210: How the “Podcast Movement” Can Change Your Life with Jared Easley
Jared Easley is a genuine entrepreneur. He is a noticer, motivator, friend, and power content creator. He has found a way to do all this and still keep his family first. He is also the co-founder of Podcast Movement, and from The Starve the doubts podcast.
For the past 8 years, the goal of the Podcast Movement has been to bring together and educate active and aspiring podcasters and industry professionals, to grow the podcast community and industry as a whole. In 2022, they once again have the chance to do that twice, as they welcome thousands worldwide to the world’s largest gatherings of podcasters. With over 10,000 podcasters joining them over the last 8 years from over 35 different countries (and growing), they are excited to continue the mission of the Podcast Movement for years to come! It will be on August 23-26, 2022.
The “Starve the doubts podcast” features personal and professional development conversations. This show includes a guest on the “hot seat” that illuminates the path for listeners by sharing how they have navigated challenging seasons & difficult hurdles to pursue success.
In this episode, Jared shared how he surpasses the obstacles that blocked his way to success.
He talks about how he goes forward regardless of the uncertainties he faces in front of him.
Jared Easley talks to Dr. Brad about how he read books and watches youtube videos to learn and eventually launch his podcast despite facing the problems such as the lack of money.
Beyond that, Jared talks about how his faith in God aids him in times of hardship to get him through the depths of his circumstances.
Jared Easley’s story is powerful, inspiring, and strengthening. A proof of one who has lived out the pathway of navigating adverse life events and emerged to a life of peace, prosperity, and purpose.
Episode 210 of The Beyond Adversity Podcast is a must-listen for individuals who want to know how to take opportunities to change their lives no matter how hard it is. We will look for an inspirational story of a man who succeeded despite adversity and wants to help others through the Podcast Movement.
“The Beyond Adversity Podcast with Dr. Brad Miller is published weekly with the mission of helping people “Grow Through What They Go Through” as they navigate adversity and discover their promised life of peace, prosperity, and purpose.
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JaredEasley/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredeasley
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaredeasley/
Transcript
Brad Miller 0:00
Jared Easley, Welcome to the Beyond Diversity Podcast.
Jared Easley 0:09
Brad, I'm grateful to be here. And this topic is near and dear to my heart because lord
Jared Easley 0:012
knows I have had my day where I have thought, What am I doing?
Jared Easley 0:019
How did I end up here? And to be able to navigate those circumstances is critical
Jared Easley 0:25
for someone who wants to pursue success, or they feel compelled to do something
Jared Easley 0:29
that's important. And so this is a great topic.
Jared Easley 0:032
And I hoping today that listeners will be encouraged.
Dr. Brad Miller 0:33
Well, I know that they will. And you have an incredible story, you and I've had some
Dr. Brad Miller 0:38
relation for several years now. But I'm really interested in kind of what started things for
Dr. Brad Miller 0:42
you. There had to be some sort of a moment. Now, obviously, you're an author of, I've
Dr. Brad Miller 0:47
read both of the two of your books, and I'm aware of chasing influencers and one about
Dr. Brad Miller 0:51
collaboration. And you've had the podcast, starve the doubts, which is basically it's
Dr. Brad Miller 0:57
similar topic to what we're talking about here today. And then you but you really took a
Dr. Brad Miller 1:01
dive to start the Podcast Movement conference a few years ago. But something had to
Dr. Brad Miller 1:06
spark all that. And I got a feeling that something sparked all that may have been
Dr. Brad Miller 1:10
something that you were dissatisfied with, or some events in your life that you had to
Dr. Brad Miller 1:13
deal with. Just tell us your story a little bit about what kind of led you to do these things
Dr. Brad Miller 1:18
here out of some pain you may have had your life.
Jared Easley 1:20
Yeah, that's, that's a good question. I had moved to South Florida,
Jared Easley 1:26
Fort Lauderdale is where my wife is from, we got married in 2009.
Jared Easley 1:30
And we moved to South Florida and later that year,
Jared Easley 1:33
bought our first home and got a job. And it seemed like a really cool
Jared Easley 1:39
company and just kind of doing the nine to five thing project manager type role. And had
Jared Easley 1:45
some pretty decent success with that. I remember working really hard to over deliver in
Jared Easley 1:54
that role. And so after a couple of years of being in that role,
Jared Easley 1:58
I had reached kind of the, the top of that opportunity.
Jared Easley 2:04
And I remember I had done so well, I had become what's called
Jared Easley 2:09
the highest biller in the company. So I build the most amount of
Jared Easley 2:13
money for any of the other staff, they're working with a
Jared Easley 2:19
client base that they this company had just
Dr. Brad Miller 2:20
sold over corporate corporate sales game.
Jared Easley 2:24
This was a software solution that was in long term care.
Jared Easley 2:27
And I had fortunately, just figured out, you know, a couple of tricks
Jared Easley 2:33
and things that helped me to reach that goal in the year and it I mean,
Jared Easley 2:38
that was probably the hardest year I've worked in my life.
Jared Easley 2:40
And that includes being in the military, by the way. And I remember
Jared Easley 2:45
at the end of that year, I won the award, I won the number
Jared Easley 2:48
one top top bill, billable person award, and I got this, you know,
Jared Easley 2:53
little financial incentive, I think was $5,000. And I remember
Jared Easley 2:59
after I was received that accolade, and immediately it was like, reset.
