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Sept. 12, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
53:45
1148 Starting Your Own Podcast

Some practical tips to achieve liftoff

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Sorry about that. So, yeah, the idea that we should reach people who are approximately half my age, I think, is good.
And with any luck, we'll start to reach people into the 50s in about 60 years.
But I think the idea of getting people into the conversation who are younger is important.
I think that... There's just a kind of hipness that I think I would simply throw myself out trying to achieve and would never even want to try, whereas I think that someone who can bring that to the table I think would be great to bring younger people to philosophy because, you know, the younger the better, right?
Sure, yeah. I mean, can you hear me okay?
Yes. Okay, cool.
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't exactly call myself hip, but at the same time, you know, I definitely engage...
Sorry, it's the old compare to what, right?
Yeah, I suppose, yeah.
I'm sure it's fairly hip to...
I'm sure you'd be hip relative to me, that's all I'm saying.
Well, maybe, I don't know.
But basically, the biggest question I had was mainly, you know, the first, like, say, I don't know, 10, 20 podcasts or so, What was your motivation?
You started off with reading the article of Stateless Society.
You did an argument for morality, maybe seven and eight.
I was just curious, was there a methodology to that, or was it more just reading some of the articles you had written?
What was the mindset behind that?
Well, I'm not going to pretend that it was all plotted and thought out on a massive business plan or anything like that.
But there certainly was some thought behind how to start it out.
And I'll give you the thinking over the first, I guess, couple of podcasts...
Well, I mean, I started off, in the introduction to Stateless Society, I started off with the argument for morality, saying, well, look, governments are evil.
They get lots of people killed, and let's at least try and think about alternatives to that.
And the reason that I started off with that was because I wanted to obviously get people who weren't frightened of originality.
And again, I'm not saying that everything in the stateless society is blindingly original, but for a lot of people it was fairly new.
And so I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to draw people into the conversation who were just not able to process new thoughts or at least thoughts that would be new to them, if that makes sense.
Sure.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, free domain radio is a lot about keeping people away.
It's a lot about an anti-audience in my estimation, right?
As we all know, the disruptions that immature, irrational, aggressive, whatever people can bring to bear on the conversation is pretty significant.
So for me, it was a lot about keeping people away.
And that's why...
I very early on plunged into the morass of religion as well, right?
Because I don't know if you've listened to this Michael Badnarik show that I was on, but that's what's out there for libertarianism, and you can hear the same thing if you've ever listened to the No State Project stuff that I did before on the WTPRN, I think it was, shows.
There's a lot of nutty people out there in libertarian land, right?
Yeah, yeah, I was listening to a little bit of that show, and that was definitely interesting.
Right, so I really, really wanted to make sure that what I was going to be doing was not any kind of replication of the scary shit that was already out there, if that makes sense.
Yeah, definitely. So you start with reasonable arguments, you start with some historical evidence, and so I felt that the Stateless Society was a good one to start with, because it's fairly challenging, it's pretty original.
There's no argument in there, which I sort of later had to repudiate.
It doesn't mean they're all right. It just means that so far I haven't had to repudiate them.
There's nothing about God.
There's nothing about the Constitution.
There's nothing about the Founding Fathers.
There's nothing about, you know, let's get back to the good old days.
And so I really wanted to make sure that the right kind of people were going to get involved in the conversation.
And also, the stateless society is a challenging...
I'm sorry, Steph. You cut out there for a second.
Sorry. The Stateless Society is a challenging show to start with because it pushes people right up against their capacity for optimism.
And when I first got that out there, I was...
Literally deluged with emails, basically which were about, you know, you're crazy.
There are so many violent, crazy, evil people in the world that your society will never work, right?
Yeah, that would make sense why you did the next two articles, so yeah.
Right, and very few people who first emailed me who said the world is evil ever listened to those next podcasts.
Which was great. Which was great.
Because the really, like the people who think the world is crazy and evil, you know, like the sociopaths in every closet, the axe murderers on every street corner people.
Right. I don't want to have anything to do with those people because they're psychologically so primitive and paranoid that they will never get anywhere to do with philosophy.
Ever, ever, ever. Okay, okay.
Those ads that are on the We the People radio network?
Get the water purifier to drink for your toilet when the New World Order takes over and the lizard people come for your children?
I haven't seen that ad, but...
But you know the kind of thing, you know, like, you need more guns, right?
Right, right. How to survive as a fugitive with a New World Order, you know, the Alex Jones stuff, right?
Sure, yeah. I mean, that crazy batshit stuff, I just don't want those, I don't want to spend my life in the orbit of those people.
I don't know how radio show hosts do it, frankly.
Yeah, gotcha, gotcha.
Well, what would you think of, I was thinking about those podcasts you did on debating freedom without solutions.
I mean, what would you think about doing the, like, Well, I think that's interesting.
I think that not giving solutions is very important.
I mean, it's important in psychotherapy, it's important in philosophy as well.
So things like the stateless society and the argument for morality, UPB and all of those, they don't actually give you solutions.
They just give you a framework.
They give you methodologies, right?
You want to teach people the scientific method, not scientific conclusions, right?
So I think that not giving people conclusions is very important because the people that you want as an audience are the people who are willing to live with the ambiguity and the ambivalence of no clear answers, right?
Because people who are immature are always looking for ready-stamped answers, right?
Thinking makes them feel oogie, right?
They want to look stuff up.
They want to look stuff up in the Bible.
They want to look stuff up in the Constitution.
They want to look stuff up in tradition.
They want to look stuff up in the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers.
They don't want to actually think for themselves, right?
Yeah, that's usually the biggest argument I get, you know, like, well, when in history has anything like this happened?
Right, right. So they want to look things up in history, right?
And it's...
You want to keep those...
Those people will bleed your fucking soul into ashes.
Because all you're doing is bumping heads against bigotry.
You're not actually engaging in the thought process, right?
Right, yeah.
So, I would really, really strongly avoid the temptation of giving answers, right?
I mean... The stateless society doesn't tell you how society's going to run, right?
And everyone who's immature or emotionally retarded comes to FDR and says, oh yeah, well, how would this work?
It's like, that's not the point, right?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, could you explain to me a little bit more?
I mean, like, obviously you go over some potential things like, I don't know, how pollution might be handled in that article.
But you're just, I guess you're saying all you're doing is suggesting a possibility, not like this is what would happen.
Yeah, I'm saying here are the financial incentives that you could put in place that would deal with some aspects of pollution, right?
Because it's like UPB wouldn't be that useful if it didn't validate, you know, theft, rape and murder, right?
Prohibitions on those things.
So if people say, well, how would pollution be handled in a stateless society?
And I say, well, here's a possibility that works logically and economically, right?
But it's not an answer, right?
See, the challenge with anarchism or voluntarism is that there are no answers.
People get all kinds of anxious.
How should society work?
What should we do with this?
What should we do with that? How should this work?
How should that work? They just want an answer, right?
Yeah. And not giving an answer...
is really challenging for a lot of people, right?
Yeah, well definitely, yeah. And those are the people, like, to the degree, I mean, it's challenging for all of us, but the people who get uncomfortable to the point of aggression or condescension or, I mean, the amount of crap that I get which basically says, oh Steph, you're just so naive about human nature.
Let me tell you what human nature really is so that you can understand To the degree that your little brain is capable of, you can understand how much you don't understand about human evil, right?
You don't want to get into a conversation with those people, right?
Yeah, I wouldn't be too much fun on it, that's for sure.
Well, because psychologically they're just projecting their own ugliness into the world, right?
And they don't understand the difference, so they're too primitive to get close to philosophy.
Okay. Yeah, I'm definitely getting why you wouldn't want to get those people involved.
Something that I was thinking about is I had a couple friends, including my pretty much socialist friend, listen to your podcast, Top 10 Myths About Libertarianism.
And it got them interested.
I mean, it didn't convert them to a libertarian, but you definitely made some points in that.
And the what is libertarianism, the sort of libertarianism for the non-libertarian type of podcast.
Right. I think they were pretty effective, because I at least got them thinking.
Like I said, they didn't convert them to a libertarian in a conversation, but that's not going to happen anyway.
So, they...
What do you think about doing those maybe earlier, or do you think that you put them in the right place, sort of like a little bit in, like 30 or 40 podcasts in?
Well, I mean, remember, the first avenue that I had was Lou Rockwell's crowd, and those people probably would not respond too well to a podcast called What is Libertarianism?
Oh, right. I don't want to go to a graduate school program in science and say, what is science, right?
I mean, that's kind of insulting, right?
Oh, Steph, you dropped out there for a second.
Could you repeat that last line?
Yeah, sure. I don't want to go to a graduate scientific program in physics or something and then say, what is science?
It's kind of insulting, right? Yeah.
Yeah, sorry. We were talking about like the What Is Libertarian podcast and you were saying that you didn't – it didn't work too well with the Lou Rockwell crowd and then you were about to elaborate on that.
Yeah, I just don't want to lecture people who know what libertarianism is or at least who believe they do.
I don't want to lecture them what libertarianism is, right?
It would be like someone coming to FDR and lecturing us on what his philosophy is if we didn't know, right?
Right, right. However, I think that the sort of – at least the initial group that I'm going to be – that I could send a potential podcast to, I think they might find it beneficial because I'm not exactly surrounded by libertarians at the university I go to.
Oh, no. I agree with you for sure.
I just couldn't put it too early in my series.
