Imagine journeying from the brave world of firefighting into the creative realm of podcasting. That's exactly what our guest, Corey Paul, did. Corey is a testament to the transformative power of podcasting and entrepreneurship. This episode is ripe with insights from Corey's journey and his book 'Path to Podcast Success'. The book captures his experiences and learnings while working with giants like Google and PRX. We delve into Corey's interesting history and his quest for financial literacy.
Have you ever wondered how mindfulness can help overcome challenges and help you find your purpose? Corey answers this by sharing his experiences from the Google/ PRX Fellowship program. He reiterates the importance of determination and tenacity, two qualities that played a crucial role in his success. We also touch upon the significance of community-building and continual education, with Corey recounting an inspiring networking story with the CEO of PRX. This intriguing conversation led to her writing the foreword of his book.
We then transition into how empathy and understanding your audience can lead to better content creation. We discuss the vital role of standard operating procedures (SOPs) in podcasting and how these SOPs can help in delegation and creating an efficient workflow. Lastly, we highlight the balancing act required to manage a business, a team, and a personal life. Drawing from his personal experiences, Corey shares his insights on how to optimize time and strike the right balance. Be it a budding podcaster or a seasoned entrepreneur, this episode has something for everyone to take away.
Imagine journeying from the brave world of firefighting into the creative realm of podcasting. That's exactly what our guest, Corey Paul, did. Corey is a testament to the transformative power of podcasting and entrepreneurship. This episode is ripe with insights from Corey's journey and his book 'Path to Podcast Success'. The book captures his experiences and learnings while working with giants like Google and PRX. We delve into Corey's interesting history and his quest for financial literacy.
Have you ever wondered how mindfulness can help overcome challenges and help you find your purpose? Corey answers this by sharing his experiences from the Google/ PRX Fellowship program. He reiterates the importance of determination and tenacity, two qualities that played a crucial role in his success. We also touch upon the significance of community-building and continual education, with Corey recounting an inspiring networking story with the CEO of PRX. This intriguing conversation led to her writing the foreword of his book.
We then transition into how empathy and understanding your audience can lead to better content creation. We discuss the vital role of standard operating procedures (SOPs) in podcasting and how these SOPs can help in delegation and creating an efficient workflow. Lastly, we highlight the balancing act required to manage a business, a team, and a personal life. Drawing from his personal experiences, Corey shares his insights on how to optimize time and strike the right balance. Be it a budding podcaster or a seasoned entrepreneur, this episode has something for everyone to take away.
What's good everyone. I'm Langston Clark, founder and organizer of entrepreneurial appetite, a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting black businesses. Today we have Corey Paul, who is an artist, creative entrepreneur. He's CEO of 1M and Co. He pivoted from being a firefighter, he's a musician, he's a podcaster and he's now the author of Past, the Podcast Success, and he has decided to join us today as part of our special series for International Podcasting Month. We're highlighting black folks in the podcasting industry. Before we get started, like we normally do, I was just wondering if you could tell our audience a little bit about who you are, Tell us your story before we get into the story of the book that you have recently written.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it greatly. I love and respect what you do and I was excited to come on and have a dope conversation with you. I really appreciate it. So my story is the definition of no straight lines to success. So to shotgun it, because I know we're going to break it down.
Speaker 2:I started in music. Rep was always my passion since I was a kid. I was about 12 years old. All I wanted to do was be a rapper. I pursued that.
Speaker 2:I came up in a neighborhood in Houston, texas, called South Park. It's a hood, like a lot of hoods across America. My house that I came up in was probably about 10 minutes from DJ Screw House. By DJ Screw, you actually do so. Whenever you hear music, slow down and chop, you hit them Drake albums. When you got the slow music, all that's from DJ Screw. So it was like the mecca of Third Coast Southside music. So that's what I wanted to do Pursuit that man.
Speaker 2:I was blessed to see success. I dropped three studio albums. Two of them hit the Billboard. I was able to tour millions of streams and all that good stuff. But a lot of the internet is kept.
Speaker 2:Rappers just don't be balling like that all the time. I had fame with not enough money. I wanted to get married and a passion I had. I said I couldn't be a rapper, I would be a firefighter because I just thought it was an amazing, noble job and you can serve your community. So I became a firefighter. So I was like a rapper and a firefighter and eventually rap worked well enough to where I was able to leave the fire department, focus on rap.
