The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 343 - Dance Like Somebody’s Watching

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Pete.

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: Are you familiar with that quote, "Dance like no one is watching?"

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know who it's attributed to. It's probably attributed to like four thousand different people, like a lot of these famous quotes. But yes, "Dance like no one's watching." Yeah?

Jen: Yeah, I think so. And maybe it would have been responsible for me to look it up before we hit record, but here we are. Well, I have a different thought, which is to dance like someone is watching.

Pete: Oh, I knew you were going to say something like that. Alright, this is great. I do not like the thought of dancing while someone's watching, so I'm already uncomfortable. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Okay, Pete, this comes up because I learned recently that a person who I deeply admire, respect, look up to, really know and love their body of work, listens to our podcast.

Pete: Oh my god, no way. No way. I really want to know who.

Jen: And it's so funny, because my daughter, when I told her this, said, "Oh no, have you ever said anything about her?"

Pete: Not, "Oh yes, how great. Like, what a compliment to you." It's straight away, "Oh no." That's so funny.

Jen: And I said, "I don't know."

Pete: Quick, search the transcripts.

Jen: Thank goodness, Pete, I recently made searchable transcripts. And it turns out, Pete, yes, I have said things about her work. And I've only said good things, but it never in a million years occurred to me that she would hear them.

Pete: Hmm. Ah, oh dear.

Jen: So I was like, huh, we record in such a bubble, you and I. And we never know who's listening unless someone actually says to us, "I'm listening." Well, this person has said, "I'm listening," and I'm like, wow, what would I be doing differently if I imagined that some of my heroes were actually listening every week? Like, would I phrase things differently? Would I google the thing I'm going to quote before I actually quote it? Like, it's made me really think a lot about that.

Pete: Yeah. I feel tension in all of this.

Jen: Right?

Pete: And I feel like I could easily get onboard with an argument for either side, which is maybe worth unpacking a little.

Jen: Me too.

Pete: So, part of me loves and thinks some of the benefit of our podcast is that we forget that people listen.

Jen: It's so true. Hi, listeners.

Pete: Not in a negative way because we don't love our listeners, because we do love our listeners. But in a way that is trying to stay true to what this is about, which is, selfishly, for me to have conversations with you that benefit me and my work, and ultimately, as a result, benefit our listeners. And hopefully, that feeling is mutual. And where I feel tension is, if it wasn't about that, if it was about constantly being aware of what our audience wants to hear and wants us to say, or constantly being worried about who's listening and what they might interpret, would we lose the essence of what makes The Long and The Short Of It, The Long and The Short Of It? Would I start to not share funny anecdotes or stories, or be as vulnerable because I'm worried about the fact that a mentor might hear them? I don't know. And then, on the flip side, I'm like arguing with myself. I like the idea of thinking about, "How would I show up if someone I really respected was listening?" Which, by the way, same. There's people that I really respect, that I know listen.

Jen: I know, it's crazy.

Pete: That's like, saying this out loud for the first time. But I want to be aware of that and think about that, because it means I'm less likely to phone it in, I think, and I'm more likely to take it a little seriously and be a pro. And I've long thought about this idea of like, take your work seriously but don't take yourself so seriously. And I think the "take your work seriously" is easier to do if I think about the fact that, "Oh, people I really respect are listening." So, I'm like...I've been spending a lot of time in a children's playground. So I'm on a see-saw right now between awareness of my audience and wanting to show up for them, and awareness of the fact that we do this because it energizes us, and I think that's what makes it helpful for the audience, and I don't want to lose that. So, that's my see-saw conundrum.

Jen: I agree with everything you just said. It feels a little like a tug of war, and maybe both things are simultaneously true, that it has its pros, it has its cons. The question that it has really brought up for me is when you know more about who is in your audience, do you need to reconsider who it's for? Because you and I went into creating this podcast very intentionally, very thoughtfully. We did a deep dive on who it's for, who it's not for, what it's for. And our audience has different subgroups that we did not consider this would be for, but it turns out it is for them, at least they think it's for them. So, does this then mean that we...not should, but we could expand our idea of what our audience is?

Pete: Yeah, it's a fascinating question. I feel like one's, "Who's it for," will naturally change over the course of three-hundred-and-something episodes, probably because we changed over the course of three-hundred-and-something episodes. And so, who we were working with and what we were talking about way back in Episode One is likely different to who we are working with and what we are talking about and interested in and working on in Episode Three Hundred. And so, I think the, "Who's it for," is dynamic, is what I'm trying to say.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: But I don't know the answer to your question, of like, knowing that, what does that change? And does anything need to change? Are you breaking up with me? What's happening?

Jen: Oh my gosh, no. Okay, so here's a story from the past, Pete.

Pete: Alright.

Jen: Once upon a time, I met a guy named Pete Shepherd.

Pete: Right.

Jen: And my "who's it for" and "what's it for" was very clear. And I did not criss-cross my audiences. I had two separate audiences. I had one which was my creative artist audience, and the other which was my corporate leadership audience. And a guy named Peter Shepherd once asked me, "What happens if you lift the walls?" And when I did, and I allowed those two audiences...which, I knew they both existed. But when I allowed them to co-exist, everything changed in how I was approaching my work. And I'm really having existential questions here. Does lifting the walls again mean exposing myself to the audience that was behind the wall, that I didn't know was there?

