Your first podcast is probably your shortest ladder in terms of its potential. But it's really hard when you're at the top of a ladder to look down at the ground again and go, I don't want to get off the top here.
When it comes to music albums, one in 10 makes its money back. The same for venture backed startups. And it's also the same for movies. What if it's gonna take 10 podcasts for us to get the one that really hits it big?
The truth is, almost everybody I know in business, in podcasting, in creative work, in order to get where they were, they got to the top of one ladder and then they looked around and said, okay, I've made it as high as I can on this ladder. I got to start again.
So, Justin, have you heard of the novelist Brandon Sanderson by chance?
Yes. Here's a funny fact. I know he's a popular author. I've never read any of his books, but I was so inspired by his story during the pandemic that I supported his Kickstarter. But I still haven't consumed any of his material. But I just loved his creativity and his outlook on being a creative person.
Yeah. I believe I know he's done a couple Kickstarters, but he is actually, as far as I know, has the Guinness record for the biggest Kickstarter ever, which may have been the one that you contributed to. It's some ridiculous number like $40,000,000 or something like that. And there's a whole fascinating backstory that you can look up, and he's talked about it on podcast. I think the Tim Ferriss show.
So he is a fantasy author and probably the top fantasy author working today. And he is just, like, absolutely prolific. The number of books he has written, you look at his Wikipedia, it is like dozens and dozens and dozens. But like you, not read his material, but I've been really drawn to his outlook on creativity. And my introduction was actually listening to a couple of different podcasts, where I heard his lecture series referenced and went and checked it out.
And I've listened through a bunch of them so far. And in the first lecture of the series, he basically gives people some real talk on, like, what it takes to succeed as a writer today. And so he's saying, like, making a living as a writer. And he says, you know, making a living as a professional writer, a touring musician, or a working artist is hard, but it's not one in a million, which is what, you know, a lot of creative people's parents, might put the idea in their head. He said, if you are seriously dedicated to this and willing to invest ten years in it, you've probably got more like a one in 20 shot of making a significant portion of your income from writing.
Oh, I love This,
I think, very realistic. It's also very daunting. And I think a lot of times when we're looking at creative work or kind of like operating, building an audience of any kind, it's kind of like, yes, the odds are stacked against you, but one in twenty, that starts to feel approachable. But then he's also saying, you're seriously dedicated and you spend ten years doing it, and you might make a significant portion of your income from writing. So I thought this was an interesting thought experiment to bring into the podcasting world and kind of just ask the question, is it reasonable for us as creators, podcasters, business owners, whatever, to expect our shows to be successful?
And maybe the alternative to that is, is it reasonable to expect ourselves to succeed as individuals in our creative pursuits? And so I think in this episode, it might be useful to unpack some of the traits of both the exceptional podcasts and the exceptional creators. I'm curious on your take of Brandon's point of view here, your experience as a creator. What are your kind of initial thoughts here?
I just love that ten year framing. I think if I was a young person, I'm going to give this advice to my kids to say, Listen, if you just right away start your journal right now, this is year one of my ten year journey towards this goal. That is such an interesting, long term way of framing your journey in your career, as a business person, or as a creator. When I started my first podcast in 02/2008, well, ten years later, that all culminated in me starting a software company that served podcasters. And so thinking in terms of a decade, and thinking in terms of iterations, like I'm not still doing the same podcast today that I was doing ten years ago.
But every iteration, every year that has passed, there was this gradual culmination of where I'm at today. And I think more creative people should think in these terms. And for people to evaluate their progress in that timeframe, as opposed to, I just released my first episode three weeks ago, and I've only gotten 20 downloads. No, this is a long process. You've got to look at this in a bigger time frame than perhaps you are right now.
And I think you've laid out a bunch of threads that we're probably going to pull on throughout this episode. But to start things off, let's go to the data. And there is a lot of data both related to podcasting as well as businesses and other creative platforms more broadly. And I think the interesting place to start here, we've actually done an episode back in season one on the power law curb, which was about the percentage of shows that reached, you know, 10,000 downloads an episode, which was more or less 10%. The percentage of shows that doubled in size was 14%, so very small percentage of shows.
These are again clearly the exceptions to the rule. It is not every show that grows to 10,000 downloads or doubles in size from year to year. But the stat that I really like that clearly shows how much of an outlier, how much of an exception these shows that, you know, do persist and do find some kind of traction are is the stats around pod fade. And so this is something that many people in podcasting are preoccupied with. And the stats that I could find I've heard this widely reported over the years, but the most recent ones that I found were 75 to 80% of podcasts are inactive by episode 10.
So most shows, four out of five shows that launch do not make it to episode 10, and then more than half of those shows don't make it to episode 20. And so this is something that I think a lot of people in the industry feel like, well, we've gotta help people reduce pod fade. I don't know that I see it that way. I'm curious what your thoughts are about the this phenomenon.
Yeah. I mean, what I wish we could actually track is how many people are still podcasting. The creative and business fields are interesting Because one way to dramatically increase your chances is to just keep going. And this isn't true, for example, if you wanted to get to, you know, be an NBA basketball player. If you just continued to practice and practice, the likelihood of, for example, someone like me being able to play in the NBA.
I'm 40 I'm almost 45. I'm five foot eight. I've got a lot of things against me. There's just no way. Statistically, chances are effectively 0%.
But in any sort of creative discipline or knowledge work discipline, If I wanted to become a world class urban designer, I could actually probably accomplish that in a decade if I started right now. That is just an amazing opportunity. And I think that's what these stats kind of reveal to me is, do you want to increase your chances of success? Well, you've got to stay in motion.
So this is interesting that I have also thought in the past that, you know, we are both people who've created multiple shows. And this is actually a pretty common thing in podcasting. You know, it used to be a bit of a red flag for me when a client would come to me. They'd got one show that's not really doing that well, and then they would wanna launch a second show. And this was specifically back when I had the production agency, which should be a good thing for me.
If they wanna launch a new show and bring in more business, it's like, great. But it almost always felt like now their attention's getting split in half on two shows that are not gonna be done that well. And I never really saw that work out well for anybody. But I think that there is something to this idea of launching multiple shows, maybe not concurrently, but iterating on something going forward over time as your own taste change as you learn and you grow. And so I'm curious, like, how many shows have you created and why did you quit them?
Oh, man. I I've probably created at least 10 separate shows, I think. Mhmm. The original show I created was called Podcast Champion. That was just me learning how to podcast. It was a way of interviewing experienced podcasters. And then I had product people. And the reason I moved on from product people is I was tired of the interview format. I wanted to try a solo show. I did maybe two or three solo shows.
And in the midst of that, I was trying out all sorts of other really creative out there formats, like a podcast where all of the episodes were six seconds long. Each time, I think, I was just interested in another iteration. Maybe it was a play on what I'd seen work before. Maybe it was an observation. Like, one observation I made was a show like what we're doing right now, where you have a consistent co host, is a thousand times easier than a show where you have guests.
Guests makes it so much more difficult. A show where you consistently need to run ads is a lot more of a grind than a show that is monetized a different way or has a different benefit. I just found so many episodes. Was like, I've got to get this episode out. And I don't think it's a good episode. But I've already signed the contract with the advertiser, so I have to get it out. So, yeah, there's a number of reasons that I, you know, I kept trying different formats.
I think I've created, by my count, seven, and some of those have been private podcasts that have been a part of, like, a product that I made. Some of them have been I've been hired to create a show for somebody else, but did all the ideating show development, episode recording, all of that. So I'm on, like, seven. I think right now have another one or two that I might launch this year. So I'm inching up to that 10 mark as well.
So this makes me think that back when I was in, audio school for sound engineering and record production in our music business class, the instructor talked about how when it comes to record labels releasing music albums, one in 10 makes its money back. Mhmm. And one in 10 is basically the same for venture backed startups, makes their money back. So just break even. This is not like huge payday.
It's like make back the investment, and it's also the same for movies, roughly the same numbers. And it got me thinking, like, what if the same dynamics operate for us as creators where it's gonna take 10 podcasts for us to get, like, the one that really, like, hits it big? And, I mean, here we're talking, like, this is only, you know, making our investment back for some of these. But I think that that's not necessarily a bad assumption to make, that it's actually the extreme outliers who the first thing that they launch is the thing that takes off. And actually, going back to Brandon Sanderson, he talks about in this lecture series where he recommends your first five books, do not expect to sell those.
Those are you working on yourself. He calls it like, you are the piece of art at this point. You are look looking to refine your voice, to hone this. And you think about, like, how much time goes into writing one book, let alone five books. Mhmm.
Like, that is probably years of your life. And he is basically saying, do not expect to have any kind of payoff before that. That process is about refining yourself, and then comes the business process after that. And so these these kind of numbers, this kind of, like, exceptionalism, you can look at this almost as like, well, it's either me or it's somebody else, and I'm in the minority. Or you can, I think, start to stack the deck in your favor and say, well, if I take more swings, I actually get to turn the odds in my favor?
I think the other thing is that people think in their minds that this 10 journey is just linear. But now that you've presented that image from Sanderson, I think it's actually a hill. The first three, four, five years are just you climbing the hill, working on your craft, getting better, honing in on what you're good at, developing relationships, exploring the territory. And then the next five years after that are really executing on what you've learned, what you've gained in that first part of the process. We're so impatient.
I am, too. I think one of the other great things about podcasts is you can just release it, But you don't have to expect it's going to be a hit. You just like, I'm just gonna do this. I'm gonna do the best I can. And I actually like putting out things in public just because there's something about that process that you get that immediate feedback or lack of that is helpful.
But to think about this, think of your life in terms of iterations and in terms of this idea of like, you know what? Right now I'm in hill climbing mode. Right. I am just working on myself, on the craft, on becoming a better speaker, a better communicator, in terms of organizing my thoughts, in terms of be being a better writer, you know, all of those things that you can work on in that first period and then start to execute on the other side of that.
And, you know, I'll say for myself, like, most of the projects that I have started, I have quit at some point, either because I didn't feel aligned with it anymore or it wasn't working or the world moved on from it or whatever it might be. And as a creative person who has a lot of ideas, I have a lot of shows I could create. I have a lot of projects I could create. And my feeling was that after getting over the hump of quitting some projects. And so I started a show in 2020 called Build A Better Wellness Biz.
And so essentially, our podcast production agency, through word-of-mouth referrals, had essentially 90% of our client base was health and wellness business owners. Mhmm. And so I was I'd resisted niching for years. And eventually, I was like, okay. If we're already growing this way, like, what would happen if I just doubled down and branded and said, okay, we are a podcast production company for health and wellness businesses.
So I created this show. And within 10 episodes, I was proud of the content, totally detached from it personally. I I didn't care about it at all. And it took me till episode 30 for me to, like, shut it down, produce 30 episodes, and quitting that show was the most freeing thing I have ever experienced. And actually, like, one of the most life changing decisions because I realized, oh, I can start something and I can invest 6 months or nine months into developing the show, and it cannot feel right, and I can quit it, and then I can move on to something I'm more excited about.
And the thing that's kind of stuck with me is that life is too short to work on projects that don't have traction and don't feel like they're going anywhere. And when I have a list of projects, knowing that, like, to make any one of these things, like, real and successful will require me to invest years of time into it. But usually, you will find that personal alignment and some form of external traction for the projects that end up working. There is something at the beginning where you're like, okay. There's something here.
I can feel it. There's momentum. I'm getting 20 downloads an episode right now, but I feel good about it. I'm getting great feedback from it, and this is gonna grow if I, you know, pour more fuel on the fire. Yeah. So I think that mindset of thinking like, there are other projects out there that would work better, and let's not pour years of our life into something that is not getting us where we wanna go.
