Don't Take Yourself So Seriously with Lou Carlozo

Josh (00:00:00) - Who? We got five minutes on the clock. What is your name and what is your podcast show?

Lou (00:00:07) - My name is Lou Carlozo, based in Chicago, the Windy City, and my podcast is Bankadelic. The colors, the colorful side of finance. And it is a podcast from the financial services industry and people that are interested in financial services and banking.

Josh (00:00:25) - Wow, the colorful side of banking. What kind of stuff are you talking about? What is the colorful side of banking and what advice do you have for podcasters?

Lou (00:00:34) - That's a great question, Josh. A colorful side of banking to me is the typical topics that people are interested in and that audience. So financial technology or fintech, it could be regulation. It could be banking for small business. It could be loan traffic deposits. But the one thing that I would say with doing a podcast like this that is really important is that notion of finding your tribe. Who are the people that are going to be listening, and how do you give them the best content? One of the things that I happened on early was that a lot of this stuff was dry as shit.

Lou (00:01:14) - Yeah. And and so I have humorous skits that are in the podcast. I like to goof around a little bit with my guests. I love to laugh, and you just don't typically hear that. And as a result, I think I've really found an audience that appreciates me being different.

Josh (00:01:32) - Yeah. So you you.

Josh (00:01:34) - Said you like to mess with your guests and you like to have fun. I think a lot of times people are like, I need to show up. Especially I'm in bank and I'm in finance. I'm whatever I need to show up and I need to tie and be professional. But you're kind of taking a new approach. I'm doing skits. I'm having fun with them. What does that look like? Like give. It's an example of messing with your guests and having fun.

Lou (00:01:53) - Okay, well, I do voice characterizations. I grew up kind of weird in that my heroes were people like June Foray and Concrete. I think it was, um, these people that did all these voices on the cartoons and stuff.

Lou (00:02:07) - So I'll do something like, I got this one guy, Johnny the Big. I'll be like, Lou coming. You think you know all this stuff about financial service? I gotta tell you something. We gotta bank and I gotta take you around back in the alley. I'll show you how. This voice.

Josh (00:02:25) - And how do you get. Are your guests prepared for this? Like when you jump into the Big Al voice?

Lou (00:02:31) - Well, that is a great question, Josh. And I think sometimes they're prepared, and I do have to gauge it a little bit, a bit, in that if someone has a great sense of humor and they like to goof around and we do some. You know, briefing before they go on the air. So I can sort of tell. Then I go balls to the wall. Right. And if it's someone who is a little more buttoned down, then I try to keep the humor gentler and not put them on the spot, because it's not my podcast per se.

Lou (00:03:05) - Once they jump in the guest chair, we want to make them look good and I want to accommodate them. So it really depends. But mostly I like to push it.

Josh (00:03:13) - Yeah. So you find your tribe. Your tribe is people who are in the banking industry who understand this industry, but they like to have fun. They're going to let their hair down a little bit. And, you know, it kind of polarizes it. It keeps maybe the stifled, you know, like bow ties over here. And you're more in this zone. So you find your tribe. How do you know that you are being true to your tribe versus like, how do you how do you know where to draw those guardrails? You know what I mean?

Lou (00:03:42) - Yeah. The guardrails are really about that. Something that I learned from David Brancaccio. And I'm a Brancaccio fanboy, right. He's the host of Marketplace Morning Report. And David taught me don't take yourself seriously. Take the subject matter seriously. So if I'm talking about Silicon Valley, bang.

Lou (00:04:02) - And I go on an endless skit for five minutes, that's not taking the content seriously. And if I try to act like I know as much as these people do, you know this. As an interviewer, you ask the questions that puts you in an in an advantageous situation, but they're the experts. Let them shine. And so I don't take myself too seriously. I let them have front and center and just try to give them a framework to operate. If the humor makes them look good, that's a great thing. And if the humor overshadows them, not so much.

Josh (00:04:38) - All right. We've got 24 seconds left. And another voice, I want you to plug your podcast one more time. You got 20s.

Josh (00:04:45) - This is Elmo. And when I'm not driving a tractor on the farm, I think you know this bank. Idyllic, because, uh, we got plenty of room to hang your overalls if you're looking for an on line experience.

Josh (00:05:02) - You heard it, guys. All in under five minutes.

Josh (00:05:05) - I hope you're enjoying these podcast shows by podcasters for podcasters. Love you guys and we'll see you on the next one.