Overcome your Podcast Anticipation Anxiety (PAA)

I’ve been hosting the Future Squared podcast for over three years now, and am 315 episodes deep as of writing. I’ve been fortunate enough to interview numerous luminaries in fields as disparate as entrepreneurship, technology, neuroscience, economics, politics, innovation, comedy, education and more, as part of my quest to help unpack knowledge and share it with the world so people can think in a multi-disciplinary way and make better professional and personal decisions.

But despite all of that, I recently found myself suffering from a case of what psychologists might call podcast anticipation anxiety (PAA).

Anticipatory anxiety is where a person experiences increased levels of anxiety by thinking about an event or situation in the future.

Sometimes, my PAA could get quite intense as the go-live time approached, so much so that despite best efforts I struggle to focus on anything else. My neural pathways would essentially be consumed by anxiety over the forthcoming conversation (and sometimes my bowel movements too 💩).

This could be debilitating in terms of productivity, especially in weeks when I had lined up a handful of conversations.

As is the case when I am deliberating any bothering circumstances in life, I took the time to reflect and write down my thoughts, to get them out of my head and onto paper — which is quite cathartic in itself — and identified some potential causes and how I might overcome what ails me.

In this case, I applied elements of Tim Ferriss’ fear setting model to help me tackle my PPA, captured below, which is essentially an unpolished braindump. I’m sharing this because I hope that it might help other podcasters get over their own PPA.

Getting Over My PAA

1 — What’s the worst that can happen?

• I struggle to articulate myself well (mitigate: speak slowly, have a list of go-to questions to steady the ship and prepare, prepare, prepare)
• I ask ordinary questions (mitigate: have compelling questions pre-written, rather than trying to come up with them on the spot only)
• My ego gets hurt and I feel like sh*t afterward (mitigate: you don’t derive a significant amount of self-worth from podcasting, you derive it from other pursuits— your articles in Harvard Business Review and your book, your work with numerous startups and Fortune 500 companies, your fitness and health, your discipline, your relationships etc — no matter how shitty you feel after a podcast, you can always ‘bring yourself back’ in the words of Marcus Aurelius)
• I won’t have quality content to publish (mitigate: if on the off chance the interview is so bad that I’d rather not publish it, don’t publish it — note: this has never happened before and is unlikely to ever happen)
• I don’t get into a good flow (mitigate: paradoxically, by being prepared and stressing less, one opens up the neural pathways so you can get into flow and perform better during the conversation)
• Someone you admire (your guest) thinks you’re an idiot (mitigate: exercise one or all of the above mitigants to avoid this outcome. In the unlikely event that they do judge you sourly— it probably doesn’t matter and has no real bearing on your life, and they are only judging you based on an insignificant window of time, not your entire being. Let it go.

2 — Am I OK with the worst possible outcome?

Hell Yeah!

I can always ‘bring myself back’ to a calm, balanced state, relatively quickly.

I don’t derive a significant sense of self-worth from podcasting but from living a principle centered life as well as various other pursuits.

A podcast going poorly is not the end of the world.

3 — How can I mitigate the chance of a negative outcome?

• Prepare, prepare, prepare
• Speak slowly
• Listen and write down prompts for responses
• Breathe

4 — How can I repair a negative outcome?

• Edit the episode
• Don’t publish the episode

Other reasons I might get anxious before a podcast:

• Coming across as unintelligent or letting personal insecurities get the best of me
• Potentially, upbringing and past experience with rejection or social exclusion
• My hard-wired amygdaloidal/biological threat-detection response (mitigate: notice this, label it, then choose how you want to show up)
• Overwhelmed by the amount of research I’ve done and questions I can ask (mitigate: prioritise and focus on 5–10 key questions or talking points, then keep other questions and talking points in your back pocket if you have the time and inclination to use them a bonus more than anything — think 80/20!)
• Intimidated by the guest’s status or reputation

On the status and reputation of your guests

(1) They don’t expect you to be the subject matter expert, that’s their job, your job is just to ask good questions

(2) They may be well versed in certain areas but certainly not in all, chances are you are better than them in many other areas; and

(3) They are just fallible human beings trying to make sense of the world and do their best as you are — their sh!t stinks too.

Bonus Round: What’s the best that can happen?

• You get better at podcasting and having conversations
• You learn something new from an expert in their field
• You build a new relationship with said expert
• You identify new business opportunities
• Your audience learns something new that can benefit them by virtue of your conversation
• You wow your guest and audience so much that the episode goes viral and your star ascends faster than Jordan Peterson pushing back against enforced gender pronouns

Remember: Reflect on your past interviews and how well they have gone. In my case, I’ve had awesome conversations with the likes of Robert Greene, Kevin Kelly, Brad Feld, Tyler Cowen, Gretchen Rubin, Adam Grant, and too many more to mention, many of whom said they really enjoyed my questions and interview style after the red light dimmed.

Remind yourself of your greatest hits before you hit record to help you not only get over your jitters, but also that dreaded imposter syndrome.

Again, it’s worth stressing that in most cases, “the anticipation of negative events is much worse than the event itself”. This applies not only to podcasting but near any experience you fear, be it something as traumatic as the death of a parent, public speaking in front of an audience of 100 people or jumping out of an aeroplane (with a parachute) at 10,000 feet.

By choosing instead to focus on the positives, and acknowledging that the worst possible outcome isn’t that bad at all, you can help clear your neural pathways so you can bring the best you to the mic, leave an impression on your guest, win over some more listeners and gain the energy and motivation to keep going.