clients for your business?

Yes. So, so that has been that, so that's been an interesting thing. So part of the problem that I've ran into over the years was not necessarily having the marketing message line up with the business. Right? So like when I won best business podcast of the year award in 2017, my show was still called the dreamers podcast. And you know, that's when I was like, all right, I went to a few of my friends. I'm like, what do you, what do you think? You know, does this, does this make sense to you?

And they're like, well, Joe, I love your show. I love the guests you bring on. I love the insight. If you, if I didn't know you, I would have passed over your show because of the name. I would have, I would have told, because of the name of the cover art and everything, I would have passed over. So you know, I, that's when I started to like reevaluate, you know, and, and kind of start to tweak and look at that kind of stuff. So it's not that a lot of it's like not necessarily direct.

And I think a lot of times we want to think that everything's a super direct, like, Hey, I put out episode next step profit. Right. And, and it's not necessarily that way. It'll be that way for some people, but it's a lot of referrals, people that listen, that, you know, get that reminder and then they refer somebody to me and that kind of process. So it's, it's not direct. Like I post episode, all of a sudden my phone's ringing the next day, you know?

So I would say that that's actually probably a minimal amount of the business that has been brought in. Just kind of like how independent podcast conference is not, it's a passion project that has brought in money into my business, like actually into my actual core business of consulting. Because you know, so and so knows so and so that that works for somebody that's like, Oh yeah, this would be a perfect fit for this.

But you know, and I've done like a lot of podcast coaching and stuff over the years. But again, that's, I would still put that more in the passion side than the, than the actual business side. That's really a business side is really about the coaching and consulting, working on the business model, working on the processes, working on the emotions and the, you know, the ebbs and flows of the owner and the team that they have.

Okay. Well, what's interesting to me is you've brought up community several times and it sounds like one of the biggest things that you are so good at is the networking and the getting to know people and the bringing people together. And so whether it's indirect or direct, the fact that you're able to make money in your business partially because of your podcast, but maybe not directly from your podcast. I love that. And I think it's so cool. So now you also mentioned something else.

You've mentioned, you know, all the things that you've been doing. You've mentioned the YouTube and you mentioned the ebbs and flows and that one really got me. And the reason why is because the reason I wanted to bring you on is because of haters. So one of the things that I have found so fascinating about you watching all of the stuff that you've been doing is how gracefully you handle haters.

And one of the biggest things that holds people back from starting a podcast is the fear that, okay, I'm going to start it and I'm going to get so many people who hate it and they're just going to bad mouth me and troll me. And I might as well just quit before I even buy a microphone. So talk to me a little bit about all of that, when it started and how it started, all the stuff. So how, how, wait, how, what specifically started?

How you started, I guess, gaining traction with YouTube and podcasting to where you were actually starting to get haters. Yeah. So it's been a number of years since I started in 2014. I can't say that we ever really had, or I ever really had haters up until we got to the YouTube part where people actually started to watch and pay attention. And so that's, I mean, it would be, it would be cool to have, have had that experience sooner.

And I have had that experience because I've had a number of people who, mostly people that I would say I don't really want to have in my circle. So they kind of like, they kind of addition by subtraction kind of thing. Like I'm adding to my life by enabling them to subtract themselves from it because we just, they need to have some complex about being in charge or feeling some superior, superiority or something like that.

And I do my best to, to stay and stay away from that and try to be as, you know, when you talk about community and people to me, it's, it's really, it's like, I live for that. Like we, you know, we went to, to Europe for our honeymoon, me and my wife, right. And yeah, go and see the, like, it's cool. Like you see like the Roman Coliseum or whatever.

But to me, what I remember more about that and more about that trip is the people that I met from all over the world that would, you know, because we had these hour long, two hour long bus rides stuff. So I would be like talking to, you know, people from Canada, we're talking about like their healthcare system and so on. This is in 2012. So you know, it's things like that. It's like, that's means so much to me.

And what podcasting enabled me to do was very rapidly build a network outside of my world right. And build it this, cause I, my world was in trucking. It was in truck, truck parts and trucking and in transportation industry. Right. So that's not everybody I knew, but like a good chunk of the people that I knew, a good percentage was in that. So what enabled me to have with podcasting was to go and get people from all these different industries from all over the world.

