Hi. This is Paul Zalazar, and welcome to a historic episode of the Awarepreneurs podcast. Today is our 300th episode celebration, and it took me, like, 4 times saying that to get it out because I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this moment. I'll tell you a story.

On Saturday night, my very sweet girlfriend, Eva, took me out to a wonderful tapest place for dinner. And we were celebrating 300 episodes. And she asked me, how does it feel? And, you know, I'm usually kind of a wordy guy. I've got graduate degree. And, you know, my first training is in community mental health, and I'm a podcaster. No. I'm an introvert, but I certainly am somebody pretty comfortable with words. I'm Jewish, and one of the names for Jews are the people of the word. Right? So it was surprising to both her and I when I didn't have a lot to say. And really, as I sat with it, the most honest answer is that metabolizing, which is something as 2 introverts, we say to each other a lot. We kinda laughed, but it's true. Like, I'm a little bit out of loss for words. When I started my podcast, I didn't think about getting to this moment. 300 episodes. And I look back over a 1000 strategies that our guests have shared you know, I do now a solo episode every

once a month. So, you know, I don't know. Is it 225 guests or something like that? That part I didn't documents so well. But a whole lot, over 200 guests, over a 1000 strategies,

and over 300,000,000 people that our guests have worked with in their businesses and in their nonprofits and in their initiatives. And that's kinda mind boggling. And, honestly, I didn't think about this moment of the journey when I was getting started. But one of the things that I have been doing is reflecting back on why I started. And what does that mean for where we are now? So

there's a Forbes article that you've heard me mention before if you've been a listener for a while. And the title of that article is research finds

conventional accelerators aren't a good fit for social entrepreneurs. Think about that for a minute. Accelerator is language for something that's supposed to increase the success and to increase the pace of growth. for business, any kind of business. And research this research is quoted out of Michigan. I'll put a link in the show notes. But what it finds is that the failure rate actually goes up according to the most recent research for social entrepreneurs take part in more traditional business development accelerator type experiences. And I knew that. That research wasn't yet done 6 years ago when I started this podcast, but I I could watch what was happening that a lot of people who are listening to good advice, to very smart folks with a lot of business acumen or marketing acumen or, you know, expertise in a particular skill area. But it wasn't necessarily working very well in the social enterprise space, and What I wanted to do is to create a very accessible, a very inclusive way to share what people who have actually built something at scale and having positive impact and also having strong revenue I I wanted to share that with you. I didn't even know you back that, but with you, right, in an inclusive and really as accessible way as I knew how. And podcasting hit a lot of those notes. You don't need strong Internet. You can download a podcast episode onto almost any device, really cheap cell phone or cheap tablet. Right? So you do need at least some tech, but the most minimal tech, very small bandwidth compared to a video. You don't you can't, you know, play a YouTube video on certain old phones or very cheap phones. Right? and you can listen to a podcast even on in those conditions.

So there was a variety of reasons why I leaned into podcast and got really excited about it, launched it, but never thought I would get here. So here we are. And I'm still metabolizing, and I am an introvert. It's not normally my way to, like, say, oh my gosh. This is so awesome. I'm so awesome. I'm like, I

love humans, but don't like to be the center of attention is the honest truth. So here we are. 300 episodes. I cannot do something to acknowledge it. but I am a little bit less, you know, clear about what to say in this moment. I'm a little bit in that, I'm still metabolizing mode. So that's all I'm gonna say about that. I do wanna do two more things before I just say Stay tuned because there's lots of awesomeness coming. I wanna say a big thank you. To you, the listeners, who, obviously, we wouldn't be here. This podcast, like, if nobody was listening, I wouldn't keep doing this for 6 years and 100 of scheduling

conversations, then, oops, I missed it. Can I reschedule? Or, oops, that got disappeared a few times that happened. It didn't you know, save very well or there was a problem electronically or somebody cut out in the middle of an episode, and we had to rerecord the second half. Right? a lot of technical things and scheduling issues and lots of brainstorming and trying things that didn't work. And writing down things that did. Right? That's a lot of work.

Nobody was getting any benefit. So thank you for listening.

