^I recorded this week’s issue so you have the option to listen OR read—let me know what you think!
Something that’s been swimming around in my brain lately is - “how do I swim around in other people’s brains?”
In most of the important things I’m trying to do in my work, and in life, it’s occurred to me that the more I can try to figure out how others think, the more effective my work may end up being.
I’ll start from the top:
It’s occurred to me that while this is extremely difficult (I’m not actually in the practice of centering others, and I imagine most people aren’t, because why would we/how could we be?), once I’m able to stretch my brain around that way, a lot of things get much more simple, lots of light bulbs go off. 💡
Podcast Marketing 🎧
For example, when thinking about marketing for our podcast, the first thought that has always come to my head has been “We need to find other sustainability podcasts, and get on those, or get those people to come on our podcast!” and then I stop there because that feels like a tiresome task that I’m not excited about (I don’t listen to any sustainability podcasts). But what I’m missing here is centering the listener—I’m assuming that all of our listeners are robots obsessed with sustainability and they do nothing but listen to all of the green/earthy/sustainability podcasts.
But who do I know who actually does that? Do I do that? Decidedly, no.
Also - sustainability can be kind of a depressing subject and it might make more sense that people who like our podcast do so because it fills that quota of “caring about environmental issues” in a (hopefully positive!) way, but that otherwise they are listening to comedy shows, prestige television review podcasts, spirituality/woo-woo podcasts, informational shows about personal finance, etc. I don’t know, kind of like me? I guess is what they’re talking about when they say “know your audience”.
Thinking about it this way, I’m thinking about our listeners more as well-rounded people who have other interests besides our podcast, and others exactly like it. IMAGINE. 😂 It’s more interesting and exciting to think this way. And ultimately, I think, much more effective. There’s a good chance that if you like to listen to my mom & I, you might appreciate our sense of humor as well. Which means you might like the same comedy podcasts we like. Which means that comedian might be into sustainability too, and even our podcast, who knows? So—what if you heard about our show through your favorite comedian???
That’s good marketing.
Prezzies 🎁
The same applies to gift giving. Cam quite helpfully pointed out to me the other day, “Gift giving is easy—just listen, and think about what the other person is thinking about. They’ll tell you outright if you listen.”
So wise, so simple.
You’re also barely going to believe this, but AS I’M WRITING THIS SECTION OF THIS NEWSLETTER, my aunt sends the family chat this podcast on the history of Christmas gift giving. (Thank you, Aunt Christy!)
While we’re talking about marketing and capitalism, I think it’s great to just question the whole thing while we’re at it—at the same time recognizing that gift giving and serving others does not have to be the same thing as materialism and consumer culture! Heavily intertwined, yes, but not one and the same.
Understanding story 📖
The job of acting is really just the job of storytelling. It isn’t about conveying emotion, inhabiting a character, or living authentically in a moment. All of those things are helpful/necessary tools, but they aren’t it. “It” is telling a story. And most of the time, as an actor, that story is one that you did not write nor do you have any control over. You are there to serve the story. It’s not about your character, and especially not you as the actor as the character. It’s about how your character serves the story. This is something I’m just starting to grasp in my acting work, and it’s just 🍌BANANAS🍌 to me how much of learning how to be a good actor is also about learning how to be a good human, and how much easier, less stressful, and more fun the job is when I am able to center the other characters in the scene as well as the story we’re all trying to tell together as opposed to centering myself and my work. 🤯
It’s also much more effective.
Newsletter matters 🗞
We’ve now arrived at the meta part of this edition of Making Of: A Newsletter by Emma, where I attempt to express how difficult and uncomfortable it is to actually figure out what exactly I want to write about and how I want to say it when I think about these. That’s because I’m usually thinking about ME when I think about that.
As soon as I think about YOU, and what I might excitedly (caffeinated-ly) tell you about on a walk or over coffee, about what I’ve been thinking about and what lightbulbs 💡have illuminated for me this week, this thing starts to write itself.
So, here we are.
I’m not sure how many of you reading this actually care or think about marketing, or acting, or creating, but what I do know is that we are all, on many levels, consumers. And as a highly skilled and practiced consumer myself, I can say that learning about marketing (as much as I actually loathe the work itself) has helped curb my unconscious consumerism and equipped me with a bit more agency to see just beyond the catchy email subject titles and sponsored advertisements.
I still buy things, of course (!) and am still the best at gift-giving to myself 😊, because centering myself is really easy 😇, but I at least like knowing that I know what I’m doing as I walk into these little consumer traps. And I do think that I’ve begun to walk into less of them.
📚My girl Lida and I had a sweet coffee date this week (two days in a row, actually), and after both of them we wandered around a bookstore and then a used book sale at the library. Lida read ONE HUNDRED AND TWO books this year (🏋️♂️🎊🤓), and when I looked back at my list, I realized I’d read…6. :)
She inspired me to re-activate my Goodreads account (If you have one, add me as a friend! If you don’t, get one!) and to prioritize reading FOR FUN in 2023.
I like using Goodreads because it helps me to keep track of all of the wonderful recommendations that come my way, as well as provides a satisfying way to count up all of the books you read as you finish them.
Another tip is to use the Libby app! All you need is a library card, and you can access e-books, audiobooks, and magazines FO FREE. I also like that many of the more recent/popular books are on hold so you do have to wait for them, it creates a natural way to not feel stressed about reading everything right away.
Some funny tiktoks I saw this week:
This made me love Aubrey Plaza 100x more, didn’t even think that was possible. (Caitlin sent me this one - so good).
another roundup of images (mostly from pinterest) that spoke to me this week ✨
I guess this is where I wish you a Merry Christmas or however you celebrate! I hope you find warmth, coziness, love, (good) gifts given and received, and all of the hot chocolate you could hope for!
thanks for being here.
xo
made by:
emma
🎶Emma where are you, ooh ooh ohh, ooh ooh ooh? I will follow you, ooh ooh ooh, ooh ooh ooh.”🎵
I read. I have cut my podcasts to only those I cannot read elsewhere. Twitter is going nuts, but I am excited to see that you have actually already guided me to sub stack a while ago, so I can follow my favorite political analysts and pundits, and ok, sport too. Happy Holidays!