WEBVTT - Getting Specific with Monica Padman of Armchair Expert 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.840 I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:06.680 going to have to start making better content. I think 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:08.200 we're gonna be talking about this for a long time. 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:11.239 When you program for everyone, you program for no one. 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:13.360 I think it's that we're purpose driven platform, like we're 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:16.720 trying to get to substance. How was that? Are you 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:20.239 happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? It 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:28.040 really is? What's up? I'm Laura Currency and I'm Alexa Kristen. 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.880 Welcome back at Landia. So, Alexa, recently I sent you 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:37.000 a picture that is circulating the Internet of a Netflix billboard, 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:39.400 and I thought we might start there. I have a confession. 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:42.080 I have to tell you something. I saw that and 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:46.480 I like started to sweat. When I was like two three, 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:51.640 Yahoo had a billboard to billboards one in Times Square 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.960 one in San Francisco, just like the Netflix billboard. And 0:00:56.080 --> 0:01:00.760 guess who had to program the content on that billboard. 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:05.560 Guess guess who yours? Truly it was me? Every week 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.319 a new message and guess what I did? But wait, 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:13.039 were you changing the messaging yourself or not? It wasn't 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:16.679 climbing a ladder, Laura. I was going into the visual 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.880 of you not only concepting, but producing and actually executing. 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:27.080 That would be amazing. No, But I concepted the copy 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:29.760 and then I had to send it to the installer 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.120 who would go up and put up the letters. Right. 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:35.800 So this is like two thousand and three, two thousand 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:37.760 and four, I was like a bitty boo in the 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.240 agency world, and I get this call from my client 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:44.720 for freaking out, like the Internet had broken. And I 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.120 was like, what what's wrong? And they were like, you 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:52.280 put the u r L on the billboards incorrectly And 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:55.760 you would think like all of Yahoo went down, but 0:01:55.840 --> 0:02:00.360 now but now it was a slight change of the dot. 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:03.800 The dot was in the wrong place for the U 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.200 r L. That was my biggest career fumble. You could 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:09.959 call it a fumble, or you could have asked to 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.120 see the back end visits to know whether or not 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:17.720 your billboard was an effective traffic driver, a truly unique 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.440 Alexa Christian u r L. It was a truly unique 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:23.519 Alexa Christian you are L. And in fact it was 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:26.840 a hundred percent bounced percent bounce on that U are 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:32.920 L shining moment. Then the Netflix copy couldn't be more 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:36.640 on brand Alexa. The copy said, don't give up on 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:43.160 your dreams. We started with DVDs, I started with incorrect 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.720 U R L and the full circle. I think that's 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:52.120 where the show begins and maybe hands today. So Alex, 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:54.400 we have a great guest on the show today, Monica 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:58.200 Padman from Armchair Expert is here, so good. But before 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:01.720 we get into the Monica interview, we had a really 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.800 good conversation last night. I called you last night because 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:09.320 something has been bothering me, something that actually this episode 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.040 got me thinking about in a slightly different way, and 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.720 it's in context to what's been happening in the news 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:20.880 with media outlets in the last two weeks and something 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.520 that Monica said and you guys will hear this in 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:29.040 the episode. The Armchair onm Brella has a huge, huge audience, right, 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.680 They do like twenty million downloads a month just on 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.040 Armchair Expert, like on their main show, which just just 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.560 to put that in context, Tom Brady came back to 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:44.200 play the New England Patriots Sunday Night Football doing twenty 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:48.880 point five million viewers. So just to give some context 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.320 as to the universe that we're talking about here, and 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.680 that's Armchair Experts doing that monthly. And so when we 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:57.480 brought that up to Monica in the episode. She was like, 0:03:57.560 --> 0:03:59.120 we don't think about that. I don't want to think 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:00.760 about that. In fact, I don't even want to hear 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:05.200 that number. And it got me thinking about how are 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:14.280 we actually quantifying and more importantly qualifying what is good 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:19.080 in media? And Laura, you said something to me last night. 