Podcast: Download
Today I’m experimenting (again) with another form of content creation and delivery. An audio podcast.
Why a Podcast?
Personal
I used to consider myself an artist. I used to write poetry, draw, paint and create things that didn’t previously exist. It was a way for me to express myself and “get it out of my head”, good or bad.
Looking back, I think it was also a way to relieve stress and simply be happy doing something other than what was expected of me by others.
Creating websites used to fill that void, but for the past couple of years it’s been less about building something new and more about just keeping the business running.
Business
Time will tell if this reason pans out to be true. I struggled with deciding the focus of this podcast. Should it be strictly business? Should it be strictly personal? Should I talk only about being an Entrepreneur Dad? How do I build the “Adam W. Warner” brand in the best way?
In the end, I made the decision to talk about whatever it is that was on my mind when I record an episode. Afterall, I think about building my business, and my kids, and my family, and my health, and my this and my that all the time. Why not use that as fodder for my content?
It just makes sense because I know me. I know that if I try to create content (or art) that I’m not passionate about, I’ll lose interest and move on to the next shiny object.
Time
I suffer from too many ideas, not enough time in the day syndrome. Add to this the responsibilities of having two young kids.
How in the hell do I expect to find time to create more blog posts or shoot and edit video?
The answer is that I won’t, and more blog posts and a video podcast would fail.
Audio podcasting has a few main benefits…
- I don’t have to look presentable like I would like to on video.
Parents, you know what I’m talking about. - Much less editing time.
- Audio creation from anywhere.
I can sit at my desk, or record audio from my phone while at the playground, or at 2am while sitting on the toilet if I want. (not that I would;)
Why the Name?
This is also something that I went back and forth on for awhile, but thanks to my friends Matt, Kim, and Robin who helped me brainstorm and drill down to a name that is catchy enough to gain some interest, but also meaningful enough to cover my somewhat varied topics.
“Don’t Panic! with Adam W. Warner”
If you don’t understand the “Don’t Panic!” reference, it’s a direct quote from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book series by Douglas Adams.
I read this series of books in high school and for whatever reason, the story just really stuck with me. It’s a humorous adventure through Space and time with a great cast of characters, but also makes some great points about “Life, the Universe and Everything”.
The words “Don’t Panic!” also sum up what I’m currently focusing on and that’s to not get too stressed each day and be more calm. Running a business, keeping up with the household chores (like simply mowing the lawn), and managing the ever-changing schedule of wife and kids kind of threw me for a loop.
I’m a planner. In order to keep my mind focused, I like to know what’s coming two or three steps ahead. This has mostly gone out the window these days, so the words “Don’t Panic!” mean a lot and help me keep things in perspective.
I’m also 42 years old, and this number has special significance in the book series above (if you haven’t read the series and intend to, don’t Google it because you’ll ruin the fun!)
Experimenting
This is still an experiment. You’re going to see things like the transcription below (complete with typos and mashed together text for now) and probably other additions/deletions on this site as I piece together the technical aspects of this little vision of mine.
Will I continue? Will I monetize this someday?
Will anyone listen?
No clue.
I have some ideas, but I am committed to focusing on ONE THING and that’s just creating my “art”.
