Seven-Year Podcast Goodbye Reflection
[00:00:00] Hello my friends, and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited to have you here. If you are just joining me and haven't listened to the last couple of episodes, I have been talking about the fact that I'm gonna be going on a sabbatical. For the first half of 2026, and this is my last episode before I go on that sabbatical.
So this is the final episode of 2025. And to be honest, I don't know if I'm coming back. I hope to, I hope that I, this rest rejuvenates me and gives me more clarity and kind of the fire that I'm looking for to come back and make Mark. Content and to talk about more really important issues, but I figured that it might not go that way.
It might go the other way. And so this might be my final. Episode, I'm not gonna, I'll cry if I say that. So I don't think it will because there's so much more I still wanna talk about. But it is my final episode for 2025 [00:01:00] and for the near future. And so I typically at the end of the year, do a year in review and I talk about, you know, what happened in that last year and what I learned and where I grew and what my goals were and all that stuff.
But I figured that it might be appropriate instead of talking about this year. Which I'll get into a little bit of this year, but especially because I didn't really focus on growing the business or whatnot, it would be kind of a, a different type of growth in the past year. I figured I'd talk about my growth over the last seven years.
I really wanted to reflect a little bit about what this podcast has given me, what you all have given me. And hopefully. I encourage you, maybe this is the nudge you need to start a project that you have been dreaming about or that you've been thinking about. Because I cannot in, in words, describe the amount that it, it has given me.
It's, a hundred times more [00:02:00] than I have given it. And so I wanted to talk about some of those things because. I talked about this, I think last week in the episode. I think a lot of times we start projects with a very binary view of like. It. I want it to be a success, you know, a success or failure.
And we think that it is only worth it if it is a quote unquote success. However you, you define that success and we go in with a singular goal to get to some finish line, and that will make it all worth it. And if we don't get to that finish line, then somehow it wasn't worth it and that couldn't be further from.
What actually happens, and I wanna talk about why it has been so worth it, regardless of if I ever crossed some imaginary, uh, finish line. And so hopefully this might give you some inspiration yourself to take that dream and actually put it into action. I started this podcast. Seven years ago, maybe a little longer.
I honestly can't even [00:03:00] calculate at this point. Um, yeah, this July, next July will be eight years, so seven and a half years, which is insane. And if you have listened to the podcast for a while, I've talked about my story a lot, so I won't go in full detail. But I will say that I thought about doing the podcast for two years before I started it.
I was so terrified of the idea of putting my voice out there and having people hear. Me talk and who am I to do this? And I was really scared 'cause it was gonna be about quitting. And you know, that's not looked upon that, uh, favorably in our society. And I really worried about what people were gonna judge me for.
And all of my ex-coworkers, the people that I worked with in the legal career, I was so terrified about the image that I would project or that people would see me as. And. So I put it off for years and it was this gnawing feeling that kept coming back. I was, I would check [00:04:00] Apple Podcasts constantly to see if someone else had started this idea that I had.
And I was, I remember like this pit in my stomach every time I found a podcast that was similar 'cause it was like, you know, as if I couldn't start it too, but it was like someone else was living my dream and I knew I wanted it so badly. I was just scared. And I'm proud of a lot of things in my life. I truly am.
I'm proud of the person that I have become. But I will say the proudest thing I am of my past self is feeling absolutely nauseous and doing this anyways, like feeling as though it was going to kill me, and yet knowing deep down that there was a reason I couldn't let it go. And I started this podcast.
When I was postpartum, like three months, I had a three month old. I had another business. I did not have time. I was not sleeping. And it just got to a breaking point where I was like, if I don't [00:05:00] do this, I'm gonna go insane. I can't think about it anymore. I have to do this. I, it's the scariest thing I've ever done.
But I have to put it out there and. Boy am I glad I did. It has fundamentally changed my life in every way possible, and I sort of wanna talk about all of those gains. I mean, I will say, you know, the obvious success, quote unquote success that people see that I am also very proud of is that I made money, I created a business from it, right?
And so it did allow me to create a business that was very successful for years and years and years. And so by the. Standard of maybe our society. It was objectively successful in that way. But that is truly the least amount that I gained from this project. And this business, there are so many other things that are so much more valuable than the money that I made doing this.
And so I wanna sort of talk about those more, um, rather than kind of [00:06:00] the highlight reel that you tend to see on Instagram. One of the things I've talked about and I think about it and it truly makes me wanna cry. Like I say this now and I'm gonna tear up a lot of, when you, we hear a lot in our society about.
