When you hit that record button, how does stigma play a role in keeping your story to yourself? What if you can choose to ignore that stigma and be open and vulnerable behind the mic?

My guest today is Jay Shifman, a vulnerable storyteller and the host of the Choose Your Struggle podcast. In our conversation, Jay shares his experience about his speaking and podcasting journey that reveals how to use effective storytelling to break down walls and stereotypes, why the fear of oversharing plays a part in the role of stigma, and how his transition from speaking on stage to podcasting behind the mic can create a growing network to be seen and heard. 

You will also learn:

  • Great techniques about what to do as a host of your own show
  • How to audit your podcast through timing conversations
  • Starting a podcast vs keeping up with the podcast

Links worth exploring from the episode:

Engage with Jay Shifman:

Connect with Mary!

Podcast cover art by Emily Johnston of Artio Design Co.

Transcript with audio description:

[MUSIC IN]

CLIP – JAY: We often fear that “oversharing piece,” right? Because we… I mean, that’s a lot of what that stigma is. Oh, you should keep this inside. You shouldn’t talk to people about this. But when given the opportunity, a lot of people will happily go there with you. People don’t have the opportunity to do this in other ways in their everyday life. And that’s what’s so incredible about the podcasting space is we can feel this sense of community, this sense of togetherness, a sense of connection. And we can also be in a situation like that where we are all alone, but we’re still together. We’re still feeling seen, we’re feeling heard, we’re feeling connected.

[MUSIC OUT // PAUSE A BEAT // INTRO]

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MARY: Welcome to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice.

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MARY: Reveal and define your voice to speak your truth through the power of podcasting. And I’m your host, Mary Chan.

<< WOMAN SINGS: So so so so let’s go >>

MARY: Hey, welcome to the show! This is episode number 49 – Overcoming Fear and Stigma to Tell Your Story with Jay Shifman.

[MUSIC FADES // NEW MUSIC STARTS]

MARY: Ah, stigma. You know, when you look it up in the Oxford Dictionary, it describes it as a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. Yikes. When I read that, it was the word disgrace that stood out to me. That embarrassment I immediately thought of, especially that feeling to make you second guess yourself and wonder if your story is even good enough to share, or if people will even care about what you’re saying. So when you hit that record button, how does stigma play a role in keeping your story to yourself? What happens when you decide to ignore that stigma and be open and vulnerable behind the mic? Let’s find out with my conversation today with stigma-destroying speaker, Jay Shifman. 

Jay is a vulnerable storyteller and the host of the Choose Your Struggle podcast. As the survivor of two suicide attempts and an overdose, Jay founded his company, Choose Your Struggle, in 2015 with two distinct goals – ending stigma and promoting honest and fact-based education around the topics of mental health, substance misuse and recovery, and drug use and policy. In our conversation, Jay shares his experience about his speaking and podcasting journey that reveals how to use effective storytelling to break down walls and stereotypes, why the fear of oversharing plays a part in the role of stigma, and how his transition from speaking on stage to podcasting behind the mic can create a growing network to be seen and heard. Jay also details out some great techniques about what to do as a host of your own show, to audit your podcast through timing your conversations. You’ll have to listen in to learn more, so enjoy the show. 

[MUSIC FADES OUT]

MARY: Jay, thank you so much for coming on the show. I think you have a lot of experience and are going to bring so much to the episode today. Thanks for coming on.

JAY: Definitely, Mary. It’s great to be here. We had some scheduling kerfuffle.

MARY: [LAUGHS]

JAY: So, glad to finally do this. Been looking forward to it all week. Happy to chat with you.

MARY: Awesome. I know you’re quite the storyteller now, but let’s rewind a bit to before even having the podcast. Tell me about how, or even if you did, did you use your voice for storytelling before starting that podcast?

JAY: Yeah, you know, I was a kid who was super into the creative. Some of my earliest memories are either reading myself or being read to. There’s a funny story my mother loves to tell about… I’m the oldest of four boys, but myself and brother number two wrote a book when we were like, you know, two years old. We could barely talk about, I think it was the Ninja Turtles, you know, we were…

MARY: Awesome.

JAY: …big fans of Ninja Turtles.

MARY: Me too.

JAY: Who wasn’t? Our generation, right?

