I am talking about my failure toacutally get walking, reasons why I really need to and about new things I am trying with the Dudes And Dads Podcast, and how I am gaining clients for Podcast Answers.

Alright, we are back for another edition of Andy's Audio Journal.

I thought the last one actually turned out pretty good for being mobile and walking and

a lot of that good stuff.

So it is Friday, April 3rd at 11, no sorry, 1.13pm and I decided to go out walking again

just to kind of, it had been a couple weeks.

My whole goal in this fitness journey was to try and walk, it's like a mile.

So if I walk from my office down and around and back, it ends up being like a mile.

And my goal was, so I'm at work three days a week.

I'm there Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

And my goal originally was, okay I'm going to take a walk, I'm not going to record my

audio journal every time I walk, but my goal was to walk every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

And I have so far failed at that.

I did a subpar job trying to walk each one of those days.

So I am trying to get back on that for several different reasons.

So the reason I didn't do it this last week was because I was in the middle of, well a

couple things.

It was rainy a lot and so I didn't really feel like going out in the rain, which is

fine.

But I need to kind of figure out for myself and say, okay I am always going to do this

at a specific time.

The problem is if I try to do it during lunch, that doesn't always work because there's things

that go on.

Sometimes I'm meeting people for lunch, sometimes I'm eating and then getting back to work,

sometimes I'm trying to do things on my own.

And so it doesn't always work to just have it at noon.

So one, two o'clock is kind of a good time for me because I've eaten, I've sat down a

little bit, got back to work, and now it's time for me to give it a walk.

That way I can get my energy back up.

Because I get kind of tired just sitting in the building.

But today was a nice day to do it.

It's Friday, not a lot going on at work.

So I decided to get out and do my walk.

So here's a couple things that are on my reasons of wanting to do this.

So I wanted to just get better health.

Like I'm 44 and I'm not in the best health.

It's not terrible.

But it's not the best.

And I wanted to just get in better health and do more walking.

And then the other reason is because I am this summer going to go on a men's retreat

with my friend Greg Neumeier and a bunch of other people from the church.

So we are going to be going to the Tetons and it's going to be an awesome trip.

So we're going to be there like a week and we're going to be walking, we're camping,

we have like a base camp that we're going to be camping at.

Actually two different base camps while we're there at the Tetons.

But most importantly, so we have different base camps.

So we're going out and doing different day hikes and things like that.

I'm out of shape.

And as you might be able to tell, even just walking now, I'm kind of breathy and I'm not

even gone that long.

We're just walking down the hill right now.

But I am a little bit out of shape.

And so I want to get into shape because I want to be able to do these hikes because

it's going to be pretty intensive, right?

Like we're staying at base camp and then going to be doing these hikes.

The cool thing is there's one time we're going to be actually switching base camps and going

to a different base camp.

And so I'm going to be like, you have a couple different options on this base camp time.

So you can either ride in the van, bus, whatever we have that we take out there and go drive

to the next base camp.

Or you can do a overnight hike.

So you hike, camp, hike to the new base camp.

And that is what I'm going to choose to do.

And so actually, I'm actually going to be doing hammock camping.

So I've done a couple.

I've done one night before in the hammock and it turns out like I like hammock camping.

It's fun, it's light, it's something if you've never slept in a hammock, like for a long,

if you've never been in a hammock, first off you need to get yourself one because they

are pretty fun to sit in.

They're fun to be in and just relaxing, you know, swinging and kind of sitting between

the trees.

If you've never camped overnight in one, it's a completely different experience.

You have to be laying on your back.

So if you're a face sleeper, face down sleeper, which I am, it's a different experience.

It's definitely different to what I am normally used to because I'm normally sleeping face

down.

So on the hammock, you're sleeping on your back and it's good, it's comfortable, but

I'm going to try that.

I know that my friend Jason is going to try the same thing.

He's going to try to sleep in the hammock and see how that, well, he's done that before

more than I have, but it's a comfortable thing.

You need to get out and do it if you've never done it.

So we're doing that, but here's some of the joys of walking in and doing it is people.

I am walking and talking to myself.

