Lessons From Running This Podcast

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

Welcome back to Success with Srini. Today is February 6 2022. Happy Sunday morning to you. Now I’m recording this podcast two days early. And because I won’t be around on Sunday to record so I’m recording this little earlier. Now, because I’m recording this earlier, I have no idea what to say. Because most of my podcast episodes are all contextual things that are happening on that day or a few hours before that day or the day before. I collect all those ideas and put them on the podcast. But because I’m recording this two days early, I don’t know what I have to say on this podcast episode. I don’t think I have much to share.

And today’s podcast episode is not about a success strategy, an idea, a thought, or a story. But to this podcast is about a retrospective. Retrospective is something that you do after you engage in an activity for a long amount of time. You collect all the data, and you start analyzing the data, to make some observations to see things that you can improve things that you can get rid off things that mistakes you made along the way, all of that stuff. So the retrospective we did internally, my business, is this podcast. This podcast restarted on January 3rd 2022. I say restarted because I have done this podcast multiple times over the years. I started in 2016, I did a few episodes, I stopped then 2017, a few episodes, I stopped 2018. Same story. In 2021. I started the podcast, saying that I’m going to do this on a daily basis. I did this for about a month and a half. So started in January. And we went till about February 21 of 2021. And I stopped.

Now, I can give you multiple reasons why I stopped, I started, I restarted, all that. But I don’t think that’s important. Because excuses are excuses no matter which way you say them. I don’t want to take an excuse on this podcast either. But it’s not about restarting or starting. But this is more about what happened in the last three days. So in the month of January, we almost came close to 1,000 downloads of this podcast. So in other words, it has started, so there is momentum in this podcast now 1,000 downloads already happening. Now I do not know these downloads are people searching for the podcast and getting them or this is Apple iTunes pushing the podcast every time it’s published. So it’s all kinds of metrics around it. But 1,000 downloads so far, near about 980 or 970 downloads in the month of January. It’s all good. The best podcast episode was the one where I was on the bed as a result of COVID. And I still record it. That’s the best episode everybody told me, everybody messaged me. There were some questions coming in from the listeners, which was great. I met a few people in some social setting last month, who told me that they’re listening to the podcast, which is also great.

Now, there is one big fear I have. And this has happened to me on radio. And this is something that I’m starting to feel as I’m doing this podcast, which is every podcaster anywhere you go anywhere you look into podcasts, one thing they talk about is subscriber count. And there are many marketing programs that sell you on how to get subscribers. I never tried to get subscribers to this podcast. My challenge is with the existing listeners, if I don’t maintain the depth in the content, the quality in the content, and I don’t keep them engaged. I don’t share old things or new things but in an increasingly fresh manner. If I don’t do that, then people will drop out the subscribe but they don’t listen. So if you’re a subscriber and you don’t listen, that means I’m not attaining the depth. It’s not the number of subscribers. It’s just the subscriber who listens who can use some ideas crossed my mind and a two ways to fix this issue.

The first is that, I keep on accumulating more than I’m sharing, which is hard, by the way. I cannot read one book a day, or I cannot watch one movie a day or whatever, whatever way I accumulate information. I can’t keep up with the production. It’s hard. It’s difficult when you have other things going on. And the second way to do that is kind of take yourself out out of this responsibility, which is getting other people to come in as guests. Because they will provide some great content, and I can kind of pull myself out. Turns out that’s also not that easy, because who will share good content? Who all can you find in their timelines, their availability, scheduling all this hard? It’s hard. It’s difficult. But these are the two observations. And that way we can infuse some newness into the podcast. I’m not saying that there is nothing new. But all I’m worried about is what if I lose subscribers depth. And this is a concern that I have, because I know how this works. Many podcasters don’t understand this. But I know this because I’ve been on the radio.