They were like doing awesome things, cooler than what I was doing and getting the highlight and inspire other people. I inspire myself cause like, I really still didn't know what I wanted to do in April of 2014 or May of 2014 until probably June, July of 2014. I started to like figure, okay, we're going to have the podcast, we're going to books, we're going to do speaking, we're going to coaching and all that.

So I, you know, I think to me, you know, relationships are the currency for the most part. And I don't, I don't put a lot of, I probably, if I put more effort into the money, I probably could make a lot more of it from that. But to me, like, I don't necessarily want to deal with some of the headaches that come along with that, like having sponsors and like I've had sponsors in the past and I get sponsors for my podcast conference and all that.

But you know, it's, I'd rather just not have to deal with that and, and the enter in YouTube, right? And I, you know, part of me, I love podcasting. I kind of do wish though that I had had the foresight in 2014 to do more YouTube then because I probably would be like that much further along with it and the community and all. But who knows, like, it wouldn't necessarily been the same audience. You know, it might not have been the right thing.

Like it might not have, it just might not have been the right thing at the time. So you know, having, having the opportunity to have people comment, it was so, it's so much more powerful than, than like with, with podcasting. It's like, oh, they can rate like leave a review or something like that.

But the call to actions are tough with podcasting because you're asking somebody to do something when they're like mowing the lawn, taking a shower, driving a car, things they're not going to like, let me jump on Facebook or Twitter and like do the thing. Right. So, so it's, it's like almost like an auxiliary thing to, to get them to listen to the podcast or to get them to be on Twitter, Facebook, Facebook group, whatever it is and interact with you. It's funny.

I'm actually in quite a few Facebook groups for podcasts that I've never listened to once, but I, but I love the, I love the people. I love like the community that they have, the support and everything like that. I just, you know, I mean, I could count on one hand in number of podcasts I listened to period, honestly, which is kind of sad, but it also kind of like, I don't have, I still have a ton of time to listen to podcasts.

So it's, I'm just very, very, very selective in what I listen to at this point.

Well, I mean, that makes a lot of sense because not only are you producing a podcast or producing a YouTube channel, you're running your own business, so it makes complete sense to me. I mean, it sounds like you need lots of systems and processes, not just for your, you know, business, but also your life because there's a lot going on. Well, I mean, I can't, I can't even imagine doing like juggling all the, the balls that you've got in the air. Like how do you, how do you keep it straight?

How do you keep, you know, doing the podcasting and all the other things? Yeah. So, so the, like in this case, the podcast pretty much only happens when I do interviews with people that have been on Shark Tank at this point. Like I literally was just on a call right before I jumped in here with somebody that's been on Shark Tank two seasons ago. So that, that'll get turned into a podcast.

The reaction videos, that's, that has suffered a little bit, but, but I did get, you know, complete most of last season and I do, I will be getting, I actually had some, some tweaking I wanted to do to my, my format. So which I, I'm not going to like bore everybody with at this point, but I, I had some tweaking.

I'm getting, I'm going to be doing some more testing in the near future here so that I can more, hopefully fingers crossed, more easily get content out on the reaction front because it, it's, it's very time consuming when it doesn't go right. Yeah. I can only imagine, but getting, getting back to the, the Shark Tank reaction videos, because that's kind of what spawned this whole gotta get you on thing. So whenever the, the hate happens, what did you do? Like what's your thought process?

How do you, how do you handle the, some of the pretty ignorant comments that come through? Yeah. I mean, it did bother me. For the first, I want to say six to eight months, I let it ride. I would just reply like, I would just, I very, I think pretty much out of the gate, I was pretty much just like, I'm just going to say that I appreciate you watching and commenting. And I let the comments ride.

I didn't delete them or shadow ban those comments, which maybe I, I mean, everything happens for the way it's supposed to happen or whatever, but I wanted people to see how I would react to them and I wanted people to be able to say, you know, to, to see, to see me through it, right. And to see, to see a human being that's actually responding to them.

I would say, you know, maybe more happened than I, than I actually realized, but what I did see was there was some of those comments that were really, really rude, really like just nasty, like, like terrible comments to make about another person in general.

