Best of 2024 and A Look Ahead for 2025 on Spirit of an Athlete Podcast

In Episode 45 of "Spirit of an Athlete," Amanda Smith celebrates the podcast with 2024's stats, top 5 episodes and exciting plans for 2025. She discusses impressive listener statistics, top episodes featuring inspiring guests like Stasia Rivera and Dr. Laurel Mines, and her personal favorite moments. Amanda also teases new content and visual upgrades for the upcoming year. Listeners are encouraged to stay engaged and share their feedback. Additionally, Amanda promotes her Gutsy Chick Quiz and health services, inviting listeners to explore more at bodywhisperhealing.com. Get ready for an even more dynamic 2025!

In this Episode:  

• (00:03:25)  Discussion of the podcast's audience across four continents and 17 countries, highlighting popular cities.
• (00:04:46)  Amanda reflects on having 41 guests in 2024, including doctors, Olympians, professional athletes, and notable personalities.
• Stasia Rivera (00:05:38) Amanda discusses her conversation about coaching Gen Z and Gen Alpha athletes with Stasia Rivera.
• (00:06:50) Amanda talks about her episode with Dr. Laurel Mines, focusing on the mental aspects of athlete healing.
• (00:08:12) Discussion on Lisa Richer's insights regarding gymnastics and the evolution of mental health in the sport.
• (00:09:51)  Amanda shares key takeaways from her episode with Olympic Coach Shawnee Harle about navigating emotional challenges in sports.
• (00:11:32)  Amanda highlights her conversation with Alissa Alter on pelvic floor health and its importance for athletes.
• (00:12:51) Amanda outlines her goals for 2025, including episode release schedules and visual upgrades for the podcast.
• (00:14:18) Amanda expresses gratitude to her audience and encourages feedback and suggestions for future episodes.

Watch Spirit of an Athlete on YouTube!

Check out more from Amanda:
Website: Body Whisper Healing
Instagram: @Amanda.G.Smith
Facebook: Body Whisper Healing
Pinterest: AmandaGSmithBWH
LinkedIn: Amanda (Ritchie) Smith

Take the Gutsy Chick Quiz to find out how your athletic mindset might be holding you back from healing your chronic health issue: https://gutsychickquiz.com

