200 | Podcasting Saved Me: From Love to Loss and Finding My Voice Again

[00:00:00] So with 15 years in a truck driving for a company, 200 episodes on the mic on this podcast, and now I'm facing the biggest challenge of my life. This isn't just about podcasting. It's how I survived heartbreak, found connection, and kept creating through the chaos. Let me tell you why I podcast.

[00:00:30] Sound matters. Be heard. Welcome to the podcast where you get exclusive behind the scenes tips to make your own show sound truly spectacular. This is Podtastic Audio.

[00:00:45] Hey, what's happening? How are you doing today? Thank you so much for being here. I am Chris and yeah, this is Podtastic Audio. And more importantly, this is the 200th episode of Podtastic Audio.

[00:01:01] Podtastic Audio. Thank you once again for being here. I cannot believe I've made it to 200 official episodes. Hey, it's probably more than that because I've done some bonus episodes and things like that. But hey, I'm counting this as episode 200. And because it's episode 200, I was kind of wondering like what do I want to do for episode 200? I know some shows will do like reflection shows. Maybe I'll do like a back catalog. Like here's our favorite moments of the year. Here's our favorite moments of the year. Here's our favorite moments of the year. Here's our favorite moments of the year. Here's our favorite moments of the year.

[00:01:31] I'm going to be in the year. Here's our favorite moments of the year. I'm going to be talking about the year. I'm going to be talking about the year.

[00:02:01] podcast for a living. I do not work for a podcasting company. I don't try to upsell you as an entrepreneur on podcasting classes or coaching stuff or anything like that at all. I only do this podcast because I love podcasting. In fact, I was talking with my therapist last week and we came to the conclusion that I actually love teaching. I love teaching so much that I do

[00:02:28] this podcast for free to help you. That's what I enjoy doing. So besides that, my regular job, my normal job that I clock in every day to do, that I've been doing this for about 15 years at this current job and probably somewhere around 25 years in total, I am a truck driver, if you'd

[00:02:52] believe that. Yes, I have a commercial driver's license. And more specifically is that I am a local truck driver that delivers gasoline to the gas stations. I'm a gasoline tanker driver. And I've been doing this, like I said, for 15 years at this same company, driving some with the same trucks. I've seen a lot of people come and go, like you do with jobs. I've been there so long that

[00:03:18] I've got new guys coming in, we've got old guys leaving. I've been there so long that I've got the best schedule in the company. I've got the best benefits, the best pay. I've been there for so long. Great. And I'm actually really good at my job. I don't usually say that lightly, but I'm probably the best or one of the best employees they have, meaning that I never screw up. I always get my work

[00:03:43] done. I'm very efficient. I might be late from time to time, probably because I'm busy doing podcasting stuff here at home. But yeah, I've been there for so long. And the thing about being a driver, whether you're a driver in my company or driver anywhere, it's that the audio and like audio radio and audio podcasting and audio books, things of the audio format are things we consume. And since I've

[00:04:10] been doing it for so long, I've been a driver, like I said, maybe 25 years, maybe even longer. If we think about like, like back when I used to do pizza delivery. So I loved listening to radio and I loved listening to all the morning shows, all the radio shows, all that fun stuff. So when I heard about podcasting coming out in, I think it was 2009 when I started subscribing to podcasts and I thought it was super cool, not having any idea that I physically could do a podcast,

[00:04:40] podcast. I just thought it was cool that I could listen to things at my convenience because it's not always convenient for you, at least for me to listen to things that were live radio. Like sometimes the morning show or the show you're listening to was on a certain times of the day, days that were opposite of my schedule, or I was out busy doing a delivery. I couldn't listen. So I had to like wait till I get back in the truck and then the segment would be over. I would miss it. I'd be like, oh man. But then I found podcasting and podcasting. I listened to anything I want,

[00:05:08] whenever I wanted. And that was great. But back in 2009, back way back then, I even thought about starting a podcast. I was like, well, that'd be kind of cool to do a podcast. In fact, I actually researched in 2009, what did I need to start a podcast? How would I physically make it happen? And like what kind of gear I needed and computer stuff and software and editing stuff. And then it

[00:05:34] mentioned things like you need to know exactly what you're talking about and have it all scripted out and have a format. And I was like, man, that seems like a lot of work. That's a lot of, I mean, that's way over my head. I just want to have fun and just talk. But I think I had that problem that most podcasters face, at least when they're starting out is what am I going to talk about? Like I had no idea. So I kind of put that idea of creating a podcast just back in the, you know, back of my mind. It wasn't something I was really thinking about.

