The Future of All Media with Adam Torres

Jordan Mendoza (00:02.555) Hello everyone and welcome back to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza. I'm your host and I'm joined by an incredible guest today. His name is Adam Torres and I'm going to have him tell you a little bit about who he is and what he does today. Adam Torres (00:17.706) Yeah, Jordan, man, I'm so excited to be here. Blaze your own trail podcast. Come on. I've been waiting to get on this show for a long time. I love meeting new podcasters like yourself. And you've built a business. You've done a bunch of things with your show. You built a big audience. And man, I'm just excited to talk to you. So appreciate you having me on. And from one podcaster to another, I'm glad to be here. Jordan Mendoza (00:42.297) Absolutely. I'm excited to have you on as well and give the audience some context. And my favorite part of the show, Adam, is we just kick it off with a rewind. I want to get deep context into my guest's story, into their journey. So if you could share with the audience, where were you born and raised? And what kind of kid were you? What type of things did you get into? Were you more into the academic side? Were you into sports? Were you crazy like me and got into all kinds of stuff? I'd love to just to get some context on the formative years. Adam Torres (00:52.738) Yeah. Adam Torres (00:59.0) Yeah. Adam Torres (01:06.488) Yeah. Adam Torres (01:11.222) Yeah, so we're going way back then. So I was born in Michigan. So Detroit. So I'm a Detroiter, Midwestern through and through and growing up I was I was kind of always the well now we use the word entrepreneur, but who the heck knew what that word meant? That's a fancy word for I was just a kid trying to make some money. So I had all my you know my little side hustles, my T shirt businesses, my like whatever I could do to make some money selling baseball cards, basketball cards, whatever I could do. But it was a great upbringing in childhood. We had Little Caesars Pizza. This is way back when the Detroit Pistons were winning all kinds of championships. You move forward along a bit in my later years and the Red Wings are winning championships. It's a great upbringing, really. But did I think I'd ever be in media or anything like that? Never. This whole podcasting media, anything, I had zero interest in being. on TV, in front of a camera, any of that kind of stuff. I was just regular Midwestern and I was just out there trying, know, as an entrepreneur doing things in my younger years and then obviously went to college, stuff like that. I see your Oregon jacket on. I was Michigan State, so I went to MSU and then moved on from there. But my career really started in finance. Like that was the base. I had a solid 14-year career in finance before before transitioning over into media. But yeah, I started in finance, really. Jordan Mendoza (02:41.691) Yeah, we're definitely kindred spirits. I was that same kid that went to slang baseball cards. I was raking leaves. I was doing telemarketing in high school. was, I was trying to do whatever, uh, anything that could avoid actually going to class was like my jam and, and, uh, started a breakdancing crew in 1995. And, and I was more interested in breakdance than the halls and going to class in high school. Yeah, that's it. Um, so let's talk about. Adam Torres (02:48.396) Hahaha Adam Torres (02:53.069) Yeah! Adam Torres (03:03.022) Dang, we would have been friends. Come on. Jordan Mendoza (03:09.787) Growing up growing up in in Detroit, so I I had the I don't know if I would call it a privilege but in 2003 I was had this sales job and I got sent up to Auburn Hills, Michigan And I don't know if the listeners have ever been to Michigan in January. It's it's not warm It's I think the high every day was like minus one and the in the low was like minus 15 or something crazy like that So talk about what that was like growing up Adam Torres (03:13.708) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Adam Torres (03:20.642) Mmm. Yeah, yeah. Adam Torres (03:28.862) Nah, you're cold, baby. Adam Torres (03:35.458) Yeah. Jordan Mendoza (03:38.251) in those kind of frigid conditions where, you know, nowadays if you tell people that you had to walk to school in the snow, they probably think it's child abuse, right? So like talk a little bit about what that was like being brought up in that culture. Adam Torres (03:45.345) Yeah. I mean, you don't know what you don't know. I'll tell you this, you don't know what you don't know. it's so it's I and now I look back and I've been in I've been based in L.A. for a long time now and over 10 years. And I look back and I tell my my my my dad, I'm like, why why have you raised me and like, why are we in Michigan? like, you don't know, you don't know. It's cold. All the other things. But but really, it was a lot of fun, too. Like, I mean, the difference is, you know, right now we're recording this December 22nd for some context. Christmas is coming up. I haven't seen snow, man. I haven't seen snow in so long. Jordan, I don't miss the cold part of it, but I don't, you know what I mean? Like there's different nostalgias about it, but either way, I wouldn't trade it. I'm not going back to the snow. good. Jordan Mendoza (04:34.464) Love it. Love it. So did you get into any winter sports out there? I know that there's like hockey, ice hockey is a thing, you know, because it's so cold. Did you get into any sports at all? Adam Torres (04:40.654) No, no, wasn't. wasn't. You know, sports, I did play basketball. I played basketball quite a bit, but that was like younger years, not in high school. I played like pretty much ninth, tenth grade. I think my height peaked out in terms of like what I was going to do. And I didn't play too much any sports or anything like that. actually. Speaking of and doing anything to not go to class, I went to school maybe like two hours a day. Then I went to work at a brokerage firm called Raymond James and Associates. So they're big out there in Atlanta where you're at. So I think that might even be where their headquarters at if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong on that one, but I know they were kind of started or headquartered regionally down there way back when. But no, I saw I would literally I would go to I go to class maybe like two hours a day then I go to the office I go to the brokerage office and and I started in their IRA department and And I'd work so I worked even in high school So that was kind of like that took me out of the school thing that took me out of the Out of really everything but the cool part about that was well, of course making money like that wasn't that's a good thing, right? but The cool part is that's like before the tech bubble burst before 2002. So at that point, the market was, you know, this is 98, 99 going into 2000. So anything, you know, that had dot com at the end of it was going crazy in the stock market. So looking at that, it was a very interesting high school, like having that type of or that that period having those type of influences and being in that type of environment as really a kid in retrospect, right? Jordan Mendoza (06:14.702) Yeah, of course. Yeah, and I'm sure that attributed to you wanting to be a finance major at Michigan State. You got literally put into the reps of what it looks like every day to go in and learn different things. So. Adam Torres (06:26.06) Yeah, actually, no, didn't. I didn't. I didn't major in finance. That's just where my career took me. What I did in college was different. I was speaking of not wanting to do work, but also wanting