Focusing on the Guest – Dr. Jim Kanichirayil – Creating The Greatest Show – Episode # 012

by | Jan 16, 2023 | Content, Creating The Greatest Show, Hosting a Podcast, Podcast Guest Experience, Podcast Guest Research, Prep Call, Starting a Podcast

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil on Creating The Greatest Show sharing how to host a podcast and focus on your guest

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up to improve your podcasting skills with amazing advice from an outstanding researcher, writer, and podcaster! Dr. Jim Kanichirayil is the Co-Founder and Co-host of Cascading Leadership, the Host of the Talent Strategy 60 LinkedIn Live show, and the Talent Strategy Transformation Evangelist at Circa. Jim shares how podcast hosts should approach their podcasts, why a loose framework is better than a script for your podcast, and how to cultivate a relationship with your guest before the episode recording.

Takeaways: Making Your Guest The Star of Your Podcast

  • Podcast hosts need to have a learner’s mentality. Hosts need to be genuinely interested in what they are talking about and bring on great guests to talk about the topic.
  • Your guests are the star of the show. Make sure to focus on the story they want to tell, not the story you want to tell. When reaching out to guests, your messaging should revolve around asking them, “what’s the story that you want to tell?”
  • An effective interview podcast has a framework but isn’t tied down to a rigid script. The more structure you put around a conversation, the less authentic it becomes. A looser framework gives you a heading but allows you to delve into what you find along the way.
  • When you stick too closely to a script, you aren’t able to fully spotlight your guests. If you don’t leverage the opportunity to have an interesting conversation with a guest, you waste that guest and their time. 
  • Compared to a podcast, a LinkedIn Live show is more restrictive and doesn’t allow exploring rabbit holes. The pacing is also much different and in order to give guests time to think about their response, it’s advantageous to hold panel discussions.
  • You should repurpose your podcast content and distribute it through multiple channels to expose it to a larger audience. For example, the video can go on YouTube, clips can be used for TikToks, Reels, or Shorts, and you can even stream the podcast to LinkedIn.
  • A Prep Call is a crucial part of podcasting because if the guest doesn’t show well, the blame is on the host. One of the main reasons for the Prep Call is to build a relationship; you can’t build rapport on the fly in a 30-60 minute podcast recording.

READ MORE: The Framework for Your Podcast’s Mission Statement

Quote of The Show:

“Be ridiculously, obsessively focused on what is it your guests want to talk about”

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil, Creating The Great Show, Episode #012

Jim’s Links:

Shout Outs:

  • Jen Allen – Host of Winning the Challenger Sale Podcast
  • Dune by Frank Herbert
  • Andy Paul – Host of Sales Enablement Podcast
  • Sell Without Selling Out by Andy Paul
  • Chop Wood Carry Water by Joshua Medcalf
  • Nick Thickett – Co-Host of B2B Power Hour
  • Morgan Smith – Co-Host of B2B Power Hour
  • Streamyard
  • Restream
  • Josh Braun – Host of the Inside Selling Podcast
  • Stu Heinecke – Host of How to Get a Meeting with Anyone podcast
  • Jeb Blount – Host of The Sales Gravy Podcast
  • Adrianna Wardzała – Entrepreneur and B2B Marketer
  • Descript
  • Susan Diaz – Host of The 4 am Report
  • Wesleyne Whittaker-Greer – Host of The Transformed Sales Podcast
  • The Bobiverse Books Series by Dennis E. Taylor

Ways to Tune In:

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Casey Cheshire: I’m so excited. Uh, it’s like when you know you’re about to learn so many things and have some great conversations, there’s a buzz in the room. My guest today, I can’t wait to introduce you to him. He is a researcher, a writer, a podcaster of course, really on a mission to help people, leaders, organizations transform themselves, build really good elite and diverse teams.

Can’t wait to talk to him. Bit of a nerd like myself. We’re [00:01:00] gonna talk podcasting and he has many shows that he’s been a part of. He’s a co-founder and co-host of Cascading Leadership, the podcast, also Talent Strategy 60, a LinkedIn live show. We should totally talk about LinkedIn Today and talent Strategy transformation Evangelist.

Love that title at circa, Dr. Jim Kareo. Welcome 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: sir. Thanks for having me, Casey. Uh, You know, it’s, it’s interesting whenever somebody does that whole intro bit, I kind of get the cringes because I sound like, uh, uh, I’m full of myself. So it’s, it’s weird. It’s weird hearing that stuff played back to you because I’m like, Oh, I gotta, I gotta change it to just ordinary guy that runs his mouth.

I think that’s actually the better, better summary title 

Casey Cheshire: guy that won’t stop talking about stuff that he cares about. Yeah. Dot, dot dot. You know, it’s funny, you know, and, and I will say, let’s talk about this too, um, [00:02:00] right before we get into it because, uh, I wrote that about you. And so, so people listening know, you didn’t say like, Casey, make sure you, you know, sing these high praises about me.

Uh, so those are things that I found about you and, and I actually like doing an intro with the person there because I don’t know, I think sometimes we don’t get enough praise and it’s good to hear how much of a badass you actually are, you know, once in your life every now and then. Uh, and so I actually like doing that live, but I know some podcasts do it, you know, cold do it, you know, offline.

I’ll talk about the guests. You don’t actually hear it. We just start by saying, Hey buddy, what’s up? What’s your take on 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: that? Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s interesting. Um, I think when it comes to my style, when I have guests, um, at the front end of a show, I have the guests talk about what they want to talk about and how they want to brand themselves.

Um, it’s really in, in, and it’s probably out of, it’s probably my own [00:03:00] thing where. I, um, I cringe when other people say stuff about me good or Well, I mean, especially if it’s like, kind of braggadocious. Yeah. Um, so I’d rather, in from an interview style perspective, I, I usually have the guests kind of talk about what they want to talk about, and then obviously if, if they’re selling themselves short, I know their background, so I’m gonna be like, All right, you’re, you’re, you’re playing total like underdog.

Here, let me, let me tell you about the stuff that you’ve done. And I lay into that sort of stuff so that it, uh, it actually, um, gives them the appropriate emphasis. Yeah. 

Casey Cheshire: It’s interesting, right? So, Us personally as, as podcasters. There’s a, there’s almost like an inherent humility, right? As a podcaster, because the show is about your guest and it isn’t really about you.

And that’s why I like it because I can, I, I throw it at you. And it’s funny that, [00:04:00] that, that you have that same reaction that I would have if I was the 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: guest. Yeah. It’s, uh, you know, Jen Allen, who, uh, runs the, uh, uh, Challenger podcast. She had a, a, a post recently about some of the things that she learned in her first year of podcasting.

And one of the things that she mentioned that other podcasters need to think about is if the goal for you launching a podcast is to make it about you, don’t launch a podcast. Your podcast is going to be successful by and large because of two factors. One, whatever you want to talk about is interesting to you, and you can talk about it at length, but two, and this is most more important.

