450. The Curiosity Loop That Forces Listeners to Stay

0:04 Good morning podcasting morning chat. Today is Monday, February 9th, 2026, and today we're diving into our weekly binge worthy podcast discussion with the show Hyper Fixed. We're going to talk about why it's binge worthy and what we all can learn from it. Going to be a great show today. So if you're listening on Clubhouse, hit the share button left hand side of the screen and share hub or Clubhouse lights you. If you're catching this via podcast, please share this with a fellow podcaster. Now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things moving. Thanks for being here today.

1:22 Well, good morning again, podcasting, Morning Chat. Thank you so much for being here. I'm your host for today, Ralph Estep Junior, filling in for Mark Ronik and currently on stage. Joining me this morning are producer Ashley Feller, Jonathan Howard, producer Dr. Faye, Alex Baelish, Sid Meadows, Nick Naubach, BC Babbles and Tide Tutoring. So let's get this started. Today we're going to be talking about the show Hyper Fixed. So, Jonathan, I am going to let you lead the way, my friend. Welcome guys. So we're going to be talking about Hyper Fixed today in the Obsession Worthy podcast series and just to kind of kick off the series so everybody knows what this the purpose is. We generally do this once a week.

2:03 And the idea is that we're going to look at podcasts that are obsession worthy that are critically acclaimed or doing something right and try to pull out some of what they're doing right so that we can use it ourselves in our own podcast. So that's the series and today we are talking about Hyperfix. Now Hyperfix is an interesting concept. In the actual episode that I shared with you guys was actually a live episode. It had an interesting feel to it, although it did kind of mimic what their general feel is. It was just on the live side for this particular episode. And I actually have listened to a few and they follow a similar format, just this one happened to be live. What Hyperfix does is it turns a practical request from a listener into a story where there's a shift in the way people think and the way that things are happening, and maybe an identity shift the listener can submit. Can you help me with this?

3:00 And then the host treats it like a mystery, follows a thread, and really kind of lands on this real world friction. It's a bigger take than the original ask. So it is definitely an interesting concept. This particular 1 is about a mom and his son, and we'll kind of dive into that a little bit. Overall, the genre is like investigative help desk meets emotional story, and the promise is that they'll fix something and probably crack something else open along the way. So this first clip kind of sets up the episode and clearly sets the stakes, explains why the whole episode matters, and Tees up an emotional payoff before we even are introduced to the players.

3:46 So, Ralph, if you want to hit that first clip. Last week, Hyperfix performed our first live story at On Air Fest in Brooklyn, and in most cases, if we did a live version of a show, we'd probably re record the entire thing for broadcast. But in this case, the live aspect was simply not replicable in the studio. So we wanted to play you the story as it was performed at On Air Fest. It's a story about regret, fear, and ultimately the courage it takes to just try. Here's the story. Like you said, we haven't even met the players yet. And this is kind of establishing one of the most important things about this podcast, which is the narrator, Alex, the host of the show actually is a huge part of the putting together the stories and making it actually feel like a complete story. Like things are like interesting. She does a really good job keeping succinctly intro, but it also adds emotion and actually already gets us invested in what may happen because he pretty much states what the story is about and is setting us up for a story based on, you know, fear and doing things that are hard to do and all that. So right off the bat, you feel the emotional connection to the particular story.

5:06 In the next clip, we're going to meet the man who brings the problem and you know the thing that needs to be fixed. And we're going to really also see in this clip the unique pacing and setup of the show. Jonathan, I just want to interject one thing here because I don't want to lose sight of this in that first clip. What we're really hearing though is Alex is setting the stage for what this is going to be. And I think he did a really good job of that. Did anyone else want to comment on that? Because I had never listened to this before. And once I got past the first so many minutes of of commercials, which was frustrating to me. And we kind of talked to him about that in a pre chat. But I thought he did a good job of explaining exactly why we're here and what we're going to get from that. What what did you think, Jonathan? Do you feel the same way?

5:47 Absolutely. And I think that that his role as a narrator and kind of storyteller throughout this podcast, he does an excellent job really keeping this distinct and us on task and like knowing what's happening and where we are in each part of the story. I thought he did a phenomenal job with that. I also thought he did a good job of setting the stage for it being a live event, so we weren't so critical about the audio sound, which I thought was really important as well. Yes. And the audio, because it was a lot of that, the audio was a little bit rougher than some of the other episodes, but yeah, all. Right. Well, let me go ahead and play the second clip if you're ready, Jonathan, We'll move on to the second clip. OK. So I have my my camera set up on a bunch of VHS tapes right now and I'm going to use those.

