In this episode, I’m joined by Doc G (Dr. Jordan Grumet), the author of The Purpose Code: How to unlock meaning, maximize happiness, and leave a lasting legacy, to tackle one of the biggest challenges podcasters face—not the technology, not the gear,

- but the mental game.

Whether it's "head trash," imposter syndrome, or the overwhelming pressure to succeed, Doc G shares practical strategies to help you push past mental barriers and create a podcast you truly love.

Doc G shares his journey from a successful medical career to finding purpose and fulfillment in podcasting and writing. Together, we explore how to shift your focus from Big P Podcasting (chasing massive downloads and unrealistic goals) to Little P Podcasting (finding joy in the process and creating meaningful content).

You’ll also hear about:

• The difference between "big P purpose" and "little P purpose"—and why it matters for your podcast.
• How to identify what lights you up and makes your podcast worth doing, even if no one listens.
• Why striving for massive success without joy often leads to burnout.
• Practical tips for overcoming purpose anxiety and building a podcasting routine you love.

More From Doc G

The Purpose Code: How to unlock meaning, maximize happiness, and leave a lasting legacy

The Purpose Code Video Trailer

Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor's Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life

Earn & Invest Show

Because of My Podcast: Zita Christan

Zita does two podcasts: My Spouse Has Dementia and Ritual Recipes. Today, she shares how she was featured in US News and World Report because of her podcast. Paul Wynn had found her podcast (and her transcripts) and interviewed her for his article titled, Easing Holiday Isolation. US News and World Report has approximately 41 million visitors to their site per month. She was also interviewed for another newspaper.

For all things Zita Christian see zitachristian.com

Takeaways:

• The mental barriers that podcasters face often overshadow technical challenges like equipment or hosting.
• Identifying and pursuing little 'p' purposes can lead to a more fulfilling podcasting journey.
• Creating a podcast driven by passion rather than big goals fosters genuine connections with listeners.
• Purpose anxiety can hinder progress, making it crucial to focus on what excites you.
• Engaging deeply with your podcast's content can attract a community that resonates with your message.
• Building a podcast around your interests creates joy and can lead to organic audience growth.

Mentioned In This Episode

The School of Podcasting - Plan, Launch, and Grow Your Podcast.

Doc on the School of Podcasting Interesting AND Unique Doc G Mixes Hospice and Finance

The Purpose Code: How to unlock meaning, maximize happiness, and leave a lasting legacy

https://jordangrumet.com/

My Spouse Has Dementia

Ritual Recipes

Leaning Towards Wisdom

Episode on Launching

School of Podcasting Podcast Launch Checklist

Mentioned in this episode:

Live Appearances

I love nothing more than meeting you at events. To see my schedule, see www.schoolofpdcasting.com/were to have me speak at your event (on and offline) see www.schoolofpodcasting.com/contact

Where Will I Be?

Question of the Month

For this month, we are looking at those things that make you go 'Ugh," or press fast forward, or maybe swipe and unfollow. What are you top pet peaves? Don't forget to tell us a little bit about your show (the elevator pitch) and where we can find your (your website so I can link to it in the show description). I need your answer by January 24th 2025.

Question of the Month

Today on episode number 965, we have a cool because of my podcast story and we're talking with Doc G, author of the book the Purpose how to Unlock Meaning, Maximize Happiness and Leave a Lasting Legacy.

Why?

Because what stops most podcasters isn't the technology, it's not the artwork, it's not picking a media host.

It's not.

It's the mental part of podcasting that is stopping most people.

And Doc is going to let us know how to get around that.

Hit it, ladies.

The School of Podcasting with Dave Jackson.

I am your award winning hall of fame podcast coach, Dave Jackson.

Thanking you so much for being here.

If you're new to the show, welcome aboard.

This is where I help you plan, launch, grow.

And if you want to monetize your podcast, my website is schoolofpodcasting.com use the coupon code LISTNR.

That's L I S T E N E R.

When you sign up for either a monthly or yearly subscription.

And if nothing else, this show teaches you how to spell the word listener.

And on today's show, now, normally the first episode of the year is kind of a 101 how to get going in podcasting.

And today I'm going to tackle the thing with my buddy Doc G.

We're going to talk about the thing that stops most podcasts.

And it's not the budget for a microphone, it's not the confusion on the media host.

I just did an episode on that that clears that up.

What stops more podcasters than anything is your brain.

Is your brain, it's your attitude.

And so what we're talking about today is based on Doc's new book, the Purpose Code.

How to unlock Meaning, Maximize happiness and Leave a Lasting legacy.

Now, as you listen to this, if you're one of the current people and you're listening to this on January 6th, it comes out tomorrow.

But it's a great book and I'm going to give you a little behind the scenes here.

When Doc approached me, because Doc's been on the show before, I'll have links to that episode out at school of podcasting.com 965.

And he said, yeah, it's called the Purpose Code.

And I was like, not really sure that's going to fit my audience.

And so if you're ever in this position, like I know Doc, and I said, look, here's the deal.

