Jon Ekstrom is the host and creator of the Jon of All Trades Podcast. He’s also this week’s guest, as he enlists former guest Simon Lomax, to turn the tables on him and answer questions about himself. Simon was a guest two years ago (Episode 18) and talked about his career as a journalist, an advocate, and shared his story about immigrating to this country and becoming a full citizen. He’s agreed to dust off his interview skills and ask Jon about his life, the origins of this podcast, what he does when he’s not working on the podcast, and more.
OK, real talk. I could go on writing this in the 3rd person as if it’s someone else writing the episode preview, but let’s face it, I am the Jon of All Trades for a reason. It’s still just me. So what can you expect from this episode? And perhaps more pressingly, why am I doing this?
After doing 99 of these shows, I thought about what I used to tell all of my students and trainees (from when I led large scale corporate trainings): I’ll never ask you to do anything that I’m unwilling to do myself, or that I haven’t done already. And while I suppose I always thought I was ready to get interviewed, I had never put my money where my mouth is.
So I contacted my journalist friend, and asked him to interview me. He asked what direction he should go, and I said, “Take it any way you want. You’ve been on the show. You know my work. You have a good sense of who I am. What do you think listeners would want to hear from me if the tables were turned?” Those were the only instructions I gave him, and I didn’t know what Simon would ask me until we were there in the interview. He even recorded this week’s intro.
What did we end up covering in this week’s show?
- What I’ve learned about success
- What I’ve learned about failure
- My wish list for future interviews
- What this show has taught me about fatherhood and balancing work and life
- When I think I’ve “failed” an interview
- How my overall anxiety propels me to be more successful as an entrepreneur
- My thoughts on the First Amendment and its future
- And, perhaps most pressingly what the point of this show even is.
I go deep talking about my social anxiety, and how that contributed to not only the formation of this show, but my interviewing tricks and techniques as well. It’s an intensely personal episode where I delve into aspects of my career I rarely talk about, just how profoundly my panic attacks induced by social anxiety influenced how I interact in public, and why I care so much about how people make a living.
I hope you enjoy this episode because while I enjoyed getting prodded for it, I’m extremely uncomfortable talking about myself in this much depth, so I don’t look to duplicate it anytime soon. You’ll notice how poorly I take compliments throughout this episode – mostly received with nervous laughter and polite dismissal – and that’s all part of who I am.
Give it a listen, share it with your friends, and we’ll be back to normal next week.
Thanks for your support, and I hope to see you for 100+ more!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
