You won’t knock it out of the park every time

“I am SO glad I found that podcast!” I said, dropping my packages on the counter. My husband turned from the sink, soapy dish in hand.

Photo by Mirko Fabian, @mirkofabian | Unsplash

 “What do you mean?”

 “That show I mentioned – I just listened to one of the best interviews I’ve ever heard with this guest!” I said, referring to a world-famous scientist.

I was surprised. The podcast, which I’m purposely not naming, is a mission-driven indie, about a topic my husband and I share a passion for. I was impressed not simply with the guest curation, but with the host’s obvious preparation, intriguing interview questions, and ability to generate rapport and a sense of shared community with his guest and, I believe, with listeners. The host was simultaneously so articulate and relatable that I wanted to invite him to dinner.

“Seriously?” Cort asked. “I had to turn it off.”

He’d listened to a different episode of the show, an interview with a friend of the host.

“It rambled,” Cort said. “They were all over the place. It never got to the point.”

I was as incredulous about his dismay as he was about my enthusiasm.

“Did he just have a bad guest?” I asked. “Did he ask good questions?”

Cort shrugged. “I dunno. I just listen.”

I laughed. I automatically analyze episodes in my head. My husband is a pure, unvarnished listener.

In the end, my excitement persuaded him to listen to the episode I had discovered.

He loved it.

What does this have to do with you and your work?

We won’t always knock it out of the park. No matter how seasoned we are or how hard we try, we will sometimes create a dud.

If you host an interview show, maybe you or your producer didn’t vet your guest carefully. Maybe your great guest had an off day. Maybe you thought you could wing this interview; you should have prepared. Or maybe, for your narrative series, you researched, structured, wrote, and revised like crazy—but one of the many things that can go wrong, did.

That is OK. And, as much as we’d rather not acknowledge it, it’s inevitable.

If we can accept the hard lesson that to be creative is to be imperfect, it becomes far easier to weather the lows with grace.

Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers have been co-hosting their wildly popular show, Pantsuit Politics, for more than seven years. I’ll never forget what Sarah said about this on Episode 3 of Sound Judgment: “We're gonna make another one. We can get that wrong. We will have another chance if we feel like we missed the mark.”

If we can accept the hard lesson that to be creative is to be imperfect, it becomes far easier to weather the lows with grace, and move on to simply do the work. 

Producing and hosting podcasts or radio shows is a long game. The way we succeed is to learn from our duds and apply the lessons to the next episode. The way to succeed is to be kind to ourselves, lean into curiosity, and – as hard as it is when we fail – savor the craft. The outcome is fickle. How we attempt the process is not.