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#50 - 50 Episodes Strong: Behind the Mic with Brian & Jason · Life According to Brian and Jason

0:11
All right, friends, welcome to another episode of Life
0:16
According to Brian and Jason. Hey,
0:18
Jason, this makes our 50th episode.
0:22
What do you think about that, dude? That's crazy. When we
0:26
started this, I did not think we'd get to 50.
0:29
Most people in podcasting, yeah, don't get to 50.
0:34
Yeah, it's been almost a year's worth of weekly
0:39
podcasting. And what do you think about
0:43
that? What have you learned? Well, you know, we started
0:47
this. I live in Colorado, you live in Arkansas.
0:50
So it's just been good talking to you. You know, we do our little pre-meetings
0:55
and then we talk about this. We kind of go on
0:59
and stuff. And, um, really, uh, I think it
1:02
has been good in that, uh, we've changed our focus.
1:07
We've reflected like anyone else would and said,
1:10
okay, let's do this maybe and do that. Right. We started out very differently
1:15
and like a wide range of topics. Right. Kind of forming
1:19
on more of a current event sports slash pop culture
1:23
slash our 50-plus-year
1:27
experience viewpoint on things. Yeah. Yeah, I remember
1:31
you came out to visit and you went out to the back
1:35
patio. You got a piece of printer paper and some kind of Sharpie
1:38
you found somewhere in the house. And all of a sudden you sketched out this
1:43
idea for a podcast. And so, I'm like, okay.
1:46
Yeah. And we kind of honed in on the name and then
1:50
it was down to cost. And,
1:54
you know, like we wanted to do the whole video podcast
1:58
and that's kind of expensive, you know, because we're like, you're the
2:01
only one out of the two of us that knew how to do a podcast
2:05
because you used to do, you still do one with your
2:09
staff, right? At work. So, so I'm like, I don't
2:13
know what I'm doing. So we backed away from the video side.
2:16
One, because it's just a whole nother element to deal with and two,
2:20
the cost. And yeah, we just found the cheapest platform
2:24
that we could do it on. And I'll tell you what, I think we've
2:28
gotten our monies out of it. I think so too. Good quality. I mean,
2:31
right. We're working our listenership. We're still figuring something
2:35
out. Right. Right. The metrics are weird.
2:39
Yeah. Learning all that. But you know what? It's something that we're taking
2:43
risks. Really, Brian, we're taking risks. We're 2 dudes who are like, you know what?
2:47
Let's take a risk here. Right. See what happens. See what happens.
2:51
And, you know, we got like maybe one fan in Singapore.
2:55
That's cool. I don't know what that's all about. But,
2:58
you know, it's kind of weird how we get these international sprinklings.
3:02
And I don't know if it's because we're Americans and
3:05
people listen to pop culture or people have their VPNs turned on to other foreign
3:11
countries, who knows? But I do
3:14
think when you— I want to encourage other people to do it too.
3:18
And that's the whole point of podcasting. You don't
3:22
have to get fancy. It's low-tech. You and I don't use $500
3:26
microphones. I know listeners can probably tell,
3:30
but you do a headset with a microphone.
3:33
I do a headset with a microphone. And I just threw up my spare
3:39
cell phone, plug all this in, and off we go.
3:43
I do a little bit of voice cleanup with some
3:47
video software that I have. If we have an episode that I need to,
3:51
I don't know, cut out one of us sneezing or, you know,
3:55
or the doorbell ringing 5 times, you know, I'll try to clean
3:59
that kind of stuff up in post. But most of it's pretty original
4:04
raw audio. You know, I'll maybe tone
4:09
down the high side a little bit, boost our voice in the
4:12
bass end. But yeah, I don't do much in post.
4:16
And we are a true unscripted podcast,
4:20
wouldn't you say? Yes. Yes. Well, we're just talking
4:24
our thoughts, hoping people are enjoying a conversation between 2 friends.
4:28
And we can help make their day a little better and go,
4:32
oh, you know what? I'm going to talk to my friend.