MARY: [LAUGHS]

JAY: So, you know, the storytelling thing was just ingrained in me. I mean, there was never a time when I didn’t enjoy a good story, but the current iteration of what that looks like for me really began in 2015. I was, at the time, over five years in recovery from a struggle with addiction and mental health, other substance use, misuse issues. And on Election Night of 2015, I’d been invited by a buddy of mine who runs a storytelling event back in my hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio, to tell my story or tell a shortened version on stage for the first time. And up until that point, I had not only not told my story on stage, obviously, but I rarely told it to anyone. I mean, I, you know, had numerous friends who knew that I disappeared for a couple of years and had no idea why. Right? I mean, this was something that I kept very secret. And I’ve been asked a lot, and this is something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why that was, right? 

In fact, on an interview a couple of years ago, someone flat out said, I got to know, did someone tell you not to tell this story, right? Were you told, do not talk about this? And Mary, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t prepared for that question because no one had ever asked me that before. In the moment, I just said the honest truth of no. No one ever said, Don’t talk about this. It’s just the way that we as a society talk about, you know, people who use drugs, people who struggle with addiction, people who struggle with their mental health. And I had internalized all that. And so I kept it all silent for years. And in fact, that first time on stage, my buddy had asked me time and time and time again to do it, because I kept saying, are you… are you crazy? There’s no way in hell I’m going to do this, you know?

MARY: [LAUGHS] But what was that feeling like with that initial question of, hey, tell your story on stage? Did all that stigma bubble up for you? What were you feeling in that moment when he asked you to come tell your story?

JAY: That’s such a funny question because no, there was no conscious thought of, Oh my God, I could never do that. You know, it would be like if someone asked you today, Hey, come up to the roof of the building with me, we’re going to fly. 

MARY: [LAUGHS]

JAY: Right? I mean, there’s just… no of course, I’m not going to do that. What, why would you even think of that? You know? So, no, there was no conscious decision. It was just an absurd question to me.

MARY: And so how did that stigma and that feeling get in the way of your self-expression? Because telling your story is a great way of self-expression.

JAY: Yeah. You know, so I’ve had a lot of time to think about that since. At the time it’s, to use the analogy I just used, asking me that question would be like asking, How did jumping off the roof or your desire to not want to do that keep you from flying? And it’s like, well, if that’s not an option, so it’s really not keeping me from doing this, you know? I never saw my story as one, not only worthy of telling, but that I was able to tell. And again, that wasn’t a conscious decision. It wasn’t like I had been asked to do it and said, no. This was the first time anyone had taken any interest. And not only interest, but had sort of busted through that stigma to say, I think this is a story that’s worth telling. And so it was not even something that I had the opportunity or the consciousness to consider.

MARY: So then when you decided to, Okay, I’ll tell my story. When you got to that point, then for me and thinking, Oh my gosh, I’ve agreed to this. Now, what do I actually talk about? How did you know what you wanted to reveal?

JAY: You know, it’s so funny because that’s the part of this that I don’t talk about that much. You know, I often skip over that. I kind of go, so I agreed to tell my story and then there I was on stage, right? So in all honesty, the story or the speech that I gave, the story that I told on stage that night was the fourth iteration of the story. 

The first one I threw out because it was, you know, the rough draft. And so I threw it out. The second one, it was getting a little bit better. The third one, I finally was like, All right, here, we’re good. I invited someone over whose opinion I trusted. I gave her the full run, the full thing. To her credit, she sat in silence and listened. She was a great, is a great friend, still. And at the end, and just incredible, incredible support from this person, she went, that was a great story. That’s not the one you should tell. And of course, I was like, how dare you!

MARY: [LAUGHS] Yeah.

JAY: This is, you know.

MARY: This is my story!

JAY: Exactly! Like, how do you know? But she was right. She said, look, that’s a great story. It doesn’t centre you. It centres… It tells your story by centring other people. And that knocked me on my arse because she was 100% right. And so I took that feedback and reversed the view in the story, right? Instead of telling it about other people. And in doing so, telling my story, I told my story. And it was all thanks to her that that went in that direction.

MARY: How comfortable were you with coming to your final version? Did you want to keep changing it or were you like, okay, this is it? I just got to say it.

JAY: No, once I had the final version, I knew that was the final version. You kind of asked two different questions there in terms of comfort. [LAUGHS] I was not comfortable in the least. I went up on stage that night and I was the second headliner. 

