Hi everyone. Welcome to Do It Today. I'm Kara Catula, and today I am lucky enough to chat with Kat Jackson, who's the senior director of Audible Studios, She's been in the storytelling space for two decades, working with narrators to produce and direct their performances, and you've definitely heard the project she's worked on, including memoirs by Mariah Carey, Trevor Noah, and Kevin Hart, among many others.
There's lots to talk about, including how nervous I am to talk to someone on a podcast whose expertise is audio, but I'm doing it anyway cause it's all about doing brave things. hi Katt, what are you doing today?
thank you for having me. today I am in the office, and it's one of those sort of, uh, one. I was a kid. My grandparents, when they would come to visit, my grandmother would bring me like a box of assorted trinkets and she would call it a clawdy. And I don't know if that's a thing or if she made it up, but today feels like a clawdy day. I had, you know, a great one-on-one with my vp. we're recording a kids show today, which is really fun.
So I stuck my head in and I chatted with some of our actors. I got to interact with some of my staff, which is my favorite part about being back in the office. and I, I snagged a vegan b l t from the green room. it's like a little bit of everything today. it's a real conduct day.
Oh, I'm definitely gonna be holding on to that symbol and that metaphor for my various Cland Dyke days. so you mentioned, you know, you popped in, talked to some of the actors who are working on the show, and I was just wondering what that looks like when people are trusting you with their personal stories, their life stories, That seems like it would be a very loaded nervous making activity. do you have tactics for directing someone who feels really nervous about moving forward in that way?
sometimes the person who has the most nerves is me, right? these are people's stories, whether they're fiction or memoirs, folks are trusting me to help them tell their story or to help guide actors to tell their story. it's incredibly personal, the things you wind up finding out about people. Or just shocking. I I always go back to what is this story and what do the people who are telling it need for me? So some people don't really need much. Like Kevin Hart is a born performer.
he didn't need me in the studio. it felt more like a privilege for me to be there and watch him perform. we talked about kind of silly things, how do you say certain words, right? Because everybody has a word that they don't know how it's said, or a word that they come to and they stumble on every single time they read it. which can be a little bit of a problem in the studio occasionally, but it's always a funny word. It's not like A really complicated word, but everybody just has a random word.
Like one of my actors, her word is women, and she was recording a book about feminism. She was like, I don't know if I can do this. Like this trips me up every time. It's like every fourth word. I always say we're a content led studio. And what that means for me is that the content and the authors tell us what they needed. And sometimes it's easy. Other times it's harder. And those are the really cool challenges for me.
And it's fun to watch my team deal with them too, because you know, like good enough isn't good enough for us. We always need to really fire on all cylinders, because you never know when someone's gonna buy an audiobook and it's gonna be their first audiobook. And if we get it wrong, someone's gonna be turned off to audio forever. And that's like a huge responsibility.
I really like that phrase about good enough isn't really good enough. how do you navigate that path towards making something really great? and do you know whenever you reach that point,
we work and we run scenes and we do lines until it's right. And then the energy is just different. It feels different. there's actually an interesting change in people's posture. When they get it, they, their whole body kind of unfolds, right? Their shoulders come up, their spine straightens. they look out and they look ahead rather than looking down at the paper. which is really interesting with authors especially, right? They're generally not trained actors.
So you're watching somebody go through this experience for the first time and all of a sudden it clicks. It's, that light bulb moment. I put myself in the listener's shoes. I always think about the people who listen to audiobooks when they're doing things they don't wanna be doing, right. Like, people listen when they clean the house. People listen when they run marathons. So I I hate running, so I always think like, what would I want to hear if I was running and they needed to be transported?
When I can find that moment of this full world building, That's when I know it's good.
what I'm hearing from your description is that, you're directing as if you're a film director or theater director, but we're not going to see anything on the screen. And so I'm just wondering about how you came to sort of be the, audio queen and guru, because how do you train for that
Well, the joke, that we always make is that nobody goes to school to make audio books. it's not a thing. I went to a small liberal art school and I majored in art history. Have no idea what I wanted to do with it. I thought, well, I really like this. So let me study something I really like for four years and get a great liberal arts education and then sort of see what happens. so right outta school, I got a job, producing audio tours for museums.
