J.R.: 0:00

Hello, my wonderful listeners, and welcome back to another fun episode of 1000 Gurus with me, your host, jr Yonacruz. Today's guest is Solomon Daniels from Podcast Place. As owner of Podcast Place in Long Beach, california, solomon is privileged to help empower the creative journeys of people from all walks of life. A car stereo installer by trade, his own journey to this point has taken him from dashboards to boardrooms, from San Francisco to Sweden and from second son to father of two, now in his 50s. This latest endeavor lets him continue helping others in the most fulfilling way possible, one person at a time. So this was such a fantastic episode.

J.R.: 0:34

I was excited and happy to finally have the producer of this show and owner of podcast place, solomon Daniels, on the show. As I've mentioned, he's one of the few people who have listened to every episode of this show, so he probably knows more about the essence of what this is all about than anyone else besides me. Even though Solomon has never been featured on a podcast before he hit it out of the park with this one, I think, and he was such a wealth of information on everything we talked about. We get into his background and long tenured career journey, from working at McDonald's to being the editor of a magazine and eventually a marketing expert and now a podcast studio owner. We chat about the evolving story of Podcast Place, all of the lessons he's learned and advice he has for business owners hoping to grow, start scale or find balance as a solopreneur. Solomon was also a fantastic guest because, after having helped me produce over 40 episodes of this show and all of our chats behind the scenes and after recording, we definitely have really good chemistry on camera, so hopefully that shows to you guys. So, without further ado, hope you enjoyed this episode with Solomon Daniels.

J.R.: 1:39

Hello and welcome back to 1000 Gurus. Please welcome my very special guest, solomon. Should I give myself a applause? You should To 1,000 Gurus. Please welcome my very special guest, solomon. Should I give?

Solomon: 1:44

myself a applause, you should. There we go.

J.R.: 1:45

Please give yourself a applause. There you go, nice, okay, solomon, I am excited to finally have you officially on the show, even though our viewers might know that you are a part of every production and we are five seasons in episode five of season five. Yeah, it's pretty exciting. How do you feel?

Solomon: 2:04

I feel good. I feel like it's been cool watching you do this and go through and interview interesting people. And you're right, you do learn something from everybody, no matter how mundane you think their job is or whatever, there's always something you can learn. It's been a cool experience watching you.

J.R.: 2:18

Yeah, I appreciate it. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I mean, you're kind of forced to listen to every episode, but I do appreciate it, so I'm glad you like the show. I mentioned this on my mom's episode, but I think probably the only people who have listened to every episode is me, my mom and Solomon. So I think that's a very tight circle, that's true.

Solomon: 2:36

Nice.

J.R.: 2:37

As I was saying before, I've been teasing to this behind the scenes with Solomon, but to start off, I have a pop quiz for him. Yeah, so this is actually you know what. We'll tease that a little bit longer, so let me just go into how I know you first. But, as I mentioned, I was looking for a podcast studio to record this in last year around maybe September or something like that, and then I was touring around and looking at the available options and then I came across podcast place, which you are the owner of and you run this whole shop, and then I came across Podcast Place, which you are the owner of and you run this whole shop and I think it was like a clear best option for me in terms of services.

J.R.: 3:11

I think Solomon's Place is head and shoulders above all the other places that are offered in my area and the location is convenient. It's like down the street from where I live and, yeah, we took a tour. The rest is history, and then 45 episodes. In here we are 45 episodes.

Solomon: 3:25

Yeah.

J.R.: 3:26

And Solomon is no stranger to having a lot of experience and wisdom that we can learn from. I think you've had several businesses right. I think you said you have a tattoo.

Solomon: 3:35

Yeah, I've done several things and I've had several businesses, but I've also had several businesses that didn't either they failed or they didn't get off the ground.

J.R.: 3:50

And I look at those experience points and that's why you see my my yeah, is it my tattoo?

Solomon: 3:54

that one little um tally marks? Yeah, I can turn my arm there. You go right here.

J.R.: 3:56

So it's just an experience thing I, okay, I guess I do have a quick question. Yeah, or I don't want to say what your favorite podcast is, but I want to ask how's your experience been? You're the only person I know who runs a podcast studio. Okay, yeah, not to get into it too deep, but I'm just curious at a surface level, like how's it been these last? Was it three years-ish?

Solomon: 4:16

Yeah, yeah to 2001,.

J.R.: 4:19

I think, 2001,. Okay, yeah, so like four years. Yeah, so like four years, yeah. So how's it been Like? You've produced a lot of different shows. You've been a part of different productions and you've heard so many different guests and hosts and topics and stuff like that.

Solomon: 4:29

Yeah.

J.R.: 4:29

I don't know what's the general vibe of someone like in your position.

Solomon: 4:33

Well, the cool thing is you're doing it because you're helping create these dreams for, like, people who want to really just come and do something and you're taking away all of the hard stuff, right, so they can just come in and they can just be creative and they can do that, and so you're seeing people realize their dreams.

Solomon: 4:53

And sometimes, even when I'm doing this, I don't realize how much it means to them. You know what I mean and they say things like I appreciate it and I go well, you paid, so whatever, but it really does mean something because they say, without you I couldn't have done this or I wouldn't have done this, and so that's always good. So I've probably produced I would probably say, 1,500 episodes of podcasts, hundreds of shows and some of the shows people they start them and then for one reason or another, they can't continue or whatever, and they drop off, but others they keep going. So it's been a cool experience to see it, and Long Beach is a vibrant community of all these different kinds of creators, so you have all these different kinds of podcasts and stuff too. So it's really cool to be part of people's creative journey. I think that's the most fun part for me.

J.R.: 5:40

Yeah, that's cool to hear and I echo that sentiment too. I think Solomon is a large part of where this podcast is today. I know it maybe eventually would have taken off, but I think him being here and the service that he offers in Podcast Place is a big part of why 1000 Gurus is the way it is right now. So definitely appreciate you and this space for that. I guess my I had something else, but I think I forgot. Yeah, no, I think we'll get into running a studio and your whole journey in a bit. So now let's go into the pop quiz. Oh, okay, so this one should be easy for Solomon. So it's a two-parter One's the main question and one's the extra credit.

J.R.: 6:14

So the first question that I've been teasing Solomon for for like months now is what is my favorite anime?

Solomon: 6:26

Oh, I know that one. And why is the name slipping my mind? One Piece, yes, correct, correct.

J.R.: 6:30

Yay, okay, so here's the bonus question who is my favorite character in One Piece?

Solomon: 6:37

Oh, that one. I don't know if I heard you say it, but it's the little boy right. I don't know his name.

J.R.: 6:42

Yeah, can you describe what he looks like or what your impression of him is? He has a hat like that. Oh, so you mean luffy this one?

Solomon: 6:52

yeah, that's the one I'm thinking no it's not him, okay, well then, I would I don't know the characters.

J.R.: 6:57

It's all good. Yeah, no, I. That's why this one's a bonus question, because I figured you may or may not get it. It's zoro, it's the middle, the middle guy.

Solomon: 7:03

Oh, so he's the one, he's the swordsman he has.

J.R.: 7:06

He's, his color scheme is green, all right, and his whole thing is that he does three sword style, so one sword in each hand and one in his mouth, and he holds it like this oh, and so that's his thing. Really, he's like the only three sword style person, but he's so badass and like I've mentioned it before on the podcast, so I was like okay, I might not get this one.

