Ep. 531 - Unveiling Our 2023 Podcast Stats and What's Next in 2024!

Welcome to the All Around Growth Podcast, where I'm your host, Rob Kaiser, inviting you on a journey through life at York Meadow Farm.  Join me each week as we explore seven core topics – Financial, Physical, Personal Development, Family, Spiritual, Social, and Career. 

In Episode 531, our final episode of 2023, we reflect on our journey and break down the year's highlights in our exclusive "Backtrack Breakdown."  Dive into the stats, explore our global reach, and discover the staying power of our top episodes, including a surprise gem from 2021. 

In our last episode, we delved into "Financial Fortitude" with special guest and Patreon supporter, Sean, sharing practical strategies for effective financial management.  If you missed it, catch up now: Ep. 530 - Financial Fortitude: Navigating Wealth Wisdom with Sean. 

But today is all about celebrating you, our incredible community. As a Buzzsprout "Weekly Warrior" with 76 episodes in 2023, we'll take a deep dive into our growth stats, global impact, and a sneak peek at what's in store for 2024.   

Thank you for being a part of this journey!  Whether you tune in during work or just for fun, your support means the world.  As we wrap up 2023, let's reflect on where we started back on September 30, 2020, and look forward to an exciting Season 5 in 2024. 

Join us for this "Backtrack Breakdown" on New Year's Eve – the perfect way to kick off a year of growth, reflection, and new beginnings.   

Stay tuned, stay awesome, and here's to All Around Growth! 🌿🎙️✨

~

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~

Discussion Links:

Ep. 234 - Start a Fire

Episode 1 - An Introduction to the All Around Growth Podcast

Rudder of the Day - PDF Download - Official Site Dan Miller

Self Authoring - What is Self Authoring?

The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale

The Old Farmer's Almanac - Weather, Gardening, Full Moon ...

Ep. 486 - The "Me-Centered" Society 

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Transcript

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If we stand together, we'll never fall.

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We can make a deal.

