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Yuvi Zalkow, author, developer, video creator, and podcaster, shares his experience with failure and persistence.
Join Brendan Hutchins 🙈 and Mark Steadman 🧔🏻 as they digest the very latest in podcast culture.
[00:00:00] Brendan: The fun part about podcasting in person is that you can see other people's, uh, fidget, um, mechanisms. Yeah. UV as described was flicking up and down the light switch of, uh, catches, light and dark interface. It was calling
[00:00:28] Mark: Hi, Brendan from the podcast advocate network.
[00:00:31] Brendan: Hey Mark from Podiant. And welcome Yuvi Zalkow
[00:00:34] Yuvi: From down the street from Brendan?
[00:00:35] Brendan: Yes. We're in the same room, Which is pretty fun.
[00:00:39] Mark: Yuvi, Why don't you tell us a bit about who you are and what you do?
[00:00:42] Yuvi: Yeah, well, I, I. Failed to doing a lot of things. One includes podcasting, uh, where I, I used to do podcasts, uh, first with my wife and then with a friend of mine called neurotic tornado about various relationships started out just me, bugging my wife to talk about our marital issues. And when she got tired of that, uh, I got her friend to, for us to go on the road and talk to other people about their relationship.
[00:01:10] Um, but I haven't been doing that in quite a few years. Mostly I do writing, I write, uh, I published one novel and working on two other novels that I can't seem to quite finish. Um, I also sometimes do YouTube videos and I have a day job that's as a technical writer for a software company. Um, I think that's most of what I do.
[00:01:31] I have a few, I've made a few apps, very simple, uh, iOS app. Um, and that's it. So, yeah, so
[00:01:38] Brendan: this series is, you know, it's about burnout. It's about, um, you know, mostly we've been talking about how the, the, the, the pod fading pod struggle of, of continually putting out a, uh, an episode every week is, is a lot of work.
[00:01:54] And, um, and I, when I was thinking about different people to have as a guest on the, on the series, You came to mind because of all the different, you know, like you do podcasting, but you also do, uh, so many other different types of, uh, of medium, um, And, and it was kind of curious if, um, you know, like you said, you haven't been podcasting in a little bit, um, you know, w what was it that, that shifted you away from podcasting and, you know, maybe because you haven't started, you haven't stopped creating and you still made a video recently.
[00:02:32] And, um, you've been working on your novels. W what is it that, uh, maybe about podcasting or about other things that has, um, Yeah, I made you made you go to the course that you're
[00:02:43] Yuvi: not in my, um, 90 seconds of homework I did for this discussion. I did think about that. Why haven't I podcasted in over a year.
[00:02:54] And I think part of it is at least the form that I, the format for the podcast I was doing was a little bit of a, a narrative where, you know, it was kind of a series rather than one-off conversations and. Um, and so that's, uh, it's a little trickier to put together a series. And we, we, we tried a little bit me and my partner who does the podcast and we couldn't quite get the exact.
[00:03:27] A story, you know, we didn't figure out how to make a, um, a story arc for a whole season. Uh, whereas like with the YouTube videos, I can just throw one up every six or nine months when I would get obsessed with something, you know, whether it's writing or chronic pain or video games, I can just do it. No, no one really cares too much, but also, uh, it doesn't need to fit some sort of narrative as much as, uh, at least the podcast.
[00:03:55] What that I was doing required a whole bunch to connected together. And so I, and you kind of feel the pressure of like, I got to get it out every now and then I wish that wasn't the case though. I mean, it seems like you could do podcasts where you're like, I'm just going to do it when I do it. And it's going to be about what I want it to be about.
[00:04:14] I felt like there was how I do. I mean, that's a nice approach, but for some reason I got stuck with the pressure to. Put stuff out at a regular, uh, in a regular way. And so I turned to these other forms that are just kinda like you just throw this thing over the wall when you're ready. I don't know if that's a valid answer or not, but I did burn out.
[00:04:37] I loved to doing podcasting, but I. I got really worn out. I'm partly that's because we were such newbies at it. You know? So we, we were both seasoned writers as we've been writing, you know, each of us had been writing for 10, 15, 20 years, and then we were doing podcasting where we have. The standard we wanted to fit, but we were, we sucked at it.