Solomon: 7:25

I missed that one.

J.R.: 7:25

No, no it's all good. That's why it's the bonus question.

Solomon: 7:27

I'm like all right. Well, at least I got one right exactly you got the main one right.

J.R.: 7:30

I knew you would get one piece right, but I was like we'll see if he gets his oral right, yeah, yeah. So anyways, good job, good job. Okay, we'll go into our regular topics now. So the first one is always origin, story, background, main influences, career aspirations. So, solomon, where did you grow up and what's your overall background?

Solomon: 7:48

Well, believe it or not, I was born in the Bay oh, really, well, not in the Bay, stockton, oh, stockton. But I didn't grow up there. I was there in the first few years and then we, I think in the fourth grade, my dad moved us down to LA, so I grew up in what's now called Koreatown. I went to school there, went to high school in Belmont High School, which is near downtown LA, mostly Hispanic school, and from there I got out of high school and I was going to go to college.

Solomon: 8:18

My mom worked at USC and so we were supposed to get a free ride. But she worked for the head coach of the football team. She was his secretary. So then what happened was he went to the Rams, he got hired by the Rams and so she went with him. So there went the free ride, oh dang. Basically, I ended up getting a job at McDonald's and I worked there for a number of years and I had a kid young, had a daughter young, and then basically, basically, it was just living life at that point, just growing up and doing what you had to do. I went to LACC for a while, city College, and from there I moved up in McDonald's. I was a manager and all that stuff. And let's see, I'm trying to think that's what.

Solomon: 9:02

I'm saying it's a lot of decades. Eventually I got into to think that's what I'm saying, it's a lot of decades. Eventually I got into car stereo. My dad a long time ago had taught me how to put two wires together and tape them, and that really formed this interest in car audio, and so I've always been self-taught, so I taught myself how to put things in cars and stuff like that. And so I went to Radio Shack with a bunch of cards one day and said, hey, you have customers who want to get their stuff installed that they buy from here, that I can do it. And they called me. I go to their house and I install radios and car phones and stuff like that. And so I got reasonably good at it and I got a job at a place called the Good Guys and they had that up north, I believe for a while they're no longer in business.

Solomon: 9:50

It was basically like a circuit city, yeah, like that. So I did that for a number of years in sales and then I ran the installation bay and that just moved me into other aspects of the career. So I went from there and I worked for a company that sold car alarms and they had an office in Irvine. So I worked there and then they were like we're going to close our office in Irvine, so they offered me to move to Michigan, to their home base, and so I moved to Michigan and that was a real different way of life.

Solomon: 10:16

There here in California we're like you know, people want to aspire to do things right, they want to aspire to be better. But there are people it seemed like people just wanted to grow up, marry the girl next door, get a job at one of the big three and just work and retire, and that was just all they wanted out of life, and the lifestyle was just a real big culture shock for me. And so after about three years I wanted to get back to California. So I came back and I got a job at a magazine that covered the car stereo industry and they hired me as editor, even though I didn't have any editor experience, but it was based on the fact that I had a lot of industry experience. I did that job for a good number of years, probably eight years.

Solomon: 10:56

In 2008, I decided to open up like a marketing agency and there I was helping companies that would advertise in the magazine. I was helping them get in contact with their customers and retain these relationships and stuff like that, and so I did that for a while, and then the magazine got sold and the new owners asked me to come back and do that, so now I was doing both. I did that up until probably 2010.

J.R.: 11:25

Oh like, come back and still be an editor.

Solomon: 11:28

Yeah, come back and be an editor. So I was editor of the magazine and then I was still doing marketing on the site. So, yeah, I did that all the way, not 2010, I did it all the way up to 2020. And then COVID hit and all of the clients that I was working with I had lost and the magazine decided to go digital. So basically it's like now, time for a pivot. What are you going to do?

Solomon: 11:51

And I was in this space at the time, but it was obviously more just like an office space. Right, but I had been messing around with the idea of doing like a podcast studio type, and mainly it was because I can have clients come in and they can shoot their open box opening what do you call it? Unboxing, unboxing, thank you, their unboxings and stuff like that. And and then just walking around the neighborhood, you hear people talk about I would love to do a podcast, but this and this and that, right. So I actually started setting it up. I bought the URL cost, cost me like a thousand dollars podcast place and built the website, put in the financial system where people could pay for episodes and stuff like that. But then I just let it sit because COVID started. So then, coming out of COVID, I was like, well, I need to figure out something to do. I don't know about this podcast thing. I haven't done it, so I think I should put my energy into trying to regain some of my marketing clients.

Solomon: 12:45

So in the process of doing that, one day I got a call and I said hello. And he said, hey, I just wanted to make sure my session's on for tomorrow. And I'm like who is this? And it was some kid out of Moreno Valley. And he goes yeah, I signed up on the website and everything to do my podcast tomorrow. And I'm like you did. And so I went and looked at the website and it said, sure enough, there was $99 that had been sitting in there, or whatever it was. At the time I think I was charging 69 bucks and so that forced me to start it, because I was actually thinking, let me just take this stuff down, it's a waste of time, or whatever. And so that forced me to start it. So that next day that kid came in and I wasn't really prepared and I remember I recorded it using Zoom. I'm thinking, well, zoom is easy, that's easy to record, but not thinking that Zoom records in the lowest quality because there are concerns with bandwidth and all of that. But so it was a learning experience from there.

Solomon: 13:40

And my next clients were these four kids who lived locally. They all went to. They went to three different high schools in the area and they wanted to do a podcast on seniors being seniors, going through COVID, dealing with the mental health issue and all of that stuff. But they didn't have that much money, so they were like, well, we can pay you $10 a piece. So it was like $40. I said, okay, well, I'm going to make some mistakes because I'm still learning stuff. And I said, okay, well, I'm going to make some mistakes because I'm still learning stuff. And so we came to an agreement and they did their podcast for that whole year until they graduated. And in that time you learn a lot because you think, oh, okay, I've got this table I want to put here. Oh, but when you put it in front of camera it doesn't really work, and so you learn from doing it.

Solomon: 14:21

And that experience with them gave me a lot of the experience to change things and add things the way it needed to be or the way it is now, and I've gone through a lot of iterations, and I think I've told you the story of how I have the two sets right.

Solomon: 14:34

This is set A for small stuff, and I was doing everything on this side.

Solomon: 14:39

So when four people wanted to do a podcast, I put a table lengthwise and two people sit on either side, and one day these samoan guys came in and they said we want to do our podcast here, and they were all like six, five, six, six. Our guests are going to be other samoan guys because we're promoting the community and they're all big guys. I'm like, okay, they're not going to fit here. So then that that made me take my side, which was previously seating for clients and stuff from the marketing business, and I turned that into set B, and so that'll sit five people or three or four really big people, and so it just gave me space to do both, and so it was just a process of now taking everything that I had made with all the cameras and all of that stuff, and making it work for both sides. So that that was a process, but that was probably the funnest part for me, though building, building, everything. But yeah, that's the basic start of it.

J.R.: 15:33

Yeah, yeah, that's a that's. That was such a wild journey that you get to TLDR of your own entire like career path. That's cool, yeah. What I like about, what I admire about you, Solomon, is that since I've known you and it's only been less than a year it seems like you're the type of person who likes to iterate, adapt, see what you can improve and make it better.

