Binge Factor Media

Nothing beats wisdom and insights gained from experience. With that, we have Nicole Jansen over at the show to share how she has been transforming lives and helping people achieve extraordinary results in their businesses. Nicole is a leadership coach and the host of the Leaders of Transformation podcast, where she just tipped over 300 episodes. In this episode, Nicole tells us her podcasting journey and 30-plus experience in business leadership and human behavior. She also talks about the adversities she overcame that led her to become a leader of transformation herself and the many inspiration she also got from the people she had over at her show. Receive the hard-won wisdom that Nicole has earned throughout her career and learn a thing or two about the bingeable factor she has sustained that many newbies can’t.

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Transformation Leadership: Changing Lives One Guest At A Time With Nicole Jansen

I am excited to bring Nicole Jansen. She is a leadership coach and a podcast host and she’s tipped over 300 episodes. That means she’s got lots of experience because sometimes we get some people who’ve done well but they’re new. Nicole has been doing this a while. She’s got some lessons learned under her belt. She’s helped thousands of people transform their lives and achieve extraordinary results in their businesses. She has 30-plus years of experience in business leadership and human behavior, along with overcoming adversity in her own life. She’s uniquely equipped to empower greatness in others. She’s interviewed over 300 difference makers on the Leaders of Transformation Podcast and she’s reached listeners in 130 countries around the world. Nicole, thanks so much for coming. Leaders of Transformation, what made you think of that name?

I had that name slated for a mastermind many years ago and the timing didn’t work, people, wrong time, whatever. All of a sudden, I had this divine download a few years ago. I woke up on a Saturday morning at 4:30 in the morning and it was like God said, “You’re going to do a podcast. It’s going to be called Leaders of Transformation. You’re going to interview different makers and world changers. Go.” I’m like, “Do I want to do a podcast?”

Have you been a podcast listener before?

Not really. I’ve been in personal development for most of my life. I’m old enough. Back then, I was listening to tapes and then CDs and all of that. It wasn’t like I was an avid podcaster and then I was like, “I want to do podcasting.” It was funny because there’s a show out there under my coaching company, Discover the Edge, which I had done ten episodes. I didn’t even consider that a podcast. I was in somebody’s studio. We did ten little audio segments and done and done, but it’s still out there. It was technically a podcast.

If you search your name on Google podcasts on all of the places, there you are with two shows. You didn’t even know Discover the Edge was going to become that.

Somebody said, “I love your show with so and so.” I’m thinking, “What are you talking about?”

“Somebody syndicated me and I didn’t even know it.” You’ve done 300 now. Do you regret it? Do you love it? Have you grown to love it more? How does it feel after 300?

I’ve been through the ups and the downs with it. There were times where I was like, “I don’t ever want to do this anymore. I’m done. I’m over it.” That’s usually after I’ve done a whole bunch of interviews and I’m feeling spent and I’m tired. I love doing it and I love it more now and I’m more inspired to do it now than even some of the seasons that I’ve had over the last few years. You mentioned adversity. I’ve been through a lot of times where I was fatigued and that shows up in all the areas of our life. One of the things that has been the greatest benefit has been the guests that I’ve had the opportunity to get to know and now are friends of mine. I love it.

I’m glad that you’ve found that. I find that showing up for someone else, I could have had the worst day ever, but I’ve got an appointment. I’m showing up. That changes the whole dynamic of how I feel for the rest of the day. That’s how it felt to me.

That’s why when that inspiration came down about doing this podcast and I was like, “When am I going to do this?” “Now.” “Now as in like now or like soon?” “Now.” It happened at one of the lowest points in my life. What was great about it was that it gave me the reason to reach out to people that were my network and to reconnect with people that were doing amazing things. It changed my association. You know how important association is. You are the five people that you hang around most with. It re-inspired me.

At that time, having been in the coaching industry for a long time, coaching was evolving so fast that I had people that were saying, “You should be putting more content out there. You need to be doing more videos. You need to be doing this and doing that,” and I was not into it. At that point though, I didn’t feel it because I was dealing with some personal stuff that was going on. This idea of podcasting, I was like, “I can do that. I can showcase.” I may not want to create my own content and feel like I am emotionally in a place of developing my own content and doing courses and getting in front of the camera, but I can showcase other people because I love doing that. That’s what I’m always about.

