Finding the Balance Between Family, Career and Podcasting With Chris Tondevold

[Excerpt] Chris: Pursue your dreams, like make it happen, use your downtime wisely, but also don’t burn yourself out.

[00:00:28] Nemanja: Hey guys, Nemanja from the future here. I had a really fun time talking to Chris, but at the time of the recording, I was hit with a pretty bad case of a sore throat. That’s why you can hear me struggling with speaking and trying to keep it as quiet as possible. So try and enjoy this giant ASMR session, nevertheless. Here we go.

Welcome to the Nootka Sound Podcast, I’m your host Nemanja Koljaja, A professional Sound Engineer, Audio Editor and Podcast Producer and a CEO and Founder of Nootka Sound, a professional podcast production facility. Today we’re talking to Chris Tondevold, the producer and host for his podcast the Ambition Radio, a show that covers.the ways of finding balance between life, career and familly while pursing your dreams, passions and hobbies.

Well, Chris, so glad to have you here, welcome to the show

[00:01:19] Chris: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:01:21] Nemanja: Yeah, totally. Okay. I like to start by asking you about the Ambition Radio. Can you tell us a little bit more about the show?

[00:01:28] Chris: Yeah. So for the longest time I was booking concerts locally, where I live and trying to balance out booking concerts and doing something that I like doing with the fact that I still have this whole nine to five. I have education that I was pursuing at the moment and trying to juggle all three things. It’s very difficult to do all that when you’re the guy running everything too. So what ended up happening is that life very much got in the way and I kind of put aside my passion, which was booking shows and concerts and, and trying to build a music community and focus more on work and notice that that was a big way of releasing and trying to have my artistic expression in there, if that makes sense. And once I kind of figured out that that was gone, I started thinking of other ways that I could try to attack that. And the thought of, everybody has a side project that they’re doing. Everybody’s pursuing something that is outside of their nine to five. Some people make their artistic pursuit or their athletic pursuit, their nine to five, but that’s pretty rare most of the time. So yeah, the idea of the show was trying to figure out, okay. I can’t be the only one that’s juggling all this stuff and how do I stay motivated to continue to pursue everything while still coming up against these obstacles? And really the idea of the show is to try to steal everybody’s else’s motivation and make them mine and see if that will work or not.

[00:03:12] Nemanja: Well, awesome. That sounds really interesting. The thing I like about your show and I think is very cool is that you’re helping people stay motivated and balance between their work and their hobbies essentially, while this for you is a hobby. Am I right?

[00:03:27] Chris: Yeah, for sure. I have a nine to five where I deal with a lot of customers and I deal with retail and I deal with phone calls all day. So you know, that connection piece to another human, you sometimes get that, but it’s very sometimes disingenuine when it comes to work.

So having genuine connections through the podcast really helps too.

[00:03:52] Nemanja: Okay. So how hard is it for you to stay motivated and keep coming up with new content?

[00:03:58] Chris: It’s pretty difficult when, especially like I’ll work all day and I’ll get mentally drained because producing a show really isn’t physically demanding at all.

It’s really just that mental drain where you’re just exhausted and you don’t want to do anything.

[00:04:15] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:04:16] Chris: And I’ve battled with that quite a bit. And I battled with that. Like my whole life was trying to figure out how to basically stay awake because once it hits, it’s just, I don’t feel like doing anything at all. So as far as staying motivated, the idea of connecting with friends and different avenues of art and different perspectives on athletics or different perspectives on small businesses. Cause I kinda go through the whole gambit as far as trying to highlight as much as I can and kind of my own backyard. Seeing all of that is really cool and really when I get an opportunity to talk to another person that excites me the most, so having that schedule really helps me. Now on the flip side, I don’t want to do any of the editing. That is the biggest thing that will stop me is just trying to listen to my own voice for two or three hours. And then click all the ums out of the way.

[00:05:15] Nemanja: Yeah, for many people, the editing is the worst part. I dunno, I like doing that. I mean, that’s my job, I do it like eight hours a day. And then I go and record my own podcast and I still edit everything by myself and audio production for me  has been something that I love doing. So it’s not really a task that I don’t enjoy doing, but I can see how, how draining it is because it really is draining and it takes a lot of mental energy, as you said,

[00:05:43] Chris: Yeah, and I, I am learning how to record and edit and produce while I’m doing the show. So I’ve been doing the show for about a year and a half or so, and I first tried paying people to edit everything and that’s a lot of money.

