Building a World Class Podcast

Ahmed Cheema: Coming up on the Branding Deep Dive podcast.

Jordan Harbinger: There's a lot of people on YouTube that will say something like, Your job is not to talk. You're talking too much. You should have just shut your mouth and let Robert Greene, or whoever it is, speak. And I'm thinking, No, you obviously have no idea how to conduct an interview.

I'm not a journalist who's trying to get Edward Snowden to tell us what he knows. I'm having a conversation. This is a conversational podcast. Your personality in a podcast or interview type scenario, conversation type scenario, it's entertainment, and it's also you as a creator. You're co creating this with your guest.

And so if you don't have any input, You're commoditizing your product.

Ahmed Cheema: This is Ahmed Cheema and welcome to the branding deep dive podcast. If you're new here, this is a podcast where we have in depth discussions with founders, marketers, and brand strategists on how to build a brand that people love. Today, we're talking to Jordan Harbinger. If you don't know Jordan or the Jordan Harbinger show, here's him

Jordan Harbinger: explaining it in his own words.

I interview the most amazing, interesting, fascinating people I can find, and I have. them teach something to the world. Sometimes we learn skills from Reid Hoffman or Kobe Bryant, all the way to comedians and people you've never heard of. And some people who can't even give their names. Now, Jordan

Ahmed Cheema: is a legend in the podcasting space, averaging over 10 million downloads a month.

He's an OG podcaster and has been podcasting for about 17 years at this point. In this episode, we dive deep into why he named his show, The Jordan Harbinger Show. The nitty gritty details of how to properly host a guest on a podcast, how to come up with questions no one has asked before, and much, much more.

Now a quick disclaimer before we dive in, there are a lot of moments in this podcast that I normally would have cut out in the edit. Mistakes that I made as a host, but I kept them in the episode because Jordan coached me real time on how to be a good host. These were invaluable teaching moments that really changed the way I interview people.

And these aren't tips that you can just get reading a blog or listening to a podcast. These are coaching moments. If you're a podcaster, you will not want to miss these. If you're looking to create a world class podcast or take your interviewing skills to the next level, this episode is a must listen.

Now, here's Jordan.

You've had podcasts that. Have its own name, right? Like, so for example, my podcast is the Branding Deep Dive Podcast. And then now your podcast right now is the Jordan Harbinger Show. What was the thought process behind the actual name? What are the pros and cons that you see of each method? Yeah.

And what would you recommend for someone just

Jordan Harbinger: starting out? Three questions at once. Wow, you're getting, you're hitting hard early on. So with me, yes, I had a really successful show before the Jordan Harbinger Show. The Jordan Harbinger Show, thankfully, is now, like, 10x the size of my previous show, but I left that show in a hurry and it wasn't, it was supposed to be an amicable split.

It wasn't, it resulted in litigation. It was just a big mess and a nightmare by all accounts. And when I left, I left on like a Thursday or a Friday and I started the Jordan Harbinger show the following Tuesday, which was my first release day. And I had an episode ready to go. So I had like no transition time.

I'm not that clever at naming things which is not surprising considering my show is called the Jordan Harbinger show, but there was one strategic element, which was, look, okay, everyone who was subscribed to my former show is not going to hear me on there for a few or for ever again in a few weeks or a few months, they're going to be like, what happened to Jordan Harbinger?

And that's going to be a thing on Google. And it's certainly going to be a thing in podcast players. So. I made a webpage for my website@jordanharbinger.com. That was something like what happened to Jordan Harbinger? Or Where is Jordan Harbinger? I made those websites those webpages, sorry, and I SEOed them for what I thought people would search for.

But then I also realized, okay, if I wanna show up first for Jordan Harbinger in. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, CastBox, these podcast apps. What's the best name I can have? And the best name you can have is your own name. But, you know, there was just no way to make it clever. So I literally just named it the Jordan Harbinger Show, thinking I could change it in a few years, but at least my old audience would find me.

And now I'm like, you know what? Screw it. Larry King was Larry King. You know, he was, he was mainstream. Howard Stern's Howard Stern. Joe Rogan is Joe Rogan. You know, I'm not quite there yet, but. It is one of the largest shows in the world with 11 million downloads, so screw it, I'm gonna be the Jordan Harbinger Show, and if anybody has a problem with that, that, well, I'll accept their criticism, because it is a crappy name.

It's not descriptive, but it worked.

Ahmed Cheema: I think it works especially well for you because it's hard to put into a box. I don't think you could even have a title that really encompasses all the different interviews you have.

Jordan Harbinger: Fair. Okay. So that was another concern, which was my previous show. I had it named very specifically for what the original subject was.

It wasn't super on the nose, but it was very descriptive of what we originally talked about. And for years we talked about like dating and relationships, and it was something in that niche. And then. After a few years, and I'm talking like six years, I was just like, okay, I'm getting married. I've got long term relationships.

That name was cute when I was 27, but now it's just cringe. I routinely pitch guests and I hear from them. Years later that they said no because they didn't want to be on a show with a name like this or they say yes, then they're at the end. I'm very surprised that a show with this name was really just like an intelligent interview.

And I'm like, yeah, I know I get that a lot. No offense taken, you know? And so it was just bad branding. And I realized that if I was going to restart. It would be foolish of me to my show like the live your best life show. Now you see I'm crap at naming things, but imagine I name a show you live, live your best life or self help personal growth show, whatever it is.

