Jackie Pelegrin on Designing Learning That Actually Sticks

Wendy & Rich 0:01
Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios, Hartford County living presents, Conversations with Rich Bennett. 

Today's guest is

Rich Bennett 0:28
someone who knows how to take big, overwhelming learning challenges and turn them into experiences that actually make people light up. Jackie Pelagrand spent almost 20 years in higher education earning two masters degrees, shaping adult learning programs and teaching at the college level. But what really sets her apart is how she took all that experience and built a whole new path rooted in creativity, curiosity, and heart. Now she's the host of Designing with Love, a podcast where she helps educators, trainers, and instructional designers bridge the gap between what people need to learn and how they actually absorb information in the real world. Her work blends instructional design, curriculum development, and cutting-edge learning technologies, including AI into human-centered strategies that make learning stick. If I could, she was my teacher, I'd probably be in the principal's office too many times. Jackie's here to share that journey with us. Now she transitioned from higher ed to becoming a professor podcast host an author of a new book inspired by one of her most popular episodes. And if you're someone who's ever wondered how to break into instructional design, whether you're earlier in your career or making a change later in life, she's got the roadmap to help you make that leap with confidence. So get ready for practical tips, fresh insights and some real behind-the-scenes wisdom from someone who believes learning should always feel purposeful, accessible, and, yes, designed with love. How you doing, Jackie? 

Jackie Pelegrin 2:19
I'm doing great, Rich. Thanks. How are you doing? 

Rich Bennett 2:21
I am doing great, although it's warmer where you're at, so I don't want to discuss that part. 

Jackie Pelegrin 2:26
Right, 

Rich Bennett 2:27
right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 2:28
very honor to be on your show. I love it. And I love the conversational nature. I think that's what makes podcasts thrive and what makes them 

Rich Bennett 2:38
Oh, 

Jackie Pelegrin 2:38
just outlast everything, you know, makes them evergreen. 

Rich Bennett 2:41
Oh, yeah, it does. And that's that's something I tell a lot of people once they get into podcasting. It's, you know, be yourself. It's not radio. It's not TV. You don't have restrictions. And the good part about being evergreen is 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now, it's all good. Unless, of course, you're talking about events, of course, then it's not evergreen. So, all right, I want to talk about your journey. I mean, 

Jackie Pelegrin 3:11
yes, 

Rich Bennett 3:11
two, two masters 

Jackie Pelegrin 3:13
degrees, right? 

Rich Bennett 3:14
Almost 20 years in higher A, which I don't understand that because you look like you're about 30. Now a professor, 

Jackie Pelegrin 3:23
yes, 

Rich Bennett 3:23
an author, a nor in a podcast seems. 

Jackie Pelegrin 3:27
I know. It's like, wow, I think. 

Rich Bennett 3:29
So how? 

Jackie Pelegrin 3:30
Oh, my 

Rich Bennett 3:30
his 

Jackie Pelegrin 3:31
blood, 

Rich Bennett 3:31
whole path start for you. 

Jackie Pelegrin 3:32
Yes, it's a very interesting path because I, I actually thought it was going to go into marketing and do business. And I actually have my undergraduate degree in business with enough. So I've always been interested in psychology, how people approach things, how people learn. 

Rich Bennett 3:51
Right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 3:51
And so, yeah, so it was really interesting. But then that path didn't quite work out how I'd hoped it would. But I always wanted my master's degree. And it's funny because I tell people this when they ask about my story and what kind of led me down that path is that. I think I was about six years older, so and I said to my mom, just walked up to her and I said, mom, I want to, I want an MBA degree when I get older, because you know what that is? And I said, yes, that's a master of business administration. And she's like, 

Rich Bennett 4:18
the help with the 

Jackie Pelegrin 4:19
I 

Rich Bennett 4:19
help. 

Jackie Pelegrin 4:19
was like 

Rich Bennett 4:20
at 

Jackie Pelegrin 4:20
six 

Rich Bennett 4:20
that point. 

Jackie Pelegrin 4:20
It was about six, six years. 

Rich Bennett 4:22
Wow. 

Jackie Pelegrin 4:23
I know. She's like, where did you hear that from? And I said, I don't know, but I just, I just had this image of myself being a business woman, carrying a briefcase. And walking into an office and I didn't quite get that either, but that's okay. But I got the masters and, you know, just kind of thought I was going to go down that path of business. But, 

Rich Bennett 4:44
mm. 

Jackie Pelegrin 4:45
Um, but then I started, uh, kind of going, uh, I worked for Discover Card for a while and, and did marketing with them and then, um, I just thought, you know, I need to, I need to break out into something else, do some different things. So I, I worked for University of Phoenix and I did enrollment for them because I had gone to school and I thought, oh, great. I can speak to this because I, I was a student, but, 

Rich Bennett 5:08
right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 5:08
That wasn't easy there and they expect a lot of people that work in enrollment. So, that, that didn't quite work out. So then I, uh, went into customer service working for Vanguard and that, that was stressful because of tax season and all of that. So I was like, okay, maybe, maybe I should go back to higher education. So I, so I did that. I found a job opportunity to work in the admissions office for an online university so, uh, called Walden University. So I took them up on that and decided to do that and did that for a couple of years and then they had an open, they, they had a, um, new program. They were rolling out. And I got the email and it was for a master's of science and instructional design and technology. And I'm like, what's this? I've always been interested in technology. So it peaked my interest but I'm like, what's instructional design? Didn't even know? 

Rich Bennett 5:59
Bring, ask you that. 

Jackie Pelegrin 6:00
Yeah. What is that? So I started looking at the courses in the program and as I looked at each course, I was like, wow, and each one just sparked my interest. And light bulb moment went off. And I was like, I think this is always what I wanted to do. I didn't know there was a name for 

Rich Bennett 6:16
it. So, right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 6:17
It blends education, business together. So, uh, so it basically, what instructional designer like myself does is, and it can vary industry to industry, you know, if you're incorporate or your higher education k through 12. The name can be a little bit different what it, what it varies. But basically what we help do is we help design training programs and curriculum that help them get to help the learners get to what they need and help them, you know, if it's on the job training or something like that, we make sure that it's not just a next shiny new thing that it actually is something that's going to give them that tool that they need to, either do their job really well or move up in their job. So, and then for curriculum, what I do every day is to make in the curriculum the best it can be. So, it's not just we're handing them a diploma, but we're handing them that future job. If they're a career changer or if they're trying to level up what they're doing, let's give them what they need so that when they graduate, they're able to step into that role and be excellent at it. So, that's what I do as instructional designer, I look for those opportunities to shape the learning in that way. So, 

Rich Bennett 7:31
So, 

Jackie Pelegrin 7:31
it's exciting. 

Rich Bennett 7:32
that's, I never, you know, honestly, I never heard of that, that job, but to me, that's, that's a job that's always going to be around. 

Jackie Pelegrin 7:44
Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, what's interesting, John, is that it has its roots in, or I'm sorry, rich, I said John. 

Rich Bennett 7:51
Yeah, sorry. My wife does that a lot. 

Jackie Pelegrin 7:54
Thank 

Rich Bennett 7:54
(laughing)

Jackie Pelegrin 7:54
goodness. I think it's because I just 

Rich Bennett 7:56
with 

Jackie Pelegrin 7:56
interviewed someone on my team named, John. I don't know, that must have been what it was. 

Rich Bennett 8:00
I've been calling a lot worse, Jackie. So, don't worry about it. 

Jackie Pelegrin 8:05
You know, it's funny is instructional design has its roots, actually, in the military. So, It started in the US Army because they wanted to actually train the soldiers to go out on the battlefield and do it in a way that they could, they wouldn't have to train them and then have to retrain them. So, they wanted it to be meaningful and so, yeah, that's where it all came from, was during World War II during, so when I learned about the history of us, wow, that's amazing. I love that, so it's in a lot of these models and theories that are in instructional design in education as a whole, like Bloom's Taxonomy and Cognitive Load Theory are all from the 1960s, 1970s, and they're evidence based, and they're, so, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 8:51
Oh, 

Jackie Pelegrin 8:51
So, 

Rich Bennett 8:51
wow. 

