Monthly Auditor Exclusive: Glenn sits down for a chat with Scott Johnson, host of "What Was That Like?" I know many of you listen to his show and for those that don't Scott is an amazing person with a very popular show. No horse talk in this one though.

Time Stamps:

00:05 - Introduction to the Monthly Auditor

06:11 - The Art of Interviewing

11:19 - The Impact of Storytelling

19:44 - Community Engagement and Moderation in Online Spaces

22:27 - The Impact of Controversial Stories

Three, two, one.

Well, hi, everybody.

Thanks for joining us here.

This is the monthly auditor.

I don't know, I call it exclusive because you guys are the only ones that get to see this.

And Scott here, who I'll introduce in just a second, is going to help me do that.

He's going to be the first guinea pig.

You know, I love to talk about horses.

Obviously, I've talked about horses for about 5,000 episodes now, but I like to talk about other things, too.

And I know that you guys like to hear about that because many of you started listening to Scott's show because you heard him on our show.

I don't know, remember a couple years ago, maybe you were on Horses in the Morning.

Yeah.

At least something like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

So I want to do these once a month exclusives.

We'll do them on video, and then I'll also put it out on audio on your feed, on the auditor feed you guys will like, too.

So Scott Johnson, I met him probably, I don't know, 10 years ago at one of the Podfests, something like that.

Yeah, yeah.

One of the.

That would have been one of the really early Podfest conferences, I think.

Yeah.

You were one of the first people I met in Florida that was a podcaster, because I thought I was the only one for a long time.

I probably was the only one for a long time.

I think you, you certainly have the record for the most episodes in Florida, if not worldwide.

But we met early on.

You weren't doing the show you're doing now, though, Right, Right.

Yeah, I started with a different one because I had a computer business.

Still technically have a computer business, but it's kind of taken a backseat to podcasting now.

But, yeah, I had a computer business and did a computer tech tips and tricks podcast for non techie people.

Did about 400 episodes of that until it just became, you know, I needed to free up some time for my current show.

And your current show is called what was that Like?

And I know everybody's going, yes, I listen to that show all the time.

Well, here's Scott.

This is the.

There's the guy right there.

I'm the guy.

Yeah, that's what he looks like.

He didn't have the beard before.

Kind of looking like me now at this point.

Yep.

So, Scott, why.

I know we talked when you started this show, you know, how.

How long ago now it was.

Her show and the Meditation network.

Yeah, the Meditation Network.

The very first meditation show.

And she has way past me.

Yeah.

All of us downloads.

Yeah.

She's leaving us all in the dust.

Yeah.

We're just peons now.

To Katie, who of course has been on our show before too, because she's such a good friend and I'll have her back.

I just love Katie.

So congratulations first of all on the success of your show.

It's doing very well.

Thank you.

Yeah.

It's what's enabled me to be a full time podcaster now, so that's exciting for me.

So Scott talks to people.

If you haven't heard of Scott's show, what was that like?

He talks.

Well, your elevator pitch is perfect.

Give your one line elevator pitch because you have had this down from day one.

Yeah, yeah.

Because.

Yeah, it's necessary.

I, I bring people on.

Every episode is a conversation with someone who's been through something extremely unusual, like a plane crash or a mass shooting or a grizzly bear attack or.

Or maybe they went on the prices.

Right.

And won the showcase.

Those are all past episodes.

So the guest just comes on and.

And tells the story in detail of what happened.

I want you to add cringy to that.

Some of them are cringy, for sure.

I don't know through some of these.

Yeah, it is interesting, but see, I've done.

I do.

I do so much research ahead of time.

Any question that I ask, I almost always already know the answer to.

And so it's not like I'm hearing it for the first time.

Do they catch you off guard?

Occasionally?

Occasionally they do, yeah.

What do you do with that?

Do you follow the.

Do you follow the Golden Nugget or do you move on at that point?

Oh, no, no, no.

I.

If they have something that is an interesting question or that I didn't expect, we'll go down that rabbit hole.

Sure.

Yeah.

