Transitioning Your Podcast Format with Confidence with Jen Vertanen

Are you feeling restricted by your current podcast format? Many creators start with a traditional audio-only show, only to find that their message or personality eventually outgrows the medium. The fear of breaking what already works often keeps podcasters stuck in a production style that no longer feels authentic. In this episode of Podcasting Unlocked, Alesia Galati sits down with Jen Vertanen to explore the internal decision-making process behind a major format pivot, the importance of building self-trust as a creator, and how embracing your unique humanity can actually deepen your audience engagement. This week, episode 281 of Podcasting Unlocked is about transitioning your podcast format with confidence! 

Jen Vertanen is the founder of We the Unruly—a living rebellion against self-betrayal disguised as success. With 30 years of turning vision into reality and her own hard-won evolution, she works with leaders and creators who are done diluting their power and ready to build what only they can. Known for her sharp insight and disarming humor, Jen helps people live, lead, and create legacies without performing, shrinking, or self-abandoning. 

In this episode of Podcasting Unlocked, Jen Vertanen is sharing the importance of self awareness and authenticity in podcasting and actionable steps you can take right now to explore what show formats work best for you. 

Jen and I also chat about the following: 

• Master the Format Pivot: Learn the tactical and emotional steps to transition your show from audio-only to video and live stream formats while maintaining your brand’s soul.
• Build Unshakeable Self-Trust: Discover how to use tools like Human Design and the Enneagram to understand your natural strengths, allowing you to make production decisions that feel aligned rather than forced.
• Embrace Radical Authenticity: Explore why showing up in your "thought leadership and your humanity" is the fastest way to solve audience loneliness and build a dedicated community of peers.
• Navigate Neurodivergence in Content Creation: Gain insights into how understanding your own brain—including neurodivergence and mental health—can help you design a sustainable podcasting workflow that prevents burnout.
• The "Live Stream" Advantage: Understand why moving to a live format can remove the "shame of perfectionism" and create a raw, real connection that recorded episodes often miss.

Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above. 

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don’t forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!

Learn more about Podcasting Unlocked at https://galatimedia.com/podcasting-unlocked/ 

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Transcript

Alesia Galati: 0:00

Over time, you might find that your podcast style or the format in which you podcast changes, but how do you come up with that decision? How do you figure out what is going to work best for you? That's what we're talking about today with Jen, who started with an audio podcast, then moved to an audio and video podcast and now has a live stream podcast. All right, please join me in welcoming Jen to the podcast. Welcome to podcasting, unlocked the show for purpose driven podcasters. I'm Alesia Galati, founder of Galati media, and I'm here to share actionable strategies to help you amplify your message and grow your audience. Hello, Jen. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. If you could start by telling everyone who you are, what you do, and a bit about your show.

Jen Vertanen: 0:51

Thank you so much for having me. I've been really looking forward to this because I love podcasting. My podcast is we the unruly. I am founder of we the unruly. It is where I help other women, strong, independent, cycle breaking, women have more impact, income, etc, all while living the best life that you possibly can. Because I grew up in a corporate background. I'm still in corporate and I am over the hustle, the burnout, I'm over all of that. And so I work with women to undo all those rules, shoulds expectations, and have a lot of fun doing it. The podcast is just an extension of that, right? I opened my membership August 6 of last year, but I was telling you as of this recording, my birthday is tomorrow, and on my birthday last year, I asked the same question I always do to reflect of like, where am I not giving myself permission? What's not working? What is working? And finally, I had the idea of, I've always known I wanted a movement in me, right? I didn't want to just be a coach, just be a blah blah blah. And not that there's anything wrong with that. But it finally came to me what my movement is about. So we then really, as a brand, was actually born on my birthday last year, which, again, as a recording, is tomorrow.

