Daniel Marion

There's a few Billy Joel songs that have been stuck in my head lately. Not because they're catchy (though they are). Not because they're nostalgic (though that too). But because every time I hear them, I think about the gap between how something feels and how much work it actually took to make them feel that way. "Piano Man." "Just the Way You Are." "Uptown Girl." They sound easy. Natural. Like Billy Joel just sat down at a piano one afternoon and these perfect songs fell out of him fully...

Steven Spielberg almost quit filmmaking because of a mechanical shark. It's 1974. He's 27 years old, directing his first major studio film. The budget is ballooning. The shoot is a nightmare. And the mechanical shark—nicknamed "Bruce"—keeps breaking down. It won't surface on cue. The salt water corrodes the mechanisms. The thing looks fake in broad daylight. Spielberg is panicking. The studio is furious. The crew is exhausted. And then, out of sheer desperation, Spielberg makes a decision...

Every sport has an offseason. Football players don't just show up in September and start playing. They spend the offseason training, studying film, refining technique, and preparing for the season ahead. The best teams use that time strategically. The mediocre ones just show up when the season starts and hope for the best. Podcasting has an offseason too. It's called December. And if you're a podcaster, content creator, or anyone building an audience online, how you use the next few weeks...