I thought, okay, this is like a foot in the museum and gallery world. This is what I wanna do. you know, at 22, you absolutely know everything. I wound up producing audio tours for about three years. when MoMA reinstalled their permanent collection, we redid all of their tours. It was three tours in seven different languages. And for clarity, I don't speak seven languages, but I do know how to get the right people in the room to make things in seven different languages.
and so I spent, probably six weeks straight in a recording studio and I just absolutely fell in love with it. I was watching. Content come to life in front of my eyes. something just happened for me. Like the world was suddenly in color. and I, spoke with the guy who owned the studio and I said, oh, you know, I'm, I'm getting a little bit burnt out on this museum thing, but this is just so engaging, do you know of anybody who's hiring? And he said, well, my studio manager's leaving.
You know, would you be interested in coming to work for me? And he hired me, basically on the spot. And I am so grateful to him because, he had this faith in me and he gave me access to. All the programs I learned to edit at the studio, I got to sit on sessions with some of, you know, the best audiobook directors that there are. I got to meet amazing talent and that was it. I, I was off and running, never to look back to the art world ever again. I.
Oh my gosh. What if you hadn't asked him? have you thought about that sliding doors moment do you think that you would've gone down this route in another way or in another
Oh gosh. I probably would be like working some very low paying arts job and like wishing I would've, you know, gone to school to become a lawyer or something. Uh, there's not very much money in the museum world. you know, especially if you're a kid from small town Pennsylvania, with your ba I saw the studio owner, his name is Charles de Montebello. I saw Charles the other day at an industry event. and I was lucky enough actually to be able to speak at this event.
And I had this moment where I was standing at the front describing, all the ways All these people, in our world kind of influence how we produce and, and how we make things. And I felt myself tearing up because I saw him in the back of the theater and I thought, oh my God, if Charles hadn't given me this chance, I wouldn't be here. You know, I wouldn't be having the privilege to speak in front of all these people at a Dolby theater about what it is I love to do.
based on what you've described you're doing today, the job seems to be very people-focused, right? you're managing folks, you're talking to talent, you're talking to directors. do you find that you are able to conserve energy for yourself Or is it I'm all in at work and then you go home and, and sort of recharge. Just sort of wondering what that, looks like for you.
My initial answer was gonna be like, no, of course not. I just leave it all on the field and then I go home and it's like the end of the time warp and I just fall down. But that's not true. I've realized it with coming back to the office. Actually, this recharges me and my husband and I talk about it a lot. I need this, I need to be out in the world and, seeing people and making connections and, making stuff.
I just love to make stuff and I love to hear about what other people are making, which is why this podcast was so exciting for me. I was like, oh, another person I know who makes something amazing.
I do leave it all on the field, but I find when I do that it actually refills the well, it helps me keep going because in addition to this, you know, my other full-time job is being a mom to two awesome kids, who are really active and really interesting and vibrant, and that refills me in a different way. So I think I'm very lucky to have all of these places to go to
and with all of these different priorities that come up during the day, do you have any tools that you are just like, I could not get through the day without this, whether that's something tech focused or physical or a mental tool that you use to sort of keep going and, keep refilling those energy wells.
I wish I had a tech tool. but one thing I did realize that helps for me is to gamify things, I have a checklist every day, and it repopulates itself and when you check it off, it makes a, a lovely little noise. And if you finish everything, there's like a confetti burst on your screen. I, I highly recommend that for, people who are sort of achievement oriented in that way. But I think it's the people around me, it's my coworkers and it's my family.
But it's also, this sort of community of friends that I have stumbled my way into on the side, through, some of my like, dorky side interests. they're all awesome and everybody, you know, like we say, it takes a village to raise a kid. It takes a village to make human grownup too.
you mentioned that you poked your head into the studio, saw some actors. What is the time cycle of a project that you're working on? Is it that audiobook will be completed in three months, six months, a year? how far out are you working and how do you sort of keep an eye on the long game of things?
One of the great things about having been the digital pioneers in this space is that we can get titles to market much more quickly than somebody who in the past had to press something to CD and then ship it. so we're used to really tight timelines.
We typically take about 60 days from the time we get a final script for a project until it's up for sale in our store, which has been both wonderful and terrible for us because 60 days It can be not a lot of time when you have something really long or something very complex. but we also, you know, we have this other branch of Audible, it's not just audiobooks. We do audible originals and those are things that are audio only. They're only available from Audible.