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Well, hi there and welcome back to another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. My name is Rob Kaiser and I am your host. This is a show where you join me on my journey through life here on the homestead at York Meadow Farm. And on this weekly show, we rotate through one of seven core topics that comprise our lives: financial, physical, personal development, family, spiritual, social, and career. And I mentioned that for anybody who's new to the show who hasn't listened before and isn't sure what they're getting into. And I mentioned that because today is episode 531 of the show. It is the last episode of the 200, 2023 year. The 2023 year. It's the last episode. Now, in the previous episode of the show, episode 530, which was released publicly today, that was titled Financial Fortitude: Navigating Wealth Wisdom with Sean. We embarked on a fascinating exploration of financial wisdom with special guest and Patreon supporter, Sean. Now, Patreon supporters get early access to the show. That was delivered last week on Patreon for everybody there, delivered publicly today. And it's a great way to support the show, get early access on certain things, and exclusive access to other things. So if you want to check it out, then I would definitely encourage you to do so and consider supporting the show at patreon.com slash allaroundgrowth. Now in that episode, Sean shared practical strategies for effective financial management, emphasizing the importance of clear objectives and simple goals like debt reduction and saving three months of expenses. I responded to Sean's insights and together we took a dive into the world of financial management and I offered some what I believe are valuable perspectives on setting and achieving financial goals. So if you missed that episode, you can catch up to it in the show notes, which I will link to below, and you can get your weekly dose of insightful wisdom through the link in the show notes. Now, normally we would continue on through the rotation of show topics based on those seven key areas that make up our lives. But for today's show, the last day of the year, we are going to do what's called a backtrack breakdown episode for the 2023 year and what a year it's been for our podcast community. I want to share the highlights with you because the show is what it is because of your support and engagement. So, first of all, this backtrack breakdown is calculated based on the number of downloads in the first seven days for each episode in 2023. Now there are a couple of exceptions, like the top episodes and total downloads, which take into consideration any and all episodes from any year. And this is a feature that is specific to BuzzSprout, the podcast host that I use. And if you're interested in starting a podcast or you've toyed around with the idea, I would definitely consider Buzz Sprout. I've used several different podcast hosts in the past, and Buzz Sprout, in my humble opinion, is the easiest to use, and I would consider checking it out. I will link to Buzz Sprout in the show notes as well. If you want to use it, please use the link in the show notes. It helps me, it'll help you, and we can help each other, and that's part of what this show is all about. Now, in terms of the number of episodes that we churned out this year, Buzz Sprout classifies the All Around Growth Podcast as a weekly warrior with somewhere between 41 and 78 episodes. Now, I was a little bit towards the top of that tier, and um had I done three additional episodes, I would have been a podcast pro with publishing more than 79 episodes, but alas, I remain a weekly warrior publishing between 41 and 78 episodes. Now we'll go ahead and talk about how the show performed and grew in 2023 and also some of the changes that have taken place since its inception in 2020. And because we are not included in the top 50% of all Buzz Sprout podcasts, we are going to look at our growth statistics by comparing the total downloads in 2023 to 2022. Now the breakdown also dives into our global reach and it highlights the top cities and countries of audience members who have downloaded the show. We've got categories like world famous, globetrotter, jet setter, or local legend based on the number of countries that we've reached, and 84% of the downloads took place right here in the United States, so that lists us as a jet setter. Now, our top episodes were ranked by total downloads in 2023, and it's kind of fascinating to see that our number one episode, our top standout episode, was actually published way before 2023, and it was an episode titled 234 or episode number 234 titled Start a Fire, and that was an episode that was released on November 24th, 2021. So even though the year isn't officially over, and there might be more data coming in over the next week or so, for now, this is the information that we're going with. So let's go ahead and take a look at the statistics. Like I said, we've got 76 episodes that lists us as a weekly warrior, which is an average of about 1.46 episodes per week. And as I previously said, most of the episode downloads take place here in the United States. And if you're curious about what city the majority of these downloads came from, we've got more than 560 downloads from Castleton on Hudson in New York. And if you're not sure where that is, like me, it is a small city just south of Albany in eastern New York, right on the Hudson River. So big shout out to the mystery listener in Castleton on Hudson in New York. I appreciate all of the downloads and all of the love that you provided to the show. We've got all the other notable cities like Cleveland, Ohio, Lakewood, Ohio, Brunswick, Ohio, and Akron, Ohio, which may or may not include the Medina area of Brunswick and Akron. I'm not entirely sure. But for this year, with us coming in as a jet setter, we've got 33 different countries that have downloaded the show. And like I said, most of those downloads took place here in the United States. We've got listeners in Germany, Canada, India, and the UK. So big shout out to all the fans in Germany, Canada, India, and the UK. Thank you for tuning into the show. And it's interesting because I'm not really sure if this is where people actually are in terms of cities or countries, or you know, because if you're using a VPN, the data that might come in might be skewed, but it doesn't matter. That's just a little bit of insight onto or into who's listening from where and how. And um, we there are other statistics that you can look at in BuzzSprout. Um, like for example, most people that are listening to the show are listening to the show from Apple Podcasts, at least according to the last 10 episodes. 45% of people are listening to Apple Podcasts. And actually, let's go ahead and look at all episodes. 