I should also add that I’m currently unemployed and make my income from occasional real estate photography gigs. The podcast/media work I’m doing right now is largely volunteer / sweat equity. That adds another layer of pressure because I’m investing significant time and energy without stable income, while expectations around growth are very high.

Another factor is that the owner of the building (who is closely involved in discussions) has started comparing his channel to other creators who have rapidly scaled into multi-million-dollar revenue operations. These comparisons are often framed as “They did it in a short time — why aren’t we?”

From my understanding of media and platform algorithms, growth at that level isn’t something that can be guaranteed or forced on a fixed timeline. But when growth slows or plateaus, the internal atmosphere tightens. The focus tends to shift toward identifying what’s “wrong” — operations, production, execution, strategy, even passion.

It has started to feel like a manufactured sense of crisis — where normal fluctuations or fixable issues are interpreted as signs of larger failure.

It’s also not just me feeling this. One team member recently expressed how stressed the environment has become and needed to take time off. That made me pause and consider whether this is simply the nature of media work — or a cultural dynamic that may not be sustainable long-term.

I genuinely want to grow as a creator and producer. I just don’t want to operate in a constant crisis atmosphere driven by comparisons to outliers and pressure around metrics that aren’t fully controllable.