They can edit it out if it turns out to be especially cringy.

That's the way I look at it.

Yeah.

So was there, Was there an interview of all.

Let me give you some of the recent titles for people.

Robbie's daughter was a student at Sandy Hook, which I haven't listened to yet, which I went to.

Ray lost over 300 pounds.

Chris survived a home invasion.

A mason's mom married a murderer.

That was an interesting episode, by the way.

Justine feared her brother.

Was there one of these that you went.

You were sitting there doing the interview and went, God, I never thought I'd be having this conversation in my entire life with anybody, I think that often.

Yes, but it's, it's such a.

It sounds, when you phrase it that way, like, I never thought I'd be having this conversation.

It sounds kind of like a negative.

But to me, that is just what I thrive on.

I love, it's kind of weird.

I love having really deep conversations with strangers.

And I mean.

And of course, by the time we're done, I don't feel like I'm a stranger or we're strangers with these, with, with my guests because they, you know, a lot of times they're really vulnerable and they're just, they're just telling.

Sometimes they've never told this whole story in detail to another person, but this is their opportunity to do that.

And I'm there as someone who is focused and intently listening to every detail.

And that just, it just brings out these crazy stories.

And I love it.

I really enjoy it.

I know you pre interview them because that's how you were able to structure the episode.

Because you really do tell a story in these episodes.

You're good at that.

The beginning, middle, and end.

And you don't allow them to give away the end.

You structure it in a way that.

That's hard to do with a guest because, you know, we have guests on where we don't pre interview.

You don't talk to them ahead of time.

And I have to keep them in the story from the beginning, the middle, the end.

Because a lot of times they just won something big, a gold medal or whatever, and they want to go right to the end.

Right.

So that's, that's your hardest part, I would think, with this as an interviewer, is keeping them on track.

Yes, it is, because these people are not storytellers.

They're not public speakers.

They didn't.

Well, some of them have written a book about their experience, but most of them don't get interviewed.

They just happen to have this one weird thing happened to them, and now here they are telling the story.

But that's one reason I do the pre chat with them, even on a separate day.

You know, we want to make sure the sound and audio, that's all, you know, ironed out.

But I want them to know, you know, pretty much how it's going to go.

And I tell them specifically, we're going to, we're going to have you tell the story in a linear fashion so that if there's a big thing at the end, the people listening aren't going to know that until we get to that part.

Otherwise, you know, if you tell it all up front, there's really no reason for them to keep listening.

They just heard the whole thing in two minutes.

And, you know, why keep listening?

So do you, how much time do you put in ahead of time?

Because you, you really think about your questions and how everything is structured.

So is it hours ahead of each one?

Oh, yes.

Yeah, it's definitely hours.

And if someone has written a book, I always read the book ahead of time because that gives me some insight.

I recently, one of the episodes you mentioned was Robbie's daughter was a student at Sandy Hook.

He's one of the families who lost a child, his six year old daughter in that shooting.

And he's written a book.

And he mentioned, I asked him, after we were done recording, I asked him, do most people, because he's doing like an interview rounds, you know, with a lot of places, do most people read the book?

And he says no.

And it's pretty obvious when they haven't, they might skim it, you know, to get the highlight questions and stuff like that.

But man, I want the details.

You know, the details are what make a good story.

And when I can pull something out of a, you know, a paragraph that he wrote that kind of struck me and I asked him about it.

He's, he knows, oh, this guy's done some homework.

He knows what he's talking about and, and he's interested in the story.

This isn't just another in a series.

This is something that, that I'm really interested in and I want to learn about.

And I think that brings out the best in a guest when they know that you have a sincere interest in what they're talking about.

So you did a show about computers.

Okay, so this is a long way structurally from that.

Okay.

This is about exact opposite of that.

It's really what you're.

What was that like as a storytelling podcast?

It really is what it is because you're telling these, you're telling these people's stories, they're helping you tell it, but you're telling a story again.

Begin a middle and end.

Right.

Where did you learn storytelling?

Because you really are masterful at this.

