Higher Callings

My entry into the world of podcasting.

If you’ve been reading this newsletter closely, you’ll know that I have recently started a podcast. In truth, I have started two new podcasts, but one, called “Common Questions,” for which I serve as a co-host, is sponsored by the American Bar Association and is generally available only to ABA members. The other is my own, named “Higher Callings.” In it, I will be featuring my interviews of people who have chosen careers or taken on volunteer service for the benefit of the common good. As my first guest, David Hoffman, would say, it is about people who strive to make the world a better place.

It’s pretty easy for me to come up with a list of guests for Higher Callings, because I have been out in the world for 45 years, as measured from my college graduation. In that long span, I’ve met a lot of extraordinary people, most of whom are still doing extraordinary things. When I am able to find a dynamic person with a good story to tell to be my guest, and especially when that person has been bringing a public-interest mindset to their work, my job becomes easy – a good guest can carry a podcast regardless of the shortcomings of the host (and I am still working my way along the host learning curve). Listen to the first episode and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

So why would I, a lawyer more than forty years into my career, want to start a podcast? I ask myself that question every day. It is especially difficult to answer on a day when I’m battling the editing software to get the various tracks aligned, to cut a long interview down to a good length without losing its core message, and to listen and re-listen to an interview so I can make good decisions about what to leave in and what to leave out (with apologies to Bob Seger). Fortunately, my son Brian Frederico has been volunteering as Higher Callings’ real editor and has brought indispensable technical skill and editorial wisdom to the task.

My answer to the question “why?” is a pretty simple one, or really more than one. For starters, I enjoy the creative process. Just as I enjoy writing this newsletter (what some call my “blog”), I take great satisfaction from selecting a potential guest for the show, spending time with them in a pre-recording session to better understand their story, developing questions to help bring key themes out in the interview, conducting the interview, and then deciding (with Brian’s help) how best to present it to the world. I think everyone has within them the urge to create – it’s part of what makes us human – and at this point in my life I have the luxury of spending time doing so. And since I was never any good at the visual arts, and I long ago gave up songwriting and musical performance, writing and speaking are what I am left with. I think it also helps that I have spent so much of my career asking questions of witnesses, although I am still learning to adapt from that formal legal style of questioning to a more informal, interview-friendly style.

But even my creative tendencies are not the main reason I started the pod. More important, I truly want to shine a light on the good works of people who are, in one way or another, focused on public service. Not only do they deserve for people to hear their stories, but they also can inspire listeners to make choices in their own lives that will make the world a better place. And in a time when the words and deeds of many people in the media’s spotlight can discourage us from believing there is much hope for humanity, it is important that there be channels, no matter how small, to learn about the good works of others who demonstrate that there is, after all, cause for hope that things will get better and that humankind will be okay.

Of course, podcasting is a learning experience. I have been a guest on two podcasts, and have spent months researching the art and technical requirements for a podcast, but actually conducting the interviews and producing them can only be learned in the doing. I was wise to choose David Hoffman as my first guest, and fortunate that he agreed, because his stories carried that first episode, despite the limitations of his host. We covered a period ranging from his childhood in the 1950s to his present-day alternative dispute resolution practice. The stories David told of some of the significant events going on in the world during his formative years (the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, and later, the South Africa divestment movement) and how they affected him, as well as his description of his approach to ADR as a mechanism both for resolving disputes and for spiritual healing, are entertaining and inspirational.

I was still learning when I interviewed Phil Mueller, a law school classmate who, trusting his instincts, left the much-traveled path of a Boston law firm, civil litigation practice to become a prosecutor in Schenectady County, New York. Over the course of his 26 years in that office, Phil tried 43 felony cases, including 25 murder trials, and also has had a significant role in training state prosecutors and police officers. Phil’s description both of his own experience and of the principles he developed ten years ago that are still used to train new state prosecutors will be surprising to some and inspiring to many, at a time when the conduct of law enforcement and its role in protecting the public (including those suspected of crimes) has been at the forefront of American consciousness.

I know others who do podcasts, and their work also inspired me to start Higher Callings. Yet I have learned that we podcasters don’t all share the same motivations, or at least may have different priorities. Many podcasters, probably most, use their creations as means to an end. For example, the most successful podcasters are, at least in part, in it for the money, as their wide circulation attracts advertisers. Some of those podcasts are associated with large organizations that benefit from listener engagement while also attracting advertising dollars. Others not affiliated with large organizations and who have much smaller audiences may use their podcasts as tools for deepening their connections with guests who are potential clients, or for marketing their services to their small circles of listeners. While there is nothing wrong with these more targeted approaches, and the resulting podcasts still can be, and often are, both informative and entertaining, the podcasts are most fundamentally advertisements for other services or products the podcasters hope to sell.

My goals in starting “Higher Callings” are different. Of course, nothing would make me happier than to have a wide audience and to generate revenue from advertisers, but I start from the assumption that the podcast will never do so, nor is it meant to. I also am selecting guests who have inspirational stories to tell but who are not in a position to send me work, nor am I featuring them in order to demonstrate my skills, such as they are, to an audience of potential clients. After four decades of practicing law, I am at a point in my life where I really do look for ways to make the world a better place without financial reward, and I see the podcast (and this newsletter) as a way to do so.

In other words, Higher Callings is not an advertisement for other services; it is the service. As a friend who saw me on Facebook commented, Higher Callings is my higher calling. If someday it takes off and generates revenue, great. If it generates no revenue but inspires listeners to follow the laudable examples of guests on the show, or to have a better understanding of the important issues those guests have tackled for the common good, greater still!

Higher Callings is still young. We have published one episode, which is now available on Spotify, Amazon, and Pocket Casts, and we are in the process of getting it placed on Apple Podcasts and other directories. The second episode is nearly ready and I expect to release it this week. I have selected the guest for the third episode which I hope to release two weeks later. For now, while I am still working at my law firm, I plan to release an episode every two weeks. I have a long list of potential guests, each of whom have pursued their own higher callings. My first few guests will be lawyers, some practicing and some doing other things, but I plan to invite non-lawyers to be my guests in the coming months as well. Regardless of who the guests are, I aim to make each episode of general interest to an audience of lawyers and non-lawyers alike. I also welcome your suggestions for potential guests whose lives and work demonstrate their commitment to a higher calling, and whose stories will inspire.

I will be posting each episode on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. You can also find it on Buzzsprout by following this link: Higher Callings Podcast. Please check it out and spread the word. The more that others can hear the inspirational stories of my wonderful guests, the more we all can be contributing to a more positive public discourse. And God knows the world can use a little more of that these days.