One Year In: 9 Lessons I've Learned from Podcasting

the uplift

What HAVE I learned from a year of podcasting? 🧐

In no particular order, here are (some of) the things I’ve learned -- all life lessons -- from a year of podcasting.

1. When you’re podcasting, even though you’re speaking on a public platform you’re not speaking to everyone. You’re speaking and most people aren’t listening. Also, you’re speaking and some people wish you wouldn’t. And here’s the lesson: so.the.fuck.what. Speak anyway. The people who wish you weren’t speaking are not your people. And among the billions of people who aren’t (yet) listening, there are people out there eager to hear exactly what you’re saying. Say it so they can find you.
2. Your attention matters. The episodes where I’ve sweated stuff have been the episodes that matter the most to me. They’re the ones I remember, that I’m glad exist. It’s easy as a college administrator to have the experience that you crank stuff out - you make decisions, revise policies, attend events – and it’s all important to someone but not deeply meaningful to your soul. Doing work that isn’t meaningful turns out to be a hard habit to break, especially since we live in a world that rewards quick responses and regular presence. Sometimes I still crank my work out. And sometimes I am able to give episodes more attention, and that turns out to be deeply rewarding.
3. Podcasting is almost as cathartic as journaling, and I’ve come to appreciate the effects of having the discipline to think about something well enough to say anything at all about it. I’ve been exploring recently how to carry that discipline into my writing. We’ll see if anything comes of that.
4. A year of doing anything builds habits - for better and for worse. When I started the podcast I had no idea how to do any of its component parts, except the writing. Everything else as I’ve learned as I’ve gone. And every now and then I’ve realized that I keep doing something the same way I learned it - because doing something over and over makes it a habit. So it’s been beneficial for me to step back and look at my habits and structures, and either embrace them or revise them.
5. Podcasting has changed how I listen to other podcasts. I sometimes listen for content, but I’m always listening for editing. I listen for production. I listen for the narrative arc. There’s an analog to how I read. I love reading and sometimes I read with the intention of losing myself in what I’m reading. I read, quite literally, for the physiological pleasure of reading. I’m also a trained scholar of literature and so sometimes I read with the intention to explore the writer’s use of structure, character, the use of imagery. I’m also trained in critical theories so sometimes I read with the intention of understanding a feminist take on a text, or I read and contemplate what I think about the text from a new historicist perspective. I can, somewhat but not fully, turn these faculties on and off at will. I could not have done this with podcasts a year ago, because I didn’t know enough about how to create t

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I also coach women leaders (individually and in groups) and facilitate campus workshops. Learn more at the website.
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