[00:06:01] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:06:03] Chris: So now I have to do it by myself and I have invested quite a bit into this. But learning to make your voice sound good when you already hate your voice is very, very hard.

[00:06:15] Nemanja: Yeah. Oh, well that is the best way to learn actually, to do it by yourself. And I think that is the most organic way to get acquainted with the whole world of podcasting to actually start by yourself and then build it up from basically zero, from the ground up.

[00:06:32] Chris: Yeah, I agree with that. And it makes you way more invested in the overall product too.

[00:06:36] Nemanja: Yeah, totally. And speaking of which, how hard is coming up with ideas for new episodes for you specifically?

[00:06:44] Chris: So. I think the hardest part is getting out of my comfort zone because I used to book concerts. A lot of the people that I have on are musicians and trying to reach out to other aspects of life, whether it’s athletes, small businesses, other kinds of artists.

[00:07:04] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:07:05] Chris: It has to be a more conscionable effort for me. So I have to think about it a little bit more and I have to try to broaden my horizons quite a bit. Cause I don’t want to be pigeonholed into just music interview podcasts because the idea of the show is such a universal one that I don’t want to focus just on that. It’s the easiest thing for me to talk about. The other thing is trying to make sure that I am reaching out to people that I don’t have any kind of previous connections with and building that kind of welcome email or that inquiry email and doing that cold introduction. That’s something that I’m working on more. Thankfully, I’ve had some really good responses so far, and everybody’s been super nice, but I’m always worried that I’m going to fumble across something and I’ll just never get like my email read or there’ll be a quick denial or anything like that in there. So that’s kind of a self consciousness it’s definitely in there too.

[00:08:07] Nemanja: Yeah. I mean, totally agree. That’s kind of a big obstacle to overcome, especially if you’re introverted and yeah, I think it’s something that me personally struggle with, but yeah, I think once you get used to it, and once you make that first step of actually contacting somebody and going through with the actual recording, that makes it a lot easier.

[00:08:31] Chris: For sure. And you’d realize too, that, you know, once, once you get kind of the formalities out of the way that two people just talking. Yeah. It’s usually pretty easy.

[00:08:41] Nemanja: Yeah. And speaking of which I wanted to ask you, because a question popped into my mind. Because I used to be a live sound engineer. I used to work on festivals and the one thing I noticed and I hated about the job is actually the egos of the musicians.

I found that the musicians are the worst people ever. So do you have any advice on how to deal with, you know, people who have big egos.

[00:09:05] Chris: So what’s funny about that is you hear the same thing about live sound engineers.

[00:09:11] Nemanja: Really?

[00:09:12] Chris: Yeah. So the, it’s so funny. So when it comes to making a show sound great. There’s two real big pieces of that. One, you have to get a really good sound engineer, right? And then two, you have to make sure that the sound engineer and the band play nice with each other. So a lot of times, if it’s a solo guy, you know, they have usually humbled themselves enough to say, look, I want my stuff to sound good. Let me be nice to the sound guy as much as possible. And he’ll hook me up. Yeah. If it’s a band, they’ll usually send like the nicest person

[00:09:49] Nemanja: Yeah, yeah, to deal with the, I know…

[00:09:52] Chris: To kind of like bridge the gap. Right. And then for me, I was always kinda in the middle. So because I was booking the whole show. And this is what I would say is really important to make a show go off really well, have like a stage manager or something along those lines to keep the flow of the show going. Because what I tried to do as much as possible is to reach out to the bands first, to figure out exactly what they needed gear wise and make sure that I’m telling my sound guy. All the information that he needs.

[00:10:26] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:10:26] Chris: That way it’s right out of the gate. A very like symbiosis relationship to make everything sound good.

[00:10:33] Nemanja: Yeah, of course.

[00:10:34] Chris: So if you have someone that can bridge the gap between the sound guy and the band, that’s great. As far as the egos go, you gotta let them know, Hey, I can either make yourself sound great, or I can make it sound awful. You let me know which one you want.

