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How to lose friends and influence no one

My new Podcast launched, and it’s bombing

Sunday night I uploaded the episode and shared it on Facebook. I woke up to one Like and three listens, one of them mine. That means that less people liked and listened than were in the actual episode. 

We see all of the success stories out there, but so little of the failure. Even though the majority of people and projects will fail, they are the voiceless majority. The story that’s never told. 

It feels vulnerable putting this show out into the world. I know it’s unrefined, and we’re making a lot of it up as we go. But the sting is still real. 

Teller (of Penn & Teller) supposedly once said, “don’t trust any advice you didn’t pay for.” Relying on feedback from friends and Facebook is exactly that. 

At what point do I end this project? Does it matter how many people listen to it, when I’m having so much fun doing it? I need to continue to test as many variables as possible and look at the data, but I’m not a machine. 

Sometimes I forget that. A lot of self help gurus do too. Maybe I’ve been drinking too much of their Cool Aide. 

We glorify failure as a learning process, as the necessary steps to success. But the reality is that most people and projects will fail with no growth out of it. We love the moon shot – the gal who sold everything to start her company and worked her way to success. We don’t pay attention to the 99 other people who lost everything doing the same. 

I do believe that failure is what you make of it. No,  it’s not good. But take at least something valuable away from it. That said falling on your face doesn’t hurt any less, even when you learn a lesson from it. 

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