Episodes

  • Cruz Through HTX: How Killing a Good Show Saved a Better One ​

    Cruz Through HTX: How Killing a Good Show Saved a Better One ​
    Mar 24 2026
    Work with us: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/ Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-mic/id1777171203 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1PQNHuqxIVhkLfjGYuWcxl Cruz Through HTX was a love letter to Houston—stories, people, and weird corners of the city that felt like destiny for a former radio guy turned podcaster. But destiny doesn’t care about your calendar, your bandwidth, or your business model. While hosting Cruz Through HTX, building a production company, growing Your Mic, and trying to be present at home, everything started to bleed together until “important” lost all meaning.​ In this episode, Freddy walks through the brutal question that changed everything: What’s the one show you want to be known for five years from now? He realized Cruz Through HTX was a fun side quest, while Your Mic was the main quest that actually served his people and his business. Instead of ghosting his own show, he chose a deliberate ending, wrapped the chapter with honesty, and redirected that creative oxygen into Your Mic and his clients.​ If you’re juggling multiple shows, formats, or identities, this is your permission slip to stop trying to be all things to all people. You’ll hear a simple exercise to audit every show and format you’re involved with—why it exists, who it’s for, and how it supports your main mission—so you can decide what deserves your best work and what needs a mercy killing.​ Key takeaways 1. Multiple shows can feel productive but actually dilute focus, energy, and story.​ 2. The real constraint isn’t time; it’s misplaced loyalty to projects that no longer serve your main mission.​ 3. Ask, “What’s the one show I want to be iconic in five years?” and let that answer dictate which projects live or die.​ 4. Ending a show intentionally (instead of ghosting it) frees mental bandwidth and builds trust with your audience.​ 5. Side quests are fun, but your main quest—the show that moves the needle—is where your best work belongs.
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    15 mins
  • DIY vs Pro: How to Tell If Your Editor Knows What They’re Doing

    DIY vs Pro: How to Tell If Your Editor Knows What They’re Doing
    Mar 19 2026
    Work with us: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/ Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-mic/id1777171203 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1PQNHuqxIVhkLfjGYuWcxl You don’t need to be an audio engineer to hire one. You do, however, need to know what to ask. In this solo riff, Freddy breaks down how to spot the difference between a real producer and someone just pushing “remove filler words” and exporting. You’ll walk away with questions to grill any prospective editor on their workflow, their master chain, and how much they lean on AI so you don’t hand your show to a rookie with presets. Key Takeaways 1. DIY your first 5–10 episodes so you learn where you shine and where you suffer—Riverside, Descript, and other AI‑assisted tools are your boot camp, not your forever plan. 2. When you’re ready to outsource, your first filter is workflow: a pro can clearly walk you through their process from raw files to final master without hand‑waving. 3. Separate real producers from button‑clickers by asking about their master chain—compression, limiting, and EQ should be intentional choices, not accidental defaults. 4. AI tools that strip silences and remove filler words can make episodes sound choppy, rushed, or robotic, which is a terrible trade‑off if you’re building a premium brand. 5. Pay for judgment, not geography: rates (US or overseas) should match skill, portfolio quality, and how seriously they treat your show, not the magic of a low number in your inbox
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    9 mins
  • Taking a nonprofit podcast to 100,000 downloads (it's not as easy as you think)

    Taking a nonprofit podcast to 100,000 downloads (it's not as easy as you think)
    Mar 17 2026
    Work with us: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/ Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-mic/id1777171203 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1PQNHuqxIVhkLfjGYuWcxl Listen to The Rose’s podcast Let’s Talk About Your Breasts: https://therose.org/podcasts/ Taking a nonprofit podcast to 100,000 downloads is not as easy as you think. Founding CEO of The Rose, Dorothy Gibbons, joins Freddy to talk about building a mission driven show, survivor stories, heavy episodes, nervous guests, and her retirement. They dig into play, grief, legacy, and what it means to leave while the work keeps going.
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    25 mins
  • Corporate Nude Podcasts vs. Punk Black Audio

    Corporate Nude Podcasts vs. Punk Black Audio
    Mar 12 2026
    Work with us: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/ Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-mic/id1777171203 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1PQNHuqxIVhkLfjGYuWcxl From branding sex workers to crowning movie stars, lipstick never changed—only the story did. Freddy shows how your mic is the same weapon. Are you painting in corporate nude, suffragette red, or punk black? This episode dares you to choose your spell on purpose and leave one crack showing.
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    9 mins
  • Your Umms Are Fine. Your Panic Loops Aren’t.

    Your Umms Are Fine. Your Panic Loops Aren’t.
    Mar 10 2026
    Work with us: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/ Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-mic/id1777171203 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1PQNHuqxIVhkLfjGYuWcxl AI wants to nuke every “umm” you ever uttered. Freddy breaks filler into anchors, tangles, and panic loops—and shows you which ones to murder, which ones to protect, and how caffeine, Slack wars, and bad scripts turn your mouth into a glitchy robot. Edit for humanity, not perfection.
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    10 mins
  • Listener Number 37

    Listener Number 37
    Mar 5 2026
    In this episode of Your Mic, Freddy takes a blowtorch to generic “target audience” talk and replaces it with one real human: Listener 37. Drawing from podcast avatar best practices and audience-first strategies, the episode shows how knowing one detailed, messy, specific listener can transform your hooks, stories, CTAs, and growth. When episodes feel like one-on-one conversations, people binge and share—fueling the word-of-mouth that still drives a big chunk of podcast discovery. In this episode: Why “founders aged 25–45” is not a person. How to build Listener 37 from real DMs, reviews, and behavior. A practical exercise to write and record for one listener over your next three episodes. Subscribe to Your Mic on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Shoot Freddy an email: freddy@spekepodcasting.com.
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    8 mins
  • The Bad Podcast Ideas That Refuse to Die

    The Bad Podcast Ideas That Refuse to Die
    Mar 3 2026
    Work with us: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/ Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-mic/id1777171203 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1PQNHuqxIVhkLfjGYuWcxl Subcribe to Podcast the Newsletter: https://podcastthenewsletter.substack.com/ Subscribe to Earbuds Collective: https://arielle-nissenblatt-4cfp.squarespace.com/ Arielle Nissenblatt and Lauren Passell sit down with Freddy for a no BS round of hot takes about the podcast industry. From fake innovation to recycled failures and hype over listeners, they dig into what actually builds shows that last. If you make or market podcasts, this conversation might hurt and help.
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    43 mins
  • The Algorithm Is Not a Podcast God

    The Algorithm Is Not a Podcast God
    Feb 26 2026
    This solo episode of Your Mic is a friendly exorcism for every creator who’s turned “the algorithm” into a deity. Freddy breaks down what recommendation systems on platforms actually do—sort and surface content based on behavior—and how people still primarily find new podcasts through search, social, YouTube, and old-school word of mouth. Then he draws a hard line between building episodes for humans versus contorting your show to please a black box. In this episode: What algorithms really optimize for (and what they don’t). How over-optimizing for “the feed” kills the very weirdness and honesty that fuel word-of-mouth growth. A practical two-part approach: serve the person, then respect the machine. Subscribe to Your Mic on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Shoot Freddy an email: freddy@spekepodcasting.com.
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    8 mins