Pop the Bubbly! 🍾 Hide Your Chocolate! 🍫 Episode 100 is here!

Can you believe this?

100 Episodes ... 95 amazing stories!

So what does the future hold for this show? What can you expect going forward? How can we reach even more people?

I discuss all of that in this episode!

Welcome to Ordinary People, Extraordinary Things.

I'm your host, Cliff DuVernois..

Guess what?

This is episode 100.

Breakout the bubbly.

Better hide your chocolate cuz I'm looking for some.

But we finally made it to this major milestone.

You know, I was thinking when I started this podcast back in early

2020, I never really dreamed that it would actually make it to this point.

But I have to admit, I owe this all to you.

To all the people who lend me your ears every single week, to all of you

that have stuck with me over these past few turbulent years, and I use

the word turbulent quite lightly.

So thank you.

I really thought about what could I do for episode 100.

Usually when you have these milestone episodes, know people

online, they'll always recommend that you should do something.

Like, you know, talking about the best of episodes, right?

Or the most downloaded episodes.

Maybe reflect on the past and things that you have learned.

The thing is, I've been there, I've done that.

So for this episode, I decided to do something different.

I'm gonna look forward.

I wanna share with you the direction that all this is going, because things

are actually happening quite quickly and I'm very happy about all of it.

So let's just do a quick recap to bring us all up to speed.

2022 and 2023, uh, have actually been very big for me.

A lot of the events that have happened during this time, of course, my two

favorite things is all the strategic connections that I have made, as well

as capturing these amazing stories from these Michiganders who are doing

some pretty extraordinary things.

Now the podcast has been growing.

I've seen the number of downloads growing this whole

time, which is absolutely great.

Also getting onto the radio.

That's been a huge boom to what it is that I'm doing.

Not only does it add to the credibility of my mission, but to the actual show itself.

And I really do feel in my heart of hearts, people are getting

what it is that I'm trying to do.

The people in my network, they believe, as I believe, which is

awesome, and doors are opening.

Let's talk a little bit about what's going.

So first off, obviously this show is going to continue.

It's gonna be released in podcast form as well as on the radio.

People in my network are constantly feeding me people that they know of around

the great state of Michigan that are doing some pretty extraordinary things.

And I'm grateful for that.

These stories are going to continue.

I won't be do, I won't be stopping that at all.

I wish there was a way that I could do maybe two episodes a

week or three episodes a week.

But right now, one a week is just fine.

So as I continue to capture all of these stories, I'm always

looking for ways to evangelize 'em.

Part of my mission is to, it's obviously to capture these stories,

but to get them into the ear of every Michigander that is out there.

And if people don't like inspiring stories, then they don't have to listen.

So this leads me to the, the next big thing, so to speak, that the future hold.

And that is speaking engagements.

This has been something that has been rattling around in the back

of my mind for quite a while.

I remember when I saw my first TEDx back in the day, I thought TEDx was just

reserved for, you know, maybe celebrities or politicians that were out there.

But come to find out just about anybody can present on a TEDx stage as

long as you have a compelling topic.

So here I am envisioning myself on stage.

What am I speaking about?

I have no clue.

And that became the big question.

So as I think about being on stage and presenting and

thinking about what can I do?

It was last, I wanna say it was last October frame

timeframe, maybe even September.

I was having dinner with Tim and Brad.

They are from the Upper Peninsula Paranormal Research Society.

Right?

If you go back and listen to my Halloween episodes.

You will see them on there.

But as we were having dinner, Brad actually said to me, you need to present.

So I didn't think I had much to present.

But what hit me is that I had this collection of super powerful stories.

Each one of these interviews, usually afterwards, is I sit down and I

write the lessons that I learned from that particular episode.

And of course I've got all these things saved.

I keep 'em inside of Evernote.

I really don't share 'em because I want people to draw their own conclusions.

Yeah, it was a nice story.

But afterwards, just taking some, a few minutes, just say, okay,

so what was the lesson learned?

What was the point of this?

You know, what did I get from this?

How can I apply this to my life?

That's something I do on a regular basis, whether I'm reading a book

or listening to a podcast episode or watching a YouTube video.

Would people be interested in hearing these stories?

Yeah.

Well, what about my thoughts behind them?

I think so.

And as I said before, people don't want to hear inspirational stories.

If they don't wanna learn, fine, they don't have to listen.

Now, the great thing about this is that while I'm thinking about these speaking

engagements, I had a few people reach out about doing speaking engagements

to share these amazing stories and the lessons learned behind them.

How can we apply them in our life?

Another thing that has popped up along the way is that I'm a big believer

in meeting people face to face, not only to do interviews, but actually

have a chance to talk to people that are out there in person to evangelize

the show, these amazing stories.

And typically when I tell somebody about the show, the first thing they

do is they pull out their phone and they say, what's the name of it?

Because they're always looking for good podcasts to listen.

So as I'm recording this episode, I'm actually in negotiation to make my first

speaking engagement, which is really cool.

And from this of course, I have to look at my library of stories and pick

out the ones that I think would really resonate strongly with the audience.

