Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
Welcome back to Success with Srini. Today is February 6 2022. Happy Sunday morning to you. Now I’m recording this podcast two days early. And because I won’t be around on Sunday to record so I’m recording this little earlier. Now, because I’m recording this earlier, I have no idea what to say. Because most of my podcast episodes are all contextual things that are happening on that day or a few hours before that day or the day before. I collect all those ideas and put them on the podcast. But because I’m recording this two days early, I don’t know what I have to say on this podcast episode. I don’t think I have much to share.
And today’s podcast episode is not about a success strategy, an idea, a thought, or a story. But to this podcast is about a retrospective. Retrospective is something that you do after you engage in an activity for a long amount of time. You collect all the data, and you start analyzing the data, to make some observations to see things that you can improve things that you can get rid off things that mistakes you made along the way, all of that stuff. So the retrospective we did internally, my business, is this podcast. This podcast restarted on January 3rd 2022. I say restarted because I have done this podcast multiple times over the years. I started in 2016, I did a few episodes, I stopped then 2017, a few episodes, I stopped 2018. Same story. In 2021. I started the podcast, saying that I’m going to do this on a daily basis. I did this for about a month and a half. So started in January. And we went till about February 21 of 2021. And I stopped.
Now, I can give you multiple reasons why I stopped, I started, I restarted, all that. But I don’t think that’s important. Because excuses are excuses no matter which way you say them. I don’t want to take an excuse on this podcast either. But it’s not about restarting or starting. But this is more about what happened in the last three days. So in the month of January, we almost came close to 1,000 downloads of this podcast. So in other words, it has started, so there is momentum in this podcast now 1,000 downloads already happening. Now I do not know these downloads are people searching for the podcast and getting them or this is Apple iTunes pushing the podcast every time it’s published. So it’s all kinds of metrics around it. But 1,000 downloads so far, near about 980 or 970 downloads in the month of January. It’s all good. The best podcast episode was the one where I was on the bed as a result of COVID. And I still record it. That’s the best episode everybody told me, everybody messaged me. There were some questions coming in from the listeners, which was great. I met a few people in some social setting last month, who told me that they’re listening to the podcast, which is also great.
Now, there is one big fear I have. And this has happened to me on radio. And this is something that I’m starting to feel as I’m doing this podcast, which is every podcaster anywhere you go anywhere you look into podcasts, one thing they talk about is subscriber count. And there are many marketing programs that sell you on how to get subscribers. I never tried to get subscribers to this podcast. My challenge is with the existing listeners, if I don’t maintain the depth in the content, the quality in the content, and I don’t keep them engaged. I don’t share old things or new things but in an increasingly fresh manner. If I don’t do that, then people will drop out the subscribe but they don’t listen. So if you’re a subscriber and you don’t listen, that means I’m not attaining the depth. It’s not the number of subscribers. It’s just the subscriber who listens who can use some ideas crossed my mind and a two ways to fix this issue.
The first is that, I keep on accumulating more than I’m sharing, which is hard, by the way. I cannot read one book a day, or I cannot watch one movie a day or whatever, whatever way I accumulate information. I can’t keep up with the production. It’s hard. It’s difficult when you have other things going on. And the second way to do that is kind of take yourself out out of this responsibility, which is getting other people to come in as guests. Because they will provide some great content, and I can kind of pull myself out. Turns out that’s also not that easy, because who will share good content? Who all can you find in their timelines, their availability, scheduling all this hard? It’s hard. It’s difficult. But these are the two observations. And that way we can infuse some newness into the podcast. I’m not saying that there is nothing new. But all I’m worried about is what if I lose subscribers depth. And this is a concern that I have, because I know how this works. Many podcasters don’t understand this. But I know this because I’ve been on the radio.
My biggest worry is not only I want the new subscribers, listeners to listen to my radio show. But then I also want my existing listeners to come back and listen, and listen for a long amount of time. Even with a new listener listening to my radio show for the very first time, I want them to stay longer on the radio show and listen to me. That’s how I build the depth. Some personal observations I made as a part of this podcast after restarting in January, I have to become good at storytelling. I have some skills, but I need to develop them. I need to get control on timelines. Sometimes you take one thing, you drag it out. And as I listen to my podcast, I can see I’m dragging things out. No need to track people get it people are smart listeners. I need to be very precise in what I’m saying. Some repeat words as I speak. Some phrases that I say unwanted. Not necessary. But they’re catchphrases, because I lose my thought that drop in my thought process. I need to come back into what I’m saying.
So I use these words to come back. Not good. I also say, you know, you know, you know, multiple times. I say Right, right, right in every sentence. And, and, and multiple times. I say, uh, um, all that stuff. And I know that because I listen to my podcasts, and you are good when you subscribe to your own stuff. Most people don’t listen to the recordings. I know. Because I have several of my friends on radio, they don’t listen to the recordings, I insist upon them, listen to your recordings, because the recording is going to modify you. Expand you grow you if you take some lessons. These are some observations. I thought of not telling a lot today on the podcast by looks like holy, I’m eight minutes into this. So that’s all I had. I want to make the podcast more real from this point on I have gone back and I’ve listened to the couple of episodes I did during the time when I was on the bed with COVID. And I want to go back and get the same tonality, same inflections that the way I had when I was sick. So I’m going to go back to that, but appreciate you listening to this. You mean a lot me personally, I don’t know if I met you or haven’t met you. But it means a lot to me personally. It feels as if I’m speaking to you. Every day, every day, I wake up in the morning, the first responsibility I have is to record this podcast. And it’s a huge responsibility. But I love this responsibility. As much as I love taking care of my father. And by the way, he just turned 88. It’s a responsibility, but it’s life. It’s wonderful when you do that. So I’ve also started to love the podcasting. And it’s flowing now after one month it’s flowing it just as if you know as part of me now if I don’t do this, then I feel empty, some hollowness is always inside the heart. Like yeah, you didn’t record a podcast today. What did you do with your life? So thank you for being a listener. Thank you for being a subscriber and this is me. This is real me. Sometimes I’m animated here, but I will try not to be animated. I’ll try to be real.
That’s it. That’s all there is to this today. So enjoy whatever of the remainder of Sunday you have. Tomorrow I’m answering a question that has come in from a listener and I thought of doing that today but then I thought I should only talk about me myself okay. So tomorrow I’m going to talk about an incredible question you love it you love it okay so that’s all for now be safe wherever you are and tune in tomorrow. Bye now.