Speaker #0Hi, welcome to The Pulse, the podcast where we explore the heartbeat of life and work. I'm Julie, your host, and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this journey. Every two weeks, I will bring you a regular dose of inspiration, practical tips, and regular stories about personal development, wellness, and career growth. Whether you're looking for motivation, fresh perspective or just a reminder that you're not alone, you are in the right place. So welcome and let's dive in. Hi, welcome to The Pulse. I hope you are doing well. Today we are in June. Actually, I am recording mid-June but it is basically a year since I started this podcast. because I recorded the first episode, of course, ahead of me sharing it with you. So it's been a year of doing this podcast and what a journey. So I wanted to do a bit of a recap episodes because my first episode was released on June 29th of 2025. And I'm recording a bit ahead, but we are basically mid-June. This episode will go... either end of June or beginning of July. I'm not sure yet when this will be up. But overall, I just wanted to do a recap because it's been an amazing journey. It's been tough sometimes, but I just wanted to really spend the time to recap, but also to talk about what it is to start a podcast. I mean, I know it's not exactly the same as starting a business, but in a way, like starting a side hustle. of some kind, either you make money or don't. But starting something next to a full-time job, next to everything else in life is not easy. So I just want to do this recap. I think for me, it's a bit of a time capsule. And I hope you also take some learnings from it for yourself. So, as I said, I did start in June last year. And as of now, as of when I'm checking in, it's 36 episodes have been released. Basically recording for a full year, sharing an episode every two weeks. I had an idea at the beginning to keep going and not stop and to not give myself the opportunity to stop in order to avoid that I don't get back to it. And I really wanted to build a routine around it. and they didn't want to make it feel awkward anymore when I'm recording. So what I'm learning from this is first of all that it takes time to feel comfortable in front of the camera. It takes time to feel comfortable in front of the mic and I really appreciate it and saw as the episodes were going on growth for myself but also still some pieces that were I let I let it slide more than at the beginning. So just to give you an example, I think at the very beginning, I was editing every pause that was too long or sometime I felt like the way I was phrasing it or when I was talking back again, saying twice the same thing, I would really edit it to avoid having it. And the more it went on and the more I said to myself, look, this is not sustainable and it's okay not to have a perfect. podcast nobody is editing it for me I don't have a production crew behind it's just me in my living room doing this on my private laptop and editing afterward by myself so it's a full one person show one woman show and it's okay and I think therefore it's fine if it's not perfect it's fine if it's less production professional production set up I think at least it makes it from my perspective, more natural. And I accepted it. And I accepted that potentially, you're going to hear some weird sounds, or you're going to maybe say it doesn't hear so well as some of the podcasts. I stopped caring. And that is really something that is beautiful. Don't get me wrong. I still want to grow. I still want to make it more and more professional. But I stopped caring about wanting to edit every single second in order to make it. Perfect. And I kind of said to myself, 80% is good enough. This is a sentence I learned at work. And this is valid for this podcast as well. And I always felt potentially that I was a bit more... harsh on myself. I think I'm not the only one. When I talk to other people, people are harsh. But at the end of the day, I think it's human things that no one is perfect. So we have to accept it and like it. And as I'm speaking, my dog has decided to ask for cuddles. So, you know, this is something that I will not edit because it's part of the beauty of what I'm doing here. And really, this is something that made me. I really learned to be more at ease with it. So I got quite distracted since my dog decided to come. He's right next to me. But what I was saying a bit earlier is really that when you do a podcast next to your job or when you do any side hustle next to your job, you can't... automatically make it 100% perfect. And I would say even technically in a job, sometimes you have to let go of looking for the perfection and 80% is good enough. And that is highly valid for your side hustle. And so the next part of it that I want to talk about is not specifically to podcasting, but general side hustles. Whatever activities you want to do in a semi-professional away Doesn't matter if you make money off of it or not. I mean, hopefully you make money. I don't at the moment with the podcast. So hopefully some days. But if you decide to really invest your time and make it somewhat professional activity next to your job, this requires time. But in the context of the side hustle, you do