We were lucky to catch up with Jesse Blount recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jesse, appreciate you joining us today. What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your career and how did you resolve those issues?

One of the most unexpected things that I came across when I started podcasting was that I didn’t know I was going to be a podcaster. My very first idea for an entrepreneurial adventure was to be a karaoke DJ and a music DJ. When I started that adventure, I had nothing. I had no music, no speakers, no microphones, nothing. So I decided to open a GoFundMe page and hope that people would just give me money. Obviously, that didn’t work out the way I hoped. I think I only got a couple hundred dollars in a couple of months, and that was probably my mother giving me a few dollars just to make me feel better about what I was doing.

At that point, instead of just giving up and putting it aside, I decided to think a little bit and ask myself why it didn’t work. After that thought, I realized that I could get my word out about what I was trying to accomplish by starting a podcast. As I was learning about how to podcast, I realized how much I loved podcasting more than anything else, so I decided to put the karaoke business aside just for a bit and concentrate more on the podcasting. And I have yet to look back. I still would like to do my karaoke thing someday, but for now, I’m having such a great time learning about other people, other businesses, and how I can help others. I’m actually glad that I failed as a karaoke and a music DJ because I never would have been podcasting and helping people like I’ve helped them over the last two years.

Jesse, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Jesse Blount, but most people know me as DJ Skoob, the host of the Undiscovered Entrepreneur podcast. I am a podcaster with a lot of emotion and energy to help other people as much as possible learn about entrepreneurship and how to start their own business. I can sum myself up in three short sentences: I can, I am, I will, and I’m doing it today. I’m also what you might call a workaholic because I work two full-time jobs on top of podcasting and entrepreneur coaching. I keep quite busy most of the time, but my priority is always about my family.

I do my best to solve many types of problems, but the ones I concentrate most on are fear and failure: how we perceive fear and failure in current society and how we think about them on a daily basis. Personally, I don’t see fear or failure as bad things. I learned how to podcast through failure. By following my fears into something that I was not sure how to do or I thought I could not do, I was able to put something together that was incredible and reach out to people I never thought possible. If it wasn’t for my fears and failures, I would never be where I’m at today.

I try to instill that thinking in everybody that I meet because it’s important for us to know that we can do much more than we think we can. It’s not just about failing and fearing failure, but learning from those things that make us human.

I feel that it is my job to give a voice to people that are just getting started. When I was growing up and when I was learning how to become an entrepreneur, I don’t feel anybody gave me a proper chance when I was starting. Nobody would listen to me, nobody would give me the time of day to introduce myself and what I believed in. So in turn, I want to be able to give new entrepreneurs that possibility of being on a platform and being heard; to not have to go through years and years of experience before anybody will even take a look at them and possibly discover them. And that’s the whole reason why I call my podcast the Undiscovered Entrepreneur.

As a Doing It Today coach, I try to instill encouragement to move along with ideas that they are unsure of but know in their hearts can help a lot of people. At the same time, I try to help with my entrepreneur knowledge and experiences that I’ve had over three years of solid research, listening to books and podcasts eight hours a day every day. With the combined knowledge of all the people that I listened to, I use that information to help people in their entrepreneur adventure and get to the next level with a touch of humor, a dash of constructive criticism, and a huge helping of faith and believing in you.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

In the last three years, I have read an overabundance of books, listened to huge amounts of podcasts all the way through, and gained experiences from starting my own podcast and entrepreneurial adventure. One of the first people I actually followed was a gentleman named Pat Flynn. I discovered him as I was looking for YouTube videos on how to start a podcast and what the technical information that I needed. He opened up a whole new world for me, not just in podcasting, but in learning how to market myself, how to make videos, and how to present myself to new people. Currently, he has over 700 episodes on his podcast, and I have listened to every single one of them. He also wrote one of the most influential books that I have used in my entrepreneurial adventure, called “Will It Fly”. This book gave me a blueprint of how to start a business, test ideas before spending way too much time and money, and then avoid failing.

Another influential person that came into my life was Cliff Ravenscraft, who I met through an interview that Pat Flynn had on his podcast ” Smart Passive Income”. I started following him and accidentally ran into him in a Twitter space. I got to talk to him personally and learn who he was and what he was about, and realized that he was doing what I wanted to do. So I asked him for advice several times, talking to him on Twitter spaces and in Clubhouse. I finally got the gumption to ask him to be on my podcast, of which he readily agreed. While on my podcast, he mentioned a book that would change my life forever: a book called “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks. This book made me realize that all the problems and pitfalls that I had been experiencing from self-sabotage and basically falling flat on my face after something good happened, were because I could not raise my level of love and abundance for my life. This book gave me the path to be able to do that, and I have never looked back since. Both of these books greatly impacted my life, and I suggest them to anybody who is not only starting a business but wants a huge change in their life for the positive.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

One of the biggest things that’s helping me build my reputation within the market is just being honest. Not just honest to the people that are around me, but honest to myself and what things mean to me. For the longest time growing up, I had to lie to myself about worrying about other people and what they thought of me. I was not being honest with my true emotions and boundaries. I did not worry about my mental health, even though I knew that it was probably not the best move in the world. Before you can be honest with anybody else in your world, you have to make sure that you’re honest with yourself. If you can’t believe yourself, nobody’s going to believe you.

Being realistic in your thoughts and your emotions and being vulnerable is okay. People seeing the real you is what’s going to build your reputation in the market, not just in podcasting but in entrepreneurship in general. People can tell when you hide your feelings, and they can feel the negative emotions that you have in yourself. It’s going to generate negative feelings and vibes all around you that other people can feel. Being true to your authentic self is one of the best ways to build a reputation for your brand and market.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tuepodcast.net/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uepodcast2021/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SkoobAmI
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dj-skoob-03581873/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/djskoob2021
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@UndiscoveredEntrepreneurStartu?si=LnB1Ad4k9rWafGgX