My biggest worry is not only I want the new subscribers, listeners to listen to my radio show. But then I also want my existing listeners to come back and listen, and listen for a long amount of time. Even with a new listener listening to my radio show for the very first time, I want them to stay longer on the radio show and listen to me. That’s how I build the depth. Some personal observations I made as a part of this podcast after restarting in January, I have to become good at storytelling. I have some skills, but I need to develop them. I need to get control on timelines. Sometimes you take one thing, you drag it out. And as I listen to my podcast, I can see I’m dragging things out. No need to track people get it people are smart listeners. I need to be very precise in what I’m saying. Some repeat words as I speak. Some phrases that I say unwanted. Not necessary. But they’re catchphrases, because I lose my thought that drop in my thought process. I need to come back into what I’m saying.

So I use these words to come back. Not good. I also say, you know, you know, you know, multiple times. I say Right, right, right in every sentence. And, and, and multiple times. I say, uh, um, all that stuff. And I know that because I listen to my podcasts, and you are good when you subscribe to your own stuff. Most people don’t listen to the recordings. I know. Because I have several of my friends on radio, they don’t listen to the recordings, I insist upon them, listen to your recordings, because the recording is going to modify you. Expand you grow you if you take some lessons. These are some observations. I thought of not telling a lot today on the podcast by looks like holy, I’m eight minutes into this. So that’s all I had. I want to make the podcast more real from this point on I have gone back and I’ve listened to the couple of episodes I did during the time when I was on the bed with COVID. And I want to go back and get the same tonality, same inflections that the way I had when I was sick. So I’m going to go back to that, but appreciate you listening to this. You mean a lot me personally, I don’t know if I met you or haven’t met you. But it means a lot to me personally. It feels as if I’m speaking to you. Every day, every day, I wake up in the morning, the first responsibility I have is to record this podcast. And it’s a huge responsibility. But I love this responsibility. As much as I love taking care of my father. And by the way, he just turned 88. It’s a responsibility, but it’s life. It’s wonderful when you do that. So I’ve also started to love the podcasting. And it’s flowing now after one month it’s flowing it just as if you know as part of me now if I don’t do this, then I feel empty, some hollowness is always inside the heart. Like yeah, you didn’t record a podcast today. What did you do with your life? So thank you for being a listener. Thank you for being a subscriber and this is me. This is real me. Sometimes I’m animated here, but I will try not to be animated. I’ll try to be real.

That’s it. That’s all there is to this today. So enjoy whatever of the remainder of Sunday you have. Tomorrow I’m answering a question that has come in from a listener and I thought of doing that today but then I thought I should only talk about me myself okay. So tomorrow I’m going to talk about an incredible question you love it you love it okay so that’s all for now be safe wherever you are and tune in tomorrow. Bye now.

Ton Of Imagination & A Pile Of Junk

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

On the podcast episode today, I’m doing something that I did last week. Last Saturday, which is I went back to my blog, I took some of the posts I made a while ago, nearly 13 years ago on my site. And I took one post last week and I talked about this amazing Austrian immigrant who started a multimillion dollar chocolate business upon landing in New York, with two days of market research. Today, I’m doing the same thing, went back to the blog, pulled a post I made during the same time, this is from June 25th 2009. And this post is about inventing something with Q tip method. This post talks about an incredible inventor by named Alan Bright. Alan bright in 1949, invented a metal cleaning liquid called, copper bright. The way he did this is very funny, very interesting. Now a little bit backstory on Alan Bright. He never finished college, he enlisted in the army and went to the war while he was still in the 11th grade. During that time, he found his passion for inventing something. And along the way over the years, he invented many things. But one of his successful inventions is the corporate bright. This is what Alan bright did and this is, he’s genius.

Alan went to the library one day, and collected all the names of all the chemicals that can clean copper, he bought about 60 of them, and lined all of them in bottles on a table and started dipping Q tips in each one of them, one by one, to swap a copper coin, till he found the perfect combination that cleaned the copper the best. Then, he went on to build a multimillion dollar business from this one solution. Now in the later years, Alan modified the formula to meet several standards, but always use the Q tips approach to do that each time. Corporate bright is still around after all these years.

Now, the reason why I wrote this blog post back then, and I’m also giving a voice to that blog post today is I want you to think how you can apply this method in your own business or anything that you are doing today. Is there any way that you can line up different possibilities, different permutations, different combinations, to somehow juggle and mix and you find the right combination that can solve your problem, but can also make a huge impact in the society in a good way.

