Title:
Alycia Anderson Closing the Year with Joy, Grace, and Holiday Intention

Subtitle:
From Struggles to Strength: A Christmas Season of Reflection and Renewal

Transcript:

Alycia Anderson: Welcome to Pushing Forward with Alycia, a podcast that gives disability a voice. Each week we will explore topics like confidence, ambition, resilience, and finding success against all odds. We are creating a collective community that believes that all things are possible for all people. Open hearts, clear paths.

Let’s go.

Welcome back to Pushing Forward with Alycia. It’s Alycia. This is officially our last episode of this year, and I’m sitting around in my house. I’m not actually sitting around. I’m preparing for the holidays because I’ve got a lot of action that’s about to take place in my house. And today I just felt like coming on and sharing a little holiday joy with my community in reflection of gratitude for such an incredible year.

And honestly, the last two and a half years since we’ve been doing this podcast it’s not often I come on this podcast by myself to just talk to you. But I was cozy today making cookies, getting ready for the holidays, and I just felt it in my heart to strip everything away and come on and just share some space during the holidays with my amazing, dedicated, lovely, smart, passionate community that we have created together on this show. It’s been two and a half years since we started this podcast. And when we started this podcast, I had hired a marketing company to help me launch it and get it all organized. ’cause I had no idea, like zero, how to have a podcast, how to speak on a podcast show, how to be a host, all the things.

And in the beginning I would sit on here and challenge myself to do exactly this, what I’m doing right now. And I hated it. I had no idea how to just come on and talk to you. And I always felt like I needed somebody else to help me fill space. And over time I’m just have gotten so comfortable and cozy in this community, and I’m hoping that that’s the way that you all feel too.

That this podcast, the reason why I continue to do it over and over every single week is because it brings me so much joy in the community. And knowing that each of you are there and that there’s something about this podcast that you take away with you and it helps you in some way. Maybe it’s helping you figure out how to navigate something or use your voice, or maybe it just makes you smile or gives you a little laugh or encourages you to connect with one of the guests, or who knows.

But all of those things collectively have been such a big deal for me personally too. And two and a half years later, I’m such a different person, a different woman, a different advocate, a different disabled person than I was when we started this podcast together. So for that, I’m so incredibly grateful.

I have learned so much from every single person that has graced this show with their presence. I have learned so much from the guest. And all of their greatness and their knowledge and their expertise and just feeling like I’m not alone in this path has been absolutely incredible and has really given me the confidence to level up more than I probably ever would.

So I’m so grateful for that, and a s I’m like sitting around today getting ready for the holidays, like the holidays are a big deal in my house. I’m gonna say the Busciglio House, Busciglio is my maiden name before I married Marty and we’re having a Busciglio family Christmas this year. My brother Nicholas and his family are coming from Columbia. They live there.

My sister Corinna and her family are coming from Phoenix. My twin sister Regina, is coming from Petaluma and we’re filling the house up with Busciglios, and we do that every other year to make sure that we’re in community with family too. Christmas time, specifically the holiday season has always been a really special time, not only in my family, but in Marty’s family too, and the traditions and the cookies and the Christmas letters and the community and the food and the pasta and just all the things that we do, I’m sure that many of us do in our own way during the holiday season. It really gives us this state of grace, Marty’s mom used to call it, where we’re celebrating our family and we’re celebrating slowing down, and we’re celebrating love and we’re celebrating calm and warmth and sparkle and lights, and the beauty of what the holiday season brings, which I think ultimately is just reflection and gratitude. Reflection in the path that the last year and beyond has gifted us. Whether it’s been hard or easy or happy or sad, or all of the things.

And this year for me has been so hard. This year for me, I cried a lot. I was worried a lot. I didn’t know if my business would survive. We started off this year witha lot of new things going on in, in our country and the effects of it were astronomical for my business from a diversity perspective, from the advocacy that we’re doing.

And, we’ve been in business doing this about five years, and the first four years it was just, I don’t wanna say smooth sailing, but peaceful and I had a lot of space to create and be who I am and be invited in. And this year, right out of the gate, the door was slammed in our face pretty heavily.

And I had to find a way to pivot and navigate and change and grow and create new products and say yes to certain things, say no to other things. Find space for me to have some solace and mental health breaks because, when my business was challenged this year, I was really, really afraid and I was crying a lot.