Speaker 2:And in doing that, life has a way of hitting you and we're going to details. But, man, it was about two or three a year straight with me and my wife called Did I wield? In this time where just nothing was working and I had to figure out who I was, again rediscover myself, and that's why I learned about podcasting. I discovered podcasting changed my life. I've had the opportunity to spend two years working hand in hand with Google and PRX to create my podcast, which was ranked in the top 5% globally, as well as Arthur, the book Path to Podcast Success, which encapsulates everything that I learned working with Google and PRX. So here today, man, I'm with you Now. I brought all those worlds together and I'm learning how to navigate being an artist but also managing the media company that houses our podcast network.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So to me you're like, in a lot of ways you're a Renaissance man, right so to do podcasting in a very entrepreneurial way, to be an author, to be a music artist and to be a podcaster it's very multifaceted and I think a lot of that comes out in what I read in the book. And so could you tell us a little bit of the history of the book. What was the process for deciding to write the book, what was the duration for it, and just give us a breakdown, maybe a few of the key points in the book, without spoiling it for the audience, Because I do want folks to check it out and buy it for themselves, especially if you're interested in podcasting. But beyond that, it has really good nuggets just for restructuring your business in general. So the history of the book.
Speaker 2:So I wanted to write a book before I even had a podcast. I wanted to write a book. I discovered books were so dope. I was like, when did I want to write a book? Had no idea what I was going to write about. Fast forward, we'll get into it more.
Speaker 2:But when I discovered podcasts it was at a time where I had a newborn baby. We had moved from one state to another state. I was having to rediscover who I was, because identity that I had before was no longer. I wasn't Corey Paul the rapper and firefighter. I was like a stay at home dad. I was trying to figure out how do I provide for my family but still be creative and have a business. But we were traveling. It was just craziness that we can get into.
Speaker 2:The point is that's when I discovered podcasting and it was like a lifeline. I just benched podcast day in and day out, just learning and seeking knowledge to understand how to get from where I am and where I want to be. So in doing that, a big part of that evolution for me was financial literacy. I didn't have a lot of it, or much of it at all, so I was learning. So, me and my homie, we would get on the phone and chop it up about financial literacy and investing in personal finance, and he knew more than me so he would make it relatable. He would break down things in a very simplistic way that were culturally relative, while I was like, oh, that's what they mean by the stock split, that's what they mean by IRA or Roth IRA, all this stuff.
Speaker 2:And then one day we just said, I wonder if other people want to hear it, let's start a podcast. Just as simple as that. And that was the origin. So I tell that because it was from a very personal point. Fast forward, I got into the Google cohort and my mind, we were hand in hand with these podcast industry experts and we were understanding exactly how to roll out, how they rolled out podcasts that were new, that nobody heard of, to having celebrity posts with five, six figure marketing deals. So after having that experience remembering where I was once upon a time and then being on the other side of it, I was like man. I want to encapsulate that experience in one book that for the next creator or the next business owner that wants to start a podcast, the journey won't be as hard as it was for me if they get this book. So that's the origin story of me creating the book.
Speaker 1:Talk about the identity pivot. I'm going to provide some background for you in this. So I have another podcast called the African Americans in Sport podcast, and that came about because I'm a university professor and some of my research that I was trained in talks about athletic identity. So what we'll find is is that a lot of athletes, regardless of their race or ethnicity, but black athletes in particular when their playing days have sunsetted, they go through this identity foreclosure where they don't know who they are, they don't know what to do, they don't know where they belong and they can go through some serious depression. And so we'll talk about what it was like in the midst of the transitions and finding this inspiration, but then also staying committed to leveling up in your skill set when it came to podcasting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's good, that's amazing. I always knew what I wanted to do. Like I said, since I was 12, I knew what I wanted to do. As crazy as it may sound to some people, I always had the plan of being a successful artist, and even in route to doing that, I became a firefighter, which is like noble and you're respected and it's a job you can have pride in. And so once the firefighting stopped, I was still Corey Paul the rapper, which I always been. So there was a lot of identity in it.
Speaker 2:Now what happened is my wife got into medical school and a month after she got into medical school, we found out she was pregnant with our first child, our daughter. So the only option really was for her to not go to medical school and we just keep it pushing, or we go to medical school, which was in a whole other state, and I stay home to watch our baby, and so I'm a believer, so that's what I feel like God told me to do, and so I did that right. So now what happens is I'm not understanding that my identity is in all of these things and I'm just trying to do what's best. It's not time, submerged in it, that I start feeling this level of depression, this anxiety, I start feeling not as valuable and less then, and so I'm trying to figure out where is it coming from. And it's the aha moment of oh, I was not enough myself, it was what I was able to do, or how people viewed me, or the stock that I held in those things. And so, during that time where, at that point in time, it wasn't about me, it was about me being a husband to my wife and a father to my daughter it wasn't the Corey Paul show, I was in the servants position the thing that gave me peace most was this concept of like the power of consciousness and being present in the moment.
Speaker 2:And it depends on how many podcasts and how much Instagram you watch. You can hear stuff like that and it's like oh, whatever, but it's true, man, and what I mean by that is the consciousness just means like being aware that this is where I am today, but it doesn't decide my future, where I'll be tomorrow, and I shouldn't blame my past for it. If I believe that I'm doing everything I can, then everything is okay and I can't affect anything outside of right here. Right now, I can't travel to the future. I can't go back into the past, so just be present right now and every day, try to get up and do your best so that may just look like eating well, working out, reading, meditating or whatever it looks like. It may not look like the fancy Instagram stuff you want, but it'll be positive for that moment and that very simple but complex mindset. That's where it started the whole shift for me and allowed me to become my best self in a situation that I didn't understand.
