How To Grow Into A Better Niche By Embracing What Makes You Unique – With Andy J. Pizza

Brian: [00:00:00] This is the six figure home studio podcast, episode 117

[00:00:19] welcome back to another episode of the six figure home studio podcast. I am your host Brian Hood, and I am not unfortunately here with my bald, beautiful, amazing. Purple shirted cohost, Christopher J. Graham. The sad truth is, Chris is not here with me today because I'm still in Thailand. Actually. It's actually not bad news or anything.

[00:00:39] Uh, he is in Ohio. I'm in Thailand. The time difference is too weird here, uh, for us to do an episode that we'd normally do. So we actually have a treat for you today with a guest host. But before we get to that, just let me know. I am wrapping up. My second week in Thailand, I've got about three weeks to go and, uh.

[00:00:57] It's been a really fun trip. Actually right now I am actually recording this intro with a really, really sketchy set up on, uh, I'm actually not going to mention specific gear because I don't want to be a gear sledded Oh, my own podcast. But, uh, I'm recording on my laptop with some very basic gear and I'm a right by a pool at our resort, which is kind of cool.

[00:01:15] So if you want to see, see this, he can follow me on Instagram and check my stories. I've been doing a lot of updates while I'm on this trip. That's Brian. Good.  two zero so Brian H zero zero D and you can find me on Instagram and there'll be stories from this specific one if you follow me within the next 24 hours.

[00:01:31] Anyways, some of our highlights so far, we had a awesome cooking class in Bangkok where I, uh, selected a frog to be cooked and I had some, uh, Tom yum soup with frog in it. Uh, and we cooked a bunch of other stuff there as well. We went to an elephant, a rescue park in Chang. Mine is actually the name of the elephant rescue park in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

[00:01:50] I where we got to interact and feed and kind of lead around a bunch of elephants that were rescued from a, there are a few from a circus. There were some that were just too old to do 'em to stay healthy at the farms they are at. So they had to, uh, since the medical costs were so high, the farmers basically sold or gave away the elephants to this rescue park.

[00:02:08] And, uh, one was rescued, uh, just a few months ago from a logging farmer logging community in Lao. I think. And it's blind in one eye. And it's really, some of these elephants have really sad stories, but it's, it's a coy to do elephant tourism in an ethical way. Instead of going to Thailand. I don't ever ride elephants, don't go to any circuses or anything where they have elephants that are being written or jumped on.

[00:02:31] Uh, but if you want to see elephants and pet them and interact with them and feed them, I highly, highly recommend the elephant rescue park in Chiang Mai, Thailand. And then, uh. If he's probably heard, the coronavirus is here in Asia, and, uh, it's, there's quite a few cases in Thailand as well. So, Meg and I, uh, my wife here, we decided to escape up to PI Thailand.

[00:02:52] Uh, and we've been here for like the past week or so. We leave tomorrow. We're actually heading out to SIEM reap in Cambodia tomorrow. But we spent the last week here at just mope heading around. I kind of being lazy, getting some work done by the pool. You've been following me on Instagram. You've seen me pretty much post every day, Al by this pool, just working on my laptop, gins and stuff done.

[00:03:09] So like I said earlier in a previous episode, this is kinda like a work workcation workcation for us where we're both working and traveling at the same time. But it's been a whole lot of fun. So this episode specifically, like I mentioned at the very beginning, is co-hosted by Andy J pizza. If you don't remember any Jay pizza, go back and listen to episode 78 it's called motivation mindset, and getting out of your own damn way.

[00:03:33] He has been. Hugely successful on his own podcast called creative pep talk. And I think his podcast is probably 10 times the size of ours at this point. So it's very successful and it's amazing for Andy to even give us the time of his day to spend an hour and a half ahead of his time on a co-hosted episode.

[00:03:49] Take a my spot on the podcast. So, uh, I felt like, honestly, in this episode, I was a fly on the wall listening to just the two of them talk about business and there's gonna be parts that are not relevant at all to you. If you're just trying to do a studio, there's parts that are really relevant to you if you eventually want to branch out and do some other type of business or entrepreneur endeavor.

[00:04:06] But the core of it all is trying to find your niche through finding your purpose. And, uh, I just think if you are at all doubting yourself on what you should be doing, especially when it comes to finding a niche, if you're all at all doubted yourself, if you feel like there's nothing that you  bring to the table that's unique, this episode will be.

[00:04:25] A massive pep talk for you because that's what Andy J pizza does better than probably anyone else in the business. So without further ado, here is this episode with Chris Graham and Andy and Jay pizza.

[00:04:40]

[00:04:40] Chris: [00:04:40] Well, dude, I'm excited to hang out with

[00:04:41] Andy: [00:04:41] too, dude. I love our, I feel like every conversation we've recorded, I've thought a lot about at later, and really it's like, yeah. It's good. I think we have some similarities in the Venn diagram of our brain, and then I think we have some, it's almost like a missing piece to my brain, or it's like I'm throw stuff at you where  it's stuff that I couldn't generate in my head of like a response from that.

[00:05:04] Does that make

[00:05:04] Chris: [00:05:04] That's exactly how I feel. Yeah. There, there is like a weird, and Brian and I are kind of like that too. Like there's, there's a lot of overlap. And then there's other areas where I've got strengths and he's got weaknesses and a lot more areas where he's got strengths and I've got weaknesses. And man, I was thinking, I was talking to my wife last night about the two of you.

[00:05:22] I'm going to get so cheesy.

[00:05:24] Andy: [00:05:24] Do it, dude. Do you know who I am?