[00:10:49] Nemanja: Okay. So going back to your podcast, one thing I noticed is that your episodes range between having an hour to an hour thirty run time. What made you decide to create content that is a little bit longer?

[00:11:03] Chris: So I have about an hour, hour and a half commute some days to work. So I ran out of music to listen to fairly quickly, cause there’s only so much, right. So I started getting into podcasts and I realized that I could be fully immersed in an hour and a half to two hour long podcast.

As long as the host were energetic and engaging. And the other part about that is if the conversation is flowing enough, for me to be able to be fully immersed in what they’re talking about. Yeah. So really one of my favorites and the ones that I paid attention to the most was Pete Holmes’ You Made It Weird Podcast. And his shows can sometimes be three hours and I would be listening the entire time, fully engaged. So I think there’s a natural cutoff of about an hour to an hour and a half, because once you really get into the flow of it, you find a natural stopping point, I feel like. What I have noticed is that sometimes the conversations are going more and more because the guest is more engaging. The guests is a little bit more responsive. They’re excited to be there. They’re excited to tell their stories and get their heads in too. So I think for the length, I think that hour and a half, for me, it’s probably the sweet spot of it. And I’d never felt like it was ever too long because it really just felt natural to me. I don’t think I would want a three hour podcasts. I’ve gotten close sometimes, but two and a half hours. I just, that’s gotta be the cutoff.

[00:12:43] Nemanja: Yeah, the thing I like about the podcast as a medium is when you strip it down, it actually, it’s just a conversation, you know, and essentially it’s just two or three people or just one person talking and just the nature of the conversation and how we communicate with each other is enough of a medium for me to get immersed into it. And especially if it’s a topic that I can connect with or that I’m interested in. So yeah, I think generally podcasting has become successful just because when you consider that in essence, it’s just a conversation.

[00:13:22] Chris: Yeah, you always want to be that fly on the wall. So you always like, think about, Oh, if I was just there, like observing everything or if I was just there listening to everything, that’d be able to gain so much from just hearing these two people talk or hearing this one person talk. So I think that’s definitely still ingrained in a lot of us. And you see that with just the overall success of podcasting as a platform.

[00:13:49] Nemanja: Yeah. Okay. So is podcasting a hobby that requires a lot of time, for example, how much does it take for you to prepare for an episode?

[00:13:58] Chris: So it does take a lot of time, I will say that first. Secondly, I don’t prepare. So that’s a problem. The conversations that I have and the questions that I have all come from the top for the most part. So, because my job is sales. A lot of the time, what I have to do is try to break the ice with the person that I’m trying to sell to and make it a quick connection. And that’s kind of the skill that I already bring in to a podcast interview. And then it just starts flowing after that. And. Most of the time, as far as prep work, if I don’t really know them, but I have kind of an idea of what they do. I’ll do a little bit of research maybe, but it’s really, I want to know kind of in real time, what’s going on with this person. So I don’t really like think about the prep work really at all. It’s always the post.

[00:14:50] Nemanja: I see.

[00:14:50] Chris: It’s everything as far as, A, making sure that you hit the big red button to record. Okay. But B, making sure that everything sounds good afterwards, and that takes the longest for me.

[00:15:03] Nemanja: Yeah, I totally agree. Especially about the part that you said about it being a skill. So what would you recommend to a person who’s struggling with that specific part and what can we do to improve that aspect of our personalities?

[00:15:18] Chris: There’s a couple of sales books. I wish I could remember what they were, but what I found out is that actual sales pitches conversations, those come in handy really, really well because what you end up doing is putting some of those practices to selling yourself.

[00:15:37] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:15:38] Chris: And getting kind of that idea of just selling yourself to that person.

[00:15:43] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:15:43] Chris: Because you need that buy in from that other person, if it’s dry on the other side and if you’re not hooking that person into the conversation that you’re having, that’s what comes to the, the forefront. And that will stop a conversation, that’ll stop a date, that’ll stop everything. Right. So that’ll stop a sale. So what I try to do is be as natural as possible and try to rely on my personality traits that are good for the conversations. You know, I can speak fairly well because of all the, the history that I have with sales and the history that I have with connecting with people.

