5. What If Nobody Listens? Overcoming ‘What If’ Podcasting Fears

Do you have a 'case of the what ifs' when it comes to starting your podcast? Worries like "What if nobody listens?" or "What if people DO listen and they hate it?!?" I struggled with this myself, and in today's episode, I'm sharing how I overcame my fears.

Mentioned resource:
Mel Robbins' podcast Episode 105.

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This episode was produced by me, The Podcast Teacher! Contact me at Hello@ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Hey, hey, and welcome back. Before we get into the meat of today's episode, I just wanted to say a quick but huge thank you to everyone who has supported the launch of this podcast. It was a major success, and I'm going to break down the secret sauce in next week's episode. For today, I want to talk a bit more about the process of how this podcast came to life. I mentioned in a previous episode that this podcast has taken me years to launch. I'd think about starting 1, and then I'd come down with a case of the what ifs. What if no one listens? What if people do listen and they hate it? What if my launch is a public flop for everyone to see. What if people leave nasty reviews? These what ifs would pop into my brain and then start a doomsday spiral into bigger things like, what if my business fails? What if I have to go back to a 9 to 5? And within 5 minutes, I would be completely consumed by the what ifs, and I had talked myself out of starting a podcast.


This cycle would repeat itself every few months. Coaches, colleagues, and friends would often suggest that I start a podcast. I'd briefly contemplate it, the what ifs would start, I'd fall into the doomsday spiral, and the podcast was once again off the table. About 6 weeks ago, one of my coaches and fellow group members on a call brought it up again. I had just gotten through a launch of my podcast Startup Academy program that didn't go as well as I had expected. And I knew that the biggest reason was just my lack of visibility in front of my ideal students. So I considered the suggestion of starting a podcast a bit more seriously than usual. I deal with generalized anxiety, and I'm no stranger to the what if spiral.



Over the years, I've received a lot of coaching and support to help me stop the spiral before it gets out of control. I'm going to share a couple of things here that help me get over my what if fears and actually get this podcast started. I think one of the biggest challenges is that the what if questions have potential to turn out to be true. Most of us don't seriously worry things like what if aliens invade and take over the planet. We worry about things like, what if no one listens to my podcast? No one listening to the podcast is a real possibility. It hits closer to home. So one of the tools in my what if doom spiral toolkit is to envision the reality. So let's continue on with this particular what if scenario.



Say you launch a podcast and no one listens. Literally no one. Let's imagine the reality of what that looks like. You'd be disappointed, maybe you'd use some coping mechanisms to help yourself feel better. Perhaps it would be tough to find the motivation to keep recording. But is your life over? Is it really the worst thing ever? No. Of course not. I went through this exercise myself.



And I envision that after you process the disappointment, you'd simply either choose to keep trying or choose to stop podcasting. When we stop to envision the reality, we can see that having no one listen is not really that scary after all. Now is it? Of course, it doesn't feel good, and we don't exactly want that to happen. But, you know, life is not going to be over if that becomes the reality. You could also adapt the approach of hoping for the best but preparing for the worst and go in assuming no one will listen. That way you're not disappointed if no one does. 1 of my friends actually started her show with this attitude, and she chose to do a podcast to practice her speaking skills and flex her muscle of consistency, something that she struggled within the past. And she got so used to assuming that no one was listening, that when someone emailed her about an episode, she was actually a bit caught off guard.



Okay. So I used the example of no one listening because that's one of the most common podcasting fears, but you can apply the same concept of imagining the reality and or hoping for the best but preparing for the worst with any fear that you have. Usually, the what if spiral itself is worse than any actual possible outcome. Let's move on to more what ifs. What if you don't start the podcast? So kind of flipping the question around and kind of giving yourself an out. As I mentioned, for me, the most recent idea of starting a podcast came out of conversations debriefing my not super successful fall launch. In order to increase my chances of having a more successful launch next time, I needed to do something to increase my visibility and build the know, like, and trust factor. So what if I didn't start the podcast.



I would have to choose another avenue for visibility and the know, like, and trust factor, but I wouldn't have to start a podcast. Me, personally, I am kind of desperate to get off the social media hamster wheel. So I wasn't excited about the idea of short form video, which, of course, is a very popular strategy right now. Podcast guesting was a contender and is still on my list, by the way. But I didn't love the idea of putting my entire visibility strategy into the hands of people that I don't know very well yet. Repeat that thought process with a couple of other strategies, and I was back to contemplating podcasting. So asking this particular what if question help to me move closer to a decision because I didn't like any of the answers when I asked what if I don't start a podcast. A couple of days later, I was relaxing in the pool.



Thank you, Florida weather. And I was half letting my brain wander and contemplate things on my mind, such as starting a podcast. And I was half listening to some of my personal interest podcasts. Mel Robbins came into the rotation, and it was episode 105, titled 6 Magic Words That Stop Anxiety and Overwhelm. I'll include a link in the description in case you want to go listen for yourself because Mel's explanation goes deeper than mine. But spoiler alert, I'm going to tell you those 6 magic words. They are what if it all works out? What if it all works out? Suddenly, I was able to turn my negative what ifs about starting a podcast into what if I help people that I would never have reached otherwise? What if this visibility strategy helps me increase program enrollment? What if this content helps people for years to come. What if it becomes the best thing I've ever done in my business? I should pause and clarify that I had heard the what if it all works out phrase before, but it just hit at the right moment in the right way from Mel's delivery.



So right then and there, I decided that I was going to do it. I was going to start my own podcast. I did not know if it would be successful. I still don't. Yeah. The launch went really well, but the launch is an event in isolation, and it isn't necessarily a predictor of future success. This is a constant experiment. So if you have a case of the podcasting what ifs, I encourage you to flip it and ask yourself, what if it all works out? Make sure that you're following podcasting for introverts on your favorite player so that you don't miss next week's episode.



I'm sharing the secrets from my successful podcast launch that landed me in Apple's top 20 for my category and got me over 150 downloads on launch day. Talk to you soon.