This September, Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy (UIYB), my podcast/radio show, will be seven years old. Looking back to the beginning, it’s hard to believe for the first two years we did a live, hour-long broadcast every Friday.
At inception, the premise of the show was for me and a guest to share our business knowledge in the hopes of mentoring young, budding entrepreneurs. This worthy mission propelled us forward. But it wasn’t long before the content of our conversations morphed into human-interest stories chronicling my guest’s life. Hearing successful people talk about their ups and downs, persistence, and hard work seemed, in some ways, more helpful to young people just starting out. The realization that nobody has a straight and charmed path seems to level the playing field in one’s mind, quiet the rhetoric of self-doubt, and spring hope.
Time for a Change
After two years of recording the show live, UIYB upgraded to a nicer radio studio and time slot, which required my staff and I to begin prerecording the show. At first, I was opposed. The excitement and adrenaline rush that comes from being live is intoxicating and makes for good listening.
But soon I began to see the value in prerecording; an hour-long show may have been edited down from a two-hour prerecorded interview and, because of the editing, it becomes the best-in-show.
7-Year Itch
Every now and again, I think about quitting the broadcast and moving on to something else. After all, UIYB is a passion project, not a money maker. But then I have a month like this past one, where I have the privilege of interviewing Arkansas’s past Gov. Asa Hutchinson, or the retired pro golfer, Christina Lecuyer and this week: Little Rock Zoo Director Susan Altrui. In all these interviews, I learned something interesting. For the Zoo interview, my research consisted of me visiting the Zoo.
Last Sunday morning I skipped church and went to the zoo with some of my family. I learned the retired old-lady circus elephants have a feud going on and must be separated, that the miniature horse is so ornery that she is penned with the Alpacas who won’t take any of her crap, and that the Orangutans are a family: mom, dad, and 2 children born at the Zoo.
UIYB has morphed again. What began as a mentoring show for others, has now become continuing education for me.
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