Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Tips from a Podcaster: My Complete Toolkit

I have been getting a tremendous amount of questions lately about my podcast, how I set it up, the software that I use, and how I find guests.  Amid answering these, I thought I would put together a blog post to discuss it all! 

First, a little background.  I grew up in the entertainment industry and was an audio/video technician at Disney early in my career.  I studied Radio and Television Broadcasting at the University of Tennessee and have been around media production most of my life.  My first podcast is a live radio show done every Friday called The Work/Life Balance.  As of this post, I have 186 episodes airing weekly since December 11, 2015.  I am also the Chief Interviewer and guest host of the Transformational Leader Podcast sponsored by The John Maxwell Team.  We have 61 episodes since March 7, 2019 and I have been blessed by some incredible guests such as Ivan Misner, Barb Stegemann, Dr. Daniel Amen, and many more!

When I first started podcasting, I did not do much post-production.  As I continued to learn the industry, I began to develop and launch podcasts.  For instance, we just launched A Tongue Lashing with Damon Pampolina in March of this year and have several others in the works.

Why do a podcast?

One thing is for certain, podcasting has blown up as an industry.  According to Podcast Insights, there are over 850,000 podcasts and over 30 million podcast episodes.  Over 350,000 podcasts have been created in the last two years.  70% of the population are aware of what a podcast is and more than half of all US consumers above the age of 12 listen to podcasts (Statista, 2019) which means roughly 155 million people have listened to podcasts in the United States alone.  Three out of every four podcast listeners in the US say they tune in to learn new things and 32% listen to podcasts at least once a month.  There is a tremendous audience out there.

Is there too much noise for me to start a podcast?

There are four things that I share with people when I get this question:
  1. The statistics show growth year over year, but it is difficult to categorize what is called podfade.  Many podcasters do not make it past their 7th episode without experiencing a decrease in motivation.  Statistics are not easy to come by for podfade, but in 2018 a statistic by Amplifimedia says that 75% of podcasts are no longer in production.  If we impute this statistic then, it will mean that there are only 212,500 podcasts producing new content.
  2. Just because a concept, topic, or idea has been covered before does not mean that you cannot cover it.  There are thousands of motivational speakers.  Personally, I get to work with one of the greatest communicators of our time in John Maxwell.  He has hundreds of books and has spoken to millions of people.  However, as famous as he is, I still meet many people each day who have never heard of him.  This means YOUR audience is out there.  People are waiting for how YOU address the content.  It may have been said or dealt with before, however, your audience is waiting to hear from you!
  3. Make sure you are doing the podcast FOR your audience.  Really understand the why of what you are doing.  Podcasting is becoming the new book.  I hear people often say that they will write a book because they have a great story to tell.  The question is, who will read it?  That is not meant to be mean, it is meant to make sure you are writing the book, or in this case recording your podcast, to satisfy your listeners.
  4. Plan out at least 10 episodes.  If you are unable to come up with 10 episodes of content and material, then you might be one of the many that experience podfade.



My Technical Setup

For recording my podcasts, I first started with the Blue Yeti microphone.  It was a great microphone to get started on, but as I appeared on many podcasts and my own, there was great inconsistency in the levels of the microphone.  After some time, I upgraded my setup for consistency.

Microphone: Rode Procaster Dynamic Microphone – This microphone features a tight polar pattern and is tailored for voice frequency response.  It also features an internal pop filter to minimize plosive sounds that can overload the microphone capsule and distort the audio. Its high output dynamic capsule and balanced low impedance output make it an ideal broadcast and voice over microphone.

Boom Arm: - Rode PSA 1 Swivel Mount – This is the best mount that I have ever used.  It features 360-degree rotation and has the best desk mount that I have seen (without drilling a hole in your desk).  It stays in place without tightening screws and swivels on two axis points.  I can easily pull the microphone to the perfect position and push it away when I am done.

Pre-Amp: Focusrite Scarlett Solo USB Audio Interface – ProTools comes with the purchase of this device that helps set the levels to give your recordings a brighter and more open sound.

You Have Recorded Your Podcast, Now What?

Editing:  I use Audacity to edit my podcasts.  There are many good tools out there, it is just easier for me to use this one.

Publishing:  Again, there are several options to publish your podcast.  The platform that I use is called Podcast.co.  It is very straight forward and easy.  The biggest benefit is that it centralizes your distribution and automatically submits the podcast to all the major platforms (Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, etc.)  Understanding where your listeners are and how they are listening is key to growing your audience.  Due to consolidation, it is easier to gather metrics of listeners.  This has been a fantastic platform.

Product Sales Platform:  ClickFunnels is an all in one platform that allows you to promote your podcasts, products, and create sales and marketing funnels.  If you are looking to monetize your podcast or sell books and products, the easy creation and tons of training can help you monetize in no time.

Blog:  I use Blogger for my blog.  Again, I look for a simple and easy to use platform.  You can customize your domain and integrate it with Google Ads.  Blogs are still a fantastic vehicle to advertise and promote content to grow your audience.

Lead Magnet:  Lead magnets are great for building audiences.  Designrr is a great tool to design and publish an e-book for easy lead magnets.  It has a unique cover creator to add some weight to the publication.  You can also import from several sources including a blog.  I converted my highest viewed blog posts into an e-book lead magnet and built my audience.

Transcription:  Another great way to get the word out about your show is using a transcription service.  This converts your audio into text for video or show notes.  I use Otter to create my transcriptions.  It is low cost and accurate.  It is also easy to edit.  One of the key time savers is that Otter can remember voices and match speakers.  This saves a tremendous amount of time against many of the other tools on the market.  The other great thing about transcription is that it helps with Search Engine Optimization.  The words that you have spoken during the podcast can be searched through the Internet and listeners looking for something relevant to you can find you in browser searches.