And I didn’t know if I was gonna be able to make it, honestly. But in all of the struggles of that came, creativity came more time with my family. Came, closeness with my husband came me figuring out who I am as an advocate because all of a sudden it didn’t feel safe to show up for a minute as who I am because the world was telling me it was bad or it was wrong, or it’s not right, or people don’t receive this anymore, that it was a seasonal thing.

And so it took a long time for me to wipe away my tears. And I didn’t talk about that a lot this year, but I would say for the first six to eight months of this year, I was highly stressed. And the hustle was real to make ends meet. But I think that’s entrepreneurial life. And sometimes you have good years and sometimes you had bad years.

And when I ran into the challenges of this year specifically, I had to put my foot on the gas or my hand on the hand control pedal harder and faster than I had before to make sure that I was gonna close enough partnerships and bring in enough money for the business to survive and for Marty and I to continue to do the work that we’re doing, and it gave me a new appreciation of the advocacy. It gave me a new pride in the title of being an advocate because the reality is the work that I am doing is only to help. It’s only to create opportunities for other people and for myself. It’s to show up in a way that I feel that we deserve as disabled people in this one life we’re given.

It’s to share the heart of inclusion with the world in finding our shared humanity. And when it was ripped away from me or could have been ripped away from me if I let it it that gave me an opportunity to have a new appreciation for the next booking I received. Because I was afraid I would never have another one to be honest.

Diversity and inclusion and equity and disability and our differences is not something that we need to run away from or hide. It’s something that we need to realize is just a part of who we are. It’s a beautiful part of who we are as a community and in humanity, and we need to be proud of it, and I am proud of it and I’m really, really proud of the work that we accomplished this year.

But it required a fight, a harder fight than I had yet, and it’s not over. But there’s a new appreciation. There’s a new ownership to advocacy. There’s a bigger, I don’t know if it’s passion, but there’s a much bigger pressing feeling that I have that I need to be going harder and stronger and deeper and longer and farther, for my community and for Marty, and for me, and for my nieces and nephews, and for my family and for the world.

And that’s what I intend to do. And. The year is ending in community. The year is ending in 10 plus bookings already and being invited back in and feeling like our community as a whole in humanity, in this country actually really does want to come back together. We miss each other. And so I’m really excited about that.

But in this whole navigation of these challenges that I personally have been having this year, has come a lot of beauty and a lot of purpose and a lot of gratitude, which I’m really, really, really grateful for, and this podcast specifically has helped me every week find a space of power. And so hopefully it does that for you too, because I could be having a bad week behind the scenes.

Scared about something. Not sure if money’s gonna come in. Don’t know if I’m gonna do well on stage. All the things that, you know, Marty and I are struggling with, or, you know, managing employees or whatever we’re doing, stressed. And then I come on the podcast and I meet somebody incredible. I create new friends.

I become motivated by their stories and the things that they’ve accomplished, and I believe more in myself. And so hopefully this podcast is helping you all do that. And it’s a, it’s a gift for you too. But it’s been a real one for me. And so I’m in reflection of that today as I sit here in front of my Christmas tree.

I want to wish everybody Merry Christmas. A happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanza. A happy. Holiday, a happy whatever it is that you all celebrate too. And I want you to know that whoever you are and whatever makes you who you are is so lovely and it’s so perfect and it’s so powerful and it’s so beautiful.

And next year is a year, 2026 is a year of lifting that stuff up again and leveraging it as an asset that you can rise, that you can embrace yourself, that you can elevate who you are, that you can empower yourself and empower others that you can own it. I mean, one of the greatest things that came outta this year is my Own It speech and it’s selling all over the place already and it’s a love letter to myself, to Alycia of 2025 going into 2026, about where I’ve come from, where I’ve been. I’m strong now and I always thought I was pretty strong, but I’m really, really strong. I’m physically strong. I’m mentally strong. I’m emotionally strong right now, and I’m so grateful that I’m ending a year of uncertainty with a feeling of power, with a feeling of owning my space and every layer of what makes me who I am so I can hopefully gifted off into the world next year again, and on stages, in new ways, on pages in digital assets, in all kinds of things, in my relationships. I want next year to be full of power and love and owning who you are. I guess I just wanted to come on and say that today and tell you Merry Christmas.