Also wanna just give a huge shout out to our guests. Hopefully, it serves their goals for their impact and their business in terms of the visibility, but I don't pay our guests. They share out of the goodness of their hearts and also a mentor of mine called the enlightened self interest. Right? They have goals, they wanna let people know about it. And so, hopefully, it's a real win win win win for our guests, win for you listeners, and a win for me. helps me get more visibility as well, which is certainly not bad for my business. But I really work hard to make it a win win win. And

you and I, listeners, we wouldn't be winning if the guests weren't so generous and so honest and so forthcoming in patient in doing the onboarding process and sharing for a deep dive 50, 55 minute podcast episode plus a pre interview that I do with every guest. Right? You see why I'm saying, our guests are really generous, and these are busy folks doing things incredible things at scale. So thank you to our guests. I also wanna thank my mentor, my podcast mentor, the guy who sent me down, Keith Carlson, the nurse Keith podcast, as well as several other podcasting roles. He's been podcasting for quite some time and sat me down. He said, Paul, you need to start a podcast. And at the time, I was a long form blogger. That was my content where and I was like, Keith, I'm busy. What no. I'm not starting to pay Paul. Let me share with you. Please. Just listen. And I listened And Keith helped me understand the power of podcasting. I hadn't listened to a ton of them a little bit. I didn't understand the relationality. I didn't understand stand the inclusive and accessible aspects and who listens to podcasts, people more dedicated to the topic tend to be people who have higher leadership, ambition, and roles. There were there were some just a lot of things that really fit who I am and what my goals were, but I didn't see it. Keith was the one who sat me down as a pulp. let me help you understand why I'm seeing a real opportunity for you. And that was about 8 years ago or seven and a half. It took me a year or so.

to kind of lean into it and learn what I needed to learn and make room, but here we are. We wouldn't be here without Keith Carlson. So thank you, Keith. Go out his podcast. I'll put it in the show notes. And lastly, I wanna thank my

inner circle of support people like my family

who, you know, would send me articles like podcasting space, you know, the New York Times decided to write an article or publish an article that the podcast space was totally, you know, over the hill, and it was saturated that nobody was gonna ever this was probably 2 or 3 years in before I had gotten a lot of traction, but was starting to get some. My family's, like, nervous for me. I was keep breathing. gonna be okay. Right? This is a long play. This is, like, compounding interest. And even when they were getting concerned

opinions from people in their networks, they heard me out and supported me. My girlfriend, Eva, who takes me out a nice meal at Tappas and celebrates with me. And he was like, wow. You shoulda heard this gaster. Oh, this was a really hard thing at work. So Eva, my family, my mastermind buddy, Jason Stein. We've been mastermind buddies for,

oh gosh, a long time. 7 year and a half maybe going on 8 years, Jason Stein's podcast as Wellness Renegades. Jason's awesome. And, again, just to support an care. And even when things got messy or it was slow to build and I wasn't seeing a lot of return,

these folks believed in me, supported me, and helped me kind of find my way with the version of the podcast and the things you see live. at the Aware Perner's brand at the website. So lots of folks to think, but most specifically,

those folks, if I left anybody out, it's not because I'm trying to be mean. Just there's a lot of people to

thank and so much gratitude in my heart, 300 episodes. I can't believe that. Still not easy to say that out loud. Lastly, I just wanna say there's some exciting things in the works. Can go to the Aware printer's website and see our rebooted, rebranded podcast accelerator, which is really exciting. I'll talk about that more some other time. We're in the process of launching an Impact podcast network. Again, so much to say about that. You'll be hearing more about that this fall. But just know that a werepreneurs is not static.

There are some really cool things happening in the works if you care about positive impact.

If you're curious about podcasting either as starting your own podcast as a host or getting another people podcast. 1 of my favorite marketing strategies called a podcast guest strategy or podcast guesting. So you can check out the accelerator and lots more good things happening there. But just wanted to let you know there's lots of building and growing and developing on this track record of now 300 episodes, 6 years, so many incredible conversations. And, gosh, I'm still metabolizing. So that's all I'm gonna say before I say thank you, And as always, if you have an idea for one of our guest episodes or a topic you'd like me to cover on one of our solo episodes, Please go to the aware printer's website, check out our contact page.

More and more and more of our guests are coming from you, the listeners. And I love that. Turns out that's not common. I guess most hosts don't do that, or maybe people send it in, and the hosts are like, no. I'm not gonna listen. But, anyway, when I talk to other hosts, they're like, what percentage of your guests come from your listener? Like, a really high percentage, and it seems like every year it's going up. So

I'm okay with that.

Thank you for doing that, and please keep doing it. And if you have an idea,

go to the contact page and send it on in. So for now, just thank you for listening 300 episodes, 6

years. of learning together, sharing a deep out, and please take really good care in these intense times. and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.