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Taking a nonprofit podcast to 100,000 downloads (it's not as easy as you think) · Your Mic

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  Taking a non-profit podcast to 100,000 downloads is not as easy as you think.
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  It is grief, spreadsheets, grind, guests with harrowing stories, and trying to not cry during
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  recordings, and still, despite all of that, choosing fun. Dorothy Gibbons, founding CEO of The Rose
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  and the Reason Speak Podcasting Exists, is retiring. She joins me today on your mic.
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  And during this episode, we talk about building a mission-driven show to six figures worth
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  the downloads, survivor stories, and how you walk away without walking out.
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  Dorothy, I don't know that you know this, but you are single-handedly responsible for one of our
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  core pillars of Speak Podcasting. What is it? This has to be fun. Oh. Do you remember a conversation
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  we had a long time ago? Oh, yes, yes. Yeah. And that quit being fun, and if it's not fun,
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  we're not going to do it. Right, right. So I want to know where that comes from.
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  One of the things you so graciously included me in on is your holiday letter, which comes
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  toward the end of the year. And in this one, you're announcing your retirement and talking about
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  winding down the journey here at The Rose. And in it, toward the end, you have play. And so it seems
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  to be a constant. And so when you're working at a place like The Rose, where we're dealing with
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  the disease, it literally kills our loved ones. And you're handling a lot of dark, sad things.
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  Why is that important for you? Not just within the podcast, but just within your organization and
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  building your culture? Life is serious enough. Period. Yes. Whether you're dealing with
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  life and death situations, whether you're dealing with an illness, it is very serious. And I
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  just have always believed that we as human beings have lost that ability to play, or it's been
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  not beaten out of us, but we're supposed to be responsible.
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  When do you most enjoy time? Is when you're lost in it, when you're playing? And I just feel like
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  it's really important that we have that permission to play. Now, I don't think I always gave
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  myself that permission. And I certainly didn't think of life as fun. I think with The Rose
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  and the responsibilities that all of us here have at The Rose, those are heavy responsibilities.
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  And I think it became very important to my mental health and my physical health,
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  that I find some way to have fun in spite of. And it helps you be a better leader.
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  Well, it seems. We'll see. Well, there's the whole self-care. And that's something that
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  it was a pretty huge beat for the podcast. Self-care, well-being, that sort of thing. And it's
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  like if you can't, and it goes all the way down to early prevention for breast cancer and just
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  taking care of your body, getting your mammograms, all that sort of a thing. If you take care of
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  yourself, then you can take care of others. And so play and joy helps with the mental health
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  aspect of it. So what do you do for play? I talk to my dog, Sparrow.
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  That's good. And I sing ridiculous songs. Oh, well, that's okay. We won't ask you to do that
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  today. Please do not. Some of them may or may not have like four letter words, but you know,
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  so you make them up. I make them up. But also, there are like classic songs too.
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  You know, like, yeah, I think there's a The Oak Christmas Tree song. And I sing it to him.
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  So instead of Christmas tree, it's Sparrow Bear. Because he cuddles like a teddy bear, so I call him
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  Sparrow Bear. But he doesn't bark. He doesn't sound like a sparrow when he's violent sounding
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  when the delivery guy's there. But yeah, stuff like that. It smooths the edge.
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  That's a good way of putting it. Yes. Let's talk about the podcast and how you all were
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  that quote unquote win that I had needed in post radio life. Now we go way back. You know,
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  you were on my Sunday morning show and I was already hosting the the shrimp boil. And I didn't know
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  what I was doing. And I messaged you, I did the Alex Hormosi thing where you just go down your
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  entire Facebook friends list and your Twitter list and all that talk, you know, asking, hey,
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  are you interested? Hey, are you interested? So if you can go back to when we started the podcast,
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  you know, that had been on my goal list for three years. And I don't even know why I put it on
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  there. But I knew that we needed the rose needed some other way to communicate what we were doing.
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  I loved to write. I enjoy writing. But our attention span is not there anymore for the written word.
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  And and I love hearing people's stories. And so I it had just been on my goal list and then when
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  you came in and I'll never forget you called me and you said, do I need let's go have some coffee
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  somewhere. I don't go have coffee with anybody. And and it was, you know, I lunch, I think you
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  gave me an option. And I said, Freddie, if you've got something to sell me, you have to come to me.
