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Mic check 1212. This is exciting times, ladies and gentlemen. We have just hit record on the
first episode zero of I Will Not Lose podcast. So what are you listening to? Who am I? I'll be
your host, Tony Ortiz. I'm a marketing entrepreneur, father of two, a wrestler, I'm a gamer,
I'm a techie, I'm somewhat of a philosopher, although I don't care too much about philosophy.
I think it adds a lot of questions to things that we probably shouldn't be questioning that we don't
have an answer to. So this podcast isn't going to be spending a whole bunch of time, but there will
be some thought experiments, things like that. Just to get it out of the way, I have to shout
out a few very important people that helped me get everything started. I'm going to start in order of
really just timeline, not really importance. Nobody's more important than another.
But I want to shout out Ionav Arts. It's A-I-N-A-I-A-N-A-V Arts. I'll throw up the tag on there. That's V Alvarado. She definitely supported doing a podcast, told me that there is hope for people wanting to hear my voice and long form content. So she helped me believe in myself and put this together.
Once I decide I'm going to do something, I really start to formulate it for a while.
So trying not to suffer too much from perfectionism.
I knew this wasn't going to be perfect when we started, but I'll be damned if I would
have thought we would have got this far as fast as we did.
So big shout out to everyone who believed in me.
Big shout out to Jay Palos, audio engineer.
I like to reach out to my network when I'm going to do something.
And I just said, look, you know, I got this crazy idea.
I'm going to start a podcast.
why don't we figure out what kind of equipment let's walk through this you know I um shared a
job with uh audio video with Jay and he was able to pick me out with the Samsung SM57 and SM58s
um but that didn't help me because all I knew was which mic I needed to get I didn't actually
have the mic just yet and I didn't plan on putting any budget into a podcast as of a week ago but
Then I reached out to my buddy, Johnny Melendez. Big shout out to Johnny Melendez. This has been
my best friend since maybe kindergarten. And we used to spend some time in the studio. For those
of you who don't know me, I had a background as a rapper, which seems like such a long life ago
that I didn't even mention it in my Who Am I? But we spent a lot of time in his basement building
out multiple studios. So I knew if I needed to do this, he was the guy to do it. So I called him up.
he said, oh yeah, I got an SM57 and an SM58. So I was like, that's great. I want to start this.
When do you think he could do it? He said, I'll be there in about three hours. So we came down,
we realized we needed an interface, came and found, ran to Guitar Center and found this used
Tascam. I think it sounds pretty good. I mean, it's got a warranty on it. So hey, fuck it.
So what made me decide to actually go and do this? Well, there was a lot of thought that went
into it. I'm currently a full-time creative entrepreneur, so I don't have time to do it.
I know the respect for the game and the equipment that's necessary, so I don't have the equipment
to do it. And then I said, you know what? All of these things, if I don't set the goal to be the
next Joe Rogan, I really can't lose. If I get five viewers that listen into my thoughts, this is a
success. So started formulating on the idea, I will not lose. So I said, let me say I'm going
to do this without a title. Let's go over some failed names for the podcast. Let's see. This
was going to be Drop the Mic Podcast. But that's obviously taken. Then I was like, all right,
Respect the Mic. Yeah, let's do Respect the Mic Podcast. Turns out that is two gentlemen in Great
Britain, I believe, have a podcast, Respect the Mic. So big shout out, love the name.
From there, it was like, okay, how do I tie some sort of hip hop in? I am a huge hip hop
enthusiast, although I did make the hard decision not to make this focus completely on hip hop and
hip hop culture, even though it's a huge part of me. That's where I started listening to a Trap
remix and they sampled the Jay-Z quote, I will not lose. I said, ah, you know what? I like that.
Let me see if I can build something off of that. So we hit Google and wow, doesn't exist. There's
a not lose podcast, but there is no, I will not lose. So without committing to being hip hop and
trying to get a sample cleared from Jay-Z, trust me, my mind started going with, I will not lose.
I started to think that, you know, if you don't have, I don't want to say if you don't have a
goal, because it's always important to have goals, but sometimes it's better to set your goal at 50%.
And when you get to 50%, set it to 70% instead of trying to set it for 150%. Because then even
if you hit 120%, you're still going to be like, man, I fell short of my goal. So the idea of
falling short of a goal, the idea of failure is an interesting one to me because you don't learn
anything from successes. You learn everything from failures. And as I'm going and consuming
content over the week, I'm like, wow, there's all these stories of people. Everybody wants to hear
Elon Musk about how he launched the spaceship to Mars and recolonized a new planet and saved
humanity. But nobody wants to hear about the failures that he had before PayPal and before
is entrepreneurial success. I do. I think that's great. So I started thinking, who do I know?
