As Everyday Positivity reached 2000 days, its founder and host Kate Cocker spoke to PodcastingToday about her journey and the community it has created.
The Everyday Positivity podcast has achieved a remarkable six million downloads to date. The two-minute show has become a daily dose of optimism and inspiration for its listeners, fostering a supportive community that extends far beyond the podcast.
Kate, who spent over 20 years as a radio programmer and producer, launched Everyday Positivity five years ago after a bit of a low point in her life. As a result, it made her think that, in the same way as she could do with a little bit of pep talk every day to help her, maybe others could too.
It started out as a daily Amazon Flash Briefing for Alexa and partnering with a San Francisco business, Volley.FM. Kate says that at the time, no one else was doing them and it was a good opportunity to learn about, get into and understand this space.
“What I felt was, it’s a daily briefing rather than a podcast and I was able to use some of that radio mindset around it’s here today, gone tomorrow because it updated on the Flash Briefing every day,” she says. “We were purely flash briefings for four months and then we moved into the podcasting space.”
Being the only positivity Flash Briefing as an Amazon Alexa skill and with Volley promoting it in the US, the audience grew quickly. A Facebook group also helped with the growth of the audience into a community.
“We’re regularly in touch with listeners via the podcast and emails to build the community and I feel really close to them, I have a two-way relationship with them,” says Kate. “For example, we also do Zoom hangouts with listeners all over the world. One of them hasn’t been on the hangouts for a few months, so I emailed her to check she’s ok.
“She came straight back… but that’s what this is about, I have this group of people and it’s my job to remind them to be kind to themselves every day!”
The theme of the podcast remains the same daily but involves different stories, or telling them in different ways to make the same point. Kate says it became clear early on, that listeners liked the stories she told and the lessons she learned.
“Every single day I’m picking up things and my team often laugh at me because every now and then I’ll go ‘that’s an episode’ – so it’s literally picking up things all the time,” she adds.
The content is designed to appeal to both people who already have a positive mindset and those who are “new” to it.
Kate explains: “When you adopt the mindset of positive mantras and thinking in that way, it creates the action, the behaviour and all of that, when you do that regularly you think everyone else thinks like that and they don’t.
“Most people in the well-being space I bet, are often reminded like I am, that people do not think like this regularly, and that’s why Everyday Positivity exists, because it’s about reminding you on a day to day basis that everything’s going to be ok, that you can do anything you believe you can do, and it really is that the way you think, creates your world.”
One of the reasons her podcast is successful Kate firmly believes, is because getting into the space early when no one else was doing a daily podcast with a positive spin, gave it heritage.
“The reality is, I got some of that original space, I got some of that original land and that’s boosted the podcast as it continues to grow,” she says. “When I started out, it was never about ‘I want six million downloads or I want to do 2000 days’, it was ALWAYS about how can I help one person – if one person hears this and benefits from it, then I’ve done the job.”
As the podcast reaches its 2000-episode landmark, everything is being driven by its community to celebrate it, while helping others by contributing to a charitable cause.
Listeners have designed some commemorative prints to be sold and raise funds for a charity chosen by them. They went for UNICEF, the global organisation committed to improving the lives of children around the world. Two standout designs were chosen and are now available to buy on everydaypositivity.store.
The podcast also launched on Patreon this year and starting in January will be releasing 30 journaling prompts as additional content for subscribers.
“Our celebration for January is we’re going to make it the most positive month ever, especially in that Blue Monday zone, to focus on making a positive 2024!” Kate explains.
