Lessons, examples, and challenges tied the book Atomic Habits have been the years PGP curriculum. In the year’s final project, we reviewed our previous work and explored the ideas covered in the book so we could create an artifact that showed our learning and understanding of the topic. The project gave creative leeway in creating whatever type of artifact I wanted, and I choose to create an interview-style podcast.
When planning the podcast I knew I wanted to connect it to something I enjoy outside of school. Golf immediately stuck out to me as something that would work well as explaining some of the applications of ideas taught by atomic habits. Many of the themes spoken of in the book had come up in golf; the ideas in the book atomic habits are versatile and applicable in a number of fields.
In order to cultivate a broad collection of voices, I contacted a coach for team BC, Colin Lavers and 2 of their players to speak with them about their ideas on the themes explained in the book.
I formulated a selection of specialized questions for each individual, and I debriefed my interviewee’s so that our actual interview would have some semblance of preparedness. I had a rough plan for the interview, but I was hoping for the interview to take its own course.
I was pretty happy with the connections I built between the interviews and the book. None of the interviewees had read the book but many of their answers coinciding with the lessons from the book. In my podcast, I added commentary to connect their ideas to the ones in the book. I think this comment added a sense of context to their answers so that the viewer can better understand the purpose of the podcast. I wasn’t surprised that many of their ideas were so complimentary to the book because James Clear’s ideas are well adopted in high-performance athletes. The world of high-performance athletes has been far more ahead of the curve than the rest of society. When making the podcast I showed how my world of golf has very strong connections to the things we learned in PGP this year.
It has been a long time since I last made a podcast and my rust showed in my interview techniques. It was certainly a challenge to do the interviews over zoom because the regular social cues were nonexistent. However, I did notice my annoying speech patterns in post-production. Saying “interesting” to everything they said made it seem like I wasn’t actually listening to what they were saying. I needed more practice in my transitions because it builds a stronger narrative. If I were given a second chance, I would have come better prepared to change the subject and with better conversation tools. I recognize that it was my first podcast in a year so I expected a few points of learning.
Before I completed my podcast I sent it to my interviewees for feedback. I told them to take some notes of pieces to update and change. I spoke to them and they gave me their advice and I took it into account for my final draft updates. Ultimately I was unable to redo the interviews but I did what I could to improve the final product short of redoing the interviews.
My strongest work is always completed when I am passionate about what I am doing. My work in the final PGP project of the year shows why I am the most successful when I believe in what I am doing. I have long believed in the connections between my sports and the teachings of mindset found in PLP. I was given the creative leeway to show my learning in a way that means something more to me and I appreciate it. I hope to do more projects where I can branch out in the way I did for this one.
