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Where the heck have I been? What is going on with the show? Is it cancelled? Are there new episodes coming? What is
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happening? These are all things I'm going to answer on today's episode of
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the Ex Homeschoolers Club. Hey, what's going on? It's uh Jacob Gooden and we are back. First and
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foremost, let me tell you this. The Exom Club is not cancelled. It's not going
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anywhere. Uh it very much still has episodes to come. is not dead yet. Okay, where have I been? What has been going
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on? Because it has been a month uh since I posted an episode and uh and I really
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just went dark without saying I was taking a break. Nothing. Um so, what's been going on? Well, a couple of things.
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Uh first and foremost, work got a little crazy. Just good things like new projects, new editing
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styles, new productions, new podcasts getting released for people. Um, very cool, fun opportunities. Um, and when
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you freelance and do the work that I do, sometimes when there's a lot, you got to
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take it when it comes. Uh, cuz these things come in waves. And, uh, I chose to take it. Now, the other hard part of
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that is that sometimes when you spend all day editing other people's content
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and other people's podcasts, uh, and then you have some free time, the last thing you want to do is turn around and
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start editing another podcast. That is your hobby, is is your fun thing. And so, um, yeah, so definitely a little bit
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of a disconnect there and I was just like not really feeling it. It kind of leads into the second part which is that
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since the end of August, September, definitely been feeling a little bit of like anxiety, depression, overwhelm, um,
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just burnout overall. That's tough. If you've ever experienced that feeling of
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like not wanting to get out of bed in the morning or just like not even being able to do basic tasks, you kind of know
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what I'm talking about. There's a lot of things that played a role in that and
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I'm going to talk about maybe what I'm doing a little bit differently right now
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that seems to be pulling me out of that. So number one, I think the biggest thing
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that changed for me was I kind of did an audit of how much I was on social media and consuming consuming
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consuming. And it was high. It was a lot higher than I wanted to admit. And you know, social media is it's like a slot
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machine, right? It's just it's like gambling. You never know what you're
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going to get. Some days it's really good stuff and really happy, positive content. And then other days it's just
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very doom and gloom uh with the state of the world. And um me being the person that I am, I take a lot of stuff on
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personally and want to fix and want to make the world a better place. Um and when I feel powerless to do that, I get
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sad. And so stepped away from social media, deleted it all off my phone. Helped a lot. um helped me sleep better
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at night, right? Um it's put me in a little bit of a better mood. And I will
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confess, I maybe have logged on once or twice, but nothing's been back on my
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phone. I've looked at a few Tik Toks over someone's shoulder, but like taking
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a break and really just invested the time that I would spend in scrolling on doing something productive, whether it's
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reading. I started a couple new books, um, writing, being creative, not wasting that time away on a slot machine, so to
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speak. And so that's been really great. Um, I also cut back my caffeine intake.
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If you have anxiety and you drink caffeine every single day, take a break. And I don't mean just like
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go cold turkey. I mean like wean yourself off of it, but I don't drink coffee every day right now. Um I'll
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drink a couple times a week. And I feel great. Feel a lot better. Um and sleeping better. And just I don't know.
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Also, sleep is so important. So just get good sleep, okay? Go to bed at a reasonable hour. Get 8 to 10 hours.
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listen to what your body is telling you you need and just give it that. Um, and you will feel a lot better. Um, also go
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outside, touch grass, see the sunshine. That helps too. Okay? And do things that
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are not workrelated. Do things that are not chores that are not you having to go
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do errands. Like go do something fun. Go read in the park. Go Yeah. Anyway, that's my little spiel on mental health.
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Kind of coming out of that, feeling a little bit better. Uh, what is going on with the show? where where where are we
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at? What's Yeah. What's on the docket? So, since August, I've recorded four
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episodes, four interviews. Um and they've just kind of been sitting. They're in various stages of editing. Um
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we got some cool stuff coming. So, those are going to be coming out uh as soon as
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possible. Trying to get one done uh so that you'll have one next week. Brand
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new interview. They're cool interviews. Um they're some of them are a little bit
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different than the usual. Only one of those four is with a former homeschool kid. Uh, and about their experience. Uh,
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one of them is with a sex expert. Um, and we talk kind of about like healthy sex education. Um, I had on some college
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prep people um, who talked more to current homeschool families or families with young kids about college prep. Um,
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kind of an interesting conversation, very different than the usual. Um, and then lastly, I interviewed someone who
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is a current homeschool mom, uh, but is doing secular homeschooling, microchooling, uh, just a very
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interesting conversation around like the state of where homeschooling is, but also we touch on how we as exhchoolers
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can help those people and um, how our stories are important uh, to tell. And so anyway, so those are coming uh, in
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the weeks ahead. uh working really hard to get those out for you guys. A few things on the future of the show. And
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this is where I would love your guys's feedback. And so if you're watching this
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on YouTube, you can leave a comment down below. If you're on Spotify, Spotify
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also has a comment section. You can drop some things down in there or you can shoot me an email at [email protected].
