60. The 4 Content Themes Guiding My Message, Writing Discipline, and Instagram Growth

I realized recently that I’ve been neglecting my own writing discipline, and it’s affecting more than just my creativity.

Lately, I realized I haven’t been protecting my own writing discipline the way I encourage my clients to. In this episode, I’m sharing the shift I’m making and the four content themes I’m building my work around moving forward: Theology of Calling, Sustainable Structure, Stewarding Influence, and For Fun’s Sake.

If you’re creating content, building an online business, and trying to steward your work faithfully without burning out or losing the joy of it, I hope this framework helps you think through your own message.

Dusty's Website: https://dustyhegge.com

Dusty on Instagram: https://instagram.com/dustyhegge

Join the Percolator Waitlist: https://dustyhegge.com/percolator

Free Action Planner: https://dustyhegge.com/action-planner

chapters

00:00 Dusty's Personal Reflection on Content Struggles
00:52 The Percolator Program and Its Impact
01:44 Women in Transition and Business Growth
02:33 Practicing Writing and Protecting Creative Time
03:25 Content as a Reflection of Faith and Message
04:39 Website Platforms and Tech Stack Tips
06:19 The Four Core Content Themes
08:01 The Theology of Calling: Big Dreams, Success, and Faith
15:57 Sustainable Structure and Capacity Building
18:29 Stewarding Influence and Leadership Development
22:07 Prioritizing Fun as Worship and Joy
25:54 Using Content Themes as Boundaries and Focus
28:24 Accountability and Next Steps for Content Strategy

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Lately, I've been feeling like a little like a loss for words. Like I am a lady of many words. You know that full well, hanging out here with me at Voice Memos, on Voice Memos, in whatever, you get it, right? But I have a surplus of ideas, of content ideas, and just so many things that I feel really eager and excited to share with you. But it's like I can't. I can. But and and I've done some work to kind of try and figure out what the heck is going on. And I think a big piece of it is I've sort of lost the self-discipline to be building a regular and protecting a regular writing time. That's something I worked actually a lot in this cohort of the percolator in particular, which actually just ended a couple of weeks ago. We wrapped up cohort two. Cohort three is going to open for new enrollments beginning to mid-probably more like mid-April. I have a couple of client projects I want to kind of wrap up before I kind of give myself the space to really do the percolator launch justice because I really believe in this program. And it's been so incredible to walk alongside the women who have gone through the percolator, which, if you're new around here, the percolator is a group mentorship and mastermind program. We're very much like that biblical discipleship and business development meet in real time. So it's very community-based. There's an option to add some one-on-one VIP strategy sessions alongside that. And I will say all of the clients who opt for that see much bigger results by the end of the cohort than those who don't. That said, everybody who's ever gone through it has really been blessed by it. And it's such an honor to lead this program. And I and I say all this to say something that we worked a lot in this last cohort, because God really uniquely brought women who are very much so, and part of that is like obviously by design in the way that I'm marketing the perk leader and talking about it, right? But a lot of it is very much happenstance, well, by God's design, right? That the women in this cohort in particular are very much, we're all very much in transition in one way or the other, preparing for a big shift in their season ahead or having to lay aside and maybe pause some really big, beautiful, I believe, God-given dreams and kind of focus on their mana for today and set some big ambitious dreams aside to be picked up later. And so much of the work that we did towards the second half of this cohort was how can we protect all the incredible habits and sort of self-disciplines that you've built and practices that you've built as you've gone through the percolator to protect your creative writing time, to protect the elements of your business that are more artistry and more craft and more practicing, learning how to share what it is you're wanting to share and share the message that God has put on your heart. Because by nature, a lot of what it means to be a business owner, particularly an online business owner, particularly a Christian online business owner, is there's a lot of writing involved. Most of the men and the women that I work with are either authors, writers, or coaches slash like mentors, most often. And the reason why you're in that work is because you have a message to share, because you feel really called by the Lord to talk about XYZ topic, right? And a lot of that is going to be worked out in practice of practicing writing it. And big piece of being able to sit down and write is practicing, like protecting that goal. We talk a lot about boundaries and we talk a lot about capacity, but rarely do we talk about what we have to sacrifice in order to implement said boundary or to implement said rhythm. And there's kind of always has to be a give and take. The beautiful part is that you're in charge most of the