Jackie Pelegrin 8:52
instructional design has been around for quite a while, but yeah, a lot of people haven't really, if they've heard of it, they're like, I don't really understand what it is, or they haven't heard of it. But once you kind of give them that overview and that history of it, then they connect the dots and they go, oh, they have that, that aha moment that I had. 

Rich Bennett 9:12
But, 

Jackie Pelegrin 9:13
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 9:14
Now, so, for the instructional design part, do you work for a company or do you work for yourself? 

Jackie Pelegrin 9:21
So I work for a company and I provide educational services and then what I do is I work on the curriculum for partner institutions. So one of them is Grand Canyon University here in Phoenix and so it's one of the largest Christian universities. So what I do is we partner with the particular colleges within the university and so I support humanities and social sciences. So I work on those different types of programs, mostly for accreditation type which is 

Rich Bennett 9:51
little. 

Jackie Pelegrin 9:51
a 

Rich Bennett 9:51
Mm-hmm. 

Jackie Pelegrin 9:52
Yeah, a little bit crazy sometimes because the accreditors each one has their own way of doing it, and so. But it's very interesting because it's all about relationship building, so it's not just about their curriculum and putting together their curriculum, but it's also about working with subject matter experts, working with the faculty at the college, which are usually the subject matter experts and uncovering that and asking questions, understanding what the needs are, how the industry has changed. So I don't necessarily become an expert in that area or that curriculum. I'm the expert as far as what's good curriculum? What does that look like? And then I ask them the questions to get that out of them and find out, okay, what's going to make a good program? What are the outcomes going to look like? And then when we get to the courses, then I hand it off to my curriculum developer, but I'm still there and I'm involved in the process and I'm looking to make sure, okay, does this assignment make sense? Are the objectives clear? Did they line up together or is there a disconnect somewhere? That's where my brain is. It's always looking at, okay, if I was taking a step back and I was looking at this from seeing it for the first time or if I'm a learner or if I'm a faculty member, trying to teach this course, would I be able to teach it? Right, and so I always change my hat and look at it from that perspective. Because a lot of times subject matter experts in any industry, they know the content, they know how to do it. But when they try to translate 

Rich Bennett 11:24
They 

Jackie Pelegrin 11:24
it to 

Rich Bennett 11:25
don't. 

Jackie Pelegrin 11:25
something that's tangible, they don't know how to do it. And they want to throw everything at the student or the learner 

Rich Bennett 11:31
Yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 11:31
and like, "here, I'm just going to info dump on you." And I'm like, "No, let's take a step back and do they really need all of that?" Or is it just, or is it preference, right? Because a lot of times they'll say, "Oh, this is how I learned it in my program or this is the book I like because I had this book." And I'm like, "Yeah, but that's 10 years old." The research has changed. So 

Rich Bennett 11:54
I think that's why the books for dummies are so successful 

Jackie Pelegrin 11:59
of it. Yes. 

Rich Bennett 12:00
in all See, because they're written to where anybody can understand it. Basically, 

Jackie Pelegrin 12:04
Absolutely. We break that down, those 

Rich Bennett 12:07
yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 12:08
complex things, yeah, make it simple and it's okay to dump it down at first. Absolutely. You know, I helped work on programming. It was all about software programming the 

Rich Bennett 12:23
and 

Jackie Pelegrin 12:23
College of Science. At the time, it was Science, Engineering, and Technology. Now they've split it up. So it's two separate colleges. So they have College of Natural Sciences and then they have College of Engineering and Technology. So they have two separate, but at the time, I was working on the software engineering program and it was a master's level program. They had a bachelor's in a master's, but what they found is that a lot of students and the master's were not... They weren't equipped to go into the master's, so they had to dump it down. And I was like, "Wow, you're dumbing it down, but I understood why because..." 

Rich Bennett 12:59
It's... when I first got into the IT field, trying to learn that stuff, I was lost. 

Jackie Pelegrin 13:08
and 

Rich Bennett 13:08
I didn't know. I didn't know how to turn a computer on, but all the lingo in the books they gave me, I didn't have a clue. 

Jackie Pelegrin 13:14
It's like a foreign language, 

Rich Bennett 13:15
It 

Jackie Pelegrin 13:15
isn't 

Rich Bennett 13:16
is. 

Jackie Pelegrin 13:16
it? Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 13:17
And the scary thing is, once I finally learned it and, you know, then when I'm talking to people or clients or whatever and I'm talking to them in the terms that I didn't understand at first and they're looking at me like I have two heads. 

Jackie Pelegrin 13:33
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 13:34
It's like, 

Jackie Pelegrin 13:36
"Hey, 

Rich Bennett 13:36
I gotta step back because a lot of people don't know what I'm talking about." 

Jackie Pelegrin 13:39
Yeah! Right. Because each industry has its acronyms 

Rich Bennett 13:42
Yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 13:42
and terms and you have to, yeah, you have to really kind of take a step back and say, "Okay. If I was learning this for the first time, would I know what I understand it?" 

Rich Bennett 13:51
I don't miss that field at all, but... 

Jackie Pelegrin 13:53
Yeah, I'm 

Rich Bennett 13:54
Well, 

Jackie Pelegrin 13:54
sure. 

Rich Bennett 13:55
because when you first went to school for business, right, do you think that time... Well, actually, you got your degree in business as well? 

Jackie Pelegrin 14:05
Yeah, so I have an undergraduate in business with an emphasis in marketing. Then I have my MBA just a general master of business administration. And then I went back, got my second master's. I was just going to do a certificate because they offered. 

Rich Bennett 14:18
Right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 14:19
But I really love the masters. And I'm glad I did that because it's open. It opened up those opportunities because now where I'm working, they require a master. So I was glad I took that extra time and energy to do that. And it 

Rich Bennett 14:32
Well, 

Jackie Pelegrin 14:32
really. 

Rich Bennett 14:32
that's 

Jackie Pelegrin 14:33
is, it's 

Rich Bennett 14:33
what 

Jackie Pelegrin 14:33
helped me with teaching too. 

Rich Bennett 14:35
Well, that's our thought, you know, that what you learned for business and even marketing, I would think would help with what you're doing now. 

Jackie Pelegrin 14:42
Absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 14:43
a 

Jackie Pelegrin 14:43
Yeah. It was 

Rich Bennett 14:44
big, a lot easier. 

Jackie Pelegrin 14:45
Absolutely because one of the things that that they, the, my students learn in these classes, I'm teaching one of them is a class I'm teaching now. It's actually ending today, the class section. But I taught it, I've taught it many times. And now the curriculum has been revised, but what's really neat is they have an assignment. And it's about situational leadership. Well, that's a, that's something I learned in my business program. But they're learning how to, how to do that and how to work with different, you know, different people that have different levels of how they approach things. And so, 

Rich Bennett 15:20
right 

Jackie Pelegrin 15:20
to know those readiness levels. They use AI technology to, you know, put those prompts in there, but they work with the AI to kind of imagine themself in that situation. So I'm like, wow, this is really neat or objectives and key results. Those are business models. And yet we use it in instructional design. So having that dual path of the business experience and the education with the instructional design is it's a, it's a, it's a great tool to have in my tool vault. So not a lot of instructional designers like myself have that dual path. So I think it's been, it's, it's a unique type of flavor. I think that I bring to it. So yeah, 

Rich Bennett 16:03
how hard is it because, you know, people going into college or eight, I mean, at a high score like 18, 19, 20, whatever. 

Jackie Pelegrin 16:12
right, 

Rich Bennett 16:12
But you also have older people like me, you know, in their 60s, some even in their 70s, that are going back to college to learn a lot of stuff. 

Jackie Pelegrin 16:23
right 

Rich Bennett 16:23
How hard is it because that's two different types of people you're really writing for, especially when it comes to AI. A lot of people are scared of AI, so how do you balance that? 

Jackie Pelegrin 16:34
That's a good question. Yeah, because we, we have a centralized curriculum. So we have to, we have to be able to have the curriculum. We go across the different types of delivery 

Rich Bennett 16:45
Right, 

Jackie Pelegrin 16:46
methods, so we have to meet the, the on-ground students, which are, like you said, the ones right out of high school, or, you know, 18, 19, 20 year olds, they're younger. They're, they're usually on campus or they're commuters. And 

Rich Bennett 16:57
right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 16:57
so they're the traditional students. Then you have the non-traditional, which are the online students that are, like you said, the ones that are coming back to school, or they've been out of school for a while. And there's a lot of them don't know APA and they're, yeah, they're scared about recording a video, like what we're, or what we're doing, you know, 

Rich Bennett 17:15
Yeah, 

Jackie Pelegrin 17:15
they, 

Rich Bennett 17:15
what is Zoom? 