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.560 We've gotten in the game of more is more? But 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:26.719 is it is it really more is more the goal? 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.280 Because as we go into the issues that have come 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:34.760 up in the last week with media companies, they've been 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:38.400 chasing scale, the race to the bottom, and that's become 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.120 the measuring stick, which is how big is your audience? 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.320 Because you can sell more ads, how do you get 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:50.440 to more eyeballs? And what's happened is through years, right, 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:53.040 what you and I ended up talking about last night 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:57.839 was what's the solve Because as long as media is 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:01.479 race to the bottom, more is more volume volume volume 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:06.480 buying on a CPM. Until that changes, we are going 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:12.480 to see media outlets continue to put profit over great content, 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:18.200 over people over what's right, and we will constantly see 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:23.239 some form of inflation of those numbers. So, in building 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.560 on that, bridging last week's episode to this week's episode. 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:31.520 There was something that Austin said in our conversation with 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:36.560 Morning Brew on our last episode that really stuck out 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:41.840 to me and I can't stop thinking about it. When 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:44.320 he was talking about receiving one of their first big 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:50.120 RFPs from from a major advertiser, they RFP for a 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:57.120 range of budget and as part of that conversation, he 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:01.640 posed a question which was, well, how big does our 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:06.479 audience have to be to warrant your five thousand dollar 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:14.920 commitment or RFP? And it's sat with me because there's 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.240 a common denominator here that we've applied as buyers in 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:23.200 the industry that the same model or methodology I applied 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:29.000 to buying a major broadcast network would be the same 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:33.920 methodology I apply to buying a niche newsletter. When I 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:39.480 think about people raising their hand, subscribing to a newsletter, 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:44.400 spending five plus minutes with the newsletter, sharing the newsletter, 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.280 coming back the next day in their inbox, opening the newsletter, 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:51.000 it's a different behavior than being exposed to a thirty 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.440 second spot on television, But yet I buy it the 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:58.120 same way. Is that correct? So last night, after we 0:06:58.160 --> 0:06:59.800 got off the phone, which you know, I went on 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:03.520 the Internet to try to figure out the origin of 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.120 the CPM model. I would love to have somebody in 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:10.480 Landia come on the show and take us through the 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:14.400 origins of the CPM model and why it hasn't evolved 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:16.840 into modern media. And I think the thing that we're 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:22.160 getting to today is the creator economy and Web three 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:25.680 might just be the thing that breaks the model. It 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.960 breaks the model, and it has to break the model. 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:33.040 It has to break the model. That's what's so exciting 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:40.120 about this. When we talk about media capturing audience, the flip. 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:48.160 The flip is audience voting with their wallet on that media. 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:50.640 I mean Twitter, tip Jar is an example of that 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:55.440 sub stack, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. This is not, by the way, 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:59.520 this is not a drill. What's going to happen as 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:05.000 more audiences fragment and they start to find who and 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:09.040 what speaks to them, that's when you start to see 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.040 the hockey stick. That's when you start to see the growth. 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:14.680 That's when you buy the T shirt. It's exactly right, 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.600 it's the t shirt, it's the ticket sale. It is 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:24.480 a difference between monthly active users and fandom, and fandom 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:30.840 and the metrics that you quantify for fandom as opposed 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:35.920 to passive scale. It's just like we're talking about a 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:40.559 different model. It's a totally different game. Kicking us back 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.960 into the Monica episode, there are a couple of gems 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:48.560 in here that could be ignored and it's what hooked 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.520 me and got me thinking about this stuff last night, 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:58.880 which was volume versus specific and are those things. It's 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.400 very similar to the common station we had with Alex 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:06.599 and Austin, which is niche and scale are not mutually exclusive. 