Free Daily Podcast Summary
Leading Human: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Chad Prevost
You've achieved the success. You've checked the boxes. But something still feels off. Welcome to Leading Human—a podcast for high-achieving leaders, founders, and mission-driven professionals who are questioning whether the life they built is actually the life they want. This isn't about productivity hacks or surface-level self-care. This is about the real work: reclaiming your authentic self beneath the conditioning, the burnout, and the unconscious patterns running your life. Hosted by Chad Prevost (and sometimes Shelley), co-founders of Big Self School, Leading Human explores conscious leadership through the lens of depth psychology, the Enneagram, and the emerging role of AI in human development. We believe burnout isn't something that happens *to* you—it's something that happens *for* you. It's a soul crisis revealing where you've been abandoning yourself. Each episode tackles the friction between who you are and who you've become. We explore how personality operates beneath the surface.
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 6 days ago26 min
Four Million Books Published Last Year: What It Actually Costs to Publish One
Last year 4.2 million books were published in the United States with an ISBN. Three and a half million of them were self-published. Traditional publishers put out 642,000. So for every book that came through the old machine, more than five came through the side door, and this year almost a third of new titles on Amazon’s platform arrive with a disclosure that a machine wrote some of it.I’m not here to tell you the sky is falling. I run a press and I’m betting my working life on people wanting books. But if you’re sitting on a manuscript and wondering what it costs to put it into the world, you’re asking in a year when the shelf got very crowded very fast. So this episode is the arithmetic, line by line: editing, cover, typesetting, audio, ISBNs, the roughly eighteen thousand dollars you can spend before anyone knows your book exists. And then the question underneath the numbers, which is what you’re actually buying when you work with a publisher, and whether you need one at all.The difficulty in life is the choice. In this episode:* Why 4.2 million ISBNs in a year is not the end of the world, and what it does change* The printer-and-ink problem: what “free to publish” leaves out* The three-year Amazon picture: catalog, sellers, and revenue growing at very different speeds* The line-by-line cost of a sixty-thousand-word nonfiction book, from developmental edit to ISBNs* Why print-on-demand hardcovers cost a self-publisher more than they cost a big house, and what to do about it* Audio: what it takes to record, edit, and upload your own audiobook, and why Crossroads is baking it in for the founding cohort* What a publisher is actually selling: representation, selection, and a partner in the room* The nonprofit-press volume play, the vanity-press TV commercial, and the difference between a book and a zine* Three questions before you decide: do you already have readers, could you hire every service separately, and do you want to run the account yourself* Why I’m in this at allIf you’re an author with a fine nonfiction book and you’re wondering where to take it, send a submission inquiry through the press site and let’s have a conversation about whether this is a fit, for you and for us. Deciding against it is a real answer, and I’d rather you decide clearly than sign up for something you didn’t want.If you know a writer who’s sitting on a manuscript and doing this arithmetic right now, forward them this episode. That helps more than anything I can do on my own.Subscribe at chadprevost.substack.com, or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.The Difficulty is produced by Crossroads Publishing Group, a message-and-meaning press. Show page: crossroadspublishing.group/the-difficulty. More at chadprevost.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com
- 1 weeks ago30 min
Ready, Nearly, Not Yet
Last week I mentioned an agent who read 6,152 queries and signed two writers.This week I want to talk about the other 6,150. Every one of them got a letter—or possibly just a long and unreturned response—but one way or another the message said some version of: thank you, but this isn’t the right fit for our list. That sentence contains no information. It doesn’t tell you whether your book was almost there or nowhere close, whether to revise for a year or send it out again Tuesday.I read every manuscript that comes to my press myself, and everyone who sends pages gets one of three answers in writing, with the reasons. Ready. Nearly. Not yet.This episode is what those three words actually mean, why nobody upstream in the industry is checking readiness at all, and then the question I get at dinner parties: can’t I just edit my own book? The honest answer has a wall in it that has nothing to do with how good a writer you are.Follow The Difficulty: Subscribe at chadprevost.substack.com, or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. The Difficulty is produced by Crossroads Publishing Group, a message-and-meaning press. More also at chadprevost.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com
- 2 weeks ago7 min
Nobody Knows Anything, Except Maybe Your Editor
In 1983 the screenwriter William Goldman wrote three words that people in Hollywood have been quoting ever since. Nobody knows anything. About twenty years later a psychologist spent two decades testing whether that's true about everything, collecting somewhere near twenty-eight thousand predictions from the experts we put on television. It did not go well for the experts. There's a second finding buried in that study that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.Crossroads Publishing Group is my press. If you're sitting on a manuscript, a proposal, or an idea you can't shake loose, take a look at crossroadspublishing.group. And if you decide it isn't for you, that's a real answer and a good one. The difficulty in life is the choice. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com
