What It’s Like to Be a Podcast Guest — Fear, Focus, and Reward

Nervous, sweaty palms, wavering voice. But what a hoot!!

My incredible podcast adventure grew from an article I wrote in August about retirement. That article exposed the honest truth of my first two years in retirement — the good, the bad, and the lessons I learned.

The article enjoyed thousands of views, dozens of comments, and the admiration of a man who hosts a podcast.

If you’re interested in reading the article, it’s published in the Crow’s Feet Medium publication and you can find the article HERE — but that’s not the point of this article — this is about the process, joy, angst, and reward of being a podcast guest.

The topic of retirement

I write a lot about retirement, and that August article painted an honest picture of the first two years of my retirement journey. I wrote about the emotional adjustment, my activities, triumphs, and challenges, and offered some humble advice to the reader.

The idea of “life in retirement” appeals to the not-yet-retired because most workers are sick of dealing with stupid bosses, lazy co-workers, politics, and clock-punching. They’re fascinated with the mystery of what’s waiting for them on the other side of the hill. They’re desperate to know whether they should rush into it or wait it out, and what they need to do to prepare for it.

It also appeals to those who are already retired because nobody’s retirement is perfect and there’s a certain vicarious mystique to peering into the secret lives of others (like a peeping Tom). Honestly, my life’s not that unique or exciting but regardless, one can’t help wondering what my retirement is like compared to theirs.

Initial contact

I publish my email address in my profile “About” section so people can contact me personally with private thoughts and ideas. That rarely happens, but one day I did in fact get an email from a fellow Medium member named Joe Casey who said he runs a website specializing in the non-financial aspects of retirement.

He asked if I’d care to speak on his podcast:

Brian,

I’ve enjoyed your writing as you’ve shared your experiences as you’ve ventured into retirement.

I especially appreciated your piece on Medium sharing your lessons learned in your first 2 years.

I’m reaching out to see if you’d be interested in coming on my podcast to discuss your journey thus far?

Our audience will be keenly interested in your observations and insights.

I get an unbelievable amount of spam from jerks all over the world trying to sell me web design services, lend me money, borrow money, or entice me into “the greatest money-making venture you’ve ever seen.”

This felt different, though.

Joe seemed sincere and provided his background history and links to his site and his podcasts. I checked them out (they’re quite good, by the way), and found everything he said to be truthful.

His Retirement Wisdom website is HERE. He’s been ranked in the top 1 percent of podcasts globally by Listen Notes and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal.

Immediately after realizing his offer was legit, the butterflies thrashed in my belly like a tornado. I hadn’t spoken in public in years and never liked it much. Public speaking was one of those work things I gladly left behind when I retired.

I write because my readers tell me my words help them. Why shouldn’t I speak for the same reason?

Mustering courage and confidence, I replied back and said “Okay. I’m in, Joe. Let’s do this.”

Preparation

This is the second podcast I’ve done (the first was for work about 5 years ago). Both started with a get-to-know-you Zoom call. Joe is an enthusiastic leader with a personality that would have made him a great salesperson. We spoke for 30 minutes and found a lot of common ground.

I came out of it relaxed, thanks to his friendly demeanor. The only part that still worried me was his answer to my question: “What if I goof up? Do you edit that out in post-production?” He said, “No, we just keep going — it makes you relatable.” Ugh, I didn’t want to be relatable.

We closed the call with a date to record the podcast, and for two weeks I stressed over the fear of having my embarrassing goofups splattered all over the internet.

Thankfully Joe is a pro and prepares his questions ahead of time. He sent ten questions to me a week before the recording session. His questions were reasonable and followed the jist of the article and our conversation. No surprises, thankfully.

As I usually do when public speaking, I write down the answers almost in their entirety and then practice speaking them. That’s what I did this time, and it helped build confidence. As I became more comfortable with the flow, I reduced the written answers to short bullet points to reference if needed.

Then I counted down the days. Three … two … one …

The recording

We met on a Zoom call even though the podcast was audio-only. Seeing gestures and facial expressions is an important part of keeping a lively voice.

That morning I set up my computer and monitors in a configuration that allowed me to look straight into the camera and still glance at my notes if needed.

When I heard the bloop-bloop of the call, I was poised and ready. ‘No turning back now,” I thought.

“Hi, Brian!” Joe appeared on the screen with a smiling face and a gung-ho attitude. We made small talk for a few minutes, he pressed the record button, and off we went.