So, you know, the way this event broke down, there was three storytellers in the first half and three in the second half, and there was like a person headlining each half of the show. So I had time while watching the other two people to, of course, stew in my uncomfortableness, getting more and more unsure as I went along. But then it was my time, and I went up there and I told my story. I went out, I walked offstage and I still remember this perfectly. My first thought was My life is over. 

At the time, I worked in fundraising, non-profit fundraising and politics, which are two industries that really rely on your sort of public persona. And I thought that I had just thrown away all my, you know, community goodwill. Here I was admitting to something that as a society we see struggling with addiction, struggling with mental health as colossal failures, even if we don’t like to admit that.

So I walked off stage and I went over, I sort of came out from behind stage, thinking that was it. And it was the exact opposite from the moment I came out to the public. I walked out from behind stage. There was a crush of people waiting for me. I mean, there were 150 people in this room. I knew probably 75 to 100 of them.

I grew up a baseball player. I always wanted to play in the major leagues, but unfortunately I, obviously, was not that good. And I always wanted to know what it felt like to win the World Series and I felt it that night, you know? I was the centre of attention for literally 100 people who were crushed around my brother. One of my brothers was there. He came up and gave me a big hug. It was a wonderful experience. I don’t remember any of the other speeches the rest of that night because I had to step outside because people were disturbing the rest of the night wanting to talk to me. And it really was a beautiful experience that, one night, completely changed the rest of my life.

MARY: With that one night, did you ever go back then, on the subsequent stages or behind the mics that you’ve been telling your story, did you ever go back to that little inner voice that was there right after you finished telling your story on stage the first time? Did that ever come back and creep into your consciousness?

JAY: [LAUGHS] You know, I wish I could say right now that, you know, once I banished that voice for good it never… of course not.

MARY: [LAUGHS]

JAY: Of course that’s not how that works. You know, it’s so funny, actually, I recently… my most recent onstage opportunity was speaking at one of my brother’s weddings a month ago, and I was more nervous for that than I’ve been in a speech in years. 

MARY: [LAUGHS]

JAY: Right? I could be up in front of a thousand people telling my story, talking about… and I did this! Not a thousand. It was a couple hundred people. I gave a TEDx Talk last year. I was, of course, nervous like anyone gets before going on stage, but I was fine. I, you know, did my thing. Everything was great. I was shaking before telling my… speaking at my brother’s wedding. So there is always that next one that is making you nervous. There’s always going to be an opportunity where you think you’re good and then you get up there and whatever it is, it settles in and you go, Oh my God, I’m nervous as hell. But each one is a little bit easier. 

You know, each time you… I tell my story, I’m a little bit more comfortable with it. And now having told it, you know, over 100 times, I could tell this story in my sleep. So, it is definitely… I was on a call the other day and someone thanked me for my honesty, thanked me for my bravery in telling my story. And I actually laughed. Like, it wasn’t a conscious decision to laugh, but I laughed and I was like, Man, I’ve been doing this for like six, seven years now. I appreciate it. Like, that’s really grounding to remind me that this is still, sadly, a brave thing to do, to tell my story. There is not a person in my life who doesn’t know this story at this point. It is night and day from where I came from in 2015.

MARY: So then, where did the idea for the podcast come from?

JAY: Yeah, so that’s a little… that’s less of a organized decision. Going into 2020, and my business plan for my business, Choose Your Struggle, was predicated on public speaking. I had paid my dues, I had worked my way up to being a paid speaker. Then, you know, this little thing that maybe you’ve heard of called COVID happened.

MARY: [LAUGHS] Oh, the pandemic, you know.

JAY: I know. I saw the writing on the wall in January of 2020. I was like, This doesn’t look good. You know, the reports, even if our country here, and I’m in the United States, even if our country is not taking this seriously whatsoever and I saw the writing on the wall and went, this is going to be bad. 

So a buddy of mine had just started a podcast and coincidentally the same week, a client of mine, when I was still doing one-on-one coaching said, You know, you’d be good at a podcast. And I actually said to him, There is no way in hell I’m ever going to start a podcast.

MARY: Oh, why did you say that, though?

