On Friday, I spoke to the group of teenagers that I mentor and gave each person a goal to complete during the month of June. The goals ranged from wearing a shirt and tie every week to saving $1,000. Each goal was meant to help them escape their comfort zones and equip them with skills that they can use in the future. After assigning goals, I asked if they had any goals they’d like to give me. Without missing a beat, one of the young men immediately raised his hand and responded, “Make more podcast episodes.” I didn’t like that answer AT ALL.
The podcast has been a challenge because recording my voice is uncomfortable and unfamiliar for me, as I mentioned in the first episode. Despite this, I pushed through the discomfort for the first six podcasts, talking about past experiences, personal failures, and an unexpected death. But then I stopped all episodes without notice because I figured that six weeks of podcasting was good enough. But now, all of a sudden, I was challenged to bring it back and make more episodes. I wanted to say no, but what kind of example would I be if I taught them to leave their comfort zones but chose to stay in mine? So, I accepted the uncomfortable challenge.
In this week’s episode, I recorded the entire podcast without any outline, show notes, brainstorming, or any other form of preparation to truly step outside of my comfort zone. I simply sat in front of the microphone and recorded every seemingly rambling thought that immediately came to mind on the topic of being uncomfortable. In the episode, I briefly spoke about the elephants at the circus that I visited on March 14, 2009, as captured in the photo above, and at the end of the episode, I turned my discomfort to the max as I tried to sing a little.
New episodes of the “Never Forget with Geremy” podcast on Wednesdays. You can subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or you can catch every episode here on Geremology.com.