3 Podcasting Mistakes to Avoid that Undermine Your Authority

I’m breaking down the three podcasting mistakes to avoid that can make listeners lose interest quick, plus 4 words that reveal you’re overexplaining, the guest interview habit that can turn a great interview into a frustrating listen, and the 2 words that make you sound less credible behind the mic.

You’ll learn where these habits show up in podcast conversations, why listeners pick up on them faster than you think, and what to do instead if you want listeners finishing your episodes, trusting what you say, and clicking your CTAs instead of scrolling past them. Hit play and let’s dive in.

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1:58 – Why Listeners Can Love Your Content but Still Not Trust You

10:02 – The 4 Words That Reveal You’re Overexplaining on Your Podcast

15:12 – The Guest Interview Mistake That Makes Listeners Lose Interest Fast

17:55 – The 2 Words That Make You Sound Less Credible Behind the Mic

20:31 – The Simple Exercise Before Hitting Record That Makes You Sound More Confident

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Episode Links:

The Jefferson Fisher Podcast

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Other Episodes You’ll Love: 

Say This in the First 15 Seconds to Keep Listeners Listening

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Special thanks to Resonate Recordings, our implementation partner for PodLaunch® Accelerator. If your podcasting efforts aren't bringing you the listeners or sales you expected, book a strategy call for help to fix it.

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©Ⓟ 2018–2026 by Courtney Elmer. All Rights Reserved.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