Right, right. So do you think I should consider doing a podcast like that, like maybe pretty early on?
Well, I guess that depends what you want to...
I mean, the first question is, what is your show about?
What is the purpose of your show?
What are you trying to achieve?
And how will you know whether you've achieved it?
Well, what I was thinking is that I just...
The reason why I was motivated to do it was I was thinking to myself, well, how many people...
Can we really get to understand the ideas of truth and the ideas of freedom?
And if there's anything I can do at all to help, you know, one person understand this better, you know, it's one step closer.
I mean, like you've said, the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.
Then I would feel good about doing that.
I would feel satisfaction out of doing that.
I guess what I'm going for is I can use tools like Facebook or MySpace, where a lot of college kids spend a lot of time, post them there, or send them to my friends, and then instead of asking, like you'll ask for donations to keep up the website, I'll just say, listen, if you like this, please send this to your Facebook friends.
And then maybe, you know, I don't know if it'll work, but maybe that'll get some of the ideas out there.
And I guess, you know, just similar things, you know, philosophy and economics.
And, you know, maybe at some point I'll even get into, you know, like the more personal freedom stuff, although that's a little more volatile.
And I don't know if I'm ready for that.
I haven't noticed that, but it could be.
Yeah, no, you're right. Okay, and so this is a good start.
Is there more that you wanted to say?
Because I have some questions.
I mean, I guess, like, let me see if I had any other...
No, sorry. I mean comments about the purpose.
Oh, right, right, right. Well, I mean...
And then other than that, I just figured, you know...
I mean, obviously you're doing this, but I also...
You've said enough times in your podcast that...
The ideas should be judged against reality, not judged against whether you say them.
I felt like all I'd be doing is just being another voice out there saying, hey, check this out.
This looks a lot closer to truth than what most people believe.
What do you think? Give me some feedback.
It's helping me learn, too.
I think if I could, you know, talk to people and, you know, maybe I'll meet some people who are really, really smart and can help me out and, you know, who knows.
So that was another purpose of it, too, is just for my own learning, you know, and if anybody's interested, they can listen.
Okay, that's great. I appreciate that.
Now, I hope you don't mind if I put on my marketing business hat, which is a little dusty, but if I were listening to an investment proposal or a product proposal, I would ask some questions which may be of use to you.
Sure. Okay.
So, the first question I would ask is, is this going to be your show, or is this a show that is designed to funnel people towards free domain radio?
Well, I mean, I think that if I'm going to be using, if I'm going to be quoting you, I will say, you know, this is a quote from Stefan Molyneux.
You can check out his site, you know, at freedomainradio.com.
But at the same time, I feel like if I was constantly just being like, go to freedomainradio.com, go to freedomainradio.com, then it would just be like, well, what are you doing?
Why are you doing this? Just tell people to go to freedomainradio.com and shut up.
So I think that...
Wait, what was that? Sorry, go on.
Maybe talk about some issues that are more important to my generation or something like that.
Who knows?
But I would certainly give you credit if I got an idea.
Well, sorry.
Just to interrupt. Frankly, I don't care if you give me credit.
I mean, it doesn't matter to me, honestly.
I appreciate your sensitivity to that, but just pretend I'm not Steph, but just some guy who's asking marketing questions.
I don't care. You can give me credit or not.
The important thing is the ideas get out there, not that they have a name attached to them.
Nobody buys the painting to look at the signature, right?
Right, yeah. I mean, that's what I was thinking anyway.
I just didn't want to be too rude, I guess.
No, no, I appreciate that. Look, I don't care.
And I certainly don't want you to interrupt the flow of thought to footnote, right?
I mean, that's... Okay, thank you.
All right. So, okay, so there is a...
Because when you're looking at putting a product out, right, there's...
The problem is it's called a Me Too product, right?
Like if I go to a bunch of investors and say, I want to write an email program, right?
They're gonna say, well, what's missing from the email programs that are already out there that only you can provide, right?
Like, why would people buy your email program over Eudora or Windows Mail or whatever, right?
Okay, so I guess what you're asking is why listen to my podcast?
Well, and I think I'm getting a sense of it now.
I just think it's important for you to have an objective.
Otherwise, it's just going to be kind of random, and it probably is going to be frustrating.
Because I want to try and give you the most traction that you can get from your show.
Whether that show leads people to FDR or not, that doesn't matter to me.
What does matter to me fundamentally, I mean, it does, but that's not the focus of this, is to try and give you the most enjoyable experience that you can have.
When you're doing your show, because I would love it if you could do your show for 50 years, right?
Sure, yeah. So the way to get the most enjoyment out of something, right?
If you want to build a house, you have to have a plan.
You don't just start throwing bricks together because it gets frustrating, right?
