The Focus Cast
On The Focus Cast, our mission is to help you reduce distractions and increase focus so you can live a life with intention. We are both entrepreneurs and share our habits and tactics to increase focus so we can accomplish our goals.
The Focus Cast
#99 Life After 2 years of Podcasting
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Ever wondered how a simple idea can blossom into a wildly successful podcast journey? Join us in this revealing episode as we take you behind the scenes of our incredible journey, spanning 24 months, from zero to 1,992 downloads and a staggering 150,000 views on YouTube.
0:00 Podcast Recap and Statistics
13:18 Reflections on the Podcast Journey
26:35 YouTube Channel and Analog Journal
📈 Explore our highest-performing episodes, where we dive deep into the importance of hydration and engage in enlightening discussions with our special guest, Michael Plash. Plus, discover the intriguing world of our YouTube shorts, accounting for a whopping 93% of our traffic. The top performers? Stories about Chicago and prepper food that will leave you captivated.
🎙️ We'll also share our experiences in setting up a home studio and making substantial investments in podcasting gear. Learn from the challenges we faced and the invaluable lessons we gained, providing you with a deeper insight into the podcasting world.
🚀 Hear how our efforts in promotion, marketing, and exciting external collaborations have been instrumental in driving the growth of our podcast. We'll discuss the crucial role of discipline and how it has positively impacted our spiritual, physical, and mental health.
🎧 Lastly, we'll take you on a soothing and mesmerizing journey as we introduce you to DJs spinning records on an incredible YouTube channel. Set against beautiful white backdrops and surrounded by lush plants, this is an experience you won't want to miss.
Tune in, and let's reflect on this incredible journey together. Subscribe, like, and hit the notification bell to stay updated on our future episodes. Thank you for being a part of our podcasting adventure!
#PodcastJourney #SuccessStory #BehindTheScenes #PodcastGrowth #Hydration #SpecialGuest #YouTubeShorts #HomeStudio #PodcastingGear #Discipline #Collaborations #Music #DJs #YourPodcastName
Podcast Recap and Statistics
Speaker 2So we started this podcast January 28, 2022., january 28, 2022. Yeah, so in this episode we're going to do kind of a recap. Look at some stats, kind of see what does it look like to do 100 episodes of a podcast that you know we didn't have any other brands to funnel traffic from.
Speaker 1Yeah, we were not famous.
Speaker 2We're not famous, yeah, so starting from nothing, Starting from the very bottom, just two white bros talking into some mics.
Speaker 1Yeah, well, our audience is 45% hoes, just kidding, female that is. Yeah, so this is episode 99. 99. We're doing a little bit of just last few episodes of the year, last few episodes in preparation for our 100th anniversary, which next week we'll reveal what phase three looks like for the focus cast. Yeah, so this episode is just about stats, numbers, what we've learned and all that kind of what we've tried and what we hate and what we love and all that fun shit. Sweet, let's dig in.
Speaker 2Let's do it. I'm Jonathan Noel and I'm Brian Noel. This is the focus cast.
Speaker 1We help you remove distractions. Increase focus, you can live a life with All right. Bro, I got some stats, all right. So, we started in January 28, 2022. Okay, that'll be 24 months, in January of 2024. Wow, so two years, 24 months We've done. This is episode 99. So, from our inception, we've had 1,992 downloads. Audio wise, it's an average of 20 downloads per episode. Okay, wow, all right, not bad. Not bad. Our highest episode was our first episode. Wow, this is about hydration, yep. And our second highest was with our guest Michael.
