7️⃣ Things I'm Grateful for in the Graced Health Space

Hey there, I'm Amy Konell. Welcome to Grace Health, the podcast for women who want simple and grace-filled ways to take care of themselves and enjoy a little chocolate or, if you are listening to this real time, a lot of Thanksgiving foods. It is Thanksgiving week here in the States. I know we have listeners honestly from all over the world. Just in the last 10 episodes that I've received, we have people listening from Europe, from South America, from Australia, asia and, of course, north America, so that is so fun to see and I am glad that you are listening in wherever you are. Thanksgiving is often a time where we reflect on what we're grateful for, and I think that this is a good opportunity for me to just pause, take a breath and take a moment to be grateful and to be thankful. I have had a lot on my plate from a business perspective. As you know, I am working on the release of a new book that I have written for teen girls and I hope to share more with you about that soon. But there's just a lot of back-end stuff and I tend to get bogged down and I tend to get a little ramped up and amped up. This is really more for me than anything else, because this week of Thanksgiving, and especially as we get into the holidays, is just a great opportunity to pause and be thankful for all that God has given me. I just thought I would come on and give you some of the things that I am grateful for. So this is not going to be an application episode, like I try and do it, and this is not necessarily what they call an evergreen episode, which is stuff that you could listen to in June. I mean, I guess you could listen to this. It just won't be Thanksgiving week or it won't be the holidays, but I wanted to. I just thought I would take a minute and tell you some of the things that I'm grateful for. One of them is technology. I get to sit in my suburban Houston area home and talk with people all over the world. I've gotten to connect with Kirsten Campbell over in New Zealand and Kyle Wood in Australia and all just people all over the United States, and how wonderful is it that we can get on and look at a little camera and talk real time to people. This kind of reminds me of the stories my dad used to tell us of when they wanted to schedule a call long distance with people in another state and they had to literally schedule a call and the phone operators were like pulling out the plugs and plugging them back in and all of that kind of stuff. And then also fun fact, I don't think I've talked a lot about this, but my in my phase one I had a couple of different jobs and one of them was at a company that's called Vivix and I don't know what it's called now, but it was a telecommunications company. So the literal backbone of what they did was they had fiber and it was right when all of this streaming was coming on, like this was the early 2000s and I did not get it. I did not understand what streaming was. I did not understand the whole concept of video. And here I am. Here I am Like this is what I do. I'm using the technology that this Vivix fiber backbone provided 20, almost 25 years ago. So it is super cool to not only finally understand what my company did, but also that doesn't bode well. That doesn't really sound very good for me. Like I mean, I understood what I did. Just to be very clear, I did product marketing, but that element of it I didn't get it. So anyway, it's really fun for me to be able to do that. The second thing I'm grateful for is just the guests who are able to come and share their time and their wisdom. We have had some phenomenal guests and I keep thinking that's it, that's it, like I can't get any better than this, and then it continues going strong. I just feel like, if this is the plateau, how wonderful is this? I'm so grateful for people sharing their time, coming on explaining things to us, whether it's physical health, mental health, spiritual health, a combination of all three, and it's just. You know, time is so precious. Nobody says they have too much time. If you have too much time, I'm grateful for you, and that probably means that you have intentionally taken a lot of things out of your life, but most of the time, people don't have extra time, and so for people to come on and spend an hour with me and, by extension, you, is something that I'm just really grateful for. The third thing I'm so grateful for is the personal connections that I have made with other podcasters, and two people really come to mind, but of course, this does extend so far beyond just these two, but one of them is Laurie Massacott. You met Laurie a couple times one just a couple of weeks ago when we talked about holiday stress and overwhelm and we did a co-hosting episode, which was kind of fun for me, so we took the same episode, she aired it on her show and then I put it on my show. We get together once a week and hold each other accountable to what we're doing, and it has been so life-giving because we also just kind of talk through the things that are a little challenging to us or share some things that have worked really well and we're growing together and I'm so grateful for her. And then another one is Sherri Fletcher, who is host of the your Spiritual Game Plan podcast. Now she is on a sabbatical from that podcast right now. However, she has just been so fun to connect with and again talk about some of the back-end stuff, the intricacies of doing this little podcasting thing, and I'm just so glad that I got to meet her in person in November 2019 at Kathy Lipps Leverage Conference, which is no more, but Kathy still is. So if you are a burgeoning writer or communicator, definitely listen to Kathy's Writing at the Red House podcast. But anyway, I'm just really grateful for Laurie and Sherri and, of course, there's so many other people, but those two really come to mind. Number four is for the Grace Health Plus community. Now, there was just I just released a bonus episode so you can hear what these Amy Uncut episodes are. But for me, to be able to sit down once a month and face to face again with that technology, meet some of the people who are listening, is such a gift. Podcasting is very lonely and there's a lot of things when you are on your