Jared Easley 3:05
Okay, what have you done for me now I'll start all over.
Jared Easley 3:10
I just, I didn't think I had the energy or the bandwidth to
Jared Easley 3:15
to try to reproduce what I'd done in that previous order.
Dr. Brad Miller 3:18
So I got burned out award wasn't what was not quite
Dr. Brad Miller 3:21
as satisfying as you thought it would be.
Dr. Brad Miller 3:23
Because you just saw what was next.
Jared Easley 3:25
Just I just realized man I took to go through this again.
Jared Easley 3:30
And another year, like, I don't think I have the stamina, like I just I was exhausted, I was
Jared Easley 3:36
burned out to be honest. And that's when I really started to decide,
Jared Easley 3:41
okay, if I can do this for someone else, I'm wondering if I can do this for myself. And so I
Jared Easley 3:45
started to go down the rabbit hole of listening to podcasts
Jared Easley 3:49
and watch YouTube videos and read books about entrepreneurial things.
Jared Easley 3:54
And I was very interested in that, because I was very dissatisfied with the idea that I
Jared Easley 3:59
had, given everything that I had and then won this award,
Jared Easley 4:03
but it was, you know, it was really just kind of futile, in the long in the big picture of
Jared Easley 4:08
things. Maybe that's not true, but it felt that way. And so, I started
Jared Easley 4:13
going down that path, and I started learning a lot and that encouraged me to consider
Jared Easley 4:18
Hey, I wonder if I could start my own podcast and 2013 I finally accomplished
Jared Easley 4:23
that goal. And it took me a long time to really get started,
Jared Easley 4:28
Brad because I had a lot of hit trash. I told myself well I don't have the money to do this
Jared Easley 4:32
or I don't I don't have anything significant to say and
Jared Easley 4:35
he's gonna want to listen to me and so I had a lot of those things I had to
Jared Easley 4:38
overcome and I finally found an affordable microphone and decided okay,
Jared Easley 4:42
whatever I'm gonna jump in and I started just reaching out with
Jared Easley 4:44
people that at the time I probably had no business reaching
Jared Easley 4:46
out to people that were you know, pretty well established in their careers and way
Jared Easley 4:51
further up the mountain than I was and a lot of them were very gracious and had
Jared Easley 4:56
interviews with me and so I put out put out the podcast
Jared Easley 4:59
and the Podcast at a bare minimum has started giving me new ideas, things that I had
Jared Easley 5:04
not thought about. And just the possibilities of for me to
Jared Easley 5:11
eventually break out and, and try to do something entrepreneurial,
Jared Easley 5:15
although I've not determined what that was yet. But that led me to connections. And
Jared Easley 5:21
once that connection was with my business partner,
Jared Easley 5:24
Dan Franks, who also had a business type podcast at that point called entrepreneurial
Jared Easley 5:29
showdown, and his show was very creative in terms of the framework
Jared Easley 5:32
of the show. Dan, some people who know Dan, I know that he is a former
Jared Easley 5:38
professional wrestler, and a CPA. And so he used kind of this this wrestling, water
Jared Easley 5:46
combination. Yeah, really interesting. Really, really fascinating.
Jared Easley 5:49
Yeah. But he had the framework for his podcast was kind of a, you know, a wrestling
Jared Easley 5:56
type of framework. We had round one showdown I get it now.
Jared Easley 6:00
Yeah, round one and round two, round three, but it was entrepreneurial type focus
Jared Easley 6:04
topics, but it was set up like, and then whoever the guest was,
Jared Easley 6:07
they had this custom image work where they look like, you know, building muscles, and
Jared Easley 6:12
they were, you know, like a wrestling person or something.
Jared Easley 6:16
So I just liked. I grew up a wrestling fan. I liked the way he did his show.
Jared Easley 6:23
And I reached out to him, he didn't know me at all. But I listened to it. And I told him,
Jared Easley 6:27
Hey, I really think what you're doing is creative.
Jared Easley 6:29
I'm going to be in Dallas for a conference. And I was thinking about maybe trying to do
Jared Easley 6:33
a listener meetup. And I don't really want to do one by myself,
Jared Easley 6:36
because I'm pretty new. And I was thinking maybe, you know,
Jared Easley 6:40
your podcast and my podcast, we continue to do a listener
Jared Easley 6:43
podcast meet up and maybe get a few more people than we get if I just tried it by
Jared Easley 6:47
myself. And he was Dan was gracious to do that. So we did that.
Jared Easley 6:52
And we had maybe 20 to 25 people come to this meetup,
Jared Easley 6:55
which for us was that felt like a pretty big win, you know,
Jared Easley 6:57
we're new podcasters and influential. And so we had a nice little turnout.
Jared Easley 7:02
And that led to Hey, I wonder if we could do something like this,
Jared Easley 7:09
or something, again, where we could, you know, get a podcast.
Jared Easley 7:12
In this case, we wanted to connect with other podcasters,
Jared Easley 7:14
who wanted to try to get some podcasters to get together.
Jared Easley 7:16
At an upcoming conference. I was in Las Vegas at the time.