Solomon: 15:54

Yeah.

J.R.: 15:54

Every time I come in, you usually have something that you're tinkering with or wanting to improve. Even since October, you've improved a lot and, going through your story, it seems like you're no stranger to pivoting and going into new opportunities and learning and growing, which I think is great and then it seems like even just opening up the space. It was trial and error, but it was all. Everything was created by a demand, meaning a problem came in and then you created the solution. As opposed to just preemptively planning everything out, You're just going with the flow and building on it, right?

Solomon: 16:26

Yeah, and that's how it is sometimes, because you go in with an idea of what you think will work, right. I'll give you a good example. I put a conference room table in the conference room there, right, it's a glass table and everything. And I thought, oh, this is cool. And so a guy came in and he sat at the table and he's a big guy and he put his arms in the table and the table slid, oh. And so I'm like oh, I need to put some things there to keep the. So you put these pads under, and so it keeps the table in one spot. So it's just little things like that.

Solomon: 16:53

And even in this area here, originally I had a big flat table like this, and then when two people talk to each other, it's very awkward. So then that's why I said, let me get a half round table so they can sit at either sides and they can still face the camera but still be able to look at each other. And so it's little things like that that you just constantly evolve, right, like the lights used to face all front, but then they would glare too much on the screens and now you put them off to the side and put them at angles and you just experiment with it. And one of the things that I I tell people is, when I recently started this, the thing that I wanted to really have was the ability to have the multi camera switching Cause a lot of podcast studios they said they would, they would promote, they've got this super duper camera but they only had one. You know what I mean. And so I wanted to have that.

Solomon: 17:40

But I couldn't afford that. So actually I started with all webcams and so it's all webcams in here and eventually I slowly like, like when people like, when you said okay, I want to be able to zoom. You can't zoom with a webcam, at least not when keep the resolution. So then it was a matter of okay, how do I do it? Well, I went and bought a bunch of Sony a6000s off of offer, up one by one, and eventually just swapped them all out, and so now you get better picture quality, you get the ability to zoom and just really create a better visual experience. But you're right, it's still evolving. I think right now I've got it to a point where I'm very happy with the ability to produce good content, but I'm sure there's some more evolving that's going to come along.

J.R.: 18:22

Yeah. Are there any things on your more immediate to-do hit list for what you want to improve on or evolve your business?

Solomon: 18:31

Right now, I think I need to focus on the social media aspect of it. You know, one of the things I want to do is create a video that walks people through the experience of being here. Right, like a virtual tour yeah, because I do studio tours, but I want something where it's online and it's more than just the space, because, if you think about it, people view this like a music studio. The first question is how much per hour? As if all of them are the same, and my big thing is well, this is a whole different experience.

Solomon: 19:02

So, if I can go online and tell people and a lot of and a lot of that, that, too, has come from just listening to people, right, the things that they think are important. Right, like, you'll hear people come in and sit down and go oh, I can see myself while we record. Or, oh, you can give me messages on the screen. Oh, I can talk to talk to you. It's all these little things, right.

Solomon: 19:20

And so these are things that I probably didn't value, because I'm subjectively involved in this. I'm building and I'm like, well, yeah, duh, but to them it's a big deal, and so now I want to create something that shows these experiences that, yeah, you can't come in there, there are drink trays by your thing, that you can customize your set All of these things, including now we have the green room with a whole vanity set for everything with everything you need. So if I can do that, put that out on social media. I would feel like I'm doing my business a service by helping promote it the way it should be and differentiating me from competitors and other things. Things like that.

J.R.: 19:57

I see, I see that makes a lot of sense. I think that would definitely be a huge value add. It'd be crazy to see how podcast place was like years ago just based on the story and again, even just my experience being here starting in october, yeah, until now, seeing how much has changed, just to see how much it really changed from the beginning oh, yeah, yeah.

Solomon: 20:16

Well, I still have a couple of those webcams, if I use them here to to to record the buttons I press, so that I can put it on the screen, so I can just look up like this instead of looking down, and still see the buttons that I want to press. But yeah, that it was. It was experiment, a lot of experimentation going on with lighting, with everything. I'll dig some pictures of it for you if you want to see it, with everything. I'll dig some pictures for you if you want to see it.

J.R.: 20:38

Definitely. I'm curious to know if you could redo everything from the beginning, whatever year that you started, with the lessons you've learned now, what do you think you would do differently if you were to go back to square one?

Solomon: 20:51

Now you're talking about with the podcast, With the podcast studio.

Solomon: 20:54

yeah Well, it would probably evolve the same way, though, because I mean like I said, you, you think you go by what you think you know, and then your audience it's like with anything right, you go by what you think you know. Your audience tells you what it's going to be right. And I tell people that when they start their podcast too, you might think it's going to be this, but wait till your audience chimes in. And I think the process was is about same. The thing is, I really enjoy building and I think if I had to say people say well, what do you really enjoy? I think I really enjoy the process of integrating things and making them work together. You know what I mean. That's always been something that I get something out of.

Solomon: 21:33

So if you look at the value of the stuff here, yeah, there's some stream decks here, but everything has a price on it. Nothing's overly expensive. The computers are used, the monitors are used and all this stuff, but it's how they're put together and how they work together. That's what makes it really valuable. That's the whole ip, I guess you could say in it. So it will still be an evolution process. And now if you said I had to go do this, go build another studio somewhere else, uh, I guess obviously I would take what I know here. But the fun part of this also is you got to have some limitations, right? Somebody just said well, money is no object, get whatever you want, there's no fun in that.

J.R.: 22:11

Right right, right. The constraints are what makes the game Right yeah.

Solomon: 22:15

Right. And so when they say, when you say, okay, I got 700 square feet of space and you wanted to have all of these capabilities and then not feel crowded for someone walking in here, then that's a challenge right. I've showed you the mini studio we have right here in the little closet area. It's a challenge to build something functional with limited space or limited resources. That's the fun part.

J.R.: 22:38

Okay, two questions then. So, for that experiment. If you were to start a new studio, what would be the first few things that you focus on as you build it out? And the second thing is as a business owner, entrepreneur, manager of the studio, what are some of the core values or focuses do you have when building a business?

Solomon: 22:58

Well, the biggest thing for me is I can answer the second one. First, I think, is the customer experience, and that's something that I always focused on, and one of the things I told myself is I'm not going to make rules until I need to, and so when you come in, you don't see any signs that say you're being filmed, know this, know that. And I felt like I'm not going to really put these things in place until I need to, because I want to create that good experience, right? So I tell people don't come in here with more than two people who aren't going to be on camera. But I've had people come in here with 15 people, right? And so what do you do? You offer them all water and you make them feel at home. You find them seats, you say, hey, you want to watch. You still want to give them that good experience.

Solomon: 23:46

But that was a big thing, just the experience of coming in here. I want everybody to feel like it's this guy's coming. Oh, it's like Disneyland, I don't want to leave because you got all this equipment and stuff going on, and women feel comfortable because the process of creating and I tell people this is even though it's you're creating something for thousands of people, hopefully. Right, the process is still an intimate process. It's still you're sitting here watching someone bare their soul or do or step out of their box or do something that they've never done before, and so you have to make them comfortable during that process, and so that's always been the first thing for me.