As you can probably imagine, I listen to a lot of podcasts. In fact, when I meet someone for the first time, they're like, oh my gosh, you're in podcasting? Like, what do you recommend? What is good? What do you listen to? And what's amazing is I listen to all kinds of shows across a variety of genres. And there are three things that I hear hosts repeatedly doing that undermine their authority without them realizing it. So we're gonna break down what those things are and most importantly, how to avoid them so that your listeners who come to your show, whether it be a repeat listener or someone listening for the first time, can feel connected to you and feel like they can trust you. Which over time is not just gonna drive positive ratings and reviews, but it's gonna drive repeat listens that are essential to helping you grow your show. Welcome to Insider's Secrets to a Top 100 podcast. I'm your host, Courtney Elmer. Let's make your podcast binge-worthy. First of all, if you are here and you are listening for the first time, welcome. I am so glad that you're here. In fact, if you're listening, whether it's the first time or the hundredth time, go ahead and follow the show, rate it, like it, review it, tap the heart, leave a comment wherever you are right now, wherever you are listening, that helps me by letting others know that this content is really valuable, which of course I deeply appreciate. But on a personal level, you're also helping me by keeping me showing up to the mic because you're the reason why I do this podcast in the first place. And when you listen long enough, at some point you'll probably hear me tell the story of how I started this show after a cancer diagnosis that almost caused me to permanently lose my voice. So when I say that it is a gift to be here with you, it is a gift to be here with you. And I also want to thank our sponsor, Resonate Recordings, who is the only strategy first podcast production agency that not only edits and produces your show, but actually helps you build a personalized podcast marketing strategy to grow it. And this show is also brought to you by the Pod Launch Accelerator that we have just opened up exclusively through Resonate for more creators to access. So you can get info on both of those in the show notes below. And you know, as I was thinking about the topic for this episode, I literally stared at my blank computer screen for probably the better part of 45 minutes because there's so much that I could teach you here on the show. And I literally get analysis paralysis. I'm like, I don't know what to teach, I don't know what to talk about today. What have we not talked about? What have we talked about that we need to talk about again? What have we talked about that people are saying they want more of or that we haven't talked about in a while? And I'm just like, I don't know, I don't know what to talk about. But lately, I'll be completely honest with you that I've been feeling called to share the side of my work that I don't share as often, which is how I approach the creation of this podcast, my thinking behind it, things that I'm actively testing, the ways that this show has grown and evolved and changed over the years, what I used to do on the show that I would never now in a million years recommend, and things I want to do more of on the show that sometimes I struggle to do out of fear or out of being like, oh my gosh, I don't know if you're gonna like if I do that on the show. Maybe I shouldn't rock the boat, maybe I should just stick with the status quo, but also this desire to test new things and to try new things out on this show. So this episode is gonna be a little different in that I'm not handing you a framework or a formula or a strategy as I so often do, but this episode is about awareness. And it's about why it's important to cultivate this awareness as a podcast host. Because when you are in the business of mastering the craft of podcasting, then as a host, it's important that we become aware of the habits that we have that are helping our podcast grow, as well as the ones that you might have that are keeping your podcast from growing. And through the years that I have been in this industry, I've listened to a lot of shows, and there are three mistakes that I see hosts making that unintentionally, unknowingly undermine their authority. And when you say something like that, it's like undermine their authority. Okay, what does that actually mean? Well, what it means is, and the way that it plays out in the podcasting world anyway, is that it can cause your show to plateau. Maybe you're here right now where you've been logging into your analytics dashboard and you're like, you know what? I haven't seen my downloads growing up. I don't feel like I'm getting any new listeners. I don't feel like I have the reach or the following that I should have by now based on all the time and the energy and the effort that I'm putting in. Maybe you're sharing calls to action on your podcast and you're not seeing any conversions. Nobody's booking a call with you to talk about your program. Nobody is signing up for your email list or clicking the links that you're sharing in your podcast. Maybe you're not getting reviews on your show. It can show up this way too. And what's interesting and ironic is that when listeners don't say anything, they're speaking the loudest. And so this can lead to bad reviews or it can lead to no reviews. And there are things that humans tend to do in their content. We all do this. I am guilty of all of these three mistakes that I'm about to share with you. And when we learn and we can become aware of what we're doing and even the reasons why we might be doing it, which often is just driven out of a need for not wanting to be seen as stupid. Our ego gets in the way a lot. But it's these things that we're doing that maybe we don't realize we're doing, that if we stopped doing, listeners would feel more connected. They'd feel like they trust you more, they would look up to you more, and they would want to learn from you more. And it's not that listeners don't want to learn from you right now. I've had listeners on this show literally tell me, Courtney, I love your content. I love everything that you teach. I listen to every single episode, but I don't feel