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Matt Breen - Creator Of The Explorers Podcast

Matt Breen is host and creator of the Explorers Podcast, which If you like hardcore history and Dan Carlin, then you’ll love The Explorers Podcast.

Matt hasn’t done a dedicated long form podcast elsewhere, and so this exploration into the history of the show and how his worldview has been shaped by the explorers he studies is all new material. 

And so we go behind the scenes of The Explorers Podcast, the early days, how it started, the podcast growth, the business of content, to even the possibility of one of matt’s stories going to Hollywood. 

We then lean into some of the Explorers Matt loves and take a couple tangents in that direction to then finally rounding out with the traditional question on serendipity.

#157 of ‘The Curious Worldview Podcast’ with Matt Breen, Host Of The Explorers Podcast.

Or a link to The Explorers Podcast here.

Forward this email or share this podcast episode with someone who LOVES Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History.

Here is a transcript of the opening exchange from the conversation…

Ryan
In Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk, he notes that Elon and Grimes would listen to history podcasts late into the night together. Elon then goes on to tweet about your show saying how amazing it is. And so the natural question arises, how does it feel that your podcast has served as foreplay for Musk and Grimes?

Matt Breen
Wow, I have never thought of it that way. And it's kind of disturbing. But I guess if it helps, if it helps them, that's okay. It was, I mean, obviously the Elon Musk tweet was, it was welcome without question because it puts a lot of eyeballs, or I guess ears on my show, which is great. And the show has grown because of that.

But it was weird. It was one of those things I've talked about. There's I think podcasters all and any creator says things about like what happens if something big come happens, you know, like what if, you know, I'm my show gets featured in The New York Times or unwired and you're like suddenly everything is people are coming. And it's just like I've been doing this for seven years and I've just kind of was like, yeah, that's never going to happen. You know, that, you know, that my show is just this little podcast, history podcast. How is that going to happen? You know, and if it does, it'll be something small, you know, where, oh, I get a little boost here and there. But it was just weird because you don't expect it. And when it happens, you're just kind of like deer in the headlights for a bit, but then you have to ultimately just keep doing everything because podcasting, as you know, is a slog. It's writing, it's researching, it's editing, it's all that stuff, and you just have to keep doing it. But it still is weird because you're like, again, you think, what if this happened? And it did. And it was very strange that way. But it's still...

Even today when people ask me about it, I kind of just go, it was weird, but it really didn't change the world that much for me in that I just have to keep doing work and keep doing the show and just, in fact, you have to make it better, just as good, so you don't disappoint people who show up.

Ryan
Totally. What a phenomenal moment. Where were you when you read that?

Matt Breen
I was actually, I had been up late the night before. I had just published an episode. And so I didn't get to bed until about 1 a.m. And I usually, I got up then probably a little before eight central time here in the United States. And I got up and one of the first things I usually do after I publish an episode, if I did it the night before is just to check my email because there have been weird things happen where, you know, someone will...

you know, a file is bad or whatever and something is wrong with the, um, and so while that doesn't happen often, it's just something I check. So I checked my email and someone's first email is like, congratulations on the Elon tweet. And I'm like, what the hell? And uh, so, you know, I went online, found the tweet and my immediate thing was like, is it real? Is this just, you know, someone pulling something?

But then I saw all the traffic and then I saw that and it was, oh my gosh, you know, so that's what it was.

……. continue the conversation with the podcast here.