Speaker 1: 00:28 Hello everybody. This is Lois Sonstegard with Building my Legacy Podcast. I have with me today, Christine O’Donnell, just a delightful person who has done incredible amount of work. So welcome Christine to our podcast today.

New Speaker: 02:53 Thank you so much. I’m so grateful to be here. Thank you.

New Speaker: 02:57 Christine has a experience in journalism and news broadcasting and then from that transitioned into developing a podcast, helping people do podcasts. And as I think about those of you who are trying to build your legacy, you’re moving from leadership roles until looking at what do you leave behind this tool is such an incredible tool also. And why Christine, to share a little bit about her journey and then why she developed this tool. And then from there we’ll talk a little bit about what are some of her thoughts and suggestions as to how you could use podcasts more effectively. So Christine, I’ll let you get started.

Speaker 1: 03:44 All right, well, thanks again Lois and thank you to your listeners for for giving me a little bit of your time today. I’m really excited to share with you. So to give you some background, I was a TV news reporter for 10 years, working in markets across the country from New York to Georgia, to Minnesota, to Los Angeles. And I’ve covered all types of news stories and they range from breaking news stories, tragedies, red carpet events I actually, I’ve covered a bunch of national tragedies that can really where on someone after a while, some of them I mean I was there reporting on Sandy hook on the Boston marathon bombings. I covered the San Bernardino attacks, the Santa Barbara college shooting. So I interviewed a lot of people right after just the worst, the very worst things can happen. And those, that’s so hard.

Speaker 1: 04:53 , not, I mean, I don’t want to say, I mean it’s, it’s, it’s hard on journalists, but it is, it’s more hard on the people who are going through it. But for me, I’m bearing witness to these situations. Time and time again started to really wear on me. And for a long time I justified it because I felt that it was really helpful sometimes for people to share their story, to be given a voice, to talk in front of the microphone, to connect with people in their living rooms or on a train or in their car, wherever they happen, to be, listen to news about what was happening right then. And it made me feel really good to be recording history in that way but just personally on a personal level, for me, it started to really just wear on my heart.

Speaker 1: 05:46 , and so as I moved forward in this industry, I started to look for maybe a way to transition to build more of a legacy myself because there’s nothing that really showed that to me, made me feel like I wanted to leave something behind. Like being there, witnessing all of these tragedies all of the time so, so I started looking for ways to transition into, to build something of my own and my husband and I also started thinking about wanting to have a family and being in the news industry, which I absolutely loved. I have so much respect for journalists who are doing it. I care so much about the important stories that people are telling today. And I’m so glad that there are people still doing it. Cause I know how hard it is but for me, I was just looking for a way to like make a transition and have a little bit more control over my schedule, my life, my hours, my emotions.

Speaker 1: 06:55 , which they do get numb after a while. Being a reporter doing this every single day, I start to not things start to not sink in as much as maybe you might imagine. Like it just, it’s like a defense mechanism. You stop feeling things and that can also be hard on relationships that you have in your lives when you’re, you know, you know, reconnecting with your friends or talking to your families and then you just, that there’s like a weird disconnect because you’ve stopped yourself from feeling because you had to stop yourself from feeling because of the kind of things that you’re putting on the news. So again, I started to look for a way to find a transition and I ended up in the marketing space and it was, that’s just a weird story in itself how I landed at , health and wellness marketing company.

Speaker 1: 07:49 But through that, eventually I started , well when I went on maternity leave, I started podcasting and started doing some female empowerment podcasts. And then when I came back from an maternity leave, I started working on more podcasts for the company that I was employed by. And I felt like this was perfect because it’s journalism. There’s so many podcasts that there are at least the journalism that I, it was really excited to share long form stories that you have time to really flush out and find a way to connect to and to leave something for people that there’s a whole series you can create. And, and while I mean all of the new stories I’ve ever done, which is hundreds, thousands, I don’t have them all collected somewhere, right? Your podcast is a, you know, it’s, it could be a book, it could be, it’s your story.

Speaker 1: 08:55 You can do so much with it. And there are people who are interested in hearing what you have to say. And if you have a purpose and you’re pushing for something and, or you’re trying to raise awareness about an issue, you can do that by telling stories through podcasting. And for me, it was really fulfilling to take the time to flesh out a story and spend more time working on just one story than moving from one person’s worst day to another person’s worst day, to another person’s worst day. And really like connecting with someone and then just moving on to something and then just kind of feeling like I left that unfinished. I left that unfinished. And so yeah, I love podcasting. I love helping people really succeed with their podcasts and take their podcast to a next level when it comes to performing on camera, which is something we’re doing right now. We’re talking on camera through zoom in front of a microphone, whether that is figuring out what kind of equipment you should use, how to format your show, where to put your show. So there’s so many different things that I do with people.