It’s gonna have legs because of the quality of guests that you bring on to talk about the things that are interesting to you. So you have to operate with sort of a learner’s mentality. Yeah, and I, I, I don’t know if it’s necessarily coming from a place of humility because I’m, I’m not particularly humble, um, but I hate, [00:05:00] you know, when people say stuff about me, about things that I’ve done or whatever, uh, accomplishments and whatnot.

It’s, it is just kind of weird. And I think that’s, that’s a combination of the Gen X factor and the immigrant factor. We’ve been conditioned to keep our head down and, and mouth shut. Um, so that’s probably more related to that than, uh, than, than any ingrained humility part of it. But Jen’s comments about how do you generate, or how do you create a successful podcast?

It’s not about you, it’s about the guests and it’s about the topic that, uh, you, from the mission and vision of the show, that’s why you launched. The why behind your show has to inform your interest and also how you spotlight your guests. Man, 

Casey Cheshire: already getting into it, we haven’t even got to the first question.

This is amazing. And by the way, shout out to Jen Allen. Absolute Badass. Had a chance to talk to her on the marketing show, and I’m just like in awe as I’m talking to her, like [00:06:00] Lucky Challenger got her and not the submarine guys or, or one of the other systems. I mean, she’s absolutely 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: amazing. Yeah, I mean it’s, uh, I bin that show and, and I just consume information.

So podcasts are great for anybody that is just full out nerd and on all the time. I’ve been to that show in, in two weeks and she and I are connected on LinkedIn and we chat back and forth about different things. Um, but it’s, uh, the, the show’s results speak for, its for themselves. And I think the interesting thing about that show is that.

When you think about the sales function, uh, in the broader world of work, it’s basically a function that’s under-resourced and you basically excel as a seller based on your own effort and resources and ingenuity. So it doesn’t surprise me that a podcast with [00:07:00] one of the best known methodologies from a sales process perspective has the legs that it has because most organizations don’t invest in developing their sales process, their sales methodology, anything from an execution perspective.

When you look at sales effectiveness, Most organizations are, you know, always talking about the metrics. And, you know, personally, I think talking about metrics from a sales perspective is just dumb. Uh, don’t confuse activity with achievement. Yeah. Uh, and that’s what you actually do if you’re just constantly focusing on the metrics side of it instead of the actual execution and results side of it.

So it’s not surprising for any number of reasons why that, that Challenger Sale podcast is just phenomenal. Yeah. 

Casey Cheshire: Yeah. And, and she is generous. I, I guess to your point, not necessarily the humility, maybe it’s generosity or maybe it’s some, some, you know, conditioning that, you know, culture is in is sent upon us that maybe it shouldn’t.[00:08:00] 

Right. But, but to Jen’s point, she is just, you know, she’s very giving of attention and time. So 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: yeah, I’m a good host. I mean, I think, uh, I think when you think about it in terms of core principles, and, and this is kind of off topic, but if you’re, if you’re thinking about what wires the most successful people, um, in, in the world, um, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re driven by curiosity.

Jen has that they’re authentic. So authenticity, kindness, and energy, and then generosity is a component of all of that stuff. It, it, it informs how you move about in the world. Um, so it may, you know, your, your point about the gener generosity mindset makes a lot of sense in the context of gen in particular, but, you know, podcasters in general, or at least you know, people, uh, uh, podcasters in general and anybody that, that leverages whatever platform that they can or that they have to get a point of view across.

Yeah. 

Casey Cheshire: And that my friends [00:09:00] was the pre-show . So, Chin, let me ask you the question where we start all of our shows and we we’re all, all we’re already at a sprint. Pull back the curtain for us on your shows and share your most important strategy for great interview podcast. So, 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of ground to cover there.

Uh, yeah. I think if you’re, if we’re drilling that down into fundamental principles, you have to operate and, and I’m gonna constantly reference back to Jen with, uh, with something that she said, which is your guests are the star of the show. So if you move forward with your podcast, you know, tie yourself to the why behind your podcast.

And then when you’re looking at bringing guests on, you need to be focused on the story they want to tell, not the story that you want to. And I do this all the time when I reach out to, to, to potential guests and trying to book them on the show. And they’ll often ask me, Well, what’s the topic? [00:10:00] And I’ll give them a broad ass umbrella.

You know, generally our, our our, uh, you know, the Cascading Leadership Podcast is about helping people move their careers further faster. That’s a lot of runway there. And, you know, I say there’s a number of different ways that we can, we can tell this story, but I’m interested in finding out what your story is because that’s gonna inform what we talk about.

And, you know, when you, when you look at the execution of that, from an end to end perspective, all of my outreach when I’m booking a show is focused on what’s the story that you want to tell? Like, I, you know, there, there’s some things that I want to talk about, but you know, my stuff is not really interesting.

Um, you know, it’s, uh, uh, you know, how, how many different talent, strategy, nerd conversations can you have? You can only do that a couple times. I don’t know. So, , I think you can, I, it, it, you know, I I, I’ll pepper that in here or there when I hear something from a [00:11:00] guest. Sure. But you know, it starts from the beginning.

So if you wanna framework for a successful interview show, um, focus on the story that the guest wants to tell and then live that through the entire entire process. Um, you know, for a couple of, uh, uh, a couple of things that I learned pretty early. Is that the more structure you put around the conversation, the less authentic that conversation becomes.

So you want to have like big sign posts. Uh, think of it in terms of if you’re in New York and you want to get to California, you’re looking for different states. You know, how far am I from this state? How far am I from this other state? How far am I from this other state? You’re not looking at the mile markers you’re going state to state because it gives you a broad runway to play in.

And you might, you know, be driving through Kansas and there’s a giant ball of yarn that you see the sign for on the street. And if you’re still regimented that [00:12:00] you have everything mapped up by the mile, it’s gonna make for a crappy trip. Because there are opportunistic areas that you want to explore that you won’t because you’re so rigid in what you want to talk about.

And when you’re that rigid in how you script out a show, you really don’t spotlight your guests. Um, because guests are always saying something that’s interesting that you’re gonna want to go on a rabbit trail within reason, within time constraints to, to talk about. And if you don’t leverage that opportunity, it’s, it’s kind of a waste of a guest.

Um, yeah, because people are, people are like, infinitely interesting. So why would you pin yourself in to this little box that, uh, to get you from point A to point B? It’s, it’s about the journey. It’s not about like the, uh, uh, the, the, the, the just end result that you’re trying to get. So, 

Casey Cheshire: so I mean, this is, it’s amazing the reflection of life in podcasting because even, you know, when I’m mountain climbing or something, [00:13:00] if you make it about the summit, you’re there for only 15 minutes, an hour or less, but you spend hours a day getting there.

