001: Finding My Voice As a Podcaster
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You may have seen the headlines recently that read something like this “The Demise of the Girlboss” or “The Girlboss is Dead”. This sentiment comes after the last of key few remaining female CEOs step down from their roles as company leaders, and as a result, cultural “it” girls.
Many of these CEOs built brands specifically for women like The Wing, Glossier, Refinery29, and of course, the infamous, Girlboss. As the founder of a company that supports female podcasters, I can’t help but think, where does this leave me? Am I creating more division through my exclusion of men? Am I isolating women who feel more supported by a community that embraces dualities instead of rejects them? The answer is … maybe.
It’s times like these that I like to examine the foundation of this community to see if this home I’ve built for so many podcasters is built on something solid or on a toxic brownfield that may also be haunted by ancient spirits. To answer this, we have to go all the way back to the beginning, before The Wave, before my first podcast, and before my life split into two. We have to begin where all good stories begin. In New York City.
✦ How It All Began
Before I was a podtraprenuer, I worked a regular corporate job at a large real estate company in New York. In 2017, the sales team I was on had to go on what was called a roadshow - each of us had to travel to the major cities in our region to conduct a series of demos showcasing a newly released software tool. For me, this meant traveling to 22 cities over the span of 4 weeks.
At first, I was thrilled - I loved traveling on my company's dime. Staying in great hotels and eating out every night. Some days I would present in two cities on the same day, or I would fly to and from a city on the same day without staying the night. I would feel like a total boss heading to the airport with just a laptop case in hand knowing I would be back only 6 hours later. After a while though, the shine of the experience started to wear off. I grew tired of room service caesar salads and fettuccini alfredo. My sleep schedule was messed up, and I had stopped working out altogether.
As I approached my very last presentation in Charleston South Carolina, I was ready for the roadshow to be over. I arrived the night before and went out to dinner at an oyster bar where I treated myself to a cocktail. The next day, I woke up dehydrated and low energy but made my way over to the office where my presentation would be. As the real estate brokers started filing into the room, I tried to chug some coffee and remind myself that it would all be over soon.
The presentation started as it usually did - by this point, I was so familiar with the material I could practically resight it from memory. My mouth was dry and I was speaking quickly with the hope that I could wrap up early. About mid-way through the presentation, I realized that I was starting to hyperventilate. I had been breathing in, but I wasn’t breathing out. My vision started to swim, and I became lightheaded. That’s when it hit me - holy crap, I’m having a public meltdown, and with that thought, a panic attack crashed over me. If you’ve never had a panic attack, it is a surge of adrenalin that is released into your bloodstream, and you go into your fight, flight, or freeze response as if being attacked by a deadly predator in the wild.
My throat closed - I literally couldn’t get words out. I started coughing and sputtering, and after a few seconds, I fled the room. The event coordinator found me heaving in a small kitchen off of the conference room. Incredibly, she thought I had just had a coughing fit and handed me some water, and began to walk me back in the room. I don’t think I can do it I said. She had no idea that I was in crisis, and I had no idea that this single trama would change my entire professional life. What happened next is a bit of a blur. I can tell you that I went back in the room and finished the presentation, but I have no idea how. When I got back home, I immediately came down with mono - it had been incubating inside me for weeks and was probably why I felt so crappy at the presentation in the first place. I slowly recovered from the mono, but fear from that presentation not only remained but grew.
At first, I would get panic attacks before big presentations. Then small presentations and then one on one phone calls with clients. At one point, I would get panicky just sitting in a conference room silently with my colleagues. I was so afraid my body would fail me somehow - I was throw up unexpectedly or yell or start crying and humiliate myself in front of my peers. I stopped sleeping at night, anticipating having to go into the office. Eventually, one Sunday night as I lay in bed paralyzed with anxiety at the thought of going into work on Monday, I called up my manager and told him I was done. I couldn’t do my sales job anymore.
