Ronsley Vaz has always been passionate about exploring the world through his voice and the voices of others. This has led him to podcasting and sharing his knowledge and experience to business owners who want to take advantage of the growing medium. His body of work reflects this too, from being the founder of award-winning audio marketing agency Must Amplify, bringing the first podcasting conference in the Southern Hemisphere to life, and wearing the executive producer hat for the innovative podcast The Psychology of Entrepreneurship, among others. He has also been downloaded more than 5 million times across 133 countries with his TEDx Talk, “The Perfect Recipe for a Deep Conversation”, which we also touch on in our talk today.
In entrepreneurship, we are not taught to enjoy the dance. We just seem to fight to get to the next destination. This is just one of the nuggets of wisdom from my guest, Ronsley Vaz, who is the founder of award-winning marketing agency Must Amplify and just really a passionate individual about the psychology of entrepreneurship. Join us as we talk about the importance of boring time, authenticity, and the significance of listening.
5:19 Boredom is where the magic lies
13:55 Silence is absolutely important in a conversation
20:38 The best things that can happen can come out of the blue
26:45 Understanding and dissecting your patterns
32:29 The importance of reps to get habits in
33:53 Ronsley talks about what he loves about Clubhouse
41:15 Podcasting as a growing medium
50:19 Ronsley’s passionate plea to entrepreneurs
“Be yourself, be in spaces that you can be yourself, and use your voice for what you care about.”
GET IN TOUCH:
MARK LEARY:
www.linkedin.com/in/markhleary
www.leary.cc
RONSLEY VAZ
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronsley/
https://mustamplify.com/
Wednesday, April 14, 2021
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
conversation, people, clubhouse, boredom, podcast, reps, question, entrepreneurs, interviewed, thought, point, habits, psychology, listen, voice, meditation, important, audio, deep, feel
SPEAKERS
Ronsley, VO, Mark
Mark 00:00
So we're rolling, cool. We are live. This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson Valerian, my name is Mark and I have a passion that you should feel in control of your life. And what I do is I helped me get control your business. And so part of how I do that, as you know by now you must know by now part of how I let you do that is by letting you listen in on a conversation between two people who have a passion for excellence in the entrepreneurial world in some way, totally going crazy geeking out and get into the details and have a conversation about stuff that you already know something about. But this time getting into the weeds to the point where you can start to hear things you haven't heard before. So you can unlock those problems, challenges and break through that ceiling. Get the business you want and live the life you want to live. Before we dive in, of course, the reminder you know is coming, please share the feedback give us that feedback. Good and bad. We love it so important, so helpful for us. And of course share the content with those people who could benefit from this. It's no good if you don't hear it. So get it in the hands of the people who can benefit. So without further ado, let's get into a conversation with Ronsley Vaz who is passionate about a couple of critical subjects that I love the psychology of entrepreneurship. And of course, this idea of deep conversations and so we're just going to pop the lid and have a conversation about I don't know what what's up Ronsley?
Ronsley 01:11
Hey, Mark. it seems like you've been doing this for a while.
Mark 01:17
All day, man. Well, God,
Ronsley 01:20
thank you, thank you for having me. This is really cool. Let's do this.
Mark 01:23
So, psychology of entrepreneurship, deep conversations, I think those are two interesting intersections. Because after a year of pandemic, psychology has been on a lot of people's minds and certainly online and, and device frequently expressed that this podcast is not some ivory tower of, of teaching people the wisdom is more me learning about myself and my own visionary entrepreneurial challenge is doing it publicly. so other people can learn from the lessons that I'm learning. Psychology is so critical to be strong and confident at the right now moving into a very prosperous future, I believe is where we're at. And also this idea of deep conversations and connecting with people in a time when connections hard man. So what comes to mind with those subjects right now?
Ronsley 02:12
Well, one of the things that comes to mind straight away is that people, unfortunately, are just seeing this, the highlight reels of people's lives on social media and feel like that's the way it's supposed to be. And then they compare their current situation to that. So exciting, deep conversations, let's start with this morning. as normal, I had my 10 minute meditation, and in my 10 minute meditation, I can't even explain these situations when I literally, I was crying, not crying, sad, crying, happy, not even crying, I don't even know it was just like a burst of emotion. Because in that meditation, I had this disbelief in myself, about I had this misbelief about trust, because we just got a complaint last week at the end of last week about some of our services, and, you know, we hadn't had children at all in our business since COVID. Really, since the, you know, the COVID thing. And I started to think about that. And anyway, in my meditation, I got to a point where I, I saw how me not trusting myself was having this knock on effects. And it was, I can't even it's not intellectually explainable. But it's one of those things that only happened because of a practice. So when we're talking about entrepreneurship, one of the things that I feel we're not talking about is the reps that entrepreneurs put in to deal with the lows because they come and unfortunately, on social media, all you see is the highs because he no one wants to read someone's lows on social media. So the comparison gets us psychology into this vortex that we can't really come out of so that is something that I feel we should probably converse about.