time, not always, but most of the time of like what you sacrifice and what you prioritize. And so getting a lot of clarity around that is a lot of the work that we did within the percolator for this particular cohort. And it really has made me realize in the last few weeks that I have neglected my own writing time and I have neglected my own, like the creative aspects of my work, I have really not been holding very tightly to. The platform that I feel sort of like led to pursue is primarily is on Instagram. I'm still dabbling over on Substack. I'm going to really lean in hard into blogging and my email list. And I'm actually working on redesigning my website right now because I realize like a lot of the reason why I have a hard time publishing a blog post is because I don't like the way I have my blog set up on my current website. And that it was very much like an if you give a mouse a cookie thing when my daughter was having her appendicitis and I was just sitting for a long time. I designed like 85% of the website. I did use a temp a website template. And actually, I'm switching from Squarespace to show it. And I have so much to say about that process to kind of do a full, it'll probably be one of my first blog posts, actually, like a full breakdown on like Squarespace versus show it and what I think you should use. Spoiler alert, I kind of think Squarespace still wins, to be 100% honest, for like 98% of business owners should be on Squarespace and not on Show It. But, anyways, that's a conversation for another time. That said, if you're listening to this now and you're like, ah, I'm like in that weird in-between and I want to build a website and I don't know which one to use, feel free to message me on Instagram and ask me about it because I will pop off and help you figure out which one you should use. Because deciding which platform to use, as I find often people's like have a real sticking point with trying to figure out what tools and platforms to use because it feels kind of final. Um I would like to remind you that it's not final, but if you can avoid having to switch halfway through, the better, right? I do actually have a freebie, I like to call the business brew kit. I'll put a link to it in the show notes for you. And it pulls out kind of my tech stack, all of the tried and true softwares and platforms and tools and even business books that I come back to again and again and again and am constantly recommending to people. And within there, there's even a few discounts like for Flowdesk and for Squarespace and all kinds of good stuff in there for you. So that's for free. I can't remember the URL right now, but I will pop it in the show notes for you. So you can grab that if in you want it. But, anyways, I say all of this rambliness to say I have not been one, protecting my own writing time and like developing that as a craft and as a skill set, even though it's something I love to do. And two, I realize how much like when I am protecting it, I'm not really writing in a way that's very aligned with how do I know. That's not quite the right way to say it. I'm not really, I find myself writing a lot of like what I feel led to write that's fun, and not entirely a lot of what I know you need as an ambitious Christian leader in the online business space to be able to grow well. And I love writing that kind of content, but I haven't been prioritizing making it really practical for you guys. And I was actually looking on my Instagram the other day. Like the past like nine posts haven't even really been about business at all. And no, let's be candid and honest here. Like, yeah, I talk about business, but I talk about a whole lot more than that, right? Like, you know that. You're here listening to voice memos. We talk about theology and Bible study, we talk about faith, we talk about mental health and ADHD. But a lot of it is through this lens of how can we take all of these wonderful things and difficult things and challenging things and just things in our lives, whether calling or responsibility or trial, whatever it might be, and steward these things all well alongside stewarding the work that we feel God has asked us to do in this season of life, right? And so there are a lot of elements to that. And so what I want to do today is not just ramble on and on about that, though this is a good time, right? But is to kind of talk to you about, I have sort of distilled these down into some primary content themes as sort of anchor points. And I thought, man, it actually might be really helpful for you if you were to hear what mine are, and you can kind of adapt them to your own content because the purpose of the content that we share online, whatever platform like Substack or Instagram or our blogs or our email list, like it is meant to do a few primary things. The first, and maybe the most important, is to serve our people really well, right? To give them solutions to their problems, to offer encouragement or offer entertainment, to offer value, quote unquote. And value is very vague, but I think saying things like education, entertainment, encouragement, something like sort of to challenge them in a really positive way to help them think differently, right? This is more so like almost thought leadership in a way. And that's like kind of the first thing, right? The second thing is like to make sales. Like as an online business owner, we really, really care about our