Jared Easley 7:20
It's not around anymore. It was called New Media Expo.
Jared Easley 7:22
This was January of 2014. So we we, the night before that conference started. We
Jared Easley 7:30
found a bowling alley that was literally next door and
Jared Easley 7:33
we just called the bowling alley. And we're like, Hey, can we just
Jared Easley 7:35
bring a bunch of friends over and hang out? Is that gonna be a problem?
Jared Easley 7:38
They were like, No, we got this area you can set up it's not a big deal.
Jared Easley 7:41
So we probably had about 100 people, we promoted this, we have probably about 100
Jared Easley 7:45
people that were interested in podcasting, that came to this meetup at this bowling alley
Jared Easley 7:50
before this conference. And that was a little bit of an eye-opener, right?
Jared Easley 7:54
There was like, Okay, we don't have any influence. We don't have any email list.
Jared Easley 7:58
We are not popular by any means. We have no. Authority. No
Dr. Brad Miller 8:04
still, people responded.
Jared Easley 8:06
But yeah. But we're throwing the party and people are coming.
Jared Easley 8:10
And, and then at the conference, we heard a number of folks that were interested in
Jared Easley 8:015
podcasting, but that particular conference had YouTube content and social media
Jared Easley 8:19
content and blogging and so on, so forth. But the podcasting was more of a redheaded
Jared Easley 8:24
stepchild. You know, stay in your corner type of situation.
Jared Easley 8:30
And yet there was a lot of people that were attending that conference was a pretty,
Jared Easley 8:34
pretty big room, you know, decent sized conference, were a number of people were
Jared Easley 8:38
interested in podcasting, even though podcasting was a sliver of the overall content.
Jared Easley 8:43
And we heard people say, Why isn't there a conference for podcasters?
Jared Easley 8:46
And that really resonated with me because I thought the same thing.
Jared Easley 8:49
And so Dan, and I remember thinking, if there was a podcast specific conference, I
Jared Easley 8:54
would go to it. At that time, there wasn't one. And so we had looked, we had searched
Jared Easley 8:59
all around to see if there was one, there was not one at the time.
Jared Easley 9:03
So we decided, well, maybe it makes sense to try to create that.
Jared Easley 9:08
Now, Dan, I did not have a background in event organiser, or organizing or, you know,
Jared Easley 9:14
event planning, nothing like that. Right. But we knew that people wanted something.
Jared Easley 9:20
And we had seen the turnout for our meetup that we had.
Jared Easley 9:23
And we just thought, hey, let's let's just give it a go. Let's, let's see what happens.
Jared Easley 9:26
So to validate the idea, Brad, we decided, because we didn't have money or time or you
Jared Easley 9:34
know, we didn't want to waste all these resources. We weren't in that position.
Jared Easley 9:38
So we decided, okay, let's do a crowdfunding campaign.
Jared Easley 9:41
If we can get farming, if we can get a few people to agree to support
Jared Easley 9:46
this and we can get X amount of money.
Jared Easley 9:49
That would probably be enough validation to go ahead and try to play on this thing.
Jared Easley 9:52
So we launched on February 14, Valentine's Day of 2014.
Jared Easley 9:58
And just invited a bunch of podcast friends that we knew,
Jared Easley:largely in the business space at that time, we weren't really connected with anyone
Jared Easley:outside of that group, and just asked people,
Jared Easley:Hey, we can speak it this way you can we support it,
Jared Easley:will you share it on your podcast, things like that.
Jared Easley:And we had a number of people that were gracious.
Jared Easley:And we raised at the end of that month, we raised over three times what we needed
Jared Easley:was that minimum amount of cash. And I validated, right that yeah,
Jared Easley:that was a huge win. Like, again, because we didn't have an email list.
Jared Easley:And we didn't have a reputation or the, you know, we were not,
Jared Easley:by any means qualified to do what we were doing.
Jared Easley:We just decided, hey, let's try this. So in that case, I guess ignorance was bliss.
Jared Easley:So we had enough validation that then we started to go to people
Jared Easley:that we knew that had conferences and asked if they'd give
Jared Easley:us a little bit of expertise, advice, and a lot of them were very gracious,
Jared Easley:hopped on a call with us that okay, if I was starting over,
Jared Easley:here's what I would do. And so we were learning on the fly.
Jared Easley:And we had that first event in August of 2014.
Jared Easley:We were hoping for 200 people, Brad, we thought, okay,
Jared Easley:this is going to really validate us. This is going to be a big deal
Jared Easley:if we get to interview but we had 600. And that was
Dr. Brad Miller:I remember.
Jared Easley:yeah, that was a wild moment.
Dr. Brad Miller:were talking to some people I used to have had hoped to go to that conference.
Dr. Brad Miller:But I kept talking to people that I knew who were, you know, basically,
Dr. Brad Miller:really impressed. There was as many people who was there
Dr. Brad Miller:and I was these people. Were there, Jeff Brown, something.
Jared Easley:Jeff, Jeff was there he spoke? I mean, Jeff, has always been very good to us.
Jared Easley:And, yeah, just a number of people were like that they were very kind and supportive.
Jared Easley:And we couldn't get we couldn't have got off that start without that there was no way.
Jared Easley:We weren't, like said we weren't the people to do this.
