Turning 40 and Finding Your Voice

Stephanie: Hey Wize, thanks so much for joining me today.

Wize: Thanks for having me.

Stephanie: It's really nice to meet you.

Wize: Pleasure's all mine. Anytime I get to be on the other side of the mic, it works for me, I enjoy 'cause I don't have to edit. I don't have to do anything. When I'm the guest on this show, it's so much easier that way.

Stephanie: It sure is. Yeah. All the work's on my court this time.

Wize: Yes.

Stephanie: Well, I am, really interested to dig into your 40 story because you've got some twists and turns that I'm excited to dig into. Let's go back a couple of decades. Your thirties were pretty tough.

Wize: Uh, yes. Yes they were. Yes they were. If, you could that's put it. Yeah. Yes they were. But you know what? They, if yeah, there were, there were situations that. But it's life. And, um, there, there are people that probably have been through much more worse than I have been through. It's just, this is what I had to experience in my life.

Wize: Like someone asked me if I regret anything that happened in my life, and I tell 'em no, I wouldn't wish it upon anyone, but no, because it made me who I am today. And at 31, yes, I lost my wife in a tragic car accident, but she's the one who had started me on my path to self development. She had introduced me to Abraham Hicks. She had introduced me to The Secret, um, She introduced me into the world of self development. So that, I think, was her way of preparing me for what was to come.

Stephanie: Tell me a little bit about your wife.

Wize: Oh, Denise. She was a beautiful person. She's a beautiful soul. Everybody loved her.

Stephanie: How long were you together?

Wize: She loved to dance. Oh, From when I was 21 till I was 31. Yes.

Wize: So you said she loved to dance. What else?

Wize: She loved to dance. She had just started her career as a Zumba instructor, this is when Zumba first started coming out and she started teaching classes and getting into shape. And she found her joy, her purpose, her happy place, 'cause like I said, she enjoyed to dance and here is something that she's helping people lose weight, exercise and doing something amazing. But at the same time she's doing something she loves she's choreographing routines. She's doing all this stuff. It was great to see her doing what she loved prior to her passing.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm. And you said it was a car accident you lost her in?

Wize: Yes.

Stephanie: That's terrible. And then within a year, I understand you got some interesting news via Facebook. Tell me about that.

Wize: Yes. So probably like a year right after Denise passed. Um, I was raised by my sister and my mother. I wasn't raised by my dad, he was I don't know where he was at. Well. So I get back from Puerto Rico from spending time with my mom. We had celebrated her 70th birthday and I get back to New York and I get a message on Facebook from my sister from my father's side. And she says, "Hey, I'm looking for my brother. I want to know if you're him." I knew my sister's name I knew who she was. And I, sent the message responded to her, and I gave her my number and I was like, "Yes, I'm him. Here's my number. Call me whenever you get the chance." So she didn't read the message to the next morning. She calls me the next morning, we speak. 'Cause I remember when I was younger, my dad coming to pick me up and me spending time with my brother and sister at his place. I also have two other brothers And so we start talking and everything, she's like, " All right, so I wanna surprise for father's day, I wanna bring you to Puerto Rico." As a gift to all three of them, for my dad and my two brothers. And I was like, cool. I wasn't working at the time, I had just decided to move from Florida to New York after Denise's accident and all that. And. I was in between jobs. So I go back to Puerto Rico. I land there Father's Day weekend, Friday. I surprised my dad, he has this big smile on his face. We, uh, talk, I forgive him and, and we embrace and, and it was just a great moment.

Stephanie: How long had it been since you had seen him?.

Wize: uh, 25 years.

Stephanie: Wow.

Wize: like 25 years.

Stephanie: And what was that like to see him again?

Wize: I had already forgiven him a while ago. Like prior to seeing him. For years I was angry and when I got with Denise, she helped me let go of that anger. And so it was, it was easier for me to, when I did meet him to be able to just talk it out and not be angry and just forgive him and tell him like, listen, I forgive you. Let's just start off fresh.