And those can be as short as six weeks. or they can take as long as, you know, a year depending on the complexity of the project.
gosh, two months. that was not what I was expecting your answer to be. cause you know, book publishing is so slow, just interesting to hear that. it can work at a faster speed once you have like the systems and processes in place to do that.
Not that, uh, I wanna, you know, throw any book publishers under the bus, but fact that they are so slow is part of the reason that we are so fast because we want to get the audio out at the same time as the print book. And in some cases it's just a great thing to do. And it's nice to give people the option when a print book is released. But then, we start to work with really different varied creators. and one of my authors, who also happens to be my best friend, is Mayo Zaid, who is a comedian.
Uh, and she's a disability advocate. Mayo did an original with us and she has an upcoming graphic novel. And she had said to her publisher, it's really important to me that the audio comes out the same day as the graphic novel. And there was a little bit of waffling, I think, And then she said, no, you guys don't understand. I need it to come out on the same day because I have fans who are visually impaired and I want them to have the exact same access to my content as my sighted fans.
that one really kind of took me aback a little bit because, we always say like, oh, audio books aren't just books on tape anymore. And it's not just books for the blind. But at the same time it is, you know, it is also books for the Blind. And the number of people I talk to who, are visually impaired or they have a family member, who isn't fully cited and they say like, without Audible, I wouldn't be able to read the books that I love. It really strikes me like, what I do isn't surgery.
But at the same time, it's important. It's important to people's lives. And I never thought growing up that I would do something with my life that actually really made a difference in other people's lives.
breaking away from audio books just slightly, because I wanted to ask you about Tough Mutters because I feel like this is a part of your life I just really need to know more about. so can you tell me about Tough Mutters and what competing in them means to you, and if that plays into your day-to-day life at, this point.
tell me how long we have left and then I'll sort of tailor it. 'cause if we have like a week or two, I'll tell you everything. so I first started obstacle racing, gosh, my son was three, so it was 2012. I was looking for something social to do, something active to do. and to be really frank, I wanted to lose the baby weight. I had a really hard time taking it off. and so I heard about this new thing. It was mud running and I thought, oh, that's kind of interesting.
that seems like a cool challenge. So I signed up for my first race alone, which was like a classic rookie mistake because the thing that I love the most about obstacle racing is that in general, and tough mutter specifically, the course is designed so that you can't do it alone. You have to accept help from other people and you have to help other people along the way.
And I think it's a really great metaphor for life, especially as a mom, you know, a busy working mom, I often think, you know, I can do it myself, right? Like that's the message that we've all been given as women, you can do it by yourself. But we don't often ask for help. And to put myself in a situation where if I don't ask for help and accept it, I'm not going to get through, has been a great lesson for me. so I just, I fell in love with it, like out on the course.
In the mud, and I've run with a couple of different teams through the years. I had a great team of all women for a while, which was awesome because it's, not a very female focused space, and now I, I am part of a team of two, team Jackson, my husband and I run together. Uh, we actually met obstacle racing about 10 years ago. We do a couple of regular tough mutters every year.
and then last year for the first time, we decided we didn't have enough to do, so we signed ourselves up for the Holy Grail of Tough Mutter, which is three separate events. the first one for this year is this coming Saturday. Uh, it is Tough Mutter Infinity, which is eight hours toughest mutter, which is 12 hours overnight, and then world's toughest matter, which is 24 hours.
Wait, what? okay. I had no idea. That is incredible. So you're saying in. four days, you're gonna be doing an eight hour obstacle course. How do you train for something like that?
We. Do as much varied activity as we possibly can. Um, it's a lot about functional fitness because you never know, and this used to be like the big aha about tough mutter. They, uh, wouldn't release the course maps until really close to the event, so you would never know what the obstacles were. And now they've kind of become, you know, you know there's gonna be a halfpipe that you have to run up and you know there's gonna be some sort of crazy monkey bars and.
A bunch of mud pits in a, dumpster full of ice that you have to swim through. but you never know exactly in what order and you don't know what the conditions are gonna be. You know, it can be a hundred degrees and blazing sun, or it can be 50 degrees and like spitting rain. I ride SoulCycle a lot. That's kind of my other fitness community, which I love, I've made a number of really great friends there, so I'm really grateful. Shout out to my short hill studio.
but we also, you know, we rock climb, we swam, we landscape our property. so that's been really interesting. There's nothing like moving 40 pound bags of mulch yourself, to really kind of give you some functional fitness. But a lot of it is mindset, like your body gives out, way after your mind. I've found that there is a lot of gratitude that happens out on the course and just remembering that this is something that I not only choose to do, but it's something that I'm privileged to get to do.