to have fun. So I was actually international relations. I was this is this is, you know, Facebook's just kind of coming out all that other stuff around this time period, or maybe my space was out and then it evolved into Facebook, whatever, like around that time period when I was in college. Jordan Mendoza (06:41.197) Interesting. Adam Torres (06:53.07) And I traveled, like I was one of the original, just wanted to travel and learn. So I studied in Mexico and Belgium and Spain and Czech Republic. no, I was all about, I was about that. If I could get on a study abroad trip and get out of Michigan and go see the world, I was in. So I figured in business or in finance, I was like, ah, you know, I'll probably learn what I need to do on the job or later in life. But. They say right now is a really good time in your life. So I was like, man, I'm traveling. So I spent a lot of time on the road getting credits though, by the way, getting credits and getting my degree. So it was like a win-win. Actually, that's even why I picked Michigan State because at that time, I don't know if it's still the case, but it had the number one study abroad program ranked in the country. And they had like, it was insane. was like, you could just open up a book and go wherever. Jordan Mendoza (07:25.144) Love it. Jordan Mendoza (07:41.295) Love it. Jordan Mendoza (07:46.456) I love that. So what part of Belgium were you in? Adam Torres (07:49.64) Brussels, yeah, Brussels. I studied, I did a bunch of different things there while I was there actually, but yeah, Belgium. Brussels, really? Jordan Mendoza (07:58.021) Yeah, I'm in Belgium every six to eight weeks. We hadn't met prior to today, but I co-founded a tech startup that's based in La Louvier, Belgium. It's about 20 kilometers outside of Brussels about three and a half years ago. So yeah, I'm one of the four co-founders. We're building teams, just got some investment money in and we're partnering with the Belgian government, University of Leuven. We're partnering with University of... Adam Torres (08:11.311) Mmm Adam Torres (08:15.937) Wow. Jordan Mendoza (08:27.104) in Liège and the government and the fire teams were building a fire life safety product. So very, very small world, random, right? That's somewhere you went to study and I've been building a business there the last three and half years. So very, very cool. So what was your, what was the favorite country that you visited in your study abroad program? Adam Torres (08:28.847) Mmm. Adam Torres (08:35.235) That's awesome, man. Adam Torres (08:40.525) That's great. Adam Torres (08:47.155) Spain, southern Spain for sure. Specifically like Puerto Banos and that whole man. I got lost there. I got lost there. You fall in love there. It's just the best. I want to go back now, isn't it? Yeah, no, southern Spain. It's just just being in that environment. It's just something else. And even just like it was just the the food, the everything, the lifestyle. It was just that's the best to me still. Jordan Mendoza (09:13.304) Yeah, European culture is Trump's our culture any day of the week. mean, just being able to go anywhere and eat and not be haggled by people because you can just consume your food and digest your food and have three hours of conversation and they wouldn't dare come ask you for your bill. You know, like that's what I love about the culture in Europe is it really, know, so you don't know this also, but I'm a father of six. So any restaurant that we go to in the States. Adam Torres (09:22.979) Mmm. Adam Torres (09:32.591) Yeah. Adam Torres (09:36.567) Hmm. Dang, you gotta try, baby. You gotta try. Jordan Mendoza (09:39.675) Yeah, it's my our youngest is 16 months. My oldest is about to be 21. So yeah, we've got them from diapers to the workforce. But you know, when you go out in the States, everywhere you go is trying to get ready to be the moment you go in. When you go out in Europe, they don't dare to do that because it's more about let's build relationship. Let's actually break bread. Let's, you know, let's be able to enjoy our meal and then let's have maybe maybe we think about dessert because we're going to be there another two hours. Adam Torres (09:45.215) Wow. Yeah. Adam Torres (09:54.319) Mmm. Yeah. Jordan Mendoza (10:08.694) you know, and that's something that's lost in the states because you don't get that same experience here. Adam Torres (10:09.56) Yeah. Adam Torres (10:14.839) No, that's not happening. Jordan Mendoza (10:18.05) not happening at all. So let's talk a little bit about college. you do these study abroad programs, you do an international study and you end up going into finance at the end of the day in the workforce. So like, what was it about, you know, going and getting all this worldly experience and getting a bunch of stamps in your passport and learning about different cultures. And then you come back and you end up going into finance. Like, what was it about that? Adam Torres (10:25.358) Yeah. Adam Torres (10:31.661) Yeah. Adam Torres (10:38.52) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jordan Mendoza (10:45.432) Was it the time that you put in in high school and you said, man, I have this baseline of knowledge. Let me go into this. Or what was it about finance that attracted you? Adam Torres (10:55.215) It really wasn't any of that. What it was is I was accepted to law school. I thought I was going to go into government or something like that. I had some internships, worked for some lobbyists that were amazing. And Lansing, where Michigan State's at, or East Lansing's where Michigan State's at, but Lansing's right there adjacent to it. And so that's the capital of Michigan. And what happened is I was accepted to law school. was waiting. maybe like a year I think before going, before I was gonna like actually start. And I had a buddy that worked at this place called Rock Financial, which then turned to Quicken Loans, which then turned to Rocket now, I believe. So Dan Gilbert's company, for those that don't know, who is, you know, owner of Cleveland Cavs, like billionaire many times over. So my buddy worked there he's like, hey, you know, they're hiring. And I was like, well, I gotta do something while I'm, you know, waiting to go start law school. And I started and. And it's a mortgage company for those that don't know what that is or what Quicken is. Adam Torres (11:58.864) But my first month when I was on the floor and not a training, I made something like, I don't remember exactly right now, maybe let's call it like $7,000 in commissions. I was like, whoa. Then I looked at what I was going to make in my first year of being a lawyer after all these years. of like, you know, going to school and I'm like, let's say it was starting back then, I don't know what 35,000 or something. I'm like, wait a minute, the math. I'm like, but I just made like seven grand my first month of once I was out of training and I'm like, hmm, seems like I'm kind of going backwards. So I just I didn't end up going to law school. I stayed there and and I was killing it. And then the company did a restructuring. They changed and I just I was like top. one or two in the company for anybody that had been there under like two years. So I'm on the top of the charts, I'm killing it, I'm winning awards, I'm making a bunch of money. Then the company does a restructuring, which I understand why they wanted to move their rock financial people to the more of the growth engine of it, which was Quicken Loans, which is the online version. But I didn't really like, I didn't really, I was fishing my own leads, I was out there doing deals, I was like, and