Two years into The Lonely Chapter, I don’t feel like I’ve figured life out, but I do think I’m asking better questions.

In this solo episode, I reflect on what success really means when you’re building something that matters, how to grow without losing yourself, and why numbers are only one part of the story.

I also talk about identity beyond work, titles and roles, the tension of using social media to grow something honest, and the difference between consuming self-improvement content and actually changing your life.

This is not a “what I’ve learned” episode. It is more of an honest check-in on what I’m still figuring out.

• Question for you: What are you still figuring out?

Check out the Substack:

lonelychapterpodcast.substack.com

Hello and welcome to the show.

My name is Sam and this is the Lonely Chapter, a podcast for people who are doing okay on the surface, but quietly unsure how to live.

Well.

If you follow me on socials or the podcasts, you'll know that I recently hit 100 episodes and I did an episode with my partner where she interviewed me.

And hopefully if you did listen to it, you learned something about me and where my mind is now.

This episode sort of marks two years of the podcast, so we're just over 100 episodes and it's flown by and I've spoken about this before, but it's been such a great experience.

I've learned so many great things and met amazing people.

So I just wanted to quickly start off with a big thank you again for anyone listening.

If you've listened since the start, if you've picked up along the way, or if this is the first time hearing my voice, I just want to say a massive thank you for being here.

I really appreciate it and hopefully you do find some value from the episodes that I put out.

So what I wanted to do today, I was thinking about doing a sort of what I've learned episode and I realized I've done quite a few of those.

And what might be better is to explain whilst I've learned loads of things, I'm very far from being a finished product.

And there's loads more things to learn and there's actually maybe more questions that I have now than I did at the start.

And I think that's normal.

The more you learn in life, the more questions you have.

Right.

And I think this is something that people fall into where they consume more of this sort of content and they.

They get into self improvement and they want to be a better person for themselves, for the people around them.

And the more you learn about things and the more you learn about how your brain's wired and the way you think about things and all these different approaches to life that different people have experienced and want to tell you about, it can make it feel all more confusing.

So I just wanted to give an honest update today about where I'm at, what I'm thinking about the show, what I'm thinking about going forward, and a bit more of a reflective episode as opposed to an advice episode or something where I'm going to be giving you lessons to take away.

But I am hoping that along the way lessons will crop up.

So with that in mind, let's start the episode with the question of what does success actually mean?

And more specifically, what does success actually mean when you're building something that matters to you?

Because it changes things slightly.

So when I think of the podcast and the growth of the podcast, obviously if I look back to the start and I look at where it is now, there's been growth, there's been increases in the numbers of downloads, followers and increase in the level and the public status of the guests that I can get on now.

And it's amazing to see that growth.

And it's really important to look back at that and appreciate where I am now.

Obviously I want the podcast to grow and the more people that hear the podcast and consume these stories that I'm sharing of my guests and the things they've learned in their lives and, and hopefully packaging up some of those takeaways for you to take away after each episode, the more people that hear that, the better in my opinion, because the more people then who I can help and I can encourage those people to go and take those conversations and take them into their own lives and start conversations around that.

And that's something that I'm massive on.

That's something that has been at the end of my episodes since maybe episode 26 ish, where I asked my guest to leave a question for the listener to take away and start conversations.

Because that's what it's about is conversations.

And whilst this is an interview style podcast and I do have questions and there are obviously things I'm curious about to learn, I try and keep it conversation.

Like I try not to be too interviewy in my techniques and hopefully that kind of comes across and makes it a bit more palatable for certain people to listen to and to take away the tips that are being shared.

So when I'm thinking about the growth of the podcast and I'm looking at those numbers, it's really important and I do have to check myself every now and then to not get drawn into the numbers too much.

Obviously when I record episodes, I love the conversations and I think that it's such a valuable conversation I've had and sometimes those conversations go on to be really well received and listened to and sometimes they don't as much.

And something that I think's got lots of value packed into it doesn't reach that many people and it can be difficult sometimes to see that.

But the important thing is to remember that I'm building a back catalog and that in the future when people come to listen to my show, they can then look through that catalog and find an episode where it relates to them and they may want to listen to that conversation then.

So once it's up, it's there forever.

And that's the nice thing about a podcast, is you're building a collection of conversations.

It's not just week to week.

It's not like the news where the stories ebb and flow and change all the time.

These things in most cases are evergreen.

And that's what I love about it.