6:33 To hold this thing. Up the whole. Perfect. Why do you have a bunch of VHS tapes? Because I'm a giant nerd. This is Keenan. He's a Toronto native, and if he is a nerd, he is the very best kind of nerd. He is a media nerd, and not just the kind that obsesses over stats and trivia. Keenan is the kind of nerd that attends as much to the social world of the art as the art itself. He spent years working in record stores, concert venues, He has an insane collection of physical media. But there's one artist whose work continues to evade him, and that artist is his mother, Megan. What is your relationship with your mom like? Like, do you, are you guys pretty candid with one another? Do you have an easy relationship? Is it difficult?

7:17 Is it weird? Like what do you what? What kind of relationship do you have? I would say it's all of those things. That's totally fair. Yeah, I, I, I love my mom to bets. She's been a very emotionally honest. This clip, we get to meet who the person is that's bringing the the thing and we also get to learn that it's also involving his mother. Plus we see the unique format which the podcast has the narration. Then, you know, a sort of an interview segment to there's some explanation points and a few just quick excerpts for impact. But what this really does is it maintains the pace of the episode throughout, moving us forward to the next key moment with interesting dialogue. Interesting commentary as we go through it. We cover a lot of ground in the story. There is never a moment that it feels like it's dragging. And I think that the host did a really, really great job with that.

8:13 And I wonder if anybody else? Yeah, Jonathan, the thing I will say here that really impressed me was, yeah, I like what Ashley put in the comments. I thought once they got past the ads, the flow was great. I agree with Ashley. And actually the thing I thought was really cool here is when he introduced the first person, you kind of want to know more about this person, that idea of the VHS tapes. We we got a he's painting a mental picture and then he's thinking about the tension going on with his mom and things like that. And just it was instant way for me to relate. I can think back to when, because I'm 53, the VHS tapes isn't that foreign to me. So it, it really connected with me and I'm, I'm guessing he knows who his audience is and he's doing the same thing. I would agree with that. And I, yeah, I immediately, the camera balancing on the VHS tapes, I, I also immediately pictured a media nerd with, you know, even microfilm and all sorts of things like that that were just how media was kind of collected. So I thought that was a great way to really bring that together.

9:12 Nick wanted to make a comment. Go ahead, Nick. I really like and I've always been fascinated by narrative style podcast with the way that he's able to so seamlessly blend narration with interaction with the guest. It's such a unique way to do a podcast that you don't normally see. But also I understand that it's also not the easiest thing to do. And I just wanted to make that comment. I appreciate that style of podcasting so much and just it's, it's impressive to me. I tend to agree with you, Nick. That's where he really shines because so many people start. But let's me get, let me give the person the the rundown, who this person is and all that sort of thing.

9:52 But he did it in such a way, sort of like a tapestry of just wave, sort of weaving it together and it was really effective. I have to agree with you, Nick. Did anybody else want to comment on that? I agree, Nick. And I think one of the things that we can take away from this, and I was going to mention this a little bit later, but I want to mention it now, is when we do our intros, instead of giving that whole long here, this is this person and they do this and they do that and just creating a story around it. So it gets passed in the flow actually goes much smoother in your podcast where you actually are at contributing to the story while introducing the person. And I think that's important for us to kind of look at as well. We're going to dive a little bit more into the story. We're going to get to meet Megan, who is going to talk about an opportunity that she she was hoping to be getting to record some songs for Katie Lang.

10:40 They might be things that Katie Lang might be interested in performing. And then what happened with that led her to change her career and go about things a different way. And leave music behind for about 40 whole years. That's the next clip. Fun thing that Megan has been reluctant to talk about her young dreams of being a songwriter over the years. Keenan's heard the story in bits and pieces, but the broad strokes of it goes something like this. In the early 80s, Megan was a waitress at Second City in Toronto, and she was writing songs. A friend of hers, Second City's house piano player, said, Hey, I have this friend. She's a singer-songwriter. I guarantee she would love to perform your songs. Her name's Katie Lang.

11:23 Let's record some songs. You can give her your tape. I'll put in a good word for you. And unfortunately, that good word may have been put in, but Katie never called her back. And that was kind of the decision. That was the moment when she decided to give up music. And that was something that her son remembered very clearly because it was something that she never talked about where they're they were comfortable and they talked about a lot of other things. That was something that she never talked about with her son and she actually kind of closed it off and she went in a different direction in her career. She actually went into some TV film stuff and was on sets with things, but she never went back to her music. And that's where a lot of the tension for the rest of this episode is kind of built up.

