Everyone wants more of something:

Money in their bank account.
Sales.
Zinnias in their flower bed.
Sex.
Views on their Instagram stories.

What is it for you?

I’ve got a quick story for you that reveals an unexpected strategy that we’re using behind the scenes to boost our podcast downloads.

Back in June, we realized we had enough podcast episodes to last us through October! I felt like the batching Queen.

Then I looked at our stats and realized that folks had really been digging my solo episodes. This surprised me because I have the most incredible and brilliant guests on the show, and I assumed those episodes would outpace me, riffing on various entryways into abundance.

But the stats spoke for themselves. Our top downloaded episodes were 50/50 solo and interviews.

After I overcame my initial fear of recording solo episodes with a complete camera set and people listening to me sitting there and talking all alone (I had so much resistance!), I realized I could batch a whole bunch of solo shows in a day–like nine 9 on my top day. At the end of the day, I felt super energized and connected to the life force.

(Hit productivity tip: Find what energizes you and do more of it.)

Since completing solo episodes was friction-free, and our folks love them, we decided to release two episodes a week: one interview on Tuesdays and one solo episode on Fridays.

It was fun, easy, and great for downloads.

But the strategy fits the conventional model:

Do more to get a better result.

As we prepared for a slower summer work-wise, during which I’d be away from our Miami studio for 6.5 weeks, I started to wonder what would happen if we took a summer hiatus from the show.

I have a few friends with top-ranked podcasts I’d noticed had taken breaks between seasons, so I asked them what happened to their downloads.

Did they tank?

Not at all. The opposite, in fact.

They told me that a good, solid break boosted their downloads and overall podcast performance after the break.

Sounds a lot like how our bodies and the rest of nature work: a full break is required for a total bloom. (Here’s looking at you, winter.)

So we decided to take a Plenty hiatus for the month of August.

It served a few purposes:

Gave our team a pause. Yay!
Gave us a chance to feature some past episodes that folks might have missed.
Gave the podcast algorithm a little reset so we can return even more robustly!

If you’ve pruned a plant or dead-headed your petunias, you get more growth on the other side when you pull back

For the record, pulling back so you can rest is reason enough to do it. Rest doesn’t ever need to have a result outside of the rest itself for it to be valuable.

But in this case (and in many others like Instagram story views, strength gains at the gym, and solving tricky problems), taking a break leads to a net positive result on the other side (or so my podcasting friends tell me.)

I’ll let you know what we notice regarding downloads on the other side of the hiatus when we return with three fresh episodes for you in the first week of September!

(Make sure you’re subscribed to Plenty so you don’t miss them!)

Where can you pullback in your life or work to get an even better result than if you pushed on through?

Xo,
Kate