Mark 04:04
Yeah, for sure. So you hit a couple of subjects right there reps, which flows into discipline, I'm using endless sports metaphors, with my my clients and on the conversations and I've even got a live stream on Monday mornings. It's called playing to win which is nothing but growth oriented conversation using sports metaphors. We talk about reps and discipline all the time. And I love the combination there of like, the discipline and reps of meditation. And, and and what I a larger discipline, which is what I call reflection and observation. And I think if you're going to grow, and you're going to get out of your out of your own way of your habits, then you're going to have to take time to reflect and observe and understand what those aren't. So to talk more about the discipline of observation and reflection and meditation in your world,
Ronsley 04:51
well I feel one of the things when we talk about when when someone thinks about reps, we think that is always a doing involved and Unfortunately, that is another I don't know, vortex that we can get ourselves into. And, you know, because that's the case I actually shed you time to look out this window that's just here, like literally just nothing and, and and more and more I feel boredom is where the magic lies.
Mark 05:22
Man, I love that that's great. I think it's worth pausing. Boredom is where the magic lies because I do think when things start going well, for me in particular, that's almost the drug. Like, it's I used to think that that success would be a reason to be complacent. And what I find is the opposite is true. when things start working, that's when the urgency goes up, because now every minute I'm wasting his opportunity cost. So I better go back to the back to the grindstone and get going. Because you know, I know this works and better do more of it, because that's going to produce even more. And it's very active, it's kinetic and this idea of, Okay, sit down and do nothing intentionally, man, that's hard to do. I do it, but I get why. It's not everybody.
Ronsley 06:09
Well, it's hard, it's hard to do. Because one of the things you got to sit with yourself, and you know, you can take a break from a
06:16
guy to sit with sometimes my negative self talk,
Ronsley 06:22
we can take a break from everyone else, we can take a break from everyone else on the planet. But we can't take a break from the, the, you know, the voice inside our heads. And, and what is really important to do is make friends with this voice, because any other way is creating this battle inside our heads, and we're having a constant conversation, and we're tiring ourselves out. So then when we have a conversation with someone else like this, there's no energy left, because we've had all these conversations in my head, and it's become this echo chamber of absolute nonsense. So boredom, I think allows us to sift through that. And unfortunately, we have these phones in our heads that don't let us do that.
Mark 07:09
Yeah, yeah. What's it boredom to me, I want to keep calling that out. Because I think giving it a name like that this sort of repellent to people who are visionary, and excitable and entrepreneurial, is a good way of labeling it because you I want, I want you to know when you found it, because like, meditation isn't necessarily exciting. If you if you're doing it and you're bored. That's your clue, you might be doing it right. And the thing that I try to get into people's minds is all the habits like you know, if you've done any habit study, which I suspect you have, and there's and that's kind of trendy right now, there's several great books on habits, what we learn is that most of our life is conditioned response. And most of our life is habit, and almost everything we're doing is happening automatically. And so the own so if you're getting what you want from your life, well then don't change anything, because your habits are doing it for you is automatic, it's gonna keep coming at you. If you want something more, however, you're going to have to reprogram some of those habits. And the only way to do that is to get out of the way of those habits and conditioned responses. And that feels a lot like boredom, you're going to have to push those habits and stimuli away. So the automatic turns off, and then you can actually have some clarity to say, all right, what am I doing these days? And is it working? Is it going in the right direction and really observe?
Ronsley 08:31
Yeah, it's a it's a really important reflection to make, because we are programmed to have confirmation bias talking about psychology. One of the things that have has happened, you introduced me with deep conversations and psychology, and then I'll, I'll talk about how those came together. Because in 2017, I did I did a TEDx talk about having deep conversations. And it was only 12 minutes, and everyone through that whole to me, 11 and a half minutes thought that my talk, which was ideas worth spreading was about them getting a point across. And in the last 30 seconds. I was like no actually having deep conversations as being a better listener. And you could see the whole crowd going wow, that's crazy. And in 2020 that TEDx talk with me the TED talk so you can find that on the ted.com website. Which is probably one of the biggest you know, accomplishments of my career really. Because you know, you can't buy that kind of shit even Amazon bestseller by looking by wall street journal writes, it's anyway point is, that was the deep conversation pot which I've done 1300 odd plus interviews over the last seven years on different podcasts and interviewed different people and in different ways in different forms in different scenarios in different situations. And and I realized that I'm a bad listener, I still am a bad listener. And every conversation I have, I understand that I'm learning to listen better. And that is the key to having a deep conversation. And the psychology of entrepreneurship is the evolution of my podcasts, reps, because I wanted to understand the psychology of our decisions. So I wanted to become a student of that off that game. So that was about having those conversations. That's how they come together. Does that make sense? I
Mark 10:32
remember that from the from the TED Talk. So I remember like you started off with like, I'm a bad listener. And let's unpack that, because I think there's something there. I occasionally get told I'm a good listener. But I don't think so. I think that I am occasionally on, you know it for the right, the right circumstances, a good listener. And I, my hypothesis is that the more I listen, the more I build up things I want to say. And so it gets harder and harder to be a good listener over time. So what's your journey been like, into becoming a better listener?
