Carry On Friends is kicking off 2020 with favorites episodes and articles for setting the tone for a great year. In addition, Carry On Friends is celebrating 5 years of podcasting. Listen as Kerry-Ann shares what’s next including why she started Breadfruit Media and Caribbean Podcast Directory.
Links Mentioned:
- Suggest a guest
- Support via Glow.fm/carryonfriends
- Carry On Friends Journal
- Carry On Friends T-Shirts & Sweaters
- Sign up for the Newsletter
- Video: 30 Things About Me
- Podcast Host – Buzzsprout
- Evernote
Episodes & Articles Mentioned:
- Ep 1 – 4 Steps to Setting and Achieving Goals
- Ep 2 – Accountability is the Key to Achieving Your Goals
- Ep 31 – Developing Confidence – The Struggle Of You vs You with Chris Kazi Rolle
- Don’t let fear or doubt stop you from pursuing a dream
- 4 Simple Ways to Uncover Your Gifts & Purpose
More episode recommendations to set the tone for the New Year.
- Ep 117 – Understand Who You Are to Develop Confidence
- Ep 122 – Clear Communication Starts with Self-Awareness
- Ep 90 – Rethinking Success, Work & Life to Birth Our True Self
- Say No to Resolutions and Yes to Goal Planning.
Transcript
Hello, happy New Year Happy 2020. Welcome to not just any other episode, or any random year or any ordinary year. This is a milestone year for Carry On Friends. This is the first episode in a yearlong celebration of the fifth year anniversary of the podcast. I’m your host Kerry-Ann Reid Brown. If this is your first time joining in, thank you for joining and listening. You are part of a huge celebration. Well, I’m making it huge, but it’s a huge celebration on the show, because January 2015 is when I launched the first episode of the podcast, and so I am excited that you are listening. If you’ve always been listening thank you again for keeping it locked on the Carry On Friends podcast. The show wouldn’t be here without you, and I am so excited about this episode, because I want us to set the year off, right. It’s about setting the tone for the year. So I’m super, super excited about the show.
I hope you first had a great holiday season. I hope you had a great new year. I if you took some time off great. I took some time off; I did a road trip. And it was just a really great way to set up and get ready for the New Year. A lot of reflection, a lot of introspection not just in December, But I wanted to say I spent most of 2019 in retro introspection mode leading up to 2020. And so I am ready I have a new fire in my belly. And I am so excited to kick off the New Year.
So as I said, a few minutes earlier, Carry On Friends turns five and I said this in a few episodes ago that I didn’t even realize that it was it was just me going through organization of my content calendar and I have a new tool that I’m using to you know, track my editorial calendar and I’m like wait a minute, January 2015… The show is going to be five and you know, my nature is pretty low key and then you know, I had a few friends who were like no Kerry, you have to do a little something. So it doesn’t have to be something major and extravagant and outlandish but really, you know, celebrating a win, you know, five years podcasting is a win. It’s time it’s dedication, and I’m so glad that I work through the fears, the insecurities, and I’ll get to that in a little bit so I can be here five years later.
So what I wanted to do in this episode is not kind of do a reflection on my favorite episodes, but more reflection of episodes, or call out episodes that I feel are really great episodes or articles to read, or episodes to listen to, to kick off the new year like these would help set the tone for the new year. And I’ll get into that. But before that, I just wanted to say if you want to continue to support Carry On Friends, you can do that by going to glow.fm/carryonfriends, you have options where you could support the show. Also, for a limited time, I am bringing back the Carry On Friends journal with guided reflections they’ll be on sale. I’ll also put a link to that in the show notes. In a previous episode, last year with Monique Russell, I talked about the journal and I talked about how and I’ll probably do a little bit of that in this Episode. I’m a huge, huge journal person and I kind of fell off the journaling scale or scene or I had stopped journaling for a period of time because it was so hard to journal through a mass of feelings I was experiencing coping with the loss of my grandparents, which if I had to bookend the last decade, it was all about loss and death and kind of dealing with that. And so I rediscovered journaling, it’s so big and it’s back in a huge way for me and so I have some journals I had given some away and I have some extras that I am putting on sale and I hope you support and get a journal. As always, there’s Carry On Friends merchandise that’s available. And of course you could support the show monetarily through glow.fm/carryonfriends. If you haven’t already subscribed to our newsletter, please make sure you do that. I’ll put a link to that in the show notes as well.
