Meet Michael Winson | Host of A More Perfect Podcast

We had the good fortune of connecting with Michael Winson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Michael, what’s one piece of conventional advice that you disagree with?
Oh man, where to begin! Let me state a few things at the outset because starting your own business is like going to Medical School, only in your case, there are no instructors, no teaching hospital, no E.R. no midnight shifts to cover from time to time. You cover all the shifts, all the jobs, and set the schedule, the timeline, the meetings, the path out of thin air. If that sounds overwhelming, and intimidating, and made you sit up in your chair just now, then you’re made of the right stuff. Because, what they don’t tell you, is that it’s also thrilling. Every skill you’ve acquired along the way is going to be of use. It doesn’t really matter what business you’re starting. If you get a pilot’s license, it doesn’t matter what plane you’re learning in. There’s the control tower, there’s traffic, there’s navigation, there’s weather, there’s maintenance, there’s a learning curve that is steeper than you thought possible. You’re not embarking on a hike, it’s free climbing El Capitan in Yosemite and to embark with any other mindset will frustrate you far more and make the journey feel like free-climbing without the benefits of actually getting to the top of the cliff. And I make you a promise, the climb is glorious! Here’s a second promise in the first five minutes. Who makes you promises with such assurity in life? Promise number two: As soon as you tell anyone about the business you are starting, no matter what it is, you will begin to get advice. Tell your mom, you’re starting a medical supply business, she’ll tell you which uncle’s best friend’s dad you should call. So now here’s your first gift, as the advice rolls in, listen, nod, say, “thank you” sincerely, but take only the advice that you can fact check and even then, just remember that you heard someone say (me) that he took a great deal of advice and at this moment can not tell you one piece that was ultimately useful. You will get advice. If you reread the first part of this, you may notice there’s no advice. When starting in content creation and podcasting that becomes even more apparent. You will be told by “experts” absolutes. Just remember, often times the more successful someone is, the more absolute the absolutes absolutely are! Why? It worked for them. If the guy who won the lottery tells you how to do it.. Okay, you get it. If you’re entering any world, it’s important to watch everyone who’s in the game and quietly build an inventory of things people do that you like, that you don’t like, and your own inner-mechanism will kick in. There is a reason you are embarking on this journey and that is a deeply personal and wholly unique set of ingredients that you alone possess. It’s not a terrible idea to quietly state the reason you’re driven to do this. You know exactly why you’re about to open a door to the world, and the truth is, if you saw it out there already, you wouldn’t be driven to this and unlike almost any other professions, you will find that you will ‘become’ the podcaster you envision and so much more. You don’t want the pilot to announce that he’s figuring out how to fly and “welcome aboard and thank you for being part of my journey.” But in the online world, in the world of podcasting, it’s the way you learn to fly the plane, do aerobatics, and rebuild the engine all while you do a barrel roll in front of the crowd. In a way, this journey is the one that will hand you to yourself. That may not make much sense right now, but it will and that’s my three promise limit. And I’m no use to you if I don’t give you the part I usually keep to myself. I started out as an online singer on Twitch. I now do a podcast where we take on the hardest possible topics and conversations in a world that grows more complicated every day! I am awake and aware in a way was never before and it is thrilling!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Life requires flexibility. Some people get an impression of the world in elementary school and it can be surprisingly accurate. Your dad’s a fireman and that world may have been a world you came to know exceedingly well. There’s something about the immediacy of a sudden blaze, the fraternity of a found-family, the quality of brotherhood and trust and friendship that you may have watched your father forge into a life he loved, so the world doesn’t hold surprises that are so bewildering. You have an early toe hold, and there aren’t enormous surprises along the way. That may be the exception. For most of us, myself included, the act of finding your life is mostly stumbling through the dark. You hear about astronauts and pilots and oceanographers, but it’s impossible to have any workable sense of what the demands of any of those professions really contain. And by the time you commit to becoming the manager of a hotel, you realize how much is trouble-shooting and complaints and electricians and washing machines. So it’s essential to have the audacity to phone people who are doing the thing you think you may want to try and interview them. Find out as soon as possible what you may be getting yourself into. What surprised them? What delights them? Was there a moment they felt that they were headed down the completely wrong road? When did they know it was right? I’m a serious political podcaster these days. The amount of knowledge to be able to competently respond to any caller, any topic, any point of view and the demands of the laws and the interpretation of the constitution… It demands an expansive knowledge of so many things, so many people, the specific idiocyncratices of the people in politics who change their point of view with the weather. To even try to describe the demands here make me think about becoming a firefighter! Helicopter-wind-fire-go!