- 2 weeks ago22 min
Random House Told You the Truth
In the summer of 2022 the federal government sued to stop the biggest publisher in the world from buying the fourth biggest, and for two weeks the people who run American publishing had to explain their business under oath.Asked how publishing decides what succeeds, the CEO of Penguin Random House said this: “Everything is random in publishing. Success is random. Bestsellers are random. So that is why we are the Random House.”That isn’t a critic. It isn’t a bitter writer with a drawer full of rejections. That’s the man running the largest publishing company on earth, telling you the system doesn’t know.This is the first of a series of weeks on what’s actually happening in publishing right now, and what I think a publisher is for. Today: the real numbers, including the viral one that’s false. Why an indie musician gets romance and an indie author still gets an asterisk. And what the word hybrid actually means, which turns out to be a story about Mendel’s peas.Follow The Difficulty: Subscribe at chadprevost.substack.com, or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. The Difficulty is produced by Crossroads Publishing Group, a message-and-meaning press. More at chadprevost.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com
- 3 weeks ago6 min
Nobody Is Watching You That Closely, Especially Not Your Successes
Forty-six and twenty-three. Then forty-eight and eight. Those four numbers come from an experiment where college students had to wear a Barry Manilow t-shirt into a room full of strangers, and I think the second pair might be the most freeing finding in social psychology. Especially if you have something finished sitting on your desk that you haven't published yet.Crossroads Publishing Group is my press. If you’re sitting on a manuscript, a proposal, or an idea you can’t shake loose, take a look at crossroadspublishing.group. And if you decide it isn’t for you, that’s a real answer and a good one. The difficulty in life is the choice. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com
- 3 weeks ago26 min
Two Fingers in the Book?
Did you keep two fingers in the book? One on the page you were on, one back at the choice, so a bad ending never had to count. Guilty! I’ve never met a Choose Your Own Adventure reader who didn’t. And if you were a purist, I genuinely want to hear from you, because maybe you’re my ideal reader.This week my own interactive novel came out. The Escape Artist drops you into Lester Honeycutt, a teenager in mid-century Delaware, Ohio, who owns a pair of striped pants he considers part of his act and wants to be the greatest magician in the world. Two legends come to town on the same Saturday at eight o’clock, the escape artist and the knife thrower, and you can only see one of them.Thirty endings. Four complete life cycles. A gang, a rival magician, a hot air balloon, and one moment where you nudge your best friend up on stage to be generous and it costs you everything. Kirkus calls it “entertaining escapades bolstered by a bevy of gleefully unpredictable endings.”Play the opening free, ten minutes: https://chadprevost.com/eaThe book: https://chadprevost.com/if-then-books/the-escape-artist/Buy it anywhere, forward the receipt to chad@crossroadspublishing.group, and the full online version is yours free.Illustrations by Annabelle Tarter. Ages 14–17.Teachers, librarians, principals: I’ll come run this live in your classroom, and the room votes on every choice. Book two sessions and the second is a writing workshop where students write their own endings. Same address.Substack:Apple Podcasts: Spotify: Show page: https://crossroadspublishing.group/the-difficulty/Personal site: https://chadprevost.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com
- 4 weeks ago23 min
Every Day Is a Birthday
Live from Home Bar with Genesis, on a Friday evening in August.I brought a poem this time. The last time we sat down together I got self-conscious about which one to read and never read any of them, and then a night or two later I had a dream: a baby left with me in an upstairs room, a baby I ignored for a while before I finally drew close and started building trust with her. Robert A. Johnson says don’t just tell a dream, walk with it. So I walked with it, and this episode is some of what came of that.Genesis talks about why creative people need frequent times of silly, and why that’s the thing that keeps you limber enough to lift something heavy later. He tells the story behind the Brothers painting hanging on the wall behind us, which is a better story than I knew. And he hands me a line I haven’t been able to put down since: every day is a birthday.The poem is “On Your Birthday,” from Mirage and Tar, my first collection in twelve years, on its way back from the printer now. Order a copy here.Follow The Difficulty: Subscribe at chadprevost.substack.com, or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.The Difficulty is produced by Crossroads Publishing Group, a message-and-meaning press.More at chadprevost.com.Recorded live at Home Bar, Fourth and Market, Chattanooga. Art and conversation by Genesis. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com
- Aug 21, 20266 min
Why You Need to Hear from More Than Those Who Made It
Almost every piece of writing advice you have ever received came from a survivor. In 1943 a statistician looked at where returning bombers had been shot and realized the military was about to armor exactly the wrong parts of the plane. This episode is about what his correction has to do with every craft book, agent story, and five-a.m. routine you've ever read, and why the most important information is the part that never made it back.Crossroads Publishing Group is my press. If you're sitting on a manuscript, a proposal, or an idea you can't shake loose, take a look at crossroadspublishing.group. And if you decide it isn't for you, that's a real answer and a good one. The difficulty in life is the choice. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com
Get Leading Human summaries in your inbox
Free AI-powered daily recaps. Key takeaways, quotes, and mentions — in a 5-minute read.
