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Cultivating a Podcast. 10 Years Now. Still a Hoot and a Half.

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10 years of blogging and podcasting. Planting, fertilizing, growing, harvesting. Questions asked and answered about process, motivation, and future direction.

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Episode Notes

Prefer to read, experience impaired hearing or deafness?

Find FULL TRANSCRIPT at the end of the other show notes or download the printable transcript here

Contents with Time-Stamped Headings

to listen where you want to listen or read where you want to read (heading. time on podcast xx:xx. page # on the transcript)

Proem.. 1

Roots, stems, and branches 01:49. 1

Fertilizer 04:02. 1

Harvest 05:14. 2

Where, from here? Creative experimentation. 07:30. 2

Please comment and ask questions

Credits

Music by permission from Joey van Leeuwen, Drummer, Composer, Arranger

Web and Social Media Coach Kayla Nelson @lifeoflesion

The views and opinions presented in this podcast and publication are solely my responsibility and do not necessarily represent the views of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute®  (PCORI®), its Board of Governors or Methodology Committee. Danny van Leeuwen (Health Hats)

Sponsored by Abridge

Lechuga Fresca

Looney Tunes: That’s All Folks

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Inspired by and grateful to Jane Sarasohn Kahn, Eric Pinaud, Jody Buckingham, Steve Heatherington and all my podcasting peeps

Links

Health Hats YouTube trailers

Salmagundi Hat Shop in Boston

Healthcare is Hilarious hosted by Health Hats

Recommended podcasts

Alpaca Tribe This is the place for people who connect with alpacas, so I guess that means you. The Alpaca Tribe podcast shares conversations with people on their own alpaca journey, providing wisdom, insight and great stories about alpacas.

Healthcare Triage In partnership with the National Institutes of Health, we’ve launched a new series on the culture of science and reproducibility.

Healthcare is Hilarious Snark about healthcare – who can’t use some of THAT?

Hansel and Gretel Code Sussing out the meaning in fairy tales

Miss Panda Miss Panda Chinese makes learning Mandarin simple and playful for non-native and heritage learners from the very beginning!

Talaterra  speak earth to your neighbors. create a global impact.

A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs The title says it all

Enabled Disabled Created for people with disabilities, as well as their families, friends, clinicians and therapists.

Related podcasts

Best Health: Different lens, Different point of view

Best Spiritual Health, Dying

50 and 70. Connection and Age. Spiritual Strength.

About the Show

Welcome to Health Hats, learning on the journey toward best health. I am Danny van Leeuwen, a two-legged, old, cisgender, white man with privilege, living in a food oasis, who can afford many hats and knows a little about a lot of healthcare and a lot about very little. Most people wear hats one at a time, but I wear them all at once.  I’m the Rosetta Stone of Healthcare. We will listen and learn about what it takes to adjust to life’s realities in the awesome circus of healthcare.  Let’s make some sense of all this.

To subscribe go to https://health-hats.com/

Creative Commons Licensing

The material found on this website created by me is Open Source and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution. Anyone may use the material (written, audio, or video) freely at no charge.  Please cite the source as: ‘From Danny van Leeuwen, Health Hats. (including the link to my website). I welcome edits and improvements.  Please let me know. danny@health-hats.com. The material on this site created by others is theirs and use follows their guidelines.

The Show

Proem

A slew of questions about my podcasting process came across my channels after I published episode 171: 50 and 70. Connection and Age. Spiritual Strength. How big is your team? Do you use a service to recruit guests to interview?  Who does your editing? How many months do you take to produce an episode? Who project manages for you? Do you ever engage guest hosts? How long have you done this? How much do you make at it? Aren’t you bored after three years and 171 episodes? Why do you bother with music?  Isn’t that more work? You seem to experiment a lot. Where are you going next?

