Finding and Using Your Voice The Power of Podcasting

hi

i’m dooner and i’m an alcoholic but i’m

also a podcaster

for me these two stories are very

intertwined

this isn’t a session about how to

podcast or what a podcast is instead

we’ll talk about why podcast finding

your voice

and turning destructive negative energy

into positive creative flow

there’s 250 000 active podcasts but

that’s just a drop in the bucket

compared to the number of youtube

channels

facebook pages instagram sites etc

that means also there’s a lot of

opportunity even for individuals or

businesses

you may think it’s too late to start

you’ve heard about podcasting your

nephew has one

you may think about your budget oh does

it cost a lot of money to get started

well if marketing dollars

brought in audiences we’d all be

watching anna kendrick

befriended sex doll on cuibi now i can

litter the stage with facts about

podcasting and its growth

but instead maybe you can find your why

and your journey through mine the

gateway to my new life began on the

morning of november 5th

2016 and the clean hospital in belmont

massachusetts

that’s a dual diagnosis facility for

alcoholism and mental health

it’s also actually the place that girl

interrupted was filmed

and i’ll tell you when they admit you

there and you walk through it you

actually go through

those same catacombs that angelina jolie

was chasing wynonna ryder through

in that film talk about disconcerting

but this was one of the most important

and crucial days of my life walking

through the doors

of that facility because the story of

getting there started

probably when i was 18 when i first

realized or maybe didn’t realize but

first became

an alcoholic when i got to college and

started drinking every single day and

this is a problem

that persisted throughout my life the uh

the pints of beer became pints of vodka

those became handles

there was a eight-year stretch where i

drank nearly every single day except

when i had the flu

in 2016 i was working for a freight and

logistics company in boston

massachusetts

i got the dreaded email one day i was in

sales and i got the email that says

bring in your cell phone and your laptop

this was in october of 2016.

