Hosting A Purposeful Podcast with Lauren Popish

The Soloist Life

Podcasting is a proven way to increase your authority, impact and revenue—but how can you produce a podcast that consistently achieves your goals?

Lauren Popish, founder of The Wave (podcast editing for women, by women), shows how to clear the obstacles keeping you from starting—or continuing to grow—a purposeful podcast.

Lauren shares her story and some frank advice:

The two questions that you want to answer before recording a single episode (and use as a touchstone as you grow your ‘cast).

How to think about hard costs vs. the value of your time when outsourcing elements of your podcast production.

What to look for when outsourcing your podcast production—and when to choose a solo or an agency.

What to tell yourself if the sound of your own voice is keeping you from podcasting (start at timestamp 43:56 for the best advice I've ever heard on this).

Why purposeful podcasting means playing the long game.

LINKS

Lauren Popish Website | Launch Checklist | LinkedIn | Instagram

Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

BIO

Lauren Popish is the founder of The Wave Podcasting. She started podcasting in 2017 after a public speaking blunder that sparked a speaking fear and almost ended her career. She found podcasting to be a safe place to practice speaking and wanted to share it with other women struggling to tell their stories.

The Wave launched The Wave Editing, the first podcast editing service for women by women in 2021. The Wave Editing pairs female audio engineers with female podcasters so they can grow their shows by outsourcing the tedious tasks that prevent many podcast hosts from building their audience. Since then, The Wave has served hundreds of women through affordable editing services, educational resources, and digital community.

BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLE

RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS

The Soloist Women Mastermind (Apply January 2024) A structured eight-month mastermind with an intentionally small group of hand-picked women soloists grappling with—and solving—the same kinds of challenges.

10 Ways To Grow Revenue As A Soloist (Without Working More Hours): most of us have been conditioned to work more when we want to grow revenue—but what if we just worked differently?

The Soloist Women community: a place to connect with like-minded women (and join a channel dedicated to your revenue level).

The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.

TRANSCRIPT

00:00 - 00:34

Lauren Popish: How much is your time worth, truly from like a dollar standpoint? What would it cost you to sacrifice 1 hour of your day doing something like editing your podcast? If you think you can get more value from editing it yourself, then you would if you were to go use your time to do something else like do an hour of coaching services or even spend your time marketing your podcast, increasing your audience. If you think that your time is better spent editing, then it'll be a better value for you than hiring someone.

00:38 - 01:13

Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to Soloist Women, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton, and today I'm here with Lauren Poppish, the founder of The Wave Podcasting. And she launched the first podcast editing service for women by women in 2021. She pairs female audio engineers with female podcasters so they can grow their shows by outsourcing the tedious tasks that prevent many podcast hosts from building their audience. Lauren, welcome. Thank you

01:13 - 01:18

Lauren Popish: so much for having me. It's such a treat to be on the side of the microphone, on the side of the podcast.

01:19 - 01:39

Rochelle Moulton: Absolutely. Well, I'm so excited to have you on the show. And not only because I'm a happy user of your podcast editing services, I want to put that right up front. But I also Share your view that podcasting is a great way to get over the fear that many of us have about using our voices and being heard.

01:39 - 02:15

Lauren Popish: I'm so happy to hear you say that because I think it's 1 of the undersold advantages of starting a podcast is really treating speaking like a muscle, which it is, and like any skill, any skill that we're trying to build, you have to do it a little bit. And all of us, I think, can use more practice in not just using our voices in the most literal sense, but using it for getting a message across, selling ourselves, selling our companies, our missions. And podcasting is a great way to build the practice and build up that skill

02:15 - 02:32

Lauren Popish: of using your voice. It certainly has helped me overcome what was some pretty debilitating public speaking fear at 1 time and has since truly not just helped build individual confidence, but really has helped build my brand for my business. Well, I'm so

02:32 - 02:36

Rochelle Moulton: glad you brought that up because that was actually where I wanted to start this.

02:36 - 02:37

Lauren Popish: Oh good.

02:37 - 02:50

Rochelle Moulton: Because if I understand rightly, you started podcasting in 2017 after what you called a public speaking blunder that almost ended your career. So I'd really love to hear, like, how did that go down?

02:50 - 03:29

Lauren Popish: Yeah, I was on a sales team for a tech startup that had just gone through an acquisition. And my role at that time was kind of going on a road show of, I believe it was 22 different cities over 4 weeks to sell our new company on these products that this company had just acquired and train them up, show them how to use it. And so I was flying around and doing that kind of typical TV version of what a salesperson looks like. I was flying into 1 city during 1 day, flying out to the next.