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So here's kind of my questions and what I'm thinking about and thinking about
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changing. and just looking forward uh to the future of the show. So, one, like I
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said, I'm still kind of in the burnout, overwhelm, anxiety stage. And so, I am
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thinking about changing up uh posting and not posting every single week and instead posting twice a month uh or just
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every two weeks, however that lands. Some months it might be three episodes. Um but so that might be something that's
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coming. Um, let me know how you feel about that. Um, I would like to get back to doing once a week, but it can be a
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little overwhelming at times. Um, and one of the things that I want to do and change about the show is I do want to
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change some of the editing and the storytelling and I want to take more time on it. And so that's part of the
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reason for that. But anyway, let me know your thoughts on that. The other aspect
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of the show that I'm interested to get your guys' opinion on is I would like to
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build some kind of community off of this and one that is not only a conversation
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between you and I or me and my guest, but also between audience member and audience member um exhomeschooler and
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ex-h homeschooler, right? And so I know early on in the show I was like all about pushing like we have a Reddit or
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should we do a Discord or a Slack group or um a Facebook page or like what does that look like? Um and I still haven't
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figured it out. I did a book club um and I still haven't really figured out what
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that looks like, that kind of a thing. Here's some ideas I have. Um, but in order to implement them, here's the
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other thing. In order to implement some of these ideas, I can't do this alone. I
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need people who want to come alongside of me and help kind of lead the charge on some of these things happening um and
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be leaders in the exhomeschool club world. Okay. Um, so here's ideas I have.
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Let me know. I would love to hear from you guys ideas you have, what you would like to see if you want to take charge,
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if you have the capacity to take charge of that. um what that would look like. So number one, we could bring the book
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club back. And initially when I had pitched the book club, it was very much like, hey, let's
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read books that like make us better human beings. Um and so we read When Religion Hurts You. A couple people did.
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Um had some conversations around it, but never, I'll be honest, I dropped the
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ball and never followed up with like, hey, let's have a Zoom call at the end
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and discuss the book. Um we could do something like that and read books. They do not have to be let's get better. They
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could be fiction. They could be any kind of thing. But we could have a book club
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uh and do a monthly or every two-month discussion on on a book we read. That could be something that could be fun.
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Number two, we could do monthly hangouts on some kind of a Zoom call or something like
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that. Uh exomschooler happy hour. Uh I don't I don't know what it would look
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like, but just get together, hang out, play a game, play bingo, get to know each other. um could be an option as
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well. Um so there's that. Uh we still have of course the opportunity we could
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do Reddit or we could do some other kind of app and build some kind of chat room experience for people. I just don't
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I don't know. But let me know what you guys think. What sounds interesting? What you guys would want to do? um what
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would be beneficial to you? Um because I that's that's the next stage is I want
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to figure out this community aspect to the show. And then of course lastly, you know, shoot me an email with things you
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want to see on the show, right? Uh things I could be doing better, questions I should ask, uh guests I
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should have on, topics you want to hear me kind of go deeper on, um solos that you want me to do. If you got questions
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for me, just shoot me your feedback on the show. I guess is what I'm asking.
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Um, love to hear from you. And with that, I think that's everything that I've got rolling around inside my brain.
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But like I said, big overarching things to remember here. The show is not cancelled. New episodes are coming. Uh,
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it's okay to take a break. Okay? It's okay. It's okay to take a break.
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Breathe. Relieve the stress. Come back stronger and better than ever before. And so
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there's that. Okay. Do all of the internet things that you know how to do. Share this episode. Like this episode.
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Subscribe if you're brand new here and you're like, "Oh my gosh, this kind of
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sounds like a cool thing. I want to be part of it." Go check out other episodes. Uh share those with friends.
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Uh do all of again the internet things that you already know how to do. Uh leave comments down below. Uh shoot me
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an email. Follow me on social medias. All of all of the things you know, everything. uh I discussed is linked
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down below. Go check it out. All right, till next time. We'll see you. Peace.
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