Make Money & Build a Fantastic Community

Unedited Transcript of the Episode:

TK: If you’re not having fun, why do it? And I’m having so much fun with this.

Hi, I’m Andy smiley, your friendly podcast guide. I help you increase your downloads without letting your podcast take over your life today. I’m sharing a conversation with Taya, the host of the, for the love of history podcast, we had so much fun chatting about her podcast and podcasting in general, you can tell from the amount of laughter that is in this episode. I know that you’ll also be smiling while you listen, because Tellez joy is contagious. Here’s your friendly reminder, that I’ll talk about the main things I learned from this chat at the end of the episode.

So you don’t have to take notes. Unless you want to.

Andi: I am so excited to have TK from For the Love of History on the podcast today. So fun. I’ve kind of been fangirling for a while at this point before we actually like I’m starting the show.

Um, and I promise listeners, you will love her too. By the end, she is absolutely lovely. Um,

TK: Yes.

Andi: I have a couple of questions for you, um, to introduce yourself a little bit to the listeners, but you told me you have a funny story

TK: Interesting story. Yeah.

Andi: why you go by TK.

TK: So, um, my, uh, my real name, uh, is Taya. But I was so, so I started this podcast four years ago. And the, like, trailer episode, Came out on April 1st, and that was incredibly intentional, uh, because I thought, like, if this sucks and everybody hates it, then I could be like, yeah, psych, just kidding.

April fools. Like, I’m not, I wouldn’t start a podcast. Who would do that? Not me, me, but I just totally bombed. And so I thought, like, I could have, you know, my. I’m a very big proponent of like, have a character of yourself sometimes when you feel nervous or not like, Not like you can do it as yourself. Fake it till you make it kind of a thing.

So I thought, okay, I’ll just have a name. TK, my first name and my middle name, Taya Kai, put it together. TK, perfect. Then nobody knows who I am. And I could just put this thing out into the internet and then be anonymous. But then I realized, no, I like this. This is great. And I don’t want to be anonymous anymore.

So I show my face all the time.

Andi: Yeah. I was going to say, you have a fabulous YouTube channel, so you’re

TK: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, at that point, TK, it just, it’s stuck. So I like it.

Andi: It’s very fun. I really enjoy it. I. Yeah, honestly, I don’t think I knew that your, I figured your name wasn’t TK, but like, I don’t think I knew what your name was. So that’s kind of fun.

TK: Not many people do. Now, you know, proprietary information.

Andi: There you go. I feel, I feel special. So here we go. Okay. So before we dive into for the love of history, I want to, um, let my listeners get to know you.

Well, and me get to know you a little bit better. So what is the last podcast you listened to for you? Not for like editing, not for like research, but for

TK: funsies. It’s so silly. It’s so silly. So there is this, my, my best friend in the whole world loves basketball. And she is from Canada, so she’s a huge Raptors fan. And there is a. Like, once a month, the Raptors players come on and just talk about random stuff. I don’t like basketball. I don’t care about the Raptors, but I love my friend.

And I want to be able to, like, talk to her about these things and be like, Yeah, did you hear that one thing that that one player said? I don’t know their names. I don’t know who they are, but that is the last podcast that I listened to purely for joy. I guess it was friendship research, but

Andi: I mean, friendship is joy.

TK: So yeah, that was the last one I listened to that had nothing to do with anything that I do for like my work. Yeah,

Andi: That’s very pure. Like you’re just like, I’m just doing this from a friend.

TK: just, yeah, I just love my friend.

Andi: Last question. What is a simple life hack that is making your life better right

TK: simple life hack that is making my life better. Um, what do I do? A simple life hack. Oh, okay. I don’t know if this would be called a life hack necessarily. It’s a life hack app though. So I have ADHD. Um, and. The, the neuro spice, she’s spicy. And sometimes I have a really hard time, like with, um, executive function.

So like deciding what the first thing, what the second thing, what the third thing is that I need to do. And so this app, which is called Goblin Tools, it breaks down a to do list for you. So like, for example, if you need, Oh, it’s really cool. If you need to do like, I put laundry. And so just I typed in laundry and then I hit the magic word Like, tool button.

