A favourite of mine over many years
I recommend whole-heartedly Pat Flynn’s podcast called The Smart Passive Income Podcast.
Snapshot
What it is
Podcast, roughly 30-40 minutes per episode. Prior to 2025, many episodes were based on guest interviews, but in 2025 Pat has often posted helpful tips and insight without the aid of a guest.
Why is it so loveable?
- Inspiring!
- Believable entrepreneurial guests
- Smart business advice you may not find elsewhere
- Pat asks great questions
- Casual tone, easy to see how a listener could apply it in their own endeavors
- Show length is about the time it takes to get to a destination if listening in the car/bus
Furthermore, Pat Flynn’s speaking and sharing advice and anecdotes hasn’t really varied over the years. His advice is good. If applied, you likely will see some success or improvement. The learning tidbits are actionable.
Listen to a few episodes and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The podcast is there for you to learn, and learn quickly in just one episode at a time.
Examples of learnings
- Email marketing methods that worked for several types of business operators
- How different people found and validated pain points in the market then strategically developed a business to help them
- Podcasters telling what worked for them to build their audience
- How to quickly determine your brand – the ‘brand in a hand’ episode
- Several episodes about various types of content, platforms to use or avoid, and picking the right content strategies for you
- People who sell templates (I can recall one episode of a lawyer who enjoyed making legal templates more than her job as a lawyer)
- Admittedly unusual success stories of people who stuck with it, and how they got their inspiration and first customers including during the financial crisis of 2008 and when the COVID pandemic emerged
- The importance of mentors, peers, champions, supporters, and feedback from all these people in your journey
Overall impression
The Smart Passive Income podcast offers very useful inspiration and education for entrepreneurs taking their first steps, and those who are already underway.
I doubt I would have the confidence to put my own creative and tech skills into the public sphere if I didn’t have Pat’s voice in my head telling me many ways (over the years) how the public may find it useful.
Also I might have easily given up too fast when my old websites got hacked one by one, and when I entered art contests I didn’t win, or the times I explored different creative outlets looking for recognition and higher income.
For a new listener who is interested in entrepreneurial life, I definitely suggest listening to several episodes. See if you get value from it. I sure have.
Even if you’ve already determined beliefs, strategies, and procedures, Pat’s attitude and the topics are still enjoyable to hear. Even the old episodes are insightful, to see how digital lives have changed. Some principles have stayed the same.