Jackie Pelegrin 17:17
exactly- 

Rich Bennett 17:17
[laughs] 

Jackie Pelegrin 17:18
They do this or 

Rich Bennett 17:19
Uh-huh. 

Jackie Pelegrin 17:19
how, what's an infographic? What, how do I do- 

Rich Bennett 17:21
Yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 17:21
So we have to look at that and say, how can we make it so that the students on campus can, can do the assignment, especially when we have those types of signature assignments we can't, the, the professors on campus have that opportunity to make some changes, but the online professors don't like myself, so- 

Rich Bennett 17:40
Right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 17:41
We have to, but we can, I can always enhance the curriculum and I can help my students meet them where they're at and see where, where they're pain points. And so we try to make sure that the curriculum is, uh, is packaged so that it allows them to be able to take it, and then, uh, adapt it as much as they can and enhance it, so that's what I like to be able to do. So it's true. I have, I've had students in my classes that are older than me, and I'm, and yet I have that wealth of experience, so, 

Rich Bennett 18:13
mm-hmm. 

Jackie Pelegrin 18:13
I look at it as an instructor and a professor, is it's a, it's a two-way experience, so I'm not just teaching them what I've learned over the past 20 years of being in higher education and then 15 years being an instructional design, but I also look at it as, I'm learning from them, too, because they bring their own knowledge, their own 

Rich Bennett 18:34
Right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 18:34
experience- Into it, so I look at it as a, as a learning experience and a two-way street, and my students respect me more for that, and they look at me as, you're not just a professor, you're not just an authority, but you're also relational and you're able to. 

Rich Bennett 18:49
That's good. 

Jackie Pelegrin 18:50
Meet us where we're at, it's funny because a lot of my students will call me professor, or they'll call me Dr. Pelagran. I don't have a doctorate, but yet... the way I come across, I don't know if they just make that assumption. But, uh, or if it's just the, uh, just the professionalism that I bring to it but I, 

it's really funny and I'm like, 'well, okay, I guess I guess I have a posh to misdegrees' uh, you know, I don't know, yeah. Really funny, it's hilarious, it cracks me up when I see that, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 19:37
How much difference is it in writing the curriculum for it that students that are going in school training versus the online training? 

Jackie Pelegrin 19:48
Yeah, it's definitely different because you have to count for the fact that they, uh, they're learning, you know, the traditional students are synchronist where they're there in the class, you know, and some of the work they do is online too. So it's a combination, it's blended learning, but the online students are completely online. So, um, we rely on the instructors to be able to bring those, those practices. So for example, for my students, I give them an optional Zoom meeting every week and I let them pick what time works for them and then I work that, work that out. And it's optional, they don't earn participation, but it's an opportunity to connect with their classmates, connect with me. And it's a hit or miss. It's like a 50/50. Some don't fill out the survey and I'm like, well, if they don't fill out the survey, that means they don't want it. So, uh, so I leave it up to them and give them that autonomy to do that, but some of them take me up on it and they're like, yeah. Set this up, and then they come. So, uh, so I, I, uh, I always encourage that and then I just try to make my materials interactive and engaging as much as I can and try to bring that to the curriculum development process and say, how can we make this engaging so they're not just reading articles. And it's not text-based and we want to make sure it's engaging and that we're accounting for all types of learners and 

Rich Bennett 21:07
Right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 21:07
not just certain types. So I try to bring some of that experience to the table and, and, uh, and bring new perspectives to the to those that are teaching the classes and say, have you thought of maybe this or have you thought of, and, you know, presenting it in a way that it's not, you know, discounting what their 

Rich Bennett 21:26
are 

Jackie Pelegrin 21:26
ideas 

Rich Bennett 21:26
Yeah, 

Jackie Pelegrin 21:27
Right. But taking it so that they can kind of think of it from a different angle and, and then they go, oh, yeah, I didn't think of that. So I know enough about the content. I've been doing it for 12 years in this type of role, but, uh, I know enough about it so that I can ask the right questions. And I can go, oh, I see. So you want to do in this counseling course, you want to do a treatment plan. But how can we take it to the next level? How can we make sure it's going to be something they're going to do on the job. So I know enough about the curriculum and the content that I can, I can ask those questions. So, but not to the point where I'm so much an expert in, because I'm not an expert in that area. I'm not a counselor. 

Rich Bennett 22:04
right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 22:05
So I make sure that I always have that novice approach to it. 

Rich Bennett 22:10
Mm-hmm. 

Jackie Pelegrin 22:11
So it's, yeah. So it's kind of neat. But then I'm the expert in the in the curricular area and knowing that. So knowing what works and what doesn't work because I've had that experience. And if they bring an idea and I'm like, well, we've done that before. You know, maybe we should try this approach instead, still taking their idea, but maybe giving them just another way of doing it. 

Rich Bennett 22:34
So. All right, so the stuff you're designing is basically strictly for when. They have a certain time for him. They have to get it done. 

Jackie Pelegrin 22:42
Correct. 

Rich Bennett 22:43
Students online are in person. Have you ever done any. 

Yes. You can see, you see a lot of, and we'll get into like podcast in here in a minute. 

Jackie Pelegrin 22:54
Right. 

Rich Bennett 22:54
Because you see a lot of podcast will offer online courses that you do at your own pace. Have you ever designed any of them? And the reason I ask is because, and I'm sure you've seen this. Yeah, a ton of people will sign up for these online courses and never finish them. 

Jackie Pelegrin 23:12
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 23:12
So I would think design them. You have to keep their attention to where they want to finish it. 

Jackie Pelegrin 23:19
Right. Exactly. Yeah. If you, if you notice that someone abandoned the course and they never finish it then. Yeah. You're, it's you're not motivating them. Or there's something that they got stuck on. Right. That they feel like. Yeah, it's that this is too. 

Rich Bennett 23:34
They 

Jackie Pelegrin 23:34
There's 

Rich Bennett 23:34
couldn't get any 

Jackie Pelegrin 23:34
too 

Rich Bennett 23:35
help. 

Jackie Pelegrin 23:35
hard. Yeah, they didn't get the help they needed. And I've had people in my podcast too. Before that do that course creation process. And they talk about, they've talked about that too. And how it's important not to just think, oh, I'm going to make a million dollars making all these courses. And 

Rich Bennett 23:50
I-- 

Jackie Pelegrin 23:50
then 

Rich Bennett 23:50
[LAUGHS] 

Jackie Pelegrin 23:51
"Set it and forget it." You know, yeah, it doesn't happen that way. He need to provide the support to them. And I've actually had people in my podcast that have businesses like that where they provide that consulting and that coaching on how to create those courses. And I had one person on my podcast that said, "Yeah, they have clients like that." That just say, "I just want to set it and forget it." And they're like, "Well, best practice says you don't want to do that. You want to provide them the support." And they push back on it and I've had people push back on that too with me. And so I'm like, "Well, you can do that, but you're just going to have a course that's going to sit on the shelf and you know, what is your success rate going to be your course completion rate?" 

Rich Bennett 24:32
He's got to hurt your brain too. 

Jackie Pelegrin 24:34
Yeah, it's definitely. Yeah, so it's interesting because I haven't actually created online courses before on platforms, but it's actually now that I'm going to be partnering with someone that's been on my podcast 

Rich Bennett 24:48
times. 

Jackie Pelegrin 24:48
several 

Rich Bennett 24:48
We're 

Jackie Pelegrin 24:49
going to be doing that. He said, "Here, take this course through you to me." And I really enjoyed it because it was how to actually create courses. And I was like, "Woo, this is really neat. And it gave me some ideas." And I'm like, "You know what? I could actually be an instructor on you to me and do 

Rich Bennett 25:06
Oh. 

Jackie Pelegrin 25:06
that." So I actually have several ideas for courses that I can create and one of them is going to be about podcasting, so it's going to take time to do 

Rich Bennett 25:17
Oh. 

Jackie Pelegrin 25:17
it. But yeah. 

