June 23, 2025 • 44 mins
So, today I'm diving into the mess that can be podcast burnout. You know, that moment when your favorite hobby morphs into a job you dread? Yeah, we’ve all been there. We're chatting about big names like Marc Maron and others who decided to call it quits and how that’s not just okay, but totally legit.
Spoiler alert: sometimes stepping back is the best move you can make. I’ll sprinkle in some sarcasm and laughs as we explore the absurdity of it all—because let’s face it, if we can’t laugh at our struggles, what’s the point, right?
If you've been thinking about starting a podcast but feel it's too crowded, realize all those podcasters who started back in 2005 might be being pulled in new directions that have them thinking about podcast retirement.
Takeaways:
- Creative projects can sometimes feel like an endless cycle of stress and burnout.
- It's totally okay to step back from podcasting if it stops being fun for you.
- Many successful podcasters have experienced burnout, and it's a common issue in the industry.
- Managing expectations is crucial; don't expect overnight success when building an audience.
- Life changes, like welcoming a new baby, can drastically affect your podcasting ability and energy.
- Always remember: adding responsibilities means subtracting your fun, so be careful what you take on.
Mentioned In This Show
Marc Maron Announces He's Ending the WTF Show
Rob Walch Talks Marc Maron on the Feed
Erik K Johnson End Podcast Talent Coach
YouTuber Tom Scott Says Goodbye 6.5M Subscribers
YouTuber The Game Theorist Says Goodbye 19.6M Subscribers
YouTuber Caylus says goodbye to 18.7M Subscribers
What Makes This Show Ggreat? - Marc Maron Edition sop705
My Spouse Has Dementia Show with Zita Christian
Clockify Free Time Tracker
More insights at schoolofpodcasting.com/989
Mentioned in this episode:
Starting a podcast can be daunting. Fear of failure, uncertainty about where to begin, and doubts about your abilities can hold you back. But what if you had a guide? The School of Podcasting is here to help you confidently launch, grow, and monetize your podcast. With over 20 years of experience and tons of successful podcasts launched, I'll walk you through every step. From planning to promotion, you're never alone." Learn at your own pace with video courses, join a supportive community, and get unlimited coaching. Say goodbye to fear and hello to success." Start your podcasting journey today...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Imagine pouring your heartinto a project that once fueled your
passion. In fact, when youweren't podcasting, you were thinking
about podcasting. But now itfeels like a never ending burden.
So what happens when yourcreative outlet turns into the very
source of thing that's justburning you to a crisp? And so today
we're going to talk about MarcMaron and some other podcasters have
(00:23):
decided to hang it up. And forthe record, nothing wrong with stopping
your show. We're not here tothrow shade, but we are here to talk
a little bit about burnout.Hit it, ladies.
The school of podcasting withDave Jackson.
Podcasting since 2005. I amyour award winning hall of fame podcast
(00:45):
coach, Dave Jackson. Thankingyou so much for tuning in. If you're
new to the show, this is wherewe help you plan, launch and grow
your podcast. And today we'regoing to kind of lean into the planning
because hindsight is 20 20. Mywebsite is schoolofpodcasting.com
(01:05):
use the coupon code listenerwhen you sign up for either a monthly,
quarterly or yearlysubscription. And of course that
comes with the 30 day moneyback guarantee. And so the news came
out from Mark Marin.
I don't know if you, you knowthis or why would you. Maybe some
of you would, but WTF? Thispodcast will turn 16, 16 years old
(01:30):
on September 1st. That's acouple months away. 16 years, it's
a long time. And when Brendanand I started this thing, all we
knew is we were going to do itevery Monday and Thursday and there
was no way to make money.There was no way that we knew how
to build an aud anything. Andit was, it was crazy. We were doing
(01:53):
it in a garage at thebeginning that was just a garage.
It was filled with junk. Andit, it slowly evolved into the show
that became what you listen totwice a week. Sixteen years we've
been doing this and we'vedecided that we, we had a great run
(02:18):
and now basically, it's time,folks, it's time. WTF is coming to
an end. And we always said,well, how do we know when we're done?
And I always said, well,whenever Brendan says so. And he
(02:40):
always said, well, if Mark,you know, it's finished and we're
finished. And thankfully weboth realized together that we were
done.
And that's kind of it. When doyou stop doing a podcast when it's
not fun? And it surely wasn'tbecause his show wasn't making money.
(03:02):
I heard this on the fee. Thisis Rob Walch, our premium offering
Also was greatly designedaround the needs for Mark, where
he at one point had 40,000active paid subscribers. And that
was over 10 years ago. And soeven if he charged him a buck, 40,000amonth
doesn't hurt. And in Mark'scase, he was just like, yeah, we've
(03:25):
been there, done that. I alsoknow Mark changed host a couple times,
and I think he was chasingadvertising dollars. And here's the
one thing you have to keep inmind when it comes to advertising,
you can't take a break. Ifyou're under contract to have advertising
for the next three months inyour show, you're not taking a break.
(03:49):
Now, you can always batchrecord and things like that, but
you're not taking a break. Soif you're wondering, like, why is
he, you know, waiting till thefall to shut it down? My guess is
he's under contract to do adsfor X amount of months and he can't,
you know, renege on that. He'dhave to pay the money back. So that
(04:10):
is my guess. I don't have anyinside information on that, but it's
something to keep in mind thatthe more you add to the show, the
more responsibility and insome cases the burden. And another
person I just heard, this goodfriend of mine, Eric K. Johnson,
you might know him as thepodcast Talent coach, just announced
this.
Well, today's a pretty bigepisode. Today is episode 550, and
(04:36):
this will be the final episodeof Podcast Talent Coach.
And I was kind of bummed tohear this. I liked Eric show.
Dave Jackson over at School ofPodcasting reached out to me in 2012
and said, hey, I'm readingyour stuff. Why don't you have a
podcast of your own? I said,well, Dave, I not the techie kind
of guy. I don't know how tolaunch it. And Dave said, we could
fix that, show you how to doit. And By June of 2013, we launched
(05:02):
this podcast.
And so I'm chopping up thisclip here. But Eric did kind of get
into why he decided to hang itup after a bit and he's not sure
what else he's going to do. Hemay be doing something different.
But here was one of thereasons he said, yeah, I think I'm
done.
So I built the program allaround the feedback I was getting
from people. And when it wasall developed, I rolled it out and
(05:27):
I offered it in one on onecalls with people. I offered it through
workshops and I did a fewshort info sessions. And of all the
people who saw theopportunity, only one Purchased.
And that's disheartening. ButEric talked about he had an audience.
It was just the wrongaudience. He wanted to teach topic
(05:48):
A, and everybody else kind ofwanted to learn topic B, and he didn't
want to teach topic B.
And what I realized at thatmoment was that it's a lot of work
to become influential.
And I'm just going to haveEric say that one more time.
It's a lot of work.
In fact, you're saying it'snot easy.
(06:08):
It's a lot of work.
So I could just have ChatGPTwrite everything and just read it
into a mic, right?
It's a lot of work.
All right, let's let Ericcontinue, shall we?
It's a lot of work to becomeinfluential. Like, everybody wants
to be Be influential, but veryfew people want to actually do the
work that it takes to becomeinfluential. Oh, I want my audience
(06:31):
to grow. Well, here's what youwant to do. You got to do A, B and
C day in and day out. They'relike, ah, I don't want to work that
hard. Well, it doesn't justshow up. Like, creating an incredibly
successful business doesn'thappen overnight.
Now, I'm going to interruptEric here. So if someone is telling
you I can make you famousovernight for three easy payments,
(06:51):
that they're lying throughtheir teeth.
If you want your podcast togrow, you got to get out and get
on stages and get in front ofother people so they can fall in
love with you. And it takestime and effort to do that. And people
would say, oh, is theresomebody that could do that for me?
No, only you can be you. It'slike people can't lose weight for
you. You have to do the workto lose the weight.
(07:12):
And some people just don'twant to do the work. And Eric explains
how his mentor, Dan Miller,you know, it had many things where
it didn't work, and when itdoesn't, you just pivot to something
else. And so, eric,congratulations on 550 episodes.
I especially loved his earlyshows. I love them all, but I really
love the early shows where hewas really digging in to how to make
(07:34):
great content. I'm not surewhat that means for the future of
the podcast review show.That's a show I do with Eric. Maybe
we're still doing that. I justliterally just found out about this.
But here again, we have ideasand we try things, and sometimes
they don't work. And when theydon't work, you quit doing it. And
Eric did 550 episodes so youcan't say, I should have tried a
(07:57):
little longer. And as he said,he's tried multiple things. And,
you know, he loves hockey,loves his kids, got all sorts of
things going on. Maybe it'stime for another chapter. So then
I looked at YouTubers andthere were many big ones. And I'm
not going to play a lot ofthese because we kind of get the
point. But here was someonethat all of these people had. Millions.
