197: Should You Start a Podcast? "It's A Love Game" — Interview by Petra Kolber

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Let me tell you a bit about Jenny. She's one of those heart centered, dear incredible friends who does business on her own terms. This is not her bio. I just want to share this first, Jenny doesn't follow the rules. She so cares about showing up well for the people she serves and her family. And she doesn't. If you looked at Jenny's schedule, it's not a normal schedule. She's created a life and we're still figuring it out the way she can do her best work. I'm going to bring her in right now. And Jenny's motto is if change is the only constant, let's get better at it. Hello Jenny Blake, what is one thing that's come up for you during all of this?

So many people are figuring out how to serve and how. I really see this as a call to evolve and to rise. I know that's been a big theme of your summit so far. How do you find your voice and then not just find it, but believe that you have something to say and that it's worth you saying it? And times like this, I feel a real urgency to speak up and contribute at the same time. I could also understand if many people feel overwhelmed. There's so much content, more every day. So so many people are trying to wrap their heads around this. So how do we do that and use our voice at a time where it does seem noisy because we are so global and interconnected and that's something I've been giving a lot of thought to lately. And as you read in the bio, if change is the only constant, let's get better at it. Which means how do we ourselves improve our ability to navigate change and grow stronger from it? And not be sidelined or frozen or paralyzed by it.

Yeah, podcasting is a big, a big thing, right? And like you just mentioned before, we feel like the world's so busy and noisy. What do you say about people that think, oh, I've always wanted to do a podcast, but now more than ever, what happens if it's too saturated? Is it too late?

It's not too late. It is saturated and it is a lot of work. So let's break that down.

My sister's girl here.

Yes. I think of podcasting as, in a way you would never say, oh, I'd love to make new friends, but the friend market is saturated. Everybody already has friends. There's no new friends for me that just the world doesn't really work like that. However, we all do get overwhelmed by the number of connections we have. Loose, really strong close bonds and those looser bonds and networks. So of course people are going to have to be selective. And that's the trend that I've seen. I've been podcasting now in earnest since 2015. I technically 2014 and blogging since set up my first website in 2005. So it's been a while of practicing with putting content out. The shift that I'm seeing is that now it's true. Every celebrity, every news outlet, every magazine, every station knows has one, if not 10 podcasts. So there's a lot out there. At the same time, people in your community are going to love to hear from you.

My community has shifted where if I meet somebody in person who's experienced my work, they now say, oh, I listen to your podcast much more than they would say, I've read your book or in the past, maybe I read your blog. Podcasts are very intimate and for that reason you can't hide. There's nowhere to hide. They're very vulnerable and we could talk about that later. But if by you expressing yourself, you will attract people who want, want to hear what you have to say from your unique vantage point at this moment in time with your unique voice. And I mean your voice as in your message, but also your actual voice, how do you sound? Some people resonate with Ira Glass, some people Terry Gross, some Joe Rogan. I mean, there is somebody for everybody. So I would never tell you not to podcast because, or to hold yourself back because you felt like the market was saturated. It's too crowded. At the same time, you might want to unhook from expectations about having some breakout viral million dollar downloads show. I try to make a practice of not looking at the downloads. Because the next question to ask yourself is, would this be valuable to me even if I had zero listeners? Would you be learning technical skills, interviewing skills, connecting with mentors, friend tourists, people you admire? What are the benefits of this going to be? Maybe it's someone said, I've been podcasting daily during this whole coronavirus pandemic, and Dr. Michael J. Consuelos, who's been kind of a co host for that, he said, in a way, your daily podcast is like journaling. So maybe for you it's capturing a moment in time. Maybe you're capturing a certain part of your body of work and it's going to be you're going to drop seasons or an album and not an ongoing weekly for the end of time show. So all those questions will help set a vision for success that goes beyond just the numbers, which is really important, especially for podcasting, because it is a labor of love, as you know that. Petra.

