A discussion about podcasting with Adam Clark from The Gently Mad and Irresistible Podcasting.


Transcript for episode 40 of the Test & Code Podcast

This transcript starts as an auto generated transcript.
PRs welcome if you want to help fix any errors.


Test & Code | Episode 40: On Podcasting, Adam Clark

Brian Okken: Welcome to Test and Code, the podcast about software development, testing in Python.

Except for today, today it’s about podcasting.

You see, I think some of you out there listening to me have some knowledge that you could share with others on a podcast, either you’ve been thinking about doing an episode on this podcast or on somebody else’s, or starting your own podcast.

When I was thinking about starting this podcast back in 2014- 2015 time frame, Adam Clark was one of the people who helped me decide to go ahead and do it. Adam is the host of “The Gently Mad” podcast and he also has a course called “Irresistible Podcasting”.

Warning— this is a serious warning. All of my previous episodes have been safe for kids, but this conversation has swearing in it. Think about two geeks just hanging out over beers and BS-ing, except for we did not have any beers, we recorded this, and I had coffee.

Anyway, there is swearing, if you have kids with you, save this episode for when you have headphones, but do listen, it’s a great conversation.

Okay, here’s the pause to let you skip this episode if you have kids.

The sound quality right now is a bit weird because I’m sitting in a parking lot in a minivan and it’s raining, and so there might be noise, I’m recording this on my headphones.

I’m doing this because I promised Adam that I would try to get this out today and I want to keep my promise. Also, there’s minimal editing it’s an unedited podcast, and I hope you enjoy it.

Now, without further ado, here’s Adam Clark.

The reason why I have you on is because when I was kicking around the idea, I started this podcast in— I was surprised it’s been so long— I started it in August of 2015.

A friend of mine, who I became friends with because of podcasting, another person in Portland started another Python podcast in March 2015, and then together we have a podcast “Python Bytes” which we do both of us, on a weekly basis.

We started that in November of 2016, but in 2014/ 2015 that time frame, when I was kicking around the idea of doing a podcast, there was a whole bunch of influences, but it kind of went along with the lines of Dan Benjamin with “Podcast Method” who scared the shit out of me and I thought, “Well, crap, I can’t do that, that sounds complicated.” And then—

Adam Clark: Wait, wait, you were thinking of doing a show about podcasting like that and that scared you?

Brian Okken: No, he does it like serious pro stuff and with all the audio involved and stuff, I was like, “I can’t do that.”

And then, Justin Jackson did “Build and Launch” and the first three episodes were basically how to do a podcast, cheap. He even recommended just using your Apple headphones and actually, I still use my Apple headphones, but I do have a better mic now.

But that was good, although Justin is, he’s a presence, he could sell you anything I think. I’m not that kind of a person and so I was like, “I don’t know if I can be like that.”

But then, I listened to “Gently Mad” and did your course or watched some of your “Irresistible Podcasting” course first time around in 2015. What I got from you was, “You don’t have to try to be somebody else just be you.”

Also, I didn’t really want to focus on interviews, I do interviews on this show, but I also just sort of tell people the stuff that I’ve learned.

So my idea is, I think that a lot of people, and especially in the tech world, they’re really good at something, way better than most of the people in the world, but they’re not as good as the people they look up to.

And so they think, “Well, I shouldn’t try to be teaching because I’m not one of those experts that I look up to.” And I think that’s bullshit, I think that’s the right place to go and start teaching, is when you know more than like 80% of the people.

Adam Clark: I could talk for an hour about that idea because I’m genuinely interested in that, but I agree with you. I think that’s true, we always tend to— well, I do anyway, I think I’m never good enough unless I’m the best.

And you’re rarely the best, I mean, it’s a big world out there. I am a drummer and it doesn’t matter how good I got, the fact that Travis Barker exists, I just was like, “Okay, then, I might also quit.” Because I can’t be that good. And so yeah, I totally get that, especially with dev and stuff.

