3 Years, 156 episodes, and the 3 biggest lessons I’ve learned from podcasting every week

Three years. One episode every week. Almost 20k downloads. 

This episode is a celebration of consistency, growth, and learning to show up even when no one is clapping. If you’ve ever struggled to stay committed to something in your business or life, this one will speak straight to your heart.

I’m sharing the three biggest lessons I’ve learned after three years of podcasting and how they have completely changed the way I do business.

Press play and celebrate this milestone with me.

Email me the word MINDSHIFT to apply to work with me.

Transcript

0:05

Welcome to the Empowered Edupreneur Podcast. My name is Michelle Smit, and I'm a business growth mentor and subconscious transformation coach. I work with established women in business who are ready to scale beyond what they ever thought was possible, helping them grow thriving businesses that feel as good as they look. If you're ready to elevate your identity, unlock your subconscious power and combine it with aligned strategy to create limitless results with more ease, freedom, and impact, then you're in the right place. Think of this podcast as your weekly dose of mindset upgrades and business expansion that will unlock your next level and help you thrive on your terms. We're going to have so much fun together. So thank you for pressing play today. Now let's dive in. Hi, my friend. I'm so grateful to have you here as always, and today's episode is a little different. It is a celebration. For three whole years, I have been podcasting pretty much every single week. There were a few occasions that popped up where I couldn't release a podcast every week. Because you know, life happens. But pretty much I released an episode every week and this has honestly. Being the most consistent I've ever been with anything in my life in my life and in my business. And I have to say I'm super proud of myself. I did not see this happening, and I haven't been perfect. I haven't always promoted it as much as I could have. I definitely could have done better on the marketing and the promotion around my podcast. But in terms of just building out a consistent podcast show and delivering on it. I have been showing the F up like for three years. How crazy is that? Do you know how much changes in three years? So much, like three years ago I was in a radically different place to where I was now. Oh my gosh, I just thought of this right now. A little bit off topic, but three years ago, this podcast was born in a little fishing village called Sesimbra in Portugal. Me and Mike came for three weeks to Portugal, and we wanted to test out if we liked Portugal enough to move here. And I was sitting in this little fishing town in Sesimbra in my Airbnb overlooking this beautiful view. We had this lovely view of the ocean and it was like an epiphany it felt like. That I just wanted to create a podcast and it just came out of nowhere. And I sat down and within one hour, I had basically mapped out my entire podcast, the vision of it, and I had written like a hundred podcast episodes. The flow was insane. And that was in Portugal. And now I am sitting right now recording my 156th episode after three years of consistent podcasting. And I'm recording it from my home in Portugal, which is where I live now. And I'm looking out the window right now and I'm looking at the beautiful mountains and the sun and the blue sky, and I'm like, holy shit. I'm so grateful to be here and this was the biggest dream for me. If anyone knows me, this was such a dream. And three years ago I started this podcast here, and right now I'm just celebrating this podcast here with you right now. Now I've had, I think, 20,000 downloads. I've got a beautiful bunch of loyal listeners who have stuck with me for these years and a lot of new listeners as well. So grateful if you are here and tuning in. And I'm just, yeah. It's really been a process for me to show up and do this practice consistently, share my stories, share my lessons, share my messy middle moments, because hell, there have been a couple, especially in this year, there has been so much messy middle, oh my gosh. And just obviously share what I love, which is business mindset, deep identity stuff, deep, meaningful conversation, playing bigger, making money, all of that good stuff. So, yeah, if you're one of the listeners who kept circling back to hear my voice, thank you. I'm so grateful. And it's such a privilege to be able to connect with you every week when I record this podcast. I literally think about connecting with people who are listening. So, yeah. Today I'm just going to share my biggest takeaways from three years of podcasting. These aren't just like podcasting lessons, these are just ultimate business lessons, ultimate life lessons. And they've really shaped how I create, how I show up and how I lead myself in my own business. So takeaway one is be in it for the long game. Okay? We live in a world of obsessed with speed, fast results, fast food, fast everything. We post a reel and we expect it to go viral. And if it doesn't, then we are like a failure. We just don't want to spend time doing things. Patience is seriously a virtue, people do not have the patience. I did not have the patience. I have grown to build that up. So, I would say this podcasting practice that I've done has taught me patience. So this podcasting practice and any kind of content format that you choose, whether it's YouTube or whatever it may be, it is not a sprint. It is a marathon and there is no finish line. This is the long game. People who listen to you in your podcast or watch you on YouTube, or they are on Substack and they're reading your stuff, this isn't like a quick hit. Suddenly you posted and then suddenly they choose you and then suddenly you have success and everything is great. This is a commitment. This is a practice and