The Feedback Trap That’s Killing Your Podcast Growth

0:05 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Tuesday, November 4th, 2025, and today we're diving into feedback as a creator. The praise, the criticism, the chaos. In between, we'll talk about choosing what helps your work and how to tune out all of the rest. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button on the left hand side of the screen and share it However Clubhouse lets you. And if you're listening via podcast or YouTube, please share this with the fellow podcaster. And now give me about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here.

1:21 Good morning again podcasting, morning chat. Thanks so much for being here. I am your host Mark Ronik and currently on stage with me. My Co hosts we have Ashley Feller, Phil Better, Sid Meadows, Dr. Faye and Nick Nullback. We'll see who else joins us from the cast and crew throughout this morning. Thank you. Although he's not here, thank you to Jonathan Howard for holding down the Fort yesterday and leading the charge on Monday morning. And I know he broke down Smartless and what makes them an obsession worthy podcast. I hope you guys got a lot out of that. I've listened to some already.

2:04 I was driving home yesterday from Indiana University. I was visiting my stepson over there and it's a great time to go visit Indiana University when the college football team is 9 and O for the second consecutive year. I think a first or that school to hit 9 and O2 years in a row. And I think they are currently ranked #2 and great to spend some time with my stepson as well. And let me tell you, if you can ever take a ride from Asheville, NC to Bloomington IN in late October, I highly recommend you do it. I don't know if you anyone saw my TikTok, my Instagram. I posted a brief, some brief footage about a minute or so driving through the mountains in this fall season. It was like nothing we'd ever experienced before. I know I'm not talking about podcasting. Bear with me because it was truly a breathtaking moment for us.

3:10 The oranges, Reds, and yellows being surrounded everywhere we looked was it was magical. I don't know how else to say it. I know that might sound a little cheesy, but it was absolutely beautiful. I'll maybe Ashley, I'll give you a link that we can put in the show notes so people can see what I'm talking about because I can't do it justice with words. All I can tell you is we literally kept saying we've never experienced anything like it. It was really like driving through a painting at one point. I think I told my wife, I feel like we're driving in Thanksgiving right now. You couldn't deny the fall season. So I encourage you, if you're in the area, do it. We're planning on making it a yearly tradition now. Even though my son's going to be graduating this spring, we're going to still make that ride, at least some of it, because it is just unbelievable.

4:04 OK, enough of that. So thank you to Jonathan for holding down the Fort. I know that live there were some technical difficulties. And kudos to Ashley for putting it all together as a podcast episode that really went very smoothly. If you listen back to the episode, you would never know it. So kudos to you, Ashley. Before I dig in, want to remind you on Thursday we are going to be doing another podcast evaluation. And please forgive me moderators for not giving you an earlier heads up. I will send you all the info, the form that you fill out to help guide you through the evaluation process so that we can have a really constructive conversation on Thursday.

4:49 Phil, I believe this is your client. We do have others, but you have a client that was interested in doing this. So tell us a little bit about this client who we're going to be evaluating. Thank you, Mark and good morning podcast morning crew. It is feel better the podcast mogul still enjoying his bed, but still here helping you out. The podcast is my client Karina Groombridge. She is a service based business owner coach for lady entrepreneurs, mainly moms entrepreneurs and she's looking for help. Her podcast is called You are Your Biggest Asset and she is looking to help with her stories from herself and her clients.

5:32 Help you as a service based entrepreneur business owner become a better version so you can grow your business and enjoy the life you deserve because you are your biggest asset. Thank you, Phil. Yeah, and I've just shared a link. We will put this in the show notes for our audience in case you, the listener want to hear this episode. We'll be evaluating. We'll also evaluate kind of from top to bottom, not just one episode. We'll also talk about her branding, her title descriptions, etcetera. And we're at the episode we will evaluate is episode 42. Want five extra hours in the week? Well, that alone makes me want to listen to it.

6:12 So there you go. And I said, there you go again, my crutch word. Anyway, let's keep things moving, shall we? I want to start with an icebreaker before I really dig into today's topic. So without any major set up other than the intro when you first pressed play this morning, what's your go to ritual when you need to shake off any kind of negativity? Now I know I've set this up so your head may be going right to negative feedback, trolls on social media, etcetera. And that's fine, that can be it. But really, in general, I'm curious, what do you do when you've got a lot of negativity that you're dealing with and you need to refocus, You need to get out of that mindset and back into whatever the game is for you in that moment. I see Ashley is first to chime in. Let's go to her.

