Does Anyone Know Why This Podcast Stopped?

How many years does it take to record one podcast?

Apparently three.

Episode 264 is here, and I'll be honest, I wasn't sure this day was going to come. I've been talking about getting back behind the mic for the better part of a year. My team can confirm that. But today I just hit record, and here we are.

I started Clarity Compressed in February 2018 as a content series built around a book that genuinely changed how I thought about business. What started as something I made for my 150-dealer client base turned into 263 weekly episodes, guests I had no business landing, and a show I recorded week after week without ever committing to more than the next one.

Then I recorded episode 263, signed off, and didn't come back for three years.

A lot happened in those three years. ASOTU became the More Than Cars movement. My creative agency congruent got merged into More Than Cars Creative. My son went from 16 to 19 and is now taller than me. More gray in the beard. More wins, more lessons, same energy.

The thing I said at the end of episode 263 has stuck with me the whole time: you win or you learn. Jalen Hurts said it after the Eagles lost the Super Bowl. Then he went out and won one. I think about that a lot.

The world is also a fundamentally different place than it was in 2022. AI is reshaping what it means to build, to communicate, to have a career. And the more that changes, the more convinced I am that the human stuff, real conversations, real thinking, real connection, is about to become the most valuable thing any of us have.

That's what this show is about. I'm not here as an expert. I'm here as a student who's been in the arena long enough to have some things worth saying.

Clarity Compressed is back. I'm glad you're here.

In this episode:

• The origin story: a reconditioning company, a book, and 150 dealers
• What happened in the three years between episode 263 and today
• The merging of congruent into More Than Cars Creative
• Why "you win or you learn" has only gotten more true
• How AI is changing what it means to build, communicate, and connect
• Why human conversation is about to become more valuable
• What's coming for the show: guests, structured thinking, writing, and more

Quote from this episode: "If you become a student long enough, you might start to sound like an expert, and that's because you've tried things, you've lost, and you've learned."

Follow me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pauljdaly

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/paulthedaly

I also host the daily, Automotive State of the Union Podcast (ASOTU)

My auto industry media company and creative shop is More Than Cars

Transcript

Paul Daly  0:01  
Hi. My name is Paul J Daly. It has been three years since I recorded my last podcast, actually the last episode of this podcast, clarity, compressed and I'm back.