Know your why, right? And sometimes that becomes cliche. It's like, what's your why, what not? There's a lot of why's that you can have, and one of the exercises I like to do when I'm picking a goal or I'm starting something, is to think about what are all the reasons this is worth it Outside of, like I said, success.
And when I first not, it wasn't even first, I didn't honestly think about this, I would say until a couple of years in, but. When I, I, I had found myself at one point getting bogged down by the metrics and like, is the podcast growing And I don't, you know, are there gonna be enough listeners? And is my Instagram growing?
And I remember it making me feel. Really down on it because it was like, I, I didn't really check metrics that much, but [00:07:00] if I did like once a year, it was like very stagnant. I wasn't really doing a lot of things to go viral or to make the podcast become huge. I sort of was just like, I wanna put this out as like a labor of love and it will attract the people that need to be attracted to it.
And that was sort of my marketing mo. And that worked for me, but I was finding myself in this place of like. So maybe I'm doing this wrong, it's not growing. And I remember at that moment really thinking about like, why is it worth doing this? Right? Even if, even if it never grows, even if other people don't hear it.
What is could be a bigger reason for me to keep going with these messages. The message that I wanna kind of put out into the world. And one of the things I really thought about was my children and. What I wanted them to know, what I wished for them as they grow up and as they navigate this world. I really wanted them to have certain lessons that help them overcome the overwhelming amount of shame that the society puts on us, [00:08:00] and guilt and burnout and all of the ways that it tries to fit us in a box.
And I remember thinking that, God forbid, if something happens to me and I'm not around, my voice will be around forever for my children. These messages, these lessons that I want to teach will be there for them even if I'm not here. And that is more worth it than any amount of money that I could make off of this.
Simply spending the time, I'm sorry, I'm getting a little emotional. Simply spending the time to document what I want, what I hope for them to have. Was put me at so much ease that none of the other stuff mattered. The metrics didn't matter. How many people listened to me, didn't matter. Whether it got big ever or not, didn't matter.
The why behind it became so much more personal and it became so much more real. It was simply like, if, you know, [00:09:00] we all, tomorrow's not promised. We don't know what's gonna happen. And I truly thought about like I. Would love for my children to be able to have this, to be able to listen to me, to be able to learn from me, even if I'm no longer around.
And so that was something that has sort of fueled my podcast from that point on. A lot of the way that I thought about it is, you know, what is it that I want them to know? What is it that I want them to internalize? What is it that I want them to have as they move through the world? And. I am forever grateful for the fact that they have 400 episodes of me talking, which admittedly they probably don't want, and they are sick of hearing me talk about it anyways, but if they should need it, it will be there for them.
The other thing that this podcast has given me. Is a confidence that I have never had before. I've always been a semi confident person in certain [00:10:00] aspects of my life, in certain things I have, known that I can hold my own or I can figure it out, or I can, you know, I have a certain work ethic and I feel like I have a certain level of intelligence and I feel like I, I didn't.
I think we all suffer from some parts of imposter syndrome. So I definitely had that. But it was, there was things that I was like, I know if push comes to shove, I can get this done. But I was always. Extremely worried about what other people think about of me and how other people perceive me. And I have spent most of my life living for that perception.
And I think a lot of, you know, doing the quote unquote right thing and becoming a lawyer and trying to get prestigious jobs and trying to do a lot of this stuff that, like internally I didn't even want to do was simply for other people's, uh, approval. It was for other people to be impressed or whatnot.
It was my ego and my pride. And I think that, you know, [00:11:00] leaving a top 10 law firm or kind of like a very prestigious, I guess, legal education and, uh, and resume to become a life coach will humble you because not everyone will understand. And that was one of the hardest things that I had to do to kind of stand in that.
In my own knowing of what is right for me and what I want to do, when you could tell other people they were very polite about it, but it's like. You know, you could tell the kind of nods of sympathy and the judgments that were being made. And it was almost like this exposure therapy, I feel like where in the beginning it did affect me a lot and over time it was just less and less.
And obviously like as I got more successful and I built the business, it became less important what they thought because I was living. A life that was beyond what I could have dreamed of. I was able to do something I loved and make money and work part-time and be at home with my kids and do all the things.
But that comes later. Like you really have to go through [00:12:00] years of the judgment and the awkwardness and not knowing how to tell people what you're doing and you feeling weird saying it and feeling judged. And I think that having to put myself through that. Has liberated me from caring as much what people think.
I still care. I think you're being a human and being a part of a tribe or a community demands that you care what other people think to a certain extent, but it is nowhere like I was before. And I think that I have a level of understanding of who I am and what I want and how important that is, and that I will listen to that even if other people don't understand.
And I think that confidence. Could not have come from staying the path and doing what I was told to do and doing what everybody else wanted me to do. And so it is a very hard fought hard won confidence and I'm grateful for it because I think it has changed how I look at myself. It has changed my self concept.
It has changed. Um. What I [00:13:00] will allow myself to go after in the future. And so it is something that is immeasurable from simply putting, doing something that was extremely scary and seeing that I could do it, that I'm not gonna die, that it was gonna be fine. The other thing that I would say is just been the most beautiful.
Result of this are the relationships that I have been able to create and the community that I've been able to, the communities that I've been able to be a part of. I think that both the communities that I joined or the relationships I made from peers that I, helped me kind of build this business and learn all the things I needed to learn about coaching and learn all the, um, ins and outs of running a service-based online business.
Those have been unbelievably, not just supportive, but such a learning experience. I feel. Like it was the best education I could have gotten and I have made [00:14:00] some really amazing lifelong friends that get me in a way that I think maybe people close to me can't, like, don't see that side of me. And so I am forever grateful for the friendships that I've gotten out of this, for the people I've been able to meet.
All of the people I got to interview, I remember when I. Started the podcast. One of the reasons I started it, to be honest, was I, I'm a insanely curious person and someone would say, nosy and I wanna know everything about everybody. And I remember thinking like. I could just a, like, once you have a podcast, if you have a vehicle, people will just talk to you and you can ask them all the questions you want.
And it's for a podcasts, so you know, it's like you could ask them how much they make in a year or whatnot, and it's not considered rude. And so I really, especially 'cause I was so interested in this idea of people quitting and starting over, I kept thinking like, if nothing else, this will be the coolest experiment where I get to just meet.
50 new people [00:15:00] and ask them questions and find out about their stories and maybe learn from them. And I have met way more than that. And I think that it has been truly such a cool experience to meet people and create friendships. There's been so many people where I thought like, oh, they're too big to talk to me, or They're already so established and now have become some of my closest friends in this industry.
And it's just been a really fascinating. Education in adult friendships and in how much more is really out there than I think we think is available to us. I will also say the community that I've built within the Quitter Club, so of my clients who have now become my friends as well, and it, it has been, maybe the biggest honor is being in that community of such supportive.
Kind, understanding, growth-minded, amazing people. It is a lot of people that are [00:16:00] scared and yet willing to say like, I can't do this anymore and I wanna do something else. And there's a magic that comes from getting the same. Kind of similar minded people in a group together. It is why I really insist on doing group coaching over one-on-one coaching.
'cause I think that there is a power in seeing other people that are just like you going through the same trials and tribulations and it has been one of the coolest. Parts of this journey. I honestly didn't realize how impactful it would be on me and how much I would crave that, uh, community and that sort of home that we have created with each other.
And so it has been such a blessing for seven years to meet such brilliant hardworking, incredible people and. To get, to help them in any way that I can just see that incredibleness a little bit more and be able to figure out what they want for their life. So that has definitely [00:17:00] been one of the highlights.
I'll also say, I talk a lot about this if you're in my communities, you know, I, I sort of push entrepreneurship on everyone. And I don't mean to say that everybody needs to be an entrepreneur. I just think that a lot of people don't. View it as a viable option when they should. And one of the things that I have gained, and I think the thing I love about entrepreneurship is it doesn't matter what the business is.
A lot of the skills are the same. And so when you, you know, I think a lot of times, again, we go back to this like, is it worth it? What I always think about is in, in certain careers you might learn a skill set that is only really applicable to that career. Now, I don't think that, I think. Things tend to be transferable, but let's just say you're gonna learn a certain set of skills that doesn't really get used.
Outside of that, with entrepreneurship though, like it doesn't matter if you're selling a service or you're selling a product, if you're in person, if you're online, yes, there's some differences, but you are learning the [00:18:00] skills of marketing. And sales and you know, operations and all of these other like systems that are applied to anything you do.
And so I really, when I wanted to start this, I really thought about like. Because I had been thinking about going back to business school. I didn't know what I was gonna do and I really thought of this as like a crash course in entrepreneurship. And it was. And one of the things that I, I think that can be helpful for people as they're going through this journey, 'cause a lot of times people always worry about like.