[00:05:00] So, you know, instead of this thing, taking 10 hours to get acceptable, it took 70 hours, you know, for that episode. And it just, it just killed us. So it was a blast, but it really wore us out. We were really stretching, stretching ourselves beyond what was easy per week.
[00:05:19] Brendan: What was the, what was the hangup? What was the part that was.
[00:05:23] Yuvi: The trouble. So we were dumb editors. So, you know, you, you, you feel that, I mean, you helped us, you know, we made some emergency calls to you. We're trying to figure out how to, how to fix things in the editing. But the hardest thing was to shape the story. You know, we got ourselves into complicated stories, you know, this was, uh, about a marriage that fell apart and that.
[00:05:44] And that they each found other partners and then they all ended up living together in the same house. And it was a very interesting, complicated story we were tracking. And just to turn it shape it just right. We, we knew what we wanted, but it was so hard to get there. I feel like if we did that 10 times, we get a lot better at it, but.
[00:06:05] We were amateurs pretending not to
[00:06:07] Brendan: be. So what drew you to podcasting? What, what made you think that podcasting was the medium that you wanted to tell the story in? Or, you
[00:06:17] Yuvi: know, yeah, I really fell in love with podcasting just because it was just, it did feel like a bunch of snow schmoes notch knows a bunch of schmoes in their basement.
[00:06:27] Uh, telling cool stories. I mean, there were some, there's some, some podcasts that just came straight out of radio, but I really loved the, the messy raw ones. Um, and it was just cool. This format. It just felt like a little more of like a underground form of, uh, telling stories or talking about things. And so I just got excited about, um, uh, How much was possible, uh, without anyone telling you how you need to do it, for sure.
[00:06:58] I wonder if y'all. Got into it that same way. But I also found, I was surprised by the burnout. I felt after doing a few seasons. Yeah.
[00:07:07] Brendan: Yeah. When do you feel
[00:07:08] Yuvi: like it started setting in? I think when Jackie and I shoot, so she's my friend who we did the second two seasons. Once my wife said I'm done with the shed.
[00:07:17] Um, she, she felt the burn up for us. Yeah. She felt the burnout first. Although she may come back around, we're starting to record a little bit. Uh, but Jackie and I were both kind of trying to nail down some novels we were working on and, uh, and we could just see, it was stretching us in this way. Like, we want this to be as good as it can be.
[00:07:38] Um, and it's really hurting. Like each week we were getting just a little more dazed trying to get, and it was only like six, seven episodes that season. But, um, it was hard for us to do it. I understood. Finally, why editing and producing a podcast is so huge, especially when you're trying to tell something with an arc to it.
[00:08:04] You know, when I was doing it with my wife, It was easier because it was a freeform conversation and we just had to edit it to make it a better form conversation, which is hard, but we weren't like saying, well, we'll pluck this from here and move it over there and pluck this from here and save it for three episodes from now.
[00:08:23] And we'll get rid of this whole interesting thing because it doesn't fit the larger. Um, we weren't doing that kind of stuff. So it was a notch easier for me. And
[00:08:31] Brendan: that was in the first season. So that's more freeform. The second two seasons you
[00:08:35] Yuvi: were doing that? Yeah, we were shaping it. Yeah. We were trying to,
[00:08:38] Brendan: you were trying to treat those two, see this second two seasons, second, third seasons as.
[00:08:45] Uh, editing as you would a novel probably.
[00:08:47] Yuvi: Yeah. Yeah. It really was. We were thinking of the story arc and I'm not saying we did, we, we got achieved exactly what we wanted, but we really tried hard.
[00:08:58] Brendan: Yeah. And you, you achieved, uh, I think, um, wonderful masterpieces in, in relationship stories.
[00:09:05] Yuvi: Uh, yeah, but I burned out every, every fee area I'm capable of burning out pretty easily.
[00:09:11] You know, like every, every creative pursuit I feel like can suck at times and you just have to walk away for sure. I just had the podcasting happened. I had to walk away from a little longer. I mean, my, I used to produce a video a month. Uh, produces, uh, too formal, a word I used to cobble together a video a month, and now it's like one every six months.
[00:09:33] Um, you know, I don't do that so much. Chronic headaches really help change the game for me where I was. If I'm tired of this shit, I'm going to take a break. I'm only going to pick one or two creative pursuits at a time to
[00:09:46] Brendan: do. Yeah, I am right there with ya. I get the, I get the struggle with that for sure.
