“Should we start recording a podcast? Would you be up for giving it a try?”
Just a short and out of the blue message from James, my friend and business partner. Was the beginning of the most surprising adventures I’ve ever had.
We have been talking about starting a podcast in the past, but it was something up in the air. One of the hundreds of ideas we come up with. We follow podcasts of massive Internet superstars. James Altucher, Tim Ferriss and Authority Hackers are our very favourites. Listening to this guys is a massive inspiration. We just wanted to create a cool podcast like Tim Ferris and Kevin Rose’s Random Show, but something always stopped us.
I was the biggest problem. I wasn’t so sure. I am pretty shy and introverted. The idea of talking for a public wasn’t quite my cup of tea. Talking in English was out of question. I just didn’t want people to laugh at my bad English spoken in a strong Italian accent.
I have always said no to James. Classic excuses. I don’t have anything interesting to talk about. Nobody will understand me. There is a lot of effort involved. Nobody is interested in us.
I am still not sure why this time I have said yes, but in less than 24 hours I’ve found myself in front of a microphone. I was having a great time!
Once again James proved me wrong (don’t tell him I’ve said this or it will just boost his ego!).
I loved the experience and even if we are at the very early stages with our Show and Tell Podcast, I have already learnt a lot.
- The whole recording process was great fun. Just me and one of my best mates talking about stuff we love. Geeky stuff. We can say it was a sort of quality time between us. No stress from the office nor deadlines. Just two good friends chatting front of a cup of tea.
- It has been super easy. Just a microphone plugged in one of our laptops. No need for a radio station set up. No need of crazy complicated infrastructures. Keep it simple, the outcome will be more natural.
- A podcast transcription produces a pretty good blog post, but it’s more fun. From a recorded episode is quite easy and inexpensive producing a transcription. The result will be a meaty blogpost, full of good content about topics you like. SEO paradise.
- Trying to explain things to people is an incredible way to learn. Your listeners have a different background than yours. The biggest obstacle will be making your concepts clear to them. You have to think in a different way, simplify things, make them flow logically and use concepts that are easy to understand. That proved to be a pretty hard but useful exercise.
- Researching material for the podcast made my mind work in a sharper way. I went through the hundreds of posts and articles that I daily skim with a completely different mindset. I was looking for something interesting to talk about. I found myself reading stuff I would probably have missed in the rush of a normal working day.
- The conversation motivated my brain to think quickly. We record our podcast in a single take. I don’t know what James want to talk about and he doesn’t know the topics I have chosen. No time for looking online for the best answer. It’s just you, the microphone and the recording going on. I have immediately found myself thinking in a deeper way, trying to answer in an interesting and useful way.
- It made me realise how much interesting stuff goes on every day around the world. The daily amount of new information is mad. Every day there are new happenings, new conventions, new products, new trends. This just motivated me. I want to be kept in the loop, conscious of what is going on around me. There is too much goodness to discover, I don’t have time to be lazy and laid back.
This will be an amazing way to connect with super interesting people. Ok, we are at super early stages, but the process was so easy and natural. We can’t wait to be able to involve guests, have other points of view and just enlarge our vision of the world.
This is just a beginning of this adventure. I have already learnt so much in such a short time and I find myself craving for another podcast recording session. I went against my inner worries. Jumped straight out of my comfort zone. I have enjoyed every second of it.
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