- 1 hour ago
It's the 450th episode. Okay, it's actually the 451st. But close enough. Every 50 episodes, Jason steps back and reflects on the show: how it's changed, why it's changed, and what he's learned from making it. And this time, he shares the formula for why it’s changed over the years.
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00:01Running a business means solving problems.
00:04I tell you how the smartest entrepreneurs do it.
00:07Hi, I'm Jason Pfeiffer, Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, and this is Problem
00:11Solvers.
00:15If you want to make any kind of media, whether that's a podcast or a newsletter or just short
00:21form video or whatever, and you should because if you are a founder, if you're listening
00:27to this just because you aspire to be a founder, whatever, it doesn't really matter what you
00:30are.
00:31You need to think like a content creator.
00:33You just really do these days because you need to be known for your ideas.
00:39Ideas are scalable.
00:42Ideas and communication is what gets out into the world and helps people build relationships
00:48with you and get to know you and trust you, and that is good for business, whether you're
00:52trying to sell something or you're just trying to get to the next step in your career.
00:56Anyway, you need to be producing things.
00:58You just do.
01:00And here is a formula that I think people don't think about.
01:05They often overlook.
01:06They actually often do in reverse, but that I have found throughout my time creating media
01:12and specifically with this podcast, which I'll talk about in just a moment, that I have
01:17found to work really well, and it is this.
01:19Here's the formula.
01:21Form is the solution to function.
01:25Form is the solution to function.
01:28I'm going to explain what that means today on Problem Solvers, and here is why.
01:35Let me give you a little context.
01:36So this is the 451st episode of Problem Solvers.
01:42Can you believe?
01:43451.
01:43It sounds like a random number, actually, but if you rewind one, it's 450, and that actually
01:48sounds like a more interesting, nice round number.
01:51We're impressed by 50s and 100s.
01:53And anyway, if you've been listening to this show for a long time, you know that every 50
01:59episodes, I usually, sometimes I forget, but usually there is a tradition, which is that
02:04I pause and I step back and I reflect upon the show.
02:09And I share something about making the show and what I learned by making the show and how
02:15the show has evolved.
02:17And I just try to pull back the curtain and bring you along, because I understand that
02:21when I'm speaking to the kind of audience that I'm speaking to, when I'm speaking to
02:24you, that you're not just consuming something.
02:28You're making things yourself, too.
02:30You're listening to this show because you want to make things, not because you are just
02:35looking for entertainment or whatever.
02:37You're looking to make things, so that is also the reason that you're interested in
02:41the making of things and the reason why I like to share how I make things to help you.
02:47So I usually do this.
02:48I usually step back every 50 episodes, and I kind of offer some perspective, and I forgot
02:53to do it at 450, so I'm just doing it at 451.
02:57Close enough, right?
02:58And now, again, if you've been listening to the show for a long time, and by the way, do
03:04you know how long 451 episodes is?
03:06It's crazy.
03:07I looked back.
03:08This show began on July 30th of 2017.
03:14I've been doing this since 2017.
03:17How is that possible?
03:18This is an insane thing to me.
03:21Anyway, so 451 episodes later, here I am.
03:24And if you've been listening, well, if you've been listening for a long time, let's say
03:29back to 2017, and if you have, can you reach out to me?
03:32Because holy cow, that's cool.
03:33But you would have noticed that the show has changed formats a number of times.
03:38It didn't start as an interview show.
03:40It started as more of a narrative show where I would tell a story, and then I would drop
03:45in audio of the person that I was talking to.
03:48And I would tell this story and would kind of go back and forth.
03:51It would almost sound like a longer radio piece, like something you would have heard
03:55on NPR.
03:56And that was, and then it evolved.
03:58Actually, I'll explain why I did it that way and then why it changed, because that goes
04:02to my concept of form is a solution to function.
04:08But I have made another change.
04:12The show went from that narrative thing to this kind of interview format.
04:15And it evolved and tweaked in an interview format-y kind of way for a while.
04:20But now another change has happened, which is that maybe you've caught this recently.
04:26It started, I don't know, a couple months ago, which is that the show now opens with
04:31me doing this high-energy monologue for like two minutes, and then it just leads into the
04:38guest.
04:39And then I just bring the guest in, and I talk to the guest, which is different from
04:42how it was a few months ago, where I would kind of create this narrative setup, this
04:49produced opening, where I would tell a little bit of a story, and you would hear a little
04:53bit of the audio.
04:53It was kind of like what I was describing that the show was at the very beginning.
04:56And I would set up the conversation that you were going to hear, and I would hit the
05:01main points.
05:01And I would just kind of tee the whole thing up for you.
