Episode 171: Unconventional
/“I’m willing to fail in what I do, and that feels like success to me...that’s part of why I feel successful.”
Erica Heilman in a barn with Vermont dairy farmer Doug Lillie
Erica Heilman is the host of the podcast Rumblestrip. The Atlantic recently named her series ‘Our Show’ the best podcast of 2020. But before she was a brilliant podcaster, Erica was a lot of other things. She was a seller of muffins, she was a theater performer, she milked cows, she worked on a TV news show, then in documentaries, then for a healthcare website…and that’s not all.
It took Erica a while to get where she wanted to be. And she’ll be the first to admit she had no idea where that was.
She is not the only person who’s struggled to work out, what am I meant to be doing? What am I good at? How best do I use the skills I actually have? Some of us take longer to get there. We wish it were different, but it’s not. This is a show about the messiness of the unconventional career path.
You can also read a transcript of the show.
Further listening: If you haven’t listened to Erica’s show before, here’s a link to the page for her latest interview with Leland, part of which I played in the podcast. From that page you can link to all past interviews with Leland going back to when he was 10.
Her series ‘Our Show’ is truly fantastic. Start with episode one.
I also loved this episode, Joslyn House, from last year about a bunch of older Vermonters living together in a house. Maybe that sounds boring. It isn’t - it’s revelatory.
I did an interview with Erica earlier this year about being an independent podcaster, the origins of podcasting, and how much podcasting has changed since we both started. You can find parts one and two of that interview on my personal website.