I Decided This Year Is My "Yes And" Year: Season 4 Kickoff

One sentence at a podcast convention flipped a switch for me: “If you have a podcast, you have a book.” I went home, grabbed episode transcripts, figured out a format, used AI to help the writing flow, built the cover in Canva, and shipped a self-published book even though it wasn’t perfect. That decision didn’t just add “author” to my list. It reignited momentum and reminded me that big changes often start with one practical next step.

I’m also sharing the real life behind the mic, including why this past year pushed me to rebuild my mindset and recommit to what I teach: life is happening for you, not to you. I talk about what’s new for season four, why I’m building a website and turning chapter lessons into a free seven-day email course and a more in-depth self-paced course, and how I’m thinking about monetizing a passion project in a way that still feels honest. If you care about podcast growth, self-publishing, course creation, and using AI tools without losing your voice, you’ll get plenty to take notes on.

On the personal side, I open up about relationship challenges, what it felt like to be disconnected, and how deep conversations helped my partner and me find our way back. That’s also what inspired my next build: an app that brings conversation starter questions to your phone so the prompts are always with you, whether it’s your partner or anyone important in your life. I even share a new professional path, passing my Florida health and life insurance license and stepping into supplemental insurance because protecting your family matters.

If you’re ready for a “yes and year” mindset and practical ideas you can act on, press play, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What’s one bold thing you’re saying yes to next?

Website: https://www.mariataponte.com/

Book: Against All Odds, The Less Than 1% Chance

Free 7 Day Course: FOR You Shift- Click Here

Transcript

Welcome Back And The Big Theme

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Against All Odds, the Less than 1% Chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte, where we will hear stories of incredible people thriving against all odds. And my hope is that we can all see how life is always happening for us, even when we are the less than 1% chance.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Hey, hey, welcome back to Against All Odds, a less than 1% chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte. It's season four. I'm so excited, you guys. I am so excited that I am kicking off season four of this podcast. I still can't believe it. I still don't even know how this is even real, but I have so much to catch you up on. I've already recorded two episodes for this season. So I was like, I gotta do an intro episode because obviously you've got to know what's happening in my life a little bit before we kind of jump into everything and the amazing stories that we have for this season. I

Season Four Setup And New Updates

SPEAKER_01 1:05

wrapped up season three kind of earlier this year in January, and I so a few things. There were episodes of season two that I still have to release. So you might see a little bit of difference. But as you could see, if you are watching this episode, you could see behind me there's a whole new background. I worked hard on my new background. I was like, it's too plain. I gotta do something, and I didn't want to do the virtual background. And so I have my Against All Odds logo up here, and I have shelves over here with something that I want to announce right there. I have a book based on the same podcast name, but it's called Against All Odds, a less than 1% chance, available everywhere. I will link it in the description.

From Podcast Convention To Book Idea

SPEAKER_01 2:05

But I so let me kind of give you a backstory. In January, I was finishing up my third season. I had gotten a free ticket to a podcast convention here in Orlando. I was like, all right, I could do this. I took a few days off of work and I just went in. All right, let me just soak in all the things, all the knowledge. I want to learn how to monetize and all the things. You guys, this isn't something that I've done to get rich off of anything like that. It has been truly a passion project. But obviously, life is very expensive. And so I wanted to learn all the different things that can I could do to bring some income to my family from this. Great. I go to this podcast convention and one of the speakers says, if you have a podcast, you have a book. And I'm like, wait a second. What? Explain to me what you're talking about. And so they went on with their presentation. I was like, oh my gosh, my flabbers have been fully gasted. I could not even believe that I didn't even think of this before. I kind of backstory. Since I was in middle school, I wanted to be an author. And for years now, I have had an affirmation that says, I'm so happy and grateful now that I am a number one New York Times bestselling author and speaker. And I was, I've been saying that since I want to say 2018, 2019, maybe I didn't even have a podcast till 2023. So I am here and listening to this person saying, if you have a podcast, you have a book, and I'm like, okay, let's listen in. And so I went home and downloaded about 10 episodes, the transcriptions from those 10 episodes, and figured out what kind of format I wanted it to be in. They're obviously my voice and the voice of my guest. And I had their voice, my voice, the transcriptions are there, and I just need to figure out what format I want it in and get use the resources that we have. So did I use AI to help me put it together in a way that it flowed right? Absolutely. Did I I slaved away in Canva to make the on this side to make the cover? And so I created the cover, the back, like all of the things. This was like my baby. And I used the cover art from the actual podcast. So my hair's a little different because it's not as short as it was. I was a little younger because there's more wrinkles in there. But I used what I had and I oh my god, it was like really long nights when sometimes Danny would be like, Hey, baby, you should go to sleep earlier tonight. And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, I definitely will. And I'm here like on the computer doing all the things. So I downloaded the transcriptions, got them the in the style that I wanted, sent those chapters

