Episode 1609: Surprise Anniversary Update Episode

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,609 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Luke Mickelson: I'm Luke Mickelson, and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Have the ability to find a passion and live it out is key.

One way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: Pushing yourself to go beyond your limits is really a big part of what this show is about because. We're often called to do things that we feel there's no possible way we can do. And that's what over time my [00:01:00] coaching has evolved into, it's really less about welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

Back on January 8th, 2018 is when I started this podcast and I've been doing it now for seven years, and I decided to jump on and release a special episode today and just talk about a few of the things that have happened, things that I've learned and reflect a little bit on this year of 2025. [00:02:00] And that's what you're going to hear right after this.

I have a great book that's been out for a while now called Inspired Living. Assemble the Puzzle of your Calling by Mastering your Time, your Talent, and your Treasures. You can find out more about that book over@inspiredlivingbook.com. It'll take you to a page where there's information and you can sign up to get some mailings about it, as well as purchase a copy there.

I'd love to see you get a copy and share with me how it impacted your world. It's hard to believe that I started this podcast back on January 8th, 2018, and the idea behind it then was to begin talking about the topic of stewardship and interviewing people that had insight into that and think a little bit about what I wanted to be as a message when I talked to clients, when I talked to other people, when I went and did speaking events, but begin [00:03:00] to process.

Those thoughts because the truth is I didn't like writing. I love to talk. I'm kind of an auditory processor of information in terms of when I'm trying to think about things. A lot of times I actually think about them by talking to myself, going on a walk and talking about things out loud and recording that and then going back and listening to that.

And so with that in mind, I decided to start a podcast. There were definitely podcasts out. I'm by no means one of the first podcasters. But I hired a coach, a good friend of mine, somebody that I was. Able to work with who had a podcast of their own, who helped me kind of craft an idea, a worldview, and get started on the mechanics.

And at that time, what I was doing is recording an interview for two hours and dividing it up into four parts and releasing those across four consecutive Mondays, [00:04:00] and then on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. I released solo episodes, kind of a spiritual foundation episode, and then an episode on time, an episode on talent, and an episode on treasures.

And what ended up happening is over time that content became things that I was able to reflect on and develop messaging around. And eventually, by the way, most of that content turned into my book Inspired Living because I took a lot of that content and repurposed it and expanded on it and made that the content of the book.

But beyond that, some of the people I met. That came on my show and did interviews with me, became the people that, that my writing coach came out of that the person who wrote the forward, the people I interviewed for the book, all sorts of connections. The person that introduced me to the publisher, Morgan James, all of [00:05:00] that came about through the podcast.

So the podcast really became the book. I didn't write a book. I spoke a book into existence. So I began to do that for several years and, and eventually I realized I had more people wanting to come on the show to be interviewed and I, with dividing it up into four and doing all of that. It was getting more and more complicated to begin to have enough time for all of these interviews and so.

Over time, I decided to add something that I called Saturday Night Specials, so a Saturday interview slot. And the first one of those was actually released back on August of 2019, and that became a standalone interview slot that I actually started out numbering all by themselves. [00:06:00] So I was on episode. 410 when I released the intro and introduce the idea of Saturday Night Specials and 415 when I released the first actual interview, and I numbered those.

Originally I was numbering those Saturday night specials all by themselves, so I began to release those and eventually. I released over 180 of those. I also then back in 2023, began to reduce the number of episodes that I was releasing a week. I started doing that actually in 2022. Towards the very end of the year, and then continued that into 20 23, 20 24, and 2025.

So I then began to release one interview a week that was a standalone interview and one solo episode a week. That was kind of a standalone item. I continued the Saturday night specials, but eventually I [00:07:00] stopped those throughout. I occasionally would do a rebroadcast where I'd repeat an episode, but for the most part.

Most of my episodes have been unique across that time. And now here in 2025, I have, I'm working on this one, which is episode 1,609. But remember, there's really about 180 other episodes that should be added to that. So I've got almost 2000 episodes across those seven years. And people often ask me, how do you come up with that much content?

How do you come up with those? That many ideas? And that's honestly part of the reason why I pushed myself to do so many solo episodes, even though they're short. Each of them kind of had their own little standalone idea, and that came about by training myself to constantly look for ideas, to literally challenge myself to go for a walk and come up with five ideas during that walk that I could release for the week.[00:08:00]

And eventually it got where now pretty much everything I do. I look at from the point of view of is there an idea here? Is there something here that I can learn, something here, that I can teach, something here that I can use when I'm working with clients or when I'm talking on the podcast or being interviewed by someone else.

And so one of the lessons that I've learned from doing the podcast as long as I have is that idea of training your brain and doing things that at first you don't think there's any way you can do, but challenging yourself to do it so that you learn from it, you expand on it, your brain gets better over time.

When you do something that honestly, when you start feels like there's no way you can do. Pushing yourself to go beyond your limits is really a big part of what this show is about because we're often called to do [00:09:00] things that we feel there's no possible way we can do, and that's what over time my coaching has evolved into, it's really less about really getting one thing done.

More about finding what it is that you're really supposed to be doing and then aligning your time and your money so that you can actually do it. That's the biggest lesson I've learned over the last seven years of doing the podcast is we can do amazing things when we lean on community, when we lean on God, and when we stretch ourselves beyond the things that we feel.

Capable of doing. Oh, don't get me wrong, it hasn't been perfect. I'm now getting anywhere around two or 3000, sometimes as many as 5,000 downloads on an episode. Much better than when I first [00:10:00] started. I was getting three episodes download, and I know who all three of the people were that were downloading it, and it's just grown slowly over time.

But beyond that, the biggest. Growth isn't on the show numbers, it's on me and how I've grown by doing the show. So I would challenge you as you roll into 2026, think about what God is calling you to do. Think about what you feel is beyond your limits and go do it. And if you need help, if you need support, if you need somebody to walk with you through that experience, that's what I do.

That's the coaching that I do as a stewardship coach. So reach out to me. Send me an email atScott@inspiredstewardship.com and I'd be happy to meet with you and talk about how I could help you in this new year. Thanks for listening.

Thanks so much [00:11:00] for listening to the Inspired Stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes.

Rate all one word. iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review, and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed. Until next time, invest your time, your talent, and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.