So, today I'm diving into the mess that can be podcast burnout. You know, that moment when your favorite hobby morphs into a job you dread? Yeah, we’ve all been there. We're chatting about big names like Marc Maron and others who decided to call it quits and how that’s not just okay, but totally legit.

Spoiler alert: sometimes stepping back is the best move you can make. I’ll sprinkle in some sarcasm and laughs as we explore the absurdity of it all—because let’s face it, if we can’t laugh at our struggles, what’s the point, right?

If you've been thinking about starting a podcast but feel it's too crowded, realize all those podcasters who started back in 2005 might be being pulled in new directions that have them thinking about podcast retirement.

Takeaways:

• Creative projects can sometimes feel like an endless cycle of stress and burnout.
• It's totally okay to step back from podcasting if it stops being fun for you.
• Many successful podcasters have experienced burnout, and it's a common issue in the industry.
• Managing expectations is crucial; don't expect overnight success when building an audience.
• Life changes, like welcoming a new baby, can drastically affect your podcasting ability and energy.
• Always remember: adding responsibilities means subtracting your fun, so be careful what you take on.

Mentioned In This Show

Marc Maron Announces He's Ending the WTF Show

Rob Walch Talks Marc Maron on the Feed

Erik K Johnson End Podcast Talent Coach

YouTuber Tom Scott Says Goodbye 6.5M Subscribers

YouTuber The Game Theorist Says Goodbye 19.6M Subscribers

YouTuber Caylus says goodbye to 18.7M Subscribers

What Makes This Show Ggreat? - Marc Maron Edition sop705

My Spouse Has Dementia Show with Zita Christian

Daniel J. Lewis is BACK!

Clockify Free Time Tracker

More insights at schoolofpodcasting.com/989

Mentioned in this episode:

Quit Thinking About It and START THAT PODCAST

If you have ever turned down the radio to hear your phone in the car, you know how to mix audio. If you have ever attached a photo to an email, you know how to upload an mp3 to a media host. Deleting text in Word is the same as delete audio in audacity. Yes, there is a learning curve but it's not as scary as you think. I'll be there the whole way, and you can join worry free with a 30 day money-back guarantee. Go to schoolofpodcasting.com/join

School of Podcasting

Question of the Month

This month's question comes from Todd the Gator of the Gaurdian Downcast (guardiandowncast.com). He wants to know: How long did it take to go from idea to podcast? Also how long did it take to find your community? I need your answers by September 26th

Question of the Month

Live Appearances

I will be at the Empower Podcasting Conference in Charlotte NC September 26-28 This is going to be a great conference. I'll be speaking and I can't wait to see you there.

Where Will I Be?

Imagine pouring your heart into a project that once fueled your passion. In fact, when you weren't podcasting, you were thinking about podcasting. But now it feels like a never ending burden.

So what happens when your creative outlet turns into the very source of thing that's just burning you to a crisp? And so today we're going to talk about Marc Maron and some other podcasters have decided to hang it up.

And for the record, nothing wrong with stopping your show. We're not here to throw shade, but we are here to talk a little bit about burnout. Hit it, ladies.

The school of podcasting with Dave Jackson.

If you're new to the show, this is where we help you plan, launch and grow your podcast. And today we're going to kind of lean into the planning because hindsight is 20 20.

My website is schoolofpodcasting.com use the coupon code listener when you sign up for either a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription. And of course that comes with the 30 day money back guarantee. And so the news came out from Mark Marin.

I don't know if you, you know this or why would you. Maybe some of you would, but WTF? This podcast will turn 16, 16 years old on September 1st. That's a couple months away. 16 years, it's a long time.

And when Brendan and I started this thing, all we knew is we were going to do it every Monday and Thursday and there was no way to make money. There was no way that we knew how to build an aud anything. And it was, it was crazy.

We were doing it in a garage at the beginning that was just a garage. It was filled with junk. And it, it slowly evolved into the show that became what you listen to twice a week.