And I also think that I’m kind of funny.

[00:16:24] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:16:24] Chris: So that, so that helps. Right?

[00:16:27] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:16:28] Chris: And I try to, when it comes to having that conversation, I want to also make sure that it’s about them as much as possible. When you’re asking questions, you want to make it open and you want to make it to where they can tell a story rather than just being a yes or a no. So that, those open ended questions are very, very important. The other thing is making sure that they’re personal. Right. So how did it feel for you to do this? Or how did it make you feel too? Be in that situation. A lot of times that will trigger them to think about, you know, themselves a little bit more on then being able to talk about it. So there’s a little bit of psychology in there. I feel like, but really making sure that they can answer questions in almost like a story setting and not be so yes, no, or rigid if that makes sense.

[00:17:22] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:17:22] Chris: I think that’s really, really what it is. And the biggest thing I will say for everybody is they’re just as nervous as you are for the most part.

Yeah. And humans are humans, so, you know, don’t be too afraid to talk to another person they’re going to be there for, for you. And you’re going to be there for them. And if you just show a little bit of confidence, they can have confidence in you, which will then lead to a better conversation.

[00:17:48] Nemanja: Yeah. When you put it like that, that sounds, I mean, that’s some really good advice.

[00:17:53] Chris: Excellent. I appreciate that.

[00:17:55] Nemanja: Yeah. Okay. So what do you do when you don’t feel motivated to get out of bed? Even let alone to sit down in front of a computer and talk to people and do an interview, how do you make yourself do it?

[00:18:07] Chris: It’s very, very good question. Usually when I don’t feel like getting out of bed, I stay in bed until I wake up. So I think one of the things that has actually helped has been actually the quarantine and the pandemic, because I don’t leave my house. So when it comes to that I see the computer. It’s almost like an instrument. So if your instrument is in the case, you’re not going to play it as much. If your computer is off to the side, you’re not going to be there as much. My computer is right next to my bed. So what I see, first thing that I wake up is everything that I need to do. The other thing that I got for me personally, if you ever try to record a record. What they normally will have is a board that’ll show all the different instruments and what’s been tracked and what hasn’t been tracked for what song. So for me, I have a board above my computer. It tells me the interviews that I have coming up. And if they’ve been edited, if my intro is done, if I have a preview done for it, or if it’s a scheduled and that right there, that visual piece of it has helped quite a bit.

[00:19:20] Nemanja: Yeah, I can imagine that’s a good way to organize yourself.

[00:19:23] Chris: Yes. I think that’s actually been the biggest piece that has kept me motivated enough to where, you know, I see my computer all the time, is that visual cue of it. I’m still seeing this chart that I know that I need to put some work in and especially with the quarantine and whatever things happening with that. What I have found the most is that I’m trying to keep myself on our rigid weekly schedule. As far as releasing, I don’t really care about the day, just as long as it’s a Tuesday or a Wednesday for the most part, but I want to make sure that I’m hitting it every week. Like, that’s my little goal because I wasn’t doing that before.

[00:20:01] Nemanja: Yeah, you’ve already mentioned how important to you is making that connection with the host or the show itself. So can you tell me how hard is it to establish a connection with the audience, whether it’s an emotional connection or something else… Do you think that is necessary in order for the show to become successful.

[00:20:22] Chris: I think that the connection to the audience will eventually come if you’re an interview podcast and you’re having an engaging conversation and an exciting conversation and something that shows off the passion that you have about whatever topic that you’re talking about. So I think just the base of the conversation will engage the audience. When I’m having an interview, I don’t normally think about anybody else except for the person that’s in front of me. Now, if there’s something that funny is happening, you know, I’ll say for the audience at home or for those that can’t see, this guy is being a dummy.

[00:21:02] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:21:03] Chris: That’s, that’s something that’ll be there, but they’re very in the back of my mind. Now the flip side to that is trying to engage people on social media and trying to create a following to keep people engaged there. I am not the best at that. I don’t really like posting on social media. I don’t like social media and that is such a hard thing to do when you run a podcast on the internet. So I’m learning how to engage people way more when it comes to the social media aspect of it and building an audience more, I’m not focused on it because I think if you make a good show and you produce something that you’re passionate about, you will naturally find followers. I believe that fully with music and I believe that fully with podcasts.

