How to Inspire Others With Your Podcast: Podcasting is so much more than marketing. Sure, it’s that, too. But if you’re lucky enough to build an audience that actually listens to you, a podcast comes with some responsibility. Sometimes it’s not just about teaching and explaining. It’s about inspiring.
On a recent episode of Should I Start a Podcast, Ronsley sat down with Jackie Nourse, creator of travelingjackie.com (that’s with one L for all you non-Americans out there) and host of the podcast JUMP.
Jackie says one of her main themes in life is “Taking the leap”. She tries to instil that message in everything she does, from blogging to podcasting. Although her journey started by wanting to teach others to travel on a budget, it evolved into something so much more. Now she sees the incredible responsibility that comes with having an audience and wants to use it for good.
“I want to remind them that while they’re listening to me and watching me go, and learning from my mistakes and from my tips and advice, and all the things- it’s still up to them to take the leap,” she explains.
So how can we all apply this concept to our podcasts?
Be Real
The only way to have listeners connect to your message, to really connect, is to be real. Don’t try to gloss over your podcast with scripted gimmicks and taglines. Ok, you can have some of that stuff. But have the bulk of your show, be you being real.
So what does that mean?
Talk about things that are important to you. Give honest anecdotes about pivotal moments in your life. Lay some of your thoughts out there that you may have never spoken out loud before. The more you do this, the more fragments people will latch onto and connect with. “They want to see themselves in you,” Jackie explains. “And when you can touch into that, it’s powerful”.
Write it Out
Not everyone is a writer. Journaling may not come naturally to you, but you owe it to yourself to try. Jackie recommends writing everything out to prepare yourself to tell your story. “Write whatever you can. It’s only for you. It’s called freewriting,” she explained.
And freewriting is what got her through some of her toughest times. “It’s sort of like having a personal counsellor. Because I actually work through a lot of things, and I realize what I think about certain things.”
Another fantastic point Jackie made about journaling, is that in today’s modern world, it can become your own personal Wikipedia into your psyche. If you journal on your computer like Jackie does, it becomes searchable. You can look back into your own thought archive for times you were thinking or experiencing similar things you are today. You can compare and contrast, and hash it all out. What a genius idea.
Jump
Part of inspiring others to make the leap, so to speak, is to leap yourself. The original name for Jackie’s podcast JUMP was The Budget Minded Traveler. But she knew as her life evolved, her podcast would have to as well.
“I wanted to inspire movement,” she says. “Because of my story, because of where I’ve been, I feel called to teach something. To teach anything. To get other people to realize their own “jumps”.”
But sometimes, getting people to make those scary decisions, you have to make them yourself. Yeah, sometimes you’ll fall. But then at least you’ll have a story to tell. And make sure you tell it, messy parts and all. The mess is what makes us relatable.
Author: Ronsley Vaz
Ronsley is the founder & chief day dreamer at AMPLIFY. He is an author, speaker & serial entrepreneur.
He has a Masters’ degree in Software Engineering and an MBA in Psychology and Leadership. He is known as the creator of We Are Podcast – the first Podcasting Conference in the Southern Hemisphere, and the host of The Bond Appetit Podcast and Should I Start a Podcast. He has an audience of over 3 million in 133 countries.