I am doing this.
I am doing this!
It all started one year ago—February, 2018—as the tiniest inkling and vaguest notion that has now become Exactly Enough Time—my podcast. Whaat? I know, right? My PODCAST!
What’s that knock knock joke about the interrupting cow?
Knock. Knock.
Who’s there?
Interrupting cow.
Interuppt—MOO—ing cow who?
What began in February was by mid summer, a constant stream of interrupting ideas—so much that I sometimes felt my head was going to explode. I finally sat down (July-ish) opened up the Notes app on my iPhone and began to write. Multiple times a week there were new (and often crazy) ideas, but there was no time. At least that’s what I told myself. No time. I’m too busy. I can’t do a podcast. Who would listen? What would I talk about? Plus, I have far too many unfinished projects and plans. AND, I didn’t have a title. I mean what would I even call this thing IF I decided to do it?
Nothing.
Silence.
The ideas stopped talking then. There were no ideas about that. So I kept telling my brain, “Give me a title I like and we’ll talk more about this.” But, there was still nothing. My experience was very similar to what Liz Gilbert describes in her book, Big Magic …
“When an idea thinks it has found somebody—say, YOU—who might be able to bring it into the world, the idea will pay you a visit. It will try to get your attention. Mostly, you will not notice ... But sometimes, rarely, magnificently—there comes a day when you’re open and relaxed enough to actually receive something. Your defenses might slacken and your anxieties might ease, and then magic can slip through. The idea will organise coincidences and portents to tumble across your path, to keep your interest keen. You will start to notice all sorts of signs pointing you towards the idea. Everything you see and touch and do will remind you of the idea. The idea will wake you up in the middle of the night and distract you from your everyday routine. The idea will not leave you alone until it has your fullest attention.
And then, in a quiet moment, it will ask, “Do you want to work with me?””
Anyway, I really do LOVE podcasts. I have been listening to podcasts for many, many years. I’ve even scrapbooked the podcasts I listen to. Todd Henry’s The Accidental Creative was probably my first dedicated listen, followed by Grammar Girl. I was after all editor at Simple Scrapbooks magazine and I was ever eager to learn my trade—I did not major in English, so I embraced the idea of learning with Mignon! My next obsession was for The Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series from the d.school at Standford. For years, I thought you had to be enrolled as a student at Stanford to watch these speakers, so I felt incredibly lucky to be able to LISTEN to them—and much of the time, I didn’t really understand everything I was hearing, but I liked that listening made me feel like I could become smarter! I do remember hearing and fully understanding one particular Stanford podcast, with guest Vinod Khosla—founder of Sun Microsystems—I was very drawn to what Mr. Khosla says in the clip below, “Every big problem is a big opportunity.” That is so TRUE! In fact, this truth motivated me to launch Big Picture Scrapbooking (now Big Picture Classes). As editor of Simple Scrapbooks magazine, I had sensed a problem in the memory keeping industry and I acted on it. BPS/BPC became the first online education portal and community for creative women and flourished because it was a solution—a gathering place for people to learn and exchange ideas. It also provided a place for expert instructors to teach without having to physically travel. I have used this advice from Vinod in a few different presentations over the years and I’ve never forgotten it.
All of this simply to say that I LOVE to listen and learn. I seek solutions to problems in my life.
For quite awhile after 2009, when my health took an abrupt nose dive, I listened to health-related shows, like this one, that taught me a great deal about hormone imbalance and the purpose of whole foods and good fat in my diet. I gained the strength to make important changes in my lifestyle primarily by listening to experts via podcasts. This one is a current favorite about functional medicine. In January 2010, I was invited to be the first guest on a new scrapbooking podcast, The Paperclipping Roundtable with hosts Noell & Izzy Hyman. This show ran for six years—and I still miss it. More recently I have been listening off and on to STORY, which is linked to an event I dream of attending—it’s super inspirational. And for all of my listening years, I’ve tuned into the BYU Devotionals podcast and other shows relating to my faith.
Early last spring (2018) I got a call from my friend, Lisa Bearnson—totally out of the blue. Almost as an after thought she asked if I knew a Jody Moore. I figured Jody must be a scrapbooker, but I hadn’t heard of her. Lisa went on to explain that Jody is a life coach, that she has a podcast AND that she was pretty sure she lives in Spokane. I looked up Jody’s podcast the next day and listened to two or three episodes in a row. I was hooked!
The reason I’m wrapping this post up with Jody is because she is the reason I have FINALLY followed through on the interrupting ideas that have become this podcast. Jody has taught me SO MUCH about my brain and how to do thought work and self coaching. In fact, back in August Jody did an episode sharing many of the things she has done to grow her own business. She recommended the Yeti USB microphone for podcasting and that’s when I knew … this was going to happen. It was the way she said it—I just stopped mid-walk and bought the Yeti. I then experienced a sudden surge of buyer’s remorse as my brain quickly reminded me that I still didn’t have time—or a title, but it was too late. I had taken action. I was committed—a recommended mic was on its way from Amazon. I have to give additional props to Jody, because as my life coach, she has also taught me that goals must have a deadline. And wouldn’t you know it—as soon as I gave this thing a deadline, the title came. Exactly Enough Time. Duh. This is already the name of my blog. I’ll talk more about this choice in one of my first episodes, but the important thing now is that today is February 1st—my deadline. I was tempted to pick January 1st as that would have been so neat and tidy, but I knew I needed to finish up my FREE Photo Freedom e-course before I started anything else and that was going to take some of January, so TODAY became my podcast deadline—and while there is still a whole lot I do not know—like how exactly to get this thing on iTunes—I have recorded my first episode and written this post and there are still a few hours left before its February 2nd.
I am excited.
I am scared.
I am hopeful.
I am committed. I want this podcast to share information and ideas and solutions that (crossing my fingers) others will find helpful, but even if they don’t I’m still doing this. There are currently more than 630, 000 podcasts out there, so I will be thrilled if I can create a little corner of value and find a few listeners to encourage with positive ideas once a week. How cool would that be?
I invite you to listen and I thank you in advance for your time—of which you have exactly enough!
Note: I am currently waiting for an email from Apple Podcast letting me know that I am good to go!