Thomas Edison said, “To invent you need a good imagination, and a pile of junk.” That’s all for now, on today’s podcast, I just had the idea of bringing some of these old blog posts and give them life in the form of my voice. You enjoy your weekend. I’ll be back again tomorrow with another incredible maybe a success tip maybe a story maybe an insight maybe a solution. We’ll see. Please rate please rate review and share it with whoever you think will benefit from this podcast. That’s my simple ask. Talk soon. Bye now.

Motivation Is Overrated

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

Motivation is overrated environment matters more. Welcome, or welcome back to Success with Srini. Today’s podcast episode is based on a book that I’ve read at 17,500 feet above sea level for nearly six weeks. Everything that I’m sharing today is based from this book. I’m going to give you the name of the author, and the name of the book towards the end of this podcast episode. But then, let me give you the backstory of how all this happened.

In 2019, I made an attempt to climb Mount Everest, the idea was to go all the way to the summit. And this was a dream that I was fostering for nearly 20 years. The first time I saw Mount Everest was 1999 and then 2019 is when I made a full attempt. The way you climb Mount Everest is you kind of hike up to about 17,500 feet, you stay there for nearly six weeks. And from there, in during those six weeks, you kind of go up to camp one, camp two, you come down, then you go to camp three, maybe you come down one more time. And then eventually, when the weather window opens, you go all the way from the base camp, all the way to the summit. Camp one, camp two, camp three, camp four into the summit. So there is a lot of waiting time involved, waiting for the weather to open and kind of getting the body acclimate and all that, a lot of time goes at the base camp.

Now while you are in the base camp, a lot of activity going on. Because you’re waiting for everything to happen, things to come together, though, the way we spend our time at the basec amp is by talking to other people, maybe listening to music or some talks, and reading. Now if you have your books on your portable devices, on your phone, or your iPad and things like that, now you are draining energy. If you read books on your phone, then you’re draining the battery charging, battery is expensive. Because you’re depending on solar energy, so solar panels to charge your batteries. And if you have cloudy days, then sometimes you are unlucky. And because there are a lot of people, nearly 4,000 people at the base camp, everybody is going through the same Wi Fi line even though there is internet, so there is not much you can do on the internet either. So given these two restrictions, what I decided to do was I decided to carry some books, physical books.

And while in Kathmandu right before the start of the expedition, I went around to different bookstores there. And I picked up this book that I heard about this book before. But then I saw the book and I said Ah okay, glad I found it. I bought the book. And the downside of this is because I wanted to read this book along the way, right, there are multiple days that go by before you start kind of hiking from the south side. If you want to climb Everest, you have to start from local and then you keep on going. You hike up a day you stay a day, and then you hike up, you stay kind of stay in one of this tea houses. So I wanted to carry this book with me because I wanted to read the book as I was hiking up to the base camp. Now every time you add a book or anything of has some weight, you are adding weight to your backpack. So there is also some physical stress involved with it because you raise the the weight of your backpack now you may get tired and all that. So I did get tired reading this book because I was carrying this book in my backpack all the way to the base camp. So I had to read it, I read it. That’s the backstory, you see almost four minutes gone, telling you the backstory.

In this book, the author talks about how motivation is overrated, and environment is everything. It gives an example of a doctor by the name Annie Thorndyke at the General Hospital in Boston, she along with her team decided that she wanted to change the eating and drinking habits of all the visitors and the staff of the hospital without asking them to do anything. All she did was she studied the layout of the cafeteria and she made some changes. She rearranged the drinks in the cafeteria. So the sorta vent to the refrigerator that was next to the cashier that was behind the cafeteria and she placed multiple water stations in different locations inside the cafeteria. At the end of three or six months, there was a drop of 11.4% in soda sales, and there was an increase of 25.8% in water sales.

People choice of products is not what they are but where they are.

