SPEAKER_01 0:01

So just taking a walk on a weekend trying to get in those vitality points. And been thinking about and reflecting on the podcast and how it's been going so far.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

We're about ten episodes in. By the way, I hope Dinesh Govander is watching this and proud of me for the Discovery Vitality plug in the points mention.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

But anyway, I've been reflecting on how far we've come in. I think about six months. This angle is not great for me because it accentuates the double chin. Um so hope you're listening and not watching. But yeah, the podcast has been going great. And I wanted to do this little special episode of Reflection.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

I think reflection is a good thing from what I've heard and read about. I'm a big fan of podcasts and all these types of things myself, and they they always talk about that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Reflecting and looking back and being grateful. So it all started with episode one with my cousin Yak Lindy. The dentist. Obviously, I'd hoped it would do better, but my expectations were very low. Because I know how the internet works. And I knew I wouldn't be spending any money at all on advertising, slash marketing, slash putting it out there. So my only hope was that because Yak has a big following, it might get some traction, some yaktion. And I was pleasantly surprised at the reception.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

And again, excuse me because I am walking and trying to get my vitality points.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

And you can see here, my average heart rate currently is 130. Don't judge me. I'm super unfit. The Yak interview was about two hours long. And we went deep. Probably deeper than most of the other episodes.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

But it was fun. It was a great learning experience because it was the first time I'd ever interviewed somebody for that long.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

And in that context and situation. And I've only watched that episode a couple of times, and I know it sounds weird. To say that only a couple of times. But this pet project, uh, well, this is how I am. I keep on going and watching old all my videos, but I only watched that one twice. Because it's a bit cringy. I think I've improved over the next few guests. I've become less of an interrupter. I'm trying to give my guests more space to talk without interrupting them.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Episode two was the one that went viral in Voter Commons because I said to Yak, his interview walked so that Caifus's interview, that was interview number two, with Caifus Hoffam Budimo, the surgeon from Botswana, who was born in Botswana and studied here and now specializes here. That thing took off. I mean, it's on 7,000 plus views on YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

And it was fascinating to see the analytics on that one. Because it blew up in Botswana. Most of the views and hits came from Botswana. And most of the views came from people's YouTube homepage.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Meaning that they had seen it on their first page that you go onto when you're on YouTube, which means YouTube was putting it on people's homepage. And I've been interested in look in sort of looking into how YouTube works. And from what I understand, the way it's work, it works is it's designed to give the individual viewer what they want to see. So if YouTube thinks that you want to see this kind of thing, it'll push that kind of thing to your homepage. So clearly there was appetite, especially in Botswana, for people to see Cavis' interview. I think it was also a really cool interview, the way we started off.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

With me playing the clip, his speech at my wedding. And I think that kept people into it. Guest number three.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Okay, well, so Capus's was if we're just looking at number of views. Capus's was hands down the most um successful interview.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

I've got a couple of new wearables if you're watching.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

I don't know if you'll notice. The first is glasses. So since the from the time I started the podcast to now, that's what's changed. I wear glasses.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

And just a couple of days ago, my orthodontist gave me invisalign. So shout out to my orthodontist at Hugo Orthodontics.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Coolest autopractice in South Africa. Not paying me for this. I'm just saying that because I'm biased because UFD works there.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

But anyway, so after the Capus episode, I think we had Dr. Q. She was the first.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Well, she was the second dentist on the show after Yak, but I don't really see Yak as a dentist anymore. So even though he very much is. But he is the she was the second uh dent dentist. And the first guest that was not somebody who I grew up with as a friend or family.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

So it was this an interesting change for me to see how I go with guests that I'm not super familiar with.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

And just for your info, I mean, these these episodes take a lot of preparation on my part. I thought I would just rock up and speak. But from episode one, I find myself preparing, creating a list of potential questions that I'm gonna ask the guest. And hopefully make it look as natural and as flowy as possible. I got a lot of feedback on the Cafus interview via comments on the video. A lot of people criticizing me for interrupting. I loved it.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

I mean, obviously, naturally, I didn't enjoy those comments. But those are the comments I want.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

I don't want people telling me well done when actually they think that I'm annoying for interrupting people or whatever. So as hard as it is as it is to take, that's the kind of feedback I'm actually inviting. Genuinely. So Dr. Q was a learning experience, also Cafes's was a learning experience because a lot of comments, a lot of people saying calm down, ask, let the guest speak more.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