Because here's the deal, I just don't want to create a presentation.

I want to create the presentation.

I want something that really pops.

That is really awesome.

Something that will blow the audience's socks off.

If they're going to give me a half an hour or 45 minutes or an hour of

their time, I wanna make sure that they walk away with more than they

thought was absolutely possible.

Something that would inspire these people to live their best life, so do something

extraordinary for themselves, or in their family, or in their community,

whatever they feel called to do.

So I'm actually very excited to see where this is gonna take me.

If you are an email subscriber, of course you're in the loop on how this

all unfolds, but there's another part of this too that I want to share.

Something else the future is going to bring, and that is video.

Now, believe it or not, I'm actually a big believer in video.

They say that a photo is worth a thousand words.

Well then a video must be worth 11 billion words.

Now I do audio.

I do podcast because quite frankly, it's actually very easily.

I put a couple microphones on the table, I hit the record

button, and then magic happens.

Video on the other hand is actually quite hard.

It's hard because you have to worry about lighting, right?

You gotta set up lights and not everybody wants to be on camera.

Typically when I send down an interview request, I have to actually stipulate

in there that this is audio only.

Cause a lot of people are like, oh no, I can't be on camera.

I don't know why.

We're in the age of selfies and photos and everybody posting everything online.

So you think people would be over this by now, but they're not.

So, and then as you're doing all this stuff and you got the lighting, you got

the cameras and everything else, typically you have to have a crew, at least one

other person there with you to help out.

Cuz it's almost too much for one person to do.

Well, then we add to that, that you have to actually edit the footage.

Sweet Moses.

That is a beast when you're talking about 30 minutes of footage that you

have to bring into your computer and edit it so that it kind of looks nice.

Well, yeah.

When I got into video years ago, The rule of thumb that a video

editor told me was that for every one minute of finished video, it

requires eight hours worth of work.

So from my standpoint, since I'm flying low solo, could you imagine what a

30 minute interview would be, right?

And all the work that would have to go into that?

About a month ago, I was up in the northern part of Michigan.

I had my good friend Charles with me, and he said, you need

to think about adding video.

And he just said this out of the blue.

Now, normally when somebody makes a suggestion like this, I would just

immediately dismiss it and rattle off all the reasons why I'm not going to do video.

However, , I value Charles's opinion.

So I was like, you know what, I'm gonna marinate on that.

And it just so happened that I had a spot open in my interview.

Somebody had to cancel because they were sick.

And he and I were now headed off to Caberfae Peaks.

And I was like, you know what?

If we're gonna grab video footage, now would be the time to do that.

Let's see what happens.

. Well, I gotta tell you, shooting the video was fun.

He and I shot a ton, ton, ton of video that day.

Not only of the interview, but people that were skiing and all this other stuff.

And it was great.

Well, one of the things, of course, we show up at Caber Peaks.

We walk into, uh, the owner's office.

His name is Pete.

And he actually was taken a little bit of back because I never mentioned

anything about shooting video.

But you know what?

We got the camera set up.

We started doing the interview.

I told him, I said, just, you know, focus on me and the questions that I'm asking.

And you know what?

He felt right into the rhythm of the interview.

If he was nervous, I'll be about being on camera.

He did an excellent job of hiding it because he sounds

spot on when he is talking.

So I get home.

I got all this great footage, put it onto my iMac to start editing it,

and of course my iMac almost chokes.

Why I'm glad you asked.

My iMac is like seven, eight years old.

So now I have to think about upgrading my Mac.

So now it's like I have to think about upgrading my Mac.

I have to buy, uh, cameras cuz we shot most of this interview on our phones.

But now we gotta think about buying camera and, and you got all of

these expenses associated with that.

Now there are services out there that actually make video pretty easy.

But that would mean I would have to do the interviews remotely, which

I am not interested in at all.

. And on top of that, it would require that all of my guests would have to be

somewhat technically savvy, which history has proven that all of them aren't.

So doing the interviews face-to-face, sitting down is not only the, the easiest,

but the best way for me to do that.

Now, like I said before, personally I love doing interviews face-to-face.

When you're in the same room as the person being in their place of business or their,

their nonprofits or whatever it might be.

But there's just something magical that happens face-to-face

that does not happen online.

So as far as video goes, those are the challenges.

But there's been a couple things that have come to light recently

that made me think that vi that video might be a viable option.

So I've done some tests.

I posted some very small videos online.

Maybe I can't do the entire interview right now, but first

off, at least I have the footage.

So there's always, in the future if I upgrade my equipment, I have the video to

work with there, but I've been focusing on making small little one minute trailer.

For the video episodes that are coming out.

And so far, the response online has actually been pretty positive.

I will take a small segment of the interview, put it out there, and I

just lay some video footage on top of it and I say, okay, if you wanna

listen to the whole trailer or the whole interview, excuse me, go here.

So I'm trying to dedicate a little bit of time every single week to this video

project just to see what I can do.

But only, only a small amount of time.

There's a lot of moving parts that are happening, right?

But if I can get this video thing figured out, it's going to allow

me to reach a whole new audience.

