I do not set out to be a podcaster.

My first memory of the medium is Adam Curry in my ears on an iPod, and I think, This is portable radio that belongs to me. Interesting. Then life moves on.

The spark to actually make a show lands in 2015. I'm having coffee downtown when I hear a host say, "Live from the basement of the Balboa Building in Santa Barbara, California." Two blocks away from where I'm sitting. I track him down. His name is Patrick Melroy at Pullstring Press.

Patrick has the technical know-how, but I have something most people don't - permission to contact these entrepreneurs. Here's what I'm really trying to solve.

I'm running 805 Connect, this big regional business network. We're publishing a newsletter full of founder stories, and almost no one reads it. The stories are good - really good - but the format is wrong.

See, I'm deeply involved in finding interesting businesses in the 805 region. That's San Luis Obispo down to Thousand Oaks. There's incredible work happening here. We're just terrible at telling our own stories. Everyone assumes the cool stuff is happening north of us in Silicon Valley or south of us in LA.

But they're wrong.

The Permission Problem

I have something most people don't - permission to contact these entrepreneurs and founders. I'm building this network across counties. I know their stories. I have the relationships.

So I pitch Patrick: "Let's interview the people I'm already talking to and make the stories listenable."

We build it for real. Sponsors, a framework, clear purpose, production systems. Patrick co-hosts from a creative lens. I bring the entrepreneurial lens. He runs the board in that small Balboa studio. I even get Blue Microphone to sponsor a case of mics before Logitech buys them.

On Fridays, we stack two or three conversations about an hour each. And it clicks. 805 Conversations finds its audience fast.

Now, I had some preparation for this. Decades earlier, during a Wavefront film project, a director taught me how to interview. "Ask clean questions," he said. "Prompt, then get out of the way." Later, I study it on my own time. Books about questions. Listening to Ira Glass. Watching how Larry King stays simple and warm.

Craft, not tricks.

The Chef's Approach

As a chef, I think in recipes. Over time, I build one for podcasting that I still use today.

The Five Ps:

Plan - what is the show for, and who is it for

Produce - how we actually make it (gear, room, run of show, guest prep)

Publish - where the feed lives, how the site works, how it hits platforms.

Partner - who helps us (sponsors, amplifiers, content partners)

Promote - the rhythm of sharing (clips, emails, art, the steady drumbeat)

That recipe makes new shows possible. One example: Hello Careers with the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education. They had students, a real studio at Cambria High, and businesses ready to talk about apprenticeship. Perfect partners, real impact, content that educates as it entertains.

The Accidental Method

But here's what I didn't realize I was doing.

For years, I'm just being curious. Taking everything I learned from a decade of improv training - how do you work with a scene partner? That's how I work with interview guests.

In improv, we're taught to listen. Really listen. If what that person just said is true, what else might be true? Or I might say, "Huh, that's interesting because..." - that's pure improv. Sometimes I choose to explore why they said something a certain way.

Here's the fascinating part: in improv, we're taught not to ask questions. Yet as a podcaster, my job IS asking questions.

I had to reconcile that in my brain. Instead of asking "Did that work?" (classic improv no-no), I learned to say "Tell me about a time when that approach really paid off." So, I learned to ask questions that don't have yes-or-no answers, because those are boring. Open-ended questions that help the audience dig deeper, peeling back the layers.

I'm also thinking like someone who has attended TED for many years. What's the core idea of this person sitting across from me? What's important about it? Why does the world need to hear this? Can I extract that core idea and a story to go with it?

I'm doing this in real time, unconsciously developing a method I've never really examined.

The Recognition

It wasn't until five or six years later that I listen to a podcast about how famous interviewers do their interviews. Very meta, right?

And it's fascinating. I hear about approaches ranging from extremely prepared to "walk into the studio, put on headphones, look at a piece of paper, and start talking." I sit somewhere in the middle, more toward the improv side. I prepare, but I don't plan how the session will go.

One thing I picked up from that show is that Ira Glass will often say, "Could you give me an example of that?" I've used that hundreds of times since. Because that's an opening. You're creating space for the other person to share a story with you.

But I've never considered that I have my own approach. It's just being curious and applying improv principles to conversation.

The Evolution

Today I produce two formats. Get Current, a short AI news brief I co-host with Alice, my AI voice. That one's tightly scripted, tuned for pace and clarity. See What You Think, my Sunday story at 9 a.m. on Substack, is slower and personal. Half of my audience reads it, and half listens to the podcast.

And here's where my chef's precision meets audio geek territory - have you noticed the music playing in the background of this story so far? Probably not consciously. But I've been paying attention to the intention of the feeling this story is meant to evoke. I put each story into ChatGPT and have it understand the emotional energy of what's happening, then match that to my inventory of sounds at PremiumBeat. The AI gives me music cues that fit the mood. As I describe this process to you, the music is likely shifting to match my excitement about the intersection of creativity, technology, and storytelling working together in real-time.

Meeting people where they are turns out to be a growth strategy disguised as respect.

But the real validation didn't come from industry recognition or download numbers. My favorite feedback moment happens in a coffee line, not a studio. A couple turns around and says, "You're Mark. We fly a private charter between Silicon Valley and Santa Barbara. We listen to 805 Conversations every week." They recognize me from my voice.

That's the moment I understand reach in a new way. You never know who's on the other end of your work.

The Through Line

If there's a pattern here, it's this: I live at the intersection of art and technology. The tools evolve, the impulse stays the same.

Pay attention, simplify the process, ask better questions, and serve the listener.

I didn't mean to become a podcaster. I meant to solve a regional storytelling problem. The mic was just the right tool at the right time. Still is.

Looking back, I think that's the pattern worth noticing. Sometimes the best expertise develops when you're not trying to build expertise at all - you're just trying to help people. The craft emerges from the service, not the other way around.

P.S. Turns out, once you develop a recipe that works, people want to learn it. I've helped dozens of organizations and thought leaders build their own shows using the Five Ps approach. If you've been thinking about podcasting, let's talk about what it's like to work with me. The best part about having a proven methodology is knowing exactly where to start.

See what you think.

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