How the name Shit My Soul Says came to be...
On Sunday, Jillian and I had our 2nd meeting to discuss our new podcast. The major item on the agenda was to decide on a name.
We had started brainstorming at our first meeting, and over the following week, we texted each other any time we had an idea - good, bad, ridiculous - in true brainstorming fashion, we put them all out into the universe to see what would stick. Uncle Al Is My Spirit Guide? Put it on the list. Essence of The Essence? Do it! My Spirit Is a Trash Panda? Fuck yes!
Our first step in deciding on the name was for each of us to rate how we felt about the name.
We used a numerical scale from zero to three.
0 - hate it
1 - meh
2 - like it
3 - love it
Once we had rated each possibility, we combined our scores and immediately ruled out anything with a score below a 4. We had one that was rated a 6, a couple that were 5s, and a few more 4s. We whittled the list down even further by saying the names out loud. When you’re going to have to say the same thing over and over again for the life of the podcast, it’s really important that it rolls off the tongue nicely. We loved the name The Metaphysicists, but it turns out it’s nearly impossible to say without stumbling over your own tongue and developing a lisp.
When we got down to our top three choices (rated 6, 4, and 4), we were a bit stumped. Jillian preferred one, I preferred another, and we were both hesitant about the third, even though it had the highest score.
In order to move forward, Jillian found a website where you can plug in a name and get its numerology. If we were going to base our decision solely on numerology (which hadn’t been the plan), the choice was obvious. Because we were both still hesitant, we needed to try something else.
I asked Jillian for scrap paper and a bowl. I ripped the paper into several smaller pieces and wrote the names of our possibilities on the pieces, and I also included slips that said, “something else,” and “try again.” Although I didn’t say anything, Jillian assumed that the plan was that she would pull out a name, and that’s what we would go with. So she reached in, pulled out a slip, and read it out loud. She paused, and I asked her how she felt about it. “Disappointed.”
“Then that’s not our name,” I said. You see, I frequently have a hard time deciding between multiple options. The most effective way I’ve found to figure out what it is that I really want is to leave it to chance. I will absolutely have a reaction to the result - I’ll either be happy about it, or I’ll be disappointed. Instead of suffering through disappointment, I rule it out and try again. So Jillian pulled out another slip of paper. This time I was disappointed. Her next pull was “something else,” which we both ignored, and she finally pulled out the last of the three names.
She read the word on the slip, and the two of us locked eyes, grinned and started laughing delightedly. This was it. This was the one. Not only did my random selection trick reveal our true feelings about the names, but this was also the one that we had rated the highest and was the best numerologically.
We each had been concerned about how the other person felt about the name. Jilian had come up with it years before, and she had used it as part of a business venture that didn’t go where she had hoped. She wasn’t sure that I would be ok with the name because it was something that she had come up with on her own. I was concerned that she wouldn’t want to recycle the name for our new venture. But it turned out that our concerns were unfounded. And so, we have a name: Shit My Soul Says. I hope that when you see it, you grin and laugh delightedly. That’s ultimately our goal - to make you laugh. Sure, we also want you to think and learn and maybe even grow as a person. But what’s the point of all of those if you can’t do them with a smile on your face?
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