Episode 065. “She asked me how could I express gratitude. My first thought was “to whom?” But she meant… gratitude to mySELF.” ~Andrea Klunder

Pause, take a deep breath, lift your head, and look around...

I just released an episode in my new-ish podcast about the craft of podcasting, Podcast Envy, about downloads, numbers, stats, etc and you probably know already how I feel about using those metrics as a measure for success from my Creative Impostor episode 57: What do numbers have to do with success?

And I propose a question that applies to areas of life and work beyond podcasting, which is — if these numerical metrics were to disappear…

If you could not easily see how many followers you had on Facebook or Instagram, how many people liked your picture, or retweeted your post. If you had no idea how many people were subscribed to your email newsletter or opened it or unsubscribed. If you did not have a head count for the audience of your talk or your show… If you did not see an actual number…

… how would YOU measure success? How would you value your OWN work?

Sometimes I feel like my own numbers are too small. Like I’m working and working and working and no one notices or cares. Like I’ll never reach that critical mass of followers where suddenly the conversion statistics  come out to actual sales of services and I can actually earn a sustainable comfortable income off of the content I create and the work that I do.

And sometimes I feel like a fraud, teaching podcasting classes, encouraging hundreds of other people to create a podcast and being positioned as the “expert” or making recommendations on gear, equipment and software when certainly there are other people out there who know more in that department than I do.

And I keep putting myself out there despite those feelings.

And THEN what happens? Listen and find out...