This weekend I had "Christmas" with most of my family as my brother goes to Florida for Christmas with his in-laws. We bought my nieces and nephews who are ages 8 and under some of the toys we grew up playing. I noticed that these games are often very simplistic.  What does this have to do with podcasting? Becuase sometimes we make things harder than they need to be.   Because Of My Podcast - I'm Getting to Talk to Some Very Cool People Darryl E. McCullough Darryl hosts the Full Circle Podcast and helped launch National Podcast Power conference. Daryl has met actors, authors, politicians, YouTube Stars and more. If you want to get doors opened, start a podcast today. Keeping Simple Is Sometimes All You Need I spent the weekend playing with my great-nieces and nephew. We brought out some classc board games. Battling Tops My entire family ended up playing this game by the end of the day.  What makes it a great game is that it is easy to learn and the action is fast and furious. The tops come out the gate very fast and often one or two of the tops go flying out of the arena. You pull a "string" (now a plastic tie with teeth) and the tops go into what amounts to a bowl and bounce off each other. The last one in the bowl spinning wins. Simple. Checkers This is another game that takes very little skill, and you get to the action fairly quickly. It takes some thought and strategy. Hide and Go Seek This game requires the ability to count to ten Mississippi. There is suspense, and tension as you wait to see if you can get home without being caught. Here again, it requires a good hiding spot and strategy to determine when you would try to "go home." I love helping people understand the best path to get to your podcast going in the right direction. There are times when people ask a question and they expect a simple answer, but the absolute truth about podcasting is there are very few absolute truths. The other thing I want to talk about today is letting your personality shine. So many people make podcasting harder than it is. Don't get me wrong there is still a learning curve, but some time we make the curve much higher than it needs to be. Sometimes Too Much Technology Can Take the Fun Out of Things I do a show called "Ask the Podcast Coach" and at one point I had a cohost located in another state, a phone line coming in (with a screen where I could put people on hold and see my callers), and I had a chat room. I streamed it live on Google Hangouts (now YouTube live), as well as mixlr.com and spreaker.com When I started the show I needed eight arms to start everything. My co-host and I Jim Collison (from theaverageguy.tv) noticed that most of our questions come in via chat. We still offer the ability to join the Google Hangout, but I would say 98% of our questions come in via chat. We also stream the show via Google Hangout and based on audience feedback, only stream via mixlr.com (for those who want an audio only). Simple Can Work and Sound Great My friend Cale Nelson from the Modern Christian Men show (and previously Ham Radio 360) got an email from a listener. In it, they said, " You have always sounded great! Better than some national broadcasts/podcasts." So what equipment does Cale Use? Did he spend thousands of dollars? He is using an  ATR2100 Microphone, Yamaha MG12XU Mixer, Zoom H2n Digital Recorder. Record Locally to Zoom, then Edit in Audacity. Bernie The Cat Wishes Everyone Happy Holidays 13:44 Bernie from the Bernie the Cat Show stops by to wish everyone Happy Holidays. New Statistics From Apple inside PodcastsConnect. Apple.com 14:45 See Video  https://youtu.be/VmSDwb3iU9s New Stats From Blubrry and Libsyn 20:28 Libsyn.com  launched a new stats interface that works on your phone. The backend of the stats system now provides IAB compliant (once the IAB launches their certification) stats. Blubrry Statistics just got better, with the introduction of regional reporting for Canada, UK, and Brazil. More Information Get a free m