I hope each of you are gonna have a wonderful holiday whatever you celebrate with your families. It’s one of the most special times, and I look back at christmases from long ago when my parents were alive and my grandparents were alive and the house was full of Italians and we were eating pasta and opening presents and making so many Italian Christmas cookies that they covered an entire long dinner table.

And just being with my family, and it’s been so long since I’ve had one of those moments with my family, with my entire family, so enjoy that. I miss my dad so much, and before he passed away, he passed away suddenly. So it wasn’t expected or anything, but a year or two before he passed away, he said to me one time we, he loved to cook and we were cooking in the kitchen and he said, I just received a scholarship for a master’s degree and was receiving all these amazing accolades and awards that I had no idea even what they really even meant back then.

And he was so proud of me in this moment to receive these things. And he would say to me, Alycia, you’re really turning into an interesting person. I wonder what’s gonna happen.

Uh, the holidays are a funny time ’cause you’re. So happy and so sad, but he would be blown away. He would be blown away with the things that Marty and I have created and the stages that I’ve been on, and the companies that I’ve worked with, and the people that I’ve met, and the people that I’ve helped.

And I’m really proud of that and I wish he could see it just for even one day.

So, sorry, um, hug your dad’s tight. Enjoy your grandparents and your moms, and your dads, and your sisters and your siblings, and your family and your friends. Be in community. Find the heart of inclusion around your tables, and believe in yourself.

I carry that into the next year because believing in yourself is the most powerful thing that you can do. It’s the biggest Christmas or holiday gift you could give yourself is the gift of belief that you can make anything happen if you try and I know, ’cause that’s what I did. So thank you to every single solitary person that shows up for me.

I hope that you see that I’m showing up for you too, because I want to and I want to be as present as I possibly can, and I’m grateful. I’m so grateful for you to share your time with me and for you to send me the messages that you do and just being in community with you allows me to be strong and find paths I probably wouldn’t otherwise.

So I’m so grateful to this pushing forward community. I’m so grateful to my husband Marty, who does not get near the amount of credit and limelight that he should get for the amount of work that he does puts into this, this business. We would not be here without him. There’s just no way. He’s so smart, he’s so loving, and he protects me everywhere we go. I would never be doing this without him. It just wouldn’t be fun. Let alone it would be really hard and technically impossible. Um, so thank you Marty, for being the best partner I could ever have. I love you so much. And I’m grateful to everybody. Please show up next year on this show. Let’s find a way to take the show to the stars. Help me. We have done so many incredible things and have had groundbreaking, unbelievable historical guests on the show that are so impressive. Help me elevate the show even bigger than it is.

Let’s get it to place where we’re winning awards and we’re on big stages and we are sharing the story of disability so much farther than we could have ever dreamed. Help me. Share this podcast. Have your families click the download button over, over the holidays, share it. Show people what we’re doing because once they see it and they hear it, they love it.

I wanna grow next year. I want this to be our gift to the world, our gift of disability inclusion and the heart of inclusion to the world.

So my pushing forward moment, sorry, I was planning on being so upbeat and I just got really emotional, but I think it’s just the time of the year. So I am so grateful. I love you. I love each and every single one of you who shows up for the show. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you from the bottom of Marty’s heart.

We are so grateful and indebted. You have given us the biggest gift of belief in what we’re doing, and without that, there’s just no way we could be doing it for sure.

So believe in yourself next year. That’s my pushing forward moment. My pushing forward moment is even when nobody else in the entire world believes in you, as long as you do, literally anything is possible, if you try. And you will find something on the other end of that trying, that will change and affect your life in some way.

And that’s how you grow. So the gift of belief is what I wanna give to this pushing forward community for a holiday gift from Marty and Milo and I.

I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful holiday. Please rest, be warm, be happy, be in love, and we will see you in 2026, and we are gonna start this year off with all of those things.

Excitement, love, belief, possibility, and owning your space so you can grow and rise to wherever your heart desires. So I believe in you. You believe in you too. Thank you for another wonderful year. And I will see you next year.

This has been pushing forward with Alycia, Marty, Milo, Brandon, my entire team.

We are so grateful for you and pushing forward is how we roll on this podcast. We will see you in 2026.