81: How to Manage Your Podcast-Related Stress

This is Grow the Show, the podcast to help you grow your podcast. My name is Kevin Schmidt, then I am your podcast growth coach. And today my goal is to help you to feel less anxious and overwhelmed with growing and monetizing your podcast. And so I'm going to start this one with a story. So just a couple of weeks ago, I attended podcast movement, which is an incredible podcasting conference. I believe it's the biggest one in the US. This year it happened in Dallas, Texas and it was awesome. I showed up. It was three days long. I did not speak at this one, which I thoroughly enjoyed because I showed up and had no agenda. I spent the whole time just attending sessions and talking to people and getting to know people. It was amazing. And I learned a lot over the two days. Now what I always do when I leave a conference is on the flight home, I don't get internet and I write down all of my takeaways or I put it in a Google Doc, all of my takeaways from the conference. Who did I meet? What follow-ups do I want to make? What did I learn? What ideas did I have? All that stuff. I just brain dump in a document so I can capture it all before I re-enter the craziness of day-to-day life and essentially forget everything. And so as I was on the flight home, I couldn't help but notice that I actually felt more anxious than I did when attending the conference. And this was weird because on one hand, I had tons of new ideas and I had learned a bunch of new stuff about how to grow and monetize a podcast. So on one hand, I was really excited to get back home and get back to work on Grow the Show. But on the other hand, I had this weird extra hum of anxiety when thinking about growing and monetizing the podcast and so for the first hour of the flight, I was typing in my takeaways and I was just like, what the heck, why do I feel nervous? Why do I feel worse right now about my podcast, even though I just learned all this stuff and met some incredible people? And I sat with it for a minute, completed my brain dump and then just really, really sat with no book, no music, just sat there and tried to look and see why am I feeling so nervous. I couldn't figure out the answer until a couple of days later when I was coaching my client in the Grow the Show accelerator. This episode of Grow the Show is sponsored by Riverside.fm, the leading platform to record studio quality podcasts. More than 70,000 other podcasters use Riverside, including myself, GuyRaz, GaryVee, Spotify, and even the New York Times. Riverside is not only great because it has unbelievably high recording quality regardless of your or your guests internet quality, but it also gives you separate audio and video tracks for each person speaking. It's high tech, but easy to use. Unlike Zoom, you don't have to have anything installed on your computer and your guests don't either. And did I mention that the audio quality is way better? If you're recording your interviews remotely, get off of Zoom now and hop into Riverside for your next interview. Your listeners will thank you. Head over to Riverside.fm and use code Grow that's GROW to get 60 free minutes of recording and 15% off a membership plan. The link is in the show notes. And so the way that I coach my clients in the accelerator is via a call every Monday and Thursday. And so it's one on one coaching in a group setting and I had a client join the call and ask me about four or five different podcast growth strategies that they wanted to implement all at once. And they asked me about using TikTok. They asked me about using LinkedIn. They asked me about SEO. Then they asked me about sponsorships and then like just all these different things. It was a new client in the accelerator program. And I get questions all the time from both my clients and just my audience of podcasters who are feeling overwhelmed with all the different things to do. The content to repurpose and the different content to make and all these new tools to use and all the stuff that they should be doing. And it was in that moment, just a few days after the conference when a Grow the Show client asked me which strategies they should be using that it clicked for me as to why podcast movement made me feel more anxious. And as I left the conference, I had this huge list of new things that I should be doing to grow and monetize my podcast. But here's the thing. I'm already doing tons of stuff all the time. My schedule is full. I don't have any more time. And so I don't have any room for any more sheds. You and I both have a massive, massive to do list as podcasters. The list is totally endless in every single time we discover a new strategy or find out about a new tool or Kevin puts out a new episode of the Grow the Show podcast. You add one or multiple things to your to do list as a podcaster. The thing is though, that to do list is endless. It never ends. And seemingly when you cut off one head, two more things appear right across one thing off, two more things appear. And so since that to do list will forever be endless, the only way for you to successfully grow and monetize your podcast is to prioritize the items on that list. And in my opinion, the best way to do that is to assign each and everything that you need to do one of three categorizations must do should do or could do must do should do and could do must do items are the things where if it doesn't get that. Everything falls apart, it's over and you fail. So examples of must do items for a podcaster are record episodes, right? You must do that in order for the podcast to exist. You must perform audience growth activities. If all you do is make episodes and publish them, your show will not grow. That is a must do, right? So those are the things where if you don't get it done, everything falls apart. Your show is not going to grow. It's going to fail. Then there's the should do's. These are the things that you know you should get done or at least the things in life that everyone tells you you should do. And then there are could do things. These are the things that are nice to have. They're optional. They're definitely not required right now, but you could do them. And so here's the thing. We all as podcasters have these massive to do lists. And so we constantly are drowning in that list. And so if you took that list and you marked what the must do's are, what the should do's are, and the could do's are odds are number one, you only have time for the must do's. And number two, there are some must do's that you are skipping for should do's and could do's. And here's the thing, podcasters and entrepreneurs constantly drown themselves in should do's. Why is that? Well number one, because the must do's are usually scary and uncomfortable and we're afraid of doing them. We don't want to do them or we're afraid of failing at them. So we push the must do's to tomorrow. And instead we use today to take care of a bunch of easier, low pressure should do's. I should really do this. We spend our lives shooting all over ourselves. And so how can we combat that? In my opinion, the