Day 30: My 30-Day Podcasting Challenge Experience – 30 days, 30 episodes

I'm Matt Gilhooly, and this is the Life Shift Candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the final day of 30 days, 30 episodes of the Life Shift podcast. Wow. Like, it's been a lot.

It's been 30 days of showing up mostly after work and sitting down and looking at a prompt or responding to a suggestion from a friend or just a random thought that came to my mind to do these episodes. And I really challenged myself at the beginning because I felt like I wasn't giving enough to the Life Shift podcast. I wasn't. I don't know.

It felt like things were on the back burner because work was so busy and I wasn't able to do what I wanted to do on the show. In my previous job, I didn't have to really spend a lot of time, every day working really hard.

So I had a lot of time to promote the show and do those things, and I don't have that time now, but I also don't have the funds to kind of outsource that yet. You know, as an indie podcaster, you just can't compete with the big shows because they have a huge marketing budget.

They have a lot of reach because they have that. They have connections and all the things that come with this.

I am just doing all of this myself and having wonderful, amazing guests pitch themselves to be on the show, have these wonderful conversations, share the episodes. Sometimes guests ghost. I don't know.

You know, maybe they don't feel comfortable sharing that story, but in any case, it kind of falls on me for the show to grow in whatever way. And sometimes I. I don't feel like I'm doing enough. But I'm only one person, and I can only do what I can do, and so that is okay.

But this challenge was something to kind of get me out of my comfort zone, get on here, maybe share a little bit more about myself compared to sharing the stories of my guests.

I have, in every episode, shared a little bit of myself because that is kind of where all my questions come from and the way that I look at the world based on my own personal experiences. And I feel like maybe that adds a little color to each episode.

But if guests are only listening to an episode here and there, maybe they're not getting the whole picture. So maybe over these last 30 days, you've learned a little bit about me. Maybe you've found a little bit more of my personality. I don't know.

Something has happened in these 30 days. And it has been a good challenge. I.

I feel like it's been really interesting and I like the idea of being able to share a little bit more about myself. So how can I use this moving forward? I'm not sure.

I definitely won't be doing a daily episode because it is a lot of work and it is a lot of pressure. I also don't think that this show is all about me trying to teach the audience anything or to sell any particular products.

I do have shirts and stuff like that that I do sell on Bonfire. And I do have like a PayPal donation and a Patreon. And now I signed up for Ko Fi Coffee.

I don't know how you say it, but essentially these are all like donation sites. So if you are interested in supporting the show in any of those ways, reach out to me. I can give you the links.

I think they're in my Instagram bio links, they're on my website, those kind of things.

But in any case, I think what I might want to do to kind of bridge the gap between the episodes every week, right, where I'm showcasing the guest pivotal moments and their life shifting moments and having those conversations.

And then on this side, this 30 days, 30 episodes, which I'm not going to do, I think there's an opportunity for me to create maybe an episode each week or a bonus episode each week, if you will, where potentially now I'm not committing to this just yet, but potentially I can listen fresh ears to the episode of that week and then in real time that week, respond to my thoughts on the story, how it connects with me, maybe the things that I realized about myself by listening to myself kind of conduct that conversation or that interview, and then just have a little bonus episode each week where that's kind of a reflection or something that I took away from that particular episode.

So that's what I'm thinking now of how I can move forward with something that still adds a little bit more of Matt into this show without losing the whole point of this show, which is that someone out there that's maybe feeling alone in their circumstances hears an episode from one of the guests and feels less alone or feels inspired to do something or make a change or those kind of things, all really stemming from that, like, growing up version of me who just felt like he needed to know that he was going to be okay and he didn't have to be perfect and he didn't have to do all these things. And so really that's the goal of it. But I do Want to try to infuse another element to this show.

I also have been thinking about this and I'll just say it out loud now. I don't think I'm giving enough time to these generous people that are donating to the Patreon every single month.

And so I need to figure out a way that I can can best serve them.

And so moving forward, I might be lowering the cost of the tiers and removing the bonus episode that I committed to there because I want to kind of grow the show in ways that I don't think I can commit to that. And so more to come on that.

But I think that right now, early episode seems to be a good option for Patreon and maybe I just kind of stick with that level and, you know, I can't. I don't know.