7:06 Good morning, Ashley, and thanks again for your help yesterday. Good. Morning. So I'd say my go to is find some humor. I usually try to find something to make myself laugh. I'll watch some comedy, or I'll listen to a funny song, or better yet, I'll try to write a song that has comedic elements to it. I usually try to combat negativity with humor. I like it. And maybe Sid, you can jump in for a second because I'm going to play somewhat of devil's advocate. And I know this is where my mind sometimes goes. And I'm going to Sid because Sid is a coach as well as several other things. But I am going to go to Sid and then we'll check in with Jeff and I see some others want to chime in, Sid, where my head goes when someone like Ashley says I try to combat it with humor, it sounds really good to me. And when something is pushed me into negativity, sometimes that's hard for me to do.

8:03 So I'm curious as our resident coach here, what would you say to me about that? And good morning to you. And good morning. So anything that you want to do to get yourself out of this funk or to get rid of this negativity that's in your head because it's in your head, right, is a good thing. For me, I listen to music. It's one of the thing I have a playlist called Pump Up Songs that I go to whenever I'm feeling down or something bad has happened or I hear I have a negative review or something like that. So I listen to music because it's exciting and get your blood flowing. But I think the first thing you have to do is actually just deal with it for a minute. Like take like a minute and deal with the what you've been, what's been said to you or done to your whatever the feeling is. And I like to reflect a lot.

8:49 I had something happen last week that was very unexpected and it had a bit of a negative connotation to it. And I did a ton of reflecting. And I do this with my walk. That's the best time for me to really clear my head. And I was listening to a podcast and I was reflecting and I stopped listening to the podcast because I'm like, this is just noise in the background. So I think just taking time to like reflect on it, deal with it, understand it, and then move into whatever is going to get you out of it. Like what's going to get you out of this fuck? What's going to get you out of this negative place? Whatever that is, if it works for you, That's all Ralph said he his prayer for him, Ashley is comedy, me is music.

9:31 Whatever it is that you do, then do that. But I think you do have to take a minute and deal with it and reflect on it. I like that. Thank you, Sid. I think that is that's an area for me that I continue to work on. I'm strengthening that ability to just allow it because I think instinctively I want to just either suppress it or pretend it's not happening. And that does mean no good. I think another thing to remember is you need to ask yourself the questions like what role did I play in this? What could I have done better? What should I do differently? Because I can't change you, Mark, and you can't change the person that provided the negativity in the moment to You can't change them. The only thing you can change is you and how you respond to those.

10:17 So do a little bit of reflection about what role did I play? Who am I, what could I have done differently? And don't internalize it because the other thing that and the thing that I learned through the situation last week is I don't know what that persons going through. I don't know what's happened to them in their life. I don't know what's going on in their business. I don't know what put them in a place to, let's call it lead with negativity. I can seek to understand that. I can try to figure out that just a little bit by asking questions of other people or thinking about the conversation a little bit. But end of the day, I never really know what's going on with that person. So you can't internalize it so much and make it all about you, but think about what you could have done differently or what you should have done differently.

11:03 So just like, take a moment if you will. Thank you, Sid. One thing that helps me is changing my scenery and preferably to outdoors. I think when I go outside, you know, we're lucky enough to a mile away from our house, we have a hiking trail that has waterfalls and you're walking through the mountains. So it's hard to remain in that negative space. But I think even more so doing that and walking with somebody or talking with somebody if they can't physically be there, just to allow yourself to vent and then process. At least for me, that that seems to help.

11:43 I think once I go through that whole process I just laid out for you, I tend to, once I get back and sit down at my desk, well, first of all, I'm able to come back and sit down at my desk. I now have that more of that motivation again and I'm able to reframe, refocus. Let's keep things moving. I saw several people wanted to say something. I'm going to go to Jeff and while I'm doing that, maybe put a one in the chat. If you want to speak up on this first question here about how you shake off negativity, put a one in the chat because this way, then I can see you. I can make sure I get to you as opposed to remembering by an emoji that you're flashing on the screen. Thank you, Dr. for setting the trend. With that, I'm going to go to Jeff, who's joined us on stage. And Jeff, it's been a minute having you up here on stage. Welcome back.

12:31 Good morning to you. What did you want to add to this? Did you want to answer the question? We were just talking about how you might change your scenery, you might go for a walk. When you first asked the question, you asked what is our ritual? And ritual, by definition, is not changing something. A ritual is a series of things that you do the very same way to put yourself in a particular place. You can think of it in terms of religious rituals, which is why you always say the prayer the same way. You always go through the steps, the procedures the same way because that's kind of supposed to, to put you back in the place they're trying to put you in.