Over time in the 300, have you done some solos? I know you did one for your 299 where you started talking about your best episodes and how you’re changing things going forward. Have you done more solos as you’ve gone into it?

No, all of them have guests.

It could be in your future.

It could be. I have some ideas to revive the Discover the Edge podcast and continue that one. I do have some ideas for solo, but it became much more fun to have that dialogue as we’re having here. I found that much more engaging, stimulating and inspiring to come up with things to talk about. We have conversations. It’s not just me running through a script and asking them questions. We have a richer dialogue, even more now than even a few years back. We’ll see what the future holds.

You’ve interviewed a lot of people and as I mentioned, your episode 299 talks about some of your top ten and everything. Those might have been your top ten, but there are some where you personally learned so much. What were a couple of your favorites?

Those top ten most downloaded ones, that was one thing. I mentioned a few in there. I talked about some of the ones that were most impactful. It’s almost 300 episodes, there are so many. Some of the ones that I didn’t mention when I was talking about some of my additional favorites was Bill Ferguson. I can’t think of the number right now. Bill Ferguson and I did a two-part on healing the painful wounds in our lives and building better relationships. It was a fantastic two-part episode that I did.

There must have been such a power to go to two episodes. That in and of itself stood out.

One of the ones that was the top most downloaded was Tim Gallwey. That was a two-part as well. This was my longest episode recording in one shot. You’ve done lots of these. It was almost three hours. I was like fascinated and enthralled and so done by the end of it. I was exhausted. The richness of conversation that somebody who is a master. When you have somebody who’s done what they’ve been doing for so long and they have so much wisdom to share, you don’t cut them off. That’s the rule. We kept going and then I split it into two parts. That’s one of the things that I love. I love listening to people like Udo Erasmus, listening to somebody who is masterful and who has studied. There’s so much wisdom and richness and that touches my heart because I’ve been around for a while. I’ve heard a lot of the different strategies and philosophies and so forth. When you’re with somebody like that, you end up going a lot deeper into the conversation.

That’s something that comes across well on your show. When you all are listening to it and especially if you’re in the industry or you’ve been in and around it, you hear when Nicole is excited. We know when you’re learning something because you can hear it in the energy that’s going on in the show. That’s the best place to be because when you’re in a place of great curiosity and learning, your audience is coming right along with you. That is the bingeable factor of your show. We always try to analyze that here. I’m always like, “What’s your bingeable factor?” Most people can identify it about themselves. I’ve always got a few notes. Your bingeable factor is when you get curious, when you get excited about it, when you’re learning something. You’re bringing us along into that next episode because we’re like, “She learned this much here. What is she going to learn next week? I want to come along too.” That’s why we come along for the ride with you.

That’s also why at some point I was getting a lot of guests. No disrespect because you’re in marketing and branding and so forth, but I had all of these marketing and branding people at one time. I don’t know what was happening, but I had a whole bunch at the same time saying, “I want to be on your show.” I was having this conversation. It’s like anything, even leadership, organization, consulting. I had a lot of people at one time, there were all in that genre that we’re reaching out to be on the show. I needed to keep it fresh for me because to your point, if I’m bored, my audience is going to be bored.

I don’t want to talk about email and all of these other tactics as we were talking about methods versus principles. I want to get back to those principles again. You’ve got to keep it fresh and exciting and a learning experience and curious for you. That’s where most new podcasters go wrong. They’re like, “I will take anyone. I want to make sure I have guests.”

There is no shortage of guests out there. I have enough guests to last me the entire year.

That’s wonderful to hear. To everyone that’s out there, you don’t have to take anyone. You can take the people you are solely interested in and your audience is interested in. When you started this, you had no real preconceived notion that it had a specific outcome. You’re like, “I’m going to do this.” What were some of the things that happened to you following being a podcast host that you said, “That was a surprising and fun outcome?”

