The Empty Nesters Go To Podfest - E70

Rick Denton (00:00)
What are we so starved as as empty nesters frequently? It's friendship and community. And if this is a vehicle to do that with each other and with others, holy crap. I'm excited.

Clancy Denton (00:10)
This is the loud, quiet, living the empty nest. Hey guys, welcome back. we look a little different. This is episode 70. we're coming to you live. Or well, not live, sorry. Well, we're live. We're we're live, yes. We're coming to you today from the podfest. We're in Orlando, Florida. And we're gonna talk a little bit about our experience for the past few days. This is the last day of us being here. So that's right. So yeah, so

Rick Denton (00:40)
Podfest Expo, multimedia expo, the little logo down there. I'm sure you if if you're on the video you can see it. This was you know we've talked about in the episodes a lot about saying yes. This is absolutely a saying yes. One we've never done a conversation.

Clancy Denton (00:56)
December

I think is when we said yes to this. It was very quick. Yes.

Rick Denton (01:00)
So And we haven't done anything other than like a marriage conference together. And this is this is an actual honest to God. We are here as co-interested people, right? I'm not the trailing spouse to you on a conference. You're not the trailing spouse to me in a conference. This is something we are doing together.

Clancy Denton (01:16)
Yes, we are at a I I mean, I guess

Rick Denton (01:20)
The energy the back.

Clancy Denton (01:21)
we are at a business, but the business of podcasting conference together. And yes, like you said, at at some conferences, we've done conferences individually and at some of those you do kind of feel a little like, I don't really know. I a lot of this stuff, I feel a little imposterish. But this one, you know, we both actually felt equally

Yes, we should be here.

Rick Denton (01:48)
And I'm glad you're bringing that up. I wanna go deeper there, but first I wanna do a little appreciation. And these are not official sponsors or anything like that, but I want to acknowledge Buzz Sprout specifically. Buzz Sprout is who hosts CX Passport, my other podcast, the business podcast that I have. And Buzz Sprout offered s free tickets for some folks to come here. And so Clancy and I are actually on Creator Pass tickets here, thanks to Buzz Sprout, and very appreciative of that. And if you can tell we're not in

Our studio. We're not in some random place with our phone hooked up. This is actually the unstuck I'm looking at the logo behind the camera here, y'all. It's the Creators Unstuck. Unstuck Studios brought to you by Ecamm and Shure. Ecamm is software we're recording on right now, and Shure are the microphones that we're using here.

Clancy Denton (02:36)
So we might sound really nice and different on this one because we're using these microphones. Yeah, which

Rick Denton (02:41)
No audio. And

that's we're actually kind of testing this too. And so I just want to shout them out. It's not an official sponsor. Now of course, if any of the three of y'all are listening and you would like to become official sponsors, please reach out to theloudquiet pod at gmail.com. Yes. But it's been fun. We're exhausted.

Clancy Denton (02:57)
I mean it it it has been we got here Wednesday and it it has been it is now Saturday. I feel like I've been at like camp. Although I will say what I said that but you know what I will say is that a lot of times you go to some of these things and there's forced things that you have to go to and you have to attend. This is not like that at all.

You go to what you want to go to. If you need to go and chill for a while, go chill for a while. You you control your destiny at at this event. And we have chosen to do some things that sorry, my ring had the table. That we might not necessarily do, like late night karaoke, but it was fun. It was great. We met pe I that's the other thing about this.

conference that is so different from anything that I've been to before. It's podcasters. What do we do? We all talk. And so it's hard to do podcasts.

Rick Denton (04:03)
That's without talking, right?

Clancy Denton (04:04)
Everyone is so friendly. Yeah. Talk to anybody. It it's just been a neat experience, but yes, tons of information and and draining at the same time, but energizing at the same time too.

Rick Denton (04:17)
And we had this is very much an improv kind of session. We sat down at the booth, decided to hit record, got ourselves set up, thankful to all the the the names that we mentioned earlier. I want us I want you and me to remember we talked about coming here, we were planning it out last week and we set goals for ourselves. And I think it'd be a good time to actually restate what those goals are.

And see if we accomplish them. So do you remember what you had said your goals were about coming to this conference?

Clancy Denton (04:49)
I should have written them down, I guess.

Rick Denton (04:52)
Because

Clancy Denton (04:55)
I think one of my main things and I told you, I had no idea what to expect. I mean, you know we as a couple have been in the podcasting world now for a little over a year and a half. I just had no idea. I didn't know if this was gonna be just a bunch of people, I don't know what word she is, but

Rick Denton (05:19)
You didn't know what you were walking into from the community.