Ronsley 11:12
Well, I thought I was a great listener, until I started, you know, the podcast, obviously. And then I realized when I listened back that I was talking a lot. And because I when I first started, I was doing all the editing and stuff myself, right. So I got a chance to listen to do things. And I was like, Oh, my God, I have a very different impression of myself. And then I thought I improved a lot as a listener until clubhouse came along. And because clubhouse in, the way it operates is, it's like you're sitting around a campfire, and you have a talking stick. And only one person can talk at any time, and only one person has a talking stick. So if you're a bad listener, you can tell because you are I mean, in with yourself, right? And if you're self aware, you can tell how much you're itching to press that mic button on mute button. So that has been a real eye opener for me being on clubhouse and realizing that it's not really, I still got a long way to go. And in terms of listening.
Mark 12:21
So I first I've heard it many, many times in many, many ways that great leadership is founded on the built on a foundation of great listening. And that's logical. And I say it a lot like, if you don't listen, well, you don't know what to say, if you're going to say important stuff that affects the outcome of your business, your life, your family, you better listen, you better be informed. But I think when I saw it illustrated clearly to me, most was I watched Oprah Winfrey a lot for for a period and I was watching a lot of her super soul Sunday episodes. And I I watched many of them they were all profound. And I saw her sitting there listening and asking questions in this very innocent way. She asked these very humble, almost childlike questions that have a lot of wonder. And, and I got used to that. That's the Oprah mode on that show. And then I heard her interviewed and somebody asked her a direct question. And when she answered, I was like, This woman has been listening, she knows the answer to these questions. And and it just created this clarity that she's on that show interviewing brilliant people, and she could probably come really close to leading that the every one of those conversations with with the answers, but she doesn't. Her whole her whole mode what how she continues to dominate and be the person she is is by just shutting it down and being humble and listening and soaking up whatever she can from these amazing people is really profound.
Ronsley 13:56
I think part of a conversation is is also the idea that silence is absolutely important in the conversation and when it comes to having a conversation. I mean, you mentioned the part of of saying something profound I feel sometimes knowing when to not say anything at all is absolutely more profound. And I heard this quote literally like last week, maybe. But it was very recent. I anyway, blurred time has just gone out the window for me these days, but I think it was last week. And it went something like I didn't say a word but they heard everything they needed to hear. And that goes down. This goes back to the boredom piece. Because I feel like from an intellectual standpoint, we think we got to listen to be intellectual, and say something smart and be logical and be, you know, very analytical about it. But listening goes deeper, like My wife is an ICU nurse by trade, and she can't even begin to break down the listening habits that she has. Because she can hear words. But listen to the real meaning behind that. And that is a whole, that is not the conversation that we can intellectually prepare for.
Mark 15:25
Yeah. So I think it goes, it's one step before that. And I'm trying to think the guy's name is Kent member's last name. His first name is Cal, he's a journalist. And I asked him, he's known for some of his incredible interviews with Mikhail Gorbachev and Muhammad Ali, and really well known kick ass interviews. And I asked him a specific question around like, you know, what's your default question? What do you what do you what you if you get suddenly trapped in an elevator with the person you want to talk to you? Like, what's the great question that you want to ask? And he couldn't add you? He didn't answer like that at all. It's like you have to observe, you have to look. And his whole thing is, there's a million questions you can learn and process and kind of keep in the back of your mind that can come out in the moment. But it's all situational. It boiled down to like, it's not about the question, yet. You it starts with observation, what's happening, what's going on being aware. And sometimes it's very hard for me to be aware of that I get very intuitive and I go inward, and I start thinking systems, what does that mean? Does that mean to me? What are my experiences, and I kind of lose connection with what's going on in front of me. So I've really had to train myself. If I've got a roomful of leaders, or our zoom call full of leaders, really, what's happening here, you know, half the time, there's six or seven people on a call, and only one of them is talking. Like, it's not about questions. It's about what are these people doing?
Ronsley 16:52
I think it's the ability to make people feel safe. And you see clubhouse is when people come on to clubhouse and speak for the first time who've never spoken before. I mean, we talk to people who speak, you know, one on one right now, like we're doing a podcast, but they're still podcasters, who've not been open and free enough to say whatever they feel like saying in a live setting, they worry so much about how it's going to be interpreted. And I think what what happens, or what is happening right now is that we're creating content to look good, or to sound good, or to you know, to do with thinking about it from that angle, as opposed to like, well, how can I create a space where I have no control over what's going to happen? Watch, like, what's happening right now, right? We have no, we're just having this. And we don't know where it's going to go. We're just having this conversation. Nothing is like really off limits. And we don't know what's going to happen. And here's what here's why that is so amazing, and fascinating. And, and, and why I love it. And that's my style. And even though psychology of entrepreneurship isn't a doc audio documentary that goes out every week, and it's been it's highlighted way we capture it is in like this kind of conversation, there's no boundary, and it's sort of then gets edited down. The point I'm making is, it's like, if someone it's like dancing, when you get to a conversational point where you love to have a really good interview with someone and you want to have a great conversation to hold that space. What what tends to happen is it's like dancing, you can't say, well, the dance looks perfect. If you get to that spot on the dance floor. Then you just get to that spot. It's like doing the dance. And wherever you end up, you end up and enjoying the dance. And unfortunately, in entrepreneurship, we're not thought to enjoy the dance. We're only thought to get to the next destination. We're only thought that we're going to look good on social media, because everyone else is looking good. I wonder whether anything of that is landing. What's landing for you, Mark?
