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Dream of starting a podcast but feel overwhelmed by the tech, self-doubt, or fear that no one will listen? Podcasting with Hiwi G helps aspiring podcasters gain the clarity and confidence they need to create shows that are as unique as they are, without the unnecessary confusion, overthinking, or perfectionism.
One of the things I hear most from aspiring podcasters is how do I sound natural on camera or behind a mic? And often they'll tell me when I watch your YouTube videos, you sound like you're talking to me specifically, but when I try to record something, it sounds stiff or robotic or like I'm reading a script. And then the question that's underlying that one is like, I thought I had a skill, or I thought I had an innate capacity to do this, but it just doesn't seem to be translating and that feels really frustrating. And I completely get it because when you listen to some of your favorite podcasters, they sound like they were born with a mic in their hands. They sound super natural.
Hiwote:So today I want to explore the question that I hear all the time. How exactly do I sound like the kind of podcast host that I want to sound like? Like is that even possible or is it a talent that I maybe just don't have? And if you're new here, welcome, my name is Hugh Atay, I'm a podcast producer. I've made shows like Where Should We Begin?
Hiwote:With Esther Perel or This Is Dating, which was listed as one of Time Magazine's best podcasts of 2022. And I've made several other shows, which you can see here. And before I was a professional podcast producer, I was an independent podcaster. And I'll tell you this, when I first wanted to make my own podcast, I felt really called to it. I felt like I wanted to use my voice, I had something to say, I had a question I wanted to explore, I felt really convicted.
Hiwote:But at the same time, I also noticed whenever I would record, I sounded really stiff and it was really hard for me to sound truly like myself and to connect with my audience. And it made me wonder if maybe I didn't have the talent that I thought I had in my head. Like maybe that was all made up. And I will say at the time I really believed the talent myth in every area of my life, but definitely in podcasting. And by the talent myth, I mean this belief that the world is split into two: the people who are super talented and capable of doing the thing that you want to do most, and the people who are not talented at that particular thing.
Hiwote:In our case, we're talking about communication, storytelling, podcasting, right? So it's not crazy to believe that some people are better inclined or better suited to do certain things over others. The problem is when you hear your favorite host. So for me, for example, I grew up watching Oprah 4PM every single day. And what she's doing is so powerful, and I want to do that.
Hiwote:Like I connect to that version of her that she is sharing with us. And so there was a part of me that felt like I have this in me, right? But on the other hand, when I did record myself for the first time, I felt very inadequate or incapable because it felt like what I thought I would sound like and what I actually sound like don't match. I sounded stiff and rigid and really unlike myself. And the problem with this position that many of you might find yourself in, if you're anything like me, is that it puts you in a state of limbo.
Hiwote:You are neither giving up on your dream nor are you really moving forward, and so you find yourself kind of stuck in this space of uncertainty and frustration. And that's a really difficult place to be because that loop, that thought is happening in the back of your mind all the time. Like I have this thing I want to create. I have this thing I want to create. But you're also not actually moving forward in really bringing it to life.
Hiwote:So let's take ourselves out of that limbo and look at what the science actually says. Now in particular, let's talk about a psychologist. His name was Anders Ericsson and he argued that what people usually call natural talent is actually just the result of really deliberate practice over a long period of time and not necessarily innate gift. And it's this research that popularized the idea of put in 10,000 and you become an expert at whatever it is that you're trying to become an expert in. But even Anders Ericsson has said that that's an oversimplification of the research.
Hiwote:So it's not just about putting in ten thousand hours, there's a little bit more nuance to that. And I can verify that this is true because I meet aspiring podcasters or podcasters in general all the time who will tell me that they have batch recorded 20 episodes but they just can't seem to increase their reach or they just can't seem to find their audience and connect with them. And the issue with this is that's not deliberate practice. That is actually just creating a lot of volume of whatever it is that you're intending to get good at. What Anders Ericsson is actually talking about is called deliberate practice and it's made up of three parts.
Hiwote:The first is that you need to focus on a sub skill instead of the whole performance. What this means is instead of you trying to record all 20 episodes in one day and calling that putting in reps, you want to actually record one episode. See what it is that you wanna improve. Maybe it's the way that you deliver your show ID or your intro. You're gonna attempt to make it slightly better in your second episode.
Hiwote:And then you're gonna listen to that one and try to improve that just a little bit before your third episode. Okay? So number one, it has to focus on a sub skill, not the whole performance. Number two, it involves critical feedback. So this could be that you just listen to your own episodes and you critically evaluate and assess what it is that you want to make better.
Hiwote:This requires that you are level headed about your own work, which I know many of us are not. It's quite hard to be objective about the stuff that you yourself created, especially when it involves your voice. So the second option here is that you get feedback from someone This can be a mentor, a friend, someone who is good at listening and actually giving you some thoughtful nuanced feedback that you can use to improve before your next episode. And this is something we also do in the Emerging Voices Accelerator, which is a podcasting accelerator that I run. Essentially for your first few episodes we listen and we give you line by line notes to make sure that you are actually fixing very specific things before you move on to your second and third episode.
Hiwote:Now the big thing you want to focus on here is incremental progress. So every single episode should sound better than the one before it. And the third part of deliberate practice is that it's uncomfortable. And this is because your brain is learning something new and being stretched in a way that it hadn't been stretched before. So it's really important that you acknowledge this aspect because you can't give up when it gets difficult.
Hiwote:Actually, that discomfort is part of you growing and learning. So the nuance that I want to make sure is clear here is not that talent doesn't exist. It does. But I think it's wildly overestimated as this like fixed and unchangeable thing and that's who gets to rise to the highest levels. When in fact the people who we think are super talented are actually just people who have put in many deliberate and intentional hours into their craft.
