Let's Jump Off That Cliff

Fuzz Martin 0:00

Good Morning, Podcasters! This is going to be an introspective one, buckle up.

Fuzz Martin 0:10

Joe Rogge, the Chief Creative Officer at EPIC Creative is one of my best friends and business partners. And whenever we're about to take a big chance, either creatively, or in the course of business, he'll say, "Let's go jump off that cliff." It's a sentimental phrase for me.

Fuzz Martin 0:25

Growing up, I had a neighbor named David Bagley, who used to always guide me into doing something that we weren't supposed to. I remember one time, he gave me his BB gun and told me to shoot the windows out of an old garage. And I did and that was the summer where I learned how to fix an old woman's windows. Whenever I would get busted for the dumb stuff I did and had to fess up to my mom, I would explain. David made me do it. To which you would reply. If David asked you to jump off a cliff, would you? I never really told her but he did ask. And I did jump.

Fuzz Martin 0:59

When Joe talks about jumping off the cliff. He's saying what we're about to do is going to be exhilarating, possibly life changing. And while it could end tragically, we're going to have a hell of a lot of fun getting there.

Fuzz Martin 1:11

So when my friend Jeff Townsend texted me on Halloween weekend last year and said we should buy Good Morning Podcasters and podcasting sucks from Tanner Campbell. I thought Yeah, that'd be a fun idea. Plus, Halloween is a huge night here in our neighborhood. And my inhibitions were significantly lowered at the time that I received this text. So we bought it. I Venmoed $300 to Tanner, and Jeff then Venmoed me $50. I created a logo, spun up a website knocked out a trailer, and the first episode of Good Morning Podcasters went live on November 1, 2022.

Fuzz Martin 1:47

That was 118 days ago. Since then, I've created 50 episodes not including this one, as well as eight episodes of podcasting sucks with Jeff. There's actually a ninth in the can, somewhere on Jeff's boom caster account. Like any leap, the first part was an adrenaline rush. I had never done a solo show before. The radio slots that I had to do by myself when I was in my teens and early 20s were flanked by music, and I also had never really done a daily or semi weekly podcast before either.

Fuzz Martin 2:18

Soon I started to find my groove listenership increased, I got little dopamine spikes from seeing the stats and the trends rise. But there was a little feeling of something that was not quite right about the show, or at least in my feelings about the show. Back in the mid 2000s. Before the housing bubble and the start of the Great Recession, I was really into photography. I had a Canon 5D and a bunch of L lenses and I would go out and shoot things that interested me and then I would sell them on iStock. I met a ton of fellow photographers, some who are fantastic, world renowned photographers. It was fun. I also made money off my work and that felt nice.

Fuzz Martin 2:58

Then in early 2008, the recession hit the radio station that I worked for, WBWI-FM of West Bend, Wisconsin was owned by Bliss Communications. Skip Bliss had just purchased a brand new $20 million printing press for their newspaper, the Janesville Gazette. With advertising dollars plummeting, they chose to force employees to take a set number of days of furlough in order to reduce payroll so that they would not default on their new piece of equipment.

Fuzz Martin 3:28

At the time, I was a single dad with a mortgage and a car payment and I was only making about $45,000 a year as the program director, and Morning Show host for the radio station. I needed to do something to supplement my income. So I turned to my camera. I took my furlough days every Friday and on those Fridays, I focused on growing my photography business which became Fuzz Martin Media. I started advertising my services and then started getting hired to shoot family photos, infant portraits and senior portraits. Eventually, someone asked me to shoot a wedding. There was good money in weddings, I can easily make $3,000 in a weekend. Outside of the 40 or so hours of editing. Of course. Photography kept me afloat. My bills were paid, and I was productive on my force day off. It did what I intended for it to do.

Fuzz Martin 4:17

But it also made me hate photography. I became burnt out. Photography went from being a passion to being a burden. Soon after I met Shana in 2010. I put my camera in its bag for the last time. I don't remember the last time I took a photo with the intention of creating arts. And now I fear that Good Morning Podcasters is going to drive me into the same mindset with podcasting. And I don't want that to happen. Producing three episodes of Good Morning Podcasters takes me at least eight hours per week with research writing, editing, posting on social media, and all of the other tasks that you as a podcaster know so well. But I'm also putting in a few hours for my wife's podcast, the Tech Tools for Teachers Podcast, which I love the mission of helping cash strapped teachers find budget conscious tools to help support their students learning. It's fulfilling. I get to work with a co host, who's also my wife, and I absolutely feed off of it.

Fuzz Martin 5:20

On top of all that I host a podcast called Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz. 15 is a show where I share stories of positivity in my home community of Washington County, Wisconsin, I get a lot of joy out of the podcast, it's filling, it feels like radio a bit. And while I don't have a co host, I have guests that I interview on each episode and they feed my creative passions.

Fuzz Martin 5:42

The other day while I was prepping for an episode of Good Morning, Podcasters, I was testing and researching the new social media platform called Spoutible. I found an article by Jeffrey Saddoris on his substack called the Interestingness of Everyday Experiences. In the article he bases much of his sentiments on Rick Rubin's new book called The Creative Act: A Way of Being. I've since read Rick Rubin's book and I have recommended it to no fewer than a dozen people. I am recommending it to you right now.

Fuzz Martin 6:15

Right after reading The Creative Act, I took the advice of Dave Jackson from the School of {odcasting and I read Make Noise: A Creator's Guide to {odcasting and Great Audio Storytelling by Eric Nuzum. By the way, when I say I read something, I really mean, I listened to something. I'm an audiobook guy. I can't sit still for long enough to read a book. So long walks cleaning the garage, folding laundry, those are all great times for me to ingest audiobooks, and podcast episodes. Eric Nuzum is an accomplished former NPR program director listening to him felt like I was getting an air check from my old program director, mentor, and the guy who I've always referred to as my second dad, Mike Elliott, may he rest in peace.

Fuzz Martin 7:01

Nuzum's lessons in make noise may be realized that Good Morning Podcasters is not all that inspired. It's certainly not unique. And if anything, I'm rushing to get my homework done, and spit it out to you three times a week. And to be honest with myself, what I'm turning in is probably at best b minus work. In fact, I might be grading myself on a curve there. In the Creative Act, Rubin writes "in terms of priority, inspiration comes first. You come next, the audience comes last." And what I'm creating right now has that flipped into Saddoris's substack article he quotes another line from Rubin. He says "sometimes disengaging is the best way to engage."

Fuzz Martin 7:48

So all of that is to say, I am stepping away from Good Morning Podcasters. I'm going to focus on taking the lessons that I've worked to teach you on the show and put them to our marketing Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz and the Tech Tools for Teachers Podcast.

Fuzz Martin 8:04

It's funny when I started the show, Greg from Indie Dropin—Ollll' Greg—said it would be a grind. As always, he wasn't wrong. Don't tell him I said that.

Fuzz Martin 8:16

That said if you want the show, it's yours. Reach out. I'll sell it to you for $301.

Fuzz Martin 8:22

I truly appreciate you listening I will still be active in the community. I'm just going to be active like you are writing podcasts not about the craft of podcasting, but about my passion. I'm going to make art thanks for listening