Solomon: 24:22

The second thing is to deliver a quality experience right. Give people more than they paid for, and a lot of that comes from, like I said, anybody can list a bunch of equipment on a website or whatever, and that's why I don't list my equipment, because it's not about the equipment, it's about how you use it and how it's put together to create that unique experience. So those are the important things for me. What was the first one? Again?

J.R.: 24:46

First one was the thought experiment of if you had to start another studio what would be the first things or main things you focus on or prioritize.

Solomon: 24:53

Yeah, and I guess it would be the same. I guess, obviously, we could bypass a lot of the evolution steps, but depending on that spot. But for this kind of work, the first thing you want to think about is noise, though. Right, Because you want it to be reasonably quiet. Here we're lucky to be three stories up. We get the occasional police siren, but beyond that it's a perfect space to record. That would be the first thing in'm in looking at a location, and then after that it would be what you want the space to do. You got to look at who are the potential customers. So is it going to be like here? We have the two seating, which is interview style, or do you want to do a table? Do you want to do a larger thing? And then do you want to? How versatile do you want to make it? So it would be designing the space and just being able to keep the same values where people can come in and make it theirs. It's not about our branding. Just keep that versatility. I think I'd want to do that.

J.R.: 25:48

I see, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So location obviously is the biggest thing, but you're going to be focused, as usual, on the whole user experience, the UX of it all and delivering the quality service, like you said. I think that makes a lot of sense. So I know we talked a lot about business. I'm curious if you don't mind digging into personal life just to let's humanize you. I think we all know what Solomon's about. He's an amazing dude. I'm not human, yeah, he's not human, he's just a robot. So you have kids, right. You have two kids, yeah, and you're married. And you said your wife is Filipino, right? Yes, okay. So that's something that I was like. Oh well, you know this.

Solomon: 26:26

A lot of my podcast guests are like I know that's what qualified me to be yeah, exactly Because you're Filipino, so you check one of my oldest daughter.

J.R.: 26:32

She's 37. Yeah, and my youngest is 20.

Solomon: 26:43

And yeah, she goes to Berkeley. My oldest daughter works in the veterinary field. She runs a hospital.

J.R.: 26:47

So what was it like being married to a Filipino woman? Because I'm sure you have some familiarity with the nuances of Filipino culture.

Solomon: 26:56

Yeah, well, my mom was half Filipino, oh, okay.

J.R.: 27:00

Well, that's more lower than I'm learning then oh yeah. Yeah, so you're a quarter Filipino then. Yes, okay, and then you married a Filipino woman.

Solomon: 27:05

Yeah, oh, okay, but she didn't really practice any of that. The only only real Filipino person I knew in our family was her father and his name was George Ramirez Galvin. I don't know where, where from the Philippines he came from. I guess I could look one day. But marrying a Filipino woman she came here when she was about 14, to the US, and so she was pretty Americanized. I guess already when she came from, she said everybody there speaks English and all that. So it's been cool. I wouldn't say she was traditional, she didn't cook dinner and all that stuff. I mean we ate out pretty much. I guess we eat out a lot, but she will go to the filipino place and get the best stuff and all of that. But yeah, it's been all right. I'm trying to think if there's anything uniquely filipino about right, about her, but yeah, her mother's very filipino. Oh, I see we had to do a lot of the, a lot of that, like I go over there and help her put stuff together and fix her computer and do things like that.

J.R.: 28:02

Do they have like a big family on her side?

Solomon: 28:04

No, they don't. Actually. They came here. She has a brother and he lives up north in San Francisco and the father passed away. So it's a small family here and so maybe that's why it's not the traditional Filipino big family. That's maybe that's why it's not the traditional.

J.R.: 28:18

Filipino big family, because I was going to ask if you've been to like Filipino parties, where it's like a bunch of people and everyone tells you to eat and you have to eat all this food, because Now I have, but not because of that.

Solomon: 28:29

That was before I was married. I used to go to this church, iglesia Ni Cristo, and if you're from the Philippines, that's one of the larger churches and so there, of course, most people are Filipino. And yeah, the Philippines, that's one of the larger churches, okay, and so there, of course, most people are Filipino and, yeah, you get a lot of brother eat more, and so it's like you can't just go home after church. It becomes this whole day process because people are eating and you're doing different things and being part of the community. So that was really fun. That was really fun yeah, it's interesting.

J.R.: 28:55

So now, yeah, you're part of the Filipino. We accept you Filipino culture. Okay, let's see. We went over your career kind of journey. Did you have any aspirations? I know you were doing a lot of things and evolved over time, but when you were younger, maybe in high school, did you have any sort of aspirations that stuck out to you?

Solomon: 29:14

Well, I had the thing that most kids do, where the teachers say, what do you want to be, and you say something that impresses them.

J.R.: 29:24

Oh, yeah, so I think. What did you say that? I told him I wanted to be an aerospace engineer, but there wasn't anything about aerospace engineering Space.

Solomon: 29:29

I mean the word space was in it. That was it for me. I'm a sci-fi nut, so I'm always my head's always in the clouds. I'm always listening to an audio book about space travel or military sci-fi or something like that, but my aspirations, I think, came after high school, just even when I was working at McDonald's. It was always about just trying to get in someplace and prove that you can be better, right, and a lot of that comes from being black.

Solomon: 29:56

In this country, though, because you go into places and people think you can't do something, and so you always feel like you have to prove yourself just to start at the starting point of everybody else, right, and so you find yourself in a lot of spaces where you're the only black person in the office area or the only black person doing this or that, and so it's always that it's a cultural gap and it's just people don't understand that it's harder for you because there, whether people believe it or not, there is, there are limitations to you. People try to place limitations on what you can do, and so, for me, that's always been like something that pushed me a lot, and even in starting a business, it's not just starting and it's making it the best, making it a unique experience, and so that's. That's still there. It's always going to be there. You just understand where you're at culturally in this country and you just try to make the best of it. You try to do the best you can.

J.R.: 30:53

Yeah. So if you, I'm curious if you were to go back to high school, the thought experiments, right yeah. And now, knowing what you know and knowing your personality, your self-awareness, if you could choose a major and pursue a sort of different career engineering or actual aerospace engineering or something different what do you think you would want to do or what do you think you'd be good at Coming?

Solomon: 31:14

out of high school. I think I would go to college, because I didn't, I would definitely do that.

J.R.: 31:19

Do you know for what you might be curious in studying?

Solomon: 31:22

It would probably have something to do with electronics or aerospace engineering, just because that was really my interest in terms of just the whole idea of going to space and being part of that whole movement. It would probably be that. But I think too I would kiss the girl, laurie, who I had a crush on oh, yeah, you go back to that kiss the girl, and then also maybe engineering.

J.R.: 31:46

Yeah, if I had to do it all again, I would.

Solomon: 31:48

I would. I would show some guts and tell laurie something. But anyway.

J.R.: 31:52

um, I think you say that like wanting to go to space and maybe aerospace engineering or something like that, being an astronaut, and strangely enough, I feel like that vibe fits. You built this whole place. You're like a tech guy electronics and whatnot. I feel like you would be one of those in that sci-fi space movie and then part of the crew, and you're like the technician sort of guy who wires everything and makes sure everything's like kosher. I feel like you would fit that role really well.

