[SGC-21] The Sad Truth Why I Disappeared and 5 Lessons I Learned While I Was Gone

Hello there, Content Creators. You're listening to the She's Got Content podcast where it's all about creating content for your coaching business. I'm your host, Dr. Melissa Brown, and I'm here every week to help you get your content out of your head, out of your heart, and out there into the world where that information and your services can impact the most people. Get ready to take notes today and then take action, Content Creators. Let's dive in with today's episode because you've got content to get out there.

Hey, content creators. Welcome back. It's been a few minutes. I've missed you. I know there's been some water under the bridge since my last episode was published earlier in 2023. I've been on hiatus. But no it's not been planned. And to be completely transparent with you. And so there's just no mystery about why I've been absent from this podcast, I wanna share with you the reason I suddenly disappeared. My last episode was published on February 1st of this year, 2023. Then on February 7th. I lost my mom, quite unexpectedly. You see, she died from head trauma injuries she suffered from an unwitnessed fall. So we don't exactly know what happened. There are there's some more details. I'll not go into those right now. None of those will change the ultimate outcome. To be honest. I was just absolutely crushed. When I got this news, I dropped everything and I just quickly flew home several states away to be with my father and my siblings and to plan my mother's funeral. Throughout the month of February. I felt like, like time stood still. And simultaneously it when at warp speed. I don't know if you can imagine that both at the same time. I felt like I entered a glitch in the matrix and somehow I just lost all sense for what happened to a month or so of my life. I came home at the end of February. And I thought I could just jump back into my previous schedule and truth be told, it's taken me a long time to feel my creative spark again. But I'm now feeling it once more and that creative sense just feels like home to me. I really missed it. And I've missed talking to you. Prior to that tragedy happening, I'd been in such a great rhythm, getting my weekly podcast episodes done since the end of September in 2022. There's 20 episodes out there in the world. And I really didn't want to fall out of my weekly habit. But I've learned that grief doesn't have respect for habits. And I've learned that when you're in the middle of grief, it's best to simply let go and just go with what feels right. And comfortable. For the time. For the right now. And as my creative spark sort of fell dim, there didn't seem to be too much point in trying to force myself to create content or record audio or edit, create show notes. I knew it just wasn't going to happen. So I just let go. And I told myself, I'd know when the time felt right to jump back into production. You know, Guess what. I was right. The creative ideas slowly have returned. They didn't happen all at once, but gradually, and I allowed some time to think and reflect and process what happened over the past few months. And an interesting thing has happened, ultimately allowing me to turn some lemons into lemonade. So that's what I'd love to share with you today. In those three months now, since I've produced an episode for the podcast, I've learned some valuable lessons. These lessons are as a result of this unplanned hiatus from the She's Got Content Podcast. It's possible I wouldn't have had these particular ideas to share with you had I not had this unexpected and unplanned break from the show. That's why I'm calling them my lemons to lemonade lessons. But before I get into those lessons learned, I have to say this. I would never suggest to just abruptly stop producing your podcast. If you find you need to take a planned break, there are ways to do it. As a matter of fact, some of these lessons I learned here that I'm going to share with you during this unplanned time away made me realize how to better get ahead and also how important it is to just step away once in a while. So with that being said here in no particular order are some lessons I've learned. Lesson number one. I don't need to publish every week. What I do need to be is consistent. But that doesn't mean I've got to publish each and every week. It was actually becoming difficult to maintain that weekly episode production. Yeah, I had put a habit into place, but it did seem like I was almost constantly working on getting the next episode out. So if I want to publish every week, every 10 days or every other week, that's fine. It doesn't have to be every seven days period. The end. And that actually leads me to lesson number two. Batch creation for content is a good idea to explore. In the past. I've never been able to do that for blog writing or for this podcast. But to be honest, I've actually never seriously tried to work it into my schedule yet either. And for batch creation, I mean, creating a bunch of episodes within a compressed period of time. And do all the like tasks for each of the episodes, one after the other, and then move to the next step in the production sequence. That might mean, recording a bunch of these solo cast episodes on one day. Or scheduling all interviews almost back to back on one or two days for the following months' episodes. Then editing each of the recordings, like one after the other. And then doing the show notes for each one. And then promo social media, graphic images. Do those all together. Finally set up the episodes in the host platform. Make sure all the pieces are put in place and schedule them all to go out. This way, there are a few weeks that episodes will be queued up to publish and I can focus on other things in my business or in my life. Lesson number three is about getting ahead with content. And whether that's through batch creation or just queuing up a lot of episodes and then not working constantly to get that next episode done. Or possibly explore other options to outsource the audio, the editing or the other tasks. It's a great idea to get ahead with episodes that are scheduled out in the future. That means you don't put unnecessary pressure on yourself to beat a deadline. And in case an unexpected situation arises again in the future, there's still podcasts episodes in the queue that'll keep coming out for a while during the time I need to take a break. And actually, this was the case for me over the past several weeks, I developed a severe respiratory infection. I was primed and pumped and ready to record this podcast, this episode back in April and then I had this serious constant cough and had laryngitis and there was no way I was going to be able to get this podcast recorded. So further delays happened because I wasn't ahead with my shows. Okay. Lesson learned. None