Welcome to Digital Podcaster. My name is Dylan Schmidt, your host, and today I'm recording a podcast episode solo podcast episode from my living room, I've got my dog Wednesday Adams next to me, and I have been making a ton of content. I thought, what a nice idea to sit out here in the living room before it gets too hot out here for one and then I got to turn on the air conditioner and it gets punch gets noisy, but also just the change of environment because I'm always recording in my office where I have everything plugged in. But I do have a microphone, and a laptop I could just bring out here. So first time recording a podcast in my living room. And I gotta tell you, so I'm doing a podcast today for the month of May. And that's been going swimmingly. But I've had an unexpected bonus happen, that I didn't see coming. And I think it's connected to the output for the podcast is carrying over into other ideas. Let me explain. So I normally create little social media videos, I just like creating them, I have fun with it. I'll make like 15 to 32nd Social media videos, post them daily on Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok, sometimes Twitter, sometimes LinkedIn. And it's been awesome. And sometimes they will, in the beginning, they used to take a while to record, I would spend so much time having to set up the camera or figuring out what I'm going to say or how I'm going to say it, or talking to the camera is a little weird, it's kind of uncomfortable at first, I'm coming to the conclusion that nobody feels super comfortable. Just talking to the camera right away. The more you do it, of course, the easier it gets. And if you follow me on social media, or Instagram, specifically, you've seen, probably you already know what I'm gonna talk about, because I've been posting about this in my stories bunch my Instagram stories. And that is, so I sat. So I had me, again, backtrack a little bit more a little bit context. So I was chatting with a friend who wants to make more content. And he was like, you know, trying to get more tactical steps from me of how to do you know, ABC, like, how do I do it? And our conversations would be all over the place. And I could tell that he wasn't necessarily frustrated, but maybe a little bit of frustration, but more like, I'm not doing it, I need to be doing it. And the things that he wanted to talk about were the more linear steps of like, how do I record it? How do I do all this stuff? And it got me thinking like, I knew there was a reason why we were talking around certain things, because there is an obvious tactical thing to making content, right, you press record. You press publish, yeah, you could make it, you can edit it and make it pretty and stuff. But really, at the end of the day, it's record publish record published. And then as complicated as you want to make it, you can then add to it, but you don't have to. So I could tell when I'm talking to him, he was kind of like, okay, you know, certain things out telling me be like, Oh, that's too much detail. Like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna remember that kind of thing. And then other things were like, that want more tactical, and I'm like, Well, you know, there's a balance here, but also I, we kind of came to the conclusion at the end of our call, is that what he needed to do was just give himself the freedom, a certain amount of freedom to make his content, whatever he wants to make it about, don't get too specific with it, talk about whatever it is, because just because you record something doesn't mean it's gonna get published. And what I told him was just whatever he wanted to make content about, make content about it. And don't get super specific. We can take certain nuggets of you know, whatever he records and then decide what to publish. But trying to decide what to publish, at the exact same time when you're just getting started is tricky, especially for something like social media content. And with the podcast, it's a little different, because you're going to spend more energy on it. But with social media videos, it doesn't necessarily matter as much, you can give yourself a lot more freedom. Because one, social media videos don't live as long. Typically, unless you have one that goes viral in the sixth round or something. They don't live as long as like a podcast does where people go back through your content more and more. And so when I was talking to him, I'm like, basically, record whatever it is you want. And then we'll choose from there. But the best thing to do in the beginning, is just kind of work through the comfort of hitting the record button, looking kind of setting up the camera because all those things take time. And after that call I had with him. He was super thankful. I was thankful to even though it was more for him. It was more focused on him. But I don't know something switched. I was like, Oh, just Record a couple of videos because I wanted to make more two person Instagram reels where it's me talking to myself, but it looks like you know, it's two people talking to each other. And I was like, I'll record a few of those. So I wrote a couple of scripts for that. And I sit down, and then I just start recording a bunch of video after video. And in like a two hour span, I record like 89. I wasn't trying to hit a number or anything. Well, I wasn't at first and I just kept recording, recording, recording. And then I hit like, 87 or not 87 I hit like, I noticed I was around 40. I was like, Oh, cool. Let me just keep going. And then I get up till around seven years, and another girl who's 75. So if I was a cool number, and then I was like, Oh, well, I should just go to like my birthday. I was born in 89. So I might as well go to 89. And so I recorded 89 videos, and these videos, if you look at my you know, Instagram, tik, Tok, YouTube, whatever, you'll see the videos, it's me teaching about podcasting, in like 15 to 30 seconds, sometimes a little bit