Famous & Gravy is hilarious and philosophical, funny and thought-provoking. It’s about dead celebrities, but really it's about life’s biggest questions. Cohosts Michael Osborne and Amit Kapoor reflect on aspects of a dead celebrity ranging from love and work to their inner lives. That leads them to reflect on their own lives, and on it will lead you to reflect on yours. All while laughing.
You’ll learn a lot about creative constraints, and how crafting an extremely structured show can make audio storytelling easier, more efficient, and more creative. You’ll learn a fresh approach to co-hosting. And you’ll learn how to hook your listener in the first 30 seconds – and equally important, how to end episodes in a way that keeps your listeners coming back.
This is Sound Judgment, where we investigate just what it takes to become a beloved podcast host – by pulling apart one episode at a time, together.
The episode discussed on today's Sound Judgment is Famous & Gravy: Poetic Justice (Maya Angelou).
Amit Kapoor is co-host and co-creator of the podcast Famous & Gravy. Amit has spent nearly two decades in management positions for media organizations, both commercial and non-profit, ranging from Match.com to Wikipedia. He is also a stand-up comic, former Wienermobile driver, video game voice actor, and a certified meditation instructor. Amit has an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in American Studies from The University of Texas.
Michael Osborne is co-host of Famous & Gravy – a conversation about quality of life, one dead celebrity at a time." Michael has over twelve years of experience as a podcast creator and host. He currently heads 14th Street Studios, a podcast production and marketing firm based in Austin, Texas. Michael started his first podcast, Generation Anthropocene, while he was finishing his PhD in climate science at Stanford. After completing his degree, he spent five years running a podcast incubator for Stanford. During that time he created his second show, Raw Data, which partnered with PRX. In his role at 14th Street Studios, Michael specializes in creative development and podcast marketing for individuals and organizations.
Websites
14th Street Studios
Socials:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100076654703402
LinkedIn links
Twitter handles
@famousandgravy
@osbornemc
This transcript was auto-generated from an audio recording. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors.
Elaine Appleton Grant
A while back, I was having a very tough day. And a little thing happened to change that. Amit Kapoor emailed me with a link to their latest episode of Famous & Gravy, the podcast he co-hosts with producer Michael Osborne. As you’ll hear, this podcast starts like a game show. And I’d been a contestant. Take a listen.
Clip from Famous & Gravy
Michael Osborne: Her 1970s TV show was a balm to widespread anxieties about women in the workforce. Her character faced such issues as equal pay, birth control, and sexual independence.
Elaine Appleton Grant: I mean, 1970s. I'm thinking, like, Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda.
Male guest: It’s not Mary Tyler Moore, is it?
Male guest: Mary Tyler Moore.
Michael Osborne: Today's dead celebrity is Mary Tyler Moore.
Elaine Appleton Grant
That’s right. The show I’m deconstructing today is about dead celebrities. Famous & Gravy is hilarious and philosophical, funny and thought-provoking. It’s about life’s biggest questions.That day, I listened to all the things I didn’t know about Mary Tyler Moore’s life—and to Michael and Amit reflecting on it. Which led them to reflect on their own lives—which led me to reflect on mine! Which is actually the point of Famous & Gravy—along with entertaining the heck out of us.
This Sound Judgment episode is the last one of the season before we take a hiatus to plan our next one, which will be bigger and better than ever. So it feels appropriate to end with a show that, that day, lifted my mood like a hot-air balloon—partly because what we all need sometimes is a good laugh.
So here’s an episode to take you into summer. You’ll learn a lot about creative constraints, and how crafting an extremely structured show can make audio storytelling easier, more efficient, and more creative. You’ll learn a fresh approach to co-hosting. And you’ll learn how to hook your listener in the first 30 seconds—and equally important, how to end episodes in a way that keeps your listeners coming back.
This is Sound Judgment, where we investigate just what it takes to become a beloved podcast host by pulling apart one episode at a time, together. I’m Elaine Appleton Grant.
