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Handwashing, Lab Rats, and the Heresy Your Podcast Needs · Your Mic

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  Today on your mic, we're going to talk about rats dead moms and why your industry is probably
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  still not washing its hands. My name is Freddie Cruz, founder of Speak Podcasting. We help
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  iconic brands build iconic shows and if you're a founder or if you're the executive of a non-profit
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  or a medical group, we want to talk with you if you are thinking about launching a show.
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  Hit me up. Freddie, with the why, at SpeakPodcasting.com. Now let's talk about DNA for a second.
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  Don't worry, this is definitely not a TED talk or some kind of PowerPoint presentation.
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  I made a C in college, so we're not going to go too deep here. When scientists sequence the lab
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  rats genome, they found something while that 25% of the human genome is shared among rats and mice,
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  we have a lot in common, 25%. Zoom in on genes and almost all of our important genes have
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  rat counterparts, especially the disease ones. That's important for our survival. In plain English,
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  the stuff that breaks in us in a very similar way breaks in them as well. We built models and
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  researchers, pop tumors and rats. They tweak their brains. They measure, they publish, and then
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  humanity pats itself on the back. And we tell ourselves a story. This is necessary. This is
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  efficient and this is human progress. And don't you dare doubt the science because we're the experts.
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  Don't be a science denier. We need this. We need those rats. Give us more.
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  In all of this, well, it's kind of sort of true, but it's not the entire truth because we don't do
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  this to monkeys. And that's exactly why a lot of countries now restrict or ban invasive
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  chimp research. The practical reasons for using rats are obvious. Small and cheap. They breed fast.
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  Now, before you turn this off and go, ready, bro, I just want to podcast tips.
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  Here's why all of this matters for you. It does, we're going to go there with podcasting,
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  your company, your industry, your nonprofits. Well, there's a chance it's doing the same thing,
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  not with rodents, but with people. They're running experiments on whoever is cheapest,
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  noisiest, or easiest to ignore interns, entry-level staff, customers that don't have lawyers,
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  communities that'll never get pressed because the system works. Now, let's go back to Ignas
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  symbolize. He's the obstetrician in 19th century Vienna. He notices that women are delivered by
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  doctors who had just been working on cadavers and they're dying of child bed fever at horrific
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  rates. It's terrible. While women who are delivered by midwives are doing way, way, way, way better.
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  He forces doctors to wash their hands with chlorinated lime before touching patients.
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  Internal deaths, they take a nose dive. It's not a tiny improvement. It's a lot. It's a miracle.
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  Lots of children are going to get to grow up, spending time with their mom. That's a win, right?
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  And you would think that his colleagues would respond in kind. They'd be like, oh, dude,
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  you saved us. You saved these moms. Christmas time, birthdays, new year. They're going to get
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  to be with their mom. It's like they're the most important person in their life. You would think
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  that'd be the reaction, right? Teach us more. The actual reaction. Well, how dare you imply
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  we are the problem. They ridicule him. They undermine him. They banish him. He's fired. He spends his
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  last years raging at them in print, calling them murderers. And they kind of are, if you think
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  about it. And poor guy, he dies before germ theory catches up and proves that he was right all along.
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  And today, we talk about the symbolized reflex. It's the instinctive rejection of new evidence
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  that threatens our ego status or business model. Your industry has one. Your company has one.
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  Hell, you probably have one. You know, your onboarding is a dumpster fire, but that's just the way
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  HR does it. You know, your pricing punishes the people who need you most, but that's just,
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  that's what the market will bear. You know, your content is safe, bland, and it's beige.
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  So much beige, but hey, at least we're not offending anyone. And that is your symbolized reflex,
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  washing its hands of responsibility without soap. If you're not driving, grab a notebook.
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  If you are driving fine, yell this into a voice memo or go back and listen to it again.
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  My dashboard analytics will love you for it. Step one, you got to name the corpse. You just have to.
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  What's the one practice in your industry that everyone knows is disgusting,
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  wasteful, or harmful, but keeps doing anyway. Write it in plain language. No corporate buzzwords.
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  Doctors aren't washing their hands. Agency bills for fake deliverables. Founders ghost their teams.
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  Your job is to use your own. All right. That's the corpse. Step two, write your heresy.
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  If you can outlaw that practice tomorrow, what would you replace it with? That is your dangerous
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  solution. The one that would make your colleagues roll their eyes, your competitors panic and your
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  accountant sweat. And don't we like it when a accountant sweat and competitors panic? Step three, count
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  the cost of speaking. List three specific bad things that might happen if you said this out loud
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  in a podcast episode or if you're a guest on somebody's podcast or if you wrote all this stuff out
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  in a LinkedIn blog post, would you lose a client? Would your boss say that you're not a team player,
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  and would you get fewer or no more conference invites? Good. Feel that.
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  Step four, count the cost of silence. List three specific bad things that will keep happening
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  to real humans if you keep your mouth shut. Remember, silence is golden, but not all the time.
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  Well, clients keep getting burned. Well, patients keep diametaphorical deaths, burnout, debt,
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  broken trust. Your own team keeps thinking, I guess this is just normal. Look at both lists. One
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  of them and only one is going to win. Either you protect your comfort or you protect your people.
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  You can have one, but not both. That is the whole game. Here's how you turn this from a journal
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  exercise into content that actually matters for your show. You're going to steal this structure and
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  make it your own episode one. Tell the rat story, the one that I just told you. All right. And
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  you give the semi-wise story. Then confess your industry's dirty little handwashing secret.
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  Episode two, bring somebody on who's been hurt by that secret and let them talk. No spin on your
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  part. You just let them talk. You sit down, shut up and listen. Episode three, walk through your
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  dangerous solution in public. No hiding, no hedging, no caveats. And man, do we love our caveats?
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  Episode four, invite a friendly skeptic on and let them punch holes in it while you listen. Again,
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  your job listening. You keep your mouth shut. You zip it. You'll listen to them. It's okay
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  if people poke holes in your solutions. That's actual progress. And it doesn't involve lab rats.
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  And that's not just the podcast arc. It's brand therapy. That's leadership, live streamed. And
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  here's the thing nobody tells you. All right. You don't need a million downloads to make that matter.
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  You need the right 50 people. Heck, maybe even 30 people listening and thinking finally,
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  somebody said the part that I've been wanting to say for the longest time. That could be you.
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  You could be the hero. You could be the one that saves the industry, that saves your clients,
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  that saves the people who are breaking their backs late nights, weekends, holidays. That could be you
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  in your podcast. So if this episode made you uncomfortable, that means you're awake. Your homework
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  finished the dangerous solution exercise draft a four episode run where you actually talk about
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  it. And if you're feeling brave, send your heresy to someone you trust and then you ask,
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  would you listen to this? And if you're ready to turn that into an actual show instead of an
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  angry group text, you know where to find me. Speak podcasting.com that is S P E K E podcasting.com.
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  Thank you so much for being a part of your mic.