Mick and I sat down this week to record Episodes 2 and 3 of the podcast and technologically they went a lot smoother than Episode 1. We got the mic issues resolved and the sound is much better. On the other hand, the editing process has brought me back to Reid Hoffman’s famous quote “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m really pleased with the content we’ve created. Mick is an endless well of wisdom and I’m excited to share his knowledge with the world. On the other hand, I’m reminded of all the areas I need to improve, namely, speech.
A while back, my buddy Even Bartels was a guest on the Leff 2 Deff podcast, right before he set out on an insane 100+ date, cross-country tour. He told me afterward he was excited to go back and listen to himself in a year to see how much he’d changed after such an intense touring schedule. In a similar manner, I’m looking forward to coming back to these first few episodes next year so that I can laugh at how bad I “used to be.”
I find it humorous I’m so bad at speaking off the top of my head considering I’ve aced every speech class I’ve ever taken, but acting like a live radio DJ is a completely different ballgame than performing a memorized speech. While recording, I often find myself searching for words and not finding them, but in listening to the playback, the word I’m missing is obvious. During one episode I couldn’t remember the word “improvement” and somehow invented my own word “improval.” I mean, it sort of makes sense… A combination of “improvement” and “approval?”
Regardless, I’m a strong believer that you can find “improval” through practice, and by this time next year, we should have 40 to 50 episodes under our belt. I can’t still suck after all that, right?