Inspirational life stories from people overcoming adversity to achieve great things in life

Whew ... Um, it's been a bit crazy. I've been a nanotech researcher, a marine engineer, a powerline technician, a traveling English teacher, an oilfield equipment operater, a bricks-and-mortar store owner, and now an online master health coach and nutritionist. I also do a bit of business mentorship as well, but primarily on a word-of-mouth basis.

I've traveled the world, visiting 45 countries on 5 continents, and I've lived in 7 countries (Canada, Australia, Mexico, Italy, Poland, South Africa, Turkey), and both my wife and I are serious travelers. I also have a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) of creating a travelling podcast, where I interview fascinating people in exotic global locations.

Between The Before & After is really an evolution from it's precessor, driven by my love for people's live stories. I think many of us love stories, especially real-life stories that we can relate to. This show, now, is about sharing peoples’ stories of overcoming significant obstacles and adversity in their life. If you've been through, or are going through adversity or transformation in your own life, I hope that you'll be inspired as you realize that same potential lies within you as well.
 

I stumbled into real podcasting by accident, when I saw an ad to be a guest on podcasts. I was tired of the social media burnout and wanted a different way to reach audiences. Once I started appearing as a guest on people's podcasts, I kept getting asked when I'd start my own podcast, but I wasn't sure what I'd talk about, so it took until Sept. 2021 for me to start taking it seriously.

My podcast unofficially started back in 2019 as "Wellness Unplugged" but really I was just grabbing the audio from my FB Lives and uploading them to Anchor, so it wasn't really a serious podcast.

And then in August 2021, I was interviewed by Shaman Morton, and he promoted Wellness Unplugged (how he found it, I don't know) and I thought "Welp, better fire it up again".

"Wellness Unplugged with Coach Jon McLernon", which was about the health and wellness industry, as well as some stories around people losing weight and getting healthy, but I soon realized that I loved hearing peoples' stories, and I didn't want to be pigeon-holed into just talking about weight loss or health, I wanted to broaden the scope of the stories.

My goal then became really to connect with other fascinating individuals, and have an enticing reason to invite them into conversation with me. September 14th, 2021, I released my first real podcast episode, interviewing Toby Pasman, a neurologist and brain researcher.

Episode 25 was my first episode of the rebranded "Between The Before & After", where I interviewed an ex-con turned life coach name Nick Chontos.
 

I release an episode weekly, and it probably takes me 2-3 hours to produce an episode, counting lining up guests, the actual interview, editing (which is fairly fast, since it is an unscripted conversation), and a bit of promotion on social media.

I am an entrepreneur running other businesses, so I make the time on my calendar, but I do have to be pretty efficient with my time, and as such, I have a pretty slick flow from recording, to editing, to promotion.
 

I'm open to sponsorship, and I did in fact have a sponsor lined up, but it fell through. Personally, I get to network with amazing individuals and have brilliant conversations, and to me that is the best part of this.

I was pretty excited to see at the start of 2023, I had jumped from the top 10% into the top 5%, and who knows, perhaps by the time you're reading this, I'll have landed in the top 1% :).
 

I record using Streamyard, and live broadcast to YouTube and Twitch, and I have an intro/outro as a part of the broadcast so I don't have to add it in later. I then download the audio and video, and if I need to edit (e.g. if the internet connection dropped) I will, but otherwise I simply run the audio through Auphonic, which also generates a transcript and subtitles using SpeechMatics, and then upload it to SimpleCast.

I find most of my guests via PodMatch (see link down below), and I read through their profile to prepare for the interview, and then I simply show up and bring my curiosity as they start sharing their story.
 

30% on Apple, a further 20% from Podcast Addict, 10% on Spotify, and then the remaining chunk come from a variety of podcast publishers (Deezer, JioSaavn, Overcast, etc).

I actually find Google and SEO to be the most useful, but I do publish to social media as well. I haven't really made a significant effort with my email list, to be fair, but that will likely change in 2023.
 

Just get started. Podcasting is extremely forgiving and you'll learn as you go. Don't be afraid to let your show evolve, and don't worry about metrics for at least 12 months, just get consistent and putting out content.

Don't try to be everywhere, and if you don't have a huge audience and following, I wouldn't worry about trying to put content on every platform, just choose a couple of platforms that you like best.
 

NUTRITION COACHING: https://www.freedomnutritioncoach.com ⁣
⁣YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://jonmclernon.link/YouTube
⁣MENTORSHIP: https://www.jonmclernon.com
PODCAST: https://jonmclernon.link/btba-podcast
INSTAGRAM: @btba_podcast
TWITTER: @btba_podcast