48% or almost half of the listeners are listening through Apple Podcasts. We've got six percent of people listening through the web browser, which is basically from the links that I share, another five percent through Pandora, five percent through Podcast Addict, and four percent through Apple iTunes. Now, how does that compare to the last 10 episodes? We've got 45% through Apple Podcasts, 8% through Fountain, so big shout out to all the fountain users out there. If you're not familiar with Fountain as a podcast player, I will link to that in the show notes so you can check that out and get down with cryptocurrency in your podcast player. 7% use the web browser, 7% use pocket casts, and another 7% use Spotify. So again, BuzzSprout gives you the ability as a podcast host to get your show out there and available on all podcast players simply and easily. So if you're interested in starting a show, check out BuzzSprout, use the link in the show notes, and just get going, just get started. We're gonna take a look at how I got started with all of this in just a minute, and we'll reflect back on the early days of the show and where we're going. But the bottom line is I can't thank you guys enough for being part of this journey over the years. So whether you turn tune in to the show while you're at work or just for fun, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, your support means the world to me. Uh, we are going to dig in to the show and look back at the past before we discuss what the future has in store. So let's do exactly that. In the past, the very first episode of the show was recorded and released on September 30th of 2020. And that was episode number one, an introduction to the all-around growth podcast. It was just a brief uh three uh four-minute episode, four minutes and forty-six seconds to be specific. And it was a show where I outlined what my goals and objectives were with the show at that time. And looking back, I'm pleased to say that at the end of 2023, more than three years after the introduction was recorded, I think we are still holding true to the goals and objectives that were outlined in that introductory episode, which I will link to in the show notes, so you can check that out. Initially, as we began, I was going on audience feedback specifically for the first 10 episodes. And but before I get into the show and how it's changed over the years, I just want to mention that September or you know, September 30th, 2020 was six months or so after the whole COVID scene in that year. Everyone was freaking out, everyone was uh very concerned about uh the the current state of affairs in the United States, in the world, and um I personally didn't know what to make of it. Uh, there had been a lot on my mind, and I had done some previous experimenting with podcasting in the past. Previously, I recorded a 10-episode series of the All Around Growth Podcast, and it was kind of an experiment to see if that was something that I wanted to do. I started with the beginning, outlined that I was going to do 10 episodes, see what happened, see where it led, and after 10 episodes, I was going to take it from there and see what I wanted to do with it. Well, at that time I didn't do anything with it, and I let the domain name allaroundgrowth.com expire, and I kind of put the podcast on hold for the time being and focused on other life things like getting out of debt, excuse me, and paying off, you know, bills and saving money, basically doing everything that we talked about in last week's episode 530, which was titled Financial Fortitude, and I implemented a lot of that wisdom, and the feedback that I provided to Sean's comments was exactly what I was doing in the years 2017, 2018, and 2019. I was getting ready to make a change in my life. Now, during the year 2020, as everyone's freaking out, I began to realize that I needed to make this change, and I needed to do it now. This was the time to make the change, and basically this show that's been taking place over the past few years is the documentation of the changes that I began to take action on in my life. So, from the very first episode, the introduction, we had 10 episodes which were audience feedback episodes, and then we began to dip into different topics, and a lot of these topics back in the days, in the early days, came from uh one of several books that I would refer to and reference to get different um show ideas, anything from morning routine to uh and just just random topics like checking in on goals and kombucha and firesider, journaling, writing, and writing your autobiography through something called uh the self-authoring program. And that is uh something that I did, and a lot of this I have not stayed consistent with, but um the show is something that I've stayed consistent with, and we'll get into some of the changes that are coming up sooner. Uh early on in the show, we referenced The Strangest Secret in the World by Earl Nightingale with for the first time in episode 49, and that has been a consistent part of the show as well. There were a lot of episodes about health and wellness and finance and epilepsy and you know books that I've read, procrastination, goals, and in early 2021, that's where I started reading on a regular basis from a book titled The Rudder of the Day by Dan Miller, along with another book called 365 Dao, written by Deng Ming Dao. And these were shows that were just taking place on my drive to work. Uh I would read a little bit and I would talk a little bit, and on average they went for 17 to 20 minutes. Um that continued for the remainder of 2021, and those shows were taking place on a daily basis during the week. And that's when I was kind of finding my voice. Okay. There were a lot of shows that that took place on varying topics. Towards the end of 2021, I began my journey with functional nutrition and spent some time talking about that. In October of 2021, we did a breakdown of who's listening and where from. We started looking at some of the statistics of the show and continued talking about all kinds of things and um you know setting goals, and and it was late 2021, just about a year after the show's inception, where we first outlined the goal setting workbook. And we did seven different shows, eight different shows actually, on setting goals. An introduction and the financial component of it. Then we talked about physical goals in the next show. The next show we talked about personal development, the next show we talked about family, the next show we talked about spiritual, the next social, the next career, and then finally we concluded that little series of goal setting in the seven different aspects of life, and we have continued to make that an integral part of the show, and as you could hear from the