So you can guess my journey. I likely majored in political science at Georgetown, interned in Washington D.C. spent weekends reading the Constitution, and minored in International Political Theory, Yes, well, that would have been a slightly more direct path, but not exactly the road map that would have made sense in my own life, My life was far more like the movie National Treasury than a pragmatic, linear, journey. I began in the far more rarefied world of video games and Twitch and imagined clues on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Aha! The sun makes a circle in the bell tower. :Hey, Mom, Dad, I’m gonna be a gamer. Why don’t they seem delighted? So I got serious and became a podcaster. Wrong! I began to sing. I could do no wrong, I was having fun, I had a great community and I was making enough money to support my family. It wasn’t sustainable for so many reasons and it wasn’t long before I started falling into a deep depression and so did my community of podcast followers. One thing I have learned is that your followers will take the keys from you. You are not just informing them, but you are showing them how top real and what to think about the information they are processing. You are telling them how top feel about things and instilling courage or action our outrage or calm. Make no mistake, if you are terrified, they will be as well. A fried flies a small plane. He’s been in a couple of series weather events. He knows that he must only display a calm sense of control. His passengers are scrutinizing every facial muscle for panic and only when they can’t find it, do they decide their intuitions are misinforming them. Hard to remain calm with an engine exploding I flames, but a casual “Good thing we have two, now of you glance toward my side of the plane, you can see Hoover Dam! And that was when we were over Texas.

So rules do change for severe situations, but telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truths over time creates a loyal following. I finally decided to simply tell the facts in my own, seemingly random journey from point A to point B and In my case, it was far more The Wizard of Oz than the 100 meter dash. First a tornado, then Munchkin Land, a twisting yellow brick road, poppies to out you to sleep, The Emerald City and finally, the WIZARD who has the arrogance to say, “Get me the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West, then we’ll talk about taking you home,” Sp now flying monkeys, and guards, and castles and that pesky witch again. And the Wizard is a fraud. Okay, that’s the real world. So I made a video that I had not yet heard anywhere before. “I’m a Christian and I’m voting Blue”. That simple niche exploded, Five hundred thousand views later I started my journey into politics. This whole journey was frustrating, exhausting and painful at times. It was also exhilirating, fulfilling and I wouldn’t change it for anything. I have been blessed with an amazing community of fascinating members who I have been able to now call family. Yes. I have my very own scare crow and lion and tin woodsman and more and we’re off to see the future!d