Speaker 1:I like when you talk about mindfulness and being present in a moment and my understanding of that is, by no stretch of the imagination about a mindfulness expert is that you could be mindful but still be progressing towards your purpose, in your purpose or whatever it is that you've been called to do and so I think about in the midst of this transition. You did the Google PRX Fellowship, so talk about what that experience was like. How were you able to get into the fellowship? Did it look at your past experience as an artist and say, because you had this experience in a following you've been recording and all of that, how did you position yourself to be one of the people who were selected for that prestigious learning opportunity?
Speaker 2:In what you're saying. You could still move in that time. So it's a perfect example. If I would've just went and cried in the corner like whoa it's me, nothing would ever happen. But I asked myself, okay, what can I still do at the house? I need to create what can I do? And that's where the podcasting came in. So if you want something, you just keep putting up shots until you figure it out.
Speaker 2:So as we were starting the podcast, I didn't know what I was doing, told you, I just discovered podcasting, literally going online, googling podcast, grants, podcast, fellowships, podcast. I'm just looking like how can someone help? And I could discover this program and I applied three times before I was accepted. They turned me down twice and then the third time I was accepted, and so it literally the third time when we got accepted.
Speaker 2:We had four or five episodes of our new podcast, not the best quality at all, but we did a very detailed, genuine application, the concept of our show. It met a need. We were breaking down financial literacy in a culturally relative way for people who've been marginalized. So our podcast met a real need and then it was just for us, like I believe some things are just for you if you keep going after it, and so they didn't consider any of my music, my background.
Speaker 2:All they considered was the application that asks questions like what is your podcast for? How do you want to help people? What's the intentions? What do you see yourself in 10 years? Those kinds of things. We took time, we did it right, we took our terrible quality episodes but it had great messaging to it and sent it to them and it was just a level of tenacity. Like I said, it wasn't until our third time we were accepted and they got thousands of applications and they just felt like our application, our podcast and the chemistry between me and my co-hosts were what they were looking for at the time.
Speaker 1:And so one of the things that I'm committed to with my own life in terms of business, but just also my own personal development, is and we talk about financial literacy. This is interesting. Me and my wife have budget talk twice a month at the beginning of the month. Right, everything's like a line item budget. I have a budget for my continuing education, so I get money set aside just for me to go. Like I'm going to South by Southwest in the spring. I'm not going for the concerts, I'm going to learn about business. I'm going to learn about, like, what's on the cutting edge of the culture. All of those things. Besides the Google PRX fellowship, what are some other things that you have been doing to continue to educate yourself in your business?
Speaker 2:Books, reading is fundamental, hands down books. So I don't come from a culture of reading. The people I grew up around, my homies, my, you only read because you had to. But books and the reason why books are so powerful is because usually it's someone with authority or expertise in an area and then they put all of that in a focused matter in one book and they put it out to the public and their goal is to make it amazing as possible, because their peers, as well as people who would support them, are going to receive this. So they really giving you the game. It's not like you just read 200 pages worth of fluff. It really is solid information.
Speaker 2:So books, classic Robin Kiyosaki books Rich Dad, poor Dad, cash Flow Quadrant 10 Things to Do Before I Quit my Job for people who want to be entrepreneurs. And then you have things like the Power Now by Eckhart Tolle. Another powerful book was called the Emit, and the last one I would give that was really powerful for me was Thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill Classic. It's amazing. So books, books, books. I would definitely say that. And then the other thing I would say is like networking, mentorship, community, and so not like a fellowship necessarily, but just put yourself in spaces with other people who are trying to do what you're trying to do, so that could be meetups, that could be networking events the same problems that you're having. Other people are having those problems too, and some of them have solutions, and then you may have solutions to their problems. So now, inherently, you're bringing value to a table. Those were some of the main things that really leveled me up.
Speaker 1:So you talked about community, not necessarily in the context of a fellowship, right. So I want to talk about that community outside of the Google podcast fellowship, but I also want to talk about it being in that learning space give you a community. Are you still in contact with those folks and those creators? Are you all sharing information and helping each other? How do you all stay connected as a community?
Speaker 2:if so, it definitely did, 100% did. It was some of the most refreshing time that I ever spent is with these other creators, because these were creators. These were people who were taking concepts and thinking deeply. We had everybody in there from this one person.
Speaker 2:The podcast was called the Wind and it was this immersive experience of people and culture.
Speaker 2:They would talk to someone from the CEO of a Fortune 500 company but then tie that into talking to a drug addict in a homeless shelter and weave these stories together.
