This Christmas special explores what it really takes to get through the festive season while working in hospitality. The Talking Hospitality hosts come together for an open, honest conversation about pressure, resilience, wellbeing and community at one of the most demanding times of the year.

The episode blends humour and reflection with serious discussion around mental health, sobriety, burnout and support. It features contributions from the Hospitality Choir in support of Hospitality Action, alongside practical guidance and resources shared by Kelly’s Cause for anyone struggling during the festive period.

Rather than pretending Christmas is easy, this episode acknowledges the reality of long hours, emotional labour and exhaustion — while offering reassurance, perspective and practical support. It’s a reminder that you’re not weak for finding this time hard, and you’re not alone in getting through it.

Show Notes:

1. The realities of working through Christmas in hospitality
2. Why festive pressure hits hospitality teams differently
3. Mental health, anxiety and recognising when support is needed
4. Sobriety, self-care and celebrating in different ways
5. The Hospitality Choir’s Christmas single supporting Hospitality Action
6. Support available through Kelly’s Cause during the festive period
7. Practical mental health resources available 24/7 over Christmas
8. Leadership, responsibility and looking ahead to the new year

Featured contributors & organisations:

1. The Talking Hospitality hosts
2. Hospitality Choir – Always Open at Christmas
3. Hospitality Action
4. Kelly’s Cause
5. Samaritans, Shout & NHS mental health services

Big Thank You to our sponsors:

Hospitality Jobs UK

Graphic Kitchen

Piss'd Game

Links referenced in this episode:

1. https://thehospitalitychoir.org/
2. kellyscause.com
3. Tech on Toast Podcast
4. We Recover Loudly
5. Hospitality Action

Companies & Individuals mentioned in this episode:

1. Cadbury
2. Greene King
3. Phil Street
4. Jeff Black
5. Mecca Ibrahim
6. Dawn Lawrence

Today I'm joined by my beautiful host, Tracy, and my not so beautiful host, Jo. Yes, celebrity. She's a celebrity.

I'm a celebrity. Who knew I just needed to leave London?

I got my motorbike license. I've never been on a bike before in my life.

Well done. Yeah, exactly.

Oh, Uncle Joe, every day at Cadbury is too much. Do I want to eat a plain milk chocolate Cadbury every day till Christmas? The answer is no. And should I leave my partner? I don't know.

I shouldn't have said that. Sometimes that's alcohol and sometimes that drugs and sometimes that's like sex with an inappropriate person.

What is the difference between a snowman and a snow woman?

I know this one.

This is me, Tracy and Joe. This Christmas show.

From front of house.

To chefs on the line, every voice can shape the future at Christmas time.

Happy Christmas, everybody. Talking hospitality Christmas special. How are we today?

Welcome.

I'm joined by my beautiful host, Tracy, and my not so beautiful host, Joe. But he is beautiful on the inside.

Thanks. And that's what counts, so they say.

So we're saying that I'm not beautiful on the inside. Kind of. Is there like an undertone here in it?

Yes.

You don't know my story.

Ach.

You don't know me.

Yeah. Don't judge me. So, Tracey, what's been going on with you? Let's catch up. Let's get our audience catching up with you. What's been going down?

As everyone knows, I've not really been on the season much. It's been a very busy year for me.

I moved to South Sea in Hampshire, so a lot of my kind of time and energy has gone into making sure that my kids are good and into their new schools, which they've done seamlessly. Very proud of them, I have to say. And then for me, I've been like, just a networking ninja. I have been to every event I could find.

Not in the evenings, though, because it's just too much, but anything during the day. Like, I know so many people down here now, it's absolutely ridiculous. I can go to any event on my own and probably know half the people in the room.

And they know me too, which is amazing. One of the things I wasn't expecting is the support from the council that you get in Portsmouth. Like, they really support entrepreneurs.

Portsmouth is one of the most condensed entrepreneurial city in the uk, and especially on a creative side, which obviously, for me is awesome.

And I have to say, like, the people I've met, the people that have inspired me just in the year that I've been here has been immense and the council have just been like pushing me to all the right places, getting me on panels.

I did the chef's table at the SouthSea Food Festival where I was doing a demo of baking like some vegan cupcakes and demoing, making like handmade roses. I got spotted at another festival, the Thai festival. Someone recognized me and I was like drop my altar off. So obviously they did.

