#35: Danny Miranda — Spirituality, Self Development & Content Creation

Danny: The commitment is so important, man. The commitment is everything. I made the commitment when I said I was going to love myself. I made the commitment when I started working out, I made the commitment when I did meditation consistently. Making the commitment is everything.

[00:00:11] Make the commitment for a better life, make the commitment that you can be everything you want to be, because once you make that commitment, once you make that value to yourself, it's all over. You can win at anything you so choose.

[00:00:22]

[00:00:22]Josh:  Hi, I'm Josh Gonsalves and welcome to Mind Meld. This is a podcast where I have in-depth conversations with some of the brightest people in the known universe. My aim is to spark deep conversations around interesting topics to find the tools, strategies, and philosophies that we can all use in our daily and creative lives.

[00:00:57] In this episode, I'm joined by Danny Miranda. He's a full-time podcaster and content creator on a mission to raise the consciousness of humanity. Danny and I talk about the art of consistent content creation, how he gets world-class people on his podcast, including Gary Vee and Kamal Ravikant, and his mission to put out a thousand clips on YouTube by the end of the year in 2021.

[00:01:20] We also talk in depth about our views on spirituality, and we share our personal stories of our spiritual awakening. We also talk about our experiences with meditation and personal development, including morning routines, workout routines, and cultivating productive and healthy habits.

[00:01:36] As always, if you want to dig deeper on some of the topics, books, or resources that we bring up in the podcast, you can find direct links to everything in the show notes for this episode. You can find the link to the show notes in the description of this podcast, or go directly to Joshgonsalves.com/podcast. That's J O S H G O N S A L V E S dot com slash P O D C A S T, and you'll find links to everything related to this episode.

[00:02:06] If you haven't yet subscribed to the podcast, please pick up your phone, pull it out of your pocket, open up the app and hit the subscribe button on the podcast app you're listening to this on and you'll get notified as soon as I publish new episodes every Monday with amazing new guests each time.

[00:02:21] All right, so I hope you enjoy this deep and consciousness expanding conversation and hope it blows your mind, leads to new ideas and motivates you to keep doing whatever it is you're doing. You're amazing. And honestly, thank you for joining us on this one. I'm Josh Gonsalves and this is Mind Meld with Danny Miranda.

[00:02:40] Danny Miranda. Thanks for joining me on Mind Meld, man. I'm so excited to have you here.

[00:02:49] Danny: I'm so excited to be here. Thank you, Josh for having me.

[00:02:52] Josh: Of course, man, I've been listening to your podcast, following you on Twitter. Your journey has been incredible over the last year. So I think there's going to be a lot of cool things that we can chat about here. I just kind of spoke before we hit record a few of the main things that we can kind of get into: spirituality self-development and being a full-time creator.

[00:03:10] So I think if we can kind of frame these questions into something that we can both walk away with new ideas. I'm fucking so excited to have this going,

[00:03:18] Danny: Yeah, those are the topics that resonated with me. And I'm so grateful that you took the time out to do research or learn about what I'm all about, because I think this is going to be a lot of fun.

[00:03:30] Josh: totally man. And one of those things recently that I listened to was a podcast that you posted, but you were interviewed by your friend Tej, and I thought that was so awesome because you really explained your story. So, I mean, for anyone listening here that maybe haven't heard that, or they don't know too much about you, I'd love for you to kind of explain your story of how you became basically full-time podcaster and content creator.

[00:03:52] Danny: Yeah. So where do I begin? Right. It's like, I think I'll start with college. Right? in college I was someone who was all about going out partying, and eventually that turned into, as soon as I graduated making money, how could I make money as fast as possible? And I learned drop shipping and e-commerce and did that for a solid 12 months I would say. And there was a point when I realized it wasn't for me. And I'd been spending 12 to 16 months building up my identity as this person. I'm someone who does e-commerce, I'm someone who drops ships. And this is, and I was even tweeting about, about it under, uh, an anonymous or an Alias Danny Roars is what I was calling myself and. It really didn't align with who I was and who I wanted to be. And it forced me to go into a dark place where I was just like, if that's not who I am, and I've been spending all this time, who am I going to be? It was a lot of bumpy roads.

[00:04:54] Eventually I started posting under my real name in March of 2020 Danny Miranda. That's who I am. And started owning everything I was doing and owning everything I was saying. I'm sure we could get into that journey, but since March, 2020, just been creating content and writing and podcasting and now going onto YouTube. So it really just creating content under my name. And it's been such a remarkable journey and grateful to be here in February of 2021.

[00:05:24] Just, uh, just loving life.

[00:05:27] Josh: Absolutely man. I'm glad that you just, you know, said the date because especially in audio, like we don't know how people are going to consume this content in the future. They could watch it on YouTube. I post clips on like social media. But at some times people will actually just download the audio. They might actually have the audio downloaded somewhere.

[00:05:46] So there's not a lot of like, You know, information out there. If you're on my website, you'll be able to see the date it was posted, but it's great. Maybe I'm going to steal something for that, man. Just start saying welcome to, you know, the date that it is. Cause that's exactly it is. We're in the beginning of February, 2021 and you know, 2020 was a fucking crazy year for like everyone.

[00:06:04] So I kind of feel like we're almost on the other side of it now, do you kind of feel that too? Like, I mean, we're still in the middle of the pandemic, but I feel like we're kind of on the other side of a whole new paradigm shift.

[00:06:16] Danny: I totally agree. I think that something happened in 2020 when people were forced to look inwards of themselves. And what you're seeing today is the result of people looking inwards, because we're, we were forced to right. Isolated, you know, you can't go out, you can't do anything. Everything's shut down. So what do you do?

[00:06:36] You have to look in where some people, didn't like what they saw. I didn't like what I saw when I first looked in words in March of 2020, I was like, this isn't the life that I want to live. This isn't the person I want to be. So. how can I just keep going? How can I figure out a way? And, and it took, you know, months of meditation sessions for me to come to who I want it to be, but it would just started with taking one step forward at a time.

[00:06:59] And I think that that journey has, has held true for a lot of people during this time as well.

[00:07:04] Josh: Yeah. I said the exact same thing, you know, especially being able to work from home, being able to continue my life at home and being able to continue life, while being sort of quarantined, you know, we're at home, we're not going up to see people. We're not going to partying. Like you said, going out with friends where we were forced to kind of stay in and do some introspection.

[00:07:26]And I think a lot of people's lives changed through that. It definitely happened for me. I was running a virtual reality business that kind of went bust overnight because we were catering to film festivals, and  events and conferences and, you know, after March they were all shut down. Like just over one night I got whole industry's done.

[00:07:43] So I had to do the same sort of thing, man. I, 2020 was also by at least the second quarter of 2020 was like a really dark time. But then I realized. It forces you to do that introspection to do that inner work. And then you come out the other side as a whole new person. Like I would not have been podcasting or had the time to podcasts if I was running that business and doing all these other things.

[00:08:04] So now I can find the types of businesses that suit me and allow me to do things like this, so I can be a content creator as well, and be able to talk to amazing people like you.

[00:08:12]Danny: well, I appreciate that. And I think what the quarantine did was it just made me think like, what can I do for the next 10 years? What would I enjoy doing? And it wasn't podcasting right away. It was first writing. And that led to me having amazing conversations with people on Twitter. And that led to me thinking that it should turn into a podcast.

[00:08:34] Right. So I think that if, if I started every thing that I started with the idea of like, okay, you're going to do this for 10 years. Would you still do it? That I think that was such a helpful way for me to start viewing the world and why I'm podcasting and why I'm writing and why I'm doing all these things.

[00:08:50] It's like, Cause I want to be doing it for a long time because I want to enjoy the journey. Cause that's all we got. If you're just in it for the money, if you're just in it for a quick buck here, like I was, when I was doing drop shipping, it's not going to lead to a place where even if you get it, you're not going to be content.

[00:09:05] You're not going to be full. You're not going to be whole. I certainly wasn't. I got the money. I'd got the things that I wanted. I succeeded air quotes. Right. But. It wasn't a real success to me because I wasn't feeling that inside of myself. And so that's how I think about it. And I think that quarantine, like I said, makes people go into themselves and say, what can I do for the next 10 years?

[00:09:29] And if you haven't asked yourself that question, if you're listening, it's like ask it, like, what could you do for the next 10 years? I think it's a really valuable way to look at the world.

[00:09:38] Josh: Absolutely. Oh man, that's such a great way to look at the world. And for you, was that the first time that you did this inner work and kind of went, uh, inside.

[00:09:46]Danny: Yeah. So I started to meditate and look inside in September of 2019. And from September 2019 to December of 2019, life was flowing incredible things were happening. Coincidence, synchronicities. I was just like, Oh my God, like, this is crazy. This is awesome. Like life is working stop meditating in December of 2019 to January, February. And then I picked it back up in March of 2020. So I don't know.

[00:10:17] Is that the reason looking inward, is that the reason for what I've been able to create with this podcast? I think anytime I've been looking inward consistently, Has been good times in my life. Anytime I, I stopped doing that. I was relying on external power, external reasons for success and, and eventually feeling anxiety, feeling depression, feeling darkness. And so, yeah, huge a habit for me, obviously.

[00:10:44] Josh: Yeah, totally. I mean, for me, I w I always tell people, like, if you were thinking that there's a magic pill that will help you, it's called meditation, right? Like, there's nothing else that I know other than psychedelics, which maybe we can get into. I don't know if you've done any or not, but it's a big thing that I'm really into as well. I think it's, um, like meditation on steroids. Right.

[00:11:02] But for you meditation, How did you get into it? Like, where'd you learn about it? Where did you kind of get the idea to actually start doing it as like a daily habit?

[00:11:11]Danny: My friend Tej Dosa, who everyone should go and follow ComedicBizman was someone who had been slightly pushing meditation to me, never pushing it per se, but just, just always saying like, this is something that helped me do it. Don't I don't care, but this is what works for me. And I was just listening to him long enough where I was like, okay, I'm going to try it.

[00:11:34] Why not? Like, let me try doing this. And I hated it. At first, you know, 20 minutes in the morning meditation. It's just, it's hard when you're first starting. It's like going to the gym. So what happened was I just did it and did it and did it, and then, life became great. And then I stopped doing it, you know, like, so, and then I started doing it again when I realized, but yeah, Tej is the reason I had the courage to step in.