Mm-hmm. And you want to have the most traction possible.
So is it that you're going to take philosophical concepts from whatever source and apply them more to specific issues that your generation faces?
Is that right? I think that would be part of it.
But I think I would also just be going – talking about general – Sort of propaganda that we face in society and just saying to people, like, what do you think about this?
You know, if I put this out there, you know, if I said that, okay, maybe, you know, maybe there is no God.
Well, what do you like here?
And here's some evidence. What do you think?
And then I really want people to respond and have a debate, you know, like I'd like to do a lot of like email responses, like a lot of podcasts in response to like email somebody might send to me or something like that so that I can make it Really be as much like a conversation as possible.
Okay. Now, when you say that you want to look at topics that's more central to your generation, which I think is great, what are those topics?
Or give me some examples.
Sure. I mean, like, for example, I'm very into music.
I like music a lot, and I think that our generation, my generation has the I don't know.
I just listen to some of the music people listen to and I'm just like, what's going on?
And I just would like to talk to people about it.
I don't know why people listen to music where people are just screaming and it's atonal.
But I'd like to talk to people about it and say, well, okay, does this maybe have something to do with how you were raised or something like that?
That would be fun for me.
And... Sorry to interrupt you, but the image that I get is that I don't know that it would be particularly horizontally appealing to wag your finger at people's decadent music choices.
I think they would associate that with someone even older than I am, if that makes sense.
Well, I mean, I was a music major for a little bit, and I got really into music, and so I have a little bit of a...
bias there.
So I guess I don't know about that.
I mean, look, I agree with you.
I mean, I completely agree with you that people's musical tastes can be completely murderous.
And some of the stuff that is out there, it completely gives me the willies.
But I've tried to steer clear of that, A, because it would date the show, and B, because people are intensely attached to musical preferences.
And particularly immature people will always just blow up at you for criticizing musical choices.
They're either going to deal with their family, in which case the music choice is going to change if it's really ugly stuff, or they're not, in which case criticizing their music won't help, if that makes any sense.
Right, right. And I mean, yeah, I mean, I suppose there's kind of a...
No way to avoid it being interpreted criticism because, you know, really it's more curiosity for me because I just don't really understand it.
But, yeah, you're right.
Probably people will interpret that as, like, you know, finger-wagging, as you said.
Yeah, you say, like, Papa Roach is your dad and people are going to get all kinds of nutty, right?
Yeah, yeah, probably. Well, in terms of just, like, you know, other things in my generation, I mean, just generally the life of going to university and, you know, maybe asking people, like, do you really think these classes are helping?
Do you think they're good? And, like, you know, kind of maybe try to point out certain issues with...
How the state being involved in universities might, you know, make things a little bit...
Maybe things could be better, you know, I guess would be a way to approach it.
So, you know, certainly that because, I mean, I think people would take some validity from that thing as I'm, you know, currently at a very large university with very lefty professors all over the place.
Sorry, so part of your appeal would be to say to fellow students, you're getting a substandard education?
Well... Again, I'm totally playing devil's advocate here.
I really don't think I would approach it like that.
I wouldn't say like, Look at how bad your education is.
Now let me tell you what would be better.
Because, you know, I agree that would sound like finger wagging.
I'd say, I'd more just like put something out there.
Again, not giving a solution to say, what if it was like this?
You know, like, what if the government wasn't involved?
Do you think schools would be cheaper?
You know, do you think, you know, there would be more accountability for the teachers?
Like, what do you think? You know, like, that's kind of a...
Oh, okay. Okay, I'm going to give you this piece of advice for sure.
And this is hard-won advice.
This is advice that is covered in blood.
So I hope that it will be of use to you.
Ninja black belt advice.
Sure. Listen, whatever you do, don't imply things.
Okay. If you have an opinion, you need to put it out there up front.
Now, you can put it out there just as an opinion, right?
Okay. But...
priests, by parents, by professors, whatever, right?
Sure, yeah.
That you don't want to try and lead people through hints to what you consider the truth.
Okay.
Like, because you have to...
You don't have to. I strongly suggest you hugely respect the unconscious of your listeners, right?
Unfortunately, Steph, you cut out right after you said, I suggest.
Alright, just tell me when I'm coming back.
Yeah, you're good.
You hugely want to respect the unconscious of your listeners.
You have to pretend...
Okay.
whole room full, a whole stadium full of Nobel Prize winners and PhDs.
Okay.
All right.
That makes sense, actually.
Because everybody's a genius and everyone's a philosopher.
So if you have an opinion that you're withholding but you're trying to ask leading questions, people will get annoyed.
Sorry, you cut out again.
Right after you said everybody's a genius.
If you try to lead people to an opinion that you're withholding, they will get annoyed.
Right. Right.
