Welcome to The Morning Chatter!

Intro to The Morning Chatter

Cohost: Debbie Dowling Wahba (Mama Wahba)

Cohost: Mary Kim Farkas

Show: The Morning Chatter Podcast

Episode Overview

In this launch episode, Mary Kim Farkas sits down with Debbie Dowling Wahba, the founder and co-owner of The Morning Chatter on Chatter Social, to talk about how this powerful morning show came to life.

They discuss the inspiration behind the platform, the magic of community collaboration, and the intentional design that makes The Morning Chatter a space where leaders, creators, and changemakers come together every weekday morning to share, connect, and grow.

Highlights & Key Takeaways

• The Inspiration: Debbie shares how she wanted to create a place where people could learn, grow, and start their mornings with purpose.
• Community Connection: How The Morning Chatter grew from zero to 600+ members in just a few months.
• Intentional Leadership: The importance of building with integrity, awareness, and respect for other communities.
• Behind the Scenes: How daily videos, coordination, and promotion help elevate each speaker.
• The Magic of Alignment: Speakers often unknowingly align on similar topics, creating a natural flow that feels divinely synchronized.
• Next Steps: The podcast will feature interviews with each speaker and expand into immersive live experiences.

Timestamps

00:00 – Welcome & Introduction
 01:05 – What inspired The Morning Chatter
04:20 – Building community with purpose
07:10 – The power of timing and collaboration

Transcript

Mary Kim Farkas 0:00

Hi all, this is Mary Kim Farkas, and I'm here with the founder, co-owner of the morning chatter on the social app, Chatter Social, Debbie Dowling Wahba. I have a question for you. So this is a new platform that you decided a few months or so ago to have this idea and calling it the morning chatter. One, what was your inspiration? What inspired you, and why did you want to do this?

Debbie D. Wahba 0:37

Well, my name is Debbie Dowling Wabba, Debbie D. Wahba, Mama Wahba. Um, so you know, I think what inspired me was the the whole fact of not really having a place to go to in the morning where I could learn and just be in a space of different people. I wanted to hear different voices, I wanted to learn different things, and I really wanted to have a community. And I feel like we have really in the short few months that we've brought this together, we really do have a great community of speakers and of you know moderators that come in and help to moderate. So I'm really excited for what the show has, what it's gonna offer, what it's gonna be, and just look for its growth. So I'm super excited about it. And Mary Kim, what made you say yes?

Mary Kim Farkas 1:30

I said yes because we've been doing a lot of new adventurous things for five plus years and supporting one another, even if we don't have the roadmap all planned out. We decided to like partner together. And I believed in I believe in you first and foremost. I was excited about the new ideas and just seeing you grow and as your friend, co-partner for many years on these social streets, I said yes. And you know what I love best? The community as a collective came together and wanted to be part of it. That's one. The second thing that I love the best, not that they're in any particular order, the second thing I love the best is that you really put in a lot of thought. Once you had the idea, you put in a lot of thought and consideration for prior groups that you belong to and communities, as well as some that you were moving away from. And you were very conscious of the timing of the morning chatter. So the morning chatter is typically run every Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. Eastern to 10 a.m. Eastern. And you took a lot of consideration for that time slot so that it wouldn't disrupt other places that were also part of chatter social. So you were very aware of, you know, how do I branch this out? How do I start this with, you know, not having a big ripple effect, like a disastrous rip ripple effect, I want to say, like uprooting or hurting someone else's platform that they already had going. Like you were very conscious of that. And a lot of leaders or those who start different communities or new ideas may not even think about that because it's sometimes all about what they want, not really about the community as a collective.

Debbie D. Wahba 3:29

Yeah, and and you know, bringing up the whole time thing. So being that we're on chatter social and it has this whole big worldwide audience, part of starting at 6 a.m. was to include the European people that might be at work or whatever, but then they might have that time frame free, and they can come in and talk about what it is that their expertise is in. And the reason why, like till 10 a.m. was to catch the the West Coast people in the United States, but you know, I I see it's just evolving. And the thing is, you know, I I'd like to have a little bit more, you know, as far as like more European uh people chiming in, and I'd also like to have more West Coast people, but it's a lot of effort and you know, four hours of sitting there, and that's the one thing like people don't really understand is that you and I are there and we're paying attention. Yes, we might be doing something in the background because you know, you can't sit for four hours and pay attention completely, but we're still paying attention, we're participating, and it's because of each and every speaker that comes on. I really value and appreciate them giving their time to do that. So I want to be conscious of that and I want to be able to make sure that I'm paying attention and that they're feeling seen and heard. And if they're asking a question, we're participating in the conversation, which is a big thing that I find with us. We have a number of speakers that talk, but they also ask questions and they want the participation. And I think that that's really great when you can bring a community together that educates but also communicates because everybody has the conversations.

Mary Kim Farkas 5:17

So yes, and that is a beauty because we can learn and grow from one another. And like every day, I'm I'm there every single day, right? Either it's six to ten, or sometimes I get there a little later because I have a prior commitment. But every single day is just absolutely amazing. It's something that magical happens when you create a community around and for the community, somehow, somehow, the speakers. So there's what, probably about seven to eight speakers, depending on the day.

Debbie D. Wahba 5:51

Yeah, we start, we have some days where there's only four speakers, and then we have some days that goes up to six speakers. It just depends on because some only want to talk for 30 minutes and some want to talk for an hour. So it just depends on the day.