And if you make it about that one little 50 minute, you can be disappointed. Right? But if it’s all about the process getting there, or the journey, like you’re saying with the guest, then the whole thing’s enjoyable. Even the prep calls, even the, the, the research you do beforehand, 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: it’s, uh, it’s interesting that you mention that because, um, when, when I think about this is me putting myself in a therapy chair, when I think about the things that, Yeah, I guess if you’re into that, uh, no knock on anybody that, uh, that, that, that, that, that does it.

So don’t take it that way, but it, it, it’s interesting. One of the things that I always struggle with, And this is part of my wiring, is that it’s always about the next goal. You know, if I accomplish X thing, okay, I did that. What’s the next thing? And what [00:14:00] effective interviewing and effective podcasting, uh, interviews disciplines me on is it’s not about the outcome that you’re trying to get to.

And there’s a great book about this called Chop Wood Carry Water. It’s falling in love with the process of becoming elite. Um, it’s, if you haven’t read it, you should definitely get it. But you know, it, it’s like you mentioned, it’s a, it’s, it’s a lesson about the broader world. We are conditioned from. To talk about achieve this thing, achieve that thing, achieve this thing.

I mean, you could certainly achieve all of those things, but does that mean that you actually have achieved mastery in the steps required to get there? Because it’s not about achieving the thing, it’s about achieving mastery in the elements that go from point, from one step to another. So again, when you talk about being in the moment, active listening, uh, working through the process, uh, really paying attention [00:15:00] to the journey, that’s where the focus should be.

If you’re just doing it to get the episode done or get the conversation done, you’re completely wasting everybody’s time, including your own, because you’re missing out on some phenomenal learning opportunities, uh, because you’re too focused on the end result versus, you know, the actual process and the discovery that happens.

Uh, there’s so much application that this teaches you. That you can apply in, in anything that you do personally or professionally. Yeah. 

Casey Cheshire: It’s like, it’s like have some rules but be able to break them. Right. Um, almost always we talk about, ask that first question, get the audience that first question right away.

But you know what? We had a fantastic topic about the intro and it, and it meant something and we explored something. So it’s like, look, screw it. Just explore that. You know, if we had just cut that off, well that’s interesting, but let’s go do this. Right. [00:16:00] That sort of formulaic approach. Now you’re almost get scripted.

Talk to me about, you mentioned this word too, and it was almost like the emphasis was on everything after it Framework. Mm-hmm. versus say 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: scripting. Yeah. And I’m, I’m a big framework person and it ties back into something that you just mentioned. So I’m a big sci-fi nerd, so I have like all sorts of Me too, uh, non-fiction books and fiction books and, and, and I’m pointing to a couple of the books, uh, that I have, uh, from the Dunes series.

Yes, the highly recommended, but there’s a. There’s a line in the original Dune book and movie where, um, Paul Tradies is, uh, in a fight and it’s the climactic fight with Fade, uh, Har Conan, um, and Fade has him in, uh, in, in pretty dire straits, knife against his neck. And you hear his inner monologue, Paul’s inner monologue.

And the inner monologue is, I will bend like a Read in the wind. And when you apply [00:17:00] that to structuring your end to end podcast process, um, that flexibility point that you mentioned, you have to bend like a reed in the wind because there’s gonna be something that comes up in the conversation. And if, if you’re do, if, if.

Doing your job right? There should be several opportunities for you to freelance within a conversation, and that’s where frameworks come in, uh, as a better tool to have a more engaging podcast experience than, than scripting. Um, and, and frankly, from a scripting perspective, I, I just don’t have the discipline or the attention to detail to just map out everything, because it’s gonna be a huge time suck anyways, So you have to factor that in too, is how much time do you want to spend on pure orchestration, So the operation side of a podcast versus the execution side of a podcast.

Casey Cheshire: Such a interesting point about the time [00:18:00] spent. I think I, I see this in myself and also guests, and when you try to perfect that sound bite, like we’ve maybe been conditioned for that perfection orchestration of the two minute of perfect monologue. If, if you can write that in advance, then I’ve done this where I’ve, I’ve written like almost like a Ted talk, right?

I’ve written that speech out. It’s prepped now. I almost feel bad I can’t ad lib because I wrote it so well. Anything less than exactly what I wrote sounds not so good to me. So I get in this sort of, it’s very, it’s almost like driving on square wheels where I, it kind of freezes me up because I, I want it to be perfect in that, you know, chasing perfection can get in the way of relationship, get way of traveling down a journey and a path and a sidetrack or any of these other things, 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: you know, it’s.

You know, one of the things that I say in, in a lot of different aspects of my life is don’t let per uh, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And, and I [00:19:00] talk about this with my sales teams, and I talk about it with, with clients. I talk about it all the time. And that’s, that’s a trap that you can fall into because it, it, it’s, you know, it, it, it’s the same trap that people fall into when they’re looking to solve a problem and in their effort to solve the problem, they’re researching the hell out of the problem, but never actually execute it.

So you learn the most through execution and failure. Yeah. So if you spend all of your time in, you know, machining the process, or machining the framework, or machining, whatever it is, from a, from a theory perspective, you never get to the doing. And, you know, I, I, I, I consider myself sort of. Lucky in that I can operate in theory, uh, better than most.

Um, but I love the execution and that’s a great balance to have because I have [00:20:00] enough operations to give myself runway, but I’m not gonna suffer from, you know, analysis paralysis. Like I, at some point, if I have a good enough idea, I need to roll dice and see what happens. This is, I mean, the podcast journey and the LinkedIn live show journey is a perfect example.

I, I basically spun up this podcast. I launched in February, uh, the Cascading Leadership Podcast. I launched in February. Okay. Doing probably a week and a half of research and then just putting stuff into place and going. And I had some great bits of advice here and there from people like Andy Paul who said, Hey, when you’re looking at releasing your, your podcast, you wanna make sure that you have several episodes banked because people are gonna want to binge your show.

I’d never heard that. Mm-hmm. . Um, so that delayed it a little bit. My, my thought process was, well, Record and release. And you know, Andy’s advice way in [00:21:00] the beginning, and he doesn’t know me from anybody. I just actually like Promoed his book, Sell Without Selling Out, which is a great book. I would recommend anybody to get that.

Nice. Um, he’s got a great podcast too. Um, he doesn’t know me from anybody, but he offered that advice and that informed kind of the go forward direction. But that was spun up in two weeks. The LinkedIn Live show. My, uh, you know, I started thinking about, okay, what are the problems that I typically see that hr, um, or talent strategy leaders have, and how can we leverage community intelligence to help them get through that?

Because we know in economically uncertain times, HR as a function gets slashed from a resources perspective. So how can we actually feed information to them that in a practical way can help those practitioners advance the initiatives that they have? That was spun up over a weekend, so, If I was the type of person, or if you’re the type of person like that, that just gets mired in the details [00:22:00] and the pursuit of perfection, you’re gonna have a hard time executing and delivering anything of value because it’s never gonna be good enough.