And that's what I'm doing. Well, what happens when I have a mobster on now, again, I'm breaking genre bursting and going, well, yeah, it's called live your best, you know, personal growth, but we have this mobster on there. And then all the personal growth people are like pissed off that that's on there. Right.

So it just becomes a, in none of the mob. mobster folks can find it because they're not looking for a personal growth show, right? So it just ends up being something that can't grow with me and that doesn't evolve well. And it's like, well, what does a vague name? Why not the name of the creator? If that's what people were looking for, at least initially.

So that's, that's really how we ended up here. It was like SEO and don't paint myself into a corner with branding.

Ahmed Cheema: I think one thing that you've mentioned, I've watched quite a few interviews with you over the last couple of weeks. And one of the things that you mentioned is that in podcasting, the audience really comes for the host, not as much as the guest as people might think, right?

I think you mentioned the example of like, you know, when you had Kobe on, you had a little bit of a spike, but then it's just kind of. You know, went back to normal.

Jordan Harbinger: It did. Yeah. There's like a plus or minus 10%. Like if I have something that sounds boring, cause we did the bad job with the, like the person's name is boring.

And then our byline was like interesting, or maybe our headline was like economics for the rest of us. And it's like about the, what if it's about the economics of kidnapping and ransom? It's interesting, but we didn't name it that. So that might be 10% less, but then it's like Kobe Bryant interview. 10% more.

And if you get somebody who's famous and they're famous on the internet, especially like Gary Vaynerchuk, then it's like 12% more or it's the 10% more effect, but everything stays within that narrow band of performance and downloads.

Ahmed Cheema: And then you said that they don't actually stick around after that 10%, right?

Like most people will just kind of take that one episode and then they're never going to listen to you again. Is that

Jordan Harbinger: accurate? Right? Yeah. I would say that for YouTube, especially there's a lot of flybys. Where people will watch a video. That's why you see channels that have a video that has 1. 2 million views and the rest of the views on all those videos are like 2, 500, whatever it is.

You know, there's a lot of flybys there. If you don't catch the algorithm, podcasting is a little different. Somebody might share that Kobe Bryant interview with a bunch of their basketball friends, and then they're like, Oh, I'm going to go check this out. But they. interested at all in grabbing any other shows.

So they subscribe. I've done this before with podcasts. Like I'm researching a guest. I go and I downloaded an episode of all the smoke, which is like a popular hip hop street, you know, podcast. I'll get that episode, but I don't stay subbed to it. I never listened to anything else. I delete the feed right away.

After streaming that episode because I'm not interested in that and I'm or, you know, I'm too lazy to look at what else the show has. So I just won't do it. And that happens to a degree, but since there's almost no viral quality to podcasts in podcast apps. That's why it stays in that narrow band, right?

You might get more consumption and a little bit more sharing, but it's not going to go viral. YouTube is the opposite. You won't, you have almost no regular subscribers if the algorithm isn't feeding people your video, but you could do a video that like live stream of an asteroid hitting a city in Russia.

And it's like this video gets 20 million views, but nobody's, nobody cares what you are uploading next. You know, no one wants to see you playing with your Doberman pincher. We want to see asteroids. Crashing into a Siberian town and if you don't have more of that, well, I don't have any use for you, you know, so YouTube has almost the opposite problem.

I'd rather have the podcasting problem because while it's harder to grow, the paycheck is stable because the traffic is stable.

Ahmed Cheema: So on that note, I think one thing that I've been trying to understand is like what is the role of the host, right? Like, I think when I listened to your podcast. You, you know, you bring your stories and you have like a good conversation, but I noticed that you actually do contribute to the conversation.

You have your own stories. And like, how much should the host be contributing?

Jordan Harbinger: I'm having conversations, but I'm also. Conscious of how much input I'm putting in, in a given show. So, you know, it's funny, we're talking about YouTube. I just went through a bunch of YouTube comments and helped moderate some of them.

Because, you know, we have someone who does it, but some of the stuff they don't know, it like goes through me. So, there's a lot of people on YouTube that will say something like, Your job is not to talk. You're talking too much. You should have just shut your mouth and let Robert Greene, or whoever it is, speak.

And I'm thinking, no, you obviously have no idea how to conduct an interview. I'm not a journalist who's trying to get Edward Snowden to tell us what he knows. I'm having a conversation. This is a conversational podcast. Your personality in a podcast or interview type scenario, conversation type scenario, it's entertainment.

And it's also you as a creator, you're, you're co creating this with your, your guest. And so if you don't have any input, you're commoditizing your product. If, if you don't have any input, like what these people are telling me to do is basically be just like every journalist around. Why would I do that?

You know, if, if I'm watching a local news journalist talk with somebody, I don't really have it. I don't really care for their input, right? I just want the news from this source, but if it's a conversation, if the Jordan Harbinger show is going to be different, if my interview with Robert Green is or Kobe Bryant or Mark Cuban is going to be different than somebody else's interview with that exact same person, I can't make them different.

The only difference is me. So I have to add personality. I have to add insight. I have to rephrase what they're saying in ways that other people can understand using analogies. I have to. Okay. clarify things that they said. I have to make a joke here and there. Although not trying to steal the limelight, I have to keep things light.

