Podcasting – Tim Cavey

7 Lessons Learned in 2018

Looking back on a year of transformative experiences.

What follows is a look back at some of the key moments and experiences that taught me, shaped me, and propelled me forward in 2018.

Experience 1: A Breakthrough on Medium.

On January 7, 2018, I published 7 Keys to Winning the Morning on Medium. This was only my second piece on this platform, and the focus of the article was on my ideal weekday morning routine. Simple.

The post performed unbelievably well. To date, it’s received 3,800 views, 235 fans, a 55% read rate, and earned $192.

I was stunned.

For the first time in my life, my writing had actually earned significant engagement and even a monetary reward. Keep in mind that I’ve been writing sporadically for most of my adult life. Up to that point, most of those pieces had received little to no engagement.

Twenty years of crickets. And then this.

My Takeaway: More than anything, this experience put a wrecking ball to my writer’s imposter syndrome. It confirmed value in my writing, and cemented my resolve to write more often.

Experience 2: The Teachers on Fire Podcast.

On Saturday, March 24, 2018, I published my first episode of the Teachers on Fire podcast.

This came after months of dreaming and deliberation. It followed hours and hours spent listening to education thought leaders and amazing entrepreneurs like Pat Flynn, Gary Vaynerchuk, and John Lee Dumas. As I listened to their podcasts on my daily commute, I slowly started to believe that I could bring the same sort of value to the education space. Over spring break, that’s what I set out to do.

Truthfully, it was a rocky beginning, and my first recordings were technical nightmares. But I’ve kept with it, and since that day, I’ve slowly become a better podcaster. In May, I published 7 Things I’ve Learned from Podcasting, and my growth has continued since.

The mission of the Teachers on Fire podcast is to profile agents of growth and transformation in K-12 education. On my show, I interview education leaders from across North America and around the world. I ask these education leaders to share their highs and lows, their passions and goals, and the voices and resources that inspire their practice today.

Despite some difficult challenges and stressful moments, the podcast has been an incredibly rewarding experience. I now receive encouraging testimonials after every episode, and my listenership grows every week. Each guest stimulates my own thinking and practice, and I learn something from every conversation. There’s a lot to celebrate and a lot to look forward to.

My Takeaway: When it comes to trying something new, it’s not always the right move to wait until you have it all figured out. My first episodes were rough, and I had a ton of learning to do around equipment, applications, recording techniques, publishing, workflow, and promotion.

But I was taking action. I was experimenting, failing, improving, and learning. I refused to let fear of failure stop me. And that’s the takeaway that I want to pass on to my boys and students.

Experience 3: Five Weeks Away.

In July, I spent five weeks (Monday through Friday) studying at Vancouver Island University. I’m in the middle of a Master’s program there, and the program hosted some on-campus courses during those weeks. My MEdL will open all kinds of career opportunities for me, and it’s something I should have completed a decade ago.

The five weeks spent away from home were not easy. Yes, I love learning and love engagement, and I loved seeing more of my brother and his family (they graciously put me up in his home for the entire five weeks). The in-class learning was amazing and the collegial relationships were rich during these five weeks.

But it was tough to be separated from my family for this period. I missed my wife and stepsons a lot. And I missed our typical summer adventures of swimming, hiking, paddleboarding, and canoeing. Although we did our best to fit these activities in where we could throughout the summer, the reality was that the best weather weeks of the year were sacrificed in the name of my degree.

My Takeaway: When a partner and parent decides to pursue further education, the whole family sacrifices to make it happen. Count the cost before you build the tower.

Experience 4: A Mountaintop Moment

Sleeping bags set up on top of the Stawamus Chief

On Tuesday, August 14, I convinced my family to climb a local mountain and camp out overnight. The conditions weren’t perfect: forest fires throughout the region were obscuring the normally glorious views. But the timing was right, and with no end of fire haze in sight, we decided to go for it.

It turned out to be an absolute blast. Our boys conquered the climb like nobody’s business, leaving me and their mom far behind at times. Bugs and wildlife weren’t a factor, other than some friendly chipmunks in the morning. Even with heavy smoke in the air, the views at the top were majestic.

We had the mountain to ourselves for the whole evening. With boulders for beds and stars for our ceiling, we spent the night in sleeping bags, talking ourselves to sleep.

It was one of my favorite family memories of the year.

My Takeaway: In the busy seasons of life, make sure to carve out some mountaintop moments — the stuff of memories and stories for years to come. Although we all love our home time, nothing beats getting out of the house and enjoying screen-free adventures together. Don’t let the busy seasons keep you off the mountain.

Experience 5: A New School

In September, I took a new teaching position at a large school close to my home. This change came after eleven years spent at my previous school, a place that I had come to love and one where I had built many meaningful relationships.

The new position came with a few surprises. For one, I now teach more students and prepare lessons for more courses than ever before. Great teachers that I expected to partner with this year decided to serve with other schools instead. And of course with any new school comes new expectations, and in some cases, that means saying goodbye to freedoms that I’ve enjoyed for many years.

