Ask Before the Seventh Try: What to Do About the Mess You Have Been Avoiding

This is louder than the microphones, but it's so, so good, you know what I mean? This is the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast, where we discuss the connection between life and acting. All right, everybody. We are here. It's a Wednesday night. Is it still Wednesday? Barely. Barely. 11.43 p.m., and the Joe Meister and myself, we be putting up a podcast. You know it. We always be putting up a podcast.

Yeah, so we are right now dealing with our own digital blueprint, or our footprint, I guess you would call it, our digital footprint. Yeah, yeah. Man, is it a lot of work, dude. Like, I've been pouring over this thing for about three and a half days. But it brings me to this idea, this topic that I talked about before. You know, the studio right now is really clean as far as the idea of cleaning out your closet, like cleaning out the things that are hidden.

I'm all about, if you think about having anything that's clutter, if you're not, if you haven't minimalized your space, you're going to be in a position where you're, I don't know, like you can feel it. You can feel the sort of, like, weight of extra stuff around. So, anyway, long story short, we dug through all our stuff, storage unit, all the closets. I even pulled out every single paper that we had filed since back in 2007.

I went all the way back to 2007, went through every single paper. And now, what was this, like, mountains of files has gotten down to two small bins. Dude, that was just, like, nuts. I mean, when he says mountains of papers, he means mountains of papers. And you did it by yourself, that part. You know, we've done a lot of it as teams. We've compartmentalized. Shea's been crushing it from her house in Ahwatukee.

But you did this whole, like, it looked like a nightmare, man. And for, like, a week, you were just buried in papers. And you were here until, like, 1 or 2 a.m. Every single night. It was crazy. And it's one of those things, like, your garage, where it always gets worse before it gets better. You know? And so it just kept getting worse. But I knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

And the truth is, I did. I felt really free at the end. So not a whole lot. And this is the point, I guess, of what I'm trying to get across. Is not a whole lot is fixed or better at first glance. But everything becomes easier. Like, literally everything. Are you good? Yeah. Are you freaking out a little bit? I was freaking out a little bit. Because of the record button?

Yeah, I didn't hit the record button. But we're recording on the other thing. We are recording on the other thing, but, you know. So your backup, you didn't have your backup set. Yeah, I had a little bit of a heart attack because my backup wasn't working. And, you know, this is a funny topic because I never used to have a backup or care about having a backup.

And that is something that I've learned from working with you, Matt Dearing, because you are a fan of having your backup to your backup of your regular one. So that is three different ways you can get the job done at all times. Ideally, yes. Because you expect things to go wrong. You know, this is the idea. So anyway, so we get back to this, like, cleaning, right?

And I've already, since I've been done filing, it has, that work has paid off for me four or five times. You know, we had to apply for different loans and do all these different things. And I didn't understand things before. And I just said, Matt, enough's enough. I talked about this this morning on our Mornings with Matt show where there's a difference between humility and laziness, right?

So I can say, like, oh, I've never taken an SBA loan. Like, I've never taken an SBA loan. Or I can say I was too lazy to figure out how to apply for an SBA loan. Yeah. You know, because I didn't really make the decision after I went through all the paperwork. I did look at SBA loans, and they're intimidating. And I got kind of, like, one page in, and I was like, ugh, I don't think that's for us, you know?

And now I was telling you, like, I've done the process. I got a crash course on it. So if I ever wanted to, now I feel like I have the confidence that I could do that if we wanted to buy a building or something like that. Which is huge. Huge, yeah. Huge. And so the idea being, like, all these things have been now taken care of on the underneath.

The surface doesn't look all that much different. But there was a different sense of clean. The day I cleaned, after I was finally done with all the papers, you could just feel it in the space that there was something new. Yeah. It just felt lighter. Well, and then you spent the night after you were done with that, and you cleaned the whole place. Right. You know? I couldn't wait.