Speaker 4: 10:08 Wow. So if you could share with our audience, I think for a lot of people who are in that CEO C suite level, this whole business was, social media is still relatively new. Podcasting is relatively new. And yet I think it’s something people can really relate to because they’ve been on news casts, probably they’ve talked with reporters and so there’s something about this that’s, that’s really familiar territory so they can really use it in that next step of their life, which is building a legacy. So if you could just share a little bit, if you are thinking about podcasts, what do you need to think about and how do you prepare for that? , there’s a mindset preparation I think that goes with it as well. So you could just share some of that. That’d be fabulous.

Speaker 1: 11:04 Yeah. So what I found is a lot of people can podcast, but maybe not everyone should prep podcast. If you’re going to step in front of a microphone, you really need to have a purpose behind it. Why are you doing this? Who do you want to talk to? Who do you want to connect to? Are you looking to share your personal story because it’s just weighing on you and you want to get it out? Is there something you want to raise awareness about? Is there do you have a business and you want to grow your customer base or really understand who your customer is on the next level to find out what they care about? What are they engaging with? Podcasts right now are the most engaged medium there is because there’s a personal relationship, an intimacy to podcasts that other mediums don’t have where you can directly communicate with your audience while you’re in front of the microphone and you ask for engagement and you say, Hey, what did you think about this podcast?

Speaker 1: 12:18 What else do you want to hear about? Let me serve you, let me give you more of what you want. And so podcasts are just a really great way to, if you want to understand your audience more, if you want to connect with them, if you want to grow your audience base, because at some point your audience base if you want them to, and they’ll probably be interested in this they can also become your customer and or they can reach out to other people who might also want to be their customer, but they just don’t know about the amazing thing that you offer or the amazing product you have. And so podcasts are just a really great way to, to connect with people. I just, I love them so much. It’s the reason I got into the journalism business in the first place is because I just love people so much.

Speaker 1: 13:12 I love hearing their story. It’s, gosh, I swear it makes my friends crazy, especially when I get on a plane. I I’ll be sitting next to someone and I just wanna chat their ear off. I want to know where they were born. I want to know, you know, what are they passionate about? And so I really love connecting with people. And so I just, I love podcasts. I love helping people, podcasts, and just build that connection. Because I think as a society, that’s what we crave. I think it improves our longevity. I think it improves our happiness. And so if I can help people connect. Yes. Great.

Speaker 4: 13:49 So I love that I concept of yours and I think part of what resonates too with me on that is I think for a lot of people this whole technology piece is sort of a one way street. Somebody talking to somebody but you’re really talking about a two way communication. So how does that happen? How do you make that flow?

Speaker 1: 14:12 Well, there’s a couple of different ways that you can do it there are some people who have found just unique things like there are podcasts or that are like, Hey Lois, if you were to talk to your podcast audience and you’re like, Hey, for 24 hours or maybe not 24 for eight hours, I am going to leave my phone line open and I’m going to answer any calls from anyone in my audience who has a question for me or has some feedback about my podcast. Or they know somebody who is so great at building legacies or creating legacies for other people and you should definitely have them on, or I wish you would to cover this topic well, or, or maybe they just want to talk, maybe they just want to know more about Lois and so eight hours, leave the phone open, answer every call and then you could even if your audience is interested, maybe record some of those calls and then share them in a special episode.

Speaker 1: 15:13 And then you have a highly engaged episode where your audience is so interactive in your podcast in a way that they’ve become part of it another way you can engage with people is of course you can ask for them to share with you on social media. You can create a hashtag for your podcast and ask them, you know, what their legacy is and share it with you. With this hashtag you could form a, build a group on Facebook for all of your legacy builders to come and share their ideas and communicate with each other, not just with you, but actually engage with other people who are interested in the same things as them. It’s like you’re building your, your crew of people, your tribe. And so those, those are just a couple suggestions. Oh, email, have an email open so that there’s definitely a two way communication between you and the people who are listening, whether they’re in their car or they’re doing their laundry in their living room and they’re making dinner. There’s just so many different ways people are consuming podcasts. So it’s just there. It’s so intimate.

Speaker 4: 16:25 Isn’t that fascinating? , and what’s also fascinating is the fact that big corporations are now waking up to this as a tool, right? So if we don’t use it, it is something that is going to walk past us and we’ll have lost the use of it.

