Episode 54: Good Listen

What is it like to have a daily audience of 16 million listeners in the largest radio market in the world? Meet Joe Pardavila, a podcaster, filmmaker, and the author of Good Listen. Joe talks about creating memorable conversations. He also gives us an insight to his surreal experiences and shares his secrets to becoming an extraordinary communicator and interviewer. Welcome to the Limitless One podcast. I am your host, Anand Sukhadia, and we are about to go LIMITLESS with our guest today.

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Good Listen

Creating Memorable Conversations With Joe Pardavila

What's it like to have a daily audience of over 16 million listeners in the largest radio market in the world? Our guest in this episode will give us an insight into his surreal experiences and will share secrets to becoming an extraordinary communicator and master interviewer. We are about to go limitless with our guest.

Joe Pardavila has produced over 10,000 hours of audio content over the course of his career in podcasting and terrestrial radio. He is a Radio Personality and Producer on the legendary New York City radio station, 95.5 WPLJ, where he was a part of the iconic Scott & Todd in the Morning Show. He studied sketch comedy and improv comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade and was a Founding Member and Actor in the New York-based sketch comedy group, the Clip Show. The group performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and Peoples Improv Theater. Their video sketches were featured on Funny Or Die in the Huffington Post.

He is a Co-Director, Writer, and Producer of the award-winning horror satire, The Witches of Bushwick. He serves as the Director of Podcasts for Advantage Media Group ForbesBooks. He splits his time between Charleston, South Carolina and Northern New Jersey with his wife, Theresa and their dachshund, Nathan.

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Welcome to the show, brother. How are you?

I'm awesome. Thank you very much for having me. I'm honored.

We have Joe Pardavila on and he is an interesting guy. He is such a talented man. I was introduced to you by our mutual friend, Adam, and I was also privileged to get an advanced copy of your book, Good Listen and I was so blown away. I read every word, story, and communication lesson that you taught. It helped me a lot in the way that I prepare for my show. First of all, thank you for coming on and I'm super excited to dive into this conversation with you.

Thank you very much. I'm not used to being on this side of the microphone. It's funny. When I've done interviews to promote the book and stuff, I'm more tired after that. I could host six podcasts in a day and feel refreshed like I just woke up in the morning. This is exhausting for me because my brain does not operate this way, answering questions. Bear with me if I struggle through this.

It's all good. I have no doubt it's going to be phenomenal. Joe, let me ask you. What does living a limitless life mean to you?

Living a limitless life to me is all about doing what you can do in the best possible way. Whatever you decide to do, go all-in. Don't dip your toe into things. Don't do things that you only go through the motions. That's how I got my career started. I took a risk. I took a flyer. I dropped out of college and took a job in radio. I can't even imagine what my life would be like now if I did not make that bold choice at 19 to almost 20 years old. I walked away from school and the safety net of having a college education and went full bore into terrestrial radio. That's why I feel that whatever decision you make in life, go all-in. Don't pussyfoot any of that stuff.

The magic always lies on that other side of fear. For me, after all these years of experiences, I realized you got to dive into that fear because, at the end of the day, all you have is an experience afterward. Whether it's good or bad, at least you took the courage to act on it. I commend you for that. It defined your entire life post-decision.

It's always crazy when you see people make these life-changing decisions late in life. Those are the people I have the most pride and awe for. They've had a comfortable life. Whether they are married and have kids and then they decide to do something bold, like start a company at age 30 or 40 and gamble everything away. I was 19 years old. Even though it was a bit of a gamble for me to leave school and follow a career in radio, I didn't think about this at the time. If it didn't work out, I still had most of my twenties to find my way as most people like to do. Making that decision in a life-changing moment comes to us at all parts of our life. For me, it happened at a young age.

That's a beautiful way to look at it. When I started my business, I was in my late 30s as well. I kept delaying, hesitating, and then finally, I pulled the trigger. I was like, “Where do I see my life? If I don't make this decision, am I going to be happy? Am I going to be fulfilled or should I just go for it?” I went for it. I encourage people to try different things and follow their bliss. At the end of the day, it's always going to lead you to the next stone and the next stone. Eventually, you build the life that you want to build.

LOTP 54 Joe | Creating Memorable Conversations — Creating Memorable Conversations: In the radio business, you have to be a grinder. It shouldn't look like you're trying. Just work hard without calling attention to it.

Sometimes, it's out of your control, but as long as you've given it your all and poured every ounce of sweat into it, you can't regret that. You can't have regrets when you go all-in on something because you did it. You decided to make a decision, whether it was a career, a project, or a relationship.

Joe, tell us a little bit about your background and how you got here. You have such a colorful background in the way that you move through your career and your life. It's so important for everyone to hear about it.

I was an immigrant kid, even though I looked like the whitest kid on the planet. My mom was a Cuban refugee. My father was a mechanic from Spain. They met here in the late ‘60s, started a family, and had two kids, me and my brother, Arturo. We were both not nerdy because we weren't all that smart, but we were always into movies and TV shows. We were huge fans of Star Wars. We love showbiz. In my house, there was always a movie soundtrack playing in the background or my parents were watching a movie or something like that.

I always wanted to get into showbiz. I just didn't know how. I have no contacts. I didn't know anybody or anything, but my hero growing up was David Letterman. I thought, “Maybe I could be a talk show host. Maybe I could be on TV.” I get to college. When you go to college, sometimes you have options to try things out. They have college television and radio stations. I went to William Paterson College in Wayne, New Jersey. They built this gleaming high-tech communications building called Hobart Hall. They had a brand-new TV and radio studio.

On my first day on campus, I go down to the TV station and go, “I want to be on TV.” They go, “Freshmen don't go on TV. You have to work behind the scenes.” I'm like, “All right.” I walked down to the radio station. I go to the radio station and I go, “I want to be on the air.” The person goes, “What time do you want to go on?” That's how my radio career started because, in college radio, they don't care. They let you do whatever you want.

For some reason, I had the wherewithal while I was playing around doing college radio terribly. I thought to myself, “I should see if I can make a career out of this.” I didn't know how to do that other than applying for an internship. I applied for a couple of internships in New York City at a couple of radio stations. One was WPLJ Radio. It’s a heritage station that has been in the market until the end of its days, almost 50 years. They have a huge following. They had a big morning show called Scott & Todd in the Morning. I applied for an internship there for the sole reason that it was so freaking convenient.