Roots, stems, and branches

Woah, those questions cover a lot of territory. Let’s start with the easy ones. My production team is me, myself, and I with assist from my social media, web coach, Kayla Nelson, in northern Minnesota, who is my everything help desk and creates the weekly trailers. I manage and complete production myself. I’ve never engaged a guest host, but I’m not opposed.  I have guest hosted for podcasting cronies, like Mighty Casey Quinlan, when she felt like crap and couldn’t produce her podcast, Healthcare is Hilarious. She would do the same for me and Kayla would help her.  We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. My first blog post was published on July 24, 2012, Best Health: Different lens, Different point of viewOMG, ten years ago today. I didn’t plan this timing. I’m grateful to Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, Eric Pinaud, Jody Buckingham, and my mom, Ruth for getting me started.  Jane gave me the idea and my name, Health Hats. Eric spent our family weekend on Cape Cod helping me set up WordPress.  Jody worked with me on my Web site. And my mom said she was the most important team member, a reader and critic. I published my first podcast episode Best Spiritual Health, Dying on November 18, 2018, about my son, Mike Funk. So, 173 podcasts and 538 episodes in total. Each episode takes from 15 to 50 hours to produce.  On mic (just me talking, like this episode) takes less time than interviews or compilations of segments.

Fertilizer

No, I’m not bored. I love doing it. All of it. I attribute the perseverance and longevity to my podcasting community and my readers and listeners and three overlapping international Mastermind Groups of podcasters and entrepreneurs.  One, hosted by the incomparable, Steve Heatherington, an alpaca shepherd (Alpaca Tribe podcast) in Wales meets weekly. We started learning to podcast together and still challenge each other to grow and experiment. I host a group every other week called, Reckoning. We critique each other’s work. Nothing like warm criticism to stay curious.  The third group, solo entrepreneurs managing varied businesses.  We discuss marketing, messaging, pricing, self-care, products, and services, and more. I couldn’t do it without you all and have this much fun. I’d be amiss not to mention my collaborating grandson who podcasts as well.

Harvest

Money. I won’t get rich.  My follower are few, but loyal and increasing.  I occasionally check downloads with a range of 50-300 a week with 140 subscribed readers. I cross post on LinkedIn, Medium Twitter, seven Facebook pages, and Instagram without knowing the volume there. I use video trailers on YouTube and increasingly post videos of the full episodes. I have 180 YouTube subscribers.  So, small potatoes. The way I like it.  Abridge has sponsored Health Hats, the podcast for three years and a handful of people send me money monthly and a few periodically. Thank you, thank you. I contribute to several podcasts in turn, Healthcare Triage, Healthcare is HilariousHansel and Gretel Code, Miss Panda, Talaterra, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs Enabled Disabled and more I can’t remember.  Share the wealth. I subscribe to several apps for editing, Descript and Auphonic.  I get my hats at Salmagundi in Boston. I don’t quite break even.

Now a word about our sponsor, ABRIDGE.

Use Abridge to record your doctor’s visit. Push the big pink button and record the conversation. Read the transcript or listen to clips when you get home. Check out the app at abridge.com or download it on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Record your health care conversations. Let me know how it went!” 

Where, from here? Creative experimentation.

I relish the creative outlet of podcasting. I love music, play music, listen to music, so, I use it in my podcast in any way I can. My cousin, Joey van Leeuwen produces most of the music I use. Sometimes I’ll use my own or the band I play with, Lechuga Fresca. I’m supremely confident professionally, not so much music. I’m progressing. I started another small infrequent Mastermind group about Sound Design. I have hours of recording from our recent Camino excursion. I’d like to do something with that, but I don’t feel the stories yet. One of the reasons I don’t consistently podcast weekly anymore is that I’m spending more time playing and I occupy myself with several other endeavors, and self-care takes longer these days. We’ll see where any of this goes.

Doo, doo, do doot, that’s all folks.  Happy tenth anniversary. Life is good

 

Danny van Leeuwen

Patient/Caregiver activist: learn on the journey toward best health

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