Sixteen years we've been doing this and we've decided that we, we had a great run and now basically, it's time, folks, it's time. WTF is coming to an end. And we always said, well, how do we know when we're done? And I always said, well, whenever Brendan says so.

And he always said, well, if Mark, you know, it's finished and we're finished. And thankfully we both realized together that we were done.

And that's kind of it. When do you stop doing a podcast when it's not fun? And it surely wasn't because his show wasn't making money. I heard this on the fee.

This is Rob Walch, our premium offering Also was greatly designed around the needs for Mark, where he at one point had 40,000 active paid subscribers. And that was over 10 years ago. And so even if he charged him a buck, 40,000amonth doesn't hurt.

And in Mark's case, he was just like, yeah, we've been there, done that. I also know Mark changed host a couple times, and I think he was chasing advertising dollars.

And here's the one thing you have to keep in mind when it comes to advertising, you can't take a break. If you're under contract to have advertising for the next three months in your show, you're not taking a break.

Now, you can always batch record and things like that, but you're not taking a break. So if you're wondering, like, why is he, you know, waiting till the fall to shut it down?

My guess is he's under contract to do ads for X amount of months and he can't, you know, renege on that. He'd have to pay the money back. So that is my guess.

I don't have any inside information on that, but it's something to keep in mind that the more you add to the show, the more responsibility and in some cases the burden. And another person I just heard, this good friend of mine, Eric K. Johnson, you might know him as the podcast Talent coach, just announced this.

Well, today's a pretty big episode. Today is episode 550, and this will be the final episode of Podcast Talent Coach.

And I was kind of bummed to hear this. I liked Eric show.

And so I'm chopping up this clip here. But Eric did kind of get into why he decided to hang it up after a bit and he's not sure what else he's going to do.

He may be doing something different. But here was one of the reasons he said, yeah, I think I'm done.

So I built the program all around the feedback I was getting from people. And when it was all developed, I rolled it out and I offered it in one on one calls with people.

I offered it through workshops and I did a few short info sessions. And of all the people who saw the opportunity, only one Purchased.

And that's disheartening. But Eric talked about he had an audience. It was just the wrong audience.

He wanted to teach topic A, and everybody else kind of wanted to learn topic B, and he didn't want to teach topic B.

And what I realized at that moment was that it's a lot of work to become influential.

And I'm just going to have Eric say that one more time.

It's a lot of work.

In fact, you're saying it's not easy.

It's a lot of work.

So I could just have ChatGPT write everything and just read it into a mic, right?

It's a lot of work.

All right, let's let Eric continue, shall we?

It's a lot of work to become influential. Like, everybody wants to be Be influential, but very few people want to actually do the work that it takes to become influential.

Oh, I want my audience to grow. Well, here's what you want to do. You got to do A, B and C day in and day out. They're like, ah, I don't want to work that hard.

Well, it doesn't just show up. Like, creating an incredibly successful business doesn't happen overnight.

Now, I'm going to interrupt Eric here. So if someone is telling you I can make you famous overnight for three easy payments, that they're lying through their teeth.

If you want your podcast to grow, you got to get out and get on stages and get in front of other people so they can fall in love with you. And it takes time and effort to do that. And people would say, oh, is there somebody that could do that for me? No, only you can be you.

It's like people can't lose weight for you. You have to do the work to lose the weight.

And some people just don't want to do the work.

And Eric explains how his mentor, Dan Miller, you know, it had many things where it didn't work, and when it doesn't, you just pivot to something else. And so, eric, congratulations on 550 episodes. I especially loved his early shows.

I love them all, but I really love the early shows where he was really digging in to how to make great content. I'm not sure what that means for the future of the podcast review show. That's a show I do with Eric. Maybe we're still doing that.

I just literally just found out about this. But here again, we have ideas and we try things, and sometimes they don't work. And when they don't work, you quit doing it.

And Eric did 550 episodes so you can't say, I should have tried a little longer. And as he said, he's tried multiple things. And, you know, he loves hockey, loves his kids, got all sorts of things going on.