Speaker 2:But then it was also like this outdoorsy type feel to it, to where the concepts were not supposed to be like in a certain construct, but they wanted them to flow freely. I mean, I had never seen anything like it before. So you're in a room with people who are thinking like this about creation, true crime podcasters who are visiting convicted criminals to have interviews with them for their podcast, and so that leveled up the community and it built these deep relationships. And so to this day, we have monthly meetups and I've been done with the program for a while now and we still have monthly meetups, we still share resources, we try to go to each other's events, we have a slack together, so it's like very important to be intentional about keeping those relationships. The forward of my book is by the CEO of PRX and that just came through genuinely caring about what she did and providing the opportunity for us not just taking it thank you and leave, but actually showing like gratitude.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you about that. How'd you get her to write the forward, because I thought that was the Put up every shot, put up every shot.
Speaker 2:When we got into there, they said, hey, we're going to set you up with mentors. Tell us what we all want for a mentor. And I was thinking, man, I would love the CEO of this multimillion dollar media company to be the mentor. And a part of me was like bro, you tripping. I was like I'm going to put the shot up. Put the shot up and the lead of the program who's my homie? Still to today. She was like Carrie said she down.
Speaker 1:So she became my mentor, oh man.
Speaker 2:And then in the conversations we just genuinely To the point where she would just email me sometimes like, oh, I saw this article and thought about you and we just had a genuine relationship. And so when I asked her to write the forward for the book, she was like I would be honored to write the forward for the book, which is just baffling to me because I'm not leaving nothing out. I'm not leaving out any backdoor relationships. My uncle is really my auntie. It's just genuinely loving something, making stuff, putting up shots and being grateful in the opportunities and I feel like people. They really value that and it'll get you more than you imagine out of situations.
Speaker 1:I think you mentioned this stat in your book and it was that, like 80% of people, or something like that, want to write a book yes, right, okay. And I think about why 80% of people want to write books. Books are validating. They validate your expertise. It's like it's an honorable process, like being a firefighter, right, like it takes a lot of effort, a lot of intentionality to be an author. And then I think about what does it take to be a podcaster? And so, just like people aspire to authorship, I think everybody, at some point in their life, should have a podcast. It doesn't have to be something that's ongoing for years or forever, but I think if you want to assert yourself as an authority on some particular topic or challenge yourself to get your expertise of what you have to say out there, podcasting is a great way to do that.
Speaker 1:Another benefit of podcasting and this relates to our conversation right now is that my podcast is a podcast where I'm interviewing. I'm always interviewing somebody, or maybe every now and then we'll have a panel discussion, right but it has given me the courage to reach out to people and ask for things I would never ask for. Yes, if this is probably the most empowering thing I have ever done, but like I feel you when it's like you're in the podcasting industry you've been in the music industry you were going through this identity pivot and you were like you know what I want? To meet the boss. That's something that podcasting does for the podcaster that, in a lot of ways, writing a book can't do.
Speaker 2:I love it and I agree with you 100%. I was talking to a friend of mine and we were talking about podcasting and, in essence, the question was like how long do you think you plan on doing it? And I was like, until I can't, I will never not podcast, because you live so much life and we like to think our memory is good but we forget a lot. So if nothing else is like this, this audio documentary of things and thoughts that you can share with your friends, family, strangers, anybody who's willing to listen or even just review yourself I think it's just an amazing thing.
Speaker 1:So we talked about the center community that you got from the fellowship. Talk about the community that you maybe have cultivated outside of that Google PRX circle. How are you surrounding yourselves with folks that are supporting you? Maybe you haven't had that experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not for sure, yeah. So one thing that I realized is that before I created the podcast, I wasn't looking or listening for who else is trying to create a podcast. I hadn't had one right. But when we created it and we put it out there and we stay consistent with it, what we learned is kind of coming off of our last point is it was so many people that were trying to do things in that area, and what I mean is people trying to create podcasts, but also people who were trying to convert their spaces to podcast spaced, or people who were trying to video podcast, or people who were trying to learn more from podcasts and understand what podcasts to listen to. To people that was like I keep hearing about podcasts, how do I get them on my phone? So you realize, like bro, it's a whole world Of people in different areas trying to understand more.
Speaker 2:So what we would do is, anytime that we got a message or anytime that I had a connection with a person in that space, I would always ask them what are you doing? What else are you doing? Who else are you connected with? What do y'all got going on and see if there was any way that we could add value. So it would go from someone wanting to interview me to me learning that they were partners with a school, to us going to speak at the school, to us meeting the person who was hosting us at the school and then saying that they wanted to do some other stuff at their church. It's just like it was this organic process of just like living amongst people who care about the same thing that you care about in some way, and so that's really how we've approached it. It's just very organic, case by case, asking questions and seeing like, how can we help? Is there any way that we can serve?