[00:12:01] And I think so often that it's someone who we respect and admire is the reason why we end up doing a habit that doesn't seem like us, like going to the gym didn't seem like me. Starting to meditate didn't seem like me, but it was because I had people in my life who were pushing me, who were able to support me when I wasn't even believing in myself, that's why I was able to do those habits and continue to do those habits. Because at first you don't want to let that person down, then it becomes after you do it enough, I don't want to let myself down, but you need somebody in the beginning. At least I do personally need somebody in the beginning to say, Hey, I believe in you, you can do this habit.

[00:12:39] And so, yeah, that's, that's been my story.

[00:12:42]Josh: That's awesome. And clearly it's done wonders for you. I, like I said, I do it basically every day. I use the Calm app most of the time. Do you use like an app or anything? Or how do you meditate? What is your prescription look like?

[00:12:54] Danny: Yeah. So for me right now, it's 60 minutes in the morning. No apps, no. Anything. Just let thoughts run through you. And occasionally I like to just focus on nothingness. So sometimes I'll just say, all right, thoughts, come through me, whatever. I'll let, like let that go. And sometimes I say to myself, you know, I'm just going to focus on, on darkness, on, on what that is and, and just get lost in all those thoughts and get lost in the place where you're not sleeping and you're not awake, but it just like that, that beautiful, I don't know what to call it, but everyone who's meditated probably knows what I'm talking about. but yeah, that's my prescription. 60 minutes in the morning, first thing, and just sets me up right for the day. It makes me feel loved. It makes me feel full of energy and couldn't recommend it more.

[00:13:44] Josh: That's awesome, man. And so like, obviously that helps with the spirituality, right? The spirituality aspect of things, because, a lot of people do report having some sort of like, feeling like you, you just said that sort of like a, say, like a tingly feeling, something that's like outside of your body, something you can hardly describe.

[00:14:02] It's definitely like an out of body experience. Something that's like little ephemeral. Right? it has that same sort of feeling that you can get sometimes like on psychedelics. A lot of people state that they can have some crazy psychedelic States while on meditation, like deep, deep, deep meditation. Which is amazing, but I think it does really help with the practice of spirituality, not religion. Right. But that spirituality of just knowing that there's something outside of this like 3d world that we're in.

[00:14:28] So was that one of the things that got you into spirituality where you're always like a spiritual person or like what got you into sort of looking into these kinds of ideas and expanding your mind?

[00:14:38]Danny: I was never a spiritual person by any means. And what happened really, interestingly, when I started meditating in September of 2019, I went to this yoga studio and I went and I started doing yoga for the first time. And it was really interesting because I was also reading spiritual books, Eckhart Tolle was the big one Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle.

[00:15:04] And that was just, uh, a way to open my mind. And what happened was. My yoga teachers were saying the same thing Eckhart Tolle , who was saying the same thing as Tej but I knew that they weren't all communicating with each other. And it took me a while to figure out why they were all saying the same thing. but it was like engulfing me this idea that we're all one, this idea that love is the most important thing, these simple concepts, but I didn't understand at the time why they were all saying them and why they all living by them and how each action they were doing gave like a breadcrumb to what was their ultimate truth, what was their purpose? And that was just like to make people happier, to make, to be full in their heart and help other people do the same.

[00:15:51] It was shocking to me when I realized like, Oh, that is what they all were talking about. Love was how they were all acting in every moment. And that's why they were all saying the same thing.

[00:16:03] So it was only in, in March or April when I read, uh, Marianne Williamson's book, fear or love or something along those lines. I don't remember exactly what it was called, but I read the book and I was like, huh, that's what was happening. Those books that I was reading the yoga teacher, Tash, they were all speaking with love and that's why it all sounded the same.

[00:16:26] So yeah, that's been my experience with spirituality. I was never into spirituality, before September of 2019, I thought all that was woo-woo nonsense, I was a rational focused person. So yeah, that's been my experience.

[00:16:38]what's been your experience with spirituality? When did you get into it?

[00:16:41]Josh:  I was going to ask you, I was going to see what your sort of awakening moment. So maybe before I kind jump into that was that your  awakening moment in 2019, when you kind of woke up to all this. It's like the idea of like, you know, you feel like you're like unjacked from the matrix, right?

[00:16:54]Danny: yeah, I would say September, 2019. And then what happened next was from October to December, I was just getting so many, like weird things were happening, like coincidences, synchronicities, just like. Things that I couldn't possibly explain. Like one, I'll give you an example. I was emailing cold emailing, a bunch of people, and one of them I cold emailed was Charlie rocket, Charlie Jabil.

[00:17:24] I don't know if you know who he is, but he's a guy that, uh, it was two changes manager. He. ran an iron man triathlon. He was 400 pounds and then lost all the weight to run an iron man triathlon, just a beast of a guy. what happens is I said to him an email he's like, I want to talk to you on the phone.

[00:17:41] I call him up. we have a 15 minute conversation about whatever he was doing recently in his life. And then the following week, I go to a coffee shop and this woman stops me randomly in the coffee shop and says, we start having a conversation. She starts talking to me about her church. She says, Oh, you'd really like my church, actually, this guy named Charlie Jabile  was speaking there last week.

[00:18:07] And I was like, what's going on here? Like, this is weird. You know another example, right? Like my friend from New York, I lived in San Diego at the time. I decided I'm going to be a personal trainer. I'm going to help people with their fitness. My friend from New York, I didn't speak to for a year or two years, texted me out of the blue and says, Hey, I need a workout plan.

[00:18:28] This was like a week after I decided I was going to be a personal trainer. And I was like, did you know that I was decided that? Anyway, those are just like two stories that just blew my mind. And awakened me to the idea like that, what I thought was possible and what I thought about this world that it's just cold and hard and there's rules and everything like that.

[00:18:52] That idea awakened me to the possibility that there's much more that we cannot possibly understand back to you. My man,

[00:19:00] Josh: Dude 100% that just gave me chills. Like, just like those kinds of stories. As soon as you feel those synchronicities, you know, you're on the right track and you can definitely feel like the universe is just kind of conspiring and coming together.

[00:19:11]And man, I think I had like a similar sort of journey, although I was lucky enough that my parents kind of raised me, kind of spiritual in a sense. I grew up in the Catholic school, so I'm not really religious anymore by any means. But I had this base level of spirituality saying, Hey, there's at least there's something more like when you, there's not just, what's here on this Earth. People believe in heaven. They believe in all these things, right. Some are okay. They kind of awakens me to that.

[00:19:38]By the time we got to high school, I was actually fed up with religion. I was okay, this is all like bullshit. These are, I was so awakened by that point. Like, man, these are just like stories. Like at the end of the day, these are just things that people wrote down and they're written in this book and then they're playing broken telephone over the years. Right. Whenever this man, Jesus wrote this cult leader back then he was just writing things and, you know, over years, people rewrote them, rewrote them, retold the stories, and it's all just bullshit.

[00:20:03] So then funny enough, the way actually got awaken to the sort of idea spirituality was some of the other way around. I then went to a public high school because I wanted to take art classes. For some reason, I wasn't allowed to take art because I didn't take it in the ninth grade, in like the first year of high school. So by the time I was like in the third year, I'm like, Hey, I want to do art. Like, sorry, you missed your chance. I'm like, what are you fucking talk? That makes no sense. So things like that, little things kind of start pissing me off. I go to another school and my first art teacher.

[00:20:31] So remember art was what drew me. To literally drew me no pun intended there. I swear to God. It drew me to go to the school. And then, I became really good friends with my teachers names, Mr. Drew, again, really funny coincidence. Right? amazing friends with his son now, him and I are like literally best friends. We did another podcast together, but this teacher was like aggressively, anti-religion like, he was literally anti-religious I later found out it was because he grew up the same way as me. He was like an alter boy, very like very, very Catholic. So he then wanted to revolt. Right. So at this time he's anti-religious and kind of like putting these ideas, saying like, Hey, like, you know, maybe religion isn't true. Like I grew up thinking, Oh, this is the truth. This is the only truth.

[00:21:15] Like, you know, we have. Christianity, we have Jesus and like, that's it then. Okay. Maybe not, maybe there's something more around that time. I don't know if it was like YouTube or if it was like just other things online that it started just surfacing. I started reading a lot about like spirit science and like pseudoscience now, just from an artist perspective, I was really interested in this. I'm like, wow, like, there's like, This universal law. So at that time I was like, okay. So there's definitely something here around that time. I start doing psychedelics, going into university. I start meeting up with friends who are super spiritual, at university.

[00:21:51] And it was during that time when I went off on my own, where I started having these crazy experiences like I'm talking well, obviously with psychedelics, if anyone's listening, who's ever done it, you kind of start, it's like you cracked, open your head, like your mind has been like severely just open to these possibilities. So that one was when I was like, okay, this three dimensional world that we're in, that we think that this is just the world. There's something here that we're missing because how, how am I able to take this substance and have a totally different reality experience than ever.

[00:22:25] The second time after that was when I started to try virtual reality for the first time. That's when I was like, Going into VR before I started the company, I was like, Holy shit. Like if I'm in the three-dimensional world that was created by humans, that means we're just a layer outside of that here in our three-dimensional reality, this is some sort of virtual reality. It had to be created somehow. Right. So I'm really into like the idea of the holographic universe, highly recommend looking at book, just the theory of the hollow holographic universe, where essentially, there's a lot of physicists and scientists that do believe that the way that our brains perceive reality, we're perceiving a hologram.

[00:23:06] So, like I said, with virtual reality, we know that if we're putting on this VR headset or playing a video game, we're looking at pixels, we're looking at stuff that was created in this sort of sandbox universe. So, if you look out even further where we're at, this must be another kind of holographic universe and the way that photons go into your eyes, whatever, like it's, you can go as deep as you want with that. Absolutely blew my mind.

[00:23:30] And then, so my mind has been open to all this and where things really got crazy was last year, we talk about synchronicities, uh, another podcaster friend of mine who does, um, a show called Humans 2.0, uh, I don't, I don't know if you know the show. he posted on like LinkedIn one day I never check LinkedIn. He's like, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to be on the, um, Mind Valley, super humans at work podcast. I'm like, Oh, what's this. So I, I look up Mindvalley. I'm like, what the fuck is Mind Valley? At that same time, there was a free masterclass going on by the founder of Mind Valley Vishen Lakhiani. And it was all about like unlocking your true potential at work.

[00:24:08] And he mixes spirituality and business together really well. He talks a lot about meditation. So my mind's open to this. I go to do his course and I'm mind blown. At that time, he released a book called the Buddha and the Badass. One of the best self-development spirituality and business books I've ever read in my life.