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  And sure enough, you had your proposal. And I don't think I even looked at it. Did I?
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  I don't think you did. It was something to the effect of Freddie, we've been wanting to do this
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  for years. And I'm like, I always think to myself, there's no way it is this easy. And it's not.
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  It's it's not. You you had you had a lot of nose in there, didn't you?
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  I had a lot of nose after after the obvious yes for you from you. Right. That's what I was like.
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  It's no way. But don't you remember when you said, Oh, I might have
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  five or six clients. And I said, No, you're going to have 30. And then you said, Oh, no, you know,
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  five or six. And I said, I'm not going to argue for your limitations. I've always remembered
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  you saying that. And I think you probably said that once or twice to me in the time that we know.
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  So, you know, that's real important. When you're when you know someone has that potential,
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  if you don't encourage them, who is? Because we're not going to encourage ourselves. I mean,
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  heaven forbid, we say something nice to ourselves. Instead of that self-talk,
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  that's always putting us down. You know, I think, I think that is so important in life.
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  Just catching ourselves at how we're speaking to ourselves. I think I told you what's when I
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  get into those negative scenarios, then I go play my alphabet game. Do you remember that?
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  Okay. I vaguely remember that. What is the? That's where you go down the alphabet. And it can
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  be for any reason. And you find words that describe yourself positive. You know, like I'm able,
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  I'm bold. I'm courageous. I'm daring. I'm eager. I'm, you know, feisty. These are rolling off
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  the tongue for you. Yeah. This is an exercise. Yeah. And you're by the time you get to
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  XYZ, because I know of no X words. But by the time you get there, your mind's off. Whatever
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  was worrying you, we can all get into those loops of, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it is so easy to
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  do. It is so easy. And part of what we have to be careful of, especially in this day and time,
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  is how much screen time we have, how much time we just let our mind go play in the scrolling.
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  Now, I think there is play in scrolling. I think it's okay, but not when it consumes everything.
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  And I think you have to be careful what you're scrolling. If it's all Zoom's day, then what do
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  you fill in your mind with? You want to fill your mind with something positive.
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  I think especially if you start your day like that and your doom scrolling, oh my goodness,
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  this happened there. Oh, this happened here. This person said this. This person is a big scary thing.
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  Well, you know what? That's our decision. And that's the day that you set forth for yourself too.
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  Well, and you know, another little rule I have is you make up your bed every day.
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  You make up your bed. You make up your mind. How your day is going to go.
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  It is an old old rule. There's the there's the Navy seal who gave the commencement speech,
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  who said that. And then I've got my friend Brittany who runs a social media marketing agency.
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  And she posts in her vlog, always make the bed and like, stop telling me to make my bed.
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  I'm always in the comments. Stop telling me to make my, no, you're saying that you got to make
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  up your bed. And it is just a part of a mindset. Because when you're doing that,
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  then you're making up your mind. Because you're telling yourself that I'm making up my mind
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  for the good day. So let's talk about something that blew my mind. And I don't even know where,
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  where it came from. We were in a meeting talking about Beacam, breast cancer,
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  awareness month. And for lack of a better word, I sort of vomited the idea out for 31 days of
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  episodes, not really knowing how that was a lot better than your list fill up a bus full of
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  bras. Do you remember that one? I do remember that. And it was going to be that we give out these
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  bras. And I'm afraid we don't do that. And then you had your 31 days. That I think was probably
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  one of the most brilliant ideas I think you've ever come up with. Thank you. And it is fun.
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  It is fun to say we've got 31 days of guest here who are going to talk to you about everything from
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  what it's like to be a breast cancer survivor, what it's like to not have funding, to
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  have a mammogram, supporters, caregivers. I mean, it's just a great month. You can get a little bit
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  of everything on that. What's something beyond the guest episode that you've enjoyed doing with the
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  podcast? Oh, I do like the solos. I like being able to have that little space in time when I can
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  just talk. And I don't have to guard my words or be careful because whatever I'm saying is
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  something I would say to you in person. So I do like those. I have really had a lot of guests that
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  just took over the podcast. And that's great too. I mean, they're so excited and they have a
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  story to tell you that is that's the best ones. Do you have a favorite that comes to mind or maybe
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  three if you had to pick? Well, you know, I was always amazed at Daniel Barron's story that I had
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  not heard. And all the years I had interviewed with him, talked to him. That one was the first,
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  oh my gosh, look at what I don't know about the people that I've known for so long.
