How “Ship It” applies to your podcast.

Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain from 99% on Vimeo.

So, I’ve been really big on Seth Godin after discovering him a few weeks ago. I listened to an interview he did for 43 Folders and it blew my mind on motivation.  There were two concepts that particularly stuck out in the ways I apply them…

Quiet the Lizard Brain – One of the big cornerstones of “Linchpin” is to quiet the part of your brain that is still in the primal “run and hide” aspect, and not letting it control you.  This is the part of your brain that makes you panic when you have to speak in front of crowds or take a jump into a risky situation.  Growing up, my “lizard brain” was screaming me into submission, the more I think about it.  I couldn’t speak up to girls.  I didn’t step up to take on sports.  But these days, I’ve been successful in turning it off.  At some point in my life, I decided to take things head on, even though I still battle this concept from time to time.  16 year old me would be astonished that 29 year old me has no issue walking into a room of people and attempt to figure out what was supposed to be taught in that room at Podcamp that the speaker didn’t show for, or that he can perform lyrics he wrote in front of 20 or 200 people.  Here’s a few ways:

  • Everyone is approachable: Myspace and Twitter has made almost anyone reachable.  I’ve sent emails and messages approaching a number of talent in music and wrestling.  The worse you can get is a “no” or no answer at all.  And I’d hope that if your content depends on guests of a certain field, there’d be a rather large supply to move on to.  Our approach has been successful in bringing us American Gladiators, wrestling legends, and major recording artists.
  • Take on new challenges: Your show grows by trying new things.  I’ve worried about people’s reactions to new content, certain guests, new hosts, etc.  In the end, your audience will let you know, and you fix it next week.
  • Don’t shy on your opinion: Some of the most successful in getting their names out there are the most outragious.  So long as your target audience and, if you’re lucky enough, advertisers, wouldn’t be offended by it, go for it.  The beuty of this medium is you’re not chained to anyone else’s bottom line message and can shape it yourself.  It could be the thing to make sure you’re not a “me too” production.

Ship It – to paraphrase the video above: Seth was successful because he shipped a lot of things, and was successful on a number of those.  As long as you finish it and give it a chance to float or sink, you’ve won half the battle.  It sort of goes along with “”80 percent of success is just showing up” from Woody Allen.  One major hard line I take with my shows that feature weekly, current event-based content is to get something out every week.  And we’ve been pretty successful for most of the four years on one of my shows.  We’ve worked around people’s schedules, brought in new personalities to fill in, had replacement show operators, and killed some sleepy brain cells putting a show out every week.  Content is key, but consistency, I think, is a close second.  Podfading is the enemy…

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