[00:24:30]I'm completely sold on this idea of mind Valley. So then I sign up for the all access pass. I take Vishen's course, uh, Be Extraordinary. And I started going into this whole world with Mind Valley. That was more spiritual in the way that I thought about spirituality than ever, because he doesn't think about religion. He grew up religious, same way I did. And Vishen completely opened my mind. So, If you haven't already, check out Mind Valley because the spirituality and sort of the self development aspect is exactly what we're talking about here. It's fantastic.

[00:25:03] Danny: dude, I just, you were, as you were talking, I wrote down two different. Books, the holographic universe is a book, right? Or is that just an idea? So I I've the holographic universe and I have the Buddha and the bad-ass and those will be getting added to my Amazon cart directly after this podcast yeah, thank you so much for just, it's so interesting how it could both happen for us in a similar time.

[00:25:28] And that's something that I want to talk about, which is like, I'm noticing more and more people. I don't know if it's just confirmation bias of the fact that I'm quote unquote woken up or something, but like I've noticed friends reach out. I've noticed people who were never interested in spirituality or becoming the highest version of themselves.

[00:25:49] I don't even, sometimes it's not even talking about spirituality, but when I see people who are just treating others with kindness and love, and I see it so often, it's particularly in the last 11 months. And, I can't help, but think there's something going on there, um, about just like the universe waking up

[00:26:09] Josh: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:11] Danny: What's your thoughts on that?

[00:26:12] Josh: A hundred percent, man. When I mentioned before, what, maybe this is 2014 or 15, when I was watching all these YouTube videos of like spiritual quote, unquote gurus or people who are just kind of like us who are open to talking about it. I think it was on YouTube. And I remember seeing this thing, it could have been from spirit science. Again, some of this stuff can be woo-woo, but I also see it as entertainment value. I'm like, this is really cool shit. Like whether it's real or not, we watch Harry Potter and star Wars and shit, whether this has more to do with reality  then those things do.

[00:26:41] So around 2014, 2015, they're talking to this idea of a paradigm shift. And you can kind of think of it as like a wave form overlapping wave form, or like, uh, Double helix DNA, strand, you know, the kind of idea how they kind of go in and out. And what was happening was around this time, we're at the end of one paradigm. So you can, you can kind of picture it as one of the DNA strands come together. And then when it starts opening up again, that's when you're on the other side of the next paradigm. So I'm like, Holy fuck. This is insane. Like this, the guy was like predicting that before.

[00:27:12] There's a lot of people who are into astrology that were picking it up before. So they've been saying that. You know, we're in this timeline that it could be something bigger than all of us that is putting this energy out there. That we're kind of going through this paradigm shift.

[00:27:25] And now I know going, having gone through it and kind of out of the other end of it now, 2020 was this paradigm shift. You kind of have to go into like a, some sort of hibernation mode, right? You're going through think of it like a portal, literally. And around that same time last year. I don't know if it's because of the internet too, and things just kind of like perpetually getting sent out quicker and quicker with shorter feedback loops first it was YouTube, and he had Facebook, Instagram, and now TikTok like a lot of the stuff I was seeing on TikTok and my girlfriend was seeing on TikTok was the spirituality stuff and a lot of people who were saying like, you're going to shift to 5D to five dimensional. I'm like, I don't know what you mean by that.

[00:28:04] But I think what that really means is people are going to start waking up. They're going to start to want to reach their higher potential. And they're going to want to reach their true potential and be the best versions of themselves, whatever that means for them. It doesn't mean that you're going to literally become like super sayan, right? Like people think of like Dragon Ball Z or become some kind of like, God, it just means that you're waking up to be like, Hey, I want to work on my body, on my mind, on my relationships and just be the best version of myself possible and realize that you are not just this human being stuck in this world, but you are this, like infinite being, having a human experience.

[00:28:42] Right. So I saw so many people do that. And I think it was just exactly that man, there's this paradigm shift that the energy kind of just like flowed everyone through and more people are open to it now. Like that's the only way I can kind of explain it.

[00:28:55] Danny: Such a beautiful thing. And, and it's so heartwarming to see friends reach out and so heartwarming to see other people pursue their highest version and. It really all starts with becoming aware, right? If, if someone's listening to like, what the hell are you talking about? I would say awareness of your actions is the first step and awareness of, of what's going on.

[00:29:16] Are you acting because you want to act in a certain way, are you acting just on a program? And I think that that's, that was the first step for me becoming aware and quarantined helped me do that.

[00:29:29] Josh: It did because it helped you go, okay. So here's, what's great. Let's just kind of step away from the spirituality side of things. And maybe for people who are like, nah, I'm not going to listen to shit anymore because a lot of people are not into it. Like you and I could talk one-on-one about some crazy shit, cause we're open to it. But I think like you, my mission is to wake people up to this. So you kind of have to bring it to something that they're kind of aware of. So the way I like to think about these kinds of things, you just said it perfectly, programming.

[00:29:54]There was this another book that's kind of interested. I read it in university called Program or Be Programmed. And it's this idea that we are cybernetic organisms. Remember I'm really into VR, virtual reality, and technology. So I like to kind of bring the spirituality into that because I think technology is one of the most spiritual things that we have on this planet.

[00:30:13] And I like to think of ourselves as robots, almost like I said, we're, I think personally we're like this experiential being trapped inside of this like biological mechanical body, and we have all this years of bio biological evolution that is kind of holding our souls in place. Right. It's like, which is good. It's a good thing. If we want to be on this planet and be able to interact with people. Cause I don't know how you would interact with people if you didn't have a body, right.

[00:30:40]I'm not going to get into mediums and all that weird shit, but ghosts and shit. But if you think about us as literal fucking robots, In whatever sense. And that was part of my re awakening experience was I don't want to be this drone. That's just programmed by society that has a job as to being told what to do.

[00:30:59] Think about this, the best way to think about programming your life first, is look at your calendar. Look at your to-do list. Like that's literally like you're scripting your life, right? Like you're literally programming what you're doing. So when you're looking at that, I'm thinking, okay, shit. So look at a week to week basis, look at a day-to-day basis. What are you doing? Like what are the scripts that are running? What are those programs that are running? Cause if you're just like doing the same thing all the time, like just staring at a screen, working whatever it is that you're doing for your hedge fund manager. I don't know you're on this loop of just doing that, but if you can kind of break out of that for a second, do some introspection like you did, and then start looking at it almost from like a third person perspective, like if I'm going to program this thing. Like think of, I think of like Josh as like my video game character. I'm outside of that, programming it almost like a puppeteer, right. I want to program myself to do healthy things. Right. So it's like, okay. So as soon, like you, you get into those habits, that's where we were talking about habits.

[00:31:56] You start programming in those habits that become your daily activities. So that was one of the crux of this podcast. I wanted to ask people how they programmed their life, how they intake information and how they write things. So maybe I can throw this over to you, man. I want to ask you, do you have, like a note taking process? Do you have a calendar process, journaling process stuff that you use to program your day?

[00:32:19]Danny: Morning pages is a big one. And when I fall off that, I notice it. Morning pages is 750 words stream of conscious, just do just whatever you think put onto the page. And that really makes my thinking real. And it's another way of becoming aware of my thoughts. So that's a big one for me.

[00:32:42] Another is, I don't have podcasts or interviews usually before noon. And that allows me to spend that time doing creative work or doing something that's going to help me personally, before interacting with others. I have to take care of myself before taking care of someone else. So not that a conversation is taking care of anyone, but it's like, I, I need to get something done for me before worrying about the next thing. And that allows me to bring my fullest to every conversation that allows me to bring my fullest to anything I need to do. So those are a couple of things of how I program myself. What about you?

[00:33:21] Josh: So it so do you meditate before you do your journaling?

[00:33:26] Danny: Yeah, I do 60 minutes meditation and then I will do some breathing exercise or I'll do just some small yoga poses, just something to get myself going. Have a coffee, and then pull up the morning pages afterwards. That's kind of how I do the first hour and a half of my day.

[00:33:46] Josh: Okay. That's awesome. Yeah, I think I do something similar. Um, and it's funny cause this, these are the things I usually talk about on the podcast. Uh, it's usually like other kind of ideas. Um, I'm trying to bring more of this sort of self-development into the podcast rather than just purely technology and like productivity.

[00:34:02] I think those are one sides, uh, of, of this whole spectrum. Right. So I haven't really talked about it. So I appreciate you kind of throwing it over to me and maybe this can help you just kind of stuff that I think about it. Cause I kind of, a lot of times when I'm thinking about the way that I schedule my life and my work, it's almost like fucking military schedule.

[00:34:20] Have you look at my calendar, some people are like, how do you do that? It's like, I have the first chunk of my day is like military schedule by like every 15 minutes is like accounted for. After that, my ideal structure in the day is an empty calendar, unless it's a podcast that you and I I'll send you over a scheduling link, send people over scheduling links to calls. Unless it's something like that. I want it to be just open. I'm always open for creativity, whatever I can do that I know I need to get done.

[00:34:45] But then in the morning, I read this book recently, but actually listened to it by Aubrey Marcus called Own the Day Own Your Life. And he had this awesome sort of like, again, like a program, like you can think of it like a script, like you're installing this new program into your mind of, okay, I'm going to install a new morning schedule and I wanted to have this outcome of having more energy and having more sustained energy.

[00:35:07] So one of the things I actually did, I quit drinking coffee cause I realized that was like fucking with me. So I stopped and I switched to green tea, which gave me a little bit more of a sustained energy. But what he said too was in the morning, first thing to do is just chug a glass of water. Tall glass of water, Ideally with lemon and salt so that you can get hydrated really, really quickly, right after you've done that, then doing some kind of light exercises. It doesn't have to be crazy like training exercises, like lifting weights or whatever. Right. You just mentioned something perfect that I do almost every day, which is like light yoga.

[00:35:39] I joined a Peloton, so I do like a 30 minute yoga classes, all you need to feel like awake and alive. And then after that, it's it's between, meditation and journaling myself. And again, my journaling practice is a little bit more, I guess, rigid than yours, you just keep it flowing. Right. I have an area for myself to just do morning pages where it's flowing.

[00:35:59] But other than that, it's like pretty rigid in a sense, I have a template, a Notion saying, Hey, here's the things I want to get done. It's more of like,  a planner mixed with a journal, right? Because a journal is just free flowing. Planners, like K what do I need to do for the day? What are my top priorities, those kinds of things. So I kind of mix those two together and then, I get to work and I just, because I'm running several businesses, it's, um, you know, getting the stuff that needs be done or delegating it to the people I'm working with.