Yeah, help me. And I think the interesting thing is it's also the long game. I think everything we're going to hear right now, it has to be for the right reason and think consistency in the long game. So it's a lot more work than you think it is. And it's also so enjoyable when you find something that you want to talk about. And I think there's two things here, Jenny, I just want to touch on. One thing is I think the metrics. I invite us all to consider measuring different metrics these days for a while. Like if I looked at my numbers on anything social media, I think those numbers right now are irrelevant. It's like it's the metrics of building deep compassion. Like Doris says, it's three years before you see this. Mel talked about the stock market doing this since even with all the big dips, right? And we see Jenny Blake's podcast and Joe Rogan, but they've been at this for the long game. And if I, if I thought it was all about how many people listening. But the amount of times Jenny, I've had people say, oh my God, I love your podcast. I'm like, people actually listen to this, you know, but it is a lot of work. Even though it's a labor of love, it's a lot of work.

And the reason we're saying that there's no other activity I've done in my business where I say to people, considering it, it's a lot of work. You should know that there's nothing else in. I've been self employed for nine years and As I said, set up my first site in 2005 and I've never said it about anything other than a podcast. You just, you will need to create time and space in your schedule for it. It's this fact about podcasting that it is very labor intensive. And even writing a blog post, some people might sit in front of the computer one whole day, but by the time it's out, you're done with the podcast. There's guest selection. If they're an author, it's reading their book, preparing for the interview, conducting the interview, post processing, so editing the audio, having, and usually you know, at some point you're going to want to get help editing the audio, creating the show notes, hitting publish or scheduling it, mentioning that you've podcasted in your newsletter. And then I don't even do this part, but chopping it up for different social graphics or quote cards or anything. So it really can be a full time job. And in my business it takes the most time of anything I do and it's the least profitable in a straight dollar sense. But I've made priceless relationships and I see it as kind of the one way I don't. I'm not on social media. So it's really the content marketing that I do. It's the only thought leadership, what I call public original thinking that I do. It's my podcast and my newsletter. And I have had even large organizations hire me and I didn't know until they were introducing me to give a keynote speech that the organizer would say something like, and we all listen to Jenny's podcast on our commute and we love it. So unbeknownst to me, I've had clients large and small. I'm talking companies as big as Microsoft, where that was the introductory remark. Or I have a sales call with someone and instead of me having to do the heavy lifting, they go, oh, I listen to your podcast, I love it so much. And that really greases the wheels to create those relationships that become part of the business in ways you might not even realize. And I certainly didn't realize until it started happening more and more.

Yeah, two things there, Jenny. I think it's so important. I love the idea of original, what.

You call it Original public original thinking.

Public original thinking. That is such a great way of doing it. And you could do it through a blog or a podcast or a vlog or a YouTube. But I want Jenny saying is also this idea of content creation. So if you're out there right now and you only have one way of People finding you. This is where Dory is so great. If people are only going to find you through a fitness workout, maybe a podcast is another way for you to start that. Or a blog or getting on YouTube, whatever it is. And Jenny and I, we both talk about this. We could be better at repurposing, like, the blogs and all of that stuff. But before we go on to the next steps, what about the people? Because you've touched on it so well, and I think this is what stops us in so many areas. Not just podcasting, getting on YouTube. You know, what? If I do I really have something to say?

