I Am That Content Creator Podcast

Ep#131 From Corporate Polish to Content: How to Create Videos Without Freezing

• Kristen Werner & Mia Steel

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A double rainbow, a car recording, and a real conversation about why so many smart women freeze the second they try to post a video. If you spent years in corporate learning how to sound polished, considered and edited, of course Instagram Reels and TikTok feel like a completely different sport. You're not lazy. You're trained.

Mia and Kristen trace the shift from 2015 Instagram (curated squares, perfect captions) to what content asks for now (voice, video, personality, a bit of vulnerability), and name the invisible things making it harder for us specifically: masking, ADHD traits, perimenopause brain fog, and the loop of "what will people think" that keeps good ideas stuck in drafts for weeks.

Then they get practical. Pick one idea that keeps calling you back. Anchor it to a clear point. Remember that social media is a selfish platform, people stay when your story actually helps them. And the bigger reframe: the brilliantly unscripted approach, which is press record before you overthink it, use a simple story arc (hook, peak, takeaway), and build confidence through repetition rather than perfection.

If you need a low-pressure way in, try opening with "oops, I accidentally created some content" and let yourself flow. After you've recorded, Mia walks through the tidy workflow she uses to clean it up with Claude and Whisperflow: transcribe the audio, cut the repeats, add text-on-screen ideas, all without losing the natural voice that makes it worth watching in the first place.

The takeaway: your polished professional self is real, but she's not the version that connects on video. The version that connects is the one who presses record and trusts that repetition will do the work perfectionism keeps promising.

Key takeaways

  • You're not lazy about creating content, you were trained to be polished, and polish is not what platforms reward now
  • Masking, ADHD and perimenopause brain fog make the freeze worse, and naming it is half the work
  • Pick one idea that keeps calling you back, anchor it to one clear point, and use a simple story arc: hook, peak, takeaway
  • Confidence comes from repetition, not from waiting until you feel ready
  • "Oops, I accidentally created some content" is the permission slip to start

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A Double Rainbow Pushes Record

SPEAKER_00

So, well this is a sign for the universe. I thought I really want to create a podcast like I'm driving. I love creating podcasts in the car whilst I'm driving, so that's when my when I'm thinking the most. And then all of a sudden, double rainbow. And I was like, okay, universe, let me share my thoughts. So here I am cruising in my car. I had my music pumped. I was living my best life. And then I just had this idea of wanting to create a podcast. And so I did because I saw the double rainbow. And I was like, it's a sign. It's a it's absolutely a sign. So welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen Winner, your co-host. And this is just one of our podcasts that Mia and I do a bit fast and loose because I think we've explained in the past to you that look, there are lots of podcasts that the podcast co-hosts get together weekly and do this and it's all formatted. But if you've been around here a little while, I'm a manifesting generator. Mia has ADHD, I have undiagnosed ADHD. So for us, it's not all like the planning and things like that, the process of sitting down and doing it every single week at the same time. You know what? It's not always our jam. Plus, kids, school holidays, sickness, you name it, we've had it. So, all that aside, it got me thinking