[00:06:04] In fact, I moved into more pressing things like, you know, I was actually going through my first divorce with my ex-wife, who we have kids with. And that was somewhere around 2013, the summer of 2013. I remember that very specifically now. And it really hit me very, very hard. It was very painful because we had rented a house together. Obviously, we have kids together, what we're going to do with everything, like financially, how we're going to figure things

[00:06:33] out. But eventually I did. And then I moved on and I just focused on work and the kids and things like that. And probably maybe a few years later, I had the courage to actually try to purchase a home of my own here in the San Diego County. And when I did that, everybody thought I was crazy. Everybody at

[00:06:58] work thought I was nuts because housing costs are very expensive here in San Diego. They weren't as much back then as they are today, but it was manageable back then. But of course, I wasn't going on vacations. I wasn't buying luxury cars. I wasn't doing anything crazy. I was focusing on myself and the kids. And so I bought my very first house in 2016, all by myself. Now it was a newer

[00:07:25] house, a modern house, kind of in the middle of the city area and not the greatest neighborhood, but it was something that I bought all by myself. I was very, very proud of. I was out of debt aside from my mortgage. I had no car payment, no credit card debt, nothing. I was living the good life. I thought all things were fantastic. In fact, I thought things were doing so well that I decided to buy

[00:07:49] a sports car for myself to celebrate my amazing success. So here I am with a newer Ford F-150 truck that was totally paid for. I paid it off before I bought the house. And then I decided to buy this sports car, a Nissan 370Z, which was the car I've always wanted. Ever since the 350 came out, I wanted one of those, never could get one. When the 370 came out, I wanted one of those too. I could

[00:08:18] never, ever get one. It was like the dream car for me. So here I am, somewhat successful, have my own house, have a truck that's paid off. I splurge, I get the car I've always wanted. I am living the dream. I have my own house, I have two cars, a sports car, and people are very envious of what I have. And I think I was feeling pretty good about my success at that time. I would say that it was probably some of the best times and best years of my life, now I think about it,

[00:08:46] was during that time span. I went ahead of my own house, had both vehicles, and I was living the good life. So because I felt really good, here I am a single dad, having two vehicles, my own house, my own success, I felt naturally I would gravitate towards another partner, maybe have a relationship, date a little bit. So then I went on these dating apps, I went on Match, and I would date

[00:09:12] a few girls here and there. Nothing seemed to really click or work out really. And I was just about to cancel the Match subscription. I was like, you know what? This was fun. I date a little bit, but I'm just going to put this on the back burner for right now and just focus on the kids and maybe other things, other projects, things like that. And so just before I was going to close it down, I get a notification from a girl named Christine. And she messaged me,

[00:09:40] and she looked at my profile and messaged me. And I was like, hey, let me check this girl out. So I messaged her back. We started talking back and forth like you do on these Match platforms. They're texting, how you doing? What are you doing for work? Things like that. And then I say to her, hey, you want to text? And maybe we'll meet up for drinks at McGregor's in San Diego because she lived close to that and just close to where I live. So I was like, hey, why not? So we head on down there and we get drinks and meet up for the first time. I brought my

[00:10:05] Z sports car. Of course, I want to show that thing off. Of course, I love that car. And so I go down there, meet her down there, give her a hug before we go inside. We go inside, get a table. We sit there and have drinks. We just sit and talk for like hours, just talk and hang out. Nothing crazy. And then when the date was over, we both went home. I texted her, make sure you get home okay. Things like that. Very sweet. Very nice. And then we started texting some more. And I said, hey, do you want to come over to my place? And I'll cook you dinner. Meet the kids.