[00:21:56] Nemanja: Yeah. So basically were saying it can be forced, right?

[00:21:59] Chris: Correct

[00:22:00] Nemanja:  Yeah. Okay. Well, why do you think people are attracted to social media? Obviously the vast majority of people are on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, and they do find shows and they do find content via such platforms.

[00:22:18] Chris: I think there’s a lot to be said about being distracted from life. And I think that social media does a really good job of distracting you from everything that’s happening around you. It can also connect you at the same token. It can connect you to so many different things, so many different people. You can also feel so validated when it comes to social media, because you can really find the world is vast and you can really find your own niche group to slide in and enjoy and validate all the thoughts and feelings that you’ve ever had.

[00:22:53] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:22:53] Chris: A lot of people need that, some people don’t. And I think that’s one of the first aspects of someone that doesn’t really care about social media is that they’re probably validated by themselves and don’t need a whole lot of outside validation. The other part about that is for me, I don’t like looking at my face and I don’t want that anywhere else. So hopefully, uh, I save people from looking at me and that’ll be okay.

[00:23:19] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:23:21] Chris: I also think that it is very. I don’t like being in the spotlight. And I think that a lot of people are like that, where they want other people’s voices heard and other people’s issues addressed, and they want to be able to support their friends. They want to be able to support what they feel passionate about, but they don’t necessarily need to be in the forefront of that. Some people do a lot of people don’t and I think the ones also that aren’t fully engaged on social media are the ones that are more focused on bringing other people’s stories rather than putting the attention on themselves.

[00:23:58] Nemanja: Actually a question popped into my mind and it’s kind of shallow, but do you think the visual appeal of a person or good looks has an impact on the ability to attract listeners for a podcast that is audio based?

[00:24:12] Chris: I think that charisma goes along the way, and you can have physical charisma that also comes out through an audio medium. I also think that if you find someone attractive, you want to be able to hear their voice. And you first really hope that the voice like matches with the fact that they’re not terrible to look at. Right. That’s part of the reason why we. Have phone calls during relationships and not just text messages. That’s part of the reason why having that additional connection through an audio medium is just as important as having that connection. So where I see this person I’m attracted to that person, I think that you can use your good looks to draw more people in. And unfortunately it is a little bit like that, uh, popular kid in high school that’s all super attractive. And they’re the leading person. People will listen to that because of their status. It’s just like a base human thing to where they’ll follow the person that is going to lead. And a lot of times it is that alpha person, that attractive person that does want to lead. And that gets carried through even to an audio medium.

[00:25:37] Nemanja: Yeah, I’m going to agree with you up to a point, because I think like good looks can only get you so far. And I think you can attract listeners at first, but I think people stay for the content. And if your content is not really interesting, they’re just not going to bother.

[00:25:55] Chris: Yeah. And the other side of that is if you have good marketing to where it’s not even your face, that’s on there, but you have a great logo. Everything looks clean, people are going to look for more professional stuff. They’re going to look for stuff that’s easy to read. They’re going to look for something that’s aesthetically pleasing all the way through. So even if you have something that will come out and say, Oh, that looks awesome. I know when I went CD shopping and record shopping, I was looking for cool album covers, you know, something that just popped out. Same thing for people shopping for art, or like interior design stuff, something that pops. So I think a logo is just as important as a face.

[00:26:42] Nemanja: Okay. That’s interesting. You’re saying that the visual branding of a podcast is really important. And how can people get that? How can they focus on creating a visually appealing brand?

[00:26:56] Chris: I know for me, I wanted something that was symmetrical, aesthetically pleasing, easy to read. I wanted something that really, it had some kind of personal idea. But also something that could stand out a little bit. So I think the reason why visuals are so important is because you need to be able to stand out from the crowd and when we’re looking at social media and especially something like Instagram, where all that is are bright, colorful photos all the time. You know, you gotta be able to stand out from that. You gotta be able to say, Hey, look here, look at me. I know that you’re looking at a thousand other pictures, but I’m also important. And when it comes to a logo, when it comes to branding, I think that’s the biggest piece that you have to figure out how to cut through the noise. The other thing with that too, is I don’t think that you would want something that’s disingenuine from the product that you’re putting out. So you could make a crazy logo that’s super bright and super colorful. And then, it’s in like Comic Sans or some kind of crazy font. Right. But then you’re talking about financials the entire time.