12:11 She tried to push this whole thing behind her out of her life and didn't talk to her son about it. So the plan unfolds throughout the episode of them maybe going back and hearing or maybe going back and letting them see the recordings that she did because she hasn't listened to them. She apparently has Monica cassette tape somewhere and we're going to follow the process throughout this whole journey. Now this is one thing that we really see as we're going is the excitement and the story of this whole thing is where we go from here. Whether we convince her to actually do this. That is a lot of the the process is that story of whether she's doing it. Is she going to do it till we get to she decides that she's going to do it and she says she's going to let us hear the songs, but she's not going to sing them. That kind of brings us to where it's live. We're going to get to hear her song in this podcast. But I did want to stop and talk a little bit about kind of why clips one through 3 work for this podcast, but I want to see if anybody else has anything they want to add before I go into that.

13:22 Yeah, I think this really does build A level of tension and wade into this. You've, you're invested in this now you want to hear how this plays out. And I, I think we all can take away from that if we learn from that, to do that in our production as well as set the table at the front end, get people invested in what you're doing. Don't jump right to the the end of the story. Sort of put something out there, a runway if you will, to, to lead people to build up that tension and build up that way because then you, you just want to keep listening. The first couple clips really help us build build that problem out. He shows what Alex was approached with, with the basic thing, with the tape, and then there's a deeper problem. The host reframes that deeper problem and kind of plays into that and starts digging a little bit and then following these clips, what we previously had called the messy middle, at least the last two weeks here. I kind of call it process as the story, but you hear the attempts, logistics, the near misses, the coordination. It's not a recap, it's the experience of the journey for them.

14:26 But what I was wondering is why does this concept of the messy middle or the journey or the process, why does this keep coming up as the key to a lot of these podcasts, Ashley. Because in any story you have to have a rising action to have a story, it has to do something. There has to be some sort of challenge for the protagonist to face in order to have a resolution. Absolutely. And what is really important about a lot of this is the messy middle. That's the relatable stuff. Nobody can relate with the perfection and the, you know, everything going according to plan.

15:08 So the things that go a little bit are a little bit messy. That's what's relatable. That's what people connect with and that's why so many podcasts are focusing on those things when they're telling the story of of something happening, the telling the story of a business rising, telling the story of, you know, this particular experience with Megan discovering her music. Again, what is relatable is what people are going to connect with. So that's why so many podcasts are focusing on those things that are, you know, don't go quite according to plan. But you also have to, at this time, Jonathan, really understand who you're speaking to because you want to make sure you bring in things that will connect with your audience. If you're talking to a younger audience, a lot of the things that they're talking about here might not connect with the younger audience. But I'm picturing these people of the 80s and people who understand the cassette tapes and the VHS tapes and a journey because you're talking about somebody that set something aside for, I think you said 40 years. You kind of really understand who's listening to this and how do you build that story to connect the things in their life they'll associate with?

16:09 Yes, absolutely. And the other thing that comes into that is you also have to be aware of the emotions that you're connecting so that you're connecting with a universal emotion that people are going to going to understand. Now, yes, in this case, because the audience is older, you're connecting with, you know, leaving something behind, coming back to it, that yearning to do something and then suddenly no longer doing it or missing out on something in your life. So all those, but those emotional connections are really, really important when you're telling the stories as well. One of the things that I've always struggled with when it comes to more storytelling kinds of like creative is not losing the people in that messy middle.

16:52 I understand what I'm trying to get to, but I feel like a lot of times that is also the same point that I would typically lose people is like I'm almost trying to trying too hard to make the story that people just become uninterested and like you kind of lose people before you even get to like the main plot or the resolution. We've had Dominic come on and talk storytelling here in the past, but I would love to have him come back on and kind of talk through that creative writing of building that story, Like the process of actually putting together the pieces that create the overall story. Just because it's, it's such a powerful tool that as a podcaster, if you can harness that and you can utilize that, it can serve you so well and you're going to captivate audiences. And I just think, at least for me, I can't speak for everyone here, but capturing that specifically is extremely difficult for you to wrap my head around. And Nick, I wanted to interject something there because one of the things you really keyed in on is we talk a lot about AI on the show.

17:57 This is something that AI will never be able to do. So if you're listening right now, you're thinking all these AI things scare me. The AI is going to take over everything. The stories that all of us have within inside of us, the years of the things that we've been through, AI can never recreate those. So this is a place where you can really lean into your experience. And Nick, I understand what you're balancing. You're thinking, how do I get through that messy middle? Because what seems interesting to me might not be interesting to the other person. And that's where, again, I go back to understanding your audience and just leaning into your emotions, leaning into your feelings, because I think at some level everybody can connect with those. That's my take away from that. Nick is, yeah, I think that's I think that's the beauty of this is the good narrators, the good storytellers are able to lean into that emotion and those feelings and they paint a picture for you. And like I said, my big take away from that is as we think about AIAI will never be able to do that. So that's one of the things that we can really put our efforts into.

