Episode 111 features Jon Reddick owner and founder of GenX Grown Up, a small multimedia kingdom of videos, podcasts, and blogs, who is here to discuss being an independent media mogul, self-employment leaps, keeping things for yourself, and much much more…
Throughout the conversation, we discuss:
- What do you do?
- The jump from hobby to full-time
- GenXGrownUp
- Broadcasting background
- RetroDaze Connections
- On camera comfort
- Promotion
- GenXGrownUp Broadness
- YouTube
- Vlogging
- Accountability
- And much more
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
–End Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:03 – 00:00:23:58
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer dot com. You can’t spell national champions without nil. Klosterman is Raised in Captivity is a great piece of fictional nonfiction, and NJ keeps putting out audio that you should definitely listen to. This is The Palmer Files episode 111 featuring Jon Reddick, owner and founder of Gen X Grown up, a small multimedia kingdom of videos, podcasts and blogs who is here to discuss being an independent media mogul?
00:00:24:07 – 00:01:01:12
Agent Palmer
Self-Employment. Leaps. Keeping things for yourself and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:01:01:17 – 00:01:22:13
Agent Palmer
Hello and welcome to The Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 111th episode is Jon Reddick, the owner and founder of Gen X Grown up, a modest media empire. You’ll hear about in the coming conversation with one of the greatest taglines you’ll ever know, which is you have to grow older, but you don’t have to grow up.
00:01:22:17 – 00:01:47:22
Agent Palmer
During this conversation, you’ll hear us discuss what Jon does in being full time with Gen X grown up, the acknowledgment of being self-employed was something that used to be a hobby. Plus is everything content, keeping a journal, being broad and well, all of that, plus a whole lot more is coming your way shortly. But first, remember if you want to discuss the episode as you listen or afterwards, you can find all contact information for Jon Reddick and myself in the show.
00:01:47:22 – 00:02:14:03
Agent Palmer
Notes. There you can find more information about my guest Jon’s work at Gen X grown up.com. That’s Gen X grow and be up.com. Don’t forget you can see all of my writings and ratings on Jim palmer.com. And of course email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
00:02:14:08 – 00:02:35:53
Agent Palmer
Jon, you and I, meet at a party. And I say, what do you do? And I ask this question only because, I know a little bit about you, and I know that you can answer that question in many different ways. And I’m curious as to like random party. Right? Not a corporate gig. Yeah. Random party.
00:02:35:57 – 00:02:39:46
Agent Palmer
Hey, nice to meet you, Jon. What do you do.
00:02:39:51 – 00:02:45:22
Jon Reddick
That assumes that I get out and go to parties. But I appreciate your confidence in my social skills, I really do.
00:02:45:22 – 00:02:47:57
Agent Palmer
I’m. I’m making an assumption for myself as well.
00:02:47:58 – 00:03:00:03
Jon Reddick
Thank you. I do appreciate that. Yeah. You know, it’s it. Well, you ask me now in the last year, I am a full time internet content creator.
00:03:00:03 – 00:03:01:16
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:03:01:20 – 00:03:30:26
Jon Reddick
It’s now that leads to several assumptions. That doesn’t mean that I am a a self-sustained, full time internet content creator. Or that I’m, I’m making money at it. Not enough to do it forever at this moment. Ever since I was laid off about a year ago. This is something I did part time for six years, and I’d always said, man, if I ever had the courage to just quit my day job, I would love to do this, but I’m too chicken to quit my day job because it’s so comfortable to have.
00:03:30:34 – 00:03:47:42
Jon Reddick
Yeah, I do my job, I get paid is on the side. Luckily, my job decided to have the courage for me and during a big round of layoffs. And so I’m like, you know what? This is it. I’m going to try it because I had a good paying job, I had a savings, and I’m like, I if this could if this could be the thing I do.
00:03:47:42 – 00:03:48:18
Agent Palmer
I love.
00:03:48:18 – 00:04:10:52
Jon Reddick
Doing it. Okay. You know, I, I used to work in broadcasting for almost 15 years and working there, what I loved was creating things other people saw. Okay. And when I got out of that working in software development, that was for broadcast, but I wasn’t in broadcast anymore. I had that that itch that I want to make, stuff that people see, I want to I don’t want to be famous, but I want to be known.
00:04:10:53 – 00:04:27:25
Jon Reddick
Okay. Oh, that’s the guy that does that thing. So it was great as a hobby, but as a hobby, we had kind of reached a plateau where it’s like there’s no more hockey sticks coming. We’re just doing our hobby and getting laid off was a message to me to go, you know what? And for months I said, I’m laid off, I’m doing this.
00:04:27:25 – 00:04:43:41
Jon Reddick
I don’t have a job. I’m unemployed. I don’t say that anymore. I am employed, I’m self-employed. I just don’t make enough money. I don’t pay myself well, but I make videos and audio and plugins publish on social sharing, things that I think are cool with whatever audience wants to listen.
00:04:43:41 – 00:05:24:02
Agent Palmer
So I, I mean, so I came to you by one of the writers of Retro Days because of his book. And he had mentioned he was writing for Retro Days, mainly because he was like, I think you’d like it. And I do. I mean, I’m a fan of the show. And before I get any further from saying this, I want to say that hearing you talk about a background in broadcasting makes perfect sense, because I told Tony that guy Jon is just perfect on camera.
00:05:24:02 – 00:05:53:33
Agent Palmer
Like, he he seems so comfortable, and he he is. It’s not like a radio voice is only a broadcast, but you know how to talk, which is something that, like, there are people that when you put a microphone in front of them. Yeah. Very quiet. They just it, they feel like everything is an SNL, NPR sketch. It’s like, oh no, you know, like and oh, and there’s other people that just play him up and it’s now one word answers.
00:05:53:33 – 00:06:27:52
Agent Palmer
And I know there’s no mic on screen because you guys are trying for something that the better production value then Mike in face. But like, there is something that when I saw it without knowing you had that background, I went, this guy’s got it. Like he knows, what he’s doing. He’s comfortable in front of the camera, and I’ve, I say all that as a preface to the fact that I’ve been teasing for six months now, that I am, at some point will get into video for my many things.
00:06:27:57 – 00:06:50:33
Agent Palmer
Right. It’s just that I needed the part. I needed to start the podcast in a way where it was different from the blog and my video stuff will have to be different than the podcast and the blog. I don’t yeah, I’m kind of in that boat with you where it’s like, oh, there’s that guy that makes that thing that would be like, I don’t, I don’t need to be world famous.
00:06:50:44 – 00:07:09:12
Agent Palmer
But I also don’t want it to be like, oh, there’s that guy that did that thing, but he’s just a recycler because he did this one thing on his blog, and then he also did it. And I like I don’t want it. So everything needs to have its place in the medium or what have you. But I, I don’t have a broadcasting background.
00:07:09:17 – 00:07:28:30
Agent Palmer
I’m, I have a communications background and a writing background. I think you learn some of that. And yeah, I like to consider myself a process guy. So like, I, I, I’m, I’m interested in the 17 hours of behind the scenes stuff on any of the old DVDs that we used to buy. Right. Like the bonus.
00:07:28:30 – 00:07:29:00
Jon Reddick
Content.
00:07:29:00 – 00:07:56:08
Agent Palmer
And you kind of go like, oh, that’s how they shot that. And I don’t know, like, I, I edited a video recently for somebody else and I showed it to a friend who, who does that kind of stuff. And he goes, yeah, you got this. And to me, like it’s transferable skill. All the editing audio is not that different from editing video, except there’s movie like it’s just something else to keep in mind.
00:07:56:09 – 00:08:04:39
Agent Palmer
But far as transitions. But I get I guess it’s a skill set. I have, cultivated. Not one that I sought out.
00:08:04:44 – 00:08:05:58
Jon Reddick
Yeah.
00:08:06:03 – 00:08:32:04
Agent Palmer
But this is how I, this is where we. And I think you’re in the same boat. This is where we’ve ended up. And I think we’re. We’re swinging for what? What what we’ve got. I’m unemployed. I, I say I’m a consultant because I do a few things for other people. Right. I, I don’t know that I’ve, hit the, the gas on this though, like you have.
