One thing I love about having created History on Fire and hosted it for almost 11 years now is that I don’t have to listen any gatekeeper telling me how to do my job. No supervisor. No boss. No producer. No one telling me how they think I should do the show, what tone to strike, what topics to cover. Any of them would have told me before I even started that I was wasting my time.

“You mean you want to do an audio show where you talk about history for over an hour? No props? No sound effects? Ok, but at least you’ll have guests to discuss the topics with?”

“99% of the time, no.”

“Just you talking at length? With that insanely thick Italian accent? C’mon… no one wants Super Mario as their history teacher. This podcast stands no chance.”

Luckily, being my own boss, means I never had to bother to defer to people like that. And tens of millions of downloads later, I think it's safe to say that a few people out there are happy I never listened to such advice.

This applies to the range of topics I cover as well. People tend to specialize in one thing and one thing only, or maybe a couple at most. Maybe, just ancient history. Or, maybe just battles and military history. Or, maybe only the history of a particular country. I don’t have to play by those rules. I get to pick any topic in history I feel like covering. In one episode, I get to do a deep dive in a slave rebellion in ancient Rome. In another, it’s the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Another follows Joan of Arc’s life. And another yet focuses on a murder mystery from over 5,000 years ago, or a civil war in Japan, or the clash between Lakota and the U.S. in the 1800s.

I love, love, love this kind of freedom. It ensures that I never get bored with history. Thank you to anyone who ever bothered to listen to my work for helping me make this happen.