It's time for Word to the Third, my reflections on purpose, life, and growth. I'm Toby Brooks. I'm a speaker, author, professor, and forever student. Each week on Becoming Undone, I bring you guests who have dared bravely, risk-mightily, grown relentlessly, high achievers, who've transformed from falling apart to falling into place. But every third episode, it is my turn to reflect, refine, and reprocess in Word to the Third.
Gang, this podcasting thing is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it's super gratifying, and it's quickly become one of my favorite things in the whole world to do. I get to talk to old friends, I get to make new acquaintances, I get to hear people tell their stories, and I get inspired by their journeys. I love it. And as I was reading my current book, The Spartan Mindset, shout out to future guest Reed Maltby, last night I came across the line that stopped me in my tracks. It said, what would you do if you could do what you were meant to do? Y'all, that made me think. Sometimes we end up in careers or in jobs that pay the bills and they're satisfying, but we can't help but wonder if that's really what our purpose is. And at the risk of getting ahead of myself, I really believe that this work that I'm doing right now in building this movement, this podcast, is some of the most important work I've ever done.
I received an email not long ago from a guest who is reconciling with her long estranged family member due to sharing her story on here. Pretty awesome, right? Another guest told me that while they've been interviewed by thousands of people from all over the world, they felt like the interview they did for the show was their absolute favorite. So far, after 33 episodes, listeners have tuned in from 23 countries and 344 cities around the globe. Since kicking off on January 1st, the show's episodes have been downloaded a total of over 2,300 times. With no frame of reference, I didn't know what to expect starting this thing out. Would 100 people listen? A thousand? Ten thousand? I had no idea. It came out of the gate pretty strong which made sense. I had promoted the show for over a month. I dropped eight episodes on the first day.
The hosting platform that I use, Buzzsprout, requires you to log a minimum of a thousand downloads before you're eligible for their advertising platform platform and I hit that mark in the first month. Things were going pretty well and then as stuff often does, a new kind of wore off for me. It started to become work. Spring break came and I missed my first three episodes a week goal. Then I did it again the next week, and the next week. Truth be told it became this kind of self-fulfilling sucky prophecy. I couldn't seem to get the energy together to produce episodes because I felt like no one was listening. And no one was listening like at first because I wasn't producing episodes. If I'm really honest I started pouting silently. And if I get really honest I even felt sad because the interview episodes with other guests always get better listening stats than my Word to the Thirds.
And that makes sense. I mean, people's friends log in, they want to hear their stories. And many times, my Word to the Thirds are my core listeners. But why? Don't people want to hear what I have to say? Do I suck? After all those Word to the Thirds, we're only getting about a third of the typical listens as my longer format, guest-style episodes. This is a lot of work. And I began to doubt myself.
Maybe I should just quit if just 45 people were going to take the time to listen. As she often does, my wife had to listen to me bemoaning about how sad I was and how no one was listening and basically just throwing myself a pity party. She stopped me. How many people listened to your last episode, she asked. At the time, it was just under 60. Instead of looking at yourself compared to other podcasters, have you thought about what it would feel like if you said you'd be speaking and 60 people showed up in a room to hear it? Just. In some context we want things to be just. If I'm taking a test or standing in front of a judge, I want everything to be just. Just as fair.
Just as unbiased. Just as something to strive for. But when it comes to comparisons, just is a thief. What a disappointment it is to just get to talk for a few minutes. How sad it is if just a few people tune in. How discouraging it is to feel like your work is just making a little impact. Speaking of impact, the inspiration for this show, Dave Holmes and his show Waiting for Impact, Out of the Blue, emailed me this week. Now if you don't know Dave Holmes is a celebrity. He was a real live MTV VJ in the late 90s and early 2000s and he's now involved with several great shows over all kinds of media. He was also the guest of episode 16, Impact, so if you haven't listened to it, do it. He's awesome.
But out of nowhere, Dave emails me just to encourage me, ask how things are going, and offer up some assistance if I needed it. I reached out to Dave as a bit of a Hail Mary via social media way back in October. I didn't think he'd ever bother to return my message. After all, I was just some random guy in Texas with this crazy dream to build a show. At that point I had no episodes, no real idea what I was doing. Literally just a guy and a dream. Not only was Dave kind enough to respond, he went beyond that. He sat in for an interview and now he's continuing to reach out. That's the kind of human I aspire to be. These aren't just guests. You aren't just listeners.
Like Dave, I want to be the kind of person who helps breathe life into people's dreams. I want to inspire my friends and beyond to try bold things, to not let either fear or failure get in the way, and to always remember what it's like to be starting out from scratch. So for the 60 or so of you I was referring to when I told my wife it was just however many, I'm sorry. I'm thankful and appreciative of every single one of you. Bricks and Buckets.
Each week on Becoming Undone I reflect back on the highs and lows of my week in bricks and buckets. Bricks are attempts that miss the mark, while buckets sail through the net clean and true. It's like a basketball equivalent of roses and thorns or happies and crappies. My brick this week? The end of semester crush. Seems like there's something to do every single night. It has made making shows almost impossible. I'm doing my best trying to keep up. Between award ceremonies, concerts, playoff baseball, these are all things I love but they're filling up the calendar quickly. If you're like me when stuff gets crammed too tight I start to get grouchy and that's when I start carrying my blessings like burdens.
That is a brick. My bucket this week? Classes are over. This spring has been rough, but I've almost made it through. Graduation is on Saturday and then it's on to the next semester. I'm teaching five classes this summer and I'm looking forward to getting back in the classroom as a student. Starting work on a fairly new dream of earning my Master's of Business Administration, an idea I owe completely to an upcoming guest on this show, Dr. Ramadas, who visited with me at the end of March.
His episode is forthcoming, but he inspired me to check into getting an MBA. Before I knew it, I had applied, I was accepted, and I had enrolled in an MBA through Louisiana State University Shreveport, focusing on data analytics. I've already read my homework for week one like a good student was. That's a bucket. What about you? What are you working for or waiting for? And what are you doing in the meantime to get better every day? I'd love to hear about it. Surf on over to undonepodcast.com and drop me a note. Also be sure to tune in for upcoming episodes as I check in with SIU Carbondale professor Dr. Julie Partridge who talked to me about her life through grad school and surviving a blood clot that could have cost her her life. I also check in with former student Stacy Salazar who's navigated her life after softball and changing jobs after graduation. And lastly my friend coach and author Reed Maltby checks in to talk about big job changes in his new book that I previously mentioned, The Spark Lancet.
I'm Toby Brooks and this has been Word to the Third. Becoming Undone is a Nitro-Hype Creative Production. Written and produced by me, Toby Brooks. If you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for Becoming Undone, contact me at undonepodcast.com. Follow the show on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at Becoming Undone Pod. And follow me at Toby J Brooks. Listen, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tell a friend about the show, because I refuse to think of it as just however many. I still want to reach as many as I can. And your help, well that would be awesome. Until next time everybody, keep getting better.