4:35
Just so our listeners understand,
4:38
like, I mean, once in a great while, we'll send each other an email,
4:42
hey, this might be something interesting. That's about it.
4:45
But most of the time, we sit down on Tuesday
4:50
night and we'll talk for a little bit through the app.
4:54
Company called Podbean. And basically that's our planning.
4:58
We, what, spend 30 minutes just chatting, you know?
5:01
And we'll just kind of hone in on what sounds right. And I'll ask you,
5:04
hey, do you have some ideas? And you go, yeah, I'm ready.
5:09
And I count us in and off we go. That is it. There's no writing.
5:13
There's no, you know, yes. I mean, you could get
5:17
way serious and script all this stuff out, use an AI to
5:22
run prompts. Which you do use some nice AI to clean up
5:26
Our best efforts here. Yeah, I do. I use a little AI in
5:30
the post just to help me with a good title, some descriptions,
5:35
things like that. Sometimes I'll use the Google
5:38
machine to round out an idea a little bit.
5:41
Like, you know, the topic might be too broad.
5:45
How do we tighten it in? Like, if I'm going to pitch an idea to
5:49
you, I'll do my homework a little bit on my end.
5:52
You know, and I think you do that too.
5:56
But I think one of the formats, and I think maybe you told
6:00
me about this, was when you do a podcast,
6:04
you should have like a setup, a conflict, and a resolution,
6:07
right? Isn't that kind of— Yeah, I think that's your format. Is that mine?
6:13
No, it's okay. Like we're asking a question. That's why you asked me. Right.
6:16
That's the setup. Here's our question. We might not always answer the question.
6:20
We might get off topic. Oh yeah, we're a little
6:24
distracted. But then we get into kind of the conflict
6:28
of what's going on, whether it's sports
6:32
or life, what's the tension, right? What's that conflict?
6:36
And then kind of how we feel it's all going to go and wrap
6:39
up and move forward, that kind of thing. So yeah, I love
6:43
that. It's a very simple format. Setup, conflict, resolution.
6:48
So that's how we do it, friends.
6:51
There's not a lot of magic other than I
6:54
think the magic is just our 30-year or 20-plus-year friendship,
6:59
right? Oh yeah, dude, it's reaching 30.
7:02
I guess it's getting there. Yeah, yeah. No, you know,
7:05
that's what people want. I like some of my best podcasts are
7:09
just, you know, liking the people who are talking and Sure.
7:13
Connecting with them and going, you know what? Yeah. Right.
7:16
And if we do that occasionally, that's great. I think that's awesome.
7:21
You know, some of our episodes hit, I don't
7:24
know, they hit a nerve with people and those ones do well. Other ones
7:28
completely, I felt good about it, but I don't understand
7:31
why it fell flat. People might rediscover.
7:35
When we get big, when we get big, Brian, they'll rediscover and
7:40
Right, right. Well, let me ask you, and I've not asked
7:44
you this before, how much do you think about it during the week? You're like,
7:47
oh, that might be a good topic, or— Oh, I do. I think about,
7:50
since we're doing sport things, I think sports
7:55
mirrors life a lot. So, there's definitely,
7:58
you know, injury decisions on your retirement, decisions on how
8:03
to take care of yourself, decisions on Your career move.
8:06
Are you going to stay with the team or not? Are you, you know,
8:09
boss, how's your boss treating you? You know, do you want to
8:13
stay with your company? Do you want to leave? Like we were just talking before
8:17
about, you know, managers and other people like
8:21
what they went to a team or players, they go to a team that's the
8:24
enemy. Well, if it's a storied franchise and that's been your dream
8:27
and you're like, you know what, I think I kind of want to play,
8:31
you know, for the Cubs or the Yankees. I want to play and see what
8:35
it is to be a Boston Red Sox, you know,
8:38
player in that town.
8:41
You know, way to go, dude. You know, we'd all do that. Um, I don't
8:45
know. I, I do. I think about— I look at what's going on. Of course,
8:48
the kids at school keep me abreast of sport things going
8:52
on. And as a PE teacher, I kind of know. I talk to parents at
8:55
my crosswalk duty, and, you know, we have banter.
