Welcome everybody to the podcast answers show. Today we are going to be talking about finding your voice in podcasting. But first, what do we do? We are a show that helps you start and grow your podcast, answering any podcasting questions along the way. So without further ado, let's go. Let's get into it. Yes, we are live today. We are live just only on the audio platform.
So any new podcasting app at newpodcastapps.com that can do a live podcast, you can hear us right live as we record like raw live radio. It's great. You can listen wherever you're at. In fact, I just got a notification on my phone that says live podcast answers. Episode 12, finding your voice in podcasting from Podverse. So that's the app that I use for listening live, but there are several other podcast apps that you can listen live on too. So without further ado, let's get into it.
Let's talk a little bit today about finding your voice in podcasting and the way that we can do that. So I know a lot of people struggle with, how do I talk to myself? How do I make this sound good? How do I get in there and I actually just do it? Because let's be honest, a lot of people don't like their voice when it comes to when it comes to podcasting, you know, when, when it comes to listening to themselves, a lot of people, a lot of people are going to hear themselves and go,
This is not myself. This is not how I sound. So how do you do that? How do you go about, what are some tips and tricks that you can use to get used to your voice and just kind of your style as you're podcasting? So thought for their do, let's go. So one of the first ways that I say you can get used to your voice and podcasting is record yourself and listen to it.
So this may be before you put out your first episode, But guys, I've been listening to myself podcast every single episode that I've ever done, not just editing, like I obviously edit it and when I listen to it and trim the ends and things, I don't do a whole lot of editing, but if, because I want my podcast to sound real, I don't want to cut out all of the ums and the ayes because that's one way that you can get to better is listening to yourself.
So for me, I'm listening to myself and every single episode that I've ever produced, I listened to it after it comes out. So make sure a couple of things. And I didn't screw up in editing because I've seen a lot of people that you think the job is done and then you get it and there's long pauses or as they left something in, they shouldn't have left. So for me, as one last quality check, even after it's gone out, I listened to it. But so I listened to all of my episodes back again.
I listened to every single one of them. And yes, for the first several times, that made me cringe. That made me go, "Oh my goodness, my voice stinks. My voice is terrible." And you know what? The more I listen to it, the more I get used to it. But one of the good things about listening to yourself is it allows you to pick up on the nuances of things that you want to change. So it may be terrible. There may be things that you were actually doing that don't sound good, that aren't helping you.
And so by listening back to your episodes, listening to yourself, you get that. You get, you understand what you're sounding like. So for me, I didn't, I, when I listened to myself, I listened and I realized that I have a lot of filler words, like um, and ah. And so one of the things that I've been trying to do is be conscious when I'm talking and slow down a little bit and actually think about what I'm saying before I say it.
Because, or a lot of times, the other thing that I do is I get stuck in like the middle of a sentence. I don't completely think about my sentences before I start saying them. So it's me slowing down a little bit and thinking about what I want to say before I say it helps me come across as a better communicator. And so it also, as listening to myself, I realize
that I say those filler words quite a lot. So what do I do to get rid of those? I don't cut them out in post because that for one takes a lot of time and it's not helpful because you don't actually get any better by not listening to yourself in post. You actually are going to be the same. And so what I do, I leave those in, I listen to myself and I say, "Hey, Andy, you don't want to say all of those filler words. So think about them and cut
them out. So that's one way that you can get better and find and get used to your voice. Because again, you're going to listen to yourself and you're going to listen back and you're going to find out the things that you don't like the nuances that you don't like the way that you didn't necessarily put a tone in the way you that you said filler words. So listening back is going to be one of those ways that helps you out when you're when you're
doing a podcast. Another good way to thing to do is also... There I said my filler word because I didn't think of my word. So there you got it. Got it. Another good way to make yourself better at communicating. So I'm doing a solo show now and again this depends on what kind of show that you do because a lot of So a lot of shows, if you do a co-host, it's just like a conversation. But for me, which is fine, I have no problem having a conversation with my co-host.
But when I started this show, this is my first solo show ever. I've been doing podcasting since 2007. I've had a lot of different shows that I've started, but all of them have been co-hosted shows. So for me, this is my first solo show. And so I'm doing this show because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do a solo show and not just have a show where I had a co-host that I had to bounce my communication off.
And so for me, when I started this show, a lot of the times that I was talking, it was just very matter of faculty. So for me, for help, what I do in this show is I normally have a, I don't really have my Notion app up, which has my notes for the show. And by notes for the show, I usually just have a bullet points on the topics that I want to talk about so that I can make sure that I can get through them.
But I don't use that as a crutch. I don't want to be able to have my app or my talk scripted out because scripted podcasts will have their place. That's not what I wanted for this show. And so for me, I just decided to script. I do my bullet points. So I remember what I want to talk about. So I don't have a lot of that filler time in there. and have a lot of chances to use those filler words, but I can talk on a normal basis.
So what I do is I'm sitting in front of a computer right now and you can't see it, but what you... Actually, if you wanna take a look at it, I can kinda show you what... If you're looking at the video, here's what my screen actually looks like. So I've got my video, I'm seeing myself how I act. I also have my audio play out system playing up things like that. So that's the way that my screen looks.
But I'm looking into my screen, but I'm also pretending not only that I'm I'm seeing myself so I don't make sure that I'm on camera, right? But I'm also pretending that I'm actually talking to you guys out there, to you, the listener, because I am. I'm directly talking to you, even though I can't see you because we're on this thing called a podcast. And so you're not able to see, I'm not able to see you.
You can see me if you're watching the video, but I can't see you. But the way that I do this is I just pretend that you're out there. I pretend that there's hundreds and thousands of people out there sitting right outside my window that's right in front of me and listening to me talk, listening to me give this speech, give this talk about how to find your voice. And so what that does for me is it gives me the opportunity to interact like I would if I was talking right to you. Does that make
sense? So you're gonna have, you know, I'm not gonna have the feedback from you. I'm not gonna, you're not gonna see, I'm not gonna see if you're boring and checked out, but I'm gonna be able to see, I'm gonna be able to pretend to have a conversation with you. So I can have intonation. So I just don't sound flat like this. And I'm talking about funding your voice in podcasting and I'm just reading something because I want to get this
podcast out. No, I actually have intonation in my voice because this is how I actually talk if you talk to me. I have intonation, I have inflections, I have things that are going to make me sound interesting to listen to. And those are the same things that I want to portray on my podcast. So those are a few ways that I can find my voice in podcasting. That is ways that you have found to get used to your voice to make sure that your voice sounds unique in podcasting. I want to know.
So contact us at podcastanswers.com/contact. I want to know what your way is that you've got used to listening to your voice if you're in podcasting. If you've not done this before and you're just getting used to your voice, try the things out that I said. Again, those things are listening to each and every episode. So that way you get used to the way you sound.
You know that if you're going to speak too quickly, you know that if you make noises with your mouth, you know that if you use a lot of filler words, listen to yourself after you're done recording. Because as we're talking, we don't pick those things up. Because we use those as filler words as we're thinking in our brain, as we're trying to get things out on tape. And so, listen to yourself after the fact, after you're done editing it.
Don't edit those imperfections out because you want to be able to hear those and you want to be able to get better. And so, use those things, use those imperfections as ways to get better in your speech, in your podcast episode. And then the next thing to do is pretend that you have an audience.
I've always heard that when you're going on stage and you're nervous about being in front of 100,000 people or whatever, pretend that there's someone in the audience sitting in their underwear, or the audience is in their underwear and laugh about it. Something that just kind of breaks that barrier so you're not speaking to a stiff walled people. This is the same thing here. Pretend that you're out there, that your audience is out there. Pretend that they're listening to you.
Pretend that they're engaged. Pretend that they're taking notes. Things like that. important things that you want to say and get them out there without saying too many words but use the fact that you were pretending there's an audience in front of you, that way you can not just feel like you're talking at your computer screen, not just feel like you're talking out into the ether, but actually talking to somebody that's listening because people are listening to your podcast.
So guys, again, I would love to hear from you the ways that you are finding your voice in podcasting. Again, you can contact me at podcastanswers.com/contact or if you're listening in a new podcast app, you can hit the boost button and just send us a message in there with small amounts of crypto. Again, this Bitcoin and again, don't let that trip you up. It's really easy to do, really easy, simple to get.
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And what that will do is that will allow you to set up a one time donation or a monthly subscription that way you can support this show because it does take money to produce this show and I want to get better and I want to be able to produce this show for you in the long, long, long haul because I really truly believe that podcasting is the way to go. I believe it is the way to get your message out there. It's the way to feel like you're radio famous.
You know, I think all of us have had a dream one day of becoming a radio DJ or a radio speaker or whatever. And this is the way to do it. And so if you want help starting your podcast, I would love to talk to you about this. We do, I do one-on-one consulting with people.
You can go to buymeacoffee.com/podcastanswers and you can contact me and we can do a one-on-one consult and we can just I can help you out because it's a lot of fun to do and you know if you have any questions I this is the reason I started this show is is to answer podcast questions so if you have podcasting questions that you want to answer I would love to hear them podcast answers comm slash contact and that will get you into my inbox that'll get you into the way that we can I can
answer your questions for you guys with that have a great week (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]