Brian Okken: Yeah, so I’d like to as a purely personal thing, I’d like to have more interesting podcasts out there. And I think interview shows are fine, but I think we need more just different, interesting things and “Gently Mad” was definitely different.

Adam Clark: What was different about it? Because it’s coming back. It’s been 3 years and I had a false start last year where I thought it was coming back and, in fact, I just recorded Instagram story about this.

Brian Okken: Is it coming back then?

Adam Clark: Yeah, yeah it is coming back. Last summer, I tweeted, I was like, “Hey, ‘Gently Mad’ is coming back,” and I started recording new episodes and I only released 3 and then I quit again.

It had been a couple years, intervening this whole thing with me working for Apple, and I quit and all this stuff, and I just wasn’t feeling up to it, I was doing these recordings and I could tell it just wasn’t good.

You can tell when something’s not good, and it wasn’t me just feeling like my typical self-doubt, my normal level of self-doubt— it wasn’t just that. It was like, “This really isn’t good, I’ve lost something, I’m not comfortable in these conversations. I don’t feel like I’m directing it well, I’m not creating interesting arc or story.”

So I thought, “Well, I don’t know, I guess I’ve lost it.” I kind of quit again.

Like the emails I’ve been sending out recently have said, in the last year I really decided to focus on it and just stop kind of dicking around and actually really do this thing.

I’ve been recording again, the last couple of months, and it’s been great, it’s like it was before and there have just been some great conversations, I am really excited to release them.

That by far is the most popular thing I’ve ever done, the “Gently Mad.” So I was going to rename it, it was going to be a different show, and all this stuff.

And then my friends were just like, “Dude, this is a ‘Gently Mad’, it’s the same thing, maybe it’s slightly differently focused, but the ‘Gently Mad’ is you and you are the ‘Gently Mad’ so just call it ‘Gently Mad’ and just keep that thing going, people love that.”

And I was like, “Yeah you’re right”, I don’t know why I was wasting so much time obsessing.

Brian Okken: I’m excited about that. After podcasting for a while, I went to the PyCon, the Python conference here in Portland. Michael and I, the other guy from “Python Bytes”, we were at a booth most of the time and people would come up and they felt like they knew me, because of listening to the shows.

That’s one of the things that I learned from you and from the “Gently Mad” and that was different. Because you don’t know me, but I think I know you because I listen to your show enough to where I feel like there’s a connection. Just like I feel like I could go sit down and have a drink with you or Justin Jackson because I feel like I know his personality.

And we’ve never talked before, but that connection is something podcasts give that nothing else does. It’s worth it.

I feel like those pictures where in cartoons you have like the white angel and the red devil on your shoulders. So to me, I’ve got like Justin Jackson on one shoulder saying, “Man, you can do anything, just go do it.”

And then, there’s like this self-doubt which is my little Adam Clark on the other shoulder.

Adam Clark: I’m glad I’m the angel of the self-doubt that. That is true, I am that, absolutely.

Brian Okken: Thank you for your work in the past. So you’re rebooting both “Gently Mad” and “Irresistible Podcasting”, right?

Adam Clark: Yes, well the “Gently Mad” is not going to be so much of a reboot as a continuation, and I’m not going to relaunch the show and do a big launch, I’m just going to start adding new episodes.

iTunes has changed some things in the last year, definitely in the last 3 since I quit and so I’m just going to resume the “Gently Mad”.

But I am rebooting “Irresistible Podcasting” the course, the community, the podcast that goes along with that, the blog, just all that stuff.

I just launched my new company which is a podcast production company which I haven’t officially announced, I don’t have the website up. I got my first customer last week, so I’m excited about that.

Toward the end of last year I was trying to map out what the future’s going to be, because I am almost 40 and I just feel like I can’t keep playing around anymore.

I wanted some sort of path or some sort of sense of a goal that I was moving toward rather than just constant 18- 30 month experiments which has been most of my life since I was a teenager.