not have the same amount of time as you have in your full-time job, right? And you do this next to your job. next to all your activities like for me I have to take care of my little dog and of course the house if you have kids whatever situation you're in it's not easy to fit it in and you have multiple ways to to decide to do it right either this side hustle becomes what the place of your hobby and potentially then this is the hours you dedicate to it or sometime you decide to do it on top of everything else. I do not like to... let my hobbies go. So in a way, I guess podcasting could be an added hobby, but it's not something that was removed from another thing in my life. And therefore, it's important for you to be highly, highly organized. If you want to manage your day to day and not to get overwhelmed with it, you have to be so structured and you have to ensure that your plan and your schedule is set and you ensure that you, on one end, do not overwork yourself, but on the other side, stay very efficient. I think the word efficiency and the word organization here goes hand in hand. It's really those two that are going to make a big difference of how you're able to handle doing it on the side. Do not get overwhelmed with ensuring everything is perfect. Just ensure that what you do on time in full, what is required, is there. And also you have to be able to accept that some stuff are going to have to be let go. And which one are those and how you manage it is critical. So what do I do to keep myself organized? Is first of all, I know and I decide how much time I should dedicate to recording and how much time I should dedicate to editing. And those are the main pieces. And I give myself a certain bandwidth. And I try to avoid going beyond this bandwidth. So usually I tell myself that within a week, when I do recording and editing that week, it shouldn't take more, for me at least, not more than four hours together. And I know that may sound small, but in the context of this being on top of everything else, on the fact that I still need to look for information on what I want to do this episode about, even though I don't like to override it, but I still need to do some research. I also need to prepare. I need to think about social media and everything else. And therefore, for me, the actual recording and editing should not take more than four hours overall. So, for example, now I'm sitting down. It's going to take about an hour between, you know, the stop and go, because of course I do not do the full episode in one go but I will take about an hour. to record and then I'm planning within the next days or even like take a good week to edit those three hours it's easier for me to edit all in one go I have to say that when I have to come back in the middle of it sometimes I struggle But if I cannot find that three hours, then I just definitely block 30 minutes by 30 minutes. But I ensure that I do not pass the four hours. And if I do, then I have to figure out what to improve or how to change things in the future. So this is very important to set that up. And of course, the other part is when do you do it? And this is critical to try to figure out. What makes sense for you, what time of the day, what time of the week, when you have the mental load and the mental capability to be able to handle that side hustle. And for me, I really found out that on the weekend was easier. And I know also that sometimes I was literally doing it on the Saturday for the Sunday, which sounds crazy. And sometimes I'm like, how did I make it happen? But it was potentially the week. weekend before not the right time and in the evening sometimes I'm too tired so I was trying to find the right balance to to make it happen so look at that as well when during the week it makes sense how often does it make sense for you and that should already give you a bit of a guidelines into when you can make it happen and how much you can dedicate to it and then the third point is really to define what makes sense for you to do and what you can let go you And I think I said it a bit earlier this year, but at some point I was kind of behind on social media, on doing all the videos. I think as I'm recording this one, the previous episode, I did not do any social media yet. And while I know that this is something I have to do in order to progress, in order to grow my audience, this is something that at the moment is for me less important than releasing episodes on that every two weeks basis. I know this is a progress that I have to make in the second half of the year and that I have to find a way to make it a routine or make it easier on myself but this is something that will take time so I accepted that for now I'm letting go of that perfection of having it having all the social media put in at the exact same time another thing that I've done and I think you must have heard it earlier this year is I recorded an intro and outro which gave me a bit of time time and a bit of less editing on that front so I already had like how to end an episode how to start it already set up and I can reuse it is it perfect most likely not most likely at some point I'm gonna have I'm gonna want to redo it to make it nicer and it's part of the of the challenge but for