Stuck in the Creator Burnout Cycle? Do This

Every creator will face a rebrand in their career, and for most, the first one is when they start creating content. So they're moving from a career into the thing that they're creating. So, like for me, software into coaching and running a podcast. Those that are lucky enough and successful enough to sustain that over the years will run into the seven year burnout cycle that every creator will face. And that's true for today's guest, who is facing boredom and had been doing the same thing in podcasting for about seven years. Then he made the bold decision to rebrand, and what ultimately happened wasn't planned or expected. So I am excited for this episode because Kev Michael was my podcast coach earlier this year. He's the host of Philly, who Grow the show and Chief Audience Officer Podcasts and Grow the show has impacted over 50,000 podcasters, and his Grow the Show accelerators helped over 500 shows grow and monetize, including this one. The accelerator is amazing and the whole idea of creators that crush was formed in that program. So in today's episode, you're going to want to stick around because we're going to talk about how the seven year creator burnout cycle showed up for Kev basically during the day, and how he navigated feeling bored, uninspired to feeling excited about his business. We'll also talk about the tension between your art and the business side and how you need to grow both and to be successful. We'll talk about how creators can survive burnout, evolve, and arise anew. And we'll also talk about how you can boldly make the decision to start something new even when you're already successful, and how to navigate that. We'll also talk about Kevin's top takeaways for every creator that wants to grow their show. So if you've ever felt torn between your artistic drive and your business goals, this is the episode for you. Welcome to Creators that Crush, the show that helps me move from crushed to crushing it. As a content creator, I am the host and your certified high performance coach, Sean Buttner, and I'm excited for this episode. Let's jump in. Hey, Kevin, welcome to the show. So glad to have you on, Sean.

So excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Right on. So recently you went through a rebranding arc in your business. You were Grow the Show, which is how I we met. Very great to go through the program and then you created chief audience officer and now you're by probably by the time this was released, you're going back to Grow the Show. Could you maybe explain to the good folks at home what kind of happened there? Like, what was the catalyst to start, what happened and where you ended up?