Rich Bennett 25:18
Words, you're going to be starting your own business. 

Jackie Pelegrin 25:22
I think so. Yeah. So it's, it's amazing 

Rich Bennett 25:26
God, 

Jackie Pelegrin 25:26
how... 

Rich Bennett 25:27
you got that degree in business. 

Jackie Pelegrin 25:30
Right. 

Rich Bennett 25:30
And 

Jackie Pelegrin 25:31
Exactly. 

Rich Bennett 25:31
marketing. 

Jackie Pelegrin 25:32
Right. That, that really helps. Yes. 

Rich Bennett 25:35
All right. So I want to get into the podcast here. 

Jackie Pelegrin 25:38
Yes, 

Rich Bennett 25:38
podcast. 

Jackie Pelegrin 25:39
the 

Rich Bennett 25:39
Designing with love. 

Jackie Pelegrin 25:42
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 25:42
First thing first. Why? 

Jackie Pelegrin 25:45
The name. Yeah. The name and the why. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 25:47
No, 

Jackie Pelegrin 25:48
So... 

Rich Bennett 25:48
no, no. Why did you decide? Well, yeah. I guess, you know, why the name or how did you come up with the name, but why did you decide to start a podcast? 

Jackie Pelegrin 25:56
Yeah. What's the why behind it? So that actually came from teaching the college courses and one of the things I, I actually, when I went to get my second master's, it was all online. And I made a, I made a list of all the things that I wish I would have had, going to school online. And so I said, if I ever became an instructor and started teaching college courses, never thought it would happen. But I said, if this is, this is what I would want. And so one of the things I, I wish I would have had in an online program was that, that, that ability to be able to learn beyond the course content. So, I just thought, well, you know, what's the way I can do that for these online students to kind of in a way mimic what they would get in a traditional classroom where the instructor can have guest speakers come in? And I thought, hmm, well, how about a podcast? Maybe that's a good way to do it. So, yeah. So it just came up and then the, the name. I just, I was drafting some ideas. And I thought, well, it has to have design in it. But I don't want instructional design out. It has to be catchy. 

Rich Bennett 27:02
And 

Jackie Pelegrin 27:02
for me, it's a love of learning. It's, it's a labor of love. So I'm like, Oh, love. That would be neat. So I just started just drafting some ideas. And then designing with love came up. And I asked a few people, including my mom, I was like, What do you think you like it? Is it catchy? And so I got the consensus. Like, yeah, that's really good. It's catchy. It's, it just, it flows well. And I'm like, OK, yeah, so that's where it all 

Rich Bennett 27:27
came? The other thing is too, because if you would have just like you said, just had like instructional design or whatever, you're only good people that are interested in that no one instructional design is first of all, look at it. 

Jackie Pelegrin 27:41
Right? 

Rich Bennett 27:41
Designing with love has so many different meanings behind it. So you may get people looking at it that do him interior decorating. Seriously, but this is how you get more listeners, because if they start listening, then they may be like oh, well, it's not a bad interior design or fashion design, but I can learn stuff from this and isn't that the whole idea? 

Jackie Pelegrin 28:06
Absolutely. You get you hook them in and you get them interested in it, right? 

Rich Bennett 28:11
Yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 28:11
Yeah, and it's interesting too, because I actually had more of like a segmented, you know, approach to it, but now I've expanded out. And it's actually helped the show grow and I've had more guests from Pod Match that have wanted to come on. You know, I had someone on yesterday and she Charlie, Charlie Leatham. 

Rich Bennett 28:29
Oh 

Jackie Pelegrin 28:30
own company, as Tariya Leatham, but she's all about technology and she's been in it for a long time, but I approached it from the angle of educators and someone like me and everyday people and it really worked because I'm like how do we break and she's all about breaking down complex things into simple ideas and so we connected on that way and that wavelength and it was really great because I thought I wouldn't have considered her a 

Rich Bennett 28:57
yeah, 

Jackie Pelegrin 28:57
year 

Rich Bennett 28:57
yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 28:58
ago, but now I can look at it and go wow that's great. I even had someone on my podcast recently, he's outside of pod, he was outside of pod match but he found his assistant found the podcast and he's a nurse, a registered nurse, and he started his own marketing business and it's for professionals that are that are in nursing or hospitals and things like that and he helps them with their marketing, but I was like you know what we could again take it from that angle of marketing and being able to brand yourself and yeah so it opened up so many doors and so many things and I'm like oh this is great as you know an educator here's how we can utilize it so yeah so I've been really opening up my eyes to that and just going wow I can really you know look at someone and not dismiss them right away just because they may not fit that mold of what I'm maybe looking for, but 

Rich Bennett 29:59
I 

Jackie Pelegrin 29:59
can look at that as a different angle and go oh well yeah they can bring something new to the table and something that I may not have thought about or my listeners may not have thought about so it really opens up that that realm of that and then I think we can be better educators and yeah as a whole so it's really great 

Rich Bennett 30:18
and correct me if I'm wrong but you don't have guessed all the time you do some solo episodes as well right 

Jackie Pelegrin 30:25
correct right so I I used to I used to be all over the place with my my podcast and how I did I 

Rich Bennett 30:31
me too when I started so 

Jackie Pelegrin 30:32
I would do maybe a group of three you know guest episodes and then I'd release a couple of solos and I felt like it just didn't have I feel like a need a more structure for my listeners and for myself 

Rich Bennett 30:43
own 

Jackie Pelegrin 30:43
for my 

Rich Bennett 30:43
right 

Jackie Pelegrin 30:44
because I was starting to just become confused where I was like wait okay so which did I release next so then I I took to AI and I said okay how should I structure my podcast because I do a blend of the solo and the and the interview episode so um so it gets Chatsu BT gave me some really good ideas and I was like here's how I kind of want to do it and I'm thinking should I do it twice a week or should I stick with once a week and so Chatsu BT gave me some really good ideas and it said why don't you take your even episodes release though those will be your 

Rich Bennett 31:15
uh 

Jackie Pelegrin 31:16
your longer episodes your your interviews which are 45 30 to 45 minutes release 

Rich Bennett 31:20
right 

Jackie Pelegrin 31:20
those on Sunday and then take your episodes which are shorter 10 to 15 minutes and release those on Wednesday that's your midweek kind of uh shorter ones because people are in the middle of the week and so I was like oh that's really great I love that so thanks to chat to AI I was able to do that and uh and refine it and I even surveyed some of my my listeners on LinkedIn and buy me a coffee and I said what do you guys think and most people had no preference they didn't mind either way so I'm like okay I'll I'll them and just kind of get the pulse of what they want and so since then it's actually been better and and I've actually noticed more engagement more people wanting to connect with me on LinkedIn and stuff so yeah so it's been been really cool to actually do that and even rich with releasing twice a week I'm going I'm I just the one with Charlie I recorded yesterday that that won't be released until May 17th 2025 

Rich Bennett 32:19
uh huh because you got a lot in the funnel 

Jackie Pelegrin 32:22
yeah I got a lot in the 

Rich Bennett 32:23
same 

Jackie Pelegrin 32:23
funnel 

Rich Bennett 32:24
way 

Jackie Pelegrin 32:24
so what's great is that I can take a break for two weeks this 

Rich Bennett 32:28
yeah 

Jackie Pelegrin 32:28
this month in December take some time off and the podcast can run itself without me having to really do anything because I've got 30 something episodes all scheduled ready to go that are baked that can just go on their you know 

Rich Bennett 32:41
all right so let me I love talking to podcasters because people a lot of people want to get into podcasts and they don't realize how hard it is 

Jackie Pelegrin 32:51
right 

Rich Bennett 32:51
are you doing everything yourself that the editing transcribing the show notes and everything 

Jackie Pelegrin 32:58
yeah I'm doing it on myself but uh what's really nice is that I I found um not only that that structure but also I keep myself organized I I utilize a um a system I use I have a trullo board so I keep track of it that way of 

Rich Bennett 33:13
oh what all 

Jackie Pelegrin 33:14
true it's a it's called trullo it's it's like a um it's like a agile method where yeah you basically have all these different lists and then you have cards within those lists you can assign them to people 

Rich Bennett 33:27
Eh, 

Jackie Pelegrin 33:27
and 

Rich Bennett 33:28
okay. 