Well, I had another podcast in between those two that was an interview podcast.

And so I kind of learned it from there because that was also a storytelling podcast.

It was called Ultra Finishers.

And I would interview people who had just finished their first Ultra marathon.

And so I would ask them, you know, how did you train for?

What did you eat?

How bad was the pain, what was the finish line, like, you know, all that kind of stuff.

And so I kind of learned that really the people are coming to hear that story.

They're not coming to hear me talk about my stories.

Even though that comes up sometimes they want to hear, you know, the guest.

And so that's my, My really, my objective now is to be really curious, but also just get out of the way and just let the guest talk.

And matter of fact, sometimes I might ask a question, and depending on how the guest answers it, when I'm editing the show, I might just edit out my question.

And it makes the guest sound like a master storyteller because they're just going on and it just sounds great.

So I want to make them sound as good as possible.

Was there, you know, looking at the numbers, we're always surprised at what listener, Jamie and I, and this is no shock to the auditors because we've had this conversation before.

Jamie and I will get done, because we do them three days a week for the last 14 years.

We'll get done with the show and go, wow, that episode sucked.

You know, we just weren't in it or whatever.

And then all of a sudden, that's the one we get the most comments about.

And the listeners loved it.

Have you had that with these?

Absolutely, yes.

Yes.

The ones that I think, man, this is going to be a home run.

And it's like, okay, that was a good story, but nothing exciting.

But then the ones like, man, I wonder if I get done, and I wonder if people are really going to like this.

Is anybody going to even listen to this?

And, yeah, the comments start rolling in, and we've been doing this a long time.

Why can't we predict that?

No, we can't predict.

Why are we wrong about that so many times?

We'll get done with a guest and we'll go, okay, that was okay, you know, but it wasn't anything earth shattering.

And that'll be the one the auditors who are watching this now respond the most to.

Yeah, I.

I don't know how.

We don't know.

I don't know.

I've probably interviewed more people than 99.9% of podcasters out there, and I still don't know.

Yeah, you should know, right?

But I've gotten to the point where if I think, oh, that was.

That wasn't that great a story, I start to get a little excited about it because probably it will be.

So that just goes to show you guys are all right.

And we don't know what we're doing over here.

So was there what surprised you the most overall about this show?

I mean, obviously it's outperformed any of your other shows, and it's probably outperformed where you ever thought it would go.

I mean, you're making a living doing this now, which there aren't too many of us doing that.

That either.

So what surprised you the most about this whole show?

I think, man, from the beginning, I thought it was going to be a big one, just because I understand the power of storytelling.

You know, that's really what people.

And that was my own incentive for starting the show, is because I love hearing stories like this, and I couldn't find them anywhere.

And I had already done two podcasts previously, and so I knew how to put a podcast together.

And so I figured, okay, I'm just going to do it myself.

I'll do it the way I would want to do it, the way I thinking as a listener, this is what I would want to hear.

And so that's why I started doing it.

But I think what.

Probably what surprises me is the effect that it has on me that, that, that my show like this, this thing that I put together can affect other people's lives.

And that that's just so gratifying, you know, I mean, a good example is one of the early episodes I did was with a guy here in Tampa who donated his kidney to someone he doesn't even know.

And he went through that whole process.

Yeah.

And I thought that was.

That's a great thing, you know, it's a great story.

But it's also, you know, lets people know if they've ever thought about donating a kidney.

They know it's, you know, this is what it's going to be like, you know, so you know what to expect.

And I've had several people over the years.

That's been six years ago now.

People have told me, you know, I heard that story.

I've donated my kidney now.

And this, I mean, that's somebody's life that got saved because people wait on the kidney donor list and die, you know, because there's not enough people to donate.

And I just did another recent one, a recent guest who also donated her kidney.

And she said, yeah, I heard that early episode.

I was inspired by that.

And so she came on and told her story.

You know, it's been long enough that, you know, the two separate people.

And even though that story's kind of the same.

But, yeah, stories like that where.

And also have sometimes guests will have a Traumatic story.