Transcript

0:19

Welcome to episode 45 of spirit of an athlete. I'm your host Amanda Smith, creator of the Gutsy Chick quiz at Gutsy Chick Quiz. Com. If you are a female athlete who has some crazy, mysterious health chronic health condition, go check out this quiz. It's fast, it's fun, and it will help you better understand how your mindset as an athlete might have helped you there, but is holding you back from healing. On this episode, I am covering the best of 2024 and giving you a peek into 2025. Are you ready? First off, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It started January 23rd, 2024, and to date we have obviously 45 episodes and we plan to continue into 2025, releasing one episode every Thursday. That's the plan. Let's hope it sticks. Here are some of my favorite stats from 2025. As of the recording of this episode, we have 716 listens downloads on all major podcast platforms on YouTube. We have getting my stats up in front of my face 1066 downloads. YouTube apparently is winning. That's a total of 1782 views, downloads, listens, whatever you want to call those things that we do in this podcasting world. So thank you. Because of you, I am going to continue creating episodes for spirit of an athlete, because these numbers continue to prove to me that you guys like what I'm doing, and I would love it if you would go. Let me know that a couple of different ways. Check out my social media and let me know you like the episode by liking the post or making a comment on the episode that you really like and what you liked on that episode, you could just simply say hi. There's also this cool new feature where you can message me and I will be able to chat back with you about the episode that you were watching, something that you liked about it, something you didn't like about it. Totally up to you how you want to interact with me, but man, it would be cool if you let me know the likes. Let me know that what I'm putting out there is what you want to hear, the views and the downloads. Just let me know that you saw it or you heard it. So let me know what you like. Here are some other really cool numbers. We reached four continents and 17 countries. I think that's pretty cool. We had guests from the United States, from Australia, from Canada, from the United Kingdom, from New Zealand. And guess what? Those are the countries where people showed up. I also had viewers in Pakistan and Switzerland and oh, I'd have to look it up. But several other countries, 17 of them to be exact. Some of the most popular cities. Well, I'm not shocked about this, but right here in Colorado, we have Denver, Highlands Ranch and Littleton in the top five. Those are all right here near me, which is so cool because that means I probably know who you are. And then the other ones that are coming up are Gainsville, Virginia and Vernon, Connecticut. And I have a feeling I know who you are also. So that's pretty cool. Through the guests that I had over 2024, I did four episodes that were me, which means I had 41 guests over 2024. We had several doctors, a couple of Olympians, several college athletes. A couple of my clients. Some amazing people doing amazing things with the people that they're helping. And I want to highlight the top five episodes. Are you ready? Episode number five on this list is Stasia Rivera. Stasia and I talked about Gen Z and Gen Alpha and how they need to be coached as athletes. What I loved about this episode in particular was that we talked about how this generation wants to know why they have to think differently, because they've got all of the information at their fingertips in the form of a smartphone, and they can go look up information. They want to know why. Why are you asking me to run laps? Why are you having me do these ladders? Why? So coaches get on board with answering why and go check out this episode if you want to know more of why that is. From Stasia Rivera. She gives some phenomenal examples, and she talks about Maslow's hierarchy and how this is flipped for this generation or these two generations and probably beyond. Instead of food, water and shelter being their primary concerns, they have flipped it upside down and they just want to know why. This episode. With Stasia is episode number 32. Number four on Most Viewed Downloaded listen to is episode number two with doctor Laurel mines. Doctor Laurel mines is a physical therapist who realized in her practice that she can't just focus on the physical. She has to help the athletes tackle the mental or they will not complete their healing process. This is something her and I deeply believe. We know across the board, the only way for someone to complete their healing is to understand it physically, mentally, emotionally, and maybe even spiritually. Doctor Laurel and I talked about equipment and how this could be holding back your athletes ability to believe in themselves, which is important when you're first starting to learn. And then we also talked about how she helps her athletes through her mindset pillars. Go check out episode number two with doctor Laurel means to see what she shared. I also had a breakthrough in doctor Laurel Mason's episode that has helped me. That episode aired on February 8th. We recorded it not long before that, so it's been a year of me having no knee pain because of the breakthrough that she helped me with on that episode. Go check it out. Okay. Number three on Most Viewed watched downloaded is Lisa Richer. Lisa was part of team USA gymnastics back in the 80s and the 90s. This is when I watch gymnastics the most. Uh, Dawes I can't think of her first name was a huge name in USA gymnastics at the time. On this episode, we talked about how gymnastics needed to change. And if you've paid any attention to what's been going on in gymnastics, particularly the last Olympics and the age of those Olympians versus the age of the Olympians back in the 80s and 90s, that was a topic we discussed. We also talked about mindset. This particular episode, I love, love the name of this episode on all the major podcasting platforms. Prioritizing mental health and inclusivity is the new face of gymnastics. Yeah, that gives you a really good idea of what we talked about. Number two on the most viewed, most watched, most all the things is Shaunie Harley. Coach Shaunie is the Canadian Olympic basketball assistant coach. She was the coach for an Olympic team. What I love about Shaunie is that she gives you quips and phrases that are sticky, and you'll remember them, and they will help you right away. In this particular episode, we talked about emotional storms. As an athlete, we have to be able to navigate emotional storms quickly, and teaching how to navigate them is what she covers in this episode. I plan on having Coach Hali back in 2025 so that we can go over her favorite letter F. You'll learn more in 2025. Stay tuned. All right. The number one most viewed, most watched, most downloaded episode on spirit of an athlete is episode number 35 with Alyssa Alter. Elissa cracked me up to say the least. Alyssa is a comedian, a professional ballerina, as well as a pelvic floor health specialist. We talked about the pelvic floor. We talked about how the pelvic floor is structured and how to make it work for you as an athlete, and why it's important that it should function properly for you as an athlete as well as a human. We talked about, um, how we talked about vaginas people, and it was hilarious. And I can't wait to have Alyssa back for a Valentine's Day episode this year. We will be talking more about the pelvic floor, diving deeper into this topic, and why it's so unbelievably important for athletes to really understand this part of their anatomy and normalizing it. That was a big part of the episode in 2024, but it'll be an even bigger part in 2025. Ah. Which brings me to 2025. I'm planning to continue the same process that I did this last year, where we release one episode every Thursday on Tuesdays in my social media. I'm going to throw back to an episode from 2024 that's relevant to the episode that's coming out in 2025. It can prep you for the episode coming. One of my favorite indulgences for 2025 is I'm hoping I can upgrade the visual. So if you've been watching on YouTube, which most of you have, a little over half of you have, you'll get to see a different background. Don't get me wrong, I love the background of what you guys have been seeing me in, because it's very relevant to who I am, what I'm about. But in 2025, I'm hoping to have a real background instead of a green screen background. We'll see how that turns out. I know my editing team is excited for that because it's one less step they have to do. To my guests, to the 41 of you, thank you so unbelievably much for showing up, for sharing, for being a part of spirit of an athlete in big and small ways. I appreciate everything that you did to help me share the show, as well as share your knowledge and your gifts to the world. To those of you who have been listening or are just starting to listen now, thank you. Without you, I would not continue what I'm doing. I would really love it if you told me how much you like it, what you like and who you'd like me to have on the show and all of those cool things. So show up in the in the comments, whether that's YouTube or the podcasting tool you listen to me from show Up, let me know. Thank you again for listening to this episode and all the episodes from 2024. Thanks for listening to spirit of an athlete podcast. If you're struggling with your own gut issues and want more direction, you can get an initial body scan from Amanda at Body Member healing.com. In 20 minutes, you can find out what's wrong with your clarity map to fast forward and get on track to get back in your game. If this episode hits the spot, please let us know by rating, reviewing, and sharing it with a friend. Subscribe now to hear more inspiring stories from other female college athletes who overcame their fitness. Want more Amanda? Get inspired by finding more at Body Whisper healing.com.