Clancy Denton (05:21)
And

so I was just coming with the I'm dipping that's what I said. I'm dipping my toes into this and I'll see how it is and just to learn some new things and yes, I I mean it has gone above my expectations. So and I and what we're I mean, I think we kinda had similar goals.

Rick Denton (05:43)
Yeah, but I if I can remember them here off the cuff, you're right, we should have written them down. But I remember them being sort of the goals of three, if you will. But I I and I I'm gonna mention them. I I want to come back to the dipping the toe in because there's a tentativeness that comes with that sentence.

The value of this conference is, and it's true of any conference, is not being tentative. You get what you put out you get out of a conference what you put into it. And I want to talk a little bit about that because even I imagine most folks listening or watching are not going to be podcasts or some maybe. There's still some truth to anything that you're doing that we have gotten very tangible results out of what we have been doing here.

Clancy Denton (06:26)
Yeah, and hopefully it will benefit our listeners and followers. Because we got a lot of great ideas and plans and just because this conference is solely focused on the podcast world, that's all you can really think about while you're here. And think about yours.

that you have together and or that we have together and what we want to do with it, how we can make it better and ev everyone has been so generous with offering, I'd love to help with this or reach out to me for this and so, you know, it it it is like when

Teagan at Summit would go to, you know, which happens to be here as well in Orlando. But I was thinking about the pens. You know, they exchange pens here. People we had business cards printed up. You know, we've been handing out business.

Okay, yeah, interject your We almost I almost didn't have business cards to hand or podcast par card cards to hand out.

Rick Denton (07:40)
Business cards not brought to you by a certain delivery service that we are not going to mention. We actually had to generate business cards because they didn't get delivered, they were delayed by five days. We had to design them on the plane, communicate via chat with Staples. So shout out to Staple. Boy, this is gonna be brand heavy. We got chatted with the person on the Staples chat to say, hey, is there any way the store can get them done today?

By the time we landed the order was in the store and it was thirty minutes after we landed or s something like that that we had business cards. So yeah, there's some things that you can do to

Clancy Denton (08:20)
And and that was and I did appreciate you doing that because I again it made me feel cause you we had done yours already because we had done that to launch the new line of that business. And I felt like, well, I don't have anything. And okay, so let let's talk about that a little bit. Talk about how we you have a podcast, we have one together.

Let's talk about the feet like the

Rick Denton (08:49)
I

absolutely can I can I say my three goals though first?

Clancy Denton (08:52)
I'm sorry.

Rick Denton (08:56)
and I'm gonna try to to remember that. But the first one was podcasting is so lonely. It's it can be such an isolating thing that I was looking forward to finding just a community, finding other people that were like to immerse in a world that helps reinforce that what you're doing is

Well, I think I used this word in the elevator just now, normalized. And it was about a specific part of the monetization around podcasting. The idea of this crazy thing that we sit in our studio pushing out weekly is something that there are thousands, and that's not an exaggeration, thousands of people here doing that. And so that was one goal. The second goal was

understanding how to to to do it better, how to grow this, how to grow a community. Because we had said that we were doing this for connectivity with ourselves. We also said we wanted to do the loud quiet as a way to build a community around empty nesters and learn from them. Not just the things that we share and talk about, about the things that we've experienced, but there's empty nesters that are out there that

are d doing empty nest and we can learn from them. So how do we grow that community through the growth of the podcast? And then the third thing was just simply tactical.

tactical, what are the nuts and bolts of podcasting? How can we get better at some of that? And I have to say that on all three dimensions, absolutely blown out of the water that we have succeeded on all three of those. The last is probably the least quote interesting, if you will, to folks. But what was the session that we just got out of? Or two sessions ago.

Well actually both. How to better light your your podcast, design a studio, how to do the SEO around a podcast. Very tactical things that are just so easily consumable that people, you know, can take courses on and we get it just fire hosed it this week.

Clancy Denton (10:45)
Yeah. Yeah, in a week. In these

I know. We've only been here for a day. I know, although it does feel like we've been here for a week. By Thursday Thursday was a great day and yes, you know, we like I said did karaoke and stayed out late and and Friday. But like yes, by f by last night, even if we hadn't gone to any of the sessions today, which were highly valuable again. Yeah. Yeah, I had already gotten everything out and then some

of from fr just from Thursday and Friday. So you know, it was great. And the fact that we came in a day earlier before the conference really got going was nice because then we had a chance on a smaller scale to meet some people.