Going from Jersey to Manhattan, you don't want to be taking 2 or 3 trains to get around. I was a kid. I was nineteen years old. I didn't want to be able to get into Penn Station and then get on a subway. Luckily, PLJ was located above Penn Station in Madison Square Garden right off the bus station. I can get right into the city without going through scary New York City, risking my life, and doing the internship there.

Taking that internship changed my life. I ended up excelling there. They offered me a job. I ended up spending over 23 years of my life in that same building because I made that choice to first, go there for an internship because of convenience and second, because I decided to walk away from college and pursue the career that I wanted.

When do you hear nowadays that people are somewhere for 23 years?

You could have all the talent in the world, but if you're a jerk and slack off, you will not excel.

It's unheard of, especially in radio, too, because it's a mobile business where people are hopping around. I started at the top level. Most people have to work their way up into smaller media markets to get into New York. I didn't start at the top of the top, but I worked my way up through the company. I eventually ended up working on the morning show. I became the executive producer and eventual co-host later down the line, but it was all because I was a grinder.

I like to say I'm a blue-collar guy in a white-collar world having this work ethic that shows up in people where it doesn't look like you're trying. Sometimes, you can tell people are putting on a show that they're working hard. If you work hard without calling attention to it, raising your hand, or saying, “Look what I did,” it goes a long way with people. They see, “This person just wants to get the work done, get out of the way, and don't cause any trouble.”

I come from a working-class family. My mom was nineteen years old when she came from Cuba. She was working in factories, pulling around pallets and stuff. My dad worked on ships. I always had this blue-collar sensibility of like, “Just work hard, and then you go home at the end of the day.” I brought that to the radio. There's the creativity aspect, the humor, and all the other stuff that goes into it.

At the end of the day, if you don't have that work ethic and that grind, you're not going to succeed in anything. You could have all the talent in the world, but if you're a jerk and if you slack off, you will not excel. Luckily, I had a couple of things going for me where I had enough talent, but I worked my ass off that no one else could take my job away from me.

I'm a first-generation immigrant as well. My parents came here in the ‘70s. That's the only way they knew how to go about it. They come to this country and no one was going to give them anything so they had to work their ass off. Our generation had to see that and appreciate it. We maintained that same work ethic. Sometimes the newer generations lose that a little bit because life has been a little bit easy, but when you come from nothing to a country where there is an opportunity, it becomes like this whole world that opens up. The people that have that strong work ethic, who do it in the right way, and who have integrity are always going to succeed.

The generational thing is an argument for a lot of people. As things go by, for years, people made fun of Millennials and now we make fun of Gen Zs. Before we know it, we'll be making fun of Gen Alphas, but I honestly think it all comes down to this. Life has gotten easier for people. When they have kids, they want their kids' lives to be easier than theirs. It's almost this domino effect.

Gen X kids, like ourselves, had it easier than our parents did and their parents had it easier than they did. We've gotten to a point where it's now so easy that you have all this, whether you get into culture discussions, and all this other stuff. We always want to make the next generation's lives easier and the problem is, they all get accustomed to it. That's where you get into the generational arguments about who's lazy or doing this. It's a domino effect of each generation trying to make it easier for the next.

There are 16 million listeners per day in the largest radio market in the world, essentially. What was your experience, especially because you started out as an intern and you climbed yourself all the way up? What was that experience like being on a team that was doing so well and there were so many people listening to it? What impact did that have on you because you had a voice to share with such a large audience?

I talk about it in the book too. I call it, “I went to Scott & Todd school.” I learned how to be a broadcaster communicator from two of the best in the business. Younger people may not know their names as well, but Scott Shannon is a revolutionary radio programmer. He's the one who gave birth to Z100 in New York City in the early ‘80s. Z100 is not what it would be now. People around the world probably know Z100 New York, but he invented Z100 New York in the early ‘80s. Todd Pettengill, his partner, was the youngest on-air personality to host a morning show in the history of New York. He was 25 when he got hired to in the morning show there.

I saw what these guys did day in and day out. I was always a sponge. Before the internet, I was always sponging, whether it was newspapers or watching TV and learning things. I was a sponge to Scott and Todd. I learned everything in terms of communicating and broadcasting from these two guys, but I didn't just learn the great stuff. I learned the bad stuff. I learned what I didn't want to do when I had the opportunity to have the mic. I learned what to do when I had the opportunity with the mic.

It was having this education and working with these guys who liked me well enough to put up with a lot of the early rookie mistakes I had to do. That happens with everyone when they're first starting a career. It was so influential in my life that I got to learn and not have any pressure. I was a part of a major brand. The Scott & Todd morning show was a top five morning show in New York up against heavyweights like Don Imus and Howard Stern. They were in the top five. They were very successful. I didn't have to come in and become a savior or do anything above and beyond. I had to be myself and that's why they hired me.

They saw this hardworking kid who had a pretty good knowledge of pop culture and they said, “Let's use him. Let's see what abilities we can get out of him and what he can add to the show.” Slowly but surely, as I was doing the grind, I started adding more and more responsibilities to becoming a full-fledged member of the show. You don't even think about the number of people listening. At that point, you're like, “We know there are people listening, but it doesn't matter.”

This was before Twitter and Facebook where people could comment. We knew every month how many listeners we had and that was it. People would call up and say, “We love the show,” and so on, but you wouldn't know until the ratings came out. There wasn't this instant feedback going, “How did that bit go over? Did people find that funny?” You have to go by your own judgment like, “That was a good break,” or, “That wasn't a good break. Let's do better next time.”

There is a difference from now. The minute you do something, you hear the feedback on it instantly, especially on Twitter. If somebody doesn't like you, they're going to let you know. Doing this for several years, the whole culture of communication, and these forums have changed. Once you were on the radio, tell us a little bit about the transition on how you moved past that as you saw the times were changing.

A big part of it was around the rise of Facebook. Before that, if you had any content for a morning show, it is mostly from a newspaper or watching TV. We cultivated most of that content from the night before or the morning of. Back in the day, before the internet where you could flip your phone and find out all the major stories of the day, you had to listen to the radio. The morning show was infotainment. We would report on stories and react to the stories and that will be the show. We would fill up four hours of things that happened in the world, our point of view on it, and our reactions to them.

This Mark Zuckerberg character up in Boston decides to come up with his Facebook thing and ruined everything for everybody. At that point, all of a sudden, people had all their information at their fingertips. There was no novelty of us talking about a Britney Spears meltdown or the latest rock and roll star who trashed a hotel room. By the time people got into their car and turned us on, they had already heard the story. They had already cultivated an opinion on what was going on in the world. They didn't need us to do that.

