What I learned starting a podcast
I launched my first podcast episode in late September (available on Apple and Spotify), and what a joy the process has been. I’ve learned a lot doing it, and I’m going to share a few lessons and observations in today’s blog post. Before I jump into that, I first have to thank everyone who listened. When I conceived of the idea, I said that I would be happy if even one person (outside of my wife… she has to support me!) listened to each episode. I hold my personal podcast listening time as sacred. With many folks having less travel time due to social distancing or otherwise, I know that podcast time may be even more scarce.
I’ve been so overwhelmed by the support, feedback, and love I’ve received since launching. My favorite feedback was from the spouse of one of the guests, and this person shared excitement for when their kids are old enough to listen to the episode. That got me thinking how fun it would be for my own kids to listen to me (or read these posts), because all of this is a snapshot in time of what we were thinking and doing, that before I eventually turn into some grumpy ol’ dad, I was a guy who had interests and hobbies and cool friends. Well, hopefully it stays that way!
Getting to the learnings and observations, I split things up into two distinct parts: podcasts in general, and personal reflections.
About podcasts
Slightly technical stuff
As soon as I edited and published my first episode, I started to listen to podcasts differently. I continued to be an audience member, but I suddenly became more critical. The first thing I noticed was sound quality, and for some reason, it annoyed me that some shows always sounded a little crappy. You may have noticed from my accompanying picture that I didn’t have anything close to a professional studio. I have this laptop, some cheap equipment I bought from the interwebs, and a rather shaky and dangerous setup in my apartment bathroom, which by the way, is located in a busy and loud part of New York City. It sort of boggles my mind that some podcasters cannot produce better sounding content. I can assure you that my production budget is very low (it could be free but I’ve opted for a paid subscription to a low-cost recording product).
The biggest thing that changed for me was how I started to hear cuts and edits. I noticed this because I edited out some things like long pauses, filler words (e.g., “uhm”), and technical difficulties. When I edited these things out, I would sometimes notice a discontinuity during playback, probably because we didn’t record in studios, which meant that any background noise would essentially “skip” a beat. I could no longer “unhear” these cuts and edits in other shows, which made me think, “what did they cut out?” What else are they leaving out? More than anything, it reminded me that what you see and hear on the interwebs is the product of sound engineers, producers, editors, and others all colluding to present the best version of someone, and that people aren’t these perfect speakers.
I really respect the craft
Interviewing is hard for me. I felt like I had to balance (1) keeping conversations moving, but seemingly natural; (2) asking thoughtful, but not leading, questions; (3) contributing my own thoughts, but letting the guests be the experts; and (4) trying to follow the flow of the conversations, but not totally abandoning my preparation. Perhaps more simply, it’s really hard for me to be a “host” and an “audience member,” and I consider myself like any other listener because I am trying to learn from each of my guests.
These reflections made me respect certain podcast hosts even more. For example, I really like Dr. Laurie Santos, host of The Happiness Lab. She’s a super smart, established scientist, yet, she doesn’t try to force her expertise out during her interviews. I always like listening to hosts as guests on other shows, like when she was on the Nike TRAINED podcast. I also enjoy Shankar Vedantam’s interviewing style in Hidden Brain. He himself is quite the intellectual, and also has the ability to challenge his guests in totally non-aggressive ways, which I think is an incredible skill.
About life
Learning how to listen
To add a bit more to what I’ve already written above, I learned how to listen more carefully. Oftentimes, whenever I’m “communicating” with someone, I’m thinking about how I’m going to respond; that doesn’t seem like listening to me! By the time I wrapped up Season 1, I gave myself permission to have awkward or long pauses before responding (which, by the way, I edited out!). With that permission to myself, I didn’t have to think about my response while my guest was speaking. In general, I don’t even know what I’m going to say, even moments before I say something, so why bother prepping at the expense of listening to someone intently?
This carried over into my professional life. Active listening allows me to similarly “go off script” and simply follow a conversation. Since changing my approach to conversation, I find that my meetings are more natural, productive, and friendly (more on this below).
How to learn, prepare, and produce
Someone once told me that learning takes a variety of types of exposure, and more than a few times, before something sticks, or as she put it, “Five times, five ways.” This makes sense to me, and in some ways, is already how I like to learn and prepare. I like to learn by breaking things into digestible chunks, which is something I hope to write more about as an extension of this earlier post about learning in general. Chunking, as I’ll call it, can apply not only to preparing or learning, but to the act of doing, too.