best way to prioritize and to feel less anxious about what you're doing is to remove the word should from your vocabulary. In life it is my belief that there is no such thing as should, should does not exist. Nothing should be it either is or it isn't. There's nothing that you should do should implies judgment. You could do it or you must do it. And so everything in my opinion, everything in life, business and podcasting is either a must do or a could do. And so from now on, whenever you ask yourself with your podcast, should I do blank? My challenge to you is say there is no such thing as should. There is only must or could. And so for all of the new strategies that everyone says you should be doing. You should be on YouTube. You should be repurposing your content. You should be publishing more. You should be monetizing with multiple streams of income. You should, you should, you should, you should, you should. Anytime you hear that, stop and ask yourself. Should doesn't exist. There is no such thing. So is that thing a must do or is it a could do? Is this something that I absolutely must do in order to grow or monetize my podcast? Or is this something that I could do to grow and monetize my podcast? If it's a could do before you do it, you must ask yourself. Have you already done everything that you must do? If not, I would not touch any could do's until you have completed the must do's. Then you look at your list of could do's and determine which of these is now a must do. So bringing it back to why I was so uncomfortable coming back from podcast movement, it was because the vast majority of sessions that I attended, the person on stage spent the whole time telling me about a new thing that I should do. And I took that at face value. And so at the end of the conference, I had this massive list of new things that I should do. And the thing about the word should is that it implies judgment. So if something should be, then if it is not, that is bad. And so if you're telling yourself that you should do something and then you don't do it, you will then judge yourself for not doing that thing. And if somebody else tells you that you should do something and you take that at face value and you believe, yes, I should do that. And then you don't do it, then you judge yourself for not doing that thing. But if you instead say, should doesn't exist, that thing is either a must do or a could do, then it makes it a little bit easier for you to decide whether or not to do that thing. And by the way, in speaking with other podcasters at podcast movement, you know, just like in the halls and on the expo floor, and I would ask them about what they got out of the event. Pretty much everyone I spoke to just kind of gave a sigh and they said, there's just so much that I have to do. And so I'm pretty sure that a lot of people who attended that event felt the same way when they left. They felt worse, even though they had learned such new, cool information. And why is that? It's because they learned a bunch of new stuff and all of that stuff was presented to them as a should. And so now that podcaster is going to judge themselves for all of those things that they don't do. And so bringing this all home, this episode is here to make you feel less anxious and overwhelmed with your podcasting journey. And the way that I think you can do that is by eliminating the words should from your vocabulary. I, as your podcast growth coach, aim to never tell you you should do anything. And if you listen back recently, I've been really working on this to not tell people that they should do anything. You must or you could. And hold me accountable to this. If you catch me telling you you should do something, then ask, Kevin, is that a must do or a could do? Because as long as you're told by people that you trust that you should do something and you don't do it, you're going to judge yourself. And it's a lot better of a frame for yourself if you decide for yourself. If that thing is a could do or a must do because otherwise, you're going to should all over yourself. And at the end of the day, when you look at your to-do list, you've crossed out the must-dos. But there's a million should-dos on your list that aren't crossed out. And you'll go to bed judging yourself for not doing all the things that you should do. When in actuality, should doesn't exist. The universe does not care whether you do or not do those things. And it's totally okay to not do stuff that you could do. And in fact, I would put forth that you will be more successful if you don't do things that you could do and exclusively do the things that you must do. And so if you ask me in the future, Kevin, should I be on YouTube? Kevin, should I rename my show? Should I rebrand? Should, should, should. I will say you could, sure. But must you? That is the question at hand. And once more, my invitation to you today to instantly lower your anxiety and overwhelm over this whole podcasting journey is understand that you can't do all the should-dos. All the people like me on the internet who are here telling you what to do will use the word should. And every time we introduce a new tactic or tool to you and we say you should do this, it's going to add yet another thing to your should-do list. And the longer your should-do list grows, the more you judge yourself and feel like a piece of crap and feel like a failure. The honest truth is that social media for a podcaster is not a must-do. Having a YouTube for your podcast is not a must-do. There are many, many, many different things that you have been told you should do as a podcaster. Repurposing content is another one. It is not a must-do. And so for each of those shoulds, if you can find one example of somebody who was successful without doing that thing, guess what? It's not a must-do. It's a could-do. So my invitation to you is to look at all the things that you and other podcast experts and even I have told you you should do and truly determine if it's a must-do or a could-do. And for those that you're not sure about, if you really aren't sure if it's a could-do or a must-do, hop into the Grow the Show Facebook group, make a post asking whether X is a must-do or a could-do. The community will likely debate on whether it's a must or could-do, but either way, just that line of inquiry will help you feel less anxious and judge yourself less for doing all these things that aren't required for success. So anyway, I'll stop rambling. I hope you got value out of this. I hope it made sense. And for your podcast and in life, I invite you to eliminate the word should. Stop saying you should do anything and consider forcing yourself to decide whether something is a must-do or a could-do. Make sure you do all the must-do's and who cares about the could-do's. So that's it for today. Hopefully this helped you to feel a little less anxious and get you clarity on what the must-do's are for podcast success. And if you're not sure, I'd love to chat with you. Let me know in the Grow the Show Facebook group. My name is Kevin Trudeland and I'll see you in the next one.