now at least I have an intro I have an outro already set which helped me gain time in that production phase in term of editing, but also in term of... um recording as well I don't have to overthink of like subscribe okay I hope you're not gonna have too many issues for some reason I'm having issues today with my mic and it keeps on disconnecting so some technical pieces that I will have to deal with in the next couple of days but this is also part of the challenge right when you record a podcast You have to consider time for recording the episodes and time for editing and time for doing social media. But also technical difficulties may occur. And I've had a few this year. And this is maybe another part of the lessons learned for the year. So I tried different mics. When I was traveling, I was trying to have some other smaller mics. It didn't work the first time. It worked another time. Don't know why. I still don't know how to use two mics at the same time. So for now, it's just all in one mic. And see, I forgot to put my other social media like WhatsApp on hold so you don't hear the beeps. So those are things that I still have to learn to adapt and learn to not deal with all those technical difficulties or at least to manage them better. So a lot still to learn, a lot to grow. But I think for me, the most thing is really to have that time set and to ensure that this is a continuity into the process. My next advice from building a side hustle or doing a side hustle and what was a big learning for me is I wanted to build a routine. So when I started, I didn't want to stop doing it in three months, right? A lot of, sometimes we have some great ideas and we start and we're excited about it. And like three months in, it starts to be, oh, I don't want to do it anymore. Oh, it's not giving me the results that I was expecting, right? And so finding the momentum to continue and not stop it and not have a feeling of like, I haven't done anything or whatever else is really, really difficult not to stop. to stop a side hustle and I think I'm not the first one who has this type of problems I'm pretty sure many others do as I've talked to some friends and so it's about finding the way to make it a regular and make it continuous so for me with the podcast is really what I did right I did every two weeks I forced myself to ensure that I had an episode I have a lot of topics to talk about so it felt really easy you But at the same time, I had to ensure that I put the mic on, that I set up the camera, that I set up my laptop, that everything is working, that I have the right lights, that I have the right setup, and that I have enough insights to talk about the topic I wanted to talk about. And this is sometimes very, very hard. So what I've done is I've really forced myself to create that routine every two weeks. You have to release an episode. And at the end of the day, I did it for a full year now. which and I even did this podmas period what I released every two days which was to me way too much and I think I've talked also a little bit about that already before I will not do podmas anymore it's way too much for me with my day job but I definitely want to continue that routine of every two weeks releasing an episode now one thing that I learned and one thing that I've also looked into is the fact that it seems that every podcaster is taking a break. at some point. So yes, amazing. I did a full year of podcasting, but at the end of the day, I'm allowed also a vacation. And so my vacation is going to be in August, my personal vacation, but at the same time, I do want to take a bit of a break. It's going to be short. So most likely what I will do is release, I think, maybe one more episode beginning of July. So I have one episode that is recorded that I did not feel fully comfortable. to release. So most likely I will finish editing it and releasing in some ways. And then I will take a break. So middle of July, I will not release an episode. And then most likely I will start either end of July or beginning of August. So what I will do during this time is, of course, I will still record for myself and taking them as ahead to have a bit of a breezer. By the time I go on holiday, I don't have to record during my holiday, but I have recorded them before. so for you it's going to be a very short break for me it's going to feel like a moment where I can reflect when I can improve when I can potentially think of how can I improve my way of working so I will take the time that I'm editing just to reflect on what can I do better to make it easier for myself do I have to re-record the intro outro how can I make social media easier etc what can I prepare when it comes to you having guests because this was definitely your first things right for me this year I had two guests which was amazing and I'm really grateful for Reese and also for EJ for joining me on the podcast and I'm definitely looking forward to having them again or having other people that want to be on the podcast with me so those are all the pieces that I would like to think about so well it's important to keep your hustle going and keep creating a routine after a while it's also okay to take a break if you know that that break It's not going to make you stop