So you have to think about the source of the feedback itself. Most often that source should not be given as much power as we give it. This is the show for creative entrepreneurs who have a message to share and want to live a life of freedom. Learn how to grow your network, and net worth, hear from exciting guests, and more. My name is Dylan Schmidt, and welcome to Digital Podcaster. Let's talk handling feedback from listeners. And this is one of those things that I am going to talk about both the good and the bad. And when I say the good, I mean positive feedback, people are giving you positive criticism about your podcast. And then we'll also chat about negative feedback. How do you handle negative feedback? And how can you incorporate that into your show? Or do you not incorporate it at all? Let's dive into both things. So let's talk first about positive feedback. I see podcasters and myself included, tend to get more positive feedback in the beginning than negative feedback quickly, let's talk about why that might be I think people are getting more positive feedback in the beginning, because it's a smaller audience. And typically, the audience might know you, right. And if they know you on a personal level, that's going to influence their impression of your podcast, they're going to be more likely to give you a positive review. And also, the positive review might include things that are with your personality as well, if someone's just listening to your podcast, for example, but they don't know anything about you, they're going to have a different takeaway from your podcast, than if they follow you on social media. And they have a full spectrum of who you are, if you post things like that on social media. So you'll find if people know your personality, they know you know a bit more about you, and they listen to your podcast, they're going to probably tend to lean on the more favorable more positive side of things. So what do you do for myself personally, this is how I approach it. I'm not saying you do this exactly. I'm just saying what I do I take negative or positive feedback with a grain of salt. It's just feedback. It doesn't make it gospel. It's not the end all be all, when someone leaves feedback, I've been getting feedback about the short episodes lately, and it's been positive feedback, it doesn't mean I'll only do short episodes moving forward, it's not you know, what I will dictate the show on, but I do incorporate it and go, I'm actually enjoying it too. So let's keep leaning into that. It's been positive feedback that aligns with my vision of the podcast. So I incorporate that into the podcast, I find that I'm happy with how things are going. So I'm gonna leave things as they're going and keep going with them. So when I hear positive feedback, good or bad, whatever it is, I use it as a way to kind of check myself, I do my best to not let it get to my head because I'm not trying to, you know, oh, I got these five star reviews on my podcast. Now I knew I was right, or whatever there is, because there's a lot of the inner game that comes with podcasting. And I'm sure you've heard me mentioned before about how I believe podcasting over a long period of time really comes down to energy management, and how you show up and what you're doing outside of the recording times, that translate to a podcast that people want to listen to. Sometimes it's crazy to think that Digital Podcaster is already on its way to cross over 15,000 followers on Tiktok. And Instagram, I try my best to post engaging short form content there that gives you bite size tips so that you can incorporate things in your show and provide a better listening experience for your audience. Just go to tick tock or Instagram and search Digital Podcaster. And I will see you there. When we're looking at the negative side of things, I think it is important to realize, again, the same things apply from the positive side, on the negative side of things when someone says what they dislike, or they say you should do something different. Again, if you read that, and if you take in any of that information, you really have to check yourself and what you feel to be true. Does that align with the vision of your show? Does that align with what you're trying to do the purpose of your podcasts because they might not have actually enough information by any means to make an informed decision. If someone was like, I listen to all, you know, 300 episodes of your podcast and I come to this conclusion that's different than someone who you don't know actually only listened to 30 seconds of your podcast, and was like I didn't really like it because of this reason. So you have to think about the source of the feedback itself. Most often that source should not be given as much power as we give it. Same goes for positive, same goes for negative, they are a lot more similar than we usually give them credit for. And it's important for us to make the distinction of this is feedback that I can utilize. Or this is feedback that someone is just sharing through the lens of their own experience and what they know to be true, but it doesn't necessarily make it true in the instance of your own podcast. Two things can be true at once someone could be true about what they're saying. And something could be true for the vision of your podcast. And holding whatever it is lightly at the end of the day will help you make your best version of your own podcast and bring that forward to the world. So don't get caught add up on the feedback, but I wouldn't always discredit it. Feedback is necessary. It's like we're human. We are social creatures and feedback is how we grow. So it's important to utilize it but not over weight it or over emphasize it. If you have any questions about this or want me to go deeper on this in the future, please just send me a message on social media or an email to hello at Digital podcaster.com. I look forward to talking to you soon.