13:12 Baseball is the same. You know, you'll see the guys go up to the plate and they'll tap their left shoe first, then their right shoe, then they dust their hands off. Then all of that is, is an effort to put you back in the place that you have found a path to, which would be the opposite of changing everything up. So, and the thing it brought to mind for me was course, we've been very busy with Maddie True, the artist that I work with because she's got a current single that's, you know, active on the independent charts right now. We've been pretty busy with that. But we also host together a radio show that we record in advance that airs every weekend. And the intro for that radio show is the same script, the same setup that we do every week, even though we are setting up the first song of the countdown, which the song will be different, but the setup is always the same.

14:10 And we could just record it and reuse that same setup every week. But we don't because even though we might be talking about other things before we start the recording process, we might be talking about her single. We might be talking about other stuff that's going on, good, bad. We might be arguing about something because we've got different ideas about where we want to go with a particular thing. When we get ready to start recording the show, go through that same intro, you know, the same music, same verbiage, exactly the same. Because it kind of sets up what we are getting ready to do and it helps kind of clear out some of the noise that preceded that. So that's what we do.

14:57 That's one of the things I do. To the original point of the question, what is the ritual to kind of get our head right? Thank you, Jeff. I appreciate that. Yeah, kind of a different spin, a different take. I mean, I was specifically going to how do you shake off the rituals, the how that you used to shake off specifically negativity, but I still appreciate that take just as far as how you guys kind of get into that positive mind frame going into starting your show. And that's and just to be make sure I'm clear, is that what you're explaining? Like I don't want to twist your words if I'm wrong. Oh yeah, no, that is and that does address, I mean to your point of addressing negativity, it it addresses distraction, it addresses negativity. I mean, that's, that's why if a particular baseball player, you know, typically steps up into the box and then back out and then back in, that's why that happens because no matter what you walk into that process with, which is negativity or distraction, whatever, it's a tool of focus. And and that's where, you know, I mean, certainly in the example I gave, we have used that to just kind of center ourselves and remind us what we're doing.

16:13 But it has also served when on that given day, it has been us kind of talking about something negative. It's like, OK, we got we got to tune that out. We got to record the radio show. And, and because we've already kind of got that in place, because it's already a habit and was created as a habit, as a ritual before it was negative, we were not having to say, well, what are we going to do to get out of the negativity? We've already created the ritual. Therefore it is there as a tool when things are negative. Yeah, it's. Preemptive. And that's why rituals exist. Yeah, preemptive to negativity. I like that. Yeah. And you used the baseball player reference. And I guess because it's football season, I see that so much as particularly with kickers, the ones kicking the field goals, right?

17:00 They I, they always have multiple rituals that they're doing to stay focused, to get all the negativity out of their head, to get the distractions out of their heads. Yeah, I think that's a great example and a great way to deal with negativity. It's like I said, it's pre emptive. So yeah, I appreciate that. And I'm going to keep it moving and go to DRDR. Good morning. Thank you for putting the one in the chat for my request and go for it. What do you got for us? I'm with Ashley. I go for the funny 1st and then I go for I don't even know if there's a word for it. It's beyond interesting. For me, it's more like fascination. Like I'm fascinated by octopus.

17:46 What's the what's the plural of octopus? I'm fascinated. By I'm fascinated by that I'm fascinated by. You know, magnet fishing when they bring up all the stuff I'm so there's those fascination videos that I go to and especially the comedy videos. I have very specific channels that I have for those and so those are my go. TOS. I like that. So you'll watch something or take in some content that takes your mind off of the negativity. I think that's similar to Sid, right? Like Sid, it's music, but yours it's, you know, maybe video as opposed to music. Very cool.

18:28 Thank you. And thank you to Matt who has who has told us it's octopuses, not octopi. Thank you, Matt. Appreciate it. And Nick, you got something for us. Go ahead. Actually. Have a question to kind of stack on to the sure, just sit and be. Are both kind of through similar answers out there. I agree. Taking yourself out of the situation for a minute to regain focus, wipe the slate clean, do all that. But eventually you're going to have to address or confront whatever this is. And I don't mean confront by like confront the person necessarily, but the situation personally or through reaching out. So at what point do you say, OK, I am in a good headspace to do this?

