Episode 201: 2023 year end episode

The episode transcript is below.

Carolyn Kiel: Welcome to Beyond 6 Seconds, the podcast that goes beyond the six second first impression to share the extraordinary stories of neurodivergent people. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel.

Hello, and hey, thanks for joining me on this special episode of Beyond 6 Seconds. What makes this so special? Well, for starters, it’s a solo episode, so no guest interview. It’s just me today. It’s the last episode of 2023, which is naturally a time year-end to reflect on everything that’s happened over the past year. And it’s also episode 201. Which means Beyond 6 Seconds has passed a major podcasting milestone by going beyond 200 episodes.

That’s not the only milestone I’ve achieved with the podcast recently. I actually started keeping a spreadsheet to keep track of my podcast accomplishments as they happen throughout the year. I highly recommend documenting your wins, whether it’s for podcasting or something else in your life, because it’s really easy to forget as the year gets really busy. So bear with me a moment as I take a little bit of time to reflect and celebrate on some big recent achievements for Beyond 6 Seconds.

As I mentioned, the show has released more than 200 episodes. It’s reached almost a hundred thousand downloads. And it’s been going on for nearly six years. And for the past two years, I’ve been focusing exclusively on neurodivergent stories. I’ve interviewed neurodivergent guests from seven countries: the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Norway, Australia, New Zealand and India.

I’ve done three book giveaways of books written by autistic authors, who I featured on my show. That’s also in partnership with Jessica Kingsley Publishers, which is a really great publishing house that publishes a lot of neurodivergent and disabled authors.

Also this year, I won my second Signal Award for this podcast. Combined with the awards I got in 2022, this is my 10th award for the show. I also had some exciting financial firsts in 2023. I had my first supporters who made donations to this podcast on my BuyMeACoffee.com page. And I also had my first paid advertisements and sponsorships on the show.

In terms of other advocacy that I’ve done outside of the podcast: for Disability Pride Month in July, I curated a list of podcast episodes about disability pride and history for a newsletter called Sounds Like Impact, which focuses on social impact and audio storytelling. And I shared this list on social media as well. And I also wrote a post on LinkedIn in July for Disability Pride Month. Additionally around advocacy, I spoke on a panel at a private corporate event for Neurodiversity Celebration Week, and I wrote an article about how to make your podcast more accessible, in Women Who Podcast Magazine.

This year. I also had several partnerships with other neurodiversity and mental health podcasts. I appeared as a guest on a few shows, including the Think Inclusive podcast, Ignorance Was Bliss podcast. Be a Better Ally podcast and the Neurodiversity Podcast. I also did a few promo swaps. In case you’re wondering what a promo swap is, a lot of podcasts have short pre-recorded promos, which are basically trailers or advertisements for their shows. And sometimes podcasters will agree to play each other’s trailers on our podcast episodes to help introduce our shows to each other’s audiences. So I did some promo swaps with the PsychoCinematic podcast, The Other Autism podcast and Differently Brained podcast. I’ll put more information about those podcasts and the other things I mentioned in the show notes, so you can check them out too.

Whew, so saying all that out loud, that’s a lot! I’m really happy and grateful to have had all these opportunities to, uh, make a difference and share and amplify stories and resources this past year.

The end of the year is also a time for looking forward. So let’s do a little bit of that too. For 2024, there are kind of two main themes I personally want to focus on around impact and community. So talking about impact. As I’m sure we all know, anytime you’re on social media, you tend to wind up in a bubble. I mean, that’s kind of how the algorithms work, right? I know for me, I see the same memes around neurodivergence. You know, a lot of which honestly, I don’t always relate to. So sometimes it gives me a little imposter syndrome. You may have seen the ones, like, can you read this upside down and backwards? Or can you do this or that? And I was like, no, I don’t know if I can do that. If you follow the, uh, neurodiversity or neurodivergent community on social media, you probably know what I’m talking about. Otherwise you may not. But that is a thing.