There’s a lot to celebrate in my new workplace, though. My school has a great reputation and a high commitment to excellence. The community is strong, progressive, missional, and enjoys solid parent support. Professional engagement around Twitter, YouTube, edublogs, and books is by far the strongest of any team I’ve ever served with. Administrators have been gracious, encouraging, and open-minded. My colleagues are positive, supportive, keen to improve their practice, and I already love them dearly. It’s a place where I can grow, thrive, and contribute.

A good friend once told me that he believes educators need a change in scenery every seven years or so. Work in a different environment, take on some new challenges, learn new curriculum. Whatever the change looks like, the key is to keep it fresh, to keep growing, learning, and evolving.

I agree. And that’s what’s happening here.

My Takeaway: Professional growth often requires professional change. Don’t get so comfortable in one environment that your own learning starts to stagnate. Sometimes keeping it real means moving on and redefining the journey.

Experience 6: Turning 40.

I finished my fourth decade in October. 40 years is obviously a pretty big milestone — one that gets a lot of attention in our culture.

My wife planned an amazing evening of celebration for it. We got an incredible deal on a very large suite in a 5-star hotel, and we partied with family, relatives, and friends from every corner and circle of my life. Best of all, two of my three out-of-town brothers were able to join me.

I don’t think of myself as a big one for celebrations. In the past, I’ve let my birthdays slip by without so much as a stir.

But my dear Filipina wife was having none of it this time. She made it a big deal, invited a ton of people, and I’m so glad she did.

It was an incredible evening shared with most of my favorite people on the planet. It was a night to soak up the love, and that’s exactly what I did.

My Takeaway: Like them or not, celebrations are an important part of the rhythm of life. Savor them when they come. Enjoy the milestones and practise gratefulness for the meaningful relationships you enjoy. Because people are the stuff of life.

Experience 7: Bracing for Impact.

In October, my family got braces. All four of us accepted the prospect of various bits of metal and plastic in our mouths for the next 1–2 years.

I’ve had a bad overbite my whole life, and my bottom teeth also have crowding issues that show up right at the centre of my smile.

Braces have been a long, long time in coming for me. With two robust health benefit plans now in the family, it was finally time to take action.

The first few days were horrible. The Invisalign braces weren’t painful as much as they were simply uncomfortable. My mouth had been invaded by foreign objects. It was harder to speak and snacking was suddenly awkward.

Since that first week, however, the experience has gotten a lot better. Strangely, I now look forward to putting the next new teeth trays in my mouth each week. The tension I feel on my teeth at the beginning of the week reminds me that my smile is incrementally improving.

My Takeaway: Besides giving me newfound empathy for all my middle school students with braces, my journey with braces is building character: patience, consistency, and perseverance. As I wear these things for the next year and a half, I can’t take days or chunks of hours off. These teeth have to stay with me through thick and thin, no matter what. The payoff doesn’t happen if I slack off.

2018: A Year of Transformative Experiences

A breakthrough on Medium. The Teachers on Fire podcast. Five weeks away. A mountaintop moment. A new school. Turning 40. Bracing for impact.

These are the events that shaped my 2018. Together, they transformed me as a person, an educator, and leader. There was some pain, but a whole lot of gain. I am not the same person I was a year ago.

Here’s to more growth and transformation in 2019.

7 Things I’ve Learned from Podcasting

photo-1485579149621-3123dd979885 — Photo Credit: Matt Bosford

I published my first podcast episode in March of 2018. It was a rocky beginning, but it followed months of dreaming, thinking, and deliberation. I was finally taking action, and it was an exciting start.

I’ve published new episodes every week since. In some ways it’s been more of a challenging experience than I would have ever imagined. But I’m learning, improving my craft, and enjoying the process.

Why start a podcast based on interviews with educators?

One reason I began the podcast was to address what I saw as a hole in the education podcast space. There are many education podcasts currently available, but few that I found personally stimulating. I just wasn’t finding many real stories of real educators working in the trenches, partnering with their students, sharing the ecstasy of victories and learning from the agony of defeats. These stories were hard to find, and they weren’t being told in compelling ways.

I was also interested to find out what other educators are reading, listening to, connecting with, and depending on in their classrooms. What voices and resources are inspiring great practice? I continue to believe that I can bring these stories and testimonials to the education world in a way that will invigorate educators and lead to improved learning outcomes.

K-12 education is at an incredible place right now. Within the last decade, professional learning and networking has absolutely exploded, thanks largely to social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Today’s teachers, administrators, and influencers now have incredible opportunities to plug into rich, real-time pipelines of best practices, ideas, and exemplars from schools across North America and around the world. I’m energized by the idea that I might be able to play a useful role in building these networks of learning.

Another reason that I began the podcast was the powerful motivation I took from entrepreneurship thought leaders like Gary Vaynerchuk, John Lee Dumas, and Pat Flynn. Months of listening to these three voices in particular (and several other great podcasts) convinced me of two foundational ideas.

