2 – Internet Audio: Tom interviews Mike Stewart

Mike Stewart

[00:00:16] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:25] Hey everybody! It's Tom here and we've got a great show today. This is episode number two and I did a training session on episode number one. You want to check that out on how to use keywords to increase your business. But I thought who better to have on this really first interview episode than a friend of mine for 2 to 300 years. He got me started in good quality audio back about 20 years ago.

And what's funny is is all the stuff he was trying to get me all the equipment and everything he was trying to get me to do back then. And I was crying about I said No you got to dumb it down you got to dumb it down I can't do it I can't do it. Twenty years later and I got all this stuff a noise gate, a limiter and a board that's got more knobs on it than all the doors in my house. So but anyway it's Mike Stewart. Mike how are you doing man?

[00:01:27] I'm great, Tom. It's so good to be here on your podcast. And OK it's only taken 20 years but you know that equipment I told you about really has a lot of uses but you know what it doesn't. You taught me something. It doesn't have to be that hard. You can actually do a lot of great things with simple equipment but you know the good equipment is what's the radio in the television world that I came from just took for granted. And so we were kind of the compromise between both worlds.

[00:01:59] You and I are going to put a course together on this a little later giving them everything from beginner to advance so we'll look forward to that.

[00:02:08] I got a big question for you now Mike are you ready to screw the commute that is. That some of the some of the best relations I've had in 20 years.

[00:02:26] I don't think I have commuted in over 20 years.

[00:02:29] Yes. Well tell everybody what you're doing currently. What do you do?

[00:02:34] Well right now I've got about four or five good passions and they're all making money. Number one I'm a consultant and a coach helping business owners learn how to and especially move to Nashville Tennessee to help my friends and brothers in the music business understand that the Internet has got so much potential for every business owner and entrepreneur. So that's Passion number one you know one on one consulting.

Number two I create online trainings. I used to sell audio CDs and DVDs as info products and now I do it as membership sites I buy a domain name. I develop a training on a domain name and then I sell access to it so membership sites or subscription websites and get people training through selling logins to my videos and audios that I used to distribute on CDs, so that's another passion. I still write a lot of music. In fact the music theme I believe that you're using on Screw the Commute is a piece of music I wrote.

[00:03:40] That's right. Oh you're right that I didn't realize you wrote that the only music I ever give people is because you know one of the things that's another passion you cannot use commercial music unless you got permission. Right right.

[00:03:53] I thought you just had a license from somebody else or sub license but you actually wrote that. Man, now I really feel special.

[00:04:01] Well you know over the last ten years one of my best recurring revenue opportunities was I write music for podcasters, YouTubers because you know there is digital information. Youtube Facebook. It's what Shazam, it's the technology that can find the digital footprint of a copyrighted piece of music and notify the systems that you're using something you don't have the rights to. So therefore when you use my music it's not in that database and you don't ever get any red flags of copyright infringement.

[00:04:37] So that's beautiful too because there's some companies their whole business model is just going after little guys on copyright infringement, scaring them to death. You know they do it on images also and in a federal lawsuit there are like 50000 dollar per infringement and then they'll settle out of court for four to ten thousand dollars and that's their whole business model.

[00:05:00] So you really have to be careful. It's really creating fear in people and then extorting money. So anyway a solution I created is because I'm here I have a music studio and I can sit here by myself and create any kind of underscore music in all different styles and I've been doing that for ten years. And I have written over seven hundred sixty two minute pieces of music that are used. So that's another thing. I'm writing songs again Tom. That's another reason I moved to Nashville. I've been co-writing with people who are friends of mine in the music business that have been hit songwriters and I'm befriending them. The guy I work with this morning wrote My daddy was the Cadillac kind. It was a big country hit.

[00:05:51] Tell me about your gold or platinum record.

[00:05:54] It's a gold record. I was in a band in 1981. In fact this is interesting you bring that up. You hear that right there. Yeah. That is a residual check from our song Pac Man fever. It was in the Family Guy cartoon back in December and the check just came, just got it at the mailbox.

[00:06:16] Oh like you buy a mansion retired or Fiji or something.

[00:06:23] No, but my commute was to go to the mailbox there.

[00:06:26] Music is another big passion and that's one of the reasons I relocated to Nashville and then I I've got a Beatle band called Nashville Beatles jam and I just I loved going out playing Beatle songs and my lead guitar player was in a band called The Box Tops. They had a hit record in the 60s called The Letter. My baby gave me a ticket for an airplane.

