Lean Into Your Love-Hate Relationship With Your Podcast

The quest for the perfect podcast is a pipe dream. And even if it was attainable, you’d grow bored with it. Or your listeners would. A living podcast relies on the juxtaposition between what you love and what you hate.

April 22, 2020

Article

What part of your podcast do you love the most? What part of your podcast do you like the least?

When you start pondering those questions, you will find the answers change over time. And I’m not talking about days or weeks. I’m talking about minutes. Seriously. If you meditate on whatever your first instinct tells you, you’ll find your opinion changing -- perhaps several times -- in as little as 30 minutes. The answers to those questions are a bit slippery.

Once you’ve settled on the answers -- that’s one thing you love about your podcast and one thing you like the least about your podcast -- you need to shift your perspective to your audience. Do they feel the same way about those aspects? Are they even aware of those aspects? Not that I’m suggesting you stay too focused on the listener just yet. That comes with its own challenges.

OK, now that you’ve changed again and have really settled on answers, the path seems clear. Emphasis on the word seems, you’ll note. It’s natural to assume the easy position of eliminating or reducing the thing you don’t like as bout your podcast and doubling-down on the thing you love about your show.

But that’s not what you should do. What you should to is quite the opposite.

The Critical Role Of Dynamic Tension In A Podcast

Your show needs tension. Often, it's the tension between the things you like and the things that you don't like as the host, creator, producer, or showrunner of a podcast that give the podcast life. Maybe not all of the life, but certainly some flavoring and seasoning. And no one wants to listen to a lifeless, flavorless podcast. So you never want to get rid of all tension.

This is not blanket permission for you to keep doing bad things! If the “dislike” item about your show is from bad processes, because you’re not following best practices, or just isn’t anywhere close to good, then definitely change it! Bad things should go immediately. No discussion needed.

But if your “dislike/hate” item is something a bit more esoteric that’s a little harder to put a finger on or even properly define… great! If it’s a lingering doubt that nags from the back, never quite taking shape; perfect! That’s where you want to focus your energies.

It's in that margin -- the gap between what you love and what you hate -- where you find the true life of your show. It’s also where you may find new opportunities to take your show. Because growth often happens in this “conflict” zone. It’s where your innate problem-solving attentions keep returning to time and time again. So… lean into that tension!

Look For Unique Points Of Pain For Your Podcast

There’s another trap that’s easy to fall into when thinking through the love-hate question. That’s the trap of conflating things that you just simply don't like to do with an aspect of the process of making a podcast that you don’t like.

Of course you hate that it takes so long to make episodes. No, you’re not alone if you really hate the editing process, or if you’re riddled with anxiety over all the writing necessary to properly publish an episode.

That’s not the tension of which I speak. Those are staples of making a podcast. You have to either get over that hatred or hire somebody else to do it for you.

To get you out of that trap, think about the final product that your listener is exposed to. Unless you talk about your woes on your podcast, your listener likely isn’t exposed to the normal challenges that come with making a podcast. You’re looking for pain points that matter to somebody else other than you.

Maybe the thing that you hate to do is something that really resonates with your listeners. Again, the life of a podcast is often in the tension. Conversely, maybe the item you like best about your show isn’t all that important to your listeners. That’s bad tension, obviously. But it also tells you something.

The Bad Side Of Change

There's the old saying of “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and change the things I cannot accept”, but I don't know that it’s all that useful in this setting. Sometimes the things you could change would make a vastly different and perhaps inferior product.

I love change. But maybe instead of looking for things to change about your show and your process, perhaps you should spend attention on the tension-parts of your show. Yes, I know that sounds really, really weird. And honestly, I'm not even sure I'm properly communicating the point I’m trying to make.

But that's okay. That's one of the things that I love and hate about this show is that sometimes I don't know exactly where I want the conversation to go. But it tends to get there in the end.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Neither. It's just a thing. And I'm leaning into that thing. Hopefully, you will figure out the love-hate juxtaposition for your show so you can lean into yours as well.

