What Pain Are You Solving? Guests, Free Advice and the Socratic Method | The Impossible Puzzles Show, Episode 248

This is the complete interview from Richard Lowe’s third regular appearance on The Impossible Puzzles Show with Mike Merkur, episode 248, recorded September 29, 2026, presented in full and lightly edited for readability.

Why take a four-day work week and switch off on weekends?

Mike Merkur: Welcome back, everyone, to the Impossible Puzzles Show. It’s episode 248. We’re saying hi once again to the lovely Richard Lowe Jr. Did you just say that you have nothing else scheduled today? The man with all those books? I better, you know, shower and shave with Richard here. How are we doing in life? What’s up?

Richard Lowe: We’re doing pretty good. Life is good. Busy, busy, busy.

Mike Merkur: Did you admit, clandestinely or secretly or openly, that you have nothing else scheduled for today? I’ve never heard anyone say anything like that. I’ve always heard the, “Oh, I’m so busy and I have to go,” and then the person sticks around for an hour, you know.

Richard Lowe: No, I schedule Mondays as a day off from now on. I have a four-day work week.

Mike Merkur: That is very smart. I was saying to a few people the other day, “Yeah, Friday night till Saturday night, no phone, no car, no computer, disconnect.” And they’re like, “What?” And I’m like, “Trust me, take a break. You’ll kill yourself and get nowhere.”

Richard Lowe: Unless they’re a paying customer, they don’t get an answer over the weekend.

Mike Merkur: You’ve learned to shut things down.

Richard Lowe: Yep. Yep. Just shut it off. Go do something else. Clear my mind. That’s what I do.

Mike Merkur: Fascinating. Fascinating. And how have things been? What are you at now?

Richard Lowe: I’m at 113+ books that I’ve written and 54+ books that I’ve ghostwritten.

Mike Merkur: You have more books written than I have puzzles discovered. Like, Jewish memory puzzles. And these do not take a hundred hours to figure out. Okay, maybe one took like three hours. You have written more human readable…

Richard Lowe: And none of them were short. These are not 50-page books. These are usually around 200 to 300 pages. One of them is 768 pages.

Mike Merkur: You have a crazy work ethic. You’re taking neurodiversity to a new height.

Richard Lowe: The 768-page version was 769 pages, but the limit that you can have in KDP is 768.

Does a ghostwriting client ever reread the finished book?

Mike Merkur: I was talking to someone the other day and they’re like, “Oh, it’s so hard to get to 100 episodes over five years.” And I’m like, “Five years?” Well, if you do one every other week, that averages, let’s say, 20 a year. Five years, 100 episodes. And I’m like, I’ve been doing it for five months. And they’re like, really? And I’m like, well, I don’t have an assistant who spends four hours editing it. When I do it, there’s an expectation that right when it’s done, or an hour or two later once Google processes the recording, I release it as is. Raw, unedited.

What’s with all these polishings and after-productions? And the same with books. You write it, you give it a once-over, and it’s good to go. You’re not one who spends hours hovering over and worrying over every word.

Richard Lowe: No, my clients do that. I spend hours on my own books. I usually make two or three passes on my own books, and then I format them, proofread them, do all the usual stuff, publish them, and then move on. I don’t think I’ve gone back and read one of my books since I published it. That’s the 113+. The 54+, that’s the clients, and they hover. Sometimes they just, like one I have now, she’s like, “Oh, I like it,” and she’ll never read it again. Another one, he’s read the book like 15 times. I had to tell him, “Look, pass it on to the editor.

That’s what editors are for. You’re getting into diminishing returns.” And he still read it a few more times. He still hasn’t sent it to the editor, but he’s going to. I think he’s probably going through it again. But the contract is done, so I’m out of the loop at least.

Mike Merkur: I’ve learned in life that it’s not only podcasts, it’s also people or events. Do it. Some things come out good, some things come out bad, but move on. I’ve had people come in and out of my life, and I’m like, look, there’s a thousand people at any one time. I can’t remember. Someone’s like, but you said this three months ago. And I’m like, well, that was three months ago.

Richard Lowe: Exactly.

Mike Merkur: And we’re living in an interesting time.

Richard Lowe: No kidding.

What happens when a ghostwriting client runs the revision through AI?