And, and frankly, no matter how good you get, you know, Andy has, you know, a thousand episodes or some ridiculous number like that on his show. And, you know, he’s focused on let’s just deliver the content. And it doesn’t have to be perfect. And I think that’s a good, good enough is good enough. Yeah. You know, that’s, that’s really that, that all of that I just said good and good enough.

Nine times outta 10 is good enough. Yeah. Good enough. 

Casey Cheshire: I think that’s what’s really opened the floodgates for podcasting is. You don’t need all the, I mean, you can go crazy on microphones. You can go crazy on cameras. You can, you can knock yourself out. You can always take it the next level, but in the end, good enough.

Get started now. Now I wanna [00:23:00] dive more into, uh, LinkedIn Live. Any traps, Any, any, any things that were happening, any lessons learned from that? Any best practices around it? Uh, how, is it like a podcast? Is it the same, is it different? All those kind of things. 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: So, I, I think one of the thing, So it’s, it’s a new show, so I don’t know how much I’ve actually learned in context, but I, uh, I actually talk regularly to, uh, uh, to Nick, um, uh, Nick Thickett and uh, and, and Morgan of the B2B Power Hour.

They are the ones that actually gave me the cliff notes to launch the show. Cool. Um, so definitely check out their show. But what’s interesting about the LinkedIn live format versus a podcast is that it’s frigging live. So in a podcast, you have the luxury of, Let me think through my answer. And, you know, we can edit that out on the back end.

Sure. And. That, that creates some security, uh, for a lot of people. Uh, [00:24:00] I even do that on my own show where, hey, I’ll introduce show notes and say, Hey, quick show note, we’re gonna do X, Y, and Z. How do you feel about what we’ve covered so far? And we can, we can do that on the fly. Um, with LinkedIn live, I think it’s a little bit more restrictive because you don’t have the luxury of going off on as many tangents as you’d like to in the course of a conversation.

And for somebody like me where I’ll hear something like every show that I do, I have like two pages of notes that I are follow ups. Sure. And sure. LinkedIn live as a, as a, as a format is difficult to do that in. it’s even more challenging in that format.

Because like my LinkedIn live show is purely panel driven, and I’m doing a combination. One of the things that I started thinking about with the Cascading Leadership Show is that as I have guests, let me break them down thematically and then have a [00:25:00] capstone, um, podcast recording, Right. That became like hurting cats.

So I was like, okay, well yeah, because it was, it was tough to coordinate all of those schedules. Um, so the plus on LinkedIn is that if you’re looking at doing a. Panel conversation or panel format conversation, it’s easier to coordinate for some reason than it would be on a podcast. The, the, the, the gap on the LinkedIn live component is that you don’t have as much room to freelance, and ours is a 60 minute show, so it’s a 60 minute substantive conversation Like this Friday, we have, uh, I don’t know when this is gonna air, but, uh, the, the, the most recent or the, the upcoming show that we have is Equity for Women in Business, The Road to Achieving Parody.

Cool. So it’s, it’s on a topic of gender equity from a pay perspective and promotion perspective, and we have a panel discussion on that. So it’s, it’s tightly structured on a topic and then the panelists are, are able to give practical advice of how they did it. [00:26:00] Um, but it has some restrictions. So if, if your guess, um, You have to pick guests differently for a live format than you do for a podcast.

Podcasts are a lot more forgiving because if you have guests that tend to be, um, more skewed toward the extroversion or, or, or methodical communication style, uh, perspective, yeah. Podcasting allows you to build that in. That guest may not be as effective on a live show because they’re going to, they’re gonna be, you know, deliberate in their communication style and the pacing for a live show, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s almost like you have to jab and counter punch all the time.

And you can’t, you can’t like tee up power shots, um, on a live show just because you don’t have the bandwidth, uh, to, uh, to run that through. 

Casey Cheshire: Tell me about that. You can’t tee up power shots. What does that mean? 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: So, [00:27:00] Let’s, let’s, let’s play this out. Yeah. So you just asked me that question. If we’re doing that live, and if I’m the type of person that isn’t, you know, rapid fire in my responses, you’re gonna need time to think and process that answer.

Mm-hmm. like 15 to 30 seconds of thinking time is an eternity in a live format. Oh yeah. So when I, when I’m saying like, five seconds is an eternity in my brain, um, but you know, those guests who need time to think about an answer, which is a great way to go through life, um, it’s not gonna play well on a LinkedIn live format.

Now, I’ve kind of offset that deliberately by having those things in a panel format. So now if somebody, if we, we do the orchestration in the back end where we’ll have sort of the frameworks displayed and who’s. Talking about the topic and [00:28:00] then who will be up next. So it’s teed up that way to make it easier.

Mm-hmm. . But you know, thankfully all of our guests have been able to navigate that. But I think if, uh, if you were talking about, you know, what’s, there’s more orchestration on the LinkedIn live stuff, uh, necessary than the podcast stuff cuz you don’t have the room, uh, for, uh, for error, uh, in a live show that you would on a podcast.

Yeah. 

Casey Cheshire: You know, and, and I have heard, uh, uh, a sneaky rumor that not all LinkedIn lives are live. Apparently you can record it and then make people think it’s live. Cause I once texted her friend, I’m like, Dude, I love you. You’re on this thing. He’s like, Yeah, I recorded 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: that last week. So it’s, uh, that actually gives some flexibility.

So one of the things that I’ve done from the LinkedIn live show for Talent Strategy 60 is our shows air, uh, well, Our main show Talent Strategy 60 from a people and [00:29:00] process perspective airs on Friday. Okay. We’re, we’re actually launching another episode, which is focused on, uh, innovators and disruptors in the HR tech space.

Hmm. Still under the talent strategy umbrella, but that’s gonna air live on Wednesdays. But it gives you so much room, especially if you use Streamy Yard. Um, shout out Streamy Yard . If you use Streamy Yard, you can actually stream it across multiple channels, which is great. Um, but it allows you to do a light edit on the back end after the episode is done, and then you can re restream it, uh, which is also another streaming product that I don’t use.

But anyway, shout outs, Restream. Um, But you can restream it as a prerecorded episode. And what I typically do, or I try to do, is I’ll rerun the live episode with some light edit edits on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday if it’s a Friday show, so that it gets multiple audiences throughout. And you just [00:30:00] have to be disciplined about staying active in the chat.

So sometimes that there becomes a time constraint, but that’s, that’s another way when you’re thinking about from a marketer’s perspective, I’m not a marketer, I’m a sales guy. I pretend to know marketing on LinkedIn. Um, but it gives me another, it gives me another channel to repurpose content so I can take my content that I’ve done on my live show and rebroadcast it with light edits.