And so from laundry, it tells you all of the steps that you need to do to complete the laundry. Yeah, like sort the laundry into colors, check care labels, pre treat any stains, and then fold and put clothes away. So I don’t have to think about it. I just put it in the goblin tool. And then the best thing about this for him thing is the chef.

Where you click the chef button and you just put in all of the ingredients that you have in your house and it gives you a recipe of what you can make from those ingredients. Ridiculous. Yeah, it’s crazy. So that’s my life

Andi: Okay,

TK: Goblin tools.

Andi: writing it down. I feel like Um, this question is mostly just for me to make my life better because every time I’m like, yeah, you’re right. I need that. So let’s

TK: That’s good for other people to know.

Andi: but really like, yes, okay, that’s, I’m really excited mostly for the chef. Well, actually for both, cause I feel like I can break it down myself, but who, who wants to do that? When, when a tool will do it

TK: much time for you. And those aren’t the only things that it can do. Those are just the ones that I use the most.

Andi: That sounds lovely. Yeah. Absolutely.

TK: I use this goblin tools every day, every day. It’s so good.

Andi: I feel like I need to start using

TK: recommend it.

Andi: Now we feel like we know you a little bit better. TK let’s dive into your show. I found you, like I said, on Instagram and fell in love with you and then realized you had a podcast and was like, yay. I get to talk to her about her podcast on my podcast.

If you, if she’ll say yes and you did. So, yay. Um, So , what made you want to start your podcast four

TK: Yeah, so my podcast is a covid podcast as I like to call them because there was like an unprecedented number of podcasts created during the time between like 2019 and The beginning of 2021 saw like an explosion of podcasts and I was one of those podcasts and I was living in Japan at the time. I was teaching high school and I was the English teacher there and the, I was the teacher for like communications class.

So that’s all talking. But at the beginning of COVID here in Japan, the kids were not allowed to talk in class. So everyone was, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not allowed to like talk, like facing each other. It was wild.

Yeah, and so my classes got cut in half, and I was like, what am I going to do with all of this time? And then I was thinking, like, I really miss history, because I was a world history teacher back in the States. I was a 7th grade world history teacher, and that’s what my degree is in. And, um, yeah. I was like, I want to talk about history again.

I miss history. I love history. And so I loved listening to the History Chicks. The History Chicks is the first podcast I ever listened to. Right? They’re just like, so, they’re like my comfort podcast now. I love them.

Andi: And their show notes are out

TK: Insane. I only aspire to be as good as them with their show notes. It’s, Wild how good they are.

So I’ve actually used some of their show notes in research for another episode,

Andi: That does not surprise me at all. They are so thorough and they have like pictures. I’m like, hello. Thank you. Thank you for your service.

TK: I History chicks. If you’re out there listening to this podcast as I know that you are, uh, please email us So it was, I was on my bike one day. on the way to see my friend, who also loves history, but from like a literature aspect. And I was like, Steph, do you think I could start a podcast? She was like, yeah, great. Do it.

Like, great. Okay. I’m gonna start a podcast. And so I recorded my first episode on my hella old. iPad mini and on my phone, so janky. Recorded it on the memo. Like, you know, the voice memos that you can leave, recorded it on the voice memo, took royalty free music from YouTube and like played it up close on the speaker to have like, I know so janky.

Andi: That’s awesome. I love

TK: want to invest money into it if it wasn’t going to go, like if it wasn’t going to go anywhere. So. Then I sent it to my mom and my friends and my boyfriend, who is now my husband. I was like, do you think this is good? Do you think I could do this? They were like, yeah, you could do this.

And yeah, so then I recorded it on my MacBook with no microphone. So the audio quality is potato. So potato. And yeah, I did the turkey God as the very first episode and yeah, that’s, that’s how it started.

Andi: I love it. Well, I like the detail of the YouTube royalty music is the best part because you do what you gotta do and you did the thing and you’re still here. So here we go. Sometimes you just gotta, um, Sometimes you just have to do it ugly. My, one of my favorite, like, businessy people, Rachel Rogers, she has a book called, We Should All Be Millionaires. It’s a lovely book. I really love it about how women all need to be millionaires.

And I agree. But, um, she talks, one of the things she talks about is just start it ugly. Just get it out there. See if you like it, see if it works

TK: And it was ugly. Yeah. Thank you.

