Don't Make the Final Form the Cost of Entry

Before I'd recorded a single episode, I was researching podcast studio rentals. I had a very specific picture of what a "real" podcast looked like — 45 minutes, video, the microphones, the whole setup — and I'd quietly turned that picture into the price of admission. So for a long time, I didn't start at all.

In this episode, I'm talking about how often we look at the polished, years-in version of something and accidentally make it our starting requirement. I record this podcast in the corner of the smallest room in my place. When I travel, I've recorded in closets. Some episodes are six and a half minutes long — and posting those brought up a whole different flavor of imposter syndrome. Not "who am I to do this?" but "does my version of this even count?"

Here's what shifted it: the thing I thought was the podcast's weakness turned out to be what people love most. Which taught me something freeing — I had no idea what people actually wanted. And if none of us really know that, the better starting question isn't "what does the impressive version look like?" It's "what actually has to be true for me to begin?"

This Episode Dives Into:

• How we turn someone else's final form into our cost of entry
• The "does my version even count?" flavor of imposter syndrome
• The feedback that flipped a perceived weakness into a strength
• Why we manage an audience's experience before they've even had it
• The one question that cuts through it all
  
  

Who This Episode Is For:

• Highly sensitive people, empaths, and deep feelers
• Anyone sitting on an idea they've wanted to start for months or years
• Recovering perfectionists who wait to feel "ready"
• Creators who redesign their work for an audience that doesn't exist yet
• Quiet leaders talking themselves out of starting before they begin
• Anyone who's made the final form their cost of entry

Related Links:

• Subscribe to my Weekly Newsletter
• Visit My Website
• Work WIth Me
• Get the Book: The Empath Detox
• The Empath Detox Oracle Deck