(08:19):
This is Game theorist. He had19 million people subscribe to his
channel and just said, yep,I'm done.
My reasons for making thisannouncement today is probably largely
the same as Tom's reasons orseth Everman's or CaptainSparklez
or Papa Meats or Stampylongheads.
Like, okay, let's be honest,how many people are gonna go Google
(08:40):
CaptainSparklez?
There's a lot of these videosthat are coming out these days, and
there's going to be a lot morehappening throughout this year. Steph
and I have known this videowould be coming for the last three
years. We weren't sure it wasnecessarily going to be today. We
didn't know exactly when itwould fall, but we knew it was going
to happen eventually. That'swhy over the last couple years, we've
(09:02):
been staffing up so much.That's why we partnered with a larger
company to help run thechannels. That's why we. We've been
spending so much time outsideof this box training up the team
to make the best videos thatthey can, because we knew that we
couldn't do this forever.
So there's one of thosesuggestions. We'll just farm out
the stuff you don't like. Andhe did that. But there still comes
(09:24):
a time when this happens.
I don't love late nights. Idon't love the fact that Steph and
I have been work first forover a decade, where I'm sitting
down at dinner with my bestfriend and we're talking about business
logistics. I miss the dayswhere I could just sit down on the
(09:44):
couch with her and play videogames. And it's not for content.
And especially with YouTube,you're kind of always on. You're
always looking for is thiscontent or not? And that kind of
takes the fun out of stuff. Hementioned Todd Scott. Here is Todd
Scott.
There's been a video a weekfor 10 years. I never broke the streak.
I don't know when I decided totry for 10 years, it felt like a
(10:07):
good round number to reach. Asthe YouTube game changed over the
years, as the channel becameBigger. As my own standards became
higher and higher to keep pacewith all the people I was collaborating
with and competing with. Asthis became my life, I decided that
my goal was.
And notice what he said there.As he was going on, things got bigger
(10:27):
and bigger. The production gotbigger and bigger, and. And everything
was getting, you know, there'smore stress, more pressure on those
types of videos, on that typeof content. And now that people are
watching YouTube on TV, you'recompeting against other people that,
well, look like a TV show andit's you with, you know, accidentally
(10:49):
leaving the cereal bowl on thebookcase in the background.
I can't keep this up. This ismy dream job, and I have a lot of
fun doing it. I know I'mincredibly lucky, but. But a dream
job is still a job, and it's ajob that keeps getting bigger and
more complicated. And I am sotired. There's nothing in my life
right now except work.
And when it. When the fun isdone, you're done. One more. Because
(11:11):
I realized we kind of got thepoint. This is Kaylis. 18.7 million
subscribers.
I've been doing YouTube forhow many years now, bro? Like, eight,
eight, nine years? Almost 10years. I can't do it anymore. I've
(11:31):
been daily uploading foralmost nine years. And, you know,
I gotta call it quits at somepoint. I'm an un. I'm officially
an unk. And I just. I can'tjust be sitting here playing games
all my life. I want to go outand explore the world. I haven't
(11:55):
left my house in two years. Ihaven't touched grass in two years.
All right, that's a bitextreme. And they put the sad music
and not me. But here's thething. They. You hear a theme there.
We added this, we added this,we added this. We made the production
bigger, you know, and in theend, because it takes so much more
(12:17):
work and you're obsessing overevery detail, it's more stressful
and it takes the fun out ofit. And that's when people stop.
Remember when you say, I'mgoing to start or I'm going to add,
you have to ask yourself, whatam I going to subtract? Because the
last time I checked, there'sonly 24 hours in a day. So if you're
(12:40):
like, I'm going to add videoand I'm going to add a green screen
and I'm going to add this, orI'm going to add a co host. When
you add anything, becauseyou're like, Wait, how does adding
a co host that makes it soundlike it should be easier? Nope. Because
when it's solo, you can recordwhenever you want. Now you have to
align your schedules, and themore things you add, the greater
(13:03):
the chance that you're goingto squeeze the fun out of all of
it. And one of the things thatcan really just is when you have
to. I'll give you an example.When in 2004, when I first started
and I launched the School ofPodcasting, nobody knew what podcasting
(13:23):
was. They thought you neededan ipod. And so consequently, I started
the school of Podcasting tomake money quickly because I was
going back to school to get myteaching degree. Well, guess what?
Nobody wanted to start apodcast in 2005. So consequently,
everything I did was have to.I was teaching guitar. And for the
record, I love playing theguitar. I love helping people, I
(13:47):
love teaching. I don't knowwhy I hate teaching the guitar. I
think I need a really specialstudent for that. But I had to, and
I had to do this and I had todo that, and I love to read. But
when I was in school, I had toread things to the point that when
(14:08):
I graduated from college withmy first degree, I didn't read anything
for a very long time. And Iwalked into the CEO's office. He
was a really good guy, alwayshad an open door policy. And I was
talking to him and he had justbooks everywhere. And I said, have
you read all these books? Andhe said, well, not cover to cover,
but most of them, yes. And Igo, wow. I go, I used to read all
(14:31):
the time. He's like, well,pick a book. And I picked a book
and I read it and I was like,oh, holy cow, I forgot how much I
like reading when I don't haveto do it. So when you add things
to your show that you have todo, it can easily, from my point
of view, from my chair, wringthe fun right out of it. And that's
(14:55):
when you go, I've had enoughof this. Because the more work it
takes, the more return youneed from your show. Whether and
that's again, whatever yourwhy is I want to grow my network.
I want to get the message out,I want to get in front of people,
whatever. I want to makemoney. If you're not getting that,
(15:17):
but you're putting in all thiseffort, you're more than likely to
say, that's enough. That's whywhen I say, when you start out, the
best podcasters that make itpast that seven episodes where Most
people just, the wheels falloff because the juice isn't worth
the squeeze. But when youstart off with a ton of passion and
(15:37):
you're not going, well, Imight talk about this or I might
start a show about this. Idon't know. I'm thinking about this.
That to me, it's not a giantred flag. But when you can't decide
what to podcast about, that'snot a good sign. It's just, in my
opinion, it's usually thepeople like, I have to talk about
this. My friends are tired ofhearing me talk about it. I'm going
(16:01):
to talk about it to the world,that kind of stuff. The Zeta Christians
of the world, who does. Myspouse has dementia. No, somebody
needs to talk about this andtell the truth about this awful disease.
I have to talk about it.That's usually for me when I have
somebody like, I just, Ineeded, you know, or if it's a business
and they're trying to use itas a marketing arm. Got it. But when
(16:24):
it's like, I'm not reallysure. I might talk about green beans.
I don't know. I thought aboutdoing a show about movies. Okay.
You know, maybe that's reallyusually. Because what happens is
when you start to go throughthe work, if you don't love it, you're
going to want to quit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(16:45):
Well, what takes the fun outof it, Dave? Number one, unrealistic
expectations. And so I'veworked with people that are like,
don't you know who I am? I amKing Underpants on Instagram, I have
15,000 followers, but yet mypodcast only gets 1200 downloads.
There's something wrong withyour system. And I look at them and
(17:08):
go, 1200 downloads per episodeis amazing in the land of podcasting.
Now, granted, it's not the10,000 or the 20,000 you need for
the, you know, oh, sponsorshipthat everybody seems to be in love
with. But that's a decentaudience. That's a theater, my friend,
filled with people. But forsome people, it's like, no, no, no.
(17:32):
I expect to be on the latenight talk shows. I've been podcasting
for a month and a half. Yeah,that's not realistic. And it takes
a while to grow. And by awhile, I don't mean six weeks or
six months. I've often saidthree years. That's if you're good.
(17:52):
And again, you are doingeverything, you know, you heard Eric
say, he's like, oh, have youdone A, B and C? And they're like,
oh, I don't want to do that. Ihad somebody hire me once. I always
scratch my head when peoplego, well, you've got 20 years in
podcasting. I want to get youropinion. And I go, oh, well, you
should probably do this. Andthey go, I don't want to do that.
And you should do this. Idon't want to do that. And have you
(18:14):
tried this yet? Yeah, itdidn't work. Okay, how long did you
try it? I gave it about a dayand a half. Yeah, that's, you know,
you've got to do the work. Itdoesn't happen overnight. And if
someone again is telling youthey can do that, they're lying through
their teeth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The other thing is good oldreality just comes and smacks you
(18:34):
in the face because youthought a 15 minute podcast was going
to take 15 minutes, andinstead it took about an hour, if
not two. And all of a suddenyou're like, what? Yeah. So it takes
longer to grow, and itprobably takes longer to create.