00:08:32:09 – 00:08:55:52
Agent Palmer
But I, I’ve also only been thinking about that recently. How long. I mean I know you said you were, you know, you had the day job in the, in the. Yeah side gig. How long were you thinking like, was it a point where, like, at some point you started making a little bit of money and you went maybe one day, or like, was there always that, like back of the head, like, you know, this would be really cool to do.
00:08:55:57 – 00:09:22:58
Jon Reddick
Yeah. That’s it’s a great question. And I, you know, really it’s. I didn’t I didn’t ever think this would be a hobby. Right. I always kind of thought, let’s see what I can do to try to I talked about that itch that wasn’t getting a scratch, that creating something, the creative process of making something that it’s either people hate or like, I have something to say about that.
00:09:23:02 – 00:09:44:05
Jon Reddick
Just an emotion, something out of it. Right. And even when I think I started back in like mid 2017, I just started a YouTube channel and I quickly drafted a couple of my friends to help me. They didn’t have the aptitude for video and stuff, so that was largely me. And then I said, well, great, why don’t we do a podcast too, as a companion?
00:09:44:10 – 00:10:06:10
Jon Reddick
And I, we started that as well. And that’s continued. You know, their their regular co-host on that. And unlike you, we don’t do guests. It’s about the three of us, you know, bantering around these regular voices. We’ve done a guest or two there, but even right at the outset to get back to your question eventually, is that I always kind of hoped, you know, maybe I did it a year and I’m like, you put out a video and it gets 300 views.
00:10:06:10 – 00:10:23:24
Jon Reddick
You’re like, this is it. This is the thing, you know? Yeah. And you get that little bit of endorphin rush of like, people saw it, somebody liked it, somebody has something to say about it. And and then you get monetized after you know, you know, 18 months or something. It’s pretty slow process for us. And you’re like, oh, so we’re making 30 bucks a month.
00:10:23:24 – 00:10:38:16
Jon Reddick
We’re making 80 bucks a month, we’re making 200 bucks a month. Would it be cool if I think if I could just do this full time? Oh, we could we really amp that up, you know? Yeah. But again, I was too chicken to make that leap until I was kind of shoved. I was just shoved out of the nest by the mama bird.
00:10:38:16 – 00:10:39:00
Jon Reddick
You know.
00:10:39:04 – 00:10:42:57
Agent Palmer
I, I, I think we all need that at some point.
00:10:43:02 – 00:10:45:08
Jon Reddick
Oh, yeah. I would have never made the jump on my own.
00:10:45:13 – 00:11:15:35
Agent Palmer
So I, I immediately go to one of my influences of, of Marc Maron where during the 1,000th episode, he was, or around the 1,000th episode, he had a special episode. He did with his producer, Brendan. And like, it’s no big secret that Marc Maron’s podcast is probably one of the largest independent podcasts out there, because it’s it’s literally him and Brendan.
00:11:15:35 – 00:11:31:34
Agent Palmer
It’s a two person operation. But Brendan admitted on that show or around that kind of celebration that he held on to his day job for about 2 or 3 years, longer than he probably needed to.
00:11:31:38 – 00:11:33:45
Jon Reddick
Because just in case.
00:11:33:50 – 00:11:55:07
Agent Palmer
Just, I mean, and, you know, there’s a part of me that goes if he held on to his for 2 or 3 years, not saying he didn’t hold on to it at all, he did. But he’s admitting he held on to it longer than he needed to for this thing to be the sustaining financial income in his life.
00:11:55:12 – 00:12:19:36
Agent Palmer
And that’s a successful thing. What chance do I have of making the right decision? Like, what chance do I have to not either go too early or go too late, or and hold on to it for two and a half years as well. Like I think that we’re all and it’s it’s all obviously super conditional. The timing of certain things and, you know, defining success.
00:12:19:36 – 00:12:31:40
Agent Palmer
And I know that, you know, Patreon has a lot to do with some of those decision making. So even more so than like, you know, YouTube ad revenue and.
00:12:31:47 – 00:12:32:16
Jon Reddick
Two, three.
00:12:32:29 – 00:13:01:49
Agent Palmer
What makes Patreon? Probably the the weird defining factor is two things. One, it’s not public facing necessarily. Like you can know that you’ve got a thousand patrons, but is that $1,000 because everybody’s giving you one? Or is that like substantial amounts of money? And two, that’s kind of behind the thing. It’s not like somebody can come to your YouTube channel and go, oh, you totally make a lot of money.
00:13:01:55 – 00:13:26:31
Agent Palmer
No. Like you’ve got thousands of subscribers, but you also have thousands of patrons, so it works for you. You know, I’m not saying it does, but I’m just saying it works for those people. Whereas other channels are out there with like millions of subscribers like, of course. And, and and this is the pond we’re all in. And so I write a blog and share it wherever I share it.
00:13:26:45 – 00:13:57:07
Agent Palmer
And it goes up against my own podcast and your podcast and your video and the thing that you wrote and I like, I’m all for collaboration, but this stuff gets very complicated. Yeah. What has it been like thinking about that all the time now? Because it feels like that’s that’s one of the other reasons I don’t want to take the jump, because I feel like all those things I just said, you now have to think about on a more regular basis, or at least more regular than you used to, right?
00:13:57:07 – 00:14:16:11
Jon Reddick
Oh, no, you’re 100% right. I think about it every single day. So when when that was when this was a hobby, what I thought about was like, oh, cool. Look, we made, you know, we made 800 bucks this month. Isn’t that fantastic? We got a little Patreon money. We go, you know, that’s fantastic. But it didn’t. I didn’t need it.
00:14:16:11 – 00:14:24:47
Jon Reddick
Right. It wasn’t money that we needed. It was money that was like, oh, look, we’ll be able to go to this convention this year because we made $2,000 this year.
00:14:24:59 – 00:14:26:45
Agent Palmer
For a new camera. Yay!
00:14:26:45 – 00:14:50:37
Jon Reddick
Yeah. That’s all. It wasn’t just like, oh, we can buy this thing to review that sort of thing. Well, now and I’ve always believed whatever your endeavor is, whether it’s in the professional corporate world or if it’s in creative or whatever, Mia, maybe you might find a single solitary source of income that does everything for you. But I think the more pies you can have your finger in, the more avenues of trickle income that you can get.
00:14:50:42 – 00:15:11:10
Jon Reddick
I don’t need YouTube to be the end all, be all if I also have merchandise, if I also have Patreon, if I also have podcast revenue, if I also have contributions for Twitch, if I have all of that. Yeah, none of them has to be the tentpole. One can go away and you’re not high and dry. Yeah, if I had 20 million subscribers on YouTube, I would just sit back and watch the money roll in, right?
00:15:11:10 – 00:15:17:17
Jon Reddick
All I have to do is turn on the camera and go, oh, yay! There’s another three grand that I made today because everybody’s gonna watch.
00:15:17:17 – 00:15:18:12
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
00:15:18:16 – 00:15:33:09
Jon Reddick
But instead, every time I do a piece of content, I have to type. I still do the things that I want. Don’t get me wrong, the whole point of this, and I’ve always said I push back against my my colleague George, who is very business minded. He’s like, we gotta think of this like a business item. Like, that’s fine.
00:15:33:14 – 00:15:56:04
Jon Reddick
But the purpose of this business is to do things I love. And so if I’m not doing those things, the joke I always make is like, perhaps I could change the focus of the YouTube channel to be reviewing ceiling fans. And maybe there’s a huge demand for that, and maybe I’ll get millions of views for that. But if I don’t love that, then my job becomes just as monotonous as it was before I became a creative.
00:15:56:17 – 00:16:22:28
Jon Reddick
It’s a boring thing that I do to make money until I can stop doing it and go do what I love. I just want to do the thing I love and see if I can find a way to make revenue off of that to sustain me. Now, fortunately, as I mentioned, my job was paying me well enough that I had enough of a nest egg that I could build myself a runway and go, okay, well, when I was laid off, I’m like, okay, I’m giving myself a year and see how it goes, and I know I can survive for a year knowing what my bills are.