Speaker 1Plash Episode number one with guest Michael Plash, which it was a great episode.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1He's, for decades, built up his brand around really his niche, following where he lives. He's lived around mindfulness, so a lot of that came from him. Yep, so yeah, so that's audio. That's from Buzzsprout, which is the distribution platform we use On YouTube. We've had 150,000 views, okay, 288 subscribers. Our top short got 3100 views. That's it. That's it, fuck, sorry. Top channel video got 3100 views. Our shorts are 93% of our traffic on YouTube. That makes sense. And the two shorts that got the most was one talking about Chicago, when you said Shirek, yeah, and a bunch of people jumped in on that yeah, some people said you know only people from the outside. And then some people jumped in and said I'm from Chicago and people say that so such a fucking mouth. That was funny.
Speaker 2That was the comments for funny, because I don't think the context I was talking about it really came through.
Speaker 1Well, if people watch the short and don't listen to the episode?
Speaker 2Yeah, Of course the short is just the short, but it was funny when someone said like something about this dude's probably from Naperville, which I'm not even from Chicago I lived there for four years but I get the reference because people from the suburbs love to say they're from the city.
Speaker 1So that was you lived in the city.
Speaker 2I did live in the city.
Speaker 1Chicago city limits. So whoever said that no, it was funny, I know it's great, but people from the city said, oh yeah.
Speaker 2Well, I don't think people from the city actually say should I rack? That was the point Right. People from small blue collar towns, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Um, and then the second one was when we're talking about an episode, when the episode we talked about prepared versus paranoid, we were talking about prepper food and I said all of it shit, and we got a bunch of comments about like yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, like some people from the military saying like they lived off that shit and like it was good, good comments, nice. So those were out of all of this work on focus and increase in focus and, um, you know, accomplishing your dreams, the two highest pieces of content was a shy rat quote and prepper food sucks.
Speaker 2Maybe we need to read, readjust what we talked about. I know it's like people. We talk about focus and all these things, but people just want to take a pill. They want the quick, the quick fix and we just want to. We just want to bitch on some shit.
Speaker 1There's no bitch on some shit.
Speaker 1Um long form videos. The highest long form video on youtube was our interview with tj, which makes sense because his whole brand is around youtube, so I'm sure you got just a lot of people interested in tj watching it. That makes sense, um, and then our second batch of highest long form content was our product videos kava and everyday dose. What I love about those videos me and jonathan were talking about this the other day is, um, when, when they first launched, within the first week they only had like 30 views, but, um, we're getting like 60 to 100 views Like every 15 days now because kava and everyday dose is becoming more popular and people are just just, they're just looking it up.
Speaker 2So we're actually ahead a little bit for once.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 2And this is us also starting Like ground zero. Like we said, no following, but also not knowing shit about keywords and seo and yeah, um hash, you know whatever hashtags any of the any of that thumbnail art. Thumbnail first, 15 seconds introductions not subtitles, but description or um titles titles and descriptions.
Speaker 1Remember our first 15 episodes and your friend gave you the advice that said, maybe I should introduce yourself. No one knows who you are. Like our first 15 episodes, we didn't even say who we were.
Speaker 2We just started talking about alcohol, caffeine and. We've definitely come a long way.
Speaker 1Formal introducing formal introduction. Yeah, that's funny, I forgot about that we didn't even introduce us.
Speaker 2We just started talking.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean honestly, it's funny, we were talking about this in the last episode. So if you listen to the last episode, we're just talking about things accomplished in 2023. But that really, for me, the the ultimate goal is just producing a consistent piece of content and then refining as we go. And so From where we started, which was an iPhone in a washed out room of us sitting there getting drunk, randomly talking about subjects that we spent about five minutes on and then just laughing, giggling, for we were laughing so much 15 minutes To, like, you know, like I mean, I've learned a lot just from doing the research.
Speaker 2So anyway, yeah formal introduction branded. It's basically like School?
Speaker 1Yeah, it really is. You know, and I'm a big, like I'm a big, just do it and then, and then grow.
Speaker 2Yes, like just just you can over you can over research and never do. Yeah, that's, I've been in that position. Yeah, you know. Analysis, paralysis. Yeah where do I start? What do I do? Let me research. You want to be a fucking expert? Yeah you know, on day one. Yeah, sorry, but.