of us are immune from illness, so produce and publish those shows and stay ahead with having shows scheduled out and ready to go by at least a few weeks, if not a month in advance. My fourth lesson is about seasons. Seasons for a podcast could be a good idea and deserve some experimentation. Think of seasons in the podcasting industry as the same thing as television seasons. With seasons, episodes are delivered at a predetermined time. And then there's a break when no episodes are released. That builds anticipation for the release and for the next season to come. Just think about the anticipation that grows when you're waiting for the next season of Outlander to drop so you can find out what happens to Claire and Jamie Frazier. And now, you know, I'm a big Outlander fan, right? And speaking of Outlander and seasons, just don't let listeners anticipate your next season release and then drop that news that, that next highly anticipated season's been cut in two, with the final season, put off for an undetermined time in the future. That's sure gonna anger your fans and your listeners, just like the Outlander season seven announcement that came out recently. They announced that season seven got split up. Part a releases in June of this year, while part B drops. Well, no one actually knows when it's going to drop, but it apparently won't release in 2023. All right. I digress anyway. Having podcasting seasons not only allows for anticipation of the next new season, but it also allows the listeners to digest and perhaps take action on the content from the previous season. I think a coach's educational podcasts are really suited to seasonal production. Each season can allow the podcaster to focus in on a specific topic within a season. Your content can be organized for a better listener experience that way. It's easier on the podcaster, too, since there are more intense periods of content production, followed by more time freedom in the off season. That way you can explore other things. You can launch new or different digital products or courses. And maybe just relax with some well-deserved downtime if you like. And just like television or streaming channels, you can drop all of your episodes for a season at once. They're labeled and they're organized so listeners can listen in order. Or they can be scheduled out and dripped out during any given season. Remember, you're the podcast producer so you get to decide how your content is released. And now lesson number five, the last lesson. Well, the biggest lesson to me is just the summary of all of the above lessons. Taking a break from producing episodes has allowed time for me to explore some new ideas and formats to improve this podcast. And that's a great reason for taking some planned breaks from your podcasting schedule. And notice I said, planned breaks. Yes. Emergencies and illnesses happen. And yeah, tragedies do too as I and my family have just, unfortunately, waked through a nightmare that I wouldn't want for anyone else to have to experience. But having said that, and having an unplanned break and leaning into it, I have a new appreciation for my podcast production schedule. I feel better about getting ahead with production, having, having a plan for future production so I can spend some time away and out of production mode. And being able to keep those creative sparks flying. And so to summarize, here are my lemons into lemonade lessons I want to share with you for having a recent, unexpected, unplanned hiatus away from the podcast. Number one. Be consistent with publishing your podcast. It's not written in stone that publishing a podcast has to be done weekly. It can be weekly. It could be biweekly, monthly. I think monthly might be pushing it as far as consistency goes, but if that's the best schedule for you, then by all means, go for it monthly and be consistent. Number two is batch creation for episodes is a good idea to get it into a system. I'm going to be exploring batching and it'll be easier to consistently publish and schedule out future episodes when that system is fully in place. The third lesson dovetails lesson number two. It's about the benefits of getting ahead with content and getting episodes scheduled out in advance. There are lots of ways podcasters can do that. Whether it's batching like tasks to be more efficient or even outsourcing audio editing. Try to be a few weeks to a month ahead with your production. Number four: Seasons are worth exploring. A set period of time to release episodes. A set period of time in between episodes to recharge. And then starting the creative process all over again. And number five: the last lesson-- look at the big picture and realized there needs to be some time built into a schedule to allow for that creative process. Not only for each episode's production. But also for new creative ideas to flow. Ideas to make the experience better, not only for the podcaster, but for the listeners' experience too. Okay. Content creators. I am so happy to be back and in production again. I got a sneak peak here. I've got interviews coming up where you're going to be learning about what is aligned marketing. And how to implement that in your business. Also, I've got some cool reasons you'll want to explore writing a book and some great info about using the Tik TOK platform to increase your visibility. All of these are coming to you over the next few weeks too. Okay. So that's it for what I've got for you today. Be well until we meet again next week. Believe in your biggest dreams. Remember your content is the vehicle you'll drive to see those dreams come true.

Thank you for tuning into this episode of the She's Got Content podcast. I hope you got at least one nugget to take action on this week. If you got value from today's episode, I would be so grateful when you leave a five star rating wherever you listen to podcasts. It only takes a second and it really helps me get my message out to impact even more people so they can in turn, keep the ripple going. If you're listening on Apple Podcast and leave a review of the show, it would really make my day, and you just might receive a shout out on the show as my Content Creator of the week when I read out your review. And last but never least, if you want an endless supply of just right ideas for content you can write about for your blog post, your emails, your videos, podcast episodes, all the content things, then you wanna head over to my website at shesgotcontent.com/content and pick up your free workbook, Never Run Out of Content Ideas. Look for that link in the show notes today along with the other links mentioned in today's episode. Until next time, Content Creators, you've got an audience waiting to hear from you and you've got content to share with them. Stop being the best kept secret and make a bigger impact when you've got content out there in the world.