1030 on the dot. I'm supposed to be speaking with Kevin Paul Mieti. Let me give Kevin a
call. There he is. Hey, Kevin. What's happening, my friend? It's a good day, isn't it? It's,
you know what? We're here and it is a good day. Yeah. Yeah. That's hard to say. Hard
to say it's a bad day when you woke up and you're still going. That's what I'm saying.
When I get to podcast, right? This is my third or fourth meeting of the day. It's like, you
know what? It's going to be a good Tuesday. Have they all been podcasts or are they all
different projects? No, mostly. So I had a coaching call this morning. I just did a podcast
pre-call and I had a podcast pre-call and then I have like three more podcasts later.
So it'd be a busy day, but it's all in the podcasting realm, which I love. Yeah. Yeah.
How are you? How are you, my friend? I'm doing good. I'm trying to get my foot more and more
into the podcasting world as it goes on, but working for Vision Pros, it's doing really
good for me. I get to meet more people like you that are trying to get into more and more.
So I'm in the right space at least. I love it. I'm very happy for you. Let's see. It
says you found us via Podmatch. Is that right? So we have somebody on our team who reaches
out to shows that are aligned and that we believe we can add value to. And I'm guessing
Laura probably found you and she reached out. Okay. I don't have an email for her. I just
have Kevin at Next Level Universe and I assume that's you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Perfect.
So today we keep calling it a pre-show, but really what we're going to do is we're going
to take clips from these questions that I asked you and we're going to post those and
those are going to be like a mini podcast per se. And then based on those questions
and answers, if I think you're ready for our live stage, then I'll move you up to the live
podcast, which right now is booking for September, August, a couple months out. Cool. All right.
And so I'm going to ask you questions like, tell me about your vision and that's really
broad and there are a few other ones that are kind of broad and that's by design. I
want you to take it, how you see it in your experience and just kind of run with it. All
right. Cool. Easy enough. Well, I guess we'll see. We'll see if it's easy. Yeah. Sounds
easy. Do you have any questions for me? No. Okay. Last thing I want to go over. I have
my name and then my title down underneath my name. Do you want a title like that or
are you fine? No, no, no, no, I'm a simple creature. All right. And then how do I pronounce
your last name? Paul Mary. Paul Mary. Copy that. Okay. Here today with Kevin Paul Mary.
Please Kevin, tell me about your vision. My vision is to bring self-improvement and self-awareness
to the masses where humans understand who they are, why they think they are who they
are and how that affects their everyday life. That really is my ultimate goal. I'm someone
who I'm definitely not supposed to be successful by the standards, I would say. I had a quarter
life crisis. I wanted to take my life several times and if you said to me what saved your
life more than anything, I would say self-awareness and understanding why I felt the way I felt
and why I didn't want to feel the way I felt. And ultimately I believe if more people had
that level of self-awareness and they understood who they were at the deepest levels, the world
would be a much more positive place. So that is my vision in a nutshell to bring self-improvement
and self-awareness to the world. Okay. That's a great vision to start off with. I love that.
I appreciate that very much. Thank you. So how did you begin? What was your starting
path? How did you get started? I was actually at a job that I hated. I made a lot of money.
I thought that was going to make me super happy. It didn't. It made my bank account
happy, but I was still very unfulfilled and low self-belief, low self-worth, all that
stuff. I was actually interviewed on a YouTube channel about fitness and mindset and discipline.
And when we got to the end of that interview, I said to one of my friends who was there,
I said, imagine if you could do that for a living. Imagine if you could help people for
a living. And he said, well, there's people out there that do that. So that year, it was
2017, I started a podcast called the Hyperconscious Podcast. And hyperconscious means acutely
aware. And my ultimate goal was to help people understand that when you change the way you
think, you change the way you act, and then you can ultimately change the way you live.
So it started with me being interviewed, saying, imagine what it would be like if you could
do that for a living, starting very messily and trying to figure it out, and then really
starting to see the benefits of having conversations like that for me first. Long before we ever
had any resemblance of an audience, the conversations I was having was helping me with my self-awareness.
And then ultimately, I was able to help other people with that. So yeah, it started with
a chance encounter on a YouTube channel, and it inspired me to kind of do my own thing.
Okay. And where do you think you're going? What's your goal with your vision? Where do
you think you're wanting to end up with this?