I am keeping to my word about really acknowledging the fifth year anniversary of the show. There are some things planned that I’m working on, and I want you to stay in the loop. I’ll be announcing that to the newsletter subscribers first. And I’ll also make announcements on the show of course, but I want to make sure that I’m doing a few things throughout the year and want to make sure that you are you’re included as part of the fifth year anniversary celebration. So make sure that you also subscribe to the newsletter and you know, just stay hooked in all right.
So one of the first things I wanted to talk about was setting the New Year off Right. I am not a big believer of New Year’s resolutions I’m not because resolutions, I feel like it you know they die after a while. Instead, I feel like life goals and life goals integrated into how you know, like you’re living life is really important. And goals are, as only as good as you’re being held accountable to them, which is why one of the first episodes of the podcast was accountability. So Episode One was 4 Steps to Setting and Achieving Goals and Episode Two was Accountability as the Key to Achieving your Goals and I experienced this firsthand. I got accountability in in groups; I got accountability, one on one. And it was really the key for the last few years for me to even be still podcasting. And the thing about accountability, setting goals and, and being accountable. Accountability is going to change and shift right. And so I started out with one group of people, keeping me accountable. Then I moved to another group. And it’s okay to outgrow an accountability group. Because sometimes, once you get past the place of holding each other accountable, you become friends. And so it’s very hard to keep people accountable. Or it could be that their focus is not your focus and so it’s okay to find new accountability partners. Or it could be that you’ve, you’ve met someone and their energy is like matching the energy that you are trying to get to. And they could also help you or be accountable, maybe not long term, maybe short term. And so I’ve been in all of those situations, and the accountability is that push you need because no matter how we think we’re disciplined to get something done, we’re not as disciplined. This we’re in the age of distraction. And so being held accountable by someone else to make sure that we are doing what we’re supposed to do is a really great way of achieving your goals. So those are the first two episodes that I feel like are good episodes to listen to. In addition, they show when I was pretty early in my podcasting game, and, you know, I didn’t quite code switch as much I kind of kept it in the prim and proper voice. And it’s, it’s really for me, I listened to them to show growth, because a lot of times, you know, in the age of social media and appearances, we delete older pictures and only put up new pictures or put up new things when there’s like a challenge out and you have to do like start of the decade and the decade. But I feel like you know, these episodes reflect and are a testament to the growth that happens naturally. When you work through the imperfections of anything or you work through the fear and see how far you’ve come. They are the milestones that, for me at least provide motivation to continue.