completely. And I'm at the point where I've realized that I like to talk. I like to be in front of, I mean, the camera in front of my, basically my cell phone is recording and to have the mic on and to start speaking. And that's okay to take for me a short break and then to have those episodes. So at the end of the day, most likely, even though the break for you will be July, for me, the break will be August. Most likely, we'll see how I manage this. But at the end of the day, we'll keep having regular episodes and I'll keep on ensuring that there is continuity. So we'll finish the season one with that episode or the next one. Again, I don't know what I'm going to do between the two. And I like to keep a bit of like free flow. But we'll have a season two that starts very soon for you. And for that, that's going to give me the opportunity to take a mini breather to think of what makes sense. How can I bring, make this podcast even stronger? And I think that's important also when you do a side hustle, you can end up sometime not taking any holidays. I watch some people on YouTube or I listen to other podcasts and some people that you Usually are doing this on the side, so it's not their full-time job. And then I hear that they basically work seven days a week because they have their day-to-day job. And then on the weekends, they do their side hustle. And they end up not taking any holidays. And while I think it's amazing that they do that, at some point it's important to take a break and to take time for yourself and to breathe. And I'm lucky enough that in my life, I have the opportunity to still... travel, do sports that I like, to spend time with my dog. So it's not like I'm also crazy overwhelmed and making this my whole like evenings every day and my weekends. But I have a lot of things happening on the side and I've talked about a few. And therefore, I think I need a bit of that moment to breathe, to take care of the topics and then come back. But as I said, it's not stopping. We're not making this a big deal to to stop completely. It's just a short break for me to breathe in and also to reset and also to review which topics make sense for the new season and how can I bring even more insights and more people in through the conversation. This episode will be short. I'm already looking at the recordings and we are above 20 minutes, but maybe less with the editing, as you know. Thank you. Basically, for me, the last point I wanted to talk about was this element of how much people you reach. And sometimes when you do a side hustle, you might think that you might view people on social media that are like becoming super famous or whatever. Not even super famous, doesn't have to be about fame, but that have a lot of people viewing their content in one go. and usually those people you don't see the back and you don't see a lot of the hard work they have done months over months over months in the past and sometimes potentially they had they had luck and then their first or social media just blew up very fast and great for them but you have to think about the fact that there is so many others content creators of some kind so content meaning it can be podcast, can be Instagram, can be TikTok, can be... YouTube can be whatever platform where people are sharing insights and sharing content about what they do or what they learn. And here, in a way, I am a content creator of some kinds. But it doesn't mean that it's going to be reaching everyone or reaching a big audience in one go. And for me, I would say that it's slowly, slowly reaching some people because I see some days that all of a sudden I have like a huge spike of people listening in. And some of the time it's like there is almost no one. Sometimes I have zero listen in some days and it's part of life. And so the most important, whenever you do a side hustle, what I've learned from it, and I always said that for myself as a first goal, right? I said to myself, I will look at the data, but I'm not going to overlook at the data. So what I've said to myself at the very beginning, when I started recording, I said I would you look at a bit the data just for me to have an idea of like how many people are listening but I'm not gonna overthink it that means that the way I do things is not gonna change based on like what people not what people listen I definitely want to hear what you want to hear what you would like to listen about or what you would like me to talk about but I'm not gonna like change everything based on one element that is part of it so if one episode spikes more than the others. I should, of course, have the mindset that potentially this is something that I have to talk more or that I could follow through. But it's not going to build my whole, create a whole niche. At the end of the day, I want to stay me with the episodes and what I want to talk about. So it's just a bit of like slight understanding of what's going on, but not using it fully for all the, like overthinking it, really. That's what it is. It's the same thing, right? if I dare have... zero or if an episode barely has a few view a few listens that's okay then it's that's okay that's that was not the right one that doesn't mean that I have to start podcasting right I have to keep enjoying