Alesia Galati: 2:08

I love it. I'm curious. So we come up against decisions so often, especially as podcasters. Do I want to have video? Do I not want to have video? Do I want to go hard into social media, or do I want to go hard in SEO? Do I do both? What kind of tools do I want to use? You mentioned what's working and what's not working. What's your filter for that kind of stuff?

Jen Vertanen: 2:33

Oh, that's so good with my first podcast, which was years ago. Now, I was so precious with it, and I only ever did audio. So when my second iteration of the podcast came back a few years later, I was like, I'm gonna do video. I'm gonna do YouTube. And I loved that. Right when the third came back, I was so much less precious about everything, and I said, I want to experiment with live streaming. And so that is the approach that I take. It's what am I curious to experiment with? Because I'm over being so precious about everything to the point that I'm overthinking perfect, like all of that. I'm just over it in life in general. And so everything I do now is framed. What? What am I excited to experiment with?

Alesia Galati: 3:20

Yeah, I think that's a good filter too, right? And I think that as we get older, care less about those things.

Jen Vertanen: 3:29

I don't know what you're talking about, but yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely.

Alesia Galati: 3:34

We have a few midlife clients, midlife women, who they talk about being a midlife woman on their podcast, and they're always saying and the older you get, the less F's you give about things, caring about other people's opinions.

Jen Vertanen: 3:48

Yeah, it is a very freeing place to be. And in my work, I don't only work with midlife women. I work with women whether they're in their 20s or in their 70s and 80s, but as a midlife woman myself, I can say it is very freeing, and I take it as a personal responsibility to help others get there sooner.

Alesia Galati: 4:09

Don't want just to get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so important. So you mentioned a few iterations of the podcast or shows that you've had in the past. What drew you to podcasting as a medium? Because you could do blogs, you could do videos, you could do shorts, right? There's so many options out there for people. So what was that kind of deciding factor to podcast?

Jen Vertanen: 4:32

Oh, that's Oh, I'm trying to remember, back at the time, I've been in the online entrepreneurial space for probably since 2011 so 15 years now, and you see your peers starting podcasts and having all sorts of fun. And so I think that was the first one, and I knew that helping share stories of these very real, relatable things that that people go through. Primarily women. At that time, we weren't having conversations around neurodivergence. We weren't having conversations around menopause and mental health and a lot of the stuff that people go through. And I at the time, I was tired of everyone just sweeping it in the corner. And I'm like, No, if you're in a space where you can share your story, not from a trauma wound place, but from a healed place, because

Alesia Galati: 5:30

we're not here to trauma dump on each other, right? That's harmful, but share it from that healed place. It helps others know they're not alone, and know that help is out there, and it's possible. And I only say that from my own experience, through that of feeling like I was so alone for decades on my life, and then when I started kind of sharing some all of a sudden, it was like me too. It was like, whoa. There's a very real issue here in that we're not talking about this stuff together. I think that podcasting is probably the first medium that actually allowed me to get that me to response. So when I launched my podcast with my sister about cults, and we were talking about cults, and at the time, very different than they were either True Crime podcasts about cults or comedy podcasts about cults, which do your thing, right? No shame, but we were talking about it from the experience of having grown up in a cult. And here's our experience, and then here's how we're reviewing or looking at the lens that we see. If I knew this about you, I have so many questions, but not the purpose of this, but one of the most incredible things, and I think this was like the light bulb moment for me about the power of podcasting was the number of people that went into our DMS and said, Me too. I was in a cult too. I thought I was so alone. I thought it was just us. Was like, oh, there's something here.

Jen Vertanen: 6:56

Yeah, I shared pretty openly that as an adult, decades of just really heartbreaking loneliness, and on top of it, no one would have guessed because I am kind of what you see is what you get, right, but no one would have guessed that. And so then on top of it, I felt like a fraud, because, right, you know? And so I carried that for decades, and I know what it felt like from the inside, right? My husband knew he saw the outside and how heartbreaking and hopeless he felt because he couldn't fix that for me, right? But it's because I felt alone, and we know loneliness, it's an epidemic, and it's only getting more so. So yes, those of us who have the privilege and safety to be able to share. I take that responsibility very seriously.