00:16:22:30 – 00:16:45:47
Jon Reddick
Pay the rent, you know, everything. And then in the last year, November 1st is literally the 12 month mark. And so we’ve just passed it as, as listeners are hearing this show. So I’ve literally been it’s been, you know, a year and a couple of weeks at this point. But in that time I have tripled the audience. I have quadrupled the number of views.
00:16:45:47 – 00:17:11:44
Jon Reddick
I did more in this last year with growth than we did in the previous six, by at least double or triple. Right. And so look at that factor in such a short amount of time. And that tells me now two things that I, that I learned that I have forced myself to learn, maybe I knew, but didn’t allow myself to do one, is stop hiding your own little light, because I’m a very I don’t like to brag.
00:17:11:44 – 00:17:35:45
Jon Reddick
I don’t like to say I’m great. And those kind of things you need to learn to self-promote. And you have to learn to say, I have something to offer and what I have to offer has value. Would you like to get a piece of that? And I and even saying it now makes me feel a little grimy because I’m like, no, you judge whether you like what I do, but I’ve come to the realization that.
00:17:35:50 – 00:17:56:49
Jon Reddick
I’m not unique, I’m not special. But I do have a talent that is not ordinary, whatever that is, whether you like it or not. And I’ve had to come to terms with with believing in myself to a degree where I can look at someone to go, do you want someone to do it, or do you want me to do it because someone else you might get for this amount?
00:17:56:49 – 00:18:05:57
Jon Reddick
For me, you might get that right. And unless you believe in yourself because you’re the product, how do you ever talk yourself up? And I’ve had to learn to do that.
00:18:05:57 – 00:18:25:33
Agent Palmer
I see and I, I, I think there’s a few one, indifference to your friend George. I would say that and this is something that I’ve kind of started from. This is the way I’ve been since the beginning of my blog, much less the podcast or whatever I look at. I don’t look at it like a business.
00:18:25:33 – 00:18:48:31
Agent Palmer
And I think that the difference is I look at it as professional, right? Like I want for the money I have for, for, for the things I’m able to afford and the skill set and time I’m able to put into it, I want it to be the most professional, whatever possible. I want it to sound as professional as possible.
00:18:48:40 – 00:19:20:08
Agent Palmer
I want it to look as professional as possible. Asterisk within my brand. So my, my, my blog is fairly outdated. It’s a simple, very desktop for word blog because the theme only works in desktop. Yeah, it’s got a mobile friendly site because we all have to do that. But you know what? I want you to look at Agent palmer.com on your desktop because that’s where it looks the best.
00:19:20:13 – 00:19:37:20
Agent Palmer
And I want you to listen to this podcast on headphones, because that’s where it will sound the best. And it’s going to be professional and it’s going to be me I I’m not always right. Sometimes I’m wrong, sometimes okay. But it’s you.
00:19:37:20 – 00:19:42:02
Jon Reddick
Can’t control the consumer, right. You know you can’t going to do what they want to do right.
00:19:42:04 – 00:19:43:58
Agent Palmer
Find this, find it.
00:19:44:03 – 00:20:03:01
Jon Reddick
Short videos, those verticals, you know, 59 second videos that try to trick me with a loop. I don’t find any redeeming qualities in those. Now, like everyone else, I find myself flipping through them. And like everyone else who’s a creator, I have embraced them as a way to grow. I don’t love doing them, but I’ve learned I can’t control my audience.
00:20:03:01 – 00:20:08:52
Jon Reddick
There are plenty of people that go, I hate those vertical videos, I get it. But if they work, they work, I don’t.
00:20:09:03 – 00:20:38:12
Agent Palmer
I’ve made them for other people. I have yet to jump in for myself, and I think it’s it’s an it’s an embracing of something that, having been a professional marketer for the latter part of my professional career, I look at this a little wary where it’s like, all right, if I didn’t jump on it before, is it still going to be a valid option by the time I race it?
00:20:38:12 – 00:21:01:29
Agent Palmer
And I think that that’s one of the reasons that I enjoy long form text and long form audio, and probably at some point, long form video. And all of that meaning like, you know, 5 to 10,000 words or, you know, some of it’s shorter, shorter than maybe ten minutes and not 30. But this is who I am.
00:21:01:29 – 00:21:35:18
Agent Palmer
I’m long winded. I’m going to talk your ear off. And if not, you’re going to read all of my things. Right. And I think there’s an authenticity that’s important that maybe more so than the professional and the business and the the whatever. But like, I don’t hang out with as many creators as I used to. But when we all did hang out and when we do, we all acknowledge that none of us promotes as much as we should.
00:21:35:23 – 00:21:54:27
Agent Palmer
Yeah, we promote as much as we’re comfortable. I think everybody feel not everybody. A lot of independent creators feel a little greasy, promoting as much as some of the tri hearts, so to speak. And I’m not calling them out. They’re probably doing it the right amount.
00:21:54:32 – 00:21:55:59
Jon Reddick
But maybe so. Yeah, we.
00:21:56:06 – 00:22:20:22
Agent Palmer
But when we feel grimy, I, I, I still want to go to bed. I don’t, I don’t need to take a shower in the morning and a shower at night just because in between I promoted the proper amount according to whoever the that it. No I, I told five people today good enough like I you know. Hey, Jon, how you doing?
00:22:20:22 – 00:22:28:37
Agent Palmer
How’s the weather? Not. Hey, buddy, I put out another podcast. Did you listen? Yeah, yeah. There’s a time and place.
00:22:28:42 – 00:22:44:13
Jon Reddick
Yeah. And I’m always wary of being the Amway distributor. Right? I’m like, people don’t want to talk to me, because all I want to talk about is you got to get on the Melaleuca train, man. You got to get this product in the house. You got to you’ve got to buy this fabric softener. That’s $18 a sheet because it’s so good for the environment.
00:22:44:14 – 00:23:05:38
Jon Reddick
That stuff I knew people that drove away all of their friends because all they would talk about was they’re in multi-level marketing and and this is this is single level marketing where I could easily always talk about the last thing I did. But people don’t want to hear that. Like they’re my friend because they’re my friend, not because of what’s my job right now, my hobby or whatever it is.
00:23:05:45 – 00:23:22:34
Jon Reddick
So they know, look, I know what it is. If you want to talk about it, if you open that door, I will unleash hell on you about everything I’m doing. But I intentionally don’t come up to I friends or people that I know are casual and start talking about Gen X growing up, or the thing I’m doing on the podcast, or what the next I might mention.
00:23:22:43 – 00:23:26:37
Jon Reddick
Oh, we think we talked about on the show a couple weeks ago, but I’m not mailing them links.
00:23:26:42 – 00:23:51:49
Agent Palmer
No, they know what I do. Like. Last week I had a conversation with a friend about a thing, and that’s kind of how you approach it in a in a natural way. I think all of us learn early on that skill of like, I talked to this guy Jon, about whatever, like instead of, well, I mean, in podcast episode 100 and you’re.
00:23:51:49 – 00:23:58:28
Jon Reddick
Sneaking it in the back door. Yeah, there they go. Oh, who is this guy? Well, since you asked. Yeah, that’s here’s the link or some right thing maybe.
00:23:58:28 – 00:24:27:42
Agent Palmer
Yeah I yeah I, yeah, I, I really try not to think about it all the time, but I got to be honest, I think about it all the time. Like I can’t scroll through anything without being like, yeah, that might be an interesting guest. Or like, oh, that’s a book I should read, and that’s a movie I should be like, I should I try not to, I try not to make everything, but I see it everywhere.
00:24:27:46 – 00:24:28:21
Jon Reddick
Oh yeah.
00:24:28:28 – 00:24:51:38
Agent Palmer
And you have gone for me. Still a side piece. You not so much. So, like, do you have that, like, can you turn it off or is it still, like, everywhere you look like, oh my God, that’s a potential idea. Gotta write that down. That’s a video. That’s a blog. That’s a podcast. I’d, you know, topic of com like, dude, we we work, we’re creators.
00:24:51:38 – 00:25:02:02
Agent Palmer
We’re kind of see it everywhere, but do you can you comfortably not just. Okay, I gotta make a video about this. I, I.