[00:09:52] Yeah. I don't know if listeners nowhere, but I also struggled from chronic pain and it, uh, it can be. Uh, very distracting when trying to do a creative pursuit, but then the creative pursuit can also be an outlet to try and help
[00:10:05] Yuvi: you escape.
[00:10:06] Brendan: It's a tough balance, but it is very much a
[00:10:08] Mark: tough balance. Yeah. I wonder how much of this is burnout in, in a particular area is something that people who have multiple creative pursuits will suffer from because there's always.
[00:10:23] Another outlet. Um, there's always potentially another interesting way that you can express yourself. And so it probably makes it quite easy when you're thinking I'm done with this shit to move on to something else, because you're like, well, you know, I played the banjo or I, I, um, I'm a zoologist in my spare time.
[00:10:41] I dunno. But. And having, having other things, not just other interests, but other, other forms of creative expression, uh, I suspect it probably makes that decision a lot easier because you've got another sort of creative Lily pad you can jump to. Um, but it, you know, Sometimes there's value in trying to work through the hump or work over the hump and try and get to something good.
[00:11:07] Um, but if you have got, especially if you're undertaking a number of creative projects at the same time, you know, you're, you're, you're doing a podcast while you're writing a book while you're also scoring a film and, and, and, you know, um, painting a. Don't forget there's there's ecology. Um, it's it makes it so much harder because it's just one more ball to keep up in the air and.
[00:11:34] More and more as, as I listened to the conversations that we've, we've been having over the past, uh, for us anyway, for the past few weeks, it does make me think about this question of time and the, the treadmill and the, because I think one of the things that. People will tell you at the beginning of your podcast and careers is how important consistency is.
[00:11:55] And I think that, I think that is true, but I think what we've also learned in the last few years is that it's absolutely okay to, I was going to say, take a break, but it's actually the other way around. It's actually. Okay. Do a limited run for a bit and then stop. Yeah. So rather than saying, we're, we're going to do, uh, you know, uh, w we're going to keep podcasting so many times of the year, and then we'll take a break.
[00:12:19] It's actually more about saying, well, this is going to be a limited run season, whether it's binge-worthy or whether we release it every week, that's fine. But it doesn't the, the crucial and important thing here. Two words, I mean, the same thing, um, It doesn't have, you don't have to produce them at the time.
[00:12:36] You know, that you're releasing them. And that's the wonderful thing. When you take a limited run series, unless you're going to do something that's very, very topical and up to the minute. And what you say in that week is going to evaporate, right? Unless you're doing that, you really can actually just sit and plan something wonderful and produce it as a limited run and people can still consume it in the same way.
[00:12:56] I mean, we've talked a lot about mission physics and. That's a great case for that. And it's, it's brilliant. It's beautifully produced. Um, they could not do that every week if they could, it would just, it would be the only thing that they could do. They couldn't don't be able to do anything else.
[00:13:15] Yuvi: Uh, yeah, you covered a couple cool things.
[00:13:17] I mean, one is the area of burnout as it relates to having multiple pursuits. I mean, I do feel like if I was doing zero creative things, It would kill me. So, I mean, so it's a matter of picking the one that feels seems to satisfy the thing you need without hurting yourself. I mean, maybe I don't know how true that is for y'all and it could even be when you're doing multiple types of podcasts, picking the ones.
[00:13:47] Does it for you at the time, for sure. But then also, I guess when you opened the door to, like, there are many ways of doing podcasting, whether you do limited runs or, uh, and, and y'all, y'all have done that. I know Brendan, you've done some of that too, where you do like a, a run of something and then
[00:14:03] Brendan: take it.
[00:14:04] The pod play from the beginning was meant to be seasonally, um, setting up the expectation, but, and that, and that's, I think what you were getting at mark was setting up the expectation to the listener. Like this is gonna be. This is going to have breaks because this is going to be a, just a set that we're doing.
[00:14:20] Um, and I think that I I'm in complete agreement with you that if you set that expectation that, um, that you're, you're not going to lose people. Uh, I think a really great, uh, example of this is embedded by NPR. I don't know if either of you have listened to that, but it's a invested, uh, Investigative reporting, um, by NPR and they, they, um, put themselves into whatever thing that they're researching and, uh, you know, it's a lot, there's a lot of.