Okay. Well, what if I approached it more along the lines of, hey, haven't you guys had this teacher who, you know, they'll say to you something like, you know, I want you guys to know that all your views are, you know, accepted in this class, and I will, like, listen to anybody's views.
And then the moment that you kind of say something they don't like, they sort of bite your head off.
And then I'd be sort of more opening up.
Yeah, you can talk about yourself and say, you know, I have had this experience.
You probably, maybe you have as well.
The teacher did X, and I sort of sat there and I thought, well, why would this happen?
How could this happen? This doesn't happen when I go to the movie theater.
It doesn't happen when I go to the grocery store.
I don't get snapped at when I order a burger at McDonald's.
So what's the difference, right? And so I go that way.
Okay, okay.
Yeah, that's good.
But yeah, you can never try and evoke your opinions from other people through hints.
They'll just experience that as manipulation, because it kind of is, right?
Okay. I mean, I would sort of say...
I mean, I would just be saying, this is what I think about it, but what do you think?
But I suppose...
No, I just meant about your earlier thing about the educational quality as a result of statist intervention and so on.
I mean, you don't have to give the answer up front, but if you're not going to give the answer up front, build your case sequentially until the answer becomes sort of inevitable, if that makes sense.
But don't try and elicit the answer without the evidence.
Okay, sure. Yeah, that would be the empirical way to approach it anyway.
Yeah, you want to build your case, right?
Definitely. And that's a good exercise for you because it helps you to figure out whether your case is valid, right?
Right, definitely. And the other thing that I was planning on doing was, I mean, I don't do a 30-minute commute to work and back and kind of busy, so I was only planning on doing one of these a week to be a little less, I guess, It wouldn't be quite as many updated as daily like yours were for a while there and I still are.
So I feel like that would give me more time to really focus on each podcast and really think about it because I'm not exactly super, super high IQ. I really have to think about this stuff a lot because This stuff didn't come easily to me, but I'm so much happier now, having experienced all of this new knowledge and self-knowledge.
Let me just stop you there for a sec.
It certainly didn't come easy to me.
I was a hell of a lot older than you are when I finally got it.
Almost 15 years older.
It didn't come easy to me. Yeah, yeah.
And why not open yourself up to the possibility that you are super high IQ? Why not?
I don't know.
I just never really thought of it.
I've always just noticed other people working not as hard as I have and still doing just as well.
I guess by state school standards, but that was kind of what I was basing that off of.
But I mean, I suppose... Look, but if we say that government schools teach largely irrelevant things, then if we lack skill at irrelevant things, that's not a negative judgment to our intelligence, right?
Yeah, good point, yeah. Definitely.
Like if a school taught juggling and you were slow to pick up juggling, you wouldn't say, man, I'm dumb, right?
I'm not saying you are, right?
You'd say, hey, I'm not particularly good at juggling, right?
Right, right. And so if you say, well, I'm not particularly good at learning what the government wants to teach me, that may actually indicate a superior brain, right?
I'm not good at propaganda is not a negative statement, right?
I couldn't have put it better myself.
That's very true. So I would just say that limiting yourself, the thing about being an entrepreneur, if you place limits on yourself ahead of time, You're right.
And if you don't, you're also right.
Henry Ford said it years and years ago.
He said, if you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.
Right, yeah. I think I've heard that before.
So why not say, I'm a stone genius full of great wisdom that I don't even know I have yet, but I'm going to discover through the conversation.
Right, right. Well, that's definitely what I'm hoping for.
I'm definitely hoping to learn a lot.
Because you said in the chat the other day, which I thought was great, you said that, like, actually saying all these things, that it's going to bring new ideas there.
And I think you used the analogy, something to the nature of...
You need to take a nice big shit before you can eat more food.
Right. No, definitely the expression of knowledge creates room for the creation of knowledge or the new knowledge for sure.
Yeah, which I'm very excited about.
When you said that, I got very excited.
And if I were you, I would take that excitement as a very important sign.
I guarantee you...
Because you are carbon-based, you have no idea what your potential really is.
Sure, yeah. So don't judge it ahead of time.
Say, well, I'm not super bright, but they don't come easily to me and so on, right?
That's a platitude that's nonsense, right?
You don't know. Right, yeah.
I've never done a podcast before, so how could I know if I'm good at it or not?
Well, I would trust, like when you got excited when I talked about potential, that's a deep part of you that knows more than you know, right?
Yeah, okay, yeah.
Well, I'll give you a silly example, right?
So, I don't know, God, it was a long time, 20 years ago or something, an Oliver Stone film came out called Talk Radio, I think it was, with Eric Boghossian, where he plays this radio show host.
And it's a great film, if you ever get a chance to see it.
I watched it like three times.
And... Of course, in hindsight, the fact that I watched a radio show host many, many times makes perfect sense, right?