Mark 18:59
Yeah, I think I'm thinking about different types of entrepreneurs. Where I mean, there's a young, ambitious, fame seeking entrepreneur who is very, you know, plugged into the packaging. It's all about the look. And there's entrepreneurs who are not that I mean, I work with all across the spectrum. Some are very young and budding startups and others that are very mature industries that are very unsexy. And jeans and boots. And that's the whole thing. And so I think there is there's a lot of there's a big spectrum. And so, why does this matter? It is a question in my mind, I do think that the young, I want to be Elon Musk's, you know, that's, that's, that's very clear. It's like, you know, deep conversations, ties back to authenticity. Like you're probably not being authentic. You probably could have somebody in your ear saying like, what's, what's a real human? That's cool. Like, I love that shirt, bro. But what's cool is it really you. And then I think at the other end of the spectrum of that sort of more mature entrepreneur who's like not mature industry? I mean, and not so high tech necessarily, and maybe not raising money? you the same question, what is the real you? And why might you be afraid to put it out? I think one of them is trying to be somebody they're not one is trying to not be anybody at all. And in the end, what we're trying to do what I'm, I think why this matters is if you really want to have connections with your employees, your customers and your brand, it requires a little bit of introspection of Who are you? What do you want? And would you be afraid to show it? And what could you create if you were a little more open?
Ronsley 20:38
And I think also, we feel like we got to have the answers, right. So we got to plan it before. And, and, and I think some of the most amazing things that have happened to me over the last, I don't know, I can't even remember. But a few years now, maybe long ago. I just it comes from out of the blue. And you're going I'm going like, wait, what, like I got asked to be at the end of last year, I got asked to be on a board for a castle in Ireland.
Mark 21:08
Natural like, you know, what?
Ronsley 21:12
Why is a castle on the board? Well, it's a 500 year old castle. And it's it is a mission. And it's God's like this crane,
Mark 21:21
it's a Conservancy. It's like, like,
Ronsley 21:24
it's it's a it's a it's it was always a castle of healing. And it's that's that's the the idea is to take that mission on for the next 500 years, which is a crazy mission. Right? And, and to be on a on a board for that. Is this, like, how do you like, so my point I'm making is, I've interviewed a lot of great entrepreneurs, who have built some brilliant things, and, and they all say that enjoying the process is is probably the most important thing. Because the getting to the goals, they all come back, I think there's a great Steve Jobs quote about you can connect the dots looking back, you know, and, and in these conversations, what also tends to happen is you tend to interview an entrepreneur and connect all the dots looking backwards. And it sounds like a great plan. But I promise you, there was no plan. And it just looks great now, because we weren't Nestle talking about the times in fetal position where you did not really believe in yourself, and you didn't know how the next thing was gonna work.
Mark 22:29
So that reminds me a little bit of Jeff Hoffman, I interviewed several men, maybe almost a year ago, he was I don't know if you know him, but he's one of the early founders of a piece of what became priceline.com. And he said that he was interviewed on TV, that one point in a random question was what's more important, the journey or the destination? And you know, to me, that's the trite question, well, of course, is the journey. And he and he in the moment was like, no, it's neither of those. It is who's on the journey with you. If you if you enjoy the people you're hanging out with, then doesn't matter where you go, it's awesome. You know, the journey could be anything, you make fun out of whatever path you're on. And it certainly was a good representation of how he views culture and the kind of cultures he builds and the companies that he creates. And that's very, you couldn't turn that off in him. But But I brought that back into the core values, conversations of luck, you know, companies that I work with that know who they are cultural wise and solid, clear core values that they enforce and promote vigorously, can conquer kind of anything, they're willing to sacrifice for the fight because they just love being who they are with the who they're hanging out with. And so all this going back to deep conversations, and it's, we know this, the science is clear happiness is related to social interaction and dealing with dealing with people. And the depth of conversation we can have gives us the ability to have tighter connections, tighter bonds, tighter cultures, and more conviction and ability to win.
Ronsley 23:59
Couldn't agree more.
24:03
So what does that mean for you?