I'll be happy to interview you and if I feel it fits the audience, I'll definitely run it.

But if I kind of go, man, this is a little left of center from what we usually talk about, like, I'll be happy to give you the interview and you can run it on whatever you want, but it's not going to go to my audience.

And after the interview, I was like, oh, this is absolutely going to my audience.

So the author of the book the Purpose Code, available again at go to school podcasting.com 965, you'll have my Amazon affiliate link there.

The one and only.

He has two names.

Pick your favorite.

It's either Dr.

Jordan Gromit or Doc G.

Here we go.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, Joining me on SquadCast, I often have to really turn into almost a psychologist sometimes to get people to start a podcast.

Because as Randy Cantrell from Leaning Towards Wisdom out of Dallas, Texas, Fort Worth, the Yellow Studio, he talks.

He calls it head trash.

We all have head trash.

And.

And so today we are talking with Jordan Grummet.

He's got a great book out called the Purpose Code, and he's gonna kind of help us kind of take the head trash to the curb a little bit.

And the head trash, for me, the one that makes me go, wait, you did what?

So you're a super successful hospice doctor, which right there, hospice is not an easy gig.

And you are great at it.

You're living the dream.

You're a doctor, you're putting money in the bank, everything's great.

And then somehow you said, I know, I want to be a podcaster and talk about finances.

And that is not what most people would, I think would go, oh, I know what my next step is going to be.

So what inspired you to quit being a doctor?

But the short of it is I was a general doctor and I was burning out.

And I looked at my finances and at some point realized I probably had enough money and I could leave medicine, but I wasn't ready to because it was the only purpose and identity I had ever known.

So I got rid of all those things I didn't like.

And the one piece medicine that I loved was hospice medicine, taking care of the terminally ill.

And so I went and started doing that.

But I got rid of nights, got rid of weekends, got rid of everything I didn't like.

And what I was left with was a 10 to 15 hour a week job, which left a lot more hours to do whatever I wanted to.

And so I had to ask this basic question.

What is meaningful to me?

What does purpose look like?

How do I want to identify now that I'm not really considering myself much of a doctor anymore.

And I realized that I loved writing.

Eventually, that turned into a love of podcasting.

And what I really wanted to talk about was personal finance, because that's what freed me from this job that I didn't love.

And so I started podcasting about personal finance, and we would talk about money and business, and I talked to these authors and these really amazing people, and I'd say, okay, you've now told us how to make a lot of money.

How do you know when you have enough?

And what is this money for?

And I would get blank stares.

And strangely enough, what I found is that I could get the answers to these big questions from my hospice patients who are on the brink of dying.

And they would talk about things like regret, and they never talked about working more, and they never talked about making more money.

They talked about the things they wish they had done with their lives.

And so I wrote my first book, Taking Stock, all about what the dying can teach us about money and life.

And I went to talk to people about this, and they get mad at me because one of the main premises of the book is that we should be thinking about our purpose first and then build a financial life around it.

And people would come to me after these talks, and they'd be like you, telling me to find my purpose.

And I have no idea what purpose is.

I can't find it.

And I'm so frustrated and angry.

I don't think there is a purpose.

Please stop telling me to find it.

And of course, being the introspective guy I am, I went to the literature and tried to figure this out.

Well, you know, I know purpose is important.

Why is this, you know, giving people so much anxiety?

And I basically found two things that contradict each other that have a lot to do with podcasting.

We're going to get there, I promise.

The two things I found were, one, the studies show that having a sense of purpose actually leads to more happiness, health, and longevity, like, very clearly, tons of studies.

But I also found that 91% of people at some point in their life get what's called purpose anxiety.

This idea of finding their purpose scares them so much that they're anxious, depressed, and frustrated.

And what I realized after all my work with the dying and after writing books and running masterminds and doing coaching, I realized that we probably get purpose wrong.

And they're probably not one type, but two types.

And one is associated with anxiety, and the other is associated with happiness and why I'm here today.

Is to tell you that just like purpose, I think there's two types of podcasting.

And one is probably associated with all that purposeful feeling and the happiness and the health and the longevity, just like purposes.

And one is probably associated with anxiety.

And a lot of us think we have to go after the second one and it makes us miserable.

Wow.

Yeah, I totally get it.

Because especially, you know, if you think about purpose anxiety, I flashback to Animal House.

What do you want to do with your life?

Totally.

And when you're 22, you're like, I don't know.

Dad said I should be a technician.

I don't know.

And in podcasting, it's like, well, here.

Here's six different media hosts.

And then what's the name of your show?

Are you gonna use WordPress?

Are you gonna use PodPage?

Are you gonna.

Which microphone are you gonna use?

Are you gonna have a co.

There's a lot of choices to make and people are like, what are you gonna do with your podcast?

And they're like, I don't know.

So I know in the book, you talk a lot about big P's, you know, that's the, what are you gonna do?

And then you have small P's.

So what is the small P, the little purpose.

So let's talk about what big P purpose and little P purpose are.

And then I want to talk about what big P podcasting and little P podcasting are.

