The artist's mind will never fail to fascinate me. If you create and release music, you're setting in motion an unknown chain of events. People can guess and assume, but at the end of the day, "the fans are always smarter than you," to paraphrase John Mayer (a quote I bring up way too much). That does not mean that the artist is not smart, it means that the artist never knows exactly how the world will interpret what they let it consume. Ron Solemn, for example, released his song, "Body Bags" in 2018 and it continues to receive 10's of thousands of plays as it climbs closer to 1 million on Spotify alone.

As Ron mentioned in the interview, "Body Bags" was one of a series of songs released in 2018, and he did not expect it to gain the traction that it did - something I find so interesting as I come across more examples of the market knowing what's good more often than the artist.

Ron Williamson is a rapper, singer, and songwriter releasing hiphop and RnB music with a focus on mental health. He's done this under the name Ron Solemn for the past 5 years.

In this podcast we cover:

• Ron's transition from singing to rapping and songwriting, and how friends influenced him to rap.
• Gaining confidence on stage by singing covers.
• Songwriting, going by feel and creating a full song from an idea.
• Marketing music, and remarketing released songs.
• His song, "Bodybags" and how it went viral and gained almost 1M plays.
• Using music to say what's on his mind.
• And more...

Follow Ron Here

Listen to Bodybags Here

Listen to Ron on Spotify

Listen to Ron on Apple Music

Stereotype Co. and Ron Solemn Collaboration Shirt

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Amanda Sikoral is a musician that blends singer-songwriter, country and soul into a melodic fusion of hooks, and lyrics that you won't forget. She even performed the chorus for her newest single, "Home," at the end of the podcast. On top of her own music, she's been branded "The Manifesting Musician," for good reason. Her positive, daily TikTok mantras have garnered hundreds of thousands of views, and over 9000 followers on the platforms. She blends songwriting with short, positive affirmations and was pushed to make an entire song out of one after hundreds of people requested it.

I loved our conversation about music, growing as an artist, social media, and more. One thing I've realized while doing this is that meeting in person is mattering less and less. I've had countless guests come to my house to record after only a phone call or folks like Amanda who I met on IG, and then hopped on Zoom to record.

In this episode we cover:

• Amanda's willingness to take her music to the next level after 15 years of practice.
• Blending country and soul while being from New Jersey.
• Influences growing up, and how that shaped her sound today.
• Producing from scratch, and how she learned to improve.
• Her rise to TikTok fame as the "Manifesting Musician."
• How she created positive mantras that allowed her to grow on the platform, and gain thousands of fans using her sounds daily.
• Live performances, and how one chance encounter lead to her first one.
• Amanda's aspirations and the future of her music.

We hope you enjoyed the show!

Follow Amanda

Stream her single, "Home."

Find Her on Any Platform Here

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I love all of my guests, but as an artist myself, I feel like I connect with other artists quickly and easily. The artist's schedule can be prone to disorganization, but Gino Lomanto, known by his artist name, Gi theRapper has created a consistent system for releasing music. If you've noticed, my consistency has been nonexistent in the last year as far as my music goes, and it was inspiring to hear Gi's simple and effective system for keeping his content and tracks on the schedule. The worst thing you can do as an artist is fall behind, and this was even more motivation for me to get back on track.

In this episode we cover:

• Gino's Podcast, "Vino with Gino," the reason for starting it, and his aspirations moving forward.
• His interest in real estate and its specific facets that made it particularly appealing.
• Gi's consistency in music, and the system he put in place to stay consistent.
• Relationships, dating, and being upfront with yourself about your goals with people you're seeing.
• Why having a great producer can be the key to finding your sound.
• Gi's next moves in music.

Gi and I got together to release, "Easy 2 Call" a quarantine single with our spin on how easy it is to simply make a phone call. He also interviewed me on his podcast, "Vino with Gino," and we had a blast talking music while sippin' a drink. Stay tuned for our video to Easy 2 Call coming soon.