[00:10:34] And so we did that a little while later. She came over and then relationship kind of bloomed from there. And then somewhere around maybe a year into our relationship, maybe a little less than that, I had the idea to start a podcast again. And because I felt that Christine and I had great, great conversations together, that it would be a good idea to have her as a co-host of the podcast

[00:11:02] idea. And of course, back then I listened to a lot of like talk show shows, a lot of like morning radio type of shows. So that's kind of the format or the vibe of the podcast that I had in my mind that we should create. And to elaborate a little context to me wanting to create a podcast at my regular day job, the driving job that I have, we are not allowed to use our phones to make calls while

[00:11:29] we're unloading the truck, loading the truck and driving the truck. So basically what that means is that we are not allowed to talk to anyone. I mean, anyone while we're at work, which is kind of weird because I know most people, maybe you're included, you're at work, you can talk to your coworkers, you're in an office or a cubicle setting where you can kind of talk to each other. Perhaps maybe you do, maybe you don't, but we're in an environment that we are not allowed

[00:11:55] to talk to anybody the entire day. And I love to talk. So I think for me, when I created the podcast, it was sort of this outlet for me that I was kind of being held back. I was being kind of cooped up at work, not being allowed to talk to anybody at all the entire day, which is kind of a weird mindset to be in. No meetings, no nothing. I mean, there were some meetings, but not like you really

[00:12:20] have meetings. And Christine came from the exact opposite of that. She was in meetings all day long. She talked all day long for her job. So you can see where the clash kind of happens a little bit because I'm super really excited to like want to do a podcast. Like I love audio, I love radio, I love podcasting. And here I get a chance to do it. I get a chance to talk when I normally don't have that opportunity at my regular job. So I'm all about it. I'm all about talking. I'm all about

[00:12:50] podcasting. I'm all about talking to others. And I think that's one thing that with my job, it kind of sucks because there's this lack of community. Even though we all work for the same company, we all kind of do the same thing together as a collective as where the company sees it. When we're down there working, doing the grind, we don't feel as connected. We don't feel as part

[00:13:13] of a team. It feels like a individual sport, so to speak. I guess like maybe golf would be perhaps. So because I couldn't physically talk to anybody, listening on the listening side of things, whether it's podcast or radio or things like that became so important for me. It filled that silence and made me feel less alone while I'm on the road. So of course, naturally, I would gravitate towards a podcast or at least creating a podcast. So my entire experience with

[00:13:43] podcasting, most of it has come from the listener side of things for going back 20 years or whatever it is, listening to podcasts and listening exclusively to audio content mostly. But going back to the podcast, The Chris Christine Show, the show did well, I mean, fairly well for what it was, an indie hobby podcast. I had no idea how to create a podcast. I had no idea how to record audio,

[00:14:09] how to edit audio. And I wasn't even thinking about doing guest interviews. Guest interview stuff was so like not even a thought in my head because I couldn't figure out the technology back then, how to do it. We didn't know what Zoom was. At least I didn't know what it was. She used it for work, but I didn't really use it for anything. So the only thing I really knew of was like regular phone calls because that's how radio shows took callers. That's how they did their show was they have,

[00:14:35] you know, callers call in or they have maybe a guest call in on a phone or whatever. So I remember our first like interview we did was by phone and I rigged the computer somehow. I did, I think Google Voice or something called through that. I used something with Windows to kind of glitched the computer to record everything. We kind of could hear everything kind of, and it was a really like, like amateur way to record a phone call on a computer. And somehow I made it work

[00:15:04] and somehow I got the audio and it made it all in like one single track. And it was a very, very basic way to record a podcast and very basic way to record the interview. But that made me excited about podcasting on another level, being able to talk to outsiders and have like interview questions and have like a conversation, not just between Christine and I, which is fine and all, but have

[00:15:31] a third voice on the show, have somebody else kind of join us. It was kind of like, hey, check out this cool thing I built, this podcast I built. Hey, come check this out. Come over to our world and let's have you on our show. And that's kind of what the interview thing was for me, at least back then. I mean, in the early days, I didn't think about any of this stuff. I just want to just have a conversation with Christine about topics and things that, that we thought were very interesting.

