Courage is Launching Your Own Podcast

Gisel Martin l November 9, 2018 l Blog Post 7

On June 18, 2018 my story on launching my podcast was published on the Hello Fears website.

Here is the story I submitted...

I truly enjoy being a mother. The immense love I now have because of motherhood is indescribable.

But, after having three kids in five years I felt like I had lost myself. I lost myself in the daily tasks to feeding, cleaning, working, driving to doctors appointments, driving to activities, going to work, spending less time with my husband and less time connecting with ME.

I got to a point where I noticed high stress, high anxiety, and a lot of frustration. The worst part was that my husband and kids and my family and friends received the negative effects of my situation.

When my youngest was one year and three months, after I stopped breastfeeding, I decided to put in the work to get my life and body back. I read books, joined a self-love challenge, watched videos, read articles and blogs, added yoga and meditation to my life, and listened to podcasts.

Podcasts really helped me begin my journey of self-discovery. I enjoyed listening to podcasts the most because I could listen to them anywhere and hearing people tell their own stories made them more impactful.

I love reading, but there’s something amazing that happens when you hear someone telling their story in their own words and in their own voice. I had transitioned from binge watching Netflix to binge listening to podcasts on my cell phone.

My journey of self-discovery led me to join a women’s group where I really connected to myself. I connected to my soul. I dug deep inside me and I found out that what I want to do is work in the business world.

I figured out that I have a talent and skills to help people with their visions, help people organize their business operations. I’ve been working on myself to get more confident to put myself out there to help as many people as I can.

It’s scary to put myself out there. I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but at one point between my college graduation and my three kids, I lost my confidence and self-worth. Or maybe my lack of self-worth had always been there, but it became more prevalent as I unraveled myself through my self-discovery journey.

Fear had been living with me for years, like an infestation that I couldn’t get rid of. I decided I didn’t want to be fearless, but I wanted to embrace my fears. For me, embracing my fears means to acknowledge them and accept that I have fears, but do the very thing that I’m afraid of doing.

In September of 2017 I launched my website as a Business Strategist and everyday I’ve been afraid of what will come next. It’s a fear of failure mixed with a fear of success sprinkled with a desire to help others.

After working with a few clients, I thought to myself, “How can I reach more people who want to start a business but don’t know where to start?” The answer was very clear...launch a podcast.

I had no idea where to begin. I went through a period of internal struggle. One day I would feel unstoppable and the next I would feel limited.

I watched YouTube videos on how to record a podcast, I listened to podcasts on how to launch a podcast, and I read articles and blogs with reviews on which platforms were the best.

After a few months of going back and forth in my head, I created a social media post about my new podcast and announced that I would launch it on May 1, 2018. I stared at that post for a few days before I actually posted it.

I was VERY afraid to put myself out there. Once I hit publish, my fear disappeared and excitement started to set in. I immediately received positive feedback from family, friends, and followers.

The encouraging comments made me feel happy, but then new fears set in. How was I supposed to launch a podcast if I had no equipment and no experience recording? What if I can’t deliver an episode on May 1st as promised on my social media announcement? After a lot of meditation and a lot of self-teaching, I published an episode on May 1st.

My podcast is Relate + Elevate. We have conversations about cultural identity and entrepreneurship and once a month my 10 year old daughter joins me to talk about the kid entrepreneur perspective.

Cultural identity and entrepreneurship, for me, has to do with relating with one another and finding common ground in all of our differences while making a living for ourselves. My mission is to provide access to resources to visionaries, side hustlers, small business owners, and entrepreneurs.

Resources like marketing strategies, legal documents, strategic planning and creating business plans. Anything that has to do with helping small businesses or starting a new business.

I love working with small business owners, that’s one of the reasons why I started my podcast. It’s important for me to get all of these wonderful entrepreneurial stories out there. I want to show others that it doesn’t take much to start your own business.

I run my business in the palm of my hand on my cell phone. We can do so much and I think that we just need more access to those resources. Knowing about them is important too. We may have access to them but might not know about them. That’s why sharing these entrepreneurial stories is very valuable.

I really believe that we should do whatever we can to empower ourselves to then empower our community and together as a community we can rise up.

I am very grateful to all of my supporters and listeners. I still embrace my fear of failure and fear of putting myself out there every time I click record on my laptop and every time I publish a new episode, but I can honestly say that I couldn’t have launched a podcast without my fears.

Have you ever thought about launching your own platform? Such as a podcast, YouTube channel, blog, social media page focused on a cause. Which part of launching do you find the most fearful? Leave me a comment below, I’d love to know your thoughts.

Next Blog Post

The next blog post will be about branding and the meanings of colors when in come to marketing and branding.

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