Welcome to Digital Podcaster. My name is Dylan Schmidt, your host, and today is a rather short episode, it's a solo episode, I wanted to talk about the unlearning of the perfectionist mentality. This is something I've dealt with. Always, always, ever since I started creating content digitally, which has been around since 2011. I think, maybe 2010 2012, somewhere, feels like a couple years ago. But in reality, it's actually been 10 plus years. Just kind of funny. Also, quick note, on the podcast, I'm going to be breaking away every now and then from the interview episodes, I've got a lot of interviews lined up. But I do want to be able to hop in here, and probably not stick to some rigid type of schedule where it's like this type of interview, I just wanna be able to hop on here and chat or share something with you, because especially interview episodes, they don't always allow for that. And I don't really want anyone to miss anything. And I don't want it to get lost at the end of the episode, after I kind of do a sign off with the interview all that good stuff. So yeah, I thought it would be a good idea to do the solo episode. So today, we're talking about the unlearning of the perfectionist mentality. And it's something that I noticed and why I'm talking about it today is because I've noticed it super common with creators. And I use creators as a term for anyone that's creating content, whether you just take photos, you make videos, you write blogs, you write emails, whatever you do. It's that perfectionist mentality. And it is one of the most pervasive and biggest obstacles I see to people making podcasts consistently to people getting up on social media and growing. And it's really the thing when I've been a part of so many programs, and so many different types of trainings, whether helping put them on or being a part of them. One of the common threads, one of the common themes I see, that isn't always explicitly said to the person that's in the training, but is there is just keep going, keep moving forward, no matter what things will work out, if you keep going. And I do understand that there's two sides of that coin. There's the one side of I don't even know what I'm doing. And then there's the side of, but I don't know if anyone's enjoying it, all that good stuff. And I've been there, I've totally been there, it feels like oftentimes in the beginning, you just keep pushing, and you're not moving anywhere. But that is also one of the reasons why I suggest a couple things. If you're just getting started creating content, if you are on just that beginner side, what I've always recommended is getting help. And that looks like getting help designing things. If you're going to be doing social media, or you're editing a podcast, things like that. Getting help is a huge difference maker, because our brain likes to simplify the whole process of creating, we like to make it seem like it's just a couple of steps, especially with podcasting, you just hit record, you upload that to a podcast hosting service like Buzzsprout, anchor Libsyn, these different types of podcast hosting services, and then it goes out. And your audience either listens, or they don't listen, they either you either grow or you don't grow all that stuff. But that's not really what it is, there's actually a bunch of steps involved. To sit down to record, you have to schedule that time out in your calendar, you have to make sure you have the gear set up to make sure it's not a loud environment. All that good stuff, you have to know what you're going to talk about, you have to know what the show is going to sound like. Are you gonna is this going to be an interview? Is this just a solo episode, all those things to take into consideration. It's a lot for one person. And that's a big part of the reason why I do what I do is to help break that down and not make it so simple, though, that it's a myth in some ways. And that is one of the curse curses of people spending a lot of time consuming content on something like Instagram, because they think that they have this understanding and knowledge of how to do something. And also what happens when they do something. But just because you consume content on social media does not mean that you actually had the experience of what happens when you create the content. Those are two different things. It's like trying if you've never had pizza before, but you've seen pictures of pizza. You'd be like, Yeah, I've had this before. I know what this is like, because I've seen it so much. But if you actually had it, you'd be like, Whoa, this is way better than the pictures. Maybe I'm just a little hungry. But it's true, though. You don't really know what happens until you do it. And it's a big thing that we see on social media is like we feel like we're doing it. And we're really not because it starts to feel like when you engage with the content that you start to take on that identity. Oh yeah, this is what I do. It's totally different. I will say one of the benefits of doing Digital Podcaster is because I've been behind the scenes for years doing podcasting. Never was the host. It wasn't until I've been in the host seat have been able to talk about different experiences kind of see it from a different perspective, it is different than being the editor. And it requires a little bit different part of the brain, I guess, because you realize, like, you have to show up on certain, on one point of view, it's actually a lot nicer, because there's less directing, when you're not the host, because you're not the host. And you're trying to maybe in someone's asking for direction, you're giving them that direction. It's much easier when it's just in your brain, and you know, the direction you want to go. And you don't have to outwardly say that. But then that becomes a skill of me translating to an editor, or a social media person, or an email marketing. Like, there's different other skill sets that are developed, which I'm glad that I started Digital Podcaster. So I could relay those things and also understand those things a bit