My 20th anniversary as a podcast producer and editor is fast approaching. And over the course of nearly 2 decades, I’ve become proficient and very efficient at sourcing for stories, doing the research, writing scripts and doing close editing to deliver a polished end product.
However, in 19 years of working on podcasts, I had never gotten behind the microphone to do the interviewing. Why you may ask? I guess it’s due to a lack of confidence. For starters, I’ve worked almost exclusively with alumni from Australia’s public broadcasters – ABC and SBS – and that set an impossibly high bar, albeit only between my ears. And to add fuel to that fire, I have an accent of a non-standard variety
However, in August last year, a friend mentioned that my former psychology lecturer, Dr Chee Soon Juan was about to launch his new book on mental resilience, and asked if I could help to promote it by producing a podcast style interview. I mulled it over for a few days, plucked up my courage and said that I’d be happy to help if I could do the interviewing myself.
And here’s the product of that project.
I listened to my inaugural effort at hosting a couple of months after the interview was published. And I thought parts of it were cringeworthy – my voicing of the intro was way too dramatic. Note to self: be more chill if there ever was another shot at hosting.
Another shot at hosting came in early 2026. And I seized the opportunity.
I’ve been working with Asia Centre, a civil society research organisation by hosting 3 episodes of their podcast, Asia Centre’s Big Ideas — the series about civil society in contemporary Asia.
Episode 1 is now out in the wild, so I’m inviting you to check it out. And episode 2 is on its way.
I’m still on a learning curve, but I’m feeling more comfortable at hosting with every interview.
Do subscribe to the Asia Centre channel on Youtube or Spotify for episodes 2 and 3.
The upshot of all this is that an old dog can learn new tricks provided they are willing to get out of their comfort zone.