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Hey, welcome back to the How to Podcast series.
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As a day with you, the burning off are a little three little mini episodes around the idea
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that when you walk into the room, walk into the room like you own the place.
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Walk into the room like you own the place and walk into the room like you've been there
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I think as podcasters, we need to up our confidence game.
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I think we devalue ourselves and make ourselves small.
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We don't want, it's funny because we want attention.
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As podcasters, we all want attention.
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It's called listens.
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We all want attention.
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But at the same time, we don't want attention.
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We don't want to draw attention to ourselves, but we want attention.
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It's really, really strange.
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What happens though is some people go way too far with this and they think that everybody
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thinks about them, like all the time.
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They think that everybody's like mulling over and contemplating their words through their
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podcast and they think that probably somebody's thinking of me right now.
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They're probably not thinking of you right now.
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They're probably having fun doing something else, not listening to you.
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I'm sorry, but they're probably not.
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They're listening to your show.
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They're probably thinking about you, but for the most part, you're a very tiny speck
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Doesn't that feel sad?
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But, but we don't have to be so enamored with ourselves.
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We don't have to be so full of ourselves and go way ego heavy as a podcaster.
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We don't have to be arrogant as podcasters, but we do need to be confident because people
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can smell confidence.
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People can smell fear and they don't smell the same, by the way.
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When we podcast, don't podcast out of fear and being timid and being small.
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You built this thing, whether you have one listener or a hundred thousand listeners.
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You built this and people show up for you.
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So I'm trying to pump you up a little bit.
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Back in the day when I was young, I'm not young anymore, we had like our sneakers, people
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called running shoes.
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We would call them in Canada, our basketball shoes and they had a little pump on the tongue
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of the shoe and you could squish, squish, squish and give air to your shoe and kind of fill
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We could pump up our shoes.
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We pump up the jam now.
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But we could do that.
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I'm going to pump you up as a podcaster and build you up a little bit and go listen.
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I want you to just understand something.
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People love what you do.
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People appreciate what you do.
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And even though only one, two, three percent of your audience will ever leave you a speak
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pipe, only one, two, three percent of your audience will ever click that link and buy
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Yeah, that silence was awkward, wasn't it?
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Only a tiny amount of your audience will ever do anything you ask them to do.
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But the silent majority and vocal minority of your podcast listeners, they love what
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You've already earned their trust.
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You've already earned the right to be in their calendar, to be in their routine.
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They have accepted your show and they've accepted you.
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Now, live it up like step up a little bit.
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Here's the thing that I heard recently at a podcast event where somebody was talking
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to another podcaster and they walked up and said, are you so and so from the so and
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Let me give you a name for a show.
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The so and so podcast.
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Are you the person that are you the host of that show?
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And the person was like, yeah, that's my show.
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And the person had that had walked up to this podcaster was like, oh my gosh.
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I love your show and they went on and on and on and on.
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I've been listening to every episode and I love episode this and I love episode that.
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And you could see the podcaster that was getting praise about their show trying to make
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themself smaller like like they were if they could lay on the ground, they would lay on
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They got themselves smaller, smaller, to the point where they're like, okay, okay.
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They almost made the person like stop talking and stop praising their show.
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They're like, okay, yeah.
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They're like, yeah, there's really nothing that is not that big of a deal.
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And they kind of downplayed in the moment.
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The admiration coming from a listener to the host.
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The host was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's not a big deal.
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And they downplayed it all.
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It was very dismissive of the person giving them praise.
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And when they walked away, I just looked at them and said, you know, that was a missed
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opportunity right there.
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And they're like, it's so awkward.
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It's awkward when people praise me and praise my show.
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I said, you realize that's a human being.
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That's walking away.
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And they thought so much of you that they made an effort to come and give you their gratitude
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for what you've done.
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You've earned the right with that person to speak into their life.
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You are an influencer to that person.
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You have influence over them because they've chosen you to be their human, to be their
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And I think as podcasters, we don't realize fully how much people put us into their life.
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And when they do press play on their episode, they connect with us.
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And they realize that no matter what you talk about, there's something in it for them.
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And I just think that so often we downplay praise.
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We downplay people giving us positive feedback.
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We downplay interactions with our audience.
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And we kind of just write it off as, well, it's not real.
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They're just saying these things.
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It's weird when people praise my show.
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What's weird is when you tell people to stop praising your show and to stop sharing
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It's the opposite of what we want.