I don't think you can know until you're saying it. And it evolves. So it went okay. This is how I feel about podcasting. Every single podcast I do, I'm embarrassed by. I feel awkward. I hang up, I go, oh, my gosh, I was so awkward. One time someone told me that the reason they like my podcast is that I'm a fan girl. I geek out. And I'm such a fan girl, so that probably some people probably can't stand, oh, I'm just kissing up to my guests. And who knows? But the bottom line is that it is such a vulnerable medium, and you're so exposed. It's so intimate, like an article you could edit and it's not in real time. People hearing your voice and your thoughts and what you really think and know about the world. And a podcast is much more that way, especially if you're not scripting it and super tightly editing it. So what if you have nothing to say? Well, first of all, sit with that. I mean, where does original thinking come from? If it was easy, everyone would be doing it now. One could say, well, yeah, everyone is doing it on Facebook. And you, you always have your experience to share, no matter if it doesn't have to be. You got to go with what you know, so. And what you love and what you're curious about. The most successful podcast interviews that I do, it's just someone or something I'm curious about. One of my favorite interviews was a woman who wrote a book called the Soul of an Octopus. And we talked about animal intelligence. I interviewed a woman on what horse whispering has to do with entrepreneurship. I have interviewed, and that has, in a way, nothing to do with the nuts and bolts of career change. I don't care. So by just following curiosity, you're more lit up and excited, and it's an evolution. So instead of, again, you know, thinking, oh, no, do I have anything to say for this? One episode. Imagine you're going to do a thousand episodes or a thousand articles. You got to just start somewhere and we all look back on our work a year, two years, five years ago. And it's embarrassing, but that's the point. That means you're doing something right. You know, my first book came out in 2011. I started writing it in 2008. I'm so embarrassed by it. I mean, I'm proud of it and embarrassed. And I think that's just how it goes.

I love that idea. I think we wait and this is the whole thing about using this time to try new things and it is going to get messy and it is not perfect. And you and I, I mean, we talk this all the time. Like I have, I have this thing of saying, we interviewed you last one of my go to. So when I was doing fitness, my go to word was good. Good.

Oh, good.

That's funny. And what happened was, Jean, I had to actually go back and re edit an audio. It was back in the day. It was a 30 minute VHS tape. That's how long it was. And I know the audio engineer must have been asleep at the wheel, but I had to overlay the entire 30 minutes. And basically every time my head was down, if I said a good, we left it out because we counted them. I must have said good like 700 times. Oh my gosh. My go to with. And we talk about this. I kept saying if Jenny was. I was interviewing Jenny and she gave an answer, said, oh, I love that.

I have the same one. Yeah.

So it's not perfect and you do cringe. But one other thing, Jenny, before we go to the next question, because there's so much out there why I chose to start my podcast, which wasn't about two years ago. It was right before my book came out and I wanted to be able to give, give to do I give before an ask. So there's many people that people want to be heard, they want to be. So I could reach out to some of the people I really want to be connected to, like, you know, is the Todd Durkins of the world and Tammy Lee and so many people, you know, and Jenny Blake and Dory Clark and you know, there's not. And some of them were favors because my audience was not your audience. But if I could say offer a platform to give you something before I then turn around and go, oh, could you possibly maybe read my book? You know, and talking about podcasts and just like someone I'm really, I really like her name's Chalene Johnson. A lot of this crowd will know, and she's the same thing. She was podcasting five times a day because. Times a week because she had the capacity to do that because she's a pretty big business now. And then we have to change things. And podcasting is the one thing that I'm going to actually come down a little bit because it is so much work. And it is often the thing that unless you get sponsors.

It'S a love game. Right. This is not a money game for the majority of us.

Absolutely. It's a love game. And the analogy, I would say Petra, even beyond, oh, you know, starting a podcast and then give to get. I prefer podcasting so much more to networking, and I'm highly introverted. But I also don't like when people ask me, can I pick your brain? It's just, it's so. It just feels so invasive and I just unfortunately don't have time to be brain picked by everyone that would ask for that. So. But if somebody invites me to their podcast or. Or vice versa, I invite somebody to mine. You never know who's listening. And even if their audience is small, you never know the serendipity of books and messages and podcasts are that the perfect person could be listening at the perfect time. And isn't that always true? So I find it's an easier way to connect with people that you admire in a way that really is a give all the way around. It's a give for you, for your guest and for your listeners. And the benefit to the guest is that it also gets recorded and posted and it's searchable and it becomes their part of their library and repertoire. So it really is a nice way to build an ecosystem. And that's the real value the podcast has given me, is the excuse to even reach out to those people in the first place.