so. basically my pay when they moved me over was going to be based on the way that I work and that I sold. You had to do way more volume to make the same money, but I was generating my own leads. So that's the once it was kind of on there, I was like, yeah, I'm not trying to take a big pay cut. So then I ended up leaving and then that took me further down the finance path, ended up going out West, started in Phoenix, was out there for a bit. And then for like five, six years and then really just getting into the game there and I've worked everywhere from Vanguard Group to Schwab to like you name it. Those are my two big ones out there. And then that Schwab eventually brought me out to California. that, just promotions, promotions, getting promotions through the company that eventually took me to California, which I'm at now. Jordan Mendoza (14:03.194) Okay, awesome. Awesome. yeah, you're moving your way through the ranks, end up in California. And when you got there, I know you mentioned in the beginning, you had no intention of getting into media or podcasting or anything like that. So talk a little bit about how long were you in California before things started to shift and what was it that made your eyes open to this other potential or these other opportunities? Adam Torres (14:04.655) Yeah. Adam Torres (14:11.567) Meh. Adam Torres (14:15.403) No. Yeah, yeah. Adam Torres (14:23.92) Mm. Well, started so I eventually left Schwab and I and I started my own RIA. So during that time, I was starting my own business and my mentor, he's like, Adam, you got to write a book. And I'm like, man, I'm not writing no books. That's that's I had. I didn't understand story. didn't understand marketing really, from the extent that I do now. I didn't understand any of that stuff. So my answer to him was, why do I want to write a book? Bro, people write books like what are you talking about? Why do I care about a five dollar product? right? So I'm like, I didn't, I didn't care, didn't matter. I wasn't like trying to be in front of a camera. I wasn't, just, I thought people that wrote books just want to either, if they weren't academic, but like the business people that wrote them, like they just want attention or I don't know, like it's silly, it makes no sense. So I didn't get it, but you know, I listened to my mentors and ultimately I was like, all right, I'll write the book, I'll do it. So then I wrote a book, it was called Money Matters. and I just started handing them out as business cards. That's all. So I handed out thousands of books. I brought in millions of dollars in assets under management and strange things started happening. Other people started asking me, could I help them write books? Now, mind you, this is completely ridiculous to me to this day. And it's funny because I'm like, I'm in Beverly Hills. That's where I lived at the time. And and my referral partners and stuff, they just saw it because I'd hand it to everybody. They're like, Oh, I want one, too. Can you help me? And I'm like, Are you an idiot? You know, I'm a financial advisor. What do mean? I'm going to help you write a book. That's stupid. They're like, but you did it for yourself. So you can do it. Adam Torres (15:59.075) And I'm like, I'm not writing a book, are you crazy? So then more people started asking me because they saw what was happening. It was growing and I was on speaking tours as far away as China. It was crazy. So what was happening? By the way, this is just a regular book and I just handed it out. So in my mind, nothing special, but I started to learn about the power of story. Maybe I had a story that was worth hearing maybe, or maybe it was just getting to the right hands. Then I looked at all the, you know me, I'm into finance, so I looked into models and I'm like, well, you know, to help people write books individually, that's gonna probably, I don't know, that just seems like a big waste of time. But I found the chicken soup for the soul books, the ones that I used to like to read growing up. And I was like, if I was to help somebody, maybe I do like an anthology and everybody puts in some money for the marketing, whatever, whatever, everybody throwing a couple grand. And then we pooled that money and then we all write one book and put it in an anthology. Everybody gets a chapter. And to date, we've published over 400 people in that bestselling series in retrospect. I didn't even want to do it. But it worked. It worked. The concept of bringing together like-minded individuals. We'd have parties. We'd do all kinds of stuff. And then from there, The podcast was started to really the other co-founder here, his name's Sharag. He's like, we got to do podcasts. We're going to have more sales for the books. And I'm like, I'm not doing a podcast. That's silly too. And you notice a pattern here, Jordan. I'm like, I'm not doing that. That's dumb. And then that's probably the thing I need to be doing. So when we started that, man, everything just blew up from there. Like the demand, the this, the that, I've done over, to date I've done over 6,000 interviews. This year I'll do over 1,500 interviews and we're in December. So I think I crossed the 1,500 mark so far this year. Next year I'll do another 1,500 and I host eight different shows. And I really just found that to me, podcasting, I'm not putting these words in your mouth, but for me, Adam Torres (18:00.323) In the beginning, before I understood anything about this business or what we do or the power of story or what it's like to provide a platform for someone to share their story, I was just like, these are the same calls or the same conversations I'm having with my clients when I was a financial advisor. Like it was no big deal to me. was like, if anything, it's like being in a call center. If you're doing it remote, you're just having a conversation, recording it, distributing it. So at the very, very basic of it all, does that make a great show? No. But I'll tell you one thing, even a bad show over time can get bigger. I was the worst podcaster ever to start, Jordan. You can, my first 300 episodes weren't even edited. You could call it tape recordings of Adam having a conversation and upload it online. That should have been the name of the show with zero editing. People would be like, Adam, know, something's off on this. My friends, right? The ones that are like, something's off. Your audio sounds weird. I'm like, Really? Listen to the next episode. Let me see if that one's better. They'd be like, no, Adam, still has kind of like this weird like, it's kind of like, listen to the next. Man, I was just trying to get downloads. Nobody was editing those things. Keep listening. Let me see. We're going to work with our editors. Do I recommend that today? Overdoing nothing, Jordan Mendoza (19:07.29) That's it. Yeah. Jordan Mendoza (19:18.04) Yeah. Yeah. Done is better than perfect for sure. Always. Yeah. but no, I love it, right? Because it's just like, Hey, it's just a matter of getting the content out, right? Getting, getting an episode out is better than talking about it for years and not doing anything. Right. And the fact that you were getting feedback meant that they were listening. So now you just had to keep, just double down and just keep putting it out. But yeah, podcasting just like, it's just like anything you want to be successful at. all about the reps, you know, and Adam Torres (19:28.229) Mm-hmm. Adam Torres (19:33.893) Yeah. Adam Torres (19:37.519) Yeah, and it got crazy. Yeah. Adam Torres (19:46.245) Hmm. Yeah. Jordan Mendoza (19:47.8) you will get better because I'm the same way I tell people, please don't listen