The expansion of my network and the people that started to show up. There are many people. You and I are having this conversation. I didn’t know you back then before podcasting. There are many conversations I’ve had with people that I would never have had had I not had a podcast. What was refreshing is I thought, “I’m going to have to go out and get guests, find guests, do the vetting and researching or hire somebody to do it.” Very quickly, I had people referring people to me. I haven’t had to look for guests in a very long time. Maybe after the first few months and then I went through the people that I knew in my network because I did know some amazing people. In different points, a few years ago, I was looking and I was like, “I haven’t even had some of my mentors on the show.” I haven’t invited them. I was like, “Wait a second.”

That’s why I reached out to Dr. Robert Rohm and Bob Burg and some different people that I have studied or learned from over the years, read books from, people that I greatly respected and mentors. I was like, “I need to get them on the show.” Teresa Easler, some people are amazing. I refer to them all the time and I’m telling my clients about them. I’m like, “Why have I not had them on the show yet?” Because I was having many great and amazing guests come to me. Ron Carucci and Dorie Clark and different people that are amazing people. Vishen Lakhiani, the Founder of MindValley. They reached out to me and I’m like, “We’re going to make time and we’ll have him on the show for sure,” because I love to hear what he’s doing. That was a surprise. Sometimes I look at it and go, “It’s just a podcast.” I get so many people to reach out.

You’re devaluing it when we say it’s just a podcast.

You get all these people that are like, “That person wants to connect with me? That person wants to be on this show? It’s amazing. It’s a-tumbling.” I’ve met the most extraordinary people and other things that have come out of it is the vision and clarity like that first thought of, “I’m going to do this podcast.” As I went along, I realized this was part of a bigger vision and a bigger plan. It’s not just about a podcast, it’s about building a community. It’s about creating transformation in the world. The ideas, the vision and the strategy is now coming out of that as I’m having all these conversations with people. I’m starting to use my strengths of maximizing and bringing things together.

We were talking before about the idea of shifting your show now that you’ve hit 300 episodes. You’re going to be shifting your show slightly and doing some new things and trying out something different to keep it fresh and exciting for you. You were also talking on your show about shifting mindsets and other things between an I and a We culture. I thought that was timely. Part of what I love about podcasting is how collaborative and cooperative it has been in general. You can be on competing shows and it won’t matter. We’ll still go on each other’s shows. There’s a different sense of collaboration and community. There is much more of ‘we’ as podcasters. How has that started to transform your thinking there?

I’ve been listening to different guests and also getting some guest requests from people and you hear the energy behind it. I’m always looking for guests and we’ve been blessed with great guests that are coming from that place of service. They’re coming from that place of collaboration and from an abundance mindset. There are levels of abundance mindset. There are levels of consciousness and levels of awareness and so forth, but they’re in that place of service. I also get a chance to hear repeating themes. One of the things that I’m good at is noticing and organizing themes and maximizing. As I’m listening to what people are saying and I’m like, “That’s great. How is that creating transformation? How is that improving, shifting the world, and making it a better place for everyone? How is it doing that?” In the process of that, one of the things that came out for me was the fact that we are, as a society, still focused very much on ‘we.’ We’re very much focused on, “How do I get my message out there? How do I get more visibility to my podcast?”

Transformation Leadership: When you have somebody who’s done what they’ve been doing for so long and they have so much wisdom to share, you don’t cut them off.

Even in podcasting, it does happen. It’s like there’s that consciousness about it and saying, “If we were to work and focus more on ‘we,’ what would that look like?” That’s where I’m speaking more about that even the idea of generosity impacts on several levels. There’s personal impact and business impact, but then there’s also a community and global impact. Focusing on those types of things, and I said that I’ve had that privilege of having heard many leaders and speaking that I can start to say, “I think we’re a little bit too much over in this direction.” Sometimes you’ll get a guest on and you’re like, “This is what we need to be talking more about. There are not enough people talking about this. How can we do that?”