No, I love that. And with that, Jenny, what are like in terms of some hearing content creation from so many people? And I believe in it more now than ever. What are some of the pros and cons of actually adding a podcast to your content creation strategy?

Yeah, and I love that you started the summit with Dori Clark, because Dori is so good at creating articles. I cringe when I have to write an article. It goes to the bottom of my to do list. I procrastinate a very simple article that might take somebody a day. I will just wrestle with for a month of like, what you know. Okay. So I think you have to follow your energy and know, do you do you like writing? I've written two books. I don't really like wr, but I love having big ideas as original as I could make them. Smart, clear systems. And I love helping people. And so when that those things coalesce and I feel that I have a big, helpful, original idea, I'm willing to write a book. And then I'm so happy the book is out, but on a day to day and weekly basis. I love running my business and I love speaking and conversations. So the pros of starting a podcast are that maybe it fits your energy better. Maybe you like being in conversations like this one, especially if you're a podcast listener. So you can also look at the mediums. I realized even though I had been blogging for 10 years, I stopped right around 2014 because I realized I'm not reading anything anymore. There had been two years where I just tweeted out headlines of stuff I didn't even read. And so I saw where the trend was going, that people are hitting peak information. We're bored of sitting in front of our computer. And I think the same is actually true, especially now. So much more just this tidal wave of content is getting moved online and in front of the screen. And for me, podcasting is such a reprieve from that because I can walk outside, I can listen while getting ready, I can listen while cooking. It sets me free from my computer. And so pros are that you can reach people in a way that podcasting is a. I forget the exact term, but secondary activity, or at least it allows for secondary activities so you're not competing with any other thing on their to do list. It can happen simultaneous to their commute. Back in the good old days when we had commutes walking. The pro is that you become very accessible. Another pro of podcasting is you create a lot of content. So one hour conversation like this one, we can then go get a transcript. You could then pull out quotes or key takeaways. You could have someone on your team turn that transcript into an article of the key takeaways or a Q and A format. You could create image quote cards. You can, you can create audiograms of short audio clips. So one podcast interview actually does produce a very rich set of material that you could then dice up in different ways. If you had more motivation than me and Petra to do it. Because we said we're not doing it. We know we should, but we're not doing it.

Although I am using my wave gram and I'll create Instagram waves and I was Like, I feel very proud of that and that, that, yes, long. But you still have to remember then you have to pull out the quote. It has to be less than a minute. So it's again, it's more time and more content that you're creating. But so here and we're in a busy world, we want to get our voice out there. What would you suggest to stand out as a podcaster? What are the ways that we could stand out?

First, I would and one of the resources that we're going to give that goes with this session is I created an ideal podcast MAD library. So I encourage you to. We can put it in the notes.

Maybe about Jenny is in terms of breaking things down from start here go here go here she is my girl. She when I was like, I have this idea for podcast and I was this close to not doing it because it felt so overwhelming, I sat down with you, remember when you lived down in Soho? And in 10 minutes she goes, oh, here's this checklist, here's a checklist. I'm just like. Because she is that Excel spreadsheet whiz. So back to you. Sorry, but we'll have that.