[00:05:26] Chris: [00:05:26] So we're

[00:05:27] Andy: [00:05:27] I'm like, most, I'm like crying on most of the episodes of my podcast, right? Yeah.

[00:05:32] Chris: [00:05:32] So last night trying to decide what movie to watch. Yeah. And like, it's been really fun lately cause we bought a really nice new couch. That's the most comfortable couch I've ever sat on. We've got like 70 inch, four K TV. And like a Bowers and Wilkins surround sound system. Oh shoot. I'm not allowed to say brand names on our podcast.

[00:05:51] So

[00:05:51] Andy: [00:05:51] Oh, really?

[00:05:52] Chris: [00:05:52] noise that people are hearing right now is, I'm getting a gear

[00:05:54] Andy: [00:05:54] Uh,

[00:05:55] Chris: [00:05:55] Sorry about that guys. But it's a nice, it's really, really nice. So we've been watching a lot more movies cause we'd never had a four K TV, let alone 70 inch one. We're looking for movies to watch. And my wife, I just learned this, has never seen the Shawshank

[00:06:08] Andy: [00:06:08] Me neither.

[00:06:10] Chris: [00:06:10] Why?

[00:06:11] Andy: [00:06:11] thought we already had that

[00:06:12] Chris: [00:06:12] Oh my gosh, I forgot about it, but so

[00:06:15] Andy: [00:06:15] know. I'm going to get hate mail.

[00:06:16] Chris: [00:06:16] so good.

[00:06:18] Andy: [00:06:18] really want to watch it.

[00:06:18] Chris: [00:06:18] It's like if you take all the movies, I'm going to be opinionated here, but if you took all the movies from the eighties and nineties and said you can only watch 10 of them,

[00:06:26] Andy: [00:06:26] Forrest Gump.

[00:06:27] Chris: [00:06:27] Forrest Gump is on there like some of the star Wars, Indiana Jones in Shawshank redemption is definitely on there, especially as far as drama

[00:06:35] Andy: [00:06:35] I know. I know that it's going to be my jam.

[00:06:38] Chris: [00:06:38] Oh, you're going to

[00:06:38] Andy: [00:06:38] whatever reason, I never had the opportunity to watch it,

[00:06:41] Chris: [00:06:41] Well, shoot. Well, this kind of ruins my story a little bit, but it's bad research. But there's the, this friendship that forms in these two guys, and it's amazing because they're both, they don't really have any friends. And I was talking to Alison after this movie and I was like, you know, I look at my life like two years ago, and like I had friends, but I didn't have friends like you or friends like Brian.

[00:07:06] And it was kind of this like, I had never really got the relationship between these two main characters before. I was like, Oh, yeah,

[00:07:13] Andy: [00:07:13] Yeah.

[00:07:14] Chris: [00:07:14] Yeah. It was just like, ah

[00:07:16] Andy: [00:07:16] the sweetest thing ever. And I had a very similar conversation because I realize that. I don't know. I think there's one thing when you're growing a lot. I think if you're really obsessed with self-help and personal growth, and maybe this is an ego thing, I don't know, but I do feel like I change a lot over time.

[00:07:32] So like, and I think that does make some friendships, especially like long from high school friendships, kind of strange. And so there's that element. And then I think on top of that, there's the business of doing your own business. And then. I dunno. I'd had some similar thoughts really recently. Actually. I was just talking to Sophia about it too, and just saying like, it's great that we have a studio together, because before that, the amount of human interaction that I had was so low.

[00:08:02] It's just been really amazing.

[00:08:03] Chris: [00:08:03] Same. Yeah, totally. And so there's like an element there of like you are a grower. Brian is a grower. I am a grower, and I think that's like this sort of constant commitment to self up. I'm not like throwing any of my other friends under the bus here,

[00:08:19] Andy: [00:08:19] Me neither. Yeah.

[00:08:20] Chris: [00:08:20] yeah, there's like a weird,

[00:08:21] Andy: [00:08:21] also, sometimes people grow a lot and they grow in different directions too, so you can be a grower and it just doesn't even, it doesn't even have to be opposite. Just might not be in sync. Yeah.

[00:08:31] Chris: [00:08:31] So I was talking to Alison after we watched the movie and like the two. Okay. I guess I can't tell you too much. I cannot, I'm not going to like sport. I'm not going to spoiler Shawshank redemption. It'd be terrible.

[00:08:42] Andy: [00:08:42] I always think about the statutes of limitations. I don't know how to say any of that, but I always know that. I always think that there's got to be some spoiler correlation there. Like there's a timeframe in which you can spoil something and then after that it's your problem. Yeah.

[00:08:57] Chris: [00:08:57] Yeah. And there's this element of like, I'm watching it and I'm like, Oh man, they're more than brothers and less than wives.

[00:09:03] Andy: [00:09:03] I love it. Right back at you, man. Yeah. I love you buddy.

[00:09:07] Chris: [00:09:07] Well, dude, same. Let me tell you, man. Well, let's, uh,

[00:09:10] Andy: [00:09:10] so sweet

[00:09:11] Chris: [00:09:11] is great.

[00:09:12] Andy: [00:09:12] funny because I feel like it's because I why we've talked about how. I, uh, I don't know if I want to,

[00:09:23]

[00:09:23] I don't know if I, I always feel like if you don't want to talk about it, then you have to on a podcast, because

[00:09:28] Chris: [00:09:28] Yeah. It's a good sign that, yeah.