19:15 And two, how do you approach that? Yeah, it's a really great question, Nick. And I will say that, you know, not everything deserves a response and no action actually is action. So if you get a negative review about your podcast, A1 Star review, and then somebody's hating on you with their review, you don't have to respond to it. You can read it, try to see if there is a lesson in there for you. Is there something that you can improve, but you don't have to address it. You don't have to respond to it in the situation when in a different situation. Like I reached out to somebody and that I hadn't talked to in June and a couple months went by and I reached out to him, said, hey, I'm ready to pick up if you want to.

20:02 Let's pick up this conversation. And his reply was very negative. And there's something along the lines of I'm not in a place to continue the conversation or something like that. It was the way the whole thing was written was really negative. And I read it and I thought, that's really strange. I thought about it and then I thought, you know what? This doesn't deserve my reply. And so I didn't reply to it. I didn't like the text message. I didn't part the text message. I just didn't do anything. I talked to a friend about it. I phoned a friend. That's what I like to say. I phoned a friend about it just to be able to get off my chest. Like what the heck is this? And then I just let it go because sometimes the best action is no action and just let it go. You know, just you don't have to respond to everything. Now, if it's business related, like the situation that happened last week when we had a meeting with somebody and we thought the meeting was really well and I did a follow up e-mail as we agreed.

20:57 And then his response, I have lots of thoughts about his response was lasting us full of negativity. And you know, it was a basically he was a hard no, but he had a lot of colorful words to go with it. So I've reflected on it. I reflected on the meeting. I thought to like what happened, What did we say? I talked to my colleague about it. We talked to somebody else about it. I talked to three people about it and I still haven't responded to it because I'm going to today respond to it, but I'm going to respond to it completely opposite of the way that he responded to us. I'm going to lead with kindness. I'm going to lead with sorry you feel this way kind of thing like, but I'm going to completely change the tone of the conversation and then ask for an in person or a virtual meeting for us to continue the discussion because what we're talking about is important to all of us.

21:50 And so you took a minute, I reflected, I phoned a few friends and then I'm going to lead the with the actual the exact opposite of what he did, which was Nick. He was negative. I'm going to lead the positivity. Thank you, Sid. Matt, I saw you had your hand up while Nick was asking the question. So I'm not sure if it's about the question or you had something else, so go for it. Good morning. I was just going to basically say what Nick said at some point. The idea that like we have ways to deal with getting the feedback, but eventually you have to approach it somehow. And I think Sid covered it pretty well there. I myself would have something similar where, you know, you get a little bit of it and you sit in it for a bit and you go, oh, well, you know, thanks, buddy. And then you start to institute a process of processing it. Like you ask yourself, what is this actually telling me? What is this person saying about this specifically? How does this actually adjust my processes? What should I be taking from this, if anything at all? And does it require a response?

22:58 Like Sid, I'd say that if you haven't responded yet and there's nothing constructive to respond with, then this whole idea of ghosting people is ridiculous. The young children don't dictate, I think, what we say to other people when things must be said. Like it's the reason that they complain about parents typing OK in a text message as a response to acknowledge something. A lot of people these days aren't acknowledging stuff. So, you know, whether you respond or not is also a part of the question for that. But the key, I think, is having a means by which to, when you come back to the comment, to deal with it the way that you deal with it best.

23:40 And I know for me, my philosophical objectivity allows me to sit back and stare at it. And, you know, some days you just have day days or weeks of pure chaos where you're like, OK, tell me a bit more, pal, what's going on with this? And why didn't you say this? I'm, I'm having a couple of days of that at the moment. The processing of it and finding out what's actually valuable for you and whether there's value in dealing with it, That I think is the major key. Thank you, Matt. And I'm going to go to Ralph because I know Ralph has been waiting patiently as well. Go for it, Ralph. Good morning to you. Good morning, everyone. Yeah, I'm going to take a little bit different approach. I take a place of prayer 1st and I say, you know what, pause for a second, whatever the negativity is going on. And I just pray and I say, look, God show me in this what my lesson is for this because it's real easy to emotionally respond.

24:33 And I think that's what gets a lot of us in trouble. It's real easy to just reach out in the motion and just attack, right? That's that's a real easy thing to do. But I think a better plan is to pray about and say, you know, Lord, what is it you're trying to show me in this? And when you do that, and then, then the second thing I would say is to have a heart of gratitude because the truth is, if somebody reaches out and shares feedback with you, there's a book out there called A Complaint is a Gift. And I'm going to tell you right now, it's a book that will change the dynamic of how you think of things. Because if somebody actually takes the time to make a complaint or make some feedback, that's a gift to you, they still have, they want to do something to help. You just have to try to reframe it. So that that's my view is start with prayer and then look for something to be grateful for. Look for something to be thankful for, because once you change that emotion, you can't live in negativity once you're grateful for something. Thank you.