Mike Merkur: For many reasons. One of the things that I think is super interesting is you have these meetings and people are putting these AI recorders or transcribers on, or taking their phone and secretly putting it next to their computer. You can see them doing it. And I have five kids. I’m doing these puzzle designs, the podcast, there are other presentations constantly going on. I can’t keep track of every idea or concept or conversation. And then there are sticklers, people who listen to a recording of me over and over again, and they’re like, “You said this, and I’m hanging on to this.” And I’m like, no.

What are your experiences when you’re dealing with these different characters in life? You’ve got to be careful these days. All sorts of crazies.

Richard Lowe: I get higher level people, meaning they’re generally corporate, at a certain high level, so they’re not as much that way. I had one of the Leaders and Their Stories guests who asked for several changes, and I was fine with it. I can’t change the video. She said, “Yeah, but the transcript has this and this and this. Please cut it out.” So I did, and that was fine. I usually don’t do editing on those, but if it’s a simple request and it’s polite, I’m happy to do it.

Out of all the podcasts I’ve done, I haven’t run into the picky person who picks it to death yet. Now, on the client side, occasionally, like I said, and my contract protects me from that. I allow one full revision of the book, and as we go, we revise each chapter. So they can revise each chapter as much as they want, but when we hit the end, they get one full revision. What drives me crazy is when they take that revision and they drive it through AI, and AI tells them, “Well, this book should say this and this and this and this,” and it’s AI crap.

That gets frustrating, because then I have to explain what AI slop means and why AI is wrong. Sometimes it’s right, but I have to explain why I wrote it the way I wrote it. And my contract protects me there, too. If they run it through AI, I don’t have to make those kinds of changes. That’s not on me.

Should a podcast guest get free advertising?

Mike Merkur: Yeah, I totally hear you. I’ve gotten used to it over time, but I’ve had this thing where someone books a podcast, and then maybe they have to cancel, or I have to cancel. And I’m like, all right, let’s book another time. And then there are people who are like, “I based my whole Wednesday around the podcast, and I’m really angry with you.” And I’m like, what the… Sorry to those who are watching this, and not to name any names. Or other things, like, “That was a great episode. I would like you to edit out that section and this section before you release it.”

And I’m like, I already released it.

Richard Lowe: The answer to that, unless they’re super polite and very easygoing about it, is no. It’s just no.

Mike Merkur: Yeah. And we have similar experiences. For you I guess it’s coming more from the book revisions and also the podcast experiences, where you have quite a high volume and it’s very hard sometimes to know who you’re dealing with. And there are always the crazy people, or the parasites. “Oh, Merkur, you’re doing so great. I’m going to hitch my wagon to your car.” And I’m like, oh, absolutely not. No, we’re done. Don’t contact me.

Richard Lowe: I allow somebody to mention their book and talk about it a little bit. That’s fine. I don’t allow their products to be advertised. This is not a PR channel. I tell them I want this to be a conversation, not a way to promote you. If you want me to do that, you can pay me, and my rates are… And that stops everybody from doing that. Because when you count everything, the time to do it, the time to talk to them, the time to find them, the post-work, you’re talking about two or three hours, and that’s unpaid.

If they want to promote themselves, they can pay me. It’s real simple. I don’t do free advertising for people. Okay, sometimes I hunt them out. They’ve done a book. You’re allowed to promote your book. Please do. I want to hear about the book. I want to know why you wrote it. I want to know what it’s about. I want to talk about it. I might have some things to say about it. And I really haven’t run into any real problems yet. I’m going to speed up Leaders and Their Stories pretty soon. I want to do three a week.

Mike Merkur: Three a week. That’s…

Richard Lowe: Yeah. Finding them is the gating factor. Once I find them, it’s fine. But I also have Author Talks, and that’s for authors. That one I spun down a few years ago, and I want to spin it back up and start interviewing authors, especially larger names. My strategy is to try to get larger names on the podcast, somebody who has some followers, like 10,000 or 100,000. I don’t like the word influencer, but somebody who influences other people. I just had two recently, and they took the video, downloaded it, and cut it up into those little 30-second and 60-second things, and they’re posting those like crazy.

That’s great. That’s advertising me, it’s advertising you, whatever. Love it. I should probably cut them up myself. Only I don’t really want to take the time. Everything takes time.

When should a podcast host shut down a guest?

Mike Merkur: And not only does everything take time, but it adds up. The guesting, I think that’s the verb for finding guests. There’s also the loading times. People talk about automation. No, you have to make the episode. You have to set up your shirt and your mic or your headset.

