4. How Community Will Take Your Podcast, Your Business, and Your Life to the Next Level

Being a podcaster or a podcast producer can be lonely business. Long nights in your pitch black walk-in closet, the basement, or the forgotten spare bedroom can take its toll on anyone brave enough to enter to wild world of podcasting. The reason so many podcasts fade out after 7-8 episodes (which is so lovingly called "podfading") is because the work can often outweigh the reward, especially when you're just starting out. Luckily, there's an antidote to podfading and burnout, and it's called human interaction, err, community! I've been self-employed for just under a year now, and there have been entire WEEKS where I haven't left my house and interacted with another soul. It's so easy to get bogged down by the routine we find ourselves in when we don't shake it up a bit. When we join a community, preferably in person, we often come away from the evening reinvigorated, ready to take on the world and we're willing to do ANYTHING to make our podcasts be #1 on the charts. Over time, that feeling may fade and we tumble back into the routines and we face burnout around every corner. I HIGHLY encourage you all to find a local meetup of fellow podcasters, artists, creatives, and storytellers so that you stay inspired and don't let your passions and your projects fall by the wayside. The other massive benefit of community is you can grow EXPONENTIALLY faster than if you were trying to learn in isolation. Everyone's ideas and values are slightly different, and it's massively beneficial to experience as many different methods as possible so you can better form your own processes and morals and establish what works best for you. If you're alone all day, as I'm known to be, it's very easy to get struck in patterns that are most likely not optimal or good for the human spirit. If you're not in an area that lends itself to many meetups or gatherings of highly creative people, there are some valuable Facebook groups and forums out there, but not many. Be careful with those. But that leads me to this massive idea. What if WE create our own community that's dedicated to exploring values and ideas around capturing and producing better audio for podcasts?! That's something I'd be super interested in exploring with you all. Please reach out to [email protected] and let me know if you're down to get some ideas flowing with me and other listeners of the podcast. Links: Clean Cut Audio Educational YouTube Channel Clean Cut Audio on Instagram My Vlog on the Importance of Community Podfest Podcast Movement Closing Track: Harmony by Joakim Karud My Signal Chain Hardware: Audio Interface: Apogee Ensemble Microphone: Shure SM7b Mic Stand: Rode PS1A Boom Arm XLR Cable: Handmade... Software: IzoTope RX6 De-Mouth Click FabFilter ProQ3 Waves LinMB Waves Vocal Rider IzoTope RX6 Voice De-Noise Waves L2 Limiter Waves WLM Meter Waves Durrough Meter -Save 10% off the plugins above with this affiliate link from Waves!- *most of these links are affiliate links* For more info, or to ask any questions, check out my website and reach out to [email protected]