What’s Going On With The Podcast?
How the Kruzel family dreams, how I am recommitting to take the pressure off this adventure, and encouragement for the soft creative when the wind gets knocked out of your sails.
I married a dreamer. My husband loves a vision and wants to make it happen immediately. His creative spark is easily accessible and doesn’t always care to think about caution points before he dives into the deep end. Calling that connection before a fully fleshed out brainstorm? No problem. Spending dollars on a domain name? Already bought. Sending a request to a distant contact? Typing it out already. I love his tenacity to go after what he wants. He also married a dreamer.
My dreams, contrastingly, cook for a long time before most people see any inkling that there’s a spark there. I write them in journals and make private Pinterest boards, and turn the concepts around for months, (sometimes years) before taking a step toward bringing them into the light. Sometimes all I consider are the worst possible outcomes and forget that dreams can be whimsy and fun! I am a cautious dreamer with a LOT of ideas.
Where Danny sometimes might need a “pause” button, I know desperately need a “play” button.
I tell you this because when it came to starting a podcast, it was a dream that cooked forever. I took about 2 years to even say I was thinking about or working on this project. I went to a writing conference in 2022 and while I thought I would be walking out with a more polished idea for a book proposal to pitch to a lit agent, I walked away with multiple women illuminating that my readers and ideal audience actually want a podcast from me. Shortly there after a friend from Michigan shared a reel about starting a podcast with a message like “hey I don’t know if you have ever thought about starting something like this but I think you’d be really good at it…”
I was gifted podcast equipment in a time I was too anxious to even consider using it (*cue trying to get married) but there were key people investing in my dreams to move the needle forward. Yes it was a dream that was marinating for a while, but it was also something that was unfolding faster than I even expected.
Then to my surprise, I sent out emails full of voice memos to “soft launch” the podcast. I was talking about it on Instagram, I was making lists of folks to interview, and making drafts of questions I wanted to ask them. I was sending emails and working on scheduling dream guests to interview. Danny had me use a laptop that was a bit nicer than the one I had from high school, and our Wi-Fi router got fixed. It was all starting to come together.
And then… the wind got knocked out of me. I tried test recordings and the laptop would crash. I would try saving audio files and they wouldn’t upload across platforms. I wanted this podcast to be homey, and casual but the steep learning curve of technical issues was making my words and my heart anything but breezy.
I stopped sending emails, I stopped reaching out to guests and more than once thought to myself “I wish no one knew that I was trying to do this thing.” I wished no one knew this dream was so hard to actualize. I wished it launched 4 months ago. I wanted to quit before I even started. I wondered what that said about me as a creative. If I want to quit this early, why am I even still going, aren’t I just going to give up when it gets hard again? Does any of this even matter?
I bet you have been there before too.
And then God in His loving kindness reminded me of something I have been saying on the internet this entire year.
“Sare, take the pressure off.”
I am probably the most passionate about calling women higher in comparison and yet I realized I was comparing my baby steps to women’s podcasts who had been doing this for years. I heard God remind me that by showing myself ‘trying’ on the internet and it not going well… it actually might be encouraging the other soft creative to keep at her dream too.
If you’re reading this and have a project that doesn’t have wind in your sails anymore, I want to encourage you that if you feel embarrassed to be seen trying that you’re not alone. I also want to hold your hand as I coach myself in this moment and say so so so clearly: Your dreams don’t have to be perfect to be actualized.
So what’s the plan?
My commitment for the podcast is to produce one full season, 8-10 episodes full of “take the pressure off” content and girly hangs like we were at a coffee date. If we want to keep going after that, amazing. If we don’t, also…amazing! Every time I come up against technical issues I am saying to myself, “I am learning valuable skills right now.” I believe in a God that doesn’t use anything in vain. I am taking the pressure off of every other variable. Things I am not choosing to worry about - how many times I say “like or um” and not editing all of them out. I am not going to worry about profitability. I am not worried about posting schedule, if we miss a week, we just keep going. I am not worried about numbers or downloads. The only marker of success that I remotely care about is that women who choose to listen feel encouraged to take the pressure off and are encouraged to walk in even more freedom.
While this may be against the podcast grain, that is entirely the point. To be counter cultural in a world that says “to have a great podcast you have to have perfect sound quality, famous guests, and high sponsorships,” I am saying “you can take the pressure off that dream of yours, here, watch I will go first so it’s less scary… here’s my imperfect podcast.”
Thank you
Thank you for being here. Thank you for holding space for this slow dreamer to bring a dream into the world at her own pace. Thank you for your encouragement and excitement.
okthatsitloveyabye ✌️
