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Tis I, Lord. Podcast Are you yearning to equip yourself with the confidence to record? Elijah the skilled podcast professional is preparing himself for a tale of tools and skill that only a mighty podcaster may employ in one's podcast journey. Elijah I do believe that we shall teach our weary wanderer the confidence that they strive to achieve. Shall we start a podcast? We shall. It's settled. Let's start a podcast.
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Where do you find your podcast inspiration for your podcast? Content for podcasting? Do you get burned out? Do you feel like it's a bit of a struggle? No matter how hard you plan and plan and do more planning, it feels like there's never enough ideas for my podcast. Maybe I just have analysis paralysis. Maybe I just overthink and set the bar too high. Does that sound like you at all? Lets start a podcast. Is this podcast that you're listening to created to help podcasters understand what they need to do to press record along with the tools they'll need to succeed long term? I don't want you to start and kind of burn out because that sucks that you put all the effort in to buy some equipment, pull your hair out a couple times and scream at people because things didn't go your way and then you just kind of leave it. No, that's not good. You have to have the up and downs with the adventure. Like a roller coaster. That's part of creation, right? So here we are. Even with a few decades of experience, I still run out of ideas. I was originally going to review some save posts. I saw some cool tricks and tips and all that fun stuff to really get into SEO and finding inspiration and searching for content. And to be honest, in hindsight, I think it would have been a little nerdy. Kind of like a snore fest. That's not fun for you. You don't want a snore fest. You want to hear entertaining, juicy gossip or stuff that you actually could use, right? You don't want to fall asleep at the wheel or the commute because you'll miss your stop and then you won't be. You'll be late for work and then the whole thing goes to crap. I don't want that for you. As more and more creators are coming to threads, it's kind of cool because there's like a podcast thread community thing going on and I ask creators how they come up with the content inspiration. How do you come up with the stuff you do each and every week without kind of just fizzling out? So I'm going to share what they said, all right, I took some screenshots, I'll just kind of read them to you. But I'll have the blog and other content that'll be linked in the description. Or if you want to go to talkpodcastwithme.com podcast, that's cool too. Check out the podcast resources and the actual proof that people actually like to share ideas with me. So too legit to crit. I love this. Narration is cool for me and I'm a nerd with the D and D and RPGs. They put out an offer to Threads or anyone has a TTRPG and within their community I assume they take the related project they want to share with the world and then spend some time talking about it. Also, they say they'll look at the news coming up from the space to see if they can have a jumping off point maybe for a discussion. Sounds like there's a group of them. Haven't listened to them yet, but definitely will. Baroness Bree. She just uses journal entries, news stories, and she loves people watching. That's it. It's simple, easy, and maybe there's more to obviously, but that's really it. I love people watching, especially when they fall over. There's podcasts that say, try not to laugh. I can't. That's idea generation. Simple, but it works. Chaos, magic, news. They like to be genuinely fascinated with the main subject to the pod and then having a good chemistry. They feel that's all they need. So some of the best episodes are just talking about something the co host sent me. Like, hey, this is so cool. I love this. We got to chat about this. They would have done this anyway in normal conversation. Sounds like they're great friends, which is fantastic. And then just bring it in the podcast and record. If you're going to talk about something cool, why not record it? Makes sense. Or they say if you prefer, you can summon a demon. Both of those work for them. Sense of humor, I love it. Or maybe they're serious. Run away, listen anyway to find out. CTNPodcast says they try to pay attention to current events in the nerd sphere since all of them have different things they like, it's a huge help to and really creates a wealth of possibilities. So they also have been getting interviews with other podcasters or product designers. It sounds like they're having conversations and then those people start interacting and sharing, hey, what did you think about this? And they become fans, which is totally cool. Start interacting, having a good time. And that kind of just organically feeds the podcast fear Content generation machine thing. Cool. I love how people get into it and they start off as a guest and then they become a fan and they start interacting and then it's all whole thing and it just snowballs into excitingness and people are like, hey, did you think about this? And then it just starts going and then that's a great way, I think, to really get people talking and engage in the podcast. Maybe getting some reviews down, maybe getting right into the podcast, maybe they'll buy merch then, who knows? That's a really cool way to kind of generate. Kill two birds with one stone, get some ideas, get some friends and have a good time. That's awesome. Dr. Liz White says she's led by the conversation she has in her therapy room, which is totally interesting. I'm sure there's a. A confidentiality thing I always hear about in the media, but there's generalizations. Right. So you can kind of tell stories without giving things away. She knows where the balance is, right. So she says her questions are people asking her already. They'll say, why is the sky blue? Why am I damaged? Or whatever it may be that Dr. Lives is dealing with. What themes are coming up, what's trending? Maybe she hits social media for social media struggles. Mental health stuff is always popular, especially now post Covid and the economy kind of hitting the toilet. And then finally she sees a podcast as a resource for current clients. So talk about things that know will be useful in therapy. So that's cool. So she takes the content and inspiration from