I don't want to look like I'm 100% crazy when there are people that go by, so I will stop

talking a little bit.

And honestly, it's funny.

He was mowing and he stopped when I walked by, so I really didn't want to be talking

to myself then.

So it was hammock camping, right?

So I'm actually, you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to put my ear pods in.

So even though I'm not listening to anything, it looks like I'm at least talking on the

cell phone.

And that way it doesn't look like I'm 100% crazy when I'm doing this because I have my

ear pods in now.

Anyways, so we're going to be doing this trip to the Tetons and it's going to be a lot of

fun to be able to do this.

And we've got a lot of downtime, not downtime, but like a lot of time to just spend with

God.

That's the goal is to spend the time with God and just kind of get out into nature.

Nature is one of the best places to find God and to see God's beauty and just to revel

in his glory.

So I'm really looking forward to that.

That's going to be coming up here this summer.

I'm a little bit disappointed.

I wanted to originally go with my son Micah on that trip, but he's actually planning on

going on two different other trips this summer and he's got to work and make money and stuff

like that.

So he can't go with us to that trip.

I'm a little bit disappointed because I would have loved to have him on the trip with me.

For one, he's a better nature guy than I am and he can survive better in the nature than

I can.

So that's one of the reasons why I wanted him to come with me and spend time.

I just really wanted to spend time with him while I was doing this retreat.

So that's what's been kind of on my mind lately.

I need to kind of get prepared for that, get in a little bit better shape.

And again, I know that me walking on the sidewalk for a mile outside in Goshen, Indiana is not

going to really do the same things as it will when I'm actually hiking in the wilderness

and getting those things.

So I actually need to start improving my walking and walking more actually.

So we'll see how that goes.

You guys can keep me accountable for that.

Let me know in the comments what you think.

But the other thing that's been on my mind lately is just trying to produce more content

for the podcast that I'm doing.

So I'm doing Dudes and Dads podcast, I'm doing podcast answers.

And this is a podcast, but it's my audio journal.

So it's different.

It's not really a show.

It's just an audio journal where I'm talking and working things out as I'm walking around

and getting to this process, my thoughts out there.

And if you want to listen, you want to listen.

So that's a different kind of podcast.

But so I do, if you've not heard, probably, but if you've been friends with me for any

length of time, you know that I do Dudes and Dads podcast.

And that one is with my friend Joel.

We have the podcast, we talk, our whole goal with that podcast is to build community with

other men through meaningful conversations and storytelling.

So our goal with that one is to, we first and foremost, our parents, and we want to

be able to better parent our kids and be a better parent and spouse.

So that's kind of where the podcast starts on that one.

But we interview people that have great stories.

And we've had some really, really great opportunities lately to branch out and do different things.

So we were recently setting up a booth at the Father's Matter Forum.

It's a forum that, again, is talking about fathers and how they matter and encouraging

people to get involved in their kids' lives.

And so we were able to, they had a bunch of different booths set up there, nonprofits

that were just kind of helping people get involved in their community and involved in

children's lives, not necessarily just their own, but everybody.

So we were able to actually set up a booth there for the Dudes and Dads podcast.

And so that was really cool because we got more exposure to the people in the community.

They got to see us, people that didn't know that we have a podcast and were able to find

us and figure out what we were doing.

And so that was a lot of fun to set up.

And then recently, the other thing that we're starting to do is I'm trying to build, just

build a better community in there with people who are our community that support us.

So we have a pretty decent sized Facebook community.

So we have a Facebook page where people can just kind of follow the show and where we

put out our stuff.

But then we have a community there where people can chat and talk and just become part of

our community.

And so there's that.

There's also a Patreon.

So again, doing podcasting costs money.

Monthly, we have monthly costs with the software and the hardware.

Well, not the hardware, but the software that we use.

And so we have Patreon supporters that help us cover some of those costs.

And so to give back to them, one of the things that I'm going to start doing is a back channel,

a back channel audio.

So essentially what this will be is a Zoom meeting.

And this is all thanks to Ecamm.

So I'm a huge Ecamm proponent.

Ecamm is a software that we use to live stream our shows.