Richard Lowe: Put on clothes. No, kidding.

Mike Merkur: Underpants. You know, it’s fascinating. I’ve had so many experiences. Someone’s like, “Mike, you should be using Riverside to do this,” or “You should be using StreamYard.” And people are like, you should do it this way and this way. And I’m like, well, hold on a second here. You just clicked the link, showed up, and you’re giving a lot of unsolicited information. Do you have a YouTube channel? Do you have a podcast? And they’re like, well, I could easily do it. And I’m like, well, okay, first sit in the hot seat. Produce the content. Remember, it happens in real time.

You will be nervous at all times. Even talking to you now, even though I’ve done it hundreds of times. It’s raw. There’s always something going on and off, there’s always some problem, and the show must go on.

Richard Lowe: There have been people who got on my podcast that I shut off. I just said, this podcast is over. I’m going to delete it. We’re done. One of them was very anti-Semitic, and I said, I’m done with that. Nope. We’re gone. Click. I can shut off the phone anytime I want. And I never heard from them again, fortunately. And I’ve run into some people who want to advertise. And I said, “Look, we’re not advertising. I’m going to warn you once. We’re going to start this podcast over.” And then he started advertising again. I said, “Well, we’re done.”

Mike Merkur: You set a precedent where you’ll shut it down. A few things were new to me. One thing I didn’t expect: most people I’m around are Jewish or Israeli or very religious Jewish. I didn’t know there would be a lot of technology people who would then come on and be like, “I saw that episode with that rabbi. I want to talk about religion, too.” And I didn’t know there would be a million quotes from the Gospels. I thought, okay, maybe faith pops in, a rabbi here or there. I didn’t know that opens the door to all sorts of different religions.

A person’s like, “Yeah, I’m Vietnamese and a venture capitalist, but we have to talk about Buddhism.” And I’m like, oh, I’m going to get killed for this. But there’s nothing wrong with that, right? There’s nothing wrong with unpredicted religious conversation. Political is different.

Where does free speech end on a private podcast?

Richard Lowe: Political is different. I draw the line there. Religion’s fine as long as it doesn’t get too deep and too one-sided. If they’re willing to have a conversation, I’m willing to talk about it. If they just want to preach to me, then they can go away. I’m not here to be a channel for somebody else to preach to the world. But politics, no. We don’t talk politics, other than maybe very lightly mentioning an event. I wouldn’t tolerate it on my podcast.

It’s too charged, and people have too many feelings about it for it to be appropriate in a podcast that’s about writing and technology and stuff like that. If you want to talk about that, get on a political podcast. There are plenty of them, and they’ll be happy to talk to you, but not mine. Well, you’ve got free speech and all that. There’s no such thing as free speech with a private company. So many people misunderstand what free speech is. They go into a store and start yelling at people, “I have free speech.” No, you don’t. That’s a private company. You’re in Canada, right?

Mike Merkur: Yeah. I live in Toronto.

Richard Lowe: Yeah. It works differently here in the States. In the United States, you have free speech on public property. You don’t have free speech on private property. An airport is at the very far end of that. You don’t have free speech there at all, and there’s good reason for that. A train station, places where people cluster. So I can stand out there on a sidewalk and scream about whatever I want, as long as I’m not creating a huge disturbance. But I can’t do that in the middle of a shopping mall. It’s not allowed. It’s got a name. I forget what it is. My ADHD in there.

Mike Merkur: Like a type of vagrancy or something?

Richard Lowe: Well, I would call it creating a disturbance, but there’s a name for it. I don’t remember what it is. It’ll come back to me. You know how ADHD is. A couple of hours.

Mike Merkur: ADHD? Oh, I don’t know anything about that.

Richard Lowe: Yeah, me neither.

Mike Merkur: Talk about ADHD. Look at my place, man.

Richard Lowe: Yeah. Well, mine is the opposite. Everything’s spotless. A little OCD there. There’s a dust there. There’s dust.

Mike Merkur: You have the OCD side of ADHD. You don’t have the complete insane messiness. I love what you’re saying about free speech. You’ve defined yourself, your work, your media platform, your podcast as writing, creative, tech. It has those flavors, and you have a few different themes, leadership being one of the streams, if you will. It’s good to have some ballpark. When I started, I thought this podcast was all about intricate puzzles and designs. I didn’t know that people would come to me and be like, okay, I want to be a guest. And I’m like, well, are you dealing with my puzzles?