Andi: Totally. So you call your listeners delicious donuts, which makes me so happy every time I hear it. Did you come up with that? Like, or did they ask to be called that? Like, how did that

TK: know what? I just, I love calling people ridiculous nicknames. Like, yeah. I call my husband Nugget. Which is so, so ridiculous. And anybody who I love, like, I call like one of my very good friends. I call her pancake. Let’s very food related.

I love food. Um, yeah. Liebkuchen is, which is like a German. Pastry is another nickname for one of my friends. So I just come up with the most ridiculous nicknames. And one day I don’t even remember which episode it was. It just happened. And I was like, get, I was really close to the microphone and I was like, my delicious little donut, I need you to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Like whatever, whatever it is that I said, it just came out. It just came out. So, yeah. And my audience was like, yup.

Andi: I

TK: donuts. Yeah.

Andi: That’s that is what we are. I know. I, I was perusing your merch and I was like, Oh my gosh, there’s a tote bag that says delicious donuts. And I was like, I might need to buy that.

TK: I’ll, I’ll throw you a discount code

Andi: oh my gosh. Done. Cause. I mean, who doesn’t need another tote bag? Tote

TK: bags are the best. And those tote bags are really good. Not to like toot my own horn or anything, but

Andi: I mean, to your own horn all day long. I’m all about it. Oh my gosh. Um, so back on like a broader scale, not just nicknames of your listeners, which I love, um, what is your favorite part of creating for the love of history?

TK: Oh my gosh. So my favorite part at the beginning, my favorite part has changed over these last four years. So my favorite part when I first started my podcast was just getting this information out, just like learning cool stuff and having an excuse, having a place to put it. Because I love learning. I love learning.

I love research. So for me, that was the best part about it. And back, you know, the first like two years of my podcast, it was, I was getting less than 50 downloads an episode or something like that. And like, I lost my mind when I, my first episode broke 100 downloads. Like it was incredible. And, you know, that’s what it was at the beginning, but then the first messages from the delicious donuts starting to, started to come in.

And, uh, people were like, Hey. I was listening to your podcast. And it helped me. It motivated me to go back to school or like, Hey, my life has been really crazy right now and your podcast is the only thing that’s been consistent. So thank you. I really appreciate it. And I have, um, I’m ridiculous, but I have a folder on my phone called Impostor Syndrome Be Gone. Right here. Impostor Syndrome Be Gone. I don’t want to show all the messages because some people’s names are on there.

Andi: Oh

TK: I like screenshot the things, like, That people say when I’m like, Oh, I don’t want to do this anymore. Nobody’s listening. I’m speaking into the void. Like I’m not good enough. This isn’t good enough. I need to be better. And then I like go into the imposter syndrome folder and I’m like, okay, no, like this is the best part about making a podcast.

Oh my God. I’m going to cry. Jeez. Yeah.

Andi: it. Well, okay. I have so many thoughts. First of all, I need that folder. I’m going to start that folder for me and I feel like, I don’t think you’re alone in it becoming about the listener because I feel like that’s what creatives do. We make things because we like to make them. And then we realized that other people like it too. And we’re like, Oh, yay.

Like this is making your life better and my life better. Great.

TK: so good. It’s the, like, one of the best win win situations ever, I feel like.

Andi: Yes. Oh, I completely agree. Um, one of my favorite things in your show is that if you don’t know how to say something, like you’ll try it and then you’ll be like, no, that’s not right. And then you’ll like Google it

and then you like have it tell you how to say it correctly. And most of the time you’re right. So yay. But I love that you leave all of that in. And that you don’t take yourself too seriously? Was that like a conscious choice or is that just like the way it happened?

TK: It, I think, both.

Like things in life are very serious and those things should be taken seriously, but I am a lady sitting at a kitchen table talking into the void about a god that was once like a turkey.

Like, are you, are we, this is not one of those times to be serious. But there are very serious topics that I cover on my podcast, too. Like, I covered the Minamoto poisoning in Japan. I covered topics like, um, Okinawa cave nurses, you know, II. And those are important times to take things seriously, but I don’t feel that it’s not serious to not know something, if that makes sense.

