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Audio digitally transcribed by Otter.ai

Introduction 0:00
Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns 0:19
We were having a great conversation, then it's like, we should probably take this live and actually have a #PirateBroadcast™ today. Junaid, how you doing today, my friend?

Junaid Ahmed 0:29
I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Thank you so much, man. Thank you so much for having me on the #PirateBroadcast™.

Russ Johns 0:36
Yeah, a pirate, another pirate to the community? You know, we have, I haven't counted, over 330, 333 episodes at least. And the thing you know, you're a podcaster. And we were talking about podcasting. And and so for those that don't know you, give us a snapshot of your journey into podcasting and how you got started and, you know, recording on the fly and just developing this skill set that you have now.

Junaid Ahmed 1:06
Yeah, well, absolutely. So I've been wanting to do a podcast for a very long time. In fact, my first foray into podcasting was back in 2012. We used to use Hangouts, Google Hangouts, or something like that I can't even remember right. And we had to broadcast live to YouTube for it to be able to record it and then download the audio, extract, you know, edit that thing out. The craziest thing was, it was three of us, myself, my cousin and my brother in law. And we were in two different, three different cities, two different time zones. It was a pain, getting that so we ended up doing four episodes. And then I was like, alright, it's too crazy, you know, can't keep up. Yeah, but then in 2018, I finally got the courage to get my own show started called Hacks and Hobbies. Now, when I recorded my first episode, I did not even have the name of the podcast, I was like, you know what? To talk about this. I'm going to talk about this podcast, and then even maybe, somewhere in the episode, I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna call this podcast, maybe it's super, today's something. And then I think by the third episode, I was like, alright, it's going to be hacks and hobbies, because I have so many different hobbies, I love to talk about them. And I absolutely enjoy, you know, just going deep into it. So Hacks and Hobbies.

Russ Johns 2:45
I had a similar thought when I started Two Minute Tips. I used to do those, like, every night, you know, just kind of thought of the day. And then somebody realized that they were longer than two minutes. And, and so I made it. Two Minute Tips in 10 minutes or less. They're still out there on YouTube. But that's what got me started on this whole episode of you know, live streaming, is because I had gone back into podcasting back in radio days when I was in Houston. And I thought, you know, I, I don't want to edit, I just want to turn the mic on and go for it. And that's kind of what evolved into live streaming now. And it's really, it's really, for me, and I want to hear your experience on this is kind of therapy. Like you could just kind of put out your mind's eye and you know, you you're you have a thought and you can share it and you know, kind of riff on this idea. Yeah. And there's no real right answer. So what do you think? What was your experience along those lines?

Junaid Ahmed 3:58
So you know, you bring up a really excellent point about just going live and not editing anything, because that's something that we learn over time how hard it really is to produce a podcast or produce even the show. Because editing can take longer than the recorded episode itself. In fact, I had I was going so insane with with my podcasting when I started the guest podcasts. And I would take three hours to edit my, my 45 minutes. So close to it, like oh, I can make it better or I can make it better, right? And over time you realize, you know, it's not the editing, it's the story. On the episode. It's the conversation that you're having that really matters. Doesn't matter. People just want to connect and understand. So I ended up bringing in a little team to help me with that process and be like, Alright, you guys handle this part, I handle this part and we all you know, come out happy. So that's been that's been monumental. Now, I was talking to a good friend of mine, Jim Beard because I still have 40 episodes to publish. Well I already recorded last year, right? And I'm like, I need to get these out, I need to get these things out. And so my buddy Jim Beard of the X's and O's game show, he's like, Dude, why don't you just do a live show? You do it weekly, or, you know, twice a week or whatever. And it's done. Like, you don't have to think about it at all. Like, that's so true. So that's, that's been my experience so far.

Russ Johns 5:47
Yeah. It's amazing. To think about the, we were talking before the show started, we were talking about the first episode. And people need to realize that, you know, there's something holding them back. And the best advice we talked about was just turn the camera on, start recording, it's gonna be messy, it's gonna be like a five year old learning the piano. You know, in a lot of respects, however, that five year old in two years can actually sound much better. And then another two years, you know, it depends on how much you practice and it's, it's just, you have to find your groove and enjoy the process. And wish somebody would, you know, like yourself with hacks and hobbies. It's that curiosity, that that space that you learn in and the ability and the opportunity to kind of digest that and share it out. So we've got some we got a few people in the room here. We got Gabriel is in the in the room. What is Russ Johns... What is going to be a great conversation, Daniel Hall is here. Good morning, Daniel. What's happening? Kenyatta Turner. Yeah, I enjoy these two humans? Good morning, Gabriel. And then what is up gentlemen, looking forward to hearing Junaid Ahmed, share his journey. Let's get into that a little bit. Because, you know, life is a journey. And the whole point of the #PirateBroadcast™ is to highlight and shine a little bit of sunshine in your world. so others can find and discover you and what you're doing and people in my community might not necessarily know who you are. And so give a little backstory on how how we actually arrived here today. And what brought you here.

