Nearly twenty years ago, I started a podcast.

One episode… every week… rain or shine.
No viral stunts… no growth hacks… just a conversation I wanted to have and the quiet act of pressing publish.
Fast forward to 2025, and I often feel like we’re buried beneath it all.

Content. Everywhere.

Scroll any feed for ten seconds and you’ve flown past hundreds of creators, opinions, updates… and now, AI-generated “content.”
In a world addicted to novelty and engagement metrics… what actually sticks?

I’d argue it’s not reach… it’s ritual.

The episode counter on Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast just ticked past #989.
Episode #1000 will publish on September 7th.

And here’s the uncomfortable podcast truth:

Most podcasts never make it past ten episodes.
There are 5.5 million podcasts in the world… only 250,000 are active.
Less than 1% hit episode #100.
So if consistency is this rare… maybe that’s where the real value is hiding?

Consistency is no longer boring… it’s almost subversive.

The pressure today is to “go viral.”
To feed the algorithm… to be louder, faster, flashier than the scroll that came before.
But there’s something radical about just… showing up.
No hype. No hacks. Just the work.
For my dollar, great creators aren’t always the loudest.
They’re the most reliable.

Ritual builds trust… and trust builds brand.

This isn’t just a podcasting thing.
It’s an everything thing.
The algorithm will suck your attention.
Ritual will give you back your time… in value.
Chasing reach makes your work disposable.
What worked last week won’t work today.

The algorithm always wants more… and it never says thank you.

But when you start cultivating a practice (podcasting, writing a newsletter, posting on LinkedIn) you’re building equity.
Not with the internet.
With yourself… with your audience.

Content is noise… signal is earned.

I’ve also spent over a decade interviewing bass players on Groove – The No Treble Podcast.
Not for numbers… not for fame… just for joy.
Will Turpin from Collective Soul was episode #126.
The interviews are deep, nerdy, musical… and occasionally transcendental (probably more for me than anyone else).
There’s no business model.
There’s just me… listening.

Sometimes we forget that creation doesn’t have to serve capitalism.

It can serve curiosity.
And maybe the most freeing thing a creator can do in 2025… is make something that doesn’t need to “perform.”
I keep a running list of guests I admire.
I send thoughtful emails.
I read the books… I read the footnotes.
I prep like hell.
Then I hit record.
None of that is the secret.
The ritual is.
We’ve misunderstood what “successful content” means.

It’s not what gets shared… it’s what gets remembered.

One person messaging to say, “this made me think”… That’s my win.
Podcasting isn’t about popularity (for me)… it’s about presence.
We don’t need more hacks… We need more humans.

The medium matters less than the mindset.

You don’t need to go viral to be valuable.
You just need to not quit.
No one clapped when I published episode #6…
But if I hadn’t made episode #7, I wouldn’t be closing in on #1000.
My creativity isn’t about going viral… it’s about going again.

What’s your creativity?

This is what Dan Delmar and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

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