The Life Shift Podcast Welcomes The Host of The Salad With A Side Of Fries Podcast

 

What happens when one podcast host interviews another podcast host? You can find out by listening to the latest episode of The Life Shift. On this episode, The Life Shift host Matt Gilhooly interviews the creator / host of the health / wellness / nutrition podcast, Salad With a Side Of Fries, Jenn Trepeck. It's Kimmel interviewing Fallon or Colbert interviewing Meyers.

The answer to my posed question above is that two podcasters adept in front of the mic and both possessing what Elaine Appleton Grant from the Sound Judgment describes as "hostiness," can craft such an engrossing interview that your ears demand more for your brain to process.

Right away in the episode, Gilhooly expresses his trepidation at interviewing another podcaster. Yet his apprehension is misplaced because Gilhooly glides through the interview like a gold-medal figure skater, landing verbal triple toe loops and insights that approximate a Double Lutz. 

Gilhooly as a host is inspiring. Unlike, say, Joe Rogan, he doesn't make the show about him, but focuses his energy on his guest. The life story of his guest takes precedence, and Gilhooly is a master at gently steering his guests on course and through their personal trauma or life story.

 If you haven't listened before, The Life Shift podcast host Matt Gilhooly has candid conversations with people about the pivotal moments that changed their lives forever.

He knows of such moments from personal experience, speaking at the beginning of the episode about how his mother died when he was only eight years old. It's one of those indie podcasts that, when you find it, you feel like you've discovered audio gold.

You can read my April 2023 review of The Life Shift here.  

Trepeck's life tale in this episode is made all the more interesting because she takes us down the memory lane of her life, not as a resume of her achievements, but more as an inside out view of how she viewed her life at every stage. 

We learn, for instance, that requesting time off to go on an annual family vacation was a critical point in her journey from employee to entrepreneur. She knew then that she would not be able to work for others for very long.

The other part of her story that is compelling is the independent podcaster part. Both Trepeck and Gilhooly are "indie" podcasters. There's no Spotify to bankroll their efforts. There's no staff to do the hundreds of tasks related to indie podcasting. They both are writer, host, marketing VP, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operations Officer, and I.T. guru. 

For Jenn Trepeck and Matt Gilhooly, wearing multiple hats of responsibility is a way of life. What you also hear on this episode is the love both of them have for their podcast, their audience, and their chosen path.

In the episode, Trepeck excels at letting listeners into her thought process as she moves from investment firm employee to founder and CEO of Better Life Now LLC. She offers health coaching, business consulting and the expertise inherent in her podcast. 

 

From her interview on the episode, you can tell that she's smarter than the average health expert. Trepeck confounds other health coaches because she works with people until they are ready to solo. That sense of customer-first focus upsets other coaches who like to hook clients for a lifetime. 

When she created her health / wellness / nutrition podcast, she was wading into an ocean full of such podcasts. Right away, she found her distinguishing point. She doesn't have clients eat only cabbage for a month, or do bench presses until exhaustion, or exclude some macronutrient. Instead, her plan is reality-based, factually corroborated and eminently doable. 

 In the beginning of each episode of her podcast, Trepeck says, "Welcome to Salad With A Side Of Fries, talking wellness and weight loss for real life. I'll clear up the myths, misinformation, bad science, and marketing and teach you how to eat and how to cheat."

 My favorite attribute of Trepeck's is her focus on motivating listeners, not lecturing to her listeners. Trepeck is not one of those wellness podcast hosts where "failure is not an option." 

Instead, she recognizes and conveys that making lifestyle, fitness, and diet changes is exceedingly hard. Look for small wins, she urges, and do not make perfectionism the enemy of gradual progress.

 You can read my review Salad With a Side Of Fries from June 2023 here.   

 

If you don't know, indie podcasting is hard. It's building a media business from conception to birth through maturation. It's finding listeners amid a sea of other podcasts. If you are an aspirational or current indie podcaster, you should listen to this podcast episode. 

If you are a podcast network exec, you should sign up both of these podcasts onto your network immediately. If there's room on a podcast network for two guys to get sloppy drunk and make stupid jokes, there's room for The Life Shift and Salad With a Side Of Fries.

As a fan of either or both podcasts, you'll love this episode because both hosts are at the top of their game. 

Finally, if you are a podcast listener but have never listened to either of these podcasts, I recommend that you listen to this episode and then their podcasts. 

I'm paraphrasing animator Butch Hartman here: Life is full of challenges, and people like Matt Gilhooly and Jenn Trepeck have the four P's: passion, patience, and persistence. The fourth P is pizza, of course. 

I think Matt would like a nice half-meatball, half-mushroom pizza. Jenn would like a broccoli, green peppers, and black olives' pizza. We'll order from Nick's in Clayton. I have a 20 percent off coupon.