[00:16:00] No idea that I thought I'd bring in a guest. Guesting was so far, like not even a thought for me. But when I did the first interview, I got hooked again on something really, really cool. So then I started looking up better ways to record guests. Like how could I do guest interviews? And of course, things like Zoom came up and software like that. And then squad cast. And we're talking right in kind of the middle of the pandemic, like early days pandemic, when people are shut down,

[00:16:28] using Zoom a lot for everything and all that kind of stuff. But I didn't like the way Zoom worked. And we didn't do a video show in any ways, because the way we recorded the podcast was at my house that I bought in the master bedroom, which is a big master bedroom. It had like a little nook area off to the side. The bedroom was like two levels. I mean, I'm like trying to brag, like it's a big bedroom or anything like that, but it had like two steps that kind of went up to where

[00:16:55] the bed would sit. And then two stairs would go down to like this other little room. It wasn't very big, but it was big enough for an office desk and like a desk and a computer and a microphone, like a whole podcasting setup. So that was where we did the podcast. And to kind of eliminate the feedback, because we have two microphones in the same room, you're going to get kind of this like cross talk feedback, mic bleed as it were. So both microphones will kind of pick up either voice at the

[00:17:22] same time. To kind of avoid that, I kind of separated us a little bit. I was next to the computer operating the computer and Christine sat probably a good 10 feet away over by the bed in a chair. And she had a little wooden coffee table kind of thing where a microphone got clamped onto that. And so she had the microphone there. She was sitting over there doing the podcast.

[00:17:46] That way the cross bleed for microphones was down to a very, very small minimum. That's how we did the podcast in that room, just like that. So we weren't in front of a camera, both of us. We've actually, my back was facing the computer, facing her so we could talk and have a conversation. It's kind how we did the podcast. But I was looking for ways to do guests very easily. That sounded great. And it came across CleanFeed. Now I've been using CleanFeed for a while. In fact, I do use it from time

[00:18:15] to time still. And it's audio only. It's very clear. It's made for audio professionals. It was designed for radio broadcasting, which I thought was perfect because here I am listening to a lot of radio broadcasts going into podcasting. Here's this tool that helped me do things exactly how they do things. I'm like, great. And it's easy to use. It's free. In fact, I did upgrade to the pro plan a few episodes

[00:18:42] after using the free plan because I ran into some problems with guests who didn't have headphones or gear and things like that. But that's another story for another day. You know how guests can be. They come on with whatever they have. But anyways, we were doing a lot of those interviews via CleanFeed, and they sounded fantastic. They sounded like the guest was right here in the room with us. And since it was audio only, the listener had no idea. The listener thought that they were sitting

[00:19:09] in the room with us. In fact, I used to joke saying things like, hey, how was your flight in today? Hey, was the driver nice today? Which driver did we send down for you today? Things like that. Making it feel as if they were sitting right here with us. And with good audio and good leveling and all of that great stuff, it sounded as if they're right here with us. And the listeners had no idea. Well, I mean, I think if they figure it out that during COVID, nobody was going anywhere,

[00:19:34] that they probably knew that nobody was going anywhere. So it made sense. So we stayed away from video and it worked for us. It worked so well that other podcasters, other podcasts in the indie podcasting arena, because you know what I know in the great year of 2020, we're going to call that the podcasting year that millions of podcasts started and launched in groups and communities and all kinds of fun stuff. A lot of these indie hobby podcasters became friends of ours.

[00:20:02] They were on the show and we met a lot of cool people, a lot of cool guests and a lot of cool other indie podcasters just like us, starting out just like us. I felt like we were all in the same place. And so because of that, other indie podcasters were asking me questions about podcasts. Like, well, how do you make it sound so great? And what are you doing? Are you really flying people into the studio? Like I really doing that? We're just using zoom or whatever. We don't have any gear.