No, no. Thank you for the kind words. I have a philosophy, comes from agile development. I didn't make this sentence up, but each time you repeat a task, take one step toward automating it. So as soon as I figure something out, it's my joy in the world to share it with others and shortcut the process for other people. Free up Founder Time is a free mini course on all the systems that I use for my time. Because if you are going to add a podcast, I'd say the biggest con. And you know, we can't even call it a con, but you gotta find the time and you gotta get to love systems because you're gonna be repeating a lot of things over and over and they can take a long time if you're not creating smart systems around it. So I also created a course, pivotmethod.com heart where I share all my systems, templates, interview prep templates, questionnaires, a hundred questions that I've collected from other good hosts. Beyond all the resources, the question was, how do you stand out? Think about the podcast that you love. So if you don't currently listen, you might want to do that. You might want to just do some research. Ask your friends what are their top three favorite podcasts and think about why you enjoy the shows that you enjoy. What is it that you enjoy about them in terms of how to stand out. I think it's very similar to probably what others have shared. I believe authenticity is really important. So there are shows where I respect the person whose podcast it is, and yet I could tell it's scripted. I could care less. I can't stand listening to just scripted podcasts. I can always tell. I find them. They're just missing a soul. And it doesn't even matter if the content is good. And I like the host. They're so flat for me.

They say like, you say something, and then my next question's got nothing to do. What you just said. I'm the same. Yeah, right.

So. Well, there's a host that's not present, so that's a host that might be needing to learn a little bit. You know, I know my earlier podcasts were like book reports. My nose was so buried in the person's book, I wasn't as present as I could have been with what's true in their life now. So how to stand out? Be yourself. Be authentic. Be willing to be transparent. Be willing to share about yourself. In my opinion, not too much. Because if you're the host, every episode they're going to be learning little nuggets about you. You don't need to overly talk about yourself. There's one podcast who shall not be named, and the host talks about himself so much that I'm like, get to your guest already. What is the point of them here if you're always going to just interject your own opinion? It's important to let your guests shine.

Jenny is so generous with her templates. And again, if you really want to dive deep into podcasting, look into her course, because there's a lot of courses out there for a lot of things, and she's just really. She gives you what you need to know and not anything else. There's not content for just content's sake, which can be so annoying. Right. And this bonus has got to do with what you're actually doing. It's just like, more overwhelmed.

Exactly. I just want to get you from zero to show, and so many people in my Momentum community have done that. Like, I have to say, the courseworks. I know so many podcasts that have started because of it. It's just, you got to re. What's the point of each of you reinventing the wheel on how to figure out the mechanics? You know, it's the same thing I did with you, Petra, where don't sit there and think. You have to figure it all out from scratch. You can get it going Very quickly. And you don't have to marry this thing. That's the other piece of advice I would give when I started mine. And you just set up a weekly show. It's a lot of work because when does it end? It never ends. So maybe to begin, you just want to. You want to record 10 interviews, see if you like it. You could release that as what I call an album. So maybe it's just this thing that lives in the podcast world, the podcast sphere, and people can access at least 10 conversations to get to know you better and your philosophy and your methods, and then maybe that's it. That's okay, too. At least you're discoverable in another format from something else that you might already be doing.

I like that idea of, like, it being a season, right? So you're not going, oh, you might do it and go. Actually, I don't like this as much as I thought I did. But if you list it as a season, season with that. Jenny, I do know. You know, I know when I first started you want to, like, at least five shows up to make it look robust. Would you still suggest me, like, five shows? Or if you were to do like a season, say, like, okay, I've done. I've got 10 shows. It's way more, much more than I thought. Maybe I don't enjoy it as much. Would you put those 10 up all in one go, or do you still do five and then one a month? Or any thoughts on that?

The best practices here are changing and evolving. So now a lot of people do a trailer. There's a two minute about the show, and that's kind of nice for people to just understand who you are, what this is going to be about, the album situation. So, okay. The whole idea of seasonal podcast was mirroring shows on Netflix like House of Cards, when it would just drop and you could binge it. What I'm finding now is I see seasons drop where I'll see six episodes or even more come in at the same time. And I'm overwhelmed and it actually prevents me from listening to all of that host's episodes. It's easier to get lost in a sea now because there are so many podcasts that come out every day. And depending if your listeners are super listeners like me, I'm subscribed to probably 50 podcasts. I just saw a great series by Wondery. It's called We Crashed. It was about the crash of we work, and it was a six or seven episode arc, but they did release it once a week. So even that at least you kind of get people excited. They absorb one show at a time. They look forward to the next one if they really enjoyed it. And you could go through that arc. By the way, there's nothing saying you can't send out a listener survey at the end. So if you go to pivotmethod.com ask, that's an embedded survey on my website where from time to time I'll put in an episode that I'd love. Listener feedback. So what if you did an arc like that and it came out over five or 10 episodes? At the end you say, did you enjoy this series? Do you want more? What would you want to be different? Give me some feedback. Because as I often say with podcasting, you're sort of speaking out into the ether. You can't. It's not like you get blog comments or a certain number of likes on your social media. You really don't know who listened to that content and how they felt about it. So it is helpful to have a very short listener survey. And if you want to have Listener submitted questions, speakpipe.com you can also embed a way for people to leave you voicemails.