Now, there are things you cando to speed up, but you go, oh, wait
a minute, I'll just add thistool and it automatically removes
(18:57):
the ums. And you knows, okay,great. But now you have to learn
it, which is gonna take time.And so again, when you add things,
what are you gonna take away?Well, you're gonna take away the
time to go learn this, becauseit doesn't do any good to buy Vidiq
for youtubers if you're notgonna go through the tutorials to
learn how to use it.
(19:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Content can be something thatburns you out because you're just
like, I don't know what I'mgonna talk about. Well, you actually
have more ideas than youthink. And you've heard me talk about
this before in other episodes.You need to write them down. I don't
care what you use. Apple NotesText expander. Not Text Expander,
(19:40):
but, you know, some sort oftext tool. I use a thing called Note
Joy. I know a lot of peopleuse Evernote. Write those bad boys
down. Because then on thoseweeks when you're like, I don't know
what I'm talking about, well,go into your Note app and see what
it is. And that has saved meso many times. But one of the shows
(20:00):
that I quit doing was calledWeekly Web Tools, because just after
a while, I think kind of likeMarc Maron, I've interviewed everybody
I want to interview. And sofor me, I'm like, I think I've talked
about every cool web toolthere is. I even Rebranded it. I
changed it to Web Tools Radiobecause I didn't want to do it weekly
(20:20):
anymore. But in the end, I wasjust tired of talking about web stuff,
and I wasn't excited about thetopic. It'd be like, well, here's
a player thing that looks kindof neato. And I was like. Because
I wasn't really excited, like,hey, wait till you hear about this
thing. I found. It's so cool.I was like, yeah, it's taking too
(20:41):
much time to find goodcontent. It wasn't any fun. And I
went, okay, see you later. Idid save that show a couple times.
I use a feed reader, andthere's feedly, there's innoreader.
And I found things online thatwere like, blogs. Yes, people still
write blogs that were talkingabout web tools. And I'd be like,
(21:03):
oh, cool. So I had somesources of content coming into me
easily, and then it was just amatter of me going, oh, that one
would be good to talk about onthe show. But even after having the
Cool Tools, it just. I swearI've reviewed every cool web tool
on the Internet. And I waslike, yeah, I'm done.
(21:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The people you work with driveyou crazy. This goes for anything,
and it's a bummer when it'syour family. But I saw a thing on
Reddit where a guy was doing apodcast with his girlfriend, and
they even did the thing wherethey said, you will do this. I will
do this. You will do this. Iwill do this. So they set their expectations.
(21:45):
Who's gonna do what? And thenthey said, and if we make money,
this is how we're gonna splitit up. And according to the guy that
was writing this, he was themale. He said, I get 60, she gets
40 because I'm doing more. Andthen let's say according again to
him. So this is really oneside of the story. So we know how
(22:06):
that works. But according tothis person, they weren't doing the
things they agreed to do. Andso even having kind of these agreements
and you, you know, you put iton the table, and that's what I always
recommend. That's only goingto be as good as you hold it up.
So what are you going to dowhen person B, you know, Ernie and
(22:28):
Bert decide, okay, Ernie'sdoing the recording, Bert's going
to do the marketing. And thenBert kind of slacks on the marketing.
All right, what's Ernie goingto do? Take him to court. So it's
only going to be as strong asyou uphold it. And Then enforce it
when you're like, no, no, yousaid you're going to do this. And
when the other person goes, Idon't want to do it. Okay. So that's
(22:51):
another one that causesburnout, is when the people involved
are not as engaged as you are.And that's something you want to
sniff out before you startrecording with that person. And then
absolutely write down who'sdoing what. And that way, one of
the things you want to agreeon is, okay, what happens, Bert,
(23:11):
if you decide to not hold upyour end of the bargain and I get
a new co host? Can I stillcall it the Ernie and Bert Show?
Because that's been the brandfor two years until you completely
just ignore the project. Thoseare things that can cause burnout.
So be careful picking a cohost. Major life changes can cause
(23:32):
burnout. Like, I don't know.Have you ever heard of these things
called babies? I jokingly saythey are the arch nemesis of podcasters.
Because, you know, Juniordoesn't care that Daddy's trying
to podcast, you know, and yourlittle princess decided to wake up
and scream bloody murderduring the middle of your interview.
(23:53):
Yeah. So what are you going todo? Well, that makes podcasting a
whole lot harder. And itdoesn't mean that you don't have
the passion. It doesn't meanthat you don't still love it. It
does make it harder. But thereare times when your parents decided
to get old. How rude of them.And now they require more attention.
(24:15):
You know, sometimes lifechanges, and that's when you go,
hey, I got to step away. Andmy buddy Daniel J. Lewis just came
back. He's been on hiatus foryears because. And again, priorities
in the right place. Said, Igotta raise my son. I'll be back.
(24:35):
And he's back, and he's. Youknow, I don't know if Daniel's gonna
be doing his same weeklyschedule he was before, but he came
back to the microphone, andalso when he did, he didn't spend
20 minutes apologizing.Because keep in mind, when somebody
finds Daniel's latest episodeafter being gone for years, they
(24:56):
don't know that he was gonefor years. So all of a sudden, they're
binging Daniel's show, Andhere comes 20 minutes. I'm so sorry.
Yeah, don't start off, youknow, if you're gonna apologize or
whatever, it's kind of goodbecause you feel like you owe your
audience, but do that stuff.And at the end. But there's, again,
there's no shame in any ofthis. You know, Cheers, Mash, Seinfeld.
(25:17):
All things come to an end. Andsometimes there are things you can
do to avoid that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hey, did you know that June ismen's Mental health month? It kind
of gets buried by other thingsthat are going on in June, but that's
okay. But here's the thing.And this also goes for females sometimes,
(25:38):
again, due to lifecircumstances, we need a break. I
remember my last semester whenI was going to college the first
time, and I had just had itbecause I was taking care of a household
after my mom had died. I wastaking care of my sister, who is
kind of special needs. I wasgrocery shopping because my dad was
(26:00):
a long distance truck driver,and I was going to school and working
part time. And I was like,look, here's the deal. I'm going
to take as many. I'm going totake this big, giant lump of classes
this last semester, and I'meither going to graduate or I'm going
to die. One of the two. But Igot to do it. And so there are times
when you're like, I just, Ican't handle it. Something's got
(26:22):
to go. And so I realized, andagain, that was a ton of everything
was have to. Life changed. AndI was like, all right, I guess I
have to do the groceryshopping. I have to do this. I have
to pay the bills. It wascrazy. And so there are times when
you're like, yeah, we need tochange. And all I say, again, there's
(26:42):
no shame in taking a break. Ido my best. I've, I, you know, I
never made a big deal aboutit. I'll probably do an episode sometime
this year about doingpodcasting for 20 years, but I'm
now 20 years in and I've nevermissed a Monday. I just never have.
It's kind of a weird, streakything then. Now that it's here, I
don't want to break it. But ifyou do, you can do that. But the
(27:06):
fact that I don't want tobreak my streak is. I realize that
you look for my show everyMonday. You're like, oh, there he
is again. Oh, there he isagain. And I'm part of your routine
and you appreciate that. And Iappreciate you jumping in here to
hear this on Monday morning. Ireally do. But what happens if life
(27:26):
happens, Dave? All I say isexplain that you're taking a break
again. You don't have toapologize because many times your
audience is getting it forfree. What are they going to do?
Not. Not pay you so you cansay, I'm taking a break. I've got
some things I need to takecare of. And if you can pick a day
when you're coming back, I'mtaking three months off, I'm taking
(27:49):
whatever off. And then alwaysremind them that there is plenty
of content to go for. All youhave to do is go to your website,
dot com follow. At leastthat's how mine is set up to make
it easy. And you can then gothrough and pick your favorite episodes
so many times, especially ashow like mine, you got 900 episodes
(28:10):
to go pick through. So if youjust found me, you got plenty of
content to keep youentertained until I come back. And
then whatever day you said youwill come back, come back. But, Dave,
what if I'm not ready to comeback on the day I said I was going
to come back? Then come backand say, hey, I'm not coming back
just yet. But thanks so muchfor checking. I'll let you know.
(28:32):
I will be back on this date.And just. You just need to keep your
audience informed.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Another thing that leads toburnout is starting another podcast.
And you go, oh, it's easy. Idid the first one. I can get this
into Apple. And probably bythe end of the day. And so you start
another podcast and you forgetstarting the podcast. Recording the
(28:52):
podcast, that's really, insome cases, not the hard part. It's
getting people to find it andmarketing it and constantly promoting
it. And now you get to takethe amount that you used to use on
show number one. Yeah, I knowyou should probably do more of that,
but no, no, no. We're gonnacut that in half and now put it on
show number two. Hey, hey,hey. I wasn't done with that one.