So this other piece of content that I like, is an article because before I launched the podcast in 2015, Carry On Friends was just a blog and that started in 2013. And I did a post called Don’t let fear or doubt stop you from pursuing your dream. And when I write these articles or blog posts or do these episodes, I’m, I’m not talking theoretically I’m usually speaking from a place of my experience. So it’s somewhat sometimes it’s kind of, I guess, autobiographical. I am talking about myself; I’m talking from my own experiences. And you know doing the pot doing the blog was it was all fear. It was a How do I have anything to say? I don’t want to be seen, but I do. But I do understand the struggle of not wanting, wanting your privacy or not wanting to be on social media or visible or comparing yourself to others, but also knowing that deep down that there’s a gift that you have there something God put in you to share. There’s something that you know is more there’s more to you than what you’re currently doing, or there’s more than the level that you’re currently operating on. But this level of fear exists, and through doing the, you know, the blog then the podcast, and here we are, how many years later, I recognize one thing, and it’s that fear, doubt, insecurities, they don’t go away. They don’t. What happens is it I’ve been moving and working through my fear and doubts and insecurities, right? And, and because there’s no such thing as once I get over my fear once I get over my insecurities. Once I get over my doubt, then I will do something that is not something that happens. You have to work through the doubt, the insecurities and the fear, one action at a time. It’s about action. I remember there was an episode, I think it was Shelly Rai. And it was like, we could sit in a lab and experiment and experiment. But if we don’t actually do trials or test trials, we won’t know if all what we’re theorizing will happen if we do a thing will happen. And so in writing that episode, and sharing with you, at the start of 2020, whatever it is that you are insecure about, right? My insecurities have not gone away. It’s just that the insecurities of 2013 when I launched the blog, or 2015, when I’ve launched a podcast, have I’ve worked through those and I’ve taken on new insecurities and new challenges and new doubts, right? But I’m not sitting immobile in those at least I try not to and that’s also where accountability comes in, because I feel like the view that we have of ourselves is often different from the view others have of us sometimes some of us we, we feel like we’re ain’t all of that and some people feel like come on Kerry-Ann you all that and a bag of chips, I’m gonna tell you why you can do this. And so it’s why you need, you know, accountability and you need a tribe. But the key lesson here is don’t wait to overcome the fear, the doubt the insecurities to do what you think you want to do, or feel like you should be doing. You do it until you’ve overcome it, right? So you do the thing that you want to do until you overcome the level of fear, insecurity and doubt because for each level, you’re going to have different experiences, right? So my, my advice is, pray through it, faith through it, believe it, and then you just do it. Just act through it. Just work your way through that insecurity that doubt and then you’ll see over timeline like I did this, what? Why was I insecure about this? So you don’t want to live by our fears, right? We, we want to acknowledge they exist. And sometimes it’s good to understand why they exist. But we should not let it rule us. We have to move through it. And again, this sounds like it’s easy. It sounds like I’m, you know, giving you some inspirational thing. But this, these are things that, you know, like I said, I’ve experienced it. And it’s the one thing that I know as a skill. Like I lean in and I tried to lead through some of those challenges. I vocalize what my insecurities are, my fears are like, I don’t like doing videos. I just don’t like doing them. I am overly critical of myself. And other people are like, I don’t know what your problem is, girl, you could do this video, but I’ve done a few videos like the 30 things about Kerry-Ann that was like, you know, I’ll put a link to that. If you haven’t seen that. That was like One of the hardest things that I’d had to do, but I work through it, and I’ve done some more videos, I’ve done some more lives, you know, since then, but it’s like with each time I do something or I do a video, I have less of a fear of doing it. And so that is the advice that I can give. When it comes to doubt, insecurity and fear.