introduction of today's show, that is still what we do to this day. As we ended the year in 2021, we began to get a little bit more spiritual with the show with some episodes titled Divine Discontent. And we continued talking about functional medicine, we continued talking about different topics that would come up. You know, topics like blockchain and cryptocurrency and homestead updates and life transitions and what is a homestead and how to homestead and why homestead, with a topic largely focused on freedom. There was an episode in early 2022 where we talked about scaling up fermented food production, and that was when I first began entertaining the idea of working full-time with dad. We had other topics like email clients, and we were using topics from the old farmer's almanac with topics like daffodils, maple sugaring, stargazing, and more. Um, cone flowers, gardening by the moon, asparagus, and building soil, uh, the worm moon, full moon in March. And so we had a lot of common themes in 2022. Themes from the rudder of the day, themes from 365 DAO, themes from um the old farmer's almanac. And maybe these are some things that I can and should revisit in the future because those were those were fun times. Uh it was a lot of experimenting with the show. We also did trending Twitter Tuesdays, where in episode number 335, we talked about Elon Musk acquiring Twitter. That has since happened, and Twitter, now called X, has taken a turn in a different direction, and in my opinion, it is a turn in a better direction. And I've always enjoyed using Twitter, even though there was a period of time. For many years, where I was not actively involved on Twitter and I was a more active Facebook user, I'm not really sure what one would consider active, but I try to stay involved on social media because that's where people are. And even though I'm not big on social media engagement and nor do I do it consistently, it is something that I do because it's important to meet people where they are. As 2022 continued, there were more episodes from trending Twitter Tuesday topics. And guys, if if you're listening to this, I would encourage you to leave comments wherever you find the show, whether it's on Facebook, in the Facebook group, on Telegram, which you can be a part of at t.me slash allaroundgrowth, or even via email at allaroundgrowth at gmail.com. If there is something that you liked in the past and you want to see more of it, then let me know. Because right now, your feedback, just like we started, is what and how the show is moving forward. We are taking it in the direction where you want it to go. And patreon.com slash all around growth is the way, the best way at this time, where we can take the show in the direction that you want to go. Your support is giving me the opportunity to not only bring the show to you as it is right now, but moving forward as we hit more subscribers, we will continue to grow the show and bring back live streaming and do some new things with the show, which will include improved audio quality, along with some additional changes that I will discuss here in a couple of minutes. So let me know your feedback on the show to date and let me know what you liked, what you didn't like, and what you'd like to see. And also if you'd like to contribute to the show and help support the show financially, there are some different ways to do that on patreon.com slash allaroundgrowth. As we went and moved towards the end of 2022, there was a lot of different updates about the August newsletter, things from York Meadow Farm, circling back to the rudder of the day, uh 365 Dow, and the old farmer's almanac. And that's basically what the 2022 year looked like. Lots of updates about the farmer's market, lots of updates about um the developments on the homestead, the website, selling online, sauerkraut, fermented foods, all of that. We had some other episodes on um, you know, fellowship, rotating through these seven topics, uh, how to get involved with your community, streaming the show. We started in the late mid-400s with episode number 448 titled Streaming the Show. Um in October of 2022, I joined TikTok for a short-lived period of time. Um we also had some episodes with interviews where Cody Gray, our tenant farmer, was interviewed on the show. And we just had a number of different shows for that year. Again, largely involving goals, the homestead, you know, different topics like how to get paid to walk in the woods and travel, um, other interviews with my brother, and revisiting interviews with my mom and dad. And all in all, in 2022, we had 230 episodes that year, which was a significant bump up from 180 episodes in 2021, and we had 74 episodes in 2020. Just over the course of three months, we had 74 episodes. Now moving into 2023, you know, we and also in 20 late 2022, we went from delivering the show on a daily basis to a weekly basis. And the reality was I found myself struggling a little bit with the direction of the show, where it was going, why I was doing this, and a lot of it had to do with a book that I was reading, and the book was titled The Fourth Industrial Revolution, and that was a book by Klaus Schwab. And in that book, he wrote about the me-centered society, and there's a quote from that book that reads as follows From a broad societal standpoint, one of the greatest and most observable effects of digitization is the emergence of the me-centered society, a process of individuation and emergence of new forms of belonging in community. Contrary to the past, the notion of belonging to a community today is more defined by personal projects and individual values and interests rather than by space, the local community, work, and family. And I read that and I realized that what I was doing with this podcast project was exactly what Klaus Schwab talked about in the book titled The Fourth Industrial Revolution. And that made me think a lot about what I was doing and why I was doing it, and I wasn't I I felt very conflicted. So in order to wrap my head around this a little bit, I started doing podcasts on a weekly basis as I tried to get more involved in not only my local community, but just tried to have more engagement with the online community that formed as a result of this show. Now, there was a big gap in the show from episode number 499 to episode number 500. 