people, but also like we need to feed our families and we need to like pay the bills and stuff. We also need to make money. So not only does this content need to serve our people, it also needs to drive in sales, whether now or we're preparing somebody to make the sale in the future, right? Like kind of in a warm-up phase of a launch, which is really wonderful because the content that blesses people the most and really serves people, more often than not, is going to be the same kind of content that leads to sales. So it's very much like a win-win situation: win for the customer or client, and win for us, the author, business owner, service provider, you know, whatever. It's a win for everybody. A level win-win. And then the third thing is for fun. It's for creative expression, for exploration, for expansion, for all of the like whatever cutesy little journal buzzwords you want to say. It kind of all boils down to like that. The third thing that our content should do would be to encourage us as creatives, encourage us and grow us and challenge us and be like a place of creativity and play and expression. And so that for me has been more of a primary focus than the first two. And so, and that's kind of an is out of order right now. Like what I need to do is come back to the place where I'm creating more content that serves you. But it's not that I want to get rid of that third thing, right? Of the play and creative expression. I want to keep that because it's good and it's I still believe that it really, and I hope that it really still blesses you and it encourages you and does all the good things that a good content should do. But I need to add more of one and two, right? Add more service value-based, thought leadership-based kind of content and add more direct sales focused kind of content, right? Especially since like I've been pretty vocal about this, but my grow in this year is to grow, or my goal in this year, that was a tongue twister, is to grow it in visibility and increase the actual metrics. For a long time, up until this point, the goal has been use what's there and nurture the audience that's there. So the kind of content that I'm creating is less growth-focused content and more nurture-focused content. And so the aim is different with those pieces of content and those types of things that you're talking about. Also, like I've been very much in flux of like trying to find the best ways to sort of articulate the work that I do because it is in this weird juxtaposition, um, in this weird in-between of like, I don't want to be a tacky, if you pray hard enough, Jesus will make your business awesome, kind of business educator, like Christian business educator. And I also don't want to be like an overly business strategy focused, wherein we're only talking sales and we're only talking, you know, those very practical business development skills. And I don't even really think there's anything inherently wrong with either of those. I mean, obviously, I think there can be something wrong with both of those, but what the kinds of things that I feel called to talk to about, to talk about the kind of the kind of work that I get to do with my clients, is in that weird in-between, is that weird tension between balancing that biblical discipleship and business development and stewarding the various callings that God has blessed us with and entrusted to us with a whole lot of joy and faithful obedience, intentionality, and surrender, right? So it's that weird in-between. And so what I've done is I have gone through and kind of brain-dummed to all the kinds of content I want to talk about, and I'm distilling them into four primary content themes. It's um, everybody kind of teaches this topic like so differently. My favorite way that I've heard it taught is by Xanthe Appeliard. She actually has a free like content themes freebie that I've taken before and I really liked and I felt like it was valuable. And so I've sort of taken what I've learned from that and what I've learned from other business educators and just from my own research after being in this field for 10 plus years and kind of taken my own unique spin on approach on how I want to put these sort of core content themes into action. And it won't just be on Instagram, though I'm kind of like letting that be the place where I start. And then it will kind of bleed out into this space and bleed out into my blog and bleed out into the email newsletter and stuff. Because the fact of the matter is, is like Instagram is gonna be one of the bigger drivers for growth and Substack and then kind of working backwards from there, right? And so I'm gonna just kind of share a quick overview of what these are all gonna be. Hopefully, by the time this episode goes live, I have the like posts on Instagram as well. And if that's the case, I'll try and link it in the show notes. But if not, you can just find me over on Instagram at Dusty Heggy, um D-U-S T Y, and then Heggy is H-E-G-G-E. But it looks like hedgy or hege, or you know, there's like a thousand ways you can mispronounce it, but it's heggy. It rhymes with Peggy, is what I like to tell people. Okay, so here are the kind of like core content themes, which the naming of these might be in flux. I might change them. I can't decide. I c I kind of like where they are. Anyways, let's just carry on. The first is the theology of calling, the second is sustainable structure, the third