APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | AUDIBLE

Join me for a mini episode to celebrate the special anniversary episode of the Quotable Podcast. After five years of inspiring conversations and insights, I take on a solo episode to reflect on the journey so far, share insights into personal growth, and discuss exciting plans for the future. Listen in as I share my intentions for the upcoming year and more!

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Reflect on accountability: The podcast has served as a powerful way for me to hold myself accountable for personal and professional growth. In this episode I will set my intentions for the year continuing to leverage the podcast for accountability.  
• Discuss strengthening friendships and relationships: This year I plan to emphasize the value of building strong connections, whether that be personally or professionally. 
• Explore ways I plan to put myself out of my comfort zone, embrace opportunities for growth, and carry out my visibility plan for the year.

Join the interest list for the Quotable female founders retreat in Barbados in April or November by joining the interest list here.

Join the Quotable Visibility Bootcamp Membership for six months for $388 per month. This program provides accountability, live calls, and guidance on executing your visibility plan. Limited spots! Sign-up here.

The key moments in this episode are:

00:00:00 – Celebrating the Podcast Anniversary

00:05:12 – Pushing Beyond Comfort Zones

00:09:21 – Increasing Visibility

00:12:25 – Creating Deeper Connection Opportunities

00:13:24 – Creating Deep Relationships

00:14:23 – Embracing Business Growth

00:16:41 – Embracing Ease in Business

00:19:27 – Elevating the Podcast

00:22:11 – Engaging the Audience

Timestamped summary of this episode:

00:00:00 – Celebrating the Podcast Anniversary
Alessandra Pollina introduces the podcast and celebrates its 5-year anniversary. She reflects on the journey and shares her excitement about being back behind the microphone.

00:05:12 – Pushing Beyond Comfort Zones
Alessandra discusses her goals for intentionally expanding her network and fostering deeper relationships with high-caliber business professionals. She emphasizes the importance of pushing herself outside of her comfort zone.

00:09:21 – Increasing Visibility
Alessandra shares her plan to pitch herself for more visibility and speaking opportunities. She acknowledges the challenge of making her own marketing a priority and the need for greater accountability in this area.

00:12:25 – Creating Deeper Connection Opportunities
Alessandra talks about the evolution of her business towards creating and curating events that facilitate deeper relationship building among female entrepreneurs. She highlights the natural progression from the podcast and magazine to hosting retreats and other events.

00:13:24 – Creating Deep Relationships
Alessandra discusses the importance of creating spaces for deep relationships to form, especially for female founders in the Boston area. She emphasizes the value of ramping up casual coffee meetups and planning new events to enhance connection and relationship building opportunities.

00:14:23 – Embracing Business Growth
Alessandra admits to feeling a little scared about hosting bigger events as part of her business, as it represents a shift in her approach. However, she also expresses excitement about the potential for these events to become a revenue stream and a more integral part of her business.

00:16:41 – Embracing Ease in Business
Alessandra reflects on her desire to run her business with more ease, particularly when it comes to hosting events. She describes her natural ability to put together successful events with ease and the impact it has on others’ lives, motivating her to integrate this ease into her business operations.

00:19:27 – Elevating the Podcast
Alessandra shares her intention to elevate the podcast by inviting higher-level business owners as guests. While maintaining the platform’s accessibility, she aims to be more proactive in inviting guests she personally admires, seeking to create conversations that resonate with the audience.

00:22:11 – Engaging the Audience
Alessandra seeks feedback on making the podcast episodes shorter while still conveying complete thoughts. She encourages listeners to share the podcast and engage with her on social media, expressing gratitude for their support and involvement in the podcast community.

We’d love to hear from you. Comment on this week’s episode’s Instagram post with how this has inspired you. If you have any other tips or ideas leave a comment under the post for this episode on our Instagram page @quotablemediaco or shoot me a DM. You can also connect with us at our Quotable Magazine Instagram account @quotablemagazine For any show ideas, to submit a guest to the podcast, or if you have any questions, please visit https://quotablemediaco.com/podcast. Did you love this week’s episode? Leave us a review!

