Why I Started Scripting My Podcast Episodes

I've been lucky enough to speak on stages all over the world thanks to podcasting. From educating at Harvard University to delivering a TEDx and speaking at the biggest podcasting conferences on the planet.

But during all of that time, I haven't once scripted a talk.

Not once. Not even my TEDx.

But in January I began scripting my Monday podcast episodes. 

If I can speak on some of the world's biggest stages without scripting, why did I start scripting my short-form podcast - especially after 1,300+ episodes?!

When I wrote my TEDx talk and actually, when I've written any talk in the past for any event that I've spoken at, I've always started with the outcome that I want to deliver.

With my TEDx it was "Choose Happiness, Choose Control". That's my destination, the place that I'm taking the viewer or listener to.

And my process is to work backwards from that by, in my mind and then on Post-It Notes (all over the wall!), spending days and sometimes weeks thinking of the connective tissue between opening the talk and delivering the outcome.

I like to tell stories, so I tend to develop a salient point for each "beat" of my talk and then connect those with anecdotes and tales from my past in life or business so that I can take the viewer on a journey with me, painting a picture during every scene so that they relate and recall each point.

Then, my process is to simply get good at telling each of those stories individually and working hard on making the connective tissue between them work to the very best of its ability.

It's not scripting - in fact, if you look hard at my TEDx, I do waver off-topic a tad (which I couldn't have done with a script) but I knew my stories and my destination, plus my connective bridges between each story so well that unless I tell you where it is, you'll be hard pushed to find it.

I've spent years working on public speaking and have honed that technique over those years.

Podcasting has helped.

There's no pride to be had in "winging it"

When I started podcasting I had an interview podcast (you can still find it if you search for me in your podcast app) and, back in 2013, I had a bulletproof process where the guest would pretty much give me the talking points and the actionable takeaways for each episode. 

It worked really well and my show notes were almost written for me. But, I'd still spend 20 minutes before each episode researching every guest so that I could take the guest to places that maybe they hadn't been for a while or that other podcast hosts weren't taking them. 

Often, after the interview, my guest would tell me that they felt it was the best interview that they'd ever done - the one they enjoyed the most.

It was flattering but entirely down to my prep.

When I stopped my interview podcast in 2016 and went "solo", I began winging it. 

It was refreshing. After all, I'd been plying my trade for a long time and could (still can) wax lyrical about business, podcasting, startups and life in business all day long. I could produce episodes without ever running out of steam and without ever finding myself short on things to chat through.

The most preparation I ever did for an episode was a few bullet points (which I know so many hosts do, too, and it works fine) and it worked really well. I had a base framework but no script. That meant that, just like you're taught in media training, I could go through and make sure to hit the beats that I wanted to whilst also making sure to keep that open, fairly "un-edited" style that people like about me and my brand.

That hasn't changed - that's still what people value about how I deliver content.

In this growing podcasting world, though, I didn't...