Listen:
We’ve reached this point of the experiment, kids.
The official first anniversary of the show passed on April 12 – a year after I published Episode #1: Turning Pain Into Power With FenyxFyre. Twelve months and 45 full episodes later, it’s time to step back, reassess, and figure out where to go from here. Like the great Franco Columbu and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the opening anecdote of this week’s minisode, the pump isn’t there right now.
Time for a kind of breakfast.
The show has been an experiment from day one. I didn’t go into it with a plan (which creates both problems and opportunities), and if you’ve been following along, you know that I’ve tried a lot of different things. It began as an interview show because I’ve always done interviews as a PR person and blogger. We experimented with impromptu roadisodes along the touring highway. We got into solo episodes because my favourite podcasts tend to be solo shows and it was territory that I wanted to explore. We experimented with episode length (everything from nearly two hours to today’s lean and mean 15 minutes).
I edited on long drives all the way across Canada, from Prince Edward Island to the coast of British Columbia. I edited bouncing around in the back of vans and in the front seat of a Sprinter on the Autobahn. We recorded roadisodes Timmins, Ontario and southern Texas and Gladbeck, Germany, among other fine cities. We sampled some fine wines along the way. I even recorded in Sarah MacDougall's kitchen.
All told, the first year produced around 45 hours of content. It was at times extremely challenging to make it work, but the rewards have been pretty cool.
I got to spend an hour with Jason Tait – one of my favourite drummers of all time. I got to meet cool people like drummer Emily Dolan Davies and comedian Nikki Bon and Andrew Mangan of the Arseblog, whose voice has been in my ears for years as an Arsenal fan. I got to hear and share inspiring stories about how people like Katie McClelland and Sarah Smith and Al “The Yeti” Bones and Tanya Marie Harris have changed their lives for the better. The feedback on all of that and more has been very encouraging and I thank you.
The problem you face when you jump into something with both feet and no plan is that you will inevitably go in some circles before you find the way forward. That’s what the first year has been: a bunch of circles that have gone in some compelling directions. My thanks to all of you for enduring the motion sickness along the way.
Time now to think. To breathe. To listen.
The COVID-19 crisis has thrust this time upon a lot of us. It’s a time for reflecting not just on how we do our jobs or our podcasts, but on how we live and the world in which we do it. I encourage everyone who is in this weird limbo to think about what’s working and not working. To think about what makes you happy and fulfilled. To pursue those things as much as you can now and create a life where they are more present in the future.
And hey, if you’re one of the many people who haven’t been able to keep up with all of the episodes so far, now’s a good time to catch up on that too.
Bless you all.