So that was that. After Dr. Q came. So after Dr.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Q was my first guest who um whose title was not Doctor. I didn't want to say he's my first guest who's not doctor, because there are people that differentiate and distinguish between doctor and dentist. But it was my first non-doctor, and it was Sister Let Mochiguru, my colleague, who was born and raised in Zimbabwe and became a nurse here, and then moved over to South Africa. So I was the first nurse on the show. And that was the first, also the first indication that I was giving to the world that even though the show is called Why Did I Become a Doctor, we're not restricting ourselves or limiting ourselves to doctors.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

It's healthcare professionals, right? Or so one would think. But that was also a really cool episode, which got a lot of views in Zoom and a lot of listens in Zimbabwe. And a lot of feedback. It was a cool interview. Um so the first taste of non-doctor doctors on the show. Then came my sister The Geshanaidu First immediate family member. Wow, no. Well yeah, first immediate family member, probably the only one unless I get my mum or my dad on the show. But um Yeah. So that was an interesting one. It was difficult for me. I mean, firstly it was such a mission getting her it was such a mission getting her to agree to come on the show, firstly. I don't know why. She was reluctant to do it. But that's what I expected most of my guests to be.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

But secondly, it was weird because I think it might have been the longest conversation I've had with my sister in one go one-on-one, like maybe ever.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

And some comments were like, why is Yash bullying you?

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Your brother's quite hectic, he asks quite blunt questions, but I mean those who know us all know that that's the way we communicate with each other. But it was difficult because deep dark inside, as I'm asking her the questions, I'm just hoping that she doesn't say something that I need to cut out.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Not that I think that she doesn't know how to carry herself during an interview or that I think she's gonna say inappropriate things, because I didn't think that.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

But there's something about dealing with friends and family, or family specifically, where you just don't you want to make sure that you're not making them look.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

You're not casting them in a negative light. I think she did well.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

But if you watch that episode, you'll probably see my body language reflects that I'm a bit apprehensive and guarded. And that's the reason why. I know that I could easily put it out anything, and I have had to do that on some episodes or some interviews. Not much though, so it's made my life very easy from an editing perspective. But that's the reason why I look the way I look in that interview.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

It went okay. It did work I think it did relatively well, and she got quite a bit of nice feedback from friends and colleagues and things like that. So it was Letty Tagesha. And then the next episode was very different because that was the first time that we had a non-clinician in the show. And that was Amit Kosai. Amit Kosai was the first non-healthcare professional.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

I knew he would have a great story because I mean he literally does dive a new car almost every week. And he started this vlog, even though he's in engineering, he's like a part-time car blogger, um, slash reviewer, slash journalist.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

And I didn't know his story about Riva Stiankan.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

And that his blog got sort of went viral because he done an interview with her and that he used to interview all these FHM models and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

So that to me was super interesting.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

The problem with the Kfist interview was that even though when I started the pods, my expectations were very well managed for myself and low. In other words, I expected to get like a handful of views. After the KFIS and after the Cape Capus episode, and with that thing getting like exponential growth, I sort of had this expectation that all my videos would do that.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

But they didn't. So I used to get a bit concerned when I'm only getting a couple of hundred views on Tom's videos. Whereas when I started off, I was thinking, you know, twenty or thirty will be great. But it was a learning experience also. Um to tell me that just because one does well, not all are guaranteed to do well. That was quite interesting. Amit was fun.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

It was cool to have him. And also I wanted to show that we don't have to have healthcare professionals on the show.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

And I'm sort of putting it out there that this is more than just a healthcare professional's blog or podcast. It's about careers actually and life choices. You could see me getting progressively sweaty and swear to her. And I'm gonna get my 300 points for this, that's cool. For sure. After Amit came to first Navy on the show, first white guy on the show. White person. I wonder if anybody noticed that besides me. I'm sure they did. But yeah. So that was fun.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

He he'd flown over flown in for the weekend um to go to a concert from Storm Number Via. He flew in to Jobel with his wife. They were going to a concert and managed to steal his time for a couple of hours and have fun catching up with a mate from campus, which was awesome. Who came after Gunther? Um after Gunther was Lero. Another dentist. So I've had how many dentists on the show? Lero, Gunther, um, yak, Dr.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Cube. That's four. Overrepresented. But anyway, the Lero episode was a whole lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Because Lero, I think that conversation was probably as close to how I envisaged the show to be as possible, in that we just spoke. I don't even think, I can't remember, I don't think I even used an iPad. Yeah. I didn't have I don't think I had my iPad with me on that show. We literally just freestyled. So I didn't even have reference to any pre-planned notes and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

