How to Come Up with New Podcast and Content Ideas
26 Sept 2024 · 19 min
Lori Harder shares eight ways to find podcast ideas: reuse your core messages in new formats, collect micro-stories from daily life, keep a notes list on your phone, mine books and events for material, ask listeners what they want, plan around seasons and trends, study case studies, and use AI to spark thinking.
Chapters
The best speakers in the world make the little things the big things. How do they do that? Hey, everyone, welcome back to the show. It's time for another quickie, because there's always time to fit in inspiration. I don't care what you're doing. You could be putting on your makeup, walking your dogs in your car. I'm telling you, There is always five to 10 minutes throughout your day where you could be playing something positive in your ears. And you guys know, if you listen to the he said, she said with my husband, that we are all about positive propaganda. Like, what is pumping in your ears, on your stereo, whatever, in your house, on your tv. Because sometimes being left alone to our own thoughts is not a great thing. Sometimes it's wonderful. Sometimes we need silence. Sometimes we need to get bored so we can get creative again. But sometimes, if you find that you are trending downward, maybe go and listen to somebody who's in a higher vibe than you. And that is why I'm so obsessed with podcasts. And you guys know that you are, like my number one, most loyal, most loved because you have been with me for so long. Guys, it's been like eight years on this podcast. Can you even believe it? I'm telling you, if I like when you go back and listen to episode one and be like, what? What on earth? Like, that is. The weird thing about having a podcast or having a YouTube channel is going back to the beginning and just seeing, listening to all of the growth. Like, you guys, we even talk different. We move through the world different. We think different. Like, oh, my God, it's the craziest and coolest thing. And I always tell people, if you're thinking about doing a podcast and you're a little bit nervous or you're a little intimidated, or you might think you suck on the microphone, yo, just go back to my first episodes. Go back to your favorite podcasters to their first episodes. And I promise you, after that, you'll feel like you can do anything. You'll be like, wow, that was terrible. But they did it and they kept going, so go give yourself permission. And I was talking the other day about how we can feel like a bad comment or a negative review or something negative about us can just make us feel distraught. Like, we can get thrown out for two hours or a full day out of our normal routine because we're so just thrown off or sidetracked by this thing. And I always like to remind those people, I want you to think of the most, what you, in your opinion, think is the most amazing work of art. Like, it could be a play, it could be a movie, it could be books, it could be an album. And if you look up online, you will find so many negative reviews about the thing that you think is the ultimate, best thing on earth that changed your life. And so, no matter what, I just want you to know the world is actually programmed. Like, there is a percentage of people out there who are programmed just to be negative. Like, they just don't have anything positive to say. So no matter what, you can't avoid it. So, you guys, I want you to go for it if it's something that.
You want to do.
But as a podcast listener, you know that because I love you. I'm always trying to find different partners that can give you coupon codes for their stuff, for things that I love. And of course, if you go to getglocee.com G, E, T, G, L, O, C I, which is my favorite, favorite product that I can't live without, how can I actually claim that? Because I created it out of a need that I wanted. So it came because one day I was looking down at my hydration packet, the one thing that I was being really consistent with in my supplement world, and I was like, wow, I'm just drinking really expensive salt and sugar. What if I could only do one thing? What if I could only take one thing a day? What would I want in here? And that's what we did. I'm telling you, I swear, I wake up feeling leaner. I don't feel bloated, and I feel like, my skin. You guys, I know I don't even like to say it out loud, but I am in my 40s. Like, actually, I'm loud and proud about that, but. Meaning, I don't like to say I'm getting older. Cause I don't feel like I am. I think it's such a number, but I swear that my skin feels so hydrated and I feel like my skin glows. And I know that that is because so much of how we eat and what we put in our bodies. I'm telling you, I've been eating healthy for a lot of years. And I think it's really, really important that we make sure that we have a healthy gut, that we're feeding ourselves healthy, that we're getting a lot of water and that we're getting those skin nutrients that we need. So, you guys, if you go to getglosi.com I'm going to give you 25% off with code happy. It's 25% off, you guys. So go try it. I do two a day. I do one in the morning and one at night. If I'm traveling, I'm telling you, I do two or three just because I want to really good when I'm on the road, and I don't want to feel like I'm always playing from behind when I get home. So go check it out. All right, Today I am answering a question, actually answering a request from one of you in my inbox, and I just put out a quickie all about what I do for content and how I create and kind of, like, batch my content and come up with different pillars. And you guys really liked it. I went and checked out the downloads, and that was one of the most downloaded along with one of the most commented on in a while. And so one of you asked, I love this with the content. And you said, I would love to know how you come up with content for podcasting and how you come up with ideas for content. And, you know, you guys, I'm talking so much. Like, I'm talking so much that I get sick of myself quite frequently. And with this podcast, you know, I do a he said, she said, I do a quickie, and then I also do an interview. But how do you constantly come up with things to say on stories, on lives, on this podcast? On other podcasts, I also teach into some different apps, into some different groups, and always have to come up with things to say. It's like, there was a point in my career where I was like, I have nothing left to say. And I remember feeling that. And I also remember that when I had a membership program in