All right, so big P purpose is big, audacious purpose.

It's very goal oriented and usually it's huge.

Think about it.

In America, we think if you can build it, if it can be built, you can do it.

Right?

And so we're talking about becoming a billionaire, becoming president, being a major league baseball player, curing cancer, all these big audacious dreams.

And the problem with a lot of these is they're really difficult to achieve.

You gotta be the right person at the right time, saying the right thing.

You gotta have really great genetics and probably be lucky.

So what happens?

Most of us fail at this big P purpose, and it makes us anxious.

Compare that to what I think is the much healthier version of purpose, which is little P purpose.

This is process oriented and not goal oriented.

So the idea is, what can you do that you love the process of doing, regardless of the goal.

So as opposed to being all or nothing, it's kind of like all or all.

It's very abundant as opposed to being scarce, like big P purposes.

You know, only so many people can be billionaires.

Only one person can be President.

As we just saw from the presidential election, everyone else loses Little P purpose.

There's no losers.

So let's substitute the word podcast for purpose.

I think we have the same problem with podcasting.

We have Big P podcasting and Little P podcasting.

And Big P podcasting is very goal oriented and usually it's huge goals, right?

People come to this and they're like, I want a million downloads a month.

And you and I both know it's really hard to get a million downloads a month.

I want to make six figures or seven figures on my podcast.

Who does that?

Well, Joe Rogan does that, but not a huge number of people do it.

And so the problem is we get so caught up in Big P podcasting, we start doing things we don't like to do.

And this happened to me at the beginning of my podcasting journey.

I love podcasting.

I love being in front of the mic.

You know what?

I don't love being on social media.

I don't love marketing.

But at some point I started to see the downloads increase and I'm like, oh my God, I gotta get on TikTok and I gotta get on Instagram, I gotta be on Facebook and I gotta be on X and I gotta do em all at the same time and I, I gotta interact with everyone.

And guess what?

I was spending 90% of my podcasting time doing stuff I hated.

I literally hated it.

And I was doing that all to get to some download number that maybe I would get to and maybe I wouldn't.

If I didn't get there, then I'd just be frustrated most of the time and burn out.

And you and I, Dave, both know what's the average number of podcast episodes your average podcaster does before they quit?

Like five, ten, maybe seven.

Yeah, I think the last time I.

Heard, so burnout's a real issue, but let's say I even met that goal.

So let's say I wanted to get to a million downloads a month and I got there.

You think I would have been happy there?

No, I would have either been petrified that I'd lose all those downloads, or I would double down and be like, well, Now I need 2 million downloads a month.

And so the other side of that is, what if we look at our podcasts and just kind of think of, they're the things I love, these topics I love to talk about and I can get in the front of a mic.

Maybe I interview someone, maybe I don't.

But I spend an hour talking about something that lights me up.

And I love it.

Well, that's worth it.

Even if not a single person downloads your episode because you just spent an hour doing something that was really meaningful and important to you.

And I think that's where we get podcasting wrong.

We start looking at those big goals and.

And we don't dig into the joy of the doing.

Yeah.

And I know so many podcasters that are now big and actually doing it for a living started out as a hobby.

There was there.

There was not the weight of the big P on the back.

And they're just like, I'm just going to try this and see what happens.

And, you know, they.

All of a sudden, well, what do you know?

We're starting to get some, you know, some downloads here and this and that, and one thing leads to another, and off to the races they go.

And it is.

You make a great point.

Because, like, I edit my show, and people go, why do you edit your show?

And the answer is, because I like it.

Like, to me, that's part of the creative process.

Ooh, what if I add some music here, some mood music, and maybe I'll throw in a sound effect or whatever.

To me, it's painting with audio.

So I love editing.

I love editing my stuff.

I should say editing other people's stuff.

Maybe not as much, but I love editing my stuff.

And so you have to really enjoy the process, whatever it is.

And again, the parts you don't like, outsource or don't do them or whatever you're gonna do, but if you don't enjoy the art and just the workflow of making a podcast, you're gonna last seven episodes.

And you know what?

I love Dave, and you talk about this all the time.

The.

Because my podcast stories, almost none of them start with, I had this goal of a million downloads or I had this goal of making money.

What they mostly start with is doing this thing that lit me up.

And because I was lit up, other people were attracted to my energy.

They saw my joy.

If they knew more about it than me, they wanted to teach me.

If they knew less about it than me, they wanted to listen and learn.

And so I ended up part of this great collaboration because I was being my authentic, unique, happy self.

And that's where we get those.

Because my podcast stories, it's not because I worked 90 hours a week on my podcast, and it's certainly not because I learned everything I had to in order to reach some goal.

It's usually because I did this thing out of joy and someone noticed.

Well, how do you go about finding.

Your little p.

Well, see, this is the interesting thing.

You don't really find it.

You more build and create it.

And so I talk to people about this all the time.

But we do have to decide what to build and create around.

Those are the inklings, the beckonings, the things that are exciting to us.

But then we have to build that life of purpose.

