S03E56 Why Do I Podcast? Thinking About the Whys That Motivate Us in Life

Do you ever wonder why you want to do the things you do? Maybe why you started something isn't the why that keeps you going later in life.

A friend asked me why I podcast, and that made me think about how I started, by interviewing dynamic and intriguing people from my circle and how this fun pandemic time filler has evolved for me into an intellectually and emotionally challenging journey. Maybe your whys in life have also taken different turns!

In addition to this podcast, I am lucky enough to co-host the delightful and successful podcast - Three Plastic Surgeons and a Microphone @sandiegoplasticsurgeon @samjejurikar which has made a mark in the world of plastic surgery.

Plus, as the co-host of the dynamic CrossFit and fitness centered HerdFit Podcast @herdfitpodcast with David Syvertsen @davesy85 from CrossFit Bison @crossfitbison, I have had the best front seat while exploring health, athleticism, and performance.

My weekly thankful is the trusty Olympic barbell. Intrigued? Let's delve into this journey of introspection, revelations, and fun trivia, together!

#thoughtfulplasticsurgery #podcast #plasticsurgery #cosmeticsurgery #boardcertified #plasticsurgeon #beauty #aesthetic #botoxandburpeespodcast @crossfittraining @crossfit #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #clean #fitness

00:00:05 The Purpose and Evolution of Podcasting

00:04:30 Two Podcasts and Their Purpose

00:13:55 The Evolution of the Olympic Barbell

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S03E56 WHY DO I PODCAST

[00:00:00] Sam Rhee: Why do I do this podcast? If you have wondered that yourself as you listen or see this, you're not alone.

A friend of mine said he had to drive for about two hours a day for the past couple of weeks because his family was staying some distance away for the summer and he was temporarily commuting back and forth. I've done the long commute before, years ago when I would drive into Manhattan every day from North Jersey, like tens of thousands of other people do all the time.

And if you have a long commute, you know how boring it can be. It was no different for my friend who said to pass the time while he was driving, he listened to a lot of podcasts including The HerdFit, which is a CrossFit centered podcast from CrossFit Bison's owner and my friend David Syvertsen.

I've been Dave's co-host and it's been a lot of fun. And if you have any interest in fitness or CrossFit, Google HerdFit podcast and you can find it easily. My friend also said he listened to this podcast, which you're listening to now, and even though I've known this particular friend for at least seven years, he texted me and said, "Hey, no rush, but I need to talk to you."

That's all he said. So I finally saw him a couple days ago and he literally grabbed me by the shoulders. He's a very enthusiastic guy, and he told me about listening while driving, and he finally asked me. Why? Why do you do these podcasts? Is it money, fame, fortune? You are a plastic surgeon, which is your job.

You have a family and other responsibilities. What? What is the reason why you spend so much time on podcasting? Where do you find the time? At the time that my friend grabbed me, we were in the middle of a group gathering, and so I told him we should just get together some time and talk more. But for the past several days, I thought about why he asked, and what the obvious reasons were why I spent so much time podcasting maybe aren't the real reasons why I do it.

Maybe I'm still trying to figure out or understand my true why. And now that I've hit my 26th consecutive weekly episode of this podcast in a row, I wanted to talk about it.

Because maybe all of our obvious whys are not always the biggest or more important whys for lots of things in life.

Maybe like for many things we pursue in life, our initial why we do something can be different, either a little bit or a lot, then why we do something now. For example, I initially chose to be a craniofacial and pediatric plastic surgeon in part because I wanted to help children and families. But in retrospect, one of the biggest whys was because the surgeries were so cool and transformative.

Many of the procedures were really complicated surgeries that only a few surgeons could do. They would change the appearance and the function of these kids for a lifetime. I'm still a plastic surgeon, but I now do cosmetic surgery for adults is my why for being a plastic surgeon different?

The surgeries continue to be cool and transformative, but the why in regards to the thrill of performing really complicated surgeries has given way more to the why of performing surgery at the highest level in order to impact people positively.

It is still amazing for me to see people feeling better about themselves and accomplishing more in their lives by making them look better. So my why for work is the same but different. I think many of us have complicated whys that change over time as well. So in unraveling my real why I podcast, I needed to remember how I started in the first place.

And like a lot of podcasters, my initial interest started during the pandemic. As you probably remember, we were all videoing each other for a while instead of real face-to-face contact. Maybe you had Zoom game nights with friends like I did, or a group of friends even set up an online poker night with real money. And my 25th medical school reunion was via Zoom, which was honestly horrible.