Ronsley 24:06
I just keep doing what I'm doing having these conversations seeing what unpacks I feel. I feel sometimes I touch on things that that are absolutely mental. I just interviewed four gentlemen on death row, who are entrepreneurs, artists, on death poet poets on death row. And I find that absolutely mental because I feel that especially in the first world, there's so much entitlement, we don't really know how much we have, even. And we see, our perspective is such an interesting concept because everything can change with a small shift of perspective. But we keep bullshitting ourselves thinking that it's the more doing that is going to actually work. work for us, but it's actually the more being that is gonna work for us.
Mark 25:07
Well, so let's Yeah, let's so let's go there for a second. Now, I think because you and I are totally geeking out of the same stuff. We could talk about this for a long, long time and get it. I want to make sure this conversation tethers back to why does this matter for the entrepreneur? So from the entrepreneurial perspective, less doing more being? Well, I've heard that a lot. But I haven't heard it connected in the entrepreneurial world that much. What does that look like in the entrepreneurial world?
Ronsley 25:32
was like, what we're talking about is that the boredom piece, you know, actually having space and having time do you actually, like, I feel one of the things is that we tell ourselves these really cool lies about what we're supposed to be and what we are and what we think we are. And it's a really nice facade. But when we start to like, look at our calendar, we realize where we're spending our time. And then we start and then we look at a bank account, and we realize where we're spending our money, then we look at our space around us, and we realize where what we're spending our time doing and what we look. And then you brought up the really important point, which is probably most crucial of all is who you're hanging out with. And you look around you and you go, like, Who are you hanging out with? And, and one of the things that's really fascinating is my wife keeps pointing out is that my friend circle keeps changing. Right now, is fascinating, right? There are some people that have always been my friend, but they're in terms of circles, the conversations are entirely different. And every time it changes the conversation, then the words are never the same words being used before. It's almost, it's almost a little a little crazy. My point is, look around us. I mean, we got to look around ourselves, I look around myself and kind of go, how much spare time am I spending with my wife? How much spare time? How much time? am I spending with myself? ways? What does that look like in my calendar, if it is, if I'm a type a kind of person, and that's what I need, that needs to go into the calendar because, you know, once it's sheduled, it gets done, if that's the kind of person you are, put it in the calendar, make it make it, get it done. But I
27:18
got to spend time with I've got to get it done. We gotta hurry up and check this off the list. Like you, you've only got an hour use
Ronsley 27:24
it. I think it's important, even if that's the way to start getting a rep in is better than you know someone making fun of the idea that that is the way to start. The problem is that different people have different ways to start a habit. And you know, I used to make fun of people that he's a dentist on fire and acupuncturist on fire and everything after john Lee Dumas is Entrepreneur on Fire. And then I realized that every great comedian used to imitate the people they looked up to. And maybe that's the way they wanted to edify john and because that's what they thought. So here's my point, I feel like this such a big connection with just understanding ourselves the patterns that have been handed down to us, the things that we keep thinking about what do we keep thinking about when sort of things happen? And dissecting that only happens in boredom?
Mark 28:26
This this theme of the power of boredom and observation, and I love just calling it boredom. I use all the other words the clarity break, that's something EOS the system I teach, you know, clarity breaks critical, on average, a weekly business activity that is clear of distraction and unstructured for observation only. That's it, what am I doing isn't working? What ideas have I been pushed out of the way because of all my business, what kind of springs to the surface, it's a critical critical function for leaders to have. But I do think calling it boredom helps you get like get clear on on, you're doing it right. Like it might not feel fun and Okay, until the reps and you said about like getting the rep started, what I experienced around. For me having dinner together was depending on the season of my life, in terms of the age of my kids at the time, dinner together as a family was something that I thought was important and was and I discovered that I didn't really know how to do it that well. And so I would we would do it and I would be like okay have meaningful conversation everyone right now. And and it was very difficult with different ages at the table, like we got a teenager and younger kids and this conversation is not cohesive and this isn't working. But I discovered after lots of reps that we actually started figuring it out. There were some things in the routine that kind of sprang to life and they become we figured it out. And some of those things specially those undefined, personalized things like the boredom time, introspection, meditation, dinner together, family time, date nights, things like that. I think The impatient entrepreneur doesn't know what to do with those the first dozen times they happen and it might take 50 or 100 reps before you really get great at it.
Ronsley 30:10
You know, Mark, I love that he told that story. Primarily because my first podcast when I started, it was called bhandup. Potatoes are all around food and our relationship with food. And I learned so much through that podcast, because I sort of released three episodes a week, my reps were crazy. But the point is that there's a great study that's been done over and over again, that there's no occurrences of teenage adult adolescent depression, if the family eats together at least once a week. And that's, that tells you a lot about the boredom aspect and TV dinners. And that was a really thing that was thing. You know, at the time were TV, Dennis was this fad? How can I get it done quick 10 minute meals, five minute meals, 30 minute meals, and, and even 30 minute meals, become like, you know, how can someone do it in 30 minutes is a long time, apparently. But I feel those are the things that were missing like we used to cook, they used to be time for that they used to be time for the conversation before the cook the prep. And that has happened in the kitchen. They used to be conversation that happened during dinner, after dinner, the walk, there's all these things that have we're missing because we think that it's got to come from an app, it's got to be sheduled. I just finished 75 hard at the end of last year, which is 75 days. I mean, you must know you know what it is obviously reps.