I have to realize that if we're on a downer, like the, the person's talking about the time they got hit by a truck and couldn't walk for a few years and they were in rehab. I want to bring us back up on a cheerful note and then go back down and talk about serious stuff and then come back up again and then I want to end the show on a lighter note.

They're not going to know to do that. So because they're they're just telling their story. They're not a host. So I'm guiding all of that. I won't call it like the energy of the interview, but it really kind of is the vibe of the whole thing. I'm doing all of that. And when people tell you to just shut up and ask questions, nothing quite.

shows that they have no idea what the F they're talking about than somebody telling you to do that. So my opinion, because it is art and it's stylistic, is as a host, you definitely have a place in the interview. Otherwise, what makes your interview on your show different from any other Jordan Harbinger interview on any other business or marketing podcast?

Like why do they, the question I'm at is why do we need you if you aren't doing anything? And you are doing something. You're asking the right questions. You know, you developed rapport with me before the show, like you did all of that right. And I, you know what, I don't even remember what the hell your original question was.

I got so into this answer to this thing that you probably didn't ask that I lost track of myself. See, now you as a host have to rescue it because this is your show on my show. I would never let that happen, but on your show. You know, I'm just mailing it in. What can I say? No, seriously, clarify your question.

I'll answer the right. Yeah, I

Ahmed Cheema: was, I was going to let you finish, but yeah, so I think you did answer the question, which was like, as a host, what role do you actually play? And how much are you thinking through what you're actually contributing? The problem is, like you said, if we just focus on just the one, two, three questions, like I have, I have a whole list of questions here, if I just go one by one, then I get too conscious on, oh, like.

I'm not actually listening to what Jordan's saying. I'm just going to say, oh, that was powerful. On to the next question. And I feel like I do that more than I should. Everyone does. Yeah. Do you have, so do you have like a phrase that you use like to just, you know transition? So like when someone says something and you're like, I don't have anything else to add here.

But I need to transition to use, I find myself, I say it's powerful. That was really powerful. Jordan. I'll say that like all the time. But do you have

Jordan Harbinger: one of those? I don't because real life judging your it's powerful. I'm sure that is powerful from time to time and very effective. But here's the thing.

What I noticed is I used to say, absolutely. I used to say, interesting. Sometimes those creep back in, but I stopped doing it because when I was doing research for other guests. I would listen to other podcasts as one does and to see what the guest is talking about. And I noticed that there's so many people saying, wow, so inspiring.

Wow. So amazing. And I just thought that wasn't amazing. You just aren't listening to what he said. That was not an amazing thing that that person just said, you're, this is your filler. This is your tick. And I realized it comes across as a tick, a verbal tick, and it's not good. And so now if there's a transition or if there's a topic that's done.

I will just ask the next, the next question. I don't go and say, Hmm, that's interesting. I will just really drop it right there on the ground. Let it sit, let the audience absorb it and ask a totally different question. And at first I thought, God, this is so weird. It's like making a hard right turn. Isn't it a little jarring?

If someone tells you, and then my You know, beloved third sister died of leukemia, you know, you don't go. So what are you working on now? Right? Like, you know, tell me about your first album. You don't do that, right? You, you'll want to say something like, you want to avoid trite because it's sad. You might want to say something like.

And how did that change your family dynamic? Or how did that change you as a creator? You know, if you're talking to, like, a musician or something. You, you trans, and then they say, Well, it really got me thinking about the important things, and that's why my songs are all positive. Death, thrash metal. Oh, interesting.

So that was an artistic moment for you. Teachable, whatever. You want to do that, and then you can start asking different questions. But barring any sort of weird circumstance like that, if someone says something and it's interesting, I don't have to go, Oh, that's interesting. Here's another question that I have for you.

Like, I don't have to narrate what's going on. You can just ask a different question. And maybe some people will think, huh, he didn't transition at all. But really most people won't notice. They're just listening to you. 90, 80%, 50%, 20%. So they're not going to think, wow, he didn't react to that unless it warrants a reaction.

You know, if it's really sad or it's really incredible or it's really happy, like, and then we had our first child, you don't just stop and go. So what, tell me about your first album. You say, Oh, that changes everything, doesn't it? You know, you have to do something if their comments or, or story warrants a reaction, but most things really don't man, you know, and then we launched our first product.

Okay, so what? You know, okay, I'm sure you're happy about that, but real talk, it's Proctor and Gamble, you know, okay, cool. Then you go, well, fast forward 50 years later, you're still one of the leaders in shampoos, I don't know, right? So you don't need to react to everything that is said from everyone and certainly don't do it with a With clip art, like that's amazing because it's not really amazing.

It's not amazing. You launched your first product. You were in business for eight years. That's not amazing. It's amazing. You finally did it. You know, like not, not everything is inspiring or powerful or amazing. Just move on.

Ahmed Cheema: So one thing you brought up earlier was managing the flow of the conversation, the ups and downs the different emotions you like you are someone that has.

Probably the most varied background and experience that I've ever you know, met or heard of,

Jordan Harbinger: Like that's a nice way of saying I'm a weirdo and what

Ahmed Cheema: I'm really curious about is like when it comes to managing the flow of conversation, what activities or experiences would you say really helped you build that skill besides of course, actually conducting the podcast, anything in your past experiences yeah.