[00:06:50] So you're living the life that you're doing that you love and then and creating income from it.

[00:06:56] I don't commute and if I hate doing it. I fire myself from it.

[00:07:01] There you go. Hey let me ask you did you ever have a job?

[00:07:06] You know I had one job when I was 17. One time I had one job.

[00:07:13] And the reason I got the job is because the pharmacist loved guitar players and I was in his pharmacy. And I was playing guitar he said Boy you play pretty good guitar. I said yes. He says you need a summer job. I said Yeah well I kind of could use a little extra money for I go to college. He said OK you're hard. So that was my job interview and I got it because I played guitar.

[00:07:37] Did you play guitar for people coming in to get prescriptions? Doc Morrigan's pharmacy in Bristol Tennessee had me deliver drugs in a Volkswagen. And so I was his delivery boy. And then when I came back from a delivery we'd sit around and play music. And because he he loved music people and musicians here in Bristol and he trusted me so much. He's long gone so he won't get in trouble. He used to let me fill the prescriptions because I was kind of smart.

[00:08:09] And the reason I got fired was I delivered Mrs. Johnson's heart pills to Mrs. Smith and I delivered Mrs. Smith's blood pressure pills to Mrs. Johnson. I don't mean to laugh about that.

[00:08:23] But I mean that's one of the biggest problems of death in the world now. Getting the wrong prescriptions.

[00:08:29] Miss Smith called and she says Dr. Morgan my pills used to be yellow. How come it's red?

[00:08:35] Oh he fired you for that little mistake. It's better when you can fire yourself.

[00:08:44] So that was your turning point into the outside world where you're going to have your own business. You went to college from there? Went straight to college and I majored in music and I started playing music at night. And it's all I ever done. I mean from 1972 to 1980 all I did was play music and played in hotels and weddings and bar mitzvahs and you name it clubs and I made a living and then I taught guitar and taught piano and bass and then I got into the jingle business in the 80s.

[00:09:25] I remember you talking about that and that is the perfect example.

[00:09:30] I mean you do hear a lot of say Do what you love and the money will fall. Well that's not always true. You can go broke doing what you love if nobody wants it.

[00:09:39] But in this case you've been living the life. I didn't even realize some of this stuff and I've known you a long time what kind of advice would you give to somebody that's in a job now and wants to get out of it and live the kind of life you're living?

[00:09:54] Well you know I'll go all the way back to when I was that kid at 17. I met an entrepreneur named Bill Dos. In fact he was my father in law a few years later and Bill never had a job.

[00:10:09] And he was the first time I heard the word entrepreneur and he was an inspiration. And you know he would say things that still resonate to me to this day. You got to give 110 percent. You got you know you've got to get up in the morning and write down what you're going I do and you got to make it a point that when something doesn't work figure out how to make it work and never give up. And you know and he said you know my heroes were Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie. And so you know just he was an inspiration to not go the tradition of the baby boomers which was education and get a job you know. And so I just was you know I'm kind of those people that you put me in a cubicle and somebody told me that they wanted me to do something that didn't agree with. I just I pull my hair out. I just can't do that. So I am probably not and never have been employee material.

[00:11:07] So those are some good tips though. You know you just keep trying and you keep digging. You know you can make your own way like this. Now have you ever gotten screwed in business?

[00:11:26] Oh yeah. I mean you know you make mistakes you lose money you deal with people that mislead you and take money from me and that's just what did you learn about it. Well you know you can tell some people tried to do legal recourse. But that was never my choice. My choice was you know fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me so you know fool me once. Then we part ways. You know and that's basically you know I have had some mentors over the years that you know when somebody is not satisfied with me part ways and part friends. You know there's just there's more and you know getting revenge and getting even may have its place in some places but that's never been my philosophy and my philosophy is that there's enough good people in the world that see value in what I do that when I run across somebody that doesn't make me happy I just try to turn the other cheek go the other way.

[00:12:19] Yeah that was going to say that's why one of the things I've just loved about being in business for myself is that I only deal with people I like and if I don't like ya take a hike. There's plenty of other people out there.