25:20 And that is scientifically true. Thank you, Ralph. Yes. You can't be both. If you're genuinely showing gratitude, if you're feeling grateful, you can't stay negative. So I appreciate you saying that and I appreciate your approach, prayer. And for some that may not resonate, and that's fine. Maybe meditation is the word for you and if that doesn't resonate with you, maybe it's simply finding a quiet place and sitting quietly asking those same questions that Ralph shared as prayer. Ask yourself those questions and and then sit quietly and listen what comes up for you. That's very powerful.

26:01 Thank you, Ralph. Appreciate that. Chris, I'm going to come to you and then I want to shift gears because we're talking so much about the how, right? And sometimes we don't know the difference between where we may not think we know the difference between constructive feedback and someone just simply trying to tear you down. So I want to talk about that too. But first, let me check in with Chris. Chris, good morning to you. Welcome to the stage. What did you want to add to this? I used to work as a hotel receptionist, and somebody told us this story, you know, where the customer comes up to the hotel manager and says it'd be nice if we just sold the Wall Street Journal here. So he gets one of those newspaper, you know, newspaper machines, you know.

26:43 Yeah, put some Wall Street journals in it. The next day he notices all the Wall Street journals are gone. And the whole point is this story is for every customer that complaints, there are 10 customers who don't complain. Lots of people wanted to buy the Wall Street Journal, but only one customer came out and said, I'd like to buy the Wall Street Journal. A lot of times people do do complain if they care. But, and you know, I have to say too, though, we, we live in a world more and more where maybe it's just the people I hang out with because I deal with so many people who cannot take good faith criticism. They simply cannot take it. I think it's more and more because so many people are just phoning it in. So when somebody actually does care enough to complain, or care enough to point out something that can be done better, they simply don't want to hear it. Yeah, I'm with you there and please forgive me. Let me keep things moving.

27:32 I and Speaking of Let them, I see Janae just as just as you said that Janae was sharing that the book Let them also has really powerful lessons around this too. So yeah, check out that book. I know Sid and I are both fans of that book. And again, thank you, Chris. Appreciate you. I saw Matt wanted to say something while you were speaking, so let me check in with Matt. The comment I wrote about what Chris was saying there is that the complexity of what he's saying is a compilation of information bubbles, the prioritization of the individual, and a lack of critical thought. It's our world now. That's another episode for a different show. But his frustration, I see the patterns in why it happens.

28:14 But while it doesn't necessarily what he said, address what how to deal with negative feedback, the fact that it does happen is an absolute truth. And I think maybe for another time, if we got like a free Friday or something, maybe explained a bit about it, yeah. Absolutely. I would love to do that characterize it. Absolutely, yes. Thank you, Matt. So how do we tell the difference between someone giving you constructive feedback and someone trying to tear you down? Because to Chris's point and what? And some of the others here, sometimes people just instantly take it as, oh, you're just trying to tear me down. Oh, you're just being negative. How do you know other than if they're just sitting there telling you, you know, calling you names and being nasty for the sake of being nasty?

29:00 I think for the most part that can be obvious or obviously not constructive. But how do we know? Or is it just a matter of what you said? It's really just pausing, stopping, thinking about how this might help me. Is that the answer? It's always a good approach, right? But I think it's also important to remember that if it's written in somebody's writing, you know, Mark, you suck, you're the worst host ever. You don't actually know what their intention was behind writing that. So you do have to try to figure out a little bit about what they were trying to tell you. And I like what Ralph said, which is what's the lesson in this for you?

29:44 Like, what can you take away from this? If if somebody said, hey, Mark, I really enjoyed the show, but you ramble too much when you're talking. I'm just making this up, right? And so, Mark, you can read that. You can read that and you could like, OK, what's the lesson in this for me? Maybe you go back and you listen to a couple of episodes and do are you rambling, right? How could you change what you're doing in order to not say the phrase that you always say, right? There's my phrase, right? I say it all the freaking time. But but I mean, look at what's the lesson in this for you and how can you? And because I'm going to say it again, you can't change anybody and you can't change them.