Yeah, so the catalyst is I have been doing Grow the Show since. Since May of 2020. So it's been five years. And I have gone through many different seasons of podcast growth. So when I first launched my original podcast in 2018 about my hometown of Philadelphia, I grew that show by leveraging Instagram. I made audiograms, which at the time blew people's minds because videos were new. You never saw anything move on Instagra. And then I'd like had a bot that would follow people. And back in those days, if someone followed you on Instagram, the convention was that you followed them back. So I would have a bot that like followed people and they'd follow me back. And that's actually that plus some word of mouth and a little bit of press. Grew Philly who. So I launched, I launched Grow the Show that taught those and some other tactics that I used to grow Philly who. And very shortly after launching Grow the show in 2020, TikTok succeeded in taking over the world and completely changed the online landscape to where all the social media platforms suddenly have for you pages. So growth suddenly became short form video and podcast guesting, and everything was about those things. What also happened in 2020 was that Facebook groups became the tactic to grow a podcast. Go on Facebook groups, provide value, talk about your show. And then. And people were growing shows significantly by engaging in Facebook groups all the time. Then Facebook kind of put the kibosh on Facebook groups. You couldn't get any reach there anymore. And then the strategy became podcast guesting. And then suddenly that plus the advent of AI made it so that podcasters are completely inundated with horrible podcast pitches. And so it's way harder to get featured on other podcasts. And also in general, people just have heard kind of the same interviews over and over again. So that stopped working. So now we're at like mid to late 2024. There are several strategies to grow and monetize podcasts and they all still work. But the problem for me was I have a business helping people grow their podcasts. And at that moment in time, it was no longer true to me, right. That I could see that I had a go to strategy where I could say, look, if you hire our services, we know that we can grow your show. So I started to doubt that because it started to be the case that like you had to get everything perfectly right and Even then, you needed a tremendous amount of luck in order to grow the show. So early 2025, I kind of had this come to Jesus moment where I was like, okay, do I want to keep doing this or do I want to pivot into something else? So I said, well, I. I'm not ready to give up. And knowing what I knew at the time about growing an audio podcast, I was like, I have to rebrand. I have to switch to. From speaking to an audience of podcasters who are looking to grow and monetize and switch to an audience that has less baked in churn. Because every month 10,000 people launch a podcast, and every month 9,997 people quit podcasting. So it's probably not that extreme, a little bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point. So I said, okay, let me adjust my business so that my podcast is about how to grow an audience for a business owner. And the thinking is, that's a show that business owners are going to want to listen to for a really long time. It won't have so much baked in churn. So in doing so, I rebranded to Chief Audience Officer. And I said, this is what my show is. My product will still be the Grow the Show accelerator. I'm just doing what I see as the best move to grow my podcast. Well, the thing that I didn't expect to happen in doing so was, number one, I began to become reinvigorated on growing podcasts. Cause I was like, oh, there's way more meat on this bone, obviously, and there's more to be done. I just. I just needed to be excited again. So I got excited about the show. I discovered that the window is open now for podcasters to grow on YouTube. And working one on one with several clients on YouTube and just seeing the better data and the fact that you can iterate faster and there's just so many more tools and ways to grow an audience on YouTube. I was like, okay, I definitely want to make chief audience officer A YouTube first show. Well, in doing so, I was learning so much about YouTube. And with my one on one clients, I was garnering shocking results where I was like, holy crap, this. This might even be. I don't want to call it easy, but right now the wins are coming easier in growing podcasts on YouTube than they ever did in audio. So I was like, wow. And through my one on one client, I was able to repeat results to a point where I was like, okay, I'm ready to launch a new group version of my program. Well, because of that, I spent, like two months making episodes that are just about podcast growth. And after, like, the eighth one in a row, I'm like, man, I'm just still making Grow the show. I'm introducing it as you're listening to cheap audience officers. Today we're going to talk about podcast growth. And I was like, man, I think. I think there's just. I think there's more to be done here. On top of that, in really digging Even further into YouTube, I saw that the YouTube channel that I have is. It has an audience of podcasters. And anytime I published a Chief Audience officer episode, it was really good content and it was really well packaged. And the people who commented were like, why does this have so few views? But those videos were performing the absolute worst on my channel. And speaking with other YouTube experts and just knowing what I know about audience, it's because my channel has podcasters listening to it, so they aren't clicking on the videos and they're not performing. So, long story short, I realized if I'm going to do chief audience officer, I have to start a new feed, and I have to start a new YouTube channel that comes at the same time as me just, like, getting more into making podcast content again. So with that, what I'm going to be announcing next week on the feed is that the Grow the Show podcast feed is going to go back to Grow the Show and there will be a new podcast feed for Chief Audience Officer and likewise the YouTube channel. The same thing is going to happen. So for me, I'm just reverting a little bit. And I've been jokingly calling it an un rebrand, but really, it's just. I'm just splitting the two shows out. You know, I just. I kind of took this new show and put it on top of Grow the Show, only to realize that there's too much show left. There's too much left to grow the show. There's too much juice to squeeze that it deserves to remain its own thing. And Chief Audience Officer can be. It's a separate thing, right?

There's so much I want to unpack with that, because it's really illustrative, I think, of, at least for my audience. So many people become creators from a different profession, right? So you have that kind of transition where you're doing something different. You have this learning, doing the new thing that you can then apply to the new thing. There's a recognition of. I'll put it under the bucket, of losing the love for the thing. But it's the getting back into your learning and growth, that kind of reinvigorated growth of the show. And now you're kind of like, wait a minute, this is super great. Why would I stop? I know this works too. Like, there's that. That other thing of, like, if it's working, don't stop it. Which is really, like, it seems so easy to not or to forget that. But, like, I'm known for, you know, doing this one thing and I want to branch out or challenge myself. And how do you navigate that? And I think even if. I'm sure you didn't expect to have two shows at the end of this process, but, you know, there's something exciting for you to work on. Know when Grow the Show. Well, yeah, as you build. Grow the Show.

Now it's three.

It's three. Another one. Oh, and right.

