Podfading? Brodie Welch Of A Healthy Curiosity Show On How to Affirm Your Podcast Purpose And Change Your Pace

Podfading? Brodie Welch Of A Healthy Curiosity Show On How to Affirm Your Podcast Purpose And Change Your Pace

With a lot of podcast shows today, especially during this time of everything virtual, many of them undergo the process of podfading. Some may not be as visible as usual, while others are now completely gone without any update. So I decided to sit down with?Brodie Welch?of A Healthy Curiosity Podcast to discuss the right way to podfading without coming off as a failure or leaving your followers hanging. Brodie shares how she took a breather from managing her podcast after releasing more than 200 episodes, and now records at her own pace, ridding herself of unnecessary pressure. She also talks about her challenges finding the right guests, how she works with monetization and balancing her podcasting career with the busy life of a?licensed acupuncturist.

Brodie caught my eye because she may be the first host I’ve ever heard, on-air, be totally transparent and honest about podfading — and in the midst of all the change we are all experiencing — I thought this might be the perfect time to revisit this topic.

Being Well In A Busy World

Plenty of us went through phases (and maybe still are) where we lost our momentum in 2020. We were seeing unprecedented events, and experiencing a global pandemic that rocked everything. We were faced with new fears daily and the stress and overwhelm of our entire worlds changing, for many of us.

“2020 definitely threw us all into unprecedented waters and for me, as an acupuncturist and health coach, I had to close my clinic for a couple of months while figuring out how to treat COVID, what herbs I could be using while trying to keep the coaching business alive and deal with my family. It was a lot all at once. One thing I realized about having to close my clinic, is that even though I love treating patients, connecting with people in a deep way, and helping to catalyze them in the direction of healthier and happier — it is somewhat of a burden to take on all of that energy. I felt this weird, “Is it okay that I feel unburdened by having to not do what I love?”

This got me thinking about podcasting as well — there is a cost we pay — even when we’re doing the things we love. Life is always about this give and take and it’s in these moments, even if we feel torn, we also realize that we have to take care of ourselves and listen to that nagging voice telling us when we need to step out for a minute or slow down.

Avoiding or Evading The Fade

One of the many lessons Brodie shared with me, after she decided to take a brief hiatus from her show, is how much easier it would have been to sustain the show if she had solid habits and strategies built around the show from the very beginning.

“If you’re going to do something on a regular basis, we all know the importance of systems and making things as streamlined and easy as possible, so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. As someone who is recovering Type A with lots of spinning plates that I don’t want to drop, for me that’s the way that I can count on having consistent energy for everything that I want to do — by making sure the essential habits that I need to thrive are in place.”

Essential Habits: For Podcasting + Life

Sleep, exercise, nourishment — these are things we need to provide for ourselves every day — but these are also the things that lead to maximum energy and creativity, both requirements to producing high quality content. We expect to be fast and productive and always creating, when in reality, the down times are what make this possible. The planning, the lists, the habits, the rest — when we deny ourselves these basic necessities, it reflects in everything we create and the chance of podfade increases.

“In Chinese medicine, we think about the three treasures, There’s vitality, energy, and spirit. Our vitality is this reservoir of energy that we dip into when we’re doing too much for too long. If you’re not getting enough sleep every night, you start to dip into the reserves. If you’re living on coffee and Cheetos, you’re going to be dipping into those resorts. If you stress out, you’re dipping into your reserves, your cortisol, and adrenaline. That is depleting. Making sure that we’re living within integrity with our own energy is vital to making sure that we’re going to be able to consistently show up. Otherwise, it’s going to be fits and starts or we’re going to have a relationship with our show that’s hostile, like a mean boss, trying to get a reluctant employee to cooperate.”

The Raw Truth

Brodie was feeling the burden of — not necessarily the podcast itself — but everything the podcast requires to exist. Whether that is the tech side, how much time it takes to network and build up a social following, responding to guests or publicists, monetization… there are a lot of moving parts… and I tell hosts this all the time because once you’re there, it can feel a little bit like drowning.

“The point of showing up for the sake of showing up, showing up because I said yes to two interviews that aren’t the right fit for my show, for the sake of having content. Who needs that? There are so many podcasts in the world. It’s helpful to weed out the things that aren’t totally the right fit. This was freeing and has helped me be in alignment with my personal and professional values, while clarifying my message.”

Binge Factor:?Brodie’s listeners are not skipping around. They don’t want to miss anything because there are these deep little pockets of insights that she brings out in every episode. That’s a true deep binge listener, who, just like the title of her show identifies, holds a healthy curiosity for the authority and content in the show.

You can watch Tracy Hazzard’s full on-air podcast coaching with Brodie Welch below or listen to?The Binge Factor?on your favorite podcast player.