The Happy Journey of Listening, Learning, and Creating Something That Matters
The Happy Journey of Listening, Learning, and Creating Something That Matters
The Happy Journey of Listening, Learning, and Creating Something That Matters
Overview
How do you start a podcast that’s about making a podcast?
For us (Jake, Ryan and Fin), we ‘start’ this podcast almost a year into a what-should-we-make-a-podcast-about? journey. This “episode 1” is actually episode 14, recorded only once we found our proverbial North Star and were able to articulate--for ourselves and listeners--what this show was going to be about.
So what’s it about?
In the end, we found that our podcast wasn’t about making a podcast at all; this podcast became about meeting people outside of our typical ‘circle’, asking them thoughtful questions and listening intently to the answers, and finding out that everyone has a gripping story if you’re willing to hear it.
We hope you enjoy listening to our journey of learning all of this through talking to some incredibly interesting normal people.
Who are we exactly?
Jake Smeester is a husband and father who spends his days as a content creator at AWS building out new programs for worldwide sales enablement (including gobs of podcasts).
Ryan Findley is a husband and father who spends his days running the product team at Learn to Win.
Ryan Holdeman is neither a husband nor a father. He spends his days helping personal growth businesses leverage technology.
Join us as we explore.
Question of the Day
What’s the itch you’ve been needing to scratch? Do you have a podcast you’ve been dying to create? If you do, please share in the comments what you’d call it and what it would be about.
Subscribe to the Interesting Lives of Normal People podcast on iTunes
Subscribe to the non-iTunes RSS Feed
Subscribe on your Podcast platform of choice
Links from the Episode
Arrested Development (tv series)
Books
In this first episode we didn’t touch on book recommendations, but in our interviews, we ask guests for recommendations. You’ll see those here. A favorite of Ryan Holdeman:
Life in Half a Second: A great book about making things with haste that will last beyond you
Show Highlights
[2:09] How it took us *a year* to record Episode 1
[4:02] Why Jake wanted to do this in the first place
[6:07] How it started as one thing and ended up as another
[7:46] The Secret Name of the Show
[9:53] Why Holdeman joined Jake’s Show (and why he loves watching Fin eat tacos while recording)
[12:06] Why Fin joined Jake’s Show (beyond eating tacos)
[13:49] Why Jake joined Jake’s Show and what he’s been learning along the journey
[19:23] Why “The Interesting Lives of Normal People”?
[28:45] How we (Holdeman) made the logo
[33:16] What to expect from...
From The Podcast
Interesting Lives of Normal People
“I think you guys should start a podcast with Jake.”The podcast started with a group text from Maggie, Jake’s wife. A few months later, Holdeman and Fin sat down with Jake to find out what was behind Maggie’s text (besides her usual motivations of starting a wildly successful business that would allow us all to retire at 40).Jake shared that he just had a nagging desire to ‘do something’. Life was good, work was good, but still, something creative and generative seemed untapped within him. He needed a passion project and had a hunch that a podcast might be that. Holdeman proposed we just start recording, capturing the process of unfurling Jake’s passion project in real time, sharing the journey with people, and maybe helping them along the way with a word of encouragement or an actual exercise to complete.The early episodes reveal an earnest, if clunky, pursuit of understanding passion, passion projects, and the risks of ‘doing something.’ Soon, though, Jake dialed into what he wanted to do: listen. More than just booking guests, figuring out how to mix sound, or determining the best marketing channels for the podcast, Jake wanted to concentrate on creating a space where people were heard, focused on, and maybe even learn something about themselves by being on the pod. For him, these conversations became almost like spiritual practices that stretched him and served others. By midseason, Jake had discovered his ‘something’ and had dived deep into what became the crux of the show: deep conversations with “normal people”--people like him, with jobs and kids and mortgages--who were living out their normalcy in the most interesting and extraordinary ways. Jake noticed something else about “normal”, though: the further away he got from how he defined normal, the bigger his definition became.Here’s what the podcast is about: We believe that regular people are living interesting lives all around us, but in the day-to-day grind, it’s easy to overlook them. So, we’re going to talk to normal people - people you could pass in at the grocery store or meet at your kid’s daycare - who are living normal lives in extraordinary ways. We’re going to talk to a mom who is slowly going blind but refusing to wallow in it. We are going to talk to a first-generation American who’s actually trying to “go back where he came from.” We are going to interview a serial solopreneur who’s fighting racism with a new business.No famous people allowed (take that, Ke$ha!); just normals with day jobs, kids, and mortgages who are intentionally living their lives in some pretty compelling ways.Find us on InstagramJake Smeester: @jakesmeesterRyan Findley: @finsky777Ryan Holdeman: @ryanholdemanMusic by Hygge. Please follow her on SoundCloud.Join Podchaser to...
- Rate podcasts and episodes
- Follow podcasts and creators
- Create podcast and episode lists
- & much more
Episode Tags
Claim and edit this page to your liking.
Unlock more with Podchaser Pro
- Audience Insights
- Contact Information
- Demographics
- Charts
- Sponsor History
- and More!
- Account
- Register
- Log In
- Find Friends
- Resources
- Help Center
- Blog
- API
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More
- © 2024 Podchaser, Inc.
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service
- Contact Us