Yeah, yeah. So. So during. So, yeah, during this whole process, I moved back to my old neighborhood in Philadelphia. So I had. I lived in Miami. I moved back to Philly, but a completely different part of town, and I didn't love it. And, uh, and I moved back to the neighborhood that I did love, where I owned a house for six years. You know, my. My. My previous life is here in this neighborhood. And it has so reinvigorated my love of Philadelphia that I was like, oh, I totally want to bring back Philly who and do in person interviews. And that what I learned from that, which is really, really applicable to creators is I realized how much of me do rebranding Grow the Show to chief audience officers. I wanted to do in person, in depth interviews with, like, you know, with. With people that I like respect like crazy. And there's a lot of people who I want to interview who would not qualify as a guest of Grow the Show. So one of the ingredients that led me to rebrand Grow the Show to chief audience officer was, was I was like, oh, well, I can have these, like, really well produced in person interviews with these people that I want to talk to. When I moved to my old neighborhood in Philly, that rekindled my love and desire to do Philly who again. And I decided I'm going to bring it back in 2026 when I. Which immediately made chief audience officer serving that purpose completely irrelevant. So I was like, oh, I can do those in person interviews for Philly who and just like, build a studio here in Philly and scratch that itch. As a creator, I don't need to completely sabotage and destroy what I have with Grow the Show because I Have these other itches. As a creator, I can find other ways to scratch the itch without, to your point, destroying and stopping at the thing that is working.

I think it's amazing to have that example out there that you can try stuff you can come back to what works. Ultimately, this is in pursuit of growth. And you're the grow the show guy. Where do you think creators really get snagged on situations maybe like this, or maybe in general when it comes to growing their thing.

So there's a creator that I really, really admire who says that creators and content, Content creators tend to get burned out after seven years. And he's done this study that discovers that, like seven years into content creator Dom, they tend, you know, you kind of get burned out on regularly creating content. Which is funny because, like, I don't know, I've. I've never taken the time to do that deep of a study. And I was like, I don't know, seven years doesn't seem like a long time. Well, wouldn't you know, I started creating Filly. Ooh. In February of 2018. Seven years almost to the day before this, going through this episode. So I got crushed by that seven year timeline. And what. I didn't remember it at the time, but now looking back, I remember what Amy Porterfield told me when she came on to grow the show. When I asked her, amy, how on earth are you still talking about course online course creation after 15 years? And she was like, you just have to find a way to continuously make it fun and make it interesting. And she, you know, she told me at the time, she was like, I'm about to launch this, you know, how to launch an online course program again. And it's 15 years later, but this time I'm doing it in this giant, like, dome room where everybody on Zoom's gonna be around me. So, like, it's a completely new way to do the same thing. So I think I allowed myself to get crushed by the sameness of it all. And what I learned from this was, look, if what you're creating still has an audience and they still have a need and a want for what you're creating, you don't have to destroy that thing through boredom. Like, I, you're going to get bored, but you can scratch, you can find ways to scratch your creative itches within the thing. And you can also, like Pat Flynn says, do other stuff to scratch the itch. Pat Flynn talks all the time about doing, you know, he's got, he's had tons of projects over the Years, one of his was Pokemon cards and that blew up bigger than, you know, any of his other brands.

Should I open it or should I, you know.

Yeah, right. And we just get crushed by this, like, I think the artistry of it, because as a creator, you're this unique combination of an artist and a business person. It's this combination of art and commerce. There's the commerce of supply and demand of your content. Right. What you put out there, people want it and they pay for it with attention. But as an artist, you want to create as a form of self expression. And so as a creator, we get both in one, which is amazing. But sometimes we get burnt out on the commerce part because commerce is about continuously delivering a product with consistency to people over and over and over again. And as an artist that you just makes you, you know, want to not do anything anymore. So that's what crushed me. And I'm just grateful that I didn't. That I can hit the undo button.

Yeah, yeah. And again, to highlight, it was the act of trying to find the next new exciting thing that pulls you out of boredom and you're able to like, find the fun again. You know, like, it's not like all the work you did with chief audience officer is just like out. Like there were the things that you discovered along the way, which I think people discredit a lot. You know, we're so often like, ah, that thing didn't work out. And it's like, no, there's wins to celebrate even when it didn't turn out the way we wanted.

So 100%. Yeah. And the thing that I'm most grateful for is that I gave myself permission to rebrand away from grow the show. Because if I didn't, if I was afraid and I was like, I can't do that. I'm the grow the show guy. I would, we probably wouldn't be talking right now. I probably would have gone out of business or something. Just like got so bored that I quit entirely and got a job at some big company because I was just bored and tired of talking about the same thing over and over again. But because I gave myself permission to rebrand, I was able to kind of discover that spark again, which ultimately, yes, led me to unrebrand, which I'm going to position more as an evolution than as a back step step. Call it what you want, but to your point, yeah, it's, it's about, you know, being okay with that and understanding. Look, if you, if you rebrand your show and you just, you don't like it unrebranded. It's not a big deal. Yeah.

Oh, I love, like, when you said evolution, I thought, what? Like, nature tends to evolve crabs over and over again. So, like, he just kind of like grew an appendage and like back to crab form.

So, yeah, it's just all the way back every time.

Hey, it's Sean. Before we get back into this episode of Creators that Crush, I wanted to invite you to a free 30 minute call. If you are struggling with creative burnout, with confidence, with trying to make progress on your creative endeavor. And so on this call, spend 30 minutes talking about one of your big goals or aspirations or we'll talk about something you're struggling with. And the whole goal of the call is to get you moving with some personalized habits or tips. And so I just want to interact with people and that's why I'm inviting you on this free call. So if that is interesting to you, please go to SeanButner.com and you'll see a button right at the top of the page called schedule my 30 minute call. We'll get it all set up and we can help you start to progress again. We can help you go from crushed to crushing it as a content creator. So with that, scope that out and we'll get back to the episode shifting gears a little bit. Then on the opposite side, what do you think really helped you crush it to get back to this evolution again, back to the show?

I mean, I kind of. It was to a degree what I said before, which is just having permission to rebrand and to reinvent helped me crush. I think being able to go to my audience and interact with them helped me crush it, even though it wasn't always pleasant because a lot of people didn't get the chief audience officer rebrand. And what's funny about that is most of them eventually came around and actually went out of their way to say, hey, I get this now. And I've told a handful of those people that I'm doing the unrebrand and almost all of them have been like, oh, thank God. But I think, like, you know, we've kind of touched on it already, which is what allowed me to crush, which I was stuck on for a while. And I wasn't allowing. This is just the trust that I need to be excited. When I told Emily, my partner, that I was going to rebrand away from grow the show, she was really taken aback at first and maybe even a little nervous. Nervous. And when I sold it to her, I was Like, I need this to be fun for me again. I need this to be inspired. As a content coach, I know that when you are uninspired and you are creating content because you have to, the content sucks. And it's a really difficult spiral because your content loses its luster, which means it loses its engagement. You stop growing, then you start to get even less invested, you start to resent it more, and you just. It just keeps spiraling and spiraling. And I've seen that happen with the folks that I've worked on, the folks that I've studied over the years. And so I've known that I need to be excited about this, I need to be inspired, I need to look forward to making something in order for that thing to be good enough for me to achieve my goals. And so that's what allowed me to start crushing it again. And I define crushing it here as just making progress, where I kind of got. Like I said, I kind of got stuck for a bit because I wasn't giving myself permission to have fun. I got crushed by, in my mind, the expectations of, you have to publish, you have to talk about these things. You have to publish at the same time in the same way. So what crushes you often later makes you crush it. And that's how I kind of take apart my experience in the past few months.

Yeah, I think that that's beautiful. It's. What I took from it is you made the decision and you're just like, I'm just going to commit to this. And trusting in your artistic side, which you mentioned, you have this side, you have the artistic side. And, like, it's very easy to kill the artistic side with, you know, what should I talk about? What should I do? You know, what's really going to get the audience or whatever. And taking the bold step to be like, this is for me, and I believe in this. And then seeing what happened and then I think being rational and bringing the business side and being like, okay, like I intended it to be, everyone needs to have a chief audience officer.

And what's funny is me making the decision to focus, to go back to focusing on Grow the show and helping podcasters grow for now, is a chief audience officer decision. Because looking at the landscape of the business and what the business needs and what the opportunity is in the market, it's like, you should be focusing on this audience and building around it and building it further. So I think. I think the artistic side of me as a creator was. Was so repressed for so long that it kind of busted out of the straitjacket and grabbed the wheel for a minute. And then. And then, you know, the. The business person was like, oh, wait, wait a minute.

Let's just.

Let's get this back on course now. But the artistic side feels good now, so all is well.

