Why a community lead thinks product, people and compassion belong together

“I have the best job at Riverside. I get to hear how it actually affects people.” — Kendall Breitman

I've known Kendall through Riverside for a while now, but this conversation was different.

If you know me, you know Riverside has become a pretty big part of my creator journey. Kendall has been part of that too. She's listened to my feedback, put up with more than a few of my ideas, helped shape the community I've become part of and, somewhere along the way, became someone I genuinely enjoy talking to.

So when Crystal and I invited her to be a guest on the Health, Tech & Wellness Podcast, I knew we'd talk about Riverside but what I didn't want was an hour-long conversation about podcast software. I wanted to know the person behind it.

When a company actually listens

We started where you'd probably expect: Riverside. Kendall talked about joining the company when Riverside was primarily a recording platform and watching it grow into editing, clipping, hosting, publishing, social tools and so much more. But what stood out to me wasn't the list of features. It was how they got there.

Kendall sits in this unique position between the people using Riverside and the people building it. She hears what creators love, what frustrates us and what we're asking for, and then gets to watch that feedback make its way back to the product team.

I've experienced that firsthand. Crystal and I even shared the story of an episode we thought we'd lost, only to discover Riverside's cloud recording had saved us.

I've talked for a long time about keeping content creation simple. Technology should remove barriers between someone and the thing they're trying to create, not add more of them.

Listening to Kendall reminded me that sometimes the best product development isn't about predicting what people need. It's about listening to them.

“The amount that the product team and the developers actually see and hear and respond to it is just really cool.” — Kendall Breitman

But how do you turn it off?

This is where the conversation I really wanted to have started. Kendall is Head of Community. Think about what that means for a second.

Messages. DMs. WhatsApp. Creators. Beta testers. Partnerships. People who need help. People who have ideas. And occasionally people who think whatever problem they're experiencing at that exact moment is the most important problem on Earth. 😂

How do you have a job built around being available to people without being available all the time?

Kendall talked about protecting the hours she spends with her wife and daughter, Nellie. She talked about learning what actually requires an immediate response and what can wait until tomorrow.

And she talked about overwhelm. I loved that part because there wasn't some magical productivity system behind it. Sometimes balance means recognizing that there are simply too many things on the list and asking:

Which one are we not doing right now?

That's something I think a lot of us need permission to do. Work-life balance isn't necessarily finding enough hours to accomplish everything. Sometimes it's accepting that everything doesn't need to be accomplished.

What does success actually mean?

This may have been my favorite part of the entire conversation. Before Riverside, Kendall worked in political journalism. She worked for organizations including Bloomberg and NBC. Her career was a huge part of how she measured success and, eventually, how she measured herself.

Then life changed.

She moved from the United States to Tel Aviv for the woman who would become her wife. She changed careers. They built a family. And somewhere in all of that, her definition of success changed too.

It didn't have to mean having the impressive job title anymore. Success could be building a life. Learning another culture. Finding people you love. Raising a daughter. Sitting on a Mediterranean beach. Being happy with the person you are when nobody asks what you do for a living.

That hit me. Because I think we're conditioned to answer “Who are you?” with what we do.

I'm a manager. I'm a journalist. I'm a community lead. I'm a podcaster.

But none of those things actually answer the question. Who are you beyond the mic?

When the conversation became much more human

We also talked about something I knew required care. Kendall shared what it's been like raising a young daughter while living through war.

What stayed with me wasn't politics. In fact, that wasn't the conversation at all.

It was perspective.

She talked about neighbors checking on one another when alarms go off. About community. About raising a child during circumstances most of us hope never to experience. And about how those experiences have changed the way she thinks about privilege, compassion and the people behind the headlines.

That's why I wanted this conversation to remain exactly what it was:

A human story.

You don't have to agree on governments, policies or politics to recognize that there are ordinary human beings on every side of a headline who want to raise their families, love the people around them and live peacefully. And sometimes I think we'd all be better off remembering that.

Do something you actually enjoy

Toward the end, we brought things back around to creators. Kendall's advice for someone thinking about starting a podcast was wonderfully simple:

Pick something you actually love.

Podcasting is work. Recording is work. Editing is work. Promotion is work. Creating clips is work. Showing up when an episode gets twelve views is work.

If the only thing keeping you going is the possibility of views, money or sponsorships, eventually that work becomes pretty difficult to justify.

But if you're talking about something you genuinely care about? That's different. And maybe that's why this conversation stuck with me.

We started talking about a podcasting company. We ended up talking about boundaries, family, career, identity, parenting, compassion, success and happiness.

And when I asked Kendall how she'd like people to remember her someday, it wasn't for a job title. It was for connecting with people. Making them laugh. Supporting them. And being a good parent.

That sounds like a pretty good definition of success to me.

🎙️ This week's episode:
Kendall Breitman on Success, Balance & Finding a Life Beyond Your Career

And yes, at the end I temporarily handed Kendall part of our traditional sign-off.

I kept Stay Healthy.

Crystal kept Stay Balanced.

And Kendall gave us the perfect addition:

Stay Happy.

So this week...

Stay Healthy. Stay Balanced. Stay Happy. And Keep Driving Forward.

John