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.440 You can have niche and you can have scale. The 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:16.480 specificity specificity why specific is universal. So with that, Atlantia, 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.280 we hope you love this. Listen, we'll be right back 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.480 al right at Landia. We are back with our partners 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.199 that yield Mo. If you remember, we spent our first 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.120 mini series talking about how yield Mo works with brands 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.800 to make audience attention actionable and in this mini series 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:40.280 we take on how contextual targeting is being reimagined as 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:45.200 brands make every interaction with their consumer meaningful. Welcome Lisa Bradner, 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.440 GM of Data and Analytics from yield Mo. Thank you 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:50.400 so much, great to be back. Always great to talk 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:54.160 to you guys. Lisa, how does real time factor into 0:09:54.600 --> 0:10:00.120 context irrelevance? Real time for contextual is critical because if 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.360 you don't have that audience signal that says I know 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:06.560 who this person is and I know the message I 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.440 gave them previously, you need those real time signals to 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.320 say and I serving the right creative or not? Is 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:17.319 this message hitting or not. In addition, so much media 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.720 is now integrating commerce that that window between exposure and 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.040 sale is getting shorter all the time. So if you're 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.520 not real time, you may miss a sale. Right, It's 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:30.400 not just you're missing the impression, you actually missed the 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:34.559 opportunity to close the sale. So being able to quickly 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:38.400 optimize and adjust and using machines to do that is 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:40.959 how you're going to increase your row as your r 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.680 o I, your sales overall. It's a critical component to 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.800 marketing and advertising today. And if we need to get 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:52.880 that close to increasing the potential of that sale conversion engagement, 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:56.840 what are the implications that marketers need to be thinking 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:02.080 about in optimizing the process. I think there's a lot 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.120 of things that and then marketing that we need to 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:06.960 turn on their head. I would challenge the first thing 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:09.720 we should do is take the c DJ right, the 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:13.079 consumer decision journey, throw it out and rethink it right. 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:15.839 We've always come at it from oh we you know, 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:17.880 Laura likes to listen to radio when she's up in 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:19.839 the morning, and then she comes home and checks her 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.640 phone for weather, and then she watches TV. As a marketer, 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.360 I don't know what to do with that. I suggest 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:28.960 that we turn it on their head and say, what 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:33.080 do I want to communicate throughout my day? What is 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:37.760 the right message, when, where and why for my customers 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:42.319 and match the media and creative to that. I think 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:45.720 we're really on the edge of marketers coming back and 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:49.960 really owning that customer experience. And instead of worrying about 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.959 each individual and thinking if I can just collect enough 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:54.840 data about you, I can get you to buy me, 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:58.200 they're going to take a healthy step back to saying 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:02.240 who is my brand, where does it belong, and how 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:04.760 should I show up in each of these environments and 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:09.320 when to do that effectively, your creative and media strategies 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.240 have to be completely linked, right. You can't build out 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.319 the entire creative campaign and they say, oh, yeah, I 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:16.440 guess we should have a media plan for this. You 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.120 should be building that media plan and then building the 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:22.320 creative notes that go with each step of that media plan. 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.240 So instead of having a consumer decision journey, it should 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:28.440 be the brand decision journey and mapping the creative and 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.480 media to match all that. Thank you, Lisa Bradner and 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.120 our partners at yield MO. Looking forward to having you 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:42.120 back for part three of our four part series Welcome 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.240 Back at Landia. We're super excited if you have a 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.560 special guest with us today. Monica Padman is joining us 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:52.640 in Adlandia. Monica is the co creator, co host and 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:58.640 producer of Armchair Expert. Welcome Monica, Monica, Hi, thanks for 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.320 having me. We're so excited to have you. I have 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:05.679 to shout out our friend Brad Grossman at Zeit Guide, 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:08.560 who connected us and was like it was hilarious. Actually 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.400 he texted me he said, do you know Monica Padman? 