[00:14:51] Research and, and time to investigate and make the narrative and edit and all that kind of stuff. And so they said from the beginning, like this is going to be seasonal. We're going to have short seasons and, and we'll come out whenever I do. I mean, and same with cereal, you know, like. Th they, they said from the beginning that this is going to be a season and then we're going to
[00:15:11] Yuvi: disappear
[00:15:12] Brendan: for a year or so.
[00:15:13] And then a couple of years. Um, and obviously they're, they, they haven't been putting out regular episodes and they have, you know, if not the biggest, one of the biggest
[00:15:22] Yuvi: pieces, we still talk about it all the time. They're like, well, it's not going to be cereal said
[00:15:26] Brendan: exactly, exactly. From, from my view of you, be the way that you have tried to juggle different Podcode or different mediums, your, your podcasts seemed to lead to the most burnout as opposed to others.
[00:15:42] Is that, is that accurate or is that just something that, because I can see behind the scenes that I'm, we're kind of
[00:15:48] Mark: putting
[00:15:48] Yuvi: down to getting the narrative form down. I think we took us a little. That was harder than we expected. You know, like with the videos, you would think videos could be worse, but I set such a low bar for animation quality.
[00:16:04] You know, really, it was most, a lot of them are just stick figures moving on the screen. So even that, you know, it takes four hours per minute of video, but, you know, I do like a four or five minute video. Um, but then we. Tried to get hours of podcast content. So I think we just took a leap that was more than we expected.
[00:16:27] And so we needed some time off and we just never found the next right thing. So, you know, the next story to turn it into a whole season, you know, we were, we, we, we even spoke with, spoke with you at one point and we, but we couldn't figure out how to shape a season. And, um, I don't know. So that's a long-winded way of saying, I don't know why, but I did find it harder and I'm like, I think my here I'm just my audio skills.
[00:16:57] Aren't so. So it was hard. Like I could tell like this isn't working, why can't I do this? What the hell is a compressor and why is it not doing the right? Um, so, you know, I, I wanted to get it at a level that I just wasn't skilled enough to get it to at that point, you know, on the side of, you know, I had the day job, the novel writing family, and then I was sneaking it in after that.
[00:17:21] And I couldn't quite pull it off at that level.
[00:17:24] Brendan: I wonder if. The expectation that mark alluded to earlier about how, uh, if you want to be successful in podcasting, you have to be, uh, consistent. And I think that that is so prevalent in, in the mindset of podcasters that, uh, trying to. Trying to podcast, you have this, this, this pressure and this obligation that you have to come back to it every week or, or, or whatever listeners
[00:17:53] Yuvi: are waiting for that episode.
[00:17:54] Brendan: Exactly, exactly. And the, uh, at least for me that I wanted to always get away from that because I, I could see that being a really big problem for me. And, uh, Yeah, it turns out it was
[00:18:08] Yuvi: so well, the two things come to mind that relate one side. I found it really funny. Who's the guy who Dan Benjamin, who runs five by five.
[00:18:16] I thought it was hilarious that he did a podcast about podcasting and one of his big things in that was how you have to be consistent and regular, and he could never manage to keep that podcast consistent at all. I kind of love that about it. Um, But also did. Yeah. Did you ever see that IRA glass, it turned into a, uh, a YouTube video where he talks about creating something and your standards where you're, you know, you have the standard that's really high, but when you're learning how to do something, your abilities are really low and it's really hard to, um, Uh, you know, that that disparity is really difficult where it takes years and years to get good at it.
[00:19:03] And I think it caught me off guard cause I was like, oh, I can tell stories. I can write a crude video. I should be an expert at podcasting. And it was pretty damn hard. And so I think I got thrown off by like, wow. This thing is not easy. Yeah.
[00:19:17] Mark: Yeah. I can, I can say that it's not a straight line. It's not a straight line that goes up.
[00:19:23] You know, it, it, the, the graph doesn't point from bottom left to top, right. I. Often come away thinking, yeah, I'm not, I'm not that good at this. Um, and the expectations I've had have really often been outmatched by the overall quality of the show. I mean, I, I, I don't want to talk smack about a show that I produce, but, um, but let's hear some smack.