Junaid Ahmed 7:41
Dude, that is going to be a long drawn out journey.

Russ Johns 7:46
You're a UI designer, you can navigate.

Junaid Ahmed 7:49
I've been designing websites for ever, and I think 10 years plus ago, I got into user experience. Now what's really beautiful is how user experience design, marketing, journaling, you know, or even interviewing and how they're so related. And I wonder why? Because guess what, the subject matter of all of these different labels is human beings, right? We all function work the same way. So there's so many parallels between, you know, when you're designing a user experience, you want to figure out what problems are you solving? And so how did I arrive here, I was trying to solve a problem. And the problem was, I want to be able to record video in a space where I don't have to spend two hours and setting up my cameras and setting up my lights. So that's what brought me here, to the point that we are today. So I started in tech, tech space, you know, probably around the same time you did years ago what you know, my first, my first interaction with tech was the Commodore 64. And I was like, this is pretty insane. And then our first computer 486 right. And so technology was on the forefront of my mind. And I would watch my dad sitting in front of a computer typing away. I'm like, how is he able to do this? I can't even figure out where the keys are. Right. And so I was just so fascinated, he inspired me into you know, getting more and more into technology. So since then, I've just been, you know, blown away by by tech and just diving deeper and deeper. Now as we go along. I came to the US, I started taking computers apart and putting them back together, because I wanted, you know, this part from this one, this part from this one. And as you go deeper into tech, or, or computers, or even camera tech and video, it's just beautiful, like how it's evolving over time. And there's only one primary reason why it's happening. Because we as humans, number one, we get bored very easily. Plus, we love to cure, you know, we have the curiosity, to dig in deeper to what it is, you know, how things work, like there's an entire TV show, how it works, right how it's made. And like, I remember watching those episodes on Netflix too. So I'm just a curious man, man, my favorite thing to do is to take apart things and see how things work. So that's what brings me here, that's why I am, you know, crazy about hobbies, and create about those life hacks.

Russ Johns 11:11
We're so, so close to being related in that, that entire capacity, you know, I got into, I got into technology, and I just wanted to learn, you know, I'd be, you know, I learn how to build computers, I build computers, I've actually written modem scripts, and connected email servers, and, you know, build networks, and all of these things in technology. And really, what, what I really love about what you're doing, though, is the UI experience and what I call it, what I call removing the friction. Because there's so many when you go to a website, and you don't know really know why. It just flows, you know, everything seems to be accessible. Everything seems to be easy to locate, easy to find. And we have an opportunity to actually get everything we need. That's the user experience. And it's, it's almost invisible, yet, in our face. And, and curiosity is what builds that it's like, how can I improve this just a little bit more? How can I How can I bring something else to the table on this on this application. And it's just we're evolving into this space where, you know, like, like your ATM Mini, you know, you're being able to switch things around and move and manipulate it. It's less about the technology, and more about the story that we can deliver in that process. So it's amazing. Gabriel says, I take a hard pass on editing. Russ Hedge says Good morning. Thank you so much. Always, always good to be on the #PirateBroadcast™. Thank you so much. Kenyatta says bees!

Junaid Ahmed 13:10
That's right. That's what he got all got started, man.

Russ Johns 13:12
Yeah. And it's, it's really, I love tearing things down. You know, being a programmer, I'm not a programmer, and I admire you know, program as, as poetry. You know, code is poetry kind of concept. So, one of the things that I know, in the last year, that's probably been challenging for a lot is just discovering this thing. And, and what I love about what you're doing with the hacks in the hobbies podcast is planting seeds for other people to, to, you know, think about, wow, I think I could do that. Yeah. Is that is that a recurring theme that you think people are really relating to and, and enjoying for the podcast?