Would you say has anything really shaped and really molded that

Jordan Harbinger: skill? Sure. So yes, conducting the podcast is the best way to get practice hosting, but also being overly, exaggeratedly social for a lot of years because I used to go out all the time, bring people to clubs you know, schmooze club promoters to host people from overseas going out in New York.

I worked on wall street. So I went out and I went out like every night. And I mean, like, Every single night for years, and it's not because I love nightlife. It was a business that I was doing, and it started off as a side hustle and later on was a business to business. And I started teaching, like, dating stuff over, over time that you're aware of.

So there was a lot of that, and I learned. over time to really observe and listen to vocal tonality, eye contact the way that people sit, stand, walk, talk, all of that stuff was something I used, you know, in, in negotiation or dating or something else. And so when I brought it into hosting, those experiences served me really well.

You know, if somebody's talking and They're getting choked up about something. You know, I don't go, Oh, this is so awkward, right? I would have done that in, in the past, but I've been through that so many times. I've talked to so many people who are crying and upset and have had too much to drink, or I've had a really bad week or a bad year or are going through a rough life event and are like in my house or in a table with me.

So I've, I've learned to really sort of sit in that discomfort and react to that person. And B, I hate the words like be present with, but that's really kind of what it comes down to with that person and that sort of negative experience or positive experience with them. The other thing that I wouldn't recommend people mimic is when I was in middle school and high school, especially middle school, I was just painfully shy and I was always kind of observant.

So I would observe how other people who weren't shy acted and behaved. And I remember watching conversations. Hundreds or even thousands of them and thinking like, okay, when she said this, he did that. And when he did that, then she did this. And then she went and talked to her friends. Now they're mad at him.

What happened there? That's interesting. Maybe I'll ask one of the girls what happened. Oh, that answer didn't make any sense to me. Let me think about this tomorrow. Let me ask another girl. What she thinks happened, you know, and I would always do that. And I'd always be analyzing social situations. And I had a group of really smart friends in high school and later in college that loved talking about this women and men.

And we would share this stuff. And I would just, my mind would be blown like, Oh no, she, she said this because she's interested in him, but she wants him to work harder. And she doesn't want to say that because, but she's really into him. And I'm like, what? Are you seeing that I'm not seeing, you know, so I learned to see and feel all of this subtext, not just when it comes to dating, but when it comes to how people behave in conversations and social situations.

And that, that comes in really handy when you're sitting in front of somebody who's hiding something from you or has an agenda or whatever it is. And, and that's why I'm able to talk to somebody like Sammy the Bull, who's like a mafia hitman, and get him to tell me stuff that's not public. And then, you know, why I might be able to also then talk to a scientist and have them give me an example from their personal life that maybe isn't super flattering about how they got into their field of study.

You know, that's the kind of thing that you only get if you go beyond the surface and you got to know which threads to pull on the sweater, otherwise you, it won't work.

Ahmed Cheema: Oh, threads on the sweater was a nice

Jordan Harbinger: analogy. It's a Weezer reference. No, I don't know. I don't know. But it's true, right? You got to know which, isn't that a common analogy?

That's like almost a cliche, right? You got to know which threads to pull. Maybe it's the scarf on the sweater.

Ahmed Cheema: On the sweater, I haven't, I haven't heard that one before, but definitely the threads to pull is, but I want to change gears here a little bit and talk about your podcast.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes, no reaction. No reaction.

Catch yourself right there. You didn't react. You didn't need to react. You could just ask the question. I know I should have. Well done.

Ahmed Cheema: So. I wanted to ask you about your podcast prep. I know you do about 20 hours per episode. One thing that I did catch on one of your other podcasts is you give your guests the podcast prep sheet.

I was just wondering if you could share a little bit on what is in that sheet that the guests fill out. And then I know from one of your other interviews that you've actually turned up, turned away people and turned down people that have actually filled it out. And so, was that always like that or have you always had a podcast prep sheet or is it now that you're getting so many requests that you've, you've had to put some mechanisms in place to filter people out?

Jordan Harbinger: It depends. Well, yeah, you're right on pretty much all counts. Like, of course, I didn't start off with that when you're first starting a podcast. Not only do you not think about that, but even if you did, you wouldn't be like, OK, person who I just begged to have on my show, fill out all this paperwork. You know, that's not going to work.

So I started to do that because, look, if I read a really good book. And then I download a podcast with that author and they crushed it. I don't email them and be like, fill this out. Right. I just try and get them on the show. But if somebody comes at me with a pitch and I'm like, this is a little unclear, what are they saying?

I'll, I'll even say, this is a little unclear. Do you have a, can you highlight a few things in your pitch? If they come back with something and I'm like, this is kind of interesting, but I'm not sure rather than asking them to keep what rather than me trying to get blood from a stone, I'll send them this sheet that says like three bullet points of about what you want to talk about.

Three practical exercises that the audience can use right after they listen to you. Resources where I can read more, your social media handles. So I don't have to Google all this stuff and then find the wrong person, blah, blah, blah. But what, what you find on that sheet is you find who's lazy. You find who's arrogant.

you find who's disorganized and you find who's just not plain old not interesting. So like, you find the people who write back and go, I'm not filling this out. I'm the number one used car dealer in the Memphis suburban, you know, Memphis area. And I'm like, oh, okay, then good. I don't want to deal with you.

Bye. Or Their practical exercises will be Step 1, buy my book. Step 2, sign up for my 90 a month course. And I'm like, okay, so you don't really have anything you want to teach. You're just coming on to sell. Pass. Denied. Right? So I read, again, I read the subtext of what's written in the document. And then of course, if the document subtext is all good and And it comes down to the content, then I want to read the content.

Like the practical exercises are really interesting, but I'm not sure what one of them is. The bullets sound okay, but maybe I'll do the first two and skip the third one. You know, that's the stuff that really helps me figure out if this person's going to be good and what they're going to talk about.

Because if I read, and I've done this before, I'll read a whole book and I'll go, I'm so glad to have you on. I can't wait to talk about this stuff. And they go, well, no, that was my old book. I'm doing promo for my new book now. And it's about chicken breeding. And I'm like, well, I don't want to talk about chicken breeding.

And they're like, well, I'm on a tour for my new book. I don't want to talk about it. It's a whole thing. And then you're arguing with this person who doesn't want to be there. But if they fill out the prep and they're like, Hey, I want to talk about chicken breeding. I'm like, I really want to talk about chicken breeding.

Decision making patterns of teenagers and how they're formed and they're like, nah, I don't really want to talk about that anymore. I had a guy on the show or almost I should say, and I said, I'm so excited to talk about Somali piracy. And he said, Oh my God, honestly, I've forgotten more than I've ever known about that.

Like, I don't even remember that at all. That was like a thing I was doing in 2016. I wrote a book about it. I haven't looked at it since. I have no idea what's going on now. And I was like, this isn't really what I had in mind, you know, so you want to screen. And when you're at our level, and I don't mean to say that in an arrogant way, but when you have, you know, we're at 11 million downloads a month, like a lot of people want to be on the show, I am filtering and saying no to five people a day.

And some of them, some of them are going to be great. And I want to make sure I'm not like, no, I don't like the title of your book. So I give them a fair shot. And that's what that document does. But again, it's more subtext than it is what that it is. What's actually written

Ahmed Cheema: in there. A lot of these people that you have on, I'm sure when they're doing their books they're repeating a lot of the same stories, repeating a lot of the same phrases.

This is like part of the difficult thing that I had with you is like, all right, I know the story of you know, the VP at your wall street firm. I know this, like, how do I find a new angle on here? How do you like, how are you actually. Doing your prep and finding things that other people are not finding.

And then when it comes to books, I, I, so there's two things, like, let's start with the books, right? So Uhhuh, , when it comes to books, how are you actually reading those books, right? Like, is it are you just taking notes on things you find interesting? Or do you have a strategic approach on like, I'm gonna do a quick read through, and then these are the, you know, main points.

And how do you kind of approach that prep

Jordan Harbinger: process? Well yeah, this is, there's a lot of questions in there, so I would say, no worries, I've, it's also a thing for me where I'll ask one or two questions at a time, and it really is sort of one of the cardinal rules of interviewing is only ask one question at a time, but I too am guilty of changing the question in the middle.

We're asking two questions because it's convenient, so I can't really get too upset about that now, can I the difference is sometimes you get a worse answer. You only get an answer to one when you're doing an interview, and I, I, I'm afraid I may fall into that bucket here, so I am reading a lot of the same thing that everyone else is reading in preparation for a guest, right?

I read the book. The difference is. It's so funny, the theme of this interview right now is like subtext, so I'm often looking for things that other people aren't because I'm reading the subtext or I'm reading between the lines and the things that they didn't say are as important as the things that they did.

So in an episode of the Jordan Harbinger show that's not out yet at the time of this recording, there's an interview with the guy who's. I won't say his job is to negotiate the freedom of people who are kidnapped in Syria, but it certainly seems to be something he's done a bunch of times. And it's not just Syria, it's other countries where there are Westerners especially being held by Al Qaeda or ISIS or FARC or whoever it is that's kidnapped them.

It's an interesting dude, right? So he writes one specific book that's kidnapped in Syria. And He never really says how he got into that line of work. It starts with a friend approaching him and yada yada. So you think, what is this guy, like a spy? No, it turns out he runs a non profit foundation that ends up digging really deep roots into a lot of these repressive regimes and develops leadership and, you know, kid friendly programs and things like that.

So they let him in there and he ends up with, you know, contact in the national police or their version of the FBI over there. And. Syria or whatever it is. So he knows a lot of these, these folks now they're working for Assad. So they're enabling fascism, but whatever, you know, the, he knows these people and he works with them at some level.

So when somebody gets kidnapped from say CNN and they're being held in Syria, he's one of the first phone calls. So I wanted to get that story. It's not in the book. And the reason it's not is because it's a foundation and he doesn't want to sort of besmirch the foundation by affiliating it with all this.

And it's not really his line of work and he doesn't charge money for it and yada, yada. So that was just as interesting as anything else. And there's a lot of things that he did in the book where he said, and then I did this and then that tricked him into doing that. And then, and I'm like, how would you learn this weird psychological technique?

Or how did you learn how to think like a guy who negotiates with literal terrorists and human traffickers? You know, this isn't something you learn when you're in contracts class in law school. Where did you pick it up? So those kinds of questions, thinking about where people learn the skills that they're using or how their background came to be.

