Second Attempt Success

Written on 28th September 2022

If you haven’t already read the precursor to this article I would advise that you read "First Attempt Failure” prior to reading this. Some of the things I talk about will make more sense if you have the background knowledge of what happened in the first part of the story.

After an unfortunate mistake during the first attempt of my podcast, I managed to reschedule a meeting with my guest Davide Tuzi. This time though, I was more prepared, I had a revitalised bank of questions to ask, constructive criticism from Joly, “My Producer”, and a more confident mindset to carry out the process. Not much actually needs to be said about the recording itself, as it was very similar to the first, I asked many of the same questions, I formatted the meeting in a similar way, and the objective of each meeting remained the same. Just this time I remembered to press record. Speaking with Davide for around 45 minutes felt easier and less pressurising the second time round, I had got to know him a bit better as a person during the first episode which gave me more comfort as to who I was speaking to, I felt it allowed me to carry out a smoother interview and essentially end up with a better piece of content for my podcast. Despite the many flaws that I personally picked out, I was still happy that I had taken action and recorded my first podcast episode.

Was it perfect? No. Was it as good as I envisioned it? Certainly not. But what I can tell you, is that it’s a start, it’s a step in the right direction, it’s a new experience, and these are things which I believe are important to my success. Any action is better than no action. All of the things we want in life require us to remove ourselves from our comfort zone, in order to achieve them, and this recording took my outside of my comfort zone for definite, it’s an endeavour which is new to me, something which I can look back on and improve on, but most importantly, something that I can be proud of. Besides school work, I would say this is one of the first times in my life where I have taken an idea, taken it through an iterative process, and ended up with something I am truly happy with.

In many ways I am glad that the first attempt failed, as there were many many things which I didn’t like about my performance which I improved on before my second attempt, such as my breathing, my voice warmup and my flow of questions, to name just a few. Looking back now, I’m so glad I’ve pushed past the first episode release, as it was the one I was concerned about the most. Primarily my worries were focused on my confidence during the recording, and whether I would be able to control myself and execute the questions as well as planned. Despite many obvious points for improvement, I feel as though I achieved this, I didn’t let my heart rate increase too much, I remained relatively controlled, and I’m happy with that. These are things which I can sometimes struggle with, and I get unusually unsettled in certain situations which I know don’t pose any threat or uncertainty.

To finish off, I want to express how proud I am to release this episode, even though I am not perfectly happy with the quality of it. I understand how important it is to make the first step, and how much of an impact this first episode will have on me and the future of my podcast.

Below you can listen on Spotify, Amazon Music or Google Podcasts.