00:25:02:07 – 00:25:22:34
Jon Reddick
Actually better now. Okay. So when it was a side gig, it was my hobby. So when I wasn’t working, if I didn’t do it in my off time, I didn’t do it. Okay? So therefore you always had to be thinking about it. Well, now that it is my current profession again, a failing profession such as it is at the moment.
00:25:22:35 – 00:25:42:51
Jon Reddick
Yeah. Growing. Right. This is the question is, do I have enough runway before I hit the do I fall in the lake before I take off or not? Is a question right? But. But when I’m, I try to take the weekends to not do things. But I say that and I keep a Google calendar where every block of time I want to look and see what I did.
00:25:42:51 – 00:25:56:17
Jon Reddick
If a video did well, I want to look back and go, what? How much did I spend? Time that I spend on that? Well, four hours today, six hours editing, two hours this that was a 24 hour investment. Is that worth it? Should I do one of those again? Right. So I life is very.
00:25:56:17 – 00:26:08:14
Agent Palmer
Important though like we I mean yeah I it’s super because I think there’s a lot of people that don’t that they they look at the wrong. I think you’re looking at everything which is the way you’re supposed to. I think a lot of people.
00:26:08:15 – 00:26:09:22
Jon Reddick
Go like, I just the end result.
00:26:09:22 – 00:26:14:53
Agent Palmer
Yeah. If people are like, oh, it was about ThunderCats and it did very well. I have to do another one. It’s like, right, is.
00:26:14:53 – 00:26:15:18
Jon Reddick
That what it.
00:26:15:18 – 00:26:15:57
Agent Palmer
Is? Yeah.
00:26:15:58 – 00:26:21:29
Jon Reddick
It was it because a movie was coming out was because a video game was coming out? What made that searchable and clickable?
00:26:21:29 – 00:26:26:03
Agent Palmer
How long did it take? It took you two months to write, maybe. Right. Exactly.
00:26:26:08 – 00:26:36:44
Jon Reddick
Yeah. So. So do I turn it off on the weekends? I try, but that means I stop logging my time. I log my time from like 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on my calendar. You try and do it back, get it.
00:26:36:44 – 00:26:37:52
Agent Palmer
You try and stop nights.
00:26:37:52 – 00:27:04:50
Jon Reddick
Do I stop scheduled stuff? Okay. But so I spend majority of my time sitting in my my chair, in my man cave, staring at my 85 inch TV because it’s all theater. But you know what? I’m only watching a 30 inch TV because I always have. I have Plex half screen, and the other half is a browser where I’m tagging up, you know, a podcast, or I’m doing a little writing, or I have paint open and I’m working on a thumbnail, or I’m doing little whatever.
00:27:04:54 – 00:27:30:19
Jon Reddick
I’m always doing something. But my wife would say, I never turn it off. But really for me, because it’s a hobby I like doing what that stuff, the off hours stuff is me filling the tank for when I come back in the morning, okay? Like I spent everything I had today. What I don’t want to do is start the next day and go, all right, well, let’s let’s get started.
00:27:30:19 – 00:27:43:25
Jon Reddick
Get up to speed. I got to spend an hour thinking about it. Well, no, I spent the previous evening and not on purpose. It just happens, like. Well, the next one I want to do is going to be about this thing. Let me do some research about it. Let me take some notes while I’m watching reruns of the Bob Newhart Show.
00:27:43:25 – 00:27:56:38
Jon Reddick
You know, so because I’ve seen those a hundred times, I can watch them on the side, not pay attention and still enjoy it while also getting, I call it work done. But while investing in the next day a little bit investing and down the road.
00:27:56:51 – 00:28:18:47
Agent Palmer
And there’s a there’s an amount of research that’s required. I don’t think any of this stuff like if, if anybody’s listening, thinking like, and this is my biggest, maybe pet peeve for all of this is, when you do it well and you make it look easy and effortless, people think that’s what it is. They think.
00:28:18:47 – 00:28:19:15
Jon Reddick
Effortless.
00:28:19:18 – 00:28:39:58
Agent Palmer
You and I literally just hit record and hit release, you know, hit stop. And then I hit release. It’s like, no, no, there is an editing process there. And I didn’t just call you up randomly and you said, yes, of course. Like there is a, you know, there. And I think the same with like writing. I there’s an editing process, I think for all of the videos it’s the same thing.
00:28:39:58 – 00:29:08:56
Agent Palmer
And even for like streaming on Twitch or whatever, you’re not just hitting play and just jumping on, like there’s more to it. Oh yeah, but it’s all that other stuff that people don’t see that makes what they do see and hear work so well. And I like the idea of, like, refilling the bubble. I, I yeah, I had an opportunity.
00:29:09:01 – 00:29:33:59
Agent Palmer
I guess technically, I still every day I have an opportunity to hit my clients work and my own work as much as humanly possible. From the moment I wake up until the moment I go to bed. I now treat both of those things as two kind of part time gigs between 9 and 5, Monday through Friday. I very much try not to.
00:29:34:00 – 00:29:44:24
Agent Palmer
I record at night, so that’s my one night time thing, but I, I don’t edit between dinner and I head, right.
00:29:44:24 – 00:29:45:02
Jon Reddick
Yep, I bet.
00:29:45:07 – 00:30:03:46
Agent Palmer
I try not I, I mean, I do some stuff on the weekend because sometimes you just run out of time during the week. But for the most part, you know, it’s the fall. I’m a college football, not Saturday from noon till when I go to bed. You know, I watch all of the games. All of them? Yeah.
00:30:03:46 – 00:30:25:25
Agent Palmer
It doesn’t matter. You know, maybe I’ll be reading while they’re on. Like, I can multitask, but I don’t want to wake up on a Saturday and edit for eight hours. Like, that’s what I want to do the Monday through Friday. And I think that the secret secret, and I think you’ve just kind of acknowledged this by saying you fill your tank.
00:30:25:30 – 00:30:49:58
Agent Palmer
The secret to being able to do this full time is not doing it all the time. Yeah, right. And I think that that’s a very we live in a society where there’s all these trials that are like, if you’re awake, work towards your thing. It’s like, no, no, no, that’s a horrible advice. If anybody tells you that they don’t have your best interest in mind.
00:30:50:02 – 00:31:10:47
Jon Reddick
Why would I turn the thing I love doing into monotonous drudgery that I absolutely, whether I feel like it or not, must continue to beat my head against every moment of my life. That’s not the point. I don’t live to work. I work to live. Yeah. Fortunately, the thing I’m working to live with is a thing I enjoy.
00:31:10:52 – 00:31:19:04
Jon Reddick
That doesn’t mean like I like ice cream. Sometimes I want a hamburger, right? I don’t always want the ice cream all the time. I get sick.
00:31:19:09 – 00:31:23:41
Agent Palmer
So I. It leads me to this. It’s it’s Gen-X grown up.
00:31:23:45 – 00:31:24:38
Jon Reddick
Yeah.
00:31:24:43 – 00:31:46:00
Agent Palmer
It’s pretty broad, I think it’s not, necessarily as broad as me where I can, I can touch anything I want, although you probably can make it easy enough to draw lines to everything, but, like, is it broad enough for you? And like, when you started it, was that even a consideration? Like, I might get sick of this.
00:31:46:05 – 00:31:50:21
Agent Palmer
There’s enough playroom here in this space.
00:31:50:26 – 00:32:10:29
Jon Reddick
So Gen-X grown up definitely has evolved. And it has multiple prongs in this media empire that I’m attempting to create. Initially, it was all had one complexion. There was there’s a YouTube channel and there was a podcast, which are two major outlets. We have a website as well, which is just a compendium of all of our works available on the website.
00:32:10:29 – 00:32:30:23
Jon Reddick
Right. So it’s no different. And initially it was very broad. And YouTube hates that, by the way, they don’t want you to be a variety channel. No they don’t. They want you to be the guy who reviews, you know, spare tires. Well, this donut is a little bit rigid. This like, they really want you to be super hyper focused and I.