like I know you. I feel like you're always teaching us something. I'm always learning, but I don't feel like I know the real Courtney. I know you're married, I know you have a kid, I know you live in New Orleans, I know you have an Airbnb, like there's little snippets of your life that I know, but I don't feel like I know you. And whether she knew this or not when she told me this, I, first of all, am not known to back down from a challenge. Secondly, I also tend to take things people say and turn them into a challenge. So I kind of saw it as a challenge in a sense of like, you know what? Maybe there are mistakes that I'm making on my own podcast that are unintentionally, unknowingly causing you to check out, causing you to be like, yeah, this is a great podcast, but not to be like a stark raving fan. Not that I need tons of stark raving fans, but you know, we all want that at the end of the day. We want to feel like we're not just talking to the empty four walls in our office. And we all know that to have a successful podcast, you need listeners. But to grow a podcast, those listeners have to feel connected to you. And connection is one of those ethereal, intangible, nonspecific things that we could talk about all day, but it's like, how do you actually bring about that connection? That's what I'm interested in when it comes to human psychology and understanding what is it that makes us feel connected to someone or connected to this person more so than that person. And so to grow a podcast, yeah, we need listeners, but we need listeners who love you. We need them to trust you, we need them to believe you, we need them to look up to you, and we need them to aspire to be like you. And boiling that down to a strategy where you can say, okay, do these three things and listeners are going to trust you is almost impossible to do. You know why? Because 93% of communication is nonverbal. It's the intangible qualities that we all can sense, that we all have a very lived, real, felt experience of, but that's tough to put your finger on. Kind of like when you meet someone for the first time, you just get a vibe from them and you're like, yeah, I like this person. I would really like to get to know them better. Or no, I don't click with them and I don't care to spend another minute in their presence. But thanks to human psychology, we are creatures of habit. And we can point to certain habits or practices that foster that sense of connectedness and belonging, which at our core as humans, we all desire. And there are habits or practices that can keep people at arm's length, that keeps them from connecting with you. Usually because on some level, consciously or unconsciously, we fear letting someone see those pieces of us which make us feel vulnerable. I 100% struggle with this. In fact, this is probably why I haven't shared a lot of personally personal stuff on the podcast. Not like, you know, stuff that you'd be like, oh my gosh, TMI, but like the personal bits of my life that would make you feel more connected to me. And not just bits from my life, but the stuff that does make me feel like a little weird to share, because I'm like, oh my gosh, if I share this, will someone not see me as an authority? Will they think that I don't know what I'm talking about? Are they gonna think that I don't have it all together? They don't have all this figured out. And there's just all this like weird mental chatter that goes on in my brain sometimes where I'm like, oh, it's like a filter. And we all have this, where it's this filter of like, okay, yes, I'm gonna share this. No, I'm not. Yes, if I share this, it's gonna help people see me as more of this way versus this way. And we're always crafting our persona in real time, whether we realize it consciously and most often unconsciously. But something that I have worked really hard on through the years is to unlearn and undo all of the coping mechanisms and people-pleasing skills and all those things that I developed in my early childhood that kept people at arm's length. One of those being the very first of the habits we're about to get into here, which you might see yourself in too. And my goal lately, something that I'm working on in a big way, is being direct in my communication. And having worked in the podcasting industry for so long, you know, it's one of those weird things now where I can't listen to a podcast without noticing, not just, okay, yeah, I like this host, yeah, I like the content, but what makes me pay attention as a listener? What makes me lose interest? When do I lean in? When do I tune out? So I've seen these patterns show up a lot across the board. And I want you to know what these mistakes are, how to avoid them, and what to do instead so that listeners can connect with you and so your podcast can grow. So again, to be very clear, I've made all of these mistakes. These are still things that I am actively working on to be more aware of and working on here in this podcast. So you may be able to say, like, oh my gosh, Courtney, you just did the thing that you said not to do. Yeah, it's because I'm still working on it. But what I would love for you to do is call me out on it, shoot me an email, be like, Courtney, you did that thing. And I'm like, oh yeah, thank you for calling my attention to that because I am working to be more aware of this. So I would welcome that. But number three, especially, is going to surprise you because once you hear this, you're not going to be able to unhear it, whether it's me or any other podcast that you listen to. So let's get into it. Habit number one, overexplaining. Oh, I still do this. It's so easy to do. In a podcast, what this often sounds like is three or more minutes of information before the host makes their point. Have you ever listened to a podcast that was like an hour and 40 minutes long, but it could have been 40 minutes, or a 30-minute episode that could have been 10? It's the whole this could have been an email, but in podcasting. And what happens is the host will start by saying some long story. You know, so I want to tell you what happened to me the other day, and you're never gonna believe this. So remember, okay, it was a few episodes back when I told you this crazy story and I was listening to this podcast. And if you didn't