Another article that I wrote, it was actually an article that I contributed to tiffytalks.com in 2015. And it’s Four Simple Ways to Uncover your Gifts and Purpose. And that also was something that resonated with me, because those four simple ways were things that I, or strategies that I was using at the time to uncover my gifts and purpose. And a lot of times people still struggle with this. Whatever age you are, you will still you know you still kinda meander through it. You know, some people are very clear about what that is. And some people meander through it. I’m at a place where I am clear as to what that is. But it wasn’t always the case for me. And so in this article, I shared four things. And two of those things I’ve already mentioned in this episode, which is just go and do it, right. And one of my favorite verses in the Bible is whatever your hands find to do, just do it with all your might, because the grave where you’re going, there’s not there’s nothing you could do with it. So if I’m going to do podcasting I’m going to do it to the best of my ability, and so that’s one of the four ways. The other way is a compliment journal, and I’ve been since I’ve mentioned before, that I love to journal, and one of the things that I started to do in around 2011 was keep a compliments journal. It started really from work, right and it started from work because at the time I was a manager. And you know, a lot of times, I had a, I had a pretty large team that I had to manage. I had like 20 some odd people. And one of the challenges when it comes to year end review time is like, how do you go about talking and when you have to do your own 360 reviews and trying to navigate that. So I decided that I’m going to create a folder in my email and every compliment or kudos or even if there’s some feedback, I’d put them in a folder and say, well, it will be easy to go back to when it’s year end review time. And I took that same concept and created a compliments journal. And so the difference is this journal isn’t a physical journal for the compliments. I do write about it. But when someone says hey Kerry-Ann, I really liked this episode or they sent a tweet or a DM or something or an email. I would take a screen capture of that and keep it in my Evernote which I love. Absolutely love Evernote, and that it was a reminder for me, because I am often hardest on myself and most of us are hardest on ourselves than other people are. And so a lot and if and if there’s doubt, and that fear, this compliments journal was really what I’d go back to and say, You know what, I may not feel like I’m doing this right. But someone and that’s always been my thing at least one person has connected to this one or two people have connected to this. And so I go back and I look at that, and I and I, I check my ego where it’s like, oh, I need to be helping millions of people. I feel one on ones are really great for me. And so when one person has said that, hey, Kerry-Ann this was really helpful. I love this episode. I’ve seen so many people in person. And when they say that, it really, I don’t let it get to my head. I just make sure that I continue to do the work to make sure that I’m helping supporting and encouraging people and giving them the message they like. So I mentioned those so those two ways I’ve mentioned here which is go out and do it, do what it is work through the fear work through the doubt just do it and do the best you can do at it just do it. Right? And then two is that compliments journal when someone compliments you on something you’ve done right? Or whatever they feel or whatever energy I keep that in it and whenever I’m having second doubts about whether you know I’m supposed to do this I take a look at those. And so that’s from an article four simple ways to uncover your gifts and purpose.
I have a ton of episodes that I could share and I’ll probably put them in the show notes a list of episodes that I feel like would be really good episode so listen to kick the new year off right to get the headspace right to get amped up. And so you know, it’s all new for me today. This year. I’m going to focus on you know, doing the thing that I was afraid of, but this one episode really resonated with me when I did it. It’s one of those episodes I go back and listen to and it was with Chris Kazi Rolle and it’s like Developing Confidence the Struggle of You versus You. And that episode just, I mean, it resonated because especially for me, you know, a lot of times the struggle is internal. It’s not necessarily external, the external might bother you a little bit because the external might be reinforcing the internal struggle. And then once you’ve gotten over the internal struggle, maybe the external reinforce that, you know, you get over whatever it is that you’re struggling with. But that episode with Chris was really, really a good point to say and reinforcing like, you just got to be your best. His idea in this episode is really get consumed with what your purpose is, and which is what I talked about before. Once you are aligned with what your purpose is, there’s a different energy that comes over you. There’s nothing anyone else can say. You just know because it sparks something so innate so connected to you that it’s like that feeling once you feel once you know that thing, and you know that this is what I’m supposed to do. It’s like it creates this energy that I can’t remember a couple years ago they called it you know, this wave that you are on and it’s not a high it’s just that no matter what you’re doing, because you still get tired when you’re doing your, your purpose there. It’s still work sometimes what you’re doing, but at core, you feel like yes, this is what I’m supposed to do you feel that peace, right. Just a few days ago, I was at my mother in law’s and she had a book by Oprah. She loves Oprah. And the book is the path made clear and I remember just flipping through the book because I just wanted to know what the book was. And this line just summed up everything that I just said to you, but has to do with your purpose. It’s like when you pay attention to what feeds your energy, you move in the direction of the life for which you were intended. That is how I feel when I realized what my purpose was, once I realized what I’m supposed to be doing, and that just kind of it just drives and rides. That that’s the emotion that I you ride. And in August when I went to podcast movement, I was asked this in an interview, and I literally said like, that creative spark and that energy I felt when I realized like, Oh, I want to be producing podcast, I want to be doing all these other things. And that’s when my energy just shot up. I just felt like yes, I finally found it. And so, be consumed is what that is. How do you know what that is? You are going to have to try different things. I’ve tried so many things before I launched Carry On Friends, the blog in 2013, I was involved in so many things, I’m still involved in a lot of things now. And that is what I’m able to use as a gauge where because not because this thing feeds my energy, I try other things to see if you know, this is something that would work or help propel this and then I’m like, this is not for me, I tried it. It didn’t quite work, but I learned from it. Learning is always an ongoing process. In addition to be my profession, in terms of learning and professional development for work, I also understand that even though I feel my purpose and my energy and what gives me what makes me come alive. I also look for other opportunities where I can learn and develop skills that can I can use or I can make transferable as it applies to what my purpose is and what I should be doing.