We still have to have some element of that because you still need to be commenting on what's going on in the world, but you need to share more about yourself. What separates one morning show from the other is their personalities. They are all playing the same Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran songs. They are all playing the same number of commercials per hour, the difference is the personalities.

As time went on, we went from rarely ever talking about our personal life only to maybe if something major happened, like someone getting married or having a baby, to then sharing everyday occurrences, and then making moments out of that, creating bits, and getting the audience involved in two members of the show having a fight with their spouses. We would have listeners weigh in and stuff like that. It became more interactive with the audience but also forced us to share more about ourselves because they could get all that other stuff already. They could not get what we were creating in terms of the magic of live radio, interacting with everyone on the show.

When you're on the radio, you have to crank yourself up. You have to be a person while being an entertainer.

The people who listen have to connect with you as a person. You're going to remember the way that somebody makes you feel. You then build an attachment and an affinity towards them. You don't see the person on the radio. How do you convey that connection with an audience through a medium where they're only listening to what you're saying?

Most of the best entertainers and broadcasters all started on the radio. With television and any video mediums, you have the benefits of pictures, pointing the things, and using all sorts of visual tricks to inform people but radio is the one medium and that's why you're able to create this amazing connection with people because of the intimacy of the fact that they're listening with little things in their ears.

They're listening, trapped in their car during rush hour traffic. Being able to be yourself and paint a picture for them in their brain, whether it's using words, energies, or attitudes is all about presenting yourself in a way that makes people love you. Everyone on the radio is usually a version of themselves. You're not going to be your same self that you're on the radio off-air, but you should be pretty much almost all yourself.

I always say, me on a radio show or anyone performing, you have to be yourself at eleven, the most heightened sense of yourself. It's the old spinal tap line. Even Howard Stern says, “I'm like I am on the radio off-air, but I'm a heightened version. I'm a more cranked-up version. I'm presenting. I’m enunciating words. I'm formulating sentences.” Whereas off the air, he's mumbling. He's probably saying it. When you're on the air and you're connecting, you have to present a heightened sense of yourself and that's what people will get. They'll get that there's that person in there, but there's also an entertainer there as well.

One of the things I love most about your book is you talked about you have to bring your best self or your best game to every conversation. When you speak to somebody, you have to treat them as if it's the most important day of their life. If you're highlighting somebody on that level, that raises the energy. If you're doing this day in and day out, how do you maintain that energy? Is there a certain technique that you have to get yourself primed to bring that energy every single day or is it like, “I'm flipping a switch and I'm on air?”

I wish to say there was a technique, but it's more about if you love what you do, that there are no tips or tricks. I love talking to people. I love communicating. I love waking up at 3:00 in the morning every day, not knowing what the show was going to be, and getting it all ready before we walked into the studio at 6:00 AM and then doing a live four-hour show to millions of people in New York.

You have to love. You have to be invested in whatever it is you do. The conversation part of it is not everyone loves talking all day long, but when you're having interaction with people, if you don't love that moment you're in, you're not going to create any magic or connection. If you don't want to create connections with people, it's not a problem. If you want to create these connections with strangers or an audience on a podcast, you have to love it and they have to know that you love it. You can't fake that. That's like magic juju you stuff that you can't explain or have a trick or technique to do. You have to start with that. Love what you do and the rest follows.

Do you have any favorite memories of the time that you were on the air?

There were so many. People like to talk about the celebrity encounters I have in the book, but the only reason I bring them up in the book is I learned lessons from all these encounters in the book. The reason I like to use celebrities is it’s an easy grab. People can relate, “I know that person.” For me, I present them as, “Here's what happened with me and this celebrity. This is what I learned and hope you can learn from it.” It wasn't name-dropping for the sake of name-dropping.

There were a couple in the book that stand out and one of them was Adam Levine. He is famously one of the cockiest rock stars on the planet. He owns it. He loves being like that. At the time we interviewed him, he had just gotten famous again. People may not remember this, but Maroon 5 faded out because the old white guys with a guitar got too tired for people like, “Here's another generic band.” His career was on a downswing.

He decided to take this job on a TV show called The Voice which changed the trajectory of his life. He ended up recording Moves Like Jagger with Christina Aguilera. During that time, he discovered something about himself. This is something we brought up during the show. I'm a big fan of the sliding doors theory. Are you familiar with the Gwyneth Paltrow movie Sliding Doors?

I’m vaguely familiar. It’s about missed encounters, missed connections, or something like that.

That movie is what would happen if this young lady got on the train? What would happen if she missed the train? It's called the sliding doors effect. The film tells two different stories. It tells what would have happened to her character if she got on or did get off the train. I always love to ask these questions to celebrities when they have this moment. I asked him. I'm like, “You've got all this success now, but it probably would not have happened if you did not take this job with The Voice.”

I was shocked. He, in all honesty, and humility, goes, “Yes. I probably wouldn't be here right now. I would probably be playing playgrounds and carnivals for the rest of my life but because I did that show, I realized that I couldn't do it myself. I knew that I needed to be surrounded by talented people. I couldn't write all the songs. I couldn't produce all of it. I had to get with great songwriters and producers.”

It opened up a new world to him that resurrected his career. It’s finding those moments where you can find that question that can make people think about the decisions they made in their lives. Those are the moments you want in any conversation, whether you're doing a radio show podcast or you're talking to people. Why do they make that decision and what do they think their life would be if they didn't make that decision?

I talked about taking the job at PLJ when I was nineteen years old. I don't know what would've happened with my career, but I probably wouldn't be here talking to you. If I DM-ed you on Instagram, you probably would have ignored me. You would have hit delete or ignore and that would have been it. Trying to find these moments with people is what I love. You don't find it just by happenstance. You find it by showing empathy and by listening. That's why I called the book, Good Listen. If you don't listen to the people read the room, you're never going to get to those moments. That's one of the big parts of the book and it's a big part of life. We just need to start listening to each other.

Have you ever asked a question where it stumped somebody and they had no idea how to respond? A lot of times you see interviews, especially celebrities if they're promoting a book, an album, or whatnot. They're getting the same questions over and over. The PR lady's like, “You can't ask certain questions.” When you ask these deep questions, sometimes they're not prepared.

A quick hint about this. Whenever you hear or watch an interview and you hear someone respond by saying, “That's a good question,” it's not a good question. It's a question they weren't prepared to answer. Usually, people will say that and I've gotten that a lot. For a while too, I used to feel a little bit of pride. I'm like, “That is a good question.” I then realized, “It wasn't a good question.” It wasn't like the thousands of interviews they go into autopilot and answer the same way every single time. That's a good thing, getting people off their feet as long as they feel safe because you can't get to that tough question until that person feels comfortable.