8:59
Especially about the Steelers. That's another podcast. But anyway, yeah,
9:04
no, I do. I think about it. That's good. Yeah.
9:07
Yeah. Yeah. So do I. I'm always any
9:10
kind of like headline that piques my interest.
9:14
I'm like, oh, okay. But I always realize the
9:18
heart of our podcast is our lives,
9:22
what's important in our lives. Right. And Why is
9:25
that resonating in our lives? And maybe it's resonating
9:29
in someone else's out there, right? And so,
9:33
other than our 5 fans, I don't know. I think it's kind of hit or
9:37
miss. We do go out to all platforms. And it's funny,
9:41
certain topics probably out with the metrics tell me
9:44
out on Spotify, we're out on Spotify,
9:48
Apple Podcasts, certain topics picked up out there in
9:52
those 2 platforms. So,
9:55
that's why I use AI to analyze what you and I talk
9:59
about a little bit on the back end because out of a 30-minute
10:04
segment or podcast, usually never over 34,
10:07
35 minutes, I just want to make sure whatever
10:11
the heart of that conversation is, that's the title
10:14
because there's what I thought we talked about
10:18
and then there's really the script I shouldn't
10:22
call it the script. It's the transcript where behind
10:27
the scenes, line for line, what you and I said. So, all your comments,
10:30
my comments all get kind of transposed.
10:33
And so, I let AI on the backside look at it and
10:37
then it gives me suggestions like,
10:40
here's kind of what you talked about. And I'm like,
10:44
really? I thought we talked about— so then I'm arguing with AI for
10:47
half an hour. You're wrong. You're wrong. Right, right. But that
10:52
is cool technology that it can analyze
10:56
our content. And then I'm like, then I kind
11:00
of create a hybrid title and summary
11:03
so that I'm hoping that then when I post
11:08
it, those certain key items in the titles
11:12
encourage listeners, right? So that's the whole point.
11:16
So totally. Oh yeah, yeah, because, uh, you know, it's funny,
11:21
I actually put more work into that than I do the podcast
11:25
itself. Well, it's keeping you relevant, your tech skills, right?
11:28
You have other interests and things that you do, and yeah, uh, I think
11:33
that comes into play. And right, uh, I think that's good.
11:37
No, yeah, you know, we're, we're trying something, we're going for
11:40
it, we, we went big, and that we're Going for
11:44
a year, see what happens afterwards? Well,
11:47
that's what I'm impressed about is, you know,
11:51
when we actually dove in with the subscription, we just did the 1-month trial
11:55
like last fall. Like we kind of dinked around with
11:59
it in November and then we really dove in last December.
12:03
And then I said, hey man, do you want to sign a year contract?
12:06
Because we get a better monthly rate and we did.
12:10
And it's amazing, you know, we just post one a week. There's been a
12:13
few weeks that we haven't posted due to conflict
12:19
and, you know, just life, you know, can't do it every week, but we
12:22
got pretty close. And so
12:27
now it's kind of, we're coming up on that year,
12:30
you know, January 1st, like, what are we going to do? So what's your
12:35
thoughts? You know, are we, Going for another 50?
12:38
We want to retool? What do you think? I'm good to keep going, but definitely
12:42
reflect, retool,
12:45
see what's working, what's not. And, um, do you
12:49
want to go video or do you just still like the whole audio? I think
12:53
I want to go one year of audio because one more year of audio is
12:56
more honed. Okay. Or I think we could get
13:00
a little more, uh, crisper on some things
13:04
and, uh, not necessarily more scripted because that's
13:08
not really the style we're looking for, but, um, just more lessons learned.
13:12
Yeah. Oh yeah, banter between ourselves. Because then once
13:15
you go video, you can't go back. You're gonna see this mug. You're gonna
13:20
go— I know, man. I'm like, so I'm gonna have to think that
13:23
I'm gonna have to go into training just to be on video. Like, uh,
13:27
you know, but definitely continuing, I think.