I can take my podcast content that my podcast, uh, it, you know, obviously there’s the audio component, but I, uh, I post it to YouTube. I take snippets and post it to TikTok. I gotta figure out, um, YouTube shorts. I think that’s what it’s called. Mm. Shorts. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and, and figure out, um, that piece of it.

But, you know, if you, you have that one piece of content that you can repurpose, I can take my podcast episodes, which are video on Zoom like we’re doing right now, and broadcast that as a live episode to get a different audience that wouldn’t be captured on my [00:31:00] downloads on the, through the podcast channel different.

So if you’re not leveraging that sort of stuff, um, and I’ve gotten away from it just because of some bandwidth issues. But, you know, it, it, these are all different ways that you can repurpose channels to grab multiple audiences. And if you’re a new show, if you’re a new podcast and you have a fairly robust LinkedIn presence, why wouldn’t you take advantage of broadcasting your show?

Your podcast to your main audience on LinkedIn. Like that’s where my biggest network is, and I’m organically growing YouTube and TikTok and all that sort of stuff, but my biggest network is on LinkedIn. So if I’m not leveraging my podcast and exposing my LinkedIn network to it, it’s a, it’s a missed opportunity in driving conversations at scale.

True, 

Casey Cheshire: true. I, I could definitely see that. I just, I wonder about having something that’s not live and calling it live, you know, something just, I don’t know. I like, [00:32:00] I like being able to, you know, say like, woo woo, you know, like ask a dumb question and then like, Oh, Casey, you know, like that real interaction with the, with the audience.

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: Yeah. And, and, and I think, uh, and, and that’s, that’s fair. I don’t get too hung up on it. Um, because I always say, you know, Hey, the live shows are on this date, and then it’ll be rebroadcast. So when you’re, when you’re, um, So I’m, I’m pretty transparent on that front and I think, uh, that’s, I think fair Nick. I think Nick and Morgan, when they were out in Boston a few weeks ago and they were doing the b and b B2B Power Hour, um, they were active in the chat, but it was a prerecorded conversation, right.

So, you know, they, I think, I think that’s manageable too. It just depends on, you know, I mean it’s content is content. If you got good stuff, I don’t really care how you deliver it. That’s just my opinion. 

Casey Cheshire: Love it. Love it. And the panel format was one of my big takeaways from what you were sharing here, the panel format, [00:33:00] helping with some guests who aren’t so good at thinking on their feet so that your guest doesn’t have to just be the kind of person who can pull bullshit out of thin air, but the considered thoughtful approach.

You know, a panel can really help with that. Or a prep call or, or a framework like you’re describing can really help that person prep their thoughts before you get 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: in front of them. So, you know, it’s, it’s, I I’m glad that you mentioned the prep call. So unless I’m dealing with like a known commodity like Andy Paul, I have to release his episodes too.

HeNe. I have to, I’ve released, uh, his episode before, unless I’m dealing with unknown commodity, somebody who’s like, done this stuff before and I’ve seen their work. Yeah. I always do a prep call and, you know, I’ve had, I’ve had people reach out, uh, that I’ve reached out to you, said, Hey, do we need to do this?

And I’m like, Well, I haven’t seen you do any sort of content in this, in, in any format. Yeah. Like if you had a [00:34:00] YouTube presence, you know, I could, I could bypass it, but part of it is to build the relationship because you have to have, um, You have to have a chemistry with your guest. And if you’ve never talked to them in sort of a, a live way, and, and I would say video is the best way if you, if you haven’t met them in person, right?

Video is the best way there. There’s stuff that’s missed from a phone conversation. You’re putting yourself at risk of having like a terrible guest experience. And, uh, that’s the most important thing. You wanna make sure your guest has a great experience and they’re spotlighted in the right way. That’s number one.

That’s the most important thing, and that’s the thing that you shouldn’t compromise on. But secondarily, once it gets done, produ getting, getting produced, you don’t wanna spend an hour with somebody and then edit it down to like 20 minutes. That’s gonna suck. Yeah. Um, so don’t do yourself a disservice. By skipping the [00:35:00] prep call, if you’ve had no interaction with this person beyond LinkedIn messages or emails, you’re, you’re, you’re creating a massive negative brand implication because that, you know, what if, if the guest doesn’t show, well, that’s on you.

Yeah. 

Casey Cheshire: That’s not on the gas. It’s 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: unprepared. That’s on you. Yeah. Yeah. So I, you know, I’ve had, I’ve re, I’ve reached out to CEOs all the time and I’ve had CEOs say, Well, my schedule’s really busy. Do we have to do a prep call? I’m like, GDR . So that’s ble leap, right? We have to do a prep call. . Um, I don’t know what kind of show you have, but I was about to turn into full sailer mode.

Well, we’ve definitely 

Casey Cheshire: told YouTube it’s not for kids, so, okay. My kids won’t be watching 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: it on YouTube kids. So when I get asked the question, when I get asked the question, do we have to do a prep call, my response says, God, right? Who I have to do a prep call? , you’re not, you’re not, you’re not Josh Bra.

You’re not Jen Ellen. You’re not Andy Paul. You’re not Stu Hek. I don’t know who you are. [00:36:00] You, you have a really interesting profile, and I wanna learn more about you and build that relationship so that I can, I can spotlight you the right way because there’s no way I’m going to do that blind. And maybe, maybe that’s, that’s my, my, my sales conditioning getting to me.

I would never do a sales call without doing some sort of research on the company and the prospect, and there’s no way that I’m gonna broadcast. My name behind, you know, some production where the guest is completely like floundering. That’s on me. Right. Right. If I make you look bad, that’s terrible. Yeah.

So I I, I’m just not willing to compromise on that thing unless you’re like a pro, like Jeb Blunt does this stuff all the time. Right. You know, Josh Braun does this stuff all the time. I can, you can roll dice with that because they’ve established a brand behind that stuff. But if you’re, you know, CEO of Xyy Z Company or VP of XYZ company, and I’ve never had a [00:37:00] substantive conversation to find out what you’re interested in and what you want to talk about, that’s gonna make for an awful show.

Yeah. 

Casey Cheshire: You know, and I’ve, and I’ve had the author. And some people that maybe are busy or think that they’re busy, uh, push back more or less on prep calls and, and, and if it’s more transactional in their mind, I can understand. Look, I’ve got my, I’m gonna, I’m gonna give you the same exact presentation I gave the other nine podcasts.

So let me just come on here and we’ll do this transaction and, and then I’m just sort of babysitting, like we’re on cnn. That’s not my preferred style, so I always prefer the prep call, but I think the thing that people don’t get from exactly what you brought up is that either way you’re gonna be having to do some rapport building.

Yeah. And it’s either gonna happen offline in the safety and comfort for both of you, or it’s gonna happen awkwardly in front of everyone. And even when people look at like a Joe Rogan, it’s like he, he didn’t just hit go, he didn’t do a prep call, but they were walking around the place. He’s probably offering them a beer.