499 was recorded and released on March 21st, 2023, and episode number 500, titled Get to Work, was recorded and released on May 29th, 2023. Over two months went by without any kind of recording, any kind of podcast or anything with regard to the All Around Growth podcast. And it was during that time where my dad was diagnosed with cancer and passed away, and I spent all of my time working with my mom and my siblings as his caretaker. Everything with regard to the show took a back seat, and I didn't even think twice about it. Um I regret nothing from that time, and it was also at that time where the live streaming of the show that was taking place stopped. So during the months of June, July, August, September, and for the rest of the year, we returned to the show, rotating through the seven topics as we know it today. And also for the month of September, we did the Strangest Secret Challenge, where an episode of the recording of The Strangest Secret was released on a daily basis every day, and the idea was to listen to that and begin the repattering of your mind. And I will link to the video of the Strangest Secret Challenge in the show notes so you can revisit that again and make that part of your daily routine. There was also conversation and dialogue about events that were planned and events that took place, like uh events like the Medina County Freedom Cell Network meet and greet. We did an event in November, and we did another one in December, and that was great. There are also updates on the December meet and greet or the December meetup, but that is a Patreon only exclusive interview, and there are a number of other things available on Patreon for members only. So, what we're going to do moving forward, and over the past few weeks, we've we've we've covered and continued on the trajectory of updates and episodes of the show in each of those seven areas financial, physical, personal development, family, spiritual, social, and career. And over the past few months, every single topic was driven by the audience and led by the audience and specifically and recently through Patreon. Okay, so if you want to be, like I said, I'm not gonna you know hammer this home any more than I've already done, but if you want to support the show, you want to participate in the show, please consider joining the Patreon page at all aroundgrowth. or patreon.com slash allaroundgrowth, and you will have the opportunity to connect deeper on a much greater level than we normally would otherwise in the Telegram group at t.me slash allaroundgrowth. But it is Telegram where we are most active with the tight knit community that has formed. We yes, we are on Twitter or X, yes, we are on Facebook, and yes, we are on Instagram. But the community that makes it what it is is on Telegram. So if you're not on Telegram, please consider joining Telegram in addition to Patreon at t.me slash allaround growth and be part of the show. You will get exposed to a lot of great people there, and I can't recommend it enough. I consider the people who engage on Telegram the most friends of mine. And yes, I've met many of them in person and have spent time with them in person. The ones that I haven't met in person, I've talked to on the phone, I've had Zoom calls with you guys, you know, Patreon supporters like Sean, Rachel, Brian, Kiriaki, Wayne, all of you guys make this happen, and other people in the Telegram group, I'm incredibly grateful for you guys being part of my life and supporting the show and making it what it is. So as we wrap up the 2023 year and kind of look back at where we came from, um, the top five episodes being 234, Start of Fire, Episode 499, the last one prior to the two-month gap, the fear of financial insecurity that comes in at episode number two, episode number 497 from boomers to zoomers, discussion on different communication styles between generations. Episode 507 comes in at number four from Trials to Triumph, rebranding, regeneration, and goal setting for personal growth, personal and business growth, and 508 coming in at number five, escaping negative influences. Four of the top five episodes come from this year. Something is changing in the show this year. Okay, so and the reason 234 Start of Fire is the number one episode is because of where it was shared and who shared it. It was shared within the 48 Days Eagles community online, and a lot of fans and a lot of people from Dan Miller's community, the 48 Days community, listened to that episode and really launched that up there. But the rest of the episodes have been driven by our audience and the people who have shared the show. So the remaining top four episodes of all time come from this year. And we've got almost 7,000 downloads this year in 33 countries, 76 episodes from this year, resulting in 3,251 minutes. So, yes, we have 76 episodes this year, 230 from last year, 2022, 180 from 2021, and 74 episodes that first year in 2020. What I plan on doing is listing the 2020 episodes as season one. Season two will be 2021 episodes, season three will be 2022 episodes, and this year, 2023, will be the fourth season of the show. So this episode, number 531, the bre the backtrack breakdown, will be the last episode of season four, and in 2024, we will begin the show with season five. So, what can you expect in season five? You can expect live streaming to take place at some point in the show. You can also expect guest appearances from someone who I've known for many years, someone who I have a deep amount of respect for, and someone who I'm trying to help springboard his own podcast project, and there will be more on that later. I'm standing by for some information from him, so if you're listening out there, I need some files from you, my friend, and we need to have some additional correspondence about how we will be moving forward with these guest appearances and the series that is going to take place. So, what we're going to do is we're going to have the All Around Growth Podcast continue as it always has, but we will have a breakout series that will be listed as bonus episodes for the remainder of season five. It's going to be exciting. We've got a lot in store, and there's a lot going on with the homestead as well. 2024 is going to be an exciting year. There's a lot in store in terms of the podcast and how that's going to change. There's a lot in store with regard to the homestead and how that's going to change. There's a lot in store for my own personal life and how that's going to continue to change. But nevertheless, no matter what changes in store and how it goes down, I look forward to sharing it here with you. Because again, if it wasn't for you guys supporting me the way that you do, and the way that you always have, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing the way that I'm doing it. So again, check out patreon.com slash allaroundgrowth if you want to support the show even more than you already do. And if you want to engage even further with the show, then check out the telegram group at t.me slash all around growth. I look forward to connecting with you there. I hope that you have a wonderful new year. I hope that you had a Merry Christmas, and I very much look forward to catching you in 2024. God bless everyone. This is Rob Kaiser, and thank you.