03:29 - 04:10

Lauren Popish: I was racking up the points on my credit card. And on the very last day of the tour, so this is literally the last city of that 22 city tour, I was in Charleston and I showed up for a presentation I'd given at that 0, I want to say hundreds of times, either virtually or in person, and showed up like I usually do. Felt a little tired maybe from travel but nothing out of the usual. I showed up to this presentation. I started in on my typical lines and about midway through, I just couldn't catch my

04:10 - 04:47

Lauren Popish: breath. I was a little dehydrated. I was speaking too fast And I hyperventilated to the point where I had to actually leave the room. I was in the middle of this presentation. I have a complete meltdown. I can't get any words out. I can't speak. I kind of feign a coughing fit and I was like, I'll be right back. And I walked out and speaking at that time was 1 of my best skills. It was something that, I mean, I was in a sales role. It was how I defined myself as someone who is a very

04:47 - 05:09

Lauren Popish: confident speaker. And it was my livelihood at the time. I walked out and the coordinator, she came over and she goes, Oh, let me grab you a glass of water. Let's head back in there. And I was like, I'm so sorry. I don't, I don't think I can do this. I don't think I can go back in." And she was like, what are you talking about? Like she truly couldn't even understand that I was in a moment of full blown panic attack.

05:09 - 05:10

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah.

05:10 - 05:45

Lauren Popish: And so I went back in, I somehow stumbled through that presentation. But that incident sparked a fear so robust. I mean, I have to say that at the time I was in the early incubation stages of having mono, I had just worn myself truly into the ground from all of this work. So my health was failing a little bit. And so I was out of commission for about a month after that, just being so sick. But when I got back, the fear had come to stay. I mean, I every single, it didn't matter if it was

05:45 - 06:16

Lauren Popish: a virtual call, There was a time where I was so afraid of what might happen to me. I just didn't, I couldn't trust my body. I couldn't trust my voice. I didn't understand why this had happened when in the past I had never even thought about speaking and all of a sudden I could be standing up there and my voice just wouldn't work anymore. Like I couldn't just speak anymore. And so I could barely be in a conference room just having a one-on-one meeting with a colleague who I knew well. I mean, that's how paralyzed with

06:16 - 06:49

Lauren Popish: fear I was about my own voice and my ability to speak and trusting myself that way. And so I was going through just such anxiety. I had to have someone like a sit in the room with me as I was doing all my sales calls. I was just so afraid that something would happen and I'd have to leave and someone else would have to jump in. And I finally called my boss 1 Sunday as I was in true dread of showing up to start my workday that Monday. And I just said, I can't do it anymore.

06:49 - 07:22

Lauren Popish: And I don't know if there's a role here for me. I don't know what that means for my career at this company. All I know is that I can't do this job anymore. And luckily, I worked at a company that was just extremely human people centric. And my boss kind of sat me down and said, hey, we're going to find something that works for you. And I moved into a product role that ultimately fit like a glove. It fit me a lot better and I had a long career with this company. It was the company that

07:22 - 07:44

Lauren Popish: I was at until I decided to break out on my own with the wave. And that's really fortunate. But had that not been the case, I would have had to just kind of leave and figure out how to have a career and how to keep supporting myself because I was just so debilitated with fear about speaking at that time.

07:45 - 08:07

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. So what's fascinating to me then, I mean, because that story has so many elements. I mean, I'm 22 cities in who knows how many days. I mean, I'm not surprised you'd get mono or be sick or that your voice would just suddenly disappear. But what made you then decide that you could make a business out of podcasting? Right? Like the biggest fear.

08:08 - 08:50

Lauren Popish: Yeah, it wasn't overnight. It took a long time to kind of come to that decision. I basically immediately started a pretty robust therapy, immersion therapy. I joined Toastmasters immediately. I knew that I needed to get back to, and I will likely never ever get back to that level of carefree confidence that I had at 1 time about speaking. I now manage my fear and anxiety around speaking, but it's not gone. So I'll probably never get back to that. But I knew I needed to get to a functional state where I could hold down a job, where

08:50 - 09:22

Lauren Popish: I could come and sit in a conference room with other people and not be so afraid that I was going to have some kind of bodily mishap. And so I started that process. And at that time I was actually, I've kind of always had the entrepreneurial fire and maybe other folks who listen to your show can relate to this fact that I've worked in, for companies and in corporate environments for a long time, but I've always had that little burning fire under me that just says, I want to do it on my own. I want to

09:22 - 09:52

Lauren Popish: do something on my own. And so I was always a side hustle queen. I was, I always had something in the wings. And at the time that this was all happening, I was actually had some funding for a travel app that I was working on. It was kind of Instagramable travel app stuff. And as I was going through this experience, this really kind of life changing experience, I just kind of looked at my work that I had built around this travel app and said, who the heck cares about this? I mean, this is not, this isn't

