The Bold and Brilliant Podcast with guest Julie Marty-Pearson

🎧 Episode Summary:

In this inspiring episode of The Bold and Brilliant Podcast, Tracie is joined by Julie Marty-Pearson—podcaster, coach, storyteller, and founder of the Podcast Your Story Podcaster community. Julie shares her deeply personal journey from burnout and uncertainty to freedom and fulfillment through podcasting. Tune in to hear how losing a “dream job” led to finding her true calling, why storytelling heals, and how podcasting is more accessible—and transformational—than ever before. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone feeling the pull to do things differently and speak their truth out loud.

✨ What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How Julie’s life shifted after turning 40—and why it was a turning point
• The surprising freedom that comes from “losing everything”
• What podcasting can do for your confidence, your creativity, and your community
• How technology makes podcasting easier than ever before
• Why storytelling is healing and necessary (and not just for others, but for YOU)
• The importance of starting before you're ready—and doing it messy
• What it really means to build a podcasting business that fits your life

🛠️ Actionable Tips from Julie Marty-Pearson:

• Don’t wait to feel ready—start small, start messy, but START
• Know your “why” before you launch your podcast (or any creative venture)
• You don’t need expensive gear or polished perfection—just passion and purpose
• Get the right support—whether it’s a course, a coach, or a community
• Focus on platforms and tech tools that simplify, not complicate
• If you’re already podcasting, keep learning! The landscape evolves fast

🎤 Memorable Quote:

“It’s okay to start messy. It’s okay to start uncertain. You learn by doing—and podcasting changed my life.”

🔥 Bold Moment of the Episode:

Julie’s decision to walk away from her structured academic career and start her own business—without a clear plan, but with a clear knowing—is a mic-drop moment. Her choice to launch The Story of My Pet podcast for fun, and follow the thread of joy and community, is the definition of BOLD.

📱 Connect with Julie Marty-Pearson:

Join Julie’s community and explore all the ways she supports women through podcasting at:
 👉 www.podcastyourstorynow.com
Follow her on Instagram: @podcastyourstorynow
Check out her shows: The Story of My Pet – available on all major platforms! 🐾🎙️and Podcast Your Story Now, too!

🚀 Join the Bold and Brilliant Podcast Community:
Ready to be inspired by more daring decisions and brilliant breakthroughs? Subscribe now and connect with other bold women leaders at www.tracieroot.com/podcast and inside The Gather Community.

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xoxo
Your host,
Tracie Root

Transcript

Tracie: 1:50

Julie, I am so excited that you're here on the Bold and Brilliant podcast. Welcome. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Yay. After all of this time. Well, not all of this time. It's only been six or seven months since the podcast began, as you well know, because you helped me make it in the first place. I'm so grateful to our, our working together to make this happen'cause it's been so much fun. Such a great learning experience for me to create this platform and start it on, its however many years long journey it will be. But you know, you have your own journey of not only podcasting, but getting into, you know, what I, I guess I could say broadcasting, but really just storytelling and all of that. Effort that you've put in to share what's happened for you in your life and the things that you're passionate about. So for the folks who haven't met you yet, start back a little bit and tell us how you got to where you are now. That's

Julie: 2:54

a easy question.

Tracie: 2:57

It's everything, right? So it's easy to answer. It's just how much do you include, right? Right.

Julie: 3:02

So I, I like to go back to when I turned 40, which was back in 2017. Had to do the math in my head real quick, and it was kind of a pivotal turning point in a lot of ways. Not to go into a whole lot of detail, but within I turned 40 in the next two years, I was diagnosed with kidney disease. My dad passed away. My husband lost his job, and then I lost my job, and then we got new jobs. I lost my job again. Partly because of my health issues and I ended up having a hysterectomy and I was coming out of the cloud of all of that grief and loss and what's happening and my body changing physically and emotionally. Yeah. And was kind of like, okay, now what do I do? And COVID hit. So

Tracie: 3:56

I was so that you, again,

Julie: 3:58

unemployed And my job had been in higher education, so I worked and taught in universities and colleges all over California. I taught psychology and statistics and I was staff in administrative roles in assessment and accreditation. And that had been my career for almost 20 years. But now I was out of work and I couldn't get a job because all the schools were closed. So I had a lot of time on my hands. My husband was working, he is a cabinet maker by trade, so he's a carpenter, and he had gotten a job, luckily before COVID, with a school dis district here. And so he was home for about two weeks and then went back because they were considered, you know. Important. They were like essentially the essential

Tracie: 4:49

workers.