Paul Daly  0:22  
But the good times are up. This is clarity compressed. Okay, so today is a pretty monumental day, because three years ago to the date I recorded episode 263 of the clarity compressed podcast, which was the podcast I started in 2018 February of 2018 as a series about the person Dale Pollack, the founder of V auto and his book called like I see it. I should have gotten the copy out. It's sitting back here somewhere. But basically, at the time, I had a reconditioning business, an auto reconditioning business, and I thought that I was going to make some content and take this book that impacted me deeply and then make a content series around it that I could give to then my client base, which was about 150 dealers and dealership groups spread across the Northeast with my reconditioning company, image, auto and wheel repair company, RIM doctor, that's the story for another time. But I recorded this content. I scripted it, got a team together, shot it. This isn't a day before AI. So it took a really long time to do this well, and you could still search clarity, compressed podcasts, go on YouTube and scroll all the way back to the beginning, and you can see what that looked like. So if it's been three years since that podcast, or you do the math 2018 right, we're like, eight years ago. And then I, little by little, I turned that content series, I was like, Well, this is kind of being received. Well, I'm going to do more. And so I just started recording a podcast, and you could really watch through the years, the evolution of what that podcast did and became it was my chance every week to kind of take my best swing talk about something that has been on my mind. Kind of like, have had a lot of guests on throughout the year. So a lot of times it was an interview show, and I've had guests like, oh my gosh, Guy Kawasaki and Gary Vaynerchuk and Donald Miller and Jocko willing, all these people that I respect very greatly and and like, if I'm being honest, the audience size of this podcast really, I out kicked the coverage on the guests I was able to get because I just showed up and I was around people, and I've reached out and I did things, and then that Kept going on week after week after week for 263 weeks. Full podcast episode 263 weeks. And I always would talk about, I don't know how long I'm gonna do this. I can't guarantee you, I'm not committing to it for years, but I can tell you this, I'm gonna do it this week, and so I would record it this week, and then the next week I'd record it, and then I'd record it, and then I'd record it, and then I recorded 263 weeks later, my last episode was really I talked about things I learned in business 20 years in entrepreneurship, I talked about the difference between organization and business, how the question was really like, can you Have a good business if you have a bad organization, meaning a bad company culture, a bad way of doing business. And I unpacked that a little bit. I signed off from that podcast, not knowing that it would have been my last episode for three years. And today is the day it comes back. I've really been talking about it for the last I mean, if you ask my team, for the last year, having this desire to get back on the rails. But a lot's happened in the last three years. When I had three years ago, I had started this company called automotive State of the Union business partner Kyle Mountsier. We got funding, we raised that, we built this company up. We were in the beginnings of it. Then we were into it a little bit. But over the last three years, we've kept working on it tirelessly. It's become this movement that we call the more than cars movement. And now, if you go to more than cars.com, is the best place to see all the things that that has morphed into. I had a creative agency, you may remember, called congruent, that came out of my first startup, which was the auto company, reconditioning company I managed. I just mentioned in the beginning of the show, the auto reconditioning company was acquired, the agency moved forward. I worked with Vayner Media to help build that out. And then just last year, so now we're talking it's March right now, talking about in September, we merged the creative agency into the media company to make it more than cars creative so more than cars parent organization. And we march forward. We keep building. It's funny because I just watched the last episode that I recorded in kind of preparation for doing this, and I realized a few things. Number one, more gray in the beard now and. It's very obvious, obvious to me that there's more gray in the beard now you it happens slowly, but over three years, you can see it. I don't think I have any less energy than I did three years ago. I think I might actually have a little bit more energy now. And I kind of remember you watched three years ago, like, how did I feel back then, and I realized I feel a lot the same way, which made me think about the progress that happens over three years, the situations that you walk through over the three years. I think about three years, and I was trying to recount in my mind, you know, what has happened to me in the last three years. And the thing that I said at the end of episode 263 reminded me how true it actually is, because it was you win or you learn. And I think I quoted Jalen Hurts, the quarterback for the Eagles, Philadelphia Eagles, I still got the ASOTU con Jersey back there that hasn't moved in three years. He said that after they lost the Super Bowl, and since then, the Eagles have won a Super Bowl under Jalen Hurts as a quarterback and as a leader. And so I think that that case study for that mentality plays true even until now you win or you learn. And thinking through the last three years, I've won some, I've learned a lot, and there are a lot of things about the reality of today that were just not part of reality in three years ago. In 2023 one of those is AI, and I'm sure we're going to talk about this a lot, on clarity, compressed episodes moving forward, and this world is a different place than it was, and three years from now, it will be a vastly different place than it is right now, and I think about what has transpired and what is transpiring in real time, in AI and if there ever was a time that I think we need to cling to the humanness of conversations, the humanness of people, unpacking their thoughts and ideas, I think This is the time we need to lean into that more than ever, leadership, principles, human principles, communication, linguistics, empathy, lead. I mean, I could go on and on down the human lists. And I think that that is going to be the thing that separates the people who win over the next three years from the people who don't win, it's going to be this combination number one, people who are able to adopt technology and not be precious about what has been, and the people who understand how to do that while harnessing and leaning into and understanding all the things that are human, all the human natural things and natural conversations are going to become much more in vogue and much more valuable. I am not an AI bot. This is not an AI video of Paul telling you what the AI thinks Paul would think about a topic. This is me, a real person, right? Gray beard, hair, all that thoughts coming from my brain through my experience and emotions out my mouth to you, and I think that type of thing is going to be more attractional in the future. That is going to be the separator between people that win in the future and not that build businesses, that are creators, that communicate, that most importantly, connect with people. Because business is about connection. Relationship is about connection that kind of tied in. And for sure, we're going to see all types of AI, infrastructure, robotics, infrastructure, is going to become more efficient. It's going to change the paradigm by which we've done business, and we've existed for the last hundreds of years as a company and as an American society anyway, pretty much anywhere, though, and we're gonna have to rebuild what it means to start a business, what it means to be professional, what it means to have a career. And so I am going to be on that journey recording this podcast with you, and it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm super excited about I'm going to have more guests. I'm actually going to have some more structured thinking that I'm going to share with you. I'm going to fire up some writing. I've been wanting to do some writing, maybe blog, maybe a sub stack, definitely on my social media accounts. I've been, I've really, over the last three years, I've leaned in very heavy on LinkedIn, and have leaned out of just about everywhere else. I still do a little Instagram. I'd love to lean into Instagram community a little bit more. I was talking to my son now, who is 19, by the way, he was 16 the last time I did that. Now he's taller than me. That's changed over the last three years, and he's become a fantastic young man and a thought partner. And I was telling him, You know, I think if I started over and got to do one platform, I think I'd want to be a YouTuber. I love the community on YouTube. So maybe we'll lean in more to the YouTube community, start doing more video work there. In the end, I want to lean into the thing that I've always wanted to lean into, that I always have, is that the human side of business, because people move forward together, and business is more meaningful when people connect on a human level. People, and that hasn't changed. So I would love to know what you've been up to over the last three years, because I want to work that in to the thing. So again, we'll definitely have some guests. I have a lot more friends than I did three years ago, which is super cool. Gonna get some of them on the show. I'd like to give you some more structured thinking about how I process and how I work through this new AI world, and how I'm working

Paul Daly  10:21  
through all the complexities that we have here and that we're trying to work through here together as a society, and we're just going to keep walking through together and unpack clarity compressed again, clarity is the premise of this podcast. I thought about changing the name, and I talked to some people about it, but in the end, you know, like SEO loves direct names, but in I feel like, if the content is good and you connect, you don't care what it's called. And I like the concept of clarity. It hasn't gotten any older. I always talk about it like, if you have a map and you're like, that's where I want to go, and you see that destination, the most important part of that map is the pin that says you are here. And for me, this podcast is my effort to bring some clarity that I found or that I've seen or helped get other guests, you know, give us some clarity, to get us from point A to point B. I don't, I don't presume to be an expert in all of this. I hope you accept this podcast as a fellow student walking through these things with you. I love learning from other people who I know are students, and reality is like, if you become the student long enough, you might start to sound like an expert, and that's because you've had experience and you've tried things and you've lost, and you have good things and you have hard things, and you win or you learn. And so that's my goal with the podcast, and this week, I just wanted to fire it back up. I just wanted to just hit record. Not have it all planned out what I was going to say, because that's not really how I roll, but I do want to plan a little bit more out as we give you some more structured content. So all of that said, thank you for listening to this podcast. If it pops up in your feed, you're probably like, what happened to that guy? If, if you know Apple or Spotify is even going to surface this, it's going to be episode 264, and clarity compressed is back, folks, I'm super happy to be here with you. I'm going to give it my best swing every week, and I hope that you follow along and be a part of it as well. So if you haven't and this just came across your feet. Please subscribe to the audio version of the podcast. Follow along on LinkedIn. Paul J Daly, because that is where I kind of post most of my thoughts, and I hope to see you soon. Thanks for being here, and let's see what comes of episode 265 you you.