Social Media Automation:  One of my favorite new tools that I employ is called MissingLettr.  This tool will read a web page or blog and automatically create social media posts to LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.  If you found this post from one of those social media platforms, then this tool really works!  You can do 2-week, 2-month, or 6-month campaigns.  There are still some light edits that you must do, but it creates several pieces of content for each post.  It also publishes your post to Medium which is another avenue for you to monetize your content.

Graphics:  I like Stencil for creating graphics on social media.  It is inexpensive and has many stock photos.  It also allows you to post directly to social media or to download the graphic.  The stock photos are searchable which allows for fast creation.

Video:  A newer tool on the market is Headliner.  It can find your podcast for you or you can upload it.  This creates a nice visual element for social media posts of your content.  I use it for snippets.  I edit about 4-5 minutes of good content from my podcast and post that as a teaser for social media with links to the blog that links to the audio file.

Finding Guests:  A new tool that is making it easier to find great guests is called MatchMaker.  They call themselves the Tinder of podcasts.  At the time of this post, it is completely free.  You can sign up and list your podcast and list yourself as a guest.  You can request to be a guest on other podcasts and the app allows people to request a booking on yours.  I have found some phenomenal new contacts via this app.

Scheduling Your Guests:  One of the biggest time savers that I found was Calendly.  It integrates directly to my calendar and allows guests to choose the best time and day.  It is real-time and sees when you are booked doing other things.  This cuts down on all the scheduling e-mails.  You can also customize the messages with instructions and guest prep packets to educate and prepare your guests.

Stay on top of Reading:  I like to use Readitfor.me.  It is a book summary service that has audio or text of the summary.  It is also searchable.  If you are looking to get educated about a topic prior to interviewing a guest or just want to stay on top of the latest books, this is a great source of information.

The Workflow – My Step by Step System

There were quite a few tools discussed there!  It can feel overwhelming.  To help, here is the process that I use to incorporate all these tools.  It usually takes me 1-2 hours post show to run through the whole process.

Pre-Show


  • Find my guests through Matchmaker.
  • Send my Calendly link to schedule the podcast.
  • Find relevant material and articles on the Internet or through Readitfor.me.

Post-Show

  • Use Audacity to edit the show and create a 4-5 minute snippet.
  • Upload and schedule the show to air in Podcast.co.
  • Upload the show and the snippet to Otter to transcribe.
  • Upload the snippet to Headliner to create the video.
  • Download the transcriptions from Otter.
  • Post the long form transcription to my blog (with links to my podcast page).
  • Go to MissingLettr and input the blog page.
  • Use Stencil to create graphics for social media posts.
  • Upload the snippets and the transcriptions (SRT files) to social media.
  • Edit MissingLettr and activate the campaign.



I hope this helps!  Fight the podfade and happy podcasting!

No Day But Today,

Rick

Saturday, April 25, 2020

My Life My Power - Jennifer Kramer and Daniel Puder

To get to the web page of the radio show, click here.

To download the mp3 file, click here.

To subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, click here.

This transcription was completed through an automated service.  Please excuse any typos or misrepresented words.

VoiceAmerica  0:05  
One problem facing people at many levels of business is how to make time for a work life and a personal life. Do you find that one seems to keep getting in the way of the other? This is the work life balance with Rick Morris. Even if you're not involved in the business world, you'll have a lot to gain by tuning into today's show. Now, here's your host,

Rick A. Morris  0:24  
Rick Morris. And welcome to another edition of the work life balance on this Friday afternoon got a really really good episode for you got multiple guests so I'm gonna forego my normal comments as we start to jump into the show and get right to them because there's a ton of information I want them to share. Our first guest is Daniel pewter. He's a former undefeated MMA fighter he won the $1 billion tough enough champion for the WWE a deputy sheriff and the founder of the my life by my power, which is ml MP. And he's also the co founder and serves as president of the ML MPI which is my life, my powers Institute prep Academy. He is an advocate for public education believes that his purpose in life is to inspire youth of all ages to lead significant and purpose driven lives. And his partner is Jennifer Kramer, who has been an educator for over 21 years and has served as an assistant principal and FCL, curriculum developer athletic director, teacher coach and educational lobbyists. Currently, she is co founder as well and serves as the superintendent and chief academic and accreditation officer for my life, my power international prep Academy. And let's welcome them both to the show. Jennifer Daniel, how you both doing

Daniel Puder  1:34  
amazing. Thanks for having us on today. Thanks now we

Rick A. Morris  1:36  
thank you so much. We got a chance to meet out at La a lot of a lot of my listeners follow a lot of our travels and wherever we went. So, you know, they knew about the Mickey Mouse Club reunion. They knew that I was coming out for city summit in city gala in LA. That's where we got a chance to meet Jennifer you're actually one of the partners and kind of organizers to city summit city Gala. And then I got a chance to meet you there. Daniel is And watch you rock the stage. And that's where this this started as well as our mutual friend Dr. Ayman right. But that's how Talk to us a little bit people about my life, my power, what it means and how you guys started it.