I think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

And that was a whole lot of fun. And it's around that show that I discovered this AI tool called Opus Clips. Anyone that's thinking of getting into podcasting or um especially on the video side of things, you gotta look at Opus Clips. It's amazing. So what you do is you feed it the video. So after I've uploaded it to YouTube, I'll feed it the link. And it goes in and watches the video for, you know, well, watches. It analyzes the video using its algorithms and AI.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

It takes about 20 minutes for like a two-hour interview, and it creates all these like snippets, these shorts of interesting moments from the episode.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

And I just tell it beforehand that this is a podcast. So it knows what it's dealing with. And apart from that, it also like creates the captions automatically, automatically generates captions for the for the specific clip. And even more than that, what it does is it's it analyzes what's being said. So it it doesn't just randomly pick segments, it tries to find interesting like snippets of conversation.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

And it also rates how likely that snippet is to go viral online.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

And that was a massive learning point for me discovering this thing because people pay big money to humans to do this kind of thing. And here I am paying like $10 to this AI thing online, and it does it. And it's around this time of the Lero interview that I also um said, let me s let me dabble in TikTok and create a TikTok channel. And like uploaded a couple of videos, and then I uploaded this one um talking about how I failed chemistry in first year and only got 27%. And that thing shot off. It got like 20,000 plus views. People really could relate to the content. And there were comments and likes, and it was fascinating to see. If you give people stuff that they can relate to or they find relatable, I think that's golden. So that's when I started dabbling in AI and TikTok, and the Lero interview was super fun, and I'd gotten quests from other people to come on the show. That's another thing I've I was pleasantly surprised by having started this journey. When I started, I thought to myself it's going to be extremely difficult to get people willing to come on and speak. And I couldn't have been more wrong. Because I've had requests from many people, to my surprise, to come on and speak.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

I'm surprised because like I don't see myself as a huge platform.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

I've got a big following, I well, a relatively biggish following on LinkedIn, not huge, not massive. But um I just didn't expect people to give my thing the time of day and to bother.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

But people do. So that was cool.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Then my last guest, well my last published guest, fascinating human being, fascinating medical doctor, studied here, K's in, and now lives in.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

In the USA and he's a is a life coach. Um Dr.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Nondumiso, Makunga Stevenson. That's the last episode we published. I thought that was going to be a difficult one because again, it's somebody I don't really know personally. But the conversation flowed and went well. It was fun. And if you look at that episode and compare it to the first one, I think you'll notice a big change or big improvement in my style and my um my interviewing style and the way I ask questions and um how I pace things.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

So I'm proud that I've improved over a few episodes.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

The reason why I say Dr. Angomiso is my last guest that I've published is because I've had two more guests after that, interviewed. Lovely, lovely episodes. I can't wait to release them. I'm just waiting for the green light and the go-ahead in the right moment. It's gonna be you guys are gonna enjoy it. Uh medical doctor, once a medical doctor who doesn't even do medicine anymore, is a music producer, spoiler alert.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

And the other one is a super brilliant dentist. Who also doesn't practice dentistry anymore.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

And then looking ahead, I do have quite a few core guests lined up or in the pipeline. Physician, a an obstetrician who's very close to me.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

That's gonna be fun. Planning on shooting next weekend, hopefully, in Durban.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

And then also a doctor who's in forensic pathology who became a lawyer and then became a doctor again.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

And so there's some cool stuff lined up. It's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be awesome.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

It's um somebody who was speaking to me said to me, you know, the what that you're gonna find difficult, it's uh is uh is um to keep the content fresh. And I said, no. To the contrary, that's the easiest part because everybody has a unique story. As much as you think that, okay, somebody's done the, you know, done the degree and gotten the job. Every single person has a fascinating story behind it. And not necessarily like the interesting part, the interesting story is not the part where they're studying, it's part how they got there all around it.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

You know, before and after. So it's been a really cool learning experience and journey so far. Um I think it's only gonna get better and better. And if it doesn't, then at least I will personally get better and better. That's my thinking. If if everything else fails, I'll still have learned so much from this.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