Now luckily I worked at a really great company that helped me find a new role I would be more comfortable in. And I was privileged enough to be able to get the help I needed to overcome my phobia of public speaking. But what I wasn’t able to repair, and never will be, was my relationship with speaking. Of using my voice. At one time, speaking felt like one of my best skills. It came naturally. I never thought about being afraid to speak up. After my panic attack, I could see my influence professionally and personally starting to slip when I stopped raising my hand for opportunities to speak. I declined the chance to be on panels. I wouldn’t volunteer to share our latest project with leadership. My dreams of having my own TED talk or being a headliner speaker at Create and Cultivate evaporated.
✦ Seeing Through a New Lens
This humbling experience made me look around and for the first time see the other team members and peers who also weren’t speaking up. Perhaps they weren’t dealing with the same level of anxiety that I was, but at a minimum, they didn’t feel comfortable using their voice. They were happy to let someone else take the spotlight. I noticed that a lot of those individuals were women. So I started to do some research and found that of the 77% of people who are afraid of public speaking, the majority, 44%, are women.
Not raising my hand didn’t mean that opportunity just went away; it meant someone else got to step up in my place. It meant that someone else’s idea was shared with the wider world. Someone else’s name was bought up for promotions. Someone else’s network and circle of influence got to grow. In Daniel Pink’s book “to sell is human” he describes how so much of living in the modern world in convincing other people of your idea. He says: “The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness.” I wasn’t just standing still, but by not speaking up, I was falling behind. And so were all the other women who were staying quiet as well.
It’s hard not to look at the data around women in positions of power and not wonder if there is a connection between speaking up and influence. Women earn more bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in the U.S. than men, but globally, women hold just 24% of senior leadership positions. Even though more women are working than ever before and represent 45% of the S&P 500 workforce, only 4% of the CEOs of these companies are women. We’re here - showing up with the know how and desire to work hard, but collectively, women can not seem to break into the positions that actually hold power and influence.
✦ Podcasting as a Tool for Confidence
As a part of my therapy for regaining my speaking confidence, I was required to build up my speaking muscle again. I joined toastmasters and slowly started giving speeches and practicing my skills from a foundational level. It was around this time that I decided to start a podcast. I knew that to become confident in speaking again, I needed to keep exercising my voice, but jumping into public speaking events felt way too scary. Podcasting seemed like a safe way to practice on my terms. I started my podcast, Book Wine Club, in 2018 and could feel my fear starting to recede,. I was just talking with friends, but I could listen back and hear my confidence growing. My comfort behind the mic increased, and these small wins meant everything to me.
If podcasting was helping me build my confidence, why couldn’t it help the millions of other women who claim to fear speaking? Could I attempt to move the needle in one small way and help women use their voices to create more influence for themselves? With the right tools, support, and community, could we diversify the voices that we hear in our media every day? As you might have guessed, that’s how The Wave was born. For the past three years, I have been committed to reducing the barriers that keep women from podcasting. I’ve built an educational platform with over 100 free articles, videos, and free downloads designed to make it easy for women to start podcasts. I built a production company that offers editing services - something new podcasters fear more than anything else - at an incredibly accessible price. I’ve built a podcast studio in Los Angeles where podcasters can feel safe and comfortable while recording their shows, and as of today, I’m announcing an all new digital community on Discord where pocasters can build their skills together through events and a premium content.
✦ Our Continued Commitment
Despite the fall of the female-centric brands and companies like Girlboss and Glossier over the past few years, I believe the work The Wave is doing is more important than ever before. Just this month, the first-ever study was conducted about the demographics of podcasters. To date, research has only featured podcast listeners, not podcast creators. The headline of the data report was that despite the fact that the gender of podcast listeners continues to be about 50% female and 50% male, the vast majority of podcast creators are men by an overwhelming two-thirds. If you have ever felt like you don’t hear yourself represented in the voices and perspectives of most podcasts out there, it’s because you don’t. This research means we still have our work cut out for us, and I plan to continue to do that for as long as I can.