Alesia Galati: 7:48

Yeah, I'm so on the topic of loneliness. Why do you think that is right? Let's go into that before we get back into the podcasting. Because I do see this, and it's something I definitely have to be careful of I can be alone and be perfectly fine, right? That's I'm good. I'm a

Jen Vertanen: 8:08

hermit. Three

Alesia Galati: 8:09

I'm good. And my kids, they're homeschooled, and I also understand how important peer relationships and peer interactions are, having grown up in a cult and not had a lot of peer interactions, to then go in, out into the world and be like, Ah, right, I understand, like, how important it is. Yes, being alone is fine, but interacting with other people is also extremely healthy and can help you with developmental things later down the road. But this idea of loneliness we're in at this point in time in history, the most connected we have ever been with each other, and still so extremely lonely. Why do you think that is

Jen Vertanen: 8:50

I go back to shame that people feel, and again, we're talking more and more so that people are starting to realize there isn't shame in this stuff, right? But it's, I'm a strong, independent woman. Do not pity me, right? I will not ask for help unless I am like, yeah, and that that's both a strength and a weakness. I don't love those words, but it's like, it works for you until it doesn't. And when it doesn't, that's when it actually becomes quite harmful. Because my personal story growing up with being a cycle breaker, breaking the stuff, the generational traumas and patterns and being I was like, Do not call me the victim. I'm the warrior here. I carried that from age 10 into my 40s, right? So my story around loneliness, because it hurt too much to admit it to myself. So my story was, I don't like most people anyway, that's not healthy behavior, and I'm not here to diagnose, but I was doing it in a very unhealthy but also. Protective way, right? And I think it's, there's so many reasons why, but I do think for many women, that's there,

Alesia Galati: 10:11

yeah, the shame, I wouldn't even have pinpointed that as this might be the issue here. And I think that by telling our stories, or having guests on and have them sharing their stories that we can feel more connected. Of here's actually what happened to me, and here's what's going on in my life, and you are not alone, right? I even think about when I first started podcast guesting back in 2016 where I was talking about postpartum depression, and this was like before celebrities were talking about it, right? Yeah, this is something that's serious, and people need to make sure that they get support. Because this is not a joke, because I went through it and it was miserable, right?

Jen Vertanen: 10:48

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, in that shame, one of my dear friends, Karen CL Anderson, writes books on shame, and she owns shame school, and we talk a lot about shame, and she's like even as an expert practitioner around shame, she says, I have shame every day, but she's able to talk about it from that place of not making it morally good, bad, right or wrong, but just this is a natural, normal human response to the conditions that we live under right and so it's when we can remove that morality to whatever it is, and look at it a bit more objectively, you start realizing, oh, like, it took me until my mid 40s to realize I hadn't failed my mom and my younger brother trying To protect them. I'm like, that was never my job as a 12 year old,

Alesia Galati: 11:45

but it

Jen Vertanen: 11:45

took me decades to even be able to have that be a thought in my mind, because we don't talk about the things that we should talk about around the dinner table, but don't that's how I like to think of it.

Alesia Galati: 11:59

Yeah, I even think about the conversations I have with my kiddos like I was explaining to somebody the other day that I talked to my boys about menstrual cycles, and they're 11 and eight. I was 11, my sister was eight when we got our first period. Wow, these are things that their peers are going through

Jen Vertanen: 12:17

that

Alesia Galati: 12:18

they need to understand.

