The Driven Woman Entrepreneur Podcast is coming up on 200 episodes, it is time for a rebrand and I need your help.

In this behind-the-scenes solo episode, I share where I am in the process of rebranding the podcast, as well as how I recognized that it is time, and some helpful advice for avoiding boredom and staying consistent.

If you're an aspiring or emerging podcaster, an entrepreneur, or a person with ADHD who tends to get stuck in the messy middle of long-term projects, this episode is for you!

I've recently received some feedback that there might be a disconnect between what I'm talking about on the podcast and either the name of the podcast, the show art, the description, the categories, the episode titles, the guest interviews, or all of the above.  So, instead of being stubbornly self-sufficient and trying to figure it out on my own, I’m turning to you.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• The importance of facing discomfort and making decisions
• The power of asking for feedback and not making assumptions.
• The journey of the podcast and how it has evolved over time.
• My personal experience with starting something new, overcoming challenges, and staying committed.

Mic Drop Moment 🎙️

"Isn't it perfectly obvious that the people I should be asking for help from to determine the future direction of the podcast are the ones who are actually listening to it?" 

Thank you in advance for sharing your feedback with me! Here are your options:

Google Form (Preferred)  https://bit.ly/47AFdJ3

Email me: diann@diannwingertcoaching.com 

Leave a voice message: https://bit.ly/3we0Kri  (90-second limit) 

DM me on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diannwingertcoaching/ or Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachdiannwingert/

We're excited about the future, and we can't wait to hear from you!

Well, hey there, driven woman entrepreneur, this is Diann Wingert, your host and this episode is a behind the scenes solo episode with a twist. Now if you are an aspiring or emerging podcaster, this episode is for you. If you are an entrepreneur, this episode is for you. If you are a person with ADHD who tends to get stuck in the messy middle of a long term project, this episode is for you. And if you are a regular listener of this podcast, you just might be all of the above, so this episode is absolutely for you.

Now I have been putting off recording this for quite a while but, you know, I recently remembered that one of the episodes that I have received the most feedback on was episode number 125, Lessons From a Failed Launch. Once I recalled that, I decided to stop faffing around and pull the freaking trigger already. I'll be right back after this little intro music.

Okay, here we are. There are 3 reasons why I finally decided to face the discomfort and just do this. One, if you have been listening to this podcast for a while, you've probably noticed that the content has been shifting over time and might be wondering, is this still for me and what's Diann gonna be talking about in the future? I have not talked about rebranding this podcast openly, and I think it's time. I value your time, your attention, your interest, your focus because if you're listening to me, you're not listening to someone else or doing something else, and I appreciate that. So I think it's only fair you know what you're gonna get in return, obviously.

Number two, I've recently received some feedback from both podcast listeners and some of my trusted advisers, you know, the coaches and consultants that I pay to tell me what to do. And they have told me, you know, there might just be a disconnect between what I'm talking about on the podcast and either the name of the podcast, the show art, the description, the categories, the episode titles, the guest interviews, or all of the above. If you have ever heard the expression in marketing when you confuse, you lose. I think I'm confusing. And in the words of the legendary Ricky Ricardo, evidently, I've got some explaining to do.

And number three, podcasting is a one way medium, not a conversation. I mean, I can create episode after episode, interview after interview that maybe I think you'll find interesting, engaging, informative, amusing, or all of the above. But if I'm not asking you for feedback, it is guesswork and that makes it very hard to sustain over the long haul. I am well past the point where I am worried about pod fade, but as we are quickly moving toward episode 200, it feels like the right time to pause, reflect, and ask for feedback because I don't want to guess or make assumptions anymore.

I had been a podcast guest for a couple of years, loved listening to podcasts, but here I was in a new city where I didn't know anyone. I couldn't even leave the house even if I had wanted to do local networking, and I had the podcast equipment because I always wanted to show up in a very professional way as a guest. So I'd heard about podfade. I really didn't want to start a podcast and then flake out because God knows I've done that with enough things in my life, so I decided to commit to 25 episodes.

Now if you have been around since the beginning or you want to go back in the feed to the very, very beginning, the first 25 episodes was me in my closet all by my lonesome reading a blog post. Yes. I tried to sound a little more energetic, and I think they were good. I mean, they definitely helped me build my initial audience. But the first 25 episodes where solos, they were 10 to 20 minutes long, and it was literally me in my closet talking to myself. So, I mean, we were new in town, we were in quarantine, I needed to do something, but, clearly, that was not sustainable.