Maybe it's time for another chapter. So then I looked at YouTubers and there were many big ones. And I'm not going to play a lot of these because we kind of get the point.

But here was someone that all of these people had. Millions. This is Game theorist. He had 19 million people subscribe to his channel and just said, yep, I'm done.

My reasons for making this announcement today is probably largely the same as Tom's reasons or seth Everman's or CaptainSparklez or Papa Meats or Stampylongheads.

Like, okay, let's be honest, how many people are gonna go Google CaptainSparklez?

There's a lot of these videos that are coming out these days, and there's going to be a lot more happening throughout this year. Steph and I have known this video would be coming for the last three years. We weren't sure it was necessarily going to be today.

We didn't know exactly when it would fall, but we knew it was going to happen eventually. That's why over the last couple years, we've been staffing up so much. That's why we partnered with a larger company to help run the channels.

That's why we.

We've been spending so much time outside of this box training up the team to make the best videos that they can, because we knew that we couldn't do this forever.

So there's one of those suggestions. We'll just farm out the stuff you don't like. And he did that. But there still comes a time when this happens.

I don't love late nights.

I don't love the fact that Steph and I have been work first for over a decade, where I'm sitting down at dinner with my best friend and we're talking about business logistics. I miss the days where I could just sit down on the couch with her and play video games. And it's not for content.

And especially with YouTube, you're kind of always on. You're always looking for is this content or not? And that kind of takes the fun out of stuff. He mentioned Todd Scott. Here is Todd Scott.

There's been a video a week for 10 years. I never broke the streak. I don't know when I decided to try for 10 years, it felt like a good round number to reach.

As the YouTube game changed over the years, as the channel became Bigger. As my own standards became higher and higher to keep pace with all the people I was collaborating with and competing with.

As this became my life, I decided that my goal was.

And notice what he said there. As he was going on, things got bigger and bigger. The production got bigger and bigger, and.

And everything was getting, you know, there's more stress, more pressure on those types of videos, on that type of content.

And now that people are watching YouTube on TV, you're competing against other people that, well, look like a TV show and it's you with, you know, accidentally leaving the cereal bowl on the bookcase in the background.

I can't keep this up. This is my dream job, and I have a lot of fun doing it. I know I'm incredibly lucky, but.

But a dream job is still a job, and it's a job that keeps getting bigger and more complicated. And I am so tired. There's nothing in my life right now except work.

And when it. When the fun is done, you're done. One more. Because I realized we kind of got the point. This is Kaylis. 18.7 million subscribers.

I've been doing YouTube for how many years now, bro? Like, eight, eight, nine years? Almost 10 years. I can't do it anymore. I've been daily uploading for almost nine years.

And, you know, I gotta call it quits at some point. I'm an un. I'm officially an unk. And I just. I can't just be sitting here playing games all my life. I want to go out and explore the world.

I haven't left my house in two years. I haven't touched grass in two years.

All right, that's a bit extreme. And they put the sad music and not me. But here's the thing. They. You hear a theme there. We added this, we added this, we added this.

We made the production bigger, you know, and in the end, because it takes so much more work and you're obsessing over every detail, it's more stressful and it takes the fun out of it. And that's when people stop. Remember when you say, I'm going to start or I'm going to add, you have to ask yourself, what am I going to subtract?

Because the last time I checked, there's only 24 hours in a day. So if you're like, I'm going to add video and I'm going to add a green screen and I'm going to add this, or I'm going to add a co host.

When you add anything, because you're like, Wait, how does adding a co host that makes it sound like it should be easier? Nope. Because when it's solo, you can record whenever you want.

Now you have to align your schedules, and the more things you add, the greater the chance that you're going to squeeze the fun out of all of it. And one of the things that can really just is when you have to. I'll give you an example.

And for the record, I love playing the guitar. I love helping people, I love teaching. I don't know why I hate teaching the guitar. I think I need a really special student for that.

But I had to, and I had to do this and I had to do that, and I love to read.