00:32:30:25 – 00:32:53:14
Jon Reddick
But that trend, luckily we were doing the exact same thing on the audio podcast, which comes out every single week. And we we vacillate between every other week, we’ll do an episode that is strictly nostalgic. We’re going to talk about VHS tapes. We’re going to talk about Mr. Rogers. We’re going to talk about, Saturday morning cartoons. Right.
00:32:53:19 – 00:33:14:12
Jon Reddick
But on the alternating alternating weeks, we talk about current media and technology and toys and games and stuff. But through the eyes of three guys who are Generation Xers. So other people of our age demographic and our cohort might not want to hear millennials talk about the latest movie. They want to that there’s a sequel to the Exorcist.
00:33:14:17 – 00:33:30:29
Jon Reddick
Do they want to hear it from a guy who’s never seen The Exorcist, or a guy who got scared shitless watching it on HBO when he was watching The Exorcist? Like, sometimes people want to hear it from the people who were there. So this is current stuff through the lens of Generation Xers, right? However, on the YouTube side, we attempted to do that.
00:33:30:34 – 00:33:48:58
Jon Reddick
But YouTube will beat you into submission and teach you what it wants you to be by presenting your material. And as soon as something catches on YouTube makes money, the longer someone watches. Sure. So if you make two videos and one gets watched more than the other, they’ll will reward you if you do another one like that and another one like that.
00:33:48:58 – 00:34:09:23
Jon Reddick
So eventually, if you if you chase the algorithm, which I hate that term because it’s really it’s like pursuing the audience is all you’re doing. But if you chase the algorithm and you let the numbers tell you what to do, it will teach you what to do. Because like, well, you did video A and video B, video B sucked eggs, video A did great.
00:34:09:28 – 00:34:26:40
Jon Reddick
What would you like to do next? It’s entirely up to you. Well, you know, it’s like the it’s the mobster. It’ll be a shame if something were to happen to video B, isn’t it? Maybe do another A pal, but you do what you want. Yeah. We’re not telling you. Yeah, so? So ultimately the two facets. One is very broad.
00:34:26:45 – 00:34:51:18
Jon Reddick
The podcast is very broad and wide. We cover a wide variety of topics, and that is the outlet for that. And interestingly, that’s where we engage with the majority of our Patreon supporters. That’s where people get to know us, the personalities, the people they want to support. And YouTube has become much more focused on, I wouldn’t even call myself a gaming channel, but on nostalgic game centric ideas.
00:34:51:22 – 00:35:11:16
Jon Reddick
Okay, the arcades, you know, original like Atari and Calico Vision, stuff like the real. But I’ll talk about the hardware. Maybe I’ll talk about this specific little game, or maybe there’s a new thing that came out. The reminds me of this, you know, that sort of thing. Not because I wanted to. I love it, I love gaming, but it’s one facet, but it comes down to it.
00:35:11:16 – 00:35:24:09
Jon Reddick
I’ve started focusing on the facet that actually gets results, and so that has turned me into a nostalgic gaming. YouTube channel, though that’s not with the scope of Gen X grown up was ever tended to be. Nor has the podcast ever came to be it.
00:35:24:23 – 00:35:50:14
Agent Palmer
It kind of so. So I guess the question I have, I have a long way to ask this question. Okay. But like the question that comes to my mind then is Retro Days, which is a separate channel. And and to me, the reason I bring it up is because I watch plenty of YouTubers. And they’ll create a second channel for shorts.
00:35:50:19 – 00:35:50:37
Jon Reddick
Yeah.
00:35:50:42 – 00:36:22:50
Agent Palmer
Or they’ll create a second channel because, this is their main content and this is their, their, their, their live stream, archive or whatever. And, and and you see them basically going, all right, YouTube, I still want to do all of the things, but if you’re only going to suggest this, for this channel, I’m going to create this new channel that has all these other this is, this is video B you didn’t like, but here’s nothing but all the video BS I like.
00:36:22:50 – 00:36:51:00
Agent Palmer
So have fun figuring out which one of those not to like. Right. And and I, I, I don’t like it only because as a consumer, not as a user and not as just another YouTube viewer, but as a consumer. I want to I want to put on Nickelodeon and know what’s on. I don’t want five. Nickelodeon’s right, I think.
00:36:51:00 – 00:36:51:23
Jon Reddick
I hear you.
00:36:51:29 – 00:37:05:27
Agent Palmer
That’s the example where it’s like, oh, and look, I follow both your channels, but like, I would, I would it’s easier for me if they’re just all in one and say.
00:37:05:32 – 00:37:38:58
Jon Reddick
That’s the thing that you might not know. So Retro Days is Marvel and I’m just Robert Downey Jr. That’s not my channel okay. Right. So so I am a hired gun for, retro days because the owner of that channel is has become a good friend. I met him through grown up. He’s a supporter and advertiser on Gen X, grown up and when he was starting to do these new things, these this line of celebrating yesteryear, the celebration of nostalgia, the he he, he, he drafted, an author to do the scripts.
00:37:39:03 – 00:37:57:27
Jon Reddick
He’s the creative, the does the editing, but he does not want to be on camera. So he’s like, Jon, like you said, I love what you do. I like you in front of the camera. I want you to read my scripts. And so it’s become a part of my regular routine. But it’s not my channel because I’m the face of it.
00:37:57:27 – 00:38:15:26
Jon Reddick
I see why people would think that. I am, obviously. And it makes sense. And that’s good. That shows that my face is getting identified with these things, which is the reason that they bring in a talent to do these things rather than just a general schmo. I’m very fortunate that Tony, Tony great, is a gentleman who owns Retro Days and does all the editing.
00:38:15:26 – 00:38:32:47
Jon Reddick
Very talented guy. And he reached out to me and said, look, I was talking with the, the the guy who’s writing the stuff. We’re thinking about what to do. I know you’re super busy, but we can’t think of anybody else we’d rather have do it. Can you squeeze it in and, and as a bit mercenary, it’s also a paying gig, right?
00:38:32:47 – 00:38:56:42
Jon Reddick
Because I have no creative input other than how I present and host the material. And that material would be fantastic as one of our podcast. But as you said, it doesn’t fit on what Gen-X grown up has become. So even though I love those scripts and I could speak to them because we’re talking about, you know, Halloween in the 70s, I get that, I know all that stuff, but I can’t do that myself because YouTube told me not to.
00:38:56:52 – 00:39:03:01
Agent Palmer
Yeah, but even if it was yours, it would probably do better as a separate.
00:39:03:06 – 00:39:16:27
Jon Reddick
Not exactly. I would have to follow the same. Yeah, exactly. We cross post our audio podcast as just a waveform on YouTube on a separate channel called Gen X Grown-Up podcast, because otherwise you damage your channel. Yeah.
00:39:16:32 – 00:39:38:10
Agent Palmer
Yeah, yeah, I’m going to be the one that doesn’t take off because, right now, there’s like three videos I actually made and all of my podcasts on my YouTube channel. And, when I start doing video, that’s the one, like, I’m just going to be the stubborn guy because, like, I just, I that’s how I use the internet.
00:39:38:10 – 00:39:53:06
Agent Palmer
And I know not everybody uses it that way, and that’s fine, but like, I’ve, I, we all follow too many creators to consume everything. I don’t think there’s anybody out there that’s like, I subscribe to one YouTube channel.
00:39:53:19 – 00:39:53:58
Jon Reddick
No, none.
00:39:53:58 – 00:40:20:59
Agent Palmer
Of us do. Yeah. And so we all have more than enough. And I said, I’m a sports guy. I did, I can have as many screens in my living room as I want. Yeah. I only want to pay attention to one at a time. Like I just, I don’t want to do it. And a I don’t know, I it it’s one of those things where like as a creator, I look around and I see all that stuff.
00:40:21:04 – 00:40:28:10
Agent Palmer
As a blogger, I see what other blogs are doing. And as a podcaster, I see what other podcasters are doing.
00:40:28:15 – 00:40:34:45
Agent Palmer
But I try and put it out of my head when I go into like my my, my, my thought bubble is it’s.
00:40:34:47 – 00:40:45:09
Jon Reddick
Like punishing to compare yourself to someone else’s success because they got there differently. They sustained it differently. Maybe their their measure of success is different from yours.