the conversation she has while she's helping people get better. And also she's able to use that stuff, podcast content to be able to serve other clients or potential clients. So that's kind of something neat. It seems like this ecosystem that's kind of churning and automatically coming to be almost like I'd see an automated assembly line in a factory. That's how I picture it. Just kind of keeps going and going. That's cool. Expedition works, they said they have running notes, documentation like Google Docs or Notion. They add that to the ideas. The names email people who are interesting and links to compelling, at least to them. News, ideas, stuff they find is interesting. And then they have a whole series of folders and notes and folders and more folders and notes where they add info from research and then write short episode pitches and then clarify why it's a good idea. Themes and topics. So they're super organized. They got lists and check balances and things and a running document. It almost sounds like they're treating this like a production studio or like a bunch of team of writers that are coming together at the table and saying, hey, we got this great pitch. What do you think? And. And they just have a running tally of things going on. Great use of it. If you don't have something you like right now, maybe you'll come back to it later, or maybe you'll be able to leverage those ideas for other ideas that are cool and current, neat. And then they go try to report throughout the news recordings and anything else they can kind of find that's interesting and want to share with their audience. Awesome. Michelle Moses. She says she listens to other podcasts. She talks to her listeners and just through living her life, maybe she runs into a jogger. They talk about how they're sweating too much. I don't know, you know? You know what I mean? Interesting, whatever it is and pursuing it. And also if she is pursuing it, she feels that her listeners are probably doing the same or at least want to pursue that particular topic too. Life experience is all she relies on. Simple and easy and just kind of organically find something throughout her day. No fancy tools. Love it. Nadine Melis if I say your name right, I'm sorry, We'll try. She's a podcast producer and what she likes to do for her clients is get the best ideas by working with them and for them, challenges they encounter, solving problems to make the best episodes. And then as she produces podcasts, it's usually things like how to create and stick to a workflow to produce regularly and long term. She thinks that's what most struggle with, especially if you have a family and a thousand other commitments. It's how to stick with it. Ness and creating the that burnout that I don't have time to do this. I'm overwhelmed. Totally great points. Thanks, Nadine. Not that Lindsey Graham says as a history podcaster, got like 5,500 years of possible content written down already. So all you have to do then is explore the history books, the documentaries, other things that are already produced, and then kind of look at that as content and speak to that quote. It was really cool. It boils down to this from David McCullough. History is human. People love history. People love being fascinated. People love to understand where they're coming from. And they like to have conversation, tell stories about it, like hieroglyphics. Those are awesome. Ancient leaders. Totally get it. And the pyramids, people still haven't figured them out, but everybody's still talking about them. Really cool podcast Or Rohit Kokanee show notes or episode descriptions. This was interesting because this generated a whole bunch of conversation. I started jumping in and Dean started asking kind of figure out how this works. So it all comes down to it seems that there's an interest of not only listening to the podcast, but actually diving deep into the podcast descriptions of other podcasts and getting ideas and inspirations. A lot of people use the podcast descriptions as a teaser or something to hook you in and get you interested about the podcast descriptions. But he kind of comes back to the podcast after he's done, goes through the description, see if there's any nuggets of inspiration in there and then go from there. That's cool. I never thought of going back into the descriptions of the podcast and seeing the show notes and then driving inspiration for me from that. Awesome take the 10 year highs I think is how you say that Googled top questions. Quora, Reddit. Those are obviously subreddit Podcasting Subreddit is wealth of information. People are always asking some decent questions on there and the community is fairly active. Nobody's saying, hey, this is a dumb question. They're often saying, hey, this is how you do it. This is how I would do it. And you go from there. They're fairly helpful. Quora is always this Q and A sort of thing going on. You ask a question and get answered a little better than Google. Sometimes I'll add chatgpt. You can hate it or love it, but I'm sure there's some good questions to be answered. Even if the content that ChatGPT pulls from is old, you can still get some bits and information and turn it into something relevant. Cool. The behavior change coach always finds great guests with the story to tell. Sense of humor, obviously, but the great guests will have the great stories and that provides the great content. That's the strategy. If you can find really engaging people to talk to, that's your content, then that kind of serves a purpose for everyone, I think. Awesome. Three Kitchens podcast looks at current trends in the genre and then try to key into what people are interested in. Also looking back what was popular in past episodes and riff from those. So maybe there's a takeaway or an expansion or they're taking a topic that people really want to ask questions about. Maybe it's listener feedback. Pretty cool. So you can keep that content chip going, but sometimes you'll see something really popular and they want to dive into something a little more, but they didn't have time because they have time limits for themselves. Or maybe they're busy kitchen cooking something that's delicious because that's important. I like food. Now I'm hungry. Oh, well. So I found have to get back to who this was. But they said their number one hack for finding content ideas for your podcast is your content, your clients, and your community. What questions are they being