1) Just Get Started
Starting something is more important than perfecting something. When we started our podcast we did almost none of the things you would find in a “How to Launch a Podcast” article. We didn’t have social media, a website, and offer to collect emails, or anything other than audio that we uploaded. Because we just focused on doing it consistently we were able to slowly improve things. We slowly added and improved, but focused first on consistently creating.
2) You Never Know What’s Going to Happen When You Start Something
There are lots of unexpected benefits that come from starting something. When we started podcasting, I thought it would be a good way to improve my communication skills, to have deeper conversations with my partner, and to maybe connect with some cool people that we could have on as guests. What I didn’t expect was I’d get opportunities to produce other people’s podcasts, that it would lead to education and job opportunities and help with connecting with some great friends.
3) Criticism Comes No Matter What You are Doing
If you reach people with your work, some people won’t like it. Even if you are creating content around an innocuous topic like travel, there are people that won’t like it and won’t like you because of your opinions. You can’t let those people affect you.
4) Create Things For Yourself
Because of # 1, 2, and 3, it is important that you focus your creative work on something that you enjoy for the sake of it. By enjoy, I don’t mean that it is easy and feels good all the time. Many of the 198 podcast episodes we’ve recorded were accompanied by a strong serving of resistance, but we pushed through.
What informed our decisions on the direction we took with the show was always what was most interesting to us. We didn’t do what we thought would win more fans or would get us a certain result, we made episodes and did interviews that would bring us enjoyment from the process.
As a result, we were able to push through the resistance, push through the learning, and push through the criticism to get to the benefits, both expected and unexpected. If we were chasing fans or a particular guest, or an income goal, we would have quit a long time ago. We were able to stick with it because those things were all side-benefits and not the core of what motivated us.
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