Daniel Puder  2:16  
Well, when people brand, the company is always interesting to see what their brand stands for, and what when you hear the word or the words, what it relates to in my life, my power. Our goal with it is to help people understand that they can own their power in their life. There's so many people out there that don't believe in themselves, that don't understand how to love themselves. They don't understand how to care for themselves. And so I believe that everybody has a choice. Maybe they don't know how to do it yet. And so we started mine with my power in 2010 as a nonprofit impacting communities around the world. anti bullying, drugs, gangs, suicide, sex trafficking immediately made amazing network of people, whether law enforcement educators, community groups, and then from there we started our private schools, our preparatory academies two years ago, 18 months ago. And Jen has led with the accreditation, the academics. We have two other partners on it, and they just rock these kids lives. Our Dean's are amazing, or teachers are rock stars. And our goal is to create the most amazing humans in the world. For the last hundred 200 years, we've created people that sit down and read a book and take a test. And I believe the future of the world is to create better humans, not just humans that can bypass a test or have a career. Because most of our kids they're growing up with so much debt after college, credit card debt, they don't have a budget. They're not learning the basics. Things that are not a cook, they don't know trician their mental health emotional. So we help these kids starting in sixth grade, understand their emotional health, their belief, intelligence, social emotional learning, and we build these humans from inside out.

Rick A. Morris  4:16  
That Jennifer, one of the acronyms we're using there quite a bit was Sal, can you describe what that is? And really what what that means?

Jennifer Kramer  4:23  
So, yes, that social emotional learning, it's, you know, it's used in school. So you base it on like emotional intelligence is kind of like IQ versus EQ. In schools, they focus on the IQ and your EQ is, you know, learning how to communicate and understand yourself as well as, as well as understanding others. So, you know, we incorporate that and all of the things we do in our school system, as well as through my life, my power and the trainings that we do, but it's just, it's just the way to really empower youth and empower adults to understand themselves to understand others better.

Rick A. Morris  4:58  
And EQ is really becoming of this latest wave, right? If you look at business books and business leadership, it started with management. I mean, everything was about management. And then john Maxwell came along and a lot of people started to go towards leadership, then there was kind of a big coaching, boom. And now it's a lot of conversation around EQ, although it's not new. Most people are really, and is that Daniel because of the school systems as well that we weren't really just exposed to this. It's not something that we really should have known about. I mean, why is EQ getting so big now?

Daniel Puder  5:30  
So EQ is not the foundation emotions are not the foundation of why we do everything. our emotions are created based on our beliefs, and that's called the belief intelligence. And our beliefs are formed from being in our mother's womb, to about seven years old as as a core foundation of the subconscious within our brain. That is, our beliefs are created based on sounds, experiences, actions, thoughts. What we hear in TV, what our mother does fitness and even our physiological intelligence, which is really when we're in our mother's womb for nine months or so, how we get built as its cellular structure. And so I find that the schools are doing something that's simple that everybody can do, what we do is something a little more difficult. We do believe intelligence, it's the deepest foundation piece of why somebody does something, or why somebody's emotions are a certain way. And what I find is, is that it's not easy to do that. It takes a lot of training, we have a whole entire system, three experiences we call our black belt, emotional belief, intelligence training, and it's three trainings that the first one's fun. Second one gets really deep into self reflection and, and accountability. And the third one, if you're not ready for life, and you're not really ready to own it, which is the my life my power side of it, then get ready to get blown out of the water cuz you're not gonna lie. A day and so we've created this because we want to create the best humans and so humans today believe aren't taking accountability responsibility. They're not being authentic or aligned with who they really are supposed to be. They don't understand their vision or purpose and so we help them understand in a deep dive, really how to own own who they are, um, emotionally mentally, physically, spiritually, whatever makes sense to them.

Rick A. Morris  7:26  
You know, it's it's just a my my mentor, one of my mentors Paul Martin, how he talks about believing your own Bs and Bs really means belief system, right? You can you can use whatever you want to hear, but but believing your own Bs and in coaching, what we have to do a lot of times is break down that Bs, for instance, your belief system is that all money is bad, right? That everything, everything when you start to earn money or start to earn money that comes back, it has negative consequences. That was a belief system he grew up with, versus being able to change that belief system into understanding if he had funds. You could fund them. He's like your Academy and fun things like, you know that that really could give back to the world. But one of the words you said a couple of times there Daniels one of my favorite words, which is accountability. And I think that there's a lack of accountability both on the parents side and on the student side a lot as we start to see some of the failures in our current education crisis. But why you? I remember, I was having difficulty with my daughter and I wanted her to read an article on accountability. It was just something I just wanted her to learn how to own her emotions, own her outbursts, those types of things. And she goes, Dad, I'm not going to read something that that tells me that I'm a bad person. So talk to me a little bit about why kind of how you guys get accountability, kids.

Daniel Puder  8:42  
So So number one, I think everything comes comes down to a value proposition.

We go to the bathroom, because it's better to go to the bathroom in a toilet than go to the bathroom or pants. But a lot of time.

