The Bark Management Strategy Behind My Podcast

Monday is podcast recording day in our house, and Artie absolutely knows the routine. The second I head toward the basement to record the next episode of The Death Readiness Podcast, he follows right behind me like it’s his full-time job.

Now, I don’t think Artie has particularly strong opinions about probate, revocable trusts, or powers of attorney. My motivation for inviting him is much more practical than that. The basement dramatically limits his exposure to squirrels, delivery drivers, suspicious neighborhood activity, and the many other emergencies that require immediate barking intervention.

So while I’m downstairs trying to explain estate planning concepts into a microphone, Artie is downstairs participating in what I can only describe as a preventative risk-management strategy, for both of us. And, he takes his role as production assistant very seriously. He settles in nearby, supervises the recording session and generally acts like this entire podcast operation would completely fall apart without him. And maybe it would.

One of the funny things about running a podcast and a business is that people often see the polished final product, the published episode, the social media clip, the finished Playbook, but not the little behind-the-scenes systems that make it all work. Sometimes those systems involve microphones and editing software. And sometimes they involve relocating a barking-prone dog to the basement before recording starts.