Podcasting is not just a lead generation magnet, it is an amazing opportunity to learn from the people you are connecting with, whatever your niche is. Having interviewed more than 50 entrepreneurs so far, GetCoached360 Podcast host, Chris Ippolito now shares his top unexpected takeaways from these brilliant minds with Juliet Clark. Chris is a client experience specialist and growth strategist based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Embodying the entrepreneurial spirit himself from an early age, Chris never stops learning, whether it’s from books, podcasts or conversations. In this conversation, he shares what he learned about niching down, time management, metathinking, meditation and other areas, which he summed up from his conversations with his guests. Now it’s his turn to share them to you, so listen in!

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The Unexpected Benefits Of Podcasting With GetCoached360 Host, Chris Ippolito

We have a different guest in this episode. We’re going to chat about something that isn’t an unexpected pleasure from the podcasting world. Before we get there, I want to remind you to go over to our YouTube channel and follow us and like us over on Superbrand Publishing. Please leave us a review only if it’s good though. Don’t forget to take our Promote, Profit, Publish Quiz. You can find it at www.PromoteProfitPublishQuiz.com. Find out if you’re ready to jump out there and publish because you need that audience and some other skills to build up.

Our guest is Chris Ippolito. He had an entrepreneurial spirit for a long time. He started his first business when he was thirteen years old, selling candy and soda to kids at school. Over the years, he’s dabbled here and there, but he’s never made a full commitment to this. When his son was born, that all changed. He finally had the elusive reason for doing this all, which was his why. Now, he’s building a media company and his podcast, the GetCoached360 is where anyone can follow his journey. His guests, professional coaches, and successful entrepreneurs share actionable advice to help him and other entrepreneurs level up with whatever they need most. Welcome, Chris.

Thanks for having me, Juliet.

I’m excited to talk about this because there are some unexpected benefits that I’ve derived from podcasting. I think that you can share some of those because you’ve interviewed over 50 entrepreneurs now. Is that correct?

It’s been quite the journey, a lot of lessons learned, and even going into it, there is a lot of things that I was not expecting to benefit, but then ended up benefiting and going into it, I wasn’t even thinking about that.

When I started my show, it has a blog attached to it. I wanted an easier content. That was my why. I wanted the content to distribute in different ways. One of those unexpected things was the people that I reached out to have on. There are lots of conversations with people that I probably wouldn’t have talked to before. How about you?

It is the same thing. The idea behind the podcast when I first started was to use it as almost like a lead magnet. The idea was, “I wanted to work with business coaches to do digital marketing services. What could I do to get in front of them and have their guards be down a little bit thinking, ‘I’m not here to pitch you and sell you? I’m here to add value, build a relationship, and see if there’s a good connection for us to work together potentially.’” The initial concept behind the GetCoached360 podcast was I can reach out to a business coach, my ideal client when I first started this all, and ask them if they would want to be a guest on a platform that I’m creating.

GetCoached360 Podcast: Podcasting is a fantastic platform to connect with people and an opportunity to learn from their insights.

Maybe some people might know this, some people might not, but when you have something to offer as a platform, people are a lot more receptive to hearing from you, conversing with you, and giving you time 30 minutes to one hour, whatever it is. I saw positive results instantly. It was crazy. I’ve been in business development in my career for a long time and I had never found a simpler way of getting in front of my ideal client than asking them if they want it to be on a podcast with me. That was one of the biggest lessons learned out of the gate is that the podcast is a fantastic platform to connect with people that you want to connect with.

I find when I reach out too, I talked to a lot of other people and it’s always interesting. They’re not great podcast guests, they won’t be. It’s just not my niche. I try to create value clients or value interviews on here. One of the things I’ve found is I get to talk to a lot of podcasters about, “Why that topic?” I’m blown away too by the topics people come up with. The niche audiences were like, “Is there an audience for that?” They’re like, “We have 100,000 downloads.” I was like, “You’re kidding.” A lot of things like that too that I find out great niches people are doing.