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I think we, as podcasters, we need to sustain our podcast momentum through our confidence
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We need to sustain the momentum of owning the building, owning our space.
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We need to maintain the rights to who we built and be confident in what we built.
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And don't let anybody strip us of our confidence.
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We built it on rock and roll.
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We built this podcast and we built it on our confidence.
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We have to own this.
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And you need to step up and say, yeah, I take ownership of this.
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And I'm proud of it.
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I'm not an ego maniac, but I'm confident in what I do.
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And I'm going to sit straight.
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I don't know what momentum means to you for your show.
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I don't know if it means frequency of episodes.
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I don't know if it means quality of content.
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I don't know if it means promotion.
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I don't know if it means making money with your show.
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I think momentum means a lot to different things to different people in podcasting.
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So it's not a one size fits all episode for this episode.
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But we need to be going forward with our show.
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And it needs to have direction and needs to have a goal and needs to have a purpose.
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It needs to have an intention and needs to have a why.
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All of these things are important as podcasters to keep going.
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And when we start to coast, it's kind of like we're always going uphill.
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And when we take our foot off the gas, we start going backwards.
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When I was little, my feet could just touch the back of my father's seat when he was
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I'm in the back seat.
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My feet were just enough that I could touch the back of the seat where my dad was sitting
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behind the steering wheel.
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And he would always do this trick to us.
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And I thought it was real.
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I really did as a little kid.
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And what he would say is, you know, push on the seat with your feet and we can go faster.
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So I push my feet into the back of my dad's seat, which would then push it to his back.
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And he would step on the gas.
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If I pulled my feet off of the back of the seat, even for a second, my dad would let off
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And I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm in the back seat.
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I'm in my car seat or whatever as a kid, but I have power over the car.
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And I would give it a little push and the gas would be like, I give it a little push.
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And the harder I pushed the faster we went, it was the coolest thing ever.
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But the moment I took my feet off the seat, the car slowed right down.
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You know, imagine being on a hill and you slow down.
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I drive a standard transmission car, a manual transmission.
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You know, we actually have a clutch and you actually drive a car.
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You're not just sitting on the couch with a steering wheel.
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I actually drive a car.
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So I won't be having any of those electric cars.
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Thank you very much.
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I actually drive a vehicle.
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I manually drive a car.
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Now, if I'm on a hill, a steep hill, I have three pedals and two feet.
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So I have to, I can't put my foot on the brake because I have to have my clutch in.
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So that's two feet taken up.
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I don't have a third foot, thankfully.
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So, but I have to keep the gas going too.
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So I take my foot off the brake, I put my clutch in and my gas is my other foot on the
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And I'm kind of holding my clutch out a little bit, gas in a little bit, holding it, and
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I can sit on a hill without touching the brakes at all.
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And if I make a mistake, the car starts rolling backwards into the car that's way too close
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to the back of my car that's pulled up behind me.
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So I have to like hold my space on this hill without going backwards and not popping
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the clutch, which means the car just shuts off, chunk, chunk, chunk, and now I'm stuck.
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So I have to do this kind of dance on a hill.
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If I take, if I do this wrong, I'm going to roll backwards and I find that momentum
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and podcasting does not occur if you sit on a hill as a podcast, as a metaphor, you're
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on this hill and you take your foot off the gas, you're going to start rolling backwards.
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You're going to lose ground, you're going to lose listeners, you're going to lose momentum,
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you're going to lose your passion for your show.
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When you take these extended brakes, whether announced or not announced, you just walk
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away from your show, you will not pick up from where you left off.
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You're going to pick up further down the hill and you're going to have to redo some of
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the things that you had taken your foot off the gas and the kind of the growth that you
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built over time, you're going to lose it because you walked away.
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Your audience is going to sit there waiting for you.
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The hill has no mercy.
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It's going to roll you right back down to the bottom of the hill and you're going to have
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to climb all the way back to where you were.
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That's what happens when you lose momentum with your show.
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You lose connection and you have to rebuild from scratch.
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So my ask of you as a podcaster, whether you do seasons or you podcast and then you take
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a break or you don't do seasons like this show, which is 365 in a row, that when you take
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your foot off the brake and take your foot off the gas, you start to roll, figure out
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what your plan is because momentum takes you forward.
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You want to keep moving forward with your show and be confident in your content, be confident
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And if you need a break, tell your audience and then go take a break, but always realize
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you're never going to pick up where you left off.
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You are going to have to make up some ground.
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It's fine to do that.
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But understand that the world does not wait for you.
