2025 Reflections and 2026 Launching in the Empty Nest - E118

Clancy Denton (00:06)
Hey guys, welcome back to the Loud Quiet. This is our last episode. We're recording this in 2025, but it will come to you on the first day of 2026. Happy New Year.

Rick Denton (00:20)
How many of y'all are feeling good today and how many of y'all are not feeling so good?

Clancy Denton (00:24)
You know, that's what the week between Christmas and New Year's is like. I saw someone this week say that just needs to be called Merry Couchmas because no one knows what day it is. You're still probably eating and drinking like it's every day is a weekend.

Rick Denton (00:39)
I'm wearing a pair of jeans today that are my normal jeans that are the ones that are, yeah, they're not the balloon jeans, but they're not necessarily the skin tights. Well, they're the skin tights right now. I'm carrying a little holiday weight.

Clancy Denton (00:53)
skinny jeans are making a comeback, think. So maybe those can just be, look like skinny jeans.

Rick Denton (01:00)
Are they considered skinny jeans when perhaps what's inside them?

Clancy Denton (01:03)
I say all shapes and sizes were wearing skinny jeans when skinny jeans were the thing. we'll just call it that. So yes, so we do. We that y'all have had a great holiday season. I have already taken Christmas decor down. I saw something again this morning. Someone said on the 25th, you're all, oh, it's so pretty on the 26th. You walk by and you're like, oh, gross.

Rick Denton (01:12)
Yeah

And that's where you and I are not fully aligned in that I love the light staying up and I love the tree staying up. However, I do have to say, I kind of like the closure of putting it away. I just, I miss the tree right now.

Clancy Denton (01:47)
It

never used to be that way. We always kept it up until New Year's Day and even after, but now I just, I know that we have other things going on and so I don't want that hanging over my, our heads. So yes, it is all, almost all put away. There are a few stragglers that need to find new homes, but yes, it's

Rick Denton (02:12)
That's what this couch miss period. It's also a period like where people, you look back on the year before, you look forward to the year coming up. And I know that's what we've been spending our own time talking about and thought, yeah, let's do that today.

Clancy Denton (02:26)
Yeah, we thought we'd just do a loud, quiet, wrapped, if you will.

Rick Denton (02:31)
⁓ no.

Clancy Denton (02:34)
I'm sure everyone did their Spotify rap if you're a Spotify person.

Rick Denton (02:39)
my gosh, we could have a total side conversation about people that were so embarrassed about what Spotify number one was.

Clancy Denton (02:45)
That and now I've seen so many other companies jumping on the wrapped bandwagon

Rick Denton (02:50)
This year seemed like, this felt like the bandwagon year and there've been some classic really failures at that rap. There've been, it's fun. I think it's a little more fun when you just do it yourself.

Clancy Denton (03:02)
and we were very happy with our, because you get one for your podcast as well. And so that was exciting to see our numbers and the growth. we started it off in January that we went to,

a conference called PodFest, which neither you or I had ever been to, even though you had had another podcast for a while, I had never even heard of it. Yeah. And so we decided we got a couple of free tickets from a company that we work with and we were like, okay, let's do it. You know, we had just started our podcast in August the year before. So, and I've talked about this, I felt a imposter syndrome going.

Rick Denton (03:24)
This is the first year I'd heard of it.

Clancy Denton (03:46)
But my gosh, that conference was really the kickstart of what we have known this to become now. mean, we started this podcast, as many of you know, just basically a way for us to stay connected. We thought some people will probably listen and tune in, but we just- Family. Yeah, we just did not realize

Rick Denton (04:11)
We have friends in-

Clancy Denton (04:14)
when we would share what our podcast was about at PodFest, the reactions that we got of, my gosh, this is great. This is a group that tends to be overlooked. And so we really started grinding this year and turning this into more than just an episode that you and I put out each week.

Rick Denton (04:43)
There's a professionalism and I hate to use that term, but there's a discipline. ⁓ that's the word that I want to use. There's a discipline that we've introduced. What hasn't been lost though is, and I think this is one thing that Potters is really good about, what hasn't been lost through this whole year is it's still a conversation between you and me. Now we've added some elements to it. At its core though, it's you and me still figuring this out.

Clancy Denton (05:09)
together.

Yes, and bringing in topics that we hope are reaching our community.