I was so excited to clean the space. Spit and spam. You know, it was great. Dug into all the toilets. Yeah. I mean, I just went to town on it because now I could. Like, I felt like now things were out of my way, and I wasn't, I hid nothing. There was nothing, like, stuffed away. Yeah. So now we have our, what's left over of our production equipment from the storage unit is now up in the front room.

So that's our next project. We've got to get through all that, organize everything. And you're doing the same thing on your end, if you think about it. You could have, you could have put Band-Aids on these lights. Yeah. You know? 100p. You could have found a way to plug them in easily, and you didn't do that, and you're still in the middle of it. You're still in the grind of learning technology that you didn't understand, which is actually old technology.

And it's old technology trying to mix with not even new technology, just kind of, like, less old technology, you know? And you're programming DMX wires, and there's all these different weird settings on the older lights, and I've watched you learn how to do that, and you're about halfway through, I'd say, right? Yeah, yeah, it's a challenge. It was so hard, and especially because they're older, like, YouTube wasn't a thing, so there's no videos on it, and I'm like, ah, I can't figure it out.

And so, finally, the day that I got these back ones to work, I was like, yes, because what had happened was I was just trying to restart the firmware. So I was like, all right, I hardwired the thing, I got into the box, I restarted it. We were, like, five updates behind, so I was like, this is going to change our lights, and it deleted everything, and it was all programmed, and I was like, there's no warning for that?

So that takes me to my point a little bit, which is, that's a good thing. It's a good thing that that happened. 100%. And that's the thing that I would have done on purpose. Yeah. Because I'm crazy like that. Yeah. I don't want to just have it work. I want to know why it's working. Yep. You know, because I, because I want the backup for my backup.

I know if I don't know how it works, if something goes wrong, we're SOL, you know? Yep. And you know the lights better than anybody around here, but now you're going to know them even better, like a whole, like, intimate relationship with it. And I, to Joey's credit, you guys, he has been opening up just old electronics, things that I was like, ah, we don't need that anymore.

He's like, can I break it? Yeah, totally. So he's in there digging around and shocking himself and doing all kinds of fun things. Yeah, I did, I did kill our outlets at the front desk, all eight of them. They're back, Shea, don't worry. They're back. They're back, Shea. They are back. The maintenance guy came. It was great. He, he gave me a very hard time. Yeah, he totally ripped on you.

What's that maintenance guy's name? I love that guy. Ah, I don't know his name. I know, I forgot. I don't think I've ever gotten his name. No, I've got, and I've gotten it once, I think, but yeah, I don't know. He always just says, hey, what up, man? You know who knows his name, of course, is Shea. Shea always knows the name. Shea knows everybody's name. Shea is just Grand Central Station for the studio.

And you know what? She even said to me, and I took the note eventually, because I fought her for a second. I shouldn't have done that. But she brought that up the other day, because we were doing a showcase, and I flubbed somebody's name. You know, I didn't get it perfect on the pronunciation. And she's like, you know, Matt, you really need to know everyone's name. And I was like, oh, but I only teach, like, once a month.

She's like, Matt, you own the studio. You need to know everyone's name. I was like, dang, Shea. I'm like, okay. But she's right. Yeah. It's an important thing to know people's names. And I know this. Names are important. When I get called by my name, it matters to me. Like, it makes me feel good. And if I get called, like, hey, you, like, you can always tell.

What up, dude? Hey, bro-ish. Yeah. So, getting back to the cleaning. It feels good, right? So, the last three days, I've been doing this SEO work. And what's interesting is, and I talked to Ian about this. This all started because we were, we've been putting out so much YouTube content recently that I dug in and looked at all some of the, not all of them, but a lot of the mistakes we had made.

And I couldn't believe the amount of footage we had on there. I mean, 4,000 plus videos, almost 4,700 videos that are all unlisted and private that we got zero monetization for. And we have been working our butts off to get 160 out. Yeah. And we didn't even do all those. I mean, we've only put up probably 60 videos since we started. So, we have 4,700. Like, that's, it's mind-blowing.

