Stop Worrying About The Damn Tools And Focus On THIS Instead…

Brian: This is the six figure home studio podcast, episode 149.

[00:00:19] Welcome back to another episode of the six figure home studio podcast. I am your host Brian Hood, and I'm here with my bald beautiful, amazing train wreck of a cohost Christopher J. Graham.

[00:00:30] Chris: needed

[00:00:31] Brian: How are you doing today, Chris?

[00:00:32] Chris: better. Now I only do this podcast, so someone will tell me I'm beautiful. That's um, that needy

[00:00:39] Brian: Yeah. You only show up a weekly because I give you one compliment at the very beginning and then

[00:00:43] Chris: true. Yeah. And I'm like, ah, dude, that one thing where I'd get a compliment, I'm there. Uh, ah, I'm just ready for change.

[00:00:55] Brian: Yeah. So let me stop you there because change is coming. I've been foreshadowing, this massive change we're having at the end of every episode or for like the past three podcast episodes. But in case anyone hasn't heard the last few episodes or is just skips the ending, because they're never that interesting because it's just me talking about whatever I'm going to do a quick foreshadowing now next week's episode of the podcast.

[00:01:18] Chris: It's about the election, the American election. We're changing to a political podcast.

[00:01:24] Brian: next week's episode of the podcast is the last episode of the six figure home studio podcast. That's all I'm going to say. And before people freak out and like unsubscribing the podcast, like out of anger, there will be a podcast. It will just no longer be the six figure home studio podcast. We will talk about that all next week.

[00:01:42] The final episode of this podcast, we'll be talking about what is coming next. Exactly. Yes. So that's the massive change that's coming. The reason Chris wants change to come is because our pre show today was the biggest train wreck of a technical nightmare. We've probably ever had. Pre-show like your laptop is dying and that's caused all sorts of issues, pre show.

[00:02:03] And so like our head is not in the game today, a hundred percent transparency ear. We're going to be at about 50% at best on our game today.

[00:02:11] Chris: But the topic I'm at 150%. So this might be one of our better episodes. I'm so jazzed about this. Let me, let me, so I'm ready for change. I feel like what we're going to tell you guys about next week has to happen. It's important. And for us to help you guys grow more, we have to grow as a podcast, but I also mean change in like COVID and it's like 84 degrees every day in Ohio right now.

[00:02:35] And it's humid and there's just so much shit happening. And I just, I don't like it. I'm growing a lot right now. And I would like to not grow for a while and just hang out.

[00:02:48] Brian: 2020 is a pretty big train wreck just as it is. For a lot of people and just for the world in general, I'm pretty sure like a huge chunk of our listeners right now are just shaking their head. Like, yes, I'm ready for some massive change in my life and in the world. So we're going to help facilitate that change starting next week on the podcast where we announce what's happening next.

[00:03:09] And we talk about the end of the six figure home studio podcast, as we know it, I'm excited for that. So, Chris, let's actually talk about the topic for this week's episode. And I can intro it. You have kind of like this glaze dead behind the eyes. Look right now behind on your face right now. So I think I might enter this.

[00:03:24] Chris: Go for it.

[00:03:24] Brian: So on today's episode, we wanted to bring up sort of an angle at looking at things that most people don't think about. Especially in the audio industry we have on this podcast, something called a gear slot alert. We've had it for the last hundred and 48 episodes, and we will likely continue to have it for the rest of our lives, because we don't like talking about gear on this podcast.

[00:03:45] And if you talk about gear, you get the gear slit alert. It sounds like this.

[00:03:52] Chris, if you ever added up the score between Chris's gear, sled alerts and the Mount that I've gotten in my life, Chris has probably 25 to 30 X. What I've gotten in my lifetime, if not more. I don't get them very often. And the reason we did this and we made this a decision from the very beginning of this podcast is because tools are not your business, the gear while fun.

[00:04:12] And while it's great to geek out about it, and it's fun to play around with it. That is not the business in the audio world, in the audio world. It's all about solving the problem that someone has, and we solve that through creativity. Now I read an article the other day and we'll link to it in the show notes.

[00:04:28] It's called tool thinking versus problem thinking the two ways to think about your business, share this with my file pass co-founder Trevor. And we kind of talked back and forth about this, and it really got my brain thinking about this, not only in file pass in our world, but also in the audio world in general, that our listeners to this podcast, a lot of us think through our businesses from a tool perspective tool thinking.

