Behind the Mic and Beyond With John Corcoran

Very nice. Our next topic is someone in your network who has impacted you. Before we started, you mentioned that Rob Castaneda is somebody who has impacted you recently.

John Corcoran: 08:42

Yeah. So Rob Castaneda, service rocket is his company. Rob has been a friend. He’s been a mentor. He’s been an inspiration.

He’s been a leader. He’s a member of EO San Francisco, so I know him through that. We were informed together for a while. He was president of our chapter, and I was fortunate to serve on his board. And just someone that I’ve turned to again and again.

He inspired me to take a pause on drinking about ten, 11 months ago. It’s been almost a year, actually, so he’s been really inspirational for me and I love calling him a friend. I love being able to turn to him and see how he would approach different issues, and how he chooses to lead the leadership choices that he makes. And then just seeing him, you know, lead his company. He’s got a very large company with an international group of people that are from different parts of the globe and just, you know, he’s been there, done that, been doing it for 20 plus years, running his company for 20 plus years.

It really is an inspiration for me. I’m really just saying all this because I’m trying to get Rob on my podcast and I’ve asked him before he hasn’t come on before, so maybe if he hears this, he will finally come on as a guest.

Chad Franzen: 09:59

We’d love to hear from you, Rob. What kind of.

John Corcoran: 10:01

My secret, you know, ulterior motive.

Chad Franzen: 10:04

What kind of effect did they pause on drinking have on you?

John Corcoran: 10:08

Yeah, it. I wanted to do something that was better for my health. So it’s a big step. You know, I’m not one of these people. I call it a pause on drinking because I don’t want to have it be just like cold turkey.

And there is a fear that if I have a beer that I’m going to, like, fall off the wagon and go back to drinking again. I felt like it was drinking a little bit too much, it wasn’t a ton, but it was like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, a couple of drinks, you know, 2 or 3 drinks. Usually wine. And it was just I felt like as I’m getting older, my head was getting a little bit foggier. We went on vacation, not vacation, but we traveled over the summer.

Summer before last and we were in Oregon, which has great beer, and I would have a try a new beer every night and just like one. But it was every night, which I don’t usually do. And about three weeks into that, my head was just feeling very foggy. I was kind of grasping for words. I wasn’t as articulate as I like to think I am.

Usually under normal circumstances. And so that partly inspired it also. And it’s just, you know, I have less headaches. I feel more refreshed when I wake up in the morning. It doesn’t solve everything.

But it definitely has been a positive for me.

Chad Franzen: 11:35

Good to hear. Very good to hear. Next topic involves podcasts. Something in your industry I guess people ask, you know, if they should create a podcast with a unique angle or approach that hasn’t been done before. What are your thoughts on that?

And maybe you have an example you can share with us?

John Corcoran: 11:51

Absolutely. So actually I was listening recently. I’ve been listening to a lot of humor podcasts lately, and I was listening to the Family Trips podcast with Seth Meyers and his brother Josh do it together, and I’m a big fan of Seth Meyers. Josh does great impressions of Governor Gavin Newsom on The Jimmy Kimmel Show, so I’m a big fan of both of theirs. But I think that this illustrates a little bit of how sometimes we get people coming to us who are saying, oh, I only want to do a podcast.

If I can come up with some unique angle that’s never been done before. And sometimes that doesn’t serve them. They think that it does, but it doesn’t. And in this case, they had Jim Gaffigan as a guest on the show. And Jim is, you know, he’s absolutely hilarious.

And he was trying to get into his material that he had on. On the topic of family trips and vacations, which he has a fair amount of, but then they kept on asking him questions about other things where he didn’t have material. And so sometimes it doesn’t make your guest look the best. And if the guest doesn’t feel like they were able to shine, they don’t have the best experience from it. So sometimes a little bit of overcommitment to, you know, having to have a unique angle on something doesn’t serve you as well as you think that it would.

Now, that’s an entertainment podcast that’s different from what we do, which is a B2B podcast where really what the guest experience is is more important. And I don’t think Jim really felt uncomfortable or anything like that, but I just felt like that was a very good example of the perils of being overly committed to having this completely unique angle. The other peril of it is that people put off starting a podcast for months, if not years, if they can’t find that unique angle that’s never been done before. I have had a million people tell me this. You know that they haven’t done a podcast because they haven’t found some unique angle.

So hopefully they will listen to this as an example of why they shouldn’t wait. You know, and people put I mean I just have amazing relationships that I’ve developed with friends and people that I’ve gotten to know which I would be deprived of if I had put off starting a podcast because I was waiting for something to come down like manna from heaven. Right? You know, and so I think that, you know, people should consider that, you know, just sometimes the uniqueness is you. The uniqueness is the conversation that will unfold between you and your guest.

Regardless of anything else, that conversation will be unlike any other conversation that’s ever happened in human history and ever will. And so just allow that to be your uniqueness. That’s wonderful.

Chad Franzen: 14:45

There you go. That’s a great way of looking at it. Hey, bonus question for you. As you look back on your childhood, what was the highlight?

John Corcoran: 14:55

So this was inspired by our conversation beforehand. And I realized that, you know, this was definitely the highlight of my childhood, probably my life. And it’s just been downhill since then. So I’m dating myself. But I was a huge fan of Knight Rider.

Knight rider was a show that was on in the early 80s with David Hasselhoff and a talking autonomous car, which doesn’t quite seem like science fiction today, considering that there are some in San Francisco, in different cities and stuff like that. But it was absolutely crazy because I grew up in Los Angeles. My dad was an entertainment reporter on television, and he surprised me when I was seven years old by taking me down to it. They were filming the Knight Rider movie. Took me down and I watched them film it.

And then he interviewed David Hasselhoff, David Hasselhoff afterwards, which was kind of within his, you know, what he did for a living. With me sitting there. And then I got to ask questions of David Hasselhoff, which were bizarrely specific about past episodes and like, quirks, like in the script. I think he was just like, kid, like, go away. Like it didn’t matter.

But it was definitely the highlight of my childhood, of my lifetime, probably of all time. And I will definitely find it because I know at some point we uploaded it to YouTube because my dad then did a story that evening on television that was the product of that, and it was about like taking his sons down to see, you know, Knight Rider. I mean, the equivalent of today taking like a nine year old girl to go see Taylor Swift and then having her meet her backstage. Like it was. Oh, yeah.

There was no better highlight for me. You know, hasn’t really aged the same way that you would think it would.

Chad Franzen: 16:40

But yeah. So for you so for you, you know, you met David Hasselhoff, the star of Knight Rider, star of Baywatch, probably the star of other other shows. But you went on to meet other, you know, famous people, presidents, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. How is David Hasselhoff? Meeting.

Meeting David Hasselhoff when you were a child, compared to meeting those guys, you know, later as an adult?

John Corcoran: 17:00

Oh, man, don’t hassle the Hoff, man. Don’t hassle the Hoff. It doesn’t doesn’t even hold a candle. World leaders. Presidents.

No, it’s. It’s got to be the Hasselhoff at the peak of his fame in 1983 or 84 or whatever it was.

Chad Franzen: 17:13

Perfect, perfect. Hey, John, great to talk to you. Thanks so much for having me today.

John Corcoran: 17:17

Awesome. Thanks!

Chad Franzen: 17:18

So long everybody. Thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.