Lessons Learned After Hitting the 300,000 Unique Download Milestone: Thank You

“You must do what others won’t, commit and stay the course.” ― Bob Proctor

On today’s Episode #279 we will cover

✔ Top 6 Strategies Involved on Our End That Took Us to 300k Downloads of the Podcast.

✔ 6 Life-Changing Lessons I've Learned as a Byproduct of this Milestone.

✔ A Huge Thank You to ALL of You Who Listen to This Podcast! 

And for this special episode today, that I’m dedicating to YOU, the listener, I’ve got to add a quote that has stuck in my head for years that I heard in one of Bob Proctor’s first cassette training programs, called You Were Born Rich[i] that you can find today on Audible.com. It was from his colleague John Kanary who joined him on stage for the recording of this live seminar that was the FIRST seminar I listened to back in the late 1990s, when my life path crossed with the personal development and seminar industry. John Kanary said “Excellence is a commitment to completion” and I wrote that down, and with time, started to integrate this concept into my daily life by making a pact to always finish what I start.

I started thinking about excellence a bit before writing this episode, and how I always want to put forth my best effort with these podcast episodes, making sure they reflect my best work, with the hopes that the strategies outlined are as useful to you as they have been for me. I know I’ve mentioned this a few times, referencing Brendon Burchard whose version of excellence he calls “prolific quality output.”[ii]  Brendon, in his book, High Performance Habits says that “High performers have mastered the art of prolific quality output (PQO). They produce more high quality output than their peers over the long term, and that is how they become more effective, better known, more remembered. They aim their attention and consistent efforts toward PQO and minimize any distractions (including opportunities) that would steal them away from their craft” (Burchard, 2017). 

I could reflect on this for a whole month and see something new, useful and important with this idea.

This led me next to civilian astronaut and extreme adventurer, Nik Halik who we featured on an early interview #31[iii] who said:

Who doesn’t want to “personify excellence” on a daily basis? Who doesn’t want to produce more high quality work over the long-term? I’m sure we can all agree that’s why we keep studying, learning and looking to build a stronger, more resilient and improved version of ourselves who is truly capable of consistently producing high quality, excellent work.

But the late John Wooden, an American College Basketball coach and player said it best. He said:

With that thought, I want to welcome you back to a special episode of The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, where we cover the science-based evidence behind social and emotional learning (for schools) and emotional intelligence training (in the workplace) with tools, ideas and strategies that we can all use immediately, with our brain in mind.  I’m Andrea Samadi, an author, and educator with a passion for learning specifically on the topics of health, wellbeing and productivity, and launched this podcast almost 4 years ago, to share how important an understanding of our brain is, for our everyday life and results.

For today’s episode #279, I want to take a break from our usual Brain Fact Fridays to pause a minute, and reflect back on where we are in this process, and where we are going, after hitting a recent milestone in the podcasting world. As we are approaching our 4th year of the podcast, our 300th episode, (just 19 episodes away) and just hit the 300,000-download marker, I had to step back and take a deep breath to think about what this all means. I know it was Brendon Burchard who talks about the importance of “integrating your wins”[iv] or the important things that happen in your life, and while I remind others to do this all the time, with this milestone, I knew I wasn’t doing it myself. I was getting ready to write an episode on resilience, and have 5 interviews lined up in the next couple of weeks.

When good things happen to you, Brendon reminds us “be sure you integrate those important moments into your heart and life” because this practice will change your identity. He says this is important for people in pursuit of meaningful goals, who are committed to excellence along the way, and says that he sees it all the time with his high-level clients who are working hard over the years towards a specific goal, who have wins over the years, but maybe not the big win that they’ve got their eye on. To add meaning and fulfillment to their daily lives, he highly suggests integrating all of the important moments, at the heart level.

So off I went to think for a minute about what this recent milestone meant to me. How do I feel about this accomplishment? What have I learned from it? Who helped me to achieve it? While it “felt” cool and a bit mind-boggling to think 4 years later, I’m more passionate than ever about this podcast, but I’m now wondering why.

I listened to some other podcast hosts as they reflected back on hitting this milestone themselves, like The EntreMD Podcast[v], with Dr. Una, who shares entrepreneurship strategies for medical doctors. When she hit this milestone, it was right at her 250th episode, (not far from where we are) and this is enough to blow anyone’s mind because if you think about it, from the production side of things, it means that she repeated one action, over 200 times, successfully, that led her to hitting the 300K download marker, and helping millions of people along the way.

“Wow,” I thought, thinking of Dr. Una’s achievement, and then it hit me, “oh wow, that’s what we did” and for the first time, I began to integrate this feeling into my heart. Easy to tell others to do this, not as easy to actually do it myself.

So for today’s EPISODE, as I’m integrating this win into my heart, for a stronger more resilient 2.0 version of myself. Today I’d like to reflect back on how we did this, with the top lessons learned, to see if it can bring some insights into whatever it is you are working on.  Just the practice of stopping to integrate a win is a powerful activity to try.

How Did We Reach 300K Downloads of the Podcast? After listening to how Dr. Una did this with her EntreMD Podcast, I had to agree that some of her tips were important for us here as well.