to season one. Like don't go back that far because I was terrible. Like I didn't know what I was talking about was a baffling idiot. Like I don't even like hearing that. And then I, and then people go back and they go, it's actually really good Jordan. And they give me feedback and I'm like, okay, maybe, maybe I'm a little harder on myself than I should have been, you know, but we're, definitely our own worst critic and we will judge ourselves, you know, way harder than anybody else will. And so that's, you know, for someone that's listening to this and maybe Adam Torres (20:09.883) Yeah. Adam Torres (20:14.299) Dang, I'm gonna take that one from you, Jordan, by the way. I like that tip. And there was a tip inside the tip. I'm gonna be like, so now when I come on here, I'm gonna start saying, go back, because you know some people are haters. For everybody listening, my season one or the beginning was terrible. Go back and listen to that for me. Now we're gonna start seeing uploads in the... I like that. Jordan Mendoza (20:31.821) That's it. Yeah, yes. Listen, send people back there. Adam Torres (20:33.873) Man, you just taught me something Jordan. That was good. I don't even know if that's why you meant to say it, but I love it. I'm gonna get that old catalogs about to get some more downloads because I'm gonna start saying that in every interview. Jordan Mendoza (20:44.929) Hey, here you go. You can call it Adam's worst hits. Adam Torres (20:48.251) Don't believe me? Go check it out. Go back to the beginning, Jordan. I was terrible. Jordan Mendoza (20:53.805) do my top 10 worst podcasts. Just do a series. The top 10 worst podcast episodes. Why not? Hey, listen, if we can make fun of ourselves and then we're doing something right, you know? So I'm a father of six, bro. I'm not, I'm the most uncool 44 year old break dancer on the planet because I have six kids and doesn't matter how many head spins or back spins or anything cool I can do. I'm not cool in my house. So they keep me very humble around here. Adam Torres (20:57.105) I love it. Adam Torres (21:04.517) Yeah, I love it. Jordan Mendoza (21:21.913) So let's talk a little bit about you know, you got this traction you got traction with the books You're literally handing out business cards. That's that's producing revenue Like how cool is that right and then you get into the the media side and now this thing is is starting to have legs and you start with one show and now for the audience to hear that you've got eight and your six thousand episodes in so this this thing called media has to have continued to add value so Adam Torres (21:26.651) Yeah. Adam Torres (21:32.005) Yeah, that was crazy. Unbelievable. Adam Torres (21:40.859) Yeah. Jordan Mendoza (21:51.64) Let's talk a little bit about the beginning when you guys first launched show number one, and then the process of getting to eight. And then why would someone maybe think about even going to a second or a third or a fourth or an eighth show? Adam Torres (22:00.166) Mm. Adam Torres (22:06.359) Yeah. Well, on our end, I'll tell you, it wasn't by design. So the first show I did, was again, was just tape recordings basically, or on my phone, I upload them, whatever. And we started getting more and more like interest to come on the show. And it got to the point to where at some point, and these are like people that I still want to do business with, like outside of being on a podcast. Like it's like, man, these are like... legit legit people like I'm like they want to come on the show. They're like in a lot of more California based like these were still you know like people I could do business with and you don't want to say no to a bunch of CEOs that want to be on your show in my mind. so we we kept saying yes and at some point we had something like let's say 70 episodes or something maybe it's 50 to 70 episodes. I forget the exact number that were like scheduled to be released and they're like well what are we going to do because we still got I looked at my calendar. And just for some context, when I was really like in the beginning, like cooking, cooking, I had anywhere between 50 to 70 episodes, I do a week. So that's every week. So the math, mean, simple math. I'm like, what am I going to do? Let somebody on the show and say, by the way, your episode is going to be out in two years. Like, that's stupid. Like, they're not even going to know who I am or remember that I recorded an episode. So I didn't have any answers and I just told my team, know what, just release them. And they're like, what? And I'm like, just release them. And they're like, what do you mean? And I'm like, release them when? And I was like, now. And they're like, all of them? I'm like, yeah. And then just go through the rest of our processes, email the clients, let them know, whatever. And that's that. And something crazy happened. And what happened was, I can't really, I don't recommend this for anybody, but I do want them to hear what happened. And this was the aha moment for me, is that. the per episode download went up, that doesn't happen on any other platform, period. Like if you put out 70 episodes or 70 posts on Instagram, they're gonna block you. Put out 70 posts in one day, see what happens. You're gonna be shadow banned or they're just gonna say you're spamming and they're gonna suspend your account. Do the same thing on Facebook. Do it on any other platform and see what happens. You're gonna be blocked, period. Adam Torres (24:18.852) That didn't happen. And I'm like, that's interesting. for the down and then for the prep so download to go up, that means that some of those guests must have been sharing it and introducing their episode to other people because it's just the math. couldn't. It's not. Or some of those guests heard some other guest episode or whatever it was. But the prep so download went up. So there's only a couple of variations. So I'm like, well, let's see what happens. Let's just keep releasing them as they come in. And then we were just I mean, we're. the amount of episodes we released a day were just insane. still don't, I mean, I don't know anybody else that does that. Maybe, I'm sure there's somebody else out there. I don't know all podcasters, obviously, but I know that we were definitely on the top end of releasing new audio and new episodes daily, and we still are. But I was like, I was just amazed. And so then what happens is over time, We had this huge catalog going, then I was actually doing an episode with somebody and they were on the show and they were like, you know, Adam, money matters, but mission matters too. And man, I'm telling you, was like God spoke to me through this person. It was like, shit, I'm missing it here. And then I looked at the content and I was like, you know, afterwards I was like, I'm probably only doing like 20 % content that's directly money related. But if you remember, I was a financial advisor before this. so I thought I was going to build this huge money platform. And I thought the audience was going to come to me for money stuff, because that's what I knew. I was wrong. That isn't what my conversations ended up being about most of the time. Some of them were very money, but that was just like maybe 20 % maximum. And so I'm like, so I'm off here on this. I'm like, so then I have this conversation. And I talked to the other co-founder. I'm like, Sharaq. What do think about the name Mission Matters? And he's like, yeah, we talk about it. Then we leave it on the table. Then he calls me like two weeks later. And he's like, Adam, I got an idea. And I'm like, what's wrong? He's like, what if we call the