Last week I was so pleased to have given myself permission to pause.

I’d just finished talking to the Podcast Launch Studio cohort about the importance of just committing to one season to start…an then realized I hadn’t done that myself.

So I decided to conduct a little experiment in what I’m calling Slow Podcasting. What I thought was a brilliant idea–take a beat, take some time off from the mic, let my existing episodes do a little more heavy lifting before rushing to make the next one–ended up not being such a brilliant idea, after all...

I mean, if I was the kind of person who operates on advance plans rather than current vibes it would definitely have been a good idea right out of the gate.

But here we are, one week into my grand experiment, and guess who’s been mentally twisting in knots trying to figure out what to put in this newsletter?

Hi.

On the one hand: I do love knowing that my hypothesis about the “return on thinking” that your podcast can deliver is actually more than just a hypothesis.

Because I'm guessing you've noticed (or, god help you, found yourself next to me at an event in which...) I breathlessly drone on to anyone who will listen that a strategically designed podcast can and should work harder than you do. Your podcast is your content flywheel, your idea lab, your intellectual home base, yadda, yadda, yadda...

And now that I’ve removed the podcast from my content equation (even for just one week), I can say with certainty: all of the above is unequivocally true.

I do enjoy being right (just ask my husband).

Here’s what I’ve discovered in the past seven days:

When I’m making my podcast, I have a built-in opportunity to think out loud. To explore ideas that have been rattling around in my head, have conversations that spark new ones, stumble upon a sentence or a thought that makes me go, Ohhhh, there’s something there.

And then I have a transcript full of raw material from which to generate the rest of the content I wanna put out into the world, like...

• my LinkedIn posts practically write themselves (you might have noticed I’ve been a little quieter there, too)
• my IG reels magically appear as I’m playing back my my episode.
• New concepts and perspectives to share with prospective clients and current cohorts crop up like so many thought leadership mushrooms after the brainstorm-type atmosphere of a podcast recording session.

It’s a lovely virtuous cycle, indeed. And this week, without a new episode to pull from, I found myself staring at the proverbial blank page.

Which is funny, because it’s not like I’ve run out of things to say. (Again, ask my husband.)

I have a new idea or hot take forming in my brain about every five minutes or so…and no real container for them. At least not one that does as much work as my podcast routinely does.

Here’s what I forgot: I want to continue to show proof of life here and on other platforms on which I regularly connect with my people.

And while the whole point of this experiment was to allow myself time to take a break to recalibrate, I introduced a design flaw to my system:

Yep.

I forgot a crucial component of this whole “slow podcasting” experiment:

Part of what made me comfortable with taking a break is that I’ve barely scratched the surface of what each of my podcast episodes has to offer my other platforms.

I’ve racked up eight months of conversations, observations, frameworks, hot takes, and brilliant things said by people much smarter than me (and probably a few said by yours truly, too ☺️).

Which means I have an entire pantry full of ingredients, and I’ve been behaving like I need to go grocery shopping every time I want to make dinner.

So clearly the next phase of this experiment needs to involve me going back to the well of all of those episodes that have piled up since February.

It is absolutely possible for me to maintain this connection without constantly manufacturing something new.

This is a facet of my “podcast working harder” philosophy I’ve yet to explore, but based on how much corroborating evidence I accumulated in just the past week, I’m guessing the "spelunking into the back catalog” phase is going to provide further supporting evidence of my Grand Unified Theory of Podcast ROI.

Evidently I just needed to stop making mine for a minute to appreciate just how hard it had been working. Absence really does make the podcast heart grow fonder (and more fertile).

Here's to getting more out of the thinking we’ve already done...

...because we really do deserve a break from time to time.

Looking forward,