And they’re like, “You don’t think I have puzzles to solve? I work a hundred times as hard as you.” I’m like, okay, but is it a jigsaw puzzle? Is it a game puzzle? What kind of puzzle? “You don’t think working as a bank manager is difficult?” And I’m like, I never said that. It opened up more to leadership, like you’re doing with entrepreneurship. But I never offended so many people. People get offended by the craziest things. The tiniest things set everyone off. I’m like, well, it’s great that you’re running a venture fund, but is that tied to educational resources?

It’s like, “You don’t think that I’m worthy?” I’m like, no, I’m not talking…

Richard Lowe: When somebody asked me that question, I’d say, nope, you’re not. Thank you. Bye. I’m older than you, and I’m old enough to know that I don’t care anymore about what people think of what I have to say. I don’t care if they like my opinions or not. Now, I’m not an idiot, and I don’t put stupid opinions out there that lean politically either way, because I don’t want to get in that argument. I don’t care enough to get in that argument. If somebody wants to have a discussion about politics, like we were talking earlier, and they’re rational, I’m fine with that.

When somebody wants to just tell me their politics, tell me their politics, tell me their politics, and they’re not listening, go away. I don’t need that. I had to put up with that with my parents for too many years.

What does it really take to run a podcast?

Mike Merkur: We all have parents. It’s so interesting. The whole world of guesting, finding the guest. A few people asked me, “Can I start a podcast?” I’m like, you can, but you have to do it. They’re like, “What do you mean? I have Zoom meetings and Google Meets. I just record.” And I’m like, no, no, no. You can’t secretly record it. You have to tell them. You want an episode name or number. You have to book the person. You have to find the guest. Think about the before and the after. You don’t go magically from a recorded video file to YouTube or Spotify.

It has to be set up, stored, labeled, tagged. The guest is going to expect certain things. Even if they don’t know the first thing, they have expectations. You have to release the video. They have to know you released it. You have to tag them. They expect their LinkedIn or a website, even if it’s not an infomercial. I was trying to explain this to a few people and they’re like, “Oh, but it’s nothing, right?” And I’m like, no, you’ll be spending a thousand hours just to get it up and running. You have to commit for at least six months. What are your thoughts?

Millions of people are like, “Oh, I could write a book. Oh, I could do a media thing.”

Why do clients who tried writing a book with AI hire a ghostwriter?

Richard Lowe: I get that all the time. And a lot of the clients I’m getting now are very interesting. They’re clients who have tried writing a book with AI. They thought it was easy. They hated it, and they come to me and say, “I’m sorry. I wrote this with AI. It’s a piece of crap.” And I look at the book and say, “Yeah, you’re right. It is. I can help you. This is going to be at my rate.” They’re like, “Fine. I’m embarrassed.” But I get a lot of people who think writing a book is easy. They say, “Well, what’s your rate?” And then, “That’s outrageous, dude.”

It’s my living. It’s how I make my money. It’s how I pay the rent. I’m not going to pay the rent writing a book for $2,000 when it takes 500 hours to write a 300-page book. It takes hundreds and hundreds of hours, plus the interviews and putting the book together, and then guiding you after the fact and helping you market, stuff that I’m not even getting paid for. There’s an old saying, I don’t know if you’ve heard it. A guy gets called in to fix a pipe that’s burst. It’s a big tank and very complicated.

He looks at it, and he looks at it, and he says, “That’ll be $10,000, and I’ll fix it for you.” And the guy says, “Okay, that’s what it costs.” So he pays the $10,000. He takes out his hammer and taps one spot. The leak’s gone. Everything’s fixed. The guy goes, “You just charged me $10,000 for one tap with a hammer. How can I justify paying you for that?” He says, “You’re not taking into account all the training I had to do to know where to tap and how hard to tap.” That’s what went into that price.

If you’ve gone to my website, you know that for eight years I was a belly dance photographer and a Renaissance fair photographer, and I used to photograph them like crazy. And they used to get so upset, because they’d be asked to dance at a venue, come drive all the way from San Diego, be there for two hours, and then drive home. And they’d get 50 bucks, or, we’re going to feed you, that’s the pay. And no, no, no.

Mike Merkur: There’s always that in life, the cost of someone’s time alone versus all those years of training, or even doing something at an amateur level before they became a professional. And there’s all the cost of goods or transportation or other hidden fees. I was showing these samples the other day, and someone’s like, “Wait a second. You bought some blocks? I can just buy the blocks.” I’m like, no, there’s a lot more. You have to interpret the blocks as a meaningful thing. It’s a whole thing. It’s like on Shark Tank, where it’s like, why can’t I copy everything you do?