Mark 31:43
I heard about it recently. And I heard it's hard, that's all I know, is 75 days of like no alcohol and other
Ronsley 31:49
Yeah, it's two workouts a day one has to be outside 45 minutes each a gallon of water. There's a list of things, read it read 10 pages, there's a list of things. And then after you finish 25 days, if you miss one of those things, you start from day one again. And after you finish 75 days you go into so you go into phase one, which is 30 days of that plus eight politics and 10 minute visualizations, and a cold shower, which took me three months to finish because I failed, I don't know, a bunch of times three times. The point is the reps are so important because there's no way I would have gotten clubhouse because I'm off email, I have been off email for three and a half years, I don't look at email at all. I'm off every social media, I don't like it. And I was invited to clubhouse in November. And I thought it was a fad. And did not like you know do anything and my reps in January were to go live because it scares the bejesus out of me. And instead of going live on Facebook, I decided to go 20 minutes on audio live. And that's how I built my reps with sometimes being alone in a room for a long time. So my point is that the reps are really really, really, really important. If it's difficult, it means find some way to get some reps in, if it means brushing your teeth with your left hand. The other hand on dominant hand. Those are little ways to get habits in I think atomic habits and tiny habits are really good books to read.
Mark 33:27
Yeah, I'm a big fan of that. So let's talk about clubhouse for a second and as something because it to me it just, you know, learning about it. It's it's getting pretty prolific, and my phones blowing up constantly with everybody that I should listen to, to the point where I'm like, I don't care anymore. And so it really kind of peaked to like, I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything because it's a constant thing. How do you how does that fit into healthy mentality healthy psychology
Ronsley 33:53
right now for you very important, because the best thing about clubhouse is its addictive nature. And it's the worst thing about clubhouse too. And I think because of its addictive nature, you'd like to get to a point where you go, Oh, I'm getting this getting out of hand. I got to like, get out of it. go cold turkey. You know, it's all All right. And the thing about clubhouse is, so for me, I'm very particular about my rooms when I'm the creator. Like I'm creating the rooms, and I attend rooms that I get invited to like I'm not on clubhouse necessarily searching for something to listen to. So I think there's going to be creators and there's going to be listeners on clubhouse. The thing I love about clubhouse is that it's live it's in the moment and people can disagree with me and I can I have a I have ability to to be open to change my perspective because there's so many different cultures that can come in. Like I've learned so much in the last three months of being on club I was like it's been, it's been fascinating for me. But it is a problem in terms of making sure you're spending your time on clubhouse in the right way for who you are and what you do and what you're after. For a listener. The thing about clubhouse that you get advantage of is a sounding board. Now you have to put everything in context, like the who you spoke about earlier is really important. Like, who do you want to be your sounding board? is a really important question to ask yourself on clubhouse, but the ability to go and say I'm struggling today, I'm struggling with this particular issue. Can I go on to clubhouse and get to a sounding board that could that could like, actually workshop this with me? Now, not all All rooms on clubhouse, work like that? I hate the rooms where you get in? And they say, can you start with your question, please. And whatever, you have 30 seconds. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about there are some rooms where you can go in and say, Hey, I'm a business owner right now. And this is my my struggle. And I wonder whether anyone has any solutions on how to fix it. And the ability to have a bunch of entrepreneurs who have done stuff, give you advice as a listener. I think that's, that's really powerful.
Mark 36:23
That's it that is interesting. So I think the ability to connect globally with all up and down the hierarchy of opinions, and have access so quickly, it's kind of interesting combination of the virtual phenomenon, which is everybody has a front row seat, which I think is, you know, kind of understated that when you go to a virtual conference, and there's between 10 and 10,000 people there, that everybody's got the same front row seat, and you can get called on just like anybody else. And when you get 10,000 people in the room, it is a little bit of the call in radio show like you know everything, you'd be the ninth caller, no one's ever the ninth caller is statistically speaking, but that's that's really not how it plays out most of the time, your ability to get up on stage and to have conversations. It's I mean, it's like if it's sort of Twitter, with real time interaction with multiple people, it's really pretty amazing what can happen there and gets it getting feedback from all over.
Ronsley 37:16
I've been a podcast of a seven, eight years now. And I've never been able to interact with my audience like this never like, like someone can come up and say, hey, I want to say I've been listening to your podcast for ages. And I'm like, wow, I get to hear your voice. That's insane. And I feel that that's my privilege right now, on top of this hearing all these voices, that a lot of the times is speaking up for the first time. And so for me, that's the thing about clubs and how it's going to change the podcasting game is I feel that the live aspect is going to be on clubhouse. And then the the consumable aspect is going to be on podcast. And it's going to be like, in clubhouse is going to be like a stand up comic that goes into the bars every day and does the reps. And the album is what are the special the Netflix special is what they release as a podcast.