And so I think, again, podcasting is a great example.

You could podcast about a million different things, but the question is, what really lights you up and gets you excited?

And a lot of us have an idea, right?

What was that thing we loved in childhood?

Or what is that piece of work?

Maybe we go to work 40 hours a week, and we don't love work, but there's that hour every week we spend doing something we love.

Those are those inklings or beckonings?

I call them purpose anchors, but we could also call them podcasting anchors.

It's these little whisperings that there's something there we love or we get excited about, and then it's about building and creating.

As you and I know, podcasts are hard work.

And that's part of the reason that people don't podcast more than a few episodes and quit.

Because you gotta do something that really fills you up and excites you.

If you don't enjoy the process, you're not gonna last.

And that's why we need to focus our podcast on something that we can speak about with passion and joy.

We have to wanna get on the microphone at 8pm After a busy day of work and still have that conversation.

And the reason why is it's something that's important to us.

Yeah.

And when we talk about just enjoying the process is that.

I know in the book you talk about the climb.

Is that basically the catchphrase for that?

Just loving the process, or did I get the climb wrong?

No, you've got it completely right.

So what I always tell people, again, is you don't find purpose, or podcasting for that matter.

You create them.

And so you need these anchors, these things that you're excited about.

But the process of building purposeful activities around that anchor is the climb.

And the thing is, we can have multiple climbs, just like you can have multiple podcasts.

And, Dave, I know you are the king of multiple podcasts, podcasts.

So you don't have to be monogamous when it comes to the climb.

You can have multiple climbs, you can do multiple things.

You can love podcasting, and you can love writing a blog, and you can love public Speaking.

And those can all be separate climbs in your life.

And sometimes you're going to love one more than the other, and so you're going to decrease the time you're doing one and increase the time in doing other.

And even when it comes to your podcast, if you really start getting sick of the process, then maybe it's time to stop, because you're not really showing up as your best self anymore.

And we all know podcasting always goes best when we show up as our unique, joyful, excited self.

Yeah.

When you have to shoehorn yourself into the.

The chair to record, you're like, that's.

That's not great.

Yeah.

And it shows.

We know it shows.

Yeah.

Well, all right, so we're talking about purpose.

What is the relationship or the difference between meaning and purpose?

So this is something people usually confuse.

And so what I always tell people is happiness is really an amalgam of meaning and purpose.

And people say, what do you mean?

That's the same thing.

Well, the truth of the matter is, meaning is usually about our thoughts, and it's about our past.

It's how we cognitively look at what we've been through.

It's the stories we tell ourselves about.

About ourselves.

And so happy people tend to tell themselves heroic stories.

Right?

So what they do is they say, I had this trauma when I was little.

I had difficult times, but because I was enough as a person, I was able to get through those times.

And I'm actually in a better place today because of it.

I feel enough, and I can look into the present and future and say, I'm going to probably be pretty successful as time goes on.

Whereas unhappy people tend to basically see themselves as victims, and they tell themselves a victim story.

I went through this trauma, and it held me back.

And that's why I am where I am today.

I'm not where I want to be because of this trauma, because of these problems.

And they tend to look at the present and future and say, I'm going to continue to be held back.

So meaning, again, is about our past and about our thoughts.

Purpose is about our present and future.

It's actually the actions we take, the things we do, like podcasting, that fill us up.

And so you kind of need both to be happy.

But a lot of people actually get caught in the meaning portion, and that's why we make these big, audacious goals.

Part of the reason why we like big, audacious purpose and big, audacious podcasting is we've got issues from our past, and we think we can prove our worthiness by accomplishing things in our present and future.

So we think if we just have that podcast that makes seven figures a year, we're going to finally feel good and enough inside.

And we know that's not true because we all know exceedingly successful people who've achieved amazing things and made lots of money but still aren't happy.

Steve Jobs was a perfect example.

That guy created some amazing stuff.

He made tons and tons of money.

But if you hear his life story, he didn't particularly seem happy.

He had a meaning problem.

He had to go back and figure out this whole being adopted thing.

And was he loved?

Was he wasn't loved?

Was he enough as a kid?

And I think when we bring that I'm not enough thing to podcasting, you find yourself in that hamster wheel of trying to do more and more to prove yourself is enough, or you're worthy enough, or it's good enough, and it ends up burning you out.

Well, and that's one of the examples you have in the book is a set of twins.

And I'll just let you share the story on that.

So this is a story.

Of course, I changed the names and some of the details because I wrote this into my book.

But generally the idea was his two twins, and I'm a hospice doctor, and the female twin, or the sister, was dying, and the brother was helping take care of her.

And I remember doing what we call a life review.

It's where we talk to people about their lives and we talk about the ups and downs and their best moments and their worst moments.

It's a way for them to come to terms with their death in their life.

And I was talking to this sister about her life, and as she was on her dying bed, she really spoke of it very heroically.

She was born in a poor area.

They didn't actually have enough money to go to the hospital.

The midwife had all sorts of problems.

Her mom actually died while delivering the twins.

