podcast

This is a special thing

I asked the audio community how they feel about career anxiety. The results were ~validating~.

Do you ever feel paralysed worrying about opportunity cost? That the thing you’re working on is not the THING you should be working on?

In an industry changing as fast as ours, you could argue you’re crazy not to be asking yourself this question and evaluating your role in this new era.

And what is this era?

Maybe we’ll look back on this decade as the smart phone age; the catalyst that revolutionised not only how we communicate, but also what we create and what it means.

The iPhone was launched in 2007 so if you’re under 30 your entire career has charted this shift.

And what lurks beyond the horizon is clear — the only constant will be more change.

So how do we grapple with decisions about how we spend our time when it can feel like catching smoke with your bare hands?

Well, here’s one thing for you.

It’s a scene from a movie called The Comedian. It’s a documentary that charts Jerry Seinfeld’s comeback to comedy a few years after Seinfeld had ended.

He’s talking to a younger comedian, Orny Adams (who’s as ambitious as he is obnoxious).

Anyway, this is the key scene for me (up until 1’16”).

There are some big hits here.

Is time running out?

Do you have something else you would rather have been doing?

Do you have other appointments or places you have to be?

And then the knockout:

This has nothing to do with your friends. This is a special thing.

And while it doesn’t solve the initial question of, is THIS specific thing I’m doing right now, the RIGHT thing, it does offer some comfort.

We’re telling stories and sharing ideas not because we should, not because we have to, but because we can.

And podcasting – of any size, on any topic, with any software – is a special thing.

Remember that next existential crisis.