An Unplanned Social Experiment
Through my own failure, I accidentally ventured into an unexpected social experiment. As mentioned in a previous post, we recently took an unplanned 5-month hiatus from the Meaning Over Money Podcast (SPOTIFY / APPLE). I'm happy to report that we're back! Episode 441 was published this week, and I'm excited for what's in store.
Back to our little experiment. Since we haven't been publishing new episodes, there was nobody captaining the ship, so to speak. No new content. No marketing. No direct influences. However, our 440-episode catalog remained in cyberspace on all major podcasting platforms. In other words, we have an unobstructed, uninfluenced data set about what people were listening to over the past few months. And since we haven't even mentioned the podcast since March, all podcast activity is purely organic.
I pulled the data yesterday to see what episodes were most downloaded over the past 90 days, and the top 10 were far above the most popular pieces of published content we have. I'll share them in order below, but I think it gives a fairly accurate glimpse into what's on people's minds. A finger on the cultural pulse. Here they are, in order:
362 - Cole and Travis Talk Life and Money: Lifting the Lid on What's Really Happening Under Roofs
306 - Simple Steps to Set Up A Taxable Investment Account: It's Easier Than You Think!
287 - Controlling Dining Out Without It Controlling You
403 - Just Buy the Shoes: A Guilt-Free Blueprint to Overcome Financial Hoarding
433 - More Is Never Enough: How the Curse of More Can (and Will) Hunt Us Down
410 - Life Insurance 101: A Little Morbid But a Lot Important
418 - How to Have a Midlife Crisis That's Not a Midlife Crisis
270 - "I Regret Buying a House": What to Do When You Realize You Made the Wrong Decision
234 - Stop Focusing On the HOW: Embracing the WHAT and WHY will direct our HOW
241 - Congrats on NOT Getting the Job: Why Not All Promotions Are Good Promotions
As you can see from the episode numbers, this isn't the result of recency bias. In fact, two of the top 10 episodes were published more than three years ago. That leads me to believe people are searching for keywords related to these topics and stumbling into our content along the way.
As I scan this list of topics, it closely correlates with many of the conversations I’ve been having with families through my work. I can think of at least a handful of families when I see each of these topics, each trying to navigate this crazy journey between work, money, and meaning. Here’s my encouragement today. Whatever you’re dealing with, you’re not alone. Whatever struggles you’re battling, you’re not a failure. Whatever issues you’re trying to manage, it’s not just a “you” thing. This is all part of the human experience. Everyone is trying to navigate their own junk, despite how it might appear on their social media highlight reel. Keep moving forward, and don’t be scared to talk to others.
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