Something we've explored in past episodes is this idea of what I usually call founder market fit and founder product fit. And in this case, would be podcaster market fit and podcaster podcast fit. You have to have alignment in here, in these contexts. And it sucks sometimes. Because it's like, wow, here's a great opportunity.
There's a big appetite. There's a big market for this. And then you have to evaluate your own passion and your own energy. And you're like, I just can't wake up every day making podcasts for garbage dump operators. You know?
Just it doesn't fire me up. And that honesty, that self reflection, and being able to quit something like that is much different than quitting the practice of the craft. You and I talk about writing all the time. I just continue to struggle with writing. I want to be a better writer.
And I'm just not going to quit. I'm not going to quit my whole life. Because I just want to continue to try to get better at writing. And if I pulled back from that and said, Okay, well, now I'm not then that's quitting. But it's okay for me to try multiple different themes for my blog.
It's okay for me to try multiple iterations of my newsletter. That makes sense because there needs to be creator market fit and creator content fit. And if that's not there, yeah, find something else because it's going to be your energy in those moments that drive you. The creator market fit piece, I think, is both your audience, but also whatever you're trying to get out of this monetarily or for your business or whatever. If that's not fitting either, then Yeah.
Yeah. You should look at something else.
One of my favorite newsletters that I ever wrote, and it actually is a it's a page on my site and the you can search for it. It's called You Should Quit Your Podcast. And so, basically, I wrote the newsletter, put this page up, and it's basically just a list kind of a listicle almost of, like, however many reasons that you should quit your show. And there's all kinds of, like, good reasons that you should quit. And I was trying to almost, like, play a little bit into the stages of grief a little bit in my sequencing of it where I was like, there's this denial, there's this anger because things aren't working, whatever.
And then coming to this note of acceptance at the end that, hey, it's actually there's many good reasons to quit. So I kinda wanted to work through all these reasons that you might wanna quit your podcast. And a couple of people emailed me back to that, and they were like, you shouldn't be sending this message to people. We need more, like, motivation, whatever. And a couple other people were like, I love this.
Yes. Thank you for writing this. And my thought was and still is is that if I some random newsletter writer can convince you to quit your podcast through this, you know, 200 word blog post, you are never gonna succeed. Like, if some random person on the Internet can say, hey. You should quit your podcast.
And you're like, yeah. Maybe you're right. Then probably that show does not have what it takes. You are not excited about it to see it through all the inevitable struggles and challenges and all of the stuff that comes with growing something successful. Mhmm.
And so probably you're better off, you know, you should quit your podcast because there are better ideas out there that are going to be a better fit for you. And it's like, yes. When you're in one of those, if you read that and you're like, yeah. Actually, I'm working on the wrong show, then I think it is a wise decision to move on to something else that you actually have that enthusiasm for to kind of power through the inevitable dips. And, you know, this is a book we have to shout out, The Dip by Seth Godin.
If you find yourself in this questioning phase of do I keep going or do I quit, that is the definitive book on the topic. Those exist for every every show, every creative project. You get in, you're excited. And then once you're, you know, one month, two months in, you realize, oh, man, this is way harder than I thought it was. And it's gonna take way longer than I thought it was. And, you know, what do I do with that?
Yeah. This whole conversation brings up this blog post that my friend Nathan Barry wrote called The Ladders of Wealth Creation. The reason I like this metaphor though, is he's got this sequence of ladders. And there's a really short ladder on one side, and then a taller ladder, and then another taller ladder, and then the tallest ladder on the far right. And the the idea here is that what's hard is that your first podcast is probably your shortest ladder in terms of its potential for everything.
Your creative output, the audience, the money you can make from it, all that stuff. But it's really hard when you're at the top of a ladder to look down at the ground again and go, I don't want to get off the top here. I made it to the top of this ladder. And what's hard is that to go down to an adjacent ladder that could actually bring you up higher means you have to start over again. That's hard.
The truth is, almost everybody I know in business, in podcasting, in creative work, doesn't matter. In order to get where they were, they got to the top of one ladder and that was like the ceiling. And then they looked around and said, Okay, I've made it as high as I can on this ladder. I've got to start again. And it's painful.
But then you bring everything you learned from that first ladder to the second one. And then hopefully that one gets you up a bit higher. And then you look around and go, You know what? This is great. But there's an adjacent possible right next door. So I'm going to start over again. And that willingness to continually be like, okay, here I am. But is it time to start over?
Yeah.
Maybe it is.
I think we've kind of laid out a bunch of traits that we're going to dig into in more depth about creators who tend to have success and almost feel like success is inevitable for them at some point. But before we dig into those in more depth, I think we should look at some of the traits of exceptional podcasts. So there are these shows. You know, we had 14% of shows in the last report that doubled in size, and then we had 10% of shows that were over 10,000 downloads an episode. These are specifically within the report pool.
And so that is it's gonna be a smaller percentage of all shows that have ever been created, a much smaller show. And I think if you look at the listen note stats, maybe if you're at that 1% mark, you're getting, like, maybe one to 2,000 downloads an episode. And so if you're looking at, like, the big shows in the global pool, like, it's probably point 5%, point 2%, point 1% of shows are getting 10,000, 50 thousand. A hundred thousand is, like, point zero one or less, I think. And so very small percentage of shows actually really hit it big.
Obviously, that's one form of success that is mass appeal, but it's something that a lot of people aim for. So I would be curious when you think about, like, exceptional shows either in terms of audience size or maybe financial, even if it's not, like, huge audience driven, but it drives a lot of income. Like, what are some of the things that you see when it comes to these exceptions?
I love this quote from my friend Dax, who says, The things that go the most viral are the things that are contrarian in a shallow way. And I was thinking, man, podcasts are really the opposite of that. So like, you see something go viral on TikTok or Instagram. It's like, oh, yeah. This is contrarian in a shallow way.