WHAT STRATEGIES DID WE USE TO HIT THE 300K DOWNLOAD MILESTONE?

1. Know Your Mission: Which is your goal and how you plan to achieve it. If you look back over the 4 years, and our past episodes, you can see that we had a mission of connecting the most current neuroscience research, to those important social and emotional learning skills, to improve productivity, well-being, achievement and results in our schools, sports environments and modern workplaces. This mission is up on my wall, a part of my daily routine to read it and a part of every episode. Many people have emailed me over the years, asking to be a guest on the podcast, and if they didn’t align with our mission, and even specifically with the topics we were covering in that season, then they were not a good fit for the podcast. We stuck to this, and never wavered.
2. Know Your Vision with a Clear Why: With your vision, ask yourself, are you living daily towards what you imagine in your mind? I go back here to PART 6[vi] of our Think and Grow Rich book study, where I ended this final episode that I dedicated to my mentor, Bob Proctor, with something he would say about holding your vision daily. He would always say that our mission, or whatever it is that we wanted to achieve in our lifetime would be possible once we believed it to be possible. He would say encourage us to take what we wanted and hold this vision on the screen of our mind. He’d say  “What story do you want to tell? What scenes do you want to shoot? How do you want the movie to end? Be the director of your life” and then he would tell us that once we can see something on the screen of our mind, the next step is to take that vision from the dream world, and make that dream a reality.
3. Focus on the Listener: This is an important lesson for anyone creating content, or working with others, as no one will read what you create, or listen to what you might be teaching them, if it doesn’t relate to them. It has to be useful for your audience. Instead of just speaking into a mic each week on random topics, we made sure that each episode was written in the HOW-TO format, with clear steps that we can all implement into our life. When I hear back from you that these episodes are helpful, I know that I’m on track with this one.
4. Be Committed to Consistency: This is the one that resonates with me the most. If you want to have results, with whatever it is you are doing, you’ve got to be consistent. You don’t go to the gym on Tuesday and say “that’s it” I’m finished, you come up with a schedule that you stick to, and never stray from it. I knew that once people started to tune into the podcast from different parts of the world that it was important that I stayed consistent with releasing episodes. We started with weekly episodes, and got up to 3 in a week when I had the time during the Pandemic. We are now back to weekly episodes, but this is one thing I will never change. I’ve NEVER missed releasing an episode in a week. It’s something I’ve committed to doing and even while on vacation. I’ve recorded two episodes in a week, and held one up in draft format, to be released when I need it,  so that something is released, even if I’m not in my office at my desk. There was one week I thought I was going to have to break this episode streak. I was starting to lose my voice, so before I lost it completely, I recorded the episode with a shaky voice. The next day my voice was gone completely. I was so glad I’d recorded so I didn’t have to mess up this important need for the episodes to be consistent each week. A week went by, and wouldn’t you know, my voice came back just in time for me to record the next weekly episode.  We are 2000% committed to consistency here.
5. The Podcast is a Give-Back: No Ads Was Intentional. It’s been important to me from the beginning, that this podcast launched ads free and remains a tool or resource for people to access without having to think about being “sold” something. There are times ads have snuck in, with different settings I had to block from our hosting side, but I wanted this podcast to be focused on FREE content, without ads. I can’t promise this is how it will always be, but as we approach our 4th year, this is the plan moving forward.
6. Never Be Afraid to Share and Promote: When you are a content creator, putting yourself out into the world, sharing and promoting what you create is a part of the process. Each episode was shared on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. People on the hiking trails know me as a podcaster as I’m not afraid to share that’s what keeps me busy in my spare time, when I’m not on the trails, or working.

After thinking about these TIPS for those who create content, or for anyone who wants to take their mission seriously,  following through on these steps is very difficult. There is no way I could have done this without you, the listener, tuning in, without my husband to take the kids to school when I was still writing in the early morning, or without that mission or vision that’s painted clearly in my head of “why” I’m committed to this podcast.

Here’s where I turn the tables back to you, the listener. I love hearing what you are learning from the episodes, whether it’s a comment on YouTube, or on social media, an email, or a direct message somewhere. These messages really do help me.

I bet you as listeners didn’t know how much this podcast has helped me, personally?

Here’s the TOP LESSONS I’ve learned as I reflect back on what 300K downloads means to me.

LESSON 1: PRESENTATION WINS: Interviewing/Presenting has become a superpower for me. This was evident during the first 50 episodes when I joke that I couldn’t breathe and ask questions at the same time. I can barely watch older interviews for this reason. I noticed after the 50th interview, I started to be less nervous with the guest I was interviewing, as I learned how to breathe and talk at the same time.  This skill helps me DAILY with my work, as presentations are a part of my daily life. If you want to improve your speaking or presenting skills, practice is the key! You’ll notice, and so will others, that you can speak without fillers (no more ahhs and umms), with a clear and focused message.

