Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
This is what the world needs now: two free-thinking “seasoned” Black women speaking their truth and inspiring others to do the same. Shaped by 45 years of friendship that began at the prestigious Brooklyn Technical High School through the Ivy League, medical school, marriages, divorces, triumphs, parenting queer children, life-threatening illness and many many amazing adventures. Each week, besties Leslie Osei-Tutu and Angella Fraser will push against boundaries in love, culture, careers, faith, politics and out-dated assumptions about women of a certain age. Remember, you’re never too old to change your mind…or your hair! (but more on that later :-)All views are our own and do not reflect the views of our institution/company. Information provided is not intended to serve as medical advice.
Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
The Surprising Benefits of Starting a Podcast or YouTube channel in Your 60s
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Starting a YouTube channel in your 60s might sound daunting, but what if it could lead to newfound freedom and self-discovery?
The Besties encourage older folks to start a podcast or YouTube like this 62 year old did
Take My Journey
Starting a YouTube Channel at 62. Am I Crazy!
https://youtu.be/-ROSryh65XE?si=QHGuKjilCB9nu55N
Here are 5 positive things The Besties’ learned:
- Things are gonna be scary until you try them
- Being bold in one area of your life will impact other areas
- It takes time and money
- It’s an opportunity to leave a legacy
- It’s a labor of love
This episode and all previous episodes are available on YouTube. Please join our Besties Quad Squad as a Patreon subscriber at the $5 or $10 monthly level. You'll receive exclusive behind-the-scenes content.
Get Angie’s eBook: We’re Too Old for This Shit! The Inquisitive Older Woman’s Guide to Joy
Visit Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn website for behind-the-scenes extras.
Hey Ange.
Speaker 2Hey, Leslie, what's cooking good looking.
Speaker 1I thought maybe the video got stuck. Like, leslie, it's all good, great. Yeah, I'm in a really good mood. I don't know why. It's kind of late, I'm after work, I'm sitting here, but I'm in a good mood, maybe because I'm here with my bestie. Welcome to another episode of Black Boomer. Besties from Brooklyn.
Speaker 2Hey folks, I'm Angella and that's my best friend of almost 50 years, leslie, intellectually curious, older Black women, and we're here to invite you to go deep with us and to go bold with us.
Speaker 1And laugh with us too.
Speaker 2And laugh with us. All the things, all the things. So we're going to be talking about starting a YouTube channel in our 60s and what happened was I saw this YouTube YouTuber take my journey. Her video was starting a YouTube channel at 62. Am I crazy? And then I was like Les, you and I, and we are in fact crazy and we're 62 and we're 62. So I was like, let's talk about it. Let's talk about our list of five things we learned by starting a YouTube channel in our 60s. So this is probably going to be a list that's different from any other list that you've heard around this, around this topic, right, and we're going to start with the first of the five things are things are going to be scary until you try them.
Speaker 2That's the first thing that I would say we learned starting this youtube channel I think so, right, I think so how many things have you, like, suffered through until you went ahead and tried it? I used to suffer through tying my shoelaces. I used to suffer through. I thought I would never learn how to tie my shoelaces when I was little really it was one of the hardest. It was the hardest things, one of the hardest things that I felt like I ever accomplished when I was a child.
Speaker 1I think mine might have been like learning to tell time.
Speaker 2Okay, that little hand.
Speaker 1The analog way, not the digital way.
Speaker 2That everybody tells time now. Yes, so it was. You know, scary is a big word, but I was intimidated at the idea of doing videos and so, when you weren't Les, is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1No, what I was going to say is, when you even introduced the idea of the podcast, I just thought you were nuts. I knew. I knew there was no way I could ever do it. You know, I said I'm not like you, I don't have the same you know personality as you. I don't think I could keep it up. There was just I just knew that I it would not be. And here we are, more than two years later, and it comes with such an a level of comfort for me, you know it's so easy to just let's record or whatever you know,
Speaker 1so, yeah, scary, which try and never let scary like stop you. I returned back to work today after a three month um time off and I was really scared. I didn't know if I knew how to do it anymore. I didn't know if I would know. You know, the medications has things in the hospital changed. All kinds of things were going through my mind. It was, you know, that, back and forth as soon as I got there I felt relaxed and at home. So it's normal to be, to have apprehension and to be nervous, but don't let that stop you.
Speaker 2That's right. That's right. That's what we learned. Don't let it stop us.