Sometimes it's not in the book. No, sometimes it's not on what you're reading. The other way that I prep and I get information that other people don't is I will look for discussions about those people online. So If you want to, let's take that same author, this is a hypothetical example because I didn't need this for him, but let's say I wanted to learn more about what he did from somebody that wasn't him, I might find a news article written about him and then go, Oh, okay, this journalist wrote about him.

That means they must have had an interview or this journalist did background information and other sources. investigated his career. I'm going to email that journalist and see if I can jump on a phone call for like five minutes and be like, okay, so this guy, you say he worked for Israeli intelligence, but now that's not written anywhere.

How do you know that? Oh, well, we saw that he was talking about in videos that are all removed now. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. So he's like, hiding this. So then I'll get that information, you know, and, and again, that's, that's a hypothetical example. I don't want anybody to be like, this guy is a secret spy.

I don't want to get him killed next time he tries to rescue a hostage. So there's a lot of stuff like that, that most people just overlook because they're, they don't care. They're not focused enough. And it's a little bit amateur, you know, even real quote unquote, real journalists, they won't read a book before they do an interview and they'll go, what made you want to write this story?

And you can ask that about anybody who's written anything, and it's just fluff and filler. And so it comes down to spending more time preparing than other people and then asking yourself questions that you have about that person trying to find the answers. And if you can't, then that's your question for them, right?

Whereas a lot of people just write down the most obvious questions that like no one has slash everyone has. And that's the whole interview. That's, that's another thing that makes them a non differentiated commodity that's not important, right? I can get that same interview with literally anybody who has a pulse and speaks English, as long as I can have that guest.

So I want to differentiate myself by not being that person.

Ahmed Cheema: Yeah. I gotta cut myself off there for saying that was powerful. You almost

Jordan Harbinger: reacted. But everyone does. It's fine. It's human nature because in conversation we do that. So don't, don't like beat yourself up. On that, right? That doesn't, doesn't make sense.

I just need the reps.

Ahmed Cheema: I need the practice. Just reps, man. Now, Jordan, you've been in the podcasting game for 15 years. You probably have like, what, 1, 500 or something crazy number of episodes. I think a lot of people that are looking from the outside in may Have the perception that Jordan was just in the right place at the right time.

Just want to get your thoughts on that. Were you just at the right place at the right time? Or is there,

Jordan Harbinger: is there more here? Yeah there's luck in every person who's successful. I want to highlight that. I think that I've done shows about this that I'm sure you're aware of. There's a lot of people who refuse to acknowledge the role of luck in their life.

I was born to a middle class family. I got a computer when I was younger because, well, I begged them for it, but whatever, but I got it because a friend got it and my friend was wealthy. And why was my friend wealthy? Because I went to a good school that had wealthy kids in it. And I'd exposure, all that stuff that got me into computers early, yada, yada.

So there's a lot of luck involved in anything that you do. I got involved in podcasting 15 years ago. And it was because I had a friend, again, a friend who was a techie and I had a specific problem and I asked him to help me solve this problem, putting an MP3 lectures that I was giving. Online, and he said, podcasts were a new thing.

They were almost a year old, whatever it was in 2006. And I should look into it. So I started in 2006. That's why, I mean, that's it. So I had a decade and change to build the beginning of an audience. And I happened to be really, I really like it. And then I also happened to pick a niche dating that turned out to be popular over time because of a bestselling book called The Game, which sent a bunch of listeners to us.

Then I. I still liked it. And then I sort of exhibited some I hate the word talent, but you know, I got competent over 11 years of doing it. And then when I had my bad luck, which was being separated from my previous show, I started the new show. I had access to resources. My network re signed me right away.

And then I went, you know what, to the wall growing it. So yeah, I mean, right place, right time. There's definitely an element of that. But that doesn't mean it's impossible to build a business in the space. I think it's like the second or third inning of podcasting right now. There's still very little.

If you look at all the tools available for things like social media and things like that, and all the ad dollars that go into social media, podcasting is like this tiny sliver, which means yes, there are 2 million, some podcasts, but most of them are terrible. So if you're good at it or you are a good writer and you want to produce something in this space, it's.

totally the time to do that. There's not entrenched players. If you want to make a movie right now, good fricking luck, man. You know, like you need a ton of money. You need a bunch of gear. You need a bunch of people with a bunch of expertise. And then what? You want to play it in movie theaters? Okay. I hope you're I hope you're Steven Spielberg or some other director.

There's only a director I could think of. You better be famous already, rich already, and know a bunch of people already. If you want to make a podcast and you want it to be a hit because you know a really interesting story or you have access to a bunch of really interesting people or material or a murder that you're obsessed with from your town, you can do that right now.

There's competition, but it's not overbearing. They don't have any money just like you, unless they're working with Spotify or something, and there's nobody who's going to push you out. because nobody has a monopoly on listeners or production talent or anything, and you can do it for very little money.

Some of the most popular podcasts around are people that probably should know better than to record where they record and using the mics they do. And they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year off their true crime stuff, you know, and they're, there are people that I know that are making good living with their podcasting with their podcast, and then my engineer or produce.

sir would go, can you introduce me to them? Their production quality sucks. And I could totally help them. And they just did an interview about how they like surpassed 50, 000 listeners or whatever. And I'm like that show, you know, so there's a, there's a way. And we started in a basement and it got ridiculously popular.