asked, what objections are they coming up with? And what do they say they're struggling with? So intake forms, DM combos, comments on your posts, your competitors posts, your Facebook groups. So many options. So don't scratch your head trying to work out what to talk about on your show. Your audience will tell you found out it's too busy to podcast. Awesome. So they're taking a lot of different sources. It sounds like they have some robust features set up and in workflows. And I call them things, forms and conversations and really have this figured out. I think that's cool. So instead of trying to overthink it, just let it come. You got tons of sources to pull from. Is the is the real answer. And I think that is the problem. Even for me, I overthink it, and I put too much effort into trying to perfect it. People just want to hear good stories, you know, and that really resonates. Tur tzed C. You call it Z, I call it Zed. Whatever. Find a topic and then talk to your friends. See where there might be a connection. But if it's authentic and timely, topics probably happen to be. If one person is feeling it, others are likely as well. You find something that's cool, that's relevant, that's authentic. You're not kind of just BSing. Just roll with it. Probably going to like it too. It seems like this group really trusts themselves to put out the content and believes they understand their audience really well. Just go for it. The Uncle Dump Show. It's cool. Cool topic. I love the title. I don't know why. It's fun. I'm a big child. We're trying to be a bit more performative, do more than just converse. So we're developing a new thing where we take a news story like NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft broadcasting binary gibberish signals. Really sounds nerdy, but they're getting to do something like a writing comedy sketch around the event. Scientists decoding Voyager 1's gibberish to discover it is a lost verse from the OMC song How bizarre. And that is carrying a mysterious message. So they just kind of run with this and let their imaginations run wild. Uncle. Uncle Dump show just takes things that are normal and nerdy and everyday sciencey stuff that would probably be not as interesting to the masses, right? Not everybody loves NASA nerdy stuff. I think it's cool. The Eclipse is cool, all that stuff, right? But when you take the gibberish and all these weird signals and stuff and you go into this is really just a creative way to say, here's some humor attached to this. And then it almost sounds like improv or like, whose line is it anyway? If you're familiar with that show, they just come up, do some improv, the audience shouts out some stuff and then you all laugh and it kind of sounds like that. He says, does it work? He checks his active listeners. The jury's out. And he asked for a like, subscribe and follow. Unless it's a she that likes to be an uncle. I shouldn't generalize on the genders. Pardon me. It was pretty cool. There was a lot of people hanging out doing their thing and I appreciate you very much. So each podcast I'll screenshot on the blog talkpodcastwithme.com podcast I'll link all of the podcasters that helped out create some content for this episode. I appreciate you. And then go from there. If you want their links, I'm not going to put all of them, but I'll definitely direct that blog to making sure that they know that they're included. And this will give you a good, I don't know, few dozen podcasts of cool content to check out for yourself. If you like them, great. Maybe give them a review, give them a five star or whatever you like. They'd appreciate it and I would too. Maybe the two people that blessed me with five out of five stars on Apple podcasts, they'd like to not be anonymous. Drives me nuts when I don't know who they are, but I'm like, eh, eh. It's like I just want to reach out and thank you. To each their own. I love if you could too leave some reviews because I'm an only child that has not very many friends, so that would make me feel as if if I'm loved and whatnot. Okay, super. So there we go. A different way of looking at things. A lot of people when they're trying to find their content are just kind of relying on their community, the source of information and news and just kind of drawing from what they know or were successful at and then pulling that out of a rabbit hat, so to speak, and saying, hey, it's not magic, it's pretty easy. Stop overthinking it and just trust your gut, your creator. If it fails or bombs or whatever you call it, you're paying too much time staring at the ones of people listening or tens of people, maybe a thousand listeners. I don't know. They're not all going to be perfect. All of your content is going to be different. But keep current and stay in touch with your audience and your fans to know what they're going to enjoy next, what they need to know about, what the problems they're going to solve or you're going to solve for them. That's the dream. So I'm glad I didn't go through all these snore festive tools. It was kind of cool to read some feedback from people on the socials. Appreciate you guys having an awesome community. Follow me on threads, talk podcast with me or email me Hiog podcast with me dot com. You can do that. Or like I said, go to the blog the podcast resources. Check out all the cool stuff. How to how to have the right equipment without breaking your wallet in half. Because that makes me sad when I go poor from equipment buying, even though it's kind of. Kind of a guilty pleasure. Or maybe you don't know what all the hosts are or stuff like that, right? How to launch your podcast. All that's there for you to help you out. And of course, links to all of these awesome podcasters and their cool content because they're cool and awesome for helping me figure out what's going on and how to create cool content. Where to get all this inspiration from it's always adventure in podcasting, and when you're lost in a dark cave with a flashlight with dead batteries, there's always the ability to tell ghost stories. Am I right? But when you hear a low growl followed by footsteps, get the out run as fast as you can and then tell us about it on your next episode of the podcast. Okay. I'm Elijah. I hope that this episode has truly inspired you and your creative juices to get the content inspiration generating and flowing as you should. Thank you so much for listening. So let's start a podcast. I'll see you soon.