If you have ever thought about starting a podcast or have a podcast and are wondering if you should keep going, let me ask you to commit today. Not just to promote your business or school or hobby, but to contribute to a larger mission of diversifying the perspectives that are out there. In exchange, I will do the work necessary to minimize all of the things that make podcasting seem unattainable. Cost and community and technical know-how. Thanks for listening to my story today, and if you want to learn about what the wave can do for you, get in touch.
✦ Just For You
As a podcast educator, producer, host, and downright fangirl, I know a thing or two about how challenging it can be to launch and grow a podcast. Lucky for me (and for you!) I was able to take advantage of the lessons learned from all of the badass female podcasters who came before me.
Download our 6 Tips for Creating a Successful Podcast (from the badass females who have been there and done that)
Computer-Generated Transcript with Time Stamps
[00:00:00] Despite the fall of the female centric brands and companies like girlbos and Glossier over the past few years, I believe the work the wave is doing is more important than ever before.
[00:00:11] Hey, my name is Lauren Popish and I'm obsessed with podcasting. A little meta, right. I started podcasting after a public speaking event gone wrong sparked a phobia of public speaking that almost ended my corporate career. Now, I help women use podcasting to share their ideas, grow their businesses, start movements, and leave their unique marks on the world.
[00:00:48] My company, the wave produces shows for some of the most influential women in health, business, spirituality, beauty, and more. And in this show, I'm taking all of the strategies I've used to help my clients top the podcast charts, and I'm bringing them to you. If you're hoping to start grow. Or monetize a podcast you're in the right place. This is Podcast Like a Girl
[00:01:19] you may have seen the headlines recently that read something like this: it's the demise of the Girlboss or the Girlboss is dead. This sentiment comes after the last of a key few remaining female CEOs step down from their roles as company leaders and as a result cultural it girls. Many of these CEOs built brands specifically for women like The Wing, Glossier, Refinery29, and of course, the infamous Girlboss.
[00:01:51] As the founder of a company that supports female podcasters, I can't help, but think, where does this leave me? Am I creating more division through my exclusion of men? Am I isolating women who feel more supported by a community that embraces dualities instead of rejects them? The answer is maybe.
[00:02:15] It's times like these, that I like to examine the foundation of this community to see if this home I've built for so many podcasters is built on something solid or on a toxic brownfield that may be haunted by ancient spirits. To answer this, we have to go all the way back to the beginning. Before the wave.. Before my first podcast. And before my life split into two. We have to go back to where all good stories begin, in New York City.
[00:02:47] Before I was a podtraprenuer, I worked a regular corporate job at a large real estate company in New York. In 2017, the sales team, I was on had to go on what was called a road show. Each of us had to travel to the major cities in our region to conduct a series of demos, showcasing a newly release software tool. For me, this meant traveling to 22 cities over the span of four weeks.
[00:03:15] At first, I was thrilled. I loved traveling on my company's dime. Staying in great hotels and eating out every night. Some days I would present in two cities on the same day, or I would fly in and fly out of a city in the very same day without staying the night. I would feel like a total boss heading to the airport with just my laptop case in hand, knowing I would be back only six hours later.
[00:03:39] After a while though, the shine of the experience started to wear off. I, I grew tired of room service Caesar salads and fettuccini Alfredo. My sleep schedule was totally off and I had stopped working out together. As I approached my very last presentation in Charleston, South Carolina, I was ready for the road show to be over. I arrived the night before and went out to dinner at an oyster bar where I treated myself to a cocktail.
[00:04:07] The next day I woke up dehydrated and low energy, but I made my way over to the office where my presentation would be. As the real estate brokers started filing into the room, I tried to chug some coffee and remind myself that it would all be over soon. The presentation started out as it usually did. By this point, you can imagine I was so familiar with the material that I could practically recite it for memory.
