#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards

#250 Episodes Deep: Lessons From 5 Years of Podcasting

Jordan Edwards Season 5 Episode 250

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From passing a phone around at the Naples airport to hosting 250 episodes with industry leaders, my podcasting journey represents more than content creation—it's been a masterclass in personal growth and relationship building.

What began as a curious conversation with a POW veteran has evolved into a platform that connects me with remarkable minds, builds community, and provides value to listeners worldwide. Looking back at those early episodes—with terrible backgrounds and questionable audio—reminds me how far consistency can take you when you embrace imperfection.

Through this five-year journey, I've distilled five transformative lessons that apply far beyond podcasting. First, discipline must override motivation; showing up consistently when no one's watching builds the foundation for everything. Second, progress always trumps perfection; perfectionism is merely fear disguised as standards. Third, accountability creates the focus and framework necessary for results—whether through team members, public commitments, or personal systems. Fourth, proximity to greatness fundamentally reshapes your understanding of what's possible; each conversation expands your vision. Finally, repetition creates results—there are no shortcuts to mastery, only consistent practice.

The podcast wasn't merely about becoming a podcaster but about building something meaningful through time, connecting with exceptional people, and creating value that outlasts the recordings. These lessons weren't learned in classrooms but forged through consistent action, uncomfortable growth, and unwavering commitment.

Whether you're starting your journey, navigating the middle challenges, or approaching your own milestone, remember that the process itself contains the transformation. Stay patient, disciplined, and humble—because the journey matters, the reps matter, and most importantly, you matter.


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Speaker 0:

Hey, what's going on guys? We have a special podcast today. This is number 250. I never thought we'd get this far. I never even thought we'd be here. So during this episode we're going to be talking about where the journey started. What are some of my top five learnings that I'm going to share with my 24-year-old self and share with you guys, and what do we have going forward. What's the future look like when I get started?

Speaker 0:

When I started this, I want you guys to realize that I was 24 years old. I was doing a program called 75 Hard and I met this guy, wayne Ogden Smith. He was a prisoner of war and I met him at the Naples airport and I just thought to myself this is one of the coolest people I've ever met. I need to have him record a conversation with him. And what ended up being the first episode of the podcast was us sitting in Naples airport recording the conversation, speaking to each other, and we lasted 15 minutes and he told me come by tomorrow, come by next week, and me and my buddy Franz, we ended up going next week to his house, actually, and here today we're in a studio, we have a nice software, nice setup, great things going on, but there we were tossing around my phone. We used my phone to pass it around and that's how we were conversating, that's how we were getting through to all the ideas and the descriptions. So it's just, it's so amazing to me all the places I've been, the people I've met, the things I've seen and the projects I'm working on now just due to this podcast.

Speaker 0:

So the first, first first thing that we're going to discuss, the top five things we're going to discuss we're going to discuss about how discipline needs to be over everything. Discipline is one of the most important things. Then we're going to discuss about progress over perfection. Then we're going to talk about accountability and how it creates focus and results, proximity to greatness and how that can change everything for you and, lastly, the reps create the result. So let's dive in.

Speaker 0:

So number one is discipline over everything to reach consistency. So what I mean by that and what I want to say to my 24-year-old self, is that motivation isn't going to be there, it's not going to save you, it's not going to make you. Want to say to my 24-year-old self is that motivation isn't going to be there, it's not going to save you, it's not going to make you want to do this. Discipline is doing it even when nobody's listening, doing it when you're posting infrequently, doing the actions when there's no one there the amount of times that I Sunday became my podcast day. What I mean by that is I would edit, I would post, I would do all the things until I was able to bring in a team and I would do all of the work every Sunday and that was just disciplined to get the newsletter out, to get the notifications out, to get all the clips out. It was something that's constantly been a process that I've been working on for so long, and the really funny thing is is that no one notices you until you put in years of work. When they see 250, they go, wow, that's impressive. Why is it impressive? Because it's hard to comprehend that in your own brain. So what I mean by that is when you share things that are so profound that you can't imagine doing in a day, you sit there and go, wow, that's really impressive. So it's this idea of stacking. So some of the things that I've stacked and that's why the podcast has been so amazing for me is because I've been able to stack these different conversations and these revelations that I've had with myself to share with you guys. This is something that I've been very proud of, that I've continued on.