Like, I think showing that I am not this omnipotent, all knowing being that just knows everything. Because I’m not. I don’t know how to say things sometimes, but it’s important to me to say it correctly. And so, yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s what I thought when I was making my podcast. I don’t want people to be intimidated by making a mistake mistakes are good and mistakes are important.

Andi: I love it.

TK: And then also, I didn’t even realize it, but I was watching, um, a podcast. Uh, Brittany Broski was on a podcast. She’s like a, an internet lady. If you’re on TikTok at all, you probably know about the kombucha girl. The girl who like drank kombucha and was like, mm. Like that meme. Yeah, so

Andi: now I know

TK: I was watching, um, a podcast interview with her and she was talking about what one of the things that she thinks makes her so successful because she’s an incredibly successful, successful creative.

And she leaves in a lot of her mistakes because it’s like the audience is then it feels like you’re in the room when the thing is being made or when, you know, the, your favorite creator laughs, like on SNL, the best skits are the ones where the actors laugh at themselves. And I think that applies when it comes to like podcasts too.

So making a mistake is like bringing in the listener, like, I made a mistake. Like how funny is that? And then you, you know, That’s, that’s how you can bring in people a little bit closer.

Andi: Totally, I agree. It makes you More approachable like as a host just like look I’m a human too I didn’t edit out everything to make me sound like a perfect robot. So I love that the way that I found you was reels on the gram, I think it was Instagram.

So how do you come up with the ideas? Because they are fabulous.

TK: So, it’s a weird process. So, I talk to myself a lot. And when an idea starts as a question, I usually decide that that’s gonna be a Sharon, like a history hotline reel. Because it’s a question that I had that sparked this whole episode in the first place. Or that sparked the idea in the first place.

Like, uh, for example, I have, um, a history hotline with Sharon. The character’s name is Sharon, because she’s sharing the facts. I was, you know, even, I have a degree in history, but sometimes I forget. Okay, B C E C E A D B C. Like, what? I get confused all the time. So I thought, hey, this is like a really good history hotline question.

So, yeah, I’ll make it a history hotline question. Because to me, it would feel better to have this lovely midwestern woman kindly and gently explain to me what B C E C E A D is rather than somebody coming up with this You know, a little microphone be like, Hey, are you dumb?

Like me? Do you not know about this? Um, and then for shana. Is my other character. There’s lots of shh names. So Shena for short for shenanigans. All of her, um, videos are just like wild bananas. Like, what the heck are you talking about? Kind of facts.

So anytime there’s like. Victorian nipple rings, or, you know, we’re talking about the first lady pirate, or we’re talking about any, anything like that. Things that I would burst into a room to tell my friend, it usually ends up being a Shena reel. And then, sometimes, uh, when kind of they both don’t fit, And I need to get the most interesting thing out at the beginning because people have a really short attention span on, on Reels so if you don’t hook them immediately, then they’re like, scroll past this.

So when there is something that is maybe, there’s like a lot of information that needs to go into the reel, but the information itself is not necessarily the most exciting. I’ll always put the most exciting thing at the beginning and then that just becomes me talking to a microphone with my cat in the background, if that makes sense. That’s kind of like my, my process. And then I try to space out history hotlines and Sharon and my mic ones and. All of the different reels that I do so that it’s not like the same thing over and over again.

Andi: Wait. Okay. And you just did a new one, like recently. I don’t remember her name,

TK: Oh, Gertrude!

Andi: and moist.

TK: Yes! Gertrude is a Yes!

Andi: I laughed so hard.

TK: Yes! She’s a brand new character that I just that was like her first video. Um, I love characters. I love making characters. Cause like I said, if you can’t do it yourself, just make up a character who can do it. Fake it till you make it. And I thought You know, Gertrude, because my friend Steph, I feel like I’ve talked about my friend Steph like 10, 000 times in this episode.

But my friend Steph, uh, when we were doing the voting on what Sharon’s name should be in the history hotline, my friend Steph was like, Gertrude is a superior name. And I was like, okay, well one day I’ll make a character for you, Steph. And that happened to be Gertrude. And Gertrude came about from me having a really hard time having like witty comebacks to mean things that people have said to me and yeah, cuz I Had a really hard time in middle school, and I was bullied very hard And I always thought like this would be a great comeback three days ago when Jessica was being mean to me or whatever.