Like, and, and I'm like, well, you know, maybe they would get, well, they would get a lot of likes, you know, some of the couple of them got a lot, a lot of likes of, I would get a handful of likes on my, like, I appreciate you watching and commenting. Sometimes I'd get people that say like, oh, you know, I didn't realize that you would actually read this or that you, you'd see this or whatever.

And it changed, you know, so, so I think for, to a certain extent it did what I was wanting it to do, but, but then part of me was like, these comments are kind of consuming me, even though I'm not letting, like, it's like, I appreciate you watching commenting. It's, it gives me a good chuckle because I'm like, there's, you know, to me, a lot of those comments have no context. Like they just, they just don't, like you're, you didn't do the research. You didn't try to have a conversation with me.

And I'm like, I'm not a big TV show watcher, like, like at all. Like my wife watches way more TV shows than I ever do. But I did watch Ted Lasso and the whole, like, you know, be, be curious, not judgemental thing really hits home. And it's made me look at things differently.

And even, even in like, in real life situations where, where I've like had to deal with like yelling parents and stuff while coaching one of my kids soccer games that my kids six, they're mostly kids on the team or five, you know, and, and, and just dealing with the screaming and just being like, I'm, I'm just doing my job here. Like I'm doing the things that are supposed to be done.

And you know, if you want to come and have a conversation, just come and talk with me, but screaming on the sideline, like I can't even acknowledge that because I'm too busy trying to make sure that we're, you know, doing what we're supposed to do here. And I translate that from the, you know, dealing with those comments. Cause like, well, we all have people that we didn't like or whatever we didn't get along with and things didn't go the way we wanted them to with, with those relationships.

But even, even before that, like I've always been of the mindset of like, everybody deserves to be happy. Like, even if the crappiest people that they're just doing really mean things, like there's a reason that they're doing it. We can't forget that because they're not just doing it like, cause they're like the Joker or something. They just like want to see the world burn. They're, they're people too, you know?

And so it's important to remember that like they have, they have a situation going on and, and it's still hurtful. Like, so the weight of those comments kind of, kind of on me, but then I started to think and I'm like, you know, why let somebody else who has a similar thought process be able to just click a like button and move on with their life, right? To a really nasty comment.

Right. Like, and then I'm not talking about just like, oh, I don't like the video or whatever, just shut up or whatever, like something stupid like that. Like I tried the, oh, I'll try pitting their comment at the top. Well, the fact that matters, most of these people have zero content. So they have zero skin in the game. Right? Like their comment literally means nothing because they have nothing weighted. Like it's not like they have this, Oh, I have my own following of 50,000 people.

And like, I don't want people to see that I'm nasty or whatever. Like so it's like, Oh, you take their nasty comment, pitted at the top. And it's like, Oh, they probably won't like that very much, you know? Yeah. Um, and maybe they do have content. Maybe they have, maybe this is just their rando account that they're choosing to do it on.

Maybe I know that that some of that is happening out there, but, um, but so I, ultimately I decided about, I want to say eight, nine months into it to say, you know what? I'm going to go through all my comments and I'm just going to hide those comments, hide those people, hide this people, um, from the channel and they can comment all they want or whatever. And I don't have to see their comment anymore. Uh, and as time went on, uh, plus, Oh, the other thing was.

Those people, instead of being able to click the like button, they get to the, if they want to express their displeasure with it, just go and write your own comment, which will help the YouTube algorithm even more. So I appreciate you even more than just clicking the like on somebody else's really nasty comment. Um, plus, yeah, so I, so I decided I'm going to just hide them. And I want to say it was like almost six months later, that's when I decided like, you know what?

We've, we've hit a lot of the people let's unhide the people and see who's, who's, who's still commenting out there. It took a week. It took a week for one of my band to show back up and, and, uh, have something nasty to say. But, but yeah, I, I think that taking that, that punch in the gut, um, because some of those comments while nasty, I mean, some of them are, you know, they're, uh, through the lens of reality, like their lens of reality, right?

They'll say, oh, you know, who's this, this like fat bald guy, like talking, flipping his pen or something, or thinks he's a shark or something like that. And, um, which is not the case. I don't purport to be a shark and that's not why I'm doing what I'm doing. Uh, I genuinely am just here to help, you know, inspire entrepreneurs, inspire people to do, to go and be super and be the best that they can be and inspire other, help them inspire other people to go and be the best that they can be.