more deeper. So one of the things that comes up though, when creators are creating career creators is going to create is the perfectionist mentality. And let's just talk about podcasts. Again, specifically, podcasts are notorious podcasters, are notorious for wanting to perfect things. And it's usually not until they stopped perfecting things that a lot of other things happen like they grow, they're able to create more content from the podcast, they're able to have create more ideas, they don't feel so backlogged of things they want to do, because the process isn't slowing them down. I look on the on Reddit, there's a podcasting subreddit. And I see all the time people are like, how long has it taken me to edit this pocket? Like, how long is it taking you guys because it's taking me 12 hours for this one hour episode. And I see that and I can't help but think like, oh my gosh, you need to like let go of that perfectionist mindset because it's gonna weigh you down, you can't create enough content, unless there's like a certain thing behind what you're doing. And I would say this, unless you're doing like a period piece, where this is actually like an expo ze of sorts on something. But generally speaking, for most podcasters, especially if it's like a conversation based, especially if there's not an audience already built. And it's not like it's for some network type thing, I would say, Stop trying to perfect what's being said in the podcast, just record the dang podcast, add a little bit of you know, at the beginning or ending, not too much, and then just publish it stop trying to get it perfect. And the same thing, if we go over to social media, same thing happens all the time. Because you're the expert at whatever it is you're talking about. And you create this piece of content, and you're like, This is so valuable for someone out there. And then you're you keep looking at that content through your lens, and you're like, I can make this better, actually, I'm trying to try to fit in so much in this one post. And it's just overkill, because for one, if it's just the beginner that you're making it for, they don't have the context they're scrolling through, they're gonna miss a lot, they're not gonna ingest all of the things you're trying to get across, you'd be much better off just making a simple post that gets one point across for the most part, even if you're making a list of things, try and make one point across. So if they walked away with one thing, what would that be, and then not trying to spend so much time on every single post making it this most beautiful thing. Unless, again, it's part of like a network or this is for a company for certain reason. And that's what your job is to do is to make every piece different. But for the most part, people I'm speaking with, it's not their job, they're not getting paid extra if something performs particularly well. And that's also what I want to say when it comes to performance. The expert has their idea of what would perform well, even when they're been going for a little while because they have in their mind, what works and all that stuff. But then they start to get bored. So then they start to go, wow, I change it up. But I don't want to change up too much. Because this is the formula that works. So what happens, they just keep doing the same thing, they start to present their work, and it starts to drift or fade away. What I do suggest is letting yourself be free to experiment at any time, just because something is working or something worked. Everyone has different, you know ideas of what something working anyway is just because maybe one post you did on social media got a lot more likes than another post doesn't necessarily mean that the other posts that you didn't do in that style were bad or good or anything like that you have to have a larger data set. So you have to keep trying whatever it is you're trying. But I think people get too hung up on this idea that, Oh, I got this one thing that's working and I need to repeat this thing until the end of time. I just don't really care for that mentality. Because it's hard to maintain. It's hard to keep going when you're feel like one you're boxed in to you have to like spend a lot of time to create something and then three, it's doing yourself a disservice because you reach some level and then you're trying to make everything else that level rather than just letting yourself realize that there is no level and you can just create what you want to create But yeah, so I will say there are, there are a lot of benefits in constraints in itself, even if you make it simple, like I'm announcing this here, but I haven't talked about it much. So in the spirit of this idea of the perfectionist mentality, I started a little secret side project, not gonna announce the name of it on here. But my secret side project is all about the news. I am not a big fan of the news like, not like, I don't know, it just seems like there's a lot of opinion based news out there. It's hard to just get the facts. And so I just don't really pay much attention to the news. I feel like I hear the headlines that I need to hear. But for the most part, I just go about my day, never had any interest in the news. Well, like a week ago, I was sitting on the couch. It was nighttime around six o'clock. I think it was just a reading or something. And this idea popped in my head, and just just kind of like Digital Podcaster. I was like, let me just act on this idea. It's not going to hurt anybody. And it just seems like it might be kind of fun. So I fired up the camera recorded a quick thing where I set the framework, if you will. And it just says, you know, these are the top three news stories for the day, and then the date. And then three of the top headlines me just reading the three top headlines, and then saying, like unfollow, for more, what I did is I published it and immediately started getting, I chose a name for this account, which I'll probably talk about later. But not not in this episode. I just like keeping it kind of totally separate. It's just