Jackie Pelegrin 33:28
You can do like checklists and stuff like that, so each, uh, so I have a list of all, since I'm a host and a guest, right. I have to keep track of 

Rich Bennett 33:35
Uh, 

mm-hmm. 

Jackie Pelegrin 33:53
So I actually take their biography. If they're in pod match I'll utilize some of the questions I have 

Rich Bennett 34:01
Right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 34:01
already, but then I'll actually have AI just kind of help me refine the interview script a little bit in my introduction. So it sounds really good. And of course I'll always edited. I don't take what AI gives me at the first pass. But it helps because then I'm not starting from scratch. And I do that with my solo episodes too. I ask it to help me build an outline. And then I kind of pause. I also polish it from there. And utilize that. So yeah, so it's really great. And the tools I use, like Riverside FM and Buzzsprout have AI built in. So it kind of helps me a little bit with that editing process. And I get social posts from that and blog posts. So yeah. So I find that, you know, I don't I don't depend upon it. But I utilize it as a jumping point. 

Rich Bennett 34:47
You should. Yeah. We're just. 

Jackie Pelegrin 34:48
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 34:49
So let's say a one hour, no you don't do one hour. You said up to 45 minute, episode. 

Jackie Pelegrin 34:55
Yeah, sometimes they sometimes they go an hour like Charlie's yesterday went almost to an hour. So sometimes they go a little bit over. But I I'm okay with that. I'm. 

Rich Bennett 35:03
I said, let's say a one hour episode, 

Jackie Pelegrin 35:06
um, 

Rich Bennett 35:07
overall, including the recording to the point where you finished with all your marketing and show notes and editing and uploading it. How long does it take you? 

Jackie Pelegrin 35:18
Usually a day or two or two. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 35:24
Okay. 

Jackie Pelegrin 35:24
So what I usually try to do is I take what Riverside gives me like with the they get they do magic clips. I don't really use those as much for the. For the interview episodes, because then they it gives me like 15 or 20 and I'm like that's just too many. So I'm actually changing my approach a little bit with that. So I use the magic segments, which are usually three to four minutes long, sometimes up to five minutes. And I feel like those are better for marketing purposes. 

Rich Bennett 35:49
Right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 35:50
The YouTube channel and I I take my bonus question and I utilize that is like my teaser on social media. So I find that that works really well. And then I just kind of take that and and work with that and then kind of, you know, edit those a little bit, but I try to get those out the same day so that that way I can promote it right away. And then. And then I edit the episode down the road a little bit. But I don't always take what AI gives me because sometimes. 

Rich Bennett 36:16
No, you can't. 

Jackie Pelegrin 36:17
Yeah, it'll say, oh, take this out, because it's fluff and it's extra and I'm like, but no, that was actually really good 

Rich Bennett 36:23
Right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 36:23
information. So yeah, so I don't always take the recommendations from what the AI 

Rich Bennett 36:32
is like I want to say like an assistant because it also it takes a while for it to learn more about you. And I'm sure you're probably already starting to see it where it's it's writing everything a little bit better. 

Jackie Pelegrin 36:46
Right. 

Rich Bennett 36:47
Exactly. Yeah. For you as you as you go along and it's like. It's kind of scary. It's like you're. 

Jackie Pelegrin 36:53
Yeah. Exactly. And I I still find that I have to coach it a little bit. 

Rich Bennett 36:57
Yes. 

Jackie Pelegrin 36:58
Asage 

Rich Bennett 36:58
Yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 36:59
things. Yeah. The first outputs not always going to be the best. It's funny because I, you know, I've I've actually talked about this on my quite a bit on my podcast about those those very things. And so it's very interesting from that education standpoint but then the podcast standpoint to yeah, it's really interesting. Still keeping that human loop in it. 

Rich Bennett 37:20
Those of you listening that want to get into podcasting. Jackie says something very important there about, you know, about the podcast and part. She mentioned Buzzsprout. And this is something I push the people that want to get into podcast and all the time, use a paid hosting platform. 

Jackie Pelegrin 37:42
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 37:42
Like Buzzsprout. And there's some other ones out there. Buzzsprout definitely is the best. And the reason I say that it's because these free ones are not free. They can throw ads in there anytime you want. And if you have sponsors like I do, the last thing a sponsor wants to hear is a commercial thrown in in the middle of their ad. And that will happen. So don't use the free sources. Buzzsprout offers so much. I mean, oh my god. Yeah, now they have the transcription. The master clean, uh, which is great. When I do the in person ones, that master clean is a godsend. 

Jackie Pelegrin 38:24
Oh, yeah, it's amazing. Because in what and also I use Riverside. And I know what you're using is great too. I've heard a lot of great things 

Rich Bennett 38:32
Squat. 

Jackie Pelegrin 38:32
about people. 

Rich Bennett 38:33
Yeah, a squat kiss. 

Jackie Pelegrin 38:34
Yeah. And, uh, yeah. And I think it does this too. A squat cast, uh, and Riverside does this too, where it separates the audio because I've had. 

Rich Bennett 38:42
Yes. 

Jackie Pelegrin 38:42
where I've been on podcast as a guest and they use zoom. And I'm like, 

Rich Bennett 38:46
Oh, 

Jackie Pelegrin 38:48
zoom is not, zoom is not made for 

Rich Bennett 38:49
Now 

Jackie Pelegrin 38:49
podcasting. 

Rich Bennett 38:49
thank you. 

Jackie Pelegrin 38:51
It doesn't, it doesn't. 

Rich Bennett 38:53
It's not. 

Jackie Pelegrin 38:54
But it's funny because Rich, I had someone that had issues with getting a, I couldn't hear her on my Riverside. So we had to pivot. We had to go to zoom. 

Rich Bennett 39:02
Yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 39:02
And I had to upload the audio recording. And it, it was I mean, it did a good job, but I, I missed that, that separation of being able to do that. And I didn't feel like it, it was still good. It was still a good episode and, and the content was good. But it was a bummer because I was like, well, okay, we'll pivot. We'll, we'll figure it out. But, um, I missed having all of those tools and those features in there. And I'm like, oh, this is why, yeah, zoom is not, it's not made for podcasting. 

Rich Bennett 39:30
It's not. 

Jackie Pelegrin 39:31
Wish I could tell people that, but I don't want to like, you know, tell them what 

Rich Bennett 39:35
I. Well, but you're 100% right because the, the bit rate is different for the sound for the audio. 

Jackie Pelegrin 39:42
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 39:42
However, I, I don't know if it's true or not. I thought I saw something where zoom is, uh, going to be, um, making some changes. So it is better for podcasting. 

Jackie Pelegrin 39:53
Oh, really? Well, that's 

Rich Bennett 39:54
yeah, I don't know. I mean, if they, if they're not, they should. 

Jackie Pelegrin 40:02
they 

Rich Bennett 40:02
Because yeah, unfortunately there, I mean, there are a lot of people that use it. And you can tell if you listen to a podcast carefully, you could tell if they were using zoom or not. 

Jackie Pelegrin 40:12
should, absolutely, 

Rich Bennett 40:13
Uh, and same if you watch it, if you watch one, watch it. If somebody is using zoom to do a YouTube show, and I'm guilty of this for when I was doing my one YouTube show, you can tell if they're using zoom because of the virtual background. 

Jackie Pelegrin 40:28
Right. Exactly. 

Rich Bennett 40:30
Yeah, if you're using zoom, you got to be very, very careful. The only time I use zoom is when I'm doing my, um, calls with kids at Santa Claus, because this way I can have my fireplace and everything in the background. That's why you see the green screen. 

Jackie Pelegrin 40:45
Right. 

Rich Bennett 40:47
But I got, it's like, I got to sit very still because just why a little move and they see that little green. 

Jackie Pelegrin 40:51
Yeah. And you're just. 

Rich Bennett 40:52
Yeah. Oh, yeah. But luckily, those kids really don't catch that. I 

Jackie Pelegrin 40:57
don't catch it. Yeah. But you 

Rich Bennett 40:59
hope 

Jackie Pelegrin 40:59
can 

Rich Bennett 40:59
they 

Jackie Pelegrin 40:59
tell. Yeah, it's like, it's like someone in the film industry, right? They can tell a show that just, uh, save, for example, the chosen is a good example of this because it's. 

Rich Bennett 41:09
Love that movie or show. 

