Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast. I'm your host, tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life, that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting, while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries podcast.

Today is the Only Child Diaries 100th episode Yay, congratulations to us. And today I'm going to share with you some of my gratitude, first of all, and also some of the information, the stats about where my listeners are it's very interesting and also some other notes on things that I think you'll enjoy, so stay tuned. First of all, I want to thank everyone who has listened to any of the past episodes anyone who's listening today, this week that the episode comes out, and also anyone who's listening in the future you, my listeners. It was also created as a way to share my experience over the years, to entertain you, of course, but also, hopefully, to help you on your own personal journey, and I hope that I've accomplished both of those things in these 100 episodes. It's quite a milestone for me. I've worked diligently and I've only missed one of these weeks when well, when I lost my horse, dallas.

When I started out, I wasn't sure if I could do everything myself. It's a daunting task to learn how to do all the technical stuff yourself and, I admit, the part that I was most concerned about was the editing. But well, the editing has been a little bit easier than I thought it would be. Actually, I'm not going to say that I enjoy it fully, but it's not as bad as I thought, and I do enjoy putting together a good show and as good quality of a show as I can, and so the editing is a part of that as well. When I started out, I really tried to make each show technically better than the last, and I think I did that better than the last, and I think I did that. But this past March, when we suddenly lost our horse, dallas, got to be a lot more challenging for me because my processes that I would make really copious notes on what I was going to say, then I would record the episode and then I would go over it through the editing process with a fine tooth comb, and this wasn't something that I really wanted to dwell on. I really couldn't dwell on it because my heart was broken into a million pieces, and it still is, but I'm able to carry on and manage a lot better than I was in the beginning. So those episodes where I talk about my grief, I know are pretty raw and I think, even though they're hard, if not almost impossible, for me to listen to at this point, I think they serve a purpose for other people who might be grieving and other people who might be experiencing a loss either now or in the future. Either now or in the future, there's a lot of different aspects of my life that regular listeners have experienced with me the joys and the sorrows. But let's get to some of the stats Now, as the Only Child Diaries has expanded.

As I reported a long time ago, we had listeners on every continent, but now we do have listeners in 32 different countries, which is exciting. Of course, most listeners are in the United States. That's no surprise there, right? Because I'm in the United States and my Facebook page and the Instagram probably mostly target people in the United States. The second most popular country where listeners are is Mexico, believe it or not, and after that it's Germany and the Netherlands and then Australia, but we also have listeners in and I'm going to read the list to you because I think it's so interesting the United Kingdom, india, canada, the Philippines, new Zealand, ireland, spain, portugal, indonesia, ethiopia, zambia, belgium, iran, nigeria, aruba, zimbabwe, malawi and Guyana, and that's quite a list and I'm very proud and I want to thank everyone who's listened across the world to the Only Child Diaries.

Now, in terms of cities, even though the countries the number of countries hasn't grown exponentially, shall we say, the number of cities within those countries does grow on a consistent basis, and right now, as of today, we have 447 total cities where listeners have come from, and it's really fascinating to look at the list. Now, no, I'm not going to read the whole list to you, but suffice it to say that the majority again of the listeners are in Los Angeles. They're in the Los Angeles area, but that only accounts for 14% of the total listeners, so the rest of them are spread out throughout the world. I sat down one day and I started listing out all the United States, each state in the United States plus Washington DC, and I went through the list to see how many of the states are represented in this list of cities, and we haven't captured all the states yet, but we've done pretty well. Every state plus Washington DC is represented, except for three, and that would be Alaska, mississippi and North Dakota. So, as I had said previously, I think the last time I did this we were at the 50th episode and we had about I think it was six or seven states that were still outstanding. So I'm going to say it again If you know someone who lives in Alaska, mississippi or North Dakota, please tell them about the Only Child Diaries, because it would be so wonderful to have listeners in every of the 50 states. I think that'd be really exciting. I talked a little bit about this last week, about where I'm going to go with the next hundred episodes of the Only Child Diaries.

You know, I started doing this podcast because I had a lot of free time on my hands. I did I had a lot of free time. It was almost two years ago and I wanted to do something where I could have a voice in the world and share my journey with other people, but also try to use some of my comedy, some of my sense of humor, to help entertain people. My comedy, some of my sense of humor to help entertain people, and I hope I've done that. I hope I've been able to take everyday occurrences, everyday stories and turn them around and make them somewhat interesting. People are still listening every week, so I hope that that's the case.

I've had different ideas. At one point when I was a teenager I wanted to write a book about all the famous only children and kind of share how normal they all were, because people were always telling me how weird only children were. Right, and I wanted to show the success of only children because I mean, do I have a chip on my shoulder as an only child? Maybe a little bit, maybe a little chip, but I think the stigma of being an only child is maybe diminishing a little bit. I mean, can you call me an only child when I'm the age that I am, which I'm not going to share right now? But I mean I am an only child, I was an only child, I'm an only child adult, that's what it is. So I wanted to kind of share about that when I was growing up. But as an Aries I have a lot of ideas and sometimes I have more ideas than I have the time and the strength to do or to accomplish, but I was thinking about trying to interview more only children on the podcast and, as I shared last week, interviewing.