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Energy Exchange, a podcast for deep feelers and quiet leaders. Here, we explore what happens when we start working with our natural energy in both our business and personal lives. I'm Colleen Wallach. I'm a highly sensitive professional who spent years untangling patterns of overthinking, people pleasing, and playing small just to feel safe. Now, I help others like me step more fully into their power without losing the superpower of their softness. We don't have to be allowed to be seen, and we don't have to push to be powerful. Everything is energy. Let's start this exchange. Welcome into this week's episode of the Energy Exchange. It's about 9 p.m. on Wednesday, so I'm really under the wire here for releasing this on Wednesday, which is my release day, but it's gonna happen. And this podcast and the way that I recorded actually inspired this week's topic. When I first started thinking about having a podcast, probably two years ago now, I had a very specific picture in my head of what a real podcast looked like. So the podcasts that I tend to listen to are on the longer side, you know, 30 minutes, 45, an hour even. A lot of them are on video. I might catch them over on YouTube. They have the microphones, the cameras, the cool studio setup. At one point, I was researching local podcast studios. I thought that's what I needed to do in order to launch a podcast. And even then I remember thinking, I don't know if I really want to talk for 30 minutes or an hour because I know myself and I'm either gonna ramble just to make the thing longer, or it's gonna have to be really structured to do that. And neither one of those feels like me. So I didn't take any action toward it because it just seemed so far away. And in terms of the podcast and actually quite a few other things in my life, I've been thinking about how often we look at the final form of something and then we accidentally turn that into the cost of entry. We see what someone is doing after five years, 10 years, after they've built an audience, bought the equipment, hired the team, figured out the process. And somewhere along the way, we decide that that's what we need in order to begin. And I 100% did that with this podcast. And then last December, a coach of mine was launching a course that had the promise of me launching a podcast within six weeks. And the time frame of that promise made me start thinking that my mental picture of launching a podcast was wildly overcomplicated. So it kind of gave me permission to start where I was. Now, fast forward to today, I record this podcast in a tiny corner of the smallest room in my place. That's where the acoustics are best. When I travel, I literally record in closets. I have pretty basic equipment. I do have a nice microphone at home. When I'm on the road, I'm just talking directly into my phone or using a little tiny plug-in mic. I have a headset that I rarely even wear. There's no video. And I have some really short episodes. I don't know if you've noticed. I have an episode that is seven minutes long. And that includes a 30-second intro. So we're talking about six and a half minutes. And that brought up a whole other thing for me. Like, does this even count? I definitely felt some kind of way posting those early episodes. And there was a little bit of imposter syndrome around that. And not in the way of who am I to have a podcast. It was more, okay, I'm doing it, but I'm not sure that the way I'm doing it counts. Is a seven-minute episode really an episode? Is this too basic? Is this what a real podcaster would do? Sometimes we're not questioning whether we're allowed to do the thing. We're questioning whether our version of the thing is legitimate enough. And I think a lot of that comes from making someone else's final form our starting requirement. And my coach was so great. She is so great. She was like, just posted. Do you even know what people want yet? Do you know how long of a podcast they want? What do you like doing? Put it out there and see how it resonates. And it was really important for me to have someone else saying that. It kind of gave me permission. And it also got me thinking along the lines of, okay, what is the path to least resistance here? What is that least possible amount of structure I can put around this where I just have no excuses and I know I can do it every week. And I don't want to go too far down that road because I did do an entire episode a few weeks ago about that minimum amount of structure required to get us both results and freedom. Today's topic isn't really about that. It's not about building the easiest possible workflow, but there was something really important about letting myself create a version I could actually sustain long enough to find out number one, do I even like doing this thing? And then number two, what I actually wanted this podcast to become. Because those early episodes, the really short ones, they actually took me the longest amount of time. Like I was learning everything. I was learning the recording process, editing, posting, writing descriptions, getting it published, all of it. Now I can bang out a 15-minute episode, edit it, post it, do all the things in maybe an hour, hour and a half, but I couldn't do that in the beginning. I needed the reps, I needed some wins. And if I had required myself to create that 30 to 45 minute, beautifully produced video podcast from day one, I'm pretty sure that I would not have gotten in the reps to get good at it, or I might not have even started. And what's been really interesting and super validating is that most of the feedback I get on the podcast includes something about the length. People tell me that they love how short the episodes are. It's something they can listen to on their 10-minute commute, on the way to the grocery store, while they're getting ready in the morning, or that if they miss a few weeks, they can binge them in a pretty short amount of time. So this thing that I thought was potentially the weakness of the podcast is actually one of the things that people tell me that they like the most about it. And that's been such a good reminder for me, and I really felt compelled to share that in some way. In case you're maybe thinking about doing something, we don't necessarily know what other people want. We don't know until we put it out there and get the feedback. But yet we spend so much time managing other people's experience before they've even had the experience. I created this hypothetical audience in my head, and then I started redesigning something that I hadn't even made yet to satisfy this hypothetical audience. Kind of interesting. And to be clear, the fact that people told me they like short episodes is not what made the podcast legitimate for me. What their feedback showed me was that I had absolutely no idea what people were going to want. And there is something really freeing in that. Because if we don't actually know what everybody wants, then the better starting point is okay, what do I like doing? What keeps me excited? What keeps me in the game? What kind of thing do I actually want to make? Because there's this people-pleasing tendency that a lot of us might have where it's really easy to start shifting what you create around what you think other people want. So do what you like doing and let the people who like that come find you. Well, if you see someone doing or creating what you want to do, don't take their final form, you know, what they've put out into the world and turn that into your cost of entry. Saying to yourself, this is what I've seen doesn't need to become, this is how it has to be done. The better question is really, what actually has to be true for me to begin? Not what's the best possible version of this, or what does the person who's been doing it for 10 years have? And certainly not what would make this impressive enough to prove to everyone that I'm legitimate, that I have earned the right to be doing this. We really only need to ask what literally has to be true for this thing to exist. So going back to my podcast example, I need something to say, I need a way to record it, and I need somewhere to put it. That's literally it. I can add things, I can make it better, I can evolve it, but we don't have to arrive at the final form before we're allowed to claim the starting form. If this is resonating with you, if there's something you've been thinking about doing for weeks, months, years, decades, I don't know, what does the real version of that thing look like in your head? And I'm using air quotes, the real version. Where did that picture come from? What pieces of it are actual requirements? And what are just those nice to have if you happen to have that advanced skill, that time, that money, all the things? Have you made the final form the cost of entry? I think that question can expose a lot. And what might exist right now if you stopped requiring yourself to arrive at some place before you're willing to begin? All right, I'm gonna leave it there. For my business owners out there, I'm launching some fun one-to-one ways to work with me, really focusing on bringing the human touch back into your marketing and your business. Human first, technology second. That's my approach. You can check those out at just onewoo.com. All right, thanks for listening, guys. I will chat with you next week.