company Mission Matters? And I'm like, great idea. Adam Torres (26:22.864) Like I look at it like, man, this is the way I think about God. have conversations all the time with him. And I'm like, man, you just get that little thing that's putting us out. He didn't even remember the other conversation we had. True story. And so God just put that idea in his head. Mission matters. So I'm like, all right, if we're going to do this, if we have enough money in the bank, I know the web domain's already taken. I already know that. So. If we have enough money in the bank, have to buy admissionmatters.com. we can get it, if we can, that's our sign, we'll do it. But if it's for sale, if we have enough money, we're getting it. And he's like, all right, let's do it. And so we see it as for sale. I pay more for a web domain than I ever thought I would in my entire life. We bought it. And within nine days, we rebranded and relaunched everything and lost all our old subscribers, everything, and started brand new. And in doing that, process, I segmented the, we segmented the show to what made sense. We looked at other platforms like Forbes and like Yahoo and like all these other ones and we picked all of the categories that we thought made sense for the type of content that I was doing. So we have a money show, we have a business show, we have a luxury and lifestyle show, we have a fitness show, we have a marketing show, we have a tech show, we have a startup garage show and we have a fitness show. So. Those are kind of those are our main eight shows. And then I do other shows too and other things just as talent. Now it's grown and I have I have, for example, two time Emmy winning producer and show creator. He created the show Chopped. He's pitching shows in New York for me right now. And we're trying to launch some on the networks and streaming and other things like that. So now we're just upping our game. But that was the original idea and how it got to to be separated like that. It was really doing an assessment of what the content was actually coming out like. So I guess you didn't ask this, but I'll just say it as a quick takeaway for anybody that's listening, is if you find that your show was a very specific niche, but you're having other types of conversation in quantity, you might consider. Adam Torres (28:33.395) launching another show because you're already doing the work anyway. we did and what I'm proposing to you, if you're in that situation and you're hearing this, is all we did was it's the same amount of work basically after you launch the show. Obviously the marketing and stuff like this, putting on your website or however your distribution is, that's more work, yes. So I'm not going to comment on that. But in terms of the work as a host, We still primarily focused our attention on the marketing and everything else on the primary show and the other shows, we just kind of looked at them almost as repositories for the content. so, because ultimately you're doing the work anyway. So it's allowing other people to find the content that you're super fans, they'll subscribe to the shows they want. If you're putting them out in quantity, if you're doing a weekly show, kind of not the same, probably doesn't apply as much. But if you're doing them in quantity what I said is completely as applicable today as it was when I did it back then Jordan Mendoza (29:34.135) Love it. Love it. That's such a brilliant idea and I'm glad that it's paid off. And I think that's really good advice for other people too, because again, why not split it? Because then you essentially get to double down, right? You've essentially created eight assets from one, right? One turned into eight and each of those kind of will continue to grow and compound over time. no, I love that. And so... Adam Torres (29:47.923) Yeah. Adam Torres (29:51.557) Yeah. Adam Torres (29:56.828) And it'll feed your creativity too. I'll throw that part out too. It'll feed your creativity and it'll keep it so you're not getting bored. that, cause that's like, you'll get fatigue, especially if your show's not growing and you've been doing it for a while and you're just like, you'll get some fatigue in there. So that'll also keep you from being bored. Like you'll be like, today I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And you get to have different types of conversations. Like right now we're launching a four, Jordan Mendoza (30:14.478) Yep. Adam Torres (30:21.139) a series in Africa, it's called Africa Forward. And I'm going to be interviewing these African leaders and things like this, I'll traveling to Africa in 2026. That keeps the, like, you got to feed your own. Jordan Mendoza (30:29.975) Yeah, I might be out there too. So yeah, we have to connect on that because I'm helping a client build an African cocoa company and we've got partnerships and you. Yeah. Yeah, you got to. Adam Torres (30:37.975) that's awesome. So you got to feed your own creativity as a host, right? And you have to have life experiences. you're sitting in a studio all day recording constantly and you're not doing anything else, then it's possible you get burned out. You got to have life experiences too. So that's another big part of podcasting that people should be thinking about. Jordan Mendoza (31:03.437) Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Events, live, going in person, changing up your environment. That definitely will get the juices flowing for sure. I love it. I love it. So let's talk a little bit about the revenue side of things because I'm sure when you first launched the show, the goal was exposure and business development. guess you could probably put that generalization over it. You sell some books. Adam Torres (31:18.163) Yeah. Adam Torres (31:25.731) No, I wanted to sell some books. I wanted to sell some books. That was what I thought. That's what Sharag told me. That's what Sharag told me. He tricked me. Yeah, I wasn't that fancy. And I say that, by the way, Jordan, just so you understand, I had no understanding of this business. I didn't even know what that meant, what you're talking about right now. I was a finance guy. And I say that for everybody that's listening. I didn't have strategy or know anything about this. I wasn't like, I'm going to get business development. No, I was just like, all right, we're going to sell some books. Jordan Mendoza (31:33.131) Yep, yep. let's talk about, you know, in the... Adam Torres (31:54.459) Like don't over complicate things for everyone else. Jordan Mendoza (31:57.644) Yep. Yep. No, I love it. back then, obviously, it worked, right? It did drive sales and it did create meetings and opportunities and things like that. Now let's fast forward with 8 shows. Has that changed the revenue? then what streams has that been able to produce to encourage people that are listening to say, yeah, maybe this is possible for me. Adam Torres (32:10.824) Yeah. The whole thing, the whole thing changed. Yeah. So my number one. Adam Torres (32:22.196) My number one tip is to listen to your audience. Every single product that we've ever created was based off of a need from our audience. So we don't usually miss. because now do we have some products and some revenue streams that have succeeded more than others? Yes, if we had some. But we always get some sales. If anything, that might be... good and bad in some ways, but the ones that stay, the profit centers that stay, have become solid. And so the first one we'll talk about was the book side. Like the book side, I didn't really think about doing anthologies or anything like that. The first anthology book, just to be clear, I