Unknown: 13:05

Yeah,

Alesia Galati: 13:05

it's a biological fact,

Jen Vertanen: 13:07

yeah, oh my gosh. My daughter, my youngest, is turning 22 in July, and I love her generation, because with her guy friends, with her girlfriends, with her dad, with me, she lets us know, oh, I got my period. Blah, blah, blah, Oh, Dad, you're running to the store. Could you get me a box of tampons to her guy friends? I'm kind of bloated. I'm feeling kind of crampy, and they just talk about it. Yeah, I love it. There's not the shame. I think back to I was a teen in the 80s. We had Shark Week, and I'm on the reg, and just all these seemingly funny but not

Alesia Galati: 13:51

Yeah,

Jen Vertanen: 13:51

right. Aunt Flo is here. Oh,

Alesia Galati: 13:54

minimize.

Unknown: 13:55

I'm just

Jen Vertanen: 13:55

so proud of this younger generation that is talking about things like mental health. My boys are millennials, and they actively talk about mental health stuff and seek support. I have so much hope for the future.

Alesia Galati: 14:11

Yeah. Okay, so you mentioned how you had the audio podcast first, and then you started. You had the one with the video element now live stream. I am so curious about this, because I am someone who our whole production for any of the podcasts that we produce is we listen to every word, we edit for clarity, we chop slice and dice and all that stuff. And even my we read smut podcast. I don't leave everything in. There are always one chunk of the conversation, at least, that I'm taking out. Maybe I mentioned an author I didn't like, and that's not really the tone that I want to set

Jen Vertanen: 14:53

for the

Alesia Galati: 14:54

external audience, but maybe I just want to let the person know, oh my goodness, you won't believe what happened to me. I read this book and it was crazy and it was terrible, but I don't want the audience to like hear me bashing anybody. That's not what I want to portray. How do you plan for live stream? Or does is it kind of let's just go with the flow. What is that process? Yeah, so with each guest, and so far, it's been people I know. And what's great about being in this online space for 15 years now is I know a lot of people.

Jen Vertanen: 15:27

I know a lot of really cool people. So I don't, I don't, I'm not searching for guests, right? But it's, it's we come up with, what is the lens, the going in, lens of this conversation, right? But then what I love is. Magic of that organic, raw, off the cuff. For me, that is where I shine. The people that I that I want to play with me. They're cool rolling with it. And my brand, we the unruly. It is all about how to can be as fully you as unapologetically you. And I hate that those are now buzzwords, but let's go with it right. Authenticity. Kind of hate that word now, but it is what it is. How could we be any realer, rawr, off the cuff than to do a live stream? And I'm also huge on self trust. It's what I when I am coaching. We're working a lot on self trust because I believe that's the foundation if you want to have a successful life in business, self trust is where it's at right. And so that's my intention with live streaming, is we're going to work on our self trust muscles here, and that if we do say with something, it's okay, because that is real. This is how we have real conversations with other human beings.

Alesia Galati: 16:52

Yeah, but

Jen Vertanen: 16:53

I get that it's not for everyone

Alesia Galati: 16:55

I know, and I love the idea, and I would love to be able to do more of it. I'm actually thinking about hosting an event later this year that will be all live streamed. And I'm like, oh god, okay, can we mix in some pre recorded stuff, maybe. So I feel a little more control. And I think it is like a desire for control, a desire to have a controlled product at the end that someone can enjoy, that I feel really good. Of like, okay, Alesia, that is good, yeah,

Jen Vertanen: 17:26

yeah. But in going back to my the video one, the second iteration of the show, I loved showing up on video, but for me, I was being too controlling in the output, right? And I didn't enjoy it. I loved the recording of it, but I did not enjoy anything that came after that, because I wasn't able to give up on as much control as I wanted. And so when I take the recording from the live stream, I do very light editing on it, like very light and again, I have this. It's just an experiment. And so I'm it. I'm trusting myself. This is part of my growth edge, right? That I'm not going to put out a poor quality product. Will it be as quality as what you're producing? Absolutely not. But that's not the meaning and purpose and intention for my show and what my audience wants, the realness. They want to hear the dog bark. They want to hear life in the background. We try to minimize it, right? But we're also not going to be like, Oh my god, I can't believe

