Ep 84 Behind the Scenes of The Remote Work Retirement Show

 In episode 84, I take you behind the scenes of The Remote Work Retirement Show so that you can hear the good, the bad, and the ugly about this podcast.

Click here to see these pretty images of the stats.

You're listening to the remote work retirement show. I'm your host, Camille Attell. And this is the only show that helps semi-retirees figure out their remote work options. 

I believe remote work is the new retirement plan and that many retirees have both the ability and desire to work how they want so they can live how they want. Let's dig into today's episode.... 

Hello and welcome to a brand-new year. At the time of this recording, it is January 1st, 2024. It may be a different day or date for you, and for most people, this is a holiday. Well, I shouldn't say for most people, because there are a lot of working people who still work on the first and I am one of them. It seems that these days I don't really take vacations when everybody else takes vacations.

I worked on Christmas. I'm working today. And there are a lot of holidays where I work. That is the reality of owning your own business, not for everyone, but for me. I like it because I find that when everyone else is taking a vacation or a day off, it's a lot quieter and I can focus. So today I have a special episode for you.

I had so many other ideas planned for the episode today, but I decided that I should take a step back. Because I really need to celebrate sometimes and I encourage you to do this as well, instead of just always working and toiling away or throwing yourself at this project and that project, or even worse, being hard on yourself for not doing work. You have to sometimes take a break and think about how far have you gone, and how much have you accomplished.

And I really need to do this with this show. I've never done an episode like this before in the, now over two years that I've been doing this show and I thought it would be fun to share with you a little bit more about how this show gets made. Okay. Yes, I'm calling it the good, the bad, and the ugly. But to be fair it's all relative. Whether it's good or bad is kind of subjective in my own mind. And the ugly part, I guess that's also kind of subjective.

And so that's why it's another good idea to take a break and look at the show from a distance, really take myself, the person out of the work and see it through a fresh lens. And again, I'm saying this, not only to myself, but to you too and try to remove yourself sometimes from the work, take your ego out of it. Take your own feelings out of it, your own perceptions out of it and just look at the results.

Now sometimes we look at results and we don't like them, and I'm definitely in that camp. But I will tell you that when I looked at the results of this podcast over the last couple of years, I was absolutely shocked at how good the results are. And it's so weird because sometimes you feel so different than what the results actually say.

So, I thought I would kick it off by telling you, you know, what are the stats, what, what does the data say about this show? Because there's a lot to celebrate and that will go in the good category. And then I might lump the bad and the ugly stuff together into one category because really why drag myself through bad and ugly into separate categories? Let's just really minimize that.

So, for the good, let me talk about, let me take you back to, I'm going to say it was around. October or November of 2021. That is about the time I started planning this show. And if you've listened to or read the show notes for a while now, you've heard that Sir Isaac Smith, who used to be a client in Remote Work School or a student at the time, came out of Remote Work School.

He was a bus driver and went into becoming a podcast producer. Now, you can hear his story on the very last episode and there are several episodes I've had where he's talked about his story. It's a really inspiring one where he decided he was done being a bus driver. He had been in radio So he knew that he had what it would take to then become a podcast producer.

That was his remote work journey. And because he was in Remote Work School as a student, he started reaching out to me to encourage me to do this show, to do a podcast. And I really didn't want to do a podcast. Not because I don't like them, but because it just felt like more work. And this was during a time when I was really starting to experience some of the most challenging and difficult symptoms of, at that time I didn't realize, was depression.

I've talked about that on this show and a few other things that I'm not going to get into today. It was a really, really tough time for me. There were things going on in my personal life and my health, things in my family. It was, it was a lie. And the, like the last thing I wanted to do was a podcast.

But Isaac, I don't know, there was something about his, his encouragement and his inspiration and his belief and his vision in me. And what's ironic about that is I'm someone who can do that for other people. I do that for people inside of Remote Work School, my coaching program, all the time. I see their potential and their talent, and sometimes they just need a cheerleader. What I didn't realize at the time was that Isaac was my cheerleader. And I didn't know that I needed one. And so I'm so grateful for him and his vision and his belief that I could do this.

Now, let me just talk a little bit about the, I guess I'll put this slightly in the bad category. I know I'm going to talk about the good stuff here in a minute, but the bad part about the experience back then is it felt really, really hard. I mean, the technology felt hard. The production side of it felt hard. Having to meet a deadline, felt hard.

And then I started with this giant vision that I was going to do a YouTube channel and it was going to be a video podcast. And then when I looked at it, it all looked really horrible to me and very amateurish. And, you know, you know, when you do something new and you know what your level of good looks like. And I'm not even a perfectionist and my level of good was falling way short.

I mean, it just looked like a really terrible, bad television show that was made in somebody's garage in my mind. Now other people say I'm just way too hard on myself. I understand that. But I very quickly nixed the whole YouTube side of it because I'm like, no, I can't do it. It's just too much. It's hard enough for me to show it, to just show up at the microphone and get my thoughts together and write notes and start recording.

And over the years, here's the good part. So I'll share with you the good part over the years. What I've learned is to just show up. And do the work no matter how quote-unquote bad or good or easy or hard it is because the more you show up and do it, not only the easier it gets, the better it gets. I think the show is so much better than it was two years ago. Do I always think that, no. I have better episodes than others and that's okay.

Like you're not gonna, you know, hit it out of the park every time, right? You can't, it's not, it's not achievable to be that level of perfection every single time. Right.

I want to go back really quickly and mention Isaac for a minute because the other thing I meant to say is go get yourself a cheerleader. Make sure that you have someone in your life who cheers you on, and that believes in you. That sees your potential.

That if, if you can't see your vision right now, they can see the vision for you and they keep cheering you on and they keep reminding you that you've got what it takes. You have got to get someone like that in your corner. Now I would like to say it's a family member but let's get real, it is very rarely a family member that's going to cheer you on that much. I mean, if you've got one great, good for you. I have, I have some family members like that, but more often it's a friend who believes in me. Maybe it's a coworker or just someone in my life, my husband, a spouse, a partner. Hopefully, that's ideal because if you live with someone who isn't your cheerleader, I know that's hard nowadays.

I will tell you that some of my biggest cheerleaders are people who listen to this show. And so, number one, I really just want to shout out those of you who listen, if you're a listener or a reader and you've written me, or you dropped me a direct message on Instagram to tell me that you listened to the show and that it makes a difference to you. That's huge.

That goes in the good category. That's a, that's a win. Not a lot of people do it, I will say. But when someone does it, it is so meaningful to me, it means so much to me that I know that there's at least one person whom I'm reaching, whom I make a difference to whom this show makes a difference to.

So I'm going to start there with the good, that's good. And there, there were a few folks who reached out to me this year to say, I listened to all of your episodes, which by the way is fantastic if you do. But even just a few, you know, someone, someone, called me on the phone. By the way, I mean, who calls people on the phone anymore? Like leaves a message?

I had a friend call me not too long ago and leave a message and said in the message, they said, hey, call me back, I really want to talk to you. And I got worried. I thought, oh no, what? Oh, or what are they going to say? What, what could it possibly be? I feel like either I did something wrong or, you know, do they have a beef with me?

Isn't that sad? That that's how I feel when someone calls me instead of texts. So this is a good reminder to just like, aways, always think about the positives, right? Assume positive intent. My little lessons today are more for me than you, I feel like. So anyway, this person called me up, so I called them back and I'm like, hey, what's going on?

And they said, hey, I just listened to your podcast. And I have to say I'd never listened before, but I just listened and, and it was awesome. I loved it. I think you're a natural user. You're so relatable and friendly. And I felt like I was just hanging out with you and having coffee. And I have to tell you that was such a compliment for me because that's exactly what I want.

I want this to feel like when you listen to it or read it that you're just hanging out with me and we're having a coffee because I want it to feel that way. Those are the types of shows I like to listen to. So I hope that that's, that's true for you. And by the way, if you want to, if you want to send me an instant message on Instagram, that's the best place to reach me. You can email me as well at [email protected]. That's in the show notes. Let me know. I'd love it. I'd love it.

Okay, let's talk about some other things that go in the good category. These are actual data and statistics about the show. I thought this would be really interesting to share.

So, like I said, I've been at this for about two years, a little over two years. I started off doing an episode every other week because it was just too hard to do them weekly. But this year in 2020, well, last year, 2023, I recorded an episode every single week. That I can't believe I did it. I don't know how I did it. I don't think I took any time off at all. I got some statistics from a platform that I use called Buzzsprout and it said that I recorded like 0.96 episodes every week.

So I don't know how they got to 0.96. I think it's because they sent me the statistics early in December and they just hadn't accounted for the whole year, but I'm pretty certain, I did an episode a week. So, you know, I should be like a solid one and one a week in the stats. Okay, let's look at some other statistics.

So I am in this show. The Remote Work Retirement Show was in the top 25% of all podcast shows. Now that's pretty cool. I'm very surprised by that. I believe that has that number has to do with the, I'm trying to think if it's the number of downloads. I believe it is. I think it has to do with the number of downloads that you have.