Um, and I thought like Gertrude, she’s the spicy one. She is going to be this southern lady who’s not evil, but she will use her powers of the trans dimensional hotline that I have now created.

Andi: Yes.

TK: Yeah.

Andi: Okay. I think I will make sure to link that in the show notes, that reel because it made me so happy. And by the time this show comes out, or this episode, you’ll probably have like

TK: A lot more Gertie

Andi: I think the first one will always have my heart because like in the end you call the demon or Gertrude calls the demon being like, hey, I got a customer for you.

And I was like, yes! I love it so much!

TK: If you’re not having fun, why do it? And I’m having so much fun with this.

Andi: I am so glad, well, and it comes off cause I, I like, I can see the fun that you’re having and it makes me have a lot of fun too. So good job. So one thing I don’t feel that comfortable about talking about, but I am working on it is talking about money. So this is why I have money

TK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andi: First of all, do you currently make money from your podcast?

TK: I make money for my podcast, but I do not make enough money for it to be a full time thing. So I’m still a teacher. Um, and I teach online right now. Just, you know, Because we live in a place that doesn’t have any international schools. We move every three to four years because of my husband’s work.

Um, so right now I am online teaching. And, uh, before I was teaching at an international school. I was a fourth grade teacher. It was great. It was wonderful. And I was doing the podcast, but you know, working 60, sometimes 70 hours a week as a teacher, it doesn’t give you a lot of time. So this almost a year ago is when I stopped teaching and that’s when Um, I was able to spend more time on my podcast and my Instagram, and that’s when I created a YouTube.

We’re still not monetized yet. Hopefully we’ll be monetized by the time this episode comes out in the fall. We’re halfway to monetization on YouTube, um, because it takes 4, 000 watch hours. monetize on YouTube. So, we’re at like 2, 200 whatever right now. So, I just joined a network in January.

And that was because, like, solid, super great, like, super great. friend of Queen’s Podcast, love them. They are fantastic people. And I messaged, um, the host, uh, of Queen’s Podcast. And I was like, Hey, I know that you’re on a network. Like, can you. Recommend, like, how did you get on a network? I want to get on a network because my download numbers started to, like, go up.

And here’s, like, a little peek behind the curtains. Unlike YouTube, podcasts don’t pay you automatically. You have to get sponsors. You have to get or join a network that will put sponsors in for you. And so before, I was, like, grinding for, like, 50 bucks. for like some sponsor to like give to me because a lot of sponsors don’t value podcast downloads like in it’s really really hard if you’re not a part of a network and so um yeah I I messaged her and she did me a solid and then I didn’t know, but she just messaged the CEO of Airwave and then he messaged me.

And yeah, then we had a meeting and he was like, you’re a really small podcast, but you know, I really like what you’re doing.

So let’s give you a one year contract and see how it goes. And so for the first time, like I’ve gotten three paychecks from my podcast since, uh, Feb Yeah, February. Everything kicked off in February, so yeah, finally starting to monetize the podcast. This is really, really, really cool. Very motivating.

. And my I have a Patreon as well, so that’s like the most consistent. Pay I guess from the podcast, but still it’s just it’s not enough to be a full time job quite yet It will eventually someday

Andi: You’re getting there. You’re getting, you got this. I believe in you. Yeah. I really like airwave,

TK: Yeah, me

Andi: network. Um, I like a lot of the podcasts that are on there. And so that was, and that is how we got connected officially when I was like fangirling over your Instagram and I was like, Hey, wait, I know that network.

TK: yeah,

Andi: yeah. Monetizing for podcasts is fascinating because I feel like you have to get pretty creative to make money. Like it’s there. I, I believe that it’s there. It’s just, yeah, you have to get

TK: You really do. So, now I’m doing like things on Instagram and I got my, I got my first sponsorship on Instagram. Like I did my first like paid promotion on Instagram. So like that’s helping.

Andi: Okay. So before we hopped on, I asked you what episode you wanted to talk about, like a specific episode, because it’s really fun to, it’s fun to talk about the podcast.

TK: Mmhmm.

Andi: but it’s really fun to dive into an episode.