18:55 Go ahead. DRS, you had a comment. I know that AI could never do that. However, when you talk about someone's life and them writing down. Stuff. All about their life. It's hard to know where to begin. It's just too big. And what AI can do is give you some prompts for maybe to tap that memory, maybe to give you a place to start by asking you questions. So I think AI would be helpful in this manner. That's very fair. DRI agree with you. I I'm just saying it can't bring the story, but I think you're right. I think it can help bring that story to life. It can poke you and prod you and ask you the question.

19:37 So I that's a brilliant observation. DRI didn't mean to overspeak when I said AAI can't help you at all. But I just think that the finding of the story, that's the hard part. That's where AI can ever replicate. But I do agree with you that this is a place where AI can help you assemble those thoughts. And Nick, maybe it helps set that process that you were working through of how to get that story into a shape of how to make it interact well with the listener. So great observation, Dr. I'm going to also add and actually later on in the in our rundown of this, I will share a story format, a story formula that you can use, but there are any number I share with my my clients. I have 12 different story formats that we can use in our in our content that will help can help you build a story that's going to connect with your audience.

20:26 So I'm going to share the story format that they use here, which again, you can kind of use in your content, mimic it in in a way that's going to help you really tell a story that's going to land with people. Because stories can be difficult to tell. But there are a lot of different formats that you can use that will make it easier for you to tell those stories. Jonathan, you mentioned what you do, and I know Mark always likes to to mention this. If you want to learn more about the people here here on stage, you can find out about all of us by going to podcasting, morning chat and then go to the about section. Jonathan mentioned what he does and all of us do other things. And if you want to find out more about all of us here on stage, you can go again to podcast morning chat and then go to the About section. Sorry to interrupt you, Jonathan, but I thought we should talk about that for a moment. Not a problem.

21:14 So I appreciate that. And anything else on the this kind of the first setup, we're kind of covering the whole setup of it. We're going to jump into kind of the ending a little bit. We're going to skip all the good parts in the middle. Ashley, go ahead. I just thought the moment they introduced the mom that really helped carry the story along. They didn't have to include real audio clips from her at all. They could have gone on, told the story, you know, second hand, but really bringing her voice, her personality to the whole thing is really what did it. And I have to say, she was a really engaging character and I think the ending would not have landed as hard as it did if it wasn't for her being introduced earlier on. But she was a trip.

22:01 I actually really enjoyed her. This next clip actually starts with one of the tools that helps with the pacing of the show. Why don't we hit that 4th clip, Ralph? Chapter 599 Stones OK, so we spoken to Megan. She's told us she wants to do this and that when she gets back to Halifax on Tuesday, she's going to send over the sheet music and the cassette and all of this is great. We say goodbye, we hang up the call, and then all we can do is wait and pray that at some point between now and then, Megan doesn't change her mind. Because if she does, we have no backup plan for this live show and no time to figure out an alternative. And if you think I'm simply I'm mentioning this simply for the sake of ramping up narrative tension, one, you're right. 2 Let me remind you, this woman has not let anyone hear her music in nearly 4 decades, including her son. And now we're expecting her to turn over the only recordings via snail mail to a bald stranger whose end game is to share it with the world.

23:07 So Needless to say, I did not sleep well on Monday of last week. The actual work is this, the content and the things that are happening, and those are the things that support the story and the transformation. The other thing that this episode does to build this emotion, this tension, this impact is it has these constraints like the chapters. Now I know because I listened to the whole podcast, I didn't take out just clips for myself that there's six parts to this story, but this one, this right here started with part 5. So I immediately and then listeners immediately thought, oh, wow, there's still a lot. Where are we with this? Are they actually going to be able to get it done? And that's something called the curiosity loop. That is a huge payoff for people listening. And it actually got people to lean in because chapter 5 O 6, we haven't really gotten anywhere yet. Are they going to be able to pull this off? Will they be able to actually get her to share the music, all of these things.

24:10 So the listener leans in when they hear that we're at five O 6 and really wants to know. So that's kind of a really great tool, but also something that curiosity loop, something to keep in mind when you're creating your own content, because that will help you bring the the listener, the reader, whoever, however you're presenting your story, that'll allow you to bring them into it and get them to lean in. Jonathan, I will add something there because here's one critique. If we're going to critique this, I thought that if they had landed that sooner to build up that our issue going to show up. Is this going to work? I think they could have gone back and made it even more dynamic by doing that earlier. And you know, what I'm saying is like just put a little bit sooner in the episode.

