3 Big Lessons From My First Season of the Take The Lead Women Podcast

Issue 111 — November 4, 2019

Podcasts are so “in” — everyone is on the bandwagon, according to reports. Big business are commercializing what started out as a homespun art.

There’s a podcast for every interest and every taste.

Women are great consumers of podcasts because we’re great multitaskers, always having multiple tabs metaphorically open in our brains. And you can plug those buds into your ears and listen to podcasts anywhere, any time — while carting a passel of kids to dance lessons or soccer practice, when you’re up at 3am and your partner is sleeping so you don’t want to get out of bed, on that long commute that used to feel like wasted time, on the plane when you really don’t want to talk with the chatty man next to you.

I’ve had the privilege of appearing on many podcasts hosted by people I admire. These have included Veronica Dagher’s “Secrets of Wealthy Women,” Deirdre Breckenridge’s “Women Worldwide,” and Ellevate’s “Conversations with Women Changing the Face of Business” hosted by Kristy Wallace, to name just a few recent ones.

So it seemed logical when my team decided we should have our own Take The Lead Women podcast. It would be easy. After all, we already had five years of Virtual Happy Hour content to start with and thousands of blogs for topics.

And I thought, since my first job was at a radio station, this would be a piece of cake.

Ha. It’s eating my lunch, to stick with the gustatory analogies.

After recording 18 podcasts, I’ve learned a few lessons.

1. There are so many decisions! What should we name it? How often should it appear? The graphic design. Should we have “seasons” or never take a break? Who will write the content? After all, even my interviews with high profile people like Gloria Steinem and Carla Harris would need updates and new intros and outros. What about music? How do we keep track of all this — and on and on. And that doesn’t even include how we get the audio produced into a coherent whole after I record it, or who makes sure it’s on our website and sent to subscribers consistently. And most importantly, how do we make sure you and the rest of the world knows about it? OMG. Don’t even think about starting a podcast unless you have a team helping you.

(PHOTO: Our first podcast episode, with Carla Harris. You can find our podcasts on Apple Music, Radio Public, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google podcasts.)

2. Every other week, our podcast is me alone tackling a women’s leadership topic. This is actually fun, because who doesn’t like to opine? I work really hard on those. But as soon as I put a podcast to bed, I find something else I’d like to add to it. For example, I found this excellent interview with dancer/choreographer Twyla Thorpe on aging soon after my podcast dealt with ageism.

Oh darn, I thought. Wish I’d had that to punctuate the podcast titled “Experiencing Age Discrimination? Feeling Invisible? Try These Solutions.”

And just after I pontificated on all the reasons women should step up and take leadership jobs people say are “impossible,” in an upcoming episode (subscribe now on Apple Music, Radio Public, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google podcasts because it’s a zinger), this timely piece appeared, giving me even more fodder.

It reports that of 31 Fortune S&P CEO positions filled the last six months, only four have been filled by women. That is not acceptable. Boards need to think way more expansively about their searches and interviews. And women need to set intentions early in their careers to take top leadership roles. Take The Lead can help both companies and individual women turn those intentions into reality.

You get the picture. A podcast is never finished even when it is. And you can spend way more time than you have on it. Sometimes you have to forget about perfection and just let faster be better than better.

(PHOTO: Episode 14, Experiencing Age Discrimination? Feeling Invisible? Try These Solutions.)

3. The most resonant topics are the most authentic and personal. They touch on painful points people feel, like the age discrimination many people, especially many women, experience. It’s a very intimate conversation. And for that reason, I am asking you to help me choose topics that will truly help you lead and succeed. Leave a comment below with a question or topic you’d like me to address, or a guest you’d like me to interview. If you’d rather tweet it to me @GloriaFeldt, feel free. I would love to hear from you.

And as I say in every podcast outro, “Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And tell other women about the Take The Lead Women podcast. By sharing it, you’re helping them lead and succeed. We’d love it if you’d take a moment to rate and review the podcast too. That builds the movement for women’s leadership.”

Musical transition please.

Till next week, power TO you!

GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker and expert women’s leadership developer for companies that want to build gender balance, and a bestselling author of four books, most recently No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power. Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she teaches “Women, Power, and Leadership” at Arizona State University and is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Tweet @GloriaFeldt.