Tim Winders has a philosophy about podcasting metrics that sounds like hard-won wisdom:

I want to say I’m not concerned about the results. I’m more into the methodical effort of putting out what I do.

He warns that podcasters who let their mood rise and fall with downloads will be “short lived in this project.” The prescription is clear: focus on the work, release attachment to outcomes, find satisfaction in the process itself.

But then, a few minutes later, a confession:

I probably thought that I would end up being huge, like massive something. And so it’s been sort of surprising to me that we haven’t had a bigger, I don’t know, following or whatever.

Wait. The guy preaching detachment from results expected to become massive?

This complicates the narrative in an interesting way. Winders didn’t start with Buddhist-level non-attachment. He started with ambition—the same ambition most podcasters carry into their first episodes. He pressed record expecting, on some level, that the audience would come. That the numbers would grow. That six years and 300 episodes would add up to something “huge.”

It didn’t happen that way. And the detachment philosophy? That came after. Not instead of the disappointment, but because of it.

This matters because the advice podcasters usually hear treats non-attachment as a starting posture. Don’t get hung up on metrics. Focus on the craft. Love the process. The implication is that if you just adopt the right mindset from day one, you’ll be immune to the disappointment of unmet expectations.

But Winders’ trajectory suggests something different. The peace he describes—being “comfortable with it,” having “come to terms” with his actual audience—reads less like a philosophy he chose and more like a settlement he negotiated with reality. He wanted massive. He got mature, critical-thinking, deeper-thought. And somewhere in that gap, he found a way to keep going.

Maybe that’s actually the more honest path. Not pretending you don’t care about results, but caring, being disappointed, and then finding your way to something sustainable anyway. The detachment isn’t a shield you raise before the arrows arrive. It’s something you build from the arrows that already hit.

This reframes what “not caring about results” actually means for working podcasters. It’s not a prerequisite for longevity—it’s a consequence of it. The podcasters who last six years aren’t the ones who never hoped for more. They’re the ones who hoped, adjusted, and kept showing up.

Winders puts it simply: he enjoys the conversations, they nourish his soul, and that’s enough. But “enough” is a word that only has meaning when you’ve already reckoned with what you thought you wanted.

This field note references the PodTalk podcast episode “Persistence with Tim Winders,” published March 31, 2025.