And so that's why I initially started podcasting. I was stuck at home. I started interviewing people I thought were interesting: friends from the gym, surgical mentors, old classmates. And then I began posting those Zoom interviews as podcasts.

It was fun and interesting, and I thought these were people that had a lot of great life experiences and there was information there that was worth sharing. During the pandemic, everyone including me, had plenty of time and I had the technical expertise to do it, although it actually isn't that hard.

Actually one of my episodes in the future will be how so many of the skills I learned in high school still serve me every day. So don't short yourself in high school is my advice. My daughter came up with a catchy name, Botox and Burpees, and I posted some initial episodes, which you can still hear and see on this podcast, if you check out the very first ones.

The very first episode was with Kathleen Staunton, fellow athlete from CrossFit Bison, who was recently featured last year on a very emotional and cool worldwide media campaign with CrossFit HQ and she was one of the star athletes along with Roman Khrenikov and Patrick Vellner, and Joel Trella for the CrossFit Open event, 23.2, but you saw her first on my podcast.

Then one day after texting with two friends with whom I trained at University of Michigan for plastic surgery, I realized that a plastic surgery podcast with these two would not only be fun, but might actually be useful from a work standpoint. So I started another podcast back then called Three Plastic Surgeons and a Microphone with my friends, Drs. Salvatore Pacella in San Diego and Dr. Sam Jejurikar in Dallas. So if you Google Three Plastic Surgeons podcast, you'll find that one too. And please check that one out if you have any interest in plastic surgery.

And Three Plastic Surgeons and a Microphone is probably the one podcast that would make the most sense to my practical friend, since that is my full-time profession as a cosmetic plastic surgeon. And certainly from a marketing perspective, it's helped all three of us showcase who we are and what we like to do as plastic surgeons and hopefully it's educated those interested in plastic surgery as well. It recently peaked as the number two plastic surgery podcast out there.

The podcast itself has waxed and waned over the years, depending on our time availability. But it's been a great experience and I've learned so much talking with my two friends and interviewing a number of great plastic surgeons.

We've covered every cosmetic plastic surgery procedure and topic such as eye lifts, rhinoplasties, tummy tucks, Brazilian butt lifts, breast augmentations, breast lifts, and we've had some well renowned and expert plastic surgeons.

It's unfortunate that some of the best and funniest stuff is off air, mainly because it's totally not safe for work and extremely profane. But I love Sam and Sal and it's been fantastic.

The HerdFit podcast came about when I had Dave on the Botox and Burpees podcast to talk about CrossFit. He had been wanting to do his own podcast for a while, I think in part because of so many of the opportunities that we as athletes at his gym used to have, just sitting around and talking before, during, and after workouts were no longer possible during the pandemic.

We were all masked up, socially distanced, so hanging out was no longer really an option. There were a lot of topics that we all love talking about as athletes. So anyway, Dave guested for 22 straight episodes on Botox and Burpees pretty much every week, talking about everything under the sun, about CrossFit that he could think of, breaking down every CrossFit Open event, pregnancy and exercise, recovery and treatment, tracking your performance progress. These podcast episodes were extraordinarily popular. It was really clear that Dave needed his own podcast, and so he came up with the HerdFit based on his gym. CrossFit Bison.

I've been lucky enough to co-host mainly because he needed an AV guy Life pro tip, never underestimate having some practical skills, whether you're an accounting guru, spreadsheet wizard, or tech dude. HerdFit is now on 113 episodes and going strong. And it's not only about performance, athleticism, and fitness, but we've also interviewed some big guests including Don Faul, CEO of CrossFit.

In addition to the many enthusiastic listeners at our gym, its audience has broadened to nation and worldwide, and the topics Dave thinks of keep getting better and better every week.

So with these two podcasts now in full swing, I really did need to know why I wanted to continue with my original podcast, Botox and Burpees. And so like a lot of people, when you think about why you should do something or whether you should even think about doing something, you make a pros and cons list.

So let's start with what I thought were two cons about continuing with Botox and Burpees. Probably the biggest cons is the struggle with time. Work is incredibly busy as it is for everyone. I love my job and so why would I wanna spend more time on podcasting?

The other con was not really necessarily a con, but maybe more of a challenge. I knew what the message and focus of the other two podcasts were, but what was really the focus of something called Botox and Burpees? When I first started the podcast, I wanted it to be the intersection of cosmetic surgery, appearance, and fitness.

