I genuinely wanted to end this whole podcasting thing with the previous episode.
Like I mentioned in the intro, I had been stuck in my head, overthinking and overanalyzing everything. But the moment I turned on my recorder and pressed record, all those inhibitions gradually melted away.
Now that I know I can actually do this, I’m even more excited to keep recording.
On the whistling side, I made sure to record at night when everywhere was quiet. I also recorded the whistling separately because I wanted it to sound as clean and sharp as possible. I even tried looking for a tool to improve the first recording, but I just wasn’t happy with how it sounded.
Then I remembered that I had previously asked some friends to send me WhatsApp voice notes. So I decided to record the whistling as a WhatsApp voice note instead, and surprisingly, it sounded much fuller and brighter.
I hope you enjoy the episode.
Until next time, see ya.
In this episode, I talk about almost quitting podcasting after Episode 6 and why I decided to keep going instead. I also share my experience of creating content on X, where I chased growth, engagement, and followers until I eventually burned myself out.
I reflect on how constantly pushing through exhaustion without changing my approach only made things worse. Instead of wearing burnout as a badge of honour, I now believe it is better to step back, rethink your strategy, and pursue growth in a healthier way.
I also share two memorable experiences with people I met online, one involving an attempted scam and another involving someone who seemed respectable at first but later revealed a completely different side of himself. Both experiences reminded me that first impressions are not always accurate and that healthy boundaries matter.
I end the episode by talking about learning to whistle, the surprising reactions I received because of it, and giving a small update about my upcoming fiction book, My Reds.
Six episodes in and I’m already wondering to myself. Do I really want to continue doing this?
I am Nessa Hagoz, this is Bathroom Musings episode 7.
90% of podcasts don’t make it to their 10th episode. I don’t want to be part of that 90% so it was my goal and it’s still my goal to get to episode 10 first.
So tell me why I felt like quitting after episode 6. I thought about it, drew conclusions and I’ve decided to stop overthinking the episodes and just press record. Plus I also need your help. If you’ve enjoyed even one episode please follow, subscribe, like, drop 5 stars if you think it’s worth it and share as well.
Thank you.
Talking about creating content, I decided to start posting twice a day on X. On March the 20th, 2025, I made a public post promising myself, because no one’s actually reading, to post twice a day for 90 days. I pinned it and I started.
I had like nine followers, half were friends and family, the remaining five, three weren’t active on X and the remaining two didn’t even bother engaging on my posts. I was talking into the void but I continued. Plus the added disadvantage of electricity, wahala, during that period, it wasn’t funny.
90 days later though, on the 20th of June 2025, I had over a thousand followers and good engagement. 90% of those followers and engagement weren’t organic. I had to join spaces to get engagement and followers.
I hustled for it. After June the 20th, I started posting once a day. Then began the first wave of burnout.
I started noticing that I would feel some kind of way going on X, but I’m a go-getter. I pushed through and I continued going on X to post and get engagement. There’s something about when you’ve tasted a certain type of life, you’re just not willing to go back.
At first I was okay talking into the void, but when I started getting engagement, how be it I had to hustle for the engagement, I just couldn’t go back to talking into the void. I tried it though. I tried posting without engaging for anyone.
By that time I already had good mutuals, so they engaged for me and I always, always engaged back. But it wasn’t the same as posting and engaging for other people, joining spaces. Did I forget to add that I was also coordinating spaces and helping other people gain followers and good engagement as well.
So the more my account grew, the more people I had to engage for, the more spaces I had to join, it was beginning to get really stressful. I should have stepped back and re-strategised, but I didn’t. I pushed through.
I skipped one day, one day turned into two days, two days turned into three days and one day I just didn’t post again after the 19th of October. I had, I felt this dread just thinking of posting on eggs and it was all because I was hustling for the engagement and followers. At a point I even stopped.
I said at the point I’ll just say, see don’t follow me, just engage. Some people wear burnout as a badge of honour, each to their own, but don’t push through that burnout. Instead step back and re-strategise.