[00:12:34] Absolutely. And that was that's how I dealt with it for years. I get in my mind what I want to do. And I go I'm going to keep trying till I figure out how to make it work. I mean I remember the same guy Bill Dawsey was who. God rest his soul was a great inspiration to me. He says now Mikey you got to get out of music. And I said Bill why. He said there's no money in music and it fired me up to prove to him that there was money in music on purpose to push me you know you never know. Maybe he did that to fire me up or test me. But you know I was married to his daughter so he was concerned oh ok that's different.

But at any rate. And by the way being his daughter or the older friend she's a sweetheart of a lady. We just we were too young to get married. But Bill was it was real concerned that you know he says you got to have a business. He says now see, I own a car dealership I've got rental property. You know I fulfill needs and so I would hear messages and I said but Bill the world needs music and advertising and television and radio and you know everything's you know 80 percent of the music that's composed is not famous music. You know nobody watches a television commercial or listens to a podcast or a radio show or anything and goes I wonder who wrote that music. But somebody did. Somebody got paid and I did that to get paid.

[00:14:12] So I just I wanted to prove to myself that I could take what I love doing and find where it solves a problem and that that's what I was able to do. I'm still able to do it with music. I still make money from music. But then I guess I'm maybe a little ADD. I got interested in it about 20 years ago in this Internet thing. And I just said how does music sound and video work with the Internet. So if you want to continue what I'm doing today I'm trying to marry my passions of music, audio and video and the technologies and the creative energies that go into those things that have been around for years, and how does that parlay into business opportunities with the internet.

[00:15:02] I think you've been doing it for a long time. That's not just something you just started. You've been doing it since I met you.

[00:15:09] Well absolutely. I mean when the Internet came out Tom, I did look at it as a computer technology. I looked at it as a broadcast technology from day one. I said my goodness this is a television set. Yeah it's hooked to a big box it has a bunch of electronics in it that does stuff beyond my comprehension but it's still a monitor and speakers and I said the principles of radio and television are going to work on that box. And I saw that in 1998 and I just said you know what I understand television and radio I want to know how it works with this new technology of the internet and computers. And so I was early on advocating the use the audio and video on the Internet. And that's what brought me to the Internet.

[00:15:58] That's what brought us together. I mean I was in it since 1994 when the commercial internet came along and you couldn't do anything at that point. But once you could do a video you had to download it for like three hours to watch thirty seconds. It wasn't usable. Hey tell us so what do you like best about working for yourself and what's the worst part about working for yourself?

[00:16:21] Oh the best part is the sense of freedom and excitement.

[00:16:28] And I'm like a kid in a candy store when new things come along. I don't have to do the same things over and over again. There's always a new opportunity that comes along that I can apply my skills and talents to if I don't want to get up in the morning I'll really have to. If I want to say I'm closed Tuesday I can do that. I mean I don't have a boss or a CEO or a human resources department and no disrespect to people that work in those environments. For me that's freedom. But then also I'm probably the worst I'm the meanest boss I could have on myself.

[00:17:12] Yeah me too.

[00:17:14] You know and so sometimes I feel guilty that sometimes it's hard for me to do nothing for a day because I feel like I ought to be doing something. And that's just my entrepreneurial. I've trained myself to try to be an action taker because the lesson I learned and the lesson I try to teach people that work with me you know having an idea takes a second you can get an idea boom you got an idea but to follow through take action and bring it to fruition takes W O R K.

[00:17:49] Tell everybody what you're promoting currently. What kind of things you have for them?

[00:17:55] Well right now the most exciting thing is getting more people to understand how to install a podcast. I've got a podcast installation technique and system where you can actually buy a domain name setup a Wordpress Web site and click a button and have a podcast website set up ready to start filling it. Yeah, I'm using your system because it is only the second episode and that's the exact system I'm using.

[00:18:29] So yeah. So we're going to get a hold of this? Well it's podcastinstall.com.

[00:18:41] Well have it in the show notes folks also you can click on it. Be sure to click on that link. I want to know that you came from Tom and we'll have a tracking link there. We're going to disclose that because I want to know that you're one of Tom's folks because I want to make sure you get taken care of. But I'm excited about podcasting for a multitude of reasons Tom. Number one it's radio and television that anybody can do to, you monetize it by advertising and referring people to things that make you money. So in other words if it's your own radio station or your television station the only advertiser could be just you or other advertisers so you can make money. There are people making money now for podcasting and podcasting has never become there's more audience. They estimate over 9 billion mobile devices by 2020.

[00:19:37] And they're putting them in cars now.