You know, we're not asking anybody to be perfect, but we got to do, we got to do the best that we can, uh, for ourselves and the people around us. So, um, you know, so, so, you know, having those comments, getting the punch in the gut, uh, especially when they, they hit close to home and I've watched, uh, do you watch like Gerald undone? Yeah. Oh, you totally should.

Um, him and like cinnamon toast kind of like, they've done a couple of, of video, like one video or two videos, um, a make art now, uh, and Gerald undone did like a whole like not podcast series on YouTube. And they talked about this, like this, you know, the, the YouTube comments and how people like it's like, you and I are sitting at a diner, actually, like we're sitting at a diner, we're having a meal and somebody walks up and says, Oh, your shirt is like the wrong color for your eyes.

Have a terrible day. And then they just walk away. And it's like, like why I wasn't even talking to you. He wasn't even talking to you. Right. And, and I think that's the key is that the people that feel that way are not your audience. They're not anybody that's ever going to buy anything from you. They're not any, like the most they might do is give you some ad revenue, right. By watching your videos. They love, you know, if they love to hate you, which is a shame.

Cause I don't, I don't want to be loved to hate. Like I'm not a pro wrestler or something that's playing a bit part or, or, you know, a guru who's like, like they intentionally be a certain way to be hated. Like that's a thing. Cause they, you know, they want you to get mad, to share it, to tell all the people like, look at this idiot, right? Because one or half a person out of, you know, however you constantly have a person out of 10 is going to say, Oh, wow.

I don't think that, I don't think that they're a joke. I think they're pretty serious. And then boom, you know, $10,000 sale, like, boom, that's all it took. Right. But we got to get big numbers. You got to get the big numbers as possible, make as much noise as possible. Um, another, another great, uh, interview was from Nas daily and, um, and, uh, Casey Neistat where Casey was like, you know, I didn't invent the term, but like, I want to post in ghost.

Uh, he's like, I don't want to do that, but the comments just forced me to do that because I can only read so much before it just gets, um, you know, so hurtful, like, and it takes me down. Um, so, and, and at the end of the day, this is a dictatorship, not a democracy. So I don't care, you know, like I will delete your comment. I just don't care. Or I will not read any of the comments because it just makes my day a lot better.

Well, what would you say to the podcaster who's afraid to even start because they're afraid they're going to get those hateful comments?

Yeah. So I've read, um, and I've experienced this as well. Um, not feeling or feeling restrained from what I feel like I can and can't say because of what might be taken out of context, not even just for randos on the internet, but like people actually know, right? People I work with people that, uh, you know, you're, you're in certain situations. And in my case, I talk about business, right?

So taking certain situations and having to like mask them so that it doesn't sound so obvious that like I pulled this from, from work or, or a specific person or something like that, like that, I, to me, I think that that's really the harder part. So to me, I would say if you're that worried about it, don't post about it, you know, don't, don't advertise it. In fact, with YouTube, you're better off not posting about it because you don't want people to say, Oh cool. Joe started a YouTube thing.

Let me click on it. Oh cool. There's Joe. I watched 10 seconds and then I click off and it's like, YouTube's like, Oh cool. That person didn't like it. Well, maybe we shouldn't share it to seven other people. Maybe we'll just share it to like two other people. Oh, they didn't, they, by chance, they didn't click on it either.

So Oh, well, you know, um, so I would say if you're, if you're worried about it, you'll find a way to do it anonymously, don't be afraid to post in ghost, you know, post it and don't, don't interact. In my case, I really want to interact. I don't, my wife gets on me from, from time to time. She's like, Oh, you read these comments and you know, and she's like, like it must bother you. I'm like, nah, it doesn't bother me. It just, you know, again, these people probably aren't for me.

Like if they were, they would either just not comment. Like they could just easily just go away. Um, but I also, I, you know, I, I do worry, um, about other content creators getting, like if they got some of those things that I got, like, you gotta build up the resistance. And you gotta build up the resistance to like, try to like punch back because it's never going to, you know, unless you're like the God of comebacks, um, no, it won't end well. It won't end well.