Jackie Pelegrin 41:10
Yes, because when you, when you see, when they first started, they, of course, you know, crowdfunded, they didn't have the equipment. They didn't have the, you know, resources and now they do. 

Rich Bennett 41:20
Right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 41:21
If you go back and someone actually did this on YouTube, uh, he's, he and his wife do this. It's called the snipe life, but then they have the chosen sleuth too. But he, he did this. And I was like, Oh, this is true with podcasting too. You look to season one and you see the quality of what 

Rich Bennett 41:36
Yes. 

Jackie Pelegrin 41:37
they had. And now you look to season five, season six is coming out, um, next year, but you look to those two. And I've done that. I've done it in comparison. And I'm like, you can see just the, the quality of the, the film and the cinematography and even the costumes. Uh, it's just, and the set backgrounds, everything is just so, uh, so different. And, and so, yeah, in podcasting, you can tell quality wise. 

Rich Bennett 42:02
Yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 42:03
People's microphones. I mean, if they have a good microphone or not, yeah, um, 

Rich Bennett 42:07
I go back and one of, and I forget who it was. I don't know if it was Josh Harbinger. It may have been, uh, Pat Flynn. think it was Pat Flynn said never delete those old episodes. The original episodes never delete them. 

Jackie Pelegrin 42:24
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 42:24
Keep them up there, which I have. And I've gone back and listened to some of them. And I just cringe. 

Jackie Pelegrin 42:31
I 

Rich Bennett 42:31
When I, uh, it's like, uh, but the, but the content's good. 

Jackie Pelegrin 42:36
Yes. It's evergreen content. 

Rich Bennett 42:38
Yeah, 

Jackie Pelegrin 42:38
Uh, 

Rich Bennett 42:39
but I'm, I mean, because when I first started, I was, everything was in-person, in a restaurant. So I had the background noise. I didn't mind, you know, coming from radio, we had the background noise. I'm doing live recordings now with the background noise, once a month. 

Jackie Pelegrin 42:57
Which 

Rich Bennett 42:58
But just talking on it and I could tell, when you listen to it, you could tell how much editing is done because I was taking out the oms, the oms, and there was a lot of it. But now I don't worry about it because it's natural conversation. 

Jackie Pelegrin 43:16
Exactly. 

Rich Bennett 43:16
And I think it adds to it. You could tell, you're like, when you ask a hard question, it's somebody's like, 'oh, leave that pause in there' because you could tell they're thinking. 

Jackie Pelegrin 43:27
right. 

Rich Bennett 43:28
You 

Jackie Pelegrin 43:28
If 

Rich Bennett 43:28
know, 

Jackie Pelegrin 43:28
you take 

Rich Bennett 43:29
this, 

Jackie Pelegrin 43:29
it out, it just doesn't, it doesn't flow 

Rich Bennett 43:31
No, 

Jackie Pelegrin 43:31
well. 

Rich Bennett 43:32
you 

Jackie Pelegrin 43:32
It 

Rich Bennett 43:32
don't think I 

Jackie Pelegrin 43:32
sounds. 

Rich Bennett 43:32
may take out as if like somebody calls. 

Jackie Pelegrin 43:35
Right. 

Rich Bennett 43:35
Yeah, but especially if it's me. I mean, so, I see with the podcast, what's been your biggest challenge? 

Jackie Pelegrin 43:43
Oh gosh. I think for me what's been the biggest challenge is, and you probably get this too, is that people want to be on the show and they contact me. 

Rich Bennett 43:52
Mm-hmm. 

Jackie Pelegrin 43:53
It's outside of pod match or their assistant contacts me and says, great, I want to be on the show and all this stuff. And I ask them to fill out my guests and take form, send me their stuff, you know, give me some questions. And then they ghost me or they don't, or they schedule something and then they don't show up. 

Rich Bennett 44:10
Oh, yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 44:11
And then I contact them and like, what's going on? Is everything okay? And I don't hear from them. Sometimes it happens on pod match too. I mean, it just, it's the nature of it. But yeah, it's like, yeah, respect me, respect my time. You know, it's a mutual thing. And so if they, if they don't show up, or they ghost me, I'm just like, oh, that's one of my pet peeves. 

Rich Bennett 44:32
Oh, 

Jackie Pelegrin 44:33
Because I'm like that at work too. I don't like that at work. So I don't like it in the podcasting either. It's, 

Rich Bennett 44:38
yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 44:38
uh, 

Rich Bennett 44:39
When 

Jackie Pelegrin 44:39
that... 

Rich Bennett 44:40
I, when I first started, because I was strictly doing in person and it got me how many, and I was the only recording with local people, but how many wouldn't show up. And now I, I mean, a lot of these people I invited on, they never showed up and now they'll reach out to me. He's like, yeah, sorry, it's no. 

Jackie Pelegrin 45:04
You burned your bridge. 

Rich Bennett 45:06
Yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 45:06
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 45:06
Uh, I tell you, and I tell this story every once in a while. So where we record that now in person, it's in a park. It's kind of secluded, and you have to drive up this long drive to get there. This is why I... Whenever I record in person, I always try to have one of my co-hosts with me, especially when I have the beard. I, I think it was like two or three times, I'm standing outside by the car waiting for my guest to come up. Each time it was a woman. And they come up, they get part way up the drive, see me, and then they turn around and leave. 

Jackie Pelegrin 45:41
Oh no. 

Rich Bennett 45:43
Yeah. So, of course, I call them whenever I can because I, you're not always getting a good signal up there. 

Jackie Pelegrin 45:49
Right. 

Rich Bennett 45:49
So yeah, was that you coming up? Well, yeah. Well, why didn't you come up? There was some homeless guy standing out there. 

Jackie Pelegrin 45:56
Oh, no. Oh my goodness. 

Rich Bennett 45:59
first of all, it was me. I'm not homeless. But at the same time, I can understand. Because in that regard, it's not nighttime, it's dorm day. But it's gonna want me to come to a secluded area, 

Jackie Pelegrin 46:13
Well, 

Rich Bennett 46:13
to a building. Yeah, I can, that's why now. And I always try to have one of my female co-hosts with me. 

Jackie Pelegrin 46:20
That's a good idea. 

Rich Bennett 46:21
Yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah, that was... I didn't even when I 

Jackie Pelegrin 46:25
It's 

Rich Bennett 46:25
first 

Jackie Pelegrin 46:25
like it didn't 

Rich Bennett 46:25
started. 

Jackie Pelegrin 46:26
click at first. 

Rich Bennett 46:27
Yeah, 

Jackie Pelegrin 46:27
you just... Why is this happening? 

Rich Bennett 46:29
Yeah. It's, but no, you're right with the, you get the ghost in a lot. And Jackie and I are bringing this up, especially for those of you that want to get in the podcast and just let you know what you're, you have to be ready to deal with. Because it's not that easy. Everybody thinks it's easy. You can just turn on your microphone, phone or whatever and start recorded. Yeah, it doesn't work that way. There's a lot behind the scenes stuff that you don't know about. Pod match, like I said before, is a godsend. There's a, in any guest that I get from Pod match that comes with Pod match. It's top priority. And local people, because I know them. 

But there's... And when it comes to, to... Actually, let me ask you this, because when it came to podcasting, I was listening to different podcasts to learn how to podcast. Did you do the same as so? Who were you listening to? 

Jackie Pelegrin 47:25
It's interesting. I just dove into 

Rich Bennett 47:29
it 

Jackie Pelegrin 47:30
and I just, 

Rich Bennett 47:35
doing 

Jackie Pelegrin 47:35
sense 

Rich Bennett 47:35
it. 