But this woman felt like her mom had sacrificed the greatest thing she could to give birth to her.

So she had this sense of meaning, that there was heroism.

And because of that, she felt she was lucky to be alive.

And she carried that love of her mother with her throughout her life.

So, of course, they grew up in a poor area, but her dad was around and he loved her very much.

And, yeah, the school didn't have the best stuff, and they didn't always have the best books, but she found a way to be successful and lived a happy life.

Got married, had her own kids, and really was coming to the end of her life and feeling like things were pretty good and she was ready to die.

And then after she was resting, I went outside and I talked to the brother a little bit, and I said, oh, you know, I was just talking to your sister, and she was telling me about your lives.

And he kind of looked at me and said, yeah, man, it was so hard.

Like, my mom died because we couldn't afford care.

And then my dad was never around because he always had to make money, and I could never make things happen.

So I got, you know, mixed up in drugs.

And then I got put in jail when I was selling them.

And he told this whole different story, a victim story, where he never had agency to make things better.

And so he always felt lost and adrift.

He always felt like he was thwarted.

And interestingly enough, these twins had the same genetics.

They grew up in the same place, but they had very different visions of meaning in their life.

And because of that, their present and future felt and looked very different.

Like, the sister felt good about whatever little life she had left and felt optimistic.

Like, maybe I'm dying next week, but I have every day, and I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna have a plan for that day, and something's gonna happen.

Whereas the brother just felt like only bad things could happen in the future.

What about the person that.

That feels like they do.

But I know, like Jordan, but, like, I actually face limitations, and I really am having a hard time getting my getting to my little P here.

Like, they're just.

You know, if they are, I guess they do kind of have that.

That mentality.

How do you turn that around?

So I.

I think there is a few ways to think about this.

The first is to look at meaning better.

And there's something called narrative therapy.

It's a type of therapy where you actually go back and learn to tell yourself better stories about your past, to remove yourself from the trauma and say, bad things happen.

But I was actually a good person and learn to tell yourself a more heroic story.

So that's dealing with the meaning part.

When it comes to purpose, there are all these great ways to start looking for your purpose anchors so that you can build a life of purpose around them.

And people tell me things all the time, like, I don't have enough time.

Well, the, you know, U.S.

bureau of Labor Statistics does the time survey every few years and finds that average Americans have five hours of free time a day.

And in fact, the lower socioeconomic Class has an extra hour.

And so more wealthy people tend to be more busy.

So your average person has five to six hours of free time a day.

So it's really hard to say that time is an issue.

A lot of people say, I don't have enough money.

Especially young people say, look, you're talking about purpose, and that's great for you.

You're financially independent, you were a doctor, you made tons of money.

But the truth of the matter is young people have all sorts of tools in their toolkit that I don't have as a 51 year old.

So it's true they have less money, which is an important tool, but they have their energy, they have their youth, they have their communities, they have their skills.

So, you know, when you're 22, you might be working a really hard eight to six job five days a week, but because you're energetic, you have time on Saturday or Sunday to go out and do something purposeful.

Maybe that purposeful thing does actually make some money.

Maybe you start a podcast and that podcast gives you enough revenue to maybe pull back a little bit on that 8 to 6 that you don't like.

You've got tools, too.

They're just not the financial tools.

But financial tools are just one type of tool in your toolkit, and we can use some of those others.

So I think there's always reasons.

We can look and say this is insurmountable or impossible, but I would submit to you that we all have a limited time on this earth.

We don't know how much exactly that is.

And time passes no matter what you do.

You can't buy it, you can't sell it, you can't trade it.

Basically, time passes.

So the only thing you have control over is what activities are you doing as time passes.

We have these time slots, days, weeks, months or years.

So the goal for everybody is to fill up as many of those time slots with things you love, things that feel purposeful and get rid of as much as you loathe.

And from the time we're young to the time we die, we should be looking at our calendars and continuously trying to sub out things we loathe for things we love.

And so if you're coming up with every reason why you can't do that, unfortunately, you're the one who's going to lose in the end.

Because time is finite.

And yeah, I actually did an episode a couple weeks ago about sometimes you move forward by subtracting things.

And so when you subtract those things that you don't like you're actually adding things to your life totally.

And that then gives you time to work on those things that are important to you.

I know you talk about also legacy in the book a little bit on how people are again, it's a big word.

I'm working on my legacy.

Egassy.

Right.

That kind of thing.

How does the little p.

Purpose contribute to a lasting legacy, then?

Well, here's the thing.

When you do things that light you up on the inside, it attracts other people like a moth to the flame.

They're attracted to you, and again, they want to work with you.

They want to collaborate with you.

And what happens is, through you being your authentic self, you create connections and community, and that's where you actually have your biggest impact.

And legacy, that's where you affect the most people.

Look, I was being a doctor, and everyone says, well, that's great impact and legacy, but I was feeling thwarted and unhappy and not connected.

And I was feeling like I was spending most of my time maybe helping individuals occasionally, but otherwise shuffling paperwork.

So what happened?

I developed an interest in personal finance.