I know I'm not, I know I'm not right. So like I, you know, and sometimes I'll think of things to say, but it's like, it's like eight days later and it's like, it's no longer relevant, you know? Um, or, or like, you're afraid that if you do actually say it, it could be used against you in some way. Well, that's add fuel to the fire. Well, yeah, cause it opens the door, right?

It opens the door and the window to like, you know, having to either over explain, which people won't probably read, you know, fewer people will read that. It's just at the end of the day, it's like, just be kind to that person and say, thank you. I appreciate you watching or, you know, something to that effect. And I've had people write back, I didn't, I watched 10 seconds and then wrote this nasty comment like, Bravo, you're an awesome person. Thanks for playing.

I know that, right, like, I know that I'm onboarding something to people that aren't necessarily looking for what I'm selling or bringing to the table, right? And that's okay. So that comes with the territory, but Hey, if you color inside the lines all the time, guess what you won't get?

Aiders, you know, you won't get people that are so angry and triggered by the fact that you, you gave them an opportunity to, in my case, watch something that they wouldn't have otherwise, unless they go and pay for it, or if they can even pay for it in their country in which they're watching it from. Um, you know, it's just, it just shows like people of all races, colors, creeds, backgrounds, nationalities, whatever, from the planet earth can be super entitled.

It doesn't just happen in certain places or, you know, with certain people. It's literally, I've seen it from all countries, all over the world, be super entitled to what they should and shouldn't be able to get on the internet. And it's, if it's my responsibility to deliver it to them.

Yeah. I just, I guess for me, like the, the big thing that, that keeps sticking out though is I, it kind of breaks my heart. The content creators that are afraid to even start that could have really good shows, but they're so scared of the hate that they just don't post anything. But it's like, you know, kind of like you said, the post and ghost, I love that idea. I never thought of it, but it's brilliant. Or even like hire an assistant to handle all your hate for you.

If you're, yeah, if you're, it's like that. Sure. I mean, but, but do you, you don't necessarily have to, right? Like that's, that's the whole idea. Like you don't have to turn comments on, you know, you can turn comments off on YouTube. You don't have to enable comments on, um, your, your website, right? Like or, or, I mean, you kind of, I guess you can't turn off iTunes, uh, or Spotify reviews, but you don't ever have to check them. Like just don't check them.

They don't, it doesn't really, I mean, it's a shame too, because like you'll be proud of the work you've done until you start reading like how, now here's the thing though. When it comes to those hateful comments, the ones that hurt are the ones that, you know, the truth hurts, right? And, and there's, there's, there's clues in those, in those comments sometimes, right? Because you have to remember people don't know how to, they're not content creators, right?

So they don't know how to articulate the thing that they don't like about it. And I've had to explain this to some, some of the coaching clients that have that I work with on like their YouTube channel or podcasting. Like there's things that it's like, they will know that they don't like the colors, but they'll know that they don't like it. And I'm, it's getting kind of late.

So it's kind of hard for me to remember the specific example, but there's, there's, it's kind of, so it's kind of like this. It's like, if you, if you're doing a talking head YouTube video and you just have the talking head, you know, it can work, right? And you have a certain background, certain setup or something like that, or certain colors, like those people might not realize that the, that's the thing that's triggering what they don't like.

Oh, here's, here's a perfect example, perfect example. So there's a, there's a, in filmmaking, there's a, there's a, a technique to make the audience feel like uneasy. And basically what you're going to do is you, you go low and you go crooked, right? Like an up. So you're taking a look like of the person you're like low and crooked. So for me, I couldn't figure out for the longest time why I could not stand watching the Grinch You Stole Christmas.

Is that, is it the Grinch or whatever the one with Jim Carrey? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I could not understand why that movie bothered me so much until I watched the YouTube video, no less, explaining that low and crooked uneasiness technique with the camera. Okay. And you watch that movie so much of that video, so much of that movie is low and crooked and it just makes me feel anxiety through the entire movie.

Wow. Yeah. So I didn't know this until just recently, like in the last, like, I don't know, six months or something like that to, to, to be able to explain it to somebody and say, wow, like I didn't know why it made me feel that way. But now I know because I watched YouTube video, but you know, people aren't going to be able to articulate why they hate something. Is it the audio? Is it the colors? Is it what you're wearing? Is your hair? Is it your voice?