Julie: 4:50

Yeah. They were in the essential workers.'cause you know, in maintenance and custodial and stuff like that, even though there were no kids there, they were still there maintaining everything. Mm-hmm. And so he was at work every day and I was home and. It gave me the space to kind of tap into things I hadn't gotten to do in a long time. Be creative and be artistic and, and listen to podcasts, and watch all the movies and the TV shows. Like I love TV and movie. I love storytelling in that sense. So it was, you know. We were all going through stuff. There was so much uncertainty, but it gave me space to do a lot of things that I hadn't done. And you know, we didn't really know what the world was gonna look like, but we knew it was gonna be highly different and it stayed different for a long time, especially in education. So I knew it wasn't gonna be easy to go find the same kind of job I'd had and. In higher ed, when you move up, you usually have to move schools. So I commuted from where I live in California, all over the state, anywhere from an hour to five hours away from home. So part of the reason my health was. Difficult was because I was wearing my body out. I was commuting, I was renting a room or an apartment, and so financially we were, you know, spending a lot just for me to have the jobs. So I knew that wasn't possible. And during that year, probably 2020, at some point, my husband got hired permanently. And so then we had benefits through him. I'd always had to work because you know, carpenters and cabinet makers don't usually have jobs where you have benefits. And so that was kind of a big fear of not knowing where that would come from. And so once he had that, it was like, oh, I don't have to have certain jobs now because he has that covered for us. And so that really gave me kind of a much wider open possibility in terms of what I wanted to do and what I wanted the rest of my life to look like. So then I had to figure out what did I want the rest of my life to look like? So I had my doctorate in organizational psychology, and one of the courses we have in that program was coaching, and now it's more mainly geared more for co. Corporate and organizations like how to be an executive coach, how to coach people and groups and teams. But I had originally been in a clinical psych program, so I always wanted to do some type of therapy coaching work, and so I decided, well, let's just do it. I had done some consulting to kind of help with money where I was helping universities, you know, as a consultant, but I really wanted the one-on-one, and so I started my coaching business in 2020. I started with career coaching'cause that's what I knew. And one of the things I did in that experience was take all the classes, you know, I knew how to be a coach, I knew how to be a teacher, but I never really took how to run a business class. Yeah. As you know, there are many, many layers running a business, and so I was taking everything I could in one of the class podcasting. And of course at 20 20, 20 21, podcasting was blowing up because we were all home and all of that. But in this class it was a group program and I started meeting all of these incredible women that were in there to do the same thing for different reasons. And so that's when I kind of started slowly finding my people and my community and my coaching. My career coaching podcast never went anywhere, and I just thought, I'll try it for fun and see if I even like it. So I decided what is one thing I can talk about without any preparation, and that is pets

Tracie: 8:31

as, as we can see your cat. As you can see in the video

Julie: 8:34

version. I always say that when I introduce myself on Zoom for some igo, and then I have a podcast called The Story of My Pet, which explains all the photos behind me. And you know, I started with friends, we got on Zoom, we recorded, I didn't edit. There were dogs barking, interruptions, put it out, and slowly people started listening and then people started reaching out, asking to be on the podcast. So I think that was a pivotal point for me, was like, oh. This might be something people are responding, people are wanting to come on. And one of the things I found again in terms of community was I was meeting all of these incredible women, thirties, forties, and up, who were like me in a lot of ways. No human kids, fur kids, animal lovers, advocates, and they were all helping animals in some way, whether it was volunteering or fostering or they were working in rescue or running a nonprofit. And so I also felt like my world opened up that I felt like, oh wow, there are a lot more women like me out in the world. I've never had a lot of friends who are like me that don't have kids. And so there was always this, I don't really fit in some ways and. Connecting on something I was passionate about and I loved, also connected it to me, to people who were like me. And so the story of my pet three and a half years later is still going and is a top 5% podcast, which I'm very proud of. I say is small but mighty. And so then over the course of those. Three and a half years, I really delved into podcasting and realized how much I loved it. I love interviewing people. I love connecting with people like this, but I also love storytelling and how, how important it is for us to share our story. Somebody needs to hear it, how important it is for ourselves, like storytelling is therapeutic. So evolution of my business ended up being now it's all about podcast your story and helping more women like us. Share their story as guests, as hosts, or whatever it may be. And, and so that's then kind of how I ended up in this realm and getting to work with amazing women like you. Yay.