[00:04:49] And it goes something like this. Oh man, I really need this pre-amp because that would make my vocal sounds so much better. Oh, I really need this compressor because it has this, give me some nerdy term with compressors. Did you look for Chris? Cause you're the gear slot here. You're the resonant gear slope.

[00:05:03] Chris: Wet dry knob. That's the only thing I care about. Does it have a wet, dry knob? If it doesn't, I'm not interested.

[00:05:08] Brian: I really need this compressor because it has this wet, dry knob and it's like, I've really just always thought about this. So in the audio world, a lot of the old school recording studios that are holding on for dear life with elite mindset that, Hey, hardware is better than software. Those are people that are stuck in tool thinking they're focused on the tools involved with solving the problem.

[00:05:30] Whereas this article challenges you to think from a problem perspective, how can we solve this problem best? And I think our podcast is a really good job of. Kind of keeping people with this sort of mindset, because if you're focused on problem solving, instead of tool thinking, you can think of a million different ways to solve something other than a $5,000 compressor or a $3,000 microphone or buying a million dollar facility in Berry Hill, Nashville, Tennessee, where I see multiple units for sale right now at the million dollar range, because people are going out of business right now, super sad, but pool thinking traps you in this mindset of this is the only way we can solve this problem.

[00:06:07] Whereas problem thinking. Really puts it to the perspective of there are multiple ways to solve this problem. And I'm not stuck with any one of those ways. Now that's kind of the shitty preamble to this episode, but this sort of line of thinking opens us up to a lot of different things that we need to talk about as the podcast.

[00:06:23] And honestly, it kind of leads us a little bit to where the future of this podcast is because problem thinking in my opinion is the way to do business. There is business. If you're not genuinely solving a problem.

[00:06:35] Chris: Yeah, well, it's a type of idolatry, you know, and our industry is super guilty of it. All creative industries generally struggle with this, but it's, you know, you got into it because you had a hero, you got into your business because you had hero and you focus on emulating them too much. You know, that was my problem.

[00:06:52] I wanted to be. Ed cash is producer from Nashville in Franklin.

[00:06:56] Brian: I met him at a real estate meetup. By the way, I told you about that. Didn't I.

[00:06:59] Chris: I don't know if you did, did you.

[00:07:00] Brian: Yeah. I just met him at a, he was at a real estate meetup that Seth Mosley hosts here in Nashville. It was like, it was before COVID hit, but like, hi, I'm ed cash. I was like, Oh, hi. I know you.

[00:07:11] Chris: But yeah, like I had this, a key, real worship syndrome where I was like, okay, well Ed's figured it out. So I'm just going to do my best ed impersonation. And it was a train wreck. It didn't go well because my gifts are different than Ed's. I lacked some that he has. And I have different ones that he might not have.

[00:07:27] And I think that this idea of tool versus problem is a very complex one. It's one that gets at the nature of what are we as animals? What are we as humans? You know, you could also look at this from a problem versus technique. You know, angle of looking at like, while you're always do it in this way, first this step and this, this step, and why don't they just do an episode and tell me the five easy steps to have a six figure home studio.

[00:07:53] They don't exist.

[00:07:54] Brian: Yeah, we have 148 other episodes where we're trying to talk about how to have a six figure home studio.

[00:07:59] Chris: Yeah. And if I were going to sum it up, I'd be like, okay, one, run your business, like a grownup to do what you say you'll do by when you say I'll do it three don't believe that if you build it, they will come for grow and five do something nobody else is doing. That would probably sum our entire podcast up.

[00:08:16] Brian: True. But I want to actually use the example they talked about in this article for the filmmaker Kodak. Because I feel like this sort of example, when you remove it from the audio industry, it's actually a lot easier to like, nod your head and say, yes, this makes sense.

[00:08:27] Chris: Oh,

[00:08:28] Brian: When you're in it, it's really hard to see the forest because of the trees.

[00:08:32] Right? Like that's the whole saying you can't see the forest for the trees. You're too in the thick of it. So this example, he's talking about Kodak, the film maker, or I don't know what they do now. They're like encrypto and like some other random stuff. And I don't, who knows, I think there may be making, I don't know, anyways, but back in the day, Kodak was the number one filmmaker in the world.