When I speak publicly, I enter a zone where everything around me disappears and all I do is concentrate on my speaking, tone, expressions, and posture. My office could be on fire and I wouldn’t notice it. It’s a very focused and intentional place to be, mentally, and luckily it worked out — no major snafus were splattered across the internet.

All in all, I estimate I spent over five hours planning and practicing, certainly a worthwhile investment.

Here’s the podcast:

Earning a king’s ransom

Podcasts don’t pay money, at least not this one, but I came away from it a very rich man.

Joe and his website have a huge following so I’d like to imagine that thousands of people listened to my story. His demographic is age 50 to age 75, a sweet spot for my messages.

Of the thousands who listened, if one of them learned something that made their retirement life better, I’d be over the moon.

I write about retirement so people can get past the fear of the unknown, and enjoy their “life after work.”

Quotes from the podcast

On Planning for Retirement — and the Reality

“You can read books about it, you can talk to people, you can do all that, but until you’re there, you don’t know what it’s like. And so I had that fear and I had to fight my way through it. I liken that to parachute jumping. You can read about parachute jumping all day long, but until you step out of that airplane, you have no idea how exciting and thrilling it is to be on the other side of the retirement line. So fear was a big one there. And then how do I fill my day? Looking back on it, I talk to people all day long these days about retirement, and one of their biggest concerns is Will I be bored? or How do I fill my day? The third, probably the number one most important one, is Do I have enough money to live the lifestyle that I want to live and make it all the way through until I die and not run out of money? I struggled with those too. And my way of getting around it was to learn as much as I possibly could. And I wrote it down. I started making notes and sharing it with my friends, talking with my wife and all that sort of stuff. And I ended up writing about these things that I learned and that’s how I got into writing.”

On Finding Your Rhythm

“I felt sort of a pang of regret briefly. And then I woke up the next morning and I felt so free. Oh, this is great! I don’t have to go to work. I don’t have to worry about it. And I realized I had a good night’s sleep, and the first few weeks or months was a little bit like that. Intoxication is probably the best word for it. I was so excited and I was running around talking to people and hiking and doing things with my wife, and I just enjoyed every single instant. I had a hard time going to sleep. I was having so much fun, not working. And then over the course of the first year, it was ‘deer in the headlights.’ It was I have to get everything done that I possibly could. This is my personal experience, Joe, not everyone else’s. And I know it’s different for everyone, but this first year was chaotic. I went hiking, I went kayaking, I went bicycle riding. I rebuilt bathrooms. I went and visited friends and family, played with the kids. I wasn’t playing with little kids, they have professional jobs, but we’d go downtown, we’d have dinners, we’d do all kinds of fun stuff. And then I think slowly, probably at some point during the second year, that level of intoxication sort of just blended into a rhythm. And I settled into a rhythm where I am right now, and each morning I get up. My hobby is writing. I like to write. So in the mornings I’ll get up and write, and that involves interacting with people. It involves conference calls, it involves comments, research, not just hands on the keyboard, but a lot of additional activities.”

On Bringing Your Whole Brain to Retirement

“So I am a lot different of a person than I was when I was working. And it really surprised me that I was as creative as I am. My entire career practically was in technology, and that’s the left brain logical side, very analytical. And then I started before I retired, I started exploring, jotting down notes. And I actually started writing a little bit before I retired in 2019. I started publishing articles and whatnot, and then I kind of got the bug and I started writing. And that’s a creative thing, and I’ve been writing a lot of fiction since then too. And my left side of the brain has not been quite as active as my right side of the brain. I read somewhere that when you hit the late fifties, sixties, seventies, and on up, even into the nineties, your brain doesn’t get any slower. It doesn’t get any worse. It changes rather than being one side or the other. Older people begin to use both sides of their brains simultaneously. And so I think maybe that’s where this piece cropped up in my creativity. And I actually took some classes in pottery — so much fun! I do woodworking, which is a very creative activity. I spent a lot of time doing creativity, so that’s me. But I think from what I’ve heard with other people that I talked to, there’s a pretty profound change that takes place in one’s behavior when they move from a work environment into a retirement environment because of the freedom that it allows you. You’ve got these pent up desires and passions that have been held back, and now all of a sudden you can release them and chase after whatever passions you want to. And the beauty of retirement is you can chase after whatever you want to and just drop it if you don’t want to do it longer because you’re not making money at it. So who cares, right? So I found that to be probably the most significant change.”