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well Happy Thanksgiving my ex- homeschooler friends it's your friend Jacob gunen and uh I told you I was
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dropping two episodes this week and I'm delivering on that promise first and
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foremost a very Happy Thanksgiving to each and every one of you I hope you guys are spending time relaxing chilling
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with family with friends with loved ones um because that's what the holiday season is all about so let's get that
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out of the way today you're getting solo for me um what are we going to talk
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about we're going to talk a little bit I'm going to share my story I'm going to
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share the story of how the show came to be um I'm going to share a little glimpse into what to expect for the next
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month for the month of December and a little bit into 2025 and uh and then I want to just
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share some thoughts of how I see this show kind of changing uh in the next year all good things right and then at
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the very end you got to stick around because I found a juicy video of me and my good friend Derry Brooks performing
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at a homeschool talent show and I'm going to drop it in the closer of this episode der I hope you don't mind I
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didn't ask for permission so I'm sorry but I'm putting it out there it was on
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Facebook it's the world has already seen this so let's talk about where the show
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originates from I've mentioned before on the show that the purpose of the show was really
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to catch up it's kind of selfish right it's to catch up with old friends it's
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to reminisce about homeschool days it's to talk about The Good the Bad and the
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Ugly of homeschooling and what I meant when I originally said that was kind of much more from a fluffy place right
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when I when I said bad and ugly I really meant like cringy and just like I don't
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know looking back at your high school self and kind of being like Oh man shouldn't have worn red pants um and
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what this show has become is a lot deeper than that we've gone into like religious stuff and we've talked about
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some like uh abuse and we've talked about mental health and um uh all these different things right we've gone down a
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variety of different paths um and it kind of started with that to be real honest with you
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so as many of you know I've been in the podcasting world since 2019 and I've
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been an editor and producer and worked on a variety of different shows from business shows to relationship shows to
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uh Tech and travel and all kinds of fun stuff it's it's like the best education
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in the world because I get to hear from experts in all of these fields uh for free and I get to edit them and make
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them sound really good um but with that always came this nagging question when I
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would meet new people they go oh what's your podcast about right and I didn't
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have one um and I spit ideas out there for a long time about oh I'm going to
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talk talk about the podcasting world I'm going talk about being an editor I'm
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going to talk about this I'm going to talk about that I'm going to do this
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kind of a thing and nothing really stuck nothing resonated with me um until honestly Co hit right 2020
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the world shuts down we're all stuck at home and to be honest I started to go a
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little stir crazy I start to have a lot more anxiety and depression than I had previously as most people
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did and and I really started to isolate myself from the world and from my friends and from my wife even
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and she encouraged me to really to start reaching out to to old friends and just say hey what's up
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and so I did so I texted a few friends uh I messaged them wherever I could find them and I just said hey what's up I
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would love to like catch up and hear how things are and what's going on in life
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and and most of those people were homeschool friends and so we would get together and
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we you know jump on a zoom call or we get on the phone or whatever and we reminisce we talk about being in a band
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together we talk about dance class or we talk about whatever homeschool stuff right we relate on that and then we'd
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catch up and we'd be like oh what are you doing today and talk about Job stuff
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you know the normal catch up with different stuff and through these conversations I started
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to realize and learn that the way we viewed our homeschool years was so vastly different and just our
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experiences in general were vastly different we were we all connected through these
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memories but the way we looked at it was just different right and and I thought man this is so interesting and I would
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get off these chats and we would have talked about you know I'm hurting with
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this or I'm struggling with that or this really makes me happy right and I went
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man I think there's something here and it just thought it kind of you know bounced around in my brain a little
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bit and so started mulling it over right and I was like oh so there's a show here
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there's something here so the the title of the show The ex- homeschoolers Club kind of came up
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because also during 2020 uh a Facebook group popped up that was like the ex homeschoolers of ventur
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accy or something like that and I was like man that that word ex homeschoolers just like really resonated with me for
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some reason and and it was more of the same thing that I had already been doing right it was connecting
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all of us ex- homeschoolers from Ventura County and we were reminiscing about just like dumb stuff and just like
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cringy moments and you know some of us are may be going a little deeper than others and things like that man again
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this idea this show idea is like in the back of my head man I think it'd be really cool to interview these people
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and talk to them and you know all this stuff but there's also that imposter syndrome side of me that is
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going nobody wants this nobody wants to hear about this right you're a bunch of
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weirdo homeschool kids nobody wants to hear that like I was convincing myself that clients weren't going to hire me
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cuz they were going to find out I was a weird homeschool kid I was like I can't
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deliver the quality of show that I want you know all these all these types of things all these lies basically that I
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was telling myself and um So eventually I just kind of had to say screw it right I just had to hit