Case in point, people choice of products is not what they are but where they are. Take that statement into your life right now. You’ll see you’re buying things because of where you found them not because what they are. There was a discussion I had the other day with a friend of mine. He said, “Srini, many people listen to your podcast, because they are from the radio.” True. In fact, you know the environment, right? So you majority of the listeners of this podcast will maybe you yourself, too. You heard me on the radio, because I was there and you were there listening and I was there speaking, I told you to listen to this podcast. So the environment suggested you would I gave you a cue to come to this podcast. Otherwise, let me tell you there are incredible speakers. There are zillion podcasts. I’m nowhere. And I don’t think that I’m anywhere. It so happens that because I was in along with you in the same environment and I gave you a cue to come here you are here. So our habits are based on the cues of the environment within which we are in environment plays a hand in shaping our behavior.

In 1936, Kurt Lenin came up with a simple formula. He said behavior equals the function of the person in the environment, B = F or P comma E. In 1952, economist Hawkins Stern came up with a phenomenon suggestive impulse buying. What it means is a shopper sees a product and imagines the need for it. I personally remember a story. Back in the day when Borders was still around, you to step into the border store right at the entrance. You see this rack with beautiful magazines and primarily the one or two three magazines in the front. Were all bikes like Harley Davidson or Honda bikes, and on the bikes are this beautiful models. And as I started going deep into marketing back then, I started to understand you know, people are buying these magazines or buying because this magazines and the pictures on this magazines, the cover design and all. They all speak to some unconscious needs they have, which is if I get this bike, maybe I can have this beautiful life and maybe this beautiful girl. All these are unconscious patterns. Now interestingly, people who do buy these magazines will never end up buying a bike. Even for example, the Ferrari magazine, people who buy this Ferrari magazine for expensive car magazines or bike magazines, they will never ever end up buying those bikes. It’s all in their imagination or the cars all in the imagination. Been a shopper cease products at the line of sight. That means products are placed to the height at their eye level. Those products move faster from the aisles than the products that are placed below the aisles.

Our actions are not shaped by purposeful drive and choice but by the most obvious option.

So you want to move a product quickly in the store, place them at the eyeline. Coca Cola sales are up 45% more because they are placed at the end of the aisle racks. Interesting. People drink more Bud Light because it’s widely available in all the bars. People drink more Starbucks because it’s available at every corner of the state. Many of our actions are not shaped by purposeful drive and choice but by the most obvious option. We are talking about our perceptions. We are talking about what we are seeing eagles. They have long distance vision. Snakes taste air with their tongue and move in the environment. Sharks detect electricity in the water and other vibrations from other fish. Bacteria have chemo receptors that detect toxic chemicals.
We humans our senses. We have five obvious senses, which is touch, sight, smell, sound and taste but there are many unconscious senses that are activated in our system. For example, if my blood pressure goes down and I fall down, chances are my body automatically moves towards eating salt. If I feel less energy than my body automatically moves towards eating sugar. If I feel thirsty, my body automatically moves towards drinking water, need for salt need for sugar need for water. They’re all unconscious functions of the body.

What we see is what we do.

Most of our senses are in our vision, there are 11 million sensory receptors in the human body, out of which 10 million or two sight, the brain spends most of its energy processing what it sees. visual cues are greater cues of our behavior. What we see is what we do. You see if queues are making us productive, or unproductive, or defining our behavior and our character, why not we have productive queues. And why not we identify those which are unproductive and get rid of them. If you are a listener of this podcast, many many days ago, I talked about how to create tiny habits. And one example I was sharing in one of those podcast episodes was if you want to go hike on you want to go run in the morning, then why not have your running close next to the bed. If you want to drink water more often, why not fill the place your house or the area where you’re operating with multiple water bottles.

The entire content from today’s podcast comes from this book called Atomic Habits. And Atomic Habits is written by James Clear, profound writing, profound observations, incredible book. I read this book multiple times. Specifically, everything that I shared on this podcast comes from Chapter Six of this book, titled Motivation is Overrated, Environment Often Matters More. Get this book, not from the library, but buy this book. Read it and I promising you your life is gonna change.
Thank you for being a subscriber. Thank you for being a listener. If you’d like to this podcast, give a rating write a review. And I’ll be back here again tomorrow with an interesting story. Stay tuned. Bye now.