Rick Denton (11:30)
More intimate, right? I think the numbers they described was it was around two to three hundred people here as opposed to the thousand plus that are here now on Saturday. You were starting to ask me about, you know, the surpr not surprise, but the we were talking about generating the business cards, right? And I I think I have to say that I expected to come here and focus more on CX Passport because that's where our business opportunity is with CX Passport Live.

Very quickly it became apparent that this was going to be much more focused on the loud quiet because of the ongoing, absolute positive reinforcement that we heard from folks of my gosh, we need that. We need that out in the community. We need I haven't heard of one of those. We need to do some of that. And sorry, listeners and viewers kind of toot a horn, but yeah, we feel that way, that there is a a gap here in in that aspect of it. I I w in that vein, what I have loved is the un

godly variety of podcasts here. It is amazing when you just run into somebody like, so hey Jaime Bobobo, tell me about your podcast. Whoa. I wouldn't have thought of that.

Clancy Denton (12:39)
Yeah, there's yeah definitely some interesting interesting ones and some that you know like in the last session we were just in so the someone is in there that does one and I've ac I actually know about that and you know and I'm gonna go back and I've actually heard some of the snippets from it I think already or I've seen it somewhere. It's popped up in my feed and so now it's like I'll have to go back and

Rick Denton (13:04)
What's it the name of the podcast?

Clancy Denton (13:07)
Relatively famous. Yeah.

Well,

it's Vanna White's brother who started this. So it's basically about when you're adjacent to a celebrity how and he interviews the siblings, relative you know, just it it's interesting.

Rick Denton (13:31)
Yeah. And I live interesting. Okay, so take that. Let's use that as an example of kind of the community part of it. That's the kind of person would mention that's Van A White's brother. It was just we were in some session. I wasn't talking to him. And s somebody mentions that. And you can get maybe the impression of, that's somebody that's famous. They're gonna be standoffish. They're gonna be and there's other people here that have a little bit of notoriety to them. There's a well we'll talk about him, you know, a TikTok story.

star, let's just use that word. And not a single person has been standoffish when you decide to s reach out, shake a hand and say hi to them. Yeah. No. It was i in that chip was his name and we were glad to just have a conversation. And he was so helpful in encouraging us in our podcast. We found that he's from a certain part of the country that we know well and and and all that that goes into that. The relationships and the warmth here have been

I don't want to say surprising because we were told it'd be that way. It was refreshing to be rewarded with that type of friendliness here.

Clancy Denton (14:35)
Yeah.

And I I do think us coming being able to do this together because our podcast is together, that helped too, because as you have gotten older and matured in your career you're fine with just going up and talking to someone.

Rick Denton (14:58)
Excellent.

Clancy Denton (14:59)
I am okay with that. I'm not as well versed in it as you are. So it was nice to be here together so we could bounce off of each other and I could have your support with that. But I wanted to ask you a question though. No. I know I never really sometimes I don't get to ask you questions. So going back to

Because like you said, what we've learned from this or c taken out of this conference is that

Well yes, we're still totally invested in the other business that we have launched. We've now seen that this podcast that we do is going to be the one that we really want to focus on, put the money, the effort into more than we have been. So how does that make you feel?

Rick Denton (15:56)
Refreshed. And I didn't think of that word. That was a very improv. I didn't plan that. Well, one, I didn't know what you were gonna ask, so it definitely was improv. Refreshed. Because I enjoy being with you, I enjoy let's call this working with you, although it's a conversation. I enjoy having a conversation with you. I enjoy that part of our life. And if that's what we get to double, triple, quadruple down on

our interest, our focus. Yeah, it's actually kind of refreshing because a business podcast isn't as exciting. I have met some amazing people from around the globe. It truly, if I go to Uganda, or if I go to Ghana, or if I go to Ukraine, or if I go to insert country here, there's someone I know and there's someone that's friendly enough that would be willing to host us and bring us into their home and all that. That part's been great. But let's be honest.

It's a business podcast. And as valuable as it's been and the conversations fun as they are, it's not the same as doing this with you. And the excitement that I have. Sorry to of the excitement of the opportunity to build a community beyond you and me. Because what are we so starved as as empty nesters frequently? It's friendship and community. And if this is a vehicle to do that with each other and with others, holy crap. I'm excited.

Clancy Denton (17:21)
Well, and to bring up your point, the business podcast, which your business podcast has done great. That's only reachable to business people and s and specifically in the business area that you're in. Whereas empty nesters are everywhere. Yeah. It doesn't matter. It spans all over every everything.

Rick Denton (17:50)
Yeah, God willing anyone that has a child will experience being intimate.