So yeah, I still make money from web development design which is what I’ve done for a decade now, but I’m focusing on those 3 things, my shows, the course, and the community around podcasting.

And this new business around like professional podcast services for entrepreneurs and solo founders, stuff like that. And the goal is that those three things sort of become everything.

So yeah, it’s been a really busy year trying to organize all that and figure out priorities and what do I focus on first and just all this stuff. And a big piece of that was starting to email my list again.

I literally fell off the face of the Earth 3 years ago, which we can talk about if you want, but I did and I haven’t emailed anyone, I literally just disappeared and a lot of it had to do with a ton of shame and guilt over quitting, and just feeling like I just let everyone down.

Now I decided all I have to get back on this horse, as scary as it, and as much as I feel like I don’t want to disappoint people I just have to.

I started with that email last weekend and that’s where we’re going.

By the way, I don’t know if this is a clean show or not but I just realized I’ve already said like fuck and other things. I forgot to ask you in the beginning if I should pay attention to the way I talk?

Brian Okken: No, I think you’re great. Usually it’s clean and this will be a good experiment to see if the explicit keyword might increase my ratings.

Adam Clark: Hopefully your listeners aren’t used to listening in the car with their little children. My two-year-old, it’s adorable when your two-year-old comes up to you and says, “What the fuck daddy.” It’s hilarious in their little voice, they don’t know what they’re saying, but then when your ten-year-old says it, you’re like, “What did you— what!? You don’t talk that way!”

Brian Okken: I’ll warn people on Twitter and stuff. For all the people out there that think, “Why don’t you just go through and bleep those,” I don’t have an audio crew man, so it’s just going to be there.

Adam Clark: That’s way too much fucking work. Let’s just say you can hire me now, now that I do this officially, and not just non-officially to handle that for you Brian.

Brian Okken: One of the other things, I was curious and I went back and looked at one of the videos from the “Irresistible Podcasting” about the audio setup. It’s interesting, you recommend similar to what Justin did, I can’t remember the number, ATR2100 or something.

That’s what I started with because Fry’s had it on sale for the $40 or something. And it worked great for a long time and I was happy with it, but then I started making a little bit of money off of book sales and stuff and I decided to treat myself to not having to edit so much audio. And right now I’ve got, I forgot what it is, it’s a Shure Mic but one of the cheaper Shures.

Adam Clark: Is it SM57?

Brian Okken: Probably, yeah.

Adam Clark: Does it look like the microphone like you would see on stage, like that a singer would hold or something?

Brian Okken: Yes.

Adam Clark: Okay, yes, it’s probably the SM57, that’s a really popular and really great mic. I’ve got a Shure SM7B which is a little different, it’s more expensive and I don’t know exactly if it’s worth it, I think it’s the greatest microphone ever.

It’s famous because apparently Michael Jackson used it to record the Thriller album and it’s a workhorse in radio stations.

I love it, but honestly, it’s like a $350 dollar mic, which really when you’re talking about mics it’s that’s not that much, but for probably people listening, they’re like, “Wow, $350 for a mic?!”

But if I wasn’t using this mic, I would be using that Audio Technica ATR2100 which is under $50 mic and it sounds amazing, it’s like I literally don’t know how that mic exists for that price.

And that’s what I always tell people, you can literally start tomorrow as fast as you can get a package from Amazon for less than $100 and you can sound as good as anyone you listen to.

Brian Okken: Yeah, plus it has the headphone jack right in the back of the mic so you don’t need anything else, just that and your laptop or your computer and some headphones and you’re fine.

So then I’ve got that going through DBX 286 S and then to focus right, the Scarlett, similar to what you’re using.

Adam Clark: The 2i2?

Brian Okken: I don’t know, I think it’s the 2i2.

Adam Clark: Does it have 2 mic inputs on the front or one?

Brian Okken: It’s got 2 on the front but I think the intent is the other one is for guitar or something like that.

Adam Clark: Yeah, it’s a 2i2 then. So we have the same exact setup except for the microphone. It’s the only difference.