still, it's still a baby, it's still an infant. Well, I posted it on Tik Tok, and Instagram. And I created a new account, all that kind of stuff. And I've done this before where like I've created a poetry account. I just like having the freedom to express. And I don't think everything belongs on Digital Podcaster. Because that's not what that this space is. Especially the social accounts for Digital Podcaster. It's more podcasts, education, marketing, business, things like that. And it's not really like a place for me to just write poetry and poetry videos. So I make this news website, I even the name like the first name I thought of, it wasn't taken, which it's got the most simple name, and the domain was available. It was like 12 bucks a year. So I buy the domain, I get the social accounts, I post the video, and what do you know, a few 1000 views later and hundreds of followers later and I'm talking like 1000s of views in the first couple of hours. And people were like, I'm here before this blows up. And I'm literally no concept of creating this before six o'clock on the couch to now it's like 730 or eight. And I'm like, wow, this is really moving fast and very easy. And there's no friction at the moment. And we're just going on here. This is so strange. It almost felt like I had this secret happen. And I didn't really know who to tell because it happened so fast that there was like to I call my dad, my dad likes the news. But I'm like, I still haven't even told him he doesn't know. He doesn't listen to this podcast either. But, but I haven't, like really told many people about it. And I'm kind of keeping it the secret. Because then the next day I kind of like, okay, what am I doing with this cuz I woke up and I was like, this is strange, just to create this account. And now I'm like, creating a news personality kind of thing. But um, there's no commentary in it. So I told a couple people, but I still am keeping it relatively quiet. And my thought was like, Okay, I'll just keep this to a 90 day sprint. What happens at the end of the 90 days, we'll see. But I'm gonna just do a 90 day sprint and see what happens. So six days a week, Monday through Saturday, I'm uploading a 15 second or less video, using the framework from the very first thing I thought of, I haven't changed anything. It was just the very first thing I thought of. And it's the only thing that changes is the top three news headlines that I pull from routers, I think it's how it's set this out a little I read the news. It's called like, I think it's called routers, and Associated Press AP, which, from what I've seen are the most non commentary opinion based news. It's, I don't even read the articles. Like I'm not even trying to get into the news of like, what's right or wrong, all that stuff. I'm literally just trying to write the headlines. So I looked at the top headlines. Then I recite those. And then what do I see right away. i Besides all of the like, I'm here before this blows up calm. Comments like this is genius. This is awesome. There are also a bunch of negative comments. And I was like, ah, that's kind of new. I don't really get too many negative comments on Digital Podcaster I've gotten a couple but people are more like shut up. This isn't for me. What are you doing? And I'm like, this is on social media on my social media. You're coming on my social media account telling me this isn't for you is like they must have seen it in their Instagram. real speed or something like that. So I don't really get negative comments, but within like 24 hours of creating this news account from absolutely nothing that speaks on absolutely no commentary other than just reading the headlines. Again, there's no like, Hey, my name is Dylan and all that. None of that. Just your the top three news headlines. I say it all serious, too. And, yeah, and so like, the comments that were like, kind of harsh, like, some of them were just like making fun of my appearances. Some were like, what, what the heck are you doing? Like, we don't need someone like you to do this. We need someone out there investigating and looking into actually the stories and I'm like, I'm not that guy. I don't even really like the news. This is a couple of ways. Like I see a view, this is a couple things. One, it's an experiment for me to see what happens in the news world, because I'm very far removed from that. Like, I just mainly work in educational areas. Just that's where I've been. And I've worked with, you know, mental health people and like things like that. And then the news, it's like, just a totally different space. So it's kind of fun just to go in there into that little world and see, but also kind of the social experiment space of its social media. So there is an opportunity for two way interaction. But I don't interact with anybody that comments on the things I don't say, thank you or not, thank you any of that. I just simply post and move on. I probably shouldn't read the comments. I've read some comments, but I probably shouldn't, because definitely not positive. But I'm not going to interact with comments anyway. So I'm not really looking for that. But I know that once the account grows more, I'll definitely pay attention to the comments, because I'm sure there'll be even worse. But already there have been like a lot of bad ones. And I've only been doing this for about a week. And then so yeah, the other thing is like kind of the social experiment of it, because it's news on social media, there's no commentary, there leaves the opinion for the person viewing it, to make an commentary on it. Whether they agree with what's happening or not, doesn't really matter. Because I'm literally reporting facts. It's not like, what you what do you think about this? It's just, this happened with Russia and Ukraine. This happened with Canada, that type of thing. And so yeah, so it's like, I don't know, just kind of the social experiment side of it. You know, I tell like, I told one of my friends that really watches the news. Like, oh, hey, by the way, I started a news, little new social