The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast

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► Tell us about you and your podcast

I'm the Director of Thoughts and Ideas @ Knowing Self Knowing Others. I'm also an Assistant Director in a Children's Charity, having worked in the English and Welsh public sector for over 20 years. Throughout my career, I've been interested in working relationships: the dynamics between people and the impact both good and bad relationships have on individuals and their ability to do their job.

All guests share their thoughts on how they define self-awareness and whether they think there is a relationship between self-awareness and leader effectiveness. We also talk about whether they think effective leaders can be found at all levels of organisations and whether leaders at the most strategic level of organisations have greater self-awareness than leaders at other levels of organisations. We finish up by talking about whether effective leaders have more self-awareness than ineffective leaders and share ideas about how to become more self-aware.

I want listeners to think about their own self-awareness, embark on their journey of greater self awareness and start workplace discussions about self awareness as a way of making workplace more psychologically safe places where respectful challenge is welcomed, and where people's voices are heard at all levels.

We talk through some thought provoking questions, gain some interesting insights, share some eye opening stories and unearth some controversial opinions!

If you are an organisational psychologist, leadership coach, organisational leader, people manager or working in human resources, this podcast will be of interest to you. If you’ve worked in organisations that have positive cultures or suffer from bullying and incivility this podcast will interest you too. If you’re interested in working relationships, the behaviour of individuals and being a better colleague, you should listen to it.
 

► Why & how did you start this podcast? 

The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast was born out of my desire to take my research from academia to the office. I finished my doctorate about self-awareness, leader effectiveness and leadership at all levels in 2021 and I wanted to take my learning from the text books out into the workplace to make it live, relevant and useful to people in the world of work. Through discussions with thinkers from around the globe the importance of self aware leadership is being elevated across all sectors.

I started the podcast in September 2022 after recording a number of episodes in August. I’m hoping that it will run for a minimum of 2 years, meaning there’ll be about 50 live interviews over that time
 

► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?

Episodes go live every 2 weeks and I’m considering making this weekly, but for every episode, I do a written Top Takeaways review which I then make intro TikTok videos and YouTube shorts so I’m not sure if there are enough hours in the day to do all of that whilst working full time!

I do my interviewing and editing on the weekends and in the evenings which, with a fortnightly podcast is achievable.

Right now my podcast only costs me my monthly hosting. It makes no money at all but there is a donations button on my website for anyone who loves it enough to donate!
 

► What do you gain from podcasting?        

I’m really enjoying speaking to people who understand the importance of effective working relationships and how self awareness underpins that. It’s gratifying that so many people are giving me positive feedback about the podcast. LinkedIn is my main source of guests. I’m always discovering new people working in this ‘workplace relationships’ space and they often come with new perspectives and new things to say.
 

► How does your podcasting process look like? 

My podcasting is very rudimentary!
I start with a few messages or emails back and forth to organise a date and time. I then send out a Zoom invitation. Right now I’ve not invested in a paid Zoom so all interviews are less than 40 minutes! I'm going to take a look at Zencastr as an alternative but it wants Chrome and I use Safari and I’m not sure I want to add that complication to my podcasting life!

I take all of the audio and edit it in Garageband and upload it onto the brilliantly simple Buzzsprout. I have used Audacity but it’s not where I’m most comfortable.

I’m testing out different transcription software right now, with Otter.ai being the one I’ve used most often. I’m testing out the new Google transcription software to see what it can offer
 

► How do you market your show?

I market my podcast on all of the social media channels. Here’s a list of the ones I use in priority order: LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest.

I haven’t paid for any marketing yet and it feels like something I'd only do as a last resort. I really want the content to carry the podcast to growth!

I have watched numerous videos on YouTube about podcast marketing and growth and I’m trying to explore as many as I can, which is why I’m writing this interview!

I’m adding transcription to all podcasts to help with SEO. I’m adding show notes and links to all shows. I’m asking people to rate and review their favourite player. I also love Goodpods as a player as it has monthly rankings of popularity, similar to Listen Notes.

I find that regular TikTok promotion does make a difference to listener numbers so whatever you can do to maintain your video presence will be helpful!

One of the main pieces of advice is to appear on other people’s podcasts. I’ve appeared on one so far and it hasn’t generated a noticeable increase in listeners but I’m being interviewed for another this week, so let’s wait and see!
 

► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?

Use all of the free resources you can and maximise them!

Where you can, make your content adaptable and able to be used in different places. For example, I write a Top Takeaways review following every episode. With that, I make each individual Top Takeaway into a video for TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. I also break the review into separate paragraphs and use them for individual posts. So, one article equates to lots of marketing opportunities.

Buzzsprout how to podcast and marketing guidance is excellent and that’s where I started. I don’t know if the other podcast hosting companies provide that, but I can highly recommend Buzzsprout. It has a helpful Facebook community too.
 

► Where can we learn more about you & your podcasts?

Here’s my website: https://knowingselfknowingothers.co.uk/
You can connect with me at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/nia-d-thomas
Access my TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@knowingselfknowingothers
Here’s a link to my Linktree to access everything else: https://linktr.ee/knowingselfknowingothers