00:40:45:17 – 00:40:58:27
Agent Palmer
Even even just processes. It’s just like, you know, I used oh yeah, this and you use that. It’s like I know that’s that’s fine. If you like pencils, I’m going to stick with my pen. It will never break.
00:40:58:31 – 00:41:20:10
Jon Reddick
Like it works for me, right. You know, it’s like I understand there’s a big demand for pencils. That’s not what I want to do. Yeah, and let me tell you, I agree with you philosophically. And when it was not me trying to make a go financially of this, okay, I was I really pushed back hard against getting pigeonholed.
00:41:20:15 – 00:41:30:41
Jon Reddick
However, becoming sustainable and being able to do this long term. If there are two things I enjoy and one of them generates more revenue, I’m going to do that one.
00:41:30:46 – 00:41:49:09
Agent Palmer
What I so I guess the question what happens to the other one like is that, you know, do you try and remarket it as a Patreon exclusive or a new channel or, you know, hey, my buddy Palmer might want this on his, like, you know, do you still find a way to utilize these other things?
00:41:49:09 – 00:42:07:47
Jon Reddick
Well, so our podcast is there’s no pigeonholing whatsoever. Anything goes. We can talk about whatever we want. So if somebody is like, hey, we want you to review this board game. And I’m like, it doesn’t fit on YouTube. But we’d be happy to play it and talk about it on our show. So it’s not like I’m pushing away things.
00:42:07:47 – 00:42:28:09
Jon Reddick
It’s like, look, those things don’t fit here. If there’s enough of a demand. You know, we talked about the ceiling fan channel. If I suddenly became a huge fan of ceiling fans, no pun intended. Yeah, maybe there was a pun intended. I’m not sure. But. So I decided to do that. It would definitely be, you know, gen grown up fans or us or it’s gonna be a whole different channel or we’re going to talk about it on the audio show.
00:42:28:13 – 00:42:51:34
Jon Reddick
Just because I can’t afford to gamble on this pigeonhole that I have established and confuse YouTube and go, well, wait a minute. He just did three videos, not about the things that we recommend all the time. Therefore they’re going to perform poorly. Furthermore, the next thing I do that is in my little pigeonhole will suffer because now two YouTube is confused.
00:42:51:34 – 00:42:58:16
Jon Reddick
It’s now adapt it. It’s out there trying to find a new audience for me, and it stopped showing me to the people that regularly click.
00:42:58:21 – 00:42:59:52
Agent Palmer
Yeah, it’s it’s it’s.
00:42:59:52 – 00:43:05:45
Jon Reddick
This little Faberge egg that once you get all the jewels in the right place, don’t juggle with it is a problem, you know.
00:43:05:45 – 00:43:28:52
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I, I and I worry about burnout for, for for that scenario and I, I’ve, I’m very happy. It was the one positive for me that came out of the pandemic is the pandemic saw us skyrocket in existing YouTubers getting a new found fame.
00:43:28:57 – 00:43:29:44
Jon Reddick
Sure.
00:43:29:49 – 00:43:55:46
Agent Palmer
An amount of them. And I want to say at least like 2 in 7 somewhere in that kind of ballpark range completely burnt out. And when they came back, they were all honest about what happened and why they burnt out. And I think that that level of honesty, maybe not all of them that came back were that honest.
00:43:55:53 – 00:44:22:07
Agent Palmer
But the ones I saw that were I felt were doing like the best thing I had ever seen. And so, a bunch of these YouTubers that fell off the face of the Earth when they came back, I watched every video of their first few, just two. I wanted to see if they were going to acknowledge it and it’s almost acknowledging all the things we’ve acknowledged that we both philosophically don’t like.
00:44:22:17 – 00:44:35:24
Agent Palmer
And they’re like, so I’m not going to do it. Asterisk. They’ve got 10 million subscribers. If their video goes to less people, they’re still getting paid like.
00:44:35:25 – 00:44:38:01
Jon Reddick
Sick man on a can’t buy their third jet ski.
00:44:38:10 – 00:45:06:41
Agent Palmer
Team. It so it’s it’s like so there is a an amount of like this isn’t for everybody, but I, I am happy that somebody is talking about it because like that pigeon hole has got it like it, it it hurts me that you have to go. All right. I got this really cool widget. Member widgets. Everybody back.
00:45:06:46 – 00:45:22:37
Agent Palmer
Anyway, I got this really cool widget, but it doesn’t fit. I I’m gonna have to talk about on the podcast instead of I get to show it off on my YouTube video channel. It’s like, that crushes me. Like for you, like, not even just.
00:45:22:50 – 00:45:42:53
Jon Reddick
I hear you. Yeah, well, if it helps it all, it doesn’t break my heart. Like I said, I’m not. It’s not like that widget was the only thing that I loved. Please don’t think that you watch a video of me on YouTube and go, this guy is miserable talking about Pac man, because guess what? He’s not all right, right?
00:45:42:58 – 00:46:03:37
Jon Reddick
When I when I touch anything that has Pac-Man on it, if it came from 1983 or it came from 2023, little kid in me goes a Pac-Man thing. Who, because I loved it. So it’s it’s not a problem that I don’t like. The things I’m doing is that I just can’t take everything that I love. And I to think that no one is single faceted.
00:46:03:39 – 00:46:22:27
Jon Reddick
You know, you everyone has tons of things that they enjoy, you know, oh, they like beer and they like dancing and they like video games and they like pool and maybe things that don’t match. They like farming and they like they don’t all necessarily congeal in the same groups of people. You know, the Venn diagram is very weird to have all those things.
00:46:22:32 – 00:46:31:31
Jon Reddick
It’s just that I have to choose 1 or 2 bubbles of the Venn diagram to play around in. I can’t use all of them, you know? Well, I’m still in my comfort zone, still love my love zone.
00:46:31:31 – 00:47:00:03
Agent Palmer
It’s also kind of still good for you to keep one for yourself, right? Like I think that that’s the other piece. I have a very well-rounded blog and podcast. I still don’t talk about every passion I have. Sure, maybe they’ve come up. Conversations are like that, but I have not written about every favorite movie. I’ve not written about every favorite book, and I some of those I may just never like.
00:47:00:03 – 00:47:16:05
Agent Palmer
Some of those are going to stay with me, and I think that’s also important. It’s part of what you fill your other time with, and you get to watch that movie at 7:00 at night on a Tuesday, and not have to worry about how you have to talk about it on the podcast tomorrow.
00:47:16:07 – 00:47:39:39
Jon Reddick
It’s just it’s just for you. Yeah, yeah. And another thing that I was able to do, I don’t know if you know this. You probably do. You clearly have done your research, but the day that I lost my job a year ago, I started doing a daily video blog. I do a vlog every weekday without fail for a year now, and it’s it’s are largely unedited.
00:47:39:39 – 00:47:56:28
Jon Reddick
It’s it started as a webpage on going. I wasn’t expecting to do this, but I lost my job today. I don’t know what’s going to happen. And in that video I say my plan is I think I want to do this full time. I’m going to try it. My plan is to do this vlog every day and tell you how it’s going.
00:47:56:33 – 00:48:17:33
Jon Reddick
Did I know if I could do that now? But that was a plan. But I have done it for over a year now, every single day. And so I’m talking to a small audience of people that I’m off race. You have a show, you know you’re on and then you’re off, right? And so there’s me going, hey, I’m on this show and is spectacular.
00:48:17:33 – 00:48:33:32
Jon Reddick
I’m so happy to be here. And there’s me going, it’s almost 7:00. I gotta do a podcast thing with this guy, right? Right. There’s there’s the. It doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy being here. It means there’s the who you present publicly and there’s who. You just talk about who you are.
00:48:33:37 – 00:48:58:28
Agent Palmer
And so for you, that’s got to make it pretty easy when you’re out and about, because, like, you’ll be able to tell who’s watched what they say and how they interact. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. But but at the same time, which and this has been the, the weird thing for me is there are listeners who then think they know you even when you have the, the, the, the down part.
00:48:58:33 – 00:49:22:04
Agent Palmer
It’s still not all of you. There’s still a part of you that you kind of hold back a little bit. And so, I mean, it still exists there, but I this does lead me to this. Are you going to do anything with like, a is there going to be like a supercut from, from this year of vlogging that like, I mean.