As you're going through this, what would you say would be, like, a couple of things, because I consider you an audience expert still. You know, when we were working earlier this year together on this show, I think a lot of the work was audience work. I'm, like, setting up monthly tracking, which I've continued to do since, you know, we weren't immediately working together and, you know, really thinking about how you are communicating. Everything you talked about going through, Chief audience Officer, like, you're the real deal because you, like, lived it and we're testing it and outdoing it. What do you think most creators need to, like, if there were, like, fundamentals, maybe can we do a couple of tips for people to just think about in their podcasts or YouTube channels? That would be really good.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

I'm sure you got tons.

Yes. So I just. Because I'm rebuilding my course material from the ground up, I just last week wrangled this. This is the most nebulous concept of the whole thing, which is like, what are the basics of understanding who your audience is and how to build an audience and stuff like that? And it's difficult to wrangle down into ways that folks can understand. And I just came out of this headspace because, like I said, I just rewrote for the fourth time the course material on it. And really, like any business owner or creator, if you're looking to enter a season of rapid growth, then I invite you to put on the business side of the creator hat for a moment. The artist side is going to occasionally protest and say, yes, but I have so many interests and there's so many people that I want to impact in the world and I want variety. But if you want to grow your audience, what you need is consistency. Everybody talks about consistency. And I don't mean what they're saying most of the time when they talk about consistency, which is they talk about consistency of publishing cadence. So they're. I'm not saying you need to publish Every Tuesday at 2pm I'm saying consistency behind who is the singular point A, that you are trying to impact and what is the point B, that you are promising to take them towards. So people get avatar. Who's your ideal client Avatar. They get that point B can be an outcome. A lot of people are like, oh, I will help you make a million dollars in five years or less. Maybe point B can be an outcome. It can also be an identity. It can be an ideal world. But it's still like, this is the journey that we're going on together. But the point A, the part that folks these days I think tend to miss is when I ask you who is your target avatar, who is your target audience? They default to giving me labels and demographic information. So they'll be like, it's men or it'll be women ages, and it's usually gender ages blank. And as soon as they say that, I'm like, okay, we have work to do. Because they're like men ages 20 to 40 living in the Pacific Northwest. And I'm like, do you know how many different men there are that are between that age group that live in that region? And do you realize how they are all consuming very different content? Right? So the same thing is true across a lot of labels. So like entrepreneurs, moms, like all these different labels and demographics that we default to when defining audiences and that, that doesn't work as well because of just the way a people consume content. They don't consume it based on their labels or their demographic information. And also they are not served content based on their demographic information. So they're not on TikTok getting content for 45 year old men. They are getting content based on what they're interested in. So for that reason, we want to define our avatar, who we serve through psychographic information rather than demographic information. And psychographic information is what is their situation, what is their mindset? Where are they at in life and where would they rather be instead? What are their problems, their hopes, their fears and their dreams? When you can define your audience in that way, really clearly a couple of things happen. Number one, when you describe it that specifically your audience, their ears perk up. They're like, whoa. It's like imagine yourself in a huge, like convention center stock trading floor where everyone's yelling and someone comes up behind you and like whispers your name and says, hey, do you know how you had this bad dream last night? And you know how you're worried about this? I know exactly what you should do. And you're like. And suddenly you don't even hear all the other noise. You're just locked into what they're saying because you're like, how did you know that? Oh my gosh, what else do you have? So when you can talk about your audience that way. And when you have that really developed understanding of this is who I am there to serve, and this is the situation that they're in now, that's when A, the people really latch onto you. When you're consistent, where every single thing you publish is for that, people really latch on, and they're like, you're my person. I'm going to follow everything you have to say, and they're going to bring more people that are like that into your audience. But the key is that you, as the artistic creator, if you want that audience to grow, you have to understand that for this content, project, YouTube channel, podcast, substack, whatever the hell it is you're working on, it's only for that singular point A. Every single thing I publish is for that singular point A. No exceptions. And when you do it that way, when you're consistent in that, that's when you get audience growth, where you become an overnight success and it becomes really, really easy. This is something that I didn't necessarily forget earlier this year. I think I underestimated how difficult it is to switch point A's. But that is the number one thing for any creator who's looking to grow. Look at your social media, look at your YouTube channel, your podcast, your substack, and notice anything that you've published that's for a different point A or points to a different point B. That's a common one that people miss. And notice how those posts didn't perform as well as the core ones. And when you double down on the core ones, that's when you get that disproportionate audience growth. And then when you're up there, you can start as many artistic projects as you want because they're like, oh, Pat Flynn's doing Pokemon now. Right. But you got to get there first.