[00:04:31] My mouth was dry and I was speaking quickly with the hope that I could wrap up early. About midway through the presentation, I realized that I was starting to hyperventilate. I'd been breathing in, but I wasn't breathing out. My vision started to swim and I became lightheaded. That's when it hit me. Holy crap. I am having a public meltdown. And with that thought a panic attack crashed over me.
[00:04:59] If you've never had a panic attack, it's a surge of adrenaline that is released into your bloodstream. And you go into your fight flight or freeze response as if you're being attacked by a deadly predator in the wild. My throat closed. I literally couldn't get words out. I started coughing and sputtering and after a few seconds, I literally fled the room. The event coordinator found me heaving in a small kitchen off the conference room. Incredibly, she thought I had just had a coughing fit and handed me some water and began to walk me back into the room. I don't think I can do this I said. She had no idea that I was in crisis, and I had no idea that this single trauma would change my entire professional life.
[00:05:46] What happened next is a bit of a blur. I can tell you that I went back into the room and finished the presentation, but I have no idea how. When I got back home, I immediately came down with mono. It had been incubating inside me for weeks and was probably why I felt so crappy at the presentation in the first place. I slowly recovered from the mono, but the fear from that presentation not only remained, but it grew.
[00:06:13] Hey! I hope you're enjoying this episode. I'm taking a quick break to remind you to subscribe to Podcast Like a Girl. I know, I know when will podcasters stop asking that. Subscribing means that you get the latest episode delivered directly to the top of your apple podcast app, but more importantly, it actually just helps me prove that I'm legitimate and reach more listeners. If you've found any value in this episode so far, please consider picking up your phone, opening apple podcasts, going to the Podcast Like a Girl main page and clicking the plus sign in the upper right to follow our show. Thank you very much in advance and now back to the episode.
[00:07:01] At first I would get panic attacks before big presentation with lots of clients. Then it was small presentations. And then one on one phone calls with clients. At one point I would get panicky just sitting in a conference room, silently, not speaking with a room of my colleagues, my peers. I was so afraid my body would fail me somehow. I would throw up unexpectedly or yell out or start crying and humiliate myself in front of my peers.
[00:07:29] I stopped sleeping at night, anticipating having to go into the office. Eventually one Sunday night as I lay in my bed, paralyzed with anxiety at the thought of going into work on Monday, I called my manager and told him I was done. I couldn't do my sales job anymore.
[00:07:48] Now. Luckily I worked at a really great company that helped me find a new role I would be more comfortable in. It's hard for me to think of another company doing what they did for me. And I was privileged enough to be able to get the help I needed to overcome my phobia of public speaking. But what I wasn't able to repair. And I know I never really will be able to repair was my relationship with speaking. Of using my voice.
[00:08:16] At one time, speaking felt like one of my best skills. It came so naturally I never thought about being afraid to speak up. After my panic attack, I could see my influence professionally and personally, starting to slip when I stopped raising my hand for opportunities to speak. I declined my chance to be on panels. I wouldn't volunteer to share our latest projects with leadership. At a very low point, I even declined to speak at one of my really good friends weddings because I was so afraid of public speaking. My dreams of having my own Ted talk or being a headliner speaker at it evaporated overnight.
[00:08:56] This humbling experience made me look around. And for the first time I was seen my other team members and my peers who also weren't speaking up. Perhaps they weren't dealing with the same level of anxiety that I was, but at a minimum, they didn't feel comfortable using their voices. They were happy to let someone else take the spotlight. And I noticed that a lot of those individuals were women. So I started to do some research and I found that of the 77% of people who are afraid of public speaking, the majority 44% are women.
[00:09:29] Not raising my hand didn't mean that that opportunity went away. It meant that someone else got to step up in my place. It meant that someone else's idea was shared with the wider world. Someone else's name was brought up for promotions. Someone else's network in circle of influence got to grow. In Daniel Pink's book, To Sell Is Human, he describes how so much of living in the modern world is convincing other people of your ideas. He says the ability to move others, to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness. I wasn't just standing still, but by not speaking up, I was falling behind. And so were the other women who were staying quiet as well.