Celebrity. She's a celebrity, darlings.

I'm a celebrity. Who knew I just needed to leave London. That was it. So for me it's been like amazing.

Just embedding myself in this amazing city and being right by the sea. We're just loving that side of it as well and yeah, we're just getting on with it.

It's been hard, don't get me wrong because 8 year old business but start but I don't regret a thing. It's just been an amazing year for sure.

Good for you.

I've missed you guys.

Welcome back.

Yeah, thank you, thank you.

But don't worry, our listeners or our viewers will be able to see more of you in some upcoming episodes at the beginning of January and February. So if you're a Tracey fan, watch this space.

Send the contract. I've got no choice.

Yeah, got no choice. She's contracted damn it to the hilt. So what about you, Joe? What's going down with you?

Lots of things happened this year. I got a nephew. Congratulations family. Which is really exciting.

Yeah, Uncle Joe.

Uncle Joe. Yeah, that's right, Uncle Joe. Yeah. So that's wonderful. What else happened? I got my motorbike license so it started doing my test.

I'd never been on a bike before in my life and I may or may not have fibbed about how much experience I had so I could do the test bit faster and yeah.

Past easy. So well done.

Thanks. Yeah, thanks.

Well done. Yeah, exactly.

I think it's. Yeah, maybe getting the. Oh, go on. Yeah, go on.

Have you got Talking hospitality leather jacket.

The minute there's a budget for one. The minute there's a budget for.

Can we invert it though? Make it black with a yellow logo or something.

Black leather for a yellow leather is.

Really the thing you want to be doing the thing.

No, it's very Bruce Lee. Incredibly expensive actually. Yeah. And Kill Bill.

And Kill Bill.

Yeah, yeah.

See the new. The combined one. They've combined the two movies now and added some extra.

Yeah.

Anime.

Oh no, I'm obviously out of the movie scene.

It's coming out soon.

She's busy. She's too busy being a celebrity in Portsmouth. She hasn't got time to watch movies, gets the free champagne, walks out to the next event.

That's how she rolls.

Well, it's Prosecco, but we. Splitting hairs. Splitting hairs, yeah.

And apart from getting the. Yeah. Getting the midlife crisis out the way five years early, what's I been doing working in the farm park industry?

Actually, it's very on brand at the moment. Clarkson's Farm. I've been working on his little stuff. No, I haven't, but I've been working in that industry and yeah, it's pretty amazing.

Like we've been doing. Imagine, like doing seven or eight opens and closes of a venue every two or three weeks or every two or three months. Like it's crazy.

So you really get really stuck into it.

Mr. Timothy, how's your year been?

Where have you been of the year? I was working at a five star luxury hotel which cannot be named and now I'm not. And we'll be announcing why very shortly, but not today.

But we have got, obviously new sponsors, which is marvelous. We've got HJUK Hospitality Jobs UK come on board. So we're very grateful for them. We've got some smashing stuff coming up with them.

So in our sector and we have over 20,000 viewers across platforms. Viewers slash listeners.

Amazing.

That is pretty good. So thank you, everybody who's been listening, subscribing following, please start making some comments. We will be. Exactly.

By the way, like Joe said is we're actually completely ad libbing this. There was liter, no preparation. It was. By the way, turn up in your jumpers and good luck, everybody. It's fine.

You know what, Tim? We did this last year. We smashed it like it was just.

It was actually one of our most listened episodes. It actually was. Yeah. So let's take it back because everybody gets introspective at this time of year, don't they? They just do.

So what, given a whole year, what would you say with the episodes or your. What was your favorite episode so far that you were on? And Tracey, as we know, I don't.

Have many to choose from, but I would say for sure it was the one we had with Mex Ibrahim. So she's the founder of the women in food industry.

And what I really loved about the episode was she's doing something for the better of the industry, which not many people do, without having some sort of monetary kind of gain from it. And she's doing it for women, which is great.

And she's spotlighting women that have been doing things for so long in their kind of corner and just giving them that platform to shine.

Who's this? Oh, it looks like Santa's dropped in. A little surprise, everybody. It's Chris Fletcher from Tech on Toast. Hello, hello, hello, Chris.

Welcome and welcome to the show.