Speaker 0:

However, I want you to realize that I looked back to prep for this. I didn't start posting consistently and by consistently I mean weekly for six months straight until I started in probably 2023. And the only reason that happened was because I hired someone to help me with the clips, so I had to put out videos for them each and every week, which helped. So it's this important idea, and we've had guests like Tad Nelson. He just came on. He's done 400, 400 trials. That is not a light number. That's more than one a year, so that's more than one per every day of the year. So it's important for us to realize that to get year. So it's important for us to realize that to get better at anything, you have to stay consistent with it, and in the beginning, no one is going to think highly of you, because most people give up too quickly. The second so the thing I want you to realize, for my 24-year-old self, is that there's no finish line without a start line. You got to show up today, then tomorrow, then again, and that's how you become unstoppable. It's important for us to realize that we need to start. And that brings us to our second truth, which is progress over perfection.

Speaker 0:

I was having a conversation last weekend with a guy who's in real estate, but he's also. He went to film school as well and he wanted to start a podcast. And I'm like what's stopping you? And he goes well, I don't have all the equipment. It's been an idea for two years, et cetera, et cetera. And what I realized in that moment that make progress over being perfect. It's not about being perfect, it's about getting something out there that you did yourself, which means it's proven that I believe you become a top 1% podcast if you make it to 21 episodes. It used to be eight episodes.

Speaker 0:

People are starting to get a little bit more consistent, so it's just important for us to realize that it's not that hard to become a top podcaster. It's not that hard to do a lot of these things. It's consistency, it's overcoming that fear of rejection and that fear of failure and that judgment of what people are going to think about you when you're on with your clips and your videos, and what are they going to say about you. Yeah, that takes a little bit of courage. Yeah, that's a habit that you need to build. It's not easy being the best, so to be the best.

Speaker 0:

The funny thing is is that you see so much progress in private and as soon as you see these masters practice so much in private and then they go to show their skills, everyone's enamored with them and wants them everywhere. It's kind of like what happened with Michael Phelps with his swimming. He was training for years and years and years goes to the Olympics cakes butt, like 10 years ago, and then he's everywhere, which is a completely different skillset. So it overwhelms people and it stresses them out. But it's important for us to realize that if we consistently take action, we will get to where we need to go.

Speaker 0:

So I want to talk to you about it's important for us to realize that we're never going to be perfect, but we have to commit to the pursuit. We have to be connected to the pursuit, that we're never going to be perfect, but we have to commit to the pursuit. We have to be connected to the pursuit that we're trying to overcome. So there's times in our life where we want to give up. Yes, why? Why give up when there's so much goodness on the other side. It's because you don't know the way you're going. You don't know the direction that you're going in. So I want you guys to start to realize this that if you are interested in something, try it out. And the recommended advice that I gave that guy was record eight episodes. Record 10 episodes over the next month. Don't post anything and just get started, because when I started I didn't even email guests that their podcast was being released. I've been on many, many different shows. People don't even email me to release the podcast and to promote it. It's crazy to me how little the bar is.

Speaker 0:

So it's important for us to realize that we just need to put in the work, and the more work we put in, the better we're going to get at something. For example, do you know the person who drives home every single day? They might drive to work and drive home right. The first time they drive home they might not know where they're going, they might not know the shortcuts, they might not know the places to go, but after they've done it for a long period of time, they get better and better and better. So first we need to have the discipline, then we have to have the courage to create the process and to just get started.

Speaker 0:

And then part three is the accountability. Let's go back for a second. I want to actually say this to my 24-year self Perfection is a lie that we use to protect ourselves from criticism. Choose a messy progress. It's the only kind that moves. The point is there is that don't stay behind perfection. If you're one of these people, who's a perfectionist? Are you a perfectionist? I know there's people listening that are, so I want you to realize that it doesn't take that much to be getting it done. You just have to take one step in front of the other. Don't worry of the other, don't worry about the progress, worry about the action that you're gonna create. But remember, progress builds confidence and perfection just builds fear. I want you guys to really reminisce and think about that one. So the third one is accountability creates focus and results.

Speaker 0:

So the reason I say that is because when, back in 2023, when I really got consistent with the podcast was because I hired somebody. I hired this guy, ryan, to clip up my videos and every single week he would go where's the content, where's the content, where's the content? And I was trusting myself to work with him. I didn't want to sit there and just pretend that I was doing this podcast. I had to record stuff. So because of that, I started to record my own do solo episodes, build up the consistency to allow myself to put out the content, and I started to not care. I started to not be attached to the outcome. I just wanted to help people. When you have a big enough mission and a big enough North Star that pulls you forward, you don't care. I'm building a legacy for my great grandkids. I'm building something so that they can see what work could look like, so that they could see what I was doing at 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29. I'm 29 right now. It's been an incredible five years and it's something where I've really like. It's amazing that I've even stuck with something this long. But I'm not surprised at the same time because as you start to build this consistency and build the frequency.

