🎉 Free Time is Nominated for a Webby!! 🙏 I'd love your help voting before 4/20 :) ✅

I'm interrupting our regular programming with a Minnesote to share some super exciting news. FreeTime has been nominated for a Webby Award. This is the Oscars of the Internet. It's a really big deal and I am just so grateful to all of you free timers for being here, listening, making the show possible, motivating me to do it at all. And now I would love your help by casting a vote sometime between now and April 20th. Visit itsfreetime.com webby and cast your vote. That's itsfreetime.com Webby a little bit More of what this All Means the Webby Awards recognize excellence in various categories including websites, online films and videos, advertising, mobile sites and apps, games and podcasts. They've been held annually since 1996, celebrating the best and most innovative online content, honoring the creativity, hard work and impact of of digital creators.

This nomination is a major achievement. Being a Webby nominee means that freetime has been recognized as one of the top five podcasts in the individual episode category of business shows, putting us in the top 12% of nearly 14,000 projects entered. So yes, I did pay and submit to enter the Webby Awards, but making it to the nomination stage, where I'm in incredible company with four other shows, we're now competing for two of the Internet's most coveted awards, the Webby and the Webby People's Choice Award. This is particularly special to me because I'm the only show that's nominated in this category that's not part of a bigger podcast network, and I'm an independent show, meaning I'm an individual creator funding this myself, working with the Incredible One Stone creative team to produce the best show we possibly can. But I don't have a big business or conglomerate or network behind the show, at least not yet, to fund big marketing efforts advertising, getting the show out there in all these ways that are a little bit easier when you have that marketing muscle behind you. So this nomination is really important. It's special, and I feel strongly about making it possible for indie creators like me to keep going and exist in this space. I never like to say that things are hard or impossible or have limiting beliefs around this. And yet it does get increasingly difficult to compete with the biggest companies in the world where they all have not just one podcast, but often several that they're funding. There's a lot of money in this space now, and it's not necessarily easy to be heard and get noticed as an indie show. Now. I would love for your help. I would be so Grateful if you could help vote. Winning this Webby Award would be a game changer for free time. And I have to say, just getting nominated at all is already a game changer. When I first got the email, you know how I am, I look over both shoulders and I thought, is this a mistake? Is this a typo? Did I accidentally sneak in to be one of five nominees for this business category? I then click over to the page to see who else is there. These are huge shows, much, much, much bigger than mine in terms of audience and reach. One of them is Reid Hoffman's Masters of Scale, which is a really well funded show with a big team of full time people working on it. And I got a little hesitant to even contact the Webby team because I felt like, what if I just somehow snuck in through the side door here? What if this is a typo or a mistake? That's just some version of the imposter monster coming in. So I have to embrace it. And Michael, my husband, said, now you really gotta make this a big deal, because it is. I ask for support, which is hard for me to do. Ask for votes, it's hard for me to do. I know it's a little bit annoying. You have to go through a small registration process, just a few questions. But once you do that, the good news is that you can click around to other categories and vote in other categories, not just mine. To cast a vote for free time between now and April 20th, visit itsfreetime.com webby that's itsfreetime.com Webby that will take you straight to the category that I'm in. Or more generally, you could go to vote.webbyawards.com and even search or poke around, see what other shows are nominated across other categories. You are here because you are a podcast listener. That means that you too have an interest in seeing this space thrive. And you have this opportunity to thank not just me, the other shows that are important to you, that you enjoy. So I'm inviting you to help vote. You never know what's possible after you vote. It will tell you the percentage and where I am in the running among these five. So when I voted it definitely said that I was fifth place, which is fine. But let's see what we could do. Let's see if we could bump it up. Let's see if we can make miracles happen. And what if Freetime could take home the Webby for individual episode in this business category? That would be truly, truly, truly such a game changer. So sometime between now and April 20th, visit itsfreetime.com webby and cast your vote. That's itsfreetime.com Webby and if you would be so kind, if you have a newsletter or your own community that you could post this link and invite others to listen to the show and vote for the show, that would be super duper icing on the cake. I want to thank you once again for being part of the Freetime family. I want to thank One Stone Creative for making this possible at all. Without them, there's no way we would have landed this nomination. They help the trains run on time. They help every one of 12 episodes go live every single month. They edit them to sound fantastic. They help with show notes. They help with contacting our incredible guests. Thank you to our guests for being here, sharing their wisdom. Thank you to you for listening, for giving feedback along the way, for sharing what resonates with you. All of you here have helped shape the show far beyond ways that you can imagine. Every single time you recommend a free time episode or the show to a friend, you are making a real difference in our ability to keep producing this. It's not always easy to figure out how to make the math work as I'm trying to grow the show and give it the escape velocity it needs to tip that balance of being profitable in and of itself as a podcast, your ongoing support really does help level the playing field. It's giving us a fighting chance as an indie show that's not part of a network, that's not super funded to challenge the station status quo of even what people say you have to do or people who say, oh, it's impossible to make it as a podcaster these days, your vote can help this show. Be an example that it is possible that no matter how small the chances, heart based business, heart based podcasting, being a creative person in this world can work. If you've enjoyed even one episode. If you have gotten one little nugget that changed your life or your business for the better, please cast your vote between now and April 20th at itsfreetime.com webby that's itsfreetime.com Webby and of course I'll put that link in the show notes. Thank you for everything, for listening to this little plug and for casting your vote. Have a beautiful rest of your day and I can't wait to see what happens.