(29:16):
But think about it this way.You baked a cake, and some people
like the cake, but it's notthe best cake they've ever eaten.
And you're now going, okay,hey, since you kind of think my cake
is meh, here's some donuts.Like, wait, shouldn't you figure
out the winning formula ofyour show? Because it's different.
(29:38):
It's a different recipe foreverybody. Before you go back in
the kitchen and make morestuff. It's just a thought. Because
when people don't like yourcake or your donuts. Yeah. That's
when it gets a littledisheartening and it takes the joy
out of it, takes the fun outof it. And, yeah, you retire.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(29:59):
In just a second, I'll talkabout if you're Just starting today,
Some things you can seriouslydo to help you avoid burning out
with your show.
(31:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right, so we've talkedabout burnout today. How can we avoid
burnout if we're startingtoday? Well, number one, look for
your sources. Where are yougoing to get the content for your
show? And this could be manythings, right? Newspapers, for those
(31:31):
of us that read that,obviously the Internet, websites,
television, Netflix, whateverit is, do you have plenty of sources?
Because the minute you have tospend more time to get the content,
the, you know, the more strainon that. So keep that in mind. And
(31:53):
sometimes, right, this is whysome of the big shows with, you know,
teams of 18, they takeextended breaks because they're out
doing journalism and thattakes a lot of time. I wish I had
the time. I do a show forAkron, Ohio, but it's not really
the show I should be doing.I'm just basically gathering news
off the Internet andorganizing it for people. So it's
(32:16):
not really information theycan't get anyplace else. I just made
it easier. But if I reallywanted to, I should be interviewing
the, you know, owner of localrestaurants and things like that.
I should be trying to get incontact with the mayor maybe and
giving them information theycan't get anyplace else. But I'm
(32:37):
not. And consequently, thatshow gets very meh, kind of downloads.
Another thing, write 10episodes ahead of time based on what
your audience wants and you'relike, dave, I don't have an audience.
Okay? I've talked about thisin the past. You can go look at comments
on Amazon and comments onYouTube and go to Quora, go hang
(33:00):
out in Facebook groups. Youcan kind of figure out what people
want. But in theory, youshould know your genre and be able
to come up with 10 episodeideas, not writing out a script,
but just here's 10 thingswe're going to talk about over the
next, you know, however longyour schedule is, which brings up
the next thing. And that istime yourself. I've said this over
(33:22):
and over before. You pick yourschedule. So when you're first starting
out and you're researchingyour topic, start a timer. I use
a thing called Clockify. It'sweb based and it's also an app. And
then when you, if you're doinginterviews, record the full interview.
I know it's only going to be20 minutes, maybe when you edit it
down, but you were on thephone with that person for an hour
(33:43):
on the phone. What year is it?You're on you know, Riverside or
Squadcast or whatever, buttime everything because then you're
going to go, wait, that took24 hours to do a, you know, hour
long podcast? Yeah. Do youhave 24 hours every week to do that?
No. Well, then you're notdoing a weekly show or you better
find a way to be moreefficient. Then when you look at
(34:06):
your downloads, divide them by20. So when you say, oh, I've only
got 80 downloads, okay, that'sfour classrooms, said the old teacher.
That's four classrooms. That'sa hallway in my old building where
I used to teach. Never, youknow, under realize those are people
that could be, you know,playing video games or watching Netflix
(34:29):
or whatever they chose tolisten to. You divide your audience
by 20 and then know your why.Because if you don't get your why,
you're gonna, you know, quit.But also know how you're going to
judge your success. And somany people judge by downloads. And
there are other things, suchas getting the word out there and
(34:50):
is your network growing? Is,you know, is your social media growing?
Whatever it is, why are youdoing this? And then how are you
going to measure it? And thenbe consistent both in schedule because
now you know how long it'sgoing to take so you can be consistent
and be consistent in content.I would much rather have a great
(35:12):
show that was late than an ontime show that was all right. You
know, so consistency isimportant. As I mentioned earlier,
you become part of theirroutine and then when you sign on,
I, I've heard a few peoplethat I listened to their show and
when they started, they said,I'm doing it for a year. And now
(35:34):
realize again, since we'retalking, since it is men's mental
health month, and ladies, thisapplies to you obviously as well.
If you are hating life rightnow because of your podcast and you're
just like, ugh, I don't wantto do this. Well, then quit. But
also realize that there aretimes when you go to start a podcast
and you go, yeah, I'm notpassing any of this. Well, maybe
(35:57):
it's not a you shouldn'tpodcast. Maybe it's a you shouldn't
start a podcast now. Hmm.Something to think about. But those
are some tips on avoidingburnout. I think the one if somebody
said, what's the mostimportant? It's write down the ideas
when they come to you. Becausethat's the one that kills me when
(36:18):
I, when it, when it's too hardto create great content, I start
to get a little crispy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hey, this isn't the first timeI've talked about Marc Maron. I am
kind of bummed that he'sleaving. I enjoyed his show. I've
listened to pretty much everysingle episode. And I did a what
makes this podcast great? MarcMaron edition back on schoolofpodcasting.com
(36:42):
705 and back then I didn't usechapters. I do have timestamps in
there. And it looks like Istarted talking about Mark about,
I don't know, 25 minutes.Yeah, actually 16 minutes. I see
that they're in the show notesagain. Schoolofpodcasting.com 705
(37:02):
and I'll put a link in theshow notes so you don't even have
to look for it. The otherthing I wonder is Mark's early episodes
were great because he wastalking to people he wanted to talk
to. He was picking the guestsand obviously he could turn down
people. But I wonder sometimesagain, when you've got sponsors,
(37:24):
I've got to keep theseepisodes coming out. And then you
make it easy and you work withan agency who is just feeding you
people, oh, here's somebody.And I noticed, you know, that everybody
there had something to plug.So it, it kind of. And there's nothing
wrong with that. Right? That'swhy people come on the show. That's
why they want publicity. Butif you think about it, that's all,
(37:46):
you know, Jimmy Fallon, JimmyOther Guy, you know, Craig Colbert,
all those guys. Craig Colbert,what a Stephen Colbert. They. It's
just like, hey, tell me aboutyour summer vacation. And let's roll
the clip. And so Mark was amuch more extended version of that.
But I'm here to tell you, thelast year I would go and see who
(38:10):
his guest was and I was like,who? And then it was somebody who
had a movie out or whatever.And maybe I'm just out of touch with
what's going on inentertainment. But it wasn't like,
ooh, holy cow, Keith Richards.I gotta listen to that. So I wonder
sometimes if maybe the reasonhe wasn't into it as much is maybe
(38:33):
he wasn't really. He had someof the guests that kind of fall into
the, eh, that'll do, you know.But I don't know. I have no idea
if that's the case. I just.For me, the guest went from holy
cow, can't wait to hear it toholy cow. Who is this person? I've
never heard of them. So whoknows? But he's, he's tapping out.
(38:57):
And thank you, Mark, for beingentertaining for 16 years, thanks
to Brendan. That's the otherthing I want to bring up. Two people.
Two? Yeah, two. Not one, notthree. Two people did that show.
And he had the President ofthe United States on his show. So
as much as you're like, oh,it's got to be bigger, badder and
(39:18):
better, oh, by the way, Markis also not video, just something
to think about. And he had thepresident. Now, granted, he's been
doing it for 16 years, but heis audio only. And I'm happy that
he's ending on his own terms,unlike, say, Johnny Carson, where
(39:38):
they're like, hey, Johnny.What? You're done. Get out, you deadbeat.
So that. And he's got a lot ofstuff going on. He's doing a lot
more acting. He's still doingthis comedy. He's still. He occasionally
writes books and he puts outalbums and such. And so it just may
be a case that Mark's like,you know what? I think I'm done.
I think I'm done just nothaving as much fun or just. And it's
(40:01):
not that he's not having fun.It might be that he's having more
fun doing these other things.And the last point, which, now that
I think about it, should havebeen the first point, is who's going
to take his place? And what Imean by that is they're not going
to keep doing wtf. But thereare a lot of people that maybe listen
(40:21):
to Mark on the way to work,and it's not like sometime in September
when he quits and there's nomore, that they're going to go, well,
I guess I'll just ride to workin silence because there's no more
wtf. No, they're going to findsomething else. And we played a few
people today that are endingtheir shows. So if one of the reasons
(40:43):
you're not starting a podcastis nobody would listen to me, and
I'm never going to be as goodas so and so. Well, guess what? So
and so might eventually stopdoing their show. And by that time,
you may be as good as they arebecause you've been doing it for
years. I always look at herein America, we had Tom Brady, one
of the best quarterbacks ofall time. And, you know, he retired
(41:06):
eventually. He. It took him afew tries, but he finally stuck and
he retired. Well, you didn'tsee people going, well, I was gonna
go out for the football team,but I'll never be as good as Tom
Brady. Well, no, they went outfor the football team and they made
it. And then there are collegeplayers that, you know, somebody
took his place when heretired. And I know you might be
(41:28):
thinking, yeah, but I can'treplace Marc Maron. Why not? He did
it with a friend in hisgarage. I know he's kind of a celebrity,
but when he started that show,he was this close to having no career
at all. And podcasting was alast ditch effort. So as much people
(41:51):
go, whoa, why me? I say, whynot you?