this is the long game. This is long form, especially content that's long form. It is a slower burn. On Instagram, it's short form. It's like doom scrolling. You can go viral. You can like have this big thing that happens, but it can burst. With the long form. I want you to think about filling a jar up with water and slowly it fills and it fills and it fills and it fills And only after, and maybe it's not a jar, maybe it's a bucket, and maybe it takes a year for that bucket to fill, but it's just consistently filling it with water. And then eventually it would overflow and it would topple and it would start working for you. So you want to realize that this is like a slow burn. And numbers might grow slowly. That isn't to say it will always grow slowly. Some people become overnight sensations very quickly, like Mel Robbins, but most people don't have her budget. Everyone who's just starting with a microphone in their voice and that's it. The results might not show up overnight. And that's okay. Podcasting taught me that success isn't about the big numbers. It's about committing to a practice. Keeping your word to yourself, keeping the word to your audience of how you're going to deliver content and not going back on that. So building a level of self trust that you trust yourself to say something and then you commit to it. And that's also a deep impact. For me, I started this podcast for a quest for meaning I really was in a place where I was grieving the loss of my father, and I was in a hole. I was in actual hole. It was the worst time of my life and I was on this incredible quest for meaning in my life. And I didn't find meaning in Instagram and the way that I was creating content. And for me, podcasting was creating meaning for myself. And that meaning is from impacting you. It's from helping you and other people. So, when I get those messages of people saying, Michelle, this episode made me cry, or this really made a difference to me. I listen to you every day, I've been binging your series. This is the story I exactly needed to hear today. I want to work with you because of your podcast. I've had so many clients come to me because of that. That's the magic and that takes time to build. So if you're in business, if you're podcasting, if you're doing any kind of content form, remember this. Your business isn't McDonald's. You're building something. Big something sacred and good things take time. So be in it for the long game, it's a practice, commit to the practice. Then my takeaway or lesson number two is to love the journey and screw the destination. I can honestly say hand on my heart that I love podcasting and I've loved it since day one. Even on the days when I feel like I record, like I didn't want to record. Not going to lie to you. Today's been quite a busy day. I really didn't feel like I could record, but you know what? I was like, I'm just going to sit down. I'm going to start talking and it's going to flow, and I'm going to feel good afterwards, and I always end up buzzing afterwards every single time. It's like I plug into my own power when I hit record. And I feel the energy of my own energy and I can like just channel my message. It feels powerful to me. And because of how I felt, that kind of told me I was doing the right thing. I was doing something that I really enjoyed. So now I've never been great at tracking my podcast stats. I did a bunch of podcast courses. I tried, but I was just not good at it. I've been much better at other stats in my business, but not my podcast stats. I haven't really followed as much of the important growth stuff that I should have been following. But I have been so in love with the journey of podcasting, just doing it, the joy of creating, the joy of connecting, the joy of speaking my truth and sharing my perspective. And I think that's been the secret to my consistency. I haven't been able to do this with anything else. Definitely not Instagram. Oh my gosh. I literally can't for that. The secret is really to love what you're doing so much that you do it. Even if nobody's was watching. For me, I'm not paying that much attention to my podcast numbers. I just love podcasting. I love sharing my story and helping people like this. So this is the message. If you can't enjoy the journey of your business, the work, the creation, the expression, then I believe that something's off. I don't believe that you'll love everything in your business. But in terms of the choices you made in terms of the content you create and how you create content and how you create in your business, that is a choice you make. And if you're hating that, that's a sign that something needs to change. You get to choose how you show up in your business and how you create content, and you want to choose the thing that makes you happy, okay? That is essential. Otherwise, it's going to be very hard to stick to it. Because when you fall in love with the process, when you release the attachment to the outcome, it's really liberating. And I really feel like that's where creativity and joy lives, because I'm not like obsessing over the numbers. I'm just enjoying creating. And that's beautiful. That's so beautiful. Like I haven't been able to do that in most other areas of my business. So if you're listening to this and you've been sort of stuck looking at the outcome of the thing, the result of the thing, the metrics, the sales, the numbers and all of that, and you're just focusing on that and you're not really enjoying the process. I want you to re-look at some things and I want you to figure out how can you get back to a place where you can enjoy the journey? It sounds cliche as F*ck, but that's the thing, come back to the joy of it. Enjoy the process of it. If you don't enjoy the process out of it, change things so you do. And that will be the fuel that will carry you through for the long game. Because remember, as I said in lesson one, this is