[00:20:31] Our gear is like this or like that. And so I started answering these questions. In fact, one day, I don't know how Christine found this, but one day Christine decided to set up a coaching call for us to coach via zoom. Some girl that was asking about podcasting. I don't know how she reached out to her, but anyways, Christine helped me set the whole thing up. This whole slideshow presentation. Of course, now I think about it. Some of the advice I gave was probably bad because this is probably way

[00:20:59] early into our podcasting career. We're still kind of fairly new. We're still kind of learning things as we go, but we're doing this whole presentation. We're showing the girl, all the things we use, all the different things and kind of a coaching thing. And she even said to us, you guys really should charge for this like coaching thing. We're doing it for free. But at the end of the zoom call, like I didn't know this guy, I didn't use zoom much back then at all that when I closed the browser, it deleted everything. We're trying to save the entire

[00:21:27] presentation so we can give it to her as like a, she can download it and keep it for her end, you know, her presentation and it closed and it deleted the entire thing. We don't have it. Christine's like, you deleted the whole thing. You closed it before it was done rendering. Why'd you do that? I said, I did. I don't use this. I don't know what it's supposed to do. I didn't know you had to save it. I didn't know we had to sit here and wait for an hour. I had no idea. I just closed the computer. And so that was one mistake I did. I didn't know how

[00:21:52] to, we were supposed to do that. So that was that, but it got me thinking about the, you know, helping other people podcast and my need to help others podcast. And I think that that's where Podtastic Audio started. And that's kind of when Podtastic Audio, at least the idea for Podtastic Audio kind of really started was back then. And I just wanted to just share my

[00:22:20] love of podcasting and I want to share what I've done with podcasting and why I think a lot of, at least back then, a lot of indie podcasters had such horrible audio. They were using Blue Yetis the wrong way. They were literally putting them in the middle of the room, setting it on, pick up everybody in all directions and having all their buddies just sitting around the table and just talking and drinking beers, banging and clanging glasses and mugs and beer bottles on the table,

[00:22:48] in the microphone. Shows like that. There were a lot of shows like that. And I was like, oh my God, guys, let's figure this out. So that's when I started Podtastic Audio to kind of get people away from making shows like that or doing Zoom calls as podcasts with no microphones. Echo City, Reverb, Bad Audio and whatever. And there's probably shows that still do that.

[00:23:15] I don't know if they all do that, but that's kind of been the goal from the beginning with Podtastic Audio was to help indie podcasters steer away from that mess. So as the years went by doing both shows, the Chris and Christine show and Podtastic Audio, and as things went along, my passion for podcasting grew a lot. But Christine's, well,

[00:23:43] well, Christine's enthusiasm really faded. It started fading quickly because at that time, towards the end, she was doing her wedding business and doing her consulting business. And she was working her regular job, talking a lot for most of that stuff. And then having to come on a podcast didn't feel like fun. It didn't feel like it paid anything because it really didn't pay

[00:24:08] anything. And we bickered a lot. We started arguing on which guests to have. Can we do a guest this week? Are we recording a guest this week? Oh, I got to cancel the guest again. We've already canceled a guest twice already. They're probably not coming back. They're probably going to write us a negative review or something. I don't know. Thankfully, I don't think any of them did, but I just felt bad because here I am making promises to the listeners and to the guests we booked that week that this episode is going to go out. We're going to record something.

[00:24:38] And from my perspective, it started getting very frustrating because during the whole podcast, I forgot to mention this, Christina and I got engaged. And during the podcast, in the middle of the heat of the podcast in 2020, we got married. So here we go from starting a relationship, doing the podcast, the beginning of the relationship. It's kind of getting going. We get engaged. We get married. The podcast is going stronger than ever. People are talking to us.

[00:25:06] We're having great conversations with other podcasters, other people, other guests. Things are going great until they're not. When things start fading, when we butt heads a lot, when we argue about doing the podcast, when I enjoy podcasting more than she did. And then recording a show together felt like a chore. Then, and it caused a lot of tension. It didn't feel like something fun. And I was trying to keep it together.

[00:25:34] And eventually she told me something. She said to me that she never really liked doing the podcast. And she wished that I would just stop pushing her to do the podcast. And that kind of made things very, very sad for me because I felt like the podcast was part of our relationship. I felt like the podcast was us. And when that goes,

[00:26:00] I was seeing the writing on the wall that other things are probably going to start falling apart later down the road and eventually did. But the podcast and the relationship started to suffer a lot during that last year of doing the podcast or last how many months it was. And so eventually, you know, she said, I don't like doing the podcast anymore. And I said, okay, fine.