And they'll tell me, it was so therapeutic to just come on and tell that.

I had one woman who said, you know, this happened a few years ago and I've been worried that as time goes by, I'm going to forget some of the details and I don't want to have to be worried all the time about storing all that in my head.

And now I've told you everything in detail, beginning to end.

It's out there.

And she has a recording of it.

And so, you know, if she wants to tell her kids or their kids someday, it's all still going to be there, rather than, you know, you know how memory fades.

Well, that's really cool.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's.

That's neat.

And, you know, that is why we do it, right?

Is the feedback and the.

What we hear from all of you is why we do it.

You know, this is why we're still here.

Because it's a lonely business.

I mean, we're here.

Look, we're here by ourselves.

Exactly.

And you can probably tell I don't usually do video.

You've got a nice studio with the pictures and everything.

I've got my cluttered office, but that's.

Yeah, but you have, you have your poster in the right spot, right there.

Yeah, you got it at least.

Branding.

Yeah.

For anybody that sees it, they'll, they'll see that anyway.

But that's the advantage of an audio only show, you know?

Yeah, it is an advantage.

Yeah.

So it's Christmas time and there's some things that everybody that listens to your show doesn't know about you.

And that's forever since I've known you 10 years now.

You have done a lot of work with the homeless and you still do, right?

Sure.

Yeah.

I mean, so there's that side of Scott that he doesn't like to talk about, but I'm going to make him talk about it today because it is the holidays.

How did that start, man?

I think.

Well, we found a group.

Well, I guess the way it started is because here in Florida it can get kind of cold sometimes in the winter.

Well, it's 32 last night here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's ridiculous.

You know, this is Florida.

It's supposed to be paradise, you know, and you're, you're up north.

You know, it's like in the 40s here.

I'm in Tampa Bay, the Tampa Bay area.

And you know, I'm thinking, do I need to move further south or what?

But yeah, I mean, we were.

My wife and I would see homeless people and, you know, it's.

It's cold.

And so I started just collecting some blankets and keeping them in the car.

And, you know, when I would see somebody outside that, you know, I would just give them a blanket and they appreciated it.

And I, I'm a naturally empathic person and I just love doing stuff like that.

So we teamed up with a, with an actual organization that would do this every week.

So we would go to Tampa every Monday night and.

And I became the guy that would get people bikes.

Yeah.

Because I need transportation, you know, and so, so the way, the way it works now is there's a.

There's a place in downtown Clearwater.

So, you know, when I have some stuff that people know, everybody in this area knows if they have extra clothes, if a spouse dies and they've got to get rid of all the clothes, or if they've got a bike that they're not using anymore, they know just to bring it and leave it on my porch and it will go to a homeless person.

There's no money involved.

There's no profit being made on any of it.

It's just going to somebody that needs it.

I bet you they're happy to see you show up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When they, When I show up and I've got some bikes on the back, but I, I hand them over to the person that runs that organization rather than trying to determine.

I used to have a, you know, I had a long waiting list of people that needed bikes and I would just go down that list, but I've kind of offloaded that responsibility.

Well, you do kind of look like Santa Claus now, though.

You're getting more and more like this is.

It's not getting any longer, and I'm not.

Hopefully I'm not going to have a bigger pot belly than I already have either.

That's funny.

So what's, what's for the future here?

Do you, do you see yourself sticking with this show and that's the only one, or do you have something else in mind or.

I don't have anything else in mind.

I'm always open to new ideas.

But.

Yeah, with the addition of the Tuesday episodes, this is the first time I've had a co host and I love doing that.

And, you know, I've, you know, as creators, we always have more ideas for more shows and you just can't, you can't follow all those ideas because there's not enough hours in the day, you know?

No.

And you know what, what they.

You all but hear us on the air for that hour or hour and a half that we're on the air.

And Jamie's, you know, in our case, five days a week.

Right.

But you don't.

What you don't see is the 10 to 12 hours for every hour we're on the air.

And pre and post production.

Yep.

And your case, it might even be longer because your pre production is a little higher.

Pre production.