Pete: Mmm. I'm really thinking about that question. That's juicy. I don't know if this answers it but the thing I'm thinking about is, the walls we create are often...I mean, in the example that you described, the wall that you created was very much demographic-specific. So the demographics of the people that you serve are that they are usually, I mean, at the time, based in New York City. They are, you know, working within the arts. They are hoping to be on a Broadway stage. They are very specific demographically-consistent themes, I would say. (Feel free to correct me if that is incorrect.) And what I think is interesting about lifting the walls is, what we might actually discover is that there are psychographics which are more important and more consistent with the people that we're serving than the demographics. So part of the psychographics of our listeners that maybe sat behind the wall that we didn't know about is, well, they're growth-minded. They're open. They're curious. They're leadership nerds. They love reading. They are fascinated about questions. They're sick of three hour podcasts, and they just want like twenty-minute, you know, little digestible things. Like, all of these preferences and values and psychographics can exist, regardless of whether you're someone that goes to Jen Waldman Studio. And so, maybe it's always been the case that we're serving a broader group of people, if you look at it from a psychographic perspective as opposed to a demographic perspective. Does that make any sense at all? I'm like off on my tangent here.

Jen: It really does. No, no, it really, really does. I'm having this thought right now that maybe is connected to what you just said, and maybe it's not, you'll tell me. This idea that you and I both have and share is to adopt a beginner's mindset, allow yourself room to grow, get comfortable with not knowing everything, making mistakes, etcetera. And at a certain point, in a person with a public persona's development (and I don't think you and I are at this point, but I think this listener I'm talking about is), you reach such a level of...what's the word I'm looking for? The word that's coming up is "status".

Pete: Status. Yeah.

Jen: That people would not treat you like a beginner, even if you're adopting a beginner's mindset.

Pete: Mmm.

Jen: So maybe I'm now coming around the other side of this argument, which is, maybe the reason the podcast is attractive to a person who has achieved a serious level of success is because we don't know they're listening. We assume and "allow" them to have a beginner's mindset.

Pete: Oh, now you're getting somewhere. Alright, so this reminds me of the idea, I feel like we would have mentioned this at some point, of pedestals preventing friendships.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: I can't...oh gosh, I'm like, I'm doing a Jen. I can't even remember who to attribute this to.

Jen: I attribute it to you, so there you go.

Pete: But I read it somewhere, and I will find out where and I'll put it in the Box O' Goodies. And I always loved this idea that pedestals prevent friendships. And what I recall translating that to is when we put people with high status or people that we really respect, that we really admire on a pedestal, it prevents us from actually connecting with them like another human and having the opportunity to actually be friends with them. Now, I've seen this play out with people that I know and trust and respect. And I have to almost remind myself that while you trust and respect and like really idolize this person, you're also kind of friends with them, so like act around them or talk to them or ask them questions as you would a friend. Because not doing that prevents some form of human connection which, clearly, they value enough to want to stay in touch with you.

Jen: Hmm.

Pete: So, I think you might be onto something. That maybe part of the beauty of a podcast for someone with high status is, there's like an anonymity to it, which is like, "Oh, I can just lurk in the audience here. And no one has to treat me any differently because I have, you know, written a book or written a show or whatever I've done, whoever I am, and I'm really well-known and really well-respected and I have high status." It might be part of the magic, is that we don't...I mean, "pander" is the wrong word, but we don't change our messaging because we know that one person is listening.

Jen: Okay. And then, this comes back to your psychographic piece. Which is, I think it's true then, that who this is for, who this podcast is for, is (well, this was our original tagline) curious people. People who want to grow. People who want new ways of thinking. People who want to experiment, regardless of how far along in their journey they are. They always want to feel like they're at the beginning.

Pete: Yes. And that, as we know, completely transcends industry or profession.

Jen: Right.

Pete: I mean, we have had emails and know that we have listeners from professors at Harvard, to Broadway stars, through to leaders in some of the biggest companies in Australia, I'm sure some of the biggest companies in the world. We have leaders that are listening. We have people that listened in Antarctica. We got an email from someone who was in Spain. Like, the demographics of where we might have started, of like, "Well, I have a studio in New York, and I have a community here in Melbourne," when we first started, it's expanded so far beyond that, from a psychographic perspective. I think about this as like, what's the Venn diagram of all these random, demographically dispersed people? And where's the overlap? And I feel like the overlap is the psychographics of, "I'm super curious. I am maybe a little more light-hearted in how I think, because I'm happy to listen to people go on crazy tangents and tell silly stories. And I like trying to translate stories from the arts into stories of business, and vice versa, and figure out how that applies to my not-for-profit, if I'm running one." And look, I think there's a consistent quality in the listeners, regardless of where they fit.

Jen: So I guess the challenge for myself (and then, I will set this challenge out to you, listeners) is, where have I and where have you been a bit myopic in your understanding of your audience? Regardless, like as you were saying, regardless of what industry you work in, what are the psychographics? What are the hopes, fears, dreams, desires, values that the people you are making your work for share? And then, how do you take that information and use it as fuel to improve the quality of your work?

Pete: Definitely. Which feels, as the person producing, much less like I have to change everything and pander.

Jen: Right.

Pete: Because if part of the psychographics that we were to come up with is, "Oh, it's for, you know, curious people who like asking questions, who are always looking at things from first principles, who are looking for connective tissue between the arts and business and entrepreneurship and leadership," then, I'm like, "Oh, great, because that's me. That's what I want to do. They're the conversations I want to have. So, I don't actually have to change anything and pretend like I'm not someone that I actually am. I just get to keep showing up as Pete."

Jen: Wow. Okay, this whole conversation really took a...I can't even call it full circle. I'd call it like a squiggly path, because we started with, "Dance like no one's watching," then, "Dance like someone's watching," and then, it became, "Dance like the person you understand and are making it for is watching."

Pete: Yeah. "Dance like you're watching."

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.