[00:36:26]Danny: I think that's so important too, that you have a slightly different practice than me, because I think that winning in this arena is just having a practice, not having a practice that you do consistently rather than having the perfect one. Like the perfect one is the one you follow. That's true for weightlifting. That's true for meditation. That's true for journaling. Just doing it and showing up consistently has enormous benefits, whether or not it is, let's say, it's you, you like to lift weights and someone else likes to do yoga and someone else likes to play basketball, but if you don't enjoy it, like it doesn't even matter.

[00:37:03] So don't force yourself to do try a bunch of different stuff. See if you enjoy it, give yourself 90 days to try a new journaling practice or a new workout regime, but just stick with it for that long and see judging results afterward, not, Oh, I'm not the type of person to do yoga before you've ever tried it because that's, that was me for 24 years, and then when I tried it, I loved it. So yeah, try a bunch of different things for 90 days. Do a bunch of experiments, have fun with it. It's just a beautiful thing this life.

[00:37:32] Josh: Man. Yeah, that's so true. And that's, that's the perfect mentality to have. It's not like you shouldn't think, Oh, I have to do this. And like, kind of like pull yourself there. You should push yourself through it. Like you're pushing a rock up a Hill. You should feel like compelled and pulled like, yeah, I get to do, instead of saying, I have to do X say, Oh, I get to do X.

[00:37:51] I get to take this time to do meditation. I get to do yoga. I get to write about my life in this very therapeutic.  I get to have conversations with people like Danny Miranda here on the podcast. Like, you know, it makes you feel so happy to be able to do these things. And that's so key, especially with working out too, you have to first put it as part of your identity. I'm the type of person who does X and then do something you love.

[00:38:15] For me, it took me, man, I can't tell you how long it took me to get into the fitness world. Like. I was, I played hockey. Canadian, so I guess I kind of have to, um, but other than that, I was never someone who was into fitness at all. I always that skinny kind of actually I was that skinny, emo kid in high school, a hundred percent long hair, listening to screamo music. Like I'm the last person that you would ever think would ever be in a gym. It wasn't until I got to university where I worked my way up. I really loved swimming, so I'm like, I'm just going to swim every day. It's what I like doing. I'm okay. I'm just need to show up. Okay. Now we'll try running. I just did running around the track, which was around, um, at the time at university where all the weights were and all of those, uh, gym equipment, I never touched gym equipment. Then finally I saw people using it and I went with friends I'm like OK, I'll give it a try now. And I just made it a habit to just go and do whatever it is that I was doing at the time, something very simple. Right.

[00:39:09] I wasn't lifting weights because that was before. I had that programmed in my mind. I'm not the type of person who like lifts weights, but now I'm just like, yeah, I do, because I could just, you feel a lot better, A and B you become a stronger, healthier person.

[00:39:22] And I remember this, man. I remember sitting in the sauna at like, my school was awesome. We had a sauna in our gym area where the pool was, and I remember this is the beginning of my journey. And I was like, Hey, I am going to go to the gym every day. I am going to work out. And then I made this commitment to myself.

[00:39:38] Cause I was again, I was that artist that was like, Oh, I'm just, just like to draw and stuff. I'm like, you know what, I'm going to be the work of art. I'm going to sculpt my body, and this will actually be the work of art just as if you're sculpting, you know, an actual sculpture. And that's what got me into actually starting to work out. I remember it was that exact moment that clicked for me. And now I'm actually doing it on a consistent basis.

[00:40:01] Danny: I just got chills and that is so important because looking back at my own journey, I used to think of myself as not creative. And it was only when I said, you know what? Every person is creative. So it's just so interesting how we can have these ideas of ourselves and those ideas of ourselves shape our entire lives. I'm not the type of person to work out. That means then you're not going to do something that could potentially benefit you to, to help sustain your life. Like

[00:40:30]Josh: Extend your life too, right?

[00:40:33] Danny: Yeah, absolutely. And it's just, it's so crazy because the possibilities are endless and all it takes often is just us to realize that we are the type of person to do X, Y, and Z. We're the type of person to do whatever we want.

[00:40:47] So it's like, Oh man, I'm so happy that you came to that realization and made that commitment. The commitment is so important, man. The commitment is everything. I made the commitment when I said I was going to love myself. I made the commitment when I started working out, I made the commitment when I did meditation consistently. Making the commitment is everything.

[00:41:04] Make the commitment for a better life, make the commitment that you can be everything you want to be, because once you make that commitment, once you make that value to yourself, it's all over. You can win at anything you so choose.

[00:41:16] Josh: Dude, that's it. Like, you just nailed it. That's the nail on the head right there. And it's funny that you said that you went almost the opposite way. You didn't think you're creative and look at you now you're writing, you're doing podcasts. You find your outlet. Like sure. Maybe you're not like, Oh, I want to be an amazing painter. Maybe you do. I don't know, but here's the thing. Six months from now, you can make that decision and start learning it.

[00:41:35] The craziest thing is we are  learning machines. Like you come out the womb, literally as this, basically a fucking potato, like you're this potato that comes out of the womb, that can't even, you can't even walk. You shit your pants. Like you literally don't know how to hold in your shit and go to the bathroom. Like we can't do things. You couldn't talk, you couldn't write. You figure it out. And because obviously neuroplasticity, plasticity is a thing. Most people who are listening to this are probably quite young and have incredibly neuroplastic minds, which means you can learn anything.

[00:42:10] You just have to make that commitment. You just have to belike hey. This is the best thing you can say. If I'm the type of person that does X just make the commitment that I'm the type of person who can figure it out, who can learn. I can just like trust myself to learn whatever it is I need to learn.

[00:42:23] Whether you're like, Oh, maybe for you before you were learning drop shipping. Maybe don't like it now, but at least you're like, Hey, I can figure it out. And then like, Oh, I need to podcast. Okay. What are the constituent parts of learning how to podcast? You can just learn it. So I think if you're just becoming a learning machine, that way you stay kind of nimble, and you have that mentality that saying whether I'm 25 years old, 50 years old or 80 years old, I can learn it and I'll figure it out and just be completely fluid in your life.

[00:42:52] Danny: I think that's the reason why my podcast logo is a guy looking up at the mountain. Because it's like, The mountain is whatever creative act or whatever thing you decide to do, and you have to do it every day. It's like, if you're looking up at the mountain, when you're lifting weights, you understand that where you are today and what you look like isn't what you want to look like. And do you have a vision. And that looks like such a far place and it is a mountain. But what do you do? You have to climb that daily. You have to say, Oh, I'm going to eat these foods. Oh, I'm gonna learn these workouts. And if you do that time after time, day after day, it leads to a place where you're like three years later, three and a half years later for me, I'm like, wow, I love the way I look and why? Just because I started small and built my way up, you know? So it's like, it's that. That's the game for everything. Like you were just saying.

[00:43:41] Josh: That's it, man. I want to ask you, what is your workout routine look like nowadays? Like, I don't know if you can go to a gym where you are, but I think a lot of people are having to do this at home workout, and what have you. So I want to ask you, what are you doing now for your workouts?

[00:43:55] Danny: Yeah, it's a great question. So I've do two workouts a day. So I, do everything, man. So I do yoga. I do a weighted  vest outdoor walk often. I do runs, and I also have this, uh, enough gym equipment in my basement where I can make do with lifting weights. And that's been my go-to so far for the past, I don't know, 11 months, you know, so yeah, just those four and just doing them over and over jump rope is another one that I really enjoy. Uh, you could do anywhere and pull ups all the time nonstop and pull up bars is pretty easy to get. So yeah, just those workouts, like the basics.

[00:44:35] Josh: well, actually I want to ask you to, um, do you miss going to the gym? Like, do you miss, like, you know, have, yeah. Like, do you think you'll be one of the first people back once it's open and safe to

[00:44:44] Danny: So the gym is open, but I live with my parents now and they're not comfortable with me going obviously whatever they want is, is precedent. They're older. So, yeah, I, I miss it tremendously. It's something that I didn't realize how much I was gonna miss, because you know, where it is that, that I really miss about it.

[00:45:01] It's the accountability of someone watching you. And even though no, one's like looking at you at the gym, it's like, you're all going through this process together of getting better. And it's not as much because I don't go to CrossFit. I don't do that, but it's not like it's direct, but at the same time, I, I see and respect everyone there that they're also getting in the work.

[00:45:21] And it's like, when you, when people are watching you, you perform better. that's what I miss about it the most. And I can't wait to get back whenever I do. I really miss it. And hopefully later in the year, hopefully not, not too, too much. What about you?

[00:45:35] Josh: Yeah, so. So I actually started this program last year. It has a funny name, but it's from this guy named Greg O'Gallagher. I don't know if you follow him on Instagram or have of Kino Body. So he did a program, For bodyweight called Movie Star Body. So I was like, Holy shit. I'm like, yeah, this guy, like you've seen him, anyone like listening, don't know who Greg Gallagher is, like, just look them up on Instagram. You'll see how jacked and how fucking chiseled this guy is. and I was looking, I've been following for a while. Cause he's from Toronto as well. Right. He's from my area. So I'm like, man, like I don't really know what to do cause I was going to the gym and I was using certain equipment.

[00:46:12] I'm okay. Well now I'm forced to do body weight exercises. I'm like, how can I still. Um, get the physique I want, cause I still have a lot of work. I still have a lot, again, like you talked about the mountain, I'm still like only like 10, 20% up the mountain. And I'm like, I see Greg as someone who's like near the top of the mountain, if not at the top with this fucking massive chiseled body.

[00:46:32] And I'm like, Holy shit. If I can get like 10% of how far this guy got, I don't have to get all the way. Cause that's a years, and that's like some grueling shit that I don't even know if I could do yet. But if I get 10%, I want to try it out. So I bought his course. And luckily last year, when all the gyms originally closed I was like K, yeah. I have to do like outdoor workouts or something. Luckily this happened in the city or, and just like you, I actually moved to my girlfriend's parents' house, cause we weren't comfortable living in a condo with all these people COVID and whatnot. So we're like, let's go to the other place.

[00:47:02] And they had this park in that area. They had like a chin up bar had like all the stuff for calisthenics. There's a whole calisthenics park. I'm like, how did this just happen to be within a one minute walk from their house? This is perfect. So I was following that course and I highly recommend it for anyone listening who wants to do some more like body weight stuff.

