Share stories of overcoming hardship and adversity, and finding their version of success

Savannah (Sav) and I are married with a beautiful baby girl. During the lockdowns in 2020, we spent a lot of time in our home gym. We came up with a design for a sticker for our deadlift platform to remind me to diversify my workouts and not just focus on one aspect of fitness. That sticker grew into a small apparel company, Nine Realms Athletics. We love connecting with our supporters and watching them grow and achieve their goals. We also wanted to give them a community space where they can share their highs AND lows with support and without judgment.

As a first responder battling depression and PTSD from work injuries, I know how it feels to feel alone when struggling with mental and physical health. I came up with an idea for a podcast. After talking with Sav and adopting her life motto, Balance & Manifest, "Balance & Manifest: Your Rise to Greatness" was born. We want to give our guests a platform and a voice to share their stories of failure, hitting rock bottom, battling with mental health, addiction, injuries, and how they overcame these obstacles and found THEIR version of success. We also talk guests who are experts on or have knowledge of a topic so we can share and help educate our listeners.

Our listeners are anybody who is struggling, anybody who has fallen and hit rock bottom, anybody who is out there and feeling alone battling their demons and needs to hear that they are NOT alone, that there IS a way out, there ARE tools out there to help them, and that they ARE strong enough to overcome it!
 

I love podcasts. I listen to them all day at home and when I would commute. They are such a great source of discussion and information. What's amazing about podcasts is that all you need is an idea, some knowledge, and a way to record. Anybody can get their message out there to the world. It's hard to grow and expand, but sometimes all you need to do is record it and get it out of your head.

The goal is to help educate and motivate others. To give people a sense of community and let people know they aren't alone in their struggles and that there is a way out. And to give "regular people" a voice and platform to share their stories. We hear all of the stories from athletes and celebrities. But they don't connect the same. They are seemingly in a different world. They have a massive platform and audience available to them. Your average person does not. But your average person deserves the ability to share their story, be heard, and to try to help other people just like the biggest celebrity. The thing that really resonates with hearing these stories from "regular people" is that it's easier to yourself in their shoes, therefore it's easier to see yourself being able to escape the hell you have lived or are living, because they are in the same place as you.

The idea for the podcast started in middle of 2021. We decided to do the show in a season format. We started to record and bank our episodes around October 2021, with the goal of releasing the beginning of 2022. The first episode was a short intro episode. The first REAL episode came out on January 3rd, 2022, and was Sav's story, or what we are calling Origin Stories. Our season finale with be out on April 4th, 2022, with new episodes coming out every Monday morning.
 

We release every Monday from Jan 3rd - April 4th of 2022 for Season 1. We just finished recording the Season 1 finale. Episode production is pretty easy with the RODEcaster. I do very little editing. We like to have authentic conversations with our guests, so I like the final product to sound and feel as authentic. No clipping or cutting out. The hardest part is life. People need to reschedule, guests get sick, get hurt, have families, ect. That's why we decided to run seasons for now. Takes guilt away from guests if they need to reschedule and takes some pressure off of us.

I am currently off work with depression and PTSD. This is part of my therapy. It's extremely healing for me to have these conversations. I get come clarity of my own issues and tools to help me, and this helps a lot of the guests as well. So it is extremely rewarding for us. Sav is a stay at home mom right now and is a personal trainer with primarily online clients.

This podcast is just a fun project for me and Sav to do together. I already owned the equipment when we came up with the podcast. I used to do a couple podcasts with my best friend. It is self funded. I record, edit, publish, etc.
 

We are definitely open to sponsorship if it's a right fit for us. We do not currently have sponsors, being as new as we are. We are still in our first month with only 4 episodes out. We are around 200 downloads right now. As for benefitting us, it's extremely rewarding. Just giving people that voice and hopefully connecting a story to somebody in need, who might not have the strength to reach out and ask for help, is rewarding. We have grown friendships and made new friends from recording the show. On a personal level, I have found a new respect for people who have struggled with addiction and the things they had to do to feed that addiction.

We as a society in large have forgotten what conversation is. We lack understanding because we don't talk anymore. Everything is disseminated and digested in sound bites, headlines, and click bait. We communicate by text and email. Emotion is lost. Punctuation is lost. Emphasis on specific words is lost. We as society are losing because we don't talk anymore. We love getting to sit down and talk to people and truly understand, or as close as possible, what they have gone through and what they're about.
 

I use the RODEcaster Pro to record. Gives us the ability to have remote guests, and travel when the opportunity arises. Sav and I use Rode Podmic's. I do any audio editing I do in Audacity. Then I publish with Anchor. I have also searched to find different podcast outlets to submit the show to. I am not the most tech savvy person. So I'm sure there are some things I could do to improve my processes. lol
We started with people we knew. Come to find out we know some amazing people with amazing stories and knowledge. We also get guest recommendations from friends/guests. We do our interviews in person, phone, and Zoom/Skype. However we can do them. The RODEcaster gives us amazing flexibility.

As for preparation, it really depends. Some guests, if we don't know them or parts of their story, will give us a very brief non detailed summary before we record so we have a little direction and starting point. We don't want this to be scripted. We want it to be authentic. So we try to keep it as authentic as possible. As for the educational/informative episodes, we do a little more prep. For our finale we talk to a Dr. I spent a good bit of time writing down questions and topics I know I wanted to cover. I am already informed on the topic but I wanted to make sure to cover as much as possible and to be organized and not waste the Dr's time.
 

Right now we just market on our social media pages. Instagram, Facebook, etc. It's word of mouth right now. We will do marketing in the future. Our goal is to get these stories out there. It just not as feasible at the moment. We are also learning as we go. As of now and the metrics I have, about 47% of listeners comes from Apple Podcast and 38% from Spotify.
 

I'm still in the learning process. I've learned that quality is key. Spend a little bit and make it sound good. You don't need to spend a lot to do that. Start small but spend a little. Our first mics were like $30 on Amazon and they worked just fine. They aren't Rogan quality, but a massive step up from recording just on your phone. I've also learned that growing a podcast is difficult. Just have fun, don't put too much pressure on yourself, and be consistent.
 

We can be found on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok at Nine Realms Athletics. Sav can be found on Instagram and TikTok at balanceandmaniftestraining. You can also get info at www.ninerealmsathletics.com. "Balance & Manifest: Your Rise to Greatness" is currently available on 21 apps/sites including Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, Audible, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Deezer, Breaker, Podbay, PodBean, Podcast Addict, Overcast, Listen App, Pod Chaser, and Listen Notes to name some.