Now if you recall or if you don't, I'm gonna tell you. The original name of the podcast was the Driven Woman podcast. I thought about calling it ADHD Driven Woman podcast, but that was too many words. Most of the content in that 1st year was focused on women with ADHD traits officially diagnosed or not, and who were also entrepreneurial. I was meeting so many women who knew or suspected they had ADHD, and most of them were self employed, emerging entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, or long term business owners. And because I have owned several businesses, I have ADHD. I've raised 3 kids with ADHD. I wrote my master's thesis on adult ADHD many years ago before adults were even being diagnosed.

So this was very near and dear to my heart, something I have tons of experience with, and I feel very passionate about. I had closed my psychotherapy practice, completed 2 years of coach training. Most of my clients were women with ADHD who had their own business or were in the process of doing so, so it was a natural fit. I had 2 goals in the beginning and by the way, by the way, let's hit the brakes for a second. If you are an aspiring podcaster or you are in the process of making the decision about whether to add content creation to your marketing strategy for your small business, I think these 2 questions will be just as helpful for you to ask yourself as they were when I asked them of myself.

One, will I get bored? Oh, Diann, do I wish I had asked myself that question decades sooner. Will I get bore because as an entrepreneurial woman with ADHD, boredom is a life threatening condition. And I think this is very common for people who are like minded and like brained. We tend to get an idea, fall madly in love with it, buy a ton of stuff to help us do it in the best possible way by the books, by the courses, by the coaching programs. And then a few weeks or months later when we fizzle out, we feel like ass. And most of us have closets, garages, back rooms, and eBay stores trying to distance ourselves from all the regrettable choices we made because we didn't stick with something because it got boring.

So my first goal in starting the podcast is will I get bored? Well, I did not get bored, clearly, I'm still doing it. However, after my first 25 solo episodes to myself in the closet, my extroverted self started getting lonely. So I added interviews every other week, and as a result, not only did I learn things from these people. I made some wonderful new connections, some of which have become good friends as well as strategic partners. And I also gave my audience a growing variety of content on the Driven Woman podcast. So will I get bored, question number one.

Question number two, can I be consistent at this? This is a really important question, and it's frankly something that causes folks like us an awful lot of suffering because being consistent is a genuine challenge for anyone who identifies with ADHD traits. And no matter what, some of the gurus out there have promised you, content creation is a long game. So my opinion is this, it's a labor of love. If you don't love it, do something else. Because whether you get help from an editor, a producer, AI, a virtual assistant, all of the above, content creation, whether it's a podcast, a blog, a YouTube channel, even TikToks takes time, energy, focus, effort, opportunity cost, and dollars. If you don't love it enough to be consistent. please please do something else, or you'll just add it to your pile of regrettables and that always feels shitty.

So fast forward, here we are in the messy middle. I think the messy middle is the hardest place to be for entrepreneurs, for people with ADHD, and for entrepreneurs with ADHD in particular. It seems like after the initial excitement and novelty of starting something wears off, it feels like the whole rest of the business is the missing middle for a lot of us. But as time went by and my podcast matured and my business matured, I came to realize a few things. One, not all of my listeners and clients were women. Now in case you are wondering, I work with all genders and enjoy doing so. I've been marketing exclusively to women, so I started to wonder if the podcast name was limiting me because some of my clients are men and always have been and some non binary and, gender nonconforming clients as well.

I also realized over time that not all my clients and podcast listeners have ADHD. The majority of them do however, I began to wonder if talking about it as much as I did was limiting me. I mean, the reality is even people who have ADHD don't all strongly identify with it. Don't all wanna think about it, talk about it, tune into content that focuses on it. For me, it comes down to how important is it to your identity? Some people strongly identify with their ADHD, others hardly think about it at all. And this is irrespective of how long they've known, and how significant their symptoms or traits are. It's really a very individual thing.

Also, I came to understand that many newly diagnosed people actually need a different kind of support, and oftentimes, that's therapy before they're ready to fully focus on their business. And even though I've been a therapist, I am no longer functioning as a therapist. So that started to feel a little bit conflicting for me that I was attracting an audience of people who were newly diagnosed, who really needed to address issues related to the diagnosis before they were really ready to address the issues of how the diagnosis shows up in their business. And because I still operate with the same level of ethics and integrity that I had as a therapist, I started to feel like there was a disconnect between the people that I was attracting, and the people that I felt I was best able to help and work with and serve.