(43:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And now this is where mycompletion rate goes right down the
toilet because I'm talkingabout the school of podcasting. Again,
use the coupon code listnrwhen you sign up for either a monthly,
yearly or quarterly. Yes.That's not quarterly. That's available.
If you want a little discount,you can do that as well. Schoolofpodcasting.com
(43:57):
join I'm Dave Jackson. I helppodcasters. It's what I do. Can't
wait to see what you and I aregoing to do together. And until next
week, take care. God bless.Class is dismissed.
If you like what you do.
(44:23):
Charging. Charging. Creatinga. Creating. Yeah. Picking a co host.
If you like what you hear,then go tell someone.
Imagine pouring your heartinto a project that once fueled your
passion. In fact, when youweren't podcasting, you were thinking
about podcasting. But now itfeels like a never ending burden.
So what happens when yourcreative outlet turns into the very
source of thing that's justburning you to a crisp? And so today
we're going to talk about MarcMaron and some other podcasters have
(00:23):
decided to hang it up. And forthe record, nothing wrong with stopping
your show. We're not here tothrow shade, but we are here to talk
a little bit about burnout.Hit it, ladies.
The school of podcasting withDave Jackson.
Podcasting since 2005. I amyour award winning hall of fame podcast
(00:45):
coach, Dave Jackson. Thankingyou so much for tuning in. If you're
new to the show, this is wherewe help you plan, launch and grow
your podcast. And today we'regoing to kind of lean into the planning
because hindsight is 20 20. Mywebsite is schoolofpodcasting.com
(01:05):
use the coupon code listenerwhen you sign up for either a monthly,
quarterly or yearlysubscription. And of course that
comes with the 30 day moneyback guarantee. And so the news came
out from Mark Marin.
I don't know if you, you knowthis or why would you. Maybe some
of you would, but WTF? Thispodcast will turn 16, 16 years old
(01:30):
on September 1st. That's acouple months away. 16 years, it's
a long time. And when Brendanand I started this thing, all we
knew is we were going to do itevery Monday and Thursday and there
was no way to make money.There was no way that we knew how
to build an aud anything. Andit was, it was crazy. We were doing
(01:53):
it in a garage at thebeginning that was just a garage.
It was filled with junk. Andit, it slowly evolved into the show
that became what you listen totwice a week. Sixteen years we've
been doing this and we'vedecided that we, we had a great run
(02:18):
and now basically, it's time,folks, it's time. WTF is coming to
an end. And we always said,well, how do we know when we're done?
And I always said, well,whenever Brendan says so. And he
(02:40):
always said, well, if Mark,you know, it's finished and we're
finished. And thankfully weboth realized together that we were
done.
And that's kind of it. When doyou stop doing a podcast when it's
not fun? And it surely wasn'tbecause his show wasn't making money.
(03:02):
I heard this on the fee. Thisis Rob Walch, our premium offering
Also was greatly designedaround the needs for Mark, where
he at one point had 40,000active paid subscribers. And that
was over 10 years ago. And soeven if he charged him a buck, 40,000amonth
doesn't hurt. And in Mark'scase, he was just like, yeah, we've
(03:25):
been there, done that. I alsoknow Mark changed host a couple times,
and I think he was chasingadvertising dollars. And here's the
one thing you have to keep inmind when it comes to advertising,
you can't take a break. Ifyou're under contract to have advertising
for the next three months inyour show, you're not taking a break.
(03:49):
Now, you can always batchrecord and things like that, but
you're not taking a break. Soif you're wondering, like, why is
he, you know, waiting till thefall to shut it down? My guess is
he's under contract to do adsfor X amount of months and he can't,
you know, renege on that. He'dhave to pay the money back. So that
(04:10):
is my guess. I don't have anyinside information on that, but it's
something to keep in mind thatthe more you add to the show, the
more responsibility and insome cases the burden. And another
person I just heard, this goodfriend of mine, Eric K. Johnson,
you might know him as thepodcast Talent coach, just announced
this.
Well, today's a pretty bigepisode. Today is episode 550, and
(04:36):
this will be the final episodeof Podcast Talent Coach.
And I was kind of bummed tohear this. I liked Eric show.
Dave Jackson over at School ofPodcasting reached out to me in 2012
and said, hey, I'm readingyour stuff. Why don't you have a
podcast of your own? I said,well, Dave, I not the techie kind
of guy. I don't know how tolaunch it. And Dave said, we could
fix that, show you how to doit. And By June of 2013, we launched
(05:02):
this podcast.
And so I'm chopping up thisclip here. But Eric did kind of get
into why he decided to hang itup after a bit and he's not sure
what else he's going to do. Hemay be doing something different.
But here was one of thereasons he said, yeah, I think I'm
done.
So I built the program allaround the feedback I was getting
from people. And when it wasall developed, I rolled it out and
(05:27):
I offered it in one on onecalls with people. I offered it through
workshops and I did a fewshort info sessions. And of all the
people who saw theopportunity, only one Purchased.
And that's disheartening. ButEric talked about he had an audience.
It was just the wrongaudience. He wanted to teach topic
(05:48):
A, and everybody else kind ofwanted to learn topic B, and he didn't
want to teach topic B.
And what I realized at thatmoment was that it's a lot of work
to become influential.
And I'm just going to haveEric say that one more time.
It's a lot of work.
In fact, you're saying it'snot easy.
(06:08):
It's a lot of work.
So I could just have ChatGPTwrite everything and just read it
into a mic, right?
It's a lot of work.
All right, let's let Ericcontinue, shall we?
It's a lot of work to becomeinfluential. Like, everybody wants
to be Be influential, but veryfew people want to actually do the
work that it takes to becomeinfluential. Oh, I want my audience
(06:31):
to grow. Well, here's what youwant to do. You got to do A, B and
C day in and day out. They'relike, ah, I don't want to work that
hard. Well, it doesn't justshow up. Like, creating an incredibly
successful business doesn'thappen overnight.
Now, I'm going to interruptEric here. So if someone is telling
you I can make you famousovernight for three easy payments,
(06:51):
that they're lying throughtheir teeth.
If you want your podcast togrow, you got to get out and get
on stages and get in front ofother people so they can fall in
love with you. And it takestime and effort to do that. And people
would say, oh, is theresomebody that could do that for me?
No, only you can be you. It'slike people can't lose weight for
you. You have to do the workto lose the weight.
(07:12):
And some people just don'twant to do the work. And Eric explains
how his mentor, Dan Miller,you know, it had many things where
it didn't work, and when itdoesn't, you just pivot to something
else. And so, eric,congratulations on 550 episodes.
I especially loved his earlyshows. I love them all, but I really
love the early shows where hewas really digging in to how to make
(07:34):
great content. I'm not surewhat that means for the future of
the podcast review show.That's a show I do with Eric. Maybe
we're still doing that. I justliterally just found out about this.
But here again, we have ideasand we try things, and sometimes
they don't work. And when theydon't work, you quit doing it. And
Eric did 550 episodes so youcan't say, I should have tried a
(07:57):
little longer. And as he said,he's tried multiple things. And,
you know, he loves hockey,loves his kids, got all sorts of
things going on. Maybe it'stime for another chapter. So then
I looked at YouTubers andthere were many big ones. And I'm
not going to play a lot ofthese because we kind of get the
point. But here was someonethat all of these people had. Millions.
(08:19):
This is Game theorist. He had19 million people subscribe to his
channel and just said, yep,I'm done.
My reasons for making thisannouncement today is probably largely
the same as Tom's reasons orseth Everman's or CaptainSparklez
or Papa Meats or Stampylongheads.
Like, okay, let's be honest,how many people are gonna go Google
(08:40):
CaptainSparklez?
There's a lot of these videosthat are coming out these days, and
there's going to be a lot morehappening throughout this year. Steph
and I have known this videowould be coming for the last three
years. We weren't sure it wasnecessarily going to be today. We
didn't know exactly when itwould fall, but we knew it was going
to happen eventually. That'swhy over the last couple years, we've
(09:02):
been staffing up so much.That's why we partnered with a larger
company to help run thechannels. That's why we. We've been
spending so much time outsideof this box training up the team
to make the best videos thatthey can, because we knew that we
couldn't do this forever.
So there's one of thosesuggestions. We'll just farm out
the stuff you don't like. Andhe did that. But there still comes
(09:24):
a time when this happens.