the long game. And then take away three. If you're going to do it, do it properly. Just in general. In general with like life, but in business. So this one reminds me so much of my dad. He was the kind of man, man that was all in. Like when he picked up cycling, he trained like a pro and he was like doing all these crazy big cycling races. And he invested in all the equipment, did it properly. And then when he got into photography, he basically became a semi-pro photographer and invested in all the amazing top equipment and, just blew all of our minds with his photos. And before that actually he started to love wine and he decided, oh, I'm going to do my masters in wine. I'm going to go and study wine and learn everything about it. So he just never half assed anything. And I wouldn't say I inherited it exactly from him, because I'm not as extreme as him in my personality. I'm a lot more measured. I'm not all or nothing. I'm not an all or nothing person. But when I started this podcast, I made a promise to myself that if I'm doing this, I'm doing it properly. So I learned about podcasting. I did the courses. I created a process that I could follow every single week. It became a habits, it became a non-negotiable, and that commitment built self-respect. Major self-respect. And I think this applies to everything in business. Whatever you decide to do, go all in. Not in a hustle hard, work hard. I'm not talking about discipline and hustling. I'm talking about be devoted. Be devoted to your work. Be devoted to your craft. Be devoted to your creation process or whatever it is. Devote yourself to it. Half ass energy leads to half ass results. If you're in, be in. If you're out, be out. That's fine. You don't have to do it. So when people come to me and they're like, should I create a podcast? Should I create a YouTube channel? Should I do these things? I'm like, well. Cool. We've got to look at a lot of things before we can decide if this is the right thing for you and if you are going to do it, are you going to be all in? Because this isn't like a six month, three month thing. Are you going to be committed to at least a year of doing it? Can you commit to it? And can you do it well? Can you take it seriously? Can you invest in learning how to do it well? Are you committed to it? That energy is very, very important. It feels really crap to be half assing it. And that is why I decided to completely ditch Instagram and move to Substack, which I'm going to record my whole story of that in my next episode actually, because wow, what a journey. I can't wait to share that. But I realized I was showing up, half assed on Instagram, and I was hating the process. It just did not feel good anymore. I wasn't respecting myself in how I was showing up there. It just wasn't a vibe. So I think it's really important to be all in, in what you choose to do, especially in your business, especially if you want results. And you get to choose. You get to choose what you do. So when you do choose what to do, be all in. A hundred percent. I'm in or I'm not in. So whether it's your podcast, whether it's your offers, whether it's your whatever marketing you're doing, Instagram, substack, YouTube, Pinterest, whatever you choose, commit to it. Commit to it with all in energy and be in it for the long game and enjoy the process. Commit to it, make a decision, be all in and enjoy the process. Magic, those three things, magical. That's like my main takeaways from this journey of podcasting. So that's it. Here we are three years in almost 20,000 downloads. I'm in the top 25% of podcasts in the world, and honestly, it feels pretty damn amazing. But more than that, I'm just really proud of. The consistency. I'm proud of how I kept showing up, especially when no one is clapping. How do you show up when no one is clapping for you and no one is talking about it? How do you show up in those moments? That is such a true reflection of your character, and I'm proud of you too. I'm so grateful to you for being here, for listening and for walking this path with me. If you have been with me for a while, and if you're new here, then honestly I am super excited to go on this ongoing journey with you. Thank you for choosing me to spend your precious time with. I know a lot of you are going for walks, you're cleaning the house, you're riding in your car, and you're listening to me. You're choosing that and that's the reason I keep doing this. That's the reason I keep showing up. So here's to another year around the sun for this podcast, and yes, I will be rebranding it soon because as you know, if you have been following my journey, I am basically burning my six figure business down to the ground and pivoting to a different ish niche. I'm changing the direction of the work that I'm doing and the people that I work with as well. I don't know when that rebrand is coming, honestly, I'm not really rushing it, but when it comes, I'll let you know. Stay tuned. Who knows where this is going to go next. The world is our oyster, right?. But I'll still be here and I'm still going to keep podcasting until I hate it. Alrighty, I hope you love this episode. I hope you enjoyed those takeaways, and I will connect with you again in the next episode. Have a beautiful day. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you are an established woman in business who's ready to scale their business to the next level of success, and you don't just want strategy, you actually want deep subconscious reprogramming and powerful identity shifts. Then email me mind shift, and let's see if you are a fit for my Millionaire Mind Shift one-on-one container where I help you rewire your subconscious so you can become the woman who can create and hold incredible success visibility and wealth with ease. I appreciate you so much and I cannot wait to connect with you in the next episode. In the meantime, go create a business and life you love.