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record and so I called my friend Carrie France and she agreed to come on the show she was the second episode of this
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podcast um but she was recorded first uh before uh I did my solo um and we just had a great conversation we just had fun
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and after recording that and especially after it went live but really just after
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recording that I went I could do this I got this and uh I still was kind of in this mindset of like I'm only ever going
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to get 15 people to agree to come on this thing but it'll be a cool thing that I'll have done 15 episodes just so
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everyone knows this is episode 18 okay and I've got a couple more already recorded so we're already getting into
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20s um which is awesome it's gone farther than I thought it would um but yeah had
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a conversation with her posted it and it really the response was amazing and it's
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still probably the most listened to episode uh of the podcast uh so thank you Carrie um I you're gonna come back
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on okay uh we're going to talk more about homeschool stuff but um it's been really cool
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to see homeschool friends both old and new come out of the woodwork uh join the club essentially um
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and yeah it's gone so much further than I ever thought it would I mean we've
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done thousands of views um thousands of listens uh hundreds of followers at this
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point it's been awesome um and it really hasn't slowed down and so so I just want
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to say thank you from the bottom of my heart because I genuinely thought 20 people were going to listen to this and
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it was mostly going to be like my family who I was begging to listen to this thing um so thank you thank you all
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um so that's kind of the backstory now let's let's touch on what's what's kind
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of to come what's coming what's coming down the road so in December December is
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going to be the month of the goodness um I've already recorded with both my parents and I'm working on my solo
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episode but you're basically you're getting three weeks of us okay so first
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week you're going to get an episode with my mom we're chatting about why she
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chose to homeschool us what that process was like some of the hard stuff the good
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stuff would she do it again um yeah I think she does a really good job of explaining her thought process behind
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the whole the whole thing and um yeah so we're going to touch on that we're touch
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on what she's doing today um and all that good stuff and uh yeah it was just
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a lot of fun it was a lot of fun to record I'm looking forward to putting it
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out into the world uh week two you're going to get my dad so my dad was went
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from like 0% involved in homeschool aside from being like yeah you can do it to being a huge advocate and a huge part
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of our homeschool experience by the end of it um so that interview was really good um
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because I mean it's a dad in a scent talking about this change that happened um and
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it just was really good it's just like I'm not even going to I I don't even
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want to tease anything because it was just so good you guys are going to hear it soon enough okay and then week three
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you're getting a solo with me um a couple months ago I did my Purity culture episode that did really well it
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resonated with a lot of you I asked um because religion is obviously a big part of Purity culture but I asked in
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that episode if you wanted to hear my religious story my religious upbringing um and my experience with religion and
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where I sit today and enough of you said yes that I'm going to give it to you so
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uh I'm currently working on that it's coming very very soon and then that
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fourth week in December is Christmas so I'm taking the week off we're all just
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going to relax everybody's going to enjoy being with their family being with
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loved ones uh opening presents if you celebrate Christmas if you don't sorry go listen to a previous
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episode um but then we'll be back in January for some new things I've got
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some cool stuff coming um I'm the show has enabled so many people to reach out
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which is amazing so in addition to we're going to get more episodes with the
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achieve and the group Solutions people the people that a lot of us know and love but we're also going to start
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introducing some new faces so I've had a couple kids well they're no longer kids
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I've had a couple people reach out who were homeschool kids in the ' 80s and
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the '90s um and they're going to share their unique experience with that and so
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that's going to be a lot of fun um I've got a couple College friends coming on
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who are going to share their homeschool experiences as well which is going to be
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a lot of fun and I'm cooking up some other stuff that I think will be interesting and hopefully helpful um in
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2025 so yeah so here's a couple of the things that are kind of changing that I maybe
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need some help with that I would love some feedback on so first and foremost nothing drastic is changing
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about the show okay um it's still going to remain what it is at its core right an
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interview with homeschool kids about their homeschool experience an interview with homeschool parents about their
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homeschool experience um that's going to be the core of everything we do here's what's going to
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change I want to learn to become a better Storyteller and I want to the the episodes that have come out that have
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really resonated with people have this unique story arc to them um and every episode has been amazing uh every person
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that's come on thank you so much um but there's certain ones that have really
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just struck cords with people and so I've been paying attention to that and I
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want to continue to create episodes that have some kind of through lesson or experience or something that's
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tangible that we can grab on to and learn something from okay so whether that's religious
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parenting uh sexuality education you know uh mental not Mental Illness but like mental
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well-being and things like that business I don't know there's going to be there's
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I got a lot of ideas bouncing around okay um but I want to create these through arcs that we can talk about with
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with people and so so yeah so that's coming and 2025 is going to be a big year okay um a big year I feel it I'm
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manifesting it okay guys and uh let me tell you for me a little bit of I'm not always good about this but
