‘You’re kind of a BIG DEAL in Hong Kong!’

This was the subject line in an email that I received from Pete Allen, my fab podcast producer, at the weekend! 😄

💥 What?

💥 How?

💥 Really?

💥 How did that happen?!

As I read through Pete’s email, I arrived at the message that he’d received from Carlos at podstatus.com – an organisation that that apparently tracks podcast statistics. This is what it said:

Hello, how’s it going?

Hope all is well.

I have some cool information that might interest you.

Your podcast ‘Harnessing Happiness with Sarah J Naylor’ has shown good performance in Apple Podcasts rankings (last 30 days).

He then quoted the following:

✅ Position 15 in the category Mental Health (Hong Kong)

✅ Position 36 in the category Health & Fitness (Hong Kong)

✅ Position 214 in the category Mental Health (United Kingdom)

Wow!

I clearly need to do more to gain a larger audience locally, but how exciting!

I just love knowing that my podcast ‘Harnessing Happiness with Sarah J Naylor’ is successfully spreading happiness far and wide!

It’s amazing how much can evolve and change so quickly in a few short months, especially when you step out of your ‘comfort zone’ and follow your passions!

I only set up my podcast at the end of the summer, after appearing as a guest on a podcast interview with Anna Geary and Anita Baldwin, who run https://getsavvyclub.co.uk/.  I was really inspired by what they were doing with their podcast, Marketing Made Easy https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/marketing-made-easy-from-get-savvy-club/id1526142267, and I wanted to follow suit.
They introduced me to their podcast producer, Pete (you’ve got to love the power of networking); we met, virtually of course, as has become the norm these days, and hit it off straight away.

It was a ‘Yes, let’s do it!’ from me. It did have to wait before I could go full steam ahead as I was busy with other stuff.

I do tend to be quite impulsive when it comes to following my passions, gut instinct, and excitement around embracing new stuff. This time though I had to be sensible! So, wait I did!

It wasn’t too long though before I went for it, and the podcast launched on my birthday – 19th October 2021. It seemed to dovetail in nicely with other projects at that time, in fact it felt exactly the right time to go live.

Funny how that happens when you allow things to ‘breathe’ and you follow your natural flow.

What an amazing journey I’ve had so far, and today I received a notification from #podbean stating that my podcast has had over 1000 downloads!

It may not sound a lot to some, or compared to some famous podcast hosts, but I’m really happy with the results.

I am so grateful to all of you who have downloaded and listened to the episodes for your support; of course, I am also deeply grateful to my amazing guests!

So much love, learning, and laughter has taken place ❤️❤️

THANK YOU!!

What have I learned in reflection:

  • I really do LOVE recording podcast episodes, particularly those with my fabulous guests.
  • Recording guest episodes is energising, knowledge-forming and fun – it’s such a great way to learn so much more about people you know.
  • Talking to my guests reminds me of my early days in recruitment before CVs became the norm – you had to ask so many questions to learn more about what people did in their jobs / careers.
  • I’ve ALWAYS been naturally curious about people, their personalities, career choices and more. People are interesting.
  • Following your instincts and being in alignment with your passions means that a consistent approach to producing material is fun and a natural way to behave.
  • Podcasting opens new doors.
  • Podcasting has a global reach.
  • I love receiving exciting news!
  • Harnessing Happiness is spreading happiness globally!
  • I might need to learn Cantonese!