Are You Up for a REAL Conversation?

My Fast Forward Business podcast is approaching 100 episodes. I just did episode 93. A year ago, while listening to the Modern Wisdom podcast, a guest said that he got dozens of podcast invites every week. His filter was to see how many podcasts the host had done. Anything less than 100 episodes, and he would immediately turn the invitation down. His rationale was that if the host hadn’t fully committed to his podcasting craft, then he wasn’t going to lend his credibility to his development—lots of food for thought there.

Here is some interesting data on podcasting from Jack Butcher @jackbutcher.

· 90% of podcasts don’t get past episode 3. That’s 1.8 million that quit.

· Of the remaining 200,000, 90% quit after episode 20. That is another 180,000 gone.

· To be in the top 1% of podcasting globally, you only need to publish 21 episodes.

My motivation for producing a daily podcast is to develop a record of thought. A record of what I think about a whole bunch of topics. My podcast is an extension of the “Just in Time” articles. I often convert an article into an audio format and explore additional elements related to the subject.

It feels like it is time to step up the conversation. I want to have some REAL conversations on the Fast Forward Business podcast. Up until now, the podcast has just been my voice. It is time for more voices.

This is what a REAL conversation is about:

·        Rare. Meaning that not many people have these types of conversations in public.

·        Explore. We explore the gold and shadow of who we are and how we discovered our characteristics.

·        Add value to others. We do this by providing entertainment and showing others the path to discovering who they are in the world.

·        Learn. We learn from each other and discover tools that can help us learn more about ourselves.

The structure of a REAL conversation is that of a Hero’s Journey. It starts with a calling to change or discover something new. The next part of the journey is a descent into darkness as we discover our weaknesses and shortcomings. We realise that what we are looking for may be much harder to find than initially thought. Like all heroes, we conquer and overcome what is holding us back. We discover our true gifts and return to the real world to share what we have learnt.

This is the path of all heroes and heroines. What is your Hero’s Journey, and are you open to having a REAL conversation about it?

Justin Spencer-Young                                                                 Twitter @fastforwardjsy