Welcome to edition # 24 of the Loudspeaker.
First of all, I would like to welcome 12 new people who joined this newsletter since the last edition.
If you find the information in this newsletter useful, then do recommend it to your friends and social media circles. All you need to do is ask them to visit https://theloudspeaker.com
Onto this week’s edition.
Self-Appreciation is important
Don’t wait until you’ve reached your goal to be proud of yourself.
-Karen Salmansohn
It’s another year, with newer goals and newer targets to achieve.
But in the midst of all these hustles and this goal-setting, did we forget to appreciate ourselves?
We are born misers when it comes to self-appreciation. Sit down for a few moments to evaluate your performance for the last year and you will find it hard to write down a few points on your achievements.
Why?
Because we are so critical of ourselves, we often do you see some of our achievements as real achievements.
But, do you know something?
One of the most difficult things to do is to create.
Creators are talented folks who keep doing the same monotonous thing again and again only to be seen as master creators by the one who sees those creations.
But we are never able to see ourselves as that master creator.
I do an exercise of writing down all of my achievements as the last page for the year in my Journal (I have been journaling for 2 years now and if you haven’t started yet, then do try it. It is amazing!)
When I sat down to write that last page on the 1st of Jan, I took some time before I could find something to write.
But then, when things started to flow, I could write about a lot of things.
That’s when my business partner, who also happens to be my wife peeped into my journal and asked, “Do you also write about the number of books you have read”?
And I replied, “Absolutely. It’s an achievement for me”.
That’s right. I even wrote about the number of books I had read this year. Last year I read 41 books and this year I had set a target of reading 100 books (inspired by the movie “The Equalizer”).
I couldn’t achieve the target though. But I read 48 books this year which was still an achievement.
Things like “writing 7 twitter threads in 12 weeks” was an achievement for me.
When you be a little less critical of yourself, you are sure to find a lot many things that can be counted as achievements.
But that needs even more effort than self-criticism.
So, before you get into the next year or, the next goal-setting routine, take time out to appreciate yourself for every one of those smallest achievements.
You are amazing and you are a creator.
You deserve to be appreciated, by yourself more than anybody else.
On Twitter
I wrote this thread a couple of days back about some of the lessons I learnt from releasing 100+ episodes in the last year. I am sure you will find value in it.
If you are looking to grow your audience on Twitter, you will enjoy this thread here which is all about growing on Twitter.
News that will Interest You:
- Abode launched their Podcast tool which is a mixture of Descript and many other currently available tools. I used it the last week to see how it works and found it interesting.
- Spotify made a sensational announcement a few days back about doing away with the name “Anchor”. This invoked a lot of curiosity among users and listeners. But the fact is that they are merely merging Anchor and Spotify Podcasters platforms to make it a single entity.
From the Podcast:
The last two episodes were about Call to actions and some lessons I learned in the year 2022. You might find some insightful points in these –
Episode – 86 : How to effectively use call to action in your podcast episodes
Episode – 87 : Lessons I learned from podcasting in 2022
Articles of Interest:
- This article about including seasons in your episode titles is an interesting read especially since it talks about if you really need a season format and how it impacts the feed details.
- If you are planning to pitch your podcast to a network, then this article will help you how to prepare your pitch.
“Useful & Enjoyable & Inspired = Innovative Content”
– Ann Handley
Recommended Reading:
There were a few books I read in the last 3 weeks or, so which were not only interesting but also very informative.
- Keep Going – The creator’s journey can be extremely difficult. It is in fact a loop that keeps repeating. In this book Austin Kleon gives you 10 simple tips to be creative at all times.
- Steal like an Artist – This is the second of the books from Austin Kleon and in this one he tells you why there is nothing called as “Original Art” and how every piece of art is iterative. This is an interesting read.
- Show Your Work – If you are somebody like me who hates self-promotion, then this book is for you. This is the 3rd of the books that I read from Austin. It has some amazing tips on how to make people promote you.
These 3 books together are very short reads and interesting too. So I was able to finish the 3 of them in a little under 2 weeks.
That’s a wrap for this week.
I hope you enjoyed this edition. If you have any questions or, comments you can post them here.
Do recommend the newsletter to people who you think will enjoy it.
Until the next time,
See ya all,
Dilip