[00:26:25] We don't have to. Listen, I got podtastic audio going. That's going great. I'm doing recordings for my client show. That's going great. I'm doing that. I'm involved in the podcasting space on my own. I don't really need to be part of the Chris and Christine show, although that was a show that started everything. That's a show that really put me in a place where I could do podtastic audio. And so to give that up really kind of sucked. So not only did the show pod fade,

[00:26:56] but I think that at that point, there was a real distance that kind of started to set in between the two of us. And Christine started investing more in her career, her work, things like that. I started working on my client show, like I said, and podtastic audio, okay, I'm right here. And that's when the relationship started to unravel. And as it unraveled, you know, I,

[00:27:25] like I said, I kept pushing podtastic audio, working more on podtastic audio than, than focusing on the relationship. And at that point it was like a little too late, I believe. So that brings us up to the current date, which is now. So about maybe about a month ago, Christine eventually, and I saw the writing on the wall, Christine eventually dropped the

[00:27:53] bomb on me and said that she wants a divorce. She is done. And this absolutely crushed me. And I should have seen it coming. And with the podcast, like us arguing about that and not wanting to do that anymore. And, and I just feel like very, very sad that something that I created,

[00:28:18] something I built, something that I had this passion for to do with another person, person that I loved is walking away from it all is wanting to file. And she did file. She actually did serve me divorce papers. I it's right here. So, so if anyone's wanting to know why we don't do the Christine Christine show anymore, that is why we don't do it anymore. We are officially separated

[00:28:41] as of whatever she's told me. And yeah, it's been a very challenging thing because not only am I losing like a, you know, a co-creator of the podcast, I'm losing my best friend, the person I could talk to about anything and everything all day, anytime of day. We had these wonderful conversations in the morning. Uh, we had coffee, sit down, have coffee together. And I really miss those, miss those times

[00:29:08] and I'm not going to have them again. It's really, really sad. And it's really hard for me to adjust to, uh, to a new way of life all over again, a new beginning all over again, because when, you know, she was my anchor, she was my everything and having to give up on all that and start fresh all over again. It's like hitting the reset button on a video game and going from level 10 back to level one and

[00:29:38] having to start all over again. That's what kind of feels like it. It feels like I was on third base. Now I'm back to the dugout. You know, ready to start all over again. Here I am now as a single dad all over again. Here I am having to go from owning a house, selling that house, taking that money, putting into this new house, having to sell this house, taking the money and figuring out where

[00:30:01] we're going to live in this next chapter of my life. So this would be divorce number two for me. Divorce number one was very hard. This one's equally hard. It's never, never easy. And it's, it's sad. It's, it's, uh, makes me feel like less of a human being. It makes me feel like, am I not worthy enough of love? Am I not worthy enough to be with anybody? Am I too fixated on

[00:30:30] something like a podcast or whatever it is that I do, whether it's work career, um, that pushes women away. Yeah. So, um, I'm having to figure out selling this house and figure out what my next move is going to be starting over from scratch. This next like chapter of my life, what it's going to be about. And at the same time through it all podcasting remains kind of this like creative,

[00:30:59] this creative anchor, this creative emotional lifeline, because I love podcasting. I love community. I love talking to people. I love being around people. And that's probably why I've always gravitated towards podcasting, at least, you know, sharing and being part of the community because I really kind of lack that in my, in my day job. So yeah, I plan to keep podcasting

[00:31:25] through all this, but there may be a time when I'm moving or something happening that I may have to skip a week or two, just giving you a heads up just because of all the things I'm going through at the moment, having a cell, having a move. I don't know where I'm going to be at things like that. So that's what's been going on with me lately. And like I said, I love content creation. I love

[00:31:49] podcasting, but sometimes life throws you a big curve ball and you just have to take it and figure out what your next move is going to be. And I'm kind of in that position right now where I'm trying to figure out where my next move is going to be. But through it all, I feel really grounded and connected to podcasting. You know, maybe a week or so after she told me this, I was taking the kids to

[00:32:16] Knott's Berry Farm. It was a theme park up in the LA area, about five miles from Disneyland. We go there like once a year around this time of year because they have the Boysenberry Food Festival. We go there for that. So we're there at the theme park with the kids and having a great time, keep my mind off of what is really troubling me at the moment. And so I have the kids with me. We're at Knott's Berry Farm and I'm on social media. We're standing in line and I'm kind of browsing different things. And for some reason, I don't know why, but

[00:32:44] lots of different girls, they pop it up on my feed and lots of different things. It looked kind of fake, but I'm not too sure if they're fake. They sound fake. They apparently seem like they are fake. So I've seen these different girls pop up my feed and I'm like, wait a second, this person's fake. This person's fake. And then I literally probably say out loud, I say, everyone's a damn bot on here, you know, because there are lots of bots on social media.