[00:47:20] He has a version with weight, so I started doing weights. Um, but that program really helped me in and basically what it kind of boils down to is I know, again, we talked about the habit and the routine. I know that I'm working out Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and I know what I'm doing. I know that list of workouts I'm doing Monday and that's all upper body. I know that Wednesday is leg day and Friday's going to be some more upper body, which leaves me with the other four days of the week, which I just do yoga or Pilates or like something like fun, you know, something cool like that. So that's been my workout routine, man, Greg Gallagher, Kino Body, fucking hashtag Keno warrior, man. That's been what I've been doing for awhile.

[00:47:58] How about yourself? Did you find like a program? Did you build your own program? How did you find out what worked best for you?

[00:48:04]Danny: I first got started with lifting weights when I was a senior in high school, so that gave me a good base. I just went to the gym, but then I had a period where I stopped doing it altogether. And my man, Mike Vacanti, Gary Vaynerchuks personal trainer had an online coaching program that I did for, I dunno. Four or five months, six months. And it got me really, I understood macronutrients, I understood the foods that I enjoyed that were also good for me. I, I understood compound movements and lifting weights, so it was really the help of him, Mike  that got me going on the right path.

[00:48:43] Josh: That's cool. And you mentioned before you wanted to be a personal trainer. Is that true? Like you were going to be a personal trainer. Are you still doing that right now?

[00:48:49] Danny: yeah, I was going to do that. but. COVID happened and I realized that there was more to me than just fitness and I didn't want that to be my focus. I wanted my focus to be broader. And I'm really grateful for that because there's some stuff I talk about in my newsletter and like spirituality and stuff like that, that I wouldn't have been able to talk about, I wouldn't really talk about it if it wasn't for broadening my scope. And I just said to myself, I'm not going to be Danny Miranda the personal trainer. I'm going to be just Danny Miranda and see what happens, and so far so good.

[00:49:23] Josh: Dude, I love that. It's just being yourself and not niching down. Do you, do you follow Nat Eliason at all?

[00:49:31] Yeah, he's amazing. Right. And he's one of my biggest inspirations in the space, um, just by being himself, right. Because he's not niching down and be like, Hey, I just do this one thing, you know, and for this one thing, it's like we all as human beings, who at least as an interesting human being, you have a lot of different parts to yourself. There's lots of different versions and people don't like to admit that. But the funny thing is the Danny Miranda and the Josh Gonsalves that's on this podcast. They're not the same people as, when you're with your family or with your girlfriend or your friends, you have different versions of yourself. And within those versions, you also have different interests. Like there's times where I'm Josh Gonsalves, the artists, and I'm literally spending a whole day just like drawing. And my whole being is so in flow state that I am just an artist, like nothing else in the world actually exists.

[00:50:20] And that's why I love this podcast is because you can kind of take all of these different interests and meld them together and bring up all these ideas, have different people on, from different parts of the world and different like, disciplines and start making these connections. Right? Like there's episodes where I talk to people who are like in the VR industry, people like yourself that are content creators and talking about like self-development and you can talk about all your different things.

[00:50:42] And that's why like, about you, like why you don't have this like, niche, like, Oh, I'm the e-commerce guy or like, yeah, I'm the personal trainer guy. You're just like, here's who I am. Here's all the cool shit that I'm into, follow along if you want, if not like that's cool, like, or take what you want and leave the rest. So I I've been loving your journey so far, man, and it's, it's really awesome to see.

[00:51:03] Danny: I really appreciate that. And it's a risk you take because you're not going it's much quicker. You're going to grow quicker following by saying I am X person, or I am Y person because people know what to expect. It's going to be a much longer road to gain a following or to make things happen if you say I'm just who I am and you guys can choose whether or not that jives with you, because you have to let people figure you out for themselves, and that takes time. but at the same time, I think it promotes deeper connections because if it wasn't for putting myself out there fully, I don't know if we would have this conversation. So I'm grateful for that.

[00:51:44] Josh: So I want to actually ask you then, you know, you're just talking about putting yourself out there and starting the podcast. What made you do it? Like what was the deciding factor is like, I need to do this. The podcast is you were writing for a while before you started podcasting. Right? What was the push?

[00:52:00]Danny: There were a few different factors. One was that three people separately told me that I should start a podcast, real friends in real life and unknowingly, like just all said, I should start a podcast. And each time I was thinking to myself, like I'm not the type of person to start a podcast, moving it back to something we spoke about earlier. So I was just like, nah, it's not for me. It's not for me.

[00:52:24] Second factor was that while I was writing so much. I was reading so much as well, and I'm still reading a lot, but I was reading at a different level. I've probably read 50 books in 2020. So I was just reading nonstop, everything, anything I could get my hands on.

[00:52:40] And I was thinking to myself, I would love to talk to some of these people. People like Gay Hendricks, Kamal Ravikant. People that, you know, just inspire me and help me in an incredible way. And I'd love to ask them questions. Third factor was that I put out on Twitter a few times, hey, anyone want to talk on the phone? I'd love to learn more about you. I'd love to learn why you're following me because I'm just putting my thoughts out there and you're resonating with them at some level, and I'd like to find out why. I learned so much from these phone calls about these people, they learned so much too, just from what they told me.

[00:53:13] And it was like, wow. If we both benefited from that, why wouldn't I do this and record it so that other people could potentially benefit who aren't on this call. So that's kind of why it happened. Those three factors, people told me I should, I wanted to talk to authors and people writing books and content creators. And then I had these phone calls that were amazing. So yeah, that, that's why the podcast came to be.

[00:53:39] Josh: That's cool, man. And what are your thoughts on clubhouse? I asked a few people in this podcast now because you can't record. And I think that's one thing missing on that platform. I mean, you can have great conversations, but you're just talking about the ability to record so other people can listen and listen back at a later date. So I want to hear your thoughts on the whole clubhouse thing.

[00:53:58] Danny: I honestly, haven't played around with it enough, and I think it's a great idea. And I think that there's a lot of room there for amazing things to happen, but I haven't consumed it enough. Actually, I'm curious to just do that, like hop on a clubhouse or hop on a Twitter spaces and just talk to people. I think that'd be so awesome to basically get that connection in the app and less friction for people to like, I'll be like that old man right. In three years, they'll be like, I remember when I was calling people on the phone and now you can just do it in the app,

[00:54:35] Josh: It's so true. It's crazy how technology is going, right? Because before you couldn't even do that, couldn't even get on zoom calls or like do group calls and I message, you know, FaceTime, all this stuff. It's crazy how much technology is just kind of advancing.

[00:54:48] But I want to ask you about the podcast. I want to get into this. I want to get into your, your life as an early content creator, because I think we're along the same path because we started around the same time. And these things take time. Um, so I have a few questions on the content creation front for you. Feel free to bring it back to me. If you have any questions or you want to know some things from my side.

[00:55:07]But the first thing is really, you know, you, you kind of started from like very little following. How did you first get your following to then, you know, hop on calls with people, then do the podcast and how have you seen the most growth? What has been the best like growth channels for you?

[00:55:23]Danny: I started on Twitter in 2020 with I think, 7,000 followers. Like I was talking about before with Danny Roars, I was at the e-commerce guy. I was doing e-commerce. And so that helped give me a place where I could then have people to talk to on the phone if I want to talk to someone. But what was really interesting was that I had 7,000 followers in March of 2020, but by June of 2020, I had 6,000.

[00:55:50] And I was starting to express who I was and started to say, like, this is who I am. I'm not e-commerce I don't like just, I don't enjoy just e-commerce and I also change my name from Danny Roars to Danny Miranda. So people were like, who the hell is this danny Miranda guy, enough of him like, get him off my feed immediately.

[00:56:07] And so. I knew what I was expressing was real to me and true to me. And I knew that if I did it long enough, it wouldn't matter about people unfollowing me, like it was just about expressing my true, authentic self and real self. So that's what I've done in Twitter obviously has been the best platform for me to grow, but, in truth I think for a podcast, YouTube is better because someone can get an idea for what they enjoy about you, or they can get more an idea of what you bring to the table as a podcast host. So for me, I see YouTube as. The future for where I see people coming into the podcast and discovering it, because I think that's a really good way for someone to test it out without saying, you know, I'm going to sit down and listen to this hour when I don't even trust you enough.

[00:56:57] How I think about it was like, that's how I got introduced to Joe Rogan in 2014, 2015. I just watch the clips. I was like, listen, I don't believe whatever Joe Rogan saying. I don't, I don't know if I jive with him, but let, let me just test it out. And I was like, wow, this Joe Rogan guy is pretty interesting. So hopefully I could be that same source of like, Oh, this guy's pretty interesting. Let's see what he brings to the table.

[00:57:20]Josh: That's awesome. So by YouTube, you mean like doing 10 minute clips or whatever, from this one hour, two hour conversation or whatever it ends up being.

[00:57:29] Danny: Yeah. So what I'm doing is I'm on a mission, an absolute mission, Josh, to post 1000 clips onto YouTube, 1000 videos onto YouTube in 2021. I want to outwork everyone. I want to be like, how did this guy put out a thousand YouTube videos in one year? That's what I'm going to do. That's my plan. And I don't know if that's gonna help me gain a following on the platform, but I do know that if you want to get better at something, do it every day.

[00:57:57] And if you want to just grow a following on YouTube, if you want anything you have to do every day. So I'm going to outwork everybody. Baby three video clips, day one, man shop. Basically, I got actually a help with, uh, a thumbnail editor and someone who's created thumbnails for me is incredible, but it's like, Can I outwork everyone. That's just how I

[00:58:18] Josh: That's unreal, man. So what are you using to edit? Like, what is your stack for a editing everything?

[00:58:25] Danny: iMovie Baby. I mean, like, I, I don't have any stack. I'm not a video editor. I've never actually video edited anything before this. So it's like, I'm going to get better at it. I'm sure it's going to be way different in three months from now or a year from now. But right now, I try not to get bogged down with the details when you're just starting out and just make that mission of an internal goal of like, this is what I need to do. Let's do it. Everything else is distraction.

[00:58:50] Josh: Dude, you nailed it. Like that's how you become successful because if you're thinking, Oh, I need to become the best editor, I need to take all these courses and, Oh, it's messed up here, it's got to look like a professional editor. Did it like, no, your goal isn't make the best suit. Your goal is put out a thousand clips. The only way to do that is just crank it out. You don't have, you have no chance to think about perfectionism because you have to do what three clips a day. That's fucking crazy be able to do that. That's so true.

[00:59:15] Like what, what I call that is called putting nodes out into the network. So if you think of literally as networks with little nodes connecting it all, the more of those you put up, the more connections can be made. The more you have a chance to get followed by the algorithm, someone just finding you, especially for you to using search terms, I'm sure you're thinking about all that stuff.

