Return to Radiance with Danielle Venables

100. 100 Episodes Later: What Starting a Podcast Taught Me About Following Soul Nudges

• Danielle Venables • Episode 100

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Have you ever put off something important because you felt you weren't "enough" yet? That's exactly where I was before launching this podcast—drowning in social media's superficiality, yearning for deeper connection, yet paralyzed by feelings of inadequacy and tech overwhelm. Who would listen to me? What made my voice special? These questions kept me stuck until I finally took the leap.

Now, 100 episodes later, I'm reflecting on this beautifully imperfect journey. There have been seasons of consistency punctuated by complete hiatuses when life demanded my attention elsewhere. Looking back, I realize the profound wisdom that emerged from these very gaps and pauses. Had I waited for perfect conditions or uninterrupted schedules, I might never have started at all—and would have missed the transformation that came through simply showing up.

The greatest lesson this podcast taught me wasn't about content creation or audience building, but about the relationship between success and life itself. I've come to identify as "team life" first, "team success" second. When these values compete, I choose my life every time—a perspective that wasn't learned from a mentor but through the lived experience of this podcast journey. This shift opened me to greater alignment in how I structure my business and my days, finding freedom in surrender rather than forced productivity. Whether you've been with me since episode one or just discovered this show, I hope my journey encourages you to follow your soul's nudges, even when—especially when—the path looks messy. What might be waiting for you on the other side of that first imperfect step?


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Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, I cannot even believe that I'm recording this episode so after years I don't even remember what year I started this podcast was something that I put off for so long. I put off starting it even when I felt the call and when I felt like I was drowning and being suffocated on social media with all of the censorship and just low quality, low vibe content that was on there and the lack of depth and the lack of attention span and all of these different things that felt like they were stifling my voice in my business. This podcast is what came to save me, and I will forever be grateful for the nudges that I had to get this thing started and to just do it. I will be completely honest with you when I say that I was putting off this podcast partly because of the tech overwhelm which, by the way, is not that difficult but also partly because I felt like I needed to be somebody in order to have a podcast. I had feelings of inadequacy. I had feelings of not feeling like what I had to say was important enough. I was like who would listen to me talk? I'm not a good speaker Like I had so many narratives in my head about who I was and why I wasn't good enough to start a podcast, and the reason that I'm sharing that with you today is because here we are, a hundred episodes later. It's been a little bit of stop and start. It's been, you know, seasons of not recording anything at all and seasons of um, you know, being consistent weekly, and then seasons of missing the odd week, um, because life happens and kids and all the things. But um, one thing I will say is that I am so glad that I started when I did and didn't put the pressure on myself to be perfect, and I think that's a really important reflection.

Speaker 1:

As I look back. People talk about don't compare your day one to somebody else's day, a thousand and those kinds of things, and I think that's really true, right, when you look at these top percent, top 1% podcasters and things like that, I still feel like I'm not there yet and honestly, I, as much as I would love to be, I don't know if my life, if that's a big enough priority in my life right now to get there. And that's okay. And I I've had to learn to give myself grace with that and not need to strive and force and push myself to the top. But what that also has taught me is that there are so many levels of imperfection and inadequacy that we can like project onto ourselves, right, um, because had you told me at the start that, oh, at some point you're not going to be coming out with weekly episodes and you're going to take hiatuses and you're going to take breaks, and you know it's not going to be perfect, your, your record isn't going to be perfect, that you're going to have the same like an episode coming out at the same time every same day of the week? Um, and all of that, right, like I might not have started if I was aware of the journey that this podcast would take me on and that life would take me on throughout this podcast.

Speaker 1:

But I think the biggest lesson that that taught me is that there is power in just showing up and there are lessons to learn in the inconsistencies. There are lessons to learn in the imperfections. There are lessons to learn when the imperfections. There are lessons to learn when your baby is crying and you literally cannot hear yourself think, never mind think, about recording a podcast episode. You know there's I feel like I'm a little all over the place at the moment, which just is another layer to that imperfection, because this is a completely unscripted, unoutlined episode. But there are so many factors in life that, no matter how prepared you feel and no matter how in your groove you feel, and no matter how aligned with your message you feel, there are going to be things that require your attention, that require you to let something go, that require you to put something on pause for a bit. And if you let that hold you back from starting because what if I can't post an episode at the same time every week, or even an episode every week, or even an episode in the span of six months then you're going to hold yourself back from the growth that comes from saying yes to the thing that's on your heart to do.

Speaker 1:

And that's really what this came down to for me was that this podcast was on my heart and I've fallen out of love with it and I've fallen back in love with it, and it's all part of the process. It's all part of who I was meant to become and what I needed to do. Process, it's all part of who I was meant to become and what I needed to do. Um, and it's it's part of the ebbs and flows of life and I think, reflecting back on all of that, that is some of the most freeing pieces of wisdom that I could possibly ever acquire. And nobody telling me this is the other thing is, as a hardworking, you know, just high achieving individual my whole life.

Speaker 1:

Even if somebody had told me and maybe someone did tell me along the way that you'll be imperfect and you will fail and there will be moments where you're just going to have to surrender to the flow of life and not force things into place and force yourself to show up when there's bigger, more pressing issues going on, I don't know if I would have been even receptive to that. But now, being in the flow of life and being in a place in my life where I'm here, I'm team life right, I'm team success, but more than that, I'm team life. And if team life and team success, um, you know, make it to the finals against one another, I'm going to pick my life every single time, and that was a lesson that I would not have been able to learn from a mentor or from someone else telling me that that is something that life had to initiate me into, and it did that through my business and also through this podcast specifically, and that is like one of the most beautiful lessons I've ever learned, because it opened me up to a greater degree of alignment and more clarity on exactly how I want my business to function, how I want my structures to look, how I want my content to roll out. All of those things came from me taking the imperfect steps, showing up to start a podcast and now hitting a 100-episode milestone, which, on one hand, I'm like, wow, it only took you three years, I think it was three years and on the other hand, I'm like, but I did it, and a hundred episodes is a lot. So here's to starting new things. Here's to doing the uncomfortable thing, even if you think that you're not good enough to do it, even if you think that somebody else is doing it better and you could never possibly measure up. Here's to learning and growing and figuring out the tech when you tell yourself you can't do the tech. And also here's to just continuously showing up in alignment, following the nudges of your soul and trusting in the unfolding.

Speaker 1:

Even if the execution on the surface is not perfect which we all know it is not there is an orchestrated perfection in following those calls and leaning into the growth and doing things that shift you and shape you and expand you in a different way. So I'm going to keep this one nice and short and sweet. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, or even thinking about doing anything else for that matter, this is your nudge. This is your encouragement to just go for it and to figure it out and to let it be imperfect and to let the process be what it is. Perfect and to let the process be what it is. But this is your nudge to say yes. This is your nudge to move forward with the callings of your soul. So I hope that you stick with me through the next hundred and hopefully many, many more. I love you so much for being here. Thank you for being here, and I'll catch you in the next episode.