24:54 And that's one of the things as we're planning our episodes, the curiosity loop is massive because at this point, dude, unless I get hit by a bus, I'm listening to the end of this because I want to continue on because I don't want to miss it. And if we can build that into the creative work that we're doing, that's how you keep that retention rate up. That's how you keep people coming back to listen to you more. But it's so important that your strategic and your intentional in that. In this particular, because this was the the redo of the live, I think that the pacing on this one was a little bit off. They just moving through it, but it was it did take a while to get to where we finally know that it's going to happen. But I also think for the live, he was putting that off because he wanted to take a lot of his session and not not allow the audience to know this was going to happen because if he left a ton of time for it, then they'd know.

25:48 Oh yeah, there's no tension in the story. This happened, it worked, it's fine. I think with the delivery of it being that it was live, it makes sense that it was a little bit later, but absolutely would have been nicer in an online version to have it a little bit sooner. But before we dive into the takeaways, let's jump into what makes it truly obsession worthy. And it's kind of the end of the episode and what happened that kind of makes this episode magic. So that's the next clip, Ralph, Alex, you convinced me I was like, this is not happening. Like it's a it's a lot. And I am blessed and the love of my son who remembered and kept the memory of my music and remembered because I forgot it was in a box in the basement that I spent 4 hours looking for.

26:36 And it's been quite an experience. You know that core 23 year old that wrote it so many years ago. So what has inspired me is I'm going to go buy myself a keyboard and get back to my music because I'd love to play the piano, but the music is still in me. Yes, Ashley, a very satisfying ending and truly and I I'm sorry I didn't play any of the music for you guys, but it was the nice song overall, just a really great ending. And that's part of the magic of this podcast is the ending is not only satisfying, but touching and interesting.

27:17 And go ahead, Ashley. I just wanted to say the ending literally brought tears to my eyes. I was watching washing the dishes as I was listening and to hear her say I'm going to go get a keyboard, that really just didn't move me. Yeah, it was she. She'd given up on music as part of being part of her life for 40 years. And this was truly a moment that was touching. And there's a follow up to this episode, which I didn't include for you guys, but people sent her money for a keyboard. People were sending her, you know, listening, asking for her other songs. So it was a really touching moment that actually touched everybody that was in the live as well as, you know, listening.

28:01 Well, Jonas, so do you want to talk about the journey, like how do we replicate what they did here? I know you mentioned a few minutes ago that you had sort of a a plan for that. Do you want to go move into that? I just wanted to point out before we head into that, that the host is really the glue to this show. He keeps the show together and he kind of positions himself as an overconfident idiot in a lot of the information that they're putting out, but he's still a legit reporter and producer. So that combo kind of makes the show feel smart without being smug, and his overall humanness really helps us go through the process. Like you're doing it with a friend and you're rooting for his success. Overall, there's a few things that make this episode particularly obsession worthy, but one of them is the format that builds on itself.

28:46 So it starts with a curiosity loop. So will they pull off this journey, this thing that they're wanting to do? And curiosity always keeps people hooked. So you're going to start with something that's going to keep people hooked. Overconfident idiot. I know I do love that. And then it leverages and it sits on that escalation. Each step raises an emotional stake, so you pull deeper and deeper into the story. So by adding that escalation each step of the way, you're not letting go because you're watching as the work is happening, which is building the emotion. So you're earning the emotion right along with the people on the story. And then when you end it with the identity shift, that's what really sticks. That's the wow, look at the impact of this journey. So curiosity loop, escalation, earned emotions because you're going to be building with them and you got to make sure you're you're highlighting a key emotion. And then the identity shifts at the end. That's the format that this podcast uses to build on and uses in all of its episodes.

29:52 Ashley, I saw you had thrown a pepper there. That one was a pepper. Yep, I have a pepper. You're a pepper. I thought that another thing that really made this podcast obsession where there was the sound design you get to hear because she says, you know, I don't want to perform it myself. I don't sing anymore. So they actually get the host of another podcast, Benchtopia. She's the one who gets the to perform the song. So you get to hear her version and then at the end, if you listen, you hear the original tape. And from what I, I understand, I hope I didn't misunderstand this, is that it was originally a reel to reel tape and they had to clean it up and digitize it. So you got to hear a more digital version that had been cleaned up in the end.

30:34 And that, I thought that was just icing on the cake. You were correct. It was a reel to reel and that was actually the original problem that Alex came. He wanted to be able to transfer that reel to reel to an actual digital version so that they could hear it. And that was the original problem which led to actually getting, you know, mom to accept that she had stepped away from her music and and having that conversation about it. Jonathan, let me ask a question because this is something that I really want to do a better job of and I'm sure there's other people that are tuning into this. Maybe you're listening to us after a live event. How do you build that curiosity loop? Because man, I listen to that. I'm like, that's what I need to do. Jonathan, how do you make that happen? What's how do you set that out?

