20. Season 1 Recap-The Journey of Podcasting

In this episode black history educator Brittany Wilkins discusses the high and lows of integrating black history in creative spaces. Brittany opens up and shares her experiences of overcoming perfectionism in launching the show.  Listeners gain insight on the top most downloaded episodes.

Transcript

“Every Expert was once a beginner”

You are tuned into Episode 20 of The Coin: Black History on Other Side. It’s our two year podiversay . This month in 2019 we launched the show. My purpose for starting the podcast was from my beliefs that people should be informed on the true narrative of black history, as there is more to history than slavery. 

Podcasting has been a liberating uncomfortable journey. Liberating in the sense it allowed me to tap into my creative side I didn’t know I possessed. With a technical background I’m more left brain dominant. I suffer from analysis paralysis and perfectionism. 

I’m getting better, but at time I put off venturing into new things until I completely understand how to do it. Especially since I don’t have a full production team like many podcast shows. I told myself don’t let that stop you. I didn’t want the same scenario to play out like waiting ten years to publish my first book Letters to My Sisters in Engineering. I wanted it to be perfect and felt I needed to figure out how to become a great writer.  

With podcasting I made the decision to go before I was ready. Doing so I come to learn all the rookie mistakes seasoned podcasters advised against. Analysis paralysis had me over thinking. Thinking I should delete all the episodes and start completely over from scratch. As I was rationalizing eliminating the podcast, my download numbers begin to trend up. Buzzsprout is sending me congrats emails for reaching download milestones. Encouraged by the number of downloads I said keep going for now. 

Going on this journey whenever I felt stuck on trying to figure out certain things, I would say how do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time. Never try to master it all at once. My goal is to learn and incorporate one new thing and build on it. 

Season 1 was really a proof of concept. My motto was to Keep it Stupid Simple. 

Knowing there are levels to this, I invested into going to my first podcast conference. I was in awe soaking up so much knowledge and information. I met some amazing people and vendors who had the tools enabling me to achieve my podcast goals.

As I was talking to people at the podcast conference, they encourage me not to quit. A few praised me for getting past seven episodes, which I learned most podcasters never make it past seven and experience podfade. One vendor told me to get out of my own head. 

Thinking along these terms the self-talk shifted to start from where I am, use what I have, and grow from there. 

Now having published 19 episodes, I analyzed the download data to assess the most popular episodes.  The top Episodes of all time to date 

1.)    At number one is our very first episode The Introduction: The Door of Return to Black History. I really wanted to begin to shift the narrative and focus our community’s attention to about the rich history of accomplishments and achievements.

2.)    At number two was our fifth episode They Came Before Columbus. Honoring the late great scholar and historian Ivan Van Sertima, in bringing to light his literary work of They Came  Before Columbus. The documentation of the presence and legacy of Africans in Ancient America.

3.)    At number three our tenth episode They Came Before Columbus Part II-The Mariner Prince of Mali. 

4.)    Coming in as our top 4 most downloaded episode was The Black Kings of Spain.  The story of the Moors in Spain highlighting many of the accomplishments of how Africans help to develop civilizations.

5.)    Rounding out our top five most downloaded episode is episode 15 Top Reasons to learn black history. There is always more to the story. In this episode I wanted to educate our listening community beyond what we know today about black history.

The success of these five podcast shows would not be possible with the support of our listeners.  I would like to give a special shout out to all our listeners in Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Columbus, and Philadelphia for being the top cities who have downloaded The Coin: Black History on the Other Side. What has inspired me is seeing how the show has expanded the across the states and made it way around the world.  Much love and appreciation to my listeners in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, & Mexico. 

Since its launch the show has come far, but not far enough in bridging the gap between African American culture and black history. The marathon will continue with the launch of season 2 in early 2023. 

Help us continue to grow in this space, email us at info@historiansconnect.org with feedback, suggestions on topics you are interested in Season 2 or ways we can make the overall quality of the show better. 

Remember never lose sight of the goal. When you want to give up, remember why you started.