Speaker 1Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2The second thing is it turns out that when you're bold in one part of your life, it leads over into other parts of your life and you start being bold and trying new things and saying the things that need to new things and saying the things that need to be said, and doing the things that need to be done all of those things start happening. So taking a bold step in one area of your life will impact other areas of your life. That's the second thing we learned I think so too.
Speaker 1I think it may be related to this idea of plasticity. I think they call it Okay, come on, doctor, and I don't remember the exact definition of it. Maybe we'll put it in the notes, but what's in my head is that when you have facility in one area, a lot of that can carry over into other areas. For example, like now. I've always been pretty outgoing, but, knowing that I speak to the public on this YouTube channel, I talk about the channel and things more often. I'm always looking for guests for our podcast or for our YouTube channel or this, you know, and my ear is even a little bit different because I listen for different things than I used to before we had this channel.
Speaker 2So, yeah, yeah, I think that's a really big deal. I always use the analogy of a um, of a balloon right, and the more that you put air in the balloon and push against the the the edges, the more comfortable you get right. It's almost like you're expanding your area of comfort, your zone of comfort comfort, the more that you push against what you think are your barriers what you think are your boundaries right, um, and so that's something that we learned.
Speaker 2We have taken a lot of bold steps. We actually started our podcast. Only the audio portion transition two plus years I'm sorry, a year in 2022, towards October 2022. And then we decide to do the video on YouTube about a year later. So we've been doing this for a while and during that time, I would say that for both of us, we have gotten bold in other areas of our lives. I mean, we're talking about moving abroad, either part-time or full-time. We've made changes in relationships. We've made changes in how we see the world, and I think some of that is because of the way that this thing that seems so scary that we did anyway makes other things that may seem a little scary or cause some anxiety or apprehension.
Speaker 1We can try that too right, it's where.
Speaker 2How, how much do we want the joy and how much are? We willing to do to get that joy. So that's number two.
Speaker 1All right, what I would also say about that is that it has exposed us to different people and experiences that we would not have come across in our ordinary day to day. You know, certainly you know me and my work and whatever. It's pretty focused. But you know people now come to us because of our reach and propose different things and invite different. Invite us or whatever. Know your voice, I know your voice.
Speaker 2It's crazy, it's unbelievable to me your friend leslie.
Speaker 1Didn't she go to costa rica, or whatever? It's like people are actually listening to us. Here we are videotaping ourselves and the world will be looking at us so don't pick your nose.
Speaker 2Yeah, we learned that too. Don't pick your nose. Yeah, you know, I'm going to go back to maybe the first one too for a second, because we made so many mistakes. Yeah, yeah, we made and continue to.
Speaker 1It's just lesser. We're making different ones. You heard me just say did you turn on the?
Speaker 2audio recorder.
Speaker 1Because I hadn't.
Speaker 2You know. So yeah, we make different mistakes, right?
Speaker 1How many entire YouTube videos have we made and forgot to press record?
Speaker 2Listen, I'm not going to expose all of that.
Speaker 1Just know that it has happened to us multiple times, more than once.
Speaker 2But the thing is, you can still be yourself, still be clumsy, still make all your mistakes. Just because we're doing this, it doesn't mean that we figured everything out. And you don't have to have figured everything out. No, you certainly don't. You know what?
Speaker 1I mean, you've got something to share. How many steps would we ever make if we knew that we had everything figured out?
Speaker 2That's so true, so true, okay, number three it takes time and money. It does. I don't know what other people are telling you, but it takes time and it takes money. And some people think time is money. Okay, go there too. It takes time right. We have to think about what we're going to talk about, what is happening in the world, although really our conversations are an extension of what we're talking about anyway, they are yeah.
Speaker 2We still have to decide when we can both be together, when we'll have time to do a good job, what might be. You know, listen, we're here, we're talking, we're very open and honest about things, but there are aspects of our lives that we don't have to share, we don't want to share, and sometimes we have to think about that right, Because our lives and what we talk about could impact other people.
Speaker 2And sometimes it's like another person's story, not your story. You're not the primary actor in the story, you're kind of tertiary or secondary, and we have to be really mindful about how we talk about things that Leslie and I may be talking about.
Speaker 1That's what I was going to say. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2Yeah, so it does take thinking, that does take time, and we have a little team and so we have people that we pay to help us to get the podcast over to you all, and so, yeah, what did you want to add to that, liz?