How long would it take me to do this? I don’t know anything about book writing, publishing, editing. That’s a whole world unto itself. But when it comes to a product that sits on a shelf, or in a classroom at a school, the hundred things that have to happen for this box to appear in that facility, and 100,000 boxes made in such and such a timeline, manufacturing and pre-processing and logistics. The more you know about the supply chain, it’s endless, the amount of things that have to go right. And then someone picks up the product and writes an Amazon review, like, it’s a stupid product.

That a-hole. And you have 500 hours per book. You know exactly what I’m talking about.

Why stop reading Amazon and Goodreads reviews?

Richard Lowe: I don’t even read Amazon reviews anymore. I haven’t read them in years. Or Goodreads reviews. There are too many trolls. You put your heart and soul into a book, and then somebody says, I don’t like this book because… Did you read the front cover? Did you even read the book? That happens a lot on Goodreads. I have an article that’s gotten 117 comments. It’s called Goodreads Sucks. And I have a whole series of sucks. TikTok sucks, Amazon sucks. A whole series of articles on my website.

And I point out why I think we’re seeing the downfall of social media, especially social media like Facebook and LinkedIn. It won’t be a hard fail. It’s going to be a soft fail, where readership’s falling and people are becoming less interested. LinkedIn, I can’t get any engagement there to save my life. I’ve tried all the stuff all the experts say to do. Nothing. Facebook, well, I’ve got thousands of model friends and belly dancer friends and Renaissance fair friends, so I get engagement with those when I put out articles they’re interested in. Put out anything that’s for me? No, forget it. Nothing. Not even a like.

And it’s the same in all the social media. And don’t even get me started on the writing critique groups. I have never seen groups so filled with trolls in my life as the writing critique groups. From the first one I was in till now, they are so full of vitriol that it’s like, why are you even a writer? Now the current thing they’re fighting about is AI. If anybody even uses AI, they can go straight to hell for all they’re concerned. They can burn there forever. Okay, I’m not going to talk to you anymore.

Should content be raw or polished?

Mike Merkur: No, I love what you’re saying. A couple of years ago I sat down and said, okay, I’m going to do a YouTube channel centered around puzzles and games, and I’m going to pump out as many videos as possible. I used to spend all this time editing. A video a day, and I would spend an hour editing and maybe 10 minutes filming. And then a few people told me, no more editing, just pump out raw content. And the minute I switched to raw, live to tape, people started watching it. And I was like, wait a second.

When I tried to polish it and remove this and edit this, it became manufactured, like everything else. The minute it went raw, it was like, oh, okay.

Richard Lowe: People want to hear you. That’s the thing. They want to hear you. They want to know your opinions. They want to know how you work. They don’t want to hear the polished thing. And now if you polish it too much, people say, “Oh, it’s AI,” even when it’s not. And if people say it’s AI, it dies. That’s been the new content killer, the word AI, which is a shame, because AI has many, many uses if you don’t go overboard. Don’t use it to create your content. Use it to help you.

If you’re writing a fantasy book, you could use it to help you get your plot right, to help you fix your characters. Is this character consistent from beginning to end? You could ask AI that kind of thing, and it’ll tell you, no, it’s not, here you changed the character. And that’s really cool, because otherwise you have to read it 15 times to find out that Sally became Sam halfway through the book, or Sally started Jewish and ended up Christian and there’s no reason why. It just happened. You went away for a month because you got writer’s block, and you came back and started writing differently.

Is YouTube still worth it for a podcast?

Mike Merkur: No, I love what you’re saying. The raw. I was celebrating the other day. Someone’s like, “Wow, Michael, did you get to 400,000 views on the YouTube channel?” And I was like, whoa, wait a second, let me check this. And I have like 383 subscribers, and I was celebrating that. And someone’s like, “You know, I have 50,000 subscribers.” I’m like, yeah, but this is all you do, right? And he goes, well, yeah. It’s different when you’re competing at a professional level.

If you’re a hobbyist saxophone player and the professional musician comes along and says, only 10 people came to see you play, the guy’s like, well, I only practice once a week.