05:03And then there would be a break, and then it would get into the interview.
05:08That change is for a very specific reason.
05:11And today I'm going to explain that reason and explain how we got there.
05:16And then we're going to get to the broader idea, the reason why the show keeps changing
05:22its format and structure, and how you can take that insight and utilize it in whatever
05:29it is you make.
05:32So when I started this show in 2017, I had this very specific idea, which was, you know,
05:37the world is full of interview podcasts, and I want to do something that feels more distinct
05:42and special.
05:43And I like crafted narrative.
05:47I like storytelling.
05:49That's what I do.
05:50That's my background.
05:51And so I wanted to make this show that felt like it was really me telling you a story.
05:57And that story was going to be about how an entrepreneur solved a problem.
06:01So every time, the way in which I would make the show is that I would find an entrepreneur
06:08who solved a problem.
06:09And then I would get on the phone with them for often like 45 minutes, sometimes an hour.
06:14And I would talk them, they would talk me through the problem and the solution.
06:19We would have this kind of interesting but meandering conversation that was never meant to
06:23be heard.
06:24And then I would have the story and I would step back and I would think, well, what's
06:31the best way to tell this story?
06:33And I would come up with an opening and then I would set up the story and then I would
06:38talk
06:38about the problem and the solution.
06:40And I would write this script, this script that was my narration plus little bits of audio
06:46from them.
06:47So, you know, if I interview, who was the very first person I interviewed?
06:49Let me look back.
06:50It was, I'm pretty sure it was a friend of mine.
06:52It was, oh yeah, it was, it was my friend, Jaron Galinsky, who had a company called Story
06:59Hunter, which I think has been rebranded.
07:02I've got to go look at it.
07:02Anyway, Jaron was kind enough to just kind of be like my test subject when I did this back
07:07in 2017.
07:09So, you know, I would talk to him and then I would have this, you know, like, I would create
07:14this opening and the opening would, it would be me, you know, talking about, you know,
07:21Jaron Galinsky had a problem and the problem was that something, something, something, something
07:25and then it would cut to a little audio of Jaron who was talking to me, right?
07:28I would find this like good quote, this 20 seconds of, of, of good audio from him, good
07:33tape, as they call it in radio.
07:35And then it would come back to me, right?
07:37But what he didn't understand was that blah, blah, blah.
07:39And you know, and that, that's how the whole thing went.
07:41And I, it would kind of flow like that.
07:43And that was because that was a thing that I wanted to make.
07:46That was, that was the form that I wanted this to take.
07:50I was leading with form.
07:52And I think that that is what so many people who make content do is that they lead with
07:58form.
07:59This is the thing that I want to make.
08:01This is how I want it to read.
08:02This is how I want it to look.
08:03This is whatever, whatever, whatever.
08:04Okay.
08:05And back then, 2017, I had one child.
08:09That child was, um, one or two years old.
08:13My kid was born in 2015.
08:14So depending on whatever time it was.
08:16And, uh, so on the weekends, we didn't do a lot.
08:20There was a lot of sitting around.
08:21Uh, there was a lot of like the kidnapping.
08:24And that is when I wrote the scripts for this podcast.
08:27I would interview people during the week and then I would sit down and I'd spend an hour
08:31or two and then after a few years of this, my kids got older and my weekends got busier
08:39and I was no longer able to make this show on the weekends.
08:43Now I had to make it during the weekday and I realized I just don't have the time to do
08:50all this, to do all this scripting and to do all this editing.
08:54It was just too much.
08:56And so I realized that the form of this show needed to change because the resources available
09:04changed.
09:05The amount of time that I had for this show had changed.
09:09And so I thought, oh, fine, this will be a interview show like everyone else, except
09:14I was like, there will be, there'll be other things about it that are going to be distinct.
09:19Number one, I'm going to keep it short.
09:20A lot of interview shows are an hour.
09:22You spend the first 20 minutes just getting to know someone.
09:24None of that, we're just getting straight into the problem and the solution.
09:28That's what we're doing.
09:29And then I kept at the very beginning the kind of produced idea where I would write a script,
09:36but now writing the script would take a smaller amount of time because I was just writing four
09:42minutes of script instead of 30 minutes of script.
09:46And eventually this program called Descript came along.
09:50Descript is this incredible tool where essentially you can take a, let's say I interview somebody,
09:55I take the audio of that interview.
09:57I can just dump it into Descript.
09:59It will automatically transcribe it.
10:00And then I can, I could highlight the portions of the transcript that I wanted and export them
10:06as individual files and bring them.
10:08It's just, it's, and therefore it made the editing of the audio so much faster.
10:12And eventually I actually just started making the entire show in Descript.