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.160 I wrote back, No, why would I know, Monica Padman. 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.200 So you're gracious enough to come on the show and 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:22.480 talk to us about audio podcasting talent and the breakout 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:25.760 show that you and Dak Sheppard have created, and I 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.120 don't want to Actually it's not even a show anymore. 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:32.880 It's a network yeah, it's a true network. So Laura 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.880 and I have read all of the things, right, like 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:38.760 how you and Dax kind of got started. I think 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.360 people can read about that. It's a great story arguing 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:45.240 about serial dak saying I'm really interested in podcasting. You 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:48.280 guys have created something amazing. I think there's a lot 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:51.640 of magic in the relationship that you have. Obviously you 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:55.160 have a really strong perspective about the programming of the show, 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.079 how you edit the show, how you produced the show, 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.839 the shows that you've selected. It as the kind of 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:04.959 network has started to really mature all of those things. 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:06.680 So that's the kind of stuff we want to talk about. 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:10.080 But before we get into that, really talk about when 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.000 I was reading I think it was the l A 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:16.840 Times article that was profiling the show and really got 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.040 deep into a little bit more detail. And one of 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.160 the things that they said was Monica presented Dax with 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:25.080 the business plan. So Dax said, I want to do this, 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.960 and you presented him with a business plan. But nowhere 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:33.520 could I find what the business plan actually said. So Monica, 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:37.720 what was in the business plan? Well you probably haven't 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.920 found details on that, because that's a really h that's 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:45.040 really fancy way of saying what happened by saying that 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:49.840 I proposed a business plan. Really what happened is he said, 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:52.080 I kind of want to do a podcast. It goes 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.520 really nonchalant, and I was like, okay, let's do it. 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.440 I'll figure it out. So that was kind of the 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:04.320 business plan I suppose. Um. And then from there, from 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:05.920 there I was like, oh, I gotta I guess I 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:14.440 gotta figure it out. UM. So I approached via my therapist. 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.680 This is so bizarre, but my I found my therapist. 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:23.200 It's not gonna their podcast. I was listening to this 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:25.920 amazing podcast called Totally Lame that I used to love 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:31.120 so much, and it's it's no longer a recurring podcast, 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.000 but it was so good and my therapist was on 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.080 it randomly before she was my therapist, and I heard 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.200 her and I was looking for a therapist. So I, like, 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.200 you know, reached out to like hello at totally lame 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.880 dot com whatever they're like general email was, and I 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.080 was like, can I have the email for this therapist? 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.640 And they sent it to me and so she's my 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.440 therapist now. Um. And then I sort of reverse engineered 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:58.520 that and reached out to my therapist, and I was like, 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.080 can you please connect me to Elizabeth? That totally lame. 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.240 I'd like to pick her brain on this. So she 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:08.520 did and I met with her, and then I sat 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.680 in on a recording and like watched how they did 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:17.680 it UM, and I left and I thought, Okay, we 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:22.680 can do this. UM might be easy to bring in 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:26.600 a third person who can like do the sound board 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.440 and I don't have to worry about that. So we did. 