Thank you very much. Excuse my headphones. I look like something off Star Wars. But

Yeah, but I see how you've managed to, like, coordinate with your T shirt, which I think is quite cool, really. Yeah.

Party, actually. And I'm. Yeah, in the middle of that, so excuse the background noise.

Yeah. So Chris is at the other house, isn't he? Celebrating Christmas at the moment and he is with the Hospitality Choir. Cheers. Cheers.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Yeah. Oh.

So the reason why Chris is joining us is because he has recently released with the Hospitality Choir a new single called Always Open At Christmas, which is designed to support the Hospitality Action charity that we've had on the show here before. But also, many of you will know because of the great work that they've been doing. Chris, would you like to tell us a little bit about it?

Yes, sure. Anyway. Hello, Joe. Hello, Tracey, how are you? Nice to meet you.

How are you doing, mate?

You're right, yeah, good, thank you. But, yeah, basically we. I had an idea about. God, it was probably about eight weeks ago, so it was a quick turnaround and we wanted to do something.

I got told a story about a young chef who'd been living in her car because times had turned hard and she was potentially about to lose a job, quite a bit of debt and was losing. Had lost her accommodation.

And I heard a story how Hospitality Action had basically given her a bursa to help her pay off some of her debt and get back into work and not lose a job. Right. Because that was the only thing going well for her to keep her going. And so they managed to turn around, she got back in a flat. Method. Wow.

It's quite powerful, isn't it? Especially I've spent A lot of years in this industry. And it's quite powerful to hear stories like that about kids who work in the industry.

And not just kids, right? Adults as well, who work in the industry who've been through tough times. And I wanted to do something different to help give back.

And, yeah, I came up with the idea. My team kind of laughed nervously, went, okay. And then we said, let's do a song and let's record at Abbey Road.

And I've got to be honest, along the way of doing it, Angels just dropped in and helped me, like, genuinely, because I had no idea what I'd taken on. I booked Studio 3 at Abbey Road, which is where Amy Winehouse, Tony Bennett, the Beatles recorded.

And it wasn't cheap, so we put some money into it as well, and we backed it. And along the way, as I said, I didn't have a musical score written. I just written the lyrics, had a bit of a tune in my head.

I met a guy called Jeff Black, who was our musical director, on the Friday before the Tuesday we recorded Lindsay that late. He then wrote a musical score over the weekend with a lady called Adena Cahill, who's also with me tonight.

And we put it all together and somehow ended up with 40 people in Abbey Road Studios going through groups, and they're all never met before. No one had sung before. Never met before. Some, obviously, as you can hear, are great singers. Others, me, not so great.

But somehow Jeff got everyone together and, yeah, we pulled it off. And the song's really about the people that matter in the industry, right? The people that keep the thing running.

The kids, the girls and boys on the floors, in the kitchens, on the pot wash, who are kind of room attendants in the hotels. All these kind of guys that kind of get forgotten a bit at Christmas. So, yeah, it was for them. And so far it's had, I think, 23,000 views on YouTube.

We're up to about, I think, two and a half thousand downloads on Spotify. And, yeah, I'm doing great. And I think next two weeks will be quite big for us. We're trying to get it on, try and get in the press as much.

Kind of lovely people like you helping us out, trying to spread the word. So Adidas going to come and do a couple of notes for you. She might break your microphone because she is power. So you're on the song.

The very last closing notes is Adena. And she did that take about 1

We'll just put a little clip in

Shape The Future (Band)

Edit Speakers5 times now. We rode that night. And she is. She's incredible.

So I'm just waiting for her now and we'll get her to sing a little bit.

We'll just put a little clip in

(Clip of Always Open At Christmas)

Where we all come.

This is Adena. I'm going to give you her my headphones so you can hear her.

She says, I know you. Hello, Idina.

I'm all, hello, everyone.

Hello, Adena.

Hi, Adena. How you doing?

How are you?

Great, how are you?

Congratulations. An amazing single.

Oh, thank you very much. We were just talking and really it's Chris's world. We're all just living in it. It's his wonderful and weird idea and I'm so glad that we did it.

Don't be fooled by Adena's casual appearance there and calm demeanor. She can sing. You can sing. Where did you learn to sing?

I did an undergraduate degree in opera and then a master's in musical theater. So that's actually what brought me over to this country.