hear that story, you need to go back and listen to this episode. So, but if you didn't listen, I'm just gonna let me just briefly tell you what happened. So they tell you what happened, they say the whole story, it takes 12 minutes, and then finally they make the point with all of that to say, blah, blah, blah. When they could have just said blah, blah, blah, and we'd have been perfectly happy. So it's eliminating all the stuff that comes before all of that to say, because whatever comes after is the point. But what's worse is these hosts will do that and then they'll make their point and then they have to explain why that point is so important instead of letting listeners hear or take that in or interpret it for themselves. So they explain it more. And if listeners are still listening at that point, at this point, they're wondering, well, wait, what was the point of this episode again? What was the title of this? Why am I listening to this? They've tuned out, they're on to the next thing. Please don't go back and listen to my old episodes. Those are definitely 30, 40-minute episodes that could have been 10. Now, there's a communications expert that I follow who I love. You've probably heard of him, Jefferson Fisher. And he recommends the best way to avoid this is figure out what the point is and say it first. He's got a great podcast, by the way. If you are looking to be a better communicator, go listen to his podcast. I can link to it in the show notes for you. And this is something that I feel like I've done well on the podcast. You know, when you open an episode for me and you listen to it, we get straight to the point. I tell you exactly what we're gonna cover in this episode, I tell you why it matters, what problem we're gonna solve, and what you're gonna walk away with right at the top of the episode. And there was a reason for that. But this is something that I had not done or even thought about doing in the rest of my communications. And so, in a voice note that I'm sending to a friend, four-minute voice note, people have laughed at me. I'm like, yeah, I'm a podcaster. I just talk. It's like, no, that could have been a 40-second voice note. I could have just said the thing. In emails, showing up to a meeting, having conversations with people, say the point, get to the point. All of that to say X, just say X. So this is something to practice. This is something to become more aware of. There are going to be times where you need to provide context, but it's easier and it's better received from a listening perspective to provide the context after you've made the point. If I had started this episode with a story and just jumped into, you know, where you're listening to a podcast and sometimes you feel connected with the host, and sometimes you don't. And sometimes someone shares a podcast with you, and you, you're like, okay, this person really likes this podcast. And you're like, and you listening, you're like, where is this going? Why are we talking about this? But had I started by saying, hey, I'm gonna help you learn what three podcasting mistakes or habits that you might be making right now that undermine your authority without you realizing it. And then, okay, you know exactly what we're gonna talk about. And then I could share that story. And then I could say, so this is similar to when you're listening to a podcast and you love the host, you love what that person shares and recommends and blah, blah, blah. And then there's those times where maybe you've listened to a podcast and you don't click with the host. And despite what other people are saying and all the hype around the show, you don't get it. It's not for you. Well, at that point, then that context makes sense and you're receiving it better because I've made the point. You know where we're going in the conversation. So this is habit number one. Say the thing, say it up front and stop over-explaining. Thing number two that I see happening a lot. This happens a lot in guest episodes. I call it one-upping. Here's what it sounds like. The host asks the guest a question. The guest answers the question to the best of their ability. It might be a great answer. And then what does the host do? The host jumps in and says, Oh, yeah, you know what? I talked about this in my book. And here's what I said about this thing in my book. And this is why I said this thing. And this is why I think this is just so important for our listeners to understand. And then, you know, this brings me to another question. And then they ask the next question. I I don't really know what it is outside of just simple ego, fear, desire to be seen as important, trustworthy, so on and so forth. We can unpack the psychology of this. There's a lot there. This could be a whole nother episode. But the simplest way to put it, ego drives this. Where you kind of feel like you have to share your thoughts too, so that listeners see you as the authority. And I don't know why, why podcasting just brings this up, you know? Yes, you can share your thoughts, obviously, but there's a more elegant way to do it. So instead of jumping in and saying, yes, I talked about this on my episode four months ago, or I talked about this in my book a lot, like when you're doing a guest episode, you're here for the guests, you're here to shine the spotlight on them. But if you do feel like you have a point to add, take a page from the improv book and yes and it. I have gotten compliments from listeners as well as from guests on this. So I feel like this is something that I do naturally that I've never, I never stopped to analyze. But that's all it is. It's yes and, and saying your point in a way that emphasizes and underscores the guest's point, not takes away from it. You're not stealing the spotlight from them. You're sharing your thoughts and your authority in a way that underscores their point, which keeps the spotlight on them and allows you to share your perspective in a way that is well received. And then ask the next question. The point in a guest episode, and we know this logically, the point is not to emphasize you, the point is to shine the light on your guest. And yet, this happens all the time. You've probably heard episodes. I mean, there was there was a podcast recently that I listened to where I listened to