Speaker 1And there and there's some. You know there's some strategy behind. Like you know, if you first launch something, you know more people are gonna tune in. Then if it sucks, they're not gonna come back. So you don't want to lose people, but I'm just like I don't, I don't fucking care whatever. Like I'm not doing this for like a once in a, like a, you know, like we said last episode, like Producing content is something I'm gonna do for the rest of my life. It's gonna take different shapes, different forms, but I'm just I'm. I'm gonna do this kind of shit forever, until I die. I'm gonna be an old man talking about like what depends to where, so your shit doesn't seep into your khakis. I'm just that's. This is gonna be my life.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah like I mean, you know?
Speaker 2if you've got designer shoes, maybe you have designer depends yeah.
Speaker 1Hell yeah, some Louis Vuitton depends Shit walking around the pool.
Speaker 1Oh yeah with just my depends on. Are you kidding me? Are you at ladies? We could have them. Old baddies, shit man anyway. So Um yeah, tick tock 6400 followers In the last 60 days because you couldn't go back any further. Those youtube stats were lifetime. These tick tock stats are 60 days. Um 6400 followers In the last 60 days. We got 124 or 12,000 views, 500 likes, 23 shares and 28 comments. Honestly, it's pretty interesting that the majority of our engagement actually happens on tick tock.
Speaker 2People leaving comments.
Speaker 1Yeah, just comments and likes and and all that stuff Nice.
Speaker 2That seems to be.
Speaker 1And it was funny because on instagram we had to kill our account because I did the wrong thing. I did one of those like pay for promotions, and then we had Mike. Most of our followers were bots, yeah like 98%.
Speaker 2I was going through and trying to kill them all and the bots are pretty smart because they'll have Exact the a perfect amount of photos to where you have to scroll down to see if there's more yeah and then, yeah, they make it look pretty legit.
Speaker 1And after like a hundred Because I was looking at it too, and after a hundred of like, they had six photos of the same photo and I was just like we've been, we've been Bought ties. This is cancer. Yeah, shoot it. So we killed the instagram channel. Um, so that was a good lesson learned.
Speaker 2Don't use this, don't use the freaking offshore.
Speaker 1Yeah, nope, pay to play. You got to organically build this shit. Yeah, that's how it works, yeah you got to be real, you got to engage people, you got to provide value whenever you know. And then, if you're starting from nothing, it's just a slow, steady burn.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm, you know, starting from nothing, males without.
Speaker 1We got. We got no cultural Relevance going for us. We are the enemy of culture.
Speaker 2Why do you straight white?
Speaker 1dudes from the south.
Speaker 2How many? Podcasts have straight white dudes the only ones I listen to.
Speaker 1Yeah, so so there's no niche as far as us.
Speaker 2Yes, we're not niche yeah.
Speaker 1So anyway, that's funny and then, but we do have. I want to highlight some couple super fans. Okay so we got Linda L you. On tiktok yeah she comments and likes on just about every fucking post. She's a super fan man, thank you nice. She's Encouraging. Yeah, she's honest, it's great, she's a super fan. Jonathan Zilla posted a lot on tiktok nice and Steps in give some good feedback, hudson.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Hudson shout out to you. He follows us on all channels. Comments go Hudson. Yeah, brian Emery comments, toons in give some feedback. So we got some super fans.
Speaker 2It's nice to support our five super fans.
Speaker 1Hell yeah, hell yeah. How many super fans you need. What's that one tiktok that guy is like. All I need is three bad motherfuckers. I Can take over a country.
Speaker 2I've never seen them.
Speaker 1It's a great real. So yeah, I mean we've tried some different things, right. I mean the, the evolution of the, the podcast itself, was iPhone, right, iphone getting drunk. Yes $20 lights off Amazon.
Speaker 2Yep and then, yeah, like a cheap table, some cheap Amazon chairs, yeah, and then and $90 mics. Yeah, sure 57 7th, which is amazing yeah.
