I remember when Steve Pavlina started his personal development website, stevepavlina.com, and his picture at the top was kind of jarring. It’s like any online personality, I guess. When you read the words of someone online for any length of time, you might have some vague image in your head of what they look like, but when you see a picture of the person its…well, it’s kind of weird sometimes. I remember people on the indie gamer forums poking fun at how much of a nerd Pavlina is, and some noticed he looked a lot like the famous Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings. Others just treated it like any of us would. “Cool, so that’s what you look like!”
It’s what I thought when hearing Steve Pavlina’s voice in his first podcast. “So that’s what he actually sounds like!” It’s not the voice I had in my head when I read his blog posts and articles!
Now, I’ll say that this is the first podcast I’ve heard. Ever. I don’t have a portable digital audio player so I would have to be in front of my computer to listen to them. I’ve also heard that most aren’t of good quality anyway. I thought it was kind of jarring how he paused mid-sentence a number of times at the beginning. Perhaps he was reading from a script? Idolizing Captain Kirk? Anyway, I am very pleased with it otherwise. I may have to start looking for more personal development podcasts.
It is an introduction to personal development, and he starts it by talking about how he was in jail for three days when he decided that he could grow to “lift the weight in front of him”. He talks about all the things he “went to work” on, such as his physical energy and his skills. In a matter of years he was able to completely rework his life. And he notes that there was no quick fix. It required thousands of hours of effort. And everything he is today is owed to the main in the jail cell years ago who made a decision to grow.
Finishing this blog post, I just heard it a second time. There is something infectious about a person who is enthusiastic and positive. Even if it is weird to hear their voice for the first time. B-)
One reply on “Hearing Pavlina is Weird”
Yep, hearing his voice was really weird. And, provided I’ve never seen his photo before, it was even more weird to see it after a year of reading his articles and after listening to that podcast. 🙂
As for the pauses he made – I suppose that’s where his “ums” and “ehs” gone. 🙂
He wrote about it recently.