Jared Easley:But somehow, when we did,
Dr. Brad Miller:yeah.
Jared Easley:I credit that, you know, I'm a person of faith. I think God just really blessed this.
Jared Easley:And we, you know, I certainly prayed about it a lot. And, you know,
Jared Easley:I felt like the Lord had just opened up that opportunity and allow that to happen
. Jared Easley:And so we just charged forward and try to do the best
Jared Easley:we could and start playing the second year.
Jared Easley:And fast forward, it took four years. Brad, this is the part where we talk about,
Jared Easley:you know, the the challenges where there's a lack of peace and prosperity,
Jared Easley:that we had four years of not getting paid, we were working full time.
Jared Easley:There is that yeah, working full time jobs, and then working full time
Jared Easley:on podcasts moving on top of that for four years.
Jared Easley:That was a very stressful time.
Jared Easley:And I remember my wife challenging me on that,
Jared Easley:rightfully so as he should have, and saying,
Jared Easley:Hey, what you are doing, you know, this has taken up all your time.
Dr. Brad Miller:Let me reflect with you for a second before you go further.
Dr. Brad Miller:Because I know there's more to your story there.
Dr. Brad Miller:But I wanted to reflect to kind of where you are at and where you are,
Dr. Brad Miller:at one time and where you're at, where you're at,
Dr. Brad Miller:at this point you took you are dissatisfied in your job.
Dr. Brad Miller:And you had, even though you had the accolades you had,
Dr. Brad Miller:it was just not a place where you wanted to be.
Dr. Brad Miller:And you saw opportunity. And so many people Jared,
Dr. Brad Miller:stay stuck, they stay, they don't take action, they don't do anything.
Dr. Brad Miller:They just kind of get through life, I call it the malaise of mediocrity,
Dr. Brad Miller:it is stay in that place. So but you chose to do it, you sought out some people,
Dr. Brad Miller:you start a podcast with just a cheap microphone,
Dr. Brad Miller:you sought out Dan and some others, you took the actions necessary.
Dr. Brad Miller:So you had the pain, part of being dissatisfied.
Dr. Brad Miller:But you also had the action taking place. I think it's so key.
Dr. Brad Miller:And that led you I'm sure that even though you had you were not profitable
Dr. Brad Miller:for the first few years, you still kept doing it. So there must been some
Dr. Brad Miller:point over you were affirmed as well in that process. So I want you to go into
Dr. Brad Miller:the next part of the story with an eye towards not only what you did,
Dr. Brad Miller:the actions that you took, let's talk about how if there was come some
Dr. Brad Miller:sort of a higher calling here, if there was some sort of a sense that,
Dr. Brad Miller:that there was some connection to a spiritual element that may
Dr. Brad Miller:have been somehow involved with this.
Dr. Brad Miller:So can you go there with me a little bit kind of the next steps here?
Jared Easley:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think there was a number of lessons personally that
Jared Easley:God wanted me to learn. One of them is just trusting him.
Jared Easley:It's really easy to have a win have a couple of wins and to say, Okay, I've got this, you
Jared Easley:know, and the moment that I would have that delusion of grandeur, Brad, it was it was
Jared Easley:always something else that would pop up and then realize, oh, no, we don't we don't
Jared Easley:have this. There's something big going on and that I think (inaudible)
Jared Easley:(inaudible) specifically, but anytime you feel encouraged or compelled to pursue
Jared Easley:something that the Lord has put in your heart to do I mean that that ultimately will
Jared Easley:probably test your faith and hopefully that will be a thing that will require you to or
Jared Easley:encourage you to be in the word to be praying to be seeking
Jared Easley:wise counsel to be asking God to bless and to help you.
Jared Easley:And so there was a lot of mistakes that we made Brad and but the good news is we
Jared Easley:were able to learn from those mistakes, put up some guardrails.
Jared Easley:And I don't think we could have read that in a book, I don't think we could learn that from
Jared Easley:a podcast, I think that was just some things that we had to go through.
Jared Easley:So there was lessons of resilience, lessons of endurance, you know, particularly
Jared Easley:scriptures that would stick out to me, and that time is, is, you know, that there's a verse
Jared Easley:and I believe it's in Romans, it's some trust in chariots, and summon horse, but we trust
Jared Easley:them the name of the Lord, our God, and I, I just thought, you know, it is so simple to
Jared Easley:to, to get caught up in this, Hey, I'm getting this type of accolade or this this type of
Jared Easley:visibility, or this type of money is hitting the account and putting your you know,
Jared Easley:your trust in that versus recognizing that, Hey, God has been gracious. And so yeah.
Jared Easley:there's just a number of wonderful lessons that I had to learn during those periods.
Jared Easley:And nothing was community, there's a temptation, I think, for anyone to kind of put
Jared Easley:yourself out there more. And we determined that say, we had Dan, Dan and I, we
Jared Easley:determined early on that, for us to create community, or what we felt was true
Jared Easley:community, it couldn't be about ourselves, it, we shouldn't be putting our face on the,
Jared Easley:you know, on the billboards, or on the, you know, on the artwork, or the logos, we
Jared Easley:shouldn't be taking the keynote stage, we should be letting the community be the stars.