Speaker 1So we went from that or what from that till like a $60,000 studio.
Speaker 2And our numbers did not exponentially grow. No because our studio was better.
Speaker 1Nope.
Speaker 2Nope, who would have thought?
Reflections on the Podcast Journey
Speaker 1Yeah, $400 might going into a $2,500 preamp, going into a $800 roadcaster, edited on a $7,000 machine with hundreds of dollars of lights. Well, at first when we had four cameras, it's like $18,000 in cameras, switchers. That was like 50, 60k with the stuff lighting, all that stuff. I think the total bill for all the equipment in the studio was 90 grand and so I haven't made a return on that. That's a clip right there but I've had a lot of fun.
Speaker 2Hey, you could have done a lot of. You could have had a lot of fun with that 90 grand, but you put it to use bro.
Speaker 1Yeah, I could have bought a car. Oh, wait a minute.
Speaker 2So that is actually a good moral of the story you don't need expensive shit. Yeah it's cool, but it definitely doesn't make your stuff grow.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean honestly, if I um, I Hate the whole if I could do it again, because that's just out of shame yeah that's just if we're looking at practicality and what we've learned and what we should do moving forward, I Think it's we've got Steady, we've got our gear, we're not using four cameras, we've reduced complexity, we've got some good systems down and now it's gonna be Investing in promotion, marketing and Going out and getting on other podcast and but, it's that stuff, yeah, so now it's like we've got the product and the guest episodes are fun.
Speaker 1Yeah, they really are.
Speaker 2It's great, because then I don't have to do anything. I just sit there and ask a couple questions. Yeah, and which? Is listen, and listen to someone who's interesting, just learn. So it's instead of actually us just talking. I get to listen to a new person and learn about their life and it's cool.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I like hearing about people's stories.
Speaker 1Mm-hmm, it's interesting, yeah, so so I think that'll be Obviously in the next episode, episode 100. We'll talk about some shifts that we're doing, but, but, like you know, buying the music stuff, and now we're, yeah, music all the time, which is probably one of. I mean, I love it.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, all that stuff is fun. And then and then obviously the the gear was dual purpose, for forerunner gunner and for right, of course the focus cast and and I've been able to use the gear for some external projects, that I've made money. But you know anyway.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1But yeah, I mean, we've tried from a content standpoint it's. You know, we did the review videos on products and at first those felt like a lot of it felt like a lot of work for a minimal yeah, a lot of output, but now that we're seeing that like if you hit a trendy product that's just going to continue to grow, you know, like we said last week, I'm going to get a couple more.
Speaker 2I think it'll be fun.
Speaker 1Yeah, like I'm going to try the Whatever that I can't remember Ketamine, IQ Ketamine.
Speaker 2No, not ketamine.
Speaker 1Ketone Ketamine is something else.
Speaker 2Ketamine IQ. Is you snored a big line of ketamine in it.
Speaker 1Anyway, I'm going to do more psilocybin in 2024. That's for damn sure, anyway. But Ketone, iq, alpha Brain are some products I want to try. You know there's some of those neuro Neutropics, neutropics that I want to try. So we'll continue to do those review videos. Those have been pretty fun. The funny videos that we did, the standing desk, the headphones, the productivity videos, shorts those got like consistently 300 to 1,000 views across the different channels Each one of them did so obviously that format is sticky. So some of that stuff is fun and that we tried. I think one of the biggest lessons was you know, it's like Gary Vee and it's like just pump out four TikToks a day and you will grow, no matter what. And then we pumped out four TikToks a day and then our account got shadow banned on TikTok, went to zero and it really killed us.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And we realized that that was bad advice. So then we went back and for Gary Vee. I mean he's a genius, so don't get me wrong, but he also has a team of eight people just dedicated to his personal content.
Speaker 2Exactly.