Tracie: 10:50

Oh my gosh. Okay. So that was all of the story. So let's unpack a couple of steps, right? I loved the freedom that you got when your husband got that solid job. I think that, that for a lot of entrepreneurs, that's a big. Step, I mean, you weren't quite entrepreneur yet, but having been consulting and things like that, you kind of were on that, on that path. And a lot of us, that's the, that's the concern, right? I can't leave this job'cause it's where I get my benefits or it's where it's consistent or right. It's the, it's the safe decision to stay in the job, which of course. Pre COVID. Well, I mean, you had already experienced much of the ups and downs before COVID, that it's not the safe place to be necessarily. Especially even in what would, what would be called like a government kind of job, right? There's a lot of people who are like, the government job, it's solid. I got the retirement, it's safe. It's like that's the ticket to having, you know, security, but clearly not. The case for yourself and for a lot of people who then who think it's the truth and then it falls apart. So that was, that's an exciting kind of moment to realize that you had then the freedom to decide.

Julie: 12:10

Right. And that was big. And at the time I, you know, I don't necessarily know that I realized it, but the last job I had in higher ed was kind of like that dream job, like it was at a community college. It was incredibly good pay for all the work I've been doing to get there. And, yeah. I hated it. I was not happy. It was not the right place for me, the right school, the right community. It just wasn't like, I felt pretty quickly that I'm like, and it wasn't anything against the people. It just wasn't me. It wasn't the place I felt like I would want to stay for a year, let alone 10 or 20 years. Right. And, and so it's like. All these little things had been happening and were in my head before COVID, and then I had the space to really think about well, why was I unhappy there? Yeah. And it wasn't just because my health was difficult and I just didn't feel well all the time. But there were other things I was realizing that even though that's what I had been working towards and quote, you know, we have those ideal jobs or the dream jobs, that doesn't mean it ends up being what you think it's gonna be.

Tracie: 13:15

Right, right. Absolutely. Or you know, you have this dream job, especially with all of the education, you got to be in education, right? Having a PhD like that's going through all of that learning is a long process. And so it's that s sunk cost fallacy. My husband, he's an engineer, he's always talking about scot fallacy. So you know, you spend 12 years or whatever it is, getting all of your degrees and you have to stay there because you Right. Spent all this time and money and effort getting there to find, only to find out that it's not, not only not what you thought it would be, but that you've changed Really. Yes. Is what happens. Right. And we forget that when we're 25, that we're not gonna be the same person when we're 35 or 40 as you were saying.

Julie: 14:01

Right. And I think that's so true. And you know, I think that's also why as a Gen Xer, you know, we saw our parents as baby boomers. Pick a career and stick with it. Although I didn't. I saw my parents change a lot for many different reasons, but you know, I think our generation knew that it's okay to change and that things that made you happy before maybe don't make you happy anymore and. You know, really realize that we're evolving as people. And I think for so many of us as women, 35, 40 45 is a very pivotal time because a lot of us are finally getting to that point where we're fully owning who we are. We're we're confident and comfortable in our bodies. We're kind of taking ownership of a lot of things. We were told just, just be a good girl. Just be quiet. No, no, no, no, no, we're not doing that anymore. And you know, I think it was. For me, it was really showing up more fully, authentically as myself. I've realized that we all have kind of personas that we have, like work persona, family persona, friend, and I realized like I don't like being in boxes and. Some of us have to be, because there's certain requirements you know, working in higher ed, I had, we had dress codes at several of the schools I worked at. We couldn't wear jeans. And there's these little things that you kind of are forced to, but then when I started doing this online and nobody was telling me what I could or couldn't do, it's like, okay, well I'm gonna show up with. My photos of pets behind me and put a bedazzle headband on, and I don't care what people think, right? Yeah. And so for me, being a, an entrepreneur, a coach and a podcaster has allowed me to fully, not only accept who I am, but be proud of it and share it and realize I'm not for everyone. I'm not the right podcast for everyone. I'm not the right coach for everyone. But that doesn't mean I'm not right for some people and right for myself and my life. And when I talk about podcasting and how it's changed my life, I'm not just saying it as a cliche, it literally changed my life. And every woman I meet that has podcasted, for whatever reason, has had that same experience.