Solomon: 32:17

Yeah, maybe. Of course, course, I want to be the captain, though. Okay, yeah, a captain with a lot of technical knowledge and people skills, right? Yeah, well, that's how I always feel, like even in here, like if, like, I could show you how to operate this, because it's designed to be simple, but you have to design it first and know everything about it before you pass it on other people, right? So that's how I put things together. Yeah, I'm a spaceship captain. I probably built half the ship at that point.

J.R.: 32:43

I can see that because you do have it seems like you are that mix of technical knowledge but also the people skills that I feel like are important for a captain.

Solomon: 32:50

Yeah.

J.R.: 32:51

Okay, so we covered a lot so far, but I guess just to refocus on being a business owner because I have some pre-written questions here Okay, what are some of the toughest challenges that you faced running a business and what do you feel like has helped you the most along?

Solomon: 33:07

the way. Well, I think the toughest challenge is number one is knowing where your resources are, because for the most part anybody who gets into an entrepreneurial space that they're not taking over from somebody else you're going in with more emotion than anything and more something. You want to do this thing, but you're not going in with a lot of business knowledge, right. And so you go through the basic steps and later you find out, oh, I should probably hire an accountant or I should have a tax guy or whatever this is. But yeah, you're starting with just a lot of your emotion and your excitement to do it and then you got to backfill that now with the actual knowledge to run a structural business right, and a lot of that includes customer service things and things like that. But another challenge, as for being a business owner, is your time, time management. It can suck your whole life. It can take your whole life because, if you think about it every time you wake up, if you've got a regular job at nine to five, right. If you know you've got to be at work at nine, you know you can get up at five, you can go to the gym, you can do this stuff right. But when you're a business owner and you wake up at that five o'clock, you go there's something I could be doing there, there's something I could be changing, fixing, improving, whatever. And it's always that right your time on weekends, where you'd be home Sunday just relaxing in front of the TV You're thinking, wow, I could go fix that thing at work or I could go program this to do that, and so then you're always here, or your mind is always here, and so if you don't control that, you find that you really have no life, or you've lost a lot of opportunities in your life that time with your kids, time with your spouse or whatever. And then you get the complaints and you get all these other aspects of your life that then begin to stress you out, which make you then spend more time at work because you don't want to deal with that, and so you can really. It can really throw off your work-life balance.

Solomon: 34:57

And I will say this, though there's times when you need to do that when you're first starting a business, you need to put your all into it, but there just needs to be a time limit to it or a spot where you go okay, I've got it to this point, now I need to scale back right, like, for instance, when I first started this business, I didn't schedule any days off. It was like you could come in and pick any days, any day you want. And then you get to a point, though, where, okay, now I've built enough business, okay, now I need to have at least one day off. And so now I take two stays off, right, and eventually I want to get to a point where I can take two days off in a row.

Solomon: 35:33

But but I enjoyed just doing it. Like this People's like oh well, do you want a bigger space? Well, no, you need to hire a bunch of employees? Well, not really. I enjoy the business, I enjoy the personal interactions with the creators, I enjoy being part of your story. But yeah, I got off a little tangent. But yeah, I think time management is one of the biggest things.

J.R.: 35:53

Yeah, what do you feel like has helped you to scale back that and balance your time more?

Solomon: 36:02

effectively as a business owner, now that you have it where it's at. Well, I think the biggest thing is time in business, right, because there are some things that happen, naturally, when you're in one location for a while, people start to notice you, right, because, number one, you're there and you become dependable in the neighborhood, even if they haven't looked at your services, right? So then what happens is people say, oh, this guy's been around for a while and so you start getting organic business that way. Right, so that helps. So more business now helps me to the point where, financially, I can say, okay, I can afford to take this day off and do that. You're still taking a chance, of course, and that's the thing with a small business of owning your own thing. You're always taking a chance.

Solomon: 36:43

People think it's glamorous. It's not glamorous, it's a lot of work. Like I saw somebody say, you're trading a nine to five to a five to nine. It's like that. You're just constantly working, or constantly, because, especially when you're a solopreneur, as they call it, like me, like you're the visionary, but you're also the guy who has to implement everything, and then you're the guy who has to sweep the floors at night and refill the refrigerator with water bottles and put Reese's in the thing. All of these things you'd have to do all of these pieces, and so a lot of times it's like wearing many hats, right.

Solomon: 37:17

And one of the things that's really difficult is, let's say, I plan to do like a social media post twice a day for the next week, right, and so that's my plan and I'm going to be the one to implement that plan. But then something happens. Let's say a client who was supposed to pay. You didn't come through, or whatever. Now you're worried about how you're going to pay the rent this month, or what do you got to do this? So that throws off everything because you just now you're not in the right mental headspace, whereas if you had an employee, you tell the employee do this thing.

Solomon: 37:47

Now, no matter what happens to you, the employee is still going to do that thing Right. And so that's one of the difficulties, too, when you're working by yourself is just keeping your mental headspace right so that you can get the things accomplished that you want to accomplish, and most of the time it's a triage process. Like I don't consider the social media things that important, but you know, if it's something that affects my ability to record or process files for clients. I prioritize that, no matter how I feel. You know what I mean. So it's still a work in progress. It's still something that I'm working on, trying to be able to say, okay, no, I need to prioritize this and I need to do it no matter what, but it's just an ongoing thing.

J.R.: 38:26

I see. So I kind of know an idea of the answer for the next one. But I know that you mentioned that you like the scale of where you're at now, right that you just said it's an intimate process and you're kind of involved in a part of a lot of stuff.

J.R.: 38:41

Would you see a future where you do scale up to that one next level, where you do have an employee, how to handle some of that smaller stuff or just to unload some of that work so that you free up more time to focus on other things?

Solomon: 38:52

The answer is yes, because then that gives you the ability to do things like take vacations and stuff like that, right. But I guess what I mean by that is and this is something that you find when you get later on in life is the word fulfillment becomes more important. When you get later on in life, is the word fulfillment becomes more important? Right, it becomes more important to you. It's not about success, it's not about money, it's just about fulfillment.

Solomon: 39:15

And fulfillment to me is when you can feel good about what you do, and I feel good about what I do. You know what I mean, and so you hope that you can do something that is fulfilling but then also pays the bills, right. And so, if I can get to a point, so yeah, the answer is yes. If I can get to a point where I can still get fulfillment out of the job, maybe that's taking on working directly with clients that I like and someone else does some other things, or someone, like you said, does some of the background stuff. Yeah, I would be happy with that, because that shows that the business has grown. And then also part of that fulfillment is that now you're creating a living, helping somebody else make a living for their family, and that would be a cool thing to do.

J.R.: 39:57

Okay, do you think that, as you see it now, how much do you think you would want to scale your business?

Solomon: 40:05

Well, I don't think I'd want to do a thing like multiple locations and stuff like that. I think what I'd like to do is get the most I can out of this location, and so from that it's like reaching out to. There's a few different ways of going about it. Of course, you always want to fill the schedule right, but you can also do things like create programs for people who podcast at home and just coming off as sort of like an industry expert saying, ok, here's a series of videos or workshops on how to create your own thing, or whatever. So there's ways to make money in that.