Follow Gino

Listen to Gi's Music

Listen to our Song, Easy 2 Call

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The last few episodes have been packed full of examples of how mindset and self-improvement can (and will) change your life. Personally, I have some pessimistic tendencies when things don't go my way, but in the last few years I've become much more positive. Contributing to that positivity in my life has been today's guest, Nick Gates - founder of Strange Living Collective, coach, and speaker.

Nick's relentless positivity has fueled what he calls, "The Beautiful Journey:" a 3-step process of self-discovery he developed as he set out to build a life surrounded by his dreams, purpose, and passion.

In today's episode we cover:

• Relentless positivity and if it's possible to maintain positive through anything.
• How his business, Strange Living Collective came to be and what he learned building it.
• The Beautiful Journey: Nick's personal 3-stage process to find and live a fulfilled life.
• Overcoming negative emotions, and how to use others to identify your flaws.
• The power of coaching to build the life you want and identity blindspots.
• The power of planning to achieve any goal, and how to start immediately.

This episode was completely different than my last two with Nick, but somehow even more mind-blowing and uplifting. I had the privilege to go through a simple exercise after the show that changed my perspective on my own life goals.

Give Nick a follow Here and Reach out to Ask Him any Questions you Might Have

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There are very few people who have an unstoppable mindset - the type of people you would trust in any situation regardless of what is going on. Christian Lopez is a financial analyst, college graduate, co-host of the Demi-God Chronicles, and self-improvement aficionado. He's one of the most well-read folks we've had on the podcast and I can't say enough about his presence and articulation.

At the age of 8, Christian was separated from his mother and sister in a custody battle. He was forced to live with his father for 6 years, and in the cold winter of 2004, he began to experience life differently. Leaving Garfield, NJ to attend a catholic school in 2010, Christian's life began to open up in a positive way. He found himself striving on the football field and later attended Muhlenberg College to play football after high school. Muhlenberg showed him an entirely different side to life. More on Christians's story on his website.

In this episode we cover:

• Overcoming introversion to become a podcast host
• Thinking outside of the box to create podcast content
• The power of mindset in your life
• How Christian had to change his entire identity as a football player after college
• How comments about his veganism fueled him to become obsessed with his fitness goals
• How the self-esteem movement ruined a generation of kids
• What it takes to learn a second language
• Budget your time effectively to remain ambitious and accomplish your goals

This was seriously a life-changing episode for me. We hope you enjoyed listening as much as we did recording it.

Follow Christian Here

Listen to the DemiGod Chronicles Here

Read Christian's "What I Learned In 100 Seasons: Article Here

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Remember the show Johnny Bravo? I think back to watching cartoons as a kid, and hearing his classic catchphrases while the self-proclaimed macho man attempted to court every lady he laid eyes on. Lucky enough for me, a long-time friend of mine is the internet-proclaimed, "Real Johnny Bravo."

Kurt Heeren is a fitness trainer at F45 Training, an Accounts Receivable expert at EXOS, and most importantly: he's the Real-Life Johnny Bravo. He's garnered over 100,000 followers on TikTok in less than 6 months. After a friend filmed him at a Halloween party as Johnny Bravo, the video went viral on TikTok and Kurt began to realize that his small time in the spotlight could lead to some big things.

In this episode we talk about:

• Leaving New Jersey to move to California
• How being mislead turned his Cali. move into shit-show the first hour he was there
• Personal training, and what it's like taking a group fitness class vs. 1-on-1
• Finding and loving a 9-5 while persuing dreams on the side
• How his Halloween costume turned into a viral sensation overnight
• His TikTok philosophy, and where he's taking his persona next

I enjoyed sitting down with Kurt on this episode, catching up after all of these years and hearing his rise to TikTok fame. Thanks for listening!

