Today's episode is another my Favorite Tip episode where I go back to interviews from the past and I dig out the thing that was my favorite tip, like the thing that I got out of the interview that really impacted or resonated with me. Today's extract is from my chat with Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald. Michelle and Zara are Melbourne based journalists and broadcasters who are only twenty six years of age at the time of this recording.
They met working as writers for Mom and mea and in March twenty eighteen launched Australia's top pop culture podcast, Shameless, which they say is for smart women who like dumb stuff. They now run Shameless Media and other producers of three other highly popular podcasts Now if you haven't come across Shameless. It has been downloaded over ten million times and was crowned Australia's most Popular Podcast of twenty nineteen at the
Australian Podcast Awards. Michelle and Zara and their podcast have been written about in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Age and Murray Claire and their latest book Because who knows how they had time to write a book,
but they did, is called the Space in Between. I was very excited to speak to Michelle and Zara, and in this extract from my chat, we talk about their process for making really tough business decisions and talk specifically about a very tough business decision that they had to make. So let's head on over to Michelle and Zara.
So, yeah, we spend a whole bunch of time on social media, and it has always been that way since we launched the podcast, because we know social media is the main way that we connect with our audience and our listeners, and so to have that relationship with them, which we value so much, we have to be present. It was a huge decision for Zara and I to actually delete our Facebook group to archive it in It might have been end of May, or it might have
been beginning of June this year. That was a group that was kind of like the heartland for a time of Shameless, that had more than forty thousand listeners in there. It was energized and chaotic and fun and a little bit mad sometimes, and we loved it. We really truly did love it. But it got to the point where we were two women trying to police forty thousand women
and that was not doable. And of course we might be asleep for seven hours a night, but a Facebook group with people from all over the world never sleeps. And it got to the point where we were so burnt out and we were so at a loss as to how to keep this Facebook group running that we just decided. We turned to each other and said, we're so burnt out, we're exhausted, and it's not doable. It's
not doable to have this Facebook group anymore. And I think getting rid of that Facebook group, although it hurt at the time and it was upsetting for the community, it was the absolute best things are and I could have done for our sanity and for our mental health and our work life balance.
Yeah, we were really struggling, not just with the Facebook group, but we were also struggling with the decision to close it. Like we just we also couldn't keep people safe anymore
inside it. And I know that might sound like a strange thing to say, but when you've got really political conversations happening at all hours of the day, we don't have the power to moderate that at all hours of the day to the level that we want to, and so giving up and kind of effectively deleting what is a huge arm of your business is like an incredibly difficult decision because it was, as Miss said, it was the heartland of Shameless and it was kind of our
entire community coming together. But as she also said, it was the best thing that we did, and we kind of put all our energy into other forms of social media, and we kind of channeled our energy. And I think if my advice was to anyone, it would be work out kind of the things that are burning you out, because for us, the Facebook group was burning us out, and we suddenly had all this extra energy to pour into really productive forms of social media that could actually
grow our business. And for so long we were just juggling so many things that we kind of couldn't we couldn't see that, we didn't have that clarity to say, we will have far more energy and kind of far better ideas if we delete this thing.
Yeah, And it gave us like a zest for the podcast back, I think because we had time to relax and time to switch off. And I know it sounds hyperbolic, but I truly don't think Cazara and I had the ability to switch off for a year like the Facebook group was the busiest on a Sunday, particularly a Sunday night, so we had to be in there and watching it like hawks in case someone said something offensive or someone
upset someone else. And yeah, I think now that we've moved to a model where we focus a lot more on Instagram and other forms of social media to be really transparent about it. Yeah, we spent a lot of time on them. But we're also twenty six year olds who love social media anyway, so there is a part of it to us that does not feel like work. Like some of it's literally just finding funny memes or creating funny content that we can share with people, and we get a lot of joy out of that.
That decision about the Facebook group I find fascinating. Do you remember what went into making such a huge and important decision?
Oh yeah, I mean I think it was something that we floated three months before we did it, And I remember I was talking to Mish on the phone and we had kind of come into some issues again. I mean, I just I have these vivid memories of being like of a Tuesday evening, sitting in front of Netflix, trying to watch a series and realizing that my phone wasn't next to me, and if my phone was next to me, then I couldn't see what was happening in the Facebook group.
And if I couldn't see what was happening in the Facebook group, then things could be going wild. And we were having this conversation about how we were constantly very wired and very stressed, and I remember she said, have you ever thought about getting rid of it? And I thought, no, I didn't know that this was on the cards. I didn't. I didn't think that this was an option. And we said let's just sit with it, like, let's not do anything rash. Let's sit with it for about three months
and see how we go. And we spoke to a lot of people very close to us, and I spoke to kind of my sister, and I even mentioned it to my parents and my friends, and I was like, what do you think of this? And they were like the minute we even floated it as an idea, They're like, that's exactly what you need to do. That is exactly what you need to do. But we sat on it for such a long time to make sure it was the right call, because I think once you do something like that, you can't really go back.
Definitely, do you remember what that felt like hitting the delete button?
It was quite freeing, to be honest, the day that we archived the group, I actually got my head done that morning. I remember walking into the hairdresser and she looked at me and said, you just look like you're carrying the weight of your world, the weight of the world on your shoulders, And I'm like, it feels so ridiculous, Like we're talking about a Facebook group, and if you tell the average person that, they're like, oh my god,
get over it. But it truly was something we stressed about, Like we would get messages about this group at two am in the morning on a Tuesday or eleven pm on a Friday night, So it was something that consumed us. By the end, it was just incredibly freeing, and I think my love of work came back almost instantaneously that I felt so much freer to I guess, switch off but then also create again, because I create the best content when I'm not actively trying to come up with ideas.