That’s one of things that I love the most about having done a lot of shows. I’ve probably done a thousand podcasts across the multiples that I have. I may not all remember their names. I definitely won’t remember their podcast numbers. We stopped numbering them because I can’t do it anymore. I will go, “I had this guest on and we talked about this and this is the story.” I will remember those stories. The transfer of knowledge in little bits and pieces over time comes together in such an amazing way. I feel like a conduit.

That’s true because sometimes I’ll be like, “Who was it on my show.” I’m pretty good with names, but I’m like, “Who was that? Oh, yeah. That’s who it was.”

I got to remember the story and the person and the context before I say it all. By the end of the show, it will usually have come to me. The name will have shown up in my head. That’s exactly it. I love making those deep connections and making that synapses style between getting my brain to your brain and yours to the audience. It’s such a dynamic place to be creating that bigger We that you’re talking about, to be creating that bigger and higher plane community.

It’s funny because some guests will challenge and I love that, being open to it and not having an attachment to it. I have some questions and an idea of what we’re going to be talking about based on their topic and so forth. I always do pre-chats and they’re not long pre-chats, but they give me that opportunity to connect with them and to get to know them enough that we know that there’s a chemistry that we can create something amazing together. Also, what is their unique take on the topics. We can focus in on that. I’ll have a guest like Udo Erasmus and I’m like, “Here’s the start of a new series on how to start a movement.”

He says, “Starting a movement is not the goal.” I’m like, “That’s awesome, let’s go there.” Let’s start with the fact that we shouldn’t be focusing on starting a movement. It’s being open. Sometimes, I’ve been a guest on many shows and I’ve noticed that some hosts when you let it flow, they don’t know what to do with that. They’re like, “We’re on a script here. What are we doing? Next question.” When you can allow it to flow, the conversation is amazing and I learn more and I get curious. There’s so much richness in what they can bring to the table because it’s better for the guests that they can flow and allow them to be present rather than trying to perform.

Part of it is that many of us are not broadcast trained. We don’t feel like we have to do that. At the end of the day, it makes for a better listening experience too. Leadership and transformation are a somewhat crowded market. It’s crowded with some people who are not any good and some people who are phenomenally amazing and it’s hard to compete with them. Have you found that the podcast itself has helped put you in a nice position to be able to build your business?

First of all, I don’t try competing with any of them. That’s where that abundance versus scarcity. It’s not about competing. I remember being at this networking event with all these C-Suite executives. It was designed for them. There was a whole bunch of other people, service providers and whatever. I was invited to be there. This guy walks up to me and he had that arrogance thing. I don’t know what was going on, but I was just like, “Interesting.” I didn’t go into the elevator pitch and he said to me, “What do you do?” I said, “I’m a business coach.” That’s it.

That was what I felt compelled to say at that time to keep it short. He said, “Business coach? There are tons of those.” I’m like, “Okay, and your point?” I was polite. He’s like, “Don’t you worry about their competition?” I’m like, “No, I don’t.” When you focus on the competition, if I focus on some of the amazing shows that are out there, I will make myself crazy. “What are they doing?” I’m then playing copycat, then I’m trying to do what they’re doing and then I’m not creating and being creative in what I’m called to do.

You’re creating that space for the attraction to happen.

I’m being me and I’m going to be the best me possible. I’m going to be the best podcaster possible. I’m going to be the best host possible, but I’m not going to try to compete with some of these top names out there. Even from a marketing standpoint, you can use some of the tools and so forth, but I also don’t make myself crazy with it because if I do, then there’s a frenetic energy that I will bring to it. There’s a scarce energy that I will bring to everything that I do and it’s going to come across in my episodes. It’s going to come across in my marketing. I’m like, “I’m here to do the thing that I was called to do. I had the instruction to do this, so I will do this.”

This is what happens to a lot of people. They go out there and they say, “I’m going to start a podcast. Now what do I do?” It’s like I got this idea, now what do I do? How did you do that? How did you not start with that frenetic, “I’ve got to figure out how to do this. I’ve got to study everybody. I’ve got to figure out how to compete against these other people?” How did you start your podcast in a different level of energy?