I'll have learned how to speak to people. I'll have learned how to, you know, edit videos and use AI and make sure audio is syncing properly and figuring out how to set up because I do everything so far. Like I get to Yak's Studio, I set up the camera, I set up the mics, I put the the video together at the end, I chop off things, I do the editing, I do the uploading, I do the social media, I do the posts and try and plug it everywhere, and I speak to people about the show and tell them subscribe. Oh, and that's another thing.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

So I haven't spent a rand or a dollar yet on advertising.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

And one of the guys that I'm getting on the show, Elton Elton Lau, is a brilliant uh businessman, and who's even though he's not a doctor or a dentist, his his work touches literally hundreds of of um dental patients every day. He told me I've got to go all in and you know, market and advertise and all that stuff. And I said, no, I just want to see how it goes. I want to learn from it first. I want to figure it out. And then eventually I want to start pushing. Um remember, this is a side hustle, side hustle, passion project, all that kind of thing. So I also don't want to get in trouble with a wife that's you know putting all my cash into something that's just a little fun hobby. But eventually we'll get there.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

There will be opportunities to collaborate, etc. etc. I'm just gonna keep it vague there.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Um and yeah, so as I was saying, I've learned a lot, I'm learning a lot, and most importantly, I'm actually enjoying the the actual interviews.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Like, I won't I've gotta be honest. Um even though I really enjoy it, there will be days where I'm like, oh no.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Gotta get up and go and meet a person and record and do all stuff. So even though I really enjoy it while I'm in it, there's some times when I'm like, oh goodness, no. Don't feel like but as soon as you push through that feeling of I want to do this today, and you actually get there in that chair with the other person, super fun. There's also planned a little bit of um insider information here. We've also got plans to get Dr.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Yak, my cousin, as a co-host. When I initially started this show, and I created the the logo.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

You know, it says, Why did I become a doctor? It's got the two hands with gloves on. And at the bottom it says, With Dr. Yash, Naidu and Friends. When I initially created it, it actually said, With Dr.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Yash Naidu and Dr. Yak Lundy. And sent it to him, and he was like, nah nah, nah.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

He's he's not in the right space at that time to get involved.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

I think now that he's seen how it's going, and that I actually am not a BSer in Maduro, not just a sayer.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

I think he's slowly warmed to it and he's gonna come on board. And so that might be the first co-hosted episode might be with with Dr. Yek and Elton Law. So just a bit of putting it out there into the world and making it a reality. That should be fun and interesting, because Yek will bring a totally different perspective and dynamic to the the show.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

He's his own boss, so he's got a bit more creative um the word creative, I can't think of the word now. Where's ChatGPT when you need a um freedom, creative freedom to express itself than I necessarily might. So yeah. I think it's about ten episodes in so far, give or take. Uh future's looking bright.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

I hope to keep going. And, you know, to all of you who've given me feedback, negative and positive. Positive is great. I love it. Please come in. Please keep it coming. But please also keep giving me negative feedback or constructive criticism. Um, I genuinely mean that. It means that you actually care because you could easily just uh press next and move on. So thank you for taking the time to go out of your way to type in in the comment section or to message me or wherever. Please keep it coming.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

I hope to keep you interested, and I hope that um we can do a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

W one of the uh common points of feedback that I've been getting um is that the shows are too long, the episodes are too long.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

I totally get it.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Like, most people don't have more than an hour or two to sit and listen to a couple of people rambling on. I still okay, I want to hear what you guys think. Let me know in the comments.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Uh, you know, do you want shorter episodes? Personally. My view is that long form is is the way to go. And I'll tell you why I say this. It's because some of the best parts of the conversations I've had are towards the end.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

After the guest and I have been speaking and warmed up. I feel like the first 20, 30 minutes, half an hour, 45 minutes, it's just us getting warmed up and getting comfortable with each other. And I think that's why a lot of these shows um these these these popular podcasts where interview style, uh, interview-style podcasts, um much longer format. And look, you can always just chop it up. That's my view. Chop it up and watch watch it over a few days of commuting or doing exercise. So I'm more than likely going to stick to the long format. The conversation only warms up and defrosts after a certain amount of time anyway. So but I want to hear your views anyway. And maybe you can convince me, convince me otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Let me know. One of the other things that I've learned, um, okay, well, actually, not not really learned, but one of the things that I've gained from starting this show is that it's created a really cool conversation piece for me. I know it's gonna sound shadow or whatever. I don't know how it might sound, but like if I go to social gatherings where I'm having to speak with people that don't know me from a bar of soap. It's actually a really cool conversation starter and like a small talk item. I've had the opportunity to talk about quite a bit.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