[00:19:48] Yeah, no, absolutely. Um, the expectations that I had for one of my shows. A lot higher than I felt the initial quality was. Um, and I, I still think about that now. I, I pictured in my head or I heard in my head how this show was going to sound and even, you know, mechanically, like it was going to sound rich and it was, um, the voices were all going to be lovely and clear cause everyone had a microphone.
[00:20:19] Um, the acoustics would be fine and, and, and all this kind of stuff. And then it sort of ended up like content wise. I think it's, it's, it's solid, but I'm frustrated by the fact that it sounds like a hobby podcast. And there's not a lot I can do about that unless, you know, because it's not, it's not ATP where I can say to a couple of people.
[00:20:41] Well, one, especially who had never. As far as I'm aware podcasted before, here's a very expensive microphone. Here's, you know, go and soundproof your, uh, your bedroom where you want to record, because it's going to be worth it because you'll make that money back. Like, I couldn't guarantee that to my right.
[00:20:59] I had to say, look, just try and find somewhere quiet. I'll get you a markers microphone that I can afford off of Amazon. Um, and we'll go from there and I'm glad I did that because, um, it would have sounded far worse otherwise, but I, I, I do know there's a line that I always come back to from war of the worlds.
[00:21:16] And I, I don't know if it's the, in the actual book, but it's certainly in the, uh, the Jeff Wayne radio, uh, the Jeff Wayne play that he used to listen to, um, w which talks about the Gulf between. Um, the artillery humans experience the Gulf between what he could, what he was dreaming and what he could actually achieve.
[00:21:34] You know, this, this man wants to build a brave new world with just a handful of men. We'll start all over again, as the song goes and he's got this great dream about one day, we'll capture a fighting machine and then wipe them out and all this stuff. The the, the lead character, uh, spends time with him.
[00:21:54] And one of the things he says is I'd looked at what this guy had dug this trench. He was trying to dig to create an underground city and it's, I could have done that much in a day. And I started to see the Gulf between his dreams and what you could achieve. Um, Um, I'm often aware of that and that really can contribute to burnout because if you're not producing something week in and week out, that you're really proud of, um, it then becomes a bit more of a slog.
[00:22:21] Absolutely. And, and I should say like the, you know, none of this was ever a slant on the people I do the show with. It was, it was more my own thing, my own expectations and my own, um, slightly negative. Uh, picturing of, of, of how the show was, was going to go and, you know, it's absolutely not on my co-host at all.
[00:22:40] Brendan: Yeah. We haven't really addressed that too much. I feel like in this, uh, season is the, um, the. The way of a podcast or feels about the product that producing versus the expectations they set for themselves. Um, for me with podcast playlist at the time, I was never satisfied with how any of the episodes came out and I was just always so embarrassed to actually hit publish.
[00:23:06] And, but I felt like I felt this pressure to, to finish it and put it out and looking back on it, I'm happier with them than I thought I'd be. But I still see and feel all the ways that I wish it was better. Um, but yeah, that. Oh, 100% led to a lot of fatigue in being able to produce the podcast.
[00:23:31] Yuvi: Yeah. I mean, I know with, uh, with Jackie and I did two seasons of neurotic tornado and I felt like.
[00:23:38] At first, we were a lot more like, what are we doing? Are we happy with this? And then I felt like it got better and better over time where we, we started to be really PLE both of us. I think equally felt like we were more and more pleased with what we were putting out. Um, but I know that like at first, especially that like clicking publish was so scary, you know,
[00:24:00] Brendan: w w what was
[00:24:01] Yuvi: scary about it?
[00:24:02] Uh, well, just wondering if it was. Good enough. You know, like at first we did, we didn't have so much confidence in what we were up to and then it got better by the, that, that next season. The second season, we felt like we had learned some tactics that could help, um, With how we did it. Yeah. And so I think that it's tricky when it's not like, totally, like, if you feel like, man, we kicked, we did this just the way we wanted to.
[00:24:31] I feel like it's easier to keep at it. Even when it's a ton of work
[00:24:34] Brendan: for seasons one, two and three, because I'm assuming that they were produced a little bit different. I mean, everyone
[00:24:40] Yuvi: was wildly different.
[00:24:42] Brendan: Um, did. Did any of them, when you were producing them where they were you producing them between the weeks or two weeks that it would take for you to release that episode?