Junaid Ahmed 13:57
100%. You know, before I go into that, I wanted to touch back on design being frictionless right, as a user experience, you want to create a design that's frictionless, and that's something Steve Jobs said himself. He said, if it's designed, right, you don't even see the design. That's how, you know, that's how invisible it needs to be. So coming back to the question of, you know, what kind of experience is the audience getting from each of these guests episodes? Is that, number one, I am able to extract or find that recurring pattern, like why somebody's doing what they're doing, like, why are they speaker? Or why are they writing books? Or why are they or an actor, right? It's all possible, if you put your mind into anything that you're passionate about. Uh huh. So that's what's beautiful about and that's what I keep seeing. And the reason I wanted to go and learn from other experts is because I was curious. I was wondering like, Is there something here that I've been missing this whole time? Because, guess what we're all raised to say, you know, we're all raised to say go to college, get your degree. And that's going to take you to the next step. But that's only 50% of the truth right? Now that's in its place is excellent, right. That's why we have college. In colleges, we have people that will help you figure out what your career path is going to be, right? Because not everybody's told what's possible. We're no worse, it was not possible. So you to be super educated to be understanding, I think is super important. And so that's what I found in the journeys of all the guests that I've talked to you, right? Why they did the thing that did it? How did they overcome the problems that we're facing? And, you know, what kept them going, like, Who's the outside motivators? Who the outside forces, what's the internal forces driving their passion? Think all of those things, you know, connect you on a such a deeper level to see that, hey, we're all humans, we all have the capacity, we just got to find the right tribe, we got to find the right mentor, to help us, you know, lead the way or, you know, be able to get out there. What's inside of you?

Russ Johns 16:29
Yeah, I am. You know, I'm one of those individuals that I attempted to go to college, I was a professional musician, I was playing music, making good money, loving it. I'd ski during the day and play music at night. And you know, somebody had to do it kind of activity. And I was, and my mother loved her dearly. She goes, why don't you go to college, like, because the only thing I want to do mom is play music. And then I played music professionally, until, till I fell three stories and shattered my arm, I was a drummer, and I had to take a couple years off and recover and, you know, rebuild myself, you know, $6 million, man. That's what, that's what shifted my focus into technology. It's like, okay, well, I'm not, that's when MIDI came out, you know, you're writing notes on a computer versus on a keyboard. Yeah, and recording to tape to and then you're now you're recording to a hard drive. And so that whole idea, got me into electronic music and composing where I didn't need to drive around in a bus. You know, it was six guys for two years. You know, and so it's, it's a completely different shift. And I've probably, fortunately, and curiously enough, I've probably had more careers than most people ever think about, you know, from a firefighter, to a farmer to, you know, Program Manager, to software developer, you know, all of these things are all related by the curiosity, for me, going through this process. And I think people don't allow themselves to expand beyond the idea that you need to do a, b, and c. And oh, you could probably do one, two and three along the way. And I think podcasting and live stream shows and sharing your experience opens that up, and I'm just really excited about how we evolve where we are. Because, you know, we have an amazing, we're living an amazing part of history, where it's available to all of us now. You are the media, and I get super excited about it.

Junaid Ahmed 18:51
Now you're you're 100%, right, you know, we have that capacity, we have the ability to look at what other people are doing and say, hey, I want to try that, too. And how it's possible. You know, like you said, You tried college? Well, I tried college to I went to community college for probably six years. And I don't even have an associate's because I was like, it's not something that's really, you know, it's not connecting me on that deeper level. Yeah. Which is, which isn't to say that other people shouldn't go, you should definitely go to college. Make sure that the classes you take your heart and the passion that lines up with you and take courses that you might even not even know about, right? Because there's a ton of people teaching a ton of different things. We would not have beautiful calligraphy texts on our devices if Steve Jobs didn't take that calligraphy class.

Russ Johns 19:55
Well, one of my favorite classes I ever I did attend had a great teacher, great professor was the origin of language. And it was just fascinating to me, and how everything fit and evolved. It reminds me of a BBC show that was in the 70s. That was called connections. It was an award winning show. And they would go back in history and they would say, okay, this person did this, which evolved into this, which involved into this, which evolved into this. And now that's why we're, we have microwave ovens. It's like, they would work backwards. And the storyline was always so fascinating to me. And I don't know, I mean, it's still I still relate to that as a journey, you know, people having journeys in this experience, and it's just, it's just so amazing what we can do right now. Kenyatta says I thought the same thing about my dad. He was an engineer. And when I was in high school, he came home with a laptop one day from work, and my mind was blown. Like, we have so many things and so many opportunities. Yeah, Sheila says, expanded. Yes. Wendy says we refer to creatives who could do many things as functioning visionaries. I see two of them right here. Thank you for showing us the way. Thank you so much, Wendy. Love you. And Daniel Hall says, I remember MIDI. It's still around. In fact, you have it on your iPad, you have a program called midi mux. And you can actually connect to your computer, and you can actually program on In fact, I performed dubstep in Houston a few years ago. I do live shows and perform. So it's talking about MIDI.