Jackie Pelegrin 47:35
of what they were doing. And one of them is, uh, uh, uh, some of this, actually, I, I always wanted her to come on my podcast and, um, and her name is Connie Millamid. She's the e-learning coach. She has her own podcast and she, uh, she was on my podcast and I was like, wow, if I ever could get a few people on my podcast, it should be one of them because she's 

Rich Bennett 47:56
right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 47:57
Well-known in the field and things like that, but it was really interesting because I reached out to her on LinkedIn and I was like, hey, Connie, you want to be on my show? And she's like, yes, I'll, I'll never say no to, to that. And it opened up an opportunity for me to be on her mastering instructional design, uh, community, um, actually next week. I'm going to be doing a presentation so it opened up that. But yeah, I, I did, uh, I listened to her podcast beforehand and kind of got a sense for, okay, how should I do my intro and, and how should I, uh, kind of approach it and should it be interview style or should it be conversational? How should I kind of approach it? So, um, I was kind of, kind of, um, at the beginning, I think I was very, uh, structured in how I did it and I still have that structure because I think it's important not to be Lucy to Lucy, Lucy about it, but at the same time I loosened myself up a little bit and that's, and I'm not as, uh, structured in how I used to do it and I, I found, I 

Rich Bennett 48:55
Let it 

Jackie Pelegrin 48:55
find that 

Rich Bennett 48:55
flow. 

Jackie Pelegrin 48:55
conversations are better. Yeah, and it's, it my, you know, listeners appreciate that authenticity and 

Rich Bennett 49:02
Mm-hmm. 

Jackie Pelegrin 49:02
that realism more than they, they don't want that, that structure so much of like, here's how, yeah, they don't, it's too robotic and. 

Rich Bennett 49:12
Yes, that's, yeah, don't use scripts or nothing. That's why I love whenever I have a guest on or even some of my co-hosts sometimes if we're doing it virtually, all of a sudden you'll hear the dog or the cat. It's like, I'll leave it in there, man, it just adds to it. 

Jackie Pelegrin 49:27
It does. Yeah, I had a guest on and she lives in Mexico and she, uh, all of a sudden, this, I could hear rumbling going on and I'm like, is there a storm? And she's like, yeah, there's a thunderstorm coming and I'm like, I've kept it in because it was part of the conversation, but 

Rich Bennett 49:43
uh-huh. 

Jackie Pelegrin 49:44
I'm sorry, I hope you, I hope that doesn't ruin it. And I'm like, no, no, that's okay. That actually, 

Rich Bennett 49:49
so long as power doesn't go out, we're fine. 

Jackie Pelegrin 49:51
Yeah, exactly, but yeah, it's funny because I was like, whoa, I can actually hear the cracking. And I was like, whoa, that's good, you know, that, that creates authentic conversation. So, yeah, it was pretty neat. 

Rich Bennett 50:03
You're going to be, or you may have already done it. I'm not 100% sure, but you're going to be doing something or you've done it with a guest that you've had on and I think this is, uh, this is great. This is something that I've been thinking about doing myself as well. And I know a lot of other polycasters have done it. You wrote a book or you're getting ready to? 

Jackie Pelegrin 50:28
Yes, it's 

Rich Bennett 50:28
about from one of your episodes? 

Jackie Pelegrin 50:30
Yeah, so I actually got the idea from BuzzFrowt, because they have their monthly news letter. And it said, you know, ways to monetize your podcast. This came out several months ago. 

Rich Bennett 50:41
Yeah, 

Jackie Pelegrin 50:41
yeah. So they had, you know, Patreon, buy me a coffee. I tried Patreon and it didn't, it didn't set up correctly. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to do buy me a coffee. So that's what I ended up doing. It was so easy. And I don't have any supporters yet. Just podmatch because they send my, my commission through there. So they're my one supporter right now. But that's 

Rich Bennett 51:01
yeah, 

Jackie Pelegrin 51:01
okay. You never know. 

Rich Bennett 51:02
We could fix that. 

Jackie Pelegrin 51:03
maybe down the road, yeah. So I was like, well, that's, you know, one of the things they mentioned was writing a book and I was like, oh, you know, I've thought about doing that, you know, and so I was like, how am I going to approach that though and not make it to wear because the episodes are free? I don't have supporters right now and I don't want people to think the book is just another version of the podcast. So what I did was one of my co-workers, who's another instructional designer and he teaches too and he's like, hey, why don't you do a series on all the models and theories and I was like, ooh, you got a good idea there. I like that. So I always like kind of, you know, asking other people what do you think I should do on the on the podcast? What's what's the next best thing? So that way it's not just me, but it's actually I'm bringing ideas from my students, the community, what do you want next and so he gave me that idea. So I did a whole entire series about that and I started off with the top 10. So I was like, oh, I could actually expand that into a book 

Rich Bennett 52:04
Yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 52:05
and so it ended up actually being 18. So it's 20 chapters. The manuscript is pretty much done. I just want to go through and read it one more time again through but I got all my marketing materials ready to go. I was thinking rich of self-publishing but there's so much work involved with that with self-publishing. I know authors who have self-published and they have to there's a lot of legwork to that and not that I mind doing that, but I'm like, I'm working full-time, I'm teaching, I'm doing the podcast. Well, I really have time. I have to be realistic about what I can do. So I'm like, yeah, maybe, you know, I know first time authors sometimes it's a little challenging to break out into that, but you know, I, again, I worked with AI and I said, what do I need to do this? I'm new at this. So give me some advice 

Rich Bennett 52:52
and 

Jackie Pelegrin 52:52
it told me, you know, kind of gave me some advice and I said, what are some good publishers I could reach out to and that are in my genre that would be really good. So for, you know, something that's non-fiction, that's, so it gave me some ideas. So I think what I'm gonna do is I don't know if I'm gonna do it the end of this month or maybe I'll wait till January or something like that first of the year but I'll start reaching out to publishers since I have my promotional type of materials, 

Rich Bennett 53:18
right? Right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 53:19
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 53:20
awesome. 

Jackie Pelegrin 53:20
so Yeah, so I'm hoping by spring or summer, depending upon, you know, how the process goes and if I get a publisher that's like, yeah, I mean, listen, let's talk, let's, we're interested and see how it goes from there. But yeah, so I'm looking forward to it to see how it pans out and 

Rich Bennett 53:37
you're a lot further than I am. I started on my first one and it's like, all right, too many people have written about that. Let me do a guide instead. Starting on that, it's like, yeah, no, then we did a 'podathon' in September, 'podathon for recovery.' 

Jackie Pelegrin 53:55
Oh cool, 

Rich Bennett 53:55
So what I think I'm going to do, I got to talk to my one co-hus from the stories we heard from people in recovery. I'm thinking about putting together a book, you know, from there's about their stories, changed their names to protect the innocence or whatever. Kind of 

Jackie Pelegrin 54:10
go. 

Rich Bennett 54:10
sadly dragged that. And then let's face it, I mean, it's hard to make a lot of money from writing books but any money that I do make from it, I'll give back to that non-profit that helps these women in recovery. 

Jackie Pelegrin 54:24
Ooh, I like that. That's a great idea. 

Rich Bennett 54:26
Yeah, plus I could always give them a way too. 

Jackie Pelegrin 54:29
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 54:29
If 

Jackie Pelegrin 54:30
exactly. 

Rich Bennett 54:30
I'm helping, I have no problem with that. 

Jackie Pelegrin 54:33
I look at it the same way, you know, yeah, I want to be able to, it's giving back to the community and, 

Rich Bennett 54:38
mm-hmm. 

Jackie Pelegrin 54:39
It's being able to help those that, you know, that just don't, they don't know where to start or they don't know how to go about it because, and I'm not trying to be in competition with other books that are out there, there's a lot of great books that are used in the classes I teach and 

Rich Bennett 54:53
Yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 54:54
that I've read that I love and I have on my bookshelf, but I'm trying to bring it from a different lens. So hopefully, you know, the publishers will see that and they'll see that I have that whole ecosystem already built. So that's really great that I, I have that already there and it's just building upon it. So, yeah, I like. 

Rich Bennett 55:12
All right, so something important. Tell people your website and podcast and how they can find you. 

Jackie Pelegrin 55:19
Sure. So my website is, I kept the, I actually switched over. I had Webador for a while and I didn't really like 

Rich Bennett 55:28
Yeah, 

Jackie Pelegrin 55:28
it. I know. It's like this not really well known. So, on the advice of Alex and all of his, you know, different tools, when he recommended pod page for the 

Rich Bennett 55:40
Oh, yeah, all 

Jackie Pelegrin 55:41
site. I switched over that, but I wanted to keep the domain because I had already paid for the domain. So it's 

Rich Bennett 55:46
right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 55:46
designingwithloveblock.com, 

uh, but it has, I have a blog, uh, companion blog, so it still makes sense. So yeah, if they just go to designing with webblog, um, they can find it there, I've got my videos there as well that they can connect out, and they can connect with me there, and 

so, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 56:17
I love Poppage, and I do web design, but when it came to the, my podcast, I was doing my own for a while and it came across Poppage, and I'm like, God, this just looks so much easier. Let me do it that way, and, 

Jackie Pelegrin 56:33
yes. 

