How to Grow a Podcast with Radical Authenticity | Ep 70

There is a version of you that has something to say. You've felt her. She shows up right before you talk yourself out of hitting record, right before you decide your story isn't interesting enough, your voice isn't polished enough, your life isn't together enough. This episode is for her — and for you.

Erin Washington is the host of ThERINpy, a top 1% podcast, the founder of the Blue Butterfly Foundation, and the author of From Pain to Purpose. She is also, by her own admission, someone who spent years guarding a secret that she thought would disqualify her from being taken seriously. When she finally let it go — on the internet, in public, for anyone to hear — it didn't break her. It built her.

The Pandemic Pivot That Started Everything

Before there was a podcast, there were Instagram Lives. During the earliest days of the pandemic, Erin started showing up on Instagram not because she had a content strategy, but because she needed connection — and so did everyone else. Those raw, unscripted conversations caught the attention of the largest radio station in Washington, D.C., and before long she had a produced podcast deal. Not because she had a media kit. Not because she had a following that made brands nervous. Because she was real in a moment when everyone else was performing calm.

That origin story matters because it dismantles the myth that you need to have everything figured out before you start. Erin didn't wait until she had a studio. She didn't wait until she had a brand. She showed up, she spoke honestly, and the right people found her because of it.

The Secret That Freed Her — And Her Audience

Every platform has a turning point — a moment when the creator stops managing her image and starts telling the truth. For Erin, that moment came when she shared something she had kept private through homecoming crowns and D1 athletics and years of building a public life. She doesn't ask you to share everything. She asks you to notice what you're refusing to share — because that thing is usually the exact key that unlocks the door between you and your people.

This is something Aimee and Erin sit with together in this conversation: the cost of the curated self. The perfect grid. The highlight reel. Erin tried that approach. She describes watching her engagement flatline while she chased an aesthetic, and then watching everything shift the moment she let the mess be visible. Your audience is not looking for proof that you've arrived. They are looking for someone who makes them feel less alone in where they are.

The Guest-Booking Masterclass You Didn't Know You Needed

If you've ever wondered how independent podcasters land guests like Katie Couric, Melissa Joan Hart, and Gabby Bernstein — this is the section of the episode you'll want to replay. Erin did not buy a contact list. She did not DM celebrities in the hopes of going viral. She reverse-engineered the process by understanding one foundational truth: you don't pitch the celebrity, you pitch the publicist — and you pitch them an angle, not a favor.

Erin walks through her exact process: how she identifies what a public figure is promoting, how she crafts an angle that genuinely serves their client's current narrative, and how one well-placed yes creates the credibility that makes every subsequent booking easier. The Katie Couric booking, she reveals, came from a single detail she noticed in Couric's memoir that no one else was talking about. That kind of specificity — that proof that you've done the work — is what separates a request from an opportunity.

She and Aimee also get into their opposing philosophies on pre-calls, and it is genuinely one of the most useful debates you'll hear about podcast production. Erin skips them entirely, believing the best conversations happen when both people are discovering things in real time. Aimee runs hers like casting sessions, vetting for energy and alignment before a single mic goes live. Both approaches work. Both reflect deeply held values about what makes a great show. The question is which one is yours.

Rebranding, Pivoting, and the Gabby Bernstein Moment

Erin built a following under the name Squats & Margaritas. It was fun, it was catchy, and it was trademarked. It was also, eventually, too small for what she was becoming. The rebrand to ThERINpy wasn't just a name change — it was an act of alignment, a decision to let her platform grow into who she actually was rather than who she was when she started.

The catalyst, she shares, came from a conversation with Gabby Bernstein — a guest she'd spent months working to book — who said something so direct, so on point, that Erin knew the moment it landed that she couldn't unhear it. She doesn't frame the pivot as a loss. She frames it as the most important brand decision she ever made, because it was the first one she made entirely for herself.

Grace as a Strategy, Wins as a Practice

One of the quieter but more lasting threads in this conversation is what Erin and Aimee call judging your week, not your day. If you are a working mom, a creative, a woman building something in the margins of a full life, you know the particular cruelty of measuring yourself against a single bad afternoon. Erin's reframe — zoom out, give yourself the week, and evaluate from there — is not a productivity hack. It is a form of self-respect.

She also makes a point that lands hard: when you talk about your wins openly, you are not bragging. You are modeling. Your kids are watching you decide whether it is safe to be proud of yourself. They are learning, right now, what it looks like when a woman succeeds and what she does with that success. You celebrating yourself is not vanity. It is permission — for them, and for every woman watching who hasn't given it to herself yet.

You Don't Need to Be Ready. You Need to Be Real.

Erin Washington did not build a top 1% podcast by being the most polished person in the room. She built it by being the most present. By sharing the thing she was afraid to share. By pitching with specificity and receiving with grace. By choosing, again and again, to be recognizably herself even when the algorithm suggested otherwise.

If you have a story — and you do — this episode is your roadmap. Not to build Erin's show, but to build yours. Stop performing. Start building. Your people are already looking for you.