Tracie: 16:09

Yeah, absolutely. I, what I love about that is the truth of us caring less and less as the years go on. And what we see now, as you know. Being Gen Xers. We're not the young ones anymore, and we get to see the millennials and the Zs. I have Zs, I have teenagers like literally do not care about and. Almost like rail against the convention in the first place. Right. So we're, so I feel that we are so lucky that we were kind of at the beginning of, yeah, I had work, Tracy and Home, Tracy and Performer, Tracy, and all these different things. I talk about that when I speak too, because. Of us Gen Xers, we can all relate to that having been true. You had to be whatever you were at work, straighten your hair, look professional, right? You have your hair up today, but you're a curly girl like me and we couldn't, I am that at work'cause it looks so messy and not professional. And to be able to get to the point where that's just not like, that's a story we had made up.

Julie: 17:18

Right. And I think that I also realized that a lot of my childhood was, you know, my parents both worked and my mom, you know, often would take jobs where it was only 30 hours a week so she could pick us up and do all the things and you know, she was my bluebird group. Leader and you know, my parents were very involved, but they were also working and, and dealing with tough financial things. And I realized, I think that now I can look back and I saw, what I saw was they worked because they had to, to support their family, but they were very rarely happy in the work that they had to do. Yeah. They were doing, whether it was, it was the people they worked with or what they had to do. And you know, and I saw my dad, he was a salesman. You know, we owned a for furniture store when I was little, but when it went outta business. They lost almost everything except our house. And so I, I, I saw all of that happen. And so being the good girl, the Virgo, I was a good student and I did all the things I was supposed to and, you know, worked, like you said, my education, the job. But then I also got to the point where I realized yeah, but is it worth it if I'm miserable and unhappy and I'm literally draining my body of the energy? I'm more of a zenio. I'm kind of in that, that weird cusp at the end of Gen Xers. So I do understand technology more than Sub Gen Xers, but I still, you know, I had my first email address in college. So it's also been this weird where technology has allowed us to expand in ways that we can do things. So much more readily now than we could.'cause we had to go places and be physically there. And so I think for me also as someone with autoimmune issues, being able to work from home was a game changer because I can, if I have a break, go lay in my bed and take a nap or, you know, do these things and I'm not wasting my energy on having to get up and get dressed and drive here, drive there, or travel. And the travel is fun or things I want to do, not because I have to. So I think so much of COVID allowed us all to kind of realize life can end at any minute. We need to be happy every single day.

Tracie: 19:25

Yeah. And we, and we, and that we get to. Figure out what that looks like as we go. Because I think beforehand we were all just on that hamster wheel of everything's the same and just keep going and it'll be fine. Fine. Lots of fine back then fine.

Julie: 19:42

Whatever that

Tracie: 19:43

means. Yeah. We know what that means exactly. Okay, so let's talk about the technology thing.'cause you talked, you mentioned that a second ago. I think that's a good direction to go. Technology has allowed your business to exist because podcasting right. Back in, you know, when we were younger. People weren't YouTubers as a career, podcasting didn't really exist per se. And they were radio

Julie: 20:07

jockeys,

Tracie: 20:08

right? I mean it was radio and I mean, we're there with our boomboxes and the cassette tapes trying to make a mix tape. Right. You know, everything changed. It was in the nineties. Okay, fine. You know, that's when I had my first exposure to computers and stuff. Even though I'm older than you, I'm on the higher, the older end of Gen X. But I lived in Cupertino, which is where Apple computer was born. So I had that. You were on that cusp? Yeah, I had, you know, we had Apple computers in our junior high school because they gave them to us.'cause we were in town which was cool. But the technology piece, and this is what I think is so interesting, talk to, like, let's go into talking about how technology has changed podcasting and made it accessible for everyone who wants to share their story, right? Because for me, I've been thinking about starting my podcast for a couple of years because I am a speaker. I love interviewing people, I love hearing everyone's stories. And I knew that I needed the time to be right, to spend the time and effort creating episodes and putting them out, and all of that work. Well, lo and behold, as most people do out there using descrip to edit your podcast is like it's magic. You know, the way technology has changed to allow this to be so much more widespread is incredible. Talk about how that even in your three and a half years has started has changed.