Rich Bennett 56:33
oh, thank God I did. 

Jackie Pelegrin 56:35
It's so nice, and what's nice is that I connected my LinkedIn, so when a new episode drops and goes live, then it puts a social post on LinkedIn for me. 

Rich Bennett 56:45
I have not done that yet, 

Jackie Pelegrin 56:47
Yeah, it's really nice. I mean, it's not really fancy, but it gives the gist of what the episode's about. 

Rich Bennett 56:52
right? 

Jackie Pelegrin 56:53
So yeah, so it's really nice. And then I also connected my, um, my channel, my not the whole channel, but the, uh, the, yeah, the channel for my YouTube. So all my video segments are connected automatically. I sometimes I have to refresh it, but 

Rich Bennett 57:08
right. 

Jackie Pelegrin 57:09
Connects that. And so I have the video page and my guest page. Yeah, it's just really, I mean, you can't, you can't beat it. It's, I mean, for the price, it's just, yeah, that's amazing. 

Rich Bennett 57:22
All right. So Jackie, 

Jackie Pelegrin 57:23
yes. 

Rich Bennett 57:24
Anything you would like to add before I get to my last question. 

Jackie Pelegrin 57:28
I don't think so. I think yeah, we covered a wide gamut of things. 

Rich Bennett 57:32
All right. So here's how this works. And I hope you don't pick a low number. Pick, pick a number between one and 100. 

Jackie Pelegrin 57:42
Oh, um, 55. 

Rich Bennett 57:45
55, 

55, 55. Why 55? Oh, 

Jackie Pelegrin 57:49
I don't know. I just, I thought I should do above 50s and then five. Just that odd 50 you know, five 

Rich Bennett 57:56
just need to get a wheel and spin it for now because everybody's picking numbers below 20. 

Jackie Pelegrin 58:01
and really, 

Rich Bennett 58:02
Um, yeah, it's like the same question a lot. 

Jackie Pelegrin 58:05
I 

Rich Bennett 58:05
Um, 

Jackie Pelegrin 58:06
you want to mix it up. 

Rich Bennett 58:07
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, this is a good question. This is a good question. What does authenticity mean to you in a world where many people present curate it versions of themselves? 

Jackie Pelegrin 58:20
Ooh, I think for me, authenticity is staying true to who you are and just, uh, not losing that. So whether it's something you love doing is a, you love doing is a child go back to that. That's actually, I had someone on my podcast recently about that and creativity and how we have that as a child, but then we sometimes lose that when we become an adult. So, um, yeah. So I think creativity and just being who you are, um, that's how we bring out our authentic selves. Absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 58:50
I love it. I love it. Great answer. Jackie, I want to thank you so much. It's been a pleasure talking with you to doors open anytime you want to come back. Um, 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:00
I always do that with my guests too. 

Rich Bennett 59:02
Oh, I don't do it with all of them. Trust me. 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:05
Oh, wow. So I know I've hit this. 

Rich Bennett 59:09
I didn't do that with Alex. No, I'm joking. I think Alex knows that door is always 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:14
Yeah. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 59:15
open. 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:15
When you know you've got an open door, you know you've, you've hit this sweet spot, 

Rich Bennett 59:18
Well, 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:18
right? 

Rich Bennett 59:19
here's the thing. One of the and I haven't done this yet. We've done virtual round tables on mental health. I think even addiction, but I've never done one on podcast. 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:29
Oh, 

Rich Bennett 59:29
and I think that would be interesting, especially now for those of you listening, we're recording this December third. It seems like December, January is when most people start a 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:40
get. 

Rich Bennett 59:40
podcast. They want to 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:41
Yes. Like the new year they want to do. 

Rich Bennett 59:43
Yeah. 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:44
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 59:44
And 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:44
the 

Rich Bennett 59:45
then 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:45
shiny new thing. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 59:46
From the end of January to the beginning of March, they stopped doing it. 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:50
Right. 

Rich Bennett 59:51
And 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:52
Alex said that what is it? Like 94% of podcasters don't make it 

Rich Bennett 59:56
It's 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:56
past. 

Rich Bennett 59:57
less than 6% succeed. 

Jackie Pelegrin 59:59
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:00
It's, yeah, a matter of fact, because it's funny. I wanted, when I did my 750th episode, I, my plan was to have Alex on. So I put it in my group asking for suggestions and I told him what I wanted to do. Well, Alex came back into the group and said, why don't you record a live episode, not not broadcast live, but, you know, record it live with my co-host and some special guests. Oh, okay. So I did that so I couldn't have Alex on, but which now led us to recording once a month doing a live recording once a month with different people. But yes, I had Alex on after that. uh. God, he opened up a can of words with that one, because yeah, some of the questions that came up from my co-host and just the comments, somehow another, I got violent hold into doing a Santa Smackdown next year. 

Jackie Pelegrin 1:01:04
Oh gosh, 

Rich Bennett 1:01:05
At a dojo where they're going to be able to, well thank God they're not going to be able to Santa with a taser knife. That's somehow another deck came up. 

Jackie Pelegrin 1:01:16
oh. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:16
Instead they're going to be throwing snowballs at me, which are going to be phone balls. I mean it's going to be cool. And, but yeah it's like we need. 

Jackie Pelegrin 1:01:24
You don't want to end up in the hospital 

Rich Bennett 1:01:25
something. 

Jackie Pelegrin 1:01:25
or 

Rich Bennett 1:01:25
No! And my one co-host here's like, oh man, be cool. Come on, let the kids beat up on Santa. I was like, I'm not campus! 

Jackie Pelegrin 1:01:33
No! 

Rich Bennett 1:01:35
I was in the hotel sitting there thanks for idea, Alex. But it was great. We had a blast. So it 

Jackie Pelegrin 1:01:43
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 1:01:43
was, 

Jackie Pelegrin 1:01:43
I would love to have him on mine too because I think he could really talk about that, just the authenticity that you talked about. And just. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:51
Oh, 

Jackie Pelegrin 1:01:51
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:53
And to see what he has done with P too match and how fast it has grown is amazing. Amazing. 

Jackie Pelegrin 1:02:00
Yeah. And I think a lot of my listeners could benefit from it because they're educators and they could look at it from that standpoint of what he's built and the training behind it and everything. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:11
And the same with who is it? I think Tom. Tom Rossi at Buzzsprout, because Buzzsprout is not that old and the same with I think it's Brandon from Podpage. 

Jackie Pelegrin 1:02:22
Oh, 

Rich Bennett 1:02:23
yeah. The stuff they're doing for podcasters. 

Jackie Pelegrin 1:02:27
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 1:02:28
they're at the top. You can't beat him. So Jackie, thanks so much. 

Jackie Pelegrin 1:02:34
Yeah, thank you Rich. I appreciate you having me on and I'm glad we got connected through Podmatch. So we'll have to… 

Rich Bennett 1:02:39
It's a giant network. 

Jackie Pelegrin 1:02:41
Going, yeah, I love it. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:44
Thank you for listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and learned something from it as I did. If you'd like to hear more conversations like this, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you have a moment, I'd love it if you can leave a review. It helps us reach more listeners and share more incredible stories. Don't forget to connect with us on social media or visit our website at ConversationsWithRitchBentIt.com for updates, giveaways, and more. Until next time, take care, be kind, and keep the conversation's going. You know, it takes a lot to put a podcast together. And my sponsors help add a lot, but I also have some supporters that actually help me when it comes to the editing software, the hosting, and so forth. There's a lot that goes into putting this together. So I want to thank them, and if you can, please, please visit their websites, visit their businesses, support them however you can. So please visit the following. Full Full Circle Boards, nobody does charcuterie, like full circle boards. Visit them at fullcircleboards.com. Sincerely, Sincerely Sincerely, so your photography, live in the moment, they'll capture it. Visit them at sincerelysoyer.com. The Jopitan Lions Club, serving the community since 1965. Visit them at jopitanlinesclub. org. And don't forget the E at the end of Jopitan, because they're extraordinary.