340: 8 Lessons Learned from 8 Years of Hosting the Pivot Podcast

Sep 17, 2023

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We are celebrating a very special milestone today—the Pivot podcast’s eighth birthday! It's a veritable third-grader by now.

This podcast first launched in September 2015 as a teeny tiny scrappy side project to supplement the Pivot book while I was writing it. I had so much fun interviewing people and hitting record that by the time the book launched in the fall of 2016 one year later, the podcast had almost eclipsed it as the favorite thing that I do on a day-to-day basis.

Now, thanks to you, we have over 2 million downloads and 340 episodes (not including another 230 on the Free Time podcast). There have been many ups and downs along the way, where I wondered if I should stop doing this podcast. Today, I'm sharing eight things that help me stay in the game.

🌟 8 Key Takeaways

Ride out the inevitable dips and plateaus: Ask, how can I fall in love with this again? Keep the bar high—strive for jump-out-of-the-chair-with-glee-to-record level of guests and topics.
(Re)connect with the even more meaningful metrics: Don’t obsess over download numbers or charts. They can be instructive, but they don’t have to be the one-and-only indicator of whether or not to continue.
51/49: My antidote to inexplicable nerves and overthinking: 49% fear and anxiety, 51% take one small step forward. Just tip the scale toward action by two percent.
Eyes on your own paper: Don’t get lost in what other people are doing or how fast they are going. Remind yourself what’s in it for you, regardless of what “the competition” is up to. There may even be downstream benefits of having others in the same space.
Keep up with new software, don’t worry too much about sunk costs: While you want to avoid chasing shiny software objects, don’t be afraid to jump from one lily pad to the next when it improves your systems and process.
Hire help! To truly achieve consistency escape velocity, hire a team so that someone else owns the outcome and you can show up and do what only you can do.
Go your own way: Be aware of diminishing returns on shiny shoulds that, if you were to chase them, would stop you from doing the creative thing you enjoy altogether.
Keep experimenting—one might say pivoting! There is no there there. The project will evolve alongside you, even when you lose steam for a little bit. You will always find a new way forward. And if you’re so stuck you truly can’t see straight, it’s okay to call it quits too.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

Articles: Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h—The Business Yips & 51/49
Tools: Substack app, Kajabi, Notion, Riverside.fm, Descript
Loom Walkthrough: Day in the Life of a Podcast Episode

📚 Books Mentioned

🎧 Related Episodes

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✍️ Connect with me on Substack: http://substack.com/@jennyblake

📝 Check out full show notes at http://pivotmethod.com/340

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