Ultimately, the external goal is to have the most successful podcast in the self-improvement
space. That is what we're playing for. That's why we do seven episodes a week. That's why
we have 1730 something episodes. If I do more content than anyone else, I can have more
impact than anyone else. That's one of my deep beliefs. And then just on a personal
human level, I really want to be the best man I can be. I want to be the best husband
I can be. I want to be the best I can be. Not from external judgment, not because I
deeply care about what everybody thinks of me. I do more than I should, but it's because
when I put my head down on the pillow at night, I want to say, I'm very proud of what I'm
doing. I'm proud of what I'm creating. And most importantly, I'm proud of the man I'm
becoming. So externally, we want to help the most people possible. Internally, I want
to make sure I never lose sight of my character, who I believe I'm supposed to be. And I always
want to make sure that I'm living in alignment and making myself proud. If I can go to bed
at night and say, I did a really good job being me today, I think that's a really unique
check mark when it comes to success.
Yeah, absolutely, man. So my last real question for you is kind of a two parter. It's why
do leaders hide from funding their vision? And then the part B of it is how do leaders
lean into the funding of their vision?
When you say funding, are you talking about specifically financial?
So that's one of the questions I was talking about before, how it's brought on purpose.
There's a lot of ways you can take funding and I want you to take it how you feel you
should.
I would say two things from what I've seen. One, the leader ultimately does not believe
enough in the vision to invest in it. Time, energy, effort, focus, financial, whatever
it is. They don't ultimately believe it will be worth it. Why would I put myself through
all of these trials and tribulations if nobody's ever going to get the message, if I'm never
going to impact anybody, and ultimately I'm not going to be able to make that big of a
difference. So that's one piece is they don't believe it will be worth it. Another piece
that I've seen very often is they don't believe they're capable. I might seem like I have
very, very high self-belief in podcasting. I do because I've done it thousands of times,
but in the beginning I was afraid of failing and I didn't think I could do this and I'm
blessed to have a wonderful business partner. So I think self-belief is a limitation. And
then a big one that I never really understood until I started coaching people was a lot
of people don't believe that they deserve to bring their vision to light. Who am I to
be able to talk about what I love? Who am I to be able to impact these people in the
way that I want to impact them? So I think it's either people don't believe it will be
ultimately worth it. They don't believe they're physically capable of doing it. They don't
have the level of self-belief or they have low self-worth and that self-worth lies to
them and then they determine, well, I'm not worthy of this vision anyway. It's cool. It
would be a really cool pipe dream, but there's no way this is ever going to happen. I would
say those are, those are the three most common ones I've seen.
Yeah. And I absolutely agree with you. I think self-worth comes into play a lot whenever
you're like, am I worthy enough to be talking about this? Who am I to be talking about this
topic? Like I love this topic so much, but there are people that already speak on it
and there are people so much more qualified than me to speak on it. And why do I need
to chime in on this whenever everybody else is already doing a great job? And it just
prevents people from taking that step. Yeah. Why me? It's why me. So how do you think
leaners can lean into funding their vision? I would say start extremely small, probably
embarrassingly small. Honestly, that's what we've seen work is if you have any doubt around
something, one of the reasons might be because you're looking at the end of the vision, not
where you are right now. It's very easy for me to say we want to have the most successful
podcast in the self-improvement space. 1700 episodes in, in the beginning it was, I just
need to find a way to get to the end of the month. That was my vision. My vision was very
short at that time and it got longer and longer as I survived longer and longer. So I would
say break it down to something very, very small in the beginning. That would be one.
Two is continue to lean into the why. Why did you start this? I had a call with somebody
earlier and we were talking about this. I said, look, we have to check into the why.
Why did you start this in the first place? Because right now you're, you're trying not
to fund the vision. You're pulling out, you're pulling back. Why did you start this in the
first place? And let's be very honest. Have you lost sight of why that was so important
to you back then? All right, cool. Let's, let's go from there. And I think the last
one would be seek support from the people around you that you know you can trust. I
did not get here by myself. I don't think anybody on the planet is self-made. If you're
using a laptop that you didn't create, you're not self-made unless you created the internet.
You're probably not self-made and I don't know how to do either of those things. So
lean on the people around you and find people who are supportive of the vision and they
will help you fund the vision in their own unique way. We have an amazing community that
have helped us perpetuate our vision, but that's because we had enough courage to share
what it was in the beginning. So yeah, surround yourself with positive people who believe
in what you believe in and you're more likely to get further than you would alone, even
though it sounds really cool to say yourself, man.
That was perfect. I loved it, man. Um, so I, I like this. I like your, your vision. I
like how you speak about it. I'm going to push you on towards the live podcast, which
is not, I think we're scheduling right now for September, August, maybe even later now.