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Let's start a podcast.
Podcast Summary: Let's Start a Podcast!
Host: Elijah Drown ("Your Podcast Sidekick")
Episode: Content Inspiration Ideas for your Podcast
Date: April 8, 2024
In this episode, Elijah Drown dives into one of the most common challenges faced by both new and seasoned podcasters: finding inspiration for podcast content. He shares his own experiences with creative burnout and overthinking, and compiles a range of practical and quirky strategies from various podcasters in the community. The episode is light-hearted, energetic, and packed with authentic advice, all designed to help you confidently generate new ideas and keep your show fresh.
"No matter how hard you plan and plan and do more planning, it feels like there's never enough ideas for my podcast." (00:35)
"You have to have the ups and downs with the adventure. Like a roller coaster. That's part of creation, right?" (01:05)
Elijah shares real strategies from a variety of podcasters, illustrating the power of community and diverse approaches:
"They put out an offer to Threads or anyone has a TTRPG... and then spend some time talking about it." (03:13)
"I love people watching, especially when they fall over." (03:42)
"If you're going to talk about something cool, why not record it?" (04:23)
"That kind of just organically feeds the podcast fear Content generation machine thing." (05:01)
"She says her questions are people asking her already... What themes are coming up, what's trending?" (06:00)
"Great guests will have the great stories, and that provides the great content." (13:52)
"They have a whole series of folders and notes and folders and more folders and notes..." (07:38)
"Life experience is all she relies on. Simple and easy." (08:28)
"How to create and stick to a workflow to produce regularly and long term." (09:10)
"Looking back what was popular in past episodes and riff from those." (14:10)
“It boils down to this from David McCullough: History is human. People love history...” (09:57)
"Never thought of going back into the descriptions of the podcast... and then driving inspiration for me from that." (10:34)
"Quora is always this Q and A sort of thing going on. You ask a question and get answered a little better than Google." (11:12)
"Your audience will tell you. Found out it's too busy to podcast. Awesome." (15:20)
"If one person is feeling it, others are likely as well… If it's authentic and timely..." (16:06)
"We're developing a new thing where we take a news story... do a writing comedy sketch around the event." (16:41)
"A lot of people when they're trying to find their content are just kind of relying on their community... and pulling that out of a rabbit hat..." (18:10)
“People just want to hear good stories, you know, and that really resonates.” (15:55)
On content inspiration burnout:
“Even with a few decades of experience, I still run out of ideas.” (01:11)
On organic content generation:
"That's a great way, I think, to really get people talking and engaged in the podcast… It just snowballs into excitingness." (05:30)
On not overthinking:
“Stop overthinking it and just trust your gut, your creator. If it fails or bombs… they’re not all going to be perfect.” (18:17)
On community power:
“So there we go. A different way of looking at things. A lot of people… are just relying on their community, the source of information and news and just kind of drawing from what they know…” (18:03)
On embracing imperfection:
“You're paying too much time staring at the ones of people listening or tens of people, maybe a thousand listeners. I don't know. They're not all going to be perfect.” (18:40)
Elijah’s episode is an encouraging, practical, and humorous guide for podcasters at any stage. Instead of technical jargon, he curates and weaves community wisdom, showing that inspiration can come from anywhere—news, friends, life, or even internet rabbit holes. The main message: keep it authentic, engage with your listeners, and trust your creative instincts.
For more tips, resources, and the original list of contributors, visit Elijah’s blog: talkpodcastwithme.com/podcast
Connect on Threads or email: hiog@podcastwithme.com
Episode tone: Playful, supportive, and community-driven—just like Elijah Drown himself.