Yeah, I just, I think this idea of asking too, Jenny, is so important in so many weather in so many ways, whether it's your email list or your podcast or YouTube, whatever. It's like, I thought about this morning. That's actually when I first came on this morning. We started this summit with, no, I just thought, I've got amazing friends. We need this stuff. Let's get it online. I didn't know what people needed, but the questions now coming in like, can you help me with this? Can you help me with that? Unless we put it out there imperfectly with no agenda, you then respond to your audience and that's like, you might, you might have a great idea for podcasts, but once you ask, people might go, oh, I love what you're doing, but can you also do this in this time? You're going to see a lot of people doing things a certain way because we're told this is the way we need to do it. And Jenny, I do. I would love you to share, actually, not about podcasting. As we go towards it. Let's do one more thing about podcasting. Then I want to ask about how you set up your life, because I think that's important for people.

No biggie.

No, no big question there. But can you just share first? Like had one thing that you wished you knew when you first started podcasting, that you would like to share with.

The audience, don't even bother trying to get sponsors. This is going to be counterintuitive, but this is listen. It takes a long time until you get your listener numbers up enough. And then think of all the rigmarole and bureaucracy of dealing with recording the spot, making sure it's right, rerecording it gets of date. You could try to join a podcast network. For me, the ROI on that was going to be like $50 an episode or something that just didn't resonate. Two, was a ton of extra work and rigmarole. And three, I don't want to be hawking random stuff on my podcast. So for me, it's a values issue that if I'm talking about a mattress that I don't use, how could you trust what I say the next hour? But everyone's doing it. And Petra said at the beginning, I was laughing when you said I don't do things the way, by the book. There's so many things that everybody does in podcasting and I. It like bothers me. Patrick's heard me rant about, like, reading your own reviews at the beginning. I think it's ridiculous. So you gotta do what's right for you. I prefer I have a Pivot Insider community. So I'm only giving you these links so you can see as an example if you want to set something up, pivotmethod.com Insider I say pivot Podcast is listener supported. If you want to join, if you want to support the show, we do a monthly live Q and A call, just like this one, actually. And that's what I decided. Maybe I make less money, but I don't have to compromise my values or my listeners. And I sponsor the show with my own products. So I'll say this episode is brought to you by Momentum, my private community. I think that's important. I also think the only way to podcast is to follow your intuition from one week to the next. As soon as you stop doing that, it goes stale and you're going to feel it. And the reason that a season or a pilot to start is a good idea is that if, if not, it's very easy to burn out. And I just went silent on my podcast for six months. I didn't even tell listeners what happened because I kept thinking, oh, I'll be back next week. Oh, I'll be back next week. And that lasted for six months. So build in a window of your experiment and then do build in a break, even if it's one month. Off to just pause, breathe, reevaluate your systems and then revisit. And I'm only, again, I'm only sharing that so all of you can see a way to monetize a show. It's. It's a nominal fee, but it pays for like audio editing and not yet. It doesn't yet pay for even the full cost of doing the show, but it's something and it is so joyful. It's like this, Petra, you know, you connecting with your community. I look forward to those monthly Q and A calls so much. It's such a great way to connect with listeners and, and you asked about my life. How do I even begin?