But when I was in school, I had to read things to the point that when I graduated from college with my first degree, I didn't read anything for a very long time. And I walked into the CEO's office. He was a really good guy, always had an open door policy.

And I was talking to him and he had just books everywhere. And I said, have you read all these books? And he said, well, not cover to cover, but most of them, yes. And I go, wow.

I go, I used to read all the time. He's like, well, pick a book.

And I picked a book and I read it and I was like, oh, holy cow, I forgot how much I like reading when I don't have to do it. So when you add things to your show that you have to do, it can easily, from my point of view, from my chair, wring the fun right out of it.

And that's when you go, I've had enough of this. Because the more work it takes, the more return you need from your show. Whether and that's again, whatever your why is I want to grow my network.

I want to get the message out, I want to get in front of people, whatever. I want to make money. If you're not getting that, but you're putting in all this effort, you're more than likely to say, that's enough.

That's why when I say, when you start out, the best podcasters that make it past that seven episodes where Most people just, the wheels fall off because the juice isn't worth the squeeze. But when you start off with a ton of passion and you're not going, well, I might talk about this or I might start a show about this. I don't know.

I'm thinking about this. That to me, it's not a giant red flag. But when you can't decide what to podcast about, that's not a good sign.

It's just, in my opinion, it's usually the people like, I have to talk about this. My friends are tired of hearing me talk about it. I'm going to talk about it to the world, that kind of stuff.

The Zeta Christians of the world, who does. My spouse has dementia. No, somebody needs to talk about this and tell the truth about this awful disease. I have to talk about it.

That's usually for me when I have somebody like, I just, I needed, you know, or if it's a business and they're trying to use it as a marketing arm. Got it. But when it's like, I'm not really sure. I might talk about green beans. I don't know. I thought about doing a show about movies. Okay.

You know, maybe that's really usually. Because what happens is when you start to go through the work, if you don't love it, you're going to want to quit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, what takes the fun out of it, Dave? Number one, unrealistic expectations. And so I've worked with people that are like, don't you know who I am?

Now, granted, it's not the 10,000 or the 20,000 you need for the, you know, oh, sponsorship that everybody seems to be in love with. But that's a decent audience. That's a theater, my friend, filled with people. But for some people, it's like, no, no, no.

I expect to be on the late night talk shows. I've been podcasting for a month and a half. Yeah, that's not realistic. And it takes a while to grow.

And by a while, I don't mean six weeks or six months. I've often said three years. That's if you're good.

And again, you are doing everything, you know, you heard Eric say, he's like, oh, have you done A, B and C? And they're like, oh, I don't want to do that. I had somebody hire me once.

I always scratch my head when people go, well, you've got 20 years in podcasting. I want to get your opinion. And I go, oh, well, you should probably do this. And they go, I don't want to do that. And you should do this.

I don't want to do that. And have you tried this yet? Yeah, it didn't work. Okay, how long did you try it? I gave it about a day and a half.

Yeah, that's, you know, you've got to do the work. It doesn't happen overnight. And if someone again is telling you they can do that, they're lying through their teeth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The other thing is good old reality just comes and smacks you in the face because you thought a 15 minute podcast was going to take 15 minutes, and instead it took about an hour, if not two. And all of a sudden you're like, what? Yeah. So it takes longer to grow, and it probably takes longer to create.

Now, there are things you can do to speed up, but you go, oh, wait a minute, I'll just add this tool and it automatically removes the ums. And you knows, okay, great. But now you have to learn it, which is gonna take time. And so again, when you add things, what are you gonna take away?

Well, you're gonna take away the time to go learn this, because it doesn't do any good to buy Vidiq for youtubers if you're not gonna go through the tutorials to learn how to use it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Content can be something that burns you out because you're just like, I don't know what I'm gonna talk about. Well, you actually have more ideas than you think. And you've heard me talk about this before in other episodes. You need to write them down.

I don't care what you use. Apple Notes Text expander. Not Text Expander, but, you know, some sort of text tool. I use a thing called Note Joy. I know a lot of people use Evernote.