Like I said, the end result, like it's not getting anywhere. I'm not making money, but a lot of, I think what helps me kind of stick with it in the beginning was like I'm learning these skills. Every launch I do is me practicing marketing is me learning about like what do people respond to? What do they not, how do I tighten up this messaging?
How do I get this across? You know? What gets people to act? Where do they fall off? A lot of that was simply just learning that skill that can be transferred to so many other things. And I think that also gives [00:19:00] you a certain level of confidence because it's sort of like, I think right now when I think about going on a sabbatical.
And people have asked me like, well, are you worried about your audience and you're gonna leave? And what if you know, everybody forgets you? Or they don't say that, but that's what they mean. Like you can't, you know, the algorithm punishes you when you come back. And I feel like there's just this level of understanding from me that like I could build it again.
Maybe not this, if I wanna build another business, I'll build another business. I sort of understand how to do it now. All of that hard work, like the fact that it took me maybe. Five years or seven years to get to where I am. I could likely do it in two years with a different business because I've just, I've failed so many at so many things and I learned from all of those things and I can take those learnings with me to the next thing.
And so I am, uh, really. Uh, indebted to this business for giving me such an invaluable education on business and people and communities and how to [00:20:00] have right relationship with your customers and how I want to be and how I don't want to be. I saw it as, as many examples as I saw of good businesses I saw of bad businesses, and it was a really.
Amazing education to see like how I don't wanna act in this, not just in the coaching world, which is rife with a lot of bad actors. Um, but every world is right, every career. It is. And I think it really helped me see like, hey, I can build a business on my own terms. I can do it without trying to scare people and make up fake scarcity and give them promises I can't keep and never give refunds and have all these really strict rules, like I can do it in a very human way and still be successful.
And I think that has, like I said, given me a lot more confidence in what I want to take these skills to do with next. I already obviously touched on the money and the fact that it actually built a business, and I think that there is a lot to be gained from that. Just like even, like I said, the confidence of knowing that I can is invaluable as I [00:21:00] move ahead.
And so that is definitely something that I have gained from this. There are so many other things. The thing is like if I wanted to go through everything that I have gained, we would be here until next year, and so I don't wanna bore you with all of that. I want to just simply, part of the reason I wanted to do this one was as a thank you truly to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for.
Uh, rocking with me for seven years. So many of you have been around for so many years, and I truly have one of the kindest communities who are always pouring love into me, who are always sending me messages or emails telling me how much the work has impacted them. And it makes it so much more valuable and I think special to me knowing that it is obviously resonating with people.
But it is not something I take lightly. I think like our attention is. Demanded every minute of every day from 400 different, directions. That's the word I'm looking for. And the fact that you all have. [00:22:00] Taking the time to listen to me, uh, or to interact with me or to be in one of my programs means more to me than you will know.
I do not take it lightly, and it has been such an honor to be able to have this level of relationship with you all. And so I wanna leave this by thanking you for an incredible seven years. And I won't say goodbye. I'll say, see you soon, because deep down I know I'll be back. And until then, I hope you have a beautiful 2026.
I hope that you go after a dream that you have because there's so much to be gained. There's so much to learn. There's so much change that comes in it. And. I will give one more. I know this is like, it was supposed to be like a really beautiful wrap up and I was like, wait, wait. One more lesson. I thought I was thinking about this earlier.
One of the things that I learned when I was in school about how we retain [00:23:00] information and how we learn, and I'm sure you all have known this, is that you learn best by teaching, right? So the best way for you to retain information, if you're in a class and you wanna like know the thing is to like.
Read the information and then try to explain it to someone else or teach it to someone else, it then becomes more solidified in your own brain. And one of the things I was thinking about this morning is how much further my own mindset, my own thought work has. Gone. Because of this podcast and because of my programs, I have learned just as much, if not more from you all than you all have from me.
And I always say this, a lot of times when I make these podcasts, I say like, you know, I'm making this really as a reminder to myself. I'm not joking. I think a lot of times one of the things that I've tried to do throughout my whole career is to show you that I don't have it together. I don't know what I'm doing.
I'm figuring it out, just. Uh, the same as everybody else. And I'm also learning just the same as everybody else. And a lot of what I do is take things and lessons that I've learned and I speak [00:24:00] about them. And it's not as though I speak about them because I'm some kind of expert. It's simply because this is what my human experience has been.