[00:24:52] Or did you work on them as a, as a series a season and then start putting them out once you were mostly or completely finished?
[00:25:00] Yuvi: Yes. Every, all of those things, the first one was more just conversational and I was just putting them out as I made them. Um, by the end, we were more conscious of, we want to get this regular, so let's have a few in the camp.
[00:25:13] And so by the time we started releasing them, we already had a few ready. Um, we still had to finish it, so we were not fully done, but we were wanting to make sure we could put one out every two weeks for whatever artificial role we had built for ourselves. Well, I'm just curious how many podcasts are y'all working on at any one time and how many of them are the kind where you have.
[00:25:41] Uh, you have to prepare stuff in advance versus stuff that you just put out every time you are you're done with it. So
[00:25:49] Mark: I do we'll, we'll we'll discount this because this is a special, um, I do two regular shows now and, um, one of them we're sort of almost two. We'll put it out when it goes out. Almost no prep.
[00:26:05] Um, the, the prep is what are we going to talk about? About 30 seconds before we start? Um, and then realizing we'll find something because one of us will say something silly, uh, at the start of the call, which will take us on a tangent. Uh, the other show, um, as I've talked about before, which is the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy show, had a great deal of prep to be done.
[00:26:28] Before we hit record because everything from Douglas Adams, his universe had to be put into alphabetical order. Um, that is, that is the strangest beast I've worked on. And I think, um, part of the dynamic of the show, which makes it interesting, it makes it. Uh, it in certain areas is that we have a rotating panel of hosts.
[00:26:47] So there are four of us on the team, but there's only ever, unless it's a special episode, there's only ever three voices at one time. So it'll be me and two Johns Mia, John, and a Danny, or me and the other John and, uh, Danny. Um, and we'll kind of rotate it. And so that creates its own. Things, um, because the dynamics between different co-hosts can be very different.
[00:27:09] Uh, and the alcohol levels of various people at various times can create interesting differences, the amount of passive aggression that, that one particular person is feeling at one time. Uh, so yeah, like it's, it's a, it's, it's a strange base.
[00:27:24] Yuvi: Yeah, it sounds amazing. Uh, do you ever notice. Drink too much.
[00:27:28] You might end up with two Danny's and just one John or something.
[00:27:32] Mark: It's certainly, it certainly looks that way. Uh, usually what happens is when we, when we drink too much, um, we tend to go for two hours and then I have to turn that into 35 minutes worth of show.
[00:27:44] Yuvi: Well, that was one thing I learned was shockingly hard.
[00:27:48] Uh, you know, whereas with writing, when you have too much content, it is hard to turn it into less. Like if you know, you've written over written a chapter and you need to tighten it, I mean, that is a problem, but it's not as bad as like with podcasting when you have too much content and you have to turn it into, like, if you have two hours and you turn a 30 minute.
[00:28:09] That is a huge amount of work that I have not realize or appreciate until I had to do it. For sure. You know, if somebody says something a little off you, can't just. Change those words in the text, you know, you work with what you got or redo it. Yeah.
[00:28:26] Brendan: And then it never sounds the same. Yeah. One thing that could help with that.
[00:28:29] And, and one of the, um, uh, producers for podcasts that I work on uses this, but there's an app called de script. Uh, it's a digital audio workstation like logic or whatever, but it gives you a text editor for. Uh, so it transcribes the audio to text and then you edit the text and then it edits the audio for you.
[00:28:50] Holy
[00:28:51] Yuvi: crap. Yeah. Does that work as well as it sounds, or it
[00:28:54] Brendan: seems like, I think it works about 95% as well as it sounds, um, from, from, from what I've heard from you, her testimony about, I haven't actually tried it yet, because the way that I worked just doesn't, I'm not, I'm not a text editor, I'm an audio editor, but, uh, uh, It could be pretty cool, but the thing is I, what I wanted that, and there was another, there's a couple other competitors that do report that IO and a couple others tried to do the same thing.
[00:29:21] I wanted it to fully transcribe. Like everything, even the arms so that I could, I could select all ums and hit delete. And so that it would just shorten that. But, uh, at least the ones that I've tried that do not do that. So it was very frustrating.
[00:29:38] Yuvi: I just picture that tool would end up with something where you're like, hello, Brendan owl.
[00:29:43] Is today going?
