It has been a year since I have started the podcast, lots of things happened and grateful for everyone who came to the show and applied to come on the show. This post is going to talk about something that I always wanted to talk about but decided to keep it to myself then certain friends and family started to point this out hence it would be ideal to talk about this and tackle the elephant in the room in a genuine manner

I am going to talk about multiple things here:

• the problems that I have faced
• the temporary solution that I came up with
• the idea that came into mind towards a shift
• the plan that I am going to execute in the future
• the feedback that I have received and what I will implement on
• the promise and mission I am willing to keep

I want to talk about the delay with replying to the people who applied to come on the podcast that I have confirmed with them in the past (I am targeting here the people who applied to my previous podcast opportunities on Polywork), I have a logical reason on the delay and I am going to explain this in details

Around this time last year when Polywork came up invite-only in beta, they launched the opportunity feature which lets you post any type of opportunity request like coming up on a podcast and they recently started featuring opportunities in emails. What resulted is 80 people applying to my opportunity in less than 1 hour interval which was mind blowing, I was seeing the streak of email notifications on my way back to the gym

The problem

This phenomenon made me happy and made me push towards getting as much people as possible on the show like even certain guests started to refer other guests through emails but this joy came with a price: managing this entire situation without burning out

And you have guessed it: I have burned-out. It is difficult to manage work, life demands, the podcast, trying to start your own startup, and much more all together as I would have expected hence I started to fall behind in replying which has put me in a position that I don't feel productive at anything (including work) because I feel that something is not being done properly

From managing people, structuring questions, trying to digest the final format to make content is time consuming and you will see its tolls when you are burned-out hence I have decided to put everything on hold

The solution

I started to work on low power mode where I started to parse the list slowly, I did leverage online tools to schedule calls and book time to talk before doing the episode which helped me move around faster

I had to take time to rest and reflect on what happened, while delaying on everything might not sound as the right choice but honestly it was. When I was on time off reflecting on what happened, there was this idea that occurred in my mind that made me change how I see the podcast and how things will happen thus explains why I shifting the podcast link from my personal website to a dedicated website (which is reconfigured.co)

The idea from the reflection

I did an entire makeover to the podcast and did a rebranding to everything under "Reconfigured" for one logical reason: Becoming a better person by reconfiguring myself

I came up with the name for the podcast "The Reconfigured Podcast" because my intention was to make it a technical podcast  (because reconfiguring is a technical term) but when I got the tech based guests on the show, they started to shift towards talking about non technical topics on their own that does reflect on the tech career and I kinda liked it because it was genuine. Then I started to get non technical people that reflect on technical background to talk about other points of views that are interesting which made me remove the technical restriction on the podcast and shift towards that format (I will talk more about this format in details below)

This means that every single guest who applied on the show will follow this new format, I have created a new set of house rules and points to agree on when coming on the podcast which I didn't have in the past

The new plan

Getting people to talk about their experience is nice and creating a catalog of people's experiences is something worth documenting about but I have the best of the best in-front of me on a call, why can't I ask them questions that I have always wanted to ask in a genuine manner? Like I want to start my own startup in the future, why can't I ask the guest who is a CEO of his own startup on what I can start with like the paperworks and cost to start on, sure I can let him talk about his startup but I want to learn where to pitch in and which investor/incubator/accelerator I can target

The name "Reconfigured" shifted from a point where I would bring people to talk about their experience to become a documentation of the things that I have learned from the people around me and the people who I got on the podcast. You would think that it is self centered but it is not because I am sharing my humble opinion on how I have benefitted from the guests and any type of information I have gathered than plainly giving out content. In a world of abundant information gatherers, I have decided to shift from that form and add a personal perspective on it

Instead of saying "here is X guest talking about how to run a business and gives advice on where to start" to "I am running my own business, this is the advice I have used to begin"

I have decided to follow this path when I watched this video for Alex Hormozi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91D5hjMEADg) and one line stood up to me which is "You have to do things so that you have evidence that you can support why you're good" and it hit me: you don't build confidence by shouting affirmations in-front of a mirror but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are, outwork your self doubt.

From now on "Reconfigured" is going to be my undeniable stack of proof, consider this newsletter as the journey I am going to embark towards and you my dear reader get to be an early adopter on everything that I am going to do

The new format

The new format is that I can bring anyone I want as long this person has something worth documenting about that can benefit me and the people around.

I don't run the podcast to showcase businesses in terms of advertising their businesses solely like I am not here to be an ad business, tho you do have the rights to talk about your work/startup/project at the beginning in complete details since it is a fair bargain for the information you are willing to share but it is not the whole show's idea

I am here to bring people who want to bring benefits into this world, if you want to come on the show to get views and showcase your things then I am not the right person to target

Recent feedback on the entire flow

I have started to ask previous guests on the entire flow from scheduling meeting calls through Calendly, doing the onboarding call, submission of the questions, recording day and after recording

To be fair satisfaction was high but with certain remarks that I agree on: sending a 10 page pdf document through email is not efficient and it can be daunting when reading all the house rules like it needs time to go through it, guests want something that is easier to do and requires less friction

I will be posting all the house rules, mission, and agreement points on the website and link it in the pdf document to make it smaller, as for the questions I am going to code an entire system to host questions where the guest can review and audit all the feedback with minimal back and forth from questions, testimonials, expectations, and much more. This project will be an experiment worth investing time in, it might potentially become a service that can benefit other creators in the future but I will document every single event regarding it here on the newsletter

The promise and mission

I would say that the mission that "Reconfigured" aims to deliver is helping others advancing in their career but through my humble experience doing this transition.

I want to advance in my career where I would get better in my technical career, learn new skills like UX/UI design, transition to a different career like becoming a technical product manager, and a chance of starting my own startup where I would offer a product/service in the future

I have always wanted to start my own startup but lacked the skills and proper advice to start one at an early age (I started thinking of this idea when I was 17 years old). I was fortunate enough at age 17 to be around professionals from different fields whom have guided me on the right path and help me become the person who I am right now

Instead of giving you advice and you would be on your own to discover how things might work, I will undergo the process and going to document it here as it is. Certain advice might not apply on me but will document it regardless

My promise is to try to stay consistent on delivering the best content possible, this means that there might be certain delay in creating something but I would prefer to create something meaningful and legit than create half-assed content to satisfy an algorithm.

I am working on handling content generated in a new form that makes it easier to work with and interconnected, I will document about it in the near future