It’s also training and being a coach for a number of years and that helps, knowing how to be present. Literally that morning, I’m laying in bed at 4:30 Pacific time and I’m thinking in my mind, “Who do I know that knows about podcasting?” Shout out for Marc Mawhinney from Natural Born Coaches. I was in Episode 17. I knew him before he was coaching, when he was still doing real estate. I was like, “Mark knows about podcasting, why don’t I ask him?” He was four hours ahead on Atlantic time. I called him up on Facebook Messenger. I’m like, “You got a few minutes?” He’s like, “Sure.” I said, “What do I need to know about this podcasting thing?” I didn’t know anything. He’s like, “You need a hosting site and you need this.” I’m like, “Sure, I’m writing this all down.” Twenty minutes, I’m sitting there and I was like, “What do I need to look at? Let’s start there.” That’s how I started it.

You followed your method you would do for anything new that you wanted to learn.

Keep it simple, step one, step two. It’s interesting. I’ve been on a podcast and had people give me so much feedback talking about this goal-setting. It came up in the conversation and it wasn’t planned at all but I was like, “Oftentimes people have too many goals. They have too many things. They’ve got a to-do list and they call that their goals list.” No, that is not your goals list. Launch a podcast, that’s like the how to start a movement when he said that’s not the goal. Launching a podcast is not the goal. It is a step along the way to do what? It’s the method to do what? What message do you want to share? Who do you want to share it with? Why do you want to share? Why is it important to you? Why is it important now that that message be shared?

How do you want to package that in such a way that is unique and different maybe than what’s out there or that’s unique and resonates with you? In order to do that, then I need to hire somebody like Tracy and their team to be able to produce the podcast. Those are all the to-do’s, but the outcome is sharing a message. It’s not even sharing a message. If you take it another step further, it’s more than that. It’s how do you want people to feel? I had to get clear on that. I thought about three words. People remember things in threes and so forth. I was like, “I want to inspire people. I want to educate them. I want to connect them.”

That’s such good advice, Nicole, that you said there. Having an intention, the tone on how you want your show to be, that’s critically important. It’s something many of us skip when we’re like, “What microphone do we get?” You skip it in the how-to’s.

You get caught in the weeds that you missed the tree, the forest, the purpose, the sunshine. When you look at that and say, “It’s a beautiful day. Hello. What are you doing down there? Look around” The other thing is you get a lot of people that will give you opinions on what you should be doing. If you don’t have a grounding, if you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing and you don’t know that you have some of these foundational pieces, you’re going to be sailing along. You’re going to have people dragging you this way, that way and so forth. You’re going to be confused after a while because of everybody with their methodology. This happens with entrepreneurs and business owners all the time, especially because there’s so much content out there. There’s no shortage of content.

The problem is like, “I want to grow my business.” It’s not, “How do I do it?” Even people say, “I don’t know how to do it.” There’s so much information out there. They don’t know what to do and in what sequence to do it and what to stay focused on. They’ve got this long list of, “I should do a webinar, I should start a podcast and I should do this and this.” If you can stay focused on the outcome, as Gary Keller says, “If you focus on that one thing, everything else can fall into place and you can make decisions much better.” If you’re hiring somebody to do something for you, that’s what we’re focused on, “Can you help us stay focused on this?” It’s outcome-driven.

Let’s get to our five things because we want to make sure that we give some five lessons learned. You’ve been talking about all the great guests. Maybe it’s in the process of how you do it or how you started out doing it. What has been some of the best ways you found to book those great guests?

Transformation Leadership: Your bingeable factor is when you get people curious, excited, learning something, and bringing them along into that next episode.

First of all, you need to be clear on your topic. You mentioned it, you don’t want to just have any guests. I see that where shows get so watered down. Their title says this is what they’re about. I won’t use any names because I don’t want to incriminate anyone. Their show is about this, but if you go down the list, because I’ve been a guest on their shows, it’s like, “What does this have to do with this?” They’re like, “Yeah, sure.”

It’s like, “Innovators of the future,” and you’re like, “There’s no innovation going on here.” That’s a made-up show, by the way.

