I launched my first podcast a few weeks ago.
I’ve wanted to be an author since first grade show-and-tell, but I never dreamt of being a podcaster — if for no other reason than I hated my voice. Although I suppose not knowing what a “podcast” was until just three years ago is another significant factor.
After discovering the world of podcasts, I started wondering: “How cool would it be to have a podcast and develop inside jokes over the course of dozens of episodes and say serious stuff too but mostly just have such a good time with dear friends that other people want to listen in?”
After recording this first batch of episodes for Your Other Brothers Podcast, I’m realizing it’s less about the hanging out with dear friends — which I love — and more about the simple act of storytelling. It’s why I wrote a book, it’s why I blog, and it’s what I live for.
I recently grabbed dinner with some guys in an apple orchard. Because why eat at Arby’s when the apple orchard next door is open?
I’d met the first guy on my #RunningTo road trip a couple years ago, and I’d never met the second. They’re both followers of Your Other Brothers, and the second had listened to a marathon of our podcast episodes on a long drive to meet with us.
How strange it must have been for him to listen to my voice in a vehicle for four hours only to then climb from his car and sit across from my physical body surrounded by woodchucks and apple trees. We sat and talked for hours as the sun set over the orchard.
What drives humans to such absurdity: driving hours to meet with strangers to talk and eat? What pushed this guy, and what’s beckoned me to strangers’ doorsteps dozens upon dozens of times across this continent?
Story.
Story swirls from the dark and stirs us to connect.
Oh, you have a story?
I have a story, too.
Come, let’s gather and allow our stories to intersect. If only for a paragraph or a page.
But perhaps longer.
I think that’s the part of story that mystifies me most: this unknowing. Sometimes our stories will share only a few lines. Sometimes chapters. Full epics.
It’s why I continue to share my story.
I almost hate to say it, but it’s true: most of my enduring friendships started on the Internet. I shared my story, they shared theirs, and the arms of our stories have wrapped around and united us years later.
I can’t translate how meaningful and, yes, fun it’s been to share stories with my other brothers on a blog and now a podcast. We’re now five episodes deep with 700+ downloads, 13+ iTunes ratings, over a dozen countries reached, and a listener meetup in an apple orchard.
And the arms of our story continue to unfurl.
A decade ago, I started an anonymous blog to share my story alongside other guys anonymously sharing theirs; a decade later, they’re some of my dearest friends.
I’ve met with them, I’ve cried with them, I’ve gloried with them. And now we share a blog and podcast together.
The possibilities are endless when it comes to story.
I want to dive deeper into this bottomless well of story. I want to explore the deepest caverns, the tunnels and the glowing springs, and I never want to come up for air.
Here’s to story. Ever inspiring us, ever connecting us.
Ever turning.
Page by page.