thought I was just going to do that with some of my buddies that referral partners, and that was it. I was going to do one book. this wasn't supposed to be a business and I didn't have any intention of doing 400 or publishing 400 plus authors in this series. There was no intention in doing that. But what happened is people would come on the show or they hear the show and they knew I had this book out there because I'm trying to sell books, right? Just to promote, right? And then they'd say, hey, when are you doing another one? So I'm like, and when can we be in one? So that's the first revenue stream that that Completely like, and we still do it to this day, we put out one to two anthology books a year. So that was the first revenue stream. Then we started getting, I got speaking appearances, things like that. That grew pretty naturally for me. just, and I'm not the best speaker, not the best whatever. If anybody's listening doesn't believe me, go back to my first episodes on the podcast, listen to them all. Sorry, Jordan, I had to do it. Jordan Mendoza (33:57.325) Hehehehe. Hehehehe. Adam Torres (34:02.036) So speaking that kind of stuff that that kind of came and I know that's not easy for everyone So I guess I won't I won't talk too much on that one because some people are into that some aren't some it comes naturally some it doesn't I'm not a great speaker in all reality But if you got a check out there and you want to hire me I will take it and I'm in and I will not let you down but you know the speaking again, that was a big one and then and Then what happened is other people started asking us. Can we help them launch shows? Jordan Mendoza (34:18.489) You Adam Torres (34:30.628) And I didn't, didn't, at first I said the same thing I said when I was in books. I'm like, no, we're not going to help you launch a show. And then, you know, fast forward now we've launched over 250 shows and, and that that's grown into its own part of business. The business same thing with events. do quite do at least 50 plus. I think last year we did 70 plus. I don't have the final number of events over the course of the year. But that became another big part of it. We also have a think tank. So that became another part of it. All of these different, we have a personal brand accelerator. I teach that as well. So that's kind of like your mastermind course. we've done, I think we have a little over a hundred people that have been through that now. So all of these things came just from listening to the audience. Like the last book that I wrote, the one that I just released, which is for free, by the way, for all your listeners, 1billionpodcast.com. You can go there, download a free copy, but that book came out of, example, what the listeners wanted. And the number one thing that people were telling me is, podcasting done? Isn't it saturated? Isn't it this? And I was, I just realized that most people that are in this business when they, and these are podcasters asking me this question, by the way, when I would come on their shows. For some context, for those that are listening, I didn't, I told Jordan in the warmup, said, I just started coming on other people's shows this year. I used, I, linked up with PodMatch. started using them. That's how we met Jordan. If Jordan has a link and you promote that on their affiliate stuff, definitely I recommend supporting PodMatch and Jordan. And he didn't ask me to say that, by the way, but I just really believe in the platform and what they're doing. They really kill it. They've done really well. And like I said, I've been booked on over 100 shows this year and hosts kept on telling me, isn't it, Satch, isn't this this? And I'm like, I realize that people, if they ask that question, they don't even understand the industry they're in, which is OK. I was in that place in the beginning too. Like I didn't understand what I was doing either. So I wrote that book to be kind of like a shortcut and I'll give you just a the quick synopsis or thesis and just one point from the book. My point is that podcasting is just beginning. And so there's only 4 million podcasts, give or take, where you get your data from. There's over 150 million YouTube channels, depending on where you get your data from. Adam Torres (36:50.642) Podcasting hasn't even started. We're like in month six of YouTube. And one of the big reasons for that is because on the monetization side for YouTube, their original partners program, you put your videos up, you get paid. Like why? Because there's something called dynamic advertising for those that don't come from the advertising world. And what it means is that they put the ads on the episode for you and take them off and put new ones on there for you. And you don't have to do anything. You just put out new episodes. That's form of dynamic advertising. That didn't happen in podcasting until pretty recently in terms of how long podcasting has been around. Podcasting has been around over 20 some years in its RSS form, in one shape or form. We're talking over two decades. But dynamic advertising is fairly new. So in the past, just to juxtapose briefly, in the past, if you launched a podcast, you had baked in ads. That means the host read the ad. If you sold that ad, then you got paid once and you're done and that episode is dead weight for you. And again, that's for most shows that were small. Dynamic advertising might have existed for the big boys, but you're a little creator, you're just starting, you're not making a penny. So that didn't exist, whereas YouTube it did. So now that it does exist, now you have dynamic advertising, you're not stuck with baked in ads. I'm running ads on my, without having to do anything. on episodes that I did years ago. And so that money can compound over time, but that also keeps you mentally in the game to keep going. So my thesis is that there's going to be one billion podcasts one day that especially think about things like, and I go into this a little bit more in the book, but like when you think about how easy it is to create them, how it's becoming even more easy, you look at other countries like Africa, you look at India, you look at other places that are getting more more access. Jordan Mendoza (38:23.799) Yep. Adam Torres (38:41.237) It's gonna be hundreds of millions of podcasts launched. And for those that are in it right now, like just think about it as you're in YouTube and in month six to year one. If you knew YouTube was gonna have 150 million shows, would you be releasing an episode a week? Heck yeah. So that's where we're at. We're in a gold mine for in terms of podcasting where we're at. And so that's what I write about in the book. 1billionpodcast.com. People can grab their own copy and again, free. You can download it for free. And it's a full book. It's not a cheap. And no offense to anybody that does this, by the way, because I have them too. But I like to say that it's not a cheap ebook. You're going to get the full book just like you were. You get on Amazon. You could pay for it on Amazon, but go get it for free too. Like, unless you like paper, then go on Amazon, whatever. But that's the point there is that. Jordan Mendoza (39:28.963) Love it. Adam Torres (39:31.423) just starting. that's what I preach on these shows. And that's why I'm guesting, because I want everybody else to be able to benefit from what you've benefited from, Jordan, from what I've benefited from, because it's there. It's there for everyone. And it's so cheap. Like, there's no real cost to just getting started. Jordan Mendoza (39:47.866) it. No, I love it. Love the tips. Love the, you know, pointing