10:16Anyway, point is I was able to retain a little bit of the old format of this show, the narration,
10:22the thing that I like, the storytelling, and put it at the very beginning and then have the
10:27interview after.
10:27And this also solved another problem, which is that often when I talk to entrepreneurs,
10:32you know, they're not always the best tellers of their own story.
10:36And sometimes it would take me a while to find the story and to really get a understanding of the
10:44problem and the solution.
10:46Even though we would have talked about it by email, when we actually start recording the episode,
10:49it becomes kind of loose.
10:50And so having this opening allowed me to present this tight idea of exactly what the story was
10:55going to be.
10:56And then it allows me to kind of dump into the interview at the time in which it becomes
11:02most interesting.
11:03So oftentimes, you'd get this set up at the beginning of the show, and then you'd get
11:08the ad break.
11:09And then after the ad break, I would say, I'd say, all right, we're back.
11:14You know, again, today we're talking to this person about this problem.
11:18And just before the break, they were telling us about something, something, something.
11:21And, you know, now they're going to pick up on that.
11:23And then you would hear, it would essentially kind of move into an interview.
11:26But what you might not know is that we are actually picking up like 15 minutes into the
11:32interview, and I just dumped the first 15 minutes because it was establishing, and it wasn't
11:36that interesting.
11:37And now we got to the good stuff.
11:38This is how I was making the show.
11:40Okay.
11:41So that was fine.
11:44It was still kind of labor intensive, but not nearly as labor intensive.
11:47I was able to accomplish it during the day, the regular work day.
11:52And then another big change happened.
11:55And that big change is more recent.
11:57And maybe you have experienced this or noticed this as a consumer.
12:00Maybe you like this as a consumer.
12:02Maybe, like me, you actually hate this as a consumer.
12:04And that is video.
12:08Podcasts have shifted into video.
12:11You'll see it all the time.
12:13If you happen to listen to podcasts on Spotify, you open Spotify, it is now feeding you video.
12:19I will be honest with you.
12:20I literally don't understand this.
12:22I don't understand this.
12:24I don't know why you would want to watch two people talk to each other.
12:28That is excruciating to me.
12:30I literally have a physical reaction to how much I hate the idea of sitting and watching
12:37two people talk to each other.
12:38I can't do it.
12:39I listen to podcasts when I'm on the move, when my body and my eyes are engaged with other
12:44things.
12:45I listen to podcasts when I'm washing dishes.
12:46I listen to podcasts when I'm walking down the street or when I'm on the subway or something.
12:51I'm never looking at something.
12:53Why?
12:54Why would you want to watch people talk?
12:56I don't get it.
12:57But maybe you do.
12:58Maybe you're listening to this and you're like, I actually love watching Diary of a CEO and
13:05watching Stephen Bartlett sit across a table from somebody and talk to them.
13:08Maybe you love that.
13:09I don't know why.
13:10Reach out to me and tell me why you love that.
13:12It really doesn't make sense to me.
13:13But anyway, podcasts are now video.
13:17And so that when, you know, like, could I buck that trend?
13:20Yes, I could buck that trend, but this is a show made for entrepreneur and entrepreneur
13:24has a lot of sees a lot of value in the video.
13:26That means that there's more content for our YouTube channel and that we can cut the
13:32video into short form and distribute it on entrepreneurs, Instagram and TikTok channels
13:38and all that stuff.
13:39So now I got to make a video podcast.
13:41And the thing about the video is that editing video, that's really complicated.
13:49And it just, it would balloon in labor.
13:52And just doing video, by the way, balloons in labor already for me.
13:57There are more things that I have to think about.
13:59Today, I'm not really thinking about them, to be honest.
14:01So if you're watching this in video, which you can, there's an option to watch this in
14:05video.
14:05Why you would want to watch this in video again?
14:06I have no idea.
14:08It's just me sitting in a chair talking to a camera.
14:10Why would you want to watch that?
14:11But you could watch it.
14:12Maybe you are watching it.
14:13Anyway, here's the thing.
14:16I've got two lights on me.
14:19I've got a big, this thing called a key light, which is this giant light that I had to buy
14:24and like wedge behind my desk, which means that my desk is now out in the middle of my
14:28room.
14:29And then I got a side light because if you just have a key light, then you look kind of
14:32flat.
14:33So you actually need two light sources in order to look dynamic.
14:37And then there is, I have to think about how I look, which today I've decided not to,
14:43just in the spirit of the 451st episode.
14:45So I'm just wearing a regular t-shirt.
14:47Um, my hair is kind of a mess, uh, but normally I would clean up for these things.