Stephanie: That's really generous generous of you.

Wize: it wasn't necessarily for him though. It wasn't necessarily for him. It was for myself. People think that when you forgive someone, you're doing it for them. No, you're doing it for yourself 'cause you want to let go of that anger. You want to let go of that and just move on. It's just bringing you down. And so of course I'm never gonna forget what happened, but why continue to be angry? I moved on from that. Let's start afresh. I can be angry, but it's not gonna do me any good. It wasn't beneficial. So for me just forgiving and moving on was more for myself.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. So you meet your dad, you get there Friday night, then what?

Wize: We have a great conversation. We talk and everything. I go out with my little brother, we go out to shoot pool and have some drinks. We get home early Saturday morning. My dad had goes has, um, breakfast, is talking to my sister-in-law and me and my brother at my sister's house 'cause it was just closer for us to go there. And so my sister calls there, "Y'all need to hurry up and get to the house. Something's wrong." So by the time we get there, my dad had, um, passed away in his sleep.

Stephanie: Oh,

Wize: So it, it was just like, I couldn't, it was just like, alright, I, I just lost Denise. I just reconnect with my dad and now what? He gets taken away. And so of course I'm angry even much more angrier now, because now I'm like, what am I, why am I such a bad, horrible person that this is happening? And am I such a terrible person that you keep taking away people that mean something to me at a time that I need 'em. So I was angry. And from there I, had another, I lost one of the brothers that I reconnected to, I lost him to a drug overdose. One of my oldest brothers from my mom's, he was sick, he got real ill, passed away. A, uncle who helped raise me and an aunt who played a big part in my entrepreneurial spirit and just the way she was, the manner. And she, that she was, she passed away from cancer. My uncle passed away from a horrific accident, a crazy accident falling down stairs and it was just like so many tragedies, one by one. So I just was spiraling. I was just, self-medicating drinking, not caring about anything in the world, just down the wrong path.

Wize: But one day something just spoke to me and was like, you need to change your life. This has to, 'cause can't continue. You have to do something about this. And so I started seeking the help that I needed, started speaking to people, started working on building myself a career. I got licensed to do security in New York. So I was doing that. My friend, she had talked me into doing the dating service and things just started changing but it took me accepting the fact that I'm angry over things I had no control over. All these tragedies and all these losses were something that I had no control over and for me to continue to be angry was just hurting me, was just hindering me and stopping my growth. And so me being able to turn that and start focusing on more positive things and not doing the things that I was doing, it led me to my wife now who's an amazing person. To go to start turning my life around and started a new career at a casino and all this other stuff. Life started looking up, things started turning for the better.

Stephanie: Let me dig in there though, because I think this is one of the places where people get stuck. And so I

Wize: and Stuck in My Mind podcast.

Stephanie: there we go. I wanna understand 'cause of course, I've been certainly not the same load as you've had in your thirties, but I've had stuff happen and been down angry paths and self-destructive paths. How was it that it started bubbling up for you that something needed to change and what were the first couple of things you did that started reversing the trend of anger and self medication and the drinking?

Wize: I started speaking to someone. Yeah, it was, it was therapy.

Stephanie: It was therapy.

Wize: Yeah. It was me going to therapy and speaking to someone and letting this out. It was just getting over the fact that, Hey, listen, you need this help.

Stephanie: Yep.

Wize: You're not gonna be able to do this by yourself. There's no one you know that's been through what you've been through and all they can say to you is, "Oh, my condolences." And so for me, it was like, I need to do this. I need to go, no one came and was like, oh, we need gonna take you to go see, no, it was like, I have to do this. This is the path I need to take. And this is what I need to do to get to correct whatever's wrong.

Stephanie: Yeah. And were you fortunate to find a good fit therapist right away? Or did you have to try numerous people before you.