Speaker 1He can produce four quality pieces of content a day.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1So I felt like we were producing four subpar or average pieces of content a day and it just destroyed us, yeah. So we had to rebuild from that, delete some of that content that was zero views. And then now it's like a little bit more, instead of seven or 20, we were doing four clips a day Fuck that Per episode. So now it's like okay, cool, one really good clip a day from the episode and more sticky, and that's actually been our engagement with backup on TikTok. I feel like we kind of left the shadow banned and all that kind of shit. We're back in. We're back in, bro. So now we're going to re-get the Instagram account, because we've learned a lot about Instagram and apply some of those current, you know, I would say, trends but lessons or whatever, and start using those and all that stuff.
Speaker 1So, yeah, the focus cast, the focus cast. We've said this before, I've said this before, but I think the greatest benefit, number one, is just knowing that we produce a piece of content every week for two years and if we can do that, we can do anything. So number two, forcing myself into a discipline that requires me to think about introspective work, physical, spiritual and mental health, has made me spiritually, physically and mentally more healthy.
Speaker 2If you're on a podcast where you talk about focusing and getting better and you're not getting better, then that's fucked up.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2And look at how much we've grown this year. An insane amount, yeah, considering we used to get drunk when we would record.
Speaker 1Yeah, and we would make a lot of solids. I'd make corn dogs.
Speaker 2And make homemade corn dogs. They were the best corn dogs I've ever had. Oh yeah, of course, because I'm only buying good shit. But yes, we went from getting drunk to making homemade corn dogs.
Speaker 1To drinking cava? Yeah, mushroom coffee, mushroom coffee. Athletic greens and doing 20 burpees before an episode Doing burpees.
Speaker 2So yeah the podcast made us better.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2It made us think about health more, do more research, and it just made us better.
Speaker 1Honestly yes, and the podcast for me again, and we talked about in the last episode is like we've done this regardless. It's not like we get a ton of positive reinforcement. It's not like we have 100 people emailing us saying thank you for doing this, Like we're just doing it and sometimes it feels like it's no one's watching.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1It's a lot of effort, like no one watches, but it's almost like a personal journal, I mean, because we've filmed progress episodes. We haven't released those, but we filmed progress episodes. We filmed my therapy progress episodes and it just feels like this is our style of journaling. You know what I mean. So yeah, man.
Speaker 2So by the end of next year, what kind of crazy shit we'll be talking about?
Speaker 1Who knows?
Speaker 2Like the spiritual warfare between the elites pushing fear and doubt and uncertainty into the collective consciousness, and shit like that. Yeah, 2024, baby.
Speaker 1Yeah, so that's it, man. That's a recap. That's what we accomplished this year 6,900 followers, 150,000 views, 2,000 audio downloads.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Right now, from a P&L standpoint, we're sitting at about negative 60,000.
Speaker 2That's not bad.
Speaker 1It's not bad.
Speaker 2It could be worse, some people have invested a lot more and lost a lot more yeah. Yeah, they have a $300,000 college student loan and they can't get a job. So it could be worse. It could be worse. At least you didn't take a loan for it. You're not paying interest on it. Oh yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1No loan. It's free and clear, free and clear.
Speaker 2It's not a 12% interest.
Speaker 1No, it's not on a credit card. 28% interest, 20%.
Speaker 2So, yeah, that's pretty much it. There's the stats. So if you want to get into the focused niche and talk about scams and shortcuts and pills, then that's what you're in for. That's what you're in for.
Speaker 1I mean, if we had a third host that wasn't a white heterosexual male, that might help.
Speaker 2Yeah, maybe. Maybe we'll see A third host.
Speaker 1Maybe at least they're British or something.
Speaker 2They just got to have an accent. We have an Australian person who says hilarious things.
Speaker 1That's what we need.
Speaker 2Because just the way they cuss is amazing.
Speaker 1I think Keesh would be a good co-host for us.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, that'd be great. We need Keesh.