Yeah,

Clancy Denton (17:53)
Yeah. So

Rick Denton (17:55)
that that part is and I'm excited about it. And you know what what I'm also excited about and and we do need to certainly dedicate some time to the show to talk about some of the ideas that we have. I'm gonna say everything.

But some of the things that are out there. I wanna ask the question that I w was gonna ask you. And it's kind of this is very nonlinear. And guess what? That's what happens when you're living the emptiness life. It's not always very linear. And so sometimes we're gonna go in directions. You were starting to say that yes, I've been doing events and I've place in my career that I'll go up and say hi to folks and that kind of stuff. You said you weren't necessarily as I don't want to use the word comfortable, but that just wasn't something you'd had a a ton doing.

You arrived here Wednesday today, Saturday. Would you say that that is a a have you impr increased in your comfort level in that? Did you see yourself here at this conference actually changing the way you approach that?

Clancy Denton (18:51)
No. Here's what I will say.

Rick Denton (18:55)
Well,

if you wanted to know if we're honest on this podcast, there you go. There's some tr there's a truth.

Clancy Denton (19:00)
I will say I I'm a very outgoing person. I don't have a problem talking to someone.

I have become as I think as I've gotten older and more well it's probably not more mature, but I'm just a little more selective, I think. And and it's not intentionally, I don't think, all the time. Wednesday I you know, that comfort level was like, Okay, do it. Thursday I talked to a ton of people. I think by yesterday and even Thursday when you had something to go to that I wasn't

going to. Right. I just went and sat over in the bar area just by myself. I just needed some quiet because it is very high energy, like we said here. but it's not crazy high energy. Like that is one thing that I I do appreciate it again about this conference. It's not like loud music playing everywhere you go. Yeah. So I I do appreciate that.

Rick Denton (20:06)
You started saying this or those even and I'm sorry folks if you're listening to this, if this is your style or s it it it for those for whom it works, great. But those forced activity you st you alluded to that. Let's get up and dance. No.

Clancy Denton (20:19)
No.

Rick Denton (20:20)
The the keynote, you know what they had? They had an incredibly impressive violinist fiddler who blew us away with high energy that we consume and it made us, you know, cheer and happy and that kind of stuff. But it wasn't all right, everybody get up and hug your neighbor.

Clancy Denton (20:36)
But I I think and by yesterday evening I think I had just I had hit my limit. We were we were gonna go to something last night and I was like I just I can't. I needed to go to sleep. I I needed I needed rest and so

Rick Denton (20:54)
So

I was listening to a podcast this morning and and and I'm sorry, I forgot I forget the name of it, but it's basic it's a daily podcast podcast about podcasts. And I'll get it in the show notes if folks want to listen to it. But it was doing a recap of here because the guy who does it is here, Mark Ronick, and he was talking about exactly that, that even he being involved in this and being, you know, a key person here, he recognized this year he understood boundaries.

And someone asked, Well, did you have any FOMO of not going to karaoke specifically? And he's like, No, I don't, because I needed that time, I needed that boundary for myself. And I think that's a lesson that isn't conference specific, but it is that idea of boundaries and taking that rest for yourself and whatever that is, whether it's an event, whether it's a life, whether it's a relationship, whether it's a whatever, you know, being able to sort of take care of yourself. Yeah.

Clancy Denton (21:48)
I think just and and also adding on just time, you know, we went up into our room last night just for a few minutes before we went to dinner and and just having that time together for us to just brainstorm and, you know, talk about some of the things that we're hoping to be bringing to y'all and I mean, I don't know how much I don't know what we want to say. Yeah, let's let's talk that up 'cause we probably need to wrap up.

Rick Denton (22:14)
Getting close to that, I do want to say one thing, and I want to talk about we kind of alluded to it, but I'm t I I have to re-emphasize this point, and it is the power of yes. And I know there's we just talked about the power of no, but I'm gonna say the power of yes was so important. it is it is in my interest, but it is out of my comfort level to sing karaoke. It is in my it is not What's that? I want to hear that.

Clancy Denton (22:36)
And he did a very good job. Yeah,

he did a very good job. We might put a little clip of it. Well maybe he only did a tiny tiny

Rick Denton (22:43)
I bet we'd violate all sorts of copyright. No,

I'll just make sure that it's on mute or something like that. But yes, Margarita Ville for those that want to do karaoke is a phenomenal range for non high singers. But saying yes to that and I've had

I've had many people come up to me and say, hey, you were on stage and they don't know me, but it was just being visible there. You being willing as we were sitting there to say yes to talking to those two young women that were at the table behind you created a connection and a relationship, which a lot of times when we're at a loud bar, we're just kind of sitting by ourselves, kinda just we're enjoying our own company. That saying yes to going out of what you might be interested in into out of your comfort zone.