31:18 Would you write it down on paper? Do you draw it out sort of a schematic? But how do you actually make that happen? For some of us who aren't as creative, maybe we're really good at our trade. Like for me, I've spent 30 years in in finance and accounting and tax. I'm good at that stuff, man. But when it comes to like content creation, that idea of a curiosity loop, logically it makes sense to us. But how do we get to that? Jonathan, do you have any tips for that? One, yes, knowing your audience, first of all, when you create this curiosity loop or this curiosity gap, a lot of times by having a difference in the information that your average person knows and you're going to provide something that's going to tease that at the beginning, and then you're slowly going to reveal the what they don't know throughout the episode.

32:08 So that's that's the basic format of something like that. So knowing what your audience knows and then kind of teasing something that's a little bit past what their knowledge base is and that's going to help you create that that curiosity loop. It's it is what keeps people listening is knowing that they're going to learn something, get to know something, something that they don't know yet. So that's how you kind of build that in. And Jonathan, what you're really saying, if I can paraphrase that, is you've got to be super intentional in building your episodes because what I'm thinking now, it's not the time to go stand in front or sit in front of the microphone and just come off the top of your head with stuff.

32:50 There's a place for that. But what you're really talking about here is sort of starting with the end in mind. You're picturing the journey that you want this person to take, and it's sort of like you're laying out a map or an agenda of how to get there. And I think for a lot of us, we think, oh, we'll just take a couple of notes, a couple bullet points, and there's our show for today. But Jonathan, what you're really saying is to be remarkable and to really do this effectively, there's a whole lot of intent, intention, maybe even more intention in the creation of the story and creation of a building this platform that you're going to build than actually doing the work of, of recording it or whatever that looks like for you. Would you agree with that, Jonathan? I would agree with that. And one of the things that I will say is often when we are doing our other evaluations, one of the things that bugs me is that many of the episodes don't have what I would say is a strong hook.

33:41 Because that strong hook is what the curiosity gap is kind of about. And when you don't have a strong hook, it's like, why am I listening to this? What is the purpose behind this? And that's what the curiosity gap and, and you know, what you're talking about actually does is it allows people to see why they're listening. As humans, we have this psychological need to solve a puzzle or complete a story or get something out of what we're doing. And when we build that in right from the beginning, it keeps people listening much, much more. And Jonathan, I think you just nailed it. A big take away for today is ask yourself, what does the listener get from this? When you're putting your episode together, when you're putting your content together, ask yourself that question.

34:22 If you can't answer that question, I think you've got to go back and revisit your plan for that episode, your plan for that content, whatever you're going to do. Ask yourself that question. And that may be difficult, especially when you're at the beginning of this, because now you just made me go back and I'm, I'm getting ready to do some recording today. I do some batch recording on Mondays. And I'm thinking, man, I got to go back and revisit this before I hit record because I want to make sure that I am giving them something they can take away from. I think that is crucial. Jonathan, you just nailed it. Thank you Ashley, I think you you explained it really well in the chat if you want to share. I think we kind of said the same thing, but in a little bit of different ways. But when you think about a delicious meal, it's an experience.

35:03 Do you want to eat that all in one bite, or do you want to have a little at a time and really enjoy it? And that's how I think of storytelling is you don't want to give them the whole thing all in one chunk. You want to give them a little at a time so that they experience the journey along with you. I love what you just said, Ashley, and use the food analogy. My wife and I were out to dinner this past weekend and we went to a particular restaurant and I think this was a very keen thing they did. As they were telling us about the menu. One of the things they mentioned is, and don't forget to leave room for dessert. We've got such and such a dessert. In this particular case, it was a bananas foster that they did tableside and it's one of my favorites, but they set that at the beginning.

35:44 So now the whole time I'm thinking about dessert all through dinner, I'm not trying to rush through dinner. I'm kind of a little bit trying to rush through dinner, but I'm making better choices because I make sure I want to get to that dessert. And is that kind of what you're seeing here, Ashley? Is set up your content the same way? Yeah, kind of let them know what's coming, but not exactly. And then I'm glad. Back to the food analogy, you can have good meals that are a single course if you will, but great meals are served over several courses I'd say. Jonathan, I have a question for you in general, because I know you do this every Monday as you start to think about what are the contents or what are the pieces that you look for in a binge worthy podcast? Because there may be people who are tuning into us that have, hey, you know what I'd like to I'd like to let Jonathan know about this particular 1, Jonathan, But I thought this would be a good time to talk about what do you look for?