I didn't want this to be a guest-oriented podcast, but you can tell from my setup that
there's just too many great stories. There's too many successes of people who have failed
of something. I really think we can create content for years, if not decades, just based off the idea
of changing the perspective, changing the mind state of when you have a failure, what can I
learn from it immediately? So yeah, I will not lose podcasts. Stories of successes learn from
failures. We'll come up with catchy stuff and we'll start growing and we'll figure it all out
from there. Once I decided I wanted to do it, I started flipping my basement, clearing things out,
making room to build a studio simply because I had a dream the night before that I did it.
And when I woke up and didn't have a studio, I was really upset and I just couldn't sit well.
So got everything together, said, hey, I need a logo. My background is in graphic design and
video. So I said, I do have some of the skills to not have to outsource all of this. So I started
on the logo. It was a microphone. You're not going to believe me because you're never going to see
it, but I had a microphone with the cartoon flame coming out of it and wings. And it was like a
trophy. And it was like, I will not lose. And it had the text all sick. And then I showed it to my
boy, Johnny. He's the only one that's ever seen it. He's like, nah, that's pretty sweet, but let's
get these audio drivers together. So I download the audio drivers for the Tascam. It asked me to
restart. And I don't even think, I've just been designing this logo for two, three hours. I didn't
even save. So I restart my computer and I go to launch the logo, all gone. And I'm not recreating
it. So I said, all right, here's my chance to really figure out what it was. It's right now
about 1230. Now it's 1.15 PM. I got up slightly after 12. This is the longest I ever slept in
because I was just up till two or three last night working on logos, putting some things together. So
let me know what you guys think. I will not lose logo. All right. So now we got the equipment. We
got the area. We got the logo. We don't quite have all the camera, the things we need, but we have
enough to start record. Do I really want to do this? Who am I to be an orator? Who am I to have
a voice that I think people would care to listen to? But then I thought that's the wrong mentality.
It doesn't matter who would listen. You're listening right now. You have to understand
and that means the world to me. So it is up to me to provide quality content and give you a reason
to listen and come back. I'm going to shoot for about 20 to 25 minutes per podcast in the
beginning, and eventually it'll evolve into something long form. But I have to see which
interviews hit. I have to start somewhere and see what works. And I will be reading comments. I will
be reading things. If you had a negative comment and you're telling me to go screw myself, well,
good luck. I have a complete, complete barrier against other people's opinion. I mean, in fact,
it's to a fault. I really don't care what people think of me, but I do prefer that they think
highly of me. So if I'm droning on and this is completely boring, please pass it on to somebody
who may care for it or just tell me. And I will, within character, make some changes to make this
what you want to be, who you want to see, stories you want to hear. What can we talk about? Well,
obviously I can talk forever about the things that I love, gaming, hip hop, tech. And part of me even
said, hey, if I can't get a bunch of great interviews and I can't make a huge I Will Not
Lose success podcast, then I'll just make a gaming channel called I Will Not Lose and I'll bust your
ass in some Halo Infinite. So I really cannot lose because I didn't set myself up with any goals to
to fail at. That doesn't mean that I'm just going to hit record and talk. Trust me. I didn't go and
flip an entire area and build a podcast studio and stay up late just to hit record and rant.
But the ability to be able to do it and do it well and have it sound good is very important to me. So
I will be working from notes. There will be some structure, although it's malleable at this time.
I will be waiting to hear what you guys want to hear as a final content.
Other than that, if I forgot you in the shout outs, then I'm sorry, but there's still opportunity
to sponsor the next episode, be a guest, shoot an idea for some sort of guests.
What sort of things do I need?
I need a few adapters, but for the most part, I got the basics.
We got two mics.
We got some things.
We will have sponsorship availability for areas like the green screen here in the back.
We'll be able to throw some different things up.
So I'm excited.
I'm excited.
Oh, last shout out.
I forgot.
Nice Jones and Mr. Bedalis over there at Empower 610 podcast.
That, I will tell you, was the final straw that made me say I'm going to do this.
And I listened to their podcast.
they dropped it six days before the pilot. Go on YouTube and search Empower 610. I'll see if I
could throw a thumbnail up in post. But these guys just went ahead and did it. And I said,
man, now I really have no excuse. I would have been sitting here trying to perfect this idea
for at least the next six months to two years. And by that time, I don't even know if the wave
would have been there for podcasts. Trust me, I don't think these are going anywhere. I don't
think podcasts are going anywhere. I think they're here to stay. But that being said,
it's really a disrespect to the platform to say, all right, well, I'm just going to hop on a
computer mic or look, I have all love for everybody that just goes out and does it.
