We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brianna Schamberg a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Brianna, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
Our show, “What’s with the Neighbors” is not for sharing the latest news on politics, or to give financial advice, it’s a fun hobby my best friend and I share where we deliver you our NOT-so-boring take on true crime and paranormal stories. We want to give you the deets on these dark stories and possibly manage to make you laugh, simply having a good time.
What’s with the Neighbors podcast isn’t just a show, it’s a major part of mine and Amy’s friendship. Bri here! and as many may know we are based out of North Pole, Alaska. Amy was here for at least 5-6 years and my family and I were sent here per military orders. Now, as a mom of 2 in Alaska, especially in winter, you can get lonely and down. “Cabin fever” as they call it.
One day in the spring just before break-up season when all the snow melts, I took my girls to my next-door neighbor’s house to play. They had a home daycare, so picture lots of kids in full-on winter gear buried in the snow just going nuts. Along with my NEXT-door neighbor another neighbor from a little further down who also had a daycare was there, this was Amy. I knew we’d click because she first recognized my awesome “Parks and Recreation” sweatshirt. This was the beginning of a “Leslie Knope & Anne Perkins” kind of friendship.
Immediately we jumped into discussing our interests and personal lives. As the snow melted it wasn’t long until Amy and I became best buds. Our completely sane topics started to evolve into creepy true crime and paranormal topics. Learning that she was just as much of a weirdo as myself. I had freaked her out telling her I lived in a haunted house growing up, and Amy would do the same by sharing her knowledge of murderers and serial killers. This led to Amy introducing me to true crime and paranormal podcasts. I didn’t even know this was a thing, it blew my mind that this can be someone’s hobby or even job. Talk about something they’re passionate about, and even have thousands of people WILLING to listen, and you can say or do pretty much what you want.
Towards the end of summer in Alaska Amy sprung the idea of “why can’t WE do this?” After about 5 minutes of consideration, I was in and we were beginning to brainstorm names for our “Podcast”. We had many… 4 Doors Down is the one that sticks out most at the moment but Amy was the one who thought of our winning title, “What’s With the Neighbors”. Not only was it fitting because we were neighbors ourselves but you never know what’s lurking behind your neighbor’s door.
Since recording our first episode we have had our struggles and chaos in our personal lives. Even so, we would typically make the podcast happen. Not because we HAD to, but because we HAD to. What I mean by that, is this show is an outlet, a hobby, and a DAMN good excuse for Amy and I to have our best friend time being our complete weirdo selves. Having people listen and show their support definitely added a bonus of encouragement, especially through the really rough times. But we haven’t been big enough to keep it going for an audience, this show is OUR baby, a huge part of our friendship, and when it comes for us to part ways from Alaska, which we will have to. We plan to continue the show long distance. We are both so grateful for our relationship and how this show has helped grow it.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
As I said, What’s with the Neighbor’s podcast was created as a hobby, something we are truly passionate about. We strive to be anything BUT the typical boring “Dateline” true crimes or reenactment of paranormal stories. We pour our personalities into the show, just being ourselves. If we aren’t having fun then something is wrong.
However, while the show is a fun hobby, it is still a business, a very slow-growing business, but a business. Slow may work for us right now, but our goal is to grow our audience base and connect with them through them following the show on listening platforms as well as social media. Along with our audience, we want to connect with other podcasters, find like-minded individuals who have similar goals, likes, and dislikes, and possibly make another friend and learn a thing or two. For even further into our future goals we have discussed the idea of doing live shows depending on where we are at in our personal lives.
We have numerous ways our listeners can support “the cause” between subscribing on social media @wwtnpodcast, to Patreon donors, the biggest support we can get is to share the show and spread the word. On our website “whatswiththeneighbors.com” you can find links to all of the above as well as a link to our merch. We have our standard logo merchandise but my personal favorite is our “episode shirts”. Being a comical and very “off script” podcast we tend to say goofy things and sometimes it ends up being the title of an episode. If that title’s REALLY different? I personally draw a design and put it on a shirt with our show’s information on the back. We have a variety of “episode shirts” now including “anomaly detected”, “happy ending abduction”, or even “second-hand cannibalism”. I find this is a great way to spread the word about our show. SOMEONE is bound to ask about one of these shirts. We feel these shirts set us apart from other shows, they are unique and personally made by hand, by yours truly.