There's two different scenarios I always ask people that are having a change in their life, I'm like, I'm like, so you go 80% of the way to the bathroom? Are you committed in your life? And they're like, What do you mean? I'm like, if you take a poop in your pants 80% of the way like you walk 80% of the way, take a poop in your pants. Are you really committed to our bathroom? Like, they're like, no. I'm like, would you ever do that? They're like, No, I'm like, so why would you if you were a pro athlete, go out and drink alcohol and get drunk and do dumb stuff and get into a fight? Or why as a mother, would you smoke cigarettes? Or why as a father, would you hurt your family? Or why like there's all these why's and so I look at this and a lot of times people just don't know what is in front of them. That's their norm. That's what they've been trained or that's what they've grown up with. That's what you know, whether the abuse or the you know, the the hurt or pain or fear, and so showing them what's possible. Sometimes they either have to lose A lot or lose everything, like attics. Sometimes they have to go to rehab a few times, and they have to be having near death moment. Or sometimes, you know, mother and father, they have to go through major, you know, financial challenges to come together and have a vision. And so I think there's always a value proposition, which showing people and helping them create a vision and understand the purpose are the two major foundational pieces of what they can see. Because I believe you can't see what you can't. You can't be what you can't see. And so first visualizing, understand what you want to create. And then the second step is is putting the right team and commitment together. And so, everybody or a lot of people think that they can do everything on their own. Definitely these kids today, and they learn from their parents, obviously, he comes somewhere. And so I believe that I am more influential and powerful and make more impact, not just because it's me it's because my team, it's because Jennifer Cramer worked 16 hour days, and, you know, puts together the best accreditation the country with sacks invented, which has not caught me up on where we can open up as many schools we want in the world. It's because of our one of our partners, Michael, because he used to work into DJ Jason. And so I think a lot of it comes from our ego, of being wronged. Because that's our own self projection. We're, we're reflecting on what other people have said, or what we've seen. And then we don't want to feel bad or wrong for doing something. And so I think that people that get other on head and go, Hmm, I can take advice. And I'll give you the kind of that how it relates to me is when I was a MMA fighter, I used to get punched in the head. My coaches, they told me keep my hands up and I didn't guess what, I get punched in the head. And so I went into a world kind of like the military now. Law enforcement where I can get shot. If I don't do what my captain says, I can get dead. I can get paralyzed. I can. A couple of our guys just got shot in St. Francis County, Arkansas. And so I think there's a lot of challenges in the real world. What happens is is you lose a job, you fail out of school, like nothing is like death, right like that. Nothing is getting punched in the face. And so I think there's different levels of extreme and how you learn or how I've learned. And I've learned how to learn very quickly because I had an ultimatum of either getting punched or dead or injured for life. And the kids today, they don't play video game, they press reset, they play video game, press reset, and that's what they think life's about. Same thing with adults. But just to you know, different time period.

Rick A. Morris  12:48  
Yeah, I learned I actually took a couple of MMA fights early years ago and I learned how flexible my neck was going backwards. Was was what I learned from that that little thing, but what I really We want to do we're going to take a break right here. But when we come back, Jennifer, I really want to get into some of the challenges that we're seeing in the youth today and start really going through what they're faced with especially now. You know, we're talking right now during the COVID-19 stuff in a we're just in a world of uncertainty. So I'd love to hear about some of the challenges you guys are seeing what you're doing to solve them. We'll do that right after the break here with Daniel pewter Jennifer Kramer and this is Rick Morris talking to work life balance.

VoiceAmerica  13:33  
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From the boardroom to you, voice America business network.

You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.

Rick A. Morris  15:51  
And we're back to this Friday afternoon of the work life balance. were meeting with Daniel pewter and Jennifer Kramer. We're talking about my life, my power and of course they're coming atomies as well ml MPI for some reason I'm getting tongue tied on that. But ml, MPI, academies and Jennifer, that's really coming from you guys. We're seeing a lot of challenges and youth and challenges in the current educational system. So what are those challenges that you're seeing? And why did you guys really create this academy?

Daniel Puder  16:18  
So like with Daniel has experienced, you know, going around speaking and working with the schools and foster care and the juvenile justice system in the K 12 system, and I come from a traditional private school where I worked with LD ADHD students, and I left it because I wanted to do something bigger. And when I met Daniel, he really wanted to create a change. And we were the first literally the first time we talked, we both had the same vision of literally shifting the educational system, because the traditional educational system really focuses on you know, if you excel in math, science, social studies, and it focuses on your labs. If you look at report cards, if you look at things you teach, you know, they worry about if you're doing well on a test, not as you're doing as a whole student. So, you know, him and I have been doing lots of different things with emotional intelligence, space things, I write curriculum, he has a program as well, too, that we utilize in our schools called GPS for life. And then what a spin off on that was GPS for success. And we were really finding, you know, the traditional school does not focus on the life skills and the emotional intelligence things and if you think about it, you know, Dana and I talk about this all the time in our training, you know, when you're from ages zero to, you know, three, your parents are telling you get up, go explore, go look, you know, go look around, go do this. And then after you know, from ages like four to 21, it's sit down, look forward, pay attention, and then go be you know, go release you out in the world and be productive citizens, or we're not really equipping our youth with that today. That's what we're trying to do with our school systems is be very out of the box and find unique ways using mentorship using speakers coming in using you know very different ways of approaching education because you can still teach the same things to the kids you can just teach it in a different way. So it's better equipping them with just life skills.

Rick A. Morris  18:23  
And in our in our write up for the show as well though you were talking around bullying you were talking about suicide talk to me how this helps either help or equip or or prevent some of those issues.