[00:09:31] Andy: [00:09:31] But I, I have noticed that like, you know, if, if my podcast, Lester and ship has anything like my Instagram, it's heavily female, and I don't think that has to be the way it is, but I just think it's funny that. I'm on your podcast for like 20 minutes and we're talking about love and friendship. That's so funny.

[00:09:49] I'm like, no wonder like they're so probably macho man or I make them very

[00:09:53] Chris: [00:09:53] for audio engineers like they don't have that, that emotion that we don't have that emotion in this industry.

[00:09:58] Andy: [00:09:58] your editor can just cut it out. It's going to be way too touchy feely, but that's, that's what you get when you sign me up.

[00:10:03] Chris: [00:10:03] I love it,

[00:10:04] Andy: [00:10:04] you go.

[00:10:05] Chris: [00:10:05] Let's talk about what we're going to talk about today. One of the things that I think is fascinating about you and your story. Is that you are living the dream in a lot of ways. You are an extremely accomplished illustrator, an extremely accomplished podcaster,  in demand, creative business coach.

[00:10:28] You have other things that are more impressive that we're not allowed to talk about yet. You have irons in the fire. All of them. Like if you met someone at a party and I was like, Oh, this is Andy. He, I listed all the things like most of you won't be like bullshit, like w you can't be that good at that many things.

[00:10:46] And I think what's interesting about that and our industry is audio engineers, this idea of being all singing, all dancing of like,

[00:10:52] Andy: [00:10:52] Jack of all

[00:10:53] Chris: [00:10:53] yeah, I'm the best at everything. You know, like we all, that's the fantasy that all of us have. And usually we talk about this on the show all the time. Usually what happens is someone starts a business and they start doing everything and they're obsessed with the idea that they can do everything.

[00:11:08] And what they don't know is they're actually not amazing at any of the things that they

[00:11:13] Andy: [00:11:13] Yeah.

[00:11:15] Chris: [00:11:15] they don't know that cause they've never deep dived for a couple years on one or two

[00:11:21] Andy: [00:11:21] yeah, 100%.

[00:11:22] Chris: [00:11:22] This is my story for sure. It's like I started making records with people and I was like, Oh, I'm a singer, songwriter, man.

[00:11:28] I'm going to like help and write their songs. I'm gonna help them. Vocal coach, I'm going to let record everything. I'm going to engineer everything. I'm going to like disassemble the vintage electric guitar amp and like modify it with like better capacity. Like I do it all. Um, and it was funny cause I wonder why I wanted that.

[00:11:46]

[00:11:46] And I think a lot of that came down to was ego. I wanted people to be like, Oh, he's so smart. He's so smart.

[00:11:51] Andy: [00:11:51] He's a , what do you call it? Yeah, I don't, I PO poly. Yeah.

[00:11:56] Chris: [00:11:56] And so the interesting thing there is, this is embarrassing to admit, but I think that that had a big influence on why I niched down into mastering. I think part of me was like, wait, so I could say, hi, I'm Chris Graham. I'm a mastering engineer. The word master  in it. There's like a Jedi

[00:12:13] Andy: [00:12:13] call you master Chris green.

[00:12:16] Chris: [00:12:16] Not nearly enough. Not nearly enough.

[00:12:19] Andy: [00:12:19] I have introduced you like that on several occasions. This is master

[00:12:23] Chris: [00:12:23] Yeah. Gradients, young paddle

[00:12:26] Andy: [00:12:26] yeah. Oh,

[00:12:28] Chris: [00:12:28] like I, I, I look at my business story of trying to do all singing, all dancing, and then when I niched down and was like, Braze, I'm only going to do mastering from now on. I'm not saying this happens to everybody, that niches, but I got pretty lucky things. Exploded for me once I decided to focus on one niche.

[00:12:47] And the thing that's been interesting to me, this is one of the things I want to talk about, Jim Collins, one of like are dudes, he writes all these great business books, most of them not super applicable to people building recording

[00:12:59] Andy: [00:12:59] Solopreneur people. Yeah. It's mostly big business.

[00:13:03] Chris: [00:13:03] exactly. And so I'm not saying go on and read a bunch of Jim Collins books, but I read a couple of them and I miss applied them to my life.

[00:13:10] Like I'm only just now recovering. From reading the wrong book and taking the advice. His advice, and a lot of times is for corporations that are like a hundred years old. And I'm like, uh, you know, one person business. So one of the things he talks about that fascinates me is this idea of if you want to

[00:13:30] Andy: [00:13:30] Hit an inflection

[00:13:31] Chris: [00:13:31] yeah.

[00:13:32] If you want to hit it Viacom, a great business and have it grow and thrive, there's a Venn diagram and that Venn diagram has got three circles on it. One of those is I think at the top here is something that you love doing. It's your passion. The other one, visualize the low left circle here in this like triangle of circles.

[00:13:51] This Venn diagram, or as Brian likes to say, concentric circles. And uh, that one's got the money symbol in it. So that circle represents, you can make money doing it. And in this circle on the far bottom right as hashtag one, you're the best at it. And if you can figure out. How to build a career right in the middle of all three of those circles, you'll be really, really successful, but

[00:14:12] Andy: [00:14:12] What stuff you love. There's an economic engine, so you can make money at it.

[00:14:16] Chris: [00:14:16] totally.

[00:14:17] So I kind of took

[00:14:18] Andy: [00:14:18] the hedgehog.

[00:14:18] Chris: [00:14:18] that's the hedgehog. That's a hedgehog principle that Jim Collins talks about. The problem I've run into with this that I've been learning over the past maybe two or three years, is that there's actually another circle in here and that this is growth, so you can figure out where you're passionate at and where are you going to make money.