Write those bad boys down. Because then on those weeks when you're like, I don't know what I'm talking about, well, go into your Note app and see what it is.

And that has saved me so many times.

But one of the shows that I quit doing was called Weekly Web Tools, because just after a while, I think kind of like Marc Maron, I've interviewed everybody I want to interview. And so for me, I'm like, I think I've talked about every cool web tool there is. I even Rebranded it.

I changed it to Web Tools Radio because I didn't want to do it weekly anymore. But in the end, I was just tired of talking about web stuff, and I wasn't excited about the topic.

It'd be like, well, here's a player thing that looks kind of neato. And I was like. Because I wasn't really excited, like, hey, wait till you hear about this thing. I found. It's so cool.

I was like, yeah, it's taking too much time to find good content. It wasn't any fun. And I went, okay, see you later. I did save that show a couple times. I use a feed reader, and there's feedly, there's innoreader.

And I found things online that were like, blogs. Yes, people still write blogs that were talking about web tools. And I'd be like, oh, cool.

So I had some sources of content coming into me easily, and then it was just a matter of me going, oh, that one would be good to talk about on the show. But even after having the Cool Tools, it just. I swear I've reviewed every cool web tool on the Internet. And I was like, yeah, I'm done.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The people you work with drive you crazy. This goes for anything, and it's a bummer when it's your family.

But I saw a thing on Reddit where a guy was doing a podcast with his girlfriend, and they even did the thing where they said, you will do this. I will do this. You will do this. I will do this. So they set their expectations. Who's gonna do what?

And then they said, and if we make money, this is how we're gonna split it up. And according to the guy that was writing this, he was the male. He said, I get 60, she gets 40 because I'm doing more.

And then let's say according again to him. So this is really one side of the story. So we know how that works. But according to this person, they weren't doing the things they agreed to do.

And so even having kind of these agreements and you, you know, you put it on the table, and that's what I always recommend. That's only going to be as good as you hold it up.

So what are you going to do when person B, you know, Ernie and Bert decide, okay, Ernie's doing the recording, Bert's going to do the marketing. And then Bert kind of slacks on the marketing. All right, what's Ernie going to do? Take him to court.

So it's only going to be as strong as you uphold it. And Then enforce it when you're like, no, no, you said you're going to do this. And when the other person goes, I don't want to do it. Okay.

So that's another one that causes burnout, is when the people involved are not as engaged as you are. And that's something you want to sniff out before you start recording with that person. And then absolutely write down who's doing what.

And that way, one of the things you want to agree on is, okay, what happens, Bert, if you decide to not hold up your end of the bargain and I get a new co host? Can I still call it the Ernie and Bert Show? Because that's been the brand for two years until you completely just ignore the project.

Those are things that can cause burnout. So be careful picking a co host. Major life changes can cause burnout. Like, I don't know. Have you ever heard of these things called babies?

I jokingly say they are the arch nemesis of podcasters.

Because, you know, Junior doesn't care that Daddy's trying to podcast, you know, and your little princess decided to wake up and scream bloody murder during the middle of your interview. Yeah. So what are you going to do? Well, that makes podcasting a whole lot harder. And it doesn't mean that you don't have the passion.

It doesn't mean that you don't still love it. It does make it harder. But there are times when your parents decided to get old. How rude of them. And now they require more attention.

You know, sometimes life changes, and that's when you go, hey, I got to step away. And my buddy Daniel J. Lewis just came back. He's been on hiatus for years because. And again, priorities in the right place. Said, I gotta raise my son.

I'll be back. And he's back, and he's.

You know, I don't know if Daniel's gonna be doing his same weekly schedule he was before, but he came back to the microphone, and also when he did, he didn't spend 20 minutes apologizing. Because keep in mind, when somebody finds Daniel's latest episode after being gone for years, they don't know that he was gone for years.

So all of a sudden, they're binging Daniel's show, And here comes 20 minutes. I'm so sorry.