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I'm trying to be better and set an intention for the year and my intention for 2025 is that as a person I want to
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learn to listen more I want to learn uh I want to learn to learn more uh if that makes sense uh I want to
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Advocate more um and I want to educate more and kind of where we sit right now as a country in the US is really uh
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scary for a lot of people um and where we sit just as people I think can there's a lot there's a lot going on in
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the world as a whole um that scary and confusing there's a lot of voices that
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don't get heard um that kind of a thing there's a lot of Education that could
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just be better and things like that and so I want to recognize that I have some privilege it's a straight white guy um I
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have a voice that tends to get heard um and so I want to I want to do some things I want to listen to voices that
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don't get heard um as much um I want to uh learn to ask questions um of those
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people and learn from them to listen to books listen to books yeah listen to books read books listen to podcasts
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watch movies do whatever to help educate myself with strong healthy knowledge um
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I want to be an advocate for those people again who have have less of a voice um and then I want to educate and
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what I mean by that is I want to the stuff that I learn I want to help educate more and more people
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um with those things right and have tough conversations and have the facts to back them up and
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stuff like that so that means a lot of things hopefully it's not too dark hopefully I didn't
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scare too many people off um I could go down a lot of rabbit holes um with that I'm going to not I'm going to stop right
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there if you got questions about it reach out to me I i' love to hear from you and answer questions and you know
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whatever else but here's what I need help with from you guys so the ex- homeschoolers Club is meant
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to be a community it's meant to be not just me having conversations with uh one
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person every single week having conversations behind the scenes with people um which is happening constantly
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um but it's also meant to be a place for you guys to reconnect with each other to
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meet new friends to make new connections all those kinds of things so I know other podcasts do Facebook
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groups they do slack channels discords subreddits some kind of community element I want I'm thinking about that I
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don't know what the best choice is for that um if that's even something you
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guys would be interested in so I want to hear from you um there's going to be a
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couple ways that you guys can answer questions from me one I'm going to put together a Google form it's going to be
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at the very top of the show notes okay it's going to be like link number one
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it's the most important thing okay that is going to just be a place for you to
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like Drop thoughts of like here's what I want to hear on the show here's what I
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think a good Community would look like here's topics here's people I want to
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hear from okay so there's going to be a couple questions in there answer what
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you want leave blank what you want um so that's hopefully going to be at the top
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of the show notes top of the YouTube channel whatever you are consuming this content on it's going to be there okay
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the other way you can reach out to me you can always DM me uh Instagram exhs Club um or you can email me at exhs
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[email protected] so those are other great ways to get a hold of me I just wanted to create a
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form that had those questions in place that you guys could just answer and then it
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drops all that information in to a spreadsheet for me it's a little easier to to digest excuse me um but yeah so
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there's that uh and like I said it's going to have a couple different questions on
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there more things you want to hear on the show people you want on the show topics you want us to hit on um really
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anything you want to see okay I just want to I want to know your thoughts uh what we could be doing better what you
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already thought was great all that kind of stuff so I'm I'm looking at my notes
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I'm trying to figure out if there's anything else I wanted to ask before we
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go yes there's one more favor I want to ask of you so after you've done with
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that I would like for you guys if you wouldn't mind cuz uh one of my goals for
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the end of 2025 or excuse me the end of 2024 is I would like to hit 2,000 subscribers on YouTube and I would like
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to hit 200 followers on Instagram I'm actively working towards that but it is
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hard so one if you could share those accounts with people share an episode with a
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friend maybe it's your favorite episode uh whatever send it out to somebody who
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maybe hasn't listened the show maybe they have listened the show I don't know
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but reconnect with somebody shoot them shoot them the podcast if you wouldn't
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mind um tell them to give it a listen maybe give me a follow if they like it that kind of thing um it's a vanity
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metric but I think we can do it okay I think we can do it so there's that okay
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I think that's everything I'm looking at my notes is there anything else I got no
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okay so with that I'm going to say this Happy Thanksgiving uh it's been an honor
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um and it continues to be an honor every time I hit record and then hit publish um to serve you guys and so yeah with
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that I'm going to let myself and Derry Brooks play you out with our rendition
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of Home by Edward sharpen the Magnetic Zeros a little bit of context of what this is so if you were not part of
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achieve uh this was a homeschool talent show that we that our hes School group would put on every single year uh and
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yeah we were musicians so this was this was us being musicians all right until next week I will see you all right peace
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[Applause] [Music] my I do love my mom mom not the way that I do [Music] you my [Music]
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[Music] [Music] home you [Music] I'll follow you into the through the through the I've never one like
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[Music] you only me something to see [Music] you yes I'm home home is [Music]
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la la la la take me home Daddy I'm coming home [Music] home home is [Music] I home yes I am
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home home is [Music] home is where I you home yes I'm home home is where I [Applause]