Elaine Appleton Grant:
Storytellers, did you know that Sound Judgment is also a free newsletter? Every two weeks, get storytelling, hosting, and journalism strategies taken straight from the on-the-ground experiences of today’s best audio makers, no matter the genre. Newsletters feature examples for you to try in your studio, essays on the challenges and rewards of this craft, and news about fellow audio creatives making the kind of work we all aspire to. Sign up, free, at podcast allies dot com.
Elaine Appleton Grant
Welcome, Michael Osborne and Amit Kapoor. I am so excited to have you here.
Michael Osborne
Excited to be here. Thank you for inviting us on, Elaine
Amit Kapoor
Very excited, Elaine, thank you.
Elaine Appleton Grant
So you have now produced more than 50 episodes. What has been your biggest creative challenge so far?
Amit Kapoor
We deal with a seemingly serious subject, which is somebody that has passed away recently. But really our North Star, and why people keep tuning in, is the fun and the intrigue. We talk about trauma, we talk about grief—but to always return and make it fun and entertaining is not an easy thing to marry. And I think it took us a while and we're continuing to evolve into that groove to find that perfect mix between informative, respectful, but above all fun and entertaining.
Michael Osborne
It's a hard show to describe in some ways. One question that's come up for us a few times is, how do you categorize the show? And there was a time earlier in our history where I was like, I think this should go into self help. And that got laughed down really quickly. This is not a self help show. It's now categorized in TV and entertainment, which I think is right.
It's self help for me, though, and I think it's self help for Amit. And I hope it's a kind of subversive form of self help for the listener, that—you know, this is meant to be a kind of brainstorm on, what do you wish you were doing with your life? And what are virtues that you admire, or dreams that you aspire to achieve? So there's all these sort of deeper philosophical underpinnings on what is ultimately, as you said, Amit, a fun show and a kind of lighthearted show.
Elaine Appleton Grant
And I can think of points in the episode that we are about to dissect where I did take—I don't know if you'd call it self help, but a reframing of a couple of things from that.
So, Michael and Amit, you score a dead celebrity on 12 different categories. But to start, you quiz unsuspecting listeners about how much they actually know about famous people. So let's listen to a bit of your test from the episode that we're about to pull apart.
Clip from Famous & Gravy
Amit Kapoor: One dead celebrity at a time. Now for the opening quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.
Michael Osborne: This person died in 2014, age 86. She was a Tony nominated stage actress. After her first marriage, she embarked on a career as a Calypso dancer.
Female guest: No idea. Keep going.
Michael Osborne: She was a college professor and a ubiquitous presence on the lecture circuit. She also made several appearances on Sesame Street.
Male guest: Oh, man. Toni Morrison?
Michael Osborne: Not Toni Morrison. In 2011, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Female guest: Now that I should know. Although I was busy in 2011. I missed it.
Michael Osborne: The whole year?
Female guest: I missed the entire year.
Michael Osborne: What an excuse. Throughout her writing, she explored the concepts of personal identity and resilience through the multifaceted lens of race, sex, family, community, and the collective past.
Female guest: It's not Maya Angelou.
Male guest: Maya Angelou.
Female guest: It’s not Maya Angelou, is it?
Male guest: Maya Angelou.
Michael Osborne: Today's dead celebrity is Maya Angelou.
Female guest: I didn't even say it right. Maya Angelou.
Elaine Appleton Grant
Okay, so we know that we have about 30 seconds to hook a new listener to a show. So this particular gimmick that you guys came up with says something to the listener about pacing and the emotional purpose of the show. The work it's doing for the listener. Am I right about that?
Amit Kapoor
Yeah, I think 100%. It's tone setting. It's like when an athlete has walk up music. You know, baseball players choose a song to walk up. And that's what this is doing, and saying, Yes, this is a show that is dealing with people that have recently died. But this is above all going to be a fun and pleasurable experience.
Elaine Appleton Grant
We don't, obviously, have time to dip into each of the 12 criteria that you use to sort of grade the life of a person. Can you sum up what those 12 categories are intended to score? In a word? Is that possible?