By the second episode, I calculated that producing one episode takes about six times the length of the actual episode itself. A 30 minute episode takes me about three total hours. I break it down like this:
Preparation: 2x total episode, or about 1 hour, which includes
Mind space
Writing the brief for my guest
Visualizing the interview
Interview itself: 1x, or 0.5 hours
Editing: 2x, or 1 hour
Final listen at double speed: 0.5x, or 0.25 hours
“Marketing” (social and blog posts): 1x, or 0.5 hours
I noticed that this sort of chunking applies to other aspects of my life. To write a 15-minute blog post breaks down like this:
Mind space: 4x, or 1 hour
Initial thoughts and outline: 2x, or 0.5 hours
First draft: 4x, or 1 hour
Second draft: 2x, or 0.5 hours
Third draft (mostly edits by now): 2x, or 0.5 hours
Fourth draft (mostly final read through): 1x, or 0.25 hours
In total, then, my average blog post takes me almost four hours to write and publish.
This approach shows up other places, like my fitness: interval training (running), strength training (e.g., rep schemes to increase 1-rep max), high intensity interval training (e.g., tabata workouts), and boxing (e.g., doing 12, 5-minute round workouts, prepping for 3-to-5, 2-minute round sparring sessions).
(If for some reason you’re curious, I describe how many hours a week I spent studying data science on Quora.)
To give a more tangible example, think about your work meetings, which may have proliferated if you’re now working from home. How often are they productive, even if you are the one hosting the meeting? After starting the podcast, I noticed that I began getting much more out of my meetings by approaching my meetings like my interviews:
Preparation;
Visualization;
Active listening; and
Recap (notes) and dissemination.
This approach takes a lot more time than what I used to do, which was to set the meeting invite, jot some simple agenda down, and then jump into a meeting cold as it popped up. At its worse, my calendar had between 20 and 30 hours of meetings per week. In order to maximize the value of these meetings, I probably should have spent some time before and after each meeting, to say nothing of staying focused during the meeting itself. Using a conservative multiplier, like 2x instead of the 4x I used for my podcasts, would imply between 40 and 60 hours dedicated just to prepping for, attending, and recapping meetings, which raises the question, how much was I really getting out of these meetings?
Having deep conversations with friends is fun
I’ve known each guest for more than 10 years, some of them, almost 30. I consider all of them good friends. That said, I don’t remember the last time I had a long and thoughtful conversation with any of them, which is not to say our friendships are superficial or anything. What this experience taught me is that deep talks are always available, and honestly, it’s super fun to learn from people I love and respect. As it would turn out, my friends are also incredibly cool and smart. I need to find a way to deeply connect with friends that doesn’t also require recording a podcast episode!
Starting a podcast was very easy
I think three weeks passed between conception of a podcast to the release of the first episode. Granted, I had almost nothing to lose by producing a crappy show, I still think that’s pretty fast for someone with no podcasting experience and a couple of kids at home. The reason it was easy, though, was that the podcast itself was incremental to my existing system.
I already had a couple of blogs (you’re currently reading from one of them). I used one of these blogs to host my podcast. I already have a few social media accounts (like everyone else in the world). I simply used these to promote my show. I added a free contact management system, something I had been planning anyway, to increase touch points with potential listeners and readers. I can imagine being overwhelmed if I had to do all of that in one go.
A final thanks, and up next...
I want to thank everyone again for taking the time to view this blog and listen to my first attempts to become a podcaster, and a very special thanks to all my guests (in order of publication):
Season 1 was dedicated to learning through the lens of parenthood; I’m pretty sure that there’s a lot to learn from my friends in these episodes even if you’re not a parent, so please check it out if you haven’t already! We’re on Apple and Spotify.
It’s been a while since I’ve published a new episode, but I’m happy to report that I’ve got some things planned for 2021. I’ll abandon the season format; I don’t publish often enough to get a consistent theme and series together. That said, I plan to continue interviewing my amazing friends to share their stories in hopes that their lessons are applicable to your life.
Wishing you all the happiest, safest, and healthiest holidays, and here’s to a different and better 2021!