30:33 You can't change their thought processes. All you can do is change yourself and change how you respond, and hopefully you respond and not react when these things happen. Thank you, Sid. I see Jeff wants to chime in as well. But thank you for that explanation, Sid. I think that's great insight. And Jeff Floor is yours, Sir. I think what we do is we don't use their negative intent as a way to deflect their quality comment. If somebody says you misspelled your headline, you piece of crap, I think the point is to not dismiss the comment, you know, I mean, certainly, you know, you don't have to give credence to the fact that you're a piece of crap, but maybe still go ahead and check the spelling of the headline, you know, or whatever that criticism can be. Because if we dismiss the comment, if we dismiss the input because we don't like the attitude, we're doing the same thing.

31:30 We're being critical of them doing, You know, they're coming at us with an attitude. Who are they? And I think that's a different way of, of reiterating what, what Sid's saying. You know, I, I still want to be able to sharpen my tools, even if they come from somebody that might be mean spirited, that doesn't mean that they're wrong. Thank you, Jeff. I'm with you there and Ralph is saying in the chat here, it's all about understanding where they are coming from and remembering perspective. I agree with that. And I'm curious then, what about the negative feedback say on reviews that we can't remove?

32:11 What if it was wrong feedback for lack of a better way of saying it? What if the feedback had no validity to it? It was simply somebody just ranting because they don't like what you're talking about and they've given you the 11 star review. I know that there are podcasters listening right now that say, yeah, what about that? Because now that's, for lack of a better term, permanently on my record. People are going to see that and I can't. And like on Apple, I don't think we can always reply. I don't think we can reply to reviews. So what do you do? How do you handle that? And I'll tell you, something happened to me about 10 years ago, my accounting practice, someone left me a terrible Google review. And when I looked at, I was like, this person has lost their mind.

32:58 First thing I did was I got on the phone with my marketing person. I was like, we got to get that down. He said, no, no, calm down, Ralph. He said first thing, a negative review makes you look human. And I said, well, that's interesting because that's a good point. Because if all you see are positive, positive, positive. So he's going to say, wait a minute, is there reality in that? Not everybody is going to think you're the best thing ever. Not everyone is going to connect with your message, especially as a podcaster. That's OK. What you want to do is appeal to your audience. If that person is not in your audience and that's fine, let them leave a negative review. It is what it is. You're not going to change it. Work on 99 other positive reviews and don't sweat the one bad review. Yeah, I like that, Ralph.

33:40 And to pile on to that, those comments, let's say it's on social media and you've posted a clip of your show and somebody is leaving you a real negative review with real no validity to it. I know that instinctively we want to delete those, but I tend to keep them up because it's another comment. It's helping the algorithm. Sometimes I might even say, hey, thanks for your comment. Thanks for continuing to push my content forward. Yeah, I'm just going to say, as a Christian podcaster, I get negative comments on my YouTube channel all the time. I mean, you should see some of the the heinous things that people say to me and you don't always say to them. God bless you. I appreciate your feedback and thank you for interacting with my show because now the algorithm is going to serve it to more people.

34:22 So I appreciate your help. Yep, absolutely. Hey, Mark, I'm coming to this at this perspective also as a novelist and Amazon will publish ridiculous reviews. And the worst thing is Amazon will, you know, will publish A1 star review, say for a book. And the review will say, well, like, well, I ordered this book and it showed up ripped or corn or something like that. They will slam the book because they had a bad customer service experience, which may very well be true, But why are you shitting on this author and making his ratings down? I know a lot of other creative people, for example, you know, like some actors, they'll never read negative reviews and Amazon needs to police the reviews better as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I feel that way about Apple as well, Yeah. And they used to allow more responses, but they don't need more.

35:09 And I don't understand why. I do think one thing that would help on reviews is if people were allowed to, you know, rate the reviews, you know, give the review, you know, five stars or one star. And of course, and of course, 1 positive thing about Amazon is they will separate reviews by people who actually purchase the product versus people who didn't purchase the product. You'll see people you know wanting to slam a book even though they clearly never. Read it. Yeah, that's a whole other story. I'm going to move on because I see a couple other people want to say something and yeah, great question that happened. I get that question a lot from people. I can't find where to review or I can't read reviews. Where are they? They're kind of buried. You have to, if you're using the mobile app, you have to Scroll down.