Right? Yeah. It reminds me of. So one of my other mentors is Brendan Burchard, and he has a saying that you can't sustain the mission if you can't sustain the business. Paraphrasing it. But it's. If you want to do the artistic thing sustainably over the long term, you have to really dial in the business side. So I love that. And I found that in my channel as I've started to focus on and find those A's that are resonating, that honing in on, that is doing really well, are better than average. Which is.

Yeah. And something that I will. I needed to be reminded of, and it's useful for us to all be reminded of, is that you are not this content project. So, like, I forgot that I am not Grow the show. Like, I am making grow the show. I can make other stuff, but I don't have to completely reinvent grow the show to make the other stuff. I can just make the other stuff right in a different vehicle. But we identify so strong, especially for those of us who our content and our businesses are heavily surrounding a personal brand. You know, it's really easy to forget that you are not the content per se and you can branch out. It's fine.

So I know in my business, people hire me to get, you know, better performance to achieve the results they want. And a lot of times they're struggling with confidence and either stepping into things they know they should do or the things that would actually help them. I'm curious, like, how do you see that in your clients or business and what do you do about that?

So how do I help them when they're not feeling confident? Yeah, yeah. So this, this has shown up in a few different ways. I think my trick is as much as I can get them interacting with another human being. So a lot of times that problem with confidence and the resistance wins and we hold ourselves back. When it's just us solo, like, imagine yourself, like, I don't know how stand up comedians do it, just you on stage with a microphone. And for a lot of us, especially those who are publishing solo podcast episodes, solo YouTube videos, you just sit down and you gotta flick on the camera and start ripping. And like, it's not easy to do that. You don't have any feedback. The lights are hot, you're hungry. I don't wanna be doing this right now. This sounds stupid, I feel dumb. But as soon as you're interacting with another person, like doing an interview, ideally in person, these are great, but it's unmatched. Do it in person. Or even if you're. So if you're like, you know, you can record solo content with other people's help, you can have somebody behind you behind the camera interacting and even like content creators as large as Alex Harmozi will say, like, if I'm recording something solo, I have a team member behind the camera who, who's hyping me up and like, who's reacting to some of the points that I'm making. So like, even the best of the best utilize this because as soon as you're interacting with another person, it just, you're focused on them and you're no longer focused on yourself as much and you're focused on either the conversation that you're having and how great it is, or you're focused on teaching them, like, they're genuinely asking you questions and you're like, oh my gosh, yes, let me give you this thing that I know can help you, which just feels very different than when you turn on the camera and you're like, oh, okay, so now I'm going to be this cringy person that wants a following. I'm going to look like those people on social media don't. And then you just stop. So that's the hack. It's just when you find yourself getting frozen because of confidence issues as a content creator, collaborate, Collaborate, ideally in person with someone. If you can't do that, do it remotely. And I have found almost always that breaks it out.

Yeah, I could not agree more with that. And I think having, you know, been coaching for 10 years and seriously doing it for five years, and of those five years, being alone for three before being like, oh, I need to get some help, maybe give some different perspectives or just talk with people, like, it shifted how I felt about the work. It became more exciting again following that point of, except we're social beings, we need to connect with people. So, yeah, I think that's super awesome. So what have you found surprising or fun? Helping podcasters grow their show and monetize and all of that?