I don't love late nights. Idon't love the fact that Steph and
I have been work first forover a decade, where I'm sitting
down at dinner with my bestfriend and we're talking about business
logistics. I miss the dayswhere I could just sit down on the
(09:44):
couch with her and play videogames. And it's not for content.
And especially with YouTube,you're kind of always on. You're
always looking for is thiscontent or not? And that kind of
takes the fun out of stuff. Hementioned Todd Scott. Here is Todd
Scott.
There's been a video a weekfor 10 years. I never broke the streak.
I don't know when I decided totry for 10 years, it felt like a
(10:07):
good round number to reach. Asthe YouTube game changed over the
years, as the channel becameBigger. As my own standards became
higher and higher to keep pacewith all the people I was collaborating
with and competing with. Asthis became my life, I decided that
my goal was.
And notice what he said there.As he was going on, things got bigger
(10:27):
and bigger. The production gotbigger and bigger, and. And everything
was getting, you know, there'smore stress, more pressure on those
types of videos, on that typeof content. And now that people are
watching YouTube on TV, you'recompeting against other people that,
well, look like a TV show andit's you with, you know, accidentally
(10:49):
leaving the cereal bowl on thebookcase in the background.
I can't keep this up. This ismy dream job, and I have a lot of
fun doing it. I know I'mincredibly lucky, but. But a dream
job is still a job, and it's ajob that keeps getting bigger and
more complicated. And I am sotired. There's nothing in my life
right now except work.
And when it. When the fun isdone, you're done. One more. Because
(11:11):
I realized we kind of got thepoint. This is Kaylis. 18.7 million
subscribers.
I've been doing YouTube forhow many years now, bro? Like, eight,
eight, nine years? Almost 10years. I can't do it anymore. I've
(11:31):
been daily uploading foralmost nine years. And, you know,
I gotta call it quits at somepoint. I'm an un. I'm officially
an unk. And I just. I can'tjust be sitting here playing games
all my life. I want to go outand explore the world. I haven't
(11:55):
left my house in two years. Ihaven't touched grass in two years.
All right, that's a bitextreme. And they put the sad music
and not me. But here's thething. They. You hear a theme there.
We added this, we added this,we added this. We made the production
bigger, you know, and in theend, because it takes so much more
(12:17):
work and you're obsessing overevery detail, it's more stressful
and it takes the fun out ofit. And that's when people stop.
Remember when you say, I'mgoing to start or I'm going to add,
you have to ask yourself, whatam I going to subtract? Because the
last time I checked, there'sonly 24 hours in a day. So if you're
(12:40):
like, I'm going to add videoand I'm going to add a green screen
and I'm going to add this, orI'm going to add a co host. When
you add anything, becauseyou're like, Wait, how does adding
a co host that makes it soundlike it should be easier? Nope. Because
when it's solo, you can recordwhenever you want. Now you have to
align your schedules, and themore things you add, the greater
(13:03):
the chance that you're goingto squeeze the fun out of all of
it. And one of the things thatcan really just is when you have
to. I'll give you an example.When in 2004, when I first started
and I launched the School ofPodcasting, nobody knew what podcasting
(13:23):
was. They thought you neededan ipod. And so consequently, I started
the school of Podcasting tomake money quickly because I was
going back to school to get myteaching degree. Well, guess what?
Nobody wanted to start apodcast in 2005. So consequently,
everything I did was have to.I was teaching guitar. And for the
record, I love playing theguitar. I love helping people, I
(13:47):
love teaching. I don't knowwhy I hate teaching the guitar. I
think I need a really specialstudent for that. But I had to, and
I had to do this and I had todo that, and I love to read. But
when I was in school, I had toread things to the point that when
(14:08):
I graduated from college withmy first degree, I didn't read anything
for a very long time. And Iwalked into the CEO's office. He
was a really good guy, alwayshad an open door policy. And I was
talking to him and he had justbooks everywhere. And I said, have
you read all these books? Andhe said, well, not cover to cover,
but most of them, yes. And Igo, wow. I go, I used to read all
(14:31):
the time. He's like, well,pick a book. And I picked a book
and I read it and I was like,oh, holy cow, I forgot how much I
like reading when I don't haveto do it. So when you add things
to your show that you have todo, it can easily, from my point
of view, from my chair, wringthe fun right out of it. And that's
(14:55):
when you go, I've had enoughof this. Because the more work it
takes, the more return youneed from your show. Whether and
that's again, whatever yourwhy is I want to grow my network.
I want to get the message out,I want to get in front of people,
whatever. I want to makemoney. If you're not getting that,
(15:17):
but you're putting in all thiseffort, you're more than likely to
say, that's enough. That's whywhen I say, when you start out, the
best podcasters that make itpast that seven episodes where Most
people just, the wheels falloff because the juice isn't worth
the squeeze. But when youstart off with a ton of passion and
(15:37):
you're not going, well, Imight talk about this or I might
start a show about this. Idon't know. I'm thinking about this.
That to me, it's not a giantred flag. But when you can't decide
what to podcast about, that'snot a good sign. It's just, in my
opinion, it's usually thepeople like, I have to talk about
this. My friends are tired ofhearing me talk about it. I'm going
(16:01):
to talk about it to the world,that kind of stuff. The Zeta Christians
of the world, who does. Myspouse has dementia. No, somebody
needs to talk about this andtell the truth about this awful disease.
I have to talk about it.That's usually for me when I have
somebody like, I just, Ineeded, you know, or if it's a business
and they're trying to use itas a marketing arm. Got it. But when
(16:24):
it's like, I'm not reallysure. I might talk about green beans.
I don't know. I thought aboutdoing a show about movies. Okay.
You know, maybe that's reallyusually. Because what happens is
when you start to go throughthe work, if you don't love it, you're
going to want to quit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(16:45):
Well, what takes the fun outof it, Dave? Number one, unrealistic
expectations. And so I'veworked with people that are like,
don't you know who I am? I amKing Underpants on Instagram, I have
15,000 followers, but yet mypodcast only gets 1200 downloads.
There's something wrong withyour system. And I look at them and
(17:08):
go, 1200 downloads per episodeis amazing in the land of podcasting.
Now, granted, it's not the10,000 or the 20,000 you need for
the, you know, oh, sponsorshipthat everybody seems to be in love
with. But that's a decentaudience. That's a theater, my friend,
filled with people. But forsome people, it's like, no, no, no.
(17:32):
I expect to be on the latenight talk shows. I've been podcasting
for a month and a half. Yeah,that's not realistic. And it takes
a while to grow. And by awhile, I don't mean six weeks or
six months. I've often saidthree years. That's if you're good.
(17:52):
And again, you are doingeverything, you know, you heard Eric
say, he's like, oh, have youdone A, B and C? And they're like,
oh, I don't want to do that. Ihad somebody hire me once. I always
scratch my head when peoplego, well, you've got 20 years in
podcasting. I want to get youropinion. And I go, oh, well, you
should probably do this. Andthey go, I don't want to do that.
And you should do this. Idon't want to do that. And have you
(18:14):
tried this yet? Yeah, itdidn't work. Okay, how long did you
try it? I gave it about a dayand a half. Yeah, that's, you know,
you've got to do the work. Itdoesn't happen overnight. And if
someone again is telling youthey can do that, they're lying through
their teeth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The other thing is good oldreality just comes and smacks you
(18:34):
in the face because youthought a 15 minute podcast was going
to take 15 minutes, andinstead it took about an hour, if
not two. And all of a suddenyou're like, what? Yeah. So it takes
longer to grow, and itprobably takes longer to create.
Now, there are things you cando to speed up, but you go, oh, wait
a minute, I'll just add thistool and it automatically removes
(18:57):
the ums. And you knows, okay,great. But now you have to learn
it, which is gonna take time.And so again, when you add things,
what are you gonna take away?Well, you're gonna take away the
time to go learn this, becauseit doesn't do any good to buy Vidiq
for youtubers if you're notgonna go through the tutorials to
learn how to use it.
(19:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Content can be something thatburns you out because you're just
like, I don't know what I'mgonna talk about. Well, you actually
have more ideas than youthink. And you've heard me talk about
this before in other episodes.You need to write them down. I don't
care what you use. Apple NotesText expander. Not Text Expander,
(19:40):
but, you know, some sort oftext tool. I use a thing called Note
Joy. I know a lot of peopleuse Evernote. Write those bad boys
down. Because then on thoseweeks when you're like, I don't know
what I'm talking about, well,go into your Note app and see what
it is. And that has saved meso many times. But one of the shows
(20:00):
that I quit doing was calledWeekly Web Tools, because just after
a while, I think kind of likeMarc Maron, I've interviewed everybody
I want to interview. And sofor me, I'm like, I think I've talked
about every cool web toolthere is. I even Rebranded it. I
changed it to Web Tools Radiobecause I didn't want to do it weekly
(20:20):
anymore. But in the end, I wasjust tired of talking about web stuff,
and I wasn't excited about thetopic. It'd be like, well, here's
a player thing that looks kindof neato. And I was like. Because
I wasn't really excited, like,hey, wait till you hear about this
thing. I found. It's so cool.I was like, yeah, it's taking too
(20:41):
much time to find goodcontent. It wasn't any fun. And I
went, okay, see you later. Idid save that show a couple times.