Podcasts, on the other hand, the ones that are exceptional, are almost always very deep. Right? They're long form deep dives into maybe unpacking a challenging topic, nuanced discussion, lots of expertise. Let's talk to experts about this and really unpack something that would be difficult to to unpack in a tweet or an Instagram Reel or a YouTube video even. We're going to spend thirty minutes or an hour or three hours on this.
And those are the shows I personally love. Not these quick hits like, This Week in the News, I'm going to give you high level, five second clips on all the news stories. No. I want to dive deep on a particular topic in that episode or over the course of a series and really understand all of the details and the nuance. And I want you to bring in people who know what they're talking about, and we're going to unpack this together. That is what feels exceptional about podcasts that I listen to.
And, you know, that gets to something that a lot of exceptional shows, a lot of big shows, a lot of popular shows, I think a lot of small creators look at them and they're like, well, I'm covering the same content. Why haven't I broken through? And I think there are a lot of other things. We talked about some of these in the previous episode related to, like, having something just perfectly packaged for the moment in a way that is intuitive. And so the creator usually has been in the space long enough that they just have their finger on the pulse of what's gonna work from a visual design perspective, audio format perspective, who the guests are.
Like, that creator is probably thinking about these things to some extent strategically, but they also just have this knowing that, like, yes, this is the thing that is going to resonate now, which I I love that phrase that you introduced in the past episode. But the other thing that I think this kind of depth speaks to is that a lot of shows that are successful, they may be done by first time podcasters, but they're often done by people who have a breadth and a depth of experience in media, in their field, whatever that might be. And so they bring this deep expertise, but they also happen to be polished speakers. They happen to know media. They happen to know marketing.
And so I think a lot of those things are not visible on the surface. And so you do get this first time podcaster who has this, like, great idea for a show and breaks through, but you see, oh, they used to be a producer in the television industry or a writer or something else or journalist. And so it's like, oh, they are bringing this sensibility about presenting content and telling stories and hooking and engaging people, and they know how to use their voice, and they have connections. Like, there's all these things that they're bringing to the table. And I think that that's one of the things where that has to be earned over a career, over a decade, over many years where it's like they have done the thinking and the honing and the refining, and now it's just being packaged in a podcast.
You know, you as a a creator might feel like, well, I'm in this category too, and why are they getting 25,000 downloads an episode and I'm getting 25? And it's like, well, they brought this kind of depth and nuance and of experience that is only achieved after having done this work for a long time previously.
Yeah. And that goes back to that ten year time frame. Like, you can tell somebody who's been in motion for ten years, improving, developing their skills, developing their taste, all those things, and someone who's just starting out. Just night and day. If you haven't put in the work yet, it's going to be difficult.
Right? You've got to put in the work. You've got to wake up every day and show up in some form and project that forward ten years and be able to look back and go, oh, yeah. Like, I sure did a lot of things that got me where I'm at today.
A couple other things that come to mind for shows that feel like they just break through and grab and command attention in a way that you almost couldn't put your finger on exactly why one show does better and the other doesn't. But I feel like the ones, the exceptional shows often just have this kind of like fresh ness to them that you're like, you can't describe why. Something about it just feels refreshing. And it's like packaged slightly differently. It's like a little bit of a different note than the current conversation in the space is.
And another part of that is it almost feels obvious in hindsight, Like, this show needed to exist. And it was like, who was gonna create it? That was up for grabs. But it's kind of like, when you see it, you're like, well, of course, the show needed to exist. I think about a show like Acquired.
Like, what they've done is just deep dive storytelling related to businesses. Yeah. And they've kind of applied this lens. How do they how do they talk about it? Like, bringing, like, the ancient, like, storytelling of, like, history to business or something like that?
Yeah. Just like, you know, all of these ancient legends that we tell about, like, King Arthur and Robin Hood. Well, who are the modern versions of that? Well, it's founders. It's CEOs.
We talk about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs in the same way that we talk about King Arthur and all of these characters from the past. And so they just recognize like, oh, this is the modern version of that. And we're going to tell their stories for this context. The other show that came to mind, like, this was just perfect for this time was Ted Lasso during the pandemic. Yeah.
It's like Mhmm. Maybe they didn't even plan it. But in this case, it was just like we needed that uplifting, fresh, just no one had really seen a show like that before. And it just felt so good and so perfect for that moment we were in. Is the show we needed for this time.
And I think the only way you can really develop that taste and that intuition is over time. You're just like, what do we need right now? And what I see so many podcasters do is they're recycling something that worked five years ago. So, you know, I've seen some that work from Reforlio, for Tim Ferriss or whatever. I'm going to recycle that format or that whatever.
It's like, no, no, no. What's going to what is just under the surface right now that could spring up, that could grow in this soil that we have right now. That's kind of how you have to be thinking. What does this moment require?
The other thing that I think we can't avoid when talking about this is the influence and the impact of luck Mhmm. That I think many shows just were in the right place at the right time. And so Ted Lasso was a perfect example. Like, they did not know the pandemic was coming. Knowing what we know about the show now, it's like, okay.
It's a great show, but there are plenty of great pieces of content, TV, podcast, books, whatever, that the moment is wrong and it doesn't gain traction even though the quality was great or it gets a muted reaction. And so this is something you you know, we were talking about this episode a month ago or when we started mapping this out, and you had this quote about, like, there's a certain type of person who buys better lottery tickets more frequently. And the idea is that I think a lot of creators who are successful understand deeply that there is always a huge amount of luck that you can kind of influence or you can help take more lottery tickets out, but it's kind of out of your control.
Yeah. I mean, the thing about a normal lottery is every time you show up to buy a ticket, your odds don't really change that much. There's nothing you can personally do to buy a better ticket than the last time. But certainly, if every time you show up and buy a ticket, even for a normal lottery, you are increasing your chances just marginally because anyone who stayed home is guaranteed not to win the prize. But you are at least improving your chances marginally.