Julie: 21:33

Yeah. You know, I took my podcast class, gosh, probably 2020, early 2021, so a little over four years. And I even say this to people, it's like, you don't understand how much has changed even since I started. Yeah, I believe that like in 2021, podcasting was audio only. Podcasting was, I learned how to edit audio. I didn't learn how to edit video. I learned how to edit audio and level and do the things and all of that. And thank God I learned it'cause I needed it at that point. But now I don't even really use those skills as much because descrip is magic. And I could just take the Zoom video. Do all these things with it. So even earlier before we started recording, we were talking about, you know, when I started it, you had an intro and that is the same intro used on every episode and it had to be certain length and certain things you said in it. There was a lot of like structure. But I would say were the last three years that has changed a lot.

Tracie: 22:31

I just realized that that's what TV was like when we were young. Yep. Right. Like the opening credits. Yep. We're always the same. It's a prerecorded thing. Even the news had prerecorded credits, like that's had an intro. We knew the intro was prerecorded and all the same, not related to anything that was coming.

Julie: 22:52

Right. Yeah. I mean there I've found so many threads of like how things have evolved and why now. Like people say, well, well I do this but it's not really a podcast. I go, yeah, it is, because you know, podcasting is so much broader than it was even two years ago. And I always say a traditional podcast is a audio only RSS Feed. Apple podcast, Spotify podcast, which still exists and is still booming. But now everybody's added the video layer of the video on, you know, YouTube, LinkedIn, substack, all the places. And so there's been this evolution of what podcasting is. And I always say there's no podcasting police, no one's gonna come and say, I'm sorry, you do not check off all the boxes. You are not a podcaster. I'm like, yeah, you're YouTuber podcaster. All these things are kind of intermixed. Yeah. But a lot of it is the tech. You know, like I said, I was only doing audio and then the script came out and at first it, it's hard. It doesn't always work exactly the way we want it, but now it's like, I have these magic buttons. Remove filler words, fix the sound, level it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, I can do all this magic stuff where it's like, why am I not? Putting it on YouTube. Why am I not using video clips? And so I love the evolution because I as someone who has many degrees and was a teacher, I love learning. So that part of podcasting and the constant change is what I love because I constantly am learning and then getting to teach other people. Now it does feel like overwhelming and I'm never keeping up. But again, I don't have to do all 20 things. I could do whatever works for me and my business and my podcast.

Tracie: 24:33

Right. Absolutely. All right, well that was a good segue'cause I was just thinking of where we should go next. And that is to talk to people who haven't started their podcast yet or who haven't gotten support in doing so. Like maybe they have started, but they just kind of did it off of. I dunno. Let's

Julie: 24:51

try it and see what happens.

Tracie: 24:52

Something they, something they read, told them to do it this way. Right, right. But maybe talked to someone who's in your shoes, who's actually helping people start their podcasts and continue them. And building a community around podcasting in general. So talk to the new people and help them see how it can be easier and more successful if you have hope.