[00:28:15] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:28:16] Chris: And like the boring stock market, you want to make it to where it’s just as genuine too. I think it’s important because I also thought fliers for shows were important. And having that attention paid to this to say, Hey, you know, look at me, I’m over here, I really think that is very, very important.

[00:28:38] Nemanja: Yeah, totally agree. I mean, the work we do at Nootka Sound is basically exactly that, you know, finding the style that matches the content of the show. And that really is important, especially when you take into consideration the target audience

[00:28:53] Chris: and each country has their own kind of color palette too, and their own symbols and all that. So I think that’s important to think about too.

[00:29:03] Nemanja: Yeah, totally. Okay. We already mentioned the marketing. Can you tell me, do you promote the show in any way?

[00:29:10] Chris: I try to promoting it has been a big thing that I’m trying to learn way more about. Cause I don’t understand SEO. The search engine optimization. I just don’t get it. Like, I think I understand the overall like high concept of it, but I don’t know what words, I don’t even know what hashtags to use. So I’m not the best person to ask all that. However, I’ve used some ads I’ve used some Facebook ads have used some Instagram ads and I’ve found it not very useful. I found it more of a waste of money. Now I could also be using them in completely the wrong way. I also kind of give up to where, when I’m running an ad for, I’ll usually try to run it for like two or three weeks, just to see if I can get any kind of traction on there. And what I’m seeing is that maybe the post is getting likes, but I’m not getting actual any funnels to the show and maybe I’m just not targeting the ads correctly, but it doesn’t feel worth it. I think that word of mouth is even more important. And if not, all of your friends know that you do a show and not all of your friends listen, well, then that’s good starting point to get everybody to pay attention, and then they can tell their friends and so on and so forth.

[00:30:30] Nemanja: Totally. In my experience, I think it really is important if you’re of course serious about this and looking to get a result, to actually hire a professional social media marketer, for example, to do that stuff for you. Because me personally, I’m not really good at both the SEO and the actual paid promotions and running ads and stuff like that. But when you have a person on your team, who’s actually really good at that stuff. It really can make a difference. But of course that’s important if you decide to go all in, because that requires a lot of time and even more money, basically.

[00:31:08] Chris: For sure. Yeah. Cause I’ve looked into it and they’re expensive.

[00:31:12] Nemanja: Yeah. Okay. So do you think it’s an easy job of being a content creator?

[00:31:18] Chris: No, I thought it was, it is not. If you have enough money, it can be. Because all you have to do is create the stuff. If you have a whole team around you, right? If you have your audio engineer, if you have your social media person, if you have branding, if you have, you know, all of that stuff taken care of for you and all you have to do is talk into a mic or talk in front of a camera. That’s pretty easy.

[00:31:46] Nemanja: Yeah.

[00:31:47] Chris: That’s not the hard part. It is just all the you know, especially if you’re first starting out. I remember trying to research as much as possible, the microphones that I’m going to get the audio interface I’m going to get. I had some learn what recording actually is and what post-processing actually is. There’s a lot to it. And I think that if one thing’s for sure it’s that technology is great when it works and the worst when it doesn’t. So if you don’t know how to work your own technology, that is going to cause some big problems and just make sure you have enough patience because it’s going to be a process and it takes energy. And I really thought that all you have to do is just makeup tutorials, even by themselves are ridiculous, but there are YouTube stars for a reason.

[00:32:39] Nemanja: Yeah. And I’m just going to add that if you spend a lot of money on your, for example, audio equipment, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be successful and that you’re going to sound good when recording, because the first thing you actually need is to learn about the equipment and learn about the proper way to use the microphone and to record yourself. So. Basically in audio world, the quality of the equipment you’re using doesn’t necessarily mean the quality of the end product. If that makes sense.