Yeah, don't start off, you know, if you're gonna apologize or whatever, it's kind of good because you feel like you owe your audience, but do that stuff. And at the end. But there's, again, there's no shame in any of this. You know, Cheers, Mash, Seinfeld. All things come to an end.

And sometimes there are things you can do to avoid that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hey, did you know that June is men's Mental health month? It kind of gets buried by other things that are going on in June, but that's okay. But here's the thing.

And this also goes for females sometimes, again, due to life circumstances, we need a break.

I remember my last semester when I was going to college the first time, and I had just had it because I was taking care of a household after my mom had died. I was taking care of my sister, who is kind of special needs.

I was grocery shopping because my dad was a long distance truck driver, and I was going to school and working part time. And I was like, look, here's the deal. I'm going to take as many.

I'm going to take this big, giant lump of classes this last semester, and I'm either going to graduate or I'm going to die. One of the two. But I got to do it. And so there are times when you're like, I just, I can't handle it. Something's got to go.

And so I realized, and again, that was a ton of everything was have to. Life changed. And I was like, all right, I guess I have to do the grocery shopping. I have to do this. I have to pay the bills. It was crazy.

And so there are times when you're like, yeah, we need to change. And all I say, again, there's no shame in taking a break. I do my best. I've, I, you know, I never made a big deal about it.

I'll probably do an episode sometime this year about doing podcasting for 20 years, but I'm now 20 years in and I've never missed a Monday. I just never have. It's kind of a weird, streaky thing then. Now that it's here, I don't want to break it. But if you do, you can do that.

But the fact that I don't want to break my streak is. I realize that you look for my show every Monday. You're like, oh, there he is again. Oh, there he is again.

And I'm part of your routine and you appreciate that. And I appreciate you jumping in here to hear this on Monday morning. I really do. But what happens if life happens, Dave?

All I say is explain that you're taking a break again. You don't have to apologize because many times your audience is getting it for free. What are they going to do? Not.

Not pay you so you can say, I'm taking a break. I've got some things I need to take care of. And if you can pick a day when you're coming back, I'm taking three months off, I'm taking whatever off.

And then always remind them that there is plenty of content to go for. All you have to do is go to your website, dot com follow. At least that's how mine is set up to make it easy.

And you can then go through and pick your favorite episodes so many times, especially a show like mine, you got 900 episodes to go pick through. So if you just found me, you got plenty of content to keep you entertained until I come back.

And then whatever day you said you will come back, come back. But, Dave, what if I'm not ready to come back on the day I said I was going to come back? Then come back and say, hey, I'm not coming back just yet.

But thanks so much for checking. I'll let you know. I will be back on this date. And just. You just need to keep your audience informed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Another thing that leads to burnout is starting another podcast. And you go, oh, it's easy. I did the first one. I can get this into Apple. And probably by the end of the day.

And so you start another podcast and you forget starting the podcast. Recording the podcast, that's really, in some cases, not the hard part. It's getting people to find it and marketing it and constantly promoting it.

And now you get to take the amount that you used to use on show number one. Yeah, I know you should probably do more of that, but no, no, no. We're gonna cut that in half and now put it on show number two. Hey, hey, hey.

I wasn't done with that one. But think about it this way. You baked a cake, and some people like the cake, but it's not the best cake they've ever eaten.

And you're now going, okay, hey, since you kind of think my cake is meh, here's some donuts. Like, wait, shouldn't you figure out the winning formula of your show? Because it's different. It's a different recipe for everybody.

Before you go back in the kitchen and make more stuff. It's just a thought. Because when people don't like your cake or your donuts. Yeah.

That's when it gets a little disheartening and it takes the joy out of it, takes the fun out of it. And, yeah, you retire.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In just a second, I'll talk about if you're Just starting today, Some things you can seriously do to help you avoid burning out with your show.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, so we've talked about burnout today. How can we avoid burnout if we're starting today? Well, number one, look for your sources. Where are you going to get the content for your show?

And this could be many things, right? Newspapers, for those of us that read that, obviously the Internet, websites, television, Netflix, whatever it is, do you have plenty of sources?