35:51 You just keep scrolling until you eventually will see those reviews there. But it is not conveniently placed. I do like how Spotify does it. They have their ratings toward the top of the podcast page, which is, I would say, helpful. All right, Phil, I saw earlier you had something and then I saw Jeff had something as well. So let's go to you, Phil. Good morning again. I'm just want to go off what you you and Ralph were having a little discussion about. When I look at reviews, I always look at the negative ones first because I want to see what people actually have an issue with. Majority of the time they're just complaining to complain, so there's no usefulness in it. And having started to do that, when I do get a negative review, I look at it as like, where is there an improvement to do? So I look at if this person is actually providing value in their review of if there's actually an issue, like does my sound quality need work or is this person just going, they don't know how to talk.

36:56 You look at the negativity as if you're reviewing for a product and I want to know what's what problems people have with their products. If they're there's an actual genuine concern or are they just trolling to bring down the stats or the reviews because they don't like the person or they think they're a scam or something and they're not bringing any actual value to the review. That's how I always look at negative reviews whenever I receive it. I look it as if I'm going to purchase. Are they providing value in their review? If they're not, then there's nothing important about it and you just move because that person maybe just had a bad day. Yeah, I definitely take those types of reviews with a grain of salt when I'm making my decision. I'm with you there.

37:40 And often times what I do when I'm reading a review, whether it's a product on Amazon, whether it's a podcast, I like to read and Amazon makes it easier to do this. I like to review the mid tier reviews. I like to see those five, I'm sorry, those three out of five star reviews because those tend to be, not always and they tend to be more constructive. I noticed that they're not just sitting there slamming, they're really giving genuine reasons why they didn't include two more stars on that review. So I like to take that and consider that as well. And again, I can, I think I'm pretty good at deciphering the pure hate versus constructive criticism, even if it's delivered in maybe a not so nice way.

38:27 Jeff, did you want to add something? Just a couple of thoughts 1 you started out the question by saying what do you do about the things that you can't change? I'm like, well, I think you've kind of already answered your question here. And if you can't change it, you know, you, you don't, you don't dwell on it. Now, I would say when you respond to stuff like that, that's unfounded, as if your response is going to be logically received when you think it was an illogical review. The way I kind of view that, you know, and I tell my guys this on the road, it's kind of like being surprised when you get in the face, hit in the face with a golf ball, when you throw the golf ball at a brick wall.

39:10 I mean, you can't be surprised when it comes back and hits you right with that. So don't engage it. Now, what, you know, what I would do and, and what I try to do is if I really get an attitude about something like that is I take my opportunity to write a good review for something that I think deserves it. Because, you know, does that mean I'm going to get good back? No, but it means that if I'm complaining about somebody's bad review, they should have written a good review. Have I taken the opportunity to write a good review when I knew something deserved it, but I didn't take the time to do it? But you don't always get good back.

39:52 But I will. At least if I go down that rabbit hole, I'll at least try to say, OK, this doesn't mean I'm going to get a good review, but it means I'm practicing what I'm preaching and I'm doing what I would hope somebody else would do. And whether I get it or not at least. I can feel like it's a little more warranted, but don't throw golf balls at brick walls. Great advice. Thank you, Jeff. I was going to just trumpet that because, you know, it's easy to sit on the sidelines and not get engaged and not get involved. But if we all take a more proactive and positive approach and think about this for a second, have you went out there and listened to other people's shows, the independent podcasters? Have you taken the time to write a review for them? Have you taken the time to really connect with them? And we all can.

40:40 We all can do that and try to help each other out. I don't expect to get anything in return but and there has to be some desire to go out and do that for other people who are struggling just like we are. Thank you, Ralph and Jeff, again, thank you both. I appreciate those comments. And Sid, you had something else you wanted to bring as we're getting close to wrapping up today. There are two things. One of them is each and every one of you do every day of the week, including me in creating content and putting out podcasts, writing blogs, creating YouTube videos, whatever it is you're doing. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to put yourself out there, put yourself in a place that people can ridicule you, that can provide negative feedbacks and things of that nature. It's also a place that you can have amazing impact on people. Whatever your message is, whatever you're saying, how you're saying it, whoever your audience is, right, you can have amazing impact.

41:35 It takes so much courage to do that. I want you to have this perspective for a second. It takes 0 courage for somebody to leave a negative review about you. It takes 0 courage for somebody to say something bad about you. They just do it. It takes courage to stand up and be seen and to say and do the things that you're doing. So be proud of the courage that you have to try to make a difference in the world. And don't let the naysayers stop you. Don't let them pull you down. Don't let them prevent you from impacting the life of one person because that's why you're here. You're here to make an impact. You're creating content to make an impact. So lean into that courage to keep doing what you do every day.