36:33 What are the things that your big takeaways? Because one of the things we talked about before we started recording today was this. This episode had so many commercials at the front end. And you said before that that's sort of the way they do things. And I know for me that's a turn off, Jonathan. But what do you look for in a binge worthy something you want to talk about on the show? Well, one, it's generally critically acclaimed in some way or another because I'm looking for the things that people are doing that are doing well. I'm looking for something that has a solid storyline and a solid message in it generally. But honestly, it's hard because I've listened to plenty of obsession worthy podcasts that are recommended to me that I don't find that the takeaways. And sometimes like there's a bunch of episodes of different things that I've wanted to share, but they're not obsession worthy in the same in an in a different way than a lot of the ones we've looked at.

37:28 So I kind of shy away from those. So it really does depend, but I'm looking for a unique perspective, a unique angle on a podcast, a different way of looking at things and something that obviously is going to land with people. I can't tell you that you know, you send one to me and I can't tell you without listening to like 3 episodes of it if it's going to if I feel it's obsession worthy or not because sometimes the first episode misses for me as well. So I'll give it a couple other chances. I love what you just said there because you may hear someone recommend a show and you go listen to only one episode. You're like, what in the world? Why did they recommend this to me? I love what you just said because you said sometimes because I think as content creators, we don't hit home runs every single time. We just have to accept that we don't. So I think it's cool, Jonathan, that you said, I'll go back to listen to three episodes.

38:18 So I I think all of us should do that if someone recommends a show to you. And I think we really do need to support each other in the community, things like that. But go listen to Not Just one, because if you just take a smidgen of one, like if I had listened to this one today just by itself and it's live, I'm not in love with the audio quality. It was kind of wonky to me as far as the audio quality, I got through it. It wasn't, it wasn't unlistenable, But if I had just made my whole decision based on that one episode, I might not have gone back to others. But now after listening to today, I'm always looking for a good show to add to what I listen to in the morning and things like that. So I just think that's awesome what you said there, Jonathan. We did the Tonya Harding one for it was you were wrong about and that Tonya Harding one was the 3rd one that I listened to before I decided, you know what, I get this, I get this format, I get what they're doing here and there's things that we can learn from it.

39:11 There's a couple that I've got in the queue that maybe we'll get to, but I think they're going to be. Some people aren't going to enjoy them as much, but there's things that we can take away from them as well. I just wanted to say one more thing before we got started today. And Jonathan, I hope you don't mind me saying this. Sid wanted to talk a little bit about what's really going on today. Everybody who tuned into the Super Bowl yesterday, I know Sid wanted to talk about some of the commercials. Does everybody, is everyone on board to sort of have a little bit of a debriefing about that? Is that cool with you, Jonathan? Can I give one lesson? Before we absolutely don't want to Step on your toes there, Jonathan. No problem. One thing that I think is really important with this is they made the audience care about the outcome by making the outcome human.

39:52 So it's proof that you don't need a huge topic, you just need a human connection, a clear problem, real fiction, and a host who's going to be willing to follow that thread until it hits on that human aspect. The point is the shift and the and the change in the human that's involved in the story for each of these episodes. So just wanted to share that and yes, let's. And you're talking what you're really talking about there, because I don't want to over gloss what you just said because I think that's important. You're talking about the journey, right? I mean, that's the thing that all of us need to lean into in our content is what is the journey? Because you're going to tell the story about the journey, but you also want the person who's tuning in and listening to your content to take part in that journey as well. Jonathan, is that what you're really getting at?

40:34 Yeah, take part in the journey and don't worry about a tidy resolution. Worry about the journey and the impact that that journey has on the listener. And that's huge. We can. That's a huge take away, Jonathan, because sometimes we get so focused on the end that we don't think about what we went through to get there. And that's it sort of goes back to what Nick was saying and he was thinking about how do I build this story? That's the part that matters. It's the scars you got going through it. It's the lessons that you learn going through it. It's not necessarily what happens at the end. It's the journey you go through. It's the journey that makes you who you are. And that's what people love to hear. They like to hear about the failures that you had along the way, the triumphs you had, the days that you just felt like quitting, the days you're like, I can't do this anymore. That is what makes something worthy to listen to because you're going to connect with people there because guess what? Everybody has those same frustrations. Everybody has those stubbed your toe moments. The things, the times when they wanted to give up. Those are the things which will bring out a humanity in your work that people will continue to come back to you. Because the truth is, the other thing Jonathan was getting to is these are people that want you to come back to listen to things.

41:43 You're building a relationship with that person and you have to understand that journey as you're going through that. The meaning meaning of life is the journey. It will. So if everybody has moved on past that, I'm going to let Sid take the stage. Sid asked that we could talk about some of the Obsession Worthy commercials from yesterday. I don't know if you're allowed to use the term. So I'm going to say of the big game. So Sid, go ahead. If you've got a comment to make or you want to talk about that, you've got the floor, my friend. I think it's funny you called them obsession worthy. I will say the one that really like caught my attention, I wish Nick were here was Claude's shout out to or they're pointing the finger at ChatGPT over ads in AII was like, oh, that's a shot across the bow. Like I thought that was fun.