I use a feed reader, andthere's feedly, there's innoreader.
And I found things online thatwere like, blogs. Yes, people still
write blogs that were talkingabout web tools. And I'd be like,
(21:03):
oh, cool. So I had somesources of content coming into me
easily, and then it was just amatter of me going, oh, that one
would be good to talk about onthe show. But even after having the
Cool Tools, it just. I swearI've reviewed every cool web tool
on the Internet. And I waslike, yeah, I'm done.
(21:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The people you work with driveyou crazy. This goes for anything,
and it's a bummer when it'syour family. But I saw a thing on
Reddit where a guy was doing apodcast with his girlfriend, and
they even did the thing wherethey said, you will do this. I will
do this. You will do this. Iwill do this. So they set their expectations.
(21:45):
Who's gonna do what? And thenthey said, and if we make money,
this is how we're gonna splitit up. And according to the guy that
was writing this, he was themale. He said, I get 60, she gets
40 because I'm doing more. Andthen let's say according again to
him. So this is really oneside of the story. So we know how
(22:06):
that works. But according tothis person, they weren't doing the
things they agreed to do. Andso even having kind of these agreements
and you, you know, you put iton the table, and that's what I always
recommend. That's only goingto be as good as you hold it up.
So what are you going to dowhen person B, you know, Ernie and
(22:28):
Bert decide, okay, Ernie'sdoing the recording, Bert's going
to do the marketing. And thenBert kind of slacks on the marketing.
All right, what's Ernie goingto do? Take him to court. So it's
only going to be as strong asyou uphold it. And Then enforce it
when you're like, no, no, yousaid you're going to do this. And
when the other person goes, Idon't want to do it. Okay. So that's
(22:51):
another one that causesburnout, is when the people involved
are not as engaged as you are.And that's something you want to
sniff out before you startrecording with that person. And then
absolutely write down who'sdoing what. And that way, one of
the things you want to agreeon is, okay, what happens, Bert,
(23:11):
if you decide to not hold upyour end of the bargain and I get
a new co host? Can I stillcall it the Ernie and Bert Show?
Because that's been the brandfor two years until you completely
just ignore the project. Thoseare things that can cause burnout.
So be careful picking a cohost. Major life changes can cause
(23:32):
burnout. Like, I don't know.Have you ever heard of these things
called babies? I jokingly saythey are the arch nemesis of podcasters.
Because, you know, Juniordoesn't care that Daddy's trying
to podcast, you know, and yourlittle princess decided to wake up
and scream bloody murderduring the middle of your interview.
(23:53):
Yeah. So what are you going todo? Well, that makes podcasting a
whole lot harder. And itdoesn't mean that you don't have
the passion. It doesn't meanthat you don't still love it. It
does make it harder. But thereare times when your parents decided
to get old. How rude of them.And now they require more attention.
(24:15):
You know, sometimes lifechanges, and that's when you go,
hey, I got to step away. Andmy buddy Daniel J. Lewis just came
back. He's been on hiatus foryears because. And again, priorities
in the right place. Said, Igotta raise my son. I'll be back.
(24:35):
And he's back, and he's. Youknow, I don't know if Daniel's gonna
be doing his same weeklyschedule he was before, but he came
back to the microphone, andalso when he did, he didn't spend
20 minutes apologizing.Because keep in mind, when somebody
finds Daniel's latest episodeafter being gone for years, they
(24:56):
don't know that he was gonefor years. So all of a sudden, they're
binging Daniel's show, Andhere comes 20 minutes. I'm so sorry.
Yeah, don't start off, youknow, if you're gonna apologize or
whatever, it's kind of goodbecause you feel like you owe your
audience, but do that stuff.And at the end. But there's, again,
there's no shame in any ofthis. You know, Cheers, Mash, Seinfeld.
(25:17):
All things come to an end. Andsometimes there are things you can
do to avoid that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hey, did you know that June ismen's Mental health month? It kind
of gets buried by other thingsthat are going on in June, but that's
okay. But here's the thing.And this also goes for females sometimes,
(25:38):
again, due to lifecircumstances, we need a break. I
remember my last semester whenI was going to college the first
time, and I had just had itbecause I was taking care of a household
after my mom had died. I wastaking care of my sister, who is
kind of special needs. I wasgrocery shopping because my dad was
(26:00):
a long distance truck driver,and I was going to school and working
part time. And I was like,look, here's the deal. I'm going
to take as many. I'm going totake this big, giant lump of classes
this last semester, and I'meither going to graduate or I'm going
to die. One of the two. But Igot to do it. And so there are times
when you're like, I just, Ican't handle it. Something's got
(26:22):
to go. And so I realized, andagain, that was a ton of everything
was have to. Life changed. AndI was like, all right, I guess I
have to do the groceryshopping. I have to do this. I have
to pay the bills. It wascrazy. And so there are times when
you're like, yeah, we need tochange. And all I say, again, there's
(26:42):
no shame in taking a break. Ido my best. I've, I, you know, I
never made a big deal aboutit. I'll probably do an episode sometime
this year about doingpodcasting for 20 years, but I'm
now 20 years in and I've nevermissed a Monday. I just never have.
It's kind of a weird, streakything then. Now that it's here, I
don't want to break it. But ifyou do, you can do that. But the
(27:06):
fact that I don't want tobreak my streak is. I realize that
you look for my show everyMonday. You're like, oh, there he
is again. Oh, there he isagain. And I'm part of your routine
and you appreciate that. And Iappreciate you jumping in here to
hear this on Monday morning. Ireally do. But what happens if life
(27:26):
happens, Dave? All I say isexplain that you're taking a break
again. You don't have toapologize because many times your
audience is getting it forfree. What are they going to do?
Not. Not pay you so you cansay, I'm taking a break. I've got
some things I need to takecare of. And if you can pick a day
when you're coming back, I'mtaking three months off, I'm taking
(27:49):
whatever off. And then alwaysremind them that there is plenty
of content to go for. All youhave to do is go to your website,
dot com follow. At leastthat's how mine is set up to make
it easy. And you can then gothrough and pick your favorite episodes
so many times, especially ashow like mine, you got 900 episodes
(28:10):
to go pick through. So if youjust found me, you got plenty of
content to keep youentertained until I come back. And
then whatever day you said youwill come back, come back. But, Dave,
what if I'm not ready to comeback on the day I said I was going
to come back? Then come backand say, hey, I'm not coming back
just yet. But thanks so muchfor checking. I'll let you know.
(28:32):
I will be back on this date.And just. You just need to keep your
audience informed.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Another thing that leads toburnout is starting another podcast.
And you go, oh, it's easy. Idid the first one. I can get this
into Apple. And probably bythe end of the day. And so you start
another podcast and you forgetstarting the podcast. Recording the
(28:52):
podcast, that's really, insome cases, not the hard part. It's
getting people to find it andmarketing it and constantly promoting
it. And now you get to takethe amount that you used to use on
show number one. Yeah, I knowyou should probably do more of that,
but no, no, no. We're gonnacut that in half and now put it on
show number two. Hey, hey,hey. I wasn't done with that one.
(29:16):
But think about it this way.You baked a cake, and some people
like the cake, but it's notthe best cake they've ever eaten.
And you're now going, okay,hey, since you kind of think my cake
is meh, here's some donuts.Like, wait, shouldn't you figure
out the winning formula ofyour show? Because it's different.
(29:38):
It's a different recipe foreverybody. Before you go back in
the kitchen and make morestuff. It's just a thought. Because
when people don't like yourcake or your donuts. Yeah. That's
when it gets a littledisheartening and it takes the joy
out of it, takes the fun outof it. And, yeah, you retire.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(29:59):
In just a second, I'll talkabout if you're Just starting today,
Some things you can seriouslydo to help you avoid burning out
with your show.
(31:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right, so we've talkedabout burnout today. How can we avoid
burnout if we're startingtoday? Well, number one, look for
your sources. Where are yougoing to get the content for your
show? And this could be manythings, right? Newspapers, for those
(31:31):
of us that read that,obviously the Internet, websites,
television, Netflix, whateverit is, do you have plenty of sources?