Fantastic. So are you going to share any notes?

Sure.

All I can tell you is that you should definitely go listen to the wonderful I Was Open at Christmas which is now streaming on all platforms and on YouTube. We welcome the dreamers, the brave, the unsure, the part time heroes that give even more.

And then I need my other half to finish that phrase but she's not here yet.

Well, thank you so much and thank you for contributing because it's a really good cause and we'll be sharing of course the links to the video and encouraging people to buy and spend and support this really important charity. So thank you very much.

Thank you very much guys, I'm going to hand you back.

Thank you.

There you go. That was Adina.

She's amazing and I just made a zoo that if you want to listen to this song, if you head to the hospitality choir.org all the information's on there. The single, the video, everything you can go and watch and download it. Streams mean money, so the more streams we get, the more money we make.

So yeah, please add it to a playlist. We've got some brands like Bills, Prezzo adding it to their national playlist this week. So is Greene King, which is really cool.

Right.

So it's playing all the restaurants around the uk, which is such a cool thing to do. So yeah, if you can help us, we appreciate you.

We're all over it.

We appreciate you and all the hard work you've been doing, Chris. And to our listeners, yes, of course. Check out the single. There's. We'll send some links, we'll provide some links.

Please Support this really important cause. And of course, please do listen to Chris's wonderful podcast, Step on Toast. We'll also provide a link there as well. Chris, you're at a party.

Let's not keep you any longer. Thank you very much. Have a great Christmas. And thanks for coming on the show last minute. Thank you.

You're welcome, my friend. Take care, everyone. Have a great Christmas.

Thanks, mate.

That was fun. Wow.

So hospitality choir support hospitality action, and it is a song called Always Open at Christmas, and it is all hospitality professionals and it is an incredible song. So please, if you're listening, go and check it out. Now back to Joe. Tell me, Joe, about your favorite episode or episodes and what you learned.

It's got to be Dawn Lawrence from HJ uk. She was an absolute superstar. Absolute superstar. Yeah. Loved it.

Very emotional.

Loved her. That it was. She was. There's not many people that you can sit in a room with for when we were chatting to her for 40 minutes.

There's not many people in the room you can meet Cole. Never met them before in your life, and 40 minutes later, they walk out the room and you feel like you know them very well.

She gave that energy, like, for sure. She was wonderful.

Not only was she very inspirational in terms of her attitude and the way she talked to us and was very honest and open about what she'd done, but what I thought was really cool was this.

Oh, it's Shell from We Recover Loudly.

What are you up to, Tim?

Honestly!

I didn't invite her.

This is just...

She just wanted to come on. She heard it's Christmas special. I want to be on there four times more than anybody else because three is not enough. So here she is. Hello, Shell.

How are you?

How are you doing? And I just thought I would lurk outside and wait for the right opportunity to just knock on the door.

Excellent, Shell.

Hello, Shell. Welcome to the show again. Lovely to have you on.

We realize obviously at Christmas time, people like to have a lot of festivities and just thought it'd be nice to have a say a little word to those people that don't want to have a drink and can still have a good time, or you can have a good time and just. And still wake up without a hangover tomorrow or the next day. So would it give us little words of wisdom?

My words of wisdom. This will be my fifth or maybe my sixth sober Christmas now, and it definitely does get easier with time.

I think my advice for people who are working still and don't have necessarily an issue with alcohol is still to remember that the hours that you're going to be doing are like an elite athlete. And an elite athlete will fuel it their body with great food, with sleep, with water.

They don't then go and do a 16 hour shift which is effectively a marathon on a can of Monster and four hours sleep and a bottle of Jack Daniels. So just regardless of your relationship with alcohol, be really aware of how you're fueling yourself. For me, every year it's been easier.

The best thing about not drinking is that no one can tell you to stop eating because they're not, but you are. So they better what the up. And if we can swear. But I. So I shot back the F up off you when you're having your fifth portion of cheese.

Because I'm not drinking and therefore I'm basically God level.

So make sure to enjoy all of that and then don't do what I do in the first year, which is almost treat myself like this poor little sober girl who's in like purgatory. And I'll just have a squash. No, I want a bloody exclusive expensive fancy drink. I want a fancy bottle of kombucha. I want a schlur. I want to.