Hiwote:So what you're interpreting as talent is usually just hours of repetition that you have not seen. So then why do most people sound stiff when they first start? I think it's because your brain is trying to contend with a lot at the beginning. Like your brain knows that you're doing something really difficult and it's trying to like adjust to this new difficult thing you're doing. And when I say new difficult thing, I'm talking about like the tech, the audio, the awareness that people are going to listen to this if you're doing video, the video aspect of it.
Hiwote:And then there's the content like is the script actually good? Is what I'm saying making sense to anybody else but me? And so you overthinking and you being out of the present moment is usually what creates stiffness. That's what I notice in the people that I work with. When they are thinking about how they're maybe not good at this and they want to be good and they have all of these stories they're working through, that is coming the attempt to control that is what comes across as really stiff.
Hiwote:When you hear people who sound really natural, a big part of it is that they're very present. They're here with you, with the camera, with the microphone, and they're vibing. And not to say they don't have a script, but it's to say that they're feeling very at home with themselves and in this context, which is what you're reading as being natural. So there is a paradox: the more natural you want to sound by controlling it, the less natural you actually sound. So what you want to do is you want hold the intention almost with an open hand without trying to like make it something.
Hiwote:You're just moving in the direction of that intention. And I'll give you more specific tangible practical tips, but I do think this is important to remember because I many of us when we're in a space of uncertainty, to get to certainty we hold things really tightly and that really does not get you to where it is that you want to go. So what is sounding natural anyway? It's a few key things that you probably don't think about but you experience as a viewer. The first piece is pacing.
Hiwote:So it's not dragging, but it's not moving too quickly. There are pauses and there is a certain kind of rhythm to how the information is being delivered. The second is conversational tone, meaning it sounds like they are talking to you and not at you. The third is comfort with imperfection, meaning they're comfortable with the fact that they're going to make mistakes so when they stumble they self correct instead of panicking and overreacting to it. And then we have vocal variety, meaning the pitch goes up and then it goes down.
Hiwote:There's energy that shifts as this person is speaking. It's not monotone like this which you hear there is no vocal variety in. And then we have low self monitoring which means the person is not thinking a ton about how they sound, they're actually very present and they're having a conversation with the audience. And there are studies that show that all of these things can improve with deliberate practice. A 2024 study showed that a six week training program for university students reduced physiological markers of stress, meaning their heart rate, their cortisol all went down after going through this program, and there were notable and significant markers of their improvement, both in terms of how other people rated them and also how they rated themselves.
Hiwote:I'm telling you all this to say good communication skills, that's not a fixed trait. That is actually something that you can improve on with practice. So let's talk about how exactly you go about practicing this. Number one is record yourself often. So this might mean that you record more episodes than you actually end up publishing.
Hiwote:What you really want to do is record enough things that you get feedback on and continue to improve. I don't want you to stay in this world where you're just like recording and improving and tinkering, but it is really important that you know that you don't have to publish every single thing that you record. Some things that you record, they were just a testing ground. They were just a learning space for you. And it's really important that you get feedback and improve based on that feedback.
Hiwote:And as I mentioned earlier, do it with a friend, do it with a mentor, or apply to the accelerator below because that is something that I do for all of the students in the accelerator. The second thing you want to do is shrink the skill. So don't try to become Oprah overnight. We want to fix one thing at a time. Maybe it's that you speak really fast, or maybe you speak really slowly.
Hiwote:You want to fix one thing. Work on improving one thing at a time and give yourself as much time as you need. For most people, that's a week or two of repeatedly working on the same skill, and then you can start layering on another aspect and another aspect. But focus on one skill that you're trying to improve at a time. And then you want to speak to one person, not a broad audience, okay?
Hiwote:And the reason for this is if you are speaking to one person, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's the avatar of your ideal listener, if you can speak directly to her, it makes it so much easier to be conversational instead of like entering this broadcasting mode. We can't really connect to you. We want to speak to you, the human being. We want to listen to you, the person who has their own opinions and their own perspectives, not you, the broadcaster. And then you want to give yourself the gift of volume.
Hiwote:So the sooner you accept that like your first however many episodes, twenty, thirty episodes, they're not going to be your best episodes. But if you can keep pushing past that, your episodes are going to be good. If you can believe that, it's gonna be very easy for you to put in the reps and incrementally improve episode over episode. And I think this is quite hard to get yourself to accept because if you're anything like me, you feel like there is a gift that should be shining through and if it's not, it feels really frustrating. But part of your job is regulating yourself and regulating your emotions when that comes up because nobody sounds the same on episode 100 as they did on episode one.
Hiwote:And on that note, when you're listening to your own episodes and trying to improve them, you have to become your own coach, okay? So you can't let that inner critic take over and you start feeling like, oh my god, I'm not good at this, why am I even doing this? When those emotions come up, a big part of your job in any creative endeavor and definitely in podcasting is to regulate that inner critic. Because if you let that voice take over, you're gonna start and stop and start and stop. And ask me how I know.
Hiwote:I did it with myself for years because I would listen back and think this is no good and I was my own worst critic. And honestly, it's really sad looking back because I wasted a lot of time criticizing myself when I could have been coaching myself. So that is it. Are some people naturally more talented or gifted at storytelling and communication? Probably, but that doesn't really have anything to do with you.
Hiwote:So the only thing you have to do, and this is based on the evidence, is put in deliberate practice to be the best version of the podcast host that only you can be. The people who we think sound natural didn't start that way, they just started, and now we see the byproduct of all of the years of work that they've put in. And if you are someone who's working on your own podcast and you're trying to incrementally improve episode over episode, drop a comment below and tell me what specific subskill you are working on. I will see you in the next video.