[00:08:49] They made film for cameras. And so if you ask Kodak what they did, what do you do? They said we make film and that is a tool focused approach to business. Because no one gives a damn about film. No one on earth gave a damn about film, but they bought a ton of it back in the sixties and seventies and eighties.

[00:09:08] So why did Kodak sell hundreds of millions? If not billions of dollars worth of film in the mid fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, if no one gives a shit about film. Why is that? It's because Chris, you want to answer this?

[00:09:23] Chris: They wanted to remember. They wanted to remember Christmas morning. They wanted to remember their wedding. They wanted to remember when their child was born. That was the problem. The problem was helped me remember, give me nostalgia.

[00:09:34] Brian: If Kodak would have been focused on solving the problem, instead of focusing on creating the tool, they would have been on the forefront of digital cameras. And funny thing is someone at Kodak is actually the one that created the digital camera and Kodak brushed them aside.

[00:09:52] Chris: Yeah. They're like, eh, I don't know. It's not film. That's not really who we are. As a people. These guys had a technician mindset. They really deeply messed up here. And the best illustration, I think I've probably even talked about this on the podcast before, but in the year that Instagram was sold to Facebook for let's get this straight.

[00:10:12] I think it was 17 employees, $1 billion.

[00:10:15] Brian: Yeah, one or $2 billion. I think it was 1 billion. Cause Minecraft was 2 billion. I remember that number.

[00:10:20] Chris: Kodak went bankrupt. That same year Instagram was in the memories business. Kodak thought they were in the film business and didn't pivot when they heard the call and they had every opportunity.

[00:10:32] Brian: So on that same vein, if you think about how much power Kodak had in the 50, 60 seventies and eighties, when they were the top dog, they had tons of money and they could have acquired any company they wanted. If they would have focused on problem thinking if they would have focused on solving the problem, they could have acquired.

[00:10:48] Any of these companies that were up and coming for pennies on the dollar, they could have acquired Instagram at a million dollars before they're worth, you know, billions of dollars that they are today. Now who's to say that they would have just run into the ground like Yahoo does every business they buy.

[00:11:02] But that's just saying that if you focus on the problem, you have the ability to acquire these companies that are eventually going to put you out of business, which is why Facebook bought Instagram, by the way.

[00:11:10] Chris: Amazing. One of my favorite stories on this topic of getting focused on the tool rather than the problem is, I don't know if you guys know this, but if you remember blockbuster video blockbuster video was like amazing back in the day.

[00:11:24] Brian: Amazing as in that was your only real option, they would tack on all sorts of late fees and you hated them, but they were the only option. So that's who you went with. Yeah,

[00:11:33] Chris: But it was an exciting day to get, to go to blockbuster.

[00:11:36] Brian: it was fun to go in there and like browse movies and video games. The, I remember that stuff.

[00:11:40] Chris: Yeah, it was really, really fun. And so you'd go in. It was branded really, really well. And then this upstart started a business called Netflix. And if I'm correct, at one point blockbuster had an offer on the table to buy Netflix for a million dollars

[00:11:55] Brian: Yeah, it was so absurdly small number.

[00:11:57] Chris: absurdly small number like Netflix. Since this episode has started as probably made a million dollars.

[00:12:03] Brian: That's so true.

[00:12:06] Chris: And blockbuster is dead. Like there's like three blockbuster stores left.

[00:12:11] Brian: No, there is one left and you can stay on it on Airbnb. That's what they've been reduced to.

[00:12:19] Chris: That's amazing. But again, if they didn't grasp that, like, well, what's the business here? What was the business that blockbuster was in? It was Netflix and chill was the business. That was the business and they blew it.

[00:12:34] Brian: and chill doesn't quite have the same flow. It just sounds awful.

[00:12:39] Chris: It does. They thought they were in the VHS and DVD and Blue-Ray rental business. They weren't, that's not the business that they were in an RV, honestly. Where are we trying to bring this back to? You're not in the microphone, preamp business dude. You're not in the analog console business lady. You're not in the, I have the most expensive mastering gear in the world business person.

[00:13:03] That's not what you're in. And you have to figure out what is the actual problem? What do your customers actually want? And I think where this gets interesting is some people, they only have customers who are looking for tool people. You've built your business on tool customers. That's how you begin to God come out of me.