If you enjoy non alcoholic spirits, I want my own espresso martini and I'll have four of them. Like, just because you've taken the alcohol away doesn't mean that you don't deserve to still celebrate yourself in whatever way you choose to.

And especially if it's your first sober Christmas. Look at all that money that you saved and use that to treat yourself to a delightful present. Don't share it on your family. They got enough shit.

You should be celebrating. Get yourself something to prove you like.

Something to really symbolize the fact that you've really, you've chosen yourself this year and you've made a real difference to your health and. And it's important to therefore celebrate who you are as well.

I love that.

Thank you. That is a great message. Shell. Thank you very much and thank you for coming in four times.

Four times.

Now I know.

All right. Possibly bear for you to record a single moment without me butting in. So have a worry.

It wouldn't be the same.

It wouldn't be the same, Shell.

Absolutely, Shell. Thank you so much. Have a great Christmas. Thank you for coming by and we'll see you.

Merry Christmas, Shell.

So where were we?

Right.

Yes. Hello, Rachel.

Keeping on the theme of Christmas and that we've talked about being sober is perfectly okay and you can have a good time and you're going to be listening to the hospitality choir and supporting organizations. What about if you need a bit of support and Rachel's here to help people through and point out some of the resources that are available to them.

I also, I just think the most important thing to point out is that all your regular indicators as oh, maybe I'm not feeling so good or oh, maybe my mental health is getting worse, you're less attuned to them because you're just on like push time.

So all the little signals that your body or your mind might give you that, oh, maybe your depression is like not great, or maybe your disorder even zacking up a bit, you're not necessarily going to receive those.

So then what could happen is on Christmas day or in January when that rush finally stops, all of a sudden our mental health can be in a way worse place than we expected. Because you're like, but I was feeling fine because you're just motoring. And then when that ends it's okay, then what do we do?

So if when you finally get a chance to breathe, you're not feeling good, you're feeling a little bit depressed, you're experiencing suicidal ideation, reach out to those numbers and use them. And they're also going to be able to connect you to other organizations that are going to be accessible to you during Christmas.

And it's important to keep in mind that anything you experience in the realm of mental health is going to be exacerbated by the season. And not really because it's like the birthday of Jesus, but mostly because you're tired, you're not eating in the same way you normally would.

If you're like a self care person and you're like, yeah, I feel good because I run 5k 3 times a week or I feel good because I spend all this time with my friends or I pet my cat. If you haven't had time to do all of that stuff, your mental health can end up in a way worse place. So remembering what's there for you 24, 7.

And then I think the really important thing in the gap of taking care of yourself is making sure that you're checking in on people in your Community, whether that's the people that you're working with, whether that's your family, your roommate, your friends, anybody who's got a little something could be going through it a little worse at Christmas. So making time to connect for them and for you, especially if you're both busy and you're both working, I think that's super, super important.

And make sure that they also know what's available. Sometimes you're the only person holding that information. It doesn't hurt to share it with people and if they use it, great.

And if they don't, that's fine too. The other one to keep in mind that's 24.

7 over Christmas is 111, press 2, which will connect you to NHS mental health support services and they'll be able to triage you with local mental health support within your borough that'll be available to you and they can also access crisis support if you need it. So there's three that are going to be 24, seven over Christmas. Samaritan's show at NHS 111 press two. All great to have in the back pocket.

The other thing I just want to mention from the mental health perspective is like figuring out how to hack the thing you do to feel better.

So you might be really into music and you walk home from work and you listen to music, but it's Christmas, so now you're just crying and it's just not the same. Make sure you find five minutes to do like the mini version of that.

And maybe that's like locking yourself in the staff Lou, and like putting on a particular album and rocking out or like listening to a voice note from your, like, best friend or whatever. But wherever you can find time to rest and connect, take it. Rest and relaxation. We're looking for the easiest thing we can grab.

And sometimes it's alcohol and sometimes that drugs and sometimes that's like sex with an inappropriate person. And so if you can instead grab. I'm going to listen to this album and rock out.

I'm going to ride my line, bike home fast and go down a hill and go wee or like literally, whatever, whatever you can do. And yeah, taking five minutes out of your day if you can do it.