Speaker 0:

So for the first two years it was me meeting people and finding different value props inside of it enough. He runs an agency out of Tampa and he was part of a mastermind and in that mastermind he started introducing me to a lot of the key players and I would have them on the podcast and I would connect with them and I started to grow my network and I started to see what podcasting really is. It's really a connector. It's a way for us to stay connected with different people and bring them into our circles, and it's a way to inform people, stay connected with different people and bring them into our circles, and it's a way to inform people what we're up to and how we can all collaborate together and how we can have these conversations. It's also been a great guide for me, because what ended up happening was I would have to ask people hey, I'm looking for Someone you would think that you'd want on a podcast, and I've now gotten a lot of my friends, family, people. If they see someone who they go, that person's amazing, you should go on their podcast. And that's what I try to do and I invite the people and I try to do that and have different conversations.

Speaker 0:

So I totally appreciate when people send me guest recommendations and what's really come of that was that this ability to hold myself accountable. I was paying him yes, I was paying him to do my clips, but I had to give him a week in advance so he would clip up the content. Then I'd have it for the following week. So this always put a timeline on me and some pressure on me to really move the needle, to see what I was trying to get done. And what that led to was this idea that it's not just success, right, it's this idea of sticking to what you say you're going to do. So there were many podcast guests that failed. Almost all of them failed. They were just brave enough to share their stories and actually get up and keep going, and so that's what, realizing what it all is about. It was me sitting there going.

Speaker 0:

I didn't identify as a podcaster. I still don't really identify as a podcaster. I just started sharing my mission and sharing the story and now I get podcaster casts constantly, all of the time, and they're constantly trying to get me to speak to different people, have different people on the podcast, share different stories, and I'm constantly hearing and vetting different people. So now the tide has kind of switched, but call it a five-year overnight, like. It's taken a long time to get podcasting on the map and it's taken a while to really dive in and learn about it.

Speaker 0:

So the thing I would tell my 24-year-old self is that people will always want your time when you've created something valuable, but to get there, you'll need to protect that time, like your life depends on it, because it does. So what that means is, once you're successful, everyone wants to be around you, everyone wants to learn from you, everyone wants a piece of you. How can they use that knowledge for themselves? However, to get there, you have to do something completely different. So that's why I wanted to share with you guys that you're doing a lot of the work in private so that the public can finally see it. And by the time the public sees it, you've been working in silence for years. So there's some of you right now listening to this podcast that you're working on your journey, you're working on leveling up yourself, and you need to realize that that is empowering, that is awesome and that is what you need to do, because without that, you're never going to get there. So you're not going to hear the applause, You're not going to hear the boos for many years, and then, once something gets a little traction, you might start to notice it, you might start to see the difference that's about to occur. So the biggest thing, the fourth thing that I want to touch on is proximity to greatness can change everything.

Speaker 0:

When I realized the podcast was a gateway for me to meet incredible people, my whole view changed. My whole view For the longest time. I wasn't selling anything. I wasn't doing anything. I was just trying to have conversations with people. I was just trying to ask successful people you know, when they say, hey, can you ask a successful person you should take them out to dinner and pay for the dinner. And you go why? They're a millionaire, they have the money. You shouldn't pay for their dinner, but you're paying for their knowledge. So what I was doing was I was using this as my dinner. This was my dinner.

Speaker 0:

I would ask people to come on the podcast. They would share their success story and then I'd try to stay in touch with them. I try to provide them value where I can. I try to stay connected with them and I would just give them different opportunities, different value props and different ways I could help.

Speaker 0:

Because you start to realize that it's not so much all about you, but it's how can you help others, how can others help you? And you start to realize that the world's a lot more collaborative than you think. People don't do things without other people helping them. There's no one really here on the mission alone. So we have to utilize other people, and that's what's given me the ability to sit down with people like Jeff Hoffman. Or sit down with people like Jeff Hoffman, co-founder of Priceline, or sit down with people like the founder of Reebok, and the only reason I did that was he was actually he's based in the UK. Him and his wife travel a lot, so they ended up being in Florida for a few months and we were able to meet in an area and it worked out.

Speaker 0:

But these things don't happen unless you put yourself in the room. There's been people I've been able to give speeches for. There's been groups I've been able to coach. There's clients I've been able to get. You have to realize that the podcast is a gateway to your community. It's the gateway to where you are. If people want to dive deeper, they're going to be able to listen to everything you provide.