Wize: I found one that was really that again, it's just being able to express yourself and not being judged. That's what having a therapist is, is to be able to sit down with someone that you could, yes, you have people you can talk to and confide, and, but sometimes you sit in the back of your mind, like, are they judging me? Whereas you can just sit down with a therapist and be like, you know that this is their job. They're not judging who you are as a person, they're just here to help you overcome whatever obstacles that you have in your life.

Stephanie: I did some therapy after my dad died a few years ago and I found at one point, one of the things that was really helpful was that the therapist validated a lot of things that I was thinking. And so it was like, oh, I'm not crazy and that is supposed to hurt. And I'm not supposed to just gloss over that because it is something that's hurtful.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Wize: You have a reason to be angry. These are people that mean a lot to you. and I come from a family that family is very important to me. Like family is everything, I come from a family that growing up like holidays, we would go to people's houses on Christmas and go singing and all this other stuff. So to me, family's very important. So to have these people that were very important in my life be taken away.

Stephanie: Right.

Wize: And of course, again, I had no control over that, but when you're grieving, you don't think about that. You don't think about any of that, you're just grieving. That was my way of dealing with it. That was my way of grieving, and I'm not proud of some of the situations that it led me to, being down that path. But like I said, it made me who I am.

Stephanie: So you're doing some therapy for yourself. You're starting to feel better. And then a friend of yours from high school, I think said it's time.

Wize: Yeah. She was like, "Listen, if you don't mind, let's make you a, a dating profile on match.com." And, um, I was like, all right, cool, fine. I went on a couple of dates and they were cool and whatever, but, that's where I met my wife that I'm with now. And yeah, listen, some people had some bad experience on dating services. Some people are lucky and find the person that they're gonna marry.

Stephanie: Right. Yeah. So obviously you had a pretty good experience with it. Yeah.

Wize: I'm what is it? Eight years, nine years now. Almost 10 years or something anyway. Yeah. 9, 10 years. Yeah. We started dating like towards the end of my thirties, like 38 when I was 38, 39, something like that.

Stephanie: Okay. All right. You told me something she did early on that you thought was pretty cool.

Wize: Oh, that was the sexiest thing in the world.

Stephanie: Tell me about it.

Wize: Oh man. Uh, so I had never had a passport. It wasn't like one of the things that was on my list or whatever, cause I didn't have visions of traveling the world or any of that. When we started dating and get together, she asked me, did I have a passport? And I was like, "No,", well she's like, "Well we need to work on that 'cause I like to travel and I like to go places, so you need a passport." And to me that was like one of the sexiest things ever like, "Okay, you want a passport? All alright, we gonna go travel?" And we have, we've been to Aruba, Jamaica, Bahamas, been to Dominican Republic a few times. We're actually going back in September. We were supposed to go to Dubai, but something happened. Circumstances came out that we couldn't do it, but it's just being able to experience this with her. It's been great.

Stephanie: Well, I love that she wanted to make plans with you. She wanted to do stuff with you. That's that's pretty cool.

Wize: I thought it was, like I said, I thought it was sexy. I thought it was like, it was some grown woman stuff.

Stephanie: I love it. Yes, it is. It is. So you did the smart thing and you married that girl. Yeah. And that came with a relocation for you, right?

Wize: Yes it did. I moved to Pennsylvania.

Stephanie: And tell me a little bit about your professional road from there.

Wize: So I started, I applied for the local casino here as a, um, actually applied as a I think it was cabana boy or something like that. And one of the security supervisors saw my resume and called me in for interview. He was like, "Yo, listen, I see your resume. I know you applied for this position, but this position is 40 hours full benefits." I'm like, okay, of course, like who's not gonna jump at 40 hours compared to part-time work and as a cabana boy? So I started as security there. While doing security, I became friends with a few of the pit bosses there and they're like, "Yo, listen, the money's on this side of the table. We like you. We like your personality. You need to be on this side of the table where you're gonna definitely make more money." And so the next year they offered a blackjack class, I took it got certified and I've been dealing ever since.