that out for people and giving people context because it's usually context that's a differentiator. You know, if we have the context and we execute, it's way different than not having it. And you and I know that from doing it the hard way. I just got to like fumble around and trying to figure it out. But then as you grow and scale and you start producing revenue, yes, it does put a little pep in your step. Yes, it does make you go, man, Adam Torres (39:57.492) Yeah. Adam Torres (40:01.802) Yeah. Yeah. Adam Torres (40:08.308) Yep. Adam Torres (40:14.135) my God. Pennies. Pennies. Yeah. Jordan Mendoza (40:16.217) I love this. Yeah. You see anything that's in the positive and you're more excited to record that next episode and reinvest in the show and getting better equipment. And, know, I've just seen it with the evolution a hundred percent. Yeah. No, I love it. Adam Torres (40:26.421) It's natural, you can only do a hobby for so long. Yeah, I wanna get people that are podcasters out of that, the current podcasters that are already started, I wanna get them out of hobby status and into, I can create generational wealth for my family if I pay attention to this and if I just have a little bit more knowledge and execute. That's all it is, knowledge gap. And for those that wanna start a podcast but think it's like maybe too late or is it saturated, Nobody has a podcast. Most people don't even know what a podcast is. Whether you understand that or not, that is reality. That's the truth and that's the numbers and there's a ton of money to be made on this wave that's gonna happen as these shows keep growing. Jordan Mendoza (41:13.389) Yeah, yeah. For those that are listening and don't know, Netflix is building a almost billion dollar place in New Jersey. And one of the areas that they're going to be focusing on and same with Amazon is what? Podcasts, creators, right? So you are not too late. In fact, you're pretty early. Like Adam said, you're early to the game. You just got to put one foot in front of the other and think about something that Adam Torres (41:20.637) Yeah. Adam Torres (41:30.222) Yep, yep. Adam Torres (41:35.925) Mm-hmm. Jordan Mendoza (41:43.053) you can add value to. mean, that's really what it is, is it's adding value to people, building relationships, storytelling, like you said. And there is so much that can come from, you know, just putting that one foot in front of the other. And I love what you said about the anthologies that you did, because my first book, it was a 10 author co-collaboration project called Brand Sharks. And I was voted least likely to succeed in high school. So the fact that I could actually... Adam Torres (41:47.38) Mm-hmm. Adam Torres (41:57.556) Yeah. Adam Torres (42:02.9) Hmm. Adam Torres (42:08.222) You Jordan Mendoza (42:10.617) pay some money and become an author. I was like, all right, Mrs. Green, wait till you see this. Your boy is an author. And what's cool about it, and I'm sure the similar for you, is it gave me confidence. It's like, man, I'm an author now. I can actually do this. can write. People will pay for the words that I write. And then so this July, I just released my first solo book, which is called The Life-Changing Power of Adversity, How to Overcome Struggles. Adam Torres (42:20.118) Hmm. Adam Torres (42:24.426) Yeah. Nobody has a book. Adam Torres (42:33.43) congratulations. Jordan Mendoza (42:38.041) unlock your potential and blaze your own trail to success. And this is really where I share, mean, being beaten and falsely arrested by police at 12, that sucked. Being stung by 53 bees in fourth grade and surviving, being in a near fatal accident at 19, almost losing my right leg. First kid was a miscarriage and having six healthy babies later. So there are so many things that life throws at us. It's all about how do we react? How do we respond? Adam Torres (42:40.768) Yeah. Adam Torres (42:48.299) Mmm. Adam Torres (42:52.16) Dang. Adam Torres (42:59.062) Dang. Hmm. Jordan Mendoza (43:04.587) How do we learn to not be a victim of our circumstance and leverage the things that happened to us and shift our mindset to say, happened for me so that I can look through a new lens and I can help other people get through it. so that's something I'm passionate about is helping people realize that adversity gives us strength and it enables us to see through a lens that no one's going to be able to see through. And the quicker we can realize that, that it's coming, we don't know when it's going to happen, but how do we reshift our mindset? Adam Torres (43:11.51) Mm. Adam Torres (43:21.493) Yeah. Adam Torres (43:27.894) Mm. Jordan Mendoza (43:34.165) To me, that's where the real unlock happens. And it sounds like for you, although your mindset kept telling you that you didn't want to do it or you couldn't do it, there was someone in your corner that kept saying, hey, let's at least attempt it. And you went out and put that foot in front of the other and made it happen. So kudos to you for the success that you've had so far. But I know for you and your head, it's just the beginning. You're just getting started. And so what I'd love to do as we close out here is Adam Torres (43:47.999) Mm-hmm. Jordan Mendoza (44:03.798) If you can give our audience, know, maybe there's someone listening that's like, 2026 is my year, Adam, it's my year, Jordan, I want to launch this podcast. What would be the first three things you would tell somebody as they're having these thoughts roll around their head and they want to get a show launched? Adam Torres (44:11.722) Mm-hmm. Adam Torres (44:18.87) Yeah. Well, that's what I wrote the book for. And not to sound too self-promotional in a book, but just to be clear, nine years to write that book. Over 6,000 episodes, launched hundreds of shows. I put all the knowledge in there. But I'll give you a couple of tips from the book, just briefly. So the first one was, in terms of getting started, all you need is your first idea. and understand it's going to evolve. Like when we started on the first site and you don't have, you can work at your own pace. Like that's the main thing is that when we started our first show, I did over 1500 interviews before I even did video. I was so scared. And the book I talk about, like my, used to like, we have some friends and I'm like, man, I'm the world's worst podcaster. And I used to say it all the time. And everybody'd be like, man, I'm one of my buddies, Matt Ford, which I talked about in the book. He says, I'm going to buy that domain. I'm put your picture on there. That's going be your fan club. And it's because I was so scared. Like my very, very first show, Jordan, I didn't even use my real name. I was deathly afraid that somebody would know it was me. Like, think about that for a second for anybody that's listening. Like, I didn't do video until after 1500 episodes. So if you can get on a Zoom or if you can get on Riverside, like we're on right now recording this, or if you can be in front of a camera and do that. I used to forget my name if you did that. So if you can do that, you're already better and further off than I was when I started. So you can 100 % do it. And if you can't do that, I started with only audio. Again, over 1500 episodes, built in an audience. So you can work at your own pace. And I talk about that in the book. So don't don't judge yourself on that one. The second thing is set realistic expectations. Most people have the incorrect concept of what this business actually is and what this format actually is, and I'll give you the numbers I break down in the book. Let's say you get 100 downloads on an episode, and let's