Solomon: 40:40

I've thought of a podcast that I want to do here, and it's a podcast about podcasting, you know, and so I have some ideas there as well. And then, of course, you can have people who can help you with that kind of stuff. But it's making the most out of what you've already built. And when you proceed in life, you'll find that that's where all your best opportunities are going to come, with leveraging what you already know, the experiences you've already had, the people you've already met. That's where all your opportunity is going to come to grow when you have to start over. That's crazy, yeah.

J.R.: 41:11

Yeah, I was going to ask you if you ever had any plans or an idea to start your own podcast. You have the infrastructure for it, but I wasn't sure if you were like interested at all.

Solomon: 41:19

Well, it's funny because I always say what can I say to people that would? Because I feel like I'm a jack of all trades but I'm not really a master of anything. But at the end of the day, I am considered a podcast producer, I am considered a podcast professional, I produce thousands of podcasts. Right, I guess I could take that and then put that together and find basically, follow your model. Right, there's something someone can learn from what I have from my experience, and so the idea is a podcast called podcast engineering in which I show people the behind the scenes of how I produce podcasts and just have it start from there so that sounds interesting yeah, and so I.

Solomon: 42:02

It's one of the things. I put all the pieces together, I just need to launch it.

J.R.: 42:05

I just need to launch it, I just need to do it. Yeah, I mean, if anyone's in a position to launch a podcast.

Solomon: 42:10

Well, yeah, I mean right, it's not like I'd have to pay for anything.

J.R.: 42:13

Right and you know exactly how to do it. Yeah, the thing. It's always, though, like I don't make a lot of commitments in my life, because when I make a commitment, so I just need to be able to be sure that I'm going to be able to fulfill that commitment once I start, perfect, okay. Last question on this topic is do you have any general or specific advice for other wannabe business owners, entrepreneurs, who want to get into the field? You have a lot of experience from very different, various different fields and areas, and your own life.

Solomon: 42:44

Yeah.

Solomon: 42:44

Anything you want to pass along as advice different fields and areas and your own life Anything you want to pass along as advice. Well, if you're starting a business, I would probably say the first thing well, one of the first things to do is get somebody to help you manage your finances and just make sure you have a really good bookkeeper, somebody who can help get you online, because a lot of businesses run into trouble because they don't prioritize that part early on. And I ran into the same trouble and the next thing you know is a year down the line. You owe the state $800 because you didn't know you have to pay them every year.

Solomon: 43:15

If you have a corporation, there's all these little things you didn't know and rather than you spending time to do all of that because then that takes you out of what you're good at you find somebody who knows that stuff. That tells you, okay, you need to do this, you need to prioritize this, and they stay on top of all of that for you. And it's just one less headache you deal with when you go into growing the business and buying equipment and things like that. It also helps you just really stay like within your means, what your capabilities are and growth You're not just out of control going well. I made a hundred bucks. Today I can spend 90 on this new piece of equipment Because, again, a lot of entrepreneurs are driven by just the excitement of being in the business and they're not really thinking about that. So I would always say that's the first step for anybody.

J.R.: 44:01

It's good advice asking for a friend, but do you have any resources or where people can start if you're looking for bookkeeper or someone to help with their accounting or finance to set it up?

Solomon: 44:10

recommendations I can tell you where I failed. I've. I failed at craigslist. Okay, I'm sure there, I'm sure there's some resources out there. I don't know if angie's list covers that kind of stuff, but what I would do is look around the neighborhood because Someone local yeah, because they're, because number one you're going to want, you're going to want to create that relationship with somebody. So I don't necessarily like the online stuff. I'll go, I'll look around the neighborhood and find somebody and interview them, get in there and just ask them about things. It's so funny. You can pick up on little things. Like if a guy's office is just sloppy and there's stuff everywhere, it's probably not the guy you want to work with.

J.R.: 44:48

To work with your finances?

Solomon: 44:49

Yeah, You've got pizza on his tie and things like that, and this is that. That really happened. Yeah, I also had a guy who promised a lot of stuff but didn't deliver. So sometimes it's the process of finding the right person, but don't be afraid to move on. Just find somebody that you can trust because you want it to be a long-term relationship that helps you and helps your business.

J.R.: 45:09

Yeah, okay. Yeah, I ask that just personally because there are a couple of businesses that I'm looking to launch in the next few years and finances. I've been watching a bunch of YouTube videos on bookkeeping for solo businesses, like solo proprietorships and whatnot, just to make sure that at least I have a general knowledge so that when I look for someone to help with the finance side at least I'm not being sidelined or sideswiped with something that I don't really know anything about you know what I mean.

J.R.: 45:35

So, yeah, I've been that process of, yeah, I have the idea, I know what I'm going to do infrastructure wise, but I do want to get the finance piece down from the beginning.

Solomon: 45:42

And that reminds me of another tip for people is when you start a business, you want to focus on the things that you're good at, and the things that you're not good at you want to let somebody else do it Right. So if I'm doing this and I built my own website and people go, oh well, can you build my website Right? And they say I'll pay you this or that or whatever, it's a good idea for you just to stick to the things that you're good at and just let you know what. I got a friend who builds websites, blah, blah, blah, and just send that off. So just stay focused on the things you're really good at. I would tell people that.

J.R.: 46:17

Right, it's good advice. Okay, solomon, it's time for rapid fire. Are you ready?

Solomon: 46:21

What I got through the interview.

J.R.: 46:24

huh, you did, you did. We are at 50 minutes now, so it's about that time.

Solomon: 46:29

All right.

J.R.: 46:30

Is there anything else that you want to throw in there?

Solomon: 46:32

No, no, I think we're good, we flew by.

J.R.: 46:35

I was like wow, we're already at time, oh wow.

Solomon: 46:38

Look at that.

J.R.: 46:38

Yeah, I know, and I barely looked at the questions. I was just going with it. Okay, rapid fire. Then First question. You know it's coming Billboard question. If you could put up a sign for millions of people to see, what would it say metaphorically?

Solomon: 46:50

I know not sit up straight, which was the best one, oh yeah, that was really good, yeah, yeah, I would say believe in yourself. And I know it sounds corny and cliche, but I would say that Believe in yourself.

J.R.: 47:04

Do you feel like that's the most important thing people need to hear?

Solomon: 47:08

Yeah, I think so, because I think nowadays too, especially with things going on, people need a sense of self-empowerment. I think people are too concerned about what's being taken away or what they can and can't do, or what they're being allowed to do, and I think it starts with believing in yourself. And I didn't come from a poor, poor family, but we didn't have many opportunities either, and a lot of what I had I had to create for myself, and so I feel like if I can do it, anybody can do it.

J.R.: 47:35

What is one of the hardest challenges you faced in your life and what did you learn from it? Hardest challenges People stealing your Reese's or your dog bowls oh yeah people coming in.

Solomon: 47:46

I think they think your Reese's or your dog bowls oh yeah, people coming in, they think the Reese's is a snack where they can just eat them all. I think a lot of challenges are in starting this business, and just what I mentioned about the financial side of it. I didn't prioritize that and so it caused me problems later on. It caused me opportunities later on where you can go out and get business loans, things like that. If you don't have that stuff lined up right, it can hurt you later on in business when you're trying to grow.

J.R.: 48:12

Makes sense, self-inflicted wound? Do you have a story about something that's gone wrong in your life and it's your own fault and you can't blame anyone else.