It’s the same and if you dig deep enough on the internet for blogs, you’ll find some pretty obscure blogs on niches that you’re like, “There’s an audience for that?” That’s the whole lesson that I’ve learned from a lot of the guests and successful entrepreneurs. When you’re looking to start any business, regardless of how you’re starting it, whether it’s through a podcast, a blog, or video content is going and niche down almost to the point where you’re like, “This seems almost too obscure.” There are seven billion people in the world. You’re not the only person who’s interested in whatever it is that you have a passion around. You start something. That’s the whole power behind the internet is that you’ve now got a means to be able to reach maybe it is only 10,000 people in the entire world who care about that niche that you’re planning on starting a podcast on or whatever it be.

If they can find you and you’ve got an audience of 10,000, a lot of us would agree it would be an amazing audience to have as far as loyal fans who are going to buy whatever it is that you’re ultimately creating, whether it’s a product or service. That’s why the niche thing is cool, but it’s also counterintuitive to what you would hear from the average person when they’re like, “I’m going to start a business.” Who are you going to help out? Who are you going to serve? Who’s your target audience? They’re like, “I want everybody to buy my product.” You’re like, “That’s not going to work. You have no direction. How are you going to tailor your message so that everybody wants what it is that you have? It doesn’t work that way.” That’s why niching is an important lesson.

I remember someone telling me that they were going to write a book on happiness a couple a few years ago and I was like, “Who’s your audience?” She’s like, “Everybody because everybody needs to be happy.” What you need is not only what you always do in the first instance. Secondly, if we are to sit here and have a discussion about happiness, I would bet that your parameters for happiness are completely different than mine. When you have something like that, that’s subjective, you can’t say, “Everybody needs it.” People have to be interested and invested in that as well.

I had the honor of attending an event where I got to listen to a group of accountants and bookkeepers who catered to the ministries. There’s a whole different way of doing taxes for preachers and ministers. I was blown away that, “That’s a whole industry. They have a big seven-figure business that they built out of that.” It’s crazy sometimes and counterintuitive. We want to serve everyone. What is another lesson you’ve learned from talking to all of these podcasters or guests?

The one lesson that caught me by surprise because I’ve read a lot of these personal development books, personal growth books and listened to a lot of podcasts. The one thing that never came up often, it may have, was the concept of budgeting your time. There’s a couple of books out there. The ONE Thing is a big one where they talk about time blocking. The importance of setting a certain time aside and dedicating that to your most important work, but they didn’t even get into the whole idea that maybe to begin with what you should be doing is doing an assessment of where you’re already spending your time. My career back in the day was in financial planning.

One of the first things I would suggest to the client to do is a financial budget. Let’s look at where you’re spending your money, then we can help determine is that a solid investment of your money. Whether it’s expenditures that you’ve got here or there, it doesn’t matter, but it’s the same concept with time. Why not look at normally on an average week, we’ll say, “Where are you investing your time? Where are the opportunities that you can reallocate that time to something that’s more important to you?” The reason I mentioned that being a little bit of a surprising lesson learned was I’ve had multiple guests where one of the final questions I ask in every episode is, “What’s that one thing you would suggest the audience do and take action on to help them level up wherever they need it most?”

I had multiple guests say, “Track time.” I was like, “That’s interesting.” It then started coming up more and more, and I’m like, “There’s got to be something to this.” There’s value in the act of tracking because I did this with food. The act of tracking makes you more conscious of what you’re doing. If you do it with food, you’re going to go, “I have to write this down.” I eventually have to write down that I ate half a pizza for dinner. Do I want to write that down? Is that in line with my goals? It’s the same idea with tracking time. There’s the value that in itself of the act of knowing I’m going to have to write down that I spent 3.5 hours on a Saturday binge-watching Netflix.

If that’s what you want to do, that’s what you want to do, but is it truly in line with the desired outcome that you say is important to you? Whether it’s building a business, getting financially independent so that I can spend more time with my son and my wife. That’s my big why. Does it make sense for me to want to sit down and spend 3.5 hours binge-watching Netflix? Should I maybe watch an hour with my wife and then the other 2.5 hours I’ll invest elsewhere to something more important? That was an interesting one that caught me by surprise.

All of you who watched Tiger King during the lockdown, it’s time to reevaluate your entire life and how you’re spending your time. I was one of those people.