So how did I start this question? Life requires flexibility. Dare to not know where you are going, but pay attention. We all find our lives along the way, but the pressure to say in elementary school I’m going to be a landscape architect is what the world demands and the best answer you can ever give is, “I’ll let you know when I get there.” The discomfort of not knowing, is rewarded by the glory of finding that thing which is exactly right for you.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We have a week? Well, let’s state the obvious, When most people come to Los Angeles and want to see the city, it means primarily, Hollywood. That’s not meant to be patronizing. In a way, everyone in the country lives in two cities; the city where they live, and Hollywood. No matter where you live, you have your family and friends and then the other group of people in your life include Meryl and Cruise, and Leonardo and Harrison. They’re the group of friends we have in common and discuss and feel genuine loss if something happens to them. So coming to Hollywood is not unlike visiting a childhood home. Hollywood has unwittingly become part of your life in meaningful ways that are not imagined. There are the landmarks that are synonymous with any major city. If you go to Paris, you want to see the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre; New York means the Statue of Liberty and Times’ Square and Ground Zero; if you go to Pisa, well, okay, you only go to Pisa because of that landmark. So I’d want my best friend to enjoy the moviestar handprints at Grauman’s theatre and The Getty Villa and Museum, but I’d want him to get a real sense of the place that produced a huge slice of his childhood. I’d try to do it authentically. We could do the tour at Universal, but I’d go off the beaten track to the places that have less polish and aren’t built for tourists. The Beverly Hills Hotel, Polo Lounge has been serving Hollywood Royalty since 1941. Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich and Fred Astaire were regulars. To list the names then and now is to write down everyone. It’s hard to have lunch there and not see people who you know. I’d also take him on a tour of the homes in the neighborhood of Hollywoodland. It’s a development of homes that was built in the empty Hollywood Hills in 1923 by the owner of the L.A. Times. He graded the rugged hillside with mules pulling graders and created 500 lots. At the time it was remote, so to advertise, he built an enormous sign with fifty foot letters that announced HOLLYWOODLAND. The sign of course exists today without the ‘LAND’ part, The rules were that any home built had to be in the styles of French Normandy, Tudor English, Mediterranean and Spanish. The idea was to create a kind of European enclave in the hills of Hollywood and it became the neighborhood that Hollywood stars gravitated to building fantasy homes from castles to chateaus. Most are still standing today 100 years later.

There are also unique experiences in Los Angeles that are just not to be missed. Rollerblading through the outdoor colorful shops of Venice Beach, a concert at the outdoor Hollywood Bowl at sunset is unparalleled. Not far from there is the miraculous Griffith Observatory, an authentically art deco masterpiece built in 1935. It was first featured with James Dean in the classic movie, Rebel Without A Cause and is the setting for a substantial part of LA LA Land. But far more than that, it is an absolute wonder. Pm cear nights the telescope is open to the public and you can glance at anything from the moons of Jupiter to the rings of Saturn. The exhibits are first rate and lunch overlooking the city is pretty spectacular.

And since you gave us a week, we’d head for a day trip to Joshua Tree National Park. It’s a two hour drive from Los Angeles, making it a perfect day trip or even an overnight side trip including Palm Springs, the desert city which grew exponential when it was discovered by Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra and this tiny town that wasn’t sure if two golf golf courses would be one too many, now has over a hundred and an international airport.

When it comes to Los Angeles, the challenge is to distill a list of great restaurants and neighborhoods and places from the overwhelming history and current attractions the city offers. In the end, I’d want my best friend to come back for a second week.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
When my mother was around 40 years old she was diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson’s disease. That is a degenerative neurological disorder with no cure. So for over 30 years I watched her slowly decline. She was an absolutely amazing singer and Parkinsons took that from her. The reason I mention this is, she didn’t let that stop her one bit, in fact she used this new reality to step out into areas she never had before. She took over her chapter of the Parkinsons Foundation helping get funding for research, she started creating lego robotics books specifically to encourage girls to get into things like STEM. She lost her battle with Parkinsons after 32 years and not once did she let the knowledge of the innevitability stop her. About 7 years ago I was also diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinsons and I have used her example and jumped in to do things that I not only love like my podcast but I feel is needed in today’s society.
I also have to mention my wife Chrissy, who has stood by me and supported me when I probably didnt deserve it. Going out into the world of online content creation can be rather frightening, especially early on it involves a lot of work and very little pay. She could see how much I not only loved doing this but needed to do it. She supported me, she took on a job that allowed me to spend more time on this. She even allows me to talk about everything going on in the world which I am sure is exhausting at times! No one has been there, right next to me through all moments of this journey than she has, even when I didnt want it, or see it. She was there listening.
The last group I want to mention is my online community. They are so supportive of me and my message. So many of them are there every day for my lives, talking, giving and caring for each other. I would not be where I am without them as well! I often think after a recording how lucky I am to have such an amazing community around me and can’t wait to see what they will do out in the world!

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AMorePerfectPodcast

Other: https://amoreperfectpodcast.substack.com
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