I mean, not everyone's going to like your voice. Some people have silky smooth voices and things, and then some people just don't, right? And it doesn't, you know, voice, certain voices just don't work for everybody. Excuse me, in every medium, in every format, like, you know, some people can be really great singers or they could be really great rappers and they might not be the greatest rapper from a lyricist point of view, but their voice sounds, DMX is a great example. Amazing.

You know, like it's so much great. Ah, you know, they're, they're, they're fun. It's like candy, you know, but, but is it, is it substanceful? Wow. You know, some songs a little more than others, but, but yeah, it gets the job done. I guess in a way it's like, um, the only way you can truly just not worry about it, not worry about what could potentially come from it is just to focus on your art, focus on your message, focus on the person you're actually trying to talk to.

And then everybody else, their opinions, none of your business. Pretty, I mean, pretty much. Yeah. I mean, when those people, so, so the thing is, is once in a while you'll, you'll get those comments that point out something that like you, you should, you should probably look into it. Like they, again, they might be really mean about it. It might be really rude. In my case, it was like, oh, the video needs to be bigger the whole time.

And I'm like, well, I got YouTube copyright to play, you know, take me to work through here. Um, and over time I've been able to massage my way towards not having that problem and not, and appeasing more of the people. Right. Or, or looking at the analytics, like one of the great things about YouTube is you get a deluge, like tons of analytics. So you can look at like the retention chart of like how long people are actually watching the video, like where they're dropping off at. Right.

So it's like, you get the big spike at the beginning or downward spike, I should say, hockey stick of people dropping off. And in my case, it's like, oh, well, cause I'm doing this like minute long intro where you don't even see the video. Like you don't know that it's actually going to get there. And they're just like, yeah, no, I ain't watching this. So like little by little, like chopped it back, chopped it back. So I just like screw it. I ain't doing any intro. We're just playing the video.

We're just going in. And then you still get people say, I'm not here to see your big fat forehead and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, I'm trying to, there's a thing that you don't even understand. Like, you don't even know what's going on. Right. And, and at the end of the day, like I'm doing this to make money. Okay. Yeah. So I'm not trying to put the video out there for you to watch and for me to get nothing and chart tank take all of it.

And meanwhile, like I'm actually dropping knowledge here, like of the family, 30 years, 30 plus years of business that I've been around, plus standing on the shoulders of giants, plus all the interviews I've done, you know, 475 interviews with, with entrepreneurs from all over the world. Like, you know, I, I, not everyone understands that I'm bringing something to the table and that's okay. But I am and, and, and, and I deserve to be paid for that. So read the room commenters.

Well, commenters, but also you, right?

Like you look at the comments, you throw out the really crappy ones. But if you say, if you see the same comment a couple of times, again, it might not be articulated the way you expect it to be, but you know, read between the lines a little bit and then try to think, how can I change this? What else can I do? How else can I borrow from outside or steal from outside niches or industries to bring to my, you know, to my audience that isn't already here? That's a great question.

It's definitely something for all of us to ponder on because I mean, there's, there's so much to that podcast is already have to think about. And so to add like the video element and the comments element, it's a lot. It is. I mean, that holding me back from wanting to do it, you know, doing the YouTube thing on a regular basis. And I mean, it's also the technology was a little bit different back, you know, 2015, 16, 17.

So it wasn't as much like streaming gear that it's available now that makes it just brings, you know, the barrier to entry a lot lower. I remember doing in 2016, 2015, 2015 and 16, doing Facebook lives when that became a thing. And I would just like, I set up my phone, like we were me and my boy, Matt would record our inch, my intro for the show. And that that would be on the guy would just set up the phone so that we, you know, that could be streaming.

So now I know all these years later, I get like, it's there's like videos of me holding Ava, my first born, like while doing these these intros. And these intros could be like an hour long before we even got to the interview. Oh, wow. I would talk if we would talk about topics that related to like entrepreneurship, you know, best self betterment, dreaming, blah, blah, blah. And then I'd be like, OK, now we have this interview that's going to do so.

Go download the episode when it comes out, like for the live Facebook live stream. Yeah. But those videos were not great quality because cameras weren't as great. The you know, you couldn't stream in seven seven twenty P. I think that's four eighty. So like, you know, all these little things just like, you know, it's. But now now there's all these, you know, technology and software to make it so much easier to go live and and integrate it.