[00:14:35] But at the same time, there's this other circle here with growth and Oh, you're fine and you're fine. If you pick an industry, it's got nothing to do with your own personal growth. You're gonna eventually run into problems. You might be really successful for the first 10 years or so. And this is kind of what I'm learning, is that like I niched down to mastering.

[00:14:56] And then I've started to add other side projects is anyone that's listened to this podcast knows like I've got a bunch of other projects and we're working on home studio lessons.com bounce butler.com business coaching. And it's kind of funny because on the one hand, you know, Brian and I are like, Oh, you got to niche down.

[00:15:11] You got to niche down. But then you look at, Brian is the same way. Brian has a bunch of things that he does, and that can be kind of confusing. And I think the important lesson there is that for everybody. Even after you niche, there's the opportunity to be like, okay, I've mastered this thing. To be honest, like audio mastering, very easy for me.

[00:15:31] Now I sit down and my brain immediately gets in the mode that it needs to. It never fails to like once that switch has been flipped. I'm making good choices and it's extremely rare for anything other than that to happen, but at the end of the day, I'm not necessarily like, wow, I'm a better man. As a result of that.

[00:15:49] Andy: [00:15:49] I mean, it's, to me, there's a bunch of things going on there that I think are worth thinking about. One is a flow state. It's about the perfect balance of challenge and mastery. If that balance is out of whack, you can't get in flow state. So if it's, it's too much mastery and you're like, you've mastered the mastering mastery and then then it's out of whack and all of a sudden you're not, your brain isn't challenged enough to be, to get in that pocket.

[00:16:17] You know what I'm saying? And so I think that that's probably what's going on. But the other thing, I think it's interesting, I think about this all the time, like when it comes to cliches or business advice or creative advice, whatever it is. I think that they're, you know, you adding this circle, to me, the growth component is about how, it's almost always like when they want to give advice.

[00:16:37] It's like a fact when everything is narrative, everything is, it's never a fact. A fact is always duel. I always do this. Don't do that. When the truth is, it's almost always less. Like that. More like a story or more like the seasons in a year is that you don't say to somebody, harvest, you got to harvest.

[00:16:55] Don't plant seeds. Harvest like, no, that's insane. They're seasons for planting seeds and seasons for harvesting and the, and so the same, like this growth element. That's a time element. It's like, you know, do this. But for me, you know, as you're talking through all this stuff, you're mentioning like, Oh, you're a pod, you've done well in podcasting and illustration and a bunch of other areas.

[00:17:15] Chris: [00:17:15] Oh yeah. I didn't even mention like children's books and, yeah. Yeah. Like I forgot

[00:17:20] Andy: [00:17:20] an illustration, it's, you know, advertising, editorial, kid's book, a bunch of stuff. The interesting thing is the hedgehog principle and the niching down principle happened in each one of those. You're looking at a 12 year career where I did, you know, for two years at a time, niched to one particular thing until I had found some level of mastery and some level of breakthrough.

[00:17:45] And then kind of let that plate spin and then move on to another thing. And so it looks like I'm kind of defying the hedgehog principle because if you look at it all at once, rather than over time and growth, it looks like Jack of all trades doing a bunch of different things when in actuality and practice.

[00:18:01] It was a series of events and a sear enact dots on a line. Uh, they were hedgehog principles. And the other thing about that is it's all been through the lens of growth because it's all been. A systematic action oriented way of finding what do I really do best. So every time I would take that hedgehog principle idea and it would create a hypothesis of this is where I need to niche down and I would spend two years making work actively testing that hypothesis, not just in my brain, but like by trying it out, trying to break in, trying to get good at it.

[00:18:35] And then at the end of that, I would pivot. Now back. Okay, well this is what I liked about that. Like when I did a project as a good example of one that didn't go anywhere, as I spent a really significant amount of time, probably about a year where my side project was this thing called a novel view, where I did new book covers for books from the public domain, and I'd made screen-printed posters out of it.

[00:18:58] And so I

[00:18:58] Chris: [00:18:58] why have we not talked about this? That's awesome.

[00:19:01] Andy: [00:19:01] because I don't read those books. So that's what I learned. I did that process and I thought, I don't, I should not get into book cover illustration. I don't read any fiction. That's a really, that's so inauthentic. It's such a, but I only knew that all these illustrators find for them to sit around and be like, I wish someone would hire me to be a book cover illustrator.

[00:19:19] And that's as far as it goes. Like, well, I hope that, you know, red shows up and says you're a wizard, or you know, Haggard doesn't was like you're a book cut. Like everybody's waiting for someone to, to be told what their niche is rather than the way that I've done it is a systematic experiment. And so instead of, for the longest time I'd watch my friends who were book cover illustrators and think, man, those jobs look so fun.

[00:19:42] I want to do that. And then I spent a year trying to do that. And after I was done, I was like. No, this is such a bad fit for me because I don't read fiction. So how could, why, what? I want to make that my niche, but I only figured that out by a year of making those posters.

[00:19:59] Chris: [00:19:59] Oh,

[00:19:59] Andy: [00:19:59] Does that make sense? Yeah. And so you string enough of those together.

[00:20:02] Some failed, some not lots of pivoting, and you get where I am today

[00:20:07] Chris: [00:20:07] I love that. So let me kind of bring up a couple of vocab words for you guys right now. So pivoting is when you're building a business and then you figure out you have a new strength or a new opportunity, or like the circle has probably changed. So you've got these four circles as you try to figure out how to make your business run.