Last Call For Locked-down Podcaster Tales

Speaking of tension, would you please record a minute or two of audio where you tell me the story of how your life as a podcast has been impacted by the pandemic lockdown? Are you looking forward to the coming “release” party? Have you found you really, really like being shut-in? However you’ve been impacted and affected as a podcaster, tell us about it. Record some audio, put it up on Dropbox, and send the link to evo@podcastlaunch.pro. I’ll incorporate it into tomorrow’s show.

And finally, remember that personal recommendations are really powerful. So if you haven’t yet told somebody about Podcast Pontifications, now is the time. I would really appreciate it and a personal outreach from you to them individually works really, really well.

Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday. I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!

Transcript

PP299 - Lean Into Your Love-Hate Relationship With Your Podcast

Evo Terra: [00:00:00] The quest for the perfect podcast is a pipe dream, and even if it was attainable, you'd grow bored with it, or your listeners would. A living podcast requires the juxtaposition between what you love and what you hate.

[00:00:22] Music: [00:00:22] Hello,

[00:00:22] Evo Terra: [00:00:22] and welcome to another podcast. Pontifications with me, Evo. Tara. What part of your podcast do you love the most? What part of your podcast do you like the least interesting questions to ponder? And I will promise you that if you start asking yourself those questions, the things you love and the things that you hate about your show, you will find that they change over time.

[00:00:49] You will, I promise you that if you just sit and think about it for five 10 1520 minutes, 30 minutes tops, you will discover there are certain things that you thought that you loved, but maybe you don't so much when she's thinking about a little bit longer and things that you hate lived longer. So that's lesson number one.

[00:01:04] If there's lessons at all in today's programming and that is that what you think you love and hate at when you're asked, it immediately will likely change over time. But let's say you've settled that out. Let's say that you have that 30 minute long conversation with your own brain, and you can really identify this as the thing I love the most.

[00:01:21] This is the thing that I hate the most. Take a look at those things and examine whether or not there are things that you really hate and you really love. You've already got that for yourself, right? But now ask yourself about the audience. Do you think there's something that the audience. Feels the same way about do they love it?

[00:01:42] Do they hate it? I don't really know. Right? You get need to understand there's some things you, the things you love and hate about the show might be totally transparent to the audience. Some might be obvious to the audience. You've got to figure out where yours live. Once you've done that, once you've got this list of things and you are some sort of an agreement, you don't have to be an agreement between you and the audience, but you've got something.

[00:02:05] You identify something as certainly a love, certainly a hate. The obvious thing to do is change it, right? The obvious thing to do is take the things that you do not like and eliminate those or reduce them and take the things that you do like and do more of those easy answer, right? Yeah. That's bogus.

[00:02:26] It's really bogus. You need tension. It's the tension between the things you like and the things that you don't like as the host, as the creator, as the producer, as the show runner. It's the tension between the things you like to do and the things you don't like to do that give the podcast life. Maybe not all of the life, but certainly some flavoring and seasoning that will disappear if you get rid of.

[00:03:00] Those things that are causing the tension. Now, this is not a blanket, uh, allowance admission. Uh, what sort of looking for permission, that's the word I was looking for. This is not a blanket permission from me to you to keep doing bad things. Look, if some of the things that you don't like about your show, no one likes about your show.

[00:03:25] Are simply bad processes. You are not following best practices or you know, you are not doing things anywhere close to good. If those are the things you hate, definitely change. Those. Definitely change those. But if it's something a little more esoteric, a little harder to put a true finger on one of those things where you go, you know what, maybe this is not a great thing.

[00:03:52] Maybe you struggle with it constantly. That's perfect. Don't necessarily change those things, but lean into that because it's in that margin, in the gap between what you love and what you hate. Where as I said before. That's where you find the true life of your show. That's where you also may find new opportunities for your show.

