Brian Landry is a journalist, reporter, and podcast host based in Missouri who covers soccer at every level, from youth development programs to the professional game. He talks with players, coaches, and executives for a living, but he also spends a fair amount of time thinking about what success actually means in a field where the scoreboard rarely tells the whole story. Below, he answers questions on that topic in his own words.
How do you personally define success?
I think success is when the work still feels honest after a few years have passed. That sounds simple, but it’s not. I can look back at an interview I did early on and ask myself if I asked the real question or just the easy one. If the answer is yes, I count that as success, even if nobody noticed at the time. Numbers and downloads matter for the business side of things, but they don’t tell me whether I did the job right.
Has your definition of success changed over the years?
It has. When I started, I thought success meant getting the big interview or the exclusive quote. Now I think it means building something people can trust week after week. A single great episode doesn’t do that. Consistency does. I’d rather have a smaller audience that knows exactly what they’re getting from me than a big spike in attention that fades in a month.
Is there a moment that shaped how you think about success now?
There’s a difference between a story that performs well and a story that matters. I’ve had episodes that didn’t get much attention but led to a coach or a parent reaching out later to say it helped them see something differently. That mattered more to me than any traffic number. I don’t think you can chase that kind of response directly. It just happens when you’re doing the work for the right reasons.
What does success look like on a day-to-day basis, not just in the big picture?
Most days it’s small. Did I prepare well enough that the conversation felt natural instead of scripted. Did I actually listen to the answer instead of waiting for my next question. Did I cut something out of an episode because it was interesting to me but not useful to the listener. Those are quiet decisions, and nobody sees them, but they add up to whether the final product is any good.
How do you measure success in your work, since soccer coverage doesn’t come with a clear scoreboard the way a match does?
That’s part of what makes it hard and also part of what I like about it. I don’t have a win-loss record. What I have is whether people keep coming back, whether guests are willing to talk to me again, and whether the conversations hold up if someone listens to them a year later. Those are slower signals than a final score, but I trust them more.
What role has failure played in how you understand success?
I’ve had interviews that fell flat because I over-prepared and stopped listening, and I’ve had ones where I under-prepared and missed an obvious follow-up. Both taught me something about balance. I don’t think you can understand what a good interview looks like until you’ve sat through a bad one you caused yourself. Success, for me, includes being able to point to those moments without flinching.
What advice would you give to someone starting out who wants to find that same kind of success?
Pay attention to the parts of the work nobody grades you on. Anyone can tell if a headline got clicks. Fewer people notice whether you treated the person you interviewed with real respect, or whether you told their story the way they would have told it themselves. I think that’s where the real success is hiding, and it’s also the part that’s hardest to fake over time.
Looking ahead, what would success mean for you five or ten years from now?
Honestly, more of the same, just done better. I don’t have a single milestone I’m chasing. I want the interviews to keep getting sharper and the stories to keep getting closer to the people they’re actually about. If I’m still asking myself whether I did right by a guest after every episode, I’ll consider that success, whatever the audience numbers happen to say.