Speaker 0:

So it's how do you do a one-to-many? In a very cumulative way. This is the way I did it. This is the way I did it, and it allowed me to get in rooms with some of the biggest players in the world. It's allowed me to have conversations and really ask genuine questions and learn so much from all of them, and then I get to share those with you. But the real conversations that I enjoy are the pre-calls. I enjoy the post-calls. I enjoy just them, seeing and going, hey, like, maybe have you tried this, maybe this could work, is this something you're interested in?

Speaker 0:

And that really opened up my perspective to realize that we're constantly, constantly on a river. What I mean by a river is we always have our hand up for someone to help us and we have a hand down to help those who want to learn from us, and we're just the vessel. We're always in between, and you start to realize that through skill sets. What I mean by that is there's certain things that you're better than other people at. There's certain things other people are better than you at. So you start to realize, hey, this is a skill set that I'm developing. This is something that I'm really excited about, and that's why you start to invest the money. That's why you start to make the money is because people value what you're providing. People value what you're providing. So when I started having guests come on the podcast and started charging for it, I started giving away a lot of the value I was, and that value comes from. Hey, I'm going to give you 10 clips. I'm going to give you these different things. I'm going to give you this value. And people start to realize, oh wait, they're not paying to come on a podcast, they're paying for the clips, they're paying for relationships. They want a new audience, and I do it for the free people too. So it's not like it's one way or the other. I'm constantly providing value to people, and then sometimes there's different relationships with different ways. So you start to realize that there's a lot of different ways of doing stuff.

Speaker 0:

But it's important for us to realize that proximity is power. The people you can get connected with can change your life. Your net worth is your network. Your net worth is your network. Your network creates your net worth, and it's important for you to realize that. So I want to let myself know you're just one conversation away from thinking bigger. Don't just network. Nurture proximity. It will shape you faster than any course ever could.

Speaker 0:

And you start to realize that I'd rather speak to the author than you can read the book and go deep. Yes, or you could speak to the author and find out the questions. And you start to realize here that everything's possible. You can do anything you want, and the cool thing is that I'm giving it away for free. Everyone can listen to the podcast for free on YouTube, spotify, apple Music, apple Podcasts, and the thing is with that, that lets you inside of all the conversations we're having.

Speaker 0:

So you start to listen to these and you start to learn about different subjects and different ideas and different mindsets and it starts to harden you. It starts to give you the perspective whoa, I didn't know we could charge that much. Or it's whoa. I didn't know that was a business model. It's whoa. I didn't even realize people made money doing that. I didn't even realize you could do that. I didn't even realize that was possible. And that's the real breakthroughs of really expanding your mind and seeing what's possible. So that's why I always want to say thank you to my 24-year-old self for starting this and continuing on with this, because of the journey that I'm so proud of and it's something that I'm really can't wait to continue on. So I want to get you with the final truth, the fifth truth that will help you on your journey, as it's helped me on mine the reps create the result.

Speaker 0:

So what I mean by that is that to create something takes reps. All the skills you have, everything you do me speaking to this camera, you watching television, me watching television, me going on a run, me making dials, me giving presentations these are all skill sets that are developed and they only get better with practice. People say practice makes perfect. I don't believe that Reps create results. The more repetitions you get with something, the better results you're going to have.

Speaker 0:

I vividly remember starting the podcast. Even my wife Madison said something to me. She goes before with podcasts. You used to research for hours and hours and hours and prep and do the questions and finally get to learn from the people. And then, when you're on the interview, you have all these preps and all these discussions and everything to talk about. Well, I'm going to let you know what happened With systems.

Speaker 0:

I started to realize what was a better way to do that Invite people for a prep call. Why a prep call? So instead of me doing all the work on my own, now I can have a conversation with them and we can work on this together and we can figure out what's important to them. What is the key thing that they're trying to get across in this episode? How can I help them with that and how can I make sure that we don't miss. So you start to realize here that this isn't just about life. This is about life optimization.

Speaker 0:

So when you're doing something and it's taking you a long time and there's a lot of different things, there's probably better ways to do it. There's probably different ways to do it. There might be easier ways to do it. So that's why the reps are something. There's no shortcutting the reps. There's no BSing the 250 episodes. There's no skipping out and I want to to note most of these episodes are over 45 minutes. There was a short segment that I did for five minute episodes. If people want to hop on and they're interested in that, let me know because I might bring that back. I enjoy the five minute episodes, but I want people to realize that this isn't just podcasting. This is systems and how to think about your life and how to go after goals and how to solve for them and how to get people to congregate around you and how to build community and how to build listens and it takes time. So, from episode one to 250, those are real reps that I made. Those are real actions I took. Those are real things that got me to where I can be today.

Speaker 0:

So every time you've hit a record, even when no one's listening, every time you hit record, even when no one's listening, you're building something that can take from you. You're building something that no one can take from you. It's important for us to realize that every time you do a rep and this is what I'd say to my 24-year-old self every time you click the record button, you're doing something that no one can ever take away from you. No one can ever take away the time you put in. No one can ever take away the skills that you built. No one can ever take away the things that you're building, and that's why I'm so passionate about people building the skill set of a strong mindset and a mindset that keeps on pushing.

Speaker 0:

Because each time when I originally came up with Clocked In, that was because I wanted us to work while listening, when we listen to these episodes. I wanted it to be work for us. I wanted us to be obviously entertained, but I wanted us to take actions, true, actionable steps that'll make a difference in their life. That's why I'm presenting you with these five lessons that have impacted my life and can impact yours if you apply them correctly. It's important for us to realize life isn't just one thing. So it's not just doing this, it's not just doing that. We're doing everything, and as we develop our skills, we get stronger and stronger towards our goals that we're looking to build. So let's keep pushing, let's keep seeing what is possible, let's push ourselves to the next level. And so what I would say to myself is that the results don't create the identity the reps.

Speaker 0:

Do you ever look at someone who's very patient? There's someone who's waited a very long time. You ever to develop a lot of these skills? It takes the exact. You need to practice it. What is patience? It's the product of waiting. So what makes someone patient when they wait? So the more you wait, the more patient you're going to get at something, and you start to realize that maybe that thing wasn't so important, maybe that wasn't the biggest thing, maybe there is more opportunity out there. So I want us to realize that these five truths were not learned in any classroom. They were forged in silence and in discomfort and in conversation and in a commitment to myself to follow through with something I started.

Speaker 0:

The best thing ever that I can recommend to all you is to find something that you care about, find something that you're passionate about and keep going, even if it makes you no money, even if it doesn't do anything. The only thing you need it to do is provide you joy and happiness. If you get joy from it, keep going. If you don't, it might not be worth the time. And that's why I looked back at my old episodes. The episodes were so sporadic, they were so random. I was on a phone. My background was terrible. I wasn't there Like the microphone. There was literally a phone. My background was terrible. I wasn't there Like like the microphone. There was literally a time where I had my dad call me and he goes Jordan. The other guy's mic sounds so good, you need to get a mic. And this is like this is over 50 episodes in.

Speaker 0:

My point being here is that don't let the imperfect stop you. Don't let perfection hold you from the goals and the things that you want to achieve. Realize that discipline is going to build. You have the muscle. You can grow it. You need to realize that there's no progress. You need to make progress to make perfection. There's never, ever, any perfection and you need to realize that accountability will create that focus and the results that you're looking for. So if you need accountability, go after that. It'll make all the difference, and proximity to greatness will change everything you need to get around people who are gonna expand what you believe is possible. That doesn't mean that it's the only thing. It means that you have to commit to yourself to continue to grow.

Speaker 0:

Growth happens when we make a difference. Growth happens when we get uncomfortable. There are many times where I feel uncomfortable and I push through because after one or two reps you're gonna feel comfortable. So it's uncomfortable for a little bit. It's whenever you try anything new. You know what I mean. Whenever you do something new, for a little bit you go, oh, can I do this? Am I not sure? How am I gonna do this? And you start to realize that it's all, it's okay. It's okay, you're gonna make progress. You, you're going to make progress. You're going to get there and you're going to be proud of yourself, and that's what I am today.

Speaker 0:

Today, I'm proud of myself. I'm proud that I've done 250 episodes. I'm proud for the next 250 episodes and I want to do more of these. I want to do more one-on-ones with you guys. I want to do more studios. I want to do more travel to the guests to see them. I enjoy the studio content. It's something that brings me a lot of joy. So I'm going to look into seeing how I can do it more often and how I can provide myself more value in what we're doing, because the truth is, we're constantly on the chase to better ourselves and we constantly want to continue improving. So, if we can realize that growth happens inside of us and it's what happens internally, it's not this oh my God, I got validation today no, it's putting in the work each and every day.

Speaker 0:

So I want you guys to realize that these five truths weren't learned in a classroom. They were forged in silence, in discomfort and in conversation and in commitment. They were forged in silence, in discomfort and in conversation and in commitment. This episode was never about a podcast. It's about what the process of building something over time teaches you. So to my 24-year-old self, I say thank you for starting and to anyone listening if you're just beginning, stay patient. If you're in the middle, stay disciplined. And if you're near the top, stay patient. If you're in the middle, stay disciplined. And if you're near the top, stay humble. The journey matters, the reps matter and you matter. Let's keep going, let's keep clocking in and I can't wait to see you on the next episode. Thank you.

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