Because the minute you have to spend more time to get the content, the, you know, the more strain on that. So keep that in mind.

And sometimes, right, this is why some of the big shows with, you know, teams of 18, they take extended breaks because they're out doing journalism and that takes a lot of time. I wish I had the time. I do a show for Akron, Ohio, but it's not really the show I should be doing.

I'm just basically gathering news off the Internet and organizing it for people. So it's not really information they can't get anyplace else. I just made it easier.

But if I really wanted to, I should be interviewing the, you know, owner of local restaurants and things like that. I should be trying to get in contact with the mayor maybe and giving them information they can't get anyplace else. But I'm not.

And consequently, that show gets very meh, kind of downloads. Another thing, write 10 episodes ahead of time based on what your audience wants and you're like, dave, I don't have an audience. Okay?

I've talked about this in the past. You can go look at comments on Amazon and comments on YouTube and go to Quora, go hang out in Facebook groups.

You can kind of figure out what people want.

But in theory, you should know your genre and be able to come up with 10 episode ideas, not writing out a script, but just here's 10 things we're going to talk about over the next, you know, however long your schedule is, which brings up the next thing. And that is time yourself. I've said this over and over before. You pick your schedule.

So when you're first starting out and you're researching your topic, start a timer. I use a thing called Clockify. It's web based and it's also an app. And then when you, if you're doing interviews, record the full interview.

I know it's only going to be 20 minutes, maybe when you edit it down, but you were on the phone with that person for an hour on the phone. What year is it?

You're on you know, Riverside or Squadcast or whatever, but time everything because then you're going to go, wait, that took 24 hours to do a, you know, hour long podcast? Yeah. Do you have 24 hours every week to do that? No. Well, then you're not doing a weekly show or you better find a way to be more efficient.

Then when you look at your downloads, divide them by 20. So when you say, oh, I've only got 80 downloads, okay, that's four classrooms, said the old teacher. That's four classrooms.

That's a hallway in my old building where I used to teach. Never, you know, under realize those are people that could be, you know, playing video games or watching Netflix or whatever they chose to listen to.

You divide your audience by 20 and then know your why. Because if you don't get your why, you're gonna, you know, quit. But also know how you're going to judge your success.

And so many people judge by downloads. And there are other things, such as getting the word out there and is your network growing? Is, you know, is your social media growing?

Whatever it is, why are you doing this? And then how are you going to measure it?

And then be consistent both in schedule because now you know how long it's going to take so you can be consistent and be consistent in content. I would much rather have a great show that was late than an on time show that was all right. You know, so consistency is important.

As I mentioned earlier, you become part of their routine and then when you sign on, I, I've heard a few people that I listened to their show and when they started, they said, I'm doing it for a year. And now realize again, since we're talking, since it is men's mental health month, and ladies, this applies to you obviously as well.

If you are hating life right now because of your podcast and you're just like, ugh, I don't want to do this. Well, then quit. But also realize that there are times when you go to start a podcast and you go, yeah, I'm not passing any of this.

Well, maybe it's not a you shouldn't podcast. Maybe it's a you shouldn't start a podcast now. Hmm. Something to think about. But those are some tips on avoiding burnout.

I think the one if somebody said, what's the most important? It's write down the ideas when they come to you.

Because that's the one that kills me when I, when it, when it's too hard to create great content, I start to get a little crispy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hey, this isn't the first time I've talked about Marc Maron. I am kind of bummed that he's leaving. I enjoyed his show. I've listened to pretty much every single episode. And I did a what makes this podcast great?

Marc Maron edition back on schoolofpodcasting.com 705 and back then I didn't use chapters. I do have timestamps in there. And it looks like I started talking about Mark about, I don't know, 25 minutes. Yeah, actually 16 minutes.

I see that they're in the show notes again. Schoolofpodcasting.com 705 and I'll put a link in the show notes so you don't even have to look for it.

The other thing I wonder is Mark's early episodes were great because he was talking to people he wanted to talk to. He was picking the guests and obviously he could turn down people.

