There’s no correct answer to this question. The only important thing is that each of us takes the time to find our own answer. This is not a “set it and forget it” situation: You have to reconsider this question periodically too.

Yesterday I was talking with a podcaster who is in the middle of a significant pivot of their show. Why the pivot? It wasn’t working for them any more.

I’ve pivoted shows, started new shows, intentionally stopped publishing episodes of a show, and completely deleted shows from existence. Each time because there was a clear sign (often a sign I’d been in denial about) that the show was no longer working for me.

That’s what you have to figure out for yourself.

I did 1,400 episodes of Little Box of Quotes as a daily show. I had specific things I was practicing. When creating new episodes became a thing I started avoiding, I stopped. A year later, I’m thinking of resuming publishing the show, but my reasons for publishing it are now completely different.

I’ve tried two different show-formats for the Open + Curious podcast. Now in 2025, I’m scheduling guests for its 3rd season which will be in my signature style of conversation.

The Movers Mindset podcast hasn’t been the same format since day one. There’s been a bunch of experiments within that show. As I have new ideas, and new questions about what can a recorded conversation be, that’s where I’ve done most of my experimentation.

Even Podtalk has changed over time. What began as “the companion podcast to the Podcaster Community” (conversations with the community’s members) expanded to conversations with any independent podcast creator.

As I said: There’s no one, correct answer for everyone. There isn’t even one, correct answer for each of us!

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No one gets everything right in their first few episodes (or even after 100 episodes). Looking back, what’s something you used to do—or believe—that you’ve completely changed your mind about?

~ Asked by the LLM⁽¹⁾

By far my biggest mistake was chasing perfection.

It’s subtle when simply improving as one does more work, tips over into chasing perfection. Improvement is fine, but it’s not the reason why I’m making podcasts. I first had to figure out my reasons for podcasting, then it became easier to see when an improvement was fine, and when an improvement was an unnecessary detour. (Perfection, after all, can be hiding from the actual work.)

For me, an example of chasing perfection went like this…

In my initial recorded conversations, I first paid-per-minute for a human-done transcription. (It was 2017.) Then I printed the entire transcript. Then I reviewed the audio with the transcript as a guide, enabling me to keep track of the larger themes and story-arc in each conversation. Then I was annotating the transcript for various editing possibilities. Finally, I passed the editing off to another person (a paid, team member) that I was working with to create the show. Today, of course, this can all be done much quicker and with little (if any) actual cost.

Eventually, I realized that for what I’m trying to accomplish there’s no need to edit. So all that getting better editing, or doing it for less cost, turns out to be the wrong thing for me to be doing. Chasing improvement was hiding. Chasing perfection was an error.

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(1) I’m working with an LLM instance which has access to everything I’ve written about podcasting, and all the episodes I’ve published. It prompts me by asking me these questions.

There’s a lot of conventional wisdom in podcasting—things like “You have to publish weekly” or “Shorter episodes are better.” But not all common advice applies to everyone. What’s something you’ve found doesn’t actually work or that people should rethink?

~ Asked by the LLM⁽¹⁾

Don’t go alone.

I don’t think people do well trying to do their podcast entirely by themselves. I think this is really a point about creating art in general.

Yes, one definitely should do the work for the work’s sake. (What is referred to as autotelic.) Yes, don’t depend on external motivation and reward. But it is not easy to do that entirely alone.

The easy way is to find others who share your passion. You don’t need to directly collaborate on your work. But you absolutely will be happier if you have others who speak your jargon, do the thing, and face the same struggles.

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(1) I’m working with an LLM instance which has access to everything I’ve written about podcasting, and all the episodes I’ve published. It prompts me by asking me these questions.