Hello, and welcome back to Gracie Meets… During these last five months of being a podcaster, I’ve interviewed so many people with unique jobs. But I’ve never actually interviewed a podcaster who has podcasting experience. I personally want to become a better podcaster. So who better to bring in and Dave O from the Fearless Father’s podcast. This is such an insightful interview and I can’t wait for you to hear it!
Show Music: 2019 07 25 cello pizz 01 and 250109 rhodes 02 by Morusque used under Creative Commons License CC BY. No alterations were made to the original composition.
Cover Art: Kyleigh Kinsey. Instagram: @ato._.noodle
TRANSCRIPT
Gracie Solomon 00:11
Hello, and welcome back to Gracie Meets… During these last five months of being a podcaster, I’ve interviewed so many people with unique jobs. But I’ve never actually interviewed a podcaster who has podcasting experience. I personally want to become a better podcaster. So who better to bring in and Dave O from the Fearless Father’s podcast, tell the listeners a little bit about yourself.
Dave Olander 00:34
My name is Dave, I am 30 years old, married with a soon to be two-year-old son, I worked my entire life from the time I was 15 and 16 years old up until now due to a disability. I had to take a step away from work for a while. And I’ve recently well, ever since I was a little kid, since I was about five years old, I’ve always wanted to own my own business, become an entrepreneur, and really just be my own boss. So after everything happened, COVID started all of that I got into the podcasting realm. And I’m using podcasting as a form of therapy for myself, as well as also building a business that I’ve always wanted to do and just have fun and be excited to want to work every single day.
Gracie Solomon 01:18
So what do you think makes your job not normal?
Dave Olander 01:21
It goes against the grain that we’re told growing up is you need to have a job that signifies what it means to be a working American, or working individual. You know, go to a nine to five job that you may not fully like or fully appreciate, and just kind of feel a little defeated at the end of the day when you come home. My job is you know, I get to wake up, I get to work right from home right from my laptop. And I get to have a lot of fun doing it. Even though I’m not making anything right now money wise, I know it’s going to build something great down the road for me and my family.
Gracie Solomon 01:59
Yeah, this is one of those creative jobs. And to have one of those creative jobs, I feel like you would have to have a sort of skill, what type of skills would someone need for this job?
Dave Olander 02:11
For podcasting, I would say you have to You’re right, you have to have some kind of form of creativity, you also, and this is this isn’t necessarily a skill, but I think it’s a huge factor or something like this is you need to be passionate. You need to have passion in what you’re doing to really excel in it. If you go for the money, it’s never going to show up, you really have to have a burning desire to want to do it. And being able to talk to it doesn’t hurt as much either. But definitely, I would say, you know, having creativity having a thought process going outside of the box, having passion and what you do and you know, public speaking skills or just you know, knowing how to talk in general is really going to help
Gracie Solomon 02:52
And you said that you work from home. So what does your workspace look like?
Dave Olander 02:56
So my workspace, I’m gonna, I’m gonna backtrack a little bit here. When I started podcasting, it did not look anything like it was right now. I was working in the other half of my basement. That was dreary, damp. It was cold. I had a small table with a really old laptop, it was just a complete disheveled mess. As I got more into it, as I started growing more into it, you know, we got a desk I have an actual desk now I have some padded blankets right in front of my microphone so that we could dampen some sound. It looks more professional now. It feels like it’s something more attainable and more real than you know, the disheveled basement with half a working light bulb to something now that’s a little bit more, a little bit more fluid and a little bit more homey.
Gracie Solomon 03:44
Yeah, I’m running my podcast in my closet. It’s like one of those, um, you can’t walk into it. So everything is just sticking out of my closet.
Dave Olander 03:55
Yeah, like half an inch just to yourself. Yeah, the struggle,
Gracie Solomon 04:00
My microphone is hanging off of my bookshelf. And I have a little like, pullout drawer desk for my Rodecaster. So I’m just working out of the closet.
Dave Olander 04:13
If it makes you feel better, I was using a space heater for a table.
Gracie Solomon 04:19
Do you use any special equipment to accomplish your podcasts?
Dave Olander 04:24
I do. So I do use you know a laptop as my main focal point is my laptop that’s where we do all of our recording out of I do all of our editing. You know we use what’s called a DAW, digital audio workspace. So that allows us to import the files once we’re done make them make them sound all nice and semiprofessional. You know my microphone with a stand on it so I could maneuver it and stay comfortable as I’m as I’m working with that. A, what’s called a pop filter, that allows you to not hear those hard P sounds when you’re when you’re talking about something that kind of muffles that for you. Sounds a little bit nicer in the in the sound. And really, that would probably be the biggest things and then, you know, are not really equipment, but what we use a podcast host. So you have to go out there and find those, whatever is gonna work best for you for getting your show out there to your listeners.
Gracie Solomon 05:17
And then how long did it take for you to become proficient in podcasting?