I started doing something that did light me up, which was public speaking, writing, and podcasting.

And all of a sudden, I created my own community of podcast listeners, which can range for any episode from 5 to 10,000.

People can listen to that episode.

But I created a community with the people I had on my show, with my fans, with other podcasters that I looked up to who mentored me.

And in.

Within this community, I've met countless people who said, I listened to your show, and you really changed the way I thought.

It changed my family's financial trajectory.

And now we have enough money that I can send my son to private school, because the public school is so bad.

And he's thriving, and we're thriving, and now maybe his career trajectory will be better.

His career trajectory will be better.

And just imagine, because I'm out there doing something that lights me up, and I'm building a community, someone's kid might be more successful.

They might go out into the world and do something amazing.

They may create a business that employs 100 people.

They may create a widget that makes people's lives better or saves lives in Africa, for all we know.

And that's because I did something that lit me up.

And so I think when we do these things that are deeply important to us, we affect people locally, but it has a global effect.

I'm sure you've heard of the butterfly effect, this idea that what we don't do matters sometimes in ways that we don't even know.

And so when you go out there and you're authentic, you create things and it changes the world.

And that's been my experience.

And in fact, I probably affect more people as a podcaster than I did as a physician because I only had so many hours in the day, right?

I could only see so many patients each day.

But when I get behind the microphone, that episode can go to tons and tons of people.

Or when I come guest on your show, it's a whole new group of people that I get to affect.

Tens of people are listening right now.

Tens of people.

No, it's true.

I've been at podcast events, and we got.

On the subject of people that have said, I would have taken my life, except I heard your podcast and there were like five people that are like, you had one of those too.

And we're in the basement next to the water heater talking about microphones and bandwidth or whatever your topic is, and you find out later that you've had this huge ripple effect and you had no idea.

You're just sitting here tapping on the mic.

Is anybody listening to this?

Is this thing on?

It's cause it's authentic, and people hear it in your voice.

And this is the reason why sometimes when we get caught up in those big, audacious goals, it stops being authentic.

Because all of a sudden, it's like, Jordan is talking about this not because he actually loves it.

He's talking about it because he thinks he's gonna get more listeners this way or he's gonna make his advertisers happy this way.

And once you get to that point, people hear it in your voice, and that's where you start not just losing your listenership, you're actually losing your community.

But when you come to it with that kind of intentional.

Intentionality of talking about things that light you up, you just.

Yeah, you're there and they hear it in your voice, and it affects them.

You stop being a doctor, you start doing the podcasting thing.

Did you ever have any kind of regret?

Is there a lot of head trash with that?

So here's the thing.

Except for the hospice work.

The one thing I wanted to keep.

It created all sorts of space for me to really start exploring other things.

Here's the deal, though.

Like, I would go to parties and I'd be afraid to tell people what I did for a living, because that identity and purpose it was.

I was wearing it on the outside, just like my doctor's jacket, but it didn't fit my inside.

And so that disconnect felt horrible.

Now I can't tell you how exciting it is when I go to a party and I tell people I'm a podcaster and an author, because it fits me.

It actually suits me, and so the regret really isn't there.

I've been lucky, though, because I could keep that little piece of medicine that still was really purposeful for me.

I could keep a little bit of hospice work, so I didn't have to let go of that identity altogether.

And I can still say, I do this thing, and it's important.

It helps people.

And you know what's even more cool?

Through podcasting, I've met all these people, and occasionally one of my friends that I met through podcasting will call me and they'll say, hey, Jordan, my dad's dying, and I don't know what to do.

And I can say, okay, let's talk about this, because I have all this training and all this knowledge, and it was not for nothing that I went through medical school and did all this.

I can still help people.

In fact, my worlds have collided with my first book, Taking Stock, where I talked about what the dying can teach us about money and life.

But also, in my everyday interactions, I can continue to help people.

It just feels a little more expansive.

You had financial independence as you were a doctor, so you had that before.

You cut back on being a doctor, but you cut back on being a doctor because you weren't happy.

So wait a minute.

You are financially independent.

Why weren't you happy as a clam?

Because money doesn't make us happy.

And we can go through those studies if you want to talk about it.

But just having enough money to leave medicine didn't mean I had something to replace it with.

I had.

The only sense of purpose and identity I had ever had was that of being a doctor so I could step away from being a doctor.

But what did that mean?

Who was I?

What was my reason for waking up every morning?

And it can be playing video games and going to the beach for a while, but we all know that it's really hard to live like that was, you know, I was 45 or so at the time, like we all know from 45 until hopefully 90, you don't want to go to the beach every day.

You don't want to play golf every day.

At some point, you realize that there's good work and bad work.

And the bad work is the work we do just for money that we don't love.

But the rest of our lives, we kind of want to do good work, whether someone's paying us for it or not.

We want to kind of be engaged and involved in something we're passionate about.

And so I had to develop a sense of purpose and identity aside from medicine that filled me up.

I had to decide what my little p purpose was going to be.

All right, well, Doc, thank you so much for coming on.