And I edit my own shows and all that stuff, so.

Yeah, it's.

You still edit your own shows.

Oh, yeah.

You would have to with yours, wouldn't you?

Yeah, yes, yes.

I would love to be able to outsource that, but nobody has the same vision for the.

For the content as I do.

I mean, I could have somebody go through and take out the crutch words and the mouth clicks and stuff like that, and that's fine.

But, you know, when you.

When you talk to someone who's told their story and, you know, you know the gist of what they're trying to get across, someone who hasn't heard that, like I have may not have the same vision as I do for it.

So, yeah, I'd love to do that, but, you know, it's just.

I'm putting time in, but come on, I'm getting paid for it, so I can't hardly get, you know, complain about it.

Right.

Yeah.

It's probably better than, you know, repairing CPUs, right.

So.

Yes, yes.

It's certainly more creative and more gratifying.

Yeah.

The other thing I want to congratulate you on is your Facebook group, which I'm a part of.

It's a private group for your show.

And, you know, we have a.

We're broadcasting now to what I think is one of the best Facebook groups out there.

But it's.

It's paywalled.

You have to be a patreon to get into it.

But they're so supportive.

They really become a community.

Our auditors, we call them, are really a community and they support each other and it's positive and we never.

We never have to flag anything.

I mean, it's so great.

There's very few Facebook groups like that, but yours is.

Yours is.

I don't.

You must patrol it because you.

You have over 8,000 now.

I don't think it's paywalled.

Right.

Anybody can.

It's not.

Well, it's a private group, but it's not paywalled.

Right.

Yeah.

And that allows.

In being that ours is paywalled, that does eliminate some of the trolls.

Right.

That were all the Trolls in most cases, but you don't.

So do you have to.

Do you have to keep an eye on it?

Are there.

Are there occasional.

Yeah, yeah.

And I've.

I don't know why, but I've seen other groups similar size that need multiple moderators just to keep up with all the, you know, the garbage that comes in.

I'm the only admin, the only moderator.

In my group, and your group's pretty good.

I mean, it's pretty positive.

Yeah, well, I tell them up front, don't even come here if you want to talk about politics, because.

Well, yeah, we don't do that either.

Yeah.

First time that comes up, gone.

You know, at least the post.

I'm not going to.

I don't ban people that quickly, but.

But most of the people are listeners to the show, and they know what I'm like and.

And they love talking.

You know, we post a new question every Tuesday, which everybody can answer if they want to, and, you know, we just have a good time.

And I think I've been really lucky with a good group of people.

Yeah, your.

Your Facebook group is good.

I'll say that partly because.

Glenn.

Yeah.

I don't contribute as much.

I do watch it, though.

I do.

I do read all the posts because.

Because I'm also interested in what other groups are doing.

Right.

And, you know, what other groups do you.

There's one.

I'm going to end on this one because it comes up every damn time, and it seems to come up, like, every month in your Facebook group.

That one episode of the kidnapping up in the Northwest, which was one of the very first ep that.

The controversial one where people don't believe the people were really kidnapped.

Oh, yeah.

One of my early episodes.

Yes.

It still comes up in that Facebook group.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's crazy.

That episode just seems to live forever.

That's the.

That's the downside of Facebook.

You know, when you got one episode that you really don't.

I've got another episode that I really don't care.

People don't.

If they don't listen to it, that's fine.

And.

But every time somebody does one little comment, oops, top of the top.

Now everybody sees it again, you know.

Because we've all listened to that episode and we're still thinking about it.

There are certain episodes of yours that you just never forget.

There's others you forget, right?

Yeah, because they kind of just go into the mix.

But then there's episodes like that one.

I don't remember what it was called, but you just.

It's always in your head because you're always wondering, was it true?

Was it not true?

Right, right.

Yeah.

That one, just for anyone interested, that one's called Tyson was abducted and he maybe.

What?

No, no, Tyson was abducted.

Okay.

I'm on the side of the controversy on that one.

Yeah, you're gonna stir things up a little bit.

That's okay.