00:49:22:08 – 00:49:39:40
Jon Reddick
I don’t know, I mean there’s a we’re talking, you know, I mean, no, not every weekend. I did weekends at first, but now I just do weekdays. But I mean, that’s we’re talking 260, some odd individual from, you know, 5 to 10 minutes long of me. I wouldn’t know where to begin. But so my intent in the vlog is twofold.
00:49:39:40 – 00:49:58:13
Jon Reddick
One, it’s for me, it’s to make myself accountable. I had spent the last 15 years working in software development with agile skills, and we do daily stand ups. What did you do where you stumped on what’s next, that sort of thing. And I had no one that that mechanism was now in me with not connected any cogs. Yeah.
00:49:58:13 – 00:50:13:43
Jon Reddick
And so I said, well let me, let me make my own daily stand up. Right. So in the morning I turn the lights, turn on the camera, half half of my challenges are now done. I got my ass out of bed. I turned on the camera. Then I started with, hey everybody, today is whatever day it is. Here’s what I’m doing here.
00:50:13:43 – 00:50:27:18
Jon Reddick
Like I do a five second what the purpose of this is for the guy to watch it for the first time, and then I do. Yesterday I tried to do this. I had a problem. Here are the stats today. You know, today my intention is to try to get this done. I also have a deal. There’s a leaky faucet I got a screw with too.
00:50:27:18 – 00:50:44:57
Jon Reddick
So talk about a personal life a little, but it’s largely about my attempt to try to make this sustainable. And and it’s drawn. I mean, just a couple hundred people that watch, it’s making a video is about the purpose for the video. People might look and go, well, that video only got 500 views. What was the purpose of the video?
00:50:45:04 – 00:51:05:09
Jon Reddick
Was it to to gather ten leads? If you got ten leads, it was a success. Yeah. My purpose for these vlogs is to it’s a catharsis. It’s a get my head in the right place in the morning and it’s to get constructive, call your bullshit kind of feedback from people that care about me enough to watch this thing every day and go, man, don’t be so rough on yourself or man.
00:51:05:09 – 00:51:20:20
Jon Reddick
You should try to push through that. I think you can do it. Or maybe that’s a bad idea. I don’t have to agree with everybody, but it’s a sounding board. When I didn’t have necessarily a personal sounding board like I had in work. And I don’t mind if people kind of think they know who I am, because I kind of don’t fake who I am.
00:51:20:28 – 00:51:30:13
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I went off. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t either I it, I’m not I’m a creative person, but I’m not creative enough to create a brand new me.
00:51:30:17 – 00:51:30:47
Jon Reddick
That’s.
00:51:30:48 – 00:51:53:48
Agent Palmer
No, no, that’s a bit much. But I will say I, I think I, I almost envy you and I think my friends would wish I would do the same thing because I, I have a, a weekday daily phone call with a friend during his commute. We’re basically we’re accountable to each other for whatever, doing the same thing for his job and whatever I’m doing for my stuff.
00:51:53:53 – 00:52:02:49
Agent Palmer
I think sometimes he would wish that we were a bit more fun when we talk instead of like, what do you got going today? Right?
00:52:02:54 – 00:52:05:25
Jon Reddick
But it’s almost like mechanical. It’s almost like process.
00:52:05:25 – 00:52:26:49
Agent Palmer
It’s there’s there’s something to be said for accountability outside of yourself. Oh great. I think we are all the best bullshitters to ourselves. This is how you end up hitting snooze because you can always rationalize yourself. Right. And so both.
00:52:26:49 – 00:52:27:43
Jon Reddick
Sides of the coin.
00:52:27:43 – 00:52:28:04
Agent Palmer
Oh yeah.
00:52:28:06 – 00:52:46:48
Jon Reddick
Absolutely yourself. Both sides. You can bullshit yourself into thinking that what you’re doing is right because you don’t want to do anything different, or you don’t want to believe you’re messed up, or you can bullshit yourself into thinking what you’re doing is garbage, when in reality it’s fine. You’re just overanalyzing or being hypercritical, and the truth lies somewhere in the middle having a sounding board of any kind.
00:52:46:48 – 00:53:02:59
Jon Reddick
Even if I’m just talking at a camera, you know, you probably heard the term rubber ducking, which is software and software developers and what they really need. They found out they would go get somebody and go, I need to explain this problem to you. In the process of explaining the problem, they solved it. They’re like, I didn’t need the person, I just needed to say it.
00:53:02:59 – 00:53:28:21
Jon Reddick
So they put a rubber duck on their monitor and explained the problem to them. My vlog is my rubber duck process of getting the information out of my face in the air and going, that sounded stupid. Why? Maybe I shouldn’t do that. Whatever. And then I get it. Feedback too. On top of so my rubber duck quacks back, which helps.
00:53:28:26 – 00:53:48:36
Agent Palmer
Quite a few of my last episodes started in a similar fashion with the question what do you do? Or some variation of that? It’s a question that thankfully hasn’t been turned around on me yet, because I don’t know that I have an answer to it, but it’s an important question to ask as more and more creatives and even just professionals wear more than one hat.
00:53:48:45 – 00:54:17:05
Agent Palmer
And even if you know what they do on the outside, you don’t always know what their answer is going to be to that question. But I will say of the question and discussion that you just heard, I agree with Jon on one very particular specific detail. I don’t want to be famous. I want to be known because we want to make things people see, which is perhaps one of the more noble, modern pursuits one can have.
00:54:17:10 – 00:54:36:46
Agent Palmer
And before I go, I will reiterate the one thing about transitioning a hobby into a full time job that is not said often enough, if ever, and certainly needs to be shouted from the rooftops more. The secret to doing a hobby full time as a job is treating it like a job and not doing it all the time.
00:54:36:51 – 00:55:03:56
Agent Palmer
Anyone who says otherwise is a tryhard that doesn’t have your best intentions at heart. Also, while I have your attention and I’m talking about turning hobbies into full time endeavors, it is important to keep something for yourself. While everything and anything can inspire the next blog post, video or podcast, you should keep some things for yourself and maybe soon I’ll be better at taking my own advice on that front.
00:55:04:00 – 00:55:27:43
Agent Palmer
Like everything else, it’s all an evolution. Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 111. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can find all related ways to contact myself and my guest, Jon Reddick in the show notes. There you can find links to all of Jon’s stuff at Jen grown up.com.
00:55:27:48 – 00:55:59:05
Agent Palmer
Again, that’s Gen X growth wind up.com. Remember you have to grow older but you don’t have to grow up. The music for this episode was provided by Henno Heitur. Email can be sent to this show at The Palmer Files at gmail.com and remember, you’re home for all things. Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.
00:55:59:10 – 00:56:07:19
Unknown
You.
00:56:07:24 – 00:56:30:07
Unknown
See you.
00:56:30:12 – 00:56:34:59
Unknown
Need.
00:56:35:03 – 00:56:37:24
Agent Palmer
All right. Jon, do you have one final question for me?
00:56:37:29 – 00:56:55:26
Jon Reddick
Yeah. It’s pretty mercenary, really. I mean, it’s it’s all. It’s always about me, of course, but, I mean, you and I had never met before you reached out to me. And so you had an impression of. Who is this guy? What is he? And everything that I do is about for me. Is it? How do people perceive me?
00:56:55:26 – 00:57:18:51
Jon Reddick
How do people see me? What is my brand? What is the thing that people get out of me? So I’m curious now that we’ve had a chance to get to know each other a little bit, that we’ve had this discussion. How has that changed, if at all, or modified in what we’re where are you? Or is the vector between your first impression of me just knowing me through a third party to now you got to know me better, is it?
00:57:18:56 – 00:57:32:56
Jon Reddick
And you can be as blunt as you want. You know, I thought you were pretty bright. Turns out you’re kind of dim. Whatever it is, I’m just always curious about what people get out of me. That is a value that is going to make me more successful. So that’s why I say it’s kind of a mercenary question.