Speaker 1:I want to go back to talking about the book. I love the title of the book because it rolls. It's almost like a rap song, right, half to podcast success, right, it kind of rolls off the tongue. But if I were going to remix the name, right, if I was going to change the album title, give it alternate cover, alternate title to the book, it would be design thinking for podcasters.
Speaker 1:Because you're taking a very aligned strategic approach podcasting that you lay out here in the book. So talk a little bit about why design thinking matters for someone who is trying to build their podcast.
Speaker 2:So you have creatives that want to build podcasts, but then you even have businesses that want to create podcasts, right? So, usually, following one of these, that either is this some kind of creative endeavor or it's simply your business and you're trying to get customers. But it doesn't matter, because when you start to create a podcast, you are, whether you know it or not, creating a form of art, a form of media, because for that 30 minutes, that hour, you're having this audio experience with a person, and so you have to figure out what's the best way to do that, right? Hey?
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Speaker 2:So why design thinking? The full name is Human Center Design Thinking. This is why it's so important. Usually, when a person wants to create a thing, usually they have some idea this IHOT, this light bulb, oh my God, that'll be dope and then they get really excited. They tell everybody about it and then they start making up the thing and they think that usually it's going to be this straight line between the idea and the thing they want to make and it'll connect and everybody will love it.
Speaker 2:Most times that's not how it goes. It does not work that easy. It's going to be a lot of ups, downs, lefts, rights, twist turns before you get to either creating a thing, or creating a thing that everybody loved, or creating a thing that everybody loved and you can make money right. And most people give up in the midst of those turns and those ups and downs because they feel I guess it wasn't that good, or people don't understand me, or if I had more money it would work, and they quit. So design thinking solves all of that. So when you get ready to create your podcast using design thinking, it solves all of those problems. And the reason why is because design thinking goes through a quick process. The process is you do have the idea, right, and then, from the general idea, then you go into having a fleshed out version of it, just brainstorming it based off of why you want to do it, what needs are you meeting, what problems are you solving? You get to like the root and the mission.
Speaker 2:So, whether you have a podcast or not, you realize the purpose of what you're doing before you even start a podcast. Then, when you go from there, you start talking to the people who you want to solve the problem for, the people who you want to meet the need of. And then you have these conversations and then you come back to the table and you go, oh, I didn't think about that. Oh, yeah, this would help them. And then eventually you get to okay, now, based on what I want to do and what the people want, right, how do I create the dopest thing? And you go through that process of creating it and then you bring it back to the people and say, hey, what y'all think about this? Is it good? Can I fix it, can I not? And then eventually you get to a prototype phase where you launch it, but it still can be worked on in the process right.
Speaker 2:So, instead of trying to take this rocket ship, you slowly create something that is proven all the way around, and when you get to the end result and have your podcast, you also have a mission statement, a purpose statement, a brand. You have all of these other things. You have your target demographic. You have this full encompassing process that has helped you separate yourself from most creators, and you don't have to wonder if you did it right. You did it better than probably 90% of people, so you don't have that anxiety of did I do this? Did I cover that? You definitely did. That's why I love the process. It's all encompassing.
Speaker 1:But the part of the process I think that you lay out in a book that stands out the most to me was these empathy interviews, and maybe that's because I'm a qualitative researcher right, and podcasting is an empathetic art form. So a lot of times when artists are painting something, they are inspired by something within to create whatever it was right. I don't know that they always have an audience in mind when they're creating that painting, but as a podcaster like you, are curating something for a specific audience and so talk about the importance of being an empathetic creative through podcasting.
Speaker 2:It's the most important thing. It's really the most important thing after your why why you're doing it. Once you get the concept of what your why is. The most important thing is the people you're serving. So right, because if you create a podcast just for you, you don't really need my book unless it's for fun. Right, if you just record and voice memos and listen them back to you, that's kind of a different thing. But if you create a podcast, it's your podcast, but it's for everybody else, and so the best way to look at it is like this Henry Ford has a quote and he says Henry Ford, creative Ford motors and all of that.
Speaker 2:He said if I would have asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse, right? So the concept of that is usually, when you ask a customer or a consumer or listen to directly what they want, they don't necessarily know because they're not immersed in the world. They just know what they like. So when you ask someone, hey, what kind of podcast you wanna listen to, most people don't really know how to answer that question. But if you ask someone about their self, they know about their self. So the reason why it's so important to be empathetic is because when you are empathetic meaning you're trying to walk them out in their shoes when you go back to create it comes from this place that when they hear it, they're more than a fan, they're a follower, they're family, they're immersed.