And so that is a great segue to talk about, you know, after five years of Carry On Friends, like, what’s next? What am I doing? And I think, in 2018, I was struggling a little bit actually started in 2017. When I lost my grandmother, I’ve talked about it on the show, and I’m hoping that in a future we could have an episode where we talk about grief and loss because that is such a huge topic that no one really talks about, and it alters it altered my life in such a profound way. It was my I can’t even begin to explain how profoundly that loss and the loss of my other grandfather’s right after and family right after that, how profound that was. And so around that time, I would like questioning, Should I continue to do the podcast? What should I be doing? I don’t have the energy. And it was like it came upon me by happenstance. And I truly believe that God talks to you using, you know, people places, things, animals, movies, songs, whatever way he’s going to get through to you. And there were a series of messages, or things that were just connecting in 2017 because I it was very clear that my energy was off a little bit when it came to Carry On Friends. I, I still did it I still committed, but I also felt like, I’m not sure if this is it. I’m not sure if this is the purpose. And I remember, you know, going to the podcast conference, watching the Defiant Ones with Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, having a few conversations and it was just like By the time 2018 came, I was very clear that I knew what I like to do.
But what I enjoyed most was developing, strategizing and producing podcasts. And the opportunity that came in 2017 was, you know, I had a guest and they asked me to produce their podcast, and that was not something that I was selling as a business or selling as a service. And that happened. And so in 2018, I launched on this whole journey that has proliferated to other things in the form of breadfruit media and Caribbean podcast directory, where I am taking the knowledge that I’ve acquired over the past few years, I’m taking my love for the technology, the work and just like the industry, and it’s breadfruit media and, and the joys that come from that I recently wrapped with a client Oh my god, she’s amazing. And I love her show already. And she wanted to do; she wanted me to teach her how to edit her podcast. And she did such an amazing job. I was like, Girl, your intro is much better than mine. And I felt so much joy. I was like jumping for joy when I listened to her episode, because it’s an interactive process that I do, because that is part of the joy of doing it. I want to see you, you learn and you actually excel at it. And so that is what breadfruit media does. We you know, we do podcast audits, if you already have your show, and you want to get feedback, I offer that as a service over at breadfruit media if you want to do your own thing, and you’re like, hey, I want to do my show, but I need help, you know with editing and you know, hosting and figuring out all that good stuff. I do that to breadfruit media. My hosting company is so amazing. I use Buzzsprout to how to host carry our friends. I am so pleased, I’m so happy with Buzzsprout. So big up to the Buzzsprout Buzzsprout family. And so that’s what I do over Breadfruit Media I do a few other things. As I’ve mentioned, probably in other episodes, I produce The Style & Vibes Podcast. So that is an option. So if you want to start a podcast or you know, if anyone who wants to start a podcast, I have a service option for you. If there’s someone who’s like, Listen, I don’t want to do the editing, I take care of that. I don’t want to do the strategizing about the shows or whatever, I will help you with that. We work with that. And then some people are like, hey, I want to get it started. But I want to edit I want to do it myself. I can also provide training on how to edit and you know, prepare your episodes and all that good stuff. And so that has been really, really great experience so much joy it has filled me in doing that and in a way has helped me reconnect with Carry On Friends in a different way. And it’s like I said before, it’s not like I was getting tired of it, but it was like you reconnect differently when you’re like, Okay, this is the value because it was through Carry On Friends that Breadfruit Media was birth right so I, you know, in the saying, you know you in order to love this child, you can’t forget the mother from where it was born, right.