And when I think about the impact of the podcast, obviously it's so easy to look at just the numbers and the downloads and the follows.

And whilst those are important metrics to follow, sometimes a simple comment can mean more than that.

And there's been times where you get a comment on an episode, whether that's on Spotify or YouTube or wherever people are listening, and it's such a in depth comment and someone's taken the time out of their day to A, to listen to the episode, but B, to write this lovely response and this lovely bringing together of their own thoughts around what that topic was.

And the one that stands out to me is still this one from my episode with Dr. Susie Bennett on male suicide and male mental health.

And the com, the comment that came in was from a woman who had previously had maybe a bias.

The way she looked at men's mental health and male suicide was slightly biased in whatever she'd experienced before that, before hearing that episode.

And she mentioned that and she spoke about how she used to think a certain way and that listening to this episode changed her mind on the topic and that she now looked at the men in her life with a lot more empathy.

And it's just such a brilliant thing to see the impact of that one episode.

And it's happened a few times where people have left comments like that.

And I think sometimes those comments mean more than the numbers of downloads because whilst I sometimes again sometimes get people coming up to me and telling me they really enjoyed an episode, a lot of those downloads, I don't know if they've listened to loads of it, all of it or none of it, or just the star.

And so it's really nice to get those comments back and to just be reminded that the work that I'm doing is having the desired impact.

When we look at the word success, this could be reach, it could be impact, consistency, quality, growth, or the person that I'm becoming whilst I'm making it.

And those are all the right thing.

So there's no one aspect of success that I should be measuring.

If I only measured the numbers some days it would be great.

And Some days it wouldn't be great and it could affect my mood.

So it's important that I look at all of the things and if I look back at the start, how I communicated, how I spoke in public, how I spoke to people, even in the interviews, and my style and my ability to recall ideas, it's all getting better with time.

And whilst I always knew that would be the case, it's nice to see that it's finally coming together and obviously loads more to learn, loads more to get better at.

But it's a lovely thing to look back on and just be certain that is having a good impact and we are making success.

The question that then rolls on from that is about the growth and how I go forward from now in order to grow the podcast whilst keeping it honest to what I want it to be.

Looking into the underlying current of what makes podcasts grow, there's so much advice out there and there's so many things and obviously some of them may be right, they may be wrong, but definitely stuff like how you package the episode.

So your title, your thumbnails, the hooks, can you get someone to stay listening once they start or watching on YouTube that that's even harder.

Your clips that you're making and all these first impressions that you get, can you convert them?

And looking at this online, it's so important that you do all these things, these hooks and you package it.

So it's curiosity driven.

And this is where the tension comes in for me, because as someone who previously quit social media before starting the podcast, I was off it for a few years and I had such a good time without it in my life.

I didn't feel like I was comparing myself to anything.

I didn't feel like I was just ending up in constant scroll, like doom scrolling and all of that stuff.

And there's still part of that in my brain that remembers how good it was.

So when it turns out that I need to do the things I don't like, like hooking people and bigging up and not necessarily click baiting, but exaggerating the message potentially to get people to click in the first place, it brings tension into my, like, pattern of how I'm doing this stuff.

So I think that's something I need to get better at.

In fact, I know it is, but it's something that I'm wrestling with and I'll probably continue to wrestle with.

But I think as the two years have gone on, I've got better at it.

I've sort of accepted in my mind that the more I do that, the more people listen.

And going back to the first point, the more people that listen, the more people these conversations can help.

So it's all for a good cause.

That's what I have to tell myself.

Another thing that I've noticed is that previously and up to this point, I've done a lot of clips on social media.

That's been my go to method because I find it the simplest.

I've already got the content and the podcast is the main thing.

So repurposing that makes sense to me.

And again, I'm learning about how I need to be more front and center of certain things.

If people are seeing repeated videos of mine, they need to be able to link it back to me.

And I think back to when I first came across a number of the podcasts.

I listened to Chris Williamson, Stephen Bartlett.

That was from seeing these clips of them talking and of them sharing their knowledge and what they'd learned and building up that trust with them.

So I need to be able to bring myself forward more and my personality, my desire for this podcast, whilst keeping it honest and keeping it grounded to the values that I want to keep.

One of the questions that my partner asked me during episode 100 where we did the role reversal was about identity.

And this is something that I've spoken about loads and, and the idea of identity and where we use something as our entire identity and very often it's our job or our hobby and if that thing gets taken away from us, it can really damage us because who do you then become?