Get Free Summaries →Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
You Might Also Like
Listeners also like.
Your Virtual Upline Podcast
A podcast for online leaders redefining success through a belief-driven, identity-led growth method that prioritizes peace over burnout.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Explores purpose, resilience, and connection through science-backed conversations with experts in psychology, neuroscience, and performance.
Working Hard with Grace Beverley
Conversations with diverse achievers reveal raw insights on redefining success, balancing ambition, and learning from failure.
Total Disruption Podcast
Entrepreneurs discuss mindset, business growth, and operational frameworks to move beyond hustle culture and build scalable companies.
The Entrepreneur DNA
Entrepreneurs share lessons on building businesses and personal growth through real experiences and mistakes.
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk
Conversations with top leaders across industries exploring how continuous learning drives success.
The Unstuck High Performer Podcast - Hypnotherapy and Mindset Coaching for High-Performers
Helps high-achievers overcome mental blocks like overthinking, burnout, and self-sabotage to consistently perform at their potential.
The Balanced, Beautiful and Abundant Show - Rebecca Whitman
A coach helps high-achieving women overcome burnout using a framework centered on spiritual, emotional, physical, and financial well-being.
A Bit of Optimism
Conversations with thinkers and doers exploring what drives purpose, growth, and meaning in life.
Good Life Project
Explores meaningful living through conversations with experts in science, culture, and the arts.
Growth Mindset Psychology: The Science of Self-Improvement
Explores the science behind lasting self-improvement through psychology, neuroscience, and timeless wisdom traditions.
The One You Feed | Personal Growth, Emotional Resilience & Purpose
Insightful conversations with leading thinkers on personal growth, emotional resilience, and living with purpose.
About Leading Human
You've achieved the success. You've checked the boxes. But something still feels off. Welcome to Leading Human—a podcast for high-achieving leaders, founders, and mission-driven professionals who are questioning whether the life they built is actually the life they want. This isn't about productivity hacks or surface-level self-care. This is about the real work: reclaiming your authentic self beneath the conditioning, the burnout, and the unconscious patterns running your life. Hosted by Chad Prevost (and sometimes Shelley), co-founders of Big Self School, Leading Human explores conscious leadership through the lens of depth psychology, the Enneagram, and the emerging role of AI in human development. We believe burnout isn't something that happens *to* you—it's something that happens *for* you. It's a soul crisis revealing where you've been abandoning yourself. Each episode tackles the friction between who you are and who you've become. We explore how personality operates beneath the surface.
Customized Recaps
AI-powered recaps with compact key takeaways, quotes, and insights.
Straight to Your Inbox
Get key takeaways from Leading Human in a 5-minute read.
Save Hours Every Week
Stay current on your favorite podcasts without falling behind.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Podzilla's Leading Human daily summary?
It's a free AI-powered email that summarizes new episodes of Leading Human as soon as they're published. You get the key takeaways, notable quotes, and links & mentions — all in a quick read.
How does the Leading Human podcast summary work?
When a new episode drops, our AI transcribes and analyzes it, then generates a personalized summary tailored to your interests and profession. It's delivered to your inbox every morning.
Is this an official Leading Human product?
No. Podzilla is an independent service that summarizes publicly available podcast content. We're not affiliated with or endorsed by Chad Prevost.
Can I get summaries of other podcasts too?
Absolutely! The free plan covers up to 3 podcasts. Upgrade to Pro for 15, or Premium for 50. Browse our full catalog at /podcasts.
How often does Leading Human release new episodes?
Leading Human publishes weekly. Our AI generates a summary within hours of each new episode.
What topics does Leading Human cover?
Leading Human covers topics including Technology, Education, Business, Management, Self-Improvement. Our AI identifies the specific themes in each episode and highlights what matters most to you.
Start getting Leading Human summaries tomorrow morning.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.