That’s also why I try to keep expanding my views of neurodivergence, neurodiversity. I’m always trying to learn new things. And I’m always looking around to really think about, you know, what voices am I not hearing? Whether it’s social media or just in general in society. You know, I’m still finding that so many people when they hear “neurodiversity,” they tend to think autism and ADHD. Well, one, you know, the term neurodiversity really refers to everyone, including people who are so-called neurotypical. And even among that, it’s so much more than autism and ADHD. For example, I’ve had guests on the show share their own lived experiences, you know, not just as being autistic and having ADHD, but also their experiences with apraxia, including non-speaking and unreliably speaking autistic people. Uh, traumatic brain injury, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, Tourette syndrome, bipolar, PTSD, auditory processing disorder, Down syndrome, dissociative identity disorder, and more. It’s, it’s such a wide range. And that doesn’t even cover nearly everything. There’s there’s still so many more stories to tell beyond that.

And, I also am thinking for the show, you know, what other neurotypes and levels of supports needs tend to be even more stigmatized in society and aren’t being heard as part of the general conversation about neurodiversity? And also, how does intersectionality with our other identities impact our experiences of being neurodivergent? And how does that impact society’s understanding and assumptions about neurodivergence? We have to make a conscious choice to expand past our bubble. And that’s something I really try to do, pretty much on a daily basis, and certainly when I’m working on this podcast.

But at the same time, this podcast is not my full-time work. It’s a passion project. It’s a hobby. It’s something that I enjoy and that’s fun for me. And I feel like it makes a difference in the world. So I absolutely love doing it. And that’s a big reason why I focus on stories that personally, you know, really get me excited and really get me passionate.

And also I tend to focus a lot on stories that I don’t often hear on other podcasts. That doesn’t mean that I won’t include other types of stories and that I wouldn’t interview like major influencers who are very vocal about neurodiversity on social media and maybe appear on a lot of shows or are very famous. I’d certainly be, you know, open and happy to do that. At the same time, I tend to lean towards amplifying those stories about neurodivergence that I just haven’t heard frequently or, or heard a lot publicly. And always ones that are grounded on personal lived experience of neurodivergence. I always want to hear first person from people about their own experiences with their own neurotypes.

Are there specific types of stories or themes that you’d want to hear on this podcast in 2024? Let me know, cause I would love to hear from you and, absolutely want to know what you’re interested in hearing more of.

So with all that being said, I think, you know, what can I do to really help make change and have an impact? You know, there’s so many people out here, advocating, activists, they’re educating people about neurodiversity. And I’m always thinking, you know, what’s my specific role here? My main love is really amplifying other people’s stories. So, you know, what should I be doing that uses my own skills, my unique position and talents to support what I’m passionate about and make change? Even if it’s just small change. You know, I really need to take some time to ponder my big dreams for this show. It, it takes a lot of energy. It takes time and yeah, it takes money to put this together. And I want to make sure it’s focused on what’s most meaningful while still supporting my own goals and being something that I continue to be passionate and excited about.

Because quite honestly, I’m so exhausted from this year. I don’t think this year was that easy for anyone, right? So I also need to prioritize doing things that are just for myself. I feel so selfish saying that out loud, but the longer I do this podcast, the more I realized that I have to make sure I’m taking care of myself while I’m trying to advocate and amplify and take care and support others. I have to fill up my own cup before I can pour it into others, so to speak. And lately I could do a better job at filling my own cup. Fortunately, I mentioned this to one of my friends and they’ve already offered to help me with this. So hopefully I’ll have more to say about that in the coming months.

Okay. So that’s a little bit about impact. The second theme is community. In these two years that I’ve been podcasting about neurodiversity, I’m still looking for a community around that. You know, during this time I’ve met a lot of really great people through my podcast. Many of my strongest friendships came about because of this podcast and those friendships continue to this day. But I’ve also in the meantime had a pretty big friendship breakup. I’ve had the loss of a specific podcasting community that was really a big support to me. And, you know, some other things going on in my life that really changed the community resources that I had available. And it was all at a time when I really needed them. I’ve made some attempts to build community through the podcast, but they haven’t quite actualized and formalized yet. So, that’s something I’m going to be continuing to focus on in 2024. I’ve no idea how to do this. It’s usually something that just happens organically and it’s usually pretty unplanned. Whenever I try to make community happen or force it to happen, it tends not to work out. So it’s a little hard to do goal-setting around.