Transcript

Hello. Welcome back. I feel like I haven’t recorded in a while, so I’m excited to be here. Not that you would have noticed, because episodes of someone coming out every week, that’s just how I do it.
00:00:49
Sometimes I’ll record a bunch and then not record a bunch and drip them out, but I’m excited to be back here with the microphone and stuff again today. This one I just want to hop on quickly. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m still trying to do these mini episodes at least once a month where it’s just like a quick little mini bite sized episode. Doesn’t have to be a whole big thing, but just like checking in and yeah, just having a quick one, a short one, feels easy sometimes, and we can just chat about something quickly and then that’s it. See you later.
00:01:23
But I wanted to do a quick one today for the kind of anniversary of this podcast. Just recognizing that, mentioning it, this is going to come out right around it’s the week of the anniversary. I don’t know exactly what the technical birthday of the podcast is, but I do keep pretty good track of the general anniversary week because I decided to launch this podcast before I turned 30. I always remember that because when I decided I was going to do a podcast, I was like, it needs to happen before. By the time I turned 30, that became a thing when I decided I was doing it.
00:01:59
So I do know that I did launch it. I submitted it to iTunes at least right around my birthday or like a couple of days before, and then it takes a couple of days to get approved by iTunes or whatever. So I know it came out right around at some point in that week. And this episode, just because I was releasing on Wednesdays, is going to come out the day after my birthday. So that’s how I know this episode or this podcast is five years old this week.
00:02:26
Craziness. Absolutely wild. I don’t know how that be possible. But I think it must be because, yeah, if you just did the math, that means I just turned 35, which is also absolutely wild and unbelievable, but true. So, yeah, that means five years of the podcast.
00:02:46
So happy birthday, podcast. Happy birthday, me. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I feel like I have this personal mindset hang up about doing more reflective, kind of personal episodes on here, but I want to get better at it. I always feel like, even though this makes no sense, because it’s the opposite of how I actually feel for other people’s podcasts when it’s my own, I always feel like it has to be.
00:03:09
So I’ve mentioned this before. I know I need it to be so actionable and helpful to you. It needs to be like, how to do this? How to do that? Improve your business, carry out the best pr, marketing you can for it.
00:03:19
And I have in my mind that nobody wants to hear me just talk about my own stuff like myself, my business, because what are you going to learn from just knowing what’s going on with me? But I love personally hearing that kind of stuff from other podcasters. I love to hear what’s going on with them. And I feel like I learn a lot, if not even more sometimes, than something that sounds like a more teachable episode. I feel like I love to get that peek into getting to know them more.
00:03:49
I find them really interesting and entertaining, and I like it. So I am trying to push myself to do more of things like that. This year we’re testing it out with some of the minis because then it’s at least only a few minutes long. If you don’t like it, it’ll soon be over, but I want to see if you guys do actually like it. I think you might, just because I do when it’s other people.
00:04:08
So trying to tell myself they might. So we’ll save, maybe we’ll do more. And yeah, it just seemed good for something like this where I just wanted to recognize the anniversary of the podcast. Yeah. And just talk about a couple of things I was thinking about should I do, like reflections, like from five years of the podcast or the anniversary of the podcast, whatever.
00:04:29
But when I was thinking about it, I was more still the beginning of the year. I feel like we’ve done a lot of reflectiony kind of things from the end of the year, and I’m still more in the mode of looking ahead, thinking about what’s coming up this year, what else we still want to make happen. I’m more in that mode and I wanted to. That’s just the way I was thinking about it. I just wanted to think about that instead.
00:04:49
I don’t know. Not reflection, obviously, it’s not reflection. I was going to say forward thinking reflection. Things for coming up with the podcast the next year or so for the podcast and life. Not necessarily just the podcast, but just looking ahead personally, too.
00:05:03
So I feel like one of the things about this podcast in general is that it is a vehicle for me to put myself out of my comfort zone. And it really acts as an accountability hub for me personally, too. Because if I say something on here, I know somebody is listening, right? And on the one hand, it feels like nobody’s ever listening because I’m sitting here talking to myself, talking to a computer and a microphone with no one else on the other end right now, and I’m recording it. So it feels very like it’s just me and very personal, and maybe nobody’s ever hearing it, even though I do know you’re hearing it.
00:05:39
Like, I see the stats later on, so I know somebody’s listening, but there’s like that layer of disconnect because that doesn’t happen till later on. And I guess I feel like I could always not release the episode. No one is hearing it live, so I could always just not put it up. If for any reason, it’s whatever. I don’t know if I didn’t want to, but I’ve never actually done that.
00:05:59