[00:10:17] It's hard not to look at the data around women in positions of power and not wonder if there's a connection between speaking up and influence. Women earn more bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in the us than men, but globally women just hold 24% of senior leadership positions. Even though more women are working than ever before and represent 45% of the S and P's 500 workforce, only 4% of the CEOs of these companies are women. We're here. We're showing up with the know how and the desire to work hard, but collectively women cannot seem to break into the positions that actually hold power and influence.
[00:11:02] As a part of my therapy for regaining my speaking confidence, I was required to build up my speaking muscles again. I joined Toastmasters and slowly started giving speeches and practicing my skills from a foundational level. It was around this time that I decided to start a podcast. I knew that to become a confident speaker again, I needed to keep exercising my voice, but jumping into public speaking events just felt way too scary at that time. Podcasting seems like a safe way to practice on my terms.
[00:11:33] I started my podcast book wine club in 2018 and could feel my fear starting to recede. I was just talking with my friends, but I could listen back on the episodes and hear my confidence growing. My comfort behind the mic increased and these small wins meant everything to me at that time.
[00:11:53] If podcasting was helping me build my confidence, why couldn't it help the millions of other women who claim to fear speaking? Could I attempt to move the needle in just one small way and help women use their voices to create more influence for themselves. With the right tools, support, and community, could we diversify the voices that we hear in our media every single day? As you might have guessed. That's how the wave was born.
[00:12:20] For the past three years, I've been committed to reducing the barriers that keep women from podcasting. I've built an educational platform with over a hundred free articles, videos, and free downloads designed to make it easy for women to start podcasts. I built a production company that offers editing services, something new podcasters fear more than anything else, at an incredibly accessible price. I've built a podcast studio in Los Angeles where podcasters can feel safe and comfortable while recording their shows. And as of today, I'm announcing an all new digital community on discord where podcasters can build their skills together through events and premium content.
[00:13:01] Despite the fall of the female centric brands and companies like girlbos and Glossier over the past few years, I believe the work the wave is doing is more important than ever before. Just this month, the first ever study was conducted about the demographics of podcasters. To date, the only research that's been available has featured podcast listeners, not the podcast creators themselves. The headline of the data report was that despite the fact that the gender of podcast listeners continues to be about 50% female, 50% male, the vast majority of podcast creators are men by an overwhelming two thirds. If you have ever felt like you don't hear yourself represented in the voices and perspectives of most podcasts out there. It's because you don't.
[00:13:53] This research means we still have our work cut out for us, and I plan to continue to do that for as long as I can. If you have ever thought about starting a podcast or you have a podcast and are wondering if you should keep going, let me ask you to commit today. Not just to promote your business or your school or your hobby but to contribute to a larger mission of diversifying the perspectives that are out there. In exchange, I will do the work necessary to minimize all the things that make podcasting seem unattainable. Cost and community and technical know how. I'm here every day, working on it with my team at the wave.
[00:14:36] Thank you for listening to my story today, it was a vulnerable moment for me. And if you want to learn more about how the wave can help you and your podcast, please get in touch.
[00:14:47] That's all for today, pod broads. Thanks for listening, keep podcasting, and enjoy the ride.
[00:14:56] I know just how many podcasts you could have been listening to, which is why I'm so grateful you decided to spend the last 20 minutes with me. Speaking of time. If you're a podcaster and you've ever wondered what else you could be doing with your week if you didn't have to edit, write show notes and create marketing materials for every podcast episode, then let the lady pros at the wave treat you to some me time.
[00:15:22] Get 15% off your first month of a production package by going to thewavepodcasting.com/podcast-editing-services and enter podcastlikeagirl all one word lower case at checkout. Now the only question is which podcast you're gonna spend all your new found time binging. See you back next week.