14:52And then also it, when I'm producing video now I'm trying to use, I bought this like
14:57ridiculously expensive DSLR camera and I have it set up behind a tripod and like getting
15:03it to focus each time is like a 10 minute process.
15:05The whole thing is crazy and nonsense.
15:07I'm actually not even doing that today.
15:08I'm using this, um, this, uh, 4k camera that I just stick on top of my laptop.
15:13It's so much easier.
15:14Uh, anyway, so it's like, and then I got to think about what's going on behind me and
15:18I haven't even figured that out yet.
15:19So if you've seen any video of me, I'm just in my home office.
15:22My home office is not set up like a studio behind me is like a couch and some bass guitars
15:27that I have on the wall.
15:29Is that because I want people to know that I play bass?
15:31No, it's actually because if I don't hang them on the wall, I forget that they exist.
15:35And then I never pick up the bass and then like my hobby disappears.
15:37And so they're just, they're on the wall because I work in the office, not because I want
15:41them on camera, but this is the only angle.
15:43Anyway, I think I'm going to have to get a backdrop because this whole thing looks kind
15:47of crappy and I haven't gotten the backdrop yet.
15:50And it's, this whole thing is a mess.
15:51I hate, I just hate video.
15:53But anyway, because of the video, I also had to think differently about the show because
16:00it's now way too labor intensive to do that video interview and then do that like produced
16:08thing that I was doing with video.
16:12Because first of all, how do I deliver the script?
16:14When I was delivering the script by audio, the intro, the produced intro, and I was producing
16:18doing that by audio, I could just read it.
16:20I would type it out and then I would just read it into a microphone.
16:23And I've gotten really, really good over the years.
16:25This is a great skill of reading something, but making it sound like I'm just talking off
16:30the top of my head.
16:31So I never wanted you to feel like I was reading it, but I was reading it.
16:34And now to do that would mean that I have to load it into a teleprompter and then I got
16:41to do each segment by itself and I got to somehow stitch all that video together and then I got
16:45to use it.
16:46It's just so much.
16:47And so I realized I can't do that anymore.
16:50The original produced concept of the show now has to fully go away.
16:56And so I'm left thinking, all right, how do I interview someone on video?
17:00How do I make it efficient to produce and efficient on the back end?
17:06And how do I make it good?
17:08Because I still really don't want to just say, hey, here's my guest.
17:13And then we just jump into something because I deeply believe that an audience and especially
17:18a business audience who is time strapped, I was going to say cash strapped, often cash
17:23strapped, but certainly time strapped, that you need to know at the very, very beginning
17:27what you're going to get.
17:28I have this concept that I call the first question.
17:31And the first question is the first question that anybody asks about anything that they
17:37encounter.
17:37So if you are a, if you're just walking down a grocery store aisle and you are encountering
17:46products, you're going to ask this question of every product.
17:48If you open up Netflix and it starts showing you movies or TV shows that you might want to
17:52watch, you're going to ask this of this question.
17:54When you start every episode of any podcast, including this one, you're going to ask this question.
17:58Ready?
17:58What's the question?
17:59The question is, is this for me or is this not for me?
18:03That's it.
18:04That's what you want to know.
18:05Is this for me or is this not for me?
18:06You're trying to evaluate if this is for you and you're going to take whatever cues you
18:11get in the first couple seconds and you'll be like, yeah, this is for me or yeah, this
18:14is not for me.
18:14It's not my, not waste.
18:15It's a waste of my time or I'm not buying this bag of chips or whatever it is.
18:18At the very beginning, I really led this show with form, right?
18:22I had this idea of what I wanted this show to be and how I wanted it to sound.
18:27And I thought that that was really important.
18:28I thought that that separated me from the marketplace.
18:31I later learned that that's not true because when I ditched that format and I went into an
18:36interview show, I thought, you know, people are not going to like this as much.
18:39It's not as unique anymore.
18:41Nobody cared.
18:42Nobody cared.
18:43I got literally zero emails from listeners telling me that they cared about that.
18:47Instead, the show only continued to grow.
18:50And so I realized that the form that I wanted was not necessarily the form that other people
18:55wanted and that instead what I needed to do was create a show.
19:00And I continue to do this.
19:02This is the reason that I have the format that I have now with the video.
19:04I needed to create the show by starting with what does the show need to be, right?
19:10So the function, the function of the show.
19:11How does the show function for the audience?
19:14And then also, how does the show function within the constraints that I have to make
19:19the show?
19:19My time, the technology needs, and so on.
19:24And constraints, people often, I think, chafe against constraints, but constraints can be
19:29excellent.
