Celebrating 150 Episodes and Going All In

A Journey of Growth and Going All In

Welcome to a milestone episode of the 9 to 5 Wellness Podcast! As we hit the remarkable 150th episode mark, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the journey so far, the challenges faced, and the lessons learned. Whether you're a long-time listener or just tuning in, there's a wealth of insights here that can help you in your own personal and professional journey. Let’s dive in!

The Power of Perseverance:

• Trust the Process: It's easy to get discouraged when you don’t see immediate results. As I learned from both my running coach and my father, results lag effort. This applies to both personal health and professional growth. Don’t give up when you’re putting in the work; trust that things will unfold in their time.
• Embrace the Long Term: As celebrated in the finance world through concepts like compound interest, the idea of long-term growth is just as important in life and business. Whether it’s your career, health, or a personal project like this podcast, giving time and patience is crucial.

The Importance of Reflection and Breaks:

• Taking a Hiatus as a Strategy: In 2025, I nearly stepped away from podcasting, feeling overwhelmed and ready to quit. Looking back, this break was essential for reigniting my passion and refocusing my goals. Sometimes a pause is exactly what you need to fall back in love with your craft.
• Reflect on Your Journey: Use moments of doubt to assess your progress and gratitude. Seeing how far you’ve come can offer a renewed perspective and appreciation for the foundations you’ve built.

Shifting Perspectives:

• From Scarcity to Abundance: Shifting my focus from what I lacked to what I had was transformative. Gratitude played a huge role in moving forward, not only in my personal life but in keeping this podcast alive.
• Letting Go of Old Mindsets: Growth often requires shedding old beliefs and habits. Inspired by a powerful analogy from a friend, think of yourself as an acorn that needs to crack open for an oak tree to grow. It’s okay to break open to move forward.

Consistency is Key:

• Commitment to the Craft: Moving forward, I’ve committed to regular content delivery, upgraded my equipment, and adjusted my production process for efficiency. These changes are designed to enhance the quality of my podcast, and ultimately, your listening experience.
• Connecting with Audience: By focusing on presence and engagement rather than stats, I’m aiming to build a more connected community. This includes bringing in conversations with leaders to provide valuable insights for both your career and health.

Bottom Line:
This journey to 150 episodes is a testament to perseverance, growth, and the incredible support from listeners like you. I’m grateful for every moment shared and excited for what the future holds. Keep trusting your process, allow yourself to grow, and remember, more is always on the way.

Thank you for being part of this journey. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the 9 to 5 Wellness Podcast, and leave a review if you enjoy it.

🌟 🌟 🌟 If you liked this episode and would like to learn more about wellness training and workshops offered by 9 to 5 Wellness, email us at info@aeshathair.com. You can learn more about our programs at:  https://toneandstrengthen.com/workshops-trainings/. 🌟 🌟 🌟

My passion is helping organizations create a culture of wellness, and I do this by setting up health programs that prioritize the most important asset they've got – their employees. Cheers to a healthier and happier journey ahead!