Brian Okken: One of the things is to try to have a personal relationship with you so that I can get some help on how to set up this damn 286 S because I don’t know what I’m doing.

Adam Clark: That thing is magic. I think it’s like $250, it might even be cheaper now. It’s like the magic, it’s like the secret sauce, it’s that special ingredient in the mix that can make things sound so good, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, you look at it and it’s just like this array of knobs and lights and switches.

You’re giving me great ideas man, I need to take notes because I just realized I need to do a new video or add a video to the course about just how to set up the 286S. Because it’s such a great piece of gear.

Brian Okken: It’s nontrivial to get it right.

Adam Clark: It’s hard to get it right, like you have to play with it.

Brian Okken: All this equipment, it took me a long time to make it sound better than my $50 ATR2100. I think we’re kind of getting into the weed.

Adam Clark: Let me just say one more, you can always email me, I mean seriously, I am not just saying this, but I love helping people with podcasting stuff, you don’t have to get on your show to ask a question about that kind of stuff. So, anyway, go ahead.

Brian Okken: I encourage people to listen to your stuff. But also, I’d like to have more people start podcasts, it’s one of the reasons why I liked what you were talking about earlier and both “Irresistible Podcasting” and listening to “Gently Mad” is that it’s not a trivial thing, I mean, it isn’t just, “Let’s just decide to do it,” and then you just show up every week. It’s both easier than people think it is, and it’s harder than people think it is.

Adam Clark: What’s interesting is that the things that people assume are easy, are usually the harder things; and things that people think are going to be the hard things— are the easier things.

So you’re absolutely right, but I’ve found that it’s usually the opposite of what people think it’s going to be, that’s going to be difficult and whatnot. I’ve got to stop interrupting, I am not a guest that often, clearly, so go ahead.

Brian Okken: No, it’s great, I had no idea where this was going, I just wanted to have you know because I’m excited. Do you have any way to encourage people to start a podcast?

Adam Clark: How do you mean to encourage them?

Brian Okken: Well, like if somebody is sitting around thinking, “There’s not enough good podcasts out there, I should do one.”

What is it that is going to push them over the edge to make them go do it?

Adam Clark: Oh man. I think it totally depends on the person. You said it if someone’s feeling like they missed the boat, like there’s too many podcasts now.

Brian Okken: Well they shouldn’t think that. There’s a ton, that’s true, but for example, especially technical stuff, any niche you’re in there’s so many— is it niche or nitche?

Adam Clark: I say niche, but that’s because I’m kind of an asshole.

Brian Okken: You’re nice asshole though, the cute, cuddly asshole.

Adam Clark: Thank you.

Brian Okken: By the way, I love the family pictures on your site, they’re great.

Adam Clark: On which site the avclark.com?

Brian Okken: Yes, avclark.com.

Adam Clark: On my about page you mean?

Brian Okken: I guess that’s where they were, I was cooking around your stuff today and saw them.

Adam Clark: Oh yeah, the ones of just me and my girls. Those are old, I need to update them to new ones to include my newest daughter and the little infants you see in those pictures are now 9 and 10 years old.

I realized that after I turned 30 my body just decided to stop giving a fuck, it just stopped working in the ways I thought it was supposed to work. So now I’m even older and fatter and uglier.

I have to only show pictures of myself from my younger days. Not that I was that much better than, but yeah, I need to update those. I’ve got 3 daughters and it’s crazy but it’s pretty good.

Brian Okken: So that’s like some of the hard part right, for me at least, I’ve got a full-time job, full-time family and I want to do this podcast thing and writing and stuff.

I sit down to record and that’s exactly the time where everybody in the house has a question for me.

And things like I’ve got a rabbit in here, in the same room, which you probably can’t hear because that’s why I bought the 286S, you can’t hear the rabbit in the background.

The hard stuff isn’t the stuff you think about it’s going to be hard, it’s different things. I want to talk about your “Irresistible Podcasting” you’re restarting that soon?

Adam Clark: Yeah.