Michael Osborne
Absolutely, because I think they fall into subcategories. The first few categories are really designed to lay the groundwork to tell the story—that we're going to be telling the story of somebody's life—and maybe begin the process of picking out unique characteristics, qualities, that that we want to draw attention to. There's another set of categories that are really about statistics, in a sense. Data. You know, what is known about this person? And then I think that the second half of the show is in many ways, where we go a level deeper in terms of empathetic imagining, where we really try and get into the shoes. What would it have been like to have been this person? All of that sets the ground for the driving question of every episode, which is a very simple binary. Do you want this life—yes or no? So all of it's sort of meant to build an argument, both for and against, along the way.
Elaine Appleton Grant
It is a very, very intricate structure.
Michael Osborne
Totally. And I've—that's new for me. I've never developed a podcast that is so built on category segments and structure this way. And I've got to say, I've come to love it. Because once you sort of get in a place where you like the structure, it just does so much work for you that by the time Amit and I sit down to record, I just have high confidence that we're going to get good tape every time. So it was really Amit who had an insight around categories.
Elaine Appleton Grant
I wanted to ask Michael and Amit about the 12 categories that they use in every episode to examine a celebrity’s life. We started by touching on category number one. They grade the first line of the person’s obituary. Storytellers, I've talked in other episodes about how hosts hook their listeners in 30 seconds or less. But another focus is the strategy that you employ for showing listeners why they should stick around. How do you persuade them that will be worth their time to listen to the rest of the episode? Take a listen to this clip.
Clip from Famous & Gravy
Michael Osborne: Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Maya Angelou, whose landmark book of 1969—I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a lyrical, unsparing account of her childhood in the Jim Crow South—was among the first autobiographies by a 20th century Black woman to reach a wide general readership, died on Wednesday at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was 86.
Amit Kapoor: I guess they just had to pick one thing.
Michael Osborne: That is the challenge of this first line. I mean, they get into all the other stuff in the rest of the article, but in terms of the first line, you gotta pick one thing, right?
Amit Kapoor: The thing is there's like 30 mega things.
Michael Osborne: Right? And…
Elaine Appleton Grant
Grading the first line of the obit sets the stage for what we’re about to dive into—there’s that intrigue that Michael and Amit mentioned. In that first attempt to grade the obit, we hear the two hosts’ different interpretations of the same question. It’s interesting, it’s fun, and they’re creating an expectation for their listeners about their own relationship. But let’s listen to Michael’s reasoning for why they do this.
Michael Osborne
The other thing that it really does for me, though—and I think, Amit, you'd agree with this is—that it begins to differentiate the what is known about this person, versus how we feel about this person. We take the first line from The New York Times, and we're calling that sort of standard of objectivity. Here's what you know this person for, and here's the language that we're going to use to remember them. And then when we start picking that apart, what do you like about these words? How do you feel about it? Is it accurate? Is it eloquent? Is it lofty? Does it have these desirable qualities that sets the scene for the conversation that follows after? It also just gives a great overview of the story, you know, before we've even talked about it. So it just does a lot of work for us.
Elaine Appleton Grant
I like that focus on what can do a lot of work in a short period of time. And I think that makes sense. And of course, from a feature writing standpoint, and I always look at things that way, because I was in magazines for about 15 years before I went into audio—is that, you know, you are looking at the first line! And what kind of work does that first line do for people? Does it grab you? It's sort of like the first 30 seconds. It's all about hooking you, and then the rest of it is about keeping you there. Which is very much what Sound Judgment really is about, is how do we keep people there? And so you guys have already identified a few really interesting things—this very structured approach, the buddy podcast, which we'll get to. And then this cross between very serious stuff and entertainment and fun. You're doing a lot of work with these episodes, which I admire. But it's fun. What do you think? The more work the producer, the host does for you as a listener, the more fun and easy it is to listen to?
Amit Kapoor
Absolutely.
Michael Osborne
Yeah. 100%.
Amit Kapoor
No question about it.
Michael Osborne
Creativity emerges from constraint. So what we've done with our show is hardwire all these rules for what's going to happen episode to episode, and counterintuitively, that allows us a tremendous amount of room for spontaneity and innovation and tangents and unexpected directions. I guess one of the lessons for me about Famous & Gravy is that the more you narrow the directions and give yourself clear instructions, the more you can optimize to bring those great conversations out.