Solomon: 48:20

Ooh Well, I could say the same thing, but I'm going to see if I can have something different. I would say not going to college. I think that closed a lot of doors for me, and the thing that I'm seeing is you hear about all of these guys who went to college for a year or two or whatever. They started a company, and all this it's not just finishing, it's the relationships you can create while you're there, the people you meet who are in the same alignment. So I think that's one thing that I could have done, but I didn't do.

J.R.: 48:47

I think that's true because they say college, especially graduate programs, not the highly technical ones that you need like medical school, right, but the value in that, like going to Stanford, for example it's in the network. It's not necessarily in what you learn. You can learn anything, anytime, anywhere, but it's the networks of saying I'm in this alumni network or whatever, and those connections and experiences, like you said right yeah, makes a lot of sense.

Solomon: 49:13

If you could redo one thing, what would you do differently? Anything we didn't mention already? I can redo one thing. Oh, I think I would spend more time with my mom. I think perfect answer, yeah, I mean. Yeah, she bet and I felt like I did well by my mom, but I feel like now that I look back, I wish I had been there more, a little bit more.

J.R.: 49:30

Yeah, reminder to everyone spend time with your mom or any family members. If you could give your younger self advice, what would it be now?

Solomon: 49:38

Things were tough with me because I grew up I had these scars right here that I got from a car accident when I was young. Oh dang, and so your formative years. You grow up but all the kids call you ugly and names and things like that. Or they still call you ugly, like for me, just kidding. I think I would tell myself you're loved, you're loved, and that's just insecure people being insecure. So that's what I would say.

J.R.: 50:06

In the last few years, what new belief, behavior or habit has improved your life?

Solomon: 50:10

Belief behavior, Like I talked about with time management. That's something I recently started in the last six months, where, let's say, for instance, it's Thursday and I see nobody's booked on a Saturday, I'll block the Saturday off and take that time for myself. Things like that where you can't be afraid that you're going to miss out on money or whatever. It's like I said, everything is a chance, right, but you got to do some things that say you know what? I have value, my business has value, and if people don't, if people see it, then they'll wait, They'll come back. Another thing I did is I raised my prices, and that's something I've done recently too, because and that was a big step because you always feel like, oh my gosh, I'm going to lose clients or whatever. But then when you think about it, you say okay, for the value I offer and it's. It takes a lot of believing in yourself to do that. So that's a step. That was scary, but I did it and so far it's working out Nice.

J.R.: 51:05

When was the last time you've increased your prices at all?

Solomon: 51:07

Or, if you have, Well, it's funny, when I started the business, I was at $69 per episode and then I went up. Two years later I went up to $99. But I included some things, okay, and so it's been about two years since I last raised my price Okay, so it was the starting rates, and then it was two years after that, and then now.

J.R.: 51:28

Yeah, okay, the averaging about two issues or something like that. Yeah, I'm just doing the math in my head Like yeah, but I don't think it's something you're not thinking of it like two years Right?

Solomon: 51:38

Yeah, cause I think you gotta understand where your clients are at and all that it makes Makes sense.

J.R.: 51:43

How do you define success?

Solomon: 51:46

Enjoying the journey really and I know we talked about that, but I success to me sounds like you're sitting on a mountaintop and now you're just complacent because you got nothing else to do. And to me, the journey is always there and I that's one of the things I pride myself on. I'm 57 years old and I'm still like. I feel like I'm still evolving, I'm still trying to learn new things and make this place better or whatever it is. And yeah, just making sure you're getting fulfillment out of the journey I think is successful to me.

J.R.: 52:17

If you knew you couldn't fail, what would you try or what would you be doing right now?

Solomon: 52:21

Oh, if I couldn't fail? Yeah, you know, every time I hear you ask this question, I never really understand it. It's like what would you if you couldn't fail?

J.R.: 52:31

you could do anything I guess it's. If I were to rephrase it you remove the chance of not succeeding at a task you set out to do.

Solomon: 52:39

Oh, because that's what stops people right. Fun is that though.

J.R.: 52:42

Yeah, no, I get what you're saying no constraints, no risk right, it's not fun right, it's for the people who, like fear, stops them from doing anything.

Solomon: 52:48

Oh, they're only choosing safe options.

J.R.: 52:50

Yeah, I don't know Astronaut.

Solomon: 52:54

I mean probably probably not astronaut. I would probably be. I would probably be an author. I'd probably write a book, which I probably will do anyway. Yeah, what do you want to write a book about? Some element of my experience I haven't really worked it out yet no, just some element of my life experience in a way, not in a biographical way, but just in a practical way that can help people.

J.R.: 53:17

Maybe like a half-half sort of thing. Some people do that.

Solomon: 53:20

It's not really a memoir, but it's like a life lessons but then it's focused on, like a topic or areas or insights, but right, the biographical part is like the examples of exactly it's. Here's what I learned and this is how I learned it from my story yeah, so I think it would be somewhere along the lines of 10 ways to get the most out of life or something like that.

J.R.: 53:38

It makes sense yeah, if you knew you would absolutely fail, what would you do anyway? Oh, I'd probably do this. Okay, I'm starting to feel that that's like the normal answer.

Solomon: 53:49

Well, I just love the. I mean cause it's the challenge. You know what I mean. It's like. That's what makes it fun. Anything else besides this Well.

J.R.: 53:58

I would fail at it. You fail, but you'll do it anyways, cause you just feel like you want to do it.

Solomon: 54:02

Yeah, like I said, just anything that allows me to just integrate things and put things together to make them work a certain way for somebody. I think that would be it. I don't know if I started a company, I don't know what I call the integrators, or something.

J.R.: 54:15

Oh, I see, I see.

Solomon: 54:16

Yeah, so I think that's what I just get the most enjoyment out of just making things work. I like that.

J.R.: 54:23

What is something you've been pondering a lot recently, or deeply.

Solomon: 54:28

What is something you've been pondering a lot recently, or deeply Well, to be honest, you can't help but ponder the whole political thing right now. That's going on. It's like you're trying to balance what's right for the country with what's decent for the humanity in the country. But I think there's no middle ground right now. People are just on one side or the other side of that and it's hard to see. You want your country to be good and safe and all of that, but at the same time you have to understand where you're at today and you can't just say, well, we're just going to make it this way and just think you can just rip everything down, rip everything apart. You have to gradually work toward that and I think there's a certain level of sensitivity that needs to be had by the people in charge right now. But that's what's been on my mind lately.

J.R.: 55:18

Yeah, do you have any favorite hot takes? Not about necessarily about politics, it could be about anything One piece. No, wow, be about anything One piece. Suck, whoa Canceled Scrapping this episode immediately.

Solomon: 55:35

Hmm, hot takes. Yeah. Now, that means something that.

J.R.: 55:38

That you think maybe most people won't agree with and necessarily think is true, but you think is true. Oh, that's how I phrase it.

Solomon: 55:45

Okay.

J.R.: 55:50

Star Trek was one of the best TV series ever. Really, you think people don't think so.

Solomon: 55:52

I don't think I think a lot of people look at it as campy or whatever, but yeah, to me it's just like I grew up. Captain kirk was like my dad. Yeah, and it's amazing, though, when you look back and think it only ran five seasons.

J.R.: 56:05

Really, yeah, In my head it's been. It ran for like decades or something. Yeah, it was five seasons.

Solomon: 56:10

Why does it feel like it's been longer? Because the Star Trek marathons used to come on the Thanksgiving. Oh, but yeah, that includes the different captains, no, just the Star Trek show. The first, the original Gotcha With William Shatner.