Brian Okken: I’m super excited about that, so tell me about that a little bit. What’s going to be different from the last time?

Adam Clark: Okay, so the short version, I’ll try to make it short, this is why I love podcasting because I love to talk and I literally can’t shut up, so I’m never out of things to say.

Most people are like, “I don’t know what to say,” they get on the mic and they are just like, “I don’t know what to say.” And my problem is exactly opposite, like I can’t stop talking and I have to just cut out just stuff that people don’t care about but I just keep going on and on. Like I’m doing right now.

So the short version is that I fell in love with podcasting the second I started it. I came from a journalistic background, I worked for a newspaper and a few magazines in LA after college.

I always messed around with the Internet, I was kind of a nerd, a tech geek kind of guy and I made my own websites and things like that. But I was a writer, I was a journalist, I really enjoyed that.

And then after my second daughter was born, I realized that my journalist salary was never ever going to cut it, even if I somehow landed at the New York Times, I still wouldn’t be able to afford it, even though they would pay me a lot more the cost of living would also quadruple. So it would essentially be the same as what I was making at a small town paper, in the suburbs of LA.

I decided I want to do something that 1) I could make a lot more money at, and 2) that can lead to self-employment at some point down the road. So for me, that was web design and development and I managed to convince a local agency to hire me as a designer.

I threw together a mock-up for a website in Photoshop and said, “Hey look at this, look at my skills,” and they were like, “Yes, it’s pretty good actually, okay, we’ll hire you.” And through that experience I learned that I was much more of a developer than a designer.

I was a developer who wanted to be a designer because I was not. So I started that career and that’s what I have done since like I said the last decade.

But then, when I’ve tried and failed in blogging since 2002 or so, and I was never able to keep it consistent.

My day job was writing at newspaper, so I’d come home and last thing I wanted to do was to write more. It was tough to keep that going, but I missed journalism, I missed writing, I’ve always loved film, the arts, just all of it.

And so 2010/ 2011 was when I kind of discovered podcasting. For me it was Dan Benjamin as well, his “5 by 5” network when he was kind of getting started with Zelman. I am having a brain freeze— “Daring Fireball” John Gruber and stuff like that and I was like, “Oh man, I love this.”

Around 2012/2013 I was like, “Maybe I could try this.” And I tried it and I instantly fell in love with it. It was everything I loved about writing and none of the things I hated about writing, and it was just my thing I just felt like I just found my thing.

I immediately had an idea to create a course to teach people what I was learning because I’ve done that with everything in my entire life, it’s just where my brain naturally goes, is, “How can I now distill what I have learned.”

But as you were talking about in the beginning, I felt like, “Nah, I can’t do that, I don’t really know what I’m doing, I don’t have any special qualifications to teach anyone anything. I’m not even that good at this,” and just all that bullshit, all the self-doubt and a healthy dose of being the kind of person who has a million ideas a minute but doesn’t really act on them very much.

I have an idea, I launch a company in my head, I sell it in my head and in the space of one afternoon I’ve basically lived out a ten-year cycle and then move on to the next thing, I never actually do anything about it, it’s just all in my head.

I did that for a couple of years and finally I was like, “You know what, I’m making this fucking course, I’m going to do this I really want to do it.” I had started a podcast network with a couple friends and just different things, I was like, “I want to do this course.”

Skipping ahead, skipping ahead, I made the course, but it was a lot more work than I anticipated to be and at this point, I was living full-time off my show the “Gently Mad' I wasn’t doing any freelance work, anything else.

I was kind of running out of money, my wife was pregnant with our third child. Being self-employed our insurance premiums were, there’s not a word to describe how astronomical and ridiculous they were, I couldn’t afford the insurance payment anymore.

I was just freaking out and I was just so burned out, I was so burned out, I finished the course and launched it to the pre-purchase there were the people who would buy it before I launched it.