I appreciate it.

You can find him at Jordan Grummet.

That's G R u m e t.com youm can check out his podcast Earn and Invest.

So if you'd like to be financially stable and above where you want to be, that's a great podcast to check out as well.

And of course, he chimes in on stacking.

Benjamin's awesome, man.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me.

The school of podcasting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, I love that conversation.

And I loved when he said, you know, people that have those because of my podcast stories, and we got one coming up.

They don't start out thinking, I'm going to make a gazillion dollars on this.

I'm going to get a gazillion downloads.

They do it because they love to talk about their subject.

And that's something I preach all the time.

I say, you got to bring that passion.

You got to be willing to talk about it to nobody for no money for years.

Why?

Because you love to talk about it.

Why am I still doing this show?

I'm going to do 20 years this year I will have in podcasting.

Why?

Because I said it 20 years ago.

I think podcasting is going to change the world.

And the longer I do it, the more I see it.

But speaking of that, because of my podcast story, welcome to because of My Podcast, where we spotlight the results people are achieving because of of their podcast.

Hi, Dave.

It's Sita Christian, host and producer, chief cook and bottle washer of the podcast.

My spouse has dementia.

It's been three years since I launched that podcast and I now have a Because of my podcast story to share.

He had Alzheimer's.

Six months after my husband's death, I published an episode about my first holiday season alone.

I have a podpage website and last month, Paul Wynn, a contributor to US News and World Report, read the transcript for the holiday season episode.

He contacted me.

He was working on an article about seniors, loneliness and the holidays and could he ask me a few questions?

Well, I couldn't say yes fast enough.

We talked on the phone for it was well over an hour and the article was published the following week.

I have three takeaways to share.

Include a transcript for each episode.

I have transcripts for only a few episodes, but I'm going to go back and fix that for the others.

Number two.

It took three years for my podcast to garner attention.

This past summer, an associate editor for the Atlantic contacted me.

She was working on an article about rituals and had read a blog post connected to my ritual recipes podcast.

We talked for almost two hours.

In the end, my information landed on the cutting room floor.

But that's okay.

The experience told me that my blog posts and transcripts are being found.

And yes, it took three years.

And that brings me to my third takeaway.

And that is Destiny is a Wide Road.

Dave, I think about all the times you sat with me on Zoom one night for three hours, talking me through how to set up equipment like my bargain boom arm that didn't come with the right hardware.

And how to set up my podpage websites.

How to undo the mess I had made by publishing an episode of Ritual Recipes on mylipson account for my spouse has dementia.

I've learned a lot from you.

I've gained a lot of confidence.

So much so that I gave my daughter a sure MV7 for Christmas.

And believe it or not, I told her that I could help her start a podcast.

Because, hey, destiny is a wide road.

Thank you, Zita.

Zita's like my hero.

I love Zita.

She is fearless.

And to have a senior citizen, that's like, look, it's gonna take a little longer for me to catch on.

Maybe, maybe.

But I'm gonna get this.

And since we had doc on let's talk about mindset, I had somebody that was doing a coaching call and because I know, as Zita mentioned, I do one on one consulting.

And if I got three hours to give you, and you need three hours, I'll give you three hours.

Why?

Because I love helping podcasters.

It really doesn't get any simpler than that.

Why?

I love helping podcasters.

Really, I love helping people.

And so I had somebody hire me through my scheduling link@schoolofpodcasting.com schedule.

And I always tell those people, you do know you can get consulting for free with the membership.

But anyway, this person was telling me why they couldn't do a podcast.

And I kind of want to push back on this thing.

And that is.

Well, Dave, you don't get it.

Me and technology do not get along.

And I get that it's frightening, it's new, it's different, and it's confusing.

I get that.

When I married my second wife, their kids came to me and said, well, you know, I said, do you guys need any help with your homework or anything like that?

And they said, well, we kind of do, but it really doesn't matter because we didn't get the math gene.

Like, ask Mom.

None of us can do math.

And I was like, well, it's just a puzzle.

That's really all math is.

And some of us see the puzzle quicker and some of us see them later.

And one of the degrees I have, I have an associate's degree in electronic engineering.

And that's a lot of math.

And I love math.

I'm a very logical kind of person.

And I was like, I don't know.

To quote my old grandma, that's poppycock to say I didn't get the math gene.

And so I just explained it to them, and what do you know?

Their math skills improved, but they had been told, I can't do that.

And I just wanted to say something like, I've said this before.

If you're in the car, your jam comes on the radio, assuming maybe you're listening to the radio.

I.

Probably not your podcast.

I don't know, whatever.

You turn up the volume to listen to some music, and the phone rings.

So what do you do?

You turn down the radio or whatever you're listening to in your car so you can hear the phone.

Right?

Okay, well, you know how to mix audio.

Have you ever attached a photo to an email?

Well, then you can upload an MP3 file to a media host.

It's.

I'm not saying there's no learning curve.

I'm just saying it's not as scary as you think it is.

It really isn't.

And so I explained this to this person, and she's like, oh, thank you.