09:53 - 10:18

Lauren Popish: important. This isn't meaningful. And on my worst days, when I get up, this is actually not gonna, I'm not gonna come to this and feel fulfilled by this. And so I really had, in addition to a pretty serious crisis around speaking, I also had a bit of an existential crisis where I was like, if you're going to start a business and you're going to put all your... Because we know it's not easy, we know it takes a lot of

10:18 - 10:18

Rochelle Moulton: time, and We know it takes a lot

10:18 - 10:54

Lauren Popish: of time. And we know it takes a lot out of us. If I'm going to pursue something, it's probably got to be so important and so purposeful and something that on my worst day, I'm still willing to get up and work on that I really need to change. I need to think about what that would be. And so I sat down, I said, what is the most important thing to me right now? And I just said, well, gosh, the biggest thing I'm struggling with right now is just debilitating public speaking fair. And even at that time,

10:54 - 11:24

Lauren Popish: I said, Lauren, that's too close to home. It's actually too close. There's no way I could attempt to build something around that. But as time went on, you're really called to the things that you're trying to overcome. And that as you're struggling with these challenges, all of a sudden I had all this empathy for all these women and these people around me who I had never experienced public speaking fear until recently. But all of a sudden, I started seeing everybody in a different light. I started seeing my sister who's always been kind of behind the scenes.

11:24 - 11:59

Lauren Popish: And I did theater in school and she was more of an athlete. She didn't like the limelight. And so I'm starting to see her in a new light, I'm starting to empathize, I'm starting to look at my colleagues who also don't want to get up in the middle of the meeting and raise their hand. And all of a sudden, I just started seeing community that hadn't been there before, because it wasn't a community that I identified with or I was a part of. Once that group started showing itself, I really started feeling called to support that

11:59 - 12:41

Lauren Popish: community. With all the tools I was trying, the Toastmasters and the therapy and the mindfulness practices and then podcasting, I really saw it as 1 of my tools for curing or trying to heal this moment in time for me, I really felt like I needed to share it. I just felt called to bring this tool to my community because I didn't really think people might be aware of how good and confidence building podcasting was if you were someone who didn't feel really comfortable in your own voice, who didn't feel a certain amount of confidence about speaking

12:41 - 12:50

Lauren Popish: out. I just knew that I had to be spending my time doing something that would support the people that I now felt close to.

12:50 - 13:05

Rochelle Moulton: Well, it's a little bit like, as I'm listening to you, like your eyes were opened. Oh, other people are afraid of public speaking. I mean, I think when they just surveyed, the only thing people fear more than death is public speaking. Exactly. Yeah. So I

13:05 - 13:43

Lauren Popish: mean, it's just, it's fascinating because you had no idea until you were thrust into that situation and experienced that fear, how alone you were not. Right? Yes, yes. And what I didn't realize until I did a little bit of research is that is true that the majority of people, I think it's something like I used to have this number memorized, but you know, it's like in the seventies, high 70% of individuals, all people fear public speaking. But the majority of that identify as female, 44% of that group. And so why is that? That seems weird, right?

13:43 - 14:19

Lauren Popish: Oh, no, that seems totally obvious to me. Exactly. Well, it does, of course, because we were like, well, we're already kind of fearful to speak up, but for other reasons that are related to our position in the world and in society, not to get too far down my feminist path that I can, that's a soapbox I can easily step up onto, but I won't. Just to say that I really just felt like there's this whole community of people and especially a sub community within those individuals who have some public speaking anxiety. You know, most of us

14:19 - 14:24

Lauren Popish: are women. Why is that? And what can we do to really support each other in that state?

14:25 - 14:57

Rochelle Moulton: It isn't easy. And not just for women, for people of color, for any marginalized community, because most of us are socialized to be quiet, to not raise our voices or we've tried to do it and we haven't been heard. So after a while we stop. Exactly. Yeah, we could go on about that all day, believe me. But that's again, I just want to reiterate and that is what I love about podcasting even in my own case I would not call myself shy by any stretch of the imagination but I did find it difficult when I first

14:57 - 15:28

Rochelle Moulton: started podcasting to just really say what was on my mind and feel like that was okay, that it would be valuable and that if somebody didn't like it, that would be okay too. Right. It just takes a little while, but when you keep doing it to your point, it's like a muscle. Exactly. And it just keeps getting stronger and stronger. So I wanted to talk a little bit about the way you've organized your business. Now, you're not a soloist, right? You've assembled a team of people to work with you. And I have to say in the

15:28 - 16:00

Rochelle Moulton: 6 months or so that I've...