Now with creative endeavors, this is quite different. Because not only can you show up repeatedly and increase your chances and increase what we call luck surface area, but you can also buy better tickets. You can look around and go, Okay, what am I willing to make a bet on right now? Like I said, in this moment. What does this moment require?
Sanderson says, this is not like one in a million chance. If you are consistently showing up And every time you show up, you can just think of that as I'm buying a lottery ticket. Every time you publish your work, you're buying a lottery ticket. And then How can I buy a better lottery ticket the next time? And this is within our grasp. And even Sanderson is saying it's one in twenty. That means nineteen people are going to lose in that scenario. But those are great odds.
It actually makes me think there's this, framework that I heard Sean Puri, he's the cohost of My First Million, talk about this, but he actually said that he first heard about it from Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist, who may have quoted it from some book somewhere. So this goes down the chain, but he says there's four types of luck. And so the first type of luck is blind luck. And so this is just pure random chance that, you know, you happen to be born in a country. You know, we were fortunate to be born in Canada.
We grew up speaking English. There are huge, big, lucky breaks in our lives. You you think about your family that you grew up into, the access that you had to computers or, you know, whatever it might be. Mhmm. This is all just pure blind luck that we don't have any ability to influence.
The second is called fortune favors the bold. And so this is about the luck that you can create by going out and making noise and doing things. And so you are meeting more people. And so you're kind of increasing that exposure and just creating luck for yourself through sheer kind of hustle to some extent. The third is chance favors the prepared mind.
And so this is all about developing that expertise, that knowledge to be able to spot those better lottery tickets. And so when you're out in the world and something, you know, comes across your field of view and you're like, oh, there's something there that nobody else is seeing. You have done the research. You have been able to prepare yourself to take advantage of the luck that appears on your doorstep that most other people pass by. And then the fourth type of luck is luck that finds you.
And so this is the form of luck that when you become known for something, people bring opportunities to you. And so if you are known as the best in the world at something, and the example that Sean uses is, let's say you are the best deep water scuba diver in the world. And some people, they find a shipwreck, and there's a bunch of treasure that's supposed to be there. And they come to you because you're the best, and they say, hey, can you help us recover this? And you'll get 25% of whatever we get.
It's like you have built a name for yourself as the go to person for this thing, and now the opportunities start to come to you. Mhmm. And so this is a really interesting framework for it's again this latter idea where, you know, everybody starts out with some amount of blind luck, and that actually is always going to impact everyone all the time. But then there's these steps that you can take by doing things, by preparing yourself, by studying both broadly and deeply, and then becoming known for something that you actually get more and more luck that begins to compound around you.
Jason Roberts blogged about this. In his equation, luck equals doing times telling. So do things, and then you tell people. Do things, and then you tell people. And that sequence is how you get those three types of luck at the end there.
Fortune favors the bold, chance favors the prepared mind, and luck that finds you. It increases your chance of, Hey, I'm going to do something, and then I'm going to tell people about it. And you think there's a lot of people that do things, they create things, they make things, they never tell anybody about it.
They never promote their work. They don't get it out there. They're not distributing it
to the world and making it available. And obviously, then you can't experience it. If you hide what you've created, then you're not going get any of that luck surface area. There's no surface there. Right?
And so multiplying this doing, that's the engine. And then the telling is that that's what actually creates that surface area so that people can discover you and know you, and the luck can kind of come to you. There's a better chance that luck will hit you because there's a greater surface area there.
I wrote a newsletter article maybe six months ago, nine months ago, something like that. And I was thinking about discovery, which, you know, is a little bit different than lucks, thinking specifically about podcast discovery. And I was also thinking about it in the terms of surface area. Mhmm. And so I was thinking about, okay, what do we got here?
We got height, and we got width, and we got depth. So height, this is kind of your, like, rankings or your visibility. So how high are you showing up in the charts? Are you coming up when somebody searches your keyword? Do you come up there?
Mhmm. So that's kind of like the height of your discoverability or your findability of your show. Then we've got width, which is kind of like how widely can people find you. So you're on all the podcast distribution platforms. Your pod show is linked in your LinkedIn profile and your Instagram profile on your website so people can find it wherever they find you.
And and maybe even there's like lists, top 10 podcasts on this topic. And so you are increasing the width of your discoverability. Mhmm. Then we've got depth, which I kind of labeled as perceived legitimacy or substance. So when people come across it, it seems intriguing.
It seems like there's something there that's gonna pull them in. And then the last one that I was thinking about is like the fourth dimension, time, and just thinking about how long are you active and and are you actively doing things and talking about it? This comes back to this idea that talking about, you know, the ten year time span or the career long time span or whatever that is. Mhmm. And then the more I started thinking about that, the image that came to mind is that there is a, like, pool of people, a circle of people right now who are interested and looking for a show on your topic.
And so like that, let's just call it, there are a thousand people right now who are looking for a show like yours. But over the next ten years, there might be a hundred thousand people who begin looking for a show like this. And if I am not currently active and in motion and producing the show over those next ten years, those people are not gonna find it. And so I think that this is a really useful lens to think about as well in that, like, we can increase that surface area in all these different dimensions, one of which is time that just like there are always new people coming into and out of any medium, into any topic area. And the longer that we are kind of active there ourselves, the more people are going to almost just randomly stumble across us.
And then if you think about increasing our luck surface area and all those other ways, maybe more of those people start to seek us out as well.
Mhmm. Yeah. I really like that framework. And I think also thinking about all those variables you mentioned and just realizing your time in motion, which is the last variable, you need to spend your time working on those other three. Height, width, and depth. Right? Like, okay, how do I get more higher in the rankings? Okay. Well, some of that is gonna be by having more depth. Okay.