Elaine Appleton Grant
I could not agree more with the necessity for creative guardrails. As I said, I'm not going to go through all 12 criteria, but we are going to do number two next, because I just mentioned being a feature writer. It functions sort of like a nutgraf for a feature writer. So the lead hooks you, and then in the nutgraf, you're going to tell us listeners why we care about this topic, this person, right now. Why it's relevant to us. And that seems to me to be the function of number two, which is five things I love about you. So let's listen to just the first of the five things with Maya.
Clip from Famous & Gravy
Michael Osborne: Category two—five things I love about you. Here, Amit and I work together to come up with five reasons why we love this person, why we ought to be talking about them in the first place. Why don't you do it, man? You take it.
Amit Kapoor: So number one, I'm gonna go Marvel superhero. So this has to do with her origin story, which is largely sad and and very tragic. And I wasn't fully aware of the story until getting into this episode. At the age of seven, she had been raped by her mother's boyfriend and she had told only one person about it, which was her brother. She was afraid to tell other people. And it—eventually her brother told other members of the family. I mean, it got to her uncles and the next day the police show up at her house. They were reporting that this person who had spent one night in jail for the rape of a seven year old Maya Angelou had been killed, had been kicked to death. Her response, as she says, in my seven year old mind, was that my voice can kill. And her response to that was she goes mute, meaning she actually does not speak a word for five years because she's afraid that if she opens her mouth, people will die. This becomes her educational period.
Elaine Appleton Grant
There are tons of stories about celebrities. After all, it's practically the definition of being a celebrity. So how are you choosing what's most relevant? Tell me about about the behind the scenes—how you came up with this?
Amit Kapoor
It's a story I never knew. And it really moved me, I think, because of the fact that—as as that clip goes on, I say what emerged from that was one of the greatest orators of our time. And what I guess I found so impressive is it could have been the end of the story right there. You could have lived out a very sad and traumatic life. And the turnaround, her ability to leverage that as a power and later influence the entire world with her voice, was just so moving to me and frankly inspirational.
Elaine Appleton Grant
I'm curious, Amit. In what way was it inspirational to you personally?
Amit Kapoor
I have had some deep dark troubles in my past, and—you know—some of them I'm still navigating through. To hear this example of what emerged is the exact opposite of what your trauma is. And by no means am I comparing my trauma to what Maya Angelou experienced as a seven year old. But it's really nice to see it play out in a way that really does change other lives.
Elaine Appleton Grant
So right now I'm editing an episode—which by the time this one comes out, it will have been released—with Sam Mullins, who is the host and producer of Wild Boys. And he's an actor and a writer but had never done a podcast, and he gets hooked up with Karen Duffin, an editor who he winds up just revering, and I said, What did you learn about writing? And he had been writing for 15, 16 years at that point. And one of the things that he said is that at every point along the way, they were looking not just at plot—this is a limited series narrative mystery—but at every beat along the way, how do we want the listener to feel?
It sounds to me that when you're working on these episodes, that you are thinking about that very question. So with this particular choice of a superpower, obviously it moved you—were you thinking at all about, how do I want the listener to feel?
Amit Kapoor
Completely. I thought, I want the listener to feel empowered by any setback, big or small. To know that there is a resolution and there could even be an unimaginable outcome that is positive.
Elaine Appleton Grant
What I want to do now is shift to talking about how you two work together as co hosts. And I'm very informed on this question by a couple of episodes that I have done with other co hosts. I had Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers on—they're the co hosts of Pantsuit Politics, which is a show I love, and they're delightful. And I had observed, and they completely agreed with this, that actually what they said was the reason the show works is because they are very different. They work together really well. But they're very different in many ways. And I just want to play something for you.
Clip from Famous & Gravy
Michael Osborne: Okay. Category nine, outgoing message. Like man in the mirror, how do we think they felt about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on an answering machine or outgoing voicemail? Also would they have had the humility to use it? Would they record their themselves on their outgoing message, or would they use the default setting? I wrote, are you kidding me? Yes. And yes. Do you take issue with that?
Amit Kapoor: I do.
Michael Osborne: Fuck me. Are you just being contrarian—really?
Amit Kapoor: No.
Michael Osborne: Okay.