Daniel Puder  18:36  
I have Daniel addresses because I want him to talk about his unique way about how he started MLSP

because it has to do with bullying. So I got on TV TMZ and said I'll come to your school if you're being bullied. And you can look it up Daniel pewter TMZ. And what I was seeing was there was so many kids being picked on bullied we got over 10,000 emails in the first eight weeks from 12 countries, and then some three different types of people. One were kids, when were the parents, the one that I didn't expect were the adults. And the adults said, I wish you were in my life because they knew I was a undefeated MMA fighter. I wish I really, I wish you were in my life when I was a kid to protect me. And I looked at what was going on in our beliefs. And I looked at what was going on in our bullied kids, what the average public school system has done, or the average school system period, after school program, anything related around the country, is they tell the bullies the bad, which the bullies are hurt more, and they're just taking their anger, their frustration, their hurt out on other people. They don't even understand what they're doing. Because it's a it's a it's a, it's a response to something they've never been trained about. It's kind of like, if I were to give you a car, when you were four years old, and say go take it around the block. You've seen somebody do it, but you don't understand it. And so Their own emotions. They've never been trained. And when a lot of the systems say, Oh, we train our kids with social emotional learning, it's very, very, very low level training. It's very content heavy, and context light. And so, if a teacher is getting frustrated in a class, and they're trying to teach emotional, social emotional learning or emotional intelligence, then we have a challenge. And so I think there's two sides of it with schools is I look at I look at two different pieces. We either live from love or we live from fear. As a context, the fears create anger, they create hurt, they create pain. A fear is only based in our ego, and we create it to be to give us the ability to stay alive. A fear creates the Right emotions when we need it. Obviously back in the day a line would run after us we would have, I think

when I talk to kids about their girl hurt or pain, we have our psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, counselors, when we talk to talk to our students about or staff, a lot of them don't know the foundation of where it's coming from. And for them to start self reflecting, and start looking at their past experiences in either two worlds is how I break it down. One is I'm blessed. And I'm thankful that an experience of my past happened. And the other one is, is I'm gonna blame somebody else or blame myself because they're bad and wrong. And so many people are scared of the bad wrong, but they're still doing it every single day. They're still doing it themselves. They're still doing to other people. And so it's interesting to watch people Say I want this result my life. And they can't even get past the gate. They can't even get past the start line. Because they don't know the fundamentals to be able to let they're like they're walking around like this all day they walk around with a hand, you know, a blinder on. And if we can just help push that out a little bit and go, Oh, wow, this is a hand. Okay, let's take that. Let's really see life. And so we've created and we've seen what doesn't work, and we want to see what does work. The challenges is what does work. Like Jen and I trained cops in multiple states, this last summer educators and what people would say, oh, cops aren't being nice, or, you know, my teachers not being kind and I'm like, Okay, hold on, let's let's, let's break this down. Cops are never trained on how to be nice. They're never trained to understand their emotions. They're never trained to understand their beliefs. It's like our military. They're never trained. It's like average entrepreneur is not trained on maybe they have the content, the business content on how to start a business when they've never actually been through the business. So how are we supposed to create an expectation of somebody else's life? If we can't even own our own? And how are we supposed to own our own, we don't even know what it entails to do it. And so with the kids that are being bullied, and drugs, and gangs, and prostitution, and suicide, and sex trafficking, all these different things that kids are trying to find love, and trying to experience life. That's what they know, right? And so when we can show them something different when we can show them what's possible for them in their family, we can help them break down. why they do what they do every single day, their real purpose 99% of time, it's taking care of their family, taking care of a loved one taking care of their mother. And if we can get them to identify that and see that we can help them get out of the rut that they're creating every single day.

Rick A. Morris  23:58  
So is that your A typical students that your Academy serves or like how, how does how does that piece work? How does someone find the academy? How does somebody enroll? What markets are you in right now? How does that stuff work?

Daniel Puder  24:11  
So, our schools serve kids that are challenged in one way or the other. I think every student today growing up, it's very challenging. They add some benefits. Our generation, my parents generation, they grew up in front of a TV plant, you know, eating bonbons. This generation sits in front of video games, interacting with people around the world,

playing as a team, but they're spending like 18 hours a day on video games. So it's interesting to be able to see

you know, where kids really live, what makes them excited, what makes them enjoy life, and so many of them love to disconnect then connect to this world. And so showing them what's really possible it takes time and so yeah, A lot of these kids that are failing the school system we take and we support and then we have straight A's honorable students that come into our schools and just want to get ahead and want to change their life for the better because they just don't get it yet.

Yeah, so we we serve kids, you know, with academic challenges, attendance, challenges, behavioral challenges, and, and we take them through our programming and basically help them graduate. We, you know, we like Daniels been saying this whole time we we show them that there are other opportunities because these are in very low socio economic areas, high crime rates, and you know, we show these kids a different opportunity they that they never would have had. So that that's typically our demographics.

Rick A. Morris  25:44  
And so how many schools do you have right now?

Jennifer Kramer  25:47  
We currently have three,

Rick A. Morris  25:48  
three and where are they?

Daniel Puder  25:50  
So we have one in Liberty City Miami, and we have one in Oakland Park, and and Kobe. All these are in South Florida,

Rick A. Morris  25:58  
in South Florida, okay. But when we go ahead, Daniel God,

Daniel Puder  26:03  
yeah. And what's great is we're building these schools, we're building a millionaire's model where we can do the same thing with kids that are, you know, higher social, economic, we're doing a one in about three years a billionaires model, because every billionaire wants their kids to not be on drugs because they have everything, there's no value in life. So we're looking at these different models on how we can support every type of kid long term, but it's it's really understanding that type of kid and and relating connecting to where they're at today.

Rick A. Morris  26:32  
Perfect. So we're gonna take another break right here. When we come back, I do want to talk about how that works financially, how somebody in a community that they say, Wow, my community really needs something like this, how that kind of works financially, what it looks like. And again, funding options for these challenge kids, how does it How does it get funded? How do they, how do they find an academy like this and start something like this? So those are the things that we'll talk through. When we come back. You're listening to the work life balance records,

VoiceAmerica  27:05  
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When it comes to business, you'll find the experts here voice America Business Network.