And then Caribbean Podcast Directory another love, which is when I started podcasting, there weren’t a lot of ways to discover other shows that are created by people of Caribbean heritage. So for a while, I felt like I was just like floating out there in the lonesome. And so Caribbean Podcast Directory is a way to discover shows created by people of Caribbean heritage, wherever they are in the world, whether they’re in the Caribbean, whether they’re in the US, Canada, UK, wherever they are, you could find a listing and my goal is to grow That so the industry at large can recognize that we’re here, you know, and we have stories to tell about our culture that mainstream isn’t telling or mainstream got wrong about the culture. Like, those are things that are bringing me joy.
And so, you know, five years, I look at this and say, Wow, you know, if you had told me that this is where I’d be, you know, after five years, I wouldn’t believe it. But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t also doubt that it could happen, if that makes sense. Like, I don’t see that for myself. But once if you if you had said it, I’d be like, ooh, then it’s a possibility. Right? Because we don’t see the possibility on until someone else sees the possibility in you. And, and if I if I’m being completely honest, I didn’t even see it for myself. I have to thank miss the wonderful Miss Judithe, who saw me at podcast movement in in Anaheim in 2017, and she’s like, yes, this is you and I looked at her like, you know, you see me pregnant. You know, I’m not even thinking about this I’m birthing a real child here. So it’s it goes back to that episode I record and I and something that I also feel strongly about you believe those who believe in your potential in your greatness in your purpose, because we all are here to do something, and to do it well.
And so as I wrap up this show because again, this is the first of a year long celebration every episode I’m going to be like, yeah, we’re celebrating five years, and in celebrating the five years. I want to find out from you, who would you want to hear on the show, I am going to put a survey link in the show notes as well where you can tell me who you’d like to hear on the show. It’s always been open but this year, I want to make sure that You know, for five years, let’s figure out who we can get as guests on the show and, and talk up the things and talk about Caribbean culture and the Caribbean American experience. So yes, I’ll put that link in the show notes as well just look out for it, it’s going to be open so whenever you wanted it, the sooner the better. You know, so we could try to get the interviews booked and recorded.
But um, yeah, so my call to action. They’re a couple call to actions it’s not best practice but you know, first episode and I know you, you guys will, you know, come back or Listen, first call to action. You know, I’ll have a link for you to suggest who you’d like to hear me interview or have on the show this year. Get your Carry On Friends journal with guided reflection so you could write and you could also use it to take notes, there are guides on how to take notes in the journal so I have a link to that support, Carry On Friends, five year anniversary. You could do that with a monetary Gift whatever amount you choose at glow.fm/carryonfriends. And of course sign up for the newsletter. I am being held accountable to have some one or two events or activities throughout the year to commemorate and celebrate the five year anniversary and as those things are shaped up and are locked and loaded, I want to make sure that you all are aware of that. And so I want to make sure that you are in the know so sign up for the newsletter. I will put all these links every single one of these links in the show notes. And stay tuned for the next episode. We are kicking the next episode off with a really great interview with Guerline Emmanuel who is the founder of BV Styles and that was birthed out of the work she’s been doing through her historical and cultural tour company called Belle Vue. So she is the next guest on the podcast can’t wait for you to hear that. A lot of exciting stuff that’s going on with travel to Haiti. I’ve been to Haiti; I had a really great experience. So, lots to look forward to. And thank you again for being part of the fifth five-year anniversary. Thank you for participating. I can’t wait to hear who you’d like to have on the show. And as always, you can email me Hello@carryonfriends.com love to hear from you. And until next time, walk good.