I guess maybe because I don't have a system, or maybe I'm just too detailed or too much of a perfectionist, but interviewing takes a lot more work than just sitting here with my microphone and my computer and my software program and creating a podcast episode. Interviewing to make it more enjoyable to listen to takes a lot more editing and then we're back to the editing thing, which is not my most favorite part. Another thing that I've learned about interviewing is that it's not easy. I look at people that have done it. I look at other podcasts, I look at people that I've known in the past very much in the past, let's say who have been interviewers or are interviewers, and I realized that it's really a talent to learn about the person in advance, come up with some questions.

You have to be prepared to interview somebody. I mean you can't really just do it by the seat of your pants, because you kind of have to know where you're going with it, right, you kind of have to know what the direction is, because otherwise you could just, you know, sit around and talk forever and then you'd have hours and hours. I mean maybe that's not a bad thing, but you'd have hours and hours of stuff to edit and well that I mean that would be a bad thing for me, but you need to have some direction. And when I look at people that do interviews on TV, I mean they have a very specific timeframe. Maybe they have five minutes or they have seven minutes or something, and it's. It is really a learned skill. So, anyway, I digress, but you have to be really prepared, and I don't have as much free time as I used to. I have a lot of jobs. I'm going to leave it at that. I won't tell you how many I have right now, because you'll think I'm crazy, but I do. Won't tell you how many I have right now because you'll think I'm crazy, but I do. I'm working a lot more now, which is a good thing for me and I'm happy about it and I feel productive, but I'm trying to figure out my schedule and I'm trying to figure out how to just balance everything right.

I posed this question about interviewing and managing an interviewee on one of the podcast Facebook groups that I'm on and I thought I'd get you know. I don't know, if you're on Facebook, if you ever pose a question to a group and you kind of have an expectation that you're going to get a positive response or you're going to get, you know, you're going to get people that are going to be like, oh well, yeah, that's the issue. Or, oh, this is what I do, oh, yeah, and they're going to be supportive, right, and they're going to give you very clear tips on what works for them. Well, so I tips on what works for them. Well, so I, I posed this question on a Facebook group about podcasting interviews, about how to well, basically, how to stop people from talking on an interview, because even in pre-interviews that was that was a an issue for me and they're like, well, you're running the interview, just just stop them. Well, okay, you know.

And several people just came at me like I thought, well, I thought this was supposed to be a supportive group, first of all and second of all, sorry I asked, but, but like many things in this world and like this life, you know, you know, don't take it personally. Try to learn from the experience and try to listen to the advice. Right Back to my original comment, I've learned that interviewing is really a skill that's learned. I don't think it's something that you're born with. When I was doing my stand-up comedy, I took a class one of the comedy venues. They kept doing these classes for comedians and one of the classes was how to be a good host, like host a show, and I took that. But what I realized is that people can give you tips, people can give you advice, but when it has to do with dealing with other people or dealing with managing people with other people, or dealing with managing people really, you can't really learn how to do it until you actually do it. So anyway, long story short. Sorry about that long story short.

I am going to try to do some more interviews this year and I've got one coming up with a with a woman. Her name is Leslie. I talked about this last week but I didn't name her Leslie. Hello, I know you're listening. Leslie reached out to me, I'm embarrassed to say, months ago and I was so busy I didn't mean for that much time to go by, but it did and she was very patient and diligent with me and we finally talked. I think we got along really well. And she's another only child, adult, and so you'll be hearing from her soon, as soon as we can kind of schedule a time and and then I can edit it. And you know, and and again, there's all sorts of people that have have approached me about offering their editing services. But it's something that I do enjoy, I enjoy, I enjoy, I enjoy. I feel like I should be doing this myself. So it'll take some time but it'll get there.

But I want to just circle back to the Only Child Diaries and I want to thank everybody again for listening. I want to share that. I really do appreciate your support. I want to suggest that if anybody out there does have any ideas for topics that you'd like to hear, I'm very open to your suggestions. All you have to do is post on social media or you can shoot me an email at onlychilddiaries at gmailcom. Yes, my email is onlychilddiaries at gmailcom. Always welcome your suggestions, topics, anything. You can write a review on Apple Podcasts, always welcome that.

And again, I think that the idea that there are listeners really throughout the world listening to the Only Child Diaries goes along with my philosophy that, as we're here in this country and in other countries, wherever we live, we're really more alike than we think we are and we all share some of the same hopes and dreams and motivations and, you know, everybody wants to experience happiness and joy and live a good life and we all have some of the same issues with our families and challenges daily challenges. So I think that from my travels across the world, that's what I found and that's what I try to live every day is that, even though the world is a pretty big place, it's pretty. I found, and that's what I try to live every day, is that even though the world is a pretty big place, it's pretty small too. So I'll leave you with that. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening and here's to another 100 episodes of the Only Child Diaries.

Next week, we'll tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on and consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page Only Child Diaries or Facebook Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Wallace and these are the Only Child Diaries.