[00:20:23] One of them's the thing you love. Another circle is making money. Another circle is your, you're the best at it. And then this other circle that we're talking about, we're bringing in, we're adding to the Jim Collins picture here is growth that eventually, and I love what you're saying, there is this growth circle.

[00:20:37] It's probably the one that changes the most, right? In different seasons of life. I remember like when I first started mastering every project, I'd be like, Oh my gosh, I learned something new on this project that I'll be able to use occasionally in the future. That doesn't really ever happen anymore. It's just, okay, this is exactly the way I think it should be.

[00:20:55] I'm done moving on. Had a great time. I'm patting myself on the back. I'm smiling at the end of the day, but there's no like, wow, I need to dig into this more in my soul.

[00:21:03] Andy: [00:21:03] Can I just give a real quick example of pivoting that I think is my, one of my favorite examples is Instagram started as a company, I believe it was like, I don't actually know what geocashing is, but I think it's something, do you know what that is?

[00:21:16] Chris: [00:21:16] it's like

[00:21:17] Andy: [00:21:17] Something about location

[00:21:18] Chris: [00:21:18] You like find a GPS source and you have to go to that GPS location and then,

[00:21:23] Andy: [00:21:23] I think originally it was something to do was something location-based. That's what Instagram was at the start. And what happened is they noticed all their users were using their app just for the filter function, but there was a photo function within this location based thing where people were getting on this app.

[00:21:38] They weren't doing any of the location crap that the whole app was about. They were just using the filters for the photos cause everybody liked the filters and then they pivoted to being a photo company. So that, does that make

[00:21:47] Chris: [00:21:47] I love that. One of my favorite stories on that

[00:21:50] Andy: [00:21:50] But you can't do that if you don't make an app.

[00:21:52] You can't do that in your navel gazing, setting back and not writing on stage. I know we're getting in way, I'm getting into all my jargon. I'm just, I apologize cause it's a million

[00:22:01] Chris: [00:22:01] you're fine, man. This

[00:22:02] Andy: [00:22:02] maybe we'll go there and maybe we won't, but

[00:22:04] Chris: [00:22:04] Well. Okay, so a couple stories on this. I'm going to tell a story about pivoting, but first I want to talk about, we've said hedgehog principle a bunch when I explained that, so the hedgehog principle and something Jim Collins came up with, I believe it's in built to last, or is it in good to

[00:22:18] Andy: [00:22:18] I don't know. I haven't read those books. I just heard him talk about it.

[00:22:20] Chris: [00:22:20] It's funny because those books are like sisters. They're very, very, very similar, at least in my memory. It's been a while since I've read them, but he talks about this idea of the hedgehog principle, and the basic idea is it's kind of a rip off of Wiley coyote and Roadrunner. And so the idea is like there's this Fox and he wants to eat this hedgehog, and the Fox keeps coming up with all these elaborate ways to get the hedgehog and right as the Fox pounces and tries to surprise the hedgehog in a new way.

[00:22:45] The hedge leg is like, Oh, Hey, it's the Fox. I'm going to roll into a spiky ball. And then the Fox is like, Oh, he got me again. I tried to buy them and he's.

[00:22:53] Andy: [00:22:53] the road runner runs fast.

[00:22:54] Chris: [00:22:54] Yeah. Road runner. Yeah, exactly. So it's hilarious cause he could've just called it the road runner principle until the hedgehog principal, but the, yeah, Wiley coyote does everything.

[00:23:03] He can various

[00:23:04] Andy: [00:23:04] resonates a lot better for me.

[00:23:05] Chris: [00:23:05] me too. Yeah. Yeah. There's like, Oh, he's going to use an anvil this time. Oh no. A rocket. Oh. Trying to think of T and T. Oh, a huge piano falling from a cliff. All these crazy creative ideas and the road runners, just like Mimi, again with the sounds back to it is a good sound. So he just does the same thing again and again.

[00:23:23] And so that's niching. So niching is, you do the same thing again and again. And a couple things happen when you do this.  is one, it makes it really easy to communicate. We've had this guy, Mark Eckert on the show in the past, and his, I don't have my computer on in front of me, but his website's amazing and it's basically like.

[00:23:42] You look at his headline and it says, it's something along the lines of like, the only thing I give a fuck about is making indie pop music, something along those lines. And he's just so all in on like, Oh, well if you're not this, his headline in his website tells you like, I'm not your

[00:23:59] Andy: [00:23:59] yeah, yup.

[00:23:59] Chris: [00:23:59] And like just, he's amazing at this.

[00:24:01] So one niching makes it really easy to communicate too. Niche-y makes it really easy for people to tell your story. Which is something I want to talk into, talk about a lot more with you. This idea of like, Oh dude, man, you should, uh, you should go to Mark Eckert. He's this amazing indie pop producer. Oh, cool.

[00:24:18] All right. There's a one sentence elevator

[00:24:20] Andy: [00:24:20] Like I've heard, you know, my book coach at told me that like the books that spread or the the ones that people can talk about. So can you talk, can you, and it really in two sentences say, is the book a container for a really transferable idea? If it is, then boom,

[00:24:37] Chris: [00:24:37] I love that. Yeah, I love that. And there's a lot of books, man. Some of our podcasts episodes break that. Like there are some episodes that I'm like, Oh man, these are our best, but we haven't packaged it in a way that makes it as like, Oh cool, cool. That's what this episode is about, which is tricky.

[00:24:53] So let's talk about pivoting again. So one of my favorite pivoting stories is somebody decides, Hey, we're going to build a remote payment system in like the 90s and at the time there was no way to accept money online. Like it was really, really complicated to navigate. Banks who are really slow moving, like organisms that don't change quickly, and two different companies, PayPal, and I forget what the name of the other one was, decide.