But it feels like I can say anything I want to a certain extent, but I also always feel like I need to be mindful of what I say, make sure I’m not going to say something that then I’m going to be like I said I was going to do that thing, and now I’m not doing that thing. So that would be weird. I don’t want to say I’m going to do something and then not do it right, or I don’t want to put something out there that then I’m going to change my mind on the next day, because then you’re going to be like, hey, you talked about that thing on the podcast and then never saw anything about it or whatever. Not that you can’t change your plans, but I think you get where I’m coming from here. I feel like I do hold myself accountable to the things that I say on here.
00:06:36
So it does make me question what I’m going to say. It makes me make sure that I’m really going to stand behind what I’m going to say and that I’m going to do the thing. I’m going to make it happen or whatever the episode is or the topic. Like, I’m going to make sure it’s accurate or helpful, whatever it is. Because I do think that it’s a helpful, powerful form of accountability.
00:06:56
It made me think about what do I want to hold myself accountable to right now? That’s accountable for right now? What am I thinking about this year where I’m like, if I put it out there, like I need to make sure I do it. That’s where I wanted to go with this little mini episode, is how can I use this podcast this year to hold myself accountable for some of the things I’m looking forward to right now, if that makes sense. And then going to the 6th year of the podcast, right?
00:07:17
Sharing this will be a good way to go into the 6th year of the podcast and maybe next year do a reflection episode on how it went and what it was all like or something is what I was thinking. So anyway, hopefully that makes sense. It doesn’t really matter. I just want to talk about three ways that I’m going to be pushing myself outside of my comfort zone this year, trying to do things a little bit differently. And I just thought that was a good way to celebrate the anniversary of the podcast.
00:07:44
So the first thing I want to do this year is intentionally meeting and making and strengthening new friendships, friends and connections with a circle of business. Friends mostly, that are just on another level, like beyond what I have right now professionally. And also personally, I feel like I’m craving a monthly dinner parties with really good friends where we can just really hang out and deepen friendships and relationships. And I’m also craving flying around the country for masterminds and events with women who are scaling their companies beyond anything I’ve so far imagined for myself. Yet I just want to be putting myself in those rooms with people who will elevate me to a higher caliber just by being around them.
00:08:39
I think you probably all know what I mean. Like we see events, those people, those situations, and sometimes I don’t even know where to start. I don’t know those people, or I don’t know what events to go to, or I’m not in those circles. And I want to try to intentionally get myself into those circles a little bit more this year. So that’s one thing that I’m really excited by and want to make sure I do.
00:09:07
The second one is also putting myself out there more. This is accountability for me. This is something I have been trying to do. I started this last year, but I plan to really push it more this year. I want to really push it more.
00:09:21
I have a whole new plan. I want to pitch myself much more for more visibility for myself and my brand. I want to carry out my own visibility plan the same way I tell people to do and teach people to do with themselves, for themselves and their brands. I want to speak on more stages this year. All of that stuff.
00:09:40
I just want to really put myself out there more and do more of all of that. Yeah, that’s my second one, and that’s definitely something we need accountability for. It’s one of those things where it’s easy to say you’re going to do it and then not take all the steps to do it because it’s always like extra things, right? That’s not something I need to do for my clients and so it’s easy to get pushed to the back burner. Right?
00:10:04
We all know it’s like doing your own marketing always feels like something you should do in your free time, but the client work is more important. But we also all know that’s so not true and not how it should be. But yeah, that’s what that’s like for me. So the third one is I want to host more of my own events. I do also have plans for this already.
00:10:25
You might have already started to hear me talk about some of them, but it’s something I’m thinking about a lot more for this year and beyond. I found recently that the evolution of my business might be shifting more into the creation and curation of those deeper relationship building activities and events where I feel like we can truly make those strong connections that have deep, incredible impact on our businesses and lives rather than solely working with clients on more surface level media exposure as I have in the past, as what my pr agency generally is and offers. I feel like pr is all about relationships and relationship building, and that’s always been a big part of my business and what I do. But lately I’ve been feeling like I really love creating those spaces more individually for other business owners to have, I don’t know, more on a personal level and more like I’m actually creating these spaces. Rather than just pitching my clients to take part in other things that other people are creating, I want to make them happen more.
00:11:39
So it feels like a natural kind of piece. And I don’t want to say like transition. Like we’re still offering PR services too, but like a natural kind of shift in some of the offerings or things that we’re going to offer and do but also it feels different because, yeah, all these years we’ve been more like, let’s find the opportunities and match up our clients with them. And I probably already had touched on this when we first started our own magazine. Honestly, probably when I first started the podcast five years ago was like the first time where I was like, actually, why can’t we create some of these platforms ourselves too?