Discovering Instagram And First Post

SPEAKER_00

about what I really did want to talk to you about today. And that is something that I have been leaning into very hard since I first started creating content. I started creating content on Instagram in 2015. Instagram wasn't that old back then. I don't know how long it'd been around. It was just your typical beautiful filtered image with a caption that you'd spent fucking an hour writing to make it absolutely perfect. And back then, and I will never forget the moment that I started creating content. Let me let me take it back a little step. So I was made redundant for my corporate career. And from that moment, I linked up with a friend who I used to work with in the corporate space. She's still I she also was made redundant, I believe. She worked in the gym in the health and wellness section of that particular corporate workplace. So I'd always see her in the gym. I knew her quite well. And she said to me one night, um, hey, I'm going to this event. Would you like to come along? I was like, Yeah, of course I'd like to come along. I'm here for events, I'm fast and loose now, I've got no corporate job, I need to make some networks. So off we went to this event. Now, at the event, around the place, there was lots of post this on Instagram, tag us, and I was like, I'm sorry, what? And so to uh to be fair, I was in the communications department, so I was in brands, marketing, and campaigns, but social media was so fresh. We had Facebook because we were a very typical corporate, like an ASX corporate company. So using social media was not absolutely not the thing back then. It just wasn't. We had a Facebook page, I believe, but it was like post your corporate shit and was really basically nothing. So that was fine, but there was no Instagram. So I hadn't really moved into that space as yet. I'd heard about it, seen it, curious, but never ever posted. And then that night I was just talking to this woman and we had this full conversation about Instagram and what it was about. She's like, oh, I just downloaded it last night. So there, there I am in this event and downloaded Instagram. And I'm so curious. I should go back to my original Instagram and see if I can find the post. But I remember, I will never forget it, because we're standing in front of the uh the board that they had for their event, the name of their business, which was Narish, I believe. Standing in front of that board and uh took a photo and then uploaded that photo with the hashtag Narish Event or whatever it was, because hashtags were huge, huge back in 2015. And I remember that was the beginning. So from that moment, we because I'd been made redundant, thankfully we just bought our property, um, a vineyard in down in the Fluoro in South Australia. So luckily we bought that because obviously the bank was kind to me because I had a job then. So we moved down there, and I said to my husband back then, and he he hates social media, and not for the fact of hates what I do on social media, just it's just not his jam. He's a little bit older than me, and he's he's an engineer, and he doesn't need social media, he's he's fine. So he doesn't really understand it either, but let's cotton socks. So I said to him, like, I'm just gonna start this and and document my journey about our vineyard. And back then I remember the first Instagram handle I ever created was between the vines. And that was because we were building our home between the vines on a vineyard. And so, you know, I'd take all these beautiful curated images and walks on the beach because we're also down by the coast, and you know, very typical of your 2015 Instagram. You know what I'm talking about. The filters on the photos that make the photos look really shit, even though it's a beautiful photo. So the between the vines was kind of what I started to grow and build and show people the journey of harvesting and things like that, which was great. But for me, Instagram was always a business. I never have ever, except for Facebook, but that was a different kind of generation, I suppose. But I've never started a social media to be social, which is dumb. But what I mean by that is I've always created social media for a business purpose. How can I make money from this idea? How can I leverage this idea? How can I take people from, wow, who's this person to, okay, I'd like to invest by whatever that looks like, create communities around this because from that initial Instagram, it

Building Community With A Business Goal

SPEAKER_00

changed a bit as I grew more. And actually, interesting enough, this particular woman that I went to the event with, I ended up creating her digital product back in 2016, started 2016, around a fitness journey and over 40. She was doing all that back then. So we created a digital product about working out over 40, health fitness, all of that. So I kind of then started to lean into that and then realized, hang on a minute, I really love business coaching and consulting. So then I changed that Instagram. I pivoted, I think on the same account. Yeah, I didn't. I pivoted on the same account, which turned into once I named my business KW Brand Solution, was my original and still is my sole trading name, but I changed it to um KW Brand and Style, I believe. Anyway, it it transformed and moved into more of a consulting business and a brand and marketing business, which I'm still in right now, and I still absolutely love to help someone like yourself or companies to build their brand and marketing and build their social media because I was working in it. I absolutely loved it. And the point of me sharing this story for you is one I always had in mind that if I'm building social media, I'm building it to build a community, to find people, like-minded people that agree, that want to learn, that want to be inspired, that kind of find my content and go, oh, I like that. I need help from that person, what she got. So you're you're building a community, a try. And what it's made me realize is currently I've been going and creating a bit of a series and a bit of content that is just what I call brilliantly unscripted. And I've been using a line, whoops, I can't create some content, because what I have noticed is those of us that are gloriously 40 in our millennials, older millennials, I don't really care how old you are, but older millennials, we get trapped in what will people think. And I know that you you may have heard this from 101 different creators. Like, what will people think? And so then you just