Julie: 25:17

Yeah. You know, the thing about podcasting is it can be whatever you want it to be. It can be, you know, five minutes a day, every day. It can be 20 minutes once a month. You know, that's the freedom is you get to choose it. And so I always tell people, one, you have to know your why. Why are you starting a podcast? What's your end goal? What do you want out of it? Because that changes how you set it up. And then two is. You know, it doesn't have to break the bank. You don't have to have anybody that tells you you have to have all the certain tech and software and technology. No, I have a mic that is like probably 60 bucks on Amazon and it's great and it's been recommended to me by many, many podcasters and people. You know, I always say, I can help you launch without breaking the bank, because there are ways to do it efficiently and economically that you can still get your message out. And so you have to start with your why. Why am I doing it? Why? What do I want? Is this, I just want to get my story out. I wanna. Have a platform for people, I wanna build a community or is it leads for your business? Because all of those questions direct how you do it and what it looks like, but then it's also up to you. So I meet people all the time and they're like, well, I already am on YouTube, but I do this and that. Great. Get more consistent, build that up, and then when you're ready, take that content and put it into an RSS feed, and then you can get more people over there. But I always say, start where you are. You can't have all your ducks in a row and be 20 places at once. That's just not feasible. And it's also not, it's not right when you start. Right. You gotta figure out what's right for you now, and then as you go, you get to add the next thing. Like Substack is blowing up right now. I want to be there. I haven't had time to be there. And so it's on my list, but that's not my, my focus now because I'm focusing on where I'm at and how to build it from where I am at right now. And so I think that is really important. And the thing is about podcasting is support can look like a lot of different things. It doesn't have to be one-on-one coaching or several thousand dollars of support. It can be going to a few classes. It can be joining a membership, like I have a membership that is for guests and hosts. Different events, help in different things. I'll talk about guesting, but people in the room will be like, I'm a host and this helped me. I'm a guest and this helped me. So support is important because podcasting does change pretty quickly. Tech is always changing, new options are coming up. So you have to be learning. You have to be willing to grow because that's what's gonna tap into you finding new people.

Tracie: 27:52

Absolutely, and, and we can weave in just the value of coaching in general in the right. Same reason, right? As the host of your podcast, as the person who's interviewing the people or sharing the knowledge or stories or whatever, you can't also be the expert in all of the other aspects of what you're doing. I mean, you can. But it's gonna take you a long time to do everything right. Well, we can't

Julie: 28:21

be

Tracie: 28:21

experts in

Julie: 28:21

everything.

Tracie: 28:23

Right? Well, and, and I, and we can't even, and yes, we can learn, right? But if we're, if we, if our goal is to get the message out and to talk to the people and to have the episodes exist, then we need some support behind the scenes to help do that. And in fact, my editing right now, while descript is magic. The magic is being handled by my teenager. Because Gen Z knows what they're doing and I

Julie: 28:52

wish, now I wish I had a teenager in my house.

Tracie: 28:55

I know, right? Well, and I'm grateful. I have two teenagers and one is like zero interest, but the other one is like, sure, this is my job. I said, yes, this is your job. Okay, great. Yeah. And you know, I pay him and he makes sure my episodes get uploaded, so it's a win-win for everyone. And I'm not doing it right as much as I could.

Julie: 29:16

Well, and I also think it's important as a coach, I'm not gonna act like I know everything.'cause I don't, I've been doing it for a finite amount of time. I do it in a certain way in terms of my podcast. And I like to have referral people that I know you come to me, you want, you really wanna focus on YouTube. Okay, I'm gonna send you to so and so because they do that. I am on YouTube. I do not know it the way they know it. Right. Yeah. And that's what I am trying to create in terms of community, is not just community where I'm helping people, but I'm also connecting people with the right people for what they really need support in.

Tracie: 29:49

Actually, I'm glad that you said that.'cause as I was talking about my kid, I was, my thought was, and that's base level support. That's not an expert. Right, right. Someone else who's an expert at YouTube and SEO and algorithm. Watching and Right. Learning the things that change, right. Because my kid's not learning the things that change, like I have to still feed them

Julie: 30:10

right stuff. And you know, it's finding the tools that help you not have to learn a lot. Like I mentioned earlier, I use pod page for my websites, for my podcast. They have so many built-in tools from blog posts and SEO and all these things that I just go in and tweak things and it's like perfect. I'm like, great. I don't have to figure all that out. I use CAPS show, which is ai. It does not pull from the internet. It only pulls from the content. I get it. That. Makes my production process so much less and now I can offer that service to other people like, okay, you don't need me to produce, great, but you need content. Give me the episode and I'll do the rest. So it really is about efficiency and finding the right tools for you and that work. Then I've also found that sometimes we just need a little bit of accountability and a little bit of a push. And someone who I have a networking community called the Women's Podcaster Party, and it's open to anyone. You don't have to be a guest or a host, and it's just a place to come and meet people and share. And someone who had come to that and has been coming for several months reached out to me and said, look, I've been working on my podcast and I just can't get it. Like ready to go. And so I got on a Zoom with her. She told me everything she'd done, she was ready. She just hadn't pushed the button or whatever you wanna say. There were a few things I helped her with, but then it was like, you need to set a date and you need to put it out and say this is when it's happening, and then it's gonna happen. Like sometimes we just need to be told. You don't have to do anything else. You've done a lot. You're ready. You just need to do it. And so I'm happy to be that little nudge to get people finally going on something they've been sitting with.