Podcasting is an intimate form of communication. One podcast interview equals five first dates.

I always like to use the adage you want your guests at your house to happily go into your refrigerator and take your last beer. You don't want the guests who are going to be like, “Can I have that last beer? Is that okay?” You don't want that when you're creating conversation and having a podcast. You want to have this person feel so comfortable that they will go into your refrigerator and grab the beer. That's what it's all about. It's creating this connection where everyone feels comfortable sharing.

That's when you can get to the point of asking a “difficult” or deeper question, but you can't jump into that water until everyone's gotten their feet wet. When I go into the pool, it takes me five minutes because I hate cold water. I slowly but surely get into the pool. You got to take that time of getting the body and then getting the water all the way up to your neck, then you're in the pool and you're ready to have that conversation.

They also want to feel safe around you. They don't like you to ambush them or anything like that. Doing it gradually and making sure that they're at a comfort level where they can open up to you because they know that they're safe with you, especially on air. That could be a sound clip for TMZ or something if you stumped somebody.

A big part of doing that is sharing and you mentioned TMZ. This story ties into that. I'm a big New York Jets fan and a few years ago, Jessie James Decker came into the studio. She's a country singer/reality star. She's married to Eric Decker who was a wide receiver for the Jets. She was on the radio station to promote her latest album. We were chit-chatting and stuff but I wanted to ask about what it was like being with Eric Decker in the middle of another miserable Jet season. That year, they were probably at that point, 1 in 8. It’s a run-of-the-mill horrible Jet season.

Before I asked that question though, I shared my perspective. I said, “Jessie, when I watch football games, it drives me crazy at the end of the game when you see players from both sides of the team hugging, laughing, high-fiving, kissing each other, and having a gay old time after a game that they lost. If you talked to any diehard fan, they will say that drives them crazy, too.”

I said, “Jessie, it drives me crazy to see that. What does Eric feel? What does he feel like every Sunday going after loss after loss? Does he feel like those players on the field just smiling, glad-handing, talking about their kids, and living their best life? She said, “You know what? He's full-on depressed. On Sundays when he gets home from the stadium, he tells everyone in the house, ‘I need to be left alone. He goes into his room and stays there for the rest of the night.’”

TMZ picked up that story, but that's another point. The only reason she shared that was that I shared the pain I felt as a Jet fan. She felt that we had this common bond that we were connected by the ever-losing Jets, but it was having an effect on her husband who was a professional athlete. It's still affecting him as much as it did me who's a diehard fan. It only goes back to sharing. It's having these conversations where you're getting knowledge traded from back and forth.

I hate to use the word interview because interview annotates something like, “Question, answer, question, answer, question, answer.” When I'm consulting people or talking to people, it's not what you want in a show. You want it to be a real living, breathing organism that you have two people feeding each other back and forth. Part of that is sharing emotions, stories, and anecdotes from both sides.

People will enjoy the connection when you bring all that together. The radio was hitting its peak and then dropping. We're lucky and fortunate at a time when you transitioned from radio into podcasting. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

I saw the writing on the wall over the last few years at WPLJ that we probably weren't going to be there much longer. I decided that I want to do a podcast, but I didn't want to do the same thing I was doing with the morning show. The morning show was about pop culture, soccer moms, and sensibility. It was sweet and saccharin to a certain point but also, we got a little naughty with a little wink to maybe the jokes that went over the kid's head when they’re in the car.

I didn't want to do that as a podcast. I didn't want to do anything about entertainment or do stuff about movies, TV shows, or celebrities. I was like, “Let me do something that's not like what I do.” The easiest thing I could think of was sex. I didn't also want to do a late-night callers’ sex show where people are talking about their escapades. I want to do a deep conversation about the subject.

I met this NYU Professor by the name of Dr. Zhana Vrangalova. She is a world-famous sex scientist. She teaches people how to open up their relationships. We had become friends on social media and I pitched her the concept, “What if we did a podcast where we interviewed sex researchers about the latest studies and works that they're doing, but we have these frank discussions where I'm there as the everyman moderator to keep things honest so that you don't need a Ph. D. to understand what the conversations are all about?”

She loved the idea and we did it for nearly three years. It was a great experience for me because it opened me up to the idea of long-formed conversations. Coming from morning radio, we were on most six minutes at a time and then you're waiting between songs and commercials. You're then coming on for another six minutes and then you're taking another break. There's no room to have any meaty conversations. Having the podcast at that point opened my eyes to what I could do in the world of podcasting.

The radio station I was working for at the time decided that they were losing way too much money and they started selling many radio stations across the country. One of them was WPLJ. They sold it to a Christian broadcasting company by the name of EMF. It sounds smarter than it is, but they are a Christian company that's based out of Sacramento and wanted a signal in New York City.

They bought WPLJ and I like to say, “I was fired by God.” I decided to go into podcasting full-time after that because there were no venues for terrestrial radio. Radio had cannibalized itself. You have one morning radio team doing twelve different cities at one time. There are fewer opportunities for people out there and I saw that.

After so many years of doing morning radio, it was a blessing. It was like, “There's only so much I can do waking up at 3:00 in the morning every single day, going to bed every single night at 10:00, and not having much nightlife or anything like that. Not that I'm a clubber or anything like that, but it was not the healthiest way to live. It opened me up to do something else and that's how I found doing podcasting full-time.

That's where I relocated to Charleston, South Carolina, and started working with this company called Advantage ForbesBooks, which is a hybrid publishing firm. They publish books for CEOs and entrepreneurs and wanted to add a podcasting division to it. They hired me to come on board, consult and coach these authors to become podcasters. That's what I'm doing now every day as a full-time job. I'm hosting podcasts. I'm producing them. It's been a cool experience because it opened my eyes to what I learned.

We sometimes take for granted how good we have it. Every once in a while, when I worked at PLJ, I would look up and I could see the Empire State Building where I was. Our office is at Madison Square Garden. I'm like, “This is cool. I'm so lucky to have this,” but you don't think about all the things that you've learned and all these skills that are now called soft skills that you acquire over time. I then realized that my experiences can help these people and they have no idea what I'm talking about. To me, it was like an old hat, trying to talk about transitioning in and out of breaks and stuff like that but to them, they're like, “I might as well have been speaking Mandarin Chinese.”

When you're on the air, you're like a hockey goalie. Once the puck goes in the net, you can't take it out. Learn from it and move on.

