The Doer Of Things Creates The Doers Of Things

I can remember years back when my buddy Keil was talking about podcasts and smartphones. Neither was on my radar or desire of understanding really as I’m not super tech-savvy and a little weary of walking further into the Matrix. He sold me on an iPhone, however, the day I couldn’t find my guitar tuner and he said, “There’s an app for that,” then proceeded to download it on his phone to show me how I could always tune my guitar if I ditched my flip phone and embraced a smartphone (set aside the fact that I could work harder to just train my ear and never need any devices, but that’s a topic for another day). Podcasts on the other hand took almost a decade later to entice me. It started with dating a guy who had a few he followed that had guests talking about stuff that interested me that you can’t find anywhere else but the land of podcasts. Then I was introduced to No Agenda by my sister and her boyfriend on the car ride to the airport at the end of visiting them in the Netherlands, just days before the borders were closed in 2020. During The Great Pause that ensued, No Agenda deconstructed the news as they’ve done for over 15 years and it proved to be grounding during a time of uncertainty and eventually inspiring. 

For nearly the last 15 years I’ve been living my life as a musician just barely making ends meet. I do more odd jobs than I play gigs because I never want music to be the only way I support myself, as I don’t want to put that sort of stress on the relationship I have with music. That being said, I’ve never had the coins to put together a full studio album and get it professionally pressed with fancy packaging. So my music has always been burned onto CDs that I hand write on. Then the CD is put in a brown paper sack. Next, I fold the sack over writing a unique personal love note on the inside flap. Lastly, a heart is drawn on the front of the sack. I bring these to gigs and tell folks they can pay whatever they want for them. How can I justify asking for $10-$20 for such a low-budget product when my peers are selling professionally pressed and packaged products for the same price? I just could never bring myself to that. So, I let folks show up where they are at. Even if that means they have nothing, but they really want it. In those cases, I say, “Please take it, I want you to have it, it’s for you.” And I truly believe that. What I found is that I end up making more by this pay-what-you-want/can sort of model than I would have if I’d even said the brown sacks carrying my CD were only $5. Little did I know, I was participating in a Value 4 Value/ Freewill Investment model. 

This is where No Agenda comes back around as an inspiring piece to my podcast journey puzzle. By the time I ended up with the radio show on KMXT in Kodiak, Alaska (that’s a story in and of itself which you can read HERE) I was now just as onboard with podcasts as I was with smartphones. Something in me knew that despite everything I had gone to Alaska for having fallen apart, I was being offered an opportunity to create something bigger than what I could do on the island of Kodiak airwaves. After witnessing for a few years how No Agenda operates on their Value 4 Value model, paired with my personal observations of how it’s worked for me in the past, without even knowing it was a thing other people were doing, I felt I could embark on a journey to produce a podcast on my terms. Without sponsorship ads or corporate commercials and without tiered content or subscription fees; all the things I hate about the podcast experience as a listener. 

I knew I wanted the show to have guests. I knew I wanted the show to be about more than just musicians or the music industry. I knew I wanted the show to be something that inspired listeners. I knew it was worth a shot. I didn’t know if I’d be any good at interviewing people. I didn’t know who other than musicians I could talk to (heck I didn’t even know if I could get musicians to talk to me, especially not the caliber I’ve ended up with). I didn’t know if the content would interest or inspire listeners. But I knew I had to give it a try. 

I knew I had the basic equipment (though I ended up needing to get a new laptop and travel recording device) and could learn the basic skills to edit (which I could still stand to learn a great deal more of). I knew there were services I’d have to navigate and purchase (though I had no idea just how deep those waters run). I knew I’d have to learn some tech lingo and inner workings (RSS, SEO, and bit depth oh my) and honestly, I still don’t fully comprehend it all. I knew I’d have to be willing to make some mistakes along the way if I was ever to fully start. I knew I was going to have to pony up my pennies (for podcast and website hosting fees, zoom subscription, domain name, gas for travel when in the same town as guests, equipment, misc…) despite knowing if I’d ever see a dime in return. I knew I had the opportunity to offer something to the collective that was more diverse than my tunes. I didn’t know how I was going to do all this when I started saying, pretty early on, that I was going to turn the radio show into a podcast. I just said it and then went about, slowly, attempting to honor my word (to my guests, my listeners, and myself). 

As I write this I’ve had the KMXT weekly radio show for 85 weeks and 53 of those episodes have been interviews that will make their way onto The Doers Of Things podcast. It’s taken this long to release T.D.O.T. for several reasons: frankly, I didn’t have the slightest idea of where to begin; I had no experience in what I was doing as far as editing goes; I wanted to make sure I had enough interviews in the can so as not to run out (a common demise of many a podcast); I doubted if what I was doing was worthy (I mean does the world really need another podcast?); I’m basically surviving life by the seat of my pants (meaning my time and attention a lot of times goes towards just figuring out how to keep the train on the tracks with finding the next odd job and figuring out where I’m going to be, as I’m always for one reason or another moving location about every 3 weeks); and while I’m blessed to have Yonderlust as a home, the short shuttle bus life does not offer a lot of space to keep a working studio. Oh yeah, and I let my love life interfere with my goals (an embarrassing pitfall to admit, but I’ve shared this much, so why not really bring it home). 

There was one more thing I knew. And while it might seem small, I think knowing this one thing from the beginning made the concept of having a podcast feel more real, doable, and almost inevitable. Who knows, if I hadn’t known this one thing from the beginning, I might not have seen the potential in the project and never have asked to keep the KMXT weekly spot when I returned to Texas (as I knew it would be easier to get people to talk to me if I had a legit radio show instead of just some gal trying to start a podcast). What I knew early on was I knew I wanted the podcast to be called The Doers Of Things. Why you ask? Well because my first personal business cards stated how I was the “Doer Of Things” and I figured that adding the ‘s’ would allow for a wide range of guests/topics which would only help my primary intention to inspire as many people as I could; as nothing is for everyone but everything is for someone.

I knew that I wanted to help people recognize their creative nature and how they have the power to curate their reality through their thoughts, words, and actions much like a musician curates the notes in a song, a painter the color on their brush, an athlete picks their workout routine, a photographer chooses the right time to snap the photo, the healer finds their modality, the enthusiast exerts their passion, the entrepreneur builds their business, the teacher makes their lesson plans, the organizer plans an event, the expert learns their trade…how the Doer does what they do.

I knew that despite there being so many things I didn’t know (and still don’t) my intentions to demystify the creative process and humanize the journey of a doer, so as to help others activate latent potential inside themselves, is a piece of spaghetti worth tossing on the wall. If I make a huge mess, well so be it. If I can feed just one person enough to nourish their divine creator within, it will all be worth it. Grand notions of being able to affect the collective consciousness towards higher frequencies of joy and sovereignty aside, I hope folks who tune in at least find these conversations to be a reprise from fear-mongering news, soulless top 40 radio, burnt-out movie plots, reality TV, AI-generated “art,” and the monotony of the hamster wheel that is the daily grind. No matter where you fall on the spectrum of all that, I hope you can find what you like to do and go out and do it. And I hope listening to The Doers Of Things gives you the permission slip you’ve been waiting for to DO what calls to you. It doesn’t have to be your job. It doesn’t have to make you any money. It doesn’t have to involve anyone else or appease anyone else. Just do the things that bring you joy when you do them. You don’t have to know what you’re doing. You don’t have to be great at what you’re doing. You just need to start somewhere and keep doing.