You [00:38:00] want some whiskey? And then the first 30 minutes are sometimes kind of flat because they’re just. Trying to get a buzz on so that we can get comfortable with each other to actually get into it. So it’s like you’re gonna spend that time one way or the other. It’d be a little bit better for both of you if maybe spent that offline.

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: So it’s, uh, it’s interesting you mentioned Rogan’s Show. Um, and, and I haven’t, I haven’t listened to too many episodes, but he has a much longer than average format show. Yeah. Three hours. Yeah. So like, both my shows are, the recording sessions are 60 minutes. Um, and you can’t build rapport on the fly in a 60 minute show.

It’s gonna sound like crap. And the shorter your show is, the more critical that pre-production motion Great point, uh, becomes because like I I, I recently did, uh, a recording, um, for, uh, for Polish, uh, [00:39:00] For Adriana Za. So she is based outta Poland and she’s, uh, she does some YouTube work, uh, in the area of sales enablement and sales training.

And we had a 15 minute show, we had a 45 minute prep. And I think that’s absolutely the right approach because how do you get the right punches in, in a 15 minute time limit and have it be effective? So if you have a short format show, that becomes, unless you’re doing a solo show, and I’m not a solo show person, or I rarely do solo episodes, unless you’re doing a solo show, the shorter your episode, the more prep work that needs to go into it from an orchestration perspective so you can keep it on brand.

Um, so it becomes trickier. The shorter your show is, and, and again, you have to, you have to think like Joe Rogan represents what 0.001% of the podcast audience. It’s like the best of the best of the best . [00:40:00] Most of us are nowhere near that same universe. Right? Right. So don’t, don’t go into it thinking that you can do what that what he does, because your listeners don’t know who you are.

So you need to be tight. On, on the mechanics and the preparation. Don’t over prepare, but you need to be tight on that stuff so you’re creating a good listening listener experience. 

Casey Cheshire: Love that. That’s one of the most counterintuitive, best first principles of podcast preps I’ve ever heard is that the shorter it is actually the more important it is, which will sound weird to people where it’s like, what?

Be on a podcast for five minutes, I’m gonna spend more time doing the prep. And that makes absolutely no sense. And until you think about it, in which case it makes total sense. So with that, I love the transition. Go to the dark side for a second. What is your biggest challenge 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: on podcasting? On, Um, wow.

That’s a good question. You know, I, [00:41:00] I, I think, I think from the execution side, I don’t really have a ton of challenges on the, on the guest interviews and booking side, right. Some of it is actually, and this is a weakness on me because I, I’m, I’m. I’m good enough on operations to be dangerous, but I’m not an operations guy.

Right. So it’s, it’s handling all of the mechanics, um, from the post episode stuff. So when we’re looking at, I mean, both my shows are bootstrapped, so it’s just basically me and, uh, my cohost doing the grunt work in terms of post production. Um, but the orchestration from a scheduling perspective, that’s challenging.

Um, because I got like 15 jobs, you know, Um, scheduling everybody, uh, making sure everybody’s tight. But really, you know, honestly, like if anybody’s considering launching a podcast, do not do it without getting descript, because that was a game [00:42:00] changer in terms of my post production delivery capabilities, because I looked at all sorts of other editing tools.

Yeah. And if I had to like live in those things, I probably would’ve gotten like, Five episodes and said, Screw it. Uh, I’m, I’m over, I think I’m probably at like 65 episodes at this point on the podcast. Geez. And, um, and we launched in February. Wouldn’t have happened without Descript, but there’s still time involved where you have to do the editing process.

So if you have the ability to offload that and have somebody else do it, uh, and edit and, and do the post production, that would be where I would say do it. And yeah. You know, I, I, I think when you look at being able to offload that, if you’re a new show, you’re just gonna have to bite the bullet and just get stuff out, um, and, and, and then figure it out on the back end.

Yeah. 

Casey Cheshire: Makes sense. Final question for you, sir. Every so many episodes, things can [00:43:00] change and shift and maybe take a re-look at it. 50 episodes is roughly a year’s worth of a weekly show. You’ve already surpassed that We talk again in 50 episodes. What, what is your show? Like, What’s happening? What, what’s your big picture vision 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: for it?

So it’s interesting that that’s a, that’s another really good question. So here’s, here’s what I learned. So originally when we first started, uh, the Cascading Leadership Show, the intent of the show was to spotlight the journeys of senior leaders who are women immigrants, people of color who’ve risen to that level and basically share their secret.

So it’s basically the, the, the Hero’s journey format. Love that. And, um, there’s, uh, um, let me, uh, so I started like I, I consume, uh, Bunch of stuff, uh, information all over the place. Uh, like if I could be a comic book character, I’d be brainiac [00:44:00] because he just goes through the universe and just absorbs, uh, cultural knowledge and, uh, and retains it.

So he is like a walking encyclopedia or, or all, um, uh, what is it? Time capsule. Um, so where I was going with that, I originally, we originally launched Cascading Leadership under the hero story format of a podcast. And, you know, I followed Andy Paul, Susan Diaz was actually the one that, uh, got this on my ra uh, radar.

So you definitely want to follow her if you aren’t already a great marketer, um, is actually, uh, one of the best podcasts in, in Canada. So definitely recommend, um, you know, checking her out. But one of the things that she mentioned in her new. Was that after a period of time, the hero story format is gonna run stale.

So one of the things that I did, and this is the cardinal sin of marketing, is that, you know, as a person, I’m interested [00:45:00] in a lot of different things and I can speak to a lot of different things. So why not have a show that has multiple pillars across broad topics that you can bring guests on? And it will always be interesting.

So rather than running a sales podcast or a marketing podcast, you know, there, there’s five or six different areas that are pillars of our shows. There’s dei as a pillar of our show. There’s leadership effectiveness as a pillar of our show. There’s sales and marketing effectiveness as a, as a, as pillars of our show.

There’s non not for profit spotlights. That’s a pillar of our show. And then there’s topic elements like navigating trauma and loss, um, and, and wellness. So there’s. If you have a big enough umbrella, break down the elements of that umbrella into the spokes of that umbrella and find out what your spokes are and build show topics around that.

Like right now, we’re wrapping up a women in [00:46:00] technology series. We did a series of episodes on startup founders or women founders. We have sales and marketing effectiveness coming on and that way every month to two months, you have a different flavor of what you’re interested in coming out. And here’s where marketers are gonna get irritated with that concept, because what’s the advice marketers give you?

If you’re looking for an audience niche down, and I’m taking the opposite approach. Mm-hmm. , I’m saying, Look, you wanna have enough product diversification. Where your content is always fresh to a core audience, not not a micro audience, but a, a, a core audience that would be interested in. So I’m actually creating a category where my show fits in under a broader niche than the traditional understanding of what a niche, uh, show should be like.