I'm going to um a daughter's uh school uh kids' birthday parties and things where, you know, all the parents are just mulling around while the kids are having fun. And, you know, instead of just having to talk about the weather and work and the traffic and the dysfunctional traffic lights in Joe Burg and the potholes and all that stuff. It's really fun to talk about and like quite cool to see how interested people are in it, and then to say, yeah, just subscribe and watch it, and then like at the next birthday party, catch up with the person and they're like, oh yeah, I sort of listening and you know, all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

I mean, even picked up the Kidlet farm of Aftercare last week.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

And the aftercare teacher, while I was signing the Kidlet out of class, she says to me, Oh, I was just minding my own business on Saturday, and your YouTube channel popped up on my feed. I was like, Oh, cool. That's awesome. I hope you enjoy it. She said, Yeah. And I'm like, okay, I hope you subscribe. And then she didn't say anything, so I left it. I should have pushed. But yeah, yeah, it's it's it's given me such a cool conversation piece, and like it's really cool when people say, Hey, I've seen your show and you know, people message and whatever. So yeah, if you're thinking about doing this thing, any fool can do it, including myself. It's so simple. All you need is a camera, and you need people to speak to.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

If you want to do this kind of thing. And I think you must do it.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Um if you're on the fence about it, just don't worry about the equipment and don't worry about production. The most important thing is the content. And actually the hardest part, and I'll never forget, my one boss, Maria Philip Peters. She told me, Yesh, when there's any project or any work that needs to be done for this, in this context, Maria was telling me about it in the context of writing a legal opinion for a client, which you know is gonna be a big opinion, and you need to sit down with it. And you know you can do it, but you just need to start. And she said, Yes, all you gotta do, the hardest part, then all you gotta do is touch it. Once you touch it, it'll come to life. And so if you're on the fence about it, I'm telling you, just do what Maria Fundapidi said. Touch it, get into it, and just keep going. Even if you get like two or three views, keep going. Start it. Invite me on your show, I'll be a guest. If you have um people that you want me to be on my show, send them my way. Give them the email address, info at whydidibecomeadoctor.com. Send the recommendations, tell them to find me on on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on TikTok. Uh Instagram is a good place to get I mean LinkedIn, sorry, is a good place to get me. We've got a page there also. Um, which is on like almost 500 subscribers there. Not subscribers, but followers. Which is big for LinkedIn. I mean, people don't really. And for a little six-month-old operation that has nothing to do with anything. So yeah, I digress, but if you're thinking about it, just do it.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Touch it. Do what Maria says. Just touch it. So yeah, let me see. What are my points on here?

SPEAKER_00 37:12

I'm still on an average of 130 beats per minute. So I'm gonna make me like 300 points if I just do 15 more minutes. So Janesh will be proud of me.

unknown 37:22

Mr.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Gavander.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Thanks for the support when I announced it initially. I hope you I hope you listen. And I hope you enjoy. Okay, cheers everyone. Oh, and just the last thing. I never ever say this or do this. And I should. I always wonder why creators do this. But I've understood now, now that I'm in it. What I want to say is, please, please, Pete. If you're liking it, please like it. Like literally, physically. Please click like.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

And if you really like it, please subscribe. And if you really, really like it, please also share. I used to always think, why did these creators say, oh please like, share, and subscribe? Because it's obvious that we will do that if we like it, and if we want to share it, and if we want to subscribe.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

But actually, analytics tells me that that's not the case. Because there's so many returning viewers and listeners that are not subscribers.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

And how I really figured this out well, figured out that it's not so obvious to just click on like and subscribe subscribe and share. Is that I've got a lot of close family, uncles, aunties, and stuff that watch. And I have to manually share every episode with them. And I'm like, have you subscribed? Why don't you just subscribe and put notifications on? And some of them don't know how to do that. Some of them are not um, don't have like actual accounts to enable them to do that. So please just look for that thumbs up thing.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Look for this button that says subscribe.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

It says subscribe. Subscribing is free. You're not paying anything. And share it with your friends, your families, your aunties, your uncles, all that. And um let's make it something that people look forward to, and hopefully create informed career choices, informed choices into healthcare. Because what I've learned from my later episode that I haven't published yet, well not learned, but confirmed, is that if you get into it knowing what you're getting into, you're gonna be that much better at it. And the community and the public are going to be that much better off for you being in it for the right reasons. Okay, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

That's just the last word. Cheers. Bye.