It is still possible to create content of value and significance. It’s easy to feel that in the the din of noise and distraction we hear and see online, there’s no opportunity or reason to add your voice. But the truth is that we all have content to offer, content that can add value to the marketplace of ideas.
Audio is about to get a lot, lot bigger. Although podcasts have been around for about 15 years, they’ve only started to go mainstream in the last five or so. In addition, the confluence of smart home devices (Google Home, Amazon Echo), rapid improvements in voice-to-text smartphone technology (Siri, Bixby, Cortana), and a societal shift toward on-demand infotainment (Netflix, YouTube) are all pointing to exponential growth in podcasting and audio publications in the very near future. It’s a good time to get in.

What I knew at the start

I didn’t know much about podcasting in the beginning. My primary resource was the hundreds of hours I’d spent listening to podcasts over the last ten years. I knew what I liked, what worked well, and what didn’t. I also watched a few how-to tutorials on YouTube to get a sense of what went into good interviewing and podcasting.

I had recently heard of a new app called Anchor. Anchor is a free podcasting platform that allows you to record and publish audio content in a matter of minutes. Unbelievably, Anchor also distributes your content across most podcast distribution platforms, including iTunes — all for free. Anchor looked like a good place to begin my audio publishing career.

One thing I didn’t have was a lot of expensive equipment. I had an iPhone 8 with earbuds, a Surface Pro computer with Adobe Audition, and a low-end microphone called a Blue Snowball. That was it.

I could have waited around before launching to gain more proficiency and acquire more knowledge and better resources. But I was keenly aware that many creators never actually create because they get caught in overthinking the process. Paralysis by analysis. And so I decided to just do this thing and learn as I went.

7 things I’ve learned from podcasting

Embrace failures. Right from my very first episode, I’ve experienced more technical problems and glitches than I would have thought possible. At times, the Anchor app has crashed mid-interview, requiring me to reconnect with guests and ask them to repeat their last comments. Another phone-to-phone recording service has rendered in poor quality, and a laptop-to-laptop recording service has delivered inconsistent results as well. Every crash and recording glitch is discouraging and tempts me to pack it all in. But instead of quitting, I’ve learned to double down and stay the course.
Always learn the craft. When I began this journey, I didn’t know the first thing about Adobe Audition — audio software I’d long owned but never used. The controls seemed overwhelming, and I wasn’t even sure how to import my audio — let alone edit it. But little by little, I’m learning and improving. By trial, error, and YouTube tutorials, I’m gaining confidence and expertise every time I edit an episode. Although the challenges don’t always feel good in the moment, it’s gratifying to look back and see how far I’ve come.
Forgive yourself quickly. I’ve learned that after virtually every single interview, I’m going to have regrets. Why did I say that? Why didn’t I ask the guest this question? Why did I laugh so awkwardly? And on and on it goes. It’s important to recognize that regret and self-doubt can paralyze if we allow them to. I have to force myself to try to take something from my mistakes, shake them off, and move forward.
Twitter is incredibly powerful. Professionals of any sort stand to benefit enormously from plugging into a vibrant professional learning network, and to that end, Twitter is king. In my first eleven months on Twitter as @TeachersOnFire, I connected with over 1,100 educators across the United States, Canada, Asia, and elsewhere. Many of my interviews have come from those connections. And I’m just getting started.
Be content with incremental growth. Even though I get more listens and subscriptions to my podcast each week, growth is slow. I’ve learned not to expect the hockey stick curve and exponential growth rates that I experienced with my very first posts on Medium. And that’s okay. As long as growth continues, that means my ceiling is still an unknown quantity. And that’s motivation enough.
People are generous. I’ve been amazed by the willingness of other education professionals to partner with me to prepare for and give a great interview. My requests are almost never declined — all it takes is an honest, humble, and respectful ask. Part of that might be a credit to the network-ability of the education community, but I suspect it’s also a function of human nature. You’ve just got to put yourself out there and ask.
Real people and real stories make the best content. At the outset of the podcast, I had to choose between formats: monologue, interview, or a mix of both. It turns out that the interview format takes more work pre and post-production than one might think, but the content is exceptional. Guests offer a rich variety of experiences, perspectives, and suggestions — far more than I could possibly conjure up on my own. Best of all, every interview stimulates my own thinking and takes my learning in new directions. I’m directly benefiting from the process.

Podcasting hasn’t been all fun. Between contacting potential interviewees, scheduling and conducting interviews, editing audio, writing show notes, publishing, and promoting, each episode adds at least six hours a week for this little passion project — no small sacrifice.

But podcasting has been a fantastically positive journey. Every new episode and guest represents new things learned and a new relationship formed. I’m offering value to the education community and improving my own practice. Last but not least, I’m putting myself in uncomfortable spaces that force me to grow as a person.

And that’s reason enough to continue.