[00:29:46] Brendan: Yeah. Uh, UV, you asked a while ago about, um, the, the podcasts that we produce, like at one time, uh, right now I. I have to, um, let my two other main projects, other than bit rate are serendipity city and then placed they're both on high, like seasoned breaks. Um, but they should both be coming back.
[00:30:07] Um, but usually I'm only working on one or the other at a time. Okay. And then I have, um, nobody asked for this. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Nobody has said this is super fun, but, uh, it's, it's
[00:30:19] Yuvi: funny. Like, I don't sometimes, like, I don't know a single musician y'all talk about sometimes and it's so much fun to listen to just cause y'all are having such a good time, but you know, you'll be referencing people who are like other people and I'm like, I have to do all this homework and advance.
[00:30:35] Figure out
[00:30:36] Mark: zero frames of
[00:30:37] Brendan: reference. That is partially why I tried to include all music websites. Sure. A bunch of people aren't going to know what we're talking about.
[00:30:44] Yuvi: So, but I, I mean, I have, I mean, you know, for me, it's like blind spots all the way down with music. So until you get to like the Beatles, I won't know what you're talking about.
[00:30:55] Anyway,
[00:30:56] Brendan: that's a fun one nobody asked for this is incredibly fun to record and edit and put out and talk about, but. Definitely takes so much more time than it really displays when you're listening to it. Like, it sounds like we're just having a bullshit conversation and sometimes music fades in and out.
[00:31:17] Uh, but each episode each like 15 to 20 minute episode probably takes me four or four more hours to produce, which is just ridiculous, but it's, it's so much fun that it's worth it to me, but it's also hard to find. The time to justify something that has 35 listeners and, you know, doesn't, it, it's just purely for my own enjoyment and I'm not making money from it or anything like that.
[00:31:45] Uh, it was just like right now, like I'm, uh, I'm, I'm the sole person making money in our, in our, uh, family. And so I need to concentrate on making money with like, almost everything that I do. It's super hard to justify. I have
[00:31:59] Yuvi: surprised you charged me a hundred dollars just to get in the door today.
[00:32:05] Mark: Um,
[00:32:07] Brendan: yeah. Well, Aaron and I have two seasons, uh, recorded of, of nobody asks for this. Uh, and I haven't edited almost any of it, uh, just cause I haven't found the time for it, but it was at least fun to talk with him and record. And I also, um, I edited. Podcasts through, um, uh, like a service where, you know, people will like, um, not want to edit their own podcasts and, and send it in.
[00:32:36] And, um, I do some work for that, that kind of stuff, but yeah. Doesn't the only usually takes about an hour or less, and it's not like I'm not really invested in the, in the podcasts at all. It's just,
[00:32:49] Yuvi: yeah, I see that. The talking about making money, I mean, y'all both have created businesses around this realm in some form, whereas.
[00:33:00] You know, I wonder how that affects burnout, you know, whether or not it connects to your business. Whereas for me, you know, I kind of threw out the idea of making money with a lot of my creative pursuits. I just kind of, at one point was like, okay, I'm just going to have a day job. And that'll bring in the money.
[00:33:18] And so all these things I do make me at best, a minuscule amount of money. Usually, you know, I lose money on everything I'm up to in the creative realm. But how does that affect burnout for either of you to where you, because you have, um, a business that relates to somewhat, you know, either directly or indirectly to a lot of these pursuits
[00:33:41] Brendan: for me, like I.
[00:33:43] I have different segments of, uh, there's definitely there's there's there's pockets of money-making a non moneymaking press a podcasting and, uh, My, my better half is keenly aware of which ones make and do not make me. Um, and so, because, because she is then, uh, I, I am as well. If, if I didn't have that external factor of being hyper aware of what, what makes money and what is just fun time then, uh, I would probably be much less aware of it.
[00:34:15] Um, money is, is such a weird thing to me that. If I didn't have somebody that was so aware of it, that it would just, I wouldn't even think about, I'd probably be broke because I'd be not thinking about, oh, like, oh yeah, I have to do something also to make money. Um, it's, it's, it's interesting to balance the two between money-making a, non-money making parts of
[00:34:37] Mark: podcasting, the extent to which I get actually paid to have anything to do with the production of podcasts is a very small amount of my.