own, like I am, that are hard to figure out. You don't know. You don't know if it's landing. I'm sitting here like y'all. I'm sitting here with a mic four inches from my mouth and I have four pillows surrounding my monitor plus what's called a pop filter. It's a real small one, but that's like you know. There's like little foamy things with the triangles. I kind of like the things that we would put on our bed. I mean, anyway, I've got all of this set up because I'm in the middle of recording the audiobook for your core strength, for this book that I've written for Teen Girls, and where did I go with that? Oh, it's just like it's lonely, like it's like it's like it's lonely. This is what I'm looking at right now, and so it's so fun for me to see the ears and the eyes and the heart behind where these words are going, whether it's a solo episode like this or if it's one with a guest. So I am so grateful for them sharing not only their time, but their investment. It's $6 a month, but I also know that, boy, things are so expensive right now. I mean, I just went to the grocery store and about fell over. Things are so expensive, and so I do not take $6 a month lightly and I'm thankful for that and I'm thankful for them, and I'm thankful when I get to meet people. So, by the way, if you missed that bonus episode and you wanna learn more, go back and listen to it, because the other thing I announced on it is when you are a Grace Health Plus subscriber for November 2023, december, january and February 2024, then when your core strength comes out, I will be sending you a personalized, signed copy of your core strength. So that is something that I am excited to be able to do with the Grace Health Plus community. The fourth thing is something that no one is probably gonna get, but I love it so, so, so much. I have to mention it. Now. If you are a podcaster, you may have heard about this, but there is a new we'll just call it integration, a web-based system actually is a better way of saying it called Descript. Now, descript is an editing software that is online. They recently purchased Squadcast, which is a provider where I can this is where I do my interviews, so I had been using another one previously and that was great, but when this came out together, I can now record with the video and edit it so quickly. It has so many features, and then I can take the video with the transcript that Descript creates and I can make additional content. So this, in the world that I'm in, is called repurposing your content. If you follow me on Instagram at Grace Health, you may have seen some of these videos, and so this is where you can see me and you can see my guest and you can see the transcript, and this is all thanks to Descript. It has saved me hours. It is wonderful and do not tell them this, but I would gladly pay twice as much because it has saved me that much money and I'm so grateful for Descript. So, unless you are a podcaster, you're like I have no idea what you're talking about. But I have a lot of people come to me asking about how to do a podcast and this is what I'm telling them now you have to get Descript. So that is something that I am grateful for in this Grace Health space. Another thing I'm grateful for is just the personalized outreach or touchpoints that I get from many of you. So those are the replies when I send out an email or send out my monthly journals, which this week or this month is twice a month. I might continue it. So far it's been good feedback. We'll just see. I'm grateful for those. I'm grateful for DMs, just these little personal touchpoints, because again, this is a lonely thing. I have no idea if what I am saying is landing. So if you get my emails on Tuesday mornings of just the sneak peek of what the episode is about and, by the way, I will put in the show notes how you can do that or how you can get that if you want it but just hitting reply and saying, liked, this episode or this one really missed the mark. I'm fine with that kind of feedback too. That's good for me to hear as well. But all of those little touchpoints it's really nice because again, it's like you're just standing here and you don't know who's listening, who's not. It's hard to know. So those are the kinds of things, too, that I'm grateful for. And finally, yes, you, you I am so grateful for. Thank you for tuning in, thank you for trusting me. I try very hard to invite guests on who are like-minded in at least one of our six statement of values. If you're not familiar with those statement of values, you can definitely go back and listen. It's in episode 12 and I'll put the link in the show notes, but from a very, very high level, which you know brevity is not my strong suit. It is our statement of values here our knowledge, discernment, diversity, encouragement, faith and grace. So not every guest is in all six of those categories, but they are at least in one and I hope they serve you. I hope you are learning from them in one of those values, in one of those ways or more often, and I'm so thankful that you are tuning in. I'm extra grateful here's a little bonus one. I'm grateful when people share these episodes, or just the podcast in general, online on social media, on Facebook, on Instagram, wherever it is. That's another thing that I'm grateful for. But I just wanna thank you. I wanna thank you for tuning in. This is going to be a short episode because I know that you've got a lot going on and I hope that you are like making pecan pie while you're listening to me or just getting that stuffing with extra better, because this is a wonderful week full of nourishment and yes, of nutrients and gratitude and family. I know it can be complicated for some of us and some of us are dealing with the first, but maybe the first holiday after losing a loved one. If that's you, I'm with you, I see you, I hear you. I feel that hurting heart. That is also right there with the anticipation of being with family. So I know this is not always a super cherry, happy, shiny time for everybody, but I do hope that you can hear the gratefulness and my heart, my appreciation for you, and I'm just looking forward to continuing and learning and growing and doing that with you. Thanks for tuning in everyone. Happy Thanksgiving.