Richard Lowe: I don’t use YouTube anymore. I’ve been finding YouTube just doesn’t work for anything real. It’s not worth the time to post it up there. I just post on my website. Cloudflare has a great, you can just post videos there, and I think it’s costing me 84 cents for 50 gigs of videos. It’s a little technical, but once you get past that, it’s really easy. Cloudflare is a great platform for that kind of stuff. And there are no commercials, no nothing. They can’t ban you for saying the word crap.

You don’t have to bleep things out like you have to do on YouTube now, especially if you’re a larger channel, to keep from getting banned or demonetized. I don’t think demonetization is something you’re worried about, but larger channels are really worried about it, because they’re making a living, and then this video they worked hard on has an F-word in the first 30 seconds and the whole thing gets demonetized. Or somebody does a copyright strike, and it turns out to be malicious. It wasn’t a real copyright strike. It was just somebody trying to take down the video. That happens a lot.

If you go on Cloudflare, or there’s another site called Streamable…

Mike Merkur: Streamable. I’m writing this down.

Richard Lowe: Streamable is easier than Cloudflare. Cloudflare requires just a touch of technical stuff. Streamable is much easier. But I went over to Cloudflare because I’m a tech geek. Even so it took me a while to figure out, but once I did, I made some scripts and it became really easy.

How do you handle people who want free advice?

Mike Merkur: So, no, I love what you’re saying. It’s podcasting, but also in life, we have to know which tools we’re going to use and in what way. I get all sorts of random questions all the time. And I’ve learned to say to people, just because I have a piano does not mean I can play the works of Chopin. And that applies to marital advice, life advice, religious perspective, media training. That line has saved me hundreds of hours of headaches and nonsense. What do you say when people come to you begging for mentorship and advice? I see you have a bunch of one-liners as well.

Richard Lowe: I just say my coaching rates are posted on my website. Go to this page and check it out. I’m happy to give it. I’m an older guy. I’ve had a lot of life. I’m happy to do it. But I’m not going to do it for free. Now that doesn’t mean I’m not going to give somebody a five-minute answer or a 10-minute answer if they need some help. What it means is if they want to suck a lot of time out of me, like, how do I publish a book? Well, I’ve got a bunch of articles on my website.

“Well, I’m going to have to read about it.” Yeah, dude. You have to read. You have to do the work. “Well, can’t you just tell me?” Okay. If you want me to tell you, my rates are…

Mike Merkur: So, Richard, you’ve found it effective sometimes to say, okay, we chatted for a bit, let’s move over into a business relationship, a formal agreement. Let’s take this up a level. You’re not one who sits for half an hour here, half an hour there, and babysits.

Richard Lowe: It depends on who it is, what they’re asking, and what mood I’m in. If somebody calls me who I know is desperately in trouble with their marriage, we’re going to have a long chat. If it’s some stranger, I’m going to tell them there are therapists out there who can do a much better job than me. That sounds heartless, but there are only 24 hours in a day, and how do I want to spend my time?

I want to spend my time helping my clients and helping people get their message out, and writing my own books and blog articles, and debating religious philosophies with some Jewish guy on a podcast. Stuff like that. That’s fun.

Mike Merkur: It has to fit into you. You’re able to discern very quickly…

Richard Lowe: Whether I’m getting a business.

How do you give advice to someone younger using the Socratic method?

Mike Merkur: Yeah. It’s interesting you say that. I’ve had a few times where I’m 42 and the person’s like 21, and they’re like, how do I do this, this, this? When someone’s 14 or 15 or 20, I’ve kind of paused a bit. I remember when I was younger, there were so many times where it would have been great if someone double my age sat me down and said, no, don’t do this. No, that’s not how you start a company. That’s not a product. Don’t spend 1,000 hours doing that.

So a few times, I’ve gotten criticism, but the best help I’ve given people is sometimes, don’t do this, don’t waste your time, that will not work. And I’ve gotten real nasty responses, but I thought I was doing a good deed. I thought I was helping them, saving them, if you will.

Richard Lowe: People have to learn by failing. They don’t learn otherwise. Now, if you’re a trusted mentor, it’s a little different, and you can give them advice. But the way to give advice is to ask questions. What do you think? Why do you think that? Why do you think that’s a good idea? Have you done your research? Have you talked to people? Let them come to the conclusions instead of you telling them. If you tell them, they’re going to shut you off. If you ask the questions, they tell themselves. So you think that making this little spinner thing for your finger is a good idea?

“Yeah, I do. I think I could sell a million of them.” Okay. What are you basing that on? “Well, my friends like the spinner thingy.” Okay, well, that’s a good start. Have you done any research? “Well, no.” Well, then why don’t you start there? “How do I do that?” Well, you can go to such-and-such a site, put together a survey, and get some answers. That’s the best way to respond to someone asking questions: let them work it out.

Mike Merkur: Yeah, that’s smart. Especially in today’s day and age, where there’s so much fake knowledge or fake experience and everyone calls themselves a founder. A few times I was like, no, no, don’t do that. But you’re right. What I should have done, and I’m learning this in real time, is say, you have to pause, you have to reflect. Remember, there’s always a competitor. “What? No one’s doing this.” No, there are so many.

Richard Lowe: Well, you’re still telling them they’re wrong. What you could say is, have you looked at the competition? Do you understand the competition? For a book, okay, I want to write this book on philosophy. Okay, good. Have you looked at Amazon? “Well, yeah, I found a couple of books there. They look pretty good, but I could do better.” Okay, good. Have you surveyed that competition? How many books are there? What are they about? What do their covers look like? “Well, this and this and this.” Okay, good. Now we’re doing market surveys, and you work them through from that direction.

Although a lot of my books are written from passion. They just want a book about their life, so they don’t care about the market. Or they want a book they use as a base for their marketing, so they don’t care if it sells copies. The market research isn’t even done there, because who cares? They’re going to give it away at their speeches, their TED talk, whatever. But if some 21-year-old called me with an idea for a business, I would start with the questions. Okay, you think this is a good idea? Good. What led you to that conclusion? “Well, my friend said da da da.”

Oh, okay. What’s the experience of your friend? “Well, he’s sold 12 of these things.” Okay, good. How old is your friend? “Fourteen.”

Mike Merkur: That’s very smart. That’s also very diplomatic.

Richard Lowe: It’s called the Socratic method, by the way.

Mike Merkur: The Socratic method. Yeah, that’s really smart, because it separates the advisor, the mentor, from the hard-hitting reality. It also allows an acknowledgment of growth, the growing of the student, if you will.

Richard Lowe: You want to tell them they’re a babbling idiot, right? But you can’t tell them they’re a babbling idiot, because then they’ll get mad and they won’t take any of your advice. So what do you have to do? You have to ask questions. Why do you think this? What is going on here? How would you do this under these conditions? What would your parents think? Do you understand the social ramifications of what you’re doing? Do you understand how this is going to affect you 20 years from now? Those can be difficult conversations, and they’re harder to do.

You want to just tell them they’re a babbling idiot, or that you know better because you have all the experience, but they’re not going to listen. Just think of yourself at 21. I didn’t listen to anybody. I was dumb as a brick.

How do you start a conversation with a stranger?

Mike Merkur: You know what? It’s so true. The less experience you have, the less you know, the more you think you know. That’s the reality of it. I look back to one of the first jobs I had, selling ice cream for, I don’t know, $8 an hour, or being a hockey referee for $7 an hour. Those early experiences of losing money or making the wrong call and everyone shouting at me, or someone stealing a bike. All sorts of interesting experiences. There should be a rule, like you have to be at least 40 to start a podcast or something. Maybe not. I don’t know.

Richard Lowe: When I was in my early 20s, I asked someone, because I wanted to be able to talk to women and I was very shy. He basically had a different woman every night, and I wanted to find out how to talk to women. And he said, “You just go up and talk to them.” What do you mean, you just go up and talk to them? He says, “Well, what are you afraid of? What’s the worst that could happen?” Now, this was before Me Too and all that kind of stuff. I said, well, they tell me to go away. “Yeah.

Or they slap you or something like that. Then you just dust yourself off and go talk to somebody else.” And now I’ve learned the technique is very simple, to talk to women, or men, or anybody. Look at them and ask them something. With you, I’m looking at you: what does the hat mean? And we would immediately have a conversation. I’m a Christian. I don’t understand why you wear this circular hat. Can you talk to me about it? Or a woman: I like your necklace, does it have any meaning? Or nowadays, I like your tattoos, because everybody seems to have tattoos, including me.

What do those tattoos mean? Oh, well, it means this and this and this. I’ve never had anybody not talk to me when I ask them about their tattoos. Never.

Mike Merkur: It’s so true. The ability to form that initial dialogue, to be the one who breaks the ice, who initiates. That’s not only a business skill or a life skill. It’s an essential human skill. Without that there is no leadership.