so i did i brought it in there and at

the time i was trying to pitch this

company on the idea of podcasting wow

this great trojan horse so i could go

and talk to other clients about their

business in a maybe natural way instead

of trying to pitch them on

on freight which is what my industry did

the company didn’t like that idea nor do

they like me and i didn’t like them that

much either

my wife was eight months pregnant at

this time i was deep

deep deep in the throes of alcoholism so

deep in fact that when i left that

meeting where i turned in my laptop

and my cell phone they handed me my last

check and my first thought when i got

behind the wheel wasn’t

wow what am i gonna do now no it was i’m

gonna go to the liquor store and think

of all the time i have to get freaking

hammered

and i did and i did that for over a week

and mind you as i just said my wife is

eight months pregnant where were my

priorities

then on the night or maybe i should say

the morning of november 5th

i had a realization i had to take

control of my journey

and i had to speak up for myself i had

to find my own voice and i did that by

telling on myself to my parents a mentor

of mine that i know who went through

same similar journey of sobriety and uh

and my wife and i said you know what if

i don’t go into rehab tomorrow

you have to you have to force me and for

me this was a life or death decision

right this is life or death i am

thinking

of just obliterating myself

so we did we walked through that

facility we walked through those

catacombs at mclean hospital

and i remember there i started

journaling and i wrote this journal the

happiest i’d never been

and i had a therapist there who was

really really getting in my head about

being where you are but also about the

power of these negative habits that we

develop

right and how we can rebuild and rewire

ourselves with a

sense of purpose now to me that seemed a

little farcical but

i knew one thing i knew one thing when i

walked through those doors that i could

do

two things when your life is spiraling

out of control you need to take control

and for me taking control was that

decision to take that ride there

but also to start podcasting that seems

a little bit silly right because i don’t

do a podcast about sobriety i don’t do

that at all

in fact i do i do a podcast similar to

what i wanted to do and i got fired

which is in freight which a lot of you

listening might be like that sounds like

the most boring thing i’ve ever heard in

my life why would i

listen to a podcast about freight but

for me it’s what i knew

and for me that was the challenge to

make that interesting

and for me that was a conduit that was

something that i could do

so when i got out of the facility i was

in there for six days

and here’s a little tip for you if you

don’t want to stay in a rehab facility

for six or seven days you want to just

stay for those five

check it on a monday don’t do it on a

saturday like i did it’s hard to get out

of there

but it was a powerful and a crucial

decision a lot of things didn’t work for

me i went to like aaa

and i went to all those meetings but for

me all i heard was people who

they didn’t sound happier right this

didn’t seem like an

easy road and for me i wanted to make

podcasting a part of my

recovery a part of my journey and a part

of that

rewiring so i started doing it in the

field that i knew best which was freight

and for me it was like

you know i have the kid i have the wife

but i’m so low on myself

you know that was rock bottom i was so

low on myself that having something

having something not just a child not

just a wife

not just a family but this other element

this other item i could build on and it

could be part of my recovery

that is the conduit that podcasting

is and was for me still is to this day

i remember getting home from rehab and

the first thing that i had to do was

my laptop got taken away by the company

that it just fired me so i fire up

amazon and granted i

don’t have much money i spent about half

that week’s paycheck on uh on vodka

so i had to get a used laptop off off

amazon i remember it was like 250

and the big the big thing for me was

that it had an ssd and if you guys are

into editing you know how important that

can be

the other thing i got was a 15 chinese

condenser mic

off amazon and an 89 mixer with a usb

i had no money but money’s not really a

barrier to entry

and what i did when i first started

doing those initial shows when i would

start reaching out and i was trying to

use it as a bit of a trojan horse like

hey i started this podcast now i have

this experience before maybe you also

you know would like to give me a job

didn’t happen that quickly

didn’t happen that quickly at all in

fact for the first three months i didn’t

make

any money you know well that’s kind of a

lie my dad was my one and only patreon

i made ten dollars a month for my dad

thank you dad god bless you

um the other challenge was

that when you’re not making money you

can’t pay people so my first co-host

that was with me

he ditched me and at the same time i’m

trying to get

interviews for jobs you know maybe i can

supplement this whole podcasting thing

by getting another job maybe in

marketing in freight

that didn’t work out in fact i went to a

number of large freight companies and

said the first thing you have to do

is stop that damn podcast it was

happening so often that i started a

secret podcast

reviewing snack food with a buddy of

mine that i knew from twitter but had

never met in my life who lives in idaho

and at the end of every episode i’d have

my three-year-old review uh some sort of

snack food on there

that was a good time and i’m really glad

that i didn’t listen to

a lot of those companies and you got to

remember there’s a lot of pressure on me

you know we had an infant at home

you have different companies in boston

area saying yeah you can come in but you

have to do that

i’m very happy and very fortunate that i

ignored all of those and i persisted for

even longer because

a local company out there just this

upstart company that really wanted to

get their message out

they started hearing my podcast and the

owner of that company reached out to me

reached out to me and he was like i’ll

give you a thousand dollars a month to

ghostwrite some blogs

and to make a podcast for us whoa

fantastic now

you know you do the math on that that’s

twelve thousand dollars a year it’s not

going to get you very far down the

street

especially with a couple kids car seats

to buy and baby food but

the fact of the matter is that it was my

chance it was my opportunity

and it put life back in this system and

i think if you talk to most founders

they have these crucial moments where

you’re about to

either give up hope or you’re about to

run out of money or you’re about to give

up on yourself

and i gotta say the easiest thing about

finding your voice is having other

people tell you to use it

that includes my wife and my parents and

i’m sure you can find those sort of

touchstones

within your life now what this afforded

me was

the opportunity to really really expand

the

the content marketing right content

marketing

within a freight ecosystem and this is

like a very old world just as boring as

a podcast on freight sounds so is the

marketing world of freight by and large

especially at this point

in time the company i work with now

freight waves wasn’t around yet we

hadn’t really flipped the script we

hadn’t changed the game

um and their income straight ways i mean

this is one of the most amazing things

about opportunity about talking to

people and about learning to use your

voice and being able to ask for stuff

is i’m working at this company for about

a year now

and i interviewed the ceo of this

upstart this upstart company just raised

24 30 million dollars this company

called freight waves in

chattanooga tennessee which for someone

like me who’s up in boston

i don’t know you know where the hell

that is i don’t know it from timbuk too

turns out it’s quite a great city great

city and a great place for

a tedx talk but that said

he reached out to me and he said

something very crucial and this is

something i wouldn’t have dreamed of

happened i was just trying to keep

myself alive

when i got out of rehab and try to be

there for my kids but he said to me

i want you to come out here to

chattanooga and i want you to build the

biggest freight podcasting network you

can think of

and i was afforded that opportunity

which is amazing to think of because

this

did not exist this did not exist on

november 4th this didn’t exist on

november 5th the day i walked into rehab

in 2016. so it’s amazing to be sitting

here

and it’s even more powerful and

impactful to be sitting here at a tedx

chattanooga to be recounting

this story of my time doing it one of

the biggest things i’ve learned so far

and i think it’s something we can all do

and i don’t think you have to do it

through podcasting right

i think you can do it in any avenue of

life but especially something creative

is using your energy and using your

belief and turning that negativity

into positivity and i know that sounds

superficial and that sounds like

that sounds like something

everybody would say

but i can tell you firsthand that that

really does work because believing in

yourself and having other people believe

in you

can be that guiding light can be that

touchstone

then from there what you’re really

looking to do is to find your audience

that’s what your voice comes in that’s

what your voice comes down to

bringing that confidence it was maya

angelou who said

we’ve learned that people will forget

what you said people will forget what

you did

but people will never forget how you

made them feel

redirecting that addictive energy to

positive platforms

reusing those bad habits converting them

into good ones now it’s your turn

find that voice and use it for me

it has saved my life