Dave Olander 05:23
This one I actually had to think about for a bit. So I started from the date of recording this episode, I started podcasting in the middle of COVID-19, or at least started the idea. So we’ve been going out for about six, seven months, and I feel in anything that you do, especially if you’re passionate in it, you’re never fully proficient, you can always learn something new. And you could always grow better. What I will say is I have become more comfortable and more confident in what I’ve been doing. And that just comes with time that just comes with knowing that this wasn’t going to be perfect overnight. There was going to be hiccups. There was going to be road bumps. But it was how did I overcome those road bumps? How did I get better? How did I learn from past mistakes to really take what I do to a another level, not best level, but another level on a small progressive scale.
Gracie Solomon 06:15
Yeah, I keep going back to a quote from the sports counselor episode, you’re not going to go straight into it and be perfect at it, you’re going to have to work towards being good at it and being able to excel in being whatever you go into.
Dave Olander 06:34
I love that because it’s so true. And a lot of people, especially young teens, that I remember myself in high school, wanting to do everything perfectly the first time, and being afraid that I wasn’t gonna do everything perfectly the first time. And one thing that actually helped me out in high school alone was I had a I had a teacher who was a very close mentor of mine in my senior year of high school. And I ended up getting the best grade and it was a it was a workshop class that we had. It was a shop class. He said I had the best grade in the class for that for that one. And I got like a 98 on it. So I’m thinking to myself, how did I get the best grade in the class if it wasn’t 100? And I go to him, I said, you know, Mr. Hampel, you said I had the best grade in the class. Why wasn’t it 100? And he looks at me and he goes, Dave, just remember this world, nothing is 100% perfect. There is going to be even the best purest diamond in the world has its imperfections. You can strive for perfection, but you’re never going to fully achieve perfection, there’s always going to be something more that you could build on and that you can grow and foster. And that we’re talking in a day myself here for talking over 10 years ago, 12 years ago. And that’s still something that holds very true, is just knowing that it’s not gonna be perfect, especially when you start something.
Gracie Solomon 07:52
Yeah, I like that, like even the diamonds have their imperfections. And I did have a teacher that was like that she was, my orchestra teacher from sixth grade to eighth grade, and she never gave out 100’s it was always up to a 99 because she always thought there was room for improvement. So, how can a teenager get into this line of work?
Dave Olander 08:18
This line of work in this day and age is the easiest way that you could get into this work. This is something that you can do, starting on your smartphone, and a pair of earbuds. All you need to get started and you could grow from there. And there’s so many free like I talked about earlier, you need a podcast hosting service. A lot of them offer free, just to go out there give you so much audio a month or you know, you could post up to like an hour a week, whatever the case is. You could find one for free. Go out there, record something on your smartphone, throw a quick edit together, upload it and you’re out the door.
Gracie Solomon 08:57
And would you mind giving the listeners one piece of advice for if they’re just starting out with podcasting?
Dave Olander 09:03
Always know, like we said, it’s not gonna be perfect. I say this on my podcast all the time is you have to take it one step at a time, one day at a time. If you look too far out into the future, and you tell yourself and everybody says that we’re podcasting, it’s impossible to make money. It’s not completely impossible. It’s been done before you can do it. It’s taking those right steps and taking them one step at a time, one day at a time and making sure you’re not overstepping something, and leading yourself to failure. And it’s staying passionate and consistent. I know that’s the one piece I could go all day on this being passionate, consistent, and having top quality content. Audio may not be all that great, but have great content that your listeners are going to want. And that’s going to excel you more than the 700,000 or a million podcasts that are out there today.
Gracie Solomon 10:00
Yeah, I like that. And you have a podcast, obviously. So would you like to shout that out?
Dave Olander 10:05
Sure. So I host a I cohost a podcast with a good friend of mine. It’s called the Fearless Fathers Podcast. It’s for really anybody out there who wants to break the stigmas of fatherhood. And really maybe feels alone. We’ve, we’ve talked to dad from who have six kids to ones that have a 19-month old kid and everything in between. We have people who aren’t even fathers listening to it and taking some kind of pieces of advice out of it. It is a you know, we say not safe for work, because there is swearing in their stuff, too. So it’s not something that you could blare out. But it’s really there to help get your mindset right, help change your perspective on things and not think so much into a negative manner. So Fearless Father’s Podcast, you can find that on Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, our website, FearlessFathers.net, really anywhere.
Gracie Solomon 10:53
I listened to one with my dad in it. And I learned some stuff that I didn’t even know. So it’s a good podcast. I enjoy it.
Dave Olander 11:00
I appreciate Yeah, your dad’s episode was probably one of my favorites. No, that was great.
Gracie Solomon 11:05
Thank you for letting me interview you.
Dave Olander 11:07
My pleasure. I love it. love what you’re doing. Keep doing it.
Gracie Solomon 11:13
Being a podcaster is such a special and unique career that no one really thinks about. It’s a job that you can go into with no experience, and a small idea of what you’d want to talk about. There’s so many genres of podcasts out there, from gaming podcasts, to storytelling podcasts, to podcasts that just talk about random things. What’s great about this career is that you have the freedom to do whatever you like. This is your creation that you can do whatever you want to do with. No normal person could create their own business by themselves. But then again, show me a normal teenager. Thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in. If you like Gracie Meets… subscribe so you can listen every time a new episode is dropped and follow Gracie Meets… on Instagram at gracie dot meets (@gracie.meets). Tune in next Saturday for an awesome interview with a train conductor.