What I first thought was going to be basic, doing some podcast hosting, editing, recording, guest booking, and all that stuff, it turned out to be much more than that. That's what spawned the idea for the book. I realized that all of these skills that I had weren't just beneficial to the CEOs, entrepreneurs, and authors I was working with. They could probably be helpful to other people. I started writing the book and putting ideas down. The next thing you know, I got a book out.

It's called Good Listen. You wrote it because you have all these skillsets and you wanted to get it out there. Do you feel that going into podcasting, you had to change any skillsets, or did you take what you had and refined it to the format? Did you feel like, “I need to up-level myself to be a podcast host now?”

The skills are the same, but it's more nuanced. With the morning radio, it was very much high energy. You're helping people wake up in the morning. You're talking a mile a minute. You're moving fast. You don't have time to tell a story. You’ve got to be very succinct. The thing with podcasting is there's so much room to breathe.

In terms of actual skills, no. They're the same skills. It's listening, reacting, and being prepared. All of those things work in podcasting. It's a different medium where you have so much more room to move, tell a story, and have more back and forth. Whereas in the old radio morning days, it was on and gone. Here, you have time to develop a story and create a connection with an audience member over an extended period of time.

It becomes lasting too because when people enjoy your podcast, they'll go back to previous episodes. Whereas in radio, that doesn't happen. Towards the end, they were starting to load them on websites and things like that. You could go back, but who's going to listen to a radio show from a few weeks ago?

I'm thankful they don't because I'm sure if I listened to any of my stuff early in my career, it would be embarrassing. I'm thankful all that stuff is long gone.

Did they burn the tapes when they sold the business?

They probably put them in a dumpster and that was it.

Going back to the book, who did you write the book for?

I'm going to say this. That's a great question. To be honest with you, I didn't want to write this to be a how-to podcasting book. That was my first thing. I was like, “I don't want this to be like, ‘This is a book just for podcasters.’” You probably agree with this. Hopefully, you do. Podcasting is an intimate form of communication. I think I stole this from somebody but I always say, “One podcast interview equals five first dates.”

You create a connection with another person on it when you're having these discussions that you can't replicate anywhere else. I want it to be able to use all of these skills that we've been talking about that could be useful not only if you're doing a podcast, but just in life in general. All of the stories that I talk about, whether it's a Taylor Swift, Jennifer Aniston, or Jon Bon Jovi, are applicable to whether you're having a discussion with your wife or with someone at work, or deciding to do a podcast.

It's for anyone who wants to improve their communication skills, but not in a way where I'm showing you. I don't like the word “expert.” When people say, “You're a podcast expert.” I'm like, “No. Don't call me that.” I have experiences and I want to share them. I learned from a lot of my experiences and I feel like many people can learn from them as well, whether they're doing a podcast or not.

I learned so much from it. From my perspective, it's a manual on how to be a great communicator. So much of that, especially when you're interviewing or learning about somebody, is listening to them. I grew up very introverted. Having this business, I had to be a little bit more in the limelight. I started getting into podcasting and I had zero experience. I was going along for the ride and understanding as I went along, learning lessons, listening to the podcast, and refining myself.

There were so many aspects of this book that made me think, “You can create magical moments. You can get deep inside somebody's thoughts and tap into their heart.” It’s because a lot of times, people don't have the platform to open up their souls to you. What an opportunity for me to be able to have that conversation with somebody to allow them to do that but they're only going to do it if you create the environment that makes them feel like they can do that.

You said the word introvert. I get this asked a lot from people like, “I'm not a type-A personality. Can I do a podcast? It's hard for me to meet people,” but it's not about you. It's more about you allowing other people into your life. When you're introverted, that means maybe you're not putting yourself out there as much, but being introverted doesn't stop you from asking a person a question or listening to what a person says after you've asked them that question. All of that has no bearing on what personality it is.

It's more about, “Do you want to create a human connection with somebody else?” It doesn't mean you have to be funny, witty, or intelligent. If you listen to what someone's saying and create this environment that we've been talking about where they're comfortable, it doesn't matter. Whether you're the funniest guy in the world or the shyest person in the world, you can create those moments no matter what person you are.

I got into podcasting because I'm super curious. I love meeting people that are living their purpose in life and I love human connection. That's one of my top primary values. I need to have that in my life. During COVID, it was tough because you can't physically interact with people. What makes a great podcast host in your eyes?

We've been talking about a listener because when it comes to putting together a podcast, there is a level of preparation that is involved. The preparation piece is a big thing. I talk about it in the book and something that I learned in my radio days, it's three words, preparation, concentration, and moderation. If you are prepared and know who you're speaking to, there's no reason to have twenty questions laid out. There's no reason to have to spend twenty hours researching a person.

Community is what fuels companies. Make sure you have a community that you are 100% focused on.

It means investing time, getting to know who this person is, and then mentally preparing yourself to have a conversation. That could go for someone if you're having a conversation with your boss at work or someone in random parts of life. If you're prepared for that, you don't need all of these other bells and whistles because once you know who this person is, the conversation will take care of itself. The preparation piece is the first part of it.

The second one is concentration. You have to give it 100%. You cannot have a conversation while you've had this before where you're talking to someone and all of a sudden, they look down at their phone and they see if they got any text messages and stuff like that. When you're doing a podcast or even having a conversation with anyone, nothing else should matter but that conversation. Concentrating during that conversation is where the listening part will come in because all you're worried about is the information they're giving you and not what exterior things are going on around you.

The final piece is moderation. We touched upon this in terms of when to ask tough questions. Take your time, let it breathe. Talking about the time you have a podcast and you're in no rush. There's no reason to ask a hard question as your second question or early on in a conversation. Let it go. Let things develop and have those 1 or 2 questions that you wanted to ask maybe on a cheat sheet somewhere in funny. Outside of that, let the person give you the information, take that information, and then keep moving the conversation forward.

You also talk a lot about making sure that you take your ego out of the situation when you're interviewing somebody. When somebody is talking, just a regular conversation outside of podcasting, someone's chatting with me, and then all of a sudden I think, “This pertains to me this way.” I want to interject and talk about my experience with things. Talk to us a little bit about the importance of making sure that you keep your ego in check and making sure that we don't stop the momentum of the conversation or whatever message the author or the other person on the other side of the podcast wants to go in.

I talk about this in the book. It's my Taylor Swift story. Luckily, she still hasn't written a song about me. This is where my ego got in the way. You might notice this, too. A lot of radio stations post video interviews that they've done with celebrities and they post them on their website after the fact. We were pretty much like every other radio station. We were doing this.

