Shawn Marek is a producer for PodcastOne, the largest advertiser-supported, on-demand digital audio network. Of the eight or so shows he produces, by far and away my favorite one is The Steve Austin Show.

Turns out, Shawn and I exist in just about perfect parallel dimensions considering we both began our love of professional wrestling in 1986, worked in college radio and gained some interviewing chops by talking to bands, know and deeply appreciate the work of prominent wrestling writer Scott Keith (the only person I’ve ever met in real life who shares this affinity with me), get paid to podcast, and love the show the All Fantasy Everything.

So, when I was introduced to him by Paul Karolyi after off-handedly mentioning The Steve Austin Show while we both worked on projects at the House of Pod, Shawn and I hit it off immediately. There are two main takeaways from this show that you should be aware of that will make you either extremely excited for this week’s show, or make you run screaming into the night.

1) If you have any desire to be a professional podcaster and/or podcast producer, here are two people who have made it talking about their very different routes to get there. Spoiler: Like a lot of work in “glamorous” industries, the road to getting paid involves a lot of unpaid, thankless, and difficult labor that may or may not pay off in the long run. Podcasting involves a surprising amount of grunt work that never seems to end, and that will weed out a lot of the pretenders, so be advised. Also, this is still a young industry, so there’s not a ton of paid work out there, especially in the early going.

2) We are hardcore wrestling fans, and while I removed quite a bit of the extremely esoteric stuff, if you’re not deep into pro wrestling fandom, there are going to be a lot of names here that will sound unfamiliar. As one of the participants, having a conversation like this excited me greatly, but I recognize it will likely be off-putting to you norms out there. Consider yourself advised.

Anyway, this show was great fun, and I can’t wait for you to hear it. You can follow Shawn on Twitter and Instagram. Listen to his shows Worst Collection Ever, and I Can Talk Kayfabe on iTunes.

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The Jon of All Trades Podcast is a proud member of the Denver Podcast Network.

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