And so, it just opened up this idea where I'm like, it's weird. It's weird that we have all this video and yet we're, like, we're not recognized enough. Then I, then I figured out the reason. So, then I was like, oh, go down one deeper and go down one deeper. So, then next thing I know, I'm, I'm in this, like, tunnel of, well, how come we're not ranking for this?

And how come we're not ranking for that online? And, and, and so instead of just fixing the problem, which is what I used to do, right? Like, we would do Google AdWords and we would, you know, we would rank for something like acting classes or, or whatever. And it's fine. And then you get a little bit of business from that and, you know, give and take. But I, but I never dealt with the fact that we weren't ranking on our own, that we, that we had to pay for it.

And, of course, that takes time. But we've been in the game for a long time. I mean, we've been around since 2007. So, it's not like we're not, you know, substantial business. Straight out of the recession. Totally. So, I, so I've been digging in. And so, this whole thing is, is like, it's been three days of feeling like I wanted to just crawl into a hole and, and just get mad at the world.

My, my eyes hurt just from looking at the computer for so long. I'm not used to it, you know? Yeah. And so, so tonight, I decided to finally, like, kind of just push, push myself through this, this new barrier. And I, and I accomplished something. I felt really good about it. Da-bing! I, I, I created the very first Google ad or something that I, that I've ever done.

Yeah! Thank you, thank you. And I don't even know if it's working yet. So, I mean, whatever. But I, but I got. But if you see a Google ad. Hello, 11.30 p.m. That's the prime time. Prime time. We've, we've had one live viewer on this podcast. That's amazing. Well, that's good. Quarantine's keeping people up late. Well, yeah. What? There are, there are, there are night owls out there, right?

There are people that are, that are up late. It's probably Shea Toepel. Hey, Shea, how you doing? Yeah, so, so I was, so what's cool, though, is the same process, right, that happened with the taxes and the papers just happened. I was, we were just talking about this. I did all that work and it feels like just so grinding, but, but that's the, that's the, what's underneath.

That's what's hiding. Yeah. So I could, I could fix certain things and I could, I could do different keywords or whatever, but if I haven't fixed the root problem, if I haven't really cleaned out, like what's going wrong and I don't understand it, then I can never fix it when it, when it goes wrong in the future. And so all this work happens. And then we were, we were talking about the podcast and you were showing me a couple of things and, and you, you mentioned a couple of like terms and I was like, oh, well, I know what that means.

And you're like, well, you do? And I was like, yeah. It's this, this, and this. And you're like, yeah, but okay, let me show you this. I, I have never been able to add a host to this thing because I, I always get stuck here on the slug and I'm like, I know all about slugs. And guess what, ladies and gentlemen, Matthew Dearing is the official host of the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast.

Amazing. It is no longer hostless. How long has it been now? It's been a long time. It's been a long time. You know, one of my most. And that's one of those embarrassing things, isn't it? Yeah. Oh man. That you got, that you got this far and just didn't, you didn't ask, you didn't like, there was a stopping point. You probably hit it a couple times. Yeah.

And then other things came up and you're like, okay, whatever. But it's been bothering you. I had tried to make you a host at least seven times, at least seven times. And that's not counting like multiple attempts. You know how like you work at something and you go at it for an hour or two. Like, I'm not counting that. I'm saying like seven different occasions. I was like, all right, let's try again.

Let's try again. And it always kept sending. So can I ask you something? Yeah. Why? Oh, why did you never ask me about it? Because I, honestly, I just never thought to ask you. Isn't that weird? Like, why though? Literally just didn't, didn't think. I don't think I've ever asked anybody about like podcast advice as far as like the way it's structured. I just kind of like, it's kind of like my baby.

Okay. So what does that say about you though? I mean, it's pretty selfish. It is. Yeah. It is. And you're, so you're assuming. Oh, wrong way. Boo. Oh my God. You know, I give up. I give up. So you're assuming, you're assuming that we don't know. Yeah. You know, and you're assuming that, that, yeah, it's your baby and that you want to get it right. And that you want to be the one that did it and you, you know, whatever.