For some reason when Taylor Swift came into our studio, we were given strict parameters. We were only allowed to video record the first five minutes of the interview, which to me seemed odd. At first, I was like, “Do you mean we can only post five minutes of the interview? That's cool and fine.” “No. You have to stop recording after five minutes. I didn't like that.

The day of the interview comes and I'm making this all about myself. I'm getting annoyed and pissed about it. The publicist walks in. The videographer is standing next to me. She makes a beeline to him, goes over to him, and says, “Just so you know, at the five-minute mark, I'm going to tap you on your shoulder and you have to stop recording. Just put the camera down.” The guy's like, “Okay. Cool.”

My ego just got in the way. Usually, when my ego gets in the way, my sarcasm gets dialed up to an eleven. I asked her, “Just a quick question. If we have a follow-up question to that last question before the five-minute mark, could we keep rolling?” The person was like, “Yes. I'm sure that's going to be fine. I then decided to follow up with, “What if we have a follow-up question to that first follow-up question, could we still record?”

At that point, the publicist was confused. She didn't know what I was even saying. I didn't live well off alone. I said, “What if we ask a follow-up question to the first follow-up question that fits the second follow-up question, could we keep recording?” At this point, I might as well have been speaking a different language. I didn't know what I was saying. The room goes silent and Taylor Swift, who had been listening to this conversation the entire time, says, “Somebody is feeling saucy this morning.” The whole air in the room got sucked out. It was as if the pin dropped, the record, scratch, all of that.

From that point forward, during the interview, Taylor Swift put all her walls up around her. She didn't feel safe. Every time I asked a question, she looked at me as if I had seven heads. It turned into a basic lame, another Taylor Swift interview that you could see on Entertainment Tonight or Extra. It was all because I let my ego get in the way. I didn't create this environment that would allow her to share and let her walls down. Instead, I created an environment that was the opposite. I created one that let all the walls up and it was her being a generic Taylor Swift interview that went to hell just because my ego got in the way.

Sliding doors, if you had to do it over again, what would you do?

I'll be honest with you. It still annoys me to this day that they made us cut it off after five minutes so I probably would get it and use it as a life lesson early on. I probably wouldn't have done that, but you get stuck in your own head so many times and you overthink things. Instead of like keeping it to the basics of a conversation, just talk to people, and don't worry about all the other crap. Talking about the concentration piece, concentrate on the moment. Don't worry about all these exteriors about how many minutes you're recording something or what text that I just got. Live in that moment and treat every moment like it's the biggest day of your life. I got that from improv.

When you see a movie or TV show or even improv scene, that event happening is the greatest, biggest moment of those characters’ lives. That's how you should treat conversations. You should put that weight and gravity behind a conversation because that's where you'll get the juice and where you'll be able to find things out because you're taking it so seriously. I don't mean serious as a heart attack, but I mean serious in terms of caring and feeling what the other person's feeling, knowing what's going on, and living that moment. Make that the greatest and the most important day in your life. That's where you will be able to create those magic moments we've been talking about.

Let’s say you had an interview and you thought it was the greatest podcast of your life. What is the feeling that you have afterward? What about that interview gave you that feeling? What is the feeling that resulted from that conversation?

When that happens, I'll talk to myself and it's weird. It's almost going back to my ego. I do it in a joking fashion. It drives my wife crazy. When I have a good podcast or discussion with somebody, I'll say out loud, “You're good,” and that's it. I'll let it go. It's over, but I'll have this moment of enlightenment where you like to realize, “I'm pretty good at what I do.” There's this old Jack Nicholson line that he says, “Cherish and celebrate wins because they don't happen often.” I feel that we don't do that enough. It's the old tall poppy syndrome. We all want to keep everyone down and everyone feels the same way.

When you have a good podcast or interaction at work with somebody or even your spouse, appreciate that. Celebrate that. “That was good.” You can have a lazy Sunday with your wife or husband and maybe you goofed around and laid around each other. Celebrate that like, “We're so lucky. This is great.” When it comes to podcasting and a good one comes out, I'll be like, “I'm good.” I'll acknowledge to myself that I did well and then I'll move on to the next thing.

Coming from a world of live radio, my mentor, Scott Shannon, used to have this adage. He used to say, “When you're on the air, you have to act like a hockey goalie. Once the puck goes in the net, you can't take it out. The goal score. Why bother stewing and worrying about what just happened? Learn from it and move on.” It’s the same thing when you achieve something and you celebrate that win, celebrate it and then move on.

One of my favorite quotes is by Dr. Joe Dispenza. He says, “Gratitude is the ultimate state of receivership.” You're creating momentum. There's energy flowing through your body so every time you create success, you're grateful for it. That leads to the next one and the next one. The more wins you celebrate, the more that's going to come to you. A lot of people are too hard on themselves. They think,” I don't have any wins.” The littlest things can be the biggest wins. “I got a workout in today. I'm celebrating.”

We are our own toughest critics, especially working with first-time podcasters. With editing, you could make anything sound good. I'm pretty good at editing. A lot of times people will be like, “I said you know too many times.” I'm like, “That's fine. Those can get edited out. You work on it and you see what happens. I don't like to listen to myself too much after an initial edit and stuff like that because I'll be like, “This guy is just annoying.” I annoy myself sometimes.

Try to find what you did wrong and then work on it but you can't think so much about it. I have this one member who says, “You know,” before every question or anytime they speak and more times than I'm able to edit it. A lot of times, you can't. It's not a clean edit. She's like, “I got to stop doing it.” I'm like, “Yes, you have to, but the more you think about it, the more you keep making that mistake.”

I remember when I first started with the morning show, I used to be in charge. One of my first jobs was to make sure the board was ready for the on-air day. I have to make sure all the buttons were in the right spots or everything worked. When I first started doing it, I would always forget 1 or 2 buttons. When they went to go on air, the mic wouldn't go on, and everything like that. I used to get a lot of crap where it's like, “Come on. What are you doing?”

One day, I said to myself the old risky business line. Sometimes you just got to say F-it. I'm like, “I have to stop overthinking it. Just do it and move on.” From that point forward, I had that conversation with myself and I stopped making mistakes because I just said, “If I'm not good enough for this job, then someone will tell me. If I keep thinking about all the mistakes I'm making or the mistakes I could make, it's not going to work anyway so what's the point?” Do what you do and then let the chips fall where they may.

Don't be so hard on yourself. I got to put that on my bathroom mirror. You talk a lot about building community, an audience, and listenership. Tell us about some of the ways in which you help people or you suggest people go about building that audience.

