#212 Pausing the Podcast - Personal reflections

Hello there, my friends. Welcome back to In the Grow Space. I want to start this episode just a little bit differently today. Usually, you hear me diving into a conversation with another incredible leader.

Over the past five years, I've had the absolute privilege of hosting more than 200 of those conversations. Each one has been a learning experience, a moment of growth, and honestly, a gift. But today's episode isn't about someone else's leadership journey. It's about mine.

And it's about a question that's been sitting heavy on my mind lately. Do I keep going with this podcast? Or is it time to push pause? Now, if you follow the show and know me for any length of time, you know how much I love doing this.

I love meeting fascinating leaders. I love hearing how they think, how they've overcome challenges, and what they've learned on their own growth journeys. Every interview stretches me. I walk away from each one feeling sharper, more grounded, and honestly, more human.

But like many of you, I wear a lot of hats. I'm leading several cohorts of the Emerging Leader Academy. I'm serving as the fractional CEO for a growing company. And I also trying to make space for my own learning my family my health and all the things that matter most During my weekly review and preview process where I typically reflect on what to stop doing what to start doing and what to keep doing, this question about the podcast kept showing up.

And I would glance at the question and just move on and tell myself, I'll figure that out later. But really over the past few months, I've realized that later had arrived. So here's where I landed after some honest reflection. For this season, I need to press pause on In the Growth Space.

And this isn't really because I've lost passion for it. Literally, the opposite is true. I still love it deeply. But right now, my energy and attention are needed in a lot of other areas where I can make the greatest impact.

And that is helping other leaders grow inside their organizations and developing people through the Emerging Leader Academy and guiding a company that's scaling rapidly. So this is not goodbye and it's not the end. It's just a pause. Growth, as we talk about here so often, isn't always about more.

Sometimes it's about creating space and it's about knowing when to prune something, not because it dead or failing but because it time to let other parts of your garden thrive And that what this feels like for me right now So before I pause the mic I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to every listener who has tuned in, who has left a review, who has shared an episode, or even sent me a message about how something that we talked about here on the show impacted you.

Thank you. You have no idea how much that's meant to me. To all my guests who have joined me here, thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for your openness and especially for your vulnerability.

You've taught me so much and through you, our listeners have grown too. I think back to so many conversations from talking about resilience and leadership with founders who've weathered storms to learning from CEOs who've had to reinvent themselves. every one of them has left a mark on me. And to my small but mighty team behind the scenes, thank you for your support.

Thank you for your editing magic. Thanks for your scheduling and helping me to bring this vision to life week after week. So as I step back for a little while, I want to leave you with this thought and maybe even a challenge. Sometimes the most courageous thing a leader can do is stop To pause long enough to ask where is my time and energy most needed right now We all love to talk about pushing forward and finding a way And don get me wrong that is important But growth also happens in the pauses It happens when we make hard choices to let go of something good so that something great can take root.

So maybe this week, ask yourself the same question I've been asking. What do you need to stop doing? What do you need to start doing? And what do you need to keep doing so that you align your time with what matters most?

So to all of you who've been a part of the growth in the growth space for the past five years, thank you. You've helped this podcast grow beyond what I ever imagined. And just to be clear, I'm not shelving it forever. I have a strong sense that this isn't the last time that you'll hear me here.

But for now, I'm taking my own advice and creating space for what's next. Remember, growth is rarely a straight line. Matter of fact, it's never a straight line. Sometimes the pause is part of the progress.

So thank you for listening. Thank you for learning. Thank you for growing together. So until next time, keep leading well, keep growing, and keep finding your own growth space.