[00:34:49] Monthly income. Um, I like to save that my job is in podcasting because of the company I run, which is great. And that makes me feel good. Yeah. Yes. Um, but, uh, I, uh, funnily enough, I had a conversation. I went to a podcast as support group meeting last week. Is
[00:35:08] Yuvi: this like a 12 step program?
[00:35:11] Mark: Yeah, very much, very much.
[00:35:12] Uh, we, we will have to sit around in a room and we introduce ourselves. Hello, I'm Mark Steadman. I'm a podcast. I was speaking to a, to, to one of the, one of the attendees. And I said, you know, My job is in podcasting and she kind of assumed, oh right. It's some, some kind of big shot over here. He's like, oh, he makes his money doing podcasts.
[00:35:34] Actually, no, I don't make any money from the podcast I make. I mean, you know, I, I like, um, Comment like Brendan. I also like Brendan comment, like Brendan. Um, also do a bit of, of that kind of work, um, through, through podium sort of, um, production arm, uh, and, and have done that for a while. And then. Um, you know, one of my earliest clients is still with me and that's lovely, but that's a, a small amount, um, you know, uh, set against the, the rest of it.
[00:36:06] And, you know, I'd love it to be more, but of course, the ego in me, which is large and hungry and always wants to be fed otherwise, why would we be creative people? That bit would very much love to be able to draw some kind of income because, and it's not, I think one of the big things with this is that it's not just about the monetary value.
[00:36:25] It's, it's about the legitimacy that it can bring you. So like when audible said, you know, when I wrote to audible and said, I've got a pitch for a podcast, Uh, it's going to be great. It's going to do, you know, 10 acts, which is apparently a business term that business people, like you just say, just say 10 X and we find it doesn't matter what, just 10 X.
[00:36:46] And so I said, you know, it should do really well. And it's all doable. Um, customers alleys, uh, can we get one of those sweet little. Affiliate links that we can sound the podcast and sent them a trailer and did all this work. And, and, uh, they were like, yeah, no worries. Here's your affiliate link got, got all set up.
[00:37:05] And, you know, for the first, I don't know, 12, 15 episodes, we did little book recommendations and we spent a bit of time on them to actually try and do something good. So it wasn't just a straight ad. So yeah, like it was, it was validated. It originally for Amazon or for audible to say, yeah, you know, you're, you're worth us, um, giving you a, you know, a promo Cahoot.
[00:37:29] Um, but there would've been even more validation that it may only have been, you know, maybe I don't know, $15, uh, a month. That would have been pretty generous to be honest, but it would have. Then Ben that bit of validation, that's like, oh yeah, we are doing a good job because that's an action. That's a definitive action that you can see.
[00:37:49] And I think we've talked about this before, uh, on this little mini series about the difficulty with, with a lot of what we do is that the. Inaction or action of your listeners is completely, it is often completely invisible. We don't know if people have actually listened to an episode versus just downloaded it.
[00:38:07] Um, we don't know if people are telling their friends, um, uh, about the show, really. Um, we don't know if people. Like, and subscribe and do all the things that we ask people to do. Um, because we don't always get the data on that. And so a lot of the time, it, it is, it can be demoralizing. And that's where you get into burnout.
[00:38:28] Is, is this like, is this thing on syndrome? Um, yeah. And so money can money can help that because it can help you think, oh no, this thing is on because, uh, something's trickling through,
[00:38:39] Yuvi: just to give you an idea of how small, uh, my podcast was. We didn't have any advertisers, but, um, about six months after, uh, We ended.
[00:38:50] We were, we were got our first, like someone asked us if we could advertise their sex toys on our show. And we were thrilled. We were like, someone actually wanted to do something. Uh, Semi on topic, you know, it's not an inappropriate it wasn't adult show. Yeah.
[00:39:17] Brendan: Uh, so you've you, where can people find you
[00:39:19] Yuvi: on the inner not easily? Um, I think, I think I still have a Twitter account that I occasionally use. Uh, if you can manage to spell my name. UV Zeljko, which is why you V I Z I L K O w you can get me there. I have a website and a Twitter account by that awkward name. Uh, and that, that sums it up. If you can find me there, you reach out to me and I'll get back to you within six months.
[00:39:45] Brendan: This is the Yuvi Zarankee.
[00:39:48] Mark: Pardon?
[00:39:48] Brendan: You heard that right.