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:33.280 We brought on Rob and then from there we kind 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.760 of really got into the weeds on what we wanted 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:39.640 the show to be. You know, I have a lot 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:43.120 of opinions. Dax has a lot of opinions. Luckily, in 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:48.440 business they often align. In many other ways they never align, 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:51.600 which is part of the fun, but in business they do, 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:56.320 so you know. He he considers himself an armchair expert, 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.480 which is a hilarious phrase. He learned an anthropology and 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:01.920 call it into it where you think you know everything 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:06.119 about everything. I must say, it's a really compelling like 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:08.880 you get it instantly right, which just as marketers were 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:11.920 always thinking about how do you communicate directly without having 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:14.280 to kind of click in Well, yeah, I mean I 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.360 think generally and ax is just really really really good 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:23.080 in general at naming stuff, um, you know, titling scripts 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.120 and everything. So that's that's sort of his whealhouse in general. 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:31.000 But um, it is true like I think in marketing. 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.160 And I also was a double majored in theater MPR, 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:37.520 so I took a lot of marketing classes as well 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:40.120 and lived in that world for a bit. And so 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:47.800 I just think relatability is, yeah, the key. It's the 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:55.320 key across the board. And everyone knows someone who's an 0:17:55.400 --> 0:18:01.080 armchair expert or who themselves is considers themselves an arm 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.639 track expert, like I know it all essentially, Um, everyone 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:06.840 has one of those in their life. So you can 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.320 immediately click into that when you hear it. I think 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.159 that's sort of one of the powerful things about that 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:18.760 title in general, um and and titles overall that attract me. 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.880 It's like if your brain can connect into something personal, 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.840 you're like you're half the battle is done. I think. Well, 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:29.840 also a level of accessibility to yeah exactly. I think 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:32.520 you just like described everything a marketer is trying to do. 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:35.280 By the way, like period, like you can get all 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.560 this fancy shit, but that's what a marketer is trying 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:42.520 to do ultimately, how do I relate my product whatever 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:47.480 that is to you exactly? And now where it's getting 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:53.720 cool is in fans and community and creativity and opening 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.679 that stuff up I think with more players hopefully right uh, 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:01.480 in places we didn't expect them. So, Monica, you had 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:03.960 the business plan, which is I'll figure it out to 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:08.639 meet Rob. Rob joins the team. How did you begin 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:11.000 to think about the thesis for the show and how 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:13.000 you were going to program it? And was there a 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.639 playbook that you kind of set out to deliver on 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.840 or was it iterative? And as you grew you sort 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.200 of learned where the sweet spot was. I think both. 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:27.680 So we both loved Sam Harris's podcast It's now called 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.520 Waking Up with Sam Harris. We loved that show and 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.480 and and love that show still, UM and a lot 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:39.440 of our debates were centered around Sam's podcast every week, 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:42.720 and we love that format. It was just an interview show, 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:47.040 you know, but Sam is a genius. I think by 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:51.440 like real metrics, he's he is a genius, and so 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:59.720 his questions were not normal, you know, they were very specific, 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:05.280 in very different, very unique to his brain, which lad 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:11.199 these interviews into such um interesting territory, I think, And 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:15.960 so we just wanted to replicate that, not replicate what 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:20.399 Sam did, but replicate an interview show that's very authentic 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:24.240 to us and what we think about in the way 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:30.920 our brains work, which is a lot of vulnerability and honesty. 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:33.399 Those are kind of the main tenants. And you know, 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:41.040 decks coming from a a so focused on progress not perfection, Um, 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:45.159 the journey, not the result. You know, all of those things, 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:47.800 and any aligned with all those things too, just cause, 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.880 and so that has always been what we've been been 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.120 interested in talking about. Like you know, we always say 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:56.280 we're not interested in the day you won the Emmy, 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:58.960 but the two weeks after when you're out of work 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.439 and you don't know what to do, because that's the 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:06.040 thing we can all relate to. So um. Yeah, so 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:11.280 we always