The Process of Making a Podcast …but really tho

I was tasked with making a podcast about anything. Call me nuts, but while that may sound freeing to people, that is a daunting task for me. I find that my creativity really blooms when I have to creatively work within restrictions. When I have a blank canvas it by no means is impossible for me, but my mind goes all over the place and it will take me a while to come up with something. So that was the real challenge in this. It wasn’t so much the process of making a podcast, but the process of narrowing down my ideas into one coherent nugget.

What to talk about?

I had many different subjects I thought I could talk about. I really enjoy self-help/care and so I thought maybe I would do a podcast on the different ways to build habits. Then I thought I would talk about my own religious beliefs. Then I pivoted again and thought I could talk about finances, or maybe music. And this went one for a while and nothing quite hit the spot! Something interesting-ish about me is that I love watching YouTube. Not brain numbing stuff (although I do watch some funny stuff from time to time), brain nurturing stuff and it is because I love learning! I listen to lots of intellectual thinkers. People like: Dave Ramsey, Jordan Peterson, Elon Musk, Ben Shapiro, Thomas Sowell, etc. etc. And I don’t just listen to them, I often times apply the things they teach, but in my own little practical way. And then, it hit me. I could break down the difficult life skills and talk about ways that you can effectively and practically apply them …but really tho!

Who to talk to?

This wasn’t super hard to determine, but regardless, I needed to come up with an audience. I really enjoy helping my peers. I have always been that way. So it was a pretty natural desire of mine to talk to other kids like me. So I decided I need to cater my content around kids my age, like me. In other words, this podcast needed to be one that I would enjoy listening to.

What to Say?

Well, if I’m being honest, I’m a pretty busy guy. I have a lot going on and often times I get frustrated because most of the podcasts I enjoy listening to are quite long. That is awesome for things like interviews and news, but I’m not sure I would want to sit through an entire hour of someone my age telling me how to live my life. The only real way I would listen is if it were in a relaxed setting, didn’t last for more than 15 minutes, and was interesting. So that meant, I needed to have a laid back tone, I needed to get to the point, and I needed to talk about new things. I decided I could talk about HIIT Training, which is an up and coming way of exercising that is also quick and efficient! That would be perfect. As I did more research on the subject, I felt like I needed to talk about diet before training. So I decided I would do one Episode on Diet and the next on Exercise. I chose to split it up since I knew that combined, they would go over 15 minutes.

What’s in a name?

The way I came up with the name for the show, it was a bit more of a process. The interesting thing with Podcasts is the name can really make or break you. The first thing someone sees with the podcast is the name. It is one of the few things they see. So it needs to be good. I wanted my podcast name to reflect not just the idea of the show, but my personality and the vibe of the show. And not only that, I wanted it to stand out and be unique. I bounced around quite a few names that had to do with reality and I honestly couldn’t tell you what they were at this point but I’m sure they were quite corny. …but really tho stood out to me because it is unique in that it doubles as not only a title but a catchphrase and I really liked that. I also liked that it looks weird. It is eye catching. But most importantly, it conveyed the looseness I was going for with the show and the words themselves are relevant to the entire theme of the show! So that’s why I ended up going with …but really tho.

Creating

Now that I had a name, I needed a cover! It needed to also come across chill and convey the ideas of the show accurately while standing out. It honestly (and luckily) didn’t take me too long to get right! I opted to go with a really heavy font to give it a hip and trendy look. I went with a black backdrop with white text because one: I love those colors (yes they are colors to me) and two: the contrast was perfect for being eye catching. But it still needed some pop and meaning to it. The way the font was laid out it looked square shaped, so I put a square around it and thought that is perfect because a little element of my show is thinking outside of the box and trying to apply things more practically. So I went with the box since it added meaning (and cleaned up the look of the design) and then I changed the box color to a minty blue that felt refreshing and brought personality into everything. I think it worked out nicely. It stood out, felt trendy, had personality, and had meaning.

How to say it

I knew what I wanted to talk about, but I didn’t know how I wanted to say it. So what I did is I went back over videos from the past that I had learned from previously and took notes on them this time. Once I had complete notes, I organized them in a structure that would flow nicely. I didn’t write an actual script, only bullet points, because I wanted to be natural, and when I am reading a script, I do not sound natural.

Recording and Mixing

The final step was getting it on record! So I ran through my notes and recorded all my thoughts on them and that ended up being the chunk of my podcast. But there was one issue. I said um, a lot. And I also had to swallow, a lot. So between my gulps and my ums, it was a little unbearable to listen to. So I took the time to go back in and cut all that stuff out. That introduced a new issue. Silence. Dead silence. You could tell where it was cut because the subtle white noise in the background when I was talking would disappear. So I had to go back and record white noise and add it back into the gaps of my audio to make sure it sounded natural. I also did little tricks where I made sure to cut right after inhaling so that when the next bit of audio came in it sounded more natural. Now all that was left was adding a song I previously made (another hobby of mine) to the intro and outro making sure it faded smoothly and recording the intro and outro of each of the episodes.

I am quite pleased with the final result, considering this was my first time making a podcast and I think I might keep doing it in the future, but I’ll have to see.