Speaker 1: 16:48 Well, I just think that it is an opportunity. Podcasts are an opportunity again, to connect with your audience in a way where we haven’t been connected in the past. There’s a form of authenticity here, especially in interview-based podcasts. It’s almost like we’re hanging out at a coffee shop and who’s ever listening and we’re just chilling, just, you know, having a little chat session, enjoying our drink and, and it’s, and we’re sharing and we’re giving and we’re, we’re connecting and to, but to have that in a really big scale where it feels very intimate, but really thousands of people are listening. Could you imagine standing in front of a crowd of a thousand people? Whoa. Right. I think that sometimes people worry about their downloads, right? Oh, only got a thousand. I’m like, thousand goodness, 50 people in a room gives me anxiety. And I used to be on camera. So, so that just, I try to remind people when they start to worry about their numbers that you don’t need to have a huge audience to really connect with you

Speaker 4: 18:11 because a thousand people is a lot. It is a lot, isn’t it? Yeah. So when people start to think about creating podcasts and to build their legacy, where do you suggest people begin? I hear you say no. What it is that you’re trying to achieve. Right?

Speaker 1: 18:33 Yeah. Well, so yeah, if you’re going to podcasts, you really need to figure out what your purpose is. What is your goal for this podcast and then what do you, what do you want to podcast about? Who do you want to talk to? What is your audience going to be interested in? What is the special thing that you have that you can share with other people? Like what makes you unique that enough that other people are going to want to hear about that thing. And then it’s kind of flushing that out and figuring out. Okay, so, so for you Lois what made you want to podcast in this?

Speaker 4: 19:14 For me it was really, it was another Avenue and I’ve always taught, taught, teaching and talking with people as easy. And so it was kind of a natural to think about podcasts. It didn’t, it didn’t create fear. And for some people it does create fear but I think one of the biggest challenges for me to get over was the sense of really who’s gonna, who’s gonna care, who’s going to be interested? And it’s having that sense of confidence that there will be people who aren’t going to care because they’re there are a lot of people that are sort of in the same boat. They’re trying to figure out what’s next, what’s next you know, you got into it because you were in transition looking for a way to have a family and still do, make a contribution, do something meaningful. And I think Christine, there’s so many, especially women who are in that boat, they, they know they want something more, they want to feel fulfilled as a woman and working 18 hours a day doesn’t necessarily sit into that lifestyle that they are trying to create. Right? Yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:33 Yeah. So, so what I do with people is I help them figure out what their thing is, what they should be podcasting about you may already know, but something I would suggest for people who are trying to decide, you know, is this the thing I want to podcast about? , talk to some people who care about you, who are supportive of you, who aren’t going to criticize you for bringing up this idea of Oh, a podcast. You know, people, there are people like that. So, so try, try to find the people who are like, Oh, interesting. Tell me more. And then maybe you ask them, well, what would you want me to talk more about? What are you, what do you find interesting about like my experience? What I want to share with you and, and listen. And so you can, you can ask people in Facebook groups, you can ask people at church, you can ask people, you know, whenever you go out you can just connect, you know, maybe you’ve got us some people who you email with or a text message group be like, Hey guys, I’m thinking about doing this thing.

Speaker 1: 21:41 Let me know what your thoughts are. Please keep it positive and let me know what you would like to hear more about. And there’s a good chance that people who love you are going to be like, Hey, I really like this, that this thing that you talk about or this your specialty here and that will help you get headed in the right direction. And then you’ve got to find more people who are interested in that thing. And so you might have to do some research to find where your crew of people is and you can do that through Facebook you can do that through searching on different online groups. You can do that you know social media, there’s so many different places to just kind of ask, survey your audience and find out, find out more. Sure. And from there I would kind of, you’ve got your idea, your topic and write down a list of what would be episodes. Say you just want to test out cause you’re not sure if this is going to be an ongoing thing. Say, okay, I’m only gonna do one season and I’m going to have eight episodes in this season. And just see how it goes. How do I like doing it? And then test season one, eight episodes and what are they

Speaker 1: 23:02 eight topics going to be? What kind of podcasts are you going to have? Is it going to be interview based? Is it just going to be you in front of the mic talking about,

Speaker 3: 23:11 yeah,

Speaker 1: 23:14 something. Is it going to be co-hosted, hardly interview a couple of different people and piece that together. Are you going to include sound effects, other audio? What’s your, what kind of podcasts do you want to tell? And again, I bring it back to does it meet what your goal is? The reason why you wanted to start podcasting in the first place and constantly check yourself and be like, Oh, does this meet my mission? Does this help me build my business? Does this help me engage with my customer? Does this help me? [inaudible] it’s raise awareness about this thing that I cared about. And also every time you have an interview with someone that’s someone new, you’re adding to your network of people that, that are interested in you and, and now you can work together. You can collaborate to share what you’ve created together through the podcast and then grow your podcast in that way.