Right. But I didn't know it at the time, right?
Yeah, yeah.
It is said, at least in a biography that I've read, that Hitler, when he first saw his big...
The moment the guy started speaking, he started jumping up and down with excitement, saying, I can do that!
I can do that! Right?
Yeah. And unfortunately, he was right, right?
Right. Don't judge what you're capable of, right?
I mean, don't put limits on yourself before you try stuff.
Maybe after you've been doing it for a couple of years, with every sense of your own limitless potential, you'll run into some sort of limit.
But you're way too young to put that up front.
Okay. Well, the one thing I'm worried about is being a little too...
I guess I'm always afraid of being overconfident.
Because then I might just put something out there that's really counter-effective.
Because, I don't know, maybe if I do think I'm the biggest super genius on the world, God's gift to mankind, whatever, then I would just start putting assertions out there or something.
But, I mean, I don't think I would do that, though.
Well, all you have to do is be honest, right?
And say, look, I'm putting a big goal for myself out there.
I don't know if I'm going to make it or not.
I don't want to artificially limit my potential.
Maybe I'll reach my potential 10 minutes into the first show.
Maybe I'll never reach it and I'll get better and better all the time.
But I'm going to put a big goal out there and you can either watch a big splat or you're going to watch a big flight, right?
But it's just honest, right?
Because that's the truth of what you're doing, right?
I'm not even comfortable taking on these topics sometimes.
I feel like I'm not up to them.
It's scary. And then, of course, when you put stuff out that's opinion-based, you'd say, but this is just my opinion, right?
Right, definitely, yeah.
So the opposite to grandiosity or insecurity is just honesty.
It's an honest assessment of what you're doing, right?
People seem grandiose because they're reacting to insecurity and they're pompous and it's leveling.
You're trying to be superior to other people, right?
But you want to reach out and elevate other people and liberate them from their preconceived limitations, right?
Yeah, yeah. People will instinctively get if you're talking to hear the sound of your voice or if you're talking because you care about them.
I mean, I fucking love this community.
I would slobber all over this community if I could.
I love this community.
I think this community is the most incredible group of human beings that I have ever encountered and ever will encounter, except for the new people in the future.
No, I couldn't agree more. I've been loving it.
Great. Right. So, when people feel the love, right, and they feel the excitement, and they feel the caring, and they feel the passion, and it's about them, it's not about me going, ooh, look how much I can feel, right?
Mm-hmm. Then it's irresistible, right?
Who can fight love? Yeah, definitely.
You can't fight love. You can't, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, that's a good way to put it, I mean, yeah, definitely.
And that's why it's so volatile for others, right?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Sorry, I'm just trying to give you the possibility of learning about yourself through doing this show, right?
And learning about yourself by doing this show means not fencing yourself in to begin with.
Definitely, yeah. I mean, that was one of the bigger goals, and I didn't sort of realize how having that mentality of like, well, you know, you're not going to be that good at this, but, you know, give it a shot would kind of, you know, bring me down a little bit.
But I think you've convinced me not to go into it with that mentality.
So hopefully that'll really, you know, help me approach it with a lot more confidence.
Yeah. Good.
Okay, so I think that the way that I would suggest is I think you need to create – like I think you need to approach this professionally if this makes any sense.
This doesn't mean in a way that's boring or annoying or dull or anything like that.
But I think you need to sort of sit down there and map how your show fits into – What I'm doing.
And again, I don't mean to say that it's better or worse, but you need to differentiate your products, right?
Because you don't want to just sit there and say, hey, Steph said this cool stuff, go listen to this, right?
Right, yeah. So figure out where I've dealt with stuff and figure out what's missing.
And Lord knows there's lots of stuff missing, particularly since I can barely remember being 30, let alone 21, right?
But figure out where stuff's missing and figure out where stuff's missing...
Not just in terms of the youth approach, but stuff that I've completely missed, right?
I've never done a podcast on something as basic as forgiveness, right?
Okay. So topics or things that you feel are missing or not even part of what I'm doing, that to me would be a good differentiator, right?
Sure, definitely, yeah.
But I would say, you know, you can do thought maps or thought clouds or whatever, but you, I think you need to, like, because you're putting a product out there, you need to, and it's not just my podcast, but, you know, what are other people doing that are in a similar sphere?
Other philosophy podcasts, libertarian podcasts, economics, you might want to listen to econ talk a little bit and so on, right?
But what is it that's out there that you can fill a niche that isn't filled already, right?
Sure, yeah, that's definitely the goal.
I mean, I'm still trying to develop that, but that would definitely be...
Yeah, I mean, I knew that I had, at least when I started, there wasn't much out there that I knew of that was really specifically about a stateless society.
I couldn't find any really good atheist podcasts that weren't also weirdly socialist.