Alesia Galati: 18:33

she right. And I think with the kind of rise of live streaming anyway, like game streaming, etc, right, it's not out of the realm of possibility that you wouldn't you might have a dog barking in the background, right? It's not the end of the world for a live stream. How do you get your audience to show up regularly and not distract you? So that is something that I am like, the idea of trying to be in conversation. Like, here are the topics that I want to talk about, but I also want to be present. We didn't have an outline going into this. We had an idea of where we want to go. We're following our curiosity having fun, but the idea of the additional element of managing the chat, or being like, oh, there's a question, and now we are completely off the rail, like getting people to arrive and then not distract the heck out of you. Oh,

Jen Vertanen: 19:23

I love this, and especially as an ADHD person. I especially love this question because I'm off the top. I'm like, I don't know, but no, there is some stuff going on with that a I don't have all that many under my belt, so I'm still very much in the experimentation and learning phase. But what I will say is that I do want interaction with the audience, and so I will be looking, yeah, I think I do it well, I've heard I do it well, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm gonna noodle on that, because if I could teach that, maybe I'd make a lot of money. I'm kidding, but I will say I was responding to someone in chat, and I wasn't muted, and then someone in chat is like, we can hear you typing. I'm like, Oh my God, that's so embarrassing, right? But I didn't let that deter me. I was like, I even said out loud to whomever was listening, I am so sorry. That is so embarrassing. I'm still learning thank you for the grace, right? And then I moved on. And I don't know if you're into human design, I just know enough of my design to be dangerous, but I'm a role model hermit, and so not that everyone needs to be like Jen, because no, you don't, but I'm here to model being yourself, right? And so I see that as a way to model. Well, you don't have to be so precious about every single thing. You can show yourself grace, right? You can acknowledge that was really embarrassing. Other people might have internalized that and felt a ton of shame and embarrassment. I just I've done enough work that I don't

Alesia Galati: 21:02

Yeah, I think that knowing yourself too is important, like you mentioned, Human Design I'm big on, like the Enneagram. Find a maybe you're into Myers Briggs, right? Like, what? Sure, maybe astrology. If disc works for you. Great. Exactly. Find the thing that makes you feel like, oh, this knows me. Yeah, this is actually, like, point on and use that as your tool, right? To say, Okay, here's where I do have really great skills, and here's maybe where I do need support, or where I need to work on things if I want to, right? Yeah, decide that.

Jen Vertanen: 21:37

That's what I tell people. Like, awareness is so powerful, right? Because once you have awareness, now you have choice, and you can choose to do something with it, or you can choose not to, but you're making that intentional choice, right? There's nothing wrong with saying, I don't want to work on that right now.

Alesia Galati: 21:53

Yeah,

Jen Vertanen: 21:53

if you're not resourced, if you don't have the support, it might not be time to work on that thing. And that is okay,

Alesia Galati: 22:00

yeah, but I think that too helps with like, all right? Is live streaming the right thing for you? Yeah? What is your personality like? What is your maybe human design like? What is your Enneagram? What is that telling you? Is this going to be a strength, or is this something that maybe it's a muscle you want to work on, to build on, start small, right? Like you get to decide that. But I think, like you said, awareness and knowing yourself going into it can make it so much easier to also give yourself grace to say, Okay, I'm learning, and that's okay,

Jen Vertanen: 22:32

yeah, because how many people again, strong, independent woman here. I don't mean to belabor that, but that's my MO. But it's hard to be like, I'm new at something, I'm a beginner at something, right? I might need help with something, but if we see others that are similar to ourselves doing that, of saying, Yeah, I kind of messed up there, I always go back to what impacts. Never see the light of day because we shut ourselves down because we're afraid to show you don't know something, because we're afraid someone might think we're weak if we ask for help. And I'm just I'm over it, and the almost 56 year old woman, I get to be almost over it, but I was gonna say people are often they don't believe me when I say I'm an introvert, because I can show up on something like this. I can show up on a live stream. An introversion is not shyness. It can be but it is not shyness whatsoever. And so even if you're an introvert listening in and there's something about live stream that you're like, ooh, but you're like, I can't do that. Like you get to decide, you absolutely get to decide what you want to do.