Like there’s a ton of sales shows, there’s a ton of marketing shows. There’s not really a show that integrates DEI technology, [00:47:00] uh, talent strategy, sales and marketing effectiveness. Like if I’m looking at my personal brand, that’s where I intersect. So why wouldn’t I build a show around it and speak to people that have interest across those areas?

And the integration 

Casey Cheshire: is the niche. 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: Yeah. It’s, it, it, you know, it like, And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s my take on it. Um, I, like I said, I, I play a marketer on LinkedIn. I’m not a marketer , but there are so many things that I find interesting about the world. Where do I constantly play? It’s at the intersection of leadership, dei, sales, marketing, and talent strategy, right?

So there’s a lot of runway and a lot of interesting people you could talk about that you could talk to that have things to share on that. And again, how can you create conversations at scale? How can you spotlight your guests and, you know, present them in a way that, [00:48:00] that, that really highlights their expertise?

You’ll never run outta runway with, uh, You know, kind of like my, my, my, my show vision. 

Casey Cheshire: Right. And it allows you, like you’ve said before, to allow your guest to speak from the position of passion and expertise and Yeah. And talk to what they wanna talk about. You’re not forcing them into a particular pillar because they can probably tie into several of them.

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: Yeah. I mean, uh, a good example is that, uh, I have uh, uh, one of the upcoming shows, um, she’s gonna actually be, be headlining the series. It’s a women in sales series. Nice. I have Wesley Whitaker Greer, who is the host of the Sales Transformation podcast. I think I’m, I’m hoping I’m getting her podcast. Great.

Right. But Wesleyan look her up on LinkedIn. Okay. Um, but one of the things that I, she’s heavy into sales coaching and she’s, she’s an African American woman who. You know, really had a phenomenal career in scientific sales. So she’s a [00:49:00] niche within a niche of that. So she’s, she’s a, she’s a woman in sales, which is rare.

She’s an African American woman in sales, which is rare. She’s an African American woman in sales who used to be in scientific sales and rose to leadership. So that’s, that’s, that’s even rare. Yeah, I have, Yeah. Yeah. So I have her coming on my show as part of that Women in Sales series, but then we are going to be doing, or thinking about, we’re working on putting her on a panel with some other guests, talking about not only women in sales, but equity for African American women in the world of business.

How do you, how do you build parody around that? So there’s a lot of intersections that you can explore if you think about it the right way, and, and, and, and build that into your overall show vision. The, the why of the show. Man, so powerful. 

Casey Cheshire: Uh, mark your calendar for 50 or less episodes from now. We’ll get back [00:50:00] on here.

And, and I can’t wait to, to see the pillars continuing to build this, this house that excites me because I found that if I don’t, and, and sometimes I haven’t devoted time to think about this, you can let that hero’s journey gets tale like you’re describing, and then if you lose interest, it’s dangerous because then it, it, you’re not as interested in the guest and they’re not getting served and they’re feeling that and it’s really bad.

So there’s like a responsibility as a host to make sure you’re building something that will keep you interested. 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: Well, it, it, it winds back to an early part of the conversation when we were talking about, you know, what, what’s, what’s your key or secret to running a good. It’s, it’s rooted in what’s the story that you want to tell?

What’s the, this is you talking to your guests. What is the story that you want to tell and how does it align with your overall vision and how can we make that work? If you operate from that space, you’re never gonna get bored, or it’s gonna be a long time before you get bored. I, [00:51:00] I totally hear you. If you, if you, if you’re doing like, I, I love, um, seafood pasta, like we need de fruit to DeMar is my, let’s go go to go, go to Dish.

I couldn’t eat that every day. True. I, I could eat it every day for probably like a month and a half. Yeah. But if I had to do that for a year. Yeah. So it’s the same principle. No matter how good one thing is, you can’t do that for the rest of your life. So build in ways to keep yourself engaged and you never get bored with it.

Casey Cheshire: In my mind gets back to more of a Joe Rogan experience, broad based podcast versus that finite sales sdr specific super niche show. Because then to your point, you don’t run out if you’ve got that, that broader approach, but you still have the benefit of focusing, um, in, with teams and, and topics. 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: You know, it’s interesting, I had almost the same [00:52:00] conversation or a similar conversation with one of the guests that, uh, I’m putting on a panel for the LinkedIn live show and I reached out to him, he’s the, uh, chief Revenue Officer for a tech company.

And, uh, I have him and he’s one of the co-founders. But when I initially reached out, I said, Hey, I’d like to have you participate in the panel. I’m not sure if you’re interested in it. And he asked me what the topic was. I was like, Well, if I have it my way, I would do a conversation and a panel. Sales and marketing alignment, uh, as a way, as a way to accelerate revenue attainment.

That’s what I’m interested in. That would be great topic for a CRO to talk about. And he’s like, Uh, I’ve done that so many times, . Uh, I don’t, I don’t, I, you know, it’s kind of boring. I don’t know if I wanna do that. And then I asked him, Oh, what do you wanna talk about? It’s like, you know, I think one of the unique things about our organization, this is in talking Yeah.

Is that we’ve gone against the tech bro culture from a startup perspective, and we’ve built values [00:53:00] up front in how we build our organization. So that created a conversation where, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re having a completely different pan panel discussion, and it’s, it’s on the topic. If you’re in the startup space, in the technology space, or even if you’re accelerating growth in the technology space, the topic of the show is gonna be values led growth as a tech startup.

So when you’re looking at the umbrella of talent strategy, how do you lead with values and how will a values led motion drive growth in a tech conversation? That’s a really interesting conversation. And we have three founders who are gonna be talking about that. And that’s, that’s, that’s again, what does your guests want to talk about, Right?

Right. If you had 

Casey Cheshire: forced him to talk about what you had, you know, your initial idea, he can talk about it, but you’re gonna get that. But I bet you he’s gonna be so the whole panel’s gonna be on fire [00:54:00] Yeah. When they’re talking about this topic cuz they give a shit. 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: Yeah. And, and that’s, uh, that’s the, the, the basis it like, if I’m going to give any secret and I, you know, I don’t know anything.

The one thing that I would say that everybody needs to keep in mind, Is be ridiculously obsessively focused on what is it your guests want to talk about? like you, start your podcast with that question and it’ll never serve you wrong. now obviously if, your show is about marketing and your guest wants to talk about Area 51, there’s obviously like things that don’t line up, but tell the story your guest wants to tell.

Not the story that you want to tell. Boom. And then there, 

Casey Cheshire: that’s how you get that excitement. Man, this has been so much fun. Uh, before I let you go, before we start closing some things down, you mentioned sci-fi. I can’t help it. I’m a nerd. Favorite sci-fi series or book. 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: Well, if we’re [00:55:00] talking, uh, well, I actually, I’ll combine those.

