A Recovering Perfectionist in Me
“In the quest for perfection, we miss out on the most interesting bits” was this month’s mantra. As a recovering perfectionist, this mantra is one I think about with great frequency, probably greater frequency than I would like to admit. It certainly served as a much-needed mantra for me during this process of launching my new podcast “Phoenix Tales.”
It is still a bit of a head-scratcher that I have a podcast. I’m certainly not someone who got up one morning, stuck my finger into the air, and thought, “Aha, podcasts are where it is at, so let me do a podcast”. Instead, like much of my life, it was a long, circuitous, curious road that led to this point.
During the height of Covid Lockdown 2020, my marketing gurus thought I should do Instagram Live shows they wanted to call “Tea with Yuliana”. The purpose was to engage with my followers on Instagram by availing myself “live” and allowing them to ask me questions about whatever. When I say it was pure torture would be a mild understatement. Actually, I would probably have found picking lint off of my clothes more enjoyable than sitting in front of my phone, seeing myself on screen, and listening to my answers that didn’t sound completely unhinged and inane.
I believe I did three of them before I pulled the plug entirely. However, I knew why my team thought it was helpful. I also knew talking about myself was not going to be the format. Exactly a year from this August, I was thinking about this as I was on a paddleboard, which is apparently a great place to ponder big questions, even as you struggle to stay upright and not end up headlong into the cold waters of the Nantucket Sound.
The more I thought about it, I knew definitively that I didn’t want to talk about myself. Every therapist I have ever had my entire life has told me I am an introvert with extraordinary extrovert skills, AKA, as ambiverts. Hence, you can see why talking about myself required a ton of work and energy for me that leaves me sweating and feeling emotionally spent. It’s no surprise I am a writer, although it’s surprising I get up in front of strangers each day to teach yoga.
In spite of my severe ambivert tendency, I knew it would be easier for me to be “live” if I were able to talk to others, meaning I could ask other people questions. My husband always marveled at my ability to get the most intimate information from complete strangers, usually at cocktail parties. I attributed my ability to gather information from people to my natural curiosity, thereby finding it easier to ask questions than to answer them. I discovered this at a young age when I realized most people actually like talking about themselves unlike me. When I thought about who I would want to interview, I knew it would be women since every one of my women friends were not only interesting, smart, but they always displayed this incredible ability to overcome challenges, usually with surprising and sometimes utterly new reincarnations of themselves and their lives.
I talked about it with my team, who expressed a little enthusiasm since they couldn’t see how having other people talk about themselves would help my brand. I came up with the name Phoenix Tales based on the obvious Greek mythology, asked friends and coworkers, and then went live.
As much as I hated being on camera again, I enjoyed interviewing these incredible women about the challenges they have faced and the ways they have overcome them, always remaking their lives in a dramatic and sometimes surprising way. I believe I did 10 of them before I started to think that perhaps the “Instagram live” format wasn’t the right format. As a storyteller and avid listener of podcasts and anything on NPR, I have always loved the intimacy of listening to others. The auditory experience of storytelling is, I believe, sometimes the most revealing and beautiful way to experience a story, which is high praise coming from a complete bibliophile and writer.
I can still remember the reaction of my husband, who has wanted me to do a podcast for years, my son, who also wanted me to do something more like a podcast, and my marketing team when I ruminated out loud that perhaps I could turn Phoenix Tales into a podcast. Let me just say my marketing team’s reaction was much nicer and happier than my family’s, whose reaction was them slapping their foreheads and saying something like, “Jesus Christ, finally”.
When I say I had to learn on the job would be one way of describing it. Let me say there was a ton of google searches like, “How to start a podcast”, “What equipment is needed or a podcast”, “How to record a podcast”, and etc. I’m sure you can see a pattern here of complete and utter idiocy about the ins and outs of how one creates and releases a podcast.
Flash forward to almost a year since that day on the paddleboard and now the podcast is an actual living thing. I won’t bore you with the details of the number of editors who worked on it until I found my current Godsend group at Podigy. I will tell you I record my podcast in my closet, which for those who know about audio stuff tell me that is the best place in the house, something about the clothes muffling sound or helping to create a more clean recording.
The day the first episode was released, I downloaded the podcast onto my Apple podcast app. Then came the hard part of listening to the first episode without the Greek Chorus of Naysayers that live in my head not drowning out what was important… the gorgeous telling of an amazing story by my guest, Ginger McKnight Chavers. As the Greek Chorus interrupted my listening every so often with a call and response of; “That was a stupid way to phrase that question”, “Why do you sound like a 12-year-old”, “Did you hear that alert on someone’s phone”, ‘I think I heard myself breathe”, I thought about this mantra. Each and every time.
Once the din of the naysayers quieted down, I took a moment to take in what I had created, the circuitous journey to its creation, the ups and downs of the creation, and more importantly how much I enjoyed each moment of this imperfect story.