And then I was like, “I’m done.” I knew what I needed to do which was to start selling and marketing and really building this thing up. It sounds like an excuse, it is an excuse to say I burned out, because I should have sucked it up anyway but I didn’t.

I kind of launched it and that was it, I didn’t build the community around it, I didn’t continue creating new content like I wanted to do, I didn’t continue with the “Irresistible Podcasting” podcast which was a Q&A show.

There are so many things I wanted to add to the course. Because for me, it wasn’t just about podcasting, podcasting was sort of the handle that I grabbed on to the suitcase of business in general.

So it’s really about business which is really about life, which is really about meaning and purpose. If you get right down to it but the disguise, the mask that I deliver all of that in is podcast.

So it was all those things, but I just didn’t get it there, I just was so burned out I delivered them VP and then quit. And so I got an offer from Apple, I thought a) you don’t turn down Apple b) this is great because I’m sick of everything else in my life.

I took that, I knew immediately it was a mistake but we had moved 3,000 miles, my wife was seven and a half months pregnant, what was I going to do?

I worked for Apple for a couple years, as long as I could possibly stand it before literally blowing my brains out, so that I finally quit.

Long story short or long story long in this case— I finally took my wife’s advice, she had been encouraging me to just get back to doing what I really wanted to do, it didn’t matter that I’d quit, yes, I would have lost the trust of some people and I did the thing I always tell people don’t do.

I’m going to continue to be miserable if I just keep resisting going back to this thing, doing this thing that I really enjoyed because I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed and I had a lot of shame and guilt over quitting and felt like I had let everyone down and I just didn’t want to face it.

Brian Okken: You did, asshole. No, dude, all is forgiven, just come back.

Adam Clark: That’s what people tell me and it’s like that’s great, I am so grateful for that response.

I’ve gotten so many responses from the emails I sent out last week I got two that were kind of negative and it isn’t like that though, out of the dozens and dozens of responses the two negative ones are the ones I was like, “Yep, that’s how everyone feels.”

Everyone was like, “Yeah dude, I’m so happy you’re just back to it.” So it was great that people felt that way.

The initial question you asked an hour ago was what’s different about it. So this time what’s going to be different about the new course is it’s still going to be the same core content which I’m going to kind of re-record, a little better quality this time around, and I will also update those core lessons.

Because, like I said, things have changed iTunes is different, the rules are different, new and noteworthy is no longer a thing which was part of the foundation of my approach to launching a show.

I’ve got to update some of that, but then I want to add more information, there’s a lot of things people asked for that I didn’t get to and I didn’t get to making those videos.

There’s that part, but the biggest part of the relaunch is the community. I never really built the community that I promised.

I don’t know if you if this has been your experience, Brian, but you’re a developer so you’re the kind of person who can teach yourself things, you can learn things easily, you think very logically, you are a problem solver.

That stuff kind of comes naturally and it’s not that hard, you can learn stuff. But, I don’t think like how to start a podcast, it can be overwhelming but it’s not hard, it’s super easy.

Brian Okken: Yeah, and it’s way easier now than it used to be, even a couple years ago.

Adam Clark: Yeah, yeah, but the thing is, you don’t need to buy any course or anything, there’s super high-quality free videos and courses and tutorials on how to get started. No one needs to spend money on how to get started with a podcast. I include all that information, but that’s not what it’s for.

What you really need and what you’re paying for is the community. Because, starting isn’t the hard part, it’s sticking to it and working through your doubts and having people to bounce ideas off of and encourage you.

Entrepreneurship is really, really hard and it’s damn near impossible to do it completely alone.

And so, that’s the main thing for me, the content sure, that will be updated, but really the content isn’t even the main thing.

What you’re paying for with the course and where I feel the most value is and what I really want to just spend all my time on is the community and developing those relationships. Just helping each other out, I mean that’s such a huge thing and that’s the main reason I’m re-doing this.

Brian Okken: I’m excited for that and I’m excited to try to be part of that community as well. I’d like to get just simple things, like I might be able to talk with other podcasters just about learning new things.

