Honesty and interesting content

Sometimes great things happen when you wander off course

Earlier this month, writer James Altucher interviewed one of his heroes for his podcast and it was a disaster. 

By his own admission, Altucher failed to strike up a rapport with rapper, Biz Markie ...

I felt so awkward in the interview but learning to be comfortable in awkwardness is a valuable skill to have.
Even the engineers after the interview said afterwards, “what. the hell. was that?”

Then Altucher did something truly inspired. He made another podcast analysing his interview podcast with a blow by blow disection of everything he did wrong. Then he wrote a blog about it detailing everything he learned from his interview subject.  Including:

HOW DID YOU GO FROM RAPPING TO DJING TO ACTING TO MANAGING A BUSINESS?He told me the key: “Master only one thing at a time”

and

HOW HARD YOU HAVE TO WORK. He told me he wanted to be a rapper in 1977 but no group would have him. “I had to get good first.”
I asked him what that meant. “Practice.” How much practice? “Six to ten hours A DAY!”
Six to ten hours a day of practice a day. A DAY. To be a good rapper.

and

 HOW TO LOSE 150 POUNDS. “I lost 150 pounds in the past year,” he told me. How did you do that? “I drank a lot of water and didn’t eat a lot of food,” he said. And that was that. “Paleo?” I asked. “Nah,” he said, “just drink a lot of water and don’t eat a lot of food.”

There are a lot of things I like about this post. I like that Altucher called himself out on his lapse of quality - he pointed it out to people who otherwise may not have even noticed. He kept in mind the value he could deliver the people who read his blog. He worked what he had into content that was genuinely worth something.

I also like that he didn't only make it about himself. Much of the wisdom Altucher shared was directly attributed to Biz Markie. Altucher honoured his interview subject who had gone to the time and effort to speak to him.

So now I've written a blog post about a blog post about a podcast about a podcast. It's all about quality content, that is honest and gives the audience something they didn't have before that may just help them with their own endeavours. Quality content.

You can read the whole post here and listen to the podcast here.

Here are some more words on creating quality marketing content.