The Corporate Mask And Fear

SPEAKER_00

don't post and all of that. And this morning in the shower, I actually had a thought that the reason that I found it so difficult to initially create reels, for example, because when reels came out, I remember my cousins talking about it and I was like, oh, that sounds kind of cool. And like, fuck me, I should have jumped on that as soon as it started, but no, old man hesitated a bit, was like, I don't know, I don't know, should we, shouldn't we? I don't really understand it. Which is probably why I went full throttle with TikTok, because I just jumped in and went, fuck it, I've got to do this. And that's what helped propel me so much growth on TikTok. But in terms of reels, it was more that the whole video content part was so new on a platform like Instagram, where we're also used to photos. So as a millennial, an older millennial millennials certainly, we're just used to sending photos and curated feeds. And this morning in the shower, like I said, it got me thinking, because I worked in corporate and I worked in corporate in my corporate career, and then when I uh left corporate, I consulted to a lot of corporate companies, large and small. So for me, I always put that corporate hat on. I knew what the corporate hat, I knew who corporate Kristen was. And she's, you know, she's fun and she's still colourful, but she's very polished and she's not perfect, but once you got to know me, you really got to know me. And and it and I and I was always warm and friendly, but in corporate, if you've been in corporate, if you're listening to this right now and you have had a corporate career, I'ma feel you nodding. I know you know what I mean. It's just a different vibe where you've got to put on this veil of I know my shit and my ego's in the room, and that's okay. And and I've got to prove myself. And I worked in a very male-dominated industry, so I was continuously having to prove myself because I was in my early 20s, I turned 30 just as I kind of was made redundant. And in my early 20s, I was the very attractive, blonde, quirky designer, creative, wore colour. Just I knew that that's how I was perceived in the workplace is like, oh, we're having a meeting. Kristen will get the coffees. No, fucking she won't. It didn't take, it took me until I got into my late 20s and then 30s. I think I had a couple of years in my 30s. Um, I think I was made redundant in when I was 32, maybe. Excuse me. So, in saying that every time we had a meeting, or every time I had to speak to my boss, or every time I wanted to bring something to the table, I always had to put on the corporate Kristen. And so I trained myself to be, and you know, an undiagnosed ADHD over here, and I'm learning a lot from Mia with her ADHD diagnosis, the whole masking. And I call it putting on your coat of armor, that's how I call it. So I'd get dressed in the morning and I'd put on my coat of armor, which was the outfit that I wanted to wear to make me feel powerful and strong. And that's a whole, that's a whole different fucking side of Kristen. But I that was what I used to do in my corporate era. And it was only this morning in the shower when I was thinking, there has got to be more women like me that had their corporate careers that maybe still do, or maybe they hadn't and they're trying to build that entrepreneurial side of them. And whether it's a side hustle that you want to grow, or whether you've left corporate and you want to step into this, or whether you're still in corporate but you're trying to grow something else, it's very difficult. It's very, sorry, it's very hard to hear creators just say, just be authentic and show up as your true self and just jump on camera and start talking and just just do that. Because it did take me several years, I think, to break that training. And still sometimes I find myself falling back into it where I want to be, I want to be the person that you get all the time when you you're really close to me. I want to be that person that Mia sees on bloody slack all the time and goes, who is this loose unit? And and and to a degree I absolutely am. But I know, I know deep in my soul, there is still a level of trained professionalism that I bring in. And that's not a bad thing. I'm not saying that's a bad thing at all. I want to be really clear with that. I love that fucking part of me. I love the fact that I can still hold that space and still be authentic at the same time. But I do understand for doing this now for over 10 years that to crack that code and to break that training down isn't as easy as just going, I just do it. And so the whole point of this podcast, it's a very long way for me to get to this point. I'm so sorry, but I'm glad you're still with me, is that doing this whole brilliantly unscripted idea for me goes so much deeper than just saying, hey, just press record and you'll be amazing. Because I know that's not reality. But what I do know is the only way I untrained myself. The only way I became brilliantly unscripted, the only way I can hit record on my