But I wonder sometimes again, when you've got sponsors, I've got to keep these episodes coming out. And then you make it easy and you work with an agency who is just feeding you people, oh, here's somebody.

And I noticed, you know, that everybody there had something to plug. So it, it kind of. And there's nothing wrong with that. Right? That's why people come on the show. That's why they want publicity.

But if you think about it, that's all, you know, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Other Guy, you know, Craig Colbert, all those guys. Craig Colbert, what a Stephen Colbert. They. It's just like, hey, tell me about your summer vacation. And let's roll the clip.

And so Mark was a much more extended version of that. But I'm here to tell you, the last year I would go and see who his guest was and I was like, who?

And then it was somebody who had a movie out or whatever. And maybe I'm just out of touch with what's going on in entertainment. But it wasn't like, ooh, holy cow, Keith Richards. I gotta listen to that.

So I wonder sometimes if maybe the reason he wasn't into it as much is maybe he wasn't really. He had some of the guests that kind of fall into the, eh, that'll do, you know. But I don't know. I have no idea if that's the case. I just.

For me, the guest went from holy cow, can't wait to hear it to holy cow. Who is this person? I've never heard of them. So who knows? But he's, he's tapping out.

And thank you, Mark, for being entertaining for 16 years, thanks to Brendan. That's the other thing I want to bring up. Two people. Two? Yeah, two. Not one, not three. Two people did that show.

And he had the President of the United States on his show. So as much as you're like, oh, it's got to be bigger, badder and better, oh, by the way, Mark is also not video, just something to think about.

And he had the president. Now, granted, he's been doing it for 16 years, but he is audio only.

And I'm happy that he's ending on his own terms, unlike, say, Johnny Carson, where they're like, hey, Johnny. What? You're done. Get out, you deadbeat. So that. And he's got a lot of stuff going on. He's doing a lot more acting. He's still doing this comedy.

He's still. He occasionally writes books and he puts out albums and such. And so it just may be a case that Mark's like, you know what? I think I'm done.

I think I'm done just not having as much fun or just. And it's not that he's not having fun. It might be that he's having more fun doing these other things.

And the last point, which, now that I think about it, should have been the first point, is who's going to take his place? And what I mean by that is they're not going to keep doing wtf.

But there are a lot of people that maybe listen to Mark on the way to work, and it's not like sometime in September when he quits and there's no more, that they're going to go, well, I guess I'll just ride to work in silence because there's no more wtf. No, they're going to find something else. And we played a few people today that are ending their shows.

So if one of the reasons you're not starting a podcast is nobody would listen to me, and I'm never going to be as good as so and so. Well, guess what? So and so might eventually stop doing their show.

And by that time, you may be as good as they are because you've been doing it for years. I always look at here in America, we had Tom Brady, one of the best quarterbacks of all time. And, you know, he retired eventually. He.

It took him a few tries, but he finally stuck and he retired. Well, you didn't see people going, well, I was gonna go out for the football team, but I'll never be as good as Tom Brady.

Well, no, they went out for the football team and they made it. And then there are college players that, you know, somebody took his place when he retired.

And I know you might be thinking, yeah, but I can't replace Marc Maron. Why not? He did it with a friend in his garage.

I know he's kind of a celebrity, but when he started that show, he was this close to having no career at all. And podcasting was a last ditch effort. So as much people go, whoa, why me? I say, why not you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And now this is where my completion rate goes right down the toilet because I'm talking about the school of podcasting. Again, use the coupon code listnr when you sign up for either a monthly, yearly or quarterly. Yes. That's not quarterly. That's available.

If you want a little discount, you can do that as well. Schoolofpodcasting.com join I'm Dave Jackson. I help podcasters. It's what I do. Can't wait to see what you and I are going to do together.

And until next week, take care. God bless. Class is dismissed.

If you like what you do.

Charging. Charging. Creating a. Creating. Yeah. Picking a co host. If you like what you hear, then go tell someone.