So the one you chose is the cult of Sobek, the insatiable crocodile God. And when I listened to this, I was laughing out loud. It was such a fun episode. So yay. I’m really excited to talk

TK: so ridiculous so I love doing Because my tagline for my podcast is World History, Women’s History and Weird History. And Sometimes I find the weirdest topics. Like, I was looking at, like, I wanted to do some more mythology because every year I do, um, a history BFF, like, community census where, you know, I have, like, questions and stuff where I ask the community, like, what do you want to see?

What would you like to see more of? What topic? Things like that. And somebody was like, more mythology. So I was like, great, like, let’s look up some weird mythology stuff because I don’t want to talk about Set, I don’t want to talk about Thor, I don’t want to talk about Zeus. I want to talk about somebody weird. And the cult of Sobek came up. And I was like, okay. And I was like, oh, okay crocodile God or whatever But I’ve never heard of him before so I clicked on there’s this youtuber that I absolutely love his name is I don’t know but his Channel is religion for breakfast, and he’s great.

Like, I love his stuff. And he was talking about the cult of Sobek, and he was like, he’s a very serious man, and incredibly smart, very informative. But he was talking about how this primordial crocodile god created the Nile River. With his sweat, because he was just so sweaty, he sweated the Nile River into existence.

And they also call him, excuse me, the lord of, of, of things that come out of things to create babies. I

Andi: Oh my gosh.

TK: Spit out my coffee. I was like just like watching it and I full just like when they said the Lord of baby gravy, but he didn’t say baby gravy and I Lost my mind. I was like, how is this man talking about this so seriously and with such a straight face? And I cannot handle it. I was like, this is an episode that’s happening right now.

And I loved it so much. Every step of the way, learning more and more things about this absolutely wild crocodile. There was, this cult was so popular that the city in which, um, like he, he had the most following is now called Opolis. That’s a real place.

It’s its real name. And in Crocodo Opolis, there was a temple dedicated to sobeck. And there was an a crocodile. In the temple that they would feed honey and beer and really good meat and they would dress it up and this alligator just lived its best life. But it, like, it’s so sad because it lived too well and then it, like, it died of, like, gout, like, rich man’s disease.

It’s so crazy, yeah. So I love that episode so much. It’s so sad. So random. Ridiculousness.

Andi: Yes. Yeah. Okay. So one of my favorite parts of that episode was how many euphemisms for sex you had to come up with. I laughed so hard. So my husband is a

TK: Love

Andi: so like, it was really funny for me to be like, Hmm, never heard that one.

TK: hold that as like a badge of honor that the wife of a sex therapist is like a guy. I had new euphemisms for sex for you.

Andi: Oh my gosh. Well, you had to have a lot too. Like, Sobek, Sobek got busy. So that was like,

TK: Busy.

Andi: Wait. Okay. So I was going to ask, how did you come up with so many? Did you just like start making a list and like

TK: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Like I think downstairs disco is probably one of my most commonly used ones. Um, and I would, I just like looked, uh, urban dictionary. I urban dictionaried it and I was like, Ooh, I like this one. This one’s gross. Gonna put that over there. I was like, I like this. I like that. And then there, I think I use some like.

Weird, like, Victorian or something, like, Regency language for coitus, if you will.

Andi: Yeah. I bet that took some time to like make that list. Cause I feel like you’ve, you had at least like 15, like there was a lot in there. Yeah. Yeah.

TK: Which is such a weird list to have on your phone.

Andi: Yes, yes it is. There’s, it’s imposter syndrome list and euphemisms for sex list.

TK: Right next to each other. Of equal importance.

Andi: Very necessary for the podcast. There you go. That’s the other, that’s the other list I need to

TK: Euphemisms for sex.

Andi: have a successful podcast.

TK: Oh my

Andi: Oh my gosh. Okay. This is a question I’ve had for you. Since I listened to this episode, one of your catchphrases in like a lot of your episodes, like catchphrase is a weird word, but like things that you say is

TK: Sweaty Sobek.

Andi: Did that come from this episode

So that’s like, For the love of history canon, I guess. It’s like, like my sweet sweaty Sobek. I just think that alliteration is so fun, and then it’s like a little like inside joke for people, you know, listeners, and yeah. Cause I don’t, I don’t like to say like, oh my god, because, you know, I don’t want to offend people.