fitness. And so a lot of you guys don't know that I had a membership program for nine years with, like, 1500 to 2,500 people on it, rotating, depending on our challenges. We would do three challenges a year, sometimes four, but then we went down to three, and we would have up to 30 to 40,000 people on each challenge. This is back when, you know, Facebook ads were very, very different. It was a free challenge, and then we would convert them into our monthly program. And so when I would do that monthly program, I swear to you, I was like, I can't think of a new workout move. Like, how on earth am I ever gonna do another workout move? Like, nothing is new. There's nothing new out there, you guys. It's all been done before. I had a bit of a unique spin, but I mean, not enough that it was like, oh, you're coming up with something new every time. Like, sometimes when I see that, I'm like, you're gonna hurt your people. Like, stop trying to make your normal people do flips in the air and then a push up and all of these other things, whatever with bands, it'll snap in their face and be a. You know, you're gonna get in trouble. So I had a moment where I was like, I cannot maintain trying to make this new all the time. And I remember going to a Tony Robbins event, and I actually went to two in one year. And it was like the biggest permission that I had ever gotten because he, at the two events, literally said the same exact thing, taught on the same exact thing, and even said the same exact jokes. Like, literally everything was so perfectly curated and rehearsed that I was like, oh, my God, this is how he does it. He just becomes a master of that one message. Because at the time, I was also speaking a lot, and I was like, I feel like I'm bad at everything. Like, I never master anything. And it's like, well, because you don't master anything. You're trying to say different things all of the time. And so if you went back and listened to all almost 1300 episodes of this podcast, you would realize that I'm kind of talking about the same things over and over and over again. And the reason that it works is because if you didn't need to hear it, nobody would be listening. And if you were already doing it, you would never need to listen again. And I'm pretty sure that if you're a human, you wake up feeling completely different emotions every single day. And a lot of times we have the same problem just wrapped in a different package. But you need to hear different perspectives of how people got through those problems. So the first thing that I want to tell you is that you have permission to say the same damn thing over and over and over again in a different way. And so how you do that is through story and through story, I want you to look at your life of exactly what has happened that week. And so many people think, you know, when we're talking about public speaking, when we're talking about really incredible speakers, when we're talking about really great books and really incredible movies, what people think is that you have to have this grandiose story, right, like, every week. Oh, my God, do I need to be going and doing all these adventures every week? Because I need these insane stories to be telling. No. The best speakers in the world make the little things, the big things. How do they do that. They really get into the details and they talk about the exact emotions and they connect with you on that thing because you probably just went through it or you do it every day. So if I told you a story about being in line at a coffee shop and I overheard someone or someone wasn't having a great day and I decided to talk to them or pay for their coffee and just have this profound experience with them, could I make that into a really huge story that you relate to? Because you've been in a similar coffee line where you've heard a similar thing or observed something similar, where someone was having a horrible day or maybe felt overlooked, or maybe you could just tell that it feels like the world just does not even see them. Would that relate to you? You see how the little things can become the big things. But you have to start looking through that lens of every single day there are happening to you that you can talk about. Like right now, my dogs are sleeping on the ground next to me. And if I had a story about being present, I could think of all of the different ways that my dogs are so incredibly present every single day. Right? And I could tell you a story about how to be more like a dog and how we should get out of our head and how we could just be so in the moment that the most exciting thing that we have is our daily walks and those daily smells, and they stop and smell literally everything. How we could stop and smell the roses. Like, there's so many things in your daily life that you're overlooking. And so, you guys, I keep a note section on my phone, and if I have something that comes to mind, I promise you, you will forget it. So start a note section of podcast ideas. And it's just like three sentences on a story or something that happened when I'm out, and maybe a lesson that I could pull from it. Another thing that you can do is talk about just current events and trends. So if there's something going on or maybe something happened with, who knows, Taylor Swift or. Or somebody else, and you want to analyze that, like, that's a great podcast topic, too. There's a ton of different things that you can do, but keep that note section on your phone. Another thing that I find myself constantly doing is doing podcasts about lessons that I've learned from a book. So I'll tell you about the book, I'll tell you about what it's about, and then I'll say, you know, here was one of the main lessons, and here's maybe what they shared and their insights. And here's how it affected me in my life. And let me tell you how I'm either integrating this or how it had an impact on my day or my week or something that completely rocked my world. So you can be doing actual feedback in Cliff Notes on books on other podcasts. Chris and I just did a podcast about a podcast we listen to. I know it's super like meta and out there. Easy, easy guys. So doing podcasts on podcasts, doing content on podcasts, doing content on books, doing content on the event you just went to. Right? You'll see that all the time. People go to events and they do like a a recap. Maybe they do two recaps. Maybe they do. You know, over the next three weeks, I'm going to be sharing a couple lessons every week from this event that I went to that I absolutely loved from each speaker.