[00:13:23] Come on mummy,

[00:13:24] Brian: Wow colonoscopy.

[00:13:26] Chris: colonoscopy, but that's also, you got to keep in mind is that these people change. These people shift and it happens slowly. It's like a frog in a pot with a water slowly boiling. And I'm obsessed with this idea because at the heart of who, I think everyone listening to this podcast, and I think every human on earth at the heart of who we are, we're changers.

[00:13:48] We're adaptable. You look at the human person, you look at a human, Oh, we've got some of them that like live on these like houses that are like the water in like the Fiji, the area. And they can like hold their breath for like 15 minutes and they go swimming. And we got people that are in Alaska that are Eskimos that live in subfreezing temperatures all the time.

[00:14:09] And we've got people that are.

[00:14:11] Brian: In the desert, living in extreme heat.

[00:14:14] Chris: In the desert. Yeah. And you look at humans and you're just like, wow, what the heck you look at? Like, what did life look like 200 years ago? And what does life look like today? Insanely different. We are not created for this or to use the word adapted. If you're more comfortable with that.

[00:14:56] I am now less likely to be eaten by a tiger. However, that PTSD, that shortcut that my amygdala, that my subconscious mind takes to put me in fight or flight mode isn't useful for me right now. It gets triggered by really stupid stuff. If you, this is so vulnerable. Oh, freaking punch you in the face of any, have you ever used this against me?

[00:15:17] But like, if you come up behind me on my right and say, boo, I'll be like, Oh, ha hilarious. Come up behind me on my left. I'm going to need like 20 minutes by myself. There's some weird thing. And same thing with my left inner knee. If you touch my right inner knee, I'd be like, that was weird. Just my left in her knee.

[00:15:33] I'm going to be very angry

[00:15:35] Brian: You've heard it here. If you're going to make a move on Chris Graham, you got to go with that right in her knee.

[00:15:38] Chris: right? In her knee. If you touch the left knee,

[00:15:40] Brian: It's over.

[00:15:41] Chris: I'm probably going to become hostile.

[00:15:42] Brian: Let's bring this back to the problem thinking versus the tool thinking, how does this tie back into that conversation?

[00:15:47] Chris: This ties back into it, because I think we have to recognize that we as humans suck at status quo, we suck at being like yo we're a film company. Originally did the same thing again and again. And we're going to give her an execute where humans get magical, where our super powers begin to arrive is where there is change, where there is adaptation.

[00:16:07] Brian: So I'll kind of tie this in a little bit more with what you just said is if you're a tool focused entrepreneur, you are Kodak who refuse to change even as the industry is rapidly changing around them. Now they don't even know what they are cause w I don't have a clue what Kodak does at this point. If you are a problem focused entrepreneur, then you're the one who is constantly adapting to change around them.

[00:16:28] And not just adapting, you were thriving and benefiting and profiting off of that change. And also creating value for those people. You talking about one of your coaching students, where. He was able to solve a problem in a completely different industry than the audio industry and make 10 times as much as he could off of his audio clients at the present time in the COVID era.

[00:16:49] And he did it by solving a problem. And now we're not going to talk about the problem or the industry right now, just because the stuff that Chris talks about with his coaching clients is private stuff. And we have not gotten his permission to talk about this, but the point remains, if you are focused on solving the needs of people, You will be much more adaptable to change as things like COVID happen.

[00:17:10] So many studios there were already holding on by a thread with tool. They were stuck in these large commercial studios with lots of gear and lots of bells and whistles and toys and tools. They got caught in. COVID already stretched thin and it put them out of business completely. And you can look at that by the studios or fire selling on Craigslist right now, the studios that are selling their facilities here in Nashville.

[00:17:33] Right now, it is sad to see, but those are the people that were stuck in their ways and refuse to adapt to change. And it stems from this conversation we're having now, which is toll thinking versus problem thinking.

[00:17:43] Chris: I'm reminded of there's like a meme online.

[00:17:46] Brian: Perk up your ears right now. Cause anytime we talk about memes, you know, it's going to be some dank business advice. Go ahead, Chris.