Mark 38:13
Interesting. Yeah. So that yeah, that I like that idea. Because it's dynamic. And yeah, lots of lots of reps. I mean, I see Grant Cardone is on every 20 minutes, I think. And so there is definitely a lot of opportunity just to get out there and get out there and get out
Ronsley 38:27
there was out there. I interviewed I interviewed this lady Tina towel for psychology of entrepreneurship. And she started off saying roughly I was in a room with you. And I mean, in a room with me on clubhouse. And someone heard me for the first time there, she was in a panel, one of my things that I put on, and this person bought $11,000 products. A week later, I did a launch, she went through the thing, I gave her my free tools, and I just finished a launch and she just bought an $11,000 product and I've got that on recording. So I'm going to release like those are stories I'm hearing a lot on clubhouse is like the Connect, think about it voice has been the most connected piece of off connection since the beginning of time parents seem to their kids in utero, like this. This is a big connection with voice. And when you think about having this deep and open conversation, they happen because of voice. You can't have that over text.
Mark 39:33
So it's interesting. So I'm thinking about the depth and the theme of this conversation. podcasts voice audio in a world where video is still premium and video podcasting is on its way to becoming a thing. But think about the explosion of podcasting audio only. I mean, it was almost kind of like when SMS became a thing. I was like why would anybody care about an SMS message email is so much richer and of course it just dominated and then now we're like, you know podcast It's audio like, Who cares? Like it's taken over the world and so many ways it's impractical, is I don't know if it's just the accessibility, if it's the Is it the voice piece of this. So actually, another data point in the back of your mind, I've done a lot of zoom calls over the last year, because zoom is easy. And it has replaced a lot of traditional phone calls with people I would otherwise call. But what I'm finding now is sometimes this zoom call doesn't get set up, or some happens in the phone rings. And I talked to somebody, and I'm kind of like, I'm not sure that the phone call the audio only phone call isn't better than the zoom call in terms of connection. And it's it's a different experience that I actually like,
Ronsley 40:44
well, there's so many things to to talk about with what he just said. Because when you think about any of the other mediums, like you think about how mature images are as a social media, that we stop all our events, or major events to click a selfie, so we can use it on our social media, right? That's the maturity of the social media when it comes to images. Now, images are not native to us voice and conversations are. So just put that in perspective. And when I think about the fact that we've been in podcasting for so long, right, in March 2020, the number of podcasts on iTunes just tipped over a million in March 2021, we just tipped over 2 million. So that's, that's a crazy geometric progression that is not is like a hockey stick curve. So you just laid push everything over each other. And then and then put another layer on top of that and think that audio is the only form of content that you can consume while you're doing other things. Everything else, you got to stop what you're doing to consume it. Everything else.
Mark 41:58
Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah. So is there is there something I'm saying? I absolutely agree. And I wish I knew more about that thinking, because I do like, I can clean the kitchen, I can make dinner, I can have a conversation with somebody, I could talk with an old friend, and you put on a video podcast or go to YouTube. And like you said, it's, you know, am I missing something? You know, and you can't you can't do it?
Ronsley 42:23
Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's, but I think it's about creating your own space and clubhouse, you know, going into other spaces and, and then having these conversations, I'm learning so much about myself and then creating these, these more the spaces that I want to create. So I don't call it stage. I call it campfire. I don't call it my I call it talking stick. I don't say ask you a question. Like, please, I say, I say Hey, Mark, What's My Line? I think, Hey, Mark, would love to hear your voice? Do you have a question? And, and, and I kind of really force the idea of them letting giving them space to explain themselves? Because not everyone can start saying My question is, how do I? It's so hard. So I'm trying to create my own spaces. I keep them at 5055 minutes, or one hour session, sometimes they go over. But um, yeah, I'm just working it out man working out conversations that I can actually enjoy and be part of, rather than just be on on on clubhouse for the sake of doing another Rep. You know, now, that's where I'm at.
Mark 43:38
So I've been working on the question of why why voice and why that matters, in the idea that you can do it. And you know, with other things going on thinking about I think voice boils down to the essence. Because if you're on video, because you imagine, imagine the video version of clubhouse, everybody would be concerned with how they're dressed, what's their mic rig. And so how distracting is that. And it's like, you can cut off all the veneer. And you can be most real, and you can get with what matters most. And if I asked you a question and audio, you're not distracted with what's my background, my stages you're at, you're going inward like well, what did he ask what can't and you can get to the heart of what matters most. So I think there's a lot of power in in that you can automatically drive and listen to deep and meaningful conversations and pull something out of the audio books for me have always but now not everybody shares this. A lot of people read books better than listen to them but I listen to audiobooks way better than I read them. Like I will endlessly pick up a book that I've read physically and turn it back to two chapters and look at a page and not remember it. But if I listened to it and I pick up that same book even though I've never read it before I look at that page I remember exactly when I heard those words, so that works better for me.