Stephanie: Nice. I, um, am very, very bad at math. More than fingers and toes and I'm stuck. But I do have a little bit of a proclivity for blackjack. I kind of dig it. I'm not much of a casino goer, but I've been to Vegas a bunch of times and down to Connecticut a couple of times, and if I'm gonna do anything, I will sit down at a blackjack table. I gotta tell you my favorite time to do that is probably not the weekend, but like middle of the afternoon, quiet, a low, low dollar table because the dealers are gonna make your experience. So one, and I'm not sure if I'm overstating this, but they're gonna help you or guide you a little bit, you know, they're,

Wize: It's easy. I work, I work the four to 12 shift. I work 4:00 AM to 12:00 PM

Wize: And you kind of build more, it's easier to build rapport with a dealer then because you don't have the big crowds. You don't have all the crazy people at the table and all that. So you actually get to interact with your dealer and get to know him or her as a person. And, then sometimes you go on that run with the shoe where you're making money and you're tipping a dealer and everybody's making money. People think that the, the dealers are making all this great money and that we don't want you to win. If you come with a great attitude and just have a good time at the table, we want the table to win 'that's the only way we get tipped. That's how we make our money. We want the tips and if you're not winning, we're not making no money.

Stephanie: Right

Wize: So for people to think that we don't want them to win, they're mistaken. That's where we get our money, but people just don't know when to leave.

Stephanie: And I think, too, the dealer has the opportunity to make it a fun experience and the more fun it is, the longer you're gonna stay, even if maybe you're not winning. Right? So I have had some great, great experiences.

Wize: I recommend if can't lose the money, then don't go to the casino.

Stephanie: Of course, of course. I agree with you. That's a great baseline. If you don't have play money, then you shouldn't be there.

Wize: Don't go because yeah, because then if you lose, you're gonna get upset 'cause you shouldn't have been playing with that money. So if you're gonna go, go expecting that you're not gonna win, have good time. Take with you a couple of hundred bucks that you could probably afford to lose. Don't go and lose your rent money and lose all your, all these other, because it happens. It, it does happen.

Stephanie: Right. You do see those stories.

Wize: So for me, I love my shift because we do have regular players that come in daily or come in frequently and you build a relationship with them and they already know what kind of deal you are, you already know what kind of person that they are as far as tipping. And so there's certain players you're gonna cater to differently,

Stephanie: sure.

Wize: 'cause you know, Hey, even though when this guy's losing, he's still tipping me.

Wize: So you're gonna treat him with the utmost, you're gonna try to give him be, "Hey, how you doing? How's the family?" I'm not saying you can't have that with the other players. You don't ignore them, but at my shift, those players, you just have already built a relationship with them.

Stephanie: Absolutely. Yeah, in my world those would be your best clients, right? There's others, there's plenty of others that'll come around, but you wanna treat your best clients the best.

Wize: of course

Stephanie: As a novice too, a total novice and somebody who takes a little while to count up to 21 and 13 and those weird numbers that happen, , I've had some really great experiences with dealers who have made it fun, who have helped me with rules, who have made suggestions on, you know, somebody you might consider splitting those or, things like that, so anyway, I love it 'cause I've had some great experiences with blackjack over the years and it's pretty much the only table game that I think I've ever really played.

Stephanie: Let's now flash forward a couple of years to 2020 and the onset of the pandemic, your world shuts down.

Wize: Yes it does. My world and the rest of the world. We get furloughed from work. I'm home sitting, doing nothing, uh, collecting unemployment. I was like I said, I had already had the equipment here. I started fiddling around and then one day I just pressed record.

Stephanie: So back up two steps you had been thinking about podcasting. Tell me a little bit about the thought process. What did you think you'd do?

