On this day

May 5th

Momentum with Robin Waite

May 5

How can podcasters build meaningful relationships that expand their reach, create new opportunities, and grow their shows—without relying on promotion or algorithms?

A five-step method helps you land dream collaborations by being helpful, not pushy.

[One little shift?] That’s it. If I hadn’t have gone to that event, if I hadn’t have just dumped my coat and helped direct people, if I hadn’t offered to help for free, if I hadn’t got to know the team, if I hadn’t, if I’d asked for the wrong thing or too much or too, I don’t know if I’d got the ask wrong, any one of those things could have ended up being like a Sliding Doors [the 1998 film -ed] moment where I then I go from 3000 leads to just going about my life as a coach.

~ Robin Waite (15:00)

Robin Waite shares how he reinvented his business growth strategy by focusing on building partnerships rather than following conventional marketing playbooks. Feeling burnt out by social media and traditional outreach, he adopted an “outside-in” approach—intentionally targeting people he admired, getting in the same room with them, and offering help without expectation. His approach centers on showing up, adding value, and making intentional asks that are aligned with what others actually need.

He illustrates this with a detailed story of how he ended up as a guest on Ali Abdaal’s Deep Dive podcast, which generated over 3,000 leads and $300,000 in business. Key elements included making himself useful at events, building relationships with team members, and being ready with a modest but well-timed ask. Waite expands on this philosophy by identifying five steps: be intentional, get in the room, be helpful, find the inside person, and offer something on a silver platter. The conversation underscores the power of authentic connection, strategic generosity, and long-term thinking in business development.

Takeaways

Intentional targeting of collaborators — Write down a list of specific individuals or brands that feel like a natural fit for connection and mutual value.

Be physically present and engaged — Attend events in person, sit in the front row, and look for ways to directly interact with people you admire.

Generosity without expectation — Offer help freely without asking for anything in return, and allow opportunities to arise organically.

Use social cues to create asks — Make requests that are context-aware, modest, and well-timed based on what you’ve learned about the other person’s situation.

Relationship-building is long-term — Partnerships can take months or even years to develop, and consistent presence matters more than speed.

Imposter syndrome is common — Many successful people share similar doubts and insecurities, making them more approachable than they appear.

Ask through value — Frame your request as a contribution or offer rather than a favor, focusing on what the other person would gain.

The power of introductions — Introducing others who might benefit from knowing each other is a high-leverage, generous act that strengthens your own relationships.

Reciprocity as rocket fuel — Gifts, paid gestures, or generous actions can accelerate connection when done thoughtfully and in alignment with mutual respect.

Avoid transactional thinking — Relationships thrive on genuine interest and value-sharing, not on immediate or one-sided exchanges.

Resources

Take Your Shot – Free Book Offer — Robin Waite’s book, offered for free (worldwide shipping) to podcast listeners.

Fearless Business Podcast — Robin Waite’s own podcast, combining solo and guest episodes on business topics.

Robin Waite’s YouTube Channel — Features practical, high-level content on entrepreneurship and coaching.

Ali Abdaal’s Deep Dive Podcast — The podcast where Robin Waite was featured, which led to 3,000 inquiries and $300k in business.

Simon Alexander Ong — Coach and speaker cited as a role model for being intentional and abundant.

(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)

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Nobody

May 5, 2024

I’m a brooder. Ruminating on one’s problems can be good, if one is actually trying to understand the situation and is seeking solutions. But brooding, that’s just ruminating without the potential for change. Brooding is simply going around and around on the same old thoughts.

Nobody else needs to endure my negative thoughts.

~ Nate Dickson from, The Life-Changing Power of Shutting Up

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It’s not enough to simply shut up. One also has to change one’s thinking.

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Extraneous as passing fiction

May 5, 2023

After this era of great pilots is gone, as the era of great sea captains has gone — each nudged aside by the march of inventive genius, by steel cogs and copper discs and hair-thin wires on white faces that are dumb, but speak — it will be found, I think, that all the science of flying has been captured in the breadth of an instrument board, but not the religion of it. One day the stars will be as familiar to each man as the landmarks, the curves, and the hills on the road that leads to his door, and one day this will be an airborne life. But by then men will have forgotten how to fly; they will be passengers on machines whose conductors are carefully promoted to familiarity with labelled buttons, and in whose minds the knowledge of the sky and the wind and the way of weather will be extraneous as passing fiction.

~ Beryl Markham from, A Different Solitude: Pioneering Aviator Beryl Markham on What She Learned About Life in the Bottomless Night

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As if there’s anything I could write which would add to that.