JAY: Because I didn’t know much about the industry at the time, and I believed that sort of that quip that everybody and their mother has a podcast, right? What I didn’t know was the second part of that, which is that everybody and their mother starts a podcast, but if you make it past episode 25, you’re in the 95th percentile, right? So many people start one and drop out. But then my buddy starts his and I love this person. He’s one of my closest friends. And I said to him, I actually said to him, If you can do this, I can do this. So I looked into it, bought my first microphone and started, just started going. But I still saw it as a part time thing, as a side gig. And then came the day in March of 2020 when the NBA postponed the rest of their season. And that’s when everybody in the United States went, Oh, my God, this is, this is real. This is a big deal. And in the next 48 hours, I lost five paid speaking gigs. And I have yet to have five paid speaking gigs since. So that tells you how decimated that industry is. And I’m really lucky that I started this podcast six weeks before because all of a sudden I went, All right, my business plan for this year is absolutely shot. What can I do to still get my message out there? Still relate with my, with my community? Oh, right. I’ve got this podcast that at this point has had four episodes. What if I double down on this thing? And I’m glad I made that decision.

MARY: With that transition, was there a change in how you spoke up from stage to just, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, podcasting, you talking to yourself essentially, like, was there a shift in your voice?

JAY: You know, I’m really lucky that I went from stage to podcast and not the other direction because it’s super easy to take what you’ve learnt by being an effective public speaker. And instead of sitting here, you know, as we talk, I am literally looking into a, you know, sound deadening device that, you know, it would be very easy for me just to focus on the one person I’m literally talking to. But the most effective speakers are the people who when you’re in a crowd, you are aware of the crowd, but you focus on one person, right? You, and then you can change that person throughout. Right? You’re but you’re always tailoring it. You’re looking at one person. And it’s the way that you don’t get overwhelmed when you’re on stage. So I keep that same mindset when I’m doing a podcast right? If I’m doing an interview, I am literally talking to one person. But I am aware that there are hundreds or thousands of people that I’m really actually talking to.

MARY: When you host a show, there’s a difference between being a host and being a guest, which you both do. What is your strategy for the difference between the two?

JAY: Yeah, when I’m the guest, luckily, like I said, I’m practised at this. I’ve been doing this for a long time now. There’s sort of two answers to being a guest. The first is being responsive to your host. But then there’s also the old public speaking and really this… you see this a lot in politics trick of answering the question you want to answer while wrapping it in the question they asked.

I try not to be that person. I see this all the time in politics. And it’s a, you know, it’s a trick as old as any in the book. But it’s really annoying when you see it, which is where they don’t even pretend to answer the question that they’ve been asked and they just. Oh, wow, you asked about, you know, my policy on housing. So when I was in the Senate, it’s like, okay, come on. 

But there is a way to use your knowledge to answer the question that you are prepared to answer while coaching it through the question they asked. So that’s sort of what I try to do when I’m speaking. If I’m not prepared to answer a question, though, I also have no problem saying I have no idea.

MARY: Yeah. And that’s where podcasting is so great. Like when they’re not live, they’re just most of them are just pre-recorded. It is like, I don’t know. And then, you know, we’ll take it out. [LAUGHS]

JAY: Or, you know, it’s okay to sometimes not know an answer, you know?

MARY: Totally!

JAY: I talk about really important topics of addiction, you know, drug policy. And some of these things are changing rapidly. And somebody says, hey, did you see this new report? And I’m… no. I haven’t seen it. I’m sorry. I would love to. Send it over. I’ll take a look at it, you know. So that’s the part about being a guest. 

On the other hand, this is something that a lot of hosts really struggle with. And there’s a guy that I worked with for a long time. I was trying to, I was coaching him on his podcast who just could not get this concept down, which is the interview, should be a conversation. Don’t get me wrong. If you’re the host, and you’re going, Mm hmm. That’s interesting. So here’s my next question, right? I mean, that’s dry as all hell and nobody wants to listen to that. But you have to get out of the way. This isn’t about you. 

You know, to be a good host is to listen, to have some questions prepared, but also to be able to anticipate, Oh, wow. Like, that was an interesting answer. I bet there’s a little bit more down there that I can get from them and helping your… guiding your guest, right? It’s not about, you know, there are some… I listen to some podcasts. I don’t really keep listening to them, but I’ll listen to a podcast and the host will talk for 30 out of the 45 minutes. And I’ll be like, what was the point of this guest, right? Why was this guest even here, you know? They’re very different skills being a guest and being a host. And the ones that I like the most are really more of a 60-40 split in terms of guest-host or even a little bit more, maybe 75-25. And the best hosts in the world are the ones that can facilitate a conversation but can also step out of the way when the time is right.