I'm gonna work on the depth. How do I get more distribution? Well, okay. I gotta do these things. So you're just showing up every day and kind of working on all three of those at the same time. And just as you do that, gradually you build up proficiency. You gradually get more visible, higher rankings, better distribution, more deep and well formed thoughts and creative output. And over time, as you're doing that, yes, it it kind of lifts everything.
So these are kind of some of the traits talking about shows that break through that are exceptional in some way, either in results or quality or whatever. But there's also, obviously, the creators behind those shows. A lot of times, the creators of exceptional shows are exceptional people in many ways, and that is what powers the shows to be interesting and exceptional in their own right. I think there's often a mix of traits that are good and helpful, but also have these, like, corresponding dark sides. And maybe dark sides is too strong, but it can be destructive in some ways.
Mhmm. And, like, some of these things that come to mind for me is oftentimes almost this kind of, like, masochism where they almost, like, love the punishment of, like, showing up every day and things not working, but living for those highs. Yeah. I think there's also a bit of a gambler's mentality here, this obsessiveness where it's like you talk to a lot of creators who are exceptional at their craft, and they are obsessed to the point of it kind of, in the extreme case, ruins their life in other ways where they just neglect friendships, relationships, other life experiences, but they become truly world class at their craft. I'm curious if you have experiences with people like this or what your general thoughts are on, like, some of the traits exceptional creators have, good or bad?
Yeah. I think you've named a lot of it. There has to be this willingness to do things. I'm going to not sit at home. I'm gonna go out. You really see this when you go to a conference. So when you go to a conference, like, even for me, an extroverted person who loves those things, there's a big part of me that just wants to stay in my room. My room is safe. I'm not gonna get feel awkward in my room. But all of the potential is out of the room.
As soon as I step out of the room, and as soon as I start walking around, as soon as I expose myself in a vulnerable way, unless I do that, I'm not going to get any of the potential benefits. I'm not going to grow. I'm not going to meet people, etc. I have this memory in high school. I really wanted to put on a rave in my hometown.
And I'd been going to raves with my friends. And we had started DJing. And so we rented a venue. And so even that was like putting ourselves out there. We rented a venue. We did all this stuff. But then there was a school dance. I was still in high school. And afterwards, the dance, everyone was kind of in the lobby just like standing around. And my friend was like, you gotta stand up and like tell them that you're running an event.
That your event's coming up. And there's like, every part of me did not want to do that. That was like this completely vulnerable. Like, as a grade 12 student, I'm going to get up on a table. And they just kept pushing me. Like, you got to do this. In this particular moment, I think that willingness for me to just stand up and say, hey, guys, I'm putting on an event. It's going to be our town's first rave. It's happening at this time. I got tickets.
Just that had a profound effect on me, had a profound effect on the event. You know, it set things in motion that I benefited greatly from. And so I think people that are willing to make those kinds of decisions. Like, I am gonna stand up. I'm gonna put myself out there. I'm gonna take a risk. The the downside here is that I stand up on the table and I get embarrassed.
It's interesting. My wife, Kelly, is putting on an event, and it's kind of a software developer and founder matchmaking event in the no code space. Mhmm. And she has been a freelance software developer for a number of years, and she's been a freelancer much longer than And she's very active on Twitter and social media, but none of it is promotional in any way or self promotional, I should say. And now she's going through this event, and she needs to market it and is confronting this discomfort.
And it's bringing back all these memories that I had totally forgotten about of how hard it was for me to ever talk about anything I had made, whether it was just a blog post or a new product or something like that in a public setting. And it's interesting looking back just on how far I've come because I unlike you, I am very much an introvert, even more like the person who wants to stay in the room at the conference, would never have gotten up on the table. But it's interesting that over time, there is this huge initial hurdle in that if you can get over that in the first place, it becomes easier and you start to build the skill. And this is both for, like, putting yourself out there and promoting your work. But I think it's also for me, I I've noticed a huge shift when I look back at about making assertions and expressing my opinion on something and saying, like, I don't have any proof to back this up, but this is how it feels to me.
And I can make a compelling argument as to why we should be thinking about this topic this way. I think I used to always hide behind, well, I don't have the data. I don't have the research. May maybe somebody else knows something that I don't. And I think that this is, again, one of those things that when you're in a space a long time, you realize, well, nobody has made a compelling counterargument to my thinking here.
And so, like, maybe it doesn't exist. And that is something that I think too, a lot of successful creators get over that initial hump, and they build this confidence in themselves and their opinion and the efficacy of their lived experience that they're like, this means something, that it doesn't need to be quote, unquote true. I don't have to have proof of this, but I have lived this. This is how I've interpreted these events. This is how I can make a compelling case or argument around this.
Maybe people would agree with it. Maybe people will disagree. Maybe some of those people who disagree will actually start an interesting conversation that will improve my thinking on it.
Mhmm.
And so so many people get stuck at that first hurdle, and they never get over that or they do it really neatly, and they have a negative experience or they hear crickets, and so they never do it more fully. But if you can get over that and you can start to actually build some momentum around it, I think that's where so many of the wins down the line come. And I think we look down on self promotion because we see poor versions of self promotion. I always say this, like, related to marketing. A lot of us have negative internalized beliefs about marketing because when we think of marketing, we think of used car salesman and, like, personal injury lawyers and, like, the loudest worst marketing.
It's like so obvious that this is quote unquote marketing, but the good marketing, the stuff that actually gets us to buy is like subtle and we don't even recognize it's there and it feels, you know, resonant with us. We relate to it. It's emotional in some way. And you think about like, I mean, look at Ted Lasso. This is marketing for Apple, and it's a show that is beloved by many people.
Yeah. And you look at all the shows that are on Apple. Like, this is a form of marketing that we can appreciate as consumers, and we may or may not be aware that we're being marketed to, but it's that's kind of what we're doing with our podcast and creative work as well, is creating something that's beneficial to people that they're going to enjoy. They want us to tell them about it because it will make their life better. And when you start to think about it that way, I think there almost becomes more of an obligation to say like, hey.