[00:59:34]I have a friend that came on this podcast before as well. Sam, you can find them on Twitter, sam learns, super smart guy. He calls it. putting up the bat signal. So I talk about putting the nodes out. He says, putting up the bat signal because no one can find you unless you have that bat signal up. Like, Oh shit, there's a signal like this guy is talking about spirituality and personal growth. That's cool. Let's go see him. And then they find the rest of your videos and like, Holy shit, he has a whole library already. It's only been a year. So. Man kudos to you for just doing it, jumping into it. Um, cause that's fantastic. That's how you're going to learn so much. And by that time you might even find a team that really does a lot of that for you, right?

[01:00:11] Danny: exactly. The point is like, you're never above taking out the garbage and the way I look at it as like editing these clips, isn't exciting. It's not for me. I, I'm not a video editor by trade. I've never done any video editing. I don't enjoy it. I'm also on the first two weeks of doing it, but to me, that's taking out the garbage that's doing what needs to be done to put out nodes in the network that's doing what needs to be done to grow and if you really want it, if this is really your dream to be a podcast host, to interview people, to talk to people every day, this is what needs to be done in this moment. And it's like, of course I would love to hire someone to do this.

[01:00:47] Of course it's busy work for me, but at the same time, I enjoy part of that. Like this is going to stop people from doing what they want, but this is going to propel me because I'm willing to do this. I'm willing to learn. And I love that point about the nodes and the network. I think about that often. I could have an hour interview. We could have an hour interview or whatever it is, but if you don't chop that up into little pieces, how are, how do you expect someone to find that and enjoy that?

[01:01:12] So the more times that I can chop it up and, and break it out into different pieces, the better off people will be to find me

[01:01:20] Josh: Totally man. I highly recommend looking into an app called Descript. I don't know if you've seen or heard people using it and it's helped me to create what I call like atomic content.

[01:01:30] So like we said, it's like you have this one hour massive chunk, then you can create 10 minute chunks for YouTube, you can do one minute for Instagram, then you can do 30 seconds for TikTok and Instagram Reels. So you have like little pieces and that's like transmedia, right? So if someone finds like a 30 second clip of yours on Tik TOK randomly, I don't know if you're posting there, but let's just say you did. They're like, Oh, this one thing is cool. They swipe over to see all these little clips that click your YouTube button. There's like a little icon on Tik TOK, go to YouTube and they're looking at your 10 minute episodes. Okay. Like worked, came more than it goes to the full episode podcast. So it's like, that's how they get pieces to get up to this bigger piece.

[01:02:07] Because yeah, podcasts are interesting. Cause like we're going to be having what an hour and a half conversation here. How many people actually listened to that long of podcasts. I mean, you and I probably do just cause I that's what I do. And I listen to podcasts when I'm walking around doing other things working. but a lot of people are just so conditioned to just getting their 30 second hits of digital cocaine on Instagram and Tik TOK. Right. Yeah, that's a candy, right? It's like the candy, but then the podcast is like a full meal. Like that's insane.

[01:02:35] But then going back to you doing all this content clips, like, it seems like the only real, bottleneck is how many people you can get on the show to constantly pump out these, cause you post an episode, what, three times a week or something like that.

[01:02:47] How do you find all these people? And like, what is your process for getting people on the show?

[01:02:52]Danny: There so many interesting people in this world, my man. That's what I've realized from doing this. It's like, it's, I, I started with thinking I'll just do one a week. And then by the time that I had my first episode live, I had recorded 20 episodes. And it was a month.

[01:03:08] So it was August 23rd I started recording. September 23rd was the first podcast. And in that timeframe I recorded 20 episodes and I said to myself, Hmm, I really enjoyed this. Right? Like, this is a lot of fun for me. And there's so many more people I want to talk to. So. Yeah, that hasn't been an issue at all. I think there's so many people to talk to.

[01:03:31] Everybody's got a story. You just have to be curious enough or interested enough and you will find out a crazy amount. I remember this, this is really interesting because I never was someone who was so interested in people. But when I lived in San Diego, I was forced to ask the questions to people because I wanted to know and not, and people are way more friendly there than they are in New York, and they were willing to just tell me that story. Like Uber drivers were so much more friendly and I was so inspired by so many different stories. I found out that it made me like think, wow, everybody's got a story, you just have to have the balls to ask for it.

[01:04:08] So that's how I think about it now. And if you really go deep with someone, you could learn a lot about how to live life, about, you know, either for, or against them. And I just think of every person as a story and every person has so much behind them than what they're saying in this moment, because I've experienced it myself and I've experienced other people's stories. So yeah, just asking and being curious and, and just learning is how I found guests and how I continue to find a million guests to talk to them.

[01:04:37] Josh: So cool, man. So do you have like a process when you go to reach out to someone, do you have certain channels that you go to? I know you said you're big on Twitter, which I see all the time, like, is that your go-to place?

[01:04:46] Danny: Yeah, well, I think it's my go-to place because I have the most followers and most quote, unquote, credibility to someone who's not who doesn't know who I am. but also email. And also what I like to do in terms of specific process is the first thing I like to say is a genuine compliment about the person, how they've helped me. I'm reaching out to people who have helped me and people who have inspired me in some way. And so that's like a good framework to start with, like, Don't reach out to people who don't inspire you, who you just cause they have a huge following, doesn't mean that they're the right person for your podcast is how I think about it.

[01:05:24] And first thing I say is like a genuine comment about how they've helped me. Second is like, this is what I've done, this is who I've interviewed in and I'd love to have you on as well. And the third thing is just like, no worries if this doesn't fit with you, like no pressure to respond. No, I won't take it personally, like end with that. And then that's it like, that's my go-to script for what I will say when I'm asking someone on.

[01:05:50] Josh: That's awesome, man. I think that's such a great way to approach it and that's, that's amazing. And I think like, one of the biggest people that you kind of got on that kind of helped you blow up was Gary V. So I like to hear that story. How did that come about? That was amazing.

[01:06:03] Danny: Yeah, it was really cool. Cause Gary V was a childhood hero of mine. And it started this whole story in 2009 where I wrote a blog post about him, and I was 13 years old, had a, uh, time management blog. And I wrote a post like Gary Vaynerchuk is the man, basically. And he commented on it. And that was sweet that he commented on. It made my days at 13 year old. Fast forward two years to 2011. Where I had a Knicks blog at the time, I stopped writing the time management blog after two months, but the Knicks blog was great. And I had Gary Vaynerchuk. I was following him from afar and I wanted to go to his book signing, but I was in 10th grade and my mom wouldn't let me go to a book signing on a school night.

[01:06:52] So I sent Gary a Twitter message and said, Hey, Gary, who loves to come to your book signing? But my mom won't let me. And he said, Hey, what's her number and call her on the phone. He had like 850,000 followers at the time, calls her on the phone and says, Hey, Ms. Miranda, I'd love for your son to come to the book signing. I think he'd really benefit from it. So that's 2009, 2011. I've been putting in the work now for two years with Gary V.

[01:07:17] Fast forward now to 2020, and what happens is, I post the screenshot of the post of Gary commenting on the blog post and say, Hey, I have an eye for talent. I even spotted Gary V in 2009. He sees that he follows me from that. And now I'm like, Holy shit, Gary Vaynerchuk just followed me on Twitter. Let me tweet that out. I tweeted out, and then he, all of a sudden,  there are people who start hating on Gary V in the comment section of that tweet of him, uh, me saying he followed me.

[01:07:50] So there started hating and Gary V jumps into those comments and says, Hey, like I respect you for whatever you're doing. Like, like no worries. And, and just starts being a nice guy. And finally someone says, my man logo fits six on Twitter. My man, Logan, he tweets, Hey, Gary would love for you to go on to Danny Miranda podcast. I think you'd really enjoy it. And you'd have a great time. And he said, fuck it. I'm in. And that's the long story of how Gary Vaynerchuk came on the Danny Miranda podcast.

[01:08:22] Josh: Dude. I love those. I love when that happens. Like, it's just so organic really? When you think about it, cause you're just writing about him. You're just like, Hey, I actually just like this dude, like let's, I'm just putting it out there. It's funny that you had your friend come in, walking, you didn't even, he was just like, I would love to have him on the podcast. I wanted to hear this and this, you have the support network. It gives you extra credibility of him being like, Oh shit. Other people want to hear it. Not you asking him. When someone else asks, it's like, Oh shit, people are gonna listen to this. Going to be honest. Awesome dude. That's really cool. I really love that story. That's so cool.

[01:08:52]Danny: I think the story aspect gets lost in it a lot, because it's really easy to just say, Oh, this dude had Gary V on his 39th episode of his podcast, what the fuck did he do? Like, this is incredible, but it's hard to think about it like not actually started 2009. And if it wasn't for me in 2009, writing that post, it's unlikely he would have followed me. And if he didn't follow me, it's unlikely he would have came on the podcast. So everything that you see that just, it looks like an immediate success probably has a lot in the background where you don't notice always. Oh, is this the case?

[01:09:29] Josh: Yeah, it's the tip of the iceberg. Right. People only see the iceberg and they're like, Oh, like, that thing it's like yeah, but like the 99% of all the hard work and you know what that's actually called? I don't know if you're like. If, you know, Russell Brunson, ClickFunnels, he has this term is called digging the well before you're thirsty.

[01:09:46] Right? So like that's what it was. There was like two years of you digging that well, you know, it's not like every day you're like pumping this guy up, but you dug that well, way before you thought you would know it. So do you think about that now when you're like doing what you're doing right now? Is that just digging your well before, you're thirsty? Cause you're not asking for anything in return. Like, like that's one of the things I've noticed about you. It's not like you have some kind of course to sell. I don't even think you have ads on your podcast yet. Right? Like you're not running anything, you're just doing it because you love it.

[01:10:13] And you're just building this up because you're just in the first inning. So is that how you're thinking about your journey right now?

[01:10:18] Danny: 100%. And I, I think that I just have such genuine faith in what I'm doing that it will lead to money and it will lead to opportunities. And it's just like, I started writing because I said to myself, you know what I'd like to, I'd probably like to write a book in in five years and I want people to buy it and you know, it's like, okay, what do you need to do then? What needs to happen? You need to have a blog or you need to have an email list and you need to have people to sell to. Okay. Well, How do you do that? And then like we were talking about before it just like breaking it down each step by step.

