One of my favorite resources for learning interviewing skills is the old late-night talk shows, hosted by the likes of Johnny Carson, David Letterman (in the 80's when he was funny), Dick Cavett and the like.

There's just something about that era of television that makes the late night shows of today cringeworthy by comparison. Although there was a rough plan on what questions to ask, what movies or books to pitch, the conversations themselves seemed to be genuinely spontaneous, the guest and the host would feed off each other and between them create really funny material in the moment.

These days I can't watch Conan, Colbert, Fallon, Kimmel for longer than 5 minutes because everything is not only planned, but scripted. Every single guest has some sort of monologue prepared, and the host just feeds into it, they do their bit, hit the 7-minute mark and cut to commercial.

It's like a neatly baked tray of cookies, no dough coming out of the little things used to shape the cookies. An OCD producer's dream, maybe, but real entertainment it doth not allow, in my humble yet accurate opinion.

It seems to more or less mimic society as a whole. You have this 3x5 card of "allowable opinion" that you must not stray from, lest you be "that guy" who is ostracized from the herd because he shares a view that is borne out of genuine curiosity and/or conviction.

People fear for their jobs, even businesses that rely too heavily on a single social media platform. Lives are literally destroyed for voicing a single opinion on Twitter that strays too far from what's deemed acceptable by "The Herd" and those who feign to lead it.

Things like that are why I made the decision during my last days in the Army in 2015 that I was going to be an entrepreneur, and I was going to use the podcasting medium to do so. I didn't know exactly what that was going to look like, nor exactly how it would happen.

There were a lot of uncertain moments, plenty of mistakes made, but eventually things began falling into place. To the point that 6 years later, I make my living producing podcasts.

Things are going well, and I've even brought on some new talent to teach the craft and lighten the work load a bit. In fact, this craft has enabled something we all crave: location independence. In my case, it's to live with my wife in Vietnam while her visa to live in the U.S. goes through the approval process. In the case of someone else, it could simply mean working from home or the nearby Starbucks, and not sitting in traffic for 30 minutes to drive to an office while men who aren't their husbands sniff their perfume.

It's different for everyone.

This is a bit of what has motivated me over the years to keep on slogging through. And the principles that guide my decisions for the business, like promoting a mobile app that's not dependent on the whims of the boy wonders running Facebook, Twitter, Apple Podcasts, etc.

If you'd like to check out my mobile app with the Learnistic platform I've partnered with, just visit committedmedia.org and you'll be granted instant access to all the offerings available (for free). There are a few, and more on the way, that cost a bit of dough, but they're worth the investment. I promise.