LESSON 2: LIFE/HEALTH HAS IMPROVED FOR THE BETTER: Of course, as I’m creating these how-to episodes, I’m implementing the ideas into my own life (and those close to me). As I’m writing about the TOP 5 Health Staples and Alzheimer’s Prevention Strategies, I’m thinking of what else I can do to improve my health and for my family as well. This is one of the added bonuses of doing this podcast, as I get to speak directly with the high-level guests that we bring on, and learn what they are doing, and how they are doing it. Not a day goes by that I don’t take for granted that as I’m representing you, the listener with each topic and episode, it’s such a privilege to learn directly from our guests. I do also feel clearer minded from implementing these health, wellness and productivity tips over the past 4 years.

LESSON 3: BEING ABLE TO SEE THE SUPERPOWERS IN OTHERS. This just happens as I’m researching and learning about other people’s life’s work. I’m often blown away with what our guests have accomplished, and I do love sharing this with the world. It’s probably the most rewarding part of the podcast.

LESSON 4: LEARNED TO SET UP INTERVIEWS QUICKLY/EFFICIENTLY:

If you’ve been a guest on this podcast, you will see how we set up interviews. I know I can improve as there are tools like Calendly.com that make this process easier, but the key is that you want to find a time that works for your guest FIRST. Think always of where the person lives, (East Coast, West Coach, or International) and then set the time up around their schedule. Having clear dates and times where you can conduct interviews, with a clear and stream-lined process helps the guest to feel at ease with coming on your show, and spending their time with you.

LESSON 5: LEARNED HOW TO RESEARCH THOROUGHLY: Doing through research on each guest will help you to make connections with their work, and yours. This is the most time-consuming part of the interview process, and I used to spend a lot of time here. To save time, I now ask my guests to outline their books for me, and provide 6-10 questions to guide me in the process. I still research as usual, with their questions as a guide. Then I add something to what they’ve created so we have a personal spin on what we will be covering.

LESSON 6: PRAXIS/ INTEGRATING BELIEFS WITH BEHAVIOR:

I’ve talked about this concept of Praxis on past episodes, or integrating our beliefs with our behavior. I noticed that with time, I could connect our future guests to past guests in an almost magical way where things started to make sense, or come to life more. This is where I noticed I needed a clear mind to make these connections. On days that I was tired, hadn’t looked after my health as I should have, making these connections was difficult. The more I began to live the content I was writing, actually integrate these episodes into my own life, the more I could talk about them with each guest.

All of these superpowers and strengths have turned me into a stronger, more resilient 2.0 version of myself, which was my goal for this year.

REVIEW AND CONCLUSION:

So, to review and close out this episode, I want to thank you, the listener, wherever you might be located in the 178 countries who tune into this podcast around the world. It wasn’t me who listened to these episodes, I just researched, wrote and recorded them. On today’s episode, I shared the 6 STEPS we took on our side to hit this 300K mile mile-marker, hopefully making the podcast more appealing to you, and then the outcome of these strategies were 6 valuable and life-changing lessons that I saw in myself.

If I hadn’t have stopped to integrate this milestone, I don’t think I would have fully seen the powerful lessons that are a byproduct of just doing this podcast, consistently, every week, for the past 4 years. I launched back in June 2019 with the hope to bring credibility to the field of social and emotional learning, while at the same time wanted to connect the research to our daily life and practices, and what I’ve personally gained from this experience was much more than any amount of money I could have earned in this time frame. These are life-changing lessons that can   only happen through praxis, or when our beliefs are integrated into our behavior.

If you have learned something from this episode, or if our past episodes have helped you in any way, please reach out to me and let me know. It really does help.

And with that, I’ll sign out till next week, with our upcoming bunch of interviews. Thank you again for listening, and for making all of these WINS a possibility for me personally. I’m so grateful to have stayed the course, and look forward to what we will all learn with the next 300K downloads, and beyond.

See you next week!

“You must do what others won’t, commit and stay the course.” ― Bob Proctor

FOLLOW ANDREA SAMADI: 

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreaSamadi  

Website https://www.achieveit360.com/ 

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/andreasamadi  

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REFERENCES:

[i] Bob Proctor’s You Were Born Rich Program on Audible https://www.audible.com/pd/You-Were-Born-Rich-Audiobook/B0187M8TDC?source_code=GO1GB547041122911G&gclid=CjwKCAjwzuqgBhAcEiwAdj5dRnVzinjfs1rtrLAe08dyf84QvvPS1xqlKqkJGY_0V1p-T0lrzk31DBoCXh4QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

[ii] What is Your Prolific Quality Output January 27, 2020 by Sajjad Hussein on Brendon Burchard https://www.sunandesigns.com/roundups/what-is-your-prolific-quality-output/

[iii] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #31 with Civilian Astronaut and Extreme Adventurer Nik Halik on “Overcoming Adversity”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/entrepreneur-civilian-astronaut-and-extreme-adventurer-nik-halik-on-overcoming-adversity-to-create-an-epic-life/

[iv] How to Integrate Your Wins with Brendon Burchard Published in 2022 on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5OG7s13dPU

[v] The EntreMD Podcast https://entremd.com/5-strategies-podcast-downloads/

[vi] https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/the-neuroscience-behind-the-15-success-principles-of-napoleon-hill-s-classic-boo-think-and-grow-rich/