I personally didn’t watch it, but the one Netflix thing that’s happening that I have been tempted to binge-watch and I’ve restricted myself to a maximum one episode when I do watch it is the Chicago Bulls documentary, The Last Dance. I remember Chicago Bulls going through that dynasty era when I was younger. It’s fun to rewatch it, but I tell myself, “I’m allowed a maximum one episode if I’m going to watch it.” I usually watch it as a decompression rate before I go to bed on Tuesday nights. It’s even scheduled.

Good for you because Tiger King was like, you couldn’t look away. You couldn’t look away. I was like, “Are these people for real?” I’m going to even take that a step further. If you’ve ever read Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog! I do a lot of time management and the first thing every morning, it’s prospecting, otherwise, it doesn’t get done.

I’ve not read it, but I am familiar with the book. It is on my to-read list, which is a long list. I use Amazon’s wishlist. I created a wishlist and it’s books to read. Every time I come across a book that sounds interesting or I want to read eventually, I throw it on that wishlist. What I’ll do is monitor the prices. I’ll go in from time to time and they’ll list like, “This dropped 75% since you added it to your wishlist.” A lot of times, more than likely, they’ll do a Kindle sale. They’ll sell the eBook. I was able to pick up a couple of the books I was wanting for $0.99. You can’t go wrong buying a book for $0.99. I think most books, even at $20 to $25 are still the deal with the amount of value and knowledge that you can get out of them. If you can get one for $0.99, it’s a no brainer at that point.

GetCoached360 Podcast: The act of tracking your time makes you more conscious of what you’re actually spending it on.

What’s another one of the lessons that you’ve learned from this?

It was never a very direct piece of advice, but it was a theme that came up quite regularly with all of the guests I interviewed. It was more of reinforcing a lot of the lessons learned in some of the great books out there, like Think and Grow Rich, As a Man Thinketh, but the power of the mind and how important it is to have a proper mindset to positive thinking, gratitude. The whole concept of how strong your thinking can influence your ultimate success. A lot of the coaches and entrepreneurs would maybe say it differently, but what I’m trying to do as I go through this journey and I’m even going all the way back to the beginning and relistening. It has been an interesting thing for a lesson as far as my own development of being a podcast hosts going like, “That was rough.”

I’m listening to myself as far as like, “I need to improve here or there.” I’m trying to extract. What I want to bind are those core principles of success and you can read a pile of books, you can talk to a lot of people and all of a sudden, you’ll start seeing these common themes. I want them for myself and then maybe it’s a book one day, but boil them down to as simple as possible of maybe it’s 5 or 10 of what are those core foundational principles of success and thinking. The mind itself is such a powerful tool and learning how to leverage it and maximize that tool is going to lead to some great results for you.

For most people out there, when they’re reading those books, they skip over the exercises. If you don’t take the action, you’re never going to get where you want to be. It’s interesting you talked about Think and Grow Rich because I went through a period where I felt like I wasn’t invigorated and my business had taken a dip. I knew that I was part of it. My coach had me read four chapters out of Think and Grow Rich. He had a particular for every single day for a month. By the end of the month, it was ingrained, but I found myself thinking like, “What are you thinking that thought? No, you have to think this.” It’s amazing when you go through an exercise like that, how you catch what you’re thinking that you may not even realize what you’re thinking.

Metathinking is what that term is. You’re thinking about thinking. It’s such a strange thing and bizarre, but it is being aware of the thoughts that you’re having and almost analyzing them in a way like, “Why did I think that?” then unpacking that a little bit. It’s an interesting exercise. Hence, why I think journaling is important. That to me, journaling is a way that you can think about what you’re thinking about. Meditation also is great as far as calming the mind and more observing what you’re potentially thinking about because you can’t stop the thoughts. They’re going to pop in there, but when you’re meditating, the idea that you observe what you’re thinking about and you set it aside.

I don’t do the journaling as much as I should, but meditation, I do it every morning and every night. That is something that everybody should do because I don’t know about you, but some of my best ideas come out of that.