[00:33:10] You've probably experienced them too. So I'm like, man, everyone's a damn bot. And then I post out a tweet, I believe it was. And I said, as a joke, I said, I should make a second podcast called everyone's a bot, you know, because here I am on social media and it seems like everyone's a bot here on social media, which is kind of funny. And so, and then people started to like liking it. So yeah, do that. That's not like fun. I would listen to that.

[00:33:37] Great idea. Sounds like fun. Amazing. And they got me thinking like, wait a second. Really? Maybe I should make one. And so after I got home, like the very next day, I started looking up like, what if I can make everyone's a bot? Let's make that podcast a reality. Then it got me thinking like, gosh, I haven't like set up a new podcast in forever. Like how do you even do that? My goodness. So first things first, I started looking up different names and started

[00:34:06] like searching, like, is this show title available? Is this email available? First thing I got was a Gmail setup. Then I went over to Spotify for podcasters, old anchor, because we know what? If it's a free fun show, I'll make it on Spotify. If it goes anywhere, great. If it doesn't go anywhere, okay, whatever. So I set it up there and then I started working on some artwork. After I got the artwork all dialed in, I started working on creating the social media handles,

[00:34:32] got all those dialed in. And then eventually I made the audio trailer for the podcast. And I posted that out there, got that set up, good to go. So that when I started the podcast, the very first thing you probably should do is put in a audio trailer for your podcast. That way, before you launch your very first episode, it's already kind of filtered through to Apple and all the different podcast players. Okay. So once I got that done, I created a few episodes and threw them out there.

[00:35:02] And I got them kind of staggered out, like they go out every single week. So right now for fun as kind of like maybe get my mind off of everything that's happening right now, kind of a podcast thing other than podcastic audio, I started the podcast. Everyone's a bot, a social media story, a link below in the show notes of this very episode. And it would be nice if you subscribed, it'd be nice if you could leave a review. It'd be nicer if you actually listened to the show. They are very short form

[00:35:30] episodes. We're talking five minutes, six minutes-ish each. So they're very quick episodes because I figure why not? You make them fast, make them quick, make them fun, make them easy to consume, something very simple. So that's why I made them in that kind of five to 10 minute range is what I was aiming for with the episodes. Maybe they'll go longer, but I don't go longer than 10 minutes. I want to keep them short and simple and easy. So in a nutshell, Everyone's a Bot is a short,

[00:35:56] raw, and hilarious venting about the absurdity of online life, the absurdity of fake people that you encounter on social media like I have. And if you have encountered crazy bot stories, I'd love to hear from you. I think sometime in the near future, I don't know when, like I said, I don't know when this is going to happen, but I would possibly like to have a guest on sharing their bot stories and taking

[00:36:22] that interview and chopping it into like five, 10 minute episodes. Yeah. So that's kind of the idea I've had with Everyone's a Bot. So far I have, I think five episodes in the can. Episode two is released right now. By the time this comes out, episode three will be out. Check it out. Let me know what you think. Please let me know with a review or anything, because this has been a fun side thing

[00:36:48] to keep my mind off the major tragic thing that's going on in my life right now. But this has been the official 200th episode of Podcastic Audio. I want to thank you once again for being here and thank you for sticking around and listening all the way to the very end of this podcast. I do this podcast because I love podcasting. I do this podcast because I want to help you

[00:37:13] make your amazing podcast. And if you have any questions or you want to talk to me about podcasting or anything really at all, you always, always can reach me through my website. That is podtasticaudio.com. There is a contact page right there and that's how you do it. You want to contact me? It comes to me directly. That is podtasticaudio.com. And I can't wait to hear about your podcast.

[00:37:41] And if you have anything you want to share, please reach out. And until next time, happy podcasting.