 Hey, it's podcast episode number 200 on the anxious truth 200. I'm amazed So today, we're gonna do something a little bit different. Please indulge me. You see there's no intro music. There's no slick opening I'm not gonna talk about my books and that sort of stuff I just want to take 10 or 12 minutes and chat with you sort of informally and reflect a little bit about where the podcast has been Since its inception in 2014 where it is now and kind of where we're going I don't want to talk to you about how you can participate in setting that direction and determining where we go from episode 201 and Onward so grab a coffee or tea or whatever beverage you want and pull up a chair get comfortable And let's just chat a little bit and I promise next week. We'll be back to our regular programming So when I started this podcast in 2014 the podcast was originally entitled that anxiety guy So if you're sort of new and you're listening to old episodes and you hear that name Same podcast just with a different name and the funny story about that is when I did not know what to name the podcast And I really had no plans for the podcast at all I wanted to do something to pay forward some of the help that I had gotten online when I needed it I thought a podcast might be a good idea. I'm pretty comfortable speaking. So I said, alright I'm gonna do a podcast. I had no idea what podcasts were. Nobody cared back then So I fired up my little $4 podcast app on my crappy iPhone whatever iPhone it was in 2014 And I started talking and I know I needed a name I didn't know what to name the podcast and one night I saw a promo on TV for that 70 show Which interestingly enough I have never seen I've never even seen a minute of that 70 show But of course I knew about it because it was an incredibly popular TV show at the time And I thought oh, I'm gonna name the podcast that anxiety guy and it sort of stuck But I never really liked it like I just never really liked the name It was a default name And I kind of didn't care because I I really had no plans for this this thing this podcast I recorded my first 15 or 20 episodes. Those are sort of the foundational episodes I kind of went dark and I would talk about stuff when I kind of felt like it but Two things happened and that is I met Holly So you guys have seen Holly in some of the earlier episodes She is one of the admins in my Facebook group and Holly and I met when we were both admins in the panic disorder Facebook group and we decided to do a series of episodes where we went through and sort of Guided people through the Claire Weeks book Hope and help for your nerves and we did nine of those and those were proved to be very popular both as podcast episodes and YouTube videos And then right around that time also my friend Billy Cross and Billy runs anxiety United in the UK You guys might know Billy too Billy and I he was one of my very first recovery friends that I met back in like 2007 or 2008 and We've been working together on various things some mental health related some not ever since then I'm proud to say I'm still Billy's friend. We still talk So Billy and I decided that we would take an article that I had written Probably back in 2006 or 2007 Somewhere in that neighborhood and we would turn that into a series of podcast episodes and we would call anxiety 101 because this article that I wrote which is actually on my website and I'll put that in the show notes if you want to check it out That article kind of laid out the foundation of the recovery process And so we broke it down and we made maybe 10 or 12 episodes out of that and that Extended because people were liking it and we did I think 20 or 22 episodes of anxiety 101 and so those two series the one with Holly and the one with Billy were actually quite popular but then when those Ended again, it sort of died out because the podcast was just something I sort of did when I thought of it I had no plan. I was not consistent with it. It wasn't a priority It just when I thought I had something to say I would fire up the mic and put it on an episode Okay, but at the same time the social media community, especially the Facebook group was growing So it was growing and growing and getting more vibrant and engaged And that's spurred a lot of discussions and brought up a bunch of topics to the point where around 2018 I decided to get involved again I had things that I felt like I wanted to say and I think there had been a year since the last episode And when I fired up the podcast to go and start again I was completely taken aback to find out how many reviews like beautiful lovely glowing reviews There were and and how highly rated the podcast was I had never considered that for a million I had no idea whether anybody was listening or watching or anything. It's just it wasn't a thing for me But when I saw how engaged the audience was I got interested again So I just started podcasting regularly. So for the past three and a half now almost four years I have put out I guess about three and a half years. I put out an episode every week almost religiously Really mostly over the last say two years two and a half years But I got back into it in 2018 or so and started becoming more consistent And it has just grown since then and the podcast in 2019 was renamed from that anxiety guy to the anxious truth And if my friend Mike rando is listening Mike, I don't know if you are but thank you because he was the guy that came up With that name Mike's a good dude and I asked a bunch of people in my Facebook group Hey, I got to rename the podcast which would we call it and he came up with the anxious truth So I renamed the podcast in 2019. That's why today It's the anxious truth and in the past it was that anxiety guy same put same podcast Just same guy different name And here we are and here we are doing episode number 200 now when I recorded that very first episode in a million years I would have never expected it to be where it is now Like I would never have expected it to be where it is now The podcast has been downloaded well over two million times. I don't even know I don't watch anymore My podcast host tells me that we are now going over a hundred and twenty five thousand Lessons every month now across the whole catalog of episodes, which is a mind-boggling number to me I'm I'm I can't even fathom that number now clearly. I'm not Joe Rogan There are podcasts that get millions and millions of listens probably every week But 125,000 listens every every month here. It's it's something else I can't even imagine and the social media community around the podcast has grown and grown and grown and gotten more Vibrant and engaged and it's been amazing Frankly, it's been amazing. It has spawned three books and now we have the morning newsletter. That's out at the anxious morning It's been great. It's been great. This podcast to be totally honest with you Has really been driven by you guys by the audience So when I saw you interested and talking about different things it sparked my interest and then that just snowballs Because the more I listen to you talk the more I have to say and the more I have to say the more you talk back to me And I just love it like this podcast is 100% powered by you There's no doubt in my mind if we stop talking and I just start talking at you instead of with you We're done So