[00:25:20] We're going to try to solve this. Eventually these two companies come together. Elon Musk is at the helm and their product essentially was back in the day. There are these things called Palm pilots. They're kind of the predecessor of the iPhone except sucky and. It's like a little handheld device and it's got like a little stylist and somebody wrote a piece of software and it allowed people with Palm pilots to transfer money from one Palm pilot to the other revolutionary.

[00:25:47] And they got really fixated on this idea. And then what they found is there like looking through all their data and they're like, wow, all these people, are you using this payment system in order to make transactions on eBay? But neither of them owns a Palm pilot. Like they're using like the web and, or severe version of this, like the crappiest part of the product.

[00:26:10] And Ellen had to have this moment of like, Oh, this isn't what we are. This isn't what people think about. And

[00:26:17] Andy: [00:26:17] good. Yeah. Okay. Keep

[00:26:20] Chris: [00:26:20] Okay. So, yeah, absolutely. So one of my favorite sayings ever is that branding is what people say about you when you're not there. It's kind of niching as well. So. I've been struggling with this, and we'll talk about this a lot more because the success of the podcast has created some kind of weird branding moments for me because I see myself as a mastering engineer.

[00:26:43] I've seen myself as a mashing manger for years, but most people see me as like a talky, business-y, Thinkery guy. I'm a, I'm a podcaster, right?  so there's some, what I would call brand business, like sync issues there. Who I see my

[00:27:02] Andy: [00:27:02] product market fit

[00:27:03] Chris: [00:27:03] product market fit.

[00:27:04] Andy: [00:27:04] A product that you think you're selling isn't what the market thinks  trying to get from you, and there's a disconnect, which means you're going to get a lot of churn. You're gonna get a lot of all kinds of, you're going to miss all these opportunities. 100%

[00:27:18] Chris: [00:27:18] It's gonna feel weird and feel off. And so back to Elon Musk and PayPal, is that when they learned this, it was really difficult for their team to process. Hey, you were trying to build this. We're going to kill it. We're going to end this thing, and we're going to transition to being the number one place four online payment on eBay.

[00:27:42] So this is really difficult for the engineers that built the product initially because they are really tied to it is their baby. Yeah,

[00:27:48] Andy: [00:27:48] let me just say something real quick because this perfectly goes back to this non dual advice thing, because here's the thing. What you're going to usually get is, uh Oh, like grit to like stick to your guns. Do like focus on the one thing. Never let it go until it's 100 times I hurt

[00:28:06] Chris: [00:28:06] I love your passion here.

[00:28:08] Andy: [00:28:08] You know, like there's grit and then there's pivoting, right? So. Which one's right? Grit is all about like, you know, you're familiar with us. Perseverance. Just stay on it and then there's pivot. Like, you know, hold things loosely. Always be changing up, move on to the next thing. Fast, quick, you know, pivot fast.

[00:28:23] And to me again, that is a narrative. It's missing the seasonal narrative based version of this. And this is where the processes that I come up with bake into the system. There is a season where you have your blinders on and you are all in disciplined, not just dipping your toes in a pool. You set your target and you say, that's the pool.

[00:28:45] I'm going to jump in and you can't embark into that pool. Now, once you're in there, once you've really, like for instance, when I started my podcast, I decided before I started. I'm so sure that this is something I need to deeply explore, that I need to Cannonball into and not dip my toes into. I'm doing a hundred episodes no matter what.

[00:29:05] No matter what, I'm doing a hundred I don't care. I don't care if it's five people that listen to it. I don't care. I'm going to do it for a hundred episodes and I'm so glad I did because the first 50 episodes, which is a year of making podcasts, by the way, my numbers were really low. What I did have though it was, I had the quantitative data wasn't great.

[00:29:25] Qualitative data was unlike anything I'd ever seen, so it was, I'd never, you know, never had I had anybody write me emails that said. I just bawled my eyes out about this. You changed my life, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, nothing I'd ever made had the depth of connection in residence, which I always am like attuned to that, but it's this idea of like, there was a season of, I'm going to do this, I'm going to be blinders for a hundred episodes, and then after that, then I'm going to explore pivoting.

[00:29:52] So there's this weird push and pull, because what you're saying, these engineers know, engineers know you've got to be disciplined. You've got to have laser focus on your goal. Right. But that same thing, if they would've just taken that advice wholesale binary, dual thinking wise and thinking, always persevere, they would have completely missed this huge

[00:30:13] Chris: [00:30:13] Enormous opportunity. And let's talk about this transitioning idea.

[00:30:17] Andy: [00:30:17] Love it.

[00:30:18] Chris: [00:30:18] This idea of like finding a new niche is you take that

[00:30:21] Andy: [00:30:21] transmission. Yeah.

[00:30:24] Chris: [00:30:24] Oh my gosh. A transmission. And, and, uh, so you take Ellen's story. And so I read a lot about this and he's got a biography that's got kind of popular. , you know, he makes this transition.

[00:30:35] Andy: [00:30:35] is it called musky? That'd be a good time.

[00:30:39] Chris: [00:30:39] Oh, musky.

[00:30:40] Andy: [00:30:40] Muskrat. Um, anyway, so I'm sorry.

[00:30:44] Chris: [00:30:44] no, you're fine. So like he captains the ship and it's like, okay guys, I know that sucks. But like, our circles have changed. They pivot, they start focusing on eBay, and then eventually eBay is like, Hmm. We would like to buy you for a lot of money. So Ellen gets a huge payday.

