Technology
Oversharing Flaws and Failure Porn
In this episode of 'Build the Big Podcast,' David Hooper explores the balance between showcasing flaws and avoiding 'failure porn' in content creation. He emphasizes the importance...
Oversharing Flaws and Failure Porn
Technology •
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Interactive Transcript
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Big podcast.
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If you've been online for any length of time, meaning if you just today, for the very
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first time, God online and spend 10 minutes on Facebook or social media, or maybe you
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sign up for an email list and got an email from somebody trying to sell you something.
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It is very likely that you saw somebody read something from somebody or heard somebody
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speaking in a way that a lot of people feel is over sharing.
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I'm going to dive deeper into that.
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It's built a big podcast, the marketing podcast, four podcasters.
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If you've got a podcast that you want to grow, give more people to it, make more money,
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make impact.
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More or less make a podcast that matters, something that people care about, something that if
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it went away, you would hear from people.
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That's what this podcast is about.
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By the way, it's been a minute since I've been here.
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I've been caught up on some other projects.
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That's the beauty of what I do.
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I get to work on all sorts of different things.
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Sometimes it takes me away from this.
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So my apologies if you've been waiting, but I guess that's the point when you've got a
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good podcast and you do something that people care about, you were going to hear, hey,
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where's that next episode?
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We'll talk a little bit about that today.
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By the way, my name is David Hooper, bigpodcast.com.
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That's the website.
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I'm in the middle of a series of some things that Josh Spector has said about content
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creation, specifically about developing your voice, making content that stands out from
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all the other content out there.
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The first couple of topics I've already talked about, they are already out.
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You can go to bigpodcast.com slash subscribe, get those first two episodes.
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This one, he talks about showcasing your flaws.
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And this, I don't know if you want to showcase your flaws.
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I think it's okay for you to mention a flaw, but showcase them.
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I'm not sure about that.
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This is what Josh says.
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He says, the most interesting creators have flaws.
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Your voice should as well.
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Don't be perfect.
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Write rough around the edges or in your cases of podcast or broadcast or record, speak rough
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around the edges.
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Imperfections are interesting.
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They draw people in.
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They make people think incorporating them, make sure writing, again, in your case, your
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podcast, authentic and real.
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Perfect is boring.
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I agree with that.
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Perfect is boring, but showcase your flaws.
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This is where I think a lot of podcasters and a lot of content creators in general, writers,
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social media guys, YouTubers.
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Showcase your flaws.
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That gets into what I call failure porn.
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And if you've ever been in the evangelical church, any kind of content those guys are creating
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around getting saved, that falls prey to this all the time.
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You will hear somebody say, I was leading a bad life.
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I was in a homosexual relationship.
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I was cheating on my girlfriend.
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I was doing drugs and list all the quote unquote bad things that somebody was involved with.
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Then have the remedy, oh, then I found Jesus and everything is fine.
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The whole point of church, it's Jesus accepting Jesus, go to heaven.
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You know the deal you've heard that.
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Why are these guys spending so much time on their flaws?
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It's because it scratches that itch.
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People love the dirt.
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They're not talking about what happened afterwards.
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That's an afterthought.
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You're talking about how bad you were.
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And I get it.
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You want to come down to where people are.
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And just to be clear, I'm going to say this again, I'm not saying that somebody who's
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doing any of those things that I mentioned on that list is bad.
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But a lot of times in content creation, you are going down to where people are.
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You're trying to be relatable and you're trying to bring them up to whatever the next level
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is in a church.
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That's going to be Jesus.
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We've all got a church.
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I've got the church of big podcast.
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That church, once you accept the writings and philosophy of David Hooper, you've got more people
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coming to your podcast.
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You've got a podcast that matters.
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You've got more money because of your podcast.
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You've got a podcast that people care about and will miss if it's gone.
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So let's not talk about where things are.
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Yeah, there's a related ability.
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Used to do this.
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Then I discovered this.
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Now I do something different.
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That's fine.
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But way too many people, again, they're going for those easy clicks.
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They're talking about where things were.
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I had it so bad.
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I was living a bad life.
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I was broke.
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I was bankrupt.
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I was on drugs.
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Josh is right in that people don't expect you to be perfect.
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Perfect is boring.
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But if you're doing the nonfiction podcast, if you're looking for clientele that you can
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help to do whatever it is you podcast about focus on what you've got now, not where you
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were.
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And this is you personally because a lot of people have this main character syndrome.
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They try to make themselves the feature presentation.
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Is it about you?
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Is it about the listeners?
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I would argue that it is always about the listeners.
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The host, that's the person putting everything together for the listeners.
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It's not about you, even if your name's on the show, the John Smith show featuring John
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Smith, even if it is about you talking about your life.
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And even if you're getting a failure point, how bad things were, how bad you were, it's
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still about them, either how it makes them feel because they're thinking, oh, John Smith
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is an idiot or I'm there too.
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But it doesn't mean you need to showcase this stuff.
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You don't have to be perfect.
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You can leave some flaws in, some us, us, or you know, it doesn't have to be a perfect
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edit even, but don't emphasize it.
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Let me give you a final example before I wrap this up.
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You're watching a juggler is juggling pins like the bowling pins, but they're not
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apparently, I call them bowling pins one time.
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Some guys said, no, no, they're not bowling pins.
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The juggling pins or something.
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Say he's juggling those things.
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And before he lights them on fire and before he switches them over to the chain saws,
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he'll drop one.
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That's a flaw.
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He's saying, yeah, this is real before I get to this dangerous stunt, you know that this
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is real because it's too perfect, too perfect, not interesting to watch.
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At the same time, would you want to watch a juggler that's constantly dropping pins,
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showcasing those flaws?
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No.
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So consider that with your podcast.
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If you want more from me, reach out to me bigpodcast.com.
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That's where to do it.
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I'm going through this series now talking about the elements that Josh Spector has listed
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that will showcase your voice, put you front and center and do the things that this podcast
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is for, which is make people care about your podcast, make people spend money with
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you, make advertisers spend money with you and make a podcast that people care about.
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Again, you want more information from me bigpodcast.com.
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That's the way to do it.
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And if you want to hear the rest of these elements, I'm going through them about one.
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Subscribe now.
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I've got three buttons for you.
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One for iPhone, one for Android, one for RSS.
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I'm going to get it to you.
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However you get your podcast, you can do it with one click at bigpodcast.com.
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Slash subscribe.
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Go there now before you forget.
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I'll see you in the next episode of Build the Big Podcast.