and as long as I'm enjoying doing it as long as I'm having fun creating it then this is what's the most important so same thing potentially I mean if of course there is a financial impact for you You have to be careful and be aware. Like if it doesn't work until a certain point, then maybe you have to think if it's impact your finances. For my case, I mean, I do spend a bit of money for the platform, for paid for the mic, etc. But the financial behind it is still small enough that I can manage and I'm fine. Of course, I would definitely like at some point that this becomes a bit bigger, but I am not in a hurry. And I also don't want automatically to be like top listens ever and create a big production. At least this is not my goal for now. It's really to keep it my own view, my own message and keep it very... How to say it? Like a friend of mine said it. He said, it feels very human, very natural. And this is kind of, for me, it felt very good to hear because I don't want to be AI. I don't want to be another podcast that just is overly produced. This is not my goal. I just want to stay true to myself and say what I want to say and not being also blocked to say some things just because some... Brands or whatever don't want me to say some words. Don't let the amount of views or the amount of listens or the amount of people buying your product if you're selling something be the showstopper. If this is something you enjoy as long as you can manage financially and it's not creating a burden, then don't expect the high reach very fast. But also don't stop just because people are not. you're not reaching the people yet or because it's not being fast-paced growth it takes time and as long as you enjoy and it's fun and I think this is also what a side hustle needs to be right it's next to your main job so it needs to be some fun in it so just and I mean I'm saying this as my microphone for the 10th time in that episode has been having issues and has stopped working. It's not the mic, I think it's the connection with the computer. So clearly, not only I need a short break, but my mic or my computer, something is there, needs a short break and I need to follow up with some tech help. I cannot figure out a lot with my tech, but here, I don't know, I need to check if it's the cable or something else, but something is not working properly or at least it's stopping on a regular basis. So. I'm gonna stop this episode here but I think I'm very proud of myself for making 36 episodes I think it's this is 37 or 38 37 plus an intro in a year and to have committed to it and have continued to it and I really commend if any of you are doing something similar a side hustle doesn't have to be in the creative space like me doesn't matter what it is about But I really commend you for keep going and for making it happen. And really, you're doing great. And I think we should all be proud of ourselves for putting ourselves out there and for trying and for pushing things, pushing the needle in a way. So I think for me, this was really reflective. So most likely, I don't think this one is going to do a lot of listen, but it's okay. you know, this episode is also potentially just for me, but if you're listening in, thank you so much for all your support all year long. What a journey. I'm very happy that you're here and I'm very grateful that you are listening in and listening to me rambling about my life or my thoughts about growth, about development, personal, professional, what's happened and can impact your life and I hope also that you can share, and I think I'll put on social media at some point. Please share with me if you would like for me to talk about some topics. And if you would like to join me to talk, I really would love to have some people. What I like is when people reach out to me is to tell me which topic they would like to talk about. Because if it's a general, like, I would like to join your podcast. No, I would like to know more first from your side. What do you want to talk about? Like, I'm happy to have you, but I'm not just, I don't want to. do commercials and just do random episodes all the episodes for me needs to to make sense so I'm happy to have you guys let me know if you want to join and to talk about some specific topics personal development professional development happiness growth fun time but yeah I think I'm rambling, but it's okay. I wish you a very nice summer. And we talk very soon. As I said, this might be the second to last of the last of the season. But we're coming back very soon with some further episodes. I don't know why I say we. I'm coming back with some further episodes very soon. And yeah, have a nice day. Bye. And that's a wrap for today's episodes of The Pulse. If something resonated with you, I would love to hear about it. So drop me a message on Instagram, LinkedIn, or leave a review wherever you're listening. Your feedback fuels this community and I much appreciate it. Make sure to follow The Pulse on your favorite podcast platforms and on social media so you never miss an episode. And if you're craving for more, check out the show notes for links, resources, and way to connect. Until next time, keep trusting your journey because growth happens one step at a time. See you soon. Bye.