Alesia Galati: 23:41

I think that's so important. I know that for the we read smoke podcast, I have reached out to authors, and I'm like, I am dying to interview you. Please be on my podcast. And I'm always surprised when I get the response of, I am so shy, there is no way I will be on your podcast. But I so appreciate it. They're like, I can't believe you would want me what in the world? And I'm like, you're like, the only person I want to talk about. Like, to this about this topic, please. And then just subscribe to your show. And I'm so happy that you want me on. There's absolutely no, absolutely not. So those people exist too, and that's okay, right? You get to decide what's gonna work for you?

Jen Vertanen: 24:25

Yeah, I have an old friend who became an influencer in the food blogger space, and she has it for a number of years, and I know her origin story. And first podcast, I asked if she wanted to be honest. She's no, I don't want my story shared because of how she was worried about how it would look to her audience. I'm like, Hey, that there is no shame in that, right? I get that.

Alesia Galati: 24:48

It's always so interesting. Yeah, I thought for sure she'd be like, a yes, I know. Well, you're

Jen Vertanen: 24:55

like, you know, come on. At first I was like, and then I was like, okay, like, she's building a brand as well, and she gets to own the outward facing of that brand, but nothing wrong in that whatsoever,

Alesia Galati: 25:09

yeah, for sure. And I think that there's also power in giving people variety. So one thing that I started adding for the we read smut account, just because I have so many authors to interview, and I'm like, I'm going to focus on diversity, whether they're writing diversity and race, sexuality or body or ability, like, those are going to be my priorities. But maybe there's an author that I'm like, I kind of want to highlight you, just maybe not on a podcast. So yeah, would you be open to doing a custom and of course, it's always custom written interview where it's your interview lives on. The blog, and maybe I have you on in a way later season, but like, right now, just I don't have room, right? I think to finding other ways to still interview. I'm actually thinking now, going back to the other person saying I have a written interview that I would love, would Yeah, doing something like that because I want to, I have questions and I need answers.

Jen Vertanen: 26:08

I love that, though, right? Because when we think about the different learning styles that people have and neurodivergence, right, like my ADHD is going to be very different than someone else's ADHD, and it's giving I love that call out, because I haven't thought about that from a podcasting perspective, I do like when I build something within my community, make sure I have different but from a podcasting perspective, yeah, giving a few options for people to take in the inputs. Now, I do have transcripts, stuff like that, but it's not quite the same as what you're saying. And I think that's really powerful and cool.

Alesia Galati: 26:44

Jen, this has been so much fun. What is next for you? Where can people connect with you? Where would you like us to go and hang out with you next?

Jen Vertanen: 26:54

Yeah, you know, I love good old fashioned Facebook. Maybe that's my age showing I don't know. I'll give you my facebook link. But also, come check me out on we the unruly.com I have the unruly collective, which is my membership. It's decidedly different in that we are all peers. There. I ask everyone to show up in their thought leadership and their humanity. No matter how many years of experience you have, no matter your life history, no matter the money you have in your account or don't have, we are all peers. And what I've heard from people is that this is the place you go to have those deeper, sometimes even darker conversations of things that you know, that you maybe have shame over, or you haven't found someone who can go this deep on a topic with you, or what have you. So that's the unruly collective. And there's two tiers of that club. Unruly is you get

Alesia Galati: 27:45

in the door, and you're just with other unreleased and then the deep end is where we really work on actively building self, trust, impact, lot of identity work, awesome. And we will have the show notes, so links for all that in the show notes and the YouTube description if you're watching this on YouTube. Jen, thank you so much. This was Thank you. This was delightful. Thank you.