TK: I, I like to be very, you know, considerate of, any time I talk about religion, I like to be really considerate. And I don’t want to alienate anybody, but nobody’s gonna be mad at sweet, sweaty Sobek. Nobody. So, a

Andi: The, yeah, that’s fine. Well, I feel like you’ve kind of, so I, in a lot of, so I love reading fantasy books and one thing that I love is like their weird curse words that they come up with. And I feel like you’ve made your own curse words. You’re kind of like a fantasy book. And I love

TK: fantasy book. Thank you. That is the best compliment ever. I’m going to, I’m going to keep that with me. It’s going in the imposter syndrome folder.

Andi: I love that you have like, like, yeah, just all of your phrases just make me happy every time. I feel like I smile so much when I listen to your show and it just makes me so happy. And it’s not like, like your jokes are great. Like I love them, but like, it’s usually like your random phrases, like you’re like, Oh, sweet.

And, and I can tell when you get close to the mic and you’re like delicious donuts and that’s just, I just love it so much.

TK: it’s so funny because I do that to people in my real life like when I’m very I like I get so close And i’m like listen to me right now. I need to I need to tell you this Zero personal

Andi: There you go. It just translates. Yes. Oh, I love it so much. That is all of my questions that I have for you. Do you have anything else that you want to add before you tell us all where

TK: Um, just thank you so much for having me on this. Like it, I can’t even tell you how much this like heals my little inner child to know that there are people out there who like want to know about my process, want to know about the podcast, like enjoy listening to me, which sounds so good. It’s so selfish, but, you know, I just appreciate it so much, and I really just thank you for having me on and having such incredible questions, and it was just really fun to talk to you, so thank you so much!

Andi: You’re so sweet. Thank you. I, uh, That is interviewing is something that I’m working really hard on trying to be better. So that means a lot to me. Thank you. I feel like, yeah, like a, like a peek behind the curtain. Like, that’s one of the things that probably takes me the longest is coming up with the questions that I ask.

Cause like, I want them to be interesting, but also I have a lot of like personal questions that I’m like, like delicious donuts. And I feel like it has to be a mix of both, but also, yeah. So thank you. That means a lot to

TK: was wonderful. So, I had a fantastic time today.

Andi: You’re so sweet. Okay, before I let you go, please tell me where can people find you on all of the things, all of the

TK: So,

Yeah, for finding me in different places, um, you can find me on any podcast platform. I’m on Spotify, Apple, all of the podcast places.

And I’m also on YouTube and everything is for the love of history.

Andi: go listen on YouTube. We got to get

to that

TK: Thank you. My brother just like puts it on like in the background when he’s like doing stuff and he just like watches.

Andi: That makes my heart so happy. I love it when we just need supporting people and like, I love that.

Makes me so happy.

TK: You can find me on Instagram at fortheloveof__historypodcast. Um, I sure, I’m sure everything will be in the, in the show notes. I’ve got a website that’s fortheloveofhistorypod.

com. I’ve got a Patreon, and I’ve got some cool merch, which I’m wearing today. So, for the love of history,

Andi: Wait, who is

TK: Tomoe Gozen. She is a samurai warrior woman. Uh, yeah, she’s

Andi: Love that. Okay. I haven’t listened to that episode yet. I’m adding

it to

TK: one of my favorite, historical figures. So, yeah, you can find me on all those

Andi: Okay. Well, you’re delightful. This has been so much fun. I hope that we can be friends forever because you’re delightful and I want you in my life and your energy is making me so happy and just helping me remember why podcasters are the

TK: Podcasters are incredible. Incredible. I love this community and I just had so much fun and thank you so much for doing what you do and you’re doing great.

Andi: Oh, you’re sweet.

I hope you smiled and laughed as much as we did during our conversation. Taya is such a wealth of knowledge for so many aspects of podcasting, but especially in building a community through your podcast. Here are the top five takeaways I have from my conversation with Taya.

The first one is create inside jokes that help your listeners feel like a community. Tia does this in many ways, but the two main ones that I noticed are nicknames. So she calls her community delicious donuts, which I absolutely love. And she has freezes like sweet, sweaty Sobeck that. On the surface are just cutesy and fun and kind of ridiculous.