MARY: Okay. If a host is quite the chatterer…

JAY: [LAUGHS]

MARY: …what is some techniques that you would suggest to make them aware that they might be talking too much?

JAY: Yeah. So this was actually something that I used to, like I said, use when I, when I did some coaching for podcasters. The easiest way to know if they’re talking too much is to literally time yourself. You know, go back, turn on an old episode or your recent episode or whatever, and have it have your cell phone sitting there and press start whenever you’re talking and then pause and press start whenever. And you know, luckily our… we know how long our shows are. Literally, it says it right there and you can do the math. You, okay. I talk for 45 of these, of this minutes of this hour. That is significantly too much, you know?

MARY: [LAUGHS] Yes.

JAY: So, it’s tedious. There were some people I was working with who were like, I’m not going to do that. And I’m like, okay, I, that’s fine. It’s your show. You do whatever you want. You’re not going to be successful in this space if that’s what you want to do. And a couple of them, I actually recommended that they stop having guests. I said, Look, you do make good points, sometimes solo podcasts are great. There’s nothing wrong with that. You need to keep it a little bit shorter because people will tune it out. But if you want to release a couple times a week, a 15 minute rant, sure, there are people who like that kind of thing. Why not? But it’s not… It’s doing a disservice to your guest if you’re bringing them on for an hour “conversation” and you’re talking for 45 minutes of it.

MARY: Yeah, totally. One of the techniques that I use, if people are editing their own show, you can see visually on your track how much you’re talking and then the guest track how much they’re talking. So, like if you don’t want to do the math, like you were talking about the timer and the math, I’m like, Oh gosh, math [LAUGHS]. You know, you can visually see how much you are talking versus the guest. So yeah, I love your points there. 

Going back a little bit to the stigma vulnerability piece. Like, vulnerable is a huge buzzword these days. So how does vulnerability play a role in the storytelling that you do for your podcast?

JAY: Yeah, I think the most important thing is that it makes me more relatable and it makes me more empathetic, right? I actually, the best example I can give is I was on an interview once and somebody, you know, as a person who lived through multiple suicide attempts and overdose and all that kind of stuff, you know, we were talking about how you can have a conversation with someone in your life who you think may be struggling. And I said, look. It never in anyone’s life has sitting them down and yelling at them to tell you the truth ever worked. If I think you’re struggling, I’m not going to be like, Damn it, Mary, tell me the truth. I know, whatever. Like you’re going to be like, get the hell out of here. Who the hell are you, right? But the way to get that person to open up is to, you know, either be like, hey, look, you know, here’s something I’m struggling with. Do you have a second? Can we talk about it? Or being vulnerable in the sense of being like, hey, I don’t know if you know this about me, but, you know, I’ve lived through a couple of suicide attempts. I’m an overdose survivor. 

Only by creating that two-way street will that actually exist. You can’t wait for the other person. So, in telling the stories the way I do, in being vulnerable, there creates that natural, sort of, naturally created empathy, right? And why I think that’s so important is that the topics I deal with, yes, destroying stigma is super important. Don’t get me wrong. You know, it is the first I think in two very important steps. However, there are a lot of groups that focus on that. Destroying stigma is all they do and that’s wonderful. There are fewer places that focus on that next step, which is once that wall is down, right? Once I have told you my story and you go, Oh my God, like this guy has lived through it, he knows, he understands this at a gut level. How do we replace those incorrect or harmful ideas about this topic that created that stigma in the first place with more honest and fact-based education? 

So, in my opinion, telling my story is super important, right? I want people to hear that I, you know, that the face of addiction is not that stereotype we all think it is. However, once I’ve told my story, I want to drop some knowledge on you, right? I want to talk about facts. I want to have, and I did this in my TEDx talk, I want graphics, I want, you know, the graphs up on stage that you know I’m not the exception that proves the rule. I am the rule. And that stereotype that you’re thinking of is flat out wrong.