is stewarding influence, and the fourth is for fun's sake. So, under this sort of like content theme of theology of calling, what I'm really speaking to is a lot more than that. And I struggle to find one word that kind of pulls it all together, but I felt as though calling maybe is did the best at trying to encapsulate, encapsulate everything I want to talk to you about here. So, not just calling, but like ambition, work, play, hobbies, success and failure, rest and work, God's will and seeking God's will and understanding our purpose and living within our purpose, desire, pleasure. I really believe that all of those are sort of subcategories of how we use this word like calling in a blanket and sort of broad way. So I would love to look at things that like, is it biblical to dream really big and be ambitious? Is it God's will? And how do I find out if it is God's will? Can I go against God's will? What is my purpose? Is it bad to want success? What even is success? And what about failure? Is that bad? Like, what does God have to say about failure? What about pleasure and play and rest? And kind of looking at the theological implications of all of these things and making them practical so that as we wrestle with all of these topics that I think are really, really beautiful and good to ask questions about, we're being pointed back to Jesus Christ Himself. Because at the end of the day, the reason why we wrestle with these topics, the reason why we are unpacking and trying to understand this sort of theology of calling isn't to have more clarity about ourselves, though that is a natural byproduct when we have more clarity about who God is. And so that's kind of the whole heart of what that means. It's really that biblical discipleship kind of made very practical in a way, right? So the next one is sustainable structure. You guys hear me talk about it all the time, but I really believe in my very, very core that you cannot operate a thriving business or life or relationship of any kind if you're neglecting your foundations. And so these aren't the things that are like sexy or flashy or even anything new. Like a lot of it is going to be stuff that you have heard before, maybe not in the way that I teach it, but they're like the essential building blocks for personal growth, for business development and a more like flourishing life and like relationships with God and with your spouse and with your kids and with anybody, right? So when we talk about sustainable structure, that kind of includes topics like ADHD as a Christian and kind of a holistic approach to sort of mental health and working. It's not just the topic of ADHD, though that is a piece of it, but like working with ADHD or other sort of limited capacities. But I will probably primarily be talking about ADHD because that's something I actually feel qualified to talk about in that I have lived experience. But I am so certain that a lot of that can be applied to other ways that you might have, like a limited capacity, but big ambitious goals. We'll talk a lot about household rhythms. I kind of said this just a second ago, but like capacity-based systems and planning. Something that I have a lot to say about is like goals versus aims versus intentions and sort of defining each of these and getting really clear on what they mean and how we can apply them to our lives. Another thing, sort of under the sustainable structure content theme, is like Bible study, rhythms and tools and structure. It's like the practicalities of it, not just the theological discussion about it, right? And also things like habit stacking, building self-discipline. It's really like about working with our capacity in a sustainable, structured way, as the content theme suggests, and learning how to grow our capacity in a grace-based, realistic way. And we're pushing ourselves, but we're not pushing ourselves to the point of breaking, right? Because capacity is a muscle. It's something that is going to grow and reduce with seasons of life, with your skill level, with how much you're intentional about trying to sort of foster more capacity, or like what it looks like to be obedient when God's like, hey, I'm taking all of your capacity away, whether you want it or not. And what does it look like to like be a good steward of that season of life and still hold these big ambitious goals? Kind of like I was talking about with my percolator cohort this year, wherein several of them are sort of putting pause, putting some big goals that I believe that they will one day pursue. And that kind of falls under that sustainable structure. The next content theme is stewarding and developing influence. And so this is more of that business specific. I like toyed back and forth with calling this like strategic planning or business development, but I went with stewarding and developing influence because we are gonna talk about marketing and visibility and like practical growth strategies. We're gonna talk about sales, money mindset, and everything that's kind of tied to earning money. So, like the theology of that, the practices of it, discernment, faithful obedience is a really big one here within this sort of stewarding influence, though. I would argue faithful obedience is more so a core value I hold rather than a content theme. That's kind of another conversation for another time. But hustle and what is a holy hustle versus what is a pride-based hustle, strategic