And that keeps me going. You know, the middle of the night can be not a fun time to be out in the middle of the woods running in the dark, and you're like, swatting up bugs and you hear a noise and you're like, oh my God, this is how I end. There's a bear. It's coming to get me. I always remind myself, not only did I choose to do this, and I paid a lot of money to do this, but I am lucky, that I have this amazing body that allows me to do it.
And I have this amazing husband, who chooses to do this with me and like, made us this really funny team flag. It's the two of us holding hands, jumping over a dumpster that's on fire. Uh, so that helps me keep my sense of humor. it's just, it's always something new, which I think to bring it back around to my. That's what I like about my job too. You know, every day is different and every race is different. You never know what's gonna happen. And, and for me, that's exciting.
it keeps it fresh and it keeps it interesting and I'm so curious. I just can't wait to see what happens.
Honestly, I, feel like my eyes have been completely opened, this whole world, uh, I had no idea that it was not only so intense and rigorous, but this idea that you are leaning on a community of people around you too, it sounds less competitive than, community based.
is definitely not competitive. the start line mc, this guy named Sean CorVel, is like one of my favorite humans on earth. and he gives these, Beautiful speeches at the beginning, and he always says, you know, no one is better than your best, but your best will only make you better. So that's kind of the ethos of it, you go out there and you give it what you have, it's you versus you.
there's no like prize money or podiums or anything in tough mutter, until you get up to world toughest mutter, which is really interesting because the elite racers are sort of separate from your everyday racers and they have special bibs and you see them out on the course. and to have run on a course with some of the greatest female endurance and obstacle racers in the world it's so amazing.
here's somebody who's competing for tens of thousands of dollars in prize money you know, this is their job. Like this is what they do every day and they're sponsored. you watch these people out there. and you see them stop and turn around and help the racer behind them. every time it kind of makes me stop and think like, God, people are really just good. People are good to each other. And and last year it was my first world's toughest mutter and the course is Five Mile Loops, right?
And you do as many as you can in 24 hours. And there have been a couple of men who have hit the a hundred mile mark, which is crazy Like who runs a hundred miles, let alone in a day. last year we were actually lucky enough to be there when the first woman to hit a hundred miles crossed the finish line. I cried, everybody around me was crying, like people were whooping it up it was such a cool thing to see. to watch people stop and really celebrate another human's achievements it's refreshing.
So what are you doing over the next couple days to, get ready for this?
you know, I don't believe necessarily in carb loading, although it like super fun back when I did it and I was like, bring on the pasta. but now I, have been working with this amazing nutritionist, We've just been focusing on like, getting a lot of good food in me, which is great. I'm like, oh, what else do I get to eat today? Um, and that's been a great shift for me, right? Like as women sometimes we think about oh, I shouldn't eat that, or I'm not supposed to eat this.
I'm trying to get some good sleep, but it's hard 'cause I'm so excited. and as much as I know I should taper and stop doing so much activity, you know, I ride regularly at my SoulCycle studio, I just kind of can't quit those classes. So I'm gonna go and ride. but I'll take it easy. I promise myself. I'll take it easy.
I don't know, I feel like the tapering a little bit is, good, but you kind of have so much energy that it needs to go somewhere, you know? So might as well just kind of keep those legs moving and, keep that brain a little happier.
I'm glad it's not just me.
the taper blues are like, I'm not, super into them.
I mean, Karen, you're a runner like Anytime you wanna come do Tough Mudder come on out, we'll run it together. We'll have a blast. I promise I can guarantee you that it'll be a really fun time.
I mean, you've pretty much sold me. I am not going to, say no to someone who is. Obviously so invested and you've clearly gotten so much out of it. And I don't know, that's just something that makes me really fired up to like go tackle something big on my plate.
You can't see it, but my arms are over my head in like a big, victory cheer right now.
well thank you so much Katt, for taking the time I'll be cheering for you and I know other folks will be cheering for you too. So thanks so much.
Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast.