The Journey of a Creative Mind w/Damien Ellison

Summary
In this engaging conversation, Damien Ellison shares his journey as a podcaster, author, and musician. He discusses the challenges of stepping out of the status quo, the importance of individuality, and the process of launching his podcast. 

Damien emphasizes the significance of unique perspectives in podcasting and the creative freedom that comes with being true to oneself. He also touches on his book about navigating sexual immorality and his upcoming music projects, all while encouraging others to embrace their creativity and share their messages with the world.

Takeaways

• My biggest challenge is stepping out of the system.
• I owe it to myself to bet on myself.
• Saying yes to entrepreneurship is challenging but necessary.
• There's no competition in podcasting; everyone has a unique voice.
• The podcasting journey is about sharing your unique perspective.
• My book evolved into a guide on overcoming sexual temptation.
• Music is a passion that I want to express differently.
• Freedom means not being bound by others' opinions.
• It's important to do what excites you and brings you joy.

Notable Quote:
"Don't be afraid to be you." ~ Damien Ellison

Connect with Damien: 

Ellivate Podcast | YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UndignifiedSoundDE 

| Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/damienellison/

Grab a copy of his book, Reign: My Story and How to Live Victoriously Over Sexual Immorality : https://amzn.to/4lym5TZ

Thanks for supporting @Toolsofthepodcasttrade

Chapters

• 0:00 The Journey of a Creative Mind
• 2:34 02: Overcoming Challenges and Embracing Individuality
• 5:06 The Journey of Podcasting
• 8:01 The Impact of Unique Perspectives in Podcasting
• 10:56 Exploring Damien's Book and Music Career
• 13:43 Gratitude and Final Thoughts

Transcript

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:00)

Welcome to Tools of the Podcast Trade. In this week's episode, I'm speaking with author, musician, podcaster, Dad of Three, and husband, Damian Ellison. This is a special treat for me, and you'll find out just how special when Damian answers my first question.
my guest today is podcaster and so many other things, Damian Ellison. Welcome Damian.

Damien Ellison (00:05)
Hey, thank you for having me.

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:07)
Sure. So before we get into all the things you do, can you tell us who is Damian Ellison?

Damien Ellison (00:15)
Well, Damien Ellison is your son. And I am a husband. I am a father. I am a podcaster. I'm a local worship leader here in Atlanta. Yeah.

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:29)
Okay, thank you. So I want to get into the podcasting a bit since you know this is tool of the podcast trade. But before I start to do that, tell me what inspired you? What is your, what has been your biggest challenge in life? Number one. And number two, how are you on a daily basis working and overcoming those challenges?

Damien Ellison (00:55)
My biggest challenge, hmm, I think lately my biggest challenge is like stepping out of the system or stepping out of the status quo and just like doing me. You know, and the system could be a number of things. It could be the regular job system or it could be the industry, so to speak, whatever industry that looks like ⁓ and just being willing to like do my own.

versus being plugged in. ⁓ mean, it has so many different, I can relate it in so many different ways right now in my life. So just being unplugged from your system and really kind of doing my own thing, that's probably my biggest challenge. And what was the second question? how am I working on overcoming it?

J. Rosemarie Francis (01:41)
⁓

Damien Ellison (01:42)
Well, I don't know, just saying yes to myself and forcing myself to say no to everything else. You know, I'm so used to saying yes to a job or yes to another job. ⁓ And no to, you know, what's in me to do. You know what I mean? And so that's been challenging because, you know, saying yes to a job comes with regular financial security.

J. Rosemarie Francis (02:00)
Right.

Damien Ellison (02:09)
Whereas saying no to a job and yes to entrepreneurship is like, okay, well you gotta build yourself up or you have to, take baby steps before you get to a regular check, you know what I mean? that's, Lord have mercy, that's like a whole thing by itself. But I think I owe it to myself. I talked about betting on yourself in my first podcast episode. And I think I had that responsibility and that right to bet on myself.

versus betting on other people and what they have to offer. And so that's what I'm pushing to do is say no to everything else and everyone else and yes to me.

J. Rosemarie Francis (02:43)
Got it. Yeah. So what I hear in the challenges is that you've had to unplug yourself from the herd mentality and living a more individualized life. Because when God calls us, he doesn't call family. He doesn't call crowds. He doesn't call group. He calls you. Right. And so you've ⁓

Damien Ellison (03:07)
Right. ⁓

J. Rosemarie Francis (03:11)
I'm hearing that you're learning to develop a sense of self regarding your connection to God and your purpose or your life work.

Damien Ellison (03:25)
Right, right, right, 100%, 100%.

J. Rosemarie Francis (03:26)
Yeah,

okay. All right. Thanks. All right. So podcasting. First, tell us about the podcast and then I'll ask you some more questions.

Damien Ellison (03:29)
You're welcome.

So Elevate spelled E-L-L-I-V-A-T-E comes from my last name, Ellison. And it's kind of a play on words, a play on the word elevate, which is basically the kind of, you know, rise or come up, so to speak. I look at it more of kind of like maturity for progression, but also, I don't know, like just like being able to apply a biblical worldview to things that's going on in the culture, applying it to marriage, applying it to...

religion or Christianity, applying it to parenting, whatever comes up. And so just being able to apply scripture and the Bible to everything that life has to offer. ⁓ And quite honestly, just being able to kind of step up, like kind of step my game up and ⁓ do better, so to speak, or live better or treat people better, you know, or talk better, whatever that is.

J. Rosemarie Francis (04:31)
Okay, pretty cool. And Ellivate, we put a link in the show notes for people to listen to and watch, because you also are on YouTube. yeah. All right. Yeah, of course. The other thing is, well, I guess I want to dig into your psyche when it comes to podcasting. What kind of struggles, what was it like?

Damien Ellison (04:41)
I appreciate that.

J. Rosemarie Francis (04:56)
wanting to start a podcast, how long did it take you to actually hit publish and what was going through your mind during that time up to when you hit publish? Because there's a lot of us struggle with that as podcasters. So tell us your journey.

Damien Ellison (05:15)
Well, I first got the idea in like July 2022. And at that time I was like, okay, cool. I got an idea to do a podcast, but I didn't want to do it because I felt like the industry is already saturated with plenty of podcasts and plenty of opinions. And so what is my opinion going to bring to the already saturated place, right? But late last year, I kind of felt the nerves like, okay, go ahead and, you know, go ahead and do it. And I was like, okay, whatever. And then like January this year, it consumed my mind.

So these days, anything that consumes my mind like that, I gotta do it. And so I just hit record and I didn't wait to publish it. I waited a few days and I published it immediately. I published it on my birthday, February 13th of this year. ⁓ And so like leading up to it, I mean, I was probably nervous, I'm sure, just because I don't podcast, I don't talk. People know me for singing. People know me for writing songs. People don't know me for speaking.

J. Rosemarie Francis (06:08)
Mm-hmm.

Damien Ellison (06:12)
or anything like that. So that was, I was nervous because like I said, I don't do it. don't speak about stuff. I mean, in conversation, yes, but publicly, no, not so much. And so I was a little nervous just because, you know, how people receive Damien in this new space. Not so much worried about numbers necessarily until the numbers started coming in and I was like,

So yeah, probably nervous. But I know what I bring to the table. I know what I bring to the culture apart from everyone else. So I'm not really trying to compare my podcast to the next podcast. I'm not looking to compare my content to the next person's content even though I know that certain people that I follow, we talk about the same stuff. But.

They're on a different level. They already have millions of downloads and I have a few hundred. So it's okay, I'll still do it. So yeah.

J. Rosemarie Francis (07:14)
Yeah, I do

ask that question because it's one of the things we struggle with when we get something downloaded to us to do. We question, you know, whether we are one worthy and who are we. But then the second thing we do, we start looking out and, coming up with reasons why, your stuff don't work because all the other stuff's working.

But one of the things I like to say is that there's no competition in podcasting. There could be 10 million podcasters out there, but none of them are you. And the message you're getting isn't the same message I'm getting, even if we're talking about the same topic. And that's the point I want to get out is that what you're talking about is unique because it's coming from your unique perspective.

Damien Ellison (07:49)
Right.

Right.

Right.

Exactly. was listening to a podcast yesterday and the husband and wife ⁓ do the podcast together. But they were talking about womanhood. And the wife was talking about how, you know, not only does she preach, but her personality and her as a woman shape how she views what she's preaching about and what she's teaching about. and so that helps shape the message, but it also

J. Rosemarie Francis (08:30)
you

Damien Ellison (08:35)
can help shape who comes and listens to the message too. You know what I'm saying? And so I don't think, I think we do ourselves a disservice to not do something that God is telling us to do, especially if it's public. I'm like, everyone else is just as human as the rest of us. So it's like, why not?

J. Rosemarie Francis (08:54)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. OK, pretty good. And how far have you reached in your podcasting journey? Like how many episodes?

Damien Ellison (09:08)
I think I recorded my 16th episode, no 17th episode last week.

J. Rosemarie Francis (09:13)
Okay,

yeah, just starting. Okay, so that's pretty cool that you only started in February and you I should tell you that about almost 90 % of podcasters will start don't make it past an episode so you're like in the top 10 percent. Yeah, that's why ask you that. So yeah. All right. So that's you as a podcaster.

Damien Ellison (09:29)
wow.

nice.

J. Rosemarie Francis (09:40)
I want to talk about you as an author, because you've also published a book. And as your mom, I tend to a little bit more inside knowledge than most people. So tell us about your book and where you could find it to get it. So let's just go into a little bit about it, and if you want, as much as you want.

Damien Ellison (09:51)
Right.

So my book is called Rain, R-E-I-G-N, My Story, and How to Live Victorious Over Sexual Immorality. You can find it on Amazon.com or Barnes & and it looks at my story as far as a single person up to marriage and how I navigated through my temptation with sex before marriage and things like that, but it also tells the reader how to overcome sexual temptation.

J. Rosemarie Francis (10:03)
Mm-hmm.

Damien Ellison (10:28)
So that's basically the gist of it. It didn't start out to be a book of that magnitude. started out as something else, but it kind of like evolved into it over the course of the years leading up to its release. I released it like in, oh god, 2021, 2022, something.

J. Rosemarie Francis (10:45)
Okay, pretty cool. So I told you at the beginning that Damien is a podcaster, but he's a lot more things. So we're going to get into more of those things. I have another podcast called Sola Moms Talk and the intro music is from Damien's first single. So tell us about your music, what you're doing now and what your ladies work.

Damien Ellison (11:10)
Oh man, so music is a passion of mine that I've, I mean, I've been singing since was a kid, but not in public until I got to college. And so when I graduated grad school 10 years ago, a few months later, I released my first single called desperate. And then I released another single in 2017 called crazy and an additional single in 2018 called seek the face of God. I took a break, I took a hiatus.

And now I'm in the process of preparing for a live recording in November. I am so excited about this live recording because I've been silent over the years and stuff like that. But I think that my experiences relate to this new music and what's going on in the culture. So that live recording is happening here in Atlanta on November 7th. And so I am so excited about that live recording because I know that I have something valuable to bring to the music industry.

and I don't think the world is ready, especially the Christian space. I think the Christian space is really ready for, well, I think they're ready, but I don't think I'm ready. Let me say it like that. the reason why I kind of, I flipped it a little bit is because I've been tired of the same sounding music since undergrad. And that was 2010. And now 15 years later,

J. Rosemarie Francis (12:19)
Mm-hmm.

Damien Ellison (12:35)
It still sounds the same. And so my music doesn't sound like everyone else. There are elements of the way pop culture or CCM or gospel music sounds that's into my music, because I listen to it. So there's a little bit of influence there, yes. But the way I write and the way I play is purposely different, because I don't like to sound like everyone else. And so that's just another way that God has wired me.

J. Rosemarie Francis (13:00)
Mm-hmm.

Damien Ellison (13:05)
to get his word out and yeah I'm just excited about it. I'm really excited about it. And so you can actually follow me on YouTube at @UndignifiedSoundDE DE and just be able to look out for him once the come.

J. Rosemarie Francis (13:10)
Okay, all right. Yeah.

All right, cool. So we add that to the list, the link. So, you know, people can click on that. Yeah, thank you. Exciting stuff. So what is Damian grateful for today?

Damien Ellison (13:40)
I am grateful for freedom. It kind of ties into not being plugged into the system. So what I mean by freedom is freedom to be me. ⁓ I'm not bound by anyone's opinions and whatever they think about me, I could care less these days. ⁓ I think that what I've had to endure has related to that kind of I don't care mentality. And so I'm grateful for freedom.

J. Rosemarie Francis (14:07)
Hmm awesome pretty good all right, so We I'm coming close to the end, but I always ask my guests to give three tips to someone who was a message and Think that their message should be through a podcast, but like most of us. They're scared hesitant have a bunch of reasons give three tips to somebody who's just

hasn't quite gotten to the place to obey.

Damien Ellison (14:37)
Number one, don't afraid to be yourself. Number two, ties into the first one, be original. Number three, do it anyway.

J. Rosemarie Francis (14:48)
Amen. Okay, all right. Any parting shots? Any final say?

Damien Ellison (14:52)
I don't, man, just be you, man. Like to anyone who wants to do a podcast or anything else for that matter, write a book, write a song. ⁓ I don't know. Just, just be yourself. don't be afraid to be original. because the world has a lot of copycats for the world doesn't have you. And so, I think it's just important just to be yourself. don't be afraid to tell your story. and let people read it through whatever that looks like.

J. Rosemarie Francis (15:09)
Yeah.

Damien Ellison (15:17)
whether that's a podcast, a song, a book, a business, you name it. Because I think there's a lot of people that are creative, but they just don't know how to tap into that creativity or they're just scared to release that creativity through whatever that looks like, you know what I mean? And it's because it's easy to do what is expected or what's of the system because it's secure. But a lot of times I don't think we realize the type of security that could come

J. Rosemarie Francis (15:33)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Damien Ellison (15:48)
by being free to be you through whatever that looks like. And I know what, like I said, it does take time to build an audience. It does take time to make money, but I think you'll feel better and you won't be miserable. I say it like that. If you're doing what God has called you to do, I was listening to, who was I listening to yesterday? I was listening to another podcast, ironically, and this popular gospel artist was talking about

J. Rosemarie Francis (15:49)
Hmm.

Damien Ellison (16:16)
Venturing on to do something new that he hasn't done before and he mentioned how that's probably why I'm miserable because I'm not doing the new venture and so I think it's important that you you embrace like whatever that new is that looks like you especially if You've been in a situation for a long time. You know, you're just you just feel crappy about it I'm like why not step out there you stepped out and did that but now you're miserable so like what gives you joy like

J. Rosemarie Francis (16:39)
Mm-hmm.

Damien Ellison (16:46)
What excites you when you wake up in the morning or throughout the day? What are you thinking about all the time? That's probably what you should be doing. So do it.

J. Rosemarie Francis (16:55)
Yep, ladies and gentlemen, that's my first born. Thank you. Thank you for coming and talking to us. And I am excited to share this interview with my audience.

Damien Ellison (17:05)
I'm

excited to listen to it. Thank you, mom. I appreciate you.

J. Rosemarie Francis (17:10)
Absolutely.