Building The Book With Transcripts

SPEAKER_01 5:40

that were for the people that I had chosen to be a part of this book, and that I asked if they would be okay with it, me sharing their story. And they all loved their chapters. And so once they got any corrections that I needed to make, like spelling and and like details that may have needed to be corrected, they sent that back to me and I started to put things together and I self-published my book. Is there a few mistakes? Yeah, there is. I'm definitely I didn't go through an editor or anything like that. Literally, this was my work, and there's a few mistakes in there. It is what it is, but I'm really excited to announce that I am an author now, and it's on all the different platforms. I'm really pumped about it, and that kind of got my brain going, and I was like, I really need to keep going with some of this momentum. So, from this, I have now created a website that I have worked on a lot. It is still being worked on a lot. I am in the process of creating a course based on the teachings because every up every chapter, I keep saying episode because I'm now recording, right? Every chapter has lessons at the end of it and throughout, right? And then at the end, it'll review the lessons that we learned from that chapter. And so it it really has it, it has put everything together quite beautifully. And I don't know, I it was like this switch in my brain. So much has happened in the last year. It was a really rough year, and I alluded to that at the beginning of season three. There was so much going on relationship-wise that we were just felt disconnected for a while, and in December of last year, really started to work on having good conversations and very deep conversations, and I feel more in love than I have been ever. And it's been really amazing to experience what it felt like when it wasn't great, and then the transition of where we are now for the last what now, seven months, and it's been amazing. It's so much I think all of that has sparked some something in my brain like I'm on the go. So my relationship is doing great. The kids are kids, and they are as good as they could be with life happening and all that stuff. My oldest is 22, my son is about to be 21, and then my youngest is about to be in September, she'll be 18. So life is crazy. My stepdaughter, my oldest stepdaughter is 20, and then the middle one, she's going to be 17 also in September, and then my stepson is 14 now. We are in the midst of all this craziness, and I decide that this is when like

Website And Courses From The Lessons

SPEAKER_01 9:05

all the creative juices are happening. So, all right, so I did the book, I did the cover, I self-published. It really has been so awesome to even know that I could do something like this, and to have the tools in front of me that that have been able to help guide me through this. Amazing. I create I created my website. Yay, that has been a work in progress. I am working on a course again that is with just based on the lessons, it's of life happening for you and not to you. And so I've created a course, like a free course, and I'll put it down in the description, but a free course showing the steps. This is there's a free seven-day email drip, if you will, that will guide you to seeing how life can happen for you and not to you, and shifting that that mindset because that's what I've learned. This is all from lived experience. I have learned this from so many years of growth and in my own journey, right? And so I have the email course. It is seven days, and that's amazing. And then I'm in the process of still, this is something that I'm still working on. I have to, I started to just put it out there and I'm like, wait, I need to like do this the right way and step by step. And I am working on a more of a self-paced course that's gonna be like, I don't know, $29, something like that. That is a it's got videos and a workbook taking you through the same thought process of continuing that shift within the life happening for you and not to you mindset. And then I'm gonna level it up a little bit more with smaller group coaching. So the that's all stuff

Relationship Reset And Communication Tools

SPEAKER_01 11:05

that's in the works, and in the midst of all of that, a friend of mine completely shifted her career to health and life insurance. And the importance of it, and I see that personally, just I've been through many things that that if I didn't have these things in place, my kids would be in a really tough spot. I then started preparing to test for my health and life insurance license in the state of Florida, and I did that, and I passed. So I am now also part-time working with the company Colonial Life, and so with it's like supplemental insurance. So that to say is that my like I'm I'm firing all the cylinders right now, and let's start season four of this podcast. I'm just so excited, so that's being worked on. I feel like there's something else that I'm forgetting. Oh, there is something else that I'm forgetting. With the transition or with the growth and beautiful season that my boyfriend Danny and I are in now, I realized that I really wanted to give to others what helped us. Because we started with these conversation cards, which are awesome. I love them. But I also have to carry it in a purse, which I typically don't even use a purse, but in order for us, if we go on a date, I'll bring the deck of cards or whatever. And so we always have our phones on us. So I decided that the next thing that I'm working on is I am building an app to do exactly what we did with the conversation cards. But I want to expand it because I feel like all of this is so good for conversations in general, are so good for all of the relationships, the important relationships in our lives. I think that like having dialogue and learning how to really dig into conversations is so super important. So I'm creating an app that is not only going to be for conversation starter questions for each day, for your partner in you, but also for other people in your life. But that's still a secret because I'm still working on that. But I'm that's all the things that I'm working on, and then I'm starting season four. So here we go. I'm really excited for you to enjoy season four, and I want to really encourage the mindset

