Every Tuesday, I spend anywhere between an hour and a half and three hours sitting in front of a computer screen to personally produce the upcoming episode of my podcast.
It’s one of the tasks that I refuse to hand over to someone else.
I understand the need to reduce pressure and noise by utilizing a team. I know that the most successful people in the world remove all distractions and delegate their tasks to others in an effort to free up time.
I do that too..
I use virtual assistants to handle certain website tasks.
I have specific contractors that I employ for more intense web development or marketing projects.
I use a social media scheduler (shout out to MeetEdgar.com) for a lot of my targeted social content and managing my accounts.
I even lean on my network to help get the word out to specific guests in an order to get their attention.
I know I can’t do it by myself and am always open to finding ways to grow my team.
But the production of my episodes is something that I don’t see me letting go of.
I feel like a mad scientist in the lab whenever I give birth to another crazy creation and the ‘high’ I get from it is incredible.
It’s pure creation at it’s best. I love overcoming the challenge every week to put out a GREAT quality product.
Not just the content, but the audio quality. And not just audio quality, but the general tone and timing of an episode.
The little things…
Like when to perfectly time the downbeat on a background track to wrap up at the end of a spoken segment so that it puts a aural exclamation point on what was being said.
Like pairing the tone of the musical tracks I use to match the energy of the conversation with my guest as we enter and exit the conversation.
Like knowing when to eliminate the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ of my crutch words and when to leave them in to highlight an authentic moment.
Or when to remove an entire segment because I stepped on the toes of my guest and took away from their message with my non-sense.
And the counterpoint, knowing when to honor my guest and keep something dumb that they said from ever reaching the airwaves by editing their original monologue and piecing together the best description of their point..
It’s all magic and I love every minute of it. And the cool part is that I get better every week.
I can’t tell you how many times a listener of the show has reached out to me and thanked me for making a great quality product. Or when a new guest who wasn’t familiar with my show hears it for the first time and shares their sigh of relief that they are dealing a true professional in the space.
I can say that in a weird way, I have found ‘my voice’ in the way I am producing these shows. It’s work, but it’s not a struggle. It makes it all worth it.
Anyway, I just wrapped up producing this Friday’s episode and felt compelled to share this side of the story as I sit here in the afterglow of the process.
Go on..
Go find your voice. It’s time.