the one of the great privileges has been the ability to talk not only to you but with you Especially over the last three years or so when things have started to snowball and it has led to where it is now Astounding this podcast driven by you has really changed my life If you had asked me three years ago, I would have told you I'm a technology guy that has this podcast that I sometimes do and Next week literally seven days from today is my first day as a graduate student in clinical mental health counseling We're at the end of this program I will be able to be licensed as a Licensed psychotherapist mental health counselor here in the state of New York and whatever other states in the US I decide to get licensed in which is astounding to me I cannot imagine that I am here, but here I am and really this podcast has been the catalyst that That has moved me in this direction a direction that I clearly belong in There was no doubt in my mind so now I am a mental health educator and guide and content creator and podcaster and author and Graduate student headed toward working therapist that also happens to own some technology companies So it is amazing how things have changed I could not be happier about this even though I resisted it for a while because I didn't think that it was a real thing But clearly it's a real thing and I'm incredibly happy to be in this position And I have all of you to thank for that like you guys this podcast Driven by you has changed my life in this way And I'm never going to be able to say thank you enough So I will just continue as we go forward here After episode 200 to try to pay you back as best I can because again I cannot thank you enough for for this for all of this and where I am now It's I say that from the bottom of my heart. I mean, it's sincerely So where does that leave us? Well, it puts me in a different place over the past couple of months I've really had to kind of rework my life and really examine my schedule and look at where I'm spending my time and What I'm doing because full-time graduate school is no joke I don't have the time available to me that I used to have need to make sure that I can put my energy into that thing And get to the end and get to where I want to be and get to where I continue to help So I am producing a podcast every week that comes out every Wednesday. You're listening to one now I produce a Morning email newsletter three to five hundred words shows up in everybody's email every weekday morning And it's a little three-minute podcast that goes with that we do that I've written my three books. There are more books in the works some of which are collaborative some of which are my own There's grad school. There's the the social media community continues to grow and be more vibrant as we go and I'm gonna ask for your input like where do we go from here? What topics have I missed? What do you want me to talk about a little more? Who do you want me to interview on the podcast? Who have I missed? I'm gonna continue to work with the usual suspects people that I admire. I love these are my friends These are smart people lovely people, you know them the Joe Ryan's the Kim Quinlan's the Josh Fletcher's the Bridget Cooper's They'll still be here But who else can I work with if you have somebody you want me to talk to let me know if you have a topic You want me to address let me know if you think I missed something let me know So you guys know all the ways you can comment on my Instagram post You can get me in the Facebook group you can get me on my Facebook page, you know, you know, you know where to go YouTube comments so just shout them out of you know if you got topics you got guests you got things you want me to talk About let's hear it because I want you guys to continue to steer this For the most part. I'm sort of just the steward here You know you guys really really steer this ship I just make sure it stays in calm waters and then you know and going the direction you need it to go That's my job here So help me steer tell me what you want to see more of or what you want to see less of that's that's fair, too I'm all ears I'm open and I just wanted this work that I do To be as useful as I can be as it can be all the time. So that's why I'm gonna ask for your participation here And that's it. That's where I that's where we've been. It's where we are I think it's where we're going we're gonna continue to produce this podcast We're gonna continue to produce the morning newsletter I'm gonna continue to write and release the books as they are Relevant and needed and useful not just for the sake of it And I'm gonna continue to interact with you guys as much as I possibly can now as my time gets more limited Some of that's going to start to change the way it looks So the anxious truth community Which is something that I have been working on with some very smart people and very dedicated people for the last six or eight months is coming soon and that will be a place that we can gather to have actual meaningful worthwhile productive Conversations about this topic and this content that is not governed by ridiculous Social media algorithms that will only reward me and want me to do nothing more than hook your attention and Hold on to it like hot death by any means necessary and I'm just sort of done with that so folks like me who are swimming in that social media algorithm can get very frustrated and When my time becomes Limited it's really hard for me to try to have these discussions in a meaningful way When the only thing Facebook and Instagram wants me to do is keep your attention any way I can and keep you in that app and I don't want to be in that business And I don't want to drag you through that for their benefit So we're gonna find a new way to interact that I think everybody's gonna like a whole lot better So I will announce that at some point very soon. I know I've been kind of teasing it here and there But it's been a while coming and I'm be happy to continue to produce this content and to have meaningful interaction with as many of you as possible In that environment where we can actually make a difference without lining the pockets of Facebook meta Instagram Google whoever they happen to be and There you go. That's where we are. That's where we're going. I want you to participate again This podcast and you as a listener have changed my life and I'm never gonna be able to say thank you enough times So I just want to pay it back as much as I can and I'm gonna keep going and doing that So for those of you who have ever, you know rated the podcast Five stars or wrote a nice review or bought my books or reviewed those on Amazon It said very nice things or just followed me on social media and contributed your voice to the discussion Thank you, I I'm never gonna be able to repay you for that and I will try but I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do it But I'm happy to keep trying so Make your voice known. Let me know what you want to see more of which want to see less of I will do my best to incorporate all of your suggestions into what we do going forward and Thank you. So here we go next week episode 201. I'm not exactly sure what it's gonna be Like I say every week. I'm gonna be here Thanks again guys, and I appreciate you letting me just like blab at you this week. See you next week