So, what do I mean by community? Really just looking for people who, who get me. People with common interests, maybe, you know, like, like podcasting. I kind of wish there was a group for other neurodivergent podcasters. Oh, maybe I should start one. Something to put on the list, maybe? If you’re someone who might be interested in that, definitely let me know.

Speaking of podcasters, one thing I am doing early in 2024 is that I’m planning to go to a podcast conference in January that’s called PodFest. I’ve been to other podcasting conferences, but this will be my first time going to this one. If you’re a podcaster, and if you’re going to be there, let me know. I I’d love to meet you.

Outside of podcasting, my day job is in corporate. So a few months ago I started a group for Autistic Corporate Professionals on LinkedIn. It’s still open there, if you fit that description and you’re interested in joining. Right now, it’s a place mainly to connect and share relevant articles and thoughts there from time to time. I’ll put the links in the show notes so you can see what that looks like.

You know, I don’t know a lot of autistic or other neurodivergent people outside of my podcast. I don’t know any locally. I don’t get to spend a lot of time with them. And I’d really like to. That’s one of the things that I really want to work on more for next year, and it’s all tied into that goal of community.

So if you made it this far into the episode, that tells me that you care about what I’m doing, and I really appreciate that. Now, remember when I was talking about filling up my own cup to help continue to support others with this podcast? Well, part of that is asking for help and support when I need it. I’ll admit, I’m so uncomfortable asking for help, but hey, growth and progress doesn’t happen without a little discomfort! So I’m going to ask for your support in a few small but meaningful ways, many of which don’t cost anything but a little bit of time.

First, if you’re enjoying this podcast, it would help me so much if you would share this podcast with your friends or people you know who might be interested in it! All my episodes are also on YouTube, so you can share it there too, if you have friends who prefer YouTube.

You can follow my podcast in your favorite podcast player or on YouTube.

You can follow me on social media. Like, comment, share my posts. I’m most active on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn right now. So if you are on those platforms too, please come find me and connect. I’ll put those links in the show notes, so you can find me there.

I also have an email newsletter that tells you each episode the day before it comes out, you get a little preview of it, and you’ll never miss an episode. If you’re not on the socials and you just want them delivered to your email, subscribe to my newsletter. Links are on my website, which I’ll put in the show notes. That would be awesome.

And if you want to even go a little further and show your support with a small donation, or if you want to buy an advertisement on this podcast, I also have a site on BuyMeACoffee.com where you can learn more about opportunities to do that.

Other than that, you can just send me an email at beyond6seconds at gmail dot com and let me know what this podcast means to you.

Again, I’ll put all this information in the show notes, so you can find the links there to everything that I’ve mentioned. And really, any and all of these mean so much to me. Your support lets me know that there’s value in what I’m doing. A lot of times with podcasting, you kind of feel like you’re talking into the void. It’s not always an instant feedback type of medium, so any kind of feedback is, is just so valuable to me. And I appreciate it so much.

Also if you’re a neurodivergent podcaster or another type of content creator, and you want to partner with a promo swap or another way to share each other’s content, please reach out. My guest waiting list tends to be very long right now, but in addition to that, I’m really open to other ways we can support each other that might be quicker and maybe easier for both of us. So please reach out if you’re interested.

And that’s my little update for today. My year end episode. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of the year, and I’m wishing you all the best for 2024. See you next year.

Thanks for listening to Beyond 6 Seconds. Please help me spread the word about this podcast. Share it with a friend, give it a shout out on your social media, or write a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. You can find all of my episodes and sign up for my free newsletter at beyond6seconds.net. Until next time.