Speaker 2:A quick example is we had a financial literacy podcast. Well, on the surface, the concept is financial literacy. Books and resources are usually written in these very boring, over-complicated ways with a lot of jargon that doesn't have people that have been marginalized in mind. So let's make better versions of it, let's put more cultural references in it and da-da-da-da right. But we would have missed the biggest thing. Through our empathy interviews, we understood that, yeah, those are a problem, but even more so, the biggest problem is that people that don't come from a financial background, when they try to learn, they feel belittled, they don't feel empowered, they feel less than not like they are equipped to handle it. So we realized like the most important thing for our show is to make people feel empowered and not belittled, and don't use our knowledge to lord over them, but come alongside them. None of that would have happened without empathy interviews.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as I was reading the book, learning about this design, human-centered design thinking process for podcasting, and researching you, looking up your bio, the things that you've done, I realized that I don't run my podcast systematically like a business, and there's a difference between people who are in the podcasting business and people who are podcasting hobbyists, and I think the hobbyists lean a little bit more towards creating content for themselves and not necessarily for an audience that they want to serve, and I find myself in this. I'm a quasi-hobbyist in terms of the processes that have been put in place to make sure that I have growth and systems and things like that, and so that is the thing that I appreciate the most about your book. So talk a little bit about what it means to you to be someone who is in the podcasting business in a very process-orientated, systematic type of way.
Speaker 2:I think one is powerful to just understand the difference. I think understanding the difference is valuable because you may think that you have a podcast business and when it's not working how you want it to, you feel like you failed. But you didn't necessarily fail because you were not even operating like a business, because you just don't know what you don't know. So I think it's first important to understand the difference. Understand if you've been running it like a hobby or like a business. Because if you've been running it like a hobby, then don't get down on yourself for not reaching the level of success you want to yet. You just didn't have the tools yet. So if you're just running it for a hobby, do your thing, man, have fun. Don't matter if five people listen to it, you don't need that. But when you're running it like a business, there's certain principles and systems that have to be put in place for you to be consistent over the long term. That's the thing. You can do a lot of things for a month or two, but the system is going to help you over the long term. And what I mean by this classic example in entrepreneurship is does McDonald's have the best hamburgers? No, nobody says that, right, but they have amazing system and an amazing business. This is why they are McDonald's right. So there's no debate on if systems beat out talent. Right In your podcast, when you learn really dope things and you need to apply them, the first thing you have to ask yourself is what process am I going to use to do that thing?
Speaker 2:Every time in business they call it SOP Standard Operating Procedures so you just ask yourself.
Speaker 2:So when you say, okay, I recorded my podcast and I'm going to get it edited, you hit done. And from you hitting done, there's a process that happens between you being done and the editor sending back the finished process. All you have to do is write down the steps that happen between the time you hit stop and the time you get back a finished product that can be uploaded. And when you write down those steps, you'll be able to understand what is happening, how much of it you're needed for or what you can hire out, when you have the funds to do it. And when you have a workload that takes you 10, 15 hours, you may realize I'm only needed for five of those hours. So over the next days, months, weeks, years, I can start to fire myself from positions as we start to grow the podcast. So your podcast can be consistent and then you can move to the next best thing, right? So the systems are everything if you want to run your podcast like a business.
Speaker 1:Listen, I want to talk briefly about the power of wonderful wife. Listen, my wife been getting on me about Langston. You need SOPs for your podcast SOPs because you can't do all this editing, you can't do all this promoting, posting on social media. You need help, and I think, for me, the thing that I'm probably I think I might be a little afraid is doing that process and letting go of some of the responsibility involved with running a podcast. I no longer have the bandwidth to do this and increase the quality of what I'm doing, right, and so, listen, the layout for those of you who are trying to, like, start a podcast or whatever business, the things that are outlined in this book, will help you go to the next level.
Speaker 1:And, corey, I want you to just give some advice on the people who are, like, stuck in the middle. I know we need those SOPs, right? I know we need the detailed writing down, the detailed description of what happens next. I also want to mention that that is a form of empathy, right, because you've got to empathize with the person who's going to be receiving that information, to do that work with you. So empathy is running throughout this whole business process. But, like, how do I get over the hump Like it's time to let go? It's time to start doing those standard operating procedures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's good, that's beautiful. I feel like we all go through that as entrepreneurs and creators. These are our babies. This was an idea in Langston, this real thing, and who do I trust with it? I would say the first step would start internally, like the first step is asking yourself where do I want to go with this, like what are my plans for this podcast, and just simply dream about what the plans are. It's doing those plans.
Speaker 2:Be honest with yourself and say can I do all of that Right? Ask yourself can I do that by myself? You may want to interview the top celebrities and athletes and you want to have a network with other podcasts to come under you. You want video. You want all of these things. To act yourself realistically, can I do that?
Speaker 2:If your podcast is anything outside of a hobby and it's any form of a business, the answer is no. You cannot do all of it. You want to know why, even if you get the perfect process down and you can do it from eight in the morning to five PM perfectly as a one man show If you get sick or if you're out of town or if you on vacation or if anything happens God forbid, that's unfortunate. When you stop, everything else is going to stop. So the answer it's not a real question. You can't do it by yourself.
