Focus On Your Inner Monologue Here

My Name is Joe Robens. I am an ex-pat American living in Australia.

My podcast is called Unplug Your Self which is focused on your inner monologue or self talk and what it's doing for or against you with the lens of the modern connected and noisy world. It's an in interview show.

My listeners are people who are looking to level their game up mentally and work their muscle.

I do listen to podcasts. I had always thought of doing things like this. I vlogged at one point. The "Why" was the result of a life of asking people the hard question of "Whats really going on?" and realising that once you get that story you're telling yourself on the table, you are accountable and able to grow.

Initial goals were to just see how it went and then measure. I like talking to people so wanted to test myself and see how I went in the interview format.

I started my podcast in late August 2019.

It took about 2 weeks to get that first episode sorted. I modelled the show a bit prior and lined up some guest to interview.

I release roughly 2/week. I have a long form interview and a short form man with a mic episode.

I do this when I am not working. I also have a flexible working schedule so that helps.

I really have only spent on hosting and the hardware set up for the studio. Granted I have bought good gear but I have a production background so was hard to go to cheap. Roughly $15/month hosting and $1300 in hardware. But I am self funded.

At this point I am not looking at sponsorship. Nor do I make revenue. I am a start up guy so am not in that phase yet.

The benefit to me are the unique interaction I get from doing it. Both in meeting and talking to new people, writing more often to compose episodes, hearing what my friends think of it, the artistic output I get from it. Just fun.

I use a Rodecaster Pro as my primary mixing station. I have two Rode Procasters for mics and a Macbook Pro and Garageband for mixing. I just migrated to Podbean from Soundcloud to get better analytics.

It's all off my own back for guests. I just ask whom ever I am talking to if they want to be a guest depending on my gut feel.

The interview has a rough format. I prewrite the man with a mic episodes to organise the thinking first and generate a blog post.

I interview both in person and over the internets/phone. Prefer in person but time etc impacts that for people. It is one reason I got the Rodecaster Pro.

I "market" via the podcasting platforms with RSS. But am doing more of an organic push at this point by leveraging Medium and Podbean. I write a post for medium and focus on descriptions for search-ability.

Listens come primarily and evenly via Apple and Spotify with a sprinkling of other random platforms.

I like to post my weekly to reddit actually and also leverage posting to twitter and instagram both in the feed and stories. I use headliner to make more engaging posts.

I would focus on learning the art/craft of it first. It is daunting to edit a podcast or even record, so it's really about practicing a bit first and then get moving. I would also add that just starting is key.

Learning is tough. There is a lot out there. Ideally you learn how to do basic audio engineering stuff (mics, and recording devices) and then the basics in GarageBand or equivalent to publish. YouTube is a free college. Get that education!

The website - unplugyourself.net
My Insta - instagram.com/unplug_your_self
Twitter - twitter.com/unplugyour_self
Blog - medium.com/unplugyourself
And my podcast! I actually interview myself... like a madman!! unplugyourself.net/e/ep10-what-the-what-and-then-some-more-interviewing-the-joe/