00:12:15
Because we need more. And I think that I could create some that are even better and are more of what we need and want and crave as female founders. So yeah, I guess it does seem like a very natural progression because I guess first we did the podcast and then I was like, and now I feel like we could make a magazine too, create that kind of platform. And now I’m really feeling like these event spaces are like that next iteration of that, creating the events where people can speak on stages rather than just finding events that are already happening and matching clients up with it, but also things like creating just deeper connection and relationship building opportunities. Like you might have heard I’m hosting some female founder retreats to Barbados this year.
00:12:59
I did one last year and it was incredible. And that’s not like a pr focused event, but that is a space for other women in business to come together and build the relationships, take the time to really work on their business and themselves. And those things all do help us become better business owners and help us then later on put ourselves out there more and all of those other things. So it’s all part of it. But just creating those spaces for those deep relationships to form is actually one of the things I’m loving.
00:13:33
So those things also even just things like ramping up my casual coffee meetups for female founders that have been hosted for years and years in the Boston area, doing more of that, just ramping them up, taking everything to the next level in terms of these connection and relationship building opportunities, and also planning a totally new event this spring, which I’m really excited about and I will share more. I don’t have details nailed down yet, which I know I was thinking I would by now. I didn’t mean to start teasing it if you, I don’t know, follow me. I feel like I’ve mentioned it a couple of times before and didn’t mean to tease it so far in advance. I just haven’t had a chance to nail down some of the key details that I want to have organized before.
00:14:15
I actually share more, but very soon. But that’s going to be very cool. So that’s another one of those kind of things, those pieces. So these are all things that are a little scary for me. Not all of them, but like something like hosting a bigger event like this, that’s a little bit different just because they’re different in terms of being an actual part of my business.
00:14:35
Right. I’ve done things like this a lot, but I haven’t been like, okay, this is actually going to be like a revenue stream for the business. This is going to be part of the actual business. Not just, oh, I’m going to host a coffee meetup for free whenever I feel like it and want to get together with people. I’m trying to build some of these things into the business in a larger way, which is different.
00:14:55
So that is. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t want to use the word scary, but I know that’s what I said, but just different. But yeah. And I’ve helped throw and host events of all varieties over the last ten plus years in PR a ton.
00:15:07
So in a way, it feels very familiar and totally doable. So when I’m like, yeah, let’s just do this, that doesn’t feel hard or scary or anything like that to me, but it’s different to do it for yourself. It’s different to do it on behalf of yourself and to build it into part of your business. So that’s what I’m thinking. Even though the actual act of hosting an event feels like something I can do in my sleep.
00:15:29
And it’s funny, actually, no, this is a mini. I’m not going to go into it. I was just going to say, people were like, oh, I didn’t even know you were hosting a retreat. And it’s because I kept it pretty small, the last one, like, under wraps, not under wraps, but invite only kind of thing until. So people didn’t really see it happen until it was happening.
00:15:45
Which, by the way, I’m putting the one this year out there a little bit more now that it’s not the first one. But yeah, I was like, I think people were really pleasantly surprised on how well it came out because they didn’t know what to expect and I hadn’t talked about it a lot and things like that, but when it comes to things like that, for me, it’s like I just feel like I’m really good at putting it together and I can put it together easily. In a way, it comes easy to me to put it together. I know what to do, I know how to do it. And things come together really well, and then people are like, oh, my God, this was amazing.
00:16:15
And it seems like something I would have been spending a ton of time and effort and energy and money on doing, and I didn’t. But it’s just one of those things that naturally I do spend energy and effort on it, but it’s not like something that I’m toiling over for months at a time to put together. If it’s just one of those things that I can just do with e this is a good, reflective episode because I didn’t even think I was going to say any of that. I hadn’t really even thought about it a little bit in that regard. And that’s honestly why.
00:16:47
One of the reasons why I think I want to shift into a little bit more of this with the business is because that’s been something I’ve been trying to do for a couple of years, is just run the business with more ease, just bring more ease into my life and business. And that’s when I think sometimes it’s like you’re like, wow. This other thing that isn’t the main focus of what I’m doing right now actually feels like something that happens with ease. And I want to bring more of that into that. If I can do this in a way that it feels really good, then I want to do more of that.
00:17:26
And that’s what this has been. Yeah, that’s one of these things where I’m like, obviously you have to figure out how to make it make sense in your business model and figure out how to make it make money. That’s going to make up for if you’re changing where you’re spending your time. But that’s something for me that’s been like, where this has come from is this is something I love doing. It lights me up.