Ideas come to me when I when I switch off and I spend time with my boyfriend or go for a walk or what have you. So it was the best decision we could have made, not just for our listeners and keeping them safe, but for ourselves in I guess, keeping that flame of passion for what we do lit.
I find that so inspiring. Listening to what you guys did with the Facebook group, I think it takes like a lot of guts. I mean, that's a really significant size group to do that, and just hearing what happened as a result of that, it reminds me of one of my favorite books that I've read around this area. I guess, of you know, making decisions and how do
you work out your priorities? Is this book called Essentialism by Greg mceuw And I think I've pronounced his surname correctly, And it's all about like, how do you work out just what are the essential things that are going to create the most value and bring you the most joy in what you're doing.
Yes, I think it's that idea of value. I really really do, because your mind can get quite muddied when you're across a million different things all the time. And for a long time there it was just Michelle and I running a business, running social media, doing podcasts, making podcasts for other people. We were writing a book all at the same time. We were doing this, and we nearly ruined our physical and mental health all at the same time, and we weren't giving people the best value.
Like I remember certain days we'd sit in front of the mics ready to record. It might be a Sunday morning, and we were just like, how have we got to a point where the best and most kind of important part of our business, which is this record right now, is kind of the thing that's getting the least energy because we're so exhausted. And I think for us, just as what you said, it's about what value are we giving the listeners. We can't kind of reduce the quality
of this episode. This episode is the most important thing, so we're going to have to kind of get rid of some other stuff to make sure that this remains the priority and it gets the energy it deserves.
I think as well, when you get to the point that you have employees and you have people relying on you, and we work with a lot of freelancers and a lot of contractors, you have to have the difficult conversation with yourself that what is worth my time and what should I be investing my time into. Because people are relying on me like I rely on Zara, she relies
on me. People rely on us. We can't continue to have these illogical priorities anymore, and we had to kind of invest in ourselves and make sure that we were okay before anything else. And yeah, it was just it was a very clarifying month. Actually, once we decided that we were going to do it and we were working on the messaging of how to close the group, it
was very clarifying. And to look back now, I can't believe the way we were living and the way we were working, because it wasn't good for anyone.
I'm curious as to how doing that has changed your approach to evaluating how many projects you are taking on at the one time.
I think we'd actually started reviewing our priorities before that, and that's probably why we kind of landed in that conversation to start with. At the start of last year.
So at the start of twenty nine ten, when I had quit my job and Michelle and I were working on Shameless full time, we had a lot of opportunities come to us and we said yes to every single one, and by about June, we were producing four or five podcast episodes a week to one for a podcast called Shoes on the Money that we produced the first season.
For another was a bespoke podcast for Love, etc. We were writing our book and running our social media channels and we looked at each other and we said, like, why did we do this to ourselves? But I think if we went back eighteen months, we'd probably do the same thing again, because you just want to say yes
to everything. Right now, I still feel like, and I'd love to say if Mischi graz and me, I still feel like we have a tendency just a tiny part of us doing that, Like the most natural instinct is for us to be like yes, yes, yes, yes yes,
and we have to actively pull ourselves back. But I think having deleted the Facebook group and understanding that the shameless Monday Thursday episodes are our absolute priority has influenced now how we make decisions a little bit, because we always come back to that tea that is, is this going to impact the quality of Monday and Thursday? And if this is going to impact the quality and our energy levels and our time management, then we're not going to do it.
Yeah. Look, I think I must be the least woo
woo person in the world. And yet I think the universe has had our back on a couple of occasions, because even after that horrific June period where we were so burnt out and so overworked last year, we then in the following months proceeded to say yes to a whole bunch of opportunities that at the time were like, Okay, well this will be great, like let's do this, and if they had eventuated, we would have been in such a heap, like we would have been at our absolute
lowest ebb if that at all eventuated, because we would have just been run off our feet. I don't know what's happened. We've been very, very lucky and that things we've kind of leaped towards and be like, oh my god, what an incredible opportunity, let's do it. They fell through, And now that I look back, I'm like, thank God those things didn't happen. Otherwise I don't even know how
it'd be function right now. And I think having those near misses has been very important for us, because now Zara and I are very clear on what we think is worth our energy and what we want to align with. And I think the shameless brand is something that is trusted by young women. That's something that we take incredibly seriously, and we also know that media brands can lose that
trust so quickly. I think it's been something that has kind of torched part of the media industry here in Australia that there's not a huge amount of trust in journalists or in particular publications. So Zara and I now are very particular about what we want to do, and we already have a lot of work on our plate and we have an incredible team around us getting that
work done. But to kind of bite off anything more, it has to make sense, and I think we've kind of come up with this vernacular to be like is it us? Like is it shameless? Because if it's not shameless and it doesn't make sense, then we're not going to touch it.
That is it for today's show. If you want to listen to the full episode, I link to that in the show notes, so you might want to check that out. And if you are enjoying how I work, I would be so deeply grateful if you just take five seconds out of your date to leave a review in Apple Podcasts, it might be a star rating. Or a few words, and by doing so, it helps other people find the show and it also brings a huge smile to my face. So thank you to the hundreds of people that have
left reviews. It is so deeply appreciated. So that is it for today's show and I will see you next time.