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  Joan, the one that was so positive, that show, oh my gosh, the things that had happened to her and
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  she still looked at everything in the most positive voice. And I have to say the one that did the
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  10,000 mile bike ride. Mike Hayes, for Kathy. Yes, you know, when he when he was coming in here and he
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  said to me, I don't want you to be frightened when you see me because I'm 300 pounds and about six
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  foot six. And you know, I'm worried. Is he going to fit in the chair? And he was covered with
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  tattoos and he came in his biker's gear and he wasn't intimidating to some extent. And then
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  when he came back from the ride, oh my gosh, he was a teddy bear. He had so many profound, profound
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  things that he had learned through that time. And so many incredible experiences with people who
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  he didn't even know, people that helped, people that were cheering him on, I thought, you know,
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  we've just seen a transformation in this person. And I could I understand how it happened
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  but to be able to witness it. Right. Was something when you see the before after because we had him
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  in. He did the interview and then he did the interview with his fiance Kathy. But to your point
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  with the transformation, he he did the he rode the 10,000 miles. It was from what Florida to Alaska.
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  And he did it in honor of Kathy. Also, it seemed to have really helped him as well. Yeah. Yeah.
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  What is a moment behind the scenes when the show felt like it was almost impossible to to keep going
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  just because the the content kind of gets heavy. I've got a moment, a couple of them were,
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  you know, I'll get in the car and just start weeping. You know, we deal with a lot of heavy stuff.
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  Yeah. I think sometimes when I glance over at you or Roxanne and I see the motion on your face,
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  you know, I'm I'm listening for that for what they're saying. But when I see it on your face,
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  did I go, oh my, this is really serious. This is really this is tough. Yeah.
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  But I think sometimes the it if we're being really honest, so the most difficult interviews are
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  the ones where where people are they tighten up. You know, and I mean, we were just talking
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  and then suddenly the camera's on understand totally this not criticism. But it's like, oh,
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  how can I make that person feel more comfortable? You know, oh yeah, or the host, that's a horrible feeling.
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  You know what's happening to them and you just want them to feel comfortable. It's kind of like
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  you want to close it down and say, let's start over. Right. Or make it audio only because, you know,
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  you do this professionally, even though you've podcasted for a few years, you were on TV,
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  doing radio interviews. This is your jam. You're you're the marketing PR brains behind the
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  road. So this is nothing new for you. You've been doing this since you started it for a survivor
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  who has to go and tell his or her story for the first time ever. And they're these two big
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  intimidating lights and three cameras. And you got the $400 mics. Oh, don't worry. Just be
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  comfortable. It's a conversation. Right. Right. That's what we tell them. Easy for you to say.
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  And I, you know, another one that was so that was difficult was Monty. I had a really hard time
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  that she had never told her story outside of family. I think that's what I'm remembering her saying.
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  But she was so emotional and she was so grateful for the people that helped her. And here she was
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  18 years old diagnosed with breast cancer. Oh, it was just one one story that she told after
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  another that you wonder, where does she get that gumption? Right. Well, how did she get the
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  courage to keep going? You know, that's what's always impressed me about any of our survivors.
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  How do they do that? Right. It could be an 18 year old. It could be a 40 something year old mother
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  that's a CEO of a company. It could be somebody who is pregnant with breast cancer and is dismissed.
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  Yet they keep going. And that's, and maybe that's like, that's, that's the jig is that they tell
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  their story and you're like, wow, that was really hard to listen to and experience. I can imagine
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  what it must have been like for the for the guests. But what you're doing is you're, you're shining
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  a light on these on these ladies. And there's someone out there who's going to hear it and it's going
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  to be like, that's me. I think the other thing I've learned through the podcast is everybody needs
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  to tell their story. It is their story. It is so often in history, someone else writes the story.
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  It's not that person's. And I just, I come to believe we all need to tell it and need someone
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  who's going to listen. You know, that is a true art listening to people. Yes. And I haven't
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  always had it. I've learned a lot of that here doing this podcast because suddenly it's not my
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  question that they're answering. They're going down another whole, you know, road that I hadn't
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  been prepared for. And that's when you really are aware of how important it is to pay attention.