Speaker 4: 24:08 Got it. One of the things that when we were talking a little bit earlier about doing podcasts that you talked about was inviting people in interesting ways. You can do it through ads, but you also talked about, you know, this is like having coffee, right? Give perhaps coffee cards, Starbucks cards or whatever to the first power for many dis sign-on I, I think you have some fascinating, wonderful tips, other ideas that you have that you would like to share.

Speaker 5: 24:42 Okay.

Speaker 1: 24:42 , so, so to be completely honest, that was an idea one of my clients had and she is amazing. She’s so thoughtful. So she was launching her podcast and she was just so nervous about getting people to listen because putting yourself out there in this way can be scary. And I, you know, was reassuring her, you know, we’ve created a really great product. What you’re putting out there is polished. It’s sounds good it’s interesting. People are going to want to listen to is absolutely what your audience wants to hear right now. She was like, how did something else? And I was like, okay, well, like, let’s brainstorm. And she was like, well, I had this idea where I guess at Starbucks you can,

Speaker 1: 25:30 , get a, a bar code that you can then share with people through an email or yeah, or even just on your social media, in your Insta stories. And she, and you can control it from the backend. So say you’re only gonna put $200 on there and so, or we’ll start with $100 and then it’s just, Hey, subscribe to my podcast. I’m going to buy you a coffee. Use this bar code. Please only buy one because we’re, we’re going by the honor system here. And you know, once, once the money’s gone, the money’s gone. But go ahead and I let a coffee on me. Just please subscribe to my podcast, listen to the episodes and rate it. Leave a review and a coffee on me.

Speaker 5: 26:24 Wow.

Speaker 1: 26:27 Okay. So, but she’s got a great product as well. What a great idea. So Christine, for you, now that you’ve got your positive

Speaker 4: 26:39 cast, and by the way, for those of you who are listening, Christine has a business that helps people really launch their podcasts and to think through how to do that. So we will make Christine’s information available to you if you would like to connect with her and get some coaching and consulting service from her. Rick has her wisdom is incredible and , I think there are people who are going to want to, to , enjoy that. So we will make that available at the end for anybody who emails us and asks for that information, if that’s okay with you, Christine.

Speaker 1: 27:18 Yeah, sure. I would love that.

Speaker 4: 27:21 So for you, now that you’ve really worked on developing this, where do you see your next steps being with podcasts? Where do you go next with us?

Speaker 1: 27:32 , goodness. Well, just to give you a little bit more information about what I’m currently doing is, so I have a podcasting production, coaching and PR company. So it’s, it’s also public relations and it’s called bright cited podcasting for visionaries. So people who are seeing their future and then want to achieve it through podcasting. And I am helping people produce a number of podcasts and every single podcast has a journalistic take on it. So we are making sure to keep everything professional objective. If there is a slant, we’ll let people know right off the top so you know exactly what you’re getting. And so we are, I’m working together with a number of people to create podcasts and I really, um, enjoy that a lot. I am also coaching people through the process as well as helping people get connected to other podcasts, whether they want to have somebody on their show or if they want to start promoting what they’re doing on other podcasts that have similar audience bases so that people can grow their podcast, grow their audience.

Speaker 1: 28:49 And so for me, I just kind of want to dig in here where I am and keep on doing more of what I’m doing. I really enjoy it. I love producing. My podcast is actually called the podcast coaching podcast. Super simple. So if you’re looking for information about trademark or how to launch a podcast or how to get your podcast discovered, it’s filled with tons of golden nuggets from industry insiders and from other successful podcasters and really some amazing storytellers who come from the journalism industry. And I just want to hang out there for a while and keep making that as good as it can be. But again, that’s a lot.

Speaker 4: 29:39 Wow. What a gift that you have to share because I think then people kind of drop into this or they hear about it and, but to know how to use it really effectively, that’s the key, isn’t it? And, um, who better to learn from than somebody who’s been in the news industry for a long period of time and you’ve seen what works and doesn’t work? What’s one of the biggest mistakes a person can make?