Amit Kapoor: One of the all time greatest voices. Let's not forget, she said at the age of seven, my words can kill. She also said that mutism is an addiction. You know, it is her defense mechanism. Even after Martin Luther King Jr. Died on her birthday, she went mute again for five days. She does—
Michael Osborne: Until James Baldwin came and knocked on her door and said, you need to come meet my writer friends. And then out of that comes Caged Bird.
Amit Kapoor: Yeah. And then she became one of the great orators of our time in the way she delivered poems, the way she delivered speeches. But I'm not sure that she sits there and listens to her own recordings. I think she loves to dole it out, and she loves that other people can receive it. She talks about so much that words are things, but I think she has an issue with hearing her own, as evidenced by this past.
Michael Osborne: Okay. Actually that's a really compelling case. I think you raised an interesting question of how you experience your own voice, and I also think you're really right to point to the mutism and the choice to be silent. I don't know if that totally translates into “I don't like my voice,” so I'm sticking with my yes, because I think that she appreciates the power of it, and I also know that you don't like it much when I go back on what I said.
Elaine Appleton Grant
So I found that interesting because, you know, you were disagreeing. It was not the first time you disagreed, but in many cases you agreed. So tell me about both the sort of natural relationship that you have on the mic with each other, and anything that you have learned about being intentional behind the mic with each other to make the cohosting work well.
Amit Kapoor
I mean, I think the first thing that we do that actually makes this work well is we don't talk very much prior to recording an episode. We do our independent research. And then we come to the table, and we don't know what the other one has learned, what's on their mind. And so then everything you hear in an episode about something we disagree on, or that we talk through each other, is purely happening and playing out in that moment.
Michael Osborne
I think to your question about agreement, disagreement—I mean, I think that one of the things I know I admire about you, and I suspect you respect in me, is that we are open to different arguments, lines of arguments. I appreciate a good conversation where somebody changes the way I think about an issue, a topic, or an individual. And, you know, even to hear that clip of how Maya Angelou felt about her voice, I know, my quick reaction was, Are you kidding? This is one of the great American voices of the 20th century. Of course, she loved it. To hear you say do not forget her relationship with her voice, her early childhood trauma, this whole idea of mutism. I mean, that's very persuasive. That's the kind of thing that—I don't know if it changes my answer to how I would respond in that category. But it's a good argument. And yeah, that's certainly something I look forward to and trust you to come up with.
Amit Kapoor
Yeah. And I would add to it that I think foundationally it is friendship, right? That's what allows us to disagree. We were friends for 10 years before we ever worked together. I feel very free to disagree with Michael. I enjoy it. And I think he enjoys disagreeing with me. We don't do it for the sake of disagreeing. If we agree, we agree. If we disagree, we do. And sometimes it makes great tape. Sometimes it doesn't. But it's purely authentic and playing out at that time. It's two friends working something out.
Elaine Appleton Grant
You wrap it up, every episode, with would you have wanted this person's life? And here in this episode, Michael, you graciously cede the final word to Amit. Because, as you say, you have a feeling he's gonna say something interesting. And now I know from our conversation that you didn't know what it was going to be. But he does. And so let's listen to this clip at the end of your episode.
Clip from Famous & Gravy
Michael Osborne: Amit. You are Maya Angelou. You have died and you stand before St. Peter, the Unitarian proxy for the afterlife. Make your pitch. Why should you be let in?
Amit Kapoor
Has anybody ever told you how important you are? That really is my life's work through my writings, my speeches, my advocacy, I wanted everyone to know that they were important. If a word I wrote resonated, if a story from my life resonated, if a piece of wisdom resonated, it should resonate to that deep part of the body where somebody realizes that they are an individual living human being who is important. The sum of all history has led to their being alive right now. And there is nothing more important, more beautiful, more fragile, and more celebrated than that. So St. Peter, I am important. You're important. Everyone that’s still down there is very, very important. Let me in.
Elaine Appleton Grant
That is very, very moving. And Amit, I want to know the genesis of, you know, what turns out to be a little speech. Had you planned this? Was it spontaneous? Tell me about that.