Rick Denton (05:18)
And that community that you're mentioning, Clancy, I think that's the part that has blown me away is we have seen a 500 % growth in listeners. I have trouble comprehending those numbers and that's y'all. Thank you. It's not what we're doing. It's what y'all are doing that makes that number what it is.

It reinforces what we were told at PodFest, sure, you're looking at somebody at a podcasting conference, they're not gonna look you in the eye and go, wow, that idea sucked. And so this,

Clancy Denton (05:55)
They might after you walk away. ⁓

Rick Denton (05:57)
I'm

going to pull the Costanza and leave a cassette deck. It's a taping them as we walk away. So that growth is, purely through the listeners. It's certainly, it helps kind of validate what we're doing. That's not the objective. We don't do this for the downloads, but it does. It'd be so foolish and naive for somebody to go, I don't care about that. Of course I do. It makes me feel good, but that's not the motivation, but it feels great to know that there are more people listening.

Clancy Denton (06:26)
I think it's given us a shift in that something that we were doing for each other, we now really want to do this for y'all and for the people that you know that you have shared our podcast with.

And one way we have tried to add in some newer things this year, we've added guests and we've handpicked these guests because they deal with themes that we think our audience and we are interested in and we are y'all, y'all are us. are warm. You're clear of us right now? I know, yes. Cytotic. I know.

Rick Denton (07:05)
my gosh, are you doing-

We're

not going to go there, but we'll start watching Playrobust.

Clancy Denton (07:13)
But yes, so, you know, I really think that the guests that we have had on have added some value to our podcast and the episodes that they are on. And I hope that y'all have gotten as much out of those episodes as we have when we are doing those.

Rick Denton (07:30)
What I'm noticing is those are the ones that are getting shared and thank you all for sharing them and that's what I'm I'm feeling is that there's a lot more of that sort of Sharing this and to what you just said there Guess only get to make it on the show if we think we can learn from them Because like you said we are empty nesters. We're trying to learn and I think when we Learn from them. We know our audience is learning as well

Clancy Denton (07:57)
And we have some really good ones lined up for January and February. So stay tuned.

Rick Denton (08:03)
Y'all gonna love, especially the next two that we know about.

Clancy Denton (08:06)
So yes, we do take a lot of ideas and sometimes we put out questions to our community group. ⁓ And so we have seen a huge amount of growth in our group and also our page, which again, thank you all so much for sharing those with other people, friends you know.

Rick Denton (08:30)
Hey, let's stop down for a second though and explain what each of those are, because those are terms that are familiar to us. The page is the loud quiet page, it's just a business page. It's a place that you can follow and keep up to date with everything with the loud quiet. The group is where relationships are being built, where the community is being built of empty nesters. And so that's a membership group. You have to click the button to be allowed into the group, but it allows us to have our own space.

to be able to talk amongst each other and share ideas and help each other out. So group and page, different purposes.

Clancy Denton (09:03)
Yeah, and for those of you who are on our group, please, if you have a question that you want to post to the group, if you have ideas of, you know, things that you would like for us to talk about, please, either you can direct message us or you can post to the group. We will see the post and then put it up. But yes, please feel free to contribute. You guys have already been contributing so much and

You know, some of those have gotten shout outs on our episodes and we really do appreciate it. If you are listening to this and you don't know where to find us, if you go to the loud quiet.com and hit community button at the top, that will give you the link to our community group.

Rick Denton (09:47)
That community has seen incredible growth and incredible engagement. And that's one of the many reasons that I know I'm really excited about 2026. This is not only a time to look backwards, it's a time to look forwards. And we're not gonna talk about last, a couple of years ago, micro improvements or resolutions, none of that.

This is about what we see happening in this year. And one thing that we've talked about already on here is the book. I am so excited that by the time this airs, we're not talking about months away. We are likely talking about weeks away from the launch of that book. And so much of that is inspired by the podcast. It's inspired by the conversations inside of the community, inside of...

just life that has lived in this empty nest stage. And we're just so excited about it. mean, I had someone come up to me and call me an author, right? You and I have had the experience of being, you know, the authors are doing, well, that's exciting. And so that is something that obviously we're really excited about, but it's only exciting to us to the extent that we think that is something that is going to be helpful and valuable to those of you out there.