[00:31:03] He buys like a McLaren F one I think is what it's called, million dollar car. And there's this famous video of like him getting a delivery and it's amazing to watch . He ends up starting a bunch of other companies. I think he's like number one in solar companies right now with solar city or, or close to the number one.

[00:31:22] He's number one. And obviously Tesla, he's number one in private rocketry.

[00:31:27] Andy: [00:31:27] Hmm. Crazy. Yeah.

[00:31:29] Chris: [00:31:29] Like he's, uh,

[00:31:30] Andy: [00:31:30] he's number one in cheese.

[00:31:31] Chris: [00:31:31] he's number one in cheese.  he probably is also number one in lithium batteries right now, because guess what? Teslas run on lithium batteries. And in order to make that happen. At least if he's not number one in lithium batteries, he will be someday, eventually they're going to vertically integrate, which means they're going to buy all the companies that are their suppliers and then they own all the means of production.

[00:31:53] This is like, you know, business history when a one, so it's fascinating to me that like their response two, the circles have changed. Our number one is somewhere else, and at first we're not sure how we feel about that. And the money circle is totally different too. I'm sure. They saw this and the engineers were like, Oh, that's stupid.

[00:32:12] It bugs me that someone's using my baby in the wrong way. But then Ilan, I'm sure is looking at it and is like, yeah, but eBay might want to buy us for like millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars. So I think what's so interesting about that is we see this in everyone's business story, is it these circles grow and they shrink and they change, and the marketplace changes.

[00:32:33] I love what you're saying about grit. If the engineers and Elan and just been like, no, this is for Palm pilot payments and we will not, we will persevere. We will educate like that would have been a train wreck for him and for society.  even once just getting started. Clearly there are all these amazing opportunities of like, well, what happens if all these things play out successfully?

[00:32:57] Because Ellen made these trans niches. Over time, we might be a two planet species if he's successful, and global pollution might go down.

[00:33:09] Andy: [00:33:09] the transmission. I don't know if I'm saying that right. I don't know if there is a way to say that. Right, but I think that it's an integrated model of the hedgehog model, integrate integrated with a timeline. So this, you know what I'm saying? Because the thing is what you're in number one right now.

[00:33:25] First of all, that's what you know of yourself. That's a self knowledge thing. This is your best bet based on what I know about now. This is my spot. But as you make stuff, you actually learn more intimate knowledge of what you're really good at and you're like, actually, I need to pivot away from that cause I'm actually better at that.

[00:33:40] The other thing that happens is the demand in the market changes. So both his timeline, the more you do, the more you understand what you're good at in new opportunities mixed with how the demand changes over time and what, you know what I'm saying? So there's just, yeah, it's integrated with the timeline kind of.

[00:33:56] I think there's probably, yeah, some kind of spinning wheel version of it.

[00:33:59] Chris: [00:33:59] Totally. This is my story right now is that I was a mastering engineer who was friends. Yeah. This guy Brian, who had a blog, Brian invited me to go host a podcast with him. I just wanted to hang out with Brian. And the podcast was a great excuse to do that, and I could tell my wife, yeah, we'll probably get maybe two or three customers Sunday a month from this podcast.

[00:34:21] If it goes extremely well, knowing like I've done podcasts before, this probably isn't going to go

[00:34:26] Andy: [00:34:26] yeah, right? Yeah.

[00:34:27] Chris: [00:34:27] and then it explodes. I haven't told you this yet. The podcast December was 25% larger than any month we had previously had, and then January was 25% larger than December. So you know, Brian and I went out to Nam.

[00:34:43] It's like the Mecca of audio and music people, 150,000 people there and everyone's walking around and it was this really weird experience that like I met a ton of people, a bunch of people walked up, I saw the purple shirt and we're like, Oh dude, love the podcast. And I'm like, I'm a mastering engineer.

[00:35:00] Okay. I'm more than just a podcaster and, and it's been like a weird transition because. You know, as far as like the mastering thing, my niche initially when I got into mastering was I noticed that most mastering engineers aren't very nice and that I was good at mastering. I said, wow, I'm just like the nicest mastering engineer on earth.

[00:35:20] I'll probably do it right. Yeah. That worked. The great niche, and then the podcast started take off and it was sorta like me processing, okay, well this thing's going a lot better than the mastering thing, but the mastering thing still. Works great. It's still killing it. But I'm hearing from the marketplace, it's as if like humanity as a whole is speaking something of like, well, we want more of like, how do we build successful careers?

[00:35:46] We don't really want a mastering course from you. We want more podcast episodes and more stuff like that. Business coaching. And so one of the things that was crazy of this last year was business coaching. I started doing the business coaching thing in large part because of you. We moved into this space and I was next door, and you were in the room that we're currently in now, and I would be working on something, you know, one of the businesses?

[00:36:10] Yeah. You'd be shouting on a coaching call. And so I would like

[00:36:13] Andy: [00:36:13] lovingly shouting. Yeah,

[00:36:14] Chris: [00:36:14] I would hear you doing this and be thinking, wow, that sounds really, really fun. I want to do that. And then lo and behold, the particular individual that was very influential in our industry said, I want you to my business coach.

[00:36:27] And I was like, what the hell are you talking about?  it was this like sync issue between what people were saying about me when I wasn't there and who I saw myself in the marketplace as. And so when I started doing the business coaching thing, just like really just a couple times a week, I noticed something interesting about it.

[00:36:46] It was that, as far as I know. I might be the only guy that's like the one on one business coach who specializes in businesses that provides services in the music industry. Exactly. That's the clearest I've ever actually explained

[00:37:00] Andy: [00:37:00] Good job.