Beginning of this year I read something that I’d like to share with you and that’s growth without burnout. Now I don’t know if it’s visible in every area of life, but it’s a good thing to have at the back of your mind. Growth without burnout.
This year though, June 2026, I decided to, you know what, let’s give eggs another chance. This time around I paid for the subscription and as I’m recording my subscription has expired and I only posted once. I’m not someone who wastes money, so I don’t even know why I did that.
It’s still the engagement thing, I think. Have you been there before? Experienced burnout? Is this whole engagement thing on eggs? Let me know.
But talking about eggs, just like any other social media platform, I met some really interesting, funny, shady people. I’ll talk about two of such people.
The first person is a scammer. I hope he’s not anymore though, but he was a scammer and if you’re shocked about that, you need to get off the internet. You’re too innocent for the internet.
I was in a space talking about something and I was talking about life vacation. Then there was a guy there, he then said, he asked me some questions, then said that his cousin had a travel agency. He said he’s gonna give me his cousin’s number.
It took almost one hour. I’m not over exaggerating. I’m even being very conservative with my estimation. It took almost one hour for this guy to get me his cousin’s number. While he was doing what he was, he was popping in, popping out.
So some people on the space, they were like, see this guy, we don’t know him. Just be very careful. He has been popping in and popping out. Maybe he wants to see, wants to hear what we’re talking about and to see if you’re still in this space.
I said, don’t worry yourselves. People worry too much. Don’t worry.
He sent me the number finally. I texted the person on WhatsApp. I asked for the website. It was sent.
When I went there, I was like, oh my goodness. Like, I know you want to scan someone, but like, do you think that all of us are idiots like you? I went back and I was like, I complained about the site. And the person said, okay, check our Instagram.
Then I asked for the address. They sent it. I sent it to someone who was in the city at that time. And I said, do you know this place?
The person said, nope, but I can help you check on my way back from work. I said, don’t worry. I checked the map. I couldn’t see it.
When I went back, when I checked the website again, guess what? It was down. I asked the person another question. Are you asking us these questions because you want more information or you’re suspicious? Something like that.
And I said both. When I went back on X, the guy who sent me the number kept sending me audio. He sent me, he kept sending me voice notes back to back.
In my mind, I’m like, why? Like, why are you bombarding me like this guy? Let me be. Wrong customer. You got the wrong person.
So that was that person. Over to the second person. But before then, hey you, yes you.
Do you know I have two books on Amazon? The first one is called The Friendless Friend. It’s a short ebook talking about finding and enjoying true friendships within your circle.
The second one is OCD, The Lies We Believe. A short ebook also talking about my experience living with OCD. You will like them.
So find them on Amazon or on my shop. It’s shop.nessahagoz.com. That’s Sierra Hotel Oscar Papa.nesahagos.com. Links in the description.
Back to the episode.
The second person, I blame myself in a way because if I had shut the conversation down, it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t have gotten as fast as it did. But let me, let me, let me explain.
I was in a space and we were talking. There was this guy there that sounded really intelligent and reasonable. And as the unofficial matchmaker in my friend group, I decided to do my matchmaking job.
I said, my friend would like this person because I know the kind of guys she likes. And he ticked so many boxes, at least on the surface. So I said, my friend would like you.
I was sent, I gave him her ex handle. He was like, okay, send her mine. I like her.
But as I was going to do that, I just, I felt this thing soon. I just knew not to do it. And I’m happy I listened.
I went back and the next, I think this guy sent me his picture. He was like your friend hasn’t, because her ex was on private. He was like, she hasn’t accepted me yet. Please. This is my picture. Send it to her.
Now, without context, that sounds cute. But what I know now that that should have been a very big red flag. So we just chatted back and forth for like three days, nothing too serious.
Then one day we had our first proper phone call. And as we were talking, he, but was still an ex though. He sent me something.
He said, I sent you something. Okay. Why are you sending me something when we’re on a call? You can simply just say what you want.
I said, okay, fine. So I went back, I went and I saw the stuff and it was, I, if you have any kids around you close your ears. Okay.