[00:17:53] Chris: So right now, just sort of like really, really quick. I'm not going to dive deep into this, but with the whole PTSD thing, I'm looking at getting a service dog. I've wanted a dog for a while. I've been thinking about it and because I had PTSD, I could take the dog anywhere. So I've been like in dog world and one of the classic tricks that people plan a dog, as weird as that sounds.

[00:18:13] Is they'll take a blanket and the lifted up between them and the dog, then they'll drop the blanket and like run out the door really, really fast. So from the dog's perspective, you lifted up the blanket and then you drop the blanket and disappear. And the dog just like, wait a minute. Every other time that happens.

[00:18:30] I see him. So they're like lift up the blanket, drop it. You're still there. Lifted the blanket, drop it. You're still there. Lifted the blanket, drop it. You're still lifted up the blanket, drop it and run. And then the dogs like Paul, and I think that that sort of expectation really dives at the heart of this problem versus tool mentality.

[00:18:47] People get really frustrated when they're like this used to work and they get frustrated that things change.

[00:18:54] Brian: You can bet Kodak was frustrated as their stock just plummeted.

[00:18:57] Chris: Right. And it's so sad because it's like hindsight is 2020. If you took me back in time. Or anybody, anyone listening to this episode back in time and you got them to sit down for five minutes with the Kodak CEO and by some miracle, he believed you like it. Wouldn't take that much time to explain you got it wrong.

[00:19:15] You're thinking tools. That's not the issue. You are selling memories. So whatever's the best way to sell memories. Go ahead and do that. Ooh, digital camera. You're going to want to develop that. Okay. Like you should look at Moore's law. Moore's law is this idea that microprocessors. Double in their speed in half.

[00:19:32] And their price is that every seven years, every year, it's fast. You look at that and extrapolate that of like the iPhone was pretty predictable based on this Moore's law idea 50 years ago. And there were people that predicted it. So I guess back to the point here is that we have to pride ourselves on not our ability to use a tool or even worse that we possess a tool.

[00:19:55] Brian: Oh, that's yeah, that's actually probably the worst of this. You need to be able to use the tool, you just possess it. So that's even worse than just being a tool thinker.

[00:20:04] Chris: Yeah. So the better thing here is to identify yourself as someone who is adaptable. And this is something that I'm preaching to myself right now here, because I'm going through a lot of change as I get better as I get healthier as I'm in therapy for this PTSD bullshit, but it's awesome changes an amazing thing.

[00:20:20] And I think to just kind of speak to our industry real quick, and I'm not going to call any names, but like if your Facebook profile. Is a picture of a microphone or is a picture of your console or as a picture of monitors, especially if you are not in the picture, it's just a picture of your tools. You have a problem.

[00:20:38] And that problem is that you're not seeing the problem. You're looking at the tool and our industry's notorious for this. There's just, you look at the people. I mean, Phineas, Billie Eilish, his brother, one producer of the year, right? The Grammy last year and his tools were trash. They were just were not good.

[00:20:55] Brian: Chris, the guy who mixed it had a lot of expensive tools.

[00:20:59] Chris: That voice was great. Can we use that more often? My point here is the art, the ability to connect with people. When I put ear pods in and I'm listening to music, I feel like I'm with other people. It's nice. That's what's being sold here. I think that the single problem, that music solves that portable recording devices with headphones and your car stereo and all that stuff.

[00:21:20] What it solves is, is it's something to do with the human experience. And I think it's got a lot to do with loneliness. When you put an air pods and you listen to your favorite band, you feel like you're part of a tribe.

[00:21:29] Brian: I don't, I gotta push back cause like, Every song has different emotions tied to it. So you are essentially serving up an emotion to people. Now, maybe that emotion is helping someone cope with their loneliness. Maybe that emotion is helping them feel excited and energized when they're with their friends are on a road trip.

[00:21:46] Maybe that emotion is making someone feel super sad when they just got broken up with and they just want to cry. So we're helping serve up emotional it on a platter. That's really the problem we're solving in the audio world. Not just helping someone who's lonely.

[00:22:00] Chris: So you're arguing. The problem we solve is catharsis. It's ah, I feel this way. I want to know other people feel this way. So I listen to this thing.

[00:22:07] Brian: It's weird because I don't really listen to music all the time like that. Sometimes I just have music passively on while I'm working. Cause it helps zone me out. So maybe in that one, I'm kind of like I'm getting relaxation or concentration is the aid that I have with music with my Workday. So I could not possibly sum up as far as problem thinking the core of what we do.