Because the minute you have tospend more time to get the content,
the, you know, the more strainon that. So keep that in mind. And
(31:53):
sometimes, right, this is whysome of the big shows with, you know,
teams of 18, they takeextended breaks because they're out
doing journalism and thattakes a lot of time. I wish I had
the time. I do a show forAkron, Ohio, but it's not really
the show I should be doing.I'm just basically gathering news
off the Internet andorganizing it for people. So it's
(32:16):
not really information theycan't get anyplace else. I just made
it easier. But if I reallywanted to, I should be interviewing
the, you know, owner of localrestaurants and things like that.
I should be trying to get incontact with the mayor maybe and
giving them information theycan't get anyplace else. But I'm
(32:37):
not. And consequently, thatshow gets very meh, kind of downloads.
Another thing, write 10episodes ahead of time based on what
your audience wants and you'relike, dave, I don't have an audience.
Okay? I've talked about thisin the past. You can go look at comments
on Amazon and comments onYouTube and go to Quora, go hang
(33:00):
out in Facebook groups. Youcan kind of figure out what people
want. But in theory, youshould know your genre and be able
to come up with 10 episodeideas, not writing out a script,
but just here's 10 thingswe're going to talk about over the
next, you know, however longyour schedule is, which brings up
the next thing. And that istime yourself. I've said this over
(33:22):
and over before. You pick yourschedule. So when you're first starting
out and you're researchingyour topic, start a timer. I use
a thing called Clockify. It'sweb based and it's also an app. And
then when you, if you're doinginterviews, record the full interview.
I know it's only going to be20 minutes, maybe when you edit it
down, but you were on thephone with that person for an hour
(33:43):
on the phone. What year is it?You're on you know, Riverside or
Squadcast or whatever, buttime everything because then you're
going to go, wait, that took24 hours to do a, you know, hour
long podcast? Yeah. Do youhave 24 hours every week to do that?
No. Well, then you're notdoing a weekly show or you better
find a way to be moreefficient. Then when you look at
(34:06):
your downloads, divide them by20. So when you say, oh, I've only
got 80 downloads, okay, that'sfour classrooms, said the old teacher.
That's four classrooms. That'sa hallway in my old building where
I used to teach. Never, youknow, under realize those are people
that could be, you know,playing video games or watching Netflix
(34:29):
or whatever they chose tolisten to. You divide your audience
by 20 and then know your why.Because if you don't get your why,
you're gonna, you know, quit.But also know how you're going to
judge your success. And somany people judge by downloads. And
there are other things, suchas getting the word out there and
(34:50):
is your network growing? Is,you know, is your social media growing?
Whatever it is, why are youdoing this? And then how are you
going to measure it? And thenbe consistent both in schedule because
now you know how long it'sgoing to take so you can be consistent
and be consistent in content.I would much rather have a great
(35:12):
show that was late than an ontime show that was all right. You
know, so consistency isimportant. As I mentioned earlier,
you become part of theirroutine and then when you sign on,
I, I've heard a few peoplethat I listened to their show and
when they started, they said,I'm doing it for a year. And now
(35:34):
realize again, since we'retalking, since it is men's mental
health month, and ladies, thisapplies to you obviously as well.
If you are hating life rightnow because of your podcast and you're
just like, ugh, I don't wantto do this. Well, then quit. But
also realize that there aretimes when you go to start a podcast
and you go, yeah, I'm notpassing any of this. Well, maybe
(35:57):
it's not a you shouldn'tpodcast. Maybe it's a you shouldn't
start a podcast now. Hmm.Something to think about. But those
are some tips on avoidingburnout. I think the one if somebody
said, what's the mostimportant? It's write down the ideas
when they come to you. Becausethat's the one that kills me when
(36:18):
I, when it, when it's too hardto create great content, I start
to get a little crispy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hey, this isn't the first timeI've talked about Marc Maron. I am
kind of bummed that he'sleaving. I enjoyed his show. I've
listened to pretty much everysingle episode. And I did a what
makes this podcast great? MarcMaron edition back on schoolofpodcasting.com
(36:42):
705 and back then I didn't usechapters. I do have timestamps in
there. And it looks like Istarted talking about Mark about,
I don't know, 25 minutes.Yeah, actually 16 minutes. I see
that they're in the show notesagain. Schoolofpodcasting.com 705
(37:02):
and I'll put a link in theshow notes so you don't even have
to look for it. The otherthing I wonder is Mark's early episodes
were great because he wastalking to people he wanted to talk
to. He was picking the guestsand obviously he could turn down
people. But I wonder sometimesagain, when you've got sponsors,
(37:24):
I've got to keep theseepisodes coming out. And then you
make it easy and you work withan agency who is just feeding you
people, oh, here's somebody.And I noticed, you know, that everybody
there had something to plug.So it, it kind of. And there's nothing
wrong with that. Right? That'swhy people come on the show. That's
why they want publicity. Butif you think about it, that's all,
(37:46):
you know, Jimmy Fallon, JimmyOther Guy, you know, Craig Colbert,
all those guys. Craig Colbert,what a Stephen Colbert. They. It's
just like, hey, tell me aboutyour summer vacation. And let's roll
the clip. And so Mark was amuch more extended version of that.
But I'm here to tell you, thelast year I would go and see who
(38:10):
his guest was and I was like,who? And then it was somebody who
had a movie out or whatever.And maybe I'm just out of touch with
what's going on inentertainment. But it wasn't like,
ooh, holy cow, Keith Richards.I gotta listen to that. So I wonder
sometimes if maybe the reasonhe wasn't into it as much is maybe
(38:33):
he wasn't really. He had someof the guests that kind of fall into
the, eh, that'll do, you know.But I don't know. I have no idea
if that's the case. I just.For me, the guest went from holy
cow, can't wait to hear it toholy cow. Who is this person? I've
never heard of them. So whoknows? But he's, he's tapping out.
(38:57):
And thank you, Mark, for beingentertaining for 16 years, thanks
to Brendan. That's the otherthing I want to bring up. Two people.
Two? Yeah, two. Not one, notthree. Two people did that show.
And he had the President ofthe United States on his show. So
as much as you're like, oh,it's got to be bigger, badder and
(39:18):
better, oh, by the way, Markis also not video, just something
to think about. And he had thepresident. Now, granted, he's been
doing it for 16 years, but heis audio only. And I'm happy that
he's ending on his own terms,unlike, say, Johnny Carson, where
(39:38):
they're like, hey, Johnny.What? You're done. Get out, you deadbeat.
So that. And he's got a lot ofstuff going on. He's doing a lot
more acting. He's still doingthis comedy. He's still. He occasionally
writes books and he puts outalbums and such. And so it just may
be a case that Mark's like,you know what? I think I'm done.
I think I'm done just nothaving as much fun or just. And it's
(40:01):
not that he's not having fun.It might be that he's having more
fun doing these other things.And the last point, which, now that
I think about it, should havebeen the first point, is who's going
to take his place? And what Imean by that is they're not going
to keep doing wtf. But thereare a lot of people that maybe listen
(40:21):
to Mark on the way to work,and it's not like sometime in September
when he quits and there's nomore, that they're going to go, well,
I guess I'll just ride to workin silence because there's no more
wtf. No, they're going to findsomething else. And we played a few
people today that are endingtheir shows. So if one of the reasons
(40:43):
you're not starting a podcastis nobody would listen to me, and
I'm never going to be as goodas so and so. Well, guess what? So
and so might eventually stopdoing their show. And by that time,
you may be as good as they arebecause you've been doing it for
years. I always look at herein America, we had Tom Brady, one
of the best quarterbacks ofall time. And, you know, he retired
(41:06):
eventually. He. It took him afew tries, but he finally stuck and
he retired. Well, you didn'tsee people going, well, I was gonna
go out for the football team,but I'll never be as good as Tom
Brady. Well, no, they went outfor the football team and they made
it. And then there are collegeplayers that, you know, somebody
took his place when heretired. And I know you might be
(41:28):
thinking, yeah, but I can'treplace Marc Maron. Why not? He did
it with a friend in hisgarage. I know he's kind of a celebrity,
but when he started that show,he was this close to having no career
at all. And podcasting was alast ditch effort. So as much people
(41:51):
go, whoa, why me? I say, whynot you?
(43:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And now this is where mycompletion rate goes right down the
toilet because I'm talkingabout the school of podcasting. Again,
use the coupon code listnrwhen you sign up for either a monthly,
yearly or quarterly. Yes.That's not quarterly. That's available.
If you want a little discount,you can do that as well. Schoolofpodcasting.com
(43:57):
join I'm Dave Jackson. I helppodcasters. It's what I do. Can't
wait to see what you and I aregoing to do together. And until next
week, take care. God bless.Class is dismissed.
If you like what you do.
(44:23):
Charging. Charging. Creatinga. Creating. Yeah. Picking a co host.
If you like what you hear,then go tell someone.
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