And it's like, it's not about that. Like the podcast is your thing. Like you've crushed it for us. I'm super thrilled. But what's amazing is today because of the work you had done and you put down a really good footprint, honestly, with, with the podcast, you've done it right from the beginning. Now you, you weren't cross-checking everything. We saw a couple things today that need to be adjusted, right?

A couple of the descriptions weren't all the way. So that means there's a, there's a flaw in some system, but it was, it was your work attached to my work that they came together. And I, and I, I was able to add up like three or four things that it's going to help us rank even more in the podcast arena when it comes to acting and personal development.

For sure. So the lesson is ask before you get to seven. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. Cause what's the worst thing that can happen is like, I don't know. Yeah. But, but if you respect the other, like, here's the thing. I, I come to you a lot in a lot of ways. As a matter of fact, you seem tired today, tonight after class, but I almost asked you three or four times to take a look at what I was looking at on the, on the, um, on the Google AdWords thing, because I, because I was like, I know you haven't been looking at this.

I know you probably have no idea what any of it means, but I'm looking at it and I've been, and I'm kind of stuck. I wonder if you're, if you're pair of eyes might be able to go, Oh, you know what? Try this. Yeah. And I'd be curious to see if, if there was something there. So I almost asked you through, and I would have asked you had, I didn't think you were tired.

Oh, so tired. But then talking about the podcast, it got me so excited. Totally. But, and I do remember. But I'm trying to tell you, that's the difference between you and me. And that's the thing I want you to steal from me. Like borrow that thing. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Ask, ask early. It doesn't mean, it doesn't take anything away from you, but it might save you seven times, however many hours goes into something just to say, Hey, you probably don't know, or maybe you don't, but, or maybe you do like, take a look at this.

You know, do you, do you happen to know what this means? Like, do you have any ideas? And then if I fail, cool. Yeah. No big deal. But you will go, of course, what's going to happen with my brain? I'm going to go Google it, you know? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're going to come up with the answer because usually it's simple. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's crazy.

It's crazy. Nuts. So you were saying something and I interrupted you. I forgot. Come on, Joey. I forgot. Yep. We are. Yeah. Dude, it just turned midnight. Yeah, that's why. Midnight salami. That's my son. Where is midnight salami? I haven't seen him in a couple of days. So I had him stay home for showcase week. Oh, okay. Because we had never done a showcase in this virtual format, so I wanted to make sure that we didn't have any distractions as cute and as awesome as they are.

Is he pretty upset about it? He misses coming in, 100%. Yeah, but he understands, actually. Like, you know, he's gotten to be here a lot and he gets it because he knows, I think we have built that trust. Yeah. So he trusts me fully that if I can, I will bring him. That's awesome. And if I can't, then he trusts that there's a reason why. For sure.

So, yeah, dude. Okay, so it's 12 o'clock and we should probably talk about why we're podcasting tonight. Well, we are podcasting tonight because we have the opportunity. We are very, very, very close to 1,000 downloads in one month. Right. Which is crazy because we were so excited to get 1,000 downloads total. Dude, you freaked out when we had like 100 downloads on an episode or something. I freaked because I was like, oh, wow.

I was sitting up there one day and you were like, let me see what you're looking at with the podcast. And I was like, cool. And then I showed you like the chart, the metrics or whatever for where we were at like three months ago. And I was sitting there and I was like, yeah, I didn't really think anything of it. And you were like, these are really good numbers.

And I was like, they are? Well, here's the thing. Like, they were good numbers for us because honestly, let's talk about what I've been doing the last couple of days. My absolute weakness as a leader and as an entrepreneur and as a business owner has been metrics, has been looking at the data and analyzing it and stepping back and grinding through that. So, I've paid for it.

I've trusted other people to do it. I mean, I've made, obviously made some good moves, but in general, that's been something that I've struggled with. And so, so we don't have great numbers on a lot of different platforms. And I was like, oh, that's good. Well, why was I so excited? Why was I so thrilled? Because it goes back to our vision. Yeah. And it goes back to our, the goals that we set for the year, which was to impact 1 million people in one year.