Wize: In 2019, me and a friend were gonna start a sports podcast and him and his girl got pregnant so that killed that 'cause of course the newborn baby, he's not gonna have time to do a podcast. So I had the equipment laying around and I would mess with it from time to time. I had already started doing the research on platforms and all that, but that had slipped my mind. And so when I get furloughed from work I started doing the research again into platforms. I had signed up for Podbean in 2019 and I've completely forgot. When I did my research again on platforms and I had signed up for Podbean again they're like "You already have an account with us, like this email already has an account."

Stephanie: That email

Wize: Oh, do I? Okay. I ended up having an account. So one day I'm just sitting here with my nephew and I finally decided to just press record. It was just that time. He had already started his YouTube career and his talk show on YouTube. So I was like, you know what, he's doing it, let me do it. Let me finally just press record.

Stephanie: And then what happened?

Wize: Stuck in My Mind podcast was born. It's funny, 'cause when I started the first episode, it was uh, Yeah welcome to Stuck in My Mind podcast. I already knew like from episode one, because I had been stuck in my mind for so long, with everything that had gone in my life. And even with now with wanting to start the podcast and making excuses, like, "I sound horrible, who'd want to listen to me? My voice is horrendous. This is crazy. I don't sound good." And then people would listen to me and they'd be like, "Yoo dude, what is wrong with you? Are you serious? You have a radio voice. You are meant to do this. What are you talking about? You who would wanna listen to you? We would. We do. We enjoy your voice." Like I had a friend say, "Yo, me and my girl were sitting down listening to you and you just mellowed us out, just calmed this down and relaxed us." And I was like, "Thank you. I guess that was a compliment. I appreciate it." But again, I guess everybody says you hate your own voice. You, you hate the way you sound to yourself. So like right now, it sounds weird. But then when I listen to the recording of myself, I'm like, okay, I get what people say,

Stephanie: It's not bad.

Wize: Not bad. It's not bad.

Stephanie: You got an alright voice for radio

Wize: It's alright. It's okay.

Stephanie: But I'm interested. You said that you pressed record, you started your podcast, you found your voice.

Wize: Yes.

Stephanie: Tell me about that.

Wize: All right. So, you know, when in life, when you're going through life, you don't know your purpose, you don't know what is it that you're here for or what you're here to do.

Stephanie: I'm quite familiar with that.

Wize: That was me. That was me. I was 44 years old. Like I said, I got furloughed from my job. I didn't really know what my purpose was. And when I finally pressed record and found that this is something different, This is, this is like just being able to be me. I was able to just express myself and talk. It was therapeutic and it was me just talking and ranting and letting out what was bothering me. And so that was cool, and I found like, alright, I like this part, but I need something different, I need, I need to do, I need to interview people. I need to know, speak to other people and see what their experience is and like, and share, have them share their stories. This is what I need to do. And so I, I sat down with a, a friend of mine, she's an entrepreneur, she had just left the casino business and started her own business. I was like, all right, Tracy's gonna be one of my first guests let's have her on. And I had her on. And of course it was learning experiences, the quality isn't that great, but I was doing it. It started with five minutes to seven minutes to 12 minutes to 20 minutes to 30 minutes to doing hour shows to even three hour shows. And then it really validated for me when someone reached out to me and said, "Yo, you're doing good. Keep it up. But maybe you should try putting the intro into your show now." And this is someone who's not a podcaster, but they listened to shows and all that. And he's like, You're pretty good, if you're serious about it, maybe you might wanna do an intro for your show." So I got an intro. I went to Fiverr got me an intro, um, I got me a logo, everything. The crazy thing was I was just uploading audio, uploading audio. I wasn't titling episodes, I wasn't putting descriptions. I wasn't putting hashtags, I wasn't doing any of that. I was getting a couple little downloads here and there, it was mostly friends from work that knew I started a podcast and they was supporting. But then when I started networking with people and talking to other podcasters and building relationships with them, they were like, "Yo, you might want to put a description in your show notes, or you might wanna put a thumbnail up, put something to help people know what, what you're offering on this podcast.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Wize: And I was like, "Okay, alright." Started working on that, building that up. I got Canva and I just started working on building my podcast. Like I started doing the things that I wasn't doing before. And the numbers started growing. People who would prior to that, I would've ask people to be a guest and their first question was, "What's your numbers? How many downloads do you have?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I just started out. I don't... just new, I'm I'm green." Nah, no, thank you. But then a couple of them turned to yes, so you start building it up and you start building your audience to the point where now people start reaching out to you. "I would love to be a guest on your show. I heard this episode, I think I have something to offer your audience" and me like, Wow. I go from people telling me "No kid, here you go. Get outta here, shoo, beat it." Like to people now sending me messages, to this year actually having Bob Doyle on my show. So he he's a big contributor to The Secret. He was a big part of the documentary and part of the book and to have him on my show and have somebody from his representation reach out to me and say, "Hey, Bob Doyle would like to be a guest on your show." That's the same look I had. That was like, what, like what? Huh? Who, like, I knew who he was. So when they were like, "Yeah, Bob Doyle would like to be a..." I'm like, "Oh, Hey yeah, yes, yes, no, no problem. When would when would Bob Doyle like to be a...", so to be able to have him on my show, like I said, I was introduced into The Secret 2005, 2006, whenever it came out and to have someone from that and know who he is and follow him throughout the years, again, being an independent podcaster that doesn't have these connections that don't know these people, and not knowing about podcasting, just fresh. Kind of like how you are now fresh, not knowing anything, to where I'm at now, where I'm having Bob Doyle on my show.