You are tuned in to the work life balance. To reach Rick Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at r Morris r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance. And we're back to

Rick A. Morris  29:27  
the work life balance on this Friday afternoon. We're talking with Daniel pewter and Jennifer Kramer cofounders of the my life my power International Academy. I think I said something inappropriate and not inappropriate, but I said it wrong. Let's not get inappropriate here. Really, really quickly that Daniel, how many fights Did you have at the MMA?

Daniel Puder  29:47  
I had a professional 20 amateur. But the amateur was different back in the day. So you know wasn't counted. It was very interesting. I was in the sport before the sport was really what it is today.

Rick A. Morris  30:00  
But still 28 No. And we all know there's that one lucky shot just just right here on the chin. Just catch it just right and lights not. Not from you, bro. No, no, definitely not I'm saying what it is, is to go 28 fights and win them all is my point is I I've had the lights out, happen and it's not fun. I'm just gonna throw that. Yeah, not a whole lot of Yeah. I'm coming back to the getting me up. So we're leading into how does this get funded? Like, how is this financially work? What, even better? I have a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to the podcast like what's what's really in this for you guys?

Daniel Puder  30:40  
So what I looked at with the nonprofit side is it said, relying on grants relying on contracts that I was doing, and there were smaller contracts, if it's not built in as a system as a budget line item somewhere. Then long term. It's all sustainable. So I was looking at, there's so many groups that are out there that help people. But helping people doesn't necessarily solve the problem. And so I don't see as many people solving problems today because it'll put them out of business. And I'm excited if I don't have to do any anti bullying, like we don't even do that much anti bullying stuff anymore. Because we're about helping the human which is growing acumen, not just the bullying side, because I said, I thought that was the future, the future, that's not the foundation. If you tell a kid Don't bully, then they're probably gonna go bully someone. And so we built a system. It's a for profit model, that we get to go out and build schools and their state funding. And through this system, the challenge between private schools and private public schools which are called charter, is charter schools get more funding to build their initial school they maybe get land they get a property they get, there's there's things they get depending on the city. We hit none of that. So we have to put up our own dollars to be able to get into locations to then be able to rent. And then from there long term we can make, you know, we put a lot of money back into the kit. And so we created a system where it can be profitable. Because we, we have so many resources and we can bulk buy, and we're doing things internally. And we're setting up the company, right? we own our own curriculum. We're building our own curriculum right now from six through 12th grade for math, science and social studies. We're doing some amazing stuff. And so it's cheaper than and we're putting the money up front to be able to build the foundation so that we can create more revenue, create more profit to open up more schools. And so we look at how do we put as much impact within our kids every single day as possible, and we're doing it and then we're stay fun till we get contracts with the state. In the state of Florida, there's there's a couple handfuls of states that are going to a model called school choice or they call a voucher scholarship. And from there, the students apply, we get awarded the scholarship, or they get awarded the scholarship, and then they come to our school. And so it's an amazing system that's been created in Florida. I want to thank the people out there, they've been doing this. It's not just Republicans, people always say, oh, Republican, this role, it's Democrats to both sides are winning, because guess what, a lot of the democrats that are getting elected, they have smaller base schools that are helping their community out where they have impoverished, financial challenges, generational poverty, jails, foster care, and their people are really getting taken care of. And so I want to thank you know, the the legislation and and our politicians to be supportive of this and it's amazing to see what's happening.

Rick A. Morris  33:59  
So, essentially, Then from that perspective, then the voucher system is how that kind of helps from a state funding when you say your state funded is through vouchers.

Daniel Puder  34:11  
Yeah, that's correct. So this state is funding it from from when we got the contracts and our accreditation.

Rick A. Morris  34:19  
Okay. And so, talk to me then about the students, right. We talked about kind of the why we've talked about a little bit of the how we talked about some of the finances, but what are some of the outcomes that you've seen with the school?

Daniel Puder  34:32  
So this is technically our second year. So year one. We started with just our Liberty City campus, and we started with six students. We literally opened the doors with six students, and we ended the year with 52. And then this year, we have three schools. So we added two more, and we have currently about I think, like 320 or so around that number is the current number that we have in all three schools. And, you know, we've seen the kids really grow But there's one in particular student from Liberty City. His name is Sebastian and he started with us year one. And he was kicked out of his school. He was dealing drugs. He was homeless. He got kicked out of his mother's house then kicked out of his father's house, and then it was living with his aunt. And I remember he went to I believe it was Daniel and or Daniel or Michael, I can't remember exactly who it was. But I think it was Daniel. And he went to him and said, You know, I don't there's not enough beds in the house because there's too many kids. And so you know, us being a private school, we have the autonomy to do things. So you know, Daniel went out we bought him about a bunk bed for the room so he could have enough beds for his room and Sebastian has come so far, and he's graduating this year and and Daniel my like he said, we we also have the opportunity to train law enforcement. So we have a government contract with high to high intensity drug trafficking areas, which is through Oakland do CP in the White House. The Office on National Drug Control Policy. And Daniel and I got the opportunity last summer to train law enforcement and educators in four states. It'd be Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and then Florida. And we went through and did it for 10 days. And we invited Sebastian to come because he likes to do filming. And he had never been out of the state of Florida. never done anything like that. And he came and Daniel and I run hard. We are 16 hour days, we don't stop because you know, you know, Daniel, one of his greatest strengths is connection and building teams. And he's built a great team and we're all super dedicated to what we're doing. And Sebastian didn't know what hit him. So when he was with us, literally for 10 days, we wore him out, but he did so amazing. And he's this big kid. He's like a giant teddy bear. He was here in Atlanta with me and my daughter here and, and he's just we're so proud of him. He's come so far, and he's one of my most favorite success cases. Quite a few others too, but he's close to my heart because he's such a sweet kid. And he's his come from he shouldn't be. He shouldn't project what he is. But you know, I think us emulating and giving him mentors and showing them opportunities and creating things for him. We've got him a job. He recently was homeless again, and we found another home for him. So, you know, we, he's one of our great success stories. So

Rick A. Morris  37:27  
one of the keys to that though, even though that you had some some slight assistance here, and there is is really back to the accountability, accountability. Mm. Right. So he's somebody who's really working the program, and understanding he has to be accountable to himself in order to grow forward, right?