[01:10:52] And the other thing I want to say is like, it might appear on the outside like I'm doing a lot of hard work, right? Like recording and publishing three podcasts a week. I'm putting out a thousand YouTube videos in a year and anyone will say like, dude, you're putting in hard work. You're you're really doing it. And I want to tell them that it's what I need to do. Like, it's, it's just like, life couldn't be any other way. Like this is what needs to happen. Like in order for me to express who I am. And so that's not to say that it's not hard work, but it's also to say like, um, I feel like I'm called to do this. And the reason why I'm saying that is also like, I set an intention of doing it a hundred times. So, there's a lot there. And I don't know if any of it made sense, but like, I just want to put it in perspective. Like this is, this is what I feel like I was meant to do.

[01:11:46] Josh: Yeah, that's it, man. I think that's all you really need to feel, right. Like if you really feel like in your heart, like your deepest part of your body and your soul, like, Hey, like I'm doing exactly what I need to be doing. I'm just on the flowing path. Like, you know, the universe is kind of just like at my back, they ha has my back and it's just like letting me flow with life. And you're just taking it one step at a time. You're just doing it.

[01:12:09] Like, man, like I asked you to come on this podcast, it's not like there's. Like, I was attracted to you to be like, Hey man, like, I love what you're doing. I love you to come on this podcast. Like this would be really cool. And that's just from you putting out content and putting up the bat signal, then people like myself will be able to find you and we can have these conversations and you have to just like put yourself right out there. And man, like you've shown that time and time again.

[01:12:30] So like I'm super thankful that there's people like you out there that are on a similar path as me that like, you know, I don't feel like, Oh, I just started. And there's all these people with millions of followers. I'm like hey, look at this guy over here. We're around, like in the same area, we just started the podcast, same time. He's just putting in the reps. So you're kind of like, keep me on my heels and on my toes. Right. I'm just like, Holy shit. Not like I need to keep up with this guy, but like, man, that's the level of commitment if you want to be doing this thing, that's what you have to be doing to make this thing actually happen.

[01:12:57]Danny: Exactly right. The thing is, I don't want to, I don't want anyone to do this because I'm doing this. I want people who are doing it to be like, Oh, that's pretty cool, and I'm inspired and I'm, I want to do it like even further or harder, better because of what I'm doing. You know, that's kind of how I look at it.

[01:13:14] And I'm so grateful that you look at me and are saying like, Oh wow, like I respect what this guy is doing because at the end of the day, you know, I appreciate the appreciation.

[01:13:24] Josh: Yeah. Yeah, man. I appreciate you so much. So it's been awesome. And through your journey so far, what have you learned? Like what has something either about yourself or from your guests? What have you learned along the way so far?

[01:13:37]Danny: I've learned that the most important thing is to be loving to others. And the most important way to be loving to others is to be loving to yourself. And particularly with podcasting, peace and presence is everything and calmness and ability to love yourself in the moment.

[01:13:55] And that's something that you have, honestly, it's like the ability, wherever the conversation goes, you have to be able to remain grounded and not get flustered by what a guest says and not feel like the guest is judging you because I've definitely felt that in the past, but just to have that peace and presence to know like, Life's going to be all right. This conversation was great. This conversation wasn't great. It won't matter. At the end of the day, what matters is that you are whole inside and coming into the interaction with that has helped me tremendously.

[01:14:27] I would never say I was a, a good communicator before doing the podcast. And maybe I could say that now. I don't know. I don't know what I am as a communicator, but I know I want to get better. I know I look at people like Joe Rogan and I'm like, that is an A plus communicator. I look at people like Tim Ferris, a plus communicator. And how do you reach that level? I think it's peace and presence. And having that ability to just let the conversation go wherever it goes and feel like you are at one with the moment.

[01:14:55] Josh: Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. And like, for me, it's like, it comes down to my perspective, go into these things, it's like, it's not about me. when I do these podcasts, like 100% it's about the guests. Like you're literally a guest. I think of it. Like you're inviting them to your room or your house, right. It's all about you.

[01:15:12] So I'm here to extract things from you. Like either new insights. We talked about that before. I'm like, if we can get someone's mind blown, whether it's you, me or the audience. Amazing. But if it's one of us, that's like the best. I just want this conversation to be awesome. I don't really care how it comes out on the other end if this moment is good and this feels right, which it totally does, man. Like the energy is just awesome. And the fact that we can feel that energy by looking at a screen and speaking into this like piece of metal and getting feedback into our ears, like it's fucked up. It's kind of fucked up when you think about it, right?

[01:15:47] Danny: That is mind-blowing. My mind is actually blown, cause I never thought about it like that.

[01:15:51] Josh: Yeah. Well, that's perfect. That's awesome, man. Oh God. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of how I think about it. It's like, we're looking into this portal into someone else's world, right. It's fucking crazy. Uh, and it's only going to get better, like when it comes to VR, AR maybe eventually this is a, like a virtual room that we come into and we're in the same space together and just recording, you know, like who knows where things are going to go, it's going to get, it's going to get insane.

[01:16:17] But back on the whole, you know, the journey side of things. Are there any people that you like, listen, you mentioned a few names from other podcasts. Are there any other people that kind of inspired you, that you kind of look up to you that you learned from.

[01:16:29] Danny: Yeah, there, there are a couple that are underrated, but in 10 years, if they stick with it, I believe will be household names. And that is Joe Ferraro. He is an incredible question, asker from the 1% Better Project. And you have Chris Williamson from Modern Wisdom, and I know you're also a Chris Williamson fan. He is incredible. He has peace and presence to the extreme, and I really respect what he does. And I, I love his thirst for knowledge, and those two are just underrated, but I believe in five years or 10 years, there'll be household names if they stick with it.

[01:17:07] Josh: Totally. And I totally agree with, uh, Chris Williamson on Modern Wisdom. Like that's just something that you can definitely tell. It's like we're building like these small media empires almost. It's like, it's going to be the Oprah's of the next generation, right. And it's going to be on your own platform well, or rented platform if you're on like YouTube and stuff like that.

[01:17:25] But have you heard of, or watched or listened to Impact Theory with Tom BIlyeu by any chance?

[01:17:31] Danny: Yeah, I have, I love what he does as well.

[01:17:33]Josh: he's a master, a master communicator, speaker, and again, question-asker like just the way that he can extract things. Like you can tell, he just he's maniacal about what he does. Like it's ridiculous. But the other thing I find really interesting, I was just listening to him on the Mikayla Peterson podcast Jordan Peterson's daughter.

[01:17:51]She was asking, you know, what it is he's doing. It's like, you're saying how most people know him for the show Impact Theory of him being this personality, being this like social media influencer, whatever you want to call it, whatever were this is that people talk about.

[01:18:05] I don't personally see myself as that. I just, I love doing these conversations and posting them online for people to see. But I guess he sees himself as like, sort of like a male Oprah in a sense, like an actual personality. And that's how people know him. But his company impact theory is actually a comic book and film company, his mission is to become the next Disney, but he's doing this other thing almost on the side or in parallel that is kind of boosting up that presence.

[01:18:29] So is there anything for you, like end goal? Is it to just do this. Do you have other things in mind that you wanted to do? You mentioned write wine to write a book and other things. Do you have like other aspirations in the sense for your future of things that, you know, you want to accomplish or just do.

[01:18:45] Danny: Right now, I would say the intention is to be the number one podcast in the world. There are things that along that journey I'm sure will be incredible. I don't know if that starting a business. I don't know if that is, speaking at Madison Square Garden, I don't know what that is. Right. Like,

[01:19:02] I don't know where this leads, but I know that having that huge intention of like, I want to do this to the best of my ability every single day. And if I can do that, I know will lead to things that I just couldn't possibly predict. How could I ever predict 39 episodes in that Gary Vaynerchuk was going to be on the podcast. Right? How could I ever predict that I'd be in this wonderful conversation right now? How could I ever there's so much, you know, like in terms of aspirations that I assume will happen by setting a huge intention, right?

[01:19:34] If you set a huge intention or if you just set a small intention, when you're just starting a hundred podcast episodes, my start was a hundred podcast episodes, and now it's like, become the number one podcast in the world.

[01:19:45] So it's just like setting that small intention leading to a bigger intention and then saying to yourself, okay, there's going to be some fun along the way. There's no specific thing I'm tackling, maybe speak at Madison square garden. Maybe interview someone there, maybe start a business, maybe do this, maybe do that. But I'm just keeping myself open to the universe to anything that happens and letting the universe guide me.

[01:20:08] Josh: Oh, man. That's beautiful. It's like, I mean, that's your cover art, right? For your podcast, it's just a guy staring up at a mountain. Is that kind of how you sit? It's like, Hey, this is the journey I'm to the bottom of this mountain and wherever this mountain leads, whatever that pinnacle is, we don't know what's at the top. What kind of flags have been planted up there? Um, is that kinda how you see it?

[01:20:27] Danny: 100% and also, look at the day to day is the mountain, like I touched on before. Because I think that every morning when we wake up, we are blessed with the opportunity of being able to climb that mountain. No day is guaranteed. And, and it's just like, okay, you're looking up at that mountain today. That could be the last day you look up at that mountain. So why not climb it to the best of your abilities, every single day.

[01:20:53] Josh: Dude that gave me chills. Man. That's crazy. It's so true. Cause you don't know, man, like you don't know if you're going to wake up tomorrow morning and we, we think we are, we assume we are. We don't know. Like it's pretty scary shit to think of. Like, do you think of like your own mortality in that sense? Is that keep you going to be like, Hey, like this, this could be it. Let's just make this moment the best it possibly can.

[01:21:13] Danny: Well, I got the mountain behind me on one side, and then I got one life right above that for those watching the video. It's like, that's a Gary Vaynerchuk iconic combination. And, it is the understanding that you get one ticket and maybe we get reincarnated. Who knows? I don't know enough about all that stuff, but I do know that I believe in this moment we get one life and one moment maybe in this incarnation.

[01:21:38] So it's like, why not make the most out of that? Why not do everything you can want to set those huge goals, set those huge intentions and live every day to the fullest. Because what other choice do you have? You're going to sit on the couch. Like, that's just not as exciting for me. I've tried it. It's not as exciting as going after something with all you've got.

[01:21:58] Is it harder to climb that mountain than to ignore it? Absolutely. But do you feel better about yourself? Do you feel like, Oh, wow, that was really hard work, but that was what I needed to do. And I feel good about that. Also absolutely. So I choose the latter, you know, you choose whatever is good for you if you're listening or watching, but that's just how I'm thinking about life at this moment.

[01:22:19] Josh: That's awesome, man. I hope people kind of take that to heart. And if anything, maybe it unlocks something that they never thought of. You know, maybe they don't think of it like that. But one thing I really find tremendously interesting is you're, you're just mentality about, you know, taking it day by day and letting it be open. And that's called like, From what I know the optionality approach.