00:57:32:56 – 00:58:04:38
Agent Palmer
No, I, I, I think that, it’s the only thing that’s really changed its intent. I looked at, you know, it comes as a shock to people. I do research on this show, mainly because during the very beginning of the show, I over researched, and so I made too many assumptions. So like I read, I watched all your stuff and I read everything I could.
00:58:04:38 – 00:58:25:50
Agent Palmer
And then I went, hey, this one article you wrote three years ago about this. And so I was being too smart. I realized I had to dumb myself down and be like, have you ever written an article about X? Even if I knew, you know, you got to do that for the audience because I was jumping ahead a lot and I had.
00:58:26:00 – 00:58:57:33
Agent Palmer
So I’ve learned to dumb myself down. So I do know enough about all the stuff you were creating. I knew nothing about your intent. I didn’t watch the vlogs, mainly because, like, selfishly, I like a little bit of self-discovery too. Like there’s like, okay, it’s kind of the other side of that research coin is like, well, if I know all the I still don’t know what you’re going to say, but if I watch too much.
00:58:57:37 – 00:59:00:26
Jon Reddick
You’d have a pretty good idea of what sort of thing I’m liable to.
00:59:00:26 – 00:59:27:48
Agent Palmer
Say. And so I don’t, I, I want to be intelligently dumb going into all of these where I can ask questions of the audience instead of assuming and yet still not know all the answers. But I didn’t know the intent, so I didn’t know you lost your job, and I didn’t know that you were creating something for, I guess the long run like, this is your try.
00:59:27:52 – 00:59:53:48
Agent Palmer
This is you’re going for it. And yeah, it doesn’t really change what what I see, but it does change the way I perceive what I’m seeing. Because I go, all right, now I get it. Like I kind of have a better understanding of why this stuff never misses a beat. Now, me?
00:59:53:53 – 01:00:32:47
Agent Palmer
I’m a bit of a workaholic perfectionist, which is why I haven’t missed a podcast and I haven’t missed a, a blog post. But not everybody can say that. Some people can look at my regularity and go, he’s working on a system or whatever. Like, that’s not that’s not it just I just happened to work ahead far enough that when I have, when I get sick and I can’t record, when I have bouts of writer’s block, I’m already drafted through the next year, so I’m, I’m, I have, two months or four weeks or whatever to to kind of work with.
01:00:32:52 – 01:00:46:11
Agent Palmer
I think it’s nice to know. And yet, I think it’s nice to know that in the back seat, you’re trying to do this for the right reasons and to make money.
01:00:46:16 – 01:00:46:52
Jon Reddick
01:00:46:57 – 01:01:07:16
Agent Palmer
And I think that’s the thing I learned more than anything else in this conversation in this episode, is that you aren’t doing it to make money, because there are plenty of people out there that are doing it just for that. And there are also people who are doing it just for fun. And there is a lot. And there’s nothing wrong with that either.
01:01:07:16 – 01:01:33:51
Agent Palmer
But there is a line of doing it authentically and to make money that I feel like it. It it changes the perception of how you see things. And you go, now I get it. Now I understand like it’s it’s regular because, you know, you wants to pay rent, you know, it’s regular because you know, he’s done it for a year and he wants to do it for another year.
01:01:33:51 – 01:01:53:08
Agent Palmer
Like he, you know, you know, he wants to you know, he lost money for a year. But maybe next year he’ll lose a little less, and maybe next year he’ll just break even. Right. Like I understand that, you know, that kind of thing where it’s not like he’s just trying to get rich. Like, no, no, he’s not like.
01:01:53:08 – 01:02:00:22
Agent Palmer
Because the things we talked about in this episode, there are things you could do. Yeah. Your fan.
01:02:00:26 – 01:02:02:10
Jon Reddick
You’re right. Exactly.
01:02:02:18 – 01:02:29:22
Agent Palmer
You know. Yeah. I mean, so I, I think I, I like knowing that authentically people are not just trying for the, the cheap out, so to speak, which is, this is popular. Let me do. No, no. And look, nostalgia is a very powerful drug. Yeah, but it comes in so many different flavors. It’s never a guarantee.
01:02:29:27 – 01:02:30:10
Jon Reddick
You got it. Yeah.
01:02:30:12 – 01:02:31:16
Agent Palmer
And so.
01:02:31:20 – 01:02:53:33
Jon Reddick
Yeah, your answer tells me two things. One, it tells me that. It tells me that you get it. I was able to convey what’s going on. And I appreciate your candor. Right. It’s, it’s it’s it’s super valuable. It’s so hard to get feedback that is on an untarnished by some kind of secondary motivation, but you don’t have, which is why you were a perfect person to ask.
01:02:53:33 – 01:02:58:59
Agent Palmer
So yeah, I and I will say it’s.
01:02:59:04 – 01:03:28:32
Agent Palmer
It’s one of the things I find refreshing about long form audio. You. Yeah. At this point, if I’m not comfortable or you’re not comfortable the people with here’s that. Right. Like that there’s no hi. Like I know that we’re not on camera. Right. Like for people to see visual things but like you can hear it, you can hear when somebody’s nervous.
01:03:28:37 – 01:03:33:33
Agent Palmer
You can hear when they’re holding back. And I think comfortable anxious.
01:03:33:33 – 01:03:39:22
Jon Reddick
Yeah. Upset insulted. You can hear all of that. You can hear a smile in someone’s voice. Yeah.
01:03:39:35 – 01:04:04:15
Agent Palmer
And I, I just there’s a part of me that like I like the authentic I get I come back to authenticity a lot. But it’s just because so many people are wearing masks most of the time, like they turn on the camera, they turn on the microphone. Hello and welcome. Like, yeah, on YouTube. Yeah, let’s go click subscribe.
01:04:04:15 – 01:04:09:22
Agent Palmer
And like, you know, give me a comment about what’s your favorite part of this. You know.
01:04:09:31 – 01:04:10:13
Jon Reddick
Like.
01:04:10:17 – 01:04:40:06
Agent Palmer
I, I’ve asked for some feedback some time, but generally speaking I’m talking to my audience specifically to them and to you. And I’m not treating them like a consumer. And I think that’s the other part where I think you get that as well. Philosophically, we’re talking to people instead of viewers, and there’s a very big difference between those two concepts.
01:04:40:11 – 01:04:45:57
Agent Palmer
And it scares me how much people think they’re the same.
01:04:46:02 – 01:05:01:59
Jon Reddick
Yeah. You know, and, you know, I told you I worked in broadcast for 15 years before I got out of it and eventually got here. But the other thing is something you just said you sparked, something I always remember is that when I’m creating content, I don’t create it for people. I create it for person.
01:05:02:04 – 01:05:02:38
Agent Palmer
Okay?
01:05:02:43 – 01:05:21:00
Jon Reddick
I’m always and I learned it from some amazing anchors right? So I had I was poker buddies with anchors that had been on the air for 40 years, still great friends and and know the gentleman’s name was Frank, wonderful human being. One thing he always told me, I said, how come you always say, you know, you don’t say hello?
01:05:21:00 – 01:05:41:43
Jon Reddick
Everybody like people do. He’s like, Because I’m not talking to everybody. I’m talking to you. The person who chose to click play, you’re the one I’m talking to. I’m grateful that there are hundreds or thousands of views, but I’m not talking to you collectively. I’m talking to the guy that put in his earbuds, searched for me, clicked play to go, what is this?
01:05:41:48 – 01:05:57:18
Jon Reddick
And so I think the same thing with video. I’m like, hey, thank you for being here. Not thank you all for being here. You know. Yeah. Because hey he said it’s presumptuous, you know. Yes, I know there are 40,000 people watching the news every night, but I don’t treat it that way. I treat it like you chose to watch me.
01:05:57:18 – 01:06:16:11
Jon Reddick
I’m talking to you personally. And so that’s an avenue that I’ve always remembered. And and I think it’s super important. I think it comes across as people say, man, you’re so personable, enthusiastic. Well, it’s just that I’m talking to one person. I picture one person that I think is interested, and I say, let me show you this thing.
01:06:16:16 – 01:06:20:02
Jon Reddick
And hopefully that’s several thousand people, if I’m lucky, you know?
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).