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  I would push back on that only because I think this is just my, my assumption here is that because
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  you had spent so much time in front of the camera as a guest on other, on other shows like
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  my Sunday Morning Show and on Channel 26 and Channel 2 and all these other places that you have
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  sort of this built-in gift that you kind of learned through us, Moses, that translated into,
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  okay, well, cool. I've now got 30 minutes and it's my show and I get to ask what they want. And so,
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  yeah, they might talk about something that wouldn't be on the list of questions but because you're
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  invested in this, you're invested in the survivor or the donor or the staff member, Dr. Razz,
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  Dr. Dixie, whoever, that you're invested emotionally in them, that it's easy for you to pick up
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  when they go off the beaten path. Maybe. But I do want to correct you one thing. I never
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  went in front of cameras that I wasn't scared to death. Really? No. I never came in your show
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  that I wasn't scared to. No, no. My stomach would be churning. I would be trembling. I would. And I
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  had one time on live camera that my mind went blank. Oh, there is nothing as scary as that. That is
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  scary. And it was with Melissa Wilson on Fox News. It wasn't that Saturday morning that we did,
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  was it? No, no, no. But this was, this was when she'd asked me something and my mind just went,
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  oh, and what a incredible, incredible host she was because she saw it, went directly into something
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  else, didn't, didn't try to go back and ask that same question. I thought, wow, that's a professional.
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  You know, I'll never forget that. And I know what happens to our guest. You know, it's just that
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  moment when you can't think nothing is coming out of your mouth. And you know, it's, you know,
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  it's bad. So no, I always, I'm scared when I get in front of a group of people and I have to talk
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  most of the time. I'm scared getting in front of all of y'all because you're going to tell me how
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  bad I am or how or whatever I'm doing. No, I'm saying that fear is, is still there after all
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  these years. And even hundreds of podcast episodes later, there's still a little bit of the nerves
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  really. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. So we still have a few more episodes to produce before you retire.
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  So everybody behind the scenes, we're going to stare awkwardly at Dorothy. We're going to
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  scoot the chairs in a little courage. They'll be doing that. So Dorothy, this is a, this is a first
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  in in my life. I have not had a close friend retire. And so this is all, this is a like,
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  all really new. I've had friends like leave jobs and see you later, move out of state, move out
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  whatever. This is like a whole new sort of a thing. And I want to go back to the to the holiday
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  letter that you wrote because it's like the perfect sign off. And I kind of want to do a little
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  bit of a riff as we close the conversation. And it's like if if this was similar, like a similar
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  sort of goodbye to people who are listening, not just your staff and friends of, you know,
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  that we share also for maybe a nervous founder who is trying to start the next big nonprofit,
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  who in 30 years is going to go back to this episode and be like, wow, like what would you say
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  to people like that? You're always working by the seat of your pants. There is not one rule that's
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  going to make it work. There is not one way of being that's going to make it work. If you have
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  that idea, go with it. I mean, really, you know, it's like I'm amazed at some of our guests who
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  come up with different things that they've seen because of their experience. No, I tell any
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  new founder to go for it. And I do think this retiring time in my life has taught me a lot too.
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  You know, women don't often retire, not from careers. You know, they, this is a new age for women
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  to have had a long career and retire. Men always do 65. I'm going to retire. I'm looking forward
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  to this. What do women do? And I'm really learning a lot from other professionals who have retired
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  and how they continue to be involved in the world, but not working so very hard. I think we
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  seldom give ourselves enough credit for what we can do and we never give ourselves or almost never
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  permission to do nothing. What's next? We're going to do. You wake up? No.
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  Wake up the next morning. My immediate response has been sleep. I just want to rest for a little bit.
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  And then I'm going to go play and decide what it is that is important for me to talk about or to be part of.
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  Well, it goes without saying that you have been a critical part in the fabric of not just Houston's
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  life, but Texas life and all these countless families that you've helped because of your vision
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  and Dr. Dixie's vision in all these years. And thank you for letting me and my scrappy team be a small
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  part in that in that. You've been a big part of the roses life. Don't minimize it. Okay, I won't.
• 24:58
  All right. Thank you so much for being a part of the podcast. Thank you.