[00:22:26] But I think if you're focused on solving a problem that people have just to bring us back to simplest terms and not get it way too far into this world of like emotions and loneliness and. This is getting way too deep for Brian Hood here. The problem I think we solve, I mean, there's multiple ones we can solve.

[00:22:41] It could be helping someone capture a song they've written so they can show it to their kids in the future. The kind of the white collar, like we've talked about those white collar clients. They have a day job that they maybe love. Maybe they don't, but they make a lot of money. Maybe they want to.

[00:22:53] Captured the songs they've written on a recording. There's also the people that want to get signed and they want a tour and they want to be famous. You're helping someone achieve the goal that they have for their lives. So there's not any one size fits all because everyone has a different problem.

[00:23:05] They're trying to be soft in the audio industry. Our point with all of this is to just make sure whatever you do, you're focused on solving a specific problem that someone has. Everyone has different problems. Everyone has different goals. And so those solutions may be slightly different or they could be the same with a different flavor or spin on it.

[00:23:23] Part of our change with the six figure home studio podcast. Part of the reason next week's episode of the six figure home studio podcast is the last episode of the six figure home studio podcast is for this very thing. We're devoted to solving a specific problem. That our audience has in order to do that better than we're doing right now.

[00:23:42] We have to change. We have to be willing to adapt and change. And if we don't do this change, then we are not following our own advice here.

[00:23:49] Chris: Totally man. Yeah. I'm really excited about this. I think that our change is actually going to be a good example of the type of change that we're talking about here. Now let me take us down a little bit different road here.

[00:24:01] Brian: Oh, no. So, you know, there's like my worst nightmare with you, Chris. Cause you're already tough to reign in as

[00:24:05] Chris: Yes. I know.

[00:24:07] Brian: So let's tentatively see where this goes.

[00:24:10] Chris: Let's tentatively see where this goes. I think you have to be thinking problem versus tool with your clients. But I think you also have to be thinking problem versus tool with yourself. And, you know, somebody challenged me a long time ago and said something along the lines of who would you have to be to win your parents' approval.

[00:24:29] And I thought about it and I was like, Oh man. That's a really painful, awkward question. Well, to really impress my mom, I would have to be James Taylor and to really impress my dad I'd have to be Tom petty. And I thought about that and I was like, Oh shit, music industry. Oh, Oh no. Did I? How much of my psychology?

[00:24:51] How much of like what I'm really after influenced why I do what I do. And these are deep waters, bruh.

[00:24:59] Brian: I didn't expect to go here today, Chris.

[00:25:01] Chris: Yeah, I know like this is intense. I think while you're doing this, you have to think about what problem are you solving for yourself? Because it's not just the money. We all know that there's something else going on there.

[00:25:12] And I think where this starts to get problematic, where the tool versus problem mentality starts to hurt people is that they don't actually know what problem it is that they're solving for themself.

[00:25:22] Brian: Here's the thing about this article that we link to in the show notes actually refers to this Simon cynics book, start with why. And I think what you're talking about right now is literally the point of that entire book is starting with why not? What a lot of people think about, what am I going to do for a living.

[00:25:39] They never stop to think about why am I going to do that thing?

[00:25:42] Chris: Bingo. When I'm thinking about, you know, the cliche thing, we always talk about like, Oh, I could talk to Chris Graham 17 years ago. Like.

[00:25:48] Brian: That's the running joke for anyone who's new to this podcast. Just so you know, this podcast is like two or three years old now, but the very beginning, Chris said, I'm speaking to myself 15 years ago and every year we just add a year to that. So now we're at year 17 or 18, I don't even know anymore.

[00:26:01] Chris: Well, I would be asking myself that question a lot. Why are you doing this? And what I have found is that my motivations were completely different than what I thought. And that has been really challenging for me to process.

[00:26:15] Brian: still think there is when you start thinking about why am I doing this? What's my ultimate end goal here. You have a lot more opportunities to expand your thinking, expand horizon, expand what you're going to do as a business or a problem solver. It may not be audio. It could be something completely different.

[00:26:30] We have people that toy around with a lot of different types of businesses and they still listen to this podcast and they land somewhere else besides audio. So when you start with the answering the question, why. You might end up somewhere. You never expected because you followed that thread all the way to the end versus living out the expectations your parents had on you, which was the white, just answering the question.