I am H O R N Y. Something like that. Then he put a laughing emoji. Like, what’s, what’s funny about this?
First of all, but let me continue. And so when I read it, I was like, Oh gosh. Oh my goodness. I wasn’t even shocked.
I wasn’t even angry. I was like, Oh gosh. You know, like when you’re like this again, like, come on now. I didn’t expect this from you, but like, I wasn’t shocked at all.
So I said, do you want me to leave the call so you can maybe go? He was like, Oh, I was thinking maybe you could help me. I said as how?
Oh, so it was like, so I said no. Then he said, boy, what if I send you 200K? Oh gosh, this was not the one that annoys me.
I was like, listen to me, open your ears properly. I said, even if you give me, I mentioned like 10 billion, whatever, I will not. And he chuckled that very weird, disgusting chuckle. Like you know when you’re embarrassed.
So we went back and forth, back and forth. Then he had the guts to tell me to loosen up. That was too uptight. I had to loosen up.
I said, no, sir. You’re the one who is too loose. Tighten up.
We actually had, we actually argued though. And after that we went our separate ways. That was the last time we spoke to each other.
I mean, spoke, not texted. I was asking him before that call, I asked him to, I asked him to do a recording for me for my YouTube channel. You won’t know what I’m talking about.
Listen to episode four and episode eight of this podcast. So it was still that format as well. In my mind, I was like, Omar, now you go yourself.
I don’t care. You’ll still do this recording for me, Shah. So I just kept asking, like, are you going to do a recording for me or not?
Stuff like that. He didn’t. What this guy could do.
He had the guts to to send me his song on Spotify. I was like, please, can you listen to my song for me? I was like, it’s, it’s doing the effrontery for me.
This was like a couple of maybe days or weeks later. I was like, well, let me go check it out now. I wanted to go check it out because in my mind, because he’s a rubbish person, I figured that whatever he had produced would be rubbish as well.
So I was just going to have a good laugh. But I can dislike the artist and still like the content. The song was good.
It was good. It was a cool, chill love song. Before I even go, let me tell you this.
See, ladies, come closer. You see these men, all this, all this, I don’t even know, should I call them R&B artists now or, but men that their genre or whatever, you would say like they normally do love songs. You see those people, 97% of them flee.
I’m telling you, carry your slippers, your charger, your wig. If you don’t do wigs, pack your hair. If you don’t, if you don’t have hair on your head, carry your head and run.
Flee. Run is nah. Flee.
Because they will, gosh, the way they will break your heart. They won’t even put effort into it. Like it will be so lazy.
Like you feel so stupid. They won’t even use grinding stone or mortar and pestle to break your heart. They will use industrial machine to do it.
So that when they blend it first, they don’t have to exert any effort at all. Just press a button. But secondly, your heart will be in fine pieces and they will serve it to you on a wooden platter because they won’t even be bothered to put it in a platter of gold.
You see platter of gold now? Don’t be bothered to put it in a golden plate, whatever. As I said, wooden, wooden plate, that’s what it will serve.
It will serve you in the remnants of your heart. Oh gosh, 97%. Yeah.
Well, before I end this episode though, I started learning how to whistle properly. I can whistle but I mean holding a tune. So I decided to learn Amazing Grace for my first week and I’m still learning.
Yeah. When I was whistling though, someone heard me. A person was like, a whole female woman like you whistling?
Wow. And in my mind I was like, I didn’t know it was a gender thing. I thought like anyone could, should whistle.
But I understand the sentiment because I have only heard in real life men whistle. But I didn’t know it was a gender thing. So if you’re a female out there and you love whistling, please whistle on.
You want to learn how to whistle? Whistle on. You will hear my rendition of a song pretty soon, like in the next how many minutes?
But before that, one last thing. I have a book that will soon be out. It’s called My Reds.
It’s my first, it’s going to be my first published fiction book. It’s Dreams Turned Into Fiction. You will like it so keep an eye out for that one, okay?
Oh gosh, thank you for being with me. I hope you enjoyed this and until next time, see ya!