And now you hear, I sound good on this mic and everything like that, but that's because I'm an audio nerd. Not because this is the sound quality required to retain an audience. It's just not the case. So. Yes, right place, right time and an element of luck in anything. Has that window closed? No,

Ahmed Cheema: I feel like when I look at your story it seems like you kind of took a build it and they will come approach just because it wasn't your, you weren't looking at it as a business.

True. Right. And we've had multiple people on the podcast where. You know, the, the narrative has been like, don't go build it and they will come. You need to have a marketing plan. You need to have a way to get your

Jordan Harbinger: word out. I agree with that when you're talking about a product

Ahmed Cheema: or a service. In terms of growing your podcast, I think one of the recurring themes on this so far has been finding what other people are not finding, differentiating yourself.

Like how much, like when it comes to like someone with a job like myself, If you can only focus on one thing or two things, like how much should you focus on creating that high quality product and then how much should go into actually having a plan and, you know, pushing marketing and all that stuff or how would you

Jordan Harbinger: think through that?

Yeah, I mean, look, I'm not the right guy to talk about product marketing. But I will say that when I think of the show, if I think of the, if I think of the show as a product, I'm putting like 90% or 95% into the show. Like it might look, marketing is all we see from a lot of companies. So like for me. I've got one star reviews on the Jordan Harbinger show that say, I'm so sick of hearing about this show from other podcasts because I spend like a hundred grand a month and ads on other shows to grow the Jordan Harbinger show because I feel like there's a finite window on people being able to spend to grow and have it earn out later on down the line Spotify being like How many hundreds of million dollars can we give to famous people to come on our platform before we realize it's not, you know, an economically viable strategy?

I want some, I'm making a net to catch some of the, some of that rain or a bucket to catch some of that rain. Don't turn that to catch rain. It doesn't work. So there's a lot that I'm doing there. But that's not what I'm focused on primarily, right? I might be buying a lot of ads and marketing and things like that and getting featured here and there and applying for awards and whatnot.

But what I'm really doing on my days as I'm reading books and screening guests for the show, I have coaches that help me with, Moderating my modulating, moderating my voice, what I say, the way that I talk so that it's less annoying. I get rid of verbal tics. I work on my emotional tonality with my co host.

I work on the won't say chemistry, but the sort of back and forth I have with my co host. We have coaches for that that are like improv coaches that help us not be funnier, but yeah, Have less sort of downtime, keep the energy moving, keep the show moving faster. Like we have coaching for all that. It doesn't make us any extra money.

We don't, we don't get paid more next year if people decided that we need twice the amount of funny jokes. That doesn't work. The reason we're doing is because we want the product to be the best it can be, right? Like a car that is chrome what is that? Like carbon fiber on the inside. It looks better, but it doesn't drive better.

necessarily, right? So, but, but I want that carbon fiber. I want that to look good. I want the show to look good and to feel good. We have a hand, we have an artist that hand draws the art for each guest. Why do we do, why do we do that? People don't download more episodes because it's hand drawn art. Yeah, but photos of the guests and headshots that were all taken in different places with different lighting.

They weren't uniform. It didn't look like a coherent brand. So we did that, right? It's part of the art of packaging something good. Apple could just hand out laptops when you order them. They could come in paper bags with styrofoam. But they don't. They come in really nice boxes. And they, you know, have tabs on them and stuff.

And they're fun to open. And that's what we think about when we produce this show for the audience. So we're, we're serving the audience where I think a lot of shows, they really serve advertisers. And while we have advertisers on the show, my duty is to the audience. You know, I want them to be like, this show is so awesome.

Jordan and his team are so great. I don't want them to be like, oh man, more mattress ads. I hate this. Just tell the story, idiot. That's the kind of comment I get on YouTube. But, but that's the, the reason I do the show is because I really enjoy it. And I would do it. You mentioned this sort of in the beginning of the question here.

I would create the show for free if, if like, if I won a hundred million dollars in Powerball, I wouldn't stop doing my podcast. You know, I might do one episode a week or two instead of three, and I might be doing it from my yacht in my studio on my yacht, but I don't think I would stop doing it because I really enjoy it.

There wouldn't be any ads in there. If I want to, well, you know, I take it back. Don't quote me on that. You know. What you might donate the money to charity, I'll put it that way. But I would still do this show. I just wouldn't kill myself over the amount that I do. Right. But that tells me something really important.

Like people will ask me, what would you do if you only had three months to live? I'm like, well, I would call all of these guests that keep saying no. And I'd be like, you have to do the show now or I'm going to die. How's that for a pitch?

Ahmed Cheema: One thing you brought up is your reviews. I know. So you mentioned a couple of one star, but you have thousands and thousands of five star.

And one of the things that was different about you and my experience with you is like most people I'll try the cold outreach and you know, you don't get any response at all. You had a conversation with me over email and we kind of went back and forth for a little bit. And then, then I invited you on and you were, you were gracious enough to accept you know, this is starkly different from any other kind of like celebrity that I that I've kind of encountered where like, you know, most people are not even gonna, they won't even.

Bother reading your message. Right. So why do you invest in these one on one interactions and, and, you know, like versus a lot of people just creating all the social media content. I know like you have stories on Instagram. I see your stories. They're just like kind of like memes and jokes and stuff, but really you're not like, you're not pushing your podcast.

You're not pushing your stuff on social media. So just wanted to get your thoughts on why do you invest over index over here versus. The social media piece,

Jordan Harbinger: you know, the reason part of the reason I do that is because one, I don't really love social media. I think it makes people feel bad. I think the algorithm is designed to get you to stay on it.

