Posts by James Newcomb

What’s that you say? An “icky guy”? I’m not sure what you mean… you may be saying to yourself. No, I’m actually referring to the Japanese word ikigai, which literally means a life worth living. You may ask someone: “What is your purpose in life?” “Why were you put on this earth?” “What is the overarching…

Whenever someone books an interview for my show, I have a question in the scheduler that asks a rather simple question: What do you want to talk about? I don’t have a list of 10 questions I’m going to ask, nor do I have an agenda on how I think the interview should go. In…

Years and years ago, circa 2009, I had the chance to attend a clinic given by the Canadian Brass – one of my favorite all-time groups for many reasons – at Indiana University. I was stationed at Ft. Knox, KY at the time, so it was just a few hours drive to see them play,…

Or so I thought when I walked into the first rehearsal of the Minnesota All-State band in the summer of 1993. We had placement auditions earlier in the day – that being the first day of the camp. And it turns out I did better than expected, as my name was placed squarely on the…

One of the unforeseen benefits of living in Vietnam is the TV coverage of the major tennis events. Tennis is one of my favorite sports to watch, as it’s essentially a gladiator arena. You can feel for the players as they’re going through the physical and emotional ups and downs throughout the course of a…

Something I’ve heard over and over and over from people who’ve forgotten more about running a podcast than I’ll ever learn is this: Be entertaining. If your show is not entertaining, no one is going to listen to it. Truer words were never spoken. But it’s easy to take that advice out of context. When…

As I type this email, on 28 June 2021, my wife Sana and I are waiting… Waiting for her visa to get approved. Actually, just an update on when the application has left the National Visa Center in Vermont and we have her interview scheduled (tentatively due to the pandemic but something is better than…

Every person who hosts a podcast, has a blog, a youtube channel, or basically has any kind of online presence has a struggle. It’s a struggle that 99.999% of people who consume their content will never know about. And that is the balance between the ego and the ego. Allow me to explain. On one…

Every now and then I get approached by people who want themselves or someone they know to be on Ben Greenfield’s podcast. If you’re not familiar with the name, Ben Greenfield is a legit guru in the world of health and fitness, and his show is listened to by tens of thousands of rabid followers…