How To Create A Memorable Podcast
And one tutoring program's secret to success
Welcome to In The DM. I’m sending this newsletter to 1,285 amazing humans. I created this newsletter because I wanted a way to show you behind-the-scenes of building my podcast to 1,000,000 downloads per month. Expect to learn stories, lessons, and learnings from building my life and podcast. Thank you for subscribing!
Someone recently told me about this college tutoring program.
On the surface, it looked like any old college tutoring program. But there was one notable difference that drove demand to unreasonably high levels.
The teacher used curse words, crude examples, and taboo topics to teach “boring” classes like Calculus and Finance.
That’s it.
For example…
“If Hooker A does 3 milligrams of cocaine and Hooker B does 10 milligrams of cocaine...”
When the person explained it to me, I thought it was genius. College students don’t want to be talked down to. They want to be bored. They want to be taken on a fun and exciting journey. Here’s the funny part: it’s not just college students. It’s everyone.
Now, of course, there will be people who will say this is wrong. That it’s morally misguided. That it promotes inapprorpriate ideals.
Maybe.
But if the teacher is engaging and it leads to better learning and retention (and the students are actually excited to show up)… how can we argue with it?
By the way, apparently, the sessions would be so jam-packed that the lecture halls were overflowing. And the professors wouldn’t like these tutoring sessions but they’d put up with it because students ended up getting higher grades.
What does this tell you?
People want to be entertained when they’re educated
We remember things better when they’re attached to bizarre or unusual examples
What does this have to do with podcasting?
Make the information you present as engaging as possible.
When in doubt, lean into stories. The more insane, the better. If you have an interview podcast, try to pull the moments from your guests.
We remember lessons through stories.
You can do this in a couple of different ways:
Research your guest’s interesting stories in advance
When in doubt, ask about the moments that have been impactful
For example, in my most recent conversation with Jack Raines, we discussed how he lost $150,000 in a single day. That’s a story (and a headline) that will grab your attention.
And that’s likely why it’s garnered over 191,000 views in the past couple of days on TikTok.
Instead of saying “day trading is like gambling,” I had Jack tell a story that illustrated that point. The story is wild and will probably stick with you if you watch it… because it’s something we don’t hear about every day.
Also, a quick memory hack: if you want to remember something, connect it to something else that’s wild or unusual. For example, if I introduce myself as Danny… think about a donkey flying in the sky.
(The image above was created by Stable Diffusion AI.)
The more memorable stories in your podcast episode, the more likely the listener is going to share it.
What’s the most memorable piece of content you’ve ever shared?
If you would like a special paid issue of the newsletter tomorrow (and every Tuesday), please subscribe here: