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Welcome to my new podcast. I am entitling it This Is Your Life. My goal is to help people live with more passion, work with greater focus, and lead with extraordinary influence.

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In this first episode, I talk about taking on new challenges. Specifically, I want to share what this podcast is about, why I started it, what I learned in the process, and how it can benefit you as you take on your own challenges.

What This Podcast Is About

This podcast is about your life—a gift—and the unbelievable potential it represents. I will talk about the same categories I talk about on my blog: leadership, productivity, social media, and publishing. I will also talk about “miscellany,” which is everything else not covered in the previous four categories! I intend to post a new episode on Tuesdays of each week.

Why I Started This Project

This isn’t my first audio project. Believe it or not, I was actually a FM disk jockey in high school. However, I was fired from that job for reasons I explain in this episode. (it retrospect, it was pretty funny.)

I have also recorded several audio projects through the years, including a podcast based on my a Sunday school class I used to teach at my church. I did eighty-three episodes over about three years.

Several people suggested that I consider a new podcast, including my friend, Robert Smith (Andy Andrews’ manager), Andy Traub, and Dan Miller. I was particularly inspired after talking with Dan, who has amassed an enormous podcast following for his show, 48 Days.

What I Hope to Accomplish

As I thought about this new podcast, I identified four goals I wanted to accomplish:

1. Connect more intimately with my tribe.
2. Develop an alternative media channel.
3. Create audio programs for sale.
4. Learn something new.

What I Have Learned in the Process

Like most big projects, this one has required a bigger investment of time and money than I anticipated. I Bought a bunch of initial equipment, and then started examining all the audio editing software that is available.

About the time I was starting to get overwhelmed and second-guess myself, Dan Miller introduced me to Cliff Ravenscraft, also known as “The Podcast Answer Man.” I listened to several of his podcasting courses. They were both inspiring and practical. He rekindled my hope that I could do this.

I ended up returning the audio equipment I had bought from Amazon and going with Cliff’s recommendations. It wasn’t cheap, but I felt like the investment was worth it, especially in light of the audio recordings I want to create.

Then I started recording. Ugh. I hated the way my voice sounded. I started getting compulsive about editing, but Brendon Burchard and Cliff both encouraged me to do the show in one take, warts and all. They argued (and I believe) that this creates more authenticity.

Conclusion

I’m sure my learning curve isn’t over, but so far I have gleaned seven insights:

1. Write down a specific goal.
2. Act in spite of your fear
3. Invest in your education.
4. Start creating.
5. Figure it out as you go.
6. Launch.
7. Keep improving.

These insights apply to taking on any new challenge. The principles remain the same, though the application changes.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, I hope you will take a few minutes to subscribe. I plan to post a new episode each week.

The Maximum Impact Club (MIC) is a monthly leadership mentoring program impacting thousands of leaders around the globe each year. The content is powerful, practical, and portable.

Each month members receive a special lesson from John C. Maxwell as well as 24/7 access to MIC 2.0, an online platform of exclusive downloadable leadership content.

This month David Hoyt of MIC interviewed me about leadership 2.0, social media, life balance, and, of course, the current state of publishing and where I see it going in the future.