But her listeners that have been with her for a long time, it’s kind of like an inside joke. Right? She had a whole episode about sweet, sweaty Sobeck. And now it’s kind of a call back every once in a while you hear her bring that up. Actually, not every once in a while, it’s in almost every episode.

I really like her podcast. I’ve listened to a lot of the episodes and she says often, and it does, it makes me smile every time because I know what she’s referring to. And I listened to an entire episode about sweaty Sobeck.

The next thing that I learned from TA is to have an imposter syndrome folder. In the episode, she talked about how on the days when she sad. She will pull up her imposter syndrome folder. And I literally made one for myself. I don’t think you can read any names, but it literally says imposter syndrome be gone. And it really has helped me.

I. There are just days, you know, when you feel like you’re not making any sort of difference. And you’re wondering why you’re even still trying. That is when you open your imposter syndrome, be gone folder and. It really helps. It’s helped me. I highly encourage you to make one for yourself and the way that I did it, just so you know, is I just made a new album on my, like on my phone, in my photos.

And then every time I get like a new review, that’s really nice. Or someone says something like a nice DM, I’ll just screenshot it and then put it in the album. Really. No crazy, like technological things need to happen for you to have an imposter syndrome. Be gone folder.

The third thing that I learned from Taya is to have fun with your show.

If you aren’t having fun, you should probably change something

there are many reasons that you should be having fun with your show. But the two that I want to mention are, first of all, if you’re not having fun with your show, then your listeners probably aren’t having fun listening. And. If they’re not having fun listening, they’re probably not going to come back.

And the second thing is, is you deserve to have fun. You deserve to have fun with whatever you’re doing. So. Change something. If you aren’t having fun with your podcast changed something. Change the format, maybe change the people that you’re interviewing or tweak your topic a little bit.

So it’s more fun. Figure out a way to have fun or stop doing it because. Life’s too short to be doing things that aren’t fun.

The fourth thing that I learned from Taya kind of goes back to the first thing with creating inside jokes. Um, but I wanted to dive into it a little bit more and it’s treat your listeners like friends.

Like I talked about earlier, having nicknames, having inside jokes,

but those, aren’t the only things that you can do to help your listeners feel like friends. During my conversation with Taya, she talked about how in real life with her friends, she’ll get up really close to them and she’ll give them no personal space to tell them something really important. So do something like that with your listeners.

And that can be as simple as making sure that you’re using a conversational voice and not like, oh, broadcaster’s voice. Just talk to your listeners, like you would talk to your friends. Because I know when you treat your listeners, like your friends, then they feel like they are your friend and then they keep coming back and listening to more. And then they tell their friends about your podcast because they feel so seen.

And so part of your community,

it’s a win all around.

The fifth thing that I learned from Tia and our conversation is to be vulnerable with your listeners. There are a lot of different ways to do this. One way that Taya does this is she leaves in when she stumbles over her words and it just helps us. Connect with her. And remember that she’s human just like us.

I’ve been trying to be better about this by leaving in. When I stumble over my words or. Like I did in this episode leaving in a lot of the laughter because. I want you all to know that I am not a perfect robot. I am a human and sometimes we can get, we can edit too much and we can edit the human out of an episode. So I’m trying really hard to not edit my humanness. Out of the episodes because it’s hard to relate to it.

Robot it’s much easier to relate. To a human.

So just as a recap, here are the takeaways I had from my conversation with Taya, create inside jokes that help your listeners feel like a community. The second thing is to have an imposter syndrome be gone folder. On your phone. Um, the third thing is to have fun with your show. If you are having fun, please change something. The fourth thing is treat your listeners like friends,

the fifth thing is to be vulnerable with your listeners.

Will you share this episode with your podcasting friend?

Who’s been struggling with building a community around their podcast. Taya has so many amazing insights on specific ways to do that with your podcast. We’ve talked about a lot in this recap. In next week’s episode, you’ll hear a conversation I had with Rachel, the host of don’t drink the milk.

We talk about how curiosity has been one of the keys to the success of her show and how all podcasters can harness that for their shows. Thanks for being here and I’ll see you next week.