sacha chua living an awesome life

It’s funny how much the way you think influences what you experience. I think of this as happy-do: the martial art of happiness. It gets even more interesting when you reflexively do it.

I was never much of an auditory listener. I used to fall asleep in lectures. Without visuals, I find it hard to concentrate on phone calls and teleconferences. I’d rather read than listen. I’d rather text than talk. I’d rather blog than podcast.

But we couldn’t get people to make time to share their insights through e-mail, so I volunteered to interview people on the phone. I recorded the interviews with people’s consent. Knowing how impatient I get when listening to podcasts, I decided to remove ums, stutters, and long silences so that other people could have a better experience.

Editing used to be something I hated about podcasting. Then an epiphany snuck up on me and flipped my perspective around.

Mid-way through editing an interview, I realized that editing helps me help people hear what “better” sounds like. They can hear themselves speak freely, fluently, and coherently. Who knows? Maybe it’s the extra polish they need to get their ideas across. Maybe it’s the resonance that helps them figure out what to say and how to say it. Maybe it’s the confidence boost that nudges them towards public speaking.

It’s like sketching. Start with something that’s roughly the right shape. Refine it, and it looks like you can draw well.

Take a speech with stutters and pauses. Keep the good parts, and it sounds like you can speak well.

A large part of improvement is knowing what “better” is. Maybe I’ll take up podcasting as a way to practice and learn. =)

Thanks to Gabriel Mansour, I was part of a fun podcast with Joey de Villa (Accordion Guy, Tucows). Joey and I chatted about the Philippines, tech, moving to a new country, Emacs (“For those of you listeners who haven’t heard of Emacs, it’s a text editor—” “It’s a way of life!”), and other things. =) That was fun, particularly with Joey’s totally cool audio setup complete with nifty microphones and a sound mixer.

It inspires me to do my own podcast, particularly as I’m interested in
storytelling. I want to hear people’s stories. Here’s what I’m
thinking of: three minutes to tell a story that illustrates something
fundamental about you. Maybe it’s about your purpose in life. Maybe
it’s about what you want to do. Maybe it’s about one of your core
values. What’s your story?

What do I need in order to make this happen?

In terms of tools: I have a digital voice recorder that I just need to
remember to keep well-stocked with charged AAA batteries. That can
take care of real-life conversations for now, which is good because I
can attach bios and pictures.

I’d like to be able to interview people over the Net and over phone,
too. I should figure out how to record Skype conversations in order to
take advantage of free US/Canada long distance (to phone) and free
PC-to-PC calls. If I can’t get that to work, I can use Gizmo or
something like that instead, I guess. More of a hassle, though. As for
phone… I don’t know, maybe I’ll get some kind of gadget later on.

In terms of stories: I need to start off with an introductory podcast,
then I need to line people up for it. Maybe I can set once every two
weeks as a nice goal? Podcasts don’t have to be totally regular
(that’s what RSS is for!), but it might help. If I like the pace of
two weeks, I might even be able to step it up to once a week.

I want to hear your story. Interested in being part of something like this?

On Technorati: podcasting, storytelling, story

Random Japanese sentence: テーブルに猫の足跡が付いている。 There are footprints of a cat on the table.