I made this, and I think you would benefit from this. And no pressure, but it's here if you want it.
Yeah. And I I think what turns some people off in this is there is a psychopathic version of this where
Mhmm.
There are some people that just have no filter. The salesperson that can just like
Yeah.
Keep driving forward even though all the signals they're getting back are like, this is uncomfortable or this is not right or whatever. I kind of think about it in terms of a couple dimensions. One, I'm trying to tell my kids and and have my kids make risks that have maximum benefit for yourself and for others, but minimum risk of injury, basically. So, Yeah. There's a big difference between you gradually bootstrapping a business on the side, and remortgaging your house, and making a big bet on something that might really not work out.
Minimizing personal risk or injury and maximizing the potential benefit for yourself and for others. That's one dimension. And then the other dimension is you want to push yourself out of your comfort zone. And that is going to expose you to maybe people won't like you. Most of the time, people just ignore you.
Yeah.
And what you are trying to do is push yourself to do those things more often. And as you get in motion taking these little risks and putting yourself out there, there is this benefit to it. Because you realize most of the time, people don't care. Like most of the time, you just don't hear anything from people. They just ignore it or whatever.
And to be able willing to get up on a table 10 times and to have like eight or nine of those times maybe not work out in a way that was emotionally edifying is kind of the skill. Eventually, you do just get better at it. Like you're able to put yourself in a frame of mind, which is like, it's the first night of podcast movement conference. There's a mixer, and I'm gonna go and shake some hands of people I don't know. I'm gonna like Yeah.
Be around with my drink and being like trying to find a circle to get into. And I'm gonna take like five risks. Hey, guys. You know? And realize that four out of five times, I might get ignored. And then maybe on the fifth, you're able to connect with some people. That's the goal.
Yeah. Yeah. There's actually a couple other ideas related to the comfort zone that are are interesting. And the first, I heard a friend talk about it this way where it's kind of like you have a log fire in the middle of the forest. And so you're kinda like sitting around that.
The light only goes so far out, but you're running out of wood, and maybe you'd like to build a bigger fire. So you gotta kinda like venture out that circle of light outside of that, expand your comfort zone a little, go find some wood, and you bring it back, you put on the fire. And now you've ventured outside, nothing bad happened. You brought back the wood. The ring of light is now a little bit wider.
And so you've kind of expanded your comfort zone by venturing outside of it. And the more you do that, you actually become much more competent and much more comfortable with anything that can get thrown at you over time.
Yeah.
And so I think that that's, you know, part of this expanding your comfort zone. But there's a lot of advice you hear about, like, do you build up your weaknesses or do you double down on your strengths? And there was a conference that I was at many years ago now, World Domination Summit, and there was a speaker. His name was Ozan Varol. I think it's a Turkish name.
And he wrote a book called Awaken Your Genius, and his talk was on this idea of genius. And he had this quote that has just stuck with me for years now. It was something like, a genius is he who is most himself. And that just, like, struck a chord with me where sometimes we wanna get outside of our comfort zone in ways that it holds us back. People who are not successful are trying to emulate somebody else in a way that, like, is never going to work for them.
And I think that when you look at the truly exceptional creators, I think of somebody like Tim Urban. Like, nobody can emulate him. He is a one and only, like, maybe the biggest blog in the world for a long time. You look at Tim Ferriss, so many people have emulated him, but you can't. Like, he is truly in alignment with himself.
He is doing this because this is what he wants to do, and it is not trying to do something that is successful or emulating someone else. And this is something that I've certainly felt that sometimes you need somebody else to reflect back to you. What is it about you that's interesting or that you do well? And I've had this a number of times where somebody unlocks something for me and specifically with creative work where I'm like, oh, I do do do that. My brain does work in that way.
And as I've gotten those nudges, I've started to embrace those things more and kind of go more naturally with my own, like, mental and creative rhythms. And it's like, oh, the work gets better. It gets easier for me to create. It resonates more with other people because it's, like, no longer a filtered signal coming through. It's like pure Jeremy.
I'm not like trying to it's only like 60% me and then, you know, 40% trying to be someone else. And that's not to say we don't take inspiration from other people as well. But I think that when you have been in a space for a long time, you understand how it works. You know the craft of creating good content. It's like, actually, you want to lean inward and go into more of that spark inside you and think like, what what am I drawn to create?
Yeah. Any creator you think of has this characteristic. It's like Seth Godin, he is himself. Oprah, she is herself. Conan O'Brien, like Yeah. Completely himself in a way that was different than David Letterman, that was different than Jay Leno. These people that embody the spirit of, wow, they are really themselves and it's noticeable. Malcolm Gladwell. Like, we can keep thinking of creators that kind of embody the spirit. Some of this, I think, does need to get reflected back to us.
This is why having friends and family and a partner who is able to reflect because often we don't see this in ourselves. Yep. And even just going to therapy can help with this. Like, in asking this question, like, you can go into a therapy session and say, listen, I'm just trying to figure out where am I most myself? Like, can you help me figure that out?
And therapists are often equipped to do this. And they can start to give you images and mental photographs that you can go, man, that that is when I am most myself. When I'm in that mode, you know. For most of my life, I was incredibly shy. And it took me a while to figure out that I was shy, but that I had this natural desire to be outgoing and to be performing for an audience.
And realizing that, like, it was like, oh, my shyness is not actually a characteristic that feels like me. I need to overcome that because I need to be this person that I feel like And sometimes it's just like the person you desire to be. You might not even be that yet. Again, back to that ten year perspective, which is like, okay, how am I going to get there? What's holding me back?
Well, now, my shyness is holding me back. And this is a process. It's going to involve your own self reflection. It's going to involve, like we said, mirroring from other people, other people noticing things about you. That's a great gift when people can accurately observe something in you that really is your zone of genius.