How To Be Brilliantly Unscripted

SPEAKER_00

phone and just riff like this podcast. I only had this shower thought. There's no notes, I'm driving in the car. I know my story. I know what I want to share with you. I know the outcome that at the end of the day, I want to empower you to just try and be brilliant, un brilliantly unscripted and not always have to worry and be concerned and and and de uh deconstruct that training. That's what I want from you by the end of this podcast. It's go, okay, fuck it. Maybe I will try it. Maybe I will just try to hit record and not judge myself so deeply. And so that doesn't come with just waking up and thinking, you know what, I'm gonna grow a business and I'm just gonna make reels and TikToks and it's gonna be easy. It also doesn't come with, okay, so if I plan this out perfectly and I script it and then I read it, it's gonna, it's gonna come out perfectly. All of this stuff takes time and it takes a huge fucking amount of courage. However, it has to start somewhere. And that's my point. Is back in 2015, it started with me downloading Instagram. Then it started with me paying to go to different courses, investing in myself, um, putting myself out there and saying to businesses, yeah, I do this, and then making it fucking happen. So I know that you can do it, but my concern, not my concern, but my hope after this podcast is to just say to you, when I'm saying brilliantly unscripted, I'm not saying go to Claude, go to ChatGPT, use our second brain that we've got and create the perfect script. Use it to create ideas, sure. Because as a perimenopausal woman, we forget our ideas. I get that. But grab an idea, trust in yourself that you have enough knowledge within you to share that idea. Don't overcomplicate it, don't overthink it. Just, I mean, you you've read stories your entire life. You know a story has a beginning that hooks you in. It has a high point that takes you up to the top of the mountain where you go, what's gonna happen next? And then it delivers something at the very end. A story arc isn't that hard. A hook's aren't that hard. The whole process isn't that hard. Social media and watching gurus has made us think it's so goddamn hard. And how could we possibly do it without them? But at the end of the day, the way that they got to where they are, the way that I got to where I am, the way that you're gonna get to where you're going is by fucking starting and by doing the uncomfortable stuff over and over again where you get no views, you get one view, you get 10 views, you get a few comments that you don't love, you get comments that you do love. But you're never gonna know unless you started. And by being brilliantly unscripted, for me, has been so powerful because I hate fetching content. I hate a content plan, but I know my pillars, I know my through line. That's exactly what we do inside evolution is we take you and make sure that you understand your through line, your why, everything that is so, so deep within you that you don't have to make this shit up because it's in you. But if you don't highlight it and shine a light on it and find that through line and figure that out, then it does become hard to create content. And so nothing that I'm saying with doing this is easy. Everything takes work. And I don't know about you, but I think what's the saying? I mean, I used to say it all the time, like nothing free. Oh, I don't even know the fucking saying. I'm gonna stuff it up completely. But basically, everything takes hard work. I know that right now you're screaming at me in your car. I was like, this is the saying, you dickhead. But you know what I mean? Like, if it's if it's free, it's it's probably there's a there's there's something attached to it, basically. That's I've absolutely balls that up, but whatever, roll with me. So, what I would love from this podcast is for you to just go, okay, this is my vision. I want to create a business, I wanna, I wanna start something, I wanna see if this venture will work, I wanna see if my audience likes this, I wanna sell this, I want to create this business, whatever that, wherever you are right now, wherever. I don't care if you're like, oh, I've got too many ideas and I don't know which one to pick, cool, pick one. Just fucking pick one. Pick one that lights you up, pick one that you keep going back to, and then just start talking about it. Start talking about your journey, start talking about why it lights you up. But the most important thing when you do that and when you do something brilliantly unscripted is know that social media is a selfish platform. So at the end of the day, yes, your story is important, but it how does it help the person watching it? And if it's not helping the person watching it, that's where the that's where content falls down. If if I'm watching your content and I don't get anything from it that helps me, that's where content falls down. So when you're being brilliantly unscripted, I like to think, okay, what's the point of this? And right now, the point of this podcast is to see if today you can just create a piece of content where you just hit record and you don't second guess it, you just fucking go. And that might mean that you stuff it up, it's not as good as you think, there's too many ums and ahs, but you do the damn work. That's my point. So, in order to get to that point, or as order to share that story, as order to create the content that I can inspire you with to hopefully do that, I need to think, okay, what's the story? Well, the story for me was as simply that I started Instagram back in 2015 when we were just posting images. I have a corporate career which I had to completely untrain myself to be so corporate so that I could show up online. And it was hard because online requires you to be a little bit more vulnerable and not as perfect. And I knew that people in my corporate world were watching, I was like, ooh, that's gross, I can't stand that. But at the end of the day, they're they're not living my life. I'm living my life, and I want to make this work, so I'm gonna do the damn thing. And then at the end, it's it's it's gonna come to uh the point, which is okay, just just start and just start with that idea of okay, what's the point of this? What I want out of this? Here's the story to go along with it. How's this gonna help them? And just create that piece of content. Don't overthink it, don't think,