00:17:48
I see the impact and difference it’s making in other people’s lives, which is something I really love. And it feels so fun and easy. Really not easy, but easeful. Right? I’m not like forcing it to make something like this happen.
00:18:04
And that’s what I want to bring more of into my business. So if I can do that with these kind of events, then I think, really cool. One other thing I’m thinking about for the podcast, I guess specifically because I was like, I should share something about the podcast for this year and looking ahead, too, specifically because none of those things were really about the pod cast. One thing I want to do for the podcast in terms of intentions and whatnot, is just elevating it even more by bringing on some really cool, higher level business owners. I always want this to be a platform for all of us, and I believe we can learn so much from founders of all levels.
00:18:38
I’ve never been like, oh, you have to have a certain amount of followers to be on the podcast, or you have to have a certain amount of, I think I have something on the form that, have you been in business for more than I forget. I think it asks like one or three years or something. So I want to make sure there’s enough experience to be able to teach people to learn from. But I’ve never been like, you have to have this kind of amount of reach or followers or whatever the way some podcasts do that, because I don’t want that to be a barrier. The whole purpose was I wanted this to be a platform for all of us, a platform for people who have a story to share, even if this is the first stop on their visibility journey and they haven’t done much to build a following yet or things like that, they can still be having life changing businesses, running life changing businesses.
00:19:22
So I’m not going to say that’s changing. I want to always be that platform. But there are some people who I’ve always thought, oh my God, it would be so cool to have a conversation with her. And that was honestly partly what the point behind this podcast was initially was, like, inviting people to have a conversation with me who I maybe would never otherwise have a chance to talk with, or having those conversations that I know other people want to listen to and may not otherwise be in the room for. So I want to make sure I’m being proactive with that.
00:19:53
I think that just over time with this podcast, and because we’ve been doing this for so long, I don’t know, we’re a pretty well known podcast, top 2%, I think it is, or something like that. We get a ton of pitches, like so many people ask to come on this podcast, we just get so many pitches that I get great guests without doing anything proactive. I just have to go through the pitches and it’s really hard actually to pick which ones to invite on because we can only do so many episodes. But I am so lucky about that. I love that people want to be on the show, but I also want to be a little more proactive with it.
00:20:31
This year, I want to invite on some of the people who I really want to talk to, who have been on my list of people I want to talk to, as opposed to just like people who I’m hearing about for the first time and I’m like, yeah, she’s awesome. And I want to maybe invite on some people. I haven’t invited anyone on this show in so long. Like, literally just the first couple of episodes, I asked people to come on, and it was the people I knew because nobody knew I was even doing a podcast yet. And then after that I get pitches and pitches.
00:20:57
But yeah, maybe I invite some more people on or even just form some connections. Maybe it goes back to the number one thing of putting myself in those rooms with some higher level people that you’ll already have known of. I want you guys to be like, oh, my God, I can’t believe she got her on. I really want to hear this episode. So let me know who that might be for you, first of all, because it might be different than who I would think of you might know of people who I’ve never heard of who would be really cool and people that you think I should have on.
00:21:24
I would love to hear. And again, this is for all of us. I want it to be like having the conversations you want to be listening to going be like, I’d love to have a conversation with that person. And that’s who we have on. So let me know your favorite podcasters, your favorite business owners, whoever you’d like to hear and learn from.
00:21:42
I don’t have a plan for this yet. This is the first time I’ve been really thinking about this. But maybe I’ll invite them on or somehow form connections and relationships with them and have conversations. I just want to be a little more proactive. Still going to totally accept pitches, still pitch me if you want to be on the show, but also be a little more proactive about inviting on some of the people that I just want to talk to.
00:22:02
So that’s my thought for this year. And as always, please share this podcast. Oh, my gosh. This wasn’t even that short. You guys share with me any of your tips for making a true mini episode.
00:22:15
I want these to be ten to 15 minutes. I don’t know how to keep these short enough while still, like, saying full thoughts. So let me know if you have any tips on how to make a more mini episode. First of all, and as always, please share this podcast. When you listen to it, share it with a friend, send the link, send whatever, and also share it on your instagram if you think people might be interested.
00:22:35
Just let me know you’re hearing it. Let me know you’re enjoying it. Tag Quotable Media Co Media Co Co And I’ll reshare it. And yeah, I love to hear your thoughts.
00:22:43
Let me know you listened. Send me a message, send me an email, whatever, and we’ll talk more soon. More to come next week. And happy anniversary to the Quotable Media Co podcast. Thanks so much for listening.