Stephanie: Wild. That's wild.

Wize: Being an independent podcast, that's those are the things you dream about. These are the guests that you're like, "Oh man, this is amazing."

Stephanie: Tell people about The Secret. You've mentioned it a couple of times. I'm familiar, but I wanna make sure other people who listening are

Wize: It's, uh, the, the law of attraction. People want to, look at a different, like, for me, anything that I use in my life is because I feel that it has value to me. Everybody might recommend a book and it might work wonders for them. And then you come and read it and you're like, "Nah, it's not my cup of tea." And there's certain things in The Secret that it's just not my cup of tea, and there's just certain things like that made sense, and some of the things that Bob Doyle spoke to me about made sense. It's basically the law of attraction and how we manifest what goes on. But people, when they think of manifestation, they think that that just gonna sit there and think about it and it's gonna pop up. They're not realizing that you need to put action towards these things.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Wize: Like you can put your vision board up and have that help you, but if you're not putting an action towards it, you're not gonna see the results. So it's, yes, it's good to visualize and think about, but you also have to put in action. You have to put the work in order for the universe to let you know, like, "All right. I see that you're worthy of it now. Here you go."

Stephanie: I was also a fan of The Secret way back in the early two thousands. And it's interesting that you followed one of the contributors to that because I followed another one. Mike Dooley is

Wize: Oh yes. Listen, I love Mike Dooley. I get his emails every day.

Stephanie: The Tut, The Adventurers Club. Me, too.

Wize: The Tut yes. I love Tut Adventures. See. So yes, I love Mike Dooley.

Stephanie: Well, it's funny 'cause saying that one of these guys reached out to you and said, "I'd like to be a guest on your podcast" and I'm thinking to myself, "Would there ever be a day that Mike Dooley would reach out to me and say, I wanna tell you about when I turned 40" so maybe yeah, let's put it out there. Let's put it out there see what

Wize: It might happen. Mike Dooley, if you're listening to this, reach out to Stephanie and tell her you want to be on her show. We're speaking it into existence, make this happen.

Stephanie: Right. I love it. So podcasting has become your purpose.

Wize: Yes,

Stephanie: You like talking about people overcoming obstacles, talk a little bit about that.