Tracie: 31:55

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, and you said the community is the podcaster party, but really your community is greater than just the party now, right? Right. Or the party used to be a thing and now it's a whole community. So let's make sure to describe all of that because we're getting close to the end of our time and I don't wanna miss that'cause I love being a part of your community founding member. Thank you. And yay. And and you're doing a lot of new things on top of what was a bi month or a twice monthly networking, one event. Now you're doing a bunch of other things, so talk about what's in your membership.

Julie: 32:31

Yeah, so it started with the women's podcaster party with just as networking twice a month free, open to everyone, and that will continue to exist. It's a space to meet people, to learn from others. And then I started, I really created that because I was trying to figure out what does the people really need? I thought everyone wanted to launch a podcast, but really in the span of women in business, people are looking for a wide variety of things. And so whether it's starting to be a guest. Being strategic about guesting hosting, sponsoring all the things. So I created the podcast, your Story Community, where there are levels based on the needs you have for support, but there are accountability coworking spaces. There's live practice interviews if you need to work on your interview skills, either being interviewed as well as being the interviewer. You know, my education and psychology prepared me to be a host. Because I was taught undergrad how to do focus groups and interviews. So that is something that I love teaching and helping people with, but it's also what I call deep dive workshops, like hands on, how does this tool work? Is it the right thing for me? How do I do this? How do I set goals? How do I be strategic? So I have deep dive workshops where I have people from. The founder of Pod Match, two people who've been have top 2% podcasts are coming in and sharing what they do and how they do it to help others grow in new ways. So the community membership really is this more expansive way that anyone who is a guest, a host, a speaker, can come in and learn new things. I have someone in there who has a podcast for eight years, over 400 episodes, and more than once she's attended and said, I learned something new today. Like that is it right there. That's what that community is for, because everything is changing. We're always having to learn new things, but we don't have time to go to 20 events every week. I am doing that and bringing it to my community to share it with you. So that's really what my community is for, is for you to support you wherever you are now and figuring out where you wanna go next. Yeah,

Tracie: 34:37

I love it and I totally see that coming to your events. If you said that woman who has had her PO Big podcast for eight years, all the way to someone who's thinking about guesting, who hasn't even done that yet, definitely doesn't have a podcast and may not even ever plan to. It understands the power of storytelling and the power of community in sharing what happens in all our lives together. So beautiful. Yes. Love it. Well, that's very exciting and I think that this is probably where we're gonna wrap up. So tell us just one last thing of, you know, we basically said, you know, the bold decision that you made was to send. Structured education packing and create your own thing. So give us like final words for someone who maybe is ready to do the same thing or is trying to figure out how that could be them. Right. Then take that bold

Julie: 35:35

decision. I think it is that a lot of us are waiting to start whatever it is, a podcast, a business, a book, all these things, and it's like you're never gonna be fully ready. You just have to try. And with podcasting, I did it. It was not perfect in any way, shape, or form, and I can't even imagine listening to some of my first episodes. But it got me out there and it got me in front of people and then it got me talking to people. So whatever that is, I just encourage you to start and start in some little way. It's okay to start messy. It's okay to start uncertain because you learn by doing. And that's what I've done and I've seen so many other people do. So please just start believe in yourself. And the thing is, if you realize it's not for you, then you know, and you're not putting all that time and effort into something that is not the right place for you.

Tracie: 36:29

And thinking and thinking about it and telling yourself you should, you should. Mm-hmm. And. Than getting in that stuck should place, which we don't. Yeah, just start now. Just start. Yeah. I love that. Just start. Perfect. Well, Julie, thank you so much. We could keep going for another hour, I'm sure, but that's not gonna happen today. But we will talk again. I know you and I talked about doing maybe another. Kind of shared situation later. So yes, and of course I'm in the community, so I'll see you soon and yeah, I'm excited to get this episode out to the world. So let's say stop, we'll click end and we'll get it out there. And we'll see you again super soon. Thank you again.

Julie: 37:11

Thank you for having me.

Tracie: 37:13

Yeah.