Daniel Puder  37:42  
Oh, yes, for sure. I mean, you know, he loves to learn but people, you people sometimes get stuck in the learning phase, they don't realize they need to evolve and transform. So that's one thing that Sebastian has been doing. He's like a sponge, he soaks up things and he really wants to be better and do better and broaden his horizons and he's really Daniel's really taken him under his wing. Daniels, you know, one of probably the greatest mentors that I think Sebastian has probably ever had in his life. So

Rick A. Morris  38:10  
outstanding, Daniel, any any favorite stories you have really quickly.

Daniel Puder  38:15  
Now she's gonna give me a tear up.

Whoever said a big badass fighter couldn't have some feelings to you. No, that's right.

Um, so, you know, it's interesting, because about three months, two months ago, he did come back again. And he said, I now got kicked out of my aunt's house, I tried to reconcile with my dad, my dad's dad, and he literally called me because I have nowhere to go tonight. And so we got him into a place he went out and got himself a better job, paid more surgeons and part time work for our schools. And we helped him financially and then one of my buddies at one of the companies that that we use a CH It's our it's our, our HR HR company. In Florida, they sent they said, Hey, we want to sponsor one of your kids. And so I with me paying out money, I said, Hey, why don't you sponsor this kid, it'll cover his first couple months getting off the ground. And it basically got him living and a bicycle and the right clothes he needed, and you know, just the right setup. And so it's a blessing in my life to have mentors that are like, Hey, where's the money really needed? Not, hey, you're gonna go spend like 20% of that administrator 100% winter, we're, I think, you know, right now, he owes me like four or 500 bucks, and he's got the cash and I just haven't met up with him and I and he goes, Hey, I need this and I need that. I said, take somebody's cash and you know, let's do payments. So the kids becoming more responsible. He's accountable to who he is. And until what I love is that he follows up with me every week. And he's just a big blessing. Like he's he, when he shows up to school he's got, he's got a lot of happiness. And he's got a lot of drive. And he's also got a lot of anger from from past stuff. And it's amazing to watch him grow over the last year,

Rick A. Morris  40:17  
that's phenomenal, especially learning how to deal with that anger, because, unfortunately, that can come out with very negative consequences for anybody, but a lot of to, you know, hurt people hurt people, essentially. And so having them learn not to hurt is really how you get them to prevent the hurt. So we're gonna, we're gonna take our final break right here. I'm glad because at the beginning of this segment, you were making sure I wasn't, I wasn't saying I could knock you out. I was saying the right shot on the chin. So I'm glad we're back to square one You had me so that

I just want I just want to make sure we're on the same page. I'll come to your house right Got their

Daniel Puder  41:00  
knuckle the knuckle that doesn't exist anymore. Yeah.

Last

last went into my hand.

Rick A. Morris  41:08  
Oh my goodness. So I'll sleep much better tonight for sure. So we'll come right back with the work life balance Daniel Peter, Jennifer Kramer and we'll do our final segment you're listening to Rick Morris on the work life balance.

VoiceAmerica  41:29  
When it comes to business, you'll find the experts here voice America business network.

Are you getting the most out of your project management software? In many cases, it is not the software that is failing, but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. r squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implement And training, allow r squared to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment, visit r squared consulting.com. Today at the work life balance, we like to ask simple questions to our executives and portfolio managers. Are you picking your projects based on what the organization can spend? Or is it based on what your resources can realistically achieve? This question is not answered properly can cause great strain on your staff learning the return on investment. When creating project selection criteria. Does your organization attempt to understand the amount of resources needed to complete the work? Is this done in spreadsheets or at a high level? What if we told you there was a simple and easy solution that was built with resource planning in mind, we call it resource first from PD where resource first was built with resource planning as its foundation. We have years of experience that proves before a company fine tunes its project and portfolio management processes without a process for resource planning. processes and algorithms can fall flat resources should be first when deciding the strategy of taking an organization forward. Find out more at pd where.com. Put your people first with resource first from PD where join us at pd where.com. You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick Morris or his guest today we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at r Morris r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.

Rick A. Morris  43:47  
And we're back for the final segment of the work life balance visiting with Daniel pewter and Jennifer Kramer. They are both co founders of the my life my power International Academy and so how do people find out about the academy How do they find you guys? How do they fund it? Right? That that millionaire that's listening right now that wants to fund their own school and put their name on it? How do they find you?

Daniel Puder  44:10  
So you guys can email me directly if you're super interested dp, my life my power.org if you want to look at more information, just Google My life, my power, international preparatory academies, or my life, my power, you can email you can google Daniel pewter, go on our YouTube or Instagram. You can see Dr. Oz Les Brown, we have some amazing people coming together to make impact to these kids. And so we're looking for people that want to make a little bit of profit, but also invest and have a legacy project for their life. Some people put their name on it, some people don't. We have different setups for you know, people that just want to support us on getting something going and get their money back. I mean, at the end of the day, I want to build more schools. I want to impact kids We're able to do this together, we're going to change the world.