And don't be afraid to call other people or the support systems that are available for you. There's also. I just want to do one last thing with everybody. It's fun, it's interactive, so there's a light in. I can see your eyes light.

So the thing I want to talk about is panic Attacks and anxiety in general, they can really get heightened at this time.

And yes, for you and for the team who are under a ton of pressure, but also for guests who are experiencing whatever your hospitality game is, whether that's a restaurant or a private club or a hotel, people are with their families, they're not taking care of themselves, they're not sleeping enough. Like everybody's anxiety is higher.

And if you encounter somebody who might be having a panic attack or if you're having a panic attack, there's a really easy breathing exercise we can do that'll help stall that and help regulate our nervous system. And it's super simple. And we're going to do it together now. So it's called box breathing and it's easy to remember because it's four, four, four.

So we're going to breathe in for four counts, hold for four counts and breathe out for four counts. Now, I won't do it because I have to count and I've tried to do both and it's like very embarrassing.

So on the count of three, we're gonna breathe in for four counts. Are you ready?

Okay.

One, two, three. Breathe in. Two, three, four. Hold your breath. Two, three, four. Now exhale. Two, three, four. So it's really that easy.

And what I love about this is you can do it if you're punching in an order at the waitress station, you can do it if you're in a crowded office trying to manage reservations, you can do it if you're with a table, depending on how long they take to the side. Like it's a really adaptable little trick and you can do it just about anywhere.

So whilst ideally what you'd love to do is leave work and go walk around and be in nature for 45 minutes. Like you don't have that luxury.

Treat yourself to some box breathing and I'll just help calm down that nervous system and just get you through the end of service so you can go home and take care of yourself. The little tips and tricks and asking for help when you need it and just keeping yourself sane most generally.

Brilliant. Love that.

So thank you, Rachel, very much.

We have got Merry Christmas. Thank you so much for coming in. And we have got resources for our UK listeners that we'll be sharing and of course our US listeners as well.

We have links to Kelly's Cause

Also in Ireland. If you go to our website, Kelly's Cause.com, you're going to get pop ups, rental health resources specifically for Christmas.

That's stuff to deal with homelessness, Mexican violence, eating disorders. If you've got it over Christmas, we've got the resource for it. If you head to our website, you'll be able to find it there.

Ireland, us, uk, all available throughout the Christmas period. So come Visit us@kellyscos.com Amazing.

Thank you very much. Have a great Christmas. Rachel, thanks for coming in.

Bye, Rachel. What a legend.

Yeah.

I'm appreciating the fact that we're touching on those topics that people don't like to talk about over Christmas because it's always jolly, happy. Yeah, let's have fun. Drink, blah, blah. There are people that do not have a good experience, whether it's personally or at work.

So knowing that there's these support systems out there and even the box breathing, you know, even I. It was a calming moment. It was a really nice moment. Something is. We're doing that.

So my favorite episode, I think I had quite a few different ones because this season we've grown quite a lot from being on YouTube and having an editor. Obviously more people listening. I think we've started to shape who we've become and a lot more.

And I think so there's different episodes where I see improvements, but I think the one for me is the 50th episode where we had pretty much loads of podcasters in the industry coming on to celebrate and support us. That was quite a magical moment in. To be able to do that. And, like, each. Everyone said yes, like it wasn't even a thing.

And so I felt very privileged that we could hold ourselves amongst some of those people that were there. So that was for me. So two more things and then we can all go and have a favorite Christmas joke.

I don't know if I can say it. It's not politically correct, but it is funny.

Go on.

I don't want to say it. I don't want to say it. It's so.

Only you, me and Tracy and 20,000 listeners that are here. It's just between us.

I literally said it in front of 150 people at a staff briefing recently. And afterwards I was like, should I have said that?

I'm just saying it's not building on a pretense. Come on.

All right, fine. What is the difference between a snowman and a snow woman?

I know this one.

I don't know it.

Snow balls.

Really?

Was that it?

I was expecting.

Oh, come on. Oh, the milieu. The milieu. It's fine. Whatever. Tame, fine, whatever.

Okay, My one. My one. What? Did the snowman still snowman? Actually, it's obviously a theme.

Hang on. Careful.

Oh, I don't know if I should say it. Don't know if I should say it. What did one snowman say to the other snowman?

I don't know. I don't want to know.