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So when you look at life in terms of that, there's endless, endless feedback. Another thing that you can do for content or for podcasts is listener questions. Or you can put out a question box on Instagram and say, hey, what are your, what are your questions? For me, I'd love to answer them on the next podcast. So listener questions and listeners feedback is really, really great. You could break down case studies if you're into that. If you love nerding out, you guys, Absolutely. We know a lot of people who love data, who love analyzing things, who love case studies that could completely be its own podcast on its own. You can think about seasonal content. So we have the holidays coming up. Write down a list of all of the different things that people struggle with during the holidays. Whether it's boundaries with family, learning to say no to parties, like how do you set boundaries on what you're gonna do and who you see during the holidays? If you have like a relationship breakdown with someone last holiday, do you really feel the need to be able to see them? Like, there's so many different things that people are dealing with during the holidays that you can break down. There's also hot topics Just whatever's going on in the world and also highlighting tips and tools. So little life hacks, like, is there something that you do every day that you don't even realize that you do that could complet help people? Like, maybe you're a master of your family calendar. Maybe there's some sort of method that has really helped you. Or maybe there's something that you do in AI that you love doing, like for weekly recipes and we don't know about it yet. Maybe there's something some like, natural, medicinal thing that you love doing for your kids when they get sick and you have a whole routine of how to get through it faster. Like, there is endless, endless content, you guys. And when it's broken down in this way, you can start writing out all of these things and keeping it in a note section on your phone or a Google Doc. But there's not been a podcast lately that I haven't done that hasn't come from the notes section of my phone. Because when I go to think of it, I'm like, I. I don't know, I got nothing. And today I was like, you know what? I'm gonna put this in chat GPT, like, come up with some things for me around how people can come up with stuff. And I'm like, absolutely. This is what I do all of the time. So you guys, if you're not using AI for coming up with topics, like, for me, everything about AI is a mental jogger. Like, it just gets my brain going. So my personality type does really, really well with getting started based off of other ideas. And that's where my ideas come from. So a lot of times, if I'm just sitting there trying to come up with stuff on my own, come up with an outline for a talk on my own, like, I need to go and listen to something on that particular topic. Like, if I'm going to be talking about, you know, today I actually did a keynote into the Growth Day app, which is Brendon Burchard's app that I speak into once a month. And it was on getting organized. And I'm like, my God, this is.
Such a huge topic.
Where would I even start? Like, what are some of the main hot topics on getting organized? Like, from, you know, this expert and this expert on organization. And it just got my wheels spinning. And that helped me get my train of thoughts going. So there are so many tools now. We're so freaking lucky and blessed now that we have all of these tools to get, you know, these conversations, starters, joggers, mindset, things that just get us going. So you guys, I hope this helped for content that you're creating on social online, for speaking, for podcasting, and I'm just super grateful for you. I am headed off to Arizona tomorrow for my girlfriends and business event. I'm very excited about it. I bring a bunch of my girlfriends together who are experts in their industry for an incredible day of networking and expanding your brand. And it's just a super, it's just a super fun day of like deep connection. It's about 70 women. It's just a beautiful, intimate day where I get to meet a lot of new people and get to chat with a lot of people and you guys connect as well. So I'm so excited to see everyone you can follow that online. And again, I'm just grateful for you. So if you go to getglosi.com you can get 25 off with code happy. I'd love to hear your feedback on that. If you're going to try one stick a day or two sticks a day and let me know how you are feeling in 30 days. You guys go take the glossy challenge. I'd love to know if you're waking up feeling lighter, if you feel like your skin is more hydrated and glowing. If overall your digestion just feels better and your energy feels better, let me know. Go check it out. And until next time, earn your happy. Bye, everyone.
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