I just want to say because we always think like, okay, it's this productivity race and you refuse to live that way. And I think there is this idea of even now in the moment of pause. Go, go, go. Crate, crate, crate. It just so happened, Jenny, that everything I was building six months prior to this moment happens to still be in alignment. Unfortunately or fortunately, that in this moment it is work that is needed. So it's not. And then I just. This was a great way for me to learn more skills I knew I used to be and whatever, but it's because I don't what I did this weekend to make anyone feel bad. You know what I mean? Well, you already done a summit and no, and I won't be doing another one for like two years. But you don't have to fit into this arena of working 20 hours a day. And so just give us some breathing room on how you've managed to hold your sanity as well as building a very good business.

Thank you. Well, here's what I believe. If it comes from your heart and your, your intuition and you're having fun, great, then it's energizing. So for you, Petra, doing this two day summit, you'll probably want a break, you'll probably want to take tomorrow off. But I. You look like you're glowing. You're having a blast. And when it comes from the heart, we get so much energy from doing things that are intuitively connected to how can we serve, what does the world need? How can I step up and how can I show up that is so different than productivity just for productivity's sake or to fit in society's outdated ideas about how we should work. So I'm about to do a podcast on screen fatigue because now I think we're too many screens too much. All these companies working from home and everyone's video conferencing well, what does that mean? It means you're stuck in front of this tiny pinhole camera on your computer and your eyes are glued forward. And for me, even ergonomically, that just drives me nuts. I'd rather be standing up, walking around, walking outside. One of my mantras is let it be easy, let it be fun. So if something I'm doing doesn't fit those things, then I don't do it. So I'm not on social media. As I said, it's just not easy and it's not fun for me. Don't do it. I also question the way our work week is set up. So who said it's Monday through Friday, 9 to 6? I would rather work 4 to 5 focused hours during the middle of the day and that's it. I don't schedule meetings on Monday or Friday. I don't schedule meetings before 11 or after 3, et cetera, et cetera. So you'd get all that for free. It's in free up founder time. I've already outlined a lot of that. But the point is this is the time. This is a reckoning. This is a time where truly the entire planet gets a chance to say was the way that I was working, working for me? And I'm not saying you can change it overnight. Maybe some of you are working for organizations where there's certain best practices right now, but we all have the power to pause and say, wait a second, is this working for me? Or is this outdated and unnecessary? What are the shoulds? I call it the sea of shiny shoulds that you're still following. And now more than ever is an opportunity to give yourself permission to let it go.

Can you just share before we go your 20 hour work week, is that something you feel comfortable sharing? Because I think we have, you know, we work for as long as we we have. Right? You said no. I'm going to shorten down my hours, get really reproductive and so just share a little bit about how you, you are reorganizing your work week, please.

Well, I actually just if I could create from scratch. Looked at, when do I feel the happiest and when? When in my week do I still get enough sleep, get to read in the morning, walk the dog once or twice? My husband and I will take turns, but I'm walking him at least once for an over an hour and then have get my work done. And deep work, not just meetings or podcasts. So with all of that I realized, yeah, about a 20 hour week is when I thrive. And 30 hours if it's a launch, if there's like a real big push that happens, more than that is not necessary. And I do run my business and it's mid six figure business on 20 hours a week. Sometimes it's 10, sometimes it's 30 and it can all get done. Part of that is through systems. I don't have a big team. I have three people who are part time. Nobody's full time, even me. That's always what I say and I just do it through systems. And being very intentional and doing things like time blocking that I described of no meetings on Mondays or Fridays. Things like that allow me to get into really deep work where I'm not distracted and trying to do too many different things in a given day. So my podcast day is Wednesdays and I would recommend that to all of you. If you're going to start a podcast, choose one day a week. That is the day that you do interviews or get interviewed. Set up calendly for scheduling. Make it really easy for your guests to say yes. Put everything they would need in calendly. I'm now recording on Zoom. So Zoom audio. I was doing Skype with call recorder but now Zoom is just as easy and you have everything you need.