Our show is forever changing, always coming up with new ideas but we have some constants like our “neighborhood stories”. We recently came up with a new segment called “Hometown Horrors” Typically our episodes are roughly 45 minutes to an hour long, so this requires a “Juicy”, long story. Throughout our research for our weekly story, we tend to come across many small stories that are intriguing but not long enough for a full episode so they don’t make the cut. We came up with Hometown Horrors to incorporate not only these “short stories” but also personal true crime and paranormal stories sent in by listeners. We are always taking in those personal stories as well as requests of the audience’s hometown horrors.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that have been most impactful on our journey have been being aware of your emotions, working well with others, and being passionate about your what you’re talking about.
Firstly, when What’s with the Neighbors was created it was meant to be our “hobby” something we enjoy that makes us happy. So, first and most importantly if we aren’t having fun doing the show something is wrong. We feel our moods highly affect the show’s quality and what we’re putting out so we aim to record when we are at our highest. Typically, this ends up being a Friday evening, the weekend is here, work is over, and it gives plenty of time to edit. However, if something is going on in our personal lives, having an emotional day, or just being really busy, this might kill the “positive” vibes. In this case, we reschedule our recording so we can not only put out a better episode but keep the fun alive. Being aware of our emotions has definitely made an impact on the show.
The second bit would have to be finding someone you can work well, very well with. I’m not just talking about someone who can ensure that they are meeting deadlines and whatnot. Starting a podcast, means you work pretty closely with co-host. You need someone who will hear you out on your ideas, needs and wants for the show AND for your relationship as co-hosts. If something serious goes down in your life you need someone to not only be there for you but to pull their weight where you may not be able to. One week it may be perfectly balanced then the next you may be in charge of 90% of podcasting duties, and that is ok. As long as of course that is not the norm. You also need someone who you will feel completely comfortable discussing things like this with. Otherwise, it can lead to resentment and a huge falling out. So, find someone you have chemistry with that you can rely on.
The third and final bit of knowledge that has been most impactful for our show is finding a topic you know and are passionate about. We started this show on true crime and paranormal because the majority of our conversations involved ghosts and crime. Say we did a show on MATH or politics, we would sound like robots having no emotions, because we don’t care about that kind of stuff. No-one would want to listen, not even myself because they could tell we weren’t passionate. So we stuck with what we love, know, and are still interested in learning more about. Researching our stories is like being required to send in a research report in high school ONLY in YOUR words, on a topic that interests YOU and there is NO grade.
If we could give any advice to anyone starting a podcast it would be to make sure you are starting the show for the right reasons, it’s NOT for the rich and famous. Have some freaking fun. Make sure your show is something you’re passionate about, if you’re working with someone, be mindful of who you pick, and lastly, give yourself grace. We say this because we have been very hard on ourselves in the past on our sound, show deadlines, or even outsider opinions. So when your sound is buzzing or you feel the show quality isn’t 100%, or received your first negative comment. GIVE YOURSELF GRACE. It’s ok, no one is perfect.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
What’s with the neighbors has been going strong for almost 2 years now. We really love the fact that it’s just a walk down the road to “the Studio” aka Amy’s house to record and hang out. However, it was very recently announced on the show that Amy will be moving. We knew we would eventually have to face long-distance recording, sooner or later but it came quicker than we expected. It’s just her family’s time to start a new chapter. That being said, What’s with the Neighbors podcast will live on. It’s the core of our friendship. We were once challenged with long distance towards the very beginning of our show and made it work. While we plan to keep the show via video calls it will be a learning curve and something we will have to adapt to. So we ask our listeners to stick with us and have patience through this time. We will fight for the show because its what we love.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://whatswiththeneighbors.com
- Instagram: @wwtnpodcast
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wwtnpodcast?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/wwtnpodcast
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@wwtnpodcast
- Other: https://www.patreon.com/wwtnpodcast
Image Credits
Our photos were professionally done by Red Photography.