Speaker 1He DJs at the strip club once a week.
Speaker 2And he's got stories.
Speaker 1That's a recurring gig for him, yeah, and he's got stories and I could just imagine we're talking about like Focus.
Speaker 2How do you focus DJing at the strip club?
Speaker 1I don't know. Now that you said that, I really want to ask him. We need Keesh on there.
Speaker 2Let's try that. That's a guest episode. Yeah, honestly, we might as well.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Poat Talk about his journey with music.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think if Poat Baby is one of the artists in a clubhouse and if you listen to the song Rap, if rap don't work, it's like for someone who's dedicated their entire life to being a rapper and it's just like writing about that reality. Yeah, like that's pretty fucking deep.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's not just surface level bullshit with Poat, yeah Over here, life yeah, which is great. Yeah, so Not just the you know Fake record label. You have to talk about this kind of bullshit.
Speaker 1That anytime I hear a song and it's like 90% of the songs when you just search music on Spotify or SoundCloud when it starts with fruity loops and a rapper with a lot of autotune, it just makes me want to throw up.
Speaker 2I.
Speaker 1Can't stand that shit. And I love all music. Yeah, I listen to everything. You listen to all music. Yeah, but I can't listen to that, no, cuz it's horrible. So I guess I don't listen all music.
Speaker 2No, you don't you don't listen to dog shit music.
Speaker 1I listen to everything but country rap. I don't want to listen to real country or real rap.
Speaker 2I was. I was on Spotify.
Speaker 2Yeah and like it shows like all the bullshit at the top I don't care about, but it was like top tick, tock songs. So I was like what, what are these? Oh, just out of curiosity, yeah. So I go in, I start and I see all these artists I don't even know the fuck they are, you know. So I, of course, I'm clicking on their pages. You know 50 million monthly listeners, 70 million monthly listeners, 20 million monthly listeners and I'm like and I just start playing songs. Some of them are okay, yeah, but some of them just like this is fucking horrible. Yeah, milo Cyrus made it. I love me. Some Molly.
Speaker 1She's she can sing.
Speaker 2She's got pipes. Yeah, her version of Jolene yeah.
Speaker 1Was one of the best covers, I think.
Speaker 2I'm not saying it's all bad, but a lot of it is bad. Yeah, well, it just goes to show.
Speaker 1What is quote? Bad Okay, 50 million monthly listeners yeah. I guess I should say it's not my flavor.
Speaker 2It feels cheap. We should just it feels cheap and mass, mass algorithm as produced algorithm music. Um, can we just do a random tick tock series, jonathan, where it's just like called like old white men listening?
Speaker 1to top 10? And it's just us listening. White man top 10, white man top 10, just us listening to that and I'm just like Garbage horrible. I Was like cheap, did they just say?
Speaker 2lame chord progression 145 pop port chord progression.
Speaker 1No thought.
Speaker 2We should do that standard chords, verse, chorus, verse, chorus.
YouTube Channel and Analog Journal
Speaker 1Horrible lyrics. What's that YouTube channel we were listening to? That was amazing of just like that, those DJs without funky jazz. He's got plants my Digital journal. I think it is that has the DJs Amazing YouTube channel is one of the most amazing pieces of content I've ever considered beautiful.
Speaker 2You'd love that. I think it's my Analog journal.
Speaker 1Analog or digital, that isn't analog analog yeah, because they're spinning records. They're spinning records, yeah.
Speaker 2That shit is just Is it journal or journey? I don't know, I have no idea you'll know when you see it, it's a beautiful white background with plants and that's just a bunch of different DJs playing Bob.
Speaker 1Amazing music yeah. Some of the sickest stuff you've ever heard. Gray YouTube channel yeah.
Speaker 2Anyway you'll find it my analog journey, or journal, cool Journal. I think it's journal. All right, all right bro.
Speaker 1That's it.
Speaker 2There's our stats boom.