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The world is going to keep moving forward whether you release the episode this week, this
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month, this year or not.
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The world is going to keep moving forward and people will replace you with somebody else
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This show has outlived multiple podcasts about podcasting who have started and stopped
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and I'm still here.
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My goal is to outwork all of those shows because they just give up.
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They just say, you know, it's not worth it.
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It didn't give me the results I wanted.
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I made big promises when I started, but yeah.
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And they walk away, but I'm still here.
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This show has momentum.
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So I'm doing 365 episodes in a row, momentum, creativity, making content.
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So my encouragement for you is what are you doing to maintain momentum and what's helping
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you from a confidence side to stay podcasting, to keep podcasting.
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Again, you don't have to do 365 episodes in a row.
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Not advocating for that for you at all.
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But what you do, do you do it with momentum, do you do it with confidence?
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Because your audience loves you.
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Your audience cares about you.
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They want you to be healthy.
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They want you to be strong.
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They want you to show up.
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And they want more of you.
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So be confident in your show and be confident with forward momentum in your podcast.
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If you start rolling, if you feel like you're rolling backwards down the hill right now,
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I'll be waiting for you and I'm confident that I can help you with your show.
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Thanks for being here.
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Thank you so much for listening to the entirety of the episode, including this part.
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A lot of people leave right now.
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So we'll let them leave.
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Give them a second to go.
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Now it's just you and me.
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We have our meetups that we do for the How to Podcast series.
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We do them during the week.
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And we also do them on Saturdays.
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So twice a week, you have the opportunity to meet other podcasters just like you.
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Some people have just started.
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Some people haven't even released an episode yet.
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Some have been doing it forever.
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And we get together and talk podcasting.
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We want to help you in community to continue with your show, to start your show, to grow
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your show, to come and meet listeners of this show in one space on meetup.com.
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Again, through HowToPodcast.ca, you'll see the links.
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It's completely free to join.
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Come whenever you have an option to come.
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There's no commitment.
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You don't have to sign any waivers.
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You can just come join us, come join the conversation.
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We love to have you there.
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Because the only thing that's going to make these meetups better is you being there.
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So I'm hoping you will say yes, and you'll say, Dave, I'm tired of podcasting by myself.
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I wish there were people like you connect with that are fellow podcasters, and share my
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frustrations with guests who ghost me and my editing software is crappin' out on me.
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I'm just having this hard time, I'm having a hard time coming up with podcasts, episodes
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and titles, and all the things in social media, man, man, man, man, man, man, man.
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Wouldn't it be great to get in a room with other podcasters and share best practices and
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Three of our four Saturdays every month are themed to have a topic, but that last Saturday
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of every month is an open question and answer.
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Come meet a podcaster, come enjoy the podcasting community throughout a podcast.ca, come to
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Can't wait to see you there.
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Okay, this is a little bonus content at the end of the episode.
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I'm doing it since episode 500, so this is 170 episodes of bonus content.
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This is your first time hearing this, and you've been listening to the show in the past.
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You might have missed a few things, so you might want to go back and check out the end
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of the episodes for the last 170 episodes.
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There's some bonus stuff here.
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This is to encourage people to listen longer.
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So this is your first time catching this, and you're like, oh crap, then stick around for
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the future as well, because I'm going to keep doing it.
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It's really helping my retention rates.
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People are listening longer, and I appreciate you being here.
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So this is just for you.
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Nobody else is going to hear this.
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Two things that you need you can master as a podcaster on your journey that's going
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to help you level up your shop.
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The first one is knowledge about your craft.
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That's audio editing, software, marketing, understanding how podcasting works, be under
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the hood, all of that.
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That's super important, knowledge of your craft, and second, knowledge of your audience.
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What do you know about your audience?
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What do you know about their habits?
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How they show up in this world?
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What they are looking for?
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Where they're from?
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How long they listen?
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How they found the show?
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All of these things are super important as podcasters.
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We need to find this stuff out, and we need to develop this so that we can serve our
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So figure out and build on your knowledge of the craft.
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Learn how to use the tools.
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Learn about the tools.
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And if you're like, I don't even know what the tools are, then you know how to reach me.
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Let's talk about the craft, and then let's also talk about the knowledge you have of
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The more you know, the better you can serve them.
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So if you don't know anything about your audience, you need to spend some time on this.
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So knowledge of the craft, knowledge of your audience.
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Two things you need to focus on this week.
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So your podcast will grow.
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We want to talk about it.
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See you over there.