🌟 🌟 🌟 You can learn more about ME- the host at https://www.aeshatahir.com 

 Follow me on IG and LI to learn more

https://www.instagram.com/tone_and_strengthen/

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Transcript

 welcome to episode number 150 of the 9 to 5 Wellness podcast. Today marks a massive milestone for me and for you. This is episode 150. I can't believe it myself, and I wanna thank you for trusting me to help you grow your most important resource and asset, you. Thanks for letting me support your career growth and your health. It's a true privilege to serve you and spend time with you every week. Now, over the last 150 episodes, we have covered everything from unlocking team dynamics to prioritizing sleep, from leadership skills to longevity biomarkers. Recently, a listener of ours, Sarah, she reached out to me and she said our episode on defeating workplace conflicts helped her land a promotion. Another listener said that the episode on metabolic health and GLPs helped her lose 20 pounds. Now, that is exactly why I do this. So I'm going to have a real talk about the journey of being a podcaster, why I started this podcast, and everything in between. So come along. Come along for the ride. The reason I wanna share this journey with you is because if I'm being completely honest with you, I almost didn't make this episode. At the end of 2025, which is only six months ago, I was done. I was uninspired and ready to quietly delete my hosting account and pack away the microphone for good. No, I'm serious here. Today, I wanna tell you exactly why I was ready to walk away, what happened during my brief hiatus, and what inspired me to pick it back up again? I'll be sharing with you what's coming up next for the 9 to 5 Wellness Podcast this year, and everything else you need to know to look forward to. But first, let's rewind to December of 2025. It was a very challenging year for me and a year of change, as I like to call it. My life turned upside down. I lost a lot of things, and I gained some things, too, like a better perspective on life. I took up a full-time job, and that meant I didn't have as much time on my hand, and I couldn't produce podcasts on a consistent basis. With podcasting comes a lot of responsibility, like booking guests, researching the topic, recording, and literally spending hours editing. Plus the stress of why I wasn't going viral overnight. But I gave up all of that in 2025. I kinda had to. I still loved podcasting, and honestly, I actually missed sitting behind the microphone, and I missed talking to you guys. I produced a few solo episodes here and there in between when I got the chance to do so. But when the end of the year rolled around, I was like, "Well, I really can't do this consistently, so I think I should stop." I decided to pull the plug and close down shop. I wrote a farewell social media post which was supposed to go out December 31st. I took a deep breath, and I started writing the script for my last episode. But then, the winter holidays arrived, and during the holidays, I tried to clean up my inbox. You know, the inbox that has 80,000 unread emails. I was like, "Okay, let's just clean this up, girl." And I found an email from Buzzsprout, my podcast hosting company. the subject line of that email read, " " congratulations. You have so many downloads." And I'm like, "Are they talking about 9 to 5 Wellness? Because I bet that's probably a mistake. Let me just open this email." And I opened their email, and they had a whole visual and Instagram Reel playing about my podcast where they're congratulating me on my l- download numbers. They shared some stats that really hit home for me, and I wanna share those with you today. They shared that my podcast is being heard in 70 countries and 541 cities globally. And I thought to myself, "Well, if that's happening while I'm not putting in any extra effort this year," right? I didn't put any extra effort into it, and my podcast is resonating with so many people around the world, then I need to get back to podcasting, and I wanna start putting effort into it. So earlier this year, I picked up my podcast right where I left it. I decided I wanna go all in on podcasting, and that's why the title of this show is Celebrating 150 Episodes and Going All In, because that's what I'm gonna do. And if I'm being honest, it is because of you, you guys, my listeners, my viewers, my audience members, because I was willing to give up on myself, but I don't wanna give up on you. Reaching 150 episodes is something I never could have accomplished alone. I've always believed in the magic of the long term, and that email from Buzzsprout reminded me about it. The magic of long term refers to how giving time and patience to your goals creates exponential growth. By embracing a long-term approach, you allow your habits, your investments, or skills to multiply over time. This creates lasting wealth and success far beyond what quick short-term efforts can produce. So this is a concept that's very common in finance. This magic is called compound interest, right? Everyone who's investing in stocks and crypto, you guys are very familiar with it, and that's most of us. It is a process of earning interest on both your starting investment or the amount of money that you put in and the money you have already earned. It's often explained with the analogy of a snowball, and it's called the snowball effect. So I wanna talk about that with you. Think of a snowball rolling down a hill. At first, it's very small. As it rolls, it picks up more snow and grows bigger and bigger, and soon it becomes huge. I'm a math geek at heart, so I have to share the math formula behind it. So the math formula for this growth is A is equal to P times one plus r to the power of t, where A is the final amount, P is the starting amount of money, r is the rate of return, and t is the amount of time in years. And I think we don't realize that this formula applies to everything in life, not just investments, and it also applies to your business. In this case, the more your content sits, the more it grows. I know, it feels like there are no results, and that's where I was last year. I was like, "Uh, I'm not consistent. I'm pretty sure, you know, this podcast is not gonna grow. I've given it two years. I started it in January of 2024." So I was feeling