Some stops are more complete than others
Attention Virginia Beach residents: Stay off the sidewalks. Sana is now an officially licensed driver in the United States!
Yes, Sana took her driver’s test yesterday and passed – but not without a bit of controversy surrounding the proceedings. You see, Sana is 42 years old. She learned to drive in Bangkok, Thailand. The streets of the highly civilized Virginia Beach may as well be remote farm area compared to Bangkok.
So you can imagine Sana was fairly confident she would pass the test. And I was too. She’d done a good bit of driving under my own expert tutelage and proven her mettle as an American driver. So neither of us thought of the road test as anything more than a formality.
That was until we saw who was giving the driving test. A Filipino woman with a scowl on her face, scrutinizing the vehicle registration, previous license, etc. as though she’s a biophysicist examining the remains of a recently exhumed Egyptian mummy.
To sum up: Sana passed her test, but we had to appeal what we were both convinced was an error by the test-giver. This person had faulted Sana for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign, and initially was inclined to fail her.
We were both incredulous at this. How could Sana, the world’s most careful everything fail to come to a complete stop at a stop sign? No way did this happen; there had to have been a misunderstanding with the test-giver. Thankfully we were able to clear things up with the DMV manager. After a short discussion, the person did acknowledge she had erred in her judgment, and that Sana, a highly experienced driver should indeed be given her American driving license.
Phew! That was a close one. But afterward as Sana was driving along, she came to a stop sign and I immediately knew what had caused the problem. She looked both ways as she was approaching the stop sign, stopped for a split second, and then went – you know, like 99.99% of everyone else who drives in the non-DMV world. But the test giver was expecting her to stop for 30 seconds, look both ways ten times, and then go. That’s an exaggeration, but anyone who knows the DMV type of people knows what I’m talking about.
That approach makes sense when you’re teaching a teenager how to drive, to build habits and routines in driving, but not really applicable to the real world. I explained to Sana what had caused all this confusion regarding what we’ve since dubbed Stopgate. “Some stops are more complete than others,” I advised my eager grasshopper student.
So Sana and I both benefitted from this. She got her license, and I got material for an email.
But it got me to thinking about why I love the podcasting medium. In a world of infinite rules on just about everything, and endless punitive measures to enforce these rules, there is so much freedom in doing a podcast. It’s all audio, so you don’t need to look a certain way; and the host gets to do pretty much anything they want regarding the content. Like I tell my clients, podcasts are like Legos. You can take any of the millions of elements associated with doing a show and build it the way you like it.
It’s interesting to see people kind of struggle with this when they tell me they’re thinking about getting into podcasting. They think because Joe Rogan or Tim Ferris do things a certain way, then that’s the way I need to do it. Some folks need to do some real mental gymnastics to finally realize they can really design a show the way they want it, without it sounding like a Burger King commercial.
The reality is that there are unlimited ways to do a show; and the creator gets to, well, create their show to their liking. It’s rather artistic in that sense, and it’s why I call my podcast production service Podcast Artistry. If you’re looking to use the podcasting medium to share your own unique message with others, then I can help with the technical end of things. To learn more about what we offer and schedule a free consultation to see if we’re a good fit to work together, check us out: