What Happened When I Stopped Podcasting for Four Months

And we're back, I'm excited. I have not released a podcast episode since September. We're just coming back now in February.

And I wanna talk about why I stepped back. And I wanna talk about why my podcast still worked because my stepping back really highlighted why I podcast the way I podcast. I also wanna say right up front, this is a do as I say, not as I do kind of episode.

And we'll talk more about that in the episode, but welcome back and let's get started. Welcome to the More Profitable Podcast with Stacey Harris, I'm Stacey. And this is the spot to learn more about the strategies, tactics and tools you need to build your more profitable podcast.

My team and I work every day with podcasters like you to shift shows from frustrating time sucks to productive members of your sales team because your show should be built to generate and convert leads. So let's get into it. It has been a minute, a minute, a minute.

I'm super stoked to be doing this. I appreciate the folks that reached out while we've been in a bit of a pause. First and foremost, right off the top, I'm gonna be honest with you.

The back half of 2025 really walloped me personally and professionally. It was a really, 2025 as a whole was a really difficult year for me. It was not my favorite.

As we were closing out of December, I was thrilled. And as we hit September of last year, I was really, really kind of in it of a difficult season. And I had to put something down.

And here's the reality is this podcast does make me money, but it makes me money whether I record new episodes or not. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. But when I was in that moment in September of 2025, where I was thinking about things to put down, when it came to putting down, recording new episodes of the show that I knew would continue to work for me, even if I wasn't releasing new stuff or putting down something in my personal life or client work or things like that, it was an obvious choice that this was the thing that needed to be put down.

And so I did, I set it aside for a little bit. And now that we're back, I wanna talk about why I was able to make that decision, why I could set this aside, what happened to my show and my business in that process. Spoiler alert, it's not bad news.

And lastly, I wanna talk a little bit about what coming back looks like. And that's where we're gonna be highlighting some of the do as I say, not as I do stuff. But I think that this conversation is maybe more important than it's ever been, because I've been seeing this in my engagements with people online and in person, where there is this sort of firmly in two camps, right? One group of people are looking to really come back to a podcast they have set aside before, because now feels like the time that they can step back into that, or they're looking for that level of connection or whatever the case may be.

And then on the flip side, there are a lot of folks who are also feeling that overwhelm right now and wanna know that if they get to a point where they need to make a decision like I made, they're equipped to do that and still get the results I got while I was away. Because those results were not built in my downtime from the show, they were built in what I was doing in the show. And so I really wanna hit home that for us to prepare for these times off, we've gotta be doing things now when we're in production that make that a possible option.

Let's first sort of jump in to how I made this decision and why I was able to make it. If I'm being completely upfront and honest with you, it wasn't a decision I made with a ton of forethought. It wasn't a decision I was like, like when that last episode came out, episode 690 came out in September, I didn't realize it was gonna be the last episode I did before I took a big break.

I just, it kept getting closer and closer to when I was gonna record what's next and I kept not having capacity for it for one reason or really, if I'm honest with you, eight reasons because that's kind of where I was in the back half of 2025. There was just a lot, a lot going on. And so it really took me sort of just facing the reality of the situation and really the decision came down to, do I want to and do I have the capacity to put out re-releases or do I need to just kind of let it be for a bit? And ultimately that decision, as you know, spoiler alert if you haven't checked lately, was to set it aside.

And I'll be honest, I got some lovely messages from folks as I was in that pause, as the podcast hasn't been going out over the last several months, I've gotten wonderful messages from people checking in, making sure everything was okay, seeing if the show was going to come back, et cetera, et cetera. And that's lovely. That's absolutely lovely.

But I'll be honest, it was a few. It was nowhere near what I generally get in downloads for a new episode. It's absolutely not the totality of our listenership.

It was mostly people who pop in and out of work with me. They do intensives or they've done courses with me. They're not my ongoing production clients.

And I did have a couple of production clients ask me when I was going to be bringing my show back when we met for our Q1 planning in November. So yes, I got lovely messages, but honestly, most people didn't notice. And I knew when I set the show aside that that was going to be the case, that most people wouldn't notice.

Because here's the thing, nobody is paying attention to you the way you're paying attention to you. Nobody is paying attention to me the way I am paying attention to me. I think this is maybe one of the most important things we can hear and learn and remember because it allows us to quiet the judgment we have for ourselves.

It allows us to quiet the expectations we put on ourselves and really sit in the reality of the situation, really be honest around what we need in that moment. And step into that, at least that was true for me. I knew I was gonna set the show aside, but I could do that because I have a library of episodes that exist and are built to do a job.

Now, did I do this perfectly? No, and we're gonna talk about that in just a minute. But I knew my episode could still work as a sales asset even if I wasn't releasing new episodes. Now, to the imperfection of it all, if I was giving myself advice, what I would have done is I would have continued to send emails or be sharing things on social media and be repurposing this content to do that.

The reality is for me, I just did not have the capacity. So I went quiet everywhere. I haven't posted on social media, maybe a little bit on threads, but I haven't posted anywhere else on social media and I have not released a podcast episode and I have not sent an email since September.

In fact, the email, if you're on my email list, the email you got with this podcast episode was the first email I have sent since September. And again, if I were a client, if I weren't me, I would have absolutely said, hey, how can we make sure that we're still sending regular emails and just pointing them to old episodes or whatever? But again, I just didn't have the capacity. And frankly, it's just not a kind of support I have in my business, which is something I will be looking at this year if I'm being completely transparent with you.

But I knew that my episodes were still set up to do a job because they're optimized for search. They're optimized for discovery. And I know that's true because as we shift this conversation into some of the lessons and insights and what actually happened when I was in this pause from the show, when I had set the show aside, guess what? I got brand new clients.

Clients with an S, more than one. All of which were not leads before. One of which was a referral, but the referral, the client then listened to the podcast and made the decision to reach out.

So there was a referral involved. The other one, which is an ongoing production client who I'm loving working with, by the way. I'm so excited.

They found me through search. They were looking for something, looking to answer a question. Guess what? I have episodes built to answer questions.

And so when they searched that question, my show popped up and they went down the rabbit hole and they reached out and they booked a sales call and we had a conversation and they signed a contract and now we're working together. And that's because I've built a show that is an asset. I think a lot of us business owners wanna talk about the fact that we're also content creators and it's true, I do create content.

But my content is not just content. They're sales assets. They're not built so that I feel cool.

They're not built so that I can check a box that someone told me to check. They're not built to fill space. They're built to provide value.

They're built to educate and convert. They're built to help you or anyone else who listens make a decision around their own readiness. That's it.

That's what they're built to do. And guess what? Even if I'm not releasing new episodes, this show and the assets that are inside of it are still built to do that. So yes, some of this, and this is an insight I want to make sure I hammer home, some of this is because I've done 690 episodes of this show before.

And more honest than that is because I've done two or 300 episodes that are built for who my ideal clients are right now and for these services. And I'm not talking about the services I provide right now because having X number of episodes is not all about what it is. If I had 690 episodes, but only the last 15 spoke to who my ideal clients are now and the kinds of services I provide now, then I have 15 episodes.

That's it. The reality is though, is I've been doing this long enough. I have been creating content in this space long enough.

I have been hitting these buttons long enough that I get to do this. It is one of the benefits of long-term consistency is I got to take this gap and my show still got to work. And I say that because I think there is an understatement of value around stick-to-itiveness.

This wasn't an option because I have a podcast. It was an option because I have a podcast that I've been executing with in a certain way for a long time. And the downside of that is there's no other way to earn that but time on task, right? Chopping the wood, carrying the water, doing the thing over and over and over again.

The other side of that is this is why I talk about podcasts being a long-term asset and this is something we're gonna talk about more in the next couple of weeks because I really wanna spend some time talking about the reason podcasts are more valuable than ever. Because some of this is the insights I've had as I've had this time away from the podcast production, like day to day. Our social media feeds have shifted in the last couple of years from a follower-focused algorithm to an interest or topic-focused algorithm.

So I'm no longer seeing the people I follow exclusively. I'm seeing a ton of suggested content. I'm seeing a bunch of stuff I might like based on other things I've engaged with.

And yes, some of that is who I follow, but only some of it. The rest of it is what I'm paying attention to, what I'm engaging with, what I'm clicking, what I'm sending friends, what I'm sharing, what I'm reposting, what I'm searching for, those kinds of things. And as we shift further and further into this interest and topic-focused algorithm, it becomes harder and harder to nurture people on social.

Because I don't know that you're gonna see me again. And I don't know how much of my stuff you're gonna see. I think a great example of this is how often, and I'm sure you've experienced this as well, you follow someone because you see them in your feed over and over again, and you're like, oh my God, I really do love this account.

And so you decide to follow it. And then you never see them again. And I'm not even gonna call out one specific platform here because frankly, I've seen this happen on Instagram and I've seen this happen on TikTok, but it's a real thing.

And so it's imperative that I be moving people to a place where I can actually nurture and engage them. And so instead of moving people to follow me, I'm moving people to click the link, come check out the show. And that's where I'm seeing actual results on social media.

Now, granted, in this last several months, I have not been posting anywhere but threads on occasion and certainly not driving traffic anywhere. But this was true before I hit the pause. This was true for the totality of 2025.

It is imperative that I move people from social to the show because yes, social is top of funnel and people absolutely discover me and the podcast there, but they get into my work and they see me as a solution on the podcast. And that doesn't necessarily have to be a podcast. For other people, it's blog posts.

For some people, it's video stuff and it's all on YouTube. For some folks, it's their email. It's a newsletter, a sub stack, something like that.

Whatever it is where they can get longer form content, where they're going to get notifications from their podcast player or see you in their inbox or whatever that thing is, notifications in the sub stack app, whatever it is. But there's a place where they're hearing from you, continuously, because they've chosen to engage with your content. This break really highlighted for me how this long form content that feels, I mean, honestly, in today's sort of internet, it almost feels old school, right? Like, I see so many people being like, 2026 is the year I'm going back to blogging.

I'm going back to old school internet. And I'm like, yes, awesome, long form, do it. Because A, we're craving it.

And B, it is what works over time. We so often get stuck in this, like somebody found me on Instagram and bought things three minutes later. When especially for service providers who are working with clients at a high level and for a long time.

So somebody like me, a lot of my clients are coaches and they're working with people in 12 month containers. And guess what? They're working with people over years. Even in the cases where they're course creators or running group programs, they're moving people through a series of programs, right? They've got a backend offered where their existing clients continue to work with them and continue to book with them.

And so it really is this long-term relationship. That doesn't happen three minutes after you saw me for the first time on TikTok or on Instagram or on threads or on YouTube or on wherever the case may be. Facebook, are people still on Facebook? I don't know.

I have a Facebook profile, but I don't. I only use it to access marketplace. But I wanna be really clear on this insight because if you're podcasting right now, you've absolutely heard this idea that it's a long game.

And it is. And that's a good thing because it means when you build your show the right way, it can keep paying off for a long time. The work I did a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, five years ago, that is what allowed me to keep getting clients even when I set aside the podcast, the social media, the email, frankly, my marketing.

Now, I will say one of the things I'm looking at as I come back is the business you have right now is the result of the marketing you did three to six months ago. And so as somebody who hasn't done any marketing in three to six months, not quite six months, but three to six months, it's in that window, I'm paying attention to what does my business look like. And guess what? I am still getting inquiries because even though I wasn't actively marketing, the long tail efforts of my intentional work is still paying off.

And this is why podcasting is so valuable and why right now when you do have the capacity to get your podcast done, or right now when you are looking to partner with somebody who can help you keep your show consistent, who can help sort of manage some of your show with you, can help take some of that work off your plate so that it's not eating up so much of your capacity, I want you to be thinking right now about is the episode you build today gonna help future you step back if you want or need to? Because this is how you take the unexpected break. We talk a lot about how you can take planned time off. I talk about this pretty regularly when we get ready to take our end of the year break.

I talk about this a ton with clients as we start to get into late Q2, early Q3, and people are taking like summer holidays or stepping back while their kids are out of school or whatever the thing is that they need space for. We talk a lot about those intentional breaks and how we can plan for them and work around them. But what happens when it hits the fan? When something has to give, which is where I was in September, something had to give, that unplanned break comes from how strategically you're chopping the wood and carrying the water on your show right now.

Because I intentionally plan my episodes, because I build assets that speak to my listeners' needs, but more importantly speak to my clients' needs, that's why I'm able or was able to take the unexpected break. Now, I wanna close us up. I'm gonna put the soapbox away.

I wanna close us up with re-entry, because I think this is the place we always get a little hairy, right? Do I talk about it? Do I not talk about it? Could I come back? And I think that's what keeps people offline a little longer or keeps people from ever coming back. And I hear this a lot from strategy clients and people who are interested in bringing in production support, because maybe they DIYed their show the first time and they realized, man, that's a killer. If I'm gonna do this again, I'm gonna need help.

I'm here for you, reach out. How do you come back? In most cases, I'm gonna tell you to just come back. Just release, just start releasing episodes again.

Build the content that speaks to the questions your potential clients are having right now. Speak to what's happening now. You do not need to say, I know I've been gone a while, but I'm back.

Now, I know I'm saying that in an episode where I said, I've been gone a while, but I'm back. And this is why I'm saying, do as I say, not as I do. Because yes, I am doing this episode because we talk about podcasting here.

Because I took a break from this show. As somebody who sells and provides podcasting strategy and support, I took an unplanned hiatus of several months. I wanna talk about it because that's normal.

It happens a lot. You're not alone if it's happened to you. It's happened to me on the producer side.

I've had clients who have had this issue. And it's, you know, fortunately they were working with me. And so I was able to say, cool, here's what we can do.

We had a client who was going through this in the time in which I was going through this. And guess what? They never missed an episode. We repurposed, we re-released, we supported them so that they were able to keep getting their show out.

So A, having support, really helpful in avoiding this. And so if you're somebody who has taken this break and you've reached this point in the show and you're like, cool, Stacey, but how do I get back? Get help, get support. That is a huge step.

One of the things I'm looking at is how can I better be leveraging my own team so that I'm getting the same benefits that my clients get? Now, the sticky situation I'm in is, the strategy support isn't necessarily there because that's me and our team, but we're figuring it out. We're looking at it. It's one of the things even I'm looking at as a podcast producer, but that's gotta be the first step.

But when it comes to, do you announce it? Do you share something? Do you just, I wanna really encourage you to just get recording again and recognize that just like exercise or any other habit, it's gonna take some time to get back to what I'm gonna call your fighting weight, right? Your ability to execute in the same way you were before. I am somebody who can batch generally four to six episodes in a day. Guess what I'm not doing today? Recording four to six episodes.

What I am doing today is recording this and maybe my next episode. And then I have time on my calendar tomorrow, the next day to plan one, two, if I have capacity so that I can start rebuilding my backlog and get these episodes out on the cadence and schedule I want to be getting them out. Build yourself some buffer room.

Don't record that first episode back and release it and hope that that habit and cadence will come back. It's not going to. Those muscles have atrophied and we have to rebuild them.

So give yourself the time and the space to rebuild them. The first step I took when I decided to come back was I looked at the content plan I'd been avoiding. Some of it stayed, a lot of it went because A, I needed to be excited about it and B, there were other questions that I really wanted to speak to sooner rather than later.

But build your plan, batch some content, then start releasing. That way you've got runway. Before you hear this episode, I will have five, six episodes recorded.

That's gonna take me probably a week. I'll do one, if I can, two a day. Every day for this week, I will build back this backlog, we will get our production rolling again and then I'll start releasing episodes.

So you'll hear these, it's February now when you're hearing these. That's how I want you to come back. Build in that comfort so that each week you're not in that same panic of, do I have the capacity to do this? Because guess what? 2025 and the back into 2025 was hard.

The front end of 2026 so far has not been easier at all, even kind of. But I sat down and I reassessed and I looked at where I could do it and I looked at what I needed to do to be able to return in a way that would allow me to return consistently and I found the window and I found the time and I made the shifts that I needed to make to get back. That's what you've gotta do.

Set yourself up for success by getting some support, being honest with yourself about your capacity and I don't mean that in a being mean to yourself way. I mean it honest. Be clear on what you have the capacity to do right now because I'm not the only one the world is hard for right now.

We all have the global heavy and we all have our own local, personal, in our own backyard heavy and then we have our own inside of us hard. We're all, everybody's going through something. I'm not special and unique and I think that's important to remember especially when you're going through this because when I set my show aside, there was a part of me that was like, I'm failing at this.

I'm the only person who cannot handle this and that is very simply untrue. This is universal. This experience, whatever the cause, the experience of needing this break or not having the capacity to keep this, you know, pushing this boulder happens to everyone at some point, especially somebody who's been podcasting as long as I have.

Here's the thing I haven't said that is probably important to say, this isn't the first time this has happened. I'm gonna tell you right now that I don't plan to stop podcasting anytime soon. It probably isn't going to be the last.

Now, does it happen once a year? No, it's happened maybe two other times in the course of 12, 13 years of the show where I took this big of a gap. It's one of the reasons the things like the podcast housekeeping series in August exists now is so that I can start building in a cadence of space in times of the year where I knew I was gonna need a little extra space. And so maybe that's what it looks like for you as you start to get back into it is do I feel this way every year at this time? Do I need to build in a repeatable series? Do I need to build in a re-release schedule? Whatever it is.

Do I need to be working ahead on these episodes because I know I'm not gonna be able to show up for these new ones now? But be honest with yourself about how you got to needing that break and what it's gonna take to be able to get back to the consistency you want to deliver on. And the other way that may happen is not just by banking episodes, but shifting your release schedule. Yes, I like a weekly cadence.

It's not the only one that works though. It's what works best for me and we're keeping it. I'm not changing it.

But I've had a couple of clients who we've shifted their cadence last year from once a week to every other week. And guess what? It kept them in their show consistently. It bought them some space.

It bought them some capacity. It gave them enough grace that they didn't have to put it down. That might be what works for you.

But none of it will work if you're not doing it. So be honest with yourself. If you're not first honest with yourself about what you need.

And that's imperative when it comes to getting back into your show. All of this to say, we're back. Thank you to those who reached out.

I've already thanked you when you reached out, but if you noticed I was gone, I appreciate you. I'm back. I'm stoked for what we have coming.

We are just eight episodes away, I think now. It's 691, so maybe eight, nine episodes away from 700. I'm stoked for that episode.

I will be recording it in the next couple of weeks. I cannot wait to share it with you. If you have questions you'd like to see me cover on this show this year, I wanna invite you to reach out.

I wanna invite you to come talk to me on threads or leave me an Instagram DM or on LinkedIn or send me an email. As you know, if you have ever listened to the show before, I accept all forms of communication except carrier pigeons because I don't do birds. Other than that, I wanna wrap this episode up by reminding you to take care of yourself, take care of your community, people around you.

If I can be of support to you in any way, please reach out. Genuinely, I would love to hear from you and I wanna support you however I can in the podcast realm or otherwise. So I'm here, reach out.

We all need each other right now. I am so excited. I can genuinely in my body right now as I'm recording.

I feel so good to be back. And I think I'm gonna record another one because I'm feeling back. All right, I will catch you back here next week for real this time.

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