[00:33:11] Chris: Yeah. I can say when I first started doing these, like I said, a lot of YouTube videos and try and figure out even what a microphone even is for the most part, because I’ve always been around it, but I never took the time to learn anything about it. So when I started doing it, I was like, alright cool. So these condenser mics are going to sound great. And then when I started editing, I realized condenser mics bleed. Quite a bit. And the fact that it was picking up my half of the conversation on their mic and vice versa, that’s just became a headache all to itself. And then all, I was like, well, this isn’t going to work. Let me figure out why this is happening so much. And then I figured out what the difference between condensers and dynamics were and how dynamics definitely make my whole life easier. So it’s been a process, but also knowing like how important it is to record good audio at the source and learning how to make it just sound even better with some of the post production and getting the noise down if you need to. And just how important it is to have it like a controlled environment, because I’ve been doing on location as much as possible to get used to different rooms and that’s helped quite a bit. Cause there really is a crash course into it.

[00:34:33] Nemanja: Totally. Just a side note for people who were kind of confused about the idea of microphones and condenser, dynamic microphones. You can check out the episodes I did earlier like they’re called the podcasting basics, where I covered microphones, what they are, how to use them. And you have a couple of episodes on microphones, audio interfaces, and recording tips and tricks. If anybody’s interested in checking that out. Okay. So, what is your advice to someone who’s interested in starting their own podcast?

[00:35:04] Chris: Honestly, just get into it, man. Like, I wouldn’t worry so much about it being perfect right out of the gate, because it’s not going to be, you’re going to learn so much by actually doing it. So, if you’ve been thinking about it for a long time, don’t be like me that had this idea three years ago. And just finally got around to it. Just go ahead and do it, start doing it. If you’re nervous, if you’re not confident, you will gain that confidence as it goes. And don’t be afraid to ask for feedback too, the biggest thing and make sure you’re taking every piece of it because some of it will be very good and constructive other pieces will be super negative, but there’s still will be something that you can take from that and build better.

[00:35:52] Nemanja: Totally true. Any last words you’d like to share with us?

[00:35:56] Chris: I want to say first, thank you. I really appreciate this opportunity. Second, as far as any kind of like last stuff, pursue your dreams, like make it happen, use your downside wisely, but also don’t burn yourself out. I’ve done that so much over the past few years that you then you don’t feel like doing anything. So try making sure that you’re balancing that stuff out, set little goals to where it’ll be bigger goals than the end. So if you want to do a weekly thing, just make sure you’re hitting a weekly release schedule it doesn’t matter what day, just to make sure that you’re doing the weekly soon it’ll matter what day soon. It’ll matter what time, soon you’ll figure out how to make you know, that Tuesday at seven o’clock every morning to get out there. So I also think that rigidity is a thing and making sure that you’re on pace to do everything is important and kind of that regular pattern is important. So if you are able to edit for like an hour a day, every day, that’s pretty solid. Cause soon you’ll be able to figure out how to get everything done. Just try to do as much as possible. I don’t take as much time off, but if you have to do it just in little chunks, that’s fine. It’s okay. And just do it.

[00:37:16Nemanja:] Yeah, just do it. That’s that’s kind of the takeaway. Totally agree. And the final question as the cherry on top, but you have to do it in one sentence. What is the most important thing when it comes to balancing life, career and family?

[00:37:31] Chris: I think the most important part about balancing all of that is knowing what makes you happy and knowing your own body enough to where you’re not spreading yourself thin just to pursue what makes you happy and to live.

[00:37:46] Nemanja: Well, awesome. Where can our listeners reach you and check out your show?

[00:37:50] Chris: Sure. So I’m on Facebook. I’m on Instagram. The show is Ambition Radio podcast. You can find me on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, all that good stuff. I’m more than open to the conversation. So if you feel like you want to email me it’s ambitionradiopodcast@gmail.com, you can slide into my DMs on Instagram and Facebook, I’m always looking for new voices. I’m always looking for different avenues and different conversations. So come on, talk to me and we’ll make it happen. We’ll be good.

[00:38:24] Nemanja: It’s been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

[00:38:28] Chris: Thank you. I appreciate it.

[00:38:30] Nemanja: That’s it!

Thank you for listening, make sure you share this podcast with your friends and click that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. If you have any questions for us or suggestions about a topic we can cover related to the podcasting industry, leave a comment below or send us an email at info@nootkasound.online.

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Peace out!