And I think it's something like if you have over 150 downloads, you, you get in this, this, this percentage. So when I think about it that way, I'm like, hmm, that doesn't sound like a lot. But. and I know that there's a time period for those downloads. I don't know if it's like per month. I think it might be per month.

And by the way, I have way more than that per month, but I don't know, maybe that's an average. I should really know this step better. But it wasn't the most exciting of all the stats, which is why it's kind of fuzzy for me. So here's what you need to know. This show, it's in the top 25% of all podcasts anywhere. So, hey, that's pay. Why not? That's pretty cool. I'll take it. I'll take the win. Right? Okay.

So let's talk about some other really exciting stats. This, this one really blew me away. So this podcast has been downloaded in 64 countries! So I get what's called, I guess a Globe Trotter Award. I don't know, these are not real awards, but these are just fun, little awards that Buzzsprout sends you. And so let me give you some actual breakdown number breakdowns of those countries.

They gave me like the top five. So the top country is the United States, which makes a ton of sense. I'm based here. And most of the people who listen are here and, and almost everyone who joins Remote Work School, my coaching program, is in the United States.

But there are a few folks who come from Australia. We've had folks from New Zealand, and France. Ooh if I miss it, oh, Canada, for sure. Sorry if you've been in Remote Work School and I'm not calling out your country. Oh, definitely I've had folks from Latin America. I'm just trying to remember where. And, and I believe in Central America,  But I can't remember the exact countries right now.

So again, my apologies, but here are the other countries on the list that are, that are ranking at the top. So Canada is number two, the United Kingdom is number three. Oh yeah. I've had people from the UK in my program. Australia is number four and Germany is number five. So I guess I'm not surprised by the US, Canada, UK, and Australia because again, I've had some of those folks in my program. But Germany, I had no idea.

And I haven't gone to pull the other staffs too, to see like, well, what are the other countries? Because it says that the show is in 64 countries. That is just mind-boggling. I can't even wrap my head around that. What feels like this little show to me is in 64 countries! And in the United States alone, I had 9,215 downloads. So that's that?

Listen, I'm going to take the win. I'm really excited about this, by the way, I have an Instagram post that shows all the pretty, I guess I'll call them graphics for this. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes if you want to actually see the visuals of all of these statistics.

Okay. The next one. It gave me a rundown of my Top Five Episodes for 2023, not the full two years, but for 2023 Here are the top five episodes.

So, Founders Over 50, where I was interviewed by Isaac and he talked all about, or he asked me questions about what it's like to start a business and run a business and have a podcast and all of that. That was a number one. This makes me super excited because I think I will bring back the Founders Over 50 series because it was really popular.

People loved it. People wrote me about it. And if you don't know what that is, I'll put a link to the kickoff for that one. I think I did that one mid-year. I had Isaac interview me as the starting point. I think I was the starting point. And then I had three other founders over 50 on the show that I interviewed.

And these are folks who started a business after 50. One of them was over 60, I think 65 even, when she started her business. And my oldest person was 81. Richard, our lovely Richard who's so fun to interview. He started, well, he had been an artist before that, but then, then he went online. He started doing art classes online.

So, so the interview that kicks out a whole series off though is the one where, where I get interviewed. And that's #1 on the show for 2023. So I will definitely do more of that since that was so popular.

The 2nd is Exploring the Top Remote Jobs and Business Ideas. I should have numbers. I should tell you what numbers these are. My apologies, I just didn't realize that the number of the episode was not specified in these stats. But listen, if you scroll through, you'll find all of these in the list of podcast episodes.

Okay. #3, this one kind of surprises me, surprises me, but kind of doesn't. It's called How to Earn a Great Income with a Sticker Shop on Etsy. The reason why that surprises me that that's so popular is because this was kind of an accidental episode. I had found someone that I started following who had built this great sticker shop on Etsy. Her name is Kimmy Kinsey. And I reached out to her kind of randomly, and I'm like, I want to learn more about your Etsy sticker business. I said, do you want to come on the show because I'm, if I'm going to ask you the questions, I might as well interview you about it and just turn it into a podcast. So the reason why I think this is so popular is because Kimmie has such a huge audience. And she shared this with her audience. So a lot of her folks found my podcast that way. So, hey, shout out to Kimmy.

Okay. #4 on the list is The Top Five Remote Work and Business Predictions for 2023. Not surprising because I, I seem to end every year with that episode. In fact, you can go back one episode before this 80, no, 80. I think it was 82. Oh, goodness. Now I'm forgetting. I think it was 82, actually 81, 82 and 83. And I think 80 all talk about the predictions for 2024. And so this is that one, but for 2023. So that was a really popular one.

And #5 on the list is Nine Skills You Need to be a Candidate for Remote Jobs. So these were the top five most popular episodes. I will definitely use these as inspiration and do more like this since these were the top episodes that everyone really liked. Okay.

Now here are, here's one other stat that I think is really impressive to me. If, if this weren't me because, you know, I'm so hard on myself. I'm like, well, I could've done better. But if I'm looking at this, as not me, this stat really blows me away. And that is there were 13,100 downloads in 2023 of this show. 13,000!!

I mean, that is just mind-boggling. Who is listening? That's amazing. Now that doesn't mean 13,000 people because some people listen to every episode, um, or, uh, Um, you know, multiple episodes or go back and relisten to an episode and all of those. Those, those get counted into this number.

But that's like think about it this way. I can't take credit for this visual. I heard this from someone I followed for a really long time named Amy Porterfield. She does digital marketing and courses. That's, that's how I got started in the course business, by the way. She said this, whenever you think you, you have nobody working with you or listening to you or buying your programs, imagine those people in your living room. Right?

So like, if you, if you think about, well only 20 people bought my course or only a hundred people listened to that episode. Think about a hundred people in your living room. Right? So for this example, I'm thinking about 13,100 people in my living room. Impossible right? I don't even think they'd fit on the street.

And so when I think about it that way, that's a lot of people and that's a lot of folks who are hopefully getting value from the show. And when I think about it that way, it keeps me motivated and inspired to keep doing the show. Because I got to tell ya, in the bad camp, sometimes I feel like quitting. You know, and I know you can relate to this because there's probably things you do in your life where you feel like quitting, right?

This is all really sweet, sometimes bittersweet, because like I said, it has been hard at times. But when I see these types of statistics and I get the emails from people, or I hear people tell me directly how much the show means to them or how much they enjoy it or love it, then it keeps me going. Okay.

So those are all really good things. I don't really even want to end with the bad or the ugly. I mean, I guess I'll give you just a couple of, um, funny, I'll make them funny stories. There have been times where I've recorded a whole episode and realized I never pressed the record button. And I had to rerecord the whole episode.

Those are days I feel like quitting. Last week was really tough because I had learned a new technology to interview Isaac or have Isaac on the show. And then it took forever to edit it and figure out how to pare it down and I spent five hours just editing that one show. And so those are the days where I'm like, why am I doing this? Is anybody listening? Does anybody care? Is this making a difference, right? And that noise can get, um, loud and it can be discouraging at times. So here's what I want to say because I want to get right back into that good flow that I just talked about. I don't want to dwell on the bad and the ugly.

So I want to end on a positive. I'm, I'm this is the only thing this. This episode is about today. But I want to end on a positive and that is that I've come so far in the show. Not only with it being more fun and enjoyable and easier, but the technology has gotten easier. And that to me is another big win. And, and that goes in the good camp because because the technology is easier with AI, by the way. I talked a lot about AI. Oh my goodness, I am so grateful for AI because it's made this, this production so much easier.

It's easier to record. It's easier to edit and it's easier to publish and make notes. And what used to take hours, I'm not kidding, hours of work, we can get through this show pretty quickly now. Which means it gets to you much faster and that's important. It's important that I work quickly to get you the information and not spend so much time trying to perfect the show.

So I'm going to leave it there today. I have more really cool stuff coming to the show. And I'm going to talk about that this month. I think I might change the name of the show, but I really want to get your opinion on that. I've got some new ideas for the show I'm going to talk about in the next episode, and I'll want your opinion on all of this.

So. When that episode drops next week, I will ask for you to actually respond to a survey. I'll want to hear from you because you will influence the show. I love doing surveys like this because it's always important to me that I'm serving you, the listener or the reader. That's the whole point of being here.

Okay. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for celebrating with me and I'll see you next time.

If you're looking to get back into the workforce, change jobs, work remotely, or learn artificial intelligence, check out my free remote work training so you can get ahead of the trends and stay ahead of the pack. Click the link in the show notes or go to www.camilleattell.com and press the free training button.

As always, thank you for tuning in to the Remote Work Retirement Show. I'm Camille Attell, your host, and I'll catch you in the next episode.

Click here to check out Isaac's eBay course.

Click here to join Remote Work School:

https://www.camilleattell.com/remoteworkschool

If you want to start something new but feel a bit overwhelmed, I invite you to take my free remote work training:

https://www.camilleattell.com/remote-training

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