Funny you should say that. I'm already a terrible musician. I've got a solo gig and a band gig this weekend. I just wanted the podcast to complete my middle aged white dude punch card because my cargo shorts just got here the other day.

This is good advice for people who are serious about their dream. I was not. I've had a crazy life and got to at least kind of hit all the high points of my dreams. My only other one is to retire while I'm young enough to get into trouble and I'm doing my damnedest.

It’s not gatekeeping to point out that having no aim or objective for your show usually leads to a boring show people don’t want to listen to because it inevitably devolves into a bunch of inside jokes between the hosts that no one else understands, punctuated with the same jokes every podcast like that makes. insert “well no one listens to our show anyway!” line

It’s like choosing to grab two random people at a bar and just listen to their conversation when commuting. Most of it is nothing you care about. It doesn’t mean you can’t make a good show like that, but it’s like saying “I’m going to make an album” when you don’t know what instruments you plan on using as you walk into the recording studio. Most people are not going to make something folks want to listen to.

If your show is good, your show is good. Most shows like this are not good. Visit any podcast forum and see the hundreds of posts starting with “thinking of shutting it down after 50 episodes because we only have 20 listeners and can’t seem to grow.” If you want to take a crack at that genre then be my guest, I’m not saying you’re forbidden. Just that it’s common, easy, and usually attracts no listeners. But hey, plenty of folks do podcasts just for themselves which is totally valid.

TL;DR: who sits down to write a book without deciding what it’s even broadly about?

Edit: forgot to add, these shows never edit. At all. They don’t mute mics, they don’t have any mic discipline, they tap on tables and cough, then they do no content cuts. They don’t even bother running a basic compressor or leveler. It’s maddening.