Two Years of Podcasting Taught Me It's All About You, Not Me (Bonus Episode)

0:06 Oh, my goodness. Hello, my friend. Thank you for listening to this bonus episode. It is right now, friday, may 9th 2025. I took a look back at the calendar and realized that this podcast calendar and realized that this podcast, in its original form, launched on Tuesday, may 9th 2023. So I'm taking it as just a flipping cool sign that, now that I release on Fridays, when I used to release on Tuesdays it is exactly the day that an episode is coming out, and so here's your bonus.

0:48 I want to share with you what I realized in these two years of podcasting, and whether you're a podcaster or you are, as we all are, a midlife woman just trying to figure it out. I believe this is going to make a difference for you, and I would love for you to tell me, after you listen, what you think of this. So find me on social. I'm on Instagram, I'm on TikTok. I'm on Facebook Cheryl P Fisher, come find me. So two years exactly of podcasting. When I started in case you weren't around back then the podcast was called OMG, teach Me, and you can still find those episodes.

1:29 They are absolutely still there. Go find Mind your Midlife and just keep scrolling down on your podcast app and you will find those too. It was about a year and a half as OMG Teach Me, and the idea behind that is part of the lesson that I want to share with you that I learned. The idea behind that was a catchy name. I love the rhyme of it, the fact that I say, oh my goodness, all the time, just in life, you can ask people in my life. I'm constantly saying, oh my goodness. I like to think of it as being pleasantly surprised all the time in life. Maybe I'm just confused, I don't know, but I'm constantly saying it. So I just thought it was such a catchy name and I wanted to share on that podcast powerful lessons that make such a difference in our lives that we never learn in school.

2:22 And the idea of that came from the fact that I used to be a high school teacher. I in fact taught high school for 12 years math and economics and the fact that I am now a coach, I'm a trainer, I love to teach, I love to speak. So in my head it all made sense. I knew I had some powerful things to share and I brought on so many guests If you were a guest, thank you. So many guests over that year and a half period of time or a little bit more than a year and a half, really that made such an impact on listeners. I know that that was the case and I love doing it, and I still love doing it, and here's what I learned. However, as the podcast morphed into Mind your Midlife, I learned that I can stand on the metaphorical street corner which is my office in my house, in front of the mic and I can tell you powerful things all day, every day.

3:22 But if you don't understand things all day, every day, but if you don't understand how it's going to help you and you, in fact, don't even really understand what I'm going to be talking about then it's just noise, and the last thing that all of us need right now, in 2025, is more noise. So changing my perspective on how to reach people with something powerful led to changing a ton about the podcast, and changing the name was the first thing. So I find that when we start a business because it's definitely happened to me when I started a business or we start a podcast, or we start a speaking career, we start social media, something Many of us you may or may not agree for yourself, but many of us have a hard time saying exactly who we're speaking to, and this was me.

4:22 I was sharing powerful lessons we haven't learned in school for anyone, probably mostly women. But could a 20-year-old benefit? Sure. Could a 70-year-old benefit, sure. Could a 40-year-old benefit, sure. Who am I to say they wouldn't benefit from this powerful lesson that I'm sharing or my guest is sharing? And I know you understand what I mean, because we, if we are trying to do something that is our passion, that we're doing as an impact, we don't want to leave anyone out. We don't want to not allow someone to take advantage of whatever it is that we know can be amazing for them.

5:06 But if we're not clear on who we're talking to, what we're providing and how they will benefit, nobody's going to know. And I had listeners to the podcast for sure, but the numbers were only growing slowly, tiny bit. Now, if you have been listening from the beginning, I'm sending you huge love because I know that my listeners have hung in there with me through all of this and have given such helpful and powerful feedback, and I do love you for that much helpful and powerful feedback, and I do love you for that.

5:49 And at the same time, I knew in my just heart that some of the things we were talking about in these episodes could have a bigger impact on more people in this world. So, if you have a confusing name, I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said to me oh, is that for teachers? Omg, teach me. And even the graphic my idea originally had a chalkboard background because I thought it was cute. Or people would say, oh, is that to help people do better in school? You used to be a teacher, right? Are you helping students? It was just such. It was such a difficult thing to explain.

6:29 So we're hit with so much information nowadays from social media, from our work, from being out in the world, from being online 24 hour. News is just oh, 200. Well, it's probably more than 200, 500 channels, I don't know how many. We have 27 different streaming services. It's too much. And so anything that is confusing your intended audience is going to say no. Confused minds say no. You might also have heard it. Confused minds take no action. And same for me. If I don't understand the offer that someone is presenting me with, I'm not going to do anything Now.

7:11 I might also not do anything if I don't need it right now or whatever. So it's not only this reason that maybe some things need to be tweaked a little bit, but this is a big thing, and this was my thing. This was my learning. I had to do a couple things, and thank you to Courtney Elmer for coaching me through this, as well as Catherine Beck for coaching me through this. As well as Catherine Beck my two amazing podcast coaches I had to figure out. Who am I actually talking to? Who can I help? What do I want to help them with? And it's more than people in their 40s and 50s who are women.

7:53 What are their concerns? What are your concerns as you listen to this? What are your struggles? What do you not want to hear? I don't think you want to hear from me that you have to add 10 new habits to your day. I don't think you want to hear that and I think it stresses you out. So I needed to think through all of that and figure out what am I actually saying and how can somebody just be scrolling through their podcast app and see this and think, oh yeah, maybe that could help me. Let me have a listen. That is the biggest lesson that I learned in two years of podcasting. It's about you you, it's not about me and I thank you for listening.

8:37 I thank you for reading and reviewing, I thank you for sharing, and whatever podcast you listen to, no matter how big or small their audience is, let me tell you what. The number one compliment you can give and the number one way you can help them grow is to share an episode you loved with your friends, with your social media followers, with whoever. If you loved something, share it. That's maybe there's a life lesson Lesson number two if you loved, something, share it. So I just want to say I'm so thankful that this whole experience forced me to figure out who you are, that I'm trying to talk to so that I can make a bigger impact for you, and I hope that's what we're doing here at Mind your Midlife.

9:28 I can't wait to continue being in your ear for two or four or six or however many more years. Thank you for listening.