planning, business strategy, operations, systems, all of that. But we're also going to talk about what does it mean to be a good leader? What does it mean to want to build a platform as a Christian? And like how can we do that in humility without it becoming a place of pride? But it can be a place of service and of worship to the Lord. And if slash when it does become a place of pride, what do we do then? And how do we move forward and reorient our hearts in alignment with God's will, right? So that and that's why I said stewarding and developing influence, because it's really more about stewarding and developing leadership and visibility and growing our business through that, because we really are operating and growing businesses in an attention economy. And I've seen a lot of people use this phrase recently in the online spaces, like saying there's like a trust recession. And I actually really agree with that. And it's kind of a great time to build trust with your audience right now. And it's a great time to be really plain and candid and speak very kind of no holds bar, like very bluntly about what you believe, why you believe it, and why it matters to them and to you, right? And so we're living in a unique period of time for online marketing and platform building and for visibility, but because things are rapidly, rapidly changing, which is why, and it was one of the driving factors that was like, okay, I can't just keep like fiddle farting around about creating some content themes and really diving into like the kinds of things I'm gonna really lean in and focus on. Um because things are gonna be, things are already evolving at such a fast pace, and I can almost guarantee you that is gonna just quicken over time. And so the thing that is gonna be sort of at anchor for us as Christian leaders who maybe can't always keep up with all the latest trends, is getting really clear on our message, getting really, really clear on who we're serving and why, and really pulling back into these very core business foundations. I talk about this at almost at nauseam, but at length in the first module of Grounded, which is still available for early access. It is my goal for the month of March to really wrap this up and get a lot more traction done and get that published in full. But there is still a lot of content that you can access right now within Grounded. That whole module about brand identity is really gonna help you to work towards developing a lot of these content themes. Okay. So so far we have, let me give you a little summary. We have theology of calling, sustainable structure, stewarding, and developing influence slash leadership. That's the one that's like the name might change. I might say stewarding leadership. Anyways, but that's the idea, right? And the final one is for fun's sake, because I really Really, really believe in the power and in the importance of pursuing and planning for and being intentional about prioritizing fun. Fun is so important for, I believe, so, so many reasons. And I could dive into the theology of fun. And I actually fully intend to, because when you're having fun, there's a certain amount of trust that has to happen. There's a certain amount of surrender. It's very hard to have fun if every muscle in your body is clenched. Uh a faith in the Lord and in his ability to pursue to like just provide for you when you allow yourself to have fun. It really is such a beautiful act of worship. And what I believe we were ultimately really created for, because God didn't just create us to be these mindless drones that like love God and worship him endlessly, though that is true. But like the way that he's made us to love him and the way that we get to worship him is through this vehicle of fun, of joy, of play and celebration, of emotion. And I just in my life, going through all of the things that I have gone through, God is constantly bringing me back to this place of like, you don't need to worry, Dusty. I actually got my first tattoo because of that. But you don't need to worry. And when you can let go of worry, you can in like welcome in fun again. You can come back to the things that make you smile and are play, like just come back to playfulness, right? So under this sort of umbrella, this content theme, we'll talk about exactly what I just said, right? Exploring the importance of fun from a theological, spiritual, mental, and physical health sort of standpoint. But also like, I'm just intending to document the fun, sharing my own hobbies, like gardening and cooking and coffee and art and painting and motherhood, and just allowing myself to like have a content theme where it kind of accomplishes what I was talking about at the top of the show, right? Of like the content I have produced recently, especially on Instagram, but has really been about just like topics that I wanted to write about that day. And they didn't really have a purpose or like a call to action or anything. And it was just kind of for funsies. And I want an umbrella that stays that, not just to be a catch-all, but to to really illustrate in real time the importance of prioritizing playfulness and prioritizing fun and prioritizing like celebration, because it is an essential point a component in like worshiping Christ. I suffered from really severe depression, starting as a really little girl, and it's kind of ebbed and flowed and come and gone. And I got very, very good