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What’s in a name

May 5, 2022

A challenge arises when we make something over a long period of time. As we evolve — as we add experiences, impressions, memories, deepening knowledge and self-knowledge to the combinatorial pool from which all creative work springs — what we make evolves accordingly; it must, if we are living widely and wisely enough. Eventually, the name we once chose for it begins to feel not like a choice but like a constraint, an ill-fitting corset ribbed with the ossified sensibility of a former self.

~ Maria Popova from, Becoming the Marginalian: After 15 Years, Brain Pickings Reborn

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Popova changed the name of her project a while back, and this is a nice unpacking of her thinking. I’ve a lot of projects, and they have various names; Names that are public and names for them in my own mind.

With each project, I continuously struggle to balance the desire for concision and the desire for clarity. I drive myself mercilessly to find the simplest phrase that is something memorable and meaningful. And then I drive myself mercilessly to be ready and able to explain things as iterative layers of unpacking. That name. A few sentences. A few minutes of explanation. And so on, expanding to a fully dynamic conversation about the thing. On one hand, I know that this zooming in, (towards a concise name,) and zooming out, (toward a coherent and thorough explanation,) improves my thinking and understanding. But on the other hand. It’s really exhausting.

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The challenge

May 5, 2021

The process isn’t overly complicated or hard. The challenge becomes moving through it at the right pace in a way that aligns with your principles.

~ Shane Parrish from, How People Make Big Decisions

This is the exceedingly rare case where what I really want to quote is a small graphic from the site, and I simply don’t feel like copying the image and uploading it, just to include it here. (You’ll have to click over.)

I found myself thinking about the little graphic, which has an outer circle describing a process for change. Starting at the here-and-now called, “doing,” forward over a “Rubicon” and then full circle to a new here-and-now of “doing.” There are several ways to fail at changing, by short-circuiting through self-defeating statements. And that’s what I’m thinking about today.

What self-defeating stories am I telling myself? Why?

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Blindingly obvious

May 5, 2020

A few weeks ago I had a rapid sequence of ideas related to reading books. All of these are blindingly obvious in hindsight:

One can gang books together when reading. Grab Aurelius’s Meditations, Frankl’s, Man’s Search for Meaning, Seneca’s Letters, and Epictetus’s Discourses, Handbook and Fragments—and read a little from each of them in each sitting. Or grab the Constitution of the United States, The Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist Papers, and Stevens’s Six Amendments. (What “gang” of books springs to mind for you?)

One is permitted to place multiple bookmarks in the same book. Yes I’ve long advocated adding sticky notes to mark various things in a book as I go along. But the idea of reading in multiple places simultaneously in the same book hadn’t really occurred to me.

One can make their own bookmarks from 1/4″ satin ribbon! I have all sorts of bookmarks; things which slide onto the edge like a paper-clip, printed cards (“Remain calm. I’m the Doctor.” for example) with the usual string or ribbon from the end, 3×5 cards stuffed in randomly, and large sticky notes. But it’s way cooler to cut a length of ribbon and drape it through the book… just like really cool and expensive books which arrive with a bookmark sewn into their binding.

If you’re cutting ribbon to make bookmarks, you can easily attach it into the book just like the fancy books’ marks. Cut it long enough to: lay one end between the last two pages of the book, tight in against the binding, with the end near the top of the page, and the ribbon laying down the page. Flip a few pages on top of it to hold it in place, and lay the ribbon back up across the entire book again tight in against the binding. Now you have a bookmark that feels like it’s sewn into the binding when you grab the lower portion sticking out of the book as your mark.

My final thought in that recent cascade was of course: Okay, wow, I really have a book problem.

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The “wind and solar will save us” delusion

May 5, 2017

There has been a misunderstanding regarding the nature of our energy problem. Many people believe that we will “run out” of fossil fuels, or that the price of oil and other fuels will rise very high. In fact, our problem seems to be one of affordability: energy prices don’t rise high enough to cover the rising cost of producing electricity and other energy products. Adding wind and solar tends to make the problem of low commodity prices worse.

~ Gail Tverberg from, The “Wind and Solar Will Save Us” Delusion

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Presented without comment.

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Calm down and be civil

May 5, 2015

You laugh, and then you probably think to yourself (like I did), “oh crap…that’s me…many, many times.” Whether it’s a delayed flight, or slow service at a restaurant (where we’ll overeat and then complain about being full) it’s amazing what we can complain about just so we have something to complain about!

~ Steve Kamb from, Does It REALLY Matter?

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