J.R.: 56:29

That's Captain Kirk with william shatner, and then that's captain kirk okay, and then so the other ones you're.

Solomon: 56:32

That extends beyond five seasons. Yeah, those are like spin-offs, right? Star trek, next generation and, oh okay, deep space nine.

J.R.: 56:37

Maybe that's why I feel like it's deeper, kind of like star wars, where it's like the lore is deeper than just the three original or something like that, yeah, but star wars, well yeah, you're right, because star wars it's the movies and the new movies, and then it's the cartoons, and it's right and then it's all the legends, like books and other media, comics and everything.

Solomon: 56:54

Correct, yeah, yeah so I don't know, it might not be that hot of a take, but I just have people looking at star trek why not star wars?

J.R.: 57:04

and like I see, I feel like I don't doubt that star trek is beloved, I think, in my perspective, I think people who just don't like it are just are more just separated from it and just don't know anything about it but people who know about it I feel like they like it and I'm like that's fair, I don't knock you for liking it right, but I don't know anything about it, so that's why I don't right.

J.R.: 57:23

Yeah, but okay, that's fair. I am. I like Wars, but I don't think those are the same thing, like those are apples and oranges. But I get why they're always put in the same conversation.

Solomon: 57:31

Yeah, well, because they're both sci-fi, they both have star and they both have cult followings. Exactly.

J.R.: 57:37

Right. What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you've ever made in either time money, energy, etc.

Solomon: 57:43

Well, recently, the smartwatch, because most of the time when I record I got to have my phone on silent right and so you get all your friends and family and everybody how come.

Solomon: 57:52

You never answered my phone call Because I don't remember to look at it. I don't remember to take it back off silent and all of that, so I just leave it there. But with a watch, I can see when people text me. I can see when somebody's at the front door, I can let them in from the watch. So it's been a really practical benefit to having it.

J.R.: 58:11

Oh, what kind of smart watch do you have? Well, I have a samsung phone, so I got the samsung watch. Okay, okay, just curious, I am an android person nice okay, the less investments. But now the next one is favorite recent purchase in the 50 to 100 range that has impacted your life the most recently 50 to 100 relatively cheap, doesn't matter the price. I know, let's see. Looking around, he's like nah, everything I buy is expensive. Oh no, it's not.

Solomon: 58:35

I just can't think of something that's impacted my life well. Oh, you know what the case for this phone. The cool thing about this is it allows me to keep the pen and it has a stand so when I go to eat I can watch a TV show, because it folds like this yeah, oh, that's cool. Yeah, so the stand was less than 50 bucks and it was a real life changer, because now I don't have to ask for an extra bottle of ketchup to put my phone against.

J.R.: 58:59

Yeah, no, I think phone cases, especially the really functional ones, or ones that work for you. I feel like are goodbye, yeah, and it's not anything good looking. I bought it purely for the function. The functional, exactly. I'm right there with you all. Right last rapid fire.

Solomon: 59:14

Favorite books, movies, videos, articles or any media that you share or recommend the most. Well, I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I can tell you, though, that I don't do self-help at all. My my thing with audiobooks, and even tv, for the most part, is my escape, right, so it's my enjoyment, and so a lot of sci-fi, a lot of thrillers and things like that. So I would just tell people in general find something that lets you break away for a while. I think that's good.

J.R.: 59:40

Do you have any personal wrecks that you want to throw out there?

Solomon: 59:44

Oh, in terms of a good audiobook.

J.R.: 59:46

Let's see Anything audiobook, media shows, whatever.

Solomon: 59:50

Shows See, I like campy shows. I'm watching this show called Nautilus right now. Nautilus yeah it's about the actual submarine, the Nautilus, by the story by Jules Verne, and it's just a modern take on it. But they're authentic to the story from the standpoint that the captain is Indian and there are a lot of Indian people involved. But it's like a campy show. I just enjoy those types of things.

J.R.: 1:00:13

Anything else besides Nautilus or any audiobooks An audiobook.

Solomon: 1:00:17

Let's see. Well, I'm very post-apocalyptic. So there's a series called Helldivers which I would recommend, and think of this. The world has been destroyed by nuclear explosion, right, and there's these constant storms and everything and all these mutated creatures that live on the land, so people can't live there. So survivors live in these airships and basically they dive down to certain places to get supplies and everything and then go back up and of course, they have adventures because they're running for their lives down there, and so that's why it's called hell divers, because they're diving into hell too so that humanity can survive. And so it's a series of books where eventually they find land and decent land and they're trying to get earth back the way it was and all of this other stuff. But yeah, just a really good series of books.

J.R.: 1:01:04

How many books in this series, and do you know the author? Oh, the.

Solomon: 1:01:10

I will, I can find the author, but you could just. You can just google it.

J.R.: 1:01:14

Yeah, yeah, you know how many books it is I think I think it was eight, eight. Yeah, I think it was a but, yeah, I'll have to look that up, okay, yeah. Yeah, no worries, I'll link the first book in the series and then you guys can check it out. All right, solomon, that is it for Rapid Fire. You made it. We got to the end Exciting, all right. Well, let's go into any questions, as usual. So gratitude Shout out to my mother who was here. Solomon, what are you grateful for In?

Solomon: 1:01:42

San Cor, then Sound Corny. I'm grateful for you, thank you. I'm grateful for the people who have come here and shared their goals with me and let me be part of their journeys. I'm really grateful for that, nice.

J.R.: 1:01:52

Yeah, and do you have any final ask from the audience or any final takeaways you'd like them to have from this conversation?

Solomon: 1:01:58

I would say don't let anything stop. You have dreams, but be smart about going about it. Know the tools you need to succeed, but the biggest thing is just keep going. You get a lot of those motivational messages on the days like the days when things aren't going well and you're going maybe I should stop this and somebody sends you something that says just keep going. You see that goofy cartoon where the guy's digging a tunnel and he's always at the end and he gives up.

J.R.: 1:02:25

And the goal is just right there.

Solomon: 1:02:26

And so that always keeps me going, keep going, don't let anything stop you.

J.R.: 1:02:30

Nice Okay.

Solomon: 1:02:35

Solomon, where can people find you or check out what you're up to if they want to connect? I don't have a lot of. I don't have personal social media, but I do have Instagram for the studio, and so that's at podcast place. At podcast place, just like, it is no underscores or anything and, yeah, take a look there. And then, of course, our website is podcastplacecom and, like I said, I'm going to be trying to focus on this social media. I want to do this tour, and so just stay tuned for some new content that'll really give you the insight of what it is, to what it's like to have. Do your podcast here, nice cool.

J.R.: 1:03:06

Well, I would just like to say, as the host of 1000 Gurus, I highly recommend Solomon, and Podcast Place Obviously had five seasons here, so if you guys are interested in checking out what he has to offer and you want to start your own podcast and have a studio that's turnkey and the entire service from A to Z, this is the right place to go. So just throwing it out there, cool. All right, we have reached the end. So thank you guys for being here. I really appreciate it. Be sure to like, follow, subscribe whatever you guys do. Leave us some comments as well. Give Solomon some love, check out his Instagram and everything. Reminder to always be kind to other people, especially yourself, and remember that you can always learn something from someone if you take the time to listen. So thanks for being here.