Jared Easley:And for some people that might be a counterintuitive move by like, well, this is my
Jared Easley:brand, and this is what I'm trying to build. And but for us, we didn't feel that way.
Jared Easley:We said, Okay, we need to create genuine community and there's more trust, we
Jared Easley:believe that's created when someone sees, hey, they could do this, but they don't.
Jared Easley:And why did they not do that. And because we had not had that influential background,
Jared Easley:starting this, we felt like that was a really good starting places, don't try to be the
Jared Easley:hero, like let the let the community be the hero. And that served us well, long, long
Jared Easley:term, because that created opportunities for trust with larger organizations that came
Jared Easley:in realize, okay, it's not these guys just trying to be, you know, flashing their ego or their
Jared Easley:vanity or whatever. They're really trying to create true community. And so we had a
Jared Easley:number of organizations in podcasting that were willing to support and willing to check
Jared Easley:out what Podcast Movement was, which has now led to us several years later, having a
Jared Easley:lot of really awesome organizations, and a lot of really nice, you know, exciting people
Jared Easley:involved in the event that I don't think would have happened any other way.
Jared Easley:So, you know, I've mentioned several things, but there's a lot of really positive lessons
Jared Easley:that were learned there. And I think, from a spiritual standpoint, I think that was God
Jared Easley:just really humbling me, but also put me in a place to trust Him,
Jared Easley:and to certainly try to honor him with those things, and, and then seeing some
Jared Easley:good things produced from that.
Dr. Brad Miller:Yeah, so I'm a big believer, Jared, that the spiritual journey, often the metaphor of the
Dr. Brad Miller:wilderness experience that you have to go through a wilderness experience, you just
Dr. Brad Miller:don't go from, you know, Moses on the mountain to the Promised Land didn't happen,
Dr. Brad Miller:you know, out of, you know, didn't happen the next day,
Dr. Brad Miller:it was a wilderness experience for 40 years. And, you know, I use that I like that
Dr. Brad Miller:metaphor, the 40 days, the 40 years, you know, Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days,
Dr. Brad Miller:and, you know, Noa in the ark, 40 days, and so on and so forth.
Dr. Brad Miller:You gotta have a process, you got to have some time to have some,
Dr. Brad Miller:some pain and some diligence and some perseverance.
Dr. Brad Miller:And, and you, you did that, and that's admirable.
Dr. Brad Miller:But I also know that in that process of that journey, there are some moments that almost
Dr. Brad Miller:seem like dead ends. And I got a feeling that you may have had a few of those, and
Dr. Brad Miller:perhaps even when the, and I'm just kind of reading into things here, I may be wrong.
Dr. Brad Miller:But when the COVID crisis came along, and kind of messed up the whole world, that
Dr. Brad Miller:may have been a challenging moment for you and for the conference.
Dr. Brad Miller:Can you go to some kind of the moments like for felt like deadhead moments in the last
Dr. Brad Miller:few years here that may have been? You need to call it your faith even more.
Jared Easley:Oh, yeah, absolutely. So So, COVID, I think, caught everyone by surprise.
Jared Easley:And people that weren't even in the live event space, you know, were majorly impacted.
Jared Easley:But certainly, if you're creating conferences, and now all of a sudden, they all have to be
Jared Easley:virtual. That's, that's a challenge to, you know, completely take one model
Jared Easley:and then you know, learn a new one. I'm thankful to say that in the midst of such a
Jared Easley:difficult time, where people were sick and people were losing their loved ones, and, you
Jared Easley:know, just a lot of really hard things that were happening for some people that we were
Jared Easley:able to recognize that we needed additional revenue streams, we were able to figure
Jared Easley:out Okay, how do we create some more opportunities, so it allowed us to be more
Jared Easley:creative. We did make some sacrifices, sadly, there were some pay cuts that were
Jared Easley:necessary. But we were able to keep our team. We didn't have to lay anyone off,
Jared Easley:and no one had to go without insurance. And eventually, we were able to, you know,
Jared Easley:not only pay people again, what their salaries were,
Jared Easley:but a little bit by little bit, start to pay back some of that money,
Jared Easley:they lost her that time and just try to treat our people well. And so I think those are
Jared Easley:several lessons that came from the pandemic that made us realize, Hey, you don't know
Jared Easley:what's gonna happen. So you need to be diverse, you need to be a little more on your
Jared Easley:feet. And so we started getting into things like podcasts newsletters, so we have a few
Jared Easley:podcasts newsletters now that generate revenue through ads, we have professional
Jared Easley:services, where a portion of our team can go and work on a number of other events
Jared Easley:where we get hired, basically, people that have come to Podcast Movement, seeing the
Jared Easley:quality and, and seeing the hard work that we've done.
Jared Easley:And then the execution, they've realized, hey, I want this for this event that we're going
Jared Easley:to do we want to have your team help us we've,
Jared Easley:whether it's been consulting or or kind of leading the path there,
Jared Easley:we've been able to do that. We've also had events,
Jared Easley:unfortunately, during one fortunately for them, during the pandemic that suffered so
Jared Easley:greatly that they couldn't carry on and they said, hey, we'd like for you to take this.
Jared Easley:So we actually inherited events that we didn't have to purchase.
Jared Easley:And now we're able to, hopefully kind of continue those on as they make sense.
