--- title: "1: Introducing The John Poelstra Show" id: "4902" type: "post" slug: "introducting-john-poelstra-show-001" published_at: "2016-07-02T03:50:13+00:00" modified_at: "2026-11-01T16:30:29+00:00" url: "https://johnpoelstra.com/introducting-john-poelstra-show-001/" markdown_url: "https://johnpoelstra.com/introducting-john-poelstra-show-001.md" excerpt: "This kicks off the first episode of the John Poelstra Show. I talk about my goals and motivations for doing this new podcast and what I hope comes of it." taxonomy_category: - "Podcast" taxonomy_post_tag: - "ownership" --- [Skip to the content](#site-content) [John Poelstra](https://johnpoelstra.com) ### Bringing order to chaos and clarity to confusion - [One Conversation](https://johnpoelstra.com/) - [Podcast](https://johnpoelstra.com/category/podcast/) - [Coaching for Directors](https://johnpoelstra.com/coach/) - [About](https://johnpoelstra.com/about/) Toggle search field - [One Conversation](https://johnpoelstra.com/) - [Podcast](https://johnpoelstra.com/category/podcast/) - [Coaching for Directors](https://johnpoelstra.com/coach/) - [About](https://johnpoelstra.com/about/) # [1: Introducing The John Poelstra Show](https://johnpoelstra.com/introducting-john-poelstra-show-001/) This kicks off the first episode of the John Poelstra Show. I talk about my goals and motivations for doing this new podcast and what I hope comes of it. [https://media.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/content.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/JPS001-The-John-Poelstra-Show-Launch.mp3](https://media.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/content.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/JPS001-The-John-Poelstra-Show-Launch.mp3) Podcast: [Download](https://media.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/content.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/JPS001-The-John-Poelstra-Show-Launch.mp3) Subscribe: [Apple Podcasts](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-john-poelstra-show/id1130635146?mt=2&ls=1#episodeGuid=http%3A%2F%2Fjohnpoelstra.com%2F%3Fp%3D4902) | [Android](https://subscribeonandroid.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) Links mentioned in this episode: - [Fizzle.co](http://fizzle.co?aid=12402) - [Jocko Podcast](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jocko-podcast/id1070322219?mt=2) - [Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin](https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs/dp/1250067057) ## Credits - [Pulse Rock](http://www.incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100102&Search=Search) by Kevin MacLeod - [Sax, Rock, and Roll](http://www.incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100086) by Kevin MacLeod All songs licensed under [Creative Commons](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) ## Transcript *This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.* Hi, this is John Poelstra, and you’re listening to my new show. This show is admittedly an experiment. We’re not sure where that experiment is gonna go or what this show will end up looking like, so this might be an interesting episode to listen to 100 episodes from now. Um, really the goal here is to just start shipping. I’m familiar with podcasting. I have another podcast called Untangling Christianity. I also produce the Productivityist Podcast and a couple others in the works that I’m also going to be helping to produce. So producing and publishing podcasts comes fairly easily for me. And I have a lot of things that I like to share, a lot of topics I’d like to cover, and a lot of different people I’d like to talk about. I don’t see this being an interview show per se. I think there’s— enough of those on the internet. So we’ll kind of see where this goes from. So I probably see myself covering topics like personal development, productivity. I’m really passionate about meetings. You may have seen some of my blog posts or other interviews I’ve done on that topic. I also do coaching, personal coaching, professional coaching, as well as I manage a team of program managers. Also known similar to project managers, if you’re not familiar with what a program is, then maybe that’s a topic for an episode as well. So how to manage people, what works well, what doesn’t work so well there, what I happen to be reading. I read probably— I was looking at my book list the other night. I probably read between 20 and 30 books a year. I think my biggest year was 50 books, but I didn’t— I wasn’t working that year and that was a long time ago. So yeah, I might share some of that. Also trying to be a really regular or a consistent exerciser. Exercise is not really something that I enjoy. I enjoy a good long walk, but in terms of, you know, weights and that kind of stuff, I enjoy it a little bit, but not a lot. Anyway, so I found some routines that work, and I’m constantly trying to stay consistent and disciplined and all that. So maybe I’ll be sharing some of that stuff too. So, So I don’t even know if this episode is going to have music or a fancy intro or outro. I was recently inspired by the Jocko podcast. Jocko Willink is an ex-Navy SEAL. He’s also written a book with a co-author. The name of the book is called Extreme Ownership. I highly recommend that book. So he recently launched— well, it hasn’t been recent. I guess it was in December of last year. He launched a podcast. There’s no music. He just starts talking. And he has a co-host and he shares some really, really good, profound, thought-provoking, challenging stuff. He has no special announce— he doesn’t have, you know, Mr. Big Voice at the beginning or any music or anything. It’s just him sharing really good information. So, in the interest of shipping, this episode may have had music at the beginning, may not. I’ve been procrastinating on creating this episode for I don’t know, maybe up to a month. So today I just decided I have a little mind map here in front of me of things I wanted