Episode Transcription
Hey this is Adam and this is my life it is Thursday, October 30 at 9:33 PM this is the first episode of the podcast which has no name currently it’s probably going to be called Adam a life or my life with Adam W Warner something like that where to start well I will start at the beginning I’ll save that for future episodes I am a 42-year-old man married to a wonderful woman named Alina we have two beautiful children boys Ziggy and Roman sees to a half Roman is almost 8 months old rule old to be parents but to think that’s so rare these days I think there’s a lot of people in our same situation my wife is currently out of town on work related trip and I am home with one of the kids the oldest see who has been diagnosed today with an ear infection Manny has a cost and ease currently medicated with homeopathic cough medicine amoxicillin for the ear infection and then he started running a fever so he has taken some Motrin he’s in bed right now and our youngest is with grandma the overnight to give me a break and let me to focus on the older boy so here we are my intention with the starting in audio podcast is to basically start recording moments in my life don’t really know how this will all turn out will it be interesting probably not too a lot of people but hopefully this will serve as an audio record for my family and for future generations it’s 2014 by the way and I used to do a bit of video podcasting back in 2006 and I just watched all of a few of those episodes that I had downloaded I found them on my hard drive and among other reasons it kind of inspired me to start up again it’s really but purely selfish exercise at the moment moment purely selfish right I really do want my kids to listen to cut of the daily trials and tribulations successes failures all that kind of stuff when they’re old enough so that gets another data little bit more intimately when they’re old enough to understand and listen there is some history with doing this sort of thing my stepmother Beverly Warner her dad Howard Retzlaff and his brother used to send cassette tapes back and forth to each other one lived in Michigan the other in Arizona and when he passed away her and her brothers and sisters inherited a huge collection of cassette tapes and I remember I was younger listening to them in the living room and learning a lot about a lot of stuff and mostly getting to know him a lot better than in a lot better than he gets no limit to family events and that sort of stuff so that’s part of it also back in my video career in the early and mid-now mostly mid-2007 I was a bit of a family historian there for a few years where I was digitizing photos 8mm films I have a video where he interviewed my grandparents on my mother side Nelly and Max Stein Bauer about thing that happened to them in 1951 where some kids were on their farm and found some Native American skeletal remains and that’s really interests me to record that kind of stuff so it’s all common mishmash of why this podcast is here and it shouldn’t be unsaid that another reason is for marketing I own a software business called Fu plug-ins.com that I cofounded with my partner Brad Vincent who currently lives in South Africa and in Florida and the US we happened to meet online in some software forums and started this business of brewing and two years now coming up on two years of official business nine a podcast is a part of mentioning that very domain name it’s also part of I think it’s an extension of my personal brand Adam W Warner.com on where I make video courses in other information products to earn a living I currently work from home full-time a lot of that time is spent taking care of the kids love my wife is a SID his WAN work right now she works in our away from associate commutes two hours a day so I am lucky enough to be home to do things like bring the oldest preschool and bring them to doctor appointments and things like that but at the same time I still need to earn a full-time living in order for our family to live the way we want live and it’s been a struggle the last couple years with starting this business until you we’ve had some ups and we had some pretty scary downs and it’s still kind of unknown what to what the future is going to hold we often discuss me going back to work and often do we have discussed me going back to work full-time in a professional manner no place to work for a national a distributor of ventilation systems Iran there series of web properties never really got to take full advantage of all that was available just because of red tape and such but when we talk about that when you crunch the numbers if I were to work full-time from 95 or eight for whatever the hours worked out to be the amount of money that we would spend in daycare and various things surrounding that would really mostly negate any increase in wage that I might see right now I’m basically making as much as I was give or take every month and then when I was in a cubicle or in my own office so here we are this podcast will focus on on interesting stories like I’ve just told you and also on maybe some dad stuff was probably to be a fair amount of dad stuff in there because I’d I don’t feel like I’m the average dad are the average stereotypical dad there’s probably a lot of this a lot of us out there who are like me that done are well what’s the right term we are business owners and in mom’s for that matter were self-employed where juggling between entrepreneurship and parenthood and trying to find the balance there’s a lot more to talk about but for now I think I’ll leave it there and the just keep spewing stories may be stories about my past stories about my present and the see where this goes so I hope someone listens actually you know what I hope someone listens and is able to relate or to take something away from whatever it is that I share whatever experiences I share I I don’t I’m not in this for ego or glory your whatever I really want to just share my story and if you happen to listen and relate that’s really really cool and if you want to subscribe to the podcast feel free to do that in iTunes or if you want to read my blog feel free to do that subscribe to my email list feel free to do that the more people I can connect with the more I feel like I matter I know that that’s a little dramatic and I don’t mean it to sound like that but I’m the kind of guy that likes to be connected to people I like to be connected to people I might not even know other than a message here or there social networker through the forum or whatever it is I feel like I I can can you pick up on the good and the bad and whether there is reason to be connected someone so anyway let’s get a little off-topic yourself that’s a deal that’s what this is whatever this podcast ends up being named thanks for listening and if you dig it Sharon
