Proving Something to Myself

When I started producing the State of the Workflow series, I was nervous about what my capability would be at this stage in my career. When I first started podcasting back in 2010, one of the ways I was able to grow both my audience and my skills was by interviewing people. This became something I did weekly for many years, through many iterations of different shows.

But I haven’t made a show like that for a very long time, so I had some trepidation about how good I could make this series. I knew I would work really hard to make it the best it could be, but I’ve become very used to producing shows with my regular co-hosts.

Now, with seven episodes under my belt, I feel like I’ve proven to myself that I’m still good at this aspect of podcasting too.

Today I published my episode with Marques Brownlee. When I started assembling my list of people I wanted to speak to, his name was right at the top. I’ve been a fan of his for years, and I wanted to hear him explain what it takes to produce content at the level that he does.

One of the hardest aspects of having guests on your podcast is actually booking them. Getting people to agree to be on your show takes a lot of work — and a lot of luck. It’s been a real confidence boost to know that people are seeing my email in their inbox and thinking, ‘I would like to do that’. At this point, I’m genuinely proud of who I’ve been able to speak with.

As we approach the end of the year, it’s been nice to look back and feel a sense of achievement with this project. I’ve also been really blown away by how many kind messages I’ve received from listeners.

These episodes are a lot of work — unbelievably, even more work than my episodes with Grey — but I’m enjoying the challenge and plan to keep doing them even once Grey returns.

I really hope you enjoy the episode I published today. I record the January episode next week, and once again, I think you’re going to be excited about who I’ll be talking to.