Can you smell carrots? You're welcome. And that leads us with Tracy.

So I had my first Christmas dinner about two weeks ago with a group of people and in my cracker, it's. The joke was, what athlete is warmest in winter?

Pass.

The long jumper. Oh, really? That's the response?

Yeah. Has anyone got an ejector seat? How do I put. How do I kick her out of this conversation when I do that? Leave.

I'm just saying. I'm just putting out there. I'm just. It's what I read.

What would you like to see?

I want to see my business grow where I am. I can't keep driving to London for work. It's a lot from a kind of mental health perspective. I know that a 3 like the back of my hand now.

I'm also excited to be a guest speaker at the Euro Global Women Power Summit in March, which Tim is all about.

I did it.

It will be virtually not going to France, which is a shame, but the fact that they found me on LinkedIn and they were like, we want you to be part of this summit, which is all about empowering the voice and empowering change. I'm really excited. I'm really excited to write my TEDx style 18 minutes speech, which I've never had to do before, but bring it on.

I just think it's going to be amazing. I can't wait. And I can't imagine the things that will follow from that.

Yeah, I think for me, God, this year has been a year of change for sure.

And I think actually in this talk, I've been a little bit inspired by Tracy in terms of the getting back to ui, which is what I plan to do for the next year. Because obviously when everything goes up in the air and everything changes, it's easy to lose sight of that.

So, yeah, so that's the plan for the next year. Get back to my why and get back into growth, get back into empowerment and we'll play and that'll be fun.

I love that. And Timothy, how about you?

So mine is not original. I'm just ripping everybody Off. No, mine's very much the same.

I want to go back to who I am, what makes me tick and really what I want to do is use the platform that I have to counteract some of the negativity that I hear about from the industry that I believe to be self perpetuating.

Like we keep telling everybody how bad our industry is and how awful things are and yes, they aren't great, but they keep telling people this, then people aren't going to come and join us and we won't get change makers and we'll all be stuck in this forever. And we've been here since COVID We survived Covid. And I'm thinking it's time. We need to change the bloody conversation and I want to change.

That's brilliant. I love that. And it's very difficult as well.

So on that note, go on.

Very doable. Like very doable. Yeah, for sure. I think I can see a few episodes coming out next year that are addressing these issues.

On that note, I want to make sure that our listeners are aware that we are on YouTube and there's a lot of content being shared on there. But if you're on YouTube watching this, please also be aware of some of our audio because each one is slightly different going forward.

So they've all got little different things that you can get from us. And don't forget to visit the website. Talking hospitality.com and lady and gentlemen, thank you for being such great hosts throughout the year.

Tracy, obviously you've got more coming up in the new in January. Guys. Couldn't have done it without you. I think we've had a really cracking season so far. It's the longest season we've had. We're not finished yet.

Got another 10 episodes or so before we hit season six. So thank you all very much. Have a great Christmas. See you all in the new year.

I was going to say one thing. I have absolutely loved having Joe on with us.

I think he's been a great addition to the team with his quirkiness and thinking he's being rude and edgy with his jokes, but not. But you know that that will come. Jo, it's fine.

But no, you've been an absolute pleasure to work with and thank you for bringing your viewpoints and your spirits. The Talking Hospitality team.

Thanks, Tracey. I really. That's my day. Thank you, that's lovely.

And of course, thank you to our listeners, our viewers that have supported us this year. We've got some new people this year that have grown. We've had people sharing our stuff, we've had people commenting. We encourage you, please comment.

Please share with us what you want as well, what you'd like to see for Season six. We're open to change and we look forward to you very much joining us next year. Just.

We just also want to mention a big thank you to our sponsors, Hospitality Jobs UK and of course, Graphic Kitchen, but also to this game, Piss'd, which is a card game, which is a card game especially for Christmas. And it's fun for all. It's good, clean, family fun for all the family. If they drink, it's not suitable for Mormons.

So let's thank Piss'd for sponsoring today's update episode. Been a great to see you. Have a really good Christmas and thank you again for your support and your time this year.

Merry Christmas.

Love you guys. Merry Christmas.

We're always here for you. Merry Christmas from the team. The kettles on the fire's warm welcome.

In.

When the world went quiet and the night grew long we kept the fire burning we stayed strong from empty.

Streets to kitchens full of.