But most importantly, I could not find quality philosophy and quality personal growth stuff out there.
So I knew if I can't find it, there's got to be lots of other people out there who can't find it either, right?
And, I'm sorry, Steph, you cut out right after you said that you couldn't find the atheist podcasts that weren't socialistic?
Yeah, I couldn't find atheist podcasts.
I couldn't find quality psychology and self-help and personal relationship podcasts.
Yeah. So, figure out, like, I'm sure there's stuff, you've been listening to the FDR, I'm sure there's stuff where you go like, man, Right, right, yeah. Yeah, unfortunately, I haven't listened to all, what is it, like 1,200 podcasts now or something like that?
But yeah, definitely, I'll look through them and see if there's anything that I think to myself, I wonder why I didn't approach this.
Well, you can do the, there's a search tool, right?
Right, yeah, yeah. You know, if you want to do something on forgiveness, and again, it's not required or anything, I just, it's better for you not to reinvent the wheel so that people will come to your show rather than to mine.
But... It doesn't matter to me as much whether they come to my show or your show.
I just hope that more people are exposed to the ideas.
Because you never know. Maybe that's the next person added to the...
Oh, no.
It should matter whether they come to your show.
Honestly. It should matter.
I mean, don't get too noble, right?
I mean, you want people to listen to what it is you're doing, right?
Sure, that's nice, but what would be really cool would just be if there was a lot more free people around.
Like you said, you never know how fast ideas are going to spread.
And so, it might not be in my lifetime, but if there's any chance that it could be in my lifetime that people could really live more personally free, which would lead to political freedom, that would be so fantastic that I think it's worth, you know, doing anything, you know, towards getting there.
But, you know, it would be nice if people listen to my podcast, yeah.
People, look, and the reason that I'm more than happy with the quote, to have the quote competition, is that...
You know, there are like three people on the planet so far.
More people actually is good for company.
It's not like we're running out of land, right?
Yeah. So my philosophy podcast may be 20,000, 30,000 people.
You know, people who speak English, what, about a billion?
It's not like we're running out of people, right?
It's not like if someone listens to your podcast, they won't listen to mine or vice versa, right?
Right, right. Okay. So we're not sure.
There's more than enough to go around.
And I like having the company, so I'm more than happy.
Now, maybe when there are only three people left who aren't listening to philosophy podcasts, then we can start fighting tooth and nail.
But right now, the continent is wide open.
Right, definitely. Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
That's a good point.
And as far as your style goes, is it going to be more read an article, more spontaneous?
Do you see a role in humor?
Do you see a role in music, sound effects?
I mean, have you thought about that approach?
Well, I have always liked that your podcasts don't have the stereotypical sort of opening music that's always the same or something like that.
But that said, I really love music, so I'll probably end up putting clips of tunes I like or something like that to open up a podcast.
Unfortunately, I don't have the wonderful voice you have, so I can't just sing like you do sometimes.
Well, some people might consider that a step in the right direction, not singing like me, but I think that's good.
Me, it was always, I just, I always used to fast forward past music in shows, right?
Harry Brown used to have this music.
I just fast forward, so I always hated that.
So I just never wanted to have people hit the fast forward, right?
Right, right, yeah.
And I mean, I've been thinking about some other things.
I mean, I definitely would like to do the more spontaneous thing because I feel like that has the potential, like I could do a spontaneous podcast and never post it, but end up getting some idea that I didn't think, didn't even go into the recording booth expecting to find.
Whereas I feel like if I'm just reading an article, I'm just reading.
But, you know, and that's the other reason why I want to do podcasts because I just, I don't like sitting at a computer and staring at the computer writing an article.
As much, you know, I don't mind it, but I prefer to just, you know, talk.
Yeah, yeah, nobody reads shit anymore.
I mean, come on.
I mean, I have like over 100 articles on my blog, and I get like 2,000 people a month, right?
And no money, right?
So, you know, when you just follow the money and the interest, and I don't, I listen to books versus reading them, or listen to articles, which I get read in that creepy computer voice, it's like 10 to 1 for me.
Yeah. I mean, reading sucks, frankly.
Ever since I got into all your books a couple of years ago, reading just sucks because it is a sit and all-you-can-do activity.
Right. Yeah, definitely. It is nice to be able to, like, you know, for example, in about 15 minutes, we're going to have to leave to go walk to my class, and I'll probably be, you know, listening to some music or a podcast on the way down.
I mean, like, you know, I can't really be reading while walking through the streets of Philadelphia.
That'd be a little less. Oh, absolutely.
So, definitely, the printed word is dead.
And I can tell that also just by looking at the ratios of PDFs to MP3 downloads of the books, right?
So, yeah, the printed word is dead and good riddance, right?