13:31
I think it's great. I think so. I enjoy
13:35
it. Some weeks I'm like, it's kind of like teaching,
13:39
right? Like, do I have the energy for this? You know,
13:42
I talked to Jason, right? Sure,
13:45
sure. Now it seems like work,
13:48
right? But it was like yesterday you texted
13:53
me, hey, Can we podcast a day
13:56
early? And I'm like, well, I had 2 things going yesterday. One,
14:00
I went and rode 4.5 hours of mountain bike.
14:04
That's a lot of mountain biking for me.
14:07
And even though I'm on a chairlift up, I'm still riding down.
14:11
I'm just kind of shredded. Yeah, I'm just shredded a
14:14
little bit. And then Tanis is getting ready
14:17
for her big trip coming up. I go in
14:21
a few days from now, so she's going ahead of me. So it's just
14:25
all this stuff, you know, you got a plan, you know, you got a passport,
14:28
you know. So I'm just like, I just didn't have the mojo
14:32
to do it last night. And, you know, that's the
14:36
way it goes. You know, you and I have to kind of figure out that
14:39
balance in life. Even though I am retired, there's sometimes you just like
14:42
life gets in the way. Dude, in some ways you're more busy now.
14:46
I've had semi-retirement feelings during the
14:50
summer. It's amazing how busy I am during summer vacation. Oh yeah, you still In
14:53
fact, you fill every minute. I know. I'm like, how the heck do I work
14:57
and do all this stuff? Wow. So what happens when you retire is you're available
15:00
for more things. You're available to other
15:06
family members who need this, who need that. You're available to this.
15:09
Oh yeah. It's just you wind up committing to all the
15:13
things you said no during your career. You know, it's like people don't
15:17
ask you, oh no, they're working. So we won't ask. You know, another agent.
15:22
Yep, yep, then that's what happens.
15:26
So imagine how busy life's going to be when you retire, Jason.
15:30
Sure, sure. All right, so then you'll have time for 2,
15:32
3 podcasts, who knows? Yep, editing,
15:36
doing live stuff. Right, all right.
15:41
Well, I agree, man. I like the audio format,
15:44
gives us time to work on ideas.
15:48
Yeah, our cadence. It's more of the cadence and our just flow and banter.
15:52
I think, um, a year of that would be good.
15:55
And then going on to the next step with maybe
15:59
a tweak here on major lessons learned after a year, right?
16:03
Because that's what you do. Yeah, I, uh,
16:06
since I do the post-production work, I listen to our podcast
16:10
at least 1 to 2 more times after we're done.
16:14
It's a little hard to listen to your own work. I will say
16:17
that. It's very hard. It's very hard. Video is even harder.
16:21
Gosh, you're gonna have to watch yourself. Yeah, when I was
16:25
heavy into doing the YouTube stuff, which I'm not now,
16:31
that was hard. There's like a trajectory
16:35
on that. You have to kind of just slug through it and
16:39
get used to hearing yourself, seeing yourself, and then
16:43
it starts— then you start getting comfortable with it. And one thing I
16:47
noticed early on is since you're still a professional
16:51
educator,
16:55
my cadence was a little sloppy. Yours is much tighter.
16:59
And I tend to throw in the ahs and ums more than you
17:03
and things like that. So So I had to make all these little notes.
17:06
I need to clean up wait time. I need to clean
17:10
up these gaps. I got to clean up my language as far
17:14
as tightness, you know. So it's kept me
17:18
mentally much fitter in retirement
17:22
because when you retire, you don't have that professional grind,
17:26
you know, being polished all the time, you know,
17:30
you get a little sloppy in your language and especially
17:34
me, it's like, oh yeah, okay, I got to watch what
17:38
I say. We want to keep this family-friendly.
17:43
I can't be bleeping stuff out.
17:46
So yeah, our moms listen to this podcast.
17:49
Hi, Mom. So yeah, but I
17:53
think anyone who's retired and you listen to our podcast,
17:57
you should do a podcast. Just for the mental clarity
18:02
and focus. It just keeps you sharp. Deadline.