But you know what, though?

I don't even care that it's controversial because it gets people talking about it.

Oh, no.

That probably helped you take off that episode.

Absolutely.

Because it forced conversation.

Yes.

Yeah.

Because we all had our own opinion because other ones, like Robbie's daughter was a student at Sandy Hook.

You're not.

You're gonna form an opinion, but we're all gonna have the same opinion.

Right.

There's not a lot of controversy there.

It's.

What happened.

Well, no, there's lots of controversy if you're a follower of Alex Jones.

Yeah, okay.

There's a lot of those.

So.

Yeah, but yeah, we all know that that really happened though.

Right.

So.

But this one, because there's no, you know, there's no documentation really.

So.

I've seen the police report.

Yeah, that's.

See, that's one thing.

I verify these stories ahead of time.

I'm not believing the police on that one either.

But I mean, I promote each story as a true story.

And so I have to do my due diligence.

That's one of the questions I ask somebody up front when they pitch me their story is, you know, do you have any kind of documentation?

911 audio, police report, medical doctor's report, anything like that?

An article in the newspaper with your name in it, you know, anything like that?

I don't have to.

I don't verify every single detail of what they're telling me.

But, you know, the premise needs to be, you know, an accurate, not just making it up.

Right, right, right.

Yeah.

So do you.

Do you get most of your.

Are all the stories coming to you now?

I know in the early days that was the tough part.

You really had to search for stories.

Are they all coming to you at this point?

Almost all of them now?

Yeah, yeah, they come from the audience.

Just because the audience is big enough that, you know there's going to be somebody in the audience that has had some weird.

Knows somebody.

Yeah, right.

And I've still got a few, you know, a few stories that I'm looking for that, you know, eventually I'll come across them, but they're just kind of weird enough that, you know, it hasn't happened yet.

I have to start sending you some of the weird horse stories because I don't know that you've had any of the weird.

I did have.

I had a story from a guy who.

It was actually a pretty popular episode.

Who got dragged by a horse.

He was on a horse that had not been ridden or something, and he was.

And the horse was heading for a tree, and it was.

And he's a good storyteller, too, so.

Yeah, that was a fun one.

All right.

I have to start thinking about the ones we've interviewed over the years that have those stories.

Yeah.

Yes.

All right, Scott, thanks.

Where can people find your show?

Everywhere?

Well, yeah, it's everywhere.

Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever app you use to listen to podcasts, it's going to be on there.

Just do a search for what was that like?

Or just go to the website.

All the links are there.

And that's.

What was that like?

Dot com.

And it's interesting.

Yours is a lot of podcasts.

I'll listen to every episode.

And Scott knows this with Scott's.

I don't.

Because your title really does say what it's like.

And I get.

I have a cringe level that I can't go past, and it's right about here.

But I'm not a horror movie fan or any of that stuff, too, either.

Like the guy with the foot, I was out.

So, you know, there's.

There's some of them that I just can't do because I can't do it, you know, And I'm sure that's true of most of your listeners with this show.

I don't know.

Am I the exception every single episode?

Yeah.

Well, I would say that, yes, you are exceptional.

But.

That'S.

But.

But honestly, you're not the only one that has told me.

Yeah, I've listened to every episode but that one, you know.

Yeah, that one with the foot.

That's the only one I can't do.

But the thing is, though, if you listen to it, you would probably, at the end you say, huh, that wasn't that bad.

Really.

You know, that's what a lot that would.

There's another one that caused some conversation in your group.

The foot one.

Yeah, yeah.

And as long if people are wondering about this, if they haven't seen it, the episode is titled Shiny, which was a pseudonym, just a nickname.

Shiny ate his own foot.

So if you want to have a fun story.

There you go.

That's funny.

Well, Scott, we'll see you in a month.

Yes.

We're both speaking at Podfest.

Yeah, some of our friends are being inducted into the hall of Fame, so we'll need to sit together for dinner.

It's going to be an exciting week for sure.

All right.

Thanks, Scott.

Appreciate you doing this.

Thank you.