As I had recently announced on Twitter, I’m planning a new “side gig”. It’s been a long time coming, mainly because when you are doing a portfolio life it is pretty much impossible to have a side gig – everything becomes a part of your portfolio instead.
Now that I’m in a full time job, and after a very long time, maybe for the first time I have a real “side gig”.
I’m planning to start a podcast, on all things data. I’ve started working on it, and recorded a couple of episodes already. Another 3-4 recordings are scheduled for next weekend, and if all things go well, I should start releasing in June. The podcast will be in a typical “interview” format, where I interview people about different things to do with data. So each episode needs a guest (or two).
So far so good.
The downside about picking up a new side gig at this advanced age (38) is that initially I’m not going to be good at it. And this has been something that is hard to accept.
After one of the recordings, for example, I realised that I’d not asked the guest a few questions I should have asked him. And that while these questions had been playing on my mind a while back I hadn’t thought of it in the lead to the podcast at all.
After another recording, I realised that the sound hasn’t been recorded properly for large parts (because of a failing internet connection – either at my end or my guest’s). What guts me is that it was a truly awesome episode (based on what the guest told me).
Rookie mistakes, basically. And I’ve been thinking so much about these rookie mistakes of late that there is a small downside that the side gig might “cost me” more than I had bargained for. For example, yesterday evening I was listening to other podcasts while doing the dishes and instinctively started comparing them to my own, and about whether I’m doing mine properly.
Similarly, back in 2016, when I was writing and publishing a book, I had become conscious about how others were going about their books. I kept comparing my books to others, and worrying about what I did right or wrong. It was nerve-wracking.
Again while doing the dishes last night, though, I had another revelation – this kind of comparison or beating myself has NEVER happened in terms of my blogging. I’ve written because I’ve wanted to write, and the way I want to write, and not bothered about what others are doing or whether what I’m doing is “right”.
Maybe it helped that I started this at a young age (I was 21 when I started), and that gave me a period of fearlessness before I actually became somewhat good at it. Maybe it helped that I was writing as a way of “rebelling” (if you see some of my early posts (pre 2006), they’re really angsty), and so I didn’t care at all. And by the time I started caring, I had either become good at it, or that it had become second nature to me, and so I didn’t have to worry at all.
The positive lesson to take away from that is that you are unlikely to be good at something the first time you do it. You will have a few duds. You will inevitably make the rookie errors. And irrespective of how well you plan or prepare, these rookie errors and duds will happen. The only way to get over them is to keep doing it again and again.
So now, before every recording I tell myself that it is okay if the first season of my podcast doesn’t end up being as good as I want it to. I might be “experienced” in other ways, but that in podcasting I’m a rookie, and I must judge myself like a rookie.
And after I’ve done it for a while, one of two things would have happened:
- I know that I absolutely suck at podcasting, which is a good sign to bury the side gig
- I actually become good at podcasting, in which case I will continue.
The important thing now is to recognise that there is a non-zero chance of 2 happening. And I should keep at it until this situation “collapses” (in the quantum physics sense).