[00:26:52] What am I going to do? That is a much different answer.

[00:26:55] Chris: Or living out the opposite of what your parents' expectation was for you.

[00:26:59] Brian: Yeah. Those people who are, uh, they're the person that's going to do the exact opposite of what people expect of them or want them to do. Yeah. That's, that's also dangerous.

[00:27:06] Chris: Yeah, but it's still dictated by other people, not by figuring out who am I, what makes me different? What makes me special? What gifts do I have that other people don't how can I add value? How can I serve? And we all know what this means, but the creative itch. Is a very real thing that I suspect we're going to be talking about a lot over the evolution of the podcast.

[00:27:27] It's a creative itch. Is this thing inside of you that wants to make it wants to create, it wants to explore. It wants to do a new thing. It wants to see beauty or hear beauty or experience beauty the first time. And you know, I'm looking at my background, Brian, I've got well, almost it's Yosemite. Where we went and it's covered in snow.

[00:27:49] It was amazing when we were on your back, Whistler parties, one of the most fun trips of my entire life to stand in awe at the ridiculous grand jury of Yosemite words, just it's, it's insane, but there's something in your soul that gets fed by that. It's the same thing with music. It's the same thing with all of the arts of, Ooh, I made something and I like it.

[00:28:13] I made something that I'm experiencing beauty and what's so cool about music is like a lot of people are going to go to Yosemite and they're all going to pretty much have about the same experience. That's cool. When you make a beautiful piece of art, when you make a beautiful song and you know, this is the first time it was just born.

[00:28:29] It's a baby it's new beauty that I have helped bring into the world. That's really exciting. And I think that that creative itch. Really gets down to why most of us are at least a big part of why most of us are in the creative industry and figuring out how to scratch that itch and balance that with, you know, for me, like I got into music, there was a lot of reasons, but one of the things was that creative edge.

[00:28:55] And as I began to work on my business, instead of for it. And learn how to grow it. I found that I could scratch that creative itch through growing my business as well. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is actually amazing because like that creative itch that I scratched when I made that song and I put it on a CD and then I sold two or 3000 copies of it.

[00:29:14] That was really, really cool. But like, then it ended. And now no one listens to that anymore. It's not having any impact, but with a business, it has a useful life. You know, it can continue to operate. I'm still using systems that I made 10 years ago and they're doing great. And that's exciting. And I think one of the reasons that so many people have connected with this podcast is that they have found that they can scratch that creative itch in more than one way.

[00:29:40] They found that wow. As I grow my business, this is creatively satisfying. Wow. As I experiment and kill sacred cows, that's greatly satisfying. Wow. As I experiment with running ads on Facebook or YouTube or Google or whatever it happens to be that satisfies a creative itch. And it's fun in a lot of ways, because when you're scratching a creative itch, you usually don't get great feedback.

[00:30:04] On it, you don't get like, Oh, cool. Like that was objectively better than the last thing that you did. Business growth is kind of fun when you're building a creative industry, because one, you're defining yourself as singular, which is a blast. And two, you get real time feedback. Like the money is nice and it's useful and all that stuff.

[00:30:21] And you use it to spend on things and to provide for your whatever family, friends, life experiences. But it's also measurable. You can say all, I definitely scratch that itch better. I was more successful creatively and the dollars just become a scoreboard for that or the subscribers or the downloads or the contact forms or the quote forms or the fill in the blank.

[00:30:45] That's just so cool. And I think that's a big part of. I don't have to ask you about this, Brian. I know that you're obsessed with this, that when you're growing a business, it scratches a creative itch, and it's fun that this particular creative edge has a scoreboard and you can get better as a result of it objectively better.

[00:31:00] Brian: So as you were talking there for the last four minutes and 38 seconds, I was reminded of a quote from the office and the quote is this. Sometimes I'll start a sentence and not even know where I'm going. I just hope to find it along the way.

[00:31:17] Chris: That's what I just did.

[00:31:21] Brian: So that is it for this episode of the six figures, your home city or podcast. It was funny. Chris mentioned something about, uh, how blockbuster had a chance to acquire Netflix for like a super cheap price. And that Netflix has probably made that much money. Like a million bucks or something. Since we started recording this episode and I did the math on it, and it's so funny, Netflix earns about $1.8 million an hour, which is an absolutely absurd amount of money.