media channel. Like, I can only imagine like, his mind was, of course he did. He knows I don't watch the news. He knows I don't do any of this. But he knows that I have off the wall ideas. And this all goes back to that perfectionist mentality. So like I said, I started all these little different channels, Digital Podcaster being the main one, of course. And I just just kind of put it out there, I just kind of have fun with it and experiment and do all those things. And I don't really do that on Digital Podcaster all the time. Although this is a little bit of experimentation, I guess, what isn't experimentation. But part of me being able to have that non perfectionist mentality is just getting in the reps, getting the repetitions of putting stuff out there. And whether that's through Digital Podcaster, or some poetry account I make or some news account I make. I'm not trying to get anything perfect I'm doing. I'm simply going through the repetitions. And I've noticed because if I go back and watch six months ago, what a video looks like, or what I sound like all that stuff. It's different. So I know that something's working for the better. Also, audiences have grown. Also, like speaking just again about the news account. It's crazy to think but like, I think it just got 600 followers. I think the last video has like 4000 views or something. So it's weird. It's weird. And it's a fun experiment. I don't know if I said this, but I'm basically doing a 90 day experiment. See what happens in 90 days. And whether I continue with it or not, not really sure. And, and I'm not trying to keep everything perfect. I've tweaked a little bit as far as actually the only thing I've tweaked so far has been today when I posted on it, I added in pictures, three pictures, but it's very simple, very quick. But the whole thing more or less takes me like not exaggerating, maybe 10 minutes or less. And I do have a couple ideas with it. But I'm not going to share that here. Because, again, I don't like talking about something that's still too early to say if it will happen. But the main focus of what I'm trying to share is it doesn't have to be some perfect, executed vision, what you're doing. And if you don't have the outlet to be able to be silly or experiment with new ideas. Make sure you have that because I think that's an essential part to be growing creatively is to not feel like I need to box myself in with this and I can't have fun. You've got to have fun and If you only have one outlet of doing those things, it's just not. It's not a good time. Like, it's, it's not a good time if, for me, I know if I only could talk about how to podcast stuff. That's why I didn't really want to do that on this podcast. So I share all this to say for a couple of things. Where in your own life, are you feeling that you're applying a perfectionist mentality? Maybe you already know? Or maybe you're not sure? If you're not sure, I would ask you how many outlets you have. And maybe you have none. But maybe the first step is just creating the first outlet. How many outlets do you have to create something and share it with others? Because I do think there's a huge, huge importance in sharing it with people, even if it was in person, and you're doing like an art showing that's cool. And scarier than virtual, I will say, while he's personally. But anytime you share it with someone else, it brings a certain realness to what you're doing. Not that it wasn't real before, but it grounds what you're doing. And it creates what you're doing as a sort of value for others. Also, you're not really on the hook, when you create something and then you don't share it. So that's pretty much my message this week is being mindful of that perfectionist mentality you have published consistently, if you're not publishing consistently, where can you apply that. And notice when that perfectionist mindset comes up, please, please, please pay attention to that. And if you need to create a secret account or something like that, to kind of work through those ideas, whatever they are, allow yourself that it's not bad. It's not cheating. It's nothing like that. You're simply working through whatever you're trying to work through. And I don't say like, my news account is secret. It's like public, if you found it, you found it. Cool. I'm not trying to keep it a secret. I'm just trying to not mix the two. And, yeah, and it's just kind of like is what it is also, I don't want, like same with Digital Podcaster. I've never felt like I wanted to be like you must follow this. You must do that. Do whatever you want. Um, no, I, you know, I don't like go to my family or friends and be like, Hey, make sure you like this note, if they, they follow it, they follow it cool. They like something they like something I don't, I don't pay attention to close, because then I start trying to chase this perfectionist thing. And Perfection isn't the goal, really. But I would say perfection is some type of some type of thing I'm trying to achieve. But I create the vision of what perfection is in my own content. I don't really know what that looks like in the grand scheme of things. But I know that when I apply a certain pressure to make something like this podcast episode, for example, there's a certain level of perfection, I'll call it that I know I could aspire to deliver it as. And as long as I feel that I'm applying that pressure. And each piece I create. That's all I got to do. I don't got to make it perfect for anybody. Except really myself. In that perfection is most of the time, just getting it published. Perfection comes through publishing, not through making a perfect piece of content. That's all I got for this week. I hope you're doing good. If you need anything, reach out to hello at Digital podcaster.com If there's someone you think might be a great fit for the podcast, please send me an email send me a DM @DigitalPodcaster mainly on Instagram, YouTube these days. I send a weekly newsletter as well. You can go to digitalpodcaster.com/365 to get on the newsletter for that too. Yeah, talk to you soon.