There are details that come up later that you don’t need to know at the beginning but later on, like, “How do I get transcripts done?” And, “How much should I care about uhms, should I cut those out or should I leave them in”. All that sort of stuff and million questions come up. And one of the things that I love, I’m glad about the community and the focus on the community is good.

The focus of the “Test and nCode” is mostly software testing but mostly for people that are not trained as testers, like not professional QA people but the developers that need to make sure the code works.

And then, also just Python in general, I just cover a lot of stuff and also software development processes. I wrote a book on pytest but there’s a lot of people that are doing this sort of stuff all over the world that don’t have anybody to ask questions to.

They are tentative to go ahead and ask me even though they can, but I had started a Slack channel and I was worried that I was going to be inundated with thousands of questions that I didn’t know how to answer.

And the reality was a whole bunch of people in there are helping out other people for free. And yeah, there are tons of questions I don’t know how to answer but there’s other people to do, and they’re there.

And then we can have this debate and it’s this open thing anybody can join but it feels like more of a closed group of people like these are my people, these are the people I can ask a question.

And there’s nothing else like it to build up these communities around the world of people that are just struggling with the same stuff.

Adam Clark: The community is so important, especially the way we live nowadays. 2018 is very different than the 1980’s when I grew up and certainly different than my dad when he was at the height of his profession in the 1960’s and 1970’s and stuff like that. It’s a different world, we’re far more connected, it’s not the wrong word because we certainly are fucking connected.

We know more about other people’s lives because of social media but we’re far more isolated in that, we’re all just in our own little garage or room with our computer and I just feel like that’s a problem and even if you’re an introvert, which I am, I’m a huge introvert I don’t like large groups and I don’t thrive off of that energy. But if I am isolated too long, my depression just spirals.

You need community, you need people in your life and especially if your job is going to be something that you love and feels like you have some sense of meaning and purpose to your life.

The community is everything, and the great thing about a community around an online like “Test and Code” or “Irresistible Podcasting” or whatever it is, is that you don’t have to be, “Oh I’m not a forum guy, I am not a community kind of person.”

That’s fine, if you just dip in once every six months when you’re in the middle of a crisis and you need to ask a question to get some people’s encouragement, fine.

Or if you’re the kind of person who’s just in there every day, just because you work remotely, you want to feel like you have other people around you, it can serve all those purposes.

Brian Okken: Yeah, introverts and engineers, yes they figure, “I should be able to figure this problem out,” but you’ll turn for like two days when you could have just asked a question and got the answer in like 10 minutes.

Adam Clark: Yeah and there’s a community that I’m a part of called “Fizzle”. Are you familiar with “Fizzle”?

Brian Okken: Yes. 2 of those guys are Portland people too.

Adam Clark: Yeah, Corbet and Chaser are both in Portland. I’ve been a part of “Fizzle” for years and they were one of the big early sponsors of the “Gently Mad”.

I learned so much about sponsoring, getting sponsors and advertising for your show through that.

That community is an example of one that I’ll go through periods where I am in there frequently and then I’ll go through periods where six months goes by and I don’t even log in.

But the point is they’re there and like last week I was having a little mini freak out over something, feeling like, “It’s all over, I’m just a big faker, I knew it,” and here’s what happened I posted it in the forums and I had some people who were like, “Dude, just pull your panties up and stop whining.” That’s just what I needed to hear.

Then I also had other people who were like, “It’s okay man, we all go through this.” And so I got some tough love and I also got some encouragement and it snapped me out of it and that would have probably dragged on for much longer.

I’m a firm believer in finding your people, finding your crowd, and in our day and age it’s a lot easier to do that online, sometimes it’s the only place you can do it, is to find them online and they kind of become your family.

It’s awesome, there’s just no greater feeling than that for me. And so I really, really want to focus on that, I want to build that up and I want that to be not my production company, not my show, I want the community of people in “Irresistible Podcasting” to be the thing that I’m known for and that lasts, that lasts.