Speaker 2:So once you buy into that, the first step is accepting that and then saying, okay, I don't have a choice, this is beyond me. I'm scared, but the best case scenario I build something dope and then I just let it sink because I didn't take the first step of putting the system into place. And so then, practically from there, you literally just start writing down or typing out everything that you're doing, all the different steps that you're doing. You just start slowly typing them down and start with one small thing. Maybe it's a graphic designer, maybe it's an editor, or maybe it's social media poster, or maybe it's something AI that helps you do something that's part of removing. You Restore it, real small, and then believe in that vision and know that you're going to have to find a way to put the system in place to see the success that you want.
Speaker 1:Something you said stood out to me is this is how I'm interpreting what you're saying have the courage to do things that are beyond you. You need courage to do things that are beyond you. You have to let go. You have to bring other people in. You have to be empathetic in giving them the instructions and the tools that they need to help you grow what it is that you're trying to grow. So I appreciate that statement for sure. Want to highlight that in the book you talk about CRMs and workflows. As I said, it's very technical and people are going to learn that they need to be leveraging tools that exist to make their businesses a lot more effective, their podcasts more effective. So I'm wondering can you tell us a little bit about your podcast? And, as we mentioned before we started the recording, I saw you on Instagram and you had this show called Literacy Kings. Can you talk a little bit about that? And then these news that you're going to be developing in the future?
Speaker 2:Literacy Kings was the flagship podcast. That's the financial podcast that I mentioned. What we mean by co-hosts, what we broke down financial literacy, investing stocks, financial news, just everything money or investing related. That's what we were at that moment and with that podcast, that started with just us having a conversation, but it grew to the team that I've built out and so we have people that we work with that are from Denver, colorado, to Romania, that were a part of putting that together. So we had to get a workflow and everybody had their position and so the thing that we did is like we learned a lot early and we learned what didn't work. We wanted to grow it as big as we could, so we were okay with taking those ills and turning them into lessons.
Speaker 2:So that podcast, we got to a point there, to where we started it from organically, and so it got to a point where now, where I'm going with creation and art and the story that I want to tell, it's not the same basis as Literacy Kings. So in learning that, I'm completely okay with creating a new. So my new podcast that I'm launching this year is called the Process with Corey Paul and it answers the question. Every episode attempts to answer the question if I never quit, what am I truly capable of? Which, I feel like, is the answer for everyone that's trying to move forward in life, from whatever position they're in If I never quit, what am I truly capable of? And so everything that we learned from Literacy Kings will now be going into this podcast, and I'll literally be using the blueprint that I laid out in the book to create and launch this podcast, as well as talk about that process to other podcasters of how that's going and how it's being applied, and so I'm really excited about that one.
Speaker 1:I think it's interesting that you also have the courage to let a podcast sunset.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a hard decision. That was a really hard decision. Yeah, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Because I think podcast is hard work. The finished product even if someone is an indie podcast and they're just getting started and the podcast is a little janky still a lot of work to get it to the point where it's up on a hosting site. It has some type of music. All of that is hard, especially if you're doing it alone. I want to talk really quickly. Talk about the importance of having a team. Like you said, you're going to hit a certain ceiling that you're not going to be able to go beyond without a team. So talk about what it was like to you to build out people in multiple roles, not everybody being front facing, but some people working in the background to make this product grow and develop in the way that it needs to.
Speaker 2:First thing is if this is a business, if you want to take it serious, you want to make money from it, you're going to need a team, and it's a beautiful process crafting it. It's very hard, but it's a beautiful process. First thing is don't think you can't have a team. I talked to a podcast that just seems like a foreign concept. They're like who's going to be on my team? Why would you be on my team? Is someone out there right now that wants to be a part of a team? And they're saying who would let me on a team? Why would they let me on a team?
Speaker 2:So many people in this world want to do something and all you have to do is provide the opportunity. So that's the first thing Believe that you can have a team. You're worthy of having a team. And the second thing is the book is all encompassing. I continue to use that word because in a world where so much information and things are so scattered that can lack, it's just where I can go to one place and get everything I need. This book is there. So, as you're going to the process, we talk about having a team. So when you get your team, you won't be all over the place because you know why you've made that list of things that need to be done. So now you know exactly what the team member can do and when they can do it and how they can do it, and you can measure if it's being done well or if it's not. So when you follow the process of it. It makes it powerful.
Speaker 2:The last quick two things I'll say is team members are going to make you better because they'll specialize in the area that you are doing because you have to. So you may be editing the podcast because you have to. You have a team member that's doing it professionally. It levels it up to a next level and then, as you continue to grow, they're continuing to grow in their knowledge. So you can stay ahead of the curve when it comes to where the industry is going, because you have a team of people that are daily continuing their education. So, just on so many levels, it's powerful and don't doubt yourself. You can have a team and you don't have to have a lot of money to start with. You just start with what you got the show.
Speaker 1:Definitely you talk about teams. Right, you got a team in your business. Right, you got a team at home. You got a family Did you just have your third child.