Wize: Well, it is crazy, 'cause everyone has their story. It's like my story is not better than anyone but the thing is it's my story. And so I felt like, let me speak to some of these people from all walks of life. I've spoke to entertainers, authors, entrepreneurs, high school friends of mine. One of my best friends. I've had another friend of mine who jumped into the realm of politics. I've had all types of people on. Everyone has a story to share. Everybody has a life experience they've gone through. So I just felt like, listen, everyone has a story to share, share your life. And yeah, you're here to promote whatever your book, whatever it is. Yes, we're here to do that, but I also want my audience to get to know you as a person, get to know that you're a regular person and you're doing some amazing things regardless of what's happened in your life. So, yeah, that's why I love doing my podcast.

Stephanie: Yeah, that's one of the things I love about doing this as well. I'm focusing on a certain time period in people's lives that transition around age 40, that so many people go through. Generally the decade between 35 and 45 and I don't know, I hope someday this accumulation of episodes will turn into almost a roadmap for how to go through it gracefully or maybe easier than a lot of us went through it. Right. Learn from learn from our stories.

Wize: So make the roadmap,

Stephanie: yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wize: You make the roadmap you've done what, 30 something episodes you said?

Stephanie: Just coming up on 30.

Wize: So you have a lot of content with 30 episodes, that's a lot of content and I'm sure some of your guests drop some gems.

Stephanie: Oh, I mean, almost every single one has dropped some real gold nuggets in my lap. I gotta tell you.

Wize: So you have the roadmap, like what are you gonna do with those nuggets now? The point is now you have to go back and use those nuggets.

Stephanie: Right. That's right. Put 'em

Wize: And feed it.

Stephanie: Here's the way I'm approaching it, and this is, I think, in alignment with The Secret and the things that we've been talking about: every episode I'm looking at as another brick in the wall of the foundation that I'm building that is this podcast, that is this effort. And what is the roadmap? I'm not sure just yet, but I'm okay with that because I'm building the foundation and collecting the evidence and collecting the content that will become whatever that roadmap is or whatever that content is that I'll put together at some point. The whole premise of The Secret and manifesting your destiny was,it's not all about just looking at the vision board or sitting and wishing the way Mike Dooley says it is you co-create with the universe. And so I feel like every one of these episodes is another step forward, another brick in the foundation. I'm building the foundation that I hope will take this to the next level.

Wize: And that's how you gotta continue to do it. Keep building the bricks and keep building foundation. Cause like at this point in time everybody's into instant gratification. What we're doing, there's no instant gratification. You have to build up what we're doing. You have to build up your audience. I'm working with a good friend. And um, he's become a mentor to me and he's The Entrepreneur Podcast and he's offered me his services to call me set up schedules. He says, "I'm willing to sit down and work with you 'cause I see that you're dedicated to this and I love to see people like you, and I wanna see people like you succeed." And so he was like, "Everybody's worried about numbers and doing all this, getting 10 million followers. All you really truly need is a thousand loyal listeners who are willing to part with $10 a month for subscriptions to something that you're offering,"

Stephanie: Sure.

Wize: He says, "Y'all just don't understand like what you have in front of y'all with the audience that y'all have right now, even though it's small, but they're loyal, they continue to come back. Those are the ones you need to nurture," 'cause eventually they're gonna be like, "Hey, yo, you need to really come check this podcast out. This person is dope." So sitting down and speaking to him about it was like, okay, makes sense. it made sense hearing it from someone else and like really thinking about it. Like, this is true. If you get a specific amount of loyal listeners that'll come support you, buy merch, do this, buy a book if you publish a book and release it. It just takes a thousand. He says that's all it takes. He says, "It's simple, but it's not easy."

Stephanie: Right. Because it's gotta be real. It's gotta be true. And right. I'm just building another brick in the wall, I'm just building my foundation and then the plans for world domination will come later.

Wize: Oh, yes. It's already started.