Now more than ever you get to create your work week. But I think what Jenny does so well when she's focused, she's all in and rather us be 20 hours all in than 40 hours. Especially now. You know, be really diligent about your time and how you carve out your time and create that structure when you're working. I think now more than ever. Don't you think Jenny? Like when you're working, be all in and then when you're off, be all off. Because we could working and home, you, you gotta find some separation and there's.

Not a lot of separation for people right now we're at home. You stay at home, shelter at home, your family might be home, your kids, your dog, you're with your, your partner, whoever you live with. It's super intense right now. And what I'm finding is I need way more rest than usual. So by the way, part of where all this comes from and my, my commitment to working in a better way is just I get very burnt out and excited, exhausted. I don't know why. You could call me a wuss. You could say I'm entitled, whatever you want to label it. I just don't have the capacity to work the way that society seems to like request that people work. It doesn't work for Me, I get burnt out, stressed out and miserable, and then I'm of no good to anybody. So I see my. My purpose is to be a messenger and to be helpful and to be calm and joyful. And the only way I can do those things is honoring my own energy and giving myself permission. And I think for so much of this, whether it's podcasting or how you set up your day, the first thing that needs to happen is just giving yourself permission that it's okay to want what you want or permission to podcast. Same that you'd want permission to write a book. Like, no one is going to tell you, oh, you've crossed the special threshold and you can now be an expert on this as long as you don't claim something you're not. Like, I don't claim to be a pandemic expert, but I'm just podcasting daily on topics that I would find helpful, like beautiful questions or how empaths and highly sensitive people might be handling this time, or, you know, random things that either I can comment on or I can ask questions of another person. Just like you're doing Petra, but you're.

Doing that because it's of interest to you.

Yeah, and I just feel called. I can't explain it. You know, it's taken me time to honor the fact that I can't stand social media. Like, and I know this is. And ends up getting spit out through Facebook Live, but I can't stand taking time out of my day. It breaks up my thinking in such a way. I'd rather be reading a book now. This has nothing to do with judging any. Anyone who's watching using social media. If you love it, you love it. But I could never reconcile why I always felt worse when I would put the phone down or get off of the feed. I changed my Instagram so I only follow puppies and dogs and bunnies and also little piglets. And then Instagram became very joyful for me. So, like, again, I don't say to judge anyone, but it's just, I had to give myself permission. Oh, this thing is draining my energy. Even though, given my career choice, I should be on social media.

That's why I wanted to bring it up, because you're very successful not doing things the way we should. And I think now is the time if you've got to tap into what's your intention and how do you feel with the platforms that you're using and that.

That's it.

That's all.

There's no and how do you define success. So I bet if I was obsessive about being on every platform and doing LinkedIn, learning lives and doing more video on YouTube and being on Instagram and you know, all the things, I could have a 10 times bigger platform, let's say. But that's not how I define success. So I define success as earning twice as much in half the time with ease and joy while serving the highest good. And I don't care if my list is a 10, a 10th the size that what it would otherwise be. I trust in the abundance of the universe and that whatever the list size that I have is the perfect size list. And that won't prevent me from doing anything in the world that I want. And I know that some people will say, oh well, you can't get a book deal if you don't have X number of people. That might be true, but you can still write your book. You can still get a book out into the world. And why, why let anybody tell you otherwise? I don't mind going to try to get the book deal. I would still go try. And if until every publisher rejected me, then I would say okay, great, I'll self publish, you know, but don't let if this then thinking I call it if this then that but or if then thinking like, well, unless I'm on every platform 24 7, then XYZ can't happen. It's just not true.

And that kind of thinking gets us stuck and we never get started. So like I say, go with your heart, go with what feels good to you and do things that bring you joy.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.