Jared Easley:So, you know, there's just been a number of really positive things that came from that.
Jared Easley:But that, you know, I think in those situations, yeah, it did, it did require
Dr. Brad Miller:you get that because you sound like you just started to develop your
Dr. Brad Miller:new set of systems or processes that were a disciplines, I would call them disciplines,
Dr. Brad Miller:among other things that you learn, you came out of the just kind of, oh,
Dr. Brad Miller:what are we gonna do now? I mean, this is a total idea.
Dr. Brad Miller:I didn't even know anything about event planning. And believe me,
Dr. Brad Miller:I've done a few events, I used to be in charge of youth ministry events in my state for
Dr. Brad Miller:just in the neighborhood of 500 to 600 people. That was an enormous thing.
Dr. Brad Miller:And It’s just an f itself.
Jared Easley:It is.
Jared Easley:And, and I used to be a concert promoter and things like that
Dr. Brad Miller:Christian rock concert. And so I know some of that.
Dr. Brad Miller:And I just know a little bit of the headaches that can happen.
Dr. Brad Miller:But what I want to get with you is what were some of the lessons you've learned that are
Dr. Brad Miller:applicable to others now about disciplines or practices, habits, things like that, that have
Dr. Brad Miller:transformed you and help transform your organization. And that may be helpful with
Dr. Brad Miller:transferable principles for those who are going through tough times.
Jared Easley:Well, when you when you do take a hit, or you do take a loss,
Jared Easley:it's okay to be disheartened by that. So let it don't let it destroy you, or,
Jared Easley:or, you know, bring you down to the depths of despair completely,
Jared Easley:but it's okay to kind of take a moment and be like, Oh, that's no good.
Jared Easley:But hopefully, you can rebound from that quickly. And you can start to say,
Jared Easley:Okay, what lessons can I learn from this, because there's always a lesson to learn.
Jared Easley:And I think there's a lot of people who quit way to early on things I feel,
Jared Easley:are at one point they felt led to do. Sometimes it does make sense to quit.
Jared Easley:But there are some times when you just need to
Jared Easley:make some adjustments and you make some tweaks.
Jared Easley:And if you can make those tweaks and adjustments, you can still continue to do things.
Jared Easley:And now you can you see some success, or see some good opportunities from that.
Jared Easley:And so that's hopefully a word of encouragement is if someone's feeling down right now
Jared Easley:is maybe don't think, okay, I need to drop this, maybe start saying,
Jared Easley:Okay, what what can I learn from what's happened so far,
Jared Easley:where I can put up guardrails where I can maybe get some advice where I can make
Jared Easley:some adjustments to not give up but just to keep going and make sure it's in a sensible
Jared Easley:way. If we were recklessly continuing on and losing money and, you know,
Jared Easley:having to lay people off and you know, all these things,
Jared Easley:it might have not made sense to you know, try to keep going.
Jared Easley:So there are times when it does make sense to say okay, this isn't this isn't the right
Jared Easley:thing. But I think there's a number of situations where you're not at that point yet.
Jared Easley:You may feel like you're at that point and you can put up some guardrails, get advice
Jared Easley:and you can kind of stick it out and and still see some opportunity and some
Jared Easley:growth and some success and then So yeah, that's
Dr. Brad Miller:it's okay to have doubt it's okay to have doubts
Dr. Brad Miller:and but you you don't want to say it.
Jared Easley:It is okay because you're human and man if you've pretend
Jared Easley:like nothing ever hurts and things don't stain man, that's,
Jared Easley:you're better than me, because there have been plenty of times where I've,
Jared Easley:I've just poured my heart out to God and be like, God,
Jared Easley:why do you allow this to happen? Why? Why did this happen? But it well, it was
Dr. Brad Miller:out of this,you know, you pour your heart out and things like that.
Dr. Brad Miller:And you That's because you care. And that's obvious that you care about doing
Dr. Brad Miller:something that is something that benefits, you know, the greater good.
Dr. Brad Miller:And, you know, the use of spiritual metaphor to benefits the kingdom,
Dr. Brad Miller:and in a positive way, and I love that about, you know, love what you have to share.
Dr. Brad Miller:So let's go now to what out of that love of serving others that humility,
Dr. Brad Miller:it's not, not every business oriented conference has that has, you know, you know,
Dr. Brad Miller:that's off. In fact, it's kind of an a, you know, an outlier,
Jared Easley:we were certainly treated a certain way.
Jared Easley 25:358
And we had to be gracious even when there were times when we could have
Jared Easley:justifiably not been in that way. So yeah, you're absolutely right.
Dr. Brad Miller:Just tell us how to serving others. Now. You've serve others, you have another.
Dr. Brad Miller:We're talking in early August of 2022. And you still have the conference,
Dr. Brad Miller:you still have lots of other things that you do, how is what you're doing now,
Dr. Brad Miller:serving others and, and serving the needs of the podcasting community.
Dr. Brad Miller:In particular, thinking of maybe people out there, think about, okay,
Dr. Brad Miller:my life has taken a shift here. You know, for instance, right now, where the economy has
Dr. Brad Miller:taken another dip here recently, people have been thinking, oh, what can I do? What is
Dr. Brad Miller:this area of podcasting? Or media? How's this? What can I do here? What people can
Dr. Brad Miller:learn from your experience? Or from the conference?