[00:04:17] When you look at that conflict zone, that because it's a lie, because it's a living thing that conflict living things tend to grow. Your show can grow once you identify those points of tension that you're having with yourself. Again, love, hate, figured out where it is, what's the, what's the tension inside of it, and, and, and, and lean into that particular tension.

[00:04:44] Right? I mean, that's, that's really a smart thing to do quite often when I think about things like this and I think about things like this, way too long, you just get to hear about it for the next five minutes. If I'm helping other people think through the love hate question. Quite often they will settle on the, especially on the hate things, they will settle on the things that they just simply don't like to do.

[00:05:11] They settle on the things like, well, you know, I really hate that it takes so long to make my show. I really hate the editing process. I really hate all the writing that I have to do. And because they hate those things, they don't do them or they don't do them well and that kind of stuff. And in those.

[00:05:29] Those are important things to understand. I mean, obviously if you do hate those staples of, of making a podcast, you kind of have to get over that hatred or hire somebody else to do it. But I would challenge you to try to look beyond that because those are things you may not like about the process. But think about it from the final product.

[00:05:52] Think about the final product that you make. For me, it's the nice nine to 10 minute long episode that comes out of these four times a week. Conversations I have with my video camera and you and my big bad microphone, but the challenges and struggles I go through doing the process aren't seen by the listeners.

[00:06:14] There are no one knows because we, except for the fact that I talk about them, but by and large, nobody knows that. So make sure when your examining these questions, they are looking for these points that there, there are things that matter to somebody else other than you. And again, you can fix the things that only matter to you, but it's when it spills outside of that realm that you might want to look at it again, not to remove it, but look at it as an opportunity for growth.

[00:06:41] Maybe that group, maybe the thing that you hate to do is what really your listeners are turned on by. They really enjoy that aspect of the show that will be interesting for you. That will certainly change the way you think about something you hate if suddenly something all your listeners love.

[00:06:55] Conversely, if there's something that you really, really like about the show that your listeners go, Hey. Hmm. That tells you something, doesn't it? Again, I'm not saying go out and change those things immediately. Just saying, identify them. Start walking towards the walk. There's that old walking towards the walk, whatever that means.

[00:07:13] There's that old saying of a grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and change the things I cannot accept, and that makes a lot of sense, but I don't know that it works always. I don't know that it's a universal truth. Sometimes the things you, you could change things, but it would change things in a way that would make a vastly different product.

[00:07:36] And I love the change, don't get me wrong, but maybe the thing that you should change is how much attention you put on those points of conflict. And I know that sounds really, really weird, and I'm not even sure I'm getting the true point across. But that's okay. That's one of the things that I love and hate about this show is that sometimes I don't know exactly where I want the conversation to go, but it tends to get there in the end.

[00:08:03] Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It's just a thing and I'm leaning into it and hopefully you will figure out what your love, hate juxtaposition, weird point of dynamic tension is and lean into that too. I also hope that you sit down right now today, and tell me the story. Your story of life, wherever you happened to be during the pandemic as a podcast room.

[00:08:25] Is it impacting your clients? Is it impacting your show overall? Is it impacting how you feel about the program? Is it impacting how you may or may not want to keep going? Tell us, send me an email with the link to a video, an audio file, maybe a minute, two minutes tops. Tell me what you think about that.

[00:08:41] Do it. Do it right now. Send the link to Evo at podcast, launched up pro because I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to keep doing these stories, but I really liked sharing them and I need some more. So share it last bit. Remember that personal recommendations when you're talking to somebody about podcast pontifications go.

[00:08:58] So, so far I really, if there's a podcast or that you know of that needs to hear the program, maybe not this episode because it was kind of wild and wobbly. But just send them a link to podcast pontifications.com and tell them that you think they should listen. That's it. I would really appreciate it and it works really, really well.

[00:09:17] Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday. I shall be back tomorrow with yet another podcast. Pontifications cheers.

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