Richard Lowe: It’s deeper than that. Asking them. Most conversations start off with me. Hey, I’m this great guy, I have these big muscles, I have money. Women hear that all the time. They almost never hear about themselves. Very few men go up to a woman and say, tell me about you. You don’t get personal here. I’d like to know more about something obvious, your jewelry, or why do you like this kind of dog? I like your dog. Why do you have this small one instead of a big one? She might say, with the big one, well, it’s to fight off people like you. Oh, cool, I understand.

It can’t be personal, because that gets creepy. It just has to be something. But you’re asking them about them, and people almost never get asked about themselves.

Why should a sales conversation start with the customer’s pain?

Mike Merkur: This is a great piece of wisdom. Everyone likes to talk about themselves. It’s almost impossible to find someone who doesn’t. A few people ask me, “Michael, how do I talk to this person?” I’m like, okay, if you reach out to someone with 50,000 LinkedIn followers who gets a thousand messages a day, they’re not going to respond. A better way of reaching out is to seek advice and guidance. Then maybe someone will have a little mercy on you, because you’re giving them honor. Now, if you say you’re going to record it and it’s going to be a podcast episode, that’s a lot of honor.

That’s a real ego stroke, because they know it will be recorded, and hopefully someone will watch it. They get to talk about themselves a bit. It doesn’t have to be all businessy and commercial. A lot of people need that me time.

Richard Lowe: That’s why you start a sales conversation asking about them. If you start a sales conversation trying to sell, it’s dead right there. You start a sales conversation about them. It could be as simple as, what are your needs? It could be more personal, it could be less personal, but start it about them and continue it about them, and only get into more about you later. You’ve got to understand their pain first in the sales conversation. What’s the pain? Why are they buying this? Why would they even consider buying this new car when it’s $60,000 and they don’t have the money?

What brought them into this dealership in the first place? Get the problem they’re trying to solve. “Well, I want to pick up chicks, and the big red car will help me do that.” Okay, we’re going in that direction. Or, “I’ve got five kids now, and the itty-bitty Kia is not handling it anymore.” Okay, now we’re going in that direction. Then you talk more about it, and now you’ve got their pain. You’ve got to understand what they want, what’s in it for them. And it’s going to be different for every person.

What pain is your product solving?

Mike Merkur: I love it. I love it. This is fascinating. You’ve been around the bend. You’re a wellspring of wisdom, hence all the books written. And you’re giving away all this free wisdom. You should charge a million shekels.

Richard Lowe: Well, there’s a great guy named Royce Blake. He was on the radio back in the days of Wolfman Jack, if you remember him. Probably not. Radio people. And now he’s become a person who teaches how to speak, and he’s the one who taught me this. He says the problem with your advertising is you’re talking about you and your product. You need to talk about them and what’s wrong, what they need fixed. When you do that, you’ll start making sales. So why does this person want a book? Why do they want a book? Well, because. And then you follow up on that.

That’s what I have to do in that first conversation: figure out why they want this. It’s a lot of money. Why would they want to spend that? And then work through that. Same with any product. The kid wants to make spinners. Why does somebody want a little spinner on their finger? Because nobody else has one. Because they’re bored. Because they’re ADHD. Whatever. Find out the reason why, and then you’ve got the hook for a product, when you start finding out what the pain is. What pain are you solving? And that’s one of the things all these bazillion AI apps out there are missing.

“Oh, I’ve got this great idea for an app to do spreadsheets.” Yeah, but what pain are you solving? What are you solving for this user that he can’t get from anybody else? “Well, he gets the spreadsheets filled in.” Yeah, but that’s a plugin to Excel, or that’s Copilot, or ChatGPT, which is free. What are you doing that’s better than that, that helps get rid of the pain? And then you get into that, and then you’ve got a product. But if you don’t do that, you’ve just got a dorky little AI product that’s going to die.

Mike Merkur: Totally fascinating. We will pause here. You’re always welcome back. You’re a recurring guest. Another great episode with Richard Lowe, the world’s most prolific writer, and free advice. Everyone, get it while it’s free.

Richard Lowe: And I will continue to be back and continue to be a regular. But next time I’m going to get into much more scandalous territory. No, I’m kidding.

Mike Merkur: World politics. No, I’m kidding. We will pause here, everyone, and the episode will be out later today. Take care.

Find Richard Lowe at thewritingking.com/.

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