And we see this a lot when people retire from a job after many years.

I spoke to Eric Robinson in the last episode about this, about after 24 years in the FBI, like, who are you now?

And it's just something that's just cropped up so many times.

Speaking to James Elliot, he was talking about how we describe our identity.

And instead of using nouns like firefighter or podcaster, using adjectives and verbs instead, things like service, leading, creative things that can be molded to multiple roles.

So as I become a firefighter from being a pt, I can mold my service from a way of serving people when they first come in the gym, to feel comfortable and to get fitter and healthier, to on the fire ground, when it's potentially the person's worst day of their life and we're serving them in a very different way.

It's more of an emergency procedure, but it's still service and that thing is moldable.

And then when you retire, how can you still Maintain that value and that identity of being someone who serves others.

And I think it's really important.

And I think the risk comes from when you use that role as your whole identity.

We see this at parties.

When someone meets you at a party and they ask obviously for your name first, I assume.

But I often ask, what do you do?

And it's such a boring question because what they're really asking is, what do you do for work?

As if that's everything you do and that's who you are.

If they ask who you are, would you say, oh, I'm a firefighter?

Would you say, I'm whatever your job is?

Or would you say that I'm someone who cares about others and I want to help others learn alongside me as I learn more about the world?

That could be something that I might say.

And obviously that question of what do you do?

Doesn't really link in there.

And that's why I have the conversation starters at the end of my episode where I ask my guests to leave a question for you guys, the listener, to take away and open up these conversations, because I think it's important to talk about these sort of things and bring these conversations into everyday life.

A useful question for me could be, if the podcast disappeared tomorrow, who would you be without it?

And again, whilst I don't want it to disappear tomorrow, I feel comfortable that if it did, for whatever reason, I've still learned so much along the way.

And it doesn't change who I am if I'm not actively doing it anymore.

And I think if you ask yourself that question, but replace podcast with whatever job or hobby you're using to be your identity, if you are, and what would happen if that got taken away?

Who are you without it?

And the things that come to mind for me would be integrity, honesty, empathy and service.

These are some of the things I mentioned in episode 100 as well.

But I think it's important to think about what our values are below what we're doing.

So another sort of question I've been wrestling with, and this is one that a lot of people who consume podcasts and consume self help books, I think suffer with and maybe don't talk about enough, is this idea that are we actually taking on board what we're doing or are we just doing the thing and we're just listening?

So with podcasts, you're hearing all of these tips, you're hearing all of these stories and these new ways of thinking and changing our mindset, but are you really making a change and actioning on those things.

A lot of the time we jump from self help book to self help book to self help book and whilst we're reading it we think, oh, that's a great idea.

And this is not me judging by the way, this is exactly what I do.

I'll be like thinking all these things are great, this great idea.

I'm going to implement this.

As soon as I finish this book, I'm going to implement these things.

And then you finish the book and then you start a new book and the cycle continues.

And I think it's really important to check in on ourselves again.

And it comes back to self awareness, being self aware enough to go those things that I learn about and I said that I wanted to try, I never did.

And I've just gone on to this new because it feels useful.

It feels like we're doing something.

It feels like action because I'm reading and I'm listening to these conversations, I'm having these conversations.

But action's different.

Action isn't just listening or reading, it's doing.

So it's really important to me that we sort of take the action.

And things that I've fallen foul of is talking about checking in on people and this idea that when someone pops into your mind that you haven't spoken to for a while, just pick up your phone, send them a text message and just say, hey, just thought about you, hope you're doing well, something like that.

And it can just start a little conversation and it may lead to like meeting up in person, which is like a really nice thing.

It may just be a very quick brief exchange.

It might be a rekindling of a really good friendship or, or more.

You never know.

So it's a really nice thing that I've thought about.

And then you can also talk about being present but still fall into the trap of reaching for your phone and getting caught in an hour long doom scroll.

You can talk about courage and still avoid the difficult conversations.

You can talk about health and fitness and then still let stress overtake you and rule your life and rule your decisions and stop you getting to the gym today.

And it doesn't make you a hypocrite for those things, it makes you human because it's totally normal.

But the important thing is that if you notice those things happening and the action is not happening, you can acknowledge that and start to take action.

And the first step of that is being self aware enough.

So when you're listening to these podcasts, my podcasts, any other podcasts where you're learning things or reading a book, reading these self help books, those things that you're listening to are not proof that that person has mastered it by any means.