I'm not fond of the word audience because to me, an audience is this large monolith that has no characteristics. It's faceless people. I like to use the word community because the community is what fuels companies. In the book, I talk about Peloton versus Planet Fitness, which is an odd thing to think about. I thought about this when I was writing the book when it came to building communities. You look at both of those companies. They couldn't be any more different other than the fact that they're both fitness companies.

They all have a vast amount of people working out either at home or in their gyms. It's at the time when I was writing the book had the same valuations. They were worth the same, but Planet Fitness had probably 100 million more people go to their gyms. I say to people, “Who do you want to be Planet Fitness or do you want to be Peloton?”

With Planet Fitness, people will go to the gym once a week, maybe cancel their membership, or forget they had a membership after March. In Peloton, those members will buy your clothes, follow you on social media, interact with you, talk to their friends about you, and post on their own social media. They will do all the work that an advertising budget will do for other companies. They'll get more out of a friend's social media posts than a cheesy Planet Fitness commercial.

That's why I always tell people, “A key to that community. Whatever type of show you're doing, make sure you have this community that you aren't 100% focused on.” Peloton knows exactly who its audience is and so does Planet Fitness. With Planet Fitness, it's more about quantity as opposed to quality. Whereas Peloton wants quality. They want people that will spend a lot of money on all their junk and come back month after month with their subscriptions.

Here, take my money.

It’s the same thing when it comes to building a podcast audience. If you think about it as an audience, you're thinking about everybody. It's the world. It's every race, color, creed, and age. You cannot think about that. As popular as Joe Rogan is, he's not popular in every single demographic. When you start your show, think about who your audience is. When I say audience, who is that one person? Think about who that person is, what they look like, what they sound like, and what they love. Start with that one and then you cater 100% to that person. Every idea and question topic should flow through the mindset that is your audience member.

When you start with the one, then you start adding more to it. That's when you start to interact with one another on your social media accounts. Whether they add comments on your Spotify or Apple comment, connect with people individually. Going back to the Peloton thing, they'll do the work for you. They will tell their friends that they listen to this podcast. “You should check this podcast out,” because there's nothing greater in this world than word of mouth. Everyone knows that.

Everyone is always trying to see. Everyone wants to be that Water Cooler TV show. Everyone wants to create these moments on television that people will talk about the next day. They happen because they have this community that loves a particular show or personality and they're going to tell their friends. In terms of building a mass audience eventually, I tell people, “Podcasting is a marathon, not a sprint.”

if you're looking to get 10,000, 20,000, or 50,000 downloads in your first couple of months of podcasting, I'm disappointed to say that you'll probably fail to do that. Unless you have 10 million Twitter followers, you might get 10,000 listeners, but it doesn't mean that all your Twitter followers are going to listen to your podcasts. It's a time investment. Sometimes podcasts are 30, 40, or 60 minutes long. It's a tough ask. Think about who that one person is, build that community, and then the audience will come.

Tony Robbins talks about it and he calls them raving fans. Whether it's podcasting or a business, first, you want to focus on ten. Get ten people that love your product and live the product. Also, focus on the next 50, 100, and 1,000. That's how you grow an amazing community because everybody's so engaged. They love your brand and what you do. They're there to help spread the word. It doesn't take much. It takes a lot of genuineness. It's targeting the one specific type of person or demographic that you want to achieve or want to grow. Those people will show up. If you build it, they will come.

It takes patience and I know we are not living in a very patient world. We want instant gratification. I started producing a podcast for this young lady. She asked me the other day, “How many listeners did I have?” This person has like zero social media footprint and has nothing going on. He has no followers on Twitter, LinkedIn, or anything like that. I said to her, “You had fifteen downloads for that one episode.” She was like, “How come?” This is your second episode. No one's just going to find your podcasts in this sea of podcasts. You've got to invest a lot of time and energy if you want through this.

At the end of the day, when anyone I consolidate in a podcast doesn't think about anything, but do you enjoy it? If you enjoy the process, whether it's the booking process, finding guests, recording it, editing it, or posting it, and love doing all that, don't worry about anything else. As long as, God forbid, you need to make money somewhere else. You might have to have a full-time job on the side or side hustle or anything like that. As long as you love it, do it.

I can't stand when people make fun of the fact that, “There's like 6 million podcasts out there. Why would anyone want to start a podcast?” I always say to people, “Why do you care? There are 10 million pizza joints. No one complains when another pizza joint opens up. Let people do what they want to do. If that's bringing them joy, let them do a podcast. Who cares if ten people listen to it?”

“That person who's recording that podcast, the best time of the day is that one hour they're spending recording that podcast. Why would you take that away from them just because there are too many podcasts out there? Who cares? It's a low barrier of entry. Anybody can record a podcast. Let them do it. Enjoy themselves. Don't begrudge anyone else's fun.” It always drives me crazy when people will make fun of a fanbase. Who says that what you like is better than what they like? It's not a contest. We all are living our lives. We all find joy in things and some people find joy in doing a podcast.

We're all trying to seek happiness. Keep that judgment away. When you judge others, you're stepping into that cage with them because you're putting that energy into that judgment. It's important to live and let live. Follow that bliss. For me, podcasting is a labor of love. I love to do it. Have I monetized it the way I want it to? Probably not, but I know that if I keep staying in the game, it's going to happen. I noticed that towards the end of your book, you talked a little bit about the business of podcasting. Can you go into that a little bit and how you help new podcasters get in the game?

I mentioned and joked about the low barrier of entry. Anyone can do a podcast. We all agree on that, but not everyone can do it well. Most of the people I produce podcasts for are CEOs, entrepreneurs, and people that are successful in their own right. They don't want to just do a podcast. They want to do a podcast that will fit their authority, build their authority, and make them either money on the backend in terms of networking opportunities or finding new customers for their business.

When it comes to the business of podcasting, if you see podcasting as a vehicle, not just for monetary reasons, you have to think about it as the wide-ranging effects of a podcast. When you connect with someone in a podcast to be a guest, you're creating this bond, this connection. I call it podcast Tinder. You're meeting these people for the first time, and having these in-depth conversations.

You're creating a new person in your network who's not just a random LinkedIn connection who you never had a conversation with before. You've created this bond with this person that will live for a lifetime if you choose to see fit to. I always tell a lot of the people I work with, “Interview people that you want to get to know. Interview someone in your business who doesn't deal directly with you or maybe has some tertiary relationship to your business, but can lead you into another relationship and introduce you to someone else.”