Clancy Denton (23:26)
Well and I thought it was funny because, you know, this was a bar that was away from the hotel. Yeah. But they all still had on their tags. Yeah, we took ours off. Like I'm not aware of that.

Rick Denton (23:35)
Took ourselves. We were we thought

next year we'll remember to wear the tags.

Clancy Denton (23:40)
So yeah, so yeah, and that the you know, we have already bought you know, one ticket and then we'll hopefully get another restaurant

Rick Denton (23:48)
Yeah.

Clancy Denton (23:48)
or we will add a ticket. But yes, we've already planned to come back. We've already been invited to another one in June that we will probably go to. So so yeah, but let's let's talk about and and again I don't know 'cause we didn't really talk about what we were gonna talk about. About

Rick Denton (24:05)
Well, I think I'll

talk about it kinda in in general terms and that is and this is listeners, viewers, I want y'all to hear this because this is gonna involve y'all. It's a recognition that the community is what's it's not about growing the podcast, it's about growing the community. And we've alluded to it, but we've been given some really practical and specific ways to engage better with y'all, for y'all to be able to share your thoughts with us and

Forget about share thoughts. Just engage and and and you get to feel a part of a community. Not that not that this is some sort of thing served at you. This is something that you will be a part of and creating together. It's a with, not an at. Yeah.

Clancy Denton (24:51)
Yeah. I mean I think that's very well said. We're I don't think we want to divulge the things that we have in our that that will be coming up.

Rick Denton (25:00)
we also have a recon we also are quite aware that there's a lot of things and needs and desires and products that empty nesters, you know, seek. And so we're looking to to kind of help curate that for everyone and help that you know understand. And and I'm not talking about an influencer or anything, that kind of stuff, but just helping folks be aware of some of the great things that are out there for empty nesters that we're getting exposed to and we want to make sure our community knows about them as well.

This is such y'all can hear the energy and I love the energy here. We've never done anything live. Or in front of an audience. Yeah, in front of an audience. There's folks that are watching here. That's kind of cool. This is such a dorky question. But what is one thing that you're walking away from this conference with?

Clancy Denton (25:49)
I don't think that's a dorky question, but I have two t-shirts. That's

Rick Denton (25:57)
Practical answer. Okay.

Clancy Denton (25:59)
good. and some pens. I that was one thing I did say. That was one of my goals was to get pens, like writing pens. Because conferences always have the best writing.

Rick Denton (26:07)
I wish

I could remember his name so I could shout him out. Yes, thank you for the pins, law agency that helped me understand the

Clancy Denton (26:14)
I have two t shirts. and a swag and a little drawstring bag, which now I'm gonna use for my new gym and pen. But no, I mean the wealth of knowledge we talked about has just been incredible. So

Rick Denton (26:26)
Yeah. It's it's been

Clancy Denton (26:27)
and and a couple of contacts that we made are we will be putting to use and they have been just

Rick Denton (26:35)
Yeah,

the generosity of people to offer up their information also shows you some people that you want to do business with

Clancy Denton (26:42)
Well

and I'm not you're right. I'm not even talking about just

Rick Denton (26:44)
Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. It's they were so generous, you're like, wait, I need to know more and getting into commercial relationships with folks is gonna be good. And I think that if to answer my own question back at me, it's it's relationships. Yes. I actually kinda like the two t shirts that we got. I love the buzz sprout leather keychains that I got printed. I love the little buttons here. This says a hundred but two hundred episodes, ten thousand downloads, four years. Like that's exciting stuff. I love all that. The

What I really do like is that relationship is is there are people now that I am not just aware of but comfortable reaching out to them and having an authentic conversation with. And and hopefully some of those you'll actually hear as guests on this the show at some point.

Clancy Denton (27:24)
And I will say too, if you're ever looking for a conference space, the the Renaissance Orlando by Sea World, it it it's an incredible conference space. I think the way it's laid out, there's a million restrooms, there's that huge. Yes. Because the one

Rick Denton (27:41)
In

Austin I went to potties were hard to come by even as a guy.

Clancy Denton (27:44)
This one the layout is very, very good.

Rick Denton (27:49)
Not

brought to you by Renaissance at SeaWorld. You want to talk about something we're gonna get better at? Is that so yeah, click our affiliate marketing link and

This was g this was fun to do this in our little in our little house here. This has to be one of the more delightful episodes that we've recorded. I've certainly enjoyed doing another episode of The Loud Quiet, Living the Empty Nest.