A few weeks ago, Anže Tomić invited me to appear as a guest on his podcast. He lives in Slovenia and generally features guests from there on his Apparatus podcast, but has been wanting to get more English-speaking guests.
To that end, he has created a different show called Storming Mortal. The first guest was Myke Hurley, who appeared on the show last week, and I am now the second.
I'll be completely honest right now: I was initially hesitant to be on the show, for reasons (more like excuses) that will probably seem lame to anyone else:
- I am far more comfortable writing than I am speaking, mainly because it gives me time to compose my thoughts before I blabber on about something.
- I hate the sound of my own voice, and avoid listening to recordings of it.
- As with most experiences that are wholly new to me, I felt nervous about the whole thing. What if I say something stupid? What if I contradict myself from one sentence to the next? What if I start stuttering or talking too fast and stumbling over my words? Yadda yadda, my brain doesn't know when to shut up, etc etc.
- I thought my recording equipment (or lack thereof) would be insufficient. I don't own any mics outside of the one built into my earbuds.
After I told Anže all of this, he came back and basically said, "Dude. It's a 45-minute conversation about the stuff you do. Your earbud mic is fine. It really won't be that bad and I'm not taking 'no' for an answer :)"
I couldn't help but laugh, and agreed to do the podcast. We recorded it last week, and now it's live if you'd like to listen to it. It was surprisingly fun and somewhat helped me get over my "stage fright". Now I don't feel quite so nervous about any future podcasts I might take part in.
I'm reminded of this quote by Seth Godin:
“We’re so obsessed about the risk of shining brightly that we’ve traded in everything that matters to avoid it.”
Looking back, I feel sheepish for trying to turn down such a wonderful opportunity rather than embracing it. Anže was gracious enough to have me, and I nearly let my reticence get in the way of trying something fun and new. Shame on me, and I thank Anže for seeing past my BS.
Still, I personally won't be listening the episode; as I mentioned, I hate the sound of my own voice, and I was a part of the conversation anyway so I already know how it went. If you end up listening though, feel free to let me know if I said/did anything idiotic.