But was that what I really still wanted to focus on? Was there really a specific center that I could find interesting that I would think would be of interest to others?

So with those two cons, I started to also look at the pros. First of all, I think as we age, one of the tougher, but maybe even more necessary essentials in life is to learn new things. Whether it's skill-based, knowledge, people, music, habits, places. It doesn't have to be everything all at once, but pushing oneself is one way to make sure you aren't stagnating and falling into the decrepitude.

It gets harder and slower every year. But yes, you can learn new things, even if it's frustrating. And if we wanna be healthy and vibrant, we have to keep trying. And the very act of trying and working to learn new things, even if we stink at them at first, is what matters. And podcasting challenges me. It's challenging to be more articulate, to develop a better speaking voice, act more naturally on camera.

It also makes me think about my daily life and what I read, to try to find subject matter that pushes my buttons intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually, that I would want to explore. What is important to me, what elicits a reaction for me? What in the world do I think is a value to me and to others? What can I talk about that will be real, honest and grounded?

It forces me to write my thoughts down, do research, meet a weekly deadline, which is probably the hardest part, and to come up with an episode efficiently, maybe even if it isn't as well crafted as I would like, I have to know that it's good enough for the time allotted. And putting it out for the public forces me to polish my thoughts more rigorously in a way that just a private journal never would.

I've also gotten more efficient with my time to try to squeeze in some writing and recording whenever I have a couple minutes. Discipline always trumps motivation, and without a co-host, for many weeks, the only thing that would get me to do this podcast is that looming weekly deadline.

And if there's one thing I can take away from my life for anything, no one is ever good right from the start. At least not as good as they could be. You need at bats, reps, shots, plays, swings, matches in order to be better. I know my fifth episode was better than my first.

50th was slightly better than my fifth, and if I keep trying to improve every time and I care about this, my 5000th will be amazing. This is the way I feel about everything I do that is important to me. It's not just about where I am, it's about where I'm going. I don't know exactly where podcasting will get me in the future, but whatever it is, I'll be more ready for it than I am right now.

And if it doesn't seem to end anywhere with a real purpose, well at least I will have talked my head off, shared my thoughts, listened to people's feedback, and hopefully had some great discussions with you, the listener, about many absorbing topics.

So to answer why I do this, well I don't know exactly, but I will keep doing it for as long as I can do it until I don't wanna do it.

Why do you want to do what you do? I want to know, and I'll ask my friend who asked me what his why is in life as well, and maybe I'll share that too. Thanks again for listening.

My weekly thankful is the Olympic barbell. This is the standard barbell that you see in gyms all over the world where you can take plates off and you can put plates back on. And my gym currently is on a back squat and snatch cycle, so I was thinking about barbells while lifting.

Obviously we use barbells many times a week in our training. Sometimes we also use dumbbells, kettlebells, or even sandbags. But for weightlifting, I still really love the barbell over everything else. But who even thought about inventing the barbell in the first place?

Well, a quick Google search shows that even in ancient times, many human cultures used weights for fitness, but they were usually stones or rocks for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks and Indians did use shaped stones with holes and handles that kind of looked like dumbbells, but that was about it for fitness training.

The modern dumbbells in England and kettlebells in Russia were first seen in the early 1700s. And from these weights, the first primitive barbells, which were long bars with solid masses welded to each end were then developed in the 1800s, mostly used by strongmen and circus performers. In 1902, Alvin Calvert developed a Milo barbell in the United States.

This was a barbell were you could actually slide on and off weighted balls to adjust the barbell weight. The big turning point, so to speak, was in 1910 when the first true Olympic barbell was developed by the German Franz Veltum, and manufactured by the Berg company. This barbell not only had flat weight plates that you could easily add and remove, but the barbell also had bearings in the end of the barbell shaft known as the sleeves. So the plates would spin instead of remaining fixed to the bar.

And if you've ever gone to a hotel gym and used a barbell with fixed weights, you quickly realize that the spinning bar is critical for reducing the torque on your arms so you don't have to rotate the bar itself as you lift.

So this first modern version of the Olympic barbell was used in the Olympic Games in 1920 where they started with the clean and jerk events, snatch events and press events, and the rest they say is history.

So what do you take for granted in your life that seems ordinary, but actually has a pretty cool history? Let me know. Please DM me @BotoxAndBurpeesPodcast on Instagram or leave a comment at YouTube.com/@BotoxAndBurpees.

Thank you for listening.