I really.

It's really not that hard.

I'm like, no, and I'm not making this up.

I have people that I will walk through to be like, can you help me submit this thing to Apple?

Because I kind of don't get this part.

Sure.

Let's get on a zoom call.

I walk them through, we submit it to Apple, and while we're there, we submit it to Spotify and any other place.

And they're like, great, now what do I do?

And I go, make another episode.

And they're like, okay, I wrote that down.

Make another episode.

Then what do I do after that?

I go, well, promote it and then make another episode.

I go, that's it.

I go, your podcast is up.

I go, really, what you want to do now?

You have an episode up, you want to launch.

And that just means telling everyone you know to follow the show on whatever day you pick.

Because being an Apple does not make you famous.

It makes you easier to be found, but it doesn't make you famous.

And so you want to tell everybody, hey, on whatever, let's say the 17th, not the 16th, not the 19th, I want you to go here and follow the show.

And that here, by the way, would be your website, czd Christian why you need a website and have transcripts on those, but do that, and that's your launch.

And then from there, promote and make another episode.

It's.

And this sometimes freaks people out.

Launching the podcast is the easy part.

Getting people to listen, that's the tough part, because you have to figure out who your audience is, crystal clear, what do they want?

And then you have to figure out, why am I doing this?

Whether that's to be seen as a thought leader to bringing customers to my.

My entrepreneurship, whatever I'm doing, my products or services.

Maybe I just want to get the word out about something, and I can't get any headway with the mainstream media.

Whatever you're doing, you need to know your why, you need to know your who.

And then the hard part is the what.

What can I talk about that's going to entertain or educate the who while moving them towards my why.

That's really the hard part.

And then the fact that as we talked about today and you just heard, it takes years to build an audience.

You know, your mileage may vary, but for the most of us, if we're starting from zero, it takes a while for that ball to get rolling.

And then once it gets rolling, it's like steam train.

It just kind of rolls on its own.

But I'm not buying the I and technology.

We are not friends.

I can't do it.

No, you can.

You can.

And if you've got that passion and you would just love to talk about this subject, because you just love this subject.

That is the engine that fuels your actions.

And when Your fear of failure or your fear of looking silly.

And really, what's the fear?

We have a running gag at the school of podcasting.

Nobody's gonna punch you in the face.

They're just not.

Because the great way, the greatest thing about podcasting, it's a great way to meet thousands of people without actually meeting thousands of people.

So if you're an introvert, you're good to go.

But when your fear of looking silly is less than your need to serve and to talk about this subject, because you just love this subject, then you'll actually press record.

But I'm just here to say, if you're, like, going, I would do a podcast, but me and technology, really?

Did you tie your shoes today?

Because there was a point when you didn't.

Did you drive to get groceries the last time you went?

Because there was a time when you didn't know how to drive.

You know, there was a time when you looked at your smartphone and went, but you pretty much got it down.

Now, there are things that are hard until they're not.

Doc talked about legacy today, and Zita talked about destiny.

These are things that you can somewhat help forge forward.

Look, I have no kids.

I have great nieces and nephews and two nieces and things like that.

And so, you know, not that my.

My name will live on in infamy.

No, I have no.

I know.

Come 20, let's see what's 40 years from now.

Oh, never do math on a podcast live.

I have no.

Like, I don't have delusions of grandeur, but if I can help people while I'm on the planet, that's what I want to do.

And I use podcasting to do that.

People ask me sometimes, they're like, Dave, you're only charging a hundred bucks a month, and you're offering one on one consulting.

And I go, yeah.

And they go, I just looked at a guy and his package is $7,000.

And I go, yeah, I love to help podcasters.

Then I realized that my price, while it is more than some, is less than a lot of people.

And that unfortunately hurts my sales.

People will go, well, it can't be be that good.

He's only charging a hundred bucks, which is kind of weird, but nonetheless, that's my why I love to help people.

And I need to get out of debt, otherwise I'd be doing this stuff for free.

Speaking of things I love to do, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And if you are looking to launch your podcast, I do have an episode.

You can find that@schoolofpodcasting.com 75, 6.

It's called 14 Steps to Start a Successful Podcast.

And also I have a checklist.

If you're like, wait, I'm not sure what to do first, go over to schoolofpodcasting.com checklist and you can sign up.

That's free and get access to that.

Everything I talked about today you can find at schoolofpodcasting.com/nine, six, five.

And while you're on the website, just click on the Join now button in the upper right hand corner.

And don't forget to use the coupon code listener when you sign up for either a monthly or yearly subscription.

And if you're a little worried about that, that comes with a not 7, not 14, a 30 day money back guarantee.

I'm Dave Jackson.

I help podcasters.

It's what I do.

And I can't wait to see what we're going to do together.

And until next week, take care.

God bless.

Class is dismissed.

And so we're going to be talking with Jordan Grummet today and he's got a great book which I forgot to write down.

How funny is that?

The purpose code.

But I don't know your tagline.

What do you wanna do with your life?

If you like what you hear, then go tell someone.