So in my opinion, an effective story does both. It helps break that wall down, but then it helps make sure that wall doesn’t come back up.

MARY: Yeah, and I was thinking back to what you said earlier about, you know, sharing parts of your story, your personal things to get that guests to open up to share their personal stories, too. Would you ever think to yourself, I’m sharing too much? Like you don’t want this to be a… if you know, if this isn’t the theme of your podcast, you know, if this wasn’t your particular podcast, I’m just talking about a podcast in general. If it’s not about, like, a therapy type session, like sometimes people feel like, Oh, I don’t want this to be a therapy session. So how much is too much in the sharing?

JAY: You know, that’s such a great question. It’s a harder one for me to answer because all of what I do is that, you know? But what’s really interesting to me, I think, is that I have had people on my show who their main focus isn’t, you know, drug use, addiction, mental health, that kind of stuff. I’ve had people who focus on finances. You know, I’ve had actors, I’ve had a musician. And to a person, they have all been not only willing but eager to go there with me. And what that says to me is that we often fear that “oversharing” piece, right? Because we… I mean, that’s a lot of what that stigma is. Oh, you should keep this inside. You shouldn’t talk to people about this. But when given the opportunity, a lot of people will happily go there with you. And that’s one of the reasons why stories or mental health podcasts and especially those that deal with sort of storytelling or this brutal honesty are so popular is that people don’t have the opportunity to do this in other ways in their everyday life, right?

I once got an email from a guy in, I think it was, Ethiopia. And he said, Where I live, I don’t have an opportunity to talk about these topics. Your show is my outlet. That was a very powerful email, but he is far from alone, right? Podcasts. We put them in our ears. Nobody knows what we’re listening to. 

You know, I had… this is actually true. I was on the train and I was listening to a podcast and the person next to me was also listening to a podcast. And I just told her really quick, Hey, you know, I work in the industry, I love podcasts, what are you listening to? And she got this sheepish grin on her face and she said, Erotica. And… [LAUGHS]

MARY: [LAUGHS] Yeah.

JAY: And I thought that was amazing, right?

MARY: Yes!

JAY: Because here she is on her way to work in her own little world, enjoying what she enjoys with absolutely no judgement. And that’s what’s so incredible about the podcasting space is we can feel this sense of community, this sense of togetherness, a sense of connection, and we can also be in a situation like that where we are all alone on a train, but we’re still together. We’re still feeling seen, we’re feeling heard, we’re feeling connected.

MARY: Yeah, I actually was writing a note just about that same thing to follow up, because that’s what I love about podcasting as well, is that it’s such an intimate medium and that you can learn about so many different things without having that stigma attached to it. It is so private yet so public at the same time.

JAY: Yeah, that’s exactly right. And it’s, it’s why, you know, I’ve made some great friends through this industry from people all over the world and we would not have connected otherwise. But podcasting has allowed us to do so.

MARY: Exactly. So, just to wrap up here, what are you excited about podcasting right now?

JAY: Yeah, I… so I remain and will always be excited about independent podcasts. I write reviews of independent, mostly, podcasts for a site called Great Pods, which is a guy I know, really amazing man named Imran, who is, founded this organization to try to beat the Rotten Tomatoes of podcasting. He wants there to be an opportunity for people to discover new podcasts, but also see reviews so that we know, you know, before you listen, am I going to like this show? And I’m one of his reviewers and my specialty there is focusing on the underserved community of independent shows. So I love that I am finding out about new shows basically every day.

Besides my own, I’m also a host on the New Books Networks, which is an incredible network of shows. Their drugs, addiction and recovery channel. And I’m actually, it’s interesting, I’ve been interviewing for jobs because after doing this for myself for the last four years, I’m ready to do this work for other people. And so it’s really cool to me that I started my show in 2020 and, you know, I’ve been doing this work on the side from 2015, but I’ve been able to create my own destiny, so to speak, in this world. Nobody taught me to do this, and I didn’t have to go to school for it. I just worked hard. I decided to set my mind to it and to work at it. And here I am being headhunted by some pretty big names, all from my own work. And I think that that is accessible to a lot of people in the sense that you could be doing podcasting, storytelling, all of this in your spare time. And look, you know, a couple of years later, all of a sudden you have this new, not only skill, but excellent like proficiency in this that makes you super attractive to a lot of organizations. And I mean, I didn’t set out to do this, that wasn’t my plan. But it’s a nice little surprise that there are so many people who are very interested in working with me in some different, different capacities.