18:06
Yeah, having a deadline. You got to do it, man. You got to— you have
18:09
to kind of— you have to create something in your head that
18:13
comes out as a product. And I think
18:17
especially for men, I think
18:21
this could be a way to help fight off
18:24
boredom, dementia, sadness, depression, everything.
18:28
You know, as you age and you, especially when you retire, you come,
18:32
you can get depressed real easy because you're not needed anymore,
18:36
you know? And so when you came up
18:40
with this crazy idea to do a podcast, I'm like, well, why would I want?
18:45
And then I started doing it. I'm like, oh yeah, this kind of fills
18:49
in that part I've been missing all these years. And I've been retired
18:52
4 years, you know? Wow, that's crazy. I was
18:56
used to being needed way too much on my weekends
19:02
or in the morning, you know, because when you, when you're ahead
19:06
of a staff, there is no free time, especially during COVID
19:10
You know, I just, I ran people's needs
19:14
constantly above my own needs all those years.
19:17
And, and then when that gets cut off, you just feel like, whoa,
19:22
What's going on, and you can get mentally,
19:26
um, it puts you mentally in some weird places.
19:30
Sure. So it's good, dude. I'm glad you came up with this crazy
19:34
idea. Yeah, and well, it's good and strong and vibrant,
19:37
and, uh, I think it's just good to talk,
19:41
uh, about things going on in the world, right? Right.
19:45
The positive spin. Any, uh, Any inklings
19:48
to our fans how we might sharpen it for year 2?
19:53
Any thoughts? I don't know. We might look at
19:57
the metrics on our time. Is it better to do 25 minutes,
20:00
under 30, a little over 30? Right. What do people like?
20:03
Like to check that out. Also, just to revisit
20:08
the sport theme, personally, I think it's good because it's
20:13
constantly changing and it's easy to come up with topics. It's like, right,
20:17
the season kind of going on and then it always bleeds into life,
20:21
you know? Right. Whether you're communicating well, not communicating well,
20:25
dealing with stuff, not dealing with stuff, blowups with a family
20:29
member, right? An athlete, not, or just, you know,
20:33
life stuff, loss. Yeah. That,
20:36
that to me is the place that we could tighten up. So if we set,
20:39
if the hook or the setup is a sports theme,
20:43
what could we personally take away from it versus just
20:49
leaving it as a sports theme? So for example, if,
20:53
hey, did you see that so-and-so recovered from
20:57
this injury? And it's like a medical breakthrough.
21:01
Well, how does that slide over into my life and your life,
21:04
right? Sure. Or the mental side of the game. Hey,
21:08
Here's like these mental strategies so-and-so's using.
21:12
Oh, could I use that? So to me, that's the tightness there.
21:16
It's like, how does it bridge back to
21:20
our title, Life According to Brian and Jason? So whatever our
21:24
hook is has to apply
21:29
to our lives and then it applies to people watching. It could be anything.
21:32
It could be a lot of things. Yeah. See? So that's just, That's just that
21:36
one tiny little extra step I feel that we could
21:40
do. And then we perfect it and then we move on to other little— That's
21:43
right. Then we all sign $120 million Joe Rogan contracts.
21:48
What do you think? Yes. They want us. They want us.
21:51
That's right. That's right. But that's the one takeaway
21:55
I have after doing this year is how to make it more life
21:59
relevant, right? Yeah. So it's been
22:03
a great ride, man. Guess what? It is, dude. What? Hey, let's cut
22:06
this one short. Sounds good. Yeah, sounds good. Well,
22:10
congratulations, man. 50 episodes. That's no small task.
22:14
I'll catch you. All right, dude. Well, thanks, fans, for listening
22:19
to us. Please give us any feedback. We'd like to continue
22:23
another year. And thanks for listening to Life According to Brian.
22:27
And Jason. Until next time, until episode 51,
22:31
tell a friend. See ya. Hey friends, if you like this original
22:35
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22:43
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