Big shout out to Emilio Mills at the Mills edition. He's an influencer who's now got IMDB
profiles. He's been in commercials. He's done all sorts of things. And his first big video for views
was about how to put your emojis in Snapchat. And he had over 60,000 views and he recorded it on his
cell phone in his kitchen with a painting as the backdrop. So look, I'm not going to tell you to go
and wait and have everything perfect. But at the end of the day, I've been a content creator for
15 years now. And there's a level of quality that's going to be expected from me. I'm just
not allowed to just wing it. So I hope you guys can understand that I'm not going to let my
perfectionist make this not happen. But at the same time, I do care very much for quality. This
is for you. This is in service of you. So with that, what else do I need? I could use a blessing
or some sort of, you know, shout out to my cousin, Kaylin. She's going to hook me up with some
potions that I can kind of make this, get the mojo going in this place, get some spirituality.
I will probably hit up V for some sort of crystals. It's just, we got a blank slate right
here. We got a gray table and a backdrop and two mics. You'll see from this setup, I am a minimalist,
but I still think we could put some cool stuff right there. So I'm open to suggestions.
Let's see, where are we at right now? I don't quite know how to tell how long I've been potting,
so we're going to wrap it up in just a second. But a couple of the guests that I do have,
just to give you something to look forward here on this, I have some confirmed things
from a few people. I have a gentleman that spent 17 years in federal prison and has come out to
make a success of himself running businesses and certain things. So to be able to go and make that
sort of a flip from the street and flip it into becoming a corporate success, I think is an
absolute story that people need to hear. So I'm going to hold him in the pocket for a little bit.
We do got Gil Thompson. He doesn't know it yet, but he's going to be on the guest. No, I joke.
I would never just set somebody up or put their business out there, but he was one of the people
that believed in me and said, hey, you should go and start this podcast. And I initially wanted to
start it to promote his album, which is Writing to Heal. Don't quote me on the exact drop date.
I want to say October 24th. It's one month from today. You know what? He just posted. And it's
September 24th. Look at that. So I'm going to go out on a whim and say October 24th, Writing to
Heal will be dropping. I'll see if I can drop that graphic up. Now, you know what? I'm not going to
drop the graphic because I don't know if he's released it yet. So we will release the graphic
on the episode when we talk about what went into the album cover and things like that.
I got a gentleman who is a good friend of mine, Robert Spierko. I gave him a call and said,
you know, we've had so many conversations, two, three hours on end. It's usually one of our wives
waiting for us to finish talking when we leave, whenever we hang out. So why on earth wouldn't we
get onto a mic. And he says, well, don't you need like a studio? I often thought about that
and I just didn't know how to do it. Bingo. It hit me. I've been spending my life learning audio
engineering, setting up countless studios. I'll see if I can find in my Google drive and I'll
throw it up. Us setting up at a Nick Fedora's studio when we had the, we literally had a mic
stand connected to the garage door opener and it would hang down and there'd be a windshield that
blocked it from the mic so there's no feedback and we do live performances in his garage with
some kids and uh girls would come over and stuff that was really fun but you know for the past 10
years i've been breaking down and setting up makeshift studios so if i could do that and
provide an outlet for somebody like a bob spirko whose voice just needs to be out to the world
there's nobody this man can't have a conversation with so i think it'd be very important to give
give other people a voice. So this podcast is not about me. It doesn't make sense to just be about
me. All right. So other things we can do with the content, with the content, let's see. Well,
it is a video podcast, so you'll be able to see guests. It will just be me sometimes. So I'm
going to have to see if I can hold an audience without having a guest. That was really big for
me being able to start this. At the very least, even if I never release this and never put a
piece out, being able to talk things out in long form, being able to listen to the recordings,
being able to see if I'm speaking too fast or too slow, this is a form of therapy for me.
So I really cannot, will not, and shall not lose. So I'm approaching about 20 minutes right now.
i don't have a topic other than what's been going on but some of the things i will be discussing
i just have to get it out there um not necessarily things going on with pop culture
but things going on maybe in different industries or successes these successes don't have to
necessarily be things learned from failures of a specific individual these could be things learned
from the failure of a company, a failed product. It could be a failed marketing campaign. I really
think that if you flip your perspective to always think that you can find a success out of
everything, then I think you'll be ready to be an avid listener of this podcast and see how we find
creative ways to flip the bright side, the silver lining, the light at the end of the tunnel when
everything comes through. So this has been, I will not lose. We'll call it episode zero.
There may be an episode 0.1, 0.2. Bean, come here. Come on. Be my first sponsor.
Come here, baby. You're scared of the camera too? All right. I got an all white pit terrier
slightly off camera. You want to come say hi? Yeah. Come say hi. They want to see you, baby.
Yeah. Hey, you're going to not chew my stuff. You're not chew my equipment. Yeah. You're going to not bark while I'm recording. You're the best. All right. This is Tony Ortiz, your host. I will not lose episode zero. Be safe.