more, sometimes a little bit less. And I like making these videos, because I feel like I'm dialing in the most efficient way to say something. And a lot of people will say, Oh, you know, that's almost too little of time, but you'd be surprised at how much you can say. And it forces you to focus on the important key points. And I don't necessarily think it's good or bad. I don't think it's bad. I don't think short form content is bad. But I don't necessarily think that, you know, it's the only way someone should consume something. But there's a lot of value in short form videos. And I like making them. And I don't always recommend to anybody else make a whole bunch like I'm doing, or that they even need to make the same style of videos I'm making where I'm like teaching on something, it's kind of specific to the type of person that would do that. But I say this, because I'm not necessarily encouraging, make a bunch of videos. And I busted out a ton of videos, what used to take me, I would say, a few hours to maybe script, find the ideas, meditate at the top of the Mount Everest and then sit down and press record all that stuff that would take me some hours. And then I would edit them. And then what I'm doing now or how I busted out so many which I added it up. It's probably like, a little under a video every minute and a half or two minutes. And and then yes, and then fast forward to today. To The Saturdays. I'm recording this, I recorded another like 67. So I think I added it up. It was like 156 reels, or tick tock videos or whatever. Which 156 in like maybe three or four hours, which is a lot. Of course a big part of me now is like, Oh, I'm halfway to a year's worth, just just go for a year. But also, I'm following my energy. And my energy wasn't like, I want to record at something yesterday. Or even today. I talked to my friend again, because he called me this morning and was like, Dylan, I just want to say that was a great conversation. I left in it simmered and I had so much clarity and all this. And he was like, What are your plans for today? And I was like, I'm just gonna relax. Because yesterday was like a high output day. I didn't necessarily feel that it was a high output. But later on I did. It was kind of like maybe I should like, almost second guessing how I really felt. Because after I recorded a bunch of videos, I'm like, Hmm, I don't feel tired. Although I normally feel tired after I make videos. And then today, I wasn't planning on making videos. I was like I should rest. Because that's what I thought I should do. I suppose to rest I made a bunch of stuff. And these are just the videos. I've been making a podcast today. I've been writing I've written 1000s and 1000s of words about podcasting. This week, I wrote probably four or five blogs I wrote last weekend. Last Sunday, I think it was or Saturday or Sunday, I wrote like a five over 5000 word starter guide on how to podcast like a complete beginner's guide for how to podcast. Just going it's like so clear. I'm so in the flow. And it's funny because I think back to all these times where I'm like, maybe I should stop talking about only podcasts. Maybe I should start talking about more other things. And if you listen to the podcast, you know, I don't really talk about podcasts, specifically like the how tos all that much because I just never have been excited about the idea of podcasting about podcasts. I feel like that is for me that feels dumb. Like I just it's not my style. But I when it comes to content, especially social media content, that's what I love talking about and just getting in my groove, obviously more and more. But I've gone through periods where I've like second guessed ash I just talked about PodcastPro talk about something else. And like truthfully, there's all truthfully but I really am really glad and proud of myself, but I'm glad that I stuck with just sticking with talking about podcasts because recording like a bunch about anything, you'll feel like you're running out of things and sharing my own experience. The more I've talked about podcasting, the more I've been able to look at it from all these different angles. And the more I have a deeper understanding of it, and not necessarily that I feel like I know everything, because I don't think at least with podcasts and content, there is a no everything. It's a it's a trial and error. It's like a It's almost a path of discovery, self discovery, its discovery for businesses of the contents for businesses. There's a lot of angles for content, which is one of the reasons why I find it so fascinating. But with podcasts specifically, like giving myself this constraint has been such a blessing in disguise, because it's been able to give me something to work around. It's act as like a totem. I don't, I think there was that movie Inception maybe where there's like this totems like spinning top thing. I don't really remember all the details of that movie, but kind of reminds me I guess of a totem or something like there's one solid thing, and then you revolve around this idea. And that's been so valuable in my content creation journey. I mean, let alone Yes, I have a business about podcasting to help people with podcasts. So there is that too. I'm not saying there's not like a financial gain to talking about podcasts. It's cool. And the two are linked in my situation, because the more I talk about podcasts, the more business I create, would it be beneficial to my business to podcast only about podcasts? Probably. Yeah, probably. I mean, but I'm not really doing this podcasts. This is not like a financial gain. This is not if that was I'd started different podcasts. And it would be strictly about making a podcast, which is not what I feel called to do at the moment. I feel like to create other content about that stuff. So Wednesday, Adams is just passed out next to me right now. So one of the things that came up with the conversation with my friend was he had all this