to go over and I’ve just pushed record and here we go. So far, this is the first take and we’ll see where we go. Some of the reasons for doing this, or maybe some of the motivations, I was at a— I’m also a member of Fizzle, fizzle.co, which is an online— I don’t know what you call it, an online forum training group organization, helping people to start small businesses. And I joined last December and have been kind of sort of on, sort of off again in terms of participating in the forums. But I went to a local meetup. I live in Portland, Oregon, as do some of the owners in Fizzle. And anyway, Corbett Barr was at a meetup I went to last month, which was May. And it just happened to be this really small group of us. I think there were 5 or 6 of us and really great encouraging conversations about a number of things. And he was talking about blogging and the idea of using blogging or podcasting to really hone your message and your ideas. And that you don’t know in the course of, you know, doing those, doing those posts or doing those podcasts, you really don’t know always what’s going to hit and what’s not. I think everyone out there has probably had something they’ve written for the internet that they thought would be just a raging success, only to have nobody click on it or read it. And then that post that you just thought, well, this is just for me, everyone loved it and shared it widely. In fact, it’s funny, I have a post that I created almost 4 years ago about configuring a DSL router for CenturyLink. And that blog post gets like 1,500 visits a month of just an article that I created because I was so annoyed and trying to figure it out that I documented, you know, how to go about this process. And someone posted a link to it in a forum. And anyway, if there was some way to monetize that post, I probably should, but too many other things to do. So getting back to the main point here, you don’t know what’s going to be a hit. So— I don’t know what’s going to be hitting this podcast. So I’m just going to experiment and put stuff out there. My goal is to get to 100 episodes. Tentative goal is to publish every week. It might be every other week, but the ultimate goal is to get to 100 episodes. On what? We do not know. But again, the goal is to get in the habit of shipping. Uh, and, you know, seeing what resonates with people, see what’s interesting, what’s not, and what I can learn in the process, but also hopefully to help people in the process. One of the reasons I created Untangling Christianity with my co-host, Greg Monteith, was that I figured if I was frustrated and unclear, maybe confused on certain things, there must be at least one or two other people out in the world that had the same experiences and questions. And so, It turns out that that is the case. And so we have a small following over there. And, you know, who knows, maybe the same thing will happen here. So again, sharing things that I’m interested in, sharing things that I’m learning and finding. So both to express myself and then hopefully to help other people. So if there is something you think I should talk about, COVID someone I should interview, again, I don’t see this being like like the interview show. I think as I come across people that are interesting to me or friends of mine, maybe we’re reading the same books or having similar experiences, I think they’ll definitely come on to have conversations. But it’s not really my goal to, you know, interview the hottest people in certain spaces so that, you know, my numbers will grow or anything like that. So if you have ideas, oh, I don’t know, maybe you wanna even come on the show. I’m open to just about anything. Can’t make any promises, But send your thoughts, questions, ideas to REDACTED. Last name is spelled P-O-E-L-S-T-R-A, think Joel. Sometimes people get thrown off by spelling. So again, it’s REDACTED. Send an email there and I’ll consider your suggestion. Other ways I can help you, I have a small business around podcast production. So if you’re looking for help Producing a show or just not even sure where to get started, there’s a lot of helpful stuff on the internet on how to do that. If that stuff isn’t working for you or you want to talk to someone personally, I’d be glad to do that. I also do personal coaching. I’m in the process of getting certified with CTI. Their coaching methodology is called Co-Active Coaching, and I can explain more to you about what that is, and maybe I’ll have a future episode. On what that is and how that works as well. So just a parting challenge to you. What’s a dream or something that you’ve been wanting to launch that you haven’t done or you haven’t started yet? My challenge to you would be to think, what is the smallest next step I can take? And what is one way to create my life or my schedule in such a way that I could do this one thing or multiple things on a consistent basis to get closer to that big thing that I want to do. And that’s all I got for this time. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening to The John Poelstra Show. Notes, links, and all that other good stuff for this episode are at johnpoelstra.com/podcast. If you have questions or ideas for the podcast, send those to REDACTED. Thanks to Kevin MacLeod for the music on this podcast, which is licensed under a Creative Commons license and can be found at incompetech.com. #### John Poelstra John Poelstra coaches directors in finance and software. Trained through the Co-Active Training Institute, he has coached for more than 10 years, with over 520 clients and 3,150 sessions, including people at well-known Fortune 100 companies. In over 30 years of professional experience, he spent 25 in technology and finance: software testing, project management and team leadership at Red Hat and Dell/EMC, and finance as a bank auditor at Wells Fargo and a CPA at Grant Thornton. He hosts The John Poelstra Show podcast and is based in Portland, Oregon. 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