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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss the theme of podcast skills and the perspective of Todd Henry, podcaster of The Accidental Creative and also The Daily Creative.
Todd has spent a great deal of time in letting us know that we have to keep “sharpening the saw” (an expression used by Steven Covey in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) which means that we need to sharpen our skills continuously, as well as do up-front key planning for success.
And Todd gives us food for thought in this famous quote from Pablo Picasso: “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
And the key idea that is the take-away from Todd’s micro-episode is: “The skill that you are known for today will be unlikely to sustain you tomorrow. You must continue to grow.”
And we learn the podcasting craft and then come into our own genius in podcasting after much experience — from imitating others to get the experience, then diverging and delivering our own style, framework and VOICE in the podosphere (because we now have learned what works for us due to our growth). Todd can contemplate success when we experience making a “unique mark” and delivering a “unique contribution” in the podosphere.
Sound familiar?
Well, Todd then throws a bit of reality as he splashes the waters of realism in our face — we will hit what he calls “the crisis phase.” And he describes this phase in this manner: “But, then we hit what I call “crisis” phase. This is when we suddenly realize that the work is fine, that it’s delivering on expectations, and that everyone around us seems happy with what we’re doing, but we feel stuck. We’re doing what we’ve always done, and we’re doing it well, but we know that we are no longer growing.”
Now, does that sound familiar?
So before we can stagnate and start to get nervous about our future growth, Todd suggests that an avenue of growth may lie in going down the road of learning and in building your skill — in fact, building a new skill: “Then, you will be able to incorporate it into your existing work and use it to find new ways of accomplishing your goals.”
For the creative podcaster, this is the inspiration that comes with skills transfer or skills-learning that can invigorate you as a content creator and skilled professional.
And it is up to each one of us as podcasters to go beyond our limits and see which new skills we can learn (or adopt) or internalize so that we can go beyond our limits today and have what we need to grow our craft and sustain us tomorrow.
Thank you for your attention.