Speaker 1Well, I was just going to say that, as this is really an extension of conversations that we've, that we would normally have private conversations, that we would normally have private conversations that we would normally have, we have had to get used to how we had to modify the way that we speak and things like that, knowing that the audience you know there's an audience out there that we have to be mindful of, but that takes practice it does.
Speaker 2You know we have edited names out in the past, you know. So these our kind of everyday lives, so we asked them is it okay for us to um say your name or, or say the story, or?
Speaker 1whatever.
Speaker 2So all your business in the street umari um so yeah it does, I, I, I I would say that, although some people don't put a lot of filters around what they say and I'm not saying that we put a lot of filters, but we are very mindful of how that we want to protect the people who deserve to be protected, we want to honor people's anonymity, we want to honor people's stories, and so we do have to kind of put those things into the mix as we're thinking about what to bring to your here.
Speaker 2And, yeah, you might, to do yours, you might want to hire a virtual assistant to help you.
Speaker 1I do all the thumbnails.
Speaker 2I have to learn how to do these things and it takes time and money. It just does. But it doesn't mean not to do it.
Speaker 1It takes more time than money. That's true, that's one thing, but you also, as you said, there's value, time is money and there is value to your time and really it can be as cost effective or simple or elaborate as you want. That's true, you know.
Speaker 1I mean we're pretty low end, I'd say. You know we're not very elaborate and stuff and we do a lot of the work ourselves and the rest of it we contract out. But you have to set your own vision and what feels authentic to you. We've developed our own personal style and we know what works for us our own personal style and we know what works for us and that's why it takes we do a lot of the work ourselves. We're learning a lot of things ourselves, trial by fire, and we probably could spend a little less time doing what we do. And then the money. You know we'd have to pay out more money, but I love the journey, journey you know, yeah, I love the journey.
Speaker 2It's really good. It's really good, we're happy, we're very happy with it. Okay, ready for number four.
Speaker 1Okay what's the fourth?
Speaker 2thing. We've learned that we're actually leaving a legacy. We are um showing up here as 62 yearyear-old Black women. Some people may think that we're supposed to behave a certain way, not talk about this, only talk about that. We are showing how almost 50-year friendship, what that looks like and that feels good in terms of what people will see about Leslie and I when we're no longer in the flesh right. What are we leaving as a legacy? And Leslie and I have talked about it here and off the air, about this idea of the importance of us in our elder state that we leave a legacy and that's really important to us.
Speaker 1So we've learned that this is a part of our legacy and that legacy may look like different things to different people. Of course, you know we think about estate planning and financial planning and things like that, but there's also the cultural planning and cultural legacies that you may want to leave. You know lessons that you want to partake or pass down to generations after you that may be held up now in video form. You know it used to be that we would take out the old dusty, blow off the black and white. You know pictures and try to look and say like who is this or whatever. And now you know, because times are so different, we can actually hear each other's voices and reach greater audiences. It's really like a mind mind blower.
Discovering the Joy of YouTube
Speaker 2It really is and so we think that you may have uh stories to to share and, um, you may decide what you want your legacy to be, and maybe this platform would be a good way for you to feel that you have left that. And the last one, it's a labor of love.
Speaker 1It really is.
Speaker 2We've learned that it's a labor of love because our lives get really busy. We've been doing this for quite a while now, and sometimes it's hard to carve out time again to make our schedules align to do this, and what always kind of comes back to center is we really enjoy this.
Speaker 1We really do and, like you said, ang, you know sometimes just sitting here takes, you know, some effort to clear our schedules and merge our calendars and things like that, but once we get here it's like the light bulb goes on. Yes, Showtime. Cha-cha, but you know, it's like once we're here, we feel that comfort and we know and hear I'm talking to my bestie. We say almost 50 years, but in all honesty, this year is going to be 48 years. Wow, 48 years. We met in 1977. 77. Yeah, we were 14, 15.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah so we enjoy it.
Speaker 1It is a labor of love.
Speaker 2It's a labor of love and we love hearing from you. We love hearing your comments, we love that you find inspiration. We love that you laugh with us us. Sometimes I feel like I laugh too much, but leslie is just, it's like she's a straight man. She sets me up, but she sets me up so that I cackle like a fool and she's like calm, you know just, and I'm cracking up and sometimes she actually says to me what are you laughing at? What are you laughing?
Speaker 1at what are you?
Speaker 2talking about? What am I laughing?
Speaker 1at that's like before. Why did you not think that an alarm clock was the solution to my problem? It would could have been so simple. West clocks 999 here. I had to take a three-month sabbatical to solve my inner problem, oh my gosh, hilarious, hilarious.