Ronsley 44:52
Well, I was I'm a huge audio fan. Obviously I have had an audible account for I don't know since they opened up for I think I definitely ate 10 years easy. But with 75 hard, you have to read 10 pages. So I was forced to go back to the reading, which is a really different experience, it's harder for me. But I had to learn to read quick I bill developed a new skill, it's a, it's a fascinating, it's a fascinating thing when you just have to do the rep, right. And I just had to do the rep, because I could not call it 75 hard if I didn't do the 10 pages of reading. So I just had to get over my stuff and read and I became a better reader. And I'm not saying that I prefer reading over audio, I'm like you that I prefer audio 100%. And but I think there's a different level of absorption that happens in in reading. And I think that's the same thing going back to your point about by clubhouse, you can do doing you can you can consume while you're doing all these other things. And suddenly, when it's time for you to kind of be risk because it's a social media platform. Think about it, like social media, you only get noticed when you create. So if you're only browsing on social media, you're not you're not you're not building anything for yourself. And if you don't want to browse, you get off, get off it very simple. But if you're a creator, on on on any social media, that's when you get noticed, and that's when the platform incentivizes you and then people want to be in, in your space. And, and and, and that's why I think that aspect works. And also people have been told not to not to use their voice for ages. right not to say not to say the things that they actually care about, how much do we edit for the world. So it's so valuable for people to come up and have a sounding board, use their voice, refine their voice, refine the argument of whatever it is. So yeah, I'm excited to see what happens from you.
Mark 47:05
Okay, so I'm really curious about so I had a conversation recently with someone and we were talking about, I proposed that as much as honesty is a verbal visual permission to play value. Everybody assumes that honesty, and integrity are good, and they are. But socially, we are pushed very hard to not be honest, in many ways in terms of hurting people's feelings and politeness, and not being selfish and doing a lot of things for other people's service. And so there's no trying to be like other people and social pressures are really working against us for being honest, in many, many ways. And but then there's authenticity. What do you think clubhouse and in podcasts are doing for the idea of being more honest or suppressing than or people pretending to be other people or or like being more more authentic? Well,
Ronsley 48:07
I think people don't know that not being authentic until they get exposed to it. So they don't know what is inauthentic about ourselves until someone points it out. And we're open enough to, to actually pay attention because we actually try to cover it unconsciously. And we have all these patterns and these confirmation biases that we have to try to cover those those things. So I think being open to what other people tell you and looking at yourself, and spending time and boredom is probably the way to like, really understand how authentic you are, and whether you really care about what you're saying, because our deepest wounds is where our greatest gifts lie. And we try to hold should not don't show it to the world. But that's that's where everything where the magic comes from.
Mark 49:00
I love that actually, that might be a good place to kind of end I want to ask if there's anyone to add to the conversation. But the idea of one of the most profound questions you can ask in boredom is Who am I? And what does what does honesty look like? What does authenticity look like? If I if I were me, unrestricted as me and not someone else, who is that? What do I say? What do I do? Because the noise of habits and other things and expectations and being around other people being in the room with anybody being on video call with somebody, it creates this a cacophony. And it's a word like an assault of expectations and judgments that only that boredom gives us the opportunity to say like, Hey, no one's looking except for me. Why do I want to see
Ronsley 49:46
wirepas said, Thank you, Mark.
Mark 49:50
So what what do we miss? Do we miss anything in this conversation that you want to make? Yeah,
Ronsley 49:55
I think I think we've covered a lot
Mark 49:59
with Some of the conceptual and you know, some some people will get a lot out of that some people will be like what the hell but they talk about didn't talk about a single thing the entire time. And that's totally fine. What is from your perspective and your experiences of life in the last year? What is your passionate plea for entrepreneurs
50:19
right now?
Ronsley 50:20
To be themselves to be in spaces that they can be themselves and actually use their voice for what what they care about, not necessarily for bitching and moaning? Maybe? That's probably my plea.
Mark 50:35
Yeah, that makes sense. Well, man, this has been awesome. I'm glad we had this conversation. And it's got me kind of fired up about a bunch of things. But if somebody wants to continue the conversation, follow your work. See what you're up to check out your podcast. What's the easiest way for somebody to find you and continue the conversation? Just
Ronsley 50:49
ronsley calm that au or on clubhouse these days is probably the best place to get a hold of me. But yeah, check out my work. That'd be great. But if you want to connect clubhouse is probably the best place right now. Awesome, man.
Mark 51:04
Well, that's great. This is good conversation. I'm excited. Glad we got to share it. We'll get this out there. But that's it for everybody. If you enjoyed this conversation, please give us the feedback. If you've thought it was total nonsense, give us that feedback to love to get your feedback, all of it. And we will see you next time on you're doing it wrong with me. Mark Henderson Leary.
VO 51:22
This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson Leary for more episodes, and to subscribe, go to lyric.cc