Dr. Brad Miller:That may be helpful to them.
Jared Easley:Great question. First of all, I think one of the biggest things that Podcast Movement
Jared Easley:has done is it's, it's created an opportunity for various categories in podcasting.
Jared Easley:To learn from other categories, there wasn't much synergy. In the past, when
Jared Easley:I first got started, you didn't see a lot of overlap.
Jared Easley:And the various categories were now you do see a lot more of that. Now.
Jared Easley:I'm not saying Podcast Movement is specifically responsible for all of that.
Jared Easley:But we definitely played a role in bringing a number of categories together.
Jared Easley:And seeing that synergy and that collaborative spirit develop where the comedian's
Jared Easley:learned from the business podcast, or you have, you know, all these different that you
Jared Easley:can there's, there's elements of true crime, podcast, and storytelling and things that you
Jared Easley:can apply to whatever type of podcast you're doing. So there's just all this really great
Jared Easley:opportunities for learning from each other on okay, this is the one, this one podcast, this
Jared Easley:is how they do their Patreon, or how they reach out to their community and, and
Jared Easley:have engagement, what can I learn from that? What are they doing? And how can I
Jared Easley:apply that to what I'm doing? We see a lot more of that now. And I'm really thankful for
Jared Easley:that. But for the most part, podcasters are collaborative. They do have a synergistic
Jared Easley:mindset. There's a few that aren't like that, but most are. And I'm grateful that that's the
Jared Easley:community that comes to Podcast Movement. And I would say for the most part, that's
Jared Easley:the overall podcasting community. And because of that, is yes, that's, that's, I think a
Jared Easley:podcast movement can continue to serve podcasters. And then, just for me, from a
Jared Easley:personal standpoint, just trying to provide opportunities to people that might not
Jared Easley:always get them, whether it's introductions to Spotify, or podcasts, you know, Apple,
Jared Easley:those people are at the podcast, movement conference, they attend, they're in the
Jared Easley:hallways, and so it's really cool when you can, you know, Hey, have you met this
Jared Easley:person? And see an opportunities open up that way. And sometimes it's just a word of
Jared Easley:encouragement, it's run into somebody who's been doing a podcast, they're not really
Jared Easley:seeing the results they want. And maybe they're stuck a little bit and, and just kind of
Jared Easley:saying, hey, well, have you considered this? Or have you tried this? Or have you met
Jared Easley:this person? And it's really awesome to get the emails later of people saying, Hey, you
Jared Easley:introduced me to this person, or you told me about this, I tried this. And now I'm seeing
Jared Easley:this result. And that's happened a lot
Dr. Brad Miller:opportunities that you've opened up here through relationships,
Dr. Brad Miller:and I'm a big believer in developing helpful, collaborative relationships
Dr. Brad Miller:where there is a sense of community, I love that, or even congregation if you will,
Dr. Brad Miller:but to have a sense of moving forward. And I've seen that in this in this world.
Dr. Brad Miller:And that's why I've chosen to be part of it for 10 years by myself.
Dr. Brad Miller:I've also noticed that it's really hit popular culture.
Dr. Brad Miller:You know, when I first started podcasting 10 years ago, it was really a hard interpretive
Dr. Brad Miller:job to do. And now what you know, I think there's two or three Netflix shows, at least
Dr. Brad Miller:that have podcasting as a central theme murders in the building is one I'm thinking of
Dr. Brad Miller:right now.
Jared Easley:of course.
Dr. Brad Miller:you got all the big name entertainers or all seem to call them or
Dr. Brad Miller:have their own podcasts and so on. It's a part of our world now. And that's, so you're
Dr. Brad Miller:right on the cutting edge of that. So there's pretty good opportunity. There's still
Dr. Brad Miller:opportunity if people want to do a new podcast, isn't there for people who want to jump
Dr. Brad Miller:into this world?
Jared Easley:Yeah, absolutely. I would say Probably good advice would be, you know,
Jared Easley:think through what you're gonna do try to be niche in the sense of not be too broad if
Jared Easley:you can help it and then add that don't be afraid share your voice.
Jared Easley 30:012
And there's creative and smart ways to launch show well, there's,
Jared Easley:I like the the Netflix seasonal approach where you can do a certain amount of episodes
Jared Easley:when you release maybe eight or 10. And you can kind of discern from that eight or 10
Jared Easley:episodes, what kind of feedback you're getting, what kind of response you're getting.
Jared Easley:And then if it makes sense, you can commit to another eight or 10 episodes to do
Jared Easley:season two, and you can take the feedback you got from season one and apply that.
Jared Easley:So there's a lot of ways to do this a little bit more smartly, and just kind of protect your
Jared Easley:your time and your resources. And I think there's so many good and generous people
Jared Easley:out there in the community, you can go to the Podcast Movement, Facebook
Jared Easley:community, which is free, you can join that. And even if you've never attended a podcast
Jared Easley:moment, you can join that group and just ask questions, getting really, really solid
Jared Easley:insights from a lot of people all over the world who are doing this, they're right in the
Jared Easley:thick of it with you. So you can learn a lot just from doing that. And that will help you that
Jared Easley:will help you to make better decisions on what to do with your show.