19:29I remember having a conversation with Ryan Reynolds once because I interviewed him for the cover
19:33of the magazine many years ago.
19:34And he said he loves constraints.
19:37He loves constraints when he's making a movie and there's a tight budget or when he's making
19:41a commercial because he's got an advertising agency called Maximum Effort and there's a
19:46really tight budget because he said, look, if you have an infinite budget, you just start
19:50spending it on stupid stuff, stuff that just doesn't matter.
19:53You start spending it on big explosions and stories of aliens coming down from the sky.
19:59But if you have constraints, then you have to focus on what truly matters, what truly resonates
20:04with an audience, which is people, which is story, which is the emotional connection.
20:09So he's like, constraints can really help your creativity.
20:12And I do agree with that.
20:13So I now have these constraints.
20:15The constraints are I got to make video, even though I don't want to, and I have a limited
20:20amount of time to make the show, so I've got to make it really efficient.
20:22And I don't want to make it too long.
20:27So I've got to really like laser in on a valuable conversation.
20:31I have all these constraints.
20:33And so the constraints, which is like the resources, plus what is the show?
20:39What is the show for?
20:41Who is the show serving?
20:42Have a clear idea of the audience and your value and how the show, anything that you make,
20:48whether, again, I keep using show, but this could be a newsletter that you write.
20:51This could be the social media that you produce, anything.
20:53How does it serve your audience in a way in which they are unserved in the market right
20:59now?
21:00Again, mine is very specific on problems.
21:02I just want it to be a show about solutions.
21:05I want it to be a practical, tactical show.
21:07I want you to feel smarter by listening to it.
21:10And so I'm going to stick with that.
21:11And now I have the resources.
21:13And then I have to think, well, okay, the purpose of the show and the constraints of the
21:17show, this is kind of the function.
21:20How do I make a form that solves for all that?
21:26And that's how I get to the structure of the show.
21:28So again, that's opposite of what a lot of people do.
21:32People start with form.
21:33They're like, I want this to read like this.
21:34I want this to be like this.
21:35I want to make this thing.
21:36No, instead, what do you need to make for your audience?
21:40What will be valuable to them?
21:41What are your constraints and resources available?
21:44And now you create the form that satisfies all of those things.
21:49That is what I've done with problem solvers.
21:51That is how I've gotten to 451 episodes without driving myself too crazy.
21:55Although it sounds probably like I've driven myself a little crazy.
21:58Okay.
22:00That's the story.
22:03And if you're watching this, again, I don't know why, but if you're watching this, hello,
22:07I'm waving at you.
22:08You know, I've been just looking at this camera direct.
22:12I've just been talking off the top of my head.
22:13That's actually made it a little hard.
22:15In the past, I would have written down notes.
22:16I actually did write down.
22:17There's one thing, which is that I sat before I started this.
22:20I was like, okay, I know what I want to say.
22:21Is there like a clever way to say it?
22:23And I came up with this idea of form is the solution to function.
22:26That is not like a thing I go around saying.
22:27That's just like, that's just the language that I came up with to explain this to you.
22:30I wrote it down on this piece of paper, which I'm showing you.
22:33This piece of paper, it says to dad on the other side of it,
22:36because it was actually like some note that my seven-year-old had written and left on my desk.
22:41But right now, it's this.
22:42And I glanced down at it one or two times before I remembered form is the solution for function.
22:46It's a good idea.
22:47You know what?
22:47In a future episode, I'm going to tell you about the reason why I do that,
22:51which is because if you want to be viewed as really smart and memorable,
22:58you have to create ownable language that creates the sense that you own the problem that you're talking about
23:04and own the solution so much so that you have a distinct way of talking about it.
23:08Anyway, you know what?
23:09Maybe I'll make that next week's episode.
23:11I don't know.
23:11I'll think about it.
23:12Or I'll make it another episode.
23:13I don't know what I'm doing, guys.
23:14I'm just trying to make a podcast.
23:16And if you've been listening either just this is the first time you've ever listened,
23:20or if you've been listening for months or years, whatever it is, I really appreciate you.
23:25The only reason to make this show is because you find it useful.
23:29And I've been doing it for 451 episodes, and I don't know how many more episodes I'm going to be
23:33doing,
23:33but more.
23:35Not going to end today.
23:36I can guarantee a 452nd episode and a third, and we'll just keep going,
23:41and we'll see you at 500 when I guess I'll step back one more time.
23:46And who knows?
23:47Who knows what this show will even be like then?
23:50Okay.
23:51In the meantime, I'm going to stop staring at a camera, and you should stop staring at a screen.
23:57Stop staring at a screen.
23:59Go do something else.
24:00All right.
24:01I'll talk to you later.
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