Speaker 2:I just had my second one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my second girl, Okay you just had your second girl, so there's four of y'all in total. I'm thinking right, yep? How are you balancing or integrating this business that you're running, a team that you're responsible for in your company, but also the team and the family that you have at home? How do you make that?
Speaker 2:work First. It is not easy. It is not easy at all. I feel like everyone is always trying to find the secret to balance it, and it's just not a secret. It is no way possible that you're going to be able to balance. It's more of a rebalancing. It's more of a rebalancing focusing on the most important things of right now and then focusing on the most important things of tomorrow. So the way that I do it is I start at the top and I start at home. What does my wife need? What do my kids need? What do I need to do there? Because if that part is not taken care of, it doesn't really matter what I do in business.
Speaker 2:Once I realize what's needed there, then I go to what I need to do in business and I put the most important things there and I try to optimize my time. So I think when you start with your family first and then you do the most important things in your business and then, thoroughly, you optimize your time, meaning I can't complain about I don't got enough time to work if I'm starting to work at 11. How early can I get to bed? If I'm being honest, I could get to bed maybe around 10 if I'm being honest, so I could easily be up at 5. That's true. It may not be easy, but it's true. So it's like, well, what would my day look like if I started at 5 instead of 19 or 11? So that's the optimization part of it.
Speaker 2:You do those three things and then the last thing I would say is allow things to be. When something happens if your kid gets sick or if your wife is going through a hard time at work, and you just don't got it like that, you just don't got it like that for this time, maybe it's a week, maybe it's two weeks or whatever where you have to focus more on them than the business. But don't beat yourself up or put pressure on yourself about that, because eventually, if you follow these steps, you will have a business that runs without you. Right now you're probably just self-employed, meaning you are the business, you work for your own business, but eventually you can go from being self-employed to running a business, meaning you leave for a month and you come back and everything is still running. So that's kind of the mindset that I have when I think about how do all of these pieces fit together?
Speaker 1:And that, I think, goes back to the importance of having a strategy, a human-centered design, thinking-based strategy for building your team and giving people the responsibilities that they need to carry out the vision. Two last questions, right? The first question is talk about this concept from slave ship to ownership, because I saw one of your videos on YouTube I was like, ooh, I like that. And then because, as I mentioned, we're a series of events. This podcast is based upon some events that I host every now and then. It's really, in a lot of ways, a book club. Talk about some of the books that you're reading or have read, that have inspired you in your journey, other, maybe, than the ones that you mentioned a little bit before, because I know Think and Grow Rich is one of my favorites of all time. What are some other ones that you might be getting into as well?
Speaker 2:The slave ship to ownership. That was a statement based off of a song and a concept that really hit home to me. I feel like, as black people in America is a fact right. We started from the back of the pack and so a lot of times I feel like we could be complacent with just being okay, we don't have to own it, but we in the building and it's a real nice building. But understanding the empowerment that comes with ownership and ownership can mean owning a home, owning a house, owning your destiny, owning your mind, owning your own thoughts, right when you wake up in the morning. Nobody can make you do this, but that you do hold the keys to your destiny right. So that's really where the slave ship to ownership came from and, segueing into the books that I've read, that's been foundational.
Speaker 2:One of the books that encouraged that song was a book about Black Wall Street. Yeah, it's a book called Black Wall Street that we actually covered and it's about Black Wall Street, the notorious community of black business owners and that had everything from their own taxi systems to their own laundry mats to their own forms of communication. That was fortunately burned down and no justice was ever really gained from it. But Black Wall Street was a real powerful book. That led to that Another book, mamba Mentality Kobe Bryant's Mamba Mentality. That was an amazing book, even in business and life. I definitely encourage reading that book. Start with why is a powerful book? Atomic Habits is a powerful book. Oh, it's another book the Richest man in Babylon Great book.
Speaker 1:That was another book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amazing. Classic yes, that is a man-think-it, powerful book. I can go on and on with the books. Also, this is a little off from business and stuff, but spiritually, purpose-driven life and the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle was, spiritually some really dope books that I read as well. But yeah, you can't go wrong Shoot Dog by Phil Knight. I can list books all day, so with them some of the top ones.
Speaker 1:Corey Paul. Thank you for joining us. Those of you here listening be on a lookout for his upcoming podcast. Share the name of it with us again.
Speaker 2:The Process with Corey Paul. Yeah, look forward to the process with Corey Paul.
Speaker 1:Be on a lookout for the process with Corey. Paul and Corey, thank you for joining us. Corey is a firefighter, a father, a rapper, a businessman, a podcaster and an author, so he's a true Renaissance man and we appreciate you joining us here today.
Speaker 2:My brother. I really appreciate it. I'm glad that you had me on. I hope that all the listeners will be encouraged by the work you're doing, that we're trying to do. Y'all go out and make something dope and share it. People are waiting on it. Thank, you.
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