Especially my show where I just learn about life, learn about people's experiences.

I'm learning with you.

So it's not someone singing from their high horse about, I've learned all these things and I've executed them perfectly.

It's totally not that.

So it's a really important thing to keep in mind when you are consuming a lot of this sort of content.

So the final question that I've been thinking about myself is this idea of what the show does next.

And it's been two years, it's been over 100 episodes now.

And what does it look like going forward?

So the first two years of the show, everything up until now, it's been really about building that consistency, learning the techniques, learning the process of growing a show and just not stopping, which is great.

And I'm so glad that I've managed to do it and I'm super proud.

It's crazy how fast it's come round.

But now I need to look forward to what the show becomes next.

And whilst I want it to stay the same, I also know that to keep growing, I need to slightly alter what I'm doing and my processes and probably more behind the scenes stuff really.

But I obviously want even better conversations.

I want to get myself especially, I want to just keep growing my ability to communicate and converse, getting bigger guests, but not just for the sake of having that guest on.

I still want to maintain that the guests I have on the show are relevant to the conversations and the learnings that come out of those episodes are worth bringing to you guys.

Because having the name of someone big just for the sake of saying I had that person on isn't really what I want to do with the show.

So I want to grow, obviously, like I said at the very start, it's about growing so that more people can be helped, more people can find the show, more people can listen to it, learn and share with others.

And that's the thing I need to keep reminding myself as I go into the next step of it.

And it's, yeah, it's important to me, the growth, but it's also important to me to stay honest to what the show is.

I want more of me to come forward and whether that looks like more frequent solo episodes, reflecting on maybe the last few episodes in batches or roundups of things I've been learning about or whatever that looks Like I don't know yet.

But again, bringing a little bit more of me forwards definitely on social media to start with and being a bit more present on there for the sake of the show.

That's why I need to keep reminding myself I've just started substack.

So for anyone who doesn't know, that's like a newsletter.

So platform where people can write newsletters and essays and you can subscribe to people, get them emailed to you when they're released.

If you do want to find that substack then I will link it below.

I think it's lonely chapter podcast.substack.com but double check, scroll down and click the link and if you do subscribe you'll get my reflections each week of the episode that week into your emails on a Thursday.

It should be every Thursday that I'm going to aim to release that and I think writing that more long form stuff will help me A get my head around some of these thoughts, B maintain more of the information I'm taking in so I can repeat it and refer back to it as I go forward through the shows and see just build my writing experience.

I've never really written long form stuff before, so it's really interesting to start to write some of that and it's exciting and it's fun and that's the main thing is if I'm having fun, I'm going to keep doing it.

And that's the sort of mantra that I've worked by since starting this show.

I want the show to be something that people can trust and sort of know what to expect.

Whilst it's not too niche down into a specific topic, they know that by coming to this show they are hearing stories of people who have lived really amazing experiences, maybe have some expert knowledge and they're sharing that.

And through that they can start to learn more about their own life and orientate themselves in their own life as well.

Because it can feel lonely.

It can feel like when you're going through some of these things, it can feel like you're the only one going through it.

And hopefully that's what this show proves to you is not true.

And that sort of concludes really some of my recent thoughts and hopefully it's made sense to you.

Hopefully it has resonated some of it potentially and maybe helps you understand where I'm at in terms of thinking about the show.

Maybe it just sounded like I was rambling, which I probably was.

So be what it may.

Is that a saying?

Who knows?

But anyway, again I just want to go back to the start and just say thank you so much for being here two years on over 100 episodes.

It's amazing and it means nothing without you, the listener coming back every week.

Or perhaps this is your first time and hopefully you have enjoyed it.

That's all I can say, but a massive thank you.

I will keep doing my best to build the show, bring you better conversations and keep growing.

And again, it comes down to you guys.

If you have enjoyed this episode, please do share it with someone who you think would find some value from it.

If you have a favorite episode from the backlog from the catalog, then forward that one on and tell people about it.

I really appreciate that because it helps the show grow and reach new people.

And one more thing that does that for me as well is if you subscribe to the show or follow wherever you're listening or watching, if you haven't already, please do that.

And if you have already done that and you haven't yet rated the show, wherever you're listening on your podcast apps, please do leave a rating again.

That helps the algorithm suggest it.

So thank you so much for listening.

But for now, stay curious and I will see you in the next one.