[00:19:41] And GM just announced in December, every dashboard from now on will have built into the dashboard screen a podcast app meaning that if you connect if you get mobile internet in your dashboard which I'm sure they're going to be wanting you know all the Internet providers are going to want to be selling you connectivity. You can actually talk to your dashboard and say let me hear the latest episode of screw the commute and that dashboard will start playing your latest episode. That's what's possible today.

[00:20:12] It's crazy. So anyway check out the podcastinstall.com. It'll be in the show notes below. We're going to take a quick break for our sponsor, Mike, and then we're going to come back everybody and Mike's going to tell you what a typical day looks like for a screw the commuter in Nashville Tennessee and how he stays motivated. We'll be right back.

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[00:21:06] All right. We're back after the break with Mike Stewart here. And Mike tell everybody what's a typical day look like for you. I know you haven't been commuting for twenty. I mean pretty much ever. And what's a typical day look like for you. And how do you stay motivated when there's no boss there's no set schedule telling you what to do?

[00:21:31] Well you know because of my marketing efforts and because of the networking relationships that I've made you know I pride myself on being a good networker, Tom. I like meeting people. I like building relationships. And because of all the things that I do you know people say What do you do if you're marketing word of mouth. Well my motivated word of mouth makes the phone ring and my advertising. I do Google Ad Words, I podcast, I blog, I have affiliate relationships. I've got local relationships. So quite honestly the phone rings. Now many times I'll take a call you when I called you the other day.

[00:22:24] I try to be on a boat during the summer at least a third of the day every day. I don't consider it work. I mean I was retired as I'm going to get. Because when it's a beautiful warm day I'm out on my boat or wave runner. But if the phone rings I turn the engine off and I take the call. Answer the questions go to my Google Calendar and schedule if I have to have an online meeting. So a typical day for me is like this morning I had a virtual coaching call for two hours and then I did an automated webinar where I just hit go and the automated webinars. And then I went took a shower and came back and answered questions for 15 minutes. Sold about 500 dollars worth of memberships. Then after that I wrote a song and recorded one of my songs with a buddy of mine so I just got a song like Yeah I couldn't write a song in a hundred years. You did a great show where you had breakfast and then after I wrote the song I rendered some videos that I needed to upload and then I took my neighbor.

[00:23:51] It's Thursday night is Cracker Barrel turkey and dressing night. So I took my neighbor Rhonda my wife Susan is down with the grandbaby so Rhonda I didn't want her to stay at home alone tonight not have some goodies. So I just took her to Cracker Barrel and I said oh my gosh I need to hurry back. I'm going to talk to Tom.

[00:24:18] So that was exhausted from that.

[00:24:23] Oh yeah. Tomorrow I'm going to Abbey Road on the river which is a three day fest in Louisville Kentucky. Yeah that's that's a biggie. I'm going to meet Jeff Emerick the audio engineer that was the man behind the sound console for Sergeant Pepper's It's amazing. And you know what I'm going to be promoting it Abbey Road on the river. My band The Nashville Beatles. Yeah. So that's my goal is I want to play there next year at that. Thirty thousand Beatles fans descend on Louisville Kentucky every May. So fun is business. Business is fun cause I don't commute. I just have fun and try to forget what's an angle that we could turn this into a profitable relationship.

[00:25:14] That's what I've been doing all my life. That's why I started this to help other people get the idea that they can do it. Just like when your father in law said hey you can't make any money with music. When people tell you can't do something what they're saying is they can't do it. And it doesn't have anything to do with what you can do it or not. So Mike so it's been so great catching up with you and for the kind of inaugural interview on screw the commute and there's going to be way way more episodes to come and

[00:25:48] You're going to come back and we're going to see what else you're promoting the next time right?

[00:25:55] Tom if you tell me to be there that's something that makes my google calendar.

[00:26:02] So say hi to the missus and screw that commute, Mike. You know what?

[00:26:10] It's really easy cause I don't commute.

[00:26:14] All right everybody check in for their next interview. And then we're going to do one training session a week and two interviews. So make sure you subscribe. We have a special thing at screwthecommute.com where you can leave a review. And so if you're going to leave a good review you click on the good link

[00:26:43] If you're going to leave a bad review we have a bad link that doesn't go anywhere or goes to somebody else's podcast.

[00:26:54] So anyway yeah check the show notes. You can always check the show notes at screwthecommute.com and see all our past episodes. And we'd love to see over there. Mike, catch ya next time.

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