#415 On Endings, Failure, and Growth

You know, ever since I started kind of re-releasing some, uh, back episodes that, you know, I, I, I don't want to get buried in the, the, the many episodes that we have.

It's why we do a lot of the reruns, um, at least somewhat recently.

Uh, and so other people can just find some of those great episodes that kind of built the podcast without having to go dig through, you know, 400 plus episodes.

[chuckles] Um, sometimes that really does help.

But the, the podcast has been around and it, it's gone through many iterations, and I've gone through many iterations.

When I started Teach Me, Teacher, I was a second year teacher going into my first year, um, as an English teacher, or I guess my second year.

Maybe I was a third year teacher.

I don't know.

My-- I'd have to go back and look.

Um, but it, but, but it was kind of in between those times.

I-- that's what it was.

It was kind of like mid-year of my first year as an English teacher.

But, um, essentially, I was, was a baby teacher and I was a baby podcaster, and 10 years down the line, I've talked to literally the, the greatest minds in education and around education.

I've talked to political leaders, uh, directly from the White House.

I've talked to major personalities that circle around some of the biggest podcast space, and this has just been a quaint little podcast, um, that has somehow found an audience, a global audience, but a strong, passionate audience, um, literally reaching millions of people a year, which I, when I started the show, I had no intention of ever doing that.

Honestly, I don't know what I had the intention of other than just, um, learning, and that's what this journey has always been about, is learning.

Um, which is why I'm curious as to significant things that you guys have taken from the show.

You know, the-- because of the formatting of the podcast and because of the way the podcast is set up, there isn't always a back and forth.

You know, you-- those of you who follow me on socials and DM me pretty regularly, um, you know, I, I talk to you guys and we have that back and forth, and there's a, there's a lot of you, and the, the Facebook page does get s- uh, quite a bit engagement, depending on w- what I'm posting.

But, um, a lot of those people w- I don't feel like are actual, like, deep fans of the show.

I think they're just kind of on the page because it's a teacher page, and a lot of people like it because of that.

So, um, when I think of, like, the core audience, I think of those of you who have been around for a while or those of you who listen every single week.

Um, there's tons of you who use the podcast for PDs, and there's tons of you that I- I've been a part of to where you guys have talked about the show bringing you out of retirement, or you listen to it even in retirement, or you listen to it to keep yourself going.

There's been people that have listened to the show, and because of the show, it got them hired because of the, uh, the quality of conversations that I've been fortunate enough to be able to host on it.

So-Tons of memories, tons of iterations.