defeated. But what happened at the end of 2020- 25 is proof that the more you let your investment sit, the more it grows. And as a matter of fact, this exact feeling reminds me of my running coach. She's one of the best coaches out there in the world, and you know that I'm a distance runner, and she coaches me for all the marathons that I run. Any time I've had a good time on a race, it's because of her. My coach always says this to me, "Results lag effort." If you look at running, it takes years before the real results start showing because your body has to adapt to a lot of changes I have literally spent months training, but a lot of times I don't get the time in the race that I want, that I'm aiming for. But with consistent effort, after establishing that strong foundation of running, which we call the base training, that's when I start seeing the results. And the exact same thing applies to my podcast, and the exact same thing occurred in this case to my podcast Let me do this again. The exact same thing applied to my podcast. The results that I was seeing at the end of 2025 were the results of building that strong base, that strong foundation, and then the work that I had already put in in 2024 and early 2025, it started compounding, so the results started showing up because that effort was already put in there. There is no fast track to getting results or listenership. That was a big lesson for me. When I recorded my first 70 episodes, they were to a very, very small audience, and sometimes no audience at all. It's exhausting, really. All that work that you're putting out, which I felt like I was putting out into the void It's draining sometimes, and I was about to quit because I wasn't sure if I have room for this in my life. But I thought about what my dad always says when I hit these kind of like dry spells, whenever I call him stressed out and complaining. Oh, yeah, I'm a complainer. I feel like I'm just working, working, working, and nothing is happening, and he always tells me the same thing as my coach, "Give it a sec. Take a breath. Results lag effort." So if you are putting effort into a project at work or if you're putting in effort for your health, you've got to trust that the results will come because they always do. The work you do today on your audio, your storytelling, your community building is the seat... Your community building is the seed you're planting. So of course, that's a message for me. And a lot of times, you know, when I'm recording these podcasts, it's also because I am curious. I'm trying to learn about a topic. I'm trying to solve a problem of my own. So the same applies to you guys. If you are stuck on a work project or you're stuck figuring out how to work your team dynamics, guess what? The work that you're putting in right now where you're exploring, you're learning, you're putting in that time, that is the seed you are planting. So trust yourself. Trust what you want will come. Trust that what you want will come as long as you're putting in the time. So here I am. It's July 2nd, 2025, and I have decided to go all in for the 9 to 5 Wellness podcast because- In this time period that a lot of the things were changing around me and in my life A couple of perspective shifts happened for me, and I'm gonna share those perspective shifts with you and I'm gonna share those perspective shifts with you So one of the perspective shifts that happened around my circumstances at that time was when a friend of mine said to me, "Are you going to give in and stop producing your podcast just to prove people right? Just because people are telling you, 'Okay, now, going forward, this is how your life is gonna look, and you won't have time to do this.' Are you gonna give in?" And that made me think. And I was like, ", "I'm, I'm not the person who quits, so why would I quit?" And then her second sentence is what stayed with me. She said, "Let the breaking open the breakthrough." She told me, "You've got to let go of the old parts of your life to grow it's like an acorn shell that must crack open so a big oak tree can grow. And when she said that to me, I was like, "Oh, yes, you, you make a good point. You're right. That's exactly what my coach says to me, too." Growth starts when things crack, not when everything is going your way. You might feel hurt or stuck in that situation, but this is not the end. It is simply the shell opening up. It means you're finally ready to change in a big way. I learned that I couldn't grow if I held on to old habits and old beliefs. Breaking open meant dropping my fear. Once I let go, I started moving forward. I could break through the walls that stopped me before. I found new ways to live. Lately, I've been thinking about how small habits and decisions from a few years ago have shaped where I am now. Nothing huge, just little things I ignored before or things I didn't take seriously. just little things Another change in perspective that has been so powerful and it has completely helped me rewrite my story is focusing on abundance I believe a lot of us, including me, we get so focused on what we don't have that we totally miss and look over the things that we do have in our life and around us The person who is grateful for little will certainly be grateful for a lot. That's a quote I read in a book I read recently, and that resonated with me. Gratitude literally saved my life and saved this podcast, honestly, because the shift from lack to abundance is why I'm still recording this podcast today. You know, there was a time in my life when all I could see was all the things that I didn't want. For me, that particular shift from scarcity to abundance is connected to healing generational patterns. A lot of the things started making sense to me when I began to thank my parents for the things they did do. For the longest time, all of my mind was focused on all the things they didn't do. Yes, this is, like, completely honest and vulnerable truth that I'm sharing with you I always, like, question, like, why didn't they think of this? Why did they have a scarcity mindset? And why did they pass it to me? Well, they gave up everything to come here to this country, and they did that to give me a better future. Getting over scarcity is hard. It's so hard when you have to go through difficult things But I paused at the end of 2025 while I