So I started questioning, do I need to rebrand the podcast? Do I need to make changes? What kind of changes do I need to make? Over a year ago, and it may even be a year and a half ago because of, you know, time optimism, the artist formerly known as Time Blindness. I just like the more positive spin. Anyway, I was working with a podcast consultant at the time, and they recommended that I change my categories, which at that time were self improvement and mental health and I changed my categories to entrepreneurship and business. At that time, I also added the word entrepreneur to the title, but you'll notice I did not change the cover art.

I really do like that photo. I've gotten so much positive feedback on that title, but I gotta be honest in full transparency, I don't look like that anymore, that picture's almost 5 years old. I wish I still had those biceps, I don't really wanna go on any further, it's really very sad. So where are we now? We are at the now and the next, and here's where you come in. I am almost 200 episodes in, and I can hardly believe it. But in just 4 months from now, we will be celebrating our 4th Podversary. Now I probably should have done this sooner, meaning recording this episode and sharing it with you, but I have a long history. I'd say a painfully long history of being stubbornly self sufficient and at times looking for help in all the wrong places.

Since now I have been noodling on this for months, brainstorming with some of my biz besties, doing some market research, having some informational interviews with current and past clients, but I've also been frankly kinda waiting for clarity to strike me like freaking lightning. It's not happening until I realized, isn't it perfectly obvious that the people I should be asking about the future of the podcast are the ones who are actually listening to it. Duh, so that's what I'm doing, I'm asking. I'm asking you. I'm going to be linking in the show notes to a Google form. I promise it will not take you more than 3 minutes to complete, unless, unless you have a lot of ideas, you are particularly generous with your ideas, and you have literally just been waiting for me to ask so you unload your brilliant rebranding concept on me. I'm here for it, I hope there's enough room in the little drop down box.

Listen, I just want you to be involved in the process, because after all, I am making this podcast for you, the listener, I'm not making it for me. There's plenty of other things I could be doing with my time and I realized that I have been making assumptions about what you want and what you need, instead of just inviting you to tell me. It's really kind of rude, sorry. But two things I know for sure, thing 1 and thing 2. That's kinda like who's who's the book that has thing one thing two? Oh, yeah, Doctor Seuss.

Okay. Thing 1 and Thing 2, I am committed to podcasting. I have not just put you through this whole long dialogue to tell you. So since I don't know what I'm doing, I'm going to quit the podcast until further notice. No, I am committed to podcasting. I love being a guest, and I love hosting my own show, it will continue. Thing 2, I'm at an inflection point in both the podcast and my business, and I have accepted that I need input in order to determine decisions and my course of action from here. I love options, so I wanna give you several different ways that you can share your feedback with me, and I just wanna tell you, I appreciate you being part of my podcasting journey so far, and I hope you will wanna continue long into the future.

And giving me your feedback now in one of these ways I'm about to tell you is the best way to ensure that if I've ever met your needs through this podcast before, I will meet them more strategically, more intentionally, and more faithfully in the future but I gotta hear from you. So here are your options, number 1, Google form, link in the show notes, 3 minutes. Unless you, you know, do the whole brilliant download thing, I'm hoping someone will. Okay. Also, you could DM me on LinkedIn or Instagram if we're connected there. If we're not connected, send me a connection request and then DM me.

Or if you're kinda old school, you can send me an email, diann@diannwingertcoaching.com. And because my first name has a bit of a funky spelling, I've linked to that in the show notes as well. And if you want me to hear what your voice sounds like because you clearly know what mine sounds like, you can also leave a recorded message on my website, Diann Wingert Coaching. There's a Speak Pipe widget there, and you can leave up to 90 seconds and if that's not enough, just call back. I'm gonna link to all of these in the show notes.

If you decide to give me feedback, I want you to know how much I appreciate it. So I'm thanking you in, and just maybe, my parting thought. Maybe this episode can be a small lesson to you as a fellow entrepreneur, a human being with ADHD, a creative person who is working hard to make something of value and to have an impact in the world. Someone who knows they are brilliant, but sometimes struggles with uncertainty or doubt. And instead of continuing to do that on their own, they have the audacity to ask for help. It's something I would like to do more of in the future, and maybe you would too. Those are my parting thoughts, I can't wait to hear from you, and thank you for being along for the ride.