Yeah, so what has been surprising is how many freaking different topics you can have for a podcast. So, yeah, just how many. There is just no end to how niche of a show you can have or just how left field of a topic you could have. So that, to me, that's the most surprising piece where to this day, you know, five years, in five years isn't that grand scheme of things? But in podcast years, it's a long time. Just coming across types of shows and creators has been wild. I think what's most fun for me is my favorite thing and my superpower, I like to think, is helping a podcaster uncover what is the core unique premise of their show. Podcasts don't grow because of too much sameness. They sound like other shows. They're trying to emulate other creators. And I like to say, describe your show in a way where you can truthfully say that this is the only podcast on planet Earth that blank either talks about a certain thing, talks the thing in this way, like whatever it might be, category of one. I call it Cat one premise. And I strongly believe that every single podcast that Exists has a Cat 1 premise in the core. Like, and my favorite, the most Fun thing for me is to find what that is, to find that one true, true line that only this podcast host can make this show. And the reason I find it so fun is because, number one, how much they. The podcaster is very clearly you'll seen and lights up when you kind of put on the table, this is what you're making. And they're like, yes. And they didn't even realize it, but they're like, yes, that is what I'm making. But also that's what kickstarts their growth because they're no longer trying. They don't. They no longer sound like every other podcast ever. And they have a unique premise where people could be like, wow, that's really interesting. So I don't know, that's just, for me, the most fun because it just seems to really unlock a lot of people. And that's my favorite part.

Right on. I love that. Out of curiosity, what is the strangest or craziest cat one premise you found that you'd be willing to share? I'm not sure if there's. People are weird sometimes, but.

So we'll try to keep this kid friendly. But there. I worked with a podcast that was. I. I joke you not all about buttholes. So it was. The podcast was about your butthole, things that go in and things that come out. And I was like, okay. And it was a serious show, man. They had serious interviews. They had experts on. There were three people, there were investors. The show was monetized.

Wow.

Wow. Yeah. So that might be that one. I think that one made the eyebrows go up the fastest of the ones, but there have been several others, for sure. Cool.

It's always interesting to hear when you're around the crater space enough. There's usually a couple of crazy ones like that that come up. That's pretty far out there.

Well, I struggle to talk for five years about podcast growth. I don't know how someone can talk for five years about holes, but they do. Credit to them. Well, you know.

Yeah, good. Good juju. Good energy to them. Not my thing.

So, yeah, wishing the best.

Totally. Okay, so final question. I like to end the show with. What did you love about our discussion today? What did you take away as we were kind of getting into it? Anything come to mind?

Well, so, Cole. Yeah, man, A couple things. So, first of all, it was. I haven't shared the journey of the rebrand in this way before. So that was fun and a little cathartic for me. And it's just nice because you understand the difference Just the tightrope walk that is crushing it as a creator versus being crushed as a creator and how you can flip one side or the other due to a slight breeze. And so you. And you have that perspective, and that's one of the things that I love about you and your show. So it's just really nice to be able to talk to someone who gets that and who can help me unpack that. Cool.

Awesome. Yeah, I really enjoyed kind of being on the other side of the camera, I think so much time when we were doing the podcast coaching, it was more you learning about me, and it felt a little bit reversed here. But, yeah, I just. I love the work that you're doing. You helped my show a lot. I know you help, you know, so many other shows. If there's one thing just kind of contrasting, like, how quickly it is, like, you pointed out, like, you were crushed by this thing that you were doing really well for a while. And I'm excited that you're excited about it again. So I wanted to cheer you on with that.

Yeah, this was great. I appreciate you so much for having me on. Cool, thanks.

Hey, it's Sean. And what I really loved about this discussion with Kev was how open he was about his journey of evolving his brand and his career. You know, I think so many of us will get caught up in, I want to make a change. I want to try something different. I want to find the passion in life. I want to follow my artistic instincts. And we get stuck trying to figure out what the next best action is. And so Kev, living as an example of what happens when you make the leap, you're bold about it. You heed that call in your heart and you just see what happens. And he was able to rediscover his passion for helping podcasters grow and his grow the show business through this experiment. And so it's not something that is lost. It's not lost time, it's not lost effort for him to try the new brand and then come back. It was essential for his growth as a creator. And so I hope you're taking that away from this conversation. And it's just so cool that that was the journey. Right. And so as you are going forth and thinking about what changes you need to make in your life to feel happier, to feel more confident, to feel more present in your career or your day to day, that it's the taking the action is the first step towards self discovery. And everything great comes after figuring it out through movement, through pushing, through through listening and reflecting on your experience. So, anyways, I really, you know, I'm just so grateful for Kev sharing his time with us. And I hope you took a lot from this. If you loved this episode of Critters that Crush, you'll definitely love the one where I talk about the one thing you can do to skyrocket your confidence. So we'll find that over here in the show notes if you're listening at home. And with that, we'll see you guys in the next episode. This is Sean Butner signing off. Sam.