There’s number one. Being very clear on what your theme is, staying focused, and being willing to say no. It’s hard sometimes to say no to somebody who’s very passionate about their message and what they have to offer, but that is not the right show for you. What I do oftentimes, because I know a lot of shows, I will recommend a different show and say, “I’m not sure that this is the right fit, but I’ll tell you that might be a great fit for you.”

That’s a great strategy. I’m glad you said that. You’re the first one who’s ever mentioned referring them to someone else. I love that. That’s a great method. It’s helping the rest of the community grow and it’s serving everyone in that process, your listeners, you and the guests themselves.

I don’t do that every single time, but I do that where I can. I have told people, not very often, but a couple of times I’ve been honest with them when I’ve done a pre-chat and I said, “I think you need to go back to the drawing board. You’re new to what you’re doing and that’s totally cool. You need to get clearer on your message. When you’re clear, then come back to me.” I’m honest with people. That’s another thing.

How to book good guests. For a while there, I was using ScheduleOnce. I stopped using it and was manually doing the scheduling myself. I do a pre-chat. That’s another thing that I recommend people do. Fifteen minutes and you can get a vibe for people or if they get on the line and they’re totally flat, you’ll know instantly and it’s not while you were recording. I’ve not had that show, which I know has happened for some podcasters. They’ll record a show and then not release it because they’re like, “I can’t release that.” I’ve not had that issue because I have the pre-chat upfront and make sure we’re on the same page.

I’ve been lucky that that only happened once. It was more of a tech issue than it was the person, so thank goodness. You’re right, it can happen. I do have people who it happens to them as well. You’re avoiding that with your pre-chat, which is a great strategy too.

I have booking agents. I create good relationships with booking agents and I treat them well just as they treat me well. I treat them well with respect and stay in communication with them so that they want to send more guests my way. If the guest is not the right fit or they’re sending me several that are not the right fit, like after a while I was getting many leadership consultants. I was like, “I can’t do this conversation anymore. Package it in a different, unique and interesting way for me. I need to take a break from that.” I communicated that to them and said, “This is what I’m looking for,” so that it could give them the feedback. When they were looking for shows to send me, I wasn’t starting to say no all the time. I was telling them who I was looking for.

You’re being constructive in the process. How about some best ways to increase listeners? Have you done any methods? Have you tried anything to increase your listeners or it all happened organically?

If you build relationships with people, there are the guests that are on the show which many continued to listen to the show and they liked it. There’s your community, whatever your business, whatever your existing platform, your friends, your community. What I’ve noticed is as I have built a better relationship with my social media network, it increases listeners because I have rapport. If you and I have rapport and I am interested in you and I’m vulnerable with you, I’m open with you and then I have a podcast, you’re much more inclined to listen to my podcast than if all I do is pop up, you’ll never hear from me, otherwise.

Put out your sound bites and walk away.

It’s a method and it’s one thing in a whole brand experience. Your podcast is one element to that. I build that brand experience with people. There were certain people that I thought, “They’re going to love this episode,” and I’ll send it to them and say, “You’re going to love. This is great.” I’m not doing that to the same people with every single episode like BS-ing it. I’m specifically picking them and they’re like, “You thought about me. Thank you.” There are much more inclined to listen. Also, with my clients. I recommend to my clients some certain ones.

I use it as a resource. I’ll be talking to someone and I’ll say, “We’re talking about a particular subject,” or whatever. I did an interview with Oscar Trimboli and we were talking about the power of deep listening. I would recommend go and check that out or May McCarthy talking about her process on creating abundance in her path to wealth. I will recommend certain ones to people and that has increased listeners.

That’s a great strategy. When people reach out to me and they’re asking questions or they’re thinking about starting a type of show, I’ll be like, “You should go listen to this one and this one. I did these interviews with them and there are some fascinating reasons why you should consider their show a model for you. You should learn from their show because you’re going to get something about marketing or whatever it might be.” I love that strategy because in the end, it builds listeners to your entire show catalog, not just that one episode.

