My interview with Fire Drill Podcast was released yesterday! It was my first podcast interview so I was very nervous, but I’m happy about the way it turned out.

Initially I wasn’t even going to do this interview. J from Millennial Boss asked me to participate months ago, but I declined a few times because I was always scared of these kind of things. It was only months later that I decided to go for it, and I am quite happy I did! Speaking has always been one of my weakest points, but this year I decided that I wanted to challenge myself and get better at the things I consider myself bad at.

The interview dives into my three-part journey of before the trip, during the digital nomad adventure, and coming back to the states and taking a full-time job at this phase of my life. The interview also discusses different passive income streams I built to $4,000/month while traveling, and tips and tricks for each method. 

One of the great benefits about participating in this interview is that I can listen back to the recording to see where there is room for improvement. Understanding my flaws will allow me to work on my speaking skills and take note of my problem areas when I’m doing future podcasts.

I’ve embedded the audio below, but check it out on Fire Drill Podcast here.

My First Podcast Interview with Fire Drill Podcast

What I’m happy about

I’m pretty happy about the way my first podcast interview turned out because it flowed better than I expected. When I initially finished the interview I worried I didn’t make sense half the time. However, my friend told me he really enjoyed the interview and that he took some good lessons from it.

Here are a few things I wish I did differently on

Notes about my speaking

Anxiety – Before the interview I was getting super nervous, and I could feel my head getting foggy throughout the entire interview. When it comes to any form of public speaking even in the smallest amount, this tends to happen and it makes it a lot harder to give succinct responses. Even at work, I will still get nervous about giving my two cents in a meeting room with less than 5 coworkers. This is something I hope will improve over time and practice.

My voice – It was kind of funny hearing how deep and monotone my voice was. I didn’t realize how bad it was, and it makes me wish I were a bit more expressive. This type of expression and excitement in my voice doesn’t come as naturally, so it’ll be something I need to work on.

Filler words – I realized I use a lot of filler words. I especially said “things like that”, “I mean”, and “kind of” throughout the interview when I was trying to find the right words to say. I suppose it may sound better than pausing for a long period of time to think through my thoughts, but this is still a habit I need to fix. It is going to be hard for me to adjust but at least I know that this is a problem that I have.

Many pauses – Even while using a bunch of filler words, I still paused a lot throughout the entire interview so my sentences have a lot of breaks in them. And if you actually listen to the raw interview without any edits, it’s probably a lot worse. I remember at one part of the interview, I completely stopped and apologized, requesting the interviewers to “give me one second”. I will need to just participate in more interviews so that I get better about this and hopefully have the right things to say right away.

What I would add to the content

In terms of the actual content of the podcast, I wish I emphasized that the two years of travel were irreplaceable and that it was definitely one of the best times of my life. I wanted to mention this when J asked if I ever regretted my journey. I should have discussed the greatness of travel and that I will never forget this stage of my life. I randomly still dream of my nomading days. And to be honest, I will probably do extended long term travel again later on in my life. I was trying to make a point that I came to the bay and took a job because I felt it was the next step in this stage of my life, not because I disliked what I was doing. For those of you itching for that digital nomad journey, I say DO IT, as long as you prepare yourself mentally, financially, emotionally, and more. I am very happy I did it, and I love that I now know what traveling full-time is like as opposed to working full-time.

Conclusion

Overall I’m really happy with the interview and I’m thankful that J from Millennial Boss and Gwen from Fiery Millennials reached out to me and pushed me to get out of my comfort zone. I honestly think I did better than what I expected even if I have things that I wish I did differently. As a shy and awkward person I thought this was going to be a disaster but it ended up being great, and my friend thought the episode taught him a few things as well. J and Gwen are great interviewers and they made it really comfortable to have an honest and easy flowing conversation. They started off the interview telling me to treat the interview like a friendly conversation, and that I can ask them questions if I wanted to. They’re just funny and chill people that I felt I could be more myself around them.

I’m realizing more and more that I could potentially help people by spreading my story and my knowledge to others who are interested in financial and location independence. It gives me more purpose and drive to get better at what I do, and it makes me want to build my brand and passive income streams not only for myself, but for other people to benefit from as well.

Check it out here and let me know what you think in the comments.