freedom, but he just kind of was like, Oh, you don't know. Like, he's he's a he works with top athletes in the NBA, and top actors, like a list, celebrity celebrities. And he is a professional. And if someone says to do something, he takes it literal. So if someone says do 1000 of this, he'll do 1000 of that. And I kind of forget that, you know, I'm like that, too. If someone was like, do this, I'll go Yes, I'll do it all the way. And when I was talking to him, he was like, you know, he was starting to I could see his eyes light up of like, Oh, you want me to create content, I'll create content about all this stuff. And I'm like, Okay, we need to give you constraints, we need to give you some guardrails, like you can't just be free to roam. Because one, you'll burn yourself out, too. You'll burn yourself out in three Oh, burns. You know, it's just overwhelming for anyone. That's creative, to just think that you can just do anything. While it's true, you can do anything, I think, unless your job is to be like an artist and go full artists mode, I would say almost most people need some type of constraints. Some most people need a anchor to give themselves this box of what they're going to be doing. You know, and that's something I love about making the short form videos is like I got to explain one point in 15 seconds. I don't have more time than that. And for my friend, I was saying like, section out 30 minutes or an hour, I don't you know, he just had a baby. And it's time is limited, but he still wants to do it. So I'm like, instead of just always making it a content creation time, don't live in content creation, because you got to be present for different things in your life, right. So I give them the advice of just sectioning out, save, I think we said, he said on 30 minutes, 30 minutes, going super deep in those 30 minutes. Or being is free to create whatever it is, if that's one podcast, if that's 10 videos, whatever it is, in 30 minutes, but nothing outside of that you can jot ideas down and all that stuff, but box yourself in. And then as you dial it in more and if it makes sense to expand that time. But you don't want to start with all the time in the world. And then try and narrow it down into like 30 minutes. And at the same time, you just you don't want to you don't want to walk into it blindly. I don't think that's a smart idea. If you're looking to create a podcast, any any content, even if you're looking at like writing a book or something. So that was my advice to him. And it was kind of funny because I gave myself I was like well I got an x couple hours to film these videos. And then I was like, hmm, I wonder if I just keep going and then this is going to be a longer episode I guess. But what came up for me while I was making them is I was like realizing I can make these videos so Much faster if I let go of any judgment, whether these videos are good or bad, there's a big part of me that's like, I made all these videos. And some of them. Well, there's no way every single one of them will get posted most likely, I say no way, most likely, there's most likely they're probably not all going to get posted. A good majority of them will be they could all get posted, I don't know. But I don't know how they'll end up, you know, down the line. You know, so I'm not I'm not concerned if everyone gets posted. But I am concerned about being judgment free when it comes to myself. And that's something I noticed in myself a ton, and it with other creators is, when you're making something, you are so quick to be like, Is this good or bad. And when there's no one there to tell you if it's good or bad, you pretty much most of the time will default to it's bad. Or it's you'll you'll start looking for the reasons of it's not good. Because if it was good, you would just move on to the next thing. I think that's at least what I found for myself is if I don't judge, if I remove judgment, I don't there's no like, is it good or bad, I just go to the next thing. And that's what I've found has been the trick for me busting out a bunch of videos in the last 24 hours, is anytime I find myself judging whether this is good, or this is bad, I just go up the like, etc, that like I don't have time. That's not what this is about. Right now, this is an exercise in production, not in reflection, or any criticism whatsoever. And it's just been fascinating, because it's not like it comes up so much that it's stopping me. But it still comes up and I noticed a pop up of like this, I don't know if this one was this one good. Like, I'll find a voice in my head go it was good. And to be able to create without judgment is pretty awesome. And this what this whole podcast has been an exercise in is creating without judgment. And the feedback I've gotten from you has been incredible, as far as enjoying the content, as far as you know, just connecting with what I'm saying. And that's huge. And that only comes because I've been able to create on this podcast without judgment, which is like, if anything, you get nothing else from this podcast. It's like create without judgment is essentially what I am trying to convey to you. And I can't use any more words to describe that because out of them because they used all them in the last 24 hours now. But that's that's what I want to convey to you today is do your best to create without judgment, because that judgment creates such a friction in the process, that it slows everything down. And if you can remove that you've struck gold, you've struggled. That's all I got. So if you enjoyed the podcast, thank you for listening, first of all. And second of all, it would mean the world to me if you would rate or review the podcast on Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you're listening. That helps me that helps the show. And yeah, that's all I got for now. I will be back tomorrow with another episode. I hope you enjoyed this one and I hope you're doing well and I will talk to you soon.