MARY: Yeah, because the podcast, really, you’ve created such a great marketing platform for yourself with your show, you know, it’s just going back to, yeah, you learnt it all along the way. Like, imagine one day we’ll have like official podcasting school.

JAY: [LAUGHS] That’s right, that’s right.

MARY: Anyone can learn and you’ll, you’ll be at the forefront teaching that as well. [LAUGHS]

JAY: [LAUGHS] Well from as, as my people say, Baruch HaShem, from your mouth to God’s ears.

MARY: Thank you so much, Jay. Is there anything that you want to mention that we haven’t talked about yet?

JAY: No, I just, you know, to reiterate sort of one last point, one of the beautiful, most beautiful things about podcasting is the low barrier of entry. You know, like I said earlier, yes, there is some truth to that. Everybody and their mom has a podcast. However, you know, there is also truth to the fact that there are listeners for pretty much any show out there.

Now, I wouldn’t recommend quitting your job and launching yourself directly into podcasting, thinking you’re going to make $1,000,000, because unless your last name is Rogan, you’re not. But if you want to build a beautiful community, build some friendships and develop a new skill, honestly, $25 is the entry here. I mean, buying an Amazon plug-and-play microphone is all you really need.

Now, I would recommend some other things, but if that’s your budget, you can do it. So there really is no downside. If you have an idea, just do it.

MARY: Awesome. Thank you so much for ending on that note, Jay. It’s a pleasure having you on the show today.

JAY: Amazing being with you, Mary. Thank you so much.

[MUSIC IN]

MARY: Jay, yes. Start that podcast. I share your sentiment. Podcasting is a great way to share your story and ideas. And when you have your own show, you are creating opportunities to share that message, to test it out on how things actually sound when you speak it out loud, because that’s going to be very different from when you type it in an article or a social media post or something like that. And when people hear that message, then you gain valuable feedback from your community about what you’re saying and how it’s impacting them. So yeah, that idea of everybody and their mom has a podcast. Yeah, that’s kind of true. I get it. But like he said, not everybody starts a podcast and can keep it up. And that’s one of the reasons why I love helping newer and up-and-coming podcasters, and that is the reason to invest in someone to support you and then launching your podcast. You get that accountability to produce your episodes so you can keep it up. I’ve heard so many stories about how people get a mic, which, like Jay said, is super, super easy. Podcasting’s barrier to entry is really low. So now that you have that mic, you can easily record. But if you don’t have a workflow to get these episodes out or even before you start recording, you become a stat of everybody and their mom starting a podcast versus being a podcaster, a capital P, podcaster and speaking out loud your message and breaking any stigma that you have swirling in your brain about, How am I going to this or how am I going to continue podcasting? It’s one of the ways to keep going is to continually do the work and in this case, recording episodes, getting them out, published, and recording another one again and again. And you could do that very successfully when you have someone along the way with you, cheering you on and helping you out. So don’t hesitate to reach out if you need it, whether that be with me or with Jay.

So thank you again, Jay, for being on the show. You can check out his podcast, Choose Your Struggle and he helps podcasters as well with their own show. So reach out to him as well if his message really, really resonated with you.

Okay, so what are you struggling with in podcasting? It could be just that gremlin on your shoulder telling you that you’re not good enough. Or is this story even worth it to share? Will people care? I’d love for you to share it with me. And if you don’t have a podcast yet, maybe this could be your first step to choose to go beyond your struggle. 

You can send me feedback with your voice note on my website. There is a purple Send Voicemail button that you can record from your phone, as simple as that. Or there is always email as well, visiblevoicepodcast@gmail.com. 

Thank you so much for listening. And yes, please do share what you’re struggling with. When you can verbalize it and get a perspective from someone outside of your bubble, we can work through this together in community. Podcasting is so great with that and people in the podcasting space is so, so helpful so do reach out for help, whether that’s with me, with Jay or someone else that you know who podcasts. So, speak up and we’ll chat soon. Bye!

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MARY: Thank you so much for listening to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d love it if you shared it with a podcasting friend. And to reveal more voicing and podcasting tips, click on over to visiblevoicepodcast.com.

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