Amit Kapoor
100% spontaneous. And it's the culmination of everything I learned in the recording leading up to that. So those words were not just what I felt. A lot of it is just what I learned from Michael and what he brought to the table. And so it's our collective output, I think, that just happens to be voiced by me. But it's 100% spontaneous. When we ask if we want the person's life, we do not have a prepared answer. In fact, it's our pact to not have a answer or preconceived notion until we've concluded the conversation.
In that very final segment, which you played, the pearly gates, as well, we decided in that moment. We look each other in the eye and said, who is feeling this more? And who can deliver this and make that pitch to St. Peter? And on this particular episode, Michael said, I'm seeing it in you. And you take it.
Elaine Appleton Grant
Take me back to the conversation where you guys went, let's not just ask the question, would you want her life, but let's actually flip the perspective here and become this person and make the pitch to St. Peter. And so you're really becoming an improv actor at that point. Take me back to that conversation. I just love this mechanism. This gimmick.
Amit Kapoor
Yeah. So the the Vanderbeek, the would you want their life, is what the entire build up to the show is. And the explanation behind that is a revelation of really our own values. And that is everything that the show is about. So we wanted the St. Peter pitch in there, because we believe everybody deserves redemption and everybody deserves an angle. So this was almost a protective mechanism. What if we go through and neither of us want their life? We don't want to look as—like we are criticizing this life. We're not trivializing their life. And so we wanted everyone to have a chance of redemption. And so that's why we built that in, is that no matter what we say, if we don't want their life, that there are still reasons, there are still contributions that this person made. And now's the time to leave on a redemptive note, no matter what we said before.
Michael Osborne
And if the first category is grading the first line of their obituary, that's some sort of proxy for an objective version of their story, as is understood by society and the history books. What we're doing, you and me, throughout the course of an episode, is saying, How do I feel about their story? And the very last moment is, how do they feel? Or how do we think they might feel about their own story?
And I think that there's also—in my mind—a kind of eulogizing and sending off to the Unitarian proxy for the afterlife, the heavens, or whatever. Let's now say goodbye. Even though it's light hearted and meant to be fun, this show is dealing with everybody's ultimate fate. We're all gonna die. Right? And what's it all mean at the end?
Elaine Appleton Grant
This reminded me of a session I once attended at the Nieman Narrative Conference years ago, which was a conference for radio folks and longform feature writers. And there was a longtime journalism instructor who led a session on endings. And he said, We all pay attention to leads, but almost nothing to endings, and it's the endings that matter even more, because it's what we remember. Do you agree or disagree?
Michael Osborne
I think I agree. Personally, I agree, in the sort of Maya Angelou sense of, I remember how somebody made me feel. I may not remember what they did or what they said, but I remember how somebody made me feel. And I think that there is a value statement in the ending of our show. We all have an argument for redemption. I think that matters. I think that people can be excessively critical, self critical. We can have a lot of judgment about ourselves. And it's important to make the case that that may not be the ultimate story. And if you've got an elevator pitch to make to Saint Peter, you know, what does that sound like?
Amit Kapoor
Yeah, yeah. The beginning is the hook. It works for business reasons, right? You bring people in, you attract and grow your audience, but how you leave them is what makes them coming back.
I don't know if you caught it. But we end on three words. We end on “let me in.” And so our show begins with three words as well. It begins with “this person died.” So every single one of those—wherever we're at—52, 53 episodes, starts with three words and ends with three words and that is perfectly intentional. It's a metaphor for the entire show. That this person died. But there's a lot to still learn.
Elaine Appleton Grant
Okay, let's do just two quick Lightning Round questions. The first question is, who is your dream guest for Sound Judgment?
Michael Osborne
I'm very interested to see if you could ever get Michael Hobbes to participate in your show. Michael Hobbes co created You're Wrong About. He's since done Maintenance Phase. And the show that I've been really into lately is If Books Could Kill. There are things about Michael Hobbs that I don't always love, but I feel like there is a real interesting and frankly inspiring attitude about what it means to be a host. There's a lot to learn from there.
Elaine Appleton Grant
That sounds really interesting, really interesting. Amit?