So not and not everybody's going to be into watching talking head content, but there's just little things that you can do to like, you know, if you really wanted to plus it up, like go get yourself a story blocks account. Right. And like overlay, you know, B roll of of something over over what you're doing. So yeah, I wish I had found video a little bit sooner than 2017 personally. But hey, you found it now and there's still so much more you can do that. That is true.

There's a lot more I could do and a lot more I plan to do. And I can find the darn time to do it. Well, as you start rolling out all this stuff, where can people find you online?

Yeah. So it's Joe Pardo dot com or at Super Joe Pardo on all social media platforms and indie podcom dot com for the independent podcast conference, which is going to be in twenty twenty three. September. I mean, I think we've covered a lot of good stuff and I hope that people look you up to see all the amazing things that you're doing. But before I let you go, there's one question I got to ask you. I ask everyone what is one question I didn't ask that you really wish I had.

Well, we talked about this before, but you made it pretty you pretty much softballed it in. What podcast do you listen to, Joe? Yeah, what podcast do you listen to? Basically it's it's like there's like three shows. Video marketing was a video marketing value podcast with a guy who used to work for Leo Laporte. I'm blanking on his name, Nate. I think his name is Nate and he has a I can't think of her name. Anyway, they're really great. Both of them are really, really great.

And it's really helpful stuff if you're into because both of them are high level, like not YouTube, like influencers, but they're like behind the scenes, like analytics and like analytical people that have been around technology for a long while. Like one dude's worked for Leo Laporte, so he's been around for a long time. OK, I'll have to find them and then put it in the show notes. That's one. The next one, the so that's number that's like the third most listened to.

Second most listened to would have to be have a seat or no, not have a seat. Predators I've caught with Chris Hansen. So fascinating and uncensored in the podcast. So he reads a lot of those chat logs that you used to watch on to catch a predator where they would like blank out. They would read like five lines of the whole chat and like they blanked out most of it. No, he reads the whole thing and it's oh, my goodness.

It's it's like you want to like, how does Chris not laugh while saying some of this stuff? It's so absurd. It's so absurd and so are at the same time. So many emotions all mixed in the one. I can't even. Yeah. And he does like updates on like where they're at now. He's done a couple of interviews like one one of the guys daughters. He interviewed the daughter. Yeah. And it's because she's like way older now. She was like a kid when it happened. But yeah, it's it's it's crazy.

The most the most listened to show that I will listen to the absolute most pretty much religiously is the Disney dish podcast with Jim Hill and Lentesta. Lentesta would being one of the original four guys that started the WDW Today podcast back when that was still the original crew because that show is still going on, but it's a different different people took it over. But yeah, it's it's staying true to your roots. Yeah. Well, they talk a lot about like business. It's really a business podcast.

It's a little and then there's history, they talk about the history of Disney as well. And like the news of Disney and yeah. It's amazing. We'll have to find out the links for all of these and put them in the show notes. Yes. Yes. You absolutely should go listen to all. I mean, if you can stomach the the middle of the second one, but the but the marketing video marketing and and and and Disney dish are incredible as well. Well, I've definitely got a couple more to add to my list.

I mainly listen to to business podcasts and to a money mindset podcast. Like those are my those are my big ones. But yeah, I'm always down to learn about new ones. But those are the two. I like the Disney. This is really a business podcast. They even go into people send them the surveys that Disney sends out to. Oh, wow. Yes. Yeah. So people send them the surveys and then they read the questions and then they try to guess like, well, what could this mean?

Are they trying to like what's the answer they're trying to get to with this? And and usually they're pretty right. They usually start the show with a round of congratulations for the self congratulations. So Ashley is super famous. Ashley Grant, thank you so much for having me on. I greatly appreciate being here. This is the time. This was wonderful. I appreciate you taking the time to actually be here. So thank you so much. One hundred any, any, any, any time.

I'm so happy to be here and come back. Well my fellow podcasters, we hope you enjoyed the insights, tips and ideas shared in this episode to learn more about launching and growing your own show. Head over to RSS.com backslash blog. And if you're ready to launch a podcast of your own, you can get started for free with your first episode on us. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time.