Junaid Ahmed 21:59
Right so MIDI's actually now at version 2.0, which is officially, you know, officiated. And I backed the company back I think almost four or five years ago on Kickstarter. And he's working directly with these MIDI 2.0. And hips. In fact, he has a software we can talk about it later called imitone where your music where your sound becomes the notes like it can convert your sound. And know what you're outputting into MIDI. So that's pretty, pretty insane.

Russ Johns 22:36
Yeah, yeah. There's the challenge I have right now. Is the like what we were talking about before we started the show. Yeah, time. We all have things that we're committed to do, you know, things that have to get done. Yeah. And, and the research and the development and the curiosity. I would love to have twice as much time to dive into that. It's like, okay, and my goal is to I'm going to get to a point where I'm creating a track a day. That's kind of the back of my head. You know, it's like, because the #PirateSyndicate™, I'm going to get people...I'm going to produce shows and doing that that's already in motion. And so do the #PirateBroadcast™, promote things, play music, ski, ski and play music.

Junaid Ahmed 23:37
Guess what, Russ? There's one way that you can multiply your time. Do you know what that way is? Do you know the way?

Russ Johns 23:48
Well, my theme is document and delegate.

Junaid Ahmed 23:52
Amen. That's exactly right. That's how you get more time. You got to delegate you gotta let go. You know, it's hard to letting go like the reason I didn't have a podcast editor in the beginning, it's like, it's like, because I wanted control. It's like, I can do this. Why do I need to spend money on it when I can spend time? Guess what, buddy? You only have this much time in this and it's not coming back.

Russ Johns 24:18
Well, a lot of a lot of times, and this is just my experience is that you get stuck in this this lie that says, okay, it takes me less time just to do it than it takes time to explain how to do it to somebody else and train them how to do it.

Junaid Ahmed 24:36
That's true.

Russ Johns 24:36
And the reality is, is that so many occasions when you delegate something, they may find a more effective way to deal with the results. And so the lesson here today kids is that, you know, sometimes if you document and delegate, you receive more time. So it's a gift.

Junaid Ahmed 24:59
It is a gift. And not only that, right, you can even record a video. And that's what I've been doing, I'm recording the video or of the tasks that I'm performing. I'm like, hey, this is how I am doing it. Now go out there, create a SoP around it or come up with a better way to do it. And, you know, document that, now, I can have two people doing the same thing or three people doing the same thing. And get three times a time back than what I put it put in.

Russ Johns 25:29
Yeah, that's, that's like I trained my sister how to produce the show. And then she trained somebody else how to produce the show. Yeah. And then train somebody else how to do that. Tracie's doing my show. And I just show up. And I'm a talking head. Meeting cool people like you.

Junaid Ahmed 25:47
Yeah, that's what I heard about talking heads. I'm like, What is a talking head? Oh, a head that's just talking. Like, yeah, I want to do that. What's funny, I would have been in this field a lot earlier, if I had stuck around to my theater class. And I was like, I don't want to show up on theater because I was a hermit, you know, sitting in front of computers, doing that, and now I find myself being in front of camera being in front of audiences and you know, telling like It is.

Russ Johns 26:20
Yeah. It's great. Wendy suggests that people think about trying lots of careers. Admirable, but then they sober up and go back to doing what they always did. To some being drunk on life. Yeah. Somebody asked me the other day, is there anything that you haven't done? It's like, yeah, never been a cab driver in Chicago. So, still learning. Kenyatta, we've talked about this in a mastermind group, document and delegates still learning how to do this. It's not always easy for the individual that wants to control the pieces of the puzzle. Yeah. And you have to think about the outcome. So, so going forward. Junaid? What outcomes are you looking to accomplish in 2021 in the next year, and any big rocks you're going to move or any moguls you're going to bump over?

Junaid Ahmed 27:22
The biggest rock that I'm going to move is probably myself because I'm standing in my own way. Right? And that's always the case, you think that oh, no, I don't want to do this. Because I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if I'm going to be perfect. And I keep coming back to my own lesson. You just got to do it. Right. So I have, I've been planning on launching a mastermind on how to set up a home studio for the past few months. And I've got, like, probably 50% of everything down. And I just need to take that leap of faith and start that mastermind and start teaching people start talking about it, because I've been doing it. I've, I've you know, this entire studio that I've set up took me like, you know, the past year, and I'm still perfecting it, I'm still adding things to it, I'm removing things from it. So it's a growing process, that we gotta just get on and do it. So I need to get out of my own way. So that's, that's my main goal for this year is to have that mastermind have that course, on setting up the home studio.