42:28 But I think that for me, the top 2, I love the Dunkin' Donuts. I thought that was really great. And then the Bud Light one with the wedding where they chase the keg of Beard down the hill, I thought was really fun, too. Yeah, of course. Budweiser always does a great job. The horse and the eagle. I had seen that one on TikTok before it actually launched. But what does everybody think about the commercials? Did you have a favorite? I'm going to talk about the AI one because I thought it was interesting because I kind of, I knew a little bit about it ahead of time because I saw some preview of that. And the thing that I thought was interesting is, man, that you're right about throwing down the gauntlet, dude. But the other thing it did to me was kind of reinforced that staleness and that sort of very rigid feeling of AI.

43:11 And I don't know that that's what Claude intended, but that's kind of how it came across. Did you feel the same way? Said you. Know that you say that I do you think I picked that up with it? I didn't realize that at the time and honestly, the whole thing would have been lost on me had we not talked about the fact that ChatGPT was putting ads inside their platform. I would not have understood it. So just the fact that I because I haven't seen any of the ads in my ChatGPT, if I if they're there, I'm not noticing them. So that whole ad would have been lost on me. Yeah, I agree. And I wonder how many people who didn't tune into the podcasting morning chat, it got lost on them because honestly, that first one they did because I watched the whole thing. The first one that I didn't make the connection with the ads so much.

43:54 What my connection was was boy chat. This this AI sounds like a robot and why am I talking to a robot? So said, I think that's the problem with that particular ad. I think they reinforced it. I don't know exactly how many there were. I think they reinforced it in the second one and the third one. But the first one is kind of, I don't know that they made that connection, but what does everyone else think? What? Did anybody else have any standout obsession worthy I I'll take it credit for saying that obsession worthy commercials in yesterday's big game. I think the Pepsi commercial is very interesting, how they use the Coke bears. I don't know if you guys ever noticed that. I thought the Duncan commercial was hysterical. It was just a style check with everybody in it. But that Coke one, both my wife and I are like, wait, that's the wrong.

44:37 I mean, the Pepsi one with the bears that I thought that was kind of brilliant. All right, Alex, I'm going to put you on the spot. So what about the Dunkin' Donuts commercial really made you lean into that one? It was just all nostalgic with all the people. In it and. The fact that the Patriots lost made it even better because that's their coffee. I just love the fact that they had Jennifer Aniston and with Tom Brady at the end, and then it was just a whole take on Goodwill hunting. So it was. It was great. You know, one of the ads, and I don't know if anybody else caught up, the one that really was a weird ad. It was just like on the screen and just words going across the screen. I don't remember what the take away from it was, but the whole time I'm watching, it's like, where is this going? It was just like it was a screenshot and there was words coming across the screen. I again, I don't know that those land and I think about how much money these advertisers spent and did it land. Go ahead, Ashley.

45:28 I saw that one too. If we're talking about the same thing, I think it was kind of like a karaoke track and it was an ad for Bitcoin. And if you hadn't seen the end, you'd still be wondering what that ad was for. That's right. It was for Coinbase. I'd forgotten, Ashley, because the whole time I'm watching this, my son and my wife are watching this with me. I'm going what in the world? I actually for a second thought that, yeah, like you said, karaoke was perfect. I thought maybe somebody in the control room got a hold of something. They were hijacking the the broadcast because it just didn't make any sense to me. Did anybody else have anything they wanted to share? Well, I just wanted to share that we got to remember that a lot of these companies, they're big companies that are spending a lot of money. It's a lot of money. But what they're looking for is an uptake of like 2% of their land of their ads to land throughout the rest of the year based on recognition. So the the ads pay for themselves actually when they do that.

46:23 And that's what they're looking for. They're really honing in on that brand recognition in for Super Bowl commercials so that they can get that, you know, uptick on the rest of their ads that they're going to be landing after. So really just diving into that, that makes it makes it make more sense when you see some of the ads that are aired because nobody knows Coinbase at this point, so they're just looking for some people to recognize them so they can land the rest of their ads for the rest of the year. Yeah, absolutely. And I like what Simbaza put in the in the chat. He said podcast advertising is to invoke or provoke. Talking about it is subconsciously in your mind. And I think that's a you nailed it, Simbaza. That is so true. And that's it kind of goes along with what Jonathan said. Well, I'm going to wrap us up for today. I just want to thank everybody for joining us today. Make sure you come back tomorrow, join us again. So you have a great day today and again, thanks for joining us today.