say you have an hour-long episode. Adam Torres (46:20.759) That's 600 minutes of somebody's life that they dedicated to listening to you instead of watching a show on Netflix or something else that might have cost a million or if they're watching a freaking movie like Avatar that could have cost billions to create. Instead of that, they're listening to you. So respect that and don't compare it to things like, let's say you get a thousand likes on Instagram. Would you rather have a thousand likes on Instagram or a hundred downloads from a dedicated audience? Me, I'd rather the hundred downloads in a dedicated audience, which by the way, not ragging an Instagram. We do pretty well in Instagram. Ask Adam Torres. You'll see the whole thing. We put out a ton of content and our audience is loyal there. But I know that a thousand likes, they might, they didn't watch that like one minute video I put, like how many people actually watch that? They just put a quick little heart doing a quick little heart. That doesn't build a like a fan fan that build somebody that is like the hundred people that are listening to your show. That's the ones that you want to focus on. So don't compare stats from one platform to another to gauge your success. If you got 10 people listening to your show, man, you better freaking find out who those 10 people are and build with them because you can build a freaking. empire from those 10 people. Like that's the difference between a podcast and any other platform in my opinion is audio special. It's different. They're taking you with them. They're listening to you when they're taking their kids to school. They're listening to you as their last thing before they go to bed. If they're listening to you with their earbuds and they've literally invited you into their body, like you got earbuds in your ears and your voice is vibrating in their head. Like, so don't, so do not do that. Like, set right expectations and understand that this is a marathon, not a sprint. And then the last thing is, I call this the Goldilocks dilemma of podcasting. So for those of that know the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, I got to bring this one up for you, Jordan, because you got kids. So, you know, the porridge, was it too hot? Was it just right? Or was it, you know, or was it too cold? Adam Torres (48:30.239) If you set your schedule properly for podcasting, so this is what happens and this is my feedback after launching hundreds of shows for clients and then again as a podcaster myself doing thousands of episodes. So again, it's the Goldilocks dilemma of podcasting. So what happens is this, if your business is going really well, what happens is too hot. It's too hot. So you're going to quit podcasting. And the reason you're going to quit is because you don't have time. You got to focus on your business because your business is what's making you money. And that's what you got to do right now because it might not last. So it's too hot. know, your podcast is too hot or the porch is too hot. Let's say that it's too cold. So you're losing. You're losing business. And now everything is the bottom pane. Right. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. So what happens then? You quit your podcast again. So why do you quit? Because now I don't have enough business. I can't focus on this podcast right now. I got to focus on feeding my family. Too cold. So what does your podcast have to be? It has to be just right. Your life has to be just right. Nothing has to happen. You have to have no failure. You have to have no, not too much business, not too little business. You get where I'm going, Jordan. There's no chance that your podcast is going to survive. So how do you... get yourself out of that Goldilocks dilemma of podcasting. What you do is you just create a schedule that matches your lifestyle and stick to it. So if you're going to record, I'd rather somebody does one episode a month and commit to doing that for the rest of their life. The rest of their life. Notice I said that. Then for them to do one episode a day and burn out in a year and then be another person that just says, yeah, I remember I used to be a podcaster. I used to have a podcast. Yeah, that thing didn't work. No, you didn't work. You were in the pot. You were in the Goldilocks Dilemma podcasting. That's what happened. So don't even play that game. Set up a schedule that you can maintain for the rest of your life. One episode a month. Great. Two episodes a month. Even better. Three. OK, four. Can you do that for the rest of your life? If things get bad, if you Adam Torres (50:43.48) Have one of these terrible things happen to you like you mentioned Jordan that have happened that some of the things you mentioned in your book would you would you still be able to do your show if not then do less episodes it's fine put yourself on a put yourself on a life path and integrate it into your lifestyle so those are my top three from the book one billion podcast.com Jordan Mendoza (51:03.512) Love it. Love it. Love the tips. So much value. know our audience is going to get tremendous value from your story, from your journey. know, folks, if you didn't think you could do a podcast before you started hearing the sound of Adam's voice, the guy didn't even want to do one. So if he can do it and build a business and still doesn't know that the verdict is still out there, folks. 1500 episodes, you know. Adam Torres (51:19.576) I still don't know if I want to do them, but it's in my lifestyle. You Jordan Mendoza (51:29.944) a 6,000 episodes recorded. He still doesn't know if he wants to do it, he's made it into multiple businesses. So if that doesn't encourage you in a funny way, then I don't know what will. One billion podcast.com. Make sure you all go and grab the book. And then where's just another place that you want folks to connect with you? know they're going to get value out of this. Adam Torres (51:41.719) haha Adam Torres (51:52.42) Oh, Instagram. Instagram is the easy one. Everything that I do is on Instagram. I rag on it just because I think it gets too much credit when it comes to building an audience. Those are passive fans. Some, okay, great, whatever. There's a small percentage, but that's the algorithm. 10 % of your followers are going to see your content. Nothing like a podcast. But I do a lot on Instagram for those that like Instagram. And I personally like Instagram not for business necessarily as much, but I just enjoy the platform. Ask Adam Torres on Instagram. Jordan Mendoza (52:23.808) Awesome. Well, hey folks, make sure you go run to the website, 1billionpodcast.com, grab a copy of it. Matter of fact, if you have heard someone in your sphere of influence that says, hey, maybe I should start a podcast, send the link to them too. He's on a mission to helping folks not only start podcasts, but turn it into a business. And Adam and I believe that if we can do it, you can do it. This knucklehead, least likely to succeed. Adam Torres (52:49.42) Yeah. Jordan Mendoza (52:53.622) and a guy that was in finance and had no interest. If we can do it, you can surely do it. So thanks so much, Adam, for taking the time to come on the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. Any final thoughts for the audience? Adam Torres (52:58.525) Yeah. You rock, Jordan. I appreciate all you're doing and keep it up and congrats again on your new book. Everybody go get a copy of that thing and I'm so proud just to know you. So congrats on sharing your story to help others. Jordan Mendoza (53:18.006) I appreciate it, my friend. Have an awesome day and happy holidays to you.