What’s Dangerous For Us To Care About

hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and I just got finished doing a special
workshop a prize that was offered in a
contest that we held at the end of last
year to get people to create new
podcasts and new podcast episodes and
the finalists in that contest were all
in a private workshop with me and with
Trevor sort of sharing challenges and
solutions to those challenges and one of
the things that came up was how to reach
an audience and it made me think about
the fact that there’s a danger in trying
to reach an audience that we sometimes
don’t really have words for but Kristen
Wiig who I just adore I think she is
awesome she’s beautiful she’s smart
she’s funny
I think the characters that she comes up
with are just so stunning I love her on
everything that she does and she
recently said something that I thought
was worth knowing
especially when you’re trying to develop
an audience so that that doesn’t go too
far here’s what she said she said if
you’re creating anything at all it’s
really dangerous to care about what
people think
and she’s absolutely right because if we
build our whole life around making an
audience happy making a particular part
of the audience happy I used to say on
my radio show listen those of you
listening to the show just know this I’m
not doing this show for you
I couldn’t possibly be doing the show
for you because some of you would like
what I did some of you wouldn’t like
what I did and if I tried to make sure
that the people that didn’t like what I
did like to what I did then I probably
ticked off the people that already liked
what I did because I’d be doing
something different I’d do the show for
me and that’s what we need to remember
as performers that we’re doing this for
us
Colson whitehead who is a novelist an
award-winning novelist who did the
Underground Railroad was asked about his
new book the nickel boys and the
question that was asked of him was was
there a lot of pressure on this
particular book because your other book
was such a hit and he said something
that I thought was great right along
these lines he said people will think
what they want to think I can’t think
about that I don’t and won’t think about
that so keeping your nose to the
grindstone and just doing what you think
is best getting advice getting coaching
getting training but doing what you feel
resonates with you is most important and
not making your metric for success what
somebody in the audience thinks now
here’s the dangerous part of it we still
have to make an effort to do really
great work for the people that get keep
our careers and by that I mean casting
directors producers writers directors
people that we sort of go up in front of
with our hat in our hand and go this is
what I do is this what you like is this
you know hey can I help you today we
still have to pay attention to that and
we have to make sure that our craft is
awesome but what we can’t do is fall
into the trap of oh I have to I have to
appeal to as many people in the audience
as I possibly can or I have to appeal to
this particular part of my audience
don’t ever let that even come into the
equation do what makes you happiest
do what makes you most satisfied do
what’s most natural for you and don’t
worry about what the audience thinks or
what anybody else thinks if you can
avoid it tell me what you think of this
I know I asked this every video what do
you think of this it’s not so that I can
somehow alter my performance and make it
better I really truly am interested in
what you think so
leave me a comment below especially if
you’re on VOD go go calm and if you’re
if you’re not if you’re watching on
youtube or some other place pop over to
vo – go go calm because that’s where the
conversation is is sane and moderated
and soon once we get Project X completed
I’ll have a new destination for you to
go to so I’m just you know just kind of
hinting at a little bit I’m very excited
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it for you I’m David H Lawrence xvii I
thank you so much for watching and I
will talk to you tomorrow.