[01:22:38] I just read this book. Well, I'm like almost done it now. It's called Optionality by Richard Meadows. Um, Oh, you're writing down. I thought you had it. I thought you were pulling up the book. I'm like, Holy shit. I'm like, that makes sense. Yeah.

[01:22:51] It's, it's the idea of optionality. He's like, yeah. You know, instead of like creating five or 10 year goals, we don't actually know what we want in five or 10 years. Think about this man. When you were doing drop shipping and stuff. Okay. Before drop shipping your intention, your goals like, Oh, I'm going to be a drop shipper, become a millionaire and have a Lamborghini. Probably. I don't know. That's the dream people are sold when they do drop shipping. did you ever have, um, that innate, uh, wanting to become a motivational speaker or to want to interview people? No, you didn't. That's not. He wanted to see your five or 10 year goal was like, start this business drop shipping.

[01:23:26] Even now you don't know what you're going to want in five or 10 years. There's no way to know it. I didn't even like two or one year. Right? So having the optionality approach is just keeping your options open and just doing the systems in place that will feed the options. In your case, doing more interviews, putting yourself out there, writing more, and just leaving the options open. So once you get to that point in time, there's options in front of you, rather than being stuck into having to do one or two things.

[01:23:54] Danny: Yeah. And also with the drop shipping, going back to that as like my approach, there was, what can I do in the short term? What can I do right now to make money tomorrow instead of what could I see myself doing for the longterm? And I think that that's a really important distinction because I never, you know, if you're doing things for the long-term, you then gain the optionality because you still enjoy doing it, or you've built up something.

[01:24:20] But if you're thinking short term, short term, short term, like eventually that's going to run out and you're not going to enjoy it as much. So that's been my experience at least.

[01:24:29] Josh: Yep. Absolutely. And I think I always like to make analogies of some of these things. It's like a lot of people right now are trading stocks on like Robin hood and stuff. Right? Like this in this point in time, again, it's February early, February, 2021. Everyone's in the stock market right now. I'm not, I'll be completely honest, like for anyone listening, just because.

[01:24:50] Yeah. I mean, when you start seeing this many people tweet about stuff and seeing it on Tik TOK, you're like, Hmm, something's wrong. But it's, these people are playing short-term games. Can I buy the stock and sell it by the end of the week? They're traders, right.

[01:25:03] So are you a trader or are you an investor? Because an investor thinks about the 10, 20, 30 year run of okay, I don't care if I lose money in the short term, like you, with your followers, you lost a thousand followers in a short period of time, because you know, in the long period you didn't get the right people back in. So, you know, that's a really good thing, but are you a trader or are you an investor?

[01:25:27] Danny: I love that. I love that way of thinking. And it's so clear to me looking back that when I was shipping, I was trading and today I'm investing. And it's so, so awesome that you, you brought that to my attention, and I'll be thinking about it in those

[01:25:41] words in the future because of you. Thank you.

[01:25:43] Josh: Oh, man. That's awesome. I see. That's why I do this podcast because there's things that I learned from reading from other people. You learn things from other people. So there's all these different connections on either side of us, and when they come together, new again, new nodes are formed in the brain, which is why I love doing the podcast. I love to transfer knowledge. I love to receive it, but it's give and take. And I'm sure people listening got the same thing as you.

[01:26:04] And when we think about the trading versus investing it's like. what are you trading? What are you investing? It's your time and your energy. Those are the only things you have. And it could be money. I'm sure you invested some money in setting up a Shopify store and get whatever it is. But what you're really investing, especially when it comes to content creation, you're investing your emotional energy and your time. That's the only kind of things we have in this world. And you're going to get some sort of return in whether it's a week from now a month from now or years from now, you got to just keep investing it.

[01:26:33] Danny: I love it. That's that's exactly how I'm going to start thinking about it.

[01:26:38] Josh: So we're about at the hour and a half Mark. So we're gonna wrap this up and I want to ask you just a few kind of ending questions before we head off.

[01:26:47] The first one is, what are some challenges that you're currently facing right now? Do you have any like growing pains with what you're doing? Are there challenges internally with the content that you're producing? I want to hear what you're kind of grappling with right now.

[01:27:01] Danny: Yeah, it's an interesting question because. I think the biggest thing I'm challenged with right now is completing my class, which is, I'm taking two classes in psychology and statistics and I finished the psychology one, but the statistics one, is just, it's not even challenging me, but it's challenging to sit down and do the material when I want to talk to people like you, when I want to just create content and go, go, go.

[01:27:28] Um, so that's the, the biggest challenge is things that are outside of content creation, rather that are holding me back.

[01:27:36]Josh: is it like a university course? What is it? What is the course for.

[01:27:40] Danny: Yeah, it's a couple of different university classes to potentially, I'm not sure if I'm going to actually do it, but potentially apply for a master's in psychology. I'm so interested in how people think I'm so interested in why they do what they do.

[01:27:55] I don't know if I'm going to end up going down that route. There's so many options, like we were talking about before for things to do, jobs and opportunities that have just popped up because of content creation. But it's what I, I said to myself that I was going to do when I started the class back in September. So I'm going to finish it, but it's, it's, uh, the biggest challenge thus far.

[01:28:18] Josh: Yeah, totally. It's the things that, you know, you want to do cause they'll help you out for the long-term be like, ah, I just, I don't like. Same thing. Just putting in the reps. When you had to do pushups, you got to edit something. It's like, yeah. If you set out to do something and you put that intention out, you're going to get it done. Like it's at the end of the day, it's a little bit of a roadblock, but it will be behind you at a certain point. It's not like a permanent roadblock. There's at least, you know, there's a time element to it where there's an end date. It's not just like this forever thing. Then you might just be like, fuck it, I'm just gonna put this off, but it's more of a project than an area of your life. It's not like something that's going to be a, uh, sticking with you for the longterm. So that's really interesting.

[01:28:53]But I think that's a really smart idea, um, to learn more about human psychology. I think everyone should. I think we should be taught that a lot more when we're younger, like in elementary school and like middle school, cause like we need to know, like I, I talked about this at the beginning, like we need to learn how to program this thing. Like you have to learn this, the computer.

[01:29:12] Learn this computer thing that you have, that it's kind of driving you, you can learn about yourself, better, learn how to, you know, get rid of bad habits, how to program your mind. But it's also good for these kinds of conversations, because you can think about how you can ask questions and things like that. It's, it's, it's super, super important for, for any kind of interviewer to know the psychology of other, such a smart man. I think that's great. I think you should continue with that.

[01:29:34]So my last question is sort of almost the opposite of that. It's like, what are you most excited about? Like what's coming up that you're super excited about.

[01:29:42] Danny: I'm interviewing tonight, Kamal Ravikant and it's actually, yeah, it's very exciting. At midnight. I've read his book, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It. Changed my life. And I've been trying to get him on the podcast for quite some time. Now, probably like four or five months, something crazy like that. And just continuing to Badger him because he wanted me to Badger him and wanted me to, to keep pushing him. And so I have, I've done that and now secured the interview and I'm super, super excited to talk to him tonight at midnight.

[01:30:17] Josh: Dude, that's huge. Give me the scoop. What is the one thing you want to ask him? What's the one thing you're dying to know from Kamal

[01:30:23] Danny: oh, dude, there's so much. And I've so many questions prepared, which could be a bad thing. But one of the things that I, I want to talk to him about is when was that moment where he realized that everything that he had written about and was his identity, he then needed to relearn. Because one part about the book is that he fell off the path. And I think that that's something that, you know, gets brushed under the rug in terms of, if you put out content that helps people and you've internalized it, that doesn't mean that you are exempt from having to relearn it at another point in your life. And so, yeah, I think that that would be interesting to find out when was that second moment for him?

[01:31:08]Josh: Well, I can't wait to listen to it. I can't wait to hear his answer. I got his book on my bookshelf as well. A fantastic book and I have his brother's book as well. Uh, well, it's not his, it's not his book, but Erik Jorgensen's, uh, the Navalmanac. Have you read that one as well?

[01:31:23] Danny: I have. It's incredible book.

[01:31:25] Josh: Yeah, those two brothers, man, those guys are, um, brilliant dudes. So that's man. Good for you. I'm really excited for you to, uh, to get one of your heroes on the podcast. It's again, super inspiring, you know, it's just like, wow, like it's cool that you're able to do that. And again, you just said it comes down to badgering him and having the consistency of like, if you really want it you're to ask again. And even if they say no, it means no, not right now. Let's ask in a few weeks, a couple months. So that's awesome, man. I'm really excited for you.

[01:31:52] Danny: And also, also just know, just to, to add to that is like the interviews at midnight on, you know, tonight, because that's the only time that worked for him. And going back to what we were talking about before, like that might seem like hard work to someone, but to me, it's just like, what has to be done. Like interview one of your heroes at midnight, like, of course you're going to do that. So yeah, that, that's just, I just wanted to go full circle with that.

[01:32:19]Josh: That was good. No, that's, I'm so glad you actually brought that up because just. It's a huge distinction because a lot of people like midnight doesn't work for me. It's like, okay, well, like you're not doing anything else. What do you do after like 7:00 PM? Really? Like nothing. You're not doing anything. So why not make the most of it?

[01:32:35] Cause he's what, california time. So that's probably three hours behind. Whereas that ahead. Yeah. I don't think he would be doing it at 3:00 AM, but he could be crazy. I don't know.

[01:32:43] Danny: No, he's doing it. 9:00 PM his time..

[01:32:46] Josh: Yeah, that's awesome. All right. Well, Danny, I appreciate you so much, man. And I appreciate you so much for coming on this podcast. And, you know, I hope we get to this again because it's going to be cool to see how the, both of us grow over the next couple of years. Things change so much. But I'm glad that we got connected here on the podcast, and I don't want this to be the end of it. I want this to be the beginning of this relationship.

[01:33:06] Danny: It definitely will be, this was so much fun for my perspective. You're an incredible host and incredible interview and incredible question asker, podcaster. I'm so blessed to be in this spot and thank you for, for everything you do. I really appreciate you.

[01:33:19] Josh: Oh, thanks so much, Danny. Those words mean so much. And for everyone listening, thank you for listening if you got this far. We both appreciate you for listening, for putting your time into us.

[01:33:29] And I hope you got something out of this. I hope something resonated with you, hope you got your minds blown, maybe learn something new, but this has been amazing. So thank you for listening as well. And we'll catch you next time. Cheers.