After a long time, I published my first podcast. It’s not great, I mean, I’ve listened to it a few times, and I’ve definitely got room for improvement. Good start, could do better, pretty much every school report card from a long-lost youth. I’ve wanted a to have a podcast for a long time, it’s strange, these days, I wonder what we actually get to leave behind. No one is going to find my footprint in a million years and be all excited, and with everything that I’ve gone through in the last year, I thought podcast. That was it, I had no idea what I was going to podcast about, but a podcast I was determined to publish.

So I sat with a piece of paper and wrote down the things I’m interested in. OK that was way to long for starters so I ended with, well the list on the show. Setting up the tech was a bit of a challenge but that part was interesting and I love to mess around and somehow come to the point that I need new tech… then wait for the parcels to arrive. This time though, I had all the kit, so it was more about sound quality than anything else. Mr. Morrison is a sound engineer so that was fun. My first attempt was definitely ‘must try harder’. But I got there, and unfortunately, there was no need for further purchasing. I don’t imagine that I am going to build some sort of Ciara Community with this podcast, but just the idea of getting material down is cathartic.

So I planned the first recording session, then faced the mic and geez, that was a horrible session. It was terrible. My first podcast was inspired by a conversation I had with some parents about starting Karate. I didn’t choose to start and there is a story about how I ended up training in the episode, and I didn’t really have a ‘message’, with this episode, the question just got me thinking. Yeah I’m not likely to be featured in any ‘the one to follow’ lists.

The truth is that I am still finding my voice, trying to figure out the tone, style and format of the podcast, because it sounds totally different in my head. In my head there are no frantic searches for words like I experienced whilst staring at the mic, and then Halloween happened. I finally had an idea about the first episode and settled down to make a recording. Then the fireworks started. My mic picks up everything, at times I think it can hear my heart beat and so now I had to get a recording in between the whoosh, pop and bangs of many many fireworks going off outside the house. If that wasn’t enough at some point the cats, spooked by the sounds of an army exercise outside came flying up the stairs and staged their own skirmish in my office. We were probably at take 143634 at that point.

Once I did have an episode, it was time to publish. 4 days I procrastinated. Then I got to the ‘duck it’ stage and it was out there. Now, the fact of the matter at this point is that I was so excited to actually know how to do all of this, that when I did listen to the podcast, I could see clearly just how much I need to develop and improve. I decided not to listen to it multiple times or I would have ended up taking it down.

That said, I have had a little feedback, and whilst I think people are being kind, it’s been more or less good so far.

The next podcast is going to be about my Cancer journey, a few people have asked me to talk about it but more from a mental health point of view. I think I need to steel myself before I jump into that one but I have some ideas. I also want to talk about fitness and karate and I’ve had a request to talk about cyber psychology in more detail. I would like to get folks on the show to bounce ideas off, and I do have a few ideas for that also. But I feel I need to find my feed before I get to that point. All that said, if anyone is reading this and wants to jump on feel free to give me a shout!

That’s it for now, the podcasts are all on the Battle Ready page of this blog or here if you prefer Apple Podcasts . That’s a good point actually, the name, the name is something that comes from my youth and an instructor who used to always talk about training hard and being ready for anything that happens around you. That seemed to fit.

So, if you like my efforts, give me a wee rating a few stars 🙂 and if you have any comments, suggestions or as I said earlier, want to join in, give me a shout!