We've All Pushed Through Awkward Moments of Being Vulnerable Do you remember your first real kiss? I was with my first girlfriend. I was probably 14? I was scared to death. There was no internet, and for me, nobody to ask? So I went in for the kiss and kissed her in a very TV-friendly way. I stopped and said, "Let's try that again" and I figured out what to do. I tried everything I could to avoid falling in love with my first wife. I had told her over and over that I didn't want anything serious, but here we were a year later and a year later I was in love with her. Sitting in front of her house I said, "I need to tell you something," and then proceeded to tell her I liked her a lot. I backed it up, and then said, "I love you." These are scary things to do. You put yourself out there, and if you do it wrong you get some feedback, and you tweak yourself.  Over the past two weeks, I've had meeting after meeting with members of my audience (one at a time). Some of them were current or past members of the School of Podcasting, and others I had never met (but they were listeners to my show). Today I talked about what I learned and why you should seriously consider it. If the Words "Focus Group" Makes You Uncomfortable, then Think of It as Coaching So many people who are experts in their field still used coaches. Hank Haney served as Tiger Woods' coach from 2004-2010. During that span, Woods won six of his 15 career major championships. The two were very close while they worked together, and Woods credits a ton of his success to Haney's teachings. Here are some more people who even after their enormous success still have coaches: Richard Branson  Oprah Winfrey Tony Robbins Leonardo DiCaprio Serena Williams Metallica We all need people who give us feedback. That is how we improve. - Bill Gates Is This Just a Plug To Get Me To Hire You As A Coach? While I have the Podcast Rodeo Show which looks at your first impression and the Podcast Review Show that looks at your whole episode, website, and we have you fill out a form to discuss the goals of the show, if you want to know what content your audience wants and needs, the best place to go is your audience.  I'm Still A Shy Guy at Heart People don't believe it, but underneath it all I'm fairly shy. So the thought of reaching out to my email list and asking them for their input made me a little nervous. This was especially true if someone was a current or previous member of the School of Podcasting. This is where you have to change your attitude.  When I went to college for my first degree, I was a waiter. To be a good waiter, you listen to your customer and give them exactly what they ordered. As I got on zoom, I just said to myself it's like being a waiter again.  I Should've Done This Years Ago I sent out an email with the subject line of, "I need your help...." and explained that I was going to rebuild the School of Podcasting from the ground up and I wanted to talk to them. Here are some of the things that I gained from doing this exercise: I have a visual of what my audience looks like.  I got two people who will be future guests I got to see what was working in my show In regards to the School of Podcasting, I'm glad to say that the things people want, are often already being delivered. I learned that I might want to reorganize some of the content in the School of Podcasting. I heard some answer repeated. This is proof of concept that the tutorials I have are the right tutorials. I got a couple of great questions that I will be using for the "Question of the Month" in the future. There is nothing to be afraid of as these people are your listeners. If anything they might "fanboy" out a bit which is flattering.  When You're Too Close to the Subject There was one comment that came up twice that in one way surprised me, and yet upon thinking about it, it makes perfect sense. When I asked if there were any lessons in the School of Podcasting that they found confusing. Most people w