That's why people need to think about especially if they're doing a podcast for business reasons. The network offering opportunities that it affords are limitless. The number of people that you can meet doing podcasts, the number of people that you can introduce yourself to because your podcasts are limitless. You've got to love doing it and do it often. If that happens, you will reap the rewards, whether it is being able to do it full-time and monetizing it or using it as a networking tool to meet people, to help your bottom line in your business.

We are at 54 podcast guests at this point and I'm in touch with them regularly. We're friends. When they come from out of town, they come to visit, and this would be the first time we meet. I love it from that perspective. It is one of the best platforms to learn about somebody to grow. It's also a self-development exploration of how well can you get your communication skills and refine them. I love the process.

I used to joke when I was on the radio. I'm like, “It's a good thing I do because I'm pretty much unemployable.” The skills that we have in radio are so limited to what radio is. It's not like all of a sudden, I become a doctor or a lawyer for being on the radio. The skills I was able to hone, I was able to transfer into podcasting and consult people doing podcasting, but it's only because I spent time doing it.

If you're just starting doing it, don't be frustrated about like, “I've done 20 episodes and I've only had 500 downloads. You can't look at it like that. You have to look at the process, enjoy it, and then see what you can learn about yourself. Maybe you think you're a good listener, but then you listen back to a podcast and be like, “I missed an entire section there where I could ask a great up question that could have led the conversation in a different way but I was so set in my ways.”

That can have a ripple effect or butterfly effect for the rest of your life. All of a sudden, that moment that happened to me on that podcast, which probably has never happened in a million years if you didn't do that podcast can now help you in your everyday life as well.

I'm lucky I have my girlfriend who tells me all the moments that I missed to ask a follow-up question. I'm very much appreciative of it. Joe, I want to thank you so much for coming on. Do you enjoy being behind the mic or do you enjoy the writing process more? Did you like them both or one less or the other?

When I wanted to get into entertainment or showbiz, I used to have this saying that I used to tell my friends, “I want to work in a job where I don't have to work as hard as my parents.” I wanted to work in the sandbox. Even now to this day where I'm working here at Advantage ForbesBooks, people pay large sums of money to work with us. I don't care and I don't want to know.

Every once in a while, people say, “How much does it cost to renew?” I don't know. I work in the sandbox. To me, it's all about being able to work in that sandbox. Whatever toys are in that, that's what I love, whether it's writing or producing. I listen to podcasts all day long. When people tell me, “What podcasts do you listen to?”

I'm like, “It’s nothing you know because I'm probably editing a podcast. I only get to listen sporadically to podcasts. For me, it’s the opportunity to work in a creative space and do things with people. Helping them get accomplished is our mission by being podcast hosts. Me, hosting and meeting people like yourself, the fact that I earn a living doing it, I'm so fortunate and grateful that whatever I can do in that field, whether it's editing a podcast a day, interviewing three people a day, or even just coaching someone for a podcast, that's all gravy to me. It's doing what I love and I'm good at. There are a few things I'm good at so I might as well do it and get paid for it while I can.

You're contributing to the benefit of other people's lives and they're spreading that wealth of knowledge that they have with other people. It's a gift that keeps on giving. Joe, why do you think you came here to earth as Joe Pardavila? What did you want to experience?

I've thought about this a lot during my life and I'm not a super religious person. I was raised Catholic. I was an altar boy for two weeks, but the hours were rough. I couldn't wake up early on Sundays.

You wake up at 3:00 in the morning for a morning show.

It's funny you say that because I used to joke that God punished maybe a morning radio guy because I was a terrible altar boy. I always had this feeling that we're all here for a reason. I felt like my reason to be here was to make people laugh and be entertained. The one venue I was able to do that was with audio and radio and podcasting. I was put on this Earth to entertain people, make people laugh, and give them a few minutes’ break from their day. That's pretty much it. I joke about my skill set. I'm not exaggerating. There's not much else I could do in this world. This is what I got and I'm going to just keep doing it. I think that's what I'm here for.

You were blessed with a great radio voice. I don't think we've ever had a guest that was such a great radio voice in here.

It's so funny you say that because people say I have a radio voice, but I honestly don't think I do. I always say, “I don't have a radio voice. I just know how to use my voice.” If you listen to the guys I work with, they have these big booming, bassy voices. They used to make fun of me because I have a higher pitch tone and they would be like, “You sound all whiny.”

I'm flattered. Thank you very much for saying that, but I don't think I have that voice. It's just that from years of experience speaking, I'm just able to project and use my words and energy and use my limited vocabulary as well to get my point across. I've been doing this so long. I know how to work a microphone that it sounds like I got a radio voice, but it's the old fake it until you make it.

How can our community learn more about you and work with you if they want to?

I'm very easy to google. If you Google Joe Pardavila, you will find all my social media handles. I'm pretty active on Twitter and Instagram, not so much on Facebook, but I am also on LinkedIn, too. You can hit me up anywhere and I'm open to it. I'm not one of these people that will not respond to people. “Go ahead and just hit me up and I'm happy to help in any way. There are only so many ways I can help, but in the way I can, I will do my best to do so.

I enjoyed interacting with you prior to this podcast. It was always great. Everybody, check out the book. It's a phenomenal manual on how to communicate better. I certainly learned a lot. I'm going to be incorporating these things into my podcast so thank you very much, Joe, for coming on. This book is going to change some lives.

Thank you. It's called Good Listen. I appreciate the time. Thank you for giving me this platform. I'm always fortunate when I'm on this side of things. I'm always the one asking for people to come on a show. When I am asked to be on a show, I'm honored and humbled because I know how hard it is to put a show together and get it all together. Thank you for having me and giving me the platform to talk about my work.

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About Joe Pardavila

JOE PARDAVILA (par-duh-VEE-la) has produced over ten thousand hours of audio content over the course of his career in podcasting and terrestrial radio. Joe was a radio personality and producer on the legendary New YorkCity radio station, 95.5 PLJ, where he was part of the iconic “Scott & Todd in the Morning”. He studied sketch and improv comedy at the UprightCitizens Brigade and was a founding member and actor in the NewYork-based sketch comedy group, Clip Show. The group performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater and the People’s Improv Theater, and their video sketches were featured on Funny or Die and the Huffington Post. He is the co-director, writer, and producer of the award-winning horror satire, “The Witches of Bushwick”. Currently, he serves as the director of podcasts for Advantage Media Group|ForbesBooks. Joe splits his time between Charleston,South Carolina, and Northern New Jersey with his wife Theresa and their dachshund, Nathan.