Editing Fast With Claude And Whisperflow

SPEAKER_00

oh, what hook should it be? Don't go to ChatGPT, don't go to Claude right now. Just create the content, just hit record, and if it sits in your draft for ages, that's fine. I've got some other ideas on my Instagram of what I do with that piece of content, which after I go to Claude, I create my piece of content in in edits. Instagram edits has been my favorite so far. Create it there. Then I jump into Claude into my content project that's got my second brain detached, and that's a whole different thing. Hang around for that later. But I then I go there. Well guys, I need to start this podcast, shiny object. Just saw a bee. And a bee's like a little, a bee just flew in front of my car and landed on the car in front of me. And that's like our little sign, the universe is out here. So double rainbows and a bee. You guys are one lucky thing today. So I open my project folder and then I hop that's got my content in it. And I hit Whisperflow. If you don't know about Whisperflow, get around it, it's voice to text. I play the video that I created, brilliantly unscripted. I play that, I hit Whisperflow, so it translates into Claude. And then I say to Claude, hey Claude, this is the video I just created. Can you cut out anything that's not important? Let me know what is important, maybe give me some text-on-screen ideas, and then I can go and edit the video. So then Claude does that. And then I go and edit out the bits. Like a few times, Claude's like, dude, you've said the same thing like three times over, which Claude also tells me is part of my charm sometimes. However, in my reels, it's like, get to the point. So then I can go and edit it. And that's how I'd edit the videos if I was you, because then you're not overthinking what you're saying. You're getting it from your content brain in Claude that's starting to understand you. And then that's also feeding Claude with the kind of content you create. So that when you do go and say, okay, I need some ideas for my next reel, then Claude says, All right, what about this idea? And then you can build that because understanding your language and how you create content. So if nothing else in this rant that was only meant to be like a 15-minute podcast, lol. I would love if you can try and be brilliantly unscripted. And if you want to use my hook that I absolutely love, whoops, I accidentally created some content. I often start like that, and then it just allows me to flow from there. I hit record and I go, oops, I accidentally created some content. And then I just start talking because it's that icebreaker that you need that you don't get if you're like, oh, what should my hook be? And then you kind of start it that way. So try it, let me know how you go. But if nothing else, be your brilliantly unscripted self because that's

The Hook To Try Today

SPEAKER_00

the person that you're trying to build and trying to grow. And by doing this and building the confidence every time you do this process, you'll get to a point where you can trust your stories. You can trust that, oh, I can do this. I've got so much content inside of me. I've just got to let the constraints of the world go and just do the damn thing. Because at the end of the day, there are no rules. So lean into it, own your confidence, own your space, and just try and be brilliant and unscripted. All right, it's been an absolute pleasure. I shall speak to you soon. Bye. Check the podcast. Absolutely so many good ones, too.