It's just not healthy for society. That's a whole rant, but I post funny things on there because a lot of people are like, buy my essential oils or like, here's a thing you can buy that'll make you look stronger and people will like you more. And I'm like, no, Here's a funny thing that happened to me, or here's a funny meme that somebody sent me, or some other funny thing that I saw out in the world, and I want to make people laugh, and then, yeah, when I have a new show come out, I'm like, hey, new show's up, whatever, here's the art, swipe up to listen to it, here's what it's about, that's the, that's the only thing I'm really promoting there's, there's the occasional me shilling whiskey or something for a sponsor that has decided to be generous with that, but, you know, it's really obvious, it's all labeled as such.

I, why do I answer my DMs, emails, LinkedIn messages, things like that? Because, you know, I, I get really frustrated when people don't answer a message from me. I know people are busy, but who cares, right? Like make time for people that I'm not sending messages to. I'm sending messages to authors and tweeting at people that are journalists like they have time to do this They just don't want to they don't value it.

They don't understand it and I'm thinking, you know I'm so freaking lucky that I get to stand in my house and talk to smart people and record the Jordan Harbinger show and Hundreds of thousands of people are gonna listen to it or download it. That is such an honor. You don't deserve that? Not that you don't deserve it at all, but like, you're not entitled to that, is what I should have said, right?

You're not entitled to that. The reason they do is because they like your content. They like what you do. So if somebody sends me a note and they're like, Hey, I disagree with you on this, or Hey, I really liked the show. I'm not just like heart emoji. I'm like, Oh really? How did you find it? You know, what's going on?

Who are you? What do you do? Where do you live? I like those questions. And yeah, people go, doesn't that take forever? Yeah, it takes hours, sometimes even hours a day. I answer hundreds of DMs every single week. I answer hundreds of LinkedIn messages every single week. But there's a reason I have 19, 000 reviews in Apple.

There's a reason that we have 11 million downloads a month. And hundreds, or I should say thousands of those people, people that wrote to me once three years ago, and I responded. And they're like, I have more of a connection with this host. Now I like this show more, there's something going on there and they're subconscious, right?

The subtext and the subtext is that I care more and it's true. I do care more. So who are you more a fan of somebody who like you wrote in and you had a question and they answered you or somebody who's ignored the last three times you sent them a message, but their show is interesting. You're, you're going to have a personal affinity for me.

And so next time I say something that pisses you off or you disagree with, you're not going to be like, you know what? Screw Jordan. Click. You're going to be like, well, he's not bad. In fact, I'm gonna write to him right now and tell him that I think he's full of crap on this one. He's totally wrong. And then you write me and I re react in a normal way.

It's like having a conversation with a friend or an acquaintance rather than a creator who you now hate because they disagree with you on gun control or whatever, right?

Ahmed Cheema: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Thank you so much, Jordan, for coming on. It's been a pleasure. For the audience, where can

Jordan Harbinger: they find you? Sure. The Jordan Harbinger show, h a r b i n g e r, harbinger apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you're listening now.

And even YouTube, but also@jordanharbinger.com. And I'm at. Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. And thank you very much, man. I really appreciate the opportunity here.

Ahmed Cheema: Doing this episode was absolutely surreal. The Jordan Harbinger show is one of my main inspirations, and it was one of the reasons I actually started a podcast. In fact, I actually modeled the format of my show after the Jordan Harbinger show. If you enjoyed this discussion, you should check out Jordan's podcast.

My personal favorite episodes are the interviews of Kobe Bryant, Mark Cuban, Seth Godin, Tim Grover, and Howie Mandel. Now, as always, I have my key takeaways, but before we get into that, I want to share a clip with you from our discussion with Parthi Loganathan on building product.

Jordan Harbinger: And if you think about like traditional companies, non software companies, that's where a lot of their spend is. It's like marketing, like Coca Cola, Pepsi, they're spending on marketing because I don't know, like their products are almost commoditized. Anybody can make soda and the same thing is happening, slowly happening to software.

There's a trillion marketing SaaS companies out there. How do you stand out?

Ahmed Cheema: If you enjoyed this discussion with Jordan, I am sure you'll also enjoy the episode with Parthi. Check it out wherever you're listening to this podcast. It is episode number 33. Now here are my key takeaways. Number one, as a podcast host, if you have no input into the conversation and you're commoditizing your product as a podcaster, you're co creating the episode with the guest, not just giving the guest a space to repeat the same talking points that sat on a hundred other shows.

Number two, as a host, you separate yourself with your prep by. reading the subtext, what's not being said in the text, what's being left out, but would be an interesting story. Ask yourself the questions you would ask the person. And just for this episode, I'll throw in a bonus key takeaway. Number three, if you want to have a 1% podcast, you have to put in 1% work.

This isn't something we talk about directly, but it's clear from talking to Jordan, just how much sheer effort he's putting into refining himself as a host, a storyteller, and a general conversation list. Being 1% is a mindset of never milling it in and always finding ways to improve. He does his own research, has a variety of coaches that work with him to improve the minute little skills and responds when people reach out to him.

Most people don't even bother doing the research. And that is all for this episode. If you enjoyed this discussion, the easiest way to help out is to leave a review and share with a friend. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next episode.