Watch his TikTok Here

https://www.tiktok.com/@thereal_johnnybravo/video/6921361526448327941?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1

Follow Kurt Here

https://www.instagram.com/kurtheeren/

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Sean Nastelon is a holistic health coach who believes with conviction that he's figured out the perfect diet for the human genome. What does that mean? I have no idea. So I sat him down to talk about it. On this episode we cover these topics and more:

• The issue with the traditional American diet, and how we were lied to since childhood.
• Why and how eating meat is bad for your health.
• The science behind the vegan diet.
• The water your drinking is not what you think it is.
• Alkaline versus acidic foods and why knowing the difference could change your life.
• Inflammation and its effect on the body.
• How Sean practices extreme discipline, and doesn't give in to temptation.

I connected with Sean on Instagram a couple of years back. I thought he was going to try to sell me a workout program, but he turned out to an extremely kind and community-oriented person. He went on to build an Instagram community of like-minded people which was the result of multiple podcast guests for myself and even a collaboration with a fellow artist 'GitheRapper,' in 2020.

Sean isn't only the most jacked' vegan I've ever met, he's actually the most disciplined and physically fit person I've ever spoken with. Trett and I were talking about this episode for days after (and will continue to) and we both agreed it's one of the most powerful episodes in the history of BopCast.

Connect with Sean on Instagram Here - https://www.instagram.com/seanthesexyscientist/

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As you know, many great friendships start with a LinkedIn direct message. Harrison Kelly connected with me on LinkedIn in March 2020 and since then I've had the privilege to help him launch his podcast, "The Innovative Mindset" which has garnered more audio plays than any podcast I've been a part of.

Harrison is an SEO and Content marketing consultant at Clean Media by day full-time, and also the social media director for TailHand: a new workbench for contractors. Clean Media is owned and operated by the director of SEO at Audible, AJ Mihalic who's been in marketing for over 10 years. These pursuits along with Harrison's podcast fuel his drive to learn more about people, and also allow him to use his marketing mind to take projects to the next level.

We had a wide-ranging conversation today about how Google's algorithm works, how to comment on posts to get hundreds of thousands of people to view your profile, and how our generation might end overworking.

Harrison's Links:

The Innovative Mindset (Podcast) - https://theinnovativemindset.captivate.fm/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/harrisonkelly10/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrison-kelly-772157bb/

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I've known Tuzz for years now. We had mutual friends in high school and hit it off after celebrating the fact that everybody around us called us by some version of our last names. Tuzz's actual name is Lauren Tuozzolo and she also goes by "Lolascend" on her Twitch profile which has recently been gaining traction for her on-air personality and action-packed gameplay while streaming the game, "Apex Legends."

Fast forward 4 or 5 years after we became friends, and Lauren now has a full-time job at nCino - the world's leader in cloud banking. In this episode, she details what it took to get this job, and how combining her passion for film and her love for analytics led her to the exact dream job she was looking for. On top of her freelance film projects, full-time job, Twitch Streaming, and helping me with my web development for Podcast Principles, Lauren also has a love for music which she gave us a taste of on the podcast. Two live performances in a row on BopCast? I'm loving this!

I hope you enjoyed the episode as much as we did recording it!

Subscribe to Tuzz on Twitch Here - https://www.twitch.tv/lolascend

Follow her on Instagram Here - https://www.instagram.com/lauren_tuozzolo/

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I met Lupe Dragon for the first time at a MadMinds artist open-mic. When I saw her, I assumed she was a singer. What I got wrong about her was the fact that she's also a rapper, songwriter, and most notably an incredible performer. Her energy is infectious and you can tell she is there only to pour her heart into her music; not to impress anybody in the audience or try to make you like what she creates.

Lupe has been releasing music since high school and she recalls some conversations on YikYak - an app for people to speak about others anonymously - where she read conflicting opinions on her sound. Since then, she has never let the opinions of others get in the way of her songwriting and you can tell by her raw and emotion-filled lyrics. Lupe emphasizes the part her influences played on her being able to open up in her music the way she does.

Thank you for tuning in, and I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did recording it.

Stream Lupe's Latest EP, "Bedroom Files" Here - https://open.spotify.com/album/2JXUAsjR4PxliazaKTGZvx?si=IB3QC2kbRyuPRdq7m0SWAA&dl_branch=1

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