So this is, again, intersecting, intersecting the different things that you’re, you’re, you’re interested in. So, favorite sci-fi book series is the Dune series, and if you really want to invest in time, read it in chronological order. There’s some new stuff that came out that I haven’t had a chance to get to, but I’m like 15 books deep, so that, that can be problematic.

Uh, I would, I would highly recommend that series if you are talking about sci-fi series. From a TV perspective, something that’s pretty underrated is, um, uh, I think, oh, geez, I haven’t seen this in a while. I think it’s Babylon ad is a pretty underrated show. Okay. Um, and they had I think, five or six, uh, seasons of it.

Uh, so that’s underrated. And obviously like I’m, uh, if you’re, if you’re a Star Trek person, I’m gonna, I’m gonna give a controversial opinion. Oh my, my favorite. Not, not counting discovery, which I [00:56:00] think is phenomenal. Um, my favorite Star Trek series before Discovery was Deep Space Nine. I think that is hugely underrated and I think that’s actually a better series than the next generation.

So there is your fill of sci-fi nerd them. 

Casey Cheshire: You’re putting Deep Space nine above the Next Generation. Yep. I sure. Some fighting 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: words, those, that’s like a, we’re gonna have to step outside. Casey. Yeah, Man, , 

Casey Cheshire: I don’t, Well, I mean, I grew up on t and g, so, but you’re right. There was something cool about Deep Space Nine.

I mean, if you’re gonna build a Space station, put it next to a 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: wormhole. Come on. So I think, uh, I think the, the, the thing that I liked about Deep Space Nine and it, one, it. A lead character that, you know, didn’t look like me, but was Brown. So Cisco, Who was that? Yeah, Cisco. Yeah. Um, so had a lead character and a cast that looked more like me than any of the other series.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that, that was important. But, you know, it was, it [00:57:00] was about a quadrant of the Star Trek universe that was unexplored. So when you, when, when I think about how I’m wired, I’ve always been a startup guy. I’ve always been an accelerating growth guy. I’ve always been a turnaround guy. So Undiscovered Country, another star, Great Star Trek movie.

Um, it was about that setting, uh, and exploring the unknown unknowns. And that’s what made it great. Uh, and it wasn’t an episodic series. It had an overarching story arc that was being explored in the, in the course of the conversation. So that’s what, uh, what made that one, uh, stand out in the Star Trek series, uh, in my mind, and that’s why I ranked it higher than the next generation.

Casey Cheshire: Definitely broke the mold, right? It wasn’t like, Oh no, we’re going to the neutral zone. It was like, yeah, some random people coming out like, Who are these? I don’t even know who these people are, you know? And so probably gave the, the authors some more flexibility, writers, some more flexibility to just do wacky things, try things that maybe would’ve broke the mold on, you know, one of the 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: traditional [00:58:00] ones.

And, and when you look at the antagonists in the original next generation series, you had the Borg, uh, you had, you know, the Rouls, but when you look at, uh, deep Space nine, you had the brain, the Dominion, uh, the entire arc with OTOs, uh, Shapeshifting. Yeah, the shape shifting what I forgot what their, what their species is called.

Um, but that whole arc was just so good. It, it like, uh, so anyway, it’s nerding out. Sorry, 

Casey Cheshire: nerding out. We’ll put a disclaimer, put a little nerd icon disclaimer on it, but hey, I could talk about this stuff all day for me. I think it’s the Bob Averse, I don’t know if you’ve read the Bob Averse series, and actually I actually listened to it on Audible.

I don’t know if you’re a audible guy, but, uh, Ray Porter narrated that and he’s, Ra done some great sci-fi narration and his narration of the Bob Averse. It’s a three part trilogy and it’s ab I’ve, I’ve, I’ve listened to it. Like three times at least. And it’s, it’s hours of length. It just, I [00:59:00] love the universe and I wanna be spending time with the Bobs.

So definitely wanted to check 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: out. I’ll need to check that out. I, uh, I wrote it down. Um, I’m not an audible guy, so I have to figure out how to get that, uh, wrapped into my already, you know, 10 books, Deep backlog of, of stuff. I mean, you can read 

Casey Cheshire: it. My wife actually just read the, the text. But there’s something about, there’s different characters and they all have a different voice.

Um, and it, it kind of gives, it gives you a chance to 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: hear the voices. Hmm. Uh, that might give me an excuse to check out, uh, check out Audible. I’m not really get that free trial going on maybe might get you hooked. 

Casey Cheshire: Yeah. Uh, but man, where can people connect with you? They wanna reach out. Tell us about, you know, the podcast, different URLs, reach out a little sales consulting cuz they, you heard a little bit of that in here.

Where can people. 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: So my most active channel is LinkedIn, so you can, uh, you can find me there. Um, I’m posting content on a regular basis, uh, both talent Strategy 60, uh, [01:00:00] and cascading leadership. That content can be found@cascadingleadership.com. Okay. Um, so you’ll have, uh, snippets there. You can look at the cascading leadership handle on YouTube and, um, and TikTok, and you can find us there.

Um, but LinkedIn is the, the primary channel. And then, uh, you can always go to the website or on wherever your favorite podcast player is. Uh, we have, geez, we have a Cascading Leadership podcast page on LinkedIn. We have Talent Strategies 60 page on LinkedIn. So I’m not difficult to find, and certainly you can find me, um, you know, uh, at, uh, at Circa as well.

So I’m every. Hell yeah. 

Casey Cheshire: So we’ll put all that stuff in the show notes so people can just click right on through and make it easy for you just to click, click, click. Um, man, this has been fantastic, Jim. I can’t thank you enough. I literally, I love when I can learn and explore topics and I have run out of paper on both sides.

I, I have learned so much today, the conversations about the [01:01:00] framework, even about the, the intro cringes and, and the things that we struggle with and the themes and the pillars. All of it’s fantastic. Thank you so much for your time 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: today. Yeah, thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun. Uh, great conversation.

Uh, looking forward to, uh, potentially getting you on the show or probably a panel on, uh, on, uh, on something sales and marketing related. I think, uh, I think LinkedIn Live is, uh, is gonna be calling your. Hell yeah. 

Casey Cheshire: I look forward to doing it. I’ll even log in and do the chat too, , just in case we record it some other time.

I will be there. Um, awesome. And for those listening, if you learn something, and I freaking know you did because I literally, I have to show it front and back, two pages of notes, uh, run outta space. It looks crazy. If you look at this paper, I look like a crazy person, but, uh, I’ve learned so much. So if you have to share this with one other person, nine people, 3000, whatever, that’s thought leadership, getting good information in other people’s hands, uh, check out some sci-fi books while you’re at it again, Jim, thanks so much for being 

Dr. Jim Kanichirayil: on here.[01:02:00] 

No problem, Casey. Have a good one. 

Casey Cheshire: All right, everyone, this has been another crazy cool, fun, exciting episode of creating the Greatest Show. I will see you all next time.

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