This feels really terrible, but I think that I'm not giving enough and I don't feel like I am fulfilling all the things that people are donating their hard earned money for. And I really want to deliver on all aspects.

And so with a full time job, it kind of keeps me from being able to do all the things that I feel like I owe people. Now, I know the podcast is free, podcasts are free just in general. And I know that there's really not a great way to make money for this show.

Of course I would love a sponsor.

I am connected with people that have these amazing sponsorship deals where they're getting tens of thousands of dollars for their shows or for what they're doing on YouTube or whatever that is. Maybe that's in the cards for 2025, 2026, who knows where that goes?

But right now I don't feel like I'm delivering enough for the generous people on the Patreon. So more to come on whether or not I just reduce that down or whatever that may be.

But there's me being authentic and real right here, live for everyone.

But these 30 days have really taught me that there are a lot of things that I think that I can share from my own personal experience, but they all are kind of circled around these, these very similar moments. And really what I learn from myself through this show is through my guests, more so than me talking through here.

What I have Learned through these 30 days though, is that I can do this.

I can come down to the microphone and say whatever is top of mind and not be afraid to share that and not be afraid to within 45 minutes to an hour, turn those episodes around, put them out for the world and not worry about the fact that anyone around the world could be listening to that episode and have certain feelings about what I'm saying. So that's a really cool experience.

And I think that's what these 30 days have taught me, is that it really doesn't matter what I say because my opinions are valid and they are worth sharing at times. I think there are maybe some of these episodes that are kind of just totally throwaway episodes, but maybe not.

Maybe there is something in every episode that resonated with someone. It might not have been the point of the episode either. Might have just been something I said.

So I think that I'm very proud of myself for doing these 30 days and committing to it. I'm super proud that I committed to showing up every day and not batching or doing things ahead of time.

If you are watching the video, you've probably seen this sweatshirt a lot. This is like my uniform, so it's not that I did them all on the same day. I just happen to wear this sweatshirt all the time.

And I maybe rotated a few times within these episodes. But watching the video, you're probably like, well, I've seen that sweatshirt a lot.

But if you know me, you know that I like to wear sweatshirts for probably the reasons that I talked about when I was talking about my disordered eating and problems there and having meh kind of days. This sweatshirt is kind of like this comfort blanket. So I don't know what to kind of wrap this bonus episode up with.

Beyond the fact that I'm super grateful that I committed to it, I'm super grateful that I did it.

I think that it's going to lead into something that maybe is a cool little addition for me for the Life Shift podcast, for guests to hear a little bit more of my reflection on that conversation, for audience members to hear my thoughts on that, how it relates to my own personal experiences, whatever that may be. I'll try to be as real and off the cuff as possible on those, I think. I guess I just committed to doing that, but I think that's what I'm gonna do.

I think it's a really cool evolution, if you will, going into what is going to be starting year four. Is that true? I guess so. I mean, 160 something episodes. 166 episodes recorded now. So I'm going into really starting year four, I guess in March.

That'll be three official years since starting. So going into that fourth year, wow, that's pretty crazy. So thank you for coming on this journey.

Thank you for letting me just talk a lot in this November term of 30 days, 30 episodes. I hope you've enjoyed some of it, that some of it has been interesting to you.

I've heard from some of you that, you know, this is a nice little episode to put on before bed when you're getting ready and doing these things because they're nice and short. So maybe that's what these bonus episodes will do. So that's it. Thank you for coming along this ride.

I will say that you'll see a new version of something, whatever that looks like that has come from this. I don't know if it'll happen in December or if that will start with 2025. I think there will be some updates to the Patreon.

So if you're someone that's listening on Patreon, thank you for all your support. I'm sorry that I haven't done all that I promise to do, but I just appreciate you and thank you for what you've done.

So thank you for coming on this journey. Thank you for listening to the Life Shift podcast. Thank you to my guests for being a part of it. This sounds like a goodbye. It's not a goodbye.

This is just the end of this 30 day experiment. So thank you. And I'm going to stop talking now because clearly I cannot stop.

So have a great day, have a great holiday and I will see you whenever I do the next thing. For more information, please visit WW the Life Shift podcast dot com.