The show

What this actually is

The Rebellion Collective Podcast is a conversation with people who stopped accepting the status quo, and what that has cost them. Guests so far include a software tester of thirty years, a Fortune 100 executive three weeks into retirement, a fractional CFO who left after his fifth layoff, a twenty-five-year-old building an ad-free social network, and a run of coaches and operators watching the AI shock land on their clients in real time.

The audience is mid-career. A lot of them have been laid off, or are about to be, or are still badged in and already gone. Many listen on the commute, which is its own kind of irony. They are smart and they are tired, and they can smell a performance from three sentences away. So we won't do one.

The format

One hour held, no script

Episodes run forty-five to fifty-five minutes of talking. Hold the full hour anyway so neither of us is watching a clock, and know that a couple have run long because the conversation earned it.

I don't send questions ahead, because the good part is almost never the thing either of us planned to say. We start cold. The first question is some version of who are you, where are you dialing in from, what are you up to these days, and we go from wherever that lands.

If you need to stop, say so and I'll pause the recording. I do it too, usually because of something on my end. It all gets edited after, so a sentence that comes out sideways costs nothing. Say it again and I'll keep the better one.

Riverside captures video and audio, cameras on. Clips go to YouTube, Spotify, and LinkedIn, so you'll be seen as well as heard. Wear what you'd wear to talk to a friend about something that matters.

What we'll get into

Two questions every guest gets

What does rebellion mean to you, in your own words. Nobody has given me the same answer twice. Then near the end, is there anything right now that gives you hope. Those two are worth a minute of thought before we start. Everything else is yours.

Around them, the usual ground. Where you're dialing in from and what you're up to these days. What you're seeing in the people you work with. Where community fits, or doesn't. And one thing you haven't worked out yet, which is usually where the episode really starts.

You won't need to introduce yourself or list your own credentials. I record the intro on my own afterward, once I know what the episode turned out to be about.

The last ten minutes

How we land it

The hope question, then where people can find you, and usually an open invitation to come back on in a few months and tell me what changed. Say your links out loud when I ask, even though I already have them from your email. People listening in the car can't click anything.

Prep

Three things in one email

Send me a headshot, a short bio, and any links you want named on the air. Your book, your newsletter, your site, the thing you'd rather people go find than your LinkedIn. Those go in the show notes and the episode art, so sooner is better than the night before.

No talking points, no homework, and no pre-call unless you want one.

Your setup

Twenty minutes of fiddling, once

Do this the day before, while there's still time to fix something.

• Open the Riverside link in Chrome, Edge, or Brave, on a laptop or desktop. Safari and phones cause trouble. There is nothing to download.
• Wired headphones or earbuds. Any pair. This one fix kills the echo that no editor can take out later.
• Sit in a room with something soft in it. A rug, curtains, a couch, a closet full of coats. Bare walls and hard floors ring.
• Put the light on your face. Face a window, or set a lamp behind your screen. A window behind you turns you into a silhouette.
• Raise the laptop to eye level. A stack of books works fine.
• Quit Slack, mail, and anything that pings. Phone face down on Do Not Disturb, or in the other room.
• Plug into ethernet if a cable reaches you. Either way, ask whoever else is in the house to skip the big downloads for an hour.
• Water in reach.

Day of

Come at the time on the invite

No need to show up early. The warmup is inside the hour.

• 0:00You click the link. We check mic, camera, and headphones.
• 0:03We talk about nothing. Weather, dogs, whatever is on your desk.
• 0:05I hit record and keep talking, then ask who you are and what you're up to. There's no cliff to walk off.
• 0:50The hope question and your links. Then we wait out the upload and say goodbye.

After

What happens to what you said

It gets edited for clarity. I don't move your meaning around. You'll get the episode link when it goes live, plus a couple of short clips cut for your own feeds. Your links sit in the show notes on Substack and everywhere the show syndicates.

If you say something on the record you want out, email me and it comes out. No argument, no negotiation.