I mean, a quality vocal athlete can bring stuff a whole lot more to life without, I think, interfering with content than, you know, people don't read Shakespeare.
They see the plays, right? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
So, um, yeah, I was definitely thinking more along the lines of the spontaneous type of thing.
And then luckily, since, uh, you know, I have access to these, uh, recording booths with recording software, if I have to pause for a while, cause I'm collecting my thoughts or something, I can just cut out the pause and that type of thing.
Um, so yeah, I definitely was leaning more towards that style.
And then as for humor, um, I mean, I guess I'll try.
I mean, some people find me funny.
I get a lot of blank stares with my humor sometimes, but I'll perhaps give it a shot if it comes up.
But I'm not going to be too focused on that.
I'm not going to be like, man, if I don't get five jokes in this podcast, I... Yeah, I know.
Jokes are like sexual attraction.
I mean, you can't force it, right?
If you force it, it's kind of weird, right?
Yeah, exactly. You can't get joke goggles the way you can get beer goggles, right?
So, yeah, I would just say just keep, you know, stay as loose as you can, right?
You want to communicate freedom even more so in the form than in the content.
Yeah. Yeah.
Although, could you elaborate on that a little bit?
Can you give me an example or an analogy or something?
Well, I talk about self-trust in my podcast, right?
That you need to trust your own instincts, right?
Yeah. I'm sorry, you just cut out real fast there.
I talk about self-trust in my podcast, right?
Like, you need to trust your own instincts.
And so I don't fight my own tangents, right?
Yeah. I mean, I don't know where the hell I'm going sometimes, but I assume it's in the right direction, right?
Right. Yeah, definitely. I don't know what the hell's going on in this dream.
I have no idea, right?
But you've just got to keep patient, ask questions, and something will come, right?
So the fact that the form of what I'm doing indicates self-trust, right?
And that communicates the concept of self-trust even more effectively than just talking about it.
Right, right. So you have to feel free...
And be free within yourself in order to communicate the value of freedom to others, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I mean, definitely the spontaneous thing for me, I'm excited about that because I'm excited to see what happens.
I'm excited to go into the booth and go, okay, here's the general outline of what I'd like to talk about, but let's see where it goes.
It's kind of exciting to me.
Yes. And if, you know, if you're not certain, then it's interesting for other people.
It's like watching improv comedy versus a rehearsed comedy.
Because there's always a chance that it's just going to completely go up, go down, right?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Alright, and I know you've got to go to get to class.
Was there any last sort of, I hope, well, first of all, has this been helpful for you in terms of delineating what it is you're trying to do?
Oh, definitely. I mean, I definitely have a lot more confidence in myself now.
And, you know, so that's pretty helpful.
And, you know, what I'll probably do is if I'm wondering about anything, about how to approach anything, I'm really stuck.
I might just stop by the chat room and ask people what they think.
We have this great community here.
Oh, yeah. Use the community and, you know, get feedback for sure.
I mean, the great thing is that you're putting yourself out there into the free market, which is a very exciting thing to do.
And, you know, it's sink or swim as far as getting people to listen.
And no matter what happens, whether you succeed or fail, have as much fun as possible doing it, right?
This is back from when I was first starting out as an entrepreneur, right?
I just used to be terrified all the time.
And, you know, eventually it just sort of said, you know, fuck, I'm either going to succeed or I'm going to fail, right?
Either my software is going to sell or it's not going to sell.
And all I can do is control how much energy, creativity, focus I put into the product.
If it's going to fail, I don't want to have failure and no fun failing as well.
That's a double negative, right? Yeah, yeah.
And obviously I'm not saying you're going to fail.
I hope that you succeed wonderfully and wildly.
But either way, the key thing is fun because it's hard to not have fun when someone else is having fun.
And I think that's why people listen to FDR because they know that I'm enjoying myself and that's kind of infectious and that's, I think, the most important ingredient.
Because if I'm going to communicate about the value of happiness, I at least have to enjoy what I'm doing, right?
Right. Oh yeah, well, without a doubt.
And I'm pretty good. When I talk to my friends, they're sometimes like, Phil, calm down.
And I'm just like, I'm sorry. But in a good way, I get too excited.
So hopefully I can convey some of that passion in the podcast.
Because I think there's just no better endeavor out there.
I think what you've been doing is awesome.
And if I can do anything to get a few more I'll remember, you're a genius and a philosopher, and there are potentials within you that you can't fathom as yet, just as even within me, there are potentials I can't even fathom yet.
So just, you know, use this as a way of figuring out just how amazing you can be, and it will be infectious.
Cool, cool stuff. All right, it was awesome to talk.
I finally get a chance to talk back at you, and thanks very much.
Okay, and obviously be sure to use FDR resources and let me know if I can do anything to help get the word out.
Cool, cool, thanks.
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