Will You Let the Fear of Silence Stop You?

Finland has introduced the world’s first phone-free tourist island. Tourists are encouraged to put their phones away voluntarily, and genuinely enjoy the islands. This article fails to mention every tourist island is phone-free if the electricity goes out…

In today’s newsletter:

• Your Mission: Facing a common fear around podcasting and content creation…and what we can do about it.

• Freesound: Access all the sound effects your ears could ever want.

• Trash Bin: Reddit deleted a bunch of messages, an original iPhone sold at auction for a lot of money, and more.

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One fear around podcasting I've been thinking about lately is this...

What if I record and keep publishing, and nobody listens?

It's such a valid concern.

All that work, you put yourself out there, and then 🦗 crickets 🦗.

Or worse, you get some listeners, they listen to an episode and then bounce.

I say worse because when nobody is listening... you can tell yourself that once people start listening then they'll hear how great your show is.

It's important to examine the host-listener relationship.

Listeners are important. They make up a big part of the show.

But listeners can't be the mission of the show.

It's a bit paradoxical.

You make the show and want to attract listeners. But they shouldn't make or break your show.

A lot of times podcasters overvalue the listener to the point of losing sight of the mission.

Have you ever heard of the saying, "How you do one thing is how you do everything"?

I've found that to be true with podcasting.

Like being in a relationship with another person. You can care for them, you can appreciate them. But it's not healthy to overvalue another person so much you lose yourself in the process.

Social media, podcasting, any type of creating is a lot like that too.

Your audience might show up in huge numbers, some of them might leave, some of them might come back later, some of them might never...

At the end of the day the mission should remain the same - to create something meaningful no matter what.

CREATOR ANTICS