at masking it. So most, I think, of my like peers as a kid would never have really known what was happening. And even in my early adulthood years, very few people really knew what was happening. And being a child of divorce, that's like not uncommon, right? But somewhere along the lines, I started saying, and I don't know what it came from, as like, I know that like prioritizing fun and play is not gonna inherently cure me of depression. But it is really hard to be sad when you're having fun, you know? Like it's not a cure-all, it's not a mask, and we don't need to pretend to be happy and have fun when we're not feeling it. But I also think there's a certain amount of recognizing that fun is a muscle, playfulness is a muscle in the same way that capacity or self-control or self-discipline or any of the other sort of attributes that a person might want to strive towards, right? It can be grown and it can be stretched and it can be explored in new ways. And so this sort of content theme of for fun's sake or for funsies, I've gone back and forth on which one I want to call it, but for fun's sake is silly and I like that it's fun. So, you know, I might just keep that. And that is kind of the point of it, right? But, anyways, so those are the kind of main umbrellas that I'm gonna be talking things through on because for, and it does a lot of things to sort of serve me as a business owner. It gives me some anchor points of content to kind of come back to again and again, and it's gonna help me to repeat my message, repeat my core values, repeat how I serve my people and why over and over again without literally saying the same thing over and over again. It kind of gives me some blinders through which that I'm creating content. And if I write something and I say, okay, it doesn't actually fit in any of these categories, the questions I can then ask myself is is this something that needs to be online? Is this something I share publicly? Or what needs to change so that it can fit in with one of these categories, with one of these content themes, right? That way, even if I'm in a season of like in between, like I am now, I'm not currently launching anything, but I do really want to focus on growth and visibility. I have some client work that I'm working on behind the scenes, a big website build and a couple mentorship clients and stuff that I really kind of want to give my full attention to before I really dive into focusing on launching and filling up the next cohort for the percolator to talk about and come back to that doesn't take the thinking away for me, but like gives me boundaries through which to think. And I really believe I learned this when I did in high school, I got to do like an advanced art class and I loved it. And the thing that I really learned through that process was like when there are rules at play that you have to follow, the art almost always turns out better because we have to think creatively. We have to think outside of the box in order to create something that follows said rules. And these content themes are kind of like that. It's they're kind of ways for me to be able to focus in on the content that I really want to create and really want to show up for and really want to share with you. But when push comes to shove, sometimes it's hard to actually follow through on those things. And it's not because I don't want to do it, right? Like I think very rarely do we not follow through on something because we don't want to do it, but because there's not enough parameters through which we need to do it. Like and not enough accountability and not enough boundaries and not enough guardrails, whatever you want to call it, because we need that as human beings. Like we we really do need that. So I hope that this was helpful for you. I hope that it was encouraging. I'm really excited to bring this to life through Instagram. Hold me accountable to it, my friend. Because if you, if you're listening to this podcast episode and I've still not really implemented this, then message me. Angry emojis in my DMs, please. I'm gonna need your help to follow through on this because it's something that I want to follow through on, right? So I'm very excited about it, to be honest, and I can't wait to make it happen and bring it to life. As we wrap up, make sure you grab that business brew kit if you're wanting it. It's like all of my um tech stack and what I like to use time and time again. And um follow me over on Instagram. Lastly, one last thing. Don't go yet. Please don't go yet. Pay attention. Would you please leave either a five-star rating on Spotify or review over on Apple Podcasts? It would mean just the absolute world to me. It would help me really accomplish a lot of goals. And honestly, I just, I would really love to hear from you because podcasting can sometimes be a very lonely and isolating thing. In my mind, I like to envision you here with me and like we're chatting over a cup of coffee. And I certainly hope that's how it feels. But at the end of the day, I'm actually just staring at myself in the computer and talking into a microphone. So if you could please give me some feedback, leave a comment on Spotify, leave a rating, leave a review, message me over on Instagram and let me know what you liked. I mean, or what you didn't like if you're feeling really ballsy that day. But I just I want to talk with you, my friend. Okay, that's all. Talk next week. Bye.