Amit Kapoor
I think I'll go with Scott Galloway, from Pivot as well as the Prof G Pod. I think he has a uncanny ability to tell stories and to speak to the future so confidently, that you somehow think it's fact. And I would love to learn that trick, because it's great entertainment that's also informative.
Elaine Appleton Grant
Great. How has hosting this show changed you in a way that you did not expect?
Michael Osborne
Oh, wow. I mean, I could go on and on about ways that this show has changed me. I think—certainly it has changed my creative development process. When somebody comes to me and says, I'm really thinking about developing a show, or I'd like to improve an existing show, going very deep on what is the driving question? And what are the creative instructions you give to yourself before you record?
Elaine Appleton Grant
What about a life lesson?
Michael Osborne
Oh, God. Ah.
Elaine Appleton Grant
We'll come back to you, Michael. Amit, let's switch to you. What is one way that hosting this show has changed you in a way that you did not expect?
Amit Kapoor
Without a doubt, it's a loosening of rigidity. I think through our conversations, the people that we've studied, my idea of what should be, of what boundaries are, of what's possible, what's impossible, what's right and wrong, has widely expanded through this. The outcome that we want the listeners to get from the show is—I am listener number one, I think, in really relaxing my rules of life.
Michael Osborne
Almost without exception. whenever we record an episode, I learn something that I didn't know about somebody, even if I thought I knew everything. The story I tell about other people is almost always wrong. We just never know what's going on inside somebody else's head. And the only way we can begin to get out that is through empathetic imagining. This show is built on that philosophy. And I feel like it is a reminder not just for how I feel about famous people, but what I think or don't know about what's going on with anybody I encounter in my day to day life. I do not know the whole story.
Elaine Appleton Grant
That is beautiful. And it's very inspiring. It makes me want to go back and listen to all 52 other episodes that that you have.
Okay, so at the very beginning, I said we're going to add a quiz question because your show is essentially a quiz show. What is the single most important skill that it requires to become a beloved host? Or to make compelling audio that listeners love?
Amit Kapoor
You got me with the word beloved. And I think it's vulnerability. I think it's bringing your entire self to it. Being willing to air yourself certainly in the case of our show. And just not being guarded, being completely open and out there.
Elaine Appleton Grant
Why?
Amit Kapoor
Believability and relatability. If you want to be in a room with somebody, if you want to befriend somebody—if you believe them as a real person, I think you're much more likely to want to listen to them.
Elaine Appleton Grant
That's beautiful. That is beautiful. So thank you. This was really delightful. I really enjoyed it.
Michael Osborne
Thanks, Elaine. I love your show, and thrilled to be on, so thank you for inviting us.
Amit Kapoor
Yes, thank you.
Elaine Appleton Grant
At the end of every episode, I give you a few of the many takeaways from these conversations. Here are today’s.
That’s all for today. If you heard anything in this episode that’s helped you in your creative work, please tell us what your favorite or most useful episode has been. Send us a quick voice memo at allies at podcast allies, and we will shout you out on a future episode of Sound Judgment. You’ll also be entered to win merch from your favorite podcaster who’s been featured on Sound Judgment.
Thanks so much for being with me this season. While we’ll be off for the summer, we’ll still be sending our Sound Judgment newsletters, full of creative advice and resources. Subscribe for free at podcast allies dot com.
And if you’re looking for more ways to improve your own audio storytelling, we have an online course, custom workshop, speaking options for your event, and of course our production services. Information and our email address are on our website and in the show notes.
Sound Judgment is produced by me, Elaine Appleton Grant. Audrey Nelson helped produce this episode. Sound design by Andrew Parrella. Our gorgeous cover art is by Sarah Edgell. Podcast management by Tina Bassir.
Happy hosting, and see you soon!
After theme music:
CREDITS
That’s all for today.
Thanks for being with me.
Want to help other audio creators and writers find our show? Please give us a shoutout on social media! And if you do, tag me on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram.
Sound Judgment is produced by me, Elaine Appleton Grant. Audrey Nelson helped produce this episode. Sound design by Andrew Parrella. Our gorgeous cover art is by Sarah Edgell. Podcast management by Tina Bassir.
This will be the last episode in this season before we take some time off for the summer – and get ready for Season 3, launching in September.
See you soon!