Now, I know people out there, they love podcasts.

But it's a whole other thing when you can add video to the mix.

I know that YouTube has made a huge investment in luring

podcasters onto their platform.

Now, believe it or not, I actually have a YouTube channel for this show.

You would never know it because I never promoted.

I think there's like maybe three or four episodes on there.

But it's just the audio.

There's like a static image that's on there, but you can actually put on,

pull up YouTube and bring it on there.

And I really didn't think anybody was paying attention to it and

I just gave up cuz it was just one more thing to do at the time.

I really wanted to streamline my process.

Well you could imagine when I went onto my YouTube channel, the other day,

people were commenting on those videos.

Now, if you're any kind of a social media person, every time somebody comments on

your post, you always want to respond.

You always want to engage in conversation.

And here I have people leaving comments on my videos and I'm not responding.

Now, these comments were not something like, oh, this was a great interview.

These were like little stories, somebody shared a little story about

how, this person came and talked to them, uh, when they were on their

high school basketball team and the advice that they gave the basketball

team he still used in his life today.

I mean, it was like a full on blown story and I'm like thinking to myself,

Why in the world did I miss this?

Or how did I miss this?

Right?

Some, some lady shared a story about how her, her and her grandfather, some of

her favorite memories of him was when he would take her over to Frankenmuth.

And she left this beautiful story and I'm like, why didn't

I see this and respond to it?

So, you know what?

People will listen to these episodes on YouTube, so I just gotta focus on

getting them out there and making video.

Of course.

Now, if I'm doing video, this means, this now leans out to TikTok and to Instagram

to get it out to even more people, right?

Because my mission get this into as many ears as possible.

Now to help me get much better with video, cuz one thing I

need to do is I need to get more comfortable with dealing with video.

Being quick about video is I'm actually launching a personal podcast.

It's called Coffee with Cliff.

This show is gonna be focusing on three things.

It's gonna be focusing on the behind the scenes for this particular show,

cuz I really would like to share it.

Something personal that I'm dealing with, and also the lessons that I'm

learning, if you want to call it, uh, self-improvement or self-development,

you can most certainly do this.

But it's literally me talking to a camera.

That's really what it's gonna be about.

Now, I could rattle off all the logical reasons for this,

but here's the real deal.

I feel it's important that I document the journey that I'm on, the journey that

this show is on the journey that I am on.

I tell my clients all the time, you need to document the journey.

And I admit that I've been doing a horrible job of that.

I do publish stories on Facebook and everything else like that.

But in a long form content like a podcast or whatever it is, I can

really start to get down into some of the grit nitty gritty details.

I mean, I can, I can say more in 10 minutes than I can write in 10 minutes.

That much is Sure.

And I wanna make sure that I am documenting this as we go.

Cuz I think about like, the history of this podcast, all the challenges that

I've had, all the times where I've taken a big risk, in, in the fact that,

there's been twice now that I put this podcast down and walked away from it.

About putting together my notes for the new podcast and thinking about some of

the major events that have happened, some of the minor events that have happened.

I really do wanna share those stories.

I really do.

And when I think about the fact that one day for this show here, Ordinary

People, Extraordinary Things that there's gonna be an episode 200 to

be able to go back and listen to this episode, that would be really cool.

And it's gonna be awesome to see where the show actually is at

episode 200 versus where it is today.

I've got a designated spot for a studio.

It is currently under construction.

The topics are actually coming very easily as far as sharing stories go,

and I'm looking forward to sharing a lot more of the yummy behind the

scenes stuff, the BTS stuff with you.

So if you absolutely cannot wait and you need to be a part of this, you can always

roll on over to coffee with cliff.com.

That's also the name of the podcast.

Take a look at the website.

Now, as I say this, just remember that it is still under construction.

But this is where we're starting.

Again, it's about the journey.

Those are the three big things that are gonna be coming into the future here.

We've got speaking engagements the use of video to share the

story out with more people.

And of course, the launch of my personal podcast.

Everything is geared towards that main goal, which is to get these inspiring

stories into the ears of all Michigander.

So when I'm thinking about what the future's gonna bring, I

weigh it against my mission.

And if it's not a straight line, I am not going to do it.

That's my future forecasting dear listener.

And once again, I have to thank you for being along with me

as I have been on this trip.

I appreciate every single download.

I appreciate every email that comes through.

I appreciate it when I get people telling me about how they are

actually, they themselves are going out and evangelizing the show.

That means an absolute uh, lot to me.

If you are interested in attending the speaking engagements, events, or anything

else you really do wanna make sure that you get on the newsletter, you can just

roll on over to total michigan.com/join.

Put your email in there so you can be up to date as to all the yummy things

that are happening and the speaking engagements that are happening.

I am just beyond excited that that's actually happening.

But yeah, make sure that you are on the email list.

And with that being said, I'm gonna draw this episode to a close.

Once again, I know I've said this two times.

What?

I'm gonna say it a third time.

Thank.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for everything that you have done to make this show a success.

And with that being said, I will catch you in the next episode.