[00:37:00] Chris: [00:37:00] thank you.

[00:37:01] Andy: [00:37:01] Good thing it's recorded.

[00:37:02] Chris: [00:37:02] Good thing. Yeah, and so I started to see that and I was like, Oh, that's interesting.

[00:37:06] And the demand for it was crazy. I couldn't keep up with it, but the thing that I found that was most interesting was the growth component. Was I get done with the coaching session and be like, Oh man, that was great. I've got an idea for a podcast episode and I've got clarity on how to ask better questions.

[00:37:22] We just did an episode on the Socratic method. That's my primary coaching method is asked so many questions before you start saying anything, and what I've found through that is I've become a significantly better husband and a significantly better dad, and I think a better friend. Too. Cause I'm not like actually what you should do is, which would have been my default mode of operation in the not so distant past.

[00:37:46] And so it's been kind of interesting for me to process this transitioning process of like I want to keep mastering. I have every intention of continuing to do that for the foreseeable future. But I'm also, the growth circle is not there for me. You know, it's, I'm good at it. I can make a lot of money.

[00:38:04] still be the nicest mastering engineer on the planet. Maybe. I feel like mastering engineers have gotten nicer over the past like 15 years, so my lead is has shrunk significantly. But anyways, man, I think what I'm trying to say here  this is a really real process that I think we all experience. I love what you said about there's a timeline.

[00:38:25] As an engineer, my temptation is to be like last Venn diagram represents truth under all circumstances. Yeah, that's what I want. Yeah.

[00:38:34] Andy: [00:38:34] truth. I don't think you set me up to tell the story. And actually I told, I told this story last week on the podcast on my podcast, pretty pep talk, and I'm just kidding. But I

[00:38:43] Chris: [00:38:43] I'm going to pitch the hell out of this and the intro and outro, so, yeah.

[00:38:46] Andy: [00:38:46] But I did in the last, cause you told me I should tell the story. Yeah. Everything you just said set this up.

[00:38:50] So back in the day. This is maybe like six or seven years ago, I had a huge project. So like an illustration, one of the biggest projects you can get is packaging because it's part of the product. So the usage of the money that you get paid for, like the person that illustrated that little farm scene on the hidden Valley ranch, bang is raked in the cash.

[00:39:13] Huge pay out for that because it's part of the product

[00:39:17] Chris: [00:39:17] Yeah, it's the product and then it's the dressing of the

[00:39:20] Andy: [00:39:20] Oh no,

[00:39:22]

[00:39:22] I'm under the table now. That's the dad. The dad jokes are coming and they don't stop coming.

[00:39:29] Chris: [00:39:29] I feel like I'm at my bike. This season of life is kind of, when it comes to ponds, like it's my salad

[00:39:34] Andy: [00:39:34] Oh, dad.

[00:39:35] Chris: [00:39:35] like,

[00:39:38] Andy: [00:39:38] I knew it was happening. I knew I could, I was feeling it. Am I good to

[00:39:43] Chris: [00:39:43] you're good. You're good. Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

[00:39:45] Andy: [00:39:45] All right, so anyway, I had a, I got a job for one of the biggest, if not biggest vodka brands. I can't, again, India can't say what it is. You've heard of them. And they wanted me to do an illustration for one of their bottles for one of their new products and everything that I came up with.

[00:40:03] We got really far in the process. Everything I came up with, the lawyer rejected because they're like, this looks like it's made for kids and we can't do that. It will get sued if we are an alcohol brand that look, that looks like they're selling stuff to kids. And so then later on, that became a trend where I would be on a project and I'd get an email in the middle of the project that would say, you know, can you.

[00:40:24] Make this feel a little bit more grown up. It feels a little bit like it's for kids and I, as soon as that would happen, it'd be a huge red flag. I was like, this project's gone down in flames because, huh? I can't. I can't. Like I can make playful stuff for grownups, but I can't not make playful stuff. It's always playful, but the thing that happened to me, what I realized from reading Jim Henson's bio his whole career is him trying to convince people he's more than a child's performer.

[00:40:50] And to me, there's just this weird thing happening of, you know, the, what people are saying behind your back, but people are saying when you're not there in terms of your brand, there's this weird ego thing. I don't know if it was ego for him. I'm just, I'm putting my me in those shoes. For me, the thing that said, I don't, I'm more than a kid's illustrator.

[00:41:08] Again, it's this thing of like, you know, I feel like when it's you in your niche, you feel like I contain multitudes, but if Jenny's ice cream says we make the best ice cream in the world,

[00:41:19] Chris: [00:41:19] which they do.

[00:41:19] Andy: [00:41:19] which they do, but there's a thing of when other person's niches down, you're like, Provet  really? You think you're the human on the planet that makes the best ice cream, but when you do it for yourself, you're like, I'm more than making ice cream.

[00:41:33] I'm more than that. Like. How'd the humility and the confidence to be like, I'm going to focus on this thing. And so for me personally, I've listened to that over time where I'm like, you know what? I do think my illustration is primarily for kids. And actually when I look at my lesson from Henson as he was one of the best.

[00:41:52] Child's entertainment creators of all time, and there's nothing better than that. There's nothing more glorious and honorable to be someone who gets to speak into children's lives on a mass scale. Why do you need to be more than

[00:42:08] Chris: [00:42:08] yeah,

[00:42:09] Andy: [00:42:09] You're not more than that. And that's like, anyway, that's an example of people kept telling me, people kept telling me.

[00:42:17] You should make stuff for kids. And I kept saying, okay,