I have some interesting ideas, but I don’t know if they’re the best ones. That was another one that does come up quite regularly. I don’t emphasize that one as much as far as the lessons learned because to me, you hear that everywhere now. Meditation is becoming more of a popular topic. If you listen to any other podcasts where they’re talking to an audience of entrepreneurs, you’re going to hear it over and over again. All the most successful people in the world have some form of meditative practice.

I was at a luncheon where I was talking to someone about our differences in how we meditate. I want to put that out there. If you think you can’t do it, there’s no standard way. He was talking for about twenty minutes and he does a clear one. I have a guided meditation. For me, the guided is better because I seriously have ADHD. What is the last thing you’ve learned from all of these interviews?

Let’s go with focus. That is a good one. You had mentioned ADHD. My wife and I refer to it as shiny object syndrome. A lot of entrepreneurs tend to have some form of struggling with attention because the way entrepreneurs mind work is different. We’re always looking at the world and going, “How can I solve problems?” There’s a lot of problems out there that require some solving, but if you don’t put enough energy and focus behind any one of those particular ideas, it’s not going to go anywhere. A lot of the coaches, my guests, and entrepreneurs would talk about the importance of training your focus. It’s not something that you have likely not anyways, especially in our society now. The way media is consumed is bite-size and instantaneous. It’s like drinking from a fire hose when you think about it because you’ve got all the different social platforms.

I don’t watch TV for media or for news or any of that stuff. To be honest, if I were to, I would look at it and go, “This is too slow.” For me, I go to Twitter and I’m scrolling and searching. I’m looking for the information there. If I go on Facebook, I catch up on how people are doing in life, my friends and stuff like that. It’s a bad habit. I admit that but I’m scanning and I’m trying to consume as much information as possible. Your mind starts going all over the place because there’s so much of this input coming in that it’s difficult to focus.

To train focus requires an actual practice for whatever it is. You start small. That’s always the most important thing is for ten minutes, I am exclusively focusing on whatever it is. That’s in all aspects of life. Be more focused on the time you’re spending with your kids, your wife, your friends, your family, the work you’re doing, the interview that you’re on. I’m guilty of this with my day job is that if I’m on a video call where there are multiple people and I’m not required to be talking, I’ll be listening while trying to answer emails and do this task. It’s a terrible habit, but I’m not as engaged. Keeping and training that focus is what’s going to help you refine those ideas that you have because you’ll be more focused on it.

If you have a focus on your business that usually means you’re focused on one thing exclusively. If you’re in a relationship and you’re talking to your significant other, you’re focused on them instead of trying to talk to them while responding to the notifications that are on your phone. Focus as a broad sense was something that’s come up many times. Not just in the case of the value there for business, but the value in all aspects of life is to train yourself in a practice of being more focused and present with whatever it is that you’re doing.

It’s funny you should say that about life going slow because I hang out with a group of Audible listeners and we all listen on 1.75.

I listened to some podcasts, depending on who it is at times two. I’m like, “Give me the goods.”

GetCoached360 Podcast: If you don’t put enough energy and focus behind any of your brilliant ideas, they’re not going to go anywhere.

When you start having present conversations with people, it’s like, “Just give birth. You’re not talking fast enough.”

I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad habit for me. Depending on what the podcast is, I’ll go to one speed and it takes me a while to almost get used to it. My initial reaction is, “You’re talking so slow,” but it’s normal speed. One and a half is more my common where I feel like it’s a good pace. If it’s content that I’m a little bit more familiar with and I’m almost looking for the golden nuggets and that’s it, I go to times two. I’ve gone through some content at times three because I’ve listened to it before and I’m relistening to it.

I only do times two when it’s something I don’t want to do, but I have to. Chris, where can we find you? Where’s your podcast?

The best place to find me would be GetCoachedPodcast.com. I’ve got all the social platforms listed there and then I’ve even included my personal social connections on there as well. If you want to follow me personally, you can find all that information on the website.

Thank you for being here.

Thanks, Juliet. It was a pleasure.

Important Links

• Superbrand Publishing – YouTube
• www.PromoteProfitPublishQuiz.com
• GetCoached360
• The ONE Thing
• Eat That Frog!
• Think and Grow Rich
• As a Man Thinketh
• GetCoachedPodcast.com

About Chris Ippolito