Brian Okken: How do people get into this? How do people get into the “Irresistible Podcasting”

Adam Clark: I don’t know when this is going to go live, but today, it is Monday, we’re recording this on Monday, April 9.

For the first time ever I decided I’m going to shut down the course so that I can do this relaunch and stuff like that. It’s always been an evergreen, it’s always been available since the day I launched it three years ago.

But my plan for relaunching was to shut it down, give myself 6-8 weeks to do what I need to do and to build the foundation of that community, and then sort of relaunch.

Some of that is marketing, some of that is just super practical. It’ll close on Friday 13, maybe that’s a bad idea. April 13, Friday at midnight it’s going to shut down and right now you can just go to Irresistible Podcasting.com and you can still get in. I think the price is 149 and there’s like a 25% coupon. Just the letters twenty five is what you need to get 25% percent off and get in now before it closes because when it relaunches, it’ll be back up to like the price I launched in initially, 3 years ago.

I’ll have packages, everyone does that and I think there’s good reasons for it, there will be packages with different sort of levels of access to me and the community.

But it’ll be back up to like a more standard you know 500 to 800 dollar range depending on the package, the particular level of access that you want.

If you buy into it then you’re in it, and you’re you never going to have to pay for it again, so I feel like this week it’s two things, one it’s a way for me to make a little money to help kind of fund the next 6 to 8 weeks while I rebuild this thing.

It’s also giving people an opportunity to get into something at a much lower cost. That’s how, the Irresistible Podcasting.com, depending on when you’re listening to this, it may be closed already.

Brian Okken: During the close time you’re going to have like an email sign up there or something?

Adam Clark: Yeah, yeah it’ll still be there and people can, of course, sign up and I’m sure there will be some sort of discounter incentive when it launches, so get on the mailing list if you want to be in on that stuff.

Brian Okken: I feel you’ve helped me, I am going to try to minimally edit this and try to get it out tomorrow if I can, so get this ahead of time.

Adam Clark: Well I appreciate that, and even if you miss it, and it’s closed, just shoot me an email, I really do want to help people. So it’s not about, “Oh you’ve missed it” I’m not saying you can still get in, but I’m just saying a lot of people just don’t ask, because I have done it, you don’t email someone because you just don’t think they’ll answer, I don’t know why, people just don’t ask.

I love when people email and I love when I can help. Whatever it is, people can always email me at adam@avclark.com or shoot me a tweet, I am @avclark on Twitter, I’m always happy to help and I hope this course becomes what I really wanted it to be three years ago, and I hope it helps people.

Brian Okken: I am going to wrap things up. I really appreciate you coming on the show and talking with me today.

Adam Clark: I thought you would say, “And talking my ear off today.” Thanks man. Like I said, I hadn’t been a part of this for years and I sent out an email and you responded like, “Hey, will you come to my show?” and I was like, “I thought everyone’s going to be pissed at me.”

Thanks for the invite, I appreciate, I love being on podcasts. I listened to a few episodes of your show, I really like it, I don’t know anything about Python I’m a frontend guy. But it’s a good show, I love dev shows.

Brian Okken: Thanks. There’s not enough, and that’s where I’m trying to get people to do more, there needs to be more.

Adam Clark: There should be a network, a podcast network that’s just dedicated to. developers, I mean people are probably familiar with what a podcast network is and I just thought, I just was thinking a network that was focused purely on devs and there can be frontend shows, backend shows, language-specific shows. That would be a great network. Someone listening should start that.

Brian Okken: Yeah, or one of us speaking should start that.

Adam Clark: I’m kind of getting out of dev to try to focus more on the podcasting side of things, but that would be great. I’m not a real developer anyway, I’m a Wordpress developer. I know some PHP but frontend is my specialty.

Brian Okken: Well, thanks a lot and good luck with everything. I can’t wait to see where this road goes.

Adam Clark: Yeah man, thanks for having me on, I really appreciate it.

Brian Okken: Bye, Adam.

Adam Clark: See you.