So we record live as we record our podcasts so that people can join us and people can

comment and stuff as we're recording and kind of be part of the show as we're recording.

And also that's how we bring our guests on.

So if you've not checked it out, Ecamm is amazing.

Podcastanswers.com/ecamm.

But they recently introduced this Zoom integration, which is really cool because essentially there's

a Zoom client in Ecamm and it allows you to have Zoom meetings and first broadcast into

it, your Ecamm production, which I could have done that before easily.

But then you can bring people back from Ecamm into, or from Zoom into Ecamm.

And so what I decided I'd do is I decided I would start a back channel, meaning that

our supporters could join this Zoom room.

And during our live recordings, people can listen, they can see us and whatever.

But I'm going to start the Zoom room a little bit before we start recording, which will

allow people to get just a little bit behind the scenes access.

They can see us before we go live.

They're kind of in the room with us, kind of like a live studio audience, right?

But then they're also able to talk amongst themselves so they can chat and stuff as we're

going on, both text and talking.

And the way I have it set up is I can hear the audio as we're recording, so I can hear

them talk if I want to.

And then I can really bring them up.

I can promote them.

If they have something that they want to say, they can be part of their show.

Because they're a patron and they support us, I'm fine with bringing them on.

So if they want to start their video, I can easily just throw that into a scene in Ecamm

and bring them on.

So I'm starting this back channel thing.

We're going to see how it goes.

This next weekend is the first time I'm going to use that.

We're going to just see how it comes up and if anyone shows up, who knows?

I'm going to try to push it hard as a way to connect and connect with other people,

but also get something special because you get to be behind the scenes a little bit and

you get to then you get to also have the potential of being around the show.

Then my other podcast, Podcast Answers, is kind of, I started that show because I like

doing podcasting and I wanted to help people consult, you know, consult with people about

how to start a podcast.

Like I had several people come to me and say, "Hey Andy, how do I start a podcast?

How do I start a podcast?"

And I'd sit down and I'd talk to them and 99% of the time nothing happened.

They didn't do anything.

They liked the idea of starting a podcast, but they didn't do it.

So I got a little bit, I started the podcast as a way to answer people's questions and

build up credibility.

So that way it's not just my friends and people that I know through church that want to start

a podcast.

I can help them, but I'm building my credibility in the podcasting space, if you will.

And I'm able to say, "Okay, here's what I'm doing.

I'm podcasting and I've been podcasting since 2007."

And I was just pretty close to the beginning of podcasting.

And so I started that podcast just to answer people's questions in a way that I can send

people to.

If they just have quick questions, I can send them the episode and say, "Hey, here's what

you need to do."

But also build up credibility as far as somebody who is knowledgeable in the space of podcasting.

And so this has really been taking off for me.

I started this year off with somebody that I know wanting me, wanting to start a podcast

and wanted me to edit it for him.

Like they would record it and that's fine, but they wanted me to edit it.

And so I did that and it's been an amazing thing.

And then I had somebody else that I know want to start a podcast.

So I walked them through that and helped them build up their equipment.

And then I'm editing their show also.

And then just recently I've been able to put my name out there and do consulting for Ecamm

also.

So I'm a big proponent of Ecamm.

I'm a moderator in the channel on both YouTube and Facebook and Discord on Ecamm.

And so I wanted to do that.

So I've started actually consulting and doing paid consulting gigs for that, which has been

kind of cool.

It's been cool to see that go about.

So that's really what's going on with me right now.

I'm just kind of excited about those little things.

And I'm really excited about the Zoom integration with Ecamm because it's going to allow me

to do other things.

And yeah, so honestly, if you're listening to this, I'm pitching myself too right now

because I can.

But if you want to start a podcast, you can definitely do that.

I would be happy to consult with you.

Podcastanswers.com/contact.

Look at you.

Get a hold of me.

I also do like production, video production work.

So if you have an event that you want live streamed, I would be more than happy to live

stream your event and get you out there in front of other people.

So yeah, I love live streaming and video production and media production.

So again, Podcastanswers.com/contact will get you in touch with me.

So I'm actually back at work now.

So I'm going to shut the recording off.

But hope to see you next time in this audio journey.