Speaker 1: 0:03

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Carry On Friends, the Caribbean American podcast. As always, thank you for tuning in, and so this is the first solo episode that I've done in a while. This year has been a year of really great episodes. I mean, I might say that almost every year, but this year truly it's been a lot of phenomenal episodes and guests and conversations and I'm just really excited. But I'm going to rip the band-aid off to say that this episode will be the last episode for 2023.

Speaker 1: 0:42

And this episode is also out of cycle because I recognize that I needed to take rest. So over the summer it wasn't apparent because I batch a lot of work and so I edit in advance and then I schedule them out, and so over the summer I was able to really enjoy the summer, travel, spend time with family, and I just recognize how much more of that I needed, maybe not the traveling so much and maybe yes, but just definitely just take the time off and really get rest. And so that's the reason why I said you know what, let me just round out October, right, it really makes sense because typically I try to end the season around Thanksgiving, early December, the latest, because it tends to be the holidays and people are traveling, and so I'm just giving myself an extra couple of weeks to just take some time, rest, reflect, restore, because that is super important for me. And so, in addition to ending the season early, what I wanted to do was also get more time to get feedback from you, the audience and the listeners. So if you're on my newsletter, you'd have gotten a request to give your feedback in an audience survey, and I'll make sure I'll include the link in the show notes. Surveys are very important to me. I've done them for the past 10 years for Carry On Friends. Those surveys and the feedback led to the creation or validated my reason for creating the podcast, and so the survey is a way for me to connect and get to understand you, the audience, and without your feedback, it can be challenging to validate the direction for Carry On Friends in terms of topics and guests, et cetera, and so the surveys are really valuable. They help validate or make sense of the data in terms of the listening, the downloads, the website, all of that stuff. And so, if you've already taken the survey, thank you so much for responding and just giving your feedback. If you haven't, please take a few minutes and just give me your feedback. It's especially important because I am so tired and my creativity is just not humming and flowing the same way, which is also why I'm just like I need to rest and just take that time to restore, and so I'm going to make sure I put that link in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 3:31

A big thank you to everyone who tuned in to Carry On Friends in 2023. I didn't make a big splash of it. I mentioned it here and there, but 2023 marks 10 years since Carry On Friends existed as a platform. While most people might make a big splash of a milestone year, I just kind of just kept going. Maybe I should have made a big deal about it, maybe it is what it is, but if you discovered the podcast in 2023, thank you for helping us in making it to 10 years. If you've always listened, thank you for rocking with me for the past. Maybe it's not 10 years, maybe it's the past two, three, four, five years. Either way, thank you for continuing to support Carry On Friends.

Speaker 1: 4:20

So, as I mentioned earlier, this year I had some really great episodes, and some of my favorites included the episode that I kicked off the year with with Kimoi, who is a huge supporter of the podcast, and so she was able to interview me as a supporter of the podcast, as a listener, and so it was such a long conversation. We made it two parts and so we kicked off the year with that, and then another episode is with audience favorite Ingrid Murray. Ingrid came on the podcast in 2020. She had her cleaning business and, you know, before that happened there was a lot of trials that led her to be the very successful businesswoman she is today, and so for the 10th year I was able to bring her back on the podcast to catch up the audience as to where she is and how she was doing in business, and that was also a very transformative episode. A lot of people really valued her honesty. So I'm going to make sure I'll put the links to these episodes. I also had got to do an episode with Wyatt Yachty and that was funny. I laughed a lot. Althea Brown, who is the blogger at Met Mg and she recently wrote a book Kirby and Paleo, was on the podcast. I had a lot of fun recording that, and I had two episodes with Kisha Bailey. She is a financial wealth advisor just really doing big things, and I mean, when I think back about a lot of the episodes, there were just really really good episodes the pharmaceutical breakthrough, you know just so many really good episodes.

Speaker 1: 6:06

And one of the biggest distinction with the podcast this year I added video. The videos are on YouTube. A lot of people don't really watch them on YouTube, but which is fine. They help with the clips on social media. So for the 10th year, we've been experimenting with what video means and what this is probably more information that some people want, but I just like to give that transparency. In podcasting, everyone is just like video is going to be the next biggest thing and I am doing video, but the audience is still gravitating towards audio, which is fine, because audio is my first love. I do understand that for some episodes is just a static image, but then for the episodes that I did for this year a couple of them they were actually the video recordings of me doing the interviews. So Ingrid Kimoi, althea, white, yachty, I think the second episode with Keisha they were all video recordings on YouTube, so you can check that out.

Speaker 1: 7:12

So what was your favorite episode for the year? I'd love to know and let me know why. I know that the audience loved to send DMs, so you could definitely send me a DM, or you could email hello at carryallfriendscom. I just love to hear how you're feeling about the podcast, what topics you want to hear, what subject matter experts you want to hear from all that good stuff and that's why I have the survey, so make sure another reminder to go and give me your feedback in the episodes.

Speaker 1: 7:46

What the break also offers is that it's time to catch up. I know for some people they haven't listened because they usually kind of wait towards the end of the year when they have a free time. So it's also a great time to catch up on the episodes that you may have missed. Or maybe you want to go back and listen to some of the episodes that I just mentioned. Holidays coming, you get to spend time with family, but you also get to catch up on some episodes of Carry All Friends, the Caribbean American podcast.

Speaker 1: 8:17

So again, I just want to thank you for tuning in to the podcast for 2023. And this is the last new episodes. I'll still be promoting older episodes. I have so many clips and I think that's what the video has done allowed me to have different clips so you can hear parts of the interview and I'll still be interacting as much as I can or just posting on social media there, so I'm not completely falling off the face of the earth. So, lord's Willing, the show will be back in January and I just encourage you wherever you are, just make sure you're spending time with family and friends, you are taking care of yourself, you're getting rest and, as I love to say at the end of every episode, walk good.