Speaker 1: 30:09 One of the biggest mistakes a person can make in their life or

Speaker 4: 30:13 okay. With podcasting life. I think that’s huge. Lots of places you can take mistakes there. Um,

Speaker 1: 30:22 podcasting and how, what is one of the biggest mistakes a person can make? Um, goodness. I think for me, what I, I think selling yourself short. Oh, I think that we don’t, a lot of people who I talk to, or some of my clients, they sometimes sell themselves short. They have an amazing gift to share with people and

Speaker 1: 30:58 they hold themselves back because they’re scared or they don’t feel like they’re worthy or they don’t feel like they have enough experience and it’s just not true. They do. They are worthy. They have so much to share. And I think the fear sometimes that we hold about putting ourselves out there, getting in front of a mic or a camera can just be something that holds us back in a way where we never meet our true potential or we don’t share our story with someone who might really need to hear it. There might be somebody out there who has been trying to figure out how am I going to build my legacy? What am I going to leave behind? What am I going to do? Am I gonna write a book? Am I going to start a podcast? Am I going to start a foundation? What am I going to do?

Speaker 1: 31:46 How do I make sure that I’m leaving a legacy? And, um, if you weren’t podcasting Lois, um, maybe people wouldn’t start thinking about these things that are really important to them, but they just had been so busy that they haven’t thought about it or they haven’t just taken a second to slow down and, and marinate on this thing because life can really just keep going and taking us away from our dreams. So, so I think one of the biggest mistakes that can hold people back is when they sell themselves short and they, they let the fear of putting themselves out there, hold them back.

Speaker 4: 32:29 You know, it’s interesting, I was talking with an individual this past week to is beginning to think about retirement and what do I do in that next chapter? And her husband’s comment was, you better do something because you have too much energy and being in the house all the time could be overwhelming for the two of us. And so she was beginning to think about, you know, what does that next piece? And as I reflected on that afterwards, I thought, here is a woman who’s a senior executive, incredibly rich work experience in what if she just spent time sharing her wisdom, her pearls of knowledge, right? Because younger people, that’s what they’re desperate for. What is that that um,

Speaker 2: 33:21 okay,

Speaker 4: 33:22 that creates success. What is that? What, what were the mistakes that she wished she could have avoided? And um, so there’s so many ways that you can really use the podcast to create a voice is just realizing it’s a tool. I think.

Speaker 1: 33:41 Yeah, it’s a tool and it can be fun. It can be a new challenge where you’re like, Hey, I’m going to podcast and I’m going to figure out which Mike is going to sound the best and am I going to, you know, set up curtains in my closet to get, get a lighting kit and, and start putting things together to try this new thing in. Or maybe I just want to get a bunch of my friends together and just, we’ll all just gab in front of a mic for a while because why not? Why not share some of that knowledge, share some of that stuff that those golden nuggets that we’ve learned over time and, and it can be really fun. It can be a new hobby. It can be something that you’re like, Hey, and then all of a sudden you’re like, wait a second, how many people are listening to this?

Speaker 1: 34:35 Oh wait, an advertiser just came knocking. They want to put an ad in my, in my podcast. What is happening right now? And so it just becomes this new adventure and it can be something that starts out as just really fun and then all of a sudden you’re surprised by how it’s fulfilled you by bringing you together with maybe your friends or with the community of people out there that you maybe hadn’t connected with before and then you’re monetizing it. Just I love doing it. I love helping people do it. It just like, it makes me so excited.

Speaker 4: 35:11 You know, like Christine and the thing that I love about you is the joy that you bring. And when we first talked and met on the phone, I hung up and I thought this is such a delightful person. And, um, but I think I, I shouldn’t say that it’s really an, and what I realized is this is an opportunity to create friendships that are unbelievable. Because if I weren’t podcasting, I wouldn’t have met you. I wouldn’t have reached out to you. And, um, what an incredible gift you’ve been to me personally. So I just thank you so much for, um, having made yourself available and for who you are. It’s, it’s who you are. That is so, so rich.

Speaker 1: 36:04 Lois, thank you so much. I so appreciate that. And you know, I’ve listened to some of your podcasts and you have this amazing ability to just see something wonderful in a person and to make them feel so special. So thank you for making me feel special because I can’t get enough of it.

Speaker 4: 36:24 None of us can actually really, you know, we get the negatives more than we get the positives. So Christine, it is so hard for me to look at the clock and say, our time is going by so rapid. Like, um, and thank you. Thank you so much for what you’ve contributed and for who you are. And, um, for this connection, I, I’m just deeply grateful and to our audience, those of you who would like to connect or to get information about Christine O’Donnell and what her work is, please email me. You just got our information below we’d be very glad to connect you with Christine. We’re in the business of making connections. So any of you who would like to have that connection, please let me know. Thank you so much for listening to us today on building my legacy. I’ll turn, turn off the sound.