Dr. Brad Miller:So part of what I'm getting at here is that this is one to affect life change your own
Dr. Brad Miller:personal life change or some people have certain messages,
Dr. Brad Miller:they really want to get out there to like informational messages as
Dr. Brad Miller:part of what you know, beyond adversity is about helping people to have some
Dr. Brad Miller:tools to navigate adversity. I'd like you to tell me a story about someone or some
Dr. Brad Miller:situation that has been impacted, but somehow, but either by something
Dr. Brad Miller:you've done with your podcast, or the Podcast Movement, or you've seen life
Dr. Brad Miller:change happen to the better.
Jared Easley:I mean, I've heard countless stories of people who've come to the event or been
Jared Easley:involved in the community. And they've said, Hey, because of the podcast, and because
Jared Easley:of the community now I'm in this position and whether they got advice or they get
Jared Easley:encouragement. So I have seen some really awesome things that have happened.
Jared Easley:This, this may seem like a silly story, and maybe not exactly what you're looking for.
Jared Easley:But a guy came to one of our minutes got encouraged and he decided to start a
Jared Easley:podcast that's kind of goes back to wrestling so but he wanted to create a podcast
Jared Easley:where he was going to make a fictitious wrestling organization.
Jared Easley:And then he would do simulated wrestling matches on a video game with these custom
Jared Easley:wrestlers that are made up in his mind. And he was telling me about this.
Jared Easley:I'm going to start this show, and I'm going to talk about this wrestling organization that
Jared Easley:doesn't exist. And in my mind, I was like, yeah, that probably is not gonna work.
Jared Easley:But, you know, who am I? Who am I the rain on the parade?
Jared Easley:So I ran into Scotty SCOTTY MORRIS, his name I ran into Scotty, not terribly long ago.
Jared Easley:And this was about two, three years after he first told me that.
Jared Easley:And I asked him kind of, you know, maybe it was a little tongue in cheek, but I asked
Jared Easley:him, I was like, Hey, man, how's the rest of the podcast? Figured immediately.
Jared Easley:The answer is like, yeah, to move on from that I'm trying something else now. I know.
Jared Easley:He was like, oh, yeah, man, I'm doing it full time.
Jared Easley:You know, I've got all the support on Patreon.
Jared Easley:And I was like, wait, wait, whoa,
Dr. Brad Miller:You never know what.
Jared Easley:Not only, you know, had an impact. It allowed him to, I guess, raise a fan support
Jared Easley:through Patreon where he left his day job. And he does that solely.
Jared Easley:And that's his career.
Dr. Brad Miller:And then, and he's able to live out his he's able to live on his passion, isn't he? That's an awesome thing. Eva lives.
Jared Easley:Exactly. So I sometimes things just, they work.
Jared Easley:And if you got a little creativity and you're willing to kind of try things and have fun with
Jared Easley:it, you might be surprised you might see you know, something happen.
Jared Easley:So yes, there is room there is room for the independent person to come along and start
Jared Easley:a podcast and have some some opportunity open up.
Jared Easley:Now that may not be what you think it is. That may not be okay, this massive amount of
Jared Easley:money. It might just be relationships, it might be connections that lead you to the next
Jared Easley:thing and that's okay. But there's there's definitely opportunity for the podcaster that
Jared Easley:wants to jump in and try out their idea and I hope they do.
Dr. Brad Miller:And that's part of your passion is to help people do just that.
Dr. Brad Miller:So, Jared, if people want to find out more about you about Podcast Movement,
Dr. Brad Miller:you know, you have several events going on during the year and you have lots of other
Dr. Brad Miller:opportunities. How can people find out more about you and or Podcast Movement so
Dr. Brad Miller:people get connected to that.
Jared Easley:Well, the first thing they should do is they should be subscribed to the Beyond adversity
Jared Easley:podcast with Dr. Brad Miller. They should be listening to every episode of this.
Jared Easley:Start here. Right here. Okay, and then after after, after you've gotten through that entire
Jared Easley:catalogue. Come over and check us out at podcast movement.com.
Jared Easley:We have a lot of wonderful newsletters and we have events and there's just a wonderful
Jared Easley:community with Podcast Movement. So if you're looking for people that are Like minded
Jared Easley:that are in the thick of working on their shows, you can be a part of the community and
Jared Easley:join the Facebook group and maybe hopefully join us at one of our events.
Jared Easley:And I think that's going to be something that can really be a source of encouragement
Jared Easley:for you and give you a lot of really great ideas of how you can grow with.
Dr. Brad Miller:Your well I would just concur with that. I've been fortunate to be in several of the
Dr. Brad Miller:Podcast Movement events and participate in several ways and find it to be a very
Dr. Brad Miller:affirming community. And that's why I continue to be a part of it myself and look forward
Dr. Brad Miller:to being at some events in the future and to continue to grow things and to serve, serve
Dr. Brad Miller:the greater good. So we just thank you Jared for being with us. Today. Jared easily is
Dr. Brad Miller:his name. And he's from podcast movement.com. That's one of the key websites that
Dr. Brad Miller:you can go to. And it's been our pleasure to have Jared easily as our guest today on the
Dr. Brad Miller:beyond adversity podcast.