Rick A. Morris  45:03  
Outstanding. So, I'm going to go to Jennifer first, Jennifer, what's some of the best advice you've ever received?

Jennifer Kramer  45:10  
Goodness, that's a tough question. Um,

Daniel Puder  45:14  
I guess it comes from like having my parents were the most amazing parents and they are heavy influence in my life and, and they're so kind and I think that they taught me two major things, which is just being grateful for what you have, and always leading with kindness. Because those are two two things that I believe that if you if you truly are grateful, not just say that you are but actually understand, you know, look around you and see all the beautiful things that you have and the friends and family and, and even all the stuff going on with, you know, the pandemic and COVID-19 all this is kind of making all of us kind of take a step back and realize, you know what we do have and then, you know, my parents are just so kind and generous and loving and I think that's one thing that They've always taught me it's just to lead with kindness because you can't really go wrong with that. So that's some great advice, I guess that I received.

Rick A. Morris  46:07  
And then Daniel other than don't get hit in the face, what's some of the best you've received?

Daniel Puder  46:13  
When Keep your hands up? Um, I think the biggest thing in life is love yourself. If If you really internally care about yourself, and not the things that you have, or the people you have around you, or like, people come and go, and I see so many people get off track with, oh, I lost this or I lost this ring or I lost. Okay, so it comes and goes at the end of the day, life is not about to me, life is not about things per se. It's really how do I live? How do I build my team? How do I impact the world? And how do I just enjoy who I am and am blessed with life every single day.

Rick A. Morris  46:54  
So where did you find your power?

Daniel Puder  46:57  
getting punched in the face when I was angry? I mean, I mean, I didn't I didn't go into depth. You know, when I was a kid I was picked on and bullied for being in special ed, they labeled me learning disabled. And so I understand how it feels to feel pain, how people hurt people hurt people, like you said, and, and I, I saw a lot of that, but I didn't understand that I was never taught that. I was able to go home and cry on my mom's lap when I was a kid or express something, and then I got angry. And so really understanding how I chose that I wanted life. I mean, it's called freewill. That's the best part what we have is the ability to make a choice. And so getting to make that choice and understand what choices that have are valuable, but really diving deep into myself and getting rid of some of those past blame and shame things in my life was was one of the biggest transitions over the last 510 years of working with other people seen it. Then I started seeing it in my

Rick A. Morris  48:02  
Jennifer, any final words for the audience or anything that maybe we missed during the interview?

Daniel Puder  48:08  
No, I mean, we're Dana and I are just very grateful to be talking with you and the opportunity to kind of discuss, you know, what we're doing within the school systems and then with the, you know, educators and the, the drug prevention curriculums and everything, we're just we're very grateful for the opportunities that we have. And you know, Daniel and I have been building connections and relationships for many years. And we realize that, you know, in order to, you know, we have to start somewhere, and then the school system is where we're starting, and we're going to really create impact in the educational system. So we're just very excited.

Rick A. Morris  48:42  
Is there a connection you've been searching for trying to get to that maybe haven't achieved yet? Is there somebody in particular you're going after?

Daniel Puder  48:52  
You know, I think my biggest thing at this point is two parts. One is obviously funding schools and getting People with bigger foundations and bigger pocketbooks ago I see the vision I want to part of the legacy. I'm excited. And the second part is, is we're looking at really building our legacy with with land, because it's very hard to find the right properties to put schools and get them permitted. Get them zoned. And so we're, we're talking to some people in the land world, where we can, you know, real estate owners, people that want to and there's a lot more that's coming up right now, because of COVID-19. But we're looking for people in that world. We're starting to put a fun together right now. And we're gonna start buying properties. So people are interested in this, I just want good humans that say, hey, if you spend a couple hundred bucks on a bunk bed, change kid's life, you know, go for it. I you know, because because our partners right now, that invested, they don't care if I spend a few hundred bucks here, a few hundred bucks there, because it's changed the kids lives. They're in this for the life and they know that the bigger we get, the more we do, the more impactful Gonna make a huge legacy.

Rick A. Morris  50:03  
That's fantastic. Well, thank you so much for being a part of the show and coming on and sharing your vision and sharing your passion with us. If anybody out there knows of that big real estate person knows for that big person with a huge heart, maybe the person that's got the personal cell phone number of Bill Gates, you know, who knows, right? We never know who's listening. But this, this is the time for action. This is the time to really I mean, when we start talking legacy, we impact one child who then gets to impact 10. And those get to impact 1000, and so on and so forth. This is how you do it. So for those of you that are searching for a cause or searching for a way, I'd say look no further than, than this academy. It's been a blessing to meet you guys work with you. And look forward to lots and lots of success in the future.

Daniel Puder  50:49  
Thank you, brother. Have a blessed week.

Jennifer Kramer  50:51  
Yes, thank you.

Rick A. Morris  50:52  
So coming up next week, we've got the the formidable Ingo rock is coming on ingos a dear friend of mine, she actually has built a huge huge organization overseas and is now starting to bring that practice in business here to the United States. She's a powerhouse, motivational speaker, just in not only that, but she's just really, really fun person to be around. So we're going to have iraq on next week, we're going to want to make sure that you tune in right here every Friday, four o'clock on The Voice America business network that's for central five, Eastern to Pacific. And of course, we always hope that you live your own work life balance, and we'll talk to you next week.

VoiceAmerica  51:36  
Thank you for joining us this week. The work life balance with Rick Morris can be heard live every Friday at 2pm pacific time and 5pm eastern time on The Voice America business channel. Now that the weekend is here, it's time to rethink your priorities and enjoy it. We'll see you on our next show.