Preparing to Record Your First Episode

Welcome back to the Mindset of Podcasting. I'm so glad you're back this week. I am talking today about preparing to record your first episode. Now a recording to your first episode can be very, very nerve-wracking, especially. The first time you do it, I mean the first time you do anything is very, very nerve wracking.

So I'm gonna give you a few confidence boosters and then a few tips to help you when you are recording your first podcast. Cause I know that I was super, super nervous, and I know I've told this story before, but just in case you haven't heard it, when I did my first guest interview, I was on somebody else's podcast.

I was so nervous, like, so nervous, my mind went blank a whole lot of times, . . It was a very bad interview and she ended up not using it. She never aired the interview. That's how bad it was. So I just want you to know that. I, first of all, I don't think your first episode could be as bad as my first interview.

Like, no way . But you know what? We're gonna fail. We're gonna fail, we're gonna mess up things and it's okay. So I still moved on. I still do guest interviews. I actually have a podcast interview today that I'm gonna be on. Cuz the more we do it, the better we get. So just remember your first episode is not gonna be as good as your hundredth and that's okay cuz we're gonna learn along the way.

So before we get into anything, let's talk about a few confidence boosters for when you do start to record your podcast. So I want you to remember that nobody can replicate. , your voice, your message, your story. So even if there are a gazillion podcasts out there talking about the same thing that you're talking about, it's going to be different cuz it's coming from you and your point of view and your story and the way that you're telling it, your lived experiences.

And somebody is gonna resonate with the way that you said it. Maybe somebody has heard this thing 50,000 times, but. When you said it, it finally clicked. It finally resonated, and they're like, oh my God. So just remember, we're trying to reach that one person out there who resonates with us, who gets it, and there is gonna be somebody.

So just remember, nobody can be you. So just be you. Be yourself. Tell your story, tell your lived experience, and give value , because I think that we always like make things worse in our head. So I have an example of this actually. So my son is in baseball. He's been in baseball since he was four. We have never done a travel team.

And last year he wanted to try out for a travel team. And I said, sure, let's do it. So I signed him up and as it got closer and closer to the tryouts, I could see him getting more and more nervous. And the day of tryouts, he told me he was not going, I am not going. I probably won't make the team anyways.

I'm not gonna do it now. He didn't know anybody else trying out, none of his friends were trying out for this particular travel ball team, and he was. He was nervous. He was very, very nervous and he let that anxiety get to him and he did not wanna go. But I knew that he wanted to do this, so I kind of pushed him.

I drove him there. I could almost not even get him out of the car, like he did not wanna get out of the car at tryouts. He sat there and I had to like kind of drag him, but we got out and we got signed up for tryouts and he got out on the field and you know, He started talking to the other kids, he made friends with the other kids.

He realized, hey, that other kid missed a ball, and so did I. You know what? We're basically at the same level. You know, all the kids were at the same level. They were all trying their best, they were all nervous, they all wanted to make the team, and he realized that, hey, I made this way worse in my head than it turned out to be, you know, making friends and having fun.

in his head. He was just like everybody was gonna hate him. He was gonna fail miserably and not do any good job, . And he ended up making the team. So I just wanna say we always make things worse in our head, and I just always try to remember that story of me trying to yank him out of the car cuz he thought it was gonna be the worst experience ever and it ended up being fun.

So just remember that. And then the most important thing that I always remember, even when I came outta that really bad. Guest interview for a podcast was that when I took off my headphones, shut down my computer and walked outta my office store, I still had my family who loved me, my family, who didn't care that I messed up on a podcast interview.

You know, it's not the end of the world. So just remember, you still have people in your life who love you and who aren't gonna care if you mess up or fail. , you know, we still love them anyways. We still love our kids and our husband and our friends and our dogs, and everybody who messes up. The number of times my dog has gotten into the garbage has really made me mad.

But you know what? I still love him . So here are a few things that you can do to kind of put yourself in a more elevated, confident mood before you start recording your podcast. So number one. Put on some clothes that make you feel good. I know it's fun cuz you can record your podcast in your pajamas, but putting on actual clothes that make us feel good does boost our confidence.

It does. I know that there's a difference from when I'm in pajama pants to when I'm in the meal clothes, so it does boost our confidence. So put on an outfit that just makes you feel really confident. Number two, have fun. Just have fun and be yourself. Just talk. Just talk like you are talking to a friend.

That little camera, button or the microphone is your friend and you're just having a conversation. You know, just make it light and talk how you normally would. Number three is you could practice beforehand. , sometimes I like to do this. What I will say though is that usually my practice one is the one I keep, like I.

Redo it. So I don't do practice ones anymore, but if you wanna do a practice one and make you feel better, do it. But then I want you to maybe listen back to it and maybe say, Hey, I'm not gonna redo it. This is the one I'm gonna keep. Because when there's no pressure is usually when it's better. When you think, oh, I can redo this.

This is just my practice. It's usually the best take. So do a practice fund, if you need to call it a practice fund to feel more confident, do that. Number four. Remember that anything can be edited out. Even if you're not gonna like professionally edit your episodes, you can still go in and be like, oh, I made a mistake here.

And you can edit that part out, make little notes while you're recording, say, oh at this time. Cuz when you're recording it has time markers say, oh, I made a mistake. I wanna take that out. Anything can be edited out. number five is have an outline, but I wouldn't recommend scripting it. So I like to have bullet points.

I actually have them right here in front of me right now. They're just bullet points so that I remember what I'm talking about. Cuz sometimes our brains go blank and I, that happens to me a lot. My brain just goes blank. But I have my bullet points so I can look down. I'm like, oh, that's what I was gonna talk about next.

So just have some bullet points and a rough. And a little tip to help you with your outline when you're trying to prepare to record your first episode is I would start with the title Now, before I say this, , your first episode's actually gonna be your story. Your story of. You know where you came from, why you started your business, how you got into it, why you started the podcast, your whole story.

So these are kind of tips for your next episode. So, I mean, you could do this with your first episode, but it's more of a story . But usually what I do is I start with the title of my episode, like what I wanna talk about the topic or the, you don't even have the title. It could just be the topic. And then I make three points that will help my listeners with the topic that I'm discussing.

So then I would usually put down three points. and then I have a call to action. So just remember to give value, have fun, be yourself. It's gonna be completely fine. And I am gonna tell you that mistakes happened, cuz I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm re recording this episode. , I was trying out a brand new software for recording and it recorded my video and no audio.

There was absolutely no audio even though my microphone was hooked up and it was all set. So I'm re-recording this episode. You know what? Cuz even on episode 61, which is where I am, you still mess up sometimes and things still happen. So you just go with the flow and be like, okay, you know what? That happened.

I'm gonna keep going. So just remember the people who need to hear what you have to say are gonna hear it, and that's what matters most. Reaching even that one person is what matters most. So take a deep breath and go record your first episode, and if you need help recording your first episode, my new program, which Ashley launched yesterday, we just started yesterday, but you can still join.

You can still join this week. I will still keep it open. Uh, the podcast launch solution, we are going to take. 10 weeks starting yesterday to launch your podcast. We are gonna go for everything, every single thing from start to finish. We're gonna talk about setting it up, we're gonna talk about what your episodes should be about, what equipment you need, how to monetize, how to grow, all the things.

So if you're interested in that, go to the show notes, check it out, or go to my website. It's jillian grover.com and I will talk with you next week.