Mary Kim Farkas 6:04

So an average of let's say six people every day of the week, Monday through Friday. And every single person comes in with their own expertise, their own experiences, you know, their own topics. And none of the speakers talk to each other weekly or daily about what they're going to talk about or the subject frame of it, right? And so that is magical. So what happens in the morning chatter is that as the speakers, depending on what every day that they come in and they share whatever they're working on, somehow, somehow it's all synchronized together. The topics relate, one goes into the next speaker or the one beforehand. It is really that's the energy of the space, and also the beauty of the space, is that we're all aligned. I think that's just how that works magically is crazy and amazing.

Debbie D. Wahba 7:01

It really does. And you know, I mean, I I know prior to the show who's speaking about what because I have the speaker send a title and then uh so that we can be prepared for it. So I I'm always amazed when I see the titles and they kind of all just blend together. And and it's not that they're the same, like the same topic, but they're all kind of falling into the not, I would I want to say same topic, but similar. They're very similar. They kind of all tie together, they just weave so perfectly together, and it's almost like where one person leaves off, the next person picks up and puts their spin on that overarching kind of like theme of the day. So it's just amazing to see how that comes together.

Mary Kim Farkas 7:44

Yeah, I love that. I am like always surprised of it because it happens almost every single day. But I'm like, oh my gosh, that's the beauty of it. And I wanted you to talk about Debbie, is not only keeping the schedule, the change of schedule, because life be lifing, right? And if you've been following us on other platforms, you know we talk about life be lifing all the time. There's always a change of schedule or something happens in within our own personal lives that we have to switch up or cover for one another. But you do also, outside of getting the speakers new links, what their subject is, you create videos specifically for each speaker every single day. Yes. And there's a lot of communities that do not either do that at all, right? And or create videos. A lot of communities that I've been part of, that we've been part of, they don't promote it the way you do. Why did you decide to do that extra work?

Debbie D. Wahba 8:41

Well, again, it's because of the speakers that are on the show. And I want to be able to elevate them. And that's the whole point of even starting this podcast was because I want them to be successful. And by doing that, it's growing the social media, it's growing the awareness of the show. And as we grow together as a team, we're gonna grow. Their businesses are gonna grow. And that is what I'm looking for is just to be able to help them to grow in their spaces and their, you know, their fields of interest and whatever topic they're covering. Most of them have a business, most of them have a product to sell. Um, I I can really only think of one person that talks that doesn't have a product to sell. So it's really there to grow them too. And the only way we're gonna grow is to grow together.

Mary Kim Farkas 9:31

Yes, I love that. And we know the power of social media as well, right? So when you post on these social media platforms and you have the person's name in it, or you're tagging them, or vice versa. This is how we all grow our communities. It's the group collective initiative of okay, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna support one another. And that not only brings uh highlight to the speakers that are part of the morning chatter, it also brings um eyes onto the morning chatter itself and chatter social audio app. Well, it's not, it's more than an audio app.

Debbie D. Wahba 10:08

Um, there's so much more to chatter. It's so much more. And I know we're talking about chatter, and you know, because that's where the show is mainly right now, but eventually I would like it to be, you know, everywhere and we're gonna start streaming it out. Um, but also because of the fact that uh that's where we got our start as far as the actual show uh was is on chatter social. And I think I would be remiss if we didn't mention Leah, Leah Rosenberry in this because she has been such a supporter and an integral part of the morning chatter. And I know she doesn't like to be, you know, to be thanked or anything like that, but she she really has been really supportive. And you know, Nelson as well, the founder of the app. And it's just amazing to see how when you are consistent and you keep going each and every day, the people that were attracting, and just even people that want to be a part of it and want to be speakers. And I have to say, so we began uh it was July 12th, no, sorry, June 12th, we started. June 12th, well June 12th, we started. We had uh zero members in our morning chatter group. I just pulled it up now, and there's 623 members of the morning chatter right now. So are you know it's growing. Yeah, it it's it's amazing, and I I'm just so thrilled. And that's why, you know, we're doing this now with the podcast, so we can get it out there. And I think what we're gonna do going forward is we're going to have each, you know, each of the speakers come on and we'll interview them here as to why they got involved with the morning chatter and you know what they I didn't know that, but that's exactly I was really gonna be like, I think we need to have the speakers come and be part of this conversation.

Mary Kim Farkas 12:00

Yes. This is alignment, and we didn't talk about this beforehand. Nope.

Debbie D. Wahba 12:04

It actually just came to my brain right now.

Mary Kim Farkas 12:06

So oh yeah, me too. So okay, here we go. Alignment.

Debbie D. Wahba 12:09

Yeah, so uh, you know, I guess going forward, you know, each week we'll have a different guest and they can talk about, you know, why they joined the morning chat or talk a little bit about their business, and we're gonna interview them. And I think that's gonna be an exciting direction to bring the show as well.

Mary Kim Farkas 12:25

I love it, I love it, I love it. And definitely stay tuned because Debbie and I are working on special guests to do special live conversations and immersive events in that aspect. So definitely stay tuned, definitely follow us, and definitely download the chatter social app. It is more than just a social app. I mean, we got videos, recordings, all the things. Seriously, it's the only app that has all the things.

Debbie D. Wahba 12:58

That's all I want to mention. We have all the way, and that's why we started the show there because it's not only just audio, it is the visuals. We have speakers that talk about that too. So yes, yeah, amazing. This has been great.

Mary Kim Farkas 13:14

So definitely if you come and join us, uh, let us know that you heard from us on this platform here today.

Debbie D. Wahba 13:22

Yeah, and I just want to say thank you to everyone that's listening in, and we will be back in the morning chatter because the chatter matters.