It makes me think there's almost there's these two sides that I see. People who have are able to get exceptional results. There is this kind of, like, narcissistic, arrogant, oblivious kind of person who can just bulldoze their way in and shamelessly talk about their stuff. And to some people, there is something that can be attractive about that. I think it it can work for some people.
But then I think there's the opposite side where the other types of creators who I know who are successful are extremely self aware
Mhmm.
And self reflective. And there's this example of I wish I could remember the LinkedIn post. Caitlin Borgoyne had posted something about, like, AI slop and, like, spammy LinkedIn comments. And then our friend Jay Klaus, he had the perfect, like, kind of semi trolling tweet that was, like, the exact basic slop LinkedIn post, but he posted it. And I was like, this is perfect.
And it's perfect because Jay understands who he is and how he is perceived by this environment. Mhmm. And he knows who is looking at this, and he also knows his reputation. And he is so aware of, like, how he fits into this. And I think that this is an important part of understanding your zone of genius, what you can do really well, but also understanding how it fits into the environment.
You can't have one without the other. And so part of this is kinda being able to read the room. And so this is kind of what the narcissists do not have the ability to do. They're just like going ahead, me, me, me. It's the the Jeremy and Justin show, you know, regardless of what anybody else cares about.
Yeah. But then there's the other people who understand, like, what they can bring to the space, the mood of the space right now, and how they can fit into that with their kind of unique genius. And I think that those are the people who are much more broadly represented in the creative space. But I think there is this, like, needing to constantly be thinking about, like, yourself and your craft and your work and, like, the world and all of these things, this kind of, like, philosophical view almost of all of it and trying to think, like, how does this all fit together here? What am I doing here?
Why why does this resonate now? What will resonate now? Why is this other person's thing resonating now? And trying to, like, pick it apart for themselves rather than relying on other people to tell them, hey. This tactic is working now. You should do this. They're just trying to figure it out for themselves and make sense of it, and that then translates through the work into something that often does.
And along with that, I think having this view that listen. There's a lot of other people out there that I could get jealous about or that could distract me, or I could wonder how come the luck keeps going to them and not to me. And I had this blog post that I wrote a long time ago just called focus on your own shit. Focus on your own journey. Okay.
I'm in year one of my ten year journey. That's all that matters. And the crazy thing about getting older is that you can start to look back on decades. And you can see all these people that you're like, man, I wish I could be more like them. And I wish I had their characters.
I wish I wasn't me. You know, wish I could be just more like that person. And then you just realize like, oh man, I'm so glad I wasn't that person, you know, in a ten year process. Is it the Roots that plays for Jimmy Fallon? Questlove.
I just saw an interview with him where he said, you know, like, when Lauryn Hill's album was blowing up, they were like, what? Like when are we going to get our shot? And then Outkast had their big album the next year. But his comment afterwards was like, but you know what? If I look back, I wouldn't want to be anyone else except for us on our journey.
And to be where we are at, where that all culminated. Like, I wouldn't trade places with any of those folks. You know, like Lauryn Hill had all those like financial problems and all. It's like he was just like so appreciative of his journey. And I think this is what we need to be doing too. It's just like, I'm on my journey. I'm trying to accomplish this. I'm not trying to accomplish Tim Ferriss fame. I'm working on my craft. I want to have a good life.
I want to make good work. I want to make a living. I want to connect with interesting people. Like you define your own values and what you're after. And then you just get to be on your own journey, one step in front of the other every single day.
And there's something about that that I think can be so healthy for us. You know, I've realized that my career has just had a lot of line drives. I'm a line drive kind of guy. I don't hit very many home runs in terms of But you add up all those line drives and all those base hits. I just I score a lot of points. Because I'm just always getting on base. Nothing dramatic. Nothing crazy. Just working around the bases. Run from first to second, second to third, third to home.
And I'm just trying to score runs that way. And maybe one day I'll get a big home run. And maybe that home run will actually end up being the worst thing that ever happened to me. Right? So I'm just thankful to be a base hitter. I think if you can have that attitude, I think it'll be helpful for you as you embark on this creative journey, this ten year project.
And, you know, this gets back to Brandon Sanderson. And when he was writing these books, him and his wife were making, like, $20 a year. Like, they were scraping by. She was supporting him in his writing. And he had already made the decision that he was okay, that he was just a writer.
He said, I am going to write books. This is my life's vocation. I am totally aware and accepting that this I may never get paid for this. I may never sell a book, but I'm gonna write 15 books, 30 books, 50 books, because this is just what I do. Mhmm.
And so he was already at peace with the outcome. He was not doing it to get an outcome. He was saying, this is what makes me happy in life. I would love to make a career as a writer. And if it doesn't happen, I know the odds are against me, and that's okay.
You know, going back to this idea, one in 20 talented, dedicated people who put everything they have into the craft for ten years are gonna make a living at it. You have to kind of be okay with it not working out because the odds are against you. And I think that there is clearly survivorship bias here where there are countless people who were themselves, who did all these things, and who did not succeed. But I think it's hard to achieve that exceptional breakthrough status without doing these things. It's harder to achieve that kind of success by trying to emulate somebody else.
It's like the people who do breakthrough, those are the ones who do all the right things and get lucky, and they increase their surface area of luck. And so I think that to me, that just goes back to this idea of, like, I wanna enjoy what I do every day. I don't care if any one project is successful. It's like I want to have a craft that I care about, whether that's writing or podcasting or building products or, you know, marketing or whatever it is, and probably a bunch of other interests in life. And it's like, if I can be satisfied with never having a big hit, I think kind of very similar to you, it's like, hey, life will have been worth living regardless.
And so I think that that is the first mindset to take with all creative work is like, I'm doing it because I want to do it. And anything that comes out of it, I might have hopes and aspirations and dreams, but that's like the cherry on top. And I'm gonna give it everything that I have, but I'm still gonna be satisfied and happy and fulfilled if it doesn't work out.