Speaker 2Anyway, this is just a quick one. We wanted to encourage you, you, with these five things that we've learned in getting out there being living out loud, sharing our stories, sharing our joys and frustrations and the things that make us really angry, the things that give us life. All of that is a labor of love and we're so happy that we began this journey together and I want to say can.
Speaker 1I say a couple of love and we're so happy that we began this journey together and I want to say, can I say a couple things about the video itself, because I had some thoughts about her video and we will put the link um in our um.
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely, yeah, we'll. We'll give you the link, but I don't even remember her name. But she started the YouTube at 62. The way that she started speaking. There's many things that I like about it and liked about her. I subscribed to her channel. Oh, you're my kind of lady.
Speaker 1So, one thing that I thought was a little odd at 62, and I'm like I'm 62, but she gave the impression she felt like 62 was so old and in this day and age she could literally live another 40 years. I mean, sam President Carter just passed away at age 100 and he was born in 1924. So if you were born in the 1960s and boomers like we are, you could live to 105 years old.
Speaker 2That means we could live another 40 years.
Speaker 1This is the young old. So when she says you know I'm starting at 62, it's like, are you kidding me? Whereas you know I'm starting at 62. It's like, are you kidding me? There's so many things that can begin at 62 because you have, you may have, the beauty, the benefit of longevity that's one thing.
Speaker 1Right. The other thing that she seemed a little surprised that her husband and daughter, I believe. It was got on board with her and we don't realize that so often we are the ones that put the brakes on our dreams when we don't mention it to people that we care about. Our loved ones want to see us thrive.
Speaker 2They want to see us be happy.
Speaker 1So, whereas you know your inner Judge, Judy, you know we judge ourselves so harshly, but we don't even know how your loved ones will react, because we often don't speak about it. So, she was somewhat surprised when her idea was embraced by her family. Yeah, be bold, step out, speak about it, that's right.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's right, and if they're not on board, to hell with them.
Speaker 1But don't assume that they won't be. The other thing that I think is so appealing is that she didn't seem like she had a ready script available much like our conversations, you know, we may have a general idea, but we really don't follow a script and some of the things you say, angela, I'm like what the heck and that's okay and that's okay, but I love that she was natural and she said I am going to use this channel to speak about the things that I care about.
Speaker 1Right, very good, and, incidentally, with over 109,000 views other people seem to care about that too, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely, you know so it doesn't, as we were saying, views. Other people seem to care about that too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, you know so it doesn't.
Speaker 1As we were saying, it doesn't have to be very complicated. You can speak about the things that you love, and people may want to hear about those things. Yeah, so true.
Speaker 2So she said she had been thinking about that I think she said for 10 years or a number of years, planning to do this, and I think that's it's somewhat sad that she spent so. We spend so much time prepping for something instead of jumping in in. Well, some people are like that, though some people need to.
Start YouTube Channel Any Age
Speaker 1You know, we look at the preparation like it's gonna be too cold. It's gonna be too cold, you dip your foot in. It's like in a minute, not bad, or it could be ice cold or it could be, but you don't know you don't know.
Speaker 2You know that part that, yeah. How would you know?
Speaker 1yes, unless you try, and that'll tell you that was part of my impetus to go into medical school at 36 years old. I said this is something that I've wanted to do all of my life and if I don't try, even if the chances are good that if that you fail, more people don't get into medical school, obviously, than get into medical school, I said, even if I don't make it, I need to know that I tried and I need to set a legacy that leslie is someone that tries hard things.
Speaker 2so I love the fact that, even if it took her a number of years, yeah, she jumped in and here she has this video that, uh, people seem to be um interested in yeah, and I think just her um, you know beyond kind of the viral moment of the video. I think that, based on the comments that people are really digging her channel, she is restoring a house built in the 1800s and you know she does all of these kind of crafty things.
Speaker 1So we want to just kind of share her on. Yeah, she's an animal lover. Yeah.
Speaker 2We want to share her on, and any of you who are thinking about starting YouTube channel despite your age, or starting a podcast or both, just go for it, and if you have any questions, just hit us up.
Speaker 1leave us some comments and we'll definitely get back to you. We would love to talk a little bit more about our personal experiences and you know the way we got started and things like that, so thank you for listening. This has been another episode of Black Boomer. Besties from Brooklyn, Brooklyn.