[00:31:46] I actually found an article that came out just yesterday. It was an interview with Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix. And he was actually trying to sell Netflix to blockbuster and the number was actually $50 million and he was what I would consider a motivated seller. Like he was actively trying to sell it to blockbuster.

[00:32:03] And blockbuster just laughed him out of the room, you know, basically just swept them off and the rest is history. So really that interview and that story is such a great example of this entire episode that we just talked about. The whole problem thinking versus tool thinking if blockbuster would have simply kept their eye on, we solved the problem of providing home entertainment.

[00:32:21] Then they would have either acquired or dominated and done what Netflix did, but done it better. So love that story. Uh, before I wrap up today, I want to mention something on back on episode 125. I interviewed a guy named Joe Wadsworth. So that was, that was like right when COVID hit hard and everyone was freaking out and it was kind of my series that I did the viruses, just an audio business.

[00:32:43] And the cool thing that Joe did is he just built an online recording studio where he's actually just the business owner. He's got like 30 or 40 engineers. Some of our listeners now actually work with him. As engineers because he's built a really cool business. And, uh, I had a call with him the other day, just to catch up with him and he's launching something else.

[00:32:59] That's really cool that our listeners might be interested in. If you're looking for a way to make some passive income. Now we're not sponsored by this. This is not an affiliate thing. This is literally just me thinking that this is something that's helpful for our audience, but Joe's launching a new beats platform.

[00:33:11] He's just calling it tours, beats T O R S. So the online recording studio beats and his goal, at least from what I talked to him about was to create kind of a higher tier. More of a concierge type beats business that focuses more on quality over quantity. So things like beat stars and these other like beat, beat marketplaces, they just focus on getting as many people signed with platform as possible, selling the cheapest beats to the most amount of people.

[00:33:33] They're a pure volume play. And that sucks for most of the beatmakers. Cause I would guess that probably five to 10% of the beat makers in that platform make 80 to 90% of the revenue on that platform. So Joe's goal is to, at least from what I understand is to go to the more premium side of things. So maybe you would say beat stars is Walmart.

[00:33:52] And Joe's trying to do more of a whole foods experience where it's. Higher profit margins, more money for the beat makers. And the cool thing is it's a way for you to potentially earn passive income. So if you are interested in being one of the early engineers on tours, beats, Joe sent me an email with some info on that, and this is really important.

[00:34:10] If you want to be taken seriously, follow these directions to a T don't mess this up. Joe wants these two things. One send two of your best beats and to give a little bit of information on. Yourself and what sort of music you make. So gather those two things. And email it to info@onlinerecordingstudio.com it's info@onlinerecordingstudio.com.

[00:34:36] And that's it. If you have good stuff, then he will definitely get back to you and start a conversation. You'll get more details and how it all works. But I trust Joe to do a really good job of launching this platform. And if our listeners get in early and get to be a part of that, then I'm all about it.

[00:34:52] Anytime a new platform launches the early birds are the ones to get the worm. So go ahead again, email info@onlinerecordingstudio.com. Send your two best beats and a little bit of about your info and what kinda music you make next week. We will be talking all about the changes that are coming to this podcast.

[00:35:08] We'll be allying the details, what to expect, why we're making these changes, how these changes affect you, what the new podcast is called and all that fun stuff. So that'll be coming out bright and early next say morning, 6:00 AM. Same time as always until next time. Thank you so much for listening and happy hustling.

[00:35:27] Do you know what you're trying to say? I know my philosophy is basically this Chris, and it's something that I live by and I always have, and I always will. Don't ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone for any reason, no matter what, no matter where or who you're with. Or where you're going or where you've been ever for any reason whatsoever, that's the office quote. Then it cuts to him saying sometimes I just started standing. So I don't even know where it's going. I just helped to find it along the way.

[00:36:11] Chris: Is that

[00:36:11] Brian: that's how I feel when you get on some of those spills sometimes.

[00:36:14] Chris: well, thank God for editing because that you guys are probably thinking, like, I don't know what Brian sacrament, that was actually really smart that's because they cut out all the stupid stuff. I said in the middle of that, that made it make no sense.

[00:36:23] Brian: God.