42:19 I know that helps me a lot, Sid. That helps me just from the perspective of thinking about the that there's no courage in those hateful comments. It doesn't take any courage for them to do that. Yet here we are, being courageous every day or every week, whatever the cadences of your content. Yeah, I that's, that really just that's a good perspective shift for me and I'm sure that's helpful for others. And you said you had two things. Yeah, so the other thing is I follow a guy on LinkedIn and Liam, Liam Darty, Darmic, Darmic, I can't say his last name. Anyways, I shared the link with Mark so he could put it in the Sonos. Liam posted a screenshot of something the other day and it was the lady that said I am canceling my gurus.

43:05 I think that's what I call it, Grunes subscription before receiving the product. Why They sent me 13 emails between me ordering and arrival day today. That's too much communication for vitamins. Who responded? Who had the courage to respond, to reflect, to think about this? The CEO of the company. And it was a thoughtful response. It's like, hey, Dang, I'm bummed to hear this. I take your feedback to the retention. I'll take your feedback to the retention team. Just checked your e-mail profile and looks like the emails 7/7 in which seven on my end showing maybe Shopify separated sins blah, blah blah. Anyways, I'm not going to read the whole thing. You guys can check out the link, but just the way he responded and he and he ended it with hey, DM me. I want to see the 13 emails that you've received so that I can look into what this issue is and solve this problem. And I just think that that is just to me, a master class and how you can respond to negative things, whether they're selling a product, whether it's your podcast you're playing, get a negative comment on your blog.

44:13 Like, take a step back, think about it, investigate it, look at what you could do differently, which is that what this guy's doing is asking for help. Now, whether this lady continues to buy from him, who knows, right? But just the fact that he leaned into it and said, let me help you. I think it's just a great example. It's a wonderful example. Thank you, Sid. It. It's an example of how we respond and that and how much that matters. There's so many hateful comments out there. And as somebody pointed out earlier, it's easy to respond back negatively. But I think it's those moments when we respond thoughtfully and share like this CEO did in response, I think that speaks volumes to an audience or a potential audience. We worry a lot about the negative feedback, but I think maybe we should be more worried about how do we respond to that publicly.

45:11 If we've gotten negative feedback publicly, how do we respond to it? And I and I think that goes back to all of the lessons that we've shared earlier, which, well, let me just, yeah, let me just say what this is what I've written down as far as some of these great points that we've heard. Not all feedback deserves the same weight. Sometimes it's OK as Sid had suggested, you know, he got that negative feedback and he just chose to let it go after he vented and went through his own tools to be more at peace with it. But he decided, no, I'm not, I'm not responding right away. We've also talked about that you can respect opinions without shaping your work around them, right? We, we can take in their feedback for consideration and we don't have to take it all in.

46:03 I think if we can ask ourselves, is there validity to this point? And if the answer is yes, then I think that's where we can make some changes if we so choose. And although we didn't put this term out there, I know we talked about it. It, it's protecting your peace, right? As a strategy. In other words, setting boundaries too. When I say setting boundaries, I mean understanding. But maybe sometimes it's time to stay off of social media for a little while. It's time to stop reading all the reviews for a little while, right? If it's starting to eat away at you, I think taking a break from it is helpful.

46:49 So the next time that you get feedback, my suggestion is pause before you react. And that was the suggestion of others. Ask yourself, does this come from someone who actually understands what I'm building? Is there something useful here or is it just noise? Use what helps you get better and leave what doesn't. That's how I stay focused. That's how I keep creating on my own terms. And does that work every time? No. Sometimes the negativity or the influence of what people are going to think does creep in. And usually that's where I start struggling with my content when I allow the noise to creep in. So that's a sign for me.

47:35 If I'm struggling to make the content, I stop and start asking myself why. And a lot of times it's because I'm hoping that it's going to land the right way, that people are going to receive it well, that it may be that it's going to go viral, whatever that is. But there are reasons for it. And I think it's best to stop focus on why you're doing this content and less about who what people are going to think. How are they going to judge? We're back tomorrow at 7:00 AM Eastern. We're going to be talking all things news, podcasting news, the headlines. We will comment on things going on around the world of podcasting, content creation, social media, etcetera.

48:19 That affects you as a creator and we'll talk all about them. So come join us tomorrow again, 7:00 AM Eastern, live on Clubhouse, live on Facebook, on YouTube, on Chatter, all the things. We'll put it all in the show notes for you so you can pick which one you'd like to listen in on. So until tomorrow, make it a great day everybody take care.