Insurance License And A New Side Path

SPEAKER_01 14:05

of why choose or when you can choose and I can be a performance improvement specialist for the hospice company that I work for, and promote a book, and I can be a course creator, and I could be a podcast host, and I can uh create an app and also do life health and life insurance and work with colonial life as one of their sales reps because why choose or when you can choose and you could be so many things in your life. I decided that this year is my yes and year, and that is what I'm doing. And now I am starting season four, and I'm so excited because I just feel like this energy that I'm feeling inside, that I'm feeling like little by little I'm fulfilling these dreams that I've had, that I'm continuing to learn and grow, and I'm open to instead of fearing what quote unquote AI is gonna do to our jobs, is I'm gonna work with it, learn it as much as I possibly can, because if you don't learn it now, I fear that then that's when it can take over your life. No, I'm gonna be proficient in the things in the way that things are going so that I know that I have what it takes to continue to grow and be here for my family and and bring income to them as much as I possibly can because it's it life is not getting any cheaper. It is still very much expensive out there, and so I want to be able to provide my family with everything that I can, as we all do, right? So I'm living my and life, and I am very excited to take you along

The App Idea And The Yes And Year

SPEAKER_01 16:20

this journey, and I'm very excited to start season four of Against All Odds, the less than one percent chance, because life is always happening for you and not to you. So I get to experience what it was to have a really tough year in my relationship and with my partner, and now I have learned and we continue to learn and grow, but now I can keep helping others, right? As well as ourselves, but keep helping others to open that that line of communication up because communication is so key in so many things. And I think that we kind of shut ourselves off. So I could look at the last year or the 18 months ago and see how that really tough 12 months of our relationship could have ended it. Because I could tell you both of us have told each other how much there was those thoughts of do we just end it here? Or we can work on it and be so absolutely super in love and and understand that there's differences that that can still be different and still bring us together and we can talk about those things and so forth. So I choose to see how life happened for me, and we were in this really tough spot, and I can appreciate how life happened for me to see how beautiful and how grateful I am for where we are right now, right? So, this is the things that that I talk about that I feel like I teach because I'm living, breathing these things in my own life. And so yeah, I'm really excited for this new season because you never know what you're gonna get, right? So I am kicking it off, and I hope that you enjoy reach out, comment, share it, please. I'm trying to grow not only my different channels, but I think

Learning AI Plus How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 18:35

that things can completely shift in a in an instant. And I think that I don't know, I feel like this energy is an abundance of amazingness that's coming through. And I think that's what hopefully what you hear on the other side of this, either the screen or this audio is this energy of just wanting to grow and really provide good content for you as the listener and for your the people around you, right? And I want to be able to help shift those perspectives because it sucks to feel like God, why is this happening to me again? That feeling like the victim just sucks. I've been there and feeling this energy of abundance and excitement and it it just feels so good. It feels so good. So I hope that I can translate that into the screen or the audio of this because I want to bring all the abundance of creativity and love because I'm loving this. This is awesome. This feels real good. So, anyways, I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. I hope you enjoy this season. I hope you continue to get something great out of this podcast. If you ever have any comments or you want to ever be on, it's on my website. My new website, it's www.maria taponte.com. And the form for being guest is on there as well. I am constantly opening up days to record. So if you don't see any days available, just reach out and we can figure something out. But yeah, I'm really excited for season four. I feel like this has been a good year, good lots of lessons, lots of people that I've connected with. And again, I put out there that I opened up dates on my calendar for recordings, and I had not even posted anything about starting to record for season four, and I had two people that I've already recorded. So let's go, season four. I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. I hope you enjoyed this little snippet of this episode, and I can't wait for you to hear all the good stories that we're gonna be listening to. So it'll be a diversity of all the things, but hopefully that inspire you in some way. So have an amazing rest of your day. Peace out, guys. Love your life. Bye.