And we need a lot of platforms to do that. And we need, we need to get this information out there. And I saw a hundred people download one episode and I'm going, that's a hundred people I helped. Yeah. A hundred people that we impacted as a team minimum. And that's, that's assuming there's only one person listening. You know, there, there could be a few people listening to one download.

So, um, so that got me very excited, like really, really pumped to go, okay, if this is true, what else is true, you know, we can, we can build on this. And if, if you remember, that was the, that was the day I went all in on podcasts with you. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. I mean, even just going into this quarantine, like so many things have had to been, be put on the back burner and I just didn't allow it to happen with the podcast because I was like, honestly, it did though.

It did, it did get put on the back, it did get put on the back burner compared comparatively to, cause we were all in on podcasts and we've gone on all in on, on YouTube. So, so you're right. It, it, you, what you didn't let it do is die. Hmm. Right. Like you can't say the podcast has been as much of a priority as YouTube. It just hasn't been, but you still have been crushing it, killing it.

And, and you're, I know you're doubling down on some different things and you're making sure that we're putting up stuff over there. And so I guess the reason I refuted you on that, because I think what you did is actually harder. Hmm. Gotcha. Cause, cause you, you, well, I mean, I created a new podcast from your mornings with Matt, so I guess that's true. It totally counts.

Well that, and I'm telling you like you didn't, you didn't hold back on, I asked you to, I asked you to pivot with me. Yeah. I said, Joey, our company's pivoting. I need you to move hard, move left with me. We're going to, we're going to do this thing. And you said, okay. You said, yes. You grinded with me. You sweated out. You've been working the, you know, the late hours and the early mornings and, and, and having a lot of fun doing it.

But it, but there's no doubt that we're, you know, that we're learning new things and struggling through different things. And so you did all that and didn't let the podcast die. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's different. You know what I mean? It wasn't like you gave, you gave 75% effort over here and then you made sure that this was like still crushing. It was like, we as a team were not focused on that thing.

You made sure that, that, that we hit minimum standards. And what's crazy is our minimum standard is to beat the month prior. Yeah. So that's, that's cool too, because the idea here is like on a month that we're not crushing it as much as we used to on podcasts in general, our off month is still beating the month before because that's our minimum standard. Yeah. You know?

And we did already. Yeah. So that's what's cool. We're already a hundred above last month, but still want to get to that thousand mark. How far away are we? Let me check. I will check the live ticker right now. Let's see. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. In other news, we are now on iHeartRadio. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, which is really cool. It's a big deal.

Oh, dude. You know, this morning's morning with Matt was so good. We are at 941. Ooh. Which means we are 59 away. That's not bad. We have, what do we have? We are close. We have just today, right? Yeah, we have today. We have just today to get 60. So come on, people. Come on, people. We need your help. We've got 23 hours and 54 minutes. Share the podcast, please.

Go to Dearing Studio, the podcast page. You can go to Fireside. You can go to Apple Podcasts. You can go to Spotify. You can go to Stitcher. You can go to Now iHeartRadio. You can go to a lot of places. Find the podcast. You can go to a lot of places. And share that podcast for us because we, because Joey and I, we're a little competitive. Sometimes it goes against each other.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But usually, that's the thing. I told you this from the beginning. Remember that? There are certain things that we need to team up on. Yes. Everything we have to team up on. But the thing is, remember I said to you, I was like, dude. You got to figure out a way to use your competitive spirit. You're competitive. You've got a fire inside you, and I don't want to kill it.

I'm like, I just want to use it for good. I want you to allow me to help you cultivate it and point it in the right direction. And you and me, we get to affect a lot of people and positively impact the world at a huge level. And you can use your competitive spirit to do that. Like, do not crush your center. Just find a way to turn it into love.

For sure. Boom. That's a great place to end. That is. That's a great podcast. Love you guys so much. Thanks for watching, listening, being a part of what we do over here. We so appreciate everybody that's in our community, and look forward to doing this some more. Thanks for listening to the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast. Have a Dearing Day, everyone.