So I'm going to push you on. It's going to be with a different person. It's going to
be with Jackson next time you get on here. And he's the guy in charge of vision pros
and in charge of first-class business, which is the, the parent of this company. So approval.
I creeped on you guys, Payton, you know, you did, of course, no, no good, uh, no good interviewee
doesn't do research. You got to do research. And I think best hosts do the same thing.
I've got your bio and then I've got you researched before I got here. So let's go. Um, next
I've got, you're wanting to get on more podcasts. I do. Yeah, I do a ton. I've, I've been on
like 900 other podcasts. So I average, I don't know, seven to 10 other shows a week. And
then we do seven episodes a week ourselves. Gotcha. I have a link that I can send you
that just connects you with 15 to 18 other podcasters that we know. And we work close
with and we kind of refer back and forth between each other. Is that all right with you? Yeah.
Yeah. Shoot it over. Let's do distribution. There we go. And then last thing I do is when
I Googled you, I didn't see what's your main platform. Is it a LinkedIn and Instagram?
I saw most of, uh, yeah. Facebook's coming up for us. Facebook's actually become like
the unsung hero for us. Okay. But yeah, Instagram and Facebook are probably the big two. Okay.
So Facebook, I actually have a thing they're wanting me to try and push out is a Facebook
ads package. Um, it's a, it's a video. It'll tell you all about it. And so I'll send it
your way real quick, but it says essentially like you spend a hundred dollars on Facebook
ads. This is what it does. And then we tell you, we're like, don't do it. You don't need
to spend that money with us, but it's something that we send out distribution. We're all organic.
So I probably will end up passing on in any way. Cause we don't really, everything we've
done is a hundred percent organic. I mean, I applaud you for it, man. I can't do it.
I feel like I've been trying. Yeah. We've been trying to for sure. But I mean, we're
seven years in, right? So things have evolved for sure. No, I guess we've deleted that.
I can't find that tag. Nevermind. You don't get Facebook ads then. So I'm curious now
that we're here, I'm trying to start up. I'm a, I own a video company. Magic production
is my company where I come out and I live stream. I'm trying to get into more podcasters
and trying to produce more podcasts. Is it just, I'm sure you have a team if you're putting
out seven episodes a week. We have a podcast production. So we, we produce like 50 podcasts
right now. Okay. Thing, the thing I would say to you is there's two ways to do it. There's
you build the business behind the scenes and you just have, you just have conversations
with people all the time. Hey, Kev, I found this episode on YouTube. I'm not even going
to ask you if you want me to do it. I cut up 30 pieces of content from it. Here you
go. Take them. They're all yours. I expect nothing back, but if you're interested in
working together, boom, these are my packages or you become the face of your own brand.
Like when it comes to the podcast production, we've never run ads. I don't even have like
a real website. It's just the fact that I'm out so much that people started to see me
as the podcast guy. And then people just started asking. Gotcha. That's really how it, it's
not ads. It's not email sequences. None of that. We don't have any of that. So those
are the two things that I've seen work really well is you just go straight to business owners
or you become your own brand through content. I got you have a podcast that interviews people
create really fire content and then say, we can also do this for you. It depends long
plays. You start your own brand and start your own podcast and do that. That's what
I would say. That's what I'm leaning towards right now. Yeah. Me and my girlfriend of two
years, we just moved into a travel trailer. So I think we're going to travel and try and
talk to people and try and get them on the podcast either in person or virtually, but
we can do it in cool places. If I just start traveling, that's awesome. That'd be cool.
We'll see what happens, but should have sent you that link already to get you on the main
live stage. Okay. Yes. I will send that to the team because the team does all the booking.
Okay. Let me see. Let me just make sure I got it. Do do do. Yep. Received. Okay. Perfect.
Then you're good to go, man. Right on. Great talking to you as well as a genuine pleasure.
If I can do anything, if I can serve you, if you have questions about podcasts or anything,
shoot me, you have my email so you can email me anytime. I've got your email and I just
followed you on. I connected with you on LinkedIn as well. That's my main one. All right. Anything
you need, if you ever need anything, just shoot me a message. Okay. I will do. I'll take you
up on that. Please, please. I'm serious. You'd be surprised how many people I say that to
and how little people actually do it. So I'm not saying it as like, I really hope Peyton
doesn't reach out. Please. Anything I can do genuinely. Okay. Thanks, Kevin. You're
very welcome. Have a wonderful day. You too. Bye. Bye.