And now, yes, I've learned some tools in coaching and so I can help kind of filter it through that to, uh, package it in a way that maybe people will understand better or they can digest it in a different way, or I can help them see their own blind spots. But one of the things that I have really thought about is that just by coaching for hundreds and hundreds of hours and seeing all of your thoughts and seeing all of your insecurities and your fears and your judgements and your relationship issues and boundaries and all of that stuff, it has fundamentally changed how I think about my own life.
'cause I have the same problems. Like you'll bring a boundary issue with your family, and I'm like, Hmm, I deal with that too. So when I coach you on it. I'm al also coaching myself. I'm also like, yeah, why don't I do this? Like, why don't I stand up for myself in this place or whatever. And so seeing the change in me over the last seven years and seeing just the fundamental way that thought work has changed my life.[00:25:00]
It wasn't simply from me sitting down and doing models or like journaling and doing my own work. It was in engaging with this work in such an active way in coming and, um, teaching it in this way. And I say that. The reason I wanted to interrupt my little sappy goodbye was because I think that we have this.
Misunderstanding that you have to know all the information and you have to be an expert before you go out and let's say talk about it. We don't even have to say teach it, but talk about it. And I think that for a lot of us, we're waiting until like, oh my God, I gotta wait until I have it all together so that I can go out and tell other people what to do.
But that never has to be the approach. I think about that and I'm like, I. God I was, I did not have it together. When I started this podcast. I was nowhere close to having it together. I was filled with shame. I had so many other like mindset issues around like wanting to prove myself and whatever, wanting approval and wanting all these things.
And I did it anyway because it was like, this is my story and I have this part of [00:26:00] it to share and I have what I'm going through to talk about and I can maybe that can help someone relate to it. It truly just started from there and I realize now that by not waiting until I was perfect, by not waiting until there was no imposter syndrome and I had no fear and I knew all the stuff, uh, I actually ended up.
Having so much more gains, having so much more growth in who I am in my mindset and how calm I am, and how I deal with situations in everything. Whether it's my relationships, raising my kids in business, I would not be here if I was simply working on my own mindset if I was just doing personal development for myself rather than doing this.
And so I say that again, only because I wanna encourage you if there is something that you are, um. Passionate about, or you just love talking about, or is a story that you have in your own life. There is so much growth that can come from putting that story out and talking about it and helping other people through it.
Even if you don't have it figured out. Even if [00:27:00] all you have is to say, Hey, this is my story. There's so many people that need to need that in order to resonate to know like, oh, hey, I'm not alone. I also feel this way. And in turn, you also get to work through your own things. Learn from those people and push yourself more.
And so let that be a reason to start it. Because you aren't perfect, because you don't know everything. Like that's the reason is to learn, is to help yourself grow, is to push yourself more and more. And it's scary. And I think that what becomes really scary is that a lot of times people want to act as though they are an expert.
And so there was this incongruence in your own mind because behind the scenes you're like, I'm a hot mess. But then. What I'm portraying to the world is like, look, I have it all figured out. I'm the perfect mother. I'm the per, you know, I do everything right and I'm gonna teach you how. And. Honestly, if I can give you one piece of marketing advice is don't do that.
Just be who you are. Like people want to see the messy middle. People want to see what you're struggling with and it doesn't, I don't think it takes away from your expertise. I think it adds to it. I think it lets people [00:28:00] see that you are human and I think it makes it so much easier to then put it out because you don't have to keep up some facade that is fake because none of us have it together.
Okay. That was like a little. Side rant that I wasn't planning on giving, but I just thought of it before this podcast. So back to my teary goodbye. I love you all so much. I truly do. I am so thankful to you. Thank you for allowing me this platform and letting me just come on here and spew all of my thoughts and listening to my ramblings and sending me the kindness notes and just being exceptional human beings.
You all. Are perfect the way that you are, and there's always room for growth for all of us. But I hope that in 2026 you will find more acceptance of yourself and more peace within yourself so that you can go out and do the things that you wanna do in this world without having to try to prove anything to anyone else.
I love you all. I will be back. Like I said, the podcast will continue going on. We will just do replays of past episodes so [00:29:00] that. If you enjoy like once a week just listening to some kind of reminder about your mindset, you can still get that every week. I promise you those lessons are things that you still need and you will need to listen to over and over again, and hopefully I will be back before you even know it.
All right, my friends, I love you all. I'll talk to you soon.