Stephanie: All right. Tell me

Wize: For me, because people they're worried about monetizing their podcasts, oh, I need sponsors and all that. But there's other ways you can find for you to help monetize yourself, your brand, you. I've learned how to edit episodes. I've learned how to edit videos. These are skills that I've developed doing my own podcast. It's something that a lot of people do not like to do. So I offer my services. I be like, "Hey, I'm willing to edit your podcast here is my fee."

Stephanie: Yeah,

Wize: Then you get the right person. They're willing to pay it because they don't wanna edit their podcast.

Stephanie: Right. Yeah. There's so many directions you could go. Yeah.

Wize: Yes.

Stephanie: All right. So tell me this. Let's circle back around to 40. You're 46 now.

Wize: Yes.

Stephanie: Tell me how you feel in your forties that's different from how you felt in your thirties.

Wize: Uh, I, I know where I want to go.

Wize: I know where I'm at. I mean, I know my direction now. I I know my lane. I know what I'm here to do. I'm here to help people. For me, it's like my podcast has given me a purpose because now I'm able to reach people that I probably wasn't able to reach prior to podcasting. So now being able to have that voice and have people listen to a episode and be like, "Thank you, I needed to hear that." Me and a friend of mine from high school, we recorded an episode. He's a successful real estate agent in Brooklyn. We just had a great conversation on manifestation, goal setting and all this other stuff. And a friend of ours from high school heard the episode, sent me a message and was like, "Thank you. I needed to hear that episode because I needed to hear two guys that I grew up with talking about manifestation, goal setting, starting your own business, doing these things. And I was on the fence about starting my own business. But now I see two guys that I grew up with talking about this and doing it. Why can't it be me?" And for them to have that feeling, that's what I want, to me, that's success. It doesn't matter the money or any of that. It's the fact that I'm impacting people's lives. I'm touching someone's life. I touch someone to the point where now they have a business of their own 'cause they saw two of people that they grew up with talk about it and show that you can do it.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Wize: It's led me to wanting to go into speaking. This is something that probably couple of years ago, three, four years ago, if you would've told me I wanted to be a public speaker or motivational speaker or whatever, I'm like, are you kidding me? But now, I did my first speaking engagement in March and it was by accident. A guest on the show asked me to speak uh, at women's event. And I came and spoke and that was my true first speaking engagement. That made me realize I can do this. Wow, this is another lane I can get into that is purpose driven. I can touch other people's lives by coming to speak to them live, or through Zoom or whatever it is. Again, I'm doing it already with my podcast, why not be able to do it as a motivational speaker, whatever.

Stephanie: cool. Very cool. Well, listen Wize, I've enjoyed talking to you so much. I thank you for joining me on my podcast, and before we go tell people where they can find yours.

Wize: You could find my podcast, Stuck in My Mind Podcast, on all major platforms, just type in Stuck in My Mind Podcast. You can find me on YouTube at Stuck in My Mind Podcast. And yeah, I'm on every major platform.

Stephanie: Awesome. Well, I will definitely be checking you out and I hope other folks do as well.

Wize: Oh, what I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it here on live so people can... I need you to be a guest on my podcast.

Stephanie: Oh Really?

Stephanie: Oh, I'd love to.

Wize: Listen, I'm all about the cross promotion. I love collaborating with other podcasters, so yes, I am extending you a offer here on the air like when people hear like I am extending you an offer to come chill at, Stuck in My Mind Podcast.

Stephanie: I love it and I accept your offer. We don't have to do the schedule comparing while other people are listening, we can do that after we close the episode, but I thank you so much. I am honored and I look forward to it.

Wize: Well, It's to help you as well, grow like that. As a podcaster, you need to go on other podcast. That's that's one thing I suggest. If you're gonna be a podcaster to grow your audience, you need to go and do other podcasts. So start networking, start talking to people. I am big on networking. Network with people, connect with other podcasters and do other shows.

Stephanie: I love it. Wize, thanks so much.

Wize: Thank you for having me.