It's hard for anyone to know everything about podcasting.

The most successful podcasters blend what they know with what they've learned.

Their secret?

Abandoning instructions that don't work for them.

Hello and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.

How confident are you in your podcasting skills?

And I mean all the things required to make a podcast from audio creation, to

strategic planning, to more tactical and marketing implementations, to writing

copy and graphics and everything else.

How confident are you in all of those things?

The whole picture?

Chances are there are one or more, or perhaps many things, which

you are not quite as confident about during that process.

So here's what I would like for you to do today or tomorrow or this weekend,

whenever it is you're in podcasting mode.

For me, it's every day.

For you, might be different than that.

I want you to make note of the thing you're about to do for your podcast.

And I want you to break it down into one of two different buckets, and you can

do this on paper, in your head, I don't really care, but ask yourself a question.

Is this thing I'm doing right now, is it intrinsic or is it instructions required?

Let me explain.

Intrinsic things are things that you know deeply.

And specifically, I mean, you have proof that these things

work, is number one option.

If it's an intrinsic, you don't have to refer to anything else.

You just know how to do it.

And you have proof that the thing you're about to do is

worthwhile and actually works.

Or that intrinsic thing is part of the "my way" package, whatever your way happens

to me, because it's important to you.

You like doing it this way.

And it's also something that you know, you've internalized, if you will.

So that's one thing.

Things that are intrinsic that are probably never going to change, or if

they do, they're going to change slightly.

But the other things, instructions required, I mentioned, that's everything

you've been taught about podcasting that isn't yet completely internalized

to you, hasn't yet become intrinsic.

Now, those can be sometimes assumptions that you've made by

watching what other people do.

You assume that's the right way to do it, but you always have

to refer back to something.

"Oh yeah, I need to do that because..."

Maybe you took some classes or some sort of an online course that taught you to do

things that you haven't yet internalized.

So you've got some instructions that you are following or somebody else

gave you these and like, well okay, seems like the good thing to do.

Maybe it's actually a checklist.

Lots of people out there making checklists.

Do this - check.

And a lot of podcasters will follow that checklist to the letter and go through it.

Or even a routine that you've just developed over time that's kind

of part of you, but you're not quite sure why you're doing it.

All of those things are instructions required.

Whether there are actual instructions you have to follow or you're

following someone else's instructions.

And here's what I want you to do with those instructions required things.

I want you to abandon them.

Maybe not all of them all at once, but at least some of them.

You know, take a look at these things that are instructions required and that

you're not really sure the value of, stop doing them or stop doing some of them.

These are the recipes that you're following.

Not every recipe is a great.

Look, my grandmother could boil all of the flavor out of a chicken.

It was a great skill of hers that I chose not to pick up when I cook.

I'm not following that recipe.

That did not give me what I wanted to do, even though I was told to do it.

It's not good.

So all of those assumptions, those instructions required things, I want

you to look at those and really take a good examining of each of those.

That's my message to you on this extremely short program today.

Find at least one of those recipes that you're following, one piece that is

instructions required, and abandon it.

And seek out another recipe if you want.

But what I would rather see you do is abandon it for the idea of doing

something that you can make your own.

Look, we've been doing it for a while.

You've learned how to do the thing.

Throw away the recipe, throw away the A, B, C steps and say, what was the goal?

What was the reason I was doing this in the first place and what feels right?

The idea here is to build some things that are more intrinsic to you,

getting away from the instructions.

I know that some podcasters love checklists and routines, and some of

those people might need a nudge to get them thinking about things differently.

So please share this episode with them.

Maybe it will help them get past that checklist mentality and more into a

- let's internalize some of this knowledge.

And if you love the things that I had to say for you, to you, with you today,

please go to buymeacoffee.com/evoterra, and slide a virtual coffee my way.

That's it.

I shall we be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.