was trying to make a decision if I wanna continue this podcast or not. And I did a lot of thinking And what I realized was You know, it's okay if they didn't do it. Today, I have the power to do it. And look at, look at you, Aisha. Like you're, you're going to give up just like your parents did. What makes you different? So that thought, when it came to me, suddenly I was like, "Hang on. You got this all wrong. Let's start over." I started seeing things I could be grateful for. I started saying, "I'm glad I don't have to do that," because that was done for me. I'm glad that my parents came here, 📍 gave me the life they did. My life would be completely different if it wasn't for them. I started recognizing the steps they made, no matter how small they were, towards a better future for me and my siblings. So gratitude, it helped me move forward with this podcast. I wanna give you a phrase that I love now, and I say that to myself often. More is on the way. Even in that sentence, more is on the way, there's gratitude. Why? Because there's awareness. It creates a sense of awareness that there's something already there to build on And the results of the downloads in late 2025, That's exactly what they told me, those results said to me. That 📍 you already have something to build on. All you have to do is commit to it. So here I am sitting right across from you telling you I am ready to commit. I'm not starting from scratch. I knew that. And I started to recognize my current blessings. And I have to tell you, I feel privileged to be in this position, to be able to talk to you on a weekly basis. And you, my audience members, I believe you are one of my biggest blessings too So here I am preparing for the next good thing And here's what is on the way for you guys, my podcast listeners and viewers. More is on the way, as I said, and I wanna share with you what that more looks like, at least as far as I can see for now. I'm tightening up my production process. I upgraded some equipment, got better microphones for virtual interviews. And one of the things that I've struggled with in the past has been consistency, because I've always been, like, telling myself, "Oh, I'm so busy with my full-time job. I'm so busy with this. I'm so busy with that." But now I'm like, "No, I'm committing. I'm committing to releasing episodes on the same schedule, which is every Friday and Sunday, to give you more consistent content." And as you can see, I've started recording video episodes from an in-person studio in New York City, I'm super excited about that, so that I can have a better connection with you. I'm not chasing download numbers anymore. Yes, that is honestly the truth. I'm actually not looking at my stats on a regular basis at all. I'll look at them at the end of this year. That's what I told myself. I'm focused on presence and connecting with you rather than trying to please, like, an imaginary massive audience. I know that's coming. I have that vision. I can see it in the back of my eye, but I'm not worried about it. Video production has helped me simplify my workflow, like, tremendously. You know it, that I edit my podcast episodes myself, and that has helped me really streamline my editing process. So I've stopped over-editing. I've decided to use simpler tools to cut down on my po- post-production time so that I'm not feeling like, oh, I'm gonna burn out. The most important change you'll see is the tightening of the content and messaging. And what do I mean by that? You know, when I first launched this show, I was focused on the seven dimensions of wellness. I discussed physical, emotional, social, intellectual, spiritual, occupational, and sometimes environmental health. It was all about finding balance in your daily lives. But then I heard from you, and you guys gave me such useful insights that you didn't just want tips on meditating or meal prepping or just the environment you live in. You wanted to know how to survive and thrive your actual career and health along with your career. Because most of you told me that you were dealing with burnout, poor communication at work with your team, and workplace gossip. My patients were telling me day in and day out that true health and career growth are connected and that's when I came to realize you cannot grow a career if your body and mind are failing. And you can't be healthy if you aren't satisfied with your career, and it's a constant source of stress. This is why the 9 to 5 Wellness podcast is evolving. My focus will be on the art and science of helping you with career growth and extending your lifespan. I've moved from simple checklists to real world career survival. How do we invest in your health and career at the same time? I'll be bringing in-person conversations with C-suite leaders, HR innovators, healthcare leaders, and physicians to give you these tools so that you can be focused on your career growth alongside your health. you spend two-thirds of your life at work. Your career should fuel your health, not drain it. Most importantly, I learned that just because you take a break doesn't mean that your story is over. That's one of the biggest takeaways I had from the break I took for podcast production in 2025. Sometimes stepping away Is exactly what you need to fall back in love with your craft. We all go through experiences in life that are defining moments for us. You know, we all hurt, we all love, we hopefully all heal, we all have doubts, worries, and fears, and most of the time we go through celebratory moments like these, 150 episodes of 9 to 5 Wellness Podcast, and I love spending these moments with you guys. I am so thankful to all of you and to all of my guests who have come on the show and shared a little piece of themselves with the world. Thank you so much for continuing to tune in and for making this such a long-lasting show. It's not lost on me that out of 3.5 million podcasts you choose to listen to mine. Thank you so much for coming on this journey with me and for welcoming me back in a big way. Okay I want you to do me a favor here. Hit Subscribe wherever you listen to 9 to 5 Wellness Podcast. It helps me get this message across to many more people. And please leave a review if you're enjoying this podcast. Thanks for listening to this episode today. I'll be back soon with another episode for you guys. Bye for now. ​