Russ Johns 28:37
It's amazing how we think we tell ourselves the lie that well it can't get done unless I do it. And a lot of times, it's not gonna get done, it gets done in spite of us. So I just really love and enjoy, you know, the creative process. And you know, you have a beautiful studio and and I just know what it takes to build it out and produce results. So I encourage you and support you and anything you do, I'll drop you a few lines, say how's that going? How's it going?

Junaid Ahmed 29:14
Yeah, that would be awesome.

Russ Johns 29:15
I want to also publicly invite you to what I'm doing over at the #PirateSyndicate™, because my belief is that we can build a an amazing community of people that want to share their message that may not have the resources or the time, or the support, or the understanding of everything that goes into it. And so I'm building courses over there. And then I'm teaching people how to produce be remote producers because I'm a remote producer for stream yard. And then tools like Dubb that you can do like you said, you can record a quick video show people how to do something. And then you can capture that video and use it as a course to teach other people how to do things.

Junaid Ahmed 29:58
Exactly.

Russ Johns 29:59
Yeah. I was so horrible because I would do a screen capture, teach some answer a question to somebody, and then I would send it off and never do anything with it again. And I decided this year, I'm gonna start creating courses instead of just, you know, let them float on my harddrive forever.

Junaid Ahmed 30:17
yeah. And so many videos recorded in that same, you know, in that same string, like, oh, I've got two terabytes of video just hanging out on my server. I'm like, I need to do something with it. But again, comes back to time. I need to, you know, comb through that stuff, or do I just record it all over again?

Russ Johns 30:36
Yeah. Kenyatta says, do it Junaid!

Junaid Ahmed 30:41
Gotta do it.

Russ Johns 30:43
Daniel Hall says, bring people on your journey, instead of trying to get to the end of the journey before sharing.

Junaid Ahmed 30:52
I love that.

Russ Johns 30:53
I love that. So, so Daniel in that light. And this is a distraction project at this point in time, because I have so many things going on. However I would...I'm dedicating a little bit of time, each day or each week, to getting back into the music creation process. Because what I would love to have as an experience is the journey of how things all fit together to create music the way I'm thinking of it. And then the result is having a, almost like a two minute tips again, and then talking about, you know, life and philosophy and things like that, and then have a backdrop of music that I had created just before the show, or during the show. And just kind of that creative process from both directions, I think would be fun to experience.

Junaid Ahmed 31:56
I'm super excited and super curious to see what that process looks like too. Because right? People like, Oh, I did this, this and this, like, wait, wait, come back again. Can you can you gave me in layman terms. And that's the thing, right? We've been in technology for so long, that, you know, we're not using TCP anymore because we're trying to avoid handshakes. You know, we're gonna be using UTP, like, What do you mean, right?

Russ Johns 32:27
Say I want to know the source. Yes, I did. I, I think we could carry on for a little while, however, we need, you know, we were busy. And we got things to do places to go people to see and things to create.

Junaid Ahmed 32:43
Absolutely.

Russ Johns 32:44
Thank you so much for being here. Being a pirate. I love the community. I love the people here. And I love that you're now part of the pirate community. And we can connect and create and capture some #inspiration from each other.

Junaid Ahmed 33:01
Amen. Amen.

Russ Johns 33:03
Look forward to next conversation.

Junaid Ahmed 33:05
Thanks so much for having me on the pirate broadcast.

Russ Johns 33:09
Absolutely. And everyone every day, please share this out for somebody that needs to listen to this or hear this or be inspired by it. Junaid is an #inspiration to a lot of us. And we need to make sure that we share these episodes, we put this out. And you know, the rest of the week, we got a couple of other people in the room, we got you know, people coming up and we got things coming up. We got things that are going to take place. And I just encourage you to like, comment and share. You know,I just received an email yesterday that I'm on Pandora now. So I don't know if that makes a difference in your life.

Junaid Ahmed 33:46
That's so awesome.

Russ Johns 33:48
Yeah, I Heart Radio, Spotify, where all podcasts are sold. So, you know, just go out there and share and like it. And I'm also building my YouTube channel. So I'm going to be bringing some other content over there on YouTube. So like and subscribe, and all the things that are social. So that's an aid. As always look forward to staying in contact and #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree

Junaid Ahmed 34:13
#smilesarefree

Russ Johns 34:15
So you #enjoytheday.

Junaid Ahmed 34:17
You too, my friend. Thank you. Thank you.

Exit 34:20
Thank you for joining the #PirateBroadcast™. If you found this content valuable, please like, comment and share it across your social media channels. I would love the opportunity to help others grow in their business. The #PirateSyndicate ™ is a platform where you show up, we produce the show. It's that easy. If you want to be seen, be heard and be talked about, join the #PirateSyndicate™ today.

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