this particular guest on someone else's show that I really like. And the guest I thought was really insightful. She gave great answers, and I found out she had a podcast. So naturally, I was like, huh, I'd like to learn from this person. I'm gonna go listen to her podcast. I listened to an episode with her, and I will never listen to her show ever again because she did this where she just interjected over and over and then would talk over the guest and then bring the spotlight back to her. And you could tell the guest was put off by it, but she was too nice to say anything. And as a listener, it's a turn off because we're there to hear the guest in those situations. So don't one up your guests. Habit number three. And this is the one that I didn't become aware of this until recently. But now that I'm aware of it, I can't unhear it everywhere I go. I've been working to be very mindful to take this out of my vocabulary. And in my opinion, it's the worst of all the filler words. It's worse than um, it's worse than ah, it's worse than you know, it's worse than right. It pales into comparison to all of those things. And it is I think. This happens all the time. Host asks a question, the guest answers, oh, that's a great question. I think the biggest reason why this happens, or well, I think what you need to do in that scenario is blah blah blah just drop the I think. You don't think you know you're an expert. You have years of experience, you know what you teach like the back of your hand. Drop the I think, and not only will it make your point clearer, you'll be perceived as more credible. Let's go back and take those simple examples and drop the I think. Yeah, that's a great question. The biggest reason why this happens is this. Or what you need to do when you find yourself in this scenario is this. Somewhere along the way, I think became polite. I almost said, I think, I think became polite. No, I don't think, I know. I think became polite. It was people pleasing. It might be perceived as too assertive or too aggressive to just share my thoughts here. I don't want to offend somebody. So this is what I think, but you may think differently, and that's okay. Almost as if we're apologizing for our own thoughts. Hear me when I say, you are allowed to have an opinion. You are allowed to say what is on your mind. You're allowed to be honest. You're allowed to say exactly what you think without the need to preface it or apologize for it. So take I think out of your vocabulary and notice how differently you show up. And this is not something that is gender specific. I see it happening with men as well as women, but it's a habit that we develop and it is filler and it undermines your authority because now we're giving someone permission not to agree or not to see it the way you see it, but that, oh, this is just what I think. Look at the best thinkers of our time. Dr. Arthur Brooks is not walking around saying, I think, I mean, this is just what I think, that happiness is blah, blah, blah. Or Simon Sinek is not walking around saying, I think working hard for something we love is called passion. No, he just says working hard for something we love is called passion. Jay Shetty doesn't say, Well, I think happiness is an inside job. No, happiness is an inside job. Look at the quotable quotes on Instagram and TikTok. They don't start with I think they declare. So I don't think you should adopt the same habit. You should adopt the same habit and declare what you know to be true. So there you have it. Overexplaining, one upping, and I think. Work on this, work on becoming aware of these things and watch how your communication changes. Watch how you feel when you show up, watch the way in which you're able to show up more as the authority. Which gets me to the last point. This is a bit of a bonus here that I want to leave you with. The best place to start in becoming aware of this is to simply trust your authority. Trust that what you have to share is valuable. Trust that someone listening is going to be moved by what you say, and that the light bulb will go off in their head because of you, and that they will be able to do something different or be someone different, or have something that they didn't have before because of you. There's a visualization here that I love, and I I can't take credit for this. I did not make this up. I heard this shared on a podcast once before. But if you were to simply just sit here right now and close your eyes, take a breath, and imagine you 30 years into the future. Now, notice you don't have to create or conjure up this person. He or she is already you. It's the you that you want to become, the you that you're working to be. You're him. You're her. How would they write that email? How would they record that episode or show up for that meeting? You can think of them as your inner mentor. They can be your inner mentor now. And thinking about it this way has really helped me. In fact, before this episode, I thought of my inner mentor and I said, How would she deliver this episode? How would she open this episode? How would she show up in this episode? And it's been really helpful for me because it just eliminates the mental chatter that can come with every time I hit record, and you're gonna laugh at me for this, but every time I hit record, it's like I kind of feel like, oh my gosh, here we go. Okay, I have to like deliver this stuff. And it's like, no, I don't. I just have to show up and be me for you. That's it. And share with you what I know in hopes that it will be helpful for you too. And that's all you have to do too. So if this episode was helpful, I would love it if you would share it with a friend who podcasts and stay right where you are. Because in the next episode, we are taking a closer look at some more of these invisible elements in your content and in your content delivery that can make listeners feel more connected with you or that can drive them away. I've got a special guest who is a TEDx speaker and a former professional magician joining us to teach you the psychological triggers that you can use in your content to connect with your audience and most importantly, to hold their attention in a way that gets them to take action. All that's coming up next to help you make your podcast bingeworthy.