knew, like intellectually this is the show, but 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.840 we didn't really, of course, know what the show was 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:17.800 until we started it, until we started testing it out 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:20.080 and doing it, We didn't know what we were doing 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:23.920 at all. Um. The first episode was with Kristen and 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:28.439 I didn't say anything. I sat there, I had no words, like, 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:30.239 I didn't know, We didn't know, We didn't know what 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:35.119 it was going to be. And we had Chris Hardwick 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:38.560 on pretty early on in the show and he gave 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:41.480 some great advice which was like, yeah, do a little research, 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.960 but don't be afraid to not not look at it, 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:47.720 because that for our first few were like a little 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:49.800 bit more regimented in that way because it was like 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.400 real question. You know THATX had a list of questions 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:54.120 and he wanted to get to them and it felt 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:58.479 a little more confined planned. Yeah, and I think us 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:03.000 doing the fact check kind of helped with that because 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:06.959 that is a space where we could really be us 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:09.679 and not even could really be us. We had to 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:11.720 be like we just didn't even have an option. We're 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:13.960 just the two of us in a room. It's gonna happen. 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:17.760 We're gonna argue, we're gonna laugh, we're gonna make jokes. Uh, 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:19.560 we're gonna get mad at each other. Like you know, 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:22.600 these are all just the realities of our friendship. And 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:25.720 there's no We're not good at hiding it or making 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:28.960 it look pretty. I mean you can tell, you can 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:32.919 really tell on our fact checks the ones where we 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:37.080 have just had a fight. Um, we tried to be 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:40.639 We try to put it aside and be professional and 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:43.200 have fun on on the factor. But I mean, we're 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:46.480 just not good at it. Like we are very much 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:51.400 um animals of our emotional state, which is normally good 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:54.720 and fun, but you know, we have our moments. So 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:57.439 so anyway, once we started doing that, which was I 0:22:57.480 --> 0:23:00.280 think off the first episode, but once we started to realize, oh, 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:04.199 this is fun, like this organic chatter is where the 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:07.119 as you say, magic is, we started incorporating that a 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:10.879 little bit more into the actual interviews and just realizing, like, 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:14.480 organic is the way to go. How did you guys 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:20.199 go from okay? So episode one right now you have 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:24.800 like over twenty million listeners. That's a monthly number. It's bloggers, 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:28.159 it is, I know. So my question is, what was 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:32.560 the trajectory, if you know, like generally right, like what 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:36.600 was the trajectory? And could you guys feel astride from okay? 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:41.200 This feels good to us programming wise, cadence, our cadence, 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:47.000 our relationship and the show downloads and success. That's so 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:51.480 funny that you bring all this up because as you're 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:54.600 saying those numbers, there's a part of me that wants 0:23:54.640 --> 0:23:57.119 to like put my fingers in my ears. And not 0:23:57.359 --> 0:24:03.560 hear it, because I really think the reason our show 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:09.760 works is that it's very intimate. And the reason it 0:24:09.920 --> 0:24:13.040 is is again, like I said, like we're best friends, 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:16.359 so when we're when we're together, we just feel like 0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:21.040 it's us and the person. Definitely not thinking about numbers 0:24:21.119 --> 0:24:24.920 like twenty millions. None of that is in our heads 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:29.639 at all. It's three three people, me, him and our guest. 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:34.439 And again, to give everyone their due credit, we launched 0:24:34.440 --> 0:24:36.720 our show with Kristen, as I just said, And so 0:24:37.600 --> 0:24:40.959 you know that people want to hear Dax and Kristen. 0:24:41.119 --> 0:24:47.359 That's that is a truth. So it was not lost 0:24:47.440 --> 0:24:50.720 on us that that would probably have like a fair 0:24:50.760 --> 0:24:53.920 amount of people come to see us. But the fact 0:24:53.960 --> 0:24:59.400 that they stuck around, um was a shock to us. 0:25:00.520 --> 0:25:06.080 We were so thrilled and excited by it, and um grateful, 0:25:06.200 --> 0:25:10.600 so grateful for it. But really we just want to 0:25:10.640 --> 0:25:13.200 I mean it sounds so cliche, like I wish there 0:25:13.240 --> 0:25:15.840 was a not cliche way to say, you just got 0:25:15.840 --> 0:25:19.240 to do what you like doing, But it's the truth. 0:25:19.480 --> 0:25:22.040 Like the reason we wanted to do this is because 0:25:22.480 --> 0:25:26.520 it's just fun to talk to people and learn from people. 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:29.679 We both always say that we in our retirement, we 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:33.520 want to go back to college. UM. And this in 0:25:33.800 --> 0:25:36.440