Making a strong connection

Making good podcasts is all about creating a strong connection with your guest.

Well, it certainly is the way we do it. We have two important steps.

Every episode, before we start, we tell our guest that we’ll be chatting for about 90 minutes. Planting that seed early sets the tone. We’re not looking for canned answers, we need stories. We’re hunting for depth. And the guests rise to the challenge.

The second step is making an effort. And that means going over and above. For every episode, Seamus and I do a combined 10 hours of research on our guests; listening to other podcasts they’ve done, reading interviews, calling friends and family, deep diving through their social media.

And we try to show it off early. The best thing we can hear in the first few minutes is ‘wow you’ve done your research’.

We find guests mirror our effort. If we can prove to them how important the interview is to us, they mirror our effort with their responses. Every single time.

On this week’s ep, Dave Wood said this about 30 minutes in: “I wouldn’t normally come on and talk about this stuff, and I’ve not in any other interview I’ve done....”

Golddust. We’d been validated as worthy.

Dave is currently Israel Adesanya’s breathing and mindset coach. That on its own is worthy of an episode, but we wanted more.

And as we started digging, we discovered his backlog of travel stories, and how the insane situations he had put himself in across his 20s was a big part of who he was today – and his success.

By searching for them, finding them, and probing away at them, we pierced through the surface layer to tell his incredible story – in full.

And the feedback has been great. One superfan has listened to all 114 episodes we’ve published and said Dave was her favourite.

Why I asked?

“Just the whole deal. Felt a real spiritual connection. His humility, self-driven learning and reflections and then application. So genuine, empathetic and humble.”

Totally agree, mum.