And if you want to get kind of those advanced little teases about it, some pre-release information, some bonuses, that too is at theloudquiet.com. You have to sign up, but we've already started to trickle out some early information about the book and we'll continue to trickle out things like maybe a full chapter or what is inside the book even before it gets released. And that'll only be available to the newsletter folks. And that is just...

I wish I had better words and sounded a lot more intelligent than I do right now. I'm just really excited.

Clancy Denton (11:44)
Well, that is in vogue while calling yourself an author and not speaking intelligently.

Rick Denton (11:50)
can write intelligently, but I can't. ⁓

Clancy Denton (11:55)
it was a little jarring when someone did refer to us as authors and then I was like, well, yes, we are now and we are going back to PodFest in just a couple of weeks. And this year we are actually on a panel speaking about turning your podcast into a book. you know, from the first year that I felt like a complete

I don't know that I'm really supposed to be here to now we have been asked to guest on a panel. mean, so many things have happened this year. It's just crazy.

Rick Denton (12:31)
explore that for a little bit because you've mentioned the imposter syndrome and a lot of it was because we went there under the guise of going there for the business podcast that I CX Passport, and it was the amplification of all of the feedback that made us realize that loud quiet needs to stand certainly equal with and perhaps even launching beyond CX Passport. You came out of there feeling less of an imposter, but talk to me about what you're really feeling about the fact that

It's not that you're not an imposter anymore. People are going to be sitting in a room because you have something important and intelligent to say. How does that make you feel?

Clancy Denton (13:15)
don't know that I have something intelligent to say. I can be entertaining. We'll say that.

Rick Denton (13:22)
Well, sign up for the panel. ⁓

Clancy Denton (13:25)
I mean, we are going to be sharing our experiences, which I love to talk about that. You know, this is not something that I am a expert on, but I have been through this process now for the past year. So there are things that I wish we would have done that we didn't, that those kinds of things I would love to share with the people that are gonna be there listening.

the thing I do love about this conference is that it mixes people that have been doing it for 20 years, people that have not even started theirs yet. And so it's just nice that on this time I will really be able to have some experience under my belt and, and tell people, you know, with a little more authority, what I've learned about podcasting.

and then also writing a book.

Rick Denton (14:16)
It's going to be interesting to be the ones on stage. There's so much that is like this year is going to be, how would I describe 25 was a year of almost an awakening.

Clancy Denton (14:29)
25 was the year of the shutting is what. What? Yes, the Chinese Zodiac, it's the year of the shutting. And then this year is, I believe the year of the awakening. think that's, I do think that that maybe you saw that somewhere. No. I think that is, it's either awakening, restoration. I think it's that kind of last year you were supposed to shed the things that weren't serving you anymore, whether it be people, jobs.

What?

Rick Denton (15:00)
Glad we did an episode about great of oars. Okay.

Clancy Denton (15:03)
Well, I wasn't referring to you. You're still here. You have two more days. Anyways, so yes, I do think that the year of 2026 is supposed to be kind of a year of rebirth, awakening, that kind of thing.

Rick Denton (15:06)
Well, so are you!

Okay. So no, I definitely did not hear that before because I was just, I was thinking of it more in the sense of, awaking in the sense of we became aware of what this could be and we poured some foundations, built relationships. have a community that's pouring into us. That's it's feeding us and feeding each other ideas around this. 26 feels like the launching, like it feels like There's so much that is going to happen that we know is going to happen.

this year beyond the launch that is exceptionally exciting.

Clancy Denton (15:59)
We have a lot of things on our virtual vision board that we're very happy to bring to y'all next year. And you know, when you're talking about that, yeah, we added, we really did add a lot of people to our lives this year that, you know, have really changed the trajectory of our, not only our podcast, but our own lives.

Rick Denton (16:24)
Yeah,

and there's a massive outpouring and feeling of appreciation and thank you for those people, many of whom will be in the acknowledgments in the book itself,

along with many others who have just been instrumental in helping us not survive the empty nest, but thrive in the empty nest.

Clancy Denton (16:45)
And you know, again, you guys are a huge part of that thriving in this stage of life. You know, we are just so thrilled with the community that we're starting to build and we just appreciate you guys so much and

We hope that you all are having a great New Year's Day and thanks for listening to another episode of The Loud Quiet.