One of the things that I do not do, which maybe impacts my numbers, you’re the expert in this. What I noticed is that I went from three episodes a week, two episodes, one episode, two episodes. I’ve tested this back and forth. What’s interesting is that when I would blast out and put too many posts out on social media of different podcast episodes, people start tuning me out. I noticed this for other shows. All they do is post these things. It’s too much. It’s overload.

We did a show that was five days a week and as we decreased it, it got more traction. Of course, your numbers of listeners dropped because the number of episodes you’re producing in a month drops, but the engagement went up. That’s what’s important and people got to listen to the whole show. If you’re looking to someone, “Are your listeners listening all the way through?” No. When you have too many shows, they don’t. When you’re posting too often, they don’t. You’ve hit on that exact point. You can increase listeners slightly by decreasing the amount of information overload you’re putting on them.

Somebody pointed it out to me and I’m going to butcher this quote, but it’s Winston Churchill. He was doing his State of the Union during the war, his address and he didn’t do them that often, but they were so impactful. Apparently, Roosevelt said to him, “You need to do those more often.” He says, “If I do them more often, they won’t be as impactful.”

You’ve been doing a lot of the production and you started back when it was a little harder to get started and there wasn’t as many resources. What have you found is the critical factor to producing it as professionally as possible for you?

From a technical standpoint, I think the important thing is you’ve got to have a good mic. We’re talking joking about that earlier, but it is true. You do need to have a good mic. You need to have a good audio producer. I’ve had somebody. He got on the phone with me and he’s like, “Change this, buffer this, do this. Put the bookshelf behind you.” There’s a reason why there’s a bookshelf. It’s not because I have a ton of books. The bookshelf is there because it buffers sound. The reason why I’m in a room with carpet is because of this buffering sound and so forth.

Your environment is so important.

Transformation Leadership: There’s just so much richness in what guests can bring to the table if you let them flow and allow them to be present in the show rather than trying to perform.

I can do a sexy background and I asked him, “I was going to get one of those screens.” He’s like, “Don’t, because then it’s going to bounce off of it. You don’t want to do that.” For those of you that say, “She’s got a busy background.” It’s there for a reason. If I had those nice Japanese divider screens, the sound would ricochet and it wouldn’t be as good quality. Having somebody that can walk you through that. I’m sure you do that. It’s like walking them through some of the finer distinctions that you don’t has been important to improve the quality.

Another thing, and this sounds counterproductive, because if you want to hire somebody, you want to be efficient with your time. I remember Joel Osteen from Lakewood Church. It’s a huge church. It’s 50,000 people or whatever that tune in. He started off editing and being behind the scenes while his father was preaching. He did that for seventeen years. When he went on stage, he still went back afterwards and would do some of the editing and work with the editing team. He would listen to himself. My recommendation is even if somebody else cleans it up for you and does it all nice and you never get to hear the raw, you can still hire somebody like you to do it, but then I would recommend that you listen to yourself in the raw footage so that you can hear your ums and your ahs and your wanderings and all of that. Immediately, as I started doing that myself and I was listening to it, I was like, “I say this a lot or I say that a lot.” I could improve and make it easier for my editor and better quality overall.

Not only improve, but it also moves you along, so you become a better speaker in general. That’s helpful to you. That’s a great lesson. You’ve got a community going on. You’re building that already. You’ve got a movement going. Even if you’re still working on starting it, you’ve still got some edge going on there. How have you been encouraging engagement through that?

Through my community. Because I’m a podcaster, I happen to know a lot of guests and I know a lot of hosts because I’ve also been on a lot of shows and a lot of guests also have their own shows. One of the ways that we’ve maintained some engagement is by connecting the podcasters that I know, the hosts, the guests. As I was saying, I recommend a particular host and I will make some introductions there. I have a Facebook group where I do that. Somebody comes out and says, “I have a new show and I’m looking for some guests.” I’m a big believer in supporting or promoting the booking agencies. Some people are not going to use them. They want to do it themselves and/or they want to complement it. By making those connections, it creates greater engagement and reciprocity and all that stuff. It’s easy. I can do it. Why wouldn’t I? Even asking people and saying like, “I’d love to hear your comments. I’d like to hear what you’re up to. I want to hear what you’re doing to make an impact in the world.” I love hearing those stories.

We were talking about alternative monetization and ways to make money on your show. You expressed that you’re not a lover of ads, that you think they are an interruption to the thought, which I think that’s great. Did you ever look at your podcast as being something that you need to make money to have it be successful?

I’ve always known right from the beginning that there was a bigger purpose, a greater purpose than just making money. If I did the right things and I did it in the right ways, the money would come. Whether it’s through clients that have come through from listeners, guests who have become clients of mine, who have referred clients to me. Also being on shows. I’ve been on shows, being in total service and having the host afterward say, “We need to talk afterward because I need to hire you.” There’s a lot of that happening, but I don’t do it for that reason because otherwise you can get so caught up in that scarcity mindset of what can I get out of this? It’s being in service and creating the best quality and then it comes.

You’ve got this as a download. You wake up at 4:30 in the morning going, “I’m starting a podcast.” A lot of people have been ignoring that. They’ve been hearing that message, “You should start a podcast. All of your friends are telling you that.” What’s your advice to them?

The obvious answer is like, “Just go out and do it.” This may sound weird, but I would pray about it or meditate on it. I don’t know what your methodology is. I would sit with it and ask yourself if this is something that would light you up. Don’t do it for the money. Don’t do it for the influencer title or whatever it is you think you’re going to get out of doing a podcast. I’m going to be a thought leader. There are lots of people like that. I don’t know any thought leaders that ever set it out as a goal to be a thought leader. They just became one. They thought differently and people started to fall. I would sit with it and make sure that you’re doing it for the right reason and that it’s going to inspire you and light you up because whatever that topic is, you’re going to get to talk about it a lot, so you’re going to want to enjoy it. You don’t want to do it because somebody else says that that’s what you should do. The should-ing, stop letting people ‘should’ all over you. Do what you know is the right thing to do.

Nicole, what day of the week does your show come out?

It comes out on Mondays and Thursdays.

Leaders of Transformation, Mondays and Thursdays. Everyone, Nicole Jansen. There are many podcast hosts that I interview all the time and hopefully, they’re going to have tuned out by now that they don’t like, “That’s me.” Many of them are not deep experts in what they’re hosting about. Nicole is an exception to that. She is an absolute deep expert in transformation leadership. When she hosts her show and she asks her questions, it’s evident as she’s investigating what’s going on with these guests and where they’re going. You’re going to see how much better and effect that has on the outcome of both the energy, the type of things that get said. I think the results of your show overall, that’s why it’s been so successful for you. Nicole, I can’t thank you enough for coming and sharing with us.

Thank you, Tracy. It’s been a pleasure. Even as I listened to you and the questions you ask, it makes me more aware. I get to learn even being on this side. Thank you.

We’re hit or miss. We don’t come out on the same day every week because sometimes we have Center of Influence show. Those usually come out on Wednesdays and we sometimes have tech ones, they come out on Tuesdays. We’re always rotating what’s going on, but we’re here for you. You need to catch us more, more leaders, more center of influences, more tech information. We’re even going to come up some more marketing episodes on how to market your show because we’ve been asked for some more of that. We’ve got our Marketing Mondays. Those are coming out on Monday, so we do have those. Thank you so much.

Important Links:

• Leaders of Transformation
• Bill Ferguson previous episode
• Tim Gallwey previous episode
• Udo Erasmus previous episode
• Natural Born Coaches
• Episode 17 with Nicole Jansen
• Oscar Trimboli previous episode
• May McCarthy previous episode
• DiscoverTheEdge.com

About Nicole Jansen

